#and i would NEVER include the words ‘in this essay i will’

[kadentherabbit]

Can you do Tate Langdon jealousy sex? Like someone came over and they were being flirty??

The only friend you’ll ever need.

Divider by @/enchanthings

i am back 😈😈 but i am still rusty so be nice to me.

this fic IS proofread!!!!! This fic includes Tate thinking about murder, Tate is in fact dead in this, very small amounts of dialouge, uhhhh sex, ass slapping, no aftercare, and a very lazy ending :(.

Tate watched as that stupid guy friend of yours finally left, he had to resist the urge to just snap that guy's neck when he was leaving your room, it wouldn't matter either way because Tate would never let him in the house ever again, over his living body would you ever speak to him again. He didn't understand how you were so oblivious to the guy's flirting, his hand would slide over your thigh a little too close to your crotch, or the way he would deepen his voice just to answer a simple question. Tate saw through the whole act, that he wasn't just trying to impress you, he was trying to get into your pants.

Tate stood in your doorframe, watching as you brushed out your hair and focused on the small amount of essay you had left to write, putting down the brush and replacing its empty spot in your hands with the pencil so you could jot down the ideas that had came to your head. He stood there for a few seconds longer without you noticing before taking a few steps closer, his feet made no noise against the creaky floorboards, ones that would alert you of anyone's presence if they weren't in fact dead and weightless like Tate was.

You felt his cold and slender fingers drag along your shoulders first, not staying there for long before moving up to play with your hair, twirling the soft strands around his fingers before pulling his hand away with a sigh, his eyes meeting yours in the vanity's mirror. The same cold and lifeless look he always had, yet, it had a slight hint of anger that you could pick up on. Your eyebrows furrowed slightly, waiting a second to speak to see if you could find out what was angering him this time before saying anything.

"What...?" You asked in a confused tone, turning around in your seat to face Tate. His eyes only moving down so he could stare at you more and just look angrier for no specific reason...well, no specific reason yet. "Whats wrong with you?" your tone switched to a more teasing one, head gently tilting to the side, Tate's hands once again tugging up from his sides to squeeze your cheek with a small amount of force.

small....tiny tiny time skip because I can't think of Tate dialogue....

You couldn't think, Tate thrusting into you harder than you swear he'd ever done before, his mindless mumbling and growling filling your ears. He was pissed and his actions showed it. You were ontop of him, hands trying to grasp onto anything you could but the moment you were able to reach him or his hair, he'd just smack your hand away. All he wanted to do was prove to you that he was the only friend you'd ever need.

Tate grabbed at the flesh of your ass, holding onto it gently for a few seconds as he continued fucking into your abused and leaking hole. Even if you werent able to touch him, he on the other hand, was able to grab at and smack at you however he wanted. I supppose that was another part of his revenge plot, Tates grumbling finally turned into words, you had almost expected some types of praise to counter just how rough he was aggressive he was being with you.

"He's not better than me is he? He can't fuck you like i can, can he?"

He almost sounded insecure with the way he whimpered at the end of his words but before you could answer his questions, he was cumming inside of you for the second time in about ten minutes. Tate's teeth gently dug into the soft skin of your neck and eventually your shoulder while he pushed himself further into you so he could really fill you up. More small whimpers flooding from the ghosts mouth as he emptied himself into you and your finger nails dug into the cold skin of his back.

You clenched around him as your orgasm finally took you over, shaking slighlty as your nails left cresant shaped marks in his skin. The two of you almost stuck together due to the large amount of sweat that had started to pool over your bodies. Tate only started to pull out of you when he noticed your shaking had stopped, not wanting to overstimualte you or hurt you in any way.

He looked down at you, with the same cold eyes that glared at you with anger earlier that day, the anger now completly gone. Tilting his head as he looked over your fucked out body, he wouldve stared at you for the rest of the day if he didnt hear the sound of the main door being knocked on. The sound of that stupid friend of yours yelling about leaving his phone in your room, low and behold, his phone sat on your night stand. Prompting Tate to give you a parting kiss, and eventually leaving you alone in your bed, sweaty, fucked out and naked, oh and that guy yelling about his phone, fun.

[herefortheships]

What do you think of the Bj and Lydia controversy due to age?

You know, the short answer I have for this is that I do not think it should be an issue that's even brought up anymore. Lydia is now an adult woman in her 50s; plenty of people end up with a partner who is 10+ years older than them, meaning that they would have been a full adult if they would have come across their partner at sixteen. And that's just speaking about the real world; let's not forget Beetlejuice and the characters in that world are all a work of fiction. I don't think the fact that they met when she was a teenager all those years ago should even be an issue to ship it or not. As a matter of fact, people can ship whatever they want. They can even ship it in the first film and it's not an issue... Shipping in itself is inherently innocent. These characters and the situations around them don't even exist, and therefore, whatever you imagine with them, has no effect in the real world. Shipping is no different from a kid grabbing a couple of dolls and making them kiss. It's all in good fun.

Let me tell you, I had written a long freaking essay under this question 😅, but I decided to leave all of that for a separate post. But a few notable points from that essay which I think would be good to include here are the following.

Back in the 90s and early 2000s we had ships with pretty big age gaps on network TV and nobody batted an eye about the age gap (as far as I'm concerned). I'm talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer specifically in this post. This was before social media, but as far as magazines and fandom spaces go, I'm sure the discussions around Buffy's love interests in BTVS centered around which hot vampire was better for Buffy, Angel or Spike. (Even nowadays we see this kind of article, exhibit A). And you don't see these articles starting with disclaimers and trigger warnings, either.

For those who haven't watched BTVS, Angel was around 240-something when he slept with 17 year old Buffy. He slept with her the night she turned 17, by the way; they were already together while she was 16. At the time he was turned into a vampire, Angel was around 26 years old. Angel met Buffy when she was 16, but he was stalking watching Buffy since she was 15:

Now about Spike. Spike met Buffy when she was 16, but he didn't actually become obsessed with her until she was around 20. Still, they got together and it wasn't ever an issue that he met her when she was a teenager. In Spike's case, he did stick around and interacted with Buffy multiple times before they started dating. In Betelgeuse's case, we know that while he watched Lydia from afar, he never actually managed to interact or even be seen by her during the years they were apart.

A lot of antis throw around the word "grooming" around Beetlebabes; I don't think they understand the meaning of that word. To put it simple, to groom someone is to condition them and emotionally manipulate them for years into a certain behavior, in this context, into falling in love or becoming sexually involved with the groomer. This term, therefore, cannot and will not ever apply to Betelgeuse and Lydia's relationship (it also does not apply to Spuffy, while we're at it). How can it? When they only had a few interactions over 30+ years ago and only met now after all that time.

And about those interactions in the first movie, the fact that Betelgeuse attempted to marry Lydia is attached to an idea of sexual inappropriateness only when that particular idea is projected onto what actually happened in that scene. Objectively, for Betelgeuse, marrying Lydia was a means to an end; there was no sexual or romantic implications in their marriage in that movie.

I believe in the case of Betelgeuse x Lydia versus ships like Buffy x Angel or Buffy x Spike, people are quick to see an issue in one where they never notice an issue in the other for the following reason: While Angel and Spike are hot, young-looking vampires, Betelgeuse is gross and does look like a dead guy. That is literally the difference. Spike and Angel are good-looking hotties; Betelgeuse... I love him lots and he is hot for me, but he is not conventionally attractive. I bet you if Betelgeuse looked like Michael Keaton did playing Bruce Wayne... People wouldn't have an issue that he's lusting after 50-something year old Winona Ryder, (also a hottie herself btw).

Let's add here before I close off this post that both Angel and Spike did objectively horrible things to Buffy when they were soulless (Angel while Buffy was still a minor), and meanwhile Betelgeuse has never harmed Lydia (no, the insta-pregnancy didn't harm her; everything that happened in that scene was an illusion). He didn't even behave inappropriately toward her in the first film when he was wilder and hornier than he is now. And yet shipping Bangel or Spuffy (last I checked lol) isn't widely seen as problematic. I ship Spuffy to the moon and back, and used to ship Bangel as well at some point 🤷🏻‍♀️ and I haven't seen people attacking shippers nor have I seen discussions of these ships being inappropriate (though I'm sure there must be... it's 2024 and the purity culture fandom infection has spread widely), not in the way I see Beetlebabes fans being harassed.

Anyway, I wrote a separate post about this and will post it eventually. This wasn't meant to be this long, but here we are 😅.

[huntressofartemis001]

In the song “Too Sweet”, Irish singer Hozier claims that the subject of his passion is “too sweet for [him]”. Later in the same song, he affirms that the above person is “as sweet as a grape”, thus implying that grapes are too sweet for him. In this essay I will

[santacoppelia]

Of fandom, age, and David Tennant being our own personal Time Lord

I read the fantastic post that @davidtennantgenderenvy wrote about David Tennant and aging (if you haven’t yet read it, go for it!) and, as a fan who is closer to DT's age range than to what seems to be the rest of the fan base's age (yeah, being well over 40 is A THING), I had an interesting mix of ideas and emotions. I was going to just reblog her post with some of these musings, but when this started getting longer (and I started searching for bibliography, ha), I decided that I was not going to hijack her post, but rather cite it (and reblog it on its own right, really, read it). I should say that this is a long essay, and it comes peppered with references to one of my preferred fields of study (but I make it light and fun, promise).

Becoming an “old geek”

The first time I came into the idea was when I found a thirst TikTok with that very nice audio that goes “I think I need someone older…” and clearly, the thirst was there, but also… David is 8 years older than me, and when you are 45, thirsting over someone who is 53 doesn’t feel as “edgy” (and thinking about “needing someone older” starts verging on thirsting over people well over 65, which is absolutely fine, but a very different category over all for the rest of TikTok). So yeah, it was weird. You see someone who you feel is "in your range" and everyone is calling them "old"… And you start thinking about aging, inevitably.

Of course, I "don't feel old", but most of my friends are younger than me, and I'm the oldest person in many of my "fun activities". Take, for example, my lightsaber combat team, where every sponsorship is pitched to people under 30, and you should be training at least twice a week and following a strict diet to reach the expected “competitive or exhibition” level (enter the “old lady” who is taking this training just for fun, who needs to take care of her joints and who is not going to be invested in becoming Jedi Master General or anything of the sorts in the near future). Or we can talk about the expectation about fandom in general being a “teenage phase”, and thinking about everyone who still is into it actively after certain age as “immature” or “quirky” at best (hi, mom! Hi, work colleagues! Hi, students!).

Society, aging and social constructs

Of course, this has a lot to do with societal expectations. For almost 80 years, popular culture has been built around "youth" and "young people": before rock & roll, most things (music, clothes, movies, art in general) were targeted to “adults”, and you were expected to be “a functional adult” since a younger age. There was a seismic shift in the way popular culture was built when consumer culture decided to see and cater young people: trends became shorter, being “hip” was desirable, staying younger for a longer period was a nice aspiration (a good, light reading to get a deeper view around this is “Hit Makers” by Derek Thompson. It is written for marketers, but that makes it an easy historic overview and I like that). This has a lot to do with the change of our view about old people, too: while being old 100 years ago (yup, 1924 still fits the bill) made you “a respected elder” and you were expected to be wise, to know best, to be the voice of reason and an expert, nowadays not even us older people like being seen as “old” or “older”.

Frequently, culture becomes entrenched in binary oppositions. The binary opposition between “young” and “old” is… well, old! And while the opposition is sustained, the meanings around it change over time (that’s what the past paragraph was about, really). If in the 1940’s being old meant “mature, respectable, wise, responsible” and being young meant “inexperienced, immature, foolish”, after the 1950’s those meanings shifted a lot: being young became “fun, interesting, in the now and in the know, attractive”, while being old was about being “boring, dusty, passé, uninteresting, dull”.

In reality, being young can be a mix of all of these things (inexperienced and fun and foolish and attractive), and being old can be, at the same time, being responsible and wise and a little dusty and dull, because that’s life *shrugs*, and the wonder of lived experience is that, even if we simplify it, it is complex and rich and sometimes contradictory in itself: we can be old and foolish and interesting and boring, or young and dull and inexperienced and attractive. But, as we need to make “social sense” of things, simplifying them is… easier. That’s why we build stereotypes, and why we use them! We need to have a “base” of signifiers to build upon, so we usually take what we have on our environment and run with it. If you find this idea interesting, welcome to the world of cultural semiotics! *takes her Iuri Lotman picture out of her pocket and puts it on the desk*

(Iuri Lotman, people. He is my "patron saint").

Pop culture versus “real culture”

Another cultural opposition that piques my interest in this area is the notion of “pop culture”, of course. It is opposed to “real, serious culture”, the sort of thing that everyone expects "older, mature people" to enjoy. In the sixties and seventies, there were a lot of studies and writing about "high brow" and "low brow" culture, trying to keep this distinction between "things that make you familiar with the now, but have no intrinsic value" and "eternal things that cultivate your mind, soul and spirit".

Evidently, if you ask me, this is a whole load of horse manure: probably useful to fertilize other things, but with little intrinsic value on its own. My main point is not dolphins, but the idea of culture: historically, it has used to mean a lot of things; from the notion of (exactly) fertilizing something and making it grow to make it come to fruition, to the hodgepodge of practices that a social group creates when they are together and are trying to make common sense of things.

I like the latter better (that is the one I’d ascribe to if this was The Academia TM, but this is tumblr!), but another popular definition, which comes from the Illustration and has been quite prevalent, is the notion of culture as the set of cultural practices that make you a better, more intelligent, far more educated person. For example: if you want to have real culture, you have to read Shakespeare and know what a iambic pentameter is, rather than watching “10 Things I Hate About You”. You must read real books, not listen to audiobooks, and “real books” should be written by “serious authors” like (insert old white Western European or American cis men, preferably born before 1960).

Here comes the notion of “cultural canon”, grinning widely. Yup, that set of practices becomes an expectation of what and how you should experience any area of the human experience, and they become a sort of “nucleus” of the whole experience, with people playing “defense” around them and culture shifting all around and sometimes across them. This is not exclusive to “high culture”: Have you ever heard about “gatekeeping”? Yeah, same fenomenomenon (Shadwell, of course). Whenever something gets this “shape”, it becomes a “norm”, the “common” thing, the “rule” if you participate in that set of cultural practices.

As every cultural set of practices tends to generate its own “canon”, they also have a lot of practices surrounding it, which are ever changing, shifting, learning from new and old practices, and redefining what everything means in their common/shared space. For example: Neil Gaiman, my beloved, was part of the “comics” frontier when Sandman first appeared, but as he and Alan Moore (yeah, I know he did it first, but Gaiman is my study focus right now, so let me be) and other very talented and interesting people started creating fascinating stuff that hadn’t been done, and they found people who loved it, they not only redefined the world of comics, but became part of the new canon themselves. And then, Neil’s presence in the world of literature and fantasy became widespread and recognized and then revered… And then he is doing it again by adapting his own work to a streaming platform in a serialized way… I hope this explains why I’m growing an obsession with studying Neil Gaiman as an author who crosses through different media: a transmedial auteur, an anomaly in his own right. But that is not an essay for tumblr, but a thesis, one that I don’t know if I’d ever have the time or mental resources to write (being a runaway ex academic with ADHD who works on their own is hard, people). Besides, this was about aging and David Tennant, so let’s cut this tangent short and start talking about our Time Lord and Savior: David Tennant, the king of frontiers.

David Tennant as a Frontier Lord

David Tennant is another fascinating case in this sense, mostly because he is an actor who has been able to build a whole very impressive career through crossing symbolic frontiers. Through his massive filmography (161 roles just for screens, as registered in IMDb) and his stage career (I love this gifset for this exact reason), he has acted his way through almost everything, from classical Shakespeare to improvisational comedy, from procedural police drama to wacky fantasy sci-fi. This has a lot to do with his personality (he loves acting, he decided to pursue acting as a career thanks to his love for Doctor Who, but he is also smart and inquisitive) but, as it happens with a lot of “frontier figures”, it also has a lot to do with “unpredictable” circumstances: less of a strategy, more of an instinct.

David has talked many times about how his impostor syndrome made him feel, for the longest time, that he had to keep accepting roles, because you never know if there is going to be another one after. He is talented and open and curious (this is quite a good interview about his perspective), but this… anxiety? meant that he had also lower quandaries about saying “yes” to roles and projects that were “less consistent” with a typecast (which has been, for the longest time, one of the main strategies to build an acting career). Yeah, he has some defining characteristics that make a role “tennantish” (I’m not starting that tirade here, but yeah, you know that almost fixed set of quirks and bits), but he has also worked his way through many different genres, budgets, styles and complexities. And he has usually been as committed and as professional in a big budget-high stakes-great script sort of situation, as he has been in a highly chaotic-let’s see what sticks-small scale project.

That can be correlated by the way he talks about “acting advice”. “Be on time, learn your lines, treat everyone the same, never skip the lunch queue”… Acting is a job, and he treats it as such. Yeah, he looks for interesting projects anytime he can, but the “down to earth” attitude about it is, once again, not-usual, not-common: pure frontier. Then, when David talks about his own self (specially at a young age), he is pretty clear about his “outsider” or “uncool” status (this interview is fantastic), and how strangely disruptive it was to become not only recognizable, but cool and sexy and… everything else, thanks to Doctor Who. He went from living in the frontier to being put in the canon, but he is still, at heart, a person who is more comfortable not defining himself by that “expected” set of rules.

Him being a very private person, who insists on having a family life that seems, form this distance, stable, loving and absolutely un-showbiz just makes the deal (and the parasocial love and respect) easier to sustain; as does his openness to talk about social and political issues that interest him (passionately, again; against the norm for “well liked celebrity”, again). His colleagues also talk wonders about him, mostly because he is this sort of down-to-earth but also passionate about his craft and easy to work with. Again: not the “norm”, not the “rule” of being such a celebrity.

Many of his fans (should I say that I’m one? Or is it obvious at this point?) find this not only endearing, but comforting: he is a massive star, who has acted in a lot of terrific roles in huge productions… But he feels, at heart, as “one of us”. But he is, also, a well-respected thespian, a Shakespearian powerhouse, an international talent. He lives in a very authentic, but very unstereotipical frontier. And he seems happy about that and has made a career from it. Extensive kudos and all the parasocial love and the amateur-actress mad respect for that.

I should mention, just in passing, that a “natural” archetype for this characters that traverse frontiers… are tricksters. Think again about the “tennantish” characteristics. Here goes another essay I’m not writing right now.

Aging: The Next Frontier

This takes me to the original post that inspired the essay: living in a culture where the “norm” is “being young and famous is a desirable aspiration”, we have a fantastic actor, at peak of his craft, who is in the heart of middle age (past 50, nearing 55). Not only that, but he is an actor with whom at least a couple of generations have grown older: from the ones who feel him as “our contemporary” to the ones who grew up looking at him (like Ncuti Gatwa!).

David, being the frontier person he is, has been navigating this transition in a very “unconventional” way: he came back to the role that made him iconic (The Doctor, now with more trauma!), is starring in another fantasy series about middle-aged looking ethereal beings that at times is an adventure thriller, at times is a comedy of errors and at times is a romcom (having another beautiful trickster of a man as his co-star… There goes another tangent that is an essay); he is playing one of the quintessential Shakespeare roles for middle-aged men (Macbeth), and is, seemingly, having a lot of fun doing a lot of voice acting for animation roles (if you haven’t watched Duck Tales, you’re missing a whole lot of fun, really).

Traditionally, middle aged actors navigate that period of their career trying to reinforce their “still young, thus a celebrity” status (for example, doing a lot of action-packed movies and keep doing their own stunts while seducing women 20-30 years younger than them), or strengthening their “prestige thespian, so now a real culture person” position (fighting for more serious roles, going from comedy to drama, or working their way into The Classics©). Sometimes, they face the internalized societal expectation by also becoming a shipwreck in their personal life (yeah… the stereotype of “getting divorced, having an affair with someone half their age, getting another red convertible, getting in trouble…”) because we don’t have a good “map for aging responsibly” yet as a society. We have been so focused on youth, that we have forgotten how to age.

Again, switching to the personal experience. I was raised as a female-shaped person (yeah, being queer is fun), so part of the experience of growing (and then growing old) has been closely related with that concept from the female point of view. I decided, pretty early on (but not so much, probably 25 years ago), that I wasn’t going to conform to the norm… And that included aging naturally. When I found my first white hair, it was a shock (I was 21 or 22), but I had already seen my father fighting his own hair being white since forever. I decided it was a loss of time, money and effort… And the judgement from people in my generation and in the one that preceded me (my mother, my aunts) was stern and strict: “it will age you, and it will date us. You shouldn’t do that”. Men could do it, given the right age (being over 50) but women must not. Same with wrinkles and sagging and gaining weight and getting “pudgy”. But when men grew older, they needed to make a “show off” of their ability to seduce, to “still be a man”. Aging, then, was undesirable by any standard.

As me and my peers have grown older, and my hair has gotten increasingly silver, there have been women that come to me saying that “I look great” and “they wish they were as brave as me”. I would like to state in front of this jury of my peers (hi, tumblr!) that the only bravery it took was deciding, somewhere between my twenties and my thirties, that I wanted to be as myself as I possibly could, so no bravery at all, just the same lack of understanding of social rules that took me to become interested in… you guessed it, cultural semiotics. We’ve come full circle with this. Now, let’s finish talking about what it means for an aging fan to have an aging star to look up to, shall we?

David Tennant as a cultural Time Lord

I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t have chosen this role for himself (as he wouldn’t have chosen being a massive star just by playing his favorite character and being so talented and charming), but he is, as Loki would say, burdened by glorious purpose. Being “the actor of his generation”, and him crossing so many frontiers with such ease and grace, without even thinking about it too hard, just because he is a hard worker and likes to try new things and is just so good at what he does put him in the exact cultural crossroad for it.

He is not in a sudden need to “resignify himself” as anything: he has already shown his very flexible acting muscles through his very long career. He is not bounded to “keep his public image relevant”: he likes to have his personal life clearly separated from the spotlight, and being married to the brilliant and funny Georgia, who herself grew up with a famous father, so she is no stranger to staying sane and in control in the eye of media, and who manages their social media presence with a good mix of humor and well-set boundaries.

Therefore, he is in a moment where he can (and probably will) chose to do whatever he likes. And he has the public support to do so: he is prestigious and respected, but likes to make fun of himself and is not self-important; he has a lot of awards, but he is also a very likable person with whom most people in the industry enjoy working. And he is up to do a lot of things: heroes, villains, morally grey characters; romance, drama, thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, procedurals, historical fiction, classic plays, silly parts, voice acting… We are going to see him aging on screen and stage, with no playbook: the playbooks were written for people that certainly are not him. And I have some evidence to prove it.

He is starring in a groundbreaking series (yeah, Good Omens) where the protagonists are two middle-aged looking entities, full of queer relationships, written by another trickster. This series, in an on itself, is a showcase for characters that are rule breaking in many ways: in the narrative, by being hereditary enemies who are inevitably linked to one another by a loving bond that may or may not be romantic, but that has been in the making for 6,000 years; in representation, by having the protagonists being represented by a couple of middle aged actors who are “not serious” and “not action” coded, in a role where they are delivering romance, banter, intrigue, joy and a whole other range of emotions that are “not your stereotypical” middle-aged male-lead coded.

He also delivered the baton on a relay race with Doctor Who: he came back after almost 20 years, to bring back the generation who grew up watching him in the role, and deliver us into the arms of Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor, with the promise of taking a rest and working on getting better from all the trauma The Doctor has endured in 20 years Earth-time (which, as any Doctor Who fan knows, account for centuries of trauma in Doctor’s time). Not your usual Doctor Who Anniversary cameo, but one built to deliver some zeitgeisty emotional health promises that made the specials feel… healing. At least, for some of us.

Even when it wasn’t the hit series it deserved to be, his Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in 80 Days” is also a great delivery of an unconventional middle-aged protagonist, who goes from meek and scared and too worried about societal norms, to a lovely, tender, slightly awkward and daring person, with friends half his age who look at him but are also his peers (another kind of relationship that is not very frequent in media).

And, with all fearlessness, he has played a lively old duck in Duck Tales! Scrooge McDuck has never been a middle-aged character: he is, quite openly, an old gentleman. An adventurer, quirky, with a lot of spunk… but also quite clearly an elder to Huey, Dewey and Louie, and obviously older than Donald Duck (who is also not a young adult himself!). When you watch that series, and if you have the opportunity to catch any glimpse of him behind the scenes while recording the part, you can feel the joy he got from playing the part (and he has said time and again that he IS Scrooge McDuck, so it will become his “recurring bit” for the future).

Hopefully, David (and some other actors and actresses, for sure) will dare to build that new “aging publicly without making an arse of myself” playbook, and I (and I can imagine, many other fans in our middle age, but also fans that are right now leaving behind the “young adult” stage and becoming “adults” fair and square, and others who will arrive to this place at a future time in their lives, so I hope) will be there to bear witness, support, cheer… and learn from the model. Because that’s what fandom is about, but also because that’s how culture itself gets shaped and changes, continuously. And that is exciting and a little scary, and that’s why it is better if we do this together.

And I'd love to imagine diverse (in the full sense of the word) role models for this process and this playbook, too!!!

If you read all the way through this, I'm very grateful, take a cookie, have a gold star and suggest names for our aging interestingly role models on the "non-white-male" side of things!

Class dismissed!!

[deadqueernoldor]

Thinking thoughts about those from Cuivienen and how they later treated the Valar, especially after Cuivienen was destroyed.

I imagine a foundation of sorrow and a layer of betrayal and pettiness. They had promised safety. And how did it turn out? Kin of Tata and Tatie their first leaders, slain in Valinor by the Dark Hunter from which the Valar promised protection in Valinor.

And then, the War of Wrath comes and with it the destruction of Cuivienen.

If any of those were re-embodied in Aman, I wonder if they make it a point to always turn their back to Valar and Maiar. I wonder if they only speak in the tongue they had first devised all those millennia ago and spoke in Cuivienen before time and different kindreds changed the tongue, not Sindarin or Quenya from the Great Journey's time or later. I wonder if they sing songs in their ancient tongue, songs about the beauty and unsullied health of Cuivienen every time any of the Ainur are near.

I wonder if the Valar feel any shame when those who they once looked upon in wonder and love gaze back at them with indifference or disgust.

[sukimas]

(Context: The person who coined this term is a secular Jew. It is referring to said conspiracy theories obliquely, but in a mocking fashion as a shorthand for answers given by insincere/bad-faith/trolling survey participants).

[hedgehog-moss]

as a "beginner" dipping g his toes into nonfiction but as someone who otherwise enjoys pretty much any genre (and as such is open to anything, from educational to biographical), what would you recommend?

Oh, that's vast! You are forcing me to cast a wide net and give a thousand suggestions... I'm going to limit myself to 3 ideas per category so I don't go overboard.

Nature / environment: Carl Safina's Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel; Paul Kingsnorth's Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays; Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss

Science / medicine: Holly Tucker's Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, Paul Lockhart's A Mathematician's Lament (I mostly enjoyed the first part in which he rants about the current state of maths education and says maths deserves better) or Carl Sagan's Cosmos (if I write "or" between two book recs it only counts as one)

Language: I liked Arika Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages so much that I won't even nominate anyone else in this category. ... But I'll make up for it by allowing myself additional titles in the next one:

Politics / society / culture: Jodi Kantor's She Said, Frederik & Bastian Obermayer's The Panama Papers, Caroline Criado-Pérez's Invisible Women, Patrick Keefe's Empire of Pain, Michael Meyer's The Last Days of Old Beijing, Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

History: I'm realising that everything that comes to mind is horribly bleak: Jack London's The People of the Abyss, Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time, Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl... I've read some fun historical nonfiction in French but right now the only thing I can think of in English that's not depressing is Matthew Goodman's The Sun and the Moon, the subtitle of which is: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York.

About literature: Wisława Szymborska's Nonrequired Reading, Alexandra Johnson's The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life, Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night.

(I was going to include a philosophy section but I realised I p much exclusively read philosophy in French or Spanish, and it's usually recent stuff that's not been translated... But if you've never read philosophy I recommend Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, it's a novel about the history of philosophy so it straddles the line between fiction and nonfiction)

Biographies / memoirs: that's the majority of the nonfiction I read so it could be a whole post, but some I've really enjoyed are: Beryl Markham's West with the Night; Gerald Durrell's My Family & Other Animals; Fatema Mernissi's Dreams of Trespass, Ryszard Kapuściński's Travels with Herodotus, Mary S. Lovell's The Sisters (about the six Mitford sisters; if you enjoy it I'd recommend reading their correspondence next—Charlotte Mosley's "The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters")

Miscellaneous: Emmanuel Carrère's The Adversary; Alexandra Horowitz's On Looking. Currently I'm reading Joan Druett's Island of the Lost because it's nice to relativise your own problems in life by reminding yourself that at least you're not stuck on a subantarctic island having to bludgeon sea lions and eat your own crewmates for survival.

[alltheirdamn]

Killing Me Softly | (Joel Miller x teacher!f!reader)

Chap. 1 : Your Name

Series Summary: You've nursed a broken heart for two years. ‘Love’ felt like a foreign term, but maybe it wasn’t so far out of reach. Chap. 1 Summary: When you catch the eye of your students' dad at a school dance, he starts showing up everywhere. Rating: 18+ MDNI (for the future smut) Word Count: 6.8k Warnings: pre-outbreak AU, age gap (joel is 36 reader is 27), no smut (yet), sexual tension, flirting, pining, mentions of alcohol, language, angst, reader's last name is 'Smith' for no other purpose than the fact she is a teacher A/N: This will definitely be a slow-burn fic, so please hang tight!! Tropes include: second chance at love, strangers to lovers, secret relationship, etc. I'm actually so excited about this one, so I hope you guys stick around to see where it goes :')

Masterlist

PROLOGUE

You never thought you’d be the girl sitting at the steps of an abandoned altar with your wedding dress covered in mud from the rain.

 Just minutes before you were supposed to take your first steps down the aisle, your fiancé fled. You watched the blur of his suit in the distance as he ran through the rain and left your family and friends in shock. Motionless at the back of the rows of chairs, you dropped your bouquet and stood in heartbreaking silence as the cords of the violins faded into the air. Your parents and siblings swarmed around you, trying to break the paralysis that kept your eyes locked on the vacant spot under the archway and steps of what would have been the place you said your vows. You still had them in your hand; the words scribbled neatly on a folded paper torn from your journal. You’d never get the chance to say those words aloud; he never would have deserved them, anyway. 

The ring sat heavily on your finger now as you watched it glisten under the pelting rain. Your dress clung to your body in layers of silk and lace, a taunting reminder of who you had become for a man unworthy of your love and devotion. 

Five years together, all stripped away in a matter of minutes. 

You’d never love again. 

“Everyone’s gotta do it,” Maria sighed as she stood at the student drop-off with you.

By ‘it,’ she meant chaperoning the father-daughter dance later in the week, which you seriously wanted no part of. You had been through enough school dances in your three years working at the middle school, and you were tired of watching pre-teens grinding on each other to god-awful music. You had better things to do with your Friday nights, like sitting on the couch with a pint of ice cream and a horror movie playing in the background—you’d sworn off rom-coms long ago.

“Yeah, I know,” you grumbled, waving another line of kids across the road. 

You watched as they trudged across the crosswalk with their backpacks slung over their shoulders, eyes bright and broad at the realization school was over for the day. If only they were that chipper in class, maybe you’d have an easier time teaching them how to write three-point essays. 

Maria chirped goodbye to each one as they passed, her cheeks pinched with a fake smile only you could recognize. You knew she loved the kids but loved the final school bell even more. You, on the other hand, hated it. The end of school was just another reminder that you’d go back to an empty home and an empty life. 

Two years had passed since Bennett ran from your wedding ceremony—two years without closure or an answer. By the time you had pieced yourself together and returned home from the would-have-been ceremony, his things were gone, and the house filled with the ghost of his presence. Your in-laws went radio silent, avoiding all calls and emails from you until they eventually moved out of state and changed numbers. The hours leading up to the ceremony would forever be a mystery as to why he left, and you would spend the rest of your life fighting for an answer as to why you weren’t good enough to love. 

Dragging you from your thoughts, Maria bumped you with her hip, giving you a concerned look. You shook away the memories and returned her stare with a fake smile you had mastered over the last two years. You couldn’t even remember the last time you had genuinely smiled or laughed without feeling the force of a facade washing over you. Concealing the pain of it all made it easier; maybe if you believed you were okay, you’d start feeling okay. But you never did. Not even the countless hours of therapy had helped reconcile the person you once were. Bennett had left and taken every vulnerable part of you with him, leaving nothing but a raw and broken shell in his wake. 

“You’re doing it again,” Maria scolded. 

“Doing what?” You asked, already aware of the answer.

“Wallowing. You really should get back out there again.”

You focused on the next grouping of kids setting out to cross the street, your hand instinctively coming up to hold the passing cars at a standstill. You plastered on a fake smile as they waved goodbye to you, and you glanced back at Maria once they finally stepped foot on the next sidewalk.

“I’m not interested,” you stated. “I’m fine on my own.”

Her eyebrow lifted as if challenging your blasé response. Your answer always remained the same, yet Maria relentlessly attempted to change your mind.

“You’ve got to at least try. What if there’s already someone out there just waiting for you?”

“Maria, I promise no one is waiting for me.”

“I wish you’d just give it a shot. You deserve to be happy.”

You had heard that phrase often over the last couple of years; a pitying tone always accompanied the words. People loved to soothe you with words that held no weight or purpose. You learned to nod along to their sympathies and turn a deaf ear to their suggestions of what you deserved. 

The final round of kids made their way toward the line of parents waiting in their cars, and you followed Maria back to your classrooms to clean up before leaving for the day. Her words stuck with you on the quiet drive home; the radio wasn’t enough to drown out that taunting voice in your head reminding you that you’d never be enough. 

Your single-story house was nestled into an older neighborhood of Austin, only a handful of miles from the middle school. You’d argue that the house was the best thing to come out of the failed engagement; its personality stood firm against the other houses with a vibrant shade of blue painted over its wooden panels and wrap-around porch. You spent the last few months sprucing up the front yard, planting rose bushes and trees to liven up the house. It hadn’t fixed all your problems but pacified them temporarily as you dirtied your hands in the soil. 

It became second nature to shut your garage immediately after putting your car in park. You didn’t want the typical neighborly interactions or shallow conversations. You were content with living between closed doors and drawn curtains. The less of an interaction with the world, the better. 

Dropping your purse and work bag on the kitchen counter, you sunk onto a barstool, staring blankly at the fridge and knowing all too well there was hardly anything inside it. You’d settle for another frozen meal and glass of wine, a typical meal these days to satisfy a hunger you no longer had. Despite the colorful kitchen cabinets, the mustard yellow couch in the living room, and the obscure wallpaper…your life was dull. How could one person suck out all the energy from another human being? How could pain last this long? 

You stabbed a fork into the TV dinner meal before you and wondered if you’d ever feel happy again. 

**

You managed to survive another week of teaching, only to now be standing in the shadows of the school gymnasium, nursing an overly sweet fruit punch. The PTA had done a decent job of turning the space into a somewhat realistic dance floor: string lights hung corner to corner of the ceiling, a DJ booth in the center of the basketball court, and colorful balloons circled the air. You spotted a few of your students dancing with their fathers, their eyes squeezed shut from their too-wide smiles and bubbling laughter. A foreign ache in your chest reminded you how you would have had a father-daughter dance at your wedding. Your father even took it upon himself to brush up on dance lessons to sway you across the floor to some overly emotional song. As corny as it was, you had been looking forward to that moment throughout your engagement. 

“Look who got all dolled up!” Maria hollered as she strolled over, fruit punch in hand.

“I would hardly call this dolled up,” you said, tugging at the hem of your dress.

You only had a handful of dresses in your closet, this particular one being a flowy black cocktail dress with a halter top and ruffled skirt. It was barely passing the school dress code, so you decided to pair it with a low kitten heel to try and deter the admin’s scrutiny. You did, however, spend a little more time than usual on your makeup and hair, hoping if you looked pretty, then maybe you’d feel it, too.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Maria sighed.

“You look great,” you said, sidestepping her lecture.

Maria had chosen a plum floor-length maxi dress decorated with embroidered blue flowers. Her curly hair was pinned in a bun, and several sparkly barrettes were clipped to the side. Her makeup was no different from usual: a rosy red lip and simple mascara with a hint of blush on her cheeks. 

“Really, Maria. You do.”

“Well, thank you,” she blushed, looking back toward the room full of bodies dancing.

Your eyes followed hers, settling on the duos as they swayed to a slow song. Every father was dressed up in some sort of button-up or the occasional suit except for one—the same one who happened to be twirling around your student, Sarah Miller. You nudged Maria, pointing secretly at them with a questioning glance.

“Is that her dad?” You asked.

He wore a basic cotton T-shirt, jeans, and dirty work boots. There was barely any thought behind his appearance as if he had rolled up to the school right after a long shift at work, forgoing any effort or care. Some part of you hated him for it. The least he could do was get dressed up for a silly school dance, especially when Sarah wore a lavender tulle dress that complimented her olive skin tone. 

“Yup,” Maria elongated the word. “That’s Joel Miller.”

“Sure looks like he doesn’t care to be here,” you grumbled.

Maria barked a laugh, looking at you through narrowed eyes.

“As opposed to you?” She questioned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you bitching about this dance all week long?”

“Well, at least I put some effort into my looks tonight,” you defended.

You glanced back at Sarah, seeing her father twirl her one last time. You caught a glimpse of his face for the first time in the flow of his movements. Messy dark curls framed his head, curling in every which way as if he’d run his hand through them a million times. Even from a distance, you could see the patchy beard and short mustache covering the lower half of his face, alongside the several creases around his eyes as he smiled.  And his eyes… They looked like big brown saucers under the lights, reflecting a genuine softness as he watched his daughter dance. 

And then they snapped up to meet your gaze through the crowd as if you had silently called out to him. Everything slowed around you for a moment as he studied you from afar, his eyes drifting down your body and back up with a hint of a smile teasing his lips. A rush of heat crawled up your neck, and you broke the eye contact between you. Maria cleared her throat beside you, tearing you away from the man holding your sincere interest. 

“What was that?” Maria chirped. 

You shook your head, glancing between her curious face and the dancefloor. Joel had since moved on, steering Sarah toward the refreshment table. He never once looked back at you, which left you unexplainably disappointed. For a moment in time, someone looked at you and saw you. 

“I–I don’t know,” you stuttered. “Probably nothing.”

“It looked like something.”

You turned to face Maria, a scowl twisting up your lips entirely. You were tired of her pushing nonexistent things on you, and that’s what this was— nonexistent. Whatever moment between you and Joel had gone as quickly as it came. You were done with the night and standing among so many cheerful people. You couldn’t stand it any longer. 

“I think I’m going to take off,” you announced, placing your half-drunk fruit punch on the table behind you. 

Maria was defeated, knowing you'd still leave no matter what she said. Stalking out of the gymnasium, you grabbed your purse from the teacher's booth and booked it to your car with your heels in your hands. You carefully walked along the sidewalk toward your car, catching a conversation drifting through the wind between the other vehicles. 

“...Dad, you promised we’d watch movies tomorrow!”

“I know, sweetheart, but Uncle Tommy needs help on the job sight.”

You hid between two cars, listening to their voices bounce back and forth. It wasn’t until you peeked out to see the two figures that you realized it was Sarah and her father, Joel. For fucks sake. You tiptoed around the car's bumper beside you, attempting to make a getaway before either of them saw you. You must have done a terrible job because Sarah called your name as you edged closer to your car.

“Miss Smith!”

“Shit,” you muttered to yourself. 

With your purse in one hand and heels in the other, you turned toward them with your rehearsed fake smile. Sarah was standing beside her dad—Joel—a small smile shining up at you. You knew her usual upbeat personality in class, always laughing and joking with other kids. She was an A+ student, too, and her work showcased her smartness. But in her father's shadow, a distinct sadness clouded her eyes. 

“Hello, Sarah! How did you like the dance?” You asked. 

“It was really fun,” she grinned, forcing her smile wider. You saw through it. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Joel cleared his throat, extending a large hand toward you. You blinked at his open palm, afraid of making that same startling eye contact as you had in the gymnasium. Shuffling your purse into your other hand, you took his into yours, focusing on the warmth of his grip crawling up your skin. His fingers dwarfed your own, tightening around your hand until you were forced to look up finally. 

“S’nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Smith,” he said, his thick Southern accent shining through.

“Miss Smith,” you corrected. It was hard to hide the bitterness in the statement. 

“Miss Smith,” he echoed. “I’m Joel, Sarah’s dad.”

His eyes still hadn’t left yours, their piercing stare making you shiver despite the September humidity. You pulled your hand away, overly aware of how his fingers lingered a moment too long. Shifting your weight from one leg to another, you were starting to feel the asphalt dig into the soles of your feet. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Miller,” you replied.

“Joel,” he insisted.

You nodded politely, giving him another faltering smile. Hauling your purse over your shoulder, you said a soft goodbye to them and bolted to your car. In the confines of the driver's seat, you rested your head against the wheel, inhaling deeply as you steadied the nerves inside your body. Why did such a simple interaction light up your body with emotions you had spent so long suppressing? And why did Joel’s smile haunt you even when your eyes were shut?

Forcing your keys into the ignition, you tore out of the school parking lot and back to the confines of your tiny blue home. 

The weekends were usually filled with nothing more than grading papers and lesson planning. The coffee beside you on the kitchen counter had gone cold hours ago as the morning sunlight faded into the afternoon. Through tired eyes, you glanced up at the oven clock: 2 pm. You needed a break from reading through piles of essays, and your fridge desperately required replenishing. Grabbing your keys off the counter, you forfeited any plans of changing out of your sweat set and headed to the supermarket.

The packed parking lot and crowded store were daunting reminders of why you typically decided to leave your fridge vacant. But as you pushed your shopping cart down each aisle, you had no choice but to comply with your basic human needs and stock up on miscellaneous food you would want throughout the week. Rounding down the next aisle, your eyes caught on a tall figure standing in front of the bakery section, his face scrutinizing every cake in the display case. Shit. 

You tried—and failed—to maneuver your way into the next aisle, somehow crashing into an older woman’s cart, forcing her carton of eggs to fall and smash onto the linoleum floor.

“Dammit,” you hissed, crouching down to try and help them clean up the shattered eggshells.

“S’alright, sweetheart,” she assured. “I’ll just holler for a worker to come clean it up.”

“No, I—I can help,” you stammered, fingers still running over the broken yolks spreading across the floor.

“Miss Smith?” You heard a deep voice above you.

Your head snapped up to see Joel standing above you; his forehead creased with concern. The woman you had crashed into was already down the next aisle looking for a store employee, leaving you alone with a mess you had caused. Joel crouched beside you, his hands folding over yours to slow your frantic cleaning.

“It’s alright, I got it!” You snapped, pulling your hands back.

“Just tryna’ help,” he said. “That’s all.”

“It’s my fault. I can fix it.” 

You had said those words to yourself many times before, and never once did they prove true. 

“Someone will come and clean this up; you ain’t gotta do all that,” Joel said softly. “C’mon.”

He offered a hand, which you took reluctantly, leaving you both standing awkwardly in front of the mess. You shifted your gaze downward, too afraid to meet those deep brown eyes that had plagued you the night before. 

“Hey,” Joel said in a soft tone. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you mumbled.

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

You huffed a sigh, gripping the handles of your cart to start moving. Today was going downhill rapidly, and you only wanted to go home and hole yourself away…like you always did.

“I, uh, was tryna’ pick out a birthday cake,” he rambled. “S’my birthday tomorrow, and Sarah wants to make sure I have a cake, ya’know? Any ideas on what she might like? I’m not sure if y’all ever have parties at school with sweets and all that.”

Your eyes snapped to his, a scowl forming on your face. Sarah’s dad was asking you what she liked? He was proving to be worse and worse by the second. But you were her teacher and needed to hold your tongue.

“I’m sure she’ll enjoy anything,” you said, a tight smile forming. “Happy birthday, Mr. Miller.”

His eyebrows furrowed together, clearly seeing through the mask you put on. It was infuriating how easily he had wove his way through your bloodstream, even in just twenty-four hours. 

“Joel,” he insisted. “You don’t need to do all that formal stuff.”

“I kind of do,” you laughed. “You’re my students’ father; that’s how I’m supposed to address you.”

“S’all I’m sayin’ is that you’re free to call me Joel. No harm in it.”

There was a lot of harm in it. 

You didn’t know what else to say, so you dipped your head to say goodbye and pushed your cart past him. You weren’t being the kindest nor the most respectful person, but your anger was at a low simmer. Any longer around him, and you might explode. You weren’t used to someone getting under your skin like he was. And the worst part was that he wasn’t even trying. You couldn’t understand why you reacted so strongly. 

“Miss Smith!” Joel called, catching up as you moved down the next aisle.

You inhaled and stopped walking, mustering another fake smile to appease him. He gripped the side of your cart with a large hand, a simple gesture to keep you firmly in place. Clearly, he decided when the conversation was over.

“Yes, Mr. Miller?”

“Did I do somethin’ to upset you? ‘Cause I swear, I didn’t mean anything inappropriate by what I said back there. 

“No, no, you’re fine,” you lied. “Just having a bad day, that's all.” That wasn’t a lie.

Joel ran a hand over his neck, studying you quietly for a moment. Something about the atmosphere around him was intoxicating and so fucking dangerous. 

“Well, I’m sorry ‘bout that. Guess I was just tryna’ make small talk, and clearly, I ain’t doin’ a good job.”

“It’s fine—no need for apologies. I hope the cake and birthday celebration go well. I’m sure Sarah will tell me all about it on Monday.”

His eyes shifted over you again, lingering on your lips, set in a firm smile. You tried your best to hide the shiver that ran up your back as he drank you in. 

“Y’probably think I’m a terrible dad, huh?” He sighed.

“What?” You blinked away the thoughts swarming your head.

“I mean, I know you probably heard us arguin’ last night, and I’m out here asking her teacher what her favorite kind of cake is. You ain’t gotta be polite about it. I know I’m not doin’ the best job,” he confessed.

“Mr. Miller, I don’t think that at all. I just think maybe asking your wife would be more helpful than asking me.”

That garnered a laugh from him, a genuine and sincere laugh.

“Never had a wife to begin with. Sarah’s mom left us when she was only a year old,” he explained. “Been doin’ it all on my own.”

“Oh.” Dammit, you really were a bitch. 

“Trust me, I get it. I could do a better job, bein’ a dad and all that. I’m tryin’.”

“I think you’re doing just fine,” you said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know.”

He brushed it off, replacing the sad look cresting his eyes with a lopsided grin. You wanted to hate it, but your body reacted traitorously. You felt the softness in his gaze crawl over you, slowly replacing the anger coursing through your veins with something else…something you hadn’t felt in a long time. No one had looked at you that way since—well, since Bennett. Even if Joel was only being friendly, you were drawn to the charm he exuded. Dangerous, you reminded yourself.

“Anyway,” he continued. “I won’t hold ya’ up any longer. I hope your day gets better, Miss Smith.”

“Thank you,” you replied. “And Happy birthday, again.”

Joel’s eyes settled on your lips again as you talked, and you felt your cheeks warm under his gaze. His eyes flicked back up to yours, a flash of something behind them, and you were ready to bolt. He muttered a thank you and left you standing in a vacant aisle, your hands still covered in egg yolks and your mind reeling.

It was hard to maintain your good mood once Monday rolled around. Seeing Sarah sitting in class was an unwelcome reminder of your interaction with Joel on Saturday, and you had to refrain from overstepping boundaries and asking about his birthday. She didn’t need to know you cared, even though you struggled not to care. You wondered what kind of cake he decided on, how old he turned if he blushed when she sang Happy Birthday. Every thought burned a hole in your head that you tried to patch up and forget. 

The final bell rang for the day, and the kids began to pack up in a rush. You straightened out the papers lining your desk, avoiding eye contact with Sarah as she slung her backpack over her shoulders and lined up to leave. Grabbing your whistle and bottle of water, you followed them toward the front gates, taking your usual place alongside Maria—who was overly chipper for a Monday.

“Soooo,” she prodded. “How was your weekend?”

“Uneventful,” you lied, walking with her to the crosswalk. 

“You really need to go out and have fun! You’re young, and you need to enjoy your 20s!” She exasperated. 

“Maria, I’m 27,” you groaned. “My 20s are practically over.”

She folded her arms over her chest, leveling you with a heavy glare. Maria was in her late 40’s and clearly exuded a motherly-type attitude. You shifted your focus to the kids crossing the road, watching as they reunited with their parents. 

“We go out on Wednesdays for Happy Hour! Join us this week,” she suggested.

“I don’t know,” you sighed.

“Come on!” Maria pressed. “If you hate it, I’ll never ask you to go out with us again.”

There was no point in arguing with her, so you relented and agreed to one night out. A few drinks and hours of mindless conversation could be good for you. It would be better than sitting in front of the TV with a bland meal and another glass of wine.

You managed to evade all thoughts of Joel somehow the next two days, putting all your time and energy into prepping your students for their first test of the year. Lesson planning and preparation took up your free period and late evenings, leaving you little room to think about those brown eyes and disarming smile. It was Wednesday evening, and you were knee-deep in your closet, trying to find an outfit for Happy Hour. You had changed at least five times, discarding every top and skirt onto your bedroom floor. Eventually, you gave up, settling on tight jeans, a flowy red blouse, and black flats. You left your hair in wavy curls over your shoulders and simple makeup to balance everything out. 

The group took their Happy Hour rituals to a local dive bar on the outskirts of town, a row of motorcycles and trucks lining the entrance. You felt a bit out of place walking into a smoke-hazed bar, with the patron's wandering eyes crawling over you, but you quickly picked out the huddle of teachers in the corner laughing over a round of beers. They welcomed you with bright smiles and hellos, offering to buy your first drink. After about an hour and a few drinks, you felt warm and far more relaxed. Conversations about quarterly goals and admin meetings flowed over the table, each teacher complaining about something. You chimed in when necessary, keeping quiet when you had nothing to contribute. You were on your fourth beer when the girls around you started whispering low about a group of men entering the bar. You stole a peek over your shoulder, eyes settling on the last person you wanted to see. 

Joel Miller.

He had on his usual simple work attire, the fabric of his cotton shirt stretched out over his broad chest. His neck was tanned, most likely from working outdoors, and his hair was just as unruly as you remembered. The man beside him, shorter but with similar features, clapped Joel on the back and steered him towards the bar. You lowered your head, taking a longer gulp of your drink to try and steady your nerves. Of all fucking places, he had to be here. 

“He’s just so handsome, isn’t he?” Maria nudged you, tossing back a look towards Joel.

You shrugged, feigning disinterest. Joel was handsome, but no one needed to know how you felt. Because what you felt was very, very confusing. 

“He’s my students’ father, Maria.”

She rolled her eyes, swirling the contents of her drinks before taking a sip. 

“Okay, and? There’s nothing inappropriate about dating a student’s parent.”

“Yes, there is,” you snapped. “And I’m not even considering dating him.”

“But you think he’s attractive,” she stated.

You didn’t want to respond to that, knowing the warmth in your cheeks was already enough of a giveaway. If you shrunk far enough into yourself, you might go unrecognized the rest of the night.

Maria thankfully dropped the subject, returning to the conversation around the table. After another hour, the ladies started to trickle out of the bar and home for the night. You, on the other hand, still had to wait a bit longer until the alcohol phased out of your body. Which meant you were sitting alone in the same space as Joel. You could feel his eyes on your back the longer you sat there, and to your detriment, decided to steal a glance over your shoulder. Joel’s eyes raked over your body, returning your stare with a soft, welcoming smile. Shit.

You watched as he slipped off the barstool, waltzing towards you with a beer clasped in his large hand. You tried so hard not to notice his thick fingers wrapped around the bottle, and you most definitely tried not to think of what his fingers would feel like inside—

“Miss Smith,” he greeted, silencing your awful thoughts.

“Mr. Miller,” you said.

“Are all these formalities necessary in a bar?” he teased. 

“A couple of drinks won’t change my mind.”

Joel slid into the seat beside you without an invitation, his arm brushing against yours as he settled into the stool. It was instinct to flinch away, afraid of the reaction his touch would cause to your body. 

“What will change your mind?” he pressed, keeping a steady gaze on you.

“Nothing,” you shrugged, deciding to change the subject. “How was your birthday?”

Joel ran a hand through his hair, that stupid lopsided grin forming on his lips. 

“Can’t say I love gettin’ old, but celebratin’ was sure nice.”

“And how old are you, Mr. Miller?”

“Ripe age of thirty-six, Miss Smith,” he grinned. 

“What cake did you choose?” you asked, watching him take a long sip of his beer. 

“Vanilla. Everyone’s gotta love vanilla, right?” 

Was he… flirting with you? 

You’d blame your following response on the beers coursing through your bloodstream, but truthfully, you just wanted to play along, even only for a moment. 

“Hmm, I don’t know. I don’t always love vanilla, Mr. Miller.”

Joel’s eyes darkened, falling to your lips as you took another drink. It was bold and stupid of you to say that, but at this point, you didn’t care. 

“What other flavors do you like?” 

He leaned forward in his chair, his thigh pressing against yours. The heat of his body and the smell of smoke on his clothes was a dangerous combination for your self-restraint.  

“I have a few guilty pleasure flavors,” you smirked.

Joel’s hand damn near crushed the bottle when you said those words, his entire body tensing beside you. You couldn’t care at that moment about how you spoke; the drinks started speaking for themselves. You hadn’t dared to flirt with a man since Bennett left, too afraid of what falling in love again might do to you. But, for some reason, flirting with Joel felt so simple. He was older than you, and maybe that piqued your interest, knowing he was far more mature than anyone else you had considered. 

“Indulge me, Miss Smith,” he whispered. 

“I think I’ll leave it a mystery,” you whispered in return. “I’ve already said too much as it is.”

“I reckon you ain’t said enough,” he countered. 

Heat flared through your neck and face as he leaned in closer, his face only inches from yours. This had gone too far. You had broken any rules you had previously set in place, and now you were dancing on a fragile line between professionalism and indecency. 

Glancing at the clock above the bar, you watched as the hands ticked closer to midnight. Just like in the fairytales, your time was up. Back to reality. 

“It’s getting late,” you started. “I should get home.”

Joel’s demeanor shifted, and his grin faltered as he watched you rise from the barstool. He brushed his hand over your arm, barring you from walking away. 

“Not real sure if you should be drivin’ home yet, Miss Smith. Y’had a few drinks tonight,” Joel protested.

“How do you know? Were you watching me?”

“Gotta make sure my daughter's teacher is safe. Who else’s gonna make sure she gets straight A’s?” 

He was trying to make light of the situation, but you knew better. You knew he had been watching you since he had arrived; his attention had never been on his group of friends. 

“I assure you, I’m fine,” you argued. “You go enjoy your night with your friends, Mr. Miller.”

Joel’s brows furrowed as he considered you. His hand still lingered on your arm, thick fingers flexing against your skin. You glanced between his hand and his eyes, trying to make sense of his intentions. This was far past a coincidental run-in; this was a strange desire out of reach. 

“Can I drive you home at least?” He asked. 

“I’m okay. Thank you, though.”

“Can I at least drive behind you to make sure you make it alright?” He offered.

You looked back toward the bar, seeing the man he walked in with staring at you with an apparent scowl.

“I don’t think that’s fair to your friend,” you said.

Joel peered around you and huffed loudly. 

“That’s my brother, Tommy. S’all good, he’s probably ready to hit the road, too.”

“He doesn’t look too happy.”

“He’s fine,” Joel grumbled.

Tommy noticed you both staring at him and decided to join the mix. He walked up with a grin despite the scowl he had just worn and extended his hand to you.

“I’m Tommy. Joel’s brother.”

“Hi, I’m Sarah’s teacher.” You gave him a quick shake and tried to sidestep to leave.

“Wait!” Joel called out.

“I’m okay, Mr. Miller,” you tossed over your shoulder. “Be safe tonight.”

You made a beeline for the door, hoping to escape him before he reeled you back in. You let yourself float in his atmosphere for too long, testing the waters you knew were off-limits. There was still an alcohol-induced haze lingering in your head, but the sooner you could leave, the better. Tomorrow would come with a headache and a post-drunken clarity to put you back on the right track. You needed to steer clear of Joel before you slipped up and allowed another man inside the walls you built. 

You attempted to retrieve your keys from your purse, only to fumble them out of your hands and onto the dirt ground of the parking lot. 

“Fuck,” you groaned.

As you bent to pick them up, footsteps crunching on the ground grew closer. You already knew who it was.

“Miss Smith,” Joel’s voice sounded pained. 

“I’m fine!” you shouted, whipping your head around to find him nearly toe-to-toe with you. 

The moonlight above you illuminated his brown eyes, which darkened the longer he looked down at you. You shrunk away, letting your body hit the driver's side of your door while Joel stepped closer. 

“Please. You shouldn’t be drivin’ right now. Lettin’ you leave like this wouldn’t be right of me.”

Your only focus was on his lips as he talked. The plushness of his lips enticed you, leaving you imagining how soft they’d feel pressed against yours. Your control was slipping, and the alcohol was pulsing faster in your veins. 

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” You wondered aloud. 

Joel looked at you like he knew the layers of the question. He knew what battle you were fighting inside and saw the fear plastered on your face.

“No,” he whispered softly.

Your eyes bounced between his eyes and his lips, trying to grasp the moment's weight. You needed to be firm and say no; your future self would thank you for it. Gripping your keys, you exhaled and turned towards your car door. 

“Have a good night, Mr. Miller,” you tossed over your shoulder. 

The warmth of his body pressed against your back, the smell of smoke and liquor wrapping around you and enveloping you in a cocoon of temptation. Joel’s hands reached around to grab your keys from your shaking hand, dangling them between you and the car. 

“M’taking you home, Miss Smith. Ain’t gonna argue anymore,” he said as his mouth fell to the shell of your ear. 

“I’m—.”

“Don’t,” he interjected. “Go to my truck.”

He had the exact tone you did when you reprimanded your students, but the deep rasp of his accent made it all the more inviting. You didn’t want to listen to his demands, but you were getting nowhere successfully. Joel sidestepped to free you of the cage he had you in, watching you intently as you sulked to his truck. It wasn’t hard to know which one it was; only a few cars were left, and the truck exuded the same masculinity as the owner. 

“What about my car?” You protested, folding your arms across your body as you leaned against the truck. 

“I’ll give Tommy the keys,” he said. “He’ll drive it behind us.”

You were about to ramble another slew of protests when Joel yanked the passenger side door open and tilted his head toward the interior. 

“Get in.”

His tone left little room for arguing, so you did as he said without another word. Despite the anger radiating off his body, Joel shut the door softly before heading back into the bar. 

You fidgeted with the seatbelt, the press of it against your chest not strong enough to stabilize the rhythm of your heartbeat. You were in his truck, meaning you’d be alone with him for the next several minutes. It was enough to force a roll of nausea through your stomach. Leaning your head against the window, you watched him reemerge from the bar with Tommy in tow. There was a clear expression of annoyance etched on Tommy’s face, all at the cost of your own stubbornness. 

Joel tossed him the keys to your car before rounding the truck's hood and climbing into the driver’s seat. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, so you kept your eyes on the road as it blurred past with each passing mile. 

“Where do you live?” he asked, passing through another vacant green light. 

You rambled off your address, still keeping your gaze steady on the streetlights as they passed by your window. He didn’t attempt to make small talk after that, and the silence settled onto you like a heavy blanket. Your control of consciousness was slipping the longer you sat beside him, but you willed yourself awake. The streets started to become familiar, and you shifted in your seat. Taking a risk, you looked at Joel, finding him white-knuckling the wheel with his jaw clenched. 

“I’m sorry,” you muttered. “I—I don’t go out and drink normally. I should have just stayed home tonight.”

“S’okay,” he said, glancing at you. “Just don’t get why you’re so stubborn about askin’ for help. First at the supermarket and now at the bar. I don’t get it.”

A rush of tears stung your eyes, and you quickly looked away, trying to blink them back before he noticed. Joel’s hand fell onto your thigh, sending a jolt of shock through your body. You wanted to shy away from it, but there was no use in fighting at this point; you were already failing miserably. 

“Hey,” he prodded. “Shit, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, alright?”

You swiped away the tears running from your eyes, schooling your emotions back into a state of numbness. Your little blue house came into view, and you pointed a tired finger toward it to guide him in the right direction. 

“This is me,” you sniffled. 

“Big ol’ house, Miss Smith. Y’live here alone?”

“Yeah,” you exhaled. “Thanks for the ride, Mr. Miller.”

“I really wish you’d stop callin’ me that,” he sighed, parking his car at your home's fence.

“It’s all formalities.”

“Yeah, I know. I just think after tonight, we’re far past all them formalities and shit.”

Your hand lingered on the door handle as you took one last look at him. Joel’s eyes looked over you with a softness you didn’t deserve. You deserve to be happy. Maria’s words rang out in your head the longer you stared at him. ‘Happy’ was a foreign word to you now, out of reach and out of your control.

“Can I just know one thing?” He asked. 

You nodded, your fingers wrapped around the door handle.

“What’s your name?”

Blame the alcohol…blame your vulnerability…but you told him.

[minhosimthings]

Prideful

Synopsis: You never thought that Lee Heeseung, the man who had proven you wrong in the subject you were best at, would be fucking you on the classroom floor, but here you were.

Pairings: Heeseung × fem!reader, sort of enemies hate sex, includes Sunoo from Enha, and Soojin

Warnings: Smut with plot in the beginning, MINORS DNI, fluffy in the beginning, mention of food, degradation, praise, fingering, oral (f receiving), sex on the floor, unprotected sex (not for you bubs), rough sex, overstimulation, swearing, Heeseung calls reader princess and doll, open ending my babies have fun with that

A/N: idea came into my brain and I thought I'd forget about it and just added it to my wip list but then I was like NOPE IMMA WRITE THIS SHIT. So this makes my third smut for Heeseung (idk why I'm writing only smut for him) enjoy it y'all

Jane Austen once wrote an entire fanfic about enemies to lovers, slow burn, and she thought no one would notice. Well almost no one. Nothing ever gets out of the eyes and pens of literature majors does it? Especially not out of hardcore Jane Austen fans like yourself.

You must have analysed that godforsaken piece of literature atleast a thousand times since you recieved it as a gift for your birthday. And every single time, you failed to understand how such a love could be possible. I mean come on, a man and woman who hate each other, falling in love with each other? Either Jane Austen must have been a reincarnation of Aphrodite, or a madwoman who still kept faith in love.

Your heart nearly exploded when your professor had assigned a full fledged essay-presentation, costing half your grade on Pride and Prejudice. "Explore your opinion!" She had called out cheerfully, "Tell me what your heart truly feels about this beautiful piece and I'll give you a full half grade and no assignments for the rest of the semester." The class gasped in excitement at her words as you pretended to be interested. Internally, you were groaning. Wasting half of your night to make a presentation about a book you hold no love for? The universe really was against you. You picked your books up dejectedly and walked towards the entrance, shoulders hunched and music at a higher level of noise than it should have been at.

"Oh shit!" You cursed, dropping your books at the sudden interruption. A flurry of blue wool flooded in your face, as you leaned down quickly to pick up your fallen books and phone. "I'm so sorry." You apologised not looking up at whoever you crashed into. "It's alright." A voice responded back, and you looked up to see him. Lee Heeseung. You had seen him a few times in class, heard him actually. With his pristine glasses, and his woolen sweaters, he was the definition of a movie nerd. He was actually smart, you had to admit, always quick to respond to the questions that you had no idea about. Best in the class after you, according to your professor. Although his choice of literature slightly weirded you out. You often spotted him sprawled out under a tree, holding Pride and Prejudice to his nose, deeply engrossed in taking in each word.

"Is that The Neighborhood you're listening to?" Heeseung asked, as he handed you your phone, which he had picked up before you had the chance to. "Do you have an ear for them?" You asked, taking the phone from him. His hands felt soft, like the first snow when you were eight. Heeseung shook his and chuckled. "I'm more of a Arctic Monkeys person." You smiled awkwardly and shuffled your feet. "To each his own then."

"Macbeth." Heeseung said, before you could escape from the conversation. "I'm sorry?" You questioned, confused at his sudden outburst. "That line's from Macbeth." Heeseung sent another smile your way, pushing his glasses up from his nose, "Polonius says it, 'To each his own'." You felt a pang of jealousy hit your chest. You didn't know where that line was from. Of course, what normal person would know the origin of a common idiom?

"Cool." Your laugh was not without a tint of awkwardness. "Well-" Heeseung shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "Bye then." "Bye." You bid each other goodbye and rushed off in opposite directions, not wanting to be stuck in another neverending loop of conversation.

"Don't tell me you actually talked with The Lee Heeseung." Your roommate Soojin laughed, accidentally smearing some turquoise nail polish onto your thigh. You quickly wiped it off with a tissue before frowning at Soojin. "It's not a big deal." You scoffed, having another slice of pizza, "I mean he's just a guy. Kinda nerdy actually"

Soojin burst out laughing again, this time shutting her nail polish close. She gasped for air as she pulled out her phone and showed you a picture of a what looked like a frat party. "Girl-" she got up from her leaning position, "Nerdy is the worst way to describe Lee Heeseung. I'm telling you-" she picked up the last slice of pizza, "-he's the playboy representative of this college."

"Oh come on." You scoffed again, getting up to go to the bathroom, "Stop joking around." Soojin shrugged her shoulders as you disappeared into the bathroom. "Whatever you say."

The next day, you strolled into your favourite cafe with your laptop, headphones, a copy of Pride and Prejudice, money in your pocket, a sketchbook, and a positive mindset. Always need one to write an essay right? You were thankful that it wasn't raining today like it had been for the past few weeks.

The cafe was mostly empty, with a few medical students drinking coffee to their death, as they always did. You walked up to the counter, where you saw your friend Sunoo, working his shift.

"Y/N hey!" He flashed his bright smile at you, putting down the glass he had been cleaning. "Hey sun." You clapped back, leaning in front of the counter, "The usual please." Sunoo nodded his head and started to prepare your drink. "So I've heard something." He put on his mischievous smile, one that he often wore when he had gossip on his fingers. "Please tell me it's not about that girl from Chem again." You sighed, as he put a coffee cup down in front of you. "No it's about you dumbass." Sunoo scoffed, taking the money you handed him, "I heard you bumped into Lee Heeseung." You let out a groan at his words, and quickly grabbed your drink, going off to sit in the corner. "Yah take your change!" Sunoo shouted after you to which you shouted back, "Keep it! Your broke ass needs it anyway!"

You didn't get the chance to see Sunoo giving you the stink eye, as you plopped down on the comfortable couch and opened up your laptop. You had prepared a few opening lines the night before, since you had learnt that doing half of an assignment on the day of the announcement is better than starting the next day. Whoever wrote that theory needs to clarify it to you, but hey never pass up a good study tip right?

Immersed by the clacking of the keyboard keys and the pretty syllables decorating your page, you were completely absent from the world around you. Until, you heard a familiar voice, which broke you out of your hypoxia.

Heeseung.

What was he doing here?, You thought, not realising that you were basically staring at him. He was dressed in full black today, a leather jacket adorning his broad shoulders. A single earing dangled from his right ear. He still had his glasses on, which were fogged up completely, courtesy to the weather outside. Chatting away sonderly to Sunoo, as Sunoo prepared his drink in a way familiar to you, Heeseung caught your eye. He waved joyfully to you, akin to a child waving to their best friend. You waved back, not aware of the face you were currently making.

"Hey!" Heeseung said, sitting down in the chair next to you, with his drink in hand, "Working up on the Pride and Prejudice thing?" There were atleast a million other seats empty in the cafe. Why did he have to sit next to you? You didn't really realise how handsome he was, until he was sitting face to face with you. The mere sunlight coming in from the windows seemed to illuminate his face well. "Oh yeah I am." You replied, shooting him a smile, "Same thing?" You asked, wanting to keep the conversation going. Heeseung smiled jovially at you and propped his laptop open. "Yep." He replied and glued his eyes to the screen as you went back to your own work. "The Neighborhood again?" He raised an eyebrow, peeking at your open Spotify. You smiled gently and replied, "Arctic Monkeys?" As if ticking a correct answer, Heeseung laughed and showed you his phone where 'Arabella' was playing. A pretty album cover, you thought, subtle and sleek. "To each his own then?" Heeseung said. You nodded and smiled in response, before dropping your head back down to your laptop.

An hour must have passed like this, both of you hypnotised in writing and editing, and downing the refills of coffee Sunoo was providing you with. You stole tiny glances at Heeseung from time to time. Concentration was a good face on him, his eyebrows furrowed, his hands typing away furiously at the keyboard. He didn't talk to you at all, except for the initial hey and hello. But something about the way he spoke to you in the beginning, about the way he asked if you had a pen, and about the way he said 'Hey you have an eyelash on your nose' made your stomach erupt into butterflies.

Heeseung left before you did and before leaving he had extended a hand out to you. "May the best essay win." He spoke, shaking your hand and showing you his smile. God he never stopped smiling did he? His hand was soft, as was his grip on yours. It felt like how your father would hold your hand when you were little on the crosswalk.

"Girl just ask him out." Sunoo called after you as you were about to leave, "The tension between both of you back there was almost poetic." Even though you laughed at Sunoo's quip, and denied the offer, a part of your mind lingered on Sunoo's words and the way Heeseung spoke to you that afternoon.

The days leading upto the hour of the presentation went fast. Too fast almost. Your mind went over your short conversation with Heeseung atleast a million times, sometimes distracting you from typing. You didn't know where all the red bull cans littered across your room came from, but you remember where you threw every single one of them and why. The presentation was perfect. It must have been checked by your eyes atleast a hundred times. Finally, a time was coming when you would be able to express your true feeling about it. Despise and Trouble ran through your veins as you walked up to the board as your professor called on you to present. The class seemed to hold a tight breath to themselves. Everyone knew you, teacher's pet, best at English, known for using the most difficult metaphores in her essays yet having a straightforward point.

"Shall I begin?" You asked your professor who gave a curt nod and leaned back in her chair, an expectant smile plastered on her face. You returned the smile and turned to your classmates, who seemed most interested in your essay.

"Well to begin with, as one does-" humor was always the best way to start off speeches, which was shown by the subtle laughter of the students, "-I would like to say that Pride and Prejudice may be one of the most despised books I have sitting in my bookcase." You heard gasps around the room as everyone started murmerring. Your professor leaned forward in her chair, her mouth pressed tightly to form a thin line. That's good, you thought, a good way to break into their corneas.

"While most people would disagree with me upon this apparent piece of art, I truly believe that this sort of a romance is highly impossible. And no-dont tell me that this is fiction and in the fictious worlds you can quote unquote 'do whatever you want'." The audience held their breaths back as you continued with your rant. Your professor was watching it all with a smile on her face, knowing that she couldn't disagree with you. After all, you had to present your own opinions no matter how opposite they were to everyone else's.

"Well-" you professor stood up from her chair, as you finished your presentation. It had been a 25 minute rant about the book and by now everyone seemed to be meekly looking at their own essays. "That was brilliant Y/N. Truly brilliant." You professor clapped you on the back, "I must say, you have a flair for arguing in a way no one can find counter-attacks. I wonder why you did not choose law as your major?"

"Because there is another argument to be discussed here."

A cold voice rang through the room, as you were about to laugh at the professor's quip. You spun around on your shoes to face the culprit.

Lee Heeseung.

"Heeseung!" Your professor delightfully responded clapping her hands together, "Well why don't you tell us your opinion then? And we'll see if Y/N can fire back." She sat in her chair again, looking positively delighted at the forthcoming, "A battle of the best wits perhaps!"

Heeseung smiled widely and stepped forward to where you were sitting, plopping down on the opposite chair. Your professor had always kept two chairs facing each other in front of her class, for debates, her reason sounded. And now, as you sat in front of Heeseung and his stupidly handsome smirk, you swore you were going to bring him down.

"First of firsts-" Heeseung began, as everyone's attention caught on you. "-your opinion is speaking from a highly biased perspective." "How so?" You fired back, before he could even breathe, "I had already stated in the beginning, about how this cannot be on a biased perspective, since fiction based in actual words cannot be this animated." Heeseung smiled again, which threw you off track a bit. God he's handsome, you thought, too handsome....

"Of course but must I remind you, that this book was perhaps the first out of many to start with the trope of enemies to lovers?" Why were his eyes like galaxies?, "Jane Austen invented an entire trope, which still remains a genius scan of literature to this day. How could you say it's too animated?"

"Yes but-"

"Furthermore-" Heeseung continued, not giving you the chance to breathe, "inventing new tropes does not break this 'law of literature' as you say. Since there was no law of literature to begin with. So please Miss Y/N-" he leaned forward, looking at you with dangerous eyes, "-don't you dare say that Pride and Prejudice is a worthless piece of literature just because it does not have proof of poetry."

The class let out a breath as you sat frozen in your seat. Someone actually breaking your argument was a first for you.

God, his hair. His pretty curly hair.

You didn't realise how long you'd been staring at Heeseung with widened eyes until your professor clapped her hands together again.

"Well then!" She said cheerfully, effectively breaking you out of your stupor, "I believe this goes for grading both of you an A+. Half of your grade is filled you two! Congratulations!" The class broke out into applause as you thanked her and awkwardly shook hands with Heeseung as the bell rang loudly. "Well class I'll be seeing you next time!" Your professor announced, as everyone started filing out. "Oh Y/N, Heeseung a moment please?"

You stopped your feet from stepping out the door and immediately spun around, marching off towards your professor, seeing Heeseung doing the same. "Yes Professor Kim?" Heeseung responded with those stupid puppy eyes of his before you could. Professor Kim smiled gently at both of you, before pulling out her tablet.

"I need a bit of help from both of you. It'll be sort of a favour to you too." She handed you the tablet, which had a sort of letter open on it. Heeseung leaned from behind you, and put his chin on your shoulder, making your stomach feel clammy. He smelled good too, you thought, like fresh paper.

"An event is being hosted by our Dean for all majors." Professor Kim smiled, "Sort of a career booster you could say. We were instructed to pick two students from our classes to have the assignment of checking essays, and documentations and whatnot pertaining to their majors."

"And you chose to pick us Ma'am? I'm flattered." Heeseung chuckled, as Professor Kim laughed to his quip. "Well you two are my best students." She drawled, "So the assignment I'm giving you is-" she pulled out a huge stack of papers from beneath her desk. It shocked you how quickly they appeared out of nowhere, like magic. "-these are all essays collected by last year's class. I want you to go through them, give them a good critic, and grade them according to you. You will personally grade each one, taking each other's help of course,since it's a group project. And it will lend you a helping hand since you'll be getting a certificate which you can use to get into any company you'd like!"

You and Heeseung glanced at each other and we're relieved to see the same excited expression face back at them. This was a rare opportunity, a diamond of the first water you'd say. And you had to grab it, even If that meant it was with a person you despised with your entire being.

"I'll do it Professor!" You replied positively to which Heeseung also nodded frantically as if to say the same thing. "Great!" Professor Kim clapped her hands together again, "Oh and one rule is you two have to work together in this classroom. Since the Dean wants to provide you with an opportunity to see how workplace relationships doon out."

Your heart dropped to your stomach as you heard her words. You, working with Heeseung in an empty classroom? You would rather have praised Pride and Prejudice.

"Here, the keys." Professor Kim handed you and Heeseung a pair of keys, "You can work in the evening if you want. But make sure to complete it as soon as you can alright? Oh and you can skip classes if you want to do this first, since the Dean is prioritising this before anything else." You nodded in response to her instructions and bowed her goodbye as you and Heeseung walked out.

"So-" Heeseung stuffed his hands in his pockets, "You wanna work on this shit tonight?" "Unless you have any other appointments, sure we can work on it tonight." You responded, coldly, not looking at him in the eye. "Alright then." Heeseung scoffed, "Meet you here at 8?" "Alright." The end of your conversation came a little too fast, you thought, but you couldn't stand looking into his pretty little eyes and talking to him, as if he didn't just embarrass you infront of your entire class a few minutes ago. "Y/N wait!" Heeseung called, running up to you, as you were about to exit the building. "What?" You spun around to face him. "Shouldn't we exchange numbers first?" Heeseung handed you his phone, which had his contact list open. "Why? So you can take me out on a date later?" You shot at him. A smirk tugged on the corner of Heeseung lips, but he resisted, not wanting to anger you more. You looked cute when you were angry in his opinion. "No. Maybe incase you were murdered by someone on the way here, I can call you and scold you on why tardiness is a childish thing to do." Heeseung joked. You smiled sarcastically at him as you handed him his phone back, having typed in your number. "Eight o'clock princess don't you forget now."

Tick tock tick. The clock's quiet sons echoed through the empty class. 'Don't forget.' you scoffed, 'And he's the one who's late.' The time on your watch sounded 8:30 and yet Heeseung wasn't here. You had given up waiting for him, and started on the assignment yourself, already finishing two of the army of papers. You were a hard critic, and it clearly showed in the way you were seeping your eyes through the ink.

"Soojin he's late! I can't come back now!" Your roommate had called you, in the midst of your third paper, complaining about a cockroach in the room. "Just call your boyfriend, and don't be such a pussy it won't hurt you." You scoffed at Soojin, whose scared whimpers were heard clearly through the phone.

"How's the checking going?" Soojin asked, having seemingly calmed down. You groaned and leaned back in your chair, wincing at the crack of your backbone. Your back must have become stiff from the amount of time you had been sitting in that chair. You felt pity for your professors for the first time, having finally been in their shoes.

"Heeseung's not here yet and I'm literally so fed up right now." You complained to Soojin, "That handsome bastard told me not to be late, and now look where I am! Asshole seriously." "He'll turn up, cool down Y/N." Soojin soothed you. You heard a sound of crashing in the background and stifled a laugh, assuming that Soojin must have miraculously jumped from one bed to the other. "I told you he's a playboy." Soojin panted through the phone, "Maybe he's busy fucking some poor girl in his frat house." You rolled your eyes at her statement.

"Please." You scoffed, "He couldn't fuck a girl if he wanted to, with the tiny ass cock he has." Soojin let out a raucous laugh from the other side of the phone. "How the fuck do you know he has a tiny cock?" She chuckled. "Intuition baby." You responded, "And my intuition is never wrong."

"Like how it was on the day of our debate?"

A familiar voice again. But this time, the warmth in it wasn't present. You whipped your head around to the door, where Heeseung stood, leaning against the door and smirking. "Soojin I'll call you back." You cut the call, before Soojin could respond.

"Hey." You called out to Heeseung. "Hey." Heeseung shot back, sitting down on the chair in front of you, spreading his legs wide. An involuntary gulp went through your throat. "What were you saying princess?" He leaned forward, his shirt dropping down slightly, "I have a tiny what now?" The dim lighting of the room, made his eyes look dark, and the leather of his black jacket, gleam more. "I- I wasn't saying anything Heeseung." You responded, turning your chair back to the desk, warmth coming up on your cheeks. Heeseung cocked his head to the side and smirked at your flustered state.

"Really princess?" He smirked, edging closer to you. The smell of his cologne filled your nostrils again. His glasses dropped on his nose, and he hadn't even bother to push them back up. "Heeseung just get to work." You sternly responded, trying to keep your cool. How could you though? When he was so close to you, lips almost touching your ear. "For you information-" Heeseung spoke, turning your attention away from the paper you were working on, "-I had a friend who needed a lift to his dorm, so I ran a little late. But you couldn't wait for me could you princess?" He smirked, laying his hand on top of yours, "Just couldn't wait to critique all those papers like the good girl you are." "He-Heeseung." "Shh don't." Heeseung shushed you, "You want to see how tiny of a cock I really have then hmm?"

"Heeseung we shouldn't." You hesitated, feeling your legs warm up. "No one's gonna know, as long as you don't make a noise alright?" He kissed your neck gently, turning your figure to his, still sitting in the chair. "Oh princess, already wet for me?" He chuckled, toying with the button of your shirt. "Heeseung-" you moaned out, quickly unbuttoning your shirt, as Heeseung took off his jacket and threw it on the desk. You pulled back slightly as your mind came to its proper senses. "Where are you going doll?" Heeseung questioned, hands resting on your thigh, squeezing it from time to time, "Don't worry princess, no one's gonna know."

Heeseung brings his lips down to yours in an instant, wasting no time. You gasp at his sudden actions and he takes advantage of that by entering his tongue into your mouth. You grab at his shoulders while he cups your jaw with both of his hands. Your hands reach his hair, softly tugging at the root and you hear him whine. Heeseung sucks on your bottom lip, catching it between his teeth and pulling it back to look at you. You look up at him and he takes your face in his hands.

“You wanna see my cock baby?” Heeseung asks in a teasing tone as he looks down at you. You could feel the throb in his pants press against your legs as you whimper. “Hee please.” You whine, squirming as he places a kiss between your breasts. Heeseung runs his hands up and down the sides of your body. If he was going to fuck you on the classroom floor right there and then, you were going to let him.

“Oh, you're feeling extra polite today huh? Please, Heeseung.” Heeseung mocks you with a tiny laugh. You groan in embarrassment and hide your face with your hands. Heeseung just lets out another laugh and wraps his hands around your wrists, prying them away from your face. He transfers both of your wrists to one hand, holding them over your head as he uses his other hand to trail his fingers down your body.

“Don’t hide your pretty face now, princess.” Heeseung says nonchalantly as he dips a hand inside your leggings and panties to feel your dripping cunt. His glasses were beginning to fog up slightly as he whipped them off of his face, setting them down on the desk. You clench around nothing when you feel his middle finger dip into your wetness and bring it up to your clit, rubbing slow circles around it. You moan softly as Heeseung teases your clit, never taking his eyes off of your face.

Heeseung begins to rub your clit faster, and you buck your hips up into his fingers. You hear him laugh at your eagerness and he presses soft kisses into your neck. Heeseung takes his fingers off of your clit and he snaps the waistband of your trousers against your pelvis.

“Dirty girl. Never thought you'd be like this.” Heeseung says with a smirk and you dumbly nod your head. The sounds of your heavy breathing and your pussy squelching around his fingers make your legs begin to shake.

Heeseung spits on your cunt to lubricate it even more, and that's what makes you come undone. Your cunt clenches around his fingers, sucking them in as he fingers you through your orgasm.

Heeseung takes his time kissing down your body, letting your need and desperation build by the second. He tugs one nipple and then the other into his mouth, suckling at the perky nubs and massaging your areola between his lips. Your hips are trembling with anticipation, the space between your legs aching to feel Heeseung's kiss.

Stars hover over you, or at least, that’s how it feels. Your eyes are closed, awareness cut off to the world around you except the place Heeseung's face is buried. He devours your cunt like a man starved, swallowing you whole. Heeseung doesn’t come up for air; he doesn’t need to, because all he breathes is you. Your back is arched and arms stretched forward, fingers clutching Heeseung’s hair in fistfuls.

Your thighs are shaking, reflexively clamping around Heeseung's’s face. He keeps forcing them open, demanding full access to your cunt, even as you buck and claw and convulse. Your mouth hangs open in a stupor; a thin line of drool trickles down your cheek and connects to the cold floor beneath you.

Heeseung laps at your slit like he’s never tasted you before, like he never will again. His tongue pads between your lips, upward strokes that end with the tip of his tongue flicking your clit with a firm intensity that has you reeling. Tugging at his hair, trying not to scream his name incoherently, you ride out the longest orgasm you’ve ever had. Tears burn the corners of your eyes, stars bursting in the black sky of your vision. Heeseung doesn’t stop licking your cunt till you release his hair.

“M’gonna fuck you now, okay?” Heeseung says sweetly and you nod your head. He runs his hard cock through your folds, and he catches your clit, making you jerk a little. Heeseung slowly begins to push himself into you and you throw your head back against the hard material of the desk.

“Fuck, knew you’d be tight when I felt you around my fingers.” Heeseung grits out, and he continues to push himself into you until he bottoms out. He starts to move at a slow pace, and he whines when you beg him to move faster. “Fucking whore. Bet you think about me fucking you in class don't you?” Heeseung spits out as he pushes himself harder and deeper into your sloppy cunt. You moan at his words, and you try to reply but all that comes out is a pathetic whimper.

“Hee, I’m gonna cum.” You cry out, and you clench around Heeseung's fat cock.

“ Cum for me princess.” Heeseung. moans out, fucking into you so deep, a ring of your cum and his has formed at the base of his cock. You run your fingers through his hair, harshly tugging on it as you come undone at his expense. Heeseung buries his face into your neck as he cums, sucking at your pulse point. You feel his cum shoot into you and it only prolongs your own orgasm.

After a couple minutes of you two catching your breath, Heeseung takes his face out of your neck and plops down in the chair, pulling you onto his lap. You sit there, dazed for a few seconds, burrowing your head in his chest, his heartbeat reminding you where you were.

"Well that was a whirlwind of emotions." He says at last, when you start to stir from your hypnosis, "You good doll?" You nod slightly and feel Heeseung's arms wrap around you, putting you safely down on the chair, as he put his clothes back on, slowly picking up yours as well.

"Heeseung the assignments." You panic, as he puts your shirt back on you. "It's alright princess." He coos at you, wrapping an arm around your waist, "We can do that in the morning. Let's get you home." He guides you slowly out the door. "So-" he smirks, locking the classroom with his key "Same time, same place tomorrow?"

[frankieunscripted]

My reasons to hate Drake

First things first, I'm the reales- wait, wrong theme. First of all, I would like to say this is NOT an unbiased recap, this is literally just me listing things I've hated about Drake for years. You might as well join in on the hate train. Go watch some YouTube video essays on this if you wanna know more!!! You'll find plentyyyy

Certified Pedophile ("allegedly"): Texting teen girls until they're of age and then go and date them. ew.

Cosplay Gangsta: disrespecting the culture as a whole, but especially what hiphop is about. Flexing money, cars, girls, drugs, clothes bc he never understood hiphop was never about flexing, but about being heard bc you're oppressed, about revolution. Now we got his die-hard fans running around acting like this is true rap. no. "You don't know nun bout dat!"

Culture Vulture: jumping from trend to trend in order to make it "his own", faking accents that he has no business playing with and dropping them as soon as he's done with this specific type of genre bc it's not trendy anymore. Adapting whole "personas" around this, instead of just merely collabing with other artists. Jamaican and African accents are just 2 examples here.

Blackness: Drake never really got out of his acting career. Back on DeGrassi he was acting as a high school jock. Now he's acting like a tough black guy who's from the streets and knows what it's like to be down bad, when this was never his life. Lil Wayne warned him to never change and act tough just bc he would sign to Weezy's label where the rappers were predominantly "gangsta type dudes". And what did Drizzy do? He's acting all tough and "outta dem streets". He's clearly overcompensating for not feeling black enough (I've already reblogged 2 posts about this, pls see these for further context). Drake's mad for not being referred to as a rapper who speaks on being black, when in reality the black experience was never of topic in any of his songs. He also doesn't give back to the community.

Lil Wayne: Drake had relations with fellow rapper Lil Wayne's gf (she actually was of age, ayoooo!) while Wayne was away in prison. Wayne got word of the fact his gf was cheating on him with the young guy he signed under his label and was pissed. Drake, in an effort to smooth out the situation, got Wayne's face tattooed on his arm. Say what you will about portrait tattoos, but this story is just so fucking typical Drake. How the fuck do you think this is gonna help anyone?

Validation: Drake donates money in the music video for God's Plan, only to earn more money with that video/song than he donated in the first place. He felt good about donating and then never did that shit again.

Numbers: As a great man once said: "Crack fiends bought 10 million rocks, that don't mean it's good. It don't mean nothing." (As you can imagine, that man was 2Pac). And with that I say that proving your worth in the industry by numbers don't mean a lot. It means you and your team figured out the market and started producing stupid, vapid, but terribly long albums to maximize streaming numbers, automatically bumping up your place in the industry. This is about quantity, not quality - good rap/ hiphop was never about that. Drake actively validates his music and status with his fame, money and streams and neither him nor his fans seem to get that says nothing about the artistic value of his music. "Numbers lie too, fuck your pride, too!" (I mean really, Baby Shark has 14 Billion views on YouTube - you think that's REAL artistry, Mister Aubrey?)

Cocky Ass Bitch: I would be okay with a lot of his music if Drake just knew his fucking place. He went pop ages ago, but still people (including himself) refer to him as a rapper - no even, as THE rapper, placing him in the Top 3. Sometimes I feel like y'all do this, just to piss me off personally. Apart from everything else wrong with Drake, there's nothing wrong with liking music like his persé. Not everyone likes conscious/ deep stuff and sometimes, when you with the homies, you just wanna chill and listen to something "mindless" - MIND you, I'm not looking down on "non-conscious" rap, I'm just saying not every artist has to be woke/ deep all the time and some "empty" party anthem about girls, fashion, cars and alcoholism is fun at times. These party anthems deserve their place. And a child actor turned rapper turned POP STAR is valid in my books - just not if it's Drake. Apropos cockiness: The dude compares himself multiple times to Michael Jackson and while that got a few good lines out of him, I believe it's close to fucking blasphemy. Drake and MJ on the same pedastal. I mean sure, questionable stuff happening with kids, both of them wildly successful in their industry (mind you, streaming like today wasn't around back then and many of the numbers cannot be compared), but one of them a real talent and the other one some guy who more or less made it as an industry plant. "I can dance like Michael Jackson? / I'd argue your skills really lack, son!" (okay sorry, I know, that was corny as fuck xD) Dude is flexing with numbers instead of poetic abilities -

About the art itself:

Ghostwriters: "What poetic abilities?", I hear you ask - Yeah, don't think I forgot! Best believe I been cooking this one. There's evidence for Drake having ghostwriters - which on its own is fine, don't believe every star writes every single bar on their own. My problem with this is, that Drake keeps his cocky attitude, even though many of his hits aren't really Aubrey-written and also many ghostwriters never get their credit (this is why they're called "ghostwriters", I know that this is not something specific to Drake, but slapping one more name on the credits ain't that hard, when you're worth a billion bucks already). This is the rap equivalent of flexing your homework when you know DAMN WELL copied it off of your best friend and did nothing for that success. I guess his song Right Hand wasn't about a romantic interested after all, but the dudes who been writing it!

STOLEN SHIT: Why in hell is no one mentioning this on here? Drake is KNOWN for stealing other artists' verse metres (referred to as "flows", y'all tumblr, idk how much you guys do know, okay?), melodies, whole beats, samples or verses in general. In no other studio would you see mentions of a "reference track" concerning songwriting. They take a song as reference and build around it as they construct a beat. There's PLENTY of evidence for this happening, one story really had me baffled, where a young indie-rapper met Drake in the early 2010s, gave him his CD to listen to and a whopping 5 years later the indie-rapper realizes Drake just fucking stole his entire song (a really personal one at that) on his latest album back then. Being indie, of course the guy had little to no means of fighting back with lawyers or anything, man's was working a 9to5 job and had other stuff going on. Before you wanna argue with me though: YES. There is a difference between stealing and paying hommage. One famous example is Drake biting Eminem's Superman flow on Chicago Freestyle: "But I do know one thing though/ Bitches, they come, they go/ Saturday through Sunday, Monday / Monday through Sunday, yo/ Maybe I'll love you one day/ Maybe we'll someday grow". The only good thing Drake ever did was changing Em's "Bitches" to "Women" on his song. Other than that: exact same few bars. This is a hommage. Why? Because Eminem, that's why. You can pay hommage to great, well-known artists with good bars. It takes a common ground of knowledge from artist to audience to make a hommage like this work. That can go well. Kendrick copies the flow of a Kanye West song on HiiiPower and it works just fine because you listen to either of the song and think: "Ah yeah exactly, that one part, okay, I see you." You don't pay hommage to a small, unknown, indie-rapper by copying his whole verse about his Mom, when you would never say stuff like that on your records before. You don't, because it wouldn't work. None of your listeners would understand the innuendo at all, because no one ever heard of the "great guy you'd be paying hommage to". So shut up.

Music: It's just not that good. Like yeah, he had a few bangers, but let's not exaggerate. Artistically Drake does not offer anything. If he ever did, he probably left all of that on the first few albums he still rapped on. His delivery sucks, his singing voice sounds like he's tryna be The Weeknd at times but isn't. The lyrics aren't special. What the fuck?

Euphoria: Even before getting deeper into hiphop, I've always hated the way Drake presents himself. When Kendrick said: "I hate the way that you walk, talk, dress" I felt that. I hate the way he "raps", the way he drags his words, the way he laughs, the way he "sings". Just a whole lotta shit I dislike about the guy.

Sneak Dissing: If you want beef then get in line, don't just kinda allude to it, you weak ass bitch

SENSITIVE ASS BITCH: I love a man who's in tune with his feelings but Drake being the cosplaying gangsta clown he is, acts like he's all tough when in reality, you can't really say shit to him, cause he "can't let this shit slide, ay".

Kendrick's Control Verse drops - a verse calling out multiple rappers saying Kendrick will come for them in friendly competition for the crown of being the best. Drake was mentioned. Everyone thinks it's kinda cool and goes along. Drake is mad. In an interview he basically said he found it fake because the next time he saw Kendrick "it was all love" and that he wanted it "to be real. Let it be real then". Okay crodie, next time you get called out in a fair rap competition, best believe I'll sock you in your fucking throat, I gotchu.

The Weeknd doesn't sign to Drake's label OVO after working with Drake for a while. Drake is mad again and feels betrayed. Why you gotta be like this?

Kendrick says that he doesn't wanna collab with Drake because their music is too different, not because of anything personal. He just doesn't see it happen in the near future because it would not match artistically. Drake gets mad.

Drake stopped beefing with Pusha T back in the day. Probably because he exposed his son. But still, if you want beef, then clean up your plate, bc you eat what you order and dont't just start to "let this shit slide, ay"

("allegedly") being involved in XXXTentacion's passing back in 2018 over beef. This beef started because of the flow of X's popular song Look at Me!, which Drake stole shortly after letting X know his management would contact him about a possible collab. As you can imagine, X was never contacted by Drake's people. The kid was 20 years old, man. He said some outrageous shit at times, but no one deserves to go out like he did.

Also, the famous DMX ("Y'all gon make me lose my mind!") once said in an interview that he'd like to punch Drake in the face and I support that. Kendrick and his homies laughed at the clip - as did everybody else, cause it's hilarious if a beast and a legend of hiphop hates Drake. Drake was mad at Kendrick laughing about it and not taking it seriously. What did he expect? Should Kendrick have went after DMX and made him apologize for what he said about lil Aubrey? How old are you? 5?

Drake gets mad at a lot of shit - bottom line. I could go on and on, but I've been writing this for hours, it's half past 3 am and I wanna sleep after uni and work, y'all.

DURING THE DISS-ERTATION: this section is about shit Drake did during the beef with Kendrick.

Saying Kendrick's Like That verse was weak af. That's your core response? Someone flames you and people are already throwing ass to the mere sound of it and you think: "Huh, that sucked anyway." Pathetic.

Calling Kendrick short (over and over and over again) as if his height is under his control/ his fault? - as if that takes way from Kendrick's skill, Kendrick's allegations againt Drake! - as if that means ANYTHING AT ALL to people over the age of like... 12?

Going after anybody's family in the first place. I know nothing is really "off-limits" in a rap battle like this, but please have the fucking decency. Don't mention my Momma, my kids, my dog, my fam, my friends who ain't got nothing to do with the fact that I hate you. I will say I am not proud of Kendrick for getting down on that level himself - but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy Meet The Grahams and the sheer panic it induced. And sometimes I gotta be a little childish and yell "But Aubrey started ittt!"

Hitting on Whitney in The Heart Part 6. Don't go for another man's treasure, you absolute dog. Accusing Whitney of being unfaithful. My friend, this beef is about us (the Culture) hating you and the things you do. Stop trying to shift this into something it is not.

Reacting to diss tracks via instagram stories and memes, like he's that one popular girl in 7th grade who's gotta clap back to something someone said in school on her IG. Shut up.

Calling The Weeknd and his manager gay. Are we not over homophobia yet? Being queer is not an insult. Also falsely "accusing" people of being gay is uncool as fuck - but oh "You don't know nun bout dat!" bc false accusations are basically everything you do - and also possibly outing someone like that is fucking hurtful as shit. I know the people involved are probably not queer at all, but if they were - period.

Using AI in a song at all. Drake, you already proved you suck. Don't force it down our throats. What part of you thought it would make you look good? What part said it would be good to do in a diss track, when the world knows diss tracks are even more a show of capability than other songs. Nah, you go and use AI. Idc about your "mind games": Using AI Snoop Dogg is just weird as fuck cause the Doggy is still well and alive - if you want him to feature on your song, call the legend and ask hi- oh wait, you knew he woulda said "Aww hell nah!" cause everyone hates you? Huh. Snoop probably woke up one day, hit a blunt and asked "When the FUCK did I collab with Drake?". Anyway, using AI 2Pac is straight up disrespectful, when you know damn well the guy would've hated you if he knew who you'd become. Just doing this because it's 2Pac, because you can and not even asking for permission of Pac's people is crazy. Glad the shit was taken down anyways.

The 8 Mile "Airing Out Your Dirty Laundry"-Trick before the big battle does NOT invalidate future claims on you diddling kids. No. Not even if 2Pac says it first. Nah.

His Damage Control Effort in post to make it seem like/make us believe that he's in control, when Kendrick has been bodying him is hilariously embarrassing. Anyone can claim the mole was fake "all along" after it happened.

Making fun of Kendrick for his verse on Taylor Swift's Bad Blood is just stupid. Look at all the features Drake does. Rihanna, BadBunny, DJ Khaled, Future, PartyNextDoor, Lil Wayne, Diddy, Nicki Minaj, Wizkid, ..... the list is so fucking long (I'm just picking at random songs at this point, cause I do not want my browser/spotify history to be associated with Drake's music. I don't wanna go out of my way to say he NEEDS these people to stay relevant but let's face it: His discography and his success would be different if it weren't for them

Acting like he's so great for "finally making Kendrick rap again" - Sir, you don't write your shit on your own, stfu. You don't invest time and effort into your vapid albums. YOU should be thankful for Kendrick destryoing you, giving us the best few lines out of you in a long time.

Not addressing important shit. We been over the allegations, I will not repeat them in this post cause this is already long enough. BUT y'all on the same page as me, aight? Instead of addressing EVERYTHING, he just responds with diss tracks that aren't terrible but really not THAT good, yk? Not going into the shit that we want to se addressed.

Acting like disstracks need replay value. Idk if this is a Drake or a fanbase problem, but people really act like Drake's tracks were better, bc you can listen to them more casually. "Kendrick basically made a whole song about Drake" - THIS IS WHAT A DISS TRACK SHOULD BE! Notice how we don't call every song containing a diss immediately a "diss track"? That's why. Diss tracks were meant to hit your opponent in the stomach with witty bars, double entendres, nice delivery and good production. Diss tracks weren't meant to be club bangers - bonus if they do end up being some though, looking at you, Like That and Not Like Us.

Not reading into stuff properly or just not listening. This is a small one, but ngl I hate the fact they got the Mother I Sober reference wrong (The song is NOT about Kendrick being abused, BUT about Kendrick not being abused and his Mom NOT believing him and passing her sa trauma onto him, even though he didn't experience that). Also Kendrick explicitly says "DOT, the money, power, respect / The last one is better" on Like That and Drakes response (again) is "Huh, I have way more money than you and in the industry, I'm way more powerful than you. Also, you so short tihhihi." BITCH he SAID respect was the most important of the three and you disrespect him, not by calling him out by his wrong doings but by picking on physical features the man cannot change like a 5th grade bully.

Anyways. phew. If you made it this far... wow. I'm impressed. I'll keep updating this. Thanks for coming to my beef talk.

EDIT: Thank y'all for the positive reactions on this post. If you seek more info/ want me to further explain stuff/ have even more dirt on Drake, let me know and we can work something out. -Frankie out

[awrkive]

[DRABBLE] COLD NIGHTS & BLURRED LINES (m) — JJK.

you were used to jungkook making the first move every single time but this particular night, you couldn't help but change things up a little bit.

PAIRING jungkook x (fem) reader

GENRE r18+ (minors dni pls)

WORD COUNT 4.1k (this is def not a drabble anymore but its like 70% smut anyway saur 🤷🏼‍♀️)

WARNINGS/MISC jk in grey tracksuit 😢 oc is not a procrastinator everybody booed. kinda domestic vibes everyone wants to have what they have including ms delusional me !! this is my literally me fic kinda (this is literally just oc thirsting over jungkook OEBDIDHSJEB) also imagine 3D jungkook guys.... 🙏🏼 smut warnings: oral s*x (m&f receiving, 69 position), penetrative s*x, multiple positions, overst*mulation, creampies, unprotected s*x (dont fls 🙏🏼)

NOTES heyyy so i reread cnbl last night and scrolled thru unanswered messages on my inbox and found these 2 (amongst many IEBDIDHSHD) drabble reqs for cnbl and decided to write it bcs i love and miss them!! unfortunately i lost my ao3 password and i have nowhere to post this so whatever im gonna start posting here again LMFAOOOO. anyway, i hope u guys enjoy this 💗 this is most esp dedicated to the second anon i hate college as well i hope this drabble brings you joy ☺️

‼️CN&BL FULL FIC CAN BE READ HERE

You missed who you were thirty minutes ago.

Before Jungkook arrived, you were extremely focused on the essay you've been stalling to get done since last week.

You were set on finishing the paper tonight, determined to submit it a day prior to the deadline – which is two days from now. You've never been a procrastinator and you wouldn't dare start now. But ever since Jungkook called, arriving a little over five minutes after your conversation on the phone and entering your dorm room, you have never been the same. Gone was your will to finish your essay; it yeeted out the window the moment he came in.

It wasn't that he was doing anything wrong, per se. He wasn't pestering you or doing anything to distract you from doing whatever it was you were doing. During the phone call, Jungkook told you he just wanted to hang around and you were in on it. "As long as I finish this essay without you doing anything funny" – that, was what you said. Joking, a little pointed, when he came barging in your door, socks on and hair still slightly wet from the shower he most probably had at his own apartment.

When you said those words, the goof just wiggled his brows, smirking with a look of mischief written all over his face, and then kissed you in such an unnecessarily passionate way that had you internally keening when he broke away. That gave you an initial idea that he would, indeed, do some funny business. If you were honest to yourself, you wouldn't have really minded that at all.

That was thirty minutes ago. Jungkook surprisingly hasn't tried to touch you at all for the past thirty minutes. In the present, he is just sprawled on your bed watching something on your stupid iPad, airpods plugged in both ears, letting you work in peace on your laptop.

Thirty minutes ago, that would've been fine. Because ultimately, you could focus on your essay and finish it then pass it way before the deadline but no, your problem right this moment does not lie on phonology, it lies on why does Jungkook have to lean his back on the headboard, thick eyebrows meeting each other every now and then as he watched his movies, and put that white t-shirt and grey sweatpants on himself?

You've been having an internal battle with yourself trying to fight the urge to look over your shoulders for him every three damn minutes, groaning quietly as you thought about how Jungkook looked so ridiculously hot doing the bare minimum. Literally nothing. He was doing absolutely nothing. And he was making you feel weird in your belly!

Wait. Is it your period? It ended two weeks ago, though, so that is definitely not that. Maybe you are ovulating? You'd have to check your flow app.

Absent-mindedly, you let out the begrudging moan you've been trying to hide.

"God."

As if alarmed, Jungkook suddenly shoots up and speaks after what felt like centuries.

"You okay? Am I bothering you here?" He said, voice dripping with honey and face full of concern. You got even hornier.

Oh my god. You wanted to cry.

You send him a tight-lipped smile. "I'm fine. And uh, no. You're good."

Jungkook doesn't pry further and goes back to his binge. Meanwhile, you force yourself to think of something.

Another long five minutes later, and you are still halfway done with your essay. The unfinished document only seems to taunt you. So, you let out another sigh, quite quiet this time so you don't make Jungkook think he was being an inconvenience. You made up your mind and just decided to give in to your urges.

You shut your laptop down instead of pressing sleep as you are sure there is no way you can do any more work tonight.

Standing up from your seat, you approach Jungkook on your bed.

He looks up at you the moment you hovered over him, taking his eyes off the iPad. When the mattress dips from your weight, Jungkook's lips stretch into a cute smile.

Your horniness dissipates a little over his adorable face.

"Done?" He asks, lifting a hand over your face to tuck a strand of hair away that you didn't even notice. You shake your head. Jungkook leans down to kiss your cheek. "So, tired?"

You scrunch your nose. "Kinda."

He kisses your mouth when a pout forms there.

"Eaten anything yet?" Jungkook scoots over to the side to make room on the bed for you. You fit yourself in the space, albeit tight (this was a dorm room, alright), and Jungkook is quick to slide his arm under your neck while he still holds the iPad on the other.

"Just reheated some leftover pasta from last night." You cringe over your last meal. It didn't taste good at all but you were way too hungry and delivery took forever to your dorm.

Jungkook seems to know that that pasta was shit, but he doesn't comment on that. Just hums and kisses the side of your head.

Ugh.

"Wanna order something in? Thai?" He suggests, looking at you.

But right now, eating Thai or whatever is the last thing on your mind. Though you would like to eat something else.

You tell him so. Except the last part, of course. Please. You have decorum.

"Uhm, no. I think I'll pass on that. Unless you haven't eaten." you say, playfully pointing a finger to his chest.

"Nah, Taehyung cooked dinner. I'm pretty full." Jungkook says, chuckling.

You had a smart remark on your tongue, something along the lines of, "Then why'd you offer to eat if you already have, weirdo" but to be honest with yourself, you already knew why. Jungkook liked seeing you eat. Dude practically buys most of your meals, now that you think about it.

But your still horny-adled brain went to go and tell your hand to search for his bare stomach under his shirt. And so it did. Forget about having decorum, shame is out the door when you press your palm to the flat surface of his stomach.

"Doesn't feel full at all." You commented, feeling the hard ridges of his abs. You hate them right now. But you would also really, really, like to see them.

Jungkook only chuckles at that. Before he can say anything, you ask him, "Hey, quick question."

"Hm?"

"Can I suck your dick?"

"Huh?" Jungkook, ever the man he is, put the iPad away for the first time since he's been here. Confused, but still, you could not have mistaken the look of pure interest in his face the moment you asked him that.

"I want to suck your dick, if you let me." You say, clearing yourself up. You are putting on a brave face, but internally, you are screaming.

So what if this thing between you has been happening for like… ten months now, almost a year? Jungkook was usually the one to always initiate sex and blowjobs were almost a rare occurrence in your sex life because you told him it hurt your knees but the real reason was because you didn't think you were very good at it. Jungkook never asks for it either, and sometimes you feel bad for only reciprocating handjobs during oral sex quickies but! He never says anything about it so maybe that was fine? Anyway, it's not like this is gonna be your first time sucking him. It's just the first time you initiated with your own words.

"Oh, you're serious?" Jungkook scoots over to his side and lays sideways to prop himself up. "Really?" He has an excited smile on, and you know that because of the way his eyes crinkle.

"Don't make me repeat it." You say pointedly, pushing him a little bit. Jungkook doesn't even budge at the slight attack, only holds your hands in his.

"No, I just… I thought you said no fooling around tonight." He says.

You shrug. "Yeah, well."

You don't expect him to tug you closer to him using his hold on you, and you were thankful you managed to suppress a loud squeal when he laid on his back and caught your whole body on top of his.

"I guess you can't resist my charm, after all." Jungkook says, grabbing a handful of your ass.

"Jungkook, please, you're scaring my lady boner off." You roll your eyes as you adjust yourself on top of him to get more comfortable.

"Take care of my gentleman boner then, baby." He counters and just because of that you avoid the kiss he was about to give you.

"Don't ever say gentleman boner ever again." You pinch his nipple and he let out a laugh at your petty retort. You knew he was sensitive there. But even then, you were starting to feel the growing need concealed under his sweats, and you were set on giving him the blowjob of his life tonight for some reason.

"I have a suggestion to make," Jungkook says suddenly, stopping you from crawling down to his body. You arch your brow at him, he continues, "I don't think we've ever tried sixty-nine, yet, haven't we? Because I also really want to eat you out right now."

"Oh, well, yeah…" you nod. You find yourself heating up at the way he casually tells you the last part.

"So…?"

You haven't really tried that either, and not just with him, but also with your other sex partners that only really summed up to less than four people, and that's including Jungkook. Anyway, the sixty-nine position sounded interesting.

"Okay, sure." You shrug.

"Fuck, you're the best."

This time, you give in to the kiss he gives you and pretty much after that it turns into a heavy make-out session with Jungkook fondling your boobs underneath your overused highschool PE shirt while you ground down against his erection that only kept growing harder as seconds passed.

You are panting when you break away, a string of saliva in between your lips, breathing for some air. Jungkook kisses his way down your neck, suckling on your skin and soothing it with his tongue.

"Take your shirt off," you say, already impatiently tugging at the hem of his clothing.

Without a word, Jungkook frees himself from the fabric. "You too, and your panties. Please."

You chuckle at the "please" but nonetheless straddle him to take your shirt off. Jungkook looks up at you with hooded eyes, massaging the bare skin of your waist as you wriggle your hair out of the neckline. He grips your waist as you lift your bum off his stomach, pulling your panties and shorts down in one go one leg to another.

"Shit," Jungkook hissed at the sight of your glistening pussy that has gotten wet overtime, hands roaming all over your body like he doesn't really know where to touch. Always fascinated and in awe with what you show him, always so eager, so touchy. And you always love his undivided attention. Makes you feel like a princess for some reason. Doesn't help that he calls you that sometimes, too.

"Oh, fuuck," he groaned when you sat on his stomach. You couldn't help but let out a quiet moan, too, feeling his hot skin and your cold pussy touching together. "Angel, fuck, come here, let me kiss you."

You lean down to kiss him and he quickly reciprocates, his tongue entering your parted mouth, swirling and licking inside, taking your breath away. You could feel yourself smearing your wet mess on his abs but you couldn't really care less, not when Jungkook looked like he couldn't, too, squeezing every inch of you he could get his hands on. And they were everywhere, alright. Your breasts, your waist, hips, ass, his thumb on the inside of your thighs, all the while kissing you like he was hungry for it.

Jungkook jostles you a little when he lifts himself up a little to slide down the grey sweatpants you have a love and hate relationship with, his dick shooting up his abdomen and touching your ass as a result.

He stops kissing you.

"Alright, one more minute of you grinding against me will make me nut. Sit on my face now, baby."

Blood shoots up your cheeks, making you feel hot. A little funny, given what you are doing right now. But he can't just be so casual about it! He was asking you to sit on his face like he was telling you the grass is green. Regardless, you kiss him one last time.

"Don't suffocate." You warned him, already reversing your position as easily as you can so that your back is facing him.

You hear Jungkook chuckling from behind. "Please, I'll die happily suffocating in this pussy."

"Please don't talk about dying." You deflect, already feeling so shy about the whole thing. Indeed it was your first time to try this position, and you quite didn't know how to act. You wonder if he's done this already in the past, but found yourself irritated at the thought of him doing this with anybody else. You'd have to assess what that feeling of irritation means later.

"Hmm," Jungkook hums, grabbing the globes of your ass and fondling them before you could even properly place your knees on both sides of his head. With his hold on the flesh, he pulls you closer to him until you feel his breath on your core. "Ah, shit, will never get tired of this pussy, baby. Fuck, you're so wet."

You try to focus your attention on his hard dick against his stomach, veiny and rigid, red at the tip and shining with pre-cum. Wrapping your fingers around the base, you lean down a little more so that you can begin teasing him.

But Jungkook beats you down to it as he licks a long stripe across your pussy. It has you keening and stumbling a little over, feeling so good at the contact of his tongue against your sex. You hear him hiss before he says, "Come on, pretty, sit on my face, don't hover."

You hesitate before giving in, and Jungkook is quick to continue the ministrations of his tongue on your pussy. The position was so new to you but you couldn't help but think it was so good, feeling him this way, albeit still a little conscious about cutting off his air supply. But as Jungkook starts licking and sucking, you remember his cock in your hand and it prompts you to stroke him up and down; slow, because your mind is cloudy from the way you could hear the slick of your pussy from Jungkook's licking.

Leaning down, you kiss the head of his cock, licking his pre-cum off the top. There was Jungkook's groan again, and you thought that was a good sign, then continued to suck his tip a little just to see it getting even redder.

Jungkook suddenly gets more aggressive in the ministrations of his tongue, from his slow yet precise strokes, he starts increasing speed, fingers getting tighter on your asscheeks, the tip of his tongue prodding at your entrance giving you a taste of being full.

It prompted you to whimper, Jungkook only humming, seemingly pleased with himself. Letting out a shaky breath, you resume stroking his cock, twisting your fingers around the base. Soon, you lean even closer so that you can wrap your lips around the head.

Jungkook's groan was a pure sinful sound of pleasure as you did so. Nevermind that he was having his own feast on your pussy, you were determined to make him cum. And to do that was to suck on the tip gently at first, swirling your tongue on the cum that's building up on it. You joined the motion of it with your hand stroking the shaft up and down, cheeks hollowed and sucking the air in your mouth to create a suction that has Jungkook slightly jolting in his position.

"Oh, fuck yeah, baby, that's it, you're so good at this… shit," He says behind you, moving his mouth off your pussy and replacing it with two fingers. Jungkook slides them in easily, the squelching sound so apparent it cannot be mistaken for anything else if there was anybody but you two in the room. "You like this, baby? Hm? You're taking my fingers and my cock so well."

You moaned around his cock, heat starting to spread all over your body as Jungkook began to join his digits with his own mouth, devouring your pussy like he always does when he goes down. You start losing your rhythm on his cock, choking on it a third time now as you haven't really managed to fit it all in your mouth. You've always tried to, but he's always been a little too big for you. If it was a skill issue, you didn't care, Jungkook enjoys it just as much as you do.

When Jungkook rubs your clit, that's when you start shaking on your knees, threatening to crumble down.

As if he knew what was coming, Jungkook suddenly says, "Don't come yet, baby, not now." and you swear you would have actually cried.

What you didn't expect is Jungkook suddenly sitting up, his hands gripping your hips so that you don't jostle on top of him. You let go of his dick as he slides you off his body, and you let him manhandle you into sitting on his cock that slides in too easily like your pussy was fine silk. You now sit on top of him in what seems to be like a reverse cowgirl position, except that you aren't the one in control of your own movements.

"Oh, K-kook – Jungkook!" you yelped as he bounced you on his rigid dick, your body melting against his.

"Shh, take my cock, angel. You can do that for me, right? You're so pretty right now, I wish you could see yourself." Jungkook whispers against your hair, and you pathetically nod, craning your neck up at him to seek for his mouth. He smiles at you, the gentle nature of it so contrasting to the way he was controlling your hips, bouncing you in and out of his cock. "My pretty little angel."

He kisses you passionately, and as seconds passed his hands began to travel upwards to cup your breast, fondling it in his hand and pinching your nipple. You also started to initiate your pwn movements, meeting Jungkook's thrusts from below you, all the whole moaning in his mouth at the pleasure of his cock touching every crevice of your pussy.

The feeling of this never gets old even if you've done it exclusively and quite constantly with each other for the past ten months. Sex with Jungkook is always just so intense it always keeps you on your toes.

"K-kook, I'm cumming," you gasped in his mouth, feeling that build up in your belly

"Hm," Jungkook leaves your boob in favor of your pussy. Kissing you one last time on the mouth, he leans against your shoulder to watch as he spreads your nether lips. You look down to his hand there, fingers spreading the lips apart witnessing your own hole getting split open by his engorged cock. The sight was so lewd and obscene you couldn't help your moan. Then, Jungkook begins rubbing your clit again, fast and with a purpose, this time to make you finish. And he finally gives you the green light to do so. "You can cum now, baby."

And as if prompted by his simple words, you came, feeling a gush of wetness coming out of your pussy. You watch the way Jungkook kept his fingers in there, massaging your hole and kissing your neck.

"Jungkook…" you bury your face into the crook of his neck as you come down from your high, pussy throbbing and spasming from the intense feeling of cumming. He did edge you from when he ate you out.

"Good girl."

And again, Jungkook changes your position. From sitting up, you are now laid against the bed again, with him switching your positions so now he's the one hovering and you underneath him. He grabs your hips up and enters your pussy once again, sliding his cock in and out to chase his own orgasm. Your moans only encourage him to go faster, his grunts filling the room.

"Oh, that's it, Kook, you come for me too." You say, reaching for his stomach with one hand and fondling your own boob with other for his own consumption. Jungkook always liked seeing you play with them.

"Yeah, you're so sexy like that," he says, even picking up his speed higher.

Soon, he was cumming with a pained groan, and you didn't expect to cum a second time the same time he did.

Another gush of slickness slides down your pussy while Jungkook pulled out completely. But he was putting it in again a second later, rubbing his dick against your core. You sigh, partly at the sensitivity but also how pleasurable it all still felt even though you've come twice now in the span of almost what? – thirty minutes? Maybe an hour?

"Pretty fucking pussy you've got here, baby," Jungkook says before pushing his cum back into you, making you cry out. "Never gonna get enough of this. Of you."

You whimpered, clinging to his forearms as he continued his actions.

"Cum for me one more time?" He asks, staring deeply into your eyes.

And you couldn't possibly do that. Coming twice was not at all what you envisioned your night to be, thrice was a heart attack. But at the same time, you couldn't really resist his pleading eyes and his deep voice and his still hard cock pushing his creampie deeper into you.

So you nod your head, and Jungkook leans down to swipe the strand of hairs that sprouted all over your face overtime, wet on the hairline from your sweat, just before he slides his cock all the way in again, repeating that in and out routine, the slamming and the bottoming out, the quickening oh his pace and your toes curling once again that impeded your orgasm for the third time that night.

When you finished, exhausted and spent the fuck out, Jungkook laid on your boobs and kissed all over, playing with one of your nipples in his other hand. You were flat on the bed, dead weight, looking up at the ceiling and closing your eyes to cool yourself from what had just happened.

"Okay, that's enough, Kook, we gotta clean up." You say, massaging the soft curls on the top of his head.

He only let out a non-committal hum.

"Jungkook."

"Yes, baby?"

"Enough sex. I'm fried." You say, pulling his hair slightly to make him look up at you. But that was a bad decision of course 'cause he only seemed to enjoy the teasing.

"Just saying hello to these amazing boobs of yours." You rolled your eyes at his retort, nonetheless accepting it.

"Thanks, I guess."

Eventually, Jungkook stopped being clingy and finally found the will to fetch a wet rag from the bathroom. He cleaned you up and and you didn't bother dressing up except the panties you asked him to get for you. Soon after that, you cuddle together in bed.

"Hey," Jungkook suddenly whispers behind you, fingers massaging your hip, mouth press to your head. You hum. "I think we should do that more."

You try to look over your shoulder. "What? The sex?" you say, chuckling.

Jungkook pinches your hip. "Yeah, I told you we should have sex everyday. But that's not the point, I meant the sixty-nine."

"Well, first of all, having sex everyday is physically not possible," you roll your eyes though he couldn't see. "Second, I enjoyed that position, too. A little bit distracting, but definitely really enjoyable."

Jungkook agrees. "I think you just gave me the best blowjob of my life, if you wanna know."

"Really?" you confirmed, smiling up at him.

"Almost nutted when you sucked my head."

You chuckle, slapping his chest and roll your eyes again for how many times now?

"No but seriously…" Jungkook suddenly turns, indeed, serious. But he's still smiling, though, just a little less playful with his tone. "What was with you tonight? Did you finish that essay?"

Oh god, your essay. Right.

You feel your cheeks heat up a little remembering how you were basically thirsting over him him a while ago. And for no reason too.

Despite cringing internally, you shrug. "No, not really, but submission's two days from now and I just wanted to kiss you, I guess."

That made Jungkook's smile even bigger. He doesn't say anything more but only scoots even closer to your neck, kissing your hair.

"Hm, I always wanna kiss you too, and I do. But I love it when you ask for it."

You think you'll start doing it more, too.

all rights reserved © AWRKIVE , 2023

[trans-axolotl]

content note: this post talks about eugenics, incarceration and institutionalization, and violent ableism

tangent from that post because i didn't want to start writing an essay on someone else's post and this is about a conversation i had irl this month, not intended as a reply to that post. but i actually feel very complicated about the idea of whether or not we should be pushing for more "accessibility" in jails and prisons and psych wards and institutions. i put that word in quotes because i don't think there is ever a way that being incarcerated is actually accessible to our bodies and minds; it is a disabling experience on so many levels. i'm not going to list out all the reasons why on this post; i've made so many posts talking explicitly about the harms of institutionalization before and i don't want to do that again right now. Talila Lewis has given several interviews about ableism, incarceration, and disability that are really worth reading and go more in depth into what that violence looks like. Liat Ben Moshe has also given another interview about disability and incarceration that goes over many of the same topics. given that these places are intense sites of violence towards disabled people, it feels difficult for me to claim that they could ever truly be accessible in any meaningful sense of the word.

what's also true right now is that institutions and prisons are incredibly inaccessible for physically disabled people in particular. i've been arrested with a wheelchair, i've been institutionalized with a feeding tube on top of that as well, i've been held on medical floors for psych treatment before, and i know very well exactly how bad it is. i've watched myself and so many other physically disabled people almost die in these places because of sheer neglect. i have physically disabled neighbors who were killed in these places. it is so dangerous for physically disabled people who are locked up in these places, yet at the same time, often psych wards are so inaccessible that physically disabled people just can't even be admitted because wards refuse to take people with mobility aids, medical devices, specific types of medication or care needs, if you have some kinds of terminal illness, and on and on and on.

what's also true is that when these places are so inaccessible that many physically disabled people are excluded and unable to even access them in the first place, it doesn't mean that we then somehow access other types of care instead. it just means that we're also discarded and left to die. this also is a really similar dynamic for a ton of other marginalized groups that get excluded from psych care--many of my comrades who are people of color have also experienced this same type of denial of care. initially i think that can seem like a confusing contradiction--how is it that psych wards are locking up some people up against their will but refusing to take in other people? but when you start thinking about the underlying logic at the core of these systems, it makes sense.

psych wards operate under this idea that madness must be cured by any means possible, up to and including eradication. institutions are a way of disappearing madness from the world--hiding us away so that we don't disturb a sane society, and not letting us free again until we either die in there or are able to appear like we've sufficiently eradicated madness from our mind. preventing physically disabled people from accessing inpatient treatment is operating under the same assumptions--except that this particularly violent convergence of ableism is happy to just let us die, both because it eradicates madness from the world and because they view our lives as unworthy of living in the first place. eugenics is still alive and well in the united states and it's still fucking killing us; both inside institutions and outside of them.

i would never tell someone that they're privileged for getting institutionalized--i think that would be a cruel thing to say to someone who has just survived a lot of violent ableism. and at the same time, our current systems of mental health care are set up in a way where not being able to access inpatient care can be a deadly logistical nightmare. there are some partial hospitalization programs that have such a long waiting list that you can only really get in if you just got an urgent referral because you're getting discharged from inpatient care--how the fuck are physically disabled people supposed to access those programs? if you need meal support for your eating disorder 6 times a day and the only places that offer that are residential treatment in a house with stairs, what the fuck are you supposed to do? if noncarceral outpatient forms of treatment like therapy, support groups, PHP programs, peer support funding, etc etc etc are often prioritizing people who have recently been discharged from inpatient care, how are you supposed to access any type of mental health care at all? (to be clear i know that not all forms of outpatient care operate in this way, but a lot of state run/low cost programs that accept Medicaid/Medicare operate in that way, and i've seen it cause enough barriers that i know this is a very real problem.)

so when i think about what it would take to actually ensure that physically disabled people can access mental healthcare, there's a lot that comes up for me. on one hand, so much of my work is about tearing down institutions and ensuring that no one is forced into these places to face that type of violence. on the other hand, so many physically disabled people need care right now, and we have to figure out some way of making that happen given the current systems we have in place. i will never be okay with just discarding physically disabled people as collateral damage, and any world that we're building needs to be one that embraces disability from the beginning.

i keep thinking about the concept of non-reformist reforms that gets talked about a lot in the prison abolition movement. the idea behind non-reformist reforms is that usually, reforms work to reinforce the status quo. they're usually talked about in liberal language of "improvement" and "human rights", but when it comes down to it, they're still giving more power to harmful institutions and reinforcing state power. an example of a reformist reform is building a new jail that is bigger and has "nicer" services. or when the cops in my city tried to get funding for more wheelchair accessible cop vans. these are reformist reforms because when it comes down to it, it's still giving more money and legitimacy to the prison system and increasing the capacity to keep people locked up--even when people talk about it using language about welfare for prisoners, that's not actually what's happening. having more wheelchair accessible cop vans would be dangerous for the disabled people in my city--it's helped us out a LOT that it's so difficult for the cops to arrest multiple wheelchair users at once.

non-reformist reforms are the opposite of that--they're reforms that work to dismantle systems, redistribute power, and set the stage for more even more dramatic transformations. They're sort of an answer to the question of "what do we do right now if we can't go out and burn down all the prisons overnight?" Examples of a nonreformist reform are defunding prisons, getting rid of paid administrative leave for cops, shutting down old prisons and not building new ones, etc. they're steps we can take right now that don't fully abolish prisons, but still work to dismantle them, rather than making it easier for the system to keep going.

so, when we apply this to the psych system, what are some nonreformist reforms that could help make sure that all disabled people are having their needs met right now? Some ideas I'm having include fixing the problem of PHP/outpatient care requiring referrals from inpatient, increasing the amount of Medicaid/Medicare funding for outpatient mental health care, building physically accessible peer respites that allow caregivers to stay with you if needed, increasing SSI/SSDI to an actually liveable rate, creating more disability specific mental health resources, support groups, care webs, and a million other things we'd probably need to actually get our needs met. non-reformist reforms for people in psych wards right now might look like ensuring everyone has 24/7 access to phones and internet, ensuring that disabled people have access to mobility aids in these spaces, making sure that there's accessible nutrition for people with dietary restrictions and/or feeding tubes, and more.

when i see people saying that we need to ensure that psych wards or prisons are made accessible it makes me feel nervous. i worry that the changes required to do that wouldn't actually provide care to disabled people, i worry it would just make it easier for increasing numbers of disabled people to get locked up and harmed all while people claimed it was a success story of "inclusion." i worry that it would just continue to cement carceral treatment as the only option for existing as a disabled person, and that it would make it harder for us to live in our communities, with the services and adaptations we need. when i think about abolition, i'm always thinking about what can we do right now, what do disabled people who are incarcerated and institutionalized need right now, what can we do right now to ensure that everyone is surviving and getting their needs met. i'm not willing to ignore or discard my incarcerated disabled comrades in the moment because of my dreams for an abolitionist future, i'm always going to support our organizing in these places as we try to survive them.

overall i guess what i'm saying is that i think making inpatient psych care accessible would require dismantling and fundamentally destroying the whole system. I can't imagine a way of doing that within the current system that wouldn't just continue to harm disabled people. and that as a psych abolitionist i think that means we have a responsibility to each other right now to fight for that, to understand that physically disabled people not being able to access mental health care is an incredibly urgent need. I refuse to treat my MadDisabled comrades as disposable: our lives are valuable and worth fighting for.

i'm also going to link to the HEARD organization on this post. They're one of the few abolitionist organizations that does direct advocacy and support for deaf and disabled people in prisons. if you or one of your disabled community members ever gets incarcerated in jail/prison, they have a lot of resources. donate to support their work if you can.

[19catsncounting]

I Got Really Into Anti/Proship Discourse And Read +30 Academic Studies - My Findings

(It’s a Yapfest but the whole post is a very long essay and study on morality and fiction and children’s safety and rape culture with a fuckton of freely accessible academic articles and resources on the subject, and I want to talk to other people about it. For a shorter abstract with all the articles and more easily ignored yapping, see my shiny new Carrd:)

It’s been a little shocking lately to have certain discussions with some parts of fandom. I spoke about shipping/harassment and how that contributes to the death of fandom on TikTok assuming that younger folks are just really, really intense about preventing sexual violence, but the more I saw the words “morally wrong” and “disgusting” and “addiction,” the more I thought about this guy-

That’s Jerry Falwell, and I fucking hate this dead guy. You see, Jerry Falwell was a preacher who hated porn, feminism, and homosexuality. And I'm seeing his rhetoric and reworked quotes a lot.

Jerry would say stuff like:

“Pornography hurts anyone who reads it - garbage in, garbage out.”

“Someone must not be afraid to say ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ America!”

Jerry wanted people to believe that it’s possible to see so much sexual content that it warps your sexuality, because he was gay and wanted to think that was due to thinking about gay sex too much. Jerry did not have a lot of evidence to prove that homosexuality was harmful, so he relied heavily on how “morally distasteful” it seemed to be to suburban Americans.

I spent the majority of my teen years arguing against Jerry’s rhetoric for the right to live as a lesbian online, and I never thought I’d see morality rhetoric in people I’m otherwise very politically aligned with. And I definitely never thought fandom of all things, in all its beautiful subversive glory, would seriously start advocating for censorship, anti-porn, and to consume fanwork with moral purity.

So, I’d like to have a deeper discussion on it, both here on Tumblr and on TikTok, but that does mean checking a few things at the door:

Personal feelings decide your personal life. What you feel is valid for you, not anyone else.

In general, things that do not cause direct and undeniable harm should not be broadly prohibited just because they’re weird or distasteful to the majority of folks. Ex. Loitering does not cause harm and is a tool of systemic oppression.

The discussion of “fictional CSEM” is the most inflammatory fork of this and it is often used to derail these kinds of conversations. This is all I will say on it - the legal status of explicit visual depictions of minors is muddy. In the US, there is just one dude in Utah who pled guilty for possessing explicit lolicon he bought by mail order without also possessing CSEM with real children, and explicit writing about fictional minors has been settled as protected free speech. Dedicated organizations from the NCMEC to Chris Hansen have asked that fictional content is not reported as CSAM as it is not actionable and clogs up finite resources. 90% of NCMEC reports were not actionable last year. There are studies suggesting that virtual CSEM or other non-victim alternatives could reduce actual child harm, but there is need for further research.

We’re all in agreement that untagged NSFW is not cool, and kids deserve kid-only sections of the internet. People who are triggered by or dislike problematic content deserve to be able to not see it. 👍

 (I’ve seen the argument that blocking tags/people should not be required - sorry, PTSD still requires that you manage your triggers, up to and including swearing off platforms just as I have sworn off bars/soap brands/etc to avoid my triggers.)

I have found a lot of accessible and free articles and studies that I will link throughout so that we can discuss the fact-based reasoning, in an effort to have a civil conversation.

(Also because we are not flat earthers, we are Fandom, and if we’re going to be annoying little shitheels in an “Um Actually” contest, we’re going to have the sources to back it up.)

Minors and Explicit Material

I’m not supporting minors engaging with explicit material. I have such little interest in the subject that I’m not even going to bring in articles, but you can feel free to. I personally engaged with explicit material as a preteen of my own free will and did not find it to be harmful, and the majority of people throughout human history have been exposed to explicit material at an early age with varying degrees of harm. There are undeniable legal and harm-driven differences between a 12 year old girl looking at Hustler on her own, a 14 year old boy being sent nudes from a grown woman, and a 6 year old viewing PornHub. (And I think the guardians of that 6 year old should be charged with grooming just like the woman, tbh.)

Personal Disclaimer

I’m an adult survivor of CSA and incest. I’m a happily married adult. I don’t personally like lolicon/shotacon/kodocon. I don’t like kids. I don’t like teens. I’m personally not attracted to underage fictional characters. I have family, the idea of fucking any of them makes me want to throw up and die, so I don’t write or read RPF of my family.

I am really, really fucking intense about preventing sexual violence, supporting survivors, and fandom, which is where this all comes from.

I read and love problematic fiction - my favorites are ASOIAF, Lolita, and VC Andrews. The most “problematic” thing I’ve personally written are Lucifer/Michael fics from Supernatural back in 2012. They are “brothers” in CW Christ, not blood. They do not have any blood.

Gen Z and Online Grooming

In 2002, a survey of 1500 minors from 10-17 found that 4% had been solicited for sexual purposes by an adult online.

In 2023, that number increased to 20%.

While the linked 2023 Thorn report suggests that the vast majority of these inappropriate interactions happened on platforms that allow for interpersonal communication, which by and large minors were greatly discouraged from and had less access to in the early 2000’s, a trauma-informed approach does not allow for blame to fall on the children. The guardians of those children have monumentally failed to restrict and educate before giving children the means to access those platforms.

It is my uncited but personal opinion that the increased rate of grooming, as well as an increased interest in combating rape culture, has led to well-intentioned individuals to become digital vigilantes attacking those who they hold responsible for their traumatic experiences in a search for catharsis and justice denied for themselves as well as a desire to make the internet safer for other children, whom they are increasingly aware are entering online spaces unsupervised at distressingly young ages.

Is harassment and bullying bad for perpetrators of it?

Before we get into how ship-related hate campaigns do not affect predation or combat rape culture, we should acknowledge that it’s actually pretty harmful for the people who cyberbully. Not just in the legal/social consequences, but people who participate in cyberbullying and cyberhate campaigns have higher rates of depression, estrangement from their parents, self-effacing habits, social anxiety, lower empathy, and so forth.

One study suggests that the treatment and prohibitive for cyberbullying, which contributes to a culture of cyberhate and a lower likelihood to report or confront other incidents of harassment or toxicity online, can be combatted with media competency to increase empathy along with other important life skills.

Some Common Pro-Censorship Myths

“Pornography is Addictive/Consumption of Pornography Leads to Increasingly Hardcore Imagery And Ultimately Real-World Violence” - The American Psychological Association does not recognize Porn Addiction as real and the DSM-5 does not classify it as an addiction. Additionally, many methods used in articles claiming that porn is addictive or causes users to seek out more hardcore material were flawed or biased. There is actually some evidence that compulsive porn use, the closest you can get to a porn addiction diagnosis, is associated with shame and the user’s belief that pornography is morally wrong, which sex-negative attitudes encourage.

“Jaws caused shark culling” - That's unfortunately a simplification that ignores a LOT of surrounding context. WW2’s modern naval battles with an increase of ship sinkings and thus contact with sharks prompted the invention and use of shark repellant by aviators and sailors in the 1940’s. The most deadly and famous shark attack of all time was the USS Indianapolis sinking in 1945, which led to 12-150 deaths. The 1974 book Jaws by Peter Benchley, which was the entire basis of the movie, was inspired by One Fucking Dude who started shark hunting tours and overall seemed to have a really immaculate vibe. The interstate highways that finished in the 1950’s increased beach tourism in the 60’s and onwards, inspiring the American surf culture, further increasing the cultural desire to purge sharks for the new swath of beachgoers and their fondness for using surfboards which make them look like seals to sharks. Additionally, 1975’s Jaws inspired a huge desire for education about sharks, and the relationship between problematic media and education will be the core of this yapperoni pizza.

“The Slendermen Killings/Other Fiction Inspired Crimes” - The ACLU states that “There is no evidence that fiction has ever driven a sane person to violence.” Inspired crimes are indeed no less tragic, and thankfully rare, but people who suffer from inability to discern reality and fiction do not necessarily need fiction to commit violence. The “Son of Sam” murder spree was not inspired by a book or movie, but instead Berkowitz’ auditory hallucinations.

“Violent videogames DO cause violence” - After a great deal of funding and study, the American Psychological Association has concluded that teens and younger may have increased feelings of aggression and not necessarily physically violent outbursts as a direct effect, but older teens and young adults do not encounter statistically meaningful rates of aggression.

“Your brain can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality” - Factually incorrect. Children as young as 5 years old can tell the difference, and they can even be more suspicious about “facts” that come from sources they know also host fiction, such as TV shows.

“This stuff shouldn’t be online because it can be used to groom a child” - While I could not find specific statistics on how often pornography is used to desensitize child victims, nor how often that is specifically used in online grooming, and especially not how much of that pornography is made from fictional characters - out of a mixed group of convicted offenders with adult and child victims, 55% of offenders used pornography to manipulate their victim. I would never refute that explicit fanart or fanfic could be used to desensitize a child, but that is by far not the only tool (asking about sexual experiences/identity, making jokes, etc is extremely common grooming behavior), and there is no evidence to suggest that it is used to a statistically significant degree. In my own anecdotal experience, normal vanilla legal pornography is used with far greater prevalence, and there isn’t a similar movement to shame its production for that possibility. Nor should the creators of any material, pornographic or otherwise, share blame in the actions of a predator.

The Fiction Affects Reality Carrd

(No hate to the person who made it, in fact I give props to them for trying to find unbiased sources, I just want to point out that their interpretations of their articles are kinda flawed and one of their studies is a kind of a perfect example on small and culturally biased samples.)

Reading Fiction Impacts Aggressive Behavior - (I cannot access the full study but this article is the primary source used in the Carrd and it goes into detail) - A study showed that 67 university students were more annoyed with a loud buzzer after reading a short story about a physical fight between roommates compared to a story with nonviolent revenge. However, this study was conducted at Brigham Young University, the same campus where we got a whole video series of hot ethical takes like “I’d rather shoot a kitten than drink coffee,” so uh. Yeah. Kind of a prime example on why it’s important to have large and culturally varied sampling. (Another BYU study with 137 BYU students being odd about moral ambiguity in fiction, just because I’m starting to add Dr. Sarah M. Coyne to my list of “Sarah’s That I Dislike.”)

Your Brain on Fiction - a NYT article that describes Theory of the Mind and how fMRIs captured how readers’ minds would light up centers of muscle control when reading sentences like “Peter kicked.” The quote “The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated” is speaking of motor functions. Emotional centers of the brain were not included in the study.

How Fiction Changes Your World - a Boston Globe article that actually describes how people who read more fiction are more empathetic and tend to believe in a just world. It does not state that the empathy a reader feels for fictional characters extends to corrupting their moral compass. In fact, there’s such a thing as a “fictive license” to explore taboo themes more thoroughly because it is not real - 123 participants were interviewed after watching two actors play the part of detective and murderer being interviewed, and participants who were told it was fake had more varied and inquisitive responses.

The Social Impact of Books - Actually reuses the previous study about the just world, so point remains. Empathy is understanding, not mirroring.

Is Problematic Fiction Good for Survivors of Trauma?

It absolutely depends on the individual.

Writing expressively about traumatic experiences has been shown to be effective to reduce depression, or more effective in reducing dysphoria and anxiety than talking to fellow survivors, and Written Exposure Therapy is broadly prescribed to survivors of trauma, with one study centering on car crash survivors finding that WET resolved their PTSD symptoms and continued to be effective after a year.

In this study, which sadly is not available online but it is too important to leave out completely, survivors of CSA were given fictional novels about CSA and in closely reading and analyzing those stories, were able to understand their own experiences and were indeed drawn to write about their own experiences as well.

Engaging in problematic fiction, like all fiction, allows for consent as well as control. If at any point a survivor does not feel in control or wishes to stop, they can at that instant. They can even rewrite their narratives and take control of their story in fictionalizing and changing the account. They can even try to understand what their abuser felt through fiction, which is helpful considering that the vast majority of survivors had a relationship that had been positive and even loving with their abusers at times.

Is Problematic Fiction Good for Everyone Else?

It again depends on the individual.

Antis might be a little right that most people don't want to read problematic stories. In a study exploring whether fiction can corrode morals, 83% of study participants stated that they would prefer not to read a short story justifying baby murder if they had the choice, even if that exploration isn’t inherently harmful.

This very small sample study of 13 participants discussed how young women interpreted sexual themes in writing, including explicit fanfiction, and how that was beneficial and informative to explore sexual desire and examine healthy and unhealthy relationships in a safe and controlled environment.

This meta-analysis further discusses how problematic and sexual themes in YA literature are useful to illustrate what sexual violence looks like, and begin educational conversations through those depictions to break down harmful myths such as “if she didn’t scream, she wanted it.”

Empowered by the “Fictive License” previously cited, problematic fiction can be beneficial for anyone who desires and is capable of consuming and analyzing it.

This study analyzing abusive aspects of three films - Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, and 50 Shades of Gray - concluded that these abusive themes should be discussed to increase recognition and awareness, not censored based on those problematic themes.

This study of 53 women were asked to read different versions of fictional intimate partner violence flags, or “toxic behavior” like surveillance, control, etc. In every version of the story, whether the female or male had those behaviors either courting or committed, the women recognized the behavior as wrong.

Another study that reading allows for the moral laboratory to explore morality in fiction without decisive impact to corroding moral permissibility.

Is There Ever Any Point Where Fictional Interests Definitively Speak On Someone’s Morality?

In short - not really. Loving Jason Vorhees does not put you at risk of murdering campers as long as you know he’s not real. Writing Wincest does not mean you look forward to family reunions, as long as you know incest isn’t okay in the real world. The real world, where real people are harmed, is where you find the measure of someone’s character.

This Psychology Today article is the best source I could find for quotes from a fantastic book ‘Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies’ by Brett Kahr regarding taboo sexual fantasies and how they are not only common, but not inherently harmful.

There are people who enjoy problematic media in an entirely nonsexual sense, of course. I myself don’t get off on problematic media - I think it’s just interesting to explore different experiences, and I think that can be revolutionary.

Additionally, fantasies in general have almost always been in the vein of “things you don’t want to really happen in reality.” In a study of 351 asexuals, more than half reported that they fantasize about having sex, but that doesn’t mean that they actually want to. You can fantasize about dating Billie Eilish - it doesn’t mean that you’d be happy dealing with celebrity culture.

(I personally fantasize about the internet being just for adults, but in practice I think that would be incredibly harmful and isolating for at-risk youth and LGBTQ teens) Fantasies always pluck out only the bits of reality that you want to engage with.

If You Get Off On Fictional Kids, You’re Attracted to Something About Them Being Kids

Not inherently, surprisingly. Wearing a schoolgirl uniform is a pretty common roleplay, and it’s not meant to “fool” the participants into thinking they’re indulging in pedophilia. There’s a wealth of emotional and sexual nuance in that specific kink - innocence and virginity play, tilted power dynamics in ‘scolding’ the uniform wearer for dress code violations, even the concept of a sexually provocative “teenager” can be played with without shame, because the world of fetish and fantasy is separated from condonable actions for the vast, vast majority of adults. (The only study I could find on this is this small study of 100 white guys found on Facebook, which itself states it is not definitive, found that while there might be correlation between attraction to children and interest in schoolgirl uniforms, there is no proof of causation. AKA, the rectangular pedophile might indeed like square schoolgirl uniforms, but not everyone - in fact, the majority at nearly 60% in this very survey - that likes square schoolgirl uniforms is a rectangular pedophile.)

Even sexual age play between adults is not indicative of pedophilia because it exists in a setting between two adults who fully understand that the mechanics are completely fake, allowing the power dynamics that would be abusive between an adult and child to be ethically explored.

I don’t have an official-looking study to cite, but I have asked people who like content about underage fictional characters why they do so. Overwhelmingly, a lot of the ones who like underage age gaps like the fantasy of an older and more experienced character taking a younger one under their wing, to have the opportunity to commit violent and blatantly objectifying harm and yet try to create what inevitably does not truly pass as consent, but seems near enough to the characters. Some think that the characters themselves have an interesting chemistry. Some read underage fic and still imagine the characters as adults. Some like to explore the feelings of shame that the older character must feel and how they mentally compartmentalize to go forward with the relationship, and how the younger character found themself in that vulnerable position - which is exploring a harmful situation through fiction to understand how it could play out in real life.

People who like fictional incest like exploring the shameful components of that taboo relationship - and I have seen a lot of works that compare how bad incest could be to other harms, like the Gravecest route in a game with parental cannibalism. And then there are folks who like analyzing the codependency of having one person fulfill every social need - family, friend, lover, AKA Wincest.

What makes a predator if it’s not just sexual attraction?

90% of CSA survivors know their abuser, discrediting the still-entirely-too-popular Stranger Danger myth. And shockingly, only 50% of abusers are pedophiles.

That means 50% of child molesters do not have sexual interest in children because they are children, but they victimized children because they are more accessible in lieu of adult partners, with increased rates of incest.

While I could not find a specific study on the relation between dehumanization/objectification of child victims and child molesters (and if you find one, please send it to me!), this study speaks on dehumanization as a precursor to adult sexual violence.

This study, conducted on convicted child molesters in prison, showed that child molesters tend to fantasize about children while in a negative mood, further contributing to the theory that child victims are dehumanized prior to abuse.

This very small sample study found that in a mixed sample of internet only/contact crime/mixed offenders, offenders who had contact with children had lower rates of fantasizing about children.

In short, half the time a child predator is someone who wants to offend against a child regardless of attraction to the fact they are a child.

Resources To Recognize Grooming/Abuse Victims/Predators

I would absolutely be remiss to not share my collection of resources to help detect signs of abuse/grooming as well as warning signs of a predator who may be targeting elders/women/teens/children:

Darkness 2 Light is a fantastic resource overall, this page details stages and signs of grooming.

RAINN personally helped me through my PTSD journey, and this article detailing the signs of sexual trauma in teenagers is thorough and non-judgemental

Signs of abuse as well as warning signs of predation that does not use gendered language nor play into the Stranger Danger myth.

Education, not Censorship

I think a lot of the energy against taboo content among young people still has a lot to do with the desire to end rape culture. The tools that we Millennial Tumblrinas gave you Gen Z kids were snatches of leftist theory, deplatforming, and voting with your dollar, so it’s reasonable to think that removing taboo content like pedophilia, incest, rape fights rape culture.

It doesn’t.

Rape culture is fought by education. Comprehensive sex education, education about consent. Talking about what consent looks like, what sex can look like, what rape can look like.

There should be more taboo content to talk about these things, to show all the shades it can look like. From a violent noncon to fics that aren’t even tagged as dubcon yet still are in shades that are hard to suss out, we should talk about it.

A Non-Empirical Example Of Good Media Analysis and Education to Combat Rape Culture

Let’s use the example of Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen’s relationship in House of the Dragon. Canonically, in both the book and the show, they have a romantic relationship that appears for the most part to be positive (the show being more contentious but I dedicated an aside to Sarah Hess and our beef at the bottom of my Carrd, but feel free to ask how I feel about writing producers with any variation of the name ‘Sarah’) despite an age gap, a sexual relationship that began while Rhaenyra was a minor, and incest - the problematic hat trick if you will.

I have seen anti-Daemyra shippers condemn Daemyra shippers for “Condoning grooming, age gaps, pedophilia, and incest.” Which is not just a broad, inaccurate, and harmful statement, it’s not at all constructive or educational analysis.

It would actually be beneficial to say “Daemon is grooming Rhaenyra as a teenager with gifts, devoted attention that takes advantage of her isolation and vulnerability, frequent nonsexual touches, the extreme desensitization to sexuality in the brothel visit,” etc etc. And even so, it is not useful to say that people cannot still ship the relationship and acknowledge those aspects. They might want to further explore the issues of consent in their dynamic in fiction, they may want to strip away some of them with narrative reimagining. Some might want to ignore the taboos completely and indulge in the fantasy entirely, and some might find the actors hot as hell - AKA, anyone who watches the show.

It’s honestly a little similar to me in how Jerry Falwell would tell his followers not to watch or read or take in any media that dealt with homosexuality unless it was condemning it - even Will & Grace was on Jerry’s shitlist. And so, Jerry’s followers missed out on a lot of media that could have educated them about queerness, could have humanized queer people for them - and that did not make queers go away. Just like ignoring or shutting out media about incest, rape, and other forms of sexual violence doesn’t make those things go away - it just tends to make you less informed, and little less capable of empathy towards people affected by those subjects.

So let’s stop shaming those that ship a complicated dynamic - you get less fanworks exploring those taboos, and less of a discussion overall. You shut down the morality lab of fiction, and to be honest, it’s wet sock behavior.

Some FanFiction Specific Studies

How dubcon fanfiction can flesh out the intricacies and messiness of realistic consent

A review of darkfic written about Harry Potter in 2005 (which, I will personally attest has never been outdone in how profoundly taboo those works were)

Interviews with 11 Self Insert writers who wrote on themes of rape, abuse, control, yandere, etc, and how that was beneficial to some who had experienced sexual violence themselves

Conclusion:

H…holy shit, you actually read all of that?? Congrats dude! That is a lot of time and brain power to dedicate to any one thing!

By the way, I am not really gifted at writing articles or any of that junk, and I tried to make my hyperlexic ass a little more accessible instead of bringing out all the $5 words. I am literally just an autistic who took a couple technical writing classes over a decade ago and really wanted to sort out my thoughts and try to have a platform for discussion. Also, I am really fucking bad at math. I failed two different college level statistics classes twice each. Gun to my head, I could not tell you what a standard deviation is, which is why I worked entirely with the percentages.

And I do want to have a discussion! I would in fact like to not report anyone for sending me gore or death threats or any of that stuff! I don’t think everyone will agree with me, in fact I’m certain that you could find studies that contradict some of mine, and I’d love to discuss them!

I’m sure it will still be tempting to throw around accusations of pedophilia because sometimes, confronting your previously held beliefs is incredibly uncomfortable. If you could not do that, that would be great? I don’t like being compared to someone who profoundly abused me just because I have a different opinion on how to combat rape culture and empower survivors. If you can do that, I’ll do my absolute best to be cheerful and welcoming and respectful as well. 😁

PS - I’m also not really going to be phased if you call me weird or cringe - I am. Always have been. Cringe, weirdness, and autism have made me do and capable of doing some fantastically neat and impressive stuff. But if you try to say something like “proshippers are too yucky and weird to be in fandom” - I’m going to have to refer you to your similarity to Kate Sanders of Lizzy McGuire fame, you “prEpz >:(“ - [My Immortal, legendary author unknown]

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hii 🫶🏻🫶🏻!

im not sure if you've written for james potter before, but if you're up for it, could i request d5 with him? i thought like, reader is a slytherin and she fooled around with barty while she was with james. also not sure if you're okay with writing cheating, (feel free to ignore this is you're not!)

hi lovie! thank you for your request<3 i don't vibe with cheating storylines, but this inspired me to write a one-shot of james pining for reader but thinking she's with barty because they're such close friends. i hope that still scratches your itch!

Prompt: D.5 "But do you love me?" changed into "But you are in love with me?"

Words: 3.7k

Warnings: not proofread, fem!reader, slytherin!reader (sassy/feisty), use of y/n, james pov which includes relentless pining and silly comments, genuine yearning, miscommunication, bsf!barty, slight jealousy/envy, some self-deprecation, background skittles rosekiller and dorlene

The Boy with the Glasses is Blind

James could have kicked himself.

Despite what some professors insinuate, he is usually quite bright – he just so happens to prefer dedicating his intellect to good-willed humour and pranksting rather than gruelling essays that have already been written a thousand times before. He felt he had properly demonstrated his abilities for creativity and strategy with everything he had pulled off over the years, both the pranks he took credit for and the ones they were never able to pin on him.

Yet, here he was.

Sitting in the Transfiguration class shared by most Gryffindors and Slytherins in their year, where Professor McGonnagal in some horrific – in James' previous sentiments – attempt to bridge some gaps and mend some fences, seated a Slytherin and a Gryffindor together at every table. Sitting beside you, the one Slytherin he had never seemed to fully dislike nor target with his more insidious of pranks, but a Slytherin nonetheless, and attached at the hip with one Barty Crouch Junior.

Yes, here he was, sitting beside you and staring at you with what most look like cartoonish heart eyes.

It was not something he necessarily expected to happen, at least not to this extent. You had always held his interest, a fascinating person from who you were to how you spoke and where you placed yourself in society, but it was easily brushed off in the flurry of everything else that surrounded the young boy. In here, he couldn't escape you as easily, and once he realised just what he had been depriving himself of in his avoidance of you, he couldn't escape you even when you weren't around. To him, you were everywhere.

James Fleamont Potter was falling more head over heels in love with a Slytherin with every passing minute. Sirius would have kicked him blue and yellow had he dared open his mouth and voice what was running through his mind when he admired you. Though, James supposed, some of those thoughts were perhaps best never uttered out loud to anyone.

He really couldn't help himself, he thought, it was all your fault for being so sodding angelically flawless. From the first lesson when you playfully threatened him to "behave, Potter, and not soil my education with your unruliness" with that glimmer in your eyes that felt like it must have been reserved for him from a previous life, he has had to pick his jaw up from the floor whenever your eyes meet. The way you carried yourself with a lightheartedness and crackling self-assurance, the way your hair cascaded around you as you turned to him, the way your occasionally crude words towards him were softened by your exuberant tone, as if you took as much pleasure from your back-and-forth exchanges as he did, but with none of the guffawing – a stronger man would have faltered, and James had no qualms about admitting that for you, he was rather weak.

And then there was the way you grinned with your whole body whenever you spoke to your friends and your–

And therein lies the issue.

No gem can sparkle that brightly and not be picked up and admired. To anyone with eyes, let alone ears, it was painfully clear that one Barty Crouch Junior had already snatched up his Treasure, as he called you. James was too late.

The nickname felt tacky in James' mouth as he silently felt around it, trying to figure out what it would feel like to have you as he does. It felt too cheesy, not elegant enough for someone like you, not perfect enough, though James supposes nothing quite could be. Nor was he any better himself, angels and loves had already slipped from his tongue, only to be laughed away as a quip and not a confession – and he didn't even have the right to, not the way Junior did.

You were seated beside James, he could imagine himself feeling your body heat seeping through your clothes and into his if he inched even a centimetre or two closer to you. He could hear your laughter in his ears, he captured the smile in your eyes with his own as often as he could, but even here, within his direct vicinity, he saw the effect Barty had on you. How the two of you seemed to be able to communicate with limited words, mostly through glances and silly facial expressions from where he sat a few rows ahead, fully twisted in his chair to get a good look at you.

James couldn't blame him. It was how he wanted to turn around and stare at you whenever you were near him as well. That maniacal grin on Junior's lips was something James wanted to resent, but also wondered if he would be wearing himself, if he was allowed to brandish it on you.

Unlike Junior, though, he couldn't. James is not a jealous man, he felt he owed his father not to be, but there were few words to describe the sensation building in his throat other than envy. And, perhaps most painfully, a yearning so significant it ached its way through his bones until he was left pliable and broken.

"You with me, Potter?"

James' smile smacked right back onto his lips, albeit slightly more forced than normal as he forced his eyes away – from what he hoped seemed like Junior's general direction and not him specifically – to lock onto yours. There was a quizzical expression on your face and mirth playing over your lips, your soft, beautiful lips.

"Yeah," James made out hoarsely, clearing his throat. "Early mornin' s'all."

The mirth stretched out into a wide, teasing grin on your face, and although James was certain it was at his expense, it melted his own smile into a more genuine one. "Uh-huh. What's made you so tired? You're usually caffeine incarnated first thing in the morning."

"Are you saying you're missing my usual self, love?" Easy, easy, keep it easy.

"I'm saying you're suspicious," you replied with a gleam in your eyes. "Although, you always are. Perhaps it would be suspicious if you weren't behaving suspiciously."

James laughed a bit too loudly at that, warmth spreading in his stomach. "Don't go philosophical on me, L/N."

"I won't, if you don't go boring on me. Transfiguration's enough of a chore as it is."

Pride bloomed out of the spot envy inhabited in James' throat. Somehow he felt just as guilty for both of them, and was just as unable to suppress it as it flowed into his bloodstream.

"Well, when I know you're missin' me so, I can't very well let my best girl down, can I?"

"What a presumptuous young man," you say, words becoming a whisper as McGonnagal walks in to begin her lecture. Despite your smug smile as you said so, James couldn't help but feel slightly rattled at you pointing out the truth to him.

He righted himself in his seat and attempted to dedicate his attention to the Head of Gryffindor, which, unfortunately, he had never been good at even before his entire mind, body and soul seemed to be possessed by the stunner sitting beside him in class. His eyes kept darting over to you, smiling at your facial expressions, even more so when you occasionally caught his gaze with a smile of your own. A strand of hair fell out of your hairstyle as you cocked your head to look at him. James couldn't decide whether he wanted it to stay messy or if he wanted to be the one to tuck it back in for you. His hands remained drumming on the desk.

He attempted to focus up on the lecture, but poor Minnie's voice simply became droning to him when his nose was filled with the smell of you, making him slightly lightheaded. And Merlin, the way you were biting your lip while you took notes – it was an actual miracle he hadn’t melted into a puddle on the classroom floor by now.

Then, his attention was abruptly captured by a small piece of parchment whirring right past his face to force itself into your hand on the desk. You were shaking, smiling over the lip you were still biting as you opened it.

James – in a totally cool non-creepy fashion, of course – tried to get a good luck at the note, but couldn't without giving it away. What he definitely could tell, though, was how Junior was snickering at you over his shoulder like a hyena. Not the borderline scary snicker James had been victim of before, but a fond one, like you were sharing a secret together just the two of you.

Unable to watch more of your reaction, James looked back onto the desk, willing himself away.

You were never one to allow him reprieve, giving him a discreet poke with your wand. When he looked up, your head was in your hand and you were leaning your head sideways to look at him. “Daydreaming again, Potter?” you whispered.

His cheeks burned. “Not a chance,” he responded a bit too quickly, causing you to smile in delight as you leaned closer to him. His heart gave a particularly hard thud at that.

“Are you sure? Because you’ve been staring at my notes for a few minutes, and last I checked, you don’t even take notes. So it's clearly no ruse to copy me.”

“I take notes!" James tried to retort, but when you levelled him with a stare he just smiled indulgently at you instead. "Occasionally."

"Yeah, you're a total swot, babe," you laughed quietly, shooting McGonnagal a quick glance to make sure you're still being discreet.

He knows you're messing with him, he knows it's just colloquialism, but he would have paid embarrassing amounts for you to call him that again.

"Very well might be, you're quite contagious, angel." The slight snort that escaped you at that probably made his day.

“Uh-huh,” you said softly, for the second time that lesson. “Whatever you say, Gryffindor.”

By the grace of Godric, McGonagall dismissed class before James combusted like he thought he would. He exhaled in relief, but it was short-lived as his nerves shot up as you began to pack your stuff, knowing he won't see you again until dinner. Not that he had memorised your schedule, or anything.

He opened his mouth, hoping to think of something clever and smooth to keep your attention for even a second longer, when your usual company approached your shared desk. He heard Junior's laugh before he saw him, eyes still trained on you, and when he turned Barty, Dorcas and Evan had formed some circle around you, chattering away with a casualness he rarely witnessed up close.

“Tomorrow’s going to be incredible,” Dorcas exclaimed almost-giddily, pulling her scarf up around her neck. “I can't wait to let off some steam finally."

“Oh, I'm sure you will, Cas,” you replied teasingly, pointing a finger at her teasingly. "Asked a certain blonde to join you yet?"

"How about you mind your business, Missy?" She shot back trying to shove your face away, but you dodged, using James' arm as a shield. He felt like a mannequin the way he stood beside you, almost dumbly, frozen by the exchange.

Evan just snickered. “Good luck prying Barty away from the game section, he's still pissy about last time."

"You mean when he gambled away all–" Dorcas was shut up with a quick silencio from Barty, which she quickly fought through and stuck her tongue out at him for.

"Hearsay and goss, I tell you!" Barty declared, shoving Evan aside to come stand beside you, arm circling around your waist. "I almost didn't go this year, I'm only joining because Treasure here practically threatened me to."

"Yeah, how dare you even consider leaving me to the wolves," you retorted to him at the same time as Dorcas murmurs something about "yeah, didn't wanna go because you lost so bad".

"Nah, we can't have that," Barty agreed with you while shooting Dorcas a glare, and then he – to James' utter pain and heartbreak – pressed a kiss to the top of your head while squeezing your hip.

Nevermind that it was a quick kiss, nevermind that you laughed at him. James just saw lips against skin.

Now that Junior was basically cuddling you standing up (James wanted no corrections calling this description an exaggeration), James had gravitated further away from you. He may have lost his mind with this whole lovesickness, but he respected you, your choices and your space. With the way you were throwing your head back laughing with your friends about some plans James didn't even know about, he knew he was not wanted nor needed here.

Pulling his bag closer towards his body, he gave a quick nod to no one in particular and turned around, headed towards the door.

"James, wait up!"

Your voice cut through his mind's ramblings, as it always does, and your use of his first name brought flowers to his vision once more. He turned around, hoping to look mostly casual but he's sure his face was an open book. His eyes zeroed in on you walking towards him, leaving your group of friends and Junior behind, but he heard a telltale laughter and he hoped it wasn't at how stupidly in love he looked with someone he could never have.

James blinked at you in confusion as you stopped before him, but you just wore the simplest smile on your face.

“Want to take a walk with me?” you asked, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"What?" he asked dumbly.

There was mirth in your gaze when you repeated your question. "We both have a free period now, I usually spend it in our common room. But I'm asking if you want to take a walk with me instead?"

James had to physically restrain himself from replying "I know" when you disclosed your habit, while also wondering how and why you came to know his schedule.

He managed to sputter out a response. “Yeah, yes, of course.” He couldn’t quite stop the grin from spreading across his face, and he felt a bit like an overeager puppy, but you didn’t seem to mind. In fact, you looked rather pleased, which only made his heart race faster.

"Enthusiasm gets you everywhere, Potter," you responded calmly, falling into step with him as you led him out of the classroom, leading him down the less-frequented hallways. The road less travelled by.

The two of you strolled down the corridor, side by side, with the chilly autumn breeze filtering through an open window. James wanted to say something witty, something that would make you laugh, but he was mostly in his head, confused about everything that transpired the past few minutes.

"What's that about the fair?" He decided that was safe territory, though he feared having you recount all your plans with Junior there.

"Oh, you have no idea," you started excitedly. James pretended it didn’t cut a bit that he had no idea. "It's this annual fair that Pandora – you know, Rosier – discovered back in fourth. It's got the weirdest, coolest booths and games you'll ever see, with performances from unique professionals. It usually changes every year, last time it was a fire manipulator and a necromancer."

Upon James' quirked brow at you finding fire and necromancy the coolest, you continued. "Come on, you Marauders would have loved it. There's prank ideas and props to last you for months. And there's great food as well."

"Okay, okay," James laughed as he maintained eye contact with you. "I believe you, sounds fun. I hope you guys enjoy it."

If James wasn't as bright as he was, he might have mistook the flash of emotion across your face as a small bout of uncertainty or insecurity.

"Actually, that's something I wanted to ask you about," you started, trailing off as you stopped by one of the larger windows in the hallway, leaning against the windowsill. He followed your example, attention wholly on you. "We have this tradition, my friends and I, that we use the fair as an opportunity to challenge ourselves in some way, do something that... I guess something that scares us."

James just nodded, keeping his attention on you as his heart beats in his chest. Your smile turned a bit rueful.

"That's actually what I was messing with Cas about earlier," you continued. "She's finally asking your friend Marlene out on a date, to go with her to the fair."

That's what you wanted to talk about? James admired you almost more for how dedicated you were to your friends.

"I can tell you without a doubt that Marls would say yes," he reassured you with a smile. "Those two have been a work in progress for ages."

"For so long, it's been physically painful to witness," you laughed. That sound is anything but painful to witness.

James hummed in response, laughter rumbling through his chest as he continued to take you in, scanning your face.

"What are you doing that scares you?" he asked before he could stop himself.

You took a deep breath, chin up in that almost defiant way as you held his gaze. "I'm actually following in Dorcas' footsteps... or I guess perhaps beating her to it, seeing as she hasn't yet."

James blinked at you, clueless as to what you're leading up to.

"I wondered if you wanted to go with me to the fair?"

He felt as if he had been slapped in the face and like he was coming up for air after a long snog. He didn't really know what he felt, just that it was a lot, too much, even for him.

"I'd love to," he blurted out with a breath, words scrambling together. Then, his brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to understand your sentence. "I mean– with me, are you sure? Aren't you going with, erm, with Junior?"

You gave him a puzzled look, cocking your head at him as if he had said something entirely irrelevant. "What do you mean?"

James looked sheepish and couldn’t quite meet your gaze over the sound of his own heart breaking. "I mean, it would be really nice to go with you to the fair, anywhere really, but wouldn't Junior mind?"

"Barty–" You cut yourself off, still looking confused. "Barty's the one who's been encouraging me to ask you out, actually. What are you on about?"

"Why?" was all James could breathe out, world unravelling in a way that made his stomach twist with painful hope.

"Um, because I like you? And unless I have suddenly lost all my interpretation skills, I am quite certain you've been fond of me for quite some time too, Potter."

"I am, but– wait– you are? What?" James guffawed. His intense confusion irritated his skin apparently because he had a sudden urge to scratch the back of his neck, his upper arms and pretty much any other piece of flesh. Maybe the embarrassment could be peeled off that way.

Despite it all, you laughed heartily and, what James was beginning to realise, bemusedly maybe even adoringly at his failure to speak. It seemed like you had pieced together everything he couldn't.

"Yeah, I like you, you sod. Think I just flirt with everyone?"

An "I hope not" lies on the tip of his tongue, but instead he shook his head in admonishment.

"Snake's got your tongue, babe?" you asked him, taking a taunting step closer.

"Looks like it," James mumbled, eyes zeroed in on your face as heat rose to his own. Growing bolder in your declaration, he continued, "I suppose I'm just confused. I always thought you were with Junior? That you two were... in love."

The last words brought a grimace to his lips, like it pained him to say. As if on instinct, your hand shot forward to wipe beneath his bottom lip to coax the frown off his face. His lips parted in shock and suspense at your touch and when you seemed to realise what you had done, you pulled your hand back quickly. You had the decency to look slightly flustered after that, allowing him some semblance of a more even playing field.

"No, James," you whispered with a smile as you shook your head. "Barty is my best friend and I love him with my whole heart. But I never have, and never will be in love with him. Him and Evan have been an item for, like, ages."

Finally, a brilliant smile – one you would later describe to him "shone like the sun" to which he attacked you with kisses because "that's so sodding cute of you to say, you sappy romantic" – took over his face.

Without thinking, he stepped closer to you, hand coming up to brush carefully against your cheek as you looked wide-eyed at his positivity and adoration now radiating off of him. "But you're in love with me?" he whispered with rapture, up to speed at last.

It took you a moment before you chuckled lightly, sheepishly looking down at your feet before once more meeting his piercing gaze.

"How about we start with that date, and see where it goes from there, huh pretty boy?"

So, yes, James most certainly could have and probably should have kicked himself – but right now, he found that he had other business he would much rather attend to.

[4dbarbie-archive]

4dbarbie remix: How to realise Self?

Disclaimer: This remix/mashup post was compiled by me, a student of 4dbarbie as a way to make sense of everything and to understand how to apply the knowledge practically. I went through all her posts and answered asks to make this which is made up of various parts of 25 49 (omg lol there was a lot of good stuff) different posts and answered asks. It is not an original post by 4dbarbie herself but all words are directly from her various posts and answered asks (except for my clarification notes which are in purple text in brackets & the last section after the last divider where I make some closing comments). Hopefully the way I've organised the information in this post makes sense and helps some Vanessas out there. ♡

Fair warning as this is a pretty long post essay (!) so maybe grab a cup of tea or something :) If you are really new to all this then take some time to really process it, there is no rush. My personal notes and highlights are in pink for main points and purple for 'action' points.

May we all realize our Self ♡

There would be no steps necessary, no process to undertake if you would just establish yourself in the I AM alone. You are so lost in your play you forget reality. 1 If you are "I AM", it means you are not the person experiencing the world/thoughts/circumstances, you never were. 2

The external world, you control it (because it is you!, in you), you make it, fully, even when you tell yourself you don't. 3 To know yourself as the source of all that is, you have to first remove the veil of what's stopping you from seeing it in the first place. To know your real being, you have to first abandon what you thought yourself to be. 4 There is no external life, there is no need to use any methods to recondition or train your mind. It is much faster, much easier and you are hundreds times happier just letting go of the mind. 5 The process is one of letting go more and more until you find yourself having nothing, being nothing. The thing about nothing though is that it's the only thing that can take the shape of everything. 6

A jeweler who wants to refashion an ornament, first melts it down to shapeless gold. Similarly, one must return to one's original state before a new name and form can emerge. The only way to renewal lies through destruction. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mold a new one. What refuses to die cannot be reborn. - I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj 7

Stop thinking you are Vanessa, the thoughts of needing this or that drop away. By thinking you are it, you create a character who desires and then identify yourself with it. You can only have when you let go of thinking that you don't. To change, you need to give up this conviction of being this person. You need to disbelieve. 9

Most of you can't change because you are so desperate TO change... but there is nothing to want to change. Things just are. Don't work with changing self, just realize who self actually is. 10

You have it, all is well. Just stop believing the illusions born out of thinking you're a person. 11

Unless they understand who they really are, that Vanessa is a habit and nothing more - that nothing has existence outside of awareness, including her, that awareness assigns reality and is the only reality - they're always going to struggle to control something and get frustrated they don't see what they think they're aware of. What you're aware of is what you're being. You can't be aware of being something new while also being Vanessa. 12

Knowing is being. If you really knew, the thing you knew would be materialized. You know you are Vanessa so you're being Vanessa. Would you want Vanessa if you were her? No. You are her so you don't desire her. And you won't be able to be Vanessa 2.0 if you don't shed this Vanessa first. That is, let go of thinking the thoughts are yours. 8

Your memories of the life Vanessa lived are now and not in a past. You are imagining her past being now. Her past exists now because you are aware of it now. If you were Lara you would be aware of a different past, still now. Basically there was no yesterday and you are imagining "a past having been" today. 13

Anon: "Do I have to endure the world while I know my self as awareness and disbelieve that I am Vanessa???" Ada: THE POINT OF KNOWING YOURSELF AS AWARENESS IS TO DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT AT ALL TIMES, FOREVER. It's complete, incomparable freedom and power. It's the only real love. 14

You are either your Self with nothing attached to it or you're an ego. Disbelieve you were ever her. See what happens. 41

A lot of beliefs are subconscious. "I am a body", "I am Vanessa", "There is a world" are all subconscious, automatic beliefs. Upon investigation you can get rid of any belief (by making them conscious and then dropping them). 15 How do you drop a belief? (see part 1 and part 2)

HOW TO STOP?

The body and the mind are only symptoms of ignorance, of misapprehension. Behave as if you were pure awareness, bodiless and mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond 'where' and 'when' and 'how'. Dwell on it, think of it, learn to accept its reality. Don't oppose it and deny it all the time. Keep an open mind at least. Make your mind and body express the real which is ALL and beyond all. By doing, you succeed. - I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj

You need not take time to meditate or put time aside to contemplate and "apply". All you need to do is detach from this form during the day, let life happen as it happens while reminding yourself it's a dream, a dream that doesn't have to be yours. 16 It is your own desire to hold on to it that creates the problem. Let go. Stop imagining that the dream is yours. As long as you give reality to dreams, you are their slave; see all as a dream and stay out of it. 17

You imagine that there is an external world in which the you that you're identified with lives, but all of that is in your mind. Stop imagining it's true and it dissolves, which can only mean it never was. Which can only mean you assigned reality to it by thinking you're it 18

I've said it before, you don't have to convince Vanessa that she's unreal. Just stop taking the thoughts you don't like for truth or reality. There is no convincing involved, it is all letting go... you're holding so tightly onto your ideas now, that's why you can't see their falsity. 19 You don't have to convince anyone of anything. What I teach here is to leave your mind alone, that is all. Don't go along with it. 2 Thoughts will keep on coming for a while, just now you know they have nothing to do with you. Get into a habit of watching, letting them be but not identifying with them. If you can observe them, it means you are not them. 32 Doesn't matter what the thought is, leave it alone, ignore it BUT not by force of will, just indifference. We've established you aren't the ego, alright? Thoughts, right now, are from the ego. 20

Thoughts of the past life come, remember they no longer have anything to do with you. Literal full delusion (I only call it that because after being identified with a person for so long, it's mind-blowing to grasp you are not that). Thoughts are not yours, complete indifference - no need to fight them. Where they come from, none of your business. Only know they are not yours. YOU not being in your desired reality is a thought, got it? This body and this world are not forced onto you, they exist through your identification with them. Not yours, remember? Repeat. Not yours. You won't lose your mind, you'll only lose your misery. After you've detached, you'll easily shift to as many realities as you want - don't put any on a pedestal of desire, they are equal. See this world and the body as not real first. What is true is only what I AM is identified with, right now this body which is not in that TV show (referring to anon's desire). Correct this first by letting go of thinking it's you. 21

You don't need to convince yourself they're unreal, just dismiss them as not yours. They will disappear more and more through your newfound indifference, then their physical counterparts will, too. Detachment is by doubt and indifference. First you start doubting "the facts", then you become indifferent to the facts, lastly there are no facts anymore and you can establish your own. 20

Start letting go bit by bit, just to see what happens, you won't start "acting crazy" just because you become uninterested in thoughts, I promise 22

What I recommend you to do is bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself because of credulity. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. 23

Here's a scale of emotions you go through, from bottom to top: apathy, grief, fear, hostility, anger, indifference, acceptance, freedom finally - and then unlimited, independent joy. You can review this to see where you are on the journey and what should come next. You can't skip them, all of them have to happen for you to have the all. 14

Do not try to understand any more, just be. And let other things be as they are. Even if you're not happy about what you see, there is no way around it besides accepting it. As long as you fight it and try so hard & incessantly to change it, you're only giving it further reality. 14

If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and pain and watch them. Step away and look. The physical events will go on happening, but by themselves they have no importance. It is your mind alone that matters. When you identify yourself with them, you are their slave, you think you have to act on them. When you stand apart, you are their master. 24

One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. 23

You are beyond the mind. Mind and body become your servants once you discover your Self. The present moment is all that is, so yes - become aware of having never been the ego, of your ego being just one of your creations. Ego is the concept of individuality, of separation from the “I", and the All. Therefore ego is a false assumption. We are really the Supreme Reality, we are not separate from It. To "fix" the separation, reject what you are not. Only look at who you are, over and over and over until it becomes the permanent identification and replaces the ego. 25

Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over — you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. 23

Drop the false ideas first and watch. After what keeps you stuck goes, you can do whatever you want. You can think the ugliest thoughts and nothing will happen if you know yourself as who you are. It's your identification with the thought that causes the thought to be true. 26

The guilt is because you think you're running out of time and you need to change "your" life now. Be patient with yourself because you don't lose any time, just get to that place I'm telling you about and then you can just go back in time if you so wish. All worry is pointless! And there is nothing to fear, things just happen, do not claim them as yours for a while. Unclutter your mind, it becomes your servant after you've freed it enough. 27

She (Vanessa) will vanish yes, you ask how because you still think waking is more real than a dream. Do your dreams not vanish? Do you wonder how they vanish? They just stop existing all of a sudden when you go into another dream (waking). What if you've lived all your life as Ada and woke up one morning and were suddenly Vanessa with no memory of Ada, would you know anybody vanished? Nope. All you know is who you are right now (because present is all that is), which is Vanessa. 28 Leave poor Vanessa alone, with both her desires and fears, disbelieve you are her until reality becomes self-obvious.

By being your Self you gain the freedom of existing as anything, anytime. You don't lose Vanessa's pretty body if you don't want to stop imagining yourself as being Vanessa with her pretty body. 29

Nothing is lost, awareness just shifts. You can always go back. We're just removing the obstacles that stop you from having this freedom of choice (your identification with this person). You can completely wipe out Vanessa's existence as well. Later if you change your mind, you can make it so that she actually existed again. You are no form, you are formless, the form only is when you imagine there is a form, be your favorite form and dream beautiful dreams :) 30

There is no difference between sleeping and waking, awareness is the background of both. You just think the waking state more real because you've dreamt it over and over and reinforced your belief. They're equally imaginary. Become aware of this and life will forever be a breeze. 31

All depends on you. It is by your consent that the world exists. Withdraw your belief in its reality and it will dissolve like a dream. Cease from looking for happiness and reality in a dream and you will wake up. - I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj 17

Your next step will be realizing there is nothing to learn in a dream. You'll find yourself having less and less thoughts, then none at all. Then, only if you want, you will be able to reinstall the mind, now of your choice, and change the dream. 16

Past doesn't come up anymore, memories don't come up anymore after you've ignored (thoughts) & detached yourself enough. They just don't. You can think freely now about being something different. If you can't, don't get mad, don't blame, only know that the one that's doubting isn't you, so the doubts are totally fine to be. They'll be for a while and then they dissolve too, because by ignoring, not getting involved - you forget. And by forgetting not only do you free up so much mental space, but possibilities of what can be, become unnumbered. 36 Anon: Is it okay to feel completely indifferent after learning about this stuff? Like, not feeling as worried about what is playing in front of me since I know its not me Ada: That's the goal. Then become indifferent to the thoughts you get as well. Those aren't yours either. You'll become aware they've dissolved & you can reconstruct the mind however you want because you have no attachment to past beliefs anymore. 33

Even the process is very beautiful... but the very best is when your Self becomes the permanent background instead of Vanessa. Now you always return to Vanessa, later you'll forget to consider her ♡ Dream not of a character who wants and desires, there is nothing to long for — only things to be. 16

To not depend on anything but everything to depend on you is a top state you can grasp with no method. 5 The experience is of being empty, uncluttered by memories and expectations; it is like the happiness of open spaces, of being young, of having all the time and energy for doing things, for discovery, for adventure. A sense of 'there is nothing wrong with me. I have nothing to worry about'. But not one you condition yourself into like you conditioned yourself into a body, it is one that naturally and effortlessly dawns on you by itself when you reject all else, because it is your natural state. 34 Real freedom and real love only emerge when you're not identified with a transient ego. 35

All you are doing is becoming lucid. Becoming able to control the dream. You won't be able to, unless you step out of it. That is, stop thinking this story you tell yourself is true. When Vanessa is no longer all you are, you'll be able to 'change reality' the way you change the film in a video projector. You'll be able to have as much fun in the play as you want to, change it when you no longer want this one specifically. The emotions of the character are fun and welcomed, because they no longer imprison you, there's the background of love to it all - that once you gain, it can't be lost, it's ever present. 36

What you are identified with materializes. If you are not, it disappears. 37

Just let go of the ego, that’s how simple it is. All you need to fix is your wrong identification. There isn't anyone who couldn’t materialize anything right now if he or she would just let go of identifying as the limited body. 38

Only by letting go of all do you gain everything. But once it's done, it's done irreversibly. Fear is no more, control is fully yours. You are free, completely. And with the bliss of freedom no human pleasure compares. You become full love, full power. The absolute and only power. Sooner or later, you will arrive at the same conclusion. You can't stop being what you are, all else can stop existing, but you can't. The only thing you have a choice in is delaying seeing it by thinking you are this or that. Only see it (I Am), then you can imagine whatever you want and it will be. 39

If you project the world, it is within your power to change it. But you must stop identifying yourself with it first. Go beyond, then you have all the power to destroy and recreate. All everybody wants is to be free, but to do that you must know two things: what you are to be free from and what keeps you bound. 2

Your own self is your ultimate teacher, the outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, because he is the goal. - Nisargadatta Maharaj 40

Got more questions? Recommended reading:

Ada's recommended guides on realizing Self: 1, 2, 3

My recommended posts from Ada*: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

All references from the remix post

Books: I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj** and Keys to The Ultimate Freedom by Lester Levenson

*in addition to the sources linked in the post **a lot of her posts incorporate quotes and excerpts from this book, moreso than Lester Levenson's Keys to The Ultimate Freedom and she also shared a lot of excerpts from the book

What does this look like when applied?

Experience is the best teacher and learning from other's experiences and how they applied this knowledge can be really valuable and insightful. I don't define success based on materialising things necessarily although that is one result of realizing Self.

From 4dbarbie students: see the tag

Other: 1, 2

Okay, what to do after reading all this?

Apply apply apply. Don't wait, nothing will happen by waiting. There is only now. Inquire who is causing trouble and to whom. You can't think yourself into realization. 'You' are beyond the mind. You are the creator of the mind. It must be experienced.

[rip-quizilla]

While in This World

Logan Howlett (Wolverine) X Teacher!Reader

Summary: A purely self-indulgent one shot where Teacher!Reader and Logan frequent the same bar, and when Logan comforts reader after a rough day at work, they get to know each other a lot better.

WC: 7k

Tags: 18+ SMUT🔥🔥🔥, Reader has female anatomy, p in v sex, creampie, oral sex (f receiving), dom/sub undertones, grumpy/sunshine dynamic, Hozier references, X-Men: Evolution references

Minors DNI. All divider credit goes to @saradika-graphics

Logan only knew two things about you: you were a teacher at the local high school, and you drove a yellow Honda Civic. 

The latter was easy for him to figure out; that car was hard to miss, and whenever he saw it parked outside of Dusty’s when he’d pull up for a pint, he knew you’d be sitting at the bar when he walked in. 

The former, he didn’t even have to ask about for you to tell him. In fact, he never asked you anything, never so much as spoke to you. But did that stop you from talking about whatever happened at work that day? Fuck no. You’d yap about it unprompted every damn time. 

It was like you’d created a game of it. He’d walk into the bar, wearing an expression that clearly says ‘Don’t fucking talk to me’, sit down on the same barstool he always sat at, order a drink… and just when he’d start enjoying the silence you’d start in on him.

“Damn, today was brutal. Was it brutal for you too?”

“Whew! Wednesdays, am I right?”

“Well you look chipper this evening! Good day today?”

He never answered. You knew he would never answer, you just seemed to love ruining his peace and quiet. 

In the face of his silence, you would usually just carry on the conversation alone. You’d tell him about some kid who’d been particularly annoying that day, or a student who’d finally understood a concept you’d been spending weeks trying to teach them. 

You’d ranted to him about how Kash from your second period class never turns in his homework, which drove you nuts because you knew how smart he was. 

You’d told him about Lily, whose essays were some of the best you’ve ever read from a sophomore even though the kid had convinced herself that she hated history. 

You’d vented to him about Lindsey, the math teacher next to your classroom who complained about every little thing- including the students- careless of whether or not they were within earshot. 

…Okay, so maybe Logan knew more than two things about you. Wasn't like he wanted to, though. 

Today, he knew enough about you to be absolutely sure that something was wrong.

He was sitting at the bar, already down to the last couple sips of his drink, and you hadn’t said a word since he’d sat down. Nothing. 

He fought the instinct to look at you so badly, he really did- but he couldn’t help himself. He’d half expected you to be waiting for him to do so, grinning smugly when your prediction proved correct. Instead, when he finally succumbed to the urge to glance at you out of the corner of his eye, all he saw was your profile wearing an expression he had never seen on you before: stern.

He swiftly turned his attention back to his drink when the bartender emerged from the back and wordlessly started pouring Logan another glass of bourbon before going to crack open another beer for you.

“Something stronger, please.” you sighed. The bartender stopped, a beer bottle already held in one hand with an opener poised and ready in the other. “What he’s having is fine.” you added, nodding to Logan’s fresh glass. 

He and the old bartender both raised an eyebrow at you simultaneously. You didn’t usually order ‘strong’. You usually got something bubbly with a perfectly reasonable ABV. 

A second passed before the bartender simply shrugged and did as you asked, exchanging the bottle in his hand for a larger one and pouring you a glass of liquid amber. You sipped it, wincing slightly before taking another. 

Don’t ask. Logan thought, Don’t say a word, you fucking softie-

“Rough day?” Logan mumbled, his voice like sandpaper after barely using it all day. 

Weak-ass, he cursed inwardly.

You didn’t look at him, just nodded. Logan cringed; he wasn’t good at carrying conversations- that was usually your job. You were so good at it, too, he never even participated and still you always carried on completely unphased. He wished you’d at least give him something to work with here.

“Some kid mouth off to you or somethin’?” 

You shook your head and took another sip of bourbon. “No,” you mumbled, “kids were great. Phenomenal, even.” 

Logan exhaled a soft sigh of relief through his nose, fogging the side of his glass. At least you were talking now. He waited silently for you to continue; he knew you had more to say than that. 

“I taught this lesson yesterday…” you paused before chuckling under your breath. “...I think it might have been one of the best I’ve ever taught. The kids got so involved with it, they practically ran the class themselves.”

Logan watched your shoulders sink sullenly as you sighed. “As a way of helping them relate to the issue of race as it was being discussed during the Civil Rights Movement, I printed out articles for them to read about the issue of Mutants’ Rights.”

Logan didn’t let it show on his face, but that was surprising to say the least. The topic of mutants- outside the walls of Charles’ school, of course- was taboo. It was an important issue, yes, but he didn’t expect it to be brought up in classrooms, at least not while it was still in the news.

“I mean, they’re already seeing it on the news- anti-mutant crime is increasing, advocates for mutants’ rights have started earning followings all over the world. They’re already discussing this topic amongst themselves, so why not use it to help them understand that less than a century ago, their grandparents were discussing policies not much different than the policies being debated today?”

Little did you know, mutants’ rights were also being discussed even then. Being discussed in rooms full of important men who had the power to change the future- for the better or for the worst. Logan remembered it well; he'd been alive when those talks had happened.

“So what happened?” Logan asked, before he realized he’d said the words out loud.

You scowled. “Some kid went home and told their parents what they did at school yesterday. Next thing I know, I’m in the principal’s office getting told off about sensitive topics and keeping politics out of the classroom. How can they expect me to teach U.S. History and keep politics out of the classroom? It’s ridiculous!”

Slamming another gulp of whiskey down with a shudder, you seethed and stared at the wooden bartop like you were trying to set it on fire. “And I’m not even angry for my sake. I’m angry for the sake of the mutant kids that go to that school- and I know there’s got to be at least one, I’ve seen the statistics. They aren’t as rare as people want to think they are, and if even one kid in that classroom is a mutant then they’re about to learn they aren’t even allowed to be themselves at their own school.”

Logan was quiet- as per usual- before replying. “They knew that already.”

Your brow crinkled. “What?”

“They already knew they weren’t allowed to be themselves at school.” Logan said. “Hell, a lot of ‘em aren’t even safe enough to be themselves in their own homes. Parents throw their kids out when they learn they’re mutants, happens all the time. I’m sure your statistics showed you that.” 

This was the most Logan had ever spoken to you. You were rapt with attention, clinging to every word as protective fury for all of those uprooted children clenched your fists. Your fingernails dug into the skin of your palms while Logan contemplatively brushed his thumb over the grooves between his knuckles.

“A mutant in this world learns pretty quick that it isn’t safe for them to be themselves. What you just taught them is that not everybody thinks less of them. Not everybody wants them gone.” Logan hadn’t looked at you this whole time, just kept his eyes forward. Now, as he brought his glass to his lips, you saw his hazel eyes glance your way. “You taught them that at the very least, they’re allowed to talk about this shit at all.” 

You blinked. You gulped. You blinked two more times. All the while, Logan’s eyes stayed trained on you.

“Thanks.” you whispered, too stunned that he had just comforted you to say anything else. 

An awkward sort of silence settled between the two of you. Normally, silence was difficult for you to sit with; you felt this compulsive need to fill the quiet with words. Now, though, silence felt right. You allowed it into your mind to calm the raging typhoon of resentment toward the bitter world you lived in and instead focus on smaller things. You let the sweet burn of your whiskey warm your insides and trickle down to your nerves. You took deep, mindful breaths through your nose and exhaled through your lips, taking note of the way that the air smelled smoky sitting next to your drinking buddy.

It occurred to you now that you’d never actually learned his name, so you asked him. 

He chuckled, grinning ruefully out the corner of his mouth in a way that made your heart sputter. “You don’t wanna go down that road, kid.”

You smirked, acting a bit more like your usual spunky self. “And what road is that?”

“Knowing about me.”

You threw your head back and cackled. “Wow, you’re really committing to that dark and brooding act, huh?” He shook his head but you caught the glint of a tooth as he smiled into his final sip of bourbon. “Fine, I’ll guess. Josh?”

He raised a single eyebrow at you and said nothing. 

“Not Josh, then. What about Eugene? You look like you could be a Eugene.”

“I am not a Eugene.” He grunted. 

You raised your hands in mock surrender. “Geez, sorry, not a Eugene then.”

He sighed, throwing you a hard sidelong glance before muttering, “It’s Logan.”

“Logan.” You threw back the last of your bourbon and let the taste of it mingle with the feel of his name on your lips. Both burned deliciously. 

“You gonna give me yours?” Logan asked, his voice rough and quiet, like lonely tires on an empty gravel road. 

You held your glass up in the dim lighting, turning it this way and that to admire the way the image of the neon Michelob Ultra sign behind the bar warped when it shined through.

“That depends, are we getting another round?”

We. The word was new to Logan in the context of you and him. He liked the way it sounded on your tongue. 

“Another bourbon?” he asked you.

“Rye this time, please.” you purred. “That bourbon was a little too sweet.”

You were definitely the first to tell him that his drink of choice was too sweet. 

Shaking his head and fighting a grin, Logan ordered two glasses of rye whiskey as you continued telling him about the lesson you’d taught yesterday. 

He noticed a shift in you as you described the way your students had discussed social issues with the fervor of seasoned politicians. He clocked the way your posture straightened and your eyes sparkled when you told him how proud you were of those teenagers in those moments- how it was like they had all been waiting for someone to simply give them permission to discuss the intricacies of their social structure and how little it took for people to turn against each other when standing by their neighbor became something controversial. 

Before you both knew it, hours had ticked past while the two of you sat at that bar. As usual, you did most of the talking, but a crucial change that had set this conversation apart was Logan. This time, his hazel eyes never left yours. He listened- really listened- to every word you said. He’d never taken the time to learn the way your lips always looked like they were about to quirk up into a laughing smile. He’d always thought that you were funny- pretty, too- but he’d never known that when he actually laughed with you, you got this triumphant look in your eyes like making him laugh had been your only goal all along. 

He was noticing a lot of new things tonight- like the tattoo on your upper thigh that only showed when your dress rode up over your crossed legs. He noticed the dimple that appeared when you smiled wide enough. Noticed the looks you threw his way when you finished laughing that made him feel… something. 

By the time you’d both had three rounds of neat whiskey, it was nearly two in the morning. The bartender had given you both sweating glasses of icy water as a silent reminder of closing time. 

“Don’t you have to get up early, teach?” Logan asked as you gulped down your water at a speed he knew would freeze your brain. 

“I do,” you acknowledged, wincing from the passing brain freeze. “...but I’m a natural night owl.”

Logan grinned teasingly. “That’s pretty irresponsible… aren’t teachers supposed to be role models?”

“What can I say,” you shrugged, “I like my whiskey neat and my bed at three.” 

Something in Logan’s eyes darkened then. “Your bed, huh?”

You caught his drift; you were already drifting that way, too. Your knee drifting closer to his as he reached for his wallet. His hand drifting to the small of your back as he walked you out of the bar. Your eyes drifting to his lips while you struggled to maintain eye contact.

That was how Logan ended up slamming you against the front door of your little townhouse at quarter past two in the morning. 

“Fuck-!” you exclaimed, arching against the chipping white paint and gasping at the feel of the cold glass window as the skin of your back prickled. Logan’s hands- large and grasping at the soft material of your sweater- pulled your torso closer to his as his mouth devoured the lingering spice of rye on your lips. 

For a man of few words, he was suddenly louder than anything else- his noises, his touch, his scent, his taste…

“‘Fuck’ what, doll?” He grunted as his lips traveled behind your ear and down your neck, “You never run out of things to talk about, is this all it takes to shut you up?”

“-ngh… That depends, are you trying to shut me up?” Your voice was breathy, blood racing through your veins as his lips teased the skin where your neck met your shoulder. Logan made a noise that sounded almost like a growl just before biting down on your heated flesh, ripping a surprised moan from you that came straight from your core. 

“Nah,” he grumbled into your shoulder, licking the abused spot that would bloom darker tomorrow. “I wanna hear everything.” 

You whimpered. Actually whimpered at the way you could feel his voice rumbling through his chest as his solid pecs pressed against you. Cradling your face in both hands, he brought your gaze to meet his own. The dim porch light shone through the windows just enough that you could make out his smoldering hazel eyes as he brought your lips to his. 

The kiss was tender this time; richly sweet and intentional as he captured a sigh before it even left your mouth. You relaxed into him, melting into the kiss and letting the heat of his touch unravel the tension that still lingered in your muscles from the day’s stress. His hands left your cheeks, caressing down your shoulders and arms until they found your hands and lifted them to encircle his neck and shoulders. He grunted, grabbing your hips before tapping them in a wordless command to jump. Which you did.

With a little hop, you found yourself wrapped around Logan, ankles locked behind his back and his stubbled jawline prickling your fingertips as you held his face and kissed him hard. You mumbled directions into his lips while he maneuvered the two of you through the house until he found your bedroom at last. 

Mere seconds passed before you were practically thrown onto the bed, and you propped yourself up on your elbows to watch as he yanked off his flannel. Your mouth watered at the sight of his arms- not a lightswitch had been flipped since the two of you had entered the house, so the moon remained your only lighting as it filtered in through your gauzy bedroom curtains. Logan was haloed by a bluish, moonlit glow that made him look ethereal as he stood over you in only his jeans and white undershirt. 

Something sparkled under that moonlight… around his neck, you noticed he wore a piece of jewelry that glinted silver. Funny, you thought, he doesn’t seem like the jewelry type. 

You were soon granted an up-close view of it when he crawled over you on the bed. As he leaned in to kiss you again, the cold bite of metal hit your collarbone and you recognized what it belonged to. Dog tags. You made a mental note to ask him about them when you weren’t so preoccupied. 

You gasped suddenly, feeling his hand start to creep up your bare thigh beneath your dress. Your breath hitched in your throat when his warm fingers started to trace the intricate patterns of lace on your panties. 

“Those feel fancy.” Logan’s husky voice whispered into your ear, “Can I see?”

You nodded, eyes blown wide with lust and submission. 

“Talk to me, baby, tell me I can touch them.” he reminded you.

“Yes, you can touch them.”

You could barely see Logan’s face in the dark, but you could tell that he was grinning. His fingers slid into the waistband of your underwear, working them off your hips as he repositioned himself between your legs.

“Good girl.” He purred as he pulled them down your legs and off of you completely. Then you felt him pushing your legs further apart before-

“Holy shit-!” 

One lick up the center of your bare pussy was all it took to rip the expletive from your mouth and reduce your muscles to gelatin. 

“Mmmh..”  Logan’s muffled growl from between your legs sent a wave of pleasure through you, synchronizing with the way his tongue flicked over your clit. You could feel your pussy getting wetter just from hearing him, weeping into his mouth as you unraveled under his ministrations.

Your eyes rolled back with ecstasy as his tongue continued its work- you moaned and arched your back with every lick and every noise he made that sent chilling vibrations through your body. It didn’t take long for you to feel that familiar mounting pleasure rising inch by inch within you.

“Fuck, Logan,” you sighed, “If you keep that up, I’m gonna cum.”

Those were the magic words. Logan looked up at you from between your legs with an intensity that made your heart skip a beat and your walls clench- which he felt, since your admission of how close you were was all he needed to slide two fingers inside of you.

He worked you like it was his full-time job, tongue and fingers working in tandem to pull noises, movements, and delicious pulls of his hair from where your fingers had snaked down to his locks. His fingers drove into you, veins and muscles bulging from his forearm as his tongue circled and flicked your clit at a breakneck pace. 

“Oh fuck,” you gasped, letting overstimulation devour you in waves as you clamped down on his fingers and came hard. “ohfuckohfuckI’m…I’m cumming-!”

It was music to his ears; his fingers kept going, pumping into you and keeping pace with your release. Someone would have to physically rip him away from you to get him to stop before you told him to. It took him a second to register that something wet was dripping down his forearm, and it was you. 

When he finally felt your spasms starting to slow, he gently removed his fingers from your pussy and held his arm up to the light. 

“Damn, baby,” he whispered, his husky voice full of awe and admiration. “Did my fingers make that pussy cry? She needed to cum for me that bad?” 

You watched, wide-eyed and panting as Logan’s tongue caught the bead of your arousal from where it had dripped down to his elbow, all the way up to the tips of his fingers. His eyes closed for a moment as he savored your taste.

“So fucking good…” he sighed, almost to himself, before his hands reached for his belt. “I’ve gotta feel you, baby, you have a condom?” 

You nodded, reaching for your bedside table. You knew you still had some in there, but you’d bought them what seemed like ages ago- you hadn’t brought anyone to your bed in quite some time. 

Feeling around in the nightstand drawer, you finally found the box of condoms… and the single remaining condom inside. 

“I have one left.” You said, holding out the small square package to Logan.

You heard him huff out a little chuckle. “Busy girl.” 

“No, ah… quite the opposite, actually. It’s been a while. I’m lucky I had some left in there, really.” you laughed nervously. 

“If anyone’s lucky tonight, it’s me.” Logan whispered, kicking off his jeans and underwear after yanking his undershirt over his head. You cursed the darkness of your room, wishing you could see more than his moonlit silhouette standing over you in your bedroom- but God, was it a silhouette. Broad shoulders lined in bluish-white light, sweat-sheened pecs and a strong jawline that dipped half an inch when he saw the way you were gazing at him.

Unlike you, Logan could see everything. The night sky was littered with stars beneath a full moon, and all of it graciously allowed him a gorgeous view that practically left you glowing- but he knew you could glow brighter if you bared the rest of yourself to him right now. 

“Clothes off, doll. Let me see you.” 

It wasn’t a suggestion- this was a command. A command you eagerly obeyed as he got to work ripping open the condom wrapper and sliding the rubber down his cock. He was so ready for you, even the soft touch of his own hand rolling the condom on made him twitch as he watched you remove layer after layer until you wore nothing but the moonlight. 

“Goddamn beautiful.” he swore. 

You gazed at him through thick lashes and heavy lids, propped up on your elbows and smiling demurely as you slowly widened your legs for him. 

He couldn’t take much more of this; a growl resonated in his chest as Logan practically pounced on you, enveloping your mouth in a molten kiss as he lined himself up with you and plowed into you without warning. 

“Holy shit-!” you yelped into his mouth, the size of him surprising you as you took his whole length at once. You hadn’t realized how empty you had felt until you suddenly had something to fill you wholly and completely- the stretch was overwhelming and beautiful all at once. You moaned wantonly, clutching at his bicep with one hand and his shoulder with the other. 

Logan groaned as he slowly began pumping in and out of you, reveling in the pleasure he received with every fraction of a movement he made inside of you. You were so tight, muscles already primed and contracting from the first climax he’d brought out of you. 

“You tell me what feels good, baby.” He said, working one arm under your head to cradle it with his forearm, and using the other to lift one of your legs up to hook around his lower back. Once again, his tone left no room for argument. 

“Okay.” you agreed meekly, all the fight you normally had in you suddenly gone now that you had this man seated deep inside you. One thrust and you’d become putty in his hands. 

Logan pulled out about halfway before slamming into you, and the sharp moan you gave him as you clutched his shoulder drove him forward like a war cry. Every thrust was harsh and powerful enough to make you see stars, and you wondered briefly if it was possible for a dick to shatter someone from the inside. 

“What did I say?” Logan grunted into your ear as he fucked you, “I told you to tell me what feels good, baby, didn’t I?” His movements started to slow. “If this doesn’t feel good I can stop-”

“No!” you whined, actually pouting despite yourself. You were a grown ass woman, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d pouted. Apparently he could see it, because Logan chuckled as he lifted your leg from around his back to reposition it over his shoulder, opening you wide for him. 

“Then if this feels good, you better tell me, doll.” 

One thrust in that position was all it took for you to know he’d have you cumming in minutes, maybe seconds. 

“Holy-!” you yelped, and the bastard had the gall to laugh as he speared into your pussy over and over again, hitting that spot each time without fail. “So deep… oh my God, you’re so fucking deep, it feels so good, I’m…” Your voice trailed off as your back arched, pelvis pushing into him as his cock drove into you repeatedly while you moaned loud enough that it didn’t even sound like your own voice anymore. 

“That’s it, baby,” Logan sat up on his knees, cock still sheathed inside you as he looked down and spat onto your pussy. He lifted both of your legs this time, hooking them both over his shoulders before swiping his thumb through the glob of slick that sat cooling on your clit and moving it in little circles as he continued to mercilessly rail you. The movement was even smoother now, allowing him to hit that spot deep inside you that had you seeing God with every thrust. He felt you getting tighter, his dick combined with the soft, wet movements of his thumb were working you into a blithering mess. “You gonna give me another one?”

The way you looked up at him then- eyebrows pulled together helplessly over starlight eyes and bottom lip reduced to a quivering, spit-shined pillow- it was the stuff of dreams. Logan did everything he could to commit this moment to memory; he filed it all away and prayed to whatever god was listening that he never forgot the way you looked like an angel as you writhed under him, whimpering as your second orgasm crashed into you and made your pussy spasm around his cock- somehow feeling strong and soft and wrapped in fire all at the same time. Logan knew his own release wasn’t far behind, and the blood that was rushing to his cock drove him into you deeper and harder until-

Snap!

You both felt the rubber snap open inside you. It launched your eyelids open, had Logan’s movements reluctantly slowing as you looked up at him in alarm. 

“Fuck.” Logan muttered. That had been your last condom; he felt his heart start to plummet as he pulled out of you, inspecting the condom with his hands and sighing frustratedly through his nose when he felt nothing but his bare cock covered in your arousal. 

“Um…” you piped up, your voice small and breathy beneath him. “We can still keep going… if you want.” 

Hell yes. Logan began rolling the broken condom off his cock, perking up at the thought of fucking you raw. He tried not to make a habit of unprotected sex, but if you were on the pill…

“I have an IUD,” you added, as if you could read his mind. 

Logan had forgotten those were a thing. Moments like this always reminded Logan how fucking old he was… he tried not to dwell on that right now. 

“...You sure you’re alright with that?” Logan said softly. “We can stop if you aren’t comfortable.” 

You smiled, running a feather-light hand down his forearm. “I’ll feel a lot more comfortable when you’re back inside me.” 

Something darkened in Logan’s eyes as he looked down at you, lying bare and sweat-sheened on your bed beneath his looming form. He’d been getting closer before, but now that he knew he’d get to savor you without a barrier, without anything to numb the pleasure of feeling you completely… he wanted to make this last. 

“You want it?” 

Logan’s tone was different now; there was a dominant edge to his words that made your heart skip a beat. You suddenly felt the urge to play dumb, to eagerly grant him whatever he asked for and beg him for all the things you wanted from him. Your dignity was fading with every second you spent underneath this man.

“Yes,” you nodded, “yes, I want it.” 

Logan looked down at you appraisingly, making you feel smaller in the best kind of way. He gave a little nod. “All fours then, doll.” 

A thrill rushed through you as you rose to line your mouth up with his cock, before he stopped you with a click of his tongue. 

“Other way.”

Oh. 

Slowly, you shifted, spinning around until you were on your hands and knees facing away from him. Your cheeks heated, knowing how exposed you were to him this way. It made you feel like you were under a microscope, but for some reason that part turned you on even more. 

You shivered as Logan’s hands came down to rest on the flesh of your ass, caressing and squeezing without hesitation. 

“You know how many times I’ve watched this ass walk away?”

You waited for him to continue, but his silence told you that he actually wanted you to answer the question. “Uh… more than I’d ever noticed, I’m guessing.”

You gasped as his hand came down on your ass with a slap. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, just enough to surprise you. 

“Every time you left the bar before me, sweetheart.” He said, his voice gruff and thick with lust. “And sometimes I’d go home and think about this ass in this exact position… my fantasies didn’t do you justice, baby.” 

You jolted at a second slap that he delivered to your other ass cheek. Knowing he’d fantasized about you, the feeling of presenting your ass to him like this, the fact that you couldn’t see him from this angle- all of it was overwhelming enough that you actually yelped in surprise when you felt Logan’s tongue on your pussy again. 

“Oh my God-!” You half-gasped, half-moaned as his tongue slid over your lips, into your hole, around your clit. You almost whined when his mouth left you, but definitely whined when you felt him spit on your pussy before slapping your ass again. 

“Good girl,” Logan growled, “keep being loud for me.” 

That was the only warning you got before he plunged his dick into you raw and started pounding you relentlessly from behind. 

You did as you were told, that was for damn sure. Your moans, your cries- all of them merged together into a train of incoherent wailing in rhythm with Logan’s ruthless thrusting. He felt so good, his length reaching places at this angle that made your eyes roll back and your mouth hang open- at one point you might have even drooled. 

Logan was enjoying himself too, grunting and growling as he felt every inch of you squeezing him tighter, tighter. You cunt clung to him, and the soft, wet heat of you was driving him crazy.

“Such a sweet thing,” he muttered, and he was so quiet you couldn’t tell if he was talking to you or to himself. “Always so sunny… so- fuck- dirty now… were you always this dirty, baby? Or is this just for me?” 

You moaned a response, but the mounting pleasure within you muffled your words into more babbles into your sheets. 

Slap!

Logan rubbed the spot on your ass cheek that was inevitably turning red now. “Words, baby, answer me.” 

“Just you-” you moaned, suppressing a sob of pleasure as you felt yourself reaching your third climax of the night. “No one’s ever- ah!- fucked me like this- mmnh!” A strangled moan cut your sentence short as Logan felt you start to spasm around him. Those words, your hot cunt squeezing him tighter than he thought possible- it was enough to push him over the edge as well. 

“Aaahgh- fuck!” Logan’s pleasure overtook him, and he continued his relentless pace as he filled  you while you came around him. Your moans intertwined in that moonlit bedroom, and by the time you were both completely spent your knees had given out, leaving you sprawled on your stomach beneath Logan’s exhausted form curled over yours. 

A couple of moments were all it took for you to wonder what happened now- if Logan was the ‘stay the night’ type, or if ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’ was more his style. You had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t a fan of cuddling after sex, so you shouldn’t get your hopes up about him staying the night. Besides, you worked tomorrow, so it wasn’t like the two of you would be getting breakfast in the morning anyway-

“What are you thinking about?” 

“Huh?” You rolled over, turning until you and Logan were both on your sides facing each other on your bed. “Nothing.”

He raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “I know what you look like when you’re thinking about something, you know.” 

You didn’t know what to say to that. All those nights at Dusty’s when you’d chattered on and on just to see if you could coax him out of his brooding silence.… you’d just assumed that you annoyed him, that he’d been trying to ignore you.

 But maybe… maybe he’d actually been listening this whole time. 

You sighed, conceding. “I’m wondering if I should ask you to spend the night, and if you’d even want to.” 

Logan looked at you- really looked at you- then slowly leaned toward you until his lips softly touched yours in the gentlest kiss he’d given you tonight. 

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll let me, doll.” he said when he pulled away, before placing one more of those soft kisses to your forehead. 

You woke the next morning to the sound of your alarm and the smell of coffee. 

It was still dark, and you followed the scent of morning brew like a zombie until you found yourself standing in the kitchen with a mug of hot coffee in your hand. 

With Logan, who also held a mug of coffee. 

Wait…

Oh shit. 

The events of last night flooded your mind, and when you finally registered that not only had Logan stayed all night, but woken up before your alarm and made you coffee? You felt like you were dreaming.

“...Good morning.” you mumbled, your voice croaky as it always was in the morning. 

Logan smirked at you, taking in your bed head, your smudged makeup from the night before, your sleepy eyes- all of it was endearing to him. He nodded, raising his mug in a toast. “Morning, doll.” 

You stared at his mug, then yours, focusing on it as if it were a puzzle you couldn’t solve. “You made me coffee.” 

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I did.” 

You took a sip before staring at the mug again. “How’d you know I like it black?”

He shrugged, “Figured anything else would be too sweet for you.” 

You chuckled, inching closer to him and tilting your chin up to meet his in a sleepy kiss. “I have to be at work in an hour.” you groaned.

“I have to be at work in half an hour.”

You gasped, “Oh my god, are you going to be late?” to which he simply shrugged.

“They’ll wait on me. Boss is a softie.” 

“That’s something you two have in common, then?” You grinned, knowing he’d probably hate being called a “softie”, what with his gruff exterior and strong, silent type vibes.

Logan rolled his eyes, pairing them with a wolfish grin. “Is that what you’d call the way I fucked you last night? Soft?” 

You felt a rush of heat at the reminder of last night- you’d be thinking about this encounter for a long time. “That was definitely not soft.” you said, sighing wistfully. “Waking me up with coffee, however-” You clinked your ceramic mug against his and smiled up at him smugly. “-soft. In a very good way.” 

Logan grunted, shaking his head with a rueful smirk. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get used to it.”

Logan had left soon after that, leaving you to shower and get ready for the day. You hadn’t had a very in-depth conversation with him about where the two of you went from here… but you put that out of your mind for now. You’d have plenty more evening’s at Dusty’s with him to DTR. 

The day hit the ground running at work, keeping you busy enough that the night before only crossed your mind when you sat down and felt the echoes of Logan’s thrusts between your legs. Everything seemed normal for the most part- until fourth period, that is.

“Excuse me,” murmured Kurt, one of your quieter students. “Can I go to the front office?” 

Kurt had seemed off since he’d walked into your classroom that day; nervous for some reason. He was stumbling through his words, his German accented English tumbling from his mouth clumsily. 

“What do you need to do in the office?” you asked him gently. 

He seemed fixated on his watch, fiddling with the dials obsessively and refusing to meet your eyes. “Someone is dropping something off for me. I really really need it.”

Something strange happened then. Kurt’s features- his raven hair, his pale skin- glitched. For a second, his skin was royal blue and his eyes shifted to a golden yellow. Then, as quickly as the changes had appeared, they changed back and Kurt was Kurt again. He glanced down nervously at his watch again. 

Realization dawned on you then, Logan’s words at the bar last night echoing in your head.

 A mutant in this world learns pretty quick that it isn’t safe for them to be themselves.

Your eyes must have widened dramatically, because Kurt went from nervous to frantic. He looked like he was about to try and salvage the situation somehow, but you stopped him. 

“This-” you gestured to Kurt’s watch. “-does it help make school safer for you?”

His eyes were nervous saucers as Kurt bit his lip and nodded. 

“And it’s acting up, so someone from home is coming to help?”

Kurt nodded again. 

“Would you feel better if I walked down there with you, or worse?”

He thought about it for a moment before nodding again. “Better.” 

It only took a moment for you to ask the teacher next door to you to watch your class while you walked with Kurt down to the front office. The whole time, your mind rolled through anything and everything that you knew about Kurt.

He was one of the kids from that Xavier Institute that you always drove past on your way to work. Not much was known for sure about the strange boarding school. Officially, all you knew was that some students learned every subject at the school and rarely left, while others studied their core subjects here at the public school and got all of their other credits from the Institute. The rumors, however… they were much more elaborate than that. 

There were several rumors floating around about the Xavier Institute, but the most common one you’d heard was that it was a school for mutants. 

Kurt came from that school, and you were starting to wonder how much truth there was to those rumors. 

“Oh danke Gott!” 

Kurt’s relief was evident as he entered the front office, running immediately to…

Logan?

“Dammit, Elf, I told you to have Hank look at this thing weeks ago- oh.”

Logan’s sentence was cut short when he saw you frozen in the entryway. Slowly, his wide eyes and surprised expression shifted into a devilish smile of recognition. “Hey you.”

A soft laugh escaped your lips. “Hi.”

Kurt looked bewildered as he tinkered with his watch, fitting an attachment onto the face of it that he’d grabbed from Logan the second he saw him. “Do you two know each other?”

Your mouth opened and closed, not quite sure what lie to tell before Logan swooped in with, “All teachers know each other, kid.”

Kurt seemed to accept that answer, shrugging and turning to face the front desk and ask the secretary if she had a screwdriver. You took the opportunity to inch a little closer to Logan.

“You’re a teacher? You didn’t tell me that.” 

Logan shrugged. “You didn’t ask.” 

You smiled ruefully, shaking your head. “Well whatever you teach at that Xavier place…” You beamed up at him.  “they’re lucky to have you.”

He looked back at you, a tender smile stretching his lips just enough to crease the outer corners of his eyes. “They’re lucky to have you too.” 

You felt your cheeks heat at his praise. Eager for something else to look at, you watched Kurt as he expertly worked the dials on his watch. “Kurt’s a great kid. Super smart.” You raised an eyebrow when you noticed the way Logan was watching him, too- proud, fatherly admiration was evident in his gaze. He had been the one Kurt called when he’d needed help…

“You wouldn’t happen to be his…” you asked, to which Logan replied with an immediate-

“No!” he shook his head quickly, “No, far as I know, I’m nobody’s dad.” His voice was low and gruff as he chuckled the question away. He glanced back at you with a twinkle of mischief in his eye before lowering his lips to your ear, only speaking loud enough for you to hear his whispered addition.

“‘Course, I don’t think I’d hate it if you called me ‘daddy’-”

“Okay, Kurt!” you practically jumped away from Logan, face feeling hot as the summer sun. “You almost done with that thing? Mrs. Smith can’t watch our class forever, can she?”

“Just a second!” Kurt mumbled, still focused on his watch.

Your eyes darted to Logan for a moment, taking in his smug little grin and the way his pecs puffed up when he crossed his arms over his chest-

Damn. Barely twelve hours after he’d fucked you into your mattress and you were already horny for him again. 

Taking a deep breath to bring yourself back to earth, you grabbed a post-it note and a pen from the receptionist’s desk, scribbled your number onto it, and handed the little neon pink paper to Logan. 

“Here. In case…” Your eyes flitted around in search of a reason other than in case you want to fuck my brains out again. “...in case this isn’t the last time something like this happens.” 

Logan grinned, tucking the post-it into his jeans pocket. “Of course.” he tapped a sarcastic finger to his temple. “Smart thinking.” 

“Okay!” Kurt said, jogging over to the two of you from the front desk. “Alles gut! We can go back now.”

Logan nodded to Kurt. “Then that’s my cue to leave. See ya, kid.” Then turning to you, he added, “Ma’am.” He dipped his head as if tipping a hat, pulling a small involuntary giggle out from under your breath. 

“Sir.” you replied, mimicking the gesture. Logan’s eyes darkened in the most delicious way when you called him that, and he looked to be biting the inside of his smirk as he turned and exited through the front doors. 

You hadn’t even made it all the way down the hallway before you felt a buzzing in your back pocket. Upon checking your phone, you saw a text had been sent from an unknown number. The content of the message, however, left no question as to whom the sender was. 

Drinks tonight?

You grinned giddily as a schoolgirl, quickly typing out a reply and hitting send just before you re-entered the classroom. 

Do you even have to ask?

A/N: I've never written for Logan before, so I hope his characterization feels right! Writing this felt like walking around in brand new shoes- still breaking them in. If you enjoyed this, let me know! ❤️

Taglist (just a few people I thought might be interested): @the-unforgivenn @ghost-proofbaby @pastel-pillows @munson-blurbs @hellfire--cult