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revolutionsingingintherainnn · 3 months ago

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Through Their Eyes ༘˚⋆𐙚｡⋆𖦹.✧˚

Summary: lando and yn’s relationship through other people’s eyes

𝄞 ln x reader 𓇢𓆸

𝄞 fluff 𓇢𓆸

masterlist ☾☼

charles’ version

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

carlos

carlos had known lando since he was nineteen. being teammates with him made carlos realise that they had a lot of common interests, and their sense of humour matched, and in the blink of an eye, lando had become one of carlos' best friends. there wasn't a day that went by without carlos or lando talking to each other, and there wasn't a day that went by without the two learning something new about each other.

carlos prided himself on the fact that he could read lando pretty well. y/n was lando's age and had joined mclaren as part of their hospitality intern. she was not supposed to have much interaction with the drivers, especially considering that she was an intern. her main jobs on some days was to make coffee runs.

fortunately, the coffee runs were what brought lando and y/n closer.

"coffee for you, mr sainz, and coffee for you, mr norris," she had said when she put two cups down in front of them.

carlos had watched as lando was about to make a joke but seemed lost as he stared at the woman and then back at the cup, and back at the woman.

he decided to be a good friend in that moment and save the awestruck boy, "unfortunately, lando doesn't have coffee. he only likes milk. he's still a little boy,"

y/n had laughed, and carlos had watched again with a smirk as lando stared at her with the biggest smile on his face. "i'll be back with a glass of milk then,"

it had become a running joke between the three of them, and soon she had started accompanying them to races as well. in the two years that she had interned with mclaren, she had spoken to almost driver on the grid, and carlos had watched how y/n and lando had slowly become friends. though, friends would be a more appropriate word instead of saying 'lando followed her around and just stood behind her, lost in his daydreams while she spoke to the drivers'.

carlos had watched how lando was always including her in conversations where she stood near the wall, how he pushed her to give her opinion. he had watched how lando slowly helped her build her confidence as she began to become more sure of herself and her abilities.

carlos had also watched how she was always the first one to tell lando that he had done a good job. she sat with him whenever he reviewed all the places he went wrong and had to be better at. she helped him understand the right places for making jokes, and the kind of jokes. he had watched how y/n had slowly helped build lando's confidence.

carlos and lando had a similar humour, but he found very quickly that lando and y/n's humour were exactly the same. they had inside jokes and eyes that laughed every time they looked at each other. they had soft touches and fingers that always grasped the air in the end.

the night of one of the races, when people had left, and only a few were remaining, carlos had been looking for lando to tell him about the golfing range that they could try out during the two weekends they had free. he had walked around looking his friend, even calling out his name. eventually, he found him sitting on the curb of the track with y/n.

they had their masks off, and were sitting close to each other. considering that they were the only two people around, carlos had not reminded the two to wear their masks.

the two had been laughing and giggling and leaning, and carlos walked a little closer to listen to what they were talking about.

"what'cha gonna do for the next two weeks?" lando had asked. it was quiet, and they were quieter, but carlos could still hear them.

"actually, i've been so excited to tell you about it! so, you know how i joined mclaren as an intern, and well, i'm still at a beginner level because i told you that i didn't want to do this forever?" she had seemed excited.

lando had only nodded, still staring at her. it made carlos wonder if lando was actually listening to what was being said.

"so, i've been doing some research, because i finally figured out what i'm going to do with my life. my parents only let me do this because i was interested in formula one, and i wanted a break after high school. though, admittedly, the break was supposed to be just a gap year, ended up being two-three years, but that's fine-"

y/n was cut off, because lando had finally gotten the courage and kissed her. carlos' mouth fell open. lando had confided in him about his crush on y/n, but carlos knew long before that. hell, carlos had known from the very first moment possible.

she had kissed him back, and carlos turned around with a smile on his face as he gave them some privacy.

just as he was leaving, he heard y/n's voice sounding heartbroken, and stopped short.

"lan, i'm going back to university. that's what i wanted to tell you."

"what?"

"i was talking to the drivers the other day about their childhood and what they faced, what you went through. max with his dad, lewis with the bullying, all of that. i realised then that i wanted to study child psychology. i want to be a child psychologist."

"oh. so, when are you leaving?"

"i gave my resignation letter this morning. i found a good university in london too. i applied a while back, and i got in."

"you got in."

"i got in, lan!" she was trying to be excited, carlos knew.

"that's amazing, y/n, congratulations,"

carlos turned around to peek, just a little bit, and saw the two embracing. he watched as lando tried to hide his tears, and y/n, who couldn't stop smiling. he watched as lando found his eyes, and carlos didn't know what to do in that moment.

"it doesn't have to change anything. i mean, i know i won't be there for race weekends and at the mtc and stuff, but i'm here for you." y/n said.

the two pulled back. y/n frowned at the tears on lando's face, and gently wiped them off. carlos feared what was going to happen to their friendship now.

"and, i mean, if the kiss wasn't a fluke, i'd like it again. and maybe every time i see you next?" y/n said, smiling, hoping, and carlos sighed in relief. yeah, the kids were going to be okay.

he could hear lando laughing as he walked back inside. lando was going to marry y/n, carlos could bet his life on it.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

daniel

when daniel had joined mclaren, there was one thing that he saw and was sure of right from the first day: no one could handle lando norris like y/n y/l/n.

he had spoken to her, and was good acquaintances with her. he knew that she had been working with mclaren for a year. lando and y/n seemed to be better friends than lando and carlos were, and that was a tough duo to break.

daniel felt awkward with lando at first. the two had barely anything in common, and combine it with their ten year age gap, it felt almost impossible to bond with the boy over something. both of them felt awkward at first, and both of them knew it.

y/n was perceptive, though, daniel had to agree. she had forced lando and daniel into a room and gave them an hour. that did wonders for the new teammates, because by the end of it, they had become so much more comfortable with each other and just couldn't stop laughing.

that was when daniel started noticing more about lando and y/n's friendship. the way that she was always the first one there to congratulate him, and the last person he saw before he left the garage for a race. the way that he always looked for her, even when he was working.

at first, daniel couldn't understand the impact that a young 20 year old woman could have on a young 20 year old man. their lives were just starting, yet somehow, with them, it felt like their lives had reached the stage of contentment with each other.

when lando first launched quadrant, daniel had watched how y/n had surprised him with wearing the merch and proudly showing it off. he had watched and smiled at how lando had gotten so excited, he had picked her up as he cheered, "you're wearing quadrant! you're wearing my merch!"

she was there for all of the races at first, in the mclaren uniform. daniel had watched how she would talk to him before every race. daniel didn't know what they were talking about, but it always had a laugh and it always ended up with a hug. he honestly thought that y/n was a witch, with the way she could calm down the hyperactive boy. no one that daniel had seen had that effect on lando the way y/n did.

and then, after a point, y/n stopped coming to races. and, daniel wondered if lando and her had had a falling out. he didn't know if he should approach his teammate about it, because it could be a sensitive topic.

two races gone by, and y/n hadn't come. lando had looked upset during those weekends, and he always disappeared right before the race and right after. after one particular race, daniel decided to suck it up and ask.

"why doesn't y/n come anymore?" he blurted out. it wasn't the way he wanted to go about it.

lando smiled softly, and daniel wasn't sure what that smile meant, "she quit. she went back to studying. goes to a university in london."

daniel didn't know that.

"are you guys still in touch?" daniel tried to be as casual as possible, but he wasn't sure if he was doing a good job.

lando's smile got bigger, and daniel took it as a good sign, "yeah, we're in touch. we talk before and after races, and pretty much any time that we're free,"

"that's good to hear," the conversation had ended there.

daniel now knew what his teammate did before and after races when he disappeared.

the silverstone race was when he had finally seen y/n again. lando hadn't seen her yet, and y/n had looked jittery. spotting her, daniel approached her.

"hey, i haven't seen you in so long!" daniel exclaimed.

the two hugged briefly, "oh my god, it's so good to see you! i've just been so busy with uni. finally a race that i could attend,"

"missed us, did you?" daniel teased.

"so so so much," y/n said, and the two laughed.

daniel watched from over y/n's head as lando, who had initially been talking to one of his mechanics pause and turn around, as if he had heard her laugh. daniel continued his conversation with y/n, while also watching lando's reaction. he was looking around, a frown on his face. if daniel had to compare lando's reaction to something, it would be to a dog who could suddenly sniff his favourite treat from somewhere.

just as y/n was about to say something, daniel watched lando finally spotting her in her ln4 merch, before practically screaming, "y/n!"

y/n turned, her eyes lighting up, and lando ran from the other side, dodging people. daniel took a few steps back, wanting to give the two friends some space.

lando's arms had immediately wrapped around her waist, and he picked her up. his face was buried in her neck, and all he said was her name. okay, friends definitely did not hug like that.

pulling back from the hug, lando kissed her. daniel's mouth fell open in shock. y/n had kissed him back, before she pulled away, laughing. lando put her down on the floor again, and pressed kisses all over her face, whispering in between, "you're here, you're here, you're actually here, i'm so happy right now,"

noticing a cameraman approaching, daniel softly said, "cameras, guys,"

taking a deep breath, lando took a step back, folding his arms, "thanks, dan,"

"no problem. now, wanna tell me what's going on here?" his teasing tone only made the two grin bigger.

"we started dating my last night in mclaren," y/n said softly.

"i bet lando cried. finally kissed a girl, didn't you?"

"i did actually cry," lando said, and the three laughed.

kyle, lando's mechanic called out, and daniel bid goodbyes to lando and y/n. he turned heading back, looking back just once to see lando's arm across y/n's shoulders, and y/n's arm circling his waist as they walked to where kyle was.

daniel hadn't seen lando look that happy since y/n had stopped coming for races. something about him had changed. he looked more confident and pleased. he looked as if he could hold the world on his shoulders if he wanted to.

his confidence was seen on the track as well. despite losing two places, lando was happier than most, and daniel knew that just the presence of y/n could have that effect on him.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

max f

max remembered the day lando had called him, excited to tell him about a girl he had met and how carlos, she, and lando had joked around, and how beautiful her laugh was.

he remembered the blush on lando's cheeks and how excited he was. he denied liking her at that time, but no one ever called their best friend to talk about a woman for forty five minutes just to later claim that he didn't have a crush on her.

max had been apprehensive of the woman at first. lando was new to formula one, and he was bound to get famous. from what lando had told max, she was an intern, the same age as them. lando was a trusting fellow, and max felt the need to look out for his friend.

the first time lando had introduced y/n and max to each other, the two were just friends. though, the first meeting proved that max had no reason to be worried. y/n was quick with her witty responses like lando always was. she put up a good fight every time. their banter was entertaining, and y/n knew just how to keep lando on his toes.

they understood each other quite well too. max remembered when after a particularly bad race, the two were on a facetime call, where lando was explaining all that he could have done better, and max giving his inputs. their conversation had been interrupted when a knock on lando's hotel room was heard.

"might be carlos," lando had mumbled, before leaving max on his bed, staring at the ceiling. max could still hear everything, though.

"carlos, i don't feel like-" he heard lando's voice cut off.

"surprise!" a woman's voice, y/n's, was heard.

"what are you doing here?" lando had asked.

"well, i read somewhere that cookies and brownies fixed everything. but, i couldn't find enough ingredients for one particular thing, so i made brookies!" her voice was louder, and max assumed that she had entered the room.

suddenly he saw her face pop up on the phone, "hi max!"

"hey, y/n!" max waved at her.

"you baked me something?"

"uh huh. your flight isn't till nine, and i thought that i could help you pack since you're terrible at it, and max, you and me could listen to music and dance around and eat brookies!"

they had done exactly that, y/n and lando trying their best to include max in all their conversations as well. they jumped around, laughed, and ate brookies throughout. max yelled at lando to save some for him, but lando had pretended to not hear, and then y/n had promised to make more for him. lando was smiling again, and even though max knew that he still felt bitter about the race, it had distracted him.

it was silent for a few seconds, only the music playing, when max checked what was going on. he stopped himself from saying anything when he saw lando and y/n locked in a hug. his face was buried in her neck, and her fingers were in his hair. max didn't know what either of them were saying, but lando had a tight grip on her, his knuckles turning white, and y/n just held him.

max knew their relationship would change soon.

and it had.

after the two had gotten together, lando began coming to london more often, even if it was to spend time with y/n. he invited y/n everywhere, whether they went for quadrant shoots, or meeting new people for new business partnerships.

she would come with her textbooks and her laptop, insisting on studying while they did their thing. for the most part, she did study. during the plane ride to wherever they were going, lando and y/n would sit side by side, sharing wired earphones, listening to music while y/n studied. lando would usually stare at her, or play with her hair. during shoots, y/n would be just as enthusiastic as lando, always pushing him for new ideas.

she trusted him insanely too. any time he would drive at a speed that even scared him, max had seen the way y/n would be carefree, throwing her arms in the air and enjoying the wind.

y/n would even help out with designing lando's helmets. the two had a connection that max didn't understand that well. they brought out the best in each other and knew just how to handle the worst too.

max had seen lando more worried about whether y/n had eaten during exam season than he generally was about himself. max had seen lando care for something other than racing and quadrant. it was new and refreshing, and max knew it was a forever kind of deal.

it always was a forever kind of deal with lando and y/n.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

alex and george

alex and george had sort-of grown up with lando. they had raced each other in f2, and had become quick friends. lando used to look upto alex and george, and the boys knew about it.

they had known lando well when he was a young boy, had seen the way he drove, the way he acted, the way he was in general. they had seen his cocky attitude, and as much of a show he put up in front of the media, they knew that he looked upto almost driver that were on the grid as he tried to make a place for himself in between them.

they had seen how low his confidence was, despite being outgoing and getting along with almost everyone he met. he had been their topic of conversation many times, with the two trying to figure out how they could be there for their friend.

it had helped that lando had found a true friend in carlos, and then daniel. it had changed lando, a positive change that both, alex and george were incredibly happy to see. he still blamed himself after races, but carlos, a veteran, reassuring lando had had a greater effect than george and alex. the two men understood why. they had the same amount of experience in formula one as lando, so trying to convince him that he had done a good job wasn't as effective.

lando had really changed, though, after he met y/n. y/n was outgoing, like lando, and she could talk a mile a minute. she seemed to really give max competition when it came to yapping. but, the best thing that she ever did was make lando smile more often. george and alex were grateful for that.

y/n had a way of correcting lando or telling him new information without making him feel dumb. george and alex knew how insecure lando was for never finishing his schooling, unlike oscar. it was a shock to alex and george when lando told them random facts throughout the day. it was a good kind of shock, but a shock nonetheless. they knew almost immediately that it was the work of y/n.

lando had always been humble. online, he was arrogant. but, he knew what he needed to work on, he knew everything he could about his, and he always wanted to know more. george and alex had often teased him about leaving the last on saturdays after the qualifying session.

but, y/n had stayed with him, had encouraged him, and had showed him that even if he failed, he was still good enough. y/n showed him that even if he lost ten positions, he was still good enough as a driver, and as a racer. he deserved to be in f1, something that a lot of people, including george and alex agreed on.

over the years, lando had gotten good at saying what was expected of him. it was often things that he would go and directly tell people to their faces, but always play it off with the media. lando never forgot to remind alex and george how much he respected them, even if they told them in private. they knew that that was lando's way of making sure that they knew he was being sincere.

the world didn't understand it as much, and the media loved to twist all of their words. so, y/n helped him understand. and, y/n helped him grow. and, even though lando was always a good person, y/n made him better everyday.

alex and george often spoke about the difference five years, six years had made in lando. and they could agree that lando was still the same person, but just a little more grown up and a little more focused. it was his own doing, with some help from y/n.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

max v

padel with lando was one of his favourite things to do. lando was competitive, and he made jokes, and he was arrogant and deprecating, and somehow all of it just fit well.

they had a weekend free before the next race, and what better way could there have been than to participate in another sport with the same person who was the contender for the world driver's championship?

they had played for hours, and after the two had completely exhausted themselves, lando invited max over to his apartment for lunch. agreeing, max texted kelly about his lunch plans with lando, and the two drove to lando's apartment their individual cars.

parking, the two went up the elevator, laughing and giggling and gossiping on their way over. just as lando was about to unlock his front door, he paused and turned to max.

"my girlfriend is a little mad at me right now. i kinda paid off part of her university tuition and i didn't tell her, and now she found out, and i'm basically-"

"-fucked. you're basically fucked."

lando opened his mouth to retaliate, but agreed with max. he was fucked.

unlocking the door, lando called out, "babe, we're home!"

y/n appeared from the hallway, "hi, max! how was padel?"

max watched as lando moved towards her with his arms open, almost like a routine of when he comes back home, but y/n dodged his hands and stepped away. lando looked like a puppy who had gotten kicked, and as much as max wanted to laugh at the expression, he did feel a little bad for his friend.

"hey! um, padel was good. i beat lando, 5 games out of 8," he said.

y/n laughed, "that's wonderful. i'll get your lunch set up, so why don't you relax?"

she still hadn't said a word to lando, and as she turned to head towards the kitchen, he watched as lando followed her like a dog on a leash.

max settled on the couch, and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. he tried not to listen, to not eavesdrop on his friend's very private conversation. but they were loud, so technically, it wasn't his fault.

"baby, i'm sorry, i was trying to help!" lando's urgent voice could be heard. he was speaking softly, but in the quiet house, it was still loud enough for max to hear.

"helping means washing the dishes or getting me supplies for my exams! helping does not mean paying off my tuition!" y/n's hushed whisper came next. she was angry.

"but, why can't i just pay for the tuition? i've got the money, you and i are going to end up married anyways! what's mine is yours!" max had to admit, this was probably the first time he had heard lando so sure on marrying someone.

"exactly! you've got the money. not me. lando, i need to be able to survive on my own, and my tuition is my problem. not yours."

"you are surviving on your own! just 'cause i'm here doesn't mean that you can't lean on me for stuff!"

max heard y/n let out a groan of frustration, "i'm not as rich as you are, lando. i'm not a celebrity or a model, i don't have the money. i'm studying to be a child psychologist. this is my future, and my college, including my tuition fees, is my responsibility."

"yeah, well, you are my future. so, you're my responsibility, and that includes your college and your tuition fees and literally everything else in the world." max smiled. maybe lando would not have to sleep on the couch tonight.

it was quiet for a few seconds, the only sound came from the sizzling of the pan.

"darling, i'm sorry i paid your tuition fees without asking or telling you first. you were stressed out about it the other day, and you were telling me how you would have to take extra shifts at the diner, and i just thought that if i have the money for it, why can't i just get rid of that stress of yours? i really just wanted to help, nothing else." lando's voice was soft, and max strained his ears to listen.

"i feel like i'm taking advantage of you," y/n whispered softly. why were they talking so quietly? max couldn't hear a thing properly.

"advantage of me? love, no. you deserve so much more than what i can offer you. i hate that i have to be away for so long because of my job, but you've never complained and you've always supported me. sometimes i'm scared that i'm not showing you just how much i love you,"

"that's why you paid off my tuition. 'cause you wanted to prove that you love me, but you couldn't figure out how to open your mouth and say it to me,"

lando laughed. that was a good sign. it was silent again. maybe they were hugging? max wished he had a visual as well. and some popcorn.

"forgive me?" lando asked softly.

"only if you have ramen with me tonight, and watch tangled with me again,"

he expected lando to groan. he had listened to lando rant about how the movie was ingrained in his brain and how the songs were stuck in his head constantly because of his girlfriend's obsession with the movie.

"deal. i love you," lando said.

"i love you more,"

"not possible,"

"watch me,"

max smiled. lando was not sleeping on the couch tonight, that's for sure.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

oscar

there was time before the first practice race was supposed to start. oscar sat on his side of the garage, but was quickly getting bored. the mechanics and the race engineers were talking and discussing, and oscar really tried to listen to them and participate in the conversation, but all he wanted to do was go out and drive.

sighing, oscar decided to find lando. if there was anyone who could distract him, it was lando. moving over to his garage, oscar looked for lando, and found him standing with his race engineer, will. the two were in deep conversation about something. lando's shoulders were tense, and his fingers were digging into his arms as he had them crossed across his chest.

oscar sighed. he probably shouldn't disturb him, then. it looked like they were talking about something important, and it's not like oscar had anything specific in mind when he came to find lando. he just wanted a distraction and laugh about something, anything.

just as he turned to go back to his side of the garage again, oscar saw y/n. he smiled, and was about to walk over to her so that he could at least strike a conversation with her.

oscar and y/n were good friends. they had a lot of similar interests and often spoke or hung out outside of lando. lily and y/n also got along really well, and that was just another pro in his list.

just as he was about to go talk to y/n, he stopped short, as he watched her open her bag and rummage through it. the paddock pass was hanging from her neck, and the orange cap she wore almost made her invisible to the media.

finally pulling out, what he assumed was a fan, he watched as y/n weaved her way through the crowd and stood behind lando, who was still in a deep conversation with will.

oscar worried for a second. he knew lando well, and he knew y/n well. he knew that lando hated to be disturbed when he was working or when he was focused on something, especially if it was related to improving his performance. he also knew that while y/n always meant well, sometimes, she couldn't figure out the right timings for things. while oscar knew that lando would not yell at her or anything, he still worried that lando would accidentally say something in the heat of the moment that he would regret later, but it would inevitably hurt y/n. she was sensitive and she felt too much for everyone. he didn't want y/n to be hurt.

he stayed still, though. he wasn't sure if it was his place to interfere. it wasn't his relationship, and he was friends with both of them. so, he stayed where he was, and he watched.

he watched as y/n stood behind lando. he watched as will noticed her, smiling just slightly, before turning his attention back to lando. he watched as lando didn't seem to notice that.

he moved a little closer, just so he could make out a little bit of what they were saying.

he watched as y/n started fanning lando, a mischievous grin on her face. he watched as lando's shoulders sagged in relief from the cool air, and then watched him tense up. he watched as lando turned around, wanting to find out where the cool air was coming from, and was met with y/n and her fan.

the couple were laughing now, and lando hooked an arm around her waist and trapped her against him. oscar could see both of y/n's arms against lando's chest as she leaned back to look at him, her hand still clutching the fan.

he watched as the two spoke, far too softly for oscar to hear them. but he saw the smiles on their faces, and the love in their eyes. the fans called him oscar "heart eyes" piastri whenever he looked at lando. if the fans saw lando and y/n right now, "heart eyes" would be an understatement.

he watched as lando pressed a kiss to her lips, and he watched as y/n tucked herself against his chest. he watched as lando and will got back to their conversation. lando's hands were running up and down her back, and oscar watched as lando's shoulders relaxed, and how he wasn't grinding his teeth anymore, and how all the tension that he seemed to keep in his body almost all the time melted away.

in that moment, oscar realised that the things he knew about his teammate/friend and his friend, they knew it better. they knew each other better, and they were stronger like that.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

i may have messed up the timeline a bit somewhere in the start. but, this is one of my favourites that i've ever written! this is my prompt list, so y'all can select a number, give me a driver and i will write it as soon as possible! i also have a google form for a taglist if anyone's interested! you can sent in your requests here :)

#f1 #formula 1 #lando norris #formula one #ln4 #max verstappen #carlos sainz #oscar piastri #daniel ricciardo #alex albon #george russell #max fewtrell #f1 imagine #lando norris imagine #lando norris fluff #lando x reader #lando norris x reader #lando norris fanfic #lando norris x you

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thankskenpenders · 7 months ago

Text

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

#tkp post #tlsc #tlsc beginnings

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emeryleewho · 2 years ago

Text

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #am writing #books #booklr #fiction #media analysis

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jupiterpilgrim · 6 days ago

Text

A+ Affair

Yunjin x Male Reader

word count: 11K

[commissioned fic]

The clock on your phone reads five minutes past the hour, and you’re already muttering under your breath as you jog down the hallway, adjusting your messenger bag over one shoulder. Of course, the one time you get assigned a one-on-one consultancy, you’re late. It’s not even your fault—you’d spent the last hour drowning in administrative work, filing reports no one was likely to read, all while wondering why someone thought a graduate student with no actual teaching experience would be the perfect fit to guide an undergrad. But here you are, running behind and feeling grossly underprepared.

When you finally reach the office, your hand hovers over the door handle as you suck in a breath, trying to pull yourself together. You’re supposed to look like you know what you’re doing. Confidence, right? Even if your experience as a teaching assistant has mostly involved stapling worksheets and running occasional errands. This is different—real academic guidance. A chance to prove yourself.

You push open the door, already apologizing before you’ve even looked up.

“Sorry, sorry, I lost track of time—oh.”

Your words catch, and you blink once, twice, to make sure your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you.

She’s sitting sideways in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, her fingers lazily scrolling through her phone like she doesn’t have a care in the world. Her hair gleams under the fluorescent lighting, every strand impossibly perfect, cascading over her shoulders. She’s wearing a bright, skintight top that clings to her frame, paired with a skirt so short you almost feel scandalized just looking at it. Her legs are bare, crossed just enough to hide anything too revealing, but her thighs look smooth and soft, the kind of thighs that command attention. Her lips—God, her lips are plump, painted in a glossy pink that makes them impossible to ignore.

She doesn’t even notice you’re there.

You hesitate for a moment, unsure how to proceed. The room feels smaller somehow, warmer, even though she hasn’t looked up from her phone. You straighten your back, pull your bag strap tighter over your shoulder, and clear your throat.

“Uh, hi. I’m, uh—” You stop, mentally berating yourself for sounding like a nervous freshman on their first day. You start again, your voice steadier. “Hi. I’m your teaching assistant, and I’ll be helping you with your exam prep.”

That gets her attention. She looks up, her lips curving into a slow smile as she sets her phone on the desk.

“Oh, hey. Didn’t see you come in.” Her voice is casual, breezy, like she’s greeting an old friend instead of her academic consultant.

“Right. Uh, sorry about being late. That’s on me.” You glance at the desk, trying to focus on the papers and not the way her eyes seem to linger on you for just a moment too long. “Let’s get started.”

“No worries.” She leans back in her chair, her posture relaxed, one leg bouncing slightly as if the whole situation is no big deal to her. “I’m Yunjin, by the way. But I guess you already knew that.”

You nod, forcing yourself to keep your tone professional. “Yeah, I reviewed your file. I'm here to help you prepare for the upcoming exam.”

“Sure, sure. Honestly, I’m just here ‘cause they said I had to be. You know how it is.”

Your brow furrows slightly. “Your grades suggest you might need more than just attendance to pass this exam. I was involved in developing the questions and the material isn’t exactly light.”

Her smile doesn’t falter, but there’s a glint of something playful in her eyes now, like she’s toying with you. “You don’t have to give me the hard sell, professor.” She says it with a teasing lilt, like she knows exactly how much the title doesn’t fit you. “Let’s just get this over with, yeah?”

You stiffen slightly, trying not to let her casual attitude get under your skin. “I’m not a professor, but I take this seriously, and you should too. Business isn’t a subject you can bluff your way through.”

“Mm, I don’t know about that,” she murmurs, tilting her head as she watches you. Her gaze is uncomfortably direct, like she’s sizing you up. “A lot of it’s just networking, right? Who you know, how you present yourself. Pretty sure I’ve got that part down.”

You don’t respond immediately, your focus shifting to the materials in your bag. Her attitude is frustrating, but you remind yourself this is your job—to help, even if the student in question doesn’t seem particularly interested in being helped. You pull out a stack of notes and a syllabus, spreading them on the desk between you.

“All right,” you say, adopting a firmer tone. “This is the outline of what we’ll be covering. We’ll start with foundational concepts—market analysis, competitive strategy—and work our way up to application-based scenarios.”

She picks up one of the papers, glancing at it briefly before setting it back down. “Sounds… riveting,” she says dryly, her lips curving into a faint smirk. “You really love this stuff, huh?”

“It’s important,” you reply, keeping your tone neutral. “And it’ll be on the exam, so—”

“Relax,” she interrupts, leaning forward slightly. Her top shifts just enough to reveal a hint of lace beneath, a flash of black that’s gone as quickly as it appeared. “I’ll pass. I always do.”

You don’t let your gaze linger, but your pulse quickens despite yourself. You force yourself to look at her face, to keep your tone professional. “I'm not here to magically make you pass. The goal is understanding the material. Mastering it.”

“Right,” she says, drawing out the word like she’s indulging you. She rests her chin on her hand, her gaze never leaving yours. “So, how old are you anyway? You don’t look much older than me.”

The question catches you off guard, you hesitate, but tell her your age.

“See?” She grins, leaning back again. “We’re practically the same age. Makes it easier to talk, don’t you think?”

You clear your throat, glancing at the clock. “We should get started. The sooner we dive into the material, the more ground we can cover.”

She shrugs, her smile never fading. “Whatever you say, prof. Lead the way.”

You try to ignore the way she’s looking at you, the playful edge in her tone.

The first ten minutes of the session feel like pulling teeth. You dive into market segmentation with the kind of energy you hope comes off as confident and not desperate. But Yunjin doesn’t seem remotely interested. She’s sprawled out in her chair, phone in hand, her fingers flying across the screen as if this is just a brief interlude in her far more important day.

“So, breaking down a market into segments allows businesses to—”

“Hold up,” she interrupts, barely looking up. “I just need to reply to this real quick.”

Your jaw tightens, but you take a breath, forcing patience. “Yunjin, we only have an hour. The more you focus, the more we can cover.”

“This is focusing,” she says, glancing up with a grin that’s as unapologetic as it is infuriating. “Social media is huge for business. You know that, right? I’ve got to stay active. Engagement is everything.”

You fold your arms, trying to keep your expression neutral. “I don’t think Instagram is going to help you pass your exam.”

“Not Instagram,” she says, her tone lightly mocking. “TikTok. Way bigger reach. I have, like, a hundred thousand followers, by the way. Do you follow me?”

“I don’t have TikTok,” you reply, too quickly.

She raises an eyebrow, like she doesn’t quite believe you. “Seriously? You’re missing out. I bet you’d love my stuff.” She leans forward, flipping her phone around to show you her profile. The screen lights up with videos of her dancing, lip-syncing, or simply posing in various trendy outfits. Her most recent one is captioned ‘CEO vibes only 💼✨’, and she’s twirling in what you think is supposed to be business attire, though it’s as tight and revealing as the clothes she is wearing now.

“That’s… impressive,” you say cautiously, unsure what else to offer.

“Right?” She beams, clearly pleased with herself. “This kind of thing is my future. Marketing, personal branding, the whole package.”

“That’s great, but right now, we’re focusing on your coursework. Market segmentation—”

“Oh, my God, you sound like a textbook,” she says with a laugh, leaning back again. Her skirt rides up just a little higher, and you force yourself to look at your notes instead. “Loosen up, professor. Ever heard of a work-life balance?”

“I’m not a professor,” you mutter under your breath, flipping through the syllabus for the next point.

She doesn’t hear you—or pretends not to. Instead, she picks up her phone again, her attention already elsewhere. You press your lips into a thin line, determined to steer the session back on track.

“All right,” you say, keeping your voice firm. “Let’s try a practical example. Imagine you’re launching a new product. How would you identify your target market?”

She hums thoughtfully, but her focus stays on her phone. “Depends. Am I selling something cute? Sexy? Or, like, functional?”

“Something practical,” you say, trying to engage her. “Let’s say a new line of eco-friendly water bottles.”

She finally looks up, her brow furrowing slightly. “Boring. Can’t we do, like, makeup or clothes or something?”

“Fine,” you relent. “A new line of cosmetics.”

“Now we’re talking.” She sits up straighter, crossing her legs. The movement draws your attention for half a second too long, your eyes flickering to her thighs before you realize what you’re doing. You snap your gaze back to the syllabus, your heart thudding in your chest.

But it’s too late.

“You looking at something, professor?” she teases, her voice light, almost singsong.

You glance up, heat flooding your face. She’s smirking now, her lips curving in a way that makes your stomach twist.

“I was just—” You scramble for an excuse, but she cuts you off.

“It’s fine,” she says, leaning her chin on her hand, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “You don’t have to be so uptight, you know. We’re both adults here.”

You clear your throat, determined to move past the moment. “Let’s stay on topic. Target markets. Who’s buying your cosmetics?”

She shrugs, clearly unfazed. “Everyone. Duh.”

“That’s too broad,” you counter, grateful for the distraction. “You need to narrow it down. Focus on specific demographics.”

“Okay, fine.” She pretends to think for a moment, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Women in their twenties, I guess. Maybe teens, if it’s affordable. Oh, and influencers, obviously.”

“Good,” you say, nodding. “And how do you reach them?”

“Social media,” she says instantly, her confidence returning. “Instagram, TikTok, YouTube—wherever they’re scrolling.”

“Exactly,” you say, hoping to keep the momentum going. “And what about pricing strategy?”

“Cheap enough to buy, but expensive enough to look fancy,” she says, her lips quirking into a grin. “See? I’m not totally clueless.”

You can’t help but smile, despite yourself. “No, you’re not. But there’s still a lot to cover, and the clock’s ticking.”

“Then we’d better hurry,” she says, though her tone is far from urgent. She picks up her phone again, glancing at the screen before setting it back down with a sigh. “Okay, professor. Teach me.”

You shake your head, already bracing for the next distraction. This session is going to test every ounce of your patience.

—

Your bachelor apartment is the definition of bare-bones living. A twin bed shoved against one wall, a battered desk holding your overworked laptop, a couple of mismatched chairs around a table that’s seen better days. The faint hum of traffic from the campus filters through the window you’ve cracked open to keep the place from feeling too stuffy. You kick your shoes off, tossing your bag onto the floor with a weary sigh. It’s been one of those days—endless errands, an exhausting afternoon of pretending you’re more qualified than you are, and, of course, Yunjin.

She’s been stuck in your head since you left the office. Not intentionally—God, no. But something about her lingers. Maybe it’s the way she never takes anything seriously, or the way she seems so effortlessly self-assured. Like nothing in the world could possibly rattle her. It’s frustrating and impressive all at once.

You collapse onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. Yunjin. You know her type, the popular girls who glide through life on charm and good looks, who never have to try as hard as everyone else because people are just drawn to them. You’ve met girls like her before—confident, flirty, always with one eye on their phone. She’s not stupid, though. That much is clear. If anything, she’s sharp in a way that’s hard to pin down. She knows how to navigate people, situations. She knows exactly how much effort to put in to get what she wants and no more.

Your phone buzzes on the bedside table, snapping you out of your thoughts. You pick it up, scrolling aimlessly through emails, notifications, news articles—anything to distract yourself. But your mind keeps circling back. What was it she said earlier? About TikTok?

Before you can second-guess yourself, your fingers are typing the app into the search bar, downloading it in seconds. The interface is unfamiliar at first, a stream of random videos you don’t care about flashing across the screen. But it doesn’t take long to find her.

There she is. Yunjin.__official. The profile picture is exactly what you’d expect—her smiling, hair perfect, lips glossy. Her bio reads: Business student | DM for collabs. She has over a hundred thousand followers.

Your thumb hovers for a moment before you tap on her profile. The screen fills with a grid of her videos, each one a window into her carefully curated world. You tell yourself it’s just curiosity, harmless research. Nothing more.

The first video you watch is one of her dancing in her room, the camera propped up to capture every move. She’s good, you realize, her body moving fluidly, every motion precise and confident. She’s wearing workout gear—tight leggings, a cropped top—and the way the fabric clings to her curves is impossible to ignore.

You swipe to the next video. This one’s more playful, her lip-syncing to some trending audio while twirling in a skirt that flares out with every spin. The lighting is perfect, her makeup flawless, her smile dazzling.

Another video. This time she’s at a party, surrounded by friends, laughing and holding up a cocktail. The camera focuses on her as she leans in close, her expression mischievous, like she’s sharing a secret with the viewer.

You watch another. Then another.

Each one is different, but they all share the same energy—bright, vibrant, captivating. It’s no wonder she’s amassed such a following. She knows exactly how to play to the camera, how to draw people in.

Your gaze lingers a little too long on one video where she’s wearing a bikini, lounging by a pool. Her legs stretch out, her skin glistening in the sunlight. She flips her hair back, laughing at something offscreen, and for a moment, you forget to breathe.

You snap your phone shut like it’s burned you, your heart pounding. What the hell are you doing?

This is stupid. It’s late, and you’re tired, and wasting time on a student’s TikTok profile isn’t just unprofessional—it’s downright pathetic. You toss your phone onto the bedside table, rolling onto your back and running a hand over your face.

Your apartment is too quiet now, the silence pressing down on you. You close your eyes, willing yourself to think of something else. Anything else.

It takes longer than it should, but eventually, sleep claims you.

—

The next meeting starts much the same as the last—her sitting in the chair like she owns the room, one leg crossed over the other, scrolling through her phone with that same carefree attitude. You, on the other hand, feel like a bundle of nerves disguised as authority. But this time, you’ve come prepared.

“Hey, professor,” she says without looking up, her voice dripping with casual familiarity.

You close the door behind you, shaking your head. “Still not a professor.”

She grins, finally putting her phone face-down on the desk. “What’s up? Ready for another thrilling lecture?”

“I hope you’re ready,” you reply, pulling out a folder and setting it on the desk between you. “Did you study the material we went over last time?”

“Of course,” she says, all bright confidence. “I’m a great multitasker. I was studying while managing my social media. Killed two birds with one stone.”

You narrow your eyes slightly, not buying it for a second. “Right. Let’s see how much of it stuck.”

She raises an eyebrow, leaning forward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You pull out a single-page worksheet, sliding it across the desk toward her. “It means I put together a quick assignment to see where you’re at. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes if you really studied.”

The grin drops from her face, replaced by a look of mock outrage. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

She picks up the sheet, scanning it quickly. “This looks like… work. Like actual work.”

“That’s because it is.” You cross your arms, leaning against the desk. “If you want to pass the exam, you need to prove you understand the material. And this is a good way to do that.”

“Ugh, you’re such a hardass,” she groans, slumping back in her chair dramatically.

You bite back a smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She sets the sheet down, giving you a long, appraising look. “You really aren’t gonna let me off the hook, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Not even if I—” She stops, her lips curving into a sly smile as if she’s considering something. But then she shrugs, brushing it off. “Whatever. Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Good.” You hand her a pen, feeling a small sense of victory.

She takes it with a sigh, tapping the end against the desk as she glances at the first question. “This is such a buzzkill, you know that? You’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

“Lucky me,” you deadpan, pulling out your own notes to review while she works.

For the next few minutes, the room is quiet except for the scratch of her pen against the paper. You glance up occasionally, trying to gauge her progress. She looks focused enough—her brows furrowed slightly, lips pursed in concentration—but there’s still a glint of mischief in her eyes whenever she glances your way.

After about ten minutes, she sets the pen down with a flourish. “Done. Happy now?”

“Let’s find out.” You pick up the sheet, scanning her answers. They’re… not terrible. A little rushed, a little surface-level, but not the disaster you were expecting.

“Well?” she prompts, leaning her chin on her hand. “Did I pass the pop quiz?”

“You did… okay,” you admit. “There’s room for improvement, but it’s a start.”

She beams, like you just handed her an A. “See? Told you I was a multitasking queen.”

You roll your eyes, setting the sheet down. “This isn’t about just getting by, Yunjin. If you actually put in the effort, you could do really well in this course. Maybe even excel.”

“Mm, but where’s the fun in that?” she teases, her tone light but her gaze sharper than usual. “You’re so serious all the time. Don’t you ever just… I don’t know, relax?”

“This isn’t about me,” you reply, sidestepping the question. “This is about you passing your exam.”

She leans back, her smile widening. “You’re really committed to this whole responsible TA thing, huh? It’s kind of cute.”

You stiffen slightly at the word, but she doesn’t give you time to respond.

“Don’t worry,” she adds, grabbing her phone and flipping it over in her hands. “Like I said: I’ll pass. I always do.”

You let out a breath, half-exasperated, half-resigned. “You can’t just coast through everything, Yunjin.”

“Why not?” she asks, her tone light but her gaze steady. “It’s been working pretty well so far.”

You open your mouth to argue, but the words catch in your throat. For a moment, it feels like she’s challenging you, testing you, waiting to see how far you’ll push back.

You clear your throat, breaking the tension. “Next time, we’ll cover case studies. Real-world applications.”

She laughs, standing and stretching lazily. “Sure thing, professor. Can’t wait.”

As she walks out, phone already in hand, you sigh in relief that this session is over.

—

The apartment feels particularly quiet tonight, the faint hum of your desk lamp filling the space as you sift through a mountain of notes and research papers. It’s Friday, but for you, that doesn’t mean a night out or some kind of social escapade. It means working on your thesis, chipping away at the endless grind that defines grad school life. A cup of lukewarm coffee sits forgotten by your elbow, the words on the page starting to blur together.

Your phone buzzes against the table, a sudden break in the monotony. You glance at the screen, expecting some automated notification or maybe a text from one of your few friends. Instead, it’s from Yunjin.

Hey, I need your opinion on something.

You blink at the message, confused. It’s late—too late for anything academic, and even if it weren’t, why would she need your opinion? You tap out a quick reply, keeping it neutral.

I think you sent this to the wrong person.

Her response comes almost immediately.

Nope. It’s for you. You’re my TA, right? You’re supposed to help me with stuff.

You frown, staring at the screen. This has nothing to do with schoolwork. You type back, trying to keep your tone professional.

My number is for college purposes only. If you have a question about the material, we can go over it during our next session.

But she’s not backing down.

This is important. What should I wear to a party?

Before you can even think of how to respond, a picture pops up in the chat.

It’s her, of course. She’s standing in front of a mirror, holding her phone up to capture the shot. She’s wearing a tight, shimmery silver dress that clings to her body, hugging her curves in a way that makes it impossible to look away. Her hair falls perfectly over her shoulders, and the slit in the dress shows off one of her legs, long and toned.

Your mouth goes dry, and you look away from the screen, as if that might undo the fact that you’ve seen it. Another buzz.

Or this one?

You glance back despite yourself. The next picture shows her in a cropped black top and a leather mini skirt, her midriff on full display. Her lips are slightly parted in the photo, her eyes half-lidded, like she’s halfway into the party already.

You sit back in your chair, running a hand over your face. What the hell is she doing? This is completely inappropriate. You’re her teaching assistant, not her personal stylist. You type out another reply, this one more curt.

Yunjin, this isn’t appropriate. My role is strictly academic. I can’t help you with this.

But she’s relentless.

Relax, it’s no big deal. Just tell me which one’s better. It’s not like I’m asking you to come to the party.

Your phone buzzes again. A third picture.

This time, she’s in a red dress that’s somehow even more daring than the others. The neckline plunges low, the hemline barely brushing her thighs. She’s biting her lip in this one, a playful glint in her eyes that makes your stomach twist.

You clench your jaw, forcing yourself to focus. You’re not going to get dragged into whatever game she’s playing. You reply quickly, keeping your tone as detached as possible.

The black one is fine. Have fun.

Her response comes almost instantly.

I knew you’d like that one 😏

You exhale sharply, annoyed at yourself for even engaging with this. Your hands hover over the keyboard, trying to think of a way to end this conversation. But before you can, another message pops up.

I already miss our fun study sessions, you know. You’re so serious all the time—it’s cute.

You grip your phone tightly, trying to keep your temper in check. She’s toying with you, that much is obvious. You remind yourself she’s just a student—an infuriating, distracting student who doesn’t seem to understand boundaries.

Don’t party too hard. And remember to study.

Her reply is quick, as if she’s been waiting for it.

You’re such a buzzkill, professor. See you next week 😘

You set your phone down, staring at it like it might explode. Things are only getting worse, and you fear what's yet to come.

—

The moment you step into the office, you’re greeted by the familiar sight of Yunjin lounging in her chair like she’s waiting for a casual coffee date, not an academic session. Today, her outfit is as striking as ever—a snug, low-cut blouse paired with a skirt that rides just high enough to make you uncomfortable. She’s scrolling through her phone, as always, her attention miles away from the materials you’ve prepared.

“Good afternoon,” you say, trying to inject some authority into your tone as you set your bag down on the desk.

She glances up briefly, flashing you that disarming smile. “Hey, professor.”

“Not a professor,” you mutter, shaking your head. “Ready to get started?”

“Always,” she replies, but the way she lazily props her chin on her hand suggests otherwise.

You pull out the case study you’ve prepared, laying out the printed pages in front of you. “Today, we’re focusing on real-world applications. Case studies are a key part of the exam, so—”

Her phone buzzes, and she glances down, her fingers flying across the screen as she types out a reply. You stop mid-sentence, your patience already wearing thin.

“Yunjin,” you say sharply, and her eyes flick up to meet yours, wide and innocent.

“What? I’m listening.”

“No, you’re not. You’re on your phone. Again.”

She smirks, leaning back in her chair. “Okay, okay, you caught me. But in my defense, multitasking is a valuable skill in business, right?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, exhaling slowly. “You need to focus. This material is important, and if you don’t take it seriously, you’re going to fail.”

She pouts, tilting her head to the side. “Maybe it’s just hard to focus because you’re way over there. Don’t you think it’d be easier if you sat next to me?”

You hesitate, eyeing the empty chair beside her. There’s something about the way she’s looking at you—half-teasing, half-challenging—that makes your skin prickle. But you can’t think of a valid excuse to say no, so with a resigned sigh, you pick up your notes and move to the seat beside her.

“Happy now?” you ask, your tone clipped.

“Much,” she says, her lips curving into a satisfied smile.

You try to steer the session back on track, pointing to the first section of the case study. “This example looks at how a small business expanded its market share by identifying underserved demographics—”

“Do I make you nervous?” she interrupts, her voice low and almost playful.

You freeze for a split second, caught off guard. “What?”

She leans in slightly, her hair brushing her shoulder as she studies you with an amused glint in her eyes. “You seem a little tense. Like I’m throwing you off your game.”

“I’m not nervous,” you reply stiffly, focusing on the papers in front of you.

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, clearly unconvinced. Her hand shifts on the table, and for a moment, her fingers brush against yours—light, fleeting, but enough to send a jolt through you.

You pull your hand back, pretending to adjust the papers. “Can we focus, please?”

“I am focused,” she says, feigning innocence. “But you’re not making it easy. Maybe if you loosened up a little—”

“Yunjin,” you cut her off, your tone sharper than you intended. “This isn’t a game. Either you take this seriously, or we’re wasting both our time.”

She blinks at you, her lips parting in mock surprise. “Wow, look at you, laying down the law. That’s kind of hot.”

You ignore the comment, flipping to the next section of the case study. “This part covers the importance of pricing strategy in competitive markets. I want you to read through it and summarize the key points.”

“Ugh, homework, really?” she groans, slumping in her chair.

“It’s not homework. It’s research,” you correct. “I expect you to come back with a full summary by—”

“Can’t I have, like, a week?” she interrupts, her tone dripping with exaggerated pleading.

“No,” you say firmly. “Three days.”

“Three days? Are you serious?”

“Yes. And if you keep complaining, I’ll make it two.”

Her eyes narrow, but there’s a spark of amusement behind the irritation. “You’re ruthless, professor.”

“Not a professor,” you mutter again, gathering your things. “And I’m serious about the deadline. If you want to pass, you need to put in the effort.”

She sighs dramatically, but there’s a playful edge to it. “Fine. You win. Three days.”

“Good. We can end it here. Use your free time to start your research.” You stand, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “I’ll see you at the next session.”

“Can’t wait,” she says, her smile lingering as you walk to the door.

—

The apartment feels like a safe haven when you finally stumble inside, just tipsy enough to make your head feel light but not so much that you’re completely out of it. The air smells faintly of leftover takeout and stale coffee, the way it always does after a long week. Your shoes hit the floor near the door, and you don’t bother picking them up. Instead, you head straight for the couch, collapsing with a heavy sigh.

You needed that night out—needed the drinks, the music, the laughter with friends. It wasn’t anything wild; just a low-key bar near campus, a few rounds of beer, and some half-baked attempts at catching up with everyone’s lives. But it was still more social interaction than you’d had in weeks. Between your own academic deadlines and the increasingly complicated ordeal of tutoring Yunjin, you’d been feeling stretched thin.

Yunjin. Of course, she slips into your thoughts now, the alcohol softening the usual mental barriers you keep firmly in place. She’s been a handful—distracting, playful, unpredictable. And yet, despite every attempt to keep things professional, you can’t stop thinking about her.

Reaching for your phone, you unlock it almost without realizing, falling into the familiar trap of social media scrolling. You tell yourself you’re just unwinding, but before long, you’re typing her name into the TikTok search bar.

Her profile lights up the screen, her most recent video already autoplaying. It’s her dancing again, this time in a sleek black dress that hugs her figure in all the right places. She moves effortlessly to the beat, her smile teasing, her gaze aimed directly at the camera. She looks… stunning.

You swipe to the next video, then the next, each one somehow more captivating than the last. It’s like she knows exactly how to grab attention, how to hold it. Your head feels warm, your thoughts fuzzy as you watch her, your focus narrowing down to just her.

When you finally snap out of it, guilt crashes over you like a wave. What the hell are you doing? You close the app, shaking your head, but the image of her lingers, burned into your mind.

Maybe something else will clear your head. You open Instagram, her profile is the first suggestion, she's posted new stories, but you don't dare watch them. You refuse to give her the satisfaction of knowing you're checking up on her. So, you settle for mindlessly scrolling through her feed, trying not to linger on any one post for too long, until you remember Twitter—X, as you don't like to call it.

The one platform you still use regularly. You tell yourself it’s just to check the news or see what your friends are up to, but before you know it, you’re scrolling through Yunjin’s tweets.

“Some guys are so oblivious it’s cute 🙄💖”

Your heart skips a beat. You scroll down, only to find more.

“It’s kind of cute, though. Watching him pretend he’s not into me. Playing hard to get? Or just clueless?”

Another tweet.

“Bet he’s thinking about me right now. ;)”

You swallow hard, your thumb hovering over the screen. Is she… talking about you? No, that’s ridiculous. She’s a student. You’re her TA. But the way she’s been acting—the teasing, the flirting, the way she always seems to have you off-balance—it’s hard not to wonder. Still, you tell yourself it’s just a coincidence. There’s no way she’s—

And then it happens. Your thumb slips, tapping the heart icon before you even realize what you’ve done.

“Shit,” you mutter, staring at the bright red heart like it’s mocking you. Your pulse spikes as you fumble to undo it, the screen blurring for a second as you scramble to fix your mistake. You tap the heart again, the red disappearing, but the damage is done. But has she already seen it? Does Twitter even notify people that fast? Your heart is pounding, your brain racing through worst-case scenarios.

You toss your phone onto the couch, running a hand through your hair. Maybe she didn’t notice. Maybe she’s busy. Maybe, for once, luck will be on your side.

But as you sit there, the room spinning slightly, the thought nags at you. What if she knows? What if this is exactly the kind of confirmation she’s been waiting for?

The alcohol isn’t helping. It’s making everything feel bigger, heavier, more immediate. You grab your phone again, staring at the screen like it might offer you answers. But there’s nothing. No notifications, no messages.

You drop your head into your hands, groaning softly. You’re not helping yourself in this situation.

—

The door feels heavier than usual as you push it open, the familiar office waiting for you inside. You’re gripping your bag tightly, trying to shake off the nerves that have been building since last night. The tweets, the like, the un-like—it’s been on your mind nonstop. But you keep telling yourself she didn’t notice. She couldn’t have.

The air is warmer today, and as usual, Yunjin is already seated, legs crossed, phone in hand. She’s wearing a fitted blouse with the top buttons undone and a pleated skirt that rides high on her thighs, her usual flair for turning any setting into her personal stage.

“Good afternoon,” you say, your voice coming out strained despite your best effort to sound composed.

“Hey, professor,” she greets, glancing up with a lazy smile before setting her phone down. “Oh, wait. Not a professor. Just my very dedicated teaching assistant.”

You ignore the tease, sitting at your usual spot across the table. “I assume you’ve brought the research I asked for?”

Her expression shifts, and she gives you a sheepish smile, leaning back in her chair. “About that…”

“Yunjin. Don’t tell me—”

“I didn’t finish it,” she says quickly, holding up her hands as if to ward off your reaction. “The deadline was so short! And I had other stuff going on. It’s not like I didn’t try—I just couldn’t get it done in time.”

You lean back in your chair, pinching the bridge of your nose. “You promised to take this seriously.”

“I am taking it seriously,” she insists, though her tone is more casual than apologetic. “It’s just… you didn’t give me much time.”

“That’s because this is supposed to be a priority,” you snap, unable to hide your frustration.

She pouts slightly, leaning forward. “Look, I’ll finish it. I’ll email it to you later tonight. Then we can talk about it during the next session. Deal?”

You exhale sharply, clearly irritated, but you nod. “Fine. But only because I don’t want to waste today.”

“Thanks, professor,” she says, her smile returning, bright and unbothered.

You pull out her last exam, sliding it across the table. “Let’s go over this instead. Your answers weren’t terrible, but they were surface-level. You’re missing depth, and that’s going to hurt you in the final.”

She groans softly but leans forward, propping her chin on her hand. “Okay, fine. Teach me.”

As you begin reviewing her answers, pointing out areas for improvement, she suddenly interrupts. “Can you sit next to me? It’s easier to see the paper that way.”

You hesitate for a moment before moving to the chair beside her, trying not to overthink it. She scoots closer, and you force yourself to focus on the exam in front of you, walking her through the corrections.

To your surprise, she’s paying attention for once, asking questions and even jotting down notes. But every so often, you catch her looking at you, her lips curving into a small smile when your eyes meet. It’s distracting—too distracting.

“Are you even listening?” you ask, your tone sharper than intended.

“Of course,” she replies, her smile widening. “I just like how serious you look when you’re explaining stuff. It’s cute.”

You ignore the comment, pushing through the rest of the review until, finally, the session is over. Relief washes over you as you start packing up, eager to put distance between you and the lingering tension in the room.

“Well, I’ll see you next time,” you say, standing and slinging your bag over your shoulder.

But just as you’re about to leave, Yunjin speaks up. “Oh, by the way…”

You pause, turning back to her. “What?”

Her smile turns sly, her gaze locking onto yours. “I know you’ve been stalking me.”

Your heart skips a beat, panic rising in your chest. “What are you talking about?”

She leans back in her chair, crossing her legs casually. “Twitter, professor. You liked my tweet last night. Even if you un-liked it right after, I still got the notification.”

Your face flushes hot, and you stammer out a denial. “That was—it was an accident. I wasn’t stalking you.”

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, clearly amused. “Sure, it was an accident. But you’ve been watching my TikToks too, haven’t you? Don’t worry, I don’t mind. I mean, you must like what you see, right?”

“Yunjin,” you say sharply, trying to regain control of the situation. “This is inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?” she echoes, feigning innocence. “You’re the one watching my videos. I’m just offering to help.”

She leans forward slightly, her voice dropping to a playful murmur. “There are some pictures I can’t post online, but if you’re interested, I could send them to you directly. Just say the word.”

Your throat feels tight, your heart pounding in your ears. “Enough,” you say, your voice firm despite your growing discomfort. “This conversation is over. Focus on finishing your research, and I’ll see you at the next session.”

Before she can respond, you turn and leave, the door clicking shut behind you. Your pulse is racing as you walk down the hallway, the weight of her words pressing heavily on your chest. Whatever game Yunjin is playing, you need to figure out how to stop her, because she's winning. And she knows it.

—

The meeting room is stuffy, filled with the low hum of conversation as teachers and teaching assistants shuffle through papers, laptops glowing on the table. Discussions blur together—deadlines, assignment structures, grading systems. It’s a routine part of the job, but today, the monotony feels heavier than usual. You’ve barely slept, and the endless logistics are starting to drag you down.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, a tiny lifeline in the sea of boredom. Pulling it out discreetly, you glance at the screen. The message is from Yunjin, which immediately gets your attention. Maybe she’s finally sent the research.

You unlock the screen, expecting a quick note about emailing the document. Instead, you freeze.

The photo stares back at you, and for a moment, your brain short-circuits. Yunjin is lying on a bed, her body draped in sheer lingerie that leaves almost nothing to the imagination. Her lips are pouty, glossy, her eyes half-lidded as she gazes directly into the camera. The curve of her hips, the delicate lace barely covering her small breasts—you almost drop your phone on the floor.

Your stomach twists in a mix of shock and something far more raw.

You glance up quickly, scanning the room. No one’s looking at you—everyone’s absorbed in their own work. But the heat rising in your face makes you paranoid. You tilt your phone slightly, shielding the screen from view, and scroll down, hoping for clarification.

Another photo.

This time, the angle is wider, showing her sprawled on her bed with a laptop propped up in front of her. The message accompanying it reads:

Finishing my research. Thought you’d want proof I’m working hard 😉

The sheer lingerie is even more revealing in this shot, the delicate fabric hugging her curves, the way her breasts press against the lace, the faint outline of her nipples—it’s too much. Your dick stirs in your pants, completely out of your control, and you have to shift in your seat to keep yourself from reacting further.

You type back quickly, keeping your tone as neutral as possible.

You didn’t need to send pictures. Just the research would’ve been fine.

Her reply is almost instant.

But I wanted to show you I’m putting in the effort. Don’t you think I deserve a little reward?

Your pulse spikes, and you grip your phone tighter. What the hell is she doing? You take a slow breath, forcing yourself to focus.

Your reward will be getting an A on the exam. That’s the goal, right?

Her response is teasing, playful.

Oh, I’ve got another exam I want an A on. And I know I can ace it.

Your jaw clenches, and you shift uncomfortably in your seat, trying to keep your expression neutral as you glance around the room again. No one seems to notice your distraction, but the heat creeping up your neck makes you feel exposed.

You type back, your fingers moving quickly.

Just focus on finishing the research. That’s all that matters right now.

She doesn’t back down.

Fine, but don’t forget about my reward, professor. I worked really hard on this, you know.

Before you can think it through, your fingers type a reply that surprises even you.

I’ll think about it later.

Her next message comes with a string of emojis—a cheer, a wink, a heart. Then:

Yay! You’re the best 🥰. Don’t stress too much, okay?

You set your phone down, turning it face-down on the table like that might somehow erase the conversation from existence. But the damage is done. Your heart is pounding, your mind racing, and the tension in your body is impossible to ignore.

What the hell are you doing? You’re losing control of the situation—of yourself—and Yunjin knows it. She’s toying with you, testing your boundaries, and the worst part is, you can’t seem to stop her.

—

The air feels charged the moment you step into the office. Yunjin’s sitting there, but there’s something different about her today—her confidence is practically radiating off her. She’s wearing a strapless crop top that clings to her figure, showing her toned stomach, and a skirt so short it rides high on her thighs when she crosses her legs. Her hair is styled to perfection, glossy and smooth, and her lips are painted a shade of red that’s just subtle enough to feel dangerous.

You swallow hard, trying to keep your composure. The memory of her last text conversation is still fresh, and you can feel the weight of it pressing down on you. But this is supposed to be a professional setting. You remind yourself of that as you set your bag down on the table and pull out her research paper that you printed.

“Well,” you begin, keeping your tone steady. “I have to say, I’m impressed. You really outdid yourself with this.”

Her smile widens, and she leans forward slightly in her chair. “You really think so?”

“I do,” you admit, holding up the paper. “You dug into the material, analyzed it well. It’s thorough. If you put this much effort into your exam, you’ll have no problem passing.”

She stands then, smooth and deliberate, and your chest tightens as she closes the distance between you. “When I thought about how proud you’d be,” she says, her voice soft and teasing, “I couldn’t help but try a little harder.”

You lean against the table, trying to create some distance, but it doesn’t help. She’s right there, standing just close enough for you to catch the faint scent of her perfume.

“This is our last session before the exam,” you say, your voice tight. “Let’s focus on going over your research. We’ll review the points you brought—”

Before you can finish, she reaches out and snatches the paper from your hand. Her eyes gleam with mischief as she steps even closer, tilting her head to look up at you.

“What about my reward?” she asks, her voice dropping into a lower, sultrier tone.

Your blood heats instantly, your pulse pounding in your ears. You take a sharp breath, trying to push the rising tide of desire back down. “Yunjin,” you say, your tone edged with warning. “We don’t have time for this. Your exam is right around the corner—”

“Forget about the damn exam,” she interrupts, her voice firm but still teasing. “I don’t care about that right now.”

Her finger presses lightly against your chest, trailing downward over your shirt. The touch is electric, sending sparks down your spine, and for a moment, you can’t move.

“Yunjin,” you whisper, her name catching in your throat.

She steps closer, her body brushing yours, her lips curving into that maddening smile. “Stop pretending you’re not into me,” she murmurs.

“This is unethical,” you say, your voice strained, but even you can hear the weakness in it.

“No one has to know,” she counters, her finger still moving slowly down your chest. Her voice drops again, turning into a near whisper. “What did you do with the pictures I sent you? Hm?”

You freeze, your breath catching.

“I bet you jerked off to them,” she continues, her words deliberate and slow. “I bet you imagined me on that bed, in that lingerie. I bet you imagined fucking me.”

It’s too much. The tension, the temptation, the way she’s looking at you with those half-lidded eyes—it all boils over. Before you can stop yourself, you grab her, your hands gripping her waist as you kiss her hard.

She gasps softly against your mouth, her body tensing in surprise, but she recovers quickly, her hands sliding up to your shoulders as she kisses you back with just as much heat. Her lips are soft and plush, tasting faintly of gloss, and the way she moves against you is intoxicating.

Your hands move instinctively, one sliding up her back while the other presses against her hip. Her skin is warm beneath the thin fabric of her top, and the closeness of her body only stokes the fire burning inside you.

Without breaking the kiss, you guide her toward the door, fumbling with the lock until you hear the satisfying click. It’s only then that you let yourself acknowledge what’s happening, fully giving in to the need that’s been building for weeks.

She pulls back slightly, her breath coming in quick gasps as she looks up at you, her eyes wide and dark with desire.

“This what you wanted?” you ask, your voice rough, your hands still holding her tightly.

She smiles, slow and wicked. “Yes,” she whispers.

Your grip tightens on her waist, and you push her back against the wall, your lips finding hers again with even more urgency. Her hands slide up into your hair, tugging lightly, and the sensation sends a shiver down your spine.

This girl—she’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced. You’ve never wanted someone this badly, never felt this out of control. And for once, you don’t care.

Your hands fumble with the belt at your waist, the leather slipping through the loops as you tug it free with an urgency that borders on desperation. The metal buckle clinks loudly in the otherwise silent room, and Yunjin smiles, leaning back against the wall, looking so damn pleased with herself. Her lips are parted, her chest rising and falling in anticipation, and that smug expression on her face only makes the heat inside you burn hotter.

“You have no idea how much you’ve been driving me fucking crazy,” you growl, your voice low and rough, barely able to contain the frustration and desire that have been building for what feels like forever.

Her smile turns into a wicked grin, her eyes gleaming with triumph. “Then show me,” she whispers, her voice soft but daring. “Show me how crazy I’ve made you.”

You shove your pants down, along with your boxers, kicking them off with your shoes in one quick motion. Your cock springs free, hard and aching, the weight of it hanging heavy between your legs. The cool air against your skin only heightens the tension crackling in the room.

Yunjin’s eyes drop immediately, her tongue flicking over her lips as she takes you in, and for once, she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to. The look on her face says it all.

Your hands move to her hips, and you yank her skirt up roughly, the fabric bunching around her waist. That’s when you see it—she’s not wearing any panties. Nothing at all. The curve of her bare ass, the glistening heat between her thighs, it’s all there, shamelessly on display.

“You little whore,” you hiss, your fingers digging into her soft flesh.

“Yes,” she breathes, arching her back and pressing her ass against you. “I am. I’ve been waiting for you to finally notice.”

“Well, you’ve got my attention now,” you snap, your voice heavy with a mix of irritation and raw lust.

Without another word, you drop to your knees, grabbing her hips to steady her as you position yourself behind her. Her ass is sticking out, her body pressed against the wall, her legs slightly parted. The sight of her like this, so willing, so ready—it’s almost too much.

You spread her cheeks, exposing her fully to you, and you’re met with the sight of her pussy, already slick and glistening, her arousal shining in the dim light of the room. The smell of her hits you instantly—sweet and musky, intoxicating.

Leaning in, you drag your tongue over her folds, slow and deliberate, tasting her for the first time. She gasps, her body jerking slightly at the contact, and her hands press against the wall for support.

“Fuck,” she moans, her voice high and needy. “More.”

You don’t hesitate. You bury your face between her thighs, your tongue sliding through her wetness, exploring every inch of her. You flick your tongue over her clit, and she lets out a loud, breathy moan, her hips grinding back against your face.

Her taste is addictive, her slick heat coating your lips and tongue as you work her over. You grip her thighs, spreading her wider, giving yourself more access as you suck her clit into your mouth, rolling your tongue over the sensitive nub.

“Shit, that feels so good,” she whimpers, her voice breathless. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

You hum against her, the vibration making her gasp again, and you dive back in, fucking her with your tongue before moving back to her clit. She’s dripping now, her juices slicking your chin, but you don’t care. All you can think about is how good she tastes, how perfect she feels under your tongue.

Her moans grow louder, more desperate, her fingers curling against the wall as she pushes her hips back, practically riding your face. “Yes, fuck, just like that,” she cries, her voice breaking. “More. I need more.”

And you give it to her. Your fingers dig into Yunjin’s soft, perfect ass, the same one you’ve seen flaunted all over Instagram and TikTok—dancing, teasing, making you want something you shouldn't. But now it's here, in your hands, trembling under your touch as your tongue drags through her soaked folds again. She's moaning, gasping, her body pressing harder into the wall, and you can feel the way she’s falling apart, unraveling under your mouth.

“Oh fuck, professor,” she gasps, her voice dripping with something between amusement and desperation. You know she’s doing it on purpose—calling you that even though you’re just the teaching assistant, pushing buttons, seeing how far she can take it now that you’ve finally snapped.

You don’t care anymore.

Your grip tightens, fingers sinking into her flesh possessively, your tongue working faster, harder. Yunjin’s hips jerk, her thighs quivering, and she whines, that high-pitched, needy sound that makes your cock throb painfully with desire. Her juices are all over your mouth, dripping down your chin, and you don’t stop, don’t let up, because you need her to know she’s not in control anymore.

“I knew you'd be good at this,” she breathes, pushing her hips back into your face, rocking against you shamelessly. “All that self-control... gone.”

You groan into her, the vibrations making her moan louder, her fingers clawing at the wall for support. She's a mess, squirming, panting, but you pull back suddenly.

She gasps, looking over her shoulder with a half-lidded, fucked-out expression. “W-why’d you stop?”

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, your lips glistening with her slick, your chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. “Because I need more.”

Before she can say anything, you're standing up, pressing your body against hers, the heat of her skin making everything more real, more alive. Your hands grab her hips roughly, and you feel her shiver when your cock, hard and aching, presses against the dripping heat between her thighs.

She lets out a sharp gasp when you slide the tip in, her pussy so tight, squeezing you instantly, and yet so slick from your mouth that you slide deeper without resistance. Her hands slam against the wall, her mouth falling open in shock. “Oh, fuck, you—you're so—”

You don’t let her finish. You grip her waist and thrust in deeper, stretching her inch by inch, and she melts against you, her breathy moans echoing in the small office. Her tight heat wraps around you perfectly, and it’s fucking perfect, the way she clenches down, her body welcoming you with every movement.

“You didn’t think I’d actually fuck you like this, did you?” you murmur against her ear, your voice rough, dark.

She whimpers, pushing back against you, her nails scratching the wall. “I hoped,” she gasps, her voice breaking when you thrust harder, slamming her hips against the wall. “I wanted you to, so fucking bad—”

Your grip on her tightens, your hands roaming over her body, gripping her hips, her waist, her ass—claiming her, branding her. She’s yours now, and she knows it.

“Then take it,” you growl, pounding into her harder, your hips slamming against hers. Yunjin cries out, her body arching, her head falling back against your shoulder as she surrenders completely.

She's giving herself to you, and you take everything.

Your hips snap forward, slamming into Yunjin’s tight, slick pussy with a rhythm that grows rougher, harder, more desperate by the second. Her moans are high and breathless, rising with each thrust.

But it’s not enough.

Your hands slide up her body, greedy and possessive, until they reach her small, almost-flat chest. The crop top she’s wearing clings to her like a second skin, and it’s been driving you insane since you entered the room. She had to do this—she had to tease you, prance around in those tiny fucking tops like she didn’t know exactly what she was doing.

Gripping the hem, you yank it down roughly, baring her breasts in one swift motion. They’re small, just barely enough to fill your hands, but perfect. Perfect in a way that makes your head spin. Her nipples are already hard, tight little buds that beg for your attention, and you don’t hold back.

“God, I’ve been imagining this,” you growl, cupping her tits, rolling her nipples between your fingers. The soft gasp that leaves her lips only spurs you on, your voice dark and raw. “Ever since the first day I saw you in one of these slutty little tops. I wanted to do this. I wanted to see these tits—these fucking perfect tits you love to show off.”

Yunjin cries out, arching her back, pushing her chest into your hands. “Fuck,” she gasps, her voice trembling with pleasure. “I knew you wanted me, professor. I could feel it. And now you’ve got me. You’ve got me so fucking wet.”

Your cock twitches inside her at her words, and you thrust harder, making her yelp, her thighs shaking against you. “You’re the kind of girl who drives me insane,” you admit, your hands still kneading her breasts, tugging her nipples, making her moan louder.

“Yeah?” she pants, turning her head to look at you over her shoulder, her eyes dark with lust. “Am I your type? Is that it? You like slutty girls like me?”

You groan, your hands sliding down to her waist, gripping her tightly as you fuck her harder. “Yes,” you growl through clenched teeth. “That’s the fucking problem. Girls like you—slutty little teases who know exactly what they’re doing—drive me out of my goddamn mind.”

She lets out a choked laugh, her head dropping forward as you hammer into her, her body jolting against the wall. “Then go crazy,” she whispers, her voice dripping with challenge.

Something in you snaps. You pull out suddenly, ignoring her whimper of protest, and grab her roughly by the hips. Turning her around, you lift her onto the table in one swift motion, throwing her onto her back with no hesitation. Her skirt is still bunched around her waist, and her crop top is shoved down, her bare tits on full display as she sprawls out in front of you.

You lean over her, grabbing one of her breasts and taking the nipple into your mouth, sucking hard. Yunjin cries out, her back arching off the table, her hands flying to your hair as she holds you there.

“Oh my god,” she moans, her voice shaking. “Yes, yes, suck them. Fuck, that feels so good—”

You switch to the other nipple, your tongue flicking over the hardened peak before you suck it into your mouth, drawing another loud, breathless moan from her. She’s squirming under you, her thighs spreading wider as her hands tug at your hair, desperate for more.

When you finally pull back, her chest is heaving, her skin flushed, her lips parted in a way that makes your cock throb. You grip her hips, dragging her to the edge of the table, and position yourself between her legs.

The sight of her like this—her skirt pushed up, her top pulled down, her bare tits rising and falling with every shaky breath—is enough to make you lose what little control you have left. She looks like a slutty schoolgirl, and you can’t stop yourself from imagining her like that, teasing every teacher she’s ever had until she found one who finally gave in.

“You look like such a fucking slut,” you growl, lining yourself up and slamming into her in one hard thrust.

Yunjin cries out, her head falling back against the table, her hands flying to your arms as you grip her hips and start fucking her again. “I am,” she whimpers, her voice high and desperate. “I’m your slut.”

And that’s all you need to hear.

Your hips move like they have a mind of their own, pounding into Yunjin’s tight, soaking pussy with a relentless rhythm that leaves no space for hesitation. The way she moans—high, breathless, desperate—fuels you, makes you fuck her harder, deeper, chasing that feeling of being completely lost in her.

She’s gripping the edges of the table, her knuckles white, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyes are hazy, lips parted, and the way pleasure takes over her face is fucking intoxicating.

“F-fuck,” she gasps, her voice trembling as you keep slamming into her, your cock stretching her perfectly. “If you keep—keep going like this, I’m gonna—”

“That’s the point,” you growl, leaning over her, your hands tightening on her thighs as you thrust even harder. “Cum on my cock, Yunjin. I want to feel it.”

“Fuck, professor,” she moans, rolling her hips up to meet your every thrust, and hearing that word spill from her lips so naturally drives you fucking crazy. She loves calling you that, loves the way it sounds when she’s this desperate and fucked out.

Your thumb finds her clit, still sensitive from the way your mouth had worked her over earlier, and the second you press down, she nearly jumps off the table.

“Oh my God,” she whimpers, squirming under you, her body tensing. “Too much—fuck, that’s so—”

But you don’t stop. You rub tight circles over her clit, making her thighs tremble around your waist, and the louder she moans, the harder you fuck her. You forget everything—where you are, what you’re doing. You don’t care that you're in a office, on campus, where anyone could hear. All you care about is making her cum.

“Cum for me,” you demand, your voice rough, your cock throbbing inside her. “Come on, slut. Cum all over my cock.”

“I’m—I’m almost—” Her voice breaks, and her whole body tightens, her pussy clenching down around you so hard it makes your own pleasure spike.

Your thrusts grow even faster, each one hitting so deep it leaves her gasping, and her wetness makes everything filthy, each slap of your hips against her sounding louder, slicker. The obscene noise fills the room, but you’re too far gone to care.

And then she breaks.

Her entire body shudders, her back arching off the table as she covers her mouth with one trembling hand, muffling the scream that threatens to spill out. Her pussy clenches around you, pulsing with each wave of pleasure that rocks through her, and you keep fucking her through it, driving slow, deep thrusts into her shaking body.

Each slow pull out, each hard thrust back in, sends a jolt through her, making her whimper into her palm, her eyes squeezed shut as the aftershocks keep rolling through her.

You finally slow down, your cock still throbbing inside her, soaked in everything she’s given you. You pull out slowly, watching the way her pussy clings to you, reluctant to let go.

“On your knees,” you order, your voice thick and wrecked.

She’s still trembling, but she slides off the table, her legs shaky as she sinks down in front of you, eyes dark with lust, lips swollen from all her moaning. She looks up at you through heavy lashes, her skirt still bunched up, her top still tugged down, her tits out and flushed.

She grabs your cock with both hands, stroking it once, twice, and the sight of her, kneeling, covered in her own arousal, makes you think you should have fucked her sooner.

Then her lips part, and she wraps them around the head of your cock, sucking you in with that perfect, practiced mouth.

“Fuck,” you hiss, your hand tangling in her hair, guiding her as she takes more of you in. Her lips leave smudges of lipstick along your shaft, marking you, staining you with that perfect, slutty red.

She moans around you, her tongue swirling, and you watch as she bobs her head, her mouth stretching to accommodate you. It’s hot—so fucking hot—the way she’s so eager, so desperate to taste herself on your cock.

“Good girl,” you murmur, your grip tightening on her hair as you guide her pace. “Suck it all, baby.”

Yunjin hums in response, the vibrations making you groan, and you know you’re not going to last much longer.

Yunjin’s mouth is a fucking masterpiece. Her plump, wet lips glide over your cock with a skill that has you gripping the edge of the table for support. Drool drips down her chin, slick and messy, pooling at the corners of her mouth as she takes you deeper, her throat flexing around your length. The obscene, wet sounds echo in the quiet room, each suck, each moan sending shockwaves straight to your core.

She’s a mess, lipstick smeared, saliva glistening on her chin and trailing down her neck, but she doesn’t stop. If anything, she gets sloppier, filthier, letting spit dribble down your shaft as she strokes you with both hands, twisting, squeezing, making sure you're soaked in her mess.

“Fuck, Yunjin,” you groan, your hand tangled in her hair, guiding her movements. “Just like that. Keep going.”

She hums around you, the vibration making your thighs tense. Then, without warning, she moves lower, dragging her slick tongue down to your balls, sucking one into her mouth while still jerking your cock. The way her tongue swirls around them, wet and warm, sends you reeling, your cock twitching in her grip.

Your head falls back, a low, guttural groan slipping past your lips. She knows exactly what she’s doing, taking her time, teasing, drawing it out until you’re on the verge of losing control.

Then she’s back on your cock, focusing on the sensitive head, sucking hard, her tongue flicking over the slit, drawing out beads of pre-cum. Wet, obscene noises fill the air, her lips working you with relentless precision.

“I’m close,” you grit out, your muscles tensing, your whole body tightening in anticipation.

But just when you think you’re about to explode, she pulls off with a pop, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her lipstick smeared across her flushed skin, drool glistening on her chin. She looks up at you, eyes dark and needy, lips swollen and shining.

“Cum inside me,” she says, her voice dripping with sin. “I want it. I’m on the pill, so don’t hold back.”

That's all you need to hear. No hesitation. No second thoughts. You’re on her in an instant, hauling her up off her knees, your hands gripping her thighs as you carry her to the chair in the corner of the room. You drop into it, pulling her onto your lap, her legs straddling you.

She doesn’t waste a second. She reaches between you, grabbing your slick, throbbing cock and guiding it back inside her dripping pussy. The heat, the tightness, the way she sinks down onto you in one smooth motion makes your head spin.

“Fuck,” you hiss, your hands gripping her hips, feeling the way she clenches around you, wetter than before thanks to the sloppy blowjob she just gave you.

Yunjin smirks, rolling her hips in slow, deliberate circles, grinding down on you in a way that has you seeing stars. “Feel good, professor?” she purrs, her hands resting on your shoulders for balance. “You like when your little slut rides you?”

You groan, your grip tightening, but she doesn’t let up. She starts moving, bouncing on your cock with an intoxicating rhythm, her tight pussy swallowing you over and over. The way her hips roll, the way she grinds down between thrusts—it’s hypnotic, like she was made for this. Like she’s done this a million times before.

“Fuck, you know exactly what you’re doing,” you pant, your head falling back against the chair.

“Of course I do,” she whispers, leaning in close, her lips brushing against your ear. “I know how to fuck. I know how to make you cum.”

Your whole body tightens, the pressure building to a breaking point as Yunjin rides you with that perfect, relentless rhythm. Her hips roll in slow, deep circles, grinding down on your cock like she owns it, like she knows exactly what you need. The wet, obscene sounds of your bodies colliding fill the room, her slick pussy squeezing you with every bounce, pulling you deeper, tighter.

She leans in, her breath hot against your ear, her voice a low, breathy whisper. “You’re gonna cum, aren’t you?”

Your grip on her hips tightens, fingers digging into her soft skin, trying to hold on as pleasure coils tighter and tighter inside you. “Fuck, Yunjin,” you groan, your voice rough and strained, barely holding it together.

She bites her lip, looking down at you with dark, knowing eyes. “I can feel it,” she purrs, rocking her hips down hard, her wet heat swallowing you to the hilt. “You’re so fucking close.”

You nod, chest heaving, your breath ragged. “Yeah—shit, I’m—”

“Cum inside me,” she interrupts, grinding her hips down with a sinful twist that sends sparks shooting through your spine. “I want it, professor. Fill me up.”

Her words make you moan, tearing down whatever restraint you had left. Your cock throbs inside her, and you feel yourself teetering right on the edge, so close you can’t even think straight.

“Creampie this tight little pussy,” she whispers, her lips brushing against your ear, her voice dripping with need. “I want to feel your hot, thick cum deep inside me. Come on professor, give me my reward.”

That’s it. That’s all it takes.

A strangled groan rips from your throat as you finally let go, your cock pulsing inside her, thick, hot spurts of cum spilling deep into her. Your whole body shudders, muscles going tight, and you bury your face against her neck, holding onto her like she’s the only thing keeping you grounded.

Yunjin gasps, feeling every pulse, every drop of warmth filling her. Her body trembles against yours, her nails raking lightly down your back as she moans into your ear, soft and breathless. “Oh my god,” she whimpers, her hips still moving, riding out your release, grinding slow and deep to milk every last drop from you.

You grip her tighter, pushing her down onto you as deep as she can go, wanting to make sure she takes every bit of it. “Fuck, Yunjin,” you pant, feeling the way her pussy clenches around you, still so impossibly tight. “You feel so fucking good.”

She moans in response, rolling her hips lazily, a satisfied, dazed smile spreading across her lips. “Mmm, I can feel it,” she whispers, her hands sliding up your chest, her fingers tracing over your skin. “You came so much.”

You groan, your hands slipping to her ass, gripping her firmly as you thrust up into her one last time, pushing your cum deeper inside. She lets out a sharp gasp, her head falling forward against your shoulder.

A few long moments pass before she finally stills, collapsing against you, her chest heaving, her skin slick with sweat. Your hands stay on her hips, holding her in place, keeping yourself buried inside her even as your cock twitches with oversensitivity. You can feel the warmth between her legs, the way your cum is starting to trickle out, leaking down onto your thighs, but she doesn’t move—doesn’t seem to care.

You don’t say anything for a moment, just holding her, feeling her heartbeat against yours. But then she lifts her head, that familiar, wicked grin spreading across her face.

“Guess I should call you professor more often,” she whispers, rolling her hips lazily.

You groan, your head falling back against the chair. “I can't believe I fucked a student.”

Yunjin laughs, pressing a soft, teasing kiss to your lips. “And you loved every second of it."

She stays perched on your, her bare thighs pressed against yours, her pussy still warm and slick around your softening cock. The lazy rise and fall of her chest, the way her messy hair frames her flushed face—it’s all so goddamn perfect. She looks at you with that smug little smile that’s both adorable and infuriating, her fingers tracing lazy patterns across your chest.

“So,” she purrs, tilting her head slightly, “what grade do I deserve for all my... hard work?”

You smirk, running your hands up her sides, feeling the heat of her skin beneath your fingertips. “An A,” you admit, your voice still ragged from everything she’s just put you through.

Her smile widens, and she leans in, pressing a slow, teasing kiss to your lips. “I know,” she whispers, cocky as ever. She fucking knows exactly what she’s doing to you, and that little glint in her eyes makes your heart race again.

She shifts slightly, grinding down just enough to remind you that she’s still there, still wrapped around you, and then she lowers her voice. “So... can I get an A on the exam too?”

And just like that, reality comes crashing back.

You freeze, the post-orgasm haze clearing just enough for the weight of what she’s asking to settle in. This was bound to happen, wasn’t it? The teasing, the flirting, the fucking—it was all leading to this. A transactional undercurrent beneath every sultry look, every professor she moaned while you fucked her in the office.

You swallow, your hands hesitating on her waist. “Yunjin,” you start, shaking your head slightly, “I... I can’t do that. I mean, I—”

She cuts you off by pressing a finger against your lips, her eyes locking onto yours, dark and full of something dangerous. “Yes, you can,” she murmurs, leaning in just enough for her lips to brush against your cheek, teasing, distracting. “Because you like me.”

You feel your resolve wavering, your mind screaming at you to push her away, to get up, to say no—but your body? Your body’s already leaning into her, already craving more.

“And,” she continues, trailing her finger down your chest, her voice dripping with sweet, poisonous temptation, “because I know you’ll want to fuck me again. Don’t you?”

Fuck.

She’s right. Of course she’s right.

Your jaw clenches, the internal battle raging inside you—ethics, professionalism, responsibility. But what are those compared to the feel of her? The way she’s looking at you, promising so much more with just a glance? You’ve already crossed a line so thick and deep there’s no point pretending you can step back now.

She senses your hesitation, and like the predator she is, she pounces.

Her lips are back on yours, slow and sensual, tasting like sin and triumph. She rolls her hips against you, and your cock twitches, traitorous and eager. “I’ll make it worth your while,” she whispers, lips brushing against your ear. “You think today was wild? I’ll show you things that’ll ruin you for anyone else.”

Your grip tightens on her hips instinctively, and your mouth moves before your brain can catch up. “What... what kind of things?”

Yunjin grins, leaning back to meet your gaze, her fingers playing with the collar of your shirt. “Oh, professor,” she teases, eyes gleaming, “you’ll just have to say yes to find out.”

You exhale sharply, your moral compass spinning wildly, but the truth is, it’s already broken.

Fuck ethics.

Fuck responsibility.

You want her. You want her more than you care about some stupid fucking exam.

Surrendering, you nod, a shy whisper. “Fine.”

Her eyes light up, and she lets out a delighted little laugh, her arms wrapping around your neck as she rocks her hips against you. “I knew you’d come around,” she purrs, nipping at your bottom lip. “You’re too easy.”

“You’re fucking evil,” you mutter, your hands gripping her ass tightly, fingers digging into the soft flesh.

She just grins. “And you fucking love it.”

You can’t argue. Not when she’s looking at you like that, like she owns you, because fuck—it sure feels like she does.

Yunjin shifts on your lap, moving in a slow, sensual grind that makes your head spin, and you groan, already hardening inside her again. “I guess I always manage to pass,” she murmurs, kissing along your jaw, “but in my own way.”

You shake your head, but there’s no fight left in you, only a deep, gnawing hunger for her. “You’re trouble,” you murmur, hands roaming her body again, already wanting more.

She smirks, pressing a kiss just below your ear. “I’m your trouble now.”

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casuallyanidiot · 3 months ago

Text

Yandere academic rival who really, really wishes he could just get you out of the way.

Dead dove Do Not Eat! MDNI ! NSFW !

Tw. Dubcon/Noncon, bullying, academic pressures, blackmail, oral sex, explicit photos, mentions of baby trapping, yandere, stalking, forced relationship, AFAB reader

Elias had a certain level of respect for you.

You both attended a prestigious university crammed full of students vying to make connections and nab a cushy position for themselves in the future, and while it was easy for him to be on top of the social and academic scenes, he knew you had to work a bit harder. He came from a very wealthy household, one where needing something was merely a concept and not something he ever actually encountered. You, on the other hand, definitely come from a lesser background than him and his circle. Your scholarship and just above the average academics seemed to have pushed you into a good spot to be hoisted into the same realm as him.

But he didn't really think of you much at first.

You were some nameless face that wasn't really worthy of being around him. Maybe he would catch glimpses of your hair, or someone woud mention you in passing and he'd pretend to be intruiged.

It was really when you started to be compared to him of all people that he started to really pay attention.

You were smart, cunning, and ruthless when it came to your assignments. Just like him. Normally he worked overtime, paid industry professionals to help review his papers, his study materials and poured blood sweat and tears into his academics. And yet you somehow managed to be on his level with less than half the resources. It drove him up a wall because if you were nearly as good as him now, then what could you be like if you had the chance?

Elias was like a man obsessed after your sudden, explosive rise in the minds of professors and lecturers alike. He spent hours studying, shirking his friends and other responsibilities just to make sure he was still better than you, to keep you in your place.

He started to focus in more on your personal life, too.

Where on earth did you come from? He's half convinced that you were genetically designed in a lab to piss him off. But the more he glares at the back of your head when you're not looking, the more he's transfixed. You're like a black hole, or some kind of other abyss like metaphor. Fuck, you had him writing poetry in his head. He hated poetry. He hated you. Or at least, he would really like to hate you, but he couldn't. You had the same amount of drive as him, maybe even a little more. No matter what he did, he was forced to acknowledge you, forced to be aware of every twitch of your hand or every flutter of your eyelids. To him, you were something that demanded attention, even if it was taken from him through gritted teeth.

The only reprieve from his spiraling was the fact that you felt the same way about him. He liked to imagine that you were just as obsessed with him, sitting there in the late hours of the night writing down equations with him as your sole motivator.

But then he finds out that he's not even occupying your mind, and he loses his shit.

"Oh Elias? Yeah I guess he's fine. Huh? Rivals? What the- no way I just want good grades. He has nothing to do with it haha."

You just said it in passing when someone teased you about it, and he knew that he shouldn't linger on your words for too long. If anything, it should make him feel better. You had nothing against him, so it meant everything was fine, right? Wrong. It was so wrong.

Elias was seething, nearly throwing a tantrum. How could you not even think about him. Him! You were some piddling, pathetic excuse for a human being, and you had the audacity to not even regard him when he spent nearly every waking moment thinking about you.

He was fine just watching you from the corner of his eye. He was fine knowing that on some level, the two of you had a respectable if not distant relationship. Just because in some aspect, he wanted a piece of you all to himself. And if you weren't going to let him just have a little bit of your life, your passion, your drive, he would just take all of you instead.

He follows you into the library late one night. You're sitting there, glowing in the warmth of the nearest lamp while your pen makes soft scratching noises against the paper. You look pretty. You've always looked pretty to him. You don't notice him as he approaches, and he feels any vestiges of doubt or restraint float away. Even now, as he loomed over you, you didn't even spare him a glance.

The library was empty. He made sure it was so before hand, and he's glad he did. The quite air was shattered by the sound of him shoving you over the priceless lacquered wood desk. Your eyes go wide as you take him in, and his hands fly up to your throat.

"Augh! What are you-?"

"Shut up." He hisses and narrows his gaze. Your pulse is racing underneath his fingers, and he has half a mind not to crush your windpipe into oblivion so that he can be the last one to feel it. "You have no idea," He mutters and leans in close. Your frightened breath ghosts over his skin, and he shudders. Now that he thinks about it, this is the first time he's ever been so close to you. It feels so right. He never wants to be away from you again. Not when you look so damn alluring with tears rolling down your cheeks and your clothes rumpled on the floor by his feet.

He wants you like this always, with your twitching cunt stuffed full of his fingers and your cries filling his ears. Soft, wet squelching noises met each of his ministrations, and a cruel, wonder filled grin spread across his face.

"You have no idea how much you've driven me wild," He laughs. It's a sharp sound that grates on your ears. "How much you infuriate me," Each word is punctured by a thrust, by a curling motion that has you gasping and seeing stars.

If this is what he has to do so that you notice him, so you will just fucking care about his existence more than you would any other speck of dust on the street, then so be it.

It only gets worse from there.

Elias takes photos of you. So many. Ones of your crying face, ones of your leaking pussy, some of him shoving his dick past your puffy lips. Once the camera shuttered and they were in his hands, it was all over.

He played the role of your boyfriend after that.

There wasn't a moment where he wasn't hovering over your shoulder, whispering threats into your ears. He gets you to start doing worse in your classes and on your assignments, and for once, he's happy. He finally has your eyes on him, and if you ever try to leave him or say anything, then he'll make sure you can never show your face around here again. Don't worry, though. He's kind enough to keep it so you won't fail outright. In fact, he'll just slip some money to some of the professors so you don't have to do anything other than sit on his lap and pay attention to him while he actually works for the top spot.

Elias takes you out on fancy dates as if it's any way to soothe the sting of having your life ruined. He pays for everything and practically preens under the feeling of finally getting what he wants. He's such a brat, and he doesn't even care about hiding it when he's with you. Part of the reason why he likes you is he can be his nasty, awful and conniving self and you have no choice but to accept it. He doesn't mind if you're reluctant or stubborn. In fact, he kind of likes it because in the end, you still gave in to have a chance to graduate from a prestigious school. And plus, now you're living the high life with him! It's kind of a win win if you think about it.

He loves having you sit on your knees (a cushion underneath them of course. He wouldn't want you to ever actually get hurt) and taking his cock in your mouth while he studies. You look so cute like that, with your eyes all narrowed in mildly hidden frustration, and he loves it even more when he thrusts into your throat. You always make these little spluttering noises that just drive him wild, and he clamps his thighs around your head to keep you there.

Elias who soon becomes the university's beloved model student. He's not going to let anyone get in his way ever again, especially not after he has you to provide for now. After all, he's got plans for you. Once he manages to put a baby in you, he'll know that your future family is secured, and he's got to support all of you. There's no way he can fail now!

#my writing #yandere #yandere x reader #tw yandere #yandere male #yandere x you #x reader #dead dove fic #stalker yandere #yandere rival #male yandere #yandere x darling #yandere boyfriend #fanfic writing #darlingcore #yandere concept #yandere character

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capsi-cuminme · 5 months ago

Text

Blowing Off Steam

summary: in which you're very stressed, and sparring is the only way you can destress. you're having trouble finding a partner though, so logan volunteers to help.

pairing: logan howlett x fem!reader

word count: 1.7k

warnings: mild swearing, fingering, some dirty talk, lots of horny thoughts, 18+ MDNI

author's note: ahhhh sweaty logan on a fighting mat is all i need. anyways, thank you guys sm for the response on my other fic, as a gift i bring you smut ;)

•──✦──•

You’re stressed. You’ve been overworking yourself, you know it, and you need to relax, destress. Your body feels wound up with tension and energy, and you’re unable to release it. It’s not like you have super complicated abilities that mess with your mind and make you lose your shit, no - that’s Jean’s set of troubles, not yours. Your ability is simple enough - super strength.

So what is it that isn’t simple then? Right. Someone you can actually truly train with and exert yourself out with. There aren’t a load of people who can physically keep up with your strength, not except Colossus, and even he’s just a kid. So when, at times, you want to blow some steam by training, you have next to no one to do it with.

Or, you didn’t, not until Logan came along. You’ve sparred with him a couple of times, but only for excessively short periods of time, due to you not being able to keep your shit together because of his overwhelming attractiveness. Honestly, you don’t think it’s your fault that you’re unable to focus; his arms look like he could rip apart logs of wood with them, his shoulders are so wide that they’re practically made for people to rest their ankles on, and his demeanor - his understated, wolfish demeanor makes you go insane.

And as if all these things weren’t bad enough on their own, they tend to get exponentially exemplified whenever you guys spar. Obviously, fighting makes him breathe hard and stuff. So your life becomes even tougher.

Really, you aren’t trying to be horny around him all the time. But that’s the thing. You’re pent up, stressed, overworked. Being a member of the X-Men means that it gets really hard to get laid due to several factors, and then when your coworkers are so hot? God help you.

As you sit on the gym’s bench, staring at the sparring mats, you strain your mind to think of someone to spar with. You could ask Colossus, the kid’s always more than ready and could give you some competition on one of your bad days. But there’s too much of a risk. You’re already restless with energy, itching to let yourself go; in case the kid isn’t prepared or you get too excited, you’d end up hurting him, which is something you can’t risk.

You could maybe go to Ororo and Scott, ask them to come at you together? The two of them together would successfully tire you out. Maybe they’d become a bit more than you’re mentally willing to handle. You don’t want to have to strategise at every step.

God, you just need someone who can handle whatever you throw at them without having to think too much. Unfortunately for you, there’s only one person in the mansion who can do that.

“Oh hey Bub, what you doing here? Got no classes to teach?” The somehow smooth but gravelly voice breaks you out of your train of thought as you turn to look at Logan, entering the gymnasium.

Internally rejoicing at his choice of clothes - the white wifebeater under the oversized jacket - while simultaneously praying that he isn’t here to stay, you get up from your seat to speak to him. “Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to blow off some steam.”

“And you’re blowing off steam by… sitting on the bench?” He raises an eyebrow, looking at you questioningly.

You sigh through your nose, smiling exhaustedly. “No, genius. I was confused about what I should do to destress.”

Your prayers go down the drain as you notice his eyes light up at the prospect of a sparring partner. Nodding to the mats, he asks, “You wanna go?”

Tongue in cheek, you review your options for a moment. Go to bed frustrated and stressed, or fight an extremely attractive man who’s also able to keep up with you.

“Sure, let’s go.”

And that’s how you find yourself attempting to elbow Logan in the face. He dodges and takes a step back, but not too far. Turning, you see the grin etched on his face. Taking it as a challenge, you feign a movement to the right, but attack from the left. Your arm aims for his face, but he deflects it by pushing your momentum to one side, stepping away and behind you and putting you into a headlock.

“What’s up?” he murmurs into your ear. “Can’t figure out what to do? Are you really that tired, huh?”

You felt his chest heave from behind you, his warm breath tickling your ear. Body humming with excitement and mind buzzing with the thrill of finally being in an equal match, you grit your jaw, throwing your head back against his. As much as you enjoy the tone of his voice, you hope it hits him in the mouth just so he can shut up, because being aroused is not something you’re looking forward to.

Yes you’re horny, maybe even a little perverted, but you truly don’t have any ulterior motives.

Logan hisses as his grip on you loosens. Shimmying your way out of his grip, you lunge at him, arms ready to swing, but instead of throwing a punch when you get near, you use your leg to swipe at his legs, resulting in him landing on his back.

Silently rejoicing, you straddle him, pulling your arm back to land a punch on his jaw, but unfortunately he grabs hold of your arms before you can do that. As a result, you’re left heaving on top of him, arms immobile, face right above his. You don’t miss the way he breathes, sweat trickling down his forehead, eyes glinting with something you can’t fully identify. You also don’t miss the dampness of your underwear, the electricity you feel where you’re sitting on him. You realize you’re playing a dangerous game. Just as you’re about to make a move to get up, Logan suddenly moves you by the grip he has on your arms, slamming you onto the mats with considerable force. He looms on top of you, looking down. You squeak in indignant surprise, but he pins your arms on both sides of your face, lodging his thigh between yours. You gasp, not expecting the sudden escalation of events. “Darling, you know I’ve got a heightened sense of smell, right?” he asks, drawling. “I can smell your arousal, practically feel how you’re soaking down there.” Eyes wide and mouth agape, you stare up at him, not sure what to say, how to apologize. “Logan, I- I’m sor-” “Don’t have to say a word, Darling, I’m the same as you,” he emphasizes his point by rolling his hips against yours. You whimper quietly, feeling his erection pressing against your clit. “If I’m not interpreting this correctly, you can stop me,” he hums, getting closer to your face. Waiting for your approval, he looks at you. You close the distance between the both of you, borderline moaning as you feel his tongue grazing against your lips, asking to enter your mouth. More than willing, you grant him entry freely, whimpering as his tongue explores your mouth. You break the kiss, short of breath, but your distance doesn’t last long. Logan is sloppily making out with you as he grinds against you. Your bodies move hurriedly, in urgent need of release.

“Lo,” you gasp between the kisses, “need you so bad, please.” He complies, hands leaving your arms as he gets on his haunches and quickly unbuttons your pants, pulling them down. His hand moves to your pussy, thumb pressing against your clit, gauging your reaction. Your eyes widen due to the unexpected movement, and you gasp. Satisfied with your response, he rubs short, quick circles against your clit, stimulating you as he slowly pushes in one finger. You moan, hands reaching down to stop the sudden intrusion. It’s been a while since you’ve done this, so your body’s sensitivity is at an all-time high. Logan doesn’t care, swatting away your hands, slipping in another finger. He moves them in shallow thrusts, stretching you out while looking for the spot that’ll finally get you wound up enough for his liking. You bite your lip to keep yourself silent, staring at the way Lo’s fingers pump in and out of you, making a mess out of your cunt. Suddenly, his fingers press into that spot that you’re never quite able to reach yourself, making you let out a loud moan. “Lo, Lo please, right there please, don’t stop-” you break your own voice off with an even louder whimper, eyes closing due to the pleasure. Logan watches you with keen eyes trained on your face. He speeds up his fingers and thumb, enjoying your reaction thoroughly, as it ignites something deep within him. He palms himself lightly, hissing as he realizes how hard he is. “Shit, darling, you make me insane,” he mumbles, guiding one of your hands to the bulge in his jeans, making you feel him. Your mouth falls open with a little “oh,” as you feel him. You try to palm him to relieve some of his tension, but fail as his fingers pump in and out of you, driving you closer and closer to the edge. “O- oh God, Lo, I’m cumming, please please please-” you moan loudly as your orgasm crashes over you, thrashing on the mat. Logan holds down your hips, continuing his languid movements, easing you out of the feeling in waves. As you finally relax, catching your breath, you look up at him, unsure of what comes next. Usually by this point, guys tended to take their own pants off. Logan’s were still very much on. Before you could verbalize your confusion, he speaks. “I think we’ve blown enough steam off in the gym,” he chuckles. “I don’t want Charles to gim’me looks the entire month. I say we take this upstairs bub, what d’ya say?”

You stare up at him, wondering why he’s even asking, when there’s only one possible answer you could make out through the haziness of your mind. “Yes, let’s go.”

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thatsveryvortex · 3 months ago

Text

Writing Tools for Planning Your Story

I've tried tons of writing apps and sites, so you don't have to. Here's a list of free sites to plot out your novel, with my review and some images of how I use it.

Milanote

Milanote is like having a giant pinboard with folders. You can upload anything onto it [yes even your main doc] and then draw over it or connect things with lines and arrows

Milanote lets you add up to a hundred things for free, not including drawing. This is one of the downsides of the site as I've found myself reaching that limit recently.

For me, the best part is being able to draw over stuff, and the color swatches.

Milanote is a lot less structured than other sites I've used, and personally, I don't think their templates are worth using.

8/10 overall, Milanote is what I mainly use. Here are some pics of how I use it:

Miro

Miro is a flowchart website mainly used for corporate jobs, however, it can be a great plotting tool for that reason

Miro has a lot of great starter templates if you are looking for a more structured freeform experience. It also comes with a blank page as well.

Unfortunately, I'd argue that it's a bit of a hard tool for beginners to use without a template, I've learned copy-paste is my best friend with Miro the hard way.

It's much better than most platforms at making timelines though.

It has a limit of three boards which is a bit disappointing but overall, I think it's worth the try.

5/10 Miro is very middle of the road for me due to the limited ability to customize things and the free limit. Here are some pics:

[I wrote that part weeks ago, I am now fully using Miro and believe it's the best for making timelines and charts, I just wish it let me make more boards 8/10]

Hiveword

This might be someone's jam, I can't really say it's mine though.

First off, the unpaid version is really just a few boxes saying "Write a summary here." which makes it just not worth it in my opinion

There really isn't any way to customise things which is my favorite part of most of these softwares

I've barely used this, so maybe there's something I'm missing but

1/10, Just use Google Docs at this point, here's a couple pics

World Anvil

People like this software, it's mainly used for tabletop, which is just a different way of writing adventure, and I've seen it recommended by authors.

Unfortunately, I'm going to disagree with a lot of people and say it's hard to use and isn't even really good at plotting.

I may be biased on this one as every time I've tried to use it in the past I've struggled. However, it seems like another just write it in a document and create a folder.

I'd say it's closer to an organizing tool, but even then just use something else.

3/10, I have nothing to say about it but maybe you'll enjoy it, all here are two photos

Campfire

This is the one I think I've heard the most about, but have never actually tried.

right off the bat, I'm going to say this is 100% worth it, you'll see at the end with the photos but this is like if Miro and World Anvil had an organization baby.

It's extremely easy to understand, and it makes timelines, it's more for writing your whole book but idk about that yet.

7/10, its themes are really pretty but it limits how much you can do to 20 I believe. Here are the photos

That's all for now, honestly, I think you should use Miro if you are looking to plot things out, and Milanote if you want to collect and organize your thoughts for writing, as that's what I do. Obviously what I like won't be for everyone, but hopefully, this helped you see some options

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #creative writing #worldbuilding #plotting #writing advice #writing tool #writing #writers #writing plans

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teaboot · 7 months ago

Note

I seriously hope you can job hop to something else cause you're not chaotic neutral man.

You're still a white Canadian whose actions and job help more the megacorps keep the status quo.

I really looked up to you but that's on me.

And yeah, I know security, cop shit and military pay good money but at the cost of my people? Fuck no.

Listen. I feel you. But there's a lot of cold, power-tripping bastards in this line of work and if I stick where I am then they don't get to have that.

I'm not a cop. I am not beholden to the justice system. Sometimes I get contracted out to people who say shit like "addicts should be put down, if you see any crackheads drag them out" and I nod and say "yes sir", and then I take their money and use it to buy those people coffee and a sandwich and tell 'em when free lunch days are at the church.

Boss sees me walking with someone and thinks I'm kicking them out, gives my boss great reviews. I'm having a great conversation with Connie, who used to by a stylist and wound up on the street after an accident that left her with chronic pain and a heroin addiction. Connie learns that there's a gap between two property lines nearby where technically nobody can call to have her removed.

There's a really sweet guy in town who's normally very nice, but sometimes flies into paranoid rage and yells slurs at people. Sometimes he forgets he's been banned from places and wanders in looking for a wife he hasn't had for nine years. Owner sends me to kick him out, and I ask "hey Mike, how are you?" And see where we are today.

One time there was a guy whose abusive ex kept following him to work, and I got to walk him to his car at the end of every day to make sure she couldn't get him alone.

Another person had a stalker who kept asking receptionists when she was gonna be there, when she was supposed to leave, if she was in today. I'd keep record of every time he came in, every time someone saw him, every time he violated his restraining order or damaged her things.

And when I wonder if I'm actually helping or not, or if I'm part of the greater problem, I remember that other people who work with me call homeless people wildlife and talk about how bad they wanna get an excuse to fight someone and I remember that I'm the one who knows where the blind spots on the cameras are, and thank God it's not him.

My position is fundamentally different from that of the military or law enforcement. I don't *need* to be buddy-buddy with most of these dickheads- I don't *need* to send people into the justice system.

I do single-person foot patrol. Nobody cares how I get the job done. They say, "Hey, faceless goon number three- make that bastard disappear" and I say "on it, boss" and give him tickets to disney world.

I once asked another guard if he knew that one of our regulars used to be an airplane technician. He said, "No, I don't talk to them". Blanket "Them". "Them" as in street people. "Them" as in addicts, or shoplifters, or ex-cons, or sex workers.

I asked why, and he told me, "it's easier if you don't think of them as people."

Anyhow, now I get calls to "watch that sketchy lady who just came in" and I say, "yes, sir" and leave her the fuck alone, 'cause that's Jolene, and people always think she's on drugs and aggressive but she's just deaf in one ear and slurs cause she has brain damage, you dickhead

so yeah, don't worry, I've spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of my vocation, and I still think I'd rather be in charge of my locations than someone like Darryl, who dreams of "cuffing a perp" and drives a car with Punisher decals on the hood

Also it's minimum wage but that's kinda tangential

#Teablart

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5ummit · 1 year ago

Text

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

#ao3 #ao3 stats #psa #my words #fandom #I doubt anyone is even going to read this but I needed to get it out of my system and at least try to stop this from spreading #if you know me #you know I get Big Mad about misinformation #don't take anything at face value #do your own research

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auroracalisto · 2 months ago

Note

Hey can you do a fiyero x reader where the reader is afraid of being vulnerable and he helps them?

yes, superfartninja, i think i can.

to be changed.

movie!fiyero x gn!reader, 3.4k words summary: to be vulnerable meant to be defenseless. it was a liability and that's all it ever would be. fiyero couldn't have that, now could he? a/n: please remember that i only have movie knowledge, so this will be based solely on what i saw in the movie. :P also, shout outs to house song by searows (was on repeat for this fic). erm. this kind of got away from me. i started it was 12 AM and now it's nearly 2 AM. hope it's coherent.

It wasn't like you to be vulnerable. It just didn't happen. It was like... asking a fish or an elephant to climb a tree, or some other weird analogy that you heard oh-so-long ago, when vulnerability aged you more than it helped.

To be vulnerable meant to be hurt. To be ridiculed, to be laughed at, to be made a fool in front of anyone who cared to look your way. It was something that you knew was not needed. You would be fine living by yourself. You came into this world alone and screaming, and you would leave this world the same way.

If you cut out the wound before it began to fester, you solved the problem immediately. Or so they say.

So that's what you did, long ago, when you swore to yourself that the pain you felt would be the very last time. It would never happen again. It couldn't happen again.

Oh, Oz, it couldn't. Your heart couldn't take it.

What was left of your heart, anyway. Sometimes you feared you no longer had one, especially when you feared the pain that would haunt you if someone else came along and made you feel that way again.

It's not that you were afraid. No, fear of being vulnerable was foolish. At least... you believed that you weren't afraid of being vulnerable.

Perhaps that was an act of foolishness in itself. Pretending that you weren't afraid. Pretending that having few friends and few moments of happiness didn't pierce your heart with every passing second.

Perhaps you needed to be better. To be vulnerable, to swear off that silly promise you made to yourself so many years ago.

But it was so difficult.

Being vulnerable was to be in pain. To be lost to a world of sorrow. To be... hurt by the very thing you swore you'd never be hurt by again.

It wouldn't happen.

You wouldn't let it.

He existed in the back of your mind. His beautiful blue eyes, the way those pretty locks fell in front of his eyes when he actually studied his books (if he ever did, of course).

When was the last time he actually tried...? No. You couldn't think of him like that. Too much thinking about his pretty face would ruin you.

You had only talked to him a few times here and there, and the first time was to merely ask him to move out of the way. He took up quite a lot of space—or at least, maybe it was his confidence. It oozed from him like an air of upmost superiority.

No...

You were just being cruel. He was just standing in the way, out of breath from singing to Galinda in the library (because of course—who didn't sing to pretty girls in libraries anymore?).

The second time you spoke to him was over the essay you had to write in your literature class. Peer reviews were the bane of your existence, and this essay, because of course it did, had a simple prompt in response to one of your readings: Taking into account the author's sheer disdain for the idea of magic, write what you believe Oz would be like without magic.

Thought-provoking, yes. You wrote a decent two pages, handwritten of course.

He gave you a paragraph.

If the world of Oz existed without magic, perhaps we would all be better off. No more bickering over the usages of it all, no more idiosyncrasies, no more debates on whether you are intelligent or mediocre if you hadn't the ability to wave a wand or utter a simple spell. If we didn't have magic, perhaps life would be far more difficult, but I also feel as if we should see what it would be like. Maybe there would be less heartbreak. More happiness to go around.

Okay. A piss-poor paragraph that made you wonder how he was even passing Madame Lillabet's literature class.

Maybe he wasn't.

You didn't feel pity for the man—nobility had the ability to do so many things that you would only ever dream of. Why should you feel pity—vulnerability—for a man you didn't know, let alone understood?

Oz, even now, his essay haunted you. You did your best with your review, pointing out the obvious things missing—a decent thesis, body paragraphs that proved his thesis, and just in general, an entire essay that was expected of the entire class.

He merely read over your essay and made one simple comment: Excellent.

Oh, yes, excellent. It was excellent to know that he was just trying to help your essay, yes? Leaving that little comment, even though you didn't make full marks—how was it supposed to help you?

Pity be damned. He was a fool, through and through.

Things muddled in your mind like they often did. Thoughts racing, heartbeat close behind the quick pace.

If you had magic, you'd be sure to quell it.

These thoughts were the one thing that you wished you could squash under the heel of your boot. They were the bane of your existence, the utterance of a foolhardy penance to the god of whatever looked down upon you and wished for pain.

Perhaps that was what was meant for you.

A life of pain—of pity from others, of the amenability to be swayed by those around you even when you tried, desperately, to stay away from those who may catch your attention.

Like him.

Oh, Oz, just like him.

Fiyero.

The man who'd lose his head if it wasn't attached to his shoulders. The man who once told you in passing that if he hadn't a brain, perhaps classes would be easier—then he wouldn't truly be all there, and he'd easily get around the... well, specifics of it all. The man whom you felt tugging at your heartstrings, even when you told yourself no.

It would not happen.

It could not happen.

You would not let it.

In typical, terrible luck fashion, you found yourself wandering the halls of Shiz late at night, unable to sleep. The thoughts racing through your head of so many things, not just him (although they kept leading back to the fool), they just weren't stopping.

An exam was to be held tomorrow. Perhaps you could create a distraction—keep the professors from being able to do as they needed. There were a box of fireworks hidden in one of the many corridor closets, kept for special occasion. You could whip a few of them out and create so much chaos that they'd surely have to cancel the exam!

You leaned against the railing, looking down at the stonework of Shiz's courtyard. A chill ran down your spine from the cold breeze, and for once, all was silent if only for a moment.

His voice brought you out from your thoughts.

"Y/n," he said, an obvious smile playing at his lips.

You squeezed your eyes shut and glanced back at him. Without saying a word, you acknowledged him.

"Doesn't look like your dorm," he continued. "What are you doing out here, all alone?"

"Thinking."

His eyebrow quirked. "Thinking? Oh," he softly hummed, coming to stand beside of you. "Well, that's no fun, now is it? What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

He snorted softly. "You're thinking about... nothing?"

"Whatever I'm thinking is none of your business," you retorted.

He stared you down for a moment, tilting his head curiously. He hummed again and looked out at where you had been staring moments prior.

"You are right," he softly said, voice much quieter this time. "Let me lead you back to your room. We have an exam tomorrow, remember? You at least need to pretend to sleep."

You paused. Since when did he care about exams? You glanced at him, fighting the urge to question him. You let out a soft sigh and shrugged, allowing him to lead you to your dorm.

The walk was quiet, and you almost questioned how he knew where your dorm was, but you didn't. He seemed to pay attention better than most (it was part of that aloofness, you've noticed), and it wasn't the first time he had seen you near your dorm.

It was at least the third. The number had to be easy to memorize by now. 133.

As you opened your door, Fiyero spoke. "You know, I've been thinking..."

"Dangerous thing for you, isn't it?" you quipped, not looking at him as you stepped inside.

He let out a soft chuckle. You amused him to no end.

"Yes, perhaps," he softly said. "But besides. I was still thinking. I've been... well, wondering if perhaps you would—"

"—no."

He blinked slowly. "What? No? Y/n, you didn't even hear what I had to say—"

"—the answer is still no," you said. You glanced up at him from the spot you had been staring at, frowning. "I don't know what this is, but we are not friends. Do not ask me for favors."

"Not friends, hm?" he softly hummed, leaning against the doorway as he locked eyes with you. So knowing your dorm number was just a fluke.

"Not friends. Now if you'll excuse me, I should probably go and pretend to sleep."

His upper lip quirked in a faint smirk. Not friends, but you still joked with him as a friend would do. He rolled his eyes and gave you a rather joking half-bow.

"Of course," he said. "Do not let me keep you up. Perhaps I should find my dorm as well."

"You should do that," you simply said, shutting the door right after.

You didn't give him a chance to say anything else, quickly locking the door and heading back to your bed.

Heart pounding, mind still racing, but not with the thoughts of earlier. No, dear reader, your mind raced with thoughts of him.

So impressionable, so—so kind, so—well, was he really kind?

To you.

He was kind to you.

Nearly a week passed you by. The exam went rather well, without any kind of distraction. Passing marks and a somewhat decent night sleep.

You do everything you can to try and avoid Fiyero. Running this way and that, going through all of the longer corridors instead of the shortcuts you knew by heart. You did everything you could to avoid his handsome face.

You did everything you could to avoid the vulnerability that plagued your heart every time you thought of him.

If you simply embraced the wants of Fiyero, perhaps not having a brain would keep you from thinking this way. You'd still have a heart, sure, but it was much better than keeping yourself on your toes wondering if you'd see the damned man at any passing second.

On the hour of the rising moon, almost exactly on the dot, Fiyero spotted you. And this time, you were not evading him.

He practically took off after you, leaving his friends behind. They scoffed and called after him, but he didn't look back. His focus was on you.

He grabbed onto your wrist as you went to leave, not letting you go.

"Y/n! There you are," he softly said. "I have been looking everywhere for you. I wouldn't have thought it would be so difficult to find you, but—"

"—there you go, thinking again," you blurted, unable to stop yourself. Your tongue was wagging faster than your brain was working.

He weakly smiled. "Yes. I know. How ironic, hm?"

You watched as he stared you down.

"Look," he softly began. "I truly—I do not know what I did to deserve you ignoring me at any which way, but I wish you would tell me why. What did I do, Y/n? I thought—well, I assumed that we were friends, but perhaps I was wrong. I find myself wrong quite often nowadays."

"I—well, Fiyero, I—" you paused. You squeezed your eyes shut and inhaled a deep breath. "I don't have friends."

He blinked slowly. "You don't have friends? What of the one girl you were with the other day? Milla?"

"I do not have friends," you repeated. "I have... acquaintances. People I do not get attached to."

"That is sad."

"What?"

He raised an eyebrow. It seemed like a commonality when he spoke with you. The staple eyebrow raise had to happen or else he wasn't really chatting with you.

"It is sad. Why wouldn't you want to get attached to people?"

"I don't want to have meaningless relationships," you said. You avoided saying, I don't want to have relationships at all. "Not everyone can be as friendly as you, Fiyero."

He rolled his eyes. "Friendly. Yes. I talk to people, but I would rather not have all the attention that I do."

"Oh, that's rich," you said, scoffing. "You play the popular little prince and then claim you do not want it? What is that, Fiyero?"

Fiyero pursed his lips. "It is just—this is not a conversation about me. I wanted to have an intervention for you since you seemed as though you were avoiding me every which way. Now. Just—"

"—an intervention? What? Please. You sound ridiculous."

"So do you!" he returned, hands to his hips like an older man scolding a child for something they broke. "You vex me, Y/n! You act as if you are interested in me, then run away hiding like a scared little pup. You act as if you are afraid to get close to anyone."

You stared at him, lips parted ever-so-slightly. But it was enough. You were done for.

He let out a curt laugh. "You are."

"What?"

"You are. Scared. I can see it in you. You listen to what I have to say, even when the others don't. I've made an effort to pay attention to you. To see what you—"

"—Fiyero, stop."

"Do not tell me to stop, Y/n," he said, voice low with conviction. "Not now. Not when I've finally figured you out. You are scared. But of what? Being close to someone? Having a friend?"

You frowned. "I am not scared—"

"—you look at me like if I were to touch you, you'd melt."

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"I can see it in your eyes, Y/n," he said, not looking away. He held eye contact with you and hoped that you would continue to do the same. "You—you're scared. To open your heart to the people around you."

You frowned, again. It was perpetual anymore. "And you're a sad man who dances and pretends everything is fine because Galinda said you looked pretty one day."

He blinked slowly, a smile quirking on his lips. "Maybe. But this—this isn't about me, Y/n. This is about you."

"What even is this? I didn't agree to have you psychoanalyze everything I've ever done."

"Neither did I, yet here we are," he said. "I've had a lot of time to think, to mull it over, and I know it. I know it now. You are scared. I don't know what happened to you. I don't know who hurt you in your past, or if something tragic happened to make you so cold inside, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with being... with being vulnerable, Y/n. There's something... magical, even, about opening up to others."

"Oh, and you would know, wouldn't you?"

He frowned. "Y/n—"

"—no. Absolutely not. You do not get to sit there and ridicule me for not wanting to be close to people and then not take what I give you," you said. "You do not let anyone close to you. Sure, Galinda, but what does she know about you? Does she know how you half-ass everything? How you hardly even talk to your 'friends' and just let them float along with you like everything is fine and dandy? You're as sad as I am, if that's what you're trying to say. Don't try to fool yourself."

"I am not trying to fool myself," he softly said. "I am only trying to make it known that I see you. I see myself in you."

"Oh, that's rich," you said, scoffing. "The rich, popular boy sees himself in little ol' me. That's perfect."

"Y/n—"

"—no. Don't. Stop. Just. I don't want to talk to you anymore. We're not friends. We never were friends. Just leave me alone."

It's simple, but it shuts him down. And with that, you run from his side, rushing to hide away in your dorm.

You couldn't believe what you did. Blowing up at him instead of listening to what he had to say. He read you like the children's book your heart truly was—while everyone else focused on the words, he focused on the pictures. The minute details that seemed to pass by everyone's mind because the story was flowing far too quickly.

He saw the delicate brush strokes, the intricate colors, the pieces of you that the words did not show.

He knew you.

And it scared you.

Only you knew yourself. If anyone else were to know who you were, deep inside, well, that would be disastrous.

It couldn't happen.

You couldn't let it.

Fear.

Perhaps fear was the best way to describe the way you felt.

You sat by the edge of the lake in the forest just beyond Shiz's campus, fingers gently brushing against the water. The surface rippled, sending small waves to the end of the shore.

You were afraid.

Of what?

Of a man knowing you?

Of Fiyero knowing you better than even your family once knew you?

You sat there, thoughts racing through your mind. It was as if you couldn't avoid them anymore.

Days had passed since you blew up at Fiyero and ran. You couldn't avoid him forever, you knew that, but it seemed as if your thoughts believed the same.

Tears pricked at your eyes. The warm, salty tears began to fall before you could even try to stop them, and a soft sob bubbled at the back of your throat.

"Y/n?"

Shit.

You quickly wiped your tears away and looked back at him—at Fiyero. But your tears wouldn't stop. A soft sob rippled through you and you turned your head away.

Fiyero came to your side, kneeling down in the soft earth beside of you. He inwardly grimaced at the dirt, but he said nothing of it. He'd bathe in mud if it meant you would stop your tears.

He reached forward, gently placing a hand to your cheek. He turned your head to face him.

"Y/n," he softly said. "It's alright. You... you're alright."

Another sob.

He pulled you into his arms, and you let him. You didn't pull away, melting into his embrace as he said you would before. He pressed his chin to the top of your head, situating himself so he would be more comfortable near you.

He softly hummed a soft tune—you remembered it. The one thing he hummed quite often when you caught him alone, or trying to focus on his school work.

Dancing through life, skimming the surface... Life's more painless for the brainless.

He was just a sad boy with needs of his own, much like you were scared of being seen. Of being known.

Of being loved.

Oh. Oh, that's what it was.

It terrified you to no end.

Fiyero pressed a soft kiss to the top of your forehead, gently cupping your cheeks in his hands.

"What's got you so upset, love?" he softly asked, wiping your tears away gently with his thumbs.

You shook your head. "I... later," you mumbled. You leaned into his grasp, and you could have sworn you saw his eyes soften.

He released a soft, shaky sigh of his own, before he pulled you back into his arms. He'd hold you until the end of the world if that's what you needed him to do.

Being vulnerable—it was the one thing you had told yourself you would never do. Ever again. And here you were, letting this man hold you and practically lull you into a calmness you'd never felt before.

Is this what it felt like? To be... weak? To be... frail?

No.

Vulnerability... it didn't mean that.

It meant that you were... open. That you had managed to open your heart to a more... malleable form.

To be changed.

To find the one thing in life that you knew would keep you going for as long as it could.

To be vulnerable meant to be loved.

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