#This is the majority of what a lot of people have a hard time understanding I THINK

[heavenorhella2001]

This had never occurred to me way back when when I first watched playthroughs of the game/played it myself, but;

Seeing this post made me remember Max's nightmare, when she was trapped in her own mind/a broken version of reality.

And seeing this now?

Max definitely has PTSD.

Everyone always primarily discusses/ focuses on Chloe's trauma (which is understandable. I'll always be a Chloe defender and don't want to downplay her trauma by any means.)

But, unfortunately, Max's is overlooked.

Now, a lot of people might view this skeptically, question the idea of Max having PTSD. To many, it might seem like Max doesn't really have any lasting form of major trauma after the events of the game. Maybe she really was content and at peace and happy-go-lucky. (I've always scoffed at that scene at Chloe's funeral, when Max smiles at the butterfly.) And I'll admit, within the context of the story maybe we aren't supposed to think so. But if that's the case I just have to assume that's due to the developing team's lack of knowledge, experience with mental health and how it works, the impact things like this have on someone. Not that they are coming from a malicious place, of course. But very rarely does a person 'get it' unless they've been through it themselves. The average person simply won't understand.

But if you see everything I've described here as it's laid out, it makes total sense;

Let's talk about Jefferson. He is just one of many elements in the game contributing to Max's trauma. He was her teacher, someone she looked up to, respected, and was supposed to be able to trust. She truly felt safe around him. It's implied she had a crush on him. But her image of him completely shattered. After the truth about him was revealed, she was no longer able to trust her own judgement of people, her perception of reality.

He drugged her when she was vulnerable, and she was helpless to watch as he shot and killed the love of her life right in front of her. He kidnapped her, and she was thrown from the frying pan right into the fire. When she woke up she was tied up in a basement, helpless, and he had burned all her photos. Not only precious memories, but also one of her only means of going back and fixing things. He then took photos of her, over and over, this went on for who knows how long, while she was drugged, tied up and helpless, in order to satisfy his own perversions. Throughout, he mocked and tormented her.

Then, let's go into what happened with Chloe. Having to watch her best friend, the girl she loved, die over and over and over again. Max felt responsible for fixing it, preventing it, because she was the only one who possibly could. She would blame herself, think of it as a failure on her part each time Chloe died.

After watching her die in various ways, so many times, I'm sure Max questioned if she really even could save Chloe- or if Chloe was supposed to die from the start, and the universe was determined to restore the balance, no matter what Max did or how hard she tried.

And then there's Kate. This could go one of two ways depending on your choices, one of which is infinitely worse and more traumatizing, but either way it would definitely have haunted Max and left an impact on her.

Imagine how you would feel, knowing one of your closest friends was being bullied. Knowing they have been drunk/drugged and taken advantage of at a party. Yet instead of anyone coming forward, doing the right thing and helping Kate out of that situation, everyone at the party instead weaponized it, used it against her, slut-shamed her even though she wasn't in her right mind, was barely even conscious and was in no way able to consent to anything that was happening. Not that slut-shaming her would have in any way been okay or excusable even if Kate was acting of her own volition. Knowing that, even though you don't agree/don't identify with that, that your friend is deeply religious and clings to faith as a means of comfort. Knowing that she feels like a failure, that she feels like she's betrayed her faith, everything she stands for, and her family, even though she was in fact a victim in her situation. Being able to read letters, watching her family victim-blame her, hide behind their beliefs as a means to tear down someone they should feel obligated to protect, to support. Watching your friend be alienated by everyone around her, including her own family. Watching the school bullies write obscenities about your friend on the walls, and in the bathroom, make jabs at her and taunt her at every possible opportunity. Your friend's light has begun to dim, she starts pulling away from you, begins hiding away in her room more, which now feels like a dark, oppresive void. You know your friend is depressed, and you're trying to be supportive in any way you can, but there's a distance building between you you feel you can't bridge.

Then it happens. She kills herself/tries to kill herself. In front of you, and everyone who tormented her. Even then, the people who hurt her have no shame, laughing and recording her when she's in crisis. You begin to question and blame yourself, blaming youself for not noticing something was severely wrong earlier, not recognizing the impending signs for what they were. You want to help your friend, to save her, but your powers at failing you at the worst possible time. You only get one chance to do this, like everyone else, and you have to do it the right way.

If Max managed to talk Kate down, that's still an instense emotional weight, still a serious event to work through and process.

If Kate jumps…well…

Max feels like a failure. Like she contributed to Kate's death just as much as everyone else. Like she may as well have pushed Kate off that ledge herself. Not only watching your friend die in front of you, but knowing that it was self-inflicted in a moment of desperation, that they chose to do so and your words had no effect…

Now, the end of the game. Depending on what you choose, Max either has to to feel an immeasurable weight on her conscience, the responsibility for the destruction of the town where she was born. Where she grew up. Where she has countless memories, despite its' faults. The deaths of almost everyone there she's ever known.

Including (especially) Joyce.

The guilt of feeling like she took Chloe's mom away from her too, after Chloe had already lost her dad.

Oh. And that reminds me.

It was an incredible miracle, Max discovering her ability to go back through time via photos. Being able to go back 5 years, to when she and Chloe were only 13, before all the horror had happened, and save William. The sense of sheer relief, happiness and accomplishment she felt. She felt like a hero.

Only for it to all blow up in her face in the worst possible way.

Seeing Chloe, now a total shell of her former self. Completely disabled, and paralyzed. Helpless. Unable to live on her own. Seeing firsthand the emotional and financial stress William and Joyce are going through as a result of the accident. Chloe having so little quality of life that she pleads with Max to kill her, because she can't even do it herself.

(This is not my narrative or opinion on Chloe's situation, by the way. This is how it's portrayed. Quality of life, determining whether your life is worth living to due a life-changing accident or consequent disability is the choice of the invidual whom it effects. I'm not saying that anyone in Chloe's situation, who is paralyzed would inherently have no quality of life or no reason to live. That really depends on the invidiual, what that person needs in order to truly live and thrive, whether that person has family and friends and an emotional/practical support system in their life, etc. For Chloe, for me, and for many other people, though not all, living that kind of life would not be worth it.)

Max, depending on your choices, having to kill Chloe, to choose the merciful path, allow Chloe to exercise her autonomy in a world in which she can no longer do so and put her out of her misery. Knowing that she's doing for Chloe what she'd want someone to do for her if she were in that situation, yet still full of pain and regrets.

Max then having to go back and undo it all. Allow William to die again. Watch Chloe experience that horror and trauma again, knowing now she could've prevented it. But at what cost?

Lastly, if you chose to let Chloe go. To let her die.

That makes it immeasurably worse in my opinion.

The week she and Chloe spent together, reconnecting and rebulding their friendship, everything they went through together, would essentially never have happened.

Chloe, in this timeline, died alone in a bathroom. She never recieved any sort of closure, never got to know what happened to Rachel, questioning if Rachel perhaps just abandoned her, similarly to how Max did.

She never got to resolve things with Max, never heard from her again. She never got to know that Max still loved her, still cared about her and thought of her, but was too scared and guilty to reach out.

She never got to patch up things with her mom, or with David.

Everything Max went through. Everything she experienced.

To recap:

Having to watch her best friend, the woman she loves, die over and over again, feeling helpless, trapped in this endless, hellish cycle of death.

Being lulled into a false sense of security, betrayed and abducted by someone she thought she could trust, someone she looked up to.

Witnessing firsthand Kate's suicide/attempt, feeling like she failed her.

Being forced to let William die again, and force Joyce and Chloe to suffer that loss again.

Having to watch Joyce mourn her only daughter, after already losing her husband. Knowing she could've prevented it.

Everything that happened would still exist, but only in Max's mind.

She has no one she could ever confide in, talk to, or open up about it.

Chloe, for her, was that person.

No one would believe her, albeit understandably.

It's implied her powers vanish after she goes back that final time to let Chloe die.

She'd have no way to prove her story was true.

Carrying the weight of that burden, that knowledge and trauma, alone, would drive anyone insane.

Feeling like everything she went through, all the efforts she made to keep Chloe alive, were pointless.

I don't believe there is any way Max could be okay after that.

She'd be a hollow shell, just going through the motions. Totally disconnected from the world and the people around her. (Understandably. Who the hell could she connect to? Who would understand her?) Everyone at Blackwell, and their student lives and petty drama would feel so insignificant. So incredibly stupid and shallow to Max after what she's been through.

In fact, I've always felt - years after the events of the game, were you to choose to let Chloe die - that Max likely killed herself.

Over time, she probably began to question herself, to feel crazy, and begin wondering whether any of what happened, actually did, or if it was just something her mind created.

Max's trauma, her thoughts and emotions in regards to all of this are reflected in this part of the game, her mental breakdown. You can see her self-loathing, the way she blames and criticizes herself, in her interactions with herself and in her distorted journal entries.

Anyway. I never really liked Max all that much as a protagonist.

I thought she was a pushover, a little shallow, cared too much about what people like Victoria thought of her. I thought it was pretty unforgivable the way she ghosted Chloe, at the most traumatic, formative time of Chloe's life, when she had just lost the most important person in her life, besides Max. I understand anxiety, feeling awkward, helpless and flailing in that situation and not knowing what to say or do to make it better, but it just doesn't matter to me. Nothing excuses that.

However…

Max, did ultimately (well, depending on your choice at the ending,) make it right.

This has given me some perspective, and I have a lot more empathy for her now.

     you thought you could control everybody and everything, huh?      —   twist time around your fingers?

[willow-p012]

Why is Amane Momose one of the most misunderstood Milgram characters? Why, I'm glad you asked! In this 3 hour video essay I will

[dancing-with-stars]

guys. guys !!!!

[djevelbl]

PLEAAASE I have like 50 followers tops. I don't even have a JOB. I'M IN VENEZUELA Y'ALL DON'T WANT BOLÍVARES MY GUY

Please do not send me asks for donations

Here's why:

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They are always worded in a way that makes me feel like I am a murderer if I don't donate

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Please, just respect the fact that I have said this.

Edit: To all the people reblogging this, I'm sorry you have had to deal with this too. And yes, you can put this in your pinned post! Stay safe <3

[gojonanami]

❝ 𝐈 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑 ❞

❝ PROF. GETO'S CLASS IS SO HARD, BUT HE'S SO HOT!! ❞

✧ pairing: professor!geto x f!reader (part one of the prof geto series)

✧ summary: you were a 4.0, straight A student, until professor geto's class, the same far too hot ethics professor fawned over by faculty and students alike. you didn't understand what was so special about him...until you start having dreams about him.

✧ warnings: 18+, nsfw, a lot of smut (mostly fantasy), depictions of student/teacher relationship (only ok in fiction not irl!!!), reader is a grad student in my mind, but age is vague, masturbation (f + m), fingering (f! receiving), sex (p in v), getting off to his voice in recorded lectures, arousal from reading his writing, amateur's take on moral philsophy and ethics, art by @/jatinsohanvi, google scholar graphic by platonic loml @laneysmusings

✧ wc: 10,149 (i have a problem) | part two

“You’re late,” 

Your first impression of Professor Suguru Geto’s class was that you could never be late again, unless you would like to be chided in front of all your peers for your tardiness. 

Your first impression of Professor Suguru Geto himself was that he was truly the most breathtaking man you’d ever laid your eyes on. His inky black locks tied into a neat bun, his deep royal purple vest buttoned over a crisp white button up with pressed gray slacks, his pretty lips pressed in a small frown, as his dark gaze pierced through you. And you don’t know what stirs in your chest — a fleeting moment that is tucked away under a bite of your bottom lip and burning cheeks. 

And now you knew why when you had walked into class, the amount of unfamiliar faces in this course had far outnumbered the ones in your usual course load — the same reason why this man undoubtedly had three chili peppers next to his professor rating on some website out there. 

And now you were faced with him staring you down as you stumbled down the stairs of the all too full lecture hall. 

As you muttered apologies, and took your seat far too close to the front of the class, smack dab in the very front of the very same professor whose eyes still were concentrated on you, before sliding back to the class at large. 

“Now, where were we?” he says, continuing the lecture. 

Ethics was not your major — you were a philosophy grad student, and although the two went hand in hand — no, they were not the same thing. Ethics are the moral principles — like rules to follow to live a moral life — people can follow, while philosophy is the study of knowledge, reality, and existence. And this class encompassed both — an ethics and moral philosophy class. Your eyes slid around the room — and compared to all the random majors stuffed into this classroom, you had no doubt you’d do well. Your eyes met Professor Geto’s — maybe one slight doubt. 

And when you get your first essay back, you eagerly flip to the last page of the paper, wondering what accolades and compliments you’d receive this time. Your eyes find the grade, and your stomach drops, a gaping maw that consumes you from the inside out. 

You got a B. 

A B+ — an 88 on your paper in this course, and you stared at the grade on the very last page of the paper you had collected from his desk — Professor Geto had insisted everyone submit their papers both physically and electronically — his scrawl in red pen littered each page of what you thought was a thoughtful and even clever paper on the existence free will and the ethical and moral dilemmas that surround it. And he had given it an 88. 

You had a 4.0 point average — you had gotten the highest scores in some of the most difficult courses required by your major, and now you were going to be derailed by a class you took on a whim? That’s not happening. No, you were going to get him to change your grade. You were seeing as red as the ink that tore your paper to shreds. 

“Come in,” your knuckles had rapped against Professor Geto’s door, your heart in your throat, as you heard his reply, entering his office. His office was as pretentious as he was. A much larger office than you had seen before (poor Professor Ijichi had a shoebox of an office), while Professor Geto’s was three times the size, outfitted with large, beautiful windows, distinct bookshelves, and even a lovely deep mahogany colored couch with decorative cushions. And you knew why that was the case — Professor Geto was an expert in his field, revered, even at his relatively young age. And the university had coveted him, and managed to lure him to work behind these ivy covered walls. While other professors who have been here longer are stuck with offices that don’t begin to compare. 

Academia was truly hell. 

And yet, Professor Geto seemed to rule over it with an iron fist. Even now, you found your professor looking as annoyingly perfect as ever — his elbow resting against his desk, pen in his other hand, as he flipped through more papers on his desk, his hair in a messy bun, a few black strands falling across his furrowed brow, his pretty lips pursed in concentration, and his dark gaze flicks up from his work to you, and his lips curl, your name leaving his lips, “good to see you, please sit,” 

You had planned to attend these office hours in victory, to apologize for your misstep in the first class, and let your professor praise your paper to no end — but instead you were going to see why your paper was graded so harshly. 

Your speech was ready, you were going to lay it out, you had the perfect explanation and the excellent reasoning “Professor Geto—” 

“I know why you’re here,” he cuts you off, lips forming in an utterly condescending smile, “you want to discuss your paper, correct?” 

“I am, I wanted to—” 

He sits forward in his chair, setting down his pen, “I’m going to save us some time by explaining my comments on your paper, do you have it?” and you close your mouth, pulling the paper out of your folder and handing it to him, “Your paper was one of the best in the class — it was thought provoking, grounded in research, persuasive, even made me consider some points I hadn’t before—” 

You blink, his praise catching you off guard, your thoughts twisting in on themselves, “Then why did you give me B?” 

“You didn’t allow me to finish,” he sighs, as he flips through your paper, looking up to meet your gaze,  “your paper was excellent when it came to philosophical concepts, but your ethical conclusions on the other hand, could use some work,” 

You gaped at him, “What did I possibly—” 

“To put it simply, you were trying to use your knowledge of philosophy to cover up your lack of knowledge in the field of ethics,” 

“I wasn’t—” 

“And that’s okay, because that means I have something to teach you don’t I? That’s why you’re in this course, to learn,” he gives a tight lipped smile, tilting his head. Oh you’d like to learn a lot more from him — like the ethical dilemma of wanting to murder your professor, “and I’m here to teach — and this paper is a teaching moment — and from your expression, I assume you didn’t read the comments I left in detail,” 

And your cheeks burn, as your eyes fall away from him, “Not fully in detail,” you still swallow your shame, and meet his gaze, “I don’t mean to be a bother, Professor, but how can my paper still receive a B — I’ve never received that low of a score on any single paper—” 

“There’s a first time for everything,” and you have to bite back your retort, “yeah first time having an annoying prick for a professor,” and he rises from his desk to hand you back your paper, “the bottom line is, I know you’re capable of better, this class isn’t going to be easy — I’m not going to hand you accolades for no reason. You have to earn them — if you aren’t up for the challenge, you can drop the class.” 

The option was there — you could simply drop the course, rid yourself of Professor Geto and his ridiculous criticism forever. You could take a class with one of the many professors who delighted in your papers (even the ones you’d written at 3 AM and submitted not proofread), and go on with your life and preserve your 4.0 GPA with ease. 

But then you looked at him again. He was unfairly hot, even when he was fucking putting you down, he stood in front of you, offering your paper, his fingers long and thick brushing yours by mistake as you took back your paper, a watch on his wrist gleamed in the low light of his office. You glanced around his office, saw the awards on his walls, pictures of him giving lectures or receiving honors, and the books that lined his shelves weren’t dissimilar to your own academic shelf at home. And your eyes fell back to his, as he stared at you curiously, lips pursed, as your paper slightly crumples in your fist. 

“Next paper is due in two weeks?” and he pauses, before his lips curl in that same grin. 

“Yes it is,” and a smile graces your lips, lightning quick.

Like hell you were going to let him win. You were going to get him to praise your papers (and maybe that wouldn’t be the only thing he praised) — if it was the last thing you do. You’d get an A in his class, hell, you’d get him to beg you to be his teaching assistant (he’d look very nice on his knees for you, wouldn’t he?). 

You rise from your seat, and grab your bag, “I’ll see you at your next office hours then, to discuss my paper topic,” and he watches you leave, his eyes piercing into your back as you do. 

“See you soon.” 

Oh, he would. 

“Right on time,” Professor Geto barely looks up now when you knock on his door, his door now always ajar for office hours. 

Now you had made a habit of showing up for his office hours, you’d bring your paper topic all picked out, along with your handpicked sources you had chosen for your paper, all typed up in a neat bibliography. And he’d kindly rip it apart with that same damn smile on his lips. It had been a few weeks, a few papers later — and you finally had worked your grade up to an A-, not quite an A+, but you’d get there. You had to. 

Because it wasn’t just about your GPA now — you were going to get Professor Geto to praise you — through any means necessary. The man was stubborn, even when you’d come back with an improved draft, he’d only hand it back to you with a smile barely tugging at the corner of his lips, with no compliment to be had — only small check marks scribbled in the margins in your papers, with the occasional “good” written next to it. 

“Well, we all know what happens when I’m late,” he laughs, a noise that makes the ice dagger clutched behind your back ever so slightly melt, “I made you laugh, extra credit?” 

And he rolls his eyes, and you notice that his dark eyes are hidden behind glasses today — and god, why does it only make him even more gorgeous? He’s already brilliant, it’s unfair for him to look as if he was sculpted by the gods as well, “It takes a lot more than a chuckle to earn extra credit,” and you can’t help but bite your lip. 

No, no, he’s the worst. It didn’t matter he was the epitome of every academic’s wet dream, you were above that. You had a goal. 

“So, can we discuss my next paper?” you hand him your bibliography, and he takes it, delicate fingers flipping through, your mind notes the absence of a ring on either hand, before brushing the thought aside. 

“You’re writing on the morality of good or bad actions,” he hums, as he looks over the sources you had chosen, “Scanlon, good — have you read—” 

“‘What We Owe to Each Other?’ Only about a million times — well more like six,” and he nods appreciatively, “of course you’ve read it,” 

“I didn’t just read it, I wrote a paper on it, similar to yours, actually,” and your eyes flick up to meet his, he’s leaning forward in his chair, red pen in hand, as he scribbles notes in the margins, as well as on the back of your bibliography, “of course I don’t have your penchant for rambling,” 

You pout, “I don’t ramble — I like to make my point—” 

“Many times, and the same one,” and your mouth opens, only to find a wry smirk on his lips, “I’m teasing, another one of my very tedious qualities, and how you stand it during class astonishes me,” 

You cross your arms, unable to meet his eyes, as you choose to stare at your bibliography instead, “You’re not completely tedious, more like irritating,” and he huffs a chuckle. 

You had to admit, begrudgingly, Professor Geto was a…good teacher. And you had your fair share of awful teachers — many of them were brilliant, accomplished people in their fields, but didn’t know how to translate and convey that in their lectures to students who simply knew less than them. But Geto…he knew how to break down complex concepts and theories of moral philosophy and ethics to a science, he knows how to make students understand these complicated topics that you had seen other professors fail to, and he does it while being an intellectual dreamboat to most of his students — the ones that swarm his desk after class, still there even as you slowly make your way out of the lecture hall. 

“A rare compliment from you,” he raises an eyebrow, “I’m touched,” 

“You’re one to talk,” you furrow your brow, and a smile pulls at his lips. 

“Didn’t know you wanted my approval,” he tilts his head, leaning forward to lean on his elbow on the desk, “well, you have improved remarkably in the class so far, and if you keep going like this, I may have no choice but to praise you,” 

“You will,”

“Someone is very sure of themselves,” a pause and then he adds with a quirk of his lips, “as you should be,” and he’s sliding your bibliography across the table again, and passes it back, “read the sources I recommended, and see about adding them to your paper — you may have some overlap in the other papers you chose so use your discretion on which ones you use,” 

“So don’t repeat myself?” You raise an eyebrow, and he leans back in his chair, crossing his legs. 

“You learn fast.” 

And you do — returning to your apartment to work on your paper, as you flip through his notes — as much as you hate to admit it, his notes and criticism did help — annoyingly so. He was far more detailed and perceptive than any other professor you had. Most had let you skate by without a second thought, and you wrote papers like you deleted your internet history after a scandalous romp through elicit websites — tools, clear history — and then onto the next paper or exam. But Professor Geto forced you to face your shortcomings, face the things that you didn’t like to give a second glance to, lest your rejection sensitive self feel the agony of having to deal with criticism. 

Each time you did it, you got a little better, and he had a little less to say — time and time again. 

You leaned back on your bed, scrolling through the papers he recommended, but so what? So what if he was a good teacher? Doesn’t mean he has to be as infuriating as he is — he knew exactly what to do to get under your skin, and he didn’t prod at it, he scratched it. 

And you found yourself typing his name (“suguru geto”) and T.M. Scanlon’s name into the search bar of your university’s library collection, and his paper pops up right on top. 

You stare at the paper for a good minute, before you click on it — and you start reading. And reading. And reading — and fuck— 

It was good. It was more than that — it gave you so much insight on this topic, it made you rediscover T.M. Scanlon’s work in a new light — and you bite your lip. And it wasn’t just the research — the way it organized, the way it was presented, the way it was written — it was eloquent, but it wasn’t unreadable or incomprehensible. It was…really good. 

You imagined him, pouring over Scanlon’s work as he wrote notes in the margins of his copy, pages dogeared and passages highlighted, as he sat in his office typing away at this paper. His sleeves rolled up, his hair let out of his usual bun, his glasses perched on his nose as he read, only his desk lamp and computer illuminating his office. The keys of his computer clacking under his touch, lengthy fingers pitter pattering as he wrote his thoughts and analysis of Scanlon’s work — his brow furrowed in thought. 

And you felt yourself flush, swallowing the lump in your throat, as you kicked off your blanket — it was so warm all of a sudden, pressing your thighs together. You shook the thoughts from your mind — what the hell were you doing? You glanced at the time, 2:39 AM it read back at you mockingly. You sigh, shutting your laptop down, and putting it aside — you need to do your skincare and brush your teeth. You glance back at your laptop—the familiar of your flush clung to your skin like a forbidden kiss— 

And you clearly needed sleep. 

“Can you read this passage to me?” Professor Geto’s voice said, as he stood in front of you in the lecture hall — as you stood behind the podium that faced the entire class — hands in his pockets, in an olive henley, his hair tied in the usual neat bun, his black bangs falling in his eyes as always, glasses on, instead of the usual contacts. The class sat all around you — his exercise in getting the class to participate and get comfortable speaking in front of others, just as philosophers had done in the past (his very own “literary salon” he called it). 

You swallow, keeping your eyes fixed on the book in front of you, “‘When I ask myself what reason the fact that an action would be wrong provides me with not to do it, my answer is that such an action would be one that I could not justify to others on ground I could expect them to accept—’” 

“What do you think Scanlon meant by this?” he asks you, but his gaze was different this time, it held the amusement it always did when it came to you, but it was warm — no — it was burning. His lips were pursed, as he crossed his arms, the henley’s fabric seemingly straining under the action. 

“He meant that an action that is wrong in his eyes when he couldn’t expect others to accept the ground on which he could justify it,” and his lips curve into that damned smile, as he takes a few steps closer, rounding the podium, as he brushes past you, the brief touch of temptation incarnate — the dangling apple of Tantalus personified before you. 

“And can you give me some examples of what kinds of actions would be wrong?” and he’s standing behind you now, and you can’t bring yourself to look at him — but you can feel his gaze on you. 

“Senseless murder,” and he hums in approval, his breath felt like it was warming your skin, “wanton violence, reckless assault—” 

“What other everyday wrongdoings could fall under this category?” and suddenly the class before you is gone, and it’s just the two of you in an empty lecture hall, “theft, lying, student-teacher relationships?” 

And your breath catches in your throat, his cologne strangling any sense left in your mind, as his body heat nearly radiates off him, “Professor Geto—” 

“Suguru,” he corrects you, and he’s reaching for you, but he pauses, “can I—” and you only can nod, and his fingers brush your hair aside, ever so gently, “would this be considered a moral wrongness, sweetheart?” his lips press a chaste kiss to your shoulder, and you shiver at the softness of his touch. 

“Well, I am a student in your class, and even though I’m of age, it presents a power dynamic and a favoritism that might be—” and your sentence cuts off as his arms wind their way around your waist, pressing himself to your back, “I—” 

“Go on,” he’s murmuring his words against the nape of your neck now, as he pulls his glasses off to place them on the podium, “might be what?” 

“Might be viewed as morally wrong—” and he’s chuckling, the vibration sending a delicious shiver down your spine, as he presses more butterfly kisses to your neck. 

“How can something be wrong when it feels so right?” he asks, and his hand is sliding down your side, “feels so good, does it even matter what society views as right or wrong? Do their rules pertain to what we’re doing here?” and his fingers toy with the hem of your pants, teasing and pulling, as he pauses, waiting for your answer, “what do you think—” 

“Please,” you swallow, as you turn to look at him, seeing his lips in that same smile that haunted you, “touch me,” 

And his smile only grows wider, “Good girl.” 

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ. 

Your eyes flutter open, your breath caught in your throat, as you stare at your ceiling, your hand reaching for your phone to silence the alarm. And you squeeze your thighs together, a distinct ache between your legs, your skin all too warm. 

What the fuck was that? 

You skip office hours the next week. You couldn’t bear it — you could barely tolerate going to class now, as the dream invades your nights, with filthy variations that leave you perturbed and horny (mostly horny). The common theme only being that each time you get close to anything remotely that’s anything (a kiss, a touch that’s more than a caress, anything at all), you wake up. 

It’s as if your dreams are edging you — you groan into your pillow — and it was working. 

You’re so wound up, you’ve even resorted to using your vibrator before bed, wondering if that would make a difference — it did, but only with you having a dream of Professor Geto using a vibrator on you during class — the vibrations growing even faster when you were speaking as he watched you— 

You needed to stop thinking about this. But how can you? 

God, it’s even worse when you’re in class. You sit in your usual seat, front and center — and why does it feel like his eyes are on you far too often? Even as he lectures Professor Geto attempts to catch your eye during his lecture, trying to make a point, you all but glue your gaze down to the textbook and your laptop, typing away his words, trying to drown out the whispered words and groans from your dream that ring in your ears. You can’t stop seeing him — unless you want to skip class, which you really couldn’t when attendance and participation counted for a good chunk of your grade. 

Class ended and you were packing up your things. You had to weather the storm — avoid being alone with him until the dreams were just a distant memory— 

And then you heard him say your name— 

Your eyes flick up to meet Professor Geto — who had his usual swarm of students waiting by his desk, but he parted the crowd, he approached your own seat, hands in your pockets, “Do you have a class after this?” 

“No, I don’t—” the words slip out before your sleep deprived mind can put the pieces together. 

“Then can you please stay after class? I’d like to talk to you,” he says, and before you can say anything, he turns to speak to the students waiting for him. 

And now you wait — your anxious energy singing at the frayed ends of your nerves, as you tried to hold yourself together — wondering what he could possibly want to speak to you about. His students dissipated one by one, until it was just you and him left in the lecture hall. 

Just. Like. Your. Fucking. Dream. 

You round the row you sat in, before walking down to speak to him, “Is there something wrong? The next paper isn’t due until the end of next week—” 

“It isn’t about the paper,” and your heart squeezes, as you try to keep your breathing even, as he steps closer — and why, why did he have to opt to only wear a button up today —  and a deep royal purple one no less,  “I wanted to check in with you,” and he begins to undo the cuffs of his shirt, rolling them up — exposing his forearms and the pretty veins that ran along them — the same arms that he had used in one of your dreams to bend you over that desk, the whispers of heated kisses along your neck—

You needed to get out of here. 

You blink, “I’m fine,” and he tilts his head. 

“I only ask because you’ve looked tired the last two classes, and you didn’t show up for office hours this week,” he crosses his arms, unhelpfully, as he purses his lips, the lines of his brow furrowed. 

“I’m fine, Professor, I appreciate your concern — I just haven’t been sleeping well,” you admit — it was the truth, “and that’s why I didn’t come to office hours. I was trying to catch up on sleep,” 

He nods, sighing, fingers raking through his hair — those same fingers that would feel so pretty around your neck— “I know I’m hard on you,” oh he would be, “but it’s because I know you’re capable of more — most of these students are taking the class for an elective, but I know it’s more than that for you,” yes, it’s so you can finally earn his praise, “but I’m also here for your benefit, so if you need an extension or anything else, please let me know,” 

God, all you wanted was for him to maybe wrap you in his arms and kiss you, or bend you over, pull your clothes off and fuck you, or just to leave you alone all together. 

You weren’t sure which one you wanted the most at this moment. 

“I will, Professor Geto, I appreciate it,” you murmur, biting your lip, as you try to focus on the task at hand — getting out of here, “I don’t think I need an extension, I’ve made good progress so far. I just need to finish it, so I can revise,”

“Well, let me know if anything changes,” his lips curl, “ok?” And you nod, and if you weren’t so hyperaware, you swore you would have imagined it — but you didn’t, “good girl,” 

And you pause a moment — his lips did move, you pinch yourself discreetly — and you know it isn’t a fucking dream. You only smile in return, giving a curt nod and goodbye, before beelining out of the classroom. 

But you didn’t stick around long enough to see the slight flush on Professor Geto’s cheeks — nor did you know that you two were thinking the same thing about yourselves— 

What the fuck were you doing? 

But to your relief, the dreams do subside, and you’re finally able to rest — but the thing that doesn’t subside is your awareness of your professor. 

You sit in class, watching him teach — and you knew he was attractive, hell, it was one of the things that made you all the more embarrassed to have him ream you out — having your super hot professor rail at you for your mistakes wasn’t on your list of shining achievements (lest it was him actually railing you—). 

You needed to stop doing that. 

But it felt as if you weren’t the only one who was hyper aware. You felt as if his eyes skimmed over you during class this week, his replies to your weekly discussion board were less biting than usual, and his office hours were surprisingly canceled this week. First time all semester, but you weren’t so full of yourself that you thought it had anything to do with you — right? 

Either way, you had submitted your paper and now you were done with this week—and as class finishes, you slowly pack up, looking forward to the week being over with and for a personal rendezvous with your bed. But as the usual gaggle of students make their way to chat with Professor Geto, your eyes flicker up to meet his, as he stares back a moment. 

And you can’t make yourself look away, and for a moment, neither can he. 

But then a student calls for his attention, so his eyes flicker away, a smile on his lips as he spoke — and you turn to leave, grabbing your bag, as you look back— 

But why did his smile look so strained? 

There must be something wrong with him. 

Professor Suguru Geto drummed his fingers against his desk, but he felt more like shoving his things off his desk — if only to distract him for a moment. He pulls his glasses off, and runs a hand down his face—god, he hadn’t been sleeping well. No, his nights were plagued, plagued by you — you had slipped into his dreams ever since that day he stopped you. 

Why had he stopped you? 

It wasn’t the first time he had personally stopped a student who seemed to be struggling, he could count the times he had on both his hands. 

But this, this felt different. 

You were different. 

But why were you different to him? He rubs his temples, from the moment you had stepped into his office he thought he had read you — an overachieving student used to getting their way, As handed out to them, and an inability to take criticism. 

He knew, because he used to be one of them. But he knew you needed to be challenged to grow — but it was a matter if you would accept it. And from the moment you asked him when the next paper was due, he couldn’t help but smile. 

And his time spent in office hours with you grew more enjoyable each time you came. And when you hadn’t last week, he couldn’t sit still, checking the time, checking his email, and even checking if his office hours had been accidentally listed wrong in his weekly email to the class (they weren’t). And the hour and half passed with many students hungry for his time and his charm  — but not the  one he was looking for. 

Then those words had slipped from his tongue when he had stopped you, left his mouth like he was possessed, and now he had found himself here. Found himself thinking about how your lips parted when he said it, thinking about how you were feeling, thinking about you, you, you— 

There’s a knock at the door, “Professor Geto?” 

And it was you. 

“I apologize, I know you canceled office hours, but I just had a few questions I didn’t get to ask you in class,” your fingers toy with the ring you wore, a folder in hand, a soft smile on your lips. 

“Of course, come in,” and you did, your dress was painfully short, the fabric riding up as you sat, the folder in your lap, “is this about your paper?” 

“It is, I was reading a few papers, and after our conversation, I couldn’t help but find your paper,” and he tilts his head, “and I want to include it as a source in my paper, but I had a few points you made that I wanted clarified,” 

He raises an eyebrow, and he can’t help but tease,  “Clarified or criticized? Are you planning on turning the tables on me?” 

“Well I do have a red pen,” you click your pen, lips curved in a smile, and there’s a hint of heat that he wishes to unearth, pluck from the earth and possess himself, “but I promise I’ll be civil,”

 “I have no doubt,” he had a million when it came to you — but that wasn’t one of them. He runs his fingers through his hair, a few strands coming loose, “of course, let’s discuss it,” 

“You discuss Scanlon’s idea of a social contract, everyone within this moral society agrees on what’s right and what’s wrong — the basic principle is that if there is a rule no one can reasonably reject as a basis, but is there such a rule that can exist?” 

He tilts his head, “Scanlon’s theory relies on this premise — are you questioning me or the premise?” 

“Both, actually,” you shrug, crossing your legs, “is there a magic switch that changes every person to be rational? Because I think only rational people can agree on what rules cannot be reasonably rejected — what about people who are cruel, inconsiderate, self-absorbed? Do those traits go away when operating under Scanlon’s social contract? You propose in your paper that moral reasons are not subjective — nothing is uncolored by human opinion,” 

“No, but—” 

“How can we agree on what is truly right or wrong? How can one hundred people agree on that when everyone views these actions in different ways? Right and wrong? Black, white, or gray?” you rise from your chair to hand him his paper printed out, the paper more red than white with the amount of writing you’ve done, “like for example,” you lean forward, your hand braced against the edge of his desk, “can one hundred people agree that student-teacher relationships are wrong? Because one veto,” your hand trails ever closer to his, toeing that dangerous line either of you had even yet to approach to cross. But here you were, seemingly barreling toward it. 

And he didn’t want to pull away. 

He swallows, whispering your name, “This can’t—” and you were so close — too close, your perfume hypnotized him, your fingers brush against his and he can’t help but hold them, his thumb rubbing across your knuckles, “they can agree that it’s wrong — the power imbalance from the authority of the professor and the age difference—” 

“I disagree, so the rule isn’t legitimate, right? Even if one disagrees, the rule cannot be make valid,” and his breath catches as your fingers slide up his arm now, resting on his shoulder, as you lean over his chair now, as your other hand toys with the loose strands of his hair, “if the two of us can’t even agree, then how could a hundred, or a thousand, or a million?” 

“But—” 

“But what?” you pout, your fingers dragging down his chest, toying with the top button of his button down, “I don’t see you pulling away, do you want me to stop, Professor? Because I will,” 

And he swallows thickly, but he can’t stop you — he doesn’t want to, “But, we shouldn’t — it isn’t a reasonable objection—” he tries his hardest to stand firm, but he only crumbles when your fingers brush his cheek, tracing the cut of his jaw. And it feels like flames tickling at his skin, begging him to thrust his hand into the fire. 

“Like I said, people are not reasonable,” your lips draw closer, and he can feel your breath warm his own, and god, why are you so tempting? And your lips stop short, barely an inch between your faces, “and besides, would you rather be reasonable or satisfied?” 

And there’s only one answer — you. 

He leans forward, lips nearly brushing yours— 

RING. RING. RING.

He jerks awake from his desk, papers sliding as he does, his breath caught in his throat, and his eyes wander — and finds no one else there. 

A dream. He runs his fingers through his hair again, crumpling the paper he had oh so lovingly drooled during his nap. He needed to get his shit together. 

But his current predicament wasn’t making that easy — his cock strained against the fabric of his pants — was he a grown adult or a horny teenager? 

Fuck. It wasn’t going away — no matter what he thought, his mind kept circling back to you. 

And his eyes slide to the time: 1:40 AM. 

Far past the time any soul would be here, even cleaning staff would have been long gone. It was just him—

And you. 

“So good for me, baby,” he’s panting, palming his erection, an embarrassing amount of precum drips from his cock for a barely wet dream. He ignores the gnawing guilt in the back of his mind — but he can’t help but imagine the image of you, spread out on his desk, hiking that oh so teasing sundress up, only to find your underwear drenched — just for him. 

His fingers would slide up your plush thighs, squeezing to draw a gasp from your pretty lips, “Professor—“ you’d say, unable to form a sentence, all those brilliant falling away under his touch, until it was just him occupying every crevice of your mind. 

“Where’s that mouth now? So needy f’me,” he’d murmur, “but such a good girl,” and you were, his thumb tracing his slit, smearing his pre-cum, as he imagined you spread on his desk, your puffy folds nearly showing through your far too translucent panties, “my best student’s so pliant for me now,”

And his hand moves faster, and he can imagine your fingers reaching for him too, your smaller fingers wouldn’t be able to even touch as much as he can — but god it would feel so much better. 

But he’d want you to feel even better than he did.  

He’d tug your underwear down, stuffing it in his pocket (his fee for all of additional office hours), and he would prep you right — fuck you open with his fingers, two or three, before he tasted you. Your fingers would dig into his scalp as you moaned his name again and again, before you came all over his face. 

He’d lick his lips clean of your release, before dragging his cock down your sweet cunt, watching his precum mix with your cum, as your walls flutter around nothing, craving to have him sink into you. 

“Professor, please,” you’d beg with pretty, kiss bitten lips between pants, “please,” 

“Where’s all those quips now, sweetheart?” he’d tease, as he would let his tip tease your clit, pulling a moan from your lips, “all those words fall away when you want this cock, don’t they? Been thinking about you like this, wondering what you’d look like spread out under me,” and he would lean down to kiss you, “it’s even better than I expected,”

He’s jerking himself off in earnest now, the lewd noises of his hand around his cock filling most of the silence, his low groans filling the rest. And he’d finally sink into you, inch by inch, until he’d kiss your cervix with his weeping tip. 

And, god, he wishes his fingers fisted around his cock would be as good as your cunt would feel around him. He would fuck you slow at first, “I know those boys can’t fuck you as good as I can, as well as I can,” he’d tell you, as he would pick up the pace when you’d tell him to, making you cum again and again with his cock, thumb rubbing at your clit, until he was finally close. He’d either cum all over your stomach, marking you with his release, or if you’d let him, he’d cum inside you, filling you with his seed—and then he’d watch it drip out when he would pull out. He groans your name lowly, shuddering as he comes all over his hand, hard. 

Fuck. 

That’s the hardest he’d cum in a long time. He’s a mess — panting and flushed, as he leans back, head against the back of his  chair, too spent to even clean up. And then he finally does, cleaning himself up well, and collecting his things to leave the office. 

But he only treated the symptoms, not the problem itself. His hard-on is gone, but his mind is still filled with thoughts of you. How he’d kiss you sweetly after, how he’d clean you up, care for you gently, make you rest because you never seem to do enough of that, and he’d let you relax — finally relax, as you slept the night in his arms. 

As he heads to his car, he knows that he’s utterly fucked (without even being fucked) because he has feelings for you. And he didn’t know if they were going to go away as easily as he hoped. 

But he hoped they would. He owed it to you, your education, and your future career not to act on these feelings. 

And he sighs as he sits in his car, starting it, but why did it hurt not to? 

It was that time again. 

Your next paper had come around again, and you needed to prepare a topic before you went to speak to Professor Geto. You had put it off, something you had never done with his class, but you wanted to limit the amount of time you spent with him, if only for the sake of your heart. 

Watching him in lectures was bad enough, your thighs pressing together as you watched him speak, his impeccable looks and intelligence a deadly combination for your heart (and your body). You could barely focus, your eyes too fixed on the way he wrote on the board —  his fingers too lithe and too thick, his voice all too alluring when discussing Kant and Aristotle and you can’t help but think what he’d sound moaning your name. 

God. Fuck.  

Either way, you needed to listen to the lectures again since you weren’t able to pay attention. Maybe without watching the video would be better, you settle on your bed, notebook and pen in hand, as you place your headphones on. His voice filled your ears, and you’re scrawling notes. 

But your mind begins to wander. He’s lecturing on the deontological ethics, and all you can think about is how he could make you cum with just that voice of his.  

Shit, you shifted your thighs again, feeling that familiar ache again. What would he sound like when he moaned? How would it sound to have him touch you, run those long fingers down your thighs, and whisper filthy things in your ear? 

As you listened to the lecture, his voice became white noise as your fingers slipped past the waistband of your shorts, and you shut your eyes. 

“That’s it, sweetheart, spread your legs for me,” he’d murmur in your ear, his chest pressed to your back and he’s urge your thighs wider, and his fingers would press against the wet patch on your panties, and he’d hum, “so wet f’me and I haven’t touched you yet, Princess,” his lips would kiss your pulse, “you like my voice that much?” 

“Professor,” you gasp, as his fingers would tease you through your underwear, the fabric growing more soaked by the second, “please—“ and his thumb would ghost around your clit, teasing you, as his long fingers would piston in and out — they would reach so much fucking deeper “I need to—“ 

“Already begging? I knew you learned fast, but not this fast,” and his fingers would tug the crotch of your panties aside, his fingertips tracing around your outer lips, before a finger pushes past your sweet cunt, “fuck, my favorite student’s pussy is so fucking tight. These boys are not fucking you right,” and you whimper, his finger would be so much thicker than yours, as you glide another finger inside you, the two dragging against your walls, “listen to your pretty cunt,” he’d grin against your skin, “and the wet squelch of your pussy, “so pliant for me, takes my fingers so well,” he’d murmur with a chuckle, “practically swallowing me up,” 

And you’re bucking your hips against him, wanting, needing him deeper, because your fingers don’t reach as far as his does, moans leaving your lips. 

“I’m so—” you’re moving faster and faster, his lecture still filling your ears, your pre-cum soaking your shorts and onto the bed sheets, “I can’t—” 

“Come on, Princess, use those big words of yours, you have no problem usually,” his hot words would whisper in your ear, and you’d hear him rub his erection against your ass, trying to get himself off, and you’d grind against him, wanting any friction, “tell me,” 

“Let me cum, please,” and he would smile, running his fingers through your hair, before he bore his thumb down on your clit and sunk a third finger into your needy cunt, just as you did now. And it’s too much for you, your toes curl, your messy walls fluttering around your fingers, as you cum all over your shorts and sheets with a groan of his name. Your fingers were soaked, as you pant, trying to gather yourself, as you came down from your high. 

“Fuck,” you murmur, tugging off your headphones, so your cunt doesn’t have to twitch listening to his dulcet words again. And you’re pulling your fingers out, your cum dripped down your fingers, as you shifted, far too wet underneath you, as you tried to slip off your bed to take a shower and clean yourself up. 

And then you realized, you didn’t even hear any of the lecture. 

Double fuck. 

Why was this so difficult? 

You stood near his office, trying to work up the urge to approach his door for office hours? Since it’s almost the end of the semester, there had been an influx of students attending office hours, and with everything, you had found excuses in your head to avoid office hours. But you couldn’t avoid him anymore. 

For your final paper in the class, you had to have a meeting with him during office hours to discuss your topic, complete with bibliography and outline. And it was almost time for your meeting. 

But you didn’t know how to go in. 

The last few weeks in class have made things worse. You couldn’t help but watch the other students fawn over Professor Geto, his lips curled as he spoke to them. And you’d leave class without a word. You had to stick through the semester and your feelings would disappear with time. You wouldn’t have to see him, you wouldn’t have class anymore, and you couldn’t talk to him. 

Or wouldn’t. 

But now you had to. And you didn’t know how— otherwise than just to do it. 

You knock at his door, “Come in,” and you open the door to see an empty desk, blinking, “I’m over here,”

And your head snaps to your right, and Professor Geto is sitting on his couch, his legs crossed with a stack of papers in hand. His jacket is slung over the side of the couch, his deep maroon button up sleeves rolled up, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. 

“I thought you lived at your desk,” you raise an eyebrow, “decided to change it up for the end of the semester?” 

“Everyone needs a change of scenery,” he leans forward, placing the stack of papers on the table in front of him, “do you want to sit here or move to the desk?” 

You shift in place, before moving to the couch beside him, “This is fine,” he stares, “what?” 

“Just surprised, you always have something to say,” he leans on his elbow, “no smart remarks today?” 

“Fresh out, can I offer you my proposal for the final paper instead?” You say dryly, and he cracks a smile, holding out your proposal. He clicks his red pen, readying his sword. 

He takes it, his dark eyes darting back and forth as he reads, his brow furrowed in concentration — and you can’t help but want to reach out and smooth his brow for him, tease him that he’ll get wrinkles. But you can’t. Can’t because that would cross a line that neither of you should cross. 

“You’ve come a long way,” he says, as he flips it back the front, writing only a few notes here and there. 

“But?” You wait for it. 

His gaze flickers up, a tilt of his head, “That was the end of my sentence,” 

You pause a moment, “Really?” 

“Really,” he scribbles a few more notes, “I look forward to reading the paper, it will be excellent I’m sure, maybe you’ll even get higher than a B+,” 

“Oh, ha, ha,” sarcasm dripping from your tongue, but you can’t help but smile, “you’ll miss me and my endless need for academic validation,” but was it really academic validation you were after now — your eyes gazed at him sitting with the tip of his pen pressed to his lips — or was it his? 

And it’s his turn to pause, and his lips curl into a soft smile, “I will,” 

Your breath catches, “Really?” 

He chuckles, “Really,” he licks his lips, his eyes glancing downward at your proposal than at your face, “I’ve enjoyed our chats this semester,” 

“Have you? Even when I argued with you,” a half nervous half serious laugh dies on your lips when his gaze meets yours, far too serious for your heart to take. 

“Especially then,” his fingers run through his hair a moment, before he speaks again, “I can’t say you could say the same,” 

“And why couldn’t you?” his eyes flicker with an emotion you can’t grasp fast enough, before it slips away into the depths of his dark irises. 

“Because you stopped coming,” his voice is soft, his tone barely even, and this gives you a real pause, heat flushing your body, as if his words had set every nerve ending alight, your mouth growing dry along with it, and it gives him a reprieve he needs to brush it aside, “you don’t have to, of course, these office hours are not relevant to your—” 

“I didn’t stop coming because I didn’t enjoy it,” you cut him off, swallowing the lump in your throat, “I stopped coming because I did,” 

He stares, “What do you—” 

“I don’t want academic validation anymore, I don’t care about my GPA,” you consider it a moment, “ok I do,” and he snorts, “but I care more about validation from you,” 

“From me?” he says, and his gaze tries to meet yours and it can’t — but his fingers brush against your skin, making your breath catch, your eyes finding his, “and what kind of validation do you want?” 

And you can’t find the words, and you hesitation makes him shake his head, “I apologize, I shouldn’t have—” 

“Will you have a drink with me?” and he’s speechless for once, “after the semester is over, of course — I know it wouldn’t be ethical before,” 

And his eyes find yours again, “Some would say it would be unethical after too,” 

“I would say it depends,” 

“On what basis?” and you can’t help but smirk. 

“Am I being graded, Professor?” and you delight in a small crack in his smiling veneer as a light flush dusts the tops of his ears, “and if I’m good, will you call me a good girl again?” 

He swallows, “I don’t want to cost you your education or your—” 

“I understand the risks, but we aren’t contemplating shifting a trolley to hit one person or five, or murdering one healthy person to save five sick ones,” and he raises an eyebrow, “it’s a drink to celebrate the end of the semester,” 

“And if it's something more?” he nearly whispers, the softness of his voice reflected in his features, as his fingers that rested on the couch twitched beside yours. 

“Then we’ll cross that bridge then,” and then you add with a small smile, “Or hit the metaphorical person with the trolley,” and it pulls at the corners of his lips. 

“You make a fair point,” and you gasp in mock surprise.

“The first time all semester you agree with me,” and he chuckles, a noise you wished you could hear him make innumerable times more. 

“Not the first,” he replies, before leaning forward, pressing your outline back into your hands, his fingers brushing yours, “we both agree you’re a good girl, don’t we?” 

And your breath catches, his words warm your skin, turning your blood to lava, “Professor,” and he smiles again. 

“When we go for drinks, call me Suguru.” 

~~~~ 

The semester wears on and finally draws to an end, but finals induced hibernation begins for you. A mix of papers and exams, you finish everything — including your paper for Professor Geto’s class. As always, he has you submit a paper and electronic copy, the paper copy to be dropped off at his office mailbox. And you do just that, the mailboxes being only around the corner from his office, and your heart squeezes at the thought of him. After this, the class was over, it was done. You weren’t his student anymore. 

And you place the paper into the mailbox and sigh, chewing your lip as you pass by his office, but find the door closed (and locked, as you quickly turned the doorknob to test it). Where was he? This was the time he was usually in his office, but maybe he had left campus for the semester — had he forgotten about your drinks? 

Fuck. You hadn’t even discussed a time or place, you had left it vague — “after finals.” Your cheeks burned at the memory, you were far too flustered to elaborate. And you had spent far too many nights imagining him calling you a ‘good girl’ in many other situations. 

And then you heard a call of your name, your gaze snapping up, your heart leaping, but only to see the department head. 

“Hi Professor, how are you?” and the two of you make polite chit-chat, until he asks you. 

“Have you applied to be a T.A. for the department?” and you blink, “applications just opened and I think from what I’ve heard about you around the department, I think you would be an excellent candidate.” 

“I’d love to be — how does the application process work?” and he explains that it’s a double blind process where applications are viewed without personal information of the candidates, and then matched with a professor based only on resume and writing samples. 

You can barely listen to the department head, still far too distracted with thoughts of Professor Geto — so you agree to apply, if only to placate the department head, and make an excuse to leave. 

It had been a week or so, as you lay in bed in your apartment, staring at your ceiling — you hadn’t even bothered to get Professor Geto’s personal number. You couldn’t even reach out to him if you tried, as the only way you could was through his university email, which was out of the question — the university had rules against a professor and student dating, and if anyone found that email — you sighed — it wouldn’t be good. 

Maybe it was for the best. 

The only communication you had gotten from him was an email from Professor Geto’s mailing list to the class from a few days ago, stating that he was out of state in a conference, and he would return soon, but your grades would be emailed to you. But the paper copies would be available to pick up in his office from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Tuesday. It was almost time to pick up your paper, and your nerves bit at you as you thought about the possibility of seeing him. Who knows if he would even be there to begin with. 

Would it be anything? Would it be nothing? Was there not any point to this at all? 

Oh, great, you were becoming existential. 

You sat up, the only thing you could do was go. So you do, taking your time to get dressed. If you were going to see him, you might as well look your best. 

Fuck. You couldn’t go in. It had taken you longer to get back to campus than you thought, and now there were only a few minutes of his office hours left.

And you’re about to knock when the door opens, and you find yourself face to face with the man who has consumed every thought of yours for the last few months — good and bad alike. 

“Late again?” and you can’t help but smile. 

“I prefer fashionably late,” and his eyes rake over your outfit, making your cheeks burn. 

“You certainly are,” and he steps aside to allow you into his office, and you glance between the couch and the desk, but he makes the choice and sits at his desk, “I have your paper right here,” and he’s rifling through his file of papers, “how did your finals go?” 

“If I have an A on this paper, perfectly,” and a smile tugs at his lips, and you raise an eyebrow, “what? Something funny?” 

“Not at all,” and he pulls your paper out, ha “I just recall you saying you wanted something more than, what was it? ‘My academic validation?’” 

And your cheeks flush, “I did, but I also didn’t hear from you,” and your fingers reach for the paper, and he holds onto it, “Professor,” 

“I couldn’t reach out to you because I was still your professor, but once you get this grade, I’m not anymore,” and his gaze is sharper without his glasses today, his dark blue Henley doing nothing to help the flush on your cheeks — memories of your dreams flooding your mind, “and once you get this grade back, I’m not anymore,” 

“And what does that mean?” you can’t pull your eyes away from his, but his fingers let go of your graded paper, “how about you look at the last page of your paper and see?” 

You pull the paper into your hands, flipping to the last page: 

99 — I was impressed by this paper not only by the content but by its comprehension and use of both ethics and philosophy. But I was also impressed by the person who wrote the paper. You’ve shown determination and growth throughout the semester — and you have reminded me what we owe to each other. And I think we owe each other a drink, and a chance for this. 

You feel his eyes watch you as you read, your eyes finally meeting his — his brow knit together, his lips pursed, concentrated gaze trying to decipher your reaction. 

“Why a 99?” And his eyebrows raise, as if to ask, “that’s your question?” 

“You had some spelling and grammar errors,” 

“Really? You couldn’t let it slide?” And he tilts his head, before he sees your lips curling into a grin. 

“So you think it’s funny to mess with your professor?” And his voice drops, a playful tone that makes you nearly shiver, as he leans forward, resting his chin against his elbow. 

“You’re not my professor anymore, are you, Suguru?” he likes that by the way his teeth bite his bottom lip briefly, his eyes flitting to your lips for a moment and back to your eyes, “so I guess we’re using that trolley after all,” 

“If you want to,” he says softly, “I wouldn’t blame you if you change your mind, it’s a risk,” 

It was. It was a risk to your reputations, your careers, your futures — especially to yours. But, your eyes met his again. 

“Contractualism is about avoiding risk,” and he nods, as his gaze falls away, “but some risk is necessary in life, and I think this is one that’s worth taking,” 

“We will have to be careful,” he murmurs, but already his fingers are twitching, far too eager to touch you, “we can’t make any mistakes. I don’t want to hurt you,” he adds softly. 

“I know, I don’t want to hurt you either,” and you rise before slowly rounding his desk, “but I want to know what it’s like,” 

And he can’t stop himself — he gets to his feet, his fingers finding your cheeks and he kisses you. You can taste the black coffee on his lips, his kiss is gentle at first, so chaste and fleeting that you’d swear he didn’t kiss you at all — and so it’s not a second before your lips find his again, in a deeper kiss that steals every ounce of breath from your lungs, and leaves only heat behind. This was dangerous. The very risk you were both trying to avoid, but as he’s pressing you into the edge of his desk, you can’t find the logic you misplaced when those goddamn fingers you’ve been dreaming about squeeze your hips. 

“Fuck,” he’s panting — god that word sounded more sinful on his lips than it should — as he presses sweet kisses to your neck, “we shouldn’t be doing this here,” 

“Not very ethical,” you chuckle breathlessly, as your fingers rake through his now disheveled bun, “but I can’t find the sense to care,” your noses brush, as you can’t help but smile, “what would Scanlon or Kant say about this?” 

And his arms lift you onto his desk, several papers crumpling underneath, “Who the fuck cares?” he’s hissing, his lips find yours in a searing kiss, as his thighs press yours apart, as he settles himself between your legs, his knee grazing your core, drawing a delightful gasp from your lips, “I know what I want,” and his eyes soften, his fingers tracing the length of your cheek, “do you?” 

Before you can answer, two pings catch your attention — your phone and his computer lighting up with a notification, and you both pause a moment, as your eyes glance at the banner notification on your phone, skimming over the words. The T.A. positions have been assigned. 

“Fuck,” you hear him mutter, and you gaze snaps up to his on his computer, the email now opened on his screen, “this can’t be right—” 

“What is it—” and the question dies on your lips as your eyes find where his rested — 

You — you were his T.A. for next semester — for the very class that you met in. 

Fuck, indeed. 

✧ read part 2 now

✧ a/n: lets all remember that student and teacher relationships are bad in real life. it's ok to live vicariously through reader but unfortunately no professor will be as hot as professor geto or gojo T_T. s/o to @/laneymusings and @bucky-of-the-opera for beta reading this for me and being just absolutely wonderful!!

✧ tag list: @sokkasmoon, @unoriginalideas, @waytootiredforthisss, @sinnerstardoll, @secret-pages-of-my-heart, @drthymby, @hanlay, @catsgomurp, @hatsunemitskislobotomy, @esuz, @difficultdomains, @poopyface222, @iwassentfromhell, @diogodxlot, @totallynotcc, @llovekami, @deadmarygolds, @teatreeoilll, @carcarcraziiv2, @forest-hashira, @aliyalala, @esuz, @that-goth-bisexual, @hehehehesthings, @imjustmememe, @j1jay, @iwassentfromhell,

[dare-to-dm]

As I said before, I grew up watching the Olympics with my mother.

And there was one year when I was pretty young that we had a conversation while watching that has always stuck with me (I think it was the '96 games in Atlanta, during which I was 7).

We were also following along with the medal counts in school and celebrating all of America's wins as a class, which felt very fun and patriotic. So I noticed in contrast that my mom would often cheer for other teams and get excited when people from different countries won. And I asked her why.

She said something along the lines of "Of course it's exciting when your own team wins. But the American athletes have a lot of advantages. And I like to cheer for the underdog too."

It was clear that I didn't understand what she meant by advantages, so she asked me why I thought the Americans won so many medals. I answered something like "Because they are the best? Or maybe because they work the hardest?"

She replied "It's important for you to understand that everyone who makes it to the Olympics is very talented and works very hard. They deserve to be celebrated. But most of the athletes from America have more time and money to spend on things like the best equipment and the best training. Many of the other countries that get a lot of medals are like this too. They do the best they can to make the games fair, but that doesn't mean everyone has the same opportunities. So it's even more impressive in some ways when someone who doesn't have those advantages wins."

Looking back on this, I take away 2 major things. One is that my mom did a great job teaching me about privilege before we developed the current language we have for those ideas. And the other is that I really appreciate all the situations she used as learning opportunities for me and never talked down to me even when I was very young. The fact that it stuck just proves the value of those conversations. You're never too young to learn!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i feel like it's also worth adding that these grown ass women with jobs and families risked losing those things and going to jail for the crime of creating, sharing, and engaging with gay fiction. read that again. read it a third time.

a huge factor in the boom of positive, well-written queer representation we've had in the last decade or so is that creators who grew up in and were influenced by fandom have aged into positions to push for it in the professional creative sphere. audiences who grew up in fandom aged into the group where they could contribute money to those projects, now that the door was finally open; audiences who were already in that bracket, and had been desperate for decades for decent queer rep to put support behind, jumped at the chance. people like to brush it off as ~not that deep~ and act like it's ~terminally online~ and ~cringe~ to pretend fandom--let alone shipping specifically--has any kind of meaningful influence. but it has had a powerful, demonstrable positive impact going back more than half a century, and none of that would have been possible if the infrastructure of modern fandom hadn't already been made.

women who put everything on the line--put in money and blood and sweat and tears and fear for their entire goddamn lives--to build our spaces in secret have done a hell of the fuck a lot more for the representation of queer love in fiction than any of you shitheads whining about how fandom is too shipping-focused, how these hags belong in the kitchen should be doing their taxes and raising their children instead of '''invading fandom spaces.''' these women did genuine actual fucking grassroots activism against systemic oppression so you, the assholes in the audience, could sit on your ass and reap the benefits while you actively contribute to the resurgence of that systemic oppression, no less.

do your research, put your money where your mouth is to contribute a tenth of what these women did for society, or shut the fuck up.

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

[weirdmageddon]

i was thinking about this since i posted earlier about us needing to address the trend of gen z men being pulled into alt-right pipelines might have contributed to the outcome of this election.

i think contrapoints is really smart, and from what i’ve seen, has been way more effective at getting people out of harmful ideological pipelines than i’ve seen from the majority of leftists online who instead berate and drive a greater wedge of antipathy (though i understand why! and it can be very hard to have empathy for the people who see you as a threat). that antipathy makes the right more radicalized because they don’t feel like they can talk about anything without the “crazy lefties” who won’t even engage with them. where did these issues come from?

what i’ve noticed, and i’m even guilty of this, is that people don’t interact with groups of people whom they refuse talk to, which makes realities more hypothetical in the minds of their opponent since they aren’t open to seeing reality from their perspective. this is true on both sides. from what i’ve observed, it seems to originate from hypothetical perception of the opponent, but when people treat those perceptions as though they are real, it becomes real with their actions, which then makes the antipathy justified to someone. again, on both sides.

what makes contrapoints so successful at breaking this down is that is that she creates these socratic dialogue skits that represent real people and ideologies, has a sense of humor, isn’t afraid to discuss these things, reframes how we see these things by introducing nuance to both sides. she’s a leftist, but she also knows how to engage without ripening division, of meeting someone halfway and being completely humble about it. she is able to soften extremes.

she is able to get into the mind of people who aren’t aligned with her views, understand the nuance and rationales from a realistic perspective, breaking down a big block of “this is all bad” into “ok, some of this makes sense…”, what this does is create a space for self-reflection that doesn’t feel ham-fisted (which could otherwise cause people to double down on their beliefs instead of opening up to other perspectives outside of their bubble). while also being entertaining and well-produced on top of it.

what she is doing is creating these scenarios and socratic discussions that SHOULD be happening in real life but aren’t in this polarized social climate.

i graduated from new college of florida this spring, the small liberal arts college that was in headlines across the country for ron desantis’s board of trustees hostile takeover and exodus of professors.

new students and student athletes from conservative walks of life were being basically incentivized to go there who were taught to fear the lgbt boogeyman growing up in their conservative communities. but once they actually interacted with lgbt students there, many of them they felt like they understood them, and they weren’t as bad as they were told they would be. new college of florida was also famous for getting derek black (child of the man who created stormfront, and godchild of the kkk grand wizard david duke) out of white nationalism. their peers at NCF called them out but also interacted with them, invited them to dinner. black wrote a book about it.

now of course some people are too far gone and you shouldn’t waste your time with them, like derek’s family for example. but i also think a lot of people who voted for trump are not informed, are operating off of emotion and knee-jerk mentality because it’s easier than thinking, and they are not seeing the discussions that need to be had to change their mind because fuckin…nobody is doing them.

and we feel this visceral disgust to people of the opposing party because of its associations. i just want to know how it happened and how we got to be like this. i think social media is partly to blame and also the algorithms that take people down dangerous pipelines and sharpen them, insulate them.

i myself understand the vitriol you might have for anyone that voted for trump. i feel so disappointed that half the people of this country voted against our collective benefit. and i’ve seen a lot of sentiment from the left today saying “every single person who voted for trump is dead to me. i disowned you”.

you can see the reality of trump’s demagoguery, and it’s so obvious, but what i want to know is: what do they see? why did they vote for him? emotion and entertainment travel faster and have more reach than reason. and it’s that’s why i think contrapoints’s videos are exemplary at tackling this ideological divide. this is something i’ve been thinking about for months before today and i thought now was a better time than ever to give my two cents on it.

[spectrumgarden]

I know I'm shouting into the void with this one but like. Genuinely so many low support needs people dont understand what it's like having even medium support needs. Like I am entirely dependent on other people for many of my needs. I can not see a doctor without someone else scheduling the appointment, taking me there and doing a large amount of the communication for me.

If my caretaker had not been accepting of me being trans and invested hundreds of hours into psych appointments and taking me to my endocrinologist and doing all the paperwork involved with my name change and literally taking a week off work to stay with me in the hospital for surgery etc i would have just like. Never transitioned. My ability to transition was entirely dependent on a singular person and that's what a lot of other parts of my life are like as well. and that's fucking terrifying and a great way to be neglected and abused in ways that are horribly hard to get away from.

I dont drive, I dont work, I struggle to leave the house at all, I dont fucking communicate with people majority of the time. The things that are hard for you? I probably can not do them to begin with. No one in my family lives even close to a comparable life to me. None of my irl friends do. I'm incredibly isolated.

And then I go online and see people rant about how easy MSN and HSN people have it because we just get everything we need and how because people can tell we are disabled everything is so easy because none of you even manage to listen to us talk about the neglect and abuse and trauma we face/d. I see people angry at their (more) disabled siblings for getting care they need to survive instead of mad at society for creating a system where its incredibly hard for families to take care of both a higher support needs child and another child.

And I see people who live completely independent lives who work and drive and make their own doctors appointments and grocery shop and travel by themselves call themselves MSN (I could go on a rant about how that's also often the fault of LSN influencers for not leaving a lot of room in their own community for legitimate struggle but that's for another day).

I just want my needs met. I want to be able to decide where I live. I want choice in my care. I want to be able to have community with those like me. I want others to realize I exist and leave the words i have to describe my existence alone. I want others to listen to what I have to say about what my life is like.

[clockwayswrites]

5 Times the JL Learned Batman was Married and the 1 Time They Met the Spouse.

One. Two. Three.

“I am sure that it is clear to everyone that the mission was almost a complete disaster.”

“Almost?” Superman asked with a smidgen of a smile.

Hal thought it was brave and very, very stupid of Superman to ask that while Batman was glaring at all of them like he’d squish them if they were just small enough for him to step. And if it wouldn't get his boots too dirty.

Batman’s glare narrowed to focus on Superman alone. “We’re alive. Barely.”

“Batman—”

“No,” Batman shut down Supes’ argument with a barked word. “No. While you might be unconcerned, not all of us are indestructible, Superman.”

That finally made Superman lose any amusement that he had and he look away from Batman, properly cowled. Hal felt a little sorry for the guy, but also Supes deserved that. Not all of them were naturally bullet proof and Batman didn’t even have any powers (it seemed).

“Everyone write up a report: what went wrong, what little went right, and what we should do differently. We will discuss it next week. Expect there to be more training sessions scheduled soon,” Batman ordered.

And then he turned and left with an overly dramatic flare of his cape.

“What?” Hal asked.

“He’s just… leaving?” Superman asked. He sounded a little lost.

Batman didn’t just leave when there was work to be done.

Diana rested a hand on big blue’s shoulder. “I believe you rather overstepped, my friend.”

Oh he was more hurt than any of them knew.

Hal jogged after the retreating form. “Hey, hey Spooky, wait a sec!”

Batman’s shadowed form almost hunched forward on itself as he stopped but didn’t turn around.

“What?”

“Just…” Some of Hal’s bravado left him now that he was actually having to ask; luckily Hal had bravado in spades. “I wanted to make sure you were too badly hurt. You took some hard hits out there and like you said, not all of us are bullet proof.”

Hal wasn’t sure if Batman would answer. More, Hal wasn’t sure if Batman would answer him of all people. They had found more of an understanding with each other lately: Hal let Batman do the planning and Batman trusted Hal (a little) to break the plan in the field, but they still clashed a lot.

Then Batman let out a weary sounding huff of air. “There is nothing major. Everything will heal, though I could use plenty of ice and a good whiskey.”

Hal let himself chuckle at that. “Man, I feel that. A good whiskey, or lots of bad beer, sounds good. I just wanted to make sure. You’re rushing out of here like there’s a fire on your ass. Would hate for you to be bleeding out or something.”

Another long pause that Hal tried not to fidget through.

“It’s late. I would like to get home to enjoy my anniversary while there is still any of it left.”

“Your— oh, shit, yeah man, get out of here!” Hal said, waving Batman away.

What the hell, Hal wondered as he watched Batman sweep away for a second time, Spooky was married?

[foone]

Tumblr crashed and killed my post and I'm too lazy to go find what I was reblogging, but:

You need to understand that there is a type of right-wing person who is (relatively) sex positive.

You need to understand this because it explains some "contradictions" but more importantly so that you won't assume someone isn't wildly right wing just because they're sex-positive. These people still have horribly opinions on a lot of things, including sexual ones. They just don't think it's Inherently Wrong to do "weird stuff" in the bedroom.

I always describe this viewpoint as "it's okay to get freaky, but don't be a freak".

They're making a distinction between things you DO and things you ARE. They hate the latter, and think the former is fine.

This is a big part of why you get "confusing" things like right-wingers who are against trans people but those same people might enjoy crossdressing during sex. They're fine with wearing girls clothes while they get pegged, but don't think you should be allowed to go by she/her in the workplace if you're AMAB. Crossdressing is a thing you do. Being trans is something you are.

And the post I was trying to reply to was about swingers disliking polyamorous people: it's the same thing. Swinging is a thing you do: they're having freaky sex. What's wrong with that?

But polyamory? Having multiple partners at the same time, even when you're not fucking at the moment? That sounds like something you are.

Basically it seems to be the worldview of people who are sex-positive (to an extent! I don't want to overstate their positivity) in their personal life, but are against "the decay of society".

They're basically conservatives nostalgic for an imagined world where everyone has 1950s social roles in public, but can get up to whatever weird sex stuff they want behind closed doors.

I don't know how much this kind of few point is due to libertarian influence on these kinds of right wingers (where they've internalized the "the government shouldn't tell me what to do" part of the ideology, but still think "the government should tell those weirdos to get cut it out" is fine), or how much this is because of the rise of 4chan as an alt-right meeting spot, and that site was (and still is) partially a porn site.

It's slightly hard to argue that all sex besides married missionary for procreation is immoral when you're one click away from threads full of anal-toy-howtos and pregnant "dickgirl" hentai. (Not that they don't try, sometimes)

Just keep the fact that these people exist in mind: it'll better explain some of the strange opinions you sometimes see online.

It's probably also a major driving force behind Bidoof's law. They can easily argue against something innocuous like polyamory or trans people while filling their own timeline to with images of trans orgies, because they think Doing Sex Stuff is morally neutral, but Being Stuff is inherently wrong. You can cross dress or swing, that's fine, whatever gets your rocks off. But you can't be trans or be poly. That's wrong, apparently.

(This is probably also South Park's fault but I'm not an expert on that show so I'll not try to explain)

[atalana]

also as a further addendum to my bill made a huge mistake underestimating stan post - i was recently listening to the commentary for sock opera

and like everyone and their mother can draw the parallels between ford/dipper and stan/mabel, it's one of the major themes of the show

bill gets the first half of the equation just fine - he thinks dipper can be manipulated in exactly the same way as ford, and while dipper will grow past that by the end of the show, in this episode, he's right. the best ways to get dipper to do what he wants, are to tempt him with all the secrets of the universe, and to remind him that he doesn't owe mabel anything, when mabel's done nothing but hold him back and cause trouble for him. it's probably exactly how he talked about stan to ford back in the day, who was still nursing those grudges and wanted to be the one to discover things no one else had

but the fun thing alex hirsch mentions in the commentary for that episode, is that bill doesn't see mabel as a parallel to stan (bc lbr he barely even recognises stan as a person). he sees mabel as a parallel to himself. yeah dipper and mabel are a good team together, but ultimately when it comes down to it, mabel is a powerful creature of chaos who would choose her own happiness over anyone who relied on her. (alex hirsch at this point jumps into bill's voice to say "how about instead of doing something lame, you do something fun, and crush whoever you want in the process!", and that bill genuinely thinks that is going to work, because it would work on him)

he doesn't expect mabel to destroy all her hard work and crush her own dreams just to help dipper. when he says "who would sacrifice everything they worked for just for their dumb sibling?", he's speaking from experience. he wouldn't. ford didn't. given the type of people bill considers worth talking to, i doubt he's ever come across that type of loyalty before

but the audience has, plenty of times, and will see it even harder by not what he seems. because while mabel does have some of the anarchy and selfishness bill sees in her, that kind of loyalty is a huge part of what she shares with stan

and like in a lot of the commentaries the writers say they weren't sure at first if bill would be the big bad, or how exactly the ending would come together, but in retrospect it never could have been anyone else, and there never could have been anyone but stan to defeat him

because so much of this show is about the relationships between family (including found family), what you would or wouldn't give up for them, but then how much better your life is when you value those relationships over temporary personal gain

so of course the main villain is someone so incapable of understanding that that he is utterly blindsided by the person who embodies it the most

[cyle]

Removing the ability to go directly to a specific reblog is a disastrously bad change! I can no longer engage with it when someone reblogs a post referencing the previous reblog's tags, which is, if you somehow missed it, a very common way people interact with each other on tumblr. I also often end up following new people because my mutuals regularly reblogged from them and they have interesting tag commentary; if I can't click through and look at their tags anymore, I'm not going to naturally find new people to interact with, which seems like the kind of thing that tumblr should want to incentivize rather than actively prevent?

I'm aware that this was not your decision personally, in the sense that you were apparently unaware of it at first, but it's a very bad decision, it makes my user experience of the site much worse, and I am going to use multiple avenues available to me to register a complaint about it in order to emphasize this badness!

Whatever this change is supposed to achieve, do something else to achieve it that doesn't remove the ability to actually look at specific posts.

a lot of changes we make won’t be well received by people who have survived the kinda insane ways this site works as-is. that’s the price we have to pay to help make tumblr a growing platform.

i’m sorry, it sucks, i don’t like it either, i’m also someone who’s been using this site for over 10 years and i’m used to the way it’s been working for most of that time. it’s a challenge for me to accept that tumblr isn’t actually working right now for the vast majority of people, who aren’t as vocal as we are.

please do send in feedback, but try to understand that most of what you’re describing is behavior you learned the hard way, and we can’t keep tumblr around if “the way to effectively use tumblr” is learned the hard way.

[gothwineaunts]

Wow, hello!

So, I was actually feeling pretty motivated to write this post yesterday. But things have gotten exponentially worse, and I admit the pressure is getting to me. There seem to be a ton of expectations surrounding what I should be saying here, in order to… I guess, absolve myself? As if there’s a checklist people want me to go through to perform the “perfect” creator apology. But, I don’t see the point. I care a lot about this community and I think you deserve something a lot more sincere than some hollow chat-gpt apology. I understand that that’s foolish, on my part. Things are done that way so often because they work. But what you’ll find throughout this post, is that I’m kind of an idiot about some things. I’m stubborn and hard-headed and a little bit pretentious. And so, what I’m planning to do here is to simply tell you the truth about what happened. No cherry picking. All my mistakes, but also the context that goes with them. And at the end, my formal apology. This is a long and winding tale with a lot of characters. I’m going to be sharing some usernames as we go, in the interest of clarity and transparency. You’ll understand why with the context. But please do not seek these people out. Don’t pick fights with them. It will only make everything worse, for all involved.

Cool? Cool. But first I need to address the elephant in the room. This will probably seem like irrelevant drama at first, but this is the nuance and background that I wasn’t adequately able to articulate the night before last. In more ways than one, this is a story told in twos. The first set of twos is you, the readers. Who you are, and what you’re hoping to find out in this post.

1.      The overwhelming majority of you, are earnestly wanting to understand what has happened in the Nevermore Discord. You are concerned that I am not who you hoped I was. You are disappointed, and I understand why. To you, I am so sorry. I want to say that things are not as bad as they seem, but that is not for me to decide. You will need to draw your own conclusions from the words I write. And I understand, whatever you choose to do next.

2.      And there is a small, but incredibly vocal minority of people who are absolutely living for this. They are spreading complete fabrications with no screenshots to speak of. Horrible, horrible accusations. People who are more excited about watching a dumpsterfire than they are about the series that brought them here in the first place. I’m not going to attempt to cater to those people in this post. Because nothing will ever be good enough. Everything that can be taken in bad faith will be taken in bad faith. It would be pointless. But you’ll see them in the comments and reblogs. This is a known group to not only myself, but many others. I will share some of their names in a later section so you know who to watch for. They will make a lot of noise around this post because they’ve been trying to make something like this happen for actual years. And now that I had a genuinely concerning response that good people reasonably want me to explain, they’re lunging at the chance to throw absolutely anything at the wall. It’s parasocial levels of hatred. This is some deep and horrible lore.

The next set of twos is how two things can be true at the same time. And that is exactly what is going on here, in this situation. Let me be really clear, because I don’t want either truth to be lost in my explanation as they are intrinsically linked to one another.

1.      I did a downright terrible job explaining myself in the Discord when people started asking about crimson. I can give you all kinds of contributing factors for this, and I might later. But none of them really matter. It was incredibly careless of me to use “egging them on” and “cried wolf”  to describe what I understood. At the time I was really laser-focused on expressing what happened as simply and quickly as possible because the channel replies were paused and I felt like everyone was just waiting for me to be finished with my message. But after stepping back, I immediately understood how badly I messed up, because of course these idioms are routinely weaponized against survivors of SA and CSA. That is not how I intended to use them. It was an unfortunate case of one thing looking and sounding like another thing. Incredibly ham-fisted and irresponsible on my part. To the survivors who read my words and felt that it echoed their past experiences, I’m heartbroken that I did that to you. That lapse of judgement was a betrayal to both you and me. I don’t know where my head went, and I’m just blown away by my own lack of awareness in that message. So for that I am and will continue to be sorry.

2.      The second thing that can be true is that, while you are all absolutely owed an explanation and an apology, there are also some people amongst you who are using this fuck-up on my part as a springboard to take me down.  These people have been trying to get a call out post to pop off about me for at least a year, and they have been very quick to jump into the reblogs and comments about this very serious topic with complete lies and slander. Just, anything that might stick to the wall. We’ll address this later on as well. But please understand that me discussing the harassment I’ve faced from these groups is not at the expense of me also owning up to my faults and taking the proper accountability.

And the last set of twos is one I’ve alluded to in the first sets, concerning a pair of toxic side-servers that ran adjacent to the main Nevermore Discord. Completely unofficial cliques. And invisible to myself and Flynn and our mod team. We were eventually made aware that both of them were breaking laws and Discord ToS in ways that leaked into our server and affected our members negatively. As such, both groups were mass-banned. And the cliques are the ones running a majority of the discourse you’ve been seeing here, because while they are formally banned from the discord, we have absolutely no say in their participation on Tumblr. Now, keep in mind. Both of these groups were uncovered after crimson was banned the first time. That’s important later.

Clique #1

My understanding of the first group is that it started as a gaming server for people who met one another through the Nevermore Discord. I don’t know when or why it started being used to talk shit about other readers, but I do know that it got really vicious. And it was sort of an open secret for long before I knew anything about it. I found out after that there were a lot of people passively in this server, just observing. It was that much of a spectacle.

Now, this clique had been pretty rude. Like they’d try to start fights with me in the discord fairly often, both in the Patreon and free spaces. But it wasn’t grounds for dismissal until we found out about the baiting and the alts.  These people had a lot of grievances, but one really united them: they were extremely upset about anyone who would ship Prospero.

Many of you know, that Prospero is an aromantic character, canonically. And you may notice that canonically, he has no apparent love interest. But this group wanted to make sure other readers were not thinking about Prospero in relationships, or creating ship content of him for any reason on the grounds that it would be considered a “proship.” I told them (and I stand on this) that it’s not up to them to police the thoughts of other readers, and that aromantic people have widely varying lifestyles and experiences and do not need to be infantilized that way.

This turned out to be a bad move on my part, because it brought with it an onslaught of alt accounts coming in and "innocently" kicking up what I now refer to as the “prosp-aro” debate every time they had the chance. But because of this and what a common occurrence it was, we started being able to pick out the alts. And we realized that this group of people had been using the same alt accounts with different names to antagonize certain readers they’d decided they hated, and it had gone on for a long time.

I did a lot of investigative work in dms trying to figure out who all was responsible for the harassment, and settled on a list that was vetted by three different people who knew about the clique. And all three of these people insisted that, while Laci was in the group and in a lot of the screencaps saying pretty dubious things, that she was good people. So I believe them, and let Laci stay. This group was banned on April 3, 2024, and contained the following users:

-          lilnatx (nat)

-          suitino (sushi)

-          jj_the_jet_plane (layden)

-          rivsticks (jasper)

-          atheimee (athena)

-          jinxs.com (lanx/jinx)

-          smartestginger (nico)

-          thereallandofbugs (bugs)

-          rosienemui (rosie)

These were the names they were known by on the Discord. I don’t have the Tumblr accounts tied to these identities. But some might be the same. I know a lot of them are here.  It should be noted that jinx was later unbanned due to pressure from Laci that they had been banned in error, after the fact. We allowed them back in after a few days as a favor to Laci since the situation seemed like it was very stressful for her. This would prove to be yet another a mistake since, as you have probably seen in the screenshots from the night before last, jinx rapidly escalated things to another level while I was trying to figure out how to handle crimson’s unbanning and subsequent rebanning an hour later.

Clique #2

Phew. Still with me? Great. The second group we needed to ban was one that actually started long before the first one, but was a lot smaller and comparatively more subtle. This group, to my knowledge, cropped up around the time that ep. 39 of Nevermore was released. (11/10/22) We knew about this group but not who all was involved in it or in what capacity for a very long time. They would consistently post things on Tumblr trying to start a scandal. I recall posts alleging that we were racists, or SA apologists, or that we were sending death threats to a random confessions account.

To be clear, these allegations are completely false. This clique will say anything. Like a recent post one of them put up during this discourse said that hiwi (our mod) is both a r*pe apologist and a childhood friend of mine and that’s the only reason she hasn’t been banned. Hiwi is absolutely nothing of the sort, and I have never met her in person. In fact, she lives on the other side of the continent.

Now, this clique is a little different than the first. The first, to my knowledge, was a group of friends that got toxic and felt morally superior about their opinions and it all kind of got away from them. The vibe was a little catty, I guess. Gossipy. But this clique has more of a stalker vibe. It’s dark.

They’ve had it out specifically for me for as long as I can remember. And some of them (at least one, at all times) would subscribe to our patreon, both to sow dissent in our stream chats and also to leak literally all the content back to the others, including me talking about random shit like what I ate for lunch. Just so they could like. Laugh about it, I guess. I’ll never understand why. [Editing note: because in the final moments of proofreading this post I see one of these people has made some master post about what a terrible person I am? A lot of those screenshots are from Patreon channels and the guy STILL has them laying around. I’m telling you, they stole everything that wasn’t nailed down.] 

The biggest grievance this clique had is that any ship with Montresor is an “SA fetish ship” because to them he is a r*pist because of how he made Ada bark (?) and since Montrada is canon, that means we are supporters of SA, and that Morella and Ada should be together instead. Listen, I’ll level with you, this one baffles me. I don’t even know how to begin to untangle it. But if you see a lot of vitriol about us being SA apologists from these users, it’s because Montresor exists. That’s pretty much it.

You can ask them for screencaps ‘til you’re blue in the face, but unless they build fake ones from the ground up, they’re never going to be able to back up their wild claims. Simply put, they’re provocateurs, and they use the scariest words they can to whip people up into a panic.

We became aware that they were leaking patreon content when one of them was caught publicly referring to things that were being said behind a paywall when we knew they weren’t a patron. It unraveled from there.  People who knew about their antics shared screenshots and information with us, and we finally realized the scope of the clique’s hatred and banned whoever was even left in the Nevermore Discord. But they continue to be active in the community on tumblr. You’ll have seen them around. They were banned on 5/11/2024 and the names involved are as follows (again, a mishmash of discord names, nicknames, and tumblr accounts):

- percy (gremlinguy145 on tumblr)

- queenmorningrose (annabel-lee-nevermore on tumblr)

- spoopycactus630 (spoopy-nevermore-dump on tumblr)

- grif/horrorshow (conscience-grim on tumblr)

- unreqiknizd

- duke aralt (westofthestyx)

- eden (sapphic-mad-scientist on tumblr)

- priemium

Again I’d like to reiterate. The point in sharing these names is not to incite any sort of response against these people. But they are folding themselves into the fray and doing what they can to whip everyone else up into a mob, and all as we’re talking about a discord server that they have been banned from for months now. The above context is also relevant for the next section, which is why you’re all here in the first place.

What the hell happened with Crimson?

I hope it’s not confusing, but now we’re going back to 3/14/2024, before anything I just outlined above had come to light. The cliques were quietly doing their harassment and baiting and raiding and whatever-the-hell behind the scenes, but Flynn and I and the mods were blissfully unaware of how bad it was getting. We get a dm from Laci. The same Laci who was part of Clique #1 and was rescued from being banned with the others by her friends outside the group. Jinx’s friend, who managed to get them unbanned as well. You have probably seen these screencaps already, but I will show them to you again, just in case.

Sufficed to say, we were immediately alarmed by the information Laci shared in her DM with us. Now, I want to be very clear about this because it’s been lost in the game of telephone. What Laci outlines in her dm to me, were the events that occurred between six users (including crimson) in a group chat with minors. Everyone in the evidence was censored (pfp and username), as was the image that crimson showed them. When I asked, Laci agreed to give me one name of one of the minors in the dm. I’ll call them Alice, but that is not their real name. I asked if I could talk to Alice about this, I was told by Laci, no. Alice doesn’t want to talk. I was like, ok I understand, that’s fine. 

I hope it makes sense when I say that it is not feasible for us to moderate the things that happen in peoples’ dms. As you’ve seen above, the mod team doesn’t usually get involved with drama unless whatever is happening is directly affecting the experience people are having in the Nevermore Discord because that is all we can see and the only place we have any real authority.  But this was obviously a special case. We banned crimson very quickly without asking any follow-up questions, because of course we did!? I’ve seen people say I’m harboring or defending crimson or that we’re buddies but we barely spoke, ever. They were a stranger to me then, and they still are now.

But something about the entire situation wasn’t adding up to me. And I want to be clear that none of this is in any way meant to discredit csa survivors, I’m really just trying to put you in my headspace and walk you through my thought process. But I found that the evidence was just, sort of strange. Laci started her dm explaining that she found this information out because she and a group of people were investigating crimson for ‘art tracing’ which felt, to me, like a bizarre non-sequitur and totally irrelevant next to the evidence of them showing nsfw content to minors. Petty, kind of. Like I wanted to ask – why were you doing that in the first place? People trace Flynn’s art all the time. As long as they’re not selling it, it’s not a big deal.

Most of the crops are from a PC but the windows are oddly small, and only contain a couple messages at a time. Some have American formatted time and some have European formatted time. So different users, I assume? The names were blotted out, which I would understand for a public call-out but not for a private report to the mod team. Laci was not in this gc at any point in time, despite being the one to report. 

One of the users was apparently 12, to which I ask – what is a 12-year-old doing on discord at all? If we knew who they were, we would have reported the account. Discord is not a safe place for a child that age, let alone a small group chat. Along with 18-year-old Crimson, there was also a 22- and 17-year-old in the chat, which left us wondering – why hadn’t anything been done?

I had no evidence that anyone ever told crimson they were minors, and I feel if it existed, it would have been in the screencap dump (I find that sometimes a noticeable lack of key evidence is evidence in itself). No one seems to have tried to kick crimson from the group chat or report their account for inappropriate behavior. Then there’s the fact that this is a group chat. Anyone in it can leave at any time. 

Then I came across the messages that started this whole gc, and it only got stranger when I realized Alice started it, called it “Women Lovers” and created it “so we can talk about Nevermore women without having to filter ourselves” after they all reacted to a sultry but sfw drawing of Lenore that crimson had made and posted in our hideout channel. And all that made me wonder why Alice didn’t just kick crimson, if she had admin power?  Do you see what I mean? It’s just all a bit head tilty. I noticed it at the time. But I said nothing. Because it didn’t matter. Crimson, no matter what happened, exposed minors to nsfw content. And that’s on them. And I’ve never in my life defended it. We banned them.

Crimson was beside herself. She came off humiliated and apologetic, and insisted she had no idea and begged to come back to a community she said she loved. But we told her no, there’s no coming back from doing what she did.

Time passes and we uncover Clique #1. And while we figured out who the main players were, I dmed with Laci. And it was Laci herself, who tells me that it was Alice who made most of Clique #1’s alt accounts, and that it was Alice who used those alt accounts to harass people and try to get them to start fights or say something that might get them in trouble. 

And I’ll be honest with you, the mod team still didn’t think much of it, outside of – we need to figure out which accounts were the alts. So we did. We had several confirmed to us.  And those accounts were zeroing in on certain users that the clique didn’t like. At the time we noticed two notable targets in addition to the mod team. I won’t name them, it’s their business if they want to weigh in about all that. But in screencaps, they’ll be labeled Target #1 and Target #2.

More time passes and Clique #2 comes to light. As you can imagine, by now we’re feeling disillusioned, and very tired of trying to moderate shit we cannot see for ourselves. And that’s when crimson comes back to very hesitantly ask if they might be able to appeal their ban. It wasn’t until then that it occurred to us that Laci (on behalf of Alice) was the only one who ever reported anything to us about Crimson. 

And I want to just say that again. Because it’s gotten lost too. Laci was the only person who ever reported Crimson. There was not one single other person who ever sent a modmail or a dm or even a ping to anybody on the mod team. I have since (only yesterday) seen some screencaps that are rather skin crawly, but even those happened in yet another side server. Thinking on this, the mods went back through the known alt accounts Alice had used. And they found that Alice harassed crimson both on her main account and on the same alt accounts that she used to harass the other targets.

By now, Alice is banned for completely unrelated reasons. Not because of what happened with Crimson. I’ve seen that one flying around and I’m sorry it’s just not true. It’s because she was relentlessly harassing and cyberbullying people in the discord we moderate. Laci is still there, but had lost my trust, for being involved with both the drama I’ve mentioned here and more that I don’t care to dip into. It’s ultimately irrelevant. But what am I going to say to Laci? “Hey, did you and Alice, by any chance, coordinate some kind of bizarre trap together to get crimson banned from the discord because you suspected them of tracing their art?” And once again. Because I want to keep this top of mind. Even if that were the case, it doesn’t make what Crimson did alright, and it never will. Sharing nsfw content in front of minors is a disgusting thing to do. And one that we frankly are really irritating about in the moderation of the discord. I’ve heard people say that we over-moderate when it comes to art. 

But all this stuff about a “known pedophile?” If it was known, then we were on the outs. And to even this minute right now, I don’t have any conclusive evidence that Crimson is a pedophile. The evidence I have is that Crimson shared nsfw with a group of people whose ages they did not know. Which is fucking gross. It’s an adult’s responsibility to make sure they’re speaking with other adults before posting things of that nature. 

But at the time, the way I read the situation is that Crimson had only just stopped being a minor and was egregiously negligent in how they were speaking and what they were posting, likely in part due to them not being aware enough of their adult responsibilities.  And hey. I know some of you are chomping at the bit. You can call me naïve for this! This is what I’m referring to when I say that I can be a real idiot. But I feel everyone has been very quick to call Crimson a pedophile. I know this is pedantic to say, but the prerequisite for being a pedophile is “being attracted to minors.” Based on the information I had at my fingertips, I did not think Crimson sought out these minors. Crimson was invited to the gc, they did not ask to join. 

I have seen discussions about all the things crimson did to their victims since we unbanned them but I have not seen screencaps to support that whole ‘marriage proposal’ thing, and again I think it sounds a bit odd coming as a pedophilia accusation from someone only one year younger than crimson.  

But you know what? I don’t know crimson. Maybe we were wrong. But even if we weren’t, I realize in hindsight that it was a stupid decision for the mod team to give them a second chance. We didn’t have anyone to consult about what happened because all the other people in the chat had been obscured from me and I didn’t feel like Laci would give me a straight answer. 

The mods and I felt at the time that crimson, like the other targets of Clique #1, had been singled out and that they deserved another very closely monitored chance in the discord, which they said they still missed dearly. I’m a bleeding heart, alright? A total sap. I know that. But being honest with you, I felt bad. It feels horrible to be singled out and targeted. And I was probably too close to that feeling at the time, seeing as we were on the tail end of finding out the Clique #2 had pursued me so relentlessly for so long. 

So for my part, I’m sorry. I made a rash decision that was influenced by some very personal circumstances. And we should have left it alone. Based on the evidence I've seen, I don’t know if I personally would call crimson a pedophile and certainly I wouldn't call them a known pedophile, but I am regretful that we risked it either way.

When I was trying to explain all of this in the west common room channel two nights back, things had boiled over and were already getting out of hand very quickly. A lot of brand new accounts were joining the discord with one word intros just to start conflicts in the public server with crimson. Alts. Either from banned users or burner accounts. And I got panicky. One of the mods paused the messages in west common room but no one besides me was available to handle the situation at that moment. Reacts about being silenced were pouring in and I felt pressured to quickly take over and try to explain. 

In my rush, I stupidly didn’t backread more than a quick skim. And I ate shit, y’all. You saw. One thing I want to state outright. I’m talking a lot about my thoughts and my feelings and it’s because I don’t wanna speak for Flynn or for the mods. But I didn’t make this decision alone. In fact, I was dragging my feet and being really lazy about okaying the whole thing. Just because I was busy, not because I was fretting over it or anything. But I had to be pinged and then literally tapped on the shoulder by Flynn, asking me to respond to mod chat when this was being discussed earlier that day. That doesn’t change the fact that I was part of the decision. I agreed to unban crimson. Foolishly. I understand that, now. 

I hope that now it makes some more sense though, how it came to happen. I never meant to hurt anyone. My own past and present feelings got in the way, and I own that. But in the moment, my personal intention was to give crimson a second chance because I felt that they’d been targeted by Clique #1. Not to ignore anyone’s concerns or make them feel unsafe, even if those were the ultimate outcome.  

So, completely underprepared and defensive, I jumped into west common room and I just. Blew it. Totally fucking blew it. I knew it instantly but it’s hard to stay logical when people are telling you you’re vile and evil and they’re sick that they ever thought you were a good person and that they’ll never see you the same way again. My mind went blank and I don’t really remember much of what happened next. But I said what I said, and I should have done better. 

I wish there was a word bigger than sorry. I’m beside myself. I know there was probably a way to make everyone happy. To make everything okay. But I wasn't clever enough to figure it out in the moment, and it eats at me. So it’s like I’m sorry for my poor judgment and my terrible choice of words, but there’s another layer where I’m also sorry for not matching how wonderful this community is with how wonderful (or well, unwonderful) I was two nights ago. I promise I am going to work harder to be better for you all.

Again, to every victim of SA and CSA, my heart is with you, more personally than you might realize. I don’t think I could have handled my explanation in a worse way. And I’m so so sorry.

Moving forward, I am also going to take an enormous step back from moderating and participating in the discord in general. I feel like a lot of this happened because I was still treating it like it belonged to a smaller fandom, like Shiloh’s. But realistically, I don’t have time to both moderate and make the series itself, and I really dragged my feet on being honest with myself about that. And for that too, I apologize. We’re going to get more mods, they’re going to have full control of the moderation, and Flynn and I are going to do what we love more than anything in the world and just make Nevermore.

I understand if you won’t be there for it. This is not a flattering picture I’ve painted for you. And you’d be well within your rights, to decide not to give us another chance. But it's been a pleasure to lurk here in this wildly talented corner of tumblr. And I’ll never forget it. <3 Yours truly, -Kit Trace

[astroismypassion]

Astrology observations from real life 🪷🪷🪷

Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion

A few in my mailbox asked me to post about astrology playing out in real life. I still have to preface that the view is mostly based from the viewpoint of my own individual Natal chart. So it’s coming from a perspective of Taurus Sun, Aries Moon, Scorpio Rising.

🪷 For me 8th house Synastry with Cancer or Taurus, Libra over the 8th house is not the usual “love or hate connection” at all. So this is one thing I definitely didn’t relate. I think love hate dynamic could be perhaps more prominent if you have a malefic, Capricorn, Aquarius etc. over the 8th house. So I have Cancer over the 8th house. And best I could describe 8th house Synastry with Cancer placements is “failed attempts”. I really like them, but nothing ever gets of the ground with them. I had already someone’s Cancer Sun and Mercury in my 8th house and another person’s Cancer Sun, Venus, Mercury and Mars in my Cancer 8th house. Each Cancer was completely different, but there was usually a pattern I noticed, that after 3 years of knowing them, there is usually a breaking point and it’s always after 3 years. They either rejected me, friendzoned me or weren’t looking to enter a committed partnership. So technically, on paper is nothing particularly wrong in the 8th house Synastry, just stagnant and not much happening and the connection just never got of the ground to begin with. So that’s why I don’t really understand the 8th house love or hate thing. I would say we are pretty neutral toward one another and don’t hate each other, but aren’t in love either.

🪷 Aquarius Moon can end up being quite narrow-minded in a way that they have hard time fully accepting the other’s perspective, but only their own. That’s why sometimes having a conversation with them, doesn’t feel like a dialogue, but more so like they are in a monologue with themselves. Some can end up being quite preachy, because of that.

🪷 In my experience Taurus Moons, natives with Taurus IC are some of the most secure individuals. Because they have the needed self-love and most that I have met don’t even feel the need to start a partnership, just because they are just so comfortable on their own.

🪷 Pisces Moon can either be incredibly intuitive, compassionate or really mean “in the name of the truth”. But I feel like you have to know them for years, before it really becomes apparent how blunt, truthful and sometimes mean they actually are. They can kind of be unhealthy towards themselves by not believing they are capable. But also have the ability to negatively influence others with their negative mood as well. They are really observant and good listeners, therefore often times they choose words that know will sting you.

🪷 I noticed that stereotypically labelled as “players” when grown up, Aries Moon men, even Moon aspect Mars natives, appear that way only in adulthood. But what I found, that in childhood/teenage years they were often ignored by women or didn’t receive much romantic attention at all. They were rarely picked or chosen. So later they seem to quite enjoy the attention. I’d say maybe it’s the same for Aries Moon women? I don’t know, but Selena Gomez (Aries Moon) did talk about how boys were never interested in her when she way much younger, that she didn’t receive much romantic attention.

🪷 Libra Chiron people have strange behaviour. They still pursue people who rejected them and fall even deeper in love. Like what?? You guys deserve reciprocal love and not this one-sided thing.

🪷 Scorpio Rising, Pluto in the 1st house native is really one of the realest people you meet out there. They become so open and honest about life with time and in adulthood. They are not pretentious at all and I noticed they even don’t mind if they embarrass themselves a bit, as long as they are being authentic and living their own truth and purpose. A lot of them also went through a major breakthrough in life (dropped out of education, lost an important job etc.) and that launched them in a totally new life direction, career path, where they end up being successful then. They are very artistic, even though they appear logical, excellent problem solvers too.

🪷 Natives with Moon at a Leo degree (5, 17, 29) low key are Cancer Suns. I noticed you have troubled love life, because you get taken advantage of your kindness and you are genuinely so nice. I wouldn’t say this rings true too for Leo Moons or Moon in the 5th house natives (you more so attract rather selfish people).

🪷 Libra Moons probably rarely saw the conflict resolution between parents, so many of them are so conflict avoidant (are even scared to have tension) in a partnership, because deep down they didn’t really learn conflict resolution and don’t know how to solve it.

🪷 Cancer Moon men desire a wife, a housemaker, a best friend, a lover, a wifey in one person. They often secretly wish for a very traditional marriage. But to be fair, they probably had parents that were married for years or married couple goals, so they had role models and want the same for themselves.

🪷 A lot of Scorpio Risings or Pluto in the 1st house native have this idealisation with wealth going on. A lot of them dream of extreme wealth and are very money, financial stability oriented.

🪷 You really get along with someone who has their Rising sign in the same sign of your 11th house. For example: you have Scorpio over the 11th house, you could have a good chance to get along with Scorpio Risings.

🪷 Libra Chiron don’t find themselves attractive. But y’all are models for real. So so many people find you very conventionally attractive.

🪷 Aquarius Eros people can have a tendency to be so random. And you guys love love surprising others. Just not the other way. 😂 You dislike surprises. But I don’t find the stereotypes of being into “group sex, threesomes, kinky af” true at all. Most of them are oddballs with specific humour and often postpone intimacy, because they prefer touching people with their words. They really like hangouts and long talks over physical intimacy or touching. A lot of them also don’t understand why people rush intimacy so much. They like to take their time. However, they are into connection with people that has proved time. The longer they have known you, the more they are likely to consider you an intimate option. They really like people that stick with them or have been in their life for years.

🪷 Pisces Descendants doesn’t come across to me as delusional. Instead quite controlling towards the actions of their partner. They are idealistic about love and want their partner to act accordingly with their wishes. So they get “their way” by presenting themselves as a hopeless romantic.

🪷 Cancer Moon, Moon in the 4th house both men and women often feel like they can’t protect or defend themselves in the world. So they are often attracted to “protector” type of partner. However, the potential downfall of not learning how to protect themselves is falling into a parent child dynamic with their partner (with Cancer Moon, Moon in the 4th house native acting as a child).

Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion