#Mathematics Assignment writer

[papercoach]

Enhance your memory with the "Method of Loci." 🧠 Associate study material with specific locations or objects to recall information better during exams. 💡

[fictionadventurer]

Personally, it's always a bit wild to me to see commentators interact with the Hunger Games franchise as if Collins were writing science fiction stories instead of essays with faces. She's just not that interested in fleshing out side characters or digging into the details of the worldbuilding. These characters are concepts and symbols before they're people. There's an almost mathematical precision to who and what she explores and how deeply she does it. This is a step or two away from pure allegory. If she were writing a couple of centuries ago, she'd have named her characters things like Innocence and Anger and Watch-Carefully-Your-Soul-Lest-Ye-Be-Damned, but since she's writing for modern audiences, she has to settle for puns and allusions. If she has another essay to write, she'll assign some faces to it; she's not going to look into backstories or other eras just for the sake of storytelling, and it's not a failing as a writer that she doesn't.

[koiukiy-o]

orphic; (adj.) mysterious and entrancing, beyond ordinary understanding. ─── 007. the paper.

-> summary: when you, a final-year student at the grove, get assigned to study under anaxagoras—one of the legendary seven sages—you know things are about to get interesting. but as the weeks go by, the line between correlation and causation starts to blur, and the more time you spend with professor anaxagoras, the more drawn to him you become in ways you never expected. the rules of the academy are clear, and the risks are an unfortunate possibility, but curiosity is a dangerous thing. and maybe, just maybe, some risks are worth taking. after all, isn’t every great discovery just a leap of faith? -> pairing: anaxa x gn!reader. -> tropes: professor x student, slow burn, forbidden romance. -> wc: 3.3k -> warnings: potential hsr spoilers from TB mission: "Light Slips the Gate, Shadow Greets the Throne" (3.1 update). main character is written to be 21+ years of age, at the very least. (anaxa is written to be around 26-27 years of age.) swearing, mature themes, suggestive content.

-> a/n: this chapter is a bit dry, and incredibly fast paced, the angst lords held my shoulders gently and demanded my cooperation, and who am i to refuse... > unfortunately not a good angst writer. hopefully the next chapter fills in some gaps :P -> prev. || next. -> orphic; the masterlist.

Professor Anaxagoras stood at the front of the lecture hall, one hand braced against the edge of the desk, the other holding a thick folder of notes he hadn’t opened.

“—the symposium will run the final weekend of the month,” he said. “Attendance is limited to invitees and selected applicants. Presenters will include faculty, visiting lecturers, and a handful of external contributors with the appropriate security clearances.”

You glanced up from your notes. Kira stopped doodling in the margin of her page. Even Ilias straightened a little.

Professor Anaxagoras continued, eyes flicking briefly to the back of the hall, as if confirming something invisible. “Among the guests: Socrippe of the Erythrokeramists, whose work on semiotic containment theory in sacred structures should be familiar to most of you—”

“...and, by unfortunate persistence of committee will,” Anaxagoras said with unmistakable restraint, “Cerces, formerly of this faculty.”

That got a few scattered reactions—raised brows, a murmur or two.

“You may know her from her former lectures in phenomenology. Some of you”—his eyes passed over the hall with unreadable stillness—“have studied under her. You will find no one more exacting in her critique of academic laziness.”

You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until you let it out. The name lingers in the air.

“She specializes in ontology, and approaches metaphysics through embodied cognition. Expect poetry disguised as philosophy,” he said. “Or vice versa.”

Your pen stilled on the page.

Kira nudged you lightly under the desk, eyes narrowed in curiosity.

“She also,” Anaxagoras added, tone flatter now, “insists on calling the panel a ‘dialogic constellation,’ so prepare yourselves.”

Ilias made a face. “What does that even mean?”

“She thinks it sounds more participatory,” Anaxagoras replied, already turning toward the desk, “though experience suggests otherwise.”

“Socrippe of the Erythrokeramists,” he said, “representing a school that approaches spiritual inquiry through artistic interpretation. They concern themselves with the soul, with perception, and with questions of embodied truth—often through mediums most of you would not consider academic. They also lead artistic education across much of the western scholastic network, claiming creativity is essential to understanding.”

“Apuleius,” he said last. “Of the Nodists. Their position is… less subtle. They believe all things are numbers. Not metaphorically—literally.”

He turned back to the room, chalk still in hand.

“To the Nodists, mathematics is not a tool, but a medium through which spiritual logic is expressed. They treat equations as divine revelation. Apuleius is their youngest speaker in a decade. He may attempt to convert you.”

A ripple of laughter this time. Ilias muttered something about cult vibes.

He went on, with a slight pause, “Expect graphs. Animated ones.”

A quiet wave of laughter rippled through the room.

“The application window closes by the end of this week. No extensions. Submission requires a statement of focus and relevant academic record.”

You’re still in your seat by the time lecture ends, notebook open but mostly ignored now, letting the noise filter out around you.

You shift, elbow brushing Kira’s as she taps the cap of her water bottle against the edge of the desk. Ilias, who’s been half-slumped over his notebook for most of the lecture, perks up.

“You still applying?” Ilias asks Kira—too quickly, voice a little too bright, like he’s rehearsed it and still tripped over the delivery.

Kira glances at him. “I am.”

He blinks. “Wait, really?”

She nods, casual as ever. “Yeah.” Her eyes flick to you, unreadable for half a second. 

Ilias sits up straighter like he’s just been hit by lightning. “Oh. Uh. Cool. That’s cool. I mean, I was thinking about it. Just, you know—my grades, maybe not entirely be optimal for that kind of thing… But hey—if you’re applying, maybe I will too. Strength in numbers, right? Mutual suffering.”

Kira smirks. “If you make it, I’ll bake you a whole cake.”

“You’re underestimating how motivating that is,” Ilias says, already pulling out his tablet like he’s going to start the application right then and there.

“I’m hoping everyone else applies too,” she says, “Would be nice. Like a little field trip.”

From behind you, unhurried footsteps and an exaggerated yawn cuts through– low, rough, clinging to sleep.

You glance back to see Phainon making his way down from the last row, cardigan half off one shoulder, white shirt rumpled, one eye still closed against the light. Behind him, Mydei trails with quiet ease, carrying two bags like it was second nature. 

Phainon drops into the seat in front of you with a thud and immediately turns sideways to slump across your desk like gravity has personally betrayed him.

“If anyone asks,” he mutters, “I was here the whole time.”

“Obviously,” you say, nudging his arm off your notebook. “Nothing says ‘academic presence’ like arriving in slow motion after the lecture ends.”

He makes a muffled noise that might be agreement, despair, or both.

“You missed a lot,” Kira offers, lightly. “Prof talked about the symposium.” 

Phainon lifts his head just enough to look at you. “You’re actually applying, right?”

You blink. “No? For the millionth time, I am not.”

Mydei slides onto the table in front of you, legs swinging gently off the edge. He rests his chin on his hand and surveys the group like a tired tutor trying to gauge who did the reading. “I applied last night. I figured you might change your mind after…” His gaze cuts toward the hallway—where Anaxagoras had been—

You stiffen.

And then, as if summoned by the gods of chaos, Ilias flails into the conversation with all the grace of a brick in freefall. “I know made a legally binding promise not to bring it up, and I’ve honored that oath under duress.”

You close your eyes. “Ilias—”

“But someone else brought it up!” he continues, pointing a wildly accusatory finger at Mydei. “So technically, this is no longer my fault and I am absolutely allowed to say— he touched your hand!”

You drop your forehead to the table with a dull thunk.

“Ilias,” you mutter into the woodgrain.

“I saw it!” he insists, wide-eyed. “AnaxaY/N fingertip touch was monumental! And you– you went full system crash. I saw the cursor spinning-buffering wheel-blue screen of existential crisis all over your face!”

Kira raises an eyebrow, barely turning her head. “You’re not wrong,” she says, voice even. “It was painfully obvious, too.”

You shoot her a look. “Whose side are you on?”

She shrugs, unbothered. “I’m just saying. You paused while handing the phone back to him like the fate of the world depended on it.”

Ilias gasps in vindication. “Thank you! Finally, someone sees the truth.”

Kira takes a long sip of water, then adds lightly, “Besides, I think it’s sweet. Tragic, probably. But sweet.”

You scoff. “It was just an email.”

“Sure,” she says, her eyes glinting.

Ilias points at her, triumphant. “This is why Kira’s the only one here qualified to interpret sexual tension.”

You press your palms to your face. “Please stop saying sexual tension.’”

“Why?” Kira asks, tone playful now. “It’s starting to feel... accurate.”

Mydei lets the laughter die down before turning his attention back to you. His voice is gentler this time, quieter. “You don’t have to explain yourself. But if you are going to change your mind, make sure it’s because you want to. Not because someone brushed your hand and your brain rewrote its operating system.”

Your mouth opens, then closes.

“That’s not what happened, and I’m not changing my mind.” you mutter.

Ilias says from the table, still face-down. “As if I didn’t see you walk into a wooden beam afterward.”

Kira flicks a piece of bread at his head. “Enough.”

Mydei grins, stretching languidly as he slides back off the table. 

Phainon makes a low noise, something between scandal and amusement. “But seriously, a weekend of intellectual sparring in a windowless auditorium doesn’t interest you?”

Ilias gives him a look. “That can’t be a selling point.”

“I think Honour Roll’s applying,” Kira murmurs, nodding her head towards a guy taking notes… after class ended? “Had his hand raised before prof even finished the sentence.”

Ilias gives her a look. “Isn’t he the one who thought metaphysics was ghost biology?” 

You side-eye her. “He defined Cartesian dualism as a debate between two guys named Descartes.”

“He looked so proud, too.” 

She hides a grin behind her bottle. “At least he’s consistent. So,” Kira says slowly, “should we all apply and make this a collective breakdown?” and though she addressed the entire table, her eyes were fixed on you.

You raise a brow. “I just said I wasn’t applying.”

She shrugs. “People say a lot of things before peer pressure.”

“I am alarmingly immune to group influence,” you say.

Mydei tilts his head at you. “You’re really out?”

“For now,” you say, and tap your pen against the edge of the desk. “Not every mystery needs a dissertation.”

Kira leans toward the desk, elbow resting against the edge. “What’s a symposium even like?”

Mydei shrugs one shoulder, eyes still on the page. “Professor Anaxagoras never goes to those actually,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Too many vague theories and recycled arguments.” He mocks, albeit accurately. “Said it’s a waste of time.”

You pause, the words settling in.

You look at the open notebook in front of you, still mostly blank. Outside, sunlight drifts in across the floor, catching the edge of a scuffed boot, the curve of Kira’s pen, the fold of Phainon’s sleeve where he’s halfway to sleep again.

Mydei doesn’t elaborate, and Phainon doesn’t ask. He’s already slouching deeper in his chair, arms folded behind his head, eyes drifting shut again. “Wake me if enlightenment knocks,” he mutters.

Mydei flips his pen between his fingers. “If it does, it won’t be for you.”

The room’s mostly empty now, the last of the footsteps fading into the corridor outside.

You start gathering your things too. Kira stretches, rotating her wrist where she'd been fidgeting with her bottle cap. She nudges Ilias’ ankle lightly with her foot. “Come on.” 

Ilias startles like he wasn’t expecting to be addressed directly. “Me? You want me to–? Okay, yes. I am coming. Coming is what I’m doing.”

He scrambles to gather his things, nearly knocking over his water bottle in the process. Kira just watches, expression unreadable.

He swings the strap over his shoulder, catches it on the back of the chair, and nearly falls backward trying to recover.

Kira raises an eyebrow. “You good?”

“I’m excellent,” he says, voice going high and too fast. “Never better.”

She starts walking. “Right.”

He follows like a loyal, over-caffeinated puppy. “Did you know that pringles fit perfectly in a cylindrical tube because they’re hyperbolic paraboloids plotted over a circular domain?” 

Kira, mid-sip of her tea, blinks at him. "... Do you even know what that means?"

Ilias freezes for a split second, his eyes widening slightly. His hand hovers awkwardly over his fries, which he suddenly seems much less interested in. “Uh. I mean... yeah, totally. It’s... it’s like geometry or something.”

He clears his throat, trying to recover. “You know, math... shapes... real smooth stuff—yeah, I read about it somewhere.”

Kira watches him for a moment, her lips curling into a knowing smirk. “Sure you did.”

Ilias sighs dramatically and shrugs, defeated. "Okay, fine, maybe I don't exactly know what I’m talking about. But you were impressed, right?"

Their voices drift toward the door, Kira’s dry commentary punctuated by Ilias’s increasingly flustered rebuttals.

You’re still smiling faintly when your phone buzzes.

It’s an email.

From: Anaxagoras Subject: (blank) “Student, Appreciate your thoughts—if and when you have them. Regards, Anaxagoras”

That’s all.

Student?

You stare at the files attached:

Cerces_Entanglement.pdf Cerces_SubjectiveStructure.pdf

You’re still not applying. You haven’t changed your mind.

But you download them anyway.

It’s past midnight when you finally open it.

You’d told yourself you were just going to skim. One paragraph, maybe two—enough to say you’d looked. Enough to reply, if he ever asked.

But the first page pulls you in.

Cerces doesn’t write like she’s explaining something. She writes like the truth’s already there, and you’ve simply forgotten how to see it. The language is dense, sure, but it unfolds—slowly, precisely—like it was meant for people willing to do the work.

She makes a case for perception not as a filter, but as a force. Subjective experience shaping what is real, not just coloring it.

You don’t even realize how long you’ve been reading until the cursor on your half-finished assignment blinks back at you, still waiting. You blink down at your screen. Somehow, you’re already halfway through a side note you didn’t plan to write, tying Cerces’ structure-of-thought models to the assignment. 

You hadn’t meant to write that. You hadn’t meant to use any of it.

But here you are.

The question was already formed in your mind before his chalk reached the lower edge of the board the next day.

You didn’t raise your hand at first. You waited for the shift in tone he always used to signal the end of the main lecture arc. Waited for that half-step back from the board, the pivot, the glance across the room to see who had been keeping up. And when it came, you lifted your hand.

“Professor?” you said.

Anaxagoras didn’t sigh. He didn’t frown. He simply turned his head slowly, gaze catching on you with the kind of mechanical precision that suggested your voice had registered—barely.

You didn’t waver. “I had a question about the holographic encoding model,” you said, steady. “If we assume memories are distributed across a system rather than stored locally—does that imply the memory itself could exist as a form of interference pattern? One that reassembles partially, depending on context? Or is it more likely that what we call noise is actually unreadable signal?”

There was a beat of silence.

You felt it ripple across the room, a collective moment of attention, not quite tension—but close. Ilias, one row behind, sat up straighter. Kira had already lowered her pen, watching.

Anaxagoras didn’t speak right away.

He reached instead for the edge of the podium, adjusting a stray paper with unnecessary precision—his movements precise, composed, almost too still. The board still glowed behind him, but his eyes didn’t return to the projection. They flicked to you—once.

And then away again.

“Review the Feynman boundary analog,” he said flatly. “It’s in the assigned material.”

You blinked. “I did, but that doesn’t address the noise threshold—if the scale is nonlinear, wouldn’t that change the coherence—”

“You’ll find the constants you’re referring to in the last section,” he said, already turning back to the board. His voice held no edge, no invitation. “Try reading more closely.”

The dismissal was cold.

You sat there, notebook open, page half-filled with the equations you’d been working through during his lecture. The words hit sharper than they should’ve. 

“I did read it,” you said, softer than you meant to. Your voice sounded smaller in the large hall, like it didn’t belong.

Anaxagoras didn’t look back. He nodded once—mechanically. “Then read it again.”

No further comment. No elaboration.

He returned to his notes as if the exchange hadn’t happened at all.

You sat there, motionless, your pen frozen midair. Slowly, you closed your notebook, spine pressing against your fingers until it hurt. You didn’t speak again for the rest of the class. Just stared at the fading diagrams on the board, heart thudding low in your chest.

No rebuttal. No protest.

The cafe is buzzing with the usual mid-afternoon rush, students hunched over their laptops, friends chatting in the corner booths. But as you approach the counter, you can’t shake the knot in your stomach.

Kira is behind the register, her usual bright smile faltering slightly when she sees you. Her eyes narrow, a silent question forming as she taps your order into the system. You force a smile, trying to push past the unease creeping up on you.

“One medium cappuccino, please,” you say, voice steady enough to fool anyone who might be listening.

She presses the button to start the machine, but her gaze lingers on you, studying you in the way only she can. “You good?” she asks, her tone soft but sharp with concern. She’s already noticed—how could she not? The lines between your brows, the way you hold yourself too stiffly–

You shake your head slightly, waving it off. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired, you know? Assignment stuff.”

She doesn’t buy it for a second. You can see it in the way her lips press together, in the small shift in her posture as she pours the espresso, then expertly steams the milk. 

Once she finishes, she slides the coffee cup toward you. “Take a seat,” she says, her voice more firm now. “I’ll be right over.”

You try to protest, but she’s already grabbing a chair and pulling it out next to you before you can stop her. She’s nothing if not persistent.

You set your laptop down as she sits beside you, her expression gentle but resolute.

“So,” Kira says, casually glancing at your screen. “Tell me what’s up.”

You give her a half-hearted smile, opening your laptop again but not really focusing on it. “Seriously, Kira. I’m fine.”

She doesn’t budge, her gaze never leaving you as she tilts her head, considering you with all the patience she can muster. “You know you can be honest with me, right?”

You exhale slowly, your fingers hovering over the keys as you consider how much to say. The truth feels too tangled, too messy to admit out loud. But Kira is waiting, and she’s not going to let you distract yourself with your work.

With a frustrated sigh, you finally lean back in your chair and close the laptop. “It’s Anaxagoras,” you mutter, your eyes dropping to the table. “He’s just being weird. You saw him in class today, didn’t you?” 

Kira’s eyes soften, but she doesn’t say anything right away. She lets you breathe, lets the words settle into the air before she speaks. 

“I noticed. But you know he’s difficult to read,” she says gently. 

After a brief pause, you push her hand aside and open your laptop, scrolling until you find the email, still sitting there like a little landmine in your inbox. “He sent me this after I told him I’m not applying to attend the symposium the other day.” You flick the screen toward her.

Kira leans in, reading quickly. “‘Appreciate your thoughts—if and when you have them.’ Huh.”

“What?”

She gives you a flat look. “What did you reply?”

You blink. “I didn’t, yet.” 

“…Why not?”

“I—I didn’t know what to say?” you protest, a little too defensively. “It’s good. It’s actually really good. But if I just emailed back like, ‘Nice paper, Professor,’ I’d sound like an idiot. I was gonna sit with it. Think. Wait until I had something meaningful to say.”

Kira squints. “And how long has it been?”

You hesitate. “Two days.”

She stares at you. “Okay. So maybe that’s why he’s being cold?”

You blink. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—maybe he’s sulking.” A sudden smirk takes over her face.

You blink slowly. “...Sulking?”

Kira nods, casual as anything. “Mhm.”

You stare at her. “Why would he be sulking?”

She lifts a shoulder. “I dunno. You didn’t email him back.”

You frown, puzzled. “But... why would that make him upset?”

Kira looks at you like you just asked why water is wet. “’Cause he sent you a paper.”

“I know, but I’m sure he sends papers to people all the time.”

“Yeah,” she says, like that proves her point. “But he sent it to you. With a note. That said he’d appreciate your thoughts.”

You look down at your laptop, then back at her. “…But I haven’t had time to really sit with it yet. I didn’t wanna reply with something shallow like ‘cool’ or whatever.”

Kira nods like that makes sense, but only a little. That annoying grin is still plastered on her face. “Still. You didn’t say anything. And now he’s ignoring you.”

You tilt your head. “But that doesn’t mean he’s upset. Maybe he was just in a bad mood today.”

She squints a bit. “Yeah, but... he’s usually more focused on you. You know?”

You furrow your brow, trying to backtrack in your head. “... It was just an email?”

Kira shrugs. “Still.”

You nod slowly, still not really getting it, but also kind of… getting it.

Kira pats your arm. “You’re smart. But you’re kinda dumb, too.”

You blink at her. “Thanks?”

“Anytime,” she says, already standing to get back to the counter.

“…Alchemy,” Anaxagoras begins without preamble, voice steady, measured. “Despite the clichés, was never simply the pursuit of gold. It was the architecture of transformation—externally, yes. But also internally. Philosophically. Psychologically. In some theories, even mnemonically.”  

You glance up.  

Anaxagoras, meanwhile, walks slowly across the platform, gesturing without flourish. “Certain alchemic schools treated memory not as record, but as relic—something to be unearthed, transmuted, and occasionally… relived.”  

He pauses.  

“Cerces, for example, argues this too,” he adds, almost lazily, eyes skimming across the rows of students. “Though she does not call it alchemy.”  

And then—without warning—his gaze lands on you. Not unkind. Not pointed. But undeniably direct.  

“In one of her papers, she proposes a model where memory isn’t stored, but stabilized—by narrative. That stability is fragile, vulnerable to external disruption. So,” he says, as if this is all perfectly routine, “what happens when that narrative fails?”  

You blink. Slowly.  

“Chaos,” you say, forcing a bored tone, not bothering to lift your head. “Or a very dramatic existential crisis. Depending on your level of caffeine.”

You don’t look at him. But out of the corner of your eye, you catch the slight twitch of his mouth. Not quite a smile. But close enough.

You swear his voice is the slightest bit drier when he continues.

“Chaos, yes. Though Cerces might use the word collapse.”  

You flip a page in your notebook, already scribbling something down before you realize what you're doing.

Ilias leans in, whispering from the side of his mouth. “You didn’t tell me the secret midnight reading was actually good.”  

You keep writing. “Shut up, Ilias.”  

You would have replied sooner. You really would have.

It wasn’t because the paper wasn’t interesting—it was, annoyingly so. Precise and elegant and infuriatingly thought-provoking in the way only he could be. But you didn’t know what to say. Not yet.

Opening your laptop, you now see 1 unread message from: Anaxagoras@thegrove.edu Subject: RE: – Curious if any of the arguments held up under your scrutiny. —A.

Half of you wishes you could just smash your laptop (or your head) into the wall, but the other half of you is desperately trying to compose yourself long enough to make sense of what you’re about to do.

Before you know it, you have your phone pressed to your ear with a death grip. 

You check the time: 3:07 a.m.

Then you stare at the blinking cursor on your laptop screen. 

It rings six times before a groggy voice picks up.

“…What?”

“I need your help.”

A pause. Then Ilias exhales, clearly still half-asleep. “Are you in immediate danger?”

“Academic danger, if that counts,” you admit. “I’m trying to write an email to Professor Anaxagoras. I just… I’m stuck.”

There’s a long silence. You hear the creak of bedsprings.

“You called me at 3 a.m. to help you write an email?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” you say again, calmly. “I’ve drafted five versions, none of them feel right. I’m overthinking the phrasing.”

“…Okay. What's the context?”

“I read through the papers he sent me. He followed up this afternoon and asked for my thoughts. I don’t want to send something too short, but I also don’t want it to sound like I’m trying too hard. I just want to sound competent.”

“Okay, reasonable. What have you written so far?”

“I’m worried I sound like I’m trying to seduce him. Sending an email that sounds like a confession of undying love for someone who doesn’t even know your middle name doesn’t seem appropriate.”

He groans dramatically. “Just read the damn drafts. I’m getting secondhand anxiety here.”

“‘Dear Anaxagoras, I hope this email finds you well. I have carefully reviewed your paper, and—’”

He cuts you off with a loud snort. “That’s the seduction version?”

You stare at the phone screen. “...I can’t tell anymore.”

“I’m crying, oh my god. Okay, what’s next?”

You glance at the most recent draft and read aloud: “Dear Professor Anaxagoras, thank you for forwarding the studies. I’ve reviewed them and would appreciate the opportunity to discuss a few thoughts, if you’re available.”

A pause. Then: “That sounds… fine? Why don’t you like it?”

“It feels a little generic. I don’t want it to sound like a template.”

“Well, you are emailing your professor. It’s not supposed to sound like a novel.”

You lean back in your chair, running a hand across your face. “I know. I just keep second-guessing the tone. I want to acknowledge that I’ve read and thought about the material, not just skimmed it.”

“Okay. Then add a sentence. Mention something specific.”

You nod slowly. “Maybe something like: ‘The section regarding recursive stability in cognitive patterning was especially relevant to my current work on--”

“Stop right there. It’s 3 a.m., I don’t have the brain cells to translate Nerd Latin.”

You adjust the wording slightly on your screen. “I think this version works.”

“Good. Send it.”

You hesitate for a moment, rereading. “Alright.”

You hit the button.

There’s a long, terrible silence. You stare at your inbox, watching the email disappear into the ether.

Ilias groans lightly. “There. Done. Crisis averted. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Thanks,” you say. “Sorry for waking you.”

“Night.” Click.

-> next.

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[thyme-in-a-bubble]

the murder at evergreen university

a/n: asdfghjkl I have been writing this since january...... wow. it's never taken me that long to write a story before... also I made a quick student bio about the majority of the people in this story, so if you wanna start off by looking at that, then here is the link ♡

summary:  just a slutty murder mystery

warnings: reader x various CEvans characters (Ransom Drysdale, Curtis Everett, Ari Levinson, Steve Rogers, Frank Adler, Jake Jensen, Lloyd Hansen), DARK content, noncon, smut, violence, university AU, murder mystery, detective!Ari, family friend!Ari, mma!Curtis (I just couldn't resist), surely extremely inaccurate on all levels (the college stuff, the investigation, everything, but this is just for fun so it's okay. lol I got the frat name from fantasynamegenerators.com hehe), polyamory, kissing, alcohol consumption, crying, drugging, murder, somno, daddy kink, dirty talk, choking, penetrative sex, size kink, vomiting, flashback sequences are written in all cursive

word count: 11.100

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

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Walking up the steps of the Kappa Zeta Nu building, you pulled your humming ear pods out of your ears and popped them in the jacket pocket where your phone rested. If it hadn’t been for the big Greek letters above and its proximity to the college, the fraternity house could almost fool someone into thinking it was just any other regular suburban home. 

Giving the front door a rhythmic knock, it quickly swung open to reveal a scruffy-looking mathematics major, still groggy from sleep. 

“Morning Frank,” you couldn’t help but notice the spark in his eye that your presence generated. 

“Angel,” your nickname sounded so good on his sleepy lips, making you smile as he gave you a quick glance up and down, “how do you look like that this early in the morning?” 

Walking past him, further into the house, you chuckled, “8:30 is not that early.”

“Um, on a Saturday it is.” 

Thanks to the open floor plan, you quickly caught sight of Jake sitting by the kitchen island, scarfing down a bowl of cereal. 

“Hey!” the blonde smiled, mouth still full of his breakfast, “I’m guessing by the gorgeous look on your face that you made it through last night?”

“Yep,” you exhaled, thinking back on the major cram session you had to power through in order to meet the paper’s deadline. The lengthy assignment for your cognitive psychology class had been so extensive that it probably hadn’t been that smart of you to keep procrastinating it the way that you had, but somehow you got it done, “turned it in just in time.” 

“Atta girl,” the computer whiz reached over the counter to give you a high five, “I knew you could do it!”

“Speaking of yesterday,” yours and Jake’s fingers lingered a moment before parting ways, “how’s our boy doing? Did he make it through last night?”

Appearing behind you, still sweaty and panting from his morning run, Steve answered your question, evidently catching the tail end of the conversation just as he came in through the door, “Curtis is doing just fine,” he leaned against one of the counters, catching his breath, “better than fine actually, he won.” 

“He did?” a bright smile bloomed on your face, “man, I wish I could have been there…” you were usually so strict about being there for important things, such as Curtis’ occasional MMA fights, but because of your procrastinated schoolwork, you hadn’t been able to tag along. “It’s all Lloyd’s fault, you know. He did the whole oh yeah, we can have a little study date, get that paper done, no sweat, and then distracted me, leaving me with all of the work to get through yesterday.”  

“You wanna turn the faucets on down here, give his shower an icy turn as revenge?” Jake suggested, fiddling with his spoon playfully. 

“Nah, I’ll just give him the cold shoulder for a bit,” you settled your forearms against the countertop, unintentionally giving the guys a better view down your top, “he hates it when I ignore him.”

“He sure does,” Jakes drawled, nearly dropping his utensil into the milky bowl as he unabashedly stared down your cleavage. 

Biting your bottom lip a second, you returned to the matter at hand, “is he up yet?”

“Curtis?” Steve clarified, opening the fridge and plucking out a cold bottle of water. 

“Yeah.”

“Nope,” Frank shook his head behind you, “he’s still sleeping.”

Only pushing yourself halfway up, you asked “can I go see him?” slightly taking the others by surprise. 

“When have you even needed permission to go barge into his room?” Frank questioned.

“I don’t know…” you muttered, glancing down at the speckled pattern of the counter's surface, “maybe he’s got company or something…”

“Angel,” Steve leaned over the opposite side of the table, craning his neck so that he could catch your timid eyes, “he is not gonna go pick up some random girl just because you miss one of his fights.”

Bowing your head, you opted not to answer, instead just attempted to shake the doubt off you entirely. 

In a bouncy rocking motion, you straitened back up and moved towards the stairs, two of the guys tagging along as they too needed to head upstairs. 

“So,” you glanced over your shoulder at Frank and Steve, “how’s Ransom settling in?”

“The new guy?” Steve spoke, “fine, I think. I don’t know, I don’t speak trust fund kid, so how would I know.”

“I don’t think he’s that bad… Shouldn’t we at least try to include him in our little group? It just seems kinda mean not to since we’re so tight and you all live with him,” reaching the top of the stairs, you heard, from the bathroom directly in front of you, the trickling clues of Lloyd’s luxurious shower, and briefly glanced down at the far end of the hall where the new guy’s closed door was, his vast room mirroring Steve’s at the opposite side, though his was much more secluded from the rest, being closed in by the injection of both the broad staircase and the bathroom before the cluster of rooms came. “Like you said, you don’t know him yet, he might be super sweet and just takes a bit of time to warm up to people.”

“Maybe,” was all Frank cagily, not giving it any more thought. 

Coming to a stop in front of Curtis’ door, you slowly creaked it open, revealing the sleeping display of a bruised buzzcut, still lightly snoring on his back.

“Jesus christ,” you breathed and leaned your shoulder against the doorframe, taking in the beaten form of your friend, “you sure he won?” you asked the men still lingering a second longer, peeking over your shoulder into the room.

“Yeah, you don’t wanna see the other guy,” Frank gave your behind a quick tap before ducking into his own room. 

Turning your head to look at Steve, himself leisurely making his way down towards the room at the end of the hall, “you sure he’s fine?” 

Stopping in his step, he offered you an earnest glance, “he’s fine, Y/n. Go wake him up.”

After shutting the door behind you, you peeled off your jacket and let it drop down onto the desk chair you passed on your way towards the small mattress. Kicking off your shoes, you climbed the twin bed, kneeling beside your resting friend.

“Wake up,” you sang, dipping your smile down low to rouse Curtis. Receiving a less than lively reaction, only getting a soft inhale of breath as an indication that he’d woken, you tried again, swinging one of your legs over his form to straddle his hips, “hey, tough guy,” you felt his palms slide up the curve of your ass and come to rest around your waist, “you alive?”

Just barely fluttering his bruised eyelids open, a bright smile bloomed on his lips, “hi angel,” he sighed contently at your presence, blinking up at your softly illuminated form as the gentle morning light streamed in through his open window, the family of birds living in the tree just outside aiding in the gentle ambience. 

“A little birdy told me that you won last night,” you let your upper body sink down against his, resting your chin on top of your folded palms, right underneath his chin.

“I did,” you saw as the sting of his various injuries woke him up even further, “although I still would have preferred if my good luck charm had been there instead of doing boring homework.” 

“Oh, please don’t make me feel any worse,” you hid your face in his chest, “I already feel like I have too much making up to do.”

“Oh yeah?” he picked your head up for you to see the sly smirk now adorning his face, “what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know,” you spoke shyly, feeling your cheeks flush as the position the two of you had found yourself in dawned on you, “I just really wanted to have been there,” and you sat back up, wary of where you placed your hands for support on his beaten frame. 

“Ah,” he waved a reassuring hand, “you’ll be at the next one.”

“Oh, I will,” you grinned promisingly, scooting down to the foot of the bed as you watched him sit up, the duvet falling off his body to relieve the rest of the colourful aftermath, “a simple assignment won’t be able to stop me,” your enthusiasm made him smile through the wince he let out as he got up off the mattress.

Tailing after Curtis as he moved out into the hall and made his way down towards the lavatory, you suggested as you followed him into the bathroom, “we should totally do something to celebrate your win! It’s the weekend, we should do something fun!”

Standing by one of the sinks, Lloyd, fresh out of the shower, didn’t take his eyes off his hair in the reflection as you sauntered in. As Curtis grabbed his toothbrush, he leaned down and whispered cheekily in your ear, “I know a way we can celebrate, just the two of us,” flashing you a glance that caused your breath to get caught in your throat. 

Cutting off your flustered giggle, Lloyd spoke, “there’s supposed to be a party tonight down on the other side of campus. Me and a few of the others were talking about going.” 

“Oh, the one Delta Phi is throwing? Nat’s going to that! Said something this morning about meeting the guy she’s been seeing there.”

“What-, guy?” Lloyd finally ripped his eyes away from the mirror, “what happened to that yoga chick?”

“I don’t know, I think she was moving a little bit too fast for Natasha’s speed,” you spoke of your commitment-phobe of a roommate. Saddling up beside the fighter now brushing his teeth, you said, “so, what do you say?” bumping your hip gently against his as you saw him look back at you in the mirror, “it could be fun.”

Pretending to ponder the proposal, Curtis answered, “if you put on a pretty little dress, then I might be convinced to go,” the foaming toothpaste lightly murmuring his flirting.

“…It’s always the innocent-looking ones you’ve gotta look out for,” Ransom spoke over the loud, bassy music to the moustachioed man next to him on the couch, “and this little charade you’ve all got going on must be a hell of a good time,” he elbowed him suggestively, though didn’t conjure the desired reaction from him, “oh, come on, you can tell me, dude. Just help a brother out with a few details.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lloyd shrugged with a smirk and took a sip of his beer. 

“What do you mean?”

Huffing out a soft sigh, he answered, “she’s an amazing girl, don’t get me wrong, but she just has a few rules.”

“What, like some bdsm kinda rules?” Ransom’s eyebrows wiggled excitedly. 

“No, man,” he tried not to chuckle at the yearned-for images his inappropriate guess provoked, “back when we met her she-… her heart was fucking broken and there wasn’t a lot of stuff that she wanted to do anymore, that she felt comfortable with, but over time, I guess when she started getting over whomever that fucker was, she began to relax and let us in.”

“So, you’re really saying you haven’t hit that yet?” the prying man furrowed his brows, unmoved by the sob story. 

“None of us have.”

“Then are those stories about you banging her last week just rumours?”

“No, no, well not exactly, we did have fun, trust me,” he chuckled, poking his cheek playfully with his tongue, “but I didn’t exactly bang her.”

“So, let me get this right, you’re all mad for her and she hasn’t given out? To any of you? What, is she still a virgin or something? Waiting for marriage?”

“I don’t think so,” Llyod thought for a moment, “but it kinda wouldn’t surprise me either if she was… I don’t know… it’s kinda complicated, but damn if she isn’t worth it.”

Letting out a low exhale, he shook his head, “I don’t know how you stand it, dude. If she was mine, she wouldn’t be able to walk. Hell, how do you even share someone like her?” 

“Well, I don’t know if she’s mine per se, we all just have fun, you know? Why not share?”

“Hey,” your chipper voice interrupted their lewd convocation as you finally caught sight of them on the dark leather couch in the corner of the party, “there you are,” and immediately grabbed each of their hands in yours, “come on,” you leaned your weight back, ushering them to get up, “we’re doing shots in the kitchen!”

“Seriously, Barnes? Watch where you’re going!” Ransom exclaimed as the host of the party had rowdily bumped into the rich boy on his way through the narrow kitchen, causing the bright pink shot in his hand to spill all down the front of his white sweater, “this is cashmere, dude!” he yelled after Bucky’s quickly disappearing form, clearly not haven noticed the interaction himself over the deafening music and his drunken haze.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, noticing the huge stain now blooming on the man beside you, “are you okay?” the sharp alcohol still stung in your throat causing your words to come out ragged. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he stared down at himself, then over his shoulder in contemplation of whether or not he should run after the guy in pursuit of revenge, “this sweater however is not.”

As your eyes washed over the ivory knit, watching it soak up the colourful cocktail, you thought out loud as an idea struck you, “well, maybe…” and acted quickly, grabbing the man’s hand, “come with me,” you yanked him past the rest of your jovial friends and down the hallway towards the small bathroom.

Catching on to where your head was at, Ransom spoke after crossing the threshold, “Y/n, this is very sweet, but I don’t know if it will work.”

“Just shut up and take it off,” you held out your hand, too blind by your inebriated problem-solving instincts to consider any other outcome.

Gazing back at you a moment, he then chuckled and tugged the sweater over his head with one hand, your eyes widening as he placed the item in your waiting palm, it haven apparently been the only layer he had on.

“Thank you,” you breathed, dumbfounded for a second as you stared at his bare chest, briefly admiring his toned form before shaking it off and spinning around to turn on the sink. Holding the stained material against the slowly trickling cold water, you pressed and pinched the spot gently in an effort to not agitate the delicate fibres. “I swear, I’m always the worst at spilling stuff on myself, I’m like a child, plus the fact that I’m a knitter, so not to promise anything, but I’d say you’re in pretty good hands.”

He didn’t say anything, simply settled in beside you, leaning against the edge of the sink as he watched your face contort in adorable concentration. 

“Oh, dammit…” you gave up after a few minutes of gentle scrubbing. Turning the faucet off, you held the sweater up and looked at the, although lighter, still very much visible pink stain, “well at least it’s a little bit better than before,” you tried, flashing the half-naked man an apologetic look, “maybe if I soak it a bit it’ll get better, but-”

“Hey,” Ransom placed his fingers atop yours still clutching the wool, “it’s fine,” he lowered your hands as he leaned in and closed the gap between you two, his alcoholic breath fanning across your flush cheeks as he uttered a quiet, “thank you,” before unexpectedly pressing a greedy kiss against your lips. 

Feeling his grip tug the sweater out of your hands, you instinctively pressed your palms against his chest for support as the whole move had made your intoxicated body lose its balance. His lips were soft, but his kisses were hungry, determinedly letting it build far faster than you were ready for.

You let out a soft giggle of surprise as he suddenly scooped you up and planted you on the edge of the sink, nestling himself in between your parted thighs, your short dress haven ridden up from the movement.

“So, is this why they all call you angel?” he asked as his heated pecks fluttered down your neck, “because you swoop in and save the day?”

“I don’t know if I do that…” you breathed timidly, the reality of what he was doing just catching up to you now. 

“Oh, but you do. You saved mine,” he smirked, “you’re my hero,” you felt the tickle of his fingers as they snuck further up under your dress, “however can I repay you?” 

“I, um,” you giggled nervously, catching his wrists before they could get any further, pressing your lips against his in an effort to soften the blow as you thought of a gentle way to let him down, “I think that kiss by itself was a pretty good thank you,” you hopped down from the sink even though he made no effort in providing you room to do so.

Enclosing his arms around you as you giggly stumbled further towards the still-ajar door, he uttered, pressing the obvious tent in his pants up against your softness, “but why stop there? I can do a lot better than that if you just give me five more minutes,” but the door conveniently swung open a bit more just as two familiar figures passed it.

“Angel!” Jake, completely blind to the man still clawing at you to stay inside the bathroom, hooked an arm around your waist and yanked you along as he and Frank jovially strolled past, “there you are! It’s almost 11 o'clock, please don’t tell me that you’re bailing on Curtis and truly dooming him to lose to us.”

“I think Curtis would lose to you two in beer pong whether I am on his team or not,” you smiled, thankful of their timing, “you guys are the reigning champions after all.”

“Damn right,” Frank roared, excitedly lifting his fist, “J and F! F and J! Ain’t nothing this duo can’t accomplish.”

“Well, not everything,” you giggled, hooking your arms around their forms as they strolled on either side of you, their arms draped over you in return, “for instance, you’re both terrible cooks.”

“Shut up, angel,” Jake said playfully, “we’re unstoppable and you know it,” he stopped you in your tracks and trapped you against the wall, “say it,” he smirked down at you as Frank, not missing a beat, slipped in as well, enclosing you completely, “say that we’re unstoppable.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, you uttered, “you’re unstoppable,” the sudden proximity awakening memories that made your heart flutter. 

“Good girl,” he purred purposely, and a shiver ran down your spine as you recalled just how hot they both sounded cumming for you, a while back, when they had managed to talk you into playing with them both. 

“You guys are so mean,” you said light-heartedly. 

“Yeah,” Frank scrunched his nose through his warm smile, “but you like it.”

Twirling you around the dancefloor, Lloyd had been the only one in the mood to satisfy your surge of energy when you came pouting, begging the boys to dance with you. Holding you close, his hands roamed as you rocked to the music, causing you to close your eyes and drift away.

“Hey,” a different hand suddenly tapped you on the shoulder and tore you out of your dream, “I need to talk to you a sec.” 

Eyes fluttering open to look back at your redheaded roommate, you gave her a quick, “okay,” before raising yourself up onto your toes to speak into your dance partner’s ear, “hey, I’ll be right back!”

“Okay,” he shouted back over the loud music, “I’ll just go grab a drink, you want any?”

“Please,” you reluctantly let go of his hand and yelled after him as you followed your friend through the swarm of partying people, “a beer, thanks!” 

Rounding the corner to settle into a comparatively quieter nook, you tugged your wild hair behind your ears as you looked back at Natasha, “what’s up?”

Biting her lip, she spoke, “you love me, right?”

“Well, obviously, I’m about to get down on one knee and everything,” you joked, “what is it?”

“Can I have the room tonight?” she asked with a small winch, knowing damn well how frequent this request was. 

“Seriously?” your eyebrows shot up, “again?”

“Please?” she folded her hands dramatically in front of her and begged. 

Letting out a soft sigh, you said slowly, “if you buy me that super good chocolate with the blue wrapper that they sell down on the corner, then-”

“Oh my god,” she cut you off and threw her arms around you, “thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“You’re the worst roommate ever, you know that?” you smiled, patting her back. 

“And you are the best, a true saint! Me and my sex life pray at your altar.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you chuckled, playfully pushing her away, “go on then, get laid.”

Returning to find that Lloyd had settled in with the rest of the guys, taking up all of the clustered couches, you put on your best miserable expression as he handed you your beer, “guys,” you dramatically caught their attention, “I have some really devastating news to tell you…” faking the need to suck in a self-soothing breath before uttering, “tonight, on this very night, I am homeless!”

“Oh no!” they played along, giggling as you pressed the back of your hand up against your forehead. 

“I know! Whatever am I to do? If only some big, strong, handsome boys would let me crash at their frat…”

Clutching onto Curtis’ broad shoulders as he gave you a piggyback ride back to the frat, you all laughed at Jake and Frank’s terrible, lewd rendition of the school’s fight song. If Lloyd had been here, if his stamina hadn’t forced him to stay out and enjoy the night a little longer, he would have probably not only joined in, but led the tune, waking up everyone in the dorms you passed. 

“So,” Ransom smirked as you all tumbled in through the destinated front door, “who will have the pleasure of bunking with you tonight?”

“I, uh,” you giggled as Curtis sat you down, your shoes clutched in your hand, “I don’t know…”

“You can sleep in my room if you want,” Steve offered generously, “I’ll just sleep down here on the couch.”

“Really? Are you sure? Because I can just sleep down here on the couch, it’s fine.”

“No, no,” he waved a hand reassuringly, “you’ve had way more to drink tonight than I have, so you should really take the room closest to the bathroom, just in case.”

Smiling widely, you stumbled over and wrapped your arms around his bulky form, “thank you, Steve,” breathing in his scent as you smooshed your face into his t-shirt, “you’re the best.”

“You wanna borrow a shirt to sleep in?” Curtis asked, reaching out a quick arm to steady you as you lost your balance on your way towards the wide staircase.  

“Oh, yeah,” you offered him a fuzzy smile, both the alcohol and the hour causing your eyelids to feel like they weighed a ton, “that would be great.” 

Getting settled into the comparatively more private bedroom located next to the stairs, the bathroom too separating it from the rest of the doors clustered down the narrow hallway, you lazily changed into the t-shirt Curtis soon handed off to you, tugging it over your dress before sliding your party outfit off underneath the grey cotton, keeping yourself somewhat covered purely because you didn’t wanna end the conversation you and the rest of the boys were trying to wrap up.

“Alright, we should probably let the lady sleep,” Steve spoke, watching closely as every time you blinked, your eyes gradually stayed closed just a little longer, nearly falling asleep against Curtis’ broad shoulder.

“No, no,” you protested, inhaling sharply in an effort to wake up more, “I’m just resting my eyes…”

“Right,” Frank chuckled as they all got up from their comfy seat on the mattress, being too tired to fight it, Curtis gently helped you lay down, tugging the duvet over your curled-up form.

“Hey,” Ransom poked his head into the room as the rest began to filter out, “I thought you might like this,” you were surprised to see him have a small glass of water in his hand for you. Not simply placing it on the bedside table by your head, he kneeled down next to you and held it out, “here,” expecting for you to take it, “I swear, chugging a glass of water helps with the hangover,” sliding his free palm under your head to raise it up.

“Thank you,” you smiled wearily as you slowly accepted it and raised it up towards your lips. 

Noticing that you were only taking a small sip, his fingers found the bottom of the glass and pressed it up further, “all of it,” he tilted it for you to down it all, “or else it doesn’t work.” 

Coughing lightly as you lowed the now empty glass, it left an odd taste in your mouth, though you just summed it up to be the handiwork of some of the strong beverages you had consumed during the night working its way up again. 

“Thanks, Ransom,” you groggily patted his cheek, “you’re so sweet.” 

His eyes flickering over your tired face, smooshed against the pillow, he smirked, “goodnight,” got back up and strolled out past Curtis still lingering in the doorway, arms crossed and watching over you like a guard dog. 

“Night,” you quietly called out after him as you saw his frame disappear towards the furthest room down the hallway. Redirecting your attention back to your friend, you hummed, “go to bed, Curt. You gotta still be super sore from last night.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Oh, so you’re just gonna stand there all night, fall asleep on your feet and act as my sleep paralysis demon for the night?” you joked with half-closed eyes. 

A small laugh bubbled out of him as he finally moved, “sleep well, angel,” he uncrossed his arms and reached out for the doorknob to tug it closed. 

“Goodnight, Curtis,” you snuggled further into the pillow as you felt sleep overtake you like a wave crashing the shore, adding absentmindedly under your breath, “love you.”

“Hmm…” you hazily blinked your heavy lids open, roused by the pinching pressure between your thighs. Looking up at the dimly lit figure, you mumbled fuzzily, “w-what?” unsure if this was real life or a dream as the whole bed spun beneath you and you felt like you were floating. 

“Shh, go back to sleep, angel,” Ransom’s grunt pierced your ears as his palm pressed over the bottom half of your face, silencing any words you might speak, “It’s alright, daddy’s got you,” a shy cry vibrated against his hand as you felt him rock against you, finally noticing fully the unexpected sensation of his thick girth stretching you out, “just be a good girl and lay right there, let me have a little slice of heaven.”

Keeping your exhausted legs spread wide apart, his determined hips acting as a door stop, he moaned quietly, “fuck, it really did do the trick,” he looked down at your dazed form, awake enough to be present for him, but unknowingly sedated enough for you not to fight back, “almost a shame you won’t be able to remember any of this in the morning,” he slid his hand down to squeeze your throat, pinching your rapid pulse and making the world even more blurry, “look at you, fucking out like a perfect little doll. You wanna be doll, huh? My own personal little fucktoy?”

Fighting to keep your eyes open, your whole body rocked at his movements as he frantically picked up his pace, selfishly pounding into you, melting on top of you and pressing your sedated body further into the bed. 

“You know, I barely needed to touch you a second before you soaked my fingers, you clearly want this as much as I do,” he tightened his grip on your throat, “you need this, you need me,” stifled moans flowed from his lips as he unmercifully pounded into you, scratching his own vile itch, “poor you, none of your boyfriends ever touch you properly. That’s just what you need, isn’t it?” he mocked as your fluttering cunt tried to squeeze him out, expelling him from your body, “you just need your tight little pussy to be stretched out? Just need some good dick? Don’t worry, angel,” you vaguely felt his tongue flicker against your slightly numbed skin, “as long as I am here to help, I’ll keep your pussy sore, keep it filled up,” you just managed to catch him growl before you lost the forlorn battle and your body dozed off again. 

Waking up with a low groan, you quickly sprung up, feeling the contents of your stomach fighting their way out. With no time to entertain the surprising presents of Curtis already curled up at the foot of the mattress, you bolted out of bed and ran out the door, thankful for the close proximity to the bathroom as you soon found yourself kneeling in front of the toilet, regretting every sip you had indulged in as they burned your entire chest on their way out again. 

Feeling as your loose hair suddenly got picked up and gently held back, you heard the warm rumble of Curtis’ voice as he said, “wow, okay, alright,” his large palm found your spine, soothingly caressing it as you hurled your guts out, “it’s alright, angel. Just get it all out.”

“Urgh,” you groaned, clutching the cold porcelain as you spat out the fowl tang, “I am never drinking again,” keeping your head over the bowl till you were sure you had gotten it all out. With a heavy sigh, you slumped back, colliding softly with the mass of your friend. 

“You okay?” he asked, lightly running his hands over your goosebump-ridden form. 

“I think so,” you blinked up into his steely eyes, the reddened look to them flying over your exhausted head, “at least I made it to the bathroom this time,” you tried to joke with a half-hearted smile. 

Letting your body weakly droop down, sighing in relief as you felt the cold tile hug your form, you heard Curtis notice, “no, no, you can’t fall asleep out here,” feeling his fingers already slide beneath your body. 

“But it’s so comfortable,” you let out a small winch as he scooped you up into his arms, your frame draping over his strong limbs, and a dull pain stung your core. “Hey, what date is it?” you suddenly asked, trying to make sense of the uncomfortable tingle.

“I-, uh, why?” he thought, carrying you back into Steve’s room, your eyes noticing the other doors down the dark hallway were all open wide, even though it was the middle of the night. 

“No reason, I just think I might be getting my period or something…”

“Miss Y/l/n?” a voice called, though you were a million miles away, “Miss Y/l/n?” 

“Huh?” you blinked, shaking your head slightly as you unsteadily glanced up at the figure, “sorry, yes,” you reluctantly let go of your friend’s hand and rose from the seat you had been waiting in. 

“You’re gonna be fine,” Curtis gave your hand one last squeeze, “I’ll wait right here for when you’re done, okay?” 

He and the other guys hadn’t let you out of their sight since the terrifying news had spread like wildfire yesterday morning and rocked the entire campus to its core. 

“Okay,” you nodded weakly, not truly present as you followed the stranger inside. 

Pulling out a chair at the cold table, you sat down and averted your gaze from the walls of the bare conference room provided by the school for the law enforcements to use for their investigation. 

“The detective will be right in, you just sit tight,” the figure spoke before they closed the door behind them, leaving you alone in the makeshift interrogation room. 

You didn’t know how long you were in there, maybe a minute, maybe ten, but soon you heard the door creak open once more and a voice, long forgotten, found your ears, “hello, I’m detective Levinson, I will be conducting this-”

“Ari?” you blinked up at your elder childhood friend in amazement, the nauseating feeling of grief momentarily washing away at his unexpected presence as he sat down opposite to you, “what are you doing here?” your eyes drifted over his informal suit, the jacket missing and the sleeves sloppily rolled up passed his burly forearms, “and when did you stop being a beat cop?” 

“Uh,” he blinked, a solemn expression washing over his stern face, softening it significantly, “around a year ago,” he then sighed deeply and said, “I really hoped there had just been another Y/n Y/l/n here at this school…”

Effectively bringing you back down to earth, “oh, yeah… will this be a problem? Can you not do this if you already know me?”

“No, no, it’s not that. I just-,” his head tilted gently to the side, “this isn’t something I ever wanted you to go through.” 

Sucking in a sharp breath, you nodded shyly, “yeah, well, I am.”

Looking over you a moment, taking in the small changes you had adapted in the years since you had last seen each other, he offered a genuine, “I’m sorry,” and attempted to catch your weary gaze. 

“It’s not your fault,” you glanced down at your hands as your fingers once again began to dig nervously into your skin, leaving angry little half-crescent marks in its wake, “you’re not the one running around murdering students,” you awkwardly attempted to joke.  

Exhaling lowly, he then opened the file in front of him and laid out a small tape recorder in the middle of the table, “are you ready to begin?” 

“Yeah.”

Pressing on one of the side buttons on the recorder, Ari then announced methodically, “can you please state your name for the record?” 

“Y/n Y/l/n.” 

“And for the record, are you speaking to me voluntarily?”

“I am.”

Glancing over the open folder sprawled out in front of him, he asked, “what was your relationship with the victim?” 

“Ransom, he-, um… he was a friend. I honestly didn’t really know him for too long, but he lived with some of my best friends, so it just seemed pretty natural for him to also become a part of our little group, if you’d call it that.” 

“And you last saw Mr Drysdale when?” 

“At the party Saturday night. I crashed at their flat after that, so it was probably early Sunday morning that I saw him last, when he was on his way to bed, I think.” 

“Did anything happen to him that night? Anything unusual? His behaviour? Someone he interacted with? Anything you can think of that stands out?” 

“Uhm,” you thought back, remembering the heated kiss you had shared in the bathroom, though looking back into Ari’s studying eyes, you couldn’t help but lie and say, “no, I don’t think so. It was just a party, you know,” the thought of telling your childhood crush that you drunkenly made out with a guy sent your stomach turning, crushing the truth before it could crawl out. 

“Alright,” he nodded, “well, if you do remember anything, please reach out, we’re running the bulk of the investigation from here, so you know where I’ll be.”

“Still have your number,” you forced an awkward laugh.

“Right,” he sucked in a breath and averted his piercing gaze, “so, uhm, I don’t think I have anything else to ask you right now. Thank you for your cooperation with the investigation.”

“Of course,” you watched as his fingers wrap around the tape recorder, clicking the protruding button and making it stop, “it-, um,” you felt a shiver run down your spine as his eyes fell upon you once more, making the polite words seem that much harder to muster, “it really is good to see you again. Nice to see that you’re doing good,” then added jokingly, “that your mom still hasn’t talked you into cutting your hair,” a sincere smile tickled your lips at the mention of the warm woman living next door to your own parents. 

Even though it was clearly forced, your words still conjured a genuine reaction from the guy who used to babysit you, “yeah, no, you know she’s never winning that battle,” he chuckled, shaking his head lightly, “it’s, uh, it’s great to see you as well. You-, um… yeah…” he dropped whatever compliment was on the tip of his tongue and averted his gaze, “I don’t wanna keep you any longer, you can go, you probably have classes to get to.”  

“I actually don’t,” you informed him, though still slowly got up from your seat, “our professors have given us all some time off to-, uh, you know…”

“Yeah…” he nodded understandingly, his vision following your form as you made your way towards the door. 

Pausing just before your fingertips grazed the doorknob, you looked back, timidly chewing on your bottom lip, “hey, Ari?” 

“Yes?” he responded quickly, clearly still completely captivated. 

Finding it difficult to even breathe properly in his presence, especially when those soulful eyes were locked upon yours, you found that your words crumbled before they even got to see the light of day, “I-, um…” then hastily scrambled your brain for a makeshift, “good luck.”

Breathing out a soft smile as he watched you nervously fiddle with the door handle, he said, “thanks, Y/n.” 

It had been Monday morning that a garbage man had found Ransom’s body in a dumpster on the far side of campus. Even though they had tried to contain the news, it still spread like a wildfire, and come lunch that day, it was the only thing any student could talk about. 

The frat quickly got sealed off as an active crime scene as it had been the last place witnesses had seen him alive, forcing the rest of the guys to temporarily bunk up with friends in their dorms. You felt a bit ashamed about the immense relief you felt at that small detail, the comfort of having each one of them fight over who got to stay with you being something you welcomed with open arms. In the end, it was both Curtis and Steve who stayed with you, Natasha giving you the room and staying with her newfound beau in the meantime, giving you the entire space for a while.  

The guys had always been protective of you, but it almost seemed to have grown over the past few gloomy days. Not a second passed by where at least one of them wasn’t at your side, holding you as you cried, walking with you through the crowded campus or just keeping you company, making sure you weren’t alone. You just added it up to be their version of freaking out and buying into the whole conspiracy that it hadn’t been a drug deal gone wrong as so many had assumed of the recently deceased playboy with a penchant for illicit substances, but actually someone on campus, a stone-cold killer masking as just the person next to you in your lit class. 

“Why don’t you go ask him?” 

“Me?” your brows furrowed in Lloyd’s direction, “why me? If you wanna know so bad, why don’t you just go ask him yourself?”

Chiming in, Jake tilted his head, “well, you did say you know the guy.” 

Exhaling lowly, you averted your gaze, your crossed arms tightening over your chest, “yeah, you could certainly say that…”

“So just go, bat your eyelashes at him for a bit and figure out how much he knows,” Lloyd tried to persuade you, though even his ever-present cocky charm couldn’t sway you this time.

Previously assuming that the whole conversation had just gone over Curtis’ head, as he had just quickly sat beside you and stared out the window, he suddenly perked up, “we just-…” he struggled to vocalise, “if it really is someone here on campus… just the thought you sitting in class with them or-, fuck, anything, it just-…” like a magnet, your fingers naturally found his own in a comforting squeeze, “angel, we just wanna keep you safe and the thought of someone like that running around terrorising the school-… just please go figure out if he has a suspect yet. See if he has got any leads.”

From the moment you had said goodbye to the familiar detective, shame about not telling him the whole truth had nearly eaten you alive. You had lied to not only a person you had known your whole life, but also a law enforcer. It was insufferable, like a snowball rolling down a hill and growing bigger and bigger with each accumulated snowflake. 

“Fine,” you cracked, the shameful storm inside your body becoming too much to bear, “I’ll do it.”

“Knock, knock,” you said with a small smile as you pushed the ajar door open completely. 

“Y/n,” Ari’s spine straightened in surprise, his eyes no longer glued to the computer screen before him, “what are you doing here?”

“Thought you might be hungry,” you held up your alibi for coming in the form of a takeout bag, “it’s from this little Indian place downtown,” you shut the door behind you before plopping the crinkly bag down on the table, the warm light from the desk lamp illuminating the brimming containers of curry stacked inside, “you like Indian, right?”

“I-, I do,” he said, still taken aback by the kind gesture, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Thought it was the least I could do as a thanks for what you’re doing,” you waved a hand in the direction of the cluttered corkboard on the wall. 

“It’s just my job, you don’t need to thank me,” he said modestly, leaning back in his chair and lending you to spot the silver pen his fingers fiddled with. 

Lowering your gaze to stare at your shoes, you exhaled, “right…”

“So, um,” he filled out the awkward silence, “was there anything else you needed?”

“Oh, sorry,” you mumbled, keeping your eyes averted, “you’re obviously super busy and here I am just barging in,” your vision finally flickered up to lock with his, already steadfast on you, “I just, uh…” your breaths became more jagged as his sky-like eyes captivated your own, “there was actually something else I wanted to talk to you about, something I wanted to tell you.”

“Alright…” he nodded, listening intently. 

Blowing out a shaky breath, you revealed, “I lied, something did happen that night.”

“Okay,” his brows furrowed, though not as much as you had feared, “what was it?” your anxious brain haven already thought of a million different dramatic punishments he could penalise you with.

“I, uh…” you squeezed your eyes shut nervously, “I kissed him,” your pained voice rushed to force out, “at that party. It was in the bathroom and almost became something else, but, um yeah… we kissed… me and Ransom…” you peaked just one of your eyes open, your tense shoulders nearly pressing against your ears at this point, “I’m really sorry, I just felt like couldn’t tell you something like that, not you. I won’t be arrested for hiding this information, will I?”

“No, no,” Ari quickly rose from his seat, “Y/n, you’re okay,” he stepped closer to you as he attempted to calm your uncalled-for panic, “you won’t be arrested.”

“Oh,” you breathed, “good,” feeling your shoulders begin to drop back down again, “you know how my mind tends to freak out.”

“Yeah,” he nodded softly, “I do…” his words genuine as memories conjured the whisper of a smile to appear upon his lips, “thank you for telling me.”

Awkwardly, you flashed him a tight-lipped smile, grateful that uncomfortable moment had passed, you recalled the other reason for why you had come, “so…”

“So…” he echoed.

“Do you have any leads, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“That’s classified information, you know I can’t tell you that.”

“I know…” you averted your gaze and scrabbled your brain for what you could do or say to get him to tell you, “it’s just, I’m so scared all the time. The school was always a place that made me feel safe, till now…” although your intentions behind those words weren’t completely truthful, the statement wasn’t that far off, “it was just worth a try asking you.”

Holding your gaze, you could almost see his heartstrings get tugged as his brows quivered in compassion, “I-… I do have something. If you didn’t know, we just finished sweeping the victim’s living quarters, so if they haven’t already been notified, your friends should be able to move back in by tomorrow, but we also found something, not there, but in proximity to the dump site, there was a knife with traces of the victim’s blood on it. It’s in the lab right now as we speak, trying to decipher if there are any identifiable prints on it.” 

“Oh my god…” you felt goosebumps sting at every inch of your skin. 

“You haven’t heard any details about what state his body was found in, have you?” 

“No…” both from avoiding the papers and keeping to your dorm, you might be the only student on campus not aware of how your late friend had died, “he was stabbed?”

“That was decisively what killed him, yeah, but he was brutally beaten before that.”

“Holy shit, that’s-…” you shuttered, your eyes just now noticing the nauseating photos pinned on the board beside you, “fuck… I don’t know how you do this all day, deal with these kinds of things.” 

“It gets easier over time,” he shared, his worried eyes scanning your face a moment before apprehensively uttering, “this might be a really stupid question, but how are you holding up?”

“I-…” you toyed with the thought of lying to him yet again, but then opted to share the truth, “I am not doing so good, to be honest. I could probably count the number of hours I’ve slept in the last few days on one hand, or so I’ve been told. I don’t think it feels like I’ve slept at all, but apparently I have, just a little bit.”

Sucking in a pained breath, he murmured, “I’m sorry. I can help find someone you can talk to, if you want.”

“No, it’s alright,” his kind offer made it easier for you to look away from the horror plastered all over the office walls, “I mean, I’m not alone, that fact has become crystal clear throughout all of this.”

“Yeah, I kinda pieced that together,” he spoke in a much different manner than before, causing your brows to crinkle, “I conducted all the other interviews. It’s nice that you’ve made friends, making the most out of your college experience,” he said in a tone, almost reminiscent of jealousy.  

Averting your eyes, memories you so desperately tried to keep at bay pried their way in and snuffed out the fuming flicker his resentment had ignited, “hey Ari?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you know?” you asked wearily. 

“Know what?”

“Did you know all of those years, growing up together?” you lifted your vision once more as he offered you a questioning hum, “did you know that I was in love with you?”

Taken aback, it took a bit before he managed to answer, “no, I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you ever call me? You just left.” 

“I was getting married, Y/n. What was I supposed to do?” 

“Not fuck the girl you used to babysit,” you shot back coldly, “what even was I to you?”

“I-… I don’t know,” his frustrated words came out breathy, “do you think I planned for any of that to have happened? To sleep with you of all people? I didn’t. But when I came home that summer and saw you again, saw who you had become, I don’t know, everything just changed, you changed. I fully thought that you’d to still be that same little annoying brat you used to be, but you really weren’t. I didn’t expect it to happen, I didn’t expect you to suddenly do something like that to me, have that kind of power over me!”

“So, you just decided to break my heart instead? I was mad for you, for as long as I could remember. That summer was the happiest I’d ever been and then you just up and left in the middle of the night without a word. Did you even think to imagine what it was like for me to run around that morning looking for you and instead finding an invitation for your wedding? I had to hear from your fucking parents that you had just come home to prepare things before the big day. You hadn’t even mentioned to me once that you were engaged, or even as much as just in a relationship. Was any of it even real to you or was I just your last bit of fun before you got tied down?”

“It was, Y/n,” he insisted sincerely, “it was the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”

“Then why did you go without as much as a goodbye? You know how much that broke me?”

“Yeah, well you seem to be doing just fine now,” he said pettily. 

“Excuse me? You don’t get to say something like that to me. You were the one who broke my heart, you don’t get to judge how I glued it back together. Just go back home to your wife, why don’t you.”

Suddenly looking back at you in confusion, Ari then illuminated carefully, “Y/n, I’m not married.”

“What?” you blinked. 

“I mean, I know you weren’t there that day, but I thought my mom at least had told you,” the gears turning inside of him were nearly visible to the naked eye, “I couldn’t go through with it.”

“What? Why?”

Biting his tongue as he held your eye, he then exhaled, “because I didn’t think I should get married if I was in love with someone else.”

Sucking in a stunned breath, you saw tears cloud your vision, “b-but… you never even called…”

“I know I didn’t,” he concurred heavily, his eyes unable to look away from your glossy ones. Feeling as if you might faint, you saw his woeful vision flicker down towards your lips, “I’m sorry, Y/n.” 

But just as you saw him slowly inch his face closer and closer to yours, a sharp intake of air stung your lungs as you raised a hand up as a barricade, “I can’t…” too scared of history repeating itself, “we can’t…”

Sighing deeply, his eyes traced the tear that rolled down your cheek, “I know…”

You had just been helping the guys move back into the frat. That was all you had been doing. One moment you were all laughing, actually having a normal and pleasant moment for once, and the next, two officers were barging down the door and reading Lloyd his rights. 

You’d nearly lost it completely and Curtis had to hold you back so that you didn’t go scratch one of the officer’s eyes out. The man in the cuffs however took it with style, only trying to break through your hazy to let you know that he would be fine and for the others to take care of you, after all, this wasn’t his first rodeo down to the station, although those times it had only been for petty crimes like bar room brawls and such. 

“But I mean, how did it even happen?” you thought out loud a while later, the miranda rights still ringing in your ears like a triggering song you just couldn’t get out of your head, “that’s what my mind keeps going back to,” you had finally calmed down after what felt like forever of the guys talking out of marching down to the station to do something, anything to get Lloyd out. Completely powerless, you sat curled up at the end of the couch as words flowed from your exhausted lips, “how could someone like him be killed? He was such a nice guy.” 

Not being able to stand it any longer, Curtis pipped up from the armchair on the other side of the living room, “no, he really wasn’t,” your bolstering words about the deceased being too much for him to take without cracking, “he was a rich creep and everyone knew it,” frustratingly, he gesticulated, “with everything that he did to you, how can you just sit there and say that he was a nice person? The guy drugged you and violated you in your sleep for fuck sake!” 

The room went dead quiet as soon as those words left his lips. 

“…what are you talking about?” your voice no higher than a whisper as you watched your burly friend shrink in regret. “Curtis,” you repeated more sternly this time as he didn’t offer an explanation, “what do you mean? What did you do?” your voice broke as thoughts about if Lloyd’s arrest hadn’t been a misunderstanding after all entered your mind. 

“You can’t tell her,” Frank shot a glare at the fighter, “we had a deal.” 

“Yeah, well that was before Lloyd got fucking arrested!” Jake chimed in, panic shining clear through in his tone, “she’s a part of this, has been since the very beginning. She has a right to know.” 

Finding your wide eyes in the crowd, Curtis asked you wearily, “you really wanna know what happened that night?” hugging your knees tighter to your chest, you gave him a small nod in confirmation, “fine, I’ll tell you.”

…

“Is she okay?” Curtis pushed the ajar door open further to ask, haven, on his way to the bathroom,  caught sight of an out of breath Ransom tugging the covers back over your passed out form. 

The head of the cashmere-clad man snapped up at the sign of company, the sudden alarm that began to bloom on his features was quickly drowned out by his usual arrogant air, “yeah, man,” he shot back defensively, rushing to get out of the room, “she’s fine,” sounding like it had been a completely crazy question to ask. 

Furrowed brow staying put, Curtis uttered slowly, “alright, but I think I’m just gonna check myself, if you don’t mind.”

“I said she’s fine!” Ransom slammed the door shut behind him, prohibiting the man now only inches from him from entering, “just go back to your own room!”

Worry and suspicion only growing at the obvious fibs, Curtis demanded, “what were you doing in there? What did you do?”

“What are you talking about?” he scoffed back. 

“What did you do to her?” Curtis took a looming step closer just as their raised voices began to stir some of the other slumbering residents.

“I didn’t do a thing,” he cockily dared a chuckle, “calm down.”

“I will not fucking calm down,” Curtis barked back before attempting to call to you through the closed door, “angel, you okay?”

Leaning against the wall beside his own room, Jake rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he groaned, “guys, can you not yell in the middle of the night? Some of us are kinda trying to sleep here.”

Frank, as well haven appeared, seemed a little more alert at the sudden commotion in the hallway, “hey, what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” their suspicious friend waved a hand, “Curtis is just being a little bitch and freaking out for no reason,” the ostentatious gesture granted the opposing man an opportunity to slip past and enter the room.

Nearly kicking the door down, Curtis rushed to your side, examining your unconscious form with worried eyes, “angel?” the dim lights streaming in from the hallway just barely letting him notice how wrinkled and haphazard the t-shirt he’d lent you just a few hours before was on you. 

“Jesus, just let her sleep, dude.”

Ignoring Ransom’s words of warning, Curtis tried once more, “Y/n?” touching your skin lightly before giving you a gentle shake, “come on, wake up for me, baby,” his heart nearly beat out of his chest as he unsuccessfully tried to stir you, the shallow rise and fall of your abdomen not granting him as much comfort as it should have. 

Nearing the end of the hall, Frank asked once more, “what’s going on?” side-eyeing Ransom warily, “is she okay?”

“Of course she’s okay,” the trust fund kid scoffed.

“The fuck she is,” Curtis’ head whipped back in the direction of Ransom’s silhouette in the doorway. Getting back up on his feet, his sharp intakes of air causing his shoulders to rise, he stormed back out and demanded, “what did you do? Why were you in here and why the fuck is she not waking up?”

“Did you not see how much she had to drink tonight?” Ransom defensively gestured to your passed-out form on the narrow bed, “I was just checking up on her,” and with a heavy sigh abandoned the argument entirely and descended the stairs. 

Catching Curtis’ arm just in time to stop him from storming down after the man at the centre of the quarrel, Frank tried to catch the darting eyes of his friend as he asked firmly, “Curtis, what’s going on?”

“I saw him in there, hovering above her like a creep.”

Already worried eyes suddenly growing in alarm, “he was in there?” Frank quickly shared a panicked look with Jake, both now sharing the same inkling of what horrible thing had occurred, “alone with her?”

“Yes.”

“Wait,” Frank gasped, “did you say she’s not waking up? She is still breathing though, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s just out cold. Why?”

“Oh my god…” Jake shuttered, his interrupted slumber now long forgotten.

“What? What is it? What aren’t you guys telling me?”

Exhaling lowly, Frank carefully began to explain, “Curtis, you know that my sister goes to Bayshore, right?”

“Um, sure, yeah?” unsure as to why that fact was significant.

“Well, she told me about this student who overdosed after being drugged and raped. The guy was apparently caught and everything but just came from a wealthy enough family to not only never be convicted, but also keep the news out of the papers. Curtis, that’s where Ransom transferred from.”

Seeing nothing but red, Curtis stormed down the stairs. On his determined path to the kitchen where the object for his bubbling rage now stood, leisurely sipping from a glass of water. Curtis narrowly caught sight of Lloyd as he finally stumbled through the entrance from his drawn-out merriment, uttering a hushed apology to the bulky frame of Steve on the couch for the way he had carelessly slammed the front door shut behind him.

Only rolling his eyes at the sight of Curtis, Ransom didn’t even lower his glass as the fuming figure neared, “dude, I already told you, I didn’t do a thing-” though the rest of his provoking words got squashed as Curtis’ fist suddenly collided with his jaw, swiftly grabbing onto his soft sweater before he could crumble like the shattered glass now scattered across the cool tile, “what the fuck!”  water splashing onto both of their feet. 

“What did you give her?” Curtis barked, his fingers digging into the intricate, stained knit so hard that they threatened to poke through to the other side. 

“Give who what?” appalled glare piercing as he fought against the hold. 

“Y/n!” he shook him heatedly, “what did you give her?”

“I didn’t give her shit, man,” Ransom just managed to spit out before white knuckles collided with his face once more. 

“Did you touch her? Because I swear to fuck, if you laid even as much as one finger on her, I’m gonna-”

“Oh, I see,” he actually dared to chuckle, a bit of crimson already staining the pearly whites he flashed, “you’re jealous that you didn’t get with her tonight.”

Landing another raging blow, Curtis yanked him in close and growled, “you shut up and answer my question! Did you touch her?”

Scoffing through his laboured groans of agony, Ransom finally disclosed smugly, “of course, I did, man. She’s been all over me all night long, begging for me to give it to her good.”

The rest of the frat haven now clustered in the kitchen as well, staying in the periphery, Frank accused, “what did you give her? Was it the same as the girl you killed back at Bayshore?”

The deep-pocketed man’s eyes flickered over Curtis’ shoulder, bruises blooming and swelling up his vision, “excuse me?” 

“The rape victim that overdosed at your old school?” the bridge of Frank’s nose twitched in fury, “it was you that killed her, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t do anything of the sort, all I did was show those girls a good time, it’s not my fault some can’t keep up.”

“Is that what you think happened tonight?” Curtis hauled him against the fridge, gaining the man’s attention once more, “you call assaulting Y/n a good fucking time?”

Keeping his head held high, Ransom slurred, “what are you ashamed you’re not man enough to rough your girl up a bit and give her what she really likes?”

Huffing like a bull, he uttered, “she does not like it like that.”

“Oh yeah? Then tell me why I had her moaning the way I did, dripping down on ol’ Steve’s bed like a cheap whore. Kind of a shame that she won’t remember any of it in the morning, just hope I fucked her good enough that at least some part of her won’t forget…”

…

“Oh my god…” you shuttered, unable to look any of them in the eye, “oh my god,” your palm shot up to clasp over your lips to choke the shaky cry that forced its way out, “I thought-…” vision darting everywhere and nowhere at the same time, “I thought it had been a dream,” tears streamed down your ghostly face as the hazy nightmare suddenly came into focus, “oh my god! I-… I knew him,” you jaggedly tried to piece it all together as vile stung in the back of your throat, “he was-, he was my friend. I hadn’t known him that long, but he was my friend. I-… he wasn’t just some dangerous stranger in the back of an ally threatening to kill me, he was my friend.”

…

The incoherent screams of Curtis slowly subsisted as his rampant blows finally slowed down. Slowly backing up, chest heaving, horror took over his eyes as he saw how far he had been pushed, watching as blood bubbled out of Ransom’s mouth, guggling his words.

“Just you fucking wait till my family finds out,” he weakly continued his threats from his wrecked position on the tiled floor, “do you have any idea how much power money gives you? I can squash you all like little bugs, ruin any chance you might have of a pathetic future and keep angel all to myself.”

Unable to look away, Steve suddenly uttered as Curtis shakily retreated into the shadows, “…guys, we have to call an ambulance.”

Whipping his head around, Jake protested, “no, don’t!” ready to swat away any phone that might be raised, “he’s right. He has the upper hand no matter if we get him to a hospital or not.”

“So, what do we do? Look at him,” Steve woefully gestured to the beaten playboy crumbled on the floor, “he’s dying. We can’t just leave him here!”

“No…” Lloyd sighed, his demeanour seeming surprisingly calm and level-headed under the circumstance, “but we can use what little time we have left before the sun comes up to our advantage…” 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Frank’s brows furrowed frightfully. 

In a wide arc around Ransom’s broken form, Lloyd made his way over to one of the kitchen counters and pulled open a drawer, “he said it himself,” he exhaled lowly as he accepted his fate, “he is more than capable of making not only angel’s life hell, but also all of ours,” his tone cold, he riffled through the utensils, “from where I’m standing, there’s only one way for us to get out of this with minimal casualties,” and fished out a knife, the steel reflecting in the low light seeping in through the other room. 

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Steve gasped, “we’re not murdering him!” 

“So you’d rather try and explain his corpse just lying here in our kitchen? This way we get the upper hand, we speed up the process and use the remainder of the night to our advantage till the rest of campus wakes up, hide him somewhere else, somewhere he won’t be found,” Lloyd stressed, “we have to kill him, it’s the only way.” 

“Shit dude…” Frank breathed, he and the rest realizing that he was right, “where would we even hide him?”

After only pondering it a second, Jake pipped up, “it’s trash day tomorrow,” tensely sharing glances with the rest, “if we get him to one of the big dumpsters on the other side of campus, drop him in there, no one will know! And even if they do eventually discover parts of him out on some dump, they won’t be able to get anything off of him anyways at that point.” 

“I-…” Curtis’ shaky voice finally filled the room, guilt seeping through in his brassy timbre as he asked what no one else would, “…who’s gonna do it?” 

Not letting the others even consider that weight, Lloyd swiftly declared, “I’ll do it.”

“What?” the trembling fighter’s eyes finally lifted.

“If they actually do somehow manage to nail us for this, it should be me that goes down for it,” he stated deliberately, “always knew I’d go to prison at some point just like my old man, this way it wouldn’t be for anything stupid.” 

© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[blackcatwriter]

Late Night Studying (tasm! Peter Parker x f!reader)

a/n: I love fictional men what can I say. I personally imagine this as andrew garfield's peter parker but feel free to imagine him however you want! Also Gwen doesn't die in this universe so no need to worry about that :]

Shout out to @scumscumpooties47 for your editing. Your comments on my google docs always make me cackle.

warnings: just fluff here, set to be in college but no specific age/grade, Peter is set to be taller than you (sorry if you like them shorter)

wc: 936

summary: You decide to study in your dorm lounge and unexpectedly make a new friend.

line divider by @plum98

It has been a long and grueling day for you. Syllabus week was over and now your professors began assigning real work, which, for you, meant endless studying and staring at your computer screen. 

You had been sitting at your desk for what might’ve been four hours now with a blank page pulled up on your google docs. Not only had your professor assigned a five chapter reading, but a reflective ten page paper due by the end of next week. Groaning, you shut your laptop closed. 

Not noticing your surroundings, you hadn’t seen that your roommate was already in bed fast asleep. The only light in the room came from the lamp on your desk. Rubbing your eyes, you looked at your clock and checked the time. 

12:25AM

With a tired sigh, you stood from your desk with your laptop in hand and left the room. You clearly weren’t getting any sleep tonight so no use in bothering your roommate from their sleep. Walking out as quietly as you could, you left to go work in your dorm lounge. Maybe a change of scenery would help with the writer’s block. 

“Damn professor…” You muttered under your breath as you opened the door to the lounge. Catching you off guard, the door came to a halt halfway. “What professor has you up this late already?” A voice sounded from the other side of the door.

Towering over you, a lankish guy stood in front of you. He wore a cheesy mathematics shirt with gray sweats and dripping wet brunette hair. “Just my English class–I’m sorry, are you alright?” You looked him up and down.

“What? Oh! This?” He looked down to the towel in his hand and shrugged. “I took a shower and forgot the keys to my room. My roommate is coming back from a party so I’m just waiting it out here.” He said sheepishly as he sat back down on the sofa.

“You might have bad luck, but great fashion taste.” You grinned, fighting your laughter. After spending most of the day by yourself with just a computer for company, it couldn’t be blamed if you felt a little delirious. Or at least delirious enough to not care if you’re making a fool of yourself to some guy you’ve never talked to.

“You know how to make a guy feel real good about himself.” He narrowed his eyes yet responded in a playful tone. “I’ve seen you passing in the hall before, but I don’t think we’ve ever talked before. I’m Peter.” 

You introduced yourself and continued your lighthearted bantering. Peter, whose full name was Peter Parker, revealed himself to be from Queens and having only an aunt as his family back home. He was majoring in biophysics with a low-level job at the renowned scientific lab, Oscorp.

He did happen to leave out the part where he happened to be New York's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but you didn't need to know that.

In return, you told him about yourself and what you were hoping to do with your studies after finishing university. “I mean, I’m not sure if I’ll ever do something as impressive as you with your research, but as long as I make some kind of difference in the world, right?” You spoke wearily, yawning as you rubbed your eyes.

“Are you kidding me? You’re gonna change the world with a mind like yours and how hard you work.” He smiled boyishly. Had you been less sleepy, you might’ve seen the slight pink in his cheeks from where he sat. “It’s getting pretty late, you need sleep. I can walk you to your dorm–” He rambled before you cut him off.

“It’s not late. We’ve only been talking for like ten minutes.” You scoffed and checked the time.

1:13AM

“Oh shit, no, no, no! I didn’t even get to do what I came here for!” You groaned, pulling at your hair. “You distracted me, Peter!” Although you tried blaming him you couldn’t fight the smile from spreading on your face.

A door opened from afar causing both of you to turn towards the sound. “That must be my roommate. M’sorry I distracted you.” Peter’s growing smirk contradicted his words. “Let me make it up to you.” He stood to open the door for you as you trudged past him.

“And just how are you going to do that?” Truthfully, you were only walking so slow to keep the conversation going for as long as you could. You’d definitely regret staying up so late especially because you have an early class the next morning, but something about Peter kept you pulled in.

“We can study together in the library tomorrow. I’ll even get us some ice cream afterward. You know, as an apology.” You stopped in front of your door and laughed. “Okay, Peter but I’m serious this time. I need to study.” You eyed him, but to Peter he only found it funny due to your height difference. You weren't intimidating to him at all.

Mostly because you weren't actively trying to kill him like most of the people he encounters during this time of night, but that's besides the point.

“Hey, I’m serious too! You’re not the only one with work to do.” He rolled his eyes. You exchanged numbers with him, bidding him goodnight and going into your dorm. 

You weren’t one for most college boys, especially because most of them held an arrogant attitude to themselves, but Peter felt different. He seemed genuine and you couldn’t help but look forward to "studying" with him.

a/n: may or may not do a part 2 for this, depends on how much motivation i have

[tthatsonme]

Intellect, by molly.

— People often underestimate the seriousness of your sudden shift of motivation, in this day and age; it’s uncommon to see anyone (especially younger people) read a book or have any interest in having goals whatsoever, but you’re different, you’ve set the curve, you’re the centre of attention and everyone should be like you especially when it comes to academics, parents are constantly asking you to teach their kids your way because of how effortless your work ethic and dedication to school seems.

— Whenever the teacher needs an example on how to do a math equation or what a well written and worded essay SHOULD look like they always hold up your assignments as an example, you are 100% the best example of what a student should be like an any generation but especially this one, all of the parents and guardians with the “brain rotted iPad babies” or “wasting their lives away because of technology addiction teenagers” beg you to tell them what your “secret is” but maybe you’re not even fully aware of your greatness or level of discipline and success.

— You have a very distinct and important morning routine that you do every day, whether your routine has 4-steps or 40-steps it’s almost like it’s been burned into your DNA to follow it daily, your routine is not optional, you have the most perfect sleep schedule it’s almost as perfect as you, but in case you need a late study night you wake up everyday well rested regardless of whether you slept a full 8-hours or not, your memory to do things is amazing, you have a better memory than most people in your classes, you remember everything that you hear, read, and write in terms of school, you remember how to spell everything, your handwriting is always neat and legible, you could basically rewrite the dictionary at this point, fun fact: most people in this generation aren’t fluent in English because of the lack of spelling and vocabulary (my teacher said this so it’s probably true), while the other people in your class are crying over the phone ban if you have you you’re perfectly fine without your phone for 6-8 hours a day, you’ve never had any issues writing stories or having original thoughts, you have an extremely expanded vocabulary and are an amazing writer, “You don’t use brain rot?? Nerd alert!” It’s surprising to hear someone only use quote “brain rot terms” ironically, whilst the rest of the world is having unintelligent conversations about skibidi toilet and whatnot you’re the complete opposite.

— You have no issues in and are the best at all forms of mathematics, geometry, algebra, calculus, arithmetic, trigonometry, number theory, statistics, set theory, topology, discrete mathematics, probability, combinatorics, numbers, mathematics analysis, analytical geometry, differential equations, applied mathematics, game theory, pure mathematics, linear algebra, numerical analysis, and matrix algebra, natural sciences, engineering, medicine, finance, computer science and social sciences, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, earth sciences, zoology, ecology, microbiology, astrophysics, neuroscience, logic, ethics, psychology, philosophy, mechanics, and social sciences, morphology, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistic, linguistics, phonetics, historical linguistics, stylistics, and computational linguistics plus whatever other courses and classes that you have. [If this last part seems random it’s because it is, it’s copy and pasted from a personal sub I made a year ago for 11th grade :p]

_Things to remember

You can and will only ever manifest what you desire from this subliminal

Make sure not to obsess over your results because they can lead to limiting beliefs

You don’t have to listen daily or 1-7 times or anything like that, one is always enough with any subliminal :)

[spiribia]

i'm looking at old school documents i have saved through my email, and here was a letter i wrote to myself in middle school as part of an English class assignment. the intent was it would be redelivered to us when we were graduating high school

It is very awkward to begin a letter to yourself. You don’t know where you are in x number of years – graduation from high school is not even really something that you think about as of now. You don’t know what to say because it’s weird to think about changing, and you don’t want to say anything that will make you sound the same.

So here’s a compromise: if you respect me, then I will not embarrass you.

It is actually more of a psychological thing going on and I am just trying to sound really smart, which should be pointless enough to prove that I don’t have any ill intentions.

I honestly don’t know what could be said to you; apparently when we grow up we are suddenly wiser and therefore any piece of knowledge I can impart to you is rendered– quote unquote – useless. But remember that I am older than you think, and you are younger than you think, and we are not that far apart in terms of years, seeing as time is a concept that humans created, and without that we are just floating in the void, and then I become you.

Middle school is a deeply unhappy part of life. It is two out of five stars. Would not recommend. Seeing as you have already gone through, it I find little necessity in reiterating any points about it; you had teachers, they tried to teach you things; the American schooling system, as refined as it tries to be at times, is flawed; you learned things for the sake of doing well on tests instead of retaining information, and largely succeeded in doing so. Middle school, among other things, made you a deeply unhappy person. I don’t know how you feel, because I suffered from nostalgia and the general ache of living three years ago, and I thought it would be over with by now. But it is now quite evident that the human brain is prone to only holding onto things that the body wants to dispose of. If you are still very much a sad, lonely person that I am now (I bet that you are) and even if you are not – I hate to say this, but you are loved. And if that in itself does not suffice, some stores sell cheap candy, and there are books in the world that you have not read and movies in the world that you have not watched, and by now you may or may not have a cat or something (congratulations prematurely), and even if you do not you have managed to live through high school, and you are off to college now, and you are about to grow up and experience all the parentless freedoms of living in a dorm and having people not tell you what to do. Is that not absolutely terrifying?

But it will be fun.

So, yes – I hope that you are happy. I cannot guarantee that you will be, but maybe something changes in your life, and you are, and maybe you have a cat or a dog or a horse, but a bird or two will do. Maybe those little baby turtles that can both fit comfortably in the palm of my hand, have grown up by now. There’s a book I’m writing, and the protagonist is a girl named Valerie, and I don’t know if I ever finish the book or if I start a new one, and if it sounds terribly juvenile to you now then I apologize, but it is the best that I can do. If you’re still working on it then you are most profoundly a slowpoke. Go get something done.

And maybe you’re not a writer. Maybe you end up in engineering or marine biology or zoo keeping, of all things; maybe you find your roots in mathematics, if you want a plot twist. What I’m trying to say is that this is totally strange and I have absolutely no idea what happens in the future – it’s all up to you while you still have the choice. It’s strange that you grow up and it’s strange that one of these days I will be old, possibly older than you. And maybe this letter never gets to you; maybe something happens and it ends up lost or read by someone who never was meant to read it (if that is the case, hello) and maybe you burn it as soon as you get it because you can’t stand my little childish voice because perhaps you’ve developed so much that you are suddenly beyond these things. Bear with me for a moment.

I am fascinated with the little things that could have happened and might have changed a lot of things: if I said one sentence off in a conversation, which way it would have gone. Maybe these things are the little parts that make up life, because it’s choked with more choices than you or I even realize, and I hope you’ve chosen the right ones, or at least the ones that make you happier. Instead of sitting on the right side of the bus all of the time, try the left. Of course you don’t take the bus and have not taken it in years, but it was something that took up a massive part of your academic life, little did you know; I have not even stopped taking them by the time I am writing this, but tomorrow is Friday, and then I will never ride a school bus to school again.

People tell you to live life to its fullest. That does not mean you live it to the standards of other people. You do not have to live through action and travel to every town in the world. You can sit in your room, and eat an apple, and like its taste and really, that is all. I wrote this as a bet into the future. I feel like I am talking – it’s strange to describe – to someone that I desperately want to impress. I was so disappointed in past reincarnations of myself that I am afraid that I will disappoint a future Self, and I feel inclined to make these last ties while I still can.

That is actually partially a lie. The real reason I wrote this was because my English teacher made me. It was a homework grade and I have likely already written a letter addressed to a future self in other parts of the year, so you are most likely about to see a good bit of me around. I am not completely dead. I will be with you always, whether you like it or not, so you might as well.

But once you get these letters, I’ll establish first: I am not dead. I am gone. You have taken my place. I don’t know in which direction you’ve taken it, but you’ve taken it nevertheless. Perhaps there’s still a part of me left, but really, only time can tell; there are always haphazard, oddly collected parts of people, and who knows if I am one of them.

Personally, I’m really excited to see where this goes.

Sincerely, You / Me / Us

[se-conway]

Letter that I had to write for a final assignment but I cut out personal details so it jumps around topics lol

First and foremost, I am a writer. This is set, like the North star. It will not change unless the entire universe consumes itself. Or, if the star implodes, it would destroy not only itself, but the world as well. And nobody really knows how it came, they just woke up one day and there it was.

It has come so attached to my identity that I have a new surname. S. E. Conway. Writer. S. E. Conway-Writer.

My Chromebook, when it was in its prime, had particular keys so worn down that either most of the letters were gone, or indented from my fingers, that even if I tried to conceal my

identity, it would be apparent. My backspace button no longer has the letters, and my e-key is just blank. My space bar has two indents that my fingers fall into every time a new word is breathed onto the page.

The Heavens know that I am stubborn and immovable and I would rather fail than waste my time, swimming in the very textbooks that I despise. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of information that I have to trudge through, picking up the important pieces of garbage in hopes that it will not leave me by the morrow. Navigating through mathematical questions, ones with wording so odd and peculiar I cannot begin to describe, and I am tired and I have already been to math that day and did my work, so why must I go back to it when my passion---to the point it turns to a vice---is calling my name? Forgive the impoverished spirit, who so easily folds to the whims of dreams, for she ventures into another land and recounts to those who will listen, what she has found. Forgive the helpless, for she cannot change her nature, but you may certainly try, in the way men cut down trees by the hundreds and thousands to make it into a capitalist’s dream.

Yes, I suppose what has been spilled has been spilled, and no matter how hard I could try to clean it up, there will still be a stain. So, let me set the table over it, and lead our conversation into the pleasantries that comes with dinner. Pick up your utensils, and we shall eat.

An even more awkward thing to read is the continuous ramblings of a sixteen year old girl, and I suppose, if the future seeks it, to read her own writing. I do not like it when I have to talk about my writing to someone else’s face---believe it or not---because it is a raw and open piece of myself, and I have never been good at talking. No, I am unassuming and plain to the outside world, to teachers, and to co-workers. But, when I write, I am a different version of myself, one who is alive, and capable, and she can outwit me in the written form of communication, than verbal.

I cease my words, now, but the words will find themselves somewhere other than this letter.

Sincerely,

S. E. Conway. Writer.

[knightotoc]

The End of Eternity "Timeline"

I've compiled a list of events associated with each Century in Asimov's Eternity. I tried to be as thorough as possible, but I may have missed something; please let me know. Spoiler alert for the best story ever imagined about time travel, a novel which turns 70 this year:

24th: Brinsley Sheridan Cooper becomes Vikkor Mallansohn, "discovers" and builds a Temporal Field, takes it to Caltech, meets the unnamed lunch counter man, and sees Professor Zimbalist's demonstration with a white mouse

27th: Jan Verdeer's experiments pave the way for Antoine Lefebvre to construct the basic mathematical equations of Reality; Eternity established; end of Primitive history; Senior Computer Henry Wadsman, "the first of the great Eternals," opens the Mallansohn memoir, which had been enclosed in a tube of Time-stasis for 3 Centuries

45th: car-like vehicles

50th: make something called a "grafenpiece"

55th: Technician Andrew Harlan uses a "molecular recorder" from this century when he works as an Observer

72nd: only Century that exports good cigarettes

78th: Cooper's homewhen; he was a "Speedy-vac" repairman; very little advertisement

95th: Harlan's homewhen; "stiffly restrictive of atomic power, faintly rustic, fond of natural wood as a structural material, exporters of certain types of distilled potables to nearly everywhen and importers of clover seed;" Spartan taste in furnishing; middling level of advertisement; proverb = "Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy."

123rd: smoking forbidden

182nd: car-like vehicles

186th: some level of advertisement

222nd: Administrator Arbut Lemm works here; the 13th reality of this Century developed the Temporal Pressor, which was essential to the creation of Cooper's one-way kettle

223rd: Harlan enacts his first Reality Change by jamming a vehicle clutch

224th: Harlan's first Reality Change prevents a war and a great work of literature (which is preserved in Eternity's libraries)

289th: "sickly sweet literary tradition"

290th: in Reality 54 of this Century, space-travel is "a valuable safety-valve"

300's: most Centuries are matter-oriented, but these ten have energy-oriented "energy vortices" which are confusing to matter-oriented people; sometime in this millenium, the mass duplicator was invented, which Eternity uses to clone its Sections (offices), one for every Century for millions of Centuries; this technology, which could also be used for cloning people, was deemed too dangerous and removed from Time

482nd: Harlan's first unsupervised Observer assignment; Assistant Computer Hobbe Finge works here; "an era without ethics or principles… hedonistic, materialistic, more than a little matriarchal;" the only era in which "ectogenic birth" flourishes; marriage is informal; eugenics is normalized; characterized by "heavy plaster swirls…splashy pigments…painted metal;" the upper-classes believe that you can become immortal if you have sex with an Eternal; upper-class women wear "transparents sheathing" above the waist, "flimsy, knee-length trousers," and jeweled pendants, and speak with a lisp; wealth distribution is uneven to a barely acceptable level; upper-class men wear clinging, seamless, brightly-colored clothes; Reflector = 3-D mirror; June and February still exist; Mekkano = small floating device which serves drinks; pene-prong = fork; music box that generates random notes "by intricate mathematical formulae"

575th: Harlan's permanent station, where he lives and trains Cooper; also the permanent station of Senior Computer Laban Twissel (and the homewhen of his long-lost love); characterized by "glass and porcelain" and a "fetish of cleanliness;" "a world of whiteness and clarity, broken by sparse patches of light pastel;" its Section's library has the best collection on Reality Changes "outside the Central Branch itself;" Eric Linkollew = greatest writer of the Century; neuronic whip = weapon that can torture and kill by paralyzing the nerves

590th: car-like vehicles

600's: most Centuries are matter-oriented, but these have energy-oriented "field dynamics" which are confusing to matter-oriented people; Finge's homewhen

803rd: Senior Computer August Sennor's homewhen; the fashion is for people to be depilated, which is so freakish that they are not usually chosen for Eternity

900s: nerve-regenerating techniques

984th: car-like vehicles

1174th: a particularly deforested era; exports smoked fish

2456th: "molecular films" make every surface reflective; someone wears glistening shoes made of red, semi-transparent material; they communicate long-distance with devices that emit patterns of clicks; Sociologist Kantor Voy and Life-Plotter Neron Feruque work here; Harlan enacts Reality Change 2456-2781, Serial Number V-5 (moving a container from one shelf to another); exports anti-cancer serums

2481th: before Reality Change 2456-2781, Serial Number V-5, this Century was the only one to develop electro-gravitic space-travel

30000's: Twissel's homewhen

70000th-150000th: the "Hidden Centuries;" the Stations are barely furnished, and you can't step out of them into Time

100000: a time-block briefly stops kettles here

111394th: Lambent's homewhen; she "hides" here

125000th: somewhere past this Century, mankind invents the interstellar drive

150000th: humanity has disappeared

[soular-sisters]

The Origins Of Horoscopes 🔮

as an astrologer who has been mesmerized by the cosmos for 10 years, i have come to have an honest disagreeance for horoscopes. although those whimsical columns are what naturally gravitated me to the world of astrology, it is a shame that horoscopes are what seems to come to the average person's mind when they think of the zodiac. it is our personal belief that the fantastical nature of horoscopes overshadow the beauty of astrology. but this made us wonder.... where did horoscopes come from? continue on to learn about, the origins of horoscopes.

Ancient Times

🔮 The Silk Roads: The earliest evidence of horoscopes date back to the 3rd millennium BCE in Mesopotamia.

🔮 Astrology was adopted on the trading routes of The Silk Roads during the Tang Dynasty (705-907 CE).

🔮 Along these trading routes, traders would sell horoscopes as a service to different regions such as Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau, & China.

🔮 China became very fond of horoscopes during this time & adopted them into the framework of Chinese astrology today.

🔮 Chinese horoscopes at this time were derived from the Hellenistic Period of Ancient Greece.

🔮 During this time, it became Chinese tradition that newborn Chinese babies would be given a horoscope upon birth & then throughout pivotal moments in their lives.

🔮 One of the most important astrologers of this time, Abu Ma'shar (8/10/787- 3/9/886), wrote a book called “Book Of Thousands”.

🔮 “Book Of Thousands” (written in 850)

🔮 The book did not survive to today. Remaining fragments show us that the book was a chronology of world history (from Christian, Persian, & Islamic sources) that intended to connect past, present, & future events to the stars. 🔮 The remaining fragments of the book were collected by David Pingree in 1968 & can be found on select scholarly sources online today.

🔮 Astrology became very popular in Medieval Central Asia.

🔮 It was during this time that two types of astrology formed; mathematically-based astrology (what we astrologers go by) & the magical form of astrology (AKA: horoscopes).

The 20th & 21st Century

🔮 Prominent British astrologer, R.H. Naylor (6/9/1889- 1952), was hired by the Sunday Express (a London-based newspaper) to write a horoscope article.

🔮 Naylor was an assistant to the leading British astrologer of the time called Cheiro. 🔮 Cheiro was sought out by many celebrities of the time for his brilliant astrology services to read their natal charts. He was known to have read the palms of such significant figures such as Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, & Winston Churchill.

🔮 The article was about the birth of Princess Margaret, born August 21, 1930. (a leo beauty)

🔮 The newspaper decided to run a few more articles. In one of the next articles, Naylor predicted that “a British aircraft will be in danger” between October 8th and 15th. On October 5th, British airship R101 crashed outside Paris with 48 of the 54 on board the plane passing away.

🔮 The population became amazed with the incredible prediction Naylor made. The editor then offered Naylor a weekly column & “What The Stars Foretell”, the first ever horoscope column in human history, was born.

🔮 "What The Stars Foretell”

🔮 The column started as advice for people whose birthday fell on each specific week the newspaper article was published. 🔮 By 1937, the article became more grandiose & spoke of “star signs” to relate to a wider audience. 🔮 This was the creation of the term “star signs”.

🔮 From there on, the world caught on to the eye-catching spells of horoscopes & publications from all over the world began to replicate what Naylor created. This is why historically, horoscopes are written by writers assigned to the task of creating a spellbinding horoscope piece & not astrologers.

Well folks, there you have it. Although the roots of horoscopes share soil with the beautiful creation of astrology, they became more of an object of purchase than the art that astrology truly is. I do believe if horoscopes were intended on sharing truth & not appealing to the masses as a means to sell a product, they would hold value to humanity. But in all honesty, if horoscopes remain to just be a tool to spellbind their readers & curate them into consumers, then they hold no good intention to the art of astrology we are so passionate about.

Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate our lil astrology community so much & hope you learned something from this lil trip down astrology lane. 😊

Research Disclaimer: All research was conducted by Andrehya in May 2024. This is all information found by her own research. Sources are listed below for your own curiosity.

Sources:

The Silk Roads Info

Ancient Horoscope Scholars

Modern Horoscope Info

EXCITING NEWS: we are in the process of configuring our work to create a lil astrology instagram for all of us astrology lovers! please go check it out & show your support by giving us a follow! we really appreciate it. 🥰 IG: astrology instagram

-A.A.

[dionyrtal]

need someone to just listen; you don't need to offer any advice if you don't feel the need to.

i can't find the words anymore. i used to be an avid writer and consumer of literature and fan works. as the years went by, i've fallen off because i got so burnt out from uni that the creativity was just a drop in the ocean of assignments. i've dedicated so much of myself to medicine and science (which may be all for nothing) that the words aren't there anymore. i miss writing for creative reasons; i'm always told that my writing is magnificent, my reports are concise and well-written. all i know now are literature reviews and scientific reports and research findings. i still find joy in reading lit and poems, and they still resonate, but i'm afraid i've lost my words. i'm no longer the creative child i used to be. i'm successful, but at what cost? the cost of what's brought me joy since childhood? i look back at my old works and i miss being able to write like that.

my mentor has told me that medicine doesn't make me glow like theoretical studies and literature do. is that a sign i made the wrong choice? i have no idea. but none of that matters because i've geared my brain to cater to science, mathematics, and medicine. i don't have the words anymore.

i'm so sorry you're going through this. it is such a disorienting and heartbreaking experience to still have passion for something you've known yourself do all these years and not have the capacity to do that anymore.

i hope you're giving yourself grace about this. recovering from burnout is difficult and sometimes you need extra help.

i can offer advice on literature and creative writing: you have not lost your ability to write. words are still inside you and you will find them eventually. it may take days, months, or years (i was burntout and couldn't write for 2-3 years) but you will find your way back to your creativity. it's a part of you and burnout cannot change/erase that (although it may affect whether you can actually do those activities).

engaging critically with literature was helpful when i could not write but was so desperate to feel like i "belonged" to this community. i started reading literary criticism articles/blog posts/newsletters about books and themes i like. that was still "creative" and kept me engaged throughout that period. i'm also a very introspective person so i tried to journal my feelings regularly. even if i had nothing to talk about but disappointment, sadness, and anxiety about my writing. I had to define "creativity" for myself in that period is what i'm saying.

i don't think i can speak about "making the wrong choice" about your studies/career but all i'm going to say is this: you can start over and over and over and over again. experiencing life in different ways does not have come with an expiration date. you don't "fail" in life because you change your mind, it is part of your nature.

i hope this helps at least a little bit, sending so much love to you <3

[papercoach]

Feeling stressed about finals? 📚 📝 Here's a tip: take a break. Go for a walk, watch a movie, or do something else that you enjoy. Taking a break will help you relax and de-stress, so you can come back to your studies refreshed and ready to focus. 📖 🎥

[scifrey]

Schrodinger’s Queer: Learning Through Imagination

I saw a quote going around the internet recently that I think is extremely powerful and extremely apt in the current political climate:

[Image ID: Tweet by Jennifer Powell username Ace_Librarian7 that reads: I have made it my mission to unteach children that “fiction is fake”. Here are my new definitions I started teaching today: Nonfiction= learning through information. Fiction = Learning through Imagination.]

What Powell is trying to say here is that even if a story is fiction, even if the people, the situations, and the places are made up, all stories are at their core a tale about someone (be they human, animal, elf, alien, or brave little inanimate object) wanting something and going on some kind of journey to get it. Whether emotional, physical, romantic, or personal, this journey then teaches the character something about the world and/or about themselves along the way. And, as a result, teaches the reader as well. Readers learn about themselves and others through fiction.

For example, in the case of The Hunger Games series, the lesson is that Rampant Capitalism is bad, and Empathy and Compassion are good.  Or in Star Wars, the lesson is that treating all people, no matter how unalike you they may look and behave, as people, and fighting for their right to live a life of peace and plenty is how we resist fascist power-hungry dictators with too much money and power (and, ahem, tariff wars.) And what smut reader hasn’t had a happy little kink awakening and learned a new secret about their own desires while reading a love scene?

I distinctly remember being assigned The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver to read in high school, and realizing that the food culture of the Guatemalan characters in the book was wildly different from the one that I enjoyed at home, and even at friend’s houses in my small home town. I grew up in a largely white, largely Presbyterian, largely rural community, where having “diverse” food meant getting sweet-and-sour chicken balls from the Canadian-Chinese place downtown–super tasty, but not exactly an example of authentic cuisine. The novel opened my eyes to cuisine I’d never heard of before, and was eager to try cooking for myself. (Let us not dwell on the success of those dishes.) I didn’t just learn about food while reading the book, either. I learned about the American immigration system, about colonialism, and about the sorts of emotional truths and experiences that I hadn’t yet had the circumstance or opportunity to explore in my own life, like the fierceness of love and found family that goes beyond biology.

And when reading Historical Fiction, one learns about the fashion and lifestyles of those who came before us, but also their prejudices and values, what they thought about the general news and world events of the day, and the political or social sentiments of the economic classes being portrayed.

But it does create an issues that plagues us Historical genre writers especially: how can a writer be sure that what you’re teaching readers of your work is 100% authentic and correct?

Well, that’s the thing with History—you can’t.

Without extant garments to study and the ability to reproduce textile fabrication in the exact same manner using the exact same materials, no costumer can ever be 100% accurate.  Without detailed recipes, access to identical foodstuffs grown in an identical manner and environment, a mathematically precise set of measuring utensils, and the room to cook on an open flame in their back yard, no food historian can ever reproduce an identical dish to one served hundreds of years ago.

This is especially true of aspects of society that were intangible and ephemeral. If everyone is doing the thing, then no one needs to keep record of it.

And this is doubly true if the thing one is doing is illegal, taboo, or frowned on; if you’re not supposed to be doing the thing or thinking the thing, then it’s unlikely that you’ll be writing down the details of whatever it is that you’re up to.  Which means that those of us doing research hundreds of years later are left without evidence or primary resources to cite.

It would be terribly useful if treasonous conspirators left us letters explaining their plans in minute detail, or criminal masterminds kept lists of everything they’d ever stolen, or, in the case of times and places when being anything but openly cisgendered and heterosexual was frowned upon, kept lists of their lovers or explicitly called themselves lesbian or gay in their personal diaries.

And hey, some of them did—or at least, we can assume they did. The problem with trying to label historical figures with modern terminology is that the historical figures would never label themselves with modern terms. Never once did Anne Lister, the sapphic diarist who has been dubbed “The First Modern Lesbian”, write the word lesbian in her pivotal diary. While the word has been floating around since the 1550s, it didn’t enter common usage with the precise meaning we ascribe to it today until a medical text the 1890s, and even then it was to describe what was then considered a form of insanity. It wasn’t until 1925 or thereabouts that ‘Lesbian’ became the female equivalent of ‘Sodomite’, and again it was freighted with negative connotations.

If someone was to travel back in time to interview Anne Lister and ask her if she was a lesbian, she would say no. Not because she was not a woman who formed romantic and sexual relationships with other women, but because she didn’t know what a ‘lesbian’ was. (She was clever, I’m sure she could infer the meaning, but the point stands.)

We cannot know for sure, not until someone invents Time Travel and gives it to academics and investigative journalists, and sends them careening through history to create a Queer Census. And even if we do interview historical subjects about their sexuality and their experiences trying to hide or celebrate it in their current socio-economic climate (assuming they’d even discuss something so deeply private and personal with a complete stranger holding a strange contraption in their faces), then we risk the butterfly-effect knock on of having to explain what a term means and thus embedding it in history inorganically, which is really just confirmation bias at it’s worst. The words we use as gender and sexuality labels today didn’t even mean the same thing — “Queer” was for odd, “gay” was for happy, and a “faggot” was a small bundle of thin-split wood that was used to start a fire as kindling.

So those of us in the 21st Century can only make assumptions. We can guess. We can extrapolate. We can infer. We can deduce. But we cannot know.

So, when I toured Bath and the Jane Austen Museum, I knew the world-famous authoress was not queer.  But I also knew that it’s possible that she was not-not queer.

See, when Jane Austen died at age 41, her older sister Cassandra burned about 3,000 of her letters. The sisters were very close, and when they were away from one another, they wrote to each other constantly. The letters that Cassandra did safeguard paint them as witty, thoughtful, observant, and dedicated correspondents, where the famous authoress gave her opinions as decidedly and freely as her heroine Lizzie.

Before she succumbed to the mysterious illness that killed her, Jane Austen’s fame was already growing despite her dislike of the public and her desire for privacy, and her previously anonymous identity was becoming an open secret among the literary set.  It was inevitable that some one would want to publish her letters, and Cassandra had already seen the way the late author Fanney Burney’s personal letters had been skewered in the press and talked of in scathing language by the public. Many speculate that Cassandra burned the letters to prevent friends and relatives from having hurt feelings over Jane’s complaints, or to spare the Austens the embarrassment of fans reading Jane’s moaning diatribes about their never-ending money problems.

But my speculations turned in a decidedly more bent direction when I learned about Jane Austen’s other best friend, Martha Lloyd. Little is known about Martha, save that she was the neighbour and childhood friend of and the Austen family, she was ten years older than Jane, that she was unwed in Jane’s lifetime, and that she was privy to Jane’s secret identity as a writer. Not long after Jane’s father died in 1805, Martha’s mother also passed. With her younger sister married already, Martha was left alone to fend for herself, and so moved in with the Austen ladies, where they combined their households. They shared chores, finances, and management.

And then she never left.

Not even after Jane passed. Martha remained a beloved second sister to Cassandra, and cherished second daughter to Mrs. Austen. She even married Jane’s youngest brother when became a widower, and stayed in the family.

“Oh my god,” I thought to myself, “And they were roommates!”

What really clinched it for me was learning about Jane’s single marriage proposal. Harris Bigg-Wither, a family friend and son of local landed gentry, was six years younger than Jane and seemed to have rather cornered her with an unexpected marriage proposal while she and Cassandra were visiting his family for a few days. Jane said yes in the evening, went up to bed with Cassandra, and retracted her consent in the morning, causing the Austen girls to flee the house in a cloud of discomfort. Those are the facts we have. As for why Jane changed her mind, we historians cannot say.

Maybe, like her character Jane Bennet later does for Lizzie in Pride and Prejudice, Cassandra urged Jane to “do anything but marry without affection.” Maybe Cassandra pointed out that as the mistress of Manydown Park, Jane would be obliged to set aside her writing pen in favour of a hostess’ calling cards. Maybe Jane was horrified by the idea of children (she loved her nieces and nephews but seemed uninterested in having any herself, going so far as to call her sister-in-law as ‘poor animal’ on the birth of her 11th child). Maybe the surprise of the proposal made her give a knee-jerk ‘yes’, and when she had a second to think about it, she realized she really did not want to marry anyone.

Or maybe dudes gave her the ick. Maybe she already had a girlfriend. Maybe she knew she would not be able to live her own truth and love where her heart pulled her if she married this guy.

Now, all of this is speculation, of course. And very thin speculation at that. And while I’m not the first academic to propose this reading of Jane Austen’s life and work, all I’m really going on is vibes and wishful thinking.

But that afternoon, while enjoying a cream tea at the museum in 2009, the idea that Jane Austen may have been sapphic hooked into my heart and refused to let me go. And because we can never know for sure whether any of my wild imaginings are true, and it was clear that I hadn’t any right to write about them even if they were (Jane certainly wouldn’t want me to), I decided to write a story about a fictionalized sapphic regency-era authoress, and named her Margaret Goodenough.

My novel Time and Tide arose out of the liminal space where the knowing and the not-knowing intersect: Schrodinger’s queer.

And in that novel, I can provide emotional experiences to my readers, I can teach through imagination what it would have been like to have been a white, sapphic, cis-gendered woman of firmly rural professional middle class origins in pre-regency England. I can explore who that person would have been and what she would have faced, how she would have had to mitigate her desires nor what might happen if she followed them, and perhaps even what she would have feared.

I can’t tell my readers with any sort of certainty what one particular historical figure’s life would have actually been like had she been queer, I can’t even promise them or myself that she was, but what I can do is make my best guess, and educate through fiction.

[carmeloffie]

Project ComCom was not a Simulmatics project. But it borrowed, heavily, from Simulmatics research. And the MIT students Pool hired to work on ComCom tended, also, to work on Simulmatics projects. After all, they were tinkering with what was, elementally, the same computer program. Pool’s staff included three undergraduates: Tom Van Vleck, a math major; Noel Morris (the brother of Errol Morris, the filmmaker), an electrical engineering major; and Sam Popkin, a mathematics and political science major. Pool assigned Van Vleck and Morris to a windowless office in Building 14, in the library stacks, with a single IBM 1050 terminal. The sign on the door said, “T. LEHRER, N. MORRIS.” (T. Lehrer never showed up. He was Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathematician who became a writer and singer of satirical songs.) Popkin was assigned to a room nearby.

everyone go here apparently tom lehrer almost worked for simulmatics's communist communications project.....

[hividsmarttv]

Ten Great Back-to-School Movies

Introduction: As the summer sun begins to wane, it's time to dust off your backpack, sharpen your pencils, and embrace the excitement of a new school year. Whether you're a student returning to the classroom or someone looking to relive the nostalgic days of academia, these back-to-school movies are the perfect way to ignite your academic spirit. From heartwarming tales of friendship to hilarious classroom antics, this list of 10 inspiring films is guaranteed to make you nostalgic for school days gone by.

1. Dead Poets Society (1989): Experience the transformative power of education in "Dead Poets Society." Robin Williams shines as an unconventional English teacher who inspires his students to embrace poetry and seize the day. This film celebrates the importance of individuality and the pursuit of knowledge.

2. Mean Girls (2004): Navigate the comedic world of high school cliques with "Mean Girls." Lindsay Lohan stars as a teenager who must navigate the treacherous social landscape while learning valuable lessons about friendship, self-confidence, and the consequences of conforming to societal norms.

3. Good Will Hunting (1997): Discover the untapped potential within oneself with "Good Will Hunting." Matt Damon stars as a janitor at MIT with extraordinary mathematical abilities. When he's discovered by a professor, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth.

4. The Breakfast Club (1985): Join five diverse high school students as they serve Saturday detention and learn more about themselves than they could have ever imagined in "The Breakfast Club." This iconic film delves into the complexities of teenage identity and reminds us that people are much more than just the labels society assigns them.

5. Legally Blonde (2001): Embrace the power of determination and resilience with "Legally Blonde." Reese Witherspoon stars as Elle Woods, a fashionable sorority girl who defies expectations by enrolling in Harvard Law School. Through her journey, Elle proves that intelligence and ambition come in all forms.

6. School of Rock (2003): Get ready to rock out with "School of Rock." Jack Black portrays an unconventional substitute teacher who transforms his students into a rock band. This hilarious and heartwarming film emphasizes the importance of creativity, teamwork, and pursuing your passions.

7. Freedom Writers (2007): Experience the impact of an inspiring teacher in "Freedom Writers." Based on a true story, this film follows a young teacher who uses literature to inspire and empower her at-risk students, encouraging them to break free from their challenging circumstances.

8. Akeelah and the Bee (2006): Celebrate the power of determination and intellect with "Akeelah and the Bee." This heartwarming drama follows a young girl's journey to compete in a national spelling bee, highlighting the importance of education, community support, and believing in oneself.

9. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986): Embrace the spirit of rebellion and adventure with "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Follow the charismatic Ferris as he orchestrates an epic day of fun, skipping school and reminding us all to occasionally let loose and enjoy life's simple pleasures.

10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001): Step into the enchanting world of Hogwarts with "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Join young Harry and his friends as they embark on magical adventures while learning important life lessons about courage, friendship, and the power of knowledge.

Conclusion: Whether you're a student gearing up for another academic year or simply reminiscing about your school days, these 10 back-to-school movies are sure to captivate, inspire, and remind you of the transformative power of education, friendship, and personal growth. So grab your favorite movie snacks, gather your friends or family, and prepare to embark on a cinematic journey that celebrates the joy and challenges of the school experience.

[elexuscal]

Thank you for this response. You really articulated what I was trying to get across in... What frankly was a pretty off-the-cuff post I didn't expect many folks to see.

If I regret anything about it, it's including the A grade. It was true, but it does come across as boasting; I could have phrased it better to get across my point.

Because frankly and honestly: I am naturally a good writer. Even at that age, I was. A good portion of that was practice, but it was also talent. We've all got natural talent somewhere or other, and mine lies in writing.

And I absolutely do not want the takeaway from this to be "speed writing a last minute essay works if you have natural talent, but if you don't, there's no point. Might as well use ChatGPT."

What I didn't include in that was all my failures. Cuz I had failures. There was one chemistry quiz I studied for week after week, a teacher kept re-assigning me, but I just couldn't remember the various ion configurations to his satisfaction. Years later, there were organic chemistry compounds I similarly struggled to internalise. Lots of tear-filled studying nights.

Mathematics. Ugh, mathematics. I got a D grade at a midterm exam in Year 10, enough that it risked completely flunking my overall grade score. It terrified me.

For the next six months or so, every Saturday morning, for 2 hours, I went to a math tutor hall, and just did math exam questions. I hated it. It was a unique combination of boring and stressful.

... But after all that work, I did, to my amazement, bring my mathematics grade to an A for my final exam.

Generative AI, to my knowledge, can't really produce answers to these things the same way it can with writing an essay (though I suspect it would try if you ask). So students don't really have chatgpt as an option to speedrun those.

But I'll say now: if such a speedrun option had existed when I was a student, I would have been sorely tempted by it. Sorely.

And that would have been a mistake. Because while I'll never really have any natural talent in chemistry or mathematics, I do have some hard-won skills in it. And I use those skills in my day-to-day life, both professional and personal, all the time, in ways both direct and indirect.

I'm not saying that our school systems are perfect. God, they are not. I stopped being a teacher in PART they were so flawed, that I could see it. I didn't want to be assigning kindergarten students six textbooks of homework per week. We've got some fucked up perverse incentives going at every level, and I can't BLAME students for seeing this, and baulking, and revolting.

But I'm not saying this for the sake of the system. I'm saying this for the sake of you, and your growth.

The only way to build the muscle is to lift the weights.

"what did students do before chatgpt?" well one time i forgot i had a history essay due at my 10am class the morning of so over the course of my 30 minute bus ride to school i awkwardly used by backpack as a desk, sped wrote the essay, and got an A on it.

six months later i re-read the essay prior to the final exam, went 'ohhhh yeah i remember this', got a question on that topic, and aced it.

point being that actually doing the work is how you learn the material and internalize it. ChatGPT can give you a short cut but it won't build you the the muscles.