#but they were also one of the first big mainstream shows to do it

[littlespoonevan]

don't know what it says about where i'm at mentally at the moment that i am legitimately considering rewatching glee

[bengiyo]

Heesu in Class 2: Maybe It’s Time to Stop Calling Myself a BL Viewer

After finishing Heesu in Class 2, it’s been surprising to feel like I’m in the minority for enjoying it. We’ve seen a great deal of concerted posting from fans of the webtoon about how this show betrayed its source material with its adaptation changes. Over the last few weeks, I’ve read the original webtoon to gather my own thoughts. After reading through @my-rose-tinted-glasses post on why this project didn’t work for her, I decided to sit with it for a while. I then came across this tweet from Dr. Thomas Baudinette:

I respect Dr. Baudinette’s academic interest in the genre and the useful insider insight he brings to the table. However, I will say plainly that I think this is a grossly disingenuous take, grounded in the idea that stories about queer romance take precedence over other queer stories. Additionally, it deeply misreads the adaptation choices and insinuates that a queer show that includes heterosexuality in it is somehow betraying the BL audience. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I will say plainly that I will go back to just being a queer cinephile who dabbles in BL instead of advocating for BL if this is who we are.

I am a queer person here for stories about queer truth. BL is a romance genre. While I respect BL viewers who are here to get their feelings from swoony moments, I cannot abide the presumption that a story that is inherently about the coming out experience somehow let its source material down for maintaining that connection. Every year we get into a big fight about what is or isn’t BL (see: 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us, Love in the Big City, What Did You Eat Yesterday?, etc.), often arguing that BL is a branding term used to get romance viewers to show up and support queer works. I think it’s fine enough to argue that Heesu in Class 2 isn’t a BL because it uses Korean drama frameworks (@lurkingshan) for its story instead of sandblasting you in the face with pop music as two boys stare at each other, but I think there’s real value in what the show is doing for mainstream viewers.

I’ve avoided discussing the webtoon too much in my commentary, but now that I have read it I will say firmly that this would have sucked as a TV show. We know that about 40-50% of the shows we get each year are based on their source material. The webtoon is adorable and well-intentioned. It’s also a very simple narrative in which we are primarily in Heesu’s point of view, and any time we leave his point of view it’s to see only what other people are thinking about him. In my opinion, simpler narratives like the Heesu webtoon work best as films and not as dramas. 

We recently went through this with Living With Him, in which a really short manga got stretched to eight episodes and had to add contrivances to the middle to pad out the time that eventually hurt the core narrative. Thai BL is rife with secondary, tertiary, and quaternary couples to pad out time to meet the long run time demands of the airing schedule. When you’re adapting a fairly simple story, you either have to add depth or bloat. Oftentimes we get both. In the case of Heesu, it’s clear that they were only adapting the first season of the webtoon, and so they added depth.

The constant refrain from detractors of this webtoon is that it deprioritized the queer characters and their narrative in favor of straight narratives. I wholeheartedly disagree. Every single straight story in this show (and the gay ones) are meant to add context to the queer struggles Hee Su and Seung Won face, from Ji Yu and Chan Young to all three of his sisters.

Ji Yu’s music arc hearkens to the queer fear of being public with yourself and facing judgment and scrutiny. Chan Young’s tennis arc features real parental abandonment consequences that many a queer person fears. Hee Sin exemplifies how easy it is to fall for people and also deal with the constant rejection of most people not being into you (because they’re straight). Hee Jae exemplifies how toxic a relationship with your best friend can be when the romantic feelings aren’t fully reciprocal. Hee Yeong shows us what it means to be brave and face your friend after you’ve let them down romantically. Ho Sik highlights how easy it is for straight people to express and pursue their romances, and then be public with them. None of these plots exist in a vacuum; they’re meant to add context to the tension between Hee Su and Seung Won.

On the queer front, the show expanded on the initial lesbian advice plotline as a way for Hee Su to open the discussion about queerness with his siblings. The look shared between the sisters, their careful responses, and the way they treat him in the final episode after Hee Su comes out to Hee Sin shows that they talked to each other. Hee Sin clearly pulled on her prior knowledge when she insisted to Hee Su that she still loves him. Hee Jae, the grumpiest sister, was especially direct about praising Hee Su when he offered to help them take Hee Yeong to the airport. Hee Yeong told him plainly that he must remember that she is always on his side and will support him. Seung Won’s mom acknowledged that her own coming out affected him, and let him decide how open to be about his family.

The coming out sequence with Hee Sin was so powerful. He made it clear that this isn’t a gay-for-you situation. He said plainly that his crushes are on guys, and will probably always be on guys. Hee Sin’s response took me back to this incredible scene from The Fosters, in which Lena’s dad apologizes to her for saying “I still love you.” He rejects it as something horrible, in which you confirm to your kid that you could possibly stop loving them. He says he wishes he had instead said, “Thank you for telling me something so important about yourself, and I can’t wait to meet the person you want to share your life with.” 

I’m also annoyed about the insistence that the straights were given priority in this narrative in which everyone gets about the same level of on-screen intimacy. This is a show that managed to avoid getting an R rating, which means that it’ll be accessible to a much wider range of viewers without needing additional parental controls. The straights getting time means that when the gays throw the ease at which they pursued romance back in their faces, it’s actually grounded in events that transpired in the narrative. I will also say that I did NOT like the way Jiyu and Chanyoung meddled with Heesu in the webtoon, and thought conspiring with Seung Won was not kind to Heesu. I like that the drama instead uses their stories to support the queer themes as Ji Yu directly supports Seung Won.

I’d also like to say that all the Chan Young commentary troubles me. Hee Su has been in love with this boy for ten years. I actually think the show needs to spend time fleshing him out into a real person for the audience to understand why Hee Su likes him so much. He’s charming and friendly. He’s kind and thoughtful. He wants to help the people he cares about. He also trusts Hee Su implicitly. 

I do not blame him for being overwhelmed and surprised when Hee Su suddenly confessed to him, and I think there is real value in him botching that moment. So many viewers who might not have spent a lot of time thinking about how they would handle queer people coming out to them will benefit from seeing Chan Young flub that moment. What’s more important is that he did eventually talk to Hee Su and begin to repair the break in their friendship. It isn’t about being right every single time; it’s about always doing the work required to make things right. 

Finally, I really loved that Hee Su got to be mad at Seung Won for confusing him all this time. It was fun to see Hee Su, who I think was way out of line for always interfering in Chan Young’s life, face the reality that he had also been subject to that kind of behavior. This worked so well for me because we understood that what Seung Won liked so much about Hee Su was how warm and open he was. I will have more to say in the future about how many shows we’ve already had this year reject one-sided pining as inherently pure.

In the end, it’s just a really dissonant experience for me to see such a kind show getting such an energetic negative response. Like anyone else who’s watched over 300 BLs since 2016, I like seeing cute boys kiss each other and make face as much as anyone else. However, if we’re unable to appreciate using a webtoon with clear ideas about the difficulty of coming out when you’re in love with a friend in a format that far more viewers are used to, I don’t think I can rock with this anymore. I can’t even find myself associated with the kinds of people who would have called Degrassi homophobic because it wasn’t exclusively gay. 

[mariacallous]

Amy Brown was not screaming. She was not crying. She was not throwing up.

But on Bluesky she said that she was doing all three, simultaneously. Brown’s husband visited a Walgreens while he was on a business trip in Ohio in February. He told her the prices were cheaper than in California, where they live.

The price disparity led her to post that she was screaming, crying, and throwing up. Several Bluesky users responded to tell her she was exaggerating, and that nobody could possibly care that much. They were right. She didn’t. She was referencing one of the internet’s common sayings, one used so often that it’s the name of a Spotify compilation.

What Brown experienced is familiar to any former Twitter/X user gathering their bearings on the young and decidedly more earnest social network Bluesky: a distinct humor-detection issue. Some users are unable to decipher jokes, or they are deliberately trying to miss the point to make a different one. Many Bluesky users migrated over from X, where the top DOGE who did Nazi-like salutes on television is live-tweeting the destruction of American infrastructure. That’s a different and much more serious problem. Still, the seeming obliviousness-slash-self-seriousness of many Bluesky users is grating when you’re not used to it.

“They're speaking a completely different language than me,” Brown says. “We're both speaking English, but I'm speaking internet.”

Brown, a former social media manager for Wendy’s, joined Bluesky in 2023. Her X account was banned after she impersonated Elon Musk for almost two hours on November 4, 2022.

The “incident,” as she calls it, happened shortly after X announced paid verification. Brown changed her profile picture to one of a balding entrepreneur and edited her display name to “Elon Musk (real).” She convincingly emulated his voice, posting musings like “my wife left me lol” and “my penis is NOT weird.”

She didn’t know whether she’d be banned for her behavior on X, but she was OK with the possibility. “It's like, Elon's already the main character on this platform every day, and now he owns it. Do I really want to be here anymore?” she says.

While you can still find plenty of this kind of humor on Bluesky, there are a surprising number of people genuinely confused by it. There are several factors to blame here.

First is the clash between former users of X and Facebook. Anyone who logged their time on the Everything App is familiar with the language of Twitter: posts steeped in irony, in-group references, platform-specific history. When they left X, they brought all that wisecracking, insidery drollery with them. They even brought their pig-shitting-on-its-own-testicles JPEGs.

Meanwhile, former power users of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are accustomed to their own barometers of funny. While Twitter felt like an intentional way to primarily interact with mostly strangers, and a familiar face might cause the user a moment of horror, Facebook was the opposite—at least initially, before it became Click FarmVille for engagement bait and advertisements for oddly specific custom novelty tees.

Bluesky also got a big boost in users from mainstream television: MSNBC ran multiple segments about the social network, including bumps on Morning Joe, The Weekend, All In With Chris Hayes, and The Rachel Maddow Show. Regular MSNBC viewers who took the plunge might not be as familiar with the tenor and style of online conversation on the smart-ass social web.

The lack of humor detection is made worse by tech: algorithmically curated content, à la Bluesky’s Discover feed, surfaces random posts to random people. A Maddow referral on Bluesky might see an ex-Twitter user’s vivid description of what they’d do to the Hamburglar if they saw him in person and react with genuine horror and confusion. It’s also PEBKAC issue—problem exists between keyboard and chair. You cannot force a person to understand a joke. The only action more futile is to get mad about it.

If these disparate groups have anything in common, it’s disgust with gigantic tech companies led by unpalatable CEOs, paired with a yearning to post in the lingua franca of their previously beloved platforms. Everyone’s brains are broken in different ways. I empathize with those who don’t get the joke. But I empathize more with the people trying to make them.

To paraphrase an Axios story from last year, America is in the midst of a gullibility crisis. People can’t tell what’s AI, a manipulated screenshot, a joke, or a lie. Many of us have opened up our relationship with reality. And the political climate has exacerbated the issue, according to Josh Gondelman, a comedian who previously worked as a producer and writer on Desus & Mero and wrote for Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.

“Since Trump’s run for the presidency, there has been a rapidly accelerating not-getting-jokes on the internet,” Gondelman says.

By Gondelman’s recollection, Bluesky hit a point where it was populated enough with active users to be both fun and useful at some point within the past six months. “But that also means it hit the tipping point where it’s populated enough to be annoying,” he says, laughing.

Mattie Lubchansky, an Ignatz Award–winning cartoonist, author, and illustrator, describes herself as “a primarily joke-posting kind of person.” The humor-detection issue of Bluesky is part of a broader phenomenon she has observed, which she calls “riff collapse.”

The day after the 2025 Oscars, Lubchansky posted: “i haven't seen any of the oscar movies this year, nor have i seen any movie ever made. i'm afraid that the people trapped inside the screen will be angry at me for not helping them escape; and once they are out i will be punished. anyway, here's how the awards validated an opinion i already had.”

The replies that followed were earnest opinions and arguments about Oscar-nominated films. Some people asked for movie recommendations. Some unironically recommended she check out The Purple Rose of Cairo. Only a handful of people seem to have understood that she was joking. Lubchansky says she sees this type of “riff collapse” happen daily, and she thinks it’s because of the influx of new users from Meta and X.

But the frustrations around new social platforms isn’t new. Networks will continue to pop up, ideally, and longtime users will continue to be annoyed by newbies.

In the early-to-mid-1990s, people often first accessed the internet when they arrived at college. Around September of every year, a bunch of new users would log on to their university’s network and start poking around the forums and discussion groups.

“The internet old timers would be very frustrated, because the new people didn’t know the social norms,” says technologist, writer, and former WIRED contributor Anil Dash. “Exactly the phenomenon we’re seeing right now.” September, for the most online netizens, was a dreaded time of the year. AOL opened the floodgates, allowing anyone to access the internet at any time. AOL’s bloom coincided with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the telco industry and brought internet connectivity to homes and institutions across the US.

This period was called the Eternal September, with “wave after wave of newbies getting online,” Dash says.

The pattern has repeated itself with LiveJournal and even Twitter. Actor and investor Ashton Kutcher appeared on CNN in 2009 and challenged the network to see whose account could hit 1 million Twitter followers first. (Kutcher won.) The stunt led to a rush of users flooding the microblogging platform.

Lubchansky thinks this moment presents an opportunity for people to examine their reply etiquette.

“Read the whole post before you respond. Take a moment to respond. And if you're going to respond with a joke, and we're not friends already, go look and see if somebody's made it already,” Lubchansky says. “Because there's a really good chance they have.”

Meanwhile, Brown considers the block function on Bluesky to be a favor to its recipient.

“If someone comes into my comments and they just really, really don't understand, usually I just block them so we don't run into each other again,” she says. “No hard feelings.” It’s a different approach than the norm on X, where quote-tweets viciously insulting the original post are part of the platform’s noxious fabric.

“I'm not trying to repeat the part of Twitter where the internet makes me mad every day,” Brown says.

Satirical site The Onion has the fifth largest Bluesky account, with over 1.2 million followers. Onion CEO Ben Collins doesn’t mind people replying to jokes in earnest. On the contrary, he says it’s “the funniest part of the internet.”

“It means more people are seeing your jokes,” he says. “If everyone is immediately breaking out into uproarious applause at your joke, your audience is too small.”

As someone who regularly used and posted on Twitter for years, I share the frustration when one of my jokey posts is misread or taken as fact. But it also strikes me as unfair to shame someone because they haven’t been slamming their head on the same wall of the internet that I have.

Not everyone crawled here from the radioactive sewer of X dot com. As we all get settled along with our new neighbors, it might be helpful to remember that. If not, at least Bluesky has very robust blocking features.

[renshengs]

hmm i do think that danmei and dangai (censored danmei cdrama adaptations) being many non-chinese fandom people's first impression of chinese media has given them some misconceptions about mainstream chinese media, and it shows in a way that i find very frustrating when seeing discussions about cdramas on here. dangai dramas aside, even if government censorship didn't exist, the chances of your favorite cdrama gay ship becoming canon is about as high as the chances of any of those iconic homoerotic male friendships in a western TV show becoming canon. which is to say: extremely low.

what i think is that internationally huge danmei fandoms like mdzs and tgcf and drama adaptations like cql and shl have really fucked with people's conceptualization of danmei, in that they're using it as this reference point when analyzing relationships in all other forms of cn media, including cdramas and chinese games, which then manifests into people making very bold, very dubious claims about "queercoding" because 2 characters from a random cdrama reminds them of the one or two danmeis they'd encountered that shaped their entire perception of chinese media. basically it's this meme:

many people here need to understand that cdramas and chinese films are obviously mainstream forms of fictional media in china, just like how the mcu or the doctor who franchise is mainstream in the US and UK, or like shonen is mainstream in japan. not to burst your bubble of happy ignorance, but homoromantic relationships such as qingming/boya from the ying yang master are—for lack of a better term—fujobait. they are fujobait. bromances, because those sell well and everyone knows it. popular ships like bakudeku were not actually made canon in mha because shonen is mainstream, and in most industries geared toward maximizing capital, having full-on gay people front and center is considered a monetarily risky move. which sucks, of course, but china is absolutely no different. i promise you that if the govt removed their censorship laws for TV broadcasts, your favorite gay ship from mysterious lotus casebook or the blood of youth or fangs of fortune still wouldn't be canon. they might be allowed a bit more intimacy due to the lack of restrictive filtering, but they are not going to be sucking face for the same reason that gojo and geto from jjk didn't suck face.

danmei is still widely considered niche and risky in china, and if you haven't seen the recent news, authors are still getting arrested for writing it. assuming that chinese fiction, mainstream chinese fiction in particular, operate like dangais where the two guys with the most gay tension would be made explicitly canon were the censors to be lifted, is frankly pretty ridiculous. dangai dramas are adapted from danmeis, which are stories centered on a gay romance and narratively depend on the two guys falling in love. non-dangai dramas are very much... not that, hence why people shouldn't watch them expecting a censored danmei and then forcing assumptions of "my ship would be canon if only it weren't for censorship" on them.

it's very clear when someone who knows absolutely nothing about the actual situation with danmei and queer existence and mainstream TV censorship in china is trying to push their, if i put it crudely, "boss baby meme" perspective onto cmedia. fandom is all about poking at interactions between your favorite characters and giggling and speculating, but i think lots of fandom people (many of them safe in the pockets of their more progressive areas) view govt censorship as this big abstract dam that, if broken, would result in the canonization of all their favorite ships, which is not only an incredibly naive belief but also one that shows how much they view TV censorship as more of a personal inconvenience that's preventing their favorite ships from kissing on screen instead of the looming, deep-rooted issue depriving mainland chinese people of creative freedom it actually is. with cmedia fandoms there's a specific widely popularized "they're so gay omg how did censorship not notice" gag when there's any perceived homoromantic undertones in a story that's both rather insensitive and also ignorant, and many dangai and cdrama fandoms in particular (donghua fans too, link click shippers i'm looking directly at you) could really use some more education and sensitivity regarding this.

i've been in danmei & cdrama fandom spaces for years and post-pandemic this kind of nonsense has definitely gotten worse, especially when you compare shipping discussions here to shipping discussions in cn fandoms. here every 2 seconds someone makes an off-color censorship joke about tgcf donghua and over on douyin they are straight up commenting under the nezha sequel announcement post if there's going to be an oubing kissing scene. granted i obviously cannot see or know everything going on in cn fandom spaces because they are incomprehensibly enormous, but in all the spaces i've been in i've never seen a single censorship joke from anyone. why do people here absolutely insist on making them?

anyway. fandom be normal about chinese media challenge!

[oatmealwrites]

A Night to... Forget? Ch.1

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

Aizawa x Eidetic memory! Law student! Reader

for ch.2 click here

(For reference I aged up Keigo (Hawks to 25 ish just for the ages of you and Aizawa to make sense)

I will also use the pro hero last names for the first chapter with their pro name next to them in case you don't recognize

Word Count: 5.5k

SYNOPSIS: You never really felt like you had a quirk. Sure you technically did, but tons of people have been born with eidetic memories in the past, even before quirks became mainstream. You gave up the dream of being a pro-hero like your friends and instead found comfort in support through law. After a particularly draining case you assisted on, you find yourself dragged out to a bar with your best friend Keigo (hawks). The whole night was a bad idea, taking Keigo up on his drinking game was worse, especially when Aizawa was there. It’s the man you can’t help yourself pining over, and it’s the one night you can’t remember.

Masterlist

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

With the final tap of the judge’s wooden gavel, you rise to your feet and let out a sigh of any remaining energy you had left. The court marshals walked over to the defendant and swiftly cuffed the villain despite his loud and physical efforts to resist; your eyes following the marshals slowly escorting the man out of the room and noting the way his protests deafened once the doors swung closed.

“Nice work out there Y/N.”

You look over past the mid-height railing that separates the spectators from the court floor and lock eyes with detective Tsukauchi. A small smile on his face as he stands perfectly upright and attent.

“Thanks detective -”

“How many times do I have to say you can just call me Tsukauchi?”

You bite your tongue and shake your head lightly, now shuffling files into your soft leather briefcase and packing up.

“Right Tsukauchi. Thanks for your support, I didn’t realize you were going to be coming to the sentencing today.”

The detective adjusts his collar and scans the crowd of heroes, attorneys, policemen, and spectators slowly shuffling for the exits, obviously searching for someone, “It's always nice to see the next generation of people fighting for justice in action.”

You pause and raise an eyebrow; understanding there’s another reason for his attendance. “Toshinori (All Might) is probably in the lobby by now.” You continue sliding the court files into your bag, one by one, only focused on getting out of the courthouse and into bed.

Tsukauchi looks back at you, a slightly shocked expression on his face before he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck and smiles, “Right, thanks. I’ll see you around the station when you pick up files for your next case.”

You give a slight wave off to him and turn to sling the straps of your briefcase over your head and across your chest, ready to finally go home and sleep. Turning your head, your eyes follow the prosecutor you extern for walking back from his short talk with the judge who was now packing up as well.

“Nice job kid!” He gives you a slight pack on the back and pulls his cellphone from his pocket, scrolling through his contacts briefly,  “I’m gonna have the secretary forward the followup paperwork over to you to file. Think you can get it done by Monday? We have a few more cases already pending and this one needs to close ASAP.”

You grip the straps of your briefcase and do your best not let your exhaustion show. This prosecutor is a big deal in your externship and unfortunately that also means most of your free time gets sacrificed. Instead of letting out the sigh that was sitting in your lungs, you swallow thickly and nod once, “Of course. I’ll start on it right away. Do you want me to begin memorizing the next case’s notes as well?”

The prosecutor snaps his fingers while looking up from his phone and slings his own briefcase over his shoulder, “Are you sure your quirk is eidetic and not mindreading?”

He laughs at his own joke before walking out of the court floor, past the spectator stands, and into the lobby, not bothering to even say goodbye.

You stand there for a moment, reviewing the plans you made this weekend that would now need to be rearranged. Meeting classmates in the library for group study (which was really group reading 200+ pages of law textbooks) should be uninterrupted at the usual meeting time of 9am.

Your report to UA might need a slight tweak, but nothing more than a few hours. Before every case you worked on, you always met with the pro-hero who had captured the villain who you would be assisting in prosecuting. Every detail memorized and ready for paperwork and eventually the courtroom floor.

The main issue would be Keigo. With a slight sigh you push your hair out of your face and pull up his contact, ready to flake on him and his movie night for the third week in a row. Stepping out of the court room floor you make your way out to the lobby and shift in between the groups of people to a small open area near the front windows.

You click the ‘dial’ button and raise the phone to your ear, looking out the window and the setting sun bringing a warm glow to the city. You hear a soft ring once, and then twice before you notice a cellphone from across the lobby ringing at the same interval. Before your eyes can even fully adjust to the sunset’s glare, you spot your best friend from across the room holding up his phone with a coy smile and heading to you.

You end the call and shuffle forward while sliding your cellphone into your blazer pocket, “What are you doing here?”

Keigo’s usual hero uniform was replaced with a gray t-shirt and black denim jeans; either on the way home or just coming from it. He casually glides a hand through his hair, pushing it back and letting a few stray strands fall back over his forehead again.

“Came to pick you up obviously.”

You raise an eyebrow and adjust the straps on your shoulder, “Huh? For what?”

Keigo side steps to allow other people to pass by and smoothly guides you out of the way with a slight pressure on your upper arm, “There’s a group going out to a bar to celebrate. A handful of pro heroes from UA and such are going, plus I’m sure some of your law school buddies will be around.”

You tilt your head, “Celebrate what?”

The lobby now getting busier and busier with spectators, police officers, and more leaving, Keigo gently grabs your elbow and pulls you near the vending machines by the exit doors.

“Celebrate the fact it’s Friday…?” He scratches the back of his head and laughs, “Ok well it’s more like everyone has been super busy catching villains and uhh..-”

“Prosecuting”

“Prosecuting,” he snaps his fingers, “so it was like a group decision to take some time off and relax.”

You squint at him, “Uh huh? I have a lot of work to do and so do you as well anyways,” You turn to the exit and Keigo quickly pivots to block your path.

“I knew you were gonna say that,” he pokes your shoulder lightly, “and I knew you were probably gonna flake on movie night again this week.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and purse your lips slightly at being read so easily. It’s not like you were trying to avoid him, you just had way too much on your plate at the moment. Your silence is answer enough for him and he smiles in victory

“Ok then it’s settled. Come have a few drinks and the weekend is all yours to do your boring school stuff.”

You shove his shoulder lightly, knowing you could never convince him otherwise, “Ok fine. And I want it known that I don’t enjoy doing homework or externship duties over hanging out.”

You both push off the wall and maneuver the crowd to the large wooden double doors of the exit and descend the stone stairs to the small courtyard. The sun quickly setting causes nearby business signs to flicker on a warm glow of colors up and down the street.

You continue walking down the courtyard and head towards the nearby parking lot and main road; a metro station sign illuminating a portion of the sidewalk.

“Who’d you even get to agree to this anyways?”

Keigo hums and looks down at you from the corner of his eyes.

“You said there was a group,” you run a hand through your hair, now wondering if your appearance is even nice enough to warrant going out. The slight breeze brings small goosebumps to your legs; the pencil skirt and opaque black tights not providing much warmth.

“Oh.. you know them all so don’t worry,” he stops at the escalator entrance to the metro station, “Seriously just relax ok? You look great and you’ll have a great time.”

His touch is gentle on the small of your back as he lets you step onto the moving stair in front of him. You rock back and forth in your kitten heels, balancing on the ridges of the escalator and looking up at Keigo.

“Am I gonna be the only one dressed like this?”

He pulls a pack of gum from his pocket and offers you a piece, throwing up an eyebrow in the process, “Hm? You’re dressed fine. You know, you worry too much.”

You throw the minty gum into your mouth and step off the escalator to scan your transit card at the metro entrance gate, “Couldn’t you just like, fly me home so I could at least drop my briefcase off?”

Keigo follows you past the scanners and towards the platform, he puts his hand out to hold your bag without even saying a word. You scoff and roll your eyes, but sling the straps off anyways and place the weight in his hand. He flings it over his shoulder and stands at the edge of the platform, watching the tv sign estimate of the next train’s arrival, “That would take too long. Everyone is probably already there.”

You suck the inside of your cheek between your molars and sway on your heels again absentmindedly, only stopping when Keigo’s hand places a weight on your shoulder. Before you can even speak a yellow glow lights up the end of the platform walls and a strong gust blows back your hair and blazer fabric.

His hand only leaves your shoulder once the automatic doors slide open and the glow of the train car’s fluorescent lights pour onto the platform. Keigo steps on the train and maneuvers through a few people to secure a seat for himself and one for you across from him.

*******

The sun has completely set at this point with only the street lights, car headlights, and neon business signs glowing warmly onto the street. The bar in question is nice and secluded, but not in a questionable part of town, just a bit more residential. It’s only a few metro stops away from your friend’s apartment, and you’ve been here with Keigo more times than you can count.

Your heels click softly on the ground as you walk next to him, only stopping at the door to pry your bag open to look for your ID while Keigo holds it open. The bouncer recognizes him right away, giving a soft ‘Hawks’ upon seeing him despite the fact that nearly every time he visits you’re with him as well.

He opens the door for you and the warm air of the bar comfortably surrounds you; the music and chatter a distinct change from the quiet streets outside. It’s crowded, but not uncomfortably. Groups of people surround the billiards table, nearly every bar stool is taken, and the booths by the dance floor seemed mostly filled. It made sense given it’s Friday night.

As you work through a few bodies to approach the bar you give a slight elbow to Keigo, “It’s so dumb, why does he insist on checking my ID every time? It’s not like he hasn’t seen us both here before a million times.”

He laughs and guides you through a few bodies before pulling out two empty bar stools for you both to sit at, “It would be hard for anyone to forget this face.”

You roll your eyes and spin in the chair to face the bartender, your left hand now cradling your head while Keigo sits closely on your right side, “shut up…”

He laughs and shakes your shoulder, “Oh come on. Here, let me get us some shots,” he pauses and examines you for a moment, “wait, have you eaten yet?”

You shrug and look at bottles behind the bartender, trying to determine what shot you wanted, “Umm a few hours ago. Why don’t we just get food after? It always tastes better anyways.”

He snaps his fingers and hums, “Ohh ok ok. Sounds good, just don’t go getting shitfaced beforehand.”

You scoff and wave your hand at him, “Yea, yea… tequila?”

He smiles and leans on the counter, getting the bartender's attention while you survey the bar. Most are local residents and college kids but you spot a few groups of police officers and heroes in the back booths. Shifting in your seat to get a better view, you can make out the faces of Kayama (midnight), Tsukauchi, and Toshinori. With one more tilt of your head you then spot Yamada (present mic)  and Aizawa..

You spin in your barseat abruptly and nearly bump the lime in Keigo’s hands onto the counter. He pulls his hands back and furrows his eyebrows, “Hey watch out I almost-”

His gaze follows yours and you frantically look anywhere else and claw at him to not be so obvious.

“Ohhh I see,” The biggest shit-eaitng grin spreading across his face.

You sink your face into your palms, not bothering to worry if it smudges your makeup, “Shut up.”

Keigo keeps looking at Aizawa for an extra moment before spinning back towards you and kicking you gently under the bar counter.

 “To be fair, I didn’t even think he was gonna show,” he slides a shot glass over to you with his left hand, the limes sitting in his right.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was gonna be here?”

You take the shot glass and stare down at the liquid before Keigo slides a lime in your right hand.

“Ok so bad news, no salt.”

You glare at him, obviously there was worse news than that right now.

“He hates me.”

Keigo rolls his eyes, getting impatient and wanting to drink already, “He does not. He’s like that with everyone,” he lifts his shot glass up right below his lips, gently guiding your hand holding yours to mirror the position. “Now let’s drink already.”

You give him one last glance before downing the liquid with an intense grimace, the fire burning down your throat. You place the shot glass back on the counter and sink your teeth into the lime, letting the sour juice mask the intensity of the alcohol.

Keigo exhales roughly and sticks out his tongue slightly with a contorted face, “oh my g-,” he coughs before he can get words entirely out. The disruption causes a few heads to turn, but people return back to their conversations a moment later.

You peel the lime from your lips and shake your head lightly, “Ok, maybe a different brand next time.”

You wince and pop the lime into the empty shot glass then slide it back towards the bartender and before you can turn to Keigo, his hand is wiping a napkin on your chin.

“Jeez you made a mess-”

You scowl and take the paper from his hands to wipe your face but raise an eyebrow at his sudden shiver. His shoulders roll forward uncomfortably and he arches his spine like cold water got dumped on his back. Before you can ask if he’s alright, he sits back up and shakes his head, “Ugh, sorry. I just had, like a weird feeling or something.”

Laughter pours out from somewhere behind you, the patrons and heroes in the booths now blocked by the other customers in the bar. He shrugs and shakes his head, “Ok, another?”

“Honestly, yea.. I’m gonna need it if he’s here.”

Keigo rolls his eyes and holds up two fingers to the bartender, though he motions towards a different bottle on the rack this time, “Come on Y/N. He’s just got a stick up his ass, though maybe you could remov-”

“Augh, no. I don’t even have his phone number let alone a chance of anything besides being barely colleagues. He’s even left the room the moment I entered, and I was only at UA to help him prosecute one of the villains he caught. He even mumbled about being ‘unable to work with me’.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“I literally couldn’t forget it even if I tried.”

Keigo sniffs the new shot glass and makes a face in between ‘not good, but not bad’ and slides one over to you, “Your quirk is remember what you saw not what he said.”

You hunch over the shot and take a fresh lime from his hand, “It’s the same vibe though.”

Keigo throws the shot back with less of a dramatic reaction than before and digs his canines into the lime, “And yet you still have a thing for him? Kinda weird if you ask me.”

You follow suit in taking the shot and draining the juice from lime onto your tongue before frustratingly shaking your head, “I don’t!”

He raises an eyebrow with a deadpan.

“Ok, I don’t know why. I just do.”

Keigo stands up from the barstool and takes your briefcase, ready to join the rest of the group, “You just need to go on a date and stop hanging out with so many pencil pushers; it’s messing you up.”

With a hop off the stool, you straighten your skirt and follow him into the crowd of people, only weaving through a few groups before you approach the booth with everyone sitting and now looking up at you and Keigo expectedly.

“Hey! You guys made it!” Yamada booms from his position in the booth against the wall.

Keigo smiles and examines the seating arrangement. On the left booth, in the order from the wall to the dancefloor is Kayama, Toshinori, and Tsukauchi. On the right, from the wall out is Yamada and Aizawa.

You look at Keigo in a ‘don't’ you dare’ while he smirks back at you and slides next to Toshinori, leaving you sitting across from him and next to Aizawa. The wooden back of the booth creates an awkward angle and you arch forward to keep an upright position.

Kayama takes a sip from her drink and leans on the table, “We were just talking about the upcoming recess. Us teachers will have a week off with no school, not that it would apply to you guys though.”

There’s a pitcher on the table of a generic looking pale beer; Keigo makes a face asking permission and Tsukauchi gives a nod of approval. He pours you each a pint and you raise an eyebrow.

“Woa, letting loose tonight?”

Keigo smiles at Yamada and clinks his glass to yours, “Just celebrating the company.”

Aizawa shifts slightly beside you and takes a sip from his own drink, avoiding any comment in the conversation. His eyes linger in a scowl on Keigo for a moment before turning his attention to Yamada.

You stare at Keigo and silently curse him with your eyes for the seating arrangement while he leans back into the seat with the rim of his glass resting on his lower lips, enjoying the show in front of him.

“Why don’t we play a game everyone?”

The group turns to your friend waiting for him to elaborate.

“Just a simple drinking game, maybe… King’s Cup?

Tsukauchi rolls his eyes slightly. “That’s a bit childish no?”

Kayama smiles wide, “Oh it’ll be fun! Does anyone have any cards?”

Yamada smirks and slides a pack onto the table without missing a beat and the table erupts into excitement.

You find yourself a bit nervous at the proposal and tug at the collar of your button up shirt in slight heat. His stupid drinking games never end well.

While Yamada begins to shuffle the cards, you shimmy off your blazer, not wanting to spill anything on the overpriced fabric you expect to last you the end of law school.

“I can put it with mine, if you want.”

The voice is deep and curt and enough to make you finally look at the man sitting next to you. Aizawa’s hair tucked back into a half-bun with a few strands framing his face along with his signature 5 o’clock shadow indicating he’s been too tired to shave. He sits casually in a black long sleeve and matching black jeans, extending his hand to take your blazer.

“Oh, sure.. Thanks”

Without speaking, he takes the jacket and nudges Yamada’s arm to place it on the little ledge between the booth and the wall. Aizawa turns back to you once again before sipping on his drink and watching the ministrations ahead of him.

“Alright everyone, basic rules but we can remind each other as we go. Do the task associated with the card and have fun,” Keigo pauses and looks at the group, “Though what should we order to be the ‘king’s cup’.”

Toshinori raises an eyebrow at him meekly and holds his soda with both hands, “King’s cup?”

You sip your beer and lean into the booth, silently wishing a bank would be robbed and the entire table would be called into action.

“Whoever draws the fourth and final king from the deck has to drink it. The beverage can be whatever we want,” Keigo smirks at you, “ though preferably strong.”

You scoff and tilt your head further into the glass. Aizawa shifts in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back into the booth with you; his eyes on Keigo.

Toshinori scratches the back of his head, “Oh I see, I don’t drink though so maybe-”

“You can still drink your soda and play! If you choose the last king, you can decide who drinks it!” Yamada’s voice is as loud as the speaker's blaring music.

The group nods in agreement and you take bigger gulps of your drink, ignoring the way the two previous shots of tequila begin warming your skin further. Within 5 minutes the cards are arranged in a circle around a highball glass of long island iced tea.

“Alright everyone,” Kayama claps her hands, “Let’s start!”

******

It was a bad idea. Such a bad idea.

You’ve maybe been playing for 30 minutes and the entire table is to a point of tipsy that everything someone does is hilarious and no one can finish a sentence without a few slip ups. Toshinori is the only voice of reason, though his deflated self isn’t very convincing when he reminds people to hydrate.

The first round went fine with Yamada losing and downing the king’s cup as if it were water, and the table wasted no effort in upping the ante.  The pitchers of beer long empty; now shot glasses and cocktails littered the table with the King’s Cup being a strange concoction of several flavors of vodka, soda water, and orange juice.

“Allllright..” Yamada places his hand on the circle of cards and pulls one out before holding it close to his chest.

Tsuakauchi, who’s a dull red in the cheeks from the alcohol, has relaxed a bit and leans on the table, “Sooo..?”

“4 ….. FLOOR”

Immediately everyone shimmies in their seat to try and touch the floor without being the last one. You pivot from side to side trying to bend over in the booth without lifting your pencil skirt too high. By the time you find a way to lean over, everyone’s hand is already on the floor.

“Ha! Drink up Y/N.”

You scowl at Kayama while squirming into an upright position, both of your faces humming with warmth and flushing from the alcohol. Aizawa waits to grab a card, watching you sip your drink as punishment; coughing slightly, he peels his attention to the table and draws.

“3.. Me.”

His eyebrow twitches as the table howls with laughter at his bad luck. He rolls his eyes and takes a long sip from the jack and coke in his hands, though he watches you in his peripherals.

The table turns its attention to you. You watch Aizawa swallow his beverage and you gulp subconsciously at the sight, too tipsy to realize just how obvious your gaze is. Keigo nudges your shin from under the table and you break your gaze to focus back on the table; the red on your cheeks now from slight embarrassment.

Taking a card, you flip it over and toss it face up, “6 - chicks.”

Kayama smiles and lifts her drink to clink with yours “Yay! I was getting thirsty here ya know.”

Your body hums from the rush and you can feel any decision making skills you have left begin to evaporate out of you. Keigo smiles and leans forward on the table, mirroring your position of resting both elbows on the table, waiting for the next turn.

He flips a card over to reveal the first king, “Ha! Alright I get to make a new rule,” he taps his chin and smirks deviously at you.

“Whenever someone has to drink, the group gets to decide from which cup,” he pauses and looks at Toshinori, “ah but yours will always be nonalcoholic.”

Toshinori gives a thumbs up and the game continuess in a few more circles until your drink is nearly empty and you’ve had a sip from everyone else’s glass at this point. Yamada’s order was a fruity cocktail, Aizawa’s a strong jack and coke, Keigo and Tsukauchi sip on the highest % beer the bar has, and Kayama sips on a long island.

You reach forward to take a card and hold it to your chest to avoid anyone else seeing it first; deciding if it’s a 4 you would have a head start to the ground.

“Heyy you cheater!”

Keigo points at you from the table and swat his hand away while leaning back to avoid him.

“4!”

Instantly you rush to the ground and laugh when you’re the first one to touch, watching Aizawa’s hand reach the bottom last. You discard the card on the table and notice the way he sips his drink, facing the inner corner of the booth and away from you.

Keigo grumbles, though he didn’t even lose, before reaching out and flipping a card over, “Eight - mate.”

Your eyes widen and do their best to look anywhere but your friend, even taking the initiative to lean over and ask Toshinori about how Midoriya’s training was going.

“Y/N~ let’s drink together yea?”

You deflate in your seat and swirl your nearly empty drink in your hands, watching the way Keigo raises his glass to his lips and points at you to do the same. Aizawa doesn’t say anything, and he’s the only one quiet as the rest of the group ‘ooohhhhs’.

Without missing a beat Toshinori reaches forward and flips over a card, revealing the final King. The group’s excitement falters for a moment, everyone hunching over the table looking at the card and then him and then back at the card again.

“You can’t drink it so-”

“You’ll decide who does.”

Yamada finishes Tsukauchi’s sentence and the group looks at Toshinori expectedly; the condensation of the strong cocktail punishment dripping down the glass and onto the table.

Toshinori looks around awkwardly and smiles gently at you, “Well since your drink is nearly empty… maybe you’d like this one?”

It feels like ice down your back and the current buzz of the alcohol already in your system makes you sway side to side in your seat lightly. You blink a few times while the group claps their hands in laughter, all grateful not to be the one to down the beverage.

Your hand grabs the glass and you raise the rim to your lips, taking a small sip before peeling back with a grimace. Everyone but Aizawa continues laughing while you kick Keigo from under the table, “You dick, this is barely anything besides vodka on ice with a splash of orange juice!”

“Drink up!”

Before you can raise the glass again a hand gently grabs your wrist and keeps it still; Aizawa looks focused at you.

“This is a bad idea,,” the table boos slightly but he doesn’t release his grasp, “how many have you had?”

You blink at him, your face flustered from the heat of the bar, the alcohol coursing through your system, and the feeling of him just inches away from your face.

“During the game..?”

“I saw you when you came in initially, you two went up to the bar first.”

When you can’t count the number, Aizawa turns to Keigo and furrows his brows at the man, “How many has she had?”

Keigo sits up before slumping back down on accident and drunkenly blinks at the drink in your hand, “she’s got one drink.”

Aizawa groans and watches you and Keigo become absorbed in conversation.

“No, I've definitely had more than one.”

“Well there’s only one in your hand so..”

“No Keigo,” Aizawa shifts at the sound of his name leaving your lips so casually, “Like before-before.”

“Ohhhh,” he sits upright and remains steady this time, “we each had… two.”

Aizawa releases your hand finally and rubs his temples, doing the math, “So those including the drinks during this game would be… six already,” he points to the glass, “that itself would be another three shots of vodka.”

Keigo huffs and waves Aizawa off, “it’s finee”

Yamada sits forward, “Well don’t you have to drink it with her? You did make yourselves drinking mates.”

The table erupts with laughter and you feel your abs hurting from the acknowledgement; Aizawa remains steady next to you silently, as if he was stone sober despite the tinge of red on his face.

Keigo leans forward and finishes his beer before grabbing the King’s Cup and pouring half of it into his empty glass and handing you the initial cup.

“Well then,” he lifts his glass and leans on the table; you mirror his action, “Cheers.”

********

You wish you could kill the sun.

The blinds of your apartment window open just enough to let sunlight pour into your room and blind your eyes despite them being shut. With a long groan you thrash in your bed, pulling a pillow to your face, then the comforter, before giving up and rolling onto your stomach.

There’s a pounding in your head and a constant feeling of bile in your throat that stirs nausea in your stomach. It’s when you finally find a comfortable position that your phone alarm rings loudly and vibrates on the nightstand next to you.

Can’t the world just fuck off.

It’s impossible to ignore and on the third repeat of the alarm pattern you finally sit up and cancel the notification. You would lay back down if the wave of nausea didn’t immediately bring a familiar acid taste to your mouth and you sprint out of bed into the ensuite bathroom.

You cough and hover over the toilet, letting any residual undigested alcohol out, slightly feeling better when you stand up to flush. After rinsing your mouth with water you sigh at the slight relief of pain in your gut but wince at the ongoing hum inside your skull.

Stepping out of the bathroom’s second door and into the living room you weakly stumble across the cold wooden floors, only now noticing your pajamas of a t-shirt on backwards and university branded sweatpants.

A low hum reverberates and you nearly jump out of your skin before leaving over the back of the couch and staring at a very tired and very hungover Keigo.

“Ugh.. morning”

His voice is so hoarse and dry that he winces as he speaks and resolves to turning over and trying to go back to bed.

You blink wearily and pad over to the kitchen to prepare two glasses of water and a bottle of painkillers. Before you hand Keigo his glass you chug half of your own and lean against the armrest.

He graciously takes the water and you slip your phone out of your pocket while he drinks.

“Oh fuck, I have to be at the campus library soon.”

Keigo hums, letting water drip down his chin without caring and taking large gulps of air when he finally finishes. He takes his head in his hands and rubs his eyes so roughly you’re sure he’s seeing stars, “What.. what even happened last night?”

You raise your glass to your lips and pause, “I can’t remember,”

Keigo nods once before his eyes shoot up and meet yours in worry.

“Oh shit… I can’t remember”

The sentence is spoken like a question as your heart rate spikes and you begin to panic. The only other times your quirk hasn't worked is when you’re extremely shitfaced or when Aizawa happened to look at you while using his erasure.

“Oh fuck. What did we do last night?”

Keigo looks up at you and shrugs, unable to form any words, just as surprised as you are. You set your glass on the coffee table and open your phone, “Maybe I took a video or photos? Something to jog my memor-”

You pause and swipe away a text notification before double taking at the sender.

From: Aizawa Shouta

        How are you feeling?

Keigo leans up with a grimace and looks at your phone screen, not understanding until he looks between the device and your face three times back and forth.

“Hey I thought you said you didn’t have his number…?”

You can’t even lift your eyes from the message, “I…didn’t…”

What the FUCK happened last night

[applejuicewerewolf]

Just watched M27 (in cinema! That was cool!!) And oh boy, thoughts!

First of all, I was sooo excited to watch this anime movie in an actual cinema, with other people who were also there to watch an anime movie (in an actual real cinema). Idk, I often still feel like liking anime is something embarrassing, even tho it becomes more and more mainstream, so seeing 20 or so people who also openly announced that they liked it was amazing.

Now, to the actual content of the film:

Love Love LOVE Heiji and Kaito's dynamic here. He was so angry that he drove his fucking motorbike through a window!!

The fact that the KaiShin same face thing is something Heiji is surprised by is very weird, considering that he knew that Kaito always disguises as Shinichi in movies (and yes, the movies have their own continuity, see the fireworks-soccer-ball!!)

Additionally, I watched this film in the German dub. In German, Conan and Shinichi have the same VA, and Ksito has a different one. Still, Heiji makes a note of Kaito sounding similar to Conan (their German VAs do NOT sound similar!!!)

(On that note, they replaced the German VA for Kogoro and I am scared to google why :(( )

Also in the German introduction, Conan LITERALLY calls Kaito his "fated rival" ("schicksalhafter Gegenspieler"), which is very gay for the movie that completely reveals them as cousins.

Kaito feeding seagulls. Just that. It was funny. This is what happens when he has to leave his doves at home. He is a disney princess but only for birds.

Loved the scene where Kaito was attacked while on the ground and was shown to be out of his depth. Catch him on the ground and he is a wingless bird.

Additionally loved that scene because Heiji and Conan jumped in to save him. Their dynamic was so good, with Heiji attacking front and center, Kaito trying to shoot the attacker, and Conan coming clutch with his soccer ball. These three are so much fun together, and I love how throughout the movie they hunt Kaito in one scene, and work with him in the next.

They also alway immediately recognize his disguises??? That was hilarious. These three are one the same wavelenght and I'm all for it.

Oh speaking of disguises, I am VERY surprised nobody even mentioned Okita being the third same face triplet. Would've probably taken away from the KaiShin cousins reveal, I guess?

Minor mention: idgaf about Momiji and I never will. Useless character. Why does she even exist at all. Focus on the main characters...

Okay, I cannot keep quiet about it anymore. The entire "Ginzo gets shot" scene was THE BEST THING EVER. Kaito literally reliving the trauma of losing his parental figure again, and being unable to even SHOW IT OR VISIT HIM? Him having to silently watch as Aoko (MY GIRL IS ON THE BIG SCREEN I ALMOST CHEERED) is going through this all alone??? She probably was still in Ekoda. Did she get a phone call and was flown in to Hokkaido? WHERE THE FUCK IS MIDORIKO IN THIS?!?!?! GOD. This scene. I want 500 character studies of this scene on my desk by tomorrow morning.

That being said, with the Toichi reveal at the end, NOT ONLY did Kaito hide his emotions as he visited his mortally injured father figure in the hospital, his actual father was RIGHT THERE??? TOICHIIII YOU RAT BASTARD I WILL KILL YOU!

Why even WAS Toichi there. Legit. Ugh, I wanna do this in chronological order.

Anyways, AOKO SCREENTIME MY BELOVEEEEED

I feel like she was underused tho. Her only contribution was calling Conan Kaito's twin, and that was it. Feel like that's a running theme with DetCo focusing too much on random murder of the day and not its actual characters (something that also HIGHLY annoyed me during the Scarlet Schooltrip >_<)

Speaking of, that plotpoint was also kinda never mentioned again after the half point of the movie?

Coming towards the end of the story, the car chase with like 5 different parties through the city was hilarious. This is the stupid Shounen action I expect from DetCo movies (but not the stupidest Shounen action we'll get!)

As for the actual plot, I don't really care for that in DetCo movies, I'm more interested in the established characters doing fun and wacky shit.

Also so not a fan of the "murderer misunderstands or misreads a situation, making their murders pointless" storylines in DetCo. Tho M19 was probably the worst one in that reguard (girl what!)

Okay, so the Kendo guy. His mother died to a bombstrike, so he wants to blow up a mountain with lots of civillians on it. Because he's anti war. Girl what.

And now to the peak of Stupid Shounen Battles: swordfight atop a flying airplane, one of the combattants wears no shoes.

Absolutely LOVED Kaito catching Heiji midair. He does it with Conan, he did it with Heiji. Hakuba, you're next.

Sure, Iori just randomly DROPPED A FLASHBANG right in front of Heiji and Kazuha. Tho shout out to my girl Kazuha who was quick and smart enough to cover Heiji's ears as she "Get down Mr President"ed him.

At this point, shoutout to Ran. She gives it her all to make this Ship a thing. Loved her "casually but ominously deduce Heiji's true intentions" thing she did. Go be a love detective, honey!

Okay, the after credit scene. VERY NATURAL REVEAL you guys did there. Just casually have Yusaku suddenly say "yes, my wife whom I have been married to for at least 18 years, I have a twin brother i haven't seen in 2 decades." Wow.

HE REGULARLY TEXTS TOICHI??? TOICHI WHO FAKED HIS DEATH. THEY TEXT! THEY! TEXT!

YOUR SON BELIEVES YOU DEAD AND WANTS TO AVENGE YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE

WHY WERE YOU THERE! WHY WERE YOU IN DIGUISE THIS ENTIRE TIME!

I HATE TOICHI EVEN MORE NOW WTF

Conan kill your uncle with a soccer ball please.

[elliesgaymachete]

I think Game of Thrones damaged collective expectations for television media and is the reason for the decline of full length low budget seasons.

We all know HBO is high budget cable even before, but Game of Thrones was arguably the first time one of their shows became so massively, globally successful. People who had never consumed fantasy media in their lives were watching Game of Thrones. It became mainstream culture rather than nerd culture so your coworkers weren’t going to make fun of you for liking it. In fact, your coworkers probably watched it too.

Before this the only TV shows that achieved anywhere close to this level of popularity (and even then were not nearly as popular as Game of Thrones) were network shows, usually TV comedies. These were low budget and had full seasons! Things like HIMYM, Big Bang Theory, The Office. You either watched them or knew multiple people who watched them. Sometimes TV dramas also reached this level of popularity—Shondaland shows to name a few. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder. Even if you didn’t watch them, you had heard of them. These were also network shows. Low budgets, 22 episodes. Not to mention network television is FREE so it has the potential to reach a much wider audience than cable.

But Game of Thrones exploded into common popularity. Even people who didn’t watch much television watched Game of Thrones. And you know what they had because it’s an HBO show? Insanely high budgets and 10 episode seasons. They were basically making ten short movies released as TV seasons. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that itself, it worked well for Game of Thrones. The problem is how its affected television production since then. Sure shorter seasons and miniseries have existed before, but it feels like they’ve been in an upward trend ever since Game of Thrones

Every studio with a streaming service wants to create the next mega popular phenomenon like Game of Thrones so they copy the formula. Big budget, shorter seasons. Quality over quantity. But in doing so they neglected the main format television has used for quite a while. Network seasons are fewer and far between with smaller budgets and shorter seasons so they can invest more in the high budget shows. And a few of them were good, but somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the quality part and throw microbudgets at shows for six episode runs and are surprised when no one gets invested after only six episodes when we used to get 22 episodes and since no one’s watching anyway they just cancel it without giving the show a chance to find its legs. If it happens to get a lucky with a second season but there’s not EXPONENTIAL growth in viewership? Cancelled. Why is no one watching tv anymore? Why does no one want to pay for our streaming service that releases maybe one show you like every other year? Why why why they ask when they ruined a perfectly good formula and make things less and less accessible

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Stupid rant, but one of the fandoms I look at on this website is the Beatles and it's so annoying right now lol

So basically a new book was just released - I'm reading it now, and it's pretty good so far! It's called "John and Paul: A Love Story In Songs," and tells the story of the band with a focus on Lennon and McCartney's relationship with each other. It's a bit exciting, because up until recently the mainstream narrative has been "John and Paul were friends as teenagers, but didn't care much for each other after that and John (the actual artist) was sooooo annoyed by Paul (the pop sellout)." And then the documentary Get Back came out in 2021, showing they were still extremely close when the band was on the verge of breaking up, so this book is the first big mainstream thing examining what exactly was going on, there.

Now, hardcore fans have known how close these guys were for a long time. Like every single band fandom in the universe, shipping is a big part of online culture, and for Beatles fans, "Mclennon" reigns supreme. I'm pretty agnostic about it, but it's not totally from nothing: for just one thing, John's widow has said she thinks John was in love with Paul, and that Paul had rejected him and that's why he was so upset he burned everything down. This was mentioned in the book, briefly.

But people are so upset that the book doesn't say "they were gay and in love and had sex," and also upset that the author is stealing their "labor" somehow by publishing a book on the same topic as their Tumblr posts I guess????? It's really weird lol. It's like they'd only be happy if he said "Helter Skelter is about how much Paul McCartney loved having sex with John Lennon (source: tumblr user allyouneedisbums)"

Why do all band fandoms do this exact thing? They all pick two members, ship them, then get super unhinged every time these real people don't conform to their headcanons.

[echotunes]

hey! What is Tatort Saarbrücken and is there English subtitles for it? (Also where can I watch it?)

hi anon! so. bear with me here,

First you must understand that Tatort ("Crime Scene") (Wikipedia) is the German cop show. A lot of German television is cop shows, but this is the one - it's been running every Sunday since 1970 (making it the longest-running German TV drama), in the prime time slot at 8:15pm on public-service broadcast organisation ARD's TV channel Das Erste, right after the evening news program Tagesschau. Murder-of-the-week style, every episode deals with a homicide case that the characters then investigate and eventually solve (and it's all very dramatic, as crime shows tend to be). So you understand Tatort is very mainstream. The mainstream. Your parents watch Tatort. Your grandparents watch Tatort. It's a Thing. (it's also obviously all copaganda we're aware of this)

(This makes the fact that it trends on Tumblr every year very funny to everyone involved. Because it's, y'know. Tatort. Half the reason people (including me) get into it is because they go "why is Tatort of all things trending on Tumblr what is all this about")

There's different versions of Tatort, set in different cities and all produced by the public-service broadcast services of that region - each focusing on different characters (but all of whom are cops because that's what the show is about). Each location only gets one to three episodes a year, so it switches through every week. There's Cologne, Münster, Berlin, whatever; and then there's Saarbrücken. Saarbrücken is the capital of Saarland, the smallest German state after Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin (all of which are city-states). It's... unremarkable. You never usually hear anything about Saarbrücken. Or Saarland in general really (sorry Saarland). So you wouldn't expect its Tatort to be remarkable either.

Except! This particular set-in-Saarbrücken Tatort has been running since 2020, and people on Tumblr got interested in it because the two main guys have a Dynamic(tm) going on. After episode 3 they also officially added the two women to the main team because they forgot about them the first time around or something (thank you mainstream tv). but anyway our four characters are Leo Hölzer (the buff guy in the holster, kind of the glue of the team), Adam Schürk (dishevelled blond man who is really bad at his job and Angsty(tm)), Pia Heinrich (workaholic in the sports jacket), and Esther Baumann (big football fan, seemingly the only person on this team who actually takes her job seriously).

Tatort Saarbrücken is also affectionately known as "Spatort" (Spaten (spade) + Tatort), because a lot of Leo and Adam's Dynamic is about the fact that they knew each other as kids when Adam was being physically abused by his dad, and Leo eventually hit the dad over the head with a shovel, putting him in a coma (which, spoilers, he wakes up from at the end of the first episode). And then Adam went missing (left the city) for like 15 years but now he's returned to Saarbrücken for mysterious reasons (it was Leo. Leo was the reason). and now he and Leo are work colleagues and they have queer-flavoured tension going on and this backstory is still very much relevant in between the usual crime-solving. they are honestly not very good at their jobs but well that's part of the appeal. and people enjoy gay shipping them because of course they do. (is this queerbaiting? maybe! but again the fact that this is all in Tatort is very ???-inducing to many)

Pia and Esther were only officially added to the "main team" in episode 3 because I guess the writers forgot about women for the first two. which is unfortunately not surprising but well they're here too now! until last episode they felt like they might have had some sort of queer thing going on too but then in the 2025 episode Pia had a suspiciously-het-romance-teasing scene with Adam (they do not have romantic chemistry this was a weird choice we all agree on this) and Esther was flirting with a previously-unseen French colleague (who was a woman though so win for queer Esther enjoyers) so who knows. but we like them too! even though there's less dramatic backstory for them both, there's still things hinted at (like Pia's sister having gone missing years ago. knowing this show this will be relevant at some point)

Also as you may have already gathered there is only one episode of Tatort Saarbrücken released every year. So basically every January we all come together and tune in to watch our annual 90 minutes of cop show episode, liveblog together, make gifsets about it, trend on Tumblr, and then go back into hibernation until the next year. It's a beautiful event for the German tumblr community

As for watching it: It's public television, so it's available for free online in the ARD Mediathek. The six episodes there have been so far are, in order:

Das fleißige Lieschen (named after the codename for the V-3 cannon (Wikipedia) - 2020)

Der Herr des Waldes (The lord of the forest - 2021)

Das Herz der Schlange (The heart of the snake - 2022)

Die Kälte der Erde (The cold of the earth - 2023)

Der Fluch des Geldes (The money curse - 2024)

Das Ende der Nacht (The end of the night - 2025)

As for English subtitles - there's no official ones, but you can check out this post for info on fanmade ones!

[fullmindsemptynotebooks]

My Incredibly Tired And Defensive Rant On Why I Choose To Interpret Jayvik As Queer

I literally do not use tumblr at all but I feel like I need to scream into the void about this so bear with me.

So Arcane is over, and jayvik is creeping up to be one of the most popular ships of the year already. Nice. The amount of hostility I've seen directed towards shippers, however, is not nice. So let's address it.

"They were confirmed not to be canon by the co-creator!"

A concerning pattern that I've noticed in recent years when it comes to media consumption is that we are becoming extremely reliant on post-release (twitter) statements when it comes to what's canon and what's not.

And I find this very counter-productive; a very fundamental aspect of interacting with art is having the freedom of interpretation.

While yes, I do understand that there always is an intended meaning, that intended meaning should be supported by the art itself, and the consumer should be able to find evidence of it in the art itself.

Same goes for things that are not in the show, or left ambigous -- if it isn't supported by the art itself, then making it canon or denying it's canon-possibility by a twitter statement is redundant.**

I feel like this trend of creators responding to every little thing later on somewhat ruins this ambiguity of interpretations, which ultimately leads to shutting down the possibility of having nuanced discussions on the art.

"Why can't they just be friends?"

They can be friends! They can also be more. That's that, moving on.

"Why can't we have strong male frienships in shows?"

I see this brought up very often, so I am just going to say it, interpreting two male characters as being romantically involved does not support toxic masculinity.

Strong, affectionate male friendships do not lack representation; they're the norm. And if you desire to interpret one of these ambigous friendships as more than a friendship, that is totally fine, because what actually lacks representation in mainstream media is queer relationships between men.

I'd like to remind everyone here that most of the film industry is still cishet men making content with other cishet men in mind. And the sad truth is that a big part of these men refuse to interact with media that has explicit mlm romance. (And then lesbian relationships often get fetishized, which is another can of worms for another day)

I couldn't count on one hand just how many examples I have of shows with queer subtext just subtle enough for the "anti-woke" viewers to be able to shut down the sheer possibility of it being queer subtext. But let's call a spade a spade; if a (queer) person chooses to interpret a relationship as queer subtext, then they have every right to do so.

"Jayvik shippers are just women who fetishize gay relationships"

This one especially irks me the wrong way. First of all, it is a very reductive statement. This might be dramatic on my part but generalizing the entire fanbase is queerphobic and misogynistic.

First of all, based on my observations, an incredible amount of jayvik shippers are queer, if not the majority. Specifically, trans men who relate to either of these characters, but also people who are otherwise queer or genderqueer.

The misogynistic part is going to be a bit more nuanced and possibly even controversial, so bear with me, but I feel like engaging with mlm content for many women is just a safe way to explore sexuality and romance, a way to detach from the reality of "womanhood" and whatever comes with it.

Women being criticized and ridiculed based on the way they interact with fandom/media is a tale as old as time.

It is important to acknowledge that straight women making mlm content does often lead to bad representation, but as far as my experiences with jayvik go, this isn't the norm here.

**Ace Viktor Mini Segment

This Twitter-confirmation-point is why I have a bone to pick with the ace Viktor canon as well, also later on confirmed by Christian Linke to be "the intended interpretation".

As an asexual person, I honestly feel very tired when I see creators "add" ace representation by randomly stating on Twitter that X character is asexual, even though it is never explicitly stated in the show itself.

I am also very tired of the stereotypical introverted workaholic intellect being the ace rep we are getting. Making a character that would not be very into relationships/sex/romance in the first place/was never planned to have a romance arc be your ace rep isn't ace representation. It's a cop-out.

And then also the fact that he is disabled, which adds to another harmful stereotype surrounding the fact that disabled people are often depected as being desexualized.

In conclusion

we have every right to interpret jayvik (or any other fictional characters, for that matter) with a queer viewpoint in mind. Queer people exist. Shows can have multiple queer relationships and multiple kinds of queer relationships.

And you can freely interpret any characters as being queer, even if they're not explicitly stated as such. That's literally it. This one statement could've been the entire post, lol.

There are many other issues that I could address here, but this is already way too long, so thank you, tumblr void.

[thatthingilovewith]

Any general District 8 headcanons/thoughts?

Here is some of the general lore I have for District 8:

I divide the district into three distinct neighborhoods, The Warp, the Weft, and the Selvidge! The Selvidge is the merchant neighborhood and runs along the river that divides the district in half. The Weft past the Selvidge on the east side of the river; roads in this area run north to south. The Warp is on the west side of the river past the Selvidge, and the roads here run east to west. The Victor Village is located in a gap between the Selvidge and Warp created due to bombings in the first rebellion.

All people in District 8 sew buttons on their clothes in patterns and colors that reflect a certain aspect of their personality and personal history! I am currently creating a guide for this. They also collect strands of buttons given to them by loved ones over the course of their life that they are buried with.

The air quality in District 8 is really poor meaning they have a lot of pulmonary diseases. They are also the district with the most disabled people in Panem due to how poor the factory conditions are.

At the time of TBOSAS, most men split their time between working in the factories and working in shipping yards due to the destruction of machinery that would load the trains automatically. As such, most positions of authority in factories are filled by women or disabled men due to them working there exclusively. Some women do work in the shipping yards but it is dominated by men.

District 8 inadvertently started the trend of people dyeing their skin in the Capitol. At one point, a tribute whose skin was stained due to their job as a dyer went to the Capitol, and their stylist incorporated it into their look, inspiring the trend going forward. Sometimes, I characterize this tribute as being Cecelia, and her victory is what makes it mainstream, her supporters during the games dyed part of their skin to show they were rooting for her.

I think quilting plays a big part in District 8 culture and is in some way incorporated into every major life event.

District 8 has cobblestone streets, it is the only district with this trait.

I have some others, but these are the ones that came to mind right now! Thanks for the ask, feel free to send another if you have any more questions!

[mynameisnotthepoint]

So yesterday, I binged Love in the big city. I had read the book, and as I am wont to do, i skimmed through to get back to the episodes and really sit down and watch them later (hopefully in small increments over the next two weeks).

I have been scrolling around on twitter since then (as one does, I am sick in bed with nothing to do but an assignment I don't have the brain power for right now) and really made me think.

First, I looked at international fans' reactions in English e.g. a gay guy I follow who parties a lot and talks openly about his sex life said it felt real, another guy kept complaining about Go Young's taste in men but also the people who watched it for the romance and only focused on that (and the sex scenes, which have racked up 100.000s of views). Some excitedly writing about how handsome the actors were, how they wanted to see a second season, a shame about this or that plot point (the "endgame" not being there). And as @lurkingshan said, it is NOT a romance drama or even a BL drama. This is a chronicle of one's man's life and his trauma, his relationships and his triumphs.

A lot of English-writing commentors praise the actors for their bravery. And that is always the debate, isn't it? Without them taking the role, this thing might not have been made. But the people behind it, who wrote, filmed, assisted, the writer who is a gay man himself, they all had such high stakes too, even higher (the author kept urging people on twitter to give the drama high views, one of the actors offered free hugs and an eating live stream if they managed to trend at no. 1). The drama is a depiction of a queer person's life as it could happen. Taking on this role, playing the part and then leaving it behind, is that as brave as people who live this life every day? Not to say that none of the actors in this production could be queer, bc some probably are.

One of the people i follow on twitter pointed out this feels like the drama shows queer sex, not sensationalised sex, just, that sex is a part of life so it is depicted in a series that is about life. With reading that, I began to wonder what queer koreans were saying about the series. Thanking the fact that google translate has not yet dropped their support of X, formerly twitter, I began by searching up Nam Yoon Su's name in Korean. A lot of people were calling him handsome, saying they cried about his performance. And then I stumbled upon several things:

1. The club scenes/music they used seems outdated to some Korean queers. They wrote that this feels more like a man in his 30s reminiscing his 20s than someone actually in their 20s, which, fair, the drama is told over the span of like 10 years I believe. Also the commentors thought the dancing was bad. But they said, even if some of it felt not true to gay life/the actors couldn't completely sell it as believable, that the drama was important and shouldn't be criticised too harshly.

2. They were having a linguistic debate about the usage of Korean gay slang (i think it was the word 기갈, but I could be wrong bc my Korean vocabulary is like 30 words) and that it has come into vogue with straight girls who go to gay bars, as Mi Ae does in the drama. In a way, it is a risk bringing a subculture that is/was quite closed to the mainstream (I think similar critiques have been made about drag race).

3. That the drama was not reaching its intended audience (queers) and was instead something for straight BL fans to screech over. It does feel kind of weird that something that veers more into raw territory (if you disregard the casting of Nam Yoon Su, who is super pretty and not at all like Young was described in the book), is treated the same as the stylised/trope-ified human experiences we see in some BLs (nothing wrong with those! Media is in its essence always a distillation of an experience),

I think that there is always a risk of depicting something that is close to the way actual individuals experience it and running into voyeuristic territory, on display for millions of people. Is it weird to want people to take this more seriously? To look at it in depth, treat the characters like humans that could actually be living out there and not Ken dolls you can mash together? Or is that too reductive of me, dictating what other people's experience with media should look like?

These are just my initial thoughts, I need to ruminate on them more, and I could be completely wrong about all of this.

I myself rarely go outside and have not had many queer IRL friends, which is why I am drawn to these series. To be honest, I don't even know the local queer slang bc I have been to the queer bar here once before it closed down due to internal disputes. Reading Love in the big city made me feel like i was hit with a sledgehammer, the series makes me want to go out and live again (once I am feeling up to it).

[ivysangel]

listen, i think smut is great. i read it, i write it, i think about way more than is probably considered healthy, but i don't think it should be as readily accessible in bookstores as it is right now, and especially without warnings.

i went to barnes & noble with my friend a few weeks ago and in the front of the store was this humongous romance section that had hundreds of those booktok romance books that was trending now. i wish i had a picture to show you guys just how big it was, because there were like six or so book cases and then this big table with some "romantic summer reads".

naturally, because it's what's trending right now, so many of the books had those really cute cartoon couple drawings. you know the one's where the two mc's are standing next to each other, or back to back, or hugging or smth (ykwim) and all of them were completely innocent looking and not marked as having adult content in any way. this isn't my first rodeo or anything, so i know that a really good chunk of these books have graphic sex written in them despite having no warnings or indicators of such content. and sure enough as me and my friend are flipping through them we're seeing all of the graphic depictictions of sex that if you were just reading the blurb on the back you would not know existed in the book.

the rationale i've seen from a lot of the authors and readers of the book are that they want something "inconspicuous" that doesn't draw attention to the fact that they're reading smut in public or whatever. and while i understand the sentiment, there's got to be some kind of regulation for this kind of thing. because some kid who's just looking for a cute romance book accidentally picking up smut is actually very bad and shouldn't be normalized in the slightest.

and i always see people saying, "well their parents should be checking the stuff they read anyway" or "i read smut when i was young so i don't see what the problem is" which pisses me off so bad because:

A) i know that when i was younger my mom didn't monitor what i read because the books i was reading were never misleading. both the covers, blurbs, and warnings (if there ever were any) were in line with the content of the books i read and there was no reason to be worried. i'm almost 100% sure that when most parents go to the bookstore with their kid and their child picks up a book with a cute cover, and the info about the plot on the back says nothing about it being anything other than a cute relationship, they don't think anything of it. maybe if it was one of those harlequin novels with the shirtless guys and the ladies with their boobs spilling out of tight dresses they'd tell them to put the book down but because the covers of new age smut books are designed to decieve, that's exactly what they do. decieve. and if it works on your friends and family and everyone around you, why in god's name wouldn't it work on someone's parent.

and B) it's no secret that kids have been reading smut well before they should for ages. i read smut as a kid, some of my friends read smut as kids, lots of people have and will continue to do so, the difference is that it wasn't as mainstream and easily accessible as it is now. not that you had to scour the internet for it, a quick search on wattpad would give you a million results, but it wasn't something that wasn't so publicly advertised, and sold. in my experience, it was the kind of thing that you heard about from a friend who heard about it from another friend not fucking tiktok. the biggest social media platform rn.

i'd also like to point out that if you read smut when you were younger and grew up to not understand how harmful it is, even going as far to encourage kids to read it, you're a huge fucking weirdo. i'm only 18, still very much a "child" by some people's standards, and i get chills when i remember how young i and some of my friends were when we created our first wattpad accounts. which is probably why i care so much about this topic, i don't think children should be exposed to that kind of stuff at all, and i don't like how now anyone of any age can walk into a bookstore and either knowingly or unknowingly pick up some freak nasty sex because a bunch or horny people on tiktok can't understand how harmful it is to have these books in so many places without any warnings whatsoever.

also: this had already gotten so long but i forgot to mention that there's a rising interest in "dark themes" and those books DEFINITELY need a warning. i wrote an essay once on how unregulated darker themed media has contributed to the idealization of toxic relationships in young people, and i'd like to say that right now i think booktok is one of the biggest contributors

[cringearenachamp]

For the Love of Genderfuckery: FTLOSM, The Stage Show, and Camp

It's giving "Steve Perry"

The early 90s seemed to be a particularly creative and open time in Steve's life. He'd kicked coke and booze, grew his hair out down to his ass (also shaved the sides... I'm like is this a mullet or an undercut. either way it's fun and funky!), and didn't seem nearly as afraid of being a little queeny with it just in general. The Reagan years were over, the Clinton era had just begun, and there was an uneasy coexistence between a reactive/paranoid hypermasculinity (especially in mainstream straight guy culture) and an increasing recognition of gay people. Celebrities and musicians were beginning to publicly come out, and certain kinds of openly gay music were even mainstream to a degree (Melissa Etheridge and KD Lang, for example). This, too, was uneasy, and there were still many professionally closeted queer people in music/literature/celebrity circles (ex: Michael Stipe, Donna Tartt, Paul Reubens, Tracy Chapman, etc): people who may have been open with themselves and their immediate social circles, but didn't feel the need to "come out" to the general public.

With this context, it was as good a time as any for Steve to explore himself more and have fun without having to worry about homophobes breathing down his neck. For the Love of Strange Medicine, as I talked about earlier, displayed a willingness to experiment thematically and sonically, and some of the promotional material for it had Steve talking about getting "honest with himself", accepting what he is as opposed to "what [he] should be", etc. Those things were definitely about getting a healthier relationship with alcohol, but also likely about having a healthier relationship to his own self, his gender expression, and his sexuality: things that had become extremely difficult, stressful, and even dangerous to address while in Journey.

Some songs on FTLOSM are easy to read with this in mind, like I Am, but even ones like Donna Please, which is at surface glance a straight love song. But the first verse itself troubles that reading-- "You're here in my voice/inside of me/am I wrong to resist?" In my essay about Steve's voice I mentioned that he sounded a lot like Donna Summer when he was younger. There's also that little part of Young Hearts Forever that I mentioned in my FTLOSM essay: "here in the darkness/she dances alone", etc. The darkness, in a lot of Steve's songs, is a place where *he* (or the narrator) is, where the core of his self resides. Femininity is something that Steve felt he basically had to extinguish (or at the very least hide) in the 80s: for acceptance among his peers, acceptance from fans, for acceptance within his straight relationship, and safety in/from society. Lyrics like the ones I mentioned above, to me, seem to hint at him trying to accept the femininity within himself, including within his own voice, despite the various risks involved in doing so.

In other words, this was a big time for self-actualization in his professional life and probably his personal life as well.

This, of course, also applied to the stage show for the FTLOSM tour. His main outfit-- form-fitting black shirt, belted slim-cut jeans (with various rips around the crotch hehehe), hiking boots-- was a synthesis between style and comfort; most of it as a uniform wouldn't be uncommon to find among gay men at the time but it was still on the masc side and similar to his leatherman look years earlier, wouldn't have made straight people think or look twice. His super long hair was tied up. He walked on stage wearing a flannel over that usually (for the Toronto show he had a gorgeous purple satin or silk shirt instead)-- even more unassuming. But the flannel would only last for a couple songs or so before he went to the general black-shirt-and-jeans outfit. Eventually he'd break out the tux and literally let his hair down, and this was a moment that was adored by the women in the audience, but was also camp as FUCK.

you better werk betch

Basically, the tux would be hanging from the ceiling on a big white hanger and Steve would queen the fuck out in a skit talking to it like an ex-boyfriend before the sassiness and performed reluctance would turn to flirtation, which would end with him basically doing a reverse-striptease. It's almost like a drag performance. He's serving Steve Perry lewks! The whole thing (and before the "drag" show, how he played with his girlies during "I'll be Alright Without You") showed a willingness to poke fun at himself and the "Steve Perry" character he had to perform while he was with Journey. He was putting it in a different context to make it more comfortable for him, and arguably making a statement of sorts: that the self he had to perform with Journey was just as much "drag" as dressing in women's clothes would be.

Straight guys were SO confused by this, girls loved it, and Steve was extremely amused by the entire thing. Steve always had his girlies even when he was at his most femme, and that's something straight guys also get confused by I think, lol. Typical straight masculinity isn't an affect that's built to appeal to women: it's built to appeal to other men, but in a non-sexual sense. It's a way to signal belonging to the in-group, and the in-group in this case is at the top of the patriarchal totem pole, so there's a lot of incentive to fit in. To paraphrase Marilyn Frye, straight men are heterosexual but homosocial.

The way Steve performed femininity in the 70s was particularly appealing to young women and teenage girls: while there was a sexuality to it, his youthful appearance, physical and vocal androgyny, and sweet-lil-angel-boy affect made him a "safe" guy to project fantasies onto. Steve's gender expression in the 90s was different: he looked good for his age but was still obviously more mature, synthesized various kinds of masculinity and femininity within himself, and was a bit more comfortably sexual than he often was with Journey (the '80 and '86 tours were also horny as fuck tho lol). He also had that long hair, still, and girlies LOVE that lol. So he was able to appeal to the girlies *and* the gayboys, and used his appeal with the girlies to get away with appealing to the gayboys! While I wish he didn't have to work so hard to find a middle ground that he was comfortable with, it was cool that he could have that for a little while.

....UNTIL.

(hello darkness my old friend)

[billyvell]

Ok so I have many thoughts about Bain coming out. Mostly positive.

For context, I’m not (wasn't?) a Just B fan, but I was vaguely familiar with them due to Geonu.

First of all, it’s incredible that this happened. He's the first male idol in an active group to come out publicly. In a way he's the only like, traditional mainstream idol out?? Like Katseye is not fully k-pop, Holland and Lioness are more like indie artists, and the other ones I've heard about are people who aren’t active in the industry anymore.

And for that other boy about to debut, well, I feel like idols "with a past" who have it kinda buried and just never talk about it after debut is a thing that has happened a few times and is a bit different from coming out after you've actually debuted in the industry.

So, basically, this is really fucking monumental, for an active idol to come out during their career. I think the way it has happened, just sort of naturally on the stage of one of their shows, feels really quite intimate and special.

Like in another situation I might've found the "he felt safe and comfortable to share it with onlybs" comments kinda corny, but in this case it's literally what happened!!!

And I love that like, looking more into it, he wasn’t about that closet at all lol. He was doing Gaga (Born This Way of all songs!), Britney, Pussycat Dolls covers. With a rainbow fan. He was really feeling free and confident in a way that actually saying it was more like just a natural conclusion. Like everyone who was there knew already lol. Like not to minimize the impact of actually saying it, because it's HUGE in a industry like k-pop. But I just love that he wasn’t really hiding it for a while now.

I'm pleasantly surprised to not have seen any negative reactions so far. And while I wouldn't say I’m surprised at it, seeing the other members support him has made me emotional. I mean, I can't actually watch the videos of it in full, cause it gives me anxiety, but still. The bits I've seen, their comments on his post... I don’t think some people really understand how much that means.

Personally ever since like puberty I have always hated being in all male spaces, groups, teams or whatever. Being the one gay guy in a group of straight guys is not easy. It has always made me extremely self-conscious. Ever since I got into k-pop I have imagined how it would be for someone in a boygroup. So to have people, your friends and members and co-workers support you and love you, in a place like Korea... Like if this is really true behind the scenes, in my mind he is already lucky just for that.

Like yeah, it should be the bare minimum, but in the world we live in, that they live in, it’s not.

I am also (unfortunately, cause just focusing on the personal side of it feels much better) thinking a lot about the implications and the broader issue. Cause in a way, I feel like there’s a certain "nugu privilege" working here, in the sense that if a more famous idol, from the big 3 or Hybe or just a few tiers above Just B in popularity came out, this would be bigger news in korea and get much more backlash. Like I don't think they could just say they’re LGBT at a concert and face no negative repercussions.

I see the people talking about the clout they’re getting and even him "doing it for clout", and I'm like... Well, first of all I do not think this is the case cause it felt a lot like a genuine moment of feeling safe around his fans but... Well, I fucking wish it would become common for at least nugu-ish idols to come out and get some clout for it LOL. Like unless they were lying there would be nothing wrong with that!

Honestly how amazing is it that we're even in a place where international k-pop fandom (and it being mostly queer or queer supportive) is so relevant that an idol coming out can give them positive clout? A few years ago he would've most likely been kicked out of the group ASAP. Now they would essentially tank the group forever if they did that.

It really makes me wonder how people in the company are thinking, like do they see how much this is actually helping rather than inconveniencing them?? Did they know he would do that? I kinda don’t think so, and if that’s the case I’m thankful that he doesn’t seem to be in any trouble.

Honestly tnough, the impact on the industry aside, just him being able to be out and happy and have a career and supportive members and fans is already so wonderful. Even if it doesn’t change anything for anyone else, it is all worth it just for Bain himself!

I hope he gets to have a happy career, that they get to last at least up to the 7 years point with him in it (but hopefully more), that this doesn’t change too much for him in general, that he continues to be supported by the people around him for as long as they’re together, for as long as he's in the industry.

[live-laugh-lenney]

Greetings!

So I was listening to “Glue Song” by Beabadoobee, and it just reminded me so much of Arthur! I’ve only ever see people say good things about him when they get a chance to meet him. You also just KNOW he’s someone you couldn’t forget upon meeting. I think a little short fic based off this song would be so cute!!

honestly, every single time this song plays (because it's one of my 'soft' playlists that have songs that belong in a playlist for a rainy weekend afternoon), all i think about is arthur now and i'm really honestly not mad about that... it belongs to him, without a doubt.

being christopher dixon's best friend had it's moments.

there would be many times where he would ask her to accompany him in filming a video for his latest video because he needed another pair of hands on set to stand behind a camera, or help set up for each sessions, or where he would have her running his errands for him because he was falling behind in his ever-so busy schedule of being a youtuber. there had been times when she'd dropped off some lunch for him because he didn't realise his shoot was going to take as long as it had done, buying him groceries because he always forgot to buy bread and milk, bringing umbrellas for the rainier weather so that he and his video guests weren't stricken with a cold every time, just in the background and being there as an involuntary personal assistant - that, quite honestly, she didn't mind.

but being christopher dixon's best friend did have its perks.

the list of opportunities that she had been given was forever growing and she couldn't be any more thankful that he had taken her along on his journey; she had travelled to different countries, been invited to so many exciting events, had the chance to work for different brands and companies and meeting his circle of friends had brought brand new memories and so many new friends into her life that she couldn't dream of being without now.

his roommates had always been here favourites.

george clarke had wit. he was funny and sarcastic, he broke the ice on their first meeting by trying to flirt with her but failing to even get out his pick-up line without cringing first, and he could joke with her over things that she couldn't really joke about with anyone else. but he had a soft spot that made him feel like a big brother, someone that she could always go to if she didn't feel comfortable telling chris.

arthur hill had talent as well as a sense of humour. once she found out that he was an upcoming singer and was releasing his own music into the world, she was hooked because she loved listening to any music that wasn't mainstream. and you bet that she attended every single one of his shows that she was able to attend. being that friend who was supportive in every single thing that he did.

arthur frederick had something about him that she just couldn't ever forget. he was no different to george and arthur and chris on how he acted - boys will be boys - except his personality was somewhat on a different level. he was much softer with her when they spoke one on one, he was interested in her and what her likes and dislikes and her hobbies were before he spoke for himself, he was sweeter and where they could joke, he was always weary about what he could joke with her about.

and she liked that.

she gravitated towards him.

there was just something about him that she wanted to be around, all the time, just because he felt so inviting and warm. and he was on her mind, almost all of the time when she was at home. she would think about what he was doing and whether he was working or sleeping or filming a new video. whether he was on alone or whether one of the boys was with him. whether he was a work with music in the background or a silent man who could only work in the silence with no distractions.

at a friends party, she always waved at him and slowly made her way towards him throughout the evening, saying hello to everyone so she didn't look like she was there for him and only him, making herself a lot more social to not seem rude. at any events that they would both attend, she would always linger around him - she still felt out of place at movie premieres and launch parties and he was just a sense of comfort and someone she knew the most - and he wouldn't mind it in the slightest. at video shoots for any of chris' or george's videos, he would be there by her side... even though she was most comfortable doing a set task that someone had given her for the duration of the filming... he just liked to be near her...

and, of course, chris picks up on them being a little closer than usual.

"i know it's not my place to, you know, comment on relationship stuff and all," and he brings it up at the worst time possible; she would have been fine having it privately, without the nosey ears of one of his three roommates in the room and the other two occupied with whatever they seemed to be doing with their day, "but, you two have become awfully close."

"can't we just be friends, christopher?"

"i mean, look at today. he made you a cup of tea as soon as you came in through the door. he never makes anyone a cup of tea," chris points at the mug in her hand and she shrugs playfully, "i'm not saying it's a bad thing. just-"

"tell your face that then."

"i actually think you're a good fit together. of all the people you could date, i'd say arthur was number one on my list," chris tells her and she rolls her eyes, "what?"

"i didn't realise i had a big brother," she teases him and he scoffs and his cheeks go pink for just a moment, "i appreciate you looking out for me and all but, i think i'm old enough to pick a man to date. me and arthur, we're just friends."

"just friends," he scoffs again, using his fingers to act as quotation marks, "you really aren't fooling anyone."

"you really aren't as slick as you think you're being," george perks up from the dining table, laptop open and notes filling a page on google docs, "might as well just kiss him and get something started."

"no one asked you, george," yn frowns at him and he holds his hands up in defence, "i don't even think he likes me in that way. heck, i don't even know if i like him that way. he's just-"

"he's a different breed," chris states in a matter-of-fact way, like it was obvious that he was something of a special character, "what won you over? the animal obsession? the chess head? how terrible he is at a game of football?"

yn rolls her eyes and sets her mug on the kitchen island and stands from the stool she was sat upon.

"i don't have to stay here and listen to this," she threatens and chris just sits back and smirks at her as she grabs her cardigan and her bag and manoeuvres to the front door of their flat and she takes one last look at him before realising the stupid look upon his face, "what now?"

"you're totally in love with him."

she flips him off with her middle finger and slides her feet into her shoes, reaching for the handle of the front door, "lovely as always to see you boys. i'm going. see you never again."

and she closes the door behind her and leaves the two boys grinning at each other, concealing her own smile as she trots down the hall and towards her own flat down the corridor, knowing she'd probably grace them with her appearance later on that evening - she just felt the need to be dramatic as she left.

"yn left?"

chris and george see arthur standing outside of his bedroom door, a look on his face that was full of disappointment yet almost with a look that seemed to be an attempt to hide the sadness. he'd clearly been asleep; his eyes were sleepy, his hair was a mess and he had a pair of shorts and a jumper that was creased from him being in the same position for at least most of the hour he had disappeared into his bedroom.

"yeah, chris was being a dick," george jokes and chris throws him two fingers as he stood from his stool and stretched out his back, "she left in a hurry."

"is she okay? what did you say?"

'i actually said nothing," chris lies and he shrugs his shoulders, "she just said she had to leave."

"hmm," arthur hums softly, scuffing into the kitchen and reaching for the cup she had left on the counter, "maybe i'll pop around and see if she's okay."

"yeah, she'd probably like that," chris smiles and as arthur occupies himself with washing up her mug and wiping the tea stains from the inside, chris looks over at george and they both roll their eyes - two lovesick puppies pining for each other but neither one knowing where to start, "she'd definitely like a familiar face."

if you read this far then i think i may have gotten a little carried away and actually forgotten what the prompt was all about... but i hope this is good... obviously wanted to do it justice because it's a song so fitting for arthur... let me know what you think and don't be afraid to send in some requests! i'm probably here all afternoon slash evening so come keep me company! xx