#contrary to book 2 and 3

[ragnarssons]

ok ATLA fans real question tho. This has nothing to do with anything live action or whatever, it's just pure cartoon-related stuff.

But did y'all really like the Katara at the North Pole plot? Because I mean I love it, I love Katara fighting as strongly as she does, standing up for herself against all odds and all. And as for choregraphy, it's one of my favorite fights.

But I always loved it, until it all fumbled on itself with the neckless thing. I hate, and yes, HATE the idea of Katara being a "nepobaby" and this is why she gets to learn waterbending - but all the other girls from the North Water Tribe don't get to even try. By nepobaby I mean that it's obviously Katara's parentage that opens this precise door to her and not... well the fact that she proved herself or actually changed mentalities.

In the episode right after, we do see that Katara is the only girl in the class (and at the end of Book 1, Pakku leaves the NWT, meaning he actually doesn't even stay to change his tribe's ways and include girls, like the man didn't change anything after Katara). And paralleling that, you have Yue, whose fate also never changes. She never gets to even voice her non-desire of being put in a forced marriage. Like yeah, her and Sokka oppose that to the idea of her having a duty to her tribe, and it resonates to Sokka's own dedication to his tribe, but... why don't they go further? Ofc time restriction but to me, poor Yue if she were meant to die could've had at least a self-affirming moment (especially when you create in the background another love story that got destroyed by the NWT's sexist ways, namely Pakku and Gran Gran).

It's also weird because then they put Pakku in the White Lotus. The same organization where Piandao is. Piandao who teaches sword fighting to Sokka because "the art of sword fighting shouldn't belong to one people" so huh?? I know everything was probably not planned as far ahead when writing Book 1 but it's still... 🤷‍♀️

Idk I've never actively searched if people already had this discussion but I just wanted to ask, revisiting some of Book 1 big storylines. To me, it always seemed like the Katara/Pakku thing was awesome, until the neckless really, then it kinda flops and loses all its sense, because then Katara stop actually fighting Pakku's sexism (and the dude just stops being sexist alltogether we don't even know why *shrugs* even tho he had horrible words and attitudes towards Katara before that) and the NWT's patriarchy, she just complies because she got the privilege to bypass all of it.

[lunamond]

The Rop s3 casting announcement has me going back in the trenches 😮‍💨

But given the strong possibility that we might finally have a Celeborn cast, I'm going to indulge in rambling about my thoughts on the character and his relationship with Galadriel in the show.

I remember when, prior to season 1, it became clear that Galadriel would be the/one of the main characters of the show. I got super excited, and one of the things I was really looking forward to was Celedriel (naively so as it turned out, lol).

At the time, the rights situation was still super vague, so I really expected them to pull from the Rings of Power chapter from the Silm and the of Galadriel and Celeborn section of Unfinished Tales. I really hoped they would lean into the scheming and political intrigue of Eregion (considering that at the time the big tag line was "find the next Got").

In my opinion, it was the perfect setting to have Galadriel and Celeborn as a power couple/established husband/wife duo navigating the escalating conflict together, kinda like Ned/Cat.

Now, obviously, none of that happened 😅

But, even while I enjoyed most of the show so far, one of my big worries was that they would either completely leave out Celeborn until the very last season (leading to a very rushed relationship) or once they do introduce him they will give him nothing significant to do outside of his relationship to Galadriel. The latter is an especially big concern because they already took away all his canonical involvement in the Eregion plot.

I really don't want the show to undermine his character through underselling him. Even if he acts as support for Galadriel, Celeborn can and should still be a compelling and engaging character on his own. I really want the show to sell me on why Galadriel loves this guy.

Hopefully, in S3, they will give him sth significant to contribute to the War with Sauron. He doesn‘t have to do all the things he does in the book, but I do hope they give us a character who's still conceptually very similar.

[kingdomkome]

Seeing ppl on twt be like 'well I've written a book every month and they are all good so maybe let's not judge a book based on how long it took to write 🤨" and like. They are right but I'm still 100% judging.

[temis-de-leon]

Shy gn!reader who has never dated anyone before the Dateables

Characters: Diavolo, Barbatos, Solomon and Simeon (x reader, separately)

Main Masterlist

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Demon brothers version

Romance Anon: You're welcome! I missed you too 🩷 I'm glad you enjoyed writing it because I enjoyed reading it 🤭Did you get a request? It's headcanons for Diavolo, Barbatos, Solomon, and Simeon react to shy gn s/o telling him how they never dated anyone before him. Thanks!

A/N: I'm not entirely convinced with Simeon's part, so perhaps I'll edit it in the future

.

Diavolo

Since trust is a steady pillar in every healthy relationship, what truly cements the fact that you two belong together is, for him, that no one else in all the realms knows you better than he does. Add that to how fascinating he finds you and you will soon see yourself uncovering more layers than you thought you had.

However, he isn’t exactly sure if the subject of exes is one he enjoys to the fullest.

It was well after classes had ended that the conversation took place, nearly the end of the year and both enjoying each other’s company in the empty council’s room, and you were discussing how different it would be to experience RAD’s holiday festivities as a couple, having gone from strangers to friends to lovers. The topic of expectations was unavoidable.

Diavolo, who was raised sheltered, has minimal experience and believes that experimenting and deciding what you both like together is the best course to follow.

Would PDA be okay when you're surrounded by all the other students? If so, at what levels? Would you rather stay with him from the beginning or would it be better to spend time with the brothers and the rest of your friends to enjoy the celebrations before leaving the group for some quality time together?

Of course, the idea of you having expertise on the matter with a potential ex-lover doesn’t exactly bother him; you are desirable and attractive, so it would’ve been completely normal.

As long as you’re happy with him, he will thank whatever came before for putting you in his path.

But… what? Did he hear correctly?

You’ve never had a partner before him?

Diavolo was obviously surprised at the confession and, almost immediately after, also honoured and flattered. How could he not, when his beloved chose him above everyone they had ever met before?

This doesn’t change his perspective on you or your relationship, though.

Since he was already planning on being your last partner, being your first as well doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Barbatos

There’s a lot to unpack with this demon. From his past to his private life and his truest, sincerest feelings about life around him, everything is covered with calculated precision.

Since he is not in complete control of his life (not that he resents serving Diavolo; on the contrary), keeping so much of himself hidden helps him feel at ease. More secure about his moves and at a higher position.

You may ask to satisfy your curiosity, of course. You’re his beloved partner, someone who he wouldn’t date if he didn’t trust; but that doesn’t mean he’ll tell you the whole reality at once. He likes giving you breadcrumbs for you to create theories and, if you amuse him enough with them, he’ll also grant you little head nods and shakes that could help you put together the truth.

Having your whole attention and obvious excitement focused on him makes his heart beat a tad faster.

On the other hand, you are as open as a book. Blame it on your shyness and the stuttering that betrays you when you try to be all mysterious and suave.

And also, Barbatos is highly perceptive.

He already suspected from the early stages of your relationship that he is the first romantic partner you’ve ever had, so your eventual confession on the matter doesn’t change anything; neither your relationship nor his opinion of your persona. 

It doesn’t matter that the sole reason he’s the best… man you’ve dated in your life is because he is the only one.

What’s most important is that he sets the bar so high that you don’t even think about the possibility of ever being someone else; not before him and certainly never after him.

Solomon

Discussing this topic with him might get a bit intimidating. Not because of how he could react, but rather… You know… seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines? Sure, most of them were probably purely political arrangements, but it was still quite the harem.

He calls himself ridiculous on the matter just to make you feel better.

And also because it is ridiculous, but that’s beside the point.

He is immortal, famous for his search for knowledge, his consequential wisdom and his overall vast experience. Thinking he’s had partners before you (some of them not necessarily human) is the logical thing to do. You’re not even his first apprentice either!

However, receiving your affection might’ve been the best thing that has happened to him in the last couple of centuries, something he makes you aware of quite often, so worrying about his romantic history is pointless; there’s no need.

He loves you now and will do forever, even if things go wrong and you don’t let him anymore.

By the time you’re comfortable enough to tell him your harmless secret, not only does he see right through you, but he will also act like he doesn’t.

He’s sitting by his desk in his laboratory and you’re standing right behind him, arms around his neck while your hands mindlessly play with the golden tassels of his cape. You try to act nonchalant when you force the words out.

“Did you know you’re my first boyfriend? I mean, not boyfriend, just my first- you know, my first. Partner. Ever”

“You don’t say? I would’ve never guessed, MC”

You let out an offended gasp, but he can only laugh at it.

Your embarrassment is cute and he wants to see more of it. After all, it wouldn’t be your relationship without a bit of teasing.

Simeon

The way he loves you is so natural and genuine that it makes you feel like you've been together since the beginning of time. You kind of forget this is your first relationship and thinking about your lack of experience simply does not happen anymore; it's a potential insecurity that eradicates itself rather quickly.

Of course, the fact that this is also his first relationship helps a ton.

Despite being one of the oldest amongst all your friends, he's the one with least experience. It isn't something he has actively searched for, Simeon is not opposed to romance and love, but family has been (and continues to be) a major plot point in his life.

He has raised and trained other angels, fought and lost his own brothers and poured his heart and soul in a series of books that gained more fame and recognition than one could possibly believe.

While a potential partner was always something he could've had, his interest on the matter was never there.

However, Simeon has never known anyone like you before and probably never will ever again. Meeting you felt like fate and, when the time came, giving your relationship a shot was the natural step to follow.

You're an old married couple, except there's no bickering.

Whether you are someone with more or less experience than him regarding romance is not something he thinks about too much. Each relationship is different and he is more than thrilled to experience and discover what works for you both.

Simeon loves and prioritizes you just as much; being your first isn't something extremely meaningful, just a reminder that your story together starts at the same point.

And that's exactly what he tells you the moment you comment on the topic.

.

.

Taglist: @ilovecandys2010 @ollieoven @kingofspadesdelusion @whimsybloom

[wisteria-lodge]

I really do not want to discredit JKR, she created a fantastic world, with great ideas etc and I hate to be like "oh her success was just an accident!" especially to a woman. But that's what I feel about her getting praise for Snape. People say that the fact that there's so much debate about him now is a testament of JKR's writing skills, but on the contrary I think there is much debate about him now because she executed his character badly...or at least not in the level of genius I see her get praised for. I have always felt this way even before her views but I hate saying it now bc it'll come off as "revisionist" or something 😭 imo the fans have interpreted, analyzed, and broken down his character better.

JKR's success was absolutely not an accident. She dusted off and revitalized the dead School Story genre, she clicked things together in proportions that made a lot of sense, she's VERY good at marketing both herself and her work, she understands (and polices) brand identity and always has, she understands franchise potential, she made the *very* smart decision to age her series up along with her core fan base... but. This did create a few issues with the actual text.

There is a LOT of ambiguity in the Harry Potter series. Lines, scenes, entire characters (Snape is the poster boy, but not even close to the only one) that can legitimately be read in vastly different ways. And not Game of Thrones "oh this is a morally grey character in a complex situation." It's more like "you can interpret what is literally happening in this scene in about three different ways."

I see this ambiguity coming from two main sources, which are honestly kind of unique to the Harry Potter series.

The "Three Year Summer" Shift.

Books 1-3 are kids books, written like kids books, and Books 5-7 are young adult books, written like young adult books. It's not a new take that there are a lot of worldbuilding details and characterization choices that make perfect sense in a kid's book, but not if you're going for the added complexity and grounded tone of an adult book. Filtch is fine as a one-line joke comic villain, but if you're treating him as a fully realized person who actually exists in a more grounded sort of world - he becomes terrifying, tragic, and actually starts creating plotholes. It's like how Willy Wonka is whimsical in his own universe... but if you were to move him to one that's less stylized, now he's Julian Slowik from The Menu.

This leads to a backwards-compatibility situation where you're taking the "adult book" versions of the characters and trying to make them fit over the "children's book" character's actions. Often, the fit isn't super clean. So, you interpret these children's book scenes to make it fit - and you CAN, because children's book scenes are short, use simple vocab, and don't generally give you a *ton* of extra information. Why not interpret them with adult subtext? It's not contradicting anything. But it is essentially a version of that "open scene" acting class game where you get a scene that's like:

- What’s that? - My latest project. - It looks very interesting. - Well, I think so.

and then two actors run it though first straightforward, then sarcastic, then angry, then longing, etc.

2. Harry Potter is a mystery novel serial.

This is where a ton of the structure of the Harry Potter series comes from. Who opened the Chamber of Secrets? (we have suspects and clues) What is the monster? Who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire? (we have suspects and clues) How is Sirius Black getting into the castle? Who is the Halfblood Prince? Who is Snape loyal to? Like there are TONS of these questions (especially in the better books...)

And they make the books fun! They made speculating between the books a TON of fun. Buut.... suspects in a mystery story HAVE to be written ambiguously, or they're not very good suspects. The point is to have a scene that seems super suspicious on a first read but is actually completely innocent, and vice versa. So the scenes themselves fundamentally have to be written to support multiple meanings, in order to make the magic trick work. But the problem IS that in order to do that... you have to sacrifice cleanly articulated character development. There's a reason, in serial detective novels, that the detective goes to a new place and meets a new group of people every book. Ex-suspects have trouble going on to serve new functions in the plot, because who are they exactly? The point is that we don't know.

Lots of Harry Potter characters get hit by "suspect effect." In Book 3, Sirius Black is written to be a dangerous red herring (like why DID he slash the Fat Lady's portrait, in retrospect?) and in Book 4 he's this positive (but ultimately misguided) mentor whose function is to shift suspicion off of Moody and Barty Junior. So when we meet him in Book 5... and he no longer has a structural narrative role... who is he exactly? In a lot of ways, it's up to you the reader, and how you interpreted books 3 and 4.

Or Remus and Tonks. Their relationship is treated as a "mystery" in Book 5. So we get the reveal, but we don't get to see it develop. Because every time the relationship comes up, it needs to be discussed in a way that Harry can misunderstand. As a result, we don't get a good sense of what the dynamics of their relationship actually are.

And Snape... he's the red herring in Book 1, he's "up to something" in Book 3, a red herring again in Book 4, AGAIN in book 5 and 6. Which means. That is there is at least one alternate way to interpret pretty much every single thing that man says by design. So of course there are going to be multiple ways to interpret his motives. Snape the literary equivalent of the face/vase optical illusion... only you have Word of God saying "it's for sure a vase."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

More Everything Forever

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me at NEW ZEALAND'S UNITY BOOKS in AUCKLAND on May 2, and in WELLINGTON on May 3. More tour dates (Pittsburgh, PDX, London, Manchester) here.

Astrophysicist Adam Becker knows a few things about science and technology – enough to show, in a new book called More Everything Forever that the claims that tech bros make about near-future space colonies, brain uploading, and other skiffy subjects are all nonsense dressed up as prediction:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-becker/more-everything-forever/9781541619593/

Becker investigates the personalities, the ideologies, the coalitions, the histories, and crucially, the grifts behind such science fictional pursuits as infinite life-extension, space colonization, automation panic, AI doomerism, longtermism, effective altruism, rationalism, and conciousness uploading.

This is, loosely speaking, the bundle of ideologies that Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres dubbed TESCREAL (transhumanism, Extropianism, singularitarianism, (modern) cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and longtermism):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TESCREAL

While these are largely associated with modern Silicon Valley esoteric techbros (and the odd Oxfordian like Nick Bostrom), they have very deep roots, which Becker excavates – like Nikolai Fyodorov's 18th century "cosmism," a project to "scientifically" resurrect everyone who ever lived inside of a simulation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorov_(philosopher)

In their modern incarnation, these ideas largely originate in science fiction novels. That is to say, they were made up and popularized by people like me, the vast majority of whom made no pretense of being able to predict the future or even realistically describe a path from the present to the future they were presenting. Science fiction is something between a card trick and a consensual con game, where the writer shows you just enough detail to make you think that the rest of it must be lurking somewhere in the wings. No one in sf has ever explained how consciousness uploading could possibly work, and neither have any of the advocates for consciousness uploading – the difference is that (most of) the sf writers know they're just making stuff up.

Becker's central question is how many "smart" people (some of them very smart and accomplished, others merely very certain that they are smart despite all evidence to the contrary) can mistake futuristic allegories made up by pulp writers for prophesy?

In answering this question, he uncovers a corollary of Upton Sinclair's famous maxim that "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it," namely, that "it is easy to get a person to believe something when doing so will make them feel good about themselves."

The beliefs that Becker explores in this book sometimes make the believers rich (like the AI grifters who run around shouting about AI taking over the world and turning us all into paperclips). Sometimes, they make their believers feel good about being selfish assholes (like longtermism, which holds that all the misery in the world today is worth it if you can make 24 heptillion hypothetical simulated people just a little happy in 10,000 years). Sometimes, they make their believers feel good about life after death, or eternal life – the same pitch that religions have been roping in followers with since the stone age.

What differentiates these beliefs from other faith-based claims is that their followers claim that they aren't operating on faith, but on science, reason and rationality. This is where the fact that Becker is a bona fide astrophysicist comes in. Not only is he personally qualified to debunk claims about space colonization, but he's also familiar with the rigorous process of scientific inquiry, and capable of consulting experts and listening to them. That's how he concludes, for example, that having your head cut off and frozen when you die is just a form of corpse mutilation, with a zero point zero zero zero zero percent chance of someone recovering your mind from your freezerburned brain.

Like his subjects, Becker has a complicated relationship with science fiction. He, too, enjoys the imaginative flights of the genre, its delightful thought-experiments, its gnarly moral conundra. I love these too. They make for a fascinating and often useful lens for understanding and challenging our own relationship with technology and our very humanity. Ultimately, Becker is exploring the difference between reading sf because it makes you think in new ways, and reading sf as a kind of prophetic text, and – crucially – he's asserting that it's perfectly possible to enjoy this stuff without organizing your moral life around hypothetical heptillions of virtual people living in the year 25,000; or, indeed, having your head cut off and frozen.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vinges-bastards/#cyberpunk-is-a-warning-not-a-suggestion

[seveneyesoup]

#incorrect. a nosferatu is not a mammal but a dracula IS a mammal

hm. real

[vanteguccir]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⁺ ♱ .ᐟㅤㅤ──────── 𝓣𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝓒𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒, chris sturniolo.

⠀★　𝖼𝗁𝗈𝗈𝗌𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗌𝖾𝖺𝗍, 𝗀𝗋𝖺𝖻 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖼𝗈𝖿𝖿𝖾𝖾, 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖽𝗂𝗏𝖾 𝗂𝗇 !

ㅤㅤ❝ ㅤ don't overthink, because your mind is very⠀powerful　.

(⠀links⠀) ─── main masterlist && chris masterlist

‹ 𝓒𝖧𝖱𝖨𝖲 𝑂𝖭𝖤𝖲𝖧𝖮𝖳𝖲 › : : : enjoy !

01. starve and die　─　when Nick and Matt test positive for covid and Chris has to go into lockdown to prevent catching the virus, who will look after them?

02. watching you read　─　where Y/N read her book while Chris's streaming, but Chris's biggest hobby is watching his girlfriend read.

03. truth or eat　─　where Y/N participates in the TRUTH OR EAT video from behind the camera.

04. guess who's who　─　where Y/N participates in the new Sturniolo Triplets tiktok, but doesn't actually appear in it.

05. sleeping prank　─　where Nick pranks Chris and Y/N while they are sleeping.

06. texas is so cold　─　where Y/N and the triplets decide to go out for dinner at a pizzeria, but Y/N is cold and Chris becomes her personal heater.

07. tiktok trends | part 2 | part 3 | part 4　─　4 times that Y/N and Chris made a couple's trend on tiktok.

08. can you sing for me?　─　where Y/N is a worldwide famous singer, but her favorite thing in the world is hearing Chris singing just for her.

09. it's noted　─　where Y/N is part of the Sturniolo Triplets fandom and makes videos about them on TikTok. After years of creating content, one of her videos seems to catch the attention of none other than Chris.

10. cooking together　─　where Y/N teaches Chris how to cook a typical sweet from her country.

11. safari girl　─　where Y/N is the tour guide for the Sturniolo Triplets on their safari trip.

12. her exception　─　where Y/N is shy and Chris loves to tease her for that.

13. sleepwalker in love　─　where Chris returns home after recording another car video with his brothers and finds his girlfriend sleepwalking in their living room.

14. best friend's plan　─　where Y/N has a secret crush on Chris, not imagining that the feeling is reciprocated. But her best friend, Nick, has a plan to put them together.

15. 8 minutes of cute moments　─　where a fan made an 8-minute video with a compilation of Chris and Y/N being in love.

16. baking blind, deaf and mute　─　where Y/N participates in the Baking Blind, Deaf and Mute video, but things don't go as planned.

17. in control　─　where Chris commands Y/N to stay still while he fucks her, but she can't seem to obey.

18. drunk and in love　─　where Y/N goes out with her friends for a girls' night and comes home drunk, so Chris has to take care of her.

19. always yours　─　where Y/N and Chris are secretly in love, but Chris is the one that acts shy around her; OR 4 times Chris loved Y/N from afar and 1 time he didn't.

20. all too well　─　where Chris misplace his priorities.

21. academic validation　─　where Y/N's obsession for good grades and academic validation leads her to neglect her own self.

22. loving without restrictions　─　where Y/N and Chris have been keeping their relationship a secret for just over a year until one day where Y/N feels ready to announce it; OR, where Y/N and Chris soft launch their relationship.

23. fake smile　─　where Chris records a TikTok with Tara after many requests from both fandoms, but fans reacted contrary to what he expected, generating questioning thoughts in Y/N.

24. girls like girls and boys　─　where Y/N goes through a journey of self-discovery when questioning her sexuality, leading to her feeling fear of losing Chris.

25. 5 cute little moments　─　where Chris is deeply in love with Y/N and isn't ashamed to show it; OR, 5 cute little moments between Chris and Y/N.

26. labyrinth　─　where Y/N tries to save their relationship, but Chris's fear of commitment seems to stop them from moving forward.

27. vogue beauty secrets　─　where the world-famous actress and model, Y/N, is invited by Vogue to record a video of her Beauty Secrets, but during the recording, Chris, her boyfriend, decides to make a brief appearance.

28. fighting her for a trend　─　where Chris has the idea of doing the famous TikTok trend "fighting my girlfriend in front of my brothers" with Y/N, just to see Nick and Matt's reaction.

29. apocalypse　─　where Chris takes care of Y/N after they make love.

30. over again　─　where Y/N is caught between the past and the present, struggling to forget her love for Chris while trying to move on with Alex, but things don't go as planned.

31. trying and rating bad baby food　─　where Chris and Y/N's daughter makes an appearance in the Trying and Rating Bad Baby Food video.

32. jealous boy　─　where, during a party, a man who doesn't know how to take "no" for an answer hits on Y/N, receiving an angry and jealous Chris in return.

33. only girl (in the world)　─　where Chris takes Y/N for his trip to Las Vegas with his brothers, and in the middle of neon lights and late-night walks, Chris’s and Y/N get lost in love and lust.

34. holiday echoes　─　where the triplets head back to Boston for the holidays and Chris, a bit drunk and nostalgic, ends up alone on the streets and stops at their old childhood home. Acting without thinking, he writes a small - and very random - note on a napkin and slips it through the door, without realizing Y/N now lives there and is feeling kinda lonely.

35. birthday boy　─　when Chris is starting to come to terms with the horrible idea that he will have to spend his birthday away from Y/N, a surprise takes him, literally, by surprise.

36. the sexual tension between Chris and Y/N　─　where a fan creates a 6-minute video with all the sexual tension moments between Chris and Y/N.

37. too much　─　where Matt and Nick say some hurtful things to Chris during a fight, bringing his insecurities to life and causing him to turn to his anchor, Y/N.

38. boston for thanksgiving　─　where Y/N goes back to Boston with Chris and his brothers for Thanksgiving.

39. midnight company　─　while filming a car video, the triplets witness a girl - Y/N - arguing with her boyfriend. When he smashes her phone and leaves her alone at midnight in the middle of a random parking lot, Chris steps in.

40. marry her anyway　─　where the triplets and Y/N are going to a friend's wedding and with that a TikTok is recorded and sweet promises are made.

41. grammys 2025　─　where Y/N, worldwide famous singer, goes to the Grammys 2025 and brings Chris as her pair for the first time.

42. surprise party tour: chicago diss track　─　where at the Chicago show of the Surprise Party Tour, Chris is not only surprised by the diss track made by his brothers against him, but especially by his girlfriend being part of it.

43. met gala 2025　─　where Y/N, worldwide famous singer, goes to the Met Gala 2025 and brings Chris as her pair for the first time.

44. sleep paralysis　─　where Chris has another night disturbed by sleep paralysis, but Y/N is there to pull him back to reality.

45. ice cream and mcdonald's?　─　where Chris has the flu, and Y/N is just a caring, very much worried, ambitious girlfriend.

(　All rights reserved © 2025 𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐈𝐑. Please do not copy, rewrite, or translate my works, template, or theme on Tumblr or any other platform.　)

[metalomagnetic]

hi metalo! i saw you recently liked a post (i am a creep) about dumbledore being a villain not being a good analysis. years ago i was firmly in the dumblevillain camp, and while I haven’t moved out entirely (I somewhat see him as morally grey? ish?), i am SO interested in your take on dumbledore

can you please just provide a blurble of your opinion? all the love <3

Dumbledore is a good-guy archetype. He is God, to Harry's Jesus and Voldemort's Satan. He is Gandalf to Frodo, Mufasa to Simba and so on.

Dumbledore isn't morally grey; he holds no convictions that are grey in nature. Snape is a wonderful example of a morally grey character, not Dumbledore.

He is, however, a complex character, nuanced, a human being with faults. He makes mistakes, like all other characters in the books, and like all human beings in the world. He is not perfect, but he is good. The Ultimate Good.

Dumbledore is a man that lives in service of the Wizarding World and sacrifices his love, his desires, his ambition and ultimately his life for the good of others.

Dumbledore never forgives himself for those brief 2 months of summer he had with Gellert, and literally spends his entire life doing better, always doing what is right, choosing, over and over and over again, to be kind.

He saves the world, twice, by making sure Grindelwald and Voldemort would never rule over innocents. He not only ensures Voldemort will lose the war, but he makes damn sure to arm Harry with everything he needs to survive that encounter.

Dumbledore always choses love, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness. He always does what is right.

Like he himself will tell you, he made some mistakes (and he is the first to recognise those mistakes, and hold himself accountable for them) but never out of malice or for self interest. Even if he is a genius, he is not omnipresent nor omnipotent, so sometimes he errs on account of that.

He is so aware of his power, and his own human fragility and potential for corruption, that he chooses to remove himself from power, from people, locked away in a school, keeping himself contained and in check.

We also have to account for JK's less than stellar plots, and how HP books are meant for children. But, narratively, Dumbledore represents goodness. He is the hero's mentor, teacher, paternal figure, protector.

When he dies, the UK magical world is lost to darkness. Without him, the Ministry falls, Hogwarts falls, and Voldemort gains power over UK. However, Albus leaves Harry behind, arms him with knowledge (about Horcruxes and how to destroy them) and with powerful magic (the deathly hallows), leaves Harry with people that will look after him (Snape).

Albus did not sacrifice Harry- on the contrary. He loved Harry, was impressed and humbled by the goodness and determination in Harry, and he fought his hardest to keep this kid alive. Without Dumbledore, Harry would have died- not just in the final battle, but many times over. Harry wouldn't have made it past toddlerhood without this man.

To quote Harry himself:

“He accused me of being ‘Dumbledore’s man through and through.’”

“How very rude of him.”

“I told him I was.”

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery.

How the fandom turned this man into a villain, I will never understand.

Of course, you can have a fun AU where Albus is actually evil, or morally grey. I love those kind of stories. This is strictly speaking of canon Albus, and not of wonderfully creative fics that can depict all matter of divergences where Albus can end up however deliciously evil the authors desires him to be.

(I say all this as the Biggest Voldemort's simp in the universe; but I simp for a Voldemort that we create through head-canons and collective fandom, not a Voldemort that exists in the canonical text. I simp for Voldemort's potential that was never realised in the books. Dumbledore, however, is fully developed in the books, and he is a wonderful dude.)

[glowettee]

⋆˚࿔glowettee hotline 6: finding peace after studying.ᐟ

hey lovelies! 🤍i'm finally back with glowettee hotline

abbey sent in the sweetest question to the glowettee hotline about something i think so many of us struggle with. that persistent anxiety that whispers "you could do more" even after you've literally been studying for hours and hours? yeah, i know that voice all too well.

i was literally up until 3am last night reorganizing my color-coded study guides even though i'd already finished them, so trust me when i say i understand that perfectionist energy. there's something about academics that brings out that need for control in all of us, right?

first, i want you to know that what you're experiencing is actually super common among high-achievers. that anxiety isn't a sign that you're doing something wrong - it's actually your brain being a little too good at wanting to succeed. your brain has basically created this false equation that anxiety = productivity, when actually they're totally different things.

when i was in my worst perfectionist spiral last semester (we don't talk about the great midterm meltdown of 2024), my academic counselor shared something that literally changed everything for me. she called it "productive completion" versus "perfectionist completion" and the difference is everything.

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ why your brain keeps doing this ･:࿔ೃ.⋆

your brain has been rewarded for being anxious in the past. every time you've pushed yourself to do "just one more thing" because of anxiety, your brain logged that as a win. it doesn't realize how exhausted and burnt out you're becoming.

also? uncertainty is literally uncomfortable for our brains on a neurological level. your organized nature (which is actually a superpower when balanced!) means your brain craves that feeling of "doneness" - but perfectionism keeps moving the goalpost so you never actually reach it.

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ practical things that actually help ･:࿔ೃ.⋆

create a "done list" instead of just a to-do list. physically write down everything you've accomplished in a study session. when anxiety says "you've done nothing," you have literal evidence to the contrary.

implement a physical "closing ritual" to signal to your brain that work time is over. i close my laptop, put my books in my bag, and light this little vanilla candle that's only for post-study relaxation. your brain needs these concrete transitions.

use time-based boundaries rather than task-based ones. "i will study for 2 focused hours" is better than "i will study until i feel done" because perfectionism ensures you'll never feel done.

try the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique when anxiety spirals hit. name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. it literally interrupts the anxiety pathway in your brain.

create a "worry hour" where you give yourself permission to stress about academics - but only during that designated time. when anxious thoughts come outside that hour, tell them "not now, i'll think about you at 4pm."

practice self-compassion statements that feel authentic to you. mine is "being imperfect doesn't mean i'm ineffective." find yours and repeat it when that voice starts up.

⋆.ೃ࿔:･ the deeper work ･:࿔ೃ.⋆

here's the thing about perfectionism that took me forever to understand - it's often a protection mechanism. somewhere along the way, you learned that being perfect kept you safe from criticism or failure or whatever scary thing your brain is trying to avoid.

the real question to gently ask yourself is: what would happen if you did "just enough" instead of everything possible? what are you afraid would occur? usually when we dig into this, we find some core beliefs that need updating.

for me, i realized i had this weird belief that if i wasn't constantly anxious about academics, it meant i didn't care enough. which is obviously not true! you can care deeply about your studies while still having boundaries and rest.

abbey, i want you to know that your worth isn't measured by how exhausted you are at the end of a study session. your organized nature is a gift - but it should serve you, not control you.

sending you the warmest thoughts and a reminder that you're doing so much better than you think you are. your anxiety is lying to you about how much is "enough."

xoxo, mindy 🤍

leave a message after the tone…

submit your questions here!!

[theancientfootsteps]

someone on Discord brought up Romans 1:26-27 and activated my autistic avatar state and I ended up writing a little essay that's basically a summary of the argument Daniel A. Helminiak makes that Romans 1:26-27 is not a condemnation of homosexuality or homosexual acts in his book What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

and I thought I'd share it here in case someone else is interested

it basically covers 3 main points:

1. what does Paul mean by things being natural or unnatural? 2. the distinction between impurity/uncleanness, and evil/sin. 3. the purpose and rhetorical structure of Paul's letter to the Romans.

keep in mind I am by no means an expert, this is just my summary of Helminiak's argument, which I happen to find very convincing. there's a lot of details and corroborating evidence left out here, if you want the full thing, I can recommend the book! I enjoyed reading it, and it also has interesting things to say about other 'clobber passages'

essay under the cut!

1. Unnatural, or contrary to nature?

So first, what does Paul mean when he calls things natural or unnatural? When we read these words nowadays, there is usually a strong moral value attached to them. When people call things 'unnatural', it means they violate some important law of nature, they are abhorrent and wrong and bad. There is, however, a lot of evidence that this is NOT how Paul uses the term (the Greek here being "para physin"). This is a term he uses many times in multiple letters, simply to mean that someone is doing something beyond what one would usually expect. It clearly has no inherent moral value to him, because he even says there are things God does that are "para physin"! So instead of 'unnatural and abhorrent and bad', we should read it more like: "contrary to her nature, Judy was super chipper this morning! she usually isn't a morning person", or "James is always so kind, but contrary to his nature, this morning he just snapped at me". In this case, by calling these acts "para physin", he is probably saying that these people are doing things that are against social norms and expectations, and/or that they are doing things that don't fit with their usual behavior.

2. Uncleanness vs sin

Second, we have the distinction between things being ritually unclean, and things being evil/sinful. Helminiak goes deep into the intricacies of Jewish law to support this point, but I'll just jump straight to the conclusion, and recommend that you read his book if you feel it needs more justification. Basically, the core is as follows:

- There are things that are considered evil, sinful, bad, morally wrong, for example murder, selfishness, exploitation of others, etc. - There are also things that are considered unclean, but not morally wrong. This is a lot of what is described in Leviticus, for example, and Helminiak uses this same distinction to clear up the infamous clobber passage from Leviticus about men lying with men. Now, these purity laws in the Pentateuch are not unimportant - when they were made, they were extremely important to the Jewish people to set them apart from others. These are the 'holy' laws after all, in the original Hebrew sense of the word meaning things that are different, set apart. They were extremely important for the formation and protection of the Jewish identity. - In many places in both Paul's writings and others' writings in the New Testament, it is made clear that this second set of laws, I'll call them purity laws, do not need to apply to gentile converts. Essentially, they are still highly respected as Jewish law, but they are not carried over to any non-Jewish people who follow Jesus because, once again, these are about the Jewish people and the Jewish identity.

This gives us a distinction between impurity (relevant specifically to Jewish people), and sin/evil (relevant to everyone). According to Helminiak, this distinction was also already accepted by Jewish people at the time, to be clear, so this is not something imposed in hindsight.

Paul uses this distinction in Romans 1. Verses 21-32 have the following structure: 21-25: These people worship idols instead of God! There are consequences to this.

26-27: They do things that are ritually impure/unclean, and also are socially unacceptable and frowned upon. They suffer public shame as a consequence.

28-31: Additionally, they do things that are evil/sinful, and for that, they deserve death.

So the stuff Paul says about homosexual acts, is separate from the things he condemns that are evil and sinful. There is no clear moral judgment about the homosexual acts here.

This leaves us with a question: if Romans 1:26-27 is referring to laws that are only relevant for Jewish people, and Paul is talking about non-Jewish people, why does he even bring them up??? To answer this, we have to proceed to our third major point.

3. The rhetorical structure of Paul's letter to the Romans

We have to consider in what situation Paul is writing this letter, and for what purpose. He is writing it to a congregation that is a mix of Jewish people and non-Jewish converts, and there is animosity between them. This was very common, and one of the major points of contention between these two groups of people was usually precisely the thing we just talked about: cleanness and uncleanness. For example, there was a lot of conflict around food, with the gentiles eating food considered unclean by the Jewish people, and the Jewish people being upset by that.

Paul's goal is to help them reconcile. But, Paul being Paul, he doesn't do this by saying "I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy." No, he does this by saying "why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

When we look at the rhetorical structure of the letter, we see that Paul does the following things: - Sympathize with the Jewish people to get them on his side. Because aren't these gentiles just gross and awful? - UNO REVERSE! Actually you, Jewish people, you also do things that you consider unclean, and things that you consider sinful! So stop judging - Sympathize with the gentiles to get them on his side. Because aren't these Jewish people so annoying? - UNO REVERSE! Shut up, you're no better than anyone else!

So by bringing up these unclean/impure things in 1:26-27, Paul is sympathizing with the Jewish people in the congregation to get them on his side, to get them listening to him, only so he can turn it around later.

It's like if I were trying to convince a loud conservative of something, I might do so by first sympathizing with them to get them on my side, so that then I can flip things. I could say: "Ah yes and these liberal snowflakes are so dramatic, aren't they? They are always overreacting to things, they make such a big deal out of tiny little things like which exact words you use. Right? Don't you think so? But look, see! You are no better! You also overreact and can be dramatic! Because you act like it's a huge burden to use the right pronouns for someone, like your rights are being taken away from you just because someone wants you to use they/them pronouns!"

So, now that we have examined all of this, I think it's safe to say: taken in context, these verses really aren't what they seem to be in isolation. And they are most likely not a condemnation of homosexuality or homosexual acts.

[cepheustarot]

Random facts about your future spouse

Attention! This reading is for entertainment purposes only. This tarot reading does not give a 100% guarantee that all the described situations will occur or being ultimate truth. You build your own life and destiny and only you know yourself best.

✧ Masterlist ✧ Paid readings

Pick a pile. Choose one or more pictures. Trust your intuition.

Pile 1: Your future spouse is younger than you, but by nature very responsible and mature, quite reasonable and soberly looks at life, objective and honest, not one of those who hides the truth, can sometimes be too straightforward. They may look harsh, cold and unapproachable, but next to you they are very gentle, romantic and caring. This person is very fond of arranging romantic surprises, and in general tends to devote a lot of time and attention to lover. They can often arrange dates or give you gifts, talk a lot of tenderness. They also take great care of their figure, they probably have an athletic physique and they can often exercise and monitor their diet to maintain their figure. Their profession or occupation is closely related to a managerial position, they can work in the field of law, research, in the field of exact sciences, in particular physics and mathematics, in the field of medicine. They are quite educated and constantly improve their skills, in their free time they prefer reading books or listening to lectures or videos on a narrow specialized topic. They may be from a conservative and religious family. They also don't really like stability, they like to change something in their lives, for example, they can often rearrange rooms, they can experiment with style, or they can often get out of the house and do something they like, because they don't like to stay at home for a long time.

Pile 2: Your future spouse is quite an intelligent, erudite person, when talking to them, you may get the impression that your spouse knows everything and can answer any of your questions — and they really understand many topics. Perhaps their line of work is closely related to writing texts, they may be interested in journalism, writing, philosophy, and like to watch documentaries. By their nature, they are very calm, they can be slow, they have a relaxed speech, posture, facial expression and in general they are very relaxed in life, they are probably one of those who do not worry about trifles and live one day. They are quite responsive, kind, talkative and like to chat a lot, but they also like to listen to others. Perhaps in the past they were fond of horse riding or they dream of trying to do it! They are also fond of gardening, perhaps their family has its own farm or a house outside the city with its own vegetable garden. They are not afraid of competition, on the contrary, competition only motivates them, adds excitement. This applies to everything, even games are taken seriously and can perceive games not as entertainment, but as competition, to win at any cost.

Pile 3: Your future spouse is a calm and reasonable person, they cannot be called conflicted, but if make them angry, they always know what to say so that they close their mouth to the interlocutor and that their opponent feels ashamed and regrets that he even started arguing. They have a stable job and a stable income, it's hard to say that they are striving for promotion, they are satisfied with what they have now, they are completely satisfied with their career. They can do charity work, volunteer from time to time, or work in animal shelters. Although they are calm for the most part, they tend to worry about their future from time to time, they can also have a lot of fears and they can panic too much when something does not go according to plan or when they face the slightest setback. By themselves, they are quite detached, they like to be alone, they are thoughtful and carefully choose their words before saying something and think a lot before doing anything. In terms of relationships, they are hardly romantic, but they are very loyal and will be with their loved one until the end, they respect their partner and support him in any decisions. The union with such a person is very strong and long.

Thank you for reading! I will be glad of any feedback 💕

[slutt4ellie]

Summer Blossom

masterslist

PART 2 // PART 3 // PART 4

Falling in love is hard. Worse when you know it can’t happen.

Summary -> It’s the summer of ‘73, the absolute last thing you wanted to do is spend summer with your dad all the way in his farm house, which just so happened to be located in the country, far from all your friends. That was until you met her..

Warnings -> Homophobia / Reader denies feelings / Tiny bits of angst (for now) / Avoidant / Reader is 18, Ellie is 19 / Guy hits on reader / Slight bits Jealous!Ellie / Blood! / Description of injuries / Getting outed / (Eventual smut!)

WC: 6.9k

(Not proofread!)

Summer in your dad's farmhouse.

That was easily the last place you wanted to be. 

It’s the summer of ‘73, and your mom had the bright idea of getting some quality time in with your dad.

The reason why is because soon enough you’ll be packing up far away from your hometown and going to collage.

Your parents split up young, 10 to be exact, there were no hard feelings that came along with it, it just happened.

Almost naturally, they simply just grew apart, as some people do. 

You decided to stay with your mom, with all your friends being in that area. Another split you weren’t really willing to lose.

Your dad was always close, 30-45 minutes out to the straight country. 

Nothing but grass and farmland, meaning you didn’t visit a lot. 

On special times like your birthday and holidays, your dad or mom would travel to see each other. 

They named it important to you, but you’ve always convinced yourself it didn’t bother you.

So when your mom suggested you should go up to your dad's for the summer (and wasn’t taking a no) you ended up here.

You didn’t like it to say the least.

It was hot, none of your friends were here, and the last time you’ll ever be freshly graduated at 18 years old you were spending it alone. 

It didn’t help you were also an only child. 

You had no one but your dad. 

So now your in your current predicament. 

You were lying down on your bed. 

Knees pointed up towards the ceiling as you’re slowly drowning in the heat. Which feels like it’s covering each square inch of your room. 

You were reading a book yet weren’t paying attention, the creeks of the floorboards and the birds chirping outside your window had your focus dwell in many different ways. 

A shitty thing that was always on your mind was the fact that you didn’t know if there were people your age, your dad only has one car and it’s strictly named for business purposes. 

It wasn’t until the floorboard creeks were slowly coming up the stairs and the sound of a car pulling in which finally made you drop the book putting it closely beside you. 

There were a few short knocks and your dad's voice came through. 

“Hey, kid?” Your dad mumbles outside your bedroom. 

It was always awkward with him. 

Not because he was a shit dad or anything. On the contrary, he was nice, he always tried his best and was there for you. You guys just didn’t relate much.

He liked hands-on activities, like working on cars, taking care of the many farm animals, and stuff that involved getting dirty.

You enjoyed, staying inside, not getting dirty, sitting in an area with air conditioning, which is the main thing your dad's place fucking lacked.

“Yup?” You sit up rubbing your hand across your sweaty forehead. “Come in” You awkwardly continue. 

Your door opens and your met with your dad. The first thing he says is “You okay?” He asks noticing your tired expression and sweaty face. 

“Yeah.” You sigh slightly exasperated. “Just..” You pause. “Hot.” 

You’re almost confident you’ve never been in a more awkward situation and the fact he’s your own blood, your father for crying out loud? It made it worse. 

He follows by just nodding mumbling a quick agreement. 

He doesn’t talk for what feels like forever. But once his mouth finally opens you know he’ll continue. 

“My buddy is comin’ over?-“ He paused then smiled “He’s here actually!” The smile continues, he’s just hoping you’ll finally get out of your bedroom, at least for a little.

He hated seeing you bored by his mere presence. 

“Daughter around your age is downstairs.” He perks. 

It caught your attention too. Because maybe having someone who might relate to you will ease the straight boredom which is being caused from this house. 

“Oh yeah?” You ask slowly, swinging your legs over your bed before standing up.

“Yup!” He smiles and continues. 

“Been tellin’ them about how you’re coming down for the summer- she seems to be bored out of her mind too.” He chuckles. 

You then sigh, because you kinda feel bad for making it so obvious you were bored. Made you feel like a mean daughter. 

You know not being able to deal with the simple presence of him.

“Dad-“ You try, obviously trying to apologize.

He waved his hand dismissively. “No-! Trust me I get bored round these parts too.” He smiles not trying to cause you guilt. “So hot movin’ around seems like a liability.” He dryly chuckles.

You chuckle too. “You’re telling me..!” 

Once you finish your sentence it’s ended with a nod.

He tilts his head in the bedroom’s door direction suggesting through mannerisms you two should go downstairs.

To which you follow. 

You hear talking. The girl downstairs seems to be hesitant, you can’t really hear what she’s saying, having reminiscences of a mumble. Even so, sounds like a short “I really don’t have to meet her-“. 

But she was quickly cut off when she saw you.

You guys both lock eyes as you're walking down the stairs. 

Just another awkward moment you didn’t need! 

She has green eyes, they seem vibrant while contrasted with the sun that gleams through the window.

Her hair represents a faded red falling more along the lines of brunette, it’s in a shaggy mullet, a bold choice compared to what other people have.

Something you instantly noticed.

Despite the blazing hot sun, which is creating what feels like deathly temperatures, she’s accompanied by a skinny pair of jeans and a t-shirt. 

And in this moment you’ve came to the realization you’ve probably never seen a girl dressed like that before.

It looks like an outfit a male would wear, which throws you for a loop. 

Even though she was mumbling about how she “really didn’t need to meet you” her posture turns straight and a smile presents. 

The man who you can only assume is her father talks. 

“Your old man tells me a lot about you- shame we haven’t properly met yet.” He smiles holding out his hand to shake. 

You awkwardly smile stepping forward to hold out your hand to simply shake back. “I’m Joel- this is my daughter, Ellie.”

His grip peels from yours and he grabs Ellie’s shoulder lightly, making her take a step forward in front of him, she’s now facing directly towards you. 

He feels like it’s to give her a light push to properly introduce herself. Knowing that Ellie wouldn’t take that step on her own.

“Nice to meet you.” Ellie smiles nodding her head awkwardly. 

“Yeah, you too.” You smile back at her. 

It’s awkward, everyone in that room senses it. 

So Joel speaks. 

“Ellie’s got a truck!” Joel perks up, an almost suggestive tone leaking. 

“Was thinkin’ the two of you could head down to town...Your dad was talking about a barbecue” He smiles the last sentence directed towards you.

Ellie’s head turns and she shoots him literal death glares.

Because why in his right mind would he suggest the two of you should go into town. A 10-minute drive after not even knowing each other for 5 minutes. 

What would you even talk about?!

Your dad instantly hops on the idea. Thinking it’s about time for you to step out and find a friend down here.

“Great idea!” He smiles. 

You and Ellie both look at each other, neither of you trying to hide the tired sighs which leaked through your lips..

You both don’t want to really go. 

“Okay..” Ellie nods before turning to the front door. 

“We’ll be back in like 30?” Ellie says.

All you do is follow behind her, she opens the door for you first, before you both are hit with the sun. 

Ellie unlocks her truck hoping in the driver's seat. 

She stretches over the centre console opening the door before you reach it.

All you feel like you can do is mumble a quick thank you. 

And that was the start of the painful car ride. 

It took 4 minutes at least of straight silence for one of you to talk. 

Even though Ellie didn’t want to. She spoke first. 

“So- you like it here so far.” She asks clearing her throat.

“None of my friends are here- so like it’s a bit..boring…” Once you finish your sentence, it’s followed by Ellie nodding to show understanding. 

“Yeah- it’s not bad though. Like once you get used to it.” Ellie smiles tilting her head towards you before turning back.

“You live here?” You ask. You’re somewhat interested..hardly... 

“Yeah- my dad always wanted land..! When I was like 2 we moved, I really don’t remember much before this.” Ellie says looking at the road. 

You just slowly nod. 

“What do you do…? Like all the time.” You ask. 

Ellie’s face does form into a frown. Ellie’s not popular, she’s never been popular. There was a point where she had a good amount of friends.

And that came down in a big crash.

Yet still never popular, not through middle school nor high school, nothing. 

Even though she knows why, she doesn’t plan on telling you. 

“Friends are a big thing!” She lies with a chuckle, hoping it comes across as sounding truthful. 

You buy it, you didn’t even assume it was lying. And plus, say you knew she was lying, you didn’t really care. 

You simply didn’t know Ellie. 

“We close?” You ask Ellie, your tone is dry, and she can easily read you don’t care about what she has to say. 

Ellie nods “Few minutes.” 

And that went in a blur because it wasn’t long till you and Ellie were walking into the grocery store. She leads you to the section that displays all the items you could possibly need for a barbecue. 

Ellie crouches down about to speak before a voice draws both of your attention. 

“Oh, Williams! Didn’t realize you were here?”

Ellie recognizes it immediately. And her face was already red out of pure embarrassment. 

It was ironic, the same guy who made her life shit throughout high school was still sulking in the same area she was. 

Ellie often saw him as the prime example of peaking in high school.

He was horrible to her, constantly. 

Jack McNeill. 

He was a “perfect jock”. 

He caught every girl’s attention, with his blonde hair and blue eyes. Something that drew everyone’s physical attraction. 

She remembers it firsthand when her best friend fell for him. A story she doesn’t feel like even thinking of right now. 

And in all fairness, he needed the looks, his personality was shit, and she knew that more than anyone. 

But still, everyone who knew him loved him, unless you were one of the ‘lucky’ ones who gained his unwanted attention. The one where he’d practically torment you.

“Who’s this?” He smiles with a cocky expression, it’s directed towards you.

Ellie frowns and looks at you.

You guys lock eyes, Ellie’s eyes are silently expressing that she’s sorry. But you can’t tell why.

Nothing that’s been said needed any sort of apology.

“Or…is she for you?” He chuckles. Just by his tone you know it’s lurking with an accusatory tone. Having slight reminiscence of disgust.

You didn’t get what he meant by that comment “Is she for you?”.

It felt like you were being bided on. 

And it hardly made sense! Why would he direct that comment to Ellie, someone who you hardly knew?? 

And who’s a fucking girl? 

“She’s my dad's like- it’s his friend's daughter..” Ellie quickly stands up trying to get out of this conversation as fast as she can, even though it’s hardly working. 

Ellie knows she doesn’t owe Jack an explanation, but he doesn’t ever stop pushing once he starts, something you’d expect from a toddler, not someone who turns 20 in a month.

“Ahh…What’s your name?” He smiles at you, it physically makes you cringe at how his tongue pokes out of his mouth out of pure concentration. 

You look at Ellie and then back at him. 

You know 100% this look and this sentence worked on other people, you see how confident he looks, it’s almost gross.

“We’re in a grocery store?” You chuckle tilting your head.

“Mhm?” He questions. 

Ellie’s looking back and forth between the both of you. Starting to think the charm that Jack seems to have on every fucking girl on the planet will end up working on you.

So she can’t even help but roll her eyes. 

“Thank you, but no thank you.” You nod politely. 

“Wanna go?” You question turning to Ellie. Now realizing she has everything that she actually needs in hand. 

Ellie just nods looking at you then back at Jack, she has a smirk plastered all over her face. She didn’t care if you and Jack went out or something, it just helped to see his face drop.

It’s like it’s the first time he’s ever faced rejection.

Granted it probably is.

It only took till you guys got outside for you to talk. 

“That guy is a dick?” You smile looking at Ellie.

Ellie also smiles, nods lightly, and talks. “Little bit huh?” 

And even though that moment seemed so insignificant from any other viewpoint, it genuinely felt like that’s what sprouted yours and Ellie’s friendship.

And at this point picturing a summer day without her seemed simply impossible.

Because after spending almost a month together, being apart seemed odd.

It had you basically dreading on the fact that summer will eventually end, and you’ll be far from not only your family or friends.

But you’ll be far from Ellie.

She easily fit in the category of a friend. Just you felt like you’ve never connected to someone so fast, meaning calling her one, was something you’ve never fully thought about.

Because Ellie didn’t seem like just a friend?

She seemed different.

Either way it didn’t matter. You always tried to shrug off any thoughts before they could even form.

All she realistically is, is a friend.

Strictly.

I guess you just hated finding yourself constantly overthinking when it comes to Ellie.

The lines of friendship were blurring, and you didn’t like that...

Like when you guys wouldn’t act like just friends, situations where you would share the same bed during sleepover, when you and her would lay on your wood floor (since it was cooler than the air) and her head would be on your shoulder peeking over at the book you were reading.

It was the little things.

You’ve come to the consensus forgetting about it would somehow ease the awkward and unwanted feelings.

I guess it also didn’t help Ellie and Joel practically come over everyday. Which allowed your friendship to grow all that more.

Even though you guys were different, extremely fucking different you felt like you got each other in the more important ways.

Because you told Ellie certain things, and she told you some back.

She was a secretive person, it didn’t bother you much, because you’ve always labeled her as shy, since your first interaction that is.

Even though she was already socially awkward her being shy really just seemed like an add on.

She’s never would expand on how high school was for her, if she had friends, a boyfriend even. She never fucking talked about it.

You’ve never met one of Ellie’s friends, you’ve asked, but she comes up with the same reason. Or in Ellie’s mind an easy excuse to stop the questions from coming any further.

“There out for the summer.” Ellie mumbles following you up the stairs to your bedroom.

Ellie and Joel arrived around 5pm, your dad quickly suggested the idea to have dinner with them.

Of course that went with a shit ton of talking, with a hint of alcohol. Your dad always got chatty when liquor was involved.

Joel also got a few drinks cracked in him, nothing heavy but enough to tell Ellie that they should just crash at your dads place for the night.

In order for them to do some “manly bonding.” Or whatever the fuck they called it?

it ended up making it easier for Ellie, because now that the both of them were staying the night, Ellie didn’t have to carry a stumbling Joel back into their place.

So here you are.

Walking up the stairs with Ellie going on about how you really wanted to meet her friends you read the clock.

It’s only 8pm. The sun is still out due to the earth's tilt..

Which worked in your favour.

Because you had an idea.

After Ellie grumbled her little “There out for the summer.”

All you can reply with is a short sigh.

“Okay what about parties?” You ask looking at her.

“Parties?” Ellie laughs thinking you’re joking.

Both of your legs moving into your bedroom.

“What?” You question turning around to get a good look at her.

Awkwardly it created a close environment for the both of you, practically nose to nose to be exact. To which you backed up as Ellie stayed frozen. Cheeks tinted pink.

You stepped back probably as soon as it happened. You didn’t talk, just looked at her.

Ellie then snaps out of it, trying to forgot that fact she definitely felt your breath on her lips. Ellie was starting to hate herself for even thinking about it.

She knows the both of your are friends. And more importantly you don’t even know about it.

Ellie clears her throat watching as you backed up, quick reminder you definitely didn’t see Ellie like that. Not that it mattered.

“Okay since when do you party?” She ask tilting her head, a quick smile painting right on.

“Whatever?? Tonight- let’s go!” You smile looking at her.

Ellie shakes her head and laughs. “No?? Your dad would kill me? It’s going to get late and- what fucking party.”

“My dad and Joel wouldn’t even notice El? Their drunk. And plus It’s summer! There’s 100% a party happening.”

Ellie sighs.

“Actually?” Ellie questions, she’s praying you’re joking. Because again, she’s not the most popular person around town.

You tilt your head and smile. “Please..!” You sigh out.

“I don’t know..?” She shrugs, and looks at you before continuing. “I just- like what if it’s not fun?” Ellie’s trying to think of any lie that’s realistic. You know other than ‘I don’t feel good’

You look at her shining one last smile hoping it will work.

“Okay- okay fine.” Ellie sighs dramatically, you quickly hug her and pull back.

“Okay let’s get ready!” You suggested.

“No?” Ellie laughs.

“What do you mean ‘no’!” You chuckle grabbing her hand to make her sit down on your bed.

“What if there’s a cute guy you see?” You say suggestively which gets Ellie to cringe back and shake her head. That wasn’t happening..

“I doubt it?” She chuckles looking at you.

A frown is now present on your face. Ellie was so avoidant when it came to the subject of boyfriends. She seemed physically repulsed by them, almost men in general.

And it was getting hard to ignore it now.

You’ve figure she might of had a secret boyfriend, but that was shut down real quick after Ellie denied for a solid 10 minutes after you asked her.

You just didn’t get why she was acting like this.

“No?” You question.

“‘No.” Ellie confirms looking at you. “Trust me I won’t see any guy there that I actually, you know, like.” She shrugs.

“Why?” You ask.

Ellie quickly stands up. Putting on a fake smile. “Let’s go!”

It almost gave you whiplash, I mean it wasn’t new. There’s been countless moments where Ellie just disregarded whatever you said. The first time it happened it ended with you laughing, thinking it was a simple joke.

But she does it a lot. If she doesn’t want to answer, she try’s to act like you didn’t even say it.

Now creating an endless cycle you were genuinely getting tired of.

“Okay.” You follow after Ellie.

You were driving with Ellie. She knew a party nearby. Not that she was invited, she just heard around.

Ellie and you haven’t really spoken since the moment in your room. It’s not like your mad at her, just the secretive act has been getting..annoying.

You told Ellie a lot about you- and it’s like she’s scared to give you anything fucking personal information.

“What..?” Ellie sighs turning over to you before her eyes gaze back on the road ahead.

One hand is on the steering wheel while the others on the centre console.

“I didn’t say anything..?” You shrug looking at Ellie.

Ellie nods awkwardly with a twinge of nervousness. She knows herself she’s being avoidant, and she doesn’t want to lose you because of that.

After Ellie finishes her little nod she talked.

“Are you mad at me?” Ellie ask looking back to you, your gaze is glued to the window purposefully avoiding her.

Ellie hated that.

“No” You just sigh and finally lock with Ellie’s side profile. “You just don’t tell me shit.” You tilt your head.

“I tell you shit.?” Ellie shrugs and smiles trying to ease the tension in the car.

She’s eyeing you once again.

“Get your eyes back on the road.” You groan rolling your eyes, Ellie’s mannerisms were hard not to fold over, which is annoying..

Ellie shifts her eyes to the road.

“What do you wanna know?” She now ask, her teeth are slotted in the bottom of her lip out of nervousness.

Yet her poker face is good enough for you not to get the memo.

“I don’t know- about you?” You say shrugging.

“There’s not much to tell?” Ellie says with a chuckle.

The car stops and she gets out first before opening the door for you. “You’re such a fucking liar?” You chuckle hopping out.

“Im-“ Ellie try’s to defend it, but you shake your head.

“No i’m getting your drunk and i’m hearing all about your little secrets” You joke with a smile.

Yet Ellie definitely wasn’t the one who got drunk.

Because just an hour later you were a slurring, stumbling over your feet trailing back to no other then the kitchen.

There sat the blonde hair blue eyed guy who you turned down a little over 2 weeks ago.

His poster straightens up when he sees you.

“Hey..” He smiles and grabs a red solo cup before handing it to you.

“Hi!” You say excitedly.

He tilts his head and looks around, looking for the other girl who can realistically turn down what’s happening. “Where’s Ellie?”

“Sheees..” You slur looking around, you don’t notice her figure. Which is strange because she definitely stands out.

You quickly turn your attention back to him. “Not sure!” You chuckle.

So does he.

With that he steps forward.

“You’re Jack, yeah?” You ask remembering how Ellie told you on the way back to your dad's place. Leaving the grocery store you two were previously in.

“Mhm?” He smiles moving his hand to your shoulder.

“Do you know my name?” You ask, you notice the way his eyes light up, clearing thinking of something, your eyes on the other hand are glossy from the liquor coursing through your veins..

You’re definitely not thinking straight.

“Why don’t you tell me upstairs?” He suggest. The cocky tone from the grocery store coming right back.

You’re not a hook up type person, you’ve genuinely never been. You can tell by Jacks suggestive tone he’s doesn’t just want to ‘learn your name’. Fuck you’re not stupid.

But..there’s thoughts in your mind about Ellie. Shit you don’t like, stuff you’d never admit. Not even if you were in a life or death situation.

When you’re talking to Jack. They start to falter, go quiet no longer disrupting you.

So you nod. Hesitantly, while a flash of Ellie’s face becomes apparent.

When his uncomfortably big hands loop to your wrist, it’s more forceful than you’d like, yet you agree. You guys are both walking to the stairs, you’re almost falling over due to still being drunk.

“What the fuck?” He groans feeling a sudden grip on his shoulder. His eyes are turning around as yours are too. Once you see green eyes you just sigh. Those previous thoughts coming back.

“What do you want Williams?” He smiles looping his arm around your waist. It ended up closing the little distance you too just previously had.

Ellie doesn’t answer her eyes just go to his arm, the one that is looped around your waist to be exact.

“We're going back.” Ellie says sternly looking back at the two of you.

“Jealous?” He taunts stepping forward.

“Oh fuck off.” Ellie says trying to step closer towards you, something you wouldn’t mind right now. It’s awkward watching this whole interaction on the sidelines. It feels like you’re just spectating.

He steps forward again his arms pushing Ellie back from her chest forcefully?

“Your little friend knows then?” He questions turning back to you. Just by the way he’s speaking down to Ellie. You know it’s not good.

“What?” You say looking back at Ellie. Her face is pale mixed with a bit of red. It’s out of embarrassment, yet you can also tell she’s scared of what he might say.

Jacks laugh fully echos in the house, it’s obnoxious and loud.

Currently being the only thing you can hear right now.

He then shrugs looking at Ellie.

“Wanna tell her, or should I Williams?” Jack questions licking his lips, it’s taunting.

Ellie doesn’t answer, she can’t answer. Her whole body went numb, because she really can’t experience this feeling once again.

From the silence Jack then shrugs mumbling a “So be it?”

“You know, the fact she’s a little dyk-“

It went in a flash. That whole moment.

The last thing you saw was Ellie’s fist flying straight at Jacks face, Ellie got a good hit in. But his arm was swinging back, quicker and way harder.

And soon enough, despite being the drunk one. You had Ellie’s arm slinging around you while you both walked out.

There was other party attendees rushing out of the door. Some laughing, some even yelling at Ellie. Calling her shit you wouldn’t ever repeat.

Then there was Jack, fuck was he the worst of it. Sure people were saying horrible things to Ellie as she walked out.

But each one of his words made you wince.

You ran an unlocked Ellie’s car before opening the back seat so she has a place to sit down comfortably..

Her nose had to be broken. It was practically spraying with blood and you didn’t know what to do.

Ellie’s hands were shaking and her eyes had a few tears leaving it. Which she attempted to hide from you.

Didn’t work though.

You lightly rub her cheek with your hand trying to wipe them just as fast as they come out.

Soon pulling back wondering if it’s to weird.

“You have something I can stop the bleeding with??” You asked probably just as panicked as her. All she could respond with is a quick nod of her head and a few words.

“T-trunk” Ellie says.

You run to the back of the trunk and look. She has a spare white tank top.

Once you run back you apply light pressure to her nose.

Ellie holds your wrist trying to calm her nerves the fuck down.

“Breathe El..” You say trying to get her to calm down.

Ellie’s chest rose slowly and you felt her breath come through the balled up tank top.

Your other hand went to her jaw then neck.

“What was that Ellie?” You say looking at her.

You heard the stuff they were calling her, it would be a ironic and nearly impossible for everyone in that party to randomly come up with the same insult.

Not to mention the shit Jack was saying.

Some talk of an ex best friend was mentioned..You heard all of it..

Ellie fucking knew that too. So all she can reply with is a simple shake of her head.

And this time you understood why she was being so fucking secretive.

Because say you were like her, and in that position. You’d probably avoid it too.

So you’re finally accepting that fact she doesn’t want to talk about it..

Ellie stands up abruptly causing you to flinch back.

She seems colder now. Like she’s masking clear embarrassment with the face of no feelings.

“We can go.” It’s a statement not a question. Ellies whole personality shifted. You watch as she trails back to the trunk throwing the bloody shirt somewhere.

Ellie clears her throat and gets in the car she’s facing only forward, she physically can’t look at you.

What if you knew now.

The one thing she’s been trying her absolute hardest to hide.

And why?

Because Ellie’s a coward.

Probably the biggest fucking one, she can’t go through the feeling of losing another friend simply because she’s..

————

“You’re lesbian..?” Emma says. It sounds like she scared to ask. Worrying about any confirmation that Ellie might ensue.

Emma and Ellie have been friends for longer then both of them could even remember. There was a point where they weren’t friends though. About 4 months. That was until Ellie was born.

So they’ve been together in the little moments like preschool, and middle, finally reaching where they are now, high school. They’ve always been together.

They met through each others parents. Ellie’s dad Joel, and Emma’s father Adam were practically the same men. They liked outdoors, fishing, shit like that.

Ellie swears if she hadn’t known better you could even call them twins.

There was only one difference.

Emma’s family was an extreme stereotypical “Perfect family”.

They had a nice house, christian, perfect looking animals and kids, plus Ellie’s almost confident she hasn’t even heard Emma’s mom swear. Not once.

Yet she just sorta assumed it never passed to Emma?

Ellie’s whole face is red. All she can reply with is a nod. She’s embarrassed, yet not scared.

Because fuck. Emma’s her best friend.

She’s never once considered the fact maybe Emma wouldn’t accept her? Because she simply could not see why.

It’s still Ellie. It just felt like a tiny part of her was hidden.

“D-do you like me?” Emma stands off her bed. Now concerned with the fact Ellie’s in love with her or something. Which just wasn’t true.

Ellie loved Emma, of course. But fucking platonically. She wasn’t alluded with her or something, it almost felt like Emma was joking.

Either way Ellie’s face dropped, because out of all the possibilities she wasn’t fucking excepting this one. A one where maybe Emma didn’t accept her.

“Wh-what n-no!” Ellie’s a stuttering mess now standing up off Emma’s bed. She feels all her nerves turn to jelly. What does she say?

“The fuck Ellie- we’ve- we’ve slept in the same bed before.“ Emma’s tone is loud. It’s like she’s yelling at Ellie now. Like she’s mad.

And Ellie’s never been able to read a face more clear then Emma’s that day.

Pure disgust.

“E-Em?” Ellie try’s stepping forward trying to reach her hand over.

Emma shakes her head and backs up again, she’s acting like Ellie’s infected. Ellie’s searching for any signs of hope. Like it’s some sick joke. Her eyes are just trailing up and down..

“You know I like Jack?” Emma says.

“I kn-“ Ellie starts again, quickly stopped by brown eyed girl.

“Ellie get the fuck out!” Emma yells..

The sound made her wince. Emma never yelled like that, none the less directed towards Ellie.

That night Ellie stumbled out of Emma’s house tears streaming down her face, because she didn’t really have anyone after that. Sure she had some other friends, Joel would be there for her. But fuck..it was Emma.

Someone she simply couldn’t replace, not if she wanted to.

The next day was probably worse.

Ellie woke up to Joel sitting pulled into their kitchen table a little mug rested in the middle of his hands, which was of course full of coffee.

Joel’s never up early, so she already knew she was fucked.

It started off with a short.

“Kid you know I love you. No matter what.” He sighs out.

“Adam called me. He was tellin’ me about some crush on Emma?” He shrugs standing up.

“Is that true?” He questions.

Ellie’s eyes are already glossy, she really didn’t need to be immediately reminded about the disaster which was last night..

“N-no I-I don’t like her?” Ellie puts her head in her hands wiping the tears just as fast as they come.

Joel stands up wrapping her in a bear hug.

“I’m not being buddies with someone who will talk badly about my family.” Joel crouches down reassuring Ellie.

So yes Joel did end up taking it well. Ellie explained everything. What Emma said. Everything.

She just wasn’t prepared for the shit show at school.

Because apparently Emma called Jack McNeill whining about some shitty betrayal. Like she was the one who was hurt.

So not only did Ellie lose Emma, she lost all her remaining friends, her whole school would talk about her like she’s not there, the girls locker rooms would be cleared if she were to ever step foot in them, and she was sorta just alone.

Ellie made a decision right then, she’s not telling people anymore.

————

“El?” You question looking at her. Repeating yourself for the second time.

It looks like she just glitched in real life.

She doesn’t respond but by the fact her eyes didn’t seem so deep in thought you decided to assume she heard you.

“Are we going to talk about it?” You ask once more, silently begging for a response.

The car stops abruptly.

Your eyes are met with the quiet home which belongs to your father.

The lights are off so you know Joel and your dad are sure to be sleeping.

“I’ll see you later.” Ellie says coldly, she’s only looking forward, purposefully avoiding how your eyes won’t peel away from her side profile.

You were scared of how you felt for Ellie, but you were drunk. And right now she seems like she’s going to cry once again. So you pushed that down and talked.

“Ellie it’s late.” You sigh.

She doesn’t respond, she just clears her throat..

Once you shut the passenger door she assumes you’re leaving. But nope..

Ellie watched as you walked over to the driver seat opening the door.

“Come on” You hold out your hand.

Ellie looks at your hand and sighs. “No-“

“Come on…” You pause for a few seconds. “Please.”

Ellie steps out of her truck ignoring how your hand laid open for hers. Ellie decides to stuff both of hers inside her pockets. Creating an easy way of ignoring it.

“You’re the one who punched him Ellie. Don’t know why you’re being bitchy with me.” You say sheepishly.

Because frankly you’re annoyed, she’s acting like it’s your fault.

“Wouldn’t have to..you’re the one decide to practically stumble with him upstairs.” Ellie says harshly. She didn’t mean for it to come out that way. It just..did?

And for that reason you frowned.

You only opened the door for her.

“Go to the washroom.” You say looking at the body which trailed beside you.

“What?” Ellie questions face turning red.

“Your shirt” You confirm. “It’s covered in blood.” You say dryly. You’re clearly mad at her.

Ellie just nods, she’s embarrassed at her own actions, her choice of words also weren’t the brightest..?

Once she gets into your bathroom which is right beside your bedroom she just sits on the sink for a few seconds.

It doesn’t take long before she heard your light knock. A signal you’re outside waiting.

“Yeah come in.” Ellie sighs. Rubbing one hand down her face avoiding the throbbing nose.

You hand her a t-shirt and a pair of pyjama shorts.

Ellie looks down at them then back at you. “I’m sorry..” She says shortly continuing. “For the fight- ignoring you. Then what I said after.” She says.

“Thank you.” You say awkwardly.

It hasn’t been this awkward since the day the both of you first met each other.

This is because Ellie knows a certain questions on your mind.

You know it too. It’s looming. And even though you wanna ask it, you don’t.

Your voice comes out quiet. “I’ll wait in my bedroom.” You clear your throat. “For you” You nod.

Ellie nods too and smiles. “Okay” She mumbles out.

You laid flat on your bed until you heard the door opening. Ellie walked in your bedroom, throwing her previous clothes somewhere on the floor.

She didn’t say much. She just got beside you in bed, something which was overall normal when she’d stay the night.

Just this time it was quiet and cold, despite the hot weather.

You guys both tumbled during that night, you still felt tipsy, and your head felt like it was spinning. Something which wasn’t going away.

The fact Ellie was moving around meant she was definitely fading between consciousness and a deep sleep.

So since you both were in that tired state, it hardly registered when she turned sideways having her arm draped over you, falling right on your waist.

And that was the first issue.

Because did you pull back.

Nope!..

You fucking pushed yourself back into Ellie, finally feeling her lips shadow your neck.

Her breath was warm, extremely steady and she was fading into that deep sleep she lacked a few minutes ago.

Because now once she was holding onto you, it felt like she was on cloud nine.

And for her it didn’t even feel like it went to her brain, if you told Ellie that moment was all a dream she 100% would have believed it.

You moved your body around now so your faces where positioned in front of each other. You looped one arm around her waist and the other behind her neck, head positioned right on her chest.

Your lips hit her collar bone, and it wasn’t like you kissed that area or anything.

You just let them sit there.

“You okay..?” Ellie sleepily mumbles.

“Mhm..” You say.

Waking up in the country was odd.

Because it wasn’t peaceful, nope. There was a rooster which worked as a free alarm clock. Always starting around 8am, so really extremely bright and early.

You woke up with the feeling of a hand on your back, and your head is sat on another body. The hand on you was poking between the sliver of skin between your shirt and shorts.

There was a thumb dragging back and forth and your hips.

Yet you soon realized that hand that belonged to Ellie.

Your whole face turned red.

And you’re now in auto pilot, because you’re jumping out of your bed like there was a million ants that laid there.

But no, only Ellie..

Her eyes opened slowly, the pain in her nose now becoming more prominent then ever..

But she didn’t care, not right now at least.

Because last night wasn’t a dream? Nope.

You guys slept in the same bed. Hugged, cuddled, and at one point your lips were on her skin..

And both of you are now dealing with the consequences the next morning.

Ellies eyes can’t scan your face, she doesn’t know what the fuck you’re trying to relay but it’s not processing for her. And maybe because you yourself don’t even know what to feel.

You were in a moment of shock. Not knowing what to say. Or even what to fucking do.

So you do the only think you can think of.

“Ellie you should leave!” You spit out. It was a panicked statement. Yet it just came out harsh and rude. Now leaving Ellie to feel like the idiot.

“What..?” Ellie questions, she’s fucking shell shocked herself.

She didn’t know what to except, just wasn’t this.

“You need to leave!” You spit again. “Now!”

Ellie stands up collecting her clothes off the floor. Even though the scene which is playing out almost seems like a hookup. It was so fucking far from that.

Because instead of it being a hookup you’re going insane over one stupid night, which on the contrary could mean absolutely nothing.

But you know that you felt something, that makes everything worse.

Ellie’s puts on her shoes before looking at you.

“You’re ridiculous you know?” She says looking straight at you before turning to leave your room.

You only follow her out though, convincing yourself it’s only because you need to make sure she’s really leaving. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“What.?” You say following her down the stairs.

“Don’t fucking act all innocent.” She says looking at you.

“I asked you last night- I asked if you we’re okay!” She yells, she sorta wants it to come out as harsh. Yet it just comes out tired, weak like.

“I was drunk?! For fuck sake Ellie!” You yell back at her. It was a pity accuse for sure. It was just easier that way. You wanted to make her feel stupid.

Yet you felt stupid, because you we’re currently denying what you felt for Ellie, and you were doing that by hurting her.

“The people at the party were right. Jack- all of them.” You couldn’t even process what you were saying, it just came out. In another moment of panic? So your face frowns, really fucking fast.

You immediately remember thinking last night how you would ‘never repeat the shit they said to her.’

And you didn’t, but you almost said worse.

Causing you to switch up fast shaking your head.

You start fast. “Ellie I didn’t mea-“

Ellie shakes her head opening the front door. “Fuck you.”

You knew you fucked up.

Joel’s still here and you’d have to think of some lie as to why Ellie went home early.

And to be fair that’s the last thing you cared about, because you single handily said the worst possible thing in that moment.

And because of it.

You’ve lost Ellie.

A/N -> new series 😋😋

I’m switching up my style a bit and going back to the past, I wasn’t fucking born in the 70s so don’t come for me if something is not historically accurate?

I genuinely remember searching up “skinny jeans 70s” tryna see if it was accurate, and spoiler alert (mfs where not wearing that! 🗣️) Like they sorta were but not rlly.

But idc!

As i’m writing this I haven’t even started fated hearts start with fire soo yeah! But maybe if ur lucky it’ll be posted by the time this comes out.

That’s all, hope you enjoyed reading and lmk if you wanna be on the taglist!

(Likes and reblogs are always appreciated)

[capslocked]

KINKVEMBER DAY: 9

[prompt: problematic relationships]

male reader x nana

10k words

"Do you have any idea how long I've thought about it?" Nana slips a finger between the buttons of your shirt. "You, me - us?"

And here, you actually, truthfully do not want to know.

So, go ahead, cue up the sound of a mental rolodex spinning out while you start to list the very real, very valid, very adult reasons you should never, ever put your hands on her. (1) She's too young for you, (2) you're kind of a community figure, or at least someone who has to appear to be one, and more pertinently (3) she was your student not long enough ago - in your ethics class, the irony of which is not lost on you - and that makes it the kind of dirty, low thing you'd feel guilty for even masturbating to. Let alone actually attempt to live through, no matter how insistent some parts of you might be to the contrary, a point emphasized by the pressure of her finger against the dip just below your sternum.

"These... oh, how should I call them." Nana hums softly just before easing a bit of distance between the two of you, head tilting like she's in a trailer for this summer's romcom, and not, you know, trying to drag you into hell. "Filthy little fantasies?"

-

You're a high school teacher, interdisciplinary. Sometimes history, other times philosophy, you've also taught math - and once, egregiously, home economics when the faculty member whose usual duties consisted of teaching the class was out on a very sudden and scandalous maternity leave. But it's your love of literature that finds you in a bookstore near enough to the high school to sell more used copies of intro textbooks than actual novels.

You're paging through a book you'd say you're considering buying - if any of the store staff were to push the question onto you - when she appears at the other end of the fiction aisle.

You catch the look first of her dyed hair, this perfect shade of chocolate, to the edges, the fade-to-brown, cascading over where a more formal shirt would ostensibly have shoulders.

She smiles; it's pretty.

Then, you make the mistake of glancing down and seeing the modest rise of her chest beneath a crisp-collared sleeveless top; all your typical college-age tells but for the red flannel, rolled back down around her waist. Her fingers, long and thin, dangle from where a uniform button-down would taper off around her wrist, thumb rubbing lazily at her forearm. The briefest glimpse of her nails, all done up in acrylic - perhaps the most potent way to show contempt for an old dress-code.

You have, admittedly, also noticed the length (appropriately, the lack thereof) of her pleated skirt and those frilly stockings that ride so far up the creamy curves of her thighs that it has your stomach rolling and tightening when she shuts closed the book in her hands and says -

"Isn't it weird how most of the novels in the romance section are written by women?”

- she speaks with a slow deliberateness, like she'd only ever hoped to find one of her old teachers alone and slightly vulnerable in a used bookstore -

“Like, how do you think a man would even go about writing those kinds of stories?" She grins, because maybe this isn't really a question at all - not one meant for you, certainly. And for one wild moment, the rush of relief (she's not actually talking to you), then panic (she's actually talking to you.) surges through you.

But then the girl pushes another couple books along the shelf and continues.

"Because I'll tell you what, Professor - all this stuff," a flip-flip-flip of her fingertips against a leathery dustjacket, "about just feeling it, not being able to control it. It's all women, always women." Another wave of her hand to set another row of spines a-shuddering. "Do you ever think maybe people will get tired of listening to girls talking about feelings when what they really need to see is what guys would do?"

There are so many reasons you should turn and run. 

So many little flags, flickering wildly in your mind. This is one of your students. Was it this fall? Maybe the last; she had sat front-center. Never slept in, was one of your best by several measures - not simply in regards to the simple repetition of classroom work, but by her insistence on getting in the kind of heated discussion where one might dig their fingers through the innards of your lectures. Not just good - fantastic.

"Nayeon," you end up saying, flat as your suddenly paper-dry mouth can make it - with just the tiniest hint of unease. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

And almost as if she knows that you're trying not to let your eyes dip any lower than the collar of her shirt, her shoulders do that lilting little move (hiking up and away just so), the one that your girls tend to learn a long, long time before your boys ever manage to figure out. She laughs out this pleasant sound, adds: "not that long, sir."

"Well," you're clearing your throat, looking around the bookstore like it might contain a way out, and eventually landing somewhere on her skirt, "you know how fast it all goes."

"Nana, by the way."

“I’m sorry?”

“Nana,” She gently corrects you again with this mischievous slant to her smile, and you start remembering: all the gossip and rumors, how she was being courted by these talent-scouts and labels. A prodigy, or as close to it as anyone from this town could ever get.

Your eyes are starting to sting again when she, this perfect-fit model of your worst impulses, runs her hand through her hair, tugging at the roots a little bit, a silver wristwatch falling slightly down the perfect length of her forearm. It almost hurts not to reach out and steady her. And it definitely shouldn't, but it has you breathing a bit faster. The rationalization: you are a man, and there is a perfectly ordinary part of you that might be aroused by any amount of smooth, inviting skin. That's fine. You're fine.

"Just for the record," Nana starts, still looking like she wants to put a hand forward and hook one long fingernail into the buttons of your shirt. "You were, like, absolutely one of my favorite teachers."

"I guess it's nice to hear I'm not a complete lost cause," you say.

She snorts. "Oh, definitely not." And maybe because, after all of the years you have been teaching these soon-to-be lawyers, politicians, and doctors, you've come to not look down on them for saying the wrong things so much. Though you do envy their absolute ability to say the wrongest of things - just so - just on purpose.

"Are you," you nod at the thick stack of paperback novels that she is still holding, and with which, suddenly, she's bashful and flustered - this perfect shade of pink blossoming through her cheeks. "Actually here to buy those?"

The response: a demure little shrug. A drawl. "We all have our vices, professor."

"I'm not your teacher anymore," and remembering at the last moment, "Nana, you can drop the honorifics, please."

She holds a book out, cover turned toward you, and your mind stalls - even your fingers slip a little where they are resting on the spine of your own paperback purchase. The title is an affront to literacy, and the art on the cover seems to have been produced only with stock photos, gaudy.

"Have you heard of it?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Well," she laughs and has the courtesy not to lay it at your expense, "it is so good." Then, without missing a beat, she twists her lips together, and finds the book flush against your chest. "I'm sure it beats reading textbooks and essays about the merits of Locke and Hobbes' life-after-death stuff all day, anyway. An hour if you can spare the time? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it"

And - ah, there it is. The push.

-

There is a zero percent chance that, after any of this, things will end neatly for either of you. 

You still wonder, slightly, how long Nana will keep up the charade before breaking character - because there's no way in hell she doesn't see what she's doing: wrapping you around her pretty fingers, her shiny, manicured nails, twisting every chance you get to reject her into an excuse to linger that little bit longer.

But it's well over an hour spent at the cafe-end of the bookstore, where she orders an iced-coffee and fills you in on the details you don't really need to hear, what she's been up to these last couple semesters - playing twenty questions; questions about other faculty members, the school, if the school newspaper is still anything like it used to be (for the record: no), then coming back to if you've been seeing anyone lately. That last one slips in so naturally you can't stop yourself from taking a slow drag off of the straw in your drink and answering: "not recently."

Because no honest deed goes unpunished, or however the saying goes.

"Hey," her hands splay out over the tabletop, pushing the cold, condensing water of her glass, smudging where a finger drags a line through the pool.

Maybe she knows. How you're already caught, and there's no going back, which is to say you're perfectly free to watch, hungrily, where her throat moves, and then where her lips part.

"I’ve got the perfect thing for that," and for one unhinged, hysterical moment you picture it, Nana: lying back against a counter or maybe in the cushions of a sofa, panties thrown carelessly over her shoulder; heaving out this soft, heady gasp. You: pushing inside of her for the very first time, both of your legs bracing, the heel of her foot pressed into the small of your back - but before you can convince yourself that she can't be talking about that, and just barely before the air gets stuck in the back of your throat and you realize that you might be so thoroughly, tragically fucked -

"Read this." A snap back into the here and now. She is looking at you very pointedly, not naked - but beautiful and perfect as she leans a bit into the table and crosses those lovely, lovely legs of hers, and tilts the copy of that awful, awful filth at you.

"Nana, respectfully, this is drivel," you say, immediately and plainly, listening to Nana laugh out loud as you glean more than you need to know from the info on the inside cover. "They've crossed like five major genre boundaries for a hook-up. Why should anyone bother?"

"Come on." She waves it off with a careless gesture of her hands. "There's plenty of things to like. Maybe you should give it a chance - broaden your horizons, teach. Besides - the sex scenes?" She rolls her shoulders with the same shrug you remember watching so carefully all those times she made her way, out of the hallways and back into that front-and-center-seat she was always occupying whenever the bell rang. "So filthy. I can show you one of my favorites."

"Doesn't really seem like appropriate reading material for -"

"You said it yourself," her voice has a bright, saccharine tone, just on the right side of strained. And between sips of that straw stuck in the purse of her pert, little mouth, she draws that next sentence - the ice cracking, thinning under your feet -

"Not my teacher anymore."

Nana smiles; this brash, cock-sure thing that reminds you, as you try to clear your throat of the nerves making a bed there: you are actually so, so fucking gone on her. So far gone it hurts, when, with a flourish and a bounce and a complete, reckless lack of discretion, she starts paging through the first chapters.

"Who says you can't study these kinds of stories on an academic level? Think about it: sex sells. Whoever ends up writing, it's a whole lot easier and a hell of a lot cheaper than trying to do it all yourself." She looks up, this mischievous twinkle in her eyes, as she angles her fingertips down on the book and opens it - page after page of very obviously poorly-written sex. You look, not even consciously.

But of course, her fingertips drift lower and lower along the pages until it's evident: she doesn't have an exact page in mind, but only a particular passage -

"Here. Let me show you, just one."

"Alright, fine," you start - trying for an effect of exasperation, something to mitigate this god awful throbbing, "whatever - you get one, one sample paragraph and I'll, you know, whatever."

"Yeah, you'll definitely see. Just trust me. Just the one."

She drums her long, gorgeous nails against the table, then eases back with a finger highlighting the text.

You're screening and scanning the words as she tells you about the heroine in the story: a pretty girl who comes down with a bad case of infatuation for her teacher - unrequited, of course. And then, into a passionate affair, of course; all the most raucous, explicit details laid out over the table for everyone else to hear. She says it is about as nonchalantly as though she had been reading you the daily weather forecast and not an elaborate metaphor for - and here, you stop her.

"He cums on her desk?"

"Fucking hot, right?" She nearly snorts and gestures you onward, her eyebrows jumping - go on, go on.

So, you skim along: a heavy rush of nausea (alongside another) pulsing down around your gut at the thought of actually doing such a thing, your ears going hot and your legs crossing on instinct. There's not so much a breath of hesitation as Nana, cool, unfazed, and utterly unaware of the uncomfortable churning of your stomach and the simultaneous thrumming in your cock, takes another deep swig of coffee.

She hums, thoughtful. "Honestly? Kinda wished it happened to me like that. You were a good, good teacher, professor. I wouldn't have minded your hands all over me." You hear her laugh, and the entire universe collapses like the end-days. You are struck down with feverish conviction: this girl is the worst. 

"Anytime you wanted," she adds, so carelessly.

There's a clunking sound, of glass on wood; a half a second where you almost lose control over yourself.

“Nayeon,” you let slip, the old name - a mistake of an invitation she grasps like a weapon. All coming to a glint in her eye that says she knows how you see it, how you can still picture her sitting with her hands folded over the skirt of her uniform, chest rising and falling beneath her cotton shirt. Studious, taking notes, acting every bit the naive sweetheart everyone believed her to be.

You shudder out some pretense of composure and settle back a few inches as she continues to coax a reaction out of you, prodding: "how many girls did you make confess back then, hm? Did it ever do them any good?"

"Dial it back, Nana."

Her expression is all feigned, gentle surprise. "But sir," she looks at you so innocently, "you said I should drop the honorific."

You want to argue that, you also want to tell her off for being such a brat - to demand that, instead, she cut the shit, sit back, and remember who you both are, but when, with a wink and a smirk, she's getting up out of her seat, Nana sets a gentle, reassuring hand on your shoulder as she pushes her chair back beneath the table. You get onto your feet, and when the two of you are stood close together like this - she's really and truly that much smaller than you remember. Waist so tiny you think you could almost, almost wrap two hands all the way around her; skirt rising all too easily when she tosses her weight between her heels.

"I hope you know what you’re doing," you tell her, sternly - the voice of a teacher whose patience is running thin.

But no matter where you look, the consequences are dire and immediate: an abject fascination, a kind of debilitating greed; the absolute fucking loss of ability to look her directly in her eyes. Not like Nana isn't staring right through you. There's no doubt some part of her relishes the feeling.

"Hey, what do I know?" This sweet, demure-like chuckle follows. "It's just porn, right?”

-

Eventually, Nana says to call it a night because the sun's long set into the horizon and the chill starts getting at the both of you.

She tells you while you're packing up your belongings to come by again sometime, her voice teasing as she explains that you should pick out a new novel to read for your benefit.

Which is possibly the ideal outcome, all things considered, if it wasn't for the way she found herself in your hands just a few paces into the parking lot - no one around to catch you, where you're gripping fast onto her wrist and pressing the lines of her body into door of your car, looming and ready to give a piece of your mind.

You know what you ought to say - things like don't bother, you've enjoyed her company, she's fun and sweet, and in a dozen different ways: be a good girl, and go home. You had your fun, didn't you? But she's practically begging, those huge, wide doe eyes that stare straight up into your soul.

"C'mon,” her voice lilts into a deeper, more purposeful register, “you wouldn't turn down a student on her way home, would you?

(This fucking girl.)

She speaks of propriety, like you aren't a man of your own principles - like you aren't reaching down to press a kiss to the swell of her lips like she undoubtedly deserves. To lick into her mouth and pull and kiss and bite until she's trembling, teeth caught in a delicate whimper. Or, that you aren't running your hands down her sides to find the backs of her knees and draw them upward, hooking your hips flush against hers.

She's all too breathless, watching you draw off her lips, fingers fast in your shirt, your hair - holding you close.

Then finally, a true, honest reflection of your heart. Nothing less than sheer and utter capitulation: "let me take you home."

Nana just nods before wrapping her arms around your neck and kissing you again.

-

It's definitely on you for expecting anything different, but Nana fucks like she talks.

Conceited. Brash. A little selfish.

The girl's sitting there on her kitchen counter with one leg hooked over your shoulder. She's stripped herself down to near nothing save for those fuck-off ridiculous panties: slick, shiny with a thick strip of satin between her lips, complete with white lace frills and all; the same ridiculous pattern as the thigh-high stockings clinging tight around the soft-gentle fat of her legs and the lace top of her garter. Her pussy - all tight and pink and soaked - has left this shimmering, shiny mess that's trailing down the insides of her thighs.

Your fingers are in the elastic of her panties, near bruising the curve in her waist where she's rocking, flushed and keening against your grip.

You tell her, "take these off."

"Off?" She repeats it back to you with the same little grin: playing dumb, the smart, charming ass she's been all night.

"I'd tell you what I really want to do to you," you start, pushing your fingers in a little harder, eliciting another pretty moan. "But I'm really, really sure you can fill in the blanks yourself.

"I hope you're not planning on being rough with me," she teases, running her hands all through your hair as she pulls herself against you - and of course, it's her audacity to insist, "no marks." She drops a chaste little kiss along the underside of your jaw. "At least, nothing that might show up on a camera."

Someone with a little less baggage might have done just that. Might have jerked her panties down a couple inches further - ripped the cloth, exposed her even more. You might have followed the waistline further along the perfect round of her ass, found those dips and dimples that, maybe, no one else has ever gotten to explore. You may have grasped at the ends of her hair and gotten your fingers in her pussy without ceremony - driven Nana to the very brink of her climax just before palming two greedy handfuls of that ass - shoving yourself right there between her lips and, lost to shame, put a fucking kid in her.

All the things she must be dying for you to do.

"Something the matter?" She pushes her mouth into yours for a kiss that has all the urgency of a lazy Sunday morning. Your tongue against hers, languid and gentle at first; wet-sloppy, kissing and sucking on her bottom lip. You can feel her smirking when she says, "don't tell me you've forgotten how."

It's a lot, the effort you're putting in not to crumble - to crack at her taunts, snap your restraint, the temptation. You just wanna grab her pretty tits in both hands, shake her, and say: "shut the fuck up." But no - even in your wildest fantasy, you want to hear her first - beg you to make a wreck of her. So you force the words between your lips, dry and cracking:

"Not a fucking chance."

A laugh. "Guess I'm in good hands, then. Have to admit," Nana slides her hands down to hook under your own, bringing them lower. She grinds your fingers in slow circles over that one, aching, perfect little bud - a shock that has her curling tight inward until she's whining, clutching at her waist. "Not the - not the situation I had in mind."

Nana shifts her weight a bit more on one hip, guiding you through rubbing along the entrance to her slit - sloppy with precum, silky and aching - and when you place just the lightest pressure over all that hot skin, she opens her mouth: 

"Ah."

Her eyes, her hair, her fucking mouth - you can’t look away - she’s so gorgeous it hurts.

Even the way she pants; the perfect furrow between her brows. And then, you dip a finger inside her, just to the first knuckle. It’s enough to make her whine, all shaky and high.

"Go on then, with how you’d pictured it," you press, already easing your digit in and out; slow, slick pumps that she is growing hotter, needier around. "I'm sure you've touched yourself to it more than a few times. The details and - stuff - must have been vivid."

"You haven't the slightest clue."

A brief kiss. You coax another shy sound from her, drawing a long sigh against her mouth -

"Try me, Nayeon."

"This is a lot closer to the truth than you’d think, professor." This time, no correction, she just smiles wide and tosses her head back, asking, sweetly, as if to absolve you of the responsibility. "Do you have any idea how long I've thought about it? You, me - us?" 

Nana slips a finger between the buttons of your shirt and starts to pull.

On that detail, you actually, truthfully do not want to know.

"These... oh, how should I even call them." She hums softly just before easing a bit of distance between the two of you, head tilting like she's in a trailer for this summer's romcom, and not, you know, trying to drag you into hell. "Filthy little fantasies?"

"You know," you start. And by this point, her cunt's that much tighter. You've managed two fingers now, but no further, and she's making these desperate, punched-out gasps. Her clit's a swollen pink nub, jutting out from its soft hood. "I really had you pegged all wrong."

"Not - not at all. You can fuck me just fine, trust me - ah. Please, you can fuck me anyway you want."

And here, you grab a little higher on her hips, pinching her on the outside of a thigh, and begin working your fingers fast. You've never cared much for teasing, not really, but something about the way she squirms in your grip, tries to lean up and grasp onto your shoulders with shaking hands, it gets you smiling. It gets you grinning, even, especially the way she makes these pretty noises: a long, desperate little, "ah," at each press and thrust, her breath going high and uneven. 

"Listen, Nana -" She squeals out loud when you push your fingers just a little deeper, a little bit harder. "I'm not going to talk about what a slut you've been today or how badly I want to spread you wide open," you can already tell it's affecting her: the sudden change, the subtle hitch in her breathing, the tremor where her thighs press together. "Tell me about you, about your little ideas. Let me help."

"Wouldn't be fair." Her pussy's getting tighter, urgent with want. And still:

"C'mon now. Humor me a little. There was probably-" you say, sliding down that ridiculous pair of underwear along her ass, tugging them over the curves of her legs - so slow and easy, all while you're not bothering with easing off. Nana moans again; voice pitched. "Lots. Lots and lots of dirty things - and, I'm willing to bet my career that they made you a hot, mess - an awful, soaking fucking wreck. Who could've guessed? You, of all people, with just the right kind of teacher's-pet-appeal, hm?"

And you meant it to be a joke, just some ribbing. But the question has her immediately tensing, looking at you very intently, no trace of shame as she snaps back -

"Your mouth." She rocks forward. "Your fucking mouth."

You shouldn't keep touching her, you shouldn't keep staring, you shouldn't push her flat on her back and shove your face right into her cunt, you should pull away before this goes too far - it shouldn't be your fingers drawing out sopping-wet gasps out of her pussy, nor should you press your tongue to her cunt, your mouth to all that delicate flesh and, at your first taste, shiver.

Nana laughs: shaky, nervous. Then, your fingers sink back into her pussy alongside your tongue, your lips, the way even your hot breath against her aching pussy has her all stunned, breathless - and -

"Please."

- right before she breaks off into a beautiful sound that catches her hard in the chest.

(A sound like you’re all she could ever want in this life, maybe the next; it’s this wordless plea.)

"Hah, I had - ah, had so much - hah - dirt on you, used to masturbate thinking - ah," and there, she arches her spine, forcing a sigh out, "thinking about how you might punish me." She laughs - nearly choking. "How you might break down all your veneer of being a good, moral man and fuck me raw and rough and - ah - fuck. Oh god, fuck."

You twist your fingertips up just so, right against this perfect spot in her, and all the sudden the entire line of her body seizes - stiffens up, the muscles in her thighs twitch as you both moan through the moment, the spasms reverberating in your own ears, loud and unashamed, right against her wet, wet clit. Your fingers are fucking and fucking and fucking away in her cunt, harder and faster and sloppier, every word, every groan, every gasped breath only making it easier to forget. To give in. And with every heavy slap and squelch of your fingertips digging in as deep as her body allows - you're sending her that much closer.

You pull back long enough to bite out: "cum whenever you want, Nana.”

She can’t, she can’t, she can’t, is what she’s trying to say, bracing against how your tongue moves around her clit, and she knows, there’s no use fighting it.

A kiss against her swollen mound and she writhes. “There you go sweetheart, cum for me.”

Nana comes undone. Gradually at first, then vaulting over that edge all at once. She lifts and lowers her hips - pushing your fingers into the smooth, velvety muscles of her cunt; rocking up and up again. It's a torturously slow kind of grinding, and her feet find purchase on either side of you as her toes curl, one heel digging into your shoulder. An assurance; a promise; a lifeline; that she might tremble and shake through it, moaning.

“Fuck,” and, “god,” and, “you’re gonna make me-” slip past her lips alongside all the assured gasped-out cries for relief - the orgasm sweeping through her, tearing her apart.

Back pitching, shoulders narrowing, face twisting, cinching tighter and tighter -

Until she collapses.

Until it’s over.

As she lays there, chest heaving, arm draped carelessly across her forehead and half over a kitchen cutting board - her thighs splayed open, fucked and spent - she's so, so beautiful.

And it’s in that sort of fucked-up-noodly-state where she just slides right into your arms - those long, slender legs wrapping tight around your middle. "Here's the deal," you say, grabbing hold of her hips and steadying her, as best as either of you can.

"Hm." This lazy, sated look, the way her tongue's dragged out - slow and slick - across the top of her teeth and bottom of her lips. "Go ahead, sir. I'm listening."

The lip service - that coy little appeal to authority that maybe you’re actually plenty fond of - it makes you stop for the barest of moments. This girl, she's unreal. How hard could you ever be asked to resist her?

She lifts a brow. "Professor."

So you continue:

"I'm going to get out of these clothes, and we are going to see what happens after that - if you have a preference for the bed or the sofa, now's your chance to pipe up. Or else -"

"Or else-" She repeats, shifting her weight around again. You can feel how she adjusts her heels to hang higher up your ribs, rocking her weight against your abdomen, against your cock - and the instinctual twitch that runs through your spine is turgid and rough. Like a shot. If it had a smell, it'd probably remind you of gasoline.

And then, maybe just to rile you up even more: "the dining room table makes a good impression of a teacher's desk, no?"

You slide your hand along the backs of her thighs until you have a good, tight, high hold on them and pick her up, leaving the panties, the stockings, all of it down where they can gather dust or whatever - she giggles, and tightens her hold around you like she doesn't need to worry about falling.

"I'd rather fuck you into a mattress to be perfectly candid."

Nana throws back her head and laughs - this real, honest-to-goodness peal of laughter, a hint of playfulness where there was usually just a practiced ease. "Oh. So forward."

(In all likelihood, you're both going to hell, and on the off chance you meet down there, you figure you'll fuck her then, too.

You've read the myths, the Greek tragedies, the ones that have these gods descending from the heavens on human women, for pleasure and nothing but, you've read those stories and plenty more - the details don't matter: it's always a bad, bad end for everybody involved.)

She takes you upstairs. And the two of you fall through the doorway to her bedroom, stumbling all the way.

Her apartment is simple and clean in the way all young adults try to emulate, all white countertops, but with pictures hanging in little, neat rows on the walls and the space void of anything with some sort of character or history.

You know because you're fumbling toward a dresser or desk or bookshelf in an attempt to orient yourselves, bumping and tussling, half-blind, on your path forward and all of a sudden there's a goddamn framed photo in your hand - not of her family, thank god. Though just about every other person in the picture is familiar to you, you remember every single one - but all you're capable of focusing on is Nana, Nayeon: not quite the same. The same glint in her eyes, the way her smile has a timeless kind of quality, the faint dimples in her cheeks. 

And some wicked part of you is all too willing to ignore the whole timeline of events that has led up to you, Nana, like this: you want to pull her hair. You want to shove her around like she doesn't matter - is in any way disposable or replaceable; the most selfish parts of you wishing you could keep her pinned down by her slender neck; pressing a palm, bruising, into her collarbone as you start to work at your belt buckle and slacks with your other hand.

It's hard, getting a grip on yourself as Nana, sliding onto her bed and rolling across the sheets, pulls her stockings down the length of her legs - only stopping herself long enough to meet your eyes. Her throat bobbing.

“Of course,” she says, because your cock is hanging out by that point, straining and a little pent-up. "I fucking knew you would have a perfect cock."

"Flattery or sincerity?"

"Um, let's say both." She shifts around the pillow - that sweet little pout on her lips. Her gaze dropping from your mouth and running all along the length of your torso, lower and lower. Like her hands. And when her eyes flick up to meet yours, just when you're stroking at your cock, base and shaft, teasing yourself, well past the point of pretense, a devious smile spreads wide across her pretty, beautiful face. The implication: you aren't leaving here until you're cumming inside her.

And with a glimmer in her eyes, the sheer audacity, her fingertips ghost the underside of your cock as she draws up toward the head, "you're going to ruin me with this thing. You know that right?"

"A bit dramatic."

Nana moves to rest with the tops of her knees at the edge, her chin resting against the insides of her wrists, elbows propped up - poised, playful, everything she should be as the both of you regard each other a moment longer. "Can you blame me? It's not just that it's huge, I mean - I've barely even gotten a hold of it, and yet... god," she snorts. Her eyelids are heavy, mouth curved, almost a snarl as she drags her bottom lip through the grip of her teeth and sinks down onto the mattress.

"Say something filthy again," and this is a test, this is Nana testing you to see what exactly you'll get away with.

(Hint: it's a whole lot.)

She sighs. The image of indigence, innocence, everything pure and good you couldn't hope for. "Should I suck it or not? Or maybe, I don't know. Would you prefer me to beg for it first, ask if you'll put it in? Like, I think if you ordered me to put it in my mouth, right now, I wouldn't be able to say no."

"Really," the most sarcastic answer.

"Really," she continues. "For instance. If you came over here right now and guided me up and onto your dick and told me, specifically, that you were going to face-fuck me? I couldn't say no. No sir."

You could have her any damn way. You could have her, and you both know it.

"So tempting," you tease, mostly in earnest, "maybe another time, when my self-control isn't quite so lacking."

Nana hums a low, flippant sort of noise - like: whenever you're ready - and just how much trouble it gets you in, the mere suggestion, is what she is banking on.

"Hey," is her invitation, "I won't beg yet. You still want me to put my mouth all over it," and to emphasize, she slips her fingers between the plump pillows of her lips, smiling at how that makes you reach over the nightstand, accidentally pulling open a drawer, possibly reaching for the first aid kit, "or would you rather watch me stuff all these fingers in my wet, little hole."

A sharp inhale: it really would be fun, probably, but you can't take it.

"Nana," this voice, gravelly-ragged and harsh, "if you're planning to make me snap, you are, without question, on the right track."

"Then before that happens," she says, pulling you down into the bedsheets beside her. Your body flush against hers, the beat of her heart loud against your own; this gorgeous, pristine girl, so nakedly giving - this is an honor and a curse all rolled up together, no doubt.

And after a hot, wet kiss: "fuck me like I always thought you would."

(She was made to be like this; it's the only explanation.

Made for wanting. Made for fucking. Made to be loved and made to have her cunt fucked full - ruined by your fingers, your tongue, your cock. This absolutely perfect body, and all the delicious parts of her; this thing of desire, bashful and coy and that deserves all the world and, having none of the grace or courtesy to actually beg, orders, like she always knew she could:

"Like, right fucking now."

Or else.)

Then you're there - her hot mouth, her cunt, your fingers digging in bruising-tight all along the curve of her thighs where they meet her ass, hips, thighs, waist. She's pumping her soft palm and delicate fingers, slick with her spit and yours around the length of you and this isn't going to last long; not that there's any doubt you're going to leave her sore. But still, you drag the head of your cock across the swollen lips of her pussy, down through the plump swell of her clit until it rests where the ridge just begins and every slide, every pressure along every inch of your cock, the thought of being enveloped entirely in all that silky warmth is nearly the end of you.

A whimper, "professor."

You wrap your hands tighter around the smooth, firm muscles in her thighs; dragging your fingers back and forth across the supple skin there - just firm enough to elicit a reaction from the tension in her legs, until you have her flipped over on her stomach. Because if you're going to fuck her properly, it's going to be with her face buried deep into a pillowcase and you perched above her, holding her down against the sheets.

You watch her get her elbows underneath her, laying almost flat. Watch her trace the shape of her own jaw, her nose, her neck - the smooth expanse of her chest - as you straddle her thighs. With her ass pointed right up at you and the heel of her ankle gently grinding into the underside of your leg, you groan, placing both hands just above her ass. And once you're gripping the whole shape of her, you push your cock into her, just an inch, listening to the shift in her breathing.

She shudders, "don't tease - oh, please, sir-"

"Is this what you expected, Nana?" You grab onto her hair. Then again, when she tries to get her hands on herself. Her shoulders are high, tight. You just don't give her a chance; pushing yourself another inch, a couple. The pace, so gradual she starts making these soft, little breathless sounds as you stretch her tight pussy open. A few moments when she stops trying to bury her noises, her gasps - stops trying to angle her hips or squeeze or resist the thick shape of your cock where it is so, so hot and full inside of her - and there you stop. "What is it you had in mind, hm?"

"Ngh - oh."

Her cunt's clamping tight around just the first few inches of you. The tightness, the wet heat is staggering; how it pulls and begs with the words she seems reluctant to spill out.

So - you lift a hand, bringing it back down again onto the pale, rounded flesh of her ass with a smack, a gasp, and this wet sound from the sopping heat of her pussy, all aching and sobbing, "don't, fuck, stick it - fuck, put it - just. Just fucking get on top of me and pin me down - make it hard for me to breathe - do it, just. Like I, fuck, like I always wanted, sir, please-"

And you sink all the way in.

"Fuck." She bites into those consonants, a whole-body motion that pulls at the tension in her spine, the muscles in her legs. But her hips angle right up, and she presses her ass into the hollow of your abdomen and says, "thank you. Thank you. God."

"Don't get lazy on me," you say, grinding the tip of your cock in little circles; pulling it out and angling it down until it's prodding at all the right places to make her arch and shiver.

"Please," she says again, louder this time, almost a moan. "That. Fuck. Yes. It's."

"Yes, yes, I know. Nana, you-"

"Just use me. Whatever you like," she pants; then, once you've pulled yourself out to the tip, slowly filling her again, "use me like a fucktoy, alright. Because - fuck," Nana shivers, pushing her hips into yours. Her shoulders lower, as if by degrees, "please. Use me. Make it rough. Please, professor - use me however you want, I don't care - anything's fine with me - use me, as long and as much as you need, I. Please."

The real difference here, beyond anything else, is that this is no longer the game it was; the very instant she was sprawled across the mattress with a line of drool dripping into the sheets, all her bright, polished glory has vanished, leaving this bare edge of her exposed - the girl who lives solely to be fucked and used by your cock, her cunt leaking, begging for more. Reduced to the basics and nothing else.

"Your fucking cunt, Nana, the goddamn clench - you feel - it's-" (So fucking good, is what you can’t quite say, because she’s tight and wet and her tiny pussy is quivering like mad every time you bathe your cock in its scorching heat. Over and over.) It’s hard to think; you’re truly - truly - fucking her, but you can’t ignore the tautness in her spine either, bent below you. There are probably tears beading down her cheeks, but there's no helping the raw instinct screaming through the core of her being, pleading with you to pull yourself free, before sinking hilt-deep into her again, again, again - to a chorus of sloppy, loud, nasty, fucking whimpers and moans.

Like music. 

It's easy after all, how her pussy gives way to you. How she molds around you - sleeves onto you like a glove - like there was only one cunt in the world you should ever be fucking up and fucking apart. 

"It's incredible. Fuck. Just that perfect."

Nana, as best as she can, trying to stay steady, braced against her hands and knees, is raising her hips.

But it's clear with the way she's slipping all over, slicking the sweat off her palms and rocking her ass back into your thrusts, a cry falling out of her, unbidden, when she speaks and not.

"Please," she pants, through tears probably, this breathy-shivering. A renewed enthusiasm for your grip on her - where, in another place, you'd worry about leaving marks behind - for the feeling of your weight slamming down into her, driving the air from her lungs.

The sheets are a crumpled mess, pillows knocked from the mattress, where the two of you are shaking it apart.

You're pulling her apart, slowly, thrust by thrust into her sopping cunt, and in a promise of how you'll put her back together, you get your mouth on her shoulders, her neck, kisses in her hair, behind her ear - Nana just whimpers, curling her toes and ankles along the backs of your knees, her face against the pillow and gasping, "thank you - thank - thank-"

And when your palm smacks against the generous swell of her ass, again, she keens so perfectly for you.

It's a breathtaking sight, so good, so perfect: her flawless ass pitched high, round and flushed pink. The flutter of her eyelashes and the tears and drool. The outlines of her pale white cheeks sent into ripple after ripple, and then the way you can slide one hand forward between her shoulder blades and slip it into her hair, nails raking her scalp, grabbing a handful of hair in your fist and tilting her face - to the side, enough for her cheek against the pillow and the way her hips try to press against yours; try to chase the pleasure; this brash, gorgeous, slim-waisted, well-curved, exquisite young woman - like everything.

"Please," is all she says as you fit your chest up tight to her back and mouth at her neck - lick all along the sweat. "Please."

You can't take it anymore, can't keep watching this masterpiece, can't stand the molten heat wrapped around your cock every time the drag in and out of her pussy pulls sets every nerve on fire. Right in her ear: "I'm cumming, Nana, I'm cumming inside this tight, little pussy."

A short gasp, "yeah."

"Yeah. Inside, Nana. Cum inside, you -" You twist your fingers against her scalp and find purchase, an excuse - a means to yank her head around and lean into her, teeth against skin, that familiar coiling in your gut and the burning sensation that flows right alongside every slap and smack of her hips on your skin.

"Fuck me." You watch her bite down, swallow a sound, try to say: "fuck your load so deep inside me it’ll be all I think about for weeks, let me feel it, all that hot, all that sticky, fucking cum"

And you drag your hips, these final, punishing drags through her drenched cunt. Her fingers are white knuckled and fisting the sheets, until the very second you've pressed every ounce of your own body's worth into her own, when you're collapsing her spine and pushing her face into the bedspread, this wave rushes through your ears like the buzz and hum of insects and waves and things out of sync - the high, the peak -

And then:

Sobering, subjugating silence.

In fact, you're shuddering; You're cumming, spilling pools of thick cum deep inside of her. It's all in that warm, filthy sensation, a heady, hazy, desperate thrill when her own cunt seizes in its climax around you, trembling, throbbing, quivering, clenching; drawing everything out and taking your cock deeper - even while the whole of her is thrashing and bucking, all of this messy with her pleasure and her voice caught up, writhing and breathless.

"God-" is the last thing out of her mouth before you can kiss it quiet, tug on her lower lip and open her up like a present - messy and breathy, crying out, you're making this mess inside, this beautiful fucking mess - as the whisper you feel against your lips:

"Inside me, like that."

As you groan, deep and hot, "filthy fucking cumslut-"

Right on the verge, riding out every twitch of your cock and each flex of your hands at the skin around her ass, her waist, back and shoulder blades; even after you've caught your breath, you keep pumping more and more inside of her, you don't stop, won't, and even when you manage it, pulling out the head of your cock - you can feel every slick detail - just the slit and rim, resting the throbbing head of your cock at her swollen little mound, feeling the length of her fucked-out pussy spasm at the emptiness and trying to grasp around nothing - empty, tight and aching, sopping.

There's her hips, just this, right there; the line, the silhouette. Her thin waist and the curvy swell of her ass, jutting out straight - the cream-colored flesh dusted pink. The lithe, soft line of her stomach and the insides of her thighs a little farther along, sweaty and inviting.

She's so pliant in your grip, even though she's trying her best to curl herself backward - to angle your spent cock back into the ready, welcoming warmth of her slick, wet pussy - and once the afterglow has begun to wear away, that same greed and yearning takes its rightful place. A glimmer in her eyes. The unmistakable need and drive.

"One more," she says, wiggling her hips back into your stomach. "For me."

(The truth: you can't refuse her, not as she bites her lip and twists, all that soft hair splayed across her face, stuck to her tear-damp skin.

One more, because you both still want it. One more, because in the dim glow and evening air of her bedroom, everything that happens now matters just as much as anything that happened before.

One more, because you need her again.)

-

When she wakes in the dark, you figure her bed will be empty.

Nana will realize that you're gone. Of course you’ll be - it was never going to go differently; the sex had to end at some point. After all, if you stayed, eventually she'd start saying something you'd find a fault in or your skin would be so sensitive she couldn't stand not running a finger up your spine and maybe kissing your hip.

The reasons to go always outnumbered the reasons to stay.

The world would catch up and someone would find out and that's the sort of gossip that might leave both of your careers in shambles. Or else, you'd do something you couldn't come back from, the moment the heat of the sex left your body and her cunt, god, her perfect little cunt was spent - slackening - and the moments-after-haze, her legs locked up and her arms a bit sore, would clear up. Then you'd look at her, or else the shame would win out - the guilt and you'd call it quits. She won’t blame you. She can't.

-

But then again,

Her heart won't fall completely to pieces, because:

You've stayed. And it isn't an easy position, even if she is easy.

Here she is, though: sleeping on her side with her wrists crossed in front of her face - peaceful and quiet, probably tired enough to sleep without dreams. The dark has long since settled across her bedroom, save the pinpricks of stars in the sky out her window and a sliver of moonlight. You can see her, or you could reach out and run your hands all along her calves and thighs, but you don't.

Nana's shoulders slump forward in the faintest of sighs, and there it is - the slow, gentle swell and fall of her chest.

-

Here's how you got here:

In this scandal-in-waiting of a relationship. Here's the stupidest possible path, where a bright-eyed student with a crush fucks her older professor just once, and somehow you both find yourselves coming back for more, like maybe your very, very bodies belong together - a maddening compulsion.

Even once you've managed to work through the idea of your cum all inside of her, a seedy, twisted corner of your mind murmurs how it makes the most sense. To stick your cock inside of her again.

Where she can show you the way it can look; the mess and the texture of the slick, white spill - dribbling out of her pussy in the afterglow, onto her palm, and down the crevice in her ass and lower.

It's the phone calls probably - and not just the phone sex - late-night talking, conversation and every once in awhile, the kind of hot, hard fucking that gets you in trouble, but also a reason to be with each other again. Not just the quick fucks but the nice ones - the days, the late nights and mornings and what have you: all the casual intimacy of it. All the sweet nothings exchanged.

The after-sex cuddling, with her straddling your lap;

The sensation of her thighs sliding into place around the tops of your legs, her arms tucked around your neck;

The kisses you don't take and kisses you'd be okay with, all the promises made to love you as many times as necessary, however necessary, wherever.

That's all here too.

Again:

She is young. But, who the fuck are you to say? Who the hell can tell you she doesn't deserve the least rotten, least painful, most promising love she can find in this particularly fucked-up world?

Who else is going to keep the both of you safe and hidden?

And who else, despite everything, seems to like having a secret that they're sure only you know; every glance or accidental touch with her eyes brimming, alive, and the whole of her bent like a bow-string - all held back and wound-up tight.

To the point her spine will shiver and shake; you know how it can be.

-

"Are you actually going to buy those?" Nana asks one day, dangling on her toes, chin rested comfortably in the sweep of your shoulder.

When she crowds the swell of her hip and her breasts and her entire body into your back and snakes her arms around your shoulders, you think there's nothing else in the world you need.

"You called them drivel," she adds, almost pouting - which is a look you're slowly trying to inoculate yourself against because the moment it comes up, you have a knee-jerk reaction to drop anything and everything and carry her off someplace else. To have a place where she could, could, could -

"Hah," you roll your eyes, not taking the bait. There's a shelf-full of campy, smutty romance novels in the dollar bin. "It is. The story was less than complicated, but I couldn't figure out what the hell two or three characters' plotlines had to do with one another, and sometimes you just want a little guilty pleasure, you know?"

"Ooh. So," Nana smiles, the devious sort. "I guess there is some honesty in you after all."

"Come on, this one at least has an original story," and it is a shameless attempt, "plus-"

"I know, I know. Fine. And if it is so terribly bad, well, I suppose I can use your chest as a pillow to take a nap," she says, before throwing this particular glance over her shoulder.

The cashier doesn't need to ask if the two of you want your copies of 'Wild West of the Heart' or whatever-the-fuck this one is titled, scanned separately.

All of that, those paperback-cover love stories and TV drama plots, these are the sorts of things you do just for Nana; as the two of you wait in long lines, get carried along, get bumped and pushed, like every other ordinary-person thing you've done for her ever since.

("Honestly, this isn't my kind of thing either," you tell her in the aisle of a grocery store once. The fluorescent lighting only accentuates the blush high on her cheeks. "don't make me fuss over something like this."

"Have a little sympathy," she insists, nudging the handle of the shopping cart against the inside of your shins. "A girl like me isn't good for much else.")

It's not romance, really, that's such a fucked up way to go about describing any of it, but then there's Nana, bouncing on her heels and prattling on, this girl in the spring of her life who is full to the brim and bursting with the most chaotic and eclectic sorts of thoughts and passions -

So, what.

"Really," she adds - another side, another angle on an issue the two of you had an hour ago while cooking breakfast. "Just, think about it. Would you honestly put all this effort into somebody who doesn't make you laugh at least as much as they irritate you? Because like, you would never tolerate some self-obsessed jerk long enough to eat their burnt, terrible pancakes every day of the week."

"Fine. Maybe." You sit across the table. "You're right."

Nana blinks and this look of wonder crosses her face as she grins. A moment of triumph for her and that was more than the honest truth. It's still strange, admitting defeat in any argument here or there, or that the two of you make an actual decent couple - together. The kinds of things that come naturally to other people.

"Any more caveats to all of this, professor?"

"You’re gonna end up bent over that counter again if you keep pushing it, kid."

The both of you break out laughing and then you finish your coffee, or she stabs the last few pieces of cantaloupe on her plate, or you kiss her neck, and just -

Everything.

[cellarspider]

Star Wars: The Old Republic and the virtues of hiding under a rock

After all the fun I had writing a deep dive on the delightfully unhinged decision-making process that gave everyone in the Sith Empire equal opportunity to shoot lightning out of their fingertips, I decided hey, why not do another post on Sith-side stuff? Why not focus on another aspect of how The Old Republic's backstory set up for the players to run around being special little guys?

Welcome to the Chiss Ascendancy, which really would rather not be here, thank you.

Spoilers for the Imperial Agent plotline, Act 2 of the Bounty Hunter plotline, Act 1 and 3 of the Jedi Knight plotline, and for the expansions up through the Traitor Among The Chiss flashpoint storyline, set just after the Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion. Also, spoilers for a 30 year old novel series, and bits of current canon. Assume all links to Wookieepedia may include unmarked spoilers for anything and everything under the sun.

Also, many, many side rambles in the picture descriptions. As soon as I realized they were a place I could hide secret bits of brain fluff, I could not be contained.

So, for a little out-of-setting backstory first: The Ascendancy is in SWTOR for one reason. If you're a Star Wars fan, you probably know his name by now. You might even be able to pronounce all of it: Grand Admiral Thrawn, known to his own people as Mitth'raw'nuruodo.

Thrawn was a breakout character from the early Star Wars tie-in Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn, which you can see reflected in the increasing amount of cover space he takes up on each re-release. Zahn may not have totally intended for Thrawn to be the character everybody latched onto so hard—I mean, it was originally the Heir to the Empire trilogy, but it's officially the Thrawn Trilogy now. Which makes it confusing, because Zahn has since written two other trilogies that actually star Thrawn as a main character rather than having him as the main antagonist.

Credit really has to go to Zahn for his work on those books, because despite his occasional insistence to the contrary, they revitalized Star Wars as a fandom. It had been seven years since Return of the Jedi came out, and there'd been nothing since then. George Lucas had been pretty burnt out after RoTJ, and the idea of a multimedia franchise wasn't all that common at the time. There'd been Marvel-produced comics, the West End Games RPG sourcebooks, a few tie-in novels, and a boatload of action figures, but all of those save for the West End Games books were produced to market the movies themselves, or directly profit off of their recent release.

All of these were of variable quality and "Star Wars-y" feel. The Marvel comics brought us such incredible things as a carnivorous green rabbit fighting alongside the main cast, and a couple wild comics by Alan Moore where Leia gets her heart turned to diamond by omnipotent Force spirits. The Splinter of the Mind's Eye novel was written while A New Hope was still in production before George Lucas had decided Luke and Leia were siblings, and you can really tell. Zahn, however, helped by the the West End Games books as a worldbuilding reference, did some stellar work integrating his writing into the Star Wars setting, while simultaneously shaping what fans would think of as a good Star Wars outing for years to come. Hell, some of his inventions made their way back into the movies: the name Coruscant is his. But Thrawn is what most people think of as his big contribution.

And it's for good reason! Thrawn is a memorable antagonist. He's smarter than the imperial officers depicted in the movies. He's able to outmaneuver the heroes on multiple occasions. He's got a unique gimmick that dovetails with the Imperial mindset—while the rest of the Empire utterly disdains foreign cultures, Thrawn takes an Orientalist interest in others' art, using it to build theories of a person or culture's psychology to use against them in war. In fact, as we will see repeated in SWTOR, his original role and his people are often used to represent a less obnoxious, more outwardly reasonable sort of imperial behavior.

He's also a cool-looking blue-skinned, red-eyed alien, later revealed to be from a culture of subterranean xenophobes with complex noble house dramas, among whom he's considered to be an outlier. Through all of this, he overshadowed other characters who may have been intended as the center of attention.

What's really funny is that the very next year, D&D would get Drizzt Do'Urden, a character who unexpectedly overshadowed the others in his series who'd been the intended center of attention, who was a cool-looking gray-skinned, red-eyed drow, from a culture of subterranean xenophobes with complex noble house dramas, among whom he's considered an outlier.

I don't know what precisely was in the zeitgeist in the early 90s, but apparently it was just a time for cool guys who grew up in caves.

It's probably similar fandom tendencies that have made both the Chiss and Drow big players in people's imaginations. Anecdotally, I'm one of those fans. You grow up liking elves, but you also became kind of a goth about it, maybe had a bit of an edgelord phase. You wanted cool elves. Possibly cool elves in space.

Apparently there was a critical mass of folks at Bioware who also were on board with cool elves in space, so they made their way into SWTOR, originally only playable for a couple of Sith-aligned classes. If you were to summarize their narrative role in a single sentence: they collectively act much as Thrawn did, providing a calmer, more collected, largely amoral presence that's peripheral to the overall setting narrative, but provides more substance to the villains.

If one were to take it less seriously, the Chiss end up as the serious side of an evil comedy duo. They are the deadpan comedic foil to the lightning-shooting madmen and their minions, the most obnoxiously british military to ever sail the stars.

So, let's dig into the Chiss a little. You kind of have to, given the "underground city" thing. Details around Chiss history and even biology have not remained fixed as canon has undergone its various convolutions, but it's generally theorized that they were the result of a genetically isolated human colony established on Csilla many thousands of years ago, which has since evolved into a near-human species, often with higher physical fitness than human average, but lower chance of spawning somebody with a Force-y destiny for whatever reason. When hyperspace travel became common, their region of space was discovered to be nigh-impenetrable due to a high concentration of wandering gravitational anomalies, which could turn your ship into an interesting collection of relativistic scrap metal.

This means that the "Unknown Regions" in the galactic west remained largely unexplored by the Galactic Republic, and local powers had to develop their own means of navigating the region. This suited the Chiss just fine, because they really, really don't like hanging out with other people.

The Chiss Ascendancy is a major power in the Unknown Regions, and it's highly isolationist, xenophobic, and authoritarian. A Secret Police force helps maintain internal adherence to the Chiss power structure. The average Chiss citizen in the Star Wars setting will never meet a non-Chiss in their entire life. That is, unless, they're stationed in the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force.

That's a hell of a name right there.

The CEDF takes an imperial pattern of national defense and turns it into doctrine: they never attack first. But if someone pokes the Ascendancy, the Defense Fleet will respond, and they'll make sure the poker can never poke again. But the Expansionary Fleet will scout out areas on their frontier, so, y'know, good luck to anybody who happens to be living there.

Within the Ascendancy, a rotating cast of Ruling Families run the government, noble houses that generally specialize in specific industries, space sectors, or resources. Most of the best positions go to those born into one of these houses, but a common Chiss can theoretically become a "merit adoptive", basically a probationary house member that can eventually become "trial-born" into the house proper, possibly achieving a status of "ranking distant". That is, unless you're found to be Force-sensitive, which during the SWTOR time period would either get you exiled, or you'd spend your life on Force-suppressing drugs.

This culture is, it should be noted again, not presented as nice or right by Timothy Zahn or SWTOR, though getting into the heads of Chiss characters can make it seem very sympathetic from their perspective.

Especially when SWTOR's backstory rolls around, and the Ascendancy had the misfortune of being "discovered" by the Sith Empire.

This led to a rather surprising pivot in Ascendancy policy: upon getting a whiff of what the Sith were about, their response was "Fantastic! Let's be friends," and swiftly negotiated a treaty to become a vassal state to the Empire, in exchange for the Empire leaving them the fuck alone.

Zahn's novels in the current Star Wars canon allude to this as a time that the movie-era Chiss are not exactly fans of, but it has an undeniable logic. The Sith are, frankly, out of their collective minds. They're also really focused on beating the snot out of the Jedi and the Republic, and they'll roll over anyone who gets in their way. Or might seem to be in their way. Or might, given the right paranoid squinting, one day maybe get in their way.

And given the Chiss and Sith tendencies toward similar, albeit factually incompatible politics around somebody being the most special thing in the universe, the two factions had enough in common to make the deal work. At least, up until the inevitable day when the Sith would presumably try and take a swat at the Chiss. This was a delaying tactic to defend the Ascendancy against an invasion from "Lesser Space", nothing more.

One might ask, if they're worried about the Sith, why not ally with the Republic? Well, there's two issues. One, the Republic doesn't have a damn clue where the Chiss are, and the Chiss want to keep it that way. The Empire has some clue where the Chiss are. That's more clues than the Chiss want anyone but themselves to have, really.

And furthermore, the Republic isn't really a better option from the Chiss perspective. It's an alien government, largely run by more of those weird Humans that are all over the Empire as well. Its history shows periods of aggressive colonization and expansion, and, the Sith would be very quick to tell anybody, the Republic sometimes decides to just completely obliterate their foes. Do the Chiss also do that? Yes, but they're Chiss, dammit, they're allowed.

So really, the ideal outcome for the Chiss would be that the Empire and the Republic beat each other senseless, with the Empire eventually imploding and the Republic never finding out where the Ascendancy is at all.

As Star Wars will eventually bear out, that's what happened. The Sith Empire falls apart at some point past SWTOR's time period. And in fact, the Republic would eventually go on to implode twice before anyone in the wider galaxy remembered that Chiss existed, when that funny little guy named Thrawn showed up. So, the Chiss might be the only ones who technically achieved their goals with this whole fiasco. How did they pull that off? And how funny is it to watch someone turn imperial chauvinism on the Sith Empire? The answers are: improbably, and extremely.

Throughout the initial war between the Empire and the Republic, the Chiss served as an unseen aid to the Sith. They provided resources and covert services, but they were utterly unknown to the Republic. They were also making moves unbeknownst to the Empire—if they were going to be breaking their usual isolationism, well, why not take up some territory that nobody else wanted while nobody else was looking? And even when they did let the Empire know they were on a planet, they didn't actually tell them where, or how many. Because really, the Empire wasn't too jazzed about somewhere like Hoth. But the Chiss? With a frozen homeworld, their cities dug deep into the glaciers and bedrock? Perfect! Just like home, but with more wampas. They built a sizeable forward base there, and kept that to themselves for decades.

In fact, if confronted about the existence of the base by an Imperial agent, the man in charge of the base will respond "Our presence here is legal, based on all existing treaties. The fact that you never noticed us is immaterial."

Lol. lmao, even.

By the time we get to Hoth in SWTOR, that base is still secret, but there's a sizeable CEDF detachment that are embedded with the Imperial forces on Hoth. And it's a decent little slice of folks, at least within the EDF. You get a whole range of people, from utter jerks like Warden Khel who tries to detain precious Jawa angel Blizz, to well-liked and respected commanders like Captains Yunaali and Yudrass, the later of whom has to patiently deal with the dumbest white man in existence.

Yudrass is also interesting for a further reason: his voice actor Tony Armatrading was from a British Afro-Caribbean background, and his accent comes through in his performance. In the context where the Empire is firmly Evil Space Wizard Britain, the accents of the Chiss stand out. They're a much more heterogenous mix. Yudrass speaks fluent Basic, but some of the others don't. One speaks Huttese, because he was originally assigned to the Outer Rim and hasn't had the chance to pick up a further language since then. A few speak limited Basic, best illustrated by the guy who gives a delightfully unenthusiastic response to finding out a non-Chiss player character has survived an attack by Imperial traitors: "You're still alive. Huh."

Hoth is also a fantastic place for turning around the chauvinism back on the Imperials, if you're playing as a Chiss. You can summarily ignore human officers in favor of engaging with their Chiss subordinates. You can work to have Yudrass promoted, both because of his competence and because you transparently don't like the other guy's face. You can privilege information gathered by the CEDF, because obviously they don't deal in bad intel. If you're playing an Imperial Agent, you can end up siding with the Chiss so comprehensively that you become a merit-adoptive of a Ruling Family. You can even reveal that you were never earnestly working for the Empire at all.

On the other side of the war, It's unclear when the Republic learns about the Chiss. Probably at some point during the quagmire over Hoth, but they're never thought of as a major player. Nobody in the Republic off Hoth really mentions them. They're treated with extreme suspicion, with a couple lines that are pretty eyebrow-raising. A Chiss defector dies while trying to trade information for asylum, and a Republic major responds to the news with "It's just as well. I'm not sure the men really wanted a Chiss hanging around here." Yikes, my dude.

Still, with their presence revealed, the Chiss seem to have slowly started taking more active roles liaising with the Imperial military, working in Imperial space, or even joining Imperial organizations. This begins as projects by the Ruling Families and other prominent Houses, but individual Chiss also started taking swings at making it in Lesser Space. Some of them may have been average Chiss trying to get ahead outside of the traditional Ascendancy power structure, and some of them might never have fit in well back home in the first place.

This is, for the record, why Chiss are a playable option for the Bounty Hunter class. It's not often remarked on though, and Bounty Hunters don't get much Chiss-specific dialog options.

And it's not like bounty hunters or Chiss are exactly welcomed in Imperial space, though. After all, the Empire has their blood purity laws and all that, if you're a non-human or non-Pureblood, you're constantly subjected to microaggressions and, frankly, macroaggressions. Possibly even megaaggressions. They'd never let Chiss near positions of power, or access to their secrets.

People who've played already know where this is going. And any curious souls who read my last post may recall a really odd evil space wizard gimp who decided he did not give one single fuck about those blood purity laws.

Darth Jadus, blessed maniac that he is, opened Imperial Intelligence to alien recruitment with all the political grace he was known for, which was none, with a side order of self-aware cultic rambling: Everyone should have equal opportunity to access the misery that is the Empire, because the Dark Side likes it when you do that.

And in so doing, he created a very interesting proposition for motivated Chiss willing to take the risk, and an even more interesting proposition for the Ascendancy's Secret Police: they could now embed sleeper agents within an enemy security force by submitting job applications.

And this is why new players can chose to be Chiss when they play as Imperial Agents. You get a lot of Chiss-specific dialog as an Agent. The game supports player choices to explicitly say you reject the Ascendancy, or that you're secretly working for it. Or, hell, you could play a Chiss who says they're in it for themselves, and then secretly confides later that they're actually an Ascendancy spy!

I am so, so tempted to describe the Agent plot in its absolutely bonkers entirety, but let's stick to the Ascendancy view… for now, at any rate. I probably have another of these essays in me somewhere.

So! Sleeper agents. If the Empire won't ever fuck off by itself, then the Ascendancy wanted to make sure that they had options to give it a push. That would allow them to go back to their usual isolationism, if they still wanted it—You hear at least one Aristocra intimate that the Ascendancy might go all British Empire on the rest of the galaxy, if they see the opportunity. Some Chiss now rather like the idea of being the tiny little backwater kingdom that suddenly owns literally everything, as great powers around it weaken.

Complicating their ambitions, things did not turn out that way. Well, not the way they expected. The Ascendancy was out there playing spy chess, while the Emperor was gearing up to eat the entire chess tournament.

Honestly, there was no way the Ascendancy could've predicted the crazy shit that was going to go down in the Empire. Like, really, nobody saw that coming, not even in the Empire. Except for Darth Jadus, if you're weird enough to let him take a swing at running the entire government. Hell, if you're an Ascendancy sleeper agent, maybe he's precisely the sort of destabilizing force you want in the Empire.

So, when it turns out you accidentally allied yourself with an eldritch monster that wants to Pac-Man all life in the galaxy, what do you do? Well, fortunately for the Ascendancy, the Jedi took care of that one for them! Unfortunately, the Jedi didn't count on the MMO having expansions. Turns out, the Emperor was not entirely dead, just a little dead. And also he had a spare Empire hiding elsewhere, just in case the first one didn't work out.

No, I'm not joking, this really happened.

Meet the Eternal Empire, the Sith Emperor's side project where he put all its points toward a cultural victory and military automation, so when he lost control of that empire as well, his usurper was able to just kind of fling remote-controlled fleets at the rest of the galaxy.

With the Republic and Empire all war'd out, they were pretty emphatically steamrolled by the Eternal Fleet. And because the Emperor had known where the Ascendancy was, they were also in the line of fire.

And so the Ascendancy said "Wow! We hate it! Kindly take some planets and fuck off."

And it worked! They had to pay some exorbitant taxes to the Eternal Empire, but not as crippling as what the other powers suffered—because invading them hadn't been as expensive and they made early moves to placate this new empire and its alien human madness, they mostly flew under the radar, and weren't targeted for reprisals.

After that, there was a whole song-and-dance that included a suspiciously protagonist-shaped person uniting the rest of the galaxy against the Eternal Empire, overthrowing two or three usurpers who'd taken over (depending on whether you count the evil mastermind droid who was just kind of there to vibe), and killing the Emperor again for almost the last time, the galaxy could finally stop with that whole nonsense and come to a realization: Everyone was flat broke.

The concessions to the Eternal Empire had crippled the major powers. The Republic was reeling once again, and the Empire had lost most of its leadership and was currently in a very funny series of events that canonically end up with an 87 year old who loves shenanigans assuming the title of Emperor. the Hutt Cartel was probably still having its own problems because it was only a few years since their Supreme Mogul decided to become a raid boss and got killed, then the next one was a violent Hutt supremacist who threw a tantrum that ultimately dropped his own palace on him, and we have no clear successor after that.

The Ascendancy responded to Imperial inquiries with something along the lines of "Oh, yeah, sorry, we'd really like to help, but the Eternal Empire, wow! They really did a number on us. We can't spare any resources right now. We totally would if we could, though."

Literally no one believes them, but because no Imperial ships have ever landed on Csilla, nobody could call them on their bullshit.

And that's about where things stand! There was a kerfuffle where one of the Ruling Families put their drama on display to foreigners, which was a big faux pas. The result is a brief series of missions that actually take place on an Ascendancy world.

But otherwise, the Chiss have maintained their isolationism up to the present day of SWTOR's story. Are they right to do so? I mean, the game remains pretty consistent with the rest of Legends on the Ascendancy: they're a bunch of very pretty jerks who only look better in comparison to their competition, who are grand champions of jerkassitude, and because we're not in a position to see the Ascendancy inflict itself on other people. If they were a major power on the level of the Sith Empire, we'd probably see a lot more of their ugly side.

And what about playing the part of being one of these people? It's not good, certainly. Turnabout may feel like fair play, but it's not great at actually improving the situation overall.

…But it can be fun to indulge in a bit, in the fantasy of an MMO. Especially when the Empire is just so, so dunkable. It's like a less dangerous version of when the English cricket team of 1932-1933 decided it was entirely sporting to give Australians skull fractures, right up until the West Indies cricket team said "Now hear us out—what if we attacked you with the ball as well?"

And beyond that, this is the game where you can get the chance to shoot lightning at people while your eight foot tall cannibal thrall-maybe-turned-husband approves on the sidelines. If anything, the Ascendancy might suffer from being less goofy than that. But taken in full context of the MMO, they're often standing in as the reserved or reluctant bunch who got collectively dragged into this whole mess and are just trying to ride out the chaos with all clothes, dignity, and eyebrows intact. When subjected to the galaxy's shenanigans, the Ascendancy would rather take the advice of the skeleton meme:

And that can be deeply funny to play around with.

[doloresdisparue]

Since I've had some clown in my mentions claiming Nabokovs intent was to present Dolores as equally culpable echoing the good old "but what about her TEEN SEDUCTRESS powers to CONTROL MEN" let's collect some of what Vladimir "Strong Opinions" Nabokov said about the book and Dolly in particular:

"Some simply haven’t read the book or don’t understand it. It is not obscene; it has none of the dirt of many so-called realistic modern novels. “Most critics have failed to stress the pathetic side,” said Mrs. Nabokov. “It’s really a tragic story. Here, in the hands of this maniac is this poor girl—.” “And a very ordinary girl—” Nabokov put in…." (What Hath Lolita Wrought? Ithaca Author Distressed by Some Reactions,” Elmira Telegram, Dec. 14, 1958. )

"In Lolita, who’s the most likable person for you? It’s Lolita. It’s with her that the good reader should become friends. American readers, generally, talk of her as an unbearable kid, but you pity her as you would pity any kid. There’s something touching in her." (“While Lolita Travels Around the World, the Entomologist Nabokov and the Agronomist Robbe-Grillet Exchange Pawns on the Literary Chessboard”), Arts (Paris), October 28–Nov. 3, 1959, 4.) 

"She came entirely out of my imagination. Critics, in general, find her odious; I pity her: an orphan, alone in life with a demanding forty-year-old. When I wrote about her last meeting with Humbert, I cried, like Flaubert at the death of Madame Bovary. “She cries every night, and the critics don’t hear her sobs,” said Mrs. Nabokov." (“Nabokov Without Lolita”, Nouvelles littéraires, Oct. 29, 1959, 1–2.)

"But she’s also a very touching character. Toward the end of the book, the reader and the author pity her, this poor child who has been sacrificed on the altar of motels. It’s very sad." (“The Good Mr. Nabokov: Lolita’s Father Forsakes Nymphets for the Sake of Pushkin and Robbe-Grillet”), L’Express, Nov. 5, 1959, 32–33.)

"Is Lolita amoral? On the contrary. It has a very moral moral: don’t harm children. Now, Humbert does [...] And Lolita, isn’t she a victim and not a little slattern….After all, haven’t I indicated the evil of all this, in giving Lolita a stillborn child?" (“Conversation, Vladimir Nabokov: He Likes Humor, Tennis and Proust. He Hates Communists, Sade, Freud”),  L’Express, Jan. 26, 1961. )

"How, then, do you explain the “Lolita cult”? How do you explain all these girls who move, act, dress, and talk like Lolita? I wouldn’t know. Perhaps it is a result of the way the popular press has distorted my poor Lo. It has come up with something that has absolutely nothing to do with the book or Lolita the character. Lolita is the story of a sad little girl in a very sad world. The “Lolita cult” is something completely different." (“Love Today: How the Author of Lolita Sees It”), L’Europeo, June 23, 1966, 28–33. )

"Humbert Humbert is a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear “touching.” That epithet, in its true, tear-iridized sense, can only apply to my poor little girl." (Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 40, Issue 41, Summer-Fall 1967)

"Lolita isn’t a perverse young girl. She’s a poor child who has been debauched and whose senses never stir under the caresses of the foul Humbert Humbert, whom she asks once, “how long did [he] think we were going to live in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together…? [...] It is equally interesting to dwell, as journalists say, on the problem of the inept degradation that the character of the nymphet Lolita, whom I invented in 1955, has undergone in the mind of the broad public. Not only has the perversity of this poor child been grotesquely exaggerated, but her physical appearance, her age, everything has been transformed by the illustrations in foreign publications. Girls of eighteen or more, sidewalk kittens, cheap models, or simple long-legged criminals, are baptized “nymphets” or “Lolitas” in news stories in magazines in Italy, France, Germany, etc.; and the covers of translations, Turkish or Arab, reach the height of ineptitude when they feature a young woman with opulent contours and a blond mane imagined by boobies who have never read my book. In reality Lolita is a little girl of twelve, whereas Humbert Humbert is a mature man, and it’s the abyss between his age and that of the little girl that produces the vacuum, the vertigo, the seduction of mortal danger. Secondly, it’s the imagination of the sad satyr that makes a magic creature of this little American schoolgirl, as banal and normal in her way as the poet manqué Humbert is in his. Outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nymphet. Lolita the nymphet exists only through the obsession that destroys Humbert. Here’s an essential aspect of a unique book that has been betrayed by a factitious popularity." (“Apostrophes: Bernard Pivot Meets Vladimir Nabokov”), live television interview, Antenne-2 (Paris), May 30, 1975.)

And let's close with my blog title:

"Lolita is an indictment of all the things it expresses. It is a pathetic book dealing with the plight of a child, a very ordinary little girl, caught up by a disgusting and cruel man….But of all my books, I like it the best. " (Author of Lolita Scoffs at Furore over His Novel,” Niagara Falls Gazette, Jan. 11, 1959, 10B.)

Thanks for coming to his TED Talk