#ithaca is gorges | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tobegiggledat · 2 years

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Sohmbdy

18+ CONTENT AHEAD MDNI

✦pairing: Cyclops!Fatgum x afab!reader

✦warnings: The Odyssey au, noncon/dubcon, cannibalism, minor character death, pussyjob, a lot of fucking cum and spit, oral (f. receiving), reader is used like a rag doll fr

✦word count: 2.1k

✦a/n: You don't have to know anything about The Odyssey to read this tbh

Ithaca.

A simple utterance of the Grecian island has your crew reduced to bloodied flesh piles before you at the hands of an enraged cyclops.

As you cower beneath him, the beast closes his fists around two more men, squishing them between his palms with a squelch then chucking them between his teeth, giddily.

“W-What for—“, the man beside you nearly stumbles backward as he speaks. “We merely answered your question”, he shakily adds but the giant still feasts without disturbance.

In fact, the man’s panicked words only stirs the cyclops’ appetite for him, as his thick fingers press against the sides of his head, shortly before taking the man’s life in a bloody outburst.

The panicked screeches before each death will never escape your psyche for as long as you live.

No one can move from under him, let alone escape his grasp.

Knees trembling, you stand amongst the rest of your group, huddled in a corner with a musty wind fanning across your skin from each breath the salivating giant looming over you takes.

Dark vermillion trails dribble along the corners of the beast’s lips as he obscenely smacks on more corpses. He greedily gulps each of the boney bits that stick to his fingertips, and lathes his tongue over any remnants.

An icy sense of dread tugs and tightens in your chest, yet there are no words of optimism you can give yourself to ease it. It continues to fester from each of his apathetic swallows until it boils outwardly as hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

The cyclops finally wipes at the stickiness on his lips before yawning and stretching his limbs in satisfaction.

You haven’t pulled your gaze away from him ever since he began gorging on your crewmates, but something about his more relaxed demeanor gives you the courage to eye your surroundings—and it’s just as you feared.

There's no one else left.

“Kinda silly to return here, ‘specially after what the last of y’all had done to me” A deeply thick voice chides, breaking the already heavy atmosphere with more weighted words.

Yet, these are the only other words spoken by the beast besides his initial inquiry about where you all were from.

His sole golden iris looks you up and down with fury, yet intrigue.

Last of y’all? You think heavily on what he said—

It finally hits you; the tale of a voyager from your land who used his wits to outsmart a cyclops by the alias of “Polyphemus”, many centuries before your time—or the story of Odysseus.

And while you vividly recall the telling of Odysseus’ encounter with the giant, you believed his story to be the byproduct of idle minds brooding to create some fantasy, not a source of truth.

Oh how fate was cruel to send you to the very island his enemy inhabits.

“Did they send ya here to make a ninny’a me once more?” “Polyphemus” continues, a one-eyed scowl crossing his features.

Even as he sits cross-legged on his bottom, his head lies roughly ten meters above yours while you are standing upright.

Thick folds align the sides of his stomach as he peers down to get a closer look at you.

“N-No, that’s not it—”, you begin, throat tightening as your mind scrambles for reasoning. “Our ship was cast aside at the fate of Poseidon’s wrathful waves. We had no bearing on where it decided to land.”

“Quit yer lyin’!” He bellows, and the maddened throw of his arms makes the cave shiver. “Even though my vision’s not what it used to be, I can still see through yer lies.”

With the way things are, you stand no chance against him. The only precedent set for this dilemma has been proven useless as the scar across Polyphemus’ eye makes a permanent reminder of just what “Nohbdy” can do. The same tricks will do you no good.

“You'll pay for what yer people have done to me! Not even the gods can save ya, not that they're any threat to the likes of me.” He nearly chokes amidst speaking, a spray of spittle lands on your cheeks.

“I-Is there anything I can do for you to spare me?”, you plead, trying to scan his features for any inkling of remorse.

He gives you a blank stare. “Spare you?” A chuckle bubbles from the back of his throat to release a menacing sound. “If ya want to please me, ya may as well undress yerself and save me the trouble of tearing through yer clothes to reach ya.”

Maybe that’s what you’ll do.

Some depraved wheel that turns in your desperate mind has you doing just that, fumbling with the hems of your bottoms before removing them entirely.

Though, Polyphemus makes no effort to hinder you. He quietly surveys your nude form while his features do little to convey his intentions.

But then he squints. “Hah, a critter like you who does just as they’re told!” His lips curve into a cheshire grin. “Would ya service me sexually if I asked of ya too”, he questions, teeth parted as he awaits your answer.

You nod without thinking, and his smile grows wider.

“How amusin’! I knew I was right to save ya fer last.” He tenderly swipes a thumb across your cheek, and it almost covers your face completely. “What do they call ya, traveller?”

You hesitate before you answer.

“Sohmbdy?” You tease boldly in hopes of gaining more of his approval, but a part of you thinks you may have done the opposite…

His lips press into a thin line, while your heart rate begins to pick up from foolishly believing you could be on better terms with a man-eating giant.

Luckily, his smile promptly returns. “And audacious too!” Polyphemus then scoops you into his palm, the other hand clumsily palming at his trousers.“I'm glad Sohmbdy can take care of this fer me.”

He releases his cock from its confines, and the length is comparable to your height, with a pinkish tip that has a circumference the size of your head, while its width is big enough to wrap your arms around.

The weight of your decision finally hits you as you gawk at the puddle-sized gathering of precum that rests on the end of it, yet you gag a little at the thought of tasting semen from someone whose diet consists of human flesh.

“I don't think that'll fit”, you murmur, mouth still agape as you watch him tug on it a few times. “Are all cyclopes this big?”

He giggles at that. “This is the only one you'll have to trouble yerself with, sweetheart.” His eyes dart away for a moment. “Call me Tai”, he adds after a brief pause.

“Tai?” You peer back into his lusty eye.

He nods. “I don't give this name to many.”

Tai brings the palm with you on it closer to his lips, while using the other hand to part your legs with his massive index and thumb.

His breath reeks of death, fanning over your exposed cunt, and passing through your folds in a warm breeze that tickles the surrounding skin there.

It feels surreal to be as powerless as you are now—at the whims of a sexually starved giant, yet his drool coated lips and the disheveled blonde wisps that stick to his forehead might be the last sight you’ll ever see.

His tongue’s reminiscent of an anaconda; slightly bloodied as it darts out to lick a stripe across your pussy. You recoil at the first moment of contact, metallic stench still lingering on his teeth, but the unwanted pleasure that accompanies it feels immoral yet difficult to fight against.

A wad of his red-streaked saliva slicks along your inner thighs in thick, luminous strands, and it lubricates your movements as you unconsciously rub your legs together at the incessant itch that claws through your center. He then repeats the motion more delicately, the heat of his mouth suffocating your lower half as he brushes the tip of his tongue along the insides before engulfing your core in his lips.

With his mouth still sucking and suctioning your core, you gasp, arching upward to present more of you to his hungry tongue. His symphony of lustful slurping sounds only add more to your arousal that’s building.

He sloppily laps at your folds until he soaks you and his palm with his fluid, you still tremor in his hold when he eventually pulls away.

He places a path of damp kisses along your skin. You flinch whenever he hovers over particular areas much longer with his canines bared, though he seems appreciative of your taste, greedily wetting his lips between suckles.

“I think you're prepared for me”, he smirks before lowering you onto his cock.

His cum drips way past the head of it now, coating the sides in viscous white. You rest on it as you would a horse, gripping at the slippery surface as rigidly as you could while you sit along the base.

His aroma is surprisingly earthy, with a hint of salt wafting through it that you can faintly taste at the back of your throat from each inhale.

A single finger caresses your back to encourage you to move, so you begin to grind your hips against his cock, the built-up fluids serving to propel your movements.

Muffled grunts are occasionally released from above. His bush of gold hairs stroke across your bottom with each of your glides, you even attempt to angle your hips in a way that stimulates your clit, but to no avail.

You’re thrashing your cunt into him at this point, as you try to strike a sweet spot along his length, and you could only assume how silly you must look from his view.

“Need some help”, he voices upon noticing your shifting.

You look up at him teary-eyed. “Please”, you beg passing over the reins to him with another arch of your back.

And he obliges, gripping a hand around your waist before steadily dragging you up and down, his pace slow, but satiating.

The disgust from his actions fuses with your already dwelling lust, to create something unfamiliar—and it flutters throughout your gut, setting your nerves alight with passion.

He finally pulls you across the ridge of a prominent vent, and you have to hold back your cries as it snags along your clit, exquisitely.

“Mm–feels good, Tai”, you mumble against him.

He hums softly while still maintaining his rhythm. His fingers secure you comfortably, until you’re wound up your tightest, bucking in his grasp as your walls clench firmly around air.

You wail as your orgasm inevitably crashes over you, tensing as white clouds your vision and euphoria floods your bloodstream.

“And I thought I was the one s’posed to be gettin’ serviced?”, he interrupts with a smirk. “This ain’t enough to get me off.”

He gently removes you from his cock before placing you, back upward, onto his palm, then he spits a huge glob of saliva on your sex.

Though before you have a moment to comprehend, he’s already bringing you down to the underside of his shaft, with your head resting against the tip, and sliding your slippery body along the skin of it.

You wrap your arms around his girth as tightly as you could, a cheek and your pussy pressed against it and caking on more liquids with each thrust. The wet, sticky feeling is revolting while the stimulation it brings to your sex isn’t nearly enough to give rise to another climax, but you’re still sensitive and the added sensations only overstimulate your weeping cunt.

Tai begins to hunch over as he approaches, panting monstrously big breaths without concern for how it has the strength to sweep you away.

“Now, hold on”, he orders before moving you much more swiftly than before.

His brain-stirring pace has your head bobbing uncontrollably, and you're seconds away from having it flop off its hinges, yet his eye eventually clamps harshly in ecstasy.

The river of cum that follows is enough to drown in. It gets into your mouth and creates a film across your body, leaving you breathless as you gulp the salty sludge down to clear your airway.

You’re drenched and heaving as you attempt to adjust to the liquid blanket on top of you, but Tai saves you with a swipe of his fingers across your features.

“Oop—got’ya all covered there”, He remarks before licking at his cum soaked digits. “Not that I mind a bit’a seasoning with my meal.”

“W-What—“, you shriek in hopes you misheard, but he only snickers…

And snickers some more…

#fatgum x reader #fatgum smut #taishiro toyomitsu x reader #taishiro toyumitsu smut #mha x gender neutral reader #bnha reader insert #bnha smut #mha smut #mha reader insert #mha x reader #bnha x reader

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nuagederose · 10 months

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As the Seasons Grey | Chapter Twenty-Seven: Verisimilitude

ao3 link

Christine hunkered down in the front seat next to Nelly as they made their way back along the highway. The car was warm and dry, the safe space away from the cold blustery hostile environment outside there. It would be some time before they reached the outskirts of Ithaca, there at the southern rim of Finger Lakes, but she knew that she could enjoy the ride the rest of the way out there. Before they left the Catskills, she had indulged in that Boston crème donut that Alex had gotten for her, and all the while, she never broke her gaze from him.

He and Eric leaned up against the side of Nelly's car with their donuts with the bright pink frosting on top, simply because they needn't leave the frosting on the sleek upholstery inside. Those deep eyes locked onto her as they contrasted against the gray sky overhead: he ate his donut at a rather slow, deliberate pace, complete with his tongue on his fingers to rid of the extraneous pink frosting on the sides. Eric, meanwhile, was completely oblivious as to what was happening as he slowly ate his donuts, whereby Alex had gotten two for him.

She hoped that he would gorge on more donuts in the future, especially when she dropped her gaze down to his belly and she wished for it to return back over his belt again at some point.

When they returned to the road, she caught a glimpse in the side view mirror and watched the two of them indulge in more donuts. So much for the upholstery, but she couldn't help but chuckle at the notion of them eating like that, a couple of little piggies, one with glasses and the other was already quite chubby. It was so deviant of her to think of them as nothing more than a couple of pigs, but they were eating those donuts as if they were going to be without food for a while.

The light shifted from the middle of the sky to the horizon off to the left, and more and more clouds filtered in overhead: snow was upon them, but Christine wondered if it was nothing more than a mere fluke as the big bright green signs for Ithaca emerged out from the tender dark trees which lined the sides of the road. A fine layer of hoarfrost lined the branches, and given they were moving along at a quick pace, Christine made a joke to herself that it was actually snow instead, rather the precursor to the incoming front from the blackest heart of Lake Ontario further up the road from there.

Once they showed up to the turn-off right outside of Whitney Point, Nelly took the next left down the narrow two lane road through the forest: for Christine, it almost felt like going to visit her grandmother in the woods, and she anticipated the wolves to skulk out of the shadows and into the graying light throughout the land. She shivered once Nelly switched on the defroster to rid of the fine layer of condensation which formed on the inside of the windows.

“Quit breathing so hard back there, you two,” she teased the two of them, complete with a quick glimpse into the rear view mirror.

“The donuts were just so good, though,” Eric confessed.

“Yeah, we had two of them,” Alex added. “So warming and comforting that it was actually arousing.”

Christine inwardly chuckled at the notion of donuts being an erotic food. But then again, she and Alex locked eyes as she was eating her Boston crème one, as her tongue lapped along the sweet milky white cream inside and she closed her eyes to relish in the lush taste and decadent sweetness of the donut. She chuckled to herself once again, satisfied by the fact that she had potentially done something for him right then and without her own intention, and she hoped that they would have a chance at some point over the course of their little stay there at the lakes.

Within time, the forest cleared out a bit and the road widened into four lanes. They rounded a bend in the road, whereby they were faced with the cozy college town of Ithaca, nestled down in the woods as it overlooked the cold black waters of Cayuga Lake. The clouds hung down even lower as they passed a sign which pointed the way up to Cornell University, the brick buildings of which were posted up there in the eastern side of the city in the trees: the way that Christine saw it from the road made her think of a big castle, and the only it lacked was a series of dragons to protect the strong and high scrubbed brick walls.

“Imagine going to Cornell University, you three,” Alex remarked as quaint little cottage style houses jutted up along the sides of the road.

“God, if only,” Nelly declared with a chuckle. “Talk about prestige!”

“Get a Rhodes scholarship and a degree from Cornell,” he continued. “The world could rightfully kiss my ass if that were the case.”

Christine thought about his home life, and the fact that he stayed silent that whole time. The whole thing nagged at her, and she wondered if there was anything more that she could do to uncover the truth with him. The tall pointed turrets at the campus, the high pale points which showed through the scraggly, barren trees, only further made her think of a castle in the forest. She had to fight the dragons and overcome his walls to find the truth as it was, as it lay behind the bricks. The bravest, strongest armor that she could possibly garner for herself as they wound their way through the eastern side of town, all the way over to their cabin which overlooked the harbor and those cold black waters.

Nelly brought them into the parking lot, and she climbed out so as to check them in. Alex and Eric both climbed out to relish in the cool crispness which came from the shore of the waters about five hundred yards away from there. Christine lingered back in the front seat with her hands on her upper arms as if to keep the warmth inside: given they were right near the water, she could tell that it wasn't nearly as cold as it had been, especially back there at the Catskills. But she still shivered and rubbed her upper arms with her hands as a chill shot up from the base of her spine.

“So much I want to do, my god,” she heard Alex remark from outside of the car. The way that he said it reminded her of all the times he spoke to her while they were in bed together, that soft intimate tone of voice as if he whispered a secret to her. She peered out the window to the campground off to the right, at all the cabins and little yurts which stood in long lines against the scraggly dark trees; behind that was a touch more forest, followed by the road to the northern edge of town, followed by the beginnings of the harbor.

And it was right then she remembered to call Wendy, as she promised to do so once they arrived at their cabin. She took out her phone from her jacket pocket, flipped it open with a flick of her wrist, and pressed the number her mother. She held the phone up to her ear and waited three rings before she reached voicemail. She closed her eyes as she waited for her cue.

“Hi, Mom—it's Chris. I just wanted to say that we made it to Ithaca in one piece. It might snow up here, I don't really know, but I'm gonna bring back some souvenirs for you and Dad. And, hopefully, we'll be home before the ball drops on Time Square. Love you.”

She pressed the red button to hang up, and then she closed her phone and tucked it back into her pocket. Nelly surfaced from the building before the car with a smile on her face and a rubbing of her hands together.

“Alright, boys and girls,” she started as she opened the driver's door again, and she climbed inside. “We're all the way down the line here, down by the showers and the bathrooms—in case of it snowing, we won't have to go very far.”

“Perfect!” Christine declared; Alex and Eric climbed back into the backseat, and Nelly started up the car once again. They rolled past the yurts near the front of the campground: around halfway, they turned into cute little log cabins straight out of a storybook.

“Here we are—” Nelly pulled up to the one at the very end of the line, which had a small porch and a picnic table under a tall leafless elm tree. At the center of their campsite stood a large metal drum which Christine could only assume was for a fire during the spring and summer. They pulled up to the parking space at the right of the front porch, and Christine was first to climb out that time around. She raised her head to the sky, and she wished to feel the rain on her skin.

Eric climbed out right next to her, to which he gave his long jet-black hair a toss with a flick of his head. Alex and Nelly followed suit on the other side of the car; the former then rubbed his hands together.

“Shall we consider a fire?” he offered.

“Once we get inside, yes,” Nelly pointed out in a singsong voice.

“But of course!”

Christine and Eric then glanced at each other; the latter stepped out from behind the car door and came closer to her.

“Want me to help you with your—purse, Chris?” he offered.

“Huh?” But Christine was cut off by Eric moving his face in closer to her own, to which he missed her by a few inches.

“Whoa, what're you doing?” she asked him in a low voice, taken aback.

Eric shook his head. “I'm sorry, that—I don't know where that came from. I guess it was just a spur of the moment thing, like our trip out to Monterey this summer.”

Christine nibbled on her bottom lip and then she rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Eric, if you want to kiss me, just kiss me,” she told him.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked her in a small voice.

“Maybe when the adults in the room aren't looking, I could give you a little peck or two—or three,” she vowed to him. He then bowed his head and set a hand on his arm.

“You're not in trouble,” she assured him with a little shake of her head. “You have to remember that you and I both have boundaries.”

“Dudes do it in movies all the time,” he pointed out. “You know, the unlikely guy gets with the cool girl when no one's looking.”

“This ain't a movie, though, Eric,” she assured him, and she reached up to touch his face and that smooth, creamy skin that felt like porcelain. “You're so sweet and cute, though.”

“Sluggo!” Alex called out from the side of the car, to which he fetched up a sigh and stepped away from her right then. Christine chuckled to herself and shook her head once he made his way over to Alex. Eric inadvertently called her a “cool girl” as well, a compliment that she had never really heard before in her life. She recalled a time in which Chris had come close to saying something like that to her, especially when she prepared to tell him of her feelings for him the few days prior to his death. There were moments in which she knew what he was thinking, and when she prepared to tell him the truth about her feelings for him, she could see it in his eyes. It was one of those unspoken things, where she thought about it and he thought about it, and they could finish the sentence together once the moment came.

Once the four of them were settled into the cozy little cabin, with the big front room with the potbellied stove and the tweed couch and two bedrooms which meant they had to either share a bed or crash on the couch, they began dinner for the evening followed by a round of grasshopper pie which Nelly packed up, but Christine knew that they were going to have more than one pie for the second half of the weekend, especially after how Alex and Eric once again resembled a pair of piggies over their slices. By ten thirty, Nelly made her way out to the showers, and Eric followed suit behind her with his towel slung over his shoulder. Alex and Christine, as a result, were alone in the front room to relax a bit.

“God, you're just... you're so real, Christine,” he remarked as he took his spot there on the couch, to which she shrugged her shoulders.

“I try my best, Alex,” she confessed to him as she took off her jacket and hung it up in the closet on the other side of the room. She returned to him with a tug on the hem of her white long sleeved shirt, which was a bit snug on her full, curvy body. “I really do.”

“Hey. The key is to be the very best you that you can be, right?”

“Right!” She paused for a second when she realized that he had his eyes on the hourglass shape of her body. He then ran his fingers through his hair, albeit at a slow deliberate pace, and then he rested his hands on his soft little belly.

“Phew. I'm full.”

“You and Eric sure do love to eat, don't you,” she teased him as she tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and cocked her hips to the side.

“You bet, we do,” he remarked, and he showed her the tip of his tongue. He then nudged his glasses up his nose.

“Would you like to be cuddled here on the couch, baby?” she offered him as she stood over him. “Eric and Nelly are in the showers right now, so I may as well give it to you.”

“I'd love to be cuddled.”

Christine sank down on the couch next to him with her hands on his thigh, at least until she moved her face in closer to his own. She gently pressed her lips on the side of his face, to which he cracked her a little smile.

“I want to give you everything that she can't give you,” she whispered into his ear.

“And it's a lot, too,” he assured her. “Believe me when I say that there's a lot that you give that she can't for one second.”

Christine then kissed the side of his neck to which he treated her to a soft whistle, followed by a gentle groan in his throat.

“Mmm, that's good stuff right there,” he remarked. She put her arm around his waist, still very soft despite his weight loss, and she gently kissed him on the same spot on his neck. She moved his hair out of the way so she could better feel his smooth skin.

Alex then wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him. Christine moved her lips up onto his to unleash the feeling, and he fell onto his back there on the couch.

“Ah, you're already feeling it, aren't you?” she teased him.

“Okay, but... we have to be very quiet, though,” he said to her in a near whisper. “You know. Cabins in the woods and everything.”

Christine had another idea as she lifted his shirt to reveal his belly to her, still soft and smooth with a love of eating but much smaller at that point. She moved her head down to the spot above his belly button for a series of soft little kisses to get him going. She ran her fingers down his sides as she moved down towards the top of his belt.

He never moved as she undid it for him and revealed his length to her. She lightly kissed the skin in between there and his belly button, as smooth and soft as ever. She could feel him firming up from the feeling of her lips on him.

Christine then pressed her lips to the very tip of his head just to taste him again.

“Sweet like candy,” she said with a slight chuckle.

“Must be the work of the donuts,” he joked, and he showed her his tongue once again.

“I want you—” she begged to him. “I want you all to myself.”

“What, you can't share me with the Sundaes?”

“They can look, but they can't touch—and they can't touch like me,” she teased him, and he raised his eyebrows at that.

“Ho boy,” he breathed out, and Christine moved her lips up towards the base of his shaft, all so she could engulf him. Alex pinched his eyes shut and parted his lips, but no sound emerged. She clasped her hands onto the sides of his thighs to steady herself, but she was most comfortable when he relaxed the muscles in his belly: she could have something soft to hold onto once she inched up his legs a bit. Though he had lost a good portion of that weight, she could still feel that he was soft there. Soft like a little pillow for when she needed lay her head down against the pains of the world.

She moved her head back up towards the head as if she was sucking on an ice cream cone. She then brought her head back down towards the base, and she could feel the tip just touching the back of her tongue.

It was the first time she had ever deep throated before, and as soon as she reached the halfway point on his shaft, she could feel something liquid on her tongue, and she swallowed as a result. She then lifted her head and gasped at the feeling, but she couldn't care less if she had a streak of it on the side of her mouth. If anything, she wanted Nelly and Eric to see it once they came back from the showers. She then crawled up towards Alex's face as he looked on at her in a daze.

“Whoa,” he breathed out.

“Do I have any on my face?” she asked him.

“Actually, no,” he said, and then he sniffled and showed her a smirk. “I do smell it, though.”

She let out a low whistle as she suspended herself right over him.

“It's snowing, dear Christine,” he told her in a broken voice and with a nudge of his glasses up his nose. Indeed, she glanced over at the window on the other side of the room: through the glow of the city lights and the fluorescent lights at the campground outside, she made out the wispy, light shapes of the snowflakes against the blackness of night. “I feel like we're gonna be here for a while.”

“I could lay here forever,” she confessed to him as she pressed her lips on the side of his neck again.

“My goodness, you're in a mood tonight,” he chuckled.

“I just want you,” she whispered into his ear. “I want you.”

He cracked her a little smirk.

“I want you forever,” she confessed to him as she nestled down next to him with her arm around his waist. “I want you forever—”

“Huh?” he asked her, perplexed. She lifted her head for a look into his diamond shaped face: his deep eyes were pointed and serious at that point.

“I mean Alex,” she corrected herself. “I want you forever, Alex.” He squinted his eyes at her, and she backed off of his body so he could sit up. He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his aquiline nose with the back of his thumb.

“I'm so confused,” he confessed. “Chris? You want yourself?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. He said it himself: she was so real, the realest of the bunch.

“When I was a kid, I had a crush on a boy named Chris,” she explained in a single breath. “Chris Pereira.” She opened her eyes to find him raising his eyebrows.

“Jewish boy,” he followed along, and she nodded.

“Even though we were kids at the time, he looked just like you, from the long dark curly hair to the cute little chubby tummy: he had brown eyes, though. We were both thirteen, but... the feelings were real.”

Alex then gazed off to the side. “Something happened to him. I can feel it.”

“He was killed in a rollover car accident,” Christine replied, to which he gasped and then closed his eyes. “I never had the chance to tell him that I love him, either.”

“Did you?” he asked her, reluctant.

“He was the love of my life,” she said, and then she turned her attention to him. “I was going to convert to Judaism and marry him once we were eighteen and everything. He was my best friend and I knew I wanted him forever. And... if I'm honest, every time I look at your face, I see him.” Alex's deep eyes widened at the sight of that, and he treated her to a tremble of his bottom lip. Christine moved back into his face for a soft kiss on his lips.

“I want you, forever and always...”

That sentiment rang through her head as it did all those years ago, those final quiet hours as that young boy slipped through her fingers and without her knowledge on top of it. She knew that she had to tell him at some point, and the opportunity never came for her.

She thought about it over and over again as she lay cuddled up next to Alex there on the couch, and while she was glad she never said Chris' name into his ear, and that scene itself never came to fruition, she knew she would have to tell him the truth about her past at some point.

#Spotify #as the seasons grey #as the seasons grey fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfic with art #chapter 27 #testament #testament band #alex skolnick #eric peterson #oc art #colored pencil #illustration #traditional illustration #artists on tumblr #badgalnirvhannahart

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travsd · 1 year

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On the Wonderful Wharton Studios

I’ve spent a ton of time in gorgeous (gorges) Ithaca, New York over the last 20 years. My kids grew up there and we spent countless hours roaming the beautiful natural vistas around Cornell, the shores of Lake Cayuga, surrounding woods, and all the rocky features, cliffs, gorges, and waterfalls for which the area is moderately famous. Hence, I’ve ended up knowing more than your average silent…

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#films #Ithaca #Leopold Wharton #movie #museum #silent #Theodore Wharton #Wharton Studios

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gisellelx · 5 months

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For the fanfic writer asks, want to do 29, 33, and 44?

Thanks @jessicanjpa!

29. What's your most popular fic?

Ithaca Is Gorges, by far. It totally makes my day any time I see someone rec it, and the fact that it's still kicking around at the top of a lot of people's rec lists is such a terrific compliment. I use reddit mainly for my hobby of investing and personal finance, so I only lurk on the Twific reddit but there's usually not a month that goes by where someone doesn't suggest somewhere that someone else read it. It's one reason I refuse to be shy about the value of fanfic writing. I work alongside people whose whole job it is to publish novels and teach fiction writing, and sure, nobody's written about my fanfic in Kirkus reviews, but for sure far more people have read and recommended my novels than have any of theirs. 😆 I'd rather have the latter.

33. Do you ever read your own fics once they've been posted?

Perpetually. In fact, I just managed to lose/break two Kindles in one month and am on my third since the beginning of October. I noticed when I added my Calibre library to the one before this one that my table of contents weren't working properly for several of my ebook versions so I actually took the time to regenerate them last week. Of course, then I sat down and read the entirety of Present Perfect—it's the gnarliest one to format so at first I was just ostensibly checking to make sure it was done correctly, but then I got sucked in because it's a pretty good story if I do say so myself.

It's helpful both because it spurs my own writing, but also keeps me aware of my own canon. Whenever possible, I try to write such that every story I write takes place in the same universe as every other one, and being reminded that oh right, this is the year I decided that Alice and Jasper showed up, and where, helps me make sure a reference I make to it six years later isn't different. Wouldn't mind if Stephenie Meyer paid as close attention.

44. How often do you write?

Trying to bring this back to a more regular practice. I add a few words to things almost every single day. But really getting into the groove of it isn't nearly as often as it once was. I keep trying to get back into a daily fiction writing practice and it's hard. Part of that is, I fear, the easy allure of other kinds of online distraction which did not exist as completely when I used to write fiction, both ofic and fanfic, more prolifically. But other of it is just that I do a lot of writing these days. People think professors are mostly teachers and nope, we're mostly writers. So when work is writing, having fun also be writing is sometimes a lot. On the other hand, I write a lot when I'm writing a lot. 😅 When the ole's sideblog is very active, it's a really good sign that I'm also throwing thousands of words down on the WIPs. So, trying to write more and read more and reddit less.

Ask me things

#Kirkus aside someone did once write about the existence of The Unlikely Meeting in a major rag #and I am just gonna humble brag here in the tags that not only did that happen I DON'T REMEMBER WHICH ONE IT WAS #because these days I talk to reporters a lot #I think it was WSJ? I can't find it on WaPo

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mariacallous · 1 year

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When Peking University in Beijing harshly cracked down on student activists in 2018, educators around the world watched with alarm. Yet one year later, the Chinese institution was welcoming a high-profile guest—Martha Pollack, the president of Cornell University—and by 2021, the two partners were proposing a flashy dual-degree program.

Back in Ithaca, New York, the proposal met fierce backlash. Cornell’s Faculty Senate overwhelmingly opposed the partnership in a vote, citing concerns of academic freedom and transparency; many students decried Beijing’s human rights violations and mass detention of Uyghurs.

“It became very clear that from the students’ standpoint, from the faculty standpoint, there was no interest in expanding the relationship” in this way without more rigorous ethical oversight, said Eli Friedman, a professor at Cornell. “And they did it anyway.”

Tucked away between gorges and hiking trails in the depths of upstate New York, talk of great-power competition can feel far from Cornell’s campus. But it’s in this isolated environment—and I know it well, having studied there myself—that debates over partnerships with China have sharply unfolded, underscoring how deteriorating U.S.-China relations have swept American universities into a geopolitical firestorm.

For decades, universities have facilitated exchanges between American and Chinese scholars that have been essential to creating more nuanced understandings of each country and advancing research. But even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing’s growing repression had complicated their calculus. As the U.S.-China relationship continues to devolve, universities are confronting thorny questions about academic freedom, censorship, and research security—and debating what types of partnerships can, and should, be pursued in the current climate.

“I think a lot of university administrators have delayed hard decisions about collaborations because they hoped that maybe things would get better” under the Biden administration or with China’s reopening, said Mary Gallagher, the director of the International Institute at the University of Michigan. “Those things don’t seem to be happening. I think this is only going to get more difficult for American universities,” she added.

Universities are facing a “fundamental dilemma,” said Jacques deLisle, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China. On one hand, he said, it is important to cultivate open academic exchanges and strengthen understanding. On the other hand, he said, there is an understandable—and compelling—argument against allowing partners abiding by different values or standards to dictate content in joint programs.

Washington’s increasingly hawkish posture toward China has only added to these pressures, with one key example being the Trump administration’s now-defunct China Initiative, a program that was designed to crack down on IP theft but ultimately created a chilling effect among Asian American researchers. Some politicians are pushing universities to go even further in severing academic ties. Last month, Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban academic or financial exchanges with Chinese universities—including research funding and study abroad programs. Texas lawmakers have proposed a bill that would prohibit public universities from admitting Chinese citizens.

If these exchanges collapse, experts warn that the academic and research fields won’t be the only ones that suffer the losses in talent. As China comes to dominate U.S. political discourse, disengaging at the university level could also come at a geopolitical cost.

There are concerns “that the next generation of China specialists is not getting the kind of access, exposure, [or] on-the-ground familiarity that earlier generations had,” deLisle said. “That’s going to both reduce channels for communication and create greater barriers to acquiring the kind of nuanced expertise that I think has been a benevolent factor in managing U.S.-China relations.”

It’s not just American students, universities, and expertise at risk. “Both sides lose,” said Denis Simon, the former executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China. “This is a lose-lose proposition right now.”

Among universities, there has been a growing wariness of continuing or expanding academic partnerships in China, particularly in sensitive fields. “A lot of universities have taken the posture [that] maybe we ought to put our China activity on the back burner” and look to other countries with friendlier government relations, Simon said. “The souring of the relationship has put a cloud over collaboration.”

While these debates flare on campuses, university administrators have also been grappling with how best to navigate the increasingly delicate political landscape. At George Washington University, for example, administrators struggled to respond to posters depicting the Chinese government’s human rights abuses ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. In another instance, the FBI arrested a Chinese student at the Berklee College of Music who stalked and harassed a peer for supporting the pro-democracy movement in China.

In one of the most explosive cases, Cornell ended its relationship with Renmin University in Beijing after Cornell students participating in an exchange program were reportedly detained and surveilled after protesting for workers’ rights in 2018. The case was “so egregious,” said Friedman, who was involved in the program and, at the time, wrote an article in Foreign Policy chronicling his experience.

“It is critically important to view this event in the context of worsening political trends in China,” he wrote. “The erosion of academic freedom on campuses is directly linked with the increasingly repressive political environment outside universities.”

“Cornell University is a nonprofit institution with a mission to educate the next generation of global citizens,” Wendy Wolford, Cornell’s vice provost for international affairs, said in an emailed statement. “We engage across the world, including in China, to carry forward this mission. We do not partner with governments, we partner with people and programs.”

Facing Beijing’s stringent COVID-19 restrictions and worsening relations, only 382 American students studied abroad in China in the 2020-2021 school year, with most of them at NYU Shanghai, said Jeffrey Lehman, the vice chancellor of NYU Shanghai. Compared to many other American university partnerships, NYU Shanghai is an established giant, bringing some 2,000 American and Chinese students together as the first Sino-U.S. research university. The university is not shying away from its Chinese presence, recently unveiling its sleek New Bund campus in Shanghai after three years of construction.

“The worsening China-U.S. relationship is something we talk about all the time,” Lehman said in an emailed statement. “Both governments have told us that, during these times of tension, they find it more important than ever to have a school where college students can forge the kind of cross-national bonds that we are renowned for.”

Duke Kunshan University, a joint venture between Wuhan University and Duke University, is navigating similar waters. Simon said that its continued success will hinge on three factors: the preservation of academic freedom, whether the university can survive financially, and the stability of bilateral relations.

“It’s a constant struggle to keep the thing running, because the Chinese political system and the American political system are not well aligned with one another,” he added. “Because they don’t align well with one another, they make managing a project like this very difficult.”

Even as the landscape becomes increasingly difficult to navigate, William Kirby, a professor of China studies at Harvard University, said that if American universities disengage from their Chinese counterparts, they will suffer in the long run.

“Any university system that is not collaborating with a great and still expanding Chinese university system, which is one of the absolute leaders in the realm of research, will find itself at a very significant disadvantage,” he said. “And any university that is not trying to recruit the best possible talent from wherever it comes, from anywhere in the world, is doing itself a disservice and is on a glide path to decline.”

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