#though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen someone with a similar idea at some point

[silvercrow72]

What if…

[1moreff-creator]

Is anyone still trying to figure out the final code on the MV? The one with (the world of abnormal sentiment dances)? No judgement, I have no idea what's going on with it either, but I'm surprised there's so little discussion of it. I’m making this post to share some observations, and some of the things I’ve tried as I go insane over this MV. Warning, don’t expect anything too revolutionary.

+First, the code doesn't have a direct parallel in the original LGI MV, so no clues there.

+But I did find something possibly peculiar. You know the "find the 'n'" bit that shows up right after it? Well, it's lifted straight from the original LGI video, but the symbol you're supposed to find there is somewhere else.

That's the equivalent from the og LGI.

And there's the n. It's in a completely different spot, which makes me wonder if it's somehow related to the code. The n does pretty much coincide with a number of the images. Here's a transcription of the numbers, with the numbers related to the n in blue (you should still check I didn't fuck anything up though). Italics and bold means I'm not completely sure about the number.

1 4 6 3 1 4 8 4 2 6 8

1 7 3 7 4 1 0 2 0 1 4

3 0 3 6 4 5 1 1 7 5 9

2 3 3 6 8 6 3 6 2 7 8

9 3 0 4 0 4 9 2 3 7 4

3 0 8 2 4 3 6 7 7 2 0

6 9 7 0 5 2 1 7 3 2 6

&

4 3 6 0 7 8 8 6 5 0 3

7 1 8 8 1 1 5 2 5 7 9

8 7 6 4 3 2 1 6 8 6 4

9 5 6 2 8 0 7 1 3 5 3

0 8 5 9 5 6 3 3 0 7 1

7 5 8 1 4 9 8 3 7 5 2

9 1 4 4 4 1 0 0 5 2 6

Does it mean anything? Hell if I know! I have no idea how any of this works!

+Perhaps a more out there possibility is the changed alphabet. I've mentioned it before, but there's a point in the David MV where a modified alphabet shows up.

In case you can't tell, not only are letters listed in both capital and non-capital form, the alphabet ends W-U-X instead of W-X-Y-Z. This changed alphabet is not in the original LGI.

This is the equivalent scene. You can see it's perfectly fine, and as far as I can tell (aka: zero Japanese, just the translation and vibes) the letters aren't listed twice. And this is the video the David MV is based on, there are a lot of similarities.

This would imply, in my mind at least, that the alphabet was changed for a reason. I've seen it interpreted as another sign David doesn't see himself as human, as he doesn't even use the same alphabet, but it feels like a weird way to go about showing that to me.

So, uh, if you're trying something, and some words don't look right, maybe this can help?

+I have no idea what footnote 14 is supposed to be. "Hint: word length of 256". I've seen it suggested that it relates back to Hamlet's "To be or not to be" thing, but... while I think I did see one source with 256 words once, the word count is highly inconsistent throughout the internet, and almost none of them have it as 256 words. I checked with wordcounter.net.

-Wikipedia: 275 words.

-Poetry Foundation: 259 words.

-Poets.org: 276 words.

-Nosweatshakespeare: 275 words.

-Representative Poetry Online: 265 words

-Shakespeare Resource Center: 261 words.

-Litcharts: 273 words.

See the issue here? And now I don't have any idea what footnote 14 is. Here's some other things that it isn't.

+Literature Girl Insane: >256 words.

+Colored lyrics in the MV: ~190 words

+Lemon: Way more than 256 words

+The part of lemon in the MV: 113 words.

+The defense of Socrates: Way more than 256 words.

+The defense of Socrates, but only the part in the MV, and extended to the next end of sentence: I want to cry. 257 words. 257. One off. Why? Why are you like this? Please, someone check the fucking text and tell me I accidentally pasted in a word I shouldn't have. PLEASE-

+That part of the Little Prince in that one part before the tally 5 code: 198 words.

+Undefeated by the Rain poem: 139 words (in English Wikipedia, or 180, in the English translation found in Spanish Wikipedia, because my life can't just be easy so apparently the English version of the poem is different in different languages of Wikipedia what-)

+Just the correct/incorrect code: The most is 247 characters, if you include "correct13" and "incorrect".

+Yamanashi, the story "kapukapu" comes from: Thousands of words.

I didn't check anything else, but I can't for the life of me find what this is referring to. And it feels important, seeing as it's on the goddamn equal sign. Maybe it’s one of those excerpts from that part of the MV right before the “correct/incorrect” code? I don’t know.

If it helps, I’m pretty sure the code’s going to translate to something related to Xander, seeing as his numeral flashes on screen right before that. And because of that, it’s possible this 256 word thing refers to some kind of revolutionary speech or text or something the like.

How would the footnote matter? Well, you know the ampersand symbol (&) that shows up between the numbers?

Maybe, if we put the numbers on both rows together:

14 43 66 30 17 48 88 46 25 60 83

17 71 38 78 41 11 05 22 05 17 49

38 07 36 64 43 52 11 16 78 56 94

29 35 36 62 88 60 37 61 23 75 83

90 38 05 49 05 46 93 23 30 77 41

37 05 88 21 44 39 68 73 77 25 02

69 91 74 04 54 21 10 70 35 22 66

Then reference whatever text is 256 words long, we can assign each number a word. Possibly, we would only start where the n appears, just to give that some meaning.

Like, here's what you get if you do that with the Wikipedia version of "To be or not to be", starting with the 05 the n represents (starting from the beginning gives you a completely nonsensical message, I didn't even go all the way).

to - sleep - to - and - dream - of - against - to - die - opposing - to - that - and - no - them - consummation - to - to - fortune - be - devoutly - death - die - not - the - and - question - to - and - arrows - ‘tis

Like, that almost sounds like it works, but obviously we would need to find the actual text of 256 words, which isn’t the Wikipedia version of the Hamlet speech. I also tried with the Socrates text, but I don't think it works (from the n you get, like, "O - but - O - word - ashamed", and that's going to be in there even if you start from the beginning).

I also tried some kind of alphabet cypher thing, both with the regular alphabet and with the modified alphabet, and while I would like second opinions on account of my skill issues, I didn’t get anything.

If that’s not what the ampersand is for, here's what you get if you add the numbers together instead of just putting them next to each other:

5 7 12 3 8 12 16 10 7 6 11

8 8 11 15 5 2 5 4 5 8 13

11 7 9 10 7 7 2 7 15 11 13

11 8 9 8 16 6 10 7 5 12 11

9 11 5 13 5 10 12 5 3 14 5

10 5 16 3 8 12 14 10 14 7 2

15 10 11 4 9 3 1 7 8 4 12

It looks like it could be translated to hex almost perfectly, with the 16s possibly just translated to 10s, but I don't know what to do with it. I tried converting to hex and just putting it in as a Tumblr image URL, but nothing. Though there’s a chance I just didn’t do it right, I guess. I even took the first part up to the "n" and put it in th goddamn tally 5 page just in case it did something, but no. I tried the "word association" thing with the Hamlet thing as well, but nothing. Also tried alphabet cypher, even with the modified alphabet, and nothing. But again, any cypher cracking I tried to do should be taken with a grain of salt, since I’m a bit of an idiot at it.

One thing I didn’t do, simply because I don’t know how to, is try to use column cyphers. You can look them up and try them yourself, but I sorta doubt that’s the answer.

Finally, it’s a possibility “world length of 256” is actually some kind of cypher key. Like, not whatever it’s referencing, just “word length of 256” as a key. I severely doubt it, but if anyone wants to try it, be my guest.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I kinda just wanted to tell someone, I guess. I’m going insane over most of the MV anyways, might as well share a bit of the madness. Also because of the content drought caused by me working on the MV video which is coming I promise but it’s going to take a while-

Anyways, thanks for reading my inane ramblings for so long! Take care!

[fromfiction]

(excuse the slight lengthiness of this ask pls 😭)

um hello! i’ve seen you answering questions on this blog, so i hope you can answer this one! /nf

i’m entirely new to the term and idea of “fictionkin” but ever since i found out about what fickin was and what it meant, i figured it might be me but i couldn’t be 100% sure because of a smaller thing.

for a bit more context which i feel may be important: i pretty much spent all my life mentally viewing myself as literally animated, as animated medias have always been a special interest since i was little (i’m now diagnosed w/ autism which is why i used that term btw). though i never truly viewed myself as any canon character, i always viewed myself as my self insert sonas growing up, my finest examples of this through the years would be self insert sonas of mlp and eddsworld. nowadays, as my main special interest is my own work (as a writer and artist) i mentally view myself as my persona, i always have during these current years and i believe i always will, to the point where i don’t even associate myself with my body or face physically bc i’ve always viewed myself as some sort of fictional version of myself and in my mind that’s how i look to myself. to put this in terms of an example, i once told someone that my physical body is like a car because i like to decorate it and make it look nice and i use it to get around in this world, but my persona is the driver because in my mind, that’s who i am and i’m simply using this “car” to get around (remember this is an example i don’t literally think my body is a car lmao)

but yea, the reason i’m very confused is because i always see fictionkins identifying as canonical characters from a media, or ig even self inserts as i’ve heard somewhere (correct me if i’m wrong) but i never hear about people identifying as their OWN characters if this makes sense. in my mind, a fictional character is a fictional character, which would include my persona that is very much fictional in every way (atp my persona is a developed character with fictional lore, other worldly traits (like magic), and is always a part of little scenarios or short stories i make up for comfort or outta boredom, just happens to resemble me irl in most ways but is basically how i view myself mentally down from personality to clothes that i really connect with but don’t really wear irl)

but anyway yes, i’ve tried and tried to research for anything that might be similar to my case but i don’t really find much at all.

i hope this ask was okay to send, ik it might be lengthy ik you weren’t asking for my “life story” it’s just that i’ve always wondered what was wrong with me in terms of this topic and why i viewed myself as being a fictional character, and now that i feel closer to a possible answer it’s very relieving but still confusing since i don’t know if the label really fits what i go through. i can’t help but wonder if it’s also maladaptive daydreaming or multiple things/something else but i prob can’t expect much advice or help w that on this blog which is perfectly okay lmao

again, if you read this or even answer this, thank you i’ve really needed to ask this desperate question to someone who seems to know a lot about this subject for possible help so i came here bc i saw that this blog was active for the most part! i’m also sorry if i asked things that weren’t okay to ask or have said/assumed things that weren’t okay either, again i’m very new to fictionkin as a whole.

have a great day and thank you <3

Hey friend. No worry about asking!

It sounds like you're asking if you can be fictionkin of an "original character".

The answer is absolutely. There are plenty of people who are kin of their own ocs, you just don't usually see them talking about it, mostly because their posts don't end up in fandom tags.

[hoolay-boobs]

ah then, i must’ve accidentally recalled some misinformation from that infamous lesbophobe on twitter who constantly “headcanons” vi as bi to spite people 😭😭😭 although i do have to say, there’s an unfortunate history of official art/promos using lesbian flags and not knowing about the sapphic flag or what the difference is 🙄 i still believe they’re actual lesbians and take their word for it so don’t worry but these days it’s (generally speaking) hard to tell what’s truly meant to be conveyed; hell i’ve even seen sapphics on twitter do the same thing and it’s really frustrating 💔

you indirectly make a good point though, despite talking about something else! there’s a similarity in how confirmed bisexual characters may or may not actually be pan/poly/omni instead despite being said to be bi. or maybe they’re just bi and what was said was meant. i don’t have any specific examples but the idea probably exists, or will. erasure is common in all forms of queer, unfortunately.

btw also — believe me, i HAVE seen a radfem blog call bow a GNC female before 🫣 it… happens. so. yeah. it’s bad.

+ thanks for the sources!!

The ONLY thing I could get from that is that it rhymes. And as a bi woman who loves Vi, I’m a visexual lolololol

Yeahhhh ppl who “headcannon” Vi and Caitlyn and Catra and Adora as bi or pan stink. I don’t see it as often as ppl “headcannoning” Ivy and Harley and Korra and Asami (and somehow even Bowlover Boykisser Glimmer- I have no idea how ppl see her as a lesbian) as lesbians but like. Headcannoning any characters other than cisallohet characters as any other identity is so invalidating and callous istg.

FR. Ppl LOVE to throw the lesbian flag up in group sapphic edits that include Luz and Bubbline and Harlivy and Korrasami. It sucks. And like, the sapphic flag is so pretty! Why not use it <\3

Haha that’s not the point I was going for but thank you anyways chase! Within the context of a piece of media or said by a writer, if a character is bisexual, they’re bisexual. Not pan, not omni, not poly. Bc if they’re using specific terminology, they did that for a reason. Even if bi is an umbrella term, it’s also a specific identity as it’s own (you already know that tho lmao, I’m just restating it.)

Now, if a character shows interest in more than one gender, they’re most likely bisexual, but there’s a chance they could be pan, omni, poly, etc. like Charlie Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel. I’m like sure she’s bi, and the writers have never said anything otherwise or said that she’s pan or whatnot. So it’s clear to say that Charlie is canonically bisexual. Now, if within the show, or if the writer were to state she’s pan or omni or poly, then her already canon bisexual just got a lot more specific, and we’d say she’s canon this or that instead.

That’s SILLY (derogatory), I literally don’t see how someone can see Bow get glitter eyes looking at Sea Hawk and go “yeah that’s a lesbian.” 💀

Here, have a meme while you’re here :)

I had posted this months ago and got 1k likes and then my clumsy fingers accidentally deleted it 😅

Have a nice day Chase, thx for the ask 💝🫡

[youhavethewrong]

Horror/Comedy: The most elusive genre of fiction

 In many regards, it is easy to consider Horror and Comedy to be about as opposite as two genres can go. Horror seeks to cause dread and fear in the viewers, while comedy (usually) seeks to comfort them and improve their moods. A good comedy can help you feel better after a bad day - a good horror can completely ruin a good one. Maybe this is why these two don’t often collide. Another reason could be that although Comedy is easily combined with other genres, like the RomCom, Horror is hardly ever mixed. More often than not, it just branches out into other kinds of horror, like Psychological horror or Slashers.

 However, something that is easy to forget is that Comedy and Horror are far more similar than one would assume. Both rely heavily in misdirection, surprising the viewer with an unexpected result. Both require perfect timing to pull off, and... well, this is not really related to my point here, but both have a tendency to be done reaaally badly when the people making them don’t care. Hack Comedy uses the not-actually-funny shorthand of fart jokes and falling down, while Hack Horror uses the not-actually-scary shorthand of jumpscares and loud sounds. Anyways.

 So if they supposedly go hand-in-hand so well, why is it they almost never meet? How come there’s almost no horror/comedy? Well, for starters, they’re each separately extremely difficult to pull off. Making someone laugh is not fucking easy, and neither is scaring someone. They require tremendous amount of talent and effort to do separately, so at the same time? When they already feel opposite? Forget about it! Secondly, it’s already quite difficult to picture something that is equals parts funny and scary. How would you even do that??

The first thing that came to mind when thinking about horror/comedies were those Scary Movie movies. Though I don’t really think they fall into horror territory? They’re not scary at all, they’re just spoof movies. They don’t even come up with their own ideas, they just borrow from popular horror. And they’re not even fucking funny. Comedy (in quotes) with horror elements, not what I’m looking for.

 Then I started looking for artists that are good at making both Comedy and Horror. The one with the biggest audience right now is obviously Jordan Peele. It’s certainly curious to think how he went from making a sketch show to becoming a horror movie director! There’s certainly a conversation to be had about how making the former helped him become better at the latter. Problem is, he either makes one or the other, not both at the same time. So is he what I’m looking for at the moment? Nope!

 Then my mind then went to a favorite of mine: Jack Stauber. His unique way of creating art has allowed him to make both hilarious comedy and touchingly deep horror. His masterpiece Opal is one of the most unique takes on the Horror genre I’ve seen! It’s not only stop-motion, which is quite rare, but a musical, which is even rarer! However, that one’s just horror. What about his individual sketches? The one that got closest to what I’m looking for right now is Future, though it’s... pretty hard to say it’s a joke? I’m sure some people would find it funny, but it’s difficult to say whether it was intended as such.

 Don’t worry though, I didn’t come here just to talk about an idea that I thought of with 0 examples. The whole reason I wanted to make this post talking about Horror/Comedy is because I watched the perfect example, and it made me realize that I hadn’t seen much else quite like it. And the example I watched came... from The Onion

 Although The Onion hasn’t been on its... best streak lately - mostly reposting articles from 7 years ago and making unimpressive TikToks - the Youtube content they created in the late 2000′s early 2010′s was... brilliant. And I don’t mean that as in “funny”, I mean that as in brilliant. Expertly written, produced, and performed layered comedy that drove points home. In The Know with Clifford Banes, and Today Now! being two of my favorite pieces of satire comedy. The Onion also seems particularly qualified to tackle Horror/Comedy, as the heart of their satire was pushing the inherent darkness and cruelty of the 24 hour news cycle to its highest possible, most absurd degree. And tackle it they did, in their 9-episode mini series Porkin’ Across America

 Porkin’ Across America is a parody of travel shows, where Jim Haggerty, host of morning news show Today Now!, travels around the 50 states looking for the best pork he can find. As this happens, his life starts steadily falling apart in the background, unraveling into a grotesque cacophony of errors. This show is, in my opinion, the best example of the Horror/Comedy genre. Because it’s not just comedy with horror elements, or horror with comedy elements: it’s the perfect combination of the two. The setup - misdirection structure that gives both genres their kick is used in tandem, intertwined. Punchlines to jokes are also horrifying revelations and imagery. I won’t spoil the ending, but I’ll just say this: the last line that is uttered is both the hilarious punchline to a series-long running joke, and such a horrible thing to say at that moment that it will send shivers down your spine. I highly recommend watching it, but be warned: the specific type of horror this show uses is body horror. You’ll be laughing, but you’ll also be extremely uncomfortable by the imagery. Definitely avoid this if that’s not your thing.

 Horror/Comedy is one of the rarest genre combinations in fiction, for a variety of reasons. It’s difficult to pull off, horror hardly mixes with other things, and most people don’t even know it can exist. But it can! And when it’s done well it’s an extremely unique experience, one that I believe is worth experiencing.

 I hope my explanation of this topic was clear enough, and I’m really excited to hear what you guys think! Can you think of any other work that could be defined with this genre? If so, I’d really like to hear it~

 Thank you for reading this whole stupid thing if you did! Yui OUT!

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

It seems like it's become a sort of dogma of disability discourse that having different disabilities doesn't affect disabled people's receptions in society in any way. Sometimes this is taken to the extreme of "no disabled person experiences [say] social stigma in any way that differs from any other disabled person." Sometimes it's a vaguer denial that there are any general trends that differ by specific disability or by larger classes of disability.

I do get the frustration with inaccurate sweeping generalizations about how X group does/doesn't experience [thing], but also—for me, someone with a bunch of co-morbidities, this idea that all disabilities evoke basically the same receptions is laughably disconnected from reality.

The mental/physical disability divide is not particularly helpful or accurate here, I will freely admit! It's already an issue because the entire concept of mind-body separation is ... uhhhh, flawed. But also, at least in my experience, the general reception of something like depression is closer to how people respond to my being asthmatic than being autistic, say—I've had very severe episodes of both depression and asthma, and typically they're seen as less significant and less disruptive than my other disabilities, despite this being wildly out of touch with my experience and with much of the scholarly literature around them.

For instance, I have Bipolar II, typically seen as the milder form, though only the mania is milder. Hypomania can still be disruptive, but for me, the depressive episodes are much more so and take up more of my life. Interestingly, there's research suggesting this tends to be true for people with Bipolar I as well—despite the severity of manic episodes, it's depression that tends to be the most pervasive and disabling aspect of being bipolar, yet it's often perceived as less significant than mania, intrinsically less severe, less harmful to quality of life, etc.

And that has pretty obvious ramifications for people with major depression rather than bipolar depression—if bipolar depression is largely perceived as the minor part of being bipolar (despite the contrary evidence of a great deal of personal experience and scholarly literature!), then what about people who have depression without mania at all? And, speaking personally, it was easier to get people to accept that I'm disabled once I was diagnosed as bipolar rather than "just" depressed. I think this was in considerable part because mania (even hypomania) reads as "crazier" to a lot of people than depression.

This has obvious enormous downsides, but sometimes confers a weird sort of Actually Disabled legitimacy. I've experienced this, I've seen other bipolar people talking about experiencing it, I've read it in research, this is a thing.

Yes, there's a reason I use "tends" and "often" and "sometimes" a lot—I'm not saying this is true 100% of the time for everyone. I'm sure there are people out there who find it easier to get depression treated seriously than mania or for whom there's no distinction in the response. But the other way around is in fact much more typical, and sorry, but people are allowed to discuss common trends that reflect their experiences but not yours. You are also allowed to discuss your experiences! There is absolutely a time and place for doing that, but there are points where bringing it into every conversation about large-scale trends verges into Why Are We Not About Me territory.

And I did find it intriguing that the way people shrug off depression is very similar to how people shrug off some chronic illnesses like asthma. There's this pretty widespread idea of asthma as a minor inconvenience, and while asthma is indeed a minor inconvenience for some people, research suggests that most asthma deaths are the result of not treating it seriously enough (whether this comes from medical professionals, asthmatics, and/or family and friends, esp with asthmatic children). Like, this "minor inconvenience" narrative can literally kill and does so regularly, which is also the case with depression, frankly.

At the same time, it can be nice to be seen as relatively "normal." When people find out I'm autistic or bipolar, it tends to shape—even compromise—their view of me as a person in a way that seems different from how it affects their view of me as "merely" a depressed/anxious/asthmatic person. This is not always the case! But it often is, personally and broadly, even among people who have extremely vague ideas of how bipolar disorder or the autism spectrum operate.

This is long, I realize, and a mix of large-scale and personal issues concerning a small handful of the many disabilities out there. But even with just these few, the whole "all disabilities have exactly the same social stigma and reception" thing makes no sense to me at all.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Frankenhooker (Henenlotter, 1990)

You know when you have a circle of friends, online or otherwise, and you seemingly share mutual cinematic interests, and it turns out one of you hasn’t seen a certain movie that everyone else is very enthusiastic about, and the reaction is collective incredulity followed by rigorous peer pressure? I’m not gonna turn this into a PSA about the dangers of bullying, and I certainly am not advocating for the practice, but am merely observing that it can have an impact, and in some very specific scenarios, the impact can be positive. Which is to say I was on the receiving end of this last night when I admitted that I hadn’t seen Frankenhooker, and that I was, ahem, persuaded to finally watch this, and guess what, I enjoyed it. Now let’s keep our voices down so they don’t get any funny ideas about making me watch other movies I might actually like.

The plot here has a young woman played by Patty Mullen mangled to death by a fancy lawnmower invented by her electrician / amateur surgeon fiance played by James Lorinz. Lorinz, stricken with grief, decides to put his hobby to use by reassembling the love of his life, but also making her better. By which I mean stitching together the perfect set of body parts from hookers he plans to, but maybe doesn’t exactly follow though on, killing. There’s obviously some points being made about the objectification of women, although the movie is less concerned about driving the point home than it is about mining the idea for punchlines. A very funny early scene has Lorinz showing the deceased Mullen his plans for her, demonstrated by a cutout of her head taped over the body of a very busty nude model. (It would have been even funnier if the body was taken from Mullen’s own Penthouse centerfolds, but I was not able to confirm that from a quick Google search. Not on a work computer, of course.) There’s also a montage where the hero, in a doctor outfit, scopes out the choicest parts from the group of hookers he hired, the sensorial overload from the closeups dissolving the line between satire and indulgence. It’s worth noting that Lorinz resembles a sicklier Andrew McCarthy, like a weirdo brother who doesn’t leave the house much, and that based on the five minutes of Mannequin I caught on TV once, there might be similarities between the two movies. I’m sure someone somewhere has written an essay comparing the two, I’ll be sure to read it once I see the other movie. (Please don’t bully me into seeing Mannequin.)

This is a very likable movie. For a story about stitching together the bodies of dead prostitutes, it’s surprisingly good natured. The grief-stricken hero, while strongly contemplating some pretty reprehensible actions, doesn’t actually follow through on them, so the movie is able to keep us on his side, and much of what follows is his plan spiraling out of control rather than active wrongdoing on his part. Of course, were the movie to have him do some outright evil deeds, it could have made for an interesting, if queasier movie, but the relative gentleness ties nicely into the milieu. This was made right around the time the old, grimy New York started to get cleaned up into the more overtly commercial form we know today. This is directed by Frank Henenlotter, whose Basket Case and Brain Damage I remember pushing its heroes into morally murkier waters and seemed firmly entrenched in the pre-cleanup era. This has his worldview maybe softening along with the city. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen both of those, so a rewatch maybe in order.) The murders are more bombastic than gruesome (optical electrocution effects and chintzy explosions figure heavily), although there are some pleasingly disgusting effects towards the end when we see what happened with the leftovers from the hero’s activities.

And as a horror comedy, this is a success, in that it’s very funny as Henenlotter knows how to nail a punchline. I’ve cited a few examples above, but my favourite is an early scene where the Lorinz feeds a glass of wine to Mullen’s severed head, and the wine pours out the bottom of her neck and spills onto the table, because of course it does. Maybe it sounds gross on paper, but there’s something about the reality of the situation intruding on the artificial setup that’s deeply funny to me. And it helps that we have a great performance by Mullen in the titular role. It’s a very specific role, but I think she pulls it off with aplomb, combining an ungainly physicality and rubberfaced charisma to breathe, uh, life into what could have been a mere gag. I’m looking at her IMDb page and she has only a handful of credits to her name. I’m sure there are perfectly good reasons for this, but the movies are poorer.

[wingsyliveblogs]

Since we're going into season 1b and you've had time to get an idea about the show, what are some things you're hoping to see from the second half of season 1?

Good question! It’s a bit difficult to separate “things I’m hoping for based on what I’ve seen of the show so far” from “things I’m kind of expecting to happen based on spoilers”, so my answer will probably contain a bit of both.

I don’t have a lot of plot-related wants - I prefer to wait and see where the show takes me most of the time - so the majority of this is about the characters. I hope that suffices! 

Here’s a handy link to the list of spoilers I have for reference. 

(cut for length)

More Amity! Perhaps even... some character development for Amity? I’m curious to learn if she got anything out of that self-reflection she was planning.

I think there needs to be some sort of resolution between her and Willow eventually, and it’d be pretty cool if it happened in Season 1. 

More of everyone in general! 

I appreciate that the show has given both Willow and Gus a bit of individual development, and it’d be fun to see more of each of them separately. That said, I also wouldn’t mind if they mostly continue to hang out with Luz as a group. They’re best friends, after all!

King tends to play the role of comic relief in most episodes, but it would be great to see more serious moments with him, similar to what we got in Episode 4 (and to a lesser extent, Episode 10). 

Since Eda’s admitted, if only to herself, that her curse has gotten particularly bad at this point, I’m hoping that she’ll be pushed to share this information with someone else sooner rather than later. If nothing else, I’m wondering how she’s going to address the fact that the elixir she was using to suppress it is no longer working... which means that she could transform into Owlbeast form at any moment. 

Of course, knowing Eda, I think I’m partly expecting her not to tell anyone and for disaster to ensue as a consequence.

I feel it would be a bit unfair of me to say I want to see more of Lilith, seeing as I’ve already spotted her on the thumbnail for Episode 11.

But I can say that I want to know more about her motivations!

MORE RUNE INFO 

More info in general! There are so many questions that I’d love to get answers to. For one thing, I want to know what the remaining three tracks at Hexside are! 

Speaking of Hexside, I’ve been wondering if Luz is going to start attending it in Season 1, or if we’re waiting until Season 2 for that. It would be fun to see her start learning magic in earnest. 

I’d love to learn a bit more about the history of the Boiling Isles, though I’m not sure if it’s entirely relevant to the story. Whose corpse is everyone living on???

I want to know more about everyone’s families. Eda’s parents are one thing, but what about Willow’s parents? What’s up with Gus’s family? Does Amity have any more siblings? I must have answers. 

This is getting into “things I’m expecting to happen at some point” territory, but I hope we’ll eventually address what’s going on with Luz’s mom back in the human world. Has Luz been keeping in touch with her at all? How long has Luz been in the Boiling Isles? I fear what the answers to these questions may be.

Another specifically spoiler-based thing: I’m really hoping that the blonde antagonist kid will show up soon, because I see him everywhere and I’d love for him to stop being a spoiler. help 

I’m sort of expecting major plot elements like the Emperor and whoever was responsible for Eda’s curse to be more of a Season 2 thing, so I’m not including them here. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not looking forward to learning more about both of those plotlines as well! 

There are probably more things I want to see that I’m not thinking of at the moment, so I’ll make an addition to this post if I remember anything else!

[jadegreengemini]

Before part 2 of stranger things releases I just want to put my thoughts out there as someone who has only seen pieces of the trailer and never seen them voluntarily:

Things I want to get out of the way

Steddie and Ronance aren’t going to be things.

I hate to say it guys, but it’s not even that we’re being queerbaited in that front, there’s just nothing there.

Steddie, while cute, is not gonna happen. Steve and Eddie barley talked but when they did talk it was either in a group or a one on one situation where Eddie was pushing Steve towards Nancy. Eddie is queercoded but Steve is (and it kills me to admit) painfully heterosexual. It’d be cool if they got together but it’s very… very… very unlikely.

As for Ronance, as much as I love that ship name (and I will be stealing it for an oc couple in the future), Nancy is, again, so painfully heterosexual she’s been in a love triangle three out of the four seasons of this show and Robin has a completely separate love interest literally introduced this season to be her love interest. I kinda wish I’d see more fancontent of that or even just edits of Barb and Robin because although I don’t really ship it, I think they’d be pretty cool.

Realistically I think they might have Steve and Nancy get together but there’s just as big of a chance that they might keep her and Jonathan and fix that relationship by moving the Byers back to Hawkins. It’d be cool for Robin to actually get with Vicki though.

Will is either going to be confirmed gay or just heavily queercoded.

Since we’re talking about queer character: Will Byers is so freaking gay. “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls” was the biggest clue, but people have been talking about him being queercoded as long as I’ve been watching the show (though to be fair I started after season two). Based on some interviews and how giggly everyone’s sounded talking about this I don’t think they’ll outright say anything. Chances are they’ll have Will give Mike the painting but it’ll be all “oh no it’s not cause he has a crush on Mike it’s cause they’re best friends” so they can keep on making his sexuality ambiguous so as to not alienate homophobic fans more than they already have with Robin. I think the writers are jsut queerbaiting us. That said, I’m not saying there’s not a possibility-all the interviews could’ve been red herrings but they may very well have been genuine. Only time will tell.

Character deaths in order of how likely I think they are to happen 🙃

Lucas, Robin, Hopper

They don’t have enough black or gay characters to kill Lucas or Robin and I’m pretty sure the Duffers know the of backlash they’d get if they did. Don’t worry. As for Hopper, they wouldn’t do a fake out kill only to actually kill him a season later. That’d be very stupid of them.

Jonathan and Will

Jonathan might die but I’m pretty sure Will is safe. Jonathan has a not so great relationship with his girlfriend and I could see them killing him to push Nancy towards Steve.

Characters I think could die on vibes alone:

In order of least to most likely: Nancy, Mike, Argyle.

Max

She might be safe but there is still a change Vecna’s gonna kill her. We’ve spent too much time with her this season and it just feels like the letters are gonna be really important.

Steve

One interesting thing about Steve is that we haven’t really seem too much of him as the cast of characters has expanded and i think it might be that the writers just don’t like writing for him. The writers might prefer him dead. This idea is based partially on that one Duffer Bros interview and partially on Eddie.

Steve could be passing the babysitter mantle over to Eddie. Based on the similarities we’ve seen between those two (especially their relationships with Dustin), Eddie having known Steve back when he was, to put it frankly, a dick, and some comments Eddie’s made about admiring Steve, they just might kill him off.

His death could also be a catalyst for Nancy and Jonathan getting back together: you can’t have a love triangle if one of the points dies and having Steve out of the way

All of that being said, I think they might just have Steve and Nancy kiss and then have Jonathan show up and pretty much spend season 5 repeating that trios dynamic in either season 2 or 3. I don’t think Steve’s gonna die.

Eddie is probably gonna die. I don’t want to be right but I think I am.

1)We’ve seen this pattern before: likeable side character people relate to/generally enjoy is killed off in the same season they’re introduced in. Barb, Bob, Alexi. (You could theoretically argue Billy should be on that list but I fucking hate Billy and he wasn’t introduced in the season he was killed in so o don’t want to count him. The death might be that Argayle or Russian guy too but I don’t know if anyone cares about him because I barley payed attention to the Hopper plot.)

2)Eddie doesn’t really have a way back to his normal life. The entire town thinks he’s a serial killer and his death/“disappearance” could wrap that up nice enough. If they kill Eddie they don’t have to deal with the town being ready to condem/physically murder a high schooler and therefore not have to deal with the moral implications. (Or they might go the Teen Wolf route where the town finds out about the supernatural but don’t trust the heroes. That could actually be a cool idea for season 5.)

3)Eddie has got the right setup for a dramatic sacrifice death. I mean just think about it: he’s had various lines talking about being a coward and admiring Steve’s willingness to fight and take risks with his own well-being. Eddie could very well sacrifice himself to let the others be free, much like Bob and Billy before him. It would be cool if this time the character who does this lived because third times the charm and all…

General thoughts and predictions

Nancy and Mike

I think Nancy’s gonna have a boyfriend in the end of this and while I don’t think it should be Steve, I don’t want Nancy in a relationship right now. Nancy needs time to mature and white women are always forced into relationships like love and romance will fix everything and I hope they let her be single. Mike is probably gonna be with El but unless they have a decent conversation I don’t think it’ll last long before we see another big fight.

The Byers

Personally I don’t like Joyce and Hopper (season 3 ruined them for me) but I do think the writers might write their relationship well and it could have the added benefit of getting that family back in Hawkins. We also talk a lot about what Hopper means to El but I think in theory he could be a good father to Will and Jonathan. Speaking of, Jonathan has too fucking much on his plate right now and really deserves time to process his own trauma from this whole chaos. I like the idea of Hopper joining his family because it’ll take some pressure off of my boy who is self medicating hard core and I’m really worried about him. When it comes to Will, I think we’ve had our cute moments between him and Mike this season so we’re pretty much done with him by this point. He might be a part of the family reunion but probably not gonna play a huge role.

I am prepared to eat my words(especially on my Will and Byler points), but it might take some time because I really need to sleep tonight and I’ve got plans tomorrow so I won’t see the actual show until Friday evening/very early Saturday morning.

[kryptonitecore]

Reread: All Hail Megatron, Part I

All Hail Megatron is… certainly an experience?

At 16 issues (sort of, but I’ll get to that) it’s much longer than the other miniseries I’ve read so far. I do have to question the wisdom of giving this, of all things, the first extended run, because it certainly seems to be padding, but there we go. It also represents another major diversion in terms of tone. It’s another miniseries that presents itself as heavily featuring Megatron, this time really leaning into putting the villain front and centre, even down to the Killing Joke-esque cover - just to tap into that Joker zeitgeist, I suppose.

That is potentially not the only thing mimicking DC of the 2000s, though. Introducing McCarthy and then Costa’s work after having let Furman be in charge for so long is a real shift in tone, focus, etc. Honestly, it’s borderline a soft reboot, with backstories and characterisation shifting significantly. In order to allow for this, the book introduces a one-year time-skip, so the story can have a new status quo and worry about explaining it all later. While I’m sure it’s not where the whole idea originates, I do have to wonder if this was drawing from DC’s ‘One Year Later’ event, which was itself a sort of soft reboot in which they jumped all their series one year into the future for similar reasons. Incidentally, that was started in 2006, so only two years before IDW’s continuity had its own leap through time. Maybe I’m just being set off by the Killing Joke cover, but I do have to wonder whether there was a conscious effort on the part of IDW1 writers and editorial staff to try and mimic New-52-era DC comics. Regardless of the motivations for it, this time-skip deposits the reader firmly onto Earth, which Decepticons have been infiltrating for a while and are now progressing towards taking over, and reveals that the Autobot faction is in shambles.

The shift in focus is a big one. Furman’s Transformers had larger-scale storytelling and a focus on more out-there concepts. All Hail Megatron is a slide towards a more Earth-centric and military-centric take on the story, particularly focusing on a few American soldiers. This is not to say that there’s a lot of nuanced or particularly engaging human characters here, I mean some of these characters might as well be called Mr. Death Flag and many are very simple in their characterisation. Not to bring in another influence, but I do have to wonder if another reason for this soft-reboot/status quo change is to bring the comics continuity more in line with that of the Bay films? This will be reflected in Don Figueroa’s art style at points, but also matches up with some of these other changes - less space opera, more US military fighting aliens in major cities.

From what I can tell, the only human character introduced here who will matter for the continuity longer term is, sadly, Spike Witwicky. Although I like Costa’s Witwicky even less, McCarthy’s version is also pretty obnoxious and this series has a focus on macho posturing that I find aggravating. As in, it’s not that some of the characters are given to macho posturing because it’s part of their personality, but everyone is given to macho posturing and it’s treated as if it’s a fact of life.

Regarding character depth or emotionality, there are some emotional moments throughout the series, but I find a lot of them fall flat. While I can appreciate the attempt, these moments of sentiment emerge from the depths like submarines with little build-up before sinking right back down, never to be seen again. Besides Spike, Sarah was a character I found difficult to work with, as she ultimately did little besides prop up the egos of the characters around her: even if a scene involved her losing her temper, slapping another character, and ordering them to ‘man up’, it’s ultimately reframed through her giving someone a much-needed and just very angry pep-talk about how he’s going to be a great leader. A lot of the characters have this sheen to them, where they are mostly there as sounding-boards or to boost the ego of the few more central characters. All characters are props, but it’s made quite obvious here.

[waitimcomingtoo]

Bagels and Bites

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader

Synopsis: Sebastian likes to flirt with you in interviews

Masterlist

It all started when you met him on The Late Late Show.

“How are you all feeling tonight?” James asked you and Sebastian Stan as you sat on the guest couch.

“I’m excited.” You beamed as Sebastian rested his arm on the couch behind you.

“So am I. We should probably talk about this later,” Sebastian smiled directly at you, “but we’ve been wanting to meet each other for a long time.”

“Have you?” James chuckled.

“No.” You laughed and playfully hit Sebastian in the chest. “We had one interaction on Twitter and he thinks there’s something between us.”

“It was a very flirty interaction.” Sebastian clarified. “There were sparks flying all over those tweets.”

“So this is your first time actually meeting?” James asked. “Even though you’re in the marvel movies together?”

“It’s weird. I haven’t met half the cast.” You shrugged. “I’ll meet everyone else once the press tour starts but so far I’ve only met the people I’ve filmed with. Just Chris, and Chris, and um, oh yeah. Chris.”

You looked down and smiled to yourself when you heard Sebastian laughing at your joke. Even though you’d never met him, you’d always liked him. It was a well known secret on the Internet that you were his celebrity crush, since he was so inclined on bringing it up in almost every interview of his. Being face to face for the first time now, you were feeling a little intoxicated from his charm. Well, his charm and the white wine you’d been sipping on.

“I hope they stop putting me with Mackie and start putting me with Y/n once this press tour starts.” Sebastian said after taking a sip of his wine. “I love him but I can’t keep babysitting him at 8 in the morning. I’d like to wake up to someone who looks a little more like this one.”

“I know what you mean.” You agreed. “He would show up to set every morning all ready to go and I’m like dude, give me a few hours for my personality to arrive.”

“I was so mad that he got to film with you and I didn’t.” Sebastian shook his head. “We finally get cast in a movie together and we’re never in the same scene.”

“Well,” you put your hand on his knee and patted it, “we’re meeting now. Lucky you.”

“Yeah.” He smirked at you. “Lucky me.”

“Now, Sebastian.” James reminded you both that he was there. “I heard a rumor that you have a little crush on Y/n.”

“Well, I try not to pay attention to rumors.” Sebastian waved his hand. “But that ones pretty accurate.”

“Oh my God.” You put your hand over your heart, which was about to beat out of your chest, and laughed.

“It’s true. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while, but I feel like I’ve seen you all my life. And here you are in person and you look so great.” Sebastian said through a shy smile. You laughed in shock at his compliment and looked down at your lap.

“You’re fully going for it.” James laughed at how bold Sebastian was being.

“You’re not being a very good wingman.” You teased James as you took a long sip of your drink. The more alcohol you had in you, the easier it would be to flirt with the incredible attractive man next to you.

“I was never known for that.” James agreed. “But I heard your brother is a pretty good one, isn’t he?”

“Oh My God.” You groaned, knowing exactly what James was referring to. “He’s not.”

“What happened?” Sebastian wondered, never taking his eyes off you.

“I took my brother to the Oscars with me last year and we happened to be sitting next to Jake Gyllenhaal.” You explained. “And the whole night, he’s telling Jake about how I used to be in love with him when I was a kid. If there weren’t a bunch of cameras around us, I would’ve rung his neck.”

“So I’m assuming you and Jake aren’t the next celebrity power couple?” James teased.

“We are not.” You shook your head. “I can confidently say that I was still single.”

“I was just gonna and say, there’s still hope for us.” Sebastian gestured between the two of you. You opened your mouth in shock before biting down on your tongue. You playfully hit Sebastian again, signally that you were just as interested as he was.

“You’re really going for it.” James pointed out. “I must say, wow.”

“Why not?” Sebastian grinned. “This is the time.”

“You are pretty cute, I just wanna say.” You flirted back for the hell of it. Sebastian laughed in surprise before covering his face with his hands. You laughed as well as he hunched over to hide his face.

“He’s actually gone red now!” James pointed at him. “He was so sure of himself and now he’s all red.”

“Leave him alone.” You pouted as you rubbed Sebastians back. Sebastian sat back up and rubbed his face with his hands.

“Yeah.” Sebastian said assertively as he wrapped an arm around you. “Leave me alone. I’m trying to flirt here.”

“How would you ask her on a date, then?” James asked. “Since you’re so in love with her.”

“Like this.” Sebastian said as he turned to you “Ce faci?”

“Would you bite me in the neck?” You asked, catching him completely off guard. He took his arm away and laughed in shock at your words.

“Oh my God.” He chuckled as he looked around in embarrassment. Suddenly, he turned back to you and cupped one side of your face, tilting your neck slightly with his hand. He bit down on your exposed neck, making the audience erupt in a series of laughter and gasps. You giggled when you felt his scruff tickling your neck and made no effort to push him off.

“He actually did it.” James looked at the audience to see if they were seeing what he was.

“She asked me to.” Sebastian rolled his eyes playfully. His arm was still around you and neither of you wanted it off.

“It was a hypothetical but I guess I know my answer.” You shrugged as you leaned back on the couch.

“Why would you ask him that?” James wondered.

“Like a vampire.” You explained. “Aren’t vampires from Romania?”

“That’s Transylvania.” Sebastian smiled fondly at you.

“Oh.” You realized. “I still liked it.”

“I’ll do it again later.” Sebastian shrugged, making your hide your face in embarrassment.

“Promise?” You said suddenly as you put your hand back on his knee. It was Sebastians turn to be baffled as he put his free hand on tops of yours.

“Darling.” He choked out, too stunned to form a full sentence.

“This has been an intense experience.” James fans himself with his cards. “What will the two of you do after the show?”

“I’ll probably go home, order a pizza, and pass out while watching all of Sebastian’s episodes of Once Upon a Time.” You joked.

“I was going to do the exact same thing.” Sebastian nodded. “Right after I got a job as a pizza delivery boy so I can go to Y/n’s house.”

“Or you could just come over.” You shrugged, making Sebastian blush.

“I like that idea too.” Sebastian replied.

“I’m trying to imagine what the poor pizza delivery boy is gonna see when he arrives at Y/n’s house later.” James grimaced, making the audience laugh.

“I know, right? They open the door and this is what the get.” Sebastian gestured to you. “It’s you. How lucky they are.”

You leaned into him as you laughed, the alcohol making you feel bolder than usual. You’d never be this flirty with a man you’d just met, but he made it too easy.

The rest of the interview continued in a similar fashion, with you and Sebastian unapologetically flirting with each other every chance you got. By the end of the interview, you were so close that your knees were touching. When it came time to say goodbye, you felt an unexpected pane of sadness.

“Well, thank you both for coming on the show tonight.” James smiled. “I hope I’ll be invited to the wedding.”

“You will. And I wanted to thank you. For this.” Sebastian said as he slipped his fingers through yours and held up your hands. You beamed and squeezed his hand, fully tipsy now the the interview was over.

After thanking James and drinking another glass of wine, you drunkenly pulled Sebastian off the couch.

“Come in the photo booth with me.” You giggled as you tugged him by the hand towards the booth.

“Okay.” He grinned as he climbed inside. He pulled you into his lap and pressed the button before wrapping his arms around your waist. The pictures began to snap away and you posed for all of them. For the first, you just held each other close and smiled. For the second, he leaned up to kiss your cheek. And for the third, he took another bite of your neck.

“That tickles.” You giggled as the camera flashed.

“Good.” He smirked against your skin before pressing a kiss there.

“Stick your tongue out.” You told him, and he obliged. You licked his tongue as the fourth picture was taken, capturing the drunken moment. The fifth flash went off right as Sebastian connected your lips to his. You continued to kiss him, tasting the alcohol on his lips and tongue.

“Oh my God.” You pulled away suddenly. “I have to pee.”

You got off his lap and ran to the restroom, leaving him alone in the photo booth.

The next time you saw Sebastian, neither of you brought the kiss up. Whether you thought the other was too drunk to remember or you were simply too embarrassed to bring it up, it was not mentioned.

The flirting, however, the flirting continued.

~

“What would you like to see for your characters in the next movies?” The journalist asked you and Sebastian as you sat together in a press junket.

“For our characters specifically, I’d like to see some graphic love making.” Sebastian said seriously. “I think that that’s something the movies have been lacking.”

“Oh my God.” You laughed and shook your head. “Me too, actually. I think it would be really in character and important to the plot.”

“How would that benefit the plot?” The journalist asked.

“It’s simple. I would just change my name to “the plot” and bam.” Sebastian clapped his hands. “I’m benefited.”

“He’s such a flirt.” You said as you rested your elbow on his shoulder. “Can you believe him?”

“I can’t.” The journalist chuckled.

“You know what I’d like to see? Some method acting. Why can’t you be as quiet as Bucky?” You teased Sebastian as you flicked his ear.

“How would I tell you how pretty you are if I wasn’t speaking?” He flirted back.

“This is what I have to put up with.” You shook your head as looked at the camera. “What about you? What do you want to see from our characters?”

“I would like to see Bucky do the knife trick some more.” The journalist answered you.

“What knife trick?” You wondered.

“It’s the thing he does when he flips his knife around and stabs people.” Sebastian explained as he moved his hand in a circle. “It took me forever to learn.”

“Wait, I wanna see it.” You smiled excitedly and turned to him.

“No, no.” He wagged his finger at you. “I’m not doing the knife trick.”

“Please?” You pouted. “For me?”

“All right, all right.” Sebastian broke into a grin. “I’m only doing this because you asked nicely.”

The journalist handed him a pen and he easily flipped it around and caught it before making a stabbing motion. You let out a gasp and stared at him in shock for a long time.

“What’s wrong?” He asked you.

“I wanna to fuck you, that’s what’s wrong.” You replied. “Can you do it again?”

Sebastian laughed at your joke as his face heated up. He knew that was just the way you two liked to tease each other, but it didn’t mean it didn’t make him smile.

“I’ll do it again.” He nodded as picked the pen back up. “Anything for you.”

~

On a day where the interviews ended early, you spent the night in Sebastians hotel room, getting drunk on his balcony.

“What about you?” Sebastian asked as he took a sip of his beer. “What was your best kissing scene? I know you’ve kissed some pretty great actors. Might be hard to pick.”

“It’s not. I hate kissing actors.” You grimaced. “It’s not even kissing. It’s just like, limp lips on limp lips. There’s no passion when it’s for a scene. I hate it.”

“Maybe you’re just kissing the wrong actors.” Sebastian shrugged playfully as he gazed at you.

“I don’t think so.” You shook your head. “I’ve never felt anything when kissing another actor. You can’t tell me you do.”

“I do.” He shrugged again. “Its not much, but I wouldn’t say it’s nothing.”

“What? How?” You wondered. “If you kissed me right now, you wouldn’t feel anything. I guarantee it.”

“I think I would.” Sebastian disagreed.

“All right.” You turned your chair a little to face him. “Prove me wrong.”

Sebastian tweaked an eyebrow up before leaning in to kiss you. You kissed him back for a few seconds before pulling away. You looked past him for a minute as you mulled the moment over in your head.

“What’s the matter?” He asked quietly.

“I was incorrect.” You chuckled a little. “I guess I did feel something.”

“I told you you would.” He said smugly. “I knew you’d feel something.”

“How’d you know?” You whined as he basked in the glory of being right.

“Because I felt something the last time we kissed.” He said simply. “And I knew you did too.”

“I didn’t realize you remembered that.” You smirked before talking a sip from his beer.

“Course I do.” He replied. “I think about that night all the time. It was the start of a beautiful, sexually frustrating friendship.”

“Oh, I’m sexually frustrating?” You laughed. “Try being your friend. It’s hard to look at you, really.”

“That’s not how I feel about you.” He smiled a little. “I really, really like looking at you.”

“I like you too.” You smiled back.

“That’s not what I said.” He teased. You dropped your jaw and stole his beer again, taking a long sip as you held eye contact.

“It’s what you meant.” You stuck your tongue out at him. You sat in comfortable silence for a minute, listening to the chirps of the crickets as a warm breeze wafted through the air.

“The press tour is ending soon.” You said quietly as you adverted your eyes. “Tomorrow’s the premier. Then, it’s all over.”

“I know.” He said softly. You looked at him and gave him a sad smile, to which he returned.

“We won’t get to see each other every day anymore.” You pointed out.

“Then we better make tomorrow count.” He said simply. He knew what you were implying, that there was no point in starting something when you’d both been going home soon, but he didn’t want to think about that. He just wanted to enjoy his last few days with you.

“Yeah.” You smiled sadly and looked away again. “We better.”

~

The following night at the premier, you felt an overwhelming sadness knowing that it was all ending. You loved the weeks you’d spent goofing off with Sebastian, even if it never led to a real relationship. It still meant something to you, and you hoped it meant something to him.

To counteract your sadness, you sat with Chris Evans at the bar and let him distract you. After spending a minute with him, you were feeling drunk and ready to find Sebastian. You spotted him on the red carpet, fixed your dress, and went up to him.

“Hi.” You giggled as you wrapped your arms around his torso. You smiled up at him as he wrapped an arm around you, taking an usually loud whiff of his cologne.

“Hey.” He chuckled as he patted your back. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good.” You said as you swayed a little. “Question, is there alcohol in a Shirley Temple? Because I feel like I’ve had alcohol.”

“There is.” He laughed again and steadied you. “Did you know that?”

“Nope.” You sniffed him again. “You smell good.”

“Oh no.” He smiled as your behavior. “How many did you have?”

“I was having a contest with Evans to see who could drink more. I had like 5.” You bragged as you almost fell over.

“Oh dear.” He quickly caught you. “You’re staying with me tonight. I don’t trust drunk you.”

“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to babysit me.” You waved your hand and tried to walk away. You instantly stumbled and neatly fell, but Sebastian wrapped his arms around you and caught you.

“I think I do.” He chuckled as you put you on your feet. “Come on. You’re sticking with me.”

~

The next morning, you woke up with a throbbing headache. Not feeling the strength to sit up, you opened a single eye and looked around. You were definitely not in your own room, but you recognized who’s room you were in.

“Good morning.” Sebastians voice was usually loud, making you wince.

“Oh God.” You groaned as you sat up. You groggily opened your eyes as Sebastian handed you a cup of coffee.

“Here.” He smiled shyly. “How’s the head?”

“The head is in pain.” You groaned. “So is the rest of the body.”

“Here. Drink this.” He held out a glass of water and some Advil. “And take these.”

“Thanks.” You smiled sheepishly as you accepted his offerings.

“Did you at least win the drinking contest?” He asked as he took a seat on the bed. You took a long sip of water and swallowed the pills before answering his questions.

“I did.” You nodded. “But at what cost?”

“You’ll start to feel better once you get some food in you.” Sebastian said as he rubbed your shoulder. You put your hand over his and stared at him, feeling the guilt set in.

“I’m sorry I got drunk.” You mumbled. “I didn’t mean to ruin the last night.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.” Sebastian shook his head. “Trust me, we still had fun. I’m not sure how much you remember though.”

“I remember sitting with you at the premier.” You recalled. “And eating many, many bagels.”

“Yeah, we stopped at a bakery.” He chuckled. “You ate a dozen. I watched it all.”

“Oh God.” You covered your face with your hands. “That’s not how I wanted to spend our last night together.”

“How did you want to spend it together?” He asked quietly.

“Probably in a way that still ended with me waking up in your bed.” You joked like you usually did. “But I could do without the part where you watched me eat 12 bagels.”

“What do you mean?” He grinned. “That was the best part.”

“How’d I end up in your bed anyway?” You asked before taking another sip of coffee.

“You threw your key card at a seagull who was eyeing your bagel.” He explained. “You couldn’t get into your room so I let your crash in mine.”

You looked around the room and saw his pull out couch was topped with pillows and sheets, evidence of him sleeping there.

“Did you sleep on the pull out?” You pointed to it in disbelief.

“Of course I did.” He shrugged.

“Such a gentleman.” You scrunched your nose at him before finishing the coffee.

“Basic human decency is not exactly being a gentleman.” He pointed out.

“Maybe not.” You agreed. “But you still are one. You prove that to me everyday.”

“That must be why you like me so much.” He teased.

“Must be.” You dished it right back. Sebastians smile fell suddenly as he got a serious look on his face.

“I think you and I need to have a talk.” He said softly.

“Oh God.” You feared. “Did I puke on you last night?”

“No.” He chuckled. “It’s not about last night.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“As much as I love flirting with you, and I do, I think you should know it’s not just a joke to me.” He began. “And I wanted to know if it was just a joke to you or if-“

“It’s not.” You said a little too quickly, which made him smile. “I...I like you. A lot, actually. One might even call it love.”

Upon hearing this, Sebastian leaned forward to kiss you. You held a hand to stop him and gave him an apologetic look.

“I wouldn’t.” You grimaced. “My morning breath is-“

“-something I could get used to.” He cut you off before going in for the kiss. You immediately kissed him back, pulling him by his shirt to have him closer. He climbed over you as you tangled your fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“I don’t care if its our last day.” He mumbled against your lips. “I want to do this for real. I wanna be with you.”

You kissed him back to tell him you felt the same way, not trusting yourself to say something smooth in the heat of the moment.

“Wait.” You pushed him back suddenly and held him away from you.

“Whats wrong?” He asked as he hovered over you.

“Can we get bagels after this?” You asked seriously before breaking into a smile.

“I seriously can’t stand you.” He said before leaning down to kiss you again. “You’re lucky I love you because I don’t like you at all.”

“12 wasn’t enough.” You giggled between kisses. “I need more. I crave them. I crave the yeast.”

Sebastian stopped kissing you for a moment and looked at you with a fond expression. You stared back at him as a content smile tugged at your lips. The flirting had finally lead to something more and neither of you could be happier.

“You know, you might actually be more annoying than Mackie.” He teased you before leaning down to kiss your neck.

“Shut up.” You laughed. “Shut up and bite me in the neck.”

Tag List 🏷

@awesomebooklover17​ @thebookwormlife​ @imanativeofswlondondahling​ @weirdr-artiest​ @serendipitous-amor​ @dummiesshort​

@foreverxholland​ @lavender-writer​ @michaela072796​ @whatareyouhidingpeter​ @takenbyheartstrings​ @ultrunning​ @imyourliquor-youremypoison​ @andreasworlsboring101​ @waiting-to-be-myself​ @letsloveimagines​ @peterparkoure​ @a-villain-vying-for-attention​ @justcallmehitgirl​ @jackiehollanderr​ @tiny-friggin-human @mara-twins​ @iamaunicorn4704​ @maryjanee23​ @geeksareunique​ @emmamarshmellow​ @unbelievableholland​ @flixndchill​ @sovereignparker​ @thisisthebiplace​ @spideydobrik​ @every-marveler-ever​ @undiadeestos​ @caelestii-e​ @eridanuswave​ @itscaminow​ @fiantomartell​ @solarxmoonchild​ @canyouevencauseicant​ @illwritetomorrow​ @thehappygrungelife​ @saysomethingspiderman​ @smilexcaptainx​ @quaksonhehe​ @kelieah​ @kickingn-ames​ @seasidecrowbar​ @lovelessdagger​ @love-sick-blues​ @electraheart-3174​ @unbelievableholland​ @yourtypicalhotmess​ @spideyanakin​ @horanxholland​ @thesuitelifeofafangirl​ @marshxx​ @heyheycharlatte​ @nooneinvitedfascistbarbie​ @tomshufflepuff​ @cookiemonstermusic258​

@maybemona @alexxcorona113​ @lethal-wisdom​ @xo-spidey​ @big-galaxy-chaos @pandaxnienke​ @theincredibledeadlyviper​  @thestylestour  @officialsimppage @mrvelscaptains​ @peterbenjiparker​ @itsemohours @okkulta @parkerlovebot @jungkxxkk​ @friendlyneighborhood-mendes @whatthefuckimbisexual @olixerwxxd @starkbrain @creatorofthegalaxy @f-hollands @ilovefrogs1000​ @itstaskeen​ @itmatteredatthetime @wrendermeuseless @amazinggracy​ @iprobablyshipit91 @magicalxdaydream @whereismytelephone @theonly1outof-a-billion​ @leilanixx @namoreno @bi-lmg @dracoswhore007 @tomhollandloml​ @avengers-hamiltrash @sunshinepeterparkr @gh0stgurl​ @so-very-asleep​ @veryholland @white-wolf1940 @spideycheles​ @firwproof-blog​ @fanficaddict13125​ @pinklxmonade @thebestqueenoftheworld​ @nowayhomeparker​ @willowestelle @imobsessedzs @spideyspeaches​ @bookfrog242​ @hihiweezing​ @mathletemadison  @chipot-lol @mackenziejanine​ @dhtomholland​ @peterstommy @insomniac-nerd-posts-things @prancerrparkerr @aayaissaa​ @loudthoughts-softspoken​ @starknik22​ @hallecarey1​ @tom-holland-is-bae​ @adayasgeorgia

[sukirichi]

total opposites

You and Toge swap bodies after encountering a fairytale curse, and similar to its origin, it also takes a fairytale method to break it.

REQUEST. body swap au + best friends to lovers

CONTENT/WARNINGS. slight crack fic, some cursing, implications of nsfw but nothing explicit, just Toge being a not-so closet pervert, usual best friend bickering, reader is fem bodied, unedited story (I should stop saying this, everyone knows I don’t edit my stuff)

NOTES. I enjoyed writing this, tysm for the request anon, this was really cute! definitely this is shooting up in one of my fav works ever (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

You stretched your arms overhead, feeling great after sleeping in. It wasn’t common of you to sleep this late, but you and Toge had gone stargazing the night before. A smile made its way to your face as you reminisced him reciting rice ball ingredients, signing that he was telling poetry to ‘match the mood’ until you’d both fallen asleep on the soft blanket atop a hill.

You don’t remember how you made it back to your room, but figured that Toge had carried you back home before the sun rose. Making a mental note to thank your best friend later, you yawned as you padded out to your room, hands rubbing in circles at your stomach.

Hopefully breakfast would be amazing today.

The door next to you opened, revealing your younger classmate, and you frowned, because wasn’t Kugisaki your next door neighbour? Well, whatever, he, Yuuji, and Kugisaki might’ve taken advantage of the rare, peaceful weekend that they probably had a movie marathon the night before.

“Morning, Megumi!” you greeted, coughing a bit when you sounded off, throat a little horse and itchy. At the sound of your voice, Megumi stilled in his tracks, eyes wide at you. His comical expression had you barking in laughter, shooting finger guns his way as you wiggled your eyebrows. “Ey, be a good dog and bark for me, will you?”

Semi-visible sonic waves drifted like waves after one another out your mouth. Megumi scowled before he froze the next second, ears perked up and backside wagging in replacement of a tail. “Woof woof!”

“What the hell?” you reeled back in slight disgust, your underclassman’s cheeks burning red. Then, your lips grazed against a soft cloth, making you look down.

You blinked back once. Twice. You were definitely...built different today. Curiously, you tugged at the zipper peaking out from your black collar, the familiar zhoop sound of the zipper burned into your memory after hearing your best friend do it countless times before.

In front of you, Megumi screeched – the most noise he’d made ever since you met him – his jaw dropped open while you – or rather Toge stood at the end of the hallway, his hands squeezing at your breasts that were still under last night’s pyjamas. You blinked back once. Then twice, steam pouring from your nose when Toge, in your body, pointed at his body. 

“Oh, oh!” your scream bounced off the hallways hard enough that Panda slammed his door open, about to tell everyone to shut up when your voice let out a high-pitched scream.

“What are you doing in my body?!”

Looking down at where Toge was pointing, you were greeted by the sight of his dark uniform and sock clad feet, your chest replaced with hard muscles instead of the soft flesh. You turned to Toge with a stupefied look that mirrored his, both of you falling on the ground with fists pounding on the hardwood floor.

“I’m a fucking girl!” he cried out, whether out of happiness or frustration, it was hard to tell.

Meanwhile, you zipped his collar back up, tugging at his off-white hair as you forced yourself to remember his limited vocabulary. “BONITO FLAKES!”

Now you understood Toge’s frustration of being a cursed speech user. 

“Bonito Flakes” definitely did not hold the same fury as “FUCK” did.

“You and I need to set down some boundaries,” you signed to him, brows pulled together. Toge seemed to be enjoying this sudden body swap a lot more than you did since he hadn’t stopped posing in the mirror the moment you pushed him back to your room, locking it shut to get some privacy. “You are not, under any circumstances, allowed to shower, do you understand?”

Toge scowled at your words, sassy as ever with his hands placed on his hips, buttocks jutted out. You hated, absolutely hated that he used your body this way because this time you couldn’t even laugh – not when seeing your body felt this awkward.

“You would really rather me stink?”

“You can’t undress too! Ever! Or if you will, your eyes better be closed. No peeking too!”

“Y/N, you and I grew up together. I’ve already seen everything,” he rolled his eyes, earning him a hard slap from the arm. Considering he was a lot more muscular than you were, your hit came a lot harder. “Ow!” he protested, rubbing the sore spot that ached, only to laugh at the sounds emitting from his lips. “Wow, I have to admit that this is really fun though. I’m actually talking,” he announced, “Hey, say salmon for me.”

“Bonito flakes!” you shook your head, “The moment Principal Yaga is back, we’re going to talk to him, okay? I don’t want to be stuck in your body any longer!”

“Please, you’re lucky you get to feel me up,” he winked at you, taking your (his) hands to flatten it on his stomach. “Come on, come on, feel my abs!” Whack. “Would you please stop slapping me? Your body is a lot more delicate than mine and my hands are – stop slapping me!”

Feeling bad for your friend and not wanting to abuse your body too much, you raised your hands in surrender with a roll of your eyes. “I can’t take you seriously with that voice. You’re too cute.”

“Complimenting ourselves now, aren’t we?” he scoffed, “Well, whatever, you are cute, especially when you’re angry. Such a shame I can’t see you do that right now because my handsome face is looking back at me.”

“I won’t hesitate to choke you, my friend.”

“You wouldn’t. You adore your body too much,” contrary to his words, Toge pulled a defensive stance. You threw a pillow at him, to which he easily dodged, clutching at the hem of your pyjamas afterwards. “Speaking of bodies, I really need to pee.”

“Hold it!”

“Are you insane? I’m not holding it, you’re going to kill us both!”

“Fine, I’ll take you to the rest room then,” you tugged at the hood of your shirt, pushing him inside the communal female restroom. Toge stood in the middle shock still, evidently flustered at the stalls and lack of urinals. You flicked a finger on his forehead, finger pointed to a stall. “Go pee. That’s my body – I need to make sure you’re not going to do anything weird with it.”

“I thought you trusted me, friend. Why would you think I’d touch you that way?”

You gave him an ‘are you serious?’ look. “You jack off every fucking night, Toge. I can hear you even from the next hallway. Plus, you’re a horny teenage male, who’s to say you wouldn’t be curious and try to see what female masturbation feels like?”

His eyes lit up at the idea, fist coming down to bounce at the palm of his hand as he nodded. “That’s actually a good idea—”

“Don’t you even dare.”

“What?!” you and Toge both exclaimed. He faced you with utter horror written on his face and you gasped, slapping both palms over your lips.

“It is true,” Principal Yaga affirmed with a grim look on his face. He’d recently got back to fetch your troublesome Gojo-Sensei who’d been caught starting a ruckus in Roponggi while women flocked around him, leading to your principal to haul his ass back to the school grounds. “Some curses are manifested through daily objects, and sometimes even through nature. That shooting star you saw was an example of that.”

“But is kissing really necessary?” Toge queried with a wary gaze sent your way.

“It’s a fairytale curse. It can only be broken through a true love’s kiss.”

“But sir, Toge and I have never dated anyone before. How can we miraculously fall in love with someone to break this curse overnight?”

“It doesn’t have to happen overnight. Sometimes, a simple crush will do,” Principal Yaga sighed, scratching his bald head with his face pulled deep in thought. “Y/N, you have a crush on Gojo-Sensei right? I’m going to kill him if he actually kisses you – and knowing that damn brat he might if you ask him – but I think a kiss on the cheek will suffice. For now, you both just have to...broaden your relationships. Maybe go out on dates.”

“I don’t mind that. In fact, I’m going to have the time of my life,” Toge cheered, his mood dampening once he saw you stiffen. “But my body is...”

Knowing full well that he’d get insecure over his lack of speech again, you glared at him hard enough that your best friend straightened up, lips puckered out in a pout as if you hadn’t just caught him talking badly about himself again when you’ve told him countless times he was perfectly fine the way he was.

It made you sigh, feeling slightly bad that until now he still couldn’t see himself the way you saw him – not that you’d ever vocalize this; Toge would never shut up (in the best way he could) if he had the slightest idea what went inside your head.

“You’re lucky you have a pretty face. Otherwise, it’s going to be impossible for anyone to like you,” you teased instead, somewhat flustered at your indirect compliment.

Toge merely scoffed at you, his gaze burning and hard, contrasting the teasing little shit grin he wore. “Oh, please, if I wasn’t the cursed speech user, I would’ve banged—”

“Kids!” Principal Yaga threw his dolls at you hard, the both of you clutching at your heads in pain. How were those dolls as heavy as rocks? “Take your bickering back to your rooms please. No more of this mess and noise. It’s late.”

You frowned at the old man, face pleading as you signed, “Principal Yaga, can’t we really do anything else? Aren’t there any techniques to undo this?”

You and Toge knew that combination so well – pitch black eyes, jaw clenched, lips pursed and palms interlaced under his chin – one that meant his words were final and irrevocable. None of you could argue or suggest more solutions the moment the words left his lips like an ultimate decree. “The technique is the kiss. Now leave.”

You and Toge tried, you both really did. 

But following Principal Yaga’s suggestion of dating others had turned out to be a complete fail – even with your normal body and Toge’s physical charisma. 

It simply didn’t work; not when Megumi ran away from you every time you tried to get him to kiss you with your arms wide open, and Toge wasn’t helping either by pushing Gojo-Sensei away from you every time the cheeky eyed teacher announced his willingness to help.

Eventually, you and your best friend had retired in his room, the scent of him coated all over his pillows and his shirt that you wore. That felt comforting, at least, and you buried yourself in the crook of your body’s neck, bodies tangled with one another.

Who knew dating could be so tiring?

A wave of irritation flashed over you from today’s events, knowing full well that this could’ve been avoided long ago. Scowling, you cuddled Toge closer, lightly flicking your fingers on your body’s chest. “This is your damn fault, Toge.”

“You were the one who asked me to stargaze with you.”

“You don’t always have to say no to everything I ask of you, you know.”

“You’re really dumber than I thought if you think I could easily say no to you,” he snorted above you, his chin resting atop your head. “I don’t have a lot of weakness because I’m a strong sorcerer—” another flick, a harsher one this time around. “Okay, okay, I’m just kidding! But I mean it though – you’re my best friend and my weakness. Of course I’d do anything to make you happy, even if it’s something as stupid as stargazing.”

“Hey!” you made a sound of protest in your throat, looking back at him with a frown. “It wasn’t stupid, it was romantic.”

Hell yeah, it was romantic indeed – your heart still skipped a beat every time you remembered Toge’s starry eyes matching the night sky’s beauty, the words salmon and mustard leaf surprisingly sexy every time it came from him. It was stupid – so fucking stupid – that you groaned into his chest to hide your flushed face.

“Yeah, I suppose it was.”

The room fell silent, your syncopated breathing soothing during this stressful times. Taking advantage of your voice, Toge began to hum, singing the songs you both had always listened to in the privacy of your room during lazy days. It brought a smile to your face as you clutched to him tighter, heart pounding in your chest as you gazed up at him, tapping his chin to get his attention. “Toge, can I say something weird?”

“Please, nothing you say surprises me anymore. Shoot.”

Your mouth began to dry as you cleared your throat in an attempt to hide your awkwardness, gaze pointedly averted from his prying ones. “You and I...we’ve known each other for a long time and we love each other. As best friends, of course.”

“Sheesh, friendzone much?”

“Would you please shut up and listen to me seriously for once?” you huffed, making him snicker, but nodded at you anyway to continue. “As I was saying – why don’t we kiss? It could be true love’s kiss.”

Toge didn’t speak for a good minute, the pregnant pause filling in the gap filled with tension. You taped his cheek, waving his hand in front of his eyes when he dazed out. When his gaze focussed back on you, Toge was surprisingly calm – although beneath that composed exterior, his mind had simply short-circuited. “If this is your way to get to make out with me, I’m going to sock you in the face.”

“Toge, I’m serious! Let’s kiss!”

“I don’t want to!” he shook his head indignantly, hiding his face by hugging you close to his chest instead.

“Why not? Don’t you want to swap back to your original body? Both of us haven’t showered in two days and I’m sick of the way you smell. You’re lucky I love you though, otherwise I’m going to cry. Come on, Toge, what’s holding you back?” you tried to fight back from his grip, but he’d surprised you both when he only squeezed you tighter, both your erratic heart rates matching the other.

“I said no.”

“Toge, it’s just a damn kiss, what’re you so afraid of?”

“I’m afraid that if we don’t swap back, then that means you don’t love me the way I love you!” he finally admitted, breathing hard before continuing. “Principal Yaga said it must be a kiss between lovers and not just platonic friends okay?” you attempted to scramble away from his arms again, and this time he let you, though he’d closed his eyes, cheek squished on the pillows as he murmured, “I don’t want you to reject me... even though I messed up already.”

“Wait,” you snapped your fingers to make him open his eyes, hesitant as you signed, “You...you love me that way?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because my face is staring back at me and it’s fucking awkward – I wanted to see your face when I confessed!” he sat up with a frustrated groan, childishly kicking off the sheets of the bed as he clutched his head in his hands. “I had everything planned, okay? Nobara and Yuuji helped me think of everything because Megumi is shit when it comes to love. Listen, I was going to ask you on a candlelit date and then maybe kiss the life out of you – if you feel the same way—”

“Kiss me.” The body he possessed a victim of his own powers, Toge was left with no choice but to grab your face before his mouth pressed against yours, fingers entangled into the other’s hair. You were smiling into the kiss the whole time, barely able to recognize when Toge had shifted your bodies until you were under him, his hands running down your sides lovingly the whole time. 

Pulling away to get some air, you opened your eyes, unsurprised when Toge laid above you, his strong arms planted beside your head.

Both of you were breathing hard from the passionate kiss filled with so much sexual tension and longing, your tongue darting out to swipe at his taste on your lips. The laughter that bubbled out of you was pure, wholesome and swollen like your heart. “I love you too, idiot.”

“Salmon!” Toge peppered your cheeks with kisses, pulling out more gleeful laughter from you, his playful and loving attacks more of a gift than a punishment. Once you’d recovered from your happiness – although really, who could recover after that? – Toge unzipped his collar, his smile nothing but wicked when he commanded, “Kiss me again.”

[wallflowerimagines]

Hi! I looove your posts! Thank you so much for sharing your writing!

I was wondering… could you maybe write about the Four Lords with a shy S/O that gets bold and defensive when someone insults the lords? or calls them names? And the Lord’s reaction to the S/O acting different? Dk if im explaining myself >.<

Again! Love your work! Have a great day!

We stan protective partners on this blog!!

Warnings: uh...insults? They're pretty over the top😅 Also swearing.

Alcina Dimitrescu

Honestly, Alcina is more than able to defend herself.

She's got a tongue like a viper, and the thickest skin imaginable. If you really want to hurt her feelings, you have to be someone whom she already respects to a certain degree, or she won't even be phased.

Still, when she leaves a room, there's always some idiot that thinks it's a smart idea to talk shit.

Maybe it's a maid, maybe it's a guest in the Castle, but either way you're not having it.

"God, you're annoying." There was a pause before they opened their mouth again, and you rolled your eyes. "No please, by all means, continue to share your lack of taste with the rest of us."

You disassemble this dumbass, starting small with comments about their personality (trying to keep it classy), but escalating the more they choose to double down on the comments.

Alcina comes back into the room to find you practically screaming at this asshole.

"Look, all you have accomplished here today is revealing that you are a fundamental disappointment on every possible level. My life is worse now that I've heard you open your mouth, you disrespectful, shit licking worm fucker."

Alcina is stunned. You do not give off "aggressive guard dog" vibes at all, yet here you are defending her tooth and nail. While she had seen brief moments of your inner strength and protective streak (mostly towards her daughters) she just...never thought you would do the same for her.

It's not because she doesn't trust you or love you! But nobody has ever done something like this for her before? Ever? She's never had anyone try to protect her--not physically, and not even verbally. She's been so independent for so long that it's... Strange to see you support her so openly.

She doesn't need you to do this for her, she doesn't even expect it, but you do it anyway for no other reason than the fact that you love her. You want people to give her the respect she deserves.

I'm going to be real here: Alcina has never been closer to swooning before in her life. You're overcoming your shyness because you believe in her so much-- it's not a gesture meant to be romantic, but Alcina can't help but see this as a massive statement of your commitment to her.

Seriously. This is such a massive thing for her that if proposals weren't already on her mind, she is mentally picking out a ring for you the minute this happens.

Then, of course, she glides into the room, kisses you until you're breathless and babbling, and smirks at the unfortunate peon who thought they could get away with insulting House Dimitrescu.

She's in such a good mood that she's considering going easy on the idiot. Maybe removing their tongue would be enough of a warning?

Donna Dimitrescu

You don't really know how it's possible but apparently some people don't like Donna Beneviento? Some people think she's scary and unpleasant????

Wild. Can't imagine what that's like.

The two of you are honestly the sweetest, most toothrottingly adorable couple-- blushing when you hold each other's hands, sneaking glances at each other across rooms, giving each other kisses and forgetting whatever was on your mind...

Honestly, anybody who's critical of your relationship with your girlfriend is just a hater. Fuckers can pound sand😤

Still, you are pretty shy, so it takes a lot for you to defend yourself if someone comments about you. It can take a lot of courage to stand up against rude remarks, and sometimes it's easier to walk away.

Defending Donna, on the other hand?

The minute someone even thinks about dismissing her, you are ready to throw hands.

"My lovely girlfriend already said no, meaning you're either deaf or too stupid to pick up on simple social cues," you purse your lips and give the rude and pushy Villager a patronizing once over. "You and your opinion are equally useless. Get the fuck away from us."

Donna blinks.

She... Was not expecting this??? At all?? You're so nice! You always tell her about your attempts to avoid confrontation! What's going on??? How did you get the guts to say what she's always wanted to say?

Meanwhile, Angie is LIVING.

The little doll chimes in to assist you with the verbal homicide, working as a tag team to absolutely murder this moron. She's half partner, half hype man, and is so excited to do this with you. Normally, she has to protect Donna all by herself, but she's relieved and reassured that you stepped in first.

'USELESS IS TOO NICE, THOUGH! THAT IMPLIES THEY AREN'T A POINTLESS, RANCID, LONELY FREAK. THEY LOOK LIKE THEY CRY WHEN THEY MASTURBATE.'

You high five Angie, still glaring daggers at the unfortunate villager.

The two of you continue to ream into the villager, while Donna hovers nearby.

As surprised as she is, she's also grateful. She's only really ever had Angie to help shield her from insults and disrespect (and occasionally inducing horrifying hallucinations that make people claw off their own skin), but having you in her corner makes her feel safe.

Not to get totally sappy, but you're like her knight in shining armor in a lot of ways. And the fact you two are so similar is really motivating-- She wants to one day be confident enough to return the favor. Until then, she's happy to watch her two favorite people have fun insulting some stranger ❤️

Salvatore Moreau

With you being so shy, Salvatore is surprised how often he takes the lead in your relationship.

He's not normally all that outgoing, but you seem to bring out a side of him that's very protective. Whenever you have a bad day he wants to bundle you up and keep you safe from the world.

If he so much as holds your hand you start stuttering and avert your gaze. It creates a feedback loop where you both get flustered, but Moreau has never felt steadier. Despite your shyness, you make sure he knows how much you love him.

You're sweet as pie and twice as kind--Salvatore is the luckiest man in the world, nobody can convince him otherwise 💕💕

So it comes as a total shock that when a passing fisherman spits in your path and calls him a freak, your entire demeanor does a 180.

Your posture straightens and you look the villager dead in the eye, "I don't believe anyone asked your opinion."

Salvatore: 😳

This is not the time, and he totally knows it, but, uh, something about your tone??? Really does it for him???

While he's attempting to process why exactly he's starting to short circuit, you proceed to verbally shred this person to bits with clinical efficiency-- nothing is off limits.

They might try to defend themselves, but it's useless. You do not let up.

"Ugly? Monster? Bitch your teeth are throwing gang signs, don't throw stones from your shining glass house."

You insult their appearance, what they're holding, their smell-- you get so fucking mean that you might even make them cry.

Moreau is just lost right now, trying hard to figure out how exactly you were able to gain all of this confidence so quickly.

He's not upset! In fact he's very flattered! But, he also doesn't want you to get into a fight with some unimportant stranger. (After all, if they so much as throw a punch, they're straight up dead. Moreau is a patient man, but he's not that patient. You do not hurt his partner and live to tell the tale.)

He may a healer but...

Eventually he steps between you and the fisherman in an attempt to deescalate the situation, but you just kiss him on the cheek and step around him, determined to make your point.

Blushing hard, Moreau lets you do what you want. What can he say? Fish man likes himself a protective partner 💞

Karl Heisenberg

Magnet Man is not the most social guy to begin with, so any opportunities you have to stick up for him are already pretty slim.

He mostly knows you as the shy, sweet, easily flustered partner that lets out a cute squeak every time he sneaks up to hug you from behind.

Karl's honestly happy just to spend time with you all alone in the Factory. It's not the best or healthiest mindset, but he'd be perfectly content to only ever see you for the rest of his life. Spending time with anybody else feels like a boring waste in comparison.

But occasionally, you do head out into town with him. Heisenberg wants you to be safe so he doesn't do it often, but running errands with you is a weakness of his. It's domestic in a way that he's never experienced before.

He likes it ❤️

What he does not like is the shopkeeper starting to give their opinions on the quality of your relationship with him.

Most insults Karl will let slide because he doesn't particularly care. However if anyone makes a comment on how scared (shy) you look around him, how you must be being threatened into being with him, how poorly Lord Heisenberg is treating you...he won't stand for it.

But before his fingers can even twitch towards his hammer, you snap.

"You're clearly the blindest cocksucker I've ever met--so wipe the cum out of eyes and mind your own fucking business."

Karl does a double take.

He's heard you curse before, but quietly. The words coming out of your mouth are WILD right now, he has NEVER seen you so angry. You're defending him with the aggression of a wild animal, and it's simultaneously HILARIOUS, but for some reason he's also getting a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest?

He doesn't need you to protect him like this, but seeing you blatantly argue how much you love and cherish him in public reassures him in a way he didn't know he needed.

Still, hearing you call the shopkeeper "shit for brains" is the funniest thing that's happened in years.

Heisenberg starts laughing, and the more you shout at the idiot, the harder he laughs. Is it weird how hard he wants to kiss you right now?

Eventually, he just has to drag you away, cackling as you continue to shout insults at the unfortunate shopkeep. There's got to be an alley around here for some good old fashioned privacy 💕

[audreydoeskaren]

do you know Chinese symbolism for homosexuality?

tw homophobia, pedophilia

Hi again, for gay men there are a couple really well known ones but I’m not sure if they were real or fabricated, because all the articles describing them always cite the same couple sources from Antiquity... I tried to verify them but the only articles that didn’t copy and paste from the same source came across as extremely homophobic, so I decided to give up. The most common and reliable one is probably 断袖 or “cut sleeve”, which I mentioned in a previous ask. I would like to use this opportunity to talk about some tangential but more important topics regarding homosexuality in China though.

As a followup to my previous ask where I said I'd look through some Ming and Qing novels to see how homosexuality was perceived at the time, the conclusion I (unfortunately) came to was that homophobia was very much alive and well in Chinese literature and society. A lot of people like to argue that gay people fared pretty well in China historically by either pointing to emperors who were or were rumored to be gay or time periods where gay sex was prevalent as a form of consumption. This is extremely shallow and also kind of Orientalist in my opinion, these arguments always go for the emperors and do not take nuance into consideration or dive into wider societal discourses on homosexuality in imperial China. If you research homosexuality in Europe by only looking at royalty, you’ll find plenty of homosexual behavior too, does that mean gay people had it very easy in Europe historically?? Not to mention that they usually don’t differentiate between dynasties, let alone centuries or decades, even though public opinion on homosexuality in China (or anywhere in the world tbh) could change very quickly. This is also sort of Orientalist, assuming “imperial China” to be a never changing entity with a never changing stance on homosexuality. Since I know nothing prior to the Ming Dynasty I’ll share some of my random findings on homosexuality and homophobia in the Ming, Qing and 20th century.

Gayness as disease

Nowadays the symbol of the cut sleeve is just a benign historical allusion but historically it seems that it was used in a negative and condemning sense, implying that people thought of homosexuality as a disease or deviation from the norm. The common phrase used for the cut sleeve is "断袖之癖", usually translated as "the passion of the cut sleeve" nowadays, but the meaning of the word 癖 here leans more toward "fetish", "obsession" or "hobby" with pathological connotations. I thought maybe this word had a different, nuanced meaning historically but it seems that it was used to describe what it means :(( The only silver lining is probably that with the progression of language it isn’t offensive anymore.

In a lot of popular novels from the Ming and Qing, homosexuality was depicted as a "perversion" and a decadent lifestyle that plagues morality, and gay characters were often either killed or straightened out by the end of the story. An example of this is the story 黄九郎 Huang Jiulang from the series 聊斋志异 Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by 蒲松龄 Pu Songling written in the 17th century. In this story, one of the protagonists was gay; he died after confessing his love to the other guy in a very fast paced bury your gays arc which somehow reminded me of the Supernatural finale, and reincarnated as a straight man because of his piety. Thanks I hate it. Pu uses the symbol of the cut sleeve to refer to the protagonist, presumably in a negative manner.

Gayness as power/status symbol

Another thing was that historically in China a lot of people confused homosexuality with pedophilia. This is a global thing, but its presence in China is often overlooked. This could be seen in the popularity of another term for homosexuality, "娈童", meaning something similar to "pederasty". I read somewhere that since the late Ming, pederasty was considered a type of tasteful consumption for high society, along with things like fashion, food, music and art. This was not equivalent to the "cut sleeve" or homosexuality as we know it nowadays, which refers to a personal sexual orientation, pederasty historically often refers to an imbalanced power dynamic where a wealthy, privileged man takes advantage of a young boy as a leisurely activity. It’s more to show off that someone in a position of privilege and wealth has the power to procure sexual objects, gender and age don’t matter much in this regard. I cannot help but cringe violently whenever someone brings up pederasty as proof of China’s historical “openness” toward gay people. Talk to me again when in this time and place you could marry someone of your sex (not a minor) and be considered a respectable couple instead of two jerks with a degenerate fetish (not saying that gay people have to marry, it’s just that the ability to do so is an important indicator of equality imo). Pedophilia and homosexuality are not one and the same good heavens.

I hypothesize that the reason why Chinese society was historically homophobic despite having no religious condemnation of homosexual individuals was the idea that having many concubines and male children was a status symbol for men. Women of marriageable age were seen more or less as commodities and male children could supposedly "continue the bloodline" 传香火 and were vessels for passing down prestige, so having them were of utmost importance to a privileged man. Being just gay or lesbian, however, meant that you didn't perform the "man strong working woman weak making babies" heteronormative family prototype, and was thus prone to criticism. When gay men didn’t have children they “couldn’t continue their bloodline” and were emasculated, when gay women didn’t have children they failed to “fulfill their duties as a woman” and were shamed.

It kind of makes sense considering how being bisexual was never a problem in comparison, especially for men. If you were a rich guy who had both male and female partners, you would still have children and concubines both male and female so nobody gives a shit. Emperor Zhengde of the Ming (reign 1505-21) was presumably bisexual and had both male and female lovers, nobody had a bone to pick with that; he famously liked to fuck around but those who criticized him did so for his debauchery instead of focusing on the gender of his partners.  This is different to homophobia in Europe where same sex attraction was considered evil and immoral in and of itself because of religious reasons, in China it was rather the other practical implications of homosexuality (not having children or a family) that attracted hate.

By the way can we just take a moment to talk about bi erasure in Chinese history. From all accounts of Emperor Zhengde I’ve read he comes across as extremely bisexual, but a lot of people try to make him a gay icon? I mean, he liked women too.

One interesting homophobic angle in ye olde China which I find kind of funny was straight women who wanted to climb the social ladder by marrying rich men talking shit about them after figuring out they were gay lmao. Historically, there were not so many work opportunities for women, so the easiest way to improve social standing was to marry a rich and powerful guy. Not saying that women didn't work, they did but their upward social mobility was restricted because they couldn't enter the imperial examination system which was how men became rich and powerful. This angle is relatively benign and kind of helps illustrate that historical Chinese homophobia was indeed fueled by classism and patriarchy.

Gayness as crime

I used to think that there were no anti-sodomy statutes in China (laws prohibiting sex between gay men), but it turns out that there was one decree in the Jiajing era (1521-67) and one in 1740, and private gay sex was not actually decriminalized until 1957. Same sex marriage is still not legal in China at time of writing. I couldn’t find detailed information on what these laws entailed or how they were enforced, but they’re enough to prove that homosexuality in China was legally punishable from the 16th century onward. On top of that, even when there was no law prohibiting private sex acts between people of the same sex, displays of gay affection such as kissing or holding hands could still be legally punished under “public indecency” or “hooliganism”, which was frequently what happened in the 20th century. 

[queenshelby]

My Friend’s Father (Part Eleven)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Age Gap, Smut, Domestic Violence, Angst

Words: 1,566

Please comment and interact…it’s what keeps this blog going

***************************

‘Jesus Amalie’ Cillian gasped as he pulled away from her in less than a second, causing Amalie to display some form of disappointment.

‘This is inappropriate. I think you realise that’ Cillian then said calmly before telling Amalie to cover up. He didn’t want Denise to walk in on them and get the wrong idea.

‘I am sorry. I thought that, perhaps, you might be attracted to me. Most men are’ Amalie said a little surprised but without any hesitation at all, causing Cillian to cock an eyebrow.

‘Well, I am not. Sorry’ Cillian said, shaking his head in surprise about her bluntness.

‘Sure? Because it could stay between us, you know? Even if you have someone, that’s fine with me’ Amalie said, running her hands over Cillian’s chest.

‘I am sure Amalie and I am going to be straight to be honest with you. Even if I wasn’t seeing anyone else, I wouldn’t be interested, alright?’ he said firmly, moving her hands away from him and causing Amalie to nod.

‘I am sorry’ she then said, causing Cillian to chuckle.

‘Alright…have a good night, okay?’ he then said, almost amused by the situation, before walking into his bedroom.

***

By the point he walked into his bedroom, his phone had gone off four times already as you had decided that you were bored.

You had sent him one picture after another followed by a question.

“Which set of lingerie should I wear for you when you get here on Friday? Xx” you texted, causing Cillian to gasp and stare before picking up the phone and call you.

“You are killing me with those pictures you know that?” he whispered and you couldn’t help but laugh about his reaction. You were still wearing lingerie in all of the photographs you had sent him and, yet, he was clearly turned on by them.

“I am sorry, I just can’t wait to see you again” you responded and Cillian was quick to tell you that he couldn’t wait either before informing you about what happened with Amalie.

“I don’t blame her, you know” you told him before reminding him on the night you seduced him rather bluntly as well.

“That was a little different though” Cillian chuckled but you didn’t think that it was different at all. In fact, the situation was quite similar and the only difference was that the feeling of attraction between you and Cillian was mutual.

“If you wouldn’t have me, would you have…?” you asked and, before you could finish your sentence, Cillian interrupted you.

“No, she’s not my type at all” Cillian said without hesitation.

“So, what is your type then?” you asked curiously.

“Intelligent women, who are down to earth and funny and, of course, there needs to be physical attraction too and, whilst Amalie is pretty, she’s lacking something…for me at least” he explained quietly so that no one could hear.

“Good” you said, before asking him about his choice of lingerie again and he outright told you that he didn’t care because, whatever you choose to wear, would come off rather quickly anyway.

Matters escalated from there and, after talking about Amalie’s actions, you reached the point where you felt as though you needed to mark your territory in some way.

*** Phone Sex ***

You: So, once the lingerie comes off, what would you do to me?

Cillian: I think I would want spend an extraordinary amount of time in between your legs, making love to you with my tongue.

You: Hmm, you are so good at that too. I honestly can’t wait Cillian. I might need to pleasure myself tonight just at the thought of it

Cillian: It drives me wild thinking of you pleasuring yourself, especially without me there. So, are you going to?

You: Already started.

Cillian: That was quick.

You: I told you earlier, I'm in the mood. There is no stopping me.

Cillian: Are you naked?

You: I am naked on your bed with my fingers inside my pussy.

Cillian: Do you have a vibrator?

You: Maybe.

Cillian: That’s a yes…use it.

You: Are you naked?

Cillian: Not yet.

You: Take off your clothes.

Cillian: Alright.

You: Are you hard?

Cillian: I’ve been hard for a while.

You: Stroke your cock for me.

Cillian: Already started. Have you found your vibrator yet?

You: Yes, can’t you hear it buzzing away?

Cillian: Is it deep inside you?

You: As far as it'll go. Circling around inside me. It feels lovely. But your cock would feel so much better inside me.

Cillian: Fuck babe, I can just imagine what you look like spread out across my bed with your vibrator inside you.

You: Do you want a picture?

Cillian: You know I do.

You: Alright, keep stroking your cock for me and I will send you one.

[Sent Picture]

Cillian: Fuck.

You: I knew you would like it. Now tell me, what would you do to me if you found me on your big bed like this?

Cillian: I would get rid of the vibrator and replace it with my tongue and fingers.

You: Ummhh. Sounds nice. I'd like that.

Cillian: And I'd keep licking until you tell me to stop because you can’t take it anymore.

You: Then what?

Cillian: I'd move up to put my cock in your mouth and make you take in all the way.

You: Oh. I'd like that. I'd suck it well.

Cillian: You would.

You: You know you are the first man I ever did this with?

Cillian: Seriously? You are a natural talent then and I feel very privileged. In fact, that just turns me on even more, being the first man you did this with.

You: There is a lot of things I want to try with you that I haven’t done before.

Cillian: Like what?

You: I want you to tie me up one day and have your way with me. Then maybe some spanking too. Maybe even anal sex, let’s see.

Cillian: Jesus Y/N. I can’t wait to do all these things with you.

You: Oh god, me neither. Are you still playing with yourself there?

Cillian: Of course. You?

You: Yes…I am very close too but my vibrator just died.

Cillian: Take it out.

You: I did.

Cillian: Is it very wet?

You: It actually is. The whole shaft. I must be very aroused.

Cillian: I want you to lick it.

You: Seriously?

Cillian: Yeah, do it for me. It’s a big turn on.

You: Alright.

Cillian: Tell me what it tastes like.

You: Like my pussy I would imagine.

Cillian: So it tastes pretty good then.

You: It's not gross. It's very wet.

Cillian: Is your pussy free now?

You: It is.

Cillian: Slide your fingers in?

You: Okay. Here they go.

Cillian: Slide them in and out, nice and deep. Your fingers should be soaking by now.  

You: Hmm, fuck I am so wet Cillian.

Cillian: Good. Keep fingering yourself. Hard and deep. Plunge them right in there and then I want you to take your fingers out and suck them for me.

You: So good, but I would much rather lick my juices of your throbbing cock.

Cillian: Your mouth would certainly feel so much better around my cock than my hand does.

You: Tell me what you would be doing if your cock was in my mouth right now.

Cillian: I think I would want to cum in your mouth. It’s so fucking sexy when you swallow my cum.

You: God, I love the taste of your cum. But the problem is that, you cumming in my mouth makes me want your cock even more.  

Cillian: Fuck, just the thought of cumming in your mouth is too much Y/N.

You: Are you close?

Cillian: So fucking close.

You: Me too. Oh god…fuck.

****

With those last words, you came in unison, moaning into the phone as you were talking to each other. You were fingering your pussy hard and fast while Cillian was stroking his cock thoroughly, seeking his realise.

‘Jesus I think I made a mess on your bed’ you said, breathing heavily as you came down from your high.

‘I wish I could have seen it’ Cillian gasped, also trying to catch his breath.

‘I will give you your own personal show on Friday’ you then said just before you heard the doorbell ring.

You were worried to open the door, not knowing who it was and Cillian wasn’t expecting anyone.

‘Just go to the door and see who it is. If anyone asks, you are a friend of Denise and I let you stay there’ Cillian suggested while he was staying on the phone, somewhat nervously and curious at the same time.

   Tag List:

@lilymurphy03@deefigs @theflamecrystal @desperate-and-broken @weepingstudentfishhorse @livinginfantaxy @rosey1981 @atomicsoulcollecto @peakyboyslover @nerdy4itall@elenavampire21 @hanster1998@mariapaiva13 @fairypitou @harry-is-your-sunflower @zozeebo @lauren-raines-x @kasaikawa @littlewierdalien @sad-huffle-nerd @theflamecrystal @peakymalfoyscullymulder @themissthang@0ghostwriter0 @stylescanbeatmyback @1-800-peakyblinders @datewithgianni @momoneymolife @ntmynouis @lilymurphy03 @mcntsee@cloudofdisney@missymurphy1985 @peakymalfoyscullymulder @otterly-fey @janelongxox @uchihacumdump @basiclassy @being-worthy @chaotic-bean-of-smolness @margoo0 @chocolatehalo @vhscillian @ysmmsy @littlewierdalien @crazymar15  @stickyknightflowerbailiff @im-constantly-fangirling @goldensunflowe-r  @tellingyouastory  @captivatedbycillianmurphy​  @namelesslosers​  @littlewhiterose​  @ttzamara​  @ttzamara @cilleveryone  ​

@peaky-cillian​

@severewobblerlightdragon​  @ysmmsy​ @kpopgirlbtssvt

[luvyanfei]

with a short & insecure s/o (hcs)

ft. xiao, kaeya, zhongli, & xingqiu requested by anon

this,,, this is me

xiao. 

he’s appalled when he finds out people actually tease you for your height. xiao has always known how terrible humans can be, but to think they would attempt to tear someone down, specifically his lover, just because they’re considered small irate him to no end. you might want to hold on to him tightly before he can storm off and declare war on the bullies who dared to torment you in any way. 

he honestly doesn’t care if you’re short or tall, ugly or pretty - your appearance isn’t what’s important here. he fell in love with you for what’s inside of you, don’t forget that, okay? xiao may not outright say all that because he’s embarrassed of showing his soft side to you, but if your insecurity gets the better of you, he’ll at least lend an ear to you as you rant to him while stargazing together. 

however, what xiao despises more than others treating you poorly is you belittling yourself. he has zero tolerance for that kind of attitude and will react quite aggressively, gripping you by the shoulders and shaking you. he can’t help himself. it hurts him deeply, dare he say more than a stab to his heart, seeing you wallowing in self-hatred. he’s harsh, but he means well. xiao would much rather see a content smile on your face than having you look disconsolate. 

“have you finally stopped your wailing yet?” xiao peers at your face drenched in tears in disinterest, but really, he’s pretty concerned on the inside. your sobs have been reduced to quiet sniffles, but your body won’t stop trembling. he looks away for a minute, sighs heavily, and pulls you into his arms, a blush coating his cheeks. 

he stays silent the whole time, too nervous to do anything really, as your palms press against his chest lightly and will yourself to calm down. xiao clears his throat and brings a finger down to brush away the glistening tears from your eyes. 

“look, just because you’re short, it doesn’t mean i don’t like you any less,” he whispers only for you to hear, and presses his lips to your forehead, letting it linger there for a few seconds. “even if you, or anybody else, don’t think you’re worthy enough, i at lease still care about you, so don’t let others’ opinions get to you.”

kaeya.

not to be blunt or anything, but kaeya being, well kaeya, he’s probably going to relentlessly tease you. he doesn’t do it because he harbors any ill-intent towards you. it’s just, kaeya is very fond of your flustered expression. if you happen to end up crying from his words, he’ll immediately stop and apologize guiltily. the last thing he needs is for you to abandon him too because of a fault on his end. 

kaeya really does love you a lot, despite your flaws and silently admires you for your empathy and altruism. one good thing about being shorter than your boyfriend is that you can wear his clothing on and he’ll be a gushing mess in no time. he’ll purposefully place his jacket somewhere for you to find in hopes you’ll put it on. he may be doing this just for the purpose of having fun, but he likes knowing that it means you're comfortable and accepting in your relationship with him. 

he likes patting you on the head when you pass by each other at random times, his lips curling in a knowing smirk. if you ever need help obtaining items that are out of your reach, kaeya will conveniently be there to lend a hand. it fuels his confidence how you always go to him for help instead of seeking support from someone who might be more reliable. it goes to show that your trust in him is deep. 

“having difficulties, [name]?” kaeya hollers to gain your attention as you look down from the ladder to glance at the knight, your hand outreached to grab at the material you need with failed attempts. “allow me to be of service~” 

he gestures for you to climb down and gets up the ladder himself, easily grasping the object in his fingers. once his feet has touched the ground, he lowers his hand to give it to you, but before your fingertips can make contact with it, he pulls it away from you. "ah ah ah~ shouldn’t i get some kind of a compensation for helping my dearest?” you stare at him in confusion before an idea plants itself in your head. ah. so that’s what he wants. with a roll of your eyes, you stride up the ladder till your eyes meet and kisses him on the lips. 

as you push your body away from him, he gives a closed-eye grin and nods in satisfaction. “that wasn’t too bad, now was it?” kaeya finally hands you the item, but he grips your free hand in his and guides it to press against his warm cheek. “you should realize by now what you’re capable of doing, stealing my heart like this. you’re so cruel [name], but perhaps that’s why i’ve grown to love you.” 

zhongli.

zhongli is an honest and good-natured man. he’ll immediately tell you that he doesn’t think to care about your height, so there’s no reason for you to worry about it either. he’s not an idiot though. he’s aware that your self-deprecating thoughts won’t disappear so easily with his consoling words alone. actions speak louder than words, after all. 

if anyone ends up insulting you for your size, zhongli won’t hesitate to politely stand up for you. although, if they stubbornly persist in demeaning you, it’ll push him to the brink of indignation, but he’ll still attempt to keep up a courteous manner for your sake as he calmly tells them to back off. like kaeya, he loves it when you wear his clothing! he’s lived for a long time to see many things, but witnessing you cuddling him while his jacket is draped snugly over your body has got to be the cutest thing he’s seen yet. 

ever the supportive individual, zhongli will help you come out of your shell and build up on your self-esteem. he’s there with you every step of the day, so if you ever slip and feel like you’re about to fall into an abyss of despair, he’ll take your out-stretched hands in his and guide you back into the light. 

“[name], is something the matter? you look as if you’re bothered by something.” zhongli questions innocently, studying your face carefully. your eyes droop slightly, but you reassure him that you were pondering how it would feel like if you were as tall as him. he nods in understanding and brings a hand up to his chin in thought. 

before you know it, he’s turned his back towards you and kneeled down. perplexed, you stare at him, unsure of what he’s doing. “you said you desired to know what it’s like to be around my height, so this is the only thing i can think of.” hesitantly, you place your hands on his shoulder blades to balance yourself and he makes sure to hold onto you tightly as he stands up slowly. you smile in appreciation at zhongli’s consideration over your feelings and presses your body closer to his. 

he beams back at you, sealing a kiss to your lips. “if you ever feel down, remember that there’s at least one person in the world that loves you - one of them being me, of course.” 

xingqiu.

he also reacts similar to kaeya, although his teasing is slightly toned down and less vocal. like, if you wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek, he might lean away from you and probably use a stool to make himself taller, but he’ll stop after a bit of fun and laughter. it’s not funny unless both of you are smiling, right?

he finds your short stature to be one of your charm points and will compliment you for that, calling you adorable and such. it’s kind of perfect for him because he likes being the big spoon, embracing you from behind and nuzzling his face against the back of your neck. if you’re around the same age as him, it’s alright! there’s still time for you to grow. he’s sure the both of you will be tall soon. there’s no judgement when you’re with him, so don’t be afraid of being yourself around xingqiu, alright? 

if he finds out your confidence is still lacking, he’ll scribble down a list of all the things he loves about you for you to read to lift your spirits up! although, that might prove to be a challenge considering his handwriting is infamously known for being illegible. 

“hmm... isn’t that the picture we took at liyue harbor together?” xingqiu observes the photo in your hand, reminiscing the fond memories. his honey irises flicker to you. “hey, what’s with the frown?” 

you shake your head and tries to change the subject, but he presses on to persuade you into explaining. when you finally do, he bursts into a fit of laughter, wiping away the tears pricking the edge of his eyes. “i apologize for my behavior, but [name], you shouldn’t have to concern yourself with such a trivial matter.” he tucks away a stray strand of your hair behind your ear, his index finger ghosting over your lips. 

“have i ever told you that you’re cute?” xingqiu murmurs, a sense of genuine compassion laced in his tone. “don’t stare at me like that, please. i’m quite serious, so there’s no need to compare yourself with me. no matter the height difference, i’ll always love you - if you’ll allow me too. 

tagging. @liliisacutieowo, @scarymoosh