21+ || CRK / blue lock // twst/// multifandom //// qzgs/tka, bsd, disney: twist, persona, kpop, mdzs/cql, twisted wonderland, medalist, etc... important things must be said three times
Reflection on Fanservice and the Hypmic Movie A.K.A. I Can't Stop Thinking About That IchiKuu Bait (But, Like, In An Intellectual Way)
Watching the Hypmic movie pushed a concept I'd been thinking about to the forefront of my brain: how to write cohesive fanservice.
Fanservice occupies an interesting place within a work by being both a departure from the main plot or setting while simultaneously furthering the works' overarching goals. Fanservice has to be Part of the whole but also recognizably Not--to acknowledge that something is fanservice is to set it apart from the rest of the work with a knowing wink, to say that this aspect of the work is in someway closer to the fourth wall than the rest. If we imagine elements of a fictional work to be two-dimensional panels, inserting fanservice is suddenly turning this two-dimensional stage on its side and revealing that the fanservice panel is closer to the audience than all the rest. It's adding a literal new dimension to the work.
Because fanservice is meant to provide some desirable Thing that cannot be satisfied within the constraints of the main work, fanservice often exists in a quasi-universe of its own. It's like we've jumped onto a new plane--one closer to the audience--when we shifted from the previous two-dimensional panel to the fanservice panel. This plane plays by different rules. Fictional characters can seduce the audience. Men can kiss men; women, women in otherwise heterosexual universes. Then the fanservice ends, the perspective snaps back to the previous plane, and the rules of the universe resume. Fictional characters can't flaunt sexual behavior to an audience whose existence they have no awareness of; homoeroticism can't be anything more than a joke when male/female is the only flavor romance comes in. Whatever happened in the previous panel breaks the rules of the universe--so what happens to it? In most cases, the events of the fanservice panel simply never happened in the main storytelling plane. They're never acknowledged again or contribute to plot, characterization, or themes. Fanservice simply floats on its own plane, disconnected, and can only ever be evaluated in respect to other events in that same plane.
And while that makes the fanservice no less compelling (this isn't a rant against fanservice), doesn't that feel like a waste? Why include a story element if it doesn't work toward some common goal?
Well, it does! Fanservice explicitly performs a feature the rest of the work handles implicitly: defining a target audience. Other story elements (plot, genre, characterization, etc.) create a synergistic effect that suggests certain things about the author's intended reader. People who enjoy misogynistic, medieval fantasy powertrips might also enjoy big titty anime men; handsome, spindly men who solve murders and get covered in blood might also appeal to those who want to see blood-covered men making out. Fanservice rewards those audience members for finding the work and, perhaps unintentionally, can drive away audience members outside of the intended audience. Apart from sheer joy on the author's part to include it, fanservice creates messaging about in-groups and out-groups. Don't like elf titties breasting boobily at the slightest provocation? Stop watching isekai. Don't want to see bloody dudes sucking face? Get out of the ikemen aisle. And so on.
This can cause difficulties, then, when a translator falls outside the target audience. While most established translators have an (often broad) focus, there is generally an aspect of "I sure do like having money for goods and services" that informs a translator accepting a particular assignment. One of the most common complaints I see about otherwise sound translations is a translator failing to recognize fanservice cues or play up fanservice to the degree expected by the target audience. On one hand, this can be really frustrating for the audience! It's understandable to feel slighted or robbed of part of the fun. On the other hand, it can require a lot of extra, unpaid work for a translator to familiarize themself with niche tropes/kinks/etc. It can also be profoundly uncomfortable to write--and attempt to write well!--something you find morally repugnant.
I think matching the author's energies is one of the few things I'm genuinely very good at, so I put a lot of thought into fan service. What does the target audience for this particular type of fan service like, and why do they like it? How should the why factor shape the English text? (This can be fun! Weird kinks? Well, I'm not in the having sex fandom, so off to Ao3 I go. Huh! Here's a byline running through most of these fics--this must be one of the central draws of the kink. I see that same byline in the work, and now I understand the author's intent better. Let's make sure to include that in the translation. This can also be...less fun. My job is to make sexual assault and incest look hot! I'm...not a fan of either of these! I don't really like looking at them, even in fiction! But hey, let's go figure out what the appeal is and see if it can't be reproduced here! Do I feel gross writing it? Yeah, I do. Does that make it any less of my responsibility to do a good job? Personally, I don't think so.) At the same time, it's important that the fanservice doesn't become so off the walls that it fails to integrate into the rest of the translation
This ties back into the question I asked earlier: Isn't it a waste for a story element to be so divorced from the rest of the text? Wouldn't it be nice if fanservice offered something more?
Enter what I call "cohesive fanservice." (I flirted with the term "effective fanservice" but I think that's disingenuous, because fanservice usually serves a different purpose than the rest of the text.) Cohesive fanservice is fanservice that contributes to the rest of the story--be it plot, characterization, themes, whatever.
But wait! Fanservice operates on a different set of rules from the main universe. How are those different rules reconciled? This is usually handled in one of three ways:
The rules aren't reconciled, and the audience is asked to consider the implications of this discrepancy. Here's a fourteen-year-old shaking her butt for the camera in a universe where fourteen-year-olds are sexy. Now we return to the regular universe where that's not true. What does your reaction say about yourself? What does this say about how we as a society sexualize young teens? And so on.
It should go without saying that this is not the same thing as pushing the idea that fourteen-year-olds are sexy throughout the entire work. There must be a deliberate attempt to challenge the audience and/or discuss the topic.
The rules aren't reconciled, and this discrepancy has consequences in the plot or characterization. In one of the jobs I alluded to above, a fanservice scene sells a "hot" portrayal of sexual assault. In the rules of the fan service plane, sexual assault is acceptable. But upon returning to the rules of the normal plane, sexual assault is no longer acceptable. Sexual assault is scary and very serious! The assaulter and her victim have a falling out, and we're forced to examine what made the assaulter ever think it was acceptable to force herself upon the victim to begin with. How the assault changes the victim and assaulter and how, if ever, the assaulter can regain the victim's trust are then discussed through the remainder of the series. The discrepancy and its consequences furthers the plot and the characterization thus contributing to the story.
While I didn't like translating this scene (it was emotionally draining for maaaaany reasons), I liked what it did for the story and respected the author's choice to include it. I think it's well-written even if not personally enjoyable.
The rules are reconciled because the fan service, outside of its main premise, obeys all the rules of the main plane. Not the same thing as "there's a heterosexual explanation for this."
If a character bares their boobies to the camera, then we should expect them to be interested in showing off their body outside of fanservice. If one handsome man waxes poetic about another, he should be the type to deliver heartfelt monologues in general.
In a work I have truly egregious creative freedom on (and thus the equally daunting obligation to produce good fiction no matter what), I frequently run up against fanservice walls of this nature. If the author wants character X to do Y--something they never, ever do--it's my job to figure out what would compel X to do Y, how this unknown third thing interacts with the world of the story, and how doing Y affects X. This is Really Damn Hard.
And here I turn to Hypmic for inspiration, because Hypmic is often superb at this third type of cohesive fanservice.
Hypmic is so fanservice heavy it affects the series' ability to cohere--just look at any time the worldbuilding is examined with any degree of seriousness. Between the contradictory and constant needs for the characters to look Hot, act Gay, and be Goofy Goobers (humor can 100% be fanservice), it's kind of a miracle there's any consistency anywhere. Except it's not a miracle--it's really, really good character writing.
Things like ARB that are almost pure fanservice don't need to cohere; there, it's fine if the story jumps back and forth between fifteen hundred different planes because the primary purpose is to entertain. Why not have pterodactyls and also body swapping? You want hot boys too? Sure! Have little a Gentarou bare arms. As a treat. Doppo and Hifumi are confessing their undying love in the corner? Sounds good! Why the hell not! Whee!
But because none of the stakes matter (if ARB!Dice got mauled by a bear, Gentarou and Ramuda would laugh, and then he would show up in the next card alive, shirtless, and pitifully covered in glue), it's hard for audience members to feel emotions outside of levity. Now it's more important for fanservice to follow the rules of the main story plane--because if those rules break in fanservice, why should the audience ever expect them to hold at other times?
Hypmic doesn't always succeed at this, but when it does, it does it very, very well.
The Hypmic movie has lots of good examples of this, but I want to narrow in on the three First Stage leader kiss tease scenes, especially now that the official account gives us references I can legally screenshot and share. There's one that I think is very, very cohesive (IchiKuu), one that I think is not at all (SasaSama), and one that is cohesive on a technicality so bizarre it deserves to be looked at too (JakuRamu).
As a side note, this has nothing to do with my personal enjoyment of the ships--I like SasaSama and IchiKuu pretty much equally. I'm coming at this with my translator hat on, which isn't necessarily objective but is informed on "what do the authors want to convey" and not "what do I, personally, want to focus on."
Let's start with IchiKuu!
Kuukou marches right into Ichirou's personal space and forces Ichirou to lean very far back for the duration of his verse. Then, in Ichirou's verse, Ichirou reverses the position.
Kuukou is shown grinning, and his eyes flare in interest.
(Please ignore the...I can only hope accidental...innuendo in Ichirou telling Kuukou to "take his overwhelming vibes" lol)
I don't think the overall premise of any of these scenes is especially coherent (can you imagine being Juushi in this moment and sweating in nervous horror as Kuukou holds world's most wicked lean, hips fully under Ichirou's, for a solid ten seconds? The way this would blow up on the internet... The questions you, as Juushi, would not be prepared to answer... The pointed silence from Hitoya in the car on the way home... Like come on lol), but each individual action feels true to the character. Both Ichirou and Kuukou would do those things unprompted.
Kuukou is physically comfortable with Ichirou, breaks social conventions, and otherwise gets in people's personal space all the time. Here are two quick examples from DoD chapter 3, which occurs before Ichirou knows Kuukou well.
We've seen Kuukou be aggressive (often and always) and invade Ichirou's personal space in somewhat odd ways, so it makes sense that he'd do so here.
We also know that Ichirou matches Kuukou tit for tat, even when he probably really shouldn't (see Ichirou watch Kuukou break his own arm, call him an idiot, and start fighting him in DH/BAT chapter 9), so it's reasonable to assume Ichirou will ignore common sense and do the exact same thing to Kuukou.
Then, and this is the part that THRILLED me because it showed such deep understanding of the character, Kuukou grins and eats up every bit of Ichirou flexing on him.
A recurring theme in Ichirou and Kuukou's relationship is the idea of Kuukou admiring Ichirou for being "strong." From that same chapter, here's Kuukou admiring Ichirou for beating him up (and being stupid enough to try and beat him up) while expressing anger that someone so cool (again, I must stress, "cool" to Kuukou means physically ripped and dumb as a stump) would be engaged in a morally rotten pursuit like shaking people down for money.
Kuukou doesn't just want to beat Ichirou. Kuukou wants just as badly to see Ichirou beat him and delights in evidence of Ichirou's strength. That's why we see his eyes light up, and that's what cements this scene to me as an amazing piece of fanservice. It reinforces everything we know about these characters and their dynamic and would be feasible, if not a bit exaggerated in this intensity, in a non-fanservice scenario.
Unfortunately, the SasaSama scene falls flat to me for these same reasons, which is an issue a lot of Samatoki and MTC fanservice shares.
Sasara leans in close to Samatoki's mic. Samatoki backs away slightly, surprised, then leans back in with an aggressive look. The camera lingers here for a while as the same "indirect mic kiss" is repeated with the second and third liners. It's reminiscent of MTC's and SasaSama's cigarette kisses.
While I agree with the framing--Sasara doing something to surprise/annoy Samatoki is in character--I think this scene is limited by its position in the song (a chorus where everyone does the same thing; if I recall correctly there's another moment like this further in which isn't much different and similarly failed to impress me) and the need to sell the image of sexy MTC.
It's not that I think MTC is unsexy. It's that I have no reason to believe Samatoki has any desire to make himself look sexy to us.
Compare this image of suave Hifumi (FP/M+ chapter 3) to one of Samatoki breasting boobily (BB/MTC+ chapter 22).
Hifumi is an entertainer by trade. Even not in front of a in-universe audience, as is in this scene when it's just him and the BBs, it makes sense that he would swivel his hips and push his hair back for the IRL audience because he plays up to audiences.
But Samatoki doesn't work in entertainment. He wants to appear tough, not sexy, so it makes no sense for him to turn to the audience and flaunt his body. For this to look natural, the manga often showcases his physical form as incidentally attractive while intentionally threatening.
It feels believable that Samatoki would lunge at the audience and if his shirt just happens to press itself against his massive pecs... oh no... woe is us who have to see that...
This is what makes the cigarette kisses as a whole feel weak to me on a characterization level.
Take the famous SasaSama cigarette kiss in TDD chapter 5 (a chapter so old I don't have it in Japanese...). What reason does Samatoki have to look attractive for the audience? What would compel him to light his cigarette from Sasara's instead of using a lighter, either his or Sasara's?
In general, I think many Hypmic writers struggle to write in-character MTC fanservice because MTC has far fewer reasons to pander themselves. Not only do Samatoki and Juuto have a vested interest in making themselves appear unapproachable, all three have difficulty (at first) trusting one another and (later) showing affection for one another. It's one of the group's core conflicts. While some groups can fall back on shenaniganry (Ramuda tackles Dice! Kuukou whacks Hitoya on the back! Ichirou bearhugs his little bros! and so on), MTC can only do so sparingly to avoid either a) being out-of-character or b) tarnishing the group's tough guy image, which is a major part of MTC's IRL sell. As a result, MTC (and Samatoki in particular) can often feel stiff or muted in group shots, which I felt hard in this movie and in certain segments of the stage plays.
How can this be mitigated? Apart from incidental fanservice (here's a good one from DH/BAT chapter 11--Samatoki lost his lighter in a fight, so he's forced to ask--and therefore trust--Sasara and just so happens to be a pretty boy in the process) and the odd MTC goofball moment, I'd love to see more authors lean into MTC's desire to have connections.
Here's an example from the BB/MTC+ epilogue that handles a group shot with stupendous ease. In it, Samatoki is watching the Buster Bros and Fling Posse after Fling Posse wins the 2nd DRB, swears, is prompted by his teammates, and leaves with a promise that MTC will win the next DRB. This is nothing exceptional--virtually every MTC loss in every medium ever goes exactly like this--but the presentation changes everything.
The deliberate pacing, the focus on Samatoki's attention, the refusal to show Samatoki's eyes/facial expression after the close-ups on the teams hugging, the stark shot of the palpable distance between the MTC members, the hunch in Samatoki's shoulders, and the close-up on Juuto's left-behind cigarette tell a completely different story than "Grr, I'm so tough I'll swear and say 'we'll get 'em next time.'" Suddenly, MTC isn't reticent because it's cool. It's that they're so stuck being cool it forces them to be reticent, but that's a heavy burden and not one MTC bears lightly. That's completely in-line with their characterization and a fantastic take on them! I want to see more like this!
As for what to do about the SasaSama kiss tease... I'd love for them to have justifiable, in-character actions that in turn support their dynamic. Sasara getting in Samatoki's face is fine; he can easily do so if his purpose is to annoy or as part of a physical gag. Samatoki can then fall for the bait and lean further in or grab Sasara by the collar and tug him forward intimidatingly--here's that happening in canon in DoD chapter 4--whereupon we can have another, less surface-level interaction.
Sasara and Samatoki's theme is partnership, so a good piece of fanservice should lean into that. Either Samatoki could suddenly finish the joke (as part of a verse, perhaps?) Sasara started (causing Sasara to be surprised, then elated) because Samatoki's a dork and a softie at heart--source: literally all of canon--or something happens to Samatoki's mic, necessitating Sasara to offer his and letting Samatoki finish the verse from Sasara's mic. (Sasara can still remain in kissing distance to chaperone it as need be.) Inherent trust, leaning on one another, etc. etc. I get that it's difficult to stress partnership in an adversarial scenario, but there's really so much room for creativity here. It's a shame we didn't get more.
Maybe the writers were saving all their creativity for whatever the fuck Jakurai and Ramuda were up to.
In this scene, Jakurai advances at Ramuda during a verse. Ramuda backs up, loses his balance, and falls on his backside. Jakurai, in a certified Jakurai moment, kneels down until he's straddling Ramuda and delivers the rest of the verse a few centimeters from Ramuda's lips. Ramuda blushes. (His model blushes often and freely in the film, including several other times Jakurai's around.)
In some versions of the film, there's a shot of this from the back where you can't see what's going on. This is a common visual shorthand for kissing or sex in JPN media.
Ramuda eventually has enough, flips Jakurai over, climbs on him, and repeats the same procedure. Jakurai looks vaguely unamused like he wasn't the one who started it.
I can't begin to pretend this is a sensible thing to do, so I won't. I cannot formulate a single good reason for Jakurai to have done this. (Ramuda has a weak case for payback, and I'd even understand it if Ramuda started it, since he gets in Jakurai's face to a) be obnoxious and b) bring Jakurai "down to his level" all the time--but Jakurai???) There's an element of entertainment in the DRB which allows us to suspend our disbelief for choreo and other flashy movements, but this isn't choreo and Jakurai is not a flashy character.
However, I can't knock it as hard as I knocked the SasaSama bait because, in ass-backward fashion, Jakurai has canonically exhibited so much inexplicable behavior toward Ramuda in the name of fan service that it's in-character for him to act bizarrely around Ramuda.
This psuedo-canonization of Jakurai's freakshit rests on three things:
Jakurai's universal character trait of socially atypical behavior and difficulty understanding social dynamics. Because Ramuda also behaves atypically and is inappropriately touchy-feely/affectionate in general, this gives all their TDD shenaniganry credibility. It's not. Hmm. It's not not distracting and obvious fanservice whenever Jakurai stares at Ramuda for five panels and the mangaka busts out the lens flares, but there's a whole canon's worth of characterization that the assertion "Jakurai is oddly hung up on Ramuda" can comfortably rest on. We see Jakurai nursing a similarly long-lived (if less in our faces every second of the day) hang-up on Hitoya.
Good lord, the sheer quantity of it. Like DoHifu or GenDice, there are so many examples of fanservicey behavior to point to that they can't all be written off as flukes. That is, we can accept to some degree that Samatoki and Sasara didn't really rap a chorus in kissing distance according to the rules of Hypmic's main story plane--romantic relations between the characters don't canonically exist and, uh, it'd be awkward to be that close. We can't write off every single instance of Jakurai being weird at Ramuda without it breaking the story. To some extent, lack of romantic relations be damned, Jakurai and Ramuda are getting handsy and being obsessed with each other.
Some JakuRamu fanservice is coherent fanservice type 2--it breaks the rules of the main story plane (no gay time for rappers) and this has consequences. Characters will remark that Jakurai and Ramuda are atypically close or even that they obviously want to be closer, two such conversations of which take place in this movie.
Here's a more obvious example in the TDD vol 4 bonus. Samatoki and Ichirou find Jakurai's Ramuda-braided hair weird (there's flag 1, socially atypical behavior) and comment on the two of them being especially close (flag 2).
Here's Samatoki being annoyed at their bullshit as a freebie. (I just love the way the mangaka draws him here haha. "What the hell does that [made-up word Ramuda pulled out of his ass to describe him and Jakurai] mean?" He's so long-suffering.)
These three factors essentially instate a rule in the story plane such that, left to their own devices, Jakurai and Ramuda will engage in largely inexplicable shipbait behavior. Which is outrageously funny.
GenDice and HifuDo fall in the same camp, with the latter having somewhat stauncher reasoning (lifelong best friends) than the former (Gentarou, uh...gets a kick out of fucking with Dice). The thing is, whereas this was undeniably intentional with HifuDo--we see this degree of shipbait laid out for them in the earliest pieces of Hypmic media--and arguably so with GenDice, I genuinely don't know if the Hypmic writers intended for JakuRamu (especially Jakurai) to progress in quite this fashion.
While it's clear from creator comments that there is a central writing team and that creators are expected to follow certain mandates from this team, creators are also given a surprising degree of creative freedom. When one creator--a voice actor in a live, a stage actor in a show, a manga artist in a chapter--does something the central writing team/other creators think is clever, this will be picked up and added to the character. One example of this phenomenon is Kuukou backflipping, something first introduced in the stageplay and now ported to the movie. So while early drama track Jakurai is not unreasonably hung up on his old friend and betrayer Ramuda, the manga artists came out the gate swinging with their own agendas. As other manga original content was added to Jakurai's character (much of his body language in the stage play is from the manga; the hand motif is largely from the manga), I can't help but wonder if this came along for the ride. Sure, JakuRamu was always meant to be a marketable ship, but did the writers intend Jakurai to be the driving force of so much of it?
In conclusion: Did these three kiss teases feel "earned" to me?
Etho calling gem to say sorry about calling her "homely" in the REPO gaming, it develops into a confession
I slipped and wrote a thing.
---
Gem’s barely ended her stream and closed out of Steam when her Discord starts to jingle with an incoming call.
In all honesty, out of everyone, she expects it to be Grian. Probably still wide awake, needing someone to annoy as he gets ready for bed. But she blinks at the name on her screen.
“Did you misclick?” she asks as she answers the call.
“What?” Etho says with obvious confusion in his voice. “No, I meant to call you.”
She stares at the screen, brows pulling down into a frown. She’s worked with him for years, but she’s still no closer to understanding anything about him — including why he’d feel the need to call her right now.
“Were you missing me?” she asks. “It’s been a whole thirty seconds since we last spoke.”
“I — no,” Etho says with a barely-there laugh. “I just — ”
She doesn’t interrupt, letting the silence stretch as she waits for an explanation from him, knowing he has to crack eventually.
“I didn’t know that’s what it meant,” he says abruptly, and Gem blinks.
“What?”
“Homely,” he clarifies. “I looked it up after everyone — I don’t think you’re ugly.”
There’s a tightness forming in her stomach, a knot of anxiety that grows with every word Etho says.
She waits an extra beat before saying, “Okay?”
“That’s why I called,” he continues, and then falls silent, letting her turn over the words in her mind.
“You called to tell me you don’t think I’m ugly.”
“Yeah, you — I don’t think you’re homely.”
It’s one of the most bizarre interactions she’s ever had with him. Including the time he flat out asked her in the middle of a Hermit Meeting what an ethogirl was. And she’d had to explain the concept to him in front of twenty of her much older peers.
“Thank you?” she replies, adjusting her mic, staring at where his icon flickers, picking up sounds — maybe his breathing — though she can’t hear anything. “You could’ve just said that earlier.”
“I didn’t want to make the game awkward.”
He doesn’t offer anything more than that and Gem purses her lips.
“So, this is an apology,” she says and there’s a long beat where he doesn’t answer, like maybe he nods before realizing she can’t see.
“Yeah. I thought — ” Etho could probably explain his thought process until he’s blue in the face and she still wouldn’t get it. “ — to clear the air.”
“There wasn’t really anything in the air,” she tells him. “I didn’t take it personally.”
“Oh,” he says quietly. “You sounded upset.”
“I was surprised,” Gem admits. “I expected it from Skizz, but not you.”
She laughs, but he doesn’t follow suit, and it feels like she needs to offer him an olive branch.
“Say the magic words,” she tells him, “and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
She wants to hear him say I’m sorry. She could be the first person ever to get a genuine apology from Etho and she’s not going to miss the opportunity.
“Magic words,” he echoes, and she finds a little joy in watching him struggle to understand.
“Those two little words,” she encourages. “I want to hear you say them.”
There’s a heavy silence from Etho’s end of the call.
“What?”
His voice is weaker, not as boisterous as it usually gets when he’s joking around, trying to rile her up. He’s struggling to keep up, losing her line of logic.
“We were just talking about it,” she presses. “I want to hear you say it. Just for me. No one else has to know.”
She smiles as she hears him pull in a heavy breath, and it’s clear he’s overthinking — whatever it is that’s buzzing around in his mind, he’s twisting it into knots.
“I — ” he starts and then stops. “You’re hot.”
He says it in a rush, almost too quick for her to decipher the words, but then she freezes.
“What?”
“If I’d known what homely meant, I wouldn’t have said it,” he carries on. “But I think — you’re very attractive, Gem.”
Silence fills the space between them and in the corner of her screen, she sees the time tick up by another minute.
“Are you still there?” he asks eventually and Gem finally blinks.
“I meant I’m sorry,” she says with a heavy exhale, her whole face burning as her hands clutch at the edge of her desk. “The two words: I’m and sorry. I wanted to be the first to get an Etho apology.”
She draws in a ragged breath and the silence grows heavy again.
She has no idea what to do with the information, and she’s not sure what’s worse — Etho thinking she’s plain, or Etho thinking she’s hot.
“I — I’m sorry,” he says and she hiccups out a laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
“Oh my god. It’s a little late to say it now, Etho,” she tells him. “I actually think I need another one.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and he sounds so earnest that Gem can’t even make fun of him for it. “I didn’t — I thought — ”
He’s going to tangle himself in his own thoughts and find a way to never talk to her again if she’s not careful.
“You thought I was asking — why would the magic words ever be you're hot?”
“I don't know,” Etho starts. “I — are you mad?”
“No,” Gem says quickly, and it's the truth.
The EthosLab just admitted to thinking she's hot. She's not mad at all.
“I think it's a little unfair,” she tells him, taking a breath, and he pauses.
“Why unfair?”
She adjusts her mic again out of habit.
“I don't know what you look like,” she says, “so I can't comment on your appearance at all.”
“Oh,” he replies carefully. “Maybe that's for the best.”
“Are you homely, Etho?” she asks, unable to stop her smile, and she knows he must hear it in her voice because he lets out a breath that's almost a laugh.
“I think I deserve that one,” he tells her gently, and Gem's smile widens.
“I think so,” she agrees. “Though you could always prove me wrong.”
She's pushing at boundaries she never would normally, but she has a feeling his guilt is eating him up inside and that always tends to work in her favor.
“I don't think I could.”
“Still camera shy?” she asks and Etho lets out a breath.
“No, I could show you my face, I just don't think it would prove you wrong.”
She laughs outright, head tipping back, and after a beat, he joins her with his own familiar, breathy laugh.
“That's better than any apology,” she tells him when she finally collects herself again and he hums quietly, not quite an agreement.
“I'm sorry,” he says, and his tone is even and careful — he means it.
“I know, Etho,” she sighs. “Thanks.”
It falls quiet between them, the silence not as awkward as before, but when Etho doesn't try to break it, she knows she has to.
“I appreciate the confidence boost,” she tells him, “but I actually do need to go to bed.”
“Sure,” he agrees, and then after a beat, adds, “Sleep well.”
She can't quite keep the smile out of her voice when she says, “Goodnight, Etho.”
She ends the call, quickly logging out and turning off her computer before anyone else can think to message her. She's had enough surprises for one day.
When her monitor finally goes dark, she leans back in her chair, blowing out a heavy breath.
Her cheeks are still hot with her flush when she brings her hands up to her face, and she can't help but let out a laugh, high-pitched and slightly manic.
Etho thinks she's hot.
She'll be riding that high for a long while.
Carefully, she pushes herself to her feet, stretching out the aches from sitting for so long, and on her desk, her phone dings quietly.
For a moment, she thinks seriously about switching it off, too. But with a sigh, she grabs it and opens her notifications.
It's a DM from Etho on Discord.
“One apology was enough,” she mutters to herself, wondering if he's decided she needs it in writing too.
But then the message opens and she realizes it's not another apology; it's a photo. A photo that's been marked as a spoiler.
Gem's stomach flips as she stares, but after a second, she taps the screen to clear the filter.
It's dark and blurry as hell, but there's no doubt it's a man's face.
Etho's face.
As she stares, their chat shifts and a new message from Etho appears.
Just watched kpop demon hunters in theaters today, and oh my gosh, the experience was amazing!! Seeing the girls on the big screen and singing along to all the songs with other fans was so much fun 😭
It was super chaotic and someone shouted "oh no hes hot" when jinu appeared and again shouted "stretchmarks" when rumi showed her patterns for the first time, plus a bunch of other things later that I kinda forgot 😂
It was so much more crowded than I thought it would be and I also dragged my mom and brother who both watched it for the first time and really liked it! (But what an experience for a first viewing amirite?)
Also I got to wear my rujinu shirt to the showing so that's always a plus x)))
Just finished watching a horror movie rn at 2 am (work who?) and the entire time all I could think of was clex*
Tbf it kinda just popped into my head after a jumpscare. The movie was kinda ass but the other movie goers were funny (someone farted during the quietest scene ever 😂)
*specifically clex from the superman 2025 movie; I was reading it just before the movie
2087
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
areudirty
