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porn, libraries & library porn ✨

[musictooth]

KINNPORSCHE TAGS MASTER POST

➜ Link to external file

[discluded]

every day I start ugly laughing when i think about the subtext that Porsche was so irresistible he probably got hit on a lot by guys at his bartending job too but Porsche thought he was straight cause he wasn't attracted to any of them

likely because many of them probably were petit and lithe like Kinn's escorts cause Porsche is tall and strong

meanwhile Porsche's queer awakening coincided exactly with his self-realization that he is a bottom

[ohyesididnotjustdothat]

The face of a man contemplating the feeling of another man's chest to his back for the first time LOL

[boochhaan]

He always wanted to be held by someone strong, by someone who truly loved him and he found that in kinn T^T

[pandoraylamcraziness]

Porsche and Vegas or how you find unlikely allies

Tbh one of the things I wouldn’t have expected to happen, not in a million years, would be Porsche and Vegas being in the same side.

Now picture the image of Kinn and Pete looking how the loves of their lives escape on a bike. Like. What the fuck.

I think Kinn will be too blinded by his -I wouldn’t say hate, tho in this very moment it definetely morphed into that- distate and distrust for his cousin.

But what about Pete? Does he think that Vegas manipulated another person? A friend of Pete’s on top of that. Does he think Porsche is another Tawan and Ken? Does he doubts himself and start to think that everything that happened to him was a long game of manipulation? Or does he blames himself for not stopping Vegas from keep trying to get back at Kinn/the main family? Is he even emotionally stable to see how WILDLY strange is to Vegas and Porsche to work together? Does he feels something is off, something he doesn’t know but that Vegas is not acting in bad faith?

I don’t know.

But I keep thinking how these two came together, with no false pretenses. How not in my wildest dreams I would think Porsche and Vegas working together. If I saw that in a fic I would probably think it was too ooc.

And the interesting part is that: no pretenses. Everything is out front.

I see a lot of people coming for Porsche’s throat for not trusting Kinn with this. But the thing is, he find himself in an enviroment he doesn’t trust.

Remember when Kinn said: “I promise. Whatever you want to know, I’ll find every answer for you”

And that’s the thing. It’s too dangerous. Kinn would move heavens and earth to find the answers he needs. But what if those answers were held by his father? What then?

- At best he would tip off Korn bc Kinn would act weird and they don’t know how many of their people would risk to put their loyalty on Kinn before Korn, because at the end of the day he’s still the patriarch, so everyone is essentially his eyes.

- At worst he would go directly to Korn to ask him and Korn would bullshit his way as always.

The result would be the same: Korn would erase all possible evidence and Porsche would be still without answers.

At the end Porsche would have put a mark on himself. He will be always wondering when Korn would finally decide he’s not all that special and that guilt is not enough for the risk of him putting Kinn against Korn.

So he’s doing all of this to protect Kinn and their relationship. He wants to be able to be with Kinn. But he knows he either figures it out by himself or it would eat him alive for the rest of his life. He needs to.

Then enter Vegas.

You have no contacts, no means, no resources. You don’t know where to even begin to look. You need someone who has all those things and the intelligence and experience to uncover things.

(what’s very funny is that if the Theerapanyakul brothers had any kind of communication, Porsche would know to go to Kim and his murderboard)

So why Vegas? Also how the fuck he contacted Vegas if he was supposedly off the grid and in hiding?

I think there’s a gap, lost time we didn’t see.

We see Porsche answering an unknown number’s call after leaving Pete in the bathtub. But he talks very normal, serene. He knows who’s he’s talking to. And it’s definetely a secret seeing how fast he hungs up after Kinn arrives.

What I think? That call was Vegas. They were already in contact. I don’t know who contacted who first, but now that I’m thinking of it, I think it was Vegas who reached out first. He wanted to talk to Pete, to see him again. But he has a price on his head, so who would help him? The obvious choice is Porsche. An outsider enough to not instantly react how the mafia deals with things (read: bloodbath) and possibly Pete’s best friend. I’m betting my right hand he promised anything in order to be able to see Pete. And that’s how Porsche found out the perfect man for what he needed.

He promised to think of something.

Then enter the bathtub scene.

When I was watching it I thought Porsche had a weird expression on his face. It was not exactly anger for the torture Pete has on his body. It was a kind of cold anger. Restrained.

Now I realize it’s because he has strong suspicions of who was it. Why is he asking for “who”? If what Tankhun said was right and Pete indeed was held prisioner since his last mission, Pete would have been tortured by the second family’s people, not Vegas who was in hiding. So why not say it?

But then Vegas did contact him, asking for this strange favor in exchange for anything Porsche could want.

Porsche is conecting the dots and is not liking the picture that paints:

1. Pete wasn’t in the second family’s house (they checked when looking for Vegas).

2. Vegas called him, putting himself in danger, asking to meet Pete and promising anything in return.

3. Pete is barely holding together his bubbly exterior, clearly traumatized and with his whole body covered in healing wounds.

4. Pete is not denying that a single person did this, too out of it to notice that that is an answer by itself.

5. Pete is still not saying who did this to him and he looks in the verge of tears. He probably spent all his energy debriefing with Chan, now he looks like if you push him too hard, he will burst into tears.

6. Porsche is saying that if he tells him, he will deal with it himself, not saying anything to Chan or the others. He ask Pete to trust him.

7. Pete looks like he’s gonna crack and put his trust on Porsche, but the moment Porsche mentions the second family, he immediately closses off.

8. When he tries to push him more, Pete looks like he’s gonna start sobbing any minute now.

(Why? He realizes he could start a war between the families. And if he’s the reason, Vegas would suffer the worst consequences -by his father, by the two families. He realizes the secret of where he was and with who would be out, and nobody would understand him. And that’s what both breaks him and gives him strenght: the fact that nobody would understand him. Only Vegas. Vegas who he betrayed and the one who makes him feel like he’s losing his sanity and at the same time makes him feel whole for the first time. So he shuts up)

Now Porsche is having a more complete picture, but he’s aware he’s missing some things. So when Vegas calls him again, he decides he would agree with a meeting. BUT with safety measures. In a safe space, with people who cares for Pete and would defend him. With himself closer in case things go south.

So he creates an opportunity, a night out at Yok’s.

And there is where he finds another dot to his personal murderboard:

(Tankhun definitely has psychic powers bc how he could have choose the most perfect song?)

This? This right here is not the face of a man suffering from physical torture.

This is the face of a man suffering from a broken heart (and yes, physical torture too)

So Porsche goes to find Vegas, seeing everyone is distracted. And the following interaction is what I find most interesting:

He goes to him and Vegas looks at him expectantly, whith hope. And then Porsche punches him.

But what he says? He says “This is for Tawan. *punches him again, this time with relish* And this is for Pete”

Why? The Pete part I understand, but the Tawan part messes with that.

“This is for Tawan” - For what? For making him come back to Kinn’s life just to fuck him over?

But then he says “And this is for Pete”. For what? For torturing him? For messing with him?

As you see, these two makes sense separately, but not together, because what these two have in common? Their hearts being broken by Vegas.

So yeah, I do think Porsche is meaning all those things, but more importantly he saw how badly Vegas manipulated Tawan. Even if Tawan was an asshole, he didn’t deserved to be manipulated like that and have his love used against him. That served no purpose, that was cruel (even if I think Vegas ultimately tried to make Tawan go in the most sweet way possible, trying to spare him the pain before dying)

So what Porsche is focusing the most here is the personal relationship part, Vegas relationship with those two people.

He’s being all “You fucked up Tawan, someone who was definetely not a fool. Now what the hell did you do to Pete?”

And when Vegas pants and say “aahh okay”, he get what Porsche is saying now. He accepts it. After the first punch he looks like if he were in any other situation, he would retaliate. After the second one? He deflates, because he knows he deserves it.

“He didn’t tell me anything, but I could guess”

And Vegas closses off, like Pete: “Are you done?”

(Because he knows it doesn’t matter if he tries to explain, nobody would understand (parallels again anyone?))

V: “At first I thought if there would be something that Kinn couldn’t help you with. Now I get it. I’m glad you thought of me”

P: “I don’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. Even the main family, I don’t trust any of them. But I think you’re the only person whom can be bought by them”

Then Vegas offers his help, so that means this was initially a one time thing: I take Pete somewhere where you can see him, and I can ask you if you know something.

But what none of them expected was the fact that Vegas recognized Porsche’s mom from a picture in his father’s studio.

Now it’s not something about Porsche business. It’s not even something about the main family. It’s something it affects both of them bc it was not only Korn who treated differently Porsche, Kan also ordered Vegas to not injure or put him in danger. So something is definetely off, and they both want to figure out what. (I didn’t read the novel, but I know this specific thing and I’m incredibly immpressed how the show is handling it and using both misdirections and foreshadowing)

Porsche needs to know what happened in the past and what’s happening around him. He needs answers in order to be happy with Kinn.

Vegas has been feeling that something was off for a long time. His father is hiding something, something very improtant considering he has a fucking photo of Porsche’s mom in his fucking studio. He wants to know. He wants leverage on his father. He wonders if this would make him uderstand why his father treats him the way he does.

Because… Did we forget how many times Kan has beat Vegas while screaming how dissapointed he is that Macau and him are his sons? How sneered that they were weak as their mother?

Then you had a picture of an unknown woman in his fucking studio. Someone who Korn also knows.

So it’s not hard for Vegas to reach to some conclussions:

1. Either Porsche is the son of the woman his father loved (and probably Korn too),

2. or Porsche is the son of his father with the woman he loved, making him his brother and explaining why his father despises so much Vegas, Macau and their mother.

Either way he has a connection to Porsche now, a personal one. And that’s why Vegas demeanour changes so much with Porsche. It’s not that he has been changed by the power of Pete’s love or some bullshit (though Pete did help him with his self growth), is that he’s acting with him like he does with Macau: a softer version of him, one that protects and don’t lash out.

I think Porsche is leaning for option one, or more like, he refuses to even think about any other possibility: he’s the son of his parents and that’s it. Also thinking of anything else would be dangerous, bc that would make Kinn his cousin at best, and his half brother at worst.

And Vegas…well, considering how fucked up is his world and his perspective under his father’s hate that Porsche doesn’t have, I think he’s leaning into option two. Now he has something to focus on, someone to help and protect. And if this also helps him to fuck somehow his father over, he will welcome it.

.

(aaaaaaand holy shit. I did it again *cries*. I wrote another monstruosity like I’m in a fever dream wtf I’m so sorry! *runs*)

[bitacrytic]

You know what's unrealistic as far as fictional trope goes?

Vegas doesn't have a daddy kink. Like this guy who is desperately looking for approval and who the fandom pushed into bdsm doesn't have a daddy kink interlinked with praise kink?

You are telling me he never "yes daddied" anyone?

See, anon, I can see it.

I swear, I write Vegas this way, without ever saying it out loud. He just wants approval, but he's such an asshole about it.

The thing is, to me, it's not really a sexual thing with Vegas. The way he is with his dad, it's difficult not to picture a man like that looking for a parental figure or like an older sibling.

WHICH IS WHAT BREAKS MY HEART ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH TANKHUN AND KINN.

Because you just know that Vegas would hate it, but would sit in a corner, pretending like he doesn't like it when Tankhun asks if he's eaten, every two minutes.

Vegas is such a lonely man that he needs catering to. Not in the "I'll wash your clothes and feed you" kind of way. But in the "I'll ask how your day was" kind of way. Because Vegas is independent, when it comes to taking care of himself. He'll scavenge amd survive.

But what he won't do, what he's never been able to do, is hype himself up and give himself mental checkups.

Which is what Pete did. Because Vegas would have taken care of Pete, physically. We saw that he was capable. He'd cook, He'd clothe Pete. He'd probably take him out. Vegas is an older brother. He knows how to do that stuff.

But what Pete brought to the table was a simple, "how are you doing today?" and all Vegas' walls came tumbling.

I don't know if it's a kink, but yeah, anon, Vegas strikes me as someone who needs mental and emotional supervision. Like, on an obsessive level.

Good for him for mistakenly finding Pete.

[minorfamilysupremacy]

this post is largely for @therealblessedaffliction bc i can’t stop thinking about that scene on the balcony between gun and vegas, so:

when you rewatch that scene, it is so immediately apparent how deep the abuse goes, and how fucked up it is that gun is tasking his son with this mission. gun knows full well who porsche is and what kind of political points securing porsche’s loyalties/affections would net him. it’s possibly one of the most vile things he does, which is saying something considering everything else he does onscreen, because this isn’t using vegas as a way to secure a business deal or otherwise benefit the minor family in some way. this is all personal and a way to strike back at korn. 

the weird thing is that while pete is correct that gun beats vegas because he feels like he’s a disappointment and he needs to take out his own pain on his son, he’s not entirely correct. gun also beats vegas because he needs to strip vegas of his humanity. if he’s broken enough, he’s easier to control/manipulate into doing the family’s dirty business because he can be bought off with the idea of approval and praise. he can be warped into thinking his entire value to the family, and indeed as a person, is tied to what he can do or bring to the table. he is not valuable as a person; he is valuable as a weapon or attack dog. (’everyone just knows i’m vegas from the minor family’ is a hell of a line because no one sees vegas as a person. ‘vegas from the minor family’ is shorthand for a ruthless, violent specter who will kill without remorse. less of a person than an idea.)

gun would have started this early, back when vegas was small enough to be at his most malleable psychologically, because it would have been less work than trying to break a child old enough to have gotten a backbone or willpower. (how much influence his mom had on trying to avoid this, i’m not sure, because i don’t know how old vegas was when she died. we do know that gun has nothing but malice for her, though – ‘you’re just as stupid as your mother’ – and that line suggests that vegas was close to her. it’s very obviously chosen as a line gun knows will hurt vegas to the core.) he couldn’t be initiated into a lot of the very, very dirty work – torture, contract killings, etc – until he was a little older, but i have zero doubt he was witness to things very early just to desensitize him and make sure he had no illusions about his future. immersing him in all of this would have been only a practical decision (writing those words made my skin crawl), but also would have been a great abuse tool because it would have isolated vegas from his peers. by virtue of being a theerapanyakul, he already would have had a certain degree of isolation, but then making sure he doesn’t ever breathe a word of his horrific home life to the kids around him? yeah, that’s a breeding ground for an angry, lonely kid who will never learn to form connections. maybe he had a close relationship with his cousins, but maybe not! it’s impossible to tell from what we’re given. (what we know: 1) as adults, they fucking hate each other; 2) korn and gun have a vested interest in sowing discord between the families to keep up the competitive edge. to me, any potential childhood closeness would have been snuffed out as the kids got older when they needed to be more fully slotted into their future roles.)

so from a very young age, vegas would have been taught to distrust, judge, and keep his distance from others. human kindness, frailty, weakness – those aren’t things he would be allowed to indulge in. he would have had to crush out whatever emotions weren’t practical for survival.

the dehumanization is already underway. strip a little kid of the safety and support they need to grow and thrive and you’re giving them an unstable sense of self and damaging their ability to self-soothe because they don’t learn that skill without guidance. constantly being in danger of abuse is going to keep vegas in constant fight-or-flight mode. he would live only for the recognition and praise of others, because he had nothing of his own to fall back on. gun’s approval, or lack thereof, would shape how he viewed himself as a person.

any kid is going to grow up inherently and instinctively craving love and affection. it’s just how humans are wired. if they aren’t receiving it, though, that’s where they can branch out into any of a hundred different maladaptive coping mechanisms. in vegas’ case, he was given the tool of violence and a half-formed hope of approval. and a lot of abuse victims become violent not only bc they’re mirroring their abuser’s actions (which, obviously, vegas does do), but also because violence is control and it gives them the illusion they’ve asserted some power over their lives. he did not choose to become violent in a vacuum; gun systematically dismantled him as a person and then, in a sick fucking gesture of ‘assistance,’ gave him a path forward by making him a killing machine. and best of all, vegas can’t even see himself as human, so seeing the humanity in others is almost an impossibility. he’s perfect for what gun needs him to be, not that gun would let him know that because it would undo all the work he put into molding vegas for his own ends.

everything vegas knows of human nature and humanity is based on observation, but what he’s observed (and been a victim of) is how to break people. how to spot and exploit weaknesses. he knows how to wheel and deal, he knows how to get people to talk, he knows how to unravel someone and bring them to their knees. he knows how to see people the way other people see him – zeroing in on what’s valuable about them, like information or influence, and discarding the rest. (look at the infamous ‘head, chest, or heart’ scene from episode 14. porsche and vegas have shared a quasi-friendship at various points throughout the series, but when it comes to this moment, porsche isn’t a person, he’s an easy way to hurt kinn.)

and part of the reason vegas is good at this is not just because he’s violent. yeah, a lot of guys are gonna talk if you rip out their cochlea. but that doesn’t always work! the torture briefcase is not made for the boardroom. you need a lighter, defter touch for that. you need diplomacy.

or, if you’re a theerapanyakul, you just need a vulnerable teenage boy you’re comfortable sacrificing. 

how often did gun pimp vegas out? the novel might say, who knows. i have a feeling it was a lot. for all we know, it’s still happening up until gun’s death. but what better way to show off your broken vanity project than to serve him up to god-knows-how-many powerful men in bangkok and, frankly, probably in plenty of other places as well. vegas is a beautiful man; he would have been a beautiful kid, with that delicate bone structure and that bottomless desire to please. and when he’s, what, 14, 15, 16 (again, vomiting while i write it), he’s a wonderful target for powerful men who want to feel young and in control. if he fights it, it’s more satisfying to break him; if he gives in, he can be easily reshaped into what they best desire. and gun condoned it. korn condoned it. (and if tensions hadn’t already broken the main and minor cousins apart, this would sure do it.) it gets them results; it provides an easy source of blackmail if someone tries to get out of line.

and best of all, it reinforces everything gun has been telling vegas his entire life! it continues to tie his value to what he can do and not who he is, it isolates him, it dehumanizes him and strips him of agency, and it provides more evidence to support a bleak, nihilistic outlook. gun’s outsourcing the abuse to supplement what he’s dishing out. and korn’s condoning it deepens the rift between the two families, thus ensuring that the rivalry won’t sputter out any time soon. (he pours so much poison into the ears of his family and associates, too. pete saying korn isn’t cruel isn’t intentionally malicious by any stretch, but he could have dealt less damage by directly stabbing vegas in the heart. ‘isn’t my fucking life because of this?’ isn’t just about being in hiding; it’s about how within the confines of the theerapanyakul family, he’s always been the most convenient scapegoat for their worst offenses.)

BUT. but! vegas is incredibly resilient. he weathers, quite frankly, an unimaginable amount of shit through his life and yet, as we see in the safehouse, he has kept that terrified, lonely inner child safe all these years. it’s battered and fragile, but still reacts to pete’s gentle – and perhaps unintentional? – coaxing. this is different from the side of himself he shows to macau, because with macau, he has to be a caretaker and protector. obviously, with pete, he still engages in caretaker behaviors, but he has an admittedly VERY warped perception of them as more of emotional equals. (it, of course, takes pete losing his shit at vegas for vegas to realize how many of the dehumanizing behaviors he’s been subjected to are now being passed to pete. it genuinely doesn’t occur to him until pete is sobbing and bleeding profusely how hurtful his actions are because he’s normalized them so fucking much over the years. he had no choice, of course, but say it with me AGAIN: intent does not negate impact.)

both actions – pete’s bringing vegas’ humanity to light, and vegas’ realization of how hurtful denying pete’s humanity is – come back to one very simple point: gun lost. even before he ended up dead in the main house, he’d failed at one of his life’s most crucial missions, which was to make his son the perfect weapon to destroy the main family. he spent vegas’ entire life abusing him on every conceivable level, only to have someone come into vegas’ life and realize that not every piece of him had been irreparably broken. the delicious irony is that gun trained vegas to build wall after wall and shut out person after person, but in the end, it was those same walls that allowed vegas to keep his truest, most honest self safe. gun wanted to make his son a weapon of war, and he did. he just forgot that a shield can be a weapon, too.

[actual-changeling]

In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

Edit: Yes, this also works on mobile!

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box

add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box

delete -> self explanatory

on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.

[prettysweetprettysweet]

I'm being driven absolutely delirious by these 18 seconds. the way Pete yanks his arm out from under Vegas and turns his head away after Vegas calls him a fool, and Vegas just slowly guides Pete's face back to him with, like, the most tender look on his face. the accompanying music. fucking hell

[xcziel]

no truer words from @trueplainhearts

[milfiepumpkin]

Flaws

[davincsoo]

I've watched this sex scene an unhealthy amount of times, and I mean UNHEALTHY, and can we just take a minute to talk more about it?

Like minutes before this one, okay? Vegas was talking some shit about how he knows how much Pete likes it when he gets pissy and borderline abusive (his words sort of not mine don't come for me). Then he goes on to say that he knows it so he doesn't need to pretend that he doesn't anymore. Which, granted, Pete really did end up finding some of this shit hot as fuck, and he really gave Vegas exactly what he was asking for, but can we focus on Vegas in this gif please because look.

Not only do we see him thanking Pete for giving all of himself to him willingly, and admittingly so, but we also see just how much Vegas himself was holding back from Pete. The way his eyes never open, but he can feel all of Pete, he can smell all of him. The way not one part of him ever leaves any part of Pete. The way he looks as if he can't catch his breath because Pete's entire being is sucking the air right from his lungs.

When he pulls him the slightest bit closer when he goes back for another kiss.

He wanted this the moment he started having feelings, and accepted those feelings for Pete. He wanted exactly this to happen all along, and he held everything back from Pete because he wasn't ready for it, Pete hadn't accepted his feelings yet. So when Pete initiates the first kiss, it surprises the fuck out of him, and it takes his breath away because holy fuck did he think that this never would happen, that Pete would never admit to himself what he felt.

And my god my vegas apologist ass is whipped for these two. Send help.

[musictooth]

i opened photoshop after i don't know how long and. god. i think i found my favorite vp kiss.

[hozukitofu]

no better comedy than the immoral villainous seemingly irredeemable cousin going from 'no one will love me i am a monster inside' to domestically raising kids with his sort-of-enemy maybe former-tortured-prisoner and the whole time he's STRICKEN with wtf is even happening are we in love? are we married? is this a ride to die?? can't even call this a speedrun bc the speed at which events had happened is so jarring it tore the fabric holding fragile realities together.

did they date? unsure, uncertain, no one is going to ASK they like their heads where those are thanks. does anyone know what's happening? not even these guys know and they're coparenting while yearning at pathetic ASTRONOMICAL levels. something something repressed guilt pride severe doubt and insecurity inferiority complexes. also one day you're torturing this guy and the next week he's taking your brother to school and folding your collective household laundry, there is not a set of vocabulary that can express how fast everything had been going and you're thinking 'this is why people stay in marriages this is some truly scary shit' and you're saying this as someone who ripped out tongues the other night

meanwhile the other guy is just too smug about it all. it is also possible that he may have orchestrated events so it seems all coincidental. sometimes a man gets tired of being gunned down at the ripe old age of 20-something and says fuck it i'll raise a teenager and a disgraced former heir of a criminal empire it'll be like my old job less blood more laundry. nobody checks in with him this much when he was doing a good job bodyguarding so now he thrives in bickering with his former captor in an ikea-renovated kitchen in the suburbs about how much spice is tolerable in a dish while said captor is fretting over him in barely-repressed yearning and pathetic adoration. pete is too asian and polite to bring it up but sometimes he's like yeah this dude truly was swinging above his weight when he landed me. 'im the sucker that was baited by his pretty face. now i trap him in marriage and love. it's fair enough'

unstoppable force (one man's cringe and deep asian shame) vs immovable object (another man's equally asian grudge and paying even)

eventually vegas confronts pete about baby trapping him (the baby is macau) and pete saying no YOU DID that is YOUR baby YOU trapped ME so they keep this up for a while until macau interrupts like I TRAPPED BOTH OF YOU CAN YOU PLEASE GO MAKE OUT AND BE NORMAL.

[flamingwell]

Making Your Podfic (especially with Music and/or Sound Effects) More Accessible and Listener Friendly

So you're planning to make a podfic with music and/or sound effects, and you want to think about ways to make it more accessible? Awesome!! This will guide you through some steps you can take to make your podfic more accessible, some of which will also make for a more pleasant listening experience for listeners without accessibility needs, but the focus will primarily be on accessibility. Some of this will also be applicable to podfics with multiple recording sessions without music or sound effects, but again, that's not the focus.

What's the number one thing you can do to make your podfic with music and/or sound effects more accessible to those with noise sensitivity, auditory processing conditions, who are somewhat hard of hearing, or other auditory accessibility needs?

MAKE A CLEAN VERSION, with NO music or sound effects! This can be a very easy change to your process for most people! After editing out mistakes and doing your audio clean up but before you add music or sound effects, simply export your audio. Upload it wherever you upload your final version, drop in a second link to the no music/sound effects version, and that's it! Of course, this may not be trivial for some people, depending on your individual process or other factors. I hope you will decide that it's worth doing anyway. As someone with audio accessibility needs myself, I can tell you it makes a HUGE difference. There are podficcers I love who I can't listen to some of what they've recorded because there's no version without music/sound effects, or sometimes I can only listen on a good day. There are fics I love where there's a podfic version, but I will never be able to listen to it because there's more music/sounds effects than I can handle. This one change will make people like me VERY happy and will expand your audience!

Secondly, especially if you've got a lot of audio dynamics (really quiet whispery bits and also really loud shouty bits), be sure to use the Compressor tool. Long story short, the compressor makes the actual noise level of the quiet bits louder and the loud bits quieter, while still leaving the impression of whispering or shouting. In other words, keep the emotion, but don't force your listeners to keep changing the volume on their headphones/speakers/hearing aid to be able to hear what you're saying or avoid getting their ears blown out (very useful for other listeners too, especially people listening on headphones or in the car). A quick overview of how to use the Compressor settings (this is for Audacity, which is what I'm most familiar with, but most audio editing tools will have something similar):

Threshold: how loud do you want to go before starting to make things quieter?

Make-up gain: after compressing the loud bits down, how much do you want to make everything louder to make up for it?

Knee width: how quickly and starkly do you want the compression to apply? At 0db, this will be a very sharp change. Lower levels will lead to less sharp changes

Ratio: for the loud bits that are getting compressed, how much compression should be applied? The higher the Ratio the more the loud parts of the audio will be compressed.

Okay, but maybe you want to ALSO make the version with music and/or sound effects more accessible, since that's your vision for the podfic and you want as many people as possible to be able to experience it? Great! PLEASE still make a version without music/sound effects as noted above, because even doing everything you can won't be enough for everyone. But it's also great to do what you can to make your music/sound effects version accessible for those that are able to enjoy it with some changes. So….what are some things you can do?

As much as possible, avoid putting music or Foley over your words. For people with audio processing issues especially, it can be very difficult to parse words when there's background music (and especially background music that itself has words).

If you're going to have music or Foley over words, make sure the words are significantly louder than the music. You can use the Analyze Contrast tool (in the Analyze menu in Audacity) to compare the relative loudness of two selections.

For music or Foley between words (like in a section break), make sure it's not too much louder or softer than the sections that come before and after. Again, use that Analyze Contrast tool to compare selections.

You can also use Analyze Contrast to even out the sound between recording sessions!

For sound effects that modify your voice, go only to the point where your voice still sounds very intelligible to you. Someone with auditory accessibility needs will likely struggle with intelligibility well before someone without those needs.

Hope this was helpful!

(This is written from my perspective as someone who has audio accessibility needs, as well as being a podficcer myself. Beta help and additional thoughts from @writerproblem193 @keriarentikai @xiaokuer-schmetterling and others not on Tumblr. But this is not The Definitive Guide To Accessibility or anything, so please add your perspective!)

[etoiledunord]

Hello! I am a fellow podficcer, and I have a couple of good faith questions about these tips.

First, though, I want to make it clear that I understand that you are speaking from your own perspective and not the perspective of everyone with audio processing issues and/or sensory sensitivity issues. The questions I want to ask are also specific to your perspective—I’m just excited to have someone who has experiences with these issues who might be willing to chat about them, so I’m asking broad questions in the hopes of prompting you to speak about the elements you consider most salient.

Now to business. I make podfic with music in the background “behind” the spoken text (see my AO3 under the same username for details), but I also provide a version without that music. However, all versions of my podfics have intro/outro music that is not layered with any text. I do this because I consider it a quasi-safety feature in case a podfic track gets played out loud accidentally so that it’s not immediately recognizable as podfic and doesn’t “out” the fan. (I am An Old, and back in the day accidental/nonconsensual outing of fans was a Big Deal. I know it’s less of a big deal now, but the paranoia lingers.)

So my first batch of questions is: does music that is not layered with spoken text bother you? If so, why? And, if you’re feeling generous, do you have any tips for making podfic accessible to you while still maintaining protection from the “Oh shit, my shuffle feature starting playing a podfic out loud!” possibility?

The other element I want to bring up is, for lack of a better phrase, songfic. The project I’m currently working on is a classical musician AU, hence the music mentioned above, but there is also a chapter where the characters go out dancing to live music and thematically relevant song lyrics are interspersed throughout the text. My original plan (I haven’t gotten to record this chapter yet) was to have the “musicless” version only have the quoted lines of the music play in between the spoken text, and then for the “with music” version to have the music in the background throughout the relevant portion of the scene with the lyrics from the fic given their own space.

So, my second batch of questions is: Do you prefer no music at all in podfics? In your opinion, should I consider either singing or just speaking the song snippets that are quoted in the text of the fic? Or would that be worse?

Thank you very much for any input you choose to give on this topic—I want my podfic to be as accessible as possible, but there are barriers I know very little about.

(Lastly, please don’t judge me too harshly by my first couple of podfics. I know they have issues, including music that’s too loud. I was—and still am—learning.)

[flamingwell]

Thanks for the questions, and I'm not offended at all! For me personally, there are days when any music at all is a problem, even music that isn't layered over text, such as intro/outre music. It's an audio sensitivity thing for me—music has a lot more going on at once than a single voice and my brain can't always handle that much happening at once. I'm sure it's different for other people, but that's what it is for me.

As far as protection from accidentally playing podfic aloud in non-fandom-friendly spaces (I'm a fellow fandom old, I get the concern!), I think just starting with title and author and reader can often be enough—for most podfic, the title is enough to tell someone they need to switch tracks or pause without telling a listener that this is a fandom thing! But tbh that's not something I've personally given a lot of thought to, since most IRL people I'd end up in a car with or whatever already know about me and fandom (I'm lucky). Does anyone else have ideas about how to handle this in a way without music?

As far as song fic, I would encourage you to make your non-music version have spoken (or sung if you're brave!) lyrics rather than add in music. At least if you're going to have a non-music version, which I encourage you to do! If I download something that says it's a non-music version, I definitely expect it's not going to have music, and it might even cause me issues if I download something and start playing it on a bad day and there's music I wasn't expecting. Not likely, but possible. I think spoken word lyrics is a perfectly valid interpretation of a song fic! That's likely what I'll do for my non-music version of a song fic that's on my to pod list if I ever get there.

If anyone else has thoughts, pile on in! As I said, this is just my personal experience and I'd love more things from others too!

And I really appreciate your thoughtfulness about this and reaching out with questions @etoiledunord ! It really makes a difference when people try to make their podfic more accessible!

[tirpse]

[musictooth]

My WIP has spiraled from a detached post-canon Macau taking a peek at Pete's dick to implied to one-sided Pete/Macau sickfic to Macau still taking a peek at Pete's dick with the difference of everything being more hazy and dreamlike as Macau's having a fever plus a sore throat and difficulties with swallowing (subtle? never met her) and oh, Vegas is out of town and he asked Pete to look after his little brother but there's also the alternative on the table in which Vegas is home, perhaps in the shower, when Macau walks past the main bedroom and sees Pete standing in front of the window, naked, water dripping from his hair down to his back, pha khao ma thrown over his shoulder, staring off into the space and Macau can't help but let his eyes roam over Pete's lean body 'till he takes notice of the patches of darker shade of skin below the hip but it's dark and Macau's vision is a bit blurry and it’s not that he's seen that many dicks to comprehend whether it's normal for one's genital area to look as Pete's but the image follows Macau to bed and -

[musictooth]

jglsjgljlajioaf

[usertoxicyaoi]

no see its CRIMINAL that we didn't get to hear them more. vegas' hiss/sharp intake of breath and then the exhale in the first kiss? pete's exhale in the second kiss???? the way there is a shakiness and a shudder in them both???

[milkxfilm]

My almighty boyfriend

[vegascriesduringsex]

listen. i just think vegas should be topped. like pete had a whole religious experience on that heinous dick but i think pete needs to fuck some frustration out on vegas occasionally and i think vegas would like that. and/or… other people get involved eyes emoji eyes emoji (PORSCHE). so that’s my current agenda