#i could write so many essays on this it is UNREAL

[bodhrancomedy]

Being a kid who loved police procedurals and cop dramas and crime shows, even the flashy American ones, who grew up to be anti-authoritarian, pro-defunding the police, ACAB makes trying to watch films you liked when you were eleven really weird.

[barnesonly]

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖ Lust ˖ ࣪ ⊹ ──

professor!bucky barnes x reader

summary: You’re a literature student. He’s your English professor — brilliant, composed, and entirely off-limits. But the more you write, the more he notices you. And what begins as admiration quietly unravels into something far more dangerous.

word count: 10k

WARNINGS: 18+ explicit content, MDNI. curse words, mutual desperation, age gap, dirty talk, praising kink, PiV, unprotected sex, breeding, masturbation.

Part 2 | Previous Part | Next Part

The door had shut behind you with a soft click, and for a second, you just stood there in the hallway. Frozen.

The echo of your footsteps on the old academic tile had been the only thing grounding you—but even that had felt distant. Unreal. Like you were walking through someone else’s dream.

You could still feel him.

His mouth, his hands, his voice low in your ear.

“My good girl.”

Fuck.

Your legs had felt like they didn’t belong to you. You were half sure if someone brushed past you, you’d crumple on the spot. Somehow, you’d made it down the stairs, through the empty corridor, and out into the air.

It had been cold.

Not biting, not sharp—just… enough.

Enough to make you pull your coat tighter, enough to wake you up a little.

Enough to remind you that you weren’t still in that room, pressed up against his desk with his mouth between your legs.

Except—it was all still there. Burned into your skin. Your lips were still swollen from his kiss. Your thighs were damp, sensitive. And your heartbeat wouldn’t slow down, no matter how many deep breaths you took.

You kept walking. Past the library. Across the quad. Everything was quiet and still and ordinary—and it made you want to scream. How could the world keep turning after that? After him?

How were you supposed to be a normal person after James Barnes looked at you like you were holy, like you were his, and then kissed you like he meant it?

It wasn’t until you’d made it to your dorm room—key trembling slightly in your fingers, door clicking softly shut behind you—that the full-body spiral began.

You paced. You sat. You stood again. You wiped your hands over your face and nearly laughed out loud at your own reflection in the mirror.

You looked absolutely ruined.

Your hair was a mess. Your blouse was wrinkled. Your skirt was twisted at the waistband. Your skin was flushed, and you could still feel the phantom weight of his hands on your hips, his thumb stroking your cheek, his voice—

“You’re my favorite student. My brightest. My best.”

You collapsed onto your bed, face-down, and muffled a scream into your pillow.

What the fuck had just happened?

You knew what had happened. You had felt it. Every goddamn second of it. You’d wanted him for so long—fantasized, daydreamed, obsessed over every look, every word, every red pen note on your essays—and now…

Now it was real.

You could still taste him on your tongue.

You could still hear him when you closed your eyes.

And then your phone buzzed.

You froze, your heart stopped for a second.

You sat up slowly, like you were bracing for something catastrophic, and grabbed your phone off the nightstand.

A notification glowed on the screen:

New Grade Posted: ENG 304 — Modern Narrative Voice

Assignment: Personal Essay — “The Shape of Want”

Grade: A+

Feedback: Extra credit.

Your breath caught.

You stared at it. Unmoving. Unblinking.

You dropped the phone onto your chest and covered your mouth with your hand, trying to hold in the half-laugh, half-sob that punched out of you.

Oh god.

You were so fucked.

And this was really happening.

———

Professor James stood at the front of the room like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t had his face buried between your thighs three days ago. Like he hadn’t pulled your hips to the edge of his desk, looked up at you with his mouth wet and his voice wrecked, and said, “Next time you write… I want you to describe this.”

He wore a navy button-down today, sleeves rolled just past his forearms, and when he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, your stomach flipped like it had no loyalty to your brain. He was so composed. So poised. So utterly professional, it made you feel stupid for how hard your heart was pounding.

He didn’t look at you. Not once.

He spoke evenly about narrative tone, about voice and distance, his words smooth and practiced—but you could barely follow a thing. You sat with your legs crossed, pen gripped too tight in your hand, jaw clenched any time someone raised their hand to speak. You wanted everyone to shut up. You wanted him to look at you.

When class ended and the low hum of backpacks and chatter filled the room, you didn’t move. Not until his voice cut through it.

“Stay behind a moment.”

Your breath caught.

A few students glanced over at you curiously, but you just nodded, eyes fixed on your notebook. You waited until the last one shuffled out and the door clicked softly shut—just like it had many times before.

Now, it was just you and him again. The air shifted.

James leaned a hip against the desk and crossed his arms, watching you with that unreadable expression you hated and craved in equal measure.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, voice low, “about your assignment.”

Your throat went dry. You managed a nod and stepped closer, hugging your notebook to your chest like it could protect you. “Right. The, uh… personal essay?”

He hummed. “The one about want.”

Your breath stuttered.

His eyes dropped, slow and deliberate, down to the skirt you were wearing. The same one you wore last time. His gaze lingered on your thighs—just long enough to make your pulse thunder in your ears—before it flicked back up.

“Wearing that again,” he said quietly. “You know what it does to me.”

Your lips parted, but no sound came out.

He pushed off the desk, closing the distance between you, and stopped just short of touching. His voice dipped, intimate now, meant only for you. “I’ve been thinking about your last piece. It was raw. Messy. Hungry.” His mouth twitched into something almost like a smirk. “Do you remember what I said to you when you came apart on my tongue?”

You nodded, barely.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because I meant it.”

He reached out, slow and careful, and brushed a knuckle along your jaw.

“I want more,” he said. “More from you. Not just your essays. I want your want. In your words. On the page. I want you to write it out, while it’s still fresh. While your thighs still remember me.”

You felt dizzy.

He stepped back again before you could move toward him, before your hands could betray you.

He on the other hand looked perfectly calm.

“You can submit it when you’re ready,” he added. “Privately, of course.”

Your voice finally worked. Barely. “And… if I do?”

His eyes darkened just slightly.

“Then maybe next time,” he said, “you’ll get a different kind of feedback.”

———

You barely remembered walking back.

The lecture hall, the quad, the blur of bodies moving around you—it all dissolved into static. You couldn’t stop replaying it.

„Wearing that again.”

„Do you remember what I said to you when you came apart on my tongue?”

„I want more.”

Your fingers shook the whole way home. It felt like you’d swallowed fire and were trying to pretend your insides weren’t burning. He had touched your face so gently, spoken so calmly, so fucking composed—like he hadn’t reduced you to a gasping mess just days ago. Like he knew exactly what he did to you and wasn’t sorry about any of it.

And then he’d told you to write it.

Write about it. For him.

You locked the door to your dorm, kicked your shoes off blindly, and fell onto your bed without bothering to turn the lights on. Everything felt too loud. Your pulse. Your breath. Your thoughts.

But it didn’t matter. You still pulled your laptop into your lap.

Still opened the blank document.

Still stared at the blinking cursor like it had teeth.

What were you supposed to say?

Today, you told me you wanted my want. So here it is. I wanted to stay on my knees for you. I wanted your mouth again. I wanted your praise. I wanted to climb into your lap and cry because you remembered what skirt I wore. I wanted everything.

You couldn’t write that.

You couldn’t write any of it. Not without falling apart.

But still, your fingers moved.

[Untitled Draft]

for ENG 304 — personal narrative

I don’t know how to write this without unraveling. You said you wanted more. That I should give it to you honestly. So here it is. The truth of it. The shape of the hunger you asked for. I think of your mouth when the wind hits just right—sharp and soft all at once. I feel your voice between my legs when I sit too still for too long. You called me your favorite, and now I crave the gravity of your gaze to feel like I exist. You ruined me gently. With reverence. With your hands, your mouth, your praise. You said you wanted more. So I’m giving you this. Not just the memory of what you did to me, but the aftermath. The ache. The echo. The way my thighs still tremble when I remember how softly you said my name. If this is what you meant by personal then I hope you know I wrote it with shaking hands. And I hope you know I’d let you do it all over again.

You stopped there.

Hands trembling. Breath hitched.

You saved it to a hidden folder, then shut the laptop and tossed it across the bed like it had burned you. Because maybe it had. Because it didn’t help.

Not really. You were still soaked. Still aching.

Still replaying the sound of his voice saying, maybe next time you’ll get a different kind of feedback.

You buried your face in your hands and let out a quiet, strangled sound.

This wasn’t just obsession anymore. This was hunger.

And now that he’d fed it you didn’t think you could ever go back starving.

———

You barely heard a word of today’s lecture.

He stood there, as composed and unreadable as ever—buttoned-up shirt, sleeves rolled once, that low, deliberate cadence in his voice—but you couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. Every time he turned toward the board, you stared at the way his shoulders moved beneath his shirt. Every time he paced the room, your stomach twisted in anticipation.

Like he had never touched you. Like he hadn’t made you sit on his desk and made you forget your own name.

And the whole time, you had the printed copy of your „assignment” tucked between the pages of your notebook. Your fingers twitching with the urge to hand it over.

You waited until the last student left. Your heart pounded as the door clicked shut behind them, sealing you both inside that quiet room again. The air felt heavier now, like it remembered what happened in here just as vividly as you did.

James didn’t look up right away. He finished gathering his things, methodical as ever—closing his laptop, straightening a few stray papers.

And then—finally—he turned to you.

“You wanted to talk about your assignment?” His voice was calm. Casual. But you saw the flicker in his eyes, the faint pull at the corner of his mouth.

You nodded and stepped closer, holding the paper out with both hands like it might burn you.

“I finished it,” you said quietly. “What you asked me to write.”

He took it from you gently, careful not to brush your fingers—but the air sparked anyway.

“I’ll read it tonight,” he said, sliding the pages into his leather satchel. “Every word.”

You felt your breath catch.

He didn’t look away from you. Didn’t blink. Just watched you, eyes dark, mouth soft but unreadable.

Then—he reached out. Slow. Certain.

His fingers found your jaw, then slid across your cheek, knuckles brushing your skin like he had all the time in the world. His thumb ghosted along the curve of your cheekbone.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

It wasn’t praise. It was possession. A promise. A reward wrapped in something far more dangerous.

Your pulse stuttered. Your knees wobbled.

And just like that, he stepped back—already turning toward the door, leaving you standing there with heat climbing your neck and your heartbeat in your throat.

“I’ll see you Thursday,” he said over his shoulder.

———

You told yourself you wouldn’t run to his office the second the clock hit the hour…

But you did.

You tried to be composed. To walk slow. To look like you hadn’t been waiting all days for this—for him to read it, for him to do something, say something, touch you again.

You knocked once.

The door opened almost instantly. He stood there like he had expected you the whole time. Like he’d been waiting, too.

“Come in,” he said quietly.

The office was dim again, blinds half-drawn, the door clicking shut behind you. He locked it this time. Again. Just like before.

Your heart stuttered.

He didn’t move right away. Just watched you. Let the silence stretch until your throat went dry and your fingers twitched at your sides.

Then he reached behind him and picked up your paper from his desk—the paper. The one you wrote for him. He held it between two fingers, carelessly, like it was lighter than air.

“I read this,” he said, voice like velvet and smoke. “More than once.”

You swallowed hard. “Okay.”

“I don’t think okay covers it,” he murmured.

He moved toward you. Not fast. Not threatening. Just slow, deliberate steps across the tile—his shoes silent, his gaze fixed to yours. And then his hand was at your waist, sliding beneath your coat, skimming your hip through the thin fabric of your skirt.

“You wrote this…” His fingers pressed in. “Thinking about what I’ll do next? Thinking how I’ll reward you?”

You nodded, breath trembling out.

“And all of that you wrote…” He brushed his mouth just behind your ear, low, dangerous. “All of that was for me?”

“Yes,” you whispered.

His hands slid lower, palms curving around you—holding, anchoring, claiming. He took of your coat gently, slowly.

James hummed, low in his chest. “You said you still feel me,” he murmured. “Is that true?”

You couldn’t speak. Could only nod.

He leaned down until his lips brushed your jaw. “Let me remind you,” he said. “Let me see how much you meant it.”

Then—slowly, carefully—he guided you back toward the desk.

The same desk.

“Face down,” he said, voice steady but thick now. “Hands flat.”

You obeyed before your brain could catch up. The wood was cool beneath your palms. You felt him behind you—close, looming, steady.

His hand slid up your back, pushing your hair aside.

“You’re my best student,” he murmured. “And this—this is just for me, isn’t it?”

Your breath shuddered out of you.

„Yes, Professor.”

He groaned and then he started to teach you all over again.

You kept your head turned towards him, watching him as you were slightly shaking from anticipation and adrenaline.

His belt clinked softly as he unfastened it, slow and deliberate, his eyes never leaving yours.

“Head down,” he said, voice low, rough around the edges. He grabbed your hair and pulled you by it, dragging your head down so it was touching the desk.

You obeyed before your mind even caught up—not trying to lift it again—spine arching, your cheek pressed to the polished wood, breath catching when you heard the whisper of his zipper lowering.

Then silence. A still, charged pause.

You felt him step in behind you. Close enough to feel the heat of him—but not touching. Not yet.

A hand slid over the curve of your ass, thumb dragging over the hem of your skirt.

“This again,” he murmured, and you could hear the smirk in his voice. “At this point I’m sure you’re wearing this on purpose.”

You didn’t answer—couldn’t—not when his hand slipped underneath, pushing the fabric up over your hips. You felt the cool air hit your thighs, the lace of your underwear doing nothing to hide how wet you were for him.

His knuckles brushed down the back of your thigh, slow, teasing.

“Fuck,” he exhaled, soft and reverent. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

Then he was pulling your underwear down—inch by inch—letting it fall to your knees.

You heard him stroke himself behind you, the sound wet and shameless, and it made your entire body ache.

“You’re dripping,” he said, almost to himself. “Such a good fucking girl.”

And then the head of his cock pressed against your folds. Hot, heavy.

He didn’t push in. Just dragged it slowly through your slick, up and down, teasing your entrance with deliberate restraint that made you whimper.

“I should make you beg,” he muttered. “Should make you say exactly what you want.”

You couldn’t help the way your hips pushed back against him, your thighs trembling.

“Please,” you whispered.

“What was that?”

“Please, Professor—please, I need you.”

That did it. He gripped your hips hard enough to leave bruises, and in one slow, devastating thrust, he sank into you.

You gasped — forehead dropping to the desk — every nerve ending lighting up at once as he filled you, slow and thick and perfect.

“Goddamn,” he growled through his teeth. “You feel like heaven.”

He didn’t move for a moment. Just stayed there, deep inside, letting you feel all of him.

And then he started to fuck you.

Hard. Steady.

His hips slapped against your ass with every thrust, and the sound was obscene, echoing in the quiet office along with your soft moans and the ragged sound of his breathing.

You clawed at the desk, body arching as he hit that perfect spot over and over again.

“You’re mine,” he grunted, one hand sliding up to wrap around your throat, not squeezing — just holding. Possessive. “You understand me?”

“Yes—” your voice broke into a cry. “Yes, Professor, I’m yours—”

“Good fucking girl.”

You came like that—legs shaking, vision white-hot, sobbing his name against the desk—and he wasn’t far behind.

He came with a low, guttural moan, spilling inside you with one final thrust, burying himself as deep as he could go.

For a long moment, the only sound was both of you breathing hard. Sweaty. Shaking.

And then his hand slid up your spine, tender now, soothing.

“You’re so good for me,” he murmured. “So perfect.”

You didn’t say anything. You couldn’t. Not yet. Not while your heart was still thundering and his cum was still dripping down your thigh.

His breath was still hot on your neck as he slowly pulled out, the loss of him leaving you aching and open and ruined. You were trembling—wrung out, every nerve frayed, your cheek still pressed to the cool desk.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

You could hear the faint tick of the clock on the wall, the whisper of wind against the old glass window, the low rustle of fabric as James—Professor Barnes—tucked himself away, zipped up, rebuckled his belt.

You stayed frozen.

Until you felt the warmth of his palm on your back—gentle this time. Almost reverent.

“Up, sweetheart,” he murmured, coaxing rather than commanding. “Let me see you.”

You rose slowly, legs weak, eyes not quite meeting his. Your skirt was still bunched at your waist, underwear still hanging pathetically at your knees. You felt wrecked—and so seen it made your throat close.

His hands were already on you. Fixing your skirt, tugging it back down over your hips with a quiet care that made your chest ache. Then he knelt, without a word, grabbed a tissue from his desk to clean you up and slid your underwear back into place—his knuckles grazing your thighs, movements soft.

Your breath caught. He didn’t say anything about the mess between your legs. He just looked up at you once from where he crouched—his dark eyes heavy, unreadable—and then stood.

He cupped your face. Leaned in, pressed a soft kiss on your neck and pulled back.

You blinked up at him, dazed. His thumb brushed your cheek. Your lip. His other hand stayed at your waist, anchoring you.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked softly, like it mattered more than anything else in the world.

You shook your head, still a little breathless.

“No,” you said. “You were… perfect.”

He huffed a quiet laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Something else was there now. Something tender. Something complicated.

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Of your work. Your writing.” he whispered, thumb still stroking your cheek. “You write so beautifully…”

He leaned in, close enough to kiss you—but didn’t. Just murmured it against your skin.

“Like you could peel your own ribs open and bleed for it.”

Your breath hitched.

„You told me to,” you whispered.

His jaw flexed. His hand slid into your hair.

“I did,” he murmured. “And you listened so well.”

Then, finally, he kissed you slowly, deeply.

It was possessive yet kind.

When he pulled back, he was already smoothing your hair into place. Straightening your shirt. Glancing toward the door.

“You should go,” he said softly, regret in his voice. “Before anyone sees.”

Your stomach flipped. You nodded.

But before you could leave he caught your wrist and pressed something into your hand.

Folded paper.

You looked up at him, confused.

“Read it when you’re alone,” he said and managed a soft smile.

———

Your dorm room was quiet when you got back. Too quiet.

No music. No roommate. Just the sound of the door clicking shut behind you and the steady thud of your heartbeat in your ears.

You dropped your bag on the floor, kicked off your shoes, and stood there for a second—coat still on, body still tingling, his hands still all over you like a ghost you couldn’t shake.

You could feel it.

Him.

His mouth, his fingers, the way he looked at you like you were his.

Your phone buzzed.

New Grade Posted: ENG 304 — Modern Narrative Voice

Assignment: Extra Assignment — „Personal Narrative”

Grade: A+

Feedback: Good work.

Of course…

And in your palm, still crumpled from how tightly you’d held it the whole way back, was the note.

You moved on autopilot—locking the door, shrugging out of your coat, and curling up on the edge of your bed with the folded paper still warm in your hand.

You stared at it for a moment before opening like it might burn you.

His handwriting was neat, controlled. Familiar in the way your own name was, after so many essays.

You blinked at it twice before reading.

My good girl, you tasted like poetry, like fever and summer rain, like something I should never have touched and still—I drank you down like scripture. I watched you today. The way your thighs pressed together when I spoke. The way your breath caught when I said your name. You wear your guilt like perfume. And I would lick every drop from your skin. One day I’ll have you on your knees in my office, mouth open, hands behind your back. I’ll fuck your throat slow, make you take every inch like you’re earning it. I’ll bend you over my desk again—but not until you beg. Not until you tell me what you’re thinking when you touch yourself at night, when you come with your fingers and whisper my name like a prayer. I want your words. Every filthy thought you’ve ever had. Write them down for me. Every ache. Every want. Every trembling fantasy. Tell me in ink what your voice couldn’t say and I’ll make them real. —J.

Your breath caught halfway through.

By the end, you were trembling.

You read it again. And again.

You didn’t know what you were supposed to do with it—frame it, hide it, burn it—or press it between your legs and whisper thank you.

You stared at it for a long time. You weren’t even sure you were breathing. Just sitting there, cross-legged on your bed, hair still a mess from where his fingers had gripped it hours ago, jaw sore from how he kissed you—kissed you like he needed it. Like it would kill him not to.

Your thighs pressed together tight, but it didn’t help. Nothing helped.

Your whole body was aching—sore between your legs, sure, still a little unsteady when you moved, but worse than that was the need. The way your skin burned under every line he’d written. The way your chest fluttered when your eyes landed on “One day I’ll have you on your knees…”

You swallowed hard. The edges of the page trembled in your hands.

You wanted him again.

God, already.

You should’ve been satisfied. Sated. Ruined, really—and you were, sort of—but somehow the ruin didn’t feel like an ending.

It felt like a beginning.

He’d left marks on your hips. Scratches on your thighs— but none of that compared to the way this note carved you open from the inside out.

You could still feel the desk under your stomach. The press of his hips against your skin. His voice low in your ear, saying, “You’re so good for me.”

And then this.

A letter. A goddamn poem. About you. About what he wanted to do to you. About your thighs, your mouth, your fantasies.

Your fingers drifted down to your stomach. You pressed your palm flat against it like it might steady you, but it only made it worse.

He wanted more. He wanted you to write to him again. Filthy things. Fantasies.

You’d barely come down from the last time, and already you were aching for another.

You clutched the page to your chest and fell back against your bed, staring up at the ceiling, heart pounding.

You were so fucked, you were in so much trouble already but all you could think was—

I’ll bend you over my desk again.

You didn’t mean to.

Really. You didn’t.

You’d told yourself you’d just read it again—just once more, to try and understand how a man could write something like that about you. To you. Something so filthy it made your thighs clench and your breath catch in your throat, but so beautifully written it made your chest ache.

But then your hand slid lower, almost without thinking.

Still clutching the letter to your chest, your legs curled inward, toes digging into the mattress, and your fingers—your traitorous fingers—snuck under the waistband of your panties.

You weren’t even surprised to find how wet you already were.

How just the memory of his voice in your ear—“You’re mine.”—was enough to make you gasp.

But this—this was worse. Or better.

Because he hadn’t touched you this time. He’d written to you. No fingers. No tongue or his cock. No desk. Just ink and paper and his goddamn mind.

You read that line again. The one that made your stomach flip.

One day I’ll have you on your knees, mouth open, hands behind your back. I’ll fuck your throat slow.

You whimpered.

You were already halfway there.

You rubbed soft circles over your clit, slow, almost lazy, like you were pretending you had control. Like you weren’t falling apart all over again.

Every line of the letter flashed through your head as you moved—every brutal, poetic promise.

The way he described your skin. Your mouth. Your need.

The way he knew you.

It was like he’d already seen you like this. Spread out and desperate, fingers slick and slow, hips twitching as you imagined it was his hand instead.

James.

God. James.

You bit your lip, hard, trying to keep quiet.

Because it wasn’t just the memory of him that undid you. It was the fact that he knew what he was doing when he gave you that note. That he probably wanted this. Knew you’d break. Knew you’d read every line with your hand between your legs, trying to muffle the sounds of your own undoing.

Your free hand tightened around the edge of the page.

You were so close.

He’d made you fall apart over his desk, and now he’d done it again—without even touching you.

“I’ll make you write about this, too,” you imagined him saying, voice rough and low. “I want to read how you came for me. Alone in your dorm. Whispering my name.”

That did it. Your back arched, thighs tensed, and you came with a soft, broken cry—his name half-formed on your lips.

James.

You stayed like that for a long time after. Just breathing. Shaking. Staring at the ceiling like you’d never seen it before.

The letter still clutched in your hand.

You didn’t plan to write again.

Not so soon.

But the second the tremors in your thighs stopped and the air left your lungs in a shattered breath, you knew you would.

Because you were already reaching for your laptop. For your pen and notebook. For the same pages that still held his scent, his touch, his ghost.

You sat cross-legged on your bed, still half-naked, still flushed and aching, and began to write—quick, desperate, like if you waited too long the memory of it would vanish.

[„The Echo”]

for ENG 304 — Extra Assignment

I read your words and felt them on my skin. Your voice was in my head again—low, certain, cruel in the way only someone who knows can be. The kind of cruel that makes me ache. The kind that says, “I own this.” I touched myself, thinking of your hands. I came with your name in my mouth. I imagined you watching. I imagined you liking it. I imagined you punishing me for not waiting. My fingers weren’t enough. They never are. You’ve ruined me for anything less. I thought of what you wrote. The way you said you’d have me on my knees. The way you promised to make me beg. I think I would. I think I already am. I want your voice in my ear again. Your hand in my hair. Your belt undone. I want to write with your fingers inside me. I want to tell you how wet I am before you even touch me. I want you to ask me, “Did you do this for me?” And I want to say yes. Yes. Always yes. Tell me what you want next. I’ll give it to you. Word for word. Touch for touch.

You printed it. Folded it carefully, tucked it between two blank pages in your notebook.

———

You waited until the very last student left.

Watched the crowd thin, the shuffle of backpacks and papers and idle chatter fading into the hallway until the room fell quiet again. All that remained was the scent of chalk dust, old wood, and him—James—still seated behind the desk, meticulously packing up his notes.

He looked up once. Briefly. Just a glance that skimmed past you like it meant nothing—but your skin burned where it landed.

You waited by the edge of the aisle, pretending to fuss with your bag, heart knocking hard behind your ribs. You shouldn’t be nervous. Not after everything he’s done. But somehow, this felt more dangerous than being fucked over his desk. More intimate.

You walked down the steps slowly.

When you reached the front, you didn’t speak right away. You just stood there, notebook pressed to your chest like a secret you weren’t sure you should share. Your fingers were tense around the spiral. You hoped he wouldn’t notice.

Of course he did.

He looked up, slower this time. His gaze landed on you—and stayed.

“Yes?” he asked, voice quiet but firm. His brows lifted slightly, like he already knew. Like he was waiting for you to offer it up.

You swallowed. “I wrote…something.”

He said nothing, just held out his hand. Not impatient, not demanding. Just open. Expectant.

You opened your notebook and handed the folded pages over without a word. A careful offering, deliberate and hidden.

His fingers brushed yours as he took them from you.

Something in your breath caught.

His thumb slid over the edge of the sheets. He didn’t look down. Didn’t read. Just held it. Held you, in that moment.

“I’ll read it tonight,” he murmured, his voice softer now. Weighted.

You nodded once, tightly. A blush threatened to rise under your skin. You kept your eyes down.

But then—before you could step away—he leaned in. Slow. Certain.

One of his hands lifted—not to touch your cheek this time, not to grip your jaw or tilt your chin like he’s done before—but to rest lightly on the back of your neck. Just a moment. Warm. Anchoring.

And then—

He kissed your forehead.

Barely a breath. Barely a graze.

But it hollowed something deep in your chest. Carved it out and filled it with heat and something fragile and aching all at once.

His lips lingered just a second longer than they should have.

When he pulled back, his eyes searched yours. Quiet. Careful.

“You’re a very gifted writer,” he said softly.

You nodded again, afraid your voice would shake if you tried to answer.

And then you turned—walking fast, but not quite running—until you were out in the corridor, heart pounding, pulse fluttering like something caged.

———

It was almost midnight when the notification buzzed.

You’d been lying in bed, your desk lamp still glowing low beside your pillow. The room was quiet. No music, no phone calls, no roommate tonight— she was always busy, out with someone, somewhere. The exact opposite of you. There was just the hum of the radiator and the fading scent of his cologne on your coat, still hanging by the door.

You didn’t even realize you were waiting for it.

But when the buzz hit, your heart kicked up. You reached for your phone too fast—nearly dropped it—then flipped it over.

New Grade Posted: ENG 304 — Modern Narrative Voice

Assignment: Extra Assignment — „The Echo”

Grade: A+

Feedback: Stunning. Raw. You are becoming exactly the writer I always believed you could be.

You exhaled, slow and shaky.

You should’ve been happy. And part of you was. You stared at the words until they started to blur, pride blooming low in your belly.

He read it.

He liked it.

But… did he?

You sat up, back pressing to the headboard, phone cradled in your hands like it might shatter. The room felt colder now. Too big.

Because suddenly, you didn’t know if it was you—the writer, the student—he was praising.

Or if it was just the girl he bent over his desk. The one who handed him fantasies inked in her own trembling script, who offered herself in printed pages and bitten-lip metaphors.

You wanted to believe him.

You wanted to believe that he would’ve given you that grade even if he’d never touched you. That you were good. That your work meant something beyond the way you moaned his name.

But your chest tightened anyway.

What if it wasn’t about the writing?

What if none of it ever had been?

What if you were just… easy to read?

You blinked down at the screen again.

Exactly the writer I always believed you could be.

Your throat felt tight.

You wanted to believe it but belief was a fragile thing—and tonight, it didn’t feel like enough.

So you put the phone down gently, turned off the lamp, and curled onto your side as the A+ glowed in your memory like a warning.

———

You didn’t go to class the next day.

You weren’t sick. You weren’t swamped with work. You just… couldn’t. Not when everything felt like it was pressing too tightly against your ribs.

You loved him. Or maybe you were just dangerously close. But either way, it was too much.

You stayed in bed late, let the sun move across the wall without chasing it. Ate dry cereal from a chipped mug and tried to focus on anything else—your assignments, your laundry, your breathing—but none of it helped.

Because all you could think about was him.

His hands on you. His voice. The way he kissed your forehead like it meant something.

And the grade. The praise. The ache of wondering if it was earned.

You didn’t open the campus portal again. Not yet. You couldn’t.

Around three, your phone buzzed. You almost ignored it but then you saw the name.

Prof. J. Barnes.

Your stomach flipped. You opened it with your thumb, pulse thudding in your ears.

Subject: Lecture attendance

From: Prof. J. Barnes

To: You

You weren’t in class today. Everything alright?

That was all. Just quiet, simple concern.

And God—it gutted you.

Because it shouldn’t mean so much. It was one line. But the way your heart twisted told you everything.

You stared at the screen for a long time and then you typed:

Yeah. Just needed a quiet day. I’m okay.

You hovered over send.

Deleted it.

Typed again:

I’m alright. Just a bit overwhelmed. I’ll catch up.

Still too much.

Backspaced.

Tried once more:

Yeah. I’m okay.

You hit send before you could overthink it again.

And then you sat there, holding your phone like it might answer everything you were too scared to say out loud.

The read receipt popped up almost immediately. He was waiting.

Your stomach flipped as the typing bubble blinked into life, paused, disappeared—then came back again. And then finally:

Subject: RE: Lecture attendance

From: Prof. J. Barnes

To: You

Let me know if there’s anything you need. Take care of yourself.

Short. Measured. Clean.

You stared at it for a long moment.

It didn’t say much. Not really. Not anything that could get him in trouble. Not anything that made promises.

But still—

Your fingers tightened around your phone.

You knew that tone. The gentle precision. The care tucked inside the restraint. You could feel him in it, even now. Always so composed. Always so careful.

And maybe that was what made it worse.

Because it was suddenly hard to tell where the act ended and the truth began.

Did he write like that because he had to?

Or because that was all you were allowed to be—just another message. Another essay. Another secret.

You didn’t answer.

You just sat there, phone face-down on your desk, and told yourself not to feel disappointed. That it was good he was being cautious. That it meant he was protecting you.

———

You sat near the back this time.

Not your usual seat. Not where he could easily catch your eye with some quiet flick of expression. You told yourself it didn’t mean anything, that you just wanted to be near the exit, but your body said otherwise—tucked smaller in your chair, arms crossed as if it could shield you.

He didn’t look at you once. Not during the lecture. Not when he paced slowly across the front of the room with his sleeves rolled up and his voice smooth and steady. Not when he made the class laugh at some dry, offhand comment. He was, as always, composed.

Unshaken.

Perfect.

But you couldn’t stop thinking about the message. About how distant it had felt. Like a door closed too gently.

So when the lecture ended and the soft shuffle of backpacks and chatter began to fade out around you, you stayed. You always stayed. You packed slowly, taking your time.

The last student left. The door swung shut. And silence settled over the room like dust. Then—you heard him step closer, approaching you.

Your heart kicked up, and you didn’t look up until you heard his voice, quiet and low.

“Are you alright?”

You blinked.

His tone wasn’t casual. It wasn’t his professor voice, not even his office-hours voice. It was careful. Threaded with concern.

When you looked up at him, his brows were slightly drawn, mouth soft. You expected restraint. You didn’t expect the worry in his eyes.

“You weren’t in class yesterday,” he said. “And I—” A pause. He looked at you like he was trying to read past the walls you’d built overnight. “I just want to make sure I didn’t do something wrong.”

Your gaze faltered.

And god, you hated how easily your chest cracked open under that. How easily you believed him when he looked at you like that—like he actually cared. Not just about the arrangement. Not just about what you gave him. But you.

“No,” you said, voice quiet. “You didn’t.”

He held your stare for another second, then nodded once, almost to himself. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. No frills, no header. Just lined notebook paper, creased once down the middle. He held it between two fingers and offered it to you without a word.

“Here,” he said. “If you ever need something.”

A breath. His voice dropped, just enough to make your pulse trip.

“Anything.”

You stared at it for a second before taking it, fingertips brushing his.

You didn’t unfold it. Not yet. Just looked at him, really looked at him—and saw the thing he wasn’t saying. The edge beneath his calm. The hesitation in his eyes. Like maybe he thought you wouldn’t take it.

Your throat felt tight. You nodded once, silent, and tucked the note carefully into the inside pocket of your bag. Close to you. Hidden.

He didn’t touch you again—not like he usually did. No hand on your waist. No brush of his knuckles against your skin. Just a glance that lingered for a breath too long and then he stepped back.

You left before you could say anything else. Before you could let it show that your pulse was loud in your ears, that your fingers itched to open the note, that part of you already knew it by heart even before reading it.

You made it down the hallway. Out the building. Across the quad.

And only when you were tucked back into the privacy of your dorm room—bag tossed on the bed, coat slipping off your shoulders—did you pull it out.

Two lines. Simple.

His number and smoothly written If you ever need something, I’m here.

Your breath caught. The room spun a little.

And slowly, you sat down on the edge of your bed, note clutched in your hands like something sacred.

Because for the first time since this whole thing began—it felt real.

Not just desire. Not just lust.

Something else.

Something you wanted more than anything.

You stared at the note for what felt like forever. Ran your thumb over the curve of his handwriting. Traced the numbers like they might burn you. You told yourself you weren’t going to use it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But then the sky outside started to darken. The quiet stretched too long. And the feeling in your chest—that ache of want and guilt and something too big to name—didn’t ease.

So you reached for your phone and added his number to your contacts.

Then you typed, then deleted. Typed again. Backspaced every word. You weren’t even sure what you wanted to say—only that you needed to say something.

Eventually, you sent this:

You | 8:29PM

Hey, it’s me. I’m sorry for not attending that class. I didn’t mean to worry you.

You hit send and then you stared at the screen.

One minute passed.

Then two.

Then three.

And just when your stomach twisted with regret—your phone buzzed.

James | 8:32PM

You don’t need to apologize. I just missed you.

Your heart clenched.

You reread it three times and then, because you couldn’t help yourself, you typed one more message.

You | 8:34PM

I missed you too.

You watched the read receipt blink into existence.

James | 8:35PM

Did something happen?

Not pushy. Not demanding. Just… there. Just him.

You bit your lip. Your fingers hovered for a moment before typing.

You | 8:36PM

No. I promise. I was just… tired. Really tired. That’s all.

The truth, or most of it. You didn’t know how to explain the mess in your head, the weight in your chest, the way your body still ached from the way he’d touched you and how your mind hadn’t quite caught up.

You waited. The reply came quickly.

James | 8:37PM

Okay. Thanks for telling me.

And then, after a beat—

James | 8:37PM

Are you resting now?

You smiled at your screen, heart stuttering.

You | 8:37PM

Trying. Thinking too much, probably.

You sent it and then typed another message.

You | 8:38PM

Should I still come to your office hours tomorrow?

This time, the dots didn’t appear right away. For a few seconds, you panicked—did you overstep? Were you being too eager?

Then he responded.

James | 8:40PM

Only if you want to. But I’d like to see you.

And there it was again—that warmth. That quiet, devastating softness that hit you harder than anything else.

You tucked your phone against your chest and smiled at the ceiling like an idiot.

———

You spent most of the day pretending you weren’t thinking about him. Pretending his message hadn’t melted you. Pretending you hadn’t reread it five times before finally dragging yourself out of bed.

But now, standing outside his office door, it was impossible to pretend.

Your knuckles hovered. You could hear your heartbeat in your ears.

You knocked. A soft pause—then the latch clicked, the door swung open, and there he was.

James.

Professor Barnes.

In his usual dark button-down, sleeves rolled just enough to show the cords of his forearms as always, tie loosened at the throat, hair still slightly mussed like he’d dragged his fingers through it one too many times today.

He stepped aside to let you in, eyes dragging over you once—quick, sharp, impossible to read.

You stepped in, the air of the office instantly warmer, denser. You heard the door close behind you. Felt it, more than heard it.

Automatically, your fingers reached for the lock—but he was already there.

Click.

Same as before. He locked it himself, again. Just like last time.

You turned slowly to face him. His gaze was already on you. Not cautious. Not nervous. Just intensely focused like he’d been waiting all day to look at you like this.

“Hi,” you said, voice barely more than a breath.

His mouth quirked in the faintest smile.

“Hi,” he echoed. Quiet. Careful. His gaze dipped for a moment, taking in the way your thighs pressed together beneath your skirt, the rise and fall of your breath.

“You came,” he said, softer now. Like it mattered.

“I wanted to,” you admitted.

He studied your face like he was still reading it, like you were another essay in his hands.

“Good,” he murmured. “Close the blinds for me, sweetheart.”

Your breath hitched. You moved slowly, deliberately, crossing the room on legs that didn’t feel entirely steady. The heavy blinds fell into place with a rustle, sealing the office in that familiar dim gold light.

When you turned back around, he was still watching you.

His gaze had dropped again. Over your body. Over the way your chest rose and fell with every breath. Over the hem of your skirt.

He took a step forward. Then another. And another—until he was right in front of you.

Close enough that the heat of him licked at your skin. Close enough that you forgot how to breathe.

“Did you think about me yesterday?” he asked, voice like smoke curling around your throat.

You swallowed hard then nodded.

His gaze sharpened.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“Yes,” you whispered. “I did.”

His fingers ghosted along the inside of your wrist—just a whisper of a touch, enough to make your pulse leap.

“And when you touched yourself to what I wrote…” He leaned in, voice brushing the shell of your ear. “Did you think about me then, too?”

Your breath stuttered. A flush climbed up your neck like wildfire.

“Yes,” you breathed.

His hand lifted to your cheek—warm, steady, reverent—and tilted your face to his.

“Good girl,” he said.

Then he leaned in and kissed you. Hard. Devouring. Like he’d waited days to taste you again, grabbing your chin firmly.

His hand slid across your lower back as he guided you toward the desk—the one you’d been bent over before. But this time… he didn’t turn you around.

He pulled your coat off slow, reverent, like he was unwrapping something precious. Like every second he spent undressing you was something to be savored. And then his hands were under your thighs, lifting you up onto the edge of the desk, your knees falling open to cradle him between them.

His mouth was on yours again before you could even think.

Desperate. Possessive. Slow at first—lips brushing, dragging, tugging—until you moaned into him and he pushed deeper, teeth scraping, tongue stroking, kissing you like he was trying to burn the shape of your mouth into his memory.

You clutched at the front of his shirt, fingers curling in the fabric, unbuttoning it with one of your hands and he groaned—low in his throat—as if your touch alone was enough to wreck him.

“Been thinking about this all fucking week,” he murmured, mouth grazing the edge of your jaw, his voice thick with want. “Thinking about you sitting here… just like this.”

Your thighs tightened around his hips. He smiled against your skin.

“You look so beautiful, you know that?” he said. “So fucking pretty it hurts.”

He unbuckled his belt slowly — the soft slide of leather making your breath catch — and unzipped his pants just enough to pull himself out. Hard. Thick. His cock bumped against your inner thigh, already leaking, already ready for you.

He nudged you back slightly with a hand at your lower back, just enough so he could pull your underwear aside — fingers gliding through the wetness between your legs — and you gasped.

“Still so sensitive,” he murmured. „You’re so precious…”

Your eyes fluttered shut.

He ran the head of his cock through your slick folds, teasing, shallow and slow. Not quite inside.

Your hips bucked forward, needing him. “Please, Professor—”

He pushed in with one deep, fluid thrust.

You gasped—loud—and he kissed you again, swallowing it whole, groaning into your mouth as he bottomed out.

Face to face, chest to chest, breath tangled between kisses. You held onto his shoulders as he began to move, slow at first—like he wanted to feel every inch of you wrapped around him.

“You feel so fucking good,” he whispered, his forehead resting against yours. “Better than the last time. Better than I remember. Better than I imagined.”

You whimpered, digging your nails into his back, and he kissed you hard—open-mouthed, tongue greedy—fucking you slow and deep.

“You’re mine,” he said, voice rough. “Say it.”

“Yours,” you gasped. “I’m—I’m yours—”

„That’s it, my girl… You’re doing so fucking good.” He thrust harder. Deeper. His mouth never left yours.

And when you finally came—thighs trembling, arms clinging around his neck—he held you through it, whispering praise against your lips like scripture as he reached his own peak.

He didn’t let go of you. His breathing was still ragged, chest rising and falling against yours, but his hands never faltered—one curled protectively around your waist, the other stroking slow up and down your back, anchoring you to him.

You felt the tremble in your thighs, the soreness blooming between your legs, the wetness dripping down your inner thighs—but more than that, you felt him. Still wrapped around you. Still inside you. Still holding you like he didn’t want to let go.

“Shh,” he murmured into your hair, his lips ghosting against your temple. “You did so well, sweetheart.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding—and it broke a little at the edges, ragged and unsteady.

“I’ve got you,” he said again. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

You buried your face into his chest.

His shirt was still slightly open. His skin was warm. His scent wrapped around you—sharp, clean, and familiar—and it was too much. Or not enough. You didn’t know which. You only knew you never wanted to move again.

“I meant every word,” he whispered, voice low, reverent. His hand slid up into your hair and cradled the back of your head, his thumb brushing soothingly along your nape. “You’re brilliant. You’re everything.”

Your fingers curled into his shirt. Clung.

You didn’t say anything — couldn’t. You were too wrecked, too full, too raw. Your whole body felt like it had been unraveled and rewoven with only him in mind.

He pulled back just a little, just enough to press a kiss to your forehead. Another to your temple. His nose brushed your cheek.

“You okay?”

You nodded against him.

“Need anything?”

You shook your head.

He exhaled—slow, steady—and just held you tighter. Then, after a long beat, he pulled back slightly, just enough to see your face. His fingers still traced lightly at your back, his other hand cupping your cheek with a care that almost undid you again.

“Is everything okay?” he asked softly, his brows drawn just slightly. “You seem… off lately. I’m worried about you.”

You blinked.

Something in his voice—gentle, honest, uncertain—made your throat tighten. You hadn’t meant to seem off. You hadn’t meant to let any of it bleed through. But of course he noticed. Of course he saw right through you. He always did.

Your gaze dropped for a moment.

Then you shook your head, slow and small, before meeting his eyes again. They were so blue up close, so open and searching it made your stomach twist.

“It’s not you,” you said quietly. “I just… I’ve been thinking.”

His thumb swept gently across your cheek. He didn’t speak—he waited.

You swallowed. “I’m scared, James.”

That stilled him. You felt it in his body—just the faintest hesitation. Not pulling away, not recoiling—just… listening.

“This,” you whispered. “Us. What we’re doing. It’s dangerous.”

His expression didn’t change, but you saw something shift in his eyes. Something darker. Protective. Maybe a little guilty.

“If someone finds out—” you continued, “if anyone even suspects, you could lose your job. And me—god, I don’t even know what would happen to me.”

The words sat between you, stark and real, echoing off the wood and quiet walls of his office.

“I wanted this,” you said quickly, fiercely. “I still do. But it scares me how much. It’s like… every time I’m with you, I forget to be careful. I forget that we’re not supposed to be—” You cut yourself off. “I don’t want to ruin you.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then his hand slid from your cheek to your jaw, his thumb settling just below your lip. His eyes didn’t waver.

“You’re not ruining anything,” he said softly. “I knew what I was doing the moment I touched you. I knew the risk. And I still wanted you.”

A pause.

“I still do.”

Your breath caught.

“But if this—” his voice dipped lower, rougher now, “if any of this feels wrong to you—if you want to stop, or slow down, or if you change your mind, I’ll listen. Always. But don’t protect me at your expense.”

You stared at him.

Your heart ached with the weight of it. The tenderness. The way he said it like he meant it, like this wasn’t just about desire but choice. Care.

You didn’t answer right away. You couldn’t. But your hand reached up slowly, fingers brushing his chest, his collarbone, until they curled into the fabric at his shoulder.

“I don’t want to stop,” you whispered.

And that was all he needed. His hand cradled the back of your neck again, and he kissed you—not hungrily, not desperately—but with the kind of reverence that made your knees weak all over again.

Like he was telling you something in the only language he trusted not to betray him.

You kissed him back like you meant it—because you did. But after a moment, you pulled away. Just enough to look at him. Your fingers stayed curled in the fabric of his shirt, like you needed the grounding. And maybe you did.

His forehead rested lightly against yours, eyes still closed, breath still warm and steady against your lips.

“James?” you said softly.

His eyes opened, slowly, and met yours.

“Do you…” You hesitated. The question felt fragile in your throat. You weren’t sure you wanted the answer—but the ache for it was louder than your fear. “Do you really think I’m a good writer?”

His expression didn’t shift. Not right away. But you felt something ripple behind his eyes—something careful. Measured. Like he knew exactly why you were asking. Still, he didn’t flinch.

“I wouldn’t lie about that,” he said gently. “Not to you.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, unsure what to do with the knot of emotion pressing at your ribs.

He leaned in a little closer.

“You’re gifted,” he said, lower now. “You always have been. Your essays are sharp. Emotional. Original. You see people in a way most don’t. You make it feel like it matters.”

His thumb brushed under your eye.

“You could’ve had me even if you weren’t good,” he added, with the faintest flicker of a smile. “But you are. You’re the best I’ve read in years.”

Something broke open in your chest. Not loudly. Not painfully. Just a soft undoing—like breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. You still didn’t feel sure about this—about his intensions—but god you wanted to believe him.

“Okay,” you whispered and you didn’t press it further.

He kissed you again, slower this time—his hands steady at your back, your fingers tangled in his collar. You closed your eyes and let yourself rest for a moment.

———

You didn’t even remember walking back to your dorm. Everything felt distant. Muted. Like you were stuck just a half step outside of yourself.

You weren’t sad. Not exactly.

But there was a strange hollowness curling around your ribs. The kind that made you want to lie on the floor in the dark and just—breathe. Or not.

You dropped your bag by your desk and sank down onto the edge of your bed, rubbing at your temples like it might help make sense of anything. It didn’t.

The room was quiet. Too quiet.

And then—your phone buzzed. You reached for it without thinking, thumb unlocking the screen. A notification glowed at the top.

New Grade Posted: ENG 304 — Modern Narrative Voice

Assignment: Extra Assignment — „The echo.”

Grade: A+

You stared at it. Blinked twice.

Because… he already graded that one. That was the last thing you gave him.

He read it. He kissed you on the forehead. He told you he would read it that night. And now.

Now there was a new entry on the portal.

Another A+.

But it didn’t make sense. There was no new submission. No new document. Just the same title. The same piece.

Your heart sank—just a little.

He had already read it. He’d already praised you. Quietly. Intimately.

This—this wasn’t about the work.

And you knew that. You weren’t stupid.

You knew what this was.

Your stomach turned.

Because you wanted to believe he meant it—that he thought you were brilliant, that your writing moved him, that it mattered. But now… you weren’t sure. Not really.

Maybe he just liked fucking you. Maybe the A+ was just another way of saying good girl.

You swallowed. The room felt colder than before and even though nothing had changed… something in you had.

You put your phone down, slowly and stared at the ceiling.

Part 3! 💋

tags (tysm for all the love and support, If you asked to be tagged and I didn’t tag you it means I couldn’t for some reason 💔): @iamthatonefangirl @hiraethmae @im-feeling-blue-today @beforemdnight @just4w3irdo @bloodmocha @lovinqbella @its-in-the-woods @muchwita @iyskgd @harrietandcats @shortandb1tchy

[asurrogateblog]

what makes me lose my mind about the wall is that I could write up so many pretentious essays like "ah yes the concert is clearly a representation of antonin artaud's concept of the theatre of cruelty in its fostering of an atmosphere of unreality that forces the audience into an abject sense of collusion with violence". but the problem is I highly doubt that roger or anyone else involved in its production were thinking about it that hard. I'm obviously not denying that that they were conscious of their storytelling and staging choices but like, when they had the idea for the surrogate band they were not thinking about its deeply fucked ontological implications. they were thinking "haha remember that time you said you wished a fake band could play all the songs so you could go play golf instead let's do that" and all those ideas just organically snowballed into what is genuinely one of the most narratively complex musical performances ever conceived. how did that happen

[pink-slay]

How could I have ever thought that words weren't enough for me. In high school I dreamed of going to college to avoid writing essays because I was so sick of all the things that weren't math. I thought my words were better expressed out loud and never on a page because I hadn't gotten into the process of delineating any of them. My communication was an ocean of words and my writing not yet sea salt.

I read an email lorde wrote about a year and a half ago and she quoted a sylvia plath poem and said "I have a self to recover" and I am thrown into the woeful awe that makes me remember why I do it I guess. Write. Live.

The ache is consuming but I work through it and maybe the moral of the story is not that this sadness will end but that there will be enough that truly is worth saving. I go through life to find more pieces of it I want to hold on to. Eventually, maybe I'll want to hold onto myself.

However, until then, I'm glad I didn't get AP credit for those english classes I took in high school because I took medical leave and couldn't take the test, and I'm glad I was forced to take a second english class because maybe... if i hadn't... I wouldn't be the person I am today.

I wouldn't be (slowly) writing a memoir, and I wouldn't be (slowly) unwinding the pieces of myself quite like how I do.

I find a lot of hatred for myself within my words, criticism and fear. However, in my words, too, I find new homes. Safeguards from the oppressive heat of life.

There's a chapter in the great gatsby that talks all about oppressive heat and its been so long since I read the book I can't remember for what particular thing that is a metaphor. However, I remember feeling it. The feeling of an emotion, a concept, a truth so heavy, so unbearable, so unrelenting as a sticky inescapable summer heat.

I live with feelings like that now but I'm finding ways not to burn my bare feet on the metaphorical sidewalk and maybe I'm almost 21 and my whole life is far far ahead of me, but maybe I have lived too many lifetimes for any one person and maybe watching Bojack horseman won't make me spiral like I thought. Maybe it'll help.

I like the early parallels in it. All we see about Sarah Lynn that went wrong that could've gone right and all we see about Bojack drowning and running. Esepcially, all the ways his cruelty toward others was obvious in ways so easy to shun but only to get to a breaking point far later than we'd like to admit.

I write in incomplete sentences, call it a stylistic choice, but the words of others have changed me today, and maybe I needed Lorde's words and maybe I needed the words of that one rabbit guy in Bojack Horseman who tells Princess Carolyn she is the star of the movie and it has to be bad for her right now so the ending will feel sweeter. The thing is that I don't believe that. I don't believe everything happens for a reason; some things just suck. However, I like it, valuing yourself enough to romanticize your life into another reality, however untrue, because you value the ending, the future, the beyond too. It reminds me that we are allowed to hold out hope for our futures even though we don't live in them. It reminds me that this is my life for better or for worse and we live to recover ourselves like Lorde said.

We live to find parts of ourselves we thought were destroyed, to discover parts long oppressed or unrealized, and to continue with even the smallest things that help us see through the smog of the intolerable.

Sometimes it's nice to know that you are not a machine to continue, with entropy until your death. Maybe it's nice to know we have stories and tragedies, something to hold onto, something to believe in.

[pardonmydelays]

(I'm the anon who said/asked about Lin not disappointing with 'Warriors') I felt iffy about 'Hamilton' with one reason being I don't really listen to hip-hop, but my God, was I wrong and, unfortunately, late to the game. I downloaded most of the songs while watching it on D+! 😂 But I honestly don't know about 'Warriors'... Do you have any song recommendations?

omg anon, i hope you don't mind me writing a fucking essay again (well, maybe not essay but this will be a long answer), this ask made me so happy!

i never really listened to hip-hop music either (which is ironic if you think about my favourite artists... but this is like a totally different type of music and we call it gangster poetry here, right?). however, if you love hamilton, i'm pretty sure you would fall in love with warriors as well!

so let's start with the fact that this album is like... SOOOOO LIN. full of hip-hop music but also other genres, every character has their own musical theme (my favourite thing about musicals, also as someone who has never seen the movie and has absolutely no intentions to change that, i was afraid i could have problems with following the plot, there are so many characters, but hey, once again, lin made it so easy for us cause he's a fantastic songwriter and storyteller). honestly, the more i listen to it, the more things i notice. i remember there was a rumour some time ago about "major pop stars" being on the album and i obviously thought "taylor swift and beyonce???" lmao. i'm so glad it turned out to be false, cause we have pippa soo, jazzy jones and amber gray instead (and i would die for them!!!). also, if you're familiar with freestyle love supreme, you would probably recognize aneesa folds, as well as utkarsh ambudkar (oh my fucking god i was so excited when he was announced because i love this dude so much it's unreal!!!). so basically, once again, we have lin manuel miranda and friends (tick tick boom, i'm talking about you). and this just makes me so happy!!! anyway...

if you're still not sure if you wanna listen to the whole album, i will just give you my favourite songs that you should definitely check out (with a little explanation) and then you can decide if you wanna hear the rest of it!

survive the night - it's the first song on the album and it's just so damn catchy, it kinda shows you what you can expect and as much as i wasn't really convinced before the album came out, after hearing this song i was really hyped, so i would recommend to start with this one!

going down - this song should be 10 hours long and i'm not even kidding... ok, so luther is the villain in our story and this is his first song, when i heard it for the first time my jaw literally dropped to the floor, i still can't believe this is a song from lin's musical lmao, i can't stop listening to it, NOW I WOULD PAY SO MUCH MONEY TO SEE IT ON BROADWAY (also i think it makes so much sense to give this particular genre to the villain but i don't want to spoil anything for you so i'm not saying anything else, please just listen to it hdebjfe)

orphan town - when utk was announced before the album came out i was thinking that he would probably have a rap verse or something... cause that would make sense, right (fls!)? well, i was wrong. but i would recognize his voice anywhere. oh my fucking god, this is, for me, the funniest song on the album and it's all because of him. you should see my face when i heard it for the first time. i fucking love this dude!!!

call me mercy - this is the "i want" song from warriors and i usually love those so fucking much ("how far i'll go" and "waiting on a miracle" i'm talking about you), it's just so good and i find myself singing this one at least a few times a day now lmao

still breathin' - i need you to check this one out because it's so damn emotional and i think aneesa is such an amazing rapper and the "what do you do when they kill everything you believe in?" has been stuck in my head ever since i heard it for the first time ughh

quiet girls - not much to say about this one except that it's just so damn catchy and the production on this track is probably my favourite from the entire album, so it has to be on the list

sick of runnin' - AMBER FUCKING GRAY (ajax is my wife, back off everyone)!!! this is such a fun song, i've been in love with amber's voice ever since i listened to hadestown for the first time so no surprise there, but also: 96,000 🤝 non-stop 🤝 we don't talk about bruno 🤝 sick of runnin' (YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! classic lin, i can already see myself trying to sing EVERY PART OF THE SONG AT ONCE AND BEING ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED THAT I CAN DO THIS LMAO).

a light or something - this is so gayyyyyyy and jazzy jones is there, do i need to say more?

somewhere in the city - this song gives me shivers and honestly i started crying when i heard it for the first time but i don't know if you're gonna get emotional if you don't really know the plot, however, it's an amazing song and i have a feeling you may like it

reunion square - this is definitely one of my faves (especially the last part of the song and phillipa soo as fox, you know i love her), once again, i don't know if it's something you should listen to if you know nothing about the plot but fuck, i was crying like a baby on this one and "when you woke up today you didn't think you could die, neither did i" and and and I'M FUCKING SOBBING

same train home - i recommend it if you wanna cry

one thing i also need to mention is that i absolutely love the transitions on this album, they are cool as fuck!!! and i think that's it for now because it's already longer than i wanted it to be, oh my god. i'm sorry. i'm really sorry. if you made it to the end, i love you. thanks for reading. and also please let me know once you check them all out, i really need to know your opinion!

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland

"It took writing this essay for me to understand the main reason I spend so much time thinking about the Vision’s penis.

I don’t care about uncovering its “truth”; the Vision is a fictional character, and even if he wasn’t, his truth would be his, and his alone.

What I do care about is figuring out what the phallocentric superhero genre wants me to think is true, which relates to my ongoing struggle to figure out where I might fit within a space that hasn’t historically welcomed me.

I want my version of events—in which Wanda and the Vision’s love triumphantly challenges gender and sexual norms—to be real, or at the very least possible, and am worried it never was.

Maybe Wanda’s queer pregnancy was just a happy accident, a “production error,” like DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee said of the first—and ultimately brief—on-panel appearance of Batman’s penis in 2018’s Batman: Damned #1.

If so, my feminist female gaze is like Wanda and the Vision’s progeny—unnatural, unreal, and properly disavowed.

For me, a “mature” superhero genre wouldn’t necessarily have to include explicit depictions of genitals or sex acts (though I’d be happy for it to be less prudish about these things—the decision to censor the Bat-penis smacks of homophobia). It would, however, acknowledge the diverse presences that have always existed within the genre’s absences.

Wanda and the Vision’s love can be real and meaningful without including penises or penetration. So can their sexual relationship. So can their family. So can my feminist female fandom.

A mature superhero genre—and mature superhero scholarship—would embrace diverse ways of filling holes, or, as the case may be, not filling them.

There is, of course, tremendous value in making sexuality—and especially diverse sexualities—manifest on the page and screen; not doing so can nurture feelings of shame and exclusion, in addition to perpetuating many harmful cultural myths. But I also continue to find value in stories that make sexuality manifest while preserving a degree of mystery.

Not knowing whether the Vision has a penis, and how he might use it if he does, makes (nearly) every possibility available, and I love that, because ideas turn me on as much as action does. If that’s juvenile, then so be it; I was happy with my pleasure until I was told I shouldn’t be.

Just like Wanda and the Vision were happy in their gothic suburban home, constantly kissing and cuddling and rarely not dressed as superheroes, because for them, for a while, nothing was absent, except guilt about loving who they wanted, how they wanted.

Exactly what that looked like is anyone’s guess. Or at least, it could be, if everyone’s guess was allowed to matter."

[tolkiens-middleearth]

Topics & Themes in Tolkien’s Legendarium

The Perilous Realm

“Stories that are actually concerned primarily with ‘fairies,’ that is with creatures that might also in modern English be called ‘elves,’ are relatively rare, and as a rule not very interesting. Most good ‘fairy-stories’ are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches.” – J. R. R. Tolkien. On Fairy Stories.

Tolkien called it the Perilous Realm, Faery or Faërie, and for me these words represent one of the most fascinating theme in Tolkien’s Legendarium. It is both a narrative and a world-building element that can be found in all his major Middle-earth stories and is in a way essential for understanding Tolkien’s approach to his own created world.

Yet I feel it rarely gets talked about, so I want to briefly highlight what it is, how it functions in the narrative, and give a few examples from various stories. Unfortunately can’t go into a deep analysis because doing so would require me to write a book – which I would love to, but I don’t have the time or qualification). Quote sources and further reading recommendations are given at the end.

WANDERING INTO FAERY

 “It is common in Fairy tales for the entrance to the fairy world to be presented as a journey underground, into a hill or mountain or the like. [...] My symbol is not the underground, whether necrological and Orphic or pseudo-scientific in jargon, but the Forest […].” – J. R. R. Tolkien. “Smith of Wooton Major” essay.

The core of this theme is the mortal wanderer who comes to or crosses the borders of Faërie, the land of fairies or elves. This idea has been part of legends and myths for a long time, one of the most prominent examples probably being the island of Avalon in the Arthurian legend. Depending on the story, Faërie can occupy a different time and space than our own world, or share the same space or time “in different modes”. Getting into Faërie is not always possible and many things can stop someone from entering: it may be completely inaccessible, it may be hidden and people have to find it, or it may be accessible only to those who know the secret on how to enter it. Once you are there, it may be difficult to leave, or it may take some time. Being there could turn out to be dangerous, but it also doesn’t necessarily have to be. Tolkien wrote that “in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold”.

In The Lord of the Rings, there are many examples of such a realm, some barely noticeable and some very clear and detailed.

It starts subtle when Frodo, Sam and Pippin meet Gildor and his Elves near Woodhall. It is no specific realm that they enter, but just wandering with the Elves already lets the Hobbits experience something they are not used to. They have trouble finding words for it afterwards or remembering it clearly, with Tolkien describing it that for Pippin it felt like he was in a waking dream. The next example is then already more direct: the four Hobbits enter the Old Forest. This time it really is perilous for them, they get lost and cannot find a way out. Tolkien describes it as follows:

“They began to feel that all this country was unreal, and that they were stumbling through an ominous dream that led to no awakening.”

Frodo almost falls asleep near an enchanting river, Merry and Pippin almost die. Without the help of an unexpected inhabitant of this forest, they never would have gotten out.

Reaching Rivendell is another less clear example. Rivendell itself is easier accessible than the Old Forest and less perilous for the Hobbits. But reaching it also includes a river, a river that is under Elrond’s command and that rises “in anger when [Elrond] has great need to bar the Ford”.  And within Rivendell, Frodo experiences another kind of “Faërian Drama” as Tolkien calls it: the stories and songs told in Rivendell hold him “in a spell”, and “the enchantment became more and more dreamlike” until in the end Frodo falls asleep once more. Bilbo comments that it’s difficult to stay awake “until you get used to it”.

The most prominent example is of course Lothlórien, a land of Elves that is rarely visited by mortal beings and where the flow of time is indeed different than that in the outside world. It’s also well defended against wanderers, and both in the world and the narrative the fellowship has to pass through: there are guards at the boarders that have to be convinced, there is a river that has to be crossed, a hidden path that has to be taken blindfolded. Tolkien is in no rush to get the fellowship to Galadriel – the reader, together with the wanderers, have to experience this journey.

The purest form of this theme in The Lord of the Rings is, of course, Frodo and Bilbo leaving for the island Tol Eressëa at the end of the story. It is the longest journey into Faërie, a journey that only a few are allowed to take and that you won’t come back from. Tol Eressëa is no longer in the space of the human world, and it’s very telling that Tolkien named the haven on the eastern shore on the island Avallónë.

More examples can be found in Tolkien’s other stories, and I will mention them less detailed when talking about the actual centre of the theme:

THE MORTAL VISITOR

„It seemed to [Frodo] that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured forever.” – J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings.

All of Tolkien’s major stories have one thing in common: they have someone human at the core who is unfamiliar with Faërie and able to experience it as new and from an outside perspective.

In The Hobbit it is Bilbo who stumbles into a world he is not prepared for at all, and while it is less clearly shown in the narrative of a children’s book, the journey of Bilbo and the Dwarves clearly show signs of this theme – a dangerous forest, an enchanted river, a white deer, and Elven fires that suddenly vanish.

For The Lord of the Rings I have shown above that all four Hobbits experience this in one way or another, although Frodo is probably the one given the most focus.

“This is a history in brief drawn from many older tales; for all the matters that it contains were of old, and still are among the Eldar of the West, recounted more fully in other histories and songs. But many of these were not recalled by Eriol, or men have again lost them since his day. This Account was composed first by Pengolod of Gondolin, and Aelfwine turned it into our speech as it was in his time, adding nothing, he said, save explanations of some few names.” – J. R. R. Tolkien. Quenta Silmarillion.

The Quenta Silmarillion is a different type of story, so here the theme also takes a different form: it’s not a narrative as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings and more a historical chronicle in style. It’s written as such, but also given the corresponding context: when Tolkien was first writing the Book of Lost Tales and later the Quenta Silmarillion, the framework he had built for it was that of a mortal men coming to Tol Eressëa and learning of these past events. The one wandering into the Perilous Realm is Eriol or Ælfwine, listening to the stories of the Elves and writing them down for other humans to read. When Tolkien eventually started writing The Lord of the Rings, he was able to change his framing story. There was no longer a need for Ælfwine to reach Tol Eressëa to learn about these tales – now it’s Bilbo who wrote it down in three volumes called “Translations from the Elvish” that he had added to his private diary when he handed it over to Frodo.

This concept applies to the Quenta Silmarillion as a whole, but the main three stories within the Quenta Silmarillion still have a similar mortal visitor as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. In Beren and Lúthien, it’s the mortal Beren who wanders into the Elven Kingdom Doriath and gets enchanted when he sees Lúthien dancing and singing. In the Children of Húrin, it’s Túrin who enters Doriath as well, but also the Elven Kingdom Nargothrond. Both times, Túrin is unable to find the entrance himself; he is lead there by Elven guides – first Beleg, then Gwindor. And in the Fall of Gondolin, Tuor is led by an Elven guide to through many gates under a mountain to the Elven Kingdom Gondolin – one of the rarer cases of a "journey underground, into a hill or mountain".

And even the Akallabêth incorporates this theme, although in a different way than the previous stories. The story of the Fall of Númenor is about wanting to go to Faërie, and not being allowed to. There are other aspects to this as well of course, but looking at it with this theme in mind, that is the core of the story. Ar-Pharazôn is the mortal man who desires to reach Faërie, but when he tries to get there by force it ends in his death.

The mortal visitor as the protagonist in their story is essential for this theme to work. To experience Faërie as a visitor, to enter a “dream that some other mind is weaving” in such a way, it is a uniquely mortal experience that the reader could imagine to have, but that the immortal Elves can almost never share – after all they create their realms, they are the creator of a dream that the mortal wanderer, Tolkien as the writer, and we as the reader are dreaming.

THE CREATOR OF THE DREAM

“Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.” – J. R. R. Tolkien. On Fairy Stories.

The immortal creators are not irrelevant of course, although they cannot be the centre of any story about wandering into the Perilous Realm. The outsider experience, essential for this theme, cannot come from the one living inside the Perilous Realm. The inhabitants in Tolkien’s stories are Elves most of the time – near Woodhall, in Rivendell, Lóthlorien, Mirkwood, Gondolin, Doriath and Nargothrond. But they are of course not the only creators of such realms. Dwarves come in and out of these stories, and in the case of the Old Forest the implication is that Old Man Willow is the main force behind the spell:

“His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs.”

And of course the Valar and Maiar have their part in the story. Especially Tol Eressëa and Valinor are mainly built by the Valar, and in Middle-eath the magical boundaries of Doriath were set by Melian. In moments where Fëarie is not solely or not at all made by the Elves, they may enter the dream of another mind as well. It happened when the Elves first came to Valinor, and a more personal example is Thingol meeting Melian for the first time, where “an enchantment fell on him” in which he was caught for years without moving. This is only possible, however, when Elves meet someone with a creative power far greater than them – one of the Maia or above is required.  

However, this was never Tolkien’s focus. In Tolkien’s stories, the Perilous Realm is often a place inhabited by the Fair Folk – but I have also mentioned that sometimes Faërie exists in another mode. Throughout the examples given, dreams have been an important element of the experience of Faërie, and it’s one that Tolkien also thought a lot about. In our own world, we cannot reach Faërie in our space, but it may be approachable in another mode – through dreams. This becomes especially apparent in his texts The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers, and it was also a part of how Tolkien saw his own relationship with his work: a mortal entering a dream of Faërie.  

ENDING THOUGHTS

There are many aspects of this that I haven’t touched on, and that I would love to explore or discuss. There is for example the case of Frodo, a mortal who has been in touch with something that belongs into the world of Faërie, that he cannot properly come back: when coming back to the Shire, Marry comments on how it feels like a dream is slowly fading, like he is waking up. Frodo however says: “To me it feels more like falling asleep again.” Already, it is clear he can never fully return.

Then there is the case of reversing the idea of Faërie in the case of Túrin – he is trying to bring Nargothrond closer to the outside world so that he can use its force in war. In return, he makes it accessible and the kingdom falls. In general, it’s a fascinating thing to see Túrin’s relationships with the Perilous Realms.  

Or if we talk about dreams, what about the nightmares? Is Mordor basically an anti-Faërie, inhabited by Orcs instead of Elves, where the path leads through a spider lair instead of over a river, and where any mortal being can only end up as a corrupted slave if they stay there for too long?

What about including such an essential theme in adaptations? In Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies, flawed as they may be at times, the experience of Faërie through the eyes of the Hobbits is notable – especially in Rivendell and Lóthlorien. Meanwhile in Amazon’s The Rings of Power, this theme is completely absent and the Elven realms in Middle-earth have no more mystery than a Harfoot camp or a random human village in the South.  

I hope I get to explore this theme more, I’ve been eager for month to write at least a tiny bit about it and it’s already way too long for tumblr again. But there are other themes that are also very interesting, so we’ll see how it’ll go…

If you have read up to here to the end I would like to thank you for your time and attention – both is much appreciated!

READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC

On Fairy Stories, an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Smith of Wootton Major, by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The Lost Road, fragments by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The Notion Club Papers, fragments by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Faërie: Tolkien’s Perilous Land, an essay by Verlyn Flieger.

A Question of Time, by Verlyn Flieger.

QUOTE SOURCES

J. R. R. Tolkien. On Fairy Stories.

J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings.

J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. The Silmarillion.

J. R. R. Tolkien; edited by Veflyn Flieger. Smith of Wootton Major ‘Extended Edition’, Smith of Wootton Major essay.

J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. The Lost Road and other Writings, Quenta Silmarillion.

[danhumphrey]

hi! do you have any recent horror book recommendations you've enjoyed?

hiii!! i do! okay im gonna cheat a little right off the bat and give you one i read like over a year ago idk if that still counts as recent BUT:

devolution by max brooks is my favorite book i’ve read in the last year or so. it’s about a small wealthy community in remote mt. rainier that’s touted to be the most technologically advanced and automated community and a Vision of the Future buttttttt things don’t go according to plan and also there are bigfoots ❤️ i found the humor so smart and cutting esp in the age of ai bullshit and having elon musk shoved in our faces, plus the characters were all very unique and really unlike other protagonists i’ve read in horror. just a really solid book AND it made me even more scared of monkeys

i also just read bunny by mona awad and it was a crazy and wild ride let me just say that. again very distinct and unlike anything i’ve ever really read before in terms of the plot…i fear even going into the plot too much because i truly think it’s hard to discuss what happens in this book without giving away elements that are more fun to discover as you’re reading. definitely some body horror elements in this so if that’s not your thing i would maybe steer clear (also mentioned animal death which i did find upsetting but it’s not in graphic detail). that post i rb’d recently about the joy of reading books you don’t completely understand really applied to bunny for me because there are parts where the narrative becomes so…unreal and jumbled that it’s hard to always know what’s happening, but i did have fun with that!

ALSO an extremely recent read that i just finished last night is my best friend’s exorcism by grady hendrix, and at first i was very unsure if i’d like it but i ended up finishing it in two nights so. it held my attention for sure. it’s set in the 80s and there’s a bit tooooo many constant references for my taste (and i say this as a stranger things enjoyer…i wish i could write an essay about how imo stranger things does 80s nostalgia better than so many that try to emulate their version of it) and it’s about bestie abby and bestie gretchen who unfortunately experience the horrors of demon possession. i really enjoy narratives where all the adults are useless idiots and only the kids/teenagers are in tune to The Truth, which this book sells really well. i was also admittedly very charmed by a lot of the humor (the exorcist maybe my new fav character ever) and how it didn’t take Satanism too seriously and kinda hammed it up

[petruchio]

LEAVING ASIDE the nonsense that was the marketing for these films, how do you feel about the songs Taylor released on the THG soundtrack?

oh i love them!! i actually think eyes open is the superior hunger games song of the two and i think it's a brilliant interpolation of taylor's own relationship with fame projected onto katniss in a way that i think highlights just how incisive the commentary of THG is -- like "everybody's waiting for you to break down/everybody's watching to see the fall out" could easily be on a track like the lucky one and it clearly reflects a lot of taylor's own anxieties about fame and celebrity -- but the fact that it maps so perfectly onto katniss is just like MWAH! perfection. and it's just proof that suzanne collins tapped into a VERY real set of feelings and ideas about fame and living under intense scrutiny. and the hunger games-y lyrics are SO GOOD bc they feel natural but also are so specific and cool: i love "keep your aim locked the night grows dark" like YES LOVE IT.

to expand on that honestly... i think that line eyes open in particular is proof to me that a lot of great songwriting comes out of using stories that are not your own. i think another great example of this is olivia rodrigo. like don't get me wrong: i LOVE deja vu. i think it's a pretty perfect pop song honestly. but "can't catch me now" is SUCH A GOOD SONG. it has imo a some of her best songwriting on it, because i feel like it gave her new metaphors to explore and made the lyrics and the music feel fresh -- like "there's snow falling over the city, you thought that it would wash away the bitter taste of my fury and all of the messes you made" is a BRILLIANT line! like to me, it's leagues above "i used to think i was smart but you made me look so naive" (i could write an essay on my feelings on vampire honestly but that's just one example) (like i really genuinely enjoyed guts a LOT -- but it did start to get repeptitive, only being about heartbreak and insecurity. yeah those feelings are rich and layered! but i also like the song about falling in love with a future fascist dictator and then disappearing into the woods a la wordsworth and existing in a perpetual state of unreality for the rest of time. like that one was really good too! (another side note is that she has that one unreleased song on her instagram inspired by twilight -- and it's also like, wonderfully written. like yes olivia, free yourself from the need to be a diaristic songwriter and just write insane fandom songs. PLEASE.)) (i felt the same way about "what was i made for?" -- like that song is PERFECTION in the way it maps so perfectly onto the metaphors and images of the barbie movie and yet it stands alone as a great song as well. low key i wished wwimf and ccmn had been released in two dif years because i wanted them both to get the best original song oscar. just incredible work by our gen z pop girlies.)

and to go on and on MORE... all of this is why i think the taylor swift effect in pop music has been like... honestly a net negative for a lot of artists honestly. like music doesn't NEED to be about gossipy personal details to be good! don't get me wrong, i love the way we get to dive into "taylor's diary" and i think it's the reason i still love so many of her personal songs -- bc they feel like various entries into the experience of growing up as a lonely little girl and trying to understand your place in the world. and exploring the evolution of her personal relationships over the years is really cool and makes for a fascinating body of work to dive into and analyze. but also... sometimes songs are still good even when they're NOT intrinsically tied to the personal life of the singer! like nobody cares if "toxic" is about justin timberlake or kevin federline or whatever -- it's just a great fucking song and it doesn't matter that it's britney singing it, except in that her vocal delivery and performance style lends itself to that banger of a track! (AND THIS IS TRUE FOR TAYLOR TOO! i've said often she does her best work when she's fantasizing -- "you belong with me" is inspired by a phone call. "august" is a completely pretend story. "death by a thousand cuts" is about a movie. like those are some of her best songs!! and it's at least in part because they feel expansive and fresh because they're NOT ABOUT HER!)

anyway my point is not to say that diaristic songwriting is bad or that i don't like it -- because i really DO, i love looking at the connections between taylor songs across albums and eras and analyzing how she ties certain images or phrases to certain muses and tracking the evolution of her relationship to life and love over the years. but i also just think she's a good songwriter -- so when she writes songs about other stuff... it's interesting and cool. i wish she'd do more of it haha

[nerves-nebula]

!!!!!!! IVE FINDALLY FOUND A FELLOW MANDELA CATALOG DISLIKER

I've been into the ARG/Unfiction genre since like. 2015. And literally I've understood the hype around almost every unfiction project to some degree, EXCEPT for Mandela catalogue. Like. I've never understood the hype. Maybe it's just because I found it to feel very formulaic but like. Some of the faces used for this that are meant to be slightly unsettling are just,, not perfectly proportional and are badly lit?? Like literally that's it. Like there are real people who look like that. Fix the lighting and it's just gonna look like your neighbor of something. It's not very scary

But also like, for real? On your points abt how the series itself gives off A Lot if proto-fascistic messaging,

when I first watched it I was like "oh! That's the point! This is abt how fascist governments use media like TV to influence and misinform the public in service to facism and paranoia. Like these doppelgangers aren't actually real! They're just made up boogiemen to incentivize the public to turn on their neighbors/to attack people who are disfigured or disabled" and I thought that I finally was maybe getting why people found it interesting and that I had judged it too harshly

And then it wasn't that and instead was like "yeah no. There IS a secret boogeyman group who aren't (side eye to that) who are gonna steal your children via television (even Bigger side eye), and nearly off of them are just like, slightly photoshopped pictures of Real People but now they're just disfigured/disabled/literally just slightly non proportional features

This series could be very cool, but its just a thematic mess and is (intentionally or not) communicating a lot of facistic/eugenic sentiments

Idk if this anon is well phrased but like. You're so right it's unreal

-Gonzo

HAHAHHHHH YESSSS. YESSSSS. ITS SUCH A MESSSS.

LIKE. what is the POINT. half the "scary" ppl look like someone I'd see on the bus. the intruder looks like the homeless guy who asked me for bus fair a while back.

CRUCIALLY I don't think any of the bigotry was intentional, however it's SO thoroughly interwoven into Alex's worldview and the world he's created that it's like. at the fucking center of everything. it's insane to me how full grown adults analyze it on youtube and somehow manage to do that without comparing and compiling all the tropes it uses to make its point (whatever it's point even IS)

whenever me & my friend talk about it we somehow manage to keep tripping into different kinds of bigotry!! we'll be talking about ableism and how Adam's arc is very similar to many changeling tropes, which were (and to some extent still are, see: Star Children/Indigo Children) often used to abuse neurodivergent or mentally ill/disabled children. and we'll realize that Adam arc ALSO mirrors the Tragic Mulatto storyline too and it's like wow!! Two in one! you've done it so bad!!

a lot of the issues with it are small little things that could be excused as a coincidence- EXCEPT THERE'S SO MANY LITTLE THINGS THAT IT BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE.

it's like- ok imagine this: you're having an interaction with someone and they do a microaggression at you, right? not outwardly bigoted, just kind of ignorant. and you're like, ok. fine. nobody is perfect, they probably didn't mean any harm. it's not worth kicking up a fuss about.

but if it keeps happening EVERY SINGLE TIME you talk to this person, it starts to build inside you and it's like. it's hard to even say why you hate them because you'd need to drag out every shitty tiny thing they've said and at that point you feel like maybe you're just being petty- BUT IT'S NOT PETTY IF IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE TIME AAA

ok sorry i started writing an essay again. i think my bud's gonna like this tho he's gonna be so happy other people did actually notice

[zechleton]

A Brief and Depressing History of ESWC

Quick disclaimer. I originally started writing this as a script for some kind of video essay or something like that. I kinda chickened out in the end, and also I know very little about making videos, so here it is as 2.5k word essay instead.

Unless you’re old like me, you might not know that Esports World Cup is actually heading into its third decade of existence. Things have changed considerably in the 21 years since its first event in 2003, not least its ownership, but the entity known as ESWC is not, strictly speaking, new.

What I don’t want to do today is get into the sports washing issue. Plenty of others have covered that already and it’s too complicated a topic to try and squeeze into this piece. Suffice to say, while I’m undecided on where I stand, I fully understand why people many of you will be giving this event a miss.

Today I want to delve into the roller-coaster history of a tournament organiser that is near and dear to my heart. In 2005 I attended my first international event as a journalist – the third ever ESWC finals in Paris. I was awestruck by the entire week, from being in a foreign city alone for the first time to the fact that my nerdy hobby could really host an event of this size. Looking back at photos of the venue, the latter part of that seems particularly quaint. Although the stage was extremely cool, I reckon there were maybe a couple of thousand spectators at most.

Still, in 2005 that was huge. The main competitor at the time, Cyber Athlete Professional League (CPL), pretty much just didn’t have an in-person spectatorship at all to begin with and when they did try to attract fans, results were mixed. Back then, Esports was a far cry from AR pop groups performing opening ceremonies for a stadium of thousands and a stream viewership in the millions. World Cyber Games (WCG), which is theoretically still in existence but hasn’t run a tournament since 2020,was the closest thing to a modern event. It had Olympics-style branding, an opening ceremony and even its own theme song, but its viewership paled in comparison to today’s events. ESWC, in the early 2000’s, was a moderately large fish in pretty small pond.

Despite many changes down the years, one thing that has remained the same about under the new regime is the multi-game format. When I went to Paris in 2005, I mostly covered Warcraft 3 despite being on GotFrag’s staff as a Counter-Strike writer at the time. There was also Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Pro Evolution Soccer and more. CS was definitely The Main Event, but every game had its final played on the main stage. Every game had its moment in the spotlight. ESWC was even ahead of the curve in having a women’s CS tournament, and I remember my American colleagues being hyped for Girls Got Game making an American CS double, with Complexity winning the men’s event.

Looking back, I wonder how much of this was out of necessity. With so much less money coming into esports in its early days, perhaps it made more financial sense to host multiple games in one venue, in order to maximize both viewership and participation while only needing to pay for one venue. It’s no coincidence that most tournaments back in the day were attached to other attractions. Dreamhack, obviously, was always attached to a BYOC event, but other organises did similar things. Even as late as 2010, I remember wading through thousands of people, past the hundreds of booths that made up CeBIT to reach the ESL IEM stage.

Fun aside: this was the event where Azael became a “literal world champion,” after winning the World of Warcraft tournament with Evil Geniuses. I will never not cringe when I think about how inappropriately quickly I leapt on him and his teammates to ask for an interview after the game. I didn’t even wait for them to finish celebrating their victory. Azael, reasonably, told me to give them a minute. I have never watched any of my interviews from this event, and I don’t think SK’s site has them hosted any more – what a pity.

By the way, if this sounds weird now, that’s because it was. I had a press pass, sure, but I was sitting in the crowd of a couple of hundred people and simply wandered up to the stage without needing to show it to anyone.

I went back to ESWC in 2006, solely as a WC3 guy now. Ironically, I barely recall the WC3 final at all, but the MIBR vs Fnatic CS final turned out to be a banger. To those of us on the outside, ESWC seemed to be tootling along just nicely but capitalism demands growth and “tootling along” was never going to be enough in the long run.

That was my last in-person event for a few years. I left GotFrag a few months after it got bought by Major League Gaming in 2007. Similarly, ESWC soldiered on as-is for a while, but the organisers had to switch things up. They changed formats in 2008, moving to something closer to the IEM and Blast Pro series formats we know today but this would only last one year. In 2009, under the weight of a global financial crisis, ESWC closed its doors for, erm, like a year.

They weren’t the only casualty, and Counter-Strike’s love-hate relationship with CPL ended in early 2008. An official statement read “The current fragmentation of the sport, a crowded field of competing leagues, and the current economic climate have prompted the CPL to suspend its pro-tournament operations.” Matthieu Dallon, founder of ESWC, echoed this sentiment in an interview with Fragster.de (https://complexity.gg/matthieu-dallon-interviewed-on-eswc-bankruptcy/ not the og link): “We have contacted several dozen of potential partners, big and small brands. We always received the same answer: Our stock value is in free fall, the sales decline, we are going to lose money this quarter, nobody knows when all will restart, so we have to reduce all our marketing and communication budgets, we have to target our direct consumers, and we have to cut all special budgets as sponsoring or alternate advertising.”

Other leagues such as ESL and Dreamhack hung on, changed their models and adapted. They became hosts and organisers for the likes of Blizzard and Valve, eventually becoming more of a media company than a league. But when ESWC returned in 2010, it more-or-less picked up where it left off: multiple games (including WC3, surprisingly) and a spectacular venue in Disneyland Paris.

In 2011, my beloved WC3 was replaced by Starcraft II and ESWC attached itself to Paris Games Week. This meant a change of season. Until now, ESWC had always been a summer spectacle. Paris Games Week took place in late October – presumably to give Parisians something to do indoors during the miserable weather.

Still, the event continued to be a fairly important part of the esports calendar. We still hadn’t quite reached the era of The Major and there was plenty of room at the table for competition. Although my own interest in many of the included titles was waning during this period, ESWC looked to be going strong. They took the move to CS:GO and DOTA2 in their stride and added more and more -Mania games. ESWC had always been one of the strongest proponents of Trackmania, but they even added Shootmania for a few years towards the end. Remember Shootmania? Kinda? Yeah, same.

It wasn’t until 2014 that things started to get silly. Call of Duty gets top billing on the official ESWC page for that year. This is the first time that anything other than Counter-Strike sits atop the list of champions, which is a subtle but important change. But okay, people like COD, whatever. It made sense to add another popular FPS game.

Just Dance, though? I think this is where ESWC’s reliance on other parties started to become an issue. Just Dance is an Ubisoft game, developed by Ubisoft Paris specifically. ESWC always had strong ties to its home country of France and while Ubisoft’s Trackmania series made a lot of sense as a competitive game, dancing, just kinda doesn’t. Well, I guess it did go on to be part of the Olympic Series, so joke’s on me, right?

Okay, maybe that’s a bit rude. If you like Just Dance then that’s great. I watched the highlights for this video and everybody looked like they were having a great time. But after so many years of pining for mainstream acceptance, the fact that the Olympics chose a dancing game that a lot of esports fans had never even heard of (myself included), instead of CS or a MOBA of some kind was absurd. Viewers thought so, too – all 800 of them. Yeah, according to esports charts (https://escharts.com/tournaments/other/olympic-esport-series-finals-just-dance) the peak viewership for Just Dance at the Olympics was 777 people.

Look, I’m not suggesting that ESWC immediately shrunk in 2015 because of Just dance and Call of Duty, but they played their part. From the outside looking in, their seems to have been a lack of direction and these two games were part of that. Or rather, there was a direction, but that direction was advertising Ubisoft products. ESWC spread itself too thin at a time when single-title leagues and tournaments were quickly becoming the norm.

ESWC did try its hand at this in 2015, running a COD-only tournament in May and a CS-only event in July (though they do deserve credit for continuing to support female Counter-Strike), but in October they were back to their Olympics-style approach. The list of games at the final event of 2015 paints a picture: FIFA, Women’s LoL (but no men), Trackmania, Shootmania and Just Dance. You might generously call it an eclectic mix, but I’d argue it’s a collection of games nobody else wanted.

ESWC’s website lists a highlight for every year. Usually it’s an iconic moment of game play, sometimes it’s the first use of a game on such a big stage. Tellingly, in 2015, they list the creation of France Esports. Sure, this was a big deal (probably), and it was headed up by Matthieu Dallon of ESWC, but this comes across as a tacit admission that nothing important happened at their own tournaments during that whole year.

In 2016, the spiral into irrelevancy was well underway. Another COD tournament in May was followed by a downsized October tournament. CS was back on the menu, but the list of entrants paints an ugly picture. Alternate Attax beat LDLC in the final – two teams who, in 2016, had no business being in an international final. They did have players who would go onto bigger things, but Attax has never qualified for a Major, before or since. They earned their victory, but it came against a very weak field.

Even more damning, though, is the fourth and final game on the list for that year: Clash Royale. The shark had well and truly been jumped. You can never recover your credibility after you take money from mobile games.

ESWC stumbled on for a few more years after that, but the list of titles became more and more muddled while the CS tournament became populated by fewer and fewer big names. ESWC Africa took place in December of 2018 – a Counter-Strike only tournament that was the last thing ESWC ever ran. While it was cool to see organisers creating tournaments outside of the usual esports hotbeds, it’s no surprise that ESWC disappeared shortly after that.

But the universe had a different fate in mind for ESWC. In 2024, it is being brought back to life in a hideous experiment, worthy of any Gothic Horror. It will return as a shell of its former self, bathed in riches it never had in its previous life, but devoid of all the glory and all the good will it had created over the years.

And yet, ESWC being bought out is nothing new. Behind the scenes, ownership changed several times of the years. Even the name was switched to Esports World Convention at some point – a fact I only learned during my research for this piece. Starting out as an expansion of Ligarena’s domestic LAN tournaments in France, Games-Solution bought the brand in 2009. They passed things onto Oxent in 2011 until Oxent itself was bought out by Webedia in 2016.

What is particularly interesting here is that Matthieu Dallon was in charge of Oxent, too. Despite the bankruptcy of his previous company, he clearly wanted to make his dream of an esports Olympics a reality. He could have easily disappeared into some or other other mundane business and I assume he would have had offers to join other esports organisations, but we chose to resurrect ESWC instead.

And then he sold it to Webedia.

Webedia is a lot of things. A kind of smorgasbord of “online stuff,” featuring typically, deliberately nebulous “Web3” concepts such as “Content Production,” “IP Development” and “Brand Partnership.” If you rolled your eyes at any or all of these phrases, you’re not alone. Essentially, their main role seems to be managing streamers and talent but their reach goes much wider than that. Indeed, esports is only the third entry on their “Webedia Networks” page, below Movies and Gaming. This is the company behind LFL’s broadcasts, however, so they do remain relevant in the esports community, at least in France.

Oh, and they shill NFTs because of course they do.

Is it a coincidence that the year ESWC became part of a larger media empire is the same year they moved into mobile gaming? Probably not. Mobile games, whatever you think of them, do make a lot of money. There’s an Always Sunny scene for every occasion, isn’t there? What do companies like Webedia make? Money, Charlie, they make money.

Still, it’s clear in retrospect that this was the beginning of the end for ESWC. What had started out in 2003 as a passion project based on a love of esports had turned into just another media asset. Viewed in that light, it’s almost sort of fitting that it has now become a sportswashing project – a sad but common arc in today’s hyper-capitalist world. Anything with positive emotional attachment can and will be commodified, either for money or PR, or, more commonly, both. Yes, I’m looking at you, football.

I remember when I first started writing about esports, people always talked about “going mainstream” as though it was a good thing. As though being popular and making money was what made something legitimate or worthwhile. The closer we got to that goal, the worse it seemed to me. ESWC’s fate – a once-loved institution of a small community turned into a heartless advertising entity for an oil state – is about as damning an indictment of that as you could wish to find. The delicious irony in all of this is that ESWC will lose money, and this is by design, but it will also lose the legitimacy it once had. Nobody who used to love ESWC in the early 2000’s will care about its new zombie form and many of them will boycott it, myself included.

ESWC died years ago as far as I’m concerned. The event by the same name later this year is nothing but the reanimated corpse of something that used to be great. The only DNA the two share is their scattergun approach to game selection, but even this is a perversion of the original goal. The old ESWC had to cast its net wide in order to make ends meet. The new monstrosity is just willing to throw money at anything that will buy its owners some positive publicity – a drop in the ocean of its owner’s obscene wealth.

[0pawprint0]

Fickle Fandom

Warning: crass language (I have no filter)

I need to rant about something I’ve noticed. Unfortunately, I deal with a person like those I’m about to talk about in real life and it’s not fun. This essay/rant is extremely informal and just me getting my thoughts out there, so please excuse the text talk, slang, shortcuts, etc. I am also very tired when typing this, so please cut me some slack if I don’t say what I’m wanting to in the most eloquent way!

I’m sure a lot of people have noticed that fandom spaces have become incredibly toxic. What used to be a fun place for weirdos (/pos) to feel safe and accepted is now being torn to shreds by people who can’t stand others having fun. TikTok is a great example of how a safe place for fandom behavior quickly became a cesspit of negativity. This post mostly focuses on cosplay. TikTok was basically built on cosplay. That used to be the main thing you’d find on the app! As more and more people started using it, it started to have different kinds of content, and now cosplay tends to get shoved down in favor of something more appealing to a wider demographic. Unfortunately, this means a lot of mean-spirited people have too much to say about a community they are not even part of.

The hate for cosplayers is unreal. Cosplayers aren’t doing anything wrong. We are dressing up as characters for fun. It is not hurting you. If you see something you don’t want to see, it is not hard to swipe past it. Ignore it. Interacting with it will ensure more content like it will reach your fyp. But some people just want to be mean and love the chance to get to do so. People make fun of cosplayers now like it’s their job. They insult them and throw fits like toddlers the moment they see them. Most hate for cosplayers is rooted in ableism, by the way! Fun fact! The word "cringey" has been twisted by sad people to target neurodivergent individuals. Many cosplayers (not all, but many) are neurodivergent. Many cosplayers are lgbt+, too. And you bet homophobia and transphobia is rampant in fandom spaces, too!

The hate doesn’t stop at people who don’t have nerdy interests, either. Oh no. Even people from fandoms are rude towards cosplayers! People will complain about "cringey" cosplayers "ruining" fandoms. Spoiler alert: there are cosplayers in every fandom. Kindly, get over it. People enjoy their fandoms in different ways! Some people write fanfiction and draw fanart, some consume fanfiction and fanart, some only interact with the original media, and some cosplay. All are valid ways to enjoy it! Hating on others for how they interact with their fandom is ridiculous, to say the least. The people ruining fandoms are the ones who can’t stand seeing others have fun. I’m sorry your life is so boring you can’t stand seeing others being creative and having a good time. However, that doesn���t give you the excuse to be a dickhead. Policing how someone expresses their love of something is not cool. Anyone who does this is actually a pathetic little weenie.

Let me get into my personal experience! Remember how I mentioned I have someone like this irl? Let me tell you about the interaction that spurred this rant! I am preparing for a con at this very moment. This weekend! Some context here: I am a cosplayer. I have been doing it for years and it’s a hobby that I love and don’t plan on giving up on anytime soon. I am also someone who is very inspired by drag and I enjoy doing my makeup inspired by cartoons and drag queens. This person absolutely cannot stand it when I decide to even put on a little makeup for the heck of it. Oops, I’m also someone who does my makeup occasionally outside of cosplay! The incognito nerd saw me carrying some of my makeup to my bag and stopped me to go, "You’re not gonna dress like a CLOWN, are you?" This could be taken literally, but I’m pretty sure it was meant to be an insult. This person insults my makeup often, claiming I don’t do it right (there is no right way to do makeup, btw). They also generally insult the way I dress. I told them no, but why would it matter?

"Because it’s embarrassing! Don’t embarrass me!" Babe, YOU embarrass ME tbh! I literally told them straight up, "This place is going to be filled with cosplayers and people like me. I don’t know what to tell you." If you are someone who gets embarrassed of cosplayers, a con probably isn’t the place for you. What used to be a safe space for cosplayers is now overrun by people who don’t know how to have fun. I should not have to worry about being harassed and made fun of at a place where people like me are supposed to thrive. Please, loosen the stick in your asshole ever so slightly so you can see that cons are meant to be fun! If you’re easily overloaded by "cringey" stuff, please stay home. You sour the mood and suck the life of everyone around you. Okay, sponge mop?

I can’t even get into how some other cosplayers treat cosplayers. That is a whole other can of worms I simply cannot get into right now. We will be here all night. Cosplay is not a clout contest. It is not about who is most accurate to the character. Cosplay is supposed to be FUN! And it is for everyone! No one is too old to cosplay. No one is too fat to cosplay. No one is too skinny to cosplay. No one should feel restricted because of skin color. No one should feel restricted because of gender. No one should feel restricted because of money. No one should feel bad about cosplaying, ever. People can stylize characters. People can make closet cosplays. Cosplay is for everyone. If I see any more cosplayers bringing other cosplayers down, I’m gonna lose it.

My point is, fandom spaces aren’t as fun as they used to be. I miss when I could walk into a con with a barely recognizable Juuzou Suzuya cosplay and still get complimented for trying (real experience! Those cosplayers were so kind!). I miss when I didn’t feel like I’d be judged for entering a space I should feel safe in. I miss when I could drag up my cosplay as much as I want without someone telling me the makeup is too much. I miss when fandom spaces were fun. If you can’t handle fandom activity in a fandom space, you should reflect on why you don’t like it. Most likely, it’s jealousy others can enjoy themselves so freely. Let others have fun. Just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean everyone else has to be.

[o0anapher0o]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for tagging me @meraki-yao. I am very happy at the oportunity to shamelessly plug many, many of my fics :D Let’s do this!

How many works do you have on ao3?

47

What?! When did that happen? And how?

What’s your total ao3 word count?

502,199

Weirdly less surprising, even thought hat number is completely unreal.

What fandoms do you write for?

Interview with the vampire (2022)

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Red White and Royal Blue

Star trek: Deep Space Nine

And I have one teeny tiny Thunderbirds fic

Top 5 fics by kudos

Somewhere I have never travelled (ds9)

Petal by Petal (ds9)

Your most frail gesture (ds9)  

Watch that man (rwrb)

Personality (ds9)

I feel like I should count the first three as one, since it’s literally parts 1, 2 and 3 of a trilogy.

Surprising how fast my first rwrb fic got up there.

Do you respond to comments?

Always, usually a bit rambly. I love talking to people about my writing :D

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Puh, that’s a hard one. I’m such a happy endings girl. My instinct was one of my iwtv fics, but they’re more angry than angsty lol, so I’m saying it’s between Of all untruths the truest is you (iwtv) and Do no harm (ds9)

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Your most frail gesture ends with a wedding, though actually I like the accepted proposal in Petal by Petal more.

Do you get hate on fics?

None so far (knock on wood).

Do you write smut?

No. A lot of my fics make it clear sex is happing but I don’t write it and I haven’t really any urge to.

Craziest crossover

My TayNick character crossover New Information. Also my only crossover so far, but that’s a side note.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Hopefully having all my stuff archivelocked will keep it that way.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

YES! Someone did a translation of Do no harm into Russian. Only one of the coolest things that ever happened to me (though I would have preferred to be asked beforehand rather than simply be presented with a link).

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I’m not entirely sure how that would work, but I’d be open to it.

All time favourite ship?

Why do people insist you have to have one favourite over everything else? No, I’m an adult, I can have as many OTPs as I want.

What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Beneath Lucifer’s claws. I love this story so much, but I have it in me to finish it. I also have an old ATLA fic I love to bits, that has really neat bits but I was such a different person when I wrote it, it would need a complete rewrite and half of my favourite scenes don’t really work anymore.

What are your writing strengths?

I’ve been told my pacing is good. And I think I’m quite good at characters voices right when it comes to fanfic.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Punctuation. And I definitely suffer from ‘why use a period when I can use a comma’ disease XD. Scene transitions always feel clumsy to me, I don’t know if they read like it.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Oh, there’s an essay. If I were to give general advice I’d say, avoid it. It’s fun to read when you speak the language and annoying if you don’t, having to look up stuff all the time interrupts the reading flow. It’s even more annoying when you speak the language and the author clearly didn’t.

I’ve seen it done well once, where it was used so the characters couldexchange information because that was the natural thing to do for them, while keeping it a secret from the reader. That was neat. 'But even that could be done by just saying 'he said something in [language]'.

First fandom you wrote in?

Published or not? My first published fic was Jack’s Desk for mfmm. But I also still have fifteen year old supernatural and vampire diaries fics in a notebook somewhere. The world wasn’t ready yet.

Favourite fic you’ve written?

Something unstoppable and Somewhere I have never travelled. Neither of them came out the way I thought they would but I love how they ended up so much.

tagging @sapphosewrites @xenobotanist and @nalyra-dreaming

[pineapplecatguy]

This is heartbreaking

Im literally bowling my eyes out about the whole LBP server shutdown. I didn't even play the ps4 versions, but lbp2 gave me so so SO many great memories. It's just so unreal to see that franchise go away. There will NEVER be a series with the same amount of creativity as LBP had. I could write an whole essay about the good memories I've had with my friends on random levels, from decorating our pods to playing Ao Oni recreations. Rest in peace LittleBigPlanet I will always miss you

[staroftheseablog]

There are so many things happening in my life lately. Some of them I still don’t’ understand because in one hand they feel so unreal to me, and in the other hand I feel really lucky and blessed that I achieved so many things. But…somehow I don’t feel satisfied with all of it.

I am 22 years old and there are so many things that I still want to do, feel, experience. For a year now I am working at the company I could only dream about when I was in high school. Now I am part of it and made it somehow my home - also my colleagues are just like my family. I’ve never in my life been less at home than this year. I have been to so many places and somehow I still found the time to work 12 hours shifts for whole year. Also, simultaneously I finished my 4th year of college successfully. Now, this October, I started my last year of masters.

Even all of this achievements, my mind is constantly messing with my nerves and make me question my entire existence, future, career, friendships.

I don’t know if somebody has noticed, but when you stared working on something you wanted your whole life, you ironically started also losing so many friends. There were so many moments this year when I felt lonely and sad, but again aware that this is, I guess, part of growing up. Yes, it did make me stronger, but sometimes I miss being just 18 year old student with no worries in this world.

At the beginning of the year I also had really tough times in my family. We faced death of our beloved family member who means the world to me and was/is/will be my forever guardian angel in Heaven. I miss him so much and I’ll always will. That experience taught me how to grief, but also how to be consistent with everything that was going on beside that tragic event. I survived, because I told myself I that had to.

At the beginning of next year I am about to start my whole new chapter in life called cultural exchange. I am moving to Spain for half of a year where I am going to study but also enjoy living in different country far away from home. I am excited, but also (not gonna lie) scared. That means that I am about to quit my job, pack my suitcases, left my friend, family and tell myself - “ you are on your own now”. Honestly, can’t wait. But, yes, it frightens me sometimes when I am thinking about it because this is one the hugest leaps of my comfort zone so far.

I also miss writing. I can’t even remember when was the last time I wrote something. I used to write songs, poems, essays. I feel like I used to be more creative back then than now. Also, I found myself being so lazy to read books. Maybe I wouldn’t call it lazy, but tired…or it was just a stupid excuse. Funny thing is that I actually bought a lot. New ones. Fresh ones. Expensive ones. They are still on the same shelf.

There is also one thing that bothers me since I started college. Actually this also bothers me in high school, but I didn’t care that much about that. I have terrible love life. When I say terrible I mean nonexistent love life. Yes, I would fall in this stupid kind of love with guys I met during summer or with someone that I would do my college project, but there would never be reverse reaction. I would just made it up in my head and used it for another one overthinking therapy before sleep. There was never a single person in my life who would really like me for who I am and who would see me as something more than a friend or a girl with her friends. I am really done with third wheeling because if I continue to do that, I feel like I would become a doctor or expert in field so I can write my master thesis on this topic. It is critical.

I really do need someone who is going to love me. I need a lover, a friend, someone who’s going to respect me, listen to me, hug me, someone who can be my emergency call when I couldn’t find strength to put my shit together.

Yes, I did pray and I know that God is working in my favor. That gives me hope and peace. I am not unhappy but I feel like I can be happier. Or at least I deserve to be.

Maybe I don’t, maybe that’s not the case. Maybe I have so many sins so I am obligate to wait until I eat myself alive. Maybe that is some kind of punishment. Maybe it isn’t right time yet. Maybe I am too desperate. Or I am too exaggerating.

I am confused. No one said that with 22 years old I have to know what I wanted to do with life, but sometimes I am really lost.

I want to do everything, but again I don’t have time to everything. I have to make sure that I am financially stable, because I don’t wanna take money from my parents. But…what if working just to stay alive takes from me the best years of my young student life?

It is hard to be young these days. Everyone would say they understand you, but the fact is that they actually don’t. I haven’t met a person who understands me better than myself. My mum is really close, but that woman on the other hand has super powers I wouldn’t never be able to understand properly. She is miracle maker. I want to be that for myself too.

I am sensitive, but I am also brave. Braver than before. Circumstances taught me so.

I know I can do whatever I put my mind to. There is 101% chance that I am going to survive every next battle that is about to face me. I already faced it before.

I am me and, besides everything that I have just said, that is the only thing I surely know no one can beat.

It is me against me.

And we love to cooperate.

10/10/2023

[unexpectedbrickattack]

Hiding the rest of this HUGE comic behind a readmore for ur sanity

Hes got the keenest eye for these things!

Now that this is hiding behind a readmore i can justify writing an essay in here. Nothing big tho i am just very chatty :)!

Postgame where Peppino still gets visits every now and again from the bosses of the tower. I already drew one for the noise (lmao) but i wanted to draw each of the main four interacting with him in some way.

Pepperman is a refined and well renowned artist. His art is highly sought after and his advice is not taken lightly. He has many MANY fortunes to pull from to make his visions a reality and to influence anyone to do anything. Except for Peppino.

From the very first fight, Pepperman is immediately, overwhelmingly obsessed with this stout little brawler. He is much much more than what meets the eyes. He is initially extremely offput and annoyed that a human so boldly decided to waltz into his domain, and he expects to be able to steamroll and bully this…beast…out of his place of work. He is refined when he wants to be, but he is quick to use his brute strength to get what he wants if only bc he knows he can do it

And so when he decides to fully charge and thrash this little trembling human, expecting him to skitter away the second he gets struck, he is completely unprepared for when he gets launched to the other end of this room. The human looks so incredibly PISSED, like a bull seeing red, and suddenly this little altercation suddenly became a real actual ‘knock your teeth out’ brawl. This human is only like half his height, but his punches and bashes fucking knock the wind out of him.

And like ! To add insult to injury!!! After he wins the fight! He visibly deflates, the adrenaline seemingly wearing off. Hes just this trembling fuckin whelp again !!! Whimpering as he fucking runs back out through the portal to do god knows what. And Pepperman could not be any more fucking intrigued. Like this no name came in, whooped his fuckin ass, and went about his day. Its unreal

While Peppino is running around climbing the tower, Pepperman is in his room losing his mind. Hes obsessed. No one has challenged him in this way. No one has fought him and WON. He is ALWAYS able to bully people into submission either through brute force or with money, and he got his ass handed to him !! He needs to know more. Its quite literally consuming him.

Cut to the final fight, set up for a rematch; and he knows he is going to get steamrolled again but it is SO exhilarating to get another chance to see this humans form up close again. This time he can try to commit everything to memory. Its all such a blur though, and in a quarter of the time it took to end their first fight, its over. He gets to watch the human fight the gunslinger with his bare hands, no gun necessary, and he doesnt even bat an eye at what looks to be a clone of himself. He is a force of nature tearing through every single defense, and when Pepperman watches the actual final fight with the bizarre little pizza man, its like hes caught in a movie. The rain, the storm, the atmosphere. He wishes he could burn the entire scene into his mind.

So when everything returns to normal, he takes the time to travel for days to come and find this little human named Peppino. The memory is still strong and vivid but eventually, details will start to slip his mind. He needs to find this human, convince him to sit and do some still life sessions with him to help cement the humans appearance in his head. He hasnt had to resort to…asking for permission for anything in a loooong time…he bullies people into doing what he wants but Peppino is not your average person, and if he wants something from this man, he’ll have to meet him at his level.

He...can make an exception for Peppino...he supposes.