#not tagging the others because I don’t want to attract antis

[myfandomrealitea]

sometimes it’s hard af being an ex anti. For context, I just recently got into a popular “controversial” anime because the two mcs (who are an adult and minor) are kinda heavily implied to be lovers. And of course I ship them, right? And I like to think of myself as past my own old ideals, above how I used to see things, rejecting my old way of living and interacting with fandom, but there’s just… this nagging fear in the back of my head, like, “omg what if this is actually illegal,” “omg what if I’m actually a pedo,” “omg could I get arrested for reading this explicit fanfiction of them?” Not to mention that I’m deathly scared of reblogging or sharing any posts about the ship because I’m afraid I’ll get mobbed and doxxed. I don’t want to be scared. I wish I had the confidence that so many other proshippers have

Asks like this should really be a slap in the face to antis and people who think its perfectly fine and normal to terrorize people and risk their lives over fictional content.

Honestly, my best advice would be to carefully curate your internet space to offer as much protection to yourself as you can.

Block antis liberally. Especially ones known to be outspoken or to target people.

Scour your blog and remove any identifying information and limit what you post in reference to yourself. Never tell people your real name, hint at where you live (unless you're just generically stating the country, like "America.")

Avoid clicking on links or sites or following directions to internet locations, especially from random asks and posts.

Utilize proper tagging. Responsible antis will have tags they don't want to see blocked, and its best for both of you if you offer them the opportunity not to be exposed to your content.

Likewise, block certain tags.

But, aside from that, most of your thoughts are just anti propaganda. You're not going to be arrested for fanfiction. You're only a pedophile if you're actually sexually attracted to children. Its not illegal unless its something like actual CSEM.

Don't let their propaganda and lies work.

[rubyreduji]

HI JJ!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY 3K!!!!!! im sorry it took so long to send an ask <\3 BUT I WAS WONDERING 💭 if i could req a short bff!vernon fluff drabble? where he’s kinda nervous about confessing or something silly like that 😅 it literally can be a short 200 word scene, idc!!! I LAUV U SAUR MUCH AND U DESERVE EVERYTHING GOOD!! im so proud of u, ur so wonderful <33333

— sleepover event now over!! 🧸️

summary: vernon knows you two will be best friends no matter what, so why is it so hard to tell you he likes you?

tags: fluff, best friend!au, gn reader wc: 1.4k an: hi star sar thank you for the request this is so cute :((( (also a great break from smut adjskla) ily. side note why is this man so hard to find photos for

Vernon doesn’t think he’s ever sweat this much in his life.

His whole body is hot as his heartbeat quickens in his chest, the rumbling of the organ banging against his ribcage deafening in his ears. His hands shake as he glances at you across the table.

You look cute today, but then again you look cute everyday. You did your hair up for today and even slid some rings on your fingers before leaving your house. You look over and notice Vernon staring so you shoot him a smile. It takes Vernon a second too long to process this and smile back.

Shit, he has got to calm down. If nothing else but to stop sweating, because it is not an attractive look on him.

“Nonie,” you say, startling him slightly. “You’ve barely touched your ice cream.” You nod at the cup of chocolate ice cream melting in front of him, only a few bites taken out of it. You on the other hand have half of your cone gone.

“Oh,” Vernon mutters, staring down at the bowl as well. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? You’re the one who paid.” You take another lick of your cone. “What’s wrong? You’ve been off since I picked you up.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Vernon lies, his voice cracking a bit in the middle. You narrow your eyes at him before flicking your eyes to his ears.

“You’re lying,” you say matter of factly. “Your ears only get red when you’re lying. Or when you’re nervous.”

Vernon doesn’t want to tell you he’s both nervous and lying, so he instead lies even more. “You’re right, sorry. I think my stomach is just upsetting me a bit. I ate something weird for lunch.” It’s really only half a lie, because his stomach is in complete knots right now, you just don’t need to know why.

Well, you do. That’s the whole point of this outing. But Vernon can’t tell you just yet, not like this.

“Oh no,” you frown at Vernon, deeming him to be sincere enough. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“No!” Vernon shouts, causing a few glares to be shot his way from the other ice cream parlor tenants. You also stare at him curiously. “Sorry I just, no, I’ll be okay. I want to spend time with you.”

You laugh easily, the light sound gliding through the air and forcing Vernon’s heart to clench. “We see each other every day.”

“That’s different,” Vernon says, ducking his head. “This is just us, without any obligations or other people to bother us.”

In Vernon’s opinion you’re too popular, too many people vying for your attention, him included. That’s why he does his best to spend time with you like this, doing whatever you want to do, because all that matters to Vernon is being able to be with you, your full attention on him.

“I do agree it’s nice when it’s just us,” you say, smiling at your best friend. “How about this? I’ll finish my ice cream and then we can go walk around the shops, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Vernon says.

It doesn’t take long for you to finish your ice cream, and even though Vernon is anti-food waste, his stomach absolutely would not be able to keep the sugary confection down even if he tried. As soon as you step out of the ice cream parlor your hand finds Vernon’s, grasping at him to tug him along with you.

Though the act of holding hands isn’t new to you two, the feel of your warm hand against his still makes Vernon’s mouth go dry. He can’t focus on what you’re saying to him, too busy trying to figure out if you can feel how clammy his hand is.

Even if you can feel it, you don’t mention it, pulling Vernon along as you ramble on about life and things you see in the shop windows and how the weather is just perfect today for being outside. The whole time Vernon makes small comments, letting you know he’s listening. Every so often he steals glances at you, watching as your face lights up as you talk about whatever topic comes to your mind. The sun glows against your skin, like it was made to shine for you, but maybe Vernon’s just a bit biased.

Vernon isn’t sure when he fell in love with you, but isn’t that how it always is?

You two have been best friends for years now, after an unassigned assigned seat stealing incident in the 10th grade. It wasn’t instantaneous, you two shared some mutual friends and would hang out casually after class, and then before Vernon knew it you two were together nearly every day of the week. You two would go shopping on weekends or go to each other’s houses to study on school nights. You two unknowingly integrated so seamlessly into each other’s lives to the point where his mother calls you “hun” and your father calls him “son”. 

Going off to college didn’t change that, and now you two are living in the same city once again, pursuing your dreams together. And somewhere in all of that Vernon just…happened to fall in love with you. Somewhere between late night grocery trips and early morning sunrise watching and crying through final exams and cuddling during movie nights and taking pottery classes because you think it’ll be fun and yeah, Vernon really should have seen this coming.

He knows it’s cliche, but he isn’t that upset about it, because now he gets to be in love with you, his favorite person in the world. The only issue now is telling you that. The thing that’s been bothering him the whole day.

In reality, even if you don’t reciprocate him back, it’s not going to change anything. Vernon knows you two will stay best friends and will continue to hold hands while walking through stores and eat burgers together at two am, but maybe that’s what scares Vernon the most. The idea that you won’t like him back and he will never be able to get over you because how could he when you let him lay his head on your lap while late night talking or when you invite him over to dinner just to make sure he’s actually eating something that’s not chewy noodles and burnt toast.

He can’t not tell you though, because what if you do like him back, and it’s perfect and amazing and Vernon gets his happily ever after. So he has to tell you.

You’re looking at something in a window of an antique shop when Vernon starts to feel that suffocating feeling again, the sun suddenly becoming a bit too hot as his heart starts to race in his chest. He wants to spend everyday with you like this. He wants to call you his and you to call him yours.

“Vernon?” You’re his best friend. “Are you okay?” What if something bad happens? “Hey!” What if something good happens?

“I LIKE YOU!” Vernon shouts, the words spilling from his lips like he physically can’t keep them in anymore. His breathing stills as he stares at you, the only sound he hears being the hammering of his heart trying to escape his chest.

You start to giggle, your face lighting up in glee as you smack his shoulder. “You’re a dumbass, you know that? That’s what’s been stressing you out all day?” Vernon can only nod slightly. “I like you too, stupid. I thought you knew that.”

Like a weight being lifted off Vernon’s chest, he can finally breathe again. “How was I supposed to know that?!”

“You’re my best friend, I thought we knew everything about each other. I certainly knew you liked me.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Vernon whines. 

“Why didn’t you?” You shoot back.

“I just did!” Vernon counters and you start to giggle once more. You tug at Vernon’s hand, pulling him closer to you to lean forward and press a kiss to his cheek. Vernon feels his face heat up.

“And I’m glad you did.”

“But that means you have to plan the first date,” Vernon tells you. You gasp.

“That is not what that means! You confessed first, so you plan the date.”

“Like you don’t have a million date ideas already planned out,” Vernon retorts and you huff.

“Fine, I’ll plan the first date, but I better now hear any complaints.”

Vernon just grins and wraps his arms around you. “If it’s you? There’s nothing in the world I could complain about.”

It’s your turn to become flustered, sputtering out a “whatever.”

Vernon laughs and presses a kiss to your head. Of course he had nothing to worry about, after all, it’s you.

taglist: @ckline35 @toruro @jeanjacketjesus @namjoonbaby @n4mj00nvq @lovelyhan @ovai @scorpiobitch88 @im-gemmy @lllucere @tulipgarland4 @embrace-themagic @sulkygyu @leejihoonownsmyheart @synthetickitsune @yeosayang @miraclewoozi @d0nghyck @soonhoonietrash @violetvoo @yongi-lee @spilled-coffee-cup @morklee02 @17kwans @candidupped @ressonancee @m1nghaos @1-800-jeonwonwoo @anothershorthuman @chwecardcaptor @dinoissupreme @speaknowlwt @jwnghyuns @flwrshwa @valentxi @heavenly-mobo @pandorashbox @enhacolor @starlight-night0 @todorokiskitten @miriamxsworld @just-here-to-read-01 @sunnyteume @debsworld23 @seuomo @tinkerbell460 @feat-sun @1694 @strawberri-uyu @ryuwonieebae

join my taglist: here!

[local-space-case]

edit: tagged this post as anti zutara because even though i personally don’t consider it to be an anti zutara thing, a couple people disagree so thank you to the one person who was nice enough to just ask me to do it anyway

prefacing this by saying you can like whatever ship you want so don’t come for me (edit someone immediately came for me). but one of the reasons i don’t like zutara and don’t like that it’s being alluded to in the live action is because i feel like it waters down a lot of scenes they had together that were meant to establish each others individual characters, or rather some viewers water it down. like rather than healing zuko’s scar out of the kindness of her heart, it’s because she found him attractive. rather than returning her mother’s necklace to show zuko is more honorable than he thinks, it’s because he has a crush on her. katara doesn’t save and comfort/thank zuko in the final agni kai because zuko has effectively lost most of his remaining family in one day, its because they’re deeply in love.

i’m not saying these instances and romance are mutually exclusive, but i PERSONALLY feel the scenes are more powerful without it.

it just really feels like it undermines the power of platonic love (and f/m friendships in general) and their separate journeys as characters to find their peace in order for it to be bad boy/feisty girl romance.

[songofthesibyl]

Just saw yet another post where Tamlin is listed as being worse than Amarantha, and I’m truly getting tired.

The uneven application of morals and logic—not even in the books, but within the fandom—is so blatant, so over-the-top, that I would say it’s trolling, but it’s not been just people stalking the -anti tags to troll people, it’s within original posts, and friendly reblogs as well. Being annoyed that they would be judged, that people would dismiss their trauma and experiences for liking or not liking a character. And then turning around and saying, about people who like Tamlin or Nesta, that they must not know what real love is, that they must have been abused and liked it, questioning their morals, that they are “abuser apologists,” that they should be studied, should go choke, be shamed, that they would be the kind of people to defend Harvey Weinstein, over and over and over. And then these same people get annoyed when people don’t like Rhysand or the IC, and say people take these books too seriously, that it’s just faerie smut, that they are just fictional characters and it’s silly to see them as more than that. Then pulling Tamlin out of the narrative so he is a real human man and not a fictional 500+ year old faerie. Tamlin’s magic exploding is akin to a real world situation. Rhysand’s magic exploding is fantasy violence. There is no objective truth here. This is all based on people’s opinions. Canon is canon, but everyone has a slightly different version of that canon character because they are made-up characters, and not real people. It’s all in someone’s head. And whatever is not on the page is open to interpretation unless it later gets defined in canon. But it never stays limited to literary critique, or character analysis. It always goes to judgment, bullying, mocking, and harassment of actual people. Every time. It’s been like this since I started being in this fandom, and it remains incredibly pervasive, and I simply don’t get what’s so attractive about it, what’s fun about it, why this is the particular form of wasting time that people prefer. And I don’t know why it still bothers me when I know it’s going to happen every time I enter a social space.

I am deeply frustrated by Rhysand as a character right now, but I don’t hate him. I don’t wish he had stayed dead, I don’t want to write fanfic of him suffering. I actually thought I might like ACOMAF the most out of the first three books for awhile even though I didn’t hate Tamlin. I felt for Feyre in her panic attack in ACOMAF, I felt for Tamlin in ACOFAS. I think his and Rhysand’s history is one of the most interesting unexplored parts of the story. I love the image of them standing facing each other as newly-made High Lords, the blood of each other’s families on their hands, one wreathed in shadow, the other crowned in light. It’s a great image. But all this bullshit just really makes me not want to participate anymore.

[burningtheroots]

💜🤍💚 Introduction Post & Guide/Masterpost 💜🤍💚

IMPORTANT

After three months, I think it‘s time to introduce myself and clear this mess of a blog a bit 💀

So, I‘m 20 years old and have been learning about radical feminism for quite a while before joining in myself, and I‘m really grateful to be part of this community and even be mutuals with some of my favorite women on here. <3

I joined Tumblr (and Instagram) to share information, my own opinions and to connect with like-minded women. Before discovering radical feminism, I always felt left out from the discussions and didn’t know that there would be anyone who‘d understand me and accept me. I tried to fit in somewhere where I didn’t belong, and whilst it‘s not always easy to be here, I‘m happy that this community exists. :‘)

DMs & anons are always open, and I‘m always interested in having discussions and meeting new people.

I‘m rather shy and struggle a bit with my social skills, but it gets better eventually.

The only people who aren’t welcome on my blog are p0rn obsessed men and generally anyone who only wants to harass me or spread misogyny. I‘m all for respectful discussions and willing to share my viewpoints, but I‘m not a punching bag.

As there‘s a lot going on here, I collected the most important posts and reblogs (quite many, to be honest) and decided to link them here. Some are simply informative, some are very subjective and some are a mixture of both. The list will be updated over time.

Here you go:

(I‘d also heavily recommend to check out @/radfemfox5, @/woman-for-women, @/butch-reidentified, @/radsplain, @/meanevilandcruel … and many more — not actually tagging them because this post is long & I don’t want to annoy them) 💜🤍💚

if a link doesn’t work, please let me know

Sex-based violence 🔗 links

‼️ Self-protection in emergency situations

Pornography 🔗 links

Prostitution 🔗 links

Gender Critical 🔗 links

Surrogacy 🔗 links

Sexual assault 🔗 links

LGB & Pride 🔗 links

Women‘s health 🔗 links

Pro-choice 🔗 links

Questionable men 🔗 links

Women‘s rights movement // General stuff continued 🔗 links

Women‘s movement // General stuff

Donation Megathread

Stop the infighting

"Not like other girls"

"Not All Men" is a war propaganda tactic

Age and attraction

Key elements

Andrea Dworkin works

Why feminism should center women and women only

Statement

How men see us

Prioritize women

Radical feminism is intersectional

Radical feminism definition

Double standards in terms of "unconditional love"

Favorite quote

We‘re not Nazis

We don’t support Nazis & vice versa

Misogyny vs. misandry

Why I‘m a radfem

Actual radfeminism

No good men

Feminist book list

Libfem hypocrisy

Andrew Tate fans

"Withholding sex" is a misconception

Sexism against women in sports

Choice feminism

Men ☕️

Sex-based violence

Radfeminism is superior

On motherhood

On motherhood 2

Workplace sexism

Motivation

Men‘s mental health month

eXtRiMiSm

Women are not protected 1

Women are not protected 2

Oversexualization

Oppressor classes

Men who want children

Bodyshaming

Misandry

Men‘s sexual entitlement

Beauty Myth

A man‘s world

It‘s all men

Double standards

Women in fiction

No conservatism

Lies about emotions

The system isn’t broken

Resist, don‘t comply

Male hypocrisy

Woman arrested in Saudi Arabia

"Unconditional love"

Beauty ideals

Again, men ☕️

Parental alienation ‼️

Men & gossip

Men dislike their own daughters

Women aren’t objects

On religion

Sexism at school

Women‘s labor

Men‘s victim mentality

Arranged marriage

Women are an afterthought

Oppression in the US

Purity culture

American women & maternity leave

Body neutrality

Dangerous men are around us

Anti-natalism

Men don‘t actually "love" women

Socialization

Stereotyping men

Neha Wadekar in Baringo county, Kenya

Tomiekia Johnson

Child marriage in the US

Workplace sexism

UN report (alarming)

"You are a man-hater"

People with disabilities matter

Disability Pride Month

Girls‘ clothing

So you‘re partnered with a male

[magicaii]

tell me your meronia thoughts dear mutual... anything you want

JDSJDJ HI… if you want to read any of my other meronia thoughts just go through my #meronia tag (or look at my pinned bcs it’s depraved). But here u go.

So, when I first got interested in meronia I was really sad because I couldn’t think of any plausible way mello would have feelings for near so it was doomed to be one sided. Now, I was mainly thinking about the canon universe cause even if mello lived I just felt like there was way too many years of building a false perception of near in his head and disregarding him as a figment of the past as mello built up his new life in the mafia that even if they had come together to defeat kira mello would still leave the moment the case ended, as he had already decided what near meant to him and wasn’t willing to change his mind or give him a chance out of pride and his need for independence.

Even if they did decide to work together after kira, I always assumed mello would keep his distance in some way (either physically or emotionally) and simply relegate near to his work partner who he eventually comes to tolerate, and begrudgingly understand. But I honestly didn’t see what part of near mello could feasibly be attracted to? Like obviously they have a unique intellectual connection, but also near is a snarky shut in with polite but surface level social skills and mello feels personally attacked by him and can’t figure out why near gets under his skin… there’s so many layers of conflict they would first need to work out, and mello not being open to the prospect of romance to begin with (given their complicated, well, everything) wouldve simply caused to never happen, because near for obvious reasons would never make a move. I felt like they would just fall into a semi-comfortable normalcy with each other and be satisfied with their mutually respectful relationship (despite near’s, yknow, confused longing or whatever), but mello would have a life outside of being kira while near wouldn’t really. I also don’t think canon mello particularly cares for romance and wouldn’t see himself as the type of person to settle down

So I started looking outside of the canon universe, and then I spiralled because mello and near, if you remove all their upbringing and baggage, are fundamentally from two completely different worlds and to collide them is difficult. But then my friend said this thing that blew my fucking mind: “I feel like mello is attracted to caricatures” and honestly? It made so much sense. I see mello as being pansexual (or maybe gay) and his yearning for challenge/itching for intensity would lead him to be interested in people who are very emblematic of tropes/stereotypes because they would make his life more exciting (think goths, punks, anime tropes like genki girls and tsunderes, basically people who mello would want to dissect for fun). So he would take one look at this absolute weirdo of a stereotypically smart anti social overgrown snobbish man child (saying this lovingly) that near is and go “he’s crazy. He’s so weird. I need him to notice me” and just continue bothering near until he gets his undivided attention and eventually get obsessed with him

[hoes4hoseok]

how you get the girl part ii: heeseung’s advice on keeping dry in a storm

previous ☆ next ☆ series masterlist

your neighbor, heeseung, gets on your nerves. he’s full of himself, makes more noise than all of your neighbors combined in the middle of the night, spreads anti-superhero propaganda in your political science class, and, unfortunately, is the most attractive man you have ever laid eyes on.

pairing :: lee heeseung x fem!reader featuring :: jake sim, jeon somi, kim sunoo, and more! genres/au’s :: superhero au, neighbors to lovers, enemies to lovers, college au, fluff, angst if you squint, nightwing!heeseung chapter warnings :: mentions of and references to sex, minor violence, suggestive chapter word count :: 6.1k tag list :: @thejjrl @grace1852 @tsunchani @hanniiesuckle17 @mjr4fnaf1997 @goldenhypen @3nh4luvr @hobistigma @ditzie-s @nomy0520 @foreshadxw @koroktsuya @beansworldsstuff author’s note :: prior knowledge of nightwing and DC comics is not necessary to read this work! also ty to @lethekoo for all your help :) playlist :: here’s to you but in this chapter you should listen to umbrella by rihanna and jay-z at the end hehe

two of the plot points in this chapter are heavily based on smallville. the episodes are called 'devoted' 4x04 and 'exposed' 5x06. check them out if you haven't! I love that show so much <3 also! i hope y'all enjoy the little batgirl and starfire references :) && please let me know what you think if you have the time! it really helps me improve and motivates me to continue <3

2. Reliability A woman wants someone who shows up.

THE NEXT DAY…

“He didn’t get away, did he?” Jake asked, spitting his toothpaste into the sink.

“Nope. I got him,” Heeseung replied, sitting on Jake’s bed as his friend got ready. “He took a vial from the chemistry professor’s lab, but I’m not sure what it is. I’ll take a look at the sample later,”

Heeseung had come over to Jake’s place as soon as he woke up—which was 11 AM.

“Then…what is this meeting for?” Jake wiped his face with a look of skepticism, “you said it was urgent, right?”

“I told Y/n that I have a girlfriend,” Heeseung started, “but, obviously, I don’t,”

“So?” Jake shrugged. “You lie to people all the time,”

“Well, I think I need to stop the fake sex thing,” Heeseung added, “she can’t sleep because of it and it’s messing up her life,”

Jake furrowed his eyebrows. “Okay…what do you wanna do instead?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head, “maybe I’ll make a tape of me singing. Or dancing. That’s loud, right?”

“I thought the whole point was to make it quieter,” Jake reminded him, now sitting on a chair across from his bed, “do you have something to tell me? Did the informal debate really rattle you?”

“No, I feel guilty,” Heeseung groaned, leaning toward his friend. “Last night, I saw her walking around Halyard Street alone and the guy who broke into Lori Lab pushed her out of his way. If I hadn’t been there, she would’ve fallen face-first into the street! But the only reason she was out there in the first place is that I was ‘having sex’ with a girl who I haven’t seen in months!”

Jake was at a loss for words. He had gotten used to Heeseung’s wild stories, but this one was unlike any other he had been told. 

“Okay…” he started, “so…stop faking the sex thing. Yeah, sounds good,”

“What if,” Heeseung’s eyes lit up, “what if you moved in with me? Then, if she ever knocks, you can come up with an excuse for me!”

“No. I will not,” Jake shut down the idea instantly, “you’re a terrible roommate. I know you’re still getting over your last girlfriend, but you’ll be sleeping around again soon enough. Dealing with the walks of shame and the Nightwing shenanigans? Count me out,”

“Fine,” Heeseung huffed, “I could also move out and find a new place. The frat bros won’t mind the noise or doubt its authenticity!”

“You’re not moving out, Heeseung,” Jake rolled his eyes, “just tell her ‘sorry’ and stop the sex. She’s not going to break into your apartment in the middle of the night, she’ll assume you’re asleep, like a normal human being!”

Heeseung paused for a moment to contemplate before nodding, “you’re right. I’m being irrational,”

“Thank goodness,” Jake breathed a sigh of relief, “Y/n has consumed way too much of your time. She’s all you ever talk about,”

“Yeah,” Heeseung agreed, snapping out of his momentarily caring nature, “she’s just always got the snarkiest comments about me—she’s kind of a slut shamer,”

“No, she’s a ‘slut that doesn’t let me get a wink of sleep’ shamer,” Jake corrected the older boy, “it’s basically the only thing you guys fight about,”

“It is the only thing we fight about,” Heeseung reiterated as he stood up from the bed, “looks like I need to break up with my ex-girlfriend,”

So…how does one apologize to their neighbor for being inconsiderate and also putting them in danger without completely compromising their secret identity? Easy! Don’t. Just hope that the wound will heal on its own.

The Scoop’s bullpen was always bustling from sun up to sun down, which was why Somi and Y/n typically liked to work on their side projects at night. It was more private and peaceful that way, especially since they didn’t have families awaiting their return. Yet…they were here at noon on a day with heavy rain—it was not pretty.

“Ugh, we’ve been at this for two hours,” Y/n groaned, her head resting on the desk before her, “every single lead has given us a dead end!”

“We’re close. I can feel it,” Somi insisted. “If our theory is correct and the guy who was chasing you is the same one who robbed your professor’s Lab, chances are we can figure out what he stole using these old articles,”

Somi, after learning about Y/n’s run-in with the boy in blue, had dragged her to the Scoop so that they could work on identifying the man who pushed her—with any luck, it could connect to their own puzzle. Regardless, it would help debunk the ridiculous ‘Crime Rates Soar Upon 2021 Arrival of Nightwing’ article. 

“I know, it’s just that the university section is kind of…bland,” Y/n reasoned, “not to mention the fact that my hand is cramping from all the notes we’re taking,”

“Sorry,” Somi moved her head from behind her computer to give her friend a sympathetic look. “No one has brought in a new printer yet and resources are kind of scarce on our floor,”

“They haven’t taken out the old one, either. This piece of junk is still here!” Y/n added, striking the side of the printer with her palm.

Unexpectedly, the familiar mechanical whirring of the printer began once again. Damn, she should’ve tried that five notebook pages earlier.

“Yes!” Somi exclaimed in happiness, rushing over to Y/n’s side of the desk. “You beautiful genius, thank you!” 

“No problem,” Y/n laughed, looking over at the machine beside her.  “Although…I don’t think I fixed it,” It had begun to print something, they just didn’t know what.

“Oh,” Somi frowned, picking up the first page, which had a large, loopy, and uppercase ‘a’ in the middle of it. “Whoever printed this made the font size way too big,”

“Yeah, and they must have been the first to do it after it stopped working,” Y/n took the paper from Somi’s hand, “I’ve seen this font before,”

“Where?” Somi asked, picking the sheets up as the printer continued to produce more papers. “In real life, or online?”

“No idea. It just looks familiar,” she answered, peeking over to look at the freshly printed pages. “Are they all different letters?”

“Yeah,” Somi replied, “A, E, K, V, U, and N. A is the only uppercase one so far,”

“Wait!” Y/n grabbed the newest sheet, “Our first number!”

After the printer stopped running, Somi scrawled the complete set of letters and numbers onto Y/n’s notebook.

A e k v u n 2 2 5 k 7 u S e 6 n

“We have to unscramble it, right?” Somi asked. “What else could this be for?”

“You’re right, it’s gotta be a message,” Y/n nodded, scanning the large room of busy reporters. “Who do you think it was meant for, though?”

“Mr. Kim, maybe?” Somi began, uncertainty in her voice, “it does seem unlikely though. Why send a message to Mr. Kim through a printer on the first floor?”

“It could also just be a printing error,” Y/n reasoned, “it was broken until a few minutes ago, after all,”

“Nope. What kind of printing error would give us this result?” Somi shook her head, sitting on the floor next to her friend’s chair with a look of determination. “Let’s unscramble it first and ask questions later—a story is a story!”

“I have…save, snake, sunk, skunk, ask, and suave,” Y/n read from her list of unscrambled words, “What did you come up with?”

After seven and a half minutes of silence, Y/n and Somi had collectively come up with 13 words starting with A or S from the letters they were given. Well, minus the repeats. So, more accurately, 11. 

“Anus, sank, sane, suave, avenues, seven, and save,” Somi read, tapping her pen against the table.

“Avenue!” Y/n exclaimed in realization, “it’s an address!”

“You’re right!” Somi gasped, “Skunk Avenue!”

Skunk Avenue was quite possibly the most rundown street in Bludhaven.  It consisted of abandoned buildings left and right, with a couple of bars and motels in the mix. 

“Well, luckily, there should only be a few options that our address could be,” Somi stood up in anticipation, pulling up a chair to join Y/n at her desk. “Could you pull it up online?”

“Sure,” Y/n replied, typing away at her keyboard. “It looks like most of the addresses start with ‘two-two’, so we only have to worry about five, seven, and six,”

“Okay,” Somi took to her notebook once again, writing the possible combinations on the page before her. “22567…22576…”

Y/n shook her head as she scanned the map.

“22756…22765…” Somi continued, “22657…and 22675”

“Bingo,” Y/n grinned, “22657 and 22675 both are real addresses on Skunk Street. Check it out,”

Y/n had pulled up images of both addresses—the first depicted a run-down building with broken windows and a neon sign which read ‘MOTEL 8: HOURLY PAYMENT’.

“Well…that’s questionable enough to be our place,” Somi began, her brows furrowed in focus, “let’s see the other,”

The second image showed a modest gray structure, but it was the name printed below the picture that caught the women’s attention.

‘The Four-Leaf Clover Club’

“Also sketchy…” Somi thought aloud. “We should strike both addresses, for sure,”

“Oh, oh!” Y/n gasped, gathering a few glares from around the room. “I just remembered where I’ve seen the printed font! It was one of my textbooks! Fuck, which one was it?!”

“Political science? Writing?” Somi listed her courses, “Environmental ethics?”

“Nope,” Y/n shook her head, dragging her bag over to pull out a large textbook, “It was biochemistry,”

“Biochemistry?” Somi repeated. “As in the professor who was robbed last night?”

“Yup,” Y/n skipped through the pages, “here. The same font as the puzzle,”

‘Phenylethylamine: The Love Drug’

“That’s great, but wouldn’t every section have the title in the same font?”

“Nope,” Y/n countered, now smiling from pride, “Every chapter has a theme—that’s why this one is all fancy,”

Somi held her hand up for a high-five, “So, we got the answer to today’s question after all. Phenylethylamine was stolen from the lab last night, and, for some reason, someone wants ‘us’ to think it’s linked to the club or the motel,”

“Exactly,” Y/n stood up from her seat in excitement, “get your umbrella, let’s go!”

Despite the fact that they had, in fact, brought an umbrella, Somi and Y/n wound up drenched within an hour.

The motel was a dead-end. It was empty (unless you count a few rats seeking shelter), cold, and Y/n could have sworn they were being watched. Somi wanted to stay a little longer in case something came up or they found a clue, but Y/n insisted it would be easier when it was dry. Luckily, Somi agreed. So, they headed home to recharge before checking out the club.

“Y/n? Hi,” Y/n jerked her head up at the familiar voice as she headed up the stairs to her apartment.

Oh. Heeseung. Typically, there was always something, or some noise, that reminded her of the boy next door—but for the longest time since he moved in, Y/n had forgotten about him (or so she thought).

Naturally, for Heeseung, the opposite was true.

“Hi, Heeseung,” Y/n gave a nod of acknowledgment as she continued.

“You look wet,” Heeseung frowned from his doorstep as Y/n arrived at the landing, “and cold…what were you doing out in the storm without a raincoat?”

“Reporter stuff,” she dismissed him. (I don’t blame her. I’d be eager to get back into dry clothes too.)

“Okay,” Heeseung muttered, sensing her cold attitude. As much as he disliked it, he couldn’t blame her. “Well…I just bought an extra coffee for Jake, but it seems like he’s not going to make it. It’s yours if you want it,”

“No thanks, I only drink decaf,” she replied, unlocking the door to her apartment. That’s right, Y/n. Don’t get closer.

“Perfect. It’s decaf,” Heeseung smiled, backing into his room to retrieve the cup.

“Oh…thanks,” Y/n tilted her head in surprise as she approached him, a smirk forming on her lips, “but how do I know you didn’t poison it?”

Heeseung hummed, leaning against the doorframe before taking a large sip of the coffee. “Mmm. The best,”

“Thank you, Heeseung,” Y/n smiled, grabbing the cup from the man’s grip, their fingers touching momentarily. “I’ll see you on Monday. Or before that, if you decide to be a dick out of nowhere,”

Oh, they’d see each other before Monday, alright.

Heeseung let out a partly suppressed laugh as he swung his door shut, “yeah, see you around,”

That man had infectious laughter. It made Y/n weak. ‘He’s a dick, Y/n. He’s a dick,’ she repeated to herself, heading back towards her door.

“Huh…that’s odd,” she whispered to herself, staring at the cup as she entered her room.

Brenda’s Cafe Start your day with a smile! decaf coffee two sugars two creamers

“Looks like Jake and I have the same coffee order,” she smiled to herself, reveling in the uncanny coincidence before taking a large sip of coffee.

“I’m outside, Y/n,”

“Alright, I’ll be out in just a minute,” Y/n replied to her friend, juggling her phone, lipstick, and bag, “stay dry!” 

It had taken Y/n an absurd amount of time to get ready. Sure, she was only going to a club, but she had been otherwise occupied since getting an internship at the Scoop last summer. She was a little rusty, to say the least.

“Dress hot,” had been Somi’s only instruction, so she opted for a tight blue dress. 

As she looked in the mirror one last time before heading out the door, Y/n took a deep breath and grabbed her raincoat from its hook. After all, Heeseung was right—they’re much more effective in storms than umbrellas.

When Y/n finally reached the ground floor, Somi was standing alone on her phone, a yellow writing pad sticking out of her purse. After noticing that her friend had joined her, she looked up with a grin.

“You look smoking hot,” Somi looked Y/n up and down, gesturing to the glitter and barrette on her head. “I love the hair!”

“Thank you,” Y/n smiled, nudging the blonde, “no hotter than you,”

Somi wore a silver sequined dress and platform boots, making her tower above the other people in the lobby. “Thanks—as much as I’d love to exchange compliments all night, we have somewhere to be,” Somi tilted her head in the direction of the door, “let’s go,”

For some reason, Y/n and Somi had not anticipated being turned away at the door. They probably should have.

“Come on, our friend’s already in there!” Y/n reasoned with the large man before her, “Please?”

“Yeah, it’s her only night in town,” Somi added, impressed with Y/n’s improvisation.

“Sorry, ladies. Private club,” he stood up even straighter than he already was, crossing his arms as if he was guarding the gates of hell. This guy wasn’t going to budge. He probably got paid too much to accept flirting as bribery, either. Somi recognized this fairly quickly.

And so, they walked away. “Alright we need to get in there one way or another,” Somi rubbed her hands together. It wasn’t clear whether she was excited or just cold, but I figure it was both.

“Well…” Y/n gestured to the area behind Somi, where two women stood. One wore a short, colorful peacock costume while the other wore a bedazzled cowboy getup with denim shorts. “...there’s always that option,”

Somi glanced behind her for a moment before turning back toward her friend once again. “Oh my god, you’re right. Our one pole dancing class from three months ago is finally gonna pay off! Lead the way,”

“Okay…first of all, of course, I am…but second of all, there is no way I’m ready to pretend to be a stripper right now,” Y/n shook her head violently, “I need at least three to five business days' notice to build that kind of confidence,”

“Look, if you really don’t want to, I’m not going to force you,” Somi explained, placing her hand on Y/n’s shoulder. “But I’d be right behind you the whole time, cheering you on and/or watching your back. Depends on what you’re scared of. And you’d get to be a really sexy firefighter for a night,”

Y/n paused for a moment of contemplation. Sure, she was scared. But…after all, they do say “if you’re scared to do it, do it scared”, right? And she truly believed that Somi would be there for her. So, what the hell?

“Fine. I’ll do it for the story,” Y/n took the beaming blonde by her arm, “Let’s get in there before I change my mind,”

The dressing room was filled with various leopards in corsets and pilots in garters walking past the imposters, who stood frozen by the door. Y/n felt her chest tighten at the thought of wearing one of their outfits onstage for a crowd of droolers. Do it scared, do it scared, do it scared.

“I probably should’ve asked you this before pulling you into the dressing room, but what is our cover story?” she muttered under her breath. 

“Just follow my lead,” Somi whispered back, guiding Y/n to the costume racks in the back row, “now act natural,”

Somi started rifling through the outfits on the rack: a way too patriotic stars and stripes set, various animals, a sexy leprechaun costume (definitely hopefully a seasonal pick)—the options were plentiful.

“This one will do tonight,” Somi spoke loudly, clearing her throat, “I wore the leprechaun look last night, after all,”

Y/n resisted the urge to laugh as Somi picked a black latex outfit off the rack, “Alright…I’ll take…” Y/n’s eyes scanned the options.

“Look, I’m gonna take this to ‘change’ while I check out that office. I’ll bet it has the info we need—”

“Hey, you two,” A deep voice boomed from across the room, immediately ensuing panic in Y/n’s head, “I take it you’re the replacements Rocko sent over?”

Wow did they get lucky…

Somi turned to face the blonde man as he approached, “Yup,” she started, eyes wide. While Somi being nervous isn’t something Y/n witnessed often, it was fairly easy to detect. 

“Great,” the man nodded, pulling a list from his suit jacket’s pocket. “I have you two booked an hour from now, though…” He looked up from his paper, awaiting an explanation.

Y/n shook her head, glancing at the clock. 8:51. “I don’t know about that. Rocko told me my slot was at 9 PM,” 

“Yeah, mine is at 9:10 PM,” Somi added, “there must have been a mistake somewhere,”

“Well, I’ll give Rocko a call—”

“No!” the women exclaimed in panic.

The man furrowed his eyebrows, glancing between the two. “Sorry?”

“It’s just that we don’t want him to be mad,” Somi clarified, “…in case it’s our fault,”

“We’re willing to go in an hour, the slots you had us down for,” Y/n continued, “we don’t want to cause any problems,”

“No, it’s alright, I’ll take care of it,” He gave Y/n a tight-lipped smile, “better get ready—you’re on in eight minutes. Your outfits are marked on the rack,”

Somi breathed a sigh of relief as the suited man walked away. “Alright…new plan. After we get dressed, I’ll take a peek in the office while you’re on stage,”

“I hate that plan,” Y/n retorted, her breath quickening. “but I did volunteer myself for it, you have the more stressful job, and I think my adrenaline will compensate for the fear,” 

“Great,” Somi nodded, the same determined look on her face from at the Scoop, “Let’s strip,”

The outfit was on. Y/n was getting used to walking in seven-inch heels from all the pacing she was doing. It was now 8:58 PM. Y/n had come to peace with what she was about to do—how? She realized what the best way to handle the stress was—pretending she was a stripper.

So, she pulled on her deep purple get-up, smeared some more lipstick on her lips, and took some deep breaths. She could do it. No problem. Easily. Hopefully. Maybe.

As she walked up to the black steps in her impossibly high heels, Y/n could finally see the stage. There were three poles on it, but only one was being used—clearly, this was going to be a focused show. Lucky her. The final minute felt faster than the ones before it. Time flies when you’re having fun, right?

Before she knew it, it was 9 PM and the familiar beat of Umbrella by Rihanna and JAY-Z had started playing. That’s her cue!

Y/n felt her body take control as she ascended the steps. One foot in front of the other (at least that’s what she assumed). 

“Now, give a warm welcome to…Violet Cherry!”

Y/n felt the stares of the crowd following her every movement as she walked to the center of the stage, where the pole was mounted.

She started by slowly unbuttoning the shirt she had on over her corset as JAY-Z’s verse began, reminding herself that this was her job and that she did this every day—she took that whole ‘pretending she was a stripper’ thing very seriously.

Stripping was awkward. She knew it would be. Y/n wasn’t completely sure how to take off her shirt and skirt in a way that would appeal to the whole crowd, but she pulled it off (haha get it) pretty well. It didn’t feel that way, but that didn’t make it untrue.

And then it started getting easier. Y/n had only learned two things in her first pole dancing class with Somi, but she juiced the hell out of those two things. By the time the chorus began,  she was feeling fairly comfortable onstage. She spun, she posed, she twirled, and she posed again—it was a pretty solid routine for a woman who had an hour and a half of experience.

As the bridge began, Y/n held onto the pole with both arms behind her before sliding down into a squat, when she looked straight into the crowd. While the move was a nice addition to the routine, it was a terrible decision.

There, staring right back into Y/n’s petrified eyes like a deer in headlights, was a much more petrified Lee Heeseung.

Heeseung was not a man who went to strip clubs often. He had a couple of times, for friends’ birthdays or missions, but he never went just for recreation. He did not think a strip club was the best chance he was going to get at finding the lab thief’s boss—his classic waiting and watching usually does the trick, after all. 

Jake disagreed—and unfortunately, he was right. He had to be inside to hear the secrets. Thus, he went. Lucky for him, his platinum credit card was all he needed to show them to enter—they let him right in. Honestly, Somi chose the wrong resident of Safehaven Apartments to befriend. 

After Heeseung gave his name to the bouncer, he was seated immediately in what they called “the best seat in the house”. 

“Hi, welcome to the Four-Leaf Clover Club!” His waitress greeted him warmly, removing the pencil from behind her ear, “What can I get for you?”

“Just water,” he dismissed the woman with a smile. He doesn’t drink on the job, he isn’t an idiot. “I’ve gotta drive home,”

“Sure, one water coming right up,” she wrote on her pad, “have a great night,”

He redirected his attention to the people circulating through the dimly purple-lit room. There were plenty of strippers wearing various types of bras and shorts, some of them dancing near guests while others served drinks. Most of the guests were men of various ages, but a few women were dispersed among the tables and seats.

“Nightwing, come in,” Heeseung adjusted his earpiece, “anyone looking suspicious?”

Jake was going to be his ears for the night—in fact, he usually was, at least now that Heeseung and Batgirl split. 

“It’s Heeseung tonight,” the older man reminded him in a mumble, “and yes—literally everyone looks guilty,”

“I’ll try to ID some people in the security camera footage then,” Jake replied, “For now, you can turn your mic off, maybe actually have some fun. The other ones you set up should suffice,”

“I’m on a mission, I’m not going to—”

“Here’s that water for you!” The recently returned waitress began, placing the condensation-coated glass on the table, “Just give me a holler if you need anything else,”

“Thanks,” Heeseung nodded politely as she walked away, his eyes following her briefly to ensure she didn’t return. “As I was saying, I’m not going to…oh my god,”

“What? What happened? Did you recognize someone?”

He did recognize someone, but not quite in the manner Jake was implying. 

Heeseung did not need glasses. Anytime he wore them in public was purely for aesthetic purposes. But his eyes just had to be deceiving him in one way or another because Y/n was taking off her shirt in the middle of the stage.

“Heeseung!” Jake exclaimed, “What happened?!”

“N-nothing,” he replied, finally tearing his eyes away from Y/n’s body as she tossed away her shirt. “I need to talk to someone in here. I’ll turn my mic on when I’m done,”

“Well, shouldn’t I listen in if you’re gonna make a move?” Jake countered. “...Heeseung?”

It was too late. Heeseung’s mic was already off and he was losing his mind.

He tried not to look at his neighbor’s routine for about twenty seconds until he remembered that he was, in fact, undercover at the strip club.

What was she even doing there? 

Of course, it was possible that she was newly a stripper, but it wasn’t likely—Heeseung was an observant neighbor, after all. Plus, he was watching her now. Yes, she looked good…really good…but her dancing was not ‘the most exclusive club in Bludhaven’ good. So…if she isn’t really a stripper…why was she here?

She was wearing purple. Heeseung liked purple, not that it’s relevant. A purple corset, purple platform heels, purple shorts, and, pinned in her hair, a silver barrette. Her makeup…was blue.

Heeseung didn’t know everything about makeup, but he did know that Y/n wouldn’t have worn blue eyeshadow knowing she was going to be wearing purple. She didn’t know she’d be doing this.

He knew better than to assume Y/n had been forced to do this, but he couldn’t rule it out. So he thought about the last time he saw her back at the apartment building. Was there anything that—Jeon Somi.

No, he didn’t remember Y/n mentioning her friend—he literally saw Somi in the window of the office by the stage. What the fuck were these two up to?

“You can run into my arms, it’s okay don’t be alarmed, come into me,”

And…he was watching Y/n again. To be fair, it was kind of what he was supposed to do while undercover at a strip club.

“So gon’ and let the rain pour,”

As Y/n wrapped her hands around the pole, a newfound type of confidence gracing her performance, cheers and whistles erupted from the audience. Heeseung’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. 

“I’ll be all you need and more,” She sunk down the length of the pole, Heeseung’s breath hitching as she did so. She had a look of lust on her face as she looked into the crowd. Up to the moment where, of course…

She saw him. Fuck, she saw him while he was staring right at her and she was going to think he was a total weirdo because what excuse does he have for being here? And she still thinks he has a girlfriend!

She was clearly just as rattled as Heeseung because she stood up a few seconds later, completely abandoning her previous “who cares” confidence. A pang of familiar guilt rose in Heeseung as Y/n started walking offstage and applause rose in the audience once again. Until he realized that she was headed straight into the crowd. And his table. Oh, God. He needed a cover story. Jake…Heeseung could usually use Jake for his lies in one way or another, right?

“Heeseung! Come in, Heeseung!” What a neat coincidence.

Heeseung fumbled to turn on his microphone, “I’m here. Now is not the best time, though, so—”

“I finished the ID checks of most of the club,” Jake continued, ignoring Heeseung’s words, “the man wearing a rust bowtie in the southeast corner of the building is our guy. The whole table is involved in it!”

“Now is really not the time, Jake,”

“Fine, I’ll tell you the details after you give me the go,” he sighed.

Y/n was getting closer, her eyes shifting everywhere but at Heeseung. As she looked beyond the scaffolding of the balcony, she stopped in her tracks momentarily. She saw something. Heeseung’s eyebrows furrowed.

What could she have seen?

“Hey there…” Y/n finally looked at Heeseung again, approaching his desk with a smile plastered on her face, “...handsome,”

“Hi, Velvet…Cash?” Heeseung struggled to recall her stripper name. Clearly, Y/n didn’t want anyone to know she wasn’t a stripper. He wasn’t about to ruin that. Plus, if it was clear they were friends acquaintances, Heeseung could be putting her in danger. Again.

By this time, she had one hand on the table and another wrapped around the corner of Heeseung’s chair. This club clearly had terrible circulation, because looking up at her made him feel like someone hid a space heater in his suit jacket.

“It’s Cherry. Velvet Cherry,” Y/n bent over further, forcing her words through clenched teeth. “What are you doing here? Last time I checked, you had a girlfriend,”

“Nope, she dumped me,” Heeseung replied in a hushed tone, “I’m just here because Jake wanted me to come, he’s meeting me in ten minutes. He thought it’d be good for my…heart,”

“Try again,” Y/n groaned, trying her best not to roll her eyes, “I know that’s a lie,”

“...fine,” Y/n lifted Heeseung’s chin with her finger as he spoke, “My professor got robbed. I’m here to try to find out who did it. My girlfriend did dump me, though,”

Personally, I think he told her way too much. But honestly, who could think straight with someone as pretty as her in such close proximity?

Y/n’s eyes widened in surprise, her hand falling away from his chin. Oh. Wait. Maybe she thought he was just lying about his girlfriend dumping him. You’re smarter than that, Heeseung. 

“Forgive me,” Y/n stood up straight, pretending to adjust her hair in a moment of hesitation before turning around and taking a seat in the man’s lap.

Heeseung’s eyes widened, scrambling to look away until Y/n guided his face back to her with her hand. “You’re gonna get us caught if you keep looking at me like I’m your worst nightmare, Heeseung,”

The man inhaled sharply as Y/n mumbled, looking straight at his lips. She must have been devoted to this act because Heeseung could’ve sworn he was getting butterflies. “Look, you have to get out of here. The guy behind you is dangerous. Somi found some stuff on him in the office…or something. I’m not sure, she just pointed at him. The point is, you’ve gotta leave as soon as possible. For your own safety,”

“Fine,” Heeseung agreed reluctantly, the gears turning in his head, “I’ll leave you alone. Just get up, I’ve got fragile bones,”

“Thank you,” Y/n stood up confidently, bending down a final time to whisper in the man’s ear, “and do not utter a word to any of your buddies about that so-called lap dance. I do know where you live, after all,”

Heeseung smiled as Y/n walked off, but grew worried when she paused and turned right back around. “What happened?” he asked.

“I’ll explain,” Y/n grabbed Heeseung’s hand, pulling him out of his seat, “but you’re coming with me,”

The last thing Y/n wanted was for Heeseung to get hurt. Okay, that’s overcompensating, but you get the point—he was annoying, but she didn’t want him interrogated and hurt just for talking to her tonight. 

So when she noticed a waitress mention his name to the man Somi warned her about, she panicked.

“Woah, hold on,” Heeseung began, Y/n’s grip on his wrist tightening enough to cut off circulation, “don’t you think these guys are gonna get the wrong idea here?”

“As if I care,” Y/n heaved, pulling the man next to the side door. “I’m gonna find Somi, and then we’re gonna run,”

Heeseung furrowed his eyebrows, mouth agape. “Run where? And why?”

“I’ll order a taxi, I don’t know. We’ll figure it out,” Y/n started, trying her best to recall her and Somi’s backup plan. “They know you spoke with me. Considering the fact that Somi and I are about to become their primary enemies and I don’t want your fragile bones cracking under the pressure, I’m taking you with me,”

“Okay…” Heeseung began, puzzled, “it’s just not very fool…proof,”

By the time Heeseung had finished his sentence, Y/n was distracted already, looking across the busy room at the several pairs of eyes focused on them.

“Y/n?”

Heeseung turned in the same direction, his eyes widening as the man in the rust bowtie he was warned about pointed right at them.

“Can you run in those?” Heeseung glanced down at Y/n’s elevated feet in worry.

“Not like I have much of a choice!” Y/n finally pushed the door open, grabbing Heeseung’s hand once again and sprinting—or, rather, trying to. She did not make it far.

“Ow!” she exclaimed, doubling over as they rounded the corner after exiting the club. “Okay, these have to go,”

It was raining harder than it had all day. Y/n was cold, in pain, and in danger. Now was not the time to be decked out in a corset and booty shorts.

“No, no,” Heeseung shook his head, his hair getting wetter by the second as he took off his jacket and tossed it to Y/n. “Wear this. You’re getting on my back,”

“Are you sure you can carry me, fragile bones?” she asked, eyeing Heeseung up and down in an insinuating manner before pulling his coat over her shoulders. To be fair, she did not know he was Nightwing. But still—damn, Y/n, now is not the time for banter.

“Just get on…” Heeseung rolled his eyes, bending his knees for Y/n to get on, “once we get back to my car, we can try to track down Somi. I’m sure she already left,”

“What do you mean?!” Y/n asked, hopping on anyways—her feet did hurt quite a bit, after all. “They’re only chasing us because they know I was with her! We have to go back right now,”

Heeseung began jogging with Y/n on his back, “just…trust me. Please. She’s fine, I’m sure,”

Y/n didn’t have any reason to trust Heeseung on a regular day. But if she went back to the strip club right now, they’d get her like a rat in a trap. She didn’t want to trust him, but there wasn’t much of a choice tonight. So she chose to cling on tight as water and wind hit her face and legs relentlessly—it was safe to assume her hair was no longer as gorgeous as it was ten minutes ago.

Heeseung’s hair looked great though—and it smelled like cinnamon. Y/n usually hated that she noticed that. It typically felt like she couldn’t think about how attractive or not that bad of a person he was in close proximity of him because he’d be able to see right through her and use it to his advantage as if they were in an ongoing war. It didn’t feel that way right now.

“Yeah, we’re on our way. Just meet us at the street parallel to Skunk Avenue, Jasper Way,”

“Who are you talking to?” Y/n inquired, looking down at Heeseung before noticing a small earpiece resting in his left ear.

“A childhood friend. He’s picking us up,”

2. Reliability A woman wants someone who shows up, rain or shine. Support, shield, assist—I can’t tell you exactly which way she’ll appreciate it. Everyone is different.

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[sophieinwonderland]

https://www.tumblr.com/sophieinwonderland/754022315455545344/while-my-post-was-meant-to-be-hurtful-i-also

i understand. i’m sick of anti-endos. sysmed rhetoric kept me, and my system, in a dark place for years. pushing for acceptance is important for our community and the plural future.

hurting others back won’t do anything. it only fuels the fire. being kind and correcting misinfo is all we can do. and for ourselves, we can take breaks when it becomes too much.

block out their tags, stay in pro-endogenic ones, or logging off even. don’t go to their level of harassment/hate. the plural community is about love and acceptance. that includes for every plural, even the ones who believe in sysmed rhetoric.

we can correct their misinfo, but there’s no reason to hurt them back. i hope you’re doing okay, and taking breaks if you need them.

I mean... there can be value to tossing fuel on a fire. Especially if your goal is getting attention by getting that fire to burn bright enough.

There's a legitimate risk of pushing people to double down on their beliefs. That type of backfire would obviously be bad.

But some people are attracted to the blaze. People are curious creatures by nature. A lot of anti-endos had me blocked before. Now they've taken another look at my blog because of the fire.

There is a value to infamy, I've found. Even being talked about in a negative way can attract more attention to a cause than not being talked about at all. I've actually had multiple anti-endos whose minds I've helped change come to this blog before and tell me it was because of how infamous I was in the anti-endo community and how much they talked about me.

Perhaps I took the wrong lesson away from that and decided that I should actively try to ensure my infamy remains intact.

But I think using and maintaining their perception of me personally can be advantageous since it lets my name breach the deepest chasms of their echo chambers.

While this particular post was driven by a building anger... there has also been an overall goal of making myself enough of a nuisance to keep them talking about me in their circles. Because if people constantly hear how terrible I am, at least some of them are going to be curious and want to check out my blog to see if it's as bad as everyone is saying.

And then hopefully once they've been baited into showing up, that's when their defenses can be eroded away by reality. No, they won't instantly accept it, but hopefully if they can start doomscrolling my blog the same way a lot of us end up doomscrolling r/systemscringe, the information I provide can worm its way past their defenses and wear them down over time.

It does feel, at a certain level, a lot of anti-endos are only willing to engage with endogenic systems who they think will confirm their worst opinions about endogenic systems. If so, maybe making them see me personally as a danger in order to trick them into coming onto my blog and being exposed to resources that would never reach them in their echo chambers is a good tactic

I don't know. 🤷‍♀️

I have no idea if this is actually effective as a strategy. My big worry is that I've been rationalizing a counterproductive tactic because it allows me to speak out in anger, because there's a part of me that does just want to hurt people that hurt us and people I care about, or maybe even because I enjoy the negative attention on some level. And while I know some people who are drawn in by it, I don't know the number people who it pushes away.

All of these things are going through my head.

But by the gods, I'm actually getting engagement from anti-endos! It's not good engagement, maybe. But I provide facts and people block me straight away or ignore whatever I'm saying, then I say something deliberately hurtful that gets publicized in their spaces and now they're paying attention!

I hate that this strategy feels as effective as it does. That it's seemingly successful in getting their attention, where providing information alone kept getting me blocked on sight and causing them to shutdown.

And the fact that this is also conditioning me towards worse behavior is also not lost on me.

[creepereyes]

Stranger Things emeto HCs

Literally nobody asked for this but as a sickfic/emeto fic connoisseur I am T H I R S T I N G for some good ST emeto stuff. Here we go, emeto HCs for Harringrove + other adult male characters because I have no shame. 😵‍💫🤢🤮

Steve: Repeated head injuries and Upside-Down exposure have left him prone to migraines, and unless he takes meds right away they always make him sick. Pukes a lot and violently. Throwing up will usually lessen the pain but not always. Bad food gets him too. Steve’s cooking skills are subpar so he gets a lot of takeout, sometimes from questionable places. He’s gotten food poisoning a couple times. He loves to be taken care of when he’s puking because he never got that as a kid. Billy knows how to handle Steve when he gets sick (so does Robin) and will snuggle with him.

Billy: Stress/anxiety puker. Like Steve he pukes a lot amount wise but isn’t as loud. Growing up with Neil has led to him downplaying any illness or injury and trying to ride it out without complaining. Neil obviously never cared for him when he got sick as a kid. The first time Billy got sick in front of Steve he was expecting to receive no help at all, but then Steve gently comforted him and Billy just melted. He’s clingy when he’s sick but not overtly so. He also tends to get motion sick if he’s not the one driving.

Eddie: As a human garbage disposal, he’ll eat anything and everything offered to him. If it’s edible it’s going in his mouth, and he’s paid for it a couple times. Tends to make a huge disgusting mess but he’s pretty good at not getting any in his hair. He’s okay with being alone when sick but he’d rather be comforted by Chrissy. She’ll put his head in her lap, stroke his hair and gently massage his stomach. Sometimes it’ll work and he’ll fall asleep, other times it’ll just make him puke again.

Hopper: Doesn’t get sick very often but he’s no stranger to hangovers. They kick his ass more and more as he gets older and he can’t knock them back like he used to. When he pukes he is LOUD. He sounds like he’s dying. The demogorgans in the Upside-Down can hear him puking. When he actually sick from something like the stomach flu, he downplays it and insists that he’s fine. After he pukes though? Whiny with a capital W. He’ll complain to Joyce that he’s actually dying. Joyce rolls her eyes every time but then lovingly takes care of him.

Jonathan: He’s pretty low key about being sick. When he gets sick at home, he’ll stay in his room with a bucket by his bed because he doesn’t want Will or Joyce to get sick. He does like being taken care of though, especially if there’s physical touch involved. Nancy will take care of him no matter how gross and pukey he gets, but he actually prefers having Argyle as a caretaker. Jonathan’s first time with purple palm tree delight led to him greening out and getting really sick from it, and Argyle stayed with him the whole time like the true friend he is.

Argyle: He’s the most chill puker ever, even when he’s got something really nasty. He’ll violently projectile vomit then be like, “All good, my dude.” even when he’s clearly not. He doesn’t like to bring down the vibe by complaining much, though he’ll curl up and groan a bit when he’s alone. If he has time, he’ll tie his hair into a messy bun to avoid getting puke in it. If he doesn’t have time it’s a gamble. Like Steve and Eddie he tends to eat some very questionable things and occasionally suffers for it.

[babybubastis]

Ok. We need to talk about this.

⚠️ (Spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever below!)⚠️

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It’s incredibly disheartening (and somewhat alarming) that there seems to be no room in fandom for any kind of nuance. I’m going to talk specifically about the Black Panther fandom and what I’m seeing/experiencing occur between Shuri x Namor shippers and some other users in the fandom. There are users on here who are, unprovoked, actively tagging and seeking out and harassing other fans for shipping the pairing. Real quick, a little personal context: for those of you who don’t know, I’m black. It has been especially demoralizing to see this type of activity occurring between black women in the fandom. I’ve seen the blackness of some fans who ship Shuri x Namor be called into question. I’ve seen fans be called clowns, and anti-black, and sick, and all manner of things. And I guess my question is: Why?

Why, as a black woman in fandom, am I not allowed to love a particular black female character, and also ship her with another character without facing harassment? Those two concepts — 1) caring for Shuri as a character and 2) wanting to see her courted and desired by the attractive (admittedly toxic) male antagonist — don’t have to be mutually exclusive. IT CAN BE BOTH. And that, contrary to some people’s beliefs, does not make me a bad person.

Wakanda Forever is a complex and beautiful masterpiece, teeming with commentary about colonialism, anti-blackness, white supremacy, grief, anger, vengeance, religion, mother-child relationships, and so much more. Why is it impossible for me, as a complex person who has complex interests, to want to talk about those more serious topics AND gush about Shuri’s interactions with the charismatic antagonist who treats her as an equal? There is clear romantic subtext in Namor’s early interactions with Shuri. The entire sequence where Shuri is in Talokan reeks of Hades/Persephone, as well as other classic romantic tropes and gestures:

Namor allowing Shuri to be brought to his hidden underwater civilization,

Him commissioning a beautifully ornate custom dress for her to wear,

Him telling her about his history and giving her his dead mother’s bracelet,

Him happily showing her around his hidden kingdom

It was all very calculated on his part, I’m sure, in an attempt to win her over to his side. But there was also obvious chemistry between he and Shuri. Hell, Riri even spells it out for us, comparing the entire gesture of giving her the custom dress to Beauty and the Beast! So it is not nearly as far-fetched as some people want to claim to ship these two, to be intrigued by their dynamic. And it is entirely possible to be just as intrigued by that as it is to be moved by the bigger, deeper, more serious concepts explored in the movie. Again, those things aren’t — and shouldn’t— be mutually exclusive. To claim otherwise is doing a disservice to the entire film as a whole, and it’s doing a disservice to Shuri as a character. She is a grown woman, complex and broken and messy. This entire movie, while being a gorgeous and poignant tribute to Chadwick Boseman, was also very much Shuri’s story. Letitia herself said in a recent interview (that she did with Tenoch Huerta) that she loved this film because the audience is really getting to see Shuri explore her womanhood and maturity.

Shuri is no longer the precocious, quippy 18-year-old that we saw in the first Black Panther. Her character arc is extremely dark in this film. She loses, again and again. We see her express rage. We see her be stubborn, we see her grieve, we see her break, we see her hopeful, we see her stepping out of her comfort zone to save Riri and to save her people. We see her succumb to vengeance and then turn around and choose mercy. There is a wealth of complexity there just bubbling under the surface, and, like the audience, Namor is clearly drawn to her. He sees something in her that mirrors something in him. It is no coincidence that they both see their mothers in that final fight scene before Shuri commands him to yield. And it is no coincidence that, when Shuri’s mind is flitting through the recent sequence of events that led up to that final battle, she sees her mother’s drowning reversed, and right after that she remembers Namor smiling as he told her about his history and his people. She remembers that, underneath the terrible things he has done, he is a human being who does everything he does for the love of his people. I have no doubt that Namor was being calculating and manipulative in regards to Shuri. He saw the chance for an alliance with her and wanted to make it work. But he also clearly connected with her on a personal level. If that weren’t true, he would have either killed her or imprisoned her the second she rejected his proposal in that cave to join him in destroying the surface world. Instead, when Shuri stated that they needed to find a peaceful way to resolve their issues, he sat and was prepared to listen (until they were interrupted by Namora alerting him to Ramonda’s summons).

It’s so clear that Namor was drawn to not only Shuri’s intelligence and strength and wit and compassion, but also to her beauty and charm and passion. Namor is the first person we see treat Shuri as a true equal — as a fully-capable, formidable counterpart. Is it so wrong to be intrigued by that? To want to see Shuri come into her own in every way and to also want to see her desired as a potential love interest? Are black women not allowed to be intelligent and complicated and powerful and desirable?

I could go on and on about Shuri and Namor’s interactions. But I will say this: were these any two other characters in any other movie, there would be no debate. The fandom at large would be salivating over the subtext and symbolism and tension and chemistry.

There are so many reasons why this ship has so many people excited. It’s the first time we’ve seen a dark-skinned black woman as THE MAIN CHARACTER in this franchise have any interaction that even hints at something remotely romantic. It’s a ship between a black woman and a Mexican man. And the most glaringly obvious reason: it’s a toxic mess. It’s unhinged, it’s chaotic, it’s explosive, it’s dynamic, it’s dark. It’s complicated and messy in a way we’ve never seen Shuri get to be. The tension and conflict and messiness of it all is what makes it so compelling. We haven’t gotten these types of multi-dimensional, complex character explorations in this franchise for a black woman before, not on this scale, not in this context, to this magnitude. OF COURSE in real life the dynamic would appalling, at best. But THIS ISN’T REAL LIFE. What so many fans seem to forget ( or ignore) is that fandom, and more specifically shipping, is supposed to be a safe space to explore all manner of complex concepts — good, bad, morally grey, relentlessly fluffy, despicably toxic, etc. — in a fictional construct where NO REAL PEOPLE GET HARMED.

Increasingly in fandom, I’m seeing this very black and white thinking, that you can only ship one thing or the other, think one thing or the other, feel one thing or the other. All nuance is thrown out the window. But the thing is, life isn’t that simple, and neither are human beings. People fall in love with people they aren’t supposed to all the time. People are messy and imperfect and toxic and complicated. People can experience emotions and hold ideas that are often in direct conflict with each other. So why do we ignore this, in fiction, of all places? Why do we demand that all fiction be sanitized and only portrayed in one way? The new, unwritten rule in fandom seems to be, if you’re going to ship, it had BETTER be the morally upright, fandom-approved ship, or else you MUST face the wrath of the fandom gatekeepers.

That is wrong, and even dangerous, on so many levels.

Let me be clear: you have every right to not like a ship. You have every right to be upset or appalled or triggered or disgusted or angered by a ship. But those emotions and reactions are YOUR responsibility and no one else’s. It is very easy on this website to curate your own experience. See a ship you don’t like? Block the user, the tag, blacklist it, whatever you need to do. Because that is the rational thing to do. Going into a ship’s tags in order to seek out users and posts that upset you in order to unleash your childish rage because you can’t be bothered to learn how to take responsibility for regulating your own emotions is infinitely worse than whatever icky ships you don’t like.

No one in this fandom is shoving this ship down your throat. We are in the tags, minding our business. We’re gushing about our favorite pairing, having silly discussions about headcanons and AUs, while also having deep and nuanced discussions about Shuri and her character growth, and about the deep themes explored in the movie and how it all interconnects. The sad thing is that I’ve seen really excellent takes about Wakanda Forever from certain users that I agree wholeheartedly with, only to then, several posts later, see them unleashing all kinds of unwarranted harassment and vitriol toward other fans simply for shipping Shuri with Namor.

At the end of the day, I can’t change people’s minds. I don’t care if you like or don’t like the ship. I DO care if you bully and harass and dehumanize me and other people because you don’t like the ship. Again: THIS IS FICTION. A lot of things that people explore and enjoy in fiction are not things we would ever condone in reality. There’s a certain catharsis in seeing characters go through toxic and even dark scenarios in a controlled environment such as fanfiction. But we understand very clearly that that is not okay in real life. I would urge those of you who are harassing shippers to please develop some critical thinking skills and learn to differentiate fiction from reality.

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Shipping is supposed to be fun. Shipping is not activism, it is not politics. And it is not supposed to be a vehicle for your own personal hatred, harassment and bullying (although it too often is).

If you’ve made it this far through my incoherent ramblings, I appreciate you. This may have no impact at all, and maybe no one gives a shit about my experience or my opinion. And that’s fine. I just felt the need to say my piece so that I can go back to shipping and writing in peace.

[five-rivers]

Cryptid Crawl! Chapter 4

AO3

Now including prompts from @currentlylurking, @going-dead, @aggressivelyclueless, @carelisswriting, and @schrodingersfic

Most of you I didn't tag on previous chapters because I hadn't quite gotten to the part of the story your prompts were relevant in, but now I have! Please enjoy. :)

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

Hi, Danny!  Guess who’s coming to visit their favorite cousin!  Yeah!  It’s me!  I’ll be by in a couple weeks or so.  Are there any hotels that are good to camp out at while I’m in town?  Can’t wait to see you guys!  Bye!

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

It’s me!  I’m still making good progress, I think?  I’ve been trying out hitchhiking- it’s so funny to see people’s faces after you disappear on them.  You’d think that they never picked up hitchhikers before.  Lol.  Is it okay to say that out loud?  Lol.  It sounds kinda funny.  Anyway, I’m in Louisiana right now.  New Orleans was great.  See ya soon!

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Dani Phantom:

Dani, don’t take this the wrong way, but did you learn how to hitchhike from watching horror movies?

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Valerie Gray:

Hey, Val, this, um, this is Dani!  Yeah, I know, I know, I never call, you want to know how I got this number, that kind of stuff, but I kind of wound up in an embarrassing situation, and before I call my cousin, I need to know if you know anything about a group of ghost hunters that calls itself the ‘Investigation?’  I will really owe you one.  Thanks.

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

Soooo, hey, cuz, you might have been right about disappearing and attracting the wrong sort of attention.  I’ve picked up a couple of ghost hunting types.  But don’t worry!  They suck so much.  Like, they’re indescribably bad.  So bad, I’m not even sure they’re really ghost hunters.  They’re setting up this rube goldberg stuff.  They’re filming for like TV or something, and I need some prank ideas.  Need need need need.  Prank.  Ideas.  Call me back when you get this!

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

Danny, this is Jazz.  I just saw some of the people here watching a video called ‘Cryptid Crawl,’ and it mentioned Amity Park.  And you.  I’m pretty busy here, so I don’t have a lot of time to look into it, but, you know.  Wanted to let you know.  Hope you’re having a good week, bye!

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Jasmine Fenton:

–lieve I missed her, she just called like ten minutes ago.  Anyway, I looked into it, Jazz.  I don’t think they’ll be too much of a problem, but thanks for letting me know.  Have a good time at your thing.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Jasmine Fenton:

Jazz, we have a problem, check the Amity of Amity boards.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Jack Fenton: 

Dad, this is Jazz.  You know I’m on those message boards, right?  The forums?  Please, please do not start running around town with a video camera.  Do not put cameras on the GAV.  Do not post anything ghost related online.  Don’t.  Just don’t.  Do you remember the cease and desist orders from when you and Mom blanketed all of the radio channels in town with anti-ghost static?  It’s like that.  You don’t want to be labeled as a public hazard for something other than your driving, do you?  Don’t.  Do.  It.  I love you, bye!

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Jasmine Fenton: 

What the heck did you say to Dad?  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Jasmine Fenton: 

Jazz, I say this in the most loving way I can: if you gave him this idea, I may commit sororicide.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Madeline Walker-Fenton: 

Mom, this is Jazz.  Do you know what Dad’s working on?  It’s got Danny freaking out.  Call me back when you get this.  I love you, bye!

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Jasmine Fenton: 

*Heavy breathing* They’re mounting cameras on the GAV.  They’ve made a YouTube channel.  I don’t want our house to get raided by the GIW, Jazz.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Madeline Walker-Fenton: 

Mom, this is Jazz.  I know your phone didn’t ‘suddenly lose signal.’  Either call me back or I’m coming home from Model UN early.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Madeline Walker-Fenton: 

Mom, this is Jazz.  If I come home and government agents have been in my room, I’m going to lose it.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Vladimir Masters: 

Vlad, this is Jazz.  Dad and Mom are going to try to film a YouTube show about ghost hunting.  If you don’t help Danny find some way to stop them, I’m going to suggest to Dad that he give you a shout out every five minutes so everyone knows what good friends you are.  Don’t tell Danny about this call.  Or else.  You know what I’m talking about.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

So, Daniel, I hear that you have a little problem regarding your idiot father’s sudden desire for internet celebrity.  If you need assistance, I’m more than willing to… negotiate.  I’ll be waiting.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

Very well.  Silence is also a worthwhile bargaining technique.  In truth, such an… expose would harm me as well.  As such, we should work together.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Daniel Fenton:

Daniel, call me back, your sister is blackmailing me.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Dani Phantom:

*High pitched* OoooooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOoooohhhhhh, I’m Danny Phantom and I have weird opinions about how other people hitchhike oooooooooohhhh.

*Distantly* Dani, give me back my phone you little gremlin!

OoooooooOOOOOOOOooooohhhhh I just got notified by– Oh!  Hahahahah!  Time for chaos.  Lessee here–  I… like… girls… that can… beat me up… and… buff… computer… nerds…  That’s how you spell nerds, ri–

*More closely* Dani!

He found m–!

*The call ends with a series of thumps.*

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Dani Phantom:

Heya, Dani, this’s Val.  I know you’re in the forums, but I wanted to ask you this more privately.  Those guys who were following your hitchhiking act a few weeks back, were they called ‘the Investigation’ or something like that?  It’s important, so call me back or DM me.

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of the Boo-langerie: 

Hello, my name is William Lancer, and I work at Casper High School.  The school is trying to arrange a ‘Community Cake Day’ as part of our home economics, hospitality vocational training, and ghost survival training courses.  If your business is interested in participating, please call us back.  Community Cake Day will be fully sponsored by MasterSoft.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Poltergeist Pastries: 

Hello, my name is William Lancer, and I work at Casper High School.  The school is trying to arrange a ‘Community Cake Day’ as part of our home economics, hospitality vocational training, and ghost survival training courses.  If your business is interested in participating, please call us back.  Community Cake Day will be fully sponsored by MasterSoft.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Creep-tastic Catering: 

Hello, my name is William Lancer, and I work at Casper High School.  The school is trying to arrange a ‘Community Cake Day’ as part of our home economics, hospitality vocational training, and ghost survival training courses.  If your business is interested in participating, please call us back.  Community Cake Day will be fully sponsored by MasterSoft.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Lance Thunder: 

Hello, my name is William Lancer, and I work at Casper High School.  The school is trying to arrange a ‘Community Cake Day’ as part of our home economics, hospitality vocational training, and ghost survival training courses.  We thought Ghost Watch and the APNN might be interested in covering the event.  Please let us know if this is the case.  Community Cake Day will be fully sponsored by MasterSoft.  

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Transcript of a voicemail message left in the inbox of Final Rest-aurant Supply:Hello, my name is William Lancer, and I’m calling to confirm Casper High’s order.  Your transcript of the order is correct.  We do want that much flour.  Thank you.  

[enha-sua]

(🖊) ... KNOWN SUA SASAENGS !

— 𖦹 warnings? stalking , meantions of panic attacks

💬nia's notes: i have a request that i saved for next week

♡ ... THE STALKER !

[ 🤍 ] … about account : this account was made by known stalker fan of sua , they’ve been following her around since i-land after seeing a fancam of her online.

this user is known as yoomin , people assume it’s a nickname of a fake name because they’ve seen him use it before. yoomin started out as a normal fan of sua , he’d promote her all over social media for people to vote for her , only going to a few concert , fansigns , his infatuation with the girl soon turns into a full blown delusion , he genuinely thought they were in a relationship , he tried to get tickets to anything having to do with sua , he also began to follow her around even during her off times , taking weird photos of her and posting them

he doesn’t like heeseung or sunghoon , he’s made that quite known on his page , he even hates on the other boys if they “get too close” to her. many fans are concerned about her safety , because he has made claims of harming her on many occasions , especially if she’s seen out with anyone or wearing a outfit he deems inappropriate. she is aware of the boy , and as nice as she is to fans , whenever she sees the fans she can’t help but shake in fear , it’s to the point a few times she had to be escorted off stage due to a panic attack.

— 𖦹 they boys reaction : they’ve seen him so they know what she looks like , jungwon is always the one who tries to spot him before they get on stage and let everyone know so they can either tell someone , or make sure sua doesn’t see him so she won’t have a panic attack. heehoon , even though they could potentially be in danger , they always keep direct eye contact with him every single time they see him , and aren’t afraid to contact the police if they see him hanging around during off time.

♡ ... THE OT7 STAN !

[ 🤍 ] … about account : an account dedicated to spreading hate to sua , known for starting many rumors about her and one of the biggest sua antis.

this user is known as bbang , bbang is a ot6 fan actually , they also don’t like sunoo , due to the closeness of his relationship with sua. bbang became a fan around 2021 , they’re seemingly a heeseung bias and people think that’s why they don’t like sua. they have a lot of influence in the sua anti community and are known to trend horrible tags on twitter , and make hate comments that get thousands of likes.

this page is known for starting some of sua’s worst scandals , such as the “smoking scandal” and the “hickey scandal” , and those are the ones that actually stuck , but their has been more. they’re also known for going to fansigns and skipping her and her sunoo on multiple occasions.

— 𖦹 the boys reaction : as much as they want to do something , they know nothing about this person , they don’t really even know what they look like since they wear a mask everytime , sunoo and sua ( with exceptions of the scandals ) haven’t been effected in real life , they know who this person is and everytime they skip them , they just turn to each other laughing.

♡ ... THE SELLER !

[ 🤍 ] … about account : this account is dedicated to buying and trading suas personal information.

don’t let their low follower count fool you , this person gets a lot of attraction , a lot of weird people out there. this account popped out of no where , people actually thought it was fake , that was until suas text messages were leaked, they leaked her messages , and belift had to come out and announce it , it was crazy.

no one knows who this is , they don’t know if it’s a fan , if they’ve been around sua or not , if they’re dangerous – they don’t even know if they like the group or not , they’re unknown.

— 𖦹 the boys reaction : they’re just as confused as anyone else , all they know is , sua has to keep changing her number and they can’t catch this person.

©️ENHA-SUA

[xx-slug-xx]

"I dont support it in real life!"

Then why write about it? If for coping purposes, why post it online for others (especially actual predators) to see and consume? Then why portray those things in a positive light instead of condemning them?And you're seriously going to tell me that just because as an adult you want to see a fictional minor (that mind you, is usually designed to resemble an actual child) depicted in sexual situations doesn't mean you don't share that same view concerning children in real life? You find fictional minors attractive but not real ones? Why does the line between finding someone who is (and usually also looks like) a child sexually attractive get drawn at whether the child is real or not? I'm not calling anyone pedophiles, but if the shoe fits... And also no, I am not talking about 18 y/os finding 17 y/os attractive. Use your brain. Creating content of underaged characters is still questionable regardless of age, however.

Bad faith copy pasted anon ask that doesn’t actively apply to me at all, ask will go unanswered

Anon just looked up the proship tags and has been sending this ask to anyone they can find btw. They don’t seem to look at the account they send the ask to, if they did, they’d know I don’t like fics and art that’s deemed as “proship content” by antis lmao

[transienttheologyproject]

i hope my followers & others keeping up & supporting this project know that whenever you leave a kind message on my post — whether it be something as simple as a tagging your reblog of my posts with ‘!!!’ or as personal as sending me a message to the effect of ‘this type of work means so much to me thank you for doing it,’ you are helping me keep my momentum going.

bit of a whole big rant below, sorry for the length, but tl;dr i’m just immensely grateful for what support this project has received because the backlash it has gotten has taken way more of a toll on me & my mental health than i anticipated, and your kindness has helped in motivating me to not just completely wipe this whole thing from the internet.

today yesterday kinda sucked. a lot of the past couple weeks have sucked, especially since pushing more of an online presence with this zine, because of course, with something like this you’re naturally gonna attract a range of Christians, from those ‘gender-criticals’ (whatever that means) who think I’m misguided, to those who begin their messages by calling me & my work perverted, to those whose vitriolic transphobia manifests in sending me Gospel verses weaponized as straight-up death threats. and obviously i knew this was going to happen, and it did, even from as early on as when i was posting the calls-for-art.

and at first i handled it well — i deleted whatever i felt wasn’t worth my time responding to, and if i could meme a hate-comment into a promotional tiktok, then i kept it around to do exactly that. and that worked. i told myself i wasn’t going to get defensive and bound up in keyboard wars because the purpose of this specific project, this specific platform isn’t for debating or dialoguing with Christians who don’t affirm trans+ identities — it’s to serve those who are trans+ and Christian, and I didn’t want this intra-community effort to become an inter-community debate forum. dialogue is a perfectly necessary thing, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a time & a place for everything and this project wasn’t meant to be it.

as the weeks went on, however, the negative attention this project was receiving began to take a toll on me. it didn’t help that in addition to the anticipated pushback from Christian peers, some of the trans+ folks i knew gave me a hard time for ‘bootlicking the oppressor.’ i was, and still definitely am, having the most intense experience i’ve had to this day of the exact type of ostracization that inspired me to pursue this project in the first place — too trans for the Christians, too Christian for the trans folks.

receiving comments calling an academic research project i dedicated my entire summer to “perverted” made me doubt everything i had worked so hard on. accusations of “heresy” and “blasphemy” i had expected and received plenty of, but perversion was not something i had anticipated. comments like “you make me sick” made me second-guess everything i had done leading up to that moment — am i sickening? i was falling for the false narrative that exists as the backbone of much of today’s transphobia — that trans+ people are inherently groomers, monstrous predators. i was perverting my body, they said, and scripture, too — and i began to wonder if they were right.

receiving comments like “enjoy your insanity! I hope the boot still tastes good when they've taken away all our rights so you could feel like ‘one of the good ones’” made me doubt my identity as a Christian. yeah, it’s no secret that the anti-trans legislation running rampant and scaffolding an era of fascism in the United States is the result of neoconservative Christians who represent more the Rome that Jesus mocked & condemned than Christ’s mission itself. i began to worry if calling myself Christian identified me with the oppressor and if talking about transness from a Christian perspective was really a helpful endeavor or if i was essentially stabbing my trans+ community in the back.

you’d think that given the nature of this project, i would be better about not letting those sorts of interactions wear me out. because i’m conducting a project that’ll say “hey, trans+ Christians, you don’t have to choose between those two facets of your identity because they’re not mutually exclusive,” you’d think i would’ve had that mindset confidently internalized. or maybe you wouldn’t think that, but i guess i thought so myself. and i guess i thought that expecting the petty backlash & having done enough research to dismiss it was enough to be prepared for it. not really.

from the beginning, i told myself, “don’t let the mean ones get to you, you’re smart and have done your research and know what you’re talking about.” but there was such a separation between myself and my work this summer that i never truly internalized what i was writing about — i believed it, but i didn’t necessarily believe it for myself.

this project has been a labor of love. and i definitely think the labor part got the best of me this whole summer. the literary review was a drag. writing up the annotated bibliography was immensely frustrating and took me way longer than i would have liked. same with the zine’s section prefaces. and i had planned and hoped to meet with and interview several professionals in the various fields examined in the zine — and i totally dropped the ball because of… something that felt like burnout, which actually made me feel like i had committed the biggest blunder of my professional career before it had even begun. I’m still recovering from that.

the mental and emotional toll this has caused me, the academic, spiritual, psychological, and physical strife this whole endeavor has proven to have been has resulted in me sort of dissociating from the project; i talked about it as though it was a passion project of mine — which it is — but as i was working on it, i felt so disconnected from the material. as if it were akin to a homework assignment in a class i couldn’t care less about.

i’ve been in a tough spot regarding mental health for a long while now (for various other reasons besides this), and i’ve reached the point where i’ve wanted to pull the plug on something to just try and break whatever vicious cycle im trapped in, whether that something be as large-scale as dropping out of university, or as low-scale as shaving all my hair off, or maybe…well, maybe since i can pinpoint these online interactions and this research pursuit as a whole as contributing substantially to my poor mental state, maybe i should pull the plug on the zine. screw it, delete the social media pages & the website, make sure artists get their copies & be done with it.

but i have folks who have been legitimately looking forward to this — not even just people of the intended audience! i have cis Christian friends on my college campus who had never met a(n openly) trans+ person, let alone a trans Christian, before they had met me who have demonstrated such a genuine eagerness to learn from the expressions of faith and gender from myself & others like me. i know a Catholic mother — the sweetest woman — who is ordering a physical copy of the zine so she can try to understand and support her two trans+ daughters, and any other trans+ people she meets, better. i’ve had countless people — strangers — message me “this work you are doing is incredible and incredibly needed. thank you for doing it.” i’ve seen several people, folks just scrolling through their tiktok for you page who don’t even usually follow after leaving me comments to the effect of “yknow, this is a strange crossover episode, but i’m here for it, this is cool!”

there are people who want this work out there. and what’s more is that there are people who need this work out there. and i guess every time someone goes out of their way to extend some kindness towards me and gratitude for this project, i am reminded that i am among those who need this work. those little moments ground me in the purpose and mission of this project — to serve my trans+ Christian community, particularly those who may be having trouble reconciling their intersection within those identities especially within the current socio-political climate. and like, that’s me!!! i am a member of my community, i am a part of the people i am hoping to serve.

everything i was (and truthfully, still am) anxious about, everything that was (and is) weighing on my heart is everything that this project hopes to challenge. all the doubt i’ve been experiencing as of late is exactly what inspired me to do this work in the first place.

and the kindness and gratitude so many of you have extended towards me in the past few weeks, especially within the past few days, have truly helped ground me. i’m still struggling to get back on my emotional feet per se, which is why i will ask that if you find a moment, you keep me in your prayers — but i genuinely mean it when i say that every positive tag on a reblog, every share on one’s story and every kind comment serves as a reminder to me that a.) there are people will be genuinely served by a project like this, and not only that, but b.) i am one of those people. you all remind me to take a look at what i’ve done from the perspective of a trans Christian, not of a student researcher or a graphic designer or a social media moderator or any of the other practical roles i had to take on this summer. you remind me to look at this project as the type of person it’s meant to serve. you remind me of my initial hopes and goals with this endeavor.

you remind me to allow myself to be transformed by the work i have done.

when you share with me how inspirational this project is to you, you remind me to let myself be inspired by the work i’ve done. when you share how much this zine means to you, you remind me to let myself take meaning in it.

and i think it’s sort of ironic in a very beautiful way — so much of this zine focuses on the idea of entanglement and the interdependence of many facets of our lives, and it wasn’t until this project became entangled with you all so much that your experience with the zine is no longer just dependent on mine, but that ours are interdependent on each other. the positivity you feel at learning about this project is poured back into my cup, giving me the breathing room to finally allow myself to feel positively about it, too.

so truly, from the bottom of my soul, thank you. thank you for your kindness and your support, and for making it this far in my ramblings if you have. i know it was quite disorganized and probably very repetitive but this is my first time sort of articulating what i’ve been feeling so heavily recently. so, thank you again — i hold each and every one of you always in my heart, mind, and prayers!

<3 - Soup

(the man behind the curtain)

[ellmaii]

Something I noticed since getting into tumblr are the amount of post bashing Mileven in favour of Byler AND the amount of people claiming that they don’t love each other.

It seems that a lot of the post used to explain why Byler should happen are an analysation of Mikes and Elevens relationship and why they don’t think they’re compatible. If people don’t believe they love each other that’s fine but why must that mean Mike likes Will instead?

Will likes Mike, at this point it’s very obvious and has been hinted at for a long time. BUT, what gives people the impression that Mike likes him back? What gives people the impression that Mike is homosexual at all? Sure, we’ve never seen him like a girl other that Eleven but at least we’ve seen him be visibly attracted to one girl, but I’ve never seen him be that way towards another boy. We have seen him compliment her appearance on many occasions and not just to be nice because you can see the attraction on his face. He clearly enjoys kissing her. I know people like to point out the scene where she says ‘I love you too’ and his shocked and non verbal response to her kiss but to me it was just that, shock. Shock that she knew the what he said the whole time and that she felt the same way and expressed it for the first time unexpectedly. He’s very physically affectionate with her and expressed that she’s the most important thing in the world to him on a number of occasions and not always through words, but his actions. When it comes to Will though, like the rest of his friends he tends to neglect his relationship with him in favour of El. Even when Will is practically crying out for Mikes attention he doesn’t even notice, everything to him is about El. Obviously he’s his best friend and he loves him but I never understood how Mikes feelings for him could be interpreted as anything other that platonic.

I don’t speak on behalf of all gay people but I’m a lesbian who didn’t come out until I was 15. Now I’m 20. Before that I had a few boyfriends, trying to convince myself I liked them because all my friends had boyfriends. I remember when I’d kiss them it felt like a chore, I wouldn’t let a kiss turn into a make out session because I would get uncomfortable. I found it disgusting and I’d share that opinion with friends. I never really had any real physical attraction to the boys I dated. It was always I liked the way they dress and their personality and respect they had for me but nothing more. When I see Mike with El, how he looks at her, his protectiveness, always wanting to please her and buy her gifts and his displays of affection, hand holding and kissing.. I see myself with girls I like, in ways I could never see myself behaving with a man.. because I am not attracted to them. As a lesbian who has experience zero and one sided attraction relationships, I cannot comprehend how people argue that Mike is gay. In all honesty, at 13 when season 1 came out, his behaviours towards El we’re always something I looked for in a relationship and never found until I was true to myself and found it with girls.

I tag Byler, Mileven, Anti Mileven and Anti Byler in this post NOT to be disrespectful, disregard how Byler shippers feel or try to convert anyone to shipping Mileven BUT to give the opportunity to hear why people believe so strongly that Mike has feeling for Will. I do not understand but I’d like to. None of the post I have read so far have given me the impression that Mike feels the same way for Will so I want to understand where people get the idea from.