#i guess only girls and gay boys are allowed to be good at it?

[jessiesjaded]

Some of you guys say such weird gendered shit but you really really think you're being progressive and I just earnestly do not understand being that unthinking

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Many Tiny Idiots, Some Irreverent Hotness & an Engagement

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Oct 2024 Week 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

Fourever You (Thai Thurs YT) ep 4 of 16 - OK so Hill has really been trying to pick him up from the beginning? I don’t understand why there’s any doubt around girls at all. He Gay everyone. Why is Tatch (2 Moons Ambassador) the only seme in Thai BL history allowed to actually just say "I don’t date women.”

Why is that so hard?

This show is definitely frustrating me, but I must admit that it’s the one I look forward to the most each week.

Love Sick 2024 (Thai Sun iQIYI) ep 6 of 15 - I am now only watching the uncut version, and I gotta say it makes all the difference. Please don’t watch the cut version of this show if you can possibly help it. It’s like cliff's notes of cliff's notes. I love the tiny side couple of tough kid + the dork of the music club. Ah the beach sequence. Condenced WAY DOWN, I see. We lost one of the most iconic lines in all BL but i think everything is improved by how much tighter the plot is in the remake (6 episodes became 1!). So I’m enjoying it. Weirdly, I'm not sure I would be enjoying it, if I hadn’t seen the original.

Is anyone watching this on iQIYI who hasn't seen the original? Just out of curiosity. Tell me how it's going for you, would ya? 

I'm doing a face-off style watch along of this new version versus the original 2014-2015 version.

Kidnap (Fri YT) ep 8 of 12 - I don’t entirely get it. They were apart for approximately 11 minutes. I would’ve thought GMMTV would’ve drawn it out for longer and more angst. Smiley face kiss was cute, but the star of this ep was that gorgeous pale blue waffle sweater on Q. What a great color for Leng! 

Jack & Joker (Thai Mon IQIYI) ep 7 of 12 - I do like that we’re seeing an honest exploration of poverty and hopelessness. I’m not sure how I feel about it inside my BL, tho I’m willing to persavere for this pair.

Battle of the Writers (Sun YT) ep 12 end - Someone said recently "just imagine what TutorYim could do with an actual script." And you know what? I agree. Because they sure as shit haven’t gotten one yet. And it’s getting quite frustrating. I’m having JaFirst flashbacks. Frankly, 2024 has been a year of unmitigated BL nonsense narratives. And I’m tired of it. I know it’s bog standard for the genre, but it feels like there’s been more than normal faff this year.

Summary 

An incredibly convoluted, disjointed, and badly-paced drama that is about(?) some writers writing a thing and some boys who knew each other when they were kids, lots of pretty sexy times, and not much else. The visuals are gorgeous, the side couples are overly appealing (with little to no screen time), the dubbing and sound is absurdly bad, and the fantasy novel (play within a play) makes no sense whatsoever while also managing to be the show that we all actually wanted to see instead of what we were given. 6/10 

In conclusion, I have no interest in attempting to understand or revisit this show, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it, but if you have nothing better to do…… the sex is good (frankly I have exes that satisfy all the same criteria). So there it is: this show is like a bad but still hot ex.  

Every You Every Me (Thai Mon Gaga) ep 3 of 10 - Nice to see Fiat in something again. Namping is very angel baby.  This episode made me think that this pair would do a great Thai remake of Love Tractor, and now that’s pretty much all I want in life. I enjoyed wardrobe in this episode. It looks like we get the same characters next week. Cool. 

Bad Guy My Boss (Thai Sun Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - I guess everyone is messy slutty bisexual in this show? Do I care? Not even slightly. BLabies, I don’t think I’m gonna make it. I might have to drop this one.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

See Your Love (Taiwan Weds Gaga) ep 1-2 of 13 - I adore it, what a wonderful meet cute. I love a Taiwanese BL that starts with a gratuitous kidnapping, some chasing, and a bit of a fight sequence. We in OLD fashioned territory. 

Teenager Judge (Vietnam Sat YT) ep 5 of ? - I continue to enjoy it very much.

My Damn Business (Korea Sat YT) eps 4 of 7 - Oh! Is the sleazy boss gonna turn out to be actually a sleazy player? That would be an interesting twist.

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (Korea Thurs Gaga) eps 3 of 8 - I’m really not a big fan of my pain coming from Korea. I’m getting a whiff of To My Star 2 from this one. And that does not make me happy. I know: high quality high angst yada yada blah blah blah. But also unnecessary pain? No thank you. 

First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) ep 12 end - Of course, I love the part where Reese and Orca spoke each other’s languages.

Conclusion

Had this been produced a mere 3 or 4 years ago, I would’ve been quite enamored. But by comparison to what we’ve been getting, this is a lackluster offering. A has-been musician and a much younger composer meet, fall in love, and attempt to rectify his stalled musical career. Cute side couple of a Thai popstar + his Korean manager. Everyone is very fine and it was a fine show. I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t impressed either. 8/10 

Love is Like a Poison AKA Doku Koi: Doku mo Sugireba Koi to Naru (Japan Tues Netflix?) 6 of 10 eps - It was a fun little confession and climax, there was crying, and a bridge kiss (been a while) all of this appeals to me even if they are tiny idiots (in the immortal words of @heretherebedork )

Eccentric Romance (Korea Weds Viki) eps 5-6 of 12 - More tiny idiot boyfriends who don’t realize they’re boyfriends. That’s it, that’s all that’s happening. Ostensibly there’s some kind of murder. But it seems to be acting more like set dressing than plot.

It's airing but...

The Hidden Moon (Sat WeTV) 10 eps - Supernatural romance (my ghost boyfriend trope) by Violet Rain (I Feel You Linger). A man is hired to write an article about an old mansion. He sees the ghosts of people who died at the mansion, falls in love with one of them. Was substantially recast. I loved IFYLITA except the ending so I think I'll let this one run it's course you can tell me if it's work tracking down... if they managed to land it. I have my doubts.

In case you missed it

Mew & Tul legit engaged.

Love in the Big City (Korea Viki) 8ep - Vicki dropped them all at once which means I did what I do under such circumstances and skipped to watch the final episode. (I am well aware that this makes me a monster. ) Anygay, that told me that I’m not gonna be bothering to watch the series. Now y'all can tell me how amazing it is and what I’ve missed and blah blah blah. But I’m comfortable with my choice. It’s ICRY 2.0 + HIV. And I’m not willing to play its literatti game. At some point I might watch it on fast-forward for the sex scenes, but I’m not at that point yet. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Still Coming:

10/27 Perfect 10 Liners (Thai Sun YouTube?) 24 eps! - New directing yet another university BL with engineers + their mentees. Based on a Jittirain novel. with a massive cast and massive run time. We will be watching this until APRIL of 2025!

ForceBook playing the same old characters = enemies to lovers tsunder/sunshine jock/nerd thing.

PerthChimonSanta are doing the cohabitation cool guy/dork trope.

JuniorMark are doing popular sunshine meets lonely sad boy (the only interesting pair IMHO).

I think Blue Canvas of Youthful Days has started on iQIYI but I only get it on Viki and that doesn't drop for a few days, plus...... CBL......? Not sure I'll report on this one unless it's really good.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

From Uncle Unknown which is truly terrible but this was so SO funny. I'm still chuckling when I think about it.

The first representation of shipping in a BL that I actually enjoyed. Also Dat's clear approval of being shipped didn't hurt. (Judge)

(lask week)

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in its infinite wisdom doesn't like too many at-ings.

[mulletmitsuya]

Toman Groupchat

Warnings: swearing, the topic of sex is brought up a lot, mentions of the r word (i don't actually say it i just say "r word"), gayness, mentions of depression, mentions of suicide, teenage boys. also snuck in a lot of personal headcanons so that might not be your thing

Desc: Mikey lost his V-card

Mikey: just had the sex

Mikey: it's not all that, tbh

Mikey: i didn't like it

Mikey: i was quite indifferent to the situation actually

Mitsuya: that's great 👍

Smiley: you're the last one to lose your v-card and you come back with a report like this?😒

Smiley: we want details

Draken: whose we?

Mitsuya: no we don't

Chifuyu: it must have been difficult tackling the whole issue with you being 5'3 and all

Mikey: you're an inch taller than me😐

Chifuyu: "taller" being the key word

Baji: what didn't you like about the sex?

Baji: i think sex is great

Kazutora: i think it's super nice until you get in over your head and freak out about your performance so you end up having a panic attack and she just leaves

Smiley: LMAOOOOOO

Draken: that's actually kinda sad, you good?

Kazutora: no? i'll never emotionally recover. never again

Baji: maybe it should be with someone you trust and have been friends with for a number of years. maybe even your best friend who would do anything for you. that's just my opinion tho

Draken: just tell him ffs. anything but this

Kazutora: i have no girl friends?? the only women i know who're affiliated with this friendgroup are hina (taken), emma (mikey's sister and also taken), and yuzuha (gay)

Baji: why does it have to be a girl

Mikey: bro

Hakkai: 💀

Smiley: mention homosexuality once and here Hakkai comes

Hakkai: 😐

Kazutora: Baji i know you're gay and i support your lgbtq+ lifestyle but i'm not into dicks like you are man

Baji: what about assholes

Mitsuya: what's the point of this, like just ask him out atp

Mikey: you'd let KAZUTORA top???? insane

Kazutora: what's wrong with me topping? also who am i topping??

Smiley: well you're a twink so you're obviously a bottom

Chifuyu: Kazutora are you actually just gonna ignore what everyone else is saying

Kazutora: aren't you guys talking to Baji?

Draken: are you stupid or what

Kazutora: i'm really confused rn can we just to back to talking about Mikey

Mikey: yes actually. i've decided that i don't like sex and won't be doing it again

Chifuyu: bad day for Takemitchy

Takemitchy: what?

Chifuyu: well since you ride his dick so much

Takemitchy: HUH

Takemitchy: i've never done that with Mikey-kun tho??? i'm with Hina? also I'm straight so I don't understand what you mean by that 😥

Chifuyu: i don't actually mean-

Chifuyu: nvm

Baji: are we allowed to call people the r word anymore

Angry: no it's a slur

Baji: you're probably mad because people said it to you huh? lmao

Angry: yes

Baji: oh

Smiley: i didn't even mean it Angry it was just that one time

Angry: several, one times. but okay

Angry: i still love you

Smiley: can you not say that in front of our friends like idk what to do rn cause i can't say it back so it looks embarssing for you

Angry: 😕

Smiley: ...

Angry: ☹️

Smiley: i love you too

Angry: thank you

Chifuyu: very rare Smiley human decency moment

Draken: you guys are such weird siblings but that was great to watch. character development in a matter of seconds

Smiley: you should all kill yourselves

Mikey: man i really want to

Mikey: that was a literal joke before you guys get weird

Draken: you've actively tried to kill yourself tho

Mikey: yeah but like i won't do it anymore

Baji: we must just, believe you?

Mikey: i know that's hard to do because i lie all the time but yes

Draken: not a convincing argument but nice try

Mitsuya: terrible try actually. Mikey should we be worried?

Mikey: miss me with that gay shit, i'm fine

Mitsuya: i hate you guys so much

Draken: not me tho cause i'm your og

Mitsuya: 😐

Mitsuya: yeah i guess

Draken: 🤞

Draken: i'm gonna go out with my girlfriend now

Draken: also Mikey you're probably asexual. or you haven't found the right one to do it with yet idk

Mikey: what's asexual

Draken: google it

Mikey: Ken-chin c'mon i'm having a crisis rn

Draken: basically low or very little sexual attraction to others

Draken: there's a whole spectrum to it tho so you should probably do some research because that was an extremely watered down explanation

Draken: i'm ace too if that helps

Baji: Emma's a whole ass slut so how does she deal with that

Smiley: imagine bagging Ryuguji Ken with his sexy ass and he doesn't wanna smash. tragic

Draken: first of all, Baji i'll fucking kill you, never say that about Emma again

Draken: and fuck you Smiley

Angry: are you traumatized because of living in a sex orientated/obsessed environment so you eventually began to detest any affiliation with the act?

Draken: yes actually

Angry: i see

Mikey: i just don't like it. i'm not traumatized like Ken-chin :(

Draken: it's whatever

Baji: calm down i didn't call Emma a slut as an insult i just mean it as a describing word because she likes fucking

Baji: i've known her longer than you and she's been fucking since she knew what the thing was

Mikey: i probably should have addressed that as an older brother or something

Mikey: yk, cause i take care of my family

Baji: now she takes care of you with your chronically depressed ass

Mikey: 😒

Kazutora: is Emma also traumatized? like the opposite of Draken?

Mikey: wait should i ask?? her mom did abandon her and she did grow up without a father figure so like maybe i should talk to her

Smiley: you didn't have to dish out her problems like that 💀

Baji: she's got the Sano slut genes because wasn't Shinichiro falling in love with different people everyday? then your dad was impregnating people all the time. skipped Mikey tho

Draken: not everything is trauma related. also Emma just likes sex. it's not a huge deal breaker and if it was she would tell me and we'd talk about it

Mikey: what about having kids?

Draken: stop asking me this shit we'll do that when we're ready

Smiley: it's crazy how Draken is one of the healthiest people here. always reacting sensibly to situations and dealing with his trauma normally. he's such a good guy. hate him

Draken: love you too

Mikey: did he deal with it all that healthily if he beats people to a pulp most of the time

Draken: i stopped doing that

Baji: why though, you were an actual unit

Baji: wasted talent. i still beat people up

Draken: Emma said to

Mikey: fair

Smiley: Mitsuya could be on Draken's level too but something went wrong along the way cause he's a boy liker

Mitsuya: 🖕

[ryuichirou]

I'm not sure if you already answered a similar question like this, but Do you think the twist boys watch porn/read dirty magazines? Which kind of Porn would they watch in your own opinion?

I don’t think we had this kind of question before, Anon! An ask about boys being boys lol As I was writing it, I realised that the majority of them would probably watch porn on their phones, which kind of makes sense, I guess. Yay technology!

Still, some of them kind of surprised me as I was thinking about this prompt… well, enjoy!

Riddle – oh not a chance. This boy probably wasn’t allowed to look at some paintings and sculptures because of boobs and peens. Which is kind or ridiculous because as a future doctor he did have a bunch of anatomy books… Anyways, if he sees anyone with a dirty magazine or catches someone watching porn, he will confiscate it. He also has no idea that pretty much everyone watches porn in his dorm…

Ace – yes, yes and yes. He used to steal his brother’s dirty magazines when he was younger, but nowadays he prefers to just watch porn on his phone. He has a couple of vids downloaded, but for the most part he is the type to jump from video to video while masturbating. He doesn’t watch anything too weird or kinky, but… these days he is into threesomes. Mostly because it’s the only way he could watch a boy getting fucked without fully committing to watching straight-up gay porn (he is still in denial). So yeah, two guys fucking, and a girl is somewhere around to help him cope.

Deuce – he’s an oldschool boy and likes magazines – he used to steal them back when he was a delinquent. He and his boys used to have such a huge stash of porn… Deuce still owns some magazines, but they’re at home under his bed – he didn’t bring anything to NRC. He was so sure that he would focus on studying so much that he wouldn’t have time to masturbate! Model students don’t jerk off anyway! Yeah, long story short, he started watching porn on his phone after enrolling lol He also watches pretty basic stuff. Anything with two people fucking will turn him on. Similarly to Ace though, he is a bit embarrassed to watch gay porn…

Trey – as things often are with Trey, he is more into this kind of stuff than he cares to admit. He didn’t watch porn all that often when he had more roommates, and he still doesn’t do it too often, but sometimes he wakes up earlier than everyone, goes to his kitchen and has 20-30 nice minutes to himself. He does watch gay porn, he learned pretty early on that other stuff just doesn’t work for him, and a lot of times he watches videos about oral stuff (big surprise I know). He tries to watch 80% vanilla 20% kinky stuff, because he knows that if he doesn’t pace himself he’ll only watch cursed shit.

Cater – Heartslabyul’s baron of porn. He knows so much about porn it’s insane. He has a lot of favourite creators, and he follows all of them from his alt account. He even supports some of them with donations from time to time! He also watches livestreams and participates in the chat. It feels very freeing to him. He also prefers gay porn, but still jerks off to girls too. But mostly when the girls are together and there are no guys involved. So yeah, lesbian porn. With some bdsm. Very light though. Oh, and he also listens to porny audio plays.

Leona – funny enough, I don’t think he watches anything. He just isn’t interested – if he wants to jerk off, he’d do it even without porn. He might even make fun of someone who needs porn for that, but he is just a meanie.

Ruggie – he has a porn stash of 30 y.o. magazines with beast chicks hidden somewhere in his room, and no one will ever find it! Savanaclaw is the most dangerous dorm when it comes to hiding porn. Ruggie is very protective over it. One would think that Ruggie wouldn’t read magazines, because hey, imagination is free, but he found these magazines when he was like 10 – they are his treasure.

Jack – he is a good boy, and I should probably say “no he doesn’t”, but yes he does. But he thinks of it as if it’s a treat, to congratulate himself for good results and such. He mostly watches beastmen-centric straight porn, but one time he accidentally clicked on a video of a huge wolf-man fucking a twink and Jack’s life kind of…changed… he watches a lot of this kind of stuff now, even though he is embarrassed by it…

Azul – he respects porn for being a huge industry that makes money on pathetic horny saps (wait until he learns how much individual content creators make), but he doesn’t consider himself a horny sap, so no thank you, he doesn’t watch porn. Unlike the tweels, he doesn’t even have any curiosity about it… yet? He’d probably enjoy power play and bondage stuff. If it wasn’t a waste of time for horny saps, that is!

Jade – this man has such a cursed search history. He wasn’t really interested in porn until he learned about some fucked-up kinks. He is truly fascinated by some videos, and sometimes it feels like he has a neverending quest to find the worst porn ever. He doesn’t jerk off or anything, he just watches it, but still feels very refreshed afterwards. He didn’t even think about putting this in that hole and then pushing this until that expands so much.

Floyd – he would say “yuck” to the majority of stuff that Jade watches, but he isn’t much better. Similarly to Ace, he clicks around when he masturbates, and sometimes ends up jerking off to something very fucked up. He would still go “yuck” after he cums, but while he’s in the process, he thinks that it’s the hottest shit ever. I don’t think Floyd has a favourite porn genre, he just hates anything that is boring or feels fake. He wants to be entertained!

Kalim – he doesn’t. Whenever he sees something porny, he gets very awkward, even if he is all alone and knows that no one would judge him for watching it. In a weird way, I think Kalim would prefer to watch something like this irl… so I guess his awkwardness from porn isn’t out of shyness then.

Jamil – extremely rarely. Sometimes he tells himself that he has two or three small tasks left, and then he’s free, so he could go to his room, watch some porn, jerk off and sleep. But then he feels so tired that he falls asleep immediately. And sometimes he’s not in the mood… and looking for something nice to watch is also a pain, because despite not being a very active porn watcher, he is bored with vanilla, but anything more exciting than that feels like it’s too much. He would enjoy something with powerplay though.

Vil – you know this thing called professional deformation? Vil suffers from it a lot. Of course, he isn’t a porn actor, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t judge their acting, won’t comment on weird cuts and won’t complain about the camerawork being shitty, about the production being overly expensive and yet very tacky and tasteless, and of course, about the dialogue being very cheesy. He just doesn’t like porn too much… but I think he would get turned on by erotica when it’s done well. There are some scenes in his favourite movies that turn him on every time. I guess Vil really needs to have a story behind and compelling character writing…

Rook – he doesn’t need to watch porn because when he closes his eyes, he sees a whole-ass theater of all kinds of pleasures before him. Rook’s imagination is insane, and he uses it very well. It’s very rare for him to jerk off to porn, but sometimes he looks at a picture of a person while imagining a certain scenario with that person… All of that doesn’t mean that Rook doesn’t watch porn. Unlike Vil, Rook sees beauty in these little imperfections, but they still stop him from getting turned on lol Unless he starts imagining that it’s him and his beloved in the setting doing it before his very eyes.

Epel – he probably caught a virus or two before… he watches porn a lot. Internet connection in NRC is much better than back home, so at first he used to spend all night watching porn under his blanket. He really loves it when a huge guy fucks someone, and when he’s feeling extra spicy, he watches stuff with multiple huge guys! He hasn’t deduced that he doesn’t necessarily picture himself as one of the guys just yet…

Idia – he also watches porn for the plot and for the art of it, and he almost never watches irl porn: only 2d and sometimes 3d babyyyyy. Otherwise he just cringes, especially if it’s cosplay porn or something like that. But doujins, eroge and hentai are comfortable, gorgeous looking (even when the art is kind of bad) and overall superior in every way. He mostly watches stuff on the internet but he has a big collection of smut downloaded and a lot of smutty books stacked everywhere. It’s ART, you just don’t get it!!

Ortho – he watches porn as we speak. In his head. He has access to so many sites and platforms now that Idia doesn’t have any way of monitoring what his AI does. Of course, as things always are with Ortho, he doesn’t necessarily do it to jerk off, he LEARNS! But he also ordered a couple of dirty magazines and doujins to have them hidden in his room (now that he has his own room!) to feel like a proper freshmen. These fuckers are horny, and Ortho wants to be the horny one too.

Lilia – he also caught a virus or two before lol He has a phase during which he watched a lot of porn, and it ended up being something similar to what Jade is doing, but then he kind of lost interest. He mostly watches bdsm stuff to jerk off these days… but he also loves all the fantasy/medieval-themed porn that spawned after the Game of Thrones! He mostly laughs at it though. And gets kind of nostalgic.

Silver – he doesn’t, but he did watch some porn with Lilia once. He gets unexpectedly shy when watching it… as if he’s looking at something he isn’t supposed to, despite Lilia telling him not to look away. It did turn him on, but at the same time he prefers to focus on his partner instead of looking somewhere else. He doesn’t watch it on his own because he doesn’t even think about these things.

Sebek – he doesn’t! And he gets pissed off when other first years (mostly Ace and Epel) talk about it so casually! He finds the whole thing obscene, unnecessary and brain-rotting. Ironically, despite being so horribly horny, he would have good resistance to porn. He doesn’t know these people and doesn’t care about their indecencies! Until someone tells him to imagine that it’s Malleus…

Malleus – he doesn’t have any magazines and doesn’t watch porn (he would find the idea kind of weird, he is too sophisticated for that), but he does have a favourite erotic novel that he used to read a lot. He has it somewhere back at home… but it’s okay, he doesn’t really need to have this book with him at all times – he remembers it very vividly, word to word. Unfortunately, this novel is more of an outlier – Malleus was kind of disappointed by the quality of every other smut book he got.

upd.

Rollo doesn’t watch porn, come on now. The only type of smut he experiences is the kind that his own mind plays in his head when he sleeps. And Rollo really wishes he could turn it off! But he can’t, so for now he’s just having weird wet dreams about faceless men in red cloaks judging him….

Fellow doesn’t really care about porn all that much because his life is already so full of sex, but he doesn’t necessarily have access to a lot of porn either. He used to flip through magazines with some hunks on them, but hasn’t done it in quite a while.

Gidel, however, loves his dirty magazines! I’ve said it in some other hc post: a magazine with beast-ladies in tiny bikinies is an ultimate gift for him. He steals those from shops, he takes the ones that are randomly abandoned at gas stations. Whenever they are lucky enough to stay at a motel with a tv, the first thing Gidel does is turning on the TV to see if there are porn channels available for free. He doesn’t even do anything while watching it, he’s just fascinated by smut. I guess it’s a phase… or is it?

[georgeclarkewifey]

Inconvenience | g. clarke

Chapter 6: meeting the girls

Summary: Noa meets the London Girlies

Word Count: honestly this felt so short I couldn’t bring myself to count it sorry gang 😔

Warnings: swearing and George being a dick lol

Noa checked her watch anxiously, for the third time in about forty seconds. She was only a block away from the cafe that she was due to meet Grace, Freya and Talia, but she was fifteen minutes early, so she was scrolling on her phone trying to burn time.

“Noa? Why are you hiding around this corner?” The recognisable voice of Becky Bambino asked, causing Noa to glance up quickly.

“Well um- I was early you see so-“

“Oh don’t you worry about that, knowing the rest of the girls they’ll be waiting in various roads around here because they’re early too.” She added, noticing how Noa relaxed. “C’mon, they’re all eager to meet you.”

Noa allowed herself to be pulled at the hand by Becky as she lead the pair of them towards the coffee shop.

“Aha!” Becky cried triumphantly, pointing in the distance. “There’s Freya pretending to not be early as well. See, told ya you wouldn’t be the only one.”

Noa smiled gently and shyly waved at Freya, who when she realised that she had been spotted, started making her way over to the girls to embrace them in tight hugs.

“Noa! It’s so good to finally meet you! I’ve heard so much!”

“All good I hope?”

“Of course! Come on, I think Grace and Talia are already inside.”

Noa greeted the two girls who were already there, who reciprocated her gesture with enthusiasm.

“Noa you don’t get how excited I am to meet you,” Grace said, pulling her onto the sofa next to her. “So, tell us everything, how on gods green earth do you cope with living with the boys.”

“Um.” Noa scratched the back of her head nervously. “Well I live on the floor below them, so I don’t actually have to cope with living with them, but they’re great company, especially Chris and Arthur.”

“You grew up with them right?” Talia asked, sipping her coffee.

“Yeah, born and raised in Jersey with the two of them, they’re practically brothers to me.”

“So you never liked them growing up?”

Noa recoiled in disgust, just the thought of having romantic feelings for Chris or Arthur, it just felt so off. The girls laughed at her reaction, and Grace patted her shoulder.

“Yeah, never ever liked them like that, never will.”

“And Arthur Hill and George?” Freya asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Uh, yeah probably not.”

Noa’s answer confused the four, all of them looking at her with confused looks.

“Why not babe?” Becky said, propping her feet up on one of the stools.

“Well um, George actually hates me. Not quite sure why, but he does.”

“In the words of Max Balegde what the big fat fuck?” Grace exclaimed. “But George, he’s well, George.” She faltered.

“He’s literally one of the nicest guys on the planet, why does he hate you?”

“I don’t know! He just does.” Noa said, rubbing her eyes in frustration. “Ever since I got here, I’ve done nothing but be nice to him, and all he gives me is glares. He doesn’t even try to talk to me, and if I talk to him hardly answers.”

“Oh sweetheart…” Talia comforted, pulling Noa into a hug as she began to tear up. “That’s why he doesn’t follow on insta I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, and the longer it goes on the more worried I’m getting that people will catch on, it’ll reflect badly on the both of us.”

“Don’t worry about him.” Freya said, waving her hand in the air. “He’d be fine. What we have to worry about is you, why do you reckon he’s being like this?”

Noa shrugged. “I really wish I knew, because then I could try and talk to him about it, you know? Face the problem head on, but he’s not really giving me much to go off.”

“Do you reckon it’s because of Arthur and Chris?” Grace asked. “Because he can be quite protective of his friends - I was on a night out once with him, Max and Andrew, some random guy came up to Max and just called him gay for no reason, George nearly punched him and told him to fuck off.”

Noa’s brows raised in surprise. She had never seen that side of George before, but she wanted to - even from his videos he could tell that he was a caring person, and all she really wanted was from him to act like that when she was there too.

“I wouldn’t worry Noa, he probably just needs to warm up to you and then I’m sure you’ll get along so well, it’ll probably just happen overnight, and the next day you’ll be shocked when he’s super nice to you.” Becky reassured.

“You sure about that?”

“Positive, it’ll happen soon, I promise.”

noamurphy

liked by arthurtv, chrismd10 and 22,474 others

noamurphy lovely to meet you all xxx

comments open

bambinobecky sweetest person alive love you

⮑ noamurphy love you too 😘

maxbalegde well jealous of you gkbarry_

⮑ gkbarry_ as you should noa is legendary

⮑ noamurphy staawwwpp you’re too nice ☺️

chrismd10 the football is on in two minutes why are you not in the apartment yet

⮑ noamurphy its called having a regular job give me 10 minutes

⮑ chrismd10 but you’ll miss kick off!!!

⮑ noamurphy I KNOW THAT CHRISTOPHER I CAN DO BASIC MATHS

⮑ georgeclarke just get off your phone and do your work then jeez

user1 someone teach George basic manners and etiquette pls and thx xxx

⮑ user3 IK!! like, Noa and Chris are obviously joking around can he not read the room

⮑ user4 honestly George’s first appearance on any of Noa’s socials and this is what he gives us? not it babe sorry

⮑ user1 yessss its giving go girl give us nothing

author speaks!!: hello my lovelies! Sorry it’s been so long!! started a new job and adjusting to life without my best mates by my side has really taken up a lot of my time, but here we go, new chapter with more on the way

stay cool peeps

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

Me, minding my business on Pinterest when

And since I'm a bitch I'm going to analyze it:

Abusers & oppressors getting their asses kicked: True (although I am interested in who the oppressor is in this context)

Empowering girls: Broadly true, but RW/BY's feminism has been criticzed in the past for stuff like most of the girls being trained by boys (Ruby & Qrow, Blake & Adam, Yang & Taiyang) or the fact that this gender equal society still has majority male leaders

Lgbt rep: Let's see, we have Blake & Yang (who are curiously only attracted to each other), Jaune's sister and her wife who at the very least got a decent amount of screen time for side characters, Scarlet (somehow less lines than Jaune's sister), Nolan I guess, a background character that got retcon to straight after the writers realized that introducing a gay character just to kill them off is bad, Illia (cute character, but the writing for her is an oof), and Marigold (who's voice actress is not coming back to the show, I wonder why...)

Disability rep: and here's where everything starts to go down the shitter. This show has one good disability representitive (Yang) and everyone else is a villain in some way (Adam, Neo, Ironwood, Tyrian, Cinder post v4). Note: Maria and Penny's dad only count as good rep when they are allowed outside the freezer Amity tower

Mental illness rep: I lol when I got to this part. Ok, once again Yang is decent rep for pwPTSD, and then you are once again struck with a sea of "scary crazy people" (Adam, Ironwood, Tyrian, Cinder post v4). Also, this is extremely minor, but the way Ruby & friends react to Mercury being "weird" (in school settings, thats usually code for neurodivergent) in ep 1 of v3 was... a choice (fun fact: childhood abuse causes a lot of mental disorders so... yeah)

Racial Diversity: Stop wasting my time and fuck off. Not going into detail again over this shows racist writing (note: the reason I have issues with Illia, Maria, and Penny's dad is because of said racist writing).

3/6, better luck next time I guess :/

[bitchinbarzal]

hold on | J.Hughes

summary; just when Jack wants to give in, you tell him to hold on just a little longer

warnings; suicide, talks of death, ambulances, hospitals and substance abuse.

I took a more soft approach than I intended

Read at your own discretion

-

Jack should feel so blessed.

He has a great family; his two brothers and parents doted on him from day one, he had his dream job that he’d worked on for years and his friends were the very best friends he could’ve ever asked for.

So why did he feel this way?

Why was he allowing a girl to break his heart and make him feel useless.

Jack Hughes. Useless.

Layla had told him over text that she had slept with her roommate while he was away on a road trip to California. Jake. Fucking Jake.

Jack knew he wasn’t gay, like Layla had told him so many times when he brought up their flirting.

Jack didn’t want to tell anyone what happened, not on the road. He didn’t want the pity stares and the second guessing of his game.

So he kept quiet throughout the roadie. His game tanked in San Jose, he heard the comments in the media;

fraud

fake

not good enough

There was a break in games when the devils returned home, leaving Jack to sit with his own thoughts. Layla had attempted to visit but he wouldn’t let her in.

He let the media consume him, the news articles and TikTok videos. All calling him out for not being good enough, he was a bust.

His feelings started almost subconsciously. When he was out at the store he would pick up bottles of painkillers as if he’d not bought bottles the day prior.

He began ‘forgetting’ to call and text his family and friends. His way of preparing them to never hear from him again.

People began to get concerned for him, he wasn’t himself.

A week into his depressive episode Jack tried to get back out there. He ventured to Raya.

He started talking to a model, she seemed nice and they organized a date only for him to show up and she couldn’t stop talking about followers and social media, how being with someone famous like Jack would do good for her.

Jack paid the bill and he left.

Just another girl who saw him as nothing more than just another pretty boy.

The bottles lined up on his bathroom counter, caps off as he stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and bloodshot and his palms were sure to have cuts from his grip on the marble countertop.

He took them, all of them.

The empty plastic bottles clattered against the floor once he’d tossed them, his chest heaving while they slipped down his windpipe.

He was sobbing and he wasn’t sure why. It felt right. To cry and mourn the life he was taking away.

It didn’t happen all at once. Jack expected it to happen faster but he felt fine.

He found his phone, texting ‘i love you’ to his friends and family. A few replied with similar

Others, his brother Quinn questioned him

what do you mean? what’s wrong?

Quinn called him. He declined.

Quinn called again. He declined again.

Quinn text. And again. And again.

When Jack declined Quinn’s call for a third time, he called 911.

“Hi yes my brother, he’s acting weird and I think — I think he could be hurting himself”

Jack sat on the bathroom floor as the pills slowly worked their way into his body, his fingers began getting numb and he became drowsy.

He didn’t know what was happening but he heard a lot of yelling and the door of the bathroom flew open.

On the other side of the door was you, chest heaving as you stared down at him

“My god, dude your doors are heavy!”

You dropped to your knees next to him, pulling out liquids and needles while you simultaneously turned jack towards the toilet bowl.

“Who?” Jack slurred.

“It’s okay sweetheart, I’m here to help. My names y/n, I’m a paramedic. I hear you’ve got an awfully concerned big brother” you explained, using the time he was distracted to slip the needle into his arm while held the liquids he was about to need.

“I Just, Go! I want to die!” He demanded, shoving you as much as he could.

You shook your head “I can’t let that happen Jack, You have so much to live for”

“No” he cries “I hate you, stop!”

You turn him towards the toilet bowl once more and you say “You’re about to hate me so much more”

And before he can question you, you shove two of your fingers into his mouth and hit the back of his throat. He gags and tries to pull your hands out but you grab the back of his head and stop him

“I’m sorry Jack, I hope you’ll forgive me at some point”

He’s puking all over your hand and although he’s in no position to, he feels embarrassed.

Once he has vomited a sufficient amount your second paramedic has arrived with the gurney.

“C’mon bud let’s go to the hospital” you mumble, helping him up. He holds onto you, his hands are shaking and you can hear him softly sobbing.

Your heart breaks for him as you watch him, confused, sit on the gurney and be strapped down.

When he’s loaded in, he’s looking around as if he’s looking for someone. You smile as you go to grab the keys from your partner when Jack reaches out and grabs your hand

“Please don’t leave me”

You nod, jumping in the back with him.

You sit in silence for a while, filling out forms and checking his meds until Jack breaks the silence

“You’re not gonna ask why I did it?”

You hum “It’s not my place to question you”

“You’re not curious?” He presses.

You sigh, putting down your clipboard

“Do you want me to ask? Do you want me to question why you, Jack, hate your life so much to want to end it? What, because you’re a hotshot hockey player you think mental health can’t touch you?” You reply.

Jack physically gulps “how did-“

“Jack, you’re worth so much in this world. More than hockey! You’re gonna be a dad one day and get married? You’ll take trips across the world with your friends and you’ll do loads of exciting shit!” You exclaim, the smile on your face put one on Jack’s

He looked down at his hands and you huffed before standing to adjust his saline bag

“It was a girl” he mumbled and you frowned

“Huh?”

“It was a girl that I was getting to depressed over”

You tut and sit back down on the bench

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing! You seem like a great guy Jack and you have a caring family, your brother was really worried about you is what dispatch said”

Jack’s lips created a thin line and he hummed before he said

“Do You do this a lot? You were really calm today”

You chuckled softly “You are the first suicide attempt I’ve ever been to and I am actually having a major panic attack internally right now”

“Oh” Jack’s mouth creates an O shape “Sorry about that”

You brush it off with a soft smile.

“You’ve got so much to live for Jack, I promise”

Once you’re at the hospital and he’s being pulled out of the ambulance he grabs your wrist once more, bringing your attention to him

“What do i have to live for? Tell me”

You give him a smile and hold his hand

“It’ll happen Jack, just hold on”

“C’mon baby, just hold on a couple more-“

“He’s here!”

You throw your head back and cry out “Jack! What does he-“

“He’s so perfect baby, he’s fucking beautiful” he cries, kissing your head repeatedly.

That night, the rooms quiet and jack is sitting in the chair next to you while your son sleeps soundly on the other side of the room.

You look over to Jack and give a sleepy smile

He smiles back and said “was this it?”

“Was this what?”

“Me holding on. Was this what I was holding on for?”

Your face drops remembering that day

“Was It worth it? What I described?”

“It Was everything and more, thank you for saving my life in more ways than one”

[bengiyo]

Wedding Plan Ep 7 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last week, Lom finally managed to clear things up with Namnuea with the help of Yiwa and Marine. We learned that Lom also experienced The Knowing along with Yiwa when they were kids and have been loyal to each other for over a decade as a result. Nuea and Lom got it in a second time, and Nuea asked to help carry their secret, much Lom’s awe and surprise. Accepting Nuea’s decision, Nuea’s family declared that Lom is theirs now, should his own family turn on him. Meanwhile, Yiwa’s mom was absolutely cruel to Marine, and so Yiwa has decided to run off right before the wedding.

Where is your grace, Saichom? Why would you scream out the problem instead of solving it? This is why your kids haven’t told you who they are.

Oh, Lom, I wish she had warned you, too.

How quickly these two moms turned on each other after being aligned for over a decade.

Not this guest living for the drama and filming it! They’re throwing the staff around!

I really love the choice to mute other sounds and play music over it instead before cutting to the guests leaving.

Namnuea really is good at his job.

Lom is laughing about all of this! He can read between the lines when it comes to Yiwa.

I love that Lom was correct about Yiwa, and that she didn’t tell him to save him the difficulty of lying. Also relieved that these two have a plan to land on their feet in England.

Lom is having too much fun playing heartbroken.

Don’t worry, Saichom. Nuea and Lom going to do a lot of healing.

Oh, I need to hand out a clown aware for whoever guessed that Nuea was faking sad and drunk from the preview with the flask.

I’m glad these two are thriving.

Namnuea, I love you. Thank you for not letting Lom drunk drive.

I’m glad Lom’s plan involves coming out in a way that doesn’t involve Nuea in Yiwa’s decision to leave.

Very meaningful grabbing behind backs there, boys. Thank you for that.

These two are fun now that they’ve settled.

Yiwa and Marine got married!!

Okay, I love that Namnuea is out of vacation leave from when he ran off earlier. Im said, I got you, boo, but you also gotta get me!

Gays arguing over who gets to propose to whom. We eatin’ good today.

The couple photo of Lom and Nuea is fantastic, holy shit.

Okay, this was a good parent moment. “I might find it difficult to accept, but please don’t disappear,” is honestly so reasonable. I’m into it. Lom hasn’t come out formally yet, but they’re talking about it.

I love the bickering in this company. They’re so funny. Now they’re gossiping. I love it here.

Alright, I have a lot of big thoughts about Lom’s mom coming around and Lom reading between the lines on his mother to know that she gave her blessing as best she could.

Final Verdict: 9.5, Highly Recommended. I never expected to be earnestly recommending a MAME show this year, but here we are. The final resolution of this show reveals an understanding of the fundamental nature of the closet in a way I did not think MAME was capable of. Yiwa understood that the gender politics of their existences meant that she and Marine could not be happy in Thailand and so she decided to leave. I love that with all that Lom and she have given up for each other, I like her taking the opportunity to take on all the hate and derision for him. I love that it’s her choice and not one foisted upon her or expected of her. With this opportunity, Lom and Nuea are allowed to soft-launch their relationship. This is actually so beautiful to me because I like the queers collectively deciding when everyone else is allowed to know. I like that they have to create a narrative that the hets will accept for them to come out peacefully. It’s not fun to live a lie, but we’re not the ones demanding the lies of us. I’m absolutely floored by the earnest way this show faced all of these obstacles and took what felt like such a gross starting line to a fantastic finish. I’m only taking a point here because the kissing with the girls was bad, and their chemistry was a little weak. So, yeah, watch the MAME show about the wedding planner getting the groom.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

OHSHCAU (Keysmash)

Part 3

Prev

You know how, when the school year starts up, a teacher might get everyone to go around the room and give a couple of vague facts about themselves? Or, even worse, they might split everyone up into teams based on some random, inconsequential factors and they would all be forced to work together on some dumb task? That way they can get to know new people better?

You know how everyone hates that?

Yeah. Marinette thought that, of all people, her fellow high schoolers would understand. But alas, here she was, glaring down Dick because he wanted to do a team-building exercise. Bastard. She was going to shoot him.

With a paintball gun! Because they were playing paintball!

Do not send cops her way! She will introduce neurotoxins to your system!

Anyways, she had no choice but to agree. Debt’s a bitch.

And, maybe, the idea of shooting the Waynes point blank in the face with paintballs would have swayed her regardless, but who knows. The option was never truly given to her, so who’s to say how she would have reacted?

Certainly, the Waynes would never know.

Which was probably for the best. They could end her life in a couple of phone calls.

She hummed as she absently messed with her paintball gun. They had been split off into pairs. Steph was still on the bench thanks to her copious amounts of injuries, unfortunately, so Marinette hadn’t particularly minded who she was going to end up with (she hated all of the Waynes equally, save fucking Tim, who would avoid her, anyway), and had allowed them to all pair off and leave her with the leftovers.

She was regretting that, now, of course.

Dick wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tugged her into his side. “Don’t get too competitive, please?” He said, and he sounded like he was one more ‘fuck you’ away from begging.

She glanced over his shoulder and found Tim making faces at her behind his back. He was supposed to be heading to one of the other nondescript, frankly unnerving steel tunnels that would lead them to a random place on the map. He should be spending this time with Damian so they could discuss their plans. He was not doing any of these things. He had followed Marinette and Dick to their room instead, and she would be concerned about him trying to figure out where they would end up for the sake of a tactical advantage… but, frankly, that was too smart for him.

He had no good reason to be here. How sweet of him to want to see her off.

She looked back at Dick, her eyes gleaming. “Of course I won’t. Only babies get competitive over stuff like this.”

Tim bristled. But his mic was on, so he was unable to say a word in protest. He could turn his face away from the people to mouth the curses he so clearly wanted to scream, but she could just look in another direction.

Her lips twitched into a kind of grin before she tamped it down.

Dick sighed. Deeply. “I’m guessing I can take that as a no.”

“Aw. You know me so well.”

He snickered. “Well, I’d hope so, since I hired you.”

“No one has ever lied to the people hiring them ever,” she said, nodding sagely.

He grinned. “Which is why we went with… atypical hiring practices.”

“You’ve basically kidnapped me and decided to hold my entire future ransom to make me work for you.”

“Shhhhhhhhh.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Oh, Marinette,” a voice called, and she was more than happy to let Steph drag her out from under Dick’s arm, even if this meant that a new arm was wrapped around her waist and a face came to rest close to her own.

Marinette raised an eyebrow, but wasn’t too surprised at the sudden closeness. They’d literally slept together, in the same bed, for days. She could handle a little bit of contact. And, besides, they’d both agreed that it fit their characters (a playful flirt would flirt with a girl next door, and a girl next door would blush and let it happen) and it would draw in more customers. Teenage boys and gay teenage girls would both rather enjoy watching ‘wlw content’ when given the option.

Besides, who doesn’t flirt with their friends a little? Now they got to monetize it. A win.

Marinette rested a lazy arm over Steph’s shoulder, careful not to jostle the microphone hovering by the girl’s chin. She gave it a pointed look, and Steph mouthed the word ‘off’. She untensed a little. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Your mic is off.”

“I didn’t get one,” she said, shrugging.

Steph blinked. “Oh. I can give you mine.”

“Well, if I accept that, how am I going to insult Tim without the audience knowing?”

Dick snickered. “You could try not insulting him.”

Marinette gave him a blank look.

He shrugged as if to say ‘well, I tried’. Which, did he really?

But her attention was quickly stolen away when Steph pulled something out from behind her ear and then presented it to Marinette, who looked at it how one might look at a dead rat their cat had just brought in.

“What the hell is that?”

“A mic,” Dick offered.

She glared at him out of the corner of her eyes, and then snapped her attention back to Steph when the girl leaned in to fit the device over her ear. “You’re not putting that on me.”

“What, is the scientist scared of technology?” teased Dick.

She gritted her teeth. “Chemicals are easy to understand. They’re predictable. This? Unreliable. Who knows who's listening in on those wavelengths.”

There was a beat of silence. The two Waynes looked at each other for a moment, something unreadable on their faces.

And then Dick sighed. “Listen, you know how our dad bankrolls the Batman?”

She nodded, still eyeing Steph as if the girl was going to jump her and attach the evil machine to her by force.

“Well, we get a couple of perks. Like this. If anyone tries to hack into these – which, really, why would they? – Batman will be alerted and I’m sure they will never be heard from again… or whatever it is he and his weirdo kids do.”

“Local Batman proves that all cops are corrupt,” she said, still eyeing it warily.

“Not a cop,” said Steph.

“Not corrupt,” said Dick.

She wasn’t sure who was being less realistic.

And it didn’t matter what they said, either way.

Batman was exactly the person she was trying to avoid, thank you very much. But it wasn’t like she could just say that, because being openly wary of the Batman in front of rich people was just begging for them to be suspicious of you. They were too used to their peers being affiliated with the Court of Owls. So, reluctantly, she let Steph place the mic.

The girl drew back slightly once she was sure everything was in place (and, more importantly, that it would stay in place even while they were all running around).

Steph grinned. “There. Done. All you’ve got to do now is press the button and you’ll be live. Anyways. Blush like I said something suuuuper hot, m’kay? They’re staring.”

“Maybe if you do something hot, I will.”

She hummed thoughtfully before she brought her free hand up to cradle Marinette’s face. She tilted her head up, her thumb caressing her cheek, their noses brushing. A quiet click sounded next to her ear as her headpiece was turned on.

“Fixed,” Steph said. Quiet, but close enough to the mic hovering by Marinette’s chin for their audience to hear.

“Thanks,” Marinette mumbled. Thank god she had melanin to hide the reddening of her face somewhat, but she was pretty sure it was obvious regardless.

“Anytime,” Steph teased, going so far as to press a kiss to Marinette’s nose before drawing back. She glanced at Dick. “Your mic is off, too.”

“What, not going to fix mine for me?” Dick joked, lifting a lazy hand to flick the knob by his ear.

Steph snorted. “I’d rather die.”

Dick grinned and immediately tugged Marinette closer to him again. Woe is her. If only she could retaliate by beating his ass like she so wants to do. She hates debt. Thankfully, he didn’t wrap an arm around her this time, instead he let her go in favor of crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re just jealous that you don’t get to teach this sweet little underclassman the ropes.”

Marinette was fighting a valiant battle with her face, trying to keep the unimpressed annoyance off of it. “You’re so kind.”

“Of course! It’s my job as the club leader to make sure that your introduction to the group goes smoothly!”

They wouldn’t be bothering with all of this otherwise.

For you see, a large part of being a Host was based around how physically attractive you were, and if they wanted her to be popular enough to pay off her debt, they would have to introduce her to the potential customers in a way that would draw their attention in that way. So, it had been decided that Marinette’s official introduction should be some kind of physical activity. Especially since their clients were all fellow teens, and likely would see a bunch of people fighting for their lives in slightly skimpy clothes and go ‘ooooooooooh’.

Steph rolled her eyes so hard she must have seen her brain back there. “It would have been easier if we’d just done a pool party.”

“My! A pool party?! Steph, have you no shame? What about her innocence?!”

“Dick. She’s wearing a crop top and yoga pants.”

“A crop top, yoga pants, and tasteful armor,” said Dick. His attempts at defending her honor were… definitely attempts. Marinette could give him that.

Marinette crossed her arms over her chest, grinning. “Would you prefer I work out in a hoodie and sweats?”

“Well,” said Steph. She brought her hands up to press against her own chest, winking. “I don’t want that.”

A glance up at the crowd showed that the people had caught the jist of what she’d said thanks to the overdramatic body language she had opted for. Thankfully. Marinette wasn’t sure how to naturally repeat that for the sake of the people watching.

Her eyes caught on one particular person in the crowd, though.

Fu, leaning against his cane heavily, watching her.

“Alright, Steph, stop flirting with the new recruit,” Dick said, slinging his arm over Marinette’s shoulders again, tugging her closer to his side. “Shoo. Scram. Other synonyms that start with ‘s’. I need to teach her how to shoot – shoot! No, wait, I’m thinking of ‘shoo’, and I’m pretty sure I already said that. Anyways. Leave so I can teach her.”

Marinette’s head jerked around to look at him, her eyebrows disappearing behind her hairline. “I know how to shoot. You just…”

She pointed her paintball gun at a nearby wall and pulled the trigger. A disappointed look crossed her face when, despite the gun clicking to tell her that the trigger was working, nothing came out.

“Hm,” she said, eloquently.

He snickered. “Well, I know why that happened, but before we fix that…” He reached a hand out to adjust her fingers. “Let’s not keep our fingers on the trigger. Unless you want to shoot at anything that dares to surprise you.”

Marinette absolutely wanted that. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say that while in character, so she was stuck smiling and saying, “Thanks, Richard.”

“Dick,” he corrected lightly, as usual.

“You don’t understand how much I can not call you that,” she said. Even if Dick was, often, a dick, and she didn’t usually mind going with whatever nickname or name someone called themself, it’s hard to say the word and still come across as demure.

“Well, then, you can call me something else. How does ‘my liege’ sound?”

Marinette snickered into her hand. “Terrible, King.”

“Oh. Hate that.”

“Got it, Queen.”

He sighed.

“Themporer?” she tried, batting her eyelashes.

“How many of those do you have?”

“So many, gender nonspecific monarch.”

“That one feels like a stretch.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, it is a bit of a mouthful.”

“You know, I’m starting to realize that you use humor to stall.”

Marinette’s face flushed at the direct callout. That had been unnecessary. And she couldn’t even curse him out for it. She hated life.

Whatever. She’d roll with it (not like she had any other choices). She gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “What do you mean? I was trying to figure out your royal-title-specific pronoun preferences! I had only the best of intentions.”

“Of course, of course. Pretend to get ready to shoot your gun.”

Marinette huffed, mumbling that he was ‘no fun’ as she lifted her paintball gun.

He walked around her slowly, knocking his foot against the inside of her own until she moved them to be shoulder width apart, bending her arms so the recoil wouldn’t hurt as much, bending her knees slightly so she wouldn’t fall over at the lightest of hits…

“You sure know a lot about this,” Marinette said, eyeing him warily.

“Dad made me take some self-defense classes after I got held for ransom for the eight and a half-th time.”

“Eight times is a lot but I guess that’s still surprisingly competent for hi – wait, half-th?”

“Yeah!” he said, and then did not elaborate.

She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting.

He checked her form one last time before nodding to himself. He squinted at her gun for a moment, before cringing.

“I – uh – I’m not used to turning off the safety from an outsider’s point of view…”

“Then here,” she said, starting to stand up straighter and hand it over to him, only for him to rapidly shake his head.

“No, no, no, we need you in that position for as long as possible to get your body used to it.”

Marinette fought back a grimace, her eyes briefly flicking to the people still watching them intently. Dick, as the self-proclaimed ‘king’ of the Host Club, was easily the most popular among guests. She did not want to put a target on her back by looking like she was trying to come onto him. Or because it might look like he was coming onto her. She hated this fucking job. They were coworkers, damn it. She shouldn’t be stressing about getting, like, Court of Owls-style assassinated for being near him!

“Just – just… do it quick,” she said.

He nodded sharply.

Arms wrapped around her from behind, a chin coming to rest upon her shoulder. Warm breath just barely wafted over the side of her neck, earning a few goosebumps. His hands ghosted over the back of her own, briefly, fixing the positioning of her fingers once again (he really didn’t like her tendency to hang onto the trigger, apparently) before flicking the safety off.

He pulled back the second everything was in order, hands up like he was already actively surrendering. They sent the people watching them mildly embarrassed looks. It isn’t doing them much good, though.

Quick! Take legitimacy away from the intimacy!

“I need to stop bringing desserts from home, you’re getting heavy.”

Dick spluttered. “What?”

“I said what I said.”

She would apologize later.

… wait, would Babs count mental damage as adding to her debt?

She was going to apologize so profusely later.

Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair, briefly pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “Tell me why we made you the girl next door again?”

“Out of ideas,” Marinette said.

“Right, right. Any chance we can change it?”

“Well, you’re the king and all, you can choose,” she said, before winking and blowing a kiss to the people up on the viewing platform. “But, hey, everyone knows that most ‘harsh’ people are just hurt people trying to protect themselves from more harm. I’m sure that, with the right person, I could actually be the soft, kind person I portray. After all, every act needs at least a little bit of truth to work, right?”

She glanced at Dick out of the corner of her eyes. He gave the barest trace of a nod.

Good.

She had a bit of a reputation in the school. Not really because she was outright mean to people – she would never say half the shit she said around Adrien and the host club members to people she didn’t know, not without good reason – but because pretty much every student knew about her… antagonistic relationship with Tim. Because during the last finals season they had only been a step above fistfighting in the middle of the hallway. And not even because they had been scared of punishment or expulsion, but instead because Duke and Steph had physically dragged Tim away before he could jump at her.

Whatever. It was totally water under the bridge and she definitely didn’t want him dead anymore.

(Yes, Tim and Marinette could just put aside their differences, and show that they had changed… but Marinette would rather just kill him, to be honest.)

Regardless, it would be hard to convince the general population that the person that had almost fought another member was all that shy and kind. So, they needed to rework her image. Recontextualize her personality.

Whether or not Marinette or any of the other host club members really believed what she was saying didn’t matter, all that mattered was that their guests believed it. Thankfully, they had years worth of toxic media to back up their claims, and the rich kids who had never had real reason to distrust what they’d been told fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Great. The goal for today is done. Now, if only she could get out of this stupid paintball tournament. She has changed her mind. A chance of shooting Tim in the face is not worth having to simulate a battle.

Maybe if she annoys Dick enough he might just call it off?

She watched him out of the corner of her eyes as they continued down the hallway. He caught her stare and, instead of being confused or upset or uncomfortable, sent her a tiny smile.

Yeah, she didn’t think it would work. You can’t annoy someone with as many younger siblings as he has. They are immune to outside annoyances by this age, she is pretty sure.

There’s no getting out of this.

She almost laughed. Story of her fucking life.

Dick rested his hand on the doorknob, glancing back at her.

“Ready?”

She flashed a wink. “As I’ll ever be.”

Their door opened up into what seemed to be a trench, carved into the ground. Once they had clambered out of the trench, their clothes already stained with dirt (at least she didn’t have to pay for any of it), they found themselves in a heavily wooded area, with a couple of concrete structures dotted around.

She walked to a nearby tree. All of them looked long dead, blackened, as if they had been burned. As if this was a real battlefield.

She rapped her knuckles against it lightly, and wasn’t surprised to find that, whatever it was made of, it wasn’t organic material. Judging by the sound, she would guess styrofoam, paper mache, paint, and a dream.

A quick check of one of the structures revealed it to have no ceiling.

The entire world around them was fabricated to give the people so far above them, standing on the glass and peering down at them with excited grins she didn’t want to look at, a good view of what was going on. No leaves, no roofs, nothing was allowed to take away from their fun.

Oh shit, she thought. This is what it feels like to be in the Hunger Games.

Or to be in one of Riddler’s escape rooms, she supposed.

She watched Dick carefully toeing at the dirt, checking to see how far down it went. Whether it could actually be used as padding, or if the metal hidden beneath would give some nasty bruises if someone fell on it for any reason. Such as dramatically falling over when shot ‘dead’.

Her lips twitched into a wry kind of grin. And he’s supposed to be the ‘dumbest’ one. Who does he think that he’s fooling?

It wasn’t until long after he had confirmed that the ground was, in fact, soft enough for them all to drop dead on without issue, that an alarm alerted them to the fact that the grace period was over, and they were now supposed to be hunting each other to the death.

Marinette brushed her bangs away from her eyes, taking advantage of the opportunity to see how the audience had dispersed themselves. They were, largely, grouped into four spots. No guesses why. Sureeeeeely not because this was where the four pairs of competitors were…

Okay, that wasn’t fair to the customers. There was no way for them to know that the glass wasn’t a one way mirror like they’d been told. They shouldn’t be aware of the fact that this was all a play that had been planned out well in advance. The Waynes weren’t the types to let on that they weren’t quite as ‘airheaded’ as they often portrayed themselves to be, for whatever reason.

Still… Marinette stretched lazily, rocking back and forth on her feet, trying not to laugh aloud at just how obvious they were all being.

“So, are we heading to the center or skirting around the edges?” she asked.

“Center,” he said, because that was where most of the male clients were, and therefore where Babs and Cass were likely to be. “Let’s see whether there’s a Hunger Games-style cornucopia or something.”

Marinette clicked her tongue lightly. “You can’t tell people what we’re ripping off.”

“I think they already know.”

She huffed, but it’s not as if she genuinely cared.

Without further ado, they were off.

*****

They happened across Babs and Cass in the middle. They seemed to be doing the same thing that Marinette and Dick were, picking around for anything that might be useful. As if the people who had made this place would make an entrance in a spot where they had special items.

“Find anything?” Dick asked, pointing his gun at Babs.

Cass retaliated by pointing her gun at him. He did not seem particularly pleased about this development.

Marinette wasn’t pleased, either, because this meant she had to point her gun at Cass in retaliation. Fuck this script for making her defend Dick Grayson of all people.

Their guests looked to Babs, expecting her to point her gun at Marinette and complete the circle, leading to a dramatic standoff…

Only for Babs to hold up her hands in the universal sign of surrender. “We don’t have to fight,” she said. “It’s better if we don’t. We can’t have Jason or Tim’s teams winning.”

If nothing else, Marinette had to admit that this strategy would have probably worked on her and Dick even if it wasn’t scripted. Because fuck Tim Drake. And, in Dick’s case, Jason, in particular, cannot win, because he would be insufferable about it. They would both take shady deals in a heartbeat if it meant that the other two teams wouldn’t win.

“What do you get from this?” Marinette asked, because it was expected of her.

Cass shrugged. “Fun.”

Valid reason. Marinette (and Dick, too, though she loathed to admit it) could sometimes be fun.

As for Babs…

“If we’re the last two teams, I want to shoot Dick in the face.”

Dick gave a screech of offense, complaining about his ‘beautiful face’. But Marinette sees now downsides! They shook on it before he could get a word in edgewise.

“Alright, team, let’s roll out,” said Babs.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Dick whined.

“No. We are misandry-ing,” Marinette informed him.

“Perfect. Us girlies have to stick together,” Babs joked lightly.

“True. Can’t wait to kill ‘my liege’ for the sake of women everywhere,” Marinette said, snickering to herself.

Dick snorted at the ‘my liege’ callback, and then seemed to process what she had said. He pressed a hand to his chest. “Excuse you, I’m a girlie, too.”

“Woo, slay queen,” Marinette deadpanned. And then she frowned to herself. “Is ‘my liege’ a gendered term?”

“I… think so?” said Babs. The grammar rules for royalty is not the kind of thing the average teenager is looking up, after all. And, if Babs doesn’t know, then Cass (ESL speaker) and Dick (a liar pretending to be the ‘dumb one’ in a group already known for being stupid) had no shot. Pain. She must live without knowing for the next few hours. Why does god hate her so? Truly, she has suffered more than Jesus.

… perhaps it is jokes like that that make god hate her.

Whatever. She did not believe in Him, therefore He could not hurt her.

Anyways.

“Let’s roll out, then, I guess,” she said.

“Only I’m allowed to make that joke,” said Babs.

Marinette blinked. And then her face reddened. “Oh — I—!”

Cass shook her head in mock disappointment.

Marinette huffed. “Is it too late to un-team?”

“Nah, we shook on it, it’s binding,” Babs said.

Well. If that’s the case. They rolled ou— started off in search of others.

It was, honestly, a lot of meandering around. If they managed to go in the right direction too many times, the illusion would break, after all.

But, if nothing ‘entertaining’ was happening, they needed to work extra hard to have interesting conversations to listen in on. Which was hard. Usually, they entertained their guests by flirting, which was easy and didn’t take that much mental energy, but that was no longer really an option. They weren’t going to flirt with each other, especially since Dick and Cass were siblings and Dick and Babs were exes (Dick once again ruining things for everyone, shame on him). So…

Marinette walked alongside Babs. “If you don’t mind me asking, how the heck are you able to use your wheelchair when the ground is like this?” she said. The wheels didn’t look all that special, after all – it was all clearly high-quality, don’t get her wrong, but it wasn’t like she was looking at the wheelchair version of four wheel drive. And the gun in her lap was barely even moving.

“That’s the most fucked up question anyone’s ever asked me,” deadpanned Babs.

Marinette huffed. “Now, I just don’t think that’s true.”

“When have I ever lied?”

“I’m still convinced that the debt was a scam,” she sniffed.

Babs rolled her eyes but distinctly didn’t deny it. Because she couldn’t, clearly, not because she just didn’t feel that this was worth her time or energy. “This isn’t any worse than going down sidewalks.”

Marinette envisioned the Average Gotham Sidewalk. Then looked at the ground. She supposed that the sticks kind of resembled used syringes, now that she thought about it, and the dirt was surprisingly much smoother than the pothole-riddled concrete.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay, makes sense, yeah.”

Well. She had done her job. Someone else needs to pick up the slack, now.

Babs sent her a flat look that said she needed to say something that would interest the audience, not just her. She fought the urge to grumble under her breath. The microphone would pick that up, too.

She turned to look at Dick.

“Okay, philosophical question: if you are aware that you are in denial, is it really denial, or is it a weird form of acceptance?”

It was silent for a moment.

“Er… I guess… acceptance?”

“But then it’s not denial. Different stage,” Cass said.

“But if you’re aware of it, it can’t be denial,” Dick argued.

Babs sighed. “How ‘aware’ is this ‘awareness’? Because, I’m pretty sure, even people in denial kind of know things are weird.”

“Nonono, you’re aware of the denial,” said Marinette. “Like, you know the thing you’re in denial about is bad and you go ‘nahhhhh’. But it’s a conscious decision.”

“Then… ugh. Denial, I guess.”

Babs and Cass started arguing. Marinette was pretty sure this was the most talkative and passionate she had ever seen Cass.

As for the guests… they were either arguing vehemently themselves or watching other people argue with amused grins.

Marinette, discreetly, gave a little bow in Dick’s direction. He gave a huff of laughter.

By the time they stumbled across another person, Cass seemed pissed off enough to go all out. This wasn’t intentional, but it was still funny to watch Duke go from relatively calm and in control to immediately ducking behind a tree for cover for fear of death.

Until he started firing at them all, too, and they were forced to book it to the nearest shelter.

You might argue that they were cowards, and should help out Cass, and you’d be right, but…

They wouldn’t be much help, to be honest.

The way Duke and Cass were fighting was insane. Like they already knew what each other’s movements were going to be ahead of time, and thus were more intent on waiting for the other to slip up than outright outsmarting each other.

Marinette whistled lowly. “How often do you guys come here?”

“Here? This is the first time, actually,” said Dick, brightly. “But we have something like this back at the Manor.”

She hated rich people.

(This fact has been made abundantly clear over the past few chapters, but she would like to say it again. And again. For as many times as it would take for them to stop pulling Rich People Shit.)

“Woooow,” she said, trying to infuse as much fake cheeriness into her tone as was physically possible when her main thought was about how, technically, friendly fire is possible here. “What a perfectly amazing use of your money.”

He nodded his agreement. Whether or not it was joking did not matter when her blood was boiling beneath her skin. She started to lift her gun, intent on either helping Cass or betraying both Cass and Duke at once, only for a stray bullet to nail the wall by her head the moment she started to poke her head out.

She stared at the purple paint for a moment, eyes wide, before slowly shrinking back into hiding.

She was still pissed off, though!

Before her eyes could drift to Babs and she could weigh the moral implications of sending her out first, a handful of skittles was shoved in front of her face.

“Want some?” said Jason.

She nodded, taking all of the red ones and popping them in her mouth. Dick did the same, but with the green pieces, like a weirdo (who the hell prefers green?). Babs wasn’t nearly as picky, just taking a handful of the rest and popping them like pills.

And then she started to lift her gun.

Marinette nearly choked on her sweet treat.

“JASON?!” Dick yelped.

They scrambled for their own guns.

Jason managed to get a shot off on Babs before he was covered in yellow. Maybe they shot him more times than was strictly necessary, but that was what he deserved for using Skittles against them. Honestly, the fact that Dick didn’t believe in the death penalty was the only thing saving him right now.

As for Marinette… well, she had been too intent on looting his ‘corpse’ for more candy to bother with murdering him via paintball gun. After all, what if the Skittles ended up getting blood or — god forbid — paint on them? She wouldn’t even be able to kill him in retaliation for messing up her snack.

She grumbled when she found paintballs, but pocketed them for extra ammo, in case Cass won and needed more.

Then, finally, she procured her prize: a sharing size bag of candy.

Life is good.

Unless you are Jason Todd.

“Maaaaan,” he groaned. “Those are mine, y’know.”

“Shhhhh, you’re a corpse, you can’t speak,” Dick said, holding his hand out for some.

She set the paintballs in his hand instead.

And then watched on in horror as he bit down on one without thinking.

Dick stared at her for a moment, purple dripping from his mouth.

Marinette swallowed down the temptation to joke about him looking like a vampire in favor of frantically looking up whether paintballs were nontoxic or if they were about to cut this paintball tournament short.

… which she wouldn’t mind, actually, now that she thought about it...

She considered the google page saying that they were nontoxic (for humans, at least, apparently they were not good for animals, which Damian was going to be distressed about when he learned), wondering whether an ambulance visit would be added to her debt. And then decided she didn’t want to risk it.

“You’re fine.”

Want to know who wasn’t fine? Cass and Duke. Apparently, in the time it took for everything to settle, Duke and Cass had killed each other off. Or, well, Duke had slipped up and Cass had ‘died’ in solidarity with him. Mildly concerning behavior, but it was a paintball game and therefore has no real indication of actual behaviors. Hopefully. Marinette genuinely liked Cass.

No time to linger on that particular line of thought.

“If Tim wins I’m pulling a Cass,” Marinette told Dick.

Dick raised an eyebrow. “You’d already be ‘dead’ if Tim wins.”

She thought this over. “Then I’ll come back as a zombie and be killed again. Perfect.”

Jason did not seem to find this funny, but maybe he was still bitter about having his Skittles stolen. Dick grinned and, really, that’s all that matters.

“What do you think real life zombies are like?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nonexistent.”

“Don’t know what I was expecting from the scientist,” he huffed.

“Fiiiiiine,” she said. She thought, long and hard, about what a real life zombie would be like. Blüdhaven got nuked a while back (deserved, fuck Blüdhaven), and she hadn’t yet heard of zombies, so radiation poisoning wasn’t going to do it. So probably an intentional thing — Jurassic Park style experimentation, or something. Which means that the circumstances would be controlled… except zombies would probably escape the labs, if Marinette were to ever see them. The body would have to be very cold to slow down decomposition. It wouldn’t even halt it entirely.

“Gross,” she decided.

Dick stared at her. “All that thought and you come up with ‘gross’?!”

“I’m not wrong. They’d be gross.”

“That is not the point!” he groaned. “Talk about whether you think they’d be fast or slow, strong or weak, intelligent or not! Talk about whether their decomposition would affect them!”

She snickered. “Careful, Richard, or you’re going to make people think you have a brain in there.”

For a moment, he froze. And then he purposefully relaxed, each muscle individually untensing, one by one. He laughed lightly, but it was a tad bit forced (when wasn’t it, though?). “Yeah, the zombies will come after me if they know.”

“Being stupid has its benefits, yeah?”

He chuckled humorlessly.

Before he could come up with a proper response, though, Tim wandered into their area, drawn by the sound of gunfire from Duke and Cass’s fight. Marinette and Dick pointed their guns at him immediately.

Tim narrowed his eyes. He pointed his gun at Marinette, but seemed hesitant.

Marinette fought off a smirk. She loved having plot armor. At the sight of her face, he only seemed more irritated, which was even better.

But there was nothing he could do.

He set his gun down.

“We could take him as hostage,” Dick offered. “See if that lures Damian –.”

“Nah, too risky,” said Marinette. Without any further ado, she shot Tim.

Tim fell over, and not entirely because that was standard for ‘dead’ people. He hugged himself. His dignity, breaking. In a very literal sense.

It was very quiet. Marinette’s hand found its way to her mouth.

Dick looked at her, his eyes wide and horrified.

“I know I hate you, but… I didn’t mean… I forgot that men have… Tim, I’m so sorry.”

Tim made a pitiful sound.

Shakily, he lifted a hand in a thumbs up.

She made a heart with her own hands. This did not seem to help in the slightest but, frankly, there wasn’t much else she could do.

Luckily, she didn’t need to think about it for long before she was distracted — a voice called from behind them: “Found you.”

She whipped around and shot Damian in the chest.

There were a few moments where no one knew what to do. The boy stared at the paint staining his armor bright yellow. Marinette’s grip felt clammy on her gun.

Dick tipped his head to the side consideringly.

She met his eyes.

She was no longer amused by the intelligence lingering in his gaze as he scrutinized her. She narrowed her eyes at him, briefly, daring him to say something. She wasn’t the only one hiding things, after all.

Play along, she told him. Help me fix this ending.

He relaxed his expression carefully.

They had an understanding. Despite Marinette’s supposed incompetence with guns, when startled she was quick to shoot and accurate. Despite Dick constantly acting as if he was dumb, there was clearly a brain hidden somewhere there. They both knew more than they tried to let on. Maybe that was why they didn’t have much trouble identifying each other’s acts… but, so long as their own secrets remained intact, they could keep each others’.

It was a little nerve-wracking, and yet, strangely, nice, to have someone you don’t have to lie to. That can see past it even when you try.

She smirked and lifted her gun. “See? This is why you keep your finger on the trigger, Dick.”

He grinned and held up his hands in surrender.

*****

Marinette and Dick grimaced as a cooler full of paint was poured over their backs. They definitely felt victorious right about now. This was their prize for winning. Yay them.

Sure, they didn’t exactly, genuinely earn the win, but that’s besides the point.

He looked at her. “You’ve got red in your hair.”

She yelped and brought a hand up to try and get it out, only to remember just a second too late that her hands, too, were covered in paint. She stared at the glob of paint-covered hair hanging limp in front of her eyes for a moment, devastated, and then glared at him.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I was just pointing something out for you,” he said ‘innocently’, unable to quite keep himself from smiling.

She hummed, and then slapped her hand onto his hair. He hissed and reflexively his hands flew up to touch the sore spot, only for him to realize that now he had been the one baited into getting paint in his hair.

“Marinette,” he said, smiling sweetly.

For a moment, one could almost see the regret flickering across her features.

And then he rushed forward to try and trap her in a hug. She shrieked, managing to get only a few steps before she was snatched up, dragged into the evil monster. She barely even had time to fight back before she was thrown over his shoulder, only able to yell off-brand curse words and try to writhe around in hopes of freedom – or, at least, in hopes that she could smear her own paint over every part of him she could reach.

Within minutes, they were swirling messes of red, blue, purple, and the occasional scrap of visible skin.

There were people laughing at their antics.

Both of them froze.

They looked up, and found the other members of the Host Club were enjoying the show.

As well as a few guests, but they couldn’t really retaliate against them.

So, Dick set Marinette down and they met each other’s eyes and silently resolved to make up for that by attacking their fellow club members twice as much to compensate.

*****

Marinette heaved a sigh as she sat on a bench, scrubbing paint off her arm with her millionth wet wipe of the day. Where did the green even come from?

It was then that she realized someone was nearing her.

She looked over her shoulder and found…

Well, someone her age. She recognized her, vaguely, from her English class, but their name eluded her.

The girl smiled nervously at Marinette, wringing her hands and somewhat avoiding eye contact. “I – uh – was wondering if you could Host for me sometime?”

Marinette stared at her for a moment, processing.

And then she lit up, practically jumping from her seat in order to shake the girl’s hand.

“That sounds great! What day would you –?”

She drew her hand back, and cringed at the red strings of paint now connecting their hands.

“I… don’t know if I have more wet wipes,” she said, blushing.

The girl smiled, amused. “If you walk me home, I’ll consider it even.”

Marinette hesitantly took her hand again, intertwining their fingers. “Okay. Don’t know if that’s much of a punishment, but if that’s what it takes to repay you…”

~~~~~~~~~~

TBC

Taglist: @ev-cupcake @thatonecroc @toodaloo-kangaroo @fangirlingfanatic

[izzyspussy]

so doylistly mickey gets visibly cleaner each season (in the first half of the show at least) because he develops from a villain to a romantic lead and "nobody" wants a dirty boyfriend. Just one more reason among many that even straight romance is better written by gays and/or perverts; when we're scared of our attraction to the earthly human body we make our art about it scary instead of just powerwashing all the gross matter off of it (unless of course the inhuman lack of gross matter is a theme being engaged with, i.e. robot/angel fucki- listen, the point is we're not wimps out here doing a "there is no flesh in ba sing se" routine 24/7. cough. anyway...)

but watsonian...ly. there are a lot of really fucking stupid bullshit signs and standards that homophobic straighties use as an excuse to be homophobic toward someone they want to bully. many claim that little homophobia is a totally different beast to big homophobia, and the signs the former 'dars are Real vs the irrational signs the latter 'dars, but in fact the absolutely farcical ones are all the exact same idea as the little ones just exaggerated once or twice*.

for example. little homophobia posits that a man who is "too" preoccupied with his appearance must be gay. if he wears makeup or shaves his legs, of course, but also if he wears too many non-neutral, bright, or "girl" colors (that aren't his sports team's colors), if his pants are too fitted, if he has "feminine" piercings, if he has an elaborate skin care routine.

at one exaggeration, midsize homophobia, we add on if he works out for vanity, if he diets for vanity, if he styles his hair, if uses face wash instead of regular soap, if he wears cologne outside of formal settings, if his pants... fit, if he wears too many different or bright colors at all.

one more exaggeration and it's if he openly or just obviously cares about his appearance. if he does more than rinse his face at all, if he uses shampoo that isn't the cheapest 5-in-1 available, if he has a haircut other than men's number whatever, if he takes good care of his clothing, if he has a beard but it's too neatly trimmed. if he washes his asshole.

and finally we get to he's gay if he puts any thought into his appearance at all. if he wears an outfit instead of whatever random articles of clothing are practical, if he wears deodorant, if he's bothered by being dirty, if he brushes his teeth every day. lapses on these things are allowed but only to impress a sexual partner - as long as she's not "a sure thing".

so. watsonianly. mickey is almost always visibly dirty in season one- well for more than one reason. hygienic dysfunction is one of the most common symptoms of depression and anxiety especially in kids and teens, it's one of the easiest to spot signs of neglect. he's also frequently visibly beaten, and getting beaten gets you dirty in addition to getting you hurt + it hurts to get soap and water in open cuts or to have temperature or pressure changes on bruises that bad. and this doesn't really have any textual support but it doesn't have any textual contradiction as far as i remember either, but a common form of abuse (and torture) is to restrict access to hygiene.

and. in addition to all that. terry is obviously BIG homophobic. so. none of his boys, but ESPECIALLY mickey since he actually IS gay, can be "too" clean. and they are all often visibly unclean, but mickey is noticeably dirtier the dirtiest white boy in america. because he is denying himself cleanliness consciously and on purpose as part of maintaining his closet.

and then! he gets progressively cleaner because a) okay fine i guess nobody wants a consistently unwashed stinky uti risk boyfriend, we just all like it when he comes home from work or recreation with sweat and materials on him. or when he just woke up and he's sweaty and unkempt from sleep. or when he works out and his skin is glistening with sweat. or at the end of the day when his cologne and/or deodorant are wearing off and we can smell his body underneath. or when he plays with an animal or a child or his boys and he gets some on him. or whe- okay, okay, all either mild or temporary, i KNOW okay, FINE. so mickey starts washing up more because he wants to be desirable to ian and to be comfortable and enjoyable to be physically close to for progressively longer periods of time.

and b) mickey's progress with ian is not just in building more intimacy, but also for mickey... just in being comfortable. in being free. the longer he's with ian, the more mickey can let himself forgo the more painful aspects of performing straightness. the less he wishes he was straight, because now being gay has benefits that he cares about, that he wants, and in fact there are reasons that - if it was a choice, for him - he might choose to still be gay.

then in late two and in season three, he's usually clean but visibly dirty again when he gets stressed about outing and/or in scenes where he WILL become stressed about outing. (if only i could believe Those writers would ever have bothered to do something like this intentionally lol. although... i didn't pay enough attention to have an opinion on the costumers; perhaps they took it upon themselves.)

and finally in season four, he's a full blown romantic hero coming out is now inevitable for him, so in reverse of visible dirt foreshadowing/indicating going back or further in now being consistently well groomed - with a somewhat individualized haircut and everything! - foreshadows that he is on his way out/helps telegraph how poorly he fits in his closet now. he stands out from all the other milkoviches except mandy and sveta. he starts forgetting the rules ("you use another man's soap?"). he wears outfits that make him more desirable to the audience fit his body and show he has preferences - the dressed-up look he wore to go get ian, the blue and green madras button down he wore to the uptown gay house party, the blue & white striped and pastel blue & red ringer tanks both making a comeback from their respective first kiss and sleepover scenes in season 3, etc.

and then in season 5 (or at least what i could stand to watch of it) he. well. he looks exactly like his brand of Gay. after coming out, he's doing that "find out who you are and then do it on purpose" thing. clean skin and hair, clothes fit and are clean and coordinated, color palette is more consistent, vibrant, and flattering - and includes "girl" colors now!, etc.

anyway. as always idk how to end the post. but that's today's take. "dirtiest white boy in america" is an aspect of mickey's straightsona.

*i'm aware the standards of homophobia differ across class, this post addresses only the relevant iteration(s)

[autumn-foxfire]

Bunny Girl restaurant episode! Where Shinichi is a normal straight boy and Ran is a normal straight girl.

But first it starts with Akai and Amuro flirting with one another as a preview for what's to come.

I'm still annoyed that Ran goes around to clean Shinichi's house as I know she only does to show how good of a housewife she'll be for him <.<

She's so flustered T-T Ran, is it turning you on?

LOOK AT HER. SHE'S RED.

And totally straight Kudo Shinichi cares more about the food then the pretty girls dressed in bunny outfits.

I KNOW WHAT YOU TWO ARE.

HE SHOULDN'T JUST BE ACCUSED, HE SHOULD BE CHARGED.

Kogoro, there is a DIFFERENCE. He is touching her with her consent but you fucking groped her. The fact he doesn't know the difference is just concerning. No wonder Eri left him.

Look at him, just enjoying his juice. He does not care for anything else. Even though he's in a bunny girl restaurant. That's because he's gay :p

Amuro, only Kaito is allowed to call Shinichi tantei-kun.

Ma'am that is a 17 year old girl. Who is more attracted to you, than the old man.

The bunny ears being included in the body line is making me laugh and I don't know why XD

Oh, this is the first time we see Amuro think of Elena. I can't believe he actually said in an interview that Amuro's love is her T-T

This is just painful to watch, not because it's bad, but because it hurts to see how happy a family Ai could have had if it wasn't for the black org. Ai and Akemi don't look anything like there parents though XD She shares that in common with Ran.

Using your phone camera to find things does actually work. It was a life-saver when I lost my glasses as I am blind without them and would never have found them by myself if I didn't have my phone on me.

Dude, you can't control how people grieve. Especially when this was an arranged marriage to begin with where he was forced to leave the girl he loved to marry another woman.

It doesn't matter that she's actually your master's daughter, even if she was his young lover, you had no right to get upset with him and how he chooses to grieve and move on.

Amuro purposely finding ways to spend time Elena would be cute if I didn't know that Gosho made the reason being that he loved her romantically T-T

I didn't say it last episode but this Ai ending is so goddamn adorable and I never want it to change.

The gays are flirting.

Damnit Yuusaki, it was just getting good. I'm guessing this is the infamous tea party that the Kudo's have with Amuro and Akai XD

[our-queerplatonic-experience]

I honestly don't know how to start this cause I'm awkward lol but basically: my mom thinks my close(ish?) Friend is my "boyfriend"... could not be further from the truth 💀 (also sorry this is a bit long btw i like detail & that is a pain for me to deal with sometimes. This could be catagorized as venty but this is meant to be just a bit of a mind dump)

I'm aromantic asexual (romo+sex repulsed/adverse) & bigender (boy+girl), the um- suspected "boyfriend": she's a lesbian trans woman. This has happened a couple times, ligit were that mean gay & overly nice lesbian meme & somehow A NOTABLE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE THINK WERE DATING 💀 told her like imidiatly over text just to clear anything up like if my moms weird or smth. She was just like "oh shit" & we havnt mentioned it since.

What makes it a bit awkward tho is I DO lowkey have a squish/qp crush on her, on & off, but I know that my attraction tends to fade & waver with time (like- Lithqueerplatonic / Queerplatonicflux I guess). So I wouldn't really want to be in like, a qpr w/ her. That & I've always kinda "worry" that my boy/masc part may make most lesbians uncomfortable being in a qpr with me and vice versa with gay men & my girl/ fem part.

Anyway I just have really intense platonic feelings when I do have them & I wish as a society we were more ok with expressing that ;> RELASHIONSHIP ANARCHY WHEN?? when will ppl be "allowed" to kiss their homies goodnight without it being perceived romantic?? WHEN ;D (I'm also on the aplatonic spectrum, dont have many friends & dont plan on having many. I think too many ppl overwhelm me.)

My ideal QPR would just be like: cuddling/leaning on eachother, time together, nicknames & small gifts of appreciation (inexpensive &/or handmade stuff or food), I find kissing weird as a concept so a no for that personally in general. And like, at this point... thinking out loud idk if I want to do that w/ her specifically or if I just want a qpr? Cause like I'd only feel comfortable even touching ppl I'm fairly if not really close to & she checks that box by being in my short friend list. For reference: I only started regularly hugging & saying I love you to my best friend recently & we've known eachother & been mutually eachothers best friends for a decade. (I used to occasionally question if i had qp feelings for him but I am like VERY sure it's just heavy platonic appreciation. i love him so much hes the brother i never had i fr cannot stress how much i love him hes fr fr the best bro bro not even related to the topic really i just want to say that i love tf out of him hes awsome)

Anyway plz prey/etc that I don't get weirded out by my mom so much that I come out as aroace 💀 (i find even the idea of being in a romantic/sexual relationship repusing & unconfortable to think about. Just not my thing, if that changes fine i just don't anticipate that happening. Also I don't think she's like, a "kick me out" aphobic, just an uneducated 1. I just don't want to deal w/ any of it tbh. I want a clean cut "I am [blank]" statment and for the "conversation" to be over with but I don't expect that ) tldr: wish me luck on this journey of the cringe that is existing ☺

good luck!!!!! existing do be difficult but it will be okay :]

[genderqueerdykes]

heya

i can't sleep because my sexuality in relationship to my gender has been bothering me.

im transmasc, but genderfluid. not just boy/girl genderfluidity, it's all over the place. and i feel like i identify with being a gay man sometimes, and i also go through periods of feeling like a masculine lesbian.

i know how controversial this is and it breaks my heart because i can't figure out what to do. i know my identity should be for me, but i don't want to make people uncomfortable if i come off as a boy who's a lesbian sometimes.

also i feel intense imposter syndrome over this when i switch around. but it undeniably makes me feel like myself when i say I'm a transmasc genderfluid bi lesbian, which makes me feel good of course. i just wish i could stop feeling bad about it

is any of this normal and is there any other genderfluid ppl with complicated relationships to their sexuality? i feel alone here i guess

love your blog btw makes me happy and validated when i read what you and your followers have to say to people 💖

hello! thanks for stopping by!

i think it can be very easy to work ourselves up and over think things when it comes to how people will receive us in queer spaces- online queer spaces have been needlessly hostile over the past few years, mostly due to the relative anonymity and virtually zero consequences for being harmful and rude. it's okay to get scared sometimes

it may seem 'contradictory' or 'controversial' but it isn't that uncommon to go from identifying as a gay man to identifying as a masculine lesbian! genderfluidity means your genders can be. whatever. there's no set rules, and it's okay if your attraction changes when your gender does. mine does, as well. abrosexual and abroromantic may suit you

you don't have to pass any tests or anything like that to be successfully seen as genderfluid, it's okay if you change to be whatever, whenever. i always identify as a butch lesbian & a femme gay bear, all the time, no matter how I feel or who is fronting in my system. while some cishets may not get it, most queer people i explain this to say "oh yeah, i totally caught that vibe"

it can be scary to have "Strange" identities, but the meaning of "queer" is literally "weird" and having a weird identity falls right in line with the community. you're allowed to be a transmasculine lesbian, and you are even allowed to be a male/boy lesbian- there is no actual cosmic rule stating that lesbians cannot be men, partially men, or be genderfluid and be men sometimes

regardless of how others perceive you, you know who you are. you are the arbiter of your lived experience, and while someone misinterpreting you can be painful and inconvenient, it shouldn't define your experience. if people don't understand, keep going til you find the ones who do, and the ones who try to. even if people don't "Get" your gender, there are a lot of folks who will respect it, anyways, and you deserve that

hope that helps and makes sense. take care of yourself, good luck out there. there are no rules when it comes to be genderfluid. genderfluid people are encouraged to fuck with gender, rules, roles, presentation, etc. and it's only natural that a genderfluid person will have identities that "conflict" when approached through a non-queer lens. identities don't have to "make sense", they are mostly comprised of feelings !

good luck out there! feel free to stop by again

[xviistrings]

if you had to punt exactly one playable persona character into the sun, who would it be and why?

i have to pick just one? aww...

well, i classify my urge to punt someone as how much i hate and despise and fucking loathe them. but my reasoning behind hating a character is based on multiple factors;

do they have/learn good skills/abilities?

are they well written in the story?

are they well written in their social link?

writing aside, do i like them as a person?

now, the only games i have played out of the persona series are 4 & 5(NOT ROYAL). i read the p1 manga and am only watching playthroughs of the game, so i am not at all in any place to cast judgement on those guys, nor do one of those factors even apply to them... so that already narrows it down a whole bunch. i would never punt a single p1 character. they're all great (except maybe kei just for the 4th one) (but he's great. i love him. i think about him and get sad)

and i'm also eliminating the protagonists for obvious reasons, so we've already disqualified 11 characters. and with that out of the way, we can officially begin...

PERSONA'S PERILOUS PLAY OF PUNTING POTENTIAL!!!! (contains spoilers)

every character will be able to score out of 3 in each factor, and the one with the least amount of points wins the game as the Most Puntable. it's kind of like golf, which is funny, because i also want to punt golf players into the sun.

our first contestant is YOSUKE HANAMURAAAA

now, i was going to grab a fun little image of him to provide this post with visuals but i always forget that 90% of his search results on google are. uh. hm.

well, this is our situation. can i give him a pity point for that?

for number one, i can say...... 3/3. he was ALWAYS on my team during the whole game and i built him up well. like i was raising a son... sniffle... they grow up so fast...

i have to admit, it was a little annoying when he kept missing crits on the golden hand but is that his fault? no-hohohoooooo, it's merely a turn of fate... (and his fault. fuckyouyosukefuckyoufuckyougaaaah)

for number 2, i rate it 2. he's an ooooookay character in the main story, a lot of his harassment of the girls and kanji really tick me off and there's literally no good explanation as for why he does that other than just being an asshole, but. i guess being an asshole is just part of his personality.........?

EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THERE SHOULD BE GREATER CONSEQUENCES FOR HIS ACTIONS BECAUSE COMMUNICATING THE IDEA THAT BAD PEOPLE GET OFF SCOT-FREE IS TERRIBLE FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS. i don't give 2 shits about fanservice as a whole (in regards to harassing the girls, not the homophobia, that's just annoying) but can we stop making the grounds for it being sexual harassment

number 3 gets a 3! his social link is AMAZING and i CRIED and hes GAY and LOVES HIS FRIENDS!!!!!! if i wanted to do a character analysis on him then i would write a different post, but this is me trying to figure out who i would punt into the sun. so. moving on

number 4......... 1/3. for the previous points in number 2, he is an absolute dickhead and no amount of people-pleasing habits and homoerotic chemistry will make me like him. every person who is mean to him is right.

oh boy, just yosuke's section was reaaaaaaaaaally long... i'll try and shorten it for you, okay?

up next is chie satonaka, my personal favourite persona 4 girl if that sets the baseline for anything.

look at her :] she's so silly :]

for number one, i'm sadly going to have to rate her below 3... like. 1.5? is that allowed? i'll say it is.

she's the party member equivalent of a burner phone. unlike yosuke who's by my side forever and ever, chie is only good until teddie gets a persona and then she's so publicly humiliated that she accidentally misses every single hit. galactic punt YOURSELF MOTHERFUUUUUUUUUCK

number 2, 3/3. no explanation needed, literally just her shadow boss fight and the beauty pageant and her friendship with yukiko and her everything.

number 3... also 3/3. a lot of people give her flack for deciding she wants to be a cop, which i get because acab fuck yeah, but where adachi is a cop just to get attention and a gun, she actually intends to protect people. chie learns to help herself so she can help others... augh... AUGH CHIE I LOVE YOUUUUUU

ahem. number 4, 2/3. she's definitely a sweetheart and she seems fun to be around but i have to admit she's definitely a little annoying sometimes.

and now it's time for chie's bestest friend ever, yukiko amagi!!

she gets a pity point for being a lesbian... not just a lesbian but one having a crush on a straight girl. we've all been there hunny bun. let's watch romcoms and eat ice cream together while crying ok?

number 1..... 3/3 fuck yeah my main healer always coming in clutch!!! after a certain point she stops being the main fire user and the player is supposed to take that role but then she has KICKASS HEALING ABILITIES!! support characters are always my favourites (which might foreshadow my rating for haru.......)

1/3 for number 2. that might sound harsh, but! but but but!

they kind of sucked the life out of her after her dungeon. the only real defining personality traits she has are in her social link, which is unfortunate because so many people hate it!

i don't hate yukiko. never

3 gets a 3. it's a good story actually, and like i said it helps me see yukiko as. like. a person. and a lot of people say it's bad writing that her story ends with her deciding she wants to manage the inn, but let me put a lot of emphasis on 'deciding'. she chose that path for herself after being told she was allowed to do what she likes, and y'know what? i don't think that's bad!

nobody likes being forced to do something. i know i struggled a lot with doing homework because i always felt trapped in those deadlines and expectations, but i didn't just give up on school. improving my grades was my own choice, and i realized that i had potential to change myself despite my situation and succeed! that's what yukiko's social link is about. not giving in to other people's expectations, but thriving in the environment you're given...

i just said i wanted to shorten everything and now i'm ranting. always number 4 is a 3/3 she's literally just a girl and her laughing thing is cute idgaf.

KANJI TATSUMIIIIIIIII

subtracting a point for those shoes. get out.

number 1 is a 2/3. he was cool, but nobody ever compares to yosuke. i mainly used him for his physical skills rather than magic because yu took that role very easily, and when paired with teddie or yukiko he's just a boss. but he's not my favourite party member in the world

number 2, i'll be blunt, 1/3. WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO TO YOU MAN. we all saw how yosuke and everyone else and the whole damn story treated him. we all saw the line where he asked naoto to be femme so they could "make him a man". shut the fuck upppppp

number 3 is his saving grace. i know some people don't like that they never elaborated on the sexuality thing (or the... sexism..??) and i get that, having a character who's canonically mspec but only vaguely mentions it once and never again is really annoying and a half-assed attempt at representation. though i interpret his reconciliation with his sewing hobby, an aspect of him that everyone thinks is unmanly and should be shamed, as a metaphor for his own sexuality. similar to daisuke and soccer being a stand-in for his anxiety around romance and girls. in that case, it's a 3/3.

(plus there's the line "it's so cute it'll give you diabetes" and... kanji... *facepalm*)

number 4. he's cutie. a little weird, but cutie. 2/3

and now, a girl who needs no introduction.

god my feelings for her are as mixed as my auntie's desert lasagna. ("let's mix it up," she says...)

i don't have anything against the navigators. they're pretty good. i say 3/3.

however i hate rise's writing. -4/3. negative numbers are cheating? I DON'T CARE!!

her dungeon is a STRONG start to her character, like with everyone else. i love rise reconciling with the fact that there is no "real me" and everyone has different sides of themselves that they need to make it through life... and the fact that it ties in with teddie's conflict of feeling hollow, like an alien or an impostor only pretending to be alive........ oh my god! hiiiiii!!!!! love it!

and then rise's main bit in the story is crushing on the protagonist.......... sigh.

i really really REALLY hate that about her actually. i really hate forced romances. and before you go calling me a hypocrite for liking souyo and not yurise even though souyo has the exact same amount of flirty moments between them, that's because those two are really subtle with each other and have a really good initial friendship to back it up and also ties in with their actual personalities.......???? (we can debate forever and ever if yu has a personality but i say he does. he's consistently portrayed in other adaptations and spinoffs. he's got so much in common with yosuke)

but rise just kind of sees yu and goes "hey handsome. killing shadows all by yourself?" and it's like eeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh.... 90% of the time she's on screen it's to flirt with yu and the other 10% is serious moments or when she's with anyone but yu. there's no moments where she gets to be casual and friendly with HIM, where we get to see DEPTH to their relationship, it's just purely flirting. and i hate that. so much. is this a one-night stand? no? then give me some actual fucking chemistry

and i feel like all of that smushing-dolls-together time takes away from a lot of genuine scenes with rise where she....... yk.... shows off her personality?

the hot springs and the trip to tatsumi port island are held dearly in my heart because rise DOES SHIT. she's silly and goofy and playful and maybe she says some stuff that's a little perverted but it's not to the yosuke degree. i like the idea that rise flirts with ALL of her friends, not just yu; it makes her feel like she's really part of the friend group, which is the investigation team's strongest suit.

rise and yukiko both have any personality ripped from them in favour of dumb bits that aren't even funny and that post of mine analyzing their dynamic during the school field trip is so everything guys they're so great as a duo i need to see more of them pleapelpslepalpelspes.......

...whoops. i ranted.

number 3 gets a 2/3. it's kind of just a rehash of what she learned in the main story, which is fine, but not ideal.

rise as a person is 3/3. absolute silliness all around. love her

KUMA KUMA KUMAAAAA

look at this fucking guy. ridiculous. i hate him. he's so annoying and dumb and he sucks

3/3 on party member he's totally goated

3/3 on main story he makes me feel the whole spectrum of emotions and then some

his social link is automated so technically thats a 3/3 too

3/3 person he might be an annoying little shit but i have 2 younger cousins. i understand yosuke. it's endearing to me

teddie is peak. i would never punt him.

now............to.

entirely honest, i'm on my second persona 4 playthrough to complete the social links i never finished and... naoto is one of those. so i will be unable to determine the rating for one of the factors. but luckily i'm not shit at math so it'll work out in the end

for 1...... honestly they're a good party member as well, but because i didn't get very far in their social link, i didn't unlock that ability where she's able to withstand a deadly blow meaning he would just be constantly dying. like. constantly.

but that's kind of the only thing i like about naoto. i have to rate their main storyline a 1/3. it's absolutely shit and the gender plottwist (ughh) is so badly done. i'm personally thinking up a rewrite for his character because i think they were onto something with the message about misogyny in the workplace but she's so SHITTILY executed that it's just muddied

naoto as a person is..... ok. 2/3. i don't find many things about her that exceptional or fun. i don't think about them often. if this were my rewrite of him it'd be waaaay deep down in the negatives because they are an ASSHOLE but i love them way more :3

and next is ryu.............uh........ actually, this is way too long. much too long than you probably anticipated... um... maybe i'll cut it short, make a part 2 later.

until next time........ on PERSONA'S PERILOUS PLAY OF PUNTING POTENTIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

[eva-does-her-best]

One big problem is that people view spaces such as women only spaces, lesbian only spaces, trans women only spaces as something they are not, a natural permanent and inherently good thing.

They exist literally as a temporary means of connection and safety for opressed groups, TEMPORARY, we are not meant to want to keep them, we are not meant to want to keep segregating people in gender, sexuality or whatever.

And guess what, THEY ARE SO FUCKING DEEPLY FLAWED, cause obviously safety and comfort will mean different things for different people and that inevitably creates conflicts, comfort is not inherently morally right so people can literally create comfort via objectively wrong means and exclusion, we have seen it time and time again. Worse even if it just turns into a friend group, good luck not getting excluded from that or feeling alienated.

Plus. Where are the spaces for trans men. Where are the spaces for gay men. Why are there not spaces for bisexuals. Why are non binary people bunched up with the women.

Oh right, cause those spaces are all inherently binary, see how it's all women, trans women, lesbian women (cause so many of those already have a hard time accepting trans women, let alone any lesbian that is not a woman or only partially a woman)? And anything else doesn't get one? Because it's the binary idea that one side needs it therefore the other doesn't. Because anything that doesn't fully choose a side either goes to both or none, or in the case of non binary and sometimes bisexual people gets thrown into whatever OTHERS choose for them.

"And non-binary is such a big thing with so many different identities in it, people in a non-binary only space wouldn't have that much in common" Hoo boi, do I have some news for you, binary people are also. NOT. ALL. THE SAME. Lesbians are not all the same. Women are not all the same. Gay men are not all the same. We are just looking for groups that have the highest chance of having similar experiences to ours because that is how human connection works, but similar does not mean exactly the same, or else you'd think we're all best buddies yeah?

So feel free to be comfy in one of these spaces, I'm not gonna stop you from even making it your home if it feels like that, just know that our goal should be to eventually get rid of those, cause when they stop being necessary they will start just being a "no boys/girls allowed treehouse" and that is just not cool.

[skzstoryvault]

Pastel Crimes (fluff, comfort)

F!Reader x Chan

Chan and his wife attend the wedding of someone in her family.

This is in no way connected or meant to be a reflection of the real person Bang Chan.

This is pure fantasy. Everyone would envy whoever married Bang Chan, no matter who they were. I thought this would be a very juicy, satisfying scenario.

Since it's a white people wedding, expect some micro-aggressions and boomer racism. Reader's family is misogynistic towards her.

The story stops right as the smut starts.

The "you" used here is not generic, I'm using it to allow myself some immersion on later re-reads. I know that's selfish but isn't all the writing advice telling us to write what we want to read? If you still find something in here to like, all the better - I hope you enjoy it and have a good time.

Please be kind.

Please do not report this post. If it's not your thing, just scroll away.

If you're underage, please scroll on, there is nothing for you here.

***

“Your old aunt called me an oriental,” Chan says, causing a shiver of dread to go down your spine.

“She what now?!” You splutter. “Fuck me, she hit the bottle again, because when she’s sober she at least keeps her mouth shut. I’m really sorry, Channie. I… There’s really nothing that excuses it.” “You have nothing to apologise for. Old white people are racist and have no filter, but I knew that. I’ve been called worse.” “And at a wedding, too. See? This is why I never go to these things. I mean, on top of all of my family insisting that I’m gay and unemployed despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. Every time we all meet it’s just… this shit.” “Hey, you’re doing great navigating this. And I’m having fun. The food is great, there’s some nice folks our age around and the bride and groom are lovely.” He says, amused. He’s a way better, classier person than you are, because you are ready to go out there and start a fight. “Besides, it’s nice to not be the centre of attention for a bit." "You know, calling me oriental the way people refer to those skinny long cats who pile together and meow your head off… that was kind of cute.” Chan carries on. “She saw us playing with the flower girls earlier and she asked me why I hadn’t put a couple of those in you yet. And why we’re married, if not to fuck with impunity. Something your sister and BIL also asked, in a less direct way. I guess they do believe you’re gay and I’m somehow just a very charitable friend who agreed to be your full time beard?” Mortification steals your breath, you want to say so much and nothing seems an adequate first reaction so you just gasp and hiss. “Channie- “ You start, feeling on the brink of tears. This is why you are low, low contact with your family. They openly told you you could do better, way better than your husband. He’s not tall enough. Not pretty enough, not rich enough, not white, and they just know all your kids would look fully Asian because the Korean gene would totally drown out the white one. You, on the other hand, know there is no better husband than Chan. He’s hot as all hell, is fiercely protective of you and, most importantly, he loves and genuinely sees an equal in you. You’re best friends and support each other through everything, and you genuinely enjoy each other’s company even ten years after getting married. The name thing is also a point of contention. You both kept your own surnames, since in Korea women don’t take the husband’s family name. But to your family, that’s just further proof you’re just married for the tax break and to dispel all allegations of you being gay. 

“I think it’s grand,” Chan continues. “They just don’t know you and never bothered to, and I think for that crime, they deserve to never be taken off the low information diet. You’d think that for being an only child, you’d be more loved. Like Hyunjin. His parents worship the ground he walks on.” “Hyunjin was a wanted child. And notably, a boy.” You say, sighing. “I’ve been justifying my existence since I was plopped out onto this Earth. Always asking for permission and apologising for daring to exist and wanting to do anything.” 

“You’re the treasure beneath my exploded church,” Chan says, referencing a book you gave him around the beginning of your relationship. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. “I’m so happy I got to know you and had the exceptional wisdom to make you my wife. Your family doesn't deserve you.” 

Family. This was a big theme all along the eleven years you’ve known each other. Chan having the seven members and viewing them as his actual children because he was and still is responsible for them. Them seeing him as their dad and cheekily testing his authority, but never his love. 

You somehow ending up not as a mom figure, but acting as a consigliere to Chan, like in a mafia hierarchy. His members now respect and love you just as much as they do their leader. 

“You and the members are my family. And I don’t care that we’re atypical and not the usual dad, mom and bio kids deal.” You say. “All of my older relatives and even my parents, they’ve been married for a lifetime but they can’t stand each other. They are just too scared to leave because divorce is lawyers and court and hassle and for the women, poverty. So they do not get to judge our relationship or you.” 

“Come here, baby. Real close.” Chan whispers, opening his arms. “Channie’s gonna make it all good.” 

You blush. Even after all this time, his comforting voice and freely offered hugs work on you like a charm. 

He enfolds you in his arms and brings you even closer to him, glueing you to his front and guiding your head to one of his shoulders, placing a dry kiss to your neck and sighing. It’s from this close that you feel it- “Chris? What’s the occasion?” You ask, lifting your head to look into his eyes. What could have given him a hard-on right now? It can’t have been the racism or the dysfunctional family interactions. 

“Uh- I-” He starts, folding an arm up and scratching the back of his neck. It’s one of his tells for when he’s nervous or embarrassed. “I haven’t told you just how hot you look in this dress. I’ve been managing a semi all day.” “Never change. God, please never change.” You say, shifting so you can kiss him. “You look smoking hot in the three piece suit too. Been wanting to tear you out of it in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

You know he doesn’t believe you when you say he looks beautiful and hot in any outfit he puts on. But he’s grateful you’re always thinking of having your way with him, despite his lingering insecurities. Those aren’t just easily dissolved with a compliment or two. And it’s honest every time. He insisted you straighten his hair and he styled it the way company stylists used to for going on stage. He wore thin gold rim glasses instead of contacts to be comfortable and the suit he got matches with your dress. Both suit and dress are a vibrant chicory blue and he wore a white shirt with the first two buttons open and a midnight blue and gold pocket square. In your eyes, he outshone the groom, and the bride too, although you both fit into the dress code. But he cannot help being the hottest man at every gathering because he’s your husband and everyone is always drawn to him. Which is why you’re always thanking your luckiest stars for him. “You look amazing in the suit. And you looked even better when you took off the jacket to play with the kids. I was drooling watching you, and my sister thought I was looking at the kids and wanting some. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what I was thinking at the time.” You say, amused at the memory. “I wish she would get off your back. Other than your old aunt with no filter, everyone else is giving me zero stress about kids. It’s not fair you get all the pressure and I get none. But I get why.” 

“Eh. In one ear, out the other.” You say. “I’ve been wanting to get you out of this suit all day.” He’s already undressing, careful but still hurrying. "Don't rush, baby, that's Valentino." You say, unzipping your dress and letting it fall to the floor, which leaves you in just a tiny string panty. “We do have the time.” He says, looking very affected by the sight of you. “By the time anyone misses us, we’ll be back.” “Don’t sell yourself short, Channie. You know I’m never done with you and you can go on for ages.”  “Yeah, good point. Well, I hope they don’t come looking for us then.” 

"It wouldn't be the worst if they did." You point out, taking his hand and pulling him close. "Might put those gay allegations to rest." He giggles. "According to Andrew Tate it's gay to have sex with your wife any time it doesn't result in a baby." Chan scoffs, clutching invisible pearls in mock- outrage. "Oh no! Turns out we were both gay this whole time!" He says, right before you two exchange a look and dissolve into giggles.