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#literature review#literature review paper#literature review introduction#proposal writing#phd research proposal#thesis proposal
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I understand that literature nerd Jason Todd is kind of overblown in fanon compared to it's actual presence in canon (a few issues during his pre (and post?)crisis Robin tenure that highlight it) BUT consider that I think it's hilarious if the unhinged gun toting criminal has strong opinions on poetry
#ramblings of a lunatic#dc comics#Jason Todd#batfamily#it's just a fun quirk! it's a fun lil detail and I simply cannot slight ppl for enjoying and incorporating it into works#like obviously jason isn't the only one. I'm a big believer in the batfam having over lapping interests they refuse to bond over#i know dick canonically used the robin hood stories (which are pretty flowery in their language far as i can tell) as inspo for Robin#and i know babs was a librarian and even tho her area of nerddom is characterized as more computery she probably knows quite a lot-#-about literature as well#duke is a hobbyist writer i believe? i saw a fan mention that- which if so is great and I hope he's also a nerd#(i mean he is canonically. i remember him being a puzzle nerd in his introduction. but i mean specifically a lit nerd)#damian called Shakespeare boring but also took acting classes so i think he's more of a theatre kid.#Tim's a dropout and i don't think he's ever shown distinct interest in english lit and i can't remember for Steph?#I'm ngl my brain hyperfocused on musician Steph i forget some of her other interests I'm sorry (minus softball and gymnastics!)#and then Cass had her whole (non linear but it's whatevs) arc about literacy and learning to read#went from struggling to read in batgirl 00 to memorizing Shakespeare in 'tec and is now an avid read in batgirls!#she's shown reading edgar allen poe but we don't know if it's his short stories or his poems#point to all of the above being: i know Jason's not the only lit nerd in the batfam#but also i do need him to be writing poetry in his spare time and reading and reviewing it#jason at the next dead robins society meeting: evening folks today I'll be assigning all of us poems based on laika the space dog#damian and steph who have been kidnapped and brought to jasons warehouse to hangout: LET US GO BITCH#speaking of^ random poem i think jason would like: space dog by alan shapiro#wake up one morning in an unfamiliar more mature body with a profound sense of abandonment. the last four lines. mmm tasty
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Hey guys! I decided to do an introduction about myself and I'm new to Tumblr! So my online name is Rove and I'm not saying my real Information for privacy reasons. I am a gacha creator and I'm decent at drawing things. I don't think I'm the best at it but I'll still post my art and we will see how I improve!
#gacha character#original character#artwork#introduction#literature#poems on tumblr#marvel#book review#poem
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I just miss talking about books.
#booklr#bookish#bookreview#reviews#music reviews#tv reviews#movie reviews#thehivereview#bookclub#reading#book#goodreads#dark academia#dark fantasy#literature#english literature#books#whoami#introduction#get to know me#welcome to my blog
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👻 Welcome to my blog
A place to share my poetry and creative nonfiction. I also post what I am currently reading, my TBR, book recommendations, and the occasional book review.
Send me a chitchat pls ♡ :)
You can view my writing here. You can view my book posts here. Follow me on Goodreads. I usually update my Goodreads in December
𝓐𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓽 𝓜𝓮 .・。.・✭・.・✫・。.
A Midwest Gemini with seven cats and a BA in English Literature. Current MFA student in Creative Nonfiction. Lover of tea, especially Japanese Genmaicha, and blackberry wine. Forever writing. 👻
♥︎ Favorite Books: The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty | Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte | Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield | Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury | The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood | The Memoirs of Emma Courtney, by Mary Hays
♥︎ Favorite Writers: Sylvia Plath | Ray Bradbury | Bae Suah | Carmen Maria Machado | John Milton
♥︎ Favorite Writing Spot: My porch on a rainy day
●○°○•●°•○°•●○°●○●•°•○●•○•○•°○•●°○°•●•°○
#book blog#bookish#booklr#blog intro#blog introduction#welcome to my blog#about myself#books and literature#writers on tumblr#intro post#introduction#introductory post#pinned intro#poetry blog#poetry#currently reading#reading#book review#get to know the blogger#get to know me#poets on tumblr#Spotify#hi#hi its me
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welcome folks
hi, my name is rowan, i'm 23 and i love reading!
i wanted to do a quick intro and link all of my socials for anyone who would want them since i post a bit everywhere.
i'm starting this blog to eventually gain an audience to maybe start a youtube or a podcast based around books and reading since that's what i love to do and talk about the most. but also just meet more people in the community and maybe make some more reading friends!
i started my instagram in late 2022 and have been posting on and off on there for the past two years but i've loved books and reading since i was a child. i'd love to eventually make this a part time job and earn money but for now it's a fun thing i'm doing to share my thoughts and get to know people.
my asks are always open so if you'd ever want to chat feel free to reach out!
my socials:
goodreads
tiktok
instagram
amazon wish list
18+ reading and writing discord server
twitch
#intro post#introduction#introductory post#blog intro#book#book blog#book recommendations#book review#bookblr#bookish#booklover#books#booklr#boop#bookworm#books and reading#books & libraries#bookshelf#bookstagram#booktok#book quotes#reading#goodreads#book lover#horror books#booksarelife#books and coffee#books and libraries#books and literature#booksworthreading
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The Short Story Reader #20 – Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition By Gu Shi, Translated By Emily Jin
Previous | Next Gu Shi’s short story is the most in-depth exploration of cryosleep I’ve read yet. More so of what a world in which cryosleep becomes a socially common norm would look like. “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” has bold ideas about the ways in which society would change when humans are given the promise of manipulating not only their spatial but temporal locale. It’s a…
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#book blog#book review#chinese fiction#Chinese sci-fi#Emily Jin#Fantasy#fiction#Gu Shi#Introduction to 2181 Overture#literature#Second Edition#The Short Story Reader#Writing
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How to Read a Scientific Article
THE THREE-PASS APPROACH
The key idea is that you should read the paper in up to 3 passes, instead of starting at the beginning and plowing your way to the end.
Each pass accomplishes specific goals and builds upon the previous pass:
The first pass gives you a general idea about the paper.
The second pass lets you grasp the paper’s content, but not its details.
The third pass helps you understand the paper in depth.
At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the 5 Cs:
Category: What type of paper is this? A measurement paper? An analysis of an existing system? A description of a research prototype?
Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem?
Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?
Contributions: What are the paper’s main contributions?
Clarity: Is the paper well written?
Purpose of the Sections of Empirical Articles
Section — Use it for
Abstract — This is a great section to read to find out if the article will be relevant to your own research.
Introduction — This section gives you an overview of work that has been done on topics relating to the hypothesis of the article, and will often lead you to other relevant work that has been done in your area of interest.
Method — This section will help you understand the design of the experiment. This is particularly useful if you'd like to replicate the study.
Results — The results will tell you what the author/s found in the course of their experiment.
Discussion — The discussion section is typically easier to read than the method and results section, and it will help the reader understand the implications of the results of the experiment.
References — This is a great place to look to find articles that are related to the one you are reading. If you're looking to build your own literature review, the references are a great place to start.
The Anatomy of a Scientific Paper
Some initial guidelines for how to read a paper:
Read critically: Reading a research paper must be a critical process. You should not assume that the authors are always correct. Instead, be suspicious. Critical reading involves asking appropriate questions.
Read creatively: Reading a paper critically is easy, in that it is always easier to tear something down than to build it up. Reading creatively involves harder, more positive thinking.
Make notes as you read the paper. Use whatever style you prefer. If you have questions or criticisms, write them down so you do not forget them. Underline key points the authors make. Mark the data that is most important or that appears questionable. Such efforts help the first time you read a paper and pay big dividends when you have to re-read a paper after several months.
After the first read-through, try to summarize the paper in one or two sentence.
If possible, compare the paper to other works.
Write a review that includes:
a one or two sentence summary of the paper.
a deeper, more extensive outline of the main points of the paper, including for example assumptions made, arguments presented, data analyzed, and conclusions drawn.
any limitations or extensions you see for the ideas in the paper.
your opinion of the paper; primarily, the quality of the ideas and its potential impact.
The guide below details how to read a scientific article step-by-step.
First, you should not approach a scientific article like a textbook— reading from beginning to end of the chapter or book without pause for reflection or criticism. Additionally, it is highly recommended that you highlight and take notes as you move through the article.
Skim the article. This should only take you a few minutes. You are not trying to comprehend the entire article at this point, but just get a basic overview. You don’t have to read in order; the discussion/conclusions will help you to determine if the article is relevant to your research. You might then continue on to the Introduction. Pay attention to the structure of the article, headings, and figures.
Grasp the vocabulary. Begin to go through the article and highlight words and phrases you do not understand. Some words or phrases you may be able to get an understanding from the context in which it is used, but for others you may need the assistance of a medical or scientific dictionary. Subject-specific dictionaries available through our Library databases and online are listed below.
Identify the structure of the article and work on your comprehension. Most journals use an IMRD structure: An abstract followed by Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. These sections typically contain conventional features, which you will start to recognize. If you learn to look for these features you will begin to read and comprehend the article more quickly.
Read the bibliography/references section. Reading the references or works cited may lead you to other useful resources. You might also get a better understanding of the basic terminology, main concepts, major researchers, and basic terminology in the area you are researching.
Reflect on what you have read and draw your own conclusions. As you are reading jot down any questions that come to mind. They may be answered later on in the article or you may have stumbled upon something that the authors did not consider. Here are some examples of questions you may ask yourself as you read:
Have I taken time to understand all the terminology?
Am I spending too much time on the less important parts of this article?
Do I have any reason to question the credibility of this research?
What specific problem does the research address and why is it important?
How do these results relate to my research interests or to other works which I have read?
6. Read the article a second time in chronological order. Reading the article a second time will reinforce your overall understanding. You may even start to make connections to other articles that you have read on this topic.
Identify Key Information
Whether you are looking for information that supports the hypothesis in your own paper or carefully analyzing the article and critiquing the research methods or findings, there are important questions that you should answer as you read the article.
What is the main hypothesis?
Why is this research important?
Did the researchers use appropriate measurements and procedures?
What were the variables in the study?
What was the key finding of the research?
Do the findings justify the author’s conclusions?
Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs
#writing notes#studyblr#writeblr#dark academia#spilled ink#light academia#writers on tumblr#literature#lit#creative writing#writing tips#writing advice#research#writing inspiration#writing reference#writing resources
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You have questions! We might have answers.
What is this collection?
As Maria puts it: this collection is a critical look at some of the things that we, the editors, think have made CQL such a hit around the world. Of course, part of that success comes from the webnovel MDZS and the show CQL themselves—we love the characters, the mystery, and the drama, who doesn’t?! However, the authors in our book also look at topics like translating danmei (both officially and unofficially), adapting danmei for new audiences, and interacting with fandoms and fanworks. The larger argument of the book is that all of these things played a huge role in CQL’s visibility and success, and we wanted to start making those moving pieces visible, especially for audiences who mainly watched CQL in translation.
You keep using the word “academic”—what does that mean, exactly?
Maria: Ok, not to get pedantic here, but this actually touches on some things that I’m really excited about for the book. Traditionally, academic work is written by people who have a deep expertise in the subject (signified by having a PhD and doing specific kinds of research), and then the work itself is peer-reviewed (i.e., sent to other experts in the field for them to evaluate whether it’s sound, original, and interesting enough to publish, without knowing who wrote it). And both of these things are true about our book—our authors have deep knowledge and the book was peer reviewed—but also. We specifically asked for chapters from younger scholars and from fans who also have deep knowledge about topics that academia doesn’t always know or value enough, and we include an interview from the fan-translator K. who did the Exiled Rebels translation. So the hope is that: this book is academic, and also—more!
Who are you?
Yue studies adaptation, fantasy, and popular culture texts using a feminist lens. She wrote an early, influential article about danmei adaptations and also has a book about feminist adaptations of Chinese fantasy.
Maria studies fanworks, contemporary fantasy, and genre literature. She’s scrambling to finish her dissertation right now.
How were the chapter spotlights chosen?
Voluntarily! The concept of a small social media promo was kicked around by some of the contributors and those interested in the idea filled out a short interview with what they wanted to share. We'll be posting about 2 introductions and 2 spotlights a day for the next week or so!
Who's running this social media campaign anyway?
Not the publishers! A few enthusiastic collection contributors got together and, with the assistance of the editors, have put this promotion together. We do not in any way represent Peter Lang in an official capacity! We just worked hard and wanted to share. :)
Are you making any money off of royalties from this book?
LOL not even remotely
What about this promotion?
also no. alas
Where can I find this book?
You can find our listing on Peter Lang’s website here. As for other retailers, a quick search should turn us up!
How can I access this book if I cannot buy it from Peter Lang / [book retailer of choice]?
As collection editors and contributors who signed a legal agreement with Peter Lang, we have granted Peter Lang exclusive right and license to edit, adapt, publish, reproduce, distribute, display, and store our contributions, and we must cooperate fully with the Publisher if the Publisher believes a third party is infringing or is likely to infringe copyright in the contribution.
That being said, these are academic papers, which means that contributors may make copies of the contribution for classroom teaching use! (These copies may not be included in course pack material for onward sale by libraries and institutions). Of course, any linking, collection or aggregation of chapters from the same volume is strictly prohibited.
(FAQ may be updated periodically!) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)
#MDZS#CQL#The Untamed#Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation#Catching Chen Qing Ling#CQL academic collection#CQL CFP#Chen Qing Ling#Mo Dao Zu Shi#CQL meta#MDZS meta
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pas de deux
pairing: ballerina!reader x university!coriolanus snow
tags: 18+, mdni. dub-con, semi-public sex, oral sex (fem receiving), creampie, vaginal sex, dirty talk, power play, manipulation
summary: corio is tasked with writing an exposé on his university’s prized ballet student for the school’s newsletter.
notes: self indulging on my perfectionism being ruined for coryo’s self-pleasure!
word count: 4.9k
౨ׅৎ
coriolanus hated this assignment with the same fervour and passion he hated writing for his school’s publication. the only reason he’d even applied for the position was because he knew of the ways it would put him on the scene- articles and reviews with his name plastered over them were unavoidable to anyone who had half a brain to engage in thoughtful composition. he enjoyed writing critical pieces on political discourse or literature, anything that challenged him to peel back the layers of society and dissect it, persuade others to align with his mode of thinking, so the mere thought of his byline etched onto an article about ballet- of all things- made him want to curl up and die. he tried oh so desperately to pass on the assignment to one of his female partners, and even tried his hand at requesting his supervisor for a new assignment entirely, but he was coldly dismissed and cast away to the hallowed halls of the university's dance studio. he didn't notice how frustrated he’d actually felt until he flinched behind the sound of the studio door slamming behind him, clashing uglily with the buzzing noise of music that flooded his eardrums. it was unnecessarily loud, but he knew you could hear him enter. his jaw clenched the more you ignored his presence.
instead, you focused on the strains of music you’d become uncomfortably accustomed to. the melodic rhythm of the cantilena you choreographed to consumed your body in a symphony of music. each note was dictated thoughtfully with the graceful movements you now begrudgingly danced for the stranger, weaving a story that transcended words, one only understood through the language of dance. as you traversed the space, your movements harmonised seamlessly with the refined tune, a testament to the years of dedication and passion you poured into this art form. you grew frustrated at the way his presence clashed discordantly against the elegance of your dancing and disrupted the harmony of the room. you watched in the corner of your eye how he marched his way to the centre of the room, lingering only a few steps behind you as you danced. you caught him clear his throat one, two, then three times. it grated against your patience, forcing you to stop dancing abruptly and march past him with the same conviction as he did to shut off the music, a huff escaping your lips at the sudden quiet as you stared expectantly at the tall boy before you. you watched his fists clench and then flex before he turned to face you, his pearly blond hair falling ever so slightly out of place from the speed at which he’d turned on his heel.
"can i help you?" the words slipped from your lips, delivered with a flatness that barely concealed the tinge of annoyance behind it. your hand found its place resting on your hip, a subtle gesture reinforcing your composed stance, determined to maintain an air of indifference.
“coriolanus snow. i’ve been assigned to write a review on you and your dancing for the university newsletter,” his introduction sounded pompous, as though he assumed you already knew of his identity. of course, you knew the name very well- his reputation preceded him. you couldnt deny that you too had once or twice been privy to the occasional swooning over the quite popular boy, but you found that now as he stood in front of you, tall and beautiful as he was, you felt a growing discontent for the man and his obnoxiously bright hair. yet, you clung fiercely to the facade of ignorance, a guise of disinterest veiling the curiosity that lingered beneath the surface. you held your head high, refusing to grant him the satisfaction of acknowledging his perceived importance in your realm of artistry.
you pretended to think before a moment, before turning back to the speaker and switching the sound back on, gesturing for him to sit. you rolled your eyes at his request to turn the volume down. despite you hating everything that had to do with this review, you were aware of the potential impact this coverage had on your burgeoning career. you acquiesced, lowering the volume to appease his demand, a concession made not out of respect for the boy but rather with your future in mind. you knew the power coriolanus held with his words, as much as you hated it, and you knew you couldn't risk jeopardising your future at the sake of a little attitude.
so, with an inward sigh and a curt nod, you allowed him to observe. you positioned yourself within the room as you waited to pick up on the rhythm of the music where you left off, quickly finding your place among the complexities of the song in a manner that seemed impossible had it not been for your tireless work and memorization of every single note and harmony of the song.
as snow observed your movements, he jotted down comments in a small leatherbound notebook, his pen scrawling his disdain. "lacks depth," he muttered under his breath, pausing to look up pensively at your figure.
the comment caught you so off guard it took every bit of strength in you to not fall with the abruptness at which you stopped. lacks depth? what the hell would he know? you felt rage burn inside your chest, only fueled by the way he stared at you as if he had said nothing wrong.
“what about my dance lacks depth, snow?” the question hung in the air, and you watched his adams apple bob up and down through the mirror as he swallowed, glancing briefly at his notes before looking back up at you.
"the dance is fine, quite beautiful, i might say, but your movements lack the emotional vibrancy expected from a performance of this calibre," he responded, "there's an absence of connection, it feels superficial and fails to convey the intended depth of expression."
he spoke with a measured confidence, and you scrunched your brows at his words. you didnt expect him to know the first thing about ballet, and you still stood by that sentiment, but part of you wondered if he was speaking truthfully- a consequence of the sensitivity you harbour in relation to your artistry. dance was everything, and while ballet trained you to accustom yourself to harsh criticism, you always held those criticisms to your heart, and it pushed you to always do better than you had before.
despite this, your shoulders never slumped, nor did you show any physical acknowledgement to his critique, only moving to turn your gaze from his cobalt eyes in the mirror to look him in them truly, strutting your way back to the speaker and restarting the song, determined to prove him wrong.
“you restart the song when you feel i’m ‘lacking depth’, so i can know whether or not to call bullshit.”
the two of you went at it for a while. he only gave you a few seconds at first before he continuously restarted the song, but you danced for him nonetheless. over, and over again. when you thought you’d finally caught him, he’d restart the song a few seconds later, and it took everything in you to not scream in frustration at the top of your lungs. you wanted to strangle him, in truth, especially when you caught a glance at his smirk the 12th time he’d restarted the music.
it was nearly midnight by the time he’d given you some respite, and you made no effort to be hospitable as you collected your things and stormed out the door without a word. you pretended to ignore the scribbles on his notebook as you rushed passed him, unable to make sense of the haphazard writing. you hated him. the way he seemed to try seize control of your creative space and your studio made you go mad. additionally, you were convinced he was only trying to get under your skin, and you hated that it worked- even if you refused to show it (or more appropriately, tried not to show it, because coriolanus reveled in the fact that he did, in fact, get under your skin).
coriolanus, on the other hand, walked out of the studio feeling quite prideful. he adored the effect he had on you: how despite his ignorance on your mastered art, he absorbed the control in the room. he adored seeing you struggle to keep up to his standards, watching your face twist with effort as you danced over and over again, all for him. watching the muscles of your shoulders and legs flex, the arches of your back and neck, the way you exposed yourself to him repeatedly- it festered a strange desire in him to tear you apart. you were so meticulous with how you danced that it made you look fragile. with every twist and turn of your body coriolanus felt his breath catch in his throat as if he were afraid if you moved slightly too much, you would shatter. only, he wanted to be the one to break you: tear away that meticulousness and precision built into you and mould it in a way that was perfectly suited for him. he wanted to dismantle that untouchable image you carried, strip you away of your elegance and create a dependence that would tether you to him alone. it made him care about your performance more than he wanted to admit. not because he cared for you, per se, and your success, but because he’d developed a carnal urge to shape you into perfection solely for his own satisfaction. knowing that onstage, your dance was now catered just for him, to his own liking? the thought made coriolanus’s pants grow tight with lust.
the week progressed following the same routine: he would sit and watch you overwork yourself at his beck and call until your eyes filled with tears of anger and your body would give out and he’d leave you panting on the dance room floor, killing yourself until you got it just right. the boy was acutely aware of the mental struggles that accompanied ballet- the pursuit of perfection, the strive for excellence, the intensity of the competition and the pressure to excel. he knew how hardly you critiqued yourself and used it to his advantage; knowing if he played his cards right, soon enough he’d have you wrapped around his finger, begging him for that validation you needed to keep going.
your performance was on saturday, and the way you worked yourself over the dreadful symphony of music had you lacking sleep. you couldn’t stop- even after you and coriolanus parted ways. you found yourself practising in your dorm room, counting steps on your way to class- you knew deep down that coriolanus’s article really meant nothing, as the man knew nothing about what he asked of you, and your success wasn’t at all tied to his review; but you were unable to stop. a voice nagged at you that it did matter. that somehow his influence could ruin you and everything you’d worked for. you knew how badly he was getting to you when the two of you crossed paths on your way to class.
he took in the sight of you: your hair done perfectly, not a single hair misplaced, your pink tights and leotard, the pink cover-up skirt you adorned neatly wrapped around your waist with a perfect bow. he took in your lips, swollen and red from the anxious biting you’d fallen into the habit of doing again, the way you messily tried to cover up your dark under eyes with concealer and draw attention away from it with haphazards amount of blush. in passing, you’d simply given him a nod, but he was quick to grab you, looping his finger under your chin and forcing you to stare into those piercing cobalt eyes of his as he studied you.
“you should wear white instead. pink washes you out,” he mumbled to you before turning away, his tall figure disappearing into one of the lecture halls behind you. had it been a few days prior, you would’ve found it in you to bite back. only now, you bit at your manicured fingernails as you dragged your fingers across the silky white pointe shoes in your favourite dancewear boutique, followed by the white leotard and tights you brought home with you that night.
౨ׅৎ
“i need a break,” you sighed. it was the night before your performance, and only now did coryo have the decency to step back for a moment in his unrelenting pursuit of perfecting you. he nodded, shutting off the music as he watched you saunter towards your dance bag, downing half the contents of your water bottle with short pants. he stood to meet you, making his way behind you and resting his slender fingers on your tense shoulders.
“whats bothering you, bunny?” the pet name sent a small shiver down your spine, and coriolanus threw his head back slightly at the feeling of you shudder, gathering all his strength to contain himself. you turned to face him, and he felt his dick harden at the vulnerability in your eyes. the fire that once burned behind them was fizzling, and he could tell. your mouth was parted as you searched for the right thing to say, but the words caught in your throat.
“is it the dance?” he pressed, his face now dangerously close to yours, and you croaked out a small yes as his hand made its way up to your hair, his thumb stroking it gently, “you know it’s perfect, darling, you and i have been making it perfect all week long, no? show me which part is bothering you.”
your head spun as he spoke to you- his fingers stroking your hair, the way his voice was now all of a sudden so soft; contrary to the stern way he’d spoken to you all week. but what really dizzied you was the sudden validation he’d given you. the casual way he threw it at you; as if it was what was known all along, as if you were crazy to think otherwise.
you stumbled back towards the centre of the room, slowly positioning yourself as you waited for his go-ahead, form snapping into movement as soon as the music filled your ears. you watched in the mirror as coriolanus paced behind you, his chin in his hand as he watched you and pondered. your eyes closed with focus, moving with such ease that it felt second nature to you. then, the music seized, and you froze in place as you raised your head to look up at the man now in front of you.
“you’re too tense,” he murmured, moving to press his hands into the soft skin of your shoulders, massaging the strained muscle gently. it did nothing at getting you to relax. inside, you were fuming as you replayed the past week in your head. you’d worked yourself dry all for the approval of a man whose opinion you couldn’t care less about. you let your guard down for a sliver of a moment and he used it to get inside your head. you hated him with every fibre in your being, and his breathing down your neck only fueled the fire burning inside of you.
“get off of me.”
“just relax.” the way he whispered it was short of anything kind, spat at you with annoyance as he tightened his grip on you.
“i said get off!” it was the loudest you’d spoken all day. it was barely a shout, but it was enough for the man to recoil from behind you. you breathed shakily, hands trembling at your side. when you turned to face him, you nearly flinched at the sight of him. his usually perfectly combed back hair was now a mess, curls fallen out of place as he ran his hand through the golden strands harshly. you both stared at each other for what seemed to be an eternity, panting heavily, waiting for the other to say or do anything to loosen the tension that filled the studio air.
he looked down at the floor for a second, tonguing his cheek with a smile before surging forward, crashing his chapped lips into your plump, soft ones with a groan. you tried to push him away, but his grip on your face was too strong- and you couldn’t ignore the way your legs turned to jelly from the way he kissed you with an undying hunger. one hand made its way down your waist as he moved you backwards into the large studio mirror, your head thumping painfully against the glass, pain mixing with pleasure as coryo attacked your lips and dragged his hands all over your body, savouring the warmth of your skin through the fabric of your garments.
“so good for me,” he groaned against your neck, the hot breath of his words sending shivers straight down to your core, “so perfect.. so pliable.. all for me. isnt that right, princess?”
it was truly embarrassing, the way his words made you moan softly and rub your thighs together with want. embarrassing how compliant you’d become for him, how eager you were to please him. he took notice of the pathetic state you were in, watching with glossy and swollen lips how your legs trembled and your hips stuttered in a desperate attempt to gain friction against your growing heat.
“look at that, so fucking precious,” he continued to watch you struggle, laughing softly to himself before snaking his hand between your thighs, cupping your cunt and slowly encouraging you to rock your hips back and forth. you whined at the contact, relief and pleasure swarming you as you ground yourself into the palm of his hand, gripping tightly onto the curls at the back of his head for leverage. lost in bliss, you barely noticed when the man made his way down to his knees, lip bitten so hard you swore you could smell the metallic scent of blood peer through your senses as he toyed his fingers across your clothed cunt. you moved to remove your small skirt, untying the meticulous bow around your waist and tossing it to the side. when your hand reached to remove your leotard, coriolanus removed his hand with a small chuckle.
“what do you think you’re doing?” he tutted, and you whined at the sight of him below you, willing and able to keep pleasuring you but withholding that power. you scrunched your brows together with confusion, and coriolanus thought you’d never looked so beautiful: face flushed with heat, writhing above him while your hips urged for his fingers to touch you again. too lost in the pleasure that lingered, head thrashing from side to side with pleads to keep going- he wanted to ruin you.
“good girls wait and do what they’re told. are you gonna be a good girl for me?” he chuckled at the way you shook your head aggressively, savouring your small moans as he returned his hand to where you wanted it most. a loud gasp escaped your lips when he ripped your tights viciously, the soft torn fabric now giving him better access to the skin of your thighs. he splayed his hands over them, massaging your muscles and soft tissue before pulling your leotard to the side and diving his tongue into the wetness of your folds.
he pulled back with a moan, gasping as he peered down at the mixture of his spit and your slick connecting your cunt to his chin, and he looked up at you like you were a god, sticky and wet from the most trivial of touches.
“you’re so wet for me, princess- such a good girl. you’re so good for me,” you couldn't get a word out before he took a long swipe with the flat of his tongue, lapping messily and so, so loudly- chasing the taste of you. he loved teasing you with his mouth. he thought about it that day, unashamed as he jerked his cock into nothingness when he caught sight of you on campus earlier that day, dressed all in white- just for him. the small gesture was enough confirmation to him that he’d won at the game you two were playing, that you let him break you into submission and you were now his to claim. the thought of taking ownership of you by reducing you to nothingness with his tongue alone had him cumming onto his stomach with a loud, broken cry. now, he had you right where he wanted- and he wasn’t going to let that pass just yet.
he relished every sound and movement you made when he flicked his tongue up and down your lips, relished the tears that fell when he slowly circled it around your swollen clit, rejoiced in the way you gripped his curls tighter when he tongued your hole, gazing up at your already fucked out faced with pure lust and admiration when you came undone and released yourself into his mouth. he continued to lap and suck every moan and whine out of you until you cried with overstimulation. he stood up, licking his lips and stared down at you like a predator who’d hunted its prey.
“you did so good for me, bunny,” he mewled, kissing your neck softly as you came down from your high. you had started to gain back your senses, and a wave of humiliation washed over you. the man you claimed to hate had just given you the best orgasm of your life, and suddenly you could no longer find it in you to hate him again. every fibre in your body ached when he praised you, called you good and cooed in your ear as you regained your strength. you continued to cry, no longer out of pleasure but in self-disappointment. you felt the urge to scream and lash out at him for robbing you of your senses, for reducing you to a state where the tiniest shred of approval clouded every bit your perspectives until you couldn’t figure out left from right. he continued to coo in your ear as you sobbed, but your eyes widened with fear when you heard the small sound of a zipper and looked down to see his cock in his hands, pumping slowly as he made his way into you.
he shushed every one of your protests, his lips pressed tight against your collarbone as you tried to push away from him when his tip made contact with your hole, “be good, bunny, be good for me,” he chanted into your skin and your body broke down into more sobs as you willingly let him push into you. alarms were blaring in your head for you to stop giving into him, but your body was unrelenting and begging with want- and so all you did was cry as he thrust slowly into you, small moans of praise nonsensically falling from his lips as your cunt struggled to take all of him in.
the way he mumbled his sweet words into your neck and the slow stretch of his cock prying you open had your brain short-circuiting, the sweet tone of his voice once again making you lose all sense of what was unfolding before you. you winced as he tried to thrust his length deeper into you.
coriolanus didn’t like that. he took the sounds of complaint as direct disobedience. he wanted to hear nothing but your begging- he wanted you to thank him for letting you have his cock, and hear nothing but your loud moans and pathetic mewls as he fucked you. he grabbed at your bun, yanking your head back with such force that the once perfectly smoothed back hair came undone painfully, strands falling to your face and wisping at your shoulders.
“does it hurt?” he asked, and for a moment you thought he was trying to take you with care, but when you nodded and his grip tightened on your hair, you knew you were oh so wrong, “i thought i told you to be a good, fucking. girl.”
he thrusted into you harshly with each word and you cried out in pain, his cock stretching you out far beyond what you could handle, overstimulation making your knees buckle and tears fall from your eyes again.
“thats it, baby. take it, be a good girl and take my cock.”
your fingers dug into his back and coriolanus let out a loud, lewd moan, unable to peel his eyes away from the sight of his cock thrusting without preamble into the slick mess of your cunt. he threw his head back as you moaned through your cries, and thrusted even harder when you wrapped a leg around him to let him fuck you even deeper.
he moved to rip off the top of your leotard, licking his lips hungrily as he watched your tits fall and bounce in tandem with his thrusts. he dove his head down, latching his lips onto your hardened nipple and sucking harshly, nipping and biting the soft flesh while his hand pinched and flicked at the other one.
you were incoherent. your stop’s had turned into more’s and your sobs turned into that of pure desire. you threw your head to the side and gasped at the spectacle the two of you were making of yourselves in the middle of the dance studio. the mirror you were pressed up against had begun to fog up along the silhouette of your body pressed up against it, the cool glass dripping condensation onto your back and through your ruined clothes as coryo fucked you into oblivion. he looked right at you now, his fingers making their way to lace into yours as he pressed you even closer to him, your arms now bound against the coolness of the mirror.
“fuck, princess, you’re so fucking tight. so tight for me, yeah? gonna make this pussy mine,” your head spun with his words and the constant pumping of his cock, unable to contain the obscene sounds you let out. you were so close, and the way you tightened around him as you chased your release almost had him cumming prematurely.
“you gonna let me make you mine, huh bunny?”
“fuck, yes!”
“s’at right? gonna let me claim you? such a good girl.”
you moved your hips against his with no rhythm, simply in pursuit of the orgasm that coiled in the pit of your stomach. you kept your eyes on his, your mouth open with pants as you urged him to keep going. he hiked one hand behind the knee you had wrapped around him, the other one pulling you up so you were off the ground, letting him fuck you in a way that hit all the right spots in all the right places, and you just about lost it right there.
he smiled, “you like that?”
“uh-huh..”
“you want me to keep going?”
“please- please dont stop, coryo, please!”
his cries got louder, moans twisting up into a slightly higher octave, his face scrunched with pleasure as your cunt clenched around him with each of his words.
“gonna fill you up with my cum, baby. is that what you want? for me to breed you?” he babbled, voice trembling, “gonna fuck you full of cum ‘n make you mine. no one else can have you.” his voice got weaker as his hips pivoted upwards to thrust even deeper. he was in complete in control of you; his elbows hooked beneath your knees and opening a new gateway to your soul.
“naughty fucking girl, huh? ‘s alright, good girls get to be naughty sometimes..”
“i’m gonna cum,” you whined pathetically, rambling over and over as it was the only thing you could think of. you were so close, and each word he groaned at you brought you infinitely closer.
“you wanna cum?”
“i want- i want it so bad.”
“s’at right?”
“please, coryo- god, please! ‘m gonna be good for you. so good for you, daddy—”
your words collapsed into meaningless cries and shattered sentences— fuckyesyesyes— and cumonmycockbaby— as you worked each other towards release. you pulled him deeper to your center, tightening around him as the coil in your stomach finally burst and you saw white. you both came with a loud moan, yours no doubt shattering through the walls of the confined space, and coriolanus released his load into you with a long, droned out fuuuuuck as he slowly pumped his cum into you, mesmerised by the way it mixed and swirled with the mess of your own release. you whined at the overstimulation, body still jerking from the aftershocks of your orgasm, but coriolanus only felt himself grow harder.
“coryo, i cant..”
he snapped up at you, gaze softening as he took in your tear stained and fucked out face. he took your face in one hand, squeezing your jaw tightly and admiring the slight cross-eyed look you had on and the dribble of spit falling from your perfect lips. he cocked his head to the side, smiling coyly.
“oh, bunny, you don’t have a choice..”
౨ׅৎ
@dumbsoftheart, 2023
#coriolanus snow#coriolanus x reader#coriolanus x you#coriolanus smut#coriolanus snow smut#tbosas#the ballad of songbirds and snakes
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this is a shortened works cited from my thesis, pulling out the sources about American intersex history and activism from the past 30 years. i have pdfs for most of the sources there, if there's something that isn't linked send me a message and i can try to find it!
just thought i'd try to put a lot of intersex history sources in one place.
Works Cited:
Amato, Viola. “The Intersex Movement of the 1990s: Speaking Out Against Medical and Narrative Violence.” In Intersex Narratives: Shifts in the Representation of Intersex Lives in North American Literature and Popular Culture, 55–102. Transcript Verlag, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1xxrsz.6.
Bauer, Markus, Daniela Truffer and Daniela Crocetti. “Intersex Human Rights.” The International Journal of Human Rights. 24, no.6. (2020):724-749.https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2019.1671354
Brown, Lydia X.Z., Erickson, Loree, da Silva Gorman, Rachel, Lewis, Talila A., McLeod, Lateef, and Mingus, Mia. “Radical Disability Politics.” In Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics, edited by A.J. Withers and Liat Ben-Moshe, 178-193. Routledge, 2019.
Cameron, David. “Hermaphrodites With Attitude.” Newsletter. 1994. https://isna.org/library/hwa/
Carpenter, Morgan. “Fixing bodies and shaping narratives: Epistemic injustice and the responses of medicine and bioethics to intersex human rights demands.” Clinical Ethics. 2024;19, no. 1. (2024) :3-17. doi:10.1177/14777509231180412
Chase, Cheryl. “Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism.” Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 4, no.2, (1998): 189-211.
---, Hermaphrodites Speak! 1997; Rohnert Park: Intersex Society of North America. Video tape.
Cohen, Julie, dir. Every Body. 2023; United States: Focus Features, DVD.
Denny, Dallas. "Chrysalis Quarterly, Vol. 2 No. 5 (Fall, 1997 / Winter, 1998)." Periodical. 1998. Digital Transgender Archive, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/7s75dc39s (accessed April 08, 2024).
Davis, Georgiann. “Introduction: Normalizing Intersex: The Transformative Power of Stories.” in Voices: Personal Stories from the Pages of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: Normalizing Intersex, edited by James DuBois and Ana Iltis. 1-4. John Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Dreger, Alice. “Rejecting the Tranquilizing Drug of Gradualism in Intersex Care.” Alice Dreger (blog). November 2015. Accessed April 9, 2024. https://alicedreger.com/dsd_human_rights/
Dreger, Alice and April Herndon. “Progress and Politics in the Intersex Rights Movement: Feminist Theory in Action.” Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 15, no. 2. (2009): 199-224.
Fausto-Sterling, Ane. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. 2000.
“A Framework for Intersex Justice.” Intersex Justice Project. 2021. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.intersexjusticeproject.org/intersex-justice-framework.html
"FTM Newsletter #37." Periodical. 1997. Digital Transgender Archive, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/kd17cs89j (accessed April 08, 2024).
Hegarty, Peter, Marta Prandelli, Trove Lundberg, Lih-Mei Liao, Sarah Creighton, and Katrina Roen.”Drawing the Line Between Essential and Nonessential Interventions on Intersex Characteristics With European Health Care Professionals.” Review of General Psychology. 25, no 1. (2020): 101-114.
Hermaphrodites With Attitude. "Hey AAP! Get Your Scalpels Off Our Bodies! Flyer." Ephemera. 1990. Digital Transgender Archive, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/qj72p712h (accessed April 08, 2024).
“Hermaphrodites With Attitude,” Intersex Society of North America. 2006. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://isna.org/library/hwa/
“How To: Organize an #EndIntersexSurgery Protest in your hometown--a toolkit created by Intersex Justice Project (IJP.” Intersex Justice Project. 2019. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20191111232744/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EgYy2jfSO04HF_FGv-8RXYEgWW422L-RB7oxMOaIiBc/edit
Hughes, Ieuan, Christopher Houk, Syed Faisal Ahmed, Peter Lee, and LWPES1/ESPE2 Consensus Group. “Consensus Statement on Management of intersex disorders.” Disease in Childhood. 91, no.7. (2006): 554-563. doi: 10.1136/adc.2006.098319
“I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US.” Human Rights Watch. InterACT. July 2017, accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/lgbtintersex0717_web_0.pdf
“InterACT Statement on Intersex Terminology.” InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. 2015. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://interactadvocates.org/interact-statement-on-intersex-terminology/#:~:text=interACT's%20use%20of%20terminology%20and,of%20the%20term%20%E2%80%9Cintersex%E2%80%9D.
Lindhal, Hans. “Is PCOS an Intersex Condition? Here’s 5 Reasons Why Some Say Yes.” HansLindhal.Com (Blog). February 2023, Accessed April 7, 2024. https://hanslindahl.com/blog/is-pcos-an-intersex-condition
---., “9 Young People on How They Found Out They Are Intersex.” Teen Vogue. October 2019. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://www.teenvogue.com/gallery/young-people-on-how-they-found-out-they-are-intersex
“M.C v. Aaronson.” Southern Poverty Law Center. 2017. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/mc-v-aaronson
Merrick, Ten. “From ‘Intersex’ to ‘DSD’: A Case of Epistemic Injustice.” Synthese 196, no. 11 (2019): 4429–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45220035.
Orr, Celeste. Cripping Intersex. University of British Columbia Press, 2022.
Pagonis, Pidgeon. “#EndIntersexSurgery Protest At Lurie Children’s Hospital Recap + 5 Ways To Get Involved.” Intersex Justice Project. 2018. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.intersexjusticeproject.org/blog/endintersexsurgery-protest-at-lurie-childrens-hospital-recap
Pagonis, Pidgeon and Sean Saifa Wall. “Open Letter to AIS-DSD Support Group.” EndIntersexSurgery. Intersex Justice Project. February 2018. Accessed April 8, 2024. http://www.endintersexsurgery.org/
Redick, Alison. “What Happened at Hopkins: The Creation of the Intersex Management Protocols. Cardozo Journal of Law & Gender. 12 (2005): 289-296
Reid, Graeme, and Minky Worden. “Caster Semenya Won Her Case, But Not the Right to Compete.” Human Rights Watch. July 2023. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/18/caster-semenya-won-her-case-not-right-compete
Reis, Elizabeth. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex. John Hopkins Press, 2021.
---, “Did Bioethics Matter? A HIstory of Autonomy, Consent, and Intersex Genital Surgery. Medical Law review. 27, no.4, (2019):658-674. https://doi.org/10.1093/medlaw/fwz007
Rios-Espinosa, Carlos, Koomah, Syrus Marcus Ware, and Sean Saifa Wall. “Liberating All Bodies: Disability Justice & Intersex Justice In Conversation.” Webinar at the Crip Camp Impact Team and Human Rights Watch Film Festival, United States, October 2020.
Rubin, David, Michelle Wolff and Amanda Lock Swarr. “Creating Intersex Justice: Interview with Sean Saifa Wall and Pidgeon Pagonis of the Intersex Justice Project.” Transgender Studies Quarterly. 9, no. 2. (2022): 187-195. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-9612823
Sharman, Zena. “Intersex Justice and the Care We Deserve: ‘I Want People to Feel at Home in Their Bodies Again.’” Ms. Magazine. 2022. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://msmagazine.com/2022/02/03/intersex-justice-the-care-we-dream-of-queer-trans-healthcare/
Sharpe, Sam. “No one-size-fits all: Myths and Misconceptions about PCOS.” InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. Advocates for Informed Choice. October 2022. Accessed on April 7, 2024. https://interactadvocates.org/no-one-size-fits-all-myths-and-misconceptions-about-pcos/
Spurgas, Alyson. “(Un)Queering Identity: The Biosocial Production of Intersex/DSD.” in Critical Intersex edited by Morgan Holmes. 97-122. Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
Tamar-Matis, Anne. “ Advocates for Informed Choice, Newsletter Fall 2007.” Newsletter. 2007. AIC Legal .https://aiclegal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/fall-07-newsletter-final.pdf
---. “Advocates for Informed Choice: Newsletter Spring 2008.” Newsletter. 2008. AIC Legal.https://aiclegal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/spring-08-final.pdf
---. “Advocates for Informed Choice: Newsletter Summer 2009.” Newsletter. 2009. AIC Legal.https://aiclegal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/aic-2009-summer-newsletter-pdf.pdf
---. “Advocates for Informed Choice: Spring 2010 Newsletter.” Newsletter. 2010. AIC Legal.https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8291560ebb2dafc25097480f&id=5803ec8c71
---., “June 2011: Promoting the Civil Rights of Children Born With Variations of Sex Anatomy.” Newsletter. 2011. AIC Legal. https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8291560ebb2dafc25097480f&id=cec68ddac
---.. “June 2012: Promoting the Civil Rights of Children Born With Variations of Sex Anatomy.” Newsletter. 2012. AIC Legal. https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8291560ebb2dafc25097480f&id=b4d4dd90cf
---. “ 2012 Annual Report.” Newsletter. 2012. Advocates for Informed Choice. https://interactadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/AIC-2012-Annual-Report.pdf
---. “2013 Annual Report. “ Newsletter. 2012. Advocates for Informed Choice. https://interactadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2013-annual-report-FIN1.pdf
“US: Anti-Trans Bills Also Harm Intersex Children.” Human Rights Watch. October 22. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/26/us-anti-trans-bills-also-harm-intersex-children
Vecchietti, Valentino. “A Journey to the Intersex-Inclusive Pride Flag.” Global Inclusive Pride Flag. Intersex Equality Rights. 2021. Accessed April 7, 2024. https://www.globalinclusiveprideflag.com/
Wilchins, Riki Anne. "In Your Face No. 5 (Spring 1998)." Newsletter. 1998. Digital Transgender Archive, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/vq27zn45k (accessed April 08, 2024).
Withers, AJ. Disability Politics and Theory. Fernwood Publishing, 2012.
Woo, Elaine. “David Reimer, 38; After Botched Surgery, He was Raised as a Girl in Gender Experiment.: Los Angeles Times. May 2004. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-13-me-reimer13-story.html
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the shakespeare exhibit - part 8
pairing: tara carpenter x reader
summary: in which you and tara both have things to talk about
warnings: mentions of stabbing, talks of substance abuse and verbal abuse
word count: 2700+
previous part | next part
Finals season was in full swing at Blackmore University, sending its students into poor sleep schedules and even worse diets as they attempted to cram a semester’s worth of information into their brains.
You and Tara, unfortunately, were no exception. For the past week, the two of you had holed yourselves up in either the library or one of your apartments, your noses stuck in your books and your hands fumbling around for an energy drink whenever you needed a pick-me-up.
The only time you had taken a break was to celebrate Tara’s 20th birthday, but even then it was hardly a celebration. You had gathered all of her friends at her apartment, had a small party consisting of drinks and movies, and then went right back to studying, Tara in tow.
Safe to say, the stress levels were at an all-time-high, especially for Tara, who was experiencing her first round of finals in university. You had offered her a few studying tips, since you had already gone through the struggles of freshman-year exams the year prior, before immersing yourself in your own revision.
You were in the midst of reviewing for your Romantic Literature course--the last final that you had for the semester--when your mother called you, leading you to slip out of Tara’s bedroom and into the hallway to speak to her.
Tara sat at her desk, grumbling as she tried to study for her Introduction to Literature course. This is just as stupid as it was when I was studying for the midterm, she thought, eyes scanning her notes about Emily Dickinson. Maybe it’s even more stupid now.
Your voice broke her concentration as you walked back into her room, and she twisted her chair around to face you. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll ask her, alright?” You rolled your eyes and pointed at your phone, mouthing, she talks so much. Tara giggled softly, extending her arms for you to stand between, and you sighed as you slid into place, her fingers rubbing over your hips. “Okay. Yup. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Right. Okay, bye, mom.”
“What was that all about?” Tara asked when you hung up, throwing your phone onto her desk. “Did Eddie pull another prank on the Dylan Thomas statue again?”
You chuckled, thinking about the photo that your brother had sent you the week before—he had put a wig, makeup, and a shaving-cream beard on the statue of your grandfather’s late friend. “No, no. The statue garden has gone untouched this week.”
She shook her head, a grin on her face. “I still can’t believe you guys have a statue garden,” she said. But of course her family does. Because why wouldn’t they?
“Well, my dad’s always been big into statues. Like, when he was younger, he--” You cut yourself off. “That’s not important. Anyway, my mom invited us to spend Christmas at the house.” Tara’s eyes lit up, a type of joy that she didn’t know existed rushing through her. Us? she thought. I’ve been invited to family Christmas? “Do you want to go--”
“Yes!” she exclaimed immediately, nodding her head fervently. “Please, yes.” Shit, I’ll need to buy presents. What the hell do you get for kids who could buy anything they’ve ever wanted?
You giggled at her enthusiasm and tilted your head. “Are you sure you and Sam aren’t going back to California for the holidays?” you asked.
Back to California? Back to…Woodsboro? She furrowed her eyebrows, biting her bottom lip. “Why would we go to Cali?”
You squirmed a little where you stood. What’s she so nervous about? she wondered. “I just thought you might want to see your mom?” Your voice pitched on the last word, and Tara tensed, her arms falling to her sides. You frowned and reached out, but she pulled back, swallowing.
“No, there’s--we’re not--no,” she stammered out, her voice short. She shook her head. “I’ll be here.”
You nodded. “Okay.”
Tara wanted the conversation to be over, but your lips were pursed like you still had something you wanted to say. “What?” she asked.
You shook your head. “Nothing!”
She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at you. “No, you look like you have something to say. What?”
“I just…you’ve never spoken about her. Maybe we could--”
That’s because there’s nothing to say.” She’s good for nothing, she thought. “I don’t like to talk about her.” I’d rather read Shakespeare, which is really saying something.
“But--”
“No.” Her voice was stern, clear-cut, and she watched as you deflated a little, your eyes flitting around the room. She sighed, running a hand down her face. “I’m not doing this right now, okay? I’m not talking about her.”
“Tar…” The nickname came out as a coo, soft and careful and meant to be comforting, but it ignited a strange irritation beneath Tara’s skin, and something in her snapped.
“Listen, we can’t all have a perfect-fucking-family, okay?” she shouted, and you flinched, taking a step back, your eyes widening at her sudden outburst. “Just because you have parents who are there and who care doesn’t mean everyone does! I mean, Jesus, my mom didn’t even come to see me last year after--” After Amber stabbed me half-to-death, she finished in her head.
The air was tense, quiet. You stood in front of her, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, and Tara cursed herself when she noticed that your hands were trembling slightly.
“Baby…” She reached out for you, but her fingers met open air as you shook your head and crossed the room to grab your things from her bed.
“It’s fine. I--I shouldn’t have pushed,” you rushed out, your voice shaking. You threw your notebook and laptop into your backpack hastily before hurrying to the door. Tara stood, desperate to do something to stop you from leaving, but she didn’t get the chance as you said, “I’m sorry.” Of course she’d apologize when I snapped at her. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”
The door shutting behind you pulled all the air from Tara’s lungs, and she fell back into her chair, holding her face in her hands.
“God fucking damnit,” she groaned. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
* * *
Hours later--during which Tara had sat in her bed and moped--there was a knock on her bedroom door. For a brief second, she thought it was you. But there would be no reason for her to come back after I got mad at her, she reminded herself, and any hope she had disappeared when Sam walked into the room, a frown on her face.
“I thought Y/N was staying for dinner so you two could study through it,” Sam said, bringing Tara’s attention right back to the fact that you had left. She stepped into the room, her arms crossed over her chest, and asked, “What happened? You’re all”--she gestured at Tara--“sad.”
Tara huffed, glaring at her sister. “Nothing,�� she grumbled.
Sam scoffed. “Oh, please. You and Y/N have been attached at the hip since the start of finals.” She shook her head. “Scratch that--since you two began dating. So, what happened, Tara?”
Stupid Sam, being a good older sister. Tara sighed and relented. “She asked about mom.”
“Oh.” Sam frowned. “And what did you say?”
“I--” Was a bad girlfriend and got mad at her for no reason, Tara thought, shame seeping into her veins. “I snapped at her. I didn’t mean to. It’s just…mom’s a tough topic, and it’s even harder because Y/N’s family-life is so perfect.” She clenched her jaw and glanced away, ignoring the spark of jealous lighting in her chest. “She’s got two parents who are there, and they have money, and she’s just…” Perfect.
Sam tilted her head, walking over and sitting beside Tara. “You know, it wasn’t easy for me to tell Danny about mom, either. He’s in the same boat as Y/N--well, not the super rich family part, but his parents are together and there.” She shrugged. “It’s hard not to envy that, but she’s your girlfriend, so you’ll need to talk to her about mom at some point. She deserves to know.”
Tara nodded, hanging her head. “I know. I feel horrible for getting upset with her.” She gestured lamely at her phone. “I tried texting and calling her, but…” She pointed across the room, where your phone still sat on her desk. “Obviously that didn’t work.”
Sam hummed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Tara. Maybe she just needed a minute.” She rested her hand on Tara’s shoulder. “Plus, she’ll need her phone.”
“What if she comes back and breaks up with me?” Tara asked, looking up at Sam with wide eyes. What if she never speaks to me again? she thought. What if this is it? What if--
“Every couple has arguments, Tara.” Sam smiled softly at her. “She’s not going to break up with you over this. That girl’s head over heels for you, even more than you are for her. It’s gonna be okay, okay?”
Tara bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, okay,” she said, not missing the sorrow in her own voice. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Sam stood, her hands on her hips and her head tilted. “Now, should we get Chinese food or pizza?”
* * *
Sam was right: you did just need a minute.
It was as Tara was getting ready for bed that she heard a knock on the front door. Sam’ll deal with it, she decided as she climbed beneath her sheets, ready to lay in the darkness and wallow for a while. Just as she was reaching over to turn off her bedside lamp, a certain name caught her attention.
“Oh, hi, Y/N!” Sam said loudly from the living room, and Tara knew she had raised her voice so that she would know who was at the door. She sat up immediately. Y/N is here? What? There was some mumbling before Sam’s voice came again. “Yeah, she’s in her room. Go ahead.”
Moments later, there were soft knocks against her bedroom door, and Tara scrambled out of her bed, rushing across the room to open the door for you. There you stood, your lips pulled in a downturned smile and your eyes wide with worry.
“Hey, pretty girl,” you muttered. You were still wearing the same clothes from the day, and your backpack was still hanging off your shoulders. Did she not go home? she wondered, furrowing her eyebrows. You pulled your arm out from behind you, revealing a small bouquet of flowers. “Got you these.”
Tara blinked. She bought me flowers?! “I--Thanks?” She took them from your outstretched hand. “What are you doing here?”
“I said I’d see you later, didn’t I?” you tried to joke, but your voice was strained, like you were trying to be careful, and Tara felt guilt prick at her knowing that she was the cause. “Could I come in?”
“Oh, yeah. Of course. Always,” she rushed out, moving to her bed to sit. She placed the flowers on her bedside table and watched as you sat in front of her, fingers playing with her blanket. “So, what’s up?” ‘What’s up?’ Really? That’s the best I can do?
You sighed, a shaky breath falling from your lips. “I want to apologize,” you said. “I didn’t mean to push you into talking about your mom earlier. I know she’s a touchy subject.”
Tara frowned. “Why are you apologizing? I’m sorry for shouting at you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
You shook your head, glancing up and finally making eye-contact with her. “No, it’s okay. You didn’t want to talk about her. And, that’s okay.” You shrugged and offered her a comforting smile. “You don’t have to tell me about her…ever, if you don’t want to.”
“I should, though. I mean, we should talk about her.”
“Tara, you really don’t have to--”
“No, I--I want to.” Want’s a strong word, she thought. But I should.
“Okay,” you said, nodding and giving her your full attention. “You have the floor.”
She sighed heavily. “Well, my dad left when I was 8. My mom started working more so that she could afford Sam and I, but it turned more into an obsession for her, I think. Next thing I knew, she was never there. Sam left home when I was 13, and it was just me.” She shrugged, glancing down and fiddling with her fingers. “Then, Sam came back after I was attacked, and my mom wouldn’t talk to her, so we made the choice to cut her off. I haven’t spoken to her since we moved.”
Tara clicked her tongue, looking back up at you. To her surprise, your face wasn’t full of the pity she was used to seeing after telling people about her past; you were watching her carefully, looking close to tears.
“So, that’s that,” she said awkwardly.
You inhaled sharply, blinking your glassy eyes away. “You didn’t deserve any of that, Tar, and I’m sorry that you had to deal with it.” You reached out, your hand cupping her cheek, and she leaned into your touch. “I’m so happy that you’ve found your family.”
Her heart fluttered at your words, her mind flashing to Sam and Mindy and Chad. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I am, too. I really love those guys.” And I’ve found you, too, she thought. You make it all complete.
You grinned, and she practically melted into her mattress. “Good. They’re good--all of them.”
She giggled. “C’mere.” She wrapped her arms around your shoulders and pulled you to lay down with her, your face nuzzled into her neck. She laughed at the feeling of your nose against her skin, and said, “I love you. Like, a lot.”
Your arms wrapped around her waist, and you squeezed lightly. “I love you, like, a lot, too.” You sighed into her. “And I’m sorry for leaving like that earlier. I just…I don’t do well with raised voices.”
Huh? Suddenly, she was on high alert. Why not? What happened? “Any particular reason?”
You twisted in her hold so that you could lay beside her, your gaze trained on the ceiling. She scooted down so that her head was level with yours and looked at you, tracing your side profile with her eyes. So pretty, she thought. Wait, stay on topic, Tara.
You clenched your jaw. “We’ve never talked about it, but, um, my dad…” You closed your eyes. “When I was younger, my dad had a big drinking problem.” Her eyebrows furrowed. Her dad? That man? Really? “He was never physical,” you said, shaking your head lightly. “But he had a temper when he was drunk, and everything I did was always wrong.”
“Oh, Y/N,” she sighed, intertwining her fingers with yours. Your grip was tight, like she would float away if you didn’t hold on.
“He’d yell a lot, at me, at my mom.” Oh, baby. Your thumb rubbed over the skin of her hand. “But he’s good now. He got better after the boys were born--got sober. He hasn’t had a drink since.” You turned your head, looking back at her.
“He’s not, like, obsessed with apples, or anything,” you said. What does that have to do with the conversation? she wondered. “But, he eats them a lot when we have parties. That was his thing--eat an apple when he wanted a drink. It stuck, so we keep the fridge stocked, and any time someone sees him even look in the direction of alcohol, we get him an apple.” You smiled. “He eats them begrudgingly, but he’ll never have an apple out of his own volition now.”
Tara chuckled softly. “I’m happy he’s better now, but I’m sorry you dealt with that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”
You shrugged, leaning closer so that your forehead rested against her cheek. “It’s okay now. I’m alright,” you promised. “Just…never buy that man an apple, alright?” you joked, easing the tension in the air.
“Deal,” she agreed, nudging your head up. She leaned in, kissed you, and said, “I guess no family’s perfect after all, huh?” when she pulled away.
“I guess not.” You grinned, leaning up on your elbow to hover over her. “But, maybe ours could be the first.”
Her heart practically stopped, and she couldn’t help the smile that took over her face. Ours? she thought. She felt like she wanted to burst from the amount of joy that came with that thought. Yeah. Ours.
“Okay.” She pushed herself up and kissed you again. “Ours will be the first.”
#tara carpenter x reader#tara carpenter#tara x reader#jenna ortega x reader#jenna ortega#jenna x reader#museum tara#scream 5#scream 6
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2024 Book Review #58 – Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Introduction
Kim Stanley Robinson is one of those names I’ve been meaning to around to since approximately forever ago, one of the real Canonical science fiction writers I’ve always felt slightly ashamed I’ve never read (see also: Gene Wolfe). Ministry for the Future in particular is a book I remember getting an immense amount of buzz and downright hagiographic reviews when it came out, even well beyond the usual science fiction circuit. So I went into this with vague impressions and high expectations – which, as it always does, turned out to be a rather dire mistake.
I do not regret having read this book, but that’s on its merits as a cultural artifact rather than a work of literature. Which is to say, I think this is interesting more than it’s good. It’s more or less equal parts a (rather experimental) novel, a work of futurism, and a political manifesto – and despite being incredibly sympathetic to the latter project, I’m not sure it really succeeds at any of them. Which might just be because I’m reading it now instead of when it came out – it is incredibly of its time, in a way that’s genuinely impressively dated even just a few years latter, and which continuously took me out of it.
It was, at least, very formally interesting. The tiny chapters and constant bouncing between different areas of interest kept it from ever becoming too much of a grind, too.
Synopsis
The book is, roughly, a history of the struggle against climate change and to restore the biosphere to equilibrium, beginning with the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and continuing over the next half-century so until the world has been nigh-unrecognizably transformed and victory in that struggle seems more or less assured.
It is, nominally, focused on its only explicit divergence from our own world before the book was written (so, somewhere in 2017-2019) – the titular Ministry, a subsidiary body created by the Paris Accords to pursue and safeguard the interests of future generations – at first this is basically conceived of as a meaningless goodwill gesture by most of the really powerful people agreeing to it. But after a monstrously deadly heat wave across South Asia kills tens of millions of people in a matter of days, more and more people around the world start to wake up to the necessity of drastic action.
Over the next generation the Ministry plays a major (though less so than you might imagine) role in the transition of the world to a sustainable and just future, and the book follows both their efforts and the changing conditions around them that make any of it possible.
The story is told through a dizzying variety of perspectives – there a couple of what you might call protagonists (the minister for the future herself, a Scottish aid worker caught in the heat wave who barely survives and spends the rest of his life failing to cope with PTSD), but they occupy what has to be much less than half of the book. The rest is short persuasive essays, meeting minutes, anonymous vignettes from everyone from an Antarctic research scientist-turned-geoengineer to a de facto enslaved miner in Namibia, and odd little prose poems from the perspective of ‘the market’ or ‘photons’ or similar. It’s all mixed together quite thoroughly – few chapters are more than six or seven pages, many much less, and each new chapter marks a perspective jump. It’s a fascinating reading experience, if nothing else.
Taken As A Novel
...The Ministry for the Future is just not a very good one.
Partial blame goes to I think the very admirable instinct to avoid making some select group of technocrats and activists the Protagonists of History and instead try to maintain something like a global perspective. But the unfortunate reality of it is that the world is very big, and even at 500 pages the book is comparatively quite small. The result is that this is a story where the overwhelming majority of the plot is told in the passive voice, exposition relaying how trends never before mentioned and institutions not yet introduced are conveniently doing this or that to help fix the world, and then rarely if ever mentioned again. One wonders why the titalur Minister was chosen as a protagonist at all, given how the vast majority of her narrative could just as easily been filled by another other ‘life-on-the-ground’ level perspective (her great contribution is convincing the assembled centrall bankers of the world to do something about two thirds of the way into the book).
Also – while the instinct to avoid making ones main characters the perfectly agentic and hypercompetent engine of history is certainly admirable, it’s rather undercut by then still having one of those, but just giving us no real insight or perspective into it.
The mystique of the shadowy, untouchable terrorist syndicate has a powerful hold in the minds of action and science-fiction authors, and Robinson is apparently no exception. The energy transition in the book is greatly sped up by a near-omnipotent ecoterrorist movement that, through everything from sabotage and assassination to drone strikes and missile barrages, (literally) decapitates the entire fossil fuel industry and destroys so many planes and cargo ships so as to cripple the global airline and shipping industries. I’ll leave aside plausibility (for now) – but it just seems so self-evidently obvious that these are the main characters of the story. But with the exception of a single anonymous vignette, the story refuses to ever give the people involved names, faces, or personalities, nor dive into the whys and hows of specific operations. It’s quite frustrating, all the moreso because it feels like the author just saving himself the work of figuring any of that out.
Our two ostensible main characters themselves also just feel like – not a wasted opportunity, but definitely one more could have been made of? The world changes dramatically, almost unrecognizably, through the course of the novel, but their lives really don’t. Here and there sure, there’s not nothing, but the overwhelming majority of their pagecount is spent living what could very easily have been somewhat atypical lives in contemporary Switzerland. Despite all the talk of a ‘super-depression’ and the crippling of global trade, no shortages ever particularly affect them, no natural disasters touch ther homes. A lot of Mary’s chapters really just kind of read like tourism ads for the country Robinson clearly fell in love with at some point.
Taken as Futurism
Which is to say, taken as an exploration of how the world might actually develop, and a plausible prediction of the future based on current trends. Which, given the sheer amount modern frontier technologies, economic and political theories, and just general social trends are all discussed (not to mention a great deal of the breathless marketing and reception it received) the book is clearly trying to be. And which – woof, it does not work out.
The book is full of generational political upheavals occurring mostly because it’s a dramatically convenient time for them to. Most glaringly, the cataclysmic heat wave that sets off the book’s plot also conveniently utterly discredits the BJP and leads the landslide election of an entirely fictitious political movement across all of India, who then spend the next decades dramatically transforming the nation’s politics and economy with unbroken success and to a reception of thunderous applause. There’s no characters with names or faces actually involved in this, no more than a couple paragraphs of encyclopedia-like exposition devoted to it, but it’s the example and engine the whole rest of the book hangs on. The transition of the African Union to a powerful and legitimate supernational entity and the granting of permanent autonomy to Hong Kong (and much of southern mainland China why not) are even less dwelt on.
Now, this all could be excused as just the inevitable causalities of trying to write a book with a global scope – and I am sympathetic to that. But to begin with, I know just barely enough about the politics and the economics of a lot of several of the places touched on or used as dramatic examples to see how surface level and implausible the predicted changes are, and I can’t help but think it’s probably a similar story with all the other lightly touched on placed I don’t know much about (I remain agnostic on the accuracy of the geoengineering and carbon-clearing technologies projected, except that a lot of them suspiciously amenable to a single coherent aesthetic of the future).
More damning, to me at least, is the matter of agency – only the ‘good’ people seem to possess any of it. The conservative opposition exists as this vague, undifferentiated mass – standing athwart history and slowing things down in vague ways, but never really vital or active, never a danger to the political movements that have won or the progress that has been made. There are references to xenophobia and anti-refugee sentiment, but despite a refugee crisis that makes that of the 2010s look like a rounding error, it never leads to any really dangerous political backlash. Given how the world’s actually trending, the book’s vision of politics goes beyond optimism and into outright delusion.
This is especially true for how the book conceives of violence. Political violence is, in the book’s telling, near-universally the province of the ecological Left (with the exception of two events that provide excuses for dramatic set-pieces but fail to actually achieve anything at all). As mentioned above, seemingly omnipotent and untouchable eco-terrorists assassinate dozens of hundreds of the global elite for their crimes against the planet, destroy so many jet liners and cargo ships to force the adoption of new transportation methods, and sabotage so many coal- and oil-powered plants they help force the abandonment of the as fuels. They do this with no real blowback or reverses, no ruthless campaigns of state violence breaking apart the networks or destroying the infrastructure, no loss of public support from the disruptions in food and fuel their attacks would cause – it is not a realistic vision of what ecoterrorism might look like in the coming decades, it’s a plot device in the form of Robert Ludlum villains with no action movie secret agents around to stop them.
As a Political Manifesto
Which is, after all, clearly the real motivation behind the book, and the reason it received as many accolades as it did. It’s also where the book is easily at its most interesting – if, tragically, rather incoherent. Which might be me holding it to a higher standard than is fair but look, there’s only so many essays extolling the failure of the market or the coming obsolescence of war or whatever you can put in your book before I start holding it to the standard of actual rigour.
Mostly it feels like the book is undercut by its commitment to relentless optimism and need to jump around – a great deal of the book is spent giving the most positive possible gloss on particular phenomena or institutions from across the world in a paragraph or two, then say it needs to be scaled up on a national or global scale with no further thought or consideration of costs. Even when it’s not wrong it just feels unserious.
The subject the book spends the plurality of its time on – the main thrust of its program, if anything is – is economics and monetary policy. The great project of the Ministry is convincing the assembled central bankers of the world to create a new currency – a ‘carbon coin’ minted as a reward for sequestering or preventing the removal of a single ton of carbon for at least a century, with a guaranteed minimum value and appreciation over the same period – which would in time replace the us dollar as a global reserve currency and medium of exchange. The arguments around which are frustrating, because they go from plausible and compelling to wildly optimistic to the social science equivalent of star trek technobabble and back again without warning or any detectable pattern. It’s an interesting idea, at least, though one you get the sense is being imperfectly relayed – and the arguments for why the uncrowned monarchs of the global financial system would actually agree to it just aren’t convincing in the least.
Given the amount of times the book uses standard progressive language about how vital empowering minorities, women, the traditionally excluded and so on is to the fight to save the planet, it’s honestly kind of amusing the degree to which the big dramatic set pieces involve appealing to the conscience and principles of the most embedded representatives of The System imaginable. Running through the book are both a disdain and dismissal of economics as a field and a strongly felt technocratic sensibility and desire to have seasoned experts at the helm managing their areas of expertise – it can never quite decide whether bringing the world’s central banks under increased political control is something to be fought for, or a threat to hold over the bankers heads to get them in line and focused on the important task of creating a de facto world state (the quasi-utopia envisioned at the end of the book could just as easily be the globalist dystopia from any conspiracy theorist’s screen with no changes but the valence of the adjectives used to describe it).
It’s more peripheral, but Robinson’s clear affection for the nation of Switzerland and continuous praise of its many virtues in both politics and society does clash a bit with, well, reality. It’s weird to go from a chapter about needing to abolish tax havens to talking about how enlightened self-interest has left the Swiss government entirely behind the mission of fighting climate change.
A Product of it’s Time
Is a weird thing to call a book written barely more than five years ago, I’m aware. But it’s honestly kind of shocking just how aged and dated the book feels, reading it in 2024. Despite just everything I’ve written above, I’m trying not to judge it as harshly as I might, because I feel like I’d have been much more generous if various things didn’t keep taking me out of it.
Some of them are things that can’t really be held against it – the passages about Russia and it’s relationship with Europe reads as almost comical now, to be sure, but so does every sci fi book in the ‘80s talking about the USSR – but that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt the feeling of reading the history of the future. The book was published in October 2020, so the complete non-mention of not even COVID specifically but just any pandemic or major disease outbreaks feel positively unreal.
Other things are less the book already being falsified by history and more just seeing what turned out to be pretty transient intellectual fashions immortalized in print. Seeing a serious, celebrated book talk about the revolutionary potential of the blockchain to create a democratic new economy is enough to turn a hair grey. And on a less extreme level, talking up Modern Monetary Theory as this revolutionary hack of solve economics just feels so very incredibly pre-pandemic.
Too Long; Didn’t Read
Not angry I read it, but more because writing this review was fun and engaging than for its merits as a work of art. Can’t judge it too harshly, given that the task it set for itself is basically impossible – but Robinson’s written enough books that he probably should have known that before he started it.
The set piece at the beginning of someone living through the dead heat wave was incredibly compelling drama, at least.
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In Defense of the Phandom (Mostly): Dan, Phil, and Our Parasocial Social Club
Refer to my previous pinned post for an explanation of and outline for this project. Now that I'm done going through my old reblogs (god, it took forever), it's time to actually research and write this script! Finally, my favorite part of any project. This will be my pinned post for the foreseeable future, so you can come back to by clicking on my blog for the current status of this part of the process. There will be a similar post for filming and editing once I get to that point, but for now, you can glance at how "full" the bar below each section is for a quick idea of where the script is. Or you can expand the post to see more details.
Script word count: 2,350 | Last updated: January 9, 2025
Research
Peer-reviewed or published literature: ⚫︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ Social media, forum archives, and fanwork: ⚫︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ The great rewatch: ⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ Discussions with other phannies (hey! that could be you, if you want!): ⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎
Writing
Introduction, background, and conclusion sections: ⚫︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ 2009-2013: ⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ 2014-2018: ⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ 2019-2025: ⚫︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ Long tangents (fandom, RPF, and PSIs/PSRs): ⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎ Editing: ⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎⚪︎
More details below the cut!
Research → peer reviewed or published literature:
I read a few things (like Haidt's The Anxious Generation) while I was in the process of searching academic databases, but most of the 403 works I have saved to Zotero for this are currently unread. They're not all the same length or will take the same amount of time to read, so the completion proportion is just getting updated based on vibes. I'm absolutely not referencing all 403 of these things in the script - I just cast a wide net for materials I thought might be relevant. Furthermore, there are some things I didn't save that I know I'll be referencing, like some of the Pew Research Center's work in the early to mid 2010s on teenagers and technology, or the journalistic coverage of what got my school district in huge trouble in 2011.
Research → Social media and forum archives:
The collection of posts, art, and fic (other than mine) to reference in the video. For regular posts and art, especially by people who have long since abandoned their accounts or whose content went pretty viral, I feel comfortable just showing things in the video with credit as examples. For fic, I intend to just discuss trends more broadly and vaguely since, as a fic writer myself, I know we tend to get more flack and less acclaim for our work and therefore prefer to stay out of the spotlight. Let me know if you think I should handle this differently - the academic impulse is to credit sources and reproducible searches for every single thing you do, but that's definitely not best practice for phandom history since we have so much "forbidden" lore. I'll also be reading the IDB forum front-to-back, listening to things like the phandom podcast, reading the current generation of phanzines, and looking at recent (and historical, if anyone has any) surveys done of phannies within the community. I'm assuming those folks would appreciate credit and/or a shoutout.
Research → The great rewatch:
Rewatching everything DNP-related so I can talk about it from more recent memory (and read what's left of the original comments for DNP videos that are still up at their original locations). I know there's a playlist for this but I also know it's incomplete, so I have been doing some poking around myself and will probably continue to.
Research → Discussions with other phannies:
I read a few things (like Haidt's The Anxious Generation) while I was in the process of searching academic databases, but most of the 403 works I have saved to Zotero for this are currently unread. They're not all the same length or will take the same amount of time to read, so the completion proportion is just getting updated based on vibes. I'm absolutely not referencing all 403 of these things in the script - I just cast a wide net for materials I thought might be relevant. Furthermore, there are some things I didn't save that I know I'll be referencing, like some of the Pew Research Center's work in the early to mid 2010s on teenagers and technology, or the journalistic coverage of what got my school district in huge trouble in 2011. The first task is to sort that whole Zotero collection into more manageable sub-collections (on PSR on PSIs, on mental health, on YouTube platform history, etc), which is what I'm currently working on.
Writing → Introduction, background, and conclusion sections
See old pinned post for the outline. Will expand details here once research is mostly done (I plan to read and watch everything in the research section aside from talking to other phannies, then complete the script's rough draft, then talk to others on call, then integrate that with and finalize the script).
Writing → 2009-2013
See above.
Writing → 2014-2018
See above.
Writing → 2019-2025
See above.
Writing → Long tangents (fandom, RPF, and PSRs/PSIs)
See above. These tangents are kind of mini video essays in and olf themselves, so I may write them while I'm reading through my saved stuff in Zotero and before I rewatch all the DNP videos.
#dan and phil#phan#dnp#daniel howell#amazingphil#amy writes#i feel weird putting this in the main tags but given it's been TWO WEEKS WITHOUT A PHUPLOAD no one's gonna mind#as indicated - this is now pinned on this sideblog! more minor status updates will just be tagged “amy writes” so follow if you want those
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a year in review
my therapist recommended that i sit down, go through my diary & calendar & blog, & compile a list of everything i have done this year so that i have incontrovertible evidence of the immense amount of things i have achieved, survived & overcome in the past twelve months. & it has been so affirming & empowering to do; at the end of a year which has felt so overwhelming, i can hardly believe that i actually achieved all of these things. & w. was there for very, very few of them. i deserved & deserve so much better, so much stronger, so much kinder.
anyway, i'm putting the list under the cut, & warmly recommending this to everyone as an activity in self-respect, self-love, self-reflection, etc., etc., & co.
i maintained, cleared and sold my late Mum's house this involved constant emails & phone calls all year, exhausting journeys of over 300 miles by train & then by car once i had my licence, endless tip runs & charity shop runs, selling furniture on eBay & arranging for collections, liaison with estate agents, speed learning a lot about property & finance, exhausting garden maintenance & cleaning, fights with the council who kept fucking up the tax liabilities; and none of this is to mention the emotional difficulty of sorting through my mum's things, deciding what to keep & what to give away & what to sell, & the grief of leaving her house for the final time in july; the house where i had cared for her, the home she had lived & died in. & i did almost all of it entirely on my own.
i bought my own flat in Edinburgh a joyful counterpoint to the above; a safe place finally to land, which i can make entirely my own; i think it's about the best thing i could have done for myself post-breakup, but it is also a very real way of closing the door on my relationship, & i've felt very bittersweet about that. i have also had to make removals plans over the festive period & balance a lot of very time-sensitive admin with similarly time-sensitive end of semester marking. the move in january will be exhausting, but so so wonderful when it is done & i am settled.
i wrote the 2nd chapter of my PhD all 20,000+ words of it! & i have done, of course, all the reading, thinking, editing & rewriting which this involved. but it is now a very solid, very good chapter, & only needs minor edits to be polished. that i managed to pull this off around everything to do with mum's house is truly incredible to me. i don't know how it happened but it did, & it's work that i am so proud of.
i taught on 3 summer schools one in st andrews, one online & one in cambridge. i wrote & gave two lectures, one on mrs dalloway & one on a sketch of the past, & delivered large- & small-group teaching on five different woolf texts. they were such rewarding experiences, & i cannot wait for next year's.
i taught my 1st undergraduate course an introduction to english literature course, 1800 to present day! like the summer schools, this was so wonderfully rewarding. i got to plan & deliver a semester's worth of seminars, & mark coursework essays & exams. i learnt so much about what works & doesn't work for this kind of course, & can't wait to apply those lessons to next semester's teaching. the fact that i even managed to deliver my classes on mrs dalloway the day after w. broke up with me, & find joy in doing so, is probably a highlight, actually. it shows me how good i am at what i do; i can do it with a broken heart.
i went on 2 archive trips one to king's college, cambridge, & one to the british library in london. i made really significant discoveries on both trips & i'm so looking forward to writing them all up into my 3rd chapter next year. both of these archive trips were also done around trips to mum's house to do clearance & maintenance & meet estate agents, & again the fact that i managed still to make them so productive is incredible to me.
i presented at my university's graduate conference & submitted an abstract for next year's international woolf conference! a light conferencing load for me this year, because i simply didn't have time for them, but i already have so many on my cv that i'm feeling very at peace with that.
i passed my theory & practical driving test got my licence finally in may, which made the final stages of dealing with mum's house easier; actually passed in the pissing rain while suffering from a horrendous cold, then did the long drive to the midlands only a few weeks later.
i went to therapy consistently even when it was hard; even when i didn't know what to talk about; even when i felt like i was constantly repeating myself; i trusted the process & i'm so glad i did.
i broke up with my phone this was a gamechanger in september. some of it has slipped since my actual breakup, but some of it has stuck, & i'm hopeful that i'll get back to a more phoneless existence in the new year. at the end of september i felt so much more present, so much more alive, so much more observant & focused & active. i'd like to feel that way again.
i travelled i was so lucky to travel to dublin, iceland, new york, india & france this year; i'm hoping for more european city breaks next year. vienna is already booked for january, & prague, stockholm & copenhagen are on my wish list. solo travel is a big goal.
i reinvested in my hobbies & interests i went pretty regularly to a weekly writing group! i did two blocks of pottery classes! i got a swim membership & took up regular swimming again! i walked & hiked & went wild swimming when i could! i also read 14 books, which maybe isn't a lot, but in the context of everything else i did this year it's something i'm proud of, & i enjoyed every single one. i also cooked a lot of new things, & fed myself well for the most part.
& in addition to all these things; all of this hard work, all of these decisions, all of the admin, & all of my grief, i still held so much time & space for my friends this year. i think this may be what i'm most proud of. going through my diary & calendar, there are so many entries for dinners & visits & trips & drinks with friends, new & old. i have for the most part managed to be present for the people i love & who love me, despite everything. if there's anything i definitely want to take into the new year, it's that.
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project: make you love me (jyh) | five.
♣︎ spotify playlist | series masterlist
—summary: yunho can’t stand how you’re so wrapped up in the notorious campus fuckboy, park seonghwa. he would gladly love you the way you deserve, despite being shy, awkward and the complete opposite of seonghwa. thus, when he finds himself spending more time with you over literature reviews and random study sessions, he decides to take on the challenge to win you over.
—pairing: jeong yunho x f. reader x park seonghwa
—genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers/friends to lovers, college au | fluff, angst, smut
—word count: 4.5k
—chapter content/warnings: some cussing, witty & sweet yunho, seungmin being the true best friend that he is, college mcdonalds runs lol, yunho and oc talk a bit about the past, they also talk about seonghwa a bit, quick flashback scene - crying & heartbreak :/ , yunho really thinks oc is the cutest, i promise we are making progress even though it seems slow!!
It's been a couple of days since you last heard from Seonghwa, and to be quite frank, you don't really care much for it. It does suck, and it does hurt. But, at this point, you've done enough on your end and you can say you've always tried.
Seonghwa? Not so much.
"I'm fucked." You let out a heavy sigh as your face falls into the palms of your hands, stressing about your literature paper due.
You barely have the two paragraphs done, and your notes are all over the place.
What are you even saying anymore?
You're going in circles, and Dr. Nelson will know you didn't even try to make this work. The best part? This wasn't the only major paper assigned for the semester— you're not even sure how you'll tackle the other ones without leaning on Yunho for help.
"Doing okay there?" You hear a familiar, husky voice, followed by the sound of a bag being placed on the shared tabletop. You look up to see Yunho, and you're really relieved he's here. Even if you weren't going to try and bother him much about this paper, his presence was comforting.
"I don't know."
"That's not good." He chuckles before sliding his laptop out of his bag. "How can I help you?"
"Well, first of all, I'm really glad you're here."
"It is the booth I frequently work at." He teases with a smirk. "I see you've grown a liking to it."
"It's nice and quiet. Plus, I know I can find you here." He smiles and nods. "Second, it's Dr. Nelson."
"The paper?"
"Yes." You whine, again placing your head down onto the desk. "Why is this so difficult? Words are not coming to me, and even if they do, do they even make sense? I don't even know—" You mumble on and on, and Yunho can barely make out what you're saying. But, it's clear you're distressed and Yunho can't help but be a little endeared seeing this.
At least you care enough to do your best.
"Y/N." He calls for your name softly. "Slow down, it's gonna be okay. Let me know how I can help you." You finally look up with a pout.
"I don't want to rely on you."
"You're not relying on me when you ask for help. It's okay." He tries to lighten the mood. "Now seriously, how can I help? Do I need to run and buy you a mochi donut?" You giggle and shake your head.
"No, no." You pass along your laptop to let him view the screen. "Read this introduction. Does it make sense?" He furrows his brows a bit while reading your paragraph but nods to acknowledge what you've written so far.
"It does. Why do you think it doesn't make sense?"
"I guess I'm just not sure where to take this."
"Hm. You should give yourself more credit than that." He smiles at you. "You've already stated a couple of general ideas here. Why don't you take those and develop your body paragraphs that way? Those obviously stood out to you the most, so I'm sure you'll remember where to find it in the book."
"True."
"Don't second-guess yourself. I know it's hard because Dr. Nelson is in your head, but you really have the right idea. You just have to give him more than what he knows. Almost like—" Yunho tilts his head for a second as if to show he's deep in thought. "—Like okay, do you journal?"
"Yes, sometimes. Not all the time."
"You don't have to give me details, but what do you journal about? Just in general." Yunho patiently waits and keeps his eyes on you while you think.
"Feelings. Thoughts. Emotions."
"Right. When you're sad, you talk about why you're sad and how it affects you, your day, mood. Everything. You write about all these details and elaborate on the feeling."
"Yeah, exactly."
"Then, it's just like that. You already write about these things in your personal life. It's the same elaboration, same kind of thought process." You nod as Yunho pushes your laptop back towards you. "What I'm trying to say is, don't think much about it. Just write what comes to mind and don't overthink it."
"You know what, you're right. I need to stop overthinking and just do it." You grab at your laptop, feeling better after Yunho's advice. "Thanks, Yunho. I needed that."
"Happy to help."
"Are you going to leave soon?" He shakes his head.
"I was hoping to get some work done." You look at him and he catches the way your eyes light up.
"You're going to stay?" You ask him again for some kind of reassurance.
"Mhm." A smile tugs at the corner of your lips just as you start to type away more confidently.
"Sorry I took over your booth." You say with your eyes glued to your screen, making Yunho chuckle.
"I'll share it with you." You let out a tiny laugh at this response.
During the entire two hours you spent with Yunho at the booth, he was diligently finishing up his own paper before switching gears to focus on the remaining aspects of his other project. In between, he would patiently read your paper when you asked, giving you his feedback and some areas of improvement. You took them positively, adding in Yunho's tips into your paper and finishing off a good chunk before it could get way too late in the evening.
Of course, there comes a point where you get hungry and restless. That moment feels like now, especially when the words are starting to blur together in the last bit of the body. Oh well.
Yunho must be good at reading people though, because he picks up on the dwindling excitement, the dying energy, your tone change; the way you restlessly shake your legs and shift in your seat.
It's time to call it a night.
"Did you drive today?" You shake your head.
"No. I'm stuck here until Seungmin is done with his group project. But, I guess it's good since it'll force me to work on more things."
"Do you have to work on more things?" You giggle.
"Yes, but not really? They're due next week, and they're quick assignments."
"Cool. Down for some McDonalds, then? I can drive us. I can bring you home afterwards too, or back here. Whichever works." Yunho zips up his bag and patiently waits for your response. "No pressure, though."
"I'm down for some McDonald's." You chuckle, packing up your things. "I think I've done enough, right?" Yunho laughs a bit while watching you.
"You've done more than enough for today, Y/N. You're almost done with your paper. That's big progress."
"Thank you." You smile at him while zipping up your bag. "Alright, I'm ready." Yunho gestures for you to slide out of the booth first, with him following behind. He twirls his keychain around his finger as the two of you walk out of the library— the air hitting your face just as the doors swing open; cold, but refreshing.
"Cold?" Yunho looks down at you, almost ready to shed off his light jacket in order to keep you comfortable.
"Um, no. I should be good." You look up at him. "Besides, I don't wanna keep taking your jackets." He chuckles.
"I don't mind. Just let me know."
"Okay." It falls silent for a bit before you break the silence, kicking the rocks beneath your shoes. "How's your project coming along?"
"Hm." He hums. "It's going. As good as it gets for now, I guess."
"You and Yeosang don't team up for these things?" He laughs.
"Not really. We've talked about assignments before, but it's not a hot topic in the apartment. I think I might have brainstormed around Yeosang but he doesn't do much besides give off the usual 'sounds good to me.'"
"Mm, I see. He's quite the mystery." You gently nudge his arm. "You both are."
"Yeah, can't deny that." He lets out a small breathy laugh, flashing his key fob towards his car so that it unlocks. "Got lucky with parking today."
"That's always the best." You chuckle.
"Speaking of roommates, Seungmin knows you're coming along right? Don't want him to go looking for you."
"He knows. Trust me, even if he didn't, he wouldn't look for me." He smiles a bit when he sees your phone light up in your hands, signaling a text coming through. "Actually, speak of the devil."
"Oh, so he wouldn't look for you?" Yunho asks in a teasing manner, making the heat rise to your cheeks.
"It really must be your lucky day cause he doesn't always do this."
"He's your friend, he wouldn't leave you."
"He wouldn't! But, he'd also assume Chaery or Soobin might have already picked me up before asking." You laugh. "Can't stand him, but love him."
"Cute." Yunho says just as he drives off to the nearest McDonald's. It's only an exit away from where campus us located, and it's a quick drive being that it's pretty late in the evening.
seungmin: bro where r u
seungmin: r u with park seonghwa
you: noooo! sorry i was gonna text you but you surprisingly beat me to it
you: i'm with yunho, gonna grab mcdonalds then he'll take me home. want anything?
seungmin: oh, did you guys end up working together in the library? and i'm good on the mcdonalds. ty ☺️
you: mhm! alright. did you finish your project?
seungmin: almost, was looking for you because i wasnt sure if you still wanted to stay and i was gonna take you home. i truly think we'll be here till closing..
seungmin: rip me
you: aw seungmo
you: almost done! goodluck! don't worry about me 😬
seungmin: don't worry i'm not
you: lol sick of you, go away
You giggle to yourself as you tuck your phone away and return your attention to the road ahead.
"So, what are you getting?" You turn to Yunho, who is focused on driving carefully with you in his passenger's seat; one hand placed on the wheel, while the other rests on his lap.
"The entire menu at this point." You laugh. "I'm starving."
"You didn't eat today?"
"Barely. Just grabbed something small in between the break I had."
"Yunho." You look at him with concern. "That's not good! You have to eat."
"Yeah, I know. Trust me, I'll never pass up the opportunity on purpose. Just had bad time management today, I guess."
"Should I send you reminders?" You joke, but he shrugs.
"No, but that'd be cute if you did." He laughs. "But seriously, I'm usually better."
"Okay, Yunho. I'm holding you to it." You give him a toothless smile just as he pulls up into the McDonald's drive-thru.
"You know what you want?" He asks as he momentarily stops in front of the menu before pulling up to the main drive-thru speaker.
"Mhm. Can you please just get me the 10 pc nugget meal?"
"Anything else?" You shake your head and wait patiently while Yunho relays the orders. He pulls up to the first window to pay before he heads to the second to grab the orders. He gently hands the two bags over to you before setting the drinks down in his cupholders. "How much do I owe you?" You ask as he pulls out of the lot.
"Don't worry about it."
"Yunho? Stop. Let me pay."
"Nope." He glances over at you as you cross your arms and furrow your brows. "Still a no." He laughs.
"Come on, really?"
"It's not a big deal, Y/N. I got you." You sigh.
"Fine. I'll just have to get you brunch again."
"Don't. Please just let me treat you to something. You don't have to repay me." You look at him and find that he's serious. So, you nod and let it go.
"Where are we going?" You ask when you realize you're traveling in the opposite direction of your apartment complex.
"Oh, sorry. I know this view, and I thought I could take you there while we eat. I-Is that okay with you?" He clears his throat again and taps his fingers against the wheel. "I-I mean, I don't mind driving back. Really, it's whatever you wanna—"
"Yunho, please." You giggle. "I would love to eat at a view."
"Okay. Cool." He simply says, relieved that you're down to eat with him at a view. It might sound really cliché and pathetic, but he loves coming here when he just needs a moment—
A moment to breathe,
A moment to just be.
And right now, he feels like you could use that. He doesn't really know what else happens in your personal life, and he doesn't wanna ask unless you start that conversation yourself. But, shit happens. Life is life; we're all going through it. He knows you've been stressing over classes, over Park Seonghwa [even though he damn well doesn't deserve it].
Yunho just wants you to relax.
He pulls into a very tiny spot off to the side near a residential and backs into the open area. In front of you is the view of the ocean; the sound of waves crashing against the rocks, the shore. Stars dotting the night sky.
It was a perfectly clear night. A perfect night.
"Hm, I never knew this existed." You say observing the almost hidden, tucked away area of this part of the beach. "It's really pretty."
"I come here if I just need to be away for a second." You nod.
"Perfect place to have your me-time."
"Mhm." He agrees.
"When are you seeing your mom next?" You suddenly ask as you both dig into your bags and start chomping on a few fries.
"This weekend actually."
"Aw, no Yunho for the weekend."
"It's not like you'll be missing much."
"Hey, don't say that. You're great company, I told you. I meant it." You dip a nugget into your cup of honey mustard sauce. It makes his heart melt when you say things like this, when you unknowingly reassure him in many different ways— when you're so full of positivity and all you do is share it with him, your friends.
How could Seonghwa be so dumb?
Oh well.
One man's 'trash,' that's another man's come up.
"Thanks."
"Course." You smile at him before eating some more. "I'm glad you're seeing her this weekend. I'll try not to bother you during family time."
"You're never a bother."
"Still. I want you to give your mom and aunt your undivided attention."
"Ah, they always have my undivided attention." He chuckles and sips his drink. "Are you feeling better, by the way?" Yunho sticks a fry or two into his mouth before looking back out to the view.
"Feeling better?" You tilt your head before it dawns on you. That's right, the call. The fucking call where you whined about Seonghwa even though you really didn't have to, especially to Yunho. "Oh, right. Honestly, yeah. I think I'm okay."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." You sip on your drink. "It was a spur in the moment kind of thing. I didn't really think much about it at the time and acted on what I felt at that second. But you're right, I didn't need to feel guilty. There was no reason to."
"There wasn't." He looks at you. "Have you two talked?" You shake your head.
"No, we haven't. It's fine, though. I'm surprisingly.. not bothered by it like I used to be." You let out a small sigh. "I used to be really bothered by not hearing from him. I used to cave during every disagreement we had and I'd run back to him."
"Maybe this is you moving on." Yunho shrugs. "Like I said, I wouldn't know much about things like this. But, I can only imagine it gets tiring."
"Yeah." Is all you respond with before calling his name. "Yunho?"
"Mhm?" He responds at the same softness as you do, doe-eyes glancing back over at you just as you chomp on a nugget.
"How were your past relationships, if you don't mind me asking?"
"I don't. But, past relationships?" You furrow your brows a bit in confusion, but Yunho lets out a laugh. "My only serious relationship was in high school. We dated since freshman year, then we broke up right before we went to college."
"Oh, I'm sorry. That must have been tough."
"It was. But, it was for the best. I didn't wanna hold her back and vice versa from a new chapter in our lives, plus she was going to college overseas. There was no way it was going to work."
"I'm sure it could've since you two loved each other."
"Yeah, but I think at that point love meant letting her go and letting her experience things freely. I would've felt selfish and guilty about it." Yunho thinks back to that moment, and the feeling settles in his gut a bit. Not like it used to, no. But, those times weren't his favorite, and they've always left a mark on him.
♣︎ FLASHBACK
"Hey." Yunho says lowly, already not wanting to be here. He looks at Hayun with sadness in his eyes, and it's clear that she already knows where this is going too.
"Hi." She quietly says, head dropping as she steps aside to let him in. It's quiet in the house and Yunho hates it. It's quiet, even though his thoughts are extremely loud.
He hates this.
Hayun shuts the door and leads the way up to her room. Yunho is so familiar with this, but today— it feels oddly unfamiliar, awkward. Hurtful. Sad.
Different.
She steps inside and her movements are small. She sits on the edge of her bed just as Yunho shuts the door and takes his place next to her. He lets out a breath, hands dug deep into the pocket of his hoodie. They both stare out her window, admiring the view together knowing this is probably the last time they'll get to do so. But, Yunho breaks away first, looking over at Hayun and admiring her features.
She is beautiful. She is sweet. She is everything to him.
But, he knows he has to do this. It's only right.
"You're leaving this weekend, right?" Hayun meets his eyes and nods with a tiny smile creeping at the corner of her lips.
"Mhm."
"You're going to enjoy it there. I know you will."
"Maybe." Her head falls again, eyes now focused on her hands as she fiddles with the thread of her pajama pants.
"You don't sound too excited."
"How am I supposed to sound excited when I know you're here for a specific reason?" She looks at him, and he sees the tears welling up in her eyes. It breaks his heart, but he knows he has to do this. It's only right.
"I'm sorry." He says lowly. "You know it's for the best, love." The tears are welling up in his eyes now— he truly, truly hates this. "I'm so sorry."
"Then, why?" She cries. "Wouldn't we be able to make this work? I'd call, and I'd come home to visit and—" He shakes his head and wipes her tears, thumb caressing the surface of her cheeks.
"See, that's exactly why. I don't want you to make this experience about me. You should be enjoying yourself, you should be experiencing everything you wanna experience out there. You shouldn't be shaping college around me."
"But I'm not, I can do both. I can—"
"Love, listen." He says close to a whisper. "You and I both know we're only prolonging what'll eventually happen. We're so young, we have so many things yet to experience. Being this far apart, we'll outgrow each other, and we'll end up hurting each other in so many ways." Her bottom lip trembles and pokes out, tears continuing to streak her cheeks. But, she doesn't say anything. She knows this is what needs to happen. She knows Yunho is only doing the right thing. She knows that everything he's saying is true. "I'll never be able to forgive myself if you don't experience all of this at your full potential. You have so much ahead of you, Hayun. And because I love you, all I want is for you to be happy. That's all I want for you."
"Yunho." She cries. "I'm so sorry. I hate this. I'm so sorry." She repeats, over and over again; though, Yunho isn't sure why she's apologizing. He doesn't want her to regret anything about them, about this. Yunho pulls her into his arms, hugging her tightly while repeatedly kissing her on the top of her head. He whispers sweet nothings against her head, reassuring her that he loves her, that he just wants the best for her.
That he's okay.
Even though, he's far from okay.
♣︎ END
"True." You pause to nibble on your food some more. "You haven't dated anyone after your ex?" He shakes his head.
"No. It wasn't really a priority for me. Plus, we had been together all throughout high school. I needed the time to myself." You nod.
"Understandable. Have you talked to her since then?"
"Not really. I ran into her one summer, and she acted like she didn't really know me. Kinda sad, but it's whatever."
"It's not whatever. You can be sad about that."
"It's just sad how people go from doing everything together and being really close, to suddenly being strangers again. We were very different when we ran into each other." He shrugs. "I just hope she's doing well."
"And I'm sure she wishes the same for you. Maybe she just didn't know how to approach you after so long."
"Maybe."
"Maybe." You repeat as you trace the lid to your drink while you sip on it, Yunho watching your small movements while remaining quiet for a bit.
"What about you?" He chimes in, finally having the guts to ask you.
"Past relationships?" You shrug. "I did date two people in high school. Came to college and was seeing someone I met through mutual friends. Never got super serious though, and we eventually agreed to just stay friends."
"I see."
"We're still good friends so it's nice we were able to actually get past that."
"That's good. What about Seonghwa? How did that start?"
"He came up to me after one of my performances, exchanged numbers then.. viola." You make a gesture with your hand. "This mess started." You chuckle to yourself, slightly in a more pathetic sense because yeah, it is a mess. Has been.
"It's alright. We live and we learn. Just unfortunate he's too immature to realize what's in front of him."
"Yeah, well." You set your cup down. "I think that's done with."
"Good, that's a relief." It is a relief to Yunho because that means many things:
One, you won't be with Seonghwa.
Two, you won't be with Seonghwa.
And three, you won't be with Seonghwa.
He's not even sure of his own feelings when it comes to you, but he does know that he really enjoys your company and he feels comfortable with you. It's easy to fall for you and Yunho might be heading in that direction— he just doesn't wanna scare you off, especially if you don't seem to feel the same way. Before Yunho can do a whole deep dive of his thoughts next to you, he clears his throat before stumbling on his follow-up: "I-I mean, it's good because he doesn't deserve you at all. You shouldn't continue wasting your time on him or anything." You giggle.
"Thanks, Yunho. You did help me realize that over the phone."
"I didn't say or do much. You're making your own decisions and doing what's best for you." He gives you a small smile. Another comfortable silence falls between you two as you look out at the view and appreciate the stars that are visible in the night's sky.
"Hey, Yunho?" You finally break the silence again, and it's clear Yunho doesn't mind. He truly doesn't mind all the questions you've had, and he likes hearing you say his name the way you do. It's cute.
You genuinely want to know more about him, to learn about him.
"Mhm?"
"Would it be weird if I said that I really like being with you?" He lets out a small laugh.
"Well, I would hope so." He gives you a soft smile while you giggle. "But no, not weird at all. I feel the same way."
"That's nice to know."
"Yeah, it is." He crumples his napkin and throws it into his bag, reaching out a hand for yours. "Finished?" You nod and hand him your trash, watching as Yunho makes his way to the nearby trash can.
"Thank you." You say just as he walks back towards the car.
"My pleasure." Yunho stretches.
"Hold on, I wanna see the water up close." You step out and head towards the railing, leaning over to watch the water crash against the rocks, the wall. Yunho smiles to himself and digs his hands in his pockets, slowly coming towards the rail. He looks at you from behind, watching as you admire the sea, the night sky.
Meanwhile, he's admiring you.
He lets out a breath and shakes off the thoughts, coming next to you and letting his arm brush against yours. He also leans over to watch the water more closely, foot resting on the lowest rail for more stability.
"It's so pretty." Yunho looks at you and he can't help but agree— because yes, you are.
"It is." He responds outloud.
"This was really nice, Yunho." You look up at him with a tiny, toothless smile. "Thanks for sharing this with me and for taking me here."
"Just wanted to see you smile." You feel the heat rise to your cheeks, and Yunho feels his ears getting hotter. How embarrassing. But, thank god it's nighttime and you can't see him visibly getting shy, embarrassed. "Ready to head back home? You must be exhausted."
"I am." You yawn as you start to walk back towards the car and get settled into the seats. "But, I did get lots done."
"You did." He starts up the car and starts heading back towards the apartment complex. "What are you gonna do when you get home?"
"Probably just lie down and talk to Chaery in the room." You chuckle. "You?"
"Hop on a game or just watch some stuff."
"I wanna see what your apartment looks like." He laughs a bit.
"One day."
"Promise?"
"There isn't anything special about it, Y/N. I promise you that."
"But, I just wanna see what Yunho's space is like." You say in a playful tone.
"Yunho's space is boring." He retorts.
"I'm sure it's not. So, promise me? One day I'll get to see it?"
"Sure."
"Say it, please." You pout, making Yunho shake his head.
"Promise."
"Better." You giggle, settling more into the passenger's seat. You and Yunho continue to talk a bit about the remainder of the week, not realizing that the weekend was quickly approaching.
By the end of the conversation, Yunho is pulling into the complex parking lot and effortlessly parking into his usual spot. He grabs your things from the trunk and hands over your bag, following behind you as you walk towards your building.
"Yunho, I'm just here. You don't have to walk me."
"I sure do." He replies. "It's fine, I need to make sure you make it to your door in one piece."
"I appreciate it." You give him a small smile. "Thanks again for today. I really enjoyed it, well— minus the work that had to get done first."
"Of course." Yunho smiles, stopping at the stairs. He digs his hands into his pockets, watching as you reach the top of the first flight and turning to face him.
"More McDonald's runs in the future?"
"Sounds good."
"Goodnight, Yunho."
"Goodnight, Y/N." You give him one last wave before you make your way to your apartment. When he hears the door shut, he turns on his heel to make his journey to his own apartment.
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