#amara and harper things

[shallowseeker]

For your consideration, because I've been thinking about this...

According to Chuck, Dean doesn't mind feeding Amara "into the meat-grinder with a wink and a smile."

And certainly there are layers to how he feels about doing that... Dean has always walked the line between doing what’s right and what’s necessary, but in this moment, his morality is being pushed to the breaking point.

It’s an existential crisis because it challenges everything he stands for, every instinct to protect and not betray. In this situation, his sense of duty and survival are at odds with his humanity—making him question what he’s willing to sacrifice to win. But ALSO.

Perhaps, deep down, he’s still reeling from the fallout of his and Amara's initial connection.

In Gimme Shelter, Dean is chafing over her decision to meddle:

DEAN: You're damn right. Look at you. Just another cosmic dick rigging the game. You're just like your brother. AMARA: It was a gift, Dean, not a trial. DEAN: I'm not angry, Amara. I'm furious. To know that all my life, I've been nothing but a hamster in a wheel, stuck in a story. And you know whose fault that is? Chuck's. And it ain't just me. We're all trapped. Sam and Cas and Jack and even you. And you want to talk about the people that he's killing right now— AMARA: Stop. ...

AMARA: Can I... trust you? DEAN: I would never hurt you.

Amara and Dean's initial relationship wasn’t just symbiotic; it was predatory.

And with Chuck’s voyeurism looming over the season, it’s all a trigger for Dean. Dean longs to be free—not just from Chuck’s voyeurism, but from Amara’s fascination with him. It’s not just about the manipulation; it’s the lack of consent, the way Chuck and Amara have both used him for their own agendas, to make Dean tap-dance, or to "see what could put out his anger/fire."

///

That said, Amara empathized with Dean

She wanted to return a lost loved one to Dean. She’s not alone. In fact, both Amara and Cas did that—Amara bringing Mary back to life in season 12, and Cas trying his best to bring Sam back to life in season 6.

But how they perceive and engage with Dean could not be more different. Amara: Her actions toward Dean come from a place of curiosity that borders on predation. At first, she seeks to feel what it is to be human through him.

When she revives Mary, it's at its core a way of experimenting with his emotions, not engaging with them. It's a desire to feel what Dean feels for her own sake, not truly honoring him as a person. (It's a bit of a throughline from how Crowley initially sees Demon Dean, "See what I see, feel what I feel.")

It’s tricky because empathy tends to be, at least in part, self-focused. That’s normal. But the difference here is that Amara wants to see what Dean does in response to a cosmic trigger. It’s a grand experiment.

In season 15, she's taking tentative steps toward her own experiences, but when it comes to Dean, there's still a niggling sense of predation or compulsion: "You have a distinctive musk. We will always help each other." Cas: On the other hand... Cas’s fascination comes from a place of genuine empathy and a burgeoning recognition of Dean’s humanity. Cas tries to witness Dean’s emotions as a detached observer but can't help resonating with them.

He finds that Dean helps him stand up for his own values—values he's been forced to bury over and over again. Quickly, Cas's engagement with Dean becomes based on a shared history, a shared fight, and shared values. They don't always agree, or even always help each other. But despite their sometimes very explosive differences of opinion, they usually come to a mutual understanding of one another.

When Cas revives Sam, it comes from a deep sense of guilt and frustration with his own kind. Cas wanted to protect Sam from a fate he felt was tied to his angelic brethren's actions—their failings and their manipulation of the human world.

Cas’s shame about his brothers' actions simmered beneath the surface, eventually boiling over into the white-hot rage of an authoritarian, but unlike Amara, Cas’s initial move was to simply to protect those he loved from the celestial forces he once served.

In short, Cas sees Dean’s pain, his flaws, and his humanity, not as something to be experimented and tinkered with, but as something to cherish and understand. To protect.

Overall, despite some occasional teasing and sniping, Cas witnesses and honors Dean’s humanity, recognizing it as something valuable and worthy of respect, even when, and maybe especially when, it's ugly. //// Anyway, it just seems to me that Dean's panic response in late season 15 regarding Amara could have been inflamed by his and Amara's underlying history.

Amara assumes she and Dean are bound by fate to always help each other—an inevitability, not a choice—and so, choosing to betray her becomes an act of rebellion in itself.

[megalony]

No One Helped- Part 3

Thank you all for the lovely feedback on this little Bobby Nash series, I hope you will all like this next part.

Please let me know what you think.

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Bobby Nash Masterlist

Part 2

Summary: Following (Y/n)'s injuries, there are repercussions for the 189 station after how they treated her and failed to help. And Captain Harper isn't happy about it.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reaching out to her left, (Y/n) picked up the small paper cup that reminded her of something that was handed out in shops to give people taste samples of new food. She tipped the cup to her mouth and downed the two little tablets held inside.

Choking the tablets down made her grimace, and she knew that she had another three weeks left of taking these meds. They were to prevent any blood clots and aneurysms which she was prone to after the bleed on her brain. The last thing she needed was any complications that would bring her back here.

She was being discharged from the hospital in a matter of hours, after today she only wanted to be back here for the CT scan she would be due to have before she would be allowed back on shift.

(Y/n) couldn't be on shift while she was on this new medication. It worsened the dizziness she was still experiencing and it made her a liability. If she got knocked over or bumped into or had any other bump to the head she could land herself right back here. And she wasn't feeling well enough to be back to full duties yet anyway.

Once the medication had finished she would have her CT scan which was mandatory for work and if given the all clear, she would be back with her own team next month. Back where she belonged. Back to the team who looked out for her and actually cared for her and her wellbeing. Back with her family.

The team had been up to the hospital yesterday to check in on her and see how she was doing, and (Y/n) knew each of them would be dropping in on her when she was back home. They knew she would be bored not being with them at work, even if she was still feeling tired and disorientated.

(Y/n) tried her best to resist the urge to reach out for her phone and check the time. Knowing what time it was wouldn't help when she didn't have a specific time for when she could go home. All she knew was the nurse would get the discharge papers ready sometime this afternoon.

But (Y/n) was already dressed and her little bag of essentials was packed and waiting to go. She just had to stop by the pharmacy down near reception to get her three weeks worth supply of meds, and then she could be back home. Back to sleeping in her own bed in her own safe place with Bobby.

Bobby would be back soon. He had been at home last night and this morning but he'd messaged to say he wouldn't be long because he knew (Y/n) was desperate to go home. And when he arrived he might be able to sweet talk the nurse into getting the papers done quicker.

Relief bubbled up in (Y/n)'s chest when there was a rapid knock at the door. It wouldn't be Bobby as he wouldn't knock, but it might just be a nurse telling her she could go home now.

She sat up straighter on the bed and her fingers began to drum against her thighs but every inch of her body froze over when the door barged open and she watched who waltzed in.

Captain Harper.

Oh God, why was he here? What did he want? Why had he bothered to come all the way down to the hospital, couldn't he have waited until (Y/n) was discharged and back home or back at her own station? This couldn't be anything good.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed as her nails dug deep enough into her thighs that she started to scratch through her leggings and pierce the skin. Her back straightened up and her elbows imbedded in her waist as she stared at Harper with a mixture of displeasure and unease.

She didn't want to be talking to him. (Y/n) didn't want to be anywhere near Harper, let alone shut in an empty room with him where he might decide to do something rash and use more than just words to get his point across. (Y/n) wouldn't put anything past him.

Her eyes followed Harper as he walked round until he was stood one foot away from her. His arms were folded over his chest and there was a strange, quipped smile on his face as his narrowed eyes bore into (Y/n) like he was searching for something in her expression.

The look made (Y/n) lean back out of instinct and her hands moved to press down into the bed as she tried not to shudder or look too intimidated.

"How are you?"

His question was surprising, but Harper's tone showed he didn't truly care what the answer was. In his mind, she was clearly recovered as she was sat up and alert and talking. Much how he thought she had been after her fall from the truck. He assumed that since she had been talking and just about able to stand on her own two feet, that she was perfectly fine.

(Y/n) looked Harper up and down as her nerves got the better of her and made her shudder. "Recovering. Why are you here?"

There seemed no point beating about the bush and pretending to have a polite conversation. There was clearly a reason that he was here and (Y/n) knew it couldn't be a good one. She wanted to know what he wanted and then get him to leave. She didn't want him here, no matter what was running through his mind.

It was almost fitting that Harper was still in his work uniform when he came to visit her. He was wearing his usual black trousers and dark blue shirt with the station logo in the corner.

"Because I had a visit from the Chief, I'm sure you know why." His tone was sickly sweet and his smile morphed into something frightening as he leaned closer when (Y/n) shook her head.

Trying to feign confusion didn't seem like the right thing to do because Harper's smile faded and his lips curled in clear distaste and aggravation. He took another step until their feet were almost touching and he was close enough to hover over (Y/n) like some kind of angel of death.

"I'm suspended, pending investigation."

There was something dangerous in his sneering tone that made (Y/n) shiver and had her blood dwelling in her stomach rather than going down to her hands and feet. She barely felt like she had any blood going to her head that was filling up with air and becoming too heavy to hold up.

Oh dear.

(Y/n) knew this would happen. Once the Chief came back to speak to her and ran through everything, he explained what would happen next. He said they would do a formal investigation into Harper and his team, they couldn't take this lightly when (Y/n) had been seriously injured. And (Y/n) could file a complaint or a law suit, not that she would, but she had every right so the department had to look into this and do everything by the book.

They were more afraid of Bobby kicking up a stink and filing the complaint than (Y/n) and they knew Bobby would be watching and breathing down their necks. If they didn't do things thoroughly and get evidence of Harper's wrongdoing, Bobby would go and do it himself. And they didn't want that.

She could feel her stomach twisting in knots, threatening to throw up her lunch and her head started to pound and ache when she looked up at Harper. He was glaring at her like she was the Devil, like she was nothing more than an inconvenience that he wanted to get rid of.

"I got hurt on shift, they have to investigate-"

His crude laugh cut off the simple explanation (Y/n) tried to give and made her feel like a child lost in a world she didn't understand.

And the truth was that she didn't understand what this world was. (Y/n) didn't understand why Harper and his team had to be so cruel and petty with her. She didn't see why they had to tease her for who she was in a relationship with when it had no bearing on her work or her ability to do her job. She didn't know why Harper denied her medical attention or why no one in his team thought it fair to try and check her over and make sure she was alright.

There was nothing about that situation that (Y/n) could fathom or understand, and Harper's attitude just made her even more confused and frightened.

"They had to investigate, that's funny." The crooked smirk on his face made him look somewhat like the Grinch and he ran his hand along his jaw as he nodded mockingly. "Especially when some little pet starts telling lies about me and my team."

Lies? Was he being serious?

Clearly Harper didn't know how much trouble he was in and how much damage he had caused (Y/n). She hadn't lied about anything and she had evidence to back herself up. And she figured that Eddison would back her too because he had been the only one on Harper's team who tried to help her, and (Y/n) made that clear when she talked to the Chief.

Eddison was the type who would tell the truth and admit that his team had been wrong and that (Y/n) had been hurt and denied medical attention. He would back (Y/n) up and that would prove her point, along with her injuries and the call she'd made to Bobby saying she had to go home.

She hadn't lied about anything.

(Y/n)'s arms bound around her chest and her jaw dropped as she stared up at Harper, as if waiting for the punchline or for him to explain that he was joking. But he just stared at her like he wanted her to crumble into a million pieces.

"I'm in the hospital, I had surgery, do you still think I'm being dramatic or attention-seeking?"

Could he not see that she was in the hospital? Didn't he realise that if she was simply being dramatic or if nothing was wrong with her, the doctors wouldn't have kept her here. They would have discharged her the moment she was well enough, the fact that she was still here proved she hadn't been seeking attention and making things up.

"I think you got up just fine after your little tumble and you're looking for someone to blame. Or maybe you're trying to help your Captain climb the ladder and bringing me down is the way to do that."

Harper leaned forward until he was close enough that (Y/n) could feel his breaths on her skin and the darkness in his eyes was all that she could focus on. His right hand planted down on the bed beside her hip like he was caging her in and it caused (Y/n) to shuffle back on the bed.

She didn't want to be anywhere near him, she didn't want to be close to him or within his grasp in case he decided to reach out and grab at her. She had no idea what was running through his mind right now or what he might resort to.

She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and her breaths were starting to become fast and shallow.

Couldn't he just leave? Couldn't he give in and tell the truth to the Chief and accept whatever punishment he would be given? Trying to intimidate (Y/n) was only giving her more fuel against him and it wasn't going to make her back down. The damage had already been done and the blame was solely to be laid at Harper's feet, no one else's.

"I had a brain haemorrhage. If I stayed on shift with you I could have gotten permanent damage."

"Don't blame me-"

"You didn't let me get checked out!" Tears cascaded down (Y/n)'s face and trickled onto her jumper as she shuffled back until she could scramble to her feet on the other side of the bed. Keeping the bed in between them for some scrap of safety and security that was quickly beginning to fade.

Her hands planted down on the mattress but her eyes followed Harper as he rounded the end of the bed to try and get in front of her again.

"It's your fault, who else should I blame?" Tremors ran through (Y/n)'s system but her voice came out coarse and brittle.

Who else deserved the blame? Harper was in the wrong, why couldn't he see that? What did he expect her to do? He had denied her help, he would have kept her on shift and made her work until she collapsed or bled around her brain and sent herself into a coma or death. He would have pushed her and kept her on shift and ignored her when she told him she didn't feel okay. This was his doing. Who else was she supposed to blame for the troubles he had created?

Her words infuriated Harper and (Y/n) found more tears drenching her face because he just wouldn't give in. He wouldn't back down, he wouldn't accept the truth. He was still trying to fight her on this when he had no leg to stand on.

"My fault?" He echoed as if her words were complete ludacris and he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

(Y/n) tripped over her feet when Harper stormed towards her and she realised that she had backed herself against the wall. She would have to push past him to get away when the door was across the room, behind Harper.

Another rendition of 'my fault?' seethed past his lips before he was suddenly reaching out for (Y/n).

She raised her arms up in front of her but she gasped when he clutched her wrist and yanked her closer by her arm that twinged in shock and discomfort. Her eyes blew wide and her shoulders pulled in as she tried to hunker down and pull away from him but her body froze in shock when he shoved her back towards the wall and leaned in close.

"I'm not losing my job to some little slut who's clearly trying to sleep her way to the top."

Whatever Bobby assumed he would be walking into when he came to pick (Y/n) up today, it had nothing on the scene he saw when he headed into her room.

He thought she would be sat with her bag, desperately waiting for him to take her home. He assumed she would either be holding her discharge papers or that she would rush up to him when he arrived and beg him to talk to the nurse and take her home.

Not once had the thought of Harper crossed his mind. Bobby hadn't considered walking in to find Harper pinning (Y/n) to the wall and spitting insults at her. Bobby heard what he'd called her, even if he wished he hadn't. He heard, and it infuriated him.

Every muscle in Bobby's body tensed to the point they were threatening to snap in two and it felt like he had cramp all over his body, but it didn't stop him. His boots pounded against the floor as he stormed forward and latched his hands around Harper's shoulders so he could wrench him back.

The action caused (Y/n) to stumble forward and she quickly bound her arms around her waist as fright took over her features when she realised who had entered the room.

She didn't have chance to say anything or take one step before Bobby made his move.

His left hand stayed clenched around Harper's shoulder and as soon as he turned the slightly shorter Captain to face him, Bobby reeled his right arm back and punched him.

(Y/n) had never seen Bobby lash out at anybody before. Once on a call she had seen him raise his voice to someone, and another time she had seen him shout and give someone a shove, but he'd never resorted to violence before. It wasn't who he was. Even when Bobby had every right to be angry and infuriated and upset, he never lashed out like this. He was calm enough to use his words and persuasion, and sometimes a few threats if necessary. But never his fists.

Harper's lower back hit the bedframe when Bobby let go of him and the force of the punch knocked him back. His knees bent out and his elbows slammed into the bed, trying hard to steady himself and prevent from falling onto his backside on the floor.

The way he stared up at Bobby with a slacked jaw and wide eyes was a look that (Y/n) tried to commit to memory, because she had never seen Harper look so uncertain and dumbfounded before. And the little trickle of blood leaving his nose was an added bonus.

When Bobby reached down to try and grab at Harper again, (Y/n) surged forward. She bound her hands around his bicep and bumped into his side until she was almost knocking him onto the floor with how she pushed her weight onto him.

"Bobby don't." Her lips pressed against his shoulder and her hands tightened around his arm that was now pinned against her waist and abdomen.

He could feel her fingers twitching against his skin, moving out of nervous habit and complete panic and Bobby had to steady himself when (Y/n) leaned further on him like her legs were about to give out.

He turned his head to look down at her and a flash of anguish crossed his face when he saw her trembling. He didn't want to upset her, but he didn't want Harper to think he could get away with threatening and calling her like that.

(Y/n) wouldn't have Bobby risk his career for her. He wasn't on duty right now which went in his favour, but he was Captain. He couldn't be seen fighting a colleague, another Captain no less. He could get reprimanded for this and (Y/n) wouldn't have that happen on her behalf. Bobby was the good guy and they didn't need to give Harper any ammunition to use against them.

Harper's hand raised to his nose and he wiped the stream of blood on the back of his hand while his lips curled into a grimace and he huffed as he looked up at Bobby in shock.

"I- I could get you done for this, Nash."

"You look fine to me." (Y/n) couldn't help the snarky tone to her voice or the sneer written across her face. He would be fine, he wasn't injured and for all anyone else knew, they could say he'd had a nosebleed or a little fall.

His threat was hollow and they all knew it, especially Harper as he adverted his gaze down to the floor and continued to sniff and brush his sleeve against his nose.

"What do you think you're doing here?" Each of Bobby's words were punctuated and spat with venom as he stared down at Harper with anguish in his eyes.

Why was he here? Why did he think this was appropriate? He had been suspended, Bobby heard it through the grape vine. And with (Y/n) being the one to accuse him, Harper had no right to be here intimidating her because it only worked in her favour and went against him.

But to be here and actually threatening and trying to intimidate (Y/n) wasn't something Bobby thought Harper would stoop so low to do.

"I was trying to ask her the same thing."

The wind seemed to have disappeared from Harper's sails. His lips curled into a grimace and he looked Bobby up and down like he was trying to build himself up and remain calm and in charge, but he could see this was going to be much harder. He wasn't going to win any fight he picked against Bobby. The suspension was only the beginning of his downfall, he had a long way to go yet.

"Well you shouldn't be here intimidating her, should you?"

The feeling of (Y/n)'s hands tightening on his arm stopped Bobby from trying to wrench his arm back and throwing another fist at Harper. It took all of his effort to unclasp his hands from Harper's shoulders and take a step back.

He found his hands clenching into fists at his sides, fingers continuously flexing and curling to try and rid some of the nervous energy he felt and to regulate his system. Each breath Bobby took was harsh and deep and he could feel his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. If it weren't for (Y/n) still holding onto his arm, he would have lashed out again by now.

"I shouldn't be on suspension either. You think it's fair I lose my credibility over this? Over her?"

The way Harper raised his hand and flung in (Y/n)'s direction made her chest tighten and her teeth sank down into her lower lip to stop herself from making a crude remark in response. He didn't deserve a response or a rise out of (Y/n). She hadn't done anything wrong. Harper didn't deserve any credibility to begin with, he was losing it because of what he had done, not because of anything (Y/n) did.

This was a fallout of what he had caused, he had no one but himself to blame and intimidating (Y/n) wasn't going to make her change her mind. She had already made her complaint. Harper was suspended. This was out of their hands now, it was down to the Chief and the disciplinary team to decide what happens now.

(Y/n) couldn't take any of this back no matter how Harper tried to frighten her and turn her hand.

Something akin to a smile flashed across Bobby's face and his lips quirked as he shook his head and looked down at Harper.

Was he being serious?

Bobby shook his head and pushed down a laugh as his hands moved to clasp down on his hips and his head angled to one side. He couldn't believe the nerve of this man. Allowing someone to get hurt on his watch, on his shift, when he was supposed to be in charge was one thing. But to blame said person for everything and not take responsibility for their actions was something else entirely.

Being Captain meant being responsible for the safety of everyone under his watch. It meant looking out for them, it meant keeping them in line and making sure if they were hurt or suspectedly hurt, they got seen to. It meant assessing risks and minimising those risks for everyone involved.

Harper couldn't be Captain if he couldn't take care of his team, which included anyone working under him on any shift. And he couldn't be Captain if he couldn't take responsibility for what he had done and for the actions of his team.

"You have some nerve to deny (Y/n) medical treatment and then try and assault her when she tells the truth about you. Whatever credibility you think you had, you lost when you let her get hurt."

"You weren't there Nash, you didn't see anything-"

"I saw the aftermath, Harper. I had to carry her unconscious into the emergency room because of your lack of supervision. So you'd better believe me when I say I'm gonna make sure you don't get to govern any station after what you've done to my girl."

Bobby wouldn't stop. If Harper somehow managed to wrangle his way out of this, Bobby would go on the warpath. He would harrass the Chief, he would send emails and letters. He would make surprise appearances to the 189. He would warn any new recruits and he would have choice words with each of the 189 team so they all understood that they weren't getting away with this.

He wouldn't relent until Harper was taken off his role as Captain. He had no right to hold such a title and Bobby wouldn't allow him to continue. (Y/n) had been hurt, and someone was going to pay for it.

"Now get out before I have you done for harassment too." Bobby wouldn't be opposed to calling the Chief and making him add a complaint of harassment to Harper's growing list of wrong-doings.

He wasn't allowed to be here, he would have been told after his suspension that (Y/n) was the complainant. He would have been informed that having any contact with her wasn't an option and he would make his case worse if he spoke to her even just in passing. He wasn't allowed.

He was openly ignoring that and breaking those rules to be here to try and threaten her into backing down. And it wasn't going to work.

Harper's hands were curling into fists and he jerked his shoulder when Bobby tried to nudge him towards the door to give him the incentive to leave. But the look in his eyes when he turned to glare at (Y/n) over his shoulder was maddening, frightening even.

"You're making a big mistake-"

"And this is a hospital. If you carry on I'll give you a reason to be admitted."

Bobby gave Harper another rough shove until he was stumbling into the door and swinging it wide open to get out. He couldn't stand here and continue to try and belittle and threaten (Y/n). Bobby wasn't opposed to starting a fight or knocking Harper down a flight of stairs. At least he would get quicker medical attention than (Y/n) did when she had a legitimate need for help.

The moment Harper was gone, Bobby let out a deep breath he didn't know he had been holding in. And he felt himself starting to relax when he felt (Y/n)'s hands leave his arm in favour of binding around his torso. He felt her face pressing into his back and each shallow breath she took fanned through his shirt.

His hands moved down to hold onto her wrists against his lower chest and he squeezed tight while his head angled to the side.

"Are you okay?"

"Thank you." They both knew she was avoiding the question, but it didn't really matter. She was alright now that Bobby was here and they would both be leaving soon.

And a tender grin pulled at Bobby's lips when he heard what she mumbled into his shirt.

"Can we go home now?"

***

The further they walked, the tighter (Y/n)'s hands became around Bobby's arm until she was almost cutting off the blood supply to his hand. Not that he cared at all, but he was starting to feel more concerned the more (Y/n) clung to him.

It wasn't very often that (Y/n) had cause to come into the main office. This was for people kike Bobby, for Captains or heads of departments or for people doing work training or exams. This wasn't a place (Y/n) ever came to unless she had to do mandatory training. The office was somewhere she associated with complaints and concerns, not a good place on all accounts.

But she didn't have a choice. Chief Simpson asked her to come down, to discuss the investigation into Harper and the outcome, as the disciplinary team had clearly decided on something.

If Bobby wasn't here with her (Y/n) wouldn't have come down, but he was here for moral support and he could see that it was clearly necessary.

Bobby knew the way to Simpson's office, he had been here often enough so (Y/n) let him guide her up the stairs and down a few corridors.

But confusion and a mix of panic coursed through Bobby's chest when (Y/n) suddenly stopped walking. He turned to the right and looked down at her with narrowed eyes and his free hand moved to gently grip her wrist, silently asking what the problem was. He turned his head to see what (Y/n) was looking at, but he didn't recognise the man stood a few paces ahead down the hall.

"Thompson." His name passed (Y/n)'s lips in a breathless huff while she felt like her lungs were starting to seize up.

This couldn't be a coincidence. He had to be here because of the investigation. They must have brought him in a few times to get his statement and ask his views. And if he was here now then that had to mean they were reprimanding him as well, or in the least, they were cautioning him if he was here because of what had happened with (Y/n).

He wouldn't be happy if he saw her. (Y/n) had a sudden urge to turn and flee, to drag Bobby along with her and disappear into an adjoining corridor or venture into a vacant room so Thompson wouldn't see them.

"Who is he?" Bobby kept his voice hushed as he leant down and hovered his lips against (Y/n)'s hair, but his arm jostled when (Y/n) tried to pull him and get him to retreat.

"Bobby please-"

"(Y/n)?"

The moment Thompson's eyes set on her, (Y/n) felt like she had set alight. Her legs turned to steel and rooted her to the spot and her nails started to dig into Bobby's bare arm as she coiled it to her chest. As if she were seeking some sort of protection like he was a suit of armour.

"What have you done?" His voice was coarse and the way his eyebrows knitted together made him look infuriated.

She couldn't help the way she winced at the tone of his voice but she hated how Bobby tensed up and took a step forward. She didn't want Bobby to get dragged into this. (Y/n) didn't want Thompson to start a fight or be angry with her or for Bobby to have to argue with anyone else on her behalf.

Bobby's eyes assessed the man walking their way before he turned to look at (Y/n). "Is he from the 189?"

He didn't need her to answer, he could see the answer in her expression despite the way she nodded her head.

When Thompson got close enough, Bobby held out his free hand until he could give him a light push in the chest, preventing him from getting any closer. He wouldn't have another person try and intimidate (Y/n), especially not here in the office.

"What do you want?" There was a certain tone to Bobby's voice that gave away how tired he was or this mess. He didn't have the time or the patience to try and play nice. Thompson either stated what he wanted or he let them walk past without a fuss.

"Me? I want an explanation. I've got a bloody record of action on my file because of you, why would you do that? Those things stay there for life."

Thompson leaned around Bobby to talk to (Y/n) almost as if he wanted to pretend that Bobby was invisible and no longer part of this conversation. He had been called in about the investigation, he gave his account and answered their questions. And now he was brought back in to say that they were taking a record of action out against him.

He needed to undergo more mandatory training, he would be reviewed every month for six months almost as if he was back on probation. And a record wouldn't come off his file, it would stay there until he retired or transitioned to a new job. And any new job would find out about this, it was like a black mark against his name.

"I only told them what happened, I didn't choose their course of action." (Y/n) shrugged as she spoke, and she slid one hand down to interlace her fingers with Bobby's.

She had complained about Harper and his team in general, that included Thompson. But she never asked them to file a complaint against him in particular, and she didn't decide what, if any, punishment anyone would get. (Y/n) had no say in that matter, they could just have easily let Thompson off without so much as a warning and (Y/n) wouldn't be able to do anything about it or change that.

"You started this mess, why'd you have to bring us all into it?" The genuine hurt etched into Thompson's face made (Y/n)'s heart thunder in her chest.

He was looking at her like she had cursed him, like she had done some great wrong to him when that wasn't her intention or even what she had done. If he helped her, if he did his job instead of following Harper's bullying tactics then none of this would have gotten so out of hand. He had played a part in this too.

"Thompson?" Bobby uttered his name with an air of confusion before it seemed to click in his mind, and he straightened up. "You dragged (Y/n) up after the fall… are you a medic?"

Thompson's breath caught in his throat as he glared at Bobby, looking him up and down with an upturned nose. "Yeah?"

"A medic who didn't assess a concussed person and forced them back on shift? That's why you've got a record against you, it'll be for negligence. You're lucky they haven't pulled you or given you suspension, so take that attitude down before I have to do something about it."

He had dragged (Y/n) to her feet after the fall, he didn't check her over and he said she was fine and helped Harper force her back on shift. He had been negligent in his duty as a medic, they couldn't let him get away with that and as far as Bobby was concerned, he had gotten off lightly. He was lucky, and he needed to realise that and back down before he got himself into deeper trouble.

"I- I didn't… Harper told you to get back on duty, he said you were fine-"

"And you didn't disagree or do anything to help me. What do you want me say? Eddison's the only one who tried to be kind." (Y/n) knew for a fact that Eddison was the only one out of them all who wouldn't be getting reprimanded.

Maybe he didn't stick his neck out on the line and demand (Y/n) get help, maybe he didn't assess her either. But he tried. He tried to stay with her, to ask if she was alright. He hadn't joined in with the jokes and the teasing, he hadn't done anything to (Y/n).

Thompson began to lock his hands together in front of him while he sighed, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was clearly trying to calm himself down and stop from causing an argument, and (Y/n) wondered if maybe, he knew deep down that he had been in the wrong. He might think his punishment unjust, but he might also understand why he had to get reprimanded.

When he lifted his head, there was something burning within his eyes that made (Y/n) curious yet fearful.

She didn't like the smile that pulled at Thompson's lips. It was sorrowful, broken, hollow. And all of those emotions looked to be aimed at (Y/n) when he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

"Well I hope you know what you're doing, because Harper's a vindictive guy and you've helped end his career."

"What?" (Y/n)'s hand moved until she was scratching the back of her neck and her stomach twisted and churned like a cement mixer.

What was that supposed to mean? (Y/n) didn't have any choice in this, why did none of them see that? Why were they blaming her when she was the one who had been landed in hospital and mistreated? Why did they think she could control any part of this mess?

"He was here earlier, nearly bust a window on his way out. They've pulled him as Captain, he can't govern any station and he's still on suspension. If he wants to come back, he has to be one of us with a gross negligence mark on his file. He quit."

Pins and needles broke out through (Y/n)'s skin and she took a step back, and another, and then another until she managed to turn herself around. Her head began to shake and both hands clutched at her neck, scratching deep indents into the skin as she felt herself becoming lightheaded.

He'd quit. Harper didn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that, who would back down and accept his losses. He had threatened (Y/n) in the hospital to try and salvage what was left of his job. Throwing it all away defeated everything he tried to do.

But he wouldn't want to stay when he would have very little left. He couldn't Captain any team, they wouldn't let him rise through the ranks anymore. If he wanted to stay on the job, he would of had to become a simple fireman. He couldn't be shift lead, Captain, Chief, he couldn't rise up and be a head of department or head of communications or anyone of significance here in the office.

And that mark on his file wasn't going to disappear even if he quit. When he got a new job and they asked for references, that incident report would be stuck to his file. Every job opportunity would see that he had been charged with gross negligence after the investigation. He couldn't run away from that.

(Y/n) wasn't sure where she was going or which way she was trying to aim for, all she knew was that she wanted to get out of here.

This was why the Chief had asked her to come in, he wanted to tell her the results of the investigation. He wanted to say that they knew Harper had done wrong and they were holding him accountable for it. They wanted Bobby to be reassured that this had been dealt with through the proper channels and that he didn't have to go on a crusade for justice.

Bobby looked between (Y/n)'s retreating frame and the man stood in front of him who was starting to resemble a kicked puppy, feeling sorry for himself.

And he found himself sighing. "You got off lightly and you still have your job. Do yourself a favour and move on, if you resent it you'll end up like Harper and if you hold this against (Y/n), then I pray that you never get hurt on the job and need help. Because you won't deserve it."

Bobby didn't wait for a response. He didn't hang around to see whether Thompson had listened to him or if he agreed. He turned and walked away, speeding up to try and find out where (Y/n) had got to.

The rest of the 189 had gotten off lightly with records of conversation or actions against them. That was like a slap on the wrist compared to Harper's comeuppance. Thompson could still do his job, no one was going to treat him differently or hold it against him and he hadn't lost anything out of all of this. Stewing and being angry was only going to make him a monster like his former Captain.

And Bobby would hate for him to continue blaming (Y/n), because then he truly didn't deserve or fit in this job. If he could start blaming someone who was a victim then he couldn't be objective anymore and he couldn't help people. And he wouldn't deserve any help if he got hurt one day on a call and no one treated him fairly.

"Sweetheart, slow down."

(Y/n) was almost at the stairwell when she felt Bobby's hands on her waist, reeling her back towards him. She broke out in trembles when he kissed the back of her head and she turned to sludge when he carefully reeled her back towards him and took a few steps to the left.

She let him ease her down onto a small sofa in the hall and once he sat down next to her, (Y/n) dropped her head onto his chest. Her arm shakily slung around his middle and she leaned into him like she thought she was going to pass out.

"It's okay." He murmured into her hair while his arm looped around the back of her shoulders and his hand started to feather up and down her arm. "This is good news."

"Then why do I feel guilty?"

"Because you're a good person. If this was anyone else who got hurt, you'd of told them to report it and do the same thing. You don't have to feel bad sweetheart, you haven't done anything wrong."

Tears welled up in (Y/n)'s eyes that she tried hard to push away, but she couldn't. She couldn't stop them from cascading down her features and soaking into Bobby's shirt. And she couldn't stop her breaths from becoming shallow and making her head feel lighter than air.

She was the reason Harper was now out of a job. She had set the ball rolling. She had messed up that station and they were all going to blame her. If they ever came on a scene with the 118 they were going to be hostile, they might try and put in complaints against (Y/n) to get even. Everyone was going to be furious with her and see her as a traitor.

Would her own team feel like that? Did they think she had done the wrong thing by complaining? Should she have just let it go and move on?

"I've fucked up that whole station," A sarcastic laugh tumbled from her lips as she burrowed deeper into Bobby's chest.

"And what would of happened if you didn't? If they learned you were in hospital and you didn't complain, Simpson would still have looked into it because you were hurt on duty. And Harper could have spun it and said you were negligent on the job. He could victimise someone else. You got hurt, he was responsible and he got his comeuppance."

Bobby didn't care what anyone in that station said, or anyone in this office. He only cared that the people responsible for letting (Y/n) get hurt were now paying the price. He cared that Harper couldn't do this to anyone else, he made Bobby and all the other station Captains look bad, he set a bad example and he let his people get hurt. That wasn't acceptable.

If (Y/n) didn't complain or if Bobby didn't push the Chief to look into this, Harper could have spun a lie. He could of said that (Y/n) wasn't doing her job properly, that she fell because she was negligent or doing something wrong or not aware in the situation. He could have blamed her and gotten (Y/n) into unjust trouble.

If she didn't say anything, this could of happened again to someone else. Another transfer, another new recruit who didn't fit in. Anyone could have gotten hurt or bullied or pushed out and Harper would get away with it. This had to be done. It was the right thing.

The feeling of Bobby's lips pressing to her temple made (Y/n) relax slightly in his arms and she tightened her hold around him, wishing they were back home and that none of this ever happened.

She felt Bobby murmuring "You did the right thing," against her skin, and she wanted to smile. But she couldn't.

No matter what anyone said, (Y/n) could still feel that guilt dwelling in the pit of her stomach.

[tinydooms]

Just finished hate-reading Elodie Harper's Wolf Den trilogy, and I have to applaud her: she has written some of the best truly awful characters I've ever read. I couldn't put the damn things down, even as I was raging. God, Amara, you made so many bad decisions. 10/10 flawed unlikeable heroine; my god.

Excellent writing, excellent characterization, excellent story, hated every single minute of it. I cannot stress this enough: this series is incredibly well-written, incredibly compelling, exhaustively researched, and will hold your attention every minute. It just hit every single one of my triggers and I've never wanted to murder the main characters more than I have with this trilogy.

[soullessjack]

I’ve been on TikTok a lot because my FYP has been infiltrated by SPN and most people on there think he has the mental mind of a 3 y/o or a baby. How is this possible to think with his storylines? It doesn’t make sense to me. I wasn’t in the fandom, just an avid show watcher, and I saw him similar to Amara and how she’s an adult that grew up fast except he was just born grown but naive because the world is complex. So how do people get to him having a baby mind? It feels ableist to me but I can’t figure out how to articulate why (like when someone has developmental disabilities and someone says, “They have the mind of a _y/o,” when that person’s needs/skills/etc are more complex) and I was wondering if you could shine some light on why you think this happens. I don’t think people understand why other people have uncomfortable feelings surrounding baby/toddler/kid!Jack but I can’t remove it from accidental ableism. I’ve tried talking to people about it on TikTok but they either double down or say that it’s my opinion. However, I don’t feel like canon supports theirs. Thank you. I love you your posts about Jack and your insight. Good work.

hi, thanks :3

genuinely I don’t know, and I ask myself that every single time I go through spn tiktok lmao. the best I can figure is, for one, TikTok is the app where media literacy and nuance go to die like dogs. there’s no arguing with anybody there unless you get lucky (source: I’ve argued).

two, I think genuinely it comes from the over-saturation of baby!jack content in the fandom, both in and out of tumblr, and the extremely minimal amount of content where he’s actually treated with nuance and complexity. like, it exists, but only in very small circles that the majority of the fandom clearly ignores. from what I’ve seen most of spn-tok is focused on TFW or Dean or Destiel and don’t generally care about Jack that much, so it kinda makes sense that they’d just run with the most prevalent idea of jack and not really think about it in the long run, or when they watch the show.

a lot of the arguments I’ve seen literally boil down to “he wears Velcro sneakers” and “he doesn’t know [insert thing]” or just his general social awkwardness/unawareness (which Cas displayed all the time in the early seasons but never got outright infantilized for). like look at this:

and there’s millions more comments like this, unfortunately. I don’t mean to speak for everyone, but at least for me, the body language and specific mannerisms Alex put into his portrayal of Jack is what resonated the most as an autistic thing, naïveté and poor social skills aside of course. Like, he fidgets/stims constantly—

and none of this is scripted for him to do, either! Alex just decided it worked, and he was right!!

—and to see these very blatant autistic traits be reduced down to “portrayal of a child/toddler” is downright sickening, especially when plenty of other autistic fans have pointed it out and expressed to Alex that they relate to Jack and even asked if he had done it on purpose because it was so well done.

what I’m personally confused on is how many people will double down on jack being a child like it’s driftwood in the ocean. like, going back to my argument, I gave the other person multiple points in the show that make it obvious jack is intended to be an adult. Harper, the beer, any of the trauma he’s endured; the works. and all they had to say to that was “you do you I guess.” and it’s like what do you mean, ‘you do you’? I’m giving you actual examples that happen in the show, and I’m asking you to think ‘hey, maybe if jack flirted with a girl and talked nonstop about what it’s like to fall in love and have sex for an entire episode and had his dad offer to go to a dive bar for bucket-list hookups in the episode after, maybe he isn’t a child.’

but again, this is TikTok, so asking for any kind of self examination is asking for too much.

it just strikes me as odd. it’s odd and confusing and horribly frustrating that people are dying on this hill like it’s some kind of civic duty. like, why does it matter to you so much to see Jack as a child? why is it so important for you to think of him that way, that you just ignore canon evidence and autistic voices to make yourself feel right? what was even weirder was they were autistic themselves, and said they wouldn’t dream of infantilizing him, but here we are. their reasoning was “he’s literally 3 by the end of the show,” and that was it. And of course they weren’t wrong, but if you look at every time Jack or anyone else acknowledges his age:

D: “how old do you think you are?”

J: “3 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes”

Dean shrugs and lets him drink beer.

M: “You should be six months old.”

J: “I am…sort of.”

Mary shrugs and treats Jack like a teenager from there on out

M: “Do you ever hang out? I mean, with kids your own age?”

J: “Well, I’m two…enty. I’m twenty…two. I’m twenty-two.”

While the show acknowledges Jack’s actual age, it’s arguably on the same level of acknowledgment of Cas being literally older than time, because what people strangely fail to remember is that Jack is not completely human and doesn’t have the natural aging or developmental process that humans do. He’s three in the same way Vision is three, and Vision is already married with children. Beyond that, there are plenty of times when Jack is referred to as a teenager or treated like one, like Dean’s “he’s a millennial” joke in Last Holiday (wrongly termed but the intent is still there). Hell, even in the scripts they’ll directly say things like:

“Jack is spiraling out, a teenage powder keg,” (13x06 Tombstone, deleted writer’s draft)

“Kelly can’t help but smile, so impressed by the man he’s become, but not about to let him out of her sight,” (14x08 Byzantium, prod. draft)

that make it pretty clear Jack is functionally an adult despite his unnatural age, just like Cas or Amara or even Emma (also the added bonus that Jack explicitly hates being called a child or treated like one, but people literally reacted to that like “oh silly baby wants to be in charge like a grownup” so, like, I don’t even know what to do with that) (and banking off of that, every other time Jack is explicitly put into an adult situation, like flirting with Harper and literally asking Dean how to have sex, sooo many notes on that gif set were the same parroted “nooo baby boy don’t corrupt your innocent mind!! dean is such a bad influence 😂😂😂😂”, so the obtuseness is very intentional). I try not to be accusatory when I talk about the way Jack is treated in the fandom, as a general for online discussion and because I know it’s largely unintentional, but I really do think Destiel (and Sastiel) have some hand in it.

If you look at the majority of Baby!Jack content, it all centers around how domestic either ship is with baby!jack, how good Dean is with kids (baby jack) and how much of a sweet older sister Claire would be, etc. It’s all for the sake of domesticity. It’s the white picket fence family dream that canon TFW2.0 doesn’t really quite have. It’s to make Dean and Cas and Sam and Cas and Claire and Rowena and whoever else, a softer version of themselves. It’s never actually about Jack. He’s just the cannon fodder; the prop; the dress setting; the accessory. He’s there to make everyone else look better and to fuel them forward. No matter how much people want to argue that it’s “giving Jack the childhood he should’ve had,” we both know it’s not actually about him, because canon coming in with the steel chair again: Jack literally chose to be an adult. He hates being considered a child and has never expressed anything more than wanting to be a regular teenager. And like I said, people on spn-tok are naturally Destiel centered, so it’s honestly not very surprising that they just can’t let go of this content cow because it’s just too cute and wholesome and precious of course, despite it being rampant ableism and just generally annoying to people who actually do care about Jack in a deeper sense. Gag me. So maybe that explains the doubling down, but then what gets even more confusing to me is, like, you can have a domestic family AU that doesn’t rely on erasing a character to fit a specific image. You can have a domestic family AU without being ableist about it. You don’t have to do any of the things you keep consistently doing. You even fucking already it in the show! Canon TFW2.0 is dysfunctional on various levels, but so was TFW, and so were just Sam and Dean. It’s simply their dynamic, and it’s what adds to their family bond being what it is to begin with. Nothing you’re doing is something you need to.

I wanna stop before this gets longer than it has to be, but for one final thought I think the general lack of care for autistic people in any space is part of it, too. It’s why half of our representation is painfully inaccurate or egregiously offensive; it’s why fandoms of media with autistic/autistic-coded characters almost always rampantly infantilize them (cough cough SheRa). And like with Alex’s mannerism choices, it’s the distinct yet subconscious connection between autistic behaviors and childlike behaviors, because autistic people are so largely treated as incapable innocent children and cannon fodder for their autism warrior parents; both of which reflect like direct sunlight in Baby!Jack tropes. And it’s why people just don’t care enough to do anything about it, to heed any criticisms about the harm they’re doing, because to them it’s not harmful. It’s not a problem that’s doing any perceivably “real” damage because they haven’t been personally hurt by it (except when it comes to unfair Dean criticism or Sam or Cas criticism, because that’s clearly more important than ableist rhetoric and representation erasure), and probably because they already hold those views to autistic people in the real world.

The world at large does not care for autistic people, or disabled people in general. Nothing that hurts us is considered anything serious. Nothing that matters to us is considered valuable or worth respecting. And because of that, we already struggle in the real world day by day, so we turn to online spaces for connection and sharing our interests safely. We turn here for community, only to be met with the same indifference and rejection as the real world, because the same people we’re trying to avoid are here too, and then we have nowhere else.

•••

**im probably going to make this a separate post but I also want to talk about the weird cognitive dissonance that the fandom has with babyjack and how it’s pretty much considered “acceptable infantilization,” and how so many people in the fandom have said they want more complex jack but still engage with content that actively erases Jack’s complexity and relies on that erasure to make him what he is).

***edit: tags 4 reach, absolutely feel free to ask for removal! ik it’s out of the blue but you guys have had some of the better takes on jack lol @angelsdean @hauntedpearl @uh-ohspaghettio @queermania

[nabitoisdyingwithhomeworks]

Masterpost ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

Hello everyone! This is the artist! Call me Akirx please! Well lets start this. I organized this better because in the first I was lazy so lets start better! I will advice that sometimes I will upload some things like blood or some things like that.

RULES:

Don't talk about NFSW

Be respectful

Remember there are minors!

AUS:

╰┈➤ SHIPS╰┈➤ MASTERPOST PPT

╰┈➤ MY OPINION ╰┈➤ BIRTHDAYS!

EXPERIMENTS:

╰┈➤ Leonel Grambell || Alba Kritson || Callem Jones || Nicole Harris || Charlie Rojas || Theodore Grambell || Samhy Rojas || Amara Wilson || Miranda Grambell || Gabriel Miller || Cassie Jones || Clara Stacy || Felix Lambert || Juliet Guillen || Marie Payne || The Lambert's || Ayana Ludwig || Chris Payne || Sarah Williams || Sakori Williams || THE MINI CRITTERS/SMALL TOYS || BIGGER BODY || BIGGER BODY S.C

DEAD:

╰┈➤ Alexander Smith || Carles Addison || Kyle || Catherine || Harley || Brandon || Amira || Suzie Chavez || Erick || Sarah Williams || Sakori Williams || The leaders :p

HERETICS:

ROLES

FOLLOWERS(PRISIONERS):

ROLES

ANGELS:

Matthew Grambell || Regina Strooden || Samir Williams || Ethan Davis || Marina Harper || Kori Yamamoto || Isaac Jones

Who you can ask?:

Nell Grambell

Alba Guzmán

Callem Jones

Nicole Harris

Charlie Rojas

Theodore Grambell(SOMETIMES WHEN ITS NECESSARY)

Samhy Rojas

Amara Wilson

Miranda Grambell

Gabriel Miller

Cassie Jones (SOMETIMES WHEN ITS NECESSARY)

Clara Stacy (SOMETIMES WHEN ITS NECESSARY)

Felix Lambert

Juliet Guillen

Marie Payne

The Lambert's

Ayana Ludwig

Chris...

Alexander Smith

Carles Addison

Kyle

Catherine

Harley

Brandon

Amira

Suzie Chavez

Erick

Sarah Williams

Sakori Williams(SHE WON'T ANSWER IF YOU AREN'T THE PROTOTYPE, Or maybe yes..?)

I HOPE WE GET WELL!

[ninja-muse]

March was a productive month, and not just because I read a good number of books. I also started writing again after a bit of a slump, and I managed to unhaul 37 books from my home library, though some of them have not actually left the house yet. The used bookstore I went to didn't take everything so I have to decide which one I'm hitting next. Or if I'm dumping the bulk on a thrift store because let's be honest, most used bookstores aren't going to want what's left either.

Can you tell I got rid of that many? Only if you saw the state of things before. My shelves are neat and tidy with no books wedged on top of other books to make things fit.

And I was so, so close to ending the month without buying more books! I really thought I was going to manage it! And then, well, I mentioned the used bookstore, right? I've been meaning to read Delaney but few bookstores stock him, and Lincoln's Dreams is one of the only Connie Willis novels I don't own. (That shop also had stickers, and a cute bookmark I can't show you because whiting out the identifying features would ruin the effect.) Under the Smokestrewn Sky was a rescue, of sorts. Why return it to the publisher when you could just buy it, right?

Anyway, in terms of books read, there were some really good ones! And only one that was not so great. I think I'm done reading and collecting Rat Queens and might need to include those in the next unhaul. And don't get me wrong about the Evie Dunmore. It is a Good Historical Romance Novel. There's just something about it that didn't work for me.

Click through to see everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

I Love Russia - Elena Kostyuchenko, translated by Bela Shayevich and Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse

Portraits and memories of the unsung Russia—the poor, the broken, the marginalized.

10/10

🏳️‍🌈 author

warnings: so many, including but not limited to misogyny, homophobia, genocide, violence, sexual violence, drugs and alcohol, abuse, child death, suicide

reading copy

True North - Andrew J. Graff

The Brechts move to Michigan to restart a rafting business. They hope it’ll save their family, but it might do the opposite.

7.5/10

Menominee secondary character

library book

Sociopath - Patric Gagne

As a child, Patric knew something about her was off and kept countering a lack of feeling with dark acts. As a young woman, she learns the definition of “sociopath” and it changes everything. Out in April.

8/10

neurodivergent author

To a Darker Shore - Leanne Schwartz

When the invention that should have guaranteed Alesta's future fails, her best friend takes the fall and is sacrificed to the demon besieging their kingdom. To rescue him, Alesta must descend into hell, where she learns truths about her society—and her gods. Out in April.

8/10

fat protagonist, autistic main character, major autistic secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters, autistic author

warning: classism, strict religion, autism-related ableism

reading copy

The Temple of Fortuna - Elodie Harper

Amara’s living as a courtesan in Rome but misses her lover and daughter in Pompeii. When she returns to the city, her needs and desires are sent into turmoil—and Vesuvius has started to rumble.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Ethiopian secondary characters

warning: misogynist society, sexual violence, slave society

Funny Story - Emily Henry

What do you do when your partners dump you for each other? Move in together, of course! Out in April.

7.5/10

Iranian-American secondary character, Black secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic)

warning: toxic relationships, mainly in backstory

reading copy

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan

Tired of fulling expectations, Yeongju opens a bookshop. She’s not the only one to find happiness there.

7.5/10

Korean cast, Korean author

library ebook

Aftermarket Afterlife - Seanan McGuire

The Covenant has started actively pursuing the Prices and their allies, and all Mary wants to do is protect her family.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (lesbian, gay, bi man), Korean-American secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: canon-typical violence, bigots

library ebook

Knife Skills for Beginners - Orlando Murrin

Paul Delamare is filling in for a friend at a cooking school when a body is found on the premises.

6.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), Black British secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic)

reading copy

Let Them Tremble - Wolf Epley

The revolution is brewing and both the workers and the government refuse bend. Throw in a destroyed print shop, ghosts, and malfunctioning Shroud devices, and you know things won’t end well.

7/10

major disabled character (partial blindness, limp, hand disfigurement), cast largely of non-racialized colour

won/digital reading copy

The Gentleman’s Gambit - Evie Dunmore

Catriona needs to avoid distractions to write her book but is pressed to help her father’s new colleague around Oxford. Elias needs her help if he ever hopes to smuggle antiquities out of the Ashmolean.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (bi woman), Lebanese love interest, Lebanese secondary character

warning: colonial/orientalist characters

library book

Rat Queens, Vol. 5 - Kurtis J. Wiebe with Owen Gieni (illustrator)

Palisade’s problems continue, including hallucinations, a hipster bar, and a sinister wizard.

6/10

major Black character, major 🏳️‍🌈 character (lesbian), 🇨🇦

off my TBR shelves

Children’s Books

Penelope Rex and the Problem with Pets - Ryan Higgins

Mittens hogs the bed, eats from the trash, and causes all kinds of trouble—and Penelope didn’t even want them!

Currently reading

I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons - Peter S. Beagle

Robert doesn’t want to be the country’s dragon exterminator on the best of days, but then Princess Cerise meets Prince Reginald. Out in May.

reading copy

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin

A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character (limb injury), occasional Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 12 Yearly total: 32 Queer books: 4 Authors of colour: 1 Books by women: 8 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 1 Classics: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 1 Books hauled: 3 ARCs acquired: 5 ARCs unhauled: 7 DNFs: 0

January February

[semper-legens]

99. The Wolf Den, by Elodie Harper

Owned?: No, library Page count: 452 My summary: Amara is the lowest of the low. A slave and a prostitute at one of Pompeii's most notorious brothels, she's had to fight to stay alive and stay ahead of the game. Buying her freedom is an impossibility. So if Amara ever wants to return to the blissful past where she lived and breathed free, she's going to need all her wits about her. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

This was another random find on the shelves at work. My entry to being interested in history generally, and historical fiction specifically, was through Ancient Rome - long-time readers of this blog might remember me talking about the Roman Mysteries series, something I adored as a kid and still hold a lot of affection for. I haven't, however, read much fiction about ancient Rome meant for adults. But when this book crossed my path, I knew I wanted to check it out. The author wanted to shed light onto an aspect of Ancient Roman (or more accurately, ancient Pompeiian) society that is not spoken of as often - not just the lot of the woman, the slave, or the sex worker, but someone who is all three. And that makes this a really interesting novel in and of itself. I really enjoyed it, to the point that I tracked down the other two books in this trilogy and I'm gonna read them next!

I'm gonna talk about sex work, sexual slavery, rape, and other forms of sexual assault and harassment under the cut, so please be warned.

Our protagonist is Amara, a headstrong young woman who was born free, having been sold when her father died and her mother could no longer keep the family afloat. She was originally a concubine, but was bought by a pimp and became a sex worker. She's shrewd but struggles with despair, recognising that she's never going to be able to buy herself out of slavery and that she will need to be careful if she wants to survive. Amara consistently butts against her own morality. She takes loans from women for her predatory loan shark pimp, knowing he's exploiting them but needing her cut of the take. She makes opportunities for herself and the other girls, knowing she's putting them into danger. And that's the push and pull of Amara's character, she's trying to harden her heart to get the best she can out of life, but hates herself for it. It's a very realistic depiction of a person forced to the absolute edge by her circumstances, forced into making choices that she may or may not be able to live with just so that she can survive another day. It's notable that, as cold as Amara can be at times, your sympathy remains with her. Even when she's doing her most ruthless actions, you understand why and how she's been forced to this point. It's a tragedy, not a villain narrative, and the story understands and balances that really well.

Ancient Rome was not a nice place to live. Particularly as a slave. One thing I really admired about this book was its depiction of how slavery might have worked from the experience of an enslaved person. Amara is a commodity, her body is not her own, and neither is her life. Even when she is legally freed, she's still beholden to a patron as a concubine, hiding any true emotions she might have about him in order to play the fragile bird he wants to see. The girls are very matter-of-fact about how awful their lot in life is. We have Dido, a beautiful girl born free who doesn't take well to her life; Britannia, a fiery Briton who resists and rebels; Cassia, a woman worn down by years of forced sex work and losing a child that she kills herself; Paris, son of an enslaved sex worker who is forced into the same trade; Victoria, who is almost gaslit into loving Felix, their pimp. Even Felix has had a hard life. Also the son of an enslaved sex worker, he was abused as a child and young man - but that doesn't justify treating the girls the same way. But that's normalised in their society. Sexual abuse and harassment of enslaved women was normal and encouraged for freeborn men; the same for younger enslaved men. I think this book does a really good job of showing that, in a lot of these cases and particularly under Ancient Roman thinking, sexual assault like this isn't really about sex, it's about power. Men use their power over Amara constantly - they rape her, they force her into situations where she is powerless, they hurt and abuse her. She ends up having to attach herself to a rich patron in order to have a hope of getting away - and she's lucky he's not violent or abusive himself. But still. There's a man, Menander; another Greek like Amara, he's enslaved by a potter, and he and Amara strike up a genuine romance. Of sorts. They can barely ever meet and exchange notes via graffiti, and see each other maybe one every few months. And in the end, Amara is faced with a choice when Menander approaches her at a festival with a beautiful, thoughtful gift…in front of her new patron, Rufus. She scorns Menander and breaks the gift. And it breaks her heart! But Menander can't offer her freedom, can't offer her a way out of the Wolf Den, can't offer her anything but love. But Amara needs safety. So she makes her choice. It's a tragedy, but this is the lack of autonomy that enslaved people had in this era. And it's shown very organically and engagingly here.

The only real thing I have to criticise here is the writing style. Sometimes it's a little too plain or obvious - stating what a character is feeling or thinking directly when showing it might have been more effective, that sort of thing. It's not a dealbreaker for me, I still enjoyed the book, but it's something I kept noticing. The narrative also makes the choice not to actually depict any of the sex, which is fair enough as a choice (I get not wanting to over-eroticise or sexualise the abuse and exploitation that Amara and the others at the brothel experience) but does sometimes ring a little hollow in the specific choices made. Like, there's a few instances where Amara is mentioned as using her 'tricks', but the fact that we never learn what they are or what's actually going on…it just makes the author sound like she doesn't know what that might have been, and is just awkwardly papering over the cracks? It's awkward, I think that's the word I mean. Again, not a dealbreaker, and I totally understand the motivation there, it's just a little clunky in the wider context of the narrative.

Next, not too far away in subject, although a leap into the future. It's 1710 - welcome to Mother Clap's.

[fairysbookshelf]

The Wolf Den By Eloide Harper

Book Stats:

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️(3.5/5)

Spice Rating:🌶️🌶️(2/5)

Trigger Warning: Rape, Crude Language

Tropes: Myth/Ancient Retelling

Publisher: Union Square and Co.

Review:

Set in the ancient city of Pompeii, Amara is part of the “wolf den” or the town brothel. She was sold into slavery by her mother that desperately needed money after her father dies. Unlike her other friends in the brothel, her spirit is not broken. Amara is determined to find her own freedom again, but at what cost?

So, I think the major thing I enjoyed was the balance between feminism and traditional society standards. Amara understands her place in the world and wants to fight it but she also understands that she needs to use what she has-Men.

I enjoyed the characters a lot- I feel like the women especially had a lot of depth to them that you don’t normally find. Amara specifically felt as though she had more depth than normal main characters we see. In my opinion, I think the trauma of the brothel women is also written very very well.

I absolutely loved the world building/setting. The author paints a beautiful picture of ancient Pompeii. Especially the festival scenes.

Now on to the negatives. This book was HARD for me to read. It couldn’t keep me engaged and I had to read paragraphs a couple of times over before I understood what was going on. I understand this is a ancient retelling but I didn’t enjoy the writing style at all. I can usually finish a book like this in a day or two, but because of how hard my brain was trying to comprehend the writing style-it took me 5……

The plot I felt needed alittle more flushing out. The climax felt like it was in a werid place(instead of at 75%- it was at 85%- which I know isn’t a big deal but it felt like some of the smaller details could have been overlooked in favor of the plot in general) and the book felt unfinished-I know it a series, but go me it felt like the climax of the plot happened and then BAMM book over!

I think you will enjoy this book if your interested in ancient mythology and feminism. It is definitely a different take on the matter, one that I quite enjoyed!

[anexthetxc]

What are everyone's ideal types?

oh dang....I think this might be the first time I'll actually address my muses sexualities, I guess! Idk, tbh I still sometimes think about this question before you even asked! it's taken a bit of time writing them to figure it out and I'm still figuring some of them out, so this could change, but here's what I got

Amara: most likely someone that's casual and easy going. not someone who is soft, can hold their own, but also not too tough, either. someone she can open up to without fear of judgement

Aranya: she has a terrible track record of dating men that treat her like trash (not abusive, just a typical toxic fratboy male), so honestly her ideal type is the most chad dude ever...idk, I don't make the rules. she should start liking gentle guys, but she can't help it. she loves a confident man

Ari: realistically, she assumes any man she marries will be planned and never set up expectations. just guesses they'll be tough and strong willed. probably older. but after writing her for a minute, I'm quickly learning she feels emotional vulnerability for younger guys that she feels the urge to protect. not necessarily soft guys, just...certainly opposite from the "leader" vibe she assumes she'll marry. but she has a thing for really handsome guys. deep down she's a big softie

Biyu: anyone that makes her happy and makes her laugh. Biyu doesn't care about gender. if they make her feel happy, then she'll love them, has dated sugar babies in the past to amuse herself, but prefers to find someone her age with the same maturity level

Doyun: gender doesn't matter, but looks really do. not because she's selfish, she's just naturally drawn to attractive people. probably someone really photogenic. close to her own age. someone open to having a family one day

Hana: dreams of marrying rich just to quit her job tbh. gets really flustered around attractive guys, but if she sees a really pretty girl she'll smother her in confident compliments.

Harper: I've written Harper the longest, and she's really a chameleon. she's always bright and happy, so is naturally drawn to a more gloomy type in hopes of making them feel loved again. beauty and the beast plot. goes for people that don't know how to love.

Kai: a sportsy, charismatic guy. probably met them through her nephew. unintentionally falls for her nephew's teacher, coach, tutor...single dads? who knows. age doesn't matter much!

Kimi: she is a sucker for cute adorable girls. despite her never making any time for herself or making much money, she will spoil any girl she finds cute and definingly the more dominant in the relationship

Seoyun: a sucker for cute adorable guys. she makes a lot of money. will probably have a sugar baby. a guy she can spoil. has dated a few handsome ceo's in the past, but they're not very fun to her and she loves to have fun

Sorom: drawn to kind but cocky guys. has to be nice. caring and makes her feel appreciated, will allow them to let Sorom practice designs on. considering times I've written her in the past, probably younger. prince-like since she wants to be treated gently like a princess

Kasumi: her husband was her ideal type and has zero intention of dating again. would take like twenty years of being a widow before she'd consider dating. I can see her in a future plot where a sweet girl comes along and makes her feel happy again, which would turn in to a nice crush...ya never know!

Haewon: another bad track record of dating. goes for selfish chaebol guys. has a crazy fantasy of having cute kids with them in a big mansion with a perfect life...most likely will be ignored by said husband and hate her life. probably has an ex who is totally opposite of classy, like a criminal or something, that treats her better than any of her ideal guys do but she tosses them away since they're not up to her standards...inevitably regrets in and still lets them in her life

Soobin: she likes someone who is fun! they can't take themself too seriously and will silly dance with her in public. as an extrovert, will probably adopt and fall in love with someone introverted and try to get them to break out of their shell. watching their growth would bring her an immense happiness.

Areum: expectations of getting with another professor or someone who works in a university. just assumes they'll be boring and bland. sees a future where any vacations are to somewhere educational like historical tours or something...but she'd really like someone who forces her to break out of her habits and explore. someone her age or older, I don't think she's the type to date younger

Xinyu: since she's a doctor, probably ends up marrying an older doctor or hospital administrator. definitely not the type to date younger. she'd like to meet someone at work where they can kill time together. someone in healthcare where they can have heated arguments about bacteria or something...make funny healthcare jokes (probably dark humor since working in a hospital dose that to someone...not from personal experience or anything just...heard it from a friend once...totally not me)

Rina: no preferences of gender. prefers dating someone her own age. has a desire for someone who's explored the world. has a desire to travel everywhere with them -- maybe a business person who travels a lot for work and she goes with

Eunbin: has a thing for nerdy guys. glasses and too big button up shirts. probably wants to corrupt them, who knows, but her love language is teasing so she likes to make them blush and all flustered

[perawrites]

i've been bingeing the wolf den trilogy by elodie harper, and i'm wondering.. did anyone else feel an insane sense of betrayal for menander?

amara praying to know love's power if never its kindness and the things that follow, it haunts me. i have never felt more heartbroken for two characters that love each other.

[lumenumbrae]

Remembering Amara - Chapter 2: Lost & Found

It was becoming increasingly clear that in her unexplained devotion to me, one benefit of living with Harper was her consistency in preparing meals. The four of us sat around the dining room table, Ava and I on one side facing Maya and Harper, all eating the array of fried eggs and biscuits & gravy Harper had spent the morning cooking.

It was lucky I was not an early riser. While I felt comfortable passing time alone with Harper, between Maya’s distrust of me and the scene Ava and I shared last night which I assumed neither of us would ever bring up again, I would be at a loss for how to converse with those two with Harper preoccupied.

Although, I suppose it wasn’t too different now. We all sat in a somewhat awkward silence after serving ourselves from the dishes Harper set down. I had just tasted my first piece of biscuit, the savory umami of the sausage co-mingling with the creamy texture of the gravy, and was going to pay my compliments to the chef when a strange scene caught my eye.

Maya was reaching for more eggs and bread, her plate empty. I had definitely already seen her take food when I did. These were seconds. In the time it had taken me to take a single bite, she had finished what, if I recall correctly, was already a hefty portion. I decided to put my hypothesis to the test and take a break from eating to observe the elusive creature.

After pouring about 1,200 calories atop the ceramic dish, she lifted her fork but did not commence eating before peeking around the table to see if anyone had eyes on her. Ours met for only the briefest second before I cast my gaze downward in disguise. I left them there for around a dozen seconds before figuring the coast was clear, but when I lifted them again, I was met with her empty plate, and she was helping herself to thirds.

I turned to my compatriot and asked, “Have you known Maya very long?”

Ava quickly finished swallowing a bite before saying, “We met Maya our freshman year of high school.”

“Has she always eaten like a cryptid?”

“Yes. Trying to watch Maya eat is one of my goals for this year. She always seems to elude my prying eyes,” Ava explained.

“I have personally taken it upon myself to accompany her to the cafeteria each day to make sure she doesn’t eat so much she dies,” Harper chimed in.

“I would never do that,” Maya scowled.

“I don’t know,” I said, “you’re already exceeding my daily caloric intake and we’re approaching 7:30 am.”

She made a disapproving gesture and used her fork to play with the food on her plate, likely waiting for us to distract ourselves from her eating habits before she could resume.

“How long have you and Harper been friends then?” I asked Ava, giving Maya some reprieve.

“What?” Harper said, seemingly shocked. “You know that, already.”

Maya stood up, hitting her palms against the table, once more inviting all eyes on her. Her plate was again empty. We all stopped to look at her

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“We have a good 15 minutes before we need to go,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m still eating,” Harper added.

“I have things I need to do before class,” she said.

“That’s fine, I really don’t care if you’re late. I’ll still mark you present.”

A frown crossed her face when I said this. She was quick to wipe it away, but a rare tinge of guilt struck me.

“Fine,” I relented, “let’s go.”

“But I’m still eating!” Harper repeated.

“Take it with you,” I told her, which she ended up doing, walking to school shoveling the food into her mouth and shielding it from the falling cherry blossom leaves.

***

“Just ask Dad,” Harper chirped.

“Fuck face has made it clear he is not helping us with anything,” Amber shot back.

“I’m sure if you were a little bit nicer, James would be more than happy to assist,” Ava said.

“Is no one going to call me Professor Reed?” I asked the girls. I had been napping at my desk all morning but was awoken by the trio squabbling over something so I decided to investigate.

“Fuck off with your weird power trip,” Amber yelled.

“Ava’s right you know. You’d get a lot farther in life with a personality adjustment,” I told the girl. Amber's hair was let down today, in far-apart waves, and I was just now noticing how unique her jet-black strands paired with her dark blue eyes really were. Amber was struggling with some worksheet Sofia had handed out.

For her part, Amber just shot daggers at me.

“Actually, you might be pretty enough I’ll help you anyway,” I said.

A look of disgust pinched her nose. “Please leave us alone.”

“Yeah, why are you flirting with Amber out of all of us,” Ava inquired.

“What the fuck?” Amber protested.

“What is it you all are even working on?” I tried to steer the subject in a new direction. "I don't assign work, remember? Is Sofia staging a coup d’etat?”

“Even if you don’t assign work, we still have the Amara Exams twice a year, which we need to pass,” Harper told me. “Sofia wrote some study guides, so we’re just going over them to figure out if there are any areas we need to work on over the next few months.”

“Yeah, and Amber doesn’t understand any of it,” Ava added.

“Shut the fuck up!” Amber yelled.

“Is that true, Amber?” I asked. “Do you really not understand any of it?”

“She ended up in this class ‘cause she skipped basically all of her senior year,” Ava said.

“I said shut the fuck up!” Amber grabbed the collar of Ava’s shirt, pulling her towards her. Harper gasped and grabbed Ava’s shoulders without much plan for what else to do, but Amber quickly composed herself and dropped Ava.

“Now, now Professor Reed, I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that you have so quickly lost control of your class,” Emily had snuck up behind me.

“I don’t think I’ve lost control. This is all part of my Montessori-style teaching philosophy. Now remember, Ava, you have to pick your battles.”

"I wasn't trying to choose a battle," Ava said, whimpering a little bit, "I was just trying to tell you something." It was clear she was a lot more shaken up than I had initially suspected. Amber seemed to notice this, too.

“Sorry, Ava,” she muttered. “I just got a little angry.”

“Wow,” Emily said. “I guess I was wrong. Even your mere presence among these young and impressionable minds is having a positive impact on their disposition. I will take it upon myself to nominate you for teacher of the year, Professor Reed.”

“And for my part, Emily, I will humbly thank you for calling me by my proper title,” I responded. “Are you alright, Ava?” I asked.

“Yes,” she mumbled, her pride more hurt than anything else.

“Well then, Amber. If you’re really struggling, I’m happy to help you study, but that’s a path you’re going to have to choose for yourself. You can always talk to me here, or in my office after class, but that’s the last time I’m going to bring it up,” I told her. “It’s your choice. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I have a nap to get back to.”

“Whatever,” she muttered.

***

Harper's dainty fingers had a grip strength most would underestimate, and she had my digits clenched tight as she pulled me excitedly forward. We had gone back home like any other day, only this time I did the required hours in my office like a good guidance counselor, and no one visited me. Not even Amber.

When I got back to the house, Harper explained to me her new favorite girl group, some outfit called L8th4rgic, pronounced Lethargic but commonly operating under the nickname '84'. The demonym for fans being 84'rs, of which Harper was a proud member.

She cooked dinner and sat next to me while we watched TV and ate, close enough that our hips touched and our arms rubbed with every movement. In many ways, it felt like a lovesick date, her staring up at me with a beaming smile every time I spoke and filling me in on the odd hobby or aspiration she had, all the while some soap she enjoyed played as white noise in the background.

After she finished with the dishes, her face lit up with and idea and she told me she had to show me something and to put on my shoes. When I asked what it was, she told me it was her room. I could’ve sworn her room was located indoors. In our very house, even.

And so here I was, being dragged by the hand to campus by my daughter, wondering what supposedly secondary room she had. Perhaps a murder basement of some kind.

When we arrived at the cathedral, we veered left and coasted alongside the church’s walls until we met some cellar steps. Without providing me any time to inquire if this was some sort of murder basement, Harper dragged me down the cement stairs to a thick wooden door, which she flung right through.

Inside was a slightly dingy hallway dressed in musky carpet that seemed to hold some perpetual degree of moisture; but overall, it was nicer than I was expecting. The lights along the ceiling were bright but warm and yellow. The wall paint seemed on the newer side, without any grime or chipping. There was a vending machine at the end, a perfumy scent wafted through the air, and alongside either side of me were four sets of doors, eight in total.

“So, do I get any sort of hint yet?” I asked.

She turned to scowl at me, "You really haven't figured it out?"

I just shrugged, and in reply she pulled even harder on me, leading me to the last door on the left and, too, swinging herself right through.

Inside I was greeted with a fairly decent size, college-dorm bedroom. A twin bed on either side, with desks at the foot of each bed and a wardrobe beside each, along with a small table with bean bag chairs for seats in the middle. The right side clearly belonged to Harper as it had cut-outs from fashion magazines, boy band posters, plushies littering the bed, and an overall maximalist teenybopper feel. The left side was much more bare. Some books on floating shelves screwed into the wall above the bed, a generic gray comforter, and a violin case perched against the desk. But thanks to my excellent deduction skills, I was able to ascertain with reasonable accuracy who this side belonged to, and it was all thanks to my prudent observation that Maya was sitting cross-legged atop her ugly bedding, reading a book.

“Why did you have to bring him to where I live?” she asked without any intonation.

“Hey, I live here, too,” Harper replied.

Maya just sighed and returned her eyes to the book, not once making eye contact with me.

“So you guys have dorms, huh? And no security, or even a lock on the front door?” I asked.

“Jesus Christ, you’re a pervert,” Maya spoke into her book.

“How do you know I wasn’t asking that out of concern for my student’s safety?”

"Were you?" she asked, not looking up.

“I was not.”

“Don't you think it's pretty?" Harper asked, grabbing my hand once more to drag me to her bed. We both sat on the edge, her legs crisscrossed while mine remained planted on the floor, and the depression in the mattress pushed our hips together.

“Yes, your side is very pretty,” I told her and glanced up at Maya to see any reaction. There was none and she continued to ignore my existence. “Where is the rest of the school though? This isn’t big enough for the whole student body.”

“There are other little alcoves like this around the building. Four total, one for each class. This one is the only underground one, and the smallest since we don’t have many people in our class,” she explained.

“And so all of my class lives here?” I asked.

"Yup, on the left side, it's us, Lily and Emily, then Kira and Sofia, then an empty room. And on the right, it’s Ava and Iris, Natalie and Amber, and an empty room.”

“Why are you providing the predator with blueprints?” Maya scolded.

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “I know how jealous you get, but I promise I’ll drop by to see you.”

With that, Maya slammed her book shut, slid off the bed to her feet, and without ever looking at either of us, walked to her wardrobe where she retrieved her pajamas and a towel and made for the front door.

“Oh? Where are the showers located?” I called, but she slammed the door shut behind her. Turning to Harper I asked, “Do you have any idea why she hates me so much?”

Harper smiled at her ankles, and with the two of us alone, leaned into my side.

“She doesn’t hate you,” she said, “but if you keep teasing her, she’s gonna keep giving you a hard time.”

“No, I think I’m pretty good at clocking the tsundere types. She just hates me.”

Harper tilted her head to look up at me, the side of her face using my upper arm as a pillow. “She can be like that with everyone. But she does care a lot about people. And you might not believe it, but she’s the sweetest person in the world when it’s just us.”

“Not with Ava?”

Harper frowned slightly. "Her and Ava never got super close. Like, they're friends, sure. Which is saying something since I'm not sure I'd say Maya actually has any other friends, but they're not like her and me."

“And you and Ava are pretty close?” I asked, at this point just making small talk since I already knew the answer. I continued staring forward, but after a few moments of silence, looked down at my daughter. She had a listless glint in her eye and was no longer looking at me, although her head stayed pressed against my arm.

“Harper?” I prodded.

“Listen,” she started, quietly. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

Harper took a deep breath and found a corner of the table to stare at before she spoke, "I'm really sorry. About everything. I wish you never left. I know I fucked up everything and can never take it back. And I'll happily spend my entire life trying to make it up to you. But also," her breathing had become ever so slightly ragged as if her anxiety were spiking, "I'm so happy that you're here. I can't even put it into words." She turned to stare at me, and I returned the stare, her eyes wide and pleading. An urgency took over her voice, “I love you so much. I’ll do anything for you. Please, just tell me what I can do to make you forgive me.”

YOU LAUGH. OBVIOUSLY, SHE CAN DO NOTHING TO EARN YOUR FORGIVENESS. SHE IS TRASH. MADE ONLY AS A CHEAP FUCKTOY TO BE USED UNTIL SHE BREAKS. YOU LAUGH SO HARD THAT YOUR THROAT BEGINS TO SCRATCH AND BLEED. YOU KEEP LAUGHING, SPEWING DROPLETS OF SHREDDED ESOPHAGUS ONTO HER CHEEKS AND FOREHEAD. SHE THANKS YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY.

PEELING THE TAGS OF RED FLESH PIECEMEAL FROM HER FACE, SHE GENTLY PLACES THEM EACH ONTO HER OUTSTRETCHED TONGUE, SAVORING THE MEAL YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR HER. SHE IS YOUR DAUGHTER AND IT IS YOUR JOB TO TAKE CARE OF HER. AFTER SHE EATS, YOU WILL BATHE HER.

SHE REMOVES HER CLOTHING AND STANDS BEFORE YOU NUDE, HER TINY NIPPLES ERECT AND THE SMALL AMOUNT OF FAT SURROUNDING THEM BLUSHING PINK. THE TAUT STRETCH OF HER DIAPHANOUS SKIN ALLOWS EVERY RIVET OF THE SUBCUTANEOUS MUSCLE AND BONE TO BE VISIBLE. THE ROUND OUTGROWTH OF HER PETITE ABDOMEN TAPERS DOWN BETWEEN THE SHARP EDGE OF HER PELVIC BONE, POINTING LIKE AN ARROW TO THE BARE FLESHY MOUND OF HER PUSSY WHICH IS SO TIGHTLY PACKED AND DOWNTURNED, HER VULVA ISN’T VISIBLE FROM WHERE SHE STANDS.

THIS WILL NEVER WORK. SHE IS STILL FAR TOO DRESSED TO EVER BECOME CLEAN. YOU HAVE TO CLEAN HER. IT IS YOUR JOB.

YOU STAND BEFORE HER, AND USING YOUR NAILS, YOU DIG INTO HER SOLAR PLEXUS LIKE YOU’RE TEARING THROUGH SARAN WRAP AND PEEL BACK HER FLESH TO REVEAL THE THIN STRANDS OF MUSCLE DRAPING HER RIB CAGE AND THE SMALL CLUMPS OF ADIPOSE TISSUE WHICH MAKE UP HER UNDEVELOPED BREASTS.

THIS ENTIRE GIRL IS 20 GRAMS OF PROTEIN. YOU WILL NEVER HIT YOUR MACROS. THAT IS OKAY. YOU STILL LOVE HER.

SHE LOVES YOU. SHE THANKS YOU FOR BEING SUCH A GOOD FATHER.

“Dad! Can you hear me?!”

Harper shook my shoulders and I looked at her a little confused. We were sitting on the bed next to each other, but she had turned fully towards me, her legs still crossed, but her hands clenching both of my arms. Tears were streaming down her face and she looked terrified.

"What are you doing?" I asked, as calmly as possible to not upset her even more.

She flung her arms around me and buried her head into my chest, sobbing.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry,” she cried in between choked tears.

After hesitating for a moment, I wrapped my arms around her, and gently pet her spine with my fingertips.

“What happened?”

She struggled to sputter out the words between her gasps, “You just froze in place. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m stupid. You just got here. I’m sorry I keep messing up.”

“Brought up wha –” I tried to ask, but the bullet that had a habit of appearing between my eyes returned with a vengeance and instead I finished my thought by letting out an involuntary yelp, pushing Harper away hard enough that she landed on her back against her pillows, and threw my head into my hands.

“Dad!” she screamed, lunging back towards me but not knowing what to do when she arrived, “are you okay? What’s happening?”

“It’s okay Harper, just let me talk to him for a minute.” I looked up to find Maya standing in the room in her pajamas, her damp hair tangled and her used towel cast over her arm.

“You enter rooms extremely quietly, has anyone ever told you that?” I asked, my headache having become dormant once more.

“No. That’s not something people typically remark on.”

Harper kept her grip on me, confused and anxious. “Are you alright, Dad?”

“Yes, I’m fine now. Sorry, it was just a migraine.”

“You’re getting headaches?” Maya asked, a hint of genuine concern in her voice. “How often?”

“Three in the last two days. But they only last a second or two.”

“Harper, Professor Reed will meet you back at home,” Maya said.

“But –” Harper tried to protest.

“We just need to talk about something.”

I didn’t expect Harper to actually abandon me given how clingy and concerned she was, but after deliberating for a few seconds, her eyes bouncing between the two of us, she gave me a kiss on the cheek and with a promise she would see me soon, she left. It was just Maya and I in the room and it made the air grow stale.

I tried to add some levity, “If you really wanted us to have a room to ourselves all night, we could’ve just –”

“Shut up. Please, shut up. God, you are so difficult.” She walked over and took Harper’s spot on the bed, sitting closer to me than I would have ever expected from her, but still leaving a few more inches than Harper did. Not only was she the shortest girl in class, but it would appear most of her height was in her legs. With our hips flush, she was no more than half my size. I looked down at her mop of dark hair clinging to the shape of her skull and tousled in uneven layers. “Is anything else happening? Besides the headaches?”

“I’ve had some weird dreams. I think I had another just now. Either that, or I was hallucinating. Harper said I froze.”

Maya let out a contemplative sigh.

"You know, you sigh an awful lot," I said.

She shot an angry look at me. “Why are you the way that you are?”

“Better question, why are you acting so serious all of a sudden?”

“I’m always being serious. You’re the one who can’t stop behaving like a horny teenager.”

“It helps me better relate to my pupils.”

She stood up and I assumed I had pissed her off enough to end the conversation prematurely. Instead of leaving, however, she walked to her nightstand and opened a drawer. From inside, she pulled out a small crocheted blankie of blue, green, and white. One made for a newborn.

She carried it back over to me and tossed it on my lap.

“Feel it,” she commanded. I did as I was told and touched the blanket. It was a little scratchy and clearly very old.

“No,” she said, “really feel it. Play with it, between your fingers. Smell it even.”

I didn’t go so far as to smell it, but I did pinch at the wide yarn and run the pad of my thumb across the frayed strands. I even poked a few fingers through the openings between the pattern. It was intensely pleasurable. Once I started, I had no desire to stop.

“How did you get here?” she asked, returning to her seat next to me.

“Harper dragged me. Literally, she dragged me by the arm,” I said, still fingering the blanket.

“No. I mean two days ago. How did you get from Virtopia to Amara?”

"Oh," I tried to think. I felt the pierce of the migraine return but instinctively I grabbed a fistful of the blanket and it never materialized. "Um…" I continued trying to remember exactly what my journey from Virtopia to Amara looked like, but I was having trouble with my recall.

“You can’t remember,” she stated.

“It was really late when I got in. I think I went straight to bed. It must have fogged my memory or something.”

“It didn’t and you didn’t get in late, either. You woke up in Amara. That morning, with Harper knocking at your door, was the first time you ever woke up.”

“What?” I asked, dropping the blanket from my hands. Immediately, I felt my vision began to fade. Maya yanked it from my lap and shoved it into my face, bringing me back to full focus like smelling salts on a fainter.

“Hold it there,” she instructed.

I felt a little infantilized, but I held the blanket to my chin and rubbed it along my cheeks. It felt so good. It smelled so good, like the familiar scent of your pillowcase after you've been away on a trip.

“What other memories do you have?” she asked. “Not counting the last 48 hours, tell me any single memory you have.”

I thought back. I remembered walking with Harper in the halls yesterday. She had remarked that I was a teacher back in Virtopia, and I agreed. That must be because I remembered being one. I tried to recall exactly what that memory was, but couldn’t. All I could remember was telling her that it was a different type of teaching. Why did I say that?

I must’ve said it because... I couldn’t remember ever teaching in a normal classroom, so I assumed I had taught in a different modality. I didn’t question the lack of memory at the time, my mind just made logical sense of my confusion to accommodate me. I couldn’t remember anything.

But it was strange, I didn't feel like how I imagined people with amnesia felt. There were no missing gaps or sense of incompleteness. I felt perfectly whole. Nothing about this lack of remembrance felt uncanny or dysphoric. It felt natural.

“You’re brand new,” Maya told me. “It’s samsara.”

“What is that?”

She blessed me with her contemptuous stare. “Samsara. The cycle of death and re-birth.”

“I reincarnated?” I asked.

“If you want to think about it like that, go ahead.”

“Well, how should I think of it?”

Her scornful look grew more irritated. “I can’t tell you everything. You need to figure it out on your own. Even if I could, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Then where is Harper’s real Dad, the real James Reed?”

Maya let out a sigh, but this was not one of exacerbation and instead a seemingly heavy sadness. “I don’t know. You are, I guess. That is his body you’re inside of.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just told you I can’t tell you everything.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

She paused for a few seconds. “Because I’m hoping that with what I was able to give you, you’ll trust me a little bit.”

“Why do I need to trust you?”

“I’m going to need you to do things for me sometimes. Or not do things. And everything will be so much easier if you just don’t ask questions.”

“What kind of things?”

“I’ll tell you when it comes up, but there’s only one important one for right now.”

“What is it?”

She looked up at me, "Do not engage with me. Do not even acknowledge my existence. Leave me alone and pretend I don't exist just like I plan on doing for you."

“Oh fuck off, Maya.” She was pulling my leg, tricking me with some elaborate backstory just for another chance at berating me. I stood up and tossed her little blanket to the ground, marching out of her and Harper’s dorm room and into the hallway. With the closed door to my back, I stopped to think.

I didn't know what was happening to me. It didn't ever occur to me I was missing large chunks of my memory, but it was true. I couldn't seem to pull up anything from before waking up in Harper's house. Still, I had all my general knowledge. I was sure I knew the rules of chess and how to drive a car, about Virtopia and Amara. If I truly was 'reborn' then I shouldn't have any memory. Unless I had somehow taken over the real James' body. Then maybe I lost all of his episodic memory when I took over but retained his procedural memory.

I didn't know if I could trust Maya or not, and I didn't have any concept of what was going on with my brain, but I took solace in one comforting fact. None of it mattered. I didn't actually care if I was reincarnated, or if while I slept Maya injected me with a synthetic cocktail of memory-erasing drugs to manipulate me to do her bidding, or if I was an AI sent by NovaCorp to infiltrate Amara, or if I just had brain cancer.

I couldn’t remember why, but I did know for a fact that I had come here because I had given up on my life in Virtopia. And that here in Amara I was not going to fall victim to the Sisyphean pursuit of forming relationships, chasing career success, and being ambitious. All of that was nonsense people convinced themselves was necessary to lead a happy life when in reality it was all performance. They were just hollow shells desperate for some identity they could wear in front of others lest they wilt under their own insecurity.

I did not care about what performance I put on. I only cared about what I wanted.

“Don’t tell me you came all this way to see me, James?” a lovely voice hummed. I turned to meet Ava. Gorgeous, kind Ava who, for reasons anyone could speculate, was infatuated with me. That was exactly what I wanted.

“I don’t see anyone else here,” I answered. She had just entered the hall, and since Harper and Maya’s room was across from hers, it did sort of look like I was waiting outside her door.

She did a sultry catwalk towards her door, turning her back to me to enter, but then twirling her head making a dramatic flash of blonde hair fly over her shoulder. She pouted at me through her long, black lashes, "Well then, come inside."

It may have been in my head, but it felt like she spoke those last two words with the intent of innuendo.

I followed her into the unlit room, assuming that meant Iris must be out somewhere, and so was sorely disappointed when I made out the figure of the thin girl on the bed to the right. Ava flicked on the light, coloring the space, and at least furniture-wise, it was set up the same way as Maya and Harper's. Rather than a clear half-and-half split in aesthetic, their room had a bit more stylistic cohesion. They both had blue bedding and art decorated on all four walls. The only real difference was the desks, where Iris had notebooks and manga piled high, and Ava's was cluttered with makeup and had a mirror leaned against the wall to form a makeshift vanity.

Iris was wearing an oversized hoodie that her bare matchstick legs protruded out of. She had her knees pulled to her forehead, and if the hoodie were just an inch or so shorter, I’d be able to make out her panties. She was also crying into her arms. Goddammit.

“Iris, what’s the matter,” Ava abandoned her coquetish affect and adopted a higher pitch of concern, running over to Iris. The shy girl looked up, the whites of her eyes red, and streaks of salt water drenching lines into her cheeks. She made to speak but then noticed me standing on the threshold.

“P-professor Reed?!” she yelped, still quiet enough to not wake a baby but louder than I'd heard her speak up until this point.

“Hello, Iris,” I said, closing the door behind me and approaching the girls.

“Are you allowed in here?" she asked, returning to a decibel level I not only had to strain my ears to catch but then also use deductive reasoning to fill in the bits I missed.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably not. At the very least, the optics look bad.”

“It’s fine,” Ava said. “He can always say he was just visiting his daughter, which is why I’m guessing he was here in the first place.”

Maybe I underestimated Ava. I assumed she really was so lovestruck she thought I somehow figured out which room was hers and waited outside for her to return, but it would appear that was not the case. She was realistic after all. I should remember that. I wouldn’t want to accidentally ruin any chance I have of sleeping with her by overstepping my bounds during this weird roleplay we’ve got going on that I still don’t fully understand the rules to.

“What’s going on, Iris? Why are you crying?” Ava continued.

Iris just shyly looked up at me, clearly not feeling comfortable having this conversation while I stood over both of them.

“Did Amber do something again?” Ava asked.

“Amber?” I said, surprised. “I knew she was kind of a bitch, but is she bullying my students?”

“No, it’s fine,” Iris whispered between her legs.

"No, it's not!" Ava told her. She turned to me, "I don't know what Amber's deal is. Sometimes it's like she's a bully, sometimes it's like she's just naturally a little aggressive and doesn't actually mean to hurt other people's feelings. But for whatever reason she keeps picking on Iris."

“Ava, stop, please,” Iris pleaded.

“Alright,” I said. “It’s clear you two need some alone time. But Iris,” I paused after her name, waiting for her to look up at me, which she eventually did. “I’m your teacher and guidance counselor, and if you’re being bullied, I’ll help you in any way I can. My office is always open after class if you want to talk.”

“Okay,” she whimpered, returning her gaze to her knees.

I gave Ava a slight nod and left the room. I didn’t really know why I offered to help Iris. I definitely didn’t want to get involved in any drama, but perhaps it could help me win over her good graces and thus be another step to forming an eventual harem of my proteges.

Still, part of me was also hoping she would not visit me at all, and I could put this whole episode behind me with the guilt-free conscience that I offered to help.

When I got back home, Harper was waiting for me, jumping on top of me like a dog whose owner returned from work. I fended off her questions with vague platitudes about being fine and she eventually dropped her inquiry into my strange behavior.

***

I had begun to reach an impasse. Certainly, showing up every day to work disavowing the possibility of ever actually doing any work sounds really nice in theory. In practice, however, it gets really boring, really quickly. It was only my third day and I was already exhausted after doing nothing but watching the girls talk among themselves, get into petty arguments, read, play music, and fidget for five straight hours.

I would need to figure out some way to occupy my time. Trying to teach them didn’t seem like a worthwhile pursuit, but maybe I could think of something else to liven up my day.

To make matters worse, I no longer had the free entertainment of beautiful women humming and hawing around me now that I was dutifully putting in my required 3 hours of ‘guidance counselor’ time in my office.

I was seated on the luxurious, overstuffed, red leather swivel chair behind the elegant large mahogany desk. The walls around me were retrofitted with similarly wood-grained bookshelves filled with encyclopedias or something, and in the large space before me was a Persian rug centered atop the wood floor, a long dark wooden coffee table on top, and two green loveseats facing each other on either side. I had no clue what this office was originally designed for since it seemed too fancy for a guidance counselor, but maybe the living area space was to make students feel more comfortable while discussing their issues.

It didn't really matter. No one had visited me yesterday, and I was only able to kill some time by masturbating before my refractory period disabled that option for a while. And today was seemingly no different. It had been an hour already, which meant everyone had already gone home. The only reason for the extra two hours I had to stay was to fulfill some arbitrary 40 weekly hours, I assumed. I should ask Sofia about it. She's the one who has been filling me in on my obligations to date. She also promised to submit my time card for me this week. I should ask her how much I get paid.

There was a light tap on the door, small enough to make me question if it was a genuine knock or just the building’s frame settling. I had a pretty good idea of who it might be.

“Come in,” I commanded.

The door slowly turned to reveal a small girl with identical loose blonde braids. I wondered if she did that hairstyle every morning or if she did it once a long time ago and never took it out. Her hair wasn't greasy, although, with dark matte blonde like that, it can be kind of hard to tell. Maybe I should try touching it. After all, if I plan on taking it upon myself to teach her how to be more confident, I might as well throw in teaching her how to shower, too. We could shower together. Just to show her the ropes.

"H-hi," she breathed, closing the door behind her and slowly walking towards my desk. I didn't know if I was supposed to offer the couch so we could both sit, but I decided just to let her stand. Something told me making the environment less formal might have an adverse effect on a girl like her.

“It’s just us, Iris. You can speak a little louder,” I told her.

“S-sorry,” she said, not increasing the volume of her voice.

“What’s up?” I asked.

She just stared at her shoes, highlighting her petite nose and duck lips. She looked absolutely adorable, and while I didn’t mind observing the thing’s feminine beauty, I also did not like having my time wasted.

“Iris? Did you have something to talk to me about?”

“Amber,” she whispered.

“What about Amber?” I pressed.

Again, she didn’t answer.

“Iris. Talk to me.”

“S-sorry, this was a mistake,” she spun around and rapidly made for the door before I could get up to do anything. As luck would have it, at that moment the door swung open and an obstacle froze Iris in her tracks. It was Emily.

“Oh, hi Iris,” Emily said, seemingly pleasantly surprised. “Are you here to talk about what happened with Amber?” she asked.

Iris gave a microscopic nod.

“Perfect, that’s why I’m here, too.” She waltzed in, grabbing the sleeve of Iris’ shirt, and drug her back to me.

“You’re here to discuss Amber, too, Emily?”

“Yes, I’m shocked Iris beat me to it. Although, knowing her, I assume you didn’t get much out of her, so allow me to be her Cyrano. Amber has always had a short temper, and something about Iris’ indelible sweetness has had the unfortunate effect of working as a catalyst. Any time the two are in the same space together, Amber always ends up screaming at her to speak louder and asks rhetorical questions like 'Why is she such a pussy.' Her words.”

“Well, that is unacceptable,” I replied.

“Yes, I agree. And you should talk to the perpetrator about it. However, while I would never even conceive of victim blaming, it is hard to ignore the fact that Amber does have a point.”

“Yes, Emily, she does,” I said. At this point, Iris was desperately fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, trying her best to ignore us both. In her involvement with the fabric, she did not notice how far up her legs she pulled it. Yet again, I was so close to seeing her panties.

“Eyes up here, Professor Reed. Trust me, I, too, often find myself enthralled by Iris’ delicate body, but we must not get distracted.” At Emily’s words, Iris clutched the skirt tighter which managed to flash me the slightest glimpse of white panties. I looked up at her, and she had a knowing smirk on her face.

“Well, go on, what do you propose?” I asked.

“You will teach Iris to be more assertive. If you’re anything like the kind of guy I think you are, you have no problem taking whatever you want. And that is precisely the kind of influence Iris so desperately needs.”

"Hmm… Maybe you're right. How does that sound to you, Iris?"

“O-okay,” she whispered, clearly just desperate to escape the situation.

“Alright, well then I accept. I’ll teach you how to stand up for yourself, Iris. It’d be my honor.” Really, I was hoping I could use this excuse to weasel myself into more alone time with her. Although, if she remained this debilitatingly shy, I was doubtful anything could ever happen between us, so it would serve my best interest to help her overcome her social anxiety.

“Wonderful, you may go now Iris,” Emily permitted, “I still have a matter to discuss with Professor Reed.”

“O-okay,” she said and scurried out of my office.

“So, what business do you and I have?” I asked.

“Semi-related. While I do think it is a good idea for you to teach Iris some gusto, especially if it were to lead to some elicit whirlwind student-teacher relationship beginning with you taking her virginity and ending with you teaching her how to be a kinky cock hungry whore, I still cannot, in good faith, let Amber’s behavior go completely unpunished,” she explained.

“Okay, let’s revisit the cock hungry whore thing real quick. I know I would want that. But why would you want that?”

“Oh, Professor Reed, nothing gets me wetter than imagining a mysterious, tall man blowing into an all-women's school and corrupting every member of the student body."

“My daughter is a member of the student body,” I reminded her in an attempt to poke at what sort of moral compass she was working with. Clearly a broken one as her eyes lit up at the thought. She quickly composed herself.

"That's neither here nor there. The point is, I have a little bit of revenge planned for tonight. In exchange for the juicy stories I'm sure you'll tell me when you begin fucking these girls, I will let you watch. I promise it'll be worth your while. Meet me at my dorm room at 8 tonight.” She winked at me, slid her glasses up her nose to which they instantly fell back down, and without allowing any more questions, left my office.

I suppose my office hours weren’t such a waste of time after all.

***

I did my best to recollect which door was Emily’s based off of Harper’s explanation of the floor plan, and on the door I was pretty sure belonged to her room, there was a post-it note. It just said, 'First door on the right'. So, I suppose that was where I was supposed to go. I was pretty sure the first door on either side were just empty dorms, and I still had no idea what sort of revenge Emily had planned.

When I opened the door, I was met with a rush of humid air to my face and my shoes squeeked against the bathroom tile flooring. This must be the showers, and by the spatter of water echoing from the acoustic walls, one of them was running. The room was divided into two sections. The one I had stepped into had three bathroom stalls lining a wall, and opposite them was a partition with sinks and a mirror. On either side of that wall was an archway leading to the second section which I assumed was the showers.

I leaped a little in surprise when the door opened behind me.

“Ah, perfect timing,” Emily whispered to me.

“What are we doing here?” I whispered back.

She just put her index finger to her lip to mimic shush and leaned against the sinks. We waited in silence for one or two minutes while the shower harped on in the background and I became ever more aware of the possibility of another student walking in. Perhaps I should preemptively think of an explanation. Or perhaps Emily already had one planned. Eventually, the water cut off and I heard the plastic crumpling of a shower curtain being pulled back.

Then, silence.

Then, “Who the FUCK took my towel?!”

Amber’s voice reverberated off the tile floor and walls, bouncing all around us.

She marched around the corner, wet and naked, her dark hair somehow darker when pressed damp, clinging to her back and collar bone, and her eyes grew with tiny fires when she saw Emily smirking at her, but they turned to horrified when she noticed me.

She didn't stand uncovered for long, but in the time she did, I was able to notice how incredible her physique really was. She was definitely strong, with toned arms, abs, and thighs. But with a high enough body fat percentage that these muscles were smooth and soft looking, instead of rigid and sharp. Despite that, she didn’t have any pockets of fat anywhere. Her torso V’d perfectly into her hips, there was a slight outline of ribs visible beneath her arms, and her clavicle was perfectly defined. Her breasts were larger than I had originally pictured, round, and nearly connected, such that the dip of her sternum was invisible. Despite their size, they sat high enough that there was no sag between her underboob and her torso to slip a hand under, and her red nipples veered up into a retrousse point with her areola a puffy pale cloud dotted in goose flesh for them to rest upon. Between her legs, she had a jet black, very thick, soft-looking bushel of hair that dripped wet with water, hanging half an inch into a choppy point under the added weight.

I was lucky to have been able to observe so much because, after a quick bout of paralysis at my presence, she threw her right arm across her boobs and cupped her vagina with her left hand.

Actually, this was better. I reveled at the way the top and bottoms of her tits spilled out from her forearm and the knowledge that her erect nipples were pressing against the supple, sensitive flesh of her forearm. The thought of her left hand soaking up the water from her pubic hair, rubbing against the lips of her vagina pushed me even further.

Her mere naked body hadn’t been enough to give me an erection, but now that she was touching it, I was struggling against my zipper.

“If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to scream,” she said, taking each word slowly, trying to steady her shaking voice.

“Don’t worry,” Emily said to me. “Since this place is underground, all the walls are like 5 inches of concrete. You can’t hear anything outside of each room. I’ve tested it.”

“That’s slightly deranged, Emily.”

“Thank you, Professor Reed.”

“What the fuck are you two doing here?” Amber said in that same slow, steady voice, although the shaking had gotten a little more prominent.

“I’m not sure, Emily just told me to come witness whatever it was she had planned for you.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Emily said, taking her phone from her pocket. “Say cheese,” she flashed the camera several times at Amber’s wet body as she tried to back away and cover herself as much as possible, which wasn’t much.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Amber yelled, regaining herself.

Emily stood straight from her relaxed position leaning against the sink counter. She began taking slow steps toward Amber, who at this point had her back pressed against the wall. There was a significant curve to the lumbar of her spine as her large butt pressed into the cold tile and pushed her hips forward.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Amber turned to me, her eyes begging. “You’re a fucking teacher aren’t you?”

“Eh, this seems like a civil dispute. I’m sure you two can handle it yourselves.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“Well I have to make sure it doesn’t turn violent, don’t I? What kind of teacher would I be if I didn’t protect my students.”

"I'm getting sick of you always picking on Iris," Emily said, the tone of her voice different now. One I've never heard before, full of malice and spite. Amber looked afraid of her.

“That’s what this is about? Fine, I’ll fucking stop,” she said.

“Well,” Emily said, still moving closer to her, now no more than an arm’s length away, “the way I see it, you’ve done so much emotional damage to that poor girl that now Professor Reed has to take it upon himself to rebuild her self-esteem. And I know what you’re thinking, 'Oh a tall, handsome, older man will have no trouble making a girl like that feel like a princess,' but Iris is a tough nut to crack. It'll probably take some time.”

“So, what? What the fuck do you want from me?” The girls were now a hair’s width away from each other. Emily was inches shorter but in a much more dominant position fully clothed, staring up at the wet, shivering, naked Amber.

“I think you need to reward Professor Reed somehow, for fixing the mess you created.”

“What? How?”

“Hmm, why don’t you let him play with your boobs for a little bit?”

“What the fuck?! No!” Amber shouted, a little bit too disgusted by the thought for my taste.

“Well,” Emily said coyly, “it’s either that or I could tell Professor Reed your little secret.”

Amber tensed. “What the fuck is wrong with you? No. You promised.”

“I didn’t promise anything.”

Amber was quiet for a handful of seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, "Fine. If I do this though, then you'll promise? Not to tell anyone?"

Emily laughed. "Of course not. I need to milk it a little bit. Here, we'll make it a points-based system. Earn fifty points and I'll take it to the grave. And I'm feeling very generous today so this will count as twenty."

Amber was borderline catatonic. Her whole self had deflated, her shoulder drooped, her neck no longer supporting the weight of her head, and her knees began to give way.

“F-fine,” she relented.

Slowly, she began walking towards me, not making eye contact with either of us, still halfheartedly covering her body.

When she was close enough for me to touch her, she stopped and tilted her head down and to the side, the anterior muscle of her neck protruding. Quietly she asked, “For how long?”

“Hmmm,” Emily pretended to think. “Let’s say thirty seconds.”

Amber let out a dejected sigh and dropped her arm, letting both hands now cover her vagina, and releasing her pert boobs whose spirited bounce struck a harsh dichotomy against the rest of her harrowed body. She sniffled, and despite trying to hide it with her obfuscated face, I saw the silent tears streaming down her face.

We stood like that for a few beats before she spoke again, choking on her words, “So? What are you waiting for, let’s just get this over with.”

"I already told you, Amber," I said, "I'm not a part of this. Just here to make sure you two reach a resolution without it getting violent."

She looked up at me finally, her eyes moist but her cheeks soaked, and a look of disbelief stretched across her face. We made eye contact for a few seconds before she covered her breasts again and turned to Emily.

“I still get my fucking points!” she shouted, although she was really asking.

Emily rolled her eyes, “fine.”

Amber shoved past me and into the hall, still stark naked.

“What the fuck is your damage?” Emily demanded of me.

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“I arranged this whole fucking thing for you and you don’t take the opportunity to help yourself?”

“You didn’t arrange this for me, Emily. You used me to humiliate Amber so that you could have control over her. And you did a pretty good job. But I’ll give you some free advice. If you accidentally break someone you want to control, you don’t end up with someone perfectly submissive; you just end up with someone broken.”

Emily paused at this. After thinking it through, her demeanor changed back to its regular psychopathic effervescence.

"Maybe you'll make a good teacher after all, Professor Reed," she chirped, bouncing past me and out the door. Leaving me alone in the girl's bathroom of a dormitory I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be in.

[shallowseeker]

You've shared some things about seeing Jack as a baby as being ableism and I was wondering where you stand on this issue?

I'm assuming this is about the poll I shared. I think where I land right now on this particular issue: I assume the most charitable view I can. Escapism is the point for a lot of folks, so I try not to begrudge them that.

Some other, more rambling thoughts:

1. Jack had a longer anticipation phase: Unlike Amara and Emma, who are also supernatural born-adult cosmic entities, there was a longer anticipatory phase with Kelly, where we were excited about her pregnancy and anticipating her baby.

We journeyed with Kelly through being anguished over her decision-making and bonded with Cas over buying diapers etc etc. We also got to know Kelly (and Kelly's parents) way more than Emma or Amara's human parents. I think this attenuates some of the fandom preferences. NOTE: (Amara refers to herself as a child when she came to earth, saying of Crowley, "He tried to control me when I was a child." So I think the prodromal phase to her primordial emergence isn't as cut-and-dry as we'd like either.) But the thing with all of them is their growth is clearly presented as abnormal and outside the scope of a typical "human" experience. They are all characterized by their powers and their massive, massive intake of information. They all overshadow human sensibilities with their vastness, and overpower humans by leaps and bounds.

Simply put, they're much much much higher on the food chain, and that causes intense anxiety in their human relationships, something AU Michael keys into for Jack in The Spear:

via @spnscripthunt

Jack was afraid Michael was right. That he'd grow into thinking of his familial loyalties the same way we humans think about hamburgers or clothes.

I'm also thinking of this quote:

"As exquisite as the natural world is, however, there exists a violent underbelly that, for some reason, mostly goes unnoticed...In point of fact, the survival of any one species depends entirely on how successfully it's able to willfully kill--and usually eat--its neighboring species. Even human vegans and vegetarians survive by the demise of plants. Moreover, if you're wearing clothes as you read this, you're wearing death." -Randall R Scott from Entanglement is Not Spooky

In physics, the word information is closely related to microstates and probabilities. In some limited circumstances information is functionally similar to entropy. However, information is no substitute for knowledge and experience. I think the cosmic entities have way, way more information than humans, but not always more wisdom, so the power imbalances aren't super cut-and-dry. (This is why I write Jack-Harper like this.)

In fact, I think humans can naively latch onto the "perceived" playfulness and strangeness of the cosmic entities as a means to ease the anxiety of the inherent, extreme power imbalance. (Example: sexual inexperience is not a meaningful indicator of "innocence" when the same character is also an experienced war mongerer and cannibal. For a human to assume that is silly. Naive.)

///

2. The Jack infant pushback analysis is helpful for me: I've found the ableism analysis really helpful for delving into Jack's own perspective of who he is, how he relates to and moves through the world, and how he is perceived by others.

Simply put, I like it.

I'm a weirdo, (I test around 21-23 on the autism quotient, around your average chess champion), but that's a long way from having enough autistic traits to say what is or isn't ableism on this issue.

Even if that's not your primary mode of viewing Jack, I found it helpful for viewing Jack as more than just an accessory, more than fanon wish fulfillment. (Though wanting happiness for character is, as I said above, completely understandable) I really like Jack as a complex character all on his own.

And for that, I love how it tickles my brain. I'll start tagging it #complex jack and #culture hero jack if that helps!

///

3. Is baby Jack my favorite thing? No. But I've decided to focus on just...writing more actual Jack meta instead.

I want to emphasize the complexities of his role as WAR SON and the idea of his effervescence as at least partly defensive performance (a la analogous to performing!Dean). He's a pretty sassy mofo; Kelly Kline is too.

I think a lot of his interiority being similar to Mary is fascinating. (They are both child soldiers.)

I also like how the TFW dads’ views on Jack are often analogous to how they view themselves.

So you'll find I write a lot of that kinda stuff instead.

///

4. Culture hero Jack: I think if I had to characterize where I'm at with Jack as a character, I get the most mileage out of the Born-Sexy-Yesterday trope (Like Vision from the MCU) and Culture Hero myths (which often features babies born as adult males who are at war with their murderous God!grandfathers).

It's not to say that's better or more right. I just dig it. You'll find that I write and share what I find personally compelling.

There are a lot of opinions that I find well-argued that...simply don't do anything for me right now. Sometimes it's a vibe I'm just not feeling, sometimes it's a topic I exhausted in my youth and am just extremely played out on.

For now, I just focus on the ones that do it for me. :-)

Sorry that got rambling.

I hope that answers your question and makes you feel open to me sharing some of this stuff without feeling like maybe I'm bashing you if you enjoy that content? Anyway... :-)

[farenmaddox]

I mean Cas is not the best possible comparison, and Amara is actually a really good one, he's just the one I reached for because of how well-established the jokes are about him Not Knowing Things.

Anyway, here's some facts about Jack:

he wanted to make out with Harper (aged 20-something) real bad

he really enjoys hunting and monster lore so he's not exactly scared of a monster under his bed

his overarching goal throughout much of his run on the series is to murder his uncle (the AU uncle but still)

he seeks out people in their late teens/early 20s when he is looking for peers in a situation and all of his friends are adults

he drinks alcohol on a regular basis and nobody on the show thinks this is a problem

he is sometimes troubled in regard to how to relate to his human family, because he will live so much longer than them and have to watch them die, an intensely inhuman worldview of time and longevity

He's just... an adult who acts like an adult.

i still cannot comprehend u guys will write or draw or rb something of jack where he is present as a full grown adult and then call him a precious child….

[moodmusicmonday]

One thing is for sure: this fandom has something for everyone judging from these songs! Love and fluff and angst--OH MY! Such a superb playlist that will have you salivating! BIG HUGE THANKS to those of y'all who shared a song. Whether it inspired your WIP or it makes you think of your favorite characters/scene from Choices, we LOVE them all! Y'all rock!

We love y'all! *big ol' hugs*

Same time next week?

~🎵~

@ao719

“The Fixer” - Brent Morgan;  Best Kept Secrets, Chapter 2: Fixers Never Fix Themselves [TRR; Liam x f!OC (Amara)]

@bebepac

"We Are Family” - Sister Sledge; Fast Forward, Father’s Day Special One-Shot: The Big Apple Dumplin’ Festival [TRH; Liam x Riley; Maxwell x f!OC (Taylor); m!OC x f!OC (Nico x Angellica)]

@chemist-ana

“Spells” - Cannon; Wicked Game Chapter 3: Spells [TNA; Sam Dalton x MC (Niamh Kenney)]

@karahalloway

“Jealous” - Nick Jonas; (Less Than) Noble Intentions, Chapter 13: Invidia [TRR; Drake Walker x f!OC (Harper Gale)]

@kat-tia801

“Homegrown” - Zac Brown Band; Homegrown, Father’s Day One-Shot [TRR; Drake Walker x MC; Liam Rys x f!OC)]

@lucy-268

“Broken and Beautiful” - Kelly Clarkson; Broken and Beautiful: Sami’s Story (tentative title) [OPH; Tobias Carrick x f!OC (Samantha Carlson)]

@queenrileyrose

“NFWMB” - Hozier; Irreplaceable, Chapter 18:  Ain’t You My Baby? (TRR; Leo x Riley)

@tinkie1973

“Would Have Loved Her” - Chris Bandi; Character Shout-Out: Drake Walker

@txemrn

“Use My Voice” - Evanescence; Stay, Chapter 2: Draw My Own Line [TRR; Drake Walker x f!OC (Jodi Walker); other pairings to be revealed]

~🎵~

@21-wishes @alj4890 @ao719 @atsuinawa @aussiegurl1234 @axwalker @bebepac @burnsoslow @charlotteg234 @chemist-ana @choicesmonthlychallenge @foreverethereal123 @issabees @jerzwriter @karahalloway @kat-tia801 @lovingchoices14 @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @neotericthemis @nestledonthaveone @peonierose @queenrileyrose @quixoticdreamer16 @sfb123 @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam @twinkleallnight @txemrn @walkerdrakewalker @zaffrenotes

[ninja-muse]

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper is a refreshing take on historical fiction. Not only is it set in Roman Pompeii rather than northwestern Europe in the 19th or 20th centuries, but it’s centered on enslaved sex workers and told in modern language. (No thou’s or attempts to mimic Latin here!) The author has done a great job of bringing the ancient world to life and making it feel nearer than it is.

The book focuses on Amara, born into a middle-class Greek family and sold into slavery after family tragedy. As she does her best to better her circumstances at any cost, we get not only a portrait of a living Roman city with its pubs, parties, clothing stores, food stalls, and everyday injustices, but also a wonderful sense of the friendships and competition within the brothel she works in. I loved seeing how the women there formed a community among themselves, and how they fit into the wider society (or didn’t). I got the real sense that Harper had not only delved deep into how Roman society would’ve worked at the street level, but had done her diligence regarding the lives of (modern) sex workers too.

I also thought that Harper did a good job portraying the characters as complex, fallible, and human. She gives her female characters, especially Amara, the full range of emotions and all are believably imperfect. The worst of the men get sympathetic moments and the best of them, damning ones. They all feel of their time too—relatable or familiar, but also holding attitudes and beliefs that remind you this isn’t a modern story. (For instance, it’s clear that Amara knows slavery sucks for all enslaved people, but she never quite questions why slavery is even a thing.)

All in all, reading this felt like reading about real people leading real lives much more often than it felt like reading a novel. It’s a slowish read that feels at times like it’s digressing or offering up set pieces of Pompeiian life, but those moments all get woven back in neatly by the end. (It’s also slowish because of emotional drain. I couldn’t binge-read because bad things kept happening.) I found the ethical dilemmas compelling, though—if you’d damned no matter what, what’s the right option?—and enjoyed both how Harper told this story and woven in her themes and critiques. It’s definitely been one of the highlights of my reading month and I hope it gets a lot of attention once it’s out.

Note: while this book is definitely pro-sex work and has a lot of sympathy for those who find themselves forced into that life or exploited, it’s still set within an incredibly misogynistic society that saw no problem with degrading or harming women. If harassment, issues with consent or boundaries, or sexual violence are things you don’t want to read about, this might not be the book for you. They’re rarely graphic, but definitely prevalent.

[anexthetxc]

what's everyone's view on their s/o having a kid from a previous relationship?

oh boi....

first off, BEST ASK EVER bc I love inboxes that challenge my view on my muses

second, this has to go under a read more since it's gonna be a long one

Amara: probably not good, tbh. She has a terrible job and it's hard enough to find a s/o she cares about without putting them at risk being involved with a gang as a hitwoman, so to learn they have a child (that she'd inevitably love) she'd intentionally keep her distance and be cold towards them. In all honesty, she'd end their relationship to keep the child safe

Aranya: she's open to it! after dealing with bad relationships in the past, it would be an adjustment for her to learn to be a motherly figure considering she was the youngest and easily most spoiled by her older sister. I think with time, she'd be happy to try

Ari: well...despite being a gang leader, and growing up around some of the hardest, most evil people, she was raised in a very loving family and they aren't shy with affection. I think any s/o she has will be an arranged one, so she'd be civil towards their child, but also a little hesitant. Also depends on if their s/o former partner was still alive, considering to secure the family's gang, would need to make sure no one would try to take that position. Ari would firmly put a rule down that any child coming in to their family wouldn't be able to inherit the gang, inevitably causing a divide, but she'd at least respect the child and attempt to show affection.

Biyu: oh she'd love it. Being older and still not having a family of her own, she'd adore the idea of potentially becoming a step parent. She'd be such a good motherly figure and just smother that kid with kisses all the time

Doyun: the automatic cute step mommy. She's going to dress up the child in clothes and take thousands of pictures. Doyun is also kind hearted, so she'd be very respectful towards her s/o's former partner and the child's other parent as to not overstep her boundaries

Hana: she's still trying to figure out her own life. I don't think Hana would willingly date someone knowing they had a kid, but perhaps if they dated first and things worked out well and then learned about having a child, she'd try her best. she's make a great babysitter but when the relationship starts getting serious, she'll have her doubts

Harper: super accepting. She loves kids so much and she can't have any of her own, so she'd embrace it. Harper is also childish herself, she's more like a teacher than a parent, so there would be some maturity issues, but she'd try to do the best she can.

Kai: a little too young to be taking that responsibility on herself, so maybe not open to the idea. Now if her s/o was raising a sibling, she'd be open to that!

Kimi: this woman can barely take care of herself, better yet a s/o or a child that comes with it. Probably a no go.

Seoyun: of course she's open to it. A child? No problem. She's mature, caring, and would love to have a family of her own one day! So for a s/o to already have one? Already a step ahead!

Sorom: it wouldn't make any difference if her s/o had a child or not. Children are so precious to her and she'd really dedicate herself to being a good future step mother. I can easily see her s/o falling in love with her even more watching their kid and Sorom interact because she's so gentle and loving, like she's already a mother just without a kid. Tbh, she's probably attracted to single dad's.

Kasumi: it's hard to imagine her dating at all after the loss of her husband. It would take a lot of trust to love again, but if it happens, then I think she's ok with the idea. Honestly, she might even do good to have a little family again.

Haewon: a deal breaker. She's really sweet to her friends, but also a little selfish so I think if she found out her s/o had a kid, she'd probably end things. Doesn't make her a bad person, though, she likes kids and tries in her own way to be nice to them. But as a mother? She doesn't want that responsibility until she's ready (and she's def not)

Soobin: she's okay with it! probably not a great mother figure, but a fantastic fun aunt and would let that kid get away with anything if it meant they got along and it makes them like her

Areum: Um...if she found out later in the relationship that her s/o had a kid, she'd feel a little trapped and wouldn't break up with them right away, but wouldn't have dated them if she knew first. Probably a little cautious around kids. Super awkward around the child if they were left alone. Scared of accidentally hurting them or letting them hurt themselves by running around reckless. Probably has one of those kid gate things and puts the child in it and stares at them the whole time while their s/o runs out on errands

Xinyu: she's ready and open for it. A little hard to do with her schedule, but would probably convince her s/o to come visit her at the hospital and bring their kid with and let them play with her lab equipment

Rina: oh, she'd love it! Would 100% make cartoons for the child and then act out scenes with them. Most likely the future fun parent of the couple.

Eunbin: another fun aunt, but a hesitant step parent. With time, I think she and her s/o could work something out. Actually sort of cute to think about her s/o teaching Eunbin how to parent and try to get them to bond