#you know. children. not FULLY GROWN ADULTS. even if there is an age gap THEY ARE STILL ADULTS

[magpod-confessions]

I think the fandom should just chill for one fucking second

I’ve been sent three separate death threats all calling me a pedophile for drawing ship art of

EricMichael

OgEliasMichael

And GerryMichael

I can’t fucking do this anymore

What do people want from me, who am I supposed to ship my blorbo with if apparently all of the ships are pedophilloic???

🗣️

.....what on gods green earth. Christ ppl need to chill wth. Ok @ the fandom

HARASSING SOMEONE OVER A GODDAMN SHIP WHERE NOBODY HAS A CANON AGE AND THE TIMELINE IS ALL OVER THE PLACE IS NOT THE WAY TO GO AND YOU ARE THE PROBLEM

You are not helping anything youre just being a massive dick and I hope you trip over a rock. Your welcome

[litnerdwrites]

About the dancing chapter...

I agree 100% with this comment by the amazing @deathbealady (no seriously, I didn't even realise how similar this situation was to Mor's) and I wanted to use it as a jumping off point to talk about Eris Vansera. To be clear though, I like fanon Eris and am currently undecided about canon Eris, for reasons I'll explain later.

For now, we can start with the IC asking Nesta to try and seduce Eris. I refuse to believe they weren't given this idea by Elain, either because she volunteered Nesta outright, or because she put the idea of using Nesta's artistic passions that, at this point, they know were effectively weaponised by her mother, to seduce an older male with the idea of marriage.

Either way, the fact that the IC knew what Nesta's mother had done, and decided to take advantage of it without ever asking what she thought of it, or what she might like, despite it being the same thing done to Mor when she was Nesta's age, if not younger. It's made especially worse given that Nesta likely feels unable say 'no' to the IC, because if she does, she'd likely be threatened with Elain being made to do it.

If that isn't bad enough, and I wouldn't be sure if it could get worse if I wasn't about to tell you why, then we can take a look at the age gap between Eris and Nesta. I've heard people argue that it's fine, since they're both consenting adults, but I think that the term 'adults' needs to be redefined. Humans are considered adults at the age of 18 or so, but only have a fully developed frontal love at 25. Meanwhile, fae are considered adults by the age of about 50 to 80 (with the latter being the age that a High Lord can be named such, but some people say it's 50). This has some pretty serious implications.

Starting with the fact that if females in Illyria and the CON are married off/wings clipped when they have their first period, which seems to be from around the same time human women have theirs, to 18 if they try to prevent it through medication, then they aren't adults themselves. They aren't even half way there in the (I don't want to say mild, best case, better or anything like that case because it's all messed up) cases where the woman is 18 or so. It also implies that a fae female's frontal lobe isn't developed until she's over fifty, since we don't have evidence to suggest the contrary.

Just because Nesta was almost 25 when she became fae doesn't make it alright either. Given that her aging must have slowed astronomically when she was turned, it's fair to assume it would have a huge impact on maturity and brain development. Which means the Archeron sister's in general might have serious gaps in the way their brains develop, especially Feyre, since she was resurrected and her body changed. It might even be slightly different for Nesta and Elain since they were killed, pulled apart and put back together in the cauldron.

Since it was the cauldron, there's a chance that their brains were also changed to be like fae, but either way, both possibilities and scenarios come back to the same answer: The Archeron Sisters are still mentally children, and will likely remain so for several decades longer, perhaps even longer than regular fae due to the unprecedented and irregular nature of their existence.

This brings me back to the subject of Nesta and Eris. He is a grown adult many centuries older than Nesta, with frontal lobe development and centuries of experience. Nesta is barely even half way to being an adult, while he is over 500. Moreover, the IC believe that Eris is a monster.

Now, I'm well aware that there's likely more to the issues between Eris and Mor than what we've seen. Between Eris's own words regarding 'circumstances' that he wouldn't explain, to the narrative going out of his way to show us good parts of him. Such as the way he moved to protect his mother at the HL meeting, and how he let his own father torture him but still protected the IC's secrets and took the unnecessary verbal abuse from Cassian. There's even the fact that Eris simply lets others believe him to be the villain, and let's Mor control the narrative for her own comfort, as opposed to spilling whatever happened, even if it would, somehow, absolve him.

Now, to be perfectly clear, there is little Eris could say that would absolve him, truly, of what happened. I acknowledge that he's a victim of his father, however that doesn't mean he can't also be Morrigan's abuser. And yes, even if he didn't touch her, neglect is abuse. Leaving her there for dead, regardless of the reasons, is a messed up thing to do. The categories of victim and abuser are not mutually exclusive.

The narrative wants us, as readers, to question Eri's actions and begin to wonder what happened between him and Lucien and Mor. It wants us to open up to the idea that Eris may not be as bad as he's made out to be, and that there's something more sinister happening, since it puts some level of suspicion on Lucien, Mor and Beron. However, just because that's the story we're being fed as readers, doesn't mean that the characters have the same perspective, or are living the same story, necessarily.

If you think about it, they have no reason to believe that Eris isn't a psycho who abuses woman and would slaughter his brothers to get to the crown. His comment about circumstances does read like an abuser trying to justify his actions with little effort, while giving no real reason, not that one would make up for what the IC believes he did. It's not a good enough reason to absolve him or make him seem like a good person.

He still hunted Feyre down, even though he had no reason to once she and Lucien made it to the Winter Court, and it, logically, would've caused more trouble for Beron if they were caught. Especially since a whole fire fight took place, and it would be easy for Kallias to connect that with autumn citizens, since he didn't know about Feyre's magic. If anything, hunting them at that point would've caused more problems and they'd be better off just telling Beron that Feyre and Lucien were there. A high lady, if Beron acknowledges the title or not, trespassing in foreign lands with a banished son would be enough to raise a fuss about.

He, also, has people who've known him for centuries, from Mor to Lucien (though the latter probably has more accurate info given his connections in various courts, and the fact it's unlikely Mor shared many words with him over 5 centuries) and the fact he's essentially blackmailing the Nc. This is more so an issue of his having certain pieces of information being a cause for the IC to fear what he may do with it, or what might be found out by their enemies if they use torture or a daemati.

I'm not saying, by any means, that I hate him. I think he's actually written better than Rhysand at this point, since unlike Rhysie playing hero, Eris knows he's a terrible person and low key owns it. Whether or not that's subject to change is dependant of SJM's writing in the future. There's a chance she may actually turn him into Rhys 2.0 by pretended he was a good guy all along.

However, regardless of his reasons, he has done so many atrocious things that the IC have no reason to think he's a descent person. Mor clearly hasn't said anything about what happened and, as much as I don't like her, she has no on page motive to antagonise Eris otherwise. That might change later, especially if she's the traitor, but as of now, her behaviour seems understandable, somewhat, based on the version of events that she gives.

Yet, despite all of this, the IC still think that essentially whoring Nesta out to Eris because it suits their goals. Regardless of the risks to Nesta's safety, regardless of how Nesta feels about the matter and and simply going off of Feyre's guesses about how Nesta feels without ever feeling the need to confirm if any of them are accurate to Nesta.

Let me summarise: Rhysand and Feyre, Nesta's own sister, thought it was a good idea to use Nesta's artistic passions to seduce a man that is literally 20 times Nesta's age, letting said man ask for Nesta's hand, and letting Nesta consider accepting despite the IC believing he is a woman torturing psycho that would throw her to the wolves at the first chance if it helped him in the end.

Let's not forget that while Eris may be bit of a grey area for us at the moment, the IC knows that Eris also lives with abusers, like Beron, who'd have no issue using physical violence against Nesta. So even if they thought Eris wasn't a monster for some reason, they'd still be putting Nesta in danger. Especially if Beron is working with the Death God, who wants the trove and is using Bryallin to find it.

Oh, and this was all after Cassian came to the conclusion that Nesta was suicidal, and was sexually assaulted in a vision, if I remember right, while on a life threatening mission in a place the rest of the IC, even Amren, is scared of.

Regardless of what Rhysand says, he allows abusers near enough to his family, or the ones he doesn't care as much about, I suppose, and is seemingly willing to let them marry said abusers if it gets him his goal. Rhysand who was abused. Rhysand who's mother was forced into child marriage.

Rhysand who seems to ignore the fact that the Archeron sisters are children. Children can't consent, if it wasn't clear enough to him already. Also, consent must be informed, and last I checked, Nesta wasn't informed about Eris beyond him being a snake. She isn't given a heads up about how abusive he's believed to be, how he may have to kill/watch you die if his dad decides so, or how he's likely to leave you bleeding out in the woods if you're injured. This is literally what the IC believe he is like and they didn't tell her.

Consent needs to be voluntary. I think it's been well established that Nesta likely doesn't feel like she can make real decisions because of consequences she may face.

He's also completely willing to send a suicidal (you can't argue that he doesn't know since Cassian reports everything to Rhysand, and kind of Feyre, apparently, from her Valkyries to her progress in 'healing'/being brainwashed so there's no reason he wouldn't report that too) into life threatening situations, put them in a place where they could jump to their deaths at any moment, with magic that could provide literally anything but alcohol, and filled with weapons.

To conclude, Eris is a grey area in ACOTAR that, at this point, reads as what Rhysand kind of should've been if SJM didn't make him a good guy for no reason. Meanwhile, this 'good guy' is endangering his sister in law through abuse, emotional blackmail and brainwashing, while putting her in proximity with a known abuser. Might I remind you that she's a minor? With possible developmental gaps. And he's doing it all because her being in danger makes his life easier, and the cousin that the dude abused is going along with this without any issue.

[hyperfixingfr]

I just had a 2 x Cree shipper try to follow me on main so I'm gonna say this bullshit again since grown ass adults can't get the damn point. Content warning for some mentions of weird proshipping stuff. Not in depth.

2 x Cree is a proship/comship. Aside from the disgusting age gap and role Cree has over Hoagie (most likely having babysat him and/or kids his age), she ASSAULTS him. With no reasoning behind it or comedy/playfulness to it. That's two different types of proship: abusive x abused, and authority x controlled. If you wanna say it for what it really is, much younger x much older.

I. Do. Not. Care. What. You. Change. NO ONE WITH A BRAIN DOES. You can't say, "but I made them adults", "but I made Cree nice" and expect people to take you seriously. The fact that you go as far as to change the canon character just to attempt to justify a disgusting ship should make you stop and think. If you need to change an aspect of canon to make it look better, your ship is disgusting and probably wrong. I don't know why you 2 x Cree shippers keep insinuating this makes it okay, because it doesn't. You don't look at siblings and decide, "how about we make them just really close friends so I can ship them!".

Cree is, as far as the canon has told, unwilling to change. She has no intention of it. She has "nice moments" with her sister, but that means nothing when you think about how people who act like that irl do it. They can't be all evil, or else no one would let them into their lives. It's completely unreasonable to change the very key villain aspect just for some stupid ship. If something were to happen in canon where she has a change of heart, then I would retract my statement. But she hasn't. And it doesn't seem like that will EVER happen, because Cree is supposed to be the villain of the Lincoln family. Her tendency to assault him alone makes it weird, but him being a very obvious abuse victim almost seems like a sort of non con justification/abuser support message. He has been hit and berated by his grandmother for at least since Tommy was a baby... His "feelings" for her in the show are most likely a trauma response at most (similarly to how S/A victims suffer from hypersexuality) and at least, they're just because he's confusing his feelings for Abby with Cree.

And that's just one reason why it's a disgusting ship. What makes it even more concerning is the gap. Look, if they met as adults with fully developed frontal lobes (aka 25+), I'd raise an eyebrow but I'd let 4 years slide. But they didn't. They met as little kids. Hoagie had been in the KND for a long while and most likely knew Cree ever since first grade - when she would've been in fifth grade. She has been there to watch him grow four years behind her ever since he was 7 (estimate). Not only that but the one episode implies that Cree frequently babysits for children of Hoagie's age, if not for Hoagie himself. Betty seemed to be extremely familiar with Cree and extremely trusting in her capabilities to babysit, implying it wouldn't have been her first time. Yes... I get that it was a dream. But the dream was also rooted in reality at the beginning. Hoagie thinking of her as someone to babysit him alone should make you feel weird about the pairing being together, even when they're adults. Because even as adults, they'll still have the same connection they had back then. Those connections don't go away. Normal people tend to always think of their babysitter as, well... Their babysitter. They would remember feeling that sort of connection with their babysitter, and vise versa. But even if she wasn't babysitting him, it would still feel weird. They have four years between them (for all we know, it could be closer to five due to uncounted months). That would make Cree in 9th grade (high school) while Hoagie is still in 5th grade (elementary school). That's such a big gap that Hoagie isn't even in the school level behind Cree, which would be middle school. He's so young, he'd still be in elementary school by the time Cree finally goes to high school. And to remind you once more... They know each other very well during this period. I'm sure they see each other frequently due to teens clashing with the KND. That, or visiting Abby and seeing Cree there.

I'm just gonna say it... It's ridiculous to ship them and try to justify it. If you're just proship and like pedo ships go ahead and just say it. I'm not gonna think of you any differently, but saying it out right is better than trying to hide it. There is NO REASON to want to ship them unless you like the problems the ship has. Abby is right fucking there, and she isn't abusive nor too old for him. It's the same family too - come on! If you personally don't ship 2/5 that's fine. But trying to ship 2/Cree instead is almost blatantly saying, "I wish 2/5 was more problematic". Cree is the older, more malicious counterpart of Abby. Aside from that, they're very similar. Cree is literally Abby's foil. There is no reason to think 2/5 isn't your flow, but 2/Cree is... Unless, once again, you like disgusting ships. And none of you hit me with the "but I ship Abby with someone else" because I don't recall anyone in this fandom bashing multishipping or polyamorous relationships. A matter of fact, most people in this fandom think of Sector V as polyamorous. Don't you dare use the fear of a harmless thing such as multishipping to excuse a creepy ship.

The maturity of you 2/Cree supporters/neutrals is shown very clearly through the amount of bashing and hatemail I've gotten from grown ass adults. None of you have acted any more mature than me and that says a lot.

To sum it up... I'm not a shipping wars person. I'm someone who has very reasonable evidence to support my feelings of disgust towards this ship. There's no reason to want to ship it unless you're proship with the existence of a near identical, canon, within normal age range, much more kind and loving character.

[lindszeppelin]

I feel like it’s a PR relationship 100% kaia is using his fame for her own career. Like she did for Jacob elordi when they just so happened to be dating when season 2 of euphoria got released. Same thing when she dated Pete Davidson right when he was blowing up on snl. She needs to stick to modeling truly. I hope it’s just like a two year contract and we will here that they’ve “split up” by January. I’m sure he’s getting paid for it. It’s also so suspicious to me how she apparently started dating Austin not even a month after her split with Jacob when there 1 year anniversary was the month before. I also don’t fully blame her and I’m sure her parents have something to do with it wanting to get her name out there like she isn’t Cindy Crawfords daughter and couldn’t get any role she wanted without dating a man who was trending at the time. I just want Austin to be happy. I also hope she realizes that Austin’s not gonna want to get married for like 2-3 years minimum. He’s gonna wanna work on his career. Doesn’t mean he won’t actually date but he’s not gonna settle down anytime soon. I just want their relationship to be over. I don’t want to hate on Kaia but it’s just so frustrating when she is a literal model because of her mom, she’s an “actress” because of her mom. It’s not for her being her. Like all nepo babies nowadays are successful because of their parents.

First of all thank you for your commentary, anon. You're not alone in how you feel. There are plenty of us that think the same exact way, some just don't always vocalize it, so cheers for being one of them that speaks up on it.

I had quite a nice day today so I'm in a good mood to go a little in depth with my answer right now. And then go back into my little cancer crab shell lol

What's crazy to me is she looked so much more suited and happier with Jacob Elordi. They were always snuggled up to each other and he looks more her speed. If they were PR then they did a very convincing job because he actually looked happy to be loved up on her and to be seen with her, unlike someone we know lol. And she looked happy to be with him. Plus, she actually posted him to her socials and they talked about one another all the time in the papers. So. It's wild the 360 there between Elordi and Austin.

And yes I do remember that she was broken up with him and then 1 month later she was seen with Austin. That's buckwild, and the fact we still do not know at all how they got together in the first place is very strange

But yes to everything you express here. Also the thing with Austin, I feel like he's still focused on his career that i think 2-3 years isn't long enough of a gap to be honest. He was with V for 9 and he never popped the question. This man is dead set serious on his career first. And conveniently so he also uses that as his excellent and genuine excuse to not allow engagement rumors to flame with K, seeing as that died in less than half an hour with a quickness on social.

Let's just be fucking real here, K is not his forever girl. I feel like whenever Austin meets his one true love that he'll marry then he'll be all about it. People are getting married AND having children at older ages now, and while he's only gonna be 32 this year that is still young to where he could wait until mid/late 30s to get hitched. Who knows. The man has plenty of time, he's in no rush clearly. She however is only 21 and she's still a child and she needs more time to mature and grow as an adult with life experience. As a near 30 year old woman I remember how I thought i was tough shit and knew everything at her age and thought i was soooo grown up. But hell no, you're still a kid.

When someone is dying to get married, you have to question the reason why. There could be deep seated insecurities where by a certain age one feels like their clock is ticking and they need to settle down with the next available person immediately. Or maybe it's for security financially, etc. It could also just be desperation in order to feel like you're wanted. I'm looking at V here because she moved on with that Cole guy so quick and got engaged so quick and throws shade to Austin all the time. Still bitter about not being Vanessa Butler lol. But rushing down the isle is a big mistake. Austin's background dictates that he knows 100% the seriousness of a commitment and he will not just marry any woman when he knows divorce could maybe be in his future.

aaaaaand end rant lol. I pray Austin finds the Pam to his Jim one day!

[tmnt-obsessed-ace]

Is SSDF Leo gonna get into a romantic relationship during the story?

Would it be with an established character or an oc?

And what's his sexuality anyways?

This au has me in a chokehold

First of all Im glad you like this au so much

Now the questions

Im heavily considering it and have some ideas...

Skipping question two real quick, Leo is bisexual he just doesnt know it yet, after all he didn't have time to explore and figure things about for majority of his adult life, he was too busy taking care of four children (and far too anxious and depressed to even think about meeting people anyways.)

And back to the second question (and also technically the first) on who I would pair this very tired turtle with (and why I am very hesitant to do this)

Honestly the more likely route would be Leo and Hueso. I think it would be pretty cute, they're both very tired single parents and they've already been close for years. (And the kids would absolutely make jokes about Hueso upgrading from uncle to step dad)

The reason why I am so hesitant to actually go through with this is because I do not want to attract the freaks of the fandom. (You know the ones that ship Hueso with RISE LEO) and I do want people thinking I support that either. Listen to me, SSDF Leo and Hueso are both fully grown ADULTS (Leo being 30 and Hueso being 36, yes an age gap but again THEY ARE BOTH GROWN ADULTS)

But I know for a fact that there would be at least ONE idiot with the reading comprehension of a goldfish that would scream about me being "proship" or whatever and either be a disgusting little freak or accuse ME of being a disgusting little freak. (which is exactly why if I do decide to go this route, it would be a very subtle relationship and I especially wont put that in the relationships tag)

As cute as that would be I am still on the fence about going with that route.

Now the much safer option would be Usagi, go the classic Leosagi route but they're both single parents. (Burb actually suggested awhile ago that Leo's kids and Jennika could try to parent trap their dads together. That would be absolutely hilarious) It would take a longer time to develop considering that Usagi REALLY doesn't like Leo for a long time. (Leo's a ninja, he seemingly abandoned Venus and Jennika to die even though thats not at all true, yada yada yada) so it would be a much more rocky relationship building than the first option. But it would be the option that wouldn't risk me getting as much flack (or possible freaks) but its also the option I have thought about considerably LESS

Idk I'm still going back and forth on which option would be better, or even to include that at all. (Imagine if all three of them got into a poly relationship. The kids would get FOUR dads! That would be very funny)

Sorry if this wasnt the answer you wanted but I hope you enjoy either wau

[septembersghost]

I just went through your blog and was so happy to find out you think TVFN is about harry too. I really agreed with you saying taylor won't describe gellenswift as 'children running'. She tried to be like an adult around him. ATW MV had her trying to look old and mature. Compare it with harry. There is a silliness in hygtg and she even cheekily comments on him in SIO(despite it having nothing to do with harry) which is absent in Red. Plus I don't think tay would write a pop song about a guy who hates pop music to tell him she misses him. WANEGBT was shade and she made it pop because he hates it.Also taylor didn't even break any status quo with Jake the way she did with harry. Noone batted an eye at gellenswift age the way they frowned at haylor.

I know most people point out kitchen reference but Taylor likes kitchen and thinks its romantic. It even appears in cornelia street. It's not a stretch to think that Taylor danced in kitchen with harry too. (It would make fridge light even more interesting because for us it was atw reference but for haylor it was memory).Taylor felt strongly enough to write cbbh and this love about harry after knowing him for like 10 days so she probably missed him.

Also all the songs about jake had an intense feeling that would link back to red(title track). It was driving a Maserati not children running. And Taylor definitely seemed broken hearted after gellenswift unlike haylor 1.0. Jake also doesn't seem like a Polaroid type guy.(I swear I am not tinhat.I don't think atw or last time or anything else in red is abt him)

so i have to fully admit this is bias/my own issue because i know everyone assigns it completely to jg (along with run), and i guess the timing aligns, but it's just a case in my head where i don't like it lmao. it's the only song i feel that way about regarding the inspiration (i think we can safely put cbbh and miab in harry's category), it's just so sweetly nostalgic and has such an innocence to it, and none of the other songs regarding the intensity and passion of the situation with jg have that (not even run, which is maybe the closest). it's such a different emotional palette. there are divided opinions about ikywt/treacherous now (i firmly used to believe both were about jm, then red tv came out and i decided they were about jg all along, then would've could've should've made me ask questions again. and it could easily be that there isn't only one source and she was combining experiences, as she does). i can recognize that the logical answer with tvfn is taylor processing many, many tumultuous issues, and that song was her attempt to capture the relationship in a more pure way, but "i'd pick you up" gives her a kind of specific agency she lacks in moments with jg, and "children running" is curious to me when the crack in the foundation of everything was their age gap and the fact that he weaponized that against her, and that he was so caught in his own ideas of maturity/pretentiousness. she was trying so hard to be grown up, not a child, for him. i've seen it theorized that jg introduced her to polaroids and he just doesn't strike me as that type either (they had a bit of hipster cred at the time, but i still feel like...he's the type of guy who'd expound on the value of real film that has to be developed in a darkroom, you know? this is a man who bought her books he thought she should read and clothes he thought she should wear. polaroids feel too...cutesy? sentimental?...for him). and of course polaroids were the key selling point of the physical copies of 1989, so it just intrigues me.

I don't think tay would write a pop song about a guy who hates pop music to tell him she misses him. WANEGBT was shade and she made it pop because he hates it. this is also something i've pondered since last year. she wrote wanegbt intentionally because he belittled her music, it was designed to be as poppy as possible to rebuke him. ibytam is complete country for a similar reason, and addresses all those ways in which he held himself above her (even down to the city, and his regard for new york being so high above nashville). the phone call theme of red appears in tvfn, but there's an innocence in that specific to tvfn too (whispering on the phone together like kids). the night at the hotel makes me think of perfect. danced in the kitchen is obviously very atw-coded, but kitchens ARE a recurring romantic place, and that particular kitchen was in LA, whereas the atw and maroon dancing takes place in NYC. "every weekend, the same party" can connect to "your cool indie music concerts every week", but breaking the status quo is so...not what happened in their relationship. "back then we didn't know, we were built to fall apart" was before harry came back (this love) and before "we were built to fall apart, then fall back together" in ootw. there are parallels with if i could fly. the lighter silliness of the mood too, that's a good point. i don't know what to say! it fits more for that situation emotionally in my head in spite of the rationality i always try to use!

we will be definitely not tinhats, but merely the very first night appreciators, together.

[rozcdust]

Waste it on me

Pairing: Takeomi Akashi x f!reader

Genre: Crack, SMAU, a bit of angst

Word count: 600ish and pictures

Warnings: Canon divergent, profanity, ooc, sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, age gap (both are consenting adults), suggestive

pt. 1 | previous | pt. 10 | next|playlist

“Here comes the whore~” Baji sang, right next to your ear, in a godawful, out of pitch tone, “Hello whore~ Welcome~”

You groaned, turning in your bed to bury your face in the pillow and avoid the sudden noisy intrusion.

“Why are you here and how the fuck did you get into my house?”

Chifuyu wordlessly hurled a pickpocketing kit at your head, letting out a giggle as it hit you with a thump.

You propped yourself up on your elbows to look at him, your hair a bird's nest and eyes squinted, barely awake, before being inevitably forced back down by Kazutora - the bitch threw himself on top of you.

You groaned, but allowed him to lay his head on your back, arms sneaking to wrap around your ribcage, letting out a silent ‘Ouch’ as Baji and Fuyu joined him, all three of them clinging to you as if their life depended on it.

“It has been 2 days since you went to that event. And you informed us of nothing.” Baji sounded annoyed, his voice muffled by Kazutora’s neck, and you internally rolled your eyes, “Didn’t even show us the outfit! Mitsuya said it was scandalous, so I can bet you looked 10/10, everyone wanting to tap that.”

“Facts, bestie, I looked like a full course meal. And the event was fine.” You murmured out, trying to roll over to your side as to not suffocate on your pillow, but to no avail.

“Just fine?” Chifuyu squinted, suspiciously.

“Told you to not fuck with a Cap.” Baji grumbled, squeezing Chifuyu’s waist.

You let out a dissatisfied screech, not too appreciative about being pressed down by a grown-ass man laying on your back and two at your sides, nor about Baji’s very incorrect assumptions.

Omi was your bitch and no one but you can say shit about him, goddamn it.

“Omi is nice. And hot. His coworkers? Not so much.”

“Yikes. What’d they do?” Kazutora craned his neck to leave a peck on your cheek, grinning at the furrow between your brows.

“Oh, oh, oh, lemme guess!” Chifuyu raised his hand, almost hitting Tora in the face, “They assumed you’re a dumbass and there was some casual misogyny?”

You made finger guns.

“Bingo.”

“Did you play along?”

“Naturally.”

“Ugh, that is so sexy of you bestie, I love the way you gaslight and manipulate men.” Chifuyu moaned, right into your neck.

You smacked him without thinking.

“Did you two fuck yet?” Baji wiggled his eyebrows, absolutely shameless with a self-satisfied expression that truly required a fist to the face.

“Did I fuck your boyfriend yet? Yes.”

“You let your standards drop that low? Yikes, y/n, my condolences. I am so sorry you had to go through that.”

Chifuyu slapped Baji with a scowl, clearly offended.

“You should ask for a car while you ride that dick.” Kazutora muttered in your ear, pressing soft kisses to your neck.

“I’mma have to ask you to get the fuck off of me, Tora.”

He started nipping on your neck as an only response.

Whores, all three of them, I tell you.

Whores.

“Well, y/n, did you?”

You sighed, gently pushing Kazutora away.

“Yes.”

“And?”

You looked up at Baji, fully serious, before pulling the collar of your shirt down, hickeys and bite marks littering your collar bones and chest.

“Ohhhhh, nice.” Chifuyu grinned from behind you, licking a stripe up your neck.

“Ew.” You frowned, scooting your back into Baji’s chest, “Who knows how many unborn children were in that saliva?”

“Many.” Chifuyu grinned, trapping you between himself and Baji.

“What do you think of that Omi guy so far?” Kazutora asked, leaning his chin on Baji’s shoulder.

“He’s hot, and I like his vibe. He’s a patient man. No manipulation or gaslighting yet, but we’ll give him time to improve.”

“Y/n, your daddy issues are showing.”

“Your mommy issues are showing.”

“You take that back!”

“Or you’ll do what? Tell on me to your mum?”

“That is just mean.”

“You two exclusive?” Baji raised an eyebrow, sneaking his hands around your shoulders as he nuzzled his nose against your bruised neck.

“I don’t know.” You looked in the distance, tilting your neck to give Baji better access, “I mean, he’s just a sugar daddy for now. I’ll have to ask.”

All three of them grinned.

“Well then.”

🔖Taglist (open):

@1818cigarettes @babu-haitani @dilf-city @wakasa-wifey @lagrimasdeglitter @kisekihany @missarabellla @bajifairyy @cryszus @r-xochitl @emilywaters @dinve @levistiddies @bxnten @spookydraken @graythecoffeebean @yukihime-mikeys-girl @mukounisuru-gashadokuro @sunahyejin @crybabylisa @yamaguccitadashi @minoozi @gigibobigi @trashmemebitch @frogtits1 @sup-zfam @whydohumansss @xashiui @bontens-whore @nqctre @kennyb0y @chaoticyuna @haitanihime@adeptiixiao @denkis-slut @wakasagurl @mitsurisupremacy @yukimaniac @marrymemanjiro @bajitorasprincess @somniari-94 @haikyuu-simps-assemble @gulfkfl @the-invincible-mikey @lumi-does-some-stuff @hana-patata @snowyseungs @sanzuswh0re @itsyournumber1whore @lem0nsquizy (second taglist in the comments! please let me know if i forgot to tag you 💕)

a/n: I GOT WIFI BITCHES IT’S JUST TRASHY AS FUCK 😭😩 I’MMA END IT ALL ISTG PLS 🥲 also i have a bonten with a neurodivergent s/o in the drafts but ion know how well that will be received 🤧

[nevermindirah]

nile isn't a kid being manipulated by recruiters though she's literally someone who saw that their father was killed in the armed forces and was like "i'm going to do that so i can get a degree" despite knowing what it meant and what could most likely happen. she had more insight and knowledge about what the armed forces do than 99% of the poor fucks being lured in by recruiters, so how can you even possible compare them?

Hi, anon. I'm going to assume you're asking this in good faith because even if you're not then others reading my response might get something out of it. If your message was just to vent your frustration because you or your close people have been targeted by the US military, your need to vent is valid and my response about understanding the reasons why good people join a terrible war machine might be triggering for you, so take care. If you're not personally affected by this and just trying to get a rise out of me, please consider that that's a rude thing to do.

For others following along, I'm guessing this is in response to this post about the power of propaganda and you might want to read that post first.

First of all, while yes, recruiters do often downplay the realities of military service to recruits who aren't already familiar, as detailed in this policy paper from the American Public Health Association, this is a population recruiters are having less and less success with over recent decades. I can compare fictional character Nile Freeman to the real-life people discussed in that post because having significant knowledge of the military through having a family member who served makes young people in the US more likely to join.

There's a stark military-civilian gap in the US: as Pew put it in 2011, "During the past decade, as the military has been engaged in the longest period of sustained conflict in the nation’s history, just one-half of one percent of American adults has served on active duty at any given time." Veterans and their family members are more likely to recommend a career in the military than those without a personal or family history of service.

Here's a NYT piece from 2020 showing that trend has only grown. (The piece focuses on the Army, not the US military as a whole; the Army is the largest branch and I had a hard time finding stats specific to the USMC, which is the second-smallest branch.)

More and more, new recruits are the children of old recruits. In 2019, 79 percent of Army recruits reported having a family member who served. For nearly 30 percent, it was a parent — a striking point in a nation where less than 1 percent of the population serves in the military.

And while it might feel intuitive from the outside that losing a parent to a war would be a good reason not to enlist, research shows the opposite is true. Another 2011 Pew study found post-9/11 veterans who were exposed to casualties during their service were much more likely to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting.

So that's some factual context to get us started. Now let's think about all this from Nile's perspective.

We don't know for sure when she enlisted, but a corporal is an E4 and the USMC typically advances a Marine to the next rank every year (or discharges those who underperform) so we can guess she's been in for about 4 years, meaning she enlisted when she was around 21. That's an adult, absolutely, but a young one. Cognitive development extends well into one's twenties and young adults are much more likely to make impulsive, risky decisions without the level of consideration for long-term consequences that fully mature brains are capable of. Going back to that APHA paper, military recruiters take advantage of this and focus intensely on youth; recruiting adults over age 21 is seen by the US military as an area for potential growth that requires different tactics.

Nile was born in 1994, which puts her at 6 or 7 years old on 9/11. Her dad was killed when she was 11, so probably 2005. And then she enlisted around 2015. She'd been soaking in post-9/11 propaganda for almost the entirety of her living memory. If you weren't living in the US in this era I don't know that I have the words to describe the intensity of the propaganda. The post this ask was probably reacting to is about the effects of post-9/11 propaganda on US-Americans who didn't have family in the military, but for Nile, it all would've been so much more intense. For her it wasn't just the propaganda we all got. It was lionizing her father for his sacrifice. Mourning the fallen hero and honoring his memory.

When Andy says, "You come from warriors," Nile responds, "Yeah. I do." She sounds proud.

It's possible to acknowledge that your parent died on the wrong side of a war that should never have happened, but it takes extraordinary cognitive and emotional skill to do that, especially in an environment where your mom and your church and your teachers and people on the news and just about every adult you meet is telling you that your father was a hero who gave his life to protect us all, especially when you're only eleven years old. It's possible to start unlearning that by age 21, but again, it's very difficult. The costs of failing to unlearn that are very high, of course, for the people of Afghanistan Nile and her real-life counterparts went on to point guns at. It doesn't make US imperialism ok. It does make individuals' choices in this fucked-up system understandable.

The point of the original post was that we don't stop imperialism by shaming people who fall for its propaganda. We stop it by understanding how structural forces make it harder for individuals to make more moral choices. We change structures so that the next eleven year old will hear less propaganda and get more support so that they won't have to fight tooth and nail through extremely difficult cognitive and emotional work at a tender age in order to make non-imperialist career choices.

And if you're not from the US you might not know about another of our propaganda machines that's referenced but not really explained by OP. It's drilled into our heads from elementary school that if you don't get a college degree your only job prospect will be flipping burgers for minimum wage. That's not exactly true of course, but it is much more difficult to make enough money to afford decent housing and healthcare without a college degree here than it might be in other countries. Vocational education is an underfunded mess that varies not just by state but by school district and the few vocational trades that do still pay living wages can be very difficult to enter. One of the few ways to ensure your financial future in the US without a college degree (or a combination of being exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally talented in performing arts, and exceptionally lucky) is— pause for dramatic reveal— the military.

So why join the military to pay for college instead of paying for college a different way? Here's a short but comprehensive explainer about the student debt crisis. Bottom line, the costs of a college degree have skyrocketed while wages have barely grown at all in decades, leaving millions of us on the hook for 20+ years of impossibly high monthly student loan repayments on top of ever-rising rent and insurance premiums for our broken healthcare system and everything else that's an economic nightmare for people who make under $50k (bump that up to $80k if you live in a big city, or like $150k if, God forbid, you make the enormously expensive life decision that is having children). Oh and of course student debt, like nearly all social problems in the US, hits Black people even harder.

This sucks. It all sucks really bad. You don't have to like it. I certainly don't like it. But I can see how Nile, a fictional character written by a white man who to my knowledge never served in the military, as well as real people I've known in my real life would find it a lot easier to get up in the morning if they let themselves keep believing the lies of post-9/11 US imperialist propaganda instead of sitting with the full truth of just how fucked the system is and how few and difficult the avenues are to live even somewhat comfortably without making profoundly immoral choices.

For anyone who'd rather experience these ideas in fanfiction than in this research paper that fell out of me tonight, I wrote exactly such a thing in 2020. It's called I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore.

eta: this post now has a follow-up here about the benefits and costs of shaming people for their harmful choices

[hogoflight]

even wilder thought: HEY SO YOU KNOW HOW BLOOD OFFERINGS AND SUN GODS. HEY. HEY COME BACK.

expanding on this, SURELY we cannot separate Apollo from the sun vampire or not. Actually maybe we could and he writes long lamenting poetry about it. BUT ALSO WHAT IF, he can go out in the sun, BUT as long as he has enough blood (like uhh the equivalent of an eating 3 meals’ worth at breakfast but in vampire??) & sunglasses & hat.

And maybe in return for going out in the sun or maybe just because he wants to he has to go a little feral hunter man at night (not completely werewolf-like, he’s Normal but he still skitters away and hisses. Y’know). he hunts with Artemis who is a werebear? Werewolf? Were-eagle?? (found family twins)! She brings her entire pack(?) / girl gang with her and they all hang out together.

Artemis is learning witchcraft from Hecate who they’ve assigned Married Cousin with kids in college / Older Sister / Aunt and due to conflict or something strictly calls herself Diana when it comes to witch meetings and stuff.

Leto is a completely human old woman who is not suspicious at all. She loves her children (THEY ARE ALL FULLY GROWN ADULTS IN THEIR 20s).

ALSO APOLLO CHARACTER NOTE:

Here Apollo is not teenager insecure this man is a fully fledged immortal (not NEARLY as old as he is in TOA though!) he is weird and bizarre and eccentric in the way you’d expect from an adult immortal in your usual dramatic vampire-y way. He is more constantly loud and speaks too much unless he is nervous and cautious and wary of the people he is talking to. He also misses being woo’d so much.

Much of his character focuses around being intensely frustrated at being stuck young, mentally and physically, as well as not having the brain capacity and emotional maturity to match his experience, awareness and the grief that comes with his age, despite having experienced it a LOT - but this is still early 20s emotional maturity, he is still a fully-functioning adult man, and there is still a gap between what he is (uni student) and what he should / wants to be (hundreds if not thousands of years old). He is very self-aware but still takes things to heart too easily and acts in emotion and is constantly scared of the potential consequences bc past.

He very much used to be your usual evil vampire villain and is now dealing with the consequences and guilt of that and is essentially in hiding / witness protection from all the people he knew when he was a Vampire Lord™️ (aside from Artemis and others ofc). Now he is trying to make himself feel like he’s making up for his past actions by doing what he knew he had always done right, taking care of his children and being a loving dad (even then he’s still very scared that he might accidentally hurt them (unlikely) or be a bad influence (more likely) or something), but obviously he is still not actually making up for what he’s done. So the events of TOA will essentially just be him Actually Doing That. He is so very scared all the time.

Bit of an unhinged one today! :)) VAMPIRE COPOLLO AU WHERE APOLLO KILLS HIM BY DRINKING TOO MUCH OF HIS BLOOD. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE DRAMA. THE MOMENT COMMODUS REALISES WHAT’S HAPPENING AND STARTS STRUGGLING. APOLLO SOBBING AND SOBBING AND SOBBING THE WHOLE TIME. THE TRUST YOU PUT INTO SOMEONE AND THE LOVE YOU MUST BE DROWNING YOURSELF IN TO GIVE YOURSELF TO THEM SO WHOLLY YOU LET THEM DRINK YOUR VERY LIFE IN SUCH A RIDICULOUSLY VULNERABLE WAY. AND ONE DAY. THEY BREAK THAT AND KILL YOU.

[volterran-wine]

I hope that your New Year has been going well so far.

Could you tell me how you think age gaps in romantic relationships work for vampires? I know they exist but just how much do they affect a bond?

As you’ve said, Jane and Alec are eternally tweens and you don’t see yourself writing relationship things for them. Does that mean the age when a vampire was changed matters more than how long they’ve been changed? Do older vampires have complaints when learning that their mate is super “young” and vice versa?

I just can’t help but think how awkward I’d be at my (legal) fetus age with one of the Kings being as old as they are, regardless of what they physically look like.

Thank you for your time~

Hello there Anonymous, how are you on this fine day? The New Year is treating me kindly for now, circumstances considered. While I may not be able to participate in my usual hobbies and pastimes I do have the ability to answer all of my followers interesting questions.

𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐀𝐠𝐞 & 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬

𝙅𝙖𝙣𝙚 & 𝘼𝙡𝙚𝙘 I will briefly touch on the twins, I do not subscribe to the canon mentality of 'Vampires cannot change' that they are mentally stuck in the moment they were turned. They are sentient beings capable of thought so the world will affect them and change their outlook as they live far beyond a normal lifespan. But! Jane and Alec were turned when they were 12/13 years old, your brain is far from being fully developed at that point. While I do think Jane and Alec can sometimes come across as adults in children's bodies (Because they are over a thousand years old, and I find the concept a wonderfully creepy part of vampire lore.), their cognitive abilities are not quite developed the way they should yet.

𝙑𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙨 & 𝘼𝙜𝙚 𝙂𝙖𝙥𝙨 I do think older vampires can experience some growing pains if their mates are significantly younger than they are, especially if they are human as well. For a human couple it can be difficult enough when age gaps are quite substantial, imagine when that age gap includes thousands of years and a whole other species to boot. There is a natural power imbalance there that is difficult to fathom, because you might as well have two people who are from two different worlds. Within my own worldbuilding finding a mate is not a 'love at first sight' thing, it is simply a pull that tells a vampire that they have the potential to have something special with this other person. But if said vampire is from another time, how do you even begin to relate to one another? Finding common ground would be immeasurably difficult, and I can imagine certain vampires would look at their mate almost like a child; for they truly do not understand or see the world as their vampiric mate does. It could work out, but it would take a long time for it to feel normal.

However if we have a vampire that is a thousand years old, and happens to meet their mate who is two hundred; I don't think that would be as big of an issue. I have my thoughts and headcanons about how a vampires mentality and outlook on the world changes drastically their first one hundred years, after that they neutralise in a sense. Of course one of the vampires would have a lot more experience than the other, but they are more on an even playing field in the sense of being comfortable about what and who they are.

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 Personally I cannot begin to wrap my head around what it would be like to be with someone who is hundreds if not thousands of years older than I am. Volterran-Wine is very much a grown adult, but ... a vampire that has seen humanity go from throwing spears at each other to making atomic weapons? That sounds utterly terrifying and I feel like my brain would actually implode.

[notruercolors]

Is Aang and Katara’s Relationship Problematic?

 I know I've got your attention now. Before you just toss this to the side because it's an unpopular opinion and lengthy, let me explain this a bit. I've been on a nostalgia kick the last few weeks and decided to rewatch and reread some of my favorite childhood shows and books. One of the shows I got into rewatching was Avatar: The Last Airbender. I really loved this as a child, and watching it again as an adult, it didn't lose much of its charm for me. However, there is one big elephant in the room regarding The Last Airbender. The relationship is between Aang and Katara. There are four significant elements I want to discuss: the age difference, unhealthy behaviors, how they interact, and why it's unrealistic.       Katara is 14, and Aang is 12 at the show's start. So let's go into why that two-year age gap isn't appropriate for adolescents. A fourteen-year-old has vastly more capacity to reason and emotional intelligence than a twelve-year-old. Even at 14, they still had an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex that deals with risk-taking and reasoning. But a 12-year-old is still a long way from a fully developed brain, and they are just beginning puberty. That brings hormones into play. A 14-year-old's hormones are more stabilized than a 12-year-olds. You can even see that in their behavior, which I'll get into later. By the time Aang is 17/18, this isn't as big of a problem. They would both be nearing the end of brain development and equal on that end. At the end of the day, Aang is still a child, and Katara is a child but isn't at the same time due to her being a teenager and having grown up so rapidly after her mother's death. Before I even understood human development, the relationship in this aspect made me cringe.     Aang is still very immature and has never seen a proper relationship. Putting that out, there was a lot of questionable behavior on his end of the spectrum. He tried to prevent Katara from seeing her father; that's a huge red flag, especially considering his age. The fact he is already displaying that controlling behavior is a huge problem. The pinning after Katara also bordered on creepy stalker vibes at times. Pairing that with his control issues, we have the mashup for a horrible relationship. Katara isn't perfect either. She gets very jealous and uses emotional manipulation to lash out at people. She also has control issues and needs to feel needed.You can look at the early interactions between Toph and her and see how this affects her personal relationships. The way she treated Toph has seriously bothered me since I was a kid. She tried to invalidate Toph's desire to get away from her parents, and to a degree, she successfully applied emotional manipulation to make Toph feel guilty. From this point on, my view of Katara changed. Let's apply that same behavior to a relationship. With a lot of baggage, Aang and Katara, using emotional manipulation on him whenever things don't go exactly the way she wants, are the building blocks for a troubled relationship. Putting in perspective, their age only compounds these issues. This relationship would turn abusive and likely fail in the most realistic situation. It wouldn't just be one-sided either in this regard. If they were allowed to grow more and have other relationships, maybe it wouldn't go down that road. If you watch the Legend of Korra, you will see that their relationship is somewhat troubled. Why does this even matter for fictional characters? This is a kid's show that children are watching. Kids are very impressionable to media, and the portrayal of relationships is hugely important for their emotional growth. So it's vital to display more healthy relationships in children and young adult media for this very reason.   At what point if the plot did Katara become interesting in Aang? Basically, the ending, and that's it. Her interest in a slightly older boy, Jet, made perfect sense. She didn't see Aang as a potential partner due to his age and lack of maturity. I can't say I blame her since, once again, Aang displayed his controlling self-righteous behavior again. Aang was pinning after Katara the entire show. It bordered on the line of being a friendly stalker. It was one of the oldest parts of the show because the behavior didn't match Aang's age, as MOST 12-year-olds don't display this kind of behavior. However, Aang is a 12-year-old with PTSD from being the only surviving member of his ethnicity and stuck in an iceberg for 100 years. Despite being a 14-year-old, Katara was far more mature when it came to relationships. She still acted like a bratty teenager when everyone was saying Jet wasn't a good person, and she ignored all advice when it came to him. That is about as 14-year-old as it can get for a children's TV show. Aang crushing after Katara was entirely normal for his age, but once it teetered into controlling behavior and a slight sexual undertone, it became weird, at least for me. Yes, it's normal for a 12-year-old to have some more mature thoughts, but it was pushed a lot on the show. There was some build-up to their relationship, but it happened rather suddenly and didn't feel natural. The kiss at the end felt forced and honestly rather gross to me. Aang still acted like a kid in my mind and Katara an adult, so this part is enough to make me gag.     This relationship was borderline as an animated show, but with the live-action coming out. Age became a primary concern for me. How could they portray this and not have it be a film for pedophiles instead of the intended audience? There's no other choice; they had to change the ages. Yes, creepers will creep with anything live-action. Still, I feel like in the original form, a live-action of Avatar: The Last Airbender would be way too easy of a target for inappropriate behavior. There was no way around it. If they keep Aang and Katara together, they cannot have that age difference. I think they will struggle a lot with having this be a PG tv show with the way Aang behaves at times, as social awareness relating to relationships has increased since the original show came out. I am honestly curious to see how they handle this in the live-action.     Despite all this, I still enjoy this show, and I can still connect with it more than some of my other childhood favorites. Unfortunately, the show's writing is far from perfect, with plot holes and even some character consistency issues. On the same token, this also fuels the imagination. The characters are reasonably relatable and therefore realistic. Well, given we don't live in a world where we can bend elements, which is a perfect thing, honestly. The plot primarily engages the audience with a few plot holes. This relationship is honestly the most challenging part of the TV show especially given today's societal values. However, this is still a show I'd recommend for kids, well, for kids over 12 with some parental guidance. This is when adults need to be responsible for giving children proper advice on relationships since media, in general, is terrible for providing healthy guidance on this particular topic. I've honestly enjoyed going back and rewatching this show. It was worth taking a second glance at this show as an adult, not a preteen.

[inuyashasforest]

hang on I lied there is something I wanna say

So I’ve made my stance on sessr*n fairly clear at this point. I don’t like it, I don’t think it’s a sound pairing, it makes me extremely uncomfortable, but I’m not here to lead a crusade. 

But the thing I want to say on my point of view in all of this is something I’ve seen sort of lumped in together with the whole debate. Age gaps in fiction or real life aren’t always inherently bad. Two consenting adults can dictate the terms of their relationships. 

This isn’t that. This is a child and her caretaker. She was eight years old and he was a fully grown man when they met, and he took over her care and safety. I don’t really care how you spin it, how you viewed their relationship in the manga. That’s the bare bones truth of it. While we’re at it;

This isn’t a matter of “historical accuracy”, which I know some of y’all love to tote around. Yes, it is a fact that some young girls of higher classes and warrior classes were married either to boys of the same age, or in rarer instances, young men around 20 years old. I’m going off the Edo Period, but info on the feudal era is more difficult to come by. These were arranged marriages between families looking to solidify bonds. Even in these cases, these girls would often not have children until they were 19. It was more common to marry around adulthood for young women of the lower classes. So, no, your child-bride theory doesn’t have any foothold. And even if it did, why the hell are you still upholding that? Do you have any idea what you sound like? 

For the love of God! Shouting that “Sesshomaru never saw Rin as a daughter!” is not! the argument! you think! it is! For fuck’s sake listen to yourselves!

I don’t participate in “anti culture”. I’ve seen it work. It breeds toxicity. Do whatever you want in you fandom experience, tag accordingly. I don’t care. But let me make this clear; fandom is a different matter entirely than a real, budgeted, scripted show. Sunrise is pandering to a vile ideal. That shit’s unacceptable. 

There’s a line to be drawn here. The key to knowing where it is, is critical thinking. 

Sources:

“Rediscovering Women in Tokugawa Japan”, Yutaka Yabuta

“Changing Marriage Patterns in Asia”, Gavin W. Jones. 

“Marriage In Asia”, Gavin W. Jones. 

[masterthespianduchovny]

What fascinating about people who claim the anti Sam/Rebecca crowd are infantilizing Sam, with the implication of being racism being a driving factor, is that the aging up of Sam could also equally be argued as racist. But many lack the self awareness to see that or to account for this when lobbing out this defense and implied accusation.

More often than not, young boys and young black men are aged up to prove they knew what they are doing and are hardened criminals. They are seen as adults compared to their white counterparts even when they are legally minors and the white people are adults.

This perception of black boys and men are one of the cornerstones behind the “prison to pipeline” theory. When we refuse to see black boys and men as their age, we do them a massive disservice.

Now, this comes into play with Sam because this logic is being used for the pro Rebecca and sam defense. Sam’s consent and willingness is such a low bar to clear because many young men are interested in older women whether or not it’s to date or fuck them. This consent and willingness has nothing to do with ethics, it’s simply about legality. I’d also assert that the comparison to ted is disingenuous because it’s reactionary and not thoughtful. It pretends that these are two like things when they aren’t.

When we bring maturity into the discussion, it’s not a one size fits all type of thing either. Maturity is such a blanket term and does black children and young black adults disservice because it robs them of youth. Since they’re mature, they should know better or not act like other people their age. And it’s because in a sense, they are seen as older than they are as mentioned.

Stressing how mature Sam is and constantly accusing others of infantilizing him not only ages up Sam, but seeks to silence valid criticism about the red flags and inappropriateness surrounding this relationship.

Someone being consenting and willing isn’t enough when assessing the various power dynamics. That’s a start, not the end all be all when you see such a disparity between two people. I’d assert that due to such a large age gap and the added power imbalance, it’s even more crucial even more discerning regarding such a relationship.

There is nothing wrong with looking out and trying to protect a young black man, esp when society either demonizes them or leave them to their own devices. When such a relationship has the likelihood of blowing up in his face and him dealing with major repercussions as a result, regardless of consent.

And, although this isn’t on the same scale, it reminds me of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. She was 21 when they had an affair, he was her boss, and it was fully consensual. However, when the news broke, who was dragged through the mud? Who was used as punchline? Who was attacked and stated to have known better?

Monica.

Where as bill’s presidential legacy is largely intact.

As a kid, I thought Monica was so grown. I couldn’t believe she did that.

Even before I turned 21 years ago, I was like, “she was young as fuck.”

She has to deal with harassment, bullying, and death threats. But she consented and was willing, riiiiiight?

Despite admitting it was consensual even to this day, which I’m not disputing, even Monica says the relationship shouldn’t have happened with one of the reasons being her age. And it’s truly fucked up what America put her through to the point she can barely keep a job, resorted to plastic surgery to hide her identity, among other shit. She has to develop a good humor about it because what else are her other options?

When we age up young adults, we don’t prepare them for if shit goes south. We pretend just because they have a certain level of maturity, that they have the knowledge, foresight, and skills to deal with a situation that turned into a shit show.

That is deeply unfair to them. Respecting a young adult’s adulthood doesn’t mean throwing them in the deep end, it means respecting where they are at and understanding the gaps in their knowledge and experience.

Christ, this doesn’t even touch how black kids are believed to be sexually mature at super young ages like 9-10. It’s not because they are, of course; but society projects these beliefs on them and treats them as teens in their later years or younger adults.

With the constant framing of Sam’s maturity and stressing that he consented, one could argue the same is happening here.

Once we get past the low bar of consent and willingness, what’s the worse case scenario of this relationship? The fact that Rebecca doesn’t even have to intentionally seek to harm Sam in order for him to be harmed in this situation should be enough to give everyone pause.

But alas, no matter what the critics say, its alway going to be called infantilization with subtle accusations of racism because these defenses lack nuance or are performative. Undoubtedly, racism exists in fandoms, however, our efforts to combat racism shouldn’t overlook the problematic nature and troubling implications of this relationship being criticized.

Although our first instinct is to protest black characters (and POC), our analyzation of what’s happening shouldn’t end there. We shouldn’t be advocating for something that is most likely detrimental to a black character to spite fans.

And considering the down spiral Rebecca is likely going through, we should want more for Sam than for him to be caught up in that shit.

[mindibindi]

Okay, but you referring to Sam as a "child" is problematic in ways you apparently don't see, so maybe look into not infantilizing grown men.

I think it's fairly obvious that I'm using the word 'child' and 'baby' as a (somewhat jokey) rhetorical strategy that emphasises Sam's age and thus expresses my feelings/thoughts on the direction Ted Lasso has recently taken. If there is some hugely pervasive problem of infantilising grown men that I am unaware of, please let me know. But I think the the problematic element you are identifying is linked with the show rather than with my language. In general, western societies do have a bad habit of infantilising grown women: in language, legislature, fashion and so on. But when it comes to young black men, I think you will find that the problem is quite the opposite. Young black men are often held accountable for things way beyond their years, required to grow up before their time. This is a much larger issue though, and one that has absolutely nothing to do with the character of Sam Obisanya.

I understand that if you're in your teens or 20s, 20 may not seem like a baby or a child. But I am way past 20 so, for me, a 20yo is a baby adult. They are in their first, awkward year of adulting. Sorry if it sounds condescending but I just find all that enthusiasm and hope and drive kinda cute. It is a beautiful and necessary phase of life but one that (like all phases) does not last. The world needs the drive, enthusiasm and hope of young adults, especially now as everything implodes. Many are performing vital work, as we saw Sam do in taking a stand on environmental issues earlier this season. That said, a 20yo is not yet fully cooked. They don't quite know who they are, nor are they neurologically developed. I know I wasn't. (If you think I'm an idiot now, you should have seen me back then....)

But it is not just that the character of Sam is young in my opinion, or from the vantage point of a divorced woman pushing 50, or...I mean, pretty much objectively. Sam is also super young for his age. There is something childlike about him. He is naive, hopeful, sunny, even angelic. He loves Harry Potter. He spends a holiday he doesn't celebrate convincing small children to believe in Santa Claus. He thinks the British press are all his mates. The most important person in his life is his Dad. If we compare Sam to Jamie Tartt, who we are told in season 1, is 23, there is a huge maturity gap between these two young men. Jamie has a worldly edge, a defense system (however faulty) that Sam does not. As I said in my original post, this is partially because Sam is out of his cultural milieu, away from his family and support system. Despite Jamie's abuse, Sam comes across as the more vulnerable of the two. So to compromise his new found family and support system in this way seems....questionable to me, at best. Sam has certainly taken great strides in the past few episodes/months, but he is not all that far from the mopey, displaced teen we saw in s1.

But again, my objection to this narrative arc is about more than the fact that Sam is 20 or even what sort of 20yo he is. It is about his character, his circumstances, his position and his race. I am not going to go into this in-depth since people have gotten upset enough over a relatively benign topic like age to start delving into race. All I will say is that Rebecca not only has the advantage over Sam in terms of her age and experience, she also has the advantage over him in terms of her position, power, wealth and white privilege. It is not just the age gap that creates the enormous power differential in this 'relationship' -- a power differential that, for me, is just too great. I would love to believe that the showrunners and writers can somehow find a way to write themselves out of this mess they have made for themselves. But for me the damage has kinda already been done: to Sam's character, Rebecca's character and, most disappointingly to the character, integrity and ethos of the show.

[bigskydreaming]

Making an additional post to respond to @fuyunoakegata’s response to @fiyaerrigan’s post here without derailing or going too far afield from the OP:

I think an additional thing to consider that the other kids had by benefit of Dick being the eldest is......every single one of them to varying degrees had Dick to look to as a precedent for like.....reassuring themselves that their presence in Bruce’s life wasn’t a temporary thing. Dick’s constant or recurring presence was an affirmation of permanence - that no matter how bad things got between Bruce and one of his kids, since things HAD been very dicey between Dick and Bruce for awhile - Dick still was there, at the end of the day.

Now, the obvious sorta exception to this is in Jason’s POV, with it being a sorta exception cuz there’s a couple different ways you can play this. By emphasizing how much Bruce and Dick were on the outs from Jason’s POV while he was living with Bruce, you CAN cast doubt on the idea that Dick was proof things would never get so bad with Bruce that he would just stop being part of their lives. And then this in turn can be used as a sort of explanation for why Jason was so convinced that there was no coming back from a lot of what he’d done by his return to Gotham, even without the events of UTRH....like, you can make the case that this is why Jason escalated things to that extent period. He thought reconciliation was never truly ever an option.

But by the same token, you can also use the fact that Dick IS reconciled with Bruce by the time of UTRH to seed doubts about this in Jason’s head, because he DOES remember just how bad things were between Bruce and Dick when he was younger....and if they could come back from that, maybe it WASN’T just wishful naivete to think that there could be a future for Bruce and Jason’s relationship as well, y’know?

To cycle back to the beginning though....it should be acknowledged imo that Dick never had the benefit of this proof of permanence, this security blanket of knowing that no matter how bad things got with Bruce, there wasn’t truly a point of no return. That WAS in doubt for him a lot of the time. Which gives him all the more motivation to see what we so often see evidence of in the comics - Dick going above and beyond to stress to his siblings that they aren’t temporary in his eyes, and their connection is not just limited to being via Bruce. They’re his siblings with or without Bruce in the picture.

Now to respond more directly to what @fuyunoakegata had to say in that last reblog addition, I think the fact that Dick is so good at translating what Bruce leaves unspoken is actually a key part of the conflict between Dick and Bruce at so many points. Because the thing is....Dick should never have HAD to become that good at it. He became good at it by necessity, because Bruce does leave a lot unspoken and taken for granted, and at a certain point Dick realized he’d just have to fill in the blanks himself.

But given that Dick was the traumatized kid that Bruce chose to take in as an adult - no matter how young of an adult he was - there’s an inherent disservice in not recognizing that it should never have been on that kid to feel HE had to be the one to bridge the communication divide between himself and his guardian when said communication felt lacking. That is the responsibility of the guardian or parent, its literally a key part of the sense of security its their job to offer the traumatized orphan in their care.

That’s not to say, however, that its not realistic for this to happen this way - and for reasons that actually have nothing whatsoever to do with Bruce, and everything to do with Dick. Because it is possible that Bruce just never quite clued into just how much Dick was assuming the burden of translating Bruce’s intentions into actual communication and filling in the gaps where Bruce was leaving stuff unsaid.....because as I’ve said before, for all their similarities and parallel tragedies, a key part of Dick’s tragedy that Bruce simply couldn’t relate to, was the abandonment fear of being sent away for not being good enough or being too much of a burden. Bruce has HUGE abandonment issues due to his own tragic loss of his parents - but his abandonment issues tend to be more geared around losing people to tragedy or death. 

Now from a parental standpoint, he does have fears of driving his kids away by not being good enough for them or by hurting them in various ways, true.....BUT the specific overlap he lacks is that he’s never really identified from the perspective of a child, with that fear of a parent or guardian not wanting to deal with him or be burdened by him anymore. When he was raised by Alfred, he feared losing Alfred in a variety of ways, but not really so much by driving Alfred away or making him sick of him....because there has always been at least an implicit awareness, even while acknowledging that Alfred basically raised him, that Alfred still technically worked for the Wayne family, and Bruce simply wasn’t ever in a position to feel quite as dependent on Alfred and say...his ‘whims’ or whatever, as other children might in regards to their own parents. Alfred’s loyalty is readily apparent and of a more....fundamental sort than most others can claim, y’know?

So I think one of the key divides between Dick and Bruce, a NATURAL area of oversight for Bruce, who tends to take for granted at times how much he and Dick are alike in certain ways.....is that it wouldn’t necessarily ever occur to Bruce just how much Dick feared being a burden who could and might be sent away at any time he became too difficult to be worth putting up with anymore. And by not realizing how big a role this played in Dick’s thoughts as he grew up, its natural that Bruce wouldn’t necessarily notice just how almost....eager Dick was to jump at filling in gaps in communication himself rather than risk having to insist Bruce clarify himself or his intentions in order to be understood instead. Dick didn’t want to give his guardian any reason to send him packing - so he voluntarily took up the role of Bruce-translator early on, before ever even alerting to Bruce that there was anything about his communication tendencies that might be lacking and left Dick occasionally grasping for assumptions to fill in the blanks.

But see, the problem that naturally arises from this sort of inherent miscommunication or oversight, no matter how understandable it is....is that it over time builds in an expectation or even reliance on Dick doing the majority of the work and emotional labor when it comes to understanding each other. And the precise problem this creates lies in when Dick for whatever reason - such as believing Bruce has already as good as cast him aside and no longer wants to be burdened with him - like, if for whatever reason Dick STOPS doing the majority share of their communication, if he no longer sees a reason to translate Bruce’s thoughts into actual words of affirmation and read approval into his actions or assume the best of Bruce’s intentions......if Dick basically just stops TRYING here, because he’s convinced there’s no longer any reason to try and the worst has already happened, the very thing he was going above and beyond in filling in Bruce’s gaps in communicating himself in order to avoid happening in the first place....

Then Bruce is going to flounder, naturally, because all of a sudden its going to seem like nothing he says or does in the ways he’s always been used to communicating himself like, seem to be getting through to Dick or leaving him with the same understanding or awareness of Bruce’s true feelings that he’s grown used to Dick having, based just on whatever Bruce DOES actually do or say.

So from Bruce’s perspective, its going to be like nothing he says seems to make any impact on Dick or convey to him that Bruce does in fact still love him and care....BECAUSE Bruce hasn’t quite realized yet just how much Dick has HAD to fill in those blanks for himself, because Bruce’s actual communicating of them has not actually involved ever FULLY expressing those sentiments.

Hence, their complete communication breakdown after Dick was fired and/or Jason was made Robin and adopted without consulting or even alerting Dick to the fact beforehand, or reassuring him that this didn’t actually say anything about Bruce’s feelings for his eldest. As well as Bruce’s seeming obliviousness as to why.

And another thing I want to add here is that I always tend to push back a lot against people bringing up how young Bruce was when he took Dick in, and how that explains his lapses in parenting....

Because the thing this fails to take into account IMO is that like.....by and large, and with obvious occasional exceptions like Robin: Year One.....its almost unanimously agreed that Bruce was at his BEST as a parent to Dick - whether thinking of himself as his father yet or not - in their early years together. So I don’t see how Bruce’s young age can excuse his later lapses in parenting Dick, when it was at his YOUNGEST, that Bruce was at his BEST in parenting Dick. To me, his age has nothing to do with it. The difference in Bruce’s effectiveness in being a parent to Dick at various stages in my mind lies entirely in the fact that in those early years, Bruce was most consistently putting in his most effort into being there for Dick, being the person Dick needed him to be, etc. 

Basically, those early years were so good between them, compared to other periods, because even with Dick assuming more responsibilities than he ever should have had to - but for completely understandable reasons ie Bruce simply not REALIZING Dick was so desperate to not be a burden he was making sure Bruce never realized there was a problem here at all -  the bottom line was it was in those earliest years that Bruce most consistently TRIED. He put his best foot forward. He did the WORK.

And thus the problem in the later years of Dick’s youth, IMO, had nothing to do with Bruce’s own relative youth - it was that I think Bruce had just gotten comfortable with their dynamic and lost sight of how much of that was due to his own EFFORT. He started to take Dick for granted, and thus defaulted more towards frustration when he didn’t understand why Dick did something or where he was coming from....where previously, he would have been more patient as he applied his intellect towards trying to figure out for himself WHY Dick was acting the way he was or what it might signify.

BUT. The point of all this digression is like.....me working my way around to how there’s not JUST an opportunity for Dick to buttress Bruce’s lapses in parenting for his younger siblings, and for them to benefit from him having gone first.....BUT, if people WANT there to be....there’s also every bit as much to fix or address a lot of the flaws in Bruce and Dick’s relationship via Bruce learning from things with his younger children like....an awareness of WHY he and Dick grew apart and how it can be addressed.

For an example.....with Jason. I’ve commented before on how a lot of authors doing revisitations of Bruce and Jason’s early years together in fic actually do a GREAT job of showcasing how patient Bruce is with him, and understanding of his history and why he behaves in various ways or reacts to things differently than Bruce would or expects.

And a lot of focus is put on how in the comics, when Bruce talks to Dick about why he took Jason in, he describes himself as having seen Jason as being a lot like him, and thus thought he could help him with his anger, etc.

See, I have always, ALWAYS, called bullshit on this point. (And that’s aimed at the comics canon btw, not fic writers).

Because uh, I just don’t see it at all. First off, Jason has always had even less in common with Bruce than Dick did, and second like, the only thing that Bruce has ever pointed to as feeling similar to Jason in....is Jason’s anger.

And like....early Jason, even after the post-Crisis origin retcon, like...wasn’t that angry! His supposed anger issues come from all of like, two different stories and that’s it. And I don’t buy that Jason was the first kid in all the time Bruce had been Batman by that point, that like, Bruce saw as a kindred spirit due to just being ANGRY. Umm, no. Sorry. That doesn’t track for me.

Especially because like....when Bruce first encountered Jason? When he first MADE the decision to take Jason in? First when meeting him stealing his tires, at which point he took him to Ma Gunn, and then after finding out that was a criminal front and deciding to take Jason in himself? Jason was like....literally not even angry in any of those encounters, lol. He just wasn’t.

Jason was scared. He was defiant. He was stubborn. He was proud. He was vulnerable. He was doing his damnedest not to show it. He was a lot of things.

What he wasn’t.....was...angry.

And so I truly don’t believe that Bruce took Jason in for reasons that had anything to do with identifying with him and seeing himself in Jason.

I think Bruce looked at that tiny young vulnerable but proud, spirited and defiant kid before him, utterly unrepentant about stealing Bruce’s tires and then hitting him with a tire iron and then with the Ma Gunn storyline....

And Bruce saw a young Dick Grayson reflected in the boy before him. 

Bruce missed Dick and took Jason in as a kind of do-over, a chance to fix the mistakes he barely understood making with Dick to lose him from his life or drive him away in the first place....and just resolved to do BETTER this time. To not make the same mistakes. To be patient, understanding, to try and get why Jason did and thought the things he did instead of just making his own assumptions.

And the painful irony is that despite Bruce’s best intentions in the comics, history DID repeat himself. He and Jason became estranged, even before Jason’s death - by Bruce projecting himself and his own issues and viewpoints onto Jason rather than see Jason as an entirely different person from him. He grew to take Jason and their dynamic for granted the same way he did with Dick. A significant element of the Garzonas story that never gets talked about is that after they captured Garzonas the second time, after Gloria’s suicide and before taking him into the police where Garzonas ended up just walking again....

Bruce stood back and literally encouraged Jason to take out his anger and frustration on the man. The same way Bruce sometimes did with criminals himself. He literally stood there and watched as Jason vented his anger by beating up Garzonas further.

And THIS is the heart of why Bruce reacted the way he did with Garzonas’ death, I think. Especially when you couple it with how much of Bruce’s reactions in UTRH are based around how HIS entire reason for being unwilling to kill the Joker is because he doesn’t think he could just stop there, couldn’t pull himself back from doing it again. I think Bruce just ASSUMED that Jason had pushed Felipe to his death, because he projected himself into Jason’s shoes, and saw that moment playing out from how he feared HE HIMSELF would have reacted in that moment, if he were say as young as Jason still was at the time, and frustrated by how futile everything felt. He assumed the worst of Jason, because he identified with Jason, and in that moment, was projecting his own worst assumptions of himself in a parallel moment of intense emotional frustration and anger.

Like I said.....he drove Jason away by making the same mistakes he’d made with Dick in essence - he projected too strongly on identifying with them and thus viewing their actions or choices through the lens of how he would behave in similar circumstances and WHY....and he stopped doing the WORK of keeping in mind that they were very different people from him with very different reasons for choosing the things they choose, different histories, different priorities, different contexts.

So the point is like.....instead of letting things play out like that, since fic IS an opportunity to improve upon canon, you can draw upon literally ANY of these ideas, and like.....examine what happens if not only Dick helps his siblings in their relationships with Bruce by drawing from his own experiences with him and the mistakes there.....

But you can also examine what happens if Bruce is helped in his relationship with Dick by drawing from his experiences with his younger children and using those to identify mistakes he made with Dick specifically, and address them even now....instead of just writing off his relationship with Dick as the best it’ll ever be now and damaged beyond further repair and so instead devoting himself to trying to just do better with his younger kids.

Because see what happens then, if you use Bruce’s patience and understanding while raising a young Jason, and awareness of just how different Jason is from him....to glean for HIMSELF, without having to be told by others....an awareness that no, maybe he took in Jason for reasons that had far more to do with regrets having to do with Dick than because of identifying with Jason just himself. And from there.....a simple examination of his relationships with Dick and Jason respectively, like, even just to wonder what’s so different about his differing dynamics with the two and why is so much better now than the other...that’s literally all that’s needed for Bruce to become AWARE of how patient he is with Jason and his seeming idiosyncracies, to acknowledge the work and EFFORT he puts into building and maintaining his relationship with a young Jason....and from there....the realization that....holy shit, he’d taken Dick for granted, and THAT’S why things broke down between them. He’d stopped TRYING to understand Dick the way he was working so hard now to understand Jason, and instead just started getting frustrated with the fact that he so often DIDN’T understand Dick, period.

And once you have Bruce HAVE that epiphany, GAIN that awareness....

Its the easiest thing in the world to just write him GOING to Dick and just like...acknowledging this. Owning his faults. Admitting that he took Dick for granted and put too much reliance on Dick doing most of their communicating, fell back on it being easier that way and stopped placing importance on being the one to take the LEAD in their relationship and addressing its flaws, as the PARENT.

And just saying.....its not too late to fix this. If I can do it with Jason, if I could do it with you in the first place, I can do it again. All I need is for you to give me the opportunity to try to do just that, to do better, and instead of demanding that or expecting it from you or even just hoping for it but never actually voicing it....here is me asking for it, but letting you know I understand if you don’t trust me with that or want to risk yourself like that again.

And whammo zammo, you’ve got yourself a road to a healthier, happier Batfam, and it doesn’t require actually vilifying anyone or expecting anyone but the patriarch of the family to like....take the actual wheel.

[hyukmoon]

Class trip.

Synopsis | you're a teacher going along on a trip for a week with your class and a colleague you despised for a good amount of time now. Things turn around and you don't know what to think about him anymore.

Teacher!Xiaojun x Teacher!gn!Reader

warnings | kissing is the most rated things happening in this, all over awkwardness from you, terrible humor, pretty much just fluff and a there's only one bed situation

word count | 2.2k

things to note | this is the first thing I wrote here, so I'm open to constructive criticism, also [P/A] means prefered form of address bc you're a teacher and all that (not proofread yet)

Let’s preface this. You never really wanted to go onto this trip. You genuinely loved the children in your class, but to go onto this trip for an entire week seemed to be a compromise in the least. Neither were the other teachers your preferred ones nor was it your say where the class trip was going to take place. To be honest, you even found the colleague you were going with a bit annoying.

“It can’t be this bad, you might even enjoy it there. Our fellow colleague is pretty to look at and the worst that could be happening on that trip is that one of the children puts their finger into a pencil sharpener again.”, your friend Yasmin and also, teacher said. Your tired face was working, she shut up. Of course, your fellow colleague was incredibly handsome.

You would and could never argue against that, yet every time you heard their kind and expressive voice you felt like you were blinded by the sun. He just seemed to exude everything you lacked. It is not that you weren’t a good teacher, every time you were out of breath or already done with everything only half through the day, he almost smiled compassionately at you sometimes even winked for that matter.

Xiao dejun, who also went by Xiaojun was the topic of your discussion, a man that handsome you wouldn’t be able to make up in your dream and smart enough to make up for every “inconvenience” you faced with him.

Well, he was that smart to bring you coffee every morning into teachers lounge, share his chewing gum with you and sometimes write you notes if you seem stressed. “Jeez, what’s your problem in the first place? I’m kinda sure he is into you. Every time he looks at you, he literally has heart eyes and bringing you coffee every morning? Please.”, she rolled her eyes at you.

“I don’t think so, I just subbed some of his classes a few times. You know how nice he is.”, nervously you now shy away from looking into Yasmin’s eyes.

Xiaojun didn’t like you, you would feel terrible if he did. Tweaks of shame overcame you; this trip was not going to work out.

Fully packed and all over suspiciously you started counting again the fourth graders on the bus while also having a very good view of the chocolate brown hair of the teacher going along on the field trip. This time his hair didn’t fully cover his forehead, his glasses eyeing you as well. Suddenly his hands tapped on the seat next to him. Heat rose up to your cheeks gradually making it harder to move forward to sit next to Xiaojun. “Mila’s parents called me, she’s sick so don’t worry about her. Just sit down [Y/N], I brought some tea.”, he smiled while pointing at his thermos can. “Uh, sure. I have some cookies with me if you want.”, the last sentence closely sounding like a question as you quietly took the seat next to him.

Not only were you now stunned about the fact that there was a possibility for him to view you in a light like this in spite of you being so passive towards him in the past. Yet there is still the lingering feeling far, far up in your head that you were only imagining things and Xiaojun read everything wrong. “Are you feeling well? We can also sit farther in the front if you feel better there- “, he worriedly stroked your shoulder. “No, it’s completely fine. Just fine.”, you interrupted his ramble and put up your mouth into a cramped smile. His eyes returned that favor, crinkling up into a smile as well.

The bus drive didn’t take as long as you might have thought, your counterpart on the excursion was more than enough to keep you on your toes. Casual glances along a few accidental brushes over your hand kept you in your seat. Now counting again all the children in the lobby of the youth hostel you anxiously eyed Xiaojun again. The amount of children matched up, so your job was done for now, you were most likely only seeing them for dinner. The only thing to do for you now was to go up to your room and contemplate how to not have a physical reaction every time your favorite colleague called your name. Very obvious, you had of course no crush on him or anything like that. He was just blessed with beautifully shaped eyebrows and a voice that could make the worst words you knew sound like a ballade. You moved up from the hotel lobby with some of the grade schoolers to the elevator.

"[P/A] [L/N], do you think when I make Lasagna with my mum it’s the same as cake?”, Xia, a girl from Xiaojun’s music class asked while her classmates giggle about her question. A few loud no’s were to be heard with the occasional high pitched laughs from her friends. “That is a very good question I have never thought about before”, you stopped for a second, what exactly does it mean to be a cake? It is still baked in an oven with layers and contains the tomato sauce as frosting? “I am pretty sure it is. Even though I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow though, I am not a baking expert. I promise I’ll look it up for you, yes?”, you were pretty content with your answer. “Hmmm. Okay. They wanted me to ask.” Xia answered while pointing at the three boys in the back of the elevator which earned her some distraught faces from her classmates. The familiar sound of the elevator bell ringed. “Anyways, if you have as burning questions as these please come to me or …, we’re happy to help. Also, if you feel homesick or sick, I’m always in my room, just knock.” As soon as the last syllable was said stormed the children to their respective rooms and left you there looking at their body shaped dust cloud remembering the cartoons you watched at their age.

You walked down the long corridor towards the light brown lacquered door which showed in golden numerals written the 420. Your shoulders visibly sank down, finally you were able to take a nap. The door opened and closed maybe a millisecond later. Seeing a wide back heaving some shirts on to the rooms ear chair made you catch your breath. His glasses missing and his usually kempt hair was now chaotically drifting across his forehead into separate directions. More importantly though, he was most likely about to put on a fresh shirt, and you stood across the dark brown carpet in the door with a perplexed face.

“Sorry!”, you yelled and closed the door to just sink down with it in your back. Xiaojun packing out his suitcase along his pullover wasn’t what you were expecting to after talking about lasagna and wanting to fall asleep for at least good 30 minutes to then decide if it’s worth it to start to watch a movie. Yet you were barely discussing the fact that he was in your room. Neither did it make sense nor were you able to really comprehend the situation right now.

The door opened and you jumped up onto your feet. “[Y/N]? Why were you in my room?”, Xiaojun quiet voice slid through the gap of the door. “I swear there’s an explanation to this. I think they might have given me the wrong keys or something like that, I didn’t look at you or anything-”, he interrupted your nervous chatter to push the door open and face your confused state. “It’s fine, we’ll figure it out together.”, the usual quirky smile you normally saw when he was trying to cheer up one of his students appeared on his face. Your breath stopped at the together while a comfortable warm feeling churned in your stomach.

“Then let’s go downstairs and work it out with the staff!”, he gifted you another wink which not only gave you the final confidence to grab onto his arm before heading again into the elevator but to for the first time give him a wink back.

“The school only booked one room for the teacher. I can’t really do that much about it, most rooms are already full and other guests will arrive tomorrow, so I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”, the hotel worker returned to the computer in front of them. “What are we supposed to do now?”, you sighed and gazed at the visibly pondering man. “Honestly, no idea. There isn’t much we can do, so I guess we could talk about it in my room?”

The walk to his room had to be filled with an uncomfortable silence, neither you nor he were able to say something that made the current situation less painfully horrendous. Almost as if the newly gained confidence left your body, you didn’t even dare to make more than an unfunny joke about your nonexistent room or more like transferred room for another alone soul. His room was already coddled with the scent of freshly washed clothes along his close to quiet cologne. “So here we are.You take the bed and I’ll sleep on the ground.”

“This is so inappropriate, dear god.”, you started to sigh again caressing your temples. “Also, no, please take the bed, the school probably forgot to book another room because I said yes to this trip so late.” Even though Xiaojuns throat seemed to struggle a bit with his next proposition, it was still loud and clear what he said. “We can also share the bed... We’re two grown adults.” He laughed awkwardly; you were pretty much speechless.

“Yeah, of course. Two adults. Nothing to worry or think about.”, you tried to brush off any thought you could possibly have about your opposition. No thoughts about his warm breath in your neck while holding you loosely in his sleepy state to waking up to his beautifully messy bed hair in the morning.

“I’ll take a shower if you don’t mind, some of the children were kinda fussy today and I just need a few minutes.” You nodded and unpacked your suitcase, followed by changing into some comfortable shorts and large shirt.

The second you were done; you sank into the still cold sheets of the large bed. He didn’t make you wait for him very long, barely noticeable however his eyes rested on you when he entered the small apartment again.

Neither did it take too long to sit along with you on the bed. “Are you sure you’re comfortable with us doing this?”, his soft voice hit you unexpectedly. “I can also sleep on the floor, or we switch everyday to do it.” You shook your head simply and crawled up the bed to make yourself comfortable under the duvet. “I’m so tired, just don’t steal the blanket, okay?”, barely able to keep your eyes open you sank even more into the mattress.

You really thought it would be easy to sleep next to him, yet the thought of holding his face in your hands didn’t leave your mind. Even asleep he had a stunning presence around him. “[Y/N]? Do you like me?”, Xiaojun turned around to see your surprised expression. “Of course, I do. I just thought that because you were so good at everything, you did all of these things just to spite me.”, you quietly confessed. “[Y/N], I wanted you to like me. You’re a wonderful teacher and I really admire you. You’re so funny with the other colleagues and generally so, so gorgeous.” Xiaojuns eyes lingered on your lips. They stayed there.

“Can I kiss you?” You nodded. His lips brushed softly across your bottom one. You took the opportunity to gain closeness to his warm side before shifting your hands onto his back. Slowly you began to pepper small kisses along his jawline resulting in a small whine from his side. His hands started to wander across your waist to rest on your lower back and pull you in even closer.

Not a lot longer after he started to skim your neck with his teeth. You rested your head now in his freshly scented neck. Again, his lips on yours moving over to just behind your earlobe, nipping on it and breathing into your ear: “Do you want me to continue?” Still resting his soft lips on your ear goosebumps rose up your spine. Waiting for another hint of pressed lips against your skin your arms lethargically crawled up and grazed his cheeks.

“Ah right, the children.”, your voice hitched he was still so close to you. “We could discuss this maybe on a date?”, he looked almost hopeful when his dark and strangely staring eyes met yours in the dim lit room.

“Us kissing and almost doing the deed? Sure. I’m much better at physical presentations though.” You pressed a delicate kiss against his lips. “Since when so provocative?”

“You bring it out in me.” “I’m glad it’s me and no one else then.”, he smiled into the kiss he gave you now. Not long from this you actually found the peace and quiet to fall asleep in his embrace.