#if anyone genuinely ships these too be my friend

[kakushusband]

Had to make smth today <3 drawing Kaku's pic made me so flustered i was sweating with the ac on and I am not kidding. Also hi, Champagne reveal!

[inevitably-johnlocked]

little-jar-of-dragons said: Absolutely understand if you’re not into it anymore but I want you to know this blog is fantastic for us still enamored with Johnlock. It’s one of my comfort ships and I’m so glad you’ve dedicated a blog to it 💙

girlofthemirror said: I had a break from fandom, but I have been back and your blog keeps reminding me of old favourites and helping me find new things. I really appreciate all that you do 💕

damnbluewires said: hey stephy bephy baby!!! you probably know my username by now. i LOVE your blog, and i love randomly stumbling across a random list of yours and going 'yeah okay ill read that' and i have your masterlist in my bookmarks, so i have something to guide me when im really lost and not in a mood to look for a fic on my own you are incredible, and your work is irreplaceable!! that being said, i really dont think anyone would mind if you wont post with the consistency you push yourself to have your work stands the test of time!! you dont have to press out new content every day, we are not that kind of a website we love you. i would still love your blog and come back to it even if you stopped posting alltogether. i want you to have fun too.

but i do admit i love that you are still alive as a blog, cos i dont have any friends who are into johnlock so when i think of something id like to share i just go 'oh i bet steph would love to hear about this' and you do!!! you feel like a community in one person i am getting sappy now, but i hope i made even a lick of sense!! and i hope you have a nice rest of the day when you see this! <3

=====

I'm genuinely sobbing, you guys are far too kind and amazing. Thank you all for your kind words and understanding, and it helps with my self-esteem. I love y'all and I appreciate y'all so much. Thank you <3

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii, just wanted to say I adore your blog! It's so helpful and well ordered, really just *chefs kiss* my favourite

NONNY!!!!!!! OMG this is so sweet!!!

Like, I'm not trying to be facetious or contrary, but I genuinely have been thinking lately that maybe I should just... not do this anymore...? I don't get many asks anymore which is what I use for content, and I don't get many notes on my lists so I just assumed no one enjoys them anymore. I know it shouldn't matter, and it usually doesn't. I think just the combo of being sick, losing large chunks of my life with my uncle’s passing and feeling lost for the past months have been too much for me.

Messages like this remind me that you guys are all still here, quietly enjoying the content. I try my best to do new stuff daily, but it's been hard when I haven't been "feeling it". I love all the notes, asks, and replies, truly. Asks like this make my day. Thank you 💜🖤

[sysig]

Still a thief at heart, stealing kisses (Patreon)

[deepseawave]

obsessed w the tags on ur last reblog

Omgg, thank you haha, it was a quality post so I just had to appreciate it in full force 😂❤️

Can‘t believe someone would actually enjoy my yapping :,D

[fluffle-writes]

I wanna. Pick them up in my mouth and shake 'em around like a dog obliterating a squeaky toy

[hershelwidget]

I don’t know anymore have a Caleb prepared to Fight for his bestie

“she asked for no pickles” lookin scene

[tenacquity]

ryuu has a pretty high emotional intelligence except when it comes to romance

and this means he's a heckin dunce from both sides not just with understanding his own feelings

but he will absolutely not pick up on any cues from an interested party unless that person just grabs him point-blank and screams in his face "i am madly in love with you"

and even then he'll probably be like @^@ ???? why didn't you say something sooner–? //disregarding the fact that said person may have been attempting to court him for years

[phantomrose96]

Okay I have a story.

So my birthday is this Sunday (May 26th). My mom ordered some presents for me but one of them (an Etsy purchase) was seemingly stuck in transit and might not make it on time. I tell my mom all good, no worries. She gets in contact with the seller. After a long delay in response they get back with "Right we'll fix it!" It ships, tracking label and everything, good to go! ETA May 22nd (yesterday.)

During the work day I check the tracking and it says it's been delivered in/at mailbox! I double check with my mom "hey, is it mailbox size?" because if not, I don't want it sitting at the front door where anyone walking by could snag it.

She says "it's definitely NOT mailbox size." Okay. I text my neighbors in the building "Anyone seen a package delivered? It's a birthday gift from my mom and I wanna make sure it gets inside!" Success! Floor 2 David (not to be confused with Floor 1 David) had brought it inside. Inform my mom. All good!

I stop by home briefly around 4pm, because yesterday was hot-hot and I just installed my window A/C that morning in the living room, and according to my cat cam my stupid cat hasn't spent a single second in the climate controlled living room and is, instead, voluntarily baking herself elsewhere so I'm like "great" and hop on my bike to go home (10 minute ride) to check on her.

I get in the building door. Patches is crying from the top floor because she heard me. I maneuver my bike in the front hall. The ugliest fucking 6-foot-tall cat tree(?)/totem(?)/statue(?) I've seen in my entire life is just. Standing there.

My first thought is "What the fuck is that." My second thought is "Oh fuck that is for me." I look around at the floor in case there's perhaps anything else that might, in fact, be the gift.

No. Me and Cat Pole.

It's taller than me. I turn it around to face me and its face is painted and this is, in fact, uglier than it looked from the back.

Um.

Patches is crying. So I just haul it up to my level. MAYBE it was supposed to come with twine that I wrap around it (and hide its face from the world) for Patches to scratch. Maybe this is a prank. Maybe this is an inside joke, because when my mom moved into her current house the neighborhood gifted her some ugly-as-hell totem that apparently, by tradition, each newest-comer to the neighborhood is required to have and display in their window so maybe this is a very good riff on that.

Patches rubs against it. She's not afraid of this horrid facsimile of her kind.

Great.

Meanwhile SHE'S fine and the condo is a little toasty but totally liveable so I'm like "Good, cool, you're not baking. You're having a good time. Enjoy your new sister, I guess, I'll see you later."

I go back to work because this is a problem for later me.

After work, after my run, after whatever, I get home and it's like 8:00pm and Patches is so happy to see me and the totem pole is still just. There.

I text my friends like "so a bday gift is here from my mom and it's the Biggest Ugliest cat pole I've seen in my life. Is this a bit? Did my mom go 'that's so ugly haha! send!' Maybe she genuinely found it cute. How do I navigate this." My friend Sarah has the good advice to maybe text my mom neutrally like "Got the cat pole!" and feel the waters whether my mom is like "Isn't it ugly? 😂" or "Hope Patches likes it! 🥰"

My mom goes to bed early so I don't do any of that yet. Problem for tomorrow me.

This morning, Patches wakes me up for breakfast. I get her situated and I'm staring at the fucking Cat Pole again. I wonder if my Mom's been wondering all night what I thought of it.

I take a picture. I text her.

Okay.

I get on call with my mom. I ask for clarity that the ungodly horrid thing is NOT my birthday gift and is in fact a mix-up from the seller who sent me this instead of my actual gift. She's wheezing between words. She thinks I'm being too charitable for the amount of Absolute Fucking Ugly this is. I have to gently talk her out of using the word "monstrosity" while messaging the seller asking what the hell happened here.

I tell her I need to apologize for harming her dignity with Floor 2 David, who thinks this fucking thing is my mom's idea of a great birthday gift for her to-be-28-year-old daughter.

My heart goes out to the poor soul who did actually order this cat totem and is lacking it on this lovely day.

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

kinda wanna abandon my shelf ship blog tbh ! just move that shit to main because i cannot stand the community.

[celtrist]

This was the piece that I had started before my extensive vacation (of coughing). Once again, Alastor is consistently the bane of my existence with his... well everything.

No matter! Anyway, this is something I like to call the Obsession AU. To sum it up real fast: Everyone is yandere for Alastor. I think it would just be apart of his punishment in Hell, being consistently forced into or desired in romantic/sex which he's never had much interest in. I would describe it as a dark comedy thing, but it can be as comedic or as dark as you want here. With that said, please be on guard with any mentions of darker content that treds towards a certain dead bird territory when I get a bit into how I imagine some of the characters. Again, it doesn't have to go that far if you're interested in this premise of an au and wanna focus on the more light hearted stuff, feel free.

This au is just poking a bit of fun at how everyone in the fandom wants to put Alastor in romantic situations constantly (whether it be with themselves or the other characters) despite Alastor probably being the least interested in the subject in the whole show. This is by no means a hate train or making fun of people who do enjoy shipping Alastor, it just more of a funny thing I think comes off as pretty ironic for his character and hopefully, others can enjoy that too. In this au he leans pretty much on the clear-cut side of aromantic and asexual with no interest in romantic affections at all. With that said, if you want to explore Alastor genuinely being interested in one of the other characters romantically or something similar, feel free to explore that! I can see some interesting dichotomies there. It's just within the actual "canon" of this au, he's not at all interested with that sort of thing. And just with a last final reminder to get into some character things I have in mind, some of the content mentioned does get pretty dark, particularly with Valentino but I don't think anyone's surprised there. But there might be some triggering content of the following mentioned here with characters but no crazy details really: Manipulation/Gaslighting, forced feminization, Non-con, Munchausen syndrome, Poisoning, Possessive, Drugging, Love bombing And I will be sure to give a quick warning to each character it might apply to, please feel free to let me know if I missed anything!

Rosie (Munchausen syndrome, Poisoning): Rosie has 100% poisoned Alastor before to make sure he relies on her. They started off as good friends but at some point Alastor began getting ill and Rosie offered to take care of him. This leads to Alastor staying in bed for full days, only really seeing Rosie who took care of his every need from food, clothing, washing, and so on. At some point, Alastor caught on that Rosie was putting something in his food to make him sick and he managed to escape with their friendship tarnished much to his dismay. He's often uneasy around Rosie but is upfront about his knowledge of Rosie's deeds. Rosie, in turn, acts like it is a lighthearted situation and often offers Alastor over for lunch, which he often denies. Any food he gets at his doorstep from a secret admirer or a lunchbox he finds at his seat in an overlord meeting goes straight into the trash. Alastor will still use Rosie's assets to his benefit of course, but is always careful as to what she might try to get in exchange. He has had more awkward lunches with her with his homemade meal versus the buffet she catered for the occasion, with the two gossiping like old times. Alastor is still uneasy during these times, but he also revels in the false pleasantries due to not having many others he's able to associate himself with due to the curse.

Lucifer (Controlling, Possessive, Manipulation): So I'm not 100% clear how I wanted to approach Lucifer. He and Charlie are probably the most similar I suppose? He wants Alastor as his queen (either alongside him and Lilith or only with him, he doesn't mind either way). He doesn't force him into dresses or anything, but Lucifer does consistently make doting moves and talks about how Alastor would make a good father to their children. Marriage is one of the mind and Lucifer probably gets a bit possessive with him. He also tries to guilt trip Alastor a lot, or manipulate situations in one of their arguments to get Alastor to say something he doesn't mean.

Charlie (Controlling, Possessive): Probably the most tame of everyone quite honestly. Charlie can be a bit controlling but does step off when Alastor expresses his dislike of her doing so, even if it takes a couple times. She likes doing things for him, is super affectionate, and daydreams about her, Vaggie, and Alastor all getting married. She can get pretty possessive with him, not being pleased when anybody does anything against Alastor's will or hurt him. The only exception to this rule is Vaggie, to which Charlie sees it like two cats getting along and finds it very endearing.

Vaggie (Forced Feminization, Controlling, Murder): Depending on how you look at it, Vaggie's one of the more fucked up obsessions or one of the more funnier ones. Because she's automatically inclined to like Alastor quite a bit with the curse thing but her personality doesn't jive with his for her own taste (in terms of their first meeting), she both hates and loves the guy. She's obsessed with trying to murder Alastor with traps around the hotel or outright standing over him with her spear. The hatred comes primarily from not wanting to feel the way she does about him, I guess like a fucked up tsundere if you wanna go that route. At the same token, however, she does want Alastor to be involved with both her and Charlie romantically. There's just one little problem: Vaggie has about the same amount of interest in men as she does in canon. So to sort of "fix" Alastor, she consistently tries to force him to be more feminine in clothing, offering different feminine names, and even trying to force him to get a sex change. Alastor is pretty slippery though, so it never quite works out in Vaggie's favor aside from the occasional dress or skirt being worn, which solidifies her attraction to him. Then he takes it off and looks more like a man again, and it solidifies her frustration/hatred for him.

Angel Dust (Drugging): To start, while I think Angel would love to have sex with Alastor, he 100% would not force it. Wouldn't even do touches or anything. Potentially he could just like as a coping (to be in a situation where HE'S the one in control), but that is a darker route that I don't think will be exactly true for this AU. However, he very much enjoys drugging Alastor similar to Rosie. Not only just as a bonding thing since Angel would also do the drugs WITH him, but just to get the not-quite-lucid compliments from Alastor and maybe a snuggle then and there. He wants to dote on Alastor with him drugged out in his bed saying nice things to Angel. Admittedly this one's a bit of a workshop as I just knew I didn't want Angel to be focused on sex like somebody, but wasn't sure what to do here.

Valentino(Non-con, LoveBombing): I mean... it is Valentino, what did you THINK he'd be trying to do with Alastor? There's really not much to say here, Valentino essentially tries pulling all the stops trying to get Alastor in bed while also love-bombing the hell out of him. Which really doesn't work. Valentino is pretty open with sharing Alastor, but again, does this surprise anyone? As long as he's participating in some way, he really doesn't mind.

Vox (ALL warnings): Pretty much the worst version of himself that people make him be sometimes for those darker stories in the fandom. While more interested in having an enthusiastic partner, I don't think Vox would be opposed to forcing himself onto Alastor. He consistently tries to manipulate and gaslight, while enjoying both the suffering and pleasure of Alastor. Much like Vaggie, Vox is obsessed both being in love with Alastor while also downright hating him to the core. He's possessive and likes the idea of being both sweet and heinous with Alastor. He pretty much is every other character wrapped up in one fucked up TV man. Vox acts the most well-adjusted of the characters here, but he's probably got the obsession the worst.

And of course, pretty much every other conceivable ship is up for grabs here. I did think about maybe unfallen angels are able to resist the obsession curse, which would possibly make a funny team-up of Alastor, Adam, Lute, and Emily. Alternatively, I thought maybe the other canonically asexual characters in the show wouldn't be affected instead, meaning another oddball team-up of Alastor, Octavia, and Mammon. Then there is of course the "nope, there's no escape for deer man". Not sure yet, maybe I'll workshop it. I have more normal things in the works rather than this messed up little au, but darker content is a guilty pleasure of mine.

[bkgbkgbkg]

Canon!Bakugo Bf Hcs

Thinking abt a man who values dignity, self respect and ambition mmmmmmm I hate it when they’re a bum

- I love when people write him realistically bc his character is genuinely so intricate

- u don’t even need to ship bkdk to at least see the conflict he had trying to go from bullying to friends w deku

- he’d 1000% have crazy miscommunication with u in the beginning

- with u guys actually dating his affection would be rly specific

- I think he’d struggle a lot with verbal affection like any words of affirmation

- it’s not even just that it would be difficult but he’d find it too cheesy

- he’s definitely more of an acts of service man, quality time or dare I say gift giver😮

- the acts of service go tg with gift giver actually - I can imagine his gifts being an act of service

- like he’d build u a car how Dean did in Gilmore girls or something 😭

- his affection to u is shown in what he’d never do for others and there’s not much in the first place

- I wouldn’t say he does the minimum it’s just he has his own standards and personality that I think typical affection doesn’t fit him

- he definitely has a toxic masculinity problem (but it’s lowk beneficial)

- he’d never let u book a plumbing guy or any sort of construction worker bc he has that whole ‘I’m the man’ complex where he MUST do it all for u

- this is what I mean by ‘not typical affection’ bc yes there’s the ‘I must do it all to show my love for u’ but bakugos is ‘I must do it all to prove I’m good enough for u’

- hes a very ambitious and driven person and he definitely would admire that in you

- this is also why I never see him with an airhead type because I think he wouldn’t tolerate it

- considering how he needs to excel to no.1 everywhere, he’d consider anyone with differing aspirations as a disadvantage

(Not proofread)

[kerink]

the thing that's been most surprising to me with mouthwashing so far is how little empathy people are willing to extend to curly. and i don't mean this in a piss on the poor way, i'm deeply saddened and genuinely confused by it.

when i first played the game i was at one of the lowest points i've been at in a really long time. my mental health is bad my physical health is bad. i experienced SA a year ago and was recently diagnosed with cancer. i have 2-5 doctors appointments every week with various specialists.

all the while me and two of my doctors are talking about if i need to make a career change that's going to best support my poor health and improve my overall well being. and my family and friends struggle to understand, because i have a doctorate and a good job and live on my own. everyone looks at my life in awe, and they don't understand why i'm unhappy. they tell me so every time i try to explain it.

so when i played i immediately identified with curly. here is a man who's deeply depressed, having hallucinations, trying to reach out to his best friend for support but just has his words thrown back in his face, doesn't want to burden anya with his stuff because she has her own stuff and he wants her to lean on him, he has all these responsibilities and people look up to him and rely on him and have these ideas about him. the highest wrung of their ladder is the lowest of his, and they have no way of conceptualizing why or how he's unhappy and dissatisfied. before the reveal that he's innocent, i completely understood why he attempted suicide.

and then he develops a new disability.

when jimmy goes to crash the ship, he uses curly's unhappiness to try to convince him a murder-suicide is a good idea, and it works. it buys jimmy enough time to get to the cockpit and crash the ship. curly's too in his own head to realize what jimmy meant because jimmy distracted him with how bad his life is. it isn't until the sirens start that curly snaps out of it and it clicks for him what jimmy's done.

i'm not going to re-litigate the issue about if curly could have done more for anya because i've said pretty much all i have to say on it already.

but we really need to highlight that in addition to his lack of tangible choices, he's sleep deprived, deeply depressed, and hallucinating. this is not a man in his right mind making his best choices.

and over and over again i see people refusing to extend him any empathy, to call him a bystander. does a man who says he'll do anything to help and who wanted to be there when anya broke the news and who does his best to play liaison between anya and jimmy sound like a bystander? he let anya keep the gun case! he knew having it would help her feel better!

how good of a friend have you been when you were in your pit of despair? how much were you able to pour into others when your glass was empty?

anya wanted her and curly's support to be reciprocal. if she has enough psych training to do the evals, and having been thru nursing school, she's probably well aware that she and curly need to both be pouring into each other if either of them are going to be any good to anyone. but curly is so determined to defend and protect anya he won't confide in her, despite the fact it's running him so thin that he almost takes jimmy's bait that suicide is a good idea.

i don't think we need to absolve curly of his responsibility. i don't think we should over look his role as an enabler. i don't think we should discredit or discount analyses of his failures. but i'm so tired of people actively avoiding getting in his shoes, getting in his head, reflecting on how they've acted in the past when thinking and feeling similar ways. our worst moments don't make us monsters.

it makes me so sad. and frankly it makes me feel like all the times my family hasn't understood when i've tried to reach out. curly is screaming in agony and just like jimmy we're just trying to keep him quiet because it's too complicated to deal with.

[sorrelchestnut]

I've seen a fair number of posts both here and on reddit that question why Tav (or the Dark Urge) would end up as a group leader for any other reason that "game mechanics say so." There's the requisite "okay, well if you play a high charisma character I guess it makes sense," or on the other end of the spectrum, "if you're playing Durge and murder someone right off the bat everyone would be too scared to tell you no." And I get where people are going with this! I really do. But it also fundamentally misunderstands a facet of human nature, which is that the vast majority of people do not actually want to be in charge, because that means being held responsible for the outcome. Accordingly, most people will dither when a group consensus is needed: have none of you ever tried to get a group of friends to agree where to go for dinner? Yeah, it's like that, but waaaay worse.

A lot of times "leadership" is just the willingness to say, "fuck it, y'all do what you want, but I'm doing this." I see it all the time in a corporate environment, where people will go back and forth on group meetings without anyone making a decision until finally one brave soul goes "in my opinion the clear answer is x" and then everyone gratefully goes along with it. Because now it's not their responsibility when something goes wrong! They're just following along with someone else's suggestion, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, but at the end of the day they don't have to worry about the consequences unless they're personally affected. In which case they might step up and argue back, and then they're stuck being a leader, too. Welcome to adulthood!

Lae'zel is the only one who ever even tries to exert some kind of control, when she tells you to follow her lead on the ship, or calls you her subordinate in the Grove. But, crucially, she doesn't ever make any serious attempt to take control: you can just tell her, "lol, no," and she sort of confusedly gives way, because she doesn't know how to handle this scenario. In her world there are commanders and subordinates, and everyone knows where they stand and falls in line. She's never actually had to take control of a situation and so at the first sign of resistance she falls back on the dynamic that's familiar to her, which is executing the commands of someone older and more experienced. She goes through a lot of growth over the game, to the point that she can take over as a resistance leader in her own right by the end, but at the beginning she's a wet-behind-her-ears private with some decent combat chops and it shows.

Otherwise, your party consists of:

Shadowheart, who's trained in infiltration and assassination and does NOT want a lot of attention brought to her or her mission for a variety of reasons;

Astarion, who has literally been a slave for two centuries and canonically takes a while to realize that he can exert an opinion beyond complaining about it;

Gale, whose only friend is his cat and couldn't project-manage his way out of a wet paper bag;

Wyll, who was probably trained for command at one point but has been doing the lone-hero thing for a decade and has a very large secret that he's trying to conceal; and,

Karlach, who's only ever been a bodyguard and a soldier and is genuinely just happy to be here.

Honestly, it would be more a surprise if Tav/Durge didn't end up as their unofficial leader, given the general power dynamics at play. The first time Tav/Durge says something like, "fuck it, we need to do something instead of stand around arguing about it, let's go check out those ruins over there," it's a done deal. They're The Captain Now! As long as they don't make decisions that fundamentally oppose something dear and important to the other group members, they're not even going to get any argument. Because at the end of the day, not one of these walking disasters has enough trust in themselves and their decision-making skills to feel any kind of certainty that they can choose the right path forward. If someone else is going to take that decision out of their hands? They're going to follow, no questions asked, right up until the moment they can't.

[kiwinatorwaffles]

the pushback against the discord mobile update shouldn’t be based upon “if you can get used to it” or not. some people might like it. some people might get used to it faster. but a lot of people won’t. and the point of the pushback is that discord keeps thinking they can change this shit and get away with it.

nobody asked for discord to change its color to a brighter blue. remember that? we all got used to it. but that was one of the first instances of the userbase just tolerating a useless change.

later came the dreaded username change. nobody asked for that. in fact, it caused a fuck ton of trouble. remember the markipkier username situation? yeah. but we all just ��got used to it.” i don’t hear anyone talking about it anymore. we moved on, even though it really fucking sucked.

now it’s a complete overhaul of the mobile app that removed pretty much everything people liked about discord in the first place. removing the right swipe to see members and pins just made everything clunky and slow. the swipe to reply they replaced it with doesn’t even work all the time. the nice and cozy gray is now colder and darker, which would be fine, but there’s literally a midnight mode that they just released out of beta after 7 years. (edit: i actually used the app for a little more and realized just how fucking hard it was to read anything with the new contrast. it's a genuine accessibility issue. jesus)

they removed the community. want to see which friends are online? fuck you! click the top of the channel that is much slower and cumbersome than just swiping! want to see the funny and/or important messages you pinned? too bad, because we’re cutting off longer messages and hiding links/images that were attached to the message. and also, you can’t see who sent the message in a dm or group chat. also^2, you have to click into the channel and click into ANOTHER tab to even access the pins. fuck you.

regardless of if you like the changes or not, the point of protesting isn’t due to personal preference. it’s that discord keeps thinking they can change this shit that nobody wanted and get away with it. staying complacent will just let them know they can roll out changes and their userbase will still stick around, even if they hate it. which is not true. because users (including my friends and i) and even NITRO USERS are considering jumping ship to alternatives that don’t hate its userbase.

don’t let discord think it’s invincible. send feedback (go to settings and appearance, and there will be a button), even if it’s likely they won’t read it. review them in the app store. if there’s enough genuine feedback that outlines the faults and focuses on the performance and usability of the app, there’s a chance they might change Some things. because we don’t WANT to move and leave all our friends and communities, but a lot of us will have to if the situation gets worse.

the best case scenario is that they let us choose the format we want, but considering that this is discord we’re talking about, i don’t think it will. the least we can do now is to make sure at least some things get changed back for accessibility and convenience.

[kerorokai]

it's really interesting to see how people perceive kabru cause there seems to be a bit of a disparity between how he really acts and how he's portrayed in fanart and fan memes and such

with the way people talk about him you'd think he's this huge flirt or actively trying to use his good looks or whatever to get a leg up but he really.... doesn't? at least i can't think of a significant time where he does. is it cause he teases rinsha? or kisses her as a fish? i think those are dubious examples, but also even if you do read them as genuine flirting theyre pretty small and not repeated with any other character.

it reads more like he's just genuinely charming and good with people. he never tries to make a pass with anyone, people just like him cause he's.... likeable. and in universe characters do act aware of how charming he is (see: mickbell, holm, daya), but they never seem to insinuate that he's actually a tease or that he like, gets around. i guess there's a mention of "rumours" here? have most people seen this? is this what they based it off of?

it's also worth noting that in the same comic those exact rumours (whatever they may exactly be) are proven to be unfounded, kabru is just the type of guy people feel like they can open up to. they don't even talk about him like he's doing it on purpose!

if it's cause he MIGHT be half incubus, my friend brings up a good point: it feels like an intentional subversion to not have him be a sexual "siren" in that way. ryoko kui is very intentional with her world and characters, and to have kabru's succubus/incubus-identity up for debate while also having him be not particularly flirtatious seems like the type of irony she would write on purpose.

to me, really, it seems very indicative of how fandom at large views brown men. kabru's in an interesting position cause he seems to get most angles of this type of flanderization. he's seen as both overly sinister and drama-seeking while also being extremely flirtatious and a whore when.... he's kind of neither of those things?

he's not evil or particularly more violent than anyone else, he's just really utilitarian and has this false impression at first where you think he's gonna be some sort of secondary antagonist but he's way too smart for that. he doesn't manipulate people any more than any other character. and he's not really a whore at all he just.... likes reading people? and knowing people? and people like him? idk man.

it's part of this larger issue where brown men in fiction are both demonized and sexualized at the same time. i don't even think it's on purpose, i just think that most people don't even realize this is something they need to unlearn. it's not even cause i don't like shipping kabru! i do! i just don't agree with flanderizing him to do it.

i think kabru is much more than the first impressions of him you might have, or even the first impressions of him the characters in universe may have. and while i don't think someone posting ooc fanart of kabru is directly racist, i think a lot of it upholds the racism people are already accustomed to. it makes me a little sad!