#but also watch it for the reasons beyond it just being gay

[youareinacomawakeup]

Hey, you should watch Kyo Kara Maoh, and here’s why:

I feel like, when I try to get people into Kyo Kara Maoh, all I ever say about it is “You know how there’s this thing in shounen anime where there’s always some rival character that makes you wonder if he’s kinda gay for the protagonist? Yeah, in this one, it’s canon, and blatant about it. It doesn’t make you wonder for a second. It’s just upfront about it and you can watch him being gay on main the whole time.”

But like, that’s not the only reason I like the anime. Far from it. It’s just what I think is most likely to draw a new fan in. But it really is just a solid story with or without that.

It’s an isekai--and I know, I know, isekai are a dime a dozen now, but at the time this came out the only thing I really had to compare it to was Chronicles of Narnia--about a guy who goes back and forth between our world and a fantasy world where magic exists.

And he’s your typical plucky shounen protagonist, energetic and kind and willing to make friends with absolutely anyone. You know the type. Not really covering any new ground there. But unlike One Piece or Naruto or, I don’t know, Black Clover, he has no interest in becoming the best of the best. He kind of just wants to go home and be a kid and play baseball.

But the thing is, he’s king of this world by divine right. He was chosen to become king before he was born and he’s just been left to incubate in our world until he was older. His whole family has always known this, though he doesn’t find out until he’s magically pulled into the world and it’s sprung on him right away. And he wants nothing to do with it at first. It’s not something he has to do, either. He’s given the option of turning down the position and going home.

But.

There’s been this cold war going on between magic-users (��Mazoku” or “Demons” though the use of “demon” is more of a reclaimed slur than anything literal) and non-magic-users (humans). The real bloodshed has been put on hold for a while, but there’s a real threat of that cold war turning hot at any second. There are laws against humans and Mazoku being in romantic relationships, their mixed children face severe prejudice both from the people and institutionally, for instance being shoved into ghettos and left to starve, and tensions are high. And the protagonist realizes quickly that these people have been living this way for so long that peace is not going to happen naturally. They need someone with fresh eyes who can see that peace is possible. And that someone needs to be in a position of power to do something about it.

So the protagonist accepts the job. Not because he wants to--he HATES it; there are so many scenes of him complaining about all the paperwork and the struggles of trying to learn the cultural norms and mores of surrounding nations so he doesn’t fuck something up in his position of power and accidentally start the war he’s trying to prevent just by unintentionally insulting another nation’s leader or something--but because he feels responsible. He has to do something to bring peace to this land because he might be the only person who has both the power and the good intentions to do so. Hell, the MacGuffin of the series is the protagonist trying to steal four magical nukes from other countries so he can seal them away where they can’t be used. (They’re just wooden boxes, nothing impressive about their appearance. Not romanticized at all. They’re as boring and dangerous as war.)

And that’s...basically the series. Kid gets sucked into a fantasy world and becomes a king because he actually has a political agenda to make the world a better place and he saves the world with the help of a found family of nobles who are fondly exasperated by his incessant pacifism because they don’t think it’s reasonable, until he gradually and sincerely starts to change their mind and they all reevaluate their own prejudices. (And the prejudice reevaluation is really subtle, too. They don’t have big awakening moments like, “Wow, I’m not racist against half-humans anymore!” They just...slowly get better and bit by bit see the world the way the protagonist does.)

Other little details you might want to know are:

The protagonist has a Yu-Gi-Oh-esque alter ego. (The anime is from the mid-2000s, after all.) The protagonist himself isn’t super skilled in magic, despite having the ability to use it, and it’s...left kind of vague, but it seems like the magic itself takes over his body from time to time. But it’s not as helpful as that trope usually makes it. His alter ego is basically a big self-destruct button. It’s just an eruption of power that leaves the protagonist unconscious nearly every time. The typical result is that he wakes up a day later with his head in the gay rival’s lap and the two of them in a cell because, guess what, passing out on a battlefield isn’t super convenient. The alter ego is treated a bit like training wheels the protagonist needs to grow out of, and it’s extremely cathartic when the final conflict of the series is solved without the alter ego. Not because the protagonist can use strong enough magic that he doesn’t need to lose control to get the same result, but because the solution is not to use magic at all. To put his money where his mouth is and show himself as the pacifist leader he spends the whole show trying to be.

The protagonist is the reincarnation of someone who died in the war, a woman who overexerted herself trying to heal the injured. Unlike the alter ego, the protagonist’s connection to this woman is treated as a strength rather than a weakness. She, like the protagonist, wanted peace, but unlike the protagonist, she wasn’t the king and lacked the power to achieve that peace. Her gentle and kind heart shines through in the protagonist’s nature and actions, and those around him who knew her, and who know that he is her next life, can’t help but see how little she’s changed from one life to the next. All the features the protagonist inherited from her, that were treated as feminine, are his biggest strengths. This shounen anime is so far from toxic masculinity and it’s beautiful.

To be entirely transparent, this is an older anime, and as such, there are some problematic tropes that were common around that period. For instance, “Hahah an adult is creeping on a teenager, that’s funnie.”

I’m not the biggest fan of that, either, don’t worry. I acknowledge this as a flaw in the show. But if Master Roshi and Shigure could get away with it while DBZ and Fruits Basket are still beloved series, I’m willing to roll my eyes and overlook Gunter and Cheri as well.

And another thing I feel I should be transparent about is that the first half of the first season A) Is devoted to fleshing out the characters and the world, and B) Doesn’t have the best animation quality. What that means is that you’re going to have to sit through some wonky drawings and not a whole lot of plot for the first twenty episodes or so. But there’s a point--I won’t get into spoilers, but the shift is VERY obvious--where the plot really kicks into gear halfway through the first season. The animation quality starts to skyrocket at around the same time, and the entirety of the second season is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

Also one of the supporting characters is this beautifully tragic character who is slow to trust the protagonist because he’s half-human and he’s never had a reason to believe in a leader before. It’s treated not as a thing that character needs to get over, but as a completely reasonable doubt, and the protagonist understands that. He actually gives that character quite a bit of power--basically the keys to a very powerful weapon--and tells him, more or less, that if they ever need that weapon, it’s up to him to decide if they get to use it. Like the equivalent of giving a post-WW2 Japanese refugee the full power to veto the use of hydrogen bombs, and I love that. ...This character, who is very serious and very cool, is also a drag queen. This removes nothing from how cool he is. He’s still an utterly sincere character, because this show is cool as fuck.

Last thing: What I’m advertising here is the first two seasons of the show. It’s something like 80 episodes. That was where the anime proper ended and should have stayed ended, imo. I know some people like the third season, but the first two seasons tell a complete and extremely satisfying story whereas I find the third season (as well as the OVAs) has the vibe of a straight-to-video sequel to a great movie that tried its hardest to further a great story but only managed to invalidate all the original movie’s strongest moments by making them suddenly mean nothing in the face of new information. If you want my advice, stop where the story was originally designed to end and only watch the first two seasons. (I’m also saving you from having to look at the bad CGI skeletons. You don’t want to look at the bad CGI skeletons.)

Those first two seasons, though? Go. Go watch them. Watch them right now. They’re so fucking good. You won’t regret it, I promise.

[wheelercore]

Understanding the scene of Ted putting the tie on Mike (Mike commenting on how it's too tight and it's choking him and Ted saying that's how it's supposed to be) in a very Mike-Ted parallels way. AND IT WAS ON FRONT OF A MIRROR TOO. Shrimp colors everywhere.

[pixieplushe]

over the course of watching arcane, vi absolutely stole my heart in more ways than one. her character is one of the most complex, misunderstood, and realistic out of the entire show

vi was shoved into prison at 15 years old, getting out 7 years later with nothing. every character in the show had somebody and moved on. ekko had the firelights, caitlyn had her family, jayce and viktor had each other, jinx had silco, sevika, then even isha. vi had no one. being locked away in such an environment, knowing full well you're the reason why your sister got taken by an evil man, does a number on you. vi had no chance to develop a sense of self, it is very prevalent in both seasons.

vi has little direction unless it's for someone else (which in turn is why i believe cait had a negative impact on her in s2 act 1, influencing her into being an enforcer + vi rationalizing it as a lesser of two evils, using the grey on chembarons vs allowing enforcers to storm the undercity). almost, if not every action she made was to help others, because she is so beyond selfless. it's her fatal flaw. like vander said to her, "you have a good heart". vi clings to people like glue because she cannot bear being alone again, letting the ones she loves slip through her fingers like sand.

she's just as traumatized as jinx, but her trauma is displayed in more subtle, self-destructive behavior as we see in episode 5 when she truly believed she lost everything again. which in turn is why I point to her being realistic, in real life it isn't obvious to spot when someone has trauma, it isn't supposed to be obvious. vi is the perfect example of that she finally got to choose for herself in the end, not be everyone else's plot device to make their lives better. i feel like she was written beautifully, everyone wants to dog on her for choosing to be in love? the past 2 seasons she chased jinx through every crack in the earth. she tried her damn hardest! jinx chose to cut the rope and let her be happy, let her go. much to vi’s dismay, we all know that was the last thing vi ever wanted. i love her so dearly, my favorite girl :(

(also, caitvi being canon makes me as a lesbian feel represented, i love them a lot. no more burying your gays trope! yay!)

[hearts4chriss]

𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐬𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝.

𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄'𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑

Brothers bestfriend! Chris + needy! Nate’s lil sis

prompt: Nate ( ur older brother ) wants to go out for a bit with some of his other friends and he doesn’t trust you enough to stay home by urself without mom and dad since they won’t be there either. So he asks one of his best friend Chris to stay over and watch you, Matt and nick know ur crush on Chris so they pretend they can’t come.

Part 01

contains: masturbation ( no actual sex ), use of y/n ( sorry I have to ) dirty fantasies ( pet names, rough! Chris, dirty talk, degrading, forced head etc just beyond FILTHLY imagination ), use of vibrator on reader, caught by Chris, FORESHADOWING, fantasy will be like this

Nate are you serious I’m not 12! I whine when said he was gonna find a baby sitter for me knowing how much it pisses me off

I’m Nate doe’s little sister I’m 18, we’ve Been close to his bestfriends the sturniolo triplets. So obviously him being my brother naturally I got to know them.

Nick

I clicked with him superrr fast, I love his energy and when I found out he was gay that just made it all the better because I’ve always wanted a gay bestfriend, and we always have sleepovers :)

Matt

Matt’s absolutely adorable I love him he always helps me calm down whenever I’m about to or am having a panic attack, I remember one time during a test I forgot everything and almost had one and he slid me the answers. Love that kid

now there’s a reason I saved Chris for last,

Chris

chris and I know each other just as well if not even more then I do his other two brothers, we haven’t done anything unfortunately. I’ve had a crush on him since middle school.

First I just wanted to kiss him and hold his hand.

Then go to his house and do some more.

Then now, as an 18 year old I wanted him to fuck my Brains out.

I’m around him all the time since we all live in LA and always hanging out, I always see him shirtless and fucking hell it turns me on, I always get lucky since nick and matt found of my attraction to his brother they always snap me or text me pictures of him.

What sucks is I cant have him. It would take my life 1000 times over for me to be able to fuck chris sturniolo, and it sucks because my brother nate does not play that shit.

He strictly said "your not allowed to date any of them" obviously referring to matt and Chris.

Which also doesn't help because my wants and desires a hormonal teenage-adult girl only grow more whenever he comes around, chris is always there.

Now today, nate had to run some errands and nick matt and chris used to watch me when I was younger if my parents couldn't

Buttt, nick and matt "could not come due to personal issues" so. Your guess is right, im gonna be alone with chris for hours.

That thought alone made me soak in my p-

“Y/n! are you listening to me kid?” My older brother chuckles leaning against my doorway of my room as im on my bed watching "The Vampire Diaries".

“Huh? oh yeah im listening matt and nick cant come so chris is because im fucking 11.” I roll my eyes hiding my excitement from him watching me.

“Don't think of any weird shit alright? He's just watching you so don't-“

“Ugh is he here yet? You're annoying me already.” I groan shifting in my sheets and taking a sip from my celsius hearin our door open, they have a key.

“Welp thats chris.” Nate says tilting his head for me to get up.

I get up from the sheets wearing some pink sleep shorts and a white t-shirt and he raises an eyebrow.

“Your wearing THAT? around chris?” Nate chuckles and I flip him off.

“Hey! I heard that!.” Chris yells coming up the stairs sounding offended.

He's now at the top of the steps. oh my fuck he looks so good.

Its around 6ish in LA right now and hes wearing a black tank top and grey fresh love sweats, slight stubble and his hair was a bit messy which I always liked and my eyes immediately drifted to his natural bulge in his pants as him and Nate were talking.

“Just make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble.” Nate puts his arm around me giving me a hug and Chris chuckles.

“Don’t worry bro she’s safe with me.” He says before dapping him up as Nate leaves the house. yeah safer if you were balls deep inside

Oh god Chris sh-shit so-d-deep inside me

Yeah? You feel me deep inside you baby?

bro she’s like zoning out today. Nate chuckled and I snap out of it

Whatever no I wasn’t! Just go!

Soon after it was just me and Chris so we made our way down to the living room

“Where are ur other two clones?” I chuckle getting situated on the couch before turning on a movie saltburn

“they have “personal issues”.” He said rolling his eyes causing a small laugh to fall from my lips.

“So it’s just you and me little one.” A smirk curving on his lips, just enough for my panties to be soaked.

Shut up Chris I’m 18.I mutter trying to watch the movie in peace and he chuckles

the movie went on and it was now, the bathtub scene where jacob elordi ( Felix ) is jerking off.

I peer over to Chris whose eyes are clearly fixated on the screen as my squeeze my thighs together under the blanket feeling all my hormonal thoughts leaking through my panties.

This had nothing to do with the movie, it’s the thought for Chris doing that to himself that had turned me on most. The tension so thick a knife couldn’t even cut through.

“Uhm I-i gotta go to the bathroom”. I nearly choke and I fix my shorts placing the blanket down where I was sitting.

“Don’t take to long I’ll miss you.” He chuckles and that didn’t help.

I go to my room and close the door squeezing my eyes shut.

I had maybe 5 minutes to relieve myself.

I quickly reach into my drawer grabbing my vibrating dildo and the remote for it.

I pull down my shorts and panties and spread my legs letting the tip of the toy get coated in my wetness and I bite my lip slightly feeling the thickness of it.

I turned it on letting out a soft moan slowly inserting it, wishing this was Chris’s dick instead.

I began thrusting the toy in and out of my pussy letting the squelching sounds of arousal grow letting it drip down curling my toes throwing my head on the pillows allowing my mind to drift

I was in Chris’s/my room my head smushed in the pillows as his cock rammed inside me whilst I was on my stomach. His hips slamming against my ass and his hand wrapped around my lower stomach as I cried out his name

Fuck fuckk so d-deep- I whimper into the pillows as he was bringing me to my 4th orgasm, we had switched numerous positions and my legs were quivering in front of him as he laid a hard snack to my ass chucking behind me.

such a fucking slut letting me fuck you like this, imagine if ur brother found out his little sister was getting her pussy pounded by his bestfriend. He laid another harsh smack to my ass and I jolted forward.

stretched this pussy out so good- he groans rubbing my clit to chase both our orgasms.

ngh- o-oh shit- fuck- I gripped the sheets tightly curses of Chris’s name flew out my mouth feeling my eyes water from the angle of his hips thrusting allowing his thick cock to hit every single spot inside me

come on sweetheart cum for me, you have another one in you yeah? He grunted lowly in my ear kissing me sloppily as a string of Saliva parts from our lips each time we kiss moaning into each others mouths.

“Oh fuck Chris I-“ I curl my toes and yell loudly as I’m about to release on the toy before I look up and see Chris. Was. Watching me.

“Were you playing with yourself?” Chris leans on the doorway of my room his eyes darting to between ny legs as I was thrusting the toy in and out of me and I quickly covered up my cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“Uhm…maybe. Sorry I-I’ll be down in a second-“

Maybe I can help. Chris says closing the door to my room approaching my bed

@mattsleftnipple03 @bernardsleftbootycheek @sturniolopowers @gdsvhtwa @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @worldlxvlys @chrisslut25 @princessbetsy123-blog @mattslolita @guccifrog @blahbel668 @mattsneezing @trickywritters @hearts4chris

@nonamegirlxsturniolo @luvmxtt @theyluv-meee @mattsnymphette @hoesformatt @luv4kozume @kikisturnioloo @pepsiimaxx @babyddolly @iiheartstef @junnniiieee07 @ast3ro1dzz @sturniolowhore @st7rnioioss @emma4eva @braindead4l @ihearttsyouu @blondiesjailer @kqyslyho3 @sturnsfav @sunsetsturniolos @sturniololoverr @stqrnstars @dlyansworld @soimightlikeoldmen69 @abbie13sworld @lacysturniolo @sturniol0s @chrissgirlsstuff @leah-loves-lilies @luhsexcbihh @nicksmainbitch

[steviebunny]

I'm so tired of watching some of that interview with the vampire discourse. They are flawed characters for a reason they literally have eternity. Obviously they're going to be immensely flawed. You can both love lestat for his good moments, his affection, his ability to see beauty everywhere, and have empathy for his childhood , what Magnus did to him all while acknowledging that he was a toxic partner to Louis and guardian to Claudia. You can feel empathy for Louis, and acknowledge his rage and quiet resentment as a flaw. You can love Claudia and criticize that she murdered her parental figure. You can feel for Armand and want to give that poor boy a hug after the 500 years of suffering he's had at the hand of everyone who was supposed to care for him while also being upset he's a manipulative gaslighting bastard.

The only two least flawed characters internal struggles we even get a look at are Daniel and Madeline. Who are both remarkably human for the majority of the show.

Not to mention for a majority of the centuries each of these vampires have been alive. Therapy has not existed! For most of these characters, the peak of their own self-reflection is Claudia's journaling or finding themselves through art, be that music, directing, or photography.

We all know people in the year of our Lord 2024 who don't go to therapy because they think it's useless or just for the "crazies" If you thought your toxic gay vampire franchise would be beyond that you're delusional.

[quarterlifekitty]

Letterboxd: Ghost

this is just a little series I'm starting about characters watching movies, and which movies make them point at the screen and go "look, that's us lol". This ended up MUCH SADDER than I thought it would.

cw: spoilers to the listed movies. graphic description of violence (description of the events within the movies), sort of a dive into Ghost's dark thoughts concerning your relationship.

Frankenhooker (1990)- Ghost does not think you know how completely fucked up and beyond saving he would be if something happened to you. He would lose whatever remains of his ability to discern right from wrong. Which is why he thinks Elizabeth Shelley and Jeffrey Franken are so cute! If you died and there weren't enough pieces to put you back together, he would definitely kill a bunch of hookers to make you a new body. And he likes to think you would do the same for him.

Saw (2004)- The original gay bathroom. Something about the relationship between Lawrence and Adam just gets to him. He would do way more than just saw off his foot if it meant saving you.

The Fly (1986)- Simon sometimes wonders if this relationship is held together by your pity for him. If all this time, you've been watching him lash out and degrade and it fills you with disgust and sympathy, and that's the only reason why you put up with him. He wonders if you're waiting for the day that he doesn't come home. He wonders if his desire for a family with you is born of the desperation for self preservation-- if a child from the two of you is the only way to preserve the piece of him that's still human, to prove that it ever existed once it's stripped from him like everything else. Also, every time he does something for you that requires a lot of raw strength he totally says "could a sick man do this?". He knows it's not a direct quote but it's close enough.

Prometheus (2012)- David 8 and Elizabeth Shaw. He feels like sometimes you're the only one outside the taskforce who sees him as a person. He's spent his entire life being used by people who see him as a machine. Sometimes, when he's feeling despondent and selfish, he feels like he would gladly poison the entire world so that you were the only ones left. And no, he never got around to watching Alien Covenant, so he doesn't know that David cuts off Shaw's head and did genetic experiments on it and keeps it as some sort of flayed souvenir in his study. Don't tell him.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)- Besides the obvious connection to the title, sometimes Ghost feels like your love wasn't meant to be. That he's holding you back. That you met at the wrong time, in the wrong lifetime, maybe. That maybe you could be happy together for real in your next lives. That it would be best if he left you be.

What I'm saying is that he does cry when you watch movies occasionally. Very rarely, he hastens to point out.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 某某 / Mou Mou / The On1y One

The On1y One is a 2024 Taiwanese coming-of-age drama about two high school students who fall in love, but more importantly, become friends -- and oh, they're also living in the same house now, because their parents have decided to get married.

Let's get this part out of the way: Yes, they're (almost) stepbrothers. No, that is not a kink thing at all, especially since they meet and start having complicated emotions about one another before they know their parents are together. Look, I had a childhood acquaintance promoted to stepsibling when I was in high school too, and I can tell you that your feelings about someone do not immediately jump to close family status just because your mom likes their dad. This is a show about how becoming a family; it is not a show about fucking your family.

Here are five reasons I think you should absolutely watch this twelve-episode drama -- and they're going to be as spoiler-free as I can make them, largely because...

1. Holy shit, it's ... actually good?

Believe me, no one could be as shocked as I was to find out this was a thing of actual quality. I first found out about this as 'hey, the handsome doctor from House Haunters is in a Taiwanese BL about high-schoolers' -- which of course sold me on it immediately, as I thought Liu Dongqin was the absolute highlight of the beautiful disaster that is Psych-Hunter, but which also, you must admit, sounds more like a novelty than a real thing of objective value.

Thus, I was prepared for trash! More accurately, I was prepared to enjoy trash. I am clearly on record as a trash-enjoyer. I was going to tuck in and gleefully laugh my way through awkward antics just to see that handsome boy kiss another boy.

Which means I was not prepared to be knocked off my feet by how thoughtful, intense, well-acted, and damn beautiful this series is. It's good. It's actually good. It is, like Beyond Evil, a thing you could put in front of Your Average American Television Enjoyer Who Can Handle Subtitles (And Boys Kissing) without having to apologize every five seconds about the jank. It's stunningly lit. It's chunked into episodes that have reasons to be episodes. It's well-written in a way that even comes through the translation.

Here's a clue to its quality: It's directed by Liu Kuang-Hui, known for Your Name Engraved Herein, an explictly gay film released in 2020 that won, like, all the awards -- which it fucking deserved to. (You don't need to have seen Your Name to watch this, but I think if you have, it adds an extra layer of meaning.) This is a BL made by someone who understands how being a teen boy in love with another teen boy is like being expected to walk around with a knife in your stomach while you pretend everything's fine.

But this is not a show about misery! It is a show about building connections, learning to trust, getting over yourself, and finding joy in taking care of other people. Maybe that sounds a little grandiose for a tiny Taiwanese BL, but it's not an exaggeration. When this drama bills itself as a coming-of-age narrative, it means it's going headfirst into the beautiful hell of being seventeen.

Keep those tissues on hand. You'll need them.

2. What if you fell in love with someone you also liked?

This is a true cat4cat relationship -- but different cat personalities! Finally, diverse cat representation!

Jiang Tian is a feral kitty who has spent so long telling everyone he hates them that he has no idea how to convey that he likes someone, and thus spends the first several episodes basically dropping dead birds at Sheng Wang's feet. Don't let his stoic nature fool you -- he's exactly as into this as (and much sooner than) the much more demonstrative Sheng Wang. Episodes end with little scenes you saw earlier, but recontextualized from Jiang Tian's perspective. So don't ever worry that Jiang Tian's being taken advantage of or coerced in any way. The boy has agency, and he uses it.

Meanwhile Sheng Wang is like a pampered little housecat who only eats wet food and sulks about everything -- but he's earned at least some of it, as he's clearly dealing with some major life upheavals. New city! New school! New friends! New house! New stepmom! New stepbrother! New and horrible things his teenage body is doing to him! So it's not surprising that he's clinging to what familiar comforts he has, even if it means being a total bitch about it.

And they become friends. That's the great part. This is a love story, but it's a love story where the love is friend-shaped. If anything, the friendship is the more important (and visible) aspect of the dynamic. It's not saying that one is more righteous or correct than the other -- it's saying that friendship is part of romantic love! Maybe it's even the best part of it! Maybe the only thing better than falling in love is making your crush your best friend and then falling in love with them.

It gets to the point where they spend most of their time not thinking about being in love with one another because they're such good friends. This is just what having a best friend is like, right?

(Jiang Tian knows it is not just what having a best friend is like. Jiang Tian is constantly chewing glass because he's sure friendship is the best he's going to get out of this, and also it's the best friendship he's ever had, and if that's all he gets -- and it will be, he's sure of it -- it'll be enough. It'll have to be.)

My favorite parts of their relationship are when Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian get to just enjoy spending time with one another as complete goobers. They're such teen boys! I mean, they're teen boys from very particular circumstances that have made them have to grow up fast, so it's great when they just get to regress around one another and act their age. The whole scene at the carnival is by itself worth the price of admission.

Look, here's some more shots of them being cute at one another. Don't let Jiang Tian's stoic face in the other pictures fool you. He's capable of making expressions, and it's so good when he does.

See?

3. This, too, is yuri

I mean, shit, you make a gay teacher and I'm already there. You make two gay teachers and I'm going to love you forever. Then you make them both gay teachers and gay owners of a little gay cafe? I don't know if my little trope-loving heart can take it!

Enter Zhao Xi and Lin Tingbei ("Benny").

From the moment you meet these two, it is obvious to you, the viewer, that they are a married couple. Except they're not. They're not married. They're not even a couple. It took me like nine episodes to realize that the reason they're acting so weird is not that they're trying to hide their relationship from other people, but that they're not in a relationship. They are mutually pining for one another and have no idea that the other one is having similar feelings.

Sorry, I have to go feral about these two sapphic-coded gay men for a moment: You two had an incredible meet-cute, went abroad at the same time, came back together, opened a cafe together, call one another "partner," have rainbow motifs on various visible objects in your life, AND YOU STILL ARE UNAWARE THAT YOU'RE BOTH IN LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER

I can't stress this enough: When you meet them, your first thought is, oh, you two are married. MARRIED. Not just dating, but comfortably wedded. I kept expecting one of them to have a gentle After-School Special moment he tells the children, no, we're life partners as well as business partners. But they didn't! And do you know why? It's because THEY DON'T EVEN SEEM TO KNOW THAT THE OTHER ONE IS ALSO GAY

The only thing that makes sense is that they're both male lesbians. This is some Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko! shit right here. How do you unknowingly wind up in what is basically a marriage with man you've never even kissed? I don't know, but they've somehow managed to do it. It's insane. It's incredible.

I don't even feel like I'm spoiling you for anything here! Like, I wish I'd known from the start they weren't actually together, because I was baffled by their side plot for fully three-quarters of the series. Why are they behaving like this? Why are you being weirdly jealous about the hot lady teacher? Oh, it's because YOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE HUSBANDS, THAT'S WHAT MAKES YOU HUSBANDS

WE GOT DOUBLE MUTUAL PINING HERE, FOLKS, DOUBLE MUTUAL PINING, TWO SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS OF GAY DIPSHITS WHO ARE AS BAD AS YOU CAN BE ABOUT FEELINGS WITHOUT IMMEDIATELY DYING OF IT

Sorry about the caps lock, just ... I'll be over here screaming into a pillow about it, okay? Okay, thanks.

4. Actual Teen Feelings

So nobody in this production is an actual teenager; both leads were just on the underside of thirty when it filmed, and all the other "kids" are at least in their mid-twenties.

And honestly, I like the aged-up casting better, since ... look, I'm over forty, and I just don't find the youths as attractive as I did when I was much closer to that age. Seeing actual 16- and 17-year-olds do this would have given me the ick. So I feel kind of like, this is a teen story told for adults, and the way it does that is by giving you actors that embody how cool you thought your peers looked when you were that age, and not how gangly and awkward everyone actually looked.

I've described the behavior of the teen characters as "rationally irrational" -- like, you know that the decisions they're making are bad, and they kind of know it too, but you also get that they don't have the regulatory mechaisms to compensate for when their hormones tell them it's time to sulk, or or talk back, or lie, or do something reckless. They're stupid teens, but they're not stupid because the writing is stupid. They're stupid because the writing is good and knows exactly how stupid teens are.

And of course this is most visible with our boys, who are complete dipshits in some very rationally irrational ways.

I alluded earlier to the fact that I have stepsiblings, and that I acquired them during my teen years, so yeah, a lot of the complicated stepfamily dynamics hit hard for me. Sheng Wang's mother is dead, and he's being a sulky baby about it because he (kind of correctly!) feels like his dad both is trying to replace her and has started paying attention more to his new partner than to his son. Sure, an adult with more coping mechanisms would be able to handle it without being a dick to everyone around them. But he's not an adult -- but also he's not not an adult? He's in that awful place of adolescence where you feel all grown up, but people still keep making huge life decisions for you. I remember it; it sucks.

Meanwhile Jiang Tian's father is still alive, but that's complicated too and has led to Jiang Tian's being kind of estranged from both his divorced parents. His then becomes a story less about how to get along with your new stepfather, and more how to reconcile with a mother who wasn't always in a place to make the best decisions for you she could, as you are yourself approaching the age she was when she made those decisions.

It's just so many feelings! Just a giant fucked-up Sargasso Sea of feelings! Every nerve is raw and every emotion is like staring straight at the sun! So many characters are completely at the mercy of their worst instincts, to the point where you can't even be mad because, yeah, if I had no ability to tell my most visceral intrusive thoughts to go away, I'd be ruining my own life left and right too.

Also, you are not prepared for the parts with boners. I say no more.

bonus: LUCKY CAT!!!

When was the last time you saw a fat character in a piece of Asian media -- or a piece of any media -- who was just allowed to be fat in peace? Whose fatness was not the constant butt of jokes? Who was not depicted always (comedically) eating? Who wasn't thrown into the mix just so their sexual/romantic interest in some skinny person could be turned into gross-out moments?

Lucky Cat is the best. Her students call her Lucky Cat because she's always cheerful and she does a precious little paw thing. The name is meant to be endearing! They like her, and she's portrayed consistently as a good educator and generally nice person to be around. She's fashionable, too! She has the cutest little outfits!

And she's fat! It's just a thing about her not worth commenting upon! Shit, I wish the show's lack of commentary weren't worth my commenting upon, except, ugh, you know it is. It's even more so worth saying because I've seen her in something else where she was exactly what she isn't here, and it was vile. The contrast is incredible.

Love you, girl, one fat, overcaffeinated educator to another.

5. Delicious(ly timed) pining

I want to talk about the structure of the show for a moment, and I'm going to try and do it as spoiler-free as I can. Even so, this gets into territory that you might be better off going into blind, especially if you like the tension of not knowing where a love story is going. If you're convinced already that you need to watch this show, skip this section -- scroll right down to the picture of a pitcher and glass of lemon water on a kitchen counter.

Go on, now, get.

However, if you're still on the fence about watching it, though (or if you've seen it already and just like reading my thoughts on it!), here's a very slightly spoilery selling point for you:

Normally, BL shows are all about waiting for the moment those boys finally realize what's up and kiss one another. The On1y One makes what I think is a brilliant decision to frontload the kissing. These boys smooch twice all the way up in episode 2 -- but under circumstances that are, respectively, a dare and a faux-casual demonstration that the dare didn't mean anything.

And that's it. They don't kiss again.

I think this is such a good choice because it makes those boys spend the entire rest of the show with three thoughts in their heads: we have already kissed; it didn't mean anything to him; I think it might mean something to me. Their entire friendship is colored by the knowledge that, yeah, that happened. If anything, it makes the BL-style waiting even more glorious, because now it's not about wondering if I kissed him, what would he do? but about wondering if I kissed him again, would it still be a joke to him?

There's also some very good asymmetry in there, in how Jiang Tian is clearly already the world's greatest expert at stuffing his gay desires into a little box and not making them anyone else's problem, while Sheng Wang is having a sexual awakening in real time.

You figure out very near the end why Jiang Tian has a complicated relationship to his own gay longings, and boy, is it a hell of a reason. I know we joke about characters who are both gay and homophobic, and I don't want to call him homophobic, because that's not it. But you definitely get to see why, of all his locked-down feelings, he's locked the gay ones down hardest of all.

Meanwhile Sheng Wang is popular, has friends, has surely been on a number of cute and chaste little dates, has probably even kissed a couple very nice girls -- and has clearly never had a horny thought in his entire life before now. He is both falling in love and figuring out what makes him hard at the same time, and oh boy, that is some rough shit to hit at seventeen. You get to see him recontextualize those kisses several times, slowly putting names to the emotions he didn't know he was having. And when he does finally understand the extent of what he's feeling, he makes a stupid decision about it, because of course he does. He's seventeen. Stupid decisions come with the territory.

Anyway, once they finally get to fucking, Sheng Wang is going to be the lord high king of the bratty bottoms. Just an absolute menace. He's got Jiang Tian's number so hard, and Jiang Tian is going to love suffering through every minute of it.

~

Okay, did you scroll down? Here's a little more spoiler buffer! Hi! How are you doing today? I'm having fun writing this. I hope you'll like watching it. There, that should be enough.

caveat: This is not an ending.

I need to stress how much this is clearly made to be a part one of more, and also how a second season has not been announced and thus is not guaranteed. I am being optimistic based on a) how good it is, b) how much clout the director has, and c) the fact that it's so new, it makes sense that further installments might not be announced yet. But if an unfinished (and possibly never-finished) series bothers you, maybe put this one in your pocket for later.

But oh, this show needs a second season. I am burning incense to the television gods in hope that it gets a second season.

Want to tuck in for some actual good television?

This one is wonderfully easy to find. We watched it on GagaOOLala, but you can also find it on AppleTV, WeTV, Viki, and iQiyi.

Back to the Your Name Engraved Herein connection: The On1y One reads to me in many ways like a celebration of how far Taiwanese culture has come about gay people. Like, things still absolutely aren't perfect in 2012, when this show is set, but at the same time, it's no longer 1987 -- which was the homophobic, hopeless world Liu Kuang-Hui grew up in. If Your Name tells the story of what actually happened, this series tells the story of what the person that all happened to imagines things could be like today. It's so hopeful it makes me choke up a little thinking about it.

Bah, just go watch it. Do it! Go! There's links right up there!

Gay thoughts say peek-a-boo.

[solitaryandwandering]

A Ramble: Love in the Big City Eps 1-2

I just watched episode 2 of Love in the Big City and I am... reeling. Cried when Kim Nam Gyu died, when Yeong and Mi Rae sang together at the wedding, cried at the crushing ending line. I loved the direction in these two episodes; one of the reasons I was super excited to watch this was because they're switching up the directors for each part. Such a cool way to signal transitions in Yeong's life. Now that I've seen the caliber Son Tae Gyum operated at I'm intrigued to see how direction will affect the next parts. Maybe I'll write up a thing about that in the end, but I'm hopeful others will as well! I am chomping at the bit to read the book, seriously!!

I have to mention first what a BALLSY move it was for them to open on Yeong's tryst with a man who was cheating on someone currently in the military. And he walks in the door, STILL IN UNIFORM. What a fucking slap in the face to hegemonic masculinity!!

After this first part what I am really lingering on are two things: queer loneliness and heteronormativity's relationship to misogyny. I'm just gonna put down my half-baked thoughts, I don't have the time or spoons to formulate coherent sentences haha

Though I saw Nam Gyu's death coming just based on vibes in the first episode, its impact wasn't lessened. Its significance didn't really hit me until I saw how empty his funeral was. Loneliness shaped his life - repression, liberation in meeting another gay man, falling in love with him way too fast, forming a dependent attachment, his desperation/obsessiveness in losing it so abruptly. He expressed his queerness in his photography, voyeuristic and seeking closeness with his subjects in the only way he felt was available to him. He had no friends, no relationships outside of his with Yeong. When Yeong breaks up with him and when he visits him drunk in ep 2, he says "falling in love is not a sin." To me, this shows just how removed from a loving community he has been, how nascent his queerness. He's still processing homophobia, it still influences every move he makes, everything he thinks. Clearly he has not had close relationships with other queers, where he may feel free to unburden himself. He falls back on heteronormative performance of romance, searching the best places for dates, not having anyone to ask. Knowing he's older makes this hurt more.

His story brought to mind the futility of AIDS-related deaths in the U.S., to be honest. I lost my gay uncle before I even knew him, and I know no one from his life. I know it's not a perfect parallel, but that funeral... this emptiness carries beyond one queer person's death. And Yeong's journey in these two episodes is about queer loneliness, of course. But his story is not as tragic as Nam Gyu's. He has (amazing) queer friends, and at one point had Mi Rae. He is much more connected to the queer community than Nam Gyu ever was. Despite his immaturity, Yeong is also much more familiar and comfortable with his queerness. I imagine this thread of self-actualization in the face of loneliness will continue in the rest of the show.

@twig-tea and @poetry-protest-pornography also wrote about queer loneliness in this show: here and here

And then we have Mi Rae, a vitally important relationship in Yeong's life, the love this part of the story is about. I met my best friend in college as well, so this part of the story was bringing up a lot of feelings too. To me, their friendship was as much about navigating heteronormativity as anything else, reflected in Yeong's reflection that "she learned that being a gay man sucks, and I learned that being a woman sucks just as much." Mi Rae is impacted by misogyny in every step of her character's journey: male classmates labeling her a slut and claiming her body for theirs, being groped, her challenges obtaining an abortion and mistreatment by a male doctor (where she literally claims her uterus back), her conflict with her parents (I'm assuming her mother had very rigid ideas of what a woman should be, based on her behavior at the wedding), hiding her past from her boyfriend, forced to defend herself when he questions why she lives with a man, shutting herself off from her relationship with Yeong (and thus rejecting her past) after the wedding. I looked up the status of abortion in Korea (a legal gray zone) and was reminded of how badly women there have it, which provided more context for her behavior.

Yeong must also traverse heteronormativity, which is what ultimately drives a wedge between the two and ends their friendship. In the beginning, their mutual rejection of heteronormative scriptures is what brings them together. He stands up for her against those male classmates, in an interaction steeped with assumptions of his heterosexuality. In rejecting her objectification he made himself a pariah for refusing to participate in normative masculinity. And their relationship continues thus, with her promising never to out him. She betrays him in a moment where she feels her participation in normative heterosexuality is threatened (and, indeed, it is a legitimately precarious position to be put in as a woman). Their brief reconciliation mainly consists of Yeong participating in a heterosexual ritual - he has no access to marriage in Korea. Her singing with him and letting go of her inhibitions for one last time was her goodbye to him and her ultimate acceptance of a more heteronormative life. One he can't participate in.

I hope that made any lick of sense. So looking forward to watching the next week. I am holding myself back from watching the next episodes right now. So hard.

[ninadove]

Lukadrinette kids

Because I can. Enjoy these silly little thoughts.

📝 General notes:

Marinette, aka Maman, started out as a very successful and very stressed out fashion designer. She ends up retiring at 35 to take over the bakery and finally learn to chill (it’s going… better than expected).

Luka, aka Papa, is a guitarist with a very niche following and is perfectly happy with that. He’s very present in his kids’ lives and the easiest parent to open up to, because of course he is.

Adrien, aka Dad, is the stay-at-home parent and could not be more stoked. And scared. Someone help them

Emma and Hugo are twins, but look nothing like each other, which baffled Adrien and Felix when they were born; Adrien will never admit it, but he was a tiny bit disappointed they weren’t identical.

To help the kids connect with their heritage, their parents speak French, English and Mandarin Chinese at home. Despite it all, Louis’ first words were a full sentence in Japanese — more on that later.

It’s very common for French kids to have two “middle names” (deuxième et troisième prénoms), so I have planned accordingly. Enjoy!

🐍 Emma

Her full name is Emma Sentibug Alya Dupain-Cheng. Adrien would not have it any other way.

She’s the oldest by five minutes and she takes it very seriously. Too seriously, even.

Emma inherited Gabriel’s grey eyes, which will have no influence on her perception of herself at all, no sir.

Like Marinette, she feels responsible for protecting everyone and everything around her, which is why she was blacklisted from using the Ladybug Miraculous before she reached the tender age of five.

As luck would have it, she ended up with the Snake, which is even worse for her mental health. For maximum dramatic irony, I think I’ll call her superheroine persona Aspik.

Aroace and sad. It’s already hard enough to be aspec as it is, but given the importance romance played in her parents’ lives… you get the point.

🦋 Hugo

Aka Hugo Felix Tom Dupain-Cheng. Yes, Felix cried upon learning his name. A lot.

🎶 Bi bi bi bi BI 🎶

Inherited Mari’s talent for arts and crafts and Adrien’s dramatics. Despite being very similar to them both, he often finds it difficult to talk to them.

Uncle Felix, however, is his absolute favourite adult in the world, and regularly knocks some sense into him.

Adrien and Nino were so excited for their sons to be besties! So naturally they hate each other’s guts

They end up kissing about it, though, so it’s fine.

Butterfly holder. Very purple 💜

🐈‍⬛ Louis

Aka Louis Nino Jules (after Juleka)

Because twins were a lot to handle, Louis only came along six years later.

When he doesn’t get his way, he turns petulant and grumpy, which makes him Plagg’s absolute favourite. Luka finds it endearing and jokes that they rub off on each other. This stresses Adrien out, though, as he fears it might be an early sign of Gabriel Behaviour.

The truth is that Louis just has these huge feelings that he doesn’t know how to handle… and you know who relates to this? KAGAMI. She’s the only one who can get him to calm down once he starts crying. She will pick him up, he will cling to her jacket and suck on his thumb, and she will carry on with the conversation as if nothing happened.

Originally Very Small, he gets a HUGE growth spurt and ends up built like Tom, which is very unusual for Cat holders.

🐞 Sabine

Aka Sabine Amelie Rose

The surprise baby of the bunch. She looks just like her grandma Sabine!

A total ray of sunshine. Also very gay.

As the youngest and eventual holder of the Ladybug Miraculous, she triggers Mari’s overprotective tendencies the most. Adrien actually had to step up and get her to back off as it was starting to stir up bad memories.

Because Rose was very ill when the twins and Louis were young, she and Juleka didn’t get to watch them as much as she would have liked. They made up for it by spoiling their younger niece beyond reason.

The most musically inclined of the kids. Her love for punk rock and metal clashes hard with her cutesy vibes. Rose couldn’t be prouder. 💖

[myobsessionsspace]

https://www.tumblr.com/myobsessionsspace/762706692393795584/hello-now-that-weve-seen-all-eight-episodes-and?source=share

I agree with your thoughts here, especially the end paragraph. It’s not about affirming their romantic bond (bc actually that’s private) but just how important they are to each other, and whilst I would call that a ‘soft launch’ (though I dislike the term), and I do think that’s what they are doing, I get what you mean too.

I guess I don’t view it with a Korean lens, mainly bc I don’t consume any Korean content outside of BTS. I don’t value or pretend to understand how they view pretending to be queer acceptable, but it’s not acceptable to be actually queer. It’s outrageous. However, how I did view it was through an Army lens. If I was an Army who didn’t pay attention to them as a duo, because they are hardly lauded over, what is this show? And my take away is that they are the closet. I know Army see it, it’s why we see so many cultists and shippers spiralling right now. I also watched it with friends and my partner and they all saw the closeness and my partner (who doesn’t know them bc I don’t usually talk to them about bts) is sure they are together, just from watching episode 4 and later on 8 (they thought it was gay porn at one point but I digress).

I think that’s their intention, i am sure of it, it’s been building since chapter 2 and before, but yes, we as supporters see all of it. Their history. But the turning point to me from chapter 2 is firstly the book, the documentary, letter, their linked concepts and then the show and finally the enlistment. It’s a culmination of things that highlight them, just them two, as a duo, as something more than just two members of a 7 member band. The documentary highlighted this the most at first, given they were the only two featured together, it seemingly important for JK to be with Jimin whilst he told his story, the way it was edited amongst other members showing their homes and how they live alone. It was interesting at the time, then the travel show made it clear.

It’s the why of it, not just that it makes sense for it to be them who does the show. But why they did it (beyond wanting to spend time together) because although it does allow them to hide behind everything you’d said about what’s out there in SK anyway, it was still incredibly brave of them to make themselves vulnerable by showing their bond in such a way.

The main reason being they just cannot hide their intimacy, and anyone with a brain or experience of relationships can see this. It’s not necessarily the naked times in the hot tubs, it’s the small things, the domestic nature of their relationship, the intimacy is clear there, it’s how they care and how they are with each other, and yes they don’t have to say it with words, you can see it. It’s show and not tell, and I do think they knew this and wanted to be seen. And maybe Koreans themselves won’t see it bc they are blindsided but a lot of I Army are, bc we are all fans and they know this reaches all who want to see it, I think that’s why the first trip is in the US too, bc they were allowed to be themselves there, anonymous almost and they chose LGBT friendly places for a reason.

Then the enlistment also speaks volumes to me, it was obvious it was incredibly private to them (bc they didn’t say why they did it) but that’s the point, this is their real life we are talking about. They aren’t in in there as JK and JM of BTS, they are Jimin and Jungkook of Busan, fulfilling their duty as SK citizens. And they have gone together because they are each others safe space and home and this is what the show showed us, the why. Why they have done what they did. It lays it out for when they return, hopefully explains it to those who didn’t know or see how truly close they are, and hopefully they will be respectful of that.

That was my take away.

in response to this

Omg Yesss

Thank you lovely, for taking the time to put down your thoughts 🤌

💜

[hmslusitania]

Either 16 or 21 or both or neither

There was no specified ship, so it ended up being kind of pre-relationship TimKon

The party had been a questionable choice, Tim can admit that now. Nothing says “I’m so totally over a relationship, see how fine I’m doing!” like throwing a Halloween party, drinking a little too much at the sight of his ex-girlfriend making out with her new girlfriend who is, for most purposes, Tim’s sister, and then retreating to the bathroom because his more recent ex-boyfriend had actually taken him up on the invitation and brought a plus one.

Which is why he’s hiding in the bathtub in his own bathroom, not totally shielded from view by the novelty map of Faerûn shower curtain Steph had helped him pick out. At least it matches the elf ears that had seemed like a good idea six hours ago, and at least the porcelain he’s resting his face against is cooling and pleasant.

His relative peace — generally not helped by the thumping of the bass from the stereo in the party beyond his room — is interrupted an unknowable amount of time later by the bathroom door opening without a knock, and then he’s in the company of…

“What are you supposed to be?” Tim asks without lifting his head from the side of the tub.

Kon looks down at his “costume” which includes fingerless gloves, a denim jacket, and a black and red buffalo check shirt.

“Breakfast Club?” Kon prompts.

Tim blinks at him.

“Come on, we watched it for YJ movie night like last month,” Kon reminds him.

“I wasn’t there,” Tim says, miserable, and sags a little farther into the comforting embrace of the side of the tub.

“We were gonna do a whole group thing, right, except we decided you’d for sure have to be Ally Sheedy, not Emilio Estevez or Anthony Michael Hall,” Kon continues, unphased by Tim’s demeanour. “But then Cissie wanted to dress up like Wendy instead, and I’m pretty sure Cassie’s dressed up like me, which is kinda a head trip. And Bart had some whole situation where he can’t make our party because he got roped into babysitting Jai and Irey while they go trick-or-treating, because as screwy as my family might be, only when you’re a member of the West-Allen family do you really get to go babysit your, uh…”

“Second cousins,” Tim supplies.

“Huh, I definitely thought that was gonna be a weirder chain of relationship,” Kon says.

He sits on the bathmat next to Tim’s head and pokes him in the side of the face.

“Stop,” Tim says.

“So is there a particular reason you’re hiding from your own party in your bathroom?” Kon asks.

“I’m bitterly single?” Tim replies.

Kon considers him. “So, I get why you invited Steph, because she’s still for sure one of your best friends, and I’m pretty sure you’re, like, contractually obliged to invite Cass to events, and they’re a matched set. But like… your civilian ex-boyfriend who likes to conspiracy theory about the majority of the rest of your guests?”

Tim groans and shuts his eyes, only to have Kon pry one of them open and stare at him up close.

“I wanted to prove I was, like, mature and evolved and so totally over it,” Tim says, and feels stupid even saying it.

“Which is why you’re drunk in your bathtub, sure, yeah, I get that,” Kon says, and smiles when Tim rolls his eyes.

“You don’t have to be in here being nice to me, you can just like… enjoy the party,” Tim says.

“The party where my ex-girlfriend is dressed up in my clothes and making out with our other very good friend who’s dressed up like my all time fictional crush? That party?” Kon asks, and Tim snorts.

“Do you ever think about the fact you dated two girls named Cassandra and both of them turned out to be gay?” Tim asks.

“With really similar taste in women, also,” Kon adds. “And, like, yeah, every once in a while.”

Tim hums and closes his eyes again, but this time, Kon doesn’t pry his eyes open.

“I know you’re mad at me,” Tim mumbles finally. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Kon says, and this time the physical botherment he inflicts is tweaking the elf ear Tim had spent a stupid amount of time gluing on. “I was questioning your judgement, which is so not the same thing.”

“Judgement I definitely didn’t improve by throwing this party, right?” Tim guesses. Kon makes a noncommittal noise.

“Like I get that you have a thing for blonds with a penchant for getting into trouble, but…” Kon says.

“Not just blonds,” Tim mumbles before he can think better of it. He blinks when he realises what he’s said and finds Kon staring at him curiously. “I’m really fine, Kon, you can go enjoy the party.”

“Nah,” Kon says, and before Tim can move to stop him, he clambers over the side of the tub to squish into the narrow space between Tim and the shower wall, his combat boots which have a certain authenticity that say they might have been Pa Kent’s from the ’60s clunking against the basin. Kon wriggles his shoulders trying to get comfortable for a second, and then gives up and wraps his arm around Tim. It’s just for the better use of space, Tim’s sure, but it’s… it’s really nice. And when Kon tugs him sideways until Tim rolls over so he’s resting the side of his face on Kon’s chest rather than on the side of the tub, it’s so damn pleasant he can barely stand it. “I’d much, much rather be in here with you.”

It makes Tim’s heart flutter in his chest and he knows Kon can hear that, which is just embarrassing, and which he can only sort of blame on the alcohol.

“Yeah, okay, Bender,” he says, trying desperately to hit annoyed.

Kon gives him a full belly laugh that echoes off the bathroom tile, and squeezes him just a little closer. “I knew you’d seen the Breakfast Club before.”

Tim rolls his eyes and smacks Kon in the stomach with a light, open palm. It gets him another laugh, and maybe, just maybe, this party hadn’t been the worst idea after all.

[qlventingspace]

I'd like to drop some of my thoughts about The Heart Killers here.

You know I'm kinky ace, my love of Pete in the VegasPete days was quite evident as well as my belated realization that I forgot I've always been kinky on some level.

I get that show like Heart Killers is not everyone's cuppa and it's totally fine to be sad about not being able to watch show with your favourite actors for whatever reason.

But.

But this is a show made by a queer man about fantasy queer men.

If you start hating on it (based just on what was shown to us in a trailer) just because you can't watch it and/or it's too sexual or kinky for you ... that's not a problem of the show.

That's a you problem. If you don't like, do not watch and for fucks sake do not start with moralizing.

I'm more than happy to be surprised and I'm on the edge of my seat looking towards what the show is gonna be like bc they didn't give us any concrete hints.

FUCK YES.

I also think that First and Khaotung are literally powerhouses regarding acting and I can't wait to see them in completely new roles we haven't seen them before.

It's surprising, yes, considering how fluffy and cute and comfy vibes they're excluding in their own personal lives but what do we know?! Maybe they wanted to try smth new or maybe they are multifaceted people who like the roles for personal reasons?

Not my place to speculate.

But to see people insisting on them being pushed to filming scenes like that against their will or feeling like they are 'too pure' for kink or sex scenes - that is outright disrespecting their integrity and free will and truly viewing them as only a dolls fans can play with and dictate what they can and cannot appear in.

They are talented, mindful and picky actors, who have enough of will and freedom to choose whatever roles they wanna explore.

P'Jojo is adamant about actors being okay and comfortable filming scenes like that and it was also mentioned that the final nc scenes are always first approved by the actors who star in them (as mentioned in the OF bts).

So knowing all that, insisting on FK being somehow unwilling participants of that, is reeking of homophobia and fan entitlement to actors choices. Stop that.

I went on a tangent a bit.

What I wanted to share as well though is the joy and anticipation!!

I struggle with series that literally rely just on sex scenes, while the plot, cinematography and editing is shite. In those cases sex scenes (though filmed well) are not enough to keep me interested.

In case of Heart Killers I am only excited. I know Jojo's work, so that's in itself is guarantee of quality as well as authentic queer experience (or fantasy in this case).

The soundtrack again will be a blast bc of Jojo's excellent taste and ofc Khaotung singing the smashing ost.

As for the genre I still have no fucking clue what's that supposed to be but I'm swinging wildly from action to romance to crime to comedy to thriller.

(side note: why are people now complaining about it being "soft/lith porn" is beyond me when similar people were excited about porn in different series ??? explain?

sideside note: also manymany straight media is basically porn hiding under fantasy or romance genre but I don't see people accentuating those being porn when talking about them

sidesideside note: also reducing the series that HAVEN'T EVEN COME OUT YET to mere porn is outright disrespectful to creators as well as actors)

The plot (excluding any possible spoilers since I avoid them like a fucking plague) seems engaging and interesting and full of twists and it will probably be not what we imagine or expect but that's exactly what I ehehe EXPECT of it.

As for the sex and kink.

Why should it be smth bad or morally wrong just because it's a bl? Just because it's a gay sex and kink?

I swing wildly between finding sex scenes boring, fascinating, completely no shut it off and being horny cause it's hot.

It's just how I am.

THK has the advantage that it has FK to keep my hyperfixation happy and considering the filming crew, the aesthetics and general vibe of the nc scenes will be bloody fucking beautiful.

I was fully hooked from the trailer and I can say that the combo of FK talent, sub/dom vibes, bondage and probably whole layer of christian guilt (saw you Jesus on a shirt, I'm so sorry) will be my downfall.

[sunflowerandstrawberryspice]

CARMEN SANDIEGO? In 2024? It's more likely thank you think! Please excuse the shit quality for some reason I wasn't allowed to upload the normal pdf and I had to upload a fucking screenshot???

So my friend convinced me to watch Carmen Sandiego and since he's watching ALL of Ninjago for me I thought it was the least I could do to watch four season of a show with a pretty decent concept but uh... yeesh, don't get me wrong the show is really fun but lord have mercy does it have problems especially the last two seasons which were just so wildly disappointing to me. It went from a show with an interesting look on morals to pure pro-cop and mostly black and white thinking so quick (that not mentioning the breaking up a found family full of people with abandonment issues) it was honestly just so disappointing so me and the friend who introduced it to me decided to rewrite it! (I will not be animating nor do I plan on doing more than MAYBE a comic or art piece here and there because my chronic pain ridden ass can not handle that much lol)

The main goals are to:

1) Flesh out characters that aren't Carmen and actually give them reactions based on their lived experiences and how they might realistically react instead of what the show needed to move the plot along

2) Having characters other than Carmen be actually relevant to the plot the main one being Chase Devineaux who we're gonna kind of have as a parallel to Carmen (trust me yall) as kind of a "What if Carmen didn't have her friends/family to ground her and fall back on" but for all the Chase fans out there (gods I hope there's some other than me) he will be getting a happy ending but bro is getting put through the RINGER first

3) Have both A.C.M.E (now standing for Administration for Containing and Monitoring Evil) and V.I.L.E be the bad guys. Also just as an extra bit of fun we're making VILE a full blown cult, they were very cult like in the show so we're just gonna make it one. Both are going to be very morally questionable and while it'll take a bit longer for ACME to show it's true colors don't you worry they definitely will ;)

4) We're doing canonical lgbtq+ rep, I know the show teased a lot of relationships and really only gave yall background gays not to say thats bad but we can do better than just a brief shot of a damn taco truck. I mean like come on in a story about a young woman going against the government for the greater good why not put some rep into it ya know!

5) We're making it light sci-fi, not like SUPER high tech but definitely beyond what we've got currently, as shown with Carmen's prosthetic, and don't worry I'm doing my research as a disabled person I know how it feels to be misrepresented or ignored so I want to make sure I'm being realistic

6) PLAYER ISN'T GOING TO BE A CHILD! I don't know if this bothered anybody else but to me it was really weird that this 16 year old's only friends were in their 20s!

Alright I think that's what I'm gonna say for now, I'd love it if yall tuned in for updates if your curious since this is a passion project for me and my friend and we're having a blast writing it!

As always I am still working on stuff for Ninjago cause I could never abandon my one true love, currently there's a Pixal drawing in progress (it's giving me hell T-T) something for Cole and Geo, and something of Sora MAYBE even Euphrasia if I'm feeling up to it.

Having said that I hope yall have a great day/night and PEACE OUT!

[finchly-tintinnabulation]

- Dignity -

Cato Sicarius x M!Ambassador (Kiran Elander)

Tags: Cato Sicarius Fleas, this shit rated PORN (I promise more plot later), brat taming, praise, fisting, orgasm control

I've gotten the fleas, however I am gay and need to see this man get soft dommed. Heavily inspired by all the x F!Ambassador stuff courtesy of @vyzz-undercover @lemon-russ @moodymisty @cosmic-cryptid-from-beyond I blame y'all. Fucking free me. I'm obsessed with both Cato and Kiran now. Thanks to @daily-shenanigans784 for the beta, @cardinalcanis for opening my eyes to big sub marines, and my homies for peer reviewing the sensation of prostate stimulation they will be the death of me

Also @jaghatai-khock u wizard,, how did you know,,

The Chorus: @thisuserislilsilly

- - -

Seeing the cracks finally begin to show as Ambassador Elander rounded on him made Cato Sicarius feel downright giddy, watching the puny man turn on his heel to face him as he stopped in the middle of the hall. 

“Diplomacy may not provide such instant gratification compared to your usual cracking skulls and splashing viscera, but you could at least pretend to care.” Elander said icily, his frustration visible just below the surface, pouty lips curled in irritation. 

“I am a statesman myself, I simply have a preference for efficiency.” He replied in the airy and detached tone that had finally made headway against the pompous little dignitary, delighting in the mocking imitation of the ambassador’s own placid voice. 

Ignoring or retorting Elander’s words hadn’t produced any results, so Sicarius found it downright hysterical that simply belittling him had done the trick after the baseline had so thoroughly gotten under his skin. Theatrically humming and nodding and rephrasing his words for an entire meeting would have been dull if he hadn’t gotten to watch the ambassador’s face turn red, a fitting consequence for how Sicarius felt whilst babysitting him; being unable to be rid of such a thorn in one’s side. 

“Of all the childish—“ Forcing a breath through his nose, Elander flexed his fingers in a squeezing motion, as if his pathetically small and soft hands could ever hope to strangle the Knight Champion of Macragge. “You know what? No lunch, go take a shower, meet me in my quarters at 1100.”

No lunch? Sicarius’s expression rapidly soured and he leaned forward to tower imposingly over the dignitary. He hadn’t even eaten breakfast before beginning talks early that morning. “You don’t have the rank to give me orders.”

“It’s not an order.” Elander crossed his arms, his own expression cooling into something Sicarius knew— and absolutely loathed. The bastard must think he’s being clever. “Think of this as an exchange. You have no reason to listen to me; I’ll be giving you one. It’s your choice whether or not to make this more tolerable for both of us.”

“What could you possibly offer me?” The marine scoffed, however his thoughts began to race— without his permission— to things he imagined the ambassador could offer that had been pervading his mind since some little drop of poison had slipped in weeks ago. 

-

Kiran Elander had been an inescapable presence since swearing fealty to Roboute Guilliman and subsequently joining the fold of the Ultramarines, when he should have been indistinguishable from every other serf scurrying underfoot. 

The scribes had plenty of reason to be in and out of his Primarch’s office, unobtrusively running papers and scribbling down his dictations, which made Elander’s insistence on banal chattering disruptive on its own. A mere baseline being conversational with his genesire was bound to raise Sicarius’s hackles, an audacity that grated fiercely at his nerves when his time standing guard was otherwise a reprieve. 

That talkative attitude extended to every single person he interacted with, serf and Astartes alike, which provided plenty of evidence towards Sicarius’s theory of what a little fraud Elander was. That calm, airy politeness he practiced, the flattery and the warm inviting expressions. Soothing but utterly empty. He’d seen the sharpness through the new drapings of Ultramarine blue and gold, the biting and calculating words he dished out where his Primarch didn’t hear.

But that wasn’t enough, the wretch had also insisted on talking to him, calling out with a pithy little greeting every time he waltzed through the office’s doorway. Feeding him those plastic smiles, asking him useless questions and having the gall to look amused when he failed to sink his hooks into him, trying to lure him into a chat. 

How are you doing today, lord angel?

Lovely planet to be deployed to my lord, what do you think?

Care for a mint, Commander Sicarius?

By the Throne, the accursed mints were a whole other problem. Without fail there was always a tin of mints in his pocket, and always one in his sharp little mouth. His jaw was always working as if he was thinking of the next thing to say, pensively sucking on it in a way Sicarius found infuriating, that deft serpent’s tongue rolling it between his teeth and neatly moving it out of the way when he needed to speak.

The scent of menthol followed Elander everywhere, announcing his presence even before he was seen, accompanied by the equally bright and pungent citrus tang of his awfully sweet cologne. Maybe that was where the problems started, sparking some strange urge to grab the ambassador by the scruff of the neck and breathe him in to find out if there was a real man underneath that sugary veneer.

It wouldn’t be difficult, the ambassador looked as though he had never so much as touched a weapon in his life, picking him up would be as easy to Sicarius as grabbing a tissue. Elander was short even for a baseline male, with long legged and slim gangly proportions, favoring dark tailored waistcoats that gave the illusion that Sicarius could wrap his fingers around his slender frail waist with one hand. Speaking of, the Ambassador’s hands matched the rest of him, delicate and small and soft. 

Sicarius had never met a man of Elander’s station who appeared so utterly useless in combat. The dusty waves of his hair were so pale as to be almost white, so fair that it seemed they would stain with a touch. A porcelain face pockmarked by moles, split wide by frequent smiles that ruined the illusion of doll-like pink lips. He should be stuffed up on a shelf like one and left to gather cobwebs, to be some pretty ostentatious thing to be admired glanced over, rather than taking up so much space for something so insignificant.

Cato Sicarius had never considered anyone pretty. Let alone a man, let alone a baseline… and he was certainly not going to start with Kiran Elander. The weasley little whoreson.

Yet somewhere between his arrival and now, the bastard had gotten into his head. Those disgusting little lips and tongue were always moving, distracting from whatever it was Elander had elected to drone on about, and now even in his absence Sicarius could imagine them, lurid and pink in his mind. Maybe they were warm… but they were just as likely to be cold and hard like plasteel. Fake. He could picture gripping Elander’s face so hard he shattered in his hands. Throne, if Sicarius wanted to, he could ruin him.

So why was he doing as he asked?

-

The shower was an exercise in frustration, as none of the amenities in his accommodations were sized for an Astartes. Such a backwater planet was only being returned to the Imperium due to the presence of humans, of course they’d never been graced by the likes of the Ultramarines before. Elander’s presence is merely to not waste ammunition. Still, Sicarius was forced to maneuver his body under the spray much to his chagrin, cursing under his breath every time he headbutted the showerhead or bumped his elbows against the tiled walls. 

The frustration had to be why his hearts’ rate was so elevated as he aggressively scrubbed himself down, then toweling dry just as mercilessly until his skin prickled. Frustrated with the fact his curiosity was winning over his indignance as he pulled on a set of fatigues in favor of his itchy dress uniform and set off towards the ambassador’s room in long strides. 

Elander didn’t deserve the courtesy of knocking, so Sicarius simply let himself in, growing irritated when he was met with the smell of menthol and saw that the dignitary had been waiting for him. His jacket and waistcoat had been hung over the back of a chair, with Elander lounging sidelong in it, his legs draped over the arm.

“Thank you for joining me, Commander Sicarius. Are you ready to hear my rules?” Sliding out of the chair, the ambassador smiled as he slinked unhurriedly across the room. All of his finery had been shed, leaving Elander in a plain dark blue dress shirt and slacks, the only adornment left being a thin black bracelet.

“The rules of what? Some sort of game?” Sicarius scoffed as he closed the door behind him, cocking his head to look down at the man.

“If it would please your immature attention span, you may think of this as a game.” Hand planted on his hip, the ambassador evenly met Sicarius’s critical glare, expression so placid as to seem bored.

The Ultramarine growled. “You would do well not to mock me.”

“Your cooperation would be appreciated. I have no need to insult you otherwise. Now, are you ready to hear my rules?” 

“Concisely, yes.”

“The goal of this exercise is to test your patience, as I want to see you wait to be rewarded. For the duration, I ask for you to follow my instructions and nothing more.” Elander sighed and tucked an errant strand of cream colored hair behind his ear. “If you disobey, I stop. If you don’t want to finish this exercise, you need only say the word.”

“I assume failure to complete this exercise would mean forfeiting the reward?” Sicarius inferred, searching Elander’s honeyed hazel eyes ringed with grey, probing for any signs of deception.

“Correct.”

“I’ll ask you again, what sort of reward could you possibly offer me.”

The ambassador appeared thoughtful, likely because the crafty little bastard was thinking of a way to sound more enticing. Pursing plush lips, he started to roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt, revealing surprisingly shapely forearms— perhaps he had the ability to pick up more than just a measly stack of paperwork. 

“Some playtime with your pleasure receptors.” Elander neatly cuffed his sleeves just above his elbows. “Please remove your clothing and be seated on the bed.”

Sicarius barked out a hysterical laugh, head spinning. This was far more bizarre than any feverish Warp-damned dream his subconscious could cook up. “You’re a whore.” He spat out the accusation before his silence and racing thoughts would betray him.

Merely frowning slightly, Elander raised a brow. “Are you implying that I’m tempting you, Commander Sicarius? Because a whore takes payment for someone’s desire for them, I merely have skills to use for your benefit.”

“Of course not.” Sicarius hissed. Tempting? He, Cato Sicarius, was not a victim of temptation. There was no attraction involved. That explanation was easier than whatever justifications and explanations his mind was scrambling for, and that was good enough. 

“Good.“ Elander flashed that inviting conniving smile. “Now, if you’re ready to continue, I recall giving you instructions.”

Removing his fatigues merely required efficiency, but Sicarius felt oddly conscious of how quickly he undressed. Speed could imply anxiety or eagerness, and of course neither of those was the case. However taking his time would be putting on a show for the little slut, a thought that sent a shiver down his spine. Just his spine, certainly nowhere else. There was absolutely nothing exciting about this situation. 

There was nothing vulnerable about stripping himself bare in front of Elander, because of course nakedness amongst his battle-brothers was nothing but mundane, and that wouldn’t change in front of a baseline so undeserving of his glory. Surely it should feel the same.

“A beard like yours but no body hair? What a shame.” The ambassador interjected with that grating tone of faux-innocence and curiosity. Sicarius was extremely aware he was being watched as he discarded his fatigues in a pile on the floor. 

“Depilatory treatment is standard for the use of a body-glove.” With a grunt he sat heavily on the bed, the springs creaking as he settled on the edge, lounging back on his elbows with knees parted to take up as much space as possible and present an intimidating view. It seemed to be working as the expression on Elander’s face was nothing short of admiring as he moved to stand in front of him.

“Someone’s showing off.” A grin crept across his face and Sicarius let out an indignant growl. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” There was no reason to prove anything so obvious as size to such a puny baseline, Cato Sicarius knew he was impressive, and naturally Elander would too.

“It’s okay to be proud.” As if Sicarius needed his permission. He suppressed a shiver of surprise disgust as Elander’s fingertips alighted on his thighs, so delicate it was like the brush of a feather as they trailed over two pairs of neural ports and down to his kneecaps, pale eyes soft with appreciation. “Such a lovely specimen.”

Whether it was the words or those delicate fingertips suddenly slipping under his shaft, Cato felt his cock twitch, reeling as his thighs shuddered of their own volition. Elander’s hand tightened on his knee, as if to remind him of his presence positioned between his legs. How could he forget?

“You will be still.” The ambassador murmured gently, almost crooning. “Wouldn’t want to explain how I was injured if you couldn’t keep control of yourself. You can be patient for me, right?”

Sicarius grunted and nodded once, not trusting himself to open his mouth and hear his own compliance from it. No, he was merely tolerating this. Not an order, an exchange. 

“Very good.” Another traitorous twitch. “Tilt your hips up, please.”

Lifting his pelvis as Elander had suggested, Cato closed his eyes. There was no need to complicate spoil this experience with a view of the bastard ambassador’s face, this was merely a service he could do with his own hand, and certainly didn’t require Elander to be involved.

Yet his hand couldn’t compare to the sensation of those ministrations. Where his were callused, the fingers wrapped sinfully around his cock slid like velvet, soft and warm and precise. They seemed to know his body in a way he didn’t know himself, dexterously squeezing and fondling until Cato began to sigh, his hesitation drowned in new and pleasurable experience. Tension bled from his muscles, relaxing back onto the mattress with a relief he didn’t know he needed.

Then something hot and wet made contact with his glands and those fingertips slid down to uncharted territory and his hips bucked in surprise. Cato’s eyes flew open, feeling cold as those warm touches suddenly withdrew.

“Be still.” The ambassador murmured a patient reminder, one hand resting on Cato’s thigh as the other reached into the pocket of his slacks. “Sorry, I should’ve warned you.”

“Are you going to continue?” Despite knowing the rules, he couldn’t help but feel ornery. How dare this feel good? How dare he stop?

“If you can behave. I know you can, you can be a good boy for me.” Okay, the praise was definitely doing something— some sorcery to him, making a heat pool in his gut, a weakness that had gone previously unexploited. This wasn’t the pride he felt after a glorious victory, it was a syrupy sort of exhilaration that he wasn’t quite ready to interrogate.

Especially not when Elander’s next move had him transfixed. Gripping the shaft, he tapped the head of Cato’s cock against his pillowy lips, holding eye contact as his perfect sinful pink mouth swallowed his glans in one go. That mouth had haunted his mind, but only now did it occur to him why. He didn’t go down far, especially with the way those plush lips stretched around the girth of an Astartes, but that hardly mattered when his tongue was doing all the work.

Swirling around the head in teasing circles, playing with the slit, a bouquet of new experiences dragged a helpless groan out of him. Still stroking Cato’s length, there was a massaging pressure at his perineum, gentle circles slowly migrating down.

“The hell are you doing with my ass?” He grunted, but surprised himself by remaining still as velvety fingertips traced around the hole.

“No hope of finding your head if it’s too far up there.” Elander muttered sarcastically, Cato’s cock resting against his cheek as he fiddled with the thing from his pocket, accompanied by the quiet pop of a bottle opening. “This will feel a bit strange, but if you’re patient I promise it’ll feel good. Pull your legs up, that angle should be more pleasant for you.”

“Fuck you.” Gritting his teeth as he did as he was told, Cato craned his head up as if he could possibly see what Kiran was doing between his legs.

“Patience. This will be cold.” Despite the warning, the sensation of a gelled finger rubbing against the pucker of his asshole made Cato flinch, growling low in his chest.

It was definitely strange. He had certainly been examined before, every last inch of him observed and tested, and that was not the way Kiran touched him. Slow and incremental was his work, first massaging the outer ring of muscle with slick fingers slowly warming the lubrication, the pressure of his circular strokes beginning to dip inside.

That foreign sensation was accompanied by more attention to his cock, mouth now beginning to roam its length as Kiran licked stripes up the shaft, and Cato fought between keeping his eyes on the other and letting his hand sink back onto the bed. He was painfully hard, there was so much more he wanted before he was satisfied, and it was ecstasy. Patience didn’t seem like a chore to appease Kiran anymore… it was becoming very appealing. Cato didn’t even mind when the first finger sank into his hole.

Pain was negligible to an Astartes, but the only thing Cato could think of to describe the feeling of being stretched was an ache, the push of tight muscles initially unwilling to yield. Some vague sort of discomfort, and yet even that was pleasurable, enhanced by whatever witchcraft Kiran was doing with his tongue.

“Do you want me to keep going?” The fair haired man asked softly as the intrusion of his finger rocked in and out, to which Cato groaned. “Yes or no.”

A tremor shook his thighs as he felt his muscles unspooling, from his hips downward. “Don’t fucking stop…”

“I said, yes or no.” Cato whined vocalized his displeasure as Kiran’s fingers withdrew again. This pathetic little baseline knew things about his body he had yet to discover for himself, attempting to play him like a fiddle.

Cato was letting him.

“…Yes.” 

The approving look Kiran gave him was sin, a warm rush of achievement and pride low in his gut, right where his nerves had been sparking at his touch. To Cato’s confusion he unfastened the bracelet around his wrist with some invisible attachment, then deftly wrapped its soft thin silicone around the base of his cock, where it easily snapped into place. The thought that Kiran’s wrist was comparable thickness to his shaft made Cato dizzy, made his mind flounder at thoughts of holding them for a moment before being brought back to attention.

“So good for me, thank you for using your words. Remember, you’re being patient, and you’ve done such a wonderful job at it so far.” Kiran palmed at the tip, spreading the transparent fluid that had begun dripping from it like another lubricant, his touch somehow even more silky and warm.

Two fingers this time, pressing and prodding and stretching. An Astartes could withstand any temperature, and yet Cato felt himself growing hot. An Astartes never tired, and yet his breaths were rapid, his two hearts quickening. A scissoring motion of Kiran’s fingers made that pleasurable ache grow, a feeling of fullness he wanted to chase as they crooked inside him.

“You crave approval, don’t you? Such a beautifully honed weapon, singing to be used for the glory of battle.” Three fingers, pushing, pistoning. “But there’s an easier way to feel that good, to know that you’re doing what you’re supposed to. So good. So natural.”

Cato couldn’t help it as a wanton moan slipped through his teeth, his head falling back onto the bed, just listening and feeling. An Astartes’s duty was service to the Imperium, and yet this new idea of service…

“It’s a shame for such a lovely weapon to be unused, a blade left unpolished… let yourself be used and adored.” Four fingers, now? It was hard to tell, the slender intrusion was sliding so easily. “You don’t even have to do anything, simply experience your purpose of serving mankind and enjoy it.”

Cato Sicarius had never considered submission to be an option. Defeating an opponent in debate or combat brought the joy of triumph, the glory of Ultramar at his heels. There was something perverse in those feelings coming so easily, through… obedience. It was perverse and it felt wonderful, and so very easy. Obeying and being rewarded and feeling so full as Kiran’s fingers sank into his hole, faintly aware of the obscene sound of his whole hand—

“Good boy.” There was barely enough time for Cato to process the fact that Kiran was wrist deep in him before he was seeing stars, hot sparks coursing up his spine, turning his thoughts to static. 

The feeling didn’t let up, repeatedly pressing that spot inside him, the sensation of fullness and pressure building in his gut. Pistoning in and out at a relentless pace as his legs began to shake, eyes rolling as his mouth fell open, dignity forgotten as each thrust drove into him and drew a torrent of gasps and moans from his lips.

“Fu-uck, Kiran—”

“You’re doing so well, sweet thing.” Kiran cooed over the wet and lecherous sound of his ministrations against Cato’s body. “You may move now. Fuck yourself on my fingers.”

He needn’t speak twice. Heels barely kept purchase against the sheets, his hips bucked, and a vicious new rhythm formed. Every time Cato rocked back Kiran’s fingers rammed against his prostate, and thrusting forward had him rubbed up against his palm in exquisite torture, the barest shift making his head spin with pleasure. There was nowhere to move to escape those hands, and it was making him more and more desperate.

Pressure built, his cock red hot even as something felt stoppered at the base— where Kiran had placed the bracelet. He needed something, and he could barely comprehend what it was, only that denying it felt like dying.

“Ah—! Please…” Cato gasped, hips stuttering as he couldn’t decide whether to try and escape the sensation or seek more and more and more.

“Asking nicely, Cato? Do you want to cum?” That was it. He wanted to cum, he needed to, he couldn’t care less about the insubordination from Kiran or the begging he was about to do.

“Mnh… ah, please let me—!” His breath hitched like he was trying to come up for air, like swimming in the seas of his youth, desperate to surface. “I need to cum! Ple—ease…”

“Well, since you asked so nicely. Cum for me.” 

Fingers slipped around the base of his cock and in a moment Cato’s world exploded. Release rocked his nerves as his hips snapped up, something white hot and molten coursed through his cock, feeling Kiran stroking him through it as everything else dissolved around him. 

His mind was warm, pleasant fuzz, tensed muscles melting and loosening as his orgasm steadily ebbed, laying flat against the bed. The room came back to him slowly, the savory scent of sweat and his own spend registering before he finally opened his eyes.

The sight that greeted him was one that had appeared in dreams he had tried to forget, but was now burning itself into his mind’s eye. Kiran Elander, covered in thick strings of cum, opaque strands in his face and hair, ruining the fine dark blue fabric of his dress shirt. The ambassador’s hazel eyes shone with affection and pride as he wrapped his bracelet back around his wrist, taking a fistful of the sheets to gently press it against Cato’s slicked asshole and wipe away some of the lubrication.

“Was that enough of a reward for you?” Elander looked… smug. Sicarius felt furious.

How dare this useless little baseline think he had any power over him? What sort of games was he playing to think he could get Cato Sicarius to submit to his whims? He could break him.

With superhuman speed he had Elander by the collar, dragging him to the mattress to pin him there, growling under his breath and trapping the little ambassador’s arms by his sides. 

Elander should have been fearful, he should be groveling for his life. Instead, after his eyebrows raised in muted surprise, he appeared to simply go numb. Body limp, face blank, staring owlishly into Sicarius’s eyes. It was like he was playing dead, but there was an air of… disappointment in his gaze. Despite everything, it made him feel nauseous and leaden. Not afraid, disappointed. As if he had expected it.

His heart certainly didn’t squeeze at the thought that Kiran had praised him so warmly, only to expect Cato to disappoint him.

Slowly, Sicarius lowered himself to lay on Elander, slipping his thick arms around that trim waist, and after a moment of hesitation began to clean him in turn. He lapped the drips of seed from Elander’s skin, letting his breathing slow as he licked his porcelain-smooth brow. For a moment the ambassador lay stock still beneath him, but ever so minutely Sicarius felt him relax, slim fingers slipping into his hair.

“...You were so good.” Elander murmured, and Sicarius realized he could scent beneath the menthol and perfume. The delicate natural warmth of skin, soft flesh and clean sheets and sweat. He was real.

[acrossthewavesoftime]

I know that he's nothing at all like his historical counterpart, but do you enjoy the portrayal of John Graves Simcoe in Turn (even if it's just for the sheer outrageousness)?

Hello there Anon!

Indeed, I did - when I first watched TURN, Simcoe was what kept me watching beyond the pilot. I generally tend to enjoy antagonists in media of any kind more than the protagonists; my five-year-old self reasoned that the coolest role in Mozart's Magic Flute, which I had gone to see with my father, was the Queen of the Night because she had the best aria and the coolest costume, and I suppose my taste has overall remained fairly constant throughout the decades.

I was not at all interested in Abe as the main character, but Simcoe hooked me, because I enjoyed the way his character, for all his eager readiness for committing acts of violence, was written to have some sort of moral compass (albeit not one facing to everyone else's north), and also could be gentle, vulnerable, and even prissy at times - I also enjoyed Hewlett giving Simcoe his comeuppance in the end. In a way, he combined almost cartoonish traits with a, at a second glance, much more complex personality.

It was TURN that got me into researching Simcoe, starting off the thought "surely, he cannot have been that terrible, right?"

And, surprise, surprise, he was not. I still enjoy the character, but I wish the series would have worked more closely with the historical material (and portraits - Simcoe in TURN and Simcoe in history have next to nothing in common visually - the historical Simcoe, though quite tall, had brown hair, brown eyes, a much more average physique and was, as opposed to the show's indestructible villain, a severe asthmatic who frequently struggled with his illness) and the writers given the Simcoe-character an entirely fictional name instead.

From what is known historically about Simcoe, Hewlett, who is also a fictional character, was a lot more like the historical Simcoe, down to trying to win the heart of a local lady in Oyster Bay, being very attached to his horse, and (or so Simcoe presented himself in his own memoir at least), and being always happy to avoid violence wherever possible.

The more I learned about him, the more I was disappointed in the historical research (or lack thereof) that went into the show, because so many mischaracterisations and mistakes could have been avoided using some readily available literature - think e. g. John André's terrible little braid or gay General Sir Henry Clinton (who, y'know. Had 11 children by 3 different women). Those were unfortunate, because the show marketed itself as being based on a true story, but I enjoyed the storyline (and the characters of Simcoe and Mary Woodhull in particular), which I took with rather than a grain, an entire shaker of salt, and thus kept watching.

The only thing that continues to irk me to this day is how Samuel Roukin talked about the historical Simcoe in interviews at the time, betraying little to no understanding of the period, which gave him the impression (and thus inspiration for his role) that the historical Simcoe must have been a relatively unpleasant, pompous, even violent man based on having read his memoir of the American Revolutionary War - which more than anything was a campaign stunt as Simcoe wrote it in order to put himself on the political map back in England as he was eyeing political office following his return from the war, and Roukin misinterprets certain period typical turns of phrase and the tone severely.

The historical John Graves Simcoe could be a tad too loud, too boastful and slightly tone-deaf at times, but generally speaking, he was a very caring individual with a rather liberal view on women's rights, to use the term somewhat anachronistically, who had grown up in a loving, somewhat non-traditional family and passed this loving environment on to his own children. Perhaps one of the most touching details of Simcoe's character to me is that he appears to only very rarely, if at all, have used his first name; in his signatures, "John" is usually abbreviated to "J.", while "Graves" is spelled out. He was named John for his father, who died at sea when he was a young child, and Graves for his godfather, Samuel Graves, who stepped up and helped raise him. I suspect that he went by "Graves" rather than John, and felt attached to the name as it was given to him in honour of the man who would raise him, and even shelter and nurse him back to health when he was invalided back to England - but that is only my speculation on the, more than doubtlessly extant, softer side of John Graves Simcoe's character that his biographer Mary Beacock-Fryer documented extensively.

I would like to close with a quote from one of his letters to General Clinton which I think says a lot about the historical J[ohn] Graves Simcoe, his flaws and positive traits alike, in which he reflects on the American Revolutionary War, which he characterises as

"a swindling transaction in which mankind was robbed of its happiness and my King of his inheritance, under false pretenses of patriotism in G[reat] Britain, military talents in the Congress leaders, and integrity in both."

[briarmoon1015]

What are your headcanons on the halbarry?

lol I have so many headcanons buckle in

1. I’m a big fan of Barry falling first but Hal falling harder. We do not get enough of pining Barry and I need it. I need to see more of Barry letting Hal crash at his place, and having to hold back any feelings he may have as the two eat like five pizzas and watch the latest Star Wars movie that Hal missed in space. Barry is a master at holding in his secrets, so it just makes so much sense to me

2. I like to headcanon that Barry isn’t a fan of pda, but the instant someone isn’t around he’s very touchy. Doing things like brushing hands with Hal or knocking knees makes him giddy.

3. I also like to think that Hal gets pretty bad insomnia when he gets back to earth from long space missions. His ring makes it so he doesn’t need sleep, so getting back into that cycle can be difficult. Barry also has pretty bad sleep habits. I imagine speedsters struggle to sleep eight hours straight thanks to how fast their bodies work, and with Barry having a somewhat typical 9-5, he isn’t catching up on sleep any other time. Whenever Hal gets home they both focus on getting their sleeping patterns down, and find it a lot easier to do with the other one around.

4. Hal knows he’s one of Barry’s lightning rods and takes full advantage of it. He will be getting healed by Barry after every stupid situation he gets himself into, and he will drag Barry out of the speed force every time Barry tries to do something even stupider. He also tries not to get stuck in other dimensions or in the speed force himself, just to avoid throwing Barry off.

5. Whenever Hal is away on missions, Barry will often go outside to star gaze. He doesn’t tell anyone it’s because he’s missing Hal, but his family will join him anyways. Hal, on the other hand, likes to find the direction earth is in and just take a moment to breathe.

6. Hal is a Star Wars fan and Barry is a Star Trek fan. They get into a ton of nerdy arguments about it, but they both watch them together. They also love Top Gun. It’s Hal’s favorite movie for obvious reasons, but I think it’d be hilarious if it was also Barry’s gay awakening.

7. Neither of them are good at cooking. Barry’s lack of patience while trying to heat things up often means undercooked food, or overcooked when he tries to use his powers to heat things up. Hal can make a couple of really good dishes but beyond that he is incapable of making edible food. It never turns out right because he tries to do his own thing instead of following a recipe, and ends up getting the proportions all wrong. They often eat out.

8. I need to stress how nerdy each one is. Barry may seem like it the most with his love of chemistry and dressing up like an old man half the time, but Hal will talk your ear off about planes. Not even just types and models, but also weird history facts about them, and mysterious crashes that happened. Because of this, Barry now is quite good at telling the make of a jet, while Hal has a good chance of being able to tell you what chemical compounds you are looking at.

9. On occasion, the two will need to stitch each other up. Hal is a lot faster at it, but his technique isn’t always perfect. It does make do, however. Barry, on the other hand, more gentle and effective, but he’s quite slow at it. He tends to overthink each stitch.

10. Hal doesn’t let a lot of people wear his dad’s jacket, but he often leaves it with Barry when in space. Barry often will leave it on the kitchen table chairs as a reminder of Hal, and will occasionally fix it up if need be. Having to mend his own suit has made Barry a pretty good seamstress, but he takes extra care with Hal’s jacket.

These are just some general ones :) hopefully you enjoy them