#now teruhashi just has to realize she likes and respects aiura

[aiura-stan]

reasons that TeruAi:

look at themmmmm

Teruhashi is obsessed with Aiura’s tits. In a purely heterosexual, rivalry driven way of course.

[joshhere911]

Spacing out all day and woke up to my brain going "kusuo absolutely Most definitely gossips" and now it wont get outof my head

Hes not very vocal about it and he isnt very chismoso But sometimes he finds himself eavesdropping.. maybe a little overhearing,, not with his telepathy but via their voice (yk his morals and stuff and also because theyre saying it Out loud in such Close vicinity so why is it His fault ? Hes trynna read)

Honestly he probably got it from his mom considering shes friends with his friends moms and yk,, moms are veeery gossipy for some reason and it shows in thst one chapter i forgot where they were just talking about their sons Anyways she definitely comes home with the juiciest gossip and he never really cared until he finds Himself spilling beans to other people and it catches him offgaurd

during lunch with all of his friends he overhears chiyo talking to mera and teruhashi about a girl she knows thats in the "Perfect relationship " and saiki just quietly goes ," they broke up last week..." and she just Stares at him and then REALIZES that he most DEFinitely has the juiciest gossip considering hes a Quiet kid and she starts talking to him more and considering he doesnt like saying no to his friends and he could either talk or be quiet and let the conversation fester into RLLY bad awkwardness (he does Not want to deal with thst and frankly neither do i) he doesnt tell her All the deets out of privacy, but he also just has So much useless information that he has no idea what to do with so he starts by telling her small things , a phrase they said here, a mention of a break up there, never the full story in respect but just enough to get her modtly off his back

It comes to a point where they hang out at Aiura's home, Chiyo talking fanatically , Teruhashi in overall confusion and not super into gossip, mera probably not caring but if she Did hear something she would report it immediately, and saiki providing little bits and snips of things he "possibly" heard and judt having chemistry w the Gals . They need more bonding time . Lorvb

[no-psi-nan]

While I'm choosing violence, here's another hot take I see a lot...

-> Teruhashi isn't evil for having a crush on Saiki and pursuing him.

✓ Correct. She has no way of knowing how much trouble she's making for him because he never gives her any feedback. Teruhashi is not aware of the Kokomins trying to "purge" him either. As far as she knows, he's in love with her and has no clue she's interested, so she keeps making up "opportunities" for him to confess to her.

-> When it comes to pursuing Saiki without his consent, Aiura is equal or worse.

✘ Wrong. Teruhashi and Aiura's pursuits of Saiki are NOT AT ALL equivalent. Aiura is up front and honest from the beginning about her hunt for her soulmate, and she directly and clearly expresses her interest to him. She never tries to hide her interest.

While Aiura does intercept him for a date or two, she knows about his powers and Saiki is completely free to send her home or leave himself. He sure feels comfortable stuffing a towel in her mouth when he wants her to shut up. However, he does not leave or tell her to fuck off, indicating that he enjoys it at least a little, which is later proven by the fact that he agrees to a dessert date when she directly asks him about it.

Additionally, Aiura respects Saiki's boundaries. Once she realizes he's not a "lucky feel" enjoyer, she switches to just hanging out, which Saiki seems to approve of in his tsundere way. While she misunderstands his invite to "come over, his parents aren't home", she immediately puts her clothes back on as soon as she realizes her mistake. She asks for a kiss at the volcano but respects his "no".

On the other hand, Teruhashi doesn't really respect Saiki's boundaries because it doesn't actually occur to her that he has any. Every other guy would give EVERYTHING just to be around her - she can't imagine having to ASK a guy if he wants to go out with her! Even though she chases him for 6 years due to the time loop, it's still unthinkable to her that he could NOT be in love with her, and she never confesses to him either.

And due to social conventions / Saiki's attempts to "be like air", Saiki HAS to play along, whether he wants to or not. Of course, he becomes more fond of her throughout the series, so you can easily argue that he's not even trying to escape her at that point, but the fact remains.

While Teruhashi doesn't know the full extent of what her fanclub does, she DOES know they exist and that logically they could cause trouble for Saiki. It's obvious she knows this when she mobilizes a huge crowd of men to find Saiki and force him to hang out with her.

If Saiki had been a normal, powerless guy, this could have gotten him killed. He almost did get assassinated in Reawakened after all, and that was just 2 high schoolers – what if the dozens of adults who were searching for him on Teruhashi's request had found him? Now he'd be on all of their shit lists for the crime of having Teruhashi's attention.

There's nothing wrong with shipping Teruhashi and Saiki, there's plenty of evidence for it, and while Teruhashi was dishonest and coercive at times, it's ultimately fine and Saiki clearly isn't that bothered by it.

But do NOT try to claim that Aiura was equivalent or worse, when she was always honest and open about her interest, respected his boundaries, and actually received approval to keep going out with him on dates.

No need to bash another ship to defend your favorite. 👍

[recklessracoon]

Opinions on Saiki K ships

Involving Kusuo:

Terusai - I think that they want such different things from life that it's hard to imagine them being happy as a married couple. However I think that they could bond over their experiences to become really great friends. That said I think they can have a really entertaining dynamic with how she can't confess to Kusuo outright (because her army of rabid fans would try to kill him) and Kusuo can't reject her outright (because her army of rabid fans would try to kill him). I also like how their feelings towards each other progress. On Teruhashi goes from wondering why won't this guy won't "offu" for her who does he think he is -> self-imposed challenge of trying to get Saiki to "offu" -> realizing it is actually kind of nice to have a guy who is normal about her and can see beyond her persona. Meanwhile for Saiki the progression goes from judging her for being stuck up and arrogant while being incredibly arrogant himself -> trying to make Teruhashi lose interest in him without giving in and "offu"-ing (he's too proud) -> begrudging respect for her commitment to the bit -> wanting to protect and support her because he is increasingly annoyed that other people only care about Teruhashi Kokomi as an ideal and not as a person.

Saiura - I'm not super into it for reasons not entirely clear to me. For one thing I think that Aiura deserves better. Not that Saiki treats her badly or anything but he mostly goes to her when he needs her help with something. Also her feelings for him strike me as unreciprocated in a way that makes me feel kind of bad for her. Mostly though this is just a case of a lot of the fics I've read for the pairing feel kind of OOC. Nopsi's take on the pairing does do a good job keeping them both in character while making it work though.

Satosai - Suffers from the fact that Satou is duller than dirt. It's kind of funny when it's doomed and impossible though. Also I like Oatmealcrisp's takes on the pairing which turn Satou into a paranormal romance protagonist (with the levels of being kind of an asshole that this implies).

Torisai - Took me a while to warm up to this but I can kind of see it now. I like it because it makes Toritsuka (and to a lesser extent Saiki) suffer in an amusing way. I don't get why people write angst of this pairing though.

Kubosai - Don't really ship this myself but I have read enough of it that I'm intimately familiar with the appeal. It's about finally having someone to protect you, to advocate for you, to get righteously angry on your behalf. Or alternately about protecting, advocating for and getting righteously angry on the behalf of someone you love. The nice thing about this is it can go either way though you do get Aren advocating for Kusuo somewhat more often than vise versa simply because Kusuo has a lot of difficulty advocating for himself for reasons that could be a whole post of their own.

Saikai (or whatever Saiki/Kaidou is called) - I dislike this for reasons that are somewhat unclear to me but probably have something to do with the fact that it was *the* big m/m ship in the pre-Reawakened Saiki K fandom. I feel like fanfic authors tend to get Kaidou wrong a lot too. They don't make him cringe enough.

Nensai - This could have been the big m/m ship in the fandom if those early Saiki K fans weren't COWARDS who'd only ship conventionally attractive characters. I'm pretty sure I started off shipping this as a joke but after reading the light novels I'm dead serious about it.

Saikechi - I like this one probably because it has a lot of excellent opportunities for pining and unhinged acts of devotion both of which I am embarrassingly fond of. Some people would object to this pairing on the basis of the lingering trauma from the classroom incident but firstly I don't think that's necessarily an insurmountable obstacle and secondly it adds some spice to things. Anyway I really like Akechi.

[no-psi-nan]

Thank you for bringing up Saiki's 3-part theory, I totally forgot about it! I think you're making a ton of great points, but I want to refute one specific point:

Does Teruhashi have to put in active effort to get an Offu, or is it automatic at the sight of her?

My guess is that she doesn't have to "turn on the charm" as it were, because it's essentially always on. She gets mobbed by dudes even when it's personally inconvenient for her (Saiki often uses this to great effect).

As to why she didn't chase/fall in love with Hairo, I think it might simply be that while Hairo never did an "Offu", he still greeted her with enthusiasm because he does that with everyone. While Saiki didn't just NOT "Offu", but he also completely ignored her and teleported away, tricking her into thinking she was maybe hallucinating him and maybe had a crush.

I like your point about Saiki's "Offu" being about Teruhashi's nature. I put forward the idea that this is the point where Teruhashi has had enough character development to become a kinder person and actually get close internally to that perfect persona she strives for, and Saiki did an "Offu" of respect because he just realized that she is so much closer to the perfection now after all (after she got over her jealousy with Aiura lmao).

Okay debate time:

Who is immune to Teruhashi?

or...

Can you be gay and still Offu?

Consider:

Only known dude who never "Offu"s is Hairo. He seems hella ace. He's also probably gay. Is this what makes him immune?

Kuboyasu says he's never experienced attraction to a woman until he saw Teruhashi. Does this make him bi, even though he shows zero interest in Aiura later? Or are even gay men sometimes attracted to Teruhashi?

Is an "Offu" inherently sexual? What did Saiki's "Offu" mean?

Sound off in the replies + reblogs and let's see if we can solve this mystery together!