#you made the mistake of saying this to an animation major lmao

[nofacednerd]

You know what I loved the most about My Adventures With Superman? The fact that it's evidence that every serialized story has to be as dark and gritty as burnt toast.

Yeah, sure, it has it's dark moments.

Like when Lois [CENSORED FOR SPOILERS] Clark because he's Superman.

Or when Jimmy got himself [CENSORED FOR SPOILERS] all alone.

Or when the General and Amanda Waller [CENSORED FOR SPOILERS] together near the end of the season.

But it's still a really lighthearted show most of the time. Meanwhile, most serialized shows get darker and darker to the point where you need f*cking night-vision goggles to actually watch the damn thing.

And despite how many shows go down the tubes because of this style of depressing storytelling--Friendship Is Magic, Star Vs, Steven Universe, Miraculous Ladybug, Voltron: that one Loonatics show that's become nothing but a joke to everyone including Warner Bros themselves--despite ALL THAT, people still insist that making shows dark and gritty through serialization is a good idea. And by "people", I mean:

A. Insecure man-children who want to convince you that watching a kid's show about magical ponies makes them smarter or more mature than average.

Or B. Creative hacks in showbiz who want to pander the aforementioned man-children because that's always easier than actually writing a story.

But if all of those shows are evidence as to why making shows too dark is a bad idea, My Adventures With Superman is evidence that having a balance, or even arguably a majority of lightheartedness, is a winning strategy.

anon I prommy it's okay. I, the OP, can tag this post as spoilers. You don't need to censor yourself here bud

2. not to go all animation major on this post but I think that in terms of 'grittiness' in cartoons within the last decade, it's kind of important to think about how media affects our views of the world and how, in turn, world events affect media.

To put it lightly, the last decade has fucking SUCKED. The 2016 presidential election, the sudden shift on social media to give platforms to racists, misogynists, and homophobes, the rise of neo-nazis. Not to mention a global pandemic and multiple major crises around the world. Children these days are VASTLY different to how children were when I (and maybe even you, anon) were that age. They have social media now where they're exposed to the worst of the world at a near-constant basis. It's traumatizing.

Cartoons have always been about giving kids a reflection of themselves. The world is darker and kids are developing mental illnesses and trauma, so the media they watch reflects that.

I also think that it isn't particularly fair to the shows you have listed here to say that they have 'depressing' storytelling and implying the only people who like those sorts of shows are man-children or hacks. I like those shows and I'm neither of the above. It's also unfair to completely reduce those shows to being gritty when.... they really aren't? Not any more than My Adventures with Superman is, really. My Little Pony is especially mostly lighthearted adventures about love and friendship. Miraculous' more serious moments are, at best, a B-plot as far as I'm aware and are only really discussed majorly in fanon spaces. Star Vs was SO much fucking around randomly that I got bored of the show after a while. The only real outlier here that I can comment on (I haven't and will not watch Voltron) is Steven Universe, but when talking about it's core messaging, it's important to remember Rebecca Sugar's identity as a queer Jewish person, and how that affects it's themes of love and oppression.

MAWSM's 'lightheartedness' also comes from an extremely long-lasting era of gritty superhero stories in general (thanks alan moore and also that one guy who called the dc hotline like 40 times because he fucking hated jason todd). It's intentionally supposed to be majorly lighthearted because darker stories is the only (and in my opinion, incorrect) way that Superman has been allowed to be presented within the last few decades.

I think that, perhaps dear anon, what you really are looking for is more diversity in content. And that's fair! But there are plenty of shows that don't (as far as I'm aware) focus too heavily on heavy themes, but the truth is, mawsm does. There are lots of heavy themes of imperialism, identity, diaspora, and trauma all within the first season of the show.

Not particularly sure where I was going with this. Sorry for replying with a full essay.

[sundrop-writes]

Meddle About

Sub!Spencer Reid x Dom!Fem!Reader

‘Cause it's not just a figure of speech - you got me down on my knees.

It's gettin' harder to b r e a t h e .

Summary:

You hate it when Morgan teases Reid. So when Morgan says that you are Reid's 'Mommy' - you verbally fire back without even thinking about it.

Reid vastly overthinks it.

So much so that he ends up calling you Mommy by mistake. And you definitely don't hate the sound of that word coming off his lips.

Sub!Spencer Reid x Dom!Fem!Reader. Co-Workers to Lovers. Smut. Set during Season One.

Word Count: 6,300

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: general smut fic - porn with some plot; dom/sub dynamics (but this isn't a pre-discussed dom/sub relationship, the characters just fall into these roles naturally), Spencer is submissive and the reader is dominant; the main theme is Mommy kink - Spencer discovers that he has a Mommy kink after a joke that Morgan makes, referring to the reader character as Spencer's Mommy; Spencer calls the reader 'Mommy' and the reader also refers to herself with that title; the reader uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina (and breasts); it could be interpreted that the reader has larger breasts/is plus sized (but I think anyone of any size could enjoy this fic); the reader is part of the BAU; this is meant to take place during season one (baby Spence my beloved) but there are no other major canon events mentioned and the case being discussed is one that I have made up; some very background typical elements of Criminal Minds - murder, killing, systemic vicimization of women/violence from men towards women (passing mention of bodies being consumed by wild animals); the reader and Spencer fuck while on a case (but they aren't endangering anyone's lives from lack of their attention, so it's fine); mentions of potential injuries from a car accident (theoretical - doesn't actually happen during the fic); very slight threads of Morgan x Reader (mentions of Morgan being attracted to the reader - it could be one-sided); very passing mention of Reid having breeding kink (doesn't take place during the fic, just one of his thoughts); for the actual smut section: this could be interpreted as virgin!Spencer but that's not explicitly stated here (at most, this is just inexperienced!Spencer) (the reader is definitely way more sexually experienced than him); praise kink (we all known Spencer is so eager to be praised); mentions of breastfeeding - Morgan makes a joke about the reader breastfeeding Reid, which later turns into faux breastfeeding kink (the reader doesn't actually lactate, but she lets Spencer suck on her tits and calls it breastfeeding); the reader calls Spencer: 'baby', 'good boy',; descriptions of subspace - but it's not specifically called 'subspace' in the text; thigh humping - Spencer humps the reader's thigh; cumming in pants (Spencer); multiple orgasms/overstimulation (Spencer receiving); handjob - the reader jacks Spencer off while he is sensitive after his first orgasm; using lube as cum; dumbification kink - the reader calls Spencer 'dumb baby' and generally enjoys seeing his intellect drop the more turned on he becomes (Spencer also likes being called this); technically the reader doesn't get to cum, but she gets turned on from treating Spencer like the good boy that he is (and this is more about him). I think that's everything.

A/N: This was directly inspired by the scene from Reid's birthday party, where Morgan says 'Mommy to the rescue!' (talking about JJ) and then Spencer says '...Mommy?' and it seems like he is discovering his Mommy kink in real time. Especially because he is then trapped between Elle and JJ and he makes direct eye contact with their boobs, and he just has such a look of scared kink realization in his eyes. I considered copying that moment exactly and just replacing JJ with the reader character, but this seemed like more fun lmao. I had so much fun writing this and I think this is one of my best fics in a while. I hope you guys enjoy it!!

...

Generally, you hated being stuck with grunt work. 

You knew that it was all part of the job - an important part of it. Paperwork, side interviews, background checks. Sifting through someone’s apartment looking for aspects of what kind of person they were based on their everyday life. 

But you thrived more on being right in the middle of things. You preferred interacting with suspects, chasing people down, harsh confrontation. 

Gideon said that you were overly controlling, impatient, brutally honest - that you had an ‘abrasive personality’ that put most men off. But that was why he often brought you into interrogations with male suspects. Many of the people you caught - men with superiority complexes who targeted the weak to make themselves feel powerful - they hated that you weren’t intimidated by them. That aspect of abrasion between you and the suspects often brought out a lot of information - things they spewed out trying to intimidate you. 

But you weren’t needed on that front today. 

No - instead, you were doing grunt work. The kind of work that made you impatient and generally aggravated. 

The only upside was that you got to do it with Spencer. 

He was one of the only men that voluntarily worked so closely with you so often, because he wasn’t intimidated by you. He took orders from you very well and naturally fell under your authority, bringing a natural chemistry to your partnership when you worked with him. Plus - his seemingly endless stream of ‘fun facts’ was like listening to the radio, which did help to soothe your boredom during these kinds of mindless tasks. 

You were on a case in Texas. Five women raped and tortured before having their bodies hung from a tree and consumed by cotoyes that the UnSub knew lived in the area. Since police had closed in on him, he had gone on the run. He had killed three more women since fleeing, while leaving no clues as to what his ultimate endgame would be or where he would be going next. 

Hotch sent you and Reid to find that out while the rest of the team worked victimology and profiled the scenes of the most recent murders, following the trail he was leaving. 

After spending hours sifting through the suspect’s house, looking for any small clue about where he might be going - you came up empty. When you touched base with Hotch, he told you that you and Reid would be going to visit the suspect’s ex-wife - who lived four hours away. You needed to interview her to see if she could give you any further insight to the man, and perhaps - beat him to the house if she was the ultimate target. 

(A lot of the victims looked like her, and it couldn’t really be a coincidence.) 

You knew that lives were at risk, and it was juvenile of you, but all you heard was: long, boring drive. Boring day. You hoped that Reid would be good company through it. 

Now, you were waiting outside of the police station in the bureau-issued SUV, waiting for Morgan to come and give you the file with the ex-wife’s address and contact information. 

“Did you know that over forty-six percent of Texans own a gun? Texas is second only to Montana in registered gun ownership, where over sixty-six percent of citizens proudly tote their right to bear arms.” Reid told you, continuing to look over the case files that were sitting in his lap. 

When you looked over toward him to reply to this odd factoid, your mind got caught up on something else. 

“Reid, come on, take your feet off the dashboard!” You told him, reaching over to gently smack his knee, trying to encourage his legs down from the awkward position. 

It bothered you for several reasons - the idea that he would leave shoe prints on the dashboard, which was minor and cosmetic, but still annoying. And the fact that if the car did happen to get hit head-on, the air-bag would explode out and push his knees into his chest, causing his shattered leg bones to pierce his organs and possibly kill him. (At the very least, he would never walk again.) 

Speaking of which: 

“And put your seatbelt on!” You barked, now noticing that he wasn’t wearing it past all of the files he had piled into his lap. “You of all people should know how many deaths are caused by not wearing a seatbelt.” 

Spencer opened his mouth to spout out this exact statistic, but before he could get the words out, another voice entered the conversation. 

“Aw, Reid, listen to your Mommy.” 

You were almost startled by Morgan’s voice coming from the open driver’s side window so suddenly. His appearance there as if out of nowhere was so jarring that you couldn’t get caught up on the way he had called you Reid’s Mommy. Your head whipped toward Morgan so quickly that you didn’t notice the flash across Spencer’s features - worry, dawning. You didn’t take note of the way he rushed to comply with putting on his seatbelt. As if he was rushing to please you, even unconsciously. 

“I bet if you’re a good boy, she might even breastfeed you when you get there.” 

Morgan then pursed his lips and made loudly suckling noises, clearly imitating breastfeeding in what he thought was a comedic way. 

Again - glaring at the muscled man through the open window, you didn’t see Spencer’s reaction. You didn’t see the way his large, glassy eyes flickered to your breasts (only emphasized by your own seatbelt crossed over the center of your chest) before he forced himself to focus on the files in front of him so that he wouldn’t feel so caught.

“Shut up.” You told Morgan, your voice so commanding and firm that his simple order was enough to get him to stop his antics. 

“And give me the address already.” You held out your hand expectantly, and Morgan handed you the file, which you placed onto the center console. 

Then, you turned back to him for one last point, determined to have the final word in the conversation. 

“Besides, we both know that you’re the one who’s got an obsession with my breasts, anyway. Just because you stare while wearing sunglasses, doesn’t mean I don’t notice. My eyes are up here, pal.” You told him sharply. 

He let out a scoff at this, and rolled his eyes behind his dark frames - but he made no clever comeback. 

You had successfully bested him. And with that knowledge, you rolled up the window and left him standing dumbly in the parking lot as you sped off. 

… 

You pulled over later to put the address into the GPS system, and you let out a long-winded groan when you found that it was more than four hours away. Four hours and twenty five minutes. 

So you pulled over again to get gas and stocked up on snacks, and you were surprised that Reid wasn’t giving you some lesson about the colloquial use of ‘soda’ and ‘pop’ (thinking that you hadn’t listened the other ten times when he had gone on the same rambling point about linguistics and how language evolves). 

He was being far too quiet for your liking. 

But he was keeping his eyes glued to the files, and you guessed that he was churning over something in that big brain of his, like he usually was. 

You were entirely surprised when the next time he spoke - it wasn’t about the case at all. 

“How - how do you know that Morgan likes your breasts?” He asked, his voice low and mousy, looking straight ahead as he fidgeted with his hands in his lap. 

“What?” You gaped, the word flying out of your mouth as your brain was utterly slow to process what he had just said. 

Hearing Spencer use the word ‘breasts’ was jarring, but somehow utterly adorable. You found it stirring a slight heat within you. Especially because he was still so shy. The whole thing made you want to pin him down and force the shyness out of him. 

Spencer felt the need to further explain himself. 

“When - when you were talking to him, you said: ‘we both know that you’re the one who’s got an obsession with my breasts.’” He said, repeating back what you had said, word for word, using that perfect memory of his. 

You wondered if that’s what he had been doing, sitting there in his seat so silently for the past hour of the car ride - going over the conversation again and again in his head, trying to make sense of it. And because he couldn’t make any sense of it by himself, now he was consulting you. 

Again, you found it so utterly adorable. 

“Morgan didn’t deny it. So - was it a hypothesis based on something, or did you just call him out hoping that you weren’t wrong?” Reid continued, sparing only a singular glance in your direction, a look that you caught out of the corner of your eye with your gaze still mostly focused ahead on the road. 

You found it intensely cute that he was using the word ‘hypothesis’ in this situation. You wondered if he ever turned it off - the textbook big words and the intellect that he always carried himself with. You wondered if you could make him turn it off. You wondered if there was any situation where Spencer Reid could be as stupid as any other man - chasing a bone, desperate to get his nut off. 

For the first time ever - you imagined Spencer Reid underneath you, blabbering nonsense, begging for release with your hand around his cock as you pumped him, red and aching, so slick in your palm. Desperate, empty-headed, beautifully stupid. 

(See, this was what happened when you were forced to do grunt work. You got bored. And when you got bored - you had to entertain yourself somehow.) 

“It was a pretty well-informed hypothesis.” You replied. Now that Spencer had brought the topic up, you certainly weren’t going to shy away from the discussion. “Morgan often brings up my sex life, and wants to engage in detailed discussions about my sexual encounters with me. So I assume that he spends a fair amount of time thinking about me in a sexual way.” 

Reid let out a choked-off noise at this. 

You continued. 

“Plus, he’s always staring down my top. He’s not exactly subtle.” 

“You - you actually notice that kind of thing?” He chirped, his voice becoming a few octaves higher as worry flooded him. 

You bit your lip, suppressing a grin. 

Of course, you had noticed the times that Spencer stared at your breasts as well. He was even less subtle about it than Morgan was. You didn’t mind it when he did it, because you knew that Spencer wasn’t exactly casanova. He didn’t have a different girl every other week like Morgan did, so taking a glance down your shirt when he passed you a morning coffee was probably about as much action as he got. 

Secretly, letting him get away with it was your gift to him. 

“Don’t worry about it, baby.” You told him, the pet name slipping out mindlessly as you reached over and gently patted his knee as a form of reassurance. 

This movement unintentionally drew his eyes toward your chest, especially in his desperation to look anywhere but your face, not wanting to make eye contact with you. But he found his eyes glued to the swell of your breasts once again - hating how perfect they looked, even through the simple cotton shirt and plain bra that you wore. 

“Sorry, Mommy.” The word slipped out before he could even consciously process it. “Sorry!” 

Spencer raised a hand to smack his own face at lightning speed, and slumped down into his seat in embarrassment. 

You bit your lip to suppress a grin. It stirred a filthy heat in your belly. But you knew that Spencer likely needed a while to sit with this and wouldn’t want to talk about it - not yet. So you reached over and turned on the radio, letting the music fill the space so that the silence wasn’t so awkward and gutting. 

…

Spencer didn’t talk for the entirety of the rest of the car ride, which didn’t surprise you. 

When you finally arrived at the ex-wife’s house, his hands were shaking with nerves as he tried to unlatch his seatbelt. You probably should have just left him alone to struggle, but an evil spark, likely fueled by the boredom of the day, flared up inside of you. You couldn’t resist the urge to lean over the console, very purposefully showing off your breasts as you gently pushed his hands away and undid the belt for him. 

“Here, let Mommy get that for you.” You said, distinct teasing on your breath as you mumbled the words into his ear. 

Spencer huffed out a deep sigh and collapsed back into his seat, and pushed his hair out of his face in frustration. But he didn’t say anything more as you gathered the files in preparation for the interview. 

He only spoke when you moved to get out of the car. 

“Look, I-” He began a half assed explanation, and you easily cut him off. 

“You let Morgan get in your head too much.” You told him with a chuckle, opening your door and getting out. 

But as he forced himself to follow you with numb limbs - he knew that this definitely wasn’t all Morgan’s fault. 

… 

The ex-wife didn’t know much. 

She described the marriage as hell - the suspect exhibited all the typical behaviors as a husband that they would have expected. He hated women, and he wanted full control over his wife at the time, which eventually led down the path of divorce. They had to sell the house they had bought together, but neither of them had moved out of Texas since. But he hadn’t contacted her in years. 

She had two young kids from a new relationship, and when the woman stepped out to take a call, you picked one of them up to soothe his cries, hushing him gently while you rubbed his back. 

Because of this, Spencer found himself even more dizzy and confused. 

He knew that it was Frueadian - some deep, misguided part of his psychology - something broken and missing inside of him because of his own fractured childhood. 

But seeing you being so sweet with a kid, especially after the day he’d had - he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be your baby, or if he wanted to shoot his cum so deep inside you that it would ensure he could give you one. 

(Ultimately, he knew that it was likely both - and that didn’t answer any questions for him. It just gave him far more questions.) 

… 

Even though the ex-wife couldn’t give you guys much more than you already knew, Hotch wanted you and Spencer to stay close by in case the suspect decided to make his ex-wife the end game. The two of you would be able to make it to her first if she called for help. 

So you and Spencer had dinner at a random local barbeque place off the highway and Spencer still didn’t talk much through it, other than posing some theories about the case. Even though he was a bit more talkative, he still refused to look at you - he stared down at his plate the whole time. Though whenever he did look up, you noticed that his eyes lingered on your chest - and he still wouldn’t look you in the eye. 

By the time the bill came around and the two of you were ready to leave, you knew exactly what you had to do. 

… 

Spencer waited by the car with his bag while you checked in and got a motel room (needing to stay in town, you got a room for the night). When you came back, you handed him the room key and then moved to get your bag out of the car. 

“Do… you already have yours?” He asked quietly. 

“Hmm?” You hummed in reply, slinging the strap of your go-bag over your shoulder before you closed the back door and used the remote to lock up the car. 

“Your room key?” 

You suppressed another grin. 

“I only got one room.” You told him. “You don’t mind sharing with me, right?” 

You gave him a purposeful look - looked at him through your lashes, bit your lip slightly, and subtly squeezed your breasts together with your upper arms, emphasizing them. You knew exactly what you were doing to him, but hopefully it seemed subtle. 

“I - uh - no.” Spencer stuttered. “It’s fine. We can share.” He gave a grin, not wanting to appear upset, even though his entire body was racked with nerves. 

Spencer followed you to the room and he fumbled with the key with shaking hands for a moment before he sighed and then handed it to you. 

His insides quaked when he saw that there was only one bed. 

He wasn’t sure if he should say anything about it. The two of you had slept in the same room before, but you had never shared a bed before. Sure, you had slept near each other before. He had accidentally fallen asleep on your shoulder on the plane or vice versa. But you had never crawled into bed together with the intention of sleeping together. 

And yes, just the entendre behind it made Reid’s head spin. 

He had a heavy knot in his gut, and hatefully - a distinct stirring in his crotch. He could only imagine how embarrassing it would be for you to wake up and see him compromised in some way. Or god forbid, if you caught him moaning in his sleep because of unconscious dreams that he couldn’t stop - for you to think that he was some kind of dirty sex pervert because of it. 

He felt an overwhelming need to clear the air overtake him. He had no clue how to broach the subject, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to spend the night like this. He wouldn’t be able to sleep with this anxiety hanging over his head. 

He studied you carefully as you sat down on the edge of the bed, ditching your bag off to the side and heaving out a tired sigh as you began taking off your shoes. 

Spencer put down his own bag and then stood there, fidgeting nervously as he searched for words. 

“I - uh - I am sorry about earlier.” He mumbled out the beginnings of an apology. “What Morgan said was stupid, and I-” 

“I don’t think it was stupid.” 

You let out a chuckle, and reached up the back of your shirt. Spencer found himself frozen, his eyes tracing your every moment as you unhooked your bra underneath your shirt and then moved to maneuver the straps out from your short sleeves while you kept talking. 

“I think he had a point.” You added on. “Good boys should get a reward. And I think you were fairly good today. You didn’t eat all your veggies at dinner, but you kept your feet off the dashboard and you were quiet during the car ride. You definitely get points for being patient during such a long trip, baby.” 

Your voice smoothed into a soothing tone, that word - baby - melting like butter over your tongue in a way that made Spencer’s knees wobble. He hadn’t known it until right now, but you calling him a ‘good boy’ and listing off such mundane things he had done that made him worthy of a reward fired off sparks inside of his brain. 

A breath choked off inside of his throat as you stood up off the bed and peeled your bra completely out from under your shirt. Somehow it was one of the sexiest things he had ever seen, revealing the hard peaks of your nipples and the beautiful natural teardrop shape of your breasts to him through the cotton fabric. 

Spencer wanted to speak, but his tongue felt so heavy and dry inside of his mouth. He knew that he was staring at your chest so blatantly now, but he couldn’t peel his eyes away. He couldn’t even feel ashamed anymore. 

That dull tingle in his crotch had turned into a full on stinging interest, and he unconsciously pulled at the fabric of his pants, trying to loosen some of the tension that was growing, not even considering how it might look to you - him dumbly reaching for his crotch to make it look looser when his hardening bulge was becoming more obvious by the second. 

It was one of the most ‘caveman’ things he had ever done in front of you - standing there with his mouth hanging slightly agape, pulling at his crotch without caring how it looked. You definitely wanted more, wanted to see how dumb he could get. How far you could make him devolve. 

“So what do you say, baby boy?” You hummed, stepping close into his personal space now, causing him to get a whiff of your perfume - something that was only a dull trace after such a long day, but still smelled so good. “Do you want Mommy to breastfeed you? Do you wanna suck on my tits as your reward?” 

You gently ran a thumb across his cheek, and paired with the words, Spencer’s brain short-circuited. 

He knew realistically that you weren’t actually offering to breastfeed him. There was no evidence in your life to say that your body could actually support the production of milk currently - but you were offering to let him play pretend. To suck on your tits with a very sexual air, to call you Mommy without the teasing humiliation behind it that Morgan had hinted at (or maybe Spencer liked that humiliation, he wasn’t even sure). (He hadn’t even known before this morning that he liked the idea of calling you Mommy, but here he was). 

All he could conjure in response was the dumbest, non-human sound. 

“Nngh.” 

It was a grunt from the back of his throat - too much blood swelling to his cock all at once and too much direct attention from you making him dizzy. 

You giggled quietly. 

“Come on, baby. Just say the word. And Mommy will give you everything you need.” 

Spencer inhaled sharply. At this point, he was desperate to get some oxygen to his brain. 

His mind was racing, chanting out: 

‘Yes! God, yes! I want it so badly, Mommy! I want anything you’ll give me. I need you. I need you so badly.’ 

But all his lips could form in the wake of such dizzying lust was: 

“Please.” 

“Good boy.” You sighed. 

You used a hand on his chin to tilt his face up to meet yours, and you consumed him in a kiss - he was hungry and eager to meet your touch, moaning loudly into your mouth, his hands racing to touch you now, rushing up to grip on your hips in the most utterly needy way. He balled the fabric of your shirt in his fists, like he couldn’t get enough of you - like he was afraid you would dissolve away if he let go of you for even a second. 

It was cute, to say the least. 

You only let the kiss last for a moment, though. You pulled away to a disappointed whine from Spencer, which you quietly hushed. 

“Hey, it’s okay baby.” You soothed him. “Come here. Mommy’s gonna take good care of you.” 

You lead him toward the bed, getting rid of his tie in the process, and Spencer stepped out of his shoes along the way. You slid onto the bed and laid up on the pillows on your back, Spencer clumsily following you, crawling on all fours. The two of you had barely started, but he was full-on panting now, racing to catch his breath while his blood hammered through his veins. 

He watched on with eager curiosity while you got comfortable, fluffing the pillow under your head before you then reached down and pulled up your shirt. You pulled the fabric to sit up under your chin, finally revealing your gorgeous breasts to him. 

If he was lost for words before, then he had receded back to a total neanderthal now. 

His mouth fell open and his salivary glands started working overtime as his eyes raked hungrily over your chest - enjoying the pure beauty of the fatty mounds, striped with zig-zagging stretch marks and completed by your hard peaked nipples. 

“Here, come on, baby.” 

You had to remind Spencer what the goal was, guiding him into place with a hand on the back of his head. You helped ease his body to lay on top of yours as he relaxed into you - and his mouth finally found its rightful place on your breast. He became greedy, suctioning hard on your nipple as though he might actually get something out of it. 

Truthfully, he did get something out of this. 

It definitely wasn’t any form of nutrition, but it was something that drove him lustfully insane and made his head fuzzy and warm in the best way. This was the only time in his entire life that he didn’t have ten thousand thoughts running through his mind like the news blasting on television in the background. This was the only time since his first conscious memory that he had actually known his mind to be quiet. 

He felt intensely thankful for it. Intensely thankful toward you for giving him this feeling. 

In that moment, without all the noise, all he knew was the comforting feeling of your fat tit under his mouth, the heat of your body under his own as you cradled him. The soothing firmness of your hands through his hair and down his back - and the distant, sweet purring of your voice in his ears. 

“Good boy.” You hummed, loving the feeling of him moaning around your nipple - so constant and so greedy now that you were sure he didn’t even know that he was doing it. “Such a good boy for me. Such a good boy for Mommy.” 

Your cunt was humming between your thighs, aching so hard at seeing Spencer like this. The usually composed, intelligent, practically robotic Doctor Reid reduced down to a blubbering, moaning, needy mess just because he wanted to suck on your tits. 

Just because you had called yourself Mommy a few times in his presence. 

It was so utterly beautiful, and you wanted more. 

(You didn’t think that you could ever let him go after this. You probably wouldn’t be able to stand the idea of another woman touching him after this. But you would have to think on that more later.) 

You noticed Spencer canting his hips, unconsciously seeking friction against his hard cock while he continued to suck on your breast. With his eyes closed blissfully, drool gathering around his lips where they met your skin in the most utterly adorable way. You couldn’t help yourself - you scooted your knee between his thighs. You then used a hand to help his hips into place, adjusting him so that he was getting good friction against your denim-clad thigh. 

“There you go. There you go, sweet boy.” You hummed, feeling another jolt through your body when he let out a sharper moan against your tit, and began humping your leg in earnest. 

You were quick to encourage him, putting both hands on his hips and helping him along while he greedily hung onto you. He had on your hip, the other hand slipping up to cup fingers around the bottom of your breast, making sure you didn’t escape him while he moved his body against you so frantically. 

“That’s just what you needed, isn’t it, baby?” You moaned out, your voice wavering slightly as the pleasure of it all thrummed through you. “Just a dumb little baby who needed Mommy’s tit.” 

The term ‘dumb little baby’ came flying out of your mouth before you could stop it. Though you knew exactly why it happened. Seeing such a brilliant genius reduced down to this truly did something to your ego. And apparently hearing those words from you did something to him, too. 

He whined sharply against your skin and his hips stuttered abruptly. You knew it wouldn’t be long before he came in his pants, his cock throbbing against the friction of your thigh. And this thought alone caused your mouth to run off without restraint. 

“Such a needy little thing.” You sighed. “You love being Mommy’s dumb baby, don’t you? Not a single fucking thought between your ears, just sucking on Mommy’s tit without a care in the world.” 

Spencer moaned and it sent another jolt through your body - another harsh pang through your cunt. You loved how much he needed you. You loved how much he was clearly eating this up. 

You didn’t even care if you got to cum tonight; you just wanted to exhaust him for all he was worth. Because he was so fucking pretty like this. 

“You gonna cum for me, baby boy? You gonna cum for Mommy? Come on, baby. Cum for me.” 

These words were what ultimately sent him over the edge. Well that along with your strong hands on his hips, encouraging him along while he was mindless and busy mouthing on your breast.

His jaw dropped open, finally loosening that desperate suction on your now slightly sore nipple as he began to pant frantically over your now spit-soaked skin. He moaned hotly while he humped you in an entirely adorable, almost distraught manner - absolutely desperate to have the most friction on his cock while his orgasm overtook him. 

You could feel his needy cock throbbing against you, trapped inside of his pants, shooting off hot ropes of cum that quickly soaked into his underwear and even then, seeped into the fabric of his slacks. You grinned and bit your lip as you felt that wetness even beginning to soak into your jeans, knowing he must have set off quite a big load. 

Spencer soon collapsed on top of you, gulping in air as he tried to catch his breath. 

Any normal person would have taken pity on him (seeing as he was clearly nervous and inexperienced) and wound things down to end the night here. Anyone else would have likely let him rest. 

But again, you felt devilish temptation overtake you. (It was a feeling that seemed to be much more ripe around Spencer Reid.) 

You just felt thankful that your temptation and inclination toward chaos came in the form of lust, rather than something more violent, like the people you studied every single day. Everyone around you should be thankful for that. 

You used your leverage (and the fact that you weren’t nearly as exhausted from the experience) to flip him over onto his back. He let out a surprised sound as his back made contact with the mattress - blinking up at you with shocked, glassy eyes as you moved down his body slightly. 

“Wha-?” He mumbled out the question, only getting out part of the word before you reached for the zipper on the front of his now wet pants. 

“Hey, shh, baby. I just wanna see you.” You told him quietly, causing him to stare down the length of his own body at your hands as you worked. 

You got the button and zipper undone quickly and you let out a quiet ‘fuck’ as you peeled back the wet fabric of his grey slacks to reveal the sight of his simplistic (very Reid) white cotton underwear slightly transparent and stuck tight to his cock, coated in wet, sticky cum. 

“So pretty baby.” 

He only whined in response. 

You couldn’t help yourself - you reached up and pulled down the waistband of his underwear, feeling more lust pricking through you as he was truly revealed to your eyes. He was perfect. Glossy and wet with his own release, his cock pinky red from the exertion and friction, still half hard. You pulled the clothes down over his hips and he lifted his body to help you, clearly glad to be rid of the mess, and the second you untangled the fabric from his ankles and ditched everything aside, you were back on him. 

You skimmed the tips of your fingers oh-so-lightly up his shaft where it was sprawled across his pelvis, and his hips jolted. He let out a bitter gasp - as though cold water had been splashed across him. 

“You said-” He choked on the words as you ran your thumb right underneath the crown, gently pressing into the head, causing him to choke on a moan while his knees quaked. 

You sat on his knees to keep him still and his head became so fuzzy once again. 

‘You said that you only wanted to look.’ 

The sentence died off in his lungs somewhere, and truthfully - he didn’t want to protest. He didn’t want you to stop. 

“Sens-sensitive.” He whined. “Too much.” 

“But you’re so pretty, baby.” You replied, your voice turning smooth and warm like butter again, melting over his whole body, causing all of his muscles to go soft and pliant for you. “Your cock is so pretty. I need to touch you.” 

He let out another strangled noise when you cupped your hand and took him fully in your grip this time, giving one good tug across his cock from root to tip. When you did this again, faster this time, his lungs seized inside his chest - trying to take in oxygen so quickly, as though he were drowning on dry land. 

“You gonna be good for me, baby?” 

“Yes.” He gargled back in response. “Yes, Mommy.” 

He was already so wet from cumming in his pants, and he let out a pathetic dribble of precum as you continued to move your hand - so it was an easy, slick slide. One that sent harsh shockwaves through him from overstimulation. Against his own will, he soon ballooned back to full hardness - becoming painfully swollen in your hand while you sped up your touch and closed your fist tighter around him. It caused the most wonderful hurt between his legs, and made a downright filthy wet sound as you pumped your grip faster along his needy cock. 

Spencer heard wailing and felt the soreness against his throat before he realized that he was the one making those desperate sounds. He distantly wondered what it might sound like to someone else, if the rooms on either side were occupied, if the motel would receive a noise complaint about some frail woman getting fucked to death by her husband next door - because that’s what he sounded like in his own ears. 

But any of those half-thoughts were chased out of his brain the second you flicked your thumb up over the head of his cock and your dirty mouth filled his ears once again. 

“Gonna milk this pretty cock, baby.” You told him, your voice firm. “You gonna show Mommy how much you can cum for me? Gonna show me what a good boy you are?” 

Spencer let out another pathetic sound, his body singing with pleasure at his pure need to prove to you that - yes, he was a good boy. 

He felt tears wet on the side of his face before he realized that he was crying, but it was all too good to ask you to stop. 

You used your other hand to cradle his balls and you swooped down to capture his gasping mouth in another kiss (a very messy, open mouthed kiss that Spencer could barely pay attention to). Spencer screamed into your mouth while he painted his stomach with cum once again.

You only stopped jerking his cock once you had truly milked every last drop from him, his hips seizing up off the bed and your hand almost slipping off him completely from how sloppily wet it was with more of his cum added to the mix. 

He was purely exhausted then. His eyes blinked heavily, struggling to stay open. He vaguely remembered you cleaning him off and tucking him into bed - but he definitely enjoyed falling asleep curled up next to your warmth. 

…

The next morning, Spencer felt hungover. 

He wondered if that’s what good sex always felt like - the combination of endorphins rushing through your body and physical exertion tackling you over. His legs were sore, as though he had run several miles. (Which wasn’t even something he could make a bold comparison to anyway, because he didn’t exercise nearly as much as he should for someone with this job). He woke up starving, grateful when you drove to a diner down the road after checking out of the motel and planted him in one of the booths before going outside to call Hotch in order to touch base with the rest of the team. 

You came back with a small grin on your face. 

“Turns out that tip the ex-wife gave us about their first house in Arlington was pretty solid.” You told Reid. “They caught the guy on his way there. He had another girl in the trunk. They got her back mostly unarmed, and took him into custody.” 

Spencer nodded. “That’s good.” 

When he moved to grab another sugar packet out of the caddy on the side of the table, three of them already open and empty beside his cup of coffee, you grabbed him by the wrist. 

“That’s enough, baby.” You told him. 

His stomach curled, that distinct feeling running through him again. And against his will, that word slipped out - again. 

“Yes, Mommy.”

...

A/N: This is a standalone oneshot. There won't be a sequel or a continuation, so please do not ask for one. If you liked the fic, please comment about the body of work that has been written, or consider reblogging to show your appreciation. If you want to see more Spencer Reid fics that I have written, you can check out my Criminal Minds Masterlist, or you can check out my Masterlists for other fandoms to see if anything catches your eye. Thank you for reading!

[xoxomyseriesxoxo]

Hello!

Sorry to bother you, but you seem to be one of the more informed Bleach fans.

So the thing is, since Bleach started airing its new anime, my Twitter feed has over-filled with it (apparently liking any manga/anime equals liking Bleach...) and the waves of IH fans, who seem to enjoy it exclusively through bashing IR. I know my first mistake is having Twitter, but the author of the absolutely fantastic manga I'm into is posting extra material there, so I'm ready to bear the consequences XD

Tbh, I've never finished reading Bleach. I think I made it to Fullbringer arc, but at that point, I've finally realized that I can just stop reading something that doesn't bring me enjoyment and for a while at that.

I did ship IR back then (for obvious reasons), but I have long since moved past Bleach to better pastures, though I still love the aesthetic. (And Rukia, I probably would've finished Bleach if it was at least 30% more Rukia, no Ichigo necessary XD)

But recently, I've encountered the post that discussed how Kubo himself didn't like the old anime. I remember fandom drama being large enough that it affected him, though I know no specifics as I've always inhabited the peripheral areas of the fandom.

So my question is, is there like a big meta post, following the evolution of Kubo's relationship with his work or just some large meta posts analyzing the events of those times? I definitely don't want to dive deep back into the fandom, but I've always enjoyed reading those large meta analyses.

Again, only if that won't be too bothersome for you, you just have a lot of interesting posts yourself, so I thought you may know something like this or point me in the right direction.

Have a good day!

Hi! To be honest, I kind of feel like a dinosaur in the fandom now... I've started reading it as a kid and joined the fandom when I was in middle school and now I'm in college with a part job but to sum it up, I've seen most of the drama of the fandom back then.

The thing is that the dudebros on Twitter who act like they know everything about B/each and what was going on in the fandom back then fail to realize the fandom was made of an overwhelming majority of IR shippers (and for good reasons) or just neutrals (who didn't really ship anything in particular) but understood IR's appeal.

But lmao, not the dudebros and these stans making up things to feed their own lies AGAIN when no, K/ubo didn’t have issues with the old anime, it was rather the “fan” who asked the question who was bitter about it from the way they asked their question. He supervied it and he even gave positive feedback, including this tweet about ep.342 (which features filler stuff made by the studio) where he said the episode was really pretty (he had also reacted to IR trending worldwide on Twitter back then while the anime episode aired).

K/ubo also said he was very involved in the anime in an interview in 2006, including the filler arcs for example with the character designs of the zanpakutos later on in the anime etc.

K/ubo also did say concerning that the H/ellverse and D/iamond D/ust R/ebellion movies aren’t canon (which makes sense, especially for H/ellverse after that recent Hell oneshot) but rather parallels to the canon story while Fade To Black IS canon (and the movie was promoted as “a movie you should go watch with your S/O" lol) so it tells you how invested he was in the old animated series. There is a whole thread on Twitter showing you K/ubo appreciated the anime, musical and live action adaptations and how IR were portrayed there if you want to check it.

Also, the “omg IR shippers are bullies and bad people!!!!” narrative which includes these accusations about IR shippers making K/ubo run off Twitter is FALSE (it happened 6-7 years ago), he deleted his account because a p*rnstar was impersonating as him there. SJ and him took legal action and that led to him deleting his account (he made a new account a while after), so it was not due to IR shippers and fandom drama as those people claim.

Apart from that, the manga’s cancellation official announcement from SJ was sudden which explains how rushed the ending was (well, at least the part where it doesn’t answer to many questions aka if U/rahara, G/rimmjow, N/el, Y/oruichi, I/sshin, R/yuuken were alive and some of the plot holes) but the fact it was that bad was K/ubo being petty and doing that out of spite because SJ cancelled the manga. I don’t know if you can say it’s a meta about his “relationship with his work” exactly but rather how his writing went downhill because he lost the plot of his own story: you can read this pretty interesting post (this blog has pretty interesting B/each analysis posts, including this one about the ending itself). B/each’s sales started to dip at one point but it got really bad at L/ost A/gent arc and and it got worse and worse after that because he spent way too long on unimportant plots and fights (the way we all way too many chapters with that fight of his favorite character against a giant hand...) while dropping important subplots/character arcs that had pontential such as K/arin becoming a s/hinigami (which was heavily hinted in the L/ost A/gent arc and which probably explains the fillers focused on her and H/itsugaya) or R/angiku having a piece of the S/OUL K/ING in her soul before A/izen stole it from her. He also got physically sick and tired of writing this story but SJ had initially given him enough time to end the story and what did he do? Waste time until SJ had had enough and made the cancellation announcement. You have a summary of that whole mess in this post.

The post-ending claims (from K/ubo himself and from those stans) about K/ubo planning the manga’s ending since the start (chapter 1) are also false.

K/ubo is great at characters design btw (though he had the same face syndrom at one point in TYBW when drawing his characters... especially when he was drawing T/oshiro in his bankai form) but as for the storytelling, he was only good if you stop at SS, after that... Well, we know how it went. It doesn't mean we didn't get good things from the following after that tho, it just means that things gradually started to go wrong until it became too much.

I hope this answer helps you to understand the situation better. Have a good day as well!

[wizzardhat]

you know i had a feeling i would end up having to break my oath to make an in-character choice, and it would have been cute and gay if it came as a consequence of something to do with gale, but all things considered im like, of course it would end up being related to astarion. an oath of the ancients paladin cannot just become besties with an undead vampire without enduring at least one major moral dilemma. gonna add a readmore for spoilers and rambling

i released the 7000 spawn. of course i did. the alternatives were to let them rot in cages for eternity or kill all of them. im curious if letting astarion complete the ritual would have broken the oath as well. It would be painfully ironic if the answer was no. but when it came down to make a choice between protecting the innocent and destroying the undead, my paladin chose to protect the innocent, and that was apparently the wrong answer. But really, it was the only answer that didnt prove them to be a complete hypocrite.

i like this a lot as the logical conclusion of their friendship with astarion, extreme opposites meeting in the middle. specifically im thinking of a line you get from him early on, when he tries to convince you to take control of the cult of the absolute. if you say "that is evil power" he says something along the lines of, "power is just power, its the people who use it who are good or evil." Damn if that isn't almost exactly the same sentiment you get form your conversation with the oathbreaker knight.

i have an imagined backstory for my tav that is related to the character they're based on--which is, ironically, also an oathbreaker paladin. That character broke his oath because he refused to give up on someone he loved past the point when they were dangerous to keep alive, and betrayed another paladin to protect them. But for my Tav, I let the opposite be true--they did give up on that person, because their order had convinced them it was the right thing to do, and as a result they had to watch their loved one die. So my Tav carried a deep sense of regret their whole life for that one mistake, and made a personal conviction to never give up on someone who needed them, or who they loved.

That conviction is what I imagine lead them down the morally dubious paths they had to take to complete the various companion quests, and on some level, i think they knew that eventually the oath they made to their god and the oath they made to themself would split. this backstory tidbit also adds a lot of extra layers to the line you say to gale (if you are romancing him) when you confront the elder brain at the end of act two, to "choose the one who loves you." because thats exactly what they failed to do, and it was a mistake they refuse to make again.

And in a game where gods are generally not to be trusted, my paladin abandoning an oath in favor of their own sense of justice thematically makes a lot more sense then being like, rip to you guys but my god is different lmao (although i guess selune is shown to be unambiguously good but thats only because shes standing next to shar, the bitch of all time.) also when romancing gale theres something kind of extra gay about "lets abandon our gods together." im sure gale would have a LOT to say to a distressed paladin with a freshly broken oath given everything with mystra being just as fresh.

mechanically though, idk if i can keep this change lmao. i rely way too much on misty step to give it up as a spell. Unless i dual class in to something else that gives me misty step. or i can just stay next to gale every fight and rely on him dragging me around with dimension door lmao--i do have at least one item that gives me one free misty step per short rest. also not having speak with animals will shatter my heart lmfao. i guess ill decide tomorrow if i want to reclaim my oath for purely mechanical reasons and just hc the oath staying broken, or actually commit to the practical consequences. I could also just like. try it out for awhile and talk to the knight again if i change my mind. at least i fucking hope thats the case lol.

[reveseke]

Few Rogue headcanons about BNHA universe

most likely to have been done or to be rather obvious ones. I just feel like dropping these.

Disclaimer — most likely half assed burst of energy thoughts and headcanons of the universe. I'm quite thick headed with my understandment of things and may not realise i have made a mistake about something, feel free to correct me if i have ~ Also these are just for fun.

I'd love to hear your own thoughts about these topics, if you have your own headcanons, do not try to start an argument you will be ignored after catching on, thank you.

TW — mentions of discrimination | mentions of ableistic behavior? | Fr-slur mention | The commission of Japan(it will count as a warning itself in my blogs lol) | brainwashing & conditioning whump mention ( tell me if you spot something else i didn't pick up on lol )

You cannot convince me that sensory relieving products are not one of the most common things to see in public in BNHA universe. And they are not judged upon having them bc they understand that many people due to their quirks may need them, it's not the ND people majority anymore to use them. ( Not saying that NT people don't use them, but it's more common for sensory relieving, stim things etc to be found with ND people. ;³ )

I swear to ukko that there is always something in the quirks that makes sensory relieving common. Even if it's the little things.

You can try to pry that out of my cold deathless hands lmao .

Uhhh also it's not weird anymore if someone buys animal products to be used on themselves. Esp if they have a mutation type quirk lol and don't find any of the mutation-type specific products working on them but some animal / pet products seem to do the job with little side effect maybe? Itchy skin, possibly inflamed skin/eyes etc etc.

I think related to the last one that there maybe some argument worth thoughts about non-mutation-type people using mutation-type products. Like as an example how if a straight hair person uses haircare products meant for type three and/or four hair.

Since we've seen how some mutation quirks are sometimes seen as ugly or feared bc the appearance they give the people with the quirks. ( Hint to that one episode with AFO and OFA origin tale where AFO speaks of the man with the mutation quirk scaring his parents bc how he looks ) . I just think there maybe a lot of discrimination on mutation types more than any other types of quirks. Of course never to forget the discrimination that's seen in our own world and how serious that is, just a little add on the list that might be discriminated against in this universe.

Oh yeah it was confirmed that the time consuming rabbit hole of a clock app is a thing in the BNHA. So I'd think there would be pretty intensive content and really dangerous ones at that actually.

Also about bullying, it would be more intensive looking at the way how quirks work and form (expect for mutation types) at the age of four.

But as I said few paces up about the mutation-type discrimination, it's easy to see how that would turn out for growing kids with more " scarier " or " disgusting " or " freak-like " mutation quirks would muddle their sense of worth.

Disabilities would either be treated the same like it is in our world, or they would be more better or worser. Actually thinking about it more when it comes to quirk related disabilities it wouldn't probably be much of a problem to outsiders since it would be more visible, but of course there could be the whole bad days and good days with the disabilities that are seen as something some abled people cannot understand enough and are being assholes about. But when it comes to invisible disabilities i really think they could be possibly undermined more or there could be more resources either way can be true or true-ish.

I think there are divisions in sports for different types of people. Like quirkless division, few different divisions for emitter-types, mutation-type quirks, and transformation-types.

Within the sports and divisions is altered rules, techniques and limitations. Then ofc there are sports only for different types that aren't generally held for other types of quirks or quirkless people. Some may be only for mutation-types, some for different kinds of emitters and some only for quirkless as an example.

Then there's ofc different types of jobs, some jobs that usually required a machines help can be replaced with a certain quirk and some that only hire one type of quirk people or only quirkless people.

BTW about the commission of Japan that's shown in the series, i really think they can be more ruthless and inhumane than they were with the shown heroes/srs . Like literally, brainwashing, conditioning in general etc i really think they would be more than able to do so. With all their resources and the confidiality on the job they would even get away with it if they pull it off.

[yeyinde]

read this once. sat in stunned silence. and then had to go back for seconds, thirds. this is just so incredibly good!!!

the way you describe Simon is so devious. so diabolical. it melts me into a puddle each time.

and the imagery you use???

He has a face carved from marble or granite, subject to some horrific fate. A statue pulled down from its pedestal and hauled into the river, now dragged out waterlogged and barnacle-crusted. Something terrible happened here and now something else wears its face.

and

You’ve let a wild animal into my house and now it won’t leave. In fact, it’s pissing on my sheets to mark its territory. You let it in knowingly, and even though you know something’s wrong, you’re letting it get worse.

are particular faves of mine because it's so visceral. edging into something primordial, godly/godless, and grotesque. i love it. i love it the most when Simon is a little bit monstrous, and you nail it like no one else. esp the line: You’ve never felt more like meat than under his gaze because this is expectly how i imagine being the focal point of Ghost's attention must be like. beautiful.

and Johnny. just absolutely having a ball over here. best of both worlds. wearing his collar proudly and absolutely dumbfounded that his girlfriend won't do the same. practically sacrilegious.

You can’t imagine Johnny without the half-shadow cast over his face.

he's living his best life.

and the smut, too!!! greedy, selfish, and punishing - my beloved trio. he's so, so awful!!! but at the same time, his the scope of his actions bleed through and you can almost trick yourself into thinking that he's just trying to keep the harmony between his found family instead of an old dog resource hoarding (at least!!! that's how i see it, and i could be wrong! i do genuinely think Ghost has affection for them both (probs more than he's ever felt in his entire life) but at the same time, it feels like the affection one must have for a continually replenishing food source after starving for ages lmao).

scorchingly hot, and poetic. incredible.

also major shoutout to the moment that made me have to get up and do laps:

“It’s always gonna hurt a little with me,” Simon says, and you almost mistake it for apologetic until he pulls you into an open-mouthed kiss that makes you twist your neck and ignores the way you whimper into his mouth.

godddddd. i am sick. i am unwell. i need to lay down.

sirius c

prompt: forced throuple au; Ghost decides that you and Johnny are his (part 7; ghoap x reader) [tags: noncon, implied cheating (in the context of Ghost's refusal to be a negotiation king lol), very nsfw] first part >> last part

-

No one tells you what to do when you finally notice the larger animal watching you from the thicket. 

It's been awhile now, you suspect. So long that it's managed to follow you all the way home.

Now they insist on helping you around the shop while you try to work. Try being the operative word. It’s hard to get much done with Simon scaring off all the customers and Johnny dogging at your heels, practically glued to your hip. You briefly consider stabbing him with the snips but then think the better of it. Simon’s stare follows you too closely for you to think you’d get away with it. 

Plus, after this morning—you cut that thought off at the root lest embarrassment make your eyeballs burn right out of your head. Despite the fact that he never brings it up, you can’t shake the thought that Simon knows. His face is just as expressionless with the mask off, which rests like a heavy weight on the kitchen table, imbued with a meaning too potent, too loaded, for you to fully digest or, really, understand in any concrete way. 

But the glint in his flinty eyes flirts with amusement. Brushes close to it. 

“What?” you snap, eggs dangling precariously from your fork.

His stare hasn’t wavered once since sitting you across from him. He doesn’t smirk nor snicker, but you can feel the laugh like a phantom limb that aches until you try to scratch it. He has a face carved from marble or granite, subject to some horrific fate. A statue pulled down from its pedestal and hauled into the river, now dragged out waterlogged and barnacle-crusted. Something terrible happened here and now something else wears its face.

His knees knock against yours under the table again, forcing one leg to spread to accommodate him. You stare at the elbow resting on your table as he chews off the end of a strip of bacon.

He doesn’t say anything, but you know he must have heard you and Johnny in the washroom earlier in the morning. Simon hadn’t even attempted to feign sleep when you’d come out flustered and turned around, stomach in knots. 

You can’t even look at Johnny for help because he stands behind the two of you at the counter, no space for him at your small kitchen table. Your life isn’t built to accommodate two men of their size; it’s hardly able to hold space for just the one.

Nevertheless, they stretch it to fit their needs.

Begrudgingly, you have to admit that Simon does help you out around the flower shop. He fixes the door to the supply closet that always jams, hoses down the sidewalk in front of the store where someone vomited near the entryway the night before, and even gives you a couple hours alone to yourself when he drags Johnny with him to do the bouquet deliveries. 

They come back with coffee in takeaway cups and pastries in a waxy bag and you nearly moan when you notice the label on the cup. Coffee from the good coffee shop across town. You actually moan when you sink your teeth into an almond croissant and then blink your eyes open wide when you hear Johnny groan in response. 

You steel yourself to keep your knees from knocking together.

It’s been a week since you saw him last. Hard to believe. You’ve been distant, rightfully so, contemplating the state of your relationship and coaxing yourself to the brink of texting him that it’s over, only to give up at the last possible minute. The tides receding again. 

You don’t think about how much you missed him. 

Since this morning, you’ve been on edge. Half tempted to corral Johnny into your apartment upstairs for some alone time. You don’t think Simon would allow that though, whether out of some sadistic glee in seeing you squirm or out of jealousy. It doesn’t seem unlikely. He acts like Johnny is his to do with what he pleases, and Johnny beams up at him like the sun and lets him.

You hadn’t realized there had been a third person in your relationship. Now it feels like his presence has always been felt. You can’t imagine Johnny without the half-shadow cast over his face.

All day, you wait for Johnny to break. Part of you hopes that it’ll be sooner rather than later. Unless he’s been entertaining someone on the side—and, for reasons unbeknownst to you, you discount that thought the second it comes to you, sure that you’d know if there was another woman—it’s likely that he hasn’t fucked in a week. He acts like it too, hovering close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off his body. Every accidental step back comes with a chance of landing straight into his arms. 

When you touch his arm gently to ask him to help you move a heavy flower pot, he looks down at you with irises gone black, ready to fuck on a dime. It’s not the right place or time, and you’re still tremendously pissed at him for letting his superior grope you in front of their whole platoon or whatever, but you’ve also gone a week without his dick, and you’re starting to think that your pride shouldn’t get in the way of good dick.

But then he looks over at the hulking figure haunting the doorway and draws back. The shadow on your relationship again. The tension breaks. Even though he postures and flexes when he helps you move the flower pot, it doesn’t come with an invitation to sneak away to your apartment upstairs. Johnny grits his teeth and holds himself back because Simon tells him to; because, in Simon’s own words, he’s a good lad. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask Simon when Johnny goes to take a leak, but he just stares at you with eyes still darkened by poorly wiped off eye black. 

The oxygen is sucked out of the room when it’s just the two of you. He’s imposing from afar, accentuated by the innate knowledge—gleaned just from looking at him, nothing more than that, just the size of him in his line of work—that he’s the most dangerous thing around, but with no one else to hide behind, you can’t help but feel like a trapped animal. 

“Means he knows who’s in charge,” he says. 

Like that’s supposed to tell you anything. 

The air still crackles with tension when Johnny comes back. He glances around almost nervously, pupils dilating. 

“The two of ye finally gettin’ on?” he asks.

There’s a moment where you consider ripping the veil down and saying, no, we aren’t, Johnny. You quisling. You can see exactly how uncomfortable I am. It’s more than visible; it’s oozing from my pores. You’ve let a wild animal into my house and now it won’t leave. In fact, it’s pissing on my sheets to mark its territory. You let it in knowingly, and even though you know something’s wrong, you’re letting it get worse.

Simon’s smile is severe and whetted when he cuts off your train of thought. “Reckon we're getting on like a house on fire, eh?” 

You can’t muster more than a weak smile and nod in response to that.

Around mid afternoon, a regular client calls in with a large, last minute order. You accept it because it’s nothing you don’t already have in stock, but it means you have to close the shop early to work on her order and then load up the van to drive to her place to drop the flowers off.

“I’ll come with you,” Simon grunts when you flip the sign and tell the two of them about your plans.

You freeze, a shudder rippling down your spine. “That’s not necessary—I can do it myself.”

“Don’t care.”

“I do it all the time when you’re not here!”

“It’s not up for debate,” he says, eyes going hard. Daring you to argue.

You’ve been getting the sense all day that he’s been trying to corner you, trying to get you on your own. You evade his efforts like a prey animal, but all that does is make him work harder for it. 

You look to Johnny for any kind of reassurance, someone to back you up and agree that you’re more than capable since you do this all the time, but he just grins from behind the counter where he helps cut lengths of cellophane and ribbon for the bouquets. “Aye, hen, let him help. Ye cannae carry all of that yourself.”

Your brain clicks back on when you’re barrelling towards your client’s place at breakneck speed, far too fast for a residential road. It’s not you driving though. Simon has himself parked in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel and the other dangling loosely out the window. His driving makes your stomach churn, nausea brewing. You bone-knuckle the grab handle reflexively. 

“Could you slow down?” you hiss out through clenched teeth.

Simon ignores you until you start to scroll through your phone to distract yourself. He transfers the hand on the wheel to jostle your knee with his free hand. “Eyes on the road.”

“I’m not even driving you,” you squawk, heart thudding in your chest when his hand doesn’t lift off your knee. 

“Tell me when to turn, doll.” The pet name makes your stomach jump. When he says it, his hand tightens over your knee, thick fingers with scraped up knuckles curling around, the width of his palm wider than your kneecap and you stare down dumbly, rabbit heart careening at the same speed as the van. 

You’re so dumbfounded that you nearly miss the street. He takes the turn suddenly when you mention it instead of making the sensible call to go up the next street and then come back down, and you swear and yell when he nearly takes the van onto the right two wheels. 

The sweat is still dripping down the nape of your neck when he parks in front of the client’s venue.

Simon ignores any attempt of yours to help unload the van. All you can do is watch helplessly as he carries multiple arrangements into the venue at once, leaving you to handle the contract and payment collection. The situation is spiraling rapidly out of your control. 

Your client, a housewife about a decade or so older than you, eyes him as he passes with two flower pots tucked under his arms. 

“I didn’t know you changed staff,” she murmurs, eyes following him into the next room and lingering on the backs of his thighs when he bends down to deposit the flower pots, making the material of his pants strain tight around his glutes and hamstrings. 

“I didn’t,” you protest, shaking your head. “That’s—he’s my boyfriend’s coworker. Um, his boss, I mean. I think. He’s just helping out for the day.”

“Well, I know how I’d like him to help out,” someone else giggles. One of the venue staff, judging by her uniform. Even your client titters at that.

Simon’s more approachable with the mask off, it seems. Still verging on the preternatural, but at least without the mask he seems more human. All six-foot-five-inches of him, arms and legs packed with a generous helping of muscle and fat; a square jaw must be appealing to any sex-parched person within range. It makes your jaw clench.

“Here’s your receipt,” you grit out before ripping it off the payment terminal and handing it to her. She blinks at your dour mood, unused to a less than professional version of you, but that’s what Simon’s presence does to you. Sours you right up. A lemon squeezed right into the mouth.

He’s posted by the van when you come out still scowling and itching for a row. He frowns at the look on your face. “Fix your attitude. You’ve already upset Johnny enough.”

You halt in your tracks, dumbstruck. “I’ve upset Johnny?”

“Yeah. So fix it before we get back.”

You’ve officially reached your limit. All day, you’ve been waiting to go nuclear, bad mood settling deeper and deeper into you because you’ve never been good at managing your anger. The audacity to blame you for this whole situation nearly makes you lose your head. 

Simon looks almost bored when you stomp up to him and stab a finger into his chest. You pointedly do not let yourself focus on how little his chest gives beneath your finger. “All of this was your fault for sexually harassing me in the first place. I don’t even think you were ever sorry for that—this all just feels like some fucked up attempt to break me and Johnny up.”

He stares down at you. “You think I want Johnny for myself?”

Heat flares under your collar, but you push on. “I do. And you know what? You can have him. I don’t need this. Johnny clearly values your approval more than mine anyway or none of this ever would have happened once he caught you groping me in broad daylight. If you want him so bad, nothing I do is going to work, so why even bother? He’s yours. The both of you can fuck off when we get back—I’m sick of having you in my space.”

The tirade leaves you panting by the end of it, and then you look into his eyes. 

You wonder if it’s a universal phenomenon to sense the moment when you’ve made a grave miscalculation. It must be. The feeling is overwhelming; for you, it throbs in your very bones. 

Simon’s expression never changes, but the light behind his eyes starts to flicker in a different way, and you are suddenly conscious of him not just as a man but as a man paid to kill. A professional at that. At least a dozen bodies under his belt and likely more, and yet you stand chest to chest with him like you’re somehow tougher than that; like all those bodies mean nothing, like his knife hasn’t quenched its bloodthirst ad infinitum, like his arms haven’t felt a neck crack until it’s become a habit, an easy kill, a morning fix. 

You’ve never felt more like meat than under his gaze. 

“Get your ass in the van,” he commands, and you listen because your mouth has gone dry and you understand now, somewhere deep in your reptile brain, a little creature hissing at you to turn and run, that he doesn’t warn. He just does. 

Humiliation festers under your skin when he buckles you in. Your mouth opens on a smart remark until you catch a glimpse of him from the corner of your eye and it’s all anger leaking tar, mafic lava dark and flowing, smooth and lobed and striated with hellfire. 

You think at first that he’s just going to drive you home. Your words might have offended him, but the lack of refutation makes you think that at his core, he must agree. Simon is just another man with an unholy allegiance to ego, an ugly incarnation of desire and pride that you might have briefly mistook as a person as complex as yourself until he snuffed that inkling right out with a hand on your ass. 

Then, lost in your thoughts, you miss when he pulls over and puts the van in park. 

You hear the click of your seatbelt, but your head doesn’t have time to turn before Simon hauls you over the center console and into his lap, a hand already clamping over your mouth to muffle your scream. 

“I’ve had enough of the fuckin’ attitude, girl,” Simon snarls into your ear, shoving his hand down the front of your pants without any preamble, the stretchy jogger fabric not putting up any resistance. “I haven’t got the patience for it. We’ll sort you out and knock these stupid notions from your skull.”

You must shriek under his palm because his fingers tighten, digits pressed into your jaw to the point of aching. It’s hard to tell under the white hot fear that washes over you, nearly blinding you. 

If it bothers him to find you dry under your panties, he doesn’t say anything. Calloused fingers spread your labia wide and trace over your clit lazily, trying to coax the slick out of you. You squirm in his hold, desperate to somehow wriggle out, but Simon chooses now to give you a glimpse of his strength, holding you tight to his chest. No matter how much you squirm, there’s no way out of his hold. Shouting behind his palm doesn’t help either; Simon just curls his hand tighter over your mouth. 

Horror blooms in your chest when your core starts to warm up at his touch. The first traitorous bead of wetness nearly has you apoplectic with rage. His fingers saw up and down over your slit until he thinks you’re wet enough to handle two fingers shoved knuckle deep. 

“Enough of that,” Simon grunts when you yelp and knee the underside of the steering wheel in your haste to get away. “It’s just two. You’ve been fucked before; you can take it.”

Your knee aches from slamming into the steering wheel, but it’s nothing compared to the ache of his fingers stretching you open, the skin around his knuckles delicate and febrile. For all his flaws, Johnny loves getting his mouth on your pussy before trying to cram his cock in, addicted to the taste of you on his tongue when he’s got you folded in half and taking his dick like a champ. Simon seems like he wouldn’t mind railing you in the back of the van without any prep whatsoever. 

“Can’t wait to break you on my cock,” he growls, his breath hot over your neck, and lust stinking up the van so bad that the air is nearly rancid with it. Sulfuric. “You think you’ve had it rough with Johnny? You don’t have a fuckin’ clue what you’re in for with me.”

His hunger is a noxious, billowing cloud. Miasma like. It threatens to smother you. His shaft is hard under your ass, evident when he thrusts his hips up. Your ensuing yip makes him grunt, gratified, like his pleasure comes part from your shock. 

“I’m not explaining this shit anymore. This is the way it’s gonna be from now on—no discussion, no arguing, no nothing. It’s not up for negotiation.”

Simon’s fingers piston into you without remorse, brutal hunger foisted off on your body. You again try desperately to push away from him, almost levitating out of his arms until he forces you back down and bites down hard over your clothed shoulder. The horn stays silent when you try to honk it, mocking you somehow. You wonder if anyone would hear your muffled cries from beneath Simon’s hand if they happened to pass by, or if they’d chance a glance into the van and see the devil himself playing with your pussy in his lap and keep on walking. 

Your body plays you for a fool though, sweltering under his touch. When he growls in your ear, your pussy clenches up nice and tight, and slick drips down your inner thighs. 

A third finger nearly makes you choke on your gasp. You go quiet after that save for the occasional whimper, all of your energy concentrated on accommodating his fingers, each as wide as almost two of yours. A fourth almost doesn’t feel fathomable, but then he sinks it into you and every thought leaks out of your head.

“Christ, you’re a dream when you shut your mouth, aren’t you, doll?” Simon breathes, nosing the corner of your jaw. “Johnny picked a nice little cunt for himself.” 

He doesn’t pick up on the irony somehow. Even shaking in his lap, your brows furrow at his words, a barb on the tip of your tongue until a glob of slick leaks from you and wrenches you back out of your head. 

He clicks his tongue against his teeth all condescendingly when your breathing goes hitched and panicked, so close to coming that you feel a hairsbreadth from it. When you jump at the sound of his tongue snapping in your ear, he chuckles, the broad chest at your back shaking with his laughter.

“There we go,” Simon murmurs, rubbing a soothing hand over your belly. “Tired, eh? Just need to come and have a nap. I know Johnny left you hanging this morning. Poor girl.”

You hadn’t even noticed that he’d dropped his hand from your mouth to your stomach, but there’s nothing to do about it now. All you can do is lean back against him and stare at the fine, blond hair on his knuckles as he drags it over your belly button in slow, languid strokes. 

“Oh god—” you groan when he thumbs your pearled clit and sinks his fingers in as deep as they’ll go, your hole stretched too tight. 

Sweat beads on your hairline. It feels like tears might be leaking down your cheeks, but it’s hard to say. The only thing you can do is focus on not coming apart at the seams.

The air in the van is moistened by your breath, the windows almost completely fogged up. Your lower back aches from arching into his hand. When it comes out in a sob, he tells you he’ll have Johnny massage it when the two of you get home. 

“It’s always gonna hurt a little with me,” Simon says, and you almost mistake it for apologetic until he pulls you into an open-mouthed kiss that makes you twist your neck and ignores the way you whimper into his mouth.  

You nearly black out when he finally makes you come, your head tipping back and resting on his shoulder. You tense in his grasp and open your mouth on a soundless moan when your walls spasm around his fingers. Nothing you can do but let it happen. Like splintering down the middle. It hits you so hard that your belly cramps. 

Shame hits you so much harder. A half second after, like the sky splitting open and a voice thundering down, you know what you did. 

Your leg gives a feeble twitch when he pulls his fingers out, his palm soaked with your juices. You’re a limp mess of sour sweat and come in his lap, reeking of sex musk and a warm, spicy scent. 

You squeal and jolt back to awareness when he pushes a finger back in, sensitive to the point of pain. “Simon, I can’t—”

“Hold still; m’not done yet,” he cuts you off, irritation layered in his voice again. 

You don’t have to endure it for as long this time at least; he paws at your overworked sex and pants in your ear like a bear. Luxuriating in the soft, wet folds of your pussy. His touch isn’t clumsy, but it feels like he’s making up for lost time. It almost makes you wonder how long he’s wanting to get between your legs, but that thought evaporates when he reaches further down to press his fingers against the rim of your other hole, chuckling into your hair when you clench up. 

Then, after a few minutes, he pulls his hand out of your joggers and pats your belly with his wet fingers, leaving dewy strands of your juices on your skin before helping you back into the passenger seat. You don’t even have it in you to protest when he buckles you in again. You even accept it when he leans over to plant another wet kiss on your mouth, one with too much tongue and too much teeth, come drunk and aching for any kind of affection. 

“Sweet as pie, eh?” Simon rasps, eyes half-lidded and heady. Almost lovesick. “Couldn’t have asked for better.”

You stare at the side of his head as he drives the two of you back to the shop, eyes glued to his cauliflower ear. Rough son of a bitch. Brute strength hewn into his bones, covetous need in his veins.

And this is what your boyfriend thought was appropriate to bring home. 

He stops one more time to feed his cock down your throat before you make it home. Your tongue curls around the mushroomed head of dick when he drags your head down, the wiry hair at his crotch tickling your nose. The scent of him here is pungent, musky. Old lichenous rocks and rust like blood on your tongue. You’re so pliable that you hardly even gag when it touches the back of your throat. 

His come is still hot and tacky on your tongue when he pulls you into his lap to let you cry it out, wiping up your tears with a rough thumb. It’s a while before you manage to settle down again. 

Johnny’s still beaming behind the counter when you come in, Simon at your rear to keep you from running, his hand planted firmly at the small of your back. You can barely look your boyfriend in the eye. You’re afraid he’ll see it plain as day on your face, hair mused and lips swollen from sucking his lieutenant off in the van on the drive home. 

“The two of ye have a good time all by yourselves?” he asks, either deliberately ignoring the obvious or naively trusting. You don’t know which would be worse.

You can hear the dry grin in Simon’s voice. “We had a nice chat, didn’t we, doll?”

All you can muster is a weak smile and croak, “Yep. We did.”

You hold off a flinch when Simon’s hand slips down and grabs a handful of your ass.

[mari-the-bimbo]

What about if one of gojo's side chicks were being toxic/mean to s/o, because gojo wasn't giving them any attention? What would gojo do?

Dorm mate! Gojo: his side chick is mean to you

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

A/N: I want to say he’d straight up just murder them, but I should probably give more detail lmao, anyways enjoy! :)

Warning: swearing

// These scenarios take place before “drunken confessions” //

Dorm mate! Gojo would usually bring back a different girl to the dorm nearly every week

Majority of his girls would quickly catch on that he has a soft spot for you, but would keep their mouths shut

Mostly because they either felt pity that you didn’t realise, or in hopes that they could spend more time with the handsome rich boy

But it seems as though Gojo’s newest girl didn’t get the gist, her anger towards you growing when she couldn’t get attention from Gojo.

So when you woke up that morning, and found a hand bag on your designated kitchen chair, you picked it up in confusion.

“Hm? Where did this come from?”

But before you could place it on the kitchen counter, you were pushed forwards by a taller figure, who snatched the bag out of your hands.

“Who the fuck said you could touch my bag with your dirty hands?! Get up you stealing bitch!” You heard a girl yell from behind.

You rolled his eyes, knowing it’s another one of Gojo’s stuck up side chicks.

“What makes you think I was trying to steal your bag? It was literally in my seat!!” You argued back while getting up, angered by her accusations.

“Maybe it’s the way you literally look fucking homeless you bitch, I don’t how why Gojo even deals with your ugly ass!” She yelled, clearly trying to start a scene.

Why was she screaming so early in the morning? Damn, hoe.

“You’re literally standing in my dorm insulting me?! If you’ve got shit to say, say it outside of my dorm!” You retaliate.

“Woah woah! What’s with all the screaming? It’s 7 in the morning guys!” Geto walks in with Shoko, who seems just as unimpressed.

But before you could apologise to your dorm mate and friend for the noise and explain the situation, the girl spoke up

“Can you believe this bitch was trying to steal my bag??!!” She said, pointing at you accusingly.

“Surely there’s some mistake” Geto said, walking towards you both.

“Imagine stealing someone’s bag!” She continued dramatically, definitely getting the attention she intended, “did your mother not raise you right? Acting like a fucking animal” she added bitterly as she glared at you.

“Watch your mouth!” You yelled angrily.

“Woahh there!! What’s with all the noise people!” dorm mate! Gojo entered, a bit too happily, unable to read the mood of the room.

You saw a smirk appear on the girls face.

Oh, so that’s what it was. All this for Gojo’s attention huh?

“Babe! You need to kick this broke bitch out the dorm! They literally tried to steal my bag!” She yelled.

“I did not!” You yelled back, you could feel angry tears building up in your eyes, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by the accusations.

“You didn’t?” dorm mate Gojo asked in a monotone voice, his 6’3 figure leaning against the kitchen frame.

His blank tone with the shades he was wearing that was blocking his expression made it hard for you to decipher whether he was mocking you or he was genuinely on the girl’s side

Whatever, it didn’t matter to you anymore.

“Whatever! I don’t need to explain myself to anyone anyways!” You yelled angrily as you stormed off, trying to compensate for the pathetic tears that was flowing down your cheeks.

But those tears were dorm mate! Gojo’s breaking point.

As you pushed past him to exit the dorm kitchen, he grabbed your elbow, staring down at you blankly, as you struggled to escape his grasp.

“Get out” he said.

“Huh?”

He sighed, as he released you and made his way over to the girl

Was he telling you to get out? Or her?

“Babe! I was so scared when I saw her about to steal my bag!” she exaggerated.

But the answer to your question became clear as Gojo grabbed the girls bag and threw it across the room,

“Babe! W-what did you do that for??!!” she asked in shock.

“Go fetch doggie!” Dorm mate! Gojo mocked her with a sadistic smile, as you, Geto and Shoko stood still in shock.

“No but seriously Clarisse, get the fuck out of my dorm, and take your fake designer bag with you” he added, his smile now disappearing

Once the girl recovered from the shock, she picked up her bag as muttered profanities as she left the dorm.

The awkward silence fell over the dorm as she left.

“Y/N CHANNNN!!!” dorm mate Gojo wailed as he swiftly picked you up in his arms and hugged you “FORGIVE ME FOR BRINGING THE WRETCHED WITCH THAT DARED TO INSULT YOU”

“O-okay Gojo! You can let me down now!” You said with embarrassment, as you watched Geto and Shoko laugh at you, all coddled up like a baby in Gojo’s arms.

“Awww such a cutie patootie aren’t ya Y/N?” Shoko mocked, making you blush harder and you told her to shut up, making everyone laugh harder

Looks like the girl got dorm mate! Gojo’s attention in the end, just not in the way she wanted lol

HAHA [disrespectfully]

[ruki--mukami]

❆ henlo jas i have come to give you appreciation:

Y’KNOW! when first getting into DL, Ruki was like?? not a FAVOURITE, but not a character i didn’t like either. i didn’t particularly think to much of him. UNTIL—

i read your portrayal of him. FOR SOME REASON— the way that you write specifically. the way you convey his character. wonderful. spectacular. is so?? compelling?? DEF DRAWS A PERSON IN.

so now everyday i wake up like “ooooo i wonder what shenanigans rooks is gonna get up to on the dash.”

and thats thanks to you 😎 ANYWAYS FORGIVE ME FOR THE RANDOM APPRECIATION. I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW I ADORE YOUR CONTENT 💪😎 AND EVERYTHING YOU DO 😩 PLEASE BE SURE TO TAKE CARE YOURSELF 🗣🗣 ❆

🧩 OMG WHIN IN MY ASK BOX, WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS—

First I just want to say thank you so much for your kind words, from the bottom of my heart. T_T Writing has always been a passion of mine to some degree, but before this blog I never wrote much of anything fictional. In fact, the last time I did any kind of roleplaying was probably 10 years ago if you exclude this blog, so I totally thought it would flop due to my rustiness LMAO. Instead, I made so many wonderful friends on here including yourself and I could not be more grateful for it. Every day I'm trying to improve my language and technique and it's been such a blast exploring that through, hands down, my favorite comfort character of all time. It's definitely entertaining for me to think of how he would react to certain situations, interact with all kinds of people, and problem solve his way out of things. 🧩

WARNING: MAJOR RUKI SIMPERY AHEAD because I just don't know when to stop I guess.

Okay someone stop me because I know I'm going to go on a long Ruki spiel that no one asked for—

Honestly, being indifferent to Ruki is a pretty reasonable conclusion to arrive at for the standard DL fan, assuming you have not read all of his routes, drama CD's, tokutens, etc. like most people probably haven't. The anime only shows a glimpse of his character that doesn't even do him justice, and his first route (MB) barely scratches the surface as well imo. I'll try to keep this short since my Ruki simpery is off the charts, but the breadth of his character for me stems from Dark Fate and Lost Eden which, I assume, most don't really delve that far unless Ruki is already one of your biases.

Basically what I'm trying to say is—I think you flatter me too much because I kind of just take everything I know about his character + how I envision him to act in my head and just… write from there, I guess. HAHAHA. Truth be told I was convinced when I made this blog, people would think my portrayal of Ruki is too exaggerated (which, ngl, he totally is for my own entertainment LMAO) or too sadistic for his own good. BUT violence and torture aside, it's one of my goals of this blog to spread my love for the character and make other people see why he is so dear to my heart.

Too often have I seen people mistake Ruki for someone who is overly serious, dull, or no fun at all. But to me, that couldn't be further from the truth. Anyone who plays through his routes would know that he has some of the biggest snark and sass I've seen of ANY OF THE DL BOYS. Seriously, the cutting edge this man has… OOF. IT HITS HARDER WHEN HE'S ALREADY INTELLIGENT AND KNOWS WHERE IT HURTS MOST TOO. Yes, he is strict, stoic, maybe a bit too aloof for most people's tastes, BUT HE'S ALSO SUPER WITTY, SURPRISINGLY CHARMING, AND HE JUST SOMEHOW GIVES OFF THIS JUXTAPOSING AURA OF "I WANT TO RUIN YOUR LIFE" + "I WANT TO PROTECT YOU AND CARE FOR YOU" and I jUST—GFHFGKHFG okay you can argue probably all of the boys give off that kind of vibe??? But still??

The whole backstory of Ruki being the eldest who leads his brothers despite knowing he is the forbidden choice who should not be chosen, [SPOILERS CROSSED OUT] despite the person he respects so much being the same reason for his own trauma and downfall , and being arguably the most closed off, cold-hearted of all the boys eventually opening up to you and being vulnerable around you? IT DOESN'T GET MORE REWARDING THAN THAT.

It's the reason why I make him quite the sadistic vamp and try to add a cutting wit as sharp as his own fangs in every single reply I write. That's what I take from his character and luckily for me, being someone who knows a lot of idioms and ambiguous sayings with room for double meanings, there is so much for me to work with to go above and beyond the Ruki you would read in say, an English translation of his dialogue, if that makes sense? Probably most of what I'm saying right now doesn't register unless you have Ruki for brains like I do but bottom line is: I love this man too much for my own good that I had to make a blog of him portraying him the way he practically lives in my head rent free.

And you don't know how elated I am that it's more than just the inner fangirling of a crazed Ruki lunatic. I'm so happy that others like this portrayal of him as much as they do... It all feels so surreal to me.

So, yes, when you mention Rooks and his shenanigans... I ask myself the same thing every day too when I first wake up. I wonder what my man will encounter today and what other crazy madness he's gonna stir up on tumblr dot com HAHAHAHAHA. I can only hope it is entertaining for all who happen to stumble across it and dedicate the time to read my posts. T_T <3 Thank you for enjoying the character thanks to how I write him. It means more than you know.

And please take care of yourself as well, Whin. I see how hard you work and it doesn't go unnoticed. We all need breathers from writing even if it's a fun hobby, or so I like to tell myself.

Thanks for coming to my simp talk.

[filipinoizukuu]

I saw your post about the FA's translations, and I totally agree. Sometimes, when they do not translate accurately, is to make it sound better or cooler in English, but it just ends up taking away a lot from the context and characters. We know how one of the most affected character interpretations is Katsuki's, a main character, no less. And Izuku and Katsuki's relationship too, which is something super super wrong, considering is deeply intertwined with the main plot of the series, thus if someone misinterpreted their dynamic, this person would miss a bigass chunk of the message the story has.

Here is the panel you mentioned before btw

I remember when I read this, only 10 or 11 chapters into the manga (?), and I was like "...I'm...pretty sure this guy didn't say that" khshsjdhs

OK FIRST OF ALL LMAO HELLO MANG!! THANK YOU SO MUCH AND DW ABOUT IT I TOTALLY GET WHAT YOU MEAN !!

(this is your warning for a long post ahead!)

In any case, I still think you're very correct on this! Not to ramble a bit, but Horikoshi's particular talent in developing the plot of MHA is actually very very brilliant and there are a lot of blink-and-you'll-miss-it details that together, assemble the big picture of what MHA is.

Translations are such an integral part of being able to understand foreign media. MHA or otherwise. The simplest of details say a lot about a character and often times make or break a series because everyone knows that strong character dynamics are what carry even the shittiest of plots.

First and foremost, I want to clarify that because of the nature of fan translations and the fact that most of it is volunteer work/ written out of pure enjoyment of the manga--we shouldn't judge these fan translators too harshly (if at all) for interpreting it the way they want to. FA, as far as I can tell, is a fan-based group that works out of donations.

The first thing I wanna bring up is that when it comes to fandom and its works, there are two types: Curatorial and Transformative. Now, the transformative part is something that must be very familiar to a lot of you. Fanfiction, fanart, and most headcanons fall under Transformative Works (i.e. AO3) because they are all about transforming the canon world to fit each individual's personal preferences. Meta-analysis posts and Character Breakdowns are also classified under this.

Curatorial on the other hand are fandom interactions made with the explicit purpose of being as close to canon material as possible. This is working out the logic of quirks, for example, or memorizing as much canon content about your favorite villain as possible. These are more cold, hard undeniable facts that lend themselves to the DIRECT VISION the creator/author had while making this media. If you were to ask me my opinion on this, this would be the moment where I tell you that the Curatorial side of fandom is where fan translations should (for the most part) fall under.

What people need to know though is that oftentimes, fan translations do not.

Translating isn't and has never been a one-is-to-one process. There are hundreds of thousands of aspects in a language that make it so that it isn't perfectly translatable. Colloquialisms to sayings to dialects, to just plain-out words that don't have a proper English translation to them! Manga is made by and for a Japanese audience, so obviously in a lot of instances, there will be cultural nuances that will not be understood by anyone who hasn't immersed themselves in Japanese culture/language.

So what does this mean then for fan scanlations?

It means that a vast majority of translators teach themselves to only get the essence of the message. They take the dialogue as they understand it and translate it to something of their interpretation. When language and cultural barriers exist, translators do what they can in order to make it understandable to the general populace. This means making their own executive decisions on how they see a character speaking. In example, if they see Todoroki using very direct and impersonal Japanese--one translator might interpret it to mean that Shouto is stiff and overly formal, while another may see it as him being rude and aloof.

The problem is, translators are fans just like us.

Like with the image Mang posted above, the translator based the usage of curse words off of their understanding of Bakugou's character. The lack of foul language in the original Japanese might have made the translator think "Oh. There just aren't enough Japanese cusses for his character." And took that as an initiative to make Bakugou's lines more colorful and violent because this was working off of the image Bakugou had had at this point in canon.

But Codi! You may cry. Wasn't it proven multiple times that Bakugou prefers concise and short lines? They should've known better!

Yes. Maybe they should've known better. But tell me honestly in your first watch-through of MHA, did you perfectly understand Bakugou's character either? Did you catch the whole 'direct and no flowery language' aspect of his language when you first saw Season 2?

Most people don't. I only really understood this fact after I'd read multiple discussions of it and even double-checked the manga myself. These are the kinds of things that only become noticeable with a sharp eye and some time to scrutiny. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to fan translations, the clout and recognition are always going to go to who can post the quickest.

Am I excusing erroneous translations? A bit, I guess. It's hard for us to go in and expect translators to catch all these errors before release when we ourselves only catch these errors like 4 months in with a hundred times more canon context than these scanlation groups did at the time of its release.

Still, there are plenty of harms that come with faulty translations.

When a translation is more divorced from the original's meaning than usual, it creates a dissonance between what is actually happening versus what the audience sees is happening. This looks like decently-written character arcs being overruled and rejected by most of the readers because of how 'jarring' and 'clumsy' it seems. By the time translators had caught on to the fact that Bakugou was more than just a ticking time bomb, we were already several steps into showing how significantly he cares for Deku.

The characters affected most by these translation errors are often those with the most subtle and well-written character arcs. A single mistake in how the source material is translated can make or break the international reception of a certain character to everyone who isn't invested enough in them to look deeper into the canon source.

It creates hiccups in plots. Things that seem out of character but really aren't. Going back to MHA in specific, the way that inaccurate translations hurt both the 'curatorial' and 'transformative' parts of the fandom is that people have begun to cite them as proof of the main cast's characterization.

Bakugou and Todoroki are undeniably some of the biggest examples of mistranslation injustices.

Katsuki, in a lot of people's minds, has yet to break out of the 'overly-aggressive rival' archetype box that people had been placing him in since Season 1. One of the most amazing aspects and biggest downfalls of Hori's writing was that at first, nearly every character fit into a very neat stereotype for Shonen Animes (Deku being the talking-no-jutsu sunshine MC, Uraraka being the overly bubbly main girl, Todoroki being the aloof and formal rival). He made the audience make assumptions about everyone's characters and then pulled the rug beneath our feet when he revealed deeper sides of them to play around within canon.

What made this part about Horikoshi's set-up so good though were the many clues we were given from the very beginning that these characters were more than what they acted like. Even from the very first chapters, for example, we learn that Katsuki (as much as he acts like a delinquent) dislikes smoking because it could get him in trouble.

That is just a single instance of MHA's use of dialogue to subtly divert our expectations of a character.

Another example is when they replaced 318's dialogue of the Second User saying that Katsuki "completes" Deku with him saying that Katsuki merely "bolsters" him. This presents a different situation, as that line was meant to reinforce the importance of those two's relationship as well as complete the character foils that MHA is partially centered around. By downplaying their developed connection, it becomes harder for the MHA manga scanlations to justify any future significance these two's words have on each other without mottling the pacing of the story.

AKA, it butchers the plot.

With every new volume, there are dozens and dozens more of these hints and bits scattered around! So many cues and subtle foreshadowing at the trajectory of everyone's character arcs--yet mistranslations or inaccurate scans make it so that we don't notice them. This is what I mean when I said that some character arcs are being done great injustices.

Until now, many people can't accept that Katsuki Bakugou cares for anyone other than himself (much less his rival and MC, Izuku Midoriya), nor can they accept that Todoroki would ever willingly work by Endeavor's side. The bottom-line then becomes that because of people missing heavy bits of characterization that become very plot-significant in the future.

When it comes to the point where people can no longer accept or fit their interpretation of the earlier manga events to what is happening in canon, the point of a translation fails completely because it has lead people to follow an entirely different story.

TL;DR - Fan scans are hard. Translating is hard. Don't get too mad at fan translations, but also maybe don't treat them as the catch-all for how characters truly operate. Thanks.

Side note: DO NOT harass FA for any of these things. FA is actually a pretty legit and okay source for scans (they've been operating since like 2014 ffs), but regardless of that they still don't deserve to get flack for their work. You can have any opinion or perspective of canon that you want, I don't care. These are just my two (more like two million tbh) cents on translations. I suggest reading takes from actual Japanese audiences tbh if you wanna know more about the source material of MHA. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[fancyfade]

Dick, Duke, Damian!

TY for asks ^_^

Dick: answered here (link)

Duke

How I feel about this character

I liked Duke in all the appearances I saw him in. I really like how proactive he is about his situation and he's like "oh so everyone wants me to just focus on being a kid and wait for someone else to find my parents? Like hell"

also when we get to see how smart he is like when he deduces dick's secret identity in robin war which lmao admittedly wasn't hard because this was post nightwing being unmasked on tv

All the people I ship romantically with this character

none sorry duke i haven't seen you interact with a ton of kids your age besides the robin people and i don't remember shipping you with anyone from we are robin

My non-romantic OTP for this character

... again sadly i haven't read the most duke so I'm not sure yet. I got recced Batman and the outsiders for duke and cass we'll see if i like them there

My unpopular opinion about this character

I don't know if I've seen enough Duke fandom discourse know whether my opinions are unpopular or not

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I feel like it was a huge mistake to have duke's parents be too injured/sick/insane from joker venom or whatever to actually talk to him. I wanted to see a Duke and his parents reunion scene I want to see how they react to him and I want to see if he decides to tell them what he's been up to this whole time or not but unless they got cured and I didn't hear about it, we never do

Damian

How I feel about this character

obviously I love him times 1000. he is at the moment my favorite Batfam member (it changes)

Damian is so important to me for many reasons one of which is the gradualness of his character arc which felt extremely realistic, the other is that he's allowed to be a 'messy' non-ideal survivor who is angry and has a hard time adapting to the new situation he finds himself in. that is extremely relatable and important and i feel like his rough intro to the batfam is the entire fucking point. 

but anyway more on the character arc thing: him being able to finally articulate why killing people is wrong and talking suren down from destroying the world with compassion and empathy for his situation in R:SoB is so fucking powerful

i love how in R:SoB and even the start of the teen titans run (first 6 issues) his theme when he sees kids as supervillains is like “okay you are me and i’m helping”. thats part of why i don’t vibe with when the villains in supersons are all kids i’m like lmao you’re telling me damian wouldn’t see a bunch of kids doing evil without trying to talk them down/recruit them? yes he will kick butt if he has to but as he says in R:SoB ‘you can empathize with someone and still have to crush them’

another thing is he is actually extremely compassionate. like any time he's giving gifts he's always so fucking genuine and puts in so much work and he cares so much about his family

I also obviously love his confidence/arrogance (Depending on the time in his characterization whether its genuine confidence or more of arrogance).

All the people I ship romantically with this character

no one because he's like 10-13 in the majority of his appearances.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

So many good ones. A real toss up between Damian and Maya or Damian and Dick.

My unpopular opinion about this character

oof so many i'll try to keep it limited

i really don't vibe with "damian had a bunch of pets even when he was in the league/ was always an animal lover thing" because first of all I like how his reaction to animals and caring of his pets parallels his behavior towards people changing and secondly yes i know goliath exists but I already explained I view that more of as Damian projected majorly on goliath and also like.

I also especially disagree with anyone who acts like he needs to be taken down a notch and tbh it always reads as kind of pathetic to me. like. imagine being threatened by a fictional 10-13 year old.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

if we're retconning things? Retconning that horrible character assassination. should have just retconned it out completely or made it a result of other factors outside his control like brainwashing or smthing rather than trying to be like "oh he did decide to do everything but........"

outside of that

we were robbed when we never got damian suren interactions after damian gets him to stop destroying the world. Like I feel it could have been very cool to see Damian being the "normal" one and trying to help suren figure out how to interact outside murder cults.

[transsexualhamlet]

predictions for yuumori s2 (as a manga reader)

No matter what happens, this is probably gonna end up aging badly, but i’m hyperfixating and I’ve decided to make it everyone else’s problem so I’m going to predict where they’re gonna go with s2 of moriarty the patriot (keep in mind i’m writing this as of episode 2) and what I think would be the ideal scenario, in the likely situation that this is the last season.

So we can tell a lot about what they’re going to cut/include from the opening and ending, and the first two episodes. 

Observations/Conclusions:

-moneypenny and most likely von herder are gone, already evidenced by the first 2 episodes, which is :( but understandable bc there’s only so much space and they’re definitely cutting the arcs where they would be important

-so that means no moran backstory because duh, there’s a point in the backstory and i see value in it, moran slaps when he’s not being an ass lmao, but again, time constraints

-no matter what I can’t see them keeping in the like, child hunting thing 2 electric boogaloo, even tho it did further Fred’s and Louis’ characters, since they’ve previously cut out stuff considering them and. You know. That’s how it be.

-You can see they’re including jack the ripper arc (considering, jack is in the opening) and I have faith that they can downsize the arc without butchering it if they do it right. This is good that they’re keeping it in, considering it’s one of the... main arcs not involving milverton that advances the plot.

-Major thing we can tell is that, yeah, Milverton is nowhere to be seen. It seems like this would fuck things up bad since he’s like, the only kind of “main villain” we get here. But honestly? I agree with that. Fuck Milverton. He has no character or motivation and is like my one and only bone to pick with the manga. He’s just there to suck ass and create plot convenience?? I don’t like him and he never needed to be there if he wasn’t at least going to do something interesting. I support the anime cutting him.

-That DOES fuck over their ability to do the white knight arc, since, well, milverton is the cause of all of that. And this is the one thing I really don’t know what they’re going to do with that to connect jack the ripper directly to the final problem. I can’t predict that, but I do think there are ways it can be done that won’t be Awful.

-So considering that, Mary’s arc is definitely axed, which doesn’t bother me that much since by that point i so impatient for gay people and really didn’t care about watson’s fiance even tho she is a lovely lady. For anime effect, she does not need an arc, though I could see them having her show up a few times so watson doesn’t seem too gay either lmao.

-They’re definitely shooting to end with the final problem, considering without it there’s no big culminating event between moriarty and sherlock, which is obviously the big sell. And well. It’s. Um. The final problem. 

The season says it’s slated to be 13 episodes, since s1 didn’t have enough time for 12. I honestly think they can manage it all, if they play their cards right. 

Outlook:

This whole potential situation does sound familiar, I’ll point out that I just arrived here after the shit show of the promised neverland’s second season. But I don’t think it will get bad like tpn did. Because in Moriarty, they could afford to cut things because there are many stand alone and disposable arcs, whereas tpn really shouldn’t have, since they pretty much all contributed later to Major Main Character Plot Things. And the important points of the arcs that they’ll probably cut can actually be written into existing ones without looking like plot convenience, in my vision of it.

Honestly, I’m pretty optimistic for moriarty, it works better for this kind of adaption than in a lot of other manga that end up getting these most likely two season adaptions. I’d love to get those arcs for the servant’s and other character’s developments of course, but trying to stick that in when there’s really only time to focus on the main characters would suck up time better spent on really getting deep into the main storyline. Even if there are less characters, in a situation like this a streamlined and nuanced story will look elegant, whereas shoving as much content as possible into a few short episodes makes everyone cringe.

The situation does end up looking like the promised neverland, but it has a chance to be significantly less fucked considering,,, well,,, tpn is an insanely low bar, and they will hopefully not make the promised neverland’s same mistakes of Shove Seventeen Plotlines Into One Episode After Realizing Belatedly They Actually Needed Those Parts.

Obviously I don’t know what will happen, and this will be outdated by sunday lmao, but my projection looks something like this for 13 episodes to conclude the show.

Predictions:

(Episodes 1+2: A Scandal in the British Empire)

Episode 3: I’m very anxious for 3 considering this will probably make or break my opinion on the anime. Ideally, this episode would wrap up the scandal arc and go over the whole James Bond thing, it could be pretty baller and fit well into an episode. But though there’s plenty of Irene in the opening, there’s no sight of Bond, so considering anime as a whole is fucking transphobic, they might try to change it, twist around bond’s words or just, gloss over it altogether. If they cut it, they might have time to squeeze in another arc but I don’t think they honestly need to? With what they seem to be keeping in, they’ll have ample time to get to everything, and it would be shorter anyway considering the smaller amount of servants. 

Here, we do definitely need to cover Sherlock’s “receiving the name of the lord of crime and deciding to burn it and find it out himself because he’s extra”, no matter the status of irene/bond’s gender. If they do that right and possibly change a few things so it’s more important, this could play into them moving forward his whole discovery of their secrets.

Episodes 4-7: These will most likely cover jack the ripper arc. There’s a lot to go over here, and I’m confident they can cut it down, because tbh Moriarty is pretty long winded for a manga and cutting things is good to an extent. This covers most of the major expansions on William’s ideas and plans, and definitely has the holes to stuff in more of the points made in the arcs that will be cut out. Though I have my reservations, they could plausibly take most points in white knight and integrate them into here.

Episodes 8-10: These are the ones that are going to take the most work and probably be the most changed. They should finish up the ripper arc in 7, give or take a few episodes, and then here, If Sherlock has a little more figured out from episode 3, he can look deeper. I think it’s honestly a good idea for the one to discover the Incriminating Records to be him, as it again gives them more connection. There needs to be some other reason Moriarty’s secrets are in danger of getting leaked to the paper, but I’m sure they can put something together with scotland yard or something, or even like, Mycroft. I see that. But if that happens, then we can spend an episode or so on the merchant of london, aka little liam commits girlboss, which can be woven into the idea of everything Coming Out.

Episodes 11-13: Final problem. I see this going mostly unchanged, up until 55. Truth is they’ll probably end up cutting something but hmm. I don’t know. They should keep the fred stuff in, since they’ll cut his other development. They should keep the squad asking sherlock for help, since they cut the other parts that highlight the crime squad’s care for him. But I think they could montage most of the William Goes French Revolution On You Hoes, even the part where the kids come in front of one of them, if you see what’s going on right. But everything can proceed as in the manga pretty smoothly, I think, it all makes sense if they put it together in 7-10. You know, you got somehow, the worst case happens, and boom, scandal, final problem enacted. Killing spree. William reveals he’s been emo this whole time but it’s too late now. Everyone scrambling to catch up with his damn plans. Gay boy knocking on 221B with a fucking love letter. Shit gets found out. And then... well, yuh.

Disclaimer I still don’t know everything about this, bc I cannot find a translation of 54, only the raw with no context, and I know there’s content after 55 but I can’t find that either. But I’m sure as hell an english major and can understand where things are probably going. I don’t know what’s involved at that point, and if there’s some plan detailed to save him or something. That’s the main thing I don’t know, and if there is one detailed of course that kind of changes everything, but for now I’m going on the assumption that 54 is “sherlock runs to the bridge and yells at liam to stop being a dramatic whore while london burns around them and the murder squad watches anxiously with mysterious intent, until it is chapter 55″. (IF Y’ALL HAVE THE ENGLISH PLEASE HMU) They better not TOUCH anything in 55 or so help me god.

But as to after 55, things are going to be different. Besties, I’m an optimist, but there’s no way they’ll make a season after this. It does appear that they’ve mostly wrapped up, and they’ve gotten through what Big Revals they plan on doing. The shit hinted from the beginning has happened, and there probably won’t be enough to create another, unless the author plans on fucking shit up again, which I don’t approve of. There are a few things still left unsaid, like, Liam’s real name and everything, but if it’s supposed to be important, things that small can 100 percent be written into this.

And as something that’s intending to finish up a story, depending on what manga canon really is (BESTIE I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS) they might change it. There’s two options, a bittersweet/hopeful and a tragic one, but either one will end up open ended, because of my extensive knowledge of 2 season animes with significantly longer mangas. (done badly: tokyo ghoul and tpn, done well: owari no seraph and mob psycho) Either we have it like well, oh damn, everything was destined to be Sad but well you’re with him now you’re probably dead, but you know there’s something hinted at and you don’t know for sure so that’s the catch. So you get a vague and bittersweet but possibly hopeful ending. OR something that takes,,, whatever ends up happening in the manga or whatever the plan is and turning it into an epilogue infodump.

I can see either going well depending on how they handle the messages of the story. But yeah, as far as to my extent of the understanding of the show, that’s how it’ll probably go, and what my opinion of how it should is.

To What Extent Will The Gay:

You know, this is my ideal scenario within these time limits, but you know they could always go The Wrong Direction if the anime team took a look at some of the later chapters and went “holy shit this is a bit too gay” and try to axe some of the sherliam content, which I wouldn’t put past any corporation.

In the case that they do, I see lot of good shit going. They’re clearly trying to do the final problem, so they obviously can’t cut out 55, which is good :). But though 55 is clearly, uh, really fucking homosexual, the most romantic shit goes down in 53, as far as I can tell? (keeping in mind i still haven’t found 54′s english version, if anyone would like to direct me to a translation, that would be LOVELY.) I unfortunately can see them cutting Liam’s letter almost entirely, and that kind of scares me.

You know, even if i’d hate and slander them for it, cutting out james bond would be something i would understand. But messing with sherliam would fuck them over, not just cause that would be awful, but like, because it’s like... kind of the main point.

So I’m not really too worried about them messing with it, mostly because the content itself is holding them at gunpoint, sherliam holds the whole plot structure in place, especially if you’re shooting for final problem. And even in the manga they never, like, actually say they’re in love with each other even tho historically gay lovers would probably call each other “friends” lmao so it’s not like they have to greenlight gay sex or anything lmao it’s just Very Romantic (No Homo)

And apart from that, yuumori has actually been pretty decent to the gays so far?? Damn shawty, they certainly haven’t toned down the gay yet and it’s clearly their main source of fans, and what they’ve decided to emphasize in both openings and a significant portion of the s2 ending. We’re all here for it, and they’re catering to it, so I can at least give you that.

[quidfree]

Ok so it looks like im gonna have to intervene off anon cause im not a PUSSY like SOME of the people here

first of all, to address the “just mediocre” comments - i suppose it depends on what anon’s definition of mediocre is, and to a certain extent, i agree. do i think that jjk is a modern masterpiece that will eventually rival the likes of fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood or sailor moon? no, i dont. do i think jjk is a genre-defying shonen anime that is leaps and bounds above most of its peers? yes. so i suppose i would also consider jjk “just mediocre” in comparison to legendary classics, but i think anyone who calls jjk mediocre in comparison to other popular anime rn, like BNHA (there, i said it), is kidding themselves.

jjk’s plot, while nothing particularly groundbreaking, is pretty compelling. at risk of spoiling anything, im not going to go into specifics, but the world in jjk lends itself to some pretty cool villains and plot points. it’s similar to bnha in that it follows high-school students that have basically magic powers, but unlike bnha it introduces real stakes quickly, so it feels like there’s a real threat that the protagonists face off against from the get-go. and while this isn’t particularly covered in the first season, the manga shows that the show and characters don’t have any real plot-armor, so later seasons will be even more interesting and exciting.

jjk’s real strength comes in its characters. the protagonist himself appears to be a stereotypical goody-happy-go-lucky guy at first, but this is quickly challenged by circumstances that are thrust upon him that challenge his world view at the beginning of the series. and while he does still appear to be the same upbeat character as always, his narrative adds emotional depth that i think is lacking in some other shounen protagonists. and this all happens right at the beginning of the series, so im sure he’ll grow even more as the anime continues. moreover, as some of my comrades have already stated, jjk actually knows how to write women characters!!! amazing!! while BNHA struggles to give any of its female characters compelling motivations beyond a crush (a crush!! are u fucking kidding me) i never felt that JJk neglected its female characters. they all have very different personalities, motivations, and powers. in fact, the show devotes basically a whole episode to just the backstory of two female side-characters, which i cant say i remember many other shounen doing, esp not in one that has only had one season. the series also pretty boldly speaks on how shitty sexism is and addresses it as an issue that will be eventually confronted as part of a particular character’s arc, so that’s pretty exciting (also their school uniform covers basically the same amount of skin as the boy’s uniform and there are never any pervy scenes so yayyyy baby steps i guess). speaking of side characters, jjk actually makes its side characters interesting. BNHA made the mistake of cramming twenty students into class 1-A and expected me to give a shit about most of them despite horikoshi giving the vast majority of them little to no development - at this point im convinced half the reason i even care about any characters is because of fanon (sorry to any bnha stans that im shitting so much on bnha, i actually like bnha i promise it’s just so easy to shit on). meanwhile jjk keeps it’s cast of characters pretty small, allowing all of them to have a decent amount of screen time and interesting backstories and powers.

jjk’s animation is also pretty incontestably amazing. the fight scenes are beautiful and nicely choreographed, and the art style is imo pretty. also, to address the comments about pacing - i will admit that jjk does start with a very quick pace, but i actually prefer faster paced anime, especially action anime, so i guess it’s a matter of personal preference. JJK does also slow down towards the middle before picking back up at the end, so there’s something in there for everybody lol. Also i feel like the fast pace makes the series pretty bingable, and since it’s only 24 episodes at like 25 min each, i think its still actually worth watching, even if you come out of it thinking “that was just ok.” god knows there’s plenty of worse shit out there to watch.

anyways that’s my essay on jjk i cant believe i wrote all of this about an anime lmao how embarrassing am i a reddit gamer bro or something. pls ignore any typos and thumbs up my review please and thank you

i appreciate your courage if nothing else

[eye-of-enigmatic-thought]

Finally finished all these Kamal drawings! He was a lot of fun to draw and make up headcanons for!! Sorry for the inconsistent quality of these images, but I hope everyone likes the way I draw him. <:D

Also!! This was getting long but have some headcanons I wrote for him under the cut plus additional information in regards to a VERY BAD mistake I made in regards to the tattoo hc that I only realised was wrong when I was informed about it.  CWs: mild discussion of racism and lgbtphobia.

-He was born on the 5th May 1960, making him 34 by the time Smile For Me -takes place. -Kamal is a transmasculine NB and goes by he/they pronouns. He’s been on T but hasn’t had top surgery. He’s known he was trans since around his mid teens but was only able to start T in his late 20s.

-He’s bisexual, but has a preference to men.

-He’s autistic and stims with hand flaps because I say so lol. He’s very neurotypical-passing, but he deals with hyper empathy and was always very emotional and sensitive. He also had a knack for problem solving and would play with puzzles to help stimulate his mind, puzzles that made use of his hands were his favorite.

-He thinks frogs are cool animals and thinks they’re real neat.

-He can speak and understand Hindi, but is unfortunately not entirely fluent due to mostly using English throughout his life.

-His family were Indian immigrants that settled in New York, where he was born and raised. His family were overall agnostic and atheist, and so weren’t really the religious sort. 

-Due to being a poc and later coming out as bisexual, he unfortunately dealt with a lot of racism and homophobia growing up. Because of this, he found solidarity with some poc and lgbt punk communities and would engage in them, it was also through them he learned he was transmasc and also met his dear friend Wallus.

-His family was for the most part very supportive of Kamal though they didn’t entirely understand him at first, but they overcame their confusion to support their son more. The only things they didn’t support as much were some of his mischievous activities.

-During his punk days he was pretty rebellious and liked getting up to mischief, but never in a way that would hurt anyone. Think a harmless prank here and there and graffitiing some jackass cop’s car, though he’d only ever do them if he was with someone to have each other’s back (*cough cough* Wallus *cough*).

-Despite his mischief he was still the anxious sweetheart we all know and love him for and usually had to have his confidence brought out by friends (hence why he only usually acted mischievous when around friends), as he grew older he began to slowly be able to stand his own ground more. 

-He also always had a strong sense of doing what’s right and helping others (like when he helped everyone out of the Habitat in S4M and how he wanted to help Boris) and would do his best to help others in need. He even acted like a older brother figure to younger punks and was seen as a overall reliable and trustworthy guy. Because why WOULDN’T you trust Kamal?? Like C’MON!!!

-This sense of wanting to help others led him to be a doctor, he chose dentistry as his profession due to the problem solving aspects of it and how it made use of his hands.

-As he grew older his mischievous side subsided a bit, but he still has traces of his old ‘lil shit’ personality. If the right buttons are pushed, his mischievous side can come out like a terrifying wave and he begins to act much more confident and smug than usual. Basically... >:^3

-He’s got tattoos! He has four tattoos all with their different meanings:  -The frog tattoo was the first one he got due to liking frogs and feeling like it fit with his jumpy personality. He also felt connected with the physical transformation frogs go in their life cycle to how he’d eventually want his transition to go.  -The lowercase Lambda symbol was the second one he got. In 1970, Lowercase Lambda was first conceived in as a LGBT symbol by Tom Doerr as the symbol of the New York chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance, becoming associated with the Gay Liberation. Finding solidarity with the symbol, he gained this tattoo.  -The pink lotus and Hindi tattoos were his third and fourth tattoo that he got at the same time. He got them during when he finally started T as a way to ‘tie’ everything that he is and his pride as a Indian transmasc. The idea of a lotus tattoo on the back was actually inspired by a headcanon by @seriously-sarcastic06​! Here’s the post: https://seriously-sarcastic06.tumblr.com/post/631423818054926336/she-uses-scented-markers-so-he-smells-like-lemons

-Kamal was actually pretty scared of having tattoos at first due to how they... hurt to get, even if he thought they were the coolest thing ever and liked how symbolic some could be. So the times he got his tattoos were when he was especially mentally prepared and were pretty spread apart from each other and were usually saved for special occasions. Some reassurance from his friends also helped as well.

-He however, doesn’t have that many piercings, those actually freak him out the most. He really only has his ears pierced lmao.

-Kamal is also chubby and hairy because I say so lol. Soft fuzzy Kamals for all!

And that’s all of my hcs! Now, to address something that I feel is very important after I was informed of it.

You may remember I uploaded some initial sketches of Kamal’s tattoos and how he initially had a Aum symbol on his arm, I have removed the initial sketches from my blog and have removed the Aum symbol as I have been informed that the Aum and other vedic Hindu symbols tend to be tattooed by either ignorant upper caste Hindus or extreme right-wing Hindu supremacists (which is a massive problem in India, with the fascist BJP being one of the two major parties and with Dalits (lowest Hindu caste) and Indians of other faiths being treated horribly). I greatly apologize for this mistake and I will do better, and I’d also ask fellow non-Indians to learn from my mistakes if you ever decide to take inspiration from my work. I would try and explain a bit more on these issues, but I am a outsider and am not the most informed and so will not be able to properly explain it all with the best adequacy, so I highly suggest you look into Indian sources if you want to learn more about this, such as the work and words of B. R. Ambedkar and the Dalit Buddhist movement for a start.

I also decided to settle with ‘paper edits’ rather than a full revamp as at the moment I can’t really draw too much due to how strained my hand is becoming lately, I do hope this is understandable and that the paper edit is enough.

You also may remember from my colouring in videos that I coloured Kamal with more lighter skin, I have now fixed this by colouring with darker browns to make him more his canon skin colour.

If anyone else has other concerns or suggestions, do please try and let me know! Don’t ever be afraid to reach out to me, my DMs are always open and I promise I will do my best to work things out with you.

[bakutae]

haikyuu headcanons #2

today's menu:

a plate of oikawa tooru with a side of akaashi keiji, an appetisers worth of kenma kozume and a tall glass of bokuto koutarou

scenario:

where you try the 'kissing my best friend' trend on him

oikawa tooru

alright, so you were going through tik tok, scrolling through it until iwaizumi walked past and stole your phone, vigorously typing in something in the search bar

so he introduced you to the whole concept and he wanted you to try it out on oikawa cause he desperately wanted to see his reaction

'what if i tried it out on you instead'

'w-what? then it wouldn't be a surprise anymore! besides, oikawa would kill me'

you were confused by what he meant by the phrase 'oikawa would kill me' but you let it go and hastily agreed to do it

you asked iwaizumi to help plan the whole thing, since the two of them were mostly together

you and oikawa had gotten significantly closer ever since you were cheering for aoba johsai in one of their volleyball matches because your friend had practically made you go

and towards the end of the match, the opponent hit the ball too hard, causing it to fly to the audience

all the oikawa fangirls immediately reached for the ball, hoping to toss the ball back to him personally

unfortunately for you, you were swarmed by fangirls and some of them were so aggressive that they actually pushed you away just to get the ball, resulting in you suffering quite the injury

you had no choice but to sneak off to the restroom to treat your wound as the match continued

you were limping out of the toilet and he caught sight of you and apologised to you

he seemed to have taken a liking to you and started clinging onto you quite often, and therefore the two of you grew quite close

it was another one of their matches, but it hasn't started yet and the members of aoba johsai was just wandering around the event venue

as usual, oikawa was surrounded by his fangirls when you sauntered over to him and made sure his eyes were fixated on you, before glancing at iwaizumi from the corner of your eye then briefly nodding

you mouthed the lyrics to 'death bed' and when the beat dropped, you pulled oikawa towards you by the collar of his jacket and pressed a firm kiss to his lips and quickly pulled away

all of his fangirls were yelling in fury and glared at you i wouldnt be surprised if one of them pushed you away fangirls are scary

but oikawa though, he might be shocked for the first couple of seconds after the kiss, then he'd smirk and pull you in for seconds and you panic, glancing at iwaizumi

now you understood why iwaizumi said that oikawa would kill him

akaashi keiji

bokuto was getting on your nerves

ever since you and akaashi had gotten close, he was annoying the both of you constantly, whining about how you 'stole his best friend'

and so, you wanted to get back at him and at the same time, confess your feelings to kill two birds with one stone

you weren't exactly sure if it'd work though, but he's not ignoring you like he does with other girls so you considered it a major advantage

you wanted video evidence on how you stole his potential lover away from him and wanted to see his reaction really badly

so you approached tatsuki, asking him to help you film the whole incident on your phone during one of their trainings, and you managed to get their managers and coach agree too

even the managers themselves wanted to see how bokuto would react to you kissing akaashi in front of everyone

poor bokuto

so one day, during their training, you appeared out of the blue, which made bokuto feel sour already, since he knew that you'd be here for akaashi

so you watched them train and waited till they had their water breaks, when you passed tatsuki your phone, and have him film on the audio that you chose

you counted the beats in your head as you called out to akaashi, eyes still facing the camera to check if tatsuki was filming

he nodded briefly and you approached akaashi

bokuto was talking to akaashi as usual until you tapped akaashi on the back and he turned around and stared at you in confusion

your mind blanked out when your gaze met his and your body froze, though you knew the beat was already off and you should have kissed him by now

face awkwardly breaking into a smile, you hastily flung your arms around him, and kissed his cheek, feeling him stiffen against your touch, but relaxes after a while

the two of you stayed like that for a while before you felt someone tear the two of you apart

of course, it was bokuto

he was frowning and whining at the same time and kept on telling you to 'stop hitting on his best friend'

akaashi simply smiled and stared at you, his gaze instantly softening

bokuto caught sight of that and began to throw his tantrum

tatsuki came to you, phone in hand as you showed akaashi the video, and the rest of the members began to crowd around your small device

'it was a tik tok trend, akaashi. where you kinda confess to your best friend. but i wanted to see bokuto's reaction too'

akaashi's face turned significantly redder and bokuto started sulking again lmao

kenma kozume

i don't really know if you can text your friends through the nintendo animal crossing but let's pretend you can

you and kenma were addicted to animal crossing ever since it came out and the two of you had been playing for days on end, irritating all of nekoma's members but no one had the heart to stop him

you were trying to search up animal crossing hacks on tik tok and downloaded tik tok for that reason only

however, you stumbled upon humans in your for you page, contrary to your animal crossing filled one and you got curious, so you watched it to the end

that was when you learned about the trend and you decided to try it on kenma, with a twist

you were going to type the kiss in chat and find out his reaction through there

you didn't think it was ever done before so you were quite curious as to what his reaction would be

you weren't going to lie, kenma was very attractive, and if he showed any small sign of reciprocating your feelings, it would make you really happy

so you and kenma were on a whatsapp call, while the two of you were catching bugs, trying to catch the biggest one of them all when you told kenma about a hack you saw on tik tok

though you couldn't see him, your heart was still pounding and your hands began to sweat as you waited patiently for his reply

however, he replied through the call

'why are you typing in chat aren't we in a call right now?'

'kenma just play along!'

he grumbled but typed 'okay hit me' in chat anyways

so you quickly typed in the word in the chat and pressed 'enter'

however, you eyes widened in shock as you wrote *piss* instead of *kiss*

kenma burst out in laughter through the call, occasionally snorting as he was chuckling with glee

'did you just... piss on me?'

you didn't even tell him to type in chat anymore

you wanted to die from embarrassment as you felt your cheeks flush red immediately and you tried to explain yourself

kenma was still giggling uncontrollably as you felt your cheeks turn ten shades darker

'i... wanted to type kiss instead but-'

the laughter abruptly died down and you bit your lip, heartbeat suddenly increasing as more silence filled the air

you soon saw '*kisses y/n*' chat bubble appearing on top of kenma's animal crossing character and your heart stopped beating

'l-like that?'

bokuto koutaro

this boy-

he'd probably be the one doing the trend on you because he's too scared of confessing straightforwardly

and he wants to be a tik tok star so he thought that starring a beautiful girl like you would cause the algorithm to show his videos on everyone's for you page

so he brought you to the school rooftop after school and y'all would be talking about schoolwork and things like that when he suddenly pulls out his phone and asks you to wait

he starts frantically pushing buttons on it and you thought he was sending an important text message so you waited for him

until he started muttering under his breath and you could still hear him clearly, but to bokuto he was probably mumbling

'why isn't the audio working? it was working this morning when i checked...'

he nervously glanced at you and you just looked at him in confusion, you had never seen bokuto this serious and nervous before

'WHAT? WHY DID THEY DELETE THE AUDIO AT THIS PERIOD OF TIME? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KISS Y/N NOW'

at that moment he knew, he messed up

you didn't know what he was trying to do, but you kind of got the gist of it

but bokuto was scarred; he was glancing at you with big bug eyes, mouth agape and the grip on his phone loosened as it dropped on the ground

you picked it up for him and caught sight of his screen where it was filled with the captions 'kissing my best friend to see if they like me back'

bokuto would just be frozen the entire time, still not believing that he had just said thise exact words in front of you

it was way worse than straightforward confessions which made him really nervous as he anticipated for your reaction

you found the trend really cute and was really honored that bokuto wanted to try to trend out, especially on you

with his feelings practically displayed out in the open, you couldn't help but tease him a bit

'aww bokuto, are you sure you didn't mistake me for akaashi instead?'

'n-no! of course not! akaashi is just my best friend-'

you had a feeling he was going to keep rambling about how akaashi and his' relationship was purely platonic and you decided to shut him up with a kiss

and damn did it work

but now, he had to worry about what to say when people asked about how you started your relationship and boy was it going to be fun teasing him about it

taglist: @sugacookiies @sushij1ma @shiggywiggy

message me to be added into my taglist!

[hellsingimpuresouls-a]

1, 2, 7, 25 (Gonzo Hellsing)!

responding to this late, so sorry about that! hopefully i’m answering the questions from the correct meme orz. onward to the salt! ( i’m an idiot because only after i answered everything did i realize you put ‘for Gonzo’, so these answers are a mix )

1. What OTP(s) in the fandom do you just not get?

Seras/Integra. 

the most famous interaction that people go nuts over is the finger-sucking scene : it’s gross, rapey and just… uncomfortable how generally this is justified in so many ways. from ‘well, it didn’t ACTUALLY happen like that, that was just through the male gaze’ to ‘it’s just fan-service, Integra wouldn’t actually force herself on Seras’ to ‘uwu lesbian / sapphic rep.’ i just don’t vibe, canonically or fandom wise - there’s a very clear power dynamic in that rendition of Integra, and generally as a whole ( not that i’m infantilizing Seras by the way ), and people really like to use the finger-sucking scene as a sort of… foundation or undeniable evidence that they are very into each other, when if that same scene was done with Walter or god-forbid, Alucard, there would be riots left and right ( clarification : Alucard TO Seras, not Integra to Alucard ). it just really hit too because irl, women go through shit like this in the workplace, being sexually assaulted / harassed by their bosses. Integra being a woman doesn’t make it less rapey.

it’s also hard to ignore the fact that Seras was ‘taken in’ without anyone asking her what she wanted ( unlike Gonzo ) on her end - idc what people say, they literally abducted her ( that creepy smile Integra gives her in the first episode when Seras is being given her uniform, or that even creepier smile when she’s sexually assaulting her : miss me with that shit ). MAYBE i’d be into it a bit more if the finger-sucking scene never happened? who knows. 

i can say i enjoy shipping them in any other way but the fandom / general way. the manga-canon had a funny thing going between them ( even the finger sucking scene hit a little different? still not okay obviously but more… idk ig lighthearted and almost troll-like, ‘here suck it. do it. doooo iiiit.’ i could appreciate that. )

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

i know Millennium pairings aren’t popular, at least in current tumblr spaces, but Dok/Major. it was apparently a popular ship back in the day, and i still occasionally see stuff for it. i genuinely don’t get it, because i saw no kind of connection between those two that was even slightly romantic. Dok legit went ‘aight, i’m out’ when the zeppelin was shot to bits - he gave no fucks about Major lmao.

7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

mm... maybe the dynamic between Integra/Alucard? idk, when i first watched Ultimate, no tumblr or fandom involved, i thought it was very complicated. there was definitely trust, suggestiveness, excitement, guardian-like qualities, and the list just goes on! but then i made the mistake of exposing myself to fandom spaces a bit much, and them being spoken about in a strictly romantic sense kind of annoys me now. same thing if people insist that there ISN’T romance. i’m on a high horse, but i genuinely don’t think i’ve seen many people truly understand / capture the Integra/Alucard dynamic. i roll my eyes when i see either extreme sides ( romance v. no romance ).

not that i was the biggest shipper or anything - i gave very little care for Alucard and Integra respectively, but now i just care for them even less. i literally just say ‘idk and idc’ when people ask me if i ship it.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

impure souls : would they have continued season 2 as planned, just continue to the canon. Integra would run the organization under the watch of the Crown, but everything else would run mostly the same. there would be interesting plot points when Integra and the Queen conflict on what to do with certain missions, and the pressure gets put on even more when they realize there’s literal Nazis behind everything. at some point, reveal that the traitor was the same guy we see in Ultimate, ergo Incognito and the whole FREAK mess was just more Millennium fuss. introduce Pip and Heinkel later on too ( as they were planned to also make an appearance in the anime as well ). i definitely wouldn’t have minded Gonzo’s take on canon, and it’d be easy to pick up from where they left off.

ultimate : everything was fine / dandy, i wouldn’t change anything except for the last minutes. this is the old, nostalgic, Walter-fangirl i once was, but since Alucard is almost close to a god ( or something ) at this point, have him lift up his cape at Integra, only to reveal that he somehow managed to take in Walter as a familiar ( unwillingly, of course ), not only that, but he’s forever stuck in his adolescent form. sort of to have the ‘gang’ back together, or something. Walter was a son of a bitch who deserved no good, but this would be a funny way to condemn him.

as far as canon goes, i am please with how things ended. it was pretty alright.

SALTY ASK LIST

[komoryriku]

Queering KH: Part 2

How to Queer this Anime Game? By me, an American nerd lol

Pictured: Dream. Drop. Distance. Sequel. 8)))

What is Queering 

I’m so excited to talk about this okay this is literally the only fun thing I get to do as an English major anymore lmao.

“Queering a text” is the academic term for taking a given text and extracting the queer subtext of it, or applying a queer reading to it. It is taking a piece of literature, film, or art and reading into it for the gay coding. It is an especially important tool for reading old literature written during periods of extreme homosexual oppression, wherein the author would be forced to hide hints of homosexuality under layers and layers of superficial text.

Pictured: Sora and Riku battling Ursula as she means to wreck their ship, mirroring the disaster that Sora’s friends Eric and Ariel (lovers) faced at sea.

As a post-structuralist, I am also here to inform you that every text is made up of intertextual influence. This means whether the JK Rowlings of the world intended it or not, their characters may well be queer coded because of the unconscious influence of homoerotic customs in our culture that have permeated the text. It’s why people speculated that Newt Scamander was gay, because he showed little interest in Tina and preferred to focus on his beasts, which is not normative for a male protagonist in straight media. People likewise considered that Merida from Pixar’s Brave might be gay, because she had no interest in dating men and wanted to live a wild lifestyle traditionally associated with masuculinity, things that are pretty in line with lesbian coding. And let me tell you, lgbt claimed Queen Elsa IMMEDIATELY for very good reason. Pretty much everything about her journey, purposefully or not, makes for an strikingly overt gay metaphor. Let it Go is a coming out song for a woman suffocating under normativity all her life, deal with it.

Same, Elsa.

Oh whoops I accidentally pasted this picture of Riku here.

Keep Cultural Distinctions in Mind

Something else important I want to point out is that different cultures are- different lol. They are going to vary. What is queer coding here is not necessarily queer coding in Japan. A man presenting femininely in American media would certainly get him coded as gay. A bishonen in an anime though? Not so much. Men bathing together in Japan is common practice so that would mean nothing gay over there. In America however, you have things like this vine. 

In which 2 dudes are chilling as far away as possible from each other in a hot tub to prove they are not gay lol.

So when I say the male members of Organization XIII bathe together, it means literally nothing in a Japanese context.  

But let me tell you this: homosexual mlm tend to enjoy bathing with other dudes. Sexual attraction is sexual attraction no matter where you go. So how would you queer code a Japanese character as gay in a hot tub context? 

By American logic, if the straight thing to do is sit 5 feet apart in a hot tub, then the inverse, the gay thing to do, would be 2 men sitting very close together in a hot tub. So if I were to code 2 American male characters as gay in a hot tub context, that is what I would do. But if I really wanted to hammer it home, I would ALSO have them blushing so there is no straight explanation for their closeness. 

And for a Japanese character, for whom bathing with men might well mean nothing, I’d definitely have them physically blush, so that you know it does NOT just “mean nothing” to him...

Oh look at that. Amano went out of her way to draw Roxas blushing at the concept of bathing with men. So when I say “the members of Orginization XIII bathe together”, you know that means something to Roxas, cuz the coding tells us so. There are indeed certain ways you can depict a shonen being either interested in or at least affected by that idea. You just have to mind those codes telling you what the character really feels, especially when they can’t really say it.

Speaking of blushes, Amano uses them a lot. 

They’re a pretty effective tool for hiding gay coding into your characters cuz an anime character might blush for any number of reasons, from being flustered by their crush, 

to being flustered because they don’t have a crush.

If you’ve ever translated Japanese media, (I haven’t, but I have friends who do), you know that Japanese is very vague which means you need the whole context to properly understand a scene. It’s a similar situation with queer coding. Consider this scene of Roxas blushing. 

If Roxas felt positively about the insinuation that he and Xion are holding hands, how might one code this? Well, if he’s feeling really excited about it in a positive way, you might draw him smiling or expressing flattery on his blushing face. However, Roxas reacts negatively, with a frown on his blushing face. This insinuates he does not like this idea at all, especially since he also shuts it down right away in his dialogue.

But you might say “Well how do we know he isn’t just shy?” to which I say- well we can’t know. That’s the whole point of queer coding in literature. It is to say a character is queer but without actually saying it, to give plausible deniability for safety. It is to suggest a character is queer but without any confirmation. It does not mean that the character isn’t queer, however. It just means it cannot be confirmed by the text alone. However, a bold text that is very determined to have hidden queer characters without any straight explanations, will provide coding that has very little or no straight explanation. 

Back to the Roxas and Xion dialogue^. This scene alone cannot confirm or deny anything. As I explained however, the suggestion that Roxas is not straight IS there. Considering the whole context, also, this scene is another piece of “evidence” to add to the pile of suggestions that Roxas isn’t straight. This coupled with the bathing panel, and this panel of him admiring Axel, his male mentor, with deep flattery during his first day of adventuring, all exist.

Roxas does not express negative sentiments in his blushing at men, nor does he say anything dismissive to them. When he blushes at Xion’s comment, however, it is with a negative reaction. Consider also that if the author wanted Roxas to appear straight, she would present them in ways that allude to straightness and NOT in ways that allude to queerness. Roxas would not do suggestively queer things like blush in flattery at Axel calling him special and then dismiss Xion’s suggestion that they are holding hands if he were simply coded as straight. Queering a text sometimes requires a lot of critical thought like this. This is because again, these things are hidden, and sometimes hidden really well so that unsuspecting straight people will not even consider the queer suggestions. This is one of the advantages Nomura has in his favor with Kingdom Hearts: by making it so convoluted, the gay text can be forward, strong, and blatant but remain undetected by straight powers. This keeps the series safe from oppressive scrutiny. Characters like Namine and Xion can exist as literal illustrations of compulsory-heterosexuality. And people will still think Sora and Riku are straight. 

Even if I don’t know all the queer codes Japanese culture might specifically have, (and I do not, I do not live in Japan nor have any semblance of what that is like beyond what my friends who have lived there can tell me, and what I can research while sitting in my pajamas in Kentucky lol), there are certain things that are rather universal. Blushing, physical contact, lingering gazes, etc etc. Attraction is attraction and certain body language and other physical symbols will translate and will travel. So that’s the majority of what I will have to focus on. 

But I do want you to know that rainbows are still gay in Japan. 

Finally I also want to express that cultural intermingling is a thing. We do not live in bubbles, especially with the internet. Our cultures affect each other ALL the time. Although Kingdom Hearts is primarily a Japanese series, it is consciously tailored to appeal to both America and Japan. This is by design given the idea was to marry a Japanese hit like Final Fantasy with an American phenomenon like Disney’s media. This is why they take special care in minding the English translations and dubbing of the KH games (when they are able to do so, mistakes are still very often made and i hate it cuz they’re usually heterosexual-agenda-pushing “mistakes” =~=). The games are so intimately tied to both the Japanese and American cultures they are derived from which is part of why accurate translations are so important. And given what they would mean for queer audiences, what they represent for queer people makes accurate translations even MORE important. Some things get quite lost in translation, and some things are grossly added in translation. We will discuss that down the line...   

A brief aside that I implore you to ignore:

On the subject of Roxas not being straight, I have heard of one really fun queer motif in Japanese media which is ”ryoutoutsukai (両刀使い)”, “the two sword fencer”: the dual wielding bisexual. Now- I do not necessarily think this is a means of coding Roxas as bisexual, and beyond that, from what I’ve heard in my research on bisexuality in Japan, certain age groups don’t even believe in bisexuality there. However, a love of more than one gender exists no matter who is willing to acknowledge it or not, and this motif is there. And Promisekeeper and Oblivion do rather fit the bill of representing homosexuality (Oblivion/Soriku) and heteronormativity (Promisekeeper/Sora and his childhood friend Kairi). So- while i don’t think it means anything, this fun idea is there~  I will say, however, that as far as I can tell, Nomura and his staff know exactly what they’re doing with their queer coding and are well connected to it in both cultures. So I mean- if any anime team would know bisexuality exists and how to code it, I firmly believe the KH team would, so. There is some food for thought for you~

Get ready for part 3, I hope you like TWEWY~ B)