#bc both are actually really impactful and thoughtful political stories

[everythingmp3]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭

Tess Servopoulos x fem!reader

AO3 / part 1

after spending the whole summer apart, you finally get to reunite with Tess. nobody has any idea what you are up to as you spend a whole week together.

authors note: thank you to everyone who gave me such lovely feedback on crossing lines! a few people asked for a continuation, so I went back to this story and I am really glad I did bc it’s close to my heart and I had a lot of fun developing it further. this one is heavy on the romantic aspect bc I wanted it to be joyful and light and to function as a kind of escape for anyone who might need it! I put a lot of thought and time into this, it’s a labour of love, so I really hope you guys enjoy reading it <3

warnings: minors dni. smut (both giving and receiving), large age gap bc reader is in her early 20s Tess is in her early/mid 40s

word count: 25k

as predicted, the two weeks that Tess stayed in your hometown went by in a flash.

fourteen days sounded like a decent amount of time, but the number of hours that you actually spent together one-on-one was very limited. you tried your best, some evenings you´d go over to the place where she was staying and got lost in the heat of the chemistry you had, during those moments it was pure bliss, Tess was a devoted lover and made you feel wanted in ways you´d hardly allowed yourself to dream of before, but you could not stay the night more than a few times, since the excuse of “sleeping over a friend´s house” would have made Joel suspicious if used it too often. it frustrated you that you were so restricted in your movement with her, that you couldn´t go out and get lunch because you knew too many people around town who also knew him, it was hard not to grow frustrated those days because you wanted nothing more than to spend entire days with her, free of the anxiety of who might see or judge you.

one rather nerve wracking event happened a week into her stay: Joel suggested that you should all get dinner together. it was not as unbearable and awkward as you´d have expected, but still, it was hard to sit across the table from her all night pretending like you didn´t wanna touch her or kiss her or look at her with more than polite interest. for her it was just as hard to keep her gaze on him when he talked, while you were so close, your skin glowing beautifully, the memory of its feeling against hers clouding her mind with desire. towards the end of the dinner Tess excused herself to go to the bathroom because she had to catch a break, the heat of the summer day mixing with the heat of her need for you, leaving her a total mess by the end of the night, even more greedy for the taste of you the next time you both found yourselves alone. the one perk of being unfree in your expression of affection was how violently you made up for it when you reunited, more than once you´d sat on the edge of your bed at night, touching the bites and marks she´d left on your inner thighs, your chest, all the places where nobody would be able to see, a satisfied grin on your face when you pressed down on the sensitive spots and felt a slight pain, the lingering impact of her lips, her teeth, her hunger. 

at times it did feel strange to lie to your father´s face, especially when he came home from hanging out with her, talking about what they´d done and seen, blissfully unaware of the things you two had done the night before; the constant sneaking around and hiding of your true feelings did make it harder at times to fully enjoy the feeling of being so obsessed with each other, that early stage of no amount of touch being enough, and yet you still soaked up all of the warmth and joy you could during the few times where you could just lay in bed together and forget about the outside world. 

the morning she was going to drive back home, you told Joel you were “seeing a friend for breakfast” and then spent a very emotionally charged hour with her, which looking back almost embarrassed you a little because you´d sobbed quite violently in her arms once it was time to say goodbye. you usually didn´t cry in front of others but you couldn´t help it that day, you´d grown so comfortable around her and she´d made you feel so seen for who you really were, that being separated from her for weeks on end seemed like a nightmare. she put on a slightly braver face, holding your hand and kissing your tear stained cheeks as she told you in an earnest manner “we´ll see each other at the end of August, alright? you´ll come visit and we´ll do whatever we want, but in the meantime you should enjoy your summer. you better have some fun stories to tell me when we see each other again, okay?”, followed by a brief moment of silence and a tentative nod from you, trying to cling to the knowledge that you´d eventually reunite. 

the days after Tess´s departure you tried your best not to let it show that it had affected you, but you knew you weren´t concealing it well, so you pretended you were a little under the weather and spent some time in bed, sulking and being dramatic about your lovesickness. 

almost immediately after Tess was back home you two developed a routine. it was clear as day that she was not a great texter so you called each other about every other day, mostly at night because then neither of you were in a rush, laying in bed and catching each other up on what you´d done that day, her offering some gossip about coworkers, you offering some about people from high school you´d run into, asking more personal questions that you hadn´t thought of before, comforting each other whenever you´d had a rough day, teasing each other a lot, making the best of your less than ideal situation of being miles and miles apart.

generally, your calls were calm and relaxed but during one of them, when it had gotten particularly late and her voice was even raspier and lower in your ear than usual, the sudden silence on your side and your labored breaths gave away what you were trying to do, she paused for a moment before she asked “are you getting off to my voice right now?” which made you stop immediately, but after a brief laugh she added “no come on, it´s okay, let me help you out there”. from the moment you had first kissed her, you had never been shy with her about how much you liked her but in moments like that it did take her a moment to believe it, that you were truly that into her, enough to get turned on just from hearing her speak. it was both endearing and thrilling to her, to be lusted after that overtly.

she´d never talked anyone through it over the phone but Tess liked a challenge, so she thought about what you might want her to say and continued speaking, telling you how pretty you looked when you´re all worked up and desperate, what she´d do if she was there next to you, her tone soft and sultry, so she didn´t have to keep doing it for long, after a while of getting into it she could hear a sound that signaled to her that you were done, a sense of cockiness swelling up in her. a moment after you said “you should feel really good about yourself”, she smiled which you could hear from the way she spoke, of course she knew what you meant but she liked teasing you, “oh yeah? why?”, “why? Tess. I miss you so much that I´m doing shit like this” she laughed then, “well, we´re in a similar spot then”, “are you saying you jerk off thinking about me?” you teased back, “take a wild guess sweetheart”. 

that night you had various feverish dreams about her, inspired by what had happened over the phone mere minutes before you fell asleep, which left you spaced out and distracted the next day, haunted by the visions you´d had of her mixed with the actual real life memories that were utter torture to think of. it happened pretty often in the following weeks that you had to ask someone to repeat themselves because you were busy thinking of her; Tess on the other hand was eyed curiously by a few of her friends and colleagues because they sensed an unfamiliar ease in her, she smiled more than usual, she was less irritable and snapped at people way less frequently than before, to a point where her closest friend straight up asked “okay. who is she?” over dinner one night because she knew that Tess could only be magically changed like that by a pretty intense infatuation. 

towards the end of summer it was thankfully rather explain to Joel why you wanted to go back to college early, you made something up about getting into the groove of things before classes started and he was just glad to see you eager to get back to your life there because the year before you´d sometimes seemed a little fed up with everything. as long as you were happy he was happy but of course, the true source of your happiness might have changed his mind in that instance. lucky for you, he had not caught on about the fact that your enthusiasm had absolutely nothing to do with your academic life. the plan you and Tess had come up with was a simple one: you´d fly back to your college town and from there you could take a train to Tess´s city that would take about two hours, which meant you´d get there in the early evening if everything went according to plan. 

she told you she´d park just down the road of the station and the moment you spotted her from a distance it reminded you of the first time you´d met: she was leaning against the passenger door the exact same way, but this time a bright smile crept onto her face as soon she saw you walking towards her. what she did then was very typically Tess, she didn´t walk or run over to you but let you come close to her, those subtle displays of dominance that suited her well, watching your slightly tired but utterly joyful expression as you approached her, waiting until you were only a few feet away from her to finally stand up and open her arms. the second she did that you dropped your bags and swung your arms around her neck, immediately nuzzling your face against her neck and making a sound of excitement as she picked you up with her familiar strong grip, lifting you from the ground for a second, wrapping her arms tightly around your back as you breathed in her scent, her hair soft against your face, the fragrance of her shampoo reminding you of the times you´d been in bed with her and had gotten an intoxicating whiff of it. “my sweet girl” she said as she kept holding you. neither of you wanted to let go, so you stayed like that for about a minute, wordlessly embracing and touching, eyes closed, melting into each other, instantly as comfortable as you´d been the last time you´d been that close two months prior. eventually you let go and faced each other, somehow there was an agreement that you´d wait to kiss until you could do it properly, passionately, in private, so you held her hand instead and waited for her to speak, beaming at her, overjoyed by the thought of having a whole week with her ahead of you, trying to soak up the bliss of that long awaited reunion, the sun casting you in a golden glow that matched the warm feeling you both felt in your chests. 

she looked at you with soft eyes and touched your cheek with her free hand, caressing you the way she´d done countless times before, you breathing out deeply as you leaned into it because that simple gesture alone put your whole body at ease. “you´ve had a long day, right? are you tired now?” a subtle sound of concern, you smiled at her, still processing that she was actually in front of you again, somehow even more beautiful than you  remembered, her hair slightly ruffled from the breeze, her face bronzed and freckled from the weeks of sun before, “well I was tired until like a minute ago, but now I´m wide awake”. she grabbed you by your waist then, enjoying your flirting, holding onto you, “good, that´s what I hoped. so how about we go home first, you can freshen up, relax, and then we can go get some dinner, how does that sound?”, “perfect, ideal” you said, leaning in to kiss her cheek while whispering “I missed you, so much”, an obvious statement but you felt the need to remind her, her hands lingering on your back as she let you press your lips against her face, “I missed you too. I´m glad to have you all to myself this week”. she took your bags from you and put them into the trunk, joining you in the car a few seconds after and it felt good to be back in that seat next to her since that was where your whole relationship had started, where you´d spent the first few hours of knowing each other, it reminded you of the fun you´d had with her during the beginning of summer, the nervousness before you dared to go for it, so it was a cute full circle moment, to be right back in that same spot.

“ah I missed this, your shameless staring” she said, grinning as she pulled out of the parking spot and felt your gaze fixed on the right side of her face, you´d gotten comfortable and were eyeing her with clear desire, unwilling to mask any of it. “well, you might get sick of it by the end of the week”, she shook her head, “no, never. oh by the way, here, I thought you might need something like this”, she directed your attention to the drink holders between you, which held two of the refreshments she´d seen you go for most often. “didn´t know which one you´d prefer right now so I just got both”, it was one of the things about her that had won you over from the start, her way of paying attention to even the smallest things, her way of reminding you that she cared about the details, “oh thank you, that´s really sweet”, you said as you took a big sip of one of the cold drinks, but Tess never wanted any praise for her little acts of service because she saw it as the most natural thing in the world, so she changed the subject. 

“so, be honest, was it weird? lying to him about all this?” she knew that it was no small thing, to lie to Joel that blatantly about going back to college when you were actually visiting her for a whole week, so she made sure you were still fine with it. “oh it was okay. we get a little pissed off with each other when we spend so many weeks in one house, so I think that helped with me not feeling too bad”, she nodded, an amused expression “right, I get that, good to have some distance now I assume?”. “yeah for sure. but not just because of him, I was honestly just glad to be leaving home now”, that intrigued her, “oh yeah? how come?”, a sympathetic tone, you thought about it “I don´t love spending that much time back where I grew up. now that I have my own life, coming back there sometimes makes me feel so out of place and weird.. like running into old friends and seeing all the places I used to spend my time, it can get suffocating after a while, all those memories and old feelings”. Tess made a sound of agreement, “yeah I get that, I avoid going back to my hometown, I used to do it more when I was younger but I only do Christmas now, that´s it. sometimes you just outgrow a place and it feels odd as hell to return, huh?”, you nodded, “exactly yes”, she hardly ever talked about her family so you knew it meant something for her to share that information, you didn´t press her further, still, it made you feel understood and seen in a way.

“so, this might be a good moment to say thank you for letting me come here” she tried to wave it off but you insisted “no, really! I can´t tell you how nice it is to be able to leave early without having to go back to my everyday life already. you´re kind of saving my life by giving me this in between, I already feel lighter right now, like I can breathe out again”, she grabbed your hand, squeezing it a little, “well I´m glad, I want you to let go of everything and just enjoy this week okay? I´ll take good care of you” she meant it, she felt protective over you and wanted nothing more than to offer you an escape from whatever might be weighing on you, “oh, I´m sure you will”, you said, a suggestiveness to your words that made her laugh then, “okay, I wasn´t just talking about that kind of care but sure, that too”. there was palpable tension between you, you could both feel it as you kept glancing at each other, Tess was wearing something you hadn´t seen her in yet, the temperature was warm but not too hot so she´d opted for black pants that hugged her body perfectly paired with an oversized navy t-shirt that left her forearms exposed, you were also dressed in something that was unfamiliar to her, which left you in a similar state of wanting to get your hands under the fabric already. a charged silence hung between you as she pulled into her street and interrupted your shared moment of fantasizing, “this is it” she announced, pointing at her house as she looked for an empty spot.

“okay wow...” you said, clearly stunned. the street was picturesque: tall buildings, beautiful architecture, five story houses with little iron balconies out front, a row of lush trees on either side of the street that cast pretty shadows onto the sidewalk. the area seemed both urban and peaceful, it was very close to the center of the city so there were little shops and cafes further down the block that were busy during that time of day, she was pleased by your reaction, the nervousness about having you stay with her was fading by the second. “you know what. I think I should just drop out and come live here, be your trophy girlfriend” you joked as you both exited the car and you got a good look at your surroundings, she laughed as she got your bags for you, charmed by your enthusiasm, secretly into the idea of having you with her for good  “enticing offer, truly, I´ll think about it”

as you walked up the stairs to her apartment, you noticed how nice even just the hallway was, the ground floor had mosaic tiles, the stairs seemed about a century old, sturdy and almost like something you´d find in an old library, you turned to Tess who was walking behind you, “is it possible that you´re hiding the fact that you´re kind of rich?”, which she could only laugh at, “I wish. rent-control, baby, that´s the reason I´ve been living here for ten years, I couldn´t afford places in this area if I moved here now. but feel free to believe that I am secretly rich, I don´t mind”. 

by the time she let you in, you were slightly out of breath, steading yourself against the wall as she dropped your bags on the floor and closed the door, giving you only a brief second to recover before she grabbed your face with determination and kissed you, deeply this time, her hands holding your face as she pushed you further against the wall, eager, kissing you in a way that was not elegant or pretty but messy with all the pent up tension, her taste still familiar to you, even after all those weeks, hot and slightly sweet against your tongue, your skin tingling where her knee brushed yours as she had you against the wall, a series of desperate but pleased sounds leaving both of you until you eventually got dizzy with the heat of it and separated, smiling bright while you stood there breathing even heavier than before.

“so” she said, her lips a deeper shade of pink than before, “I think I should give you a tour of your home for the week now, right? be a good host”, you nodded, smiling to yourself, realizing that you hadn´t even taken a look around yet. Tess lead you to her bedroom first to drop off your stuff there and it was just what you´d imagined it to be: minimal but elegant, nothing showy, no bright colors, but an impressively large bed for one person with very comfortable looking sheets, the same dark wooden floor you´d already noticed outside the room that gave her whole space an expensive, chic feel. there was not much clutter at all, she was obviously a neat person, you could tell that she took good care of the few belongings that she cherished, no clothes over her chair, no trinkets on the dresser, nothing left laying around where it didn´t belong. still, the room had a distinctly warm and inviting feel to it, you could already imagine how well you´d sleep in there and she was glad to read the enthusiasm in your expression; Tess was only human, so naturally she´d worried about what you´d think of her place, if you´d feel comfortable staying there for a while, but those thoughts were quickly replaced by relief when she saw no hesitation on your part as you moved around, quite the opposite, you seemed elated.

Tess quickly showed you where the bathroom was but didn´t have much to say about it, so instead she lead you to the room that took up most of her apartment: her living room that was connected to the kitchen, a bright open space, one that made it easy imagine her throwing dinner parties there, which she probably rarely did, but still, the understated chicness of the place lent itself to fantasies. the thing that struck you most about her apartment was that it got a ton lot of beautiful natural light, it had tall ceilings and big windows, so during that early evening hour you were spoiled with a glow of orange-golden sunlight, two windowed doors opening up to her balcony, which looked like a lovely place to spend summer nights. it was very obvious that the apartment belonged to a person who was not that easy to figure out just by taking a look around, it fit her personality, that you wouldn´t have been able to guess much about her just by judging the interior design, other than the fact that she had good taste. 

eventually Tess reached the end of what she had to show you, so she got comfortable on the couch and patted the space next to her, looking up at you with an inviting smile, but as you stepped closer you shook your head and lowered yourself onto her lap instead, your arm around her neck as she put hers around your lower back to steady you, glad about the fact that you still seemed just as physically comfortable with her as you´d been in June. 

you held onto her as you smiled at her, taking a look at her pretty eyes from up close as you said, “I just realized I haven´t asked you a thing about the stuff that matters yet. so, how are you, really? is it still stressful at work? you mentioned something last week, I was kinda worried” you purposely put on the tone that a wife using to comfort her tired spouse after a long day at work, it charmed her, she thought about it for a moment as her hands wandered up and down your back.“oh I´m okay, sweetie, really, it´s getting better now. for a minute they were just giving me more and more shit to do because I get things done faster than the others. maybe I should start slacking off a little.. but yeah it´s good to have a break now. the thought of you coming here kinda kept me going last week” that made you feel warm but also evoked some sympathy, you exaggerated a little with your pity as you answered  “poor thing” brushing a strand of her hair out of her face, eyeing her with tenderness, “I wish I could have been here and cooked for you or something, helped you out a little” she smiled imagining it, “hm, I´d have liked that”. “well I´m here now, I´ll help you relax this week, don´t you worry” your hands on her shoulders then, squeezing a little, gently massaging her muscles there for a moment, a pleased sigh from her as she shut her eyes, “god, I forgot how sweet you are..” you stared at her, tilting your head, “forgot?? I guess I´ll have to leave more of an impression this time”, a grin as you said this, still moving your fingers over the fabric of her shirt, she nodded, already fully back under your spell again, “feel free to overdo it, yes”. 

she didn´t have to tell you that twice. you moved your legs to go from sitting on her to straddling her and leaned down to kiss her neck, gently at first, but quickly getting lost in the sensation of her scent, her soft skin, feeling her struggle to stay quiet and still under you until her patience wore thin and she needed more, so she tugged at the bottom of your shirt to signal to you to let her pull it off. the moment you leaned back again, she did just that, pulling it off and throwing it to the side before she grabbed you and kissed your chest, a low humming sound of pleasure, your hands around her neck as she put her lips to the soft skin right above your bra, biting it lightly because she couldn´t keep her desperation for you inside. you did her a favor and removed your underwear, so she could do what she really wanted, to get her mouth on your tits, messy and needy as she moved you from her legs to your back onto the couch, leaning down and covering your whole chest and stomach in wet kisses, overcome with all the desire she´d kept at bay during the time she had to manage being separated from you, your breathing interrupted by satisfied sighs. you spent about half an hour just making out on her couch like that, grabbing and biting and caressing each other in a feverish state of “I missed you” passion, and yet, holding off with actually fucking because you both knew you´d want to really take your time and do it properly later that evening, perhaps also because you liked the idea of getting hot for each other during dinner, having that leftover bit of anticipation, drawing it out a few more hours to savor the intense longing you´d both gotten so used to. 

eventually, you suggested that you should probably go take a shower and get changed. you were eager to look as good as possible in her presence, so she showed you where she kept her towels and left you to it, getting herself a drink from the fridge and opening the balcony door to sit there with a breeze against her face as she smiled to herself, unable to hide how giddy she was over the fact that she finally had the girl she wanted back in her life,  many days and nights to look forward to.

once you were out of the shower you wrapped yourself in a big towel and went back to her bedroom to get dressed, still high on the surreal feeling of being in her space, daydreaming about becoming part of it, not just for a week. as you looked at all the tops you´d brought with you, none of them stood out to, so you got an idea and stepped closer to the door to call out to Tess, “what is it?” she answered from the living room, “come, help me with something”, so she did what she was told. Tess didn´t walk into the room but stopped in the door frame for a second to take in the sight of you in your underwear and jeans “damn, I could get used to this” she said, looking you up and down, her arms crossed, you smiled at her, a sudden tingling sensation on your exposed skin where her gaze was resting.

“can I wear one of your shirts? please?” you asked, batting your eyelashes at her but you didn´t even have to convince her, she loved the idea of seeing you in her clothes, “sure, yeah, come here” she said, waving you over as she walked to her closet and opened the doors for you, “nothing´s off limits, pick whatever you want” so you started scanning the various fabrics as she watched you, absentmindedly tracing your upper body with her fingers, all the parts of you that were yet to be covered, the softness of your freshly showered skin making her space out until you said “okay, let´s try this one”. 

you stepped in front of the full length mirror next to her closet and pulled the black long sleeve shirt that you´d picked out over your head, it was light enough for summer nights and fit you well, you fussed with your hair as she stepped behind you, she could tell that you were trying to find a fault with your appearance, so her arms found their way around your waist, pulling you back into herself as she looked ahead at the reflection of you both, her head resting on your shoulder, “you´re so pretty” she cooed before leaning in and lightly kissing your neck, turned on from the sight of you in something that was hers. you smiled and closed your eyes as she started feeling you up, “we won´t make it to dinner if you keep doing that” you sighed, so she laughed and restrained herself, letting you go and walking over to her bedside table to touch up her perfume, hearing you utter “god that smells so good..” the second it hit your nose, because even just a hint of her signature scent was enough to make you feel dizzy. Tess looked pleased, well aware of that effect, recalling the times you´d basically licked her neck with pure greed, not acknowledging your comment but announcing her plans instead “okay so, there´s this great Thai place about fifteen minutes from here, it´s my favorite spot, so much so that I actually never take people there because I like that it´s my secret thing, but I´d like show it to you”, you smiled, “so, I´m an exception?”, she nodded “absolutely yes”, somehow you could tell that she wasn´t just saying it to charm you, that you did occupy a special place in her life. “sounds good to me, I´m starving so I´ll be very easy to impress”, “okay great, come on then”. you both exited the bedroom and collected your things before stepping out, both giddy with the excitement of having a proper date night for the first time since getting together, no time limit, no rush, total freedom. 

the atmosphere that night was idyllic, it was that distinct late summer feel, a warmth that was pleasant but not too heavy, the sun setting earlier than those bright weeks in June, casting the sky in a muted blue, little accents of orange from the glow of the streetlights, the sound of people chatting and getting drinks after a long day, a collective sense of slow ease in the city as you linked arms and started walking. usually, Tess kept her head down when she made her way through those streets, she was the type to just zone out and wear headphones all the way to her destinations, never looking at her hometown with much generosity, lost in a dull routine, but your presence was changing things for her; she found herself falling back in love with where she lived because she saw how much you were enjoying yourself, it was rubbing off on her, the way you looked around and pointed out all the details she usually passed by without thinking twice. for years Tess had refused to be present in her life, after a few very painful years she´d decided to just give up on excitement, on chasing thrills and had numbed herself as best as she could, pushing herself into a state of hardness that left her cut off from most strong feelings. she told herself it was better that way, to remain detached and untouchable, but you had come along and were helping her come out of that state. you´d given her a reason to feel again, to come back into her body, to be in touch with her senses and the world again, for the first time in ages she felt completely present, glad to be exactly where she was in life. as she thought all of this you could feel her pulling you closer, shoulder to shoulder, you´d missed it terribly all summer, those casual intimacies with her. 

during your walk to the restaurant she gave you the inside scoop on a lot of the places you passed: her favorite spot for coffee, a cinema that she frequented, a bar that she might take you to later that week, the entire time you were listening intently, buzzing with the joy of being let into her life like that. 

the place was located in a small alley that branched out from the bigger street you´d been walking down, so it was quiet and secluded, the kind of place that didn´t need a bunch of fancy decorations to lure people in, a lowkey but cozy vibe, a few lanterns hanging outside, little candles burning on the tables, vases with little fresh flowers around the room. you decided to sit inside because the doors were open anyway and a few couples were already sitting out on the terrace, so a table indoors would offer a little more privacy. the room was dimly lit and a delicious smell was stirring your hunger, a few workers busy behind the bar with making drinks, soft music playing over the speakers as a kind waitress showed you to a table placed two menus in front of you.

“so, go ahead and tell me what´s good here” you said, leaning your head on your hands while looking at her expectantly. “well I have my usual order but how about we share a few things so you can try more of them? we can take whatever we can´t finish home”, that sounded good to you, so you ended up deciding on both a noodle and rice dish, some homemade spring rolls, dumplings with chili sauce, and two peach iced teas, which she advertised as the best you´d ever have. 

as you waited for the food she pulled your hands over the table, holding them as you both stared at each other lovingly. “I honestly can´t believe I´m actually here now” you said, “yeah me neither” she agreed while you both interlaced your fingers, almost like you had to touch the other person to be sure you weren´t dreaming. “can I be real for a second?” you asked, “please, yes”. you laughed to yourself before going on “I honestly went kind of insane this summer because of you”, Tess smiled then, not having expected that “should I apologize?”, of course she didn´t feel sorry at all, you shook your head, “I just need you to know how serious I am about this. like I have truly never felt this way, it was all day, all night, I couldn´t think of anything else to be honest”. usually Tess was not one to admit her intense feelings to others, especially not romantically, but in that moment she didn´t feel scared to do it, she wanted you to know that it was not one-sided, that obsessiveness you were describing,“yeah I was going through something similar, people caught on very quickly about what was going on with me, which says a lot because I´d like to think of myself as hard to read. but yeah, apparently it was written all over my face when I thought about you” you liked the sound of that,“really?”, “yeah, someone straight up asked me who “she” is because it was so obvious”, you were thrilled by the idea of someone as calm and collected as her being so shaken up by you, “and what did you say?” you inquired, leaning forward.

“oh the truth of course, that I´m having an affair with my friend´s college age daughter”, her dry delivery of that made you laugh then, “affair? that sounds scandalous”, she kept looking at you, “well I hate to break it to you but this kind of is sweetheart”. she was right of course, but it did slip your mind at times how odd your involvement might seem to others, since it felt so right and natural to you. “so, is that a turn on for you? that this is kinda fucked up?” you teased, looking at her with a challenging grin as she leaned back and eyed you in a way that brought color to your cheeks, a pregnant pause on her part before answering “no comment.”, a smugness to her expression that gave away what the actual answer was. 

once the dishes were in front of you, she had a lot of fun getting you to try everything first, she wanted to watch your reaction before joining you in eating, and she was not disappointed, you clearly loved all of it, after a full day of travel a meal like that was exhilarating, the sauces were seasoned just right, thick and savory, the dumplings tasted divine, soft and pillowy, practically melting on your tongue, the iced tea was perfect, a great contrast to the heat of the spicy meal. Tess had a thing for watching you eat, her way of loving you was largely based on wanting you to feel good, in every sense of the word, so seeing you take pleasure in something, whether that be her touch, her words, her attention, or the things she gave you to eat and drink, it all made her feel like she was doing a good job; to her being your lover meant more than just having sex with you or spending time with you, she thought of it as her responsibility to make sure that her presence was actively bettering your life, your well being, so a dinner like that where you said things like “this might be the best meal I´ve had in years” made her heart swell. at her core, Tess wanted to feel like she had a purpose, and despite how closed off she might have seemed to those around her all her life, she´d always been the type to go looking for that kind of fulfillment in devotion to another person, the kind that is so deep and visceral and sacred that it almost seems sacrilegious to speak of it to other people. it seemed unthinkable for her to try and explain to someone else what you meant to her. 

after you both put your utensils down and sipped the rest of your drinks, she had something on her mind, “can I ask you something?”, a gentle tone,“sure yes”. she thought about how to word it for a second, you leaned your head on your hand as you waited for her to speak. “you weren´t with many people before me, right?” you shook your head “no”. you saw no point in lying to her, you wanted her to know you and she was glad that you trusted her. “well, I was just wondering, is it strange for you sometimes, that you´re having these experiences with someone much older? you can be honest with me, really, I can handle it” the seriousness with which she said that touched you, it was clear that she wanted to make sure that you were comfortable, that you knew you could talk to her openly.

 “it´s sweet of you to ask but no, not at all. I was actually thinking about this recently, the fact that I feel more like myself around you than with the people I tried to date in college. it just never clicked, I always felt like I was putting on an act, you know? but with you it was so easy from the beginning. I never felt awkward or weird around you, it was freeing in that way. i mean, it still is, so no, it doesn´t feel strange” she could tell that you meant it and it put her at ease, you played with the straw of your drink as you added “I do sometimes have thoughts about my age too, because I never want you to get bored or anything, since I´m less experienced in many ways”, she sensed that there was a hint of insecurity in there and she was puzzled by it “okay that is nonsense, really. trust me, I have been with “experienced” women and that doesn´t mean shit, some of them had no idea how to treat a partner or how to be a decent person in general. they could learn a thing or two from you, believe me, you´re a dream to be with”, you smiled at her, charmed by that answer, reaching out to caress her forearm, “also, just to add to your question, it should be pretty obvious to you that I don´t care about your age because you´re fucking hot”, she laughed then, shaking her head, flattered by your ever so shameless way of lusting after her “okay, sure, let´s not act like saints here, I also wouldn´t have invited you to my place if I didn´t wanna fuck you”, she said it that way on purpose to mess with you a little, grinning at you as your face briefly got colored in shock. “okay I see, that´s how it is” you responded, but of course you didn´t mind one bit, it felt good to get back into that familiar thing of trying to catch each other off guard with out of pocket comments.

eventually she got the bill, she wouldn´t have let you pay even a fraction of it in a million years, and you both made your way back outside. by that time it was dark and the air had gotten chilly, so she made sure to wrap her arm tightly around you as you walked back to her apartment, but before you could reach her place her attention got caught by something. “oh, I forgot about this place”, you followed her gaze and saw that she was looking at a shop across the street, “they have this really fancy ice cream, it´s a little overprized but worth it. you want some?” she asked, “yeah sure!”. it was hard to pick because the flavors all sounded uniquely delicious, but you eventually settled on salted caramel while she got a dark chocolate raspberry mix, conveniently there was an empty bench right next to the store, so you sat down and got comfortable while tasting the desert and nodding at each other in approval as the intense flavor spread on your tongues. 

“yeah this is it” you said, immediately going in for more. she had her arm behind your back on the bench and watched what was going on around you for a while, before her attention was drawn to your mouth. you had no idea what she was thinking as you licked the ice cream but the sight of your tongue swirling around like that, the undeniable erotic quality of those movements, it made her rethink her attitude towards getting head from you. previously she´d almost always been the giver, you´d gotten her off here and there and you´d made it clear to her that you´d enjoy doing more for her, but she had yet to take you up on the offer, perhaps because she was scared of being vulnerable in that way, but as she kept watching you devour the slowly melting ice cream, your lips glistening from it, she couldn´t help but feel a heat between her legs as she imagined how it would feel to have your tongue on her, to have you savoring her taste. Tess was not one to lose her composure easily but she was getting impatient, she felt a violent need building up inside of her that was bordering on the unbearable, so she cleared her throat before announcing “I think we should go home.”, a weight to the words that made you turn to face her, the moment you locked eyes with her you could tell what she was actually saying, which was I need to get my hands on you right now. so you kept your answer brief “okay” and let her pull you up. 

both of you were quiet and walked significantly faster than earlier, there had been a build-up of desire for weeks, countless dreams of each other, countless hours of aching for each other´s touch, and in that moment it came crashing over both of you in full force. the hours before it had been on a low simmer but in that moment it boiled over and you were struck by a need for each other that was so deep and intense that you almost had trouble breathing as you hurried up the stairs to her apartment. 

the moment the door was shut behind you, she dragged you to her bedroom and you couldn´t help but smile from being wanted that desperately. she barely managed to switch on her bedside lamp before she turned back to you and kissed you hard, her hands on the sides of your face, a whimpering sound from you as you felt your whole body burning up for her; you both started fumbling with each other´s clothes immediately, almost ripping them off until you were left in your underwear, allowing yourselves a moment of admiring the other person´s physique in the dim light, your eyes drawn to her broad shoulders, her strong upper arms, the way her hair was falling down over them in waves, her eyes drawn to your stomach, your hips, that space right above your thighs she was dying to grab. you quickly pulled each other close to kiss again, feverishly and sloppier than before while she pushed you towards the bed, you were grabbing each other all over, wherever your hands landed, a force to the way your fingers dug into each other´s flesh that got you more and more worked up, it was pure bliss to finally have it back, that dizzying passion.

Tess backed you up onto the mattress, you were flat on your back then as she climbed over you and pinned your arms down at your sides, her fresh musky fragrance clouding your mind as you looked up at her and sighed “don´t hold back, please”, she always had to be careful with leaving marks while you were in your hometown, but now you were free, so she lost no time and abandoned restraint, kissing you all over your neck, sucking and biting the soft skin that she´d missed so terribly, your skin various shades of red in certain places, soaking up the sounds you were making, a mix between sighs and moans, not too loud yet but definitely getting there as she moved down to your chest. during the times you´d fucked before you´d always done it in a rush, worried your time was running out, but in that moment it was completely different, after she left your neck raw from having her way with you, you both hastily got rid of your underwear, you climbed on top of her, flush against each other, chest to chest as you made out, her hands roaming all over your body, switching between squeezing and caressing, yours next to her face as you got lost in the heat of the full body contact, the overwhelming sensuality, doing things that you hadn´t thought of doing before, kissing her arm all the way down, taking the time to taste every part of her that you´d spent so much time staring at, which was driving her insane, feeling your soft lips tender on her hand, briefly taking her fingers in your mouth, a low sound of pleasure from her as you messily licked over her stomach, her tits, leaving a trail of spit until you reached her throat and eventually put your lips back to hers, obsecene with it, open mouthed and moaning as your tongues met, your hands in her hair, both moving your hips as you kissed, increasingly desperate to do more, to release the tension that had built up at your core; without even consciously trying to, you ended up in a position that allowed you to rub up against each other, you still on top of her, grinding against her as your wetness mixed with hers and got you both to a point of pathetic whining very quickly, your palms flat on her chest for support as she stared at you in awe, her hands firm at your sides, both of you suddenly overcome with the need to sigh sweet things to each other, a constant echo of, “you´re so pretty” , “I missed you so much”, “you feel so good”, wrapping each other in the comfort of those words as you felt yourselves throbbing from the constant friction, the slick feeling of the other person´s heat against your own, the divine sensation whenever you found just the right angle and rocked back and forth like that, moaning in unison. eventually you locked eyes as you felt that you might cum at the same time, so you leaned down and breathed into each other´s open mouths as you finished, too far gone too kiss properly, remaining like that and clinging to each other out of breath. 

Tess was gripped by the need to have you on her fingers, to feel how soaked you were from the inside, so she pushed you onto the empty space next to her, urging you to lay back and get comfortable as she moved her hand down between your legs and felt how soaked you´d gotten, a breathy, “fuck..” as she used the mess to slick up her fingers, a needy, almost pained sound from you then, “you feel so good” she praised as she slowly pushed two of her fingers into you, addicted to the feeling of your velvety hot flesh as she went knuckle deep, an almost animal-like possessiveness in to her physicality then that rendered you defenseless, entirely at her mercy, trembling with the thrill of being taken by her as she leaned down to kiss your chest, fucking you slowly to really feel it, the way you were throbbing, rocking against her hand. Tess sighed against your skin as she felt you turning into an utter mess for her, “fuck, right there”, you cried as she found the spot she needed to target, your hands gripping the sheets, your head pressed into the pillow as she sucked on your neck and made you almost black out with the double arousal from being both fingered and kissed, both your lower and upper body on fire from the feeling of her all over you, the ache at your core deepening each passing second from her relentless pressure on your sweet spot, your legs wide open for her even though you felt the need to press them together, “always such a good girl for me, hm?” she praised as she saw that you were trying to be easy for her, “so fucking pretty like this”, she knew what her words were capable of doing to you, especially when she kept her voice low and whispery, so she used it to drive you over the edge, her mouth close to your ear, her breath warm against your face as she had you trapped beneath her, working at your throbbing core, feeling you clench around her fingers as she kept whispering to you, about how hot you sounded, how many times she´d fantasized about doing exactly that, how nothing else made her finish lately when touching herself, your nails digging into her back as you felt yourself coming undone, “it´s okay, I got you” she assured as you tried to let go and let yourself cum around her fingers, eventually unable to hold off any longer as the climax shook you to your core, more visceral than the one before, biting down on her shoulder to stifle the sounds, which made her groan in pleasure, the feeling of your teeth digging into her flesh like that, an unexpected thrill to the pain, she´d have let you draw blood if you´d wanted to. for a moment she refused to let go, even though you were clearly spent, and kept her hand on the mess she´d just made, moving her hand up to your clit to tease you during the aftershocks of your orgasm, which you didn´t mind, it felt good, to be overstimulated, to be pushed into a state of total surrender to her touch, her impact, softer and quieter moans from you then as she watched you, mesmerized by the beauty of your face when you were lost in pleasure, “my angel” slipping out of her mouth as you eventually pulled her hand up to lick it clean for her.

once you found your words again you leaned closer to her ear and whispered “tell me what to do, I´ll do whatever you want”, an eagerness to your tone that hit her right where she was weakest. nothing satisfied Tess more than having you surrender to her, having you waiting for her instructions, desperate to please by letting her do whatever she wanted, but in that moment a different urge came over her, she ran her hands up and down your spine as she responded, “you still wanna taste me?”, which made you move your face change in an instant, conveying your clear “yes” with an intense look, it was like she´d awakened a hunger in you that you´d kept at bay, but now that she was giving you the green light, you felt yourself salivating at the thought, “please, yes”. she nodded, giving you a light slap on your thigh, motioning for you to get down to her legs, “go on then”. 

even though you were switching roles of giver and receiver, she was still going to be the dominant one, and you wouldn´t have wanted it any other way. you your placed your hands on her warm thighs as you got down between them, kissing the soft inside at first, the part of her body you´d admired so many times, finally yours, as she leaned back and tried to let go of the slight tension she felt. it was made easy by your tender way of going about it, it turned her on immensely, the contrast of your style versus hers, she knew you needed her to be rough and greedy with it, while you knew that she needed you to be devoted and eager, it got her good, the feeling of looking down at a pretty girl between her legs, visibly aching for her taste. you briefly got lost in the haze of covering her thighs in little kisses and bites, almost worshiping her in a way, but you could feel her growing impatient, her hands moving to your hair as she uttered, “enough teasing, baby”, urging you to give her what she wanted. you kept your hands hooked around her legs as you put your tongue to her cunt, hit by how wet she´d gotten from your fucking before, licking it up in broad strokes before you pushed your face closer, your tongue between her folds then, her grip on you tightening, “that´s it” she praised, “keep going”, so you took the cue and turned it sloppier and more intense, sliding your tongue up and down in a steady rhythm, moving your face with the motions to add more force, “fuck..” you could hear her moan as her head fell back and her back arched up a little, it was completely overwhelming for her in the best sense, she was too prideful to be very loud but she could have moaned pathetically right then if she´d let herself, it had been a while since anyone had eaten her out and you were doing it so passionately, so clearly not just for her pleasure but your own too, that she wondered why the fuck she had denied herself that kind of heaven, her eyes shut, her body on fire, her mind full of only one thought “I love her, I love this girl, I lover her so much”,  a sudden rush of adoration for you that could have made her cry from the overstimulated feelign of being fucked while she felt it; meanwhile you were also weak with the weight of your arousal, you could feel yourself growing wetter and needier as your whole lower face got coated in her cum, it was exactly what you´d dreamed of so many times, to finally return the favor, to show her how good it felt to be taken care of in that way, drunk on the taste of her, knowing that you´d stay down there for hours if she told you to, comforted by the feeling of being trapped between her thighs. 

eventually she could feel a familiar knot tightening at her core and pushed your head further against herself, her fingers rough in your hair, which got a sound out of you that was whiny and pathetic, dumb with lust as you felt her forcing you closer with that move, keeping her hands there and not letting you move an inch as she struggled to remain quiet, “just like that, don´t stop”, the praise was all you needed to get perverse with it, your spit mixed with her juices leaving her skin and yours a total mess as you devoured her, switching from licking to sucking on her clit to give her a final push, an immediate low groan leaving her lips, breathless by that point, her hips moving upward as she felt the beginning of an orgasm spreading through her whole body, building up to a hard release as you kept your lips on her, nails digging into her flesh as you let her rock against your face as hard as she wanted, soaking up every little noise she made as she came, every move of her muscles, high on the knowledge that it was your doing, her unraveling. once she was left slack and intensely flushed, you slowly moved your face away and gave her thigh a last indulgent bite before moving up to look at her, your hand on her chest as you laid down next to her, the room silent except for your shared attempt to breathe steadily again. a few moments later a smile spread across her tired face, turning her face to see your prideful expression. 

“you´re a freak, hm?” she teased, brushing a strand of hair out of your sweat-stricken face. “oh, you´re just now noticing?” you said, grinning at her, “maybe. I should´ve let you do that sooner, god..”, she shook her head, still coming down from the high you just gave her, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment as you traced patterns on her skin with your index finger, staring at her in awe, the blush on her cheeks, her messed up hair. “hm, agree. but you know, we can make up for lost time this week”, she nodded, “oh, we will, yes.”, moving her body over to trap you, her arms by your sides then, looking down at you before kissing you, not a care in the world about the fact that she could taste herself on your lips, covering your face in kisses, eliciting quiet sighs and giggles from you. after she pulled back she put her hand flat on your slightly bruised chest,“we should take a shower, I think”.“we?” you asked, in slight disbelief over the fact that she was willing to be that vulnerable; fucking was one thing, getting cleaned up together was another, and it was true, usually Tess did not do that with the women she was seeing, but she could not stand the idea of leaving you in her room as she showered, or waiting for you as you did, it was different with you. “yes, we, I´m not done with this yet”, she said while gesturing at your exposed form, so you smiled “okay, come on then”, still somewhat weak as you peeled yourself off of the bed and waited for her to lead the way.

Tess´s bathroom was tiled in a dark green color, so at night it had a cozy and slightly cave-like feeling , as opposed to the white tiled ones you were used to, you noticed this as she turned on the shower and made sure the temperature was fine, before you both got in and stood facing each other, your hands loosely resting on each other´s waists, barely a few inches apart. 

a few seconds after the hot water started running down your skin, it hit you both at the same time, that getting showering together was somehow more exposing than having sex because your bodies weren´t in motion or in a particularly sexy pose, you were both just standing there, vulnerable, your bodies visible for what they were in their natural state. Tess could tell that you shared some of her sudden shyness and got an idea, before you could reach for any body wash, she did it herself and told you “turn around, let me do that for you, baby”, which she didn´t have to say twice. she put some product in her hands and rubbed them together to create some foam before gently moving her palms over your back, lightly kissing your shoulder for a second, and you could feel yourself relaxing into her touch immediately. the vaguely citrusy and herbal scent started mixing with the steam of the water and gave the shower a spa like feeling, she moved her hands all over you in deliberate gentle motions, enjoying the sensation of your soft skin coated in the creamy soap, almost hypnotized by it, she could have kept doing that for a while, so she made a mental note of offering you a massage sometime. “that feels nice” you sighed as you leaned back against her a little, and she couldn´t help but move her hands to your chest then to pull you even closer, her hands briefly over your tits, the hint of a moan leaving you then, which didn´t escape her, so she kept her fingers there for a moment, a smile on your face as your head rested against her shoulder, “I think I´ll pass out if you actually try to do anything right now”, your body was already exhausted from before and you felt the heat sinking into your limbs, leaving you relaxed but also hot enough to a point where you suspected that extreme arousal might actually make you lose consciousness. Tess smiled too then, “well we don´t want that, do we”, but as she said that you abruptly turned around and put your hands on her neck, staring at her as you pressed yourself against her to transfer some of the soap onto her, the feeling of it somehow more intense than you both expected, being chest to chest while water and foam were slicking you up, so you leaned in to kiss her, only briefly, but she pulled you back in the moment she could feel space between your lips again, she had no desire to stop as she felt you submitting to her force but it didn´t take long for her to lose her breath, so you both ended up standing there panting, desperate for air because the room was all fogged up. 

both of you laughed then, “we´re fucking losing it” you said, hugging her as you closed your eyes and felt her wet chest against yours, “yeah I´m done for, we need to get out before we overheat and die”, so you both rinsed off together and stepped out, wrapping yourselves in big towels.

as you dried off and stood on the shower mat, your gaze fell to the sink, “two toothbrushes?” you exclaimed, exaggerating a scandalized tone, “is this the point where you confess to me that you´ve had a girlfriend all along?”. Tess shook her head, “yeah you figured it all out, I´m just using you to cheat, sorry” her tone dripping in irony, you couldn´t help but smile then as she pointed at what you were referring to, “that´s a fresh one for you, genius, because I know how easy it is to forget shit like that”. of course she was right, you could recall countless times of cursing yourself for not having packed something small but important like deodorant or toothpaste and you were charmed by her considerate ways, the idea of her wondering what you might need before you´d come to her place.“that´s really cute, thank you” but ,as always, she didn´t wanna hear it, so you quietly joined her by the sink and kept looking at her with soft eyes as you both brushed your teeth. Tess was facing the mirror but she could feel your gaze on her side profile and let herself enjoy it, not turning to you, just soaking up that quiet moment of intimacy, the sensation of having your undivided loving attention.

once you were both dressed in comfortable nightwear and back in bed you couldn´t help but smile to yourself as got comfortable under the covers, you were content to your core, thrilled by the fact that you were finally gonna sleep next to her again. you felt a delicious sense of satisfaction over the fact that nobody had any idea what you were doing, that it was your secret, in a sense it made you feel powerful, to have your joy all to yourself like that, without any witnesses but her. Tess looked down at you, pride bubbling up in her over the fact that you clearly loved your situation, “happy?”, she asked, knowing the answer, you nodded, moving yourself closer to her, “yeah this is perfect. god this mattress is like a cloud, my bed is not nearly this nice”, she smiled, her hand on top of the blanket that you´d pulled up to your shoulders, “well, I have a hot tip for you then, when you eventually get your own place, splurge on your bed instead of fancy decoration or furniture. trust me, your back will start hurting soon enough”. you laughed, “okay, noted. sweet of you to assume I´ll make enough money to have my own apartment, with the housing market as it is.. let's see about that one”, she smiled, “you have a point, yes. but I have faith, if everything fails, something tells me you won´t have trouble finding some older richer woman to take you in”, you joined in on the joke, “right, I´m getting great practice here. except for the rich part of course”.

she leaned down to kiss you, more tenderly than before, light kisses that didn´t burn but calm you, she liked having you under her, so she stayed like that for a moment until she got more comfortable next to you, sinking further down into her pillow. you remembered something then.

“I saw a book on your nightstand earlier”, “yes..” she said, a hint of apprehension in there, “what is it?” you asked, looking at her expectantly. “I actually haven't picked it up in ages”, her tone less unwavering than usual, “yes, I´m listening”, you could tell she was dodging the question. “okay but don´t you dare laugh”. “laugh?? what.. is it some trashy romance novel? weird erotica?”, she shoved your arm then, “no! is that what you think of me? really?”, you shrugged, “hey I have no idea what you´re into”. you were expecting something embarrassing but it turned out to be the exact opposite. she reached over to grab the book, holding it out to you so you could read the title yourself, you recognized the name on the cover. “Mary Oliver? you think I´d make fun of you for reading one of the best poets of all time? Tess come on, do you think I´m an asshole?”, she was relieved, for some reason she´d felt shy about admitting a more private interest of hers to you, “no of course not, I don´t know. I guess it just doesn´t really fit my image, does it?”, “your image? you really don´t want people to know you feel things deeply, hm? a bit too late with me, hate to break it to you, love”, she smiled then, at the casual use of the word “love”, and because it was true, there was no need to pretend around you, you´d already seen her at her most romantic and vulnerable, so she opened up a little. “it´s actually the one book I´ve had the longest. one day when I was in my late 20s I was going through it, like truly the worst fucking day ever, and for some reason ended up in a bookstore. I was just browsing, kind of losing my mind, and then came across this collection. I guess I liked that the poems were hopeful without being corny or overwrought. I kept going back to it whenever I was kind of.. I don´t know, lost?”. you gave that confession a few moments of respectful silence before saying, “that´s really sweet”. it was touching to you, that she was so shy about the fragile parts of herself, the ones that she had probably kept to herself for most of her life, concealed by her very convincingly tough aura.

“actually, could you maybe read me some of those”, you asked her, which made her turn to face you again, “what, like a bedtime story?” slightly confused, “no, just.. I like your voice. I like hearing you speak”. “yeah I am well aware, ever since a certain phone call a few weeks ago” she said with a smug expression, “oh shut up, this isn´t about that, I am trying to be sincere. I am asking you to read to me because I-” you almost slipped up and said “because I love you”, you saved yourself before the words could come out, but your abrupt pause was a giveaway, she knew what you´d thought, and it hit her, but she let it go, though she wouldn´t forget it, “because it would soothe me” you said instead. “okay, okay let me see if I can find some favorites. come over here” she said, pulling you closer, your head against her side then as she had put her arm around your back. 

“I don´t have any practice of course, so bear with me” she prefaced, but the moment she read the first few words out loud, you were sucked into it immediately, the slow rhythm of it, the humm in her chest that you could feel because you were pressed against her, the deliberate pauses she made, it was deeply relaxing to listen to, so you closed your eyes. after a few verses she stopped, unsure if you´d want her to continue, but you urged her “hm you´re good at this, go on”, so she did, remembering the parts of certain poems she´d held close to her heart when she was younger, a sweet contrast, to be sharing something with a lover that she´d often turned to when she had been at her loneliest. a few minutes in, Tess could feel your drifting off, your breathing became slower and your head became heavier, so eventually she quietly put the book down and stayed like that, her fingers lightly running up down your spine as you fell asleep in her embrace. for a while she did not allow herself to move because she loved the feeling of having you nestled against her like that, but eventually her eyes got heavy and she switched off her bedside lamp, moving herself down to lay her head near yours, your breath warm against her face as she joined you in a dreamless sleep. 

all the intense impressions from the day before had made it so that you both slept through the night without any interruptions, so by the time you first woke up the next day it was already around 9 am. for a while you laid there half-conscious, sprawled out comfortably over her large bed, your arms stretched out on either side, which eventually signaled to you that you were alone. reliably, Tess had gotten up before you, you were well aware by then that she was not the type to sleep in late, even on her off days, so you forced yourself to wake up for good and join her. 

as you walked into the living room, slightly self-conscious about your disheveled appearance, she had her back turned because she was busy with the coffee machine, so a few seconds into watching her you cleared your throat, a bright smile on your face as she turned around, “oh hey! perfect timing, I just got done with this” she said, pointing at the table. the first thing that caught your eye was a vase filled with beautiful flowers, the kind that almost looked like they grew in the wild, dainty but colorful, shades of lilac and pink, they hadn´t been there the day before. “wow, those are stunning. wait, you were outside already?”, you asked, she nodded as she came over to you and gave you a light kiss on the cheek before urging you to sit down with her, “yeah, I wanted to make this a little nicer than just.. you know boring old toast. we have this bakery around here, I don´t often get stuff for myself but I thought you´d like it. oh and these yeah, I recall you liking flowers so, they stood out to me”. she said it all so nonchalantly but it was really special to you, that she´d gone out of her way to do all that because you´d have been fine with much less, you still felt a bit of sleep in your eyes as you looked at what was in front of you, “drink something first” she ordered, pointing at the three glasses of water, juice, and coffee in front of you, so you did, as she went on to explain what she´d bought. “okay, so, this one is a croissant with pistachio filling, it´s kind of what they´re known for, but I really like the white and dark chocolate swirl one so if you want we can share”, you agreed, watching her rip them both in two, placing the halves on your plate and watching you closely as you tried them, “oh wow, that´s fucking good” you said as the intense sweet flavor hit your tongue, she leaned back, satisfied, successful in her attempt to start your day off in an ideal way. 

“you know, it´s kind of unfair that you always get dressed before me” you bemoaned, gesturing at her outfit as you both ate, “you always look better than me in the morning”, she shook her head, her mouth still half full as she mumbled “bullshit. that´s your warped perception, trust me, most people would prefer waking up to that” a wave of her hand in your direction as she said this. “well, not everyone has good taste, so” you joked, grinning at her, “right, and you do?”, she couldn´t deny that it felt good to be accused of upstaging you in the looks department even thought she vehemently disagreed. “clearly, look at this, I´m spoiled as hell”, she couldn´t really argue with that, still, she wondered if you actually thought you looked worse than her in that moment, because she had a hard time keeping herself from letting you finish your meal uninterrupted. she´d have liked to go over to you to slip her hand under your shirt, to feel your skin that was still warm from sleep. 

for a while you both leisurely emptied your plates and cups and talked about whatever came to mind, enjoying the feeling of a slow summer morning, of sharing a domestic kind of intimacy. “so, what are we doing today?” you asked her eventually, eager to do whatever she wanted, your eyes glimmering with excitement at the thought of still having the whole day ahead of you. “well, I have an idea, but I´m gonna need you to hear me out...” she seemed slightly unsure, so you wondered what was gonna come “sure, tell me”. “okay, so, about 45 minutes outside of the city there´s this really beautiful hike but not the boring kind, trust me, it´s not just an endless fucking trail, it´s this forest landscape with a bunch of little rivers and a lake, I went there a lot when I was younger, and since it´s a weekday I doubt we´d run into many people. also-” you interrupted her then, “you don´t have to convince me Tess, I´m down, let´s do it. do you think I´m that unathletic, that I´m scared of a hike?” you said, smiling and giving her a questioning look, she smiled too then, “well I guess I´ll see what we´re working with once we´re there, right?”. “you´re scared you´ll have to carry me once I get tired, huh?” you teased, “oh, you´d like that wouldn´t you” she said, “probably yeah. but don´t worry, I´ll manage. in fact, maybe I´ll have to support you in the end, you know, since you´re..”, “old?” she finished the sentence for you, acting offended, “I´m not 70 sweetie, so let´s see who has to take a break first” she challenged you, leaning forward as she said it, you returned the energy, “won´t be me”, even though you knew she could probably triumph over you in terms of endurance, something told you she wasn´t the type to ever admit that she felt weak, both emotionally and physically. 

after breakfast you spent some time on the couch, you half on her lap, her hands on you, a soft lazy exchange of touches and kisses until it was around 11:00 and you mustered up the energy to get ready as well. 

by noon you were in her car, sharing a bottle of ice cold water because it was already warming up by that hour, the windows down and the radio playing as you found all kinds of things to talk about: classes you were gonna take in the new year, jokes from her side about you probably being a teacher´s pet considering you talent for charming people her age, you grilling her about details from work, gossip she could share, trying but failing to get her to spill some stuff about exes of hers, whether you fit her usual type, if she even had one, but Tess was steadfast in her refusal to share any of that, leaving you to tease her with speculations like “I bet there was some hot intern at work you had a thing with. maybe you fucked in the office or something, is that it?” until you reached your destination and quit the banter. 

she hadn´t over-promised, the area was absolutely stunning; trees as tall as buildings as far as the eye could reach. you were at the beginning of a path that had a slow incline and would lead you to the top of a hill, the thick row of trees would offer enough shade for it to be an enjoyable hike and the little patches of flowers and plants you had never seen before offered enough to keep your eyes busy. 

the first half hour passed very quickly, both you and Tess kept pointing out things to each other, stopping every now and then to inspect certain kinds of berries of particularly colorful kinds of flowers, her teasing you by ripping out some leaves and running them over your skin to catch you off guard with the sensation, getting a high pitched squeal out of you that made her bend over in laughter and earned her a kick to the shin from you. you liked watching her as you made your way deeper into the forest, it was hot to you, seeing her physically exhaust herself, her leg muscles straining whenever there was a steepness to your path, her breath heavier, her face dewy from the heat, she could feel your eyes on her as you went a little quiet and she liked it, knowing that you were checking her out, so eventually she stopped, leading you to a tree and backing you up against it as she grinned at you, waiting for you to follow your instinct, which you immediately did, pulling her in for a kiss as she slid her hands under your shirt and enjoyed the thrill of feeling you up in public, kissing your neck as you felt the bark of the tree against your head, your hair getting caught as you shut your eyes and sighed from the sensation of her sucking on the skin right above your collarbone until she pulled away and left you flushed and disheveled, acting all innocent as she said “shall we continue?” pointing at the path and walking away from you, a shake of your head as you tried to slow your breathing and to forget about the fact that for a second there you´d hoped that she might actually fuck you in public. one day, you thought, one day she´ll cave and do it.

about an hour in, you both felt a rush of gratitude as you reached an area that made you gasp in awe, “oh wow”, you said, as you looked at a river that was wide enough to swim in, a truly picturesque scene, and because you were both sweating and ready for a break by that point, you looked at each and realized that you were thinking the same thing. “should we?...” you asked, pointing at the river, Tess thought about it, “god that would feel so good right now, wouldn´t it? you know what, let´s do it, we can go in our underwear, it´ll dry fast if we sit there for a few minutes after”. “oh I was just talking about taking our shoes off and getting our legs in there” you said, surprised by her bold idea. “oh no, all or nothing baby. come on, it´ll be fun” she nudged you playfully, so you gave in because it did sound delicious in that moment, to cool your hot body, the sound of the rushing water practically luring you in. “alright, fuck it, let´s do it” you put your bag down and unzipped your shorts as she did the same. 

as you stood there after getting rid of your shirt, Tess leered at you, pointing at your bra “I think you should take that off too” a smug grin on her face, you put your hand on your hip and raised your eyebrows, “right, so some stranger who is walking by can creep on me?”, she shook her head, grinning, “no. so I can creep on you.” emphasis on the I as she pointed at herself. you suppressed a smile and challenged her, “I´ll do it if you do it”. Tess sometimes forgot that you admired her body the same way she did yours, so your request surprised her but she just shrugged, “sure, okay”, moving her hands to her back to free herself of the last piece of fabric on her upper body, you doing the same thing, slightly shy once you were left topless, your hands over your tits as you looked at the water, dipping a toe in to gauge the temperature.

“oh fuck thats cold” you cold feel goosbumps forming on your skin and she was definitely bolder than you, immediately wading into the water, knee deep within seconds, braving through the initial shock, teeth clenched until she got over it, waving you in, her body mesmerizing, strong and almost god-like in the light of the midday sun. “come on, its fine, you can do it” she encouraged, endeared by the way you held your body then, arms clasped around yourself for comfort. you tensed up as you took a few steps in, Tess lowered herself in the meantime, submerging her whole body except for her head in the cool waves, “trust me sweetheart, this feels great”, so you just took the final step and mirrored what she was doing, a gasp as you felt the cold all over your skin, a few seconds of discomfort until you felt the utter satisfaction of being one with the elements like that on a warm summer day. “come here”, she ordered, so you swam over to her, feeling her pull you closer underwater, your hands around her neck then, your legs loosely wrapped around her back as you both stayed like that for a moment, the water running over you in a steady stream, the sound of birds and rustling leaves hanging in the air, a scene straight of of an Impressionist painting, shades of green and blue all around, accents of reflected sunlight on the surface of the river, you right in the middle, it was like you were truly outside of your lives for a moment, which was visible on your faces before you leaned in and kissed. 

after a while you pulled back and felt the sudden urge to try and push her underwater, so you put your arms on her exposed shoulders and applied some force but she just looked at you, patient, smiling, unaffected, “nice try” she uttered, somewhat condescending; she was clearly not going to be overpowered and you knew it but it was a thing you liked to do sometimes, testing her strength to get a little turned on by how impossible it was to match it. eventually, you gave up but before you could think about swimming away she did what you had tried to do but she did it successfully, pushing you under the surface, not too hard but keeping her hands on your head for a few seconds as you shut your eyes and felt the silence of being totally engulfed by water, a feeling you hadn´t experienced in years, which admittedly wasn´t all that unpleasant. after she let go and you came back up for air you immediately splashed water onto her face, shaking your head as you wiped your eyes and adjusted your soaking wet hair. “you know” you said, staring at her, out of breath, “you could fully drown me right now and nobody would ever know. I didn´t tell a soul I´m here, so, you could get away with it”, she was moving her arms through the water in a soothing motion as she returned your look, amused by your strange remark, “well fuck, you got me. this whole thing was just an elaborate scheme to get you out here and kill you”, you kept standing where you were, water dripping down your chest as you responded “yeah I figured, that´s your thing right?. kidnapping fantasies”, she shook her head, “okay easy, a little too far”, but you weren´t done yet, “no? you don´t like that? thinking about tying me up and-”. before you could even finish the sentence she pulled you down and put her hand over your mouth to shut you up “okay, you´re fucking insane”. Tess reacted that way partially because you´d struck a cord, she didn´t have violent sexual fantasies but she did like the idea of restraining you, which got her riled up as you joked about it.

the whole ordeal ended in you both being half submerged in the waves and laughing, holding hands as you both laid down on your backs to float on the water, the sun warming your front side as the river cooled the back, a delicious contrast, about fifteen minutes of peaceful silence and bliss, your fingers interlaced so you wouldn´t drift away from each other, more relaxed than you could remember being in ages. 

after you got out of the water you laid down in the grass by the shore, waiting for your skin to dry off before you could get dressed again, the breeze gently caressing your nearly nude bodies. 

eventually you both sat upright, looking around at the scenery as you started talking again. 

“can I ask you something personal?” you said after a while, your head resting on your knees as you looked at her from the side, Tess was ripping out single strands of grass absentmindedly as she looked back at you, “another question about perverted kinks I might have?”, you laughed, rolling your eyes at her, “no.”, “go on then”. “did you ever consider the whole getting married and having kids thing? when you were younger I mean”. 

Tess had a joke on her tongue about not being the type of woman that people would love to bring home to their parents, but she decided to be earnest, sensing that you were actually interested. “kids definitely not. and marriage, hm.. well, when I was in my 20s I was busy just surviving and figuring my shit out, so I never thought about it back then, but sure, when I was in my 30s and people around me started having kids and settling down, it did cross my mind sometimes. but if I´m being totally honest, I think that wouldn´t have been the right way for me. maybe if I´d met the right person, but not a huge white wedding..” she shook her head at the thought, you were listening with deep interest, “maybe an elopement or something, I do like that idea. but also, I witnessed a good amount of nasty divorces in my time, truly awful shit, so I think this is actually a pretty fortunate situation to be in at my age” she motioned back and forth between you two, smiling conspiratively, you nodded, returning the smile. “that makes sense, I mean look at my parents.. that shit was not good”, she made a sound of agreement “yeah exactly. but what about you?”, she leaned closer then, tapping your leg. “me?”, “yes, what´s your stance on all that, you´re young, you still have time”. you sat up then, leaning back on your hands, staring off into the distance as you thought about it. “god I don´t know...”, Tess was still looking at you, “well I think you´re gonna make some lucky woman lose her fucking mind”, she chimed in, you stared at her then, “stop, no, I´m with you right now and I like it this way, I don´t want to imagine some potential future wife”. it struck Tess then that she´d implied the obvious, that you two were not going to be with each other for decades to come, so she softened a little as she realized that you did not like that thought at all, turning to humor to lighten the mood again. “well, you know, if your dad is still single then, I´ll make him take me as his plus one to your wedding.” your expression lightened then, touching her thigh for emphasis as you said, “well, if you want me to cheat on my wife on our wedding day, sure, go ahead and do that”. Tess pulled you towards her then, kissing your cheek before you laid your head on her chest, “sure, if you ever need a reason to break off an engagement, just call me, I´ll come be your homewrecker”. 

a while later you both felt your bodies growing weaker from the heat of the sun and lack of food, so you made your way back down the trail and stopped at a place to eat lunch. not many words were exchanged during that meal because you were both starving and recovering from moving around way than you usually do in a day. by the time you were back in her apartment she announced, “okay, either I´ll have to make myself the strongest coffee ever or we have to take a nap. you decide”, it was an easy decision, “yeah, let´s sleep for a while I´m exhausted”. 

as she laid down on the couch you went over to her record collection and looked for something that would be soothing as background music, something that could lull you to sleep. she had at least 40 records to choose from, all kinds of genres, mostly from the 70s to 90s but also some modern ones you recognized.“this is impressive” you marveled, as you turned some of them over, inspecting the slightly aged but beautiful covers, Tess already had her eyes closed and felt herself drifting off as she said “thank you. I mean, I´ve had some time to collect those, I think I got the first one at least 25 years ago”, you smiled to yourself then and couldn´t help but say what was on your mind, “so some of these are older than me huh?”, you could hear a groan from across the room, “oh that´s just perfect, really, very romantic of you. how about you pick one and get over here already”, she responded, unwilling to admit that she liked your teasing, so you made your choice and let some soft tune play as you laid down on top of her, her arms around your back, the side of your face positioned on her in a way that allowed you to hear her heartbeat. 

it was a sweet feeling, to lay there with the balcony door cracked, a soft gust of wind every once in a while as you drifted in and out of sleep for about an hour, until you were both awake again but didn´t move yet, enjoying the quiet intimacy of the moment, because it was all you´d wanted for so long, to have the luxury of time, to spend some of it in comfortable silence, only communicating via light touches and caresses. 

later that day you went outside one more time to go stock up on groceries for the week, Tess urging you to get whatever you might want to have at hand in the following days, asking you about which of her ideas for dinner you liked best, so you ended up spending a lot of time just walking around the isles and figuring out each other´s tastes, scanning the liquor shelves together to decide on what would be best to share on her balcony later. it hit you while watching her prepare dinner that night, not on your phone at all during that hour because you loved watching her move around the kitchen, that it felt like you´d lived together for a while, since it all fell into place so naturally. you tried to remain in the present moment but there was a slight pain you felt in your chest whenever you remembered that your situation was only temporary, that you hadn´t actually moved in with her, that you were a guest and would not get the chance to spend that many days in a row together again for a good while. Tess had similar thoughts as she felt you admiring her from across the room, pushing up her sleeves on purpose to show off her arms as she worked her way through the recipe. it was in her nature, that deep desire to center her life around someone else, to devote her energy and time to the needs of another person, she´d never loved living on her own even though she let other believe that she did, it gave her too much time to talk down on herself, to obsess over her shortcomings, to sit with herself long enough to get tired of her mind and go to sleep much earlier than needed. Tess did not thrive in isolation, she needed her alone time and space to unwind, certainly, but that night it was so clear to her, that she was meant to share her life with someone, that she was never happier than when she could tell that another woman was glad to be in her presence, glad to be taken care of by her, that she wanted to live with someone, with you, and would miss having you there quite intensely once you´d have to leave. thankfully, you both got yourselves out of that mood rather quickly once she was done cooking and you helped her set the table, a simple thing, yet so delightful to you, the sight of two plates, two glasses, the reminder that you were part of a union now. 

you ate dinner on the balcony and spent another hour after that sipping on the drinks you´d bought earlier, a few candles on the table, the faint sound of people on the street below you, an atmosphere that made it very easy to forget the time and stay there together on the wooden bench you´d put a blanket over until it was about 11:30 pm, your eyes getting heavy from the booze and the outdoorsy activities earlier that day. for a moment you both rested against each other out there, almost falling asleep because the night air was the perfect temperature, but eventually you both managed to go brush your teeth and fall into bed, heavy and satisfied as she pushed you over to be big spoon, the warmth of her body against your back enough to make you fall asleep within minutes, comforted by her grip on you, even when she was exhausted, that same firmness to her touch, her determination to have you as close as possible.

the next day Tess was clear about the fact that she´d have to show you all her favorite spots downtown, after spending the day before outside of the city, so she took you to two cafes, one for the sake of the coffee the other for the sake of their lunch options, so up until 2 pm you were busy just sitting around in the sun, trying all of her usual orders, approving of them, a little jealous that she had access to that many nice spots, you could imagine studying in those cafes for hours. “maybe during finals season you can come visit for a weekend, I can watch you do that” she joked as you told her that, “you´d like that? just watching me type on my fucking laptop?”, she shrugged, smiling as she ripped a piece off the pastry you were sharing, “I´d enjoy watching you do pretty much anything, sweetheart. also yes, I think it would be hot, you being a nerd right in front of me”, teasing you a little, “my grades aren´t high enough to qualify as nerdy I fear”, she pretended to be shocked, “no? well, we can work on that”, “we? you´d help me how exactly?”, “I don´t know. quiz you, promise you a gift for when you come back with perfect scores”, “okay, I do like the sound of that.”.

that day was a little fresher than the day before so at night you had the idea of taking a bath together, which quickly taught you the lesson that sex underwater only sounded good in theory and was a mess in practice, so you settled on sitting across from each other in the tub with your legs touching, every now and then leaning in to kiss, you putting your lips to her knee after, which was an unexpected tenderness that hit her right at her core, the sight of you bending your head down to places a few soft kisses on her leg. 

on your fourth day with her, it rained from morning til night, so it was an easy decision to stay in bed til noon, to be lazy and stay in your loungewear and order take out, putting on a film while relaxing in the living room as it kept pouring outside, chatting about anything and everything, coaxing more and more personal information out of each other, longer, more intimate stories about your lives, passing the time on the couch, switching between various states of undress, paying no attention to what was playing on the TV. later that night you both got the sudden urge to go outside and get a drink, so you put on some nice clothes, stood in the bathroom together as you fixed your hair and felt a shared giddiness over the prospect of walking arm in arm to the bar she´d picked out, the streets still smelling of wet earth, the moon almost full, people hurrying to their dinner dates or back home, that buzz of the night time in a bigger city. you´d both come to realize that you shared a love for date nights, the cozy darkness, the intimate feeling of sitting in the corner of a crowded room somewhere at that hour, slightly buzzed, faces flushed, hands innocently resting on each other´s thighs as you spoke, you´d both miss it, having a reason to randomly step out of the house at 10pm. you´d miss the feeling of walking up the stairs together a few hours later, tipsy, laughing at each other for almost missing a step and stumbling, grabbing each other´s arms for support. it was a light, effortless kind of joy that made you glow, your faces permanently stuck in a smile while you washed your faces together and helped each other out of your clothes, clumsily feeling each other up before you fell into a deep sleep. 

on Friday you were ready to move around again after you spent majority of the day before being lazy, so you did whatever came to mind as you walked around the city together. after spending some time at the local park and getting lunch, you came across a pretty large thrift store and decided to just take a look around, but it quickly turned into you getting an idea: you wanted to find her clothes you thought she´d look hot in, so you picked a few shirts here and there, both longsleeve and shortsleeve, a jacket you thought that would suit her, until she eventually told you to slow down with the makeover quest, amused by your enthusiasm over styling her. it moved her in a way, to see that you knew her well enough by then to skip over any clothes that were too feminine, briefly wandering over the the men´s section to check out the bigger vintage tees, it contrasted the feeling she´d often had as a young girl, being pressured by others to dress more like a “lady”, something was healing about it, to have you picking out styles for her that actually matched her taste.

she was reluctant at first but after enough begging and kissing her she gave in and changed into some of the things you´d handed to her, unable to deny that you had an eye for her physique and what would suit her, what she´d feel comfortable in. you practically gawked at her as she looked at herself in the mirror. “you know, maybe I fucked up here, you look a little too good, I don´t want other girls to start hitting on you” you mused, your eyes traveling up and down her body, which got a laugh out of her, “I think you need to chill a little with all that praise, I´ll start believing you eventually” she wasn´t going to admit it, but she did enjoy it, the fact that you never held back with compliments, that you almost made her feel shy or blush at times, which was something that usually never happened to her.  “well you should, I´m not just being nice” you insisted, as she came over to you and let you inspect her from up close, “you know, I also have some ideas for things I´d like to see you in” she said, a smile as she lightly traced your bare arm with her fingers, “oh you don´t have to convince me, I´ll try on whatever you want” you said, a smugness to your expression, “anything?”, you nodded, “hm, good to know”, her tone gave away what she was thinking. “what kind are you into? lace? satin? see through?”, she shook her head, not expecting that bold of an answer but enjoying the back and forth, “I´m not telling you that”, “you should buy me something”, you said, batting your eyelashes at her, “buy you lingerie? you want the sugar mommy thing, is that it?” she teased, “jesus how do you even know what that is Tess..” you said, slightly unnerved, which was funny to her, “baby I´m not ancient, I know things. but sure, yes, I will gladly buy you something pretty, although I only really give a fuck about what´s underneath”. 

the rest of that day passed very quickly, the way the whole week had, by Saturday morning you couldn´t believe that you´d already spent that much time at her place because it felt like you´d just arrived the day before, like you were at the beginning of your stay, but to your dismay, it was already coming to an end. 

the days before Tess had been the chef for dinner or you´d gone out to eat, so for your final night at her place you decided that you´d prepare her something. there was a pasta dish that you´d perfected over the years because it was your comfort meal, so you told her to sit back and relax as you assembled all the ingredients you´d need, but she wouldn´t, she leaned against the kitchen counter instead and watched you, enthralled by the sight of you carefully picking herbs off their stems, tasting the sauce over and over to get it to the exact spice level you wanted it, your face shiny from the effort, your cheeks flushed from the steam of the pasta water, all of it turned her on but she tried her best to not get in your way and touch you too much, only giving you the occasional hug from behind here there, whispering sweet things about how good you looked working with your hands, breaking a sweat. 

one thing that you´d done the entire week was to switch between sitting across from each other and next to each other during meals at home because both of the options had their own appeal; sitting next to each other was sweet and intimate, legs touching as you ate, easy access, stealing touches here and there, sitting across from each other was sexier and more charged, since that´s the way you´d sit on a first date, that unavoidable eye contact, the almost confrontational nature of being in your direct line of sight, the ability to lean back and steal glances while the other person wasn´t aware of your gaze, or pretended not to be because it felt good to be looked at like that. 

on that last night, you sat across from each other, inside because the weather had gotten a little too fresh to eat on the balcony. as soon as Tess took the first bite, you realized that you liked it a lot, the roles being reversed, you watching closely for her reaction, hoping for signs of pleasure, which came, an approving nod from her as soon as she swallowed, “no notes”, she said, smiling, charming you, a satisfied look on your face as you joined her in eating. what Tess didn´t know, was that you´d picked up on certain preferences of hers over the week, so you´d added things to the sauce you usually wouldn´t have added, because it was more important to you that it would be to her exact taste, you couldn´t haven cared less about your own feelings about the meal, which was a beautiful thing, to be so preoccupied with pleasing someone else that you forgot about yourself in the process. you could understand why she was always so eager to be of service, you saw the appeal as you watched her clear the plate, not leaving one piece of the pasta untouched. 

after you were both done, Tess quickly realized that she didn´t want to waste any of the remaining hours you had left being unable to touch you, so she suggested that you should move to the couch, grabbing some chocolate from the kitchen, breaking a part off to offer it to you as a palette cleanser before getting comfortable next to you. by then, you knew how you liked to sit together when you wanted to talk properly, your legs on her lap, her hand on your thigh as you sat there, eyeing each other until you broke the silence. “I can´t believe this already our last night..” your tone quiet and earnest, she nodded, “yeah, me neither. feels like it has only been a day or two, honestly, the time passed way too fucking quickly” you cracked a smile then, moving some of her hair out of the way to place your hand on her neck, a lovestruck look. 

during the week neither of you brought it up because it would have been a mood killer but since it was the end of the week Tess felt comfortable asking you “so uhm. did he reach out to you at all while you were here?”, apprehension in there, you knew of course who the “he” in question was. a shake of your head, “no, thank god. probably because I told him I´d call this weekend, I guess I´ll do that tomorrow”. she nodded, absentmindedly caressing you, “hm, good, that´s good. didn´t hear from him either. be honest, did it cross your mind at all?” she genuinely wanted to know if you´d just been good at bluffing or if you´d actually forgotten about the potential horror of being found out by him during your stay with her.

 you thought about it, “surprisingly no, I didn´t think about it, at least not consciously. I guess because I was just glad we had this time to ourselves and I really didn´t want to ruin it for myself by worrying” she agreed, “yeah same for me, I kind of forgot about it til just now to be honest” you shared a moment of silence, contemplating the issue. “looks like we´re both great at compartmentalizing hm?”, you joked, grinning at her, Tess couldn´t help but laugh then, “you´re not wrong there, we´re pretty fucking shameless if you really think about it. the next time he calls me I´ll make small talk and act like I didn´t just spend the week…”, “fucking his daughter?” you completed the thought for her, purposely putting it that way. Tess shoved you then, pretending to be scandalized, “wow, you have such a way with words. I was gonna say that I spent the week having the time of my life” she countered, exaggerating a little, trying to get you to feel bad about your crass comment but you knew her too well, “bullshit, you didn´t wanna say that”, she nodded, amused, “maybe, but it´s true. besides, you´re right in the sense that that is of course the one thing he´d focus on. jesus…”.

you could tell that she was getting sucked into a spiral that she´d managed to stay out of all week, so you leaned closer and took her face in your hands, your tone gentle and sweet, “hey, it´s fine, relax” placing a few kisses on her face before reminding her “he won´t find out, no way. how would he?”. she couldn´t argue with that, you´d both been careful and you were both more than decent liars, so she relaxed again, soothed by your touch. “right, yes. but still, we´re kind of fucking insane for this” she could smile again by then, you did too, only shrugging in response, not a care in the world over potential danger, you were simply too happy. she gave you a kiss then, a proper one, to forget all about the previously discussed subject and it worked, within seconds she was too busy pushing you back against the couch cushion and pulling your shirt over your head to think of anything else but the feeling of your warm body in her hands. 

later that night, after you´d spent a good amount of time just laying in bed with the window open and talking because you didn´t want your time to be cut short by sleeping too early, you had something on your mind. you rolled over onto your side, placing your hand on her stomach as you looked at her, “Tess” you said, an unusually timid tone which was endearing to her, “yes sweetie, what is it?”, she moved herself up on the pillow a little to signal that she was listening. “well, I was just thinking, my roommate isn´t coming back until next week..”, “okay. and that means?”, she said, not catching on yet, eyeing you curiously, so you just put it out there. “well, I was wondering if I could persuade you to stay a night...”. she was confused for a moment, “what, in your dorm?”, you nodded, a shyness to your demeanor all of a sudden, waiting for a response. she laughed to herself, “well, wouldn´t that be a little fucked up, someone my age hanging out in a dorm?”, you shook your head, “oh no, I have seen so many odd boyfriends coming and going, nobody would even blink an eye at you, really I mean it”. she smiled then, staring off into space as she considered your proposal, muttering “well, I´d have to take Monday off work..”, so you doubled down, increasingly desperate to prolong your time with her, your hand on her forearm then, a strong grip as you pleaded with her. “please, come on, just one night. I could show you around, it would be fun, I could let you get an image of how I live, now that I got one of how you do”. you had a point there, she couldn´t deny that she liked the idea of getting a glimpse into your life like that, “hmm” you could see that she was close to cracking, so you got up and climbed on top of her, bending down to kiss her neck lightly as you kept whispering “please”, which gave her vivid flashbacks to how you´d first come onto her that night you´d first gotten together, the way she´d been broken by the sound of your begging, and it was working yet again, she sighed and held onto your back as she finally caved and said “okay, okay yes. fuck it, let´s do it”, a shudder going through her from the feeling of your hot breath against her skin, your weight on top of her, until you finally let go and looked at her with the face of someone who´d just won a battle. “you´re fucking killing me here, lady” she said, shaking her head, grabbing your waist as you kept sitting on her legs, a bright red blush on her cheeks, “am I?” you whispered, pleased with yourself for getting under her skin. secretly, Tess loved it, that you often pushed her buttons, that you weren´t discouraged by any of her moments of reluctance but took them as a challenge, she never got frustrated by your teasing because it was too delicious, to be played with like that, to be guided towards certain pleasures she´d deny herself if it wasn´t for you insistence. 

the next morning after having breakfast out on the balcony for the last time, basking in the sun with your legs crossed over each other´s, she helped you pack your things. as you were checking around her bedroom to see if you´d missed a piece of clothing or something else, she grabbed a shirt of hers that you´d worn to bed a few times that week and handed it to you, “here, take this too”. you hesitated for a moment as you reached for it, “really? you won´t miss it?”, she shook her head, “not at all. besides, I like the idea of you sleeping in my clothes when you´re not here. I´m not being that selfless”, you laughed, “okay, well in that case I´ll gladly take it”. 

as she opened her apartment door you took a dramatic final look around, a gentle squeeze on your shoulder as she said, “hey, don´t act like you´ll never see this place again, you´ll be back”, “you think so?” you asked, “oh, I know.” she proclaimed, confident, so you smiled and clung to that sound of conviction as you both made your way downstairs and headed towards her car.

the drive was not that long, about 3 hours, a little slower than by train but not long enough to actually be exhausting. you drove an hour, then stopped for coffee, drove another, then got some mediocre lunch and walked around for a bit before passing the final hour with you feeding her individual pieces of candy as you got comfortable in the passenger seat and handled the job of choosing songs that fit the mood, every now and then getting a rise out of her by touching her where you knew she liked to have your hands the most, while she was trying to keep her eyes on the road. 

around 3 pm you reached your destination, she´d of course picked you up in your college town once before, so she had no trouble finding the street you lived on. the semester wasn´t going to start until a week later, so the streets weren´t that crowded even though it was a Saturday, you could tell that about half your fellow students were back, while the other half was probably still either still back home or somewhere savoring the last few days of freedom before things would go back to business again. 

Tess vaguely recalled some of the buildings as you walked up to your dorm, but she found herself liking the atmosphere more than she´d expected, her own college town had been more urban, so it was interesting to see a campus that was more on the isolated side. 

once you were in your room, you opened the window to let some fresh air in and sat down on your bed as Tess inspected the details of your space, trying not to feel the slight burn of self-consciousness in your chest as you watched her curiously inspecting the details of your space, but for once she didn´t have anything to say, she was genuinely absorbed in the attempt to figure you out, to see how you liked to live, how you made yourself feel at home and comfortable. after a few minutes she joined you on the bed, the two of you sprawled out as much as the rather small bedframe allowed you to be, arms and legs touching in various places as you laid there, staring at the ceiling, relaxing after the drive. after brief moment of comfortable silence you could hear her laugh to herself and utter “god..” while shaking her head, so you turned to look at her, “what? what is it?”. she turned her head too then, “it´s just. this is pretty fucking mid-life crisis-ey of me, isn´t it?” her hands in the air, vaguely gesturing around, “ending up in a dorm room again at my age. I think I can´t deny that that´s pretty cliché mid-life of me”. you laughed, endeared by her moment of self-deprecation, “well if it makes you feel better, people my age have actually recently coined the term quarter-life crisis, so we´re kind of in it together”, she laughed too then, “what, really? that´s a thing?” you nodded, she considered it, “well, I think the takeaway there should be that we´re all in crisis at all ages, huh”, you nodded, reaching for her hand, lacing your fingers through hers, “exactly, that´s the enlightened take. so, no need to feel bad about yourself or question your weird behavior, if it´s gonna be ongoing, right?” you joked, “sure, I can just mess around with a girl in college and free myself of the knowledge that it´s technically kind of pathetic” you gasped as she finished that sentence, overly dramatic, “pathetic?? ouch”. Tess pulled your hand up to kiss it then, patting your head afterwards, “not on your part, baby”. 

after about 45 minutes of regaining some of your energy, you both made your way outside again and you gave her the promised tour of all the places you usually spent most of your days at: your lecture halls, the buildings where you had your seminars, the dining hall, the little park that was located in the middle of your campus. the thing that made it easier on your part was that you that yours was an impressive one as far as college campuses went, large historic buildings, a lot of nature surrounding your area, a rather idyllic vibe to it all. Tess seemed to have a genuine interest in everything you showed her, which warmed your heart. she kept asking you things that you didn´t even consider telling her about because they seemed minute to you, but to her it was a delight, to finally get to know the structure of your daily life, she couldn´t remember the last time she´d been so eager to get a picture of how someone moved through the world, and it hit her as you showed her around, how you´d awakened a curiosity in her, a deep need to know as much as she could about the person she felt so devoted to. 

as you walked down a particular path you often took after classes, you pointed towards a wooden bench under a large tree that was still in bloom, “oh see, this is where I spent many miserable afternoons, just listening to music and feeling sorry for myself, it was great”. Tess laughed as she went over and sat down, looking around to see the view you´d had all those times, “I hope those days are over now”, you joined her, stretching your legs out and sighing, “you think you magically fixed all my issues?”, you teased as she put her arm behind your back, “all of them? jesus, care to tell me what that endless list entails?”, she joked back in a low tone, “oh you know. general melancholy, loneliness, self-pity, being into women that could be my mom, the usual” she shoved your leg then, “you´re disgusting”, but you could see a hint of a smile out of the corner of your eye. 

“but for real, I don´t have to worry about you, do I?”, it felt good, to know that she felt the need to make sure you´d be fine on your own, you assured her, “no, I´m much better now than last year. but feel free to maybe worry a little, I don´t mind that..” you said, grinning at her. “oh and you´re gonna have to get better at texting, because I can´t call you during lectures or while I´m at the library”, she laughed, “so I can keep you from actually learning something?”, you shook your head, “I´ll only do it during the boring ones. promise”, “right, sure, I´ll see what I can do about that”.

“would sexting encourage you?”, Tess made a face of disgust then, “no? you think that´s my thing, typing sleazy shit into my phone?”, you knew she was not the type for all that but the image was funny to you, “okay jeez, guess I´ll find other ways to fantasize”, “I can send you audio messages of me reading some book, that should do the trick”, she teased, “fuck off. I never should have told you about that, it really went to your head that I love your voice”, she smiled, leaning closer to you then, whispering in your ear as she held your face, “do you?”, you sighed, defenseless against her, a shiver on your neck as she kept fucking with you until you eventually pushed her off and tried to get your face to a normal temperature again, a satisfied expression on her face as she backed off because a few people were walking by.

“last year this place was my depression spot, but this semester I can sit here and think about you instead, how does that sound?”, you said after a few moments of silence, “better. much better” she did like that image, “or you know. you could focus on your academic goals, just a thought”, and as if she´d summoned her by mentioning it, you spotted a former professor of yours from afar as she was walking in your general direction. 

at first you thought she might pass you by but you locked eyes and smiled, so you tapped Tess on the shoulder, “she was my prof last year, I think I should say Hi”, but you barely got the sentence out before she already stood a few feet away and greeted you, so you stood up to get a little closer. “hey, good to see you!”, you returned the politeness and exchanged a few words about what you´d done over the summer, she´d been one of better professors you´d had, actually good at teaching and always eager to get to know her students, asking what was wrong if anyone ever seemed out of it during class, so it was easy to make conversation. 

“you´re not taking any of my classes this year, right?” she asked, signaling disappointment, you shook your head “no, sadly not, but maybe next semester”, “right, well I´m sure we´ll see each other around still”, Tess was observing the exchange with keen interest and as your professors´s eyes wandered over to her you said “oh yeah, I´m here with a.. family friend, to show her around because she lives nearby”, Tess gave a brief nod and smile, amused by your choice of words. “then I´ll leave you guys to it, have a lovely time! see you around!” she´d used your name at the end of that sentence rather affectionately and Tess watched her with a hint of judgment in her eyes as she walked away, immediately shaking her head as you sat back down on the bench, laughing to herself, “wow”. 

“what?” you asked, confused by that reaction “she was fucking flirting with you”, “huh??” you said, unsure if you´d heard her right, “oh come on, it was so obvious”, you protested, “Tess, she has a husband and two kids”. “that doesn´t mean shit”, she wouldn´t back down, “it doesn´t??”, your expression one of disbelief then. “no. married women are freaks, trust me, I´ve had my experiences”, you couldn´t believe that she was insisting on it but then it dawned on you that she was jealous because they were both women around the same age, because she maybe thought that she fit your type, so you decided to mess with her, flattered by the wave of possessiveness that had come over her just from watching you be polite to someone who shared some of her characteristics. “well, in that case I seem to have a good back up plan if you ever decide to dump me”, grinning as you said this.

she immediately shook her head, her index finger moving back and forth in the air, a show of protest, “oh no, if this ends, it´ll be because of you, I´m not going anywhere, so you´ll have to do the breaking up if you wanna get rid of me”, you returned the energy, “well I won´t do it either, so, I guess we´re stuck with each other?”, she smiled, leaning back and closing her eyes as the clouds parted and let the sun through, her face turned towards the warmth, “seems that way”. 

the rest of the afternoon you spent getting lunch and coffee at a place you often went to, sitting in the sun and people watching, letting the time pass while you walked around, stopping here in there to walk into stores or buy a cold drink. naturally, you ended up back in your room with nothing else to do but get rid of the clothes you´d sweat through while walking around all day and getting your hands on each other, clumsy at first since you had gotten used to her much bigger bed, but you made it work, her hand between your legs as you made out, getting you worked up and soaked before she got down between your thighs and ate you out like she hadn´t done it in weeks, even though it had just been a day, messy and desperate, her hands pulling you down onto her face again each time she could feel you moving away, pushing your legs open if you squeezed them together, doing her best to turn you into an absolute mess, turned on from your desperate whining, your fingers in her hair, the taste of you all over her face, she´d never get tired of it, having you in your most vulnerable state, all to herself.

the thing that you realized while living with Tess was that she was a spontaneous lover, she didn´t have specific times of day where she needed it the most, she wasn´t a morning or a night person, it was unpredictable and you loved it that way, that she sometimes got random bursts of intense desire during the day, it was one of your favorite things about being around her so much, that you´d sometimes just be relaxing on the couch together and somehow end up having the most mind blowing sex at a random time like 5 pm. she realized while you were living with her how much she loved it, not planning hook-ups, but just responding to desire whenever it called to her because she had someone close by who wanted her, all the time, the reciprocal thing of “if you´re in the mood, I´m in the mood”. your week together had given you both a new relationship to your sexuality, it had become more playful and free but also more intense because the deep emotional bond was there. she never came hard with hookups because as much as she did not want to admit it, Tess was absolutely the type to need that loving component to really lose herself and get off in a truly satisfying way. 

you kept laying there for a while after, you fully undressed and she in her underwear, touching and caressing each other as you rested your eyes for a moment, before you got up to shower and get changed before going out for a drink. 

you knew where to take her, there weren´t many bars to choose from but one was a safe bet, it was the one that your roommate and you frequented most nights because it was not too overpriced, not too far away from campus, and had a veranda that was ideal for the warmer seasons. you and Tess stayed there for about an hour and a half, debriefing your day, you asking her for her honest opinion about your college, the vibe she was getting, her admitting that she was actually kind of jealous of you because being there had made her feel nostalgic for that time of her life even though it had been rough at times, she swirled the ice around in her drink as she thought about how to put it.

“the thing you´ll understand when you´re closer to my age is that even though you did suffer in your younger years and in college, you´ll still miss it, the specific feeling of being young but old enough to do whatever you want, living with friends, doing stupid shit for fun that would feel weird at an older age. I am not saying you have it easy, not at all, but just. try to soak this up” she said, gesturing around at the other people sitting outside, “you should try to enjoy your last year, really, don´t let me distract you from all of this too much.”. you smiled at her the entire time she spoke because you really liked it when she was more earnest, she always put things in a way that made sense to you, and you were grateful to have her perspective, you pulled her hand over onto your lap then, “I will think of you a lot, but yes, I´ll try to make the most of it, thank you for caring about all that, really”.

Tess patted your hand, “you should do shrooms or something, really get the most out of your student life” she joked, “oh sure, yeah, great advice”, “wait, you never told me, are you a party goer?”, you narrowed your eyes at her, “didn´t I tell you about how much of a loser I was last year? my friends dragged me out a few times but other than that, no”, she laughed then, leaning back and eyeing you with a hint of intrigue, imagining something, you could tell, so you asked, “what?”.

“oh I was just thinking about how you might look when you´re drunk and dancing with people”, she liked the image, you in some dark room with colorful lights illuminating your smiling face as you moved in unison with another girl, or multiple girls, it did turn her on, she couldn´t deny it.

“well, I wish you could find out” you said, smiling at her, leaning your head on your hands, “if I do end up going out, I´ll probably send you drunk texts and pictures, so there´s that” you added, amused by the idea of her receiving some overly affectionate messages from you at 2 am, she was too, “sounds good to me. what kind of drunk are you? touchy? the one that ends up crying? aggressive?”, you laughed, “I think I´m an emotional drunk, just showering everyone in compliments and random confessions of how much they mean to me, how pretty they are, etc.”, “okay damn, you´re making me jealous there”. “yeah with you it wouldn´t end well, I´d embarrass the fuck out of myself”, she knew what you were alluding to, the fact that “I love you so much” would probably slip out multiple times, “I´d like to see that to be honest” she admitted, you threw her a playful look “one day maybe”. 

around 10 pm you were back in your room, after a slightly tipsy walk back, and tired to make it as homely as possible by lighting a few candles and pulling the curtains half shut, leaving the window cracked, so you could hear some of the faint nightlife noise, laughter from a drunk group of people here and there, a few birds still singing at that hour, nothing city-like about it, no cars honking or sirens blaring because your town was rather secluded. Tess was soothed by it, the change of scenery, and you could tell as you saw her laying there in your bed with her arms behind her head, her eyes closed and a faint smile on her sun-kissed face as she waited for you to join her, her freckles visible even in the dim light. you snuggled up to her because there was not enough space for you both to spread out the way you had in her bed, but neither of you minded, it almost felt the way sleepovers had felt as a kid, being huddled up like that, she felt younger in that moment and she liked it, it was

comforting to be so far away from everything that tethered her to her usual routine, in the middle of someone else´s life.

you laid there with your arms wrapped around each other, your face against her chest, the blanket only pulled up to your waist because it was warm enough, both quiet for a while until you spoke up. “so. when are we seeing each other again”,your tone deeply serious, which was endearing to Tess, the fact that she was still there and you were already thinking about your reunion, clearly anxious about how long it would be until then, she thought about it as she slipped her hand under your shirt.“hm, let´s see, I can´t really take off work again in the next few weeks, but weekends are always good. and I know you should probably try to settle in here before coming back to my place, so how about the weekend after next one?”, you nodded, “okay, yes. oh wait, I don´t have classes on Mondays, so I could stay a day longer, I don´t mind if it´s a work day for you, we still have the morning and I´ll take a late train so we can have dinner too. or is that stressful for you?”, “no, that´s perfect, let´s do it. two weeks, that should be fine right?”, she said while glancing down at you, your grip on her suddenly tighter as you thought about the time you´d spend apart, you sighed, “should be, yeah. but I´ll still miss you”, she caressed your back in a soothing motion then, “I know, me too”. 

that night you both woke up multiple times but you weren´t bothered by it because you just used the few minutes you were awake to change positions to lay more comfortably again and to give each other some sleepy kisses on the shoulder or back or whatever body part was closest, hands always finding their way back under the fabric of your clothes, a lazy sensuality to those little windows of time where you were awake during the night. 

the next morning you grabbed breakfast at a place around the corner because you knew Tess was a coffee freak and would love their seasonal menu of various cold brews and you were right, she was blissed out sitting there with you in the morning sun. “you´re trying your best to make me come back here, aren´t you?” she said after she´d gotten up to order herself a second beverage, you just smiled, “maybe. is it working?”, she laughed, running her hands through her hair and taking in the surroundings, she had to admit she´d come to like it there, “kind of yeah. who knows, maybe one day I´ll get a spontaneous burst of recklessness and come surprise you”, your eyes lit up then, “please do that, I´m not kidding.” you loved the idea of living your life, going about your day, while knowing that there was always a slim chance that she might randomly appear at your doorstep one evening, she could tell, so she´d at least consider it, “okay, I´ll see what I can do”. 

your last few hours together were marked by that beautiful feeling of seeing a town right before it wakes up, the sun golden but not hot yet, only a few people besides you out on the streets, both you and Tess could appreciate the feeling of being in the middle of the city on a busy night, but for your farewell it was ideal to just sit there together and soak up the quiet, warm, almost dreamlike scenery. 

what you´d both realized during the course of your week together, was that neither of you were afraid to hold hands in public, to be affectionate and obviously romantically involved. you´d never even had the discussion if it was okay, most likely because you were both so aware of the limited amount of time you had together, that you wouldn´t let fear of judgment keep you from pulling your hand to your face or her from kissing your cheek when you were close enough to do it. there was a relaxed, natural feeling to your tenderness with each other, it was never awkward or clumsy, both of you had the instinct to reach out, all the time, whether you were sitting next to each other, or standing in line somewhere, or laying in bed, your hands always seemed to find their way to the exact spot where the other person wanted it, it hadn´t taken long at all for you to give each other exactly the kind of intimacy you needed. Tess had often been accused of being aloof and distant, even with women she was having sex with, so it surprised her to find that it wasn´t just an intrinsic issue, that she wasn´t fundamentally unromantic or fucked up, that she´d just been waiting to meet someone who brought that side of her out without force, which was a central thing about your appeal to her, the way you loved her without pushing her to give you more of herself than she was willing to, because you trusted that whatver she would offer would be more than enough.

in return, you loved that she was so calm in her obsession over you, it was clear that she was deeply into you, but she left you space to breathe, Tess knew that you didn´t need her to smother you to feel loved, and it created this deeply peaceful bond, one where both of you felt held and seen without ever feeling caged in, quite the opposite, you´d never felt freer than when you held and kissed each other, felt each other there at night or in the morning. 

around 11 am you walked Tess to her car, both of you walking much slower than necessary, eventually reaching the spot where she´d parked and unsure what to do, now that it was time to say goodbye. 

she put her bag in the backseat and came over to where you were standing, a parallel to how you´d greeted each other at the start of the week, her resting against the passenger door, you facing her, a silence, a shared moment of unwillingness to part ways, something somber and fragile in both of your expressions. you nervously shifted your weight as she looked at you, the way the light was hitting your face, the way your neck was bent, that space right above your shoulder where she´d placed countless kisses the days before, suddenly overcome with utter devastation over the fact that she´d return to an empty apartment, that she´d sleep alone again, that she wouldn´t feel you moving next to her in the night, that she wouldn´t spend her afternoons on the couch with your head in her lap. Tess couldn´t stop listing all the things she´d miss and without realizing a few tears had formed in her eyes, you caught it, looking at her while she was so lost in thought that she didn´t even realize until you stepped closer and touched her arm, a hint of a smile on your face as you asked, “hey, are you crying?”, unsure if you should comfort her or delight in the fact that she was so affected by the idea of your absence. 

she was slightly embarrassed and adjusted her posture to seem more secure as she briefly dabbed the corner of her eyes, “no…” a very unconvincing tone, because she knew you knew. you put your arms around her waist then, leaning in to kiss her temple, staring at her until she collected herself and met your eyes, her hands around your neck as she said, “listen, I know I am not the best at making speeches, but I need you to know that this whole week has been a dream, really. I can´t remember the last time I had this many good days in a row.” she was deeply serious about it, so you were too as you answered, “me neither. thank you isn´t enough to be honest, there was literally not one moment that I didn´t enjoy”, Tess could tell you meant it, and it made her feel good about herself, because that was all she´d hoped for, that you´d leave her place feeling better than when you´d come there, and she´d succeeded, very much so. 

“so, in two weeks then?” you said, a gentle smile, still holding onto her, “yes. be good in the meantime, eat well, sleep well, have some fun, all that. okay? none of that shit from last year” there was something parent-like about the way she´d phrased that, so you couldn´t help but say, “yes, mommy” which earned you a light slap from her, she wouldn´t let you get under her skin with that word, she was too stubborn to admit that it kind of turned her on. “shut up, I mean it! if you don´t look healthy the next time I see you, we´ll have a problem, miss”, you liked her slightly stern way of caring for you, it was a hot contrast to her softer side that you´d brought out, “okay, noted. I guess if there´s a serious issue I´ll just come to your place for a day, that should fix whatever´s wrong with me” you said in a low tone, playing with a strand of her hair, doing your best to make her feel weak in her knees. Tess had gotten used to it and grown to enjoy it, your shameless way of toying with her. 

“sure, if there´s an emergency, I´ll play nurse” she teased, gaining the upper hand again by giving you a deep kiss that left you flushed and frustrated over the fact that you´d have to wait fourteen days to do that again. “I´ll fucking miss you.” you uttered, shaking your head, you knew it was time to let go, because otherwise you´d stand there til nightfall, but you had one last thing to say, a stillness to you as you told her, “I love you.” the warmest smile on her face that you´d ever seen, a brief moment of her basking in the light of those words before she pulled you in for a final hug, whispering “I love you too.” as her head briefly rested on your shoulder, her arms tight around you, both of your eyes closed, your hearts beating slowly in unison. there was nothing stressful about that confession because the feeling of loving each other had been so palpable between you all the days before, neither of you were shocked or surprised, you were just full of warmth, flooded by a deep sense of ease, the kind that fills your body with a sensation that evokes the visual of a river of gold, running slowly through your core, spreading to your face, leaving you tingling all over, close to sighing from relief, from joy, from everything you´d come to cherish about your connection. 

for a few seconds you stayed like that until you squeezed each other´s hand and separated. once Tess sat behind the wheel, she pulled the window down, so you could lean in and rest your arms there for a moment, looking at her all doe eyed as you said, “call you later tonight?”, her hand on your arm, “tomorrow. gotta build up some suspense, sweetheart”, that familiar grin of hers as she pulled down her sunglasses. “sure, alright, let´s do that. I do hope you dream about me tonight though” the threatening tone of that statement amused her, “there´s a pretty good chance of that happening, don´t you worry, baby”. eventually you got up, giving her car a light slap on the hood as she started the engine and threw you a final glance, driving off with the window still down, wind in her hair, looking in the rearview mirror to confirm her suspicion, that you´d keep standing there, that you wouldn´t immediately turn around and walk away, a sudden urge in her chest to turn around, to fuck up her work schedule and tell her boss that she´s sick. 

for a good few minutes you just stood there by the side of the road, leaning against a lantern, unable to move on with your day, to go back to your own routine without her by your side. the initial pain that you both felt in your return to being alone was slowly but surely overshadowed by a deep feeling of gratitude, because you realized at the same time that you´d given each other a deeply precious gift; it was undeniable that it would have been ideal to lead a life where you could live together, where you could spend all your time together, neither of you would have ever denied that, you´d both dreamed about it, but your unique situation gave you both the gift of returning to your daily lives on your own with a completely different feeling and outlook compared to before, even though nothing about your circumstances had changed. Tess knew then as she was driving back home that she would not feel the same sense of dread every morning, that she would not dissociate as much as she always had before, that she´d move through her life with an unfamiliar sense of optimism, knowing you were out there and waiting to see her again. she knew that being at work would feel different, simply because she could spend the minutes she´d usually spent zoning out, thinking of you, what you were up to, how you might sound during a call later that day, what you´d want to tell her. 

you felt the exact same way as you walked back to your dorm with a dreamy look permanently frozen on your face because it dawned on you that your senior year of college would not be as hard as your junior year at all, you knew then that it would be easier to get up and move around, to look at the days ahead of you with hope, because regardless of was about to happen, you had someone out there who´d listen to your worries, who´d help you navigate your through it all, who´d always get your spirits up without even trying hard, hearing her voice would be enough to feel better after a rough day, making her laugh would be enough to feel useful, to feel like your presence mattered and helped other people move through their own lives a little easier. your love for her was reviving in a way, you felt stronger and more capable than before, you felt safe and secure knowing that life could shake you up however it wanted and you wouldn´t be scared, at least not the way you´d been before, because she´d be there, always, even if it was just a text or a call, you wouldn´t be lonely anymore, neither of you would be.

you had left each other with the most beautiful thought to hold close to your hearts:

someone out there loves and sees me for who I am at my core. someone out there prays that everything goes well for me. someone out there is waiting eagerly for me to come back to them, and I will. again and again and again.

#tess servopoulos x reader #tess servopoulos #tlou fanfiction #the last of us hbo

[vajazzly]

ok i am rewatching the hunger games and the fucking scene that gets me every time is the one directly after rues death in district 11 when the district riots. its just like. this expression of pure grief and anger and it really is done beautifully and god. i forget every time how mf good hunger games and catching fire are!!!

#theyre literally perfect film adaptations #took out a lot of stuff but what they added rly fleshed out the world and drove home the message of the whole series #i hate that it was promoted as like a romantic love triangle series both books ans movies SO MUCH #bc both are actually really impactful and thoughtful political stories #one thing i was thinking abt recently is the fact that suzanne collins had district 2 be where peacekeepers come from #like theyre not capitol citizens ! theyre from the districts like everyone else ! #almost! #like! #the! #actual! #cops! #huh! #soso interesting

[stoopid-turtle]

the art of being a skeptical turtle

So this is a personal post more about my experience as a turtle. If you just want to get to the fun list of candies I totally buy into regardless of evidence, just skip down to where the asterisks are. (Consider this like a recipe attached to a blog post)

For those interested in the whole nerdery going on here, let me share that I had a lot of trouble coming to terms with bjyxszd. I wrote a whole series of posts about it to get my thoughts in order. Now I'm fully on the turtle train, but I find myself skeptical of some candies.

This is gonna get super-nerdy so hold on to your butts.

I'm a generally skeptical person. I come by it honestly. My parents literally subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptics magazines. They (well, my dad mainly) were capital-S Skeptics. My family talked about logical fallacies, perceptual oddness, and the fallibility of memory over the dinner table.

Please don't back away. I know self-identified Skeptics are typically insufferable. I didn't know this as a kiddo, though, so the whole "thinking about things skeptically" became just my default way of processing stuff. Nowadays, I wouldn't call myself a Skeptic in the way that some in a particularly obnoxious subculture do. But I do tend to be a skeptical sort. I just don't...you know...think it makes me smarter/better/cooler than other folks.

(Actually, it makes me way less cool bc I can single-handedly ruin a fun party by expressing skepticism about something. Nobody likes a wet blanket. I know this)

My bestie in high school always called me Scully to his Mulder. He would believe anything he saw or read, whereas I didn't. Usually, I was right. Like when he totally thought that the Blair Witch Project was real found footage (It's not. Nobody thinks it is now, I know, but it was part of the promo at the time). On occasion, he was right. Like when he told me that some gray clouds we had overheard were from wildfires in Mexico. I scoffed bc, really, we weren't that close to Mexico. But he was right and I learned a valuable lesson on large-scale weather phenomenon. (He's still wrong about there being a picture of a light bulb in the pyramids though)

So, yeah, that's just how I process things. It's second-nature for me. But I reached a point with my generally skeptical outlook where I considered 2 things to see whether I really cared if people were buying into something I thought was false.

The stakes. If a person believes X, what does that lead to? If I don't believe Y, even though it's true, what does that lead to?

There's a whole bunch of political stuff that heightens the stakes. To take a ridiculous (and outdated one), when I was growing up, there was a common story that AIDS hopped from apes to humans because a gay man had sex with an ape and then had sex with other humans. Thus, the AIDS epidemic.

The stakes of other people buying into that homophobic nonsense were (and are) life and death. (If you believe that...uh...bye?) It's something that's worth me being the obnoxious Scully if I hear someone buying into it.

The stakes of, say, my high school bestie believing that The Blair Witch Project was real found footage was...nothing. It just made him want to see the movie more. Nobody was hurt. It didn't matter.

I argued with him at the time, but I probably wouldn't anymore.

The stakes for believing that bjyxszd, here in international fandom, are perhaps higher than the Blair Witch thing. But only barely. If somebody believes in a particular rumor/candy that I don't think is real, it affects literally nothing. We're both still turtles. We have a lot more in common than we do difference with regards to YiZhan. Likewise, the effect of me not believing a candy that may be true is nil. Gg and dd are not impacted in any way.

(I think things may be different for c-fans, but that's not at all a thing I'm qualified to delve into. I can only account for myself in my context)

2. The other thing I consider is the context. That is, how likely are we to know the actual truth?

Scientific claims have a method to test them (and claims that can't be tested are just...not something science addresses). Claims about current events can be researched using journalism methods or whatever. For that homophobic AIDS story, there's ways to prove that it's not true. For the Blair Witch thing...well, the actors went on the talk show circuit for promo so, you know, the real footage myth was quickly lifted.

Celebrities exist in a different context. Like most people, they have a private life that is not accessible to people on the outside. If they choose to open up about that life, then cool. But if they don't or can't do so (like is the case with YiZhan), then they'll try to keep their private life out of sight of fans.

It really hit home to me when I was doing the bts thing how little of dd and gg we saw in the Untamed bts. We see even less of them now. I'm at peace with the fact that I just will never know much about these guys (I wrote a whole post about it). But the fact that there's a big mass of the unknown means that the possibilities are endless. We don't know and we'll never know.

So I don't have any more authority on anything gg or dd related than anybody else does. So why would I attempt to question or dismiss candies that other people find compelling? At the end of the day, there is a truth, but it's not accessible to us, so anything we come up with is just extrapolation.

Which is fine. It's fun. I think there's real stuff going on. (If I didn't, I wouldn't be here) But it means there's no real point arguing about the specific candies.

(and to be clear, I don't see turtles doing this, really. so this is all just me reiterating my own approach to things bc I'm a person who processes thoughts through long tumblr posts apparently) (and it's not a reaction to any particular candy. this post has been in my drafts for ages)

I think I'm a hard sell on a lot of candies, and I'm definitely the fuddy-duddy who just squints and asks a bunch of obnoxious questions about things.

But I ask those questions of myself and don't feel the need to annoy other turtles with them because, honestly, we're all in this boat together. Some candies appeal to particular turtles more than others, and I think we all kinda have our personal preferences for which ones resonate with us. I'm not here to rain on anybody's parade, especially as we all have way more in common just bc we all believe in bjyxszd.

This is all a long-winded way to explain how I think about candies, honestly. Or more, how I assess candies that are new-to-me and figure out whether to buy into it or not. With anything involving bjyx, I also leave a lot of room for there just being an unknown and unknowable. Again, the stakes are low, and if I'm wrong about any particular candy (in either direction), then...oh well? It affects literally nothing.

************************************************************************************************************************************************

So here's the fun part! The list of candies that I fully admit don't have a whole lot going for them (by my stupidly exacting standards) but that I totally buy into just because I like them.

Basically all lip-readings, but especially this one

(if you don't want to click thru, this is the moment from the Nanjing farewell concert where dd and gg seem to flirt about photos while on-stage)

Okay, I know, rationally, that lip-readings are always gonna be shaky. I mean, I've seen Medieval Land Fun-Time World. If I'm honest with myself, I know that the lip-readings are basically fluffy candy.

But whatever. I choose to believe them. This moment, especially, I adore (and it does come with dd posting a bare-faced photo after!). I think their big grins while openly flirting with each other on stage just jazzes me enough to pretend.

It's all true. I totally believe it.

Related to this is:

2. Any and all CPN about dd and/or gg seeing turtle signs and smiling or otherwise reacting positively.

I've seen such CSI-worthy analysis of sight-lines to try to establish with precision where dd or gg is looking at the moment they smile/look happy. I have no idea how much any of it holds up, and it's not worth the bother to try to confirm any of it.

But whatever. I like it. I believe it. I'll probably believe it everytime it happens.

3. Advanced Bombology.

So there's some things that aren't in dispute here. We definitely know that gg suddenly cut an Olay commercial ad from a 2 day shoot to a 1 day shoot, and it's a reasonable assumption that he did so to be at the DDU anniversary episode with GG.

The rest is a little fuzzy. The video details dd being kinda grouchy in interviews before the DDU shoot, and it also shares an anon rumor from a person who claimed to overhear dd in a studio restroom arguing on the phone with gg. This rumor came out a year after the event.

The rest of the video is some interpretation of the boys' behavior/mood in the DDU anniversary ep.

So, like, I get that anon rumors a year on maybe aren't the most solid evidence for anything. But whatever, I buy it.

And the interpretation of the boys' mood seems true to me, especially the moment where the interviewer asks gg if they'd discussed his visit ahead of time. Gg def does a sweatdrop, panic pause, look at dd moment and waits for dd's lead to answer. I find a lot of mood interpretation from videos a bit much, but this feels real.

In fact, the whole thing just feels real. Maybe that's why it's easy for me to buy. It feels like a real argument a couple would have.

4. The 5/22 fight during CQL shooting.

I talked about this back when I was doing the bts in order.

In tl;dr, dd gives gg a bit of a brush-off response to something. gg responds by cold shouldering him and then doing some passive aggressive sniping about how dd doesn't want gg to care about him. dd gets upset, then he apologizes, then they go on to watch something on one of their phones.

The basis of this one is some gossip plus a video shot from a distance that requires reading lips. So we know that's already fuzzy, and I know I approached this with some skepticism in my earlier post. That was just to be rational about things so as to be honest with myself.

In truth, I buy it. I buy the argument. I buy the lip-reading. Again, it feels real.

5. GG's card to turtles

This is one of those frustrating ones I'm having trouble refinding. Darn.

The upshot, and I'm going from memory, is that there's a CPN about a card written to turtles ostensibly from gg. This came with some handwriting comparison to try to match the signature to gg's known signature.

This isn't something I'd place bets on, because...seriously, it's so fuzzy.

But in my heart, I believe it for no reason other than that I want to.

6. DD as gg's mystery driver

Okay, there's a couple such incidents. One quite recently. Where gg's driver is mysteriously masked such that you can't see their face.

And, truth, it could be literally anybody under there. But for me, it's dd. No need to give me painstaking comparisons of hands or whatever. I'm fully in on this one.

7. The bone necklace.

Ack, don't hate me for this one!

When I was doing my posts about stuff that had convinced me that gg and dd were still together, I stumbled with the bone necklace. To me, it's the main thing that convinces me, but if I'm honest, it really is kinda a leap of faith thing.

With the ox-head necklace, we have the fancam footage to back it up as being from gg. All we have for the bone necklace is the timing and the precedent of dd having already worn a necklace from gg. That's shaky, really.

In fact, I think I saw some other dd CP claiming the bone necklace as theirs (I saw them also claiming the Leica camera). I think they're wrong, but I don't have any solid proof to say so.

I think the most I can say is that there are much harder evidences that gg and dd are still together. But these typically involve massive privacy violations so I'm not eager to spread them around (I kinda hate that I stumble upon them, tbh). But in any case, it has me convinced, so if I already know gg and dd are a couple, then of course the bone necklace is related.

But on its own, the bone necklace is a leap.

Okay, that all said, since I (finally) had a photo of dd last time I posted, I'm dropping a random gg photo here. Not my favorite, cause pls don't make me choose, but one that hangs out my head throughout the days.

#bjyx #yizhan #considerations of being a turtle #it starts nerdy and then turns into a listicle #no judgment for just skipping to the candies #gratuitous gg photo #they srsly just wrapped him in cables and then that happened #what is his waist yall #and why's there a car driving up his lapel? #still sexy

[dykementality]

forgive me if you're not interested, but I'd actually love to hear more of your thoughts on the maroon arc, what you thought was/wasn't done well. would u like to share?

hii i didnt see this. im gonna apologize right away bc this is not gonna be organized i have talked soooo much today already and im tired lol.

for starters what i think was done best is flint and madis dynamic. its incredibly well played both as individual characters and as representatives of pirates and maroons in relation to empire. their chemistry is crazy and their dialogues are extremely didactic. i also find that flint not immediately viewing the maroons as natural allies but as tools to reach his own purposes and later deconstructing that after getting involved with them aggregates to his ongoing theme of progressive radicalization which i think is also a highlight of the maroon arc in the way it makes it explicit for good that his political stance has done a 360 and is now entirely discordant from the one he had as a lieutenant in every aspect that matters. freeing and partnering with the maroons is expected after that and i dont think theres anything special on that regard. then the shitty parts are essentially everything else. especially steinberg admitting he stalled to really explore the topic of slavery due to not being in his element as a white guy but still not putting black people on the team to do it. this reflects very obviously in the show and makes the entire arc feel rushed and reticent besides leaving a billion loose threads and missing opportunities to appropriately explore character dynamics that couldve been way more interesting (such as silver/julius/flint & madi/eme & madi/eleanor & eleanor/scott) and really engage confidently in the impact that flint and the pirates having canonically sold slaves would have had in their relationship. speaking of julius i also very much felt like it was a tragedy to hinder his presence and had they started it earlier or extended it longer his perspective on war vs. protecting his community as opposed to madi’s for example would have been probably my favorite part of the arc. i know the version in my head of it is. all in all its a vital arc for the story and everyone slayed really hard with with they had i just wish the creators hadnt shied away from all the implications of it. if i had the energy to go look for some posts for u i would bc my mutuals have definitely also discussed this before but alas. thanks for asking anyways feel free to add ur own thoughts or question mine further

#correio

[bi-lullaby]

So I really loved the PJO show. I wish we get a second season, and a fourth and so on all the way through heroes of olympus because it’s just so good. If you feel like reading my (NOT spoiler free) rambles:

- Percy’s loyalty and dedication to his mom is just so integral to his character and they RESPECT THAT.

- I really like what I’ve seen mentioned about how both casting wise and storyline changes wise there have been some adaptations that were less “lol lets change it” and more to connect better with today’s audience and cultural paradigm. Like Annabeth being blonde because of the stereotype of “the dumb blonde” that was so prevalent in the era the books were released versus her being Black showcasing the extreme undermining Black women go through instead, or Luke being less 00s/10s boyband boy looking and more tiktok softboy looking now, but also Sally being less 100% perfect and more active in the story and upbringing of Percy as both a hero and a demigod and Luke being less cool and detached and more… Sweet? Emotional?

- I did feel pretty meh about a few changes: Zeus immediately accepting that Kronos is scheming and is a threat (Ik they couldn’t know if they’ll get that far but it cuts the stakes of the third book by a lot if there’s no pressing time limit to get Artemis back to Olympus to convince the Gods into action if they’ve been Doing Stuff for two years now, and even the second book loses a little in regards to the behind-the-scenes political climate that leas to it being what it was). Luke going to every length not to kill Percy is such a 180° from the books it was a little jarring and I feel it cuts out how much of a Menace he was and how bitter/jealous he was of Percy. Like we could have seen their bonding and even Luke trying to recruit him but I’d still have liked to see the scorpion scene so the betrayal and anger and wariness Percy feels is that much deeper and bitter and personal like in the books.

- I’m of two minds about the entire Gabe arch. Like on one hand I do understand toning him down (including his demise) for the public’s intended audience, I even think it kinda goes along the adapting to new times by showing that the useless, insensitive, disrespectful aspect of a bad husband is harmful just as the “darker”, more explicitly abusive/exploitative and mean drunk book version, but on the other I feel like he had such an impact on Percy in the books (he’s literally the Oracle’s “mirage” for his prophecy, he thinks of his smell in tartarus), and I really had loved the line “you’ll fail to save what matters most in the end” coming true because Sally saves herself - although the post I’ve seen about his fate showcasing how his lack of respect was his doom did make me appreciate it a little more.

- The only castings (or maybe it was the directing and styling of them more so) that I can’t really get behind are Hades and Hephaestus. Hades felt like they were going for the Disney’s Hercules comedic relief one in a slightly toned down costume. None of the gravitas and intimidation, he didn’t feel like a god at any point. And Hephaestus was just… So different. He’s supposed to be a deeply secluded, antisocial, gruffy mechanic who’s self sequestered by his inventions and forges. The show version looked like an eccentric professor more than anything imo. Which I feel could be one modern retelling of Hephaestus in another series, but isn’t the one we had and, imo, doesn’t go as well with the rest of the vibe. Which is a shame bc I do feel like Timothy could have been used in a way that would work fantastically for those vibes.

- Lin Manuel Miranda’s, acting actually shocked me. I never really had a Hamilton phase but I am on tumblr so I was expecting something cringe and honestly, I thought it was good (and to bring it back to Hades: Hermes in sweats and a hoodie actually gave me the feeling of “this is merely a cover to a deep well of power” than Hades in his suit and dark colors ever did)

- Meanwhile, perfect Ares casting. Yes this man is beefing with (and losing to) 12yos but he’s also an ancient force that revels in bloodshed and carnage.

- Annabeth from the show encapsulates the character so well while also bringing her own notes to it. Like as time went on back in my peak pjo days I felt she got “Hermionified” by the fandom too much? And I lost sight of how fond I was of her but the show (and having reread the books) really rekindled that and made me remember why she is a force to be reckoned with and also someone that must be protected at all costs. I cannot express enough how much my fondness was reignited.

- Like I feel this could be a whole post but basically I feel the books showcase the “ideal” characteristics the gods and their kids could have versus how they wind up twisted into something else (Percy’s sea-like indomitable spirit vs several of his brethren’s ruthlessness and disregard for what’s good) and Annabeth feels like, beyond amassing knowledge for it’s sake… She wants to actually Learn, and in the show maybe even to a deeper degree than in the books and it is endearing and very enthralling.

- On that note, Leah, Walker… This is supposed to be a SLOWburn goddamit. Like in the books you can see where it’s headed but in the show they have such silly crushes I can barelyy stand it. My children.

- Speaking of Walker that kid IS Percy like you cannot convince me otherwise. Disney farmed him for this role.

- I actually really loved Poseidon having a british accent? Idk, something about england and nautical exploration and it feeling older and more… Powerful? Like the ocean

- And Zeus had all the “I’m the god amongst kings and king amongst gods” that I’d have expected from him. He was crackling with power and that was beautiful to see. What a tragic loss.

- Grover is my precious child (although I do wish we had gotten the silly, goat like details of him like eating cans and making the bleating noises). And since the last book I finished rereading was the Battle of the Labyrinth (where I cried like a baby at Pan’s death) watching this sweetheart getting all excited with his literal flower searches license? Made me wanna weep.

- Overall most of my criticisms that came to mind besides the alterations I cited came from being hushed because of too few eps and those being too short. Really really hope the next season (fingers crossed) we’ll get like, 15+ eps (and/or at least longer eps) so we can really sink into the meat and potatoes of it all.

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #pjo show #my thoughts #text #spoilers #pjo spoilers

[harpygon]

Okay @vixonimus I watched the 2004 hungarian version thoughts under the cut (bc it‘s quite a lot)

I really enjoyed it. I had feared that my not understanding hungarian and having to rely on subtitles would linder my enjoyment but I am glad to report that it didn‘t.

The entire thing is choreographed so great (especially the ensemble: the fan-dancing-girls, the one guy in the Bad Ischl scene who just twerks for like 30secs straight, also that one guy who kisses Lucheni‘s suitcase in Kitsch?? The ensemble is so expressive and fun.)

Also the stage-scenery is good (I really liked the design of it. Elisabeth‘s dressing room and the setting during first 4 years are my favorites but most of them are really nice)

costumes are a little meh… there are no vines and in general they aren‘t spectacular but it didn‘t bother me to hell and back or anything.

It is really good at guiding the watcher through the story: Things get shown, connected, explained by Luchini,and are generally sensible.

There is a lot of politics but it is done in a way that is cohesive and easily understandable: The Hungarian side of things gets shown at every step of the way (as well as the disparity in opinion in Eljen which explains/shows later hungarian unhapiness in a way that the german versions don’t?), The austrian commoners/developement of nationalist hatred and antisemitism also get‘s shown clearly and distinctly. Elisabeth‘s development and both personal and political impact (position as an idol, grasp at power, complicity in negative development, abandonment of responsibility in favour of personal freedom). Sophie‘s desperate attempt at upholding the absolutist system she believes in. Franz Joseph‘s deadly impassivity, inwhich he just follows his mother or Elisabeth and otherwhise just wallows in his broken heart letting his country sink into hatred. AND ALL OF THIS WITHOUT GETTING CONFUSING.

Rudolph especially works as a kind of centerpoint for many of these political arcs (except Sophie, they don‘t have the „Kind oder Nicht“ scene which would‘ve connected them), but otherwise he deals with about everything listed above. (I especially feel the way he stumbles into „Hass“ is really nice and kinda solves many of the problems people bring up about it feeling disjointed).

During „Mama, wo bist du“ he brings up shadows a lot, which along with a lot of other references to the downfall of the Habsburg Empire ties really nicely into the political angle (also just shadows have so many meanings: Literal shadows, his fears in general, the downfall of the empire, the growing hatred in the empire, his own declining mental health)

I didn‘t like how in „Wenn du mein Spiegel wärst“, Rudolph‘s entire request was about his divorce? In the german version there‘s a line about it sure, but making the entire thing about a marriage we never heard of before when his entire arc was about politics and literally comitting treason against his father, that seemed really disappointing to me.

Tod for Rudolph is pretty much something pressuring him into taking more of a political stance (both bc his own rising desperation and bc ofc the manifestation of death is interested in further nearing the Death of the Habsburg Empire) and it works so well i feel. for Elisabeth it‘s a little muddled bc of the „romance“ angle that Lucheni‘s framework (or Meta-reasons whatever you want to call it) places on it (Not a fan of death solo). But in general it‘s not the worst Tod I‘ve ever seen? At times he really seems to be desperation and hopelessness (like when he tries to tempt her into suicide by talking about the end of the world; end of the world being both the eventual end of the monarchy and also her childhood and her pre-first child death world) and at other‘s he‘s just luring her in. („You are just decoration to his bed“ was fire though) (that‘s good btw.)

I also likes that he just pops up, that‘s important in Tod for me. He‘s the manifestation of death and not an actual person, he will further death in every form that it takes and everywhere it might take place (again political angle very important)

(I‘m not sure I can be impartial about FJ in this version bc his actor is just very attractive to me. He seems sympathetic and totally unable to do anything except obey, wallow and simp. But I really liked the depiction of his unsureness in the first act, how he goes from a really lovesick guy marrying his wife to „clearly very annoyed but is trying to hold it together for both her and the empire“ to „at the breaking point grovelling but also still upset will scream about something being just education“ to „okay babe I will give you whatever you want forever actually haha“ and then doing nothing ever again except being sad missing and worrying about his wife. BUT yeah I really liked FJ in this version :) )

The physical depiction of Elisabeth‘s father and Sophie as ghost‘s as a symbol of Elisabeth‘s growing self-doubt/self-hatred were very nice.

I never heard a version of „fröhliche Apokalypse“ I didn‘t like and this is no exception :)

(Also that Todcheni handkiss moment???)

There‘s probably more but this is everything that‘s in my head immediately after watching it :)

#elisabeth das musical

[buckleydiazmp4]

hey, you were saying that you don't think izzy should've died and that you didn't agree with his character arc for reflected upon reasons. is it okay to ask what those reasons are? you just always have interesting opinions about tv and i'd love to know about this one

oh hi! well i'm happy to share my thoughts since you asked so politely lol i just didn't share them earlier bc when there's discourse ppl act so vile sometimes

anyways. izzy hands huh. multi-faceted, complicated, very intense character. let me begin by saying the fact that david jenkins and con o'neill managed to do a total 180 on izzy in terms of how the audience reacted to him between s1 and s2 without fundamentally ruining his character is astounding!! i think the whole point of izzy has always been the fact that he's a man who tends to hold on too tight to the stuff that gives him a semblance of safety (even though that stuff is usually pretty traumatic lol) and across s2 we see him slowly loosening his grip on blackbeard. the fact that it was precisely blackbeard's brutal return that made izzy realize both him and ed were in too deep really just adds to how awesome the writing was this season.

and now, just to clarify: i didn't say i disagreed with his character arc, but with the way it was executed. as in, i think izzy's journey was perfectly well written and acted out by con (please give that man an award), and up until the finale it was actually very well executed!! it's the last plot device that i disagree with.

killing off izzy was a bold choice, and a very common way in which writers both show redemption and pull poignant reactions from the audience, which is ultimately what any show strives for!! for the audience to feel deeply about certain characters or stories. i think ppl have forgotten that and focused so much on wanting everything to be emotionally "clean" and lacking of controversy. guys!! the whole of fiction isn't supposed to cater to everyone!! that's why it's fiction!! it can be manipulated by creators and audience alike and each individual piece is supposed to be different. if you don't like emotional ups and downs in the media you consume that's understandable, but don't condemn the pieces of media that do have it. simply don't watch if you don't like it. i personally like these feelings, the ugly, and the dirty, and the unfair, and the painful, the human!!! it's part of the experience and they did it well this season.

even with that in mind though, i think death was only one of the many options through which they could've symbolized izzy finally letting go of blackbeard and the toxicity that name represented for all of them. i get how 'i wanna go' as a show of the deliberate decision izzy is making to escape from the emotional turmoil of ruthless piracy is trying to make his death seem like a way for him to rest, but. it's a pretty definitive rest and i think it wouldn't have been necessary, considering that one of the main things izzy learns this season is that you can spend years in a terrible environment but it's still never too late to pursue something softer for yourself and for the people you love. he says it, too: 'it's about belonging'.

as much as it is understandable to have wanted to take the way of the tragic and unexpected, for the sake of impact and to heighten the significance of what izzy has become this season, it would've been nice to see him stare at a long, happy future with the new family he's acquired aboard the revenge. ed let go of blackbeard without it meaning he had to renounce to the rest of his life for it, why couldn't izzy? it would've been wonderful to see all those years of life experience as a pirate reconcile with the reality that they're not dependent on isolating yourself from others. for izzy to have become captain, or even frenchie's first mate, would've been an excellent seal to his story, even leaving a future full of possibility to further explore how his character gets acquainted with his new way of looking at the world.

izzy put it that way: it is about letting go of ego for something larger. and his death can mean many things simultaneously, but it can also mean that without his ego he couldn't live. which. i do disagree with, so.

i don't know!!! i just think about it many different ways!! like in this post specifically i chose to see it under a different light than what i'm currently writing, and neither of those opinions cancel each other out; they can coexist!! that's the fun thing about fictional media interpretation!! it's also why we have devices like fanfiction and fanart and meta!! the fact that something played out in a specific way on screen doesn't mean it's set in stone as something good or bad, there are always shades of grey.

#woof this thing turned out SO LONG wtf #anyways i'm flattered you value my tv opinions :) and i hope this answered your question #anon #sara answers #ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #blackbeard #david jenkins #con o'neill

[mutable-manifestation]

The Ghost King (of Miscommunication) Ch. 21

Part 1-12,Part 13,Part 14,Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20

Part 21!

So this kinda got long. I wouldn't be able to fit the explanation part without posting off of my ao3 schedule. Also the chapter would be, like, way longer than the ~2K I've been aiming for.

So! Here's this, and I'm gonna try to post the explanation-scene as a separate chapter on Thursday or Friday. (It'll probably be big on its own anyway).

Info: Self-concept upon death hugely impacts ghost form, and Sam & Tucker expected white hair bc of Danny. So by the time Jazz became a ghost (read: Died) it was just an expectation that white hair and green eyes would be a part of that.

(Danny's own palette swap is an effect of his beliefs about what happens when things burn [white to black] and bleach in heat [black to white - like the flag on the moon]. White hair being associated with stress/death, green eyes because green was all he could see, etc. Just a lot of jumbled, morbid, last-minute thoughts while he was dying combined with pre-existing, subconscious beliefs about life and death.)

Jason's form is his exact form from when he died - minus all the injuries and plus the full-white eyes (not just normal eyes behind a domino mask - I know that varies by version for some robins. This is full-whites. They do still turn green when he's angry tho)

***

Jason only realized he’d been tricked after they finally called it a draw.

For all a snowball fight barely counted as a fight, he certainly felt calmer after getting some of his energy out.

He’d been so distracted enjoying himself he hadn’t even thought of using the chaos to bolt - not that he would have anyway, given he still didn’t know where to find a portal home.

The girl flits in front of him just in time for him to catch his breath.

“Nice to meet you,” She holds out a hand, grin as exuberant as it had been throughout the game - minus the feral tinge of competitiveness.

“I’m Danielle,” she offered as he shook the proffered hand. “But call me Elle - or Dani with an i if you want to mess with someone.”

The mischief on her face at the suggestion made him think she’d done so before.

She almost certainly already knew his name, but not telling her himself would be rude - a death sentence if they really were fae. Still, that she hadn’t prompted him should make it safer. Maybe.

(If the initial kidnapping was permitted by Danny hearing his name then he certainly didn’t hear a prompt from him, but who knows if inaudible whispers count. At least he can see that Danielle’s mouth hasn’t moved)

(Not like he isn’t already kidnapped anyway. What’ll they do, double kidnap him?)

“Jason,” he says as he disengages from the handshake, smiling genuinely despite himself.

(And he meant to smile, he did - he’d read enough stories to know how important being polite to the fae is; one wrong word and you’re 15 ribs shy of a full skeleton. Or a brother shy of a full family. It was half the reason he’d spoken as little as he had - but he hadn’t meant for it to be real)

“I’m sure Danny told you aaaaaall about me already, and yes, I really am that cool.”

Danielle - Elle - breaks Jason out his mental spiral. He just manages to smother his laugh with a cough.

“Ah, the tour actually got kind of off track, so I hadn’t had a chance to mention you yet.”

Elle gasps dramatically, putting both hands over her heart and flopping to the ground at Danny’s proclamation.

“Oh, I am wounded! I am shattered! I am abandoned and unloved!-” Danny laughs “-I am filing a formal complaint! I am requisitioning forms to have my darling emotional support Panther, Palu, moved to the Palace-”

“You- Emotio-WHAT!?” Danny reels back, expression horrified.

Elle floats up to sit a foot off the ground, arms and legs both crossed. She glares at him for about 5 seconds before sticking out her tongue and grinning.

“I’m kidding, you big chicken.”

“She ate my cape made with Actual Stars, Elle.”

Elle laughs at Danny’s clear relief and the following pout. Jason himself fails to suppress a snort.

“Well,” Danny huffs, turning to Wulf. “While these two are busy laughing at my expense, I wanted your opinion on something.”

He gestures to a more distant tree with his eyes, and Wulf follows as he floats away - probably aiming for out of earshot.

Elle abandons her laughter to float upright just in front of him - the floating equivalent of standing, he supposes.

“Anyway, like I said, I’m Elle. Long story short Danny’s ex-arch-nemesis who shall not be named wanted to adopt Danny and handled the ‘no’ really poorly and tried to clone him. I was the only surviving clone, and after trying to kill Danny on said manipulative ex-nemesis’ orders he managed to change my mind about said nemesis, helped stabilize me, and eventually ended up adopting me.” She said, in the most nonchalant manner possible, which, wow, the story really did not call for.

Jason desperately wants to know the long version.

“Sooo…” she drawls, smile gaining a teasing edge, “I guess you can actually just call me big sis.”

She laughs at his suddenly blank expression.

“No? How about ‘best big sister ever?’ Oh! Oh! Or ‘Coolest big sister in the Realms?’ Get it? Cuz ice powers.”

She flits around him as she speaks, wiggling her fingers and loosing a few flakes of snow at the last bit for emphasis, giggling.

Jason isn’t sure how to respond without insulting her somehow.

To any of that, really.

“Never expected to have a baby brother,” she muses, “but then with how readily he adopted me despite my origins I guess it isn’t all that surprising. Especially with you being a halfa and all. We’re really rare, I’m sure you’ve noticed. Or maybe not - you are only like a week old, technically.”

“I’m 22,” he corrects, unbelievingly.

She snorts.

“In human years, maybe.”

And hey. Wow. Jason is not a fan of that.

(Yes, he’s glowing. Yes, he’s visibly de-aged 7 years. No, he has not accepted any of the potential implications that has regarding his human-ness.)

Jason has roughly 100 more questions after her little info-dump than he did before.

Before he can debate risking those rib bones, what can only be one of the infamous ‘eyeballs’ shows up.

It sure is an eyeball, just one giant eye takes up most of its head, but for the thin green outline that connects to the rest of its body - only seen by the matching green of its hands, which themselves bear off-puttingly long claws.

It is also wearing quite possibly the most pretentious robes he has ever laid eyes on.

This coming from someone who grew up watching Brucie Wayne play air headed, carefree rich boy like it was his true calling - the man had a designer collection of dramatic robes to greet unexpected late-evening guests with.

“Phantom.”

“Greg.”

“That is not my name.”

By the terse greetings and short follow-up, this was a common exchange.

The eyeball - Greg, why not - turned its eye on Jason just then.

For all its size, the eye moved just as fast as a normal one. The motion was wrong in some indefinable way; grotesque to see. He did his best not to react, cautious of setting the being off; this one seemed more volatile than those he’d met thus far.

Despite the lack of a facial expression, Jason couldn’t help but feel like he was being sneered at.

Thankfully its attention on him was brief, turning back to address Elle after only a beat.

“If you are quite finished shirking your duties to play in the snow, the Valhallan representative is waiting to speak with you.”

“What??? He isn’t supposed to be here for another hour,” Elle questioned, brown pinched.

“It has been an hour, Phantom.”

He floats to her side to point towards the palace.

“If you would be so kind, I would like to get this over with.”

“Uuuuuuugh,” Elle groans, drifting slowly in that direction despite the apparent distaste, “Can’t you just watch from your lair like Clocky always does?”

“You know very well that matters of exceptional import and tumultuous path selection require personal observation in order to maintain timeline coherency. All royal meetings for-”

“‘-at least the next three weeks fit the criteria.’” Elle makes air quotes as she speaks, turning to face Greg while still floating towards the palace, backwards.

“I know, I know. Blah blah regulation, blah blah timelines, blah blah paperwork. Heard it. Got it. Thanks.” She concludes with an eyeroll, before looking back at him.

“Have fun with the rest of the tour!” she yells, smiling and waving as if she was already a mile away. “Make sure Danny shows you the map rooms!”

And then she turns and zooms away.

He can sense the faintest bit of rage coming from Greg, and he barely hears the muttered ‘Insufferable abomination’ before the…guy?...eye… follows suit.

He watches until the eye disappears into the building.

At which point he hears a small sigh from beside him.

He nearly jumps out of his skin in startlement, whipping his head around to find Danny floating placidly by his side, saluting into the distance.

“Good luck, Elle,” he says mournfully, “Rip to your good mood.”

“That bad?” Jason asks, resettling his nerves.

Danny snorts.

“The Observants always make everything either as boring as they can or as difficult as they can. It could be worse though; the Valhallans are a party people so it should balance out. Best case scenario they’ll spend the end of the meeting annoying ‘Greg’-” he adds air quotes at this, grinning, “-together.”

‘The Observants must be the eyeballs then,’ Jason thinks. ‘The name is a bit on the nose…or eye.’

“Anyway!” Danny twists and drifts to float in front of him. “We’ve got another hour or so before dinner; ready to get back to the tour?”

Jason opens his mouth, then pauses.

He takes a glance around and asks “Where is Wulf?”

“Oh, he’s off picking up a preorder - Volume 15 of, uh…something? I don’t remember the name. But don’t worry, he’ll be back in a few hours.”

And wow, the promise that Wulf isn’t just hovering unseen in the background does a lot to untense muscles he hadn’t realized were tensed.

“Right. Sure, tour away.”

He held in his questions, for all that he was bursting at the seams for answers.

Because really: Clone? Archnemesis??? Was this a hero-villain thing or a fae politics thing? Cloning generally wasn’t a thing heroes did, but kidnapping wasn’t either.

What did Elle mean by ‘Halfa?’ Or technically a week old???

Also: brother? Adopted? There’s no way, right?

Being yanked off of the streets of Crime Alley by some dude living in a veritable castle to be adopted with little to no explanation was not something that happened to people twice.

Let alone when he is, in fact, a grown-ass man.

----------------------

The next section they visit is Elle’s, located close to the final tower on the same side as the Specters’ had been.

The first room is filled with complex ice sculptures - a panther the size of a horse, a normal-sized cat, a few of the yetis, a kid in a pirate garb with a parrot, a girl covered in…Lunch Boxes? Danny, Jazz, and Spike were scattered among more unfamiliar statues.

They take their time in this room, Danny pointing to a lot of the people depicted and giving him names to go with faces - he even recognizes a few of them from earlier parts of the tour, and makes sure to commit them all to memory.

Then came the rooms that looked like a cosmopolitan’s dream collection.

A room dedicated to world maps through the ages - little groups of similarly-aged maps slowly orbited each other in globe-like patterns while newer versions and even a few of alien worlds lined the walls.

At least 3 rooms are dedicated to photos from all around the world - he spotted the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Congo from above, the Great Wall of China, Niagara Falls - plenty of well-known tourist locations, as well as a wide variety of nature shots. The nature shots took up an entire floor-width room, and were arranged to transition from one biome to the next.

The next room is full of souvenirs; postcards, foods from around the world frozen in more of that crystal-clear ice, weapons, clothing, jewelry - a little bit of everything.

Another swift pass-through - and by, since one of them was occupied - of the meeting, sitting, and nap rooms has them finally arrive at the room that was probably the reason Elle said ‘map rooms’ and not just ‘room.’

It was domed like an observatory, but instead of the night sky it showed that infinite green.

Different sections zoomed in and out, just slowly enough to take in. The room is scattered with cushions and telescopes aimed up. At the very center stands some kind of machine, spitting out paper which, when he floats over to look at it, reveals a single, ever-growing map.

“Elle is obsessed with travel,” Danny says fondly. “She was away more often than not at first, but then she got the idea to map the Realms - a map that can be referenced rather than a single ‘take me where I ask you to’ artifact.”

He floats up towards the dome as he speaks.

“It might seem pointless with how much paper an infinite amount of realms will take to map, but the mechanism feeds the map data into a computer that sends everything to be incorporated into Tucker and Technus’ Zone Map App. It updates constantly, what with the fluctuations in the Zone, but it’s always improving.”

“Fluctuations?” Jason asks, processing the ‘infinite amount of realms’ remark.

“Think of it like space; there’s gravity against the constant growth of the universe. The zone expands and contracts, like the flow of a tide. Except it’s moving in all directions instead of just the two.

But it expands more than it contracts, and just like on the sea or in space things can drift closer together or farther apart. Following specific streams can help, but only so much. Reliable navigation was pretty hard to come by before Elle, Tuck, and Technus started working on this.”

“Impressive,” Jason says softly.

And it is. The thought of mapping a veritable ocean with important bits that never stayed in the same place…it seemed nigh-impossible.

Opposite the third tower - “We can tour my tower after dinner,” Danny had said - lay the section belonging to Jazz and Spike.

The first thing they come to is familiar - the library.

“Anyone can use the library, but Jazz is the one in charge.”

Jason stops cold.

“Jazz.” He echoes.

Jazz, who had so calmly and proficiently wielded a gun.

Who had gifted him a gun.

Who had expressed her own love for literature.

They’d even briefly discussed some of the classics and yet-

“Jazz made that impossible excuse for a sorting system!?”

He couldn’t bring himself to worry about upsetting him, he’d just have to risk the ribs. That ‘sorting’ system was a travesty that could not stand unchallenged.

Luckily, Danny only chuckles a bit.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” he snorts, shaking his head.

“Not that- how are you supposed to find anything!” he shouts, throwing his hands into the air.

“You ask,” Danny answers, brow raised.

“WHO!? THERE’S NO RECEPTIONIST!” Jason scrubs his hands against his hair in frustration.

Understanding dawns on Danny’s face at that.

“Here, let me show you,” he says, nodding to the doors before zooming through.

Jason follows, anger simmering under his skin - fully his own, for the first time in years.

“Library,” Danny says as Jason comes to float beside him, “May I please see The Guide to Phantom Palace?”

A book soars from a wall shelf to float, wiggling in front of him like an eager puppy.

“Thank you!” Danny says brightly, before turning to hand the book to Jason.

“The library is sentient,” he explains. “Good manners are key, by the way - Jazz is in charge, but the library can and will kick people out if they're rude or incautious with food and drinks.”

Jason stares at the book in his hand a moment, frustrated at the simplicity of it and the hour he spent looking aimlessly, but at least a bit soothed at the presence of a way to actually find things - even if the organization still makes no sense.

“Why the emotional organization system, then?” He finally asks.

“That’s for Jazz,” Danny answers. “This library is a part of some psychology project she’s doing - the return system, at least. Ask the library for the book you want - or you can ask for suggestions based on certain criteria. It’s sentient, it can help you find things - and when you’re done with it you put it back where you think it should be based on your own emotions.

Or if you don’t want to participate you can just put your books back on the shelf by the desk and Jazz will rearrange them however she sees fit.”

“Psychology project?” Jason asks after pause.

“Ah, you’d have to ask her. She told me all about it when it was first getting set up, but as much as I tried to understand it, it was all Greek to me.”

“Anyway!” he claps, “Now for the rest!”

The rest of Jazz’s section seems to follow the psychology theme.

A rage room that looks well-loved - battered, glowing clubs and a variety of damaged items from tech to glass to dummies that appeared to be slowly healing themselves.

A soothing room full of soft things and calming music and candles and even a few flowers.

A sound-proof room for quiet, a therapy room for meeting with ‘patients.’ Then of course there were the business meeting, paperwork, sitting, and nap rooms. And a combat room.

The nap, combat, and sitting rooms seemed to be shared, with the second part of the section - Spike’s - branching off from the sitting room.

Spike, of course, had his own cursed paperwork and meeting rooms.

Then came the ‘this is the home of an artist’ rooms.

An enormous circular room was dedicated to acting as a color wheel, the walls slowly shifting from deepest reds to darkest indigos, with every shade and color in between. In the center of the floor was the darkest shade of black, radiating out to a blinding white where it met the walls - the ceiling was the opposite, a bright white dot radiating darker until it met the walls as a void-like black.

A room filled with sketches and paintings, a room full of blank or half-made canvases with pencils and paints and brushes floating all around - seemingly where they’d been abandoned, a room full of miniature landscapes matching both locations he’d seen on earth and the strange landmasses he’d seen on the journey to the castle. And then what Danny called an archive room, where Spike stored older projects that he no longer wished to display.

Skalfred found them just as Danny finished explaining the room.

“Perfect timing!” Danny grins, turning to Jason. “Race you there?"

They’re near the library. Jason knows the way.

He zips around Skalfred and out the door in lieu of an answer.

He can just faintly hear Danny sputtering, ‘You cheater!’ coming out around the echoing laughter behind him.

***

@mayoota-blog1 @kyrianclawraith, @do3y, @someonebored0100 @omegasmileyface @a-star-with-a-human-name @akikoyuii @newgraywolf @tytythehistoryguy

Fun Facts!

Elle’s name - she initially chose Dani because she didn’t want to change herself just to differentiate herself from Danny - lots of people have the same name, and she has just as much right to it as Danny.

But it also made her feel too much like a copy and less like a person - especially with the confusion when she started living with the Fentons.

Then Jazz suggested Elle would be a nice name - it’s part of her name already and it’s like Elle Woods, known badass. They then watched legally blonde, and Dani decided it was a really cool name and started going by Elle. She’s a lot happier with it - no more discomfort when being spoken too, and they can still call her Dani when she and Danny are both in the room and they want to annoy the Observants or other people by doing The Bit(™) [both pointing to themselves ‘who me’ - other person, also in on the bit, facepalming and saying ‘Danny’ - them ‘which Danny.’ Of course no one told the observants Dani also goes by Elle. One time one got tired of it and went ‘Obviously the Danny with the crown of fire.’ And Danny makes the Crown of Fire appear (separate little mini-rings-transformation) at the same time Elle pulls a Burger King Crown actively on fire from her Halfa Pocket Space and they both go ‘which crown of fire’ and it is by the blessing of not having organs alone that the observant in question did not immediately have an aneurysm from sheer, apoplectic rage.]

Palu - Danny is a dog person, Elle is a cat person. Palu is named for Cath Palug - the closest thing I could find to a cat-equivalent of Cujo’s namesake. Same neon-green fur as Cujo, but all-purple eyes. Palu can be the size of a cat (around twice Cujo’s puppy-size), but can get up to the size of a horse (just slightly smaller than Cujo’s max). Unfortunately, Palu is very fond of Being Enormous And Also Hunting Everything That Moves That Isn’t Dani, so they put her in one of Sam’s conservation areas where she’d be happy. She liked it enough to move her lair - an incredibly large pet-bed in a small forest of cat trees - and Dani visits whenever she wants to see her.

#dpxdc #danny phantom #jason todd #danielle phantom #long post #comedy-horror of errors

[kayayeteae]

List of thoughts I have with FFXVI!! (That no one asked for).

This is me being a hater. Read to you own discretion

Jill’s entire character, arc, story, person, being. Girl they did you SO WRONG.

Also, didn’t homegirl have the curse too. She was a dominant of WAR. are we just gonna ignore her illness

On that note, are bearers with the curse just doomed to sickness and disability post ultima

The most unrealistic part of FFXVI is the fact that they didn’t make some fake ass slur for bearers

Clive showed NO BEARERS CURSE through out the game. Was that intentional. Bitch was snorting aether by like the first third of the game.

I love Joshua. 🥰 I love him so much. He’s probably my second favorite character.

Ya kno, if you make Josh and Clive unrelated, replace Josh with Jill, made Jill play the role as a young dominant that Clive is the shield for, their love story would be more believable (is that too FFX to do?)

I got a very good amount of Clive crying and I reveled in every second of it. He’s so pretty when he cries.

I know cid had the right mind to destroy the crystals, but I wonder if Clive doubted himself for a second for doing it bc if he didn’t, the cycle of violence would just continue.

I really like Clive as a character who needs positive male figures in his life for his lack of one after Phoenix gate. His reliance on cid and Joshua is very endearing.

I love anabella 😌 she’s a wonderful villain.

What happened to the girl with the poultices. Like u can’t just give her closure off screen!!!

The same goes with Terence!!!!

Does Byron inherit the region of Rosaria as the last Rosfield.

How is the DLC gonna cover Clive more? Let me play as Joshua lol.

This game wants to be Devil May cry so baddddd

There are many instances where we could have and should have controlled the other party members

The game was overall was very easy. I died mostly on purpose to try new techniques. It actually got boring at some points

The barnabas fight was the best

Judgement cut isn’t useful for my play style

I don’t understand why Joshua had to capture ultima and hold him. And why does he suck at taking his meds

Every character in this game has no growth except Clive

I still believe that they should have labeled cids group as a cult filled with terrorists. The political impact would insane.

What is the population of storm cuz there were a LOT of akashic soldiers I killed

Ngl I forgot why there were wars going on in storm.

Did cid fuck his way to being the outlaw? how did he gain so much respect and connections??? This is why he should be viewed as a cult leader

There were a few instances where the game could’ve had horror elements. The one sidequest regarding the orphanage is one of them. And Cyril’s quest is another. Shoulda been the RE4 opening lol.

Did cid get ramuh when he was older? He mentioned that ramuh chose “this old sack of bones”

Dion deserved better

‘What happens without the crystals?’ The Industrial Revolution, that’s what.

Bro and how does stealing dominants work. Like do u have to die? What about Jill. The only survivor of shiva. Wtf.

I stand by my unhinged claim. Mid and Clive should have been endgame.

The way that Clive begs both Joshua and cid to not give him their dominant is so heartbreaking. I love it 🥰

What happens to the uh. Order of the Phoenix. The one who follow Joshua. Like what is their purpose now.

How tf did Olivier succumbed to ultima so quickly. And like. Why. lol

[roobylavender]

I was thinking about this and like it’s not Kory’s culture or language that makes her an alien since other cultures and languages always exist. It’s not even really her powers except for the flying since she was experimented on. So like for me the alien bit really comes from her eyes and her orange golden(?) skin but even that except for the eyes is alien. I never liked when they give her fire hair and I much prefer her long red regular hair BUT I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think it’s mainly how her body responds that for me really is what I would focus on. Like mating practices and pregnancy and eating habits and how hot her skin can get and idk I kinda wish she was given like a tail. Like imagine if Kory had a long tail the color of her skin with like a little red tuff at the end. And like what if it reacted to her emotions. Like image her having children (if it was with Dick is would be even wilder) because then his children would also have tails and I think there would be like idk the idea that once circuses were for outcast who had different features. Idk I feel like there would be a story there. Like imagine them having 4 kids and maybe one can fly and the others can hang from their tail…

Idk it was just a thought I was thinking of. Like her husband had red skin and I even think he had horns. Like another character that is really cool is Eddie Bloomberg and like for x-men you have Nightcrawler. Idk it’s just thoughts.

oh yeah for sure like if tamaraneans are descended from a feline race then it would be more interesting for them to actually look like it or for certain behaviors to be passed down. like yeah obv it's easier for kory to look human bc there's less to muse about logistics wise but aliens are aliens for a reason! they're supposed to be different and then i think there's also something interesting you could do when you juxtapose a more distinct tamaranean appearance with the fact that kory is a model. like she's tall and beautiful but also how does her truly alien appearance impact her work and esp depending on the time period and circumstances in a given political moment. those are great questions and social situations to meander into if writers try to be a little more creative with her assimilation onto earth and i really love the circus example you bring up too. for haly's circus to be a place where people belong regardless of their backstory or appearance or behavior.. it would be a nice idea to explore and a nice way to flesh out that part of dick's life too (not to say we should use kory to always prop up dick but you and i both know we have good intentions here lolol)

#outbox

[ac-liveblogs]

Deadass first thought when I saw jing yuan and blade was "bitch, cut your bangs".

As much as I love Yanqing for trying to solo The demigod, most infamous and divisive political hot potato in his culture, AND an immortal ranked at the top of the IPC's most wanted list, AT THE SAME TIME, blade and dan heng's first encounter being them fighting /together/ wasn't a good look, given their history and dan heng canonically having nightmares abt the dude.

Then again, most of the hsr fandom probs comes from genshin, with the lack of critical thinking that entails - exhibit A, see the most popular ship for dan heng in ao3...

Also with jingliu I was like "...weren't you dead...?" Bc I, like a fool, watched the animations before playing the game, so I thought the Imbibitor Lunae transformation would be a lot cooler than it was and that Jing Yuan actually put down his mara-struck master. Knowing she's a playable character completely ruined the dramatic tension in the "A Flash" animation for me lol

I liked Jing Yuan's design but his role as 'moral upstanding always right hero guy' really started to grate on me. It was in pretty sharp contrast to Herta and Bronya as the previous 'leaders' of their worlds. Disappointing downgrade.

I mean, Blade did still stab him. That's still a thing that happened. The issue is more that him doing that ... wasn't really about Blade and Dan Heng. It was about Imbibitor Lunae.

And when you've got-

"that man [Blade] only has a killing intent toward him [Dan Heng] — even the spaceships he had traveled on were all annihilated."

-plus. You know. Blade's lore...

Based on Blade's handling in everything I've seen so far (bear in mind that I don't go to HSR's YouTube page or watch any shorts or trailers so whatever information is conveyed there is a mystery to me), I never would have guessed anything even remotely close to that level of intensity was going on with them.

Which is really like... the issue...

I don't think, necessarily, that the first fight with Blade being against Yanqing is the problem in isolation. It's that it muddies what Blade and Dan Heng's actual dynamic is. If Blade's introduction had been him, I don't know, attacking the Express to get to Dan Heng and the reason they stopped in Xianzhou was for repairs (absolute bare minimum of establishing conflict), they would've set up what's up with them and the team-up would've been less damning later on.

Just less. Still not great as Blade's first playable fight. But. Less. I assume they wanted a playable NPC Blade for that patch since he just dropped and because they also wanted DH:IL ... eh...

But because Blade is almost completely out of focus in XL, when he shows up his conflict with Dan Heng loses impact due to the team-up and his role in it is just to reveal Imbibitor Lunae and then he leaves... and the lore is 1) buried in Character Stories and 2) infodumped after the fact...

The man is utterly lost in the weeds. He's a hologram. He's off-screen. He's standing to the side while Dan Heng does cool things. He's locked in a room while Kafka and Trailblazer chat about their shared past. He's absent while Jingliu explains his history with Dan Feng to Dan Heng. He's nothing. He does nothing.

I don't even buy he's that crazy. Him or Jingliu. They can have the scary eyes in their Ultimates all they want, I don't believe it, they're both way too rational for that.

In my opinion, Blade doesn't bring anything to the table right now (like, at all, the Quintet's lore wasn't really structured in a way that makes the best use of him or his hatred for DH or... the themes of Abundance vs the Hunt... grrr).

Blade's entire situation here is. It's just bad writing. I was pulling for him because I knew he was connected to Dan Heng and he's a stupid useful support character, almost got to hard pity, and then stopped pulling because the man bored me to tears!

Then again, most of the hsr fandom probs comes from genshin, with the lack of critical thinking that entails - exhibit A, see the most popular ship for dan heng in ao3…

I'm a little surprised that you're surprised by that, given those two being popular makes sense if you're accustomed to fandom. It seems like their lore would've resulted in a lot of speculation and (depending on what's in all the lore books I haven't read or animations I haven't watched) theorycrafting, plus Dan Heng being a playable MC with a rival team counterpart (guaranteed future interactions in a main story capacity) with whom he has a dynamic, drama, a mysterious shared past...

No real shock fandom latched on. Them even being the most popular makes sense, since it's not like there's a whole lot else on that level in HSR at the moment. At least not that I've seen, and especially not with the main team (setting aside whatever's up with Welt and Luocha). Fandom loves filling in the gaps and 'fixing' things too. So. There's that.

...God, you really would've expected their dynamic to matter?? Christ a moment of silence to anyone that got invested in that what a shit payoff, I've been here for a week and I'm mad? You could completely remove Blade from this chapter and the only change you'd need is a different reason for Dan Heng to leave the Express to go to Xianzhou. My guy deserved better than this??? How come Trailblazer and Kafka get so much time and attention but Dan Heng gets shit all with his counterpart in his own chapters??? Atrocious, absolutely atrocious.

I have no idea what to think about Jingliu. The High Cloud Quintet's handling is weird. I suppose it's still better than Genshin's Adepti-obsession given 4+1/5 are playable but. Why she was brought back here, and for this, is beyond me.

#ac plays hsr

[saviourkingslut]

Shez being portrayed as someone who can’t help Claude through his trust issues unlike By.leth, when Shez is actually shown trying to help Claude while all By.leth does is 👁👁 and magics away Claude’s (everyone’s) issues… that shit hurts as someone who likes Shez :( Especially when I really can’t see what By.leth did in 3H that was so impactful for Claude that Shez just can’t do, when Claude’s the lord that so obviously needs/needed By.leth the least.

Like on one hand I do like that Shez can’t quite get through to Claude and how much both of them clearly want to be friends with each other but can’t quite close that distance, since it’s a relationship that’s both interesting in itself and fairly unique when it comes to Shez’s relationships in general (and removes the annoying player pandering - really lets Shez feel like a character)… but then I remember that people are just going to use this as fuel as to why By.leth is the best thing since sliced bread when they literally don’t do anything on a personal level for Claude and I just :/

yeah i don't really like seeing the negativity on shez either. i think he's a really fun character and im enjoying his interactions with the rest of the cast a lot. there's a lot of aspects to his personality that i'd like to explore further! and there's much less player pandering from what i've experienced so far, which is a huge plus for me. i haven't played gw yet but it sounds like shez and claude have an interesting dynamic there - somewhat unique, like you say, for having the relationship between the lord and the protag be a little difficult, with more trial and error than what we usually see in the 3h games. i get the feeling that that might have been what the writers were trying to go for in throuses with by/leth and claude? and it's relatively well-executed in the first few chapters but then eventually the by/leth focus still comes into play pretty hard, especially after the timeskip, and claude's distrust and his resulting apprehensive, distant stance towards by/leth peter out pretty rapidly. which is fine except it isn't even bc by/leth is really doing anything, the story just happens and claude learns new things and decides to trust by/leth now. unfortunately people disliking protags and being negative about it is just what being in this fandom is like. i mean, i try to be fair about it and i try to tag my posts correctly, but i can't say that im not being negative abt by/leth a lot. and there's plenty of people who don't do anyone the courtesy of hiding their thoughts behind tags and polite words, and that's not fun for by/leth enjoyers either. but then i really dislike how a huge part of the fandom hypes on by/leth and their importance to every character and their mum and then turn around and call shez a bland knock-off, or cold and unfeeling, or say that the characters suffer for shez being around instead of by/leth simply bc shez is a different character with a different relationship to the lords and a different role in the story as a whole. especially if you think that by/leth doesn't do a whole lot for most characters at all. and claude is definitely the lord who got hit with the least player pandering, so it's even more of a drag to see people use shez as an excuse to over-emphasise by/leth's importance to him. there's not much to do but try to ignore people who say that kind of stuff and curate your fandom experience as much as you can.

#asks #byleth critical #i for one don't do fandom except on tumblr. i don't go to twitter bc you can't curate your experience there #and people are rabid #i don't really do discord either like. i'll hop onto a server and then i never show my face #i don't like the micro-cosm of drama that discord servers always turn out to be #and there's always too many people whose presence annoy me to hell or whose takes i Do Not agree with #and servers will so often have like. their own specific takes on canon and characters #and they're never takes that i like so. you know. it's whatever i just don't get involved #why rain on other people's parade and be an asshole on disc when i can also not do that and post shit on tumblr instead

[crimeronan]

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good

#replies #tsc #tda #julian blackthorn #meta #long post #ungodly long post. #shadowhunters #Anonymous

[commajade]

ik this is from before but ive been thinking about the trans man butch post and idk... i don't like the idea of including attraction to trans men in lesbianism and when i was reading it i was like well good for the author but im not...attracted to trans men...and thats not part of being lesbian. like idk when this was written and if its older I get how diff norms could have impacted her understanding but yea...and also the line talking abt how the lover wants her like a man bc his thinking changed after starting T stuck out to me as weird too. and i mean maybe the modern understanding of sex hormones is just a lot diff so i wont go on about how thats not how T works but i feel like lesbians are usually very off put by someone "wanting us as a man"? food for thought ig

the thing is though, that it genuinely does not matter whether u think that person's experience is valid. ur allowed to judge that person and disagree, and u would be probably be aligned with a lot of other lgbt ppl around them. and it's ok if u disagree with me! this is the internet not an in-person and long standing lesbian social community, u r not accountable to me beyond basic human decency. i personally don't see a problem with it because people have all kinds of journeys with their identity and within lgbt social circles and butch and femme are relational social roles within a specific social and political context and the issue of transitioning while being butch is much bigger and much more difficult than we know and the author expressed that struggle beautifully.

i am absolutely not saying that because i don't see a problem in that story i'm allowing attraction to trans men to be a part of the definition of lesbianism. there's a difference between what actual people historically experienced and what is a correct on-paper definition of sexualities and lgbt social roles. i agree that i am not attracted to trans men and attraction to trans men should not be considered a part of the definition of what a lesbian is. there are actually trans men on this website that call themselves butch and make weird posts about gay men and lesbians having sex being normal. and it's gross, really really gross. another example of this would be bi femmes. on the internet i'm gonna be uncomfortable when a lot of bi women with no affiliation to or knowledge of lesbian bar culture and no love for butches call themselves femme but historically, bi women were an important part of butch femme bar culture and gave up a lot and gained a lot from taking on the responsibility of that social role, which continual rejection of men and wanting butches instead is a part of.

queerness is by definition outside of words, everything we do is resistance to language and outside of language and breaks apart language. the danger in these kinds of stories is when people use them as proof for ideas that are trying to disrupt our social formations and community structures and make our words meaningless, make the word lesbian no longer mean what it does. but the story doesn't do that, there's a reverence for lesbianism and the butch femme community that the narrator is terrified of losing the subversive power gained by becoming a part of that community and social structure. and about that section the narrator was put off by that too, terrified in fact.

finally, note that the passage never did firmly establish whether the narrator's partner considers himself a trans man completely. he could be a nonbinary transmasc lesbian like me that went through medical transition. he could be a trans man that still considers himself butch and that would be none of my business, he has def already been taken to task about it by his own community based on their own definitions of what being butch means. these terms come with sacrifice, they come with automatic rejection from society, they come with punishment both physical/legal and emotional, they aren't taking this shit lightly.

lesbian and trans experience is complicated and not going to fit neatly into any kind of narrative because we're communally writing the stories and definitions as they suit us and the community we have made. in general yeah saying lesbians are attracted to trans men is transphobic and lesbophobic but this is real people we're talking about, with real experiences that do in fact happen. it's not an idea, it's just what happened to those people. they're people of incorrect gender and incorrect desire which is the definition of what being lgbt is, and they should be considered as real human beings living through hell just to be who they are and survive. i don't think it's my role as a reader to further punish this person who's lived through more hardship for being gay and trans than i have, whose story is being very vulnerably told so i can benefit, so i can see some of myself and feel some connection in the past as a young nonbinary transmasc butch lesbian.

#asks #long post // #if i misspoke anyone can lmk this stuff is rly fraught in terms of language and i could always be more clear #butch

[starsailorstories]

In your post on the astraea culture ideas of honor, you mentioned a lux honor code for the rebel warriors - could you go into that please?

So to give a useful answer about that I have to say two things right off the bat, which are

1. the code of honor is actually a collaboration between Bell Town, several other enclaves of organized lux, a number of scattered pockets of people involved in the first wave of rebellion and their successors, a previously rebellion-unaffiliated...space IWW type thing from the Sol Garna system, and the leadership of a movement of Caesurans who have defected from the imperial military in protest of the occupation of their planet. So there are a number of frameworks at play and it takes a LONG time for them to agree on what it's going to be.

2. Because the creation of this thing is in a lot of ways the climax of the political side of the plot of the trilogy and I really want to do it right both from the angle of characterization (that is incorporating the values of these different groups of characters that are still being developed) and from the angle of provoking thought for the reader without just writing a prescriptive essay (that is presenting ethical/political ideas in a way that's interesting and serves the lasting impact of the overall feeling of the story whether the reader strictly agrees with them or not)...(DEEP BREATH) it is Not Done Yet

HOWEVER things I can say about it at this point include

- It incorporates inspiration from the Twelve Questions including some thoughts on their interpretation because in this house we're about doing Cepheid proud

- In the spirit of that tradition--but also in light of the need to combat the rhetoric of a heavily nationalistic and moralizing media and public opinion landscape--it focuses more on mindsets and power dynamics than specific actions in terms of what it labels okay or not. For example they disalign themselves from groups whose stated goal is establishing public honor for whatever subjugated person or group, not because they don't believe everyone deserves honor but because in Basilea the retaking of honor is a generally extremely violent process (if you want to get really general and abstract it's the cause of all duels and most suicides in their culture) and they don't believe in violence in service of an abstract.

- this is kind of weird bc it’s effectively saying the mainstream concept of honor (fulfilling your predetermined role well and conforming to the expectations of those with power over you) is outside the code of honor and they do wind up having to get into semantics about it regularly but never fear, intergalactically renowned splitter of hairs Shade Tinnaturisai is on the case

- The above is not to say that they blanket-condemn violence; self-defense--including from systemic violence like forced homelessness--is implicit as necessary in the thing as most of the people they’re trying to liberate have no political or legal enfranchisement whatsoever. They're just making a distinction between acts for a collective cause and acts of punishment and revenge made for personal moral satisfaction

- I’m also interested in incorporating the idea that every literal sapient life is precious but profits, the abstract of money to be made, are to be destroyed as ruthlessly as possible. Shutting down factories and ships is one obvious manifestation of this MO but they also do stuff like burn promissory paperwork for trades and strategically hold buildings and ships just long enough to distribute out all the product for free to more people than law enforcement can actually track or prosecute. They treat profits (which because of the way the system works generally kick back to the aula or other LGA capitalists anyhow) the way traditional wars treated the enemy.

- there’s a lot about making sure that rebellion operatives who are going into danger are going of their own free will and for the right reasons while acknowledging that people’s reasons are going to be diverse and complex

- other things include an accountability system where allied groups assess one another on whether they’re upholding the principles of equality and compassion for everyone. and it’s not pass/fail everyone in the group can tell the outsider their thoughts and the outsider can give notes however they want to whoever they want

- there’s no punitive element to the code of honor even for those who don’t abide by its precepts you just have to abide by them to call yourself part of the rebellion and like 100% expect the rebellion to not have beef with you

- the code was decided on through a consensus process where everyone had to agree to everything in it and it was Hard like it took them several days and everyone involved got pissed off with everyone else at some point but all of them went in with the goal of agreement so they kept going til they agreed and the result was a very strong alliance who understood each member group’s needs really well

There is SO much more I could say about this but to sum it up the goals of the code of honor are to basically ensure that to whatever extent is possible they can accomplish their goals without any coercion inward or excessive force outward. It and the process of creating it also build the model for the transitional central council once the aula is mostly overthrown

#WHEW #sweet chariot #like I said it’s a work in progress #parts of the scene are written and it’s much less boring than it sounds lol. it’s a turning point for a lot of the characters #bc they’re articulating the principles they’re building their lives around in the absence of authority

[luckycheesefoodie321]

ok...ok ok ok... ok... so I watched Mulan (2020)... spoilers + LONG POST (yo this took me an hour and a half)...

before yall scream at me for spending money on it, lemme just say i was fully intending to wait until December so that I would not have to give even more money to the Disney machine (especially in light of things that happened with John Boyega) nor endorse individuals who support police brutality or oppression... but my mum and sister nagged me to buy it so we could watch it now, and explaining the politics of supporting both Disney’s greed and the controversy around the lead actress and would’ve just frustrated us both so I paid for it -_- please don’t crucify me... 

also want to preface this by saying I am not Chinese (though I am Asian), and I understand that the 1998 film and this film have inherent issues, given neither were directed by Asian directors, let alone Chinese ones... so the representation of the Chinese culture is likely flawed (and likely straight up wrong) in many ways... additionally, Li Yifei has been shown to support the actions of police in Hong Kong, so just know I’m viewing her role purely from an acting and movie standpoint...

now that’s done... general rating for the movie

when compared to the original animated film (my favourite Disney movie of all time): scrapes by on a 5/10

movie that stands on its own as I watched it (just note I’m the type of person who can enjoy pretty much anything - even if I’m hyper-critical of it): 7/10 (I’m very generous but my viewing experience was nice)

if I break it down completely into its underlying faults and wash away the Hollywood sheen and the nostalgia filter: 4/10 for themes 8/10 for cinematography and the technical aspects... (this movie was gorgeous to look at and had some really fun camera work, sue me for enjoying the visuals)

Full SPOILER review:

For the most part, my nostalgia filter from the animated film, which I dearly dearly love, basically had me ecstatic anytime there was even a hint of a reference to the animated film (see: occasional notes from the songs), and also sorely disappointed when the acting or the general pace pulled the fun or the emotion from key points (see: A Girl Worth Fighting For being abruptly cut off upon seeing the carnage would’ve been so much more impactful because they actually showed the bodies in the 2020 version but instead we got this kinda funny convo referencing the lines completely separated from that scene)...

The biggest issue I have with the film is that Mulan was naturally skilled from the beginning and was told to suppress her abilities.. making her OP from the beginning undermines the 1998 journey where we see every step of her development both in physical ability and her emotional struggles... then through her wits, intelligence, and strategy, as well as being on par and even better than her fellow soldiers, she manages to defeat Shan Yu and makes us feel her “Hero” status is very much earned... so it takes away from what the 1998 film tried to show in suggesting Mulan could just OP her way to victory at the drop of a hat.. and also implied her being dishonest about her true identity was her primary flaw? idk thematically they were trying to be super empowering of women and the capability of women, and the boxes women are forced into according to society... but then suggest Mulan was always inherently gifted/had a special power and that is why she succeeded, while the other soldiers worked hard and effectively achieved the same goal (albeit in a less flashy manner)... so the message gets very confusing...

i felt that Xian Niang (was that her name?), the Witch, had a lot of potential, but I was also really concerned they introduced her to make sure Mulan had a female enemy to defeat, and Shan Yu/Bori Khan was a minion of this female enemy... so in that sense I’m glad she served as a foil to Mulan... I would’ve liked the parallels more if the “being your true self”/”bring honor to us all” theme wasn’t so muddled... Mulan was accepted while XIan Niang wasn’t because they both had powers, but then Mulan convinces her to take the noble path and so Xian Niang died for her? idk there was a better way to fold her into the story...

Shan Yu/Bori Khan was about as much as I expected from him... I think he matched Shan Yu for skill, though idk about ferocity or intimidation power, though the actor was decent enough... but I did enjoy his and Mulan’s fight... less impactful because he didn’t even know about her and how she was the one to take down most of his army...

didn’t mind that Mushu was missing... fondly referred to the phoenix as Mushu (though I understand there may be cultural missteps in a phoenix being the spirit/ancestor/guardian)...

I also didn’t mind they removed the power imbalance between Shang and Mulan and had her love interest be a fellow soldier...I really liked Yoson An’s character actually...but the romance element was significantly dialled back, so we didn’t get the bisexual icon that is Li Shang... also Li Yifei’s emotional acting was normal but not outstanding... so her feelings for Honghui didn’t really register much except for that first time they chat in the barracks about girls, and right before she goes home... (just me being pouty about him not joining the Imperial Guards to Mulan’s home and presenting himself for matchmaking... though I understand it was to keep focus on Mulan’s journey, not her love interest)...

while it probably wasn’t the intention of the 1998 film, the positive portrayal of gender fluidity, the specific empowerment of trans and bisexual individuals through Mulan and Shang (bc let’s get real, he was just as attracted to Ping as he was Mulan), all did not ring in quite the same way in the 2020 version... again I’m not part of either community, so I can’t say for sure, but this is what I read from it...

overall the fun was taken out, with the songs... I would say this is probably on the higher end of Disney Live Action adaptations, there were some fun moments and funny dialogue even, and I didn’t mind that they were trying to do something different, unlike some of the others which made it note for note the same... but ultimately the biggest flaw of most of the adaptations are that it removes the fun and the levity in lieu of a more serious tone... 

I accepted no songs (I was hopeful and then pleasantly surprised when they did pay some minor homages through the score to the original’s songs)... but the fun moments were meant to be intentionally undercut by the reality of the war... there’s a reason A Girl Worth Fighting For was cut off so abruptly in the 1998 version... it was the moment where these trainees (all of them young and having never experienced battle or war before) suddenly realised the severity of the situation before them, and it was in that moment they accepted their fate and duty to protect the kingdom...

the 2020 version just kind of had them walk through the carnage without any real build up... the grand battle sequence with the avalanche was pretty well done, the overdramatic “Hua Jun died but Mulan lived” scene notwithstanding.. i didn’t mind that Mulan volunteered to expose herself rather than be forced half-naked into the snow by the Chancellor dude... didn’t like Honghui got the “you listened to Hua Jun, why is Hua Mulan any different?” line... the “I believe in Hua Mulan” was kinda goofy, but I could see what they were going for... it was kinda undermined by the Commander saying “you dishonoured your family and this regiment but hey, you’re brave and loyal kid”...felt very patronising...

I’m not gonna lie, I kinda loved Cricket... he was adorable and I had half a heart attack when I thought he’d died... 

DIDN’T REALISE MING NA WEN MADE A CAMEO UNTIL I CAME ON HERE...so that was nice..

still pissed they didn’t even put the drum beats for “I’ll Make a Man Outta You”...they were using drums during the training sequence too so would’ve been real easy to do so AND THEY DIDN’T...they did it for “Bring Honor to Us All” and “Reflection”...idk why they couldn’t even give us that much of my favourite Disney song...

again, cannot emphasise enough how gorgeous this whole movie looked...and there were so many fun camera work moments... the visuals had me dead on the floor ya’ll...

idk what else i have to say now...

tl;dr I enjoyed the experience of watching it, but hooooo boi the film is flawed as hell...

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