#commune home ph

[hoshigray]

𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐓 𝐌𝐄 [& 𝑭𝑼𝑪𝑲 𝑴𝑬] 𝐔𝐏!! | tōji fushiguro

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: It's bad enough you got a crush on your gym instructor, Toji; however, it gets worse when things become too close and personal for this relationship...But who says you shouldn't get a little praise for your hard work?

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: personal trainer! Toji x fem! reader - explicit contents; minors DNI - unrequited/crushing » mutual pining - sex in a public space (gym locker room + showers) - shower sex - thigh riding - oral (m! + f! receiving) - ball massaging - face + throat-fucking - breast fondling + nipple play - against a wall + upstanding citizen + standing 69 positions - praise - clitoral play (swiping and pinching) - cervix fucking - pet names (angel, baby, doll, dollface, good girl, princess, sweetie, sweet thing) - unprotected sex (doesn't shoot inside tho) - overstimulation - cameos: Haibara and Ino (gym manager and employee) - the reader accidentally walks into the men's locker room (they're a bit dumb, forgive them, lol) - mention of sweat spit and tears.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 8.4k (i'm about to lose my mind, bro.)

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: mannnnnn, the way this draft has been collecting dust, it was supposed to be released on Dec!! ofc my first fic back would be for toji lmao. anyways, i hope you enjoy, and tysm for 4.7k y'all are so sweet ;;w;; and thank yeww @ramonathinks for beta-reading, mwah mwah

“That one was weak; do another three.”

“Gahh– …You’re such an asshole, Fushiguro.”

“Heh, like that’s anythin’ new. C’mon, let’s go!”

We’re counting down to the last weeks of the year, and so many people have already promised affirmations for themselves in the upcoming year. In terms of this year, you can’t say much. You’ve done your work, hung out with the same people since last year, and probably learned to spoil yourself more. Maybe another thing you can be proud of is that you crossed some TV series off your “get-to-watch” list, so go you!

Although, besides those minimal things, there is one change in your life that you’ve committed yourself to. One thing that you didn’t expect to be so in tune with throughout the past half of the year. It started as a forced challenge because your friend Miwa needed someone to motivate her to maintain her gym membership. What was once something you’d thought a one-time thing gradually became something you enjoy — something you felt proud doing!

Not only has your knowledge of your body and how to keep it in good shape improved over half a year, but your love for the community has grown more and more. The gym you go to feels like a second home, with many people you’ve gotten to know and befriend along your journey. Even the manager, Haibara Yu, practically treats you like a sibling after seeing you every other day. The same goes for the front desk associate, Ino, who is the goofiest goofball you’ve ever met (not to mention the best drinking buddy). 

But – if you really had to pick – there is one person who has made this experience more enjoyable and worthwhile. “Hahhh!! There, I did them! Aren’t you supposed to be my spotter, not a shit-talker?”

“I’m doin’ my job, aren’t I?” Toji Fushiguro, your gym instructor for the past few months, has been a driving force in your physical journey. With his help, you’ve been disciplining yourself in and outside of the facility, maintaining a good diet, and keeping your body active in a balanced fashion. The gratitude you have for him supersedes all. But above all else, throughout the years, the two of you have gotten pretty close and know a good chunk about each other to call yourselves friends – at least, that’s what you’ve been doing. “Alright, that’s enough lifting for today; time for stretches.”

Aside from a friend, there is something else you refer to him as – something you’d rather die than admit out loud. Toji, your trainer, is your gym crush. Well, your crush in general. 

Can you really blame yourself, though? Look at the man! When you first look at him, his physique alone is enough to keep you staring at him for hours and hours on end. Strong, bulky arms that look like they could pick up five treadmills in one sitting and with veins that decorate up to his forearm can effortlessly grab the attention of the normal eye. He’s wearing his black fitted tee, so tight that it was as if it was vacuum sealed to perfectly showcase the outline of his abdomen, ribs, and pectorals. And it doesn’t help from the back view either; you can’t count how many times you fell into a short trance from admiring his gorgeous back, from his trapezius to his waist. Every time the man flexes his biceps and triceps, all you can do is internally thank the gods for sculpting such a man to be in front of you. And those beautiful thighs and calves shaped from his black leggings and shorts? Damn.

But the thing about him that has you squeak more than a mouse are his eyes. Forest green orbs that can shift into a stern concentration whenever he’s working on a machine or when he’s observing your form and finds whatever needs correcting. Then there are times when they are mellow and soft when you’re speaking with him or when he’s deep in thought about something until you catch his attention. Then he’d throw a small smile at you — your biggest weakness. The scar on his lip being lifted to a curl never fails to put your stomach into knots.

He’s such an attractive man from the first moment you ever laid your eyes on him. You were bound to fall in love with him one way or another. It just sucks that it’s under such a professional relationship that you have to keep this little unrequited love to yourself.

Which is getting harder and harder every day, especially now when the guy is so close to your face when he’s helping you stretch. Oh, dear lord. 

Every time you are done lifting weights, Toji will have you do stretches. He has you do them before and after a workout as they give your muscles time to warm up and straighten from the stress you put on them. So now, as you’re laying on your mat, Toji puts one hand on your right leg to keep it grounded on the floor and his other hand on the back of your left to push it up to your chest. The position has the two of you so close, him being situated between your legs and observing your breathing; it’s so wrong of you to dwell your mind into other things – other raunchier things.

And when he brings both your legs up to your chest, how the fuck are you supposed to calm your heart from exploding!?? You have to close your eyes during all this to not be pulled in by the examination of his gaze under his raven bangs. This is, without a doubt, the best worst part of the workouts. Thankfully, this is the last workout of the week, and the gym is about to close within an hour and a half. 

Toji breaks the suffering silence between you two. “Y’re still stiff; take deeper breaths f’r me.”

Oh, if only he knew how your dirty mind took that sentence. You chew on your lip with a gulp, “Maybe I still have a little energy in me that still wants to exercise.”

That made him chortle. “Is that so? Well, maybe after your stretches, you can get on the stairmaster for a few minutes.”

You gawk at him, only furthering the smirk on his face. “Are you serious!?? You promised we wouldn’t do any cardio until next week.”

“Well, next week is around the corner,” Toji moves your knees a bit to the left, bending them further down to your chest so his face could be a little closer to yours. Your brain almost short circuits at the movement, trying to distract yourself from the fact that his groin is mere inches away from your shorts. “So, since ya got the spirit, be a doll and do a few minutes on the machine, okay? Five minutes.”

Your breathing is so slow that you’re too scared to move. Your lips pressed to a thin line to conceal the quiver, and your eyes don’t dare venture down. You already know your body is going through its own internal turmoil, a throbbing sense occurring in your lower regions the more you keep looking at Toji, who lifts a brow from awaiting your response. Oh, this man is going to kill me.

“…Five minutes.” 

“Atta girl.” With a scoff, he finally straightens himself and places your legs on the mat. Toji then stands on his feet and grabs his bag. “Gonna head for the showers; finish up those stretches and head for the stepmaster. See ya later, Y/n.” And you watch him leave for the men’s locker room, finally having room to breathe. Before you can conclude your stretches with a cobra and child’s pose, you grumble to yourself in a whisper.

Why the hell did I have to fall in love with such a snarky, gruff, older guy like him…

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

You enter the locker room after completing the instructed exercise. Your mind is dizzy from walking on the step machine for about fifteen minutes, and your legs are mere minutes from turning into jelly. You curse Toji internally for the insufferable torture you’ve stressed on your poor limbs. 

No matter, though; you’re finally done for the evening and can head home to your soft bed. The gym will close soon, so perhaps you could use the locker room showers to freshen up. But then again, after the strain you’ve put on your body for almost two hours, all you want to do is be home and listen to your favorite music. I don’t feel like cooking today…  

Further into the room, you can hear the sound of someone using the showers, indicating you had picked the right idea to head home. You head for the locker side to grab your items to put in your bag before leaving, and it’s then that you hear the water stop running from where the showers are. Oh, shit,  make this quick, Y/n!

In front of you is the locker with the number you’re familiar with — where you always leave your things, like your own spot. You open it only to find….nothing is in the locker? Huh? Where are my leggings? And my phone??

Come to think of it, where’s your duffel bag that you usually leave on the bench against the lockers? You’ve never had a problem with people stealing from you in this place, so how does a bag full of your stuff magically disappear? There is a bag in here, but it’s definitely not yours. And now that you get a good look, you start to notice that the color of the lockers is of a different, darker shade than what you’re usually accustomed to. Wait a minute, am I in the wrong—

“Y/n?”

You go still at the familiar voice. Oh no, please, God, no. There’s no way. Your eyes teeter to the corner as you ever-so-slowly turn to the direction where that voice was coming from. And, of course, it was your personal trainer, who is—OH MY GOD!!!

Toji stands afar on the opposite side of you from the showers, without clothing, his body and hair completely drenched from water. The only thing that covers him is a white towel wrapped around his lower body. His body, which you’re used to seeing being snug tight by his gym clothes, is out for you to see as water trickled down from his clavicle, pecs, ribcage, and abs. For a split second, you take in as much of the image as you can, storing this as it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in your mind (maybe to fuel more of your erotic fantasies when you go home). But you avert your gaze when your eyes travel down his abs, counting each one until you reach below his belly button, where strays of dark hair become more prominent with a trail down his pelvis and—Okay, stop looking, stop looking!!

“M–Mr. Fushiguro!?” You croak, eyes wide with realization at what you’ve just done. Your dumbass just walked into the men’s locker room without checking first. And to add salt to the wound, your crush is the first person to catch you in the act, “O-Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to walk in here! I’ll get going—“

“No, no, Y/n, calm down,” Toji walks to where you’re standing; a mini-heart attack was about to be deployed until the older man turned to the side to grab for something in his bag. He pulls out a smaller towel. “Ya walked in here on accident, right?”

You gulp, seeing the steam from the shower still leave from Toji’s nude body. “Uhm, yeahhh, I don’t know where my head was at. Sorry…”

The gym instructor scoffs at your apology. “It happens; must’ve been a bit light-headed from the exercise and forgot where y’re at. Heh, guess those five minutes did more damage than I thought.”

“Ahaha, yeah, it was…pretty….dreadful……” Were you distracted? Yup. Because Toji used the towel he pulled from his bag to wipe off the water from his arms and face. You couldn’t help but survey the man’s movements, watching the small white towel brush on his triceps and glide down to his torso. You continue watching the small towel until your eyes drift to the happy trail on his pelvis. Your breathing goes uneven, thinking of more indecent things that connect with the trail of hair and the limb that’s shielded by the towel around Toji’s waist.

“…–ou there…Y/n?” Your name said to you snaps you back, realizing where you are and what you were doing. Your eyes crawl back to Toji’s face, who throws a small smile at you. “Eyes up here, sweetie.” Sweetie?!? If the floor could give way and swallow you, that would be appreciated. “Is there anythin’ else you need to tell me while y’re here?”

No, I’m in the men’s locker room, so I need to hurry and get the fuck out! “Uhmm, n-nope, nothing at all! So…I better get going now. See you later, Mr. Fushiguro!” You turn on the heel of your foot to head for the door, only able to take about five giant steps before Toji stops you again.

“How was it today?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, what now!? You look over your shoulder. “Excuse me?”

“The workout. How was it?”

“It…It was, umm, alright, I guess. I feel like I could’ve done better on the weights.” 

“And why is that?”

Your body turns to have your front fully face him again. “Well, I mean, I was struggling at the last few reps…I’m sure you noticed, too, since you scolded me about it.”

He hums. “Ya know I correct you because, I know, you can do better, right, Y/n?” It was rhetoric, but you humor him with a slow nod. He brings the small towel to his head and dries his damp hair. “I’ve had many clients who come at me with everything they got or burned out before the first two months. But don’t worry, Y/n, I can tell you take pride in what we’re doing, and it’s good to know…” 

His words drown out from your ears. You didn’t mean for it to – you really didn’t. But while Toji was fixing his hair, you snuck more peeks at his body, enjoying his side profile. Admiring the way his arms move and flex, following the rocky silhouette of his abs that lead down to the towel again, you gasp at the dent of something that appears to be between Toji’s legs. Good lord, even with the cotton material covering him, you can still see it and—

“….Y/n.” Oh no, I did it again. You gulp with eyes venturing back to Toji’s face; the grin grew broader than before. “That's twice, sweet thing.” 

“S–Sorry, Mr. Fushiguro. It’s just that you have a...uhhh…” The heat in your ears makes it hard to concentrate on looking at the ground, anything to avoid your instructor’s gaze. “…..areallynicebody—“

“Hmm? I didn’t hear that, sweetie,” Sweetie? Sweetie!? Why'd he call me that? What you should be questioning is why that nickname made your stomach flip. But who are you kidding — if anyone had a crush on their instructor and were called a cute name like that, of course, they’d be as hot as a volcano. “Didn’t catch that, say it fr’ me again.”

“I–I said that,” Oh for fuck’s sake, this is so embarrassing! “You have a nice body…An attractive body, really…” The heat on your cheeks and ears is reaching heights that would have you combust at any moment. It’s what you’d hope for, honestly. It’s bad enough you’re stuck in the men’s locker room for not paying attention; now you’re here admitting to your instructor that you got the hots for him. God, please strike me here and now!

Toji says nothing after you say that, and it has your nerves at an all-time high, wondering if you should wait for his reply or just dash for the door and hope no one sees you leaving the men’s locker room. However, his voice breaks the silence, “I can say the same fr’ you.”

Oh, stop it. “Oh, please, no need to butter me up, Mr. Fushigu—“

“I’m serious.” He shuts down your argument down your argument before you can even finish. “C’mere.”

Why did you do what you were about to do? You could’ve just declined, exited the facility, and headed straight home to wallow away about this entire interaction, maybe find a different gym to form a membership with. But you didn’t. Instead, with downcast eyes, you slowly approached your instructor, who stood behind the locker bench. “Closer,” he says, noting how you’re about two arms length away from him, which you meekly decrease to one. “You don’t think ya got a nice body?” 

The adjacency between you two was too much for you, your face minutes from imploding. Too shy for words, you settle for a nod to give.

“How come?”

For God’s sake, this is not a conversation you want to have now with your crush instructor in the middle of the men’s locker room. “I…Well, Mr. Fushiguro—“

“Toji,” he cuts you off, discarding the small towel to the top of his bag. “Y’re over here tellin’ me I look good when you’re the one lookin’ like you could strike any guy that walks up in this place. Doncha think so?” 

Again, your eyes avoided his toweled figure, focusing on the tiled floor beneath your sneakers. “I guess, but…Toji, when compared to you, I—“

“Then that’s what ya shouldn’t be doin’, who told you to compare y'rself to others?” Toji brings a hand to your chin to make your avoidant peer placed on him, a move you were not mentally strapped in for. “I’m me, and y’re you, right?” 

“Right…”

“And that’s a good thing,” the hand on your chin slides down to the inside of your hoodie, his forefinger sneaking under the band of your sports bra. It makes your breathing stop. “But ya know what else I think?”

“What?” You sounded so low – so tiny – you didn’t know if he could hear you. He then brings his face close to your ear, and you could’ve sworn you almost felt your heart jump out of your throat. His free hand comes around your waist, pulling you even closer to him. The cotton of the towel now brushed your leg, and you could sink into a pool of embarrassment at the gasp you let out.

His voice was hoarse and low, the air from his nostrils grazing the skin of your ear. “…I think y’r body is the sexiest thing I’ve seen.” 

The sentence hit you like a truck, your heart almost giving in to a complete shutdown. “Huh–Ohhhh, wait,” Toji takes a nibble of your ear while his hand slithers your hoodie off of you, freeing your arms and covered chest where he creeps his hand inside next. You whimper at his fingers on your nipples that harden at his grinding touch. “Toji, wait, please wait…Do you really mean—“

“Mhmm, I do,” He coos, and a kiss to your neck nearly has you give way and lose balance; lucky for you, Toji was smart enough to have a leg between yours. “Now that I have you here, I’ll prove it.” 

“We’re—Ahhnnn…But we’re in the men’s locker room,” Toji brings his face up to look at you, your half-lidded eyes locked with his emerald orbs. “Someone could see us…”

Your worries are taken with a caress to your cheek. “Don’t worry about other people when y’re with me. I gotcha, baby.” 

“And I’m…Ohooo, really sweaty…”

“Nothin’ a shower can’t fix.”

And before you refute him again, Toji places his scarred lips onto yours, a shocked moan muffled as he kisses and sucks on your bottom lip. The hand in your bra now positions to the back of your neck, positioning you for him to deepen the kiss once you allow him access to your mouth. And once you kiss him back, all the reins of restraint have been discarded along with your hoodie to the floor.

The sounds of lips smacking get louder by the second, the passion in the kiss unraveling when you bring your hands to cup his cheek and have his face practically glued to yours. And Toji complies, shoving his tongue to tease and play with yours. The hand that was on your waist comes down to your ass for him to grope with the flesh, urging more of your sobs to be taken from him. Is it possible for your brain to turn into mush from a kiss? You’re finding that out now, breaking the kiss to gather whatever air you can before Toji claims your lips again.

The leg you’re riding on is nestled between your thighs, rubbing against the groin of your shorts. With every kiss and hump comes a grind on his leg, and it alleviates the growing ache that’s flourishing in your panties. Shivers travel up your spine and heighten your horniness, this elated feeling so dangerous that you could turn into putty at any second.

Toji lets go of your lips with a heavy pant, breathlessly snickering at his work; turning his cute client into a mess flipped a switch he’s been dying to indulge with. “Mmmm, y’re too fuckin’ cute, baby,” he wipes your mouth before letting you go; you hold back a whine when he removes his warm figure from you and steps back. It’s then that your instructor finally removes the towel that’s been shielding a now-discernible tent. The white towel meets the floor, and you follow his happy trail to meet with his erection, a sight that makes your jaw drop. The older man takes a seat on the bench behind him, and his legs spread out for his dick and balls to be ever-so-present and seen.

“Ya see how crazy you and y’r body make me?” He bites his lip, getting more turned on with you marveling at him and his length. “C’mere, angel, lemme see what you can do.” It takes a good mental slap to snap out of your frozen state and look at the thing you’ve been imagining all these months. Now, when the chance has finally been brought to you, how could you pass this up?  Following Toji’s command, you come close and go to your knees between his legs. 

The sheer size and girth of his length nearly put you in a trance, your eyes taking every detail of his erection before your eyes. Every dent and curve, the prominent veins from the underside, and the oddly pretty pink tip where bits of precum dare protrude from the urethra. Your raised hand has hesitance, yet Toji is quick to assuage your unease, taking your hand with his and wrapping it on his cock. The rough skin on your palm hitches your breath, “Hmmm, oh fuck. Yeah, just like that, princess.”

And there he goes again, egging you on with more cute pet names. Your hand slides up and down along his shaft from the tip to the base, and the sensation of its veins is so raunchy for your overwhelmed fingertips. Toji’s gruff hums to your touches stick to your ears the most, a sound you never in your wildest dreams thought you’d be lucky enough to hear. You want to keep hearing them, want them to be stored in your memory for as long as you can. And when you meekly tease his glans with a tiny lick, the hiss he expresses turns you on even more, so much so that you take the tip with patience and start to suck.

Toji throws his head back to the lockers behind him; the feeling of your tongue rolling around his girth as you inhale his cock is crazy. Fuck, it felt so good – he has to fight the urge to rut into your hollow cheeks and puffy lips. “Hahhh…Mmmm, damn….Ahahaha, ya know how to use that mouth of y’rs, Y/n. Keep suckin’ me off like that, and I’ll—Ohhh! Shit, shit, shiiiit,” he wasn’t prepared for you to take in his entire erection to the hilt. The tightness of your throat around him sends shivers, having to use the bench to grip onto.

You bob your head along his length, a hand accompanying the motions to further the exhilaration. Spit and come wet your palm, yet you’re too focused on the task to care, the haze of your brain increasing every time your lips meet the pubes of his pelvis. The jerk of his hips entails that you’re doing a good job, Toji bringing a hand to the back of your head when you kiss and lick on the head of his cock. You take note, assuming that it’s his weak spot, and continue to suck and tease the tip some more, massaging his testicles which almost had him choke. 

“—Hnnmph! Fuckin’ shit, I can’t…” Toji then has enough of this ribbing pleasure, unable to hold it anymore. With a careful hold on your skull, he stands from the bench and plows your face with his member. The harsh hit of his hips propelling his dick down to the deep crevices of your throat was sudden; the assault on your uvula results in your gag reflex; however, Toji was here to calm you down, “It’s alright, angel, breathe fr’ me.” He caters to you with a mediocre rhythm to the hips, the movement relieving the abrupt stress to your throat as you hum on his cock. You find purchase on his thighs to stabilize yourself while he plays with you orally, dialing up the pumps to your mouth until it reaches an erratic mood. Fuck, it has your head ringing, but the growing twinges and throbs between your legs practically excite you for more. Goddamn, it feels so good. So fucking good. “Jesus Christ—Y/n, I’m ‘bout to cum. Keep swirlin’ that tongue…Nnmmm, fuuck, right there, right there—Ahhhck!!”

His release comes with a few rough hits to your lips, his balls hitting your chin until they’re pressed against it. He pups his load into you, and you take it like a champ, letting the fluid venture down as the girth pulsates around your walls. His choked breathing eventually simmers down, giving it a few long seconds before he steadily removes himself from your warm cavity. The last remnants of his white substance paint your tongue, your saliva coating him. And with a voluntary swallow, you open your mouth again to showcase your clean change.

“Heh, didn’t even have to tell you,” Toji chortles, bringing a thumb to wipe your chin. “Good girl.”

KA-CHA! CREEEEK!!

Wide green eyes shoot wide along with yours, and the both of you go frozen rigid. That was most definitely the sound of a door opening. The door to the men’s locker room, where you are on your knees, in front of your personal instructor, with his dick out for the whole world to see. The blood in your body runs cold, and your stomach drops to the chilly floor. Oh, it’s over. It’s done. Your life is officially coming to an end. Welp, it’s time for me to think of a good suicide note when I get home and—

Pause on that. Because one moment you were thinking of your demise from this discomfiting situation, next you’re being dragged by Toji to the other part of the locker room, the showers. He swiftly opens a curtain and throws you both inside with a close, and the wet tiles soaked to your socks have you cringe, so you take them off.  

“Hello?” It’s a guy’s voice, of course — Ino’s. The young man is probably inspecting the male locker rooms before they close for the night like usual. You don’t dare speak so much as a letter when the footsteps draw closer to the showers, your heart rate spiking to a nervous high, and your breathing shallow. This is worse; now you’re in a confined space, face-to-face with Toji, who is utterly nude, towel left back on the bench. Your eyes locked with his, and your ears to the sounds of shoes entering the plane. “Anyone here? Saw some stuff at the front.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” your expression turns to sheer terror, wide orbs looking at the raven-haired man who spoke. No! Why would you say something!? 

“Hmm? Toji, that you?” Ino’s voice comes closer, in front of the shower curtain that shields you from his field of vision. Your heart is on the verge of dropping to your intestines. “You’re still here? Figured you’d be home by now.”

“Nah, I’m still here. Just about to finish up and head out.” Toji then turns on the faucet, cold peeps of water hitting your sweaty skin, panties, and sports bra. And, of course, it catches you off guard. OH FUUUUUU—  You don’t scream. You can’t. Instead, you shield your mouth and turn your back to Toji after giving him the most outstanding death glare of your life, which the older finds amusement in. You wipe your face from the water, cursing internally at this entire predicament. 

“Oh, okay, cool. I was just worried someone left their stuff on that bench over there. Carry on, and have a good night!” Ino dismisses himself and leaves the showers, and you exhale a silent sigh of relief. Oh, thank goodness…

Toji, on the other hand, sees your relieved state, and he can’t help but grin to himself with what he’s about to do. Moving closer to you, he brings his wet hands to your sports bra and immediately goes to fondling your breasts. A moan sneaks past you at the contact, prompting him to grope you even more. “T–Toji,” the water gradually gets warmer, juxtaposing with his cold fingers. “Stop, we have to leave, this is—Ohooo…” He tweaks your nipples with his forefinger and thumbs, and a leg sneaks in between yours.

“Relax, dollface, it’s just you and me here,” Oh, sweet Lord, you almost fell to your knees when he whispered to your ear and a teasing lick to your helix. “Got ya all to myself, now…” Toji kisses the crook of your neck, his wet hair brushing your cheek while he snakes his hand down into your panties. The way his fingers graze your clit again has you arch your back to him, another hushed shriek when he bullies his way between your folds. 

“Hey, Toji?” Ino’s voice again. Back to anxious stakes now that Toji’s toying with you. Goddamn it, Ino! What are you still doing here!? “I noticed you left your towel on the bench over there. But I also saw Y/n’s hoodie there.” Oh, fuck me!! Shit, shit, shit—"Ohhmph!!"

With quickness, you covered your mouth before your moan caught the ears of the front desk employee. And the reason for that is that Toji pulled down your soaked underwear and gave your chasm a sudden lick. If Ino weren’t back here, you’d give your personal trainer the nastiest kick to the throat you could ever do. But when he inserts a finger inside you, your aggression withered away in seconds. 

“Huh? Ohh, yeah, ‘bout that,” Toji stands back up and continues to finger you, chuckling at the sight of your trembling figure using the wall as leverage. “I saw ‘em before headin’ to the locker room. We talked for a while, but then they said they needed to change and told me to hold their hoodie for ‘em.” He says it so casually, all the while scraping your inner walls with the tip of his forefinger, summoning hushed cries that turn to silent screams when his free hand comes down to playfully pinch and press on your clitoris. God, this is too much torture for one night. 

Ino keeps questioning. “Really? I had someone check the other locker rooms, and she said she didn’t see anyone or anything except for a few personal items and leggings in one of the lockers. I’m guessing those would be Y/n’s, but where could they be?” Little did he know that you were just a curtain pull away from being found, chewing hard on your lip to quash your screams from the erratic swiping on your clit and the curving hits of his digits in your wetness.

“Mmmm, they probably are at another part of the gym or waitin’ for me at the front.” He lies effortlessly, yet his attention is still on you as he removes his fingers from you, the pleasure subsiding from the removal. Instead, he brings his erection in between your folds and humps you, and the feeling of his dick on your lips worsens the throbs in your awaiting cunt. With the heat coming from the shower and your uneven breaths, you’re bound to faint at any moment. 

“Ahh, makes sense. Alright, I’ll try and find them then,” you don’t say anything, just hesitant breaths when you feel the tip of Toji’s cock align and lightly push to your slick-coated entrance. Holy fuck, this is actually happening! Your lips quiver when Toji comes down to your ear to tell you to relax your body from tension, quietly maneuvering you by pulling your lower half to him. You do big inhales and exhales while the man pushes his cockhead to enter your cunt, wincing at the few seconds of pain that accompany each push. “See you later, Toji, and I put your towel on the hood next to your shower for when you’re done. Good night!”

“See ya.” And with Toji’s dismissal, Ino’s footsteps draw farther and farther from where you two are. And the moment you hear the locker room door slam close, Toji pushes the entire cockhead inside of you. Finally, you can squeal out to your heart’s content, balling your fists on the shower wall while your personal trainer wedges his length inside of you and stretches your walls. The girth was definitely something you knew would be an obstacle to accommodate, and it’s worse when your slit keeps clamping around the foreign limb invading inside. Tears begin to swell from the stinging touch, not that they would be distinguished by the shower water hitting behind you and Toji.

“Haahh, ahahhnn, mmmm,” Your wails seep out from your system right as the base of his cock kisses your lower region lips. And after a few seconds, he starts with a slow pace. Knowing that you can feel every dent and vein within you is insane to comprehend; the heat across your cheeks cranks up due to the euphoric sensations. “Ohhhh, my God, Tojiii. I’m so full…”

Toji pecks on your shoulder, “Yeah, sweet thing? I bet so. Just be a good girl and keep grippin’ on me like that, alright? Gonna start movin’ now…” His hips rut into your vagina, pulling his shaft slowly outward and rushing it back inward. Holy shit, it felt so dreamlike — having him actually move inside of you. But it was very much real; having his pelvis meeting the flesh of your ass was proof of such.

A hand snakes down to your clitoris, and a gasp leaves your lips at the brush of his thumb rubbing against it. Your legs tremble at the flick of his finger on your bud, and the pace of his thrusts crank up in speed, making it hard to concentrate on one thing. So many senses are being activated all at once; the shower water raining down on your back, the exhilarating combination of Toji’s dick grinding down on your insides, and the swipes and pinches on your precious clitoris. God, it was all too much. 

“Arch some more fr’ me, princess,” Toji gets up to push your back further down, the walls of your chasm clinging onto him as the more exposed opening gives room for you to be plowed. “Hnnmm, shit, feels so good…Hey, let’s try somethin’ different.”

By the time the last bit of his sentence could be registered, he already had you turned to face him, folding your arms around his neck. You didn’t know what for until he hoisted you up, and then you instinctively grabbed hold for dear life before your back hit the wall, your legs wrapped around him while he held you by the thighs. Toji brings his member back to your labia to insert it back inside, and you two moan at the contact again. Oh, this was different – never have you been lifted like this. And to be elevated by your gym crush, in this connotation, is enough to have you appalled.

But what made your breath hitch the most was Toji’s face being up close and personal. The bangs stuck to his forehead thanks to the shower water; his jet-black hair was wet and slicked. Trails flow down his face, drops of water plummeting from his nose and chin. And – oh, sweet Jesus – those green eyes of his, so striking as if they could pierce right through you. They were piercing through you. He took in your expression just as you were his, eyes filled with wanton desire, and it was all directed towards you – for you. He flashes a small smile, teeth peeking from beneath his scarred lips.

Oh, my God. You turn to the side to hide your face from his gaze; it definitely wasn’t the water that was making your cheeks and ears hot at that moment. But that didn’t fly with Toji. He sneaks into a rut that has you jump on his cock, the new position giving his dick an angle to hit your cervix. Because of that, the jab erupts a shriek you had no preparation for withholding. 

“Heh, aht, aht, don’t do that,” Oh, he knows he’s in control of this entire situation; you can hear it in his patronizing chortle. “Don’t hide that pretty face from me, doll,” he kisses your cheek and trails down to the crook of your neck. “Let me hear you—Aiishhh! Oh, fuuck…” 

Once Toji begins to jerk his hips to you, you dwell into a pleasure that you never knew existed. Toji’s length scrapes your inner walls like crazy, like a euphoric itch. The fact that you’re bouncing on the cock of your personal trainer is scary to comprehend. Having him see you like this, hearing you moan and wail for him, you never felt more exposed in your entire life. And also, him holding you like you weigh nothing and fucking you in the men’s locker room showers?! What the actual fuck!? This is actually so embarrassing – I could die! 

But why would you? The commotion between your legs feels way too good to bring this to a stop – you two are already joined in a union, so why stop? Every stroke to your slit sends a shiver up your spine, clamping onto him every time he brushes up on your sweet spots that make your nerves tingle. And the occasional jabs to your tender cervix? Damn, the stimulation was enough to have you faint with the heat growing tenfold.

“Mmmff, hoohhh, ohhhhh,” your cries are drowned out by the shower, only heard by Toji. Speaking of, this position gives you proximity to observe his expression. His eyebrows furrowed, eyes shut as if he’s in the zone. The huffs of breath he takes with every roll of his pelvis are so hot to the ear that you wouldn’t mind listening to them all day. Anytime the walls of your wetness clamp onto him, he moans and hushed curses at the feeling of you wanting him. He’s an attractive man, but, holy fuck, this was a sight you thought you’d never see in a million years. 

“—Khhhh! Hnmph, ahhhh,” Through the gruff pants, Toji opens his eyes half-lidded, catching you in the moment of staring right at him. You clench onto him; why does this man have to look so fucking sexy!? He smirks, “How we feelin’ now, baby?”

“Hahhh, I–I’m—Ohhh!! Fucking shiiiitt,” you cry out when he slams deep into you, making your toes curl, and your words come out in slurs. “It’s too muuchh, Tojiii, ughhh!! T–Tooo muuuuch…” 

“Ya gettin’ close?” Oh, yes, you were. You could feel it through the trembles climbing up your fibers. Your brows trench at the high, and Toji was mean enough to sneak a pinch to the clitoris without you noticing. Your legs tighten around his waist, and you shake your head hurriedly. He chuckles, releasing your clit from his rough fingers and putting his forehead to yours. “C’mon, angel, I won’t know what you want if ya don’t say it.”

Fuck, he’s such a meanie. You love it so fucking much. You mewl to him, “Pleaseee, Tojiii, I want it so bad!”

He lifts a brow. “Want what?” 

“—To cum!! Pleasepleaseee, I wanna cum on you, I want it—Ahaahhnn!!” Fuck, it’s coming. Almost there. 

That’s all he needed to hear, the grin on his face broadening at your response. “Cum on me, then. I’m right here to catch ya, princess.” His hand returns to your clitoris, pressing down on the delicate button to the point where all he can hear is your sweet screams of lust. His thrusts now get erratically fast, having you rebound to the hilt of his length, the smacks of skin slapping against each other fill the confined space of the shower. And the climb of your aroused high increases until it comes crashing down; you let out one last howl as the electric shocks course through your body, and your release is freed. Your walls squeeze hard onto Toji as you indulge in your climax; him pistoning his cock to your sensitive labia adds to the chilling sensitivity. Your cunt flutters around his cock while you experience your crescendo, your eyes screwed shut to enhance the experience, not aware of Toji watching you ride out your orgasm on him. 

The trembles calm down, the shocks subside, and your breathing descends into a steady rhythm. Throwing your head back, you rest your back against the wall while still in Toji’s hold, using this time to indulge yourself in this moment of clarity. 

Toji lets out a tiny laugh, bringing his face to your neck to suck on it. “That felt good, sweet thing?” You sigh out of breath, nodding to his question. “Hmmm, good. But ya know I’m not done, right?” Your blood ran cold, your body rigid still. Wait, huh? “I let you have your fun, so be a good girl, and lemme have mine.” 

The involuntary twitch of your slit should give you a clue as to how the news hit you, and you can't tell if it'll be him or the shower that will have you melting like a puddle by the time this is over...

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Haibara walks out to the front desk, where Ino hurriedly stuffs his phone back into his pocket, away from his superior’s eyes. Fortunately for the younger man, the older one didn’t see his device. “Hey, Ino, I got a question.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” The associate fidgets with his brown hair under his rolled-up ski mask.

“Have you seen Mr. Fushiguro and Y/n today? Toji told me he couldn’t make it for Monday night, but I haven’t seen Y/n that day or Wednesday.” The older brunette looks around to find any resembling cues, but his eyes see nothing that sparks familiarity. 

Ino blinks before answering. “No. And now that you mention it, I haven’t seen or heard from them since last week…”

Haibara leans on the desk and sighs. “Hope Y/n’s doing all right. Usually, they’d call or shoot a text telling me they couldn’t make it for their appointments with Fushiguro. But this is twice where neither of them show up.” 

“Hmm, can’t say I have an idea.” The other shrugs at his superior’s concerns. “I didn’t get a call or text from Y/n either, so maybe I’ll give ‘em one after my shift. Heh. Let’s hope they didn’t replace us with another gym.” 

With trenched brows, Haibara took offense to the younger brunette’s words. “Cut that out, man! I’d be pretty upset if they just suddenly stopped showing up here. Half a year of coming in and out and getting to know each other, only for them to just vanish like that…At the very least, they could give a call!” He passionately bangs on the front desk, giving Ino a startle.

RING-RING-RING!! RING-RING-RING!! 

The two froze at the sudden ring of the desk phone as if Haibara’s fist magically granted them a call. And by the exchanged glances they shared before Ino picked up the phone, they better hope it wasn’t the call they were expecting. “Hello, this is Golden Gate Gym. My name is Takuma Ino; what can I do for you?” 

“Hey, is that you, Ino?”

“Hey, Y/n!” Ino turns to Haibara, whose eyes share the same perplexity as his. “It’s good to hear from you; where’ve you been? You’ve been MIA for almost a week.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I had a little accident and sprained my ankle; I couldn’t come to the gym on Monday and Wednesday.”

“Oh, shit, for real?” Haibara watched the younger man’s tone change to concern, which didn’t help his nerves either. “Sorry to hear about that, but it’s a good call not coming here and taking care of yourself.”

“Yeah, thanks. Is Haibara there with you by any chance?”

“Uh, yeah. He’s right next to me, actually.” Ino takes the initiative to give the darker brunette the phone to speak with the one on the other side of the line. Haibara outstretches his arm to take the phone and put the receiving end to his ear. “Yo, Y/n!”

“Hey, Haihai. I meant to call you Wednesday, but I’m letting you know that Mr. Fushiguro and I are still doing our weekly appointments.”

Haibara sighs in relief internally, giving Ino a thumbs up. “Oh, thank God! You two had me worried there for a second. We didn’t see you guys here and thought you’d be a no-show again.”

“Yeah, sorry for the scare. Mr. Fushiguro found out about it and decided it would be….Haahhh….best for me to do my regimine at my apartment instead…”

“Well, that’s nice of him to look out for you with your ankle. I’m sure he’s doing what he can to—“

“Ahaahhnn!!”

A sudden yelp pops into the call out of nowhere and completely takes Haibara aback from the phone as if it was so out of place for the topic that was taking place. Ino notices it when the darker brunette gives him a brief perplexed look, which the younger shrugs at. “Uhh, Y/n? You busy right now?”

Oh, you were busy, all right. You’re at your apartment right now. Your ankle? Absolutely fine, nothing wrong about it in the slightest. The only change, however, is not being at the gym for this entire week and staying home instead. Why?

How about asking your personal trainer who has you propped upside down, standing up with his hands holding you by your ass, stuffing his face to your exposed cunt which he licks and sucks on. The feeling of his tongue digging through your labia has your hips jerking, but his strong arms exhibit unmoving effort in keeping your wetness in his mouth. His pants down to his knees, and his erect length in your hand and brushing your cheek. This is most definitely not the at-home exercise that Haibara is thinking of.

“…Hello?…Y/n, you there?”

Oh, shit! “Y–Yeah, I’m here! Sorry, my ankle is acting up on me—Ohhhh…Fushiguro’s looking at it for me…” Oh, please, he’s not checking shit; fucker indulging himself between your asscheecks, ravishing your folds like a sweet fruit to his tastebuds.

“Oh! So you two are exercising together right now?” Toji nibbles on your vagina and grazes with his teeth, having you gasp and twitch. His tongue surprising your clit prompts a choked whine. “That’s good to know then! Alright then, see you guys when you’re ready to return to the gym. And tell Toji not to put too much on you, ya hear?”

“—Khhhh, mhmm…I’ll give him an earful for you. See you later, Haibara…”

“Great, see ya. Happy Friday!” 

And with that farewell, you can finally toss the phone down and coo to your heart’s content, biting your lips at Toji stuffing his mouth on your bare chasm; his muffled groans vibrate your lower half like crazy. “Ohhooo!! Ohhhfuckkk, I’m gonna cumm,” your words slur with a suck to your clitoris, your hips bucking involuntarily. “Lemme cum, Tojiiii, I wanna—Ahaaaa!!”

He removes his face from your ass with an exhale as if he was dying for breath. But based on the grin plastered on his face, he wouldn’t mind being in this position for a little while. “Oh, I don’t think so, doll. I don’t think ya deserve to cum in my mouth.”

That was the last thing you wanted to hear right now. “Ahahnn!! You’re such an asshole, Toji…”

He chuckles crudely. “That’s where I’m gonna play with next if you don’t stuff my dick in that pretty mouth of y’rs already. Suck me good; then maybe I’ll let the princess cum all over me.”

Broad strokes from his pelvis rub his dick on your cheek, a reminder of your part of this endeavor that you must partake in. The smell of him overwhelms your nostrils into a pornographic trance, your head pounding just from looking at it. You gulp and take the tip into your mouth, sucking and licking the precum off while your hands glide up and down his shaft. “Good girl, good girl…” Toji goes back to smacking his lips on your folds, moving his tongue in whirlpool motions that have you moaning on his cock. God, it feels so good, so fucking good. You can see yourself becoming addicted to this, and that’s a bit scary seeing this professional relationship drift to something more touchy and personal…

…But then again, there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 – reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ☆ header art by achumuchi + dividers by @/cafekitsune & @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more.

#𝑯𝒐𝒔𝒉𝒊 ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ 𝑾𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔: 𝑭𝒊𝒄𝒔 #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #toji x reader #toji fushiguro x reader #toji smut #toji fushiguro smut #toji x you #toji x y/n #fushiguro toji x reader #fushiguro toji x you #toji fanfic #fushiguro toji smut #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen fic #jjk imagines #jjk fic

[digitalfilipina]

PLDT Home Biz supports Madiskarte Moms I A community of creative, resourceful, and resilient mompreneurs

PLDT Home Biz supports Madiskarte Moms I A community of creative, resourceful, and resilient mompreneurs

Madiskarte Moms PH (MMPH), an online community for aspiring and experienced mother entrepreneurs or mompreneurs, won a Silver Stevie Award for Innovation in Community Relations or Public Service Relations at the 2022 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. The awarding body recognized MMPH’s role as a safe space and go-to resource for moms who want to start or grow their own online home businesses. Started…

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#MMPH #2022 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards #Madiskarte Moms PH #mompreneurs #mother entrepreneurs #online community #PLDT HOME

[iovmegumi]

sims 4 crystal legacy challenge

hello! here is a legacy challenge i created while playing the Garden Legacy challenge. i didn’t want to finish on my tenth gen and decided to create my own challenge, based on crystals. this challenge can be continued from a previous save or started in a new one! i also tried to implement base game options for those who don’t own all the packs! some gens do need packs but if you don’t have them, they may be skipped. 

if you play this please tag me! or post your sims with #iovmegumi crystal legacy challenge

general rules ❥ you do not have to live on the same lot for all 10 generations if you wish. ❥ mods and cc are allowed! ❥ no money cheats ! ❥ i’ve assigned a colour to each gen so you may play with berry sims if you wish!  ❥ i’ve decided that in each generation you may roll for offspring (rolling a dice or using a random number generator to decide how many children) unless stated otherwise in the rules.

gen one - rose quartz (pink)

a stone of unconditional love.

growing up, all you ever wanted was a family. leaving home young to start your life, you work on your career while trying to find the one, dedicated to cultivating the perfect life. you work hard to support your family and love your children so much, opening your heart and home to those in need of families as well. you cherish your partner and frequently find yourself going on date nights.

traits: family-oriented, romantic, perfectionist aspiration: super parent (PH) or big happy family rules:

❥ level 10 cooking ❥ level 5 gourmet cooking ❥ level 10 parenting (PH) ❥ master arts critic career or reach level 10 of painting while freelancing ❥ have four kids, one adopted ❥ marry your soulmate and stay together until death do you part

gen two - orange calcite (orange)

a stone for energy and creativity.

you had everything as a child, lots of siblings and loving parents. you took an interest in your house, specifically the furniture and decided that you’d love to create your own items. when you are old enough you begin learning how to make furniture and take an interest in repairing objects. though you grew such a passion for this, you found that you hadn’t really had time to make friends.

traits: loner, self-assured, maker (EL) or creative aspiration: master maker (EL) or curator rules:

❥ level 10 fabrication (EL) or complete crystal collection or both! ❥level 10 handiness ❥ level 5 gardening ❥ level 10 civil designer career - green technician branch (EL) or live off making creations ❥ have only one friend ❥ marry that friend ❥ complete aspiration ❥ roll for offspring ❥ fill house with furniture or items you’ve made

gen three - moonstone (white)

a symbol of light and hope and also encourages us to embrace new beginnings.

your parents were so focused on the world around you that you began wondering what else was out there. you grew a fascination for space and found the urge to explore outside your planet. you meet some different people, and even find yourself falling in love with one of them. how do you tell your parents that you’re marrying an alien?

traits: genius, family-oriented, clumsy aspiration: nerd brain rules:

❥ level 10 logic ❥ level 10 fitness ❥ level 10 rocket science ❥ level 5 parenting ❥ level 10 astronaut career ❥ complete aspiration ❥ have 4-5 kids ❥ marry an alien (if you have GTW) ❥ build & fully upgrade a rocket ship ❥ travel to sixam

gen four - sodalite (blue)

enhances communication and builds confidence.

having an alien background, you have never felt like you fit in. you dream of having lots of friends and living a normal life. you focus on trying to blend into society and try to be as social as possible, throwing parties and meeting new sims, even seeming to gain some attention on the internet too.

traits: outgoing, unflirty, party animal or bro and loyal aspiration: friend of the world rules:

❥ level 10 charisma ❥ level 7 comedy or mischief ❥ level 7 video gaming ❥ level 10 social media career - internet personality branch (CL) or entertainer - comedy branch ❥ complete aspiration ❥ roll for offspring ❥ throw 5 parties over the course of your life

gen five - pyrite (grey)

used for abundance, confidence & protection.

note: this gen requires Get Famous and may be skipped if you do not own the pack!

having a well-known parent thrust you into the spotlight from a young age and as you grew older, you found yourself loving it, wanting more. you dream of being on the big screen, your face plastered on billboards, your name nominated for awards. you’ll do anything to gain fame, even if it means use others.

traits: ambitious, snob, self-absorbed (GF) aspiration: world famous celebrity rules:

❥ level 10 acting ❥ level 10 piano ❥ level 5 violin ❥ level 5 guitar ❥ level 10 acting career ❥ complete aspiration ❥ become a 5 star celebrity ❥ have two failed marriages ❥ have only one child ❥ have a butler (VG)

gen six - amethyst (purple)

a powerful protective stone.

your parent was obsessed with fame, wanting you to follow in their footsteps. after seeing how little they cared about you, you decided to go in a different direction. your butler was your best friend and basically raised you, talking to you of how they used to love their family garden. you decide a quiet life is suited to you and put all your focus into working on a lovely garden dedicated to your butler.

traits: loves the outdoors, neat, vegetarian aspiration: freelance botanist rules:

❥ level 10 gardening ❥ level 10 cooking ❥ level 6 logic ❥ level 10 gardening career (seasons) or complete basegame plants collection or both ❥ have at least 3 kids ❥ lose one child to death ❥ be best friends with your childhood butler

gen seven - tourmaline (black)

promotes happiness and offers protection, inspires creativity.

losing a sibling was the hardest time of your life, and you found that your family never recovered from this loss. you hear a myth of a book that can bring people back to life and vow to return your sibling back to you and your family. 

traits: gloomy, creative, paranoid or erratic aspiration: bestselling author rules:

❥ level 10 writing skill  ❥ level 5 photography skill (GTW) ❥ level 10 writing career ❥ complete aspiration ❥ write book of life & bring back deceased sibling ❥ marry a bookworm ❥ roll for offspring ❥ adopt a cat (C&D)

gen eight - bloodstone (red)

for courage & justice, strengthens immune system & family bonds.

your parents had been stressed a lot of their life, working hard to bring your family member back. you were frustrated that they had to go through so much and decided to take it out on others. you grew to despise most people, working on creating enemies rather than friends, feeling a sense of justice for your parent. yet you still made sure to love your children, even if you may have not loved your spouse as much.

traits: mean, noncommittal, bro aspiration: bodybuilder rules: 

❥ level 10 programming ❥ level 10 mischief ❥ level 10 criminal career (oracle branch) ❥ roll for offspring ❥ cheat on your spouse once all children are born ❥ get divorced as an adult ❥ get engaged again & leave new spouse at the altar

gen nine - amazonite (green)

a stone of peace, harmony, truth & communication.

the trauma of your parents rough marriage led you to pursue finding harmony and inner peace. you find this through yoga and painting, refusing to get a job so you can keep an eye on your spouse and make sure all your children feel loved. 

traits: jealous, erratic, art lover aspiration: painter extraordinaire rules:

❥ level 10 painting ❥ level 10 wellness (SD) or level 10 violin ❥ level 5 knitting (NK) ❥ complete aspiration ❥ never get a job ❥ fill your household with children ❥ always celebrate the holidays (seasons) ❥ go to the spa once a week (SD)

gen ten - citrine (yellow)

attracts wealth, prosperity & success.

note: this gen requires discover university! but i have included a basegame option too!

your whole life has revolved around your siblings. you had nothing that was your own and desperately wanted to remove yourself from them, wanting your own success and your own name. you study and get a degree, priding yourself on your intelligence and work ethic.

traits: hot-headed, materialistic, overachiever or ambitious aspiration: fabulously wealthy rules:

❥ level 10 robotics or level 10 logic & charisma ❥ level 7 programming ❥ level 7 handiness ❥ level 10 engineer career or level 10 business career ❥ complete aspiration ❥ get a university degree (DU) ❥ own a dog & a cat (C&D)

#sims 4 challenge #sims 4 #ts4 #iovmegumi crystal legacy challenge #crystal legacy challenge #legacy #sims 4 legacy challenge #legacy challenge #10 gen legacy #the sims 4 #the sims 4 challenges #sims 4 challenges #basegame legacy #discover university #get famous #sims 4 seasons #berry sims #sims 4 berry challenge #sims 4 berry sims

[maximotts]

☽ 𝖕𝖑𝖆𝖞𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖌𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖘 ☾

☾ 𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖐𝖙𝖔𝖇𝖊𝖗 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑: private hire!WandaNat

So @nats-firefly and I discussed this idea way before October, but brought it up again when I mentioned wanting to do a ph!WandaNat thing and now.. here we are.. filth amongst sleepy gays

private hire AU. kinktober masterlist. 18+ only, minors dni. you don’t need to add community labels, I’ve put adequate warnings below.

wc: 4.5k. cw: smut that starts out fluffy, but Wanda gets irritated. kinda cuddly sex. groping. fingering. punishments/attention denial. humiliation/degradation in the form of being babied. brief oral. overstim. typical Nat annoying Wanda. bratty reader bc people are always asking to see what would happen if you pushed Wanda's limits.

No outside clothes on the bed.

One of Wanda’s few house rules and generally easy to follow… until you were exhausted and she was snapping her fingers at you before you could take a second step towards her mattress.

Typically if you were too tired to seek out pajamas you’d suck it up and fall into your own bed, passing out until you gained energy to sort yourself out in the morning, but tonight was different. Your shift was long and felt even longer, filled with coworker mishaps and annoying customers that left you checking your watch every few minutes towards the end of the night. All you dreamt of on the ride home was Wanda and her warm bed, knowing she’d most likely be up despite the late hour. 

She had the tendency to worry; no matter how even-tempered she appeared, Wanda stayed up as late as she could for Natasha, and now you as well, to come home to her. You’d headed out earlier than your normal shifts, just after midnight, and with your boss always being notified the moment you left work, there was no doubt Wanda would be wide awake.

As expected, you found Wanda in her bedroom, nose deep in a book. She looked so happy to see you, you thought maybe you could skirt by her standards just this once-

“Don’t you dare get those dirty clothes anywhere near my new comforter.” 

“Wandaaaaa…” You groaned like a child, halfway to stamping your foot if you didn’t know that’d get you kicked out instantly. “I’m exhausted! It won’t ruin anything just once.”

But no amount of puppy dog pouts could make Wanda budge; the woman was so stubborn for the smallest things. You’d seen Natasha tease her for it, and even then, she stood firm; apparently there was a time when Wanda didn’t care, but once she started buying stuff of her own, she was intent on keeping it in order. “Not a chance. I can see at least three different cocktails spilled on your shirt! Get rid of the clothes or say goodnight and go to your bed.”

“So unfair…” The wardrobe across the room felt like too far of a journey, but you’d looked forward to the warmth of Wanda too much to deny yourself now. Before you knew it, you’d begun shedding your clothes, kicking them away into a lazy pile on the floor and wandering back over to your goal. 

Unexpected as it was, the sight of you tiredly stripping down amused Wanda and she didn’t stop you from sliding into bed, chuckling at your silly display of wiggling around until you successfully crawled on top of her fully clothed form. “Well aren’t you clever? Always trying to find yourself a loophole.”

“I like to think that’s what you love me for.” Tired arms wrapped around Wanda’s middle, resting your chin on her chest to gaze up at the older woman. Sleeping naked wasn’t your plan, but the act wasn’t unfamiliar, particularly in this room. Most of the time, though you got into bed wearing some kind of sleepwear, either Wanda or Natasha found a reason to take them off, anything from claiming to want a simple look to being straightforward in their desire to stake their obvious claim on you.

“I love you for a great many things, little one.” She let her book gently bop the top of your head before setting it aside on the nightstand, happy to give you her full attention. Spending the day alone wasn’t awful, but she missed you and Nat terribly, always preferring to be with at least one of you when she fell asleep.

The two of you settled into an easy embrace, Wanda drawing patterns over your bare back as you cuddled against her soft silken pajamas. Even back in silence like she’d been before your arrival, Wanda felt different, lighter, knowing she could hold you safe and her wife was on her way too. “How was your night? I got updates about some out of line people… I hope no one gave you too hard of a time.”

You shook your head, your frustrations melting away now that you were snuggled up to Wanda. It all seemed so far away while you were laid safe in your bosses’ cozy bedroom. “Nothing terrible, just felt like it lasted forever. It’s the Halloween crowd madness starting up, I think…” 

The brunette nodded and listened as you went through details, throwing in a comment or two when needed; engaged even as her hands began wandering. She didn’t realize what she was doing at first, smoothing over the indulgent feel of your delicate skin. You were always just so pliant and willing; honestly, she decided you deserved a reward for following her rules with the last bits of your energy. Wanda loved knowing you’d chosen her over sleeping across the hall; it was hard to stay firm when she was also tired of sitting by herself, but if she gave in once, she’d never hear the end of it.

It started out innocent enough that you didn’t question her, overexerted muscles enjoying the gentle massage of your ass and thighs. By the time Wanda pushed your hips up to make room for her hand, you’d been pacified into a calm state of security all you offered was a pleased hum when she stroked over your mound. “You’ve done so much today. It’s about time you let me take care of you now.”

“Mhm..” She drew you in for a kiss, fluffy and sweet, mindful of your exhaustion. Wanda was always cautious of your state of mind, her considerate coddling making it easy for her to know exactly what you needed. If you needed her to take away all memories of her bad night, who was she to deny you? 

Annoying as it’d been to be stopped on your way to bed, getting out of your work clothes did feel better and now you’d reap the benefits of choosing Wanda. Her touch was slow, sliding over center more to slowly work you up rather than to tease, like easing into a warm bath. “Thank you, mommy.”

“Of course, baby. You earned it for how hard you worked.” Her continued praise left you hiding your giggles in her chest, a dumb smile stamped on your features as Wanda dipped her first finger past your entrance. Rarely was Wanda this affectionate with you during sex, but she’d have to remember to do so more often, if only for how cute you looked right now. “I think someone likes being told they did a good job.”

“Maybe a little?” Your love of her acknowledgement was well known, there was no use denying it, but your sleepiness put you in a sillier mood— one that in turn rendered you more playful.

Oddly enough tonight, Wanda also happened to be relaxed enough to feed into it. “Something tells me it’s more than a little.” She fingered you open steadily, no rush to her movements, content to keep her mission slow for the time being. “If how desperately you’re squeezing my finger is any clue, you like it a lot…” 

You mumbled some noncommittal response, squeaking as Wanda pushed further. It was way too little, but you were unwilling to speed up whatever the two of you had fallen into, much more interested in letting Wanda do what she pleased and seeing where it went. “Fine, I do like it when you tell me you like the work I do..”

“Good girl!” This time when she kissed you, she tugged your lip between her teeth, sucking at it until the red matched the flush of your cheeks. She was so happy to have someone who caught on quickly and so easily accepted doing things her way; Natasha always put up a fight, you were a lovely change of pace. “What else would you like? Another finger?”

“Yes! Yes please!” Pretending not to be interested in that suggestion would only hurt you, the much desired stretch of her long digits too tantalizing to pass up. Low on willpower, you easily went docile, letting Wanda’s care drive away the day’s anxieties.

You wiggled happily as her second finger joined the first, legs spreading as far as you could get them. Maybe you were being terribly obvious, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care when this was exactly what you’d longed to come home and experience. “I still would’ve made you take off your clothes, but if you needed this, you could’ve asked.” 

Wanda thrusted into you harder now, bottoming out each time and like clockwork your moans came in tandem. She was so deep, you already felt so full, but still your hips rocked into her hand, unabashed in trying to find the perfect angle. “Wanted you all night.. To have you hold me and make me feel good.” 

It was true; falling into bed naked would almost always lead to something like this, but the how was forever a fun surprise. Wanda misjudged your ability to plot this out, but wouldn’t apologize for her predictable handsy nature; what fun was having a girlfriend if she couldn’t keep her hands on you whenever she pleased? 

“And you didn’t feel like asking so you figured you’d wait for me?” Wanda’s fingers curled and you nodded frantically, both answering her question and encouraging her to keep going. She did it again and again, letting her fingers stay put while your desperation grew; Wanda wasn’t particularly bothered by your little con, but she’d hate to let you fully get over on her. 

Free hand traveling from your backside to your chin, Wanda grabbed your face and tapped your temple, forcing your attention. “Look at me if you’re going to properly own up to your trickery.”

Meeting Wanda’s gaze was nearly impossible with how turned on you were, her sharp green eyes against her soft, makeup free face was just so.. beautiful— and you’re hopeless with pretty women. “I’m sorry, mommy. Can I still cum?”

“You’re bold enough to think you were ever allowed without asking?” Once in a while Wanda feared Natasha was right: she bent too easily whenever it came to you. Judging as her voice may sound, Wanda wouldn’t have thought twice about letting you carry on. With how distracted she’d become with your darling behavior, the biggest reprimand would’ve been a pat on the back before letting you fall asleep on her chest as if she’d never set a single rule for you. 

Wanda hated admitting Nat was right. “Don’t tell me you’re too tired to remember how to behave.”

“No! No, I’m not, please!” Wanda might’ve been in bed before you’d arrived, but she was far from asleep and while your version of playful was sweet, hers could easily be brash. She’d discovered your plan, fine, but you hadn’t planned for Wanda feeling anything but surprised. If she wanted to, your girlfriend would torment you for hours. Enduring any kind of punishment tonight would be torturous in your already exhausted state. “I wasn’t, I promise!”

“I know, baby, I know,” she cooed, kissing your quivering lips. You whined into her mouth as her hand sped up, as if Wanda suddenly decided to hurdle you towards orgasm, and your poor fatigued brain had to fight to keep up. “Sometimes you just get so sleepy and it’s hard to remember to ask out loud, yeah?”

It was an excuse both of you leaned on, you to appear like you hadn’t meant to overstep and Wanda to be able to point at your sleep deprivation when Natasha inevitably asked why you felt so emboldened to act out in the next few days.

“I forgot, I’m sorry… won’t do it again.” The gentleness of her words always charmed you, seeing Wanda’s soft side that was reserved for only you and her wife turning you on effortlessly. “Please, so close…”

Her thumb rolled over your neglected clit and your entire body shuddered, clinging onto Wanda as tight as you could. Fortunately for her, you didn’t have enough strength to restrict her breathing. “I wish you could feel how soaked my hand is right now, poor messy thing. If I let you cum, will you make those pretty noises I love hearing?”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” The words came out smashed together, too preoccupied with Wanda curling her fingers in sync with her thumb, setting a pattern so mind numbing you didn’t realize your eyes had rolled back until the brunette dug her nails into the nape of your neck— nor did you hear Natasha walking through the door.

“How many times have I warned you not to promise her that?” 

You startled at the extra hand on your head as it ruffled your messy hair before holding you still enough to kiss your temple. Natasha smelled earthy, like she’d been hunting in the woods; a stark contrast from where you last talked to her at the bar downtown. “Three hours ago when I saw you, you told me you felt dead on your feet, but refused to be sent home too early. Is Wanda keeping you up?”

“Yes, b-but I…” All at once you were keenly aware of how vulnerable you looked laid limply on Wanda, begging to cum as pitifully as a neglected pet. Nat had seen you like this and worse too many times to count, but being caught right on the edge left you shy. 

“But she came home looking for it,” Wanda finished for you, pinching your thigh before you tried to pin your wanton display all on her. “Pajamas were too hard for our hard-worker to get to, but she wanted to sleep with me so she went with nothing because she’s smart enough to know it’s better to give me what I want.”

“More like I’ve taught her how to choose her battles when it comes to you.” The redhead didn’t force you to pull your gaze from where you hid your face in Wanda’s chest, choosing to smooth out the stray hairs she’d given you and while the gesture was sweet, both women pretty much babying you was overwhelming. 

She wasn’t wrong, having learned either firsthand or from Nat’s instruction what was worth challenging versus when compliance was mandatory; she insisted there’d be a day when she could break Wanda of her bed linen obsessions. Both reasons your bosses gave you sounded submissive to one or the other, there was no use in acting tough when they were currently fawning over you like a lost lamb…

Silly as you were, you tried. “I was just sleepy.”

“Yeah? So sleepy you were begging for my fingers? Don’t try telling me you just wanted to sleep on them.” The idea shouldn’t have affected you as much as it did, but you were adjusting before you could convince yourself not to, pushing Wanda’s fingers deeper where they’d retreated from your entrance. Nat couldn’t see it, but Wanda could feel the subtle movement, digits brought back into wet warmth you were suddenly intent on denying existed and it occurred to her then you had a bit of a stubborn streak as well.

Nothing she and Natasha couldn’t conquer though. “We just had a little chat about being upfront about what you want. Surely you’d tell me if all you wanted was to go to bed, sweetheart.”

But you were too busy throwing the comforter over your head, shrouding yourself from head to toe. “You started touching me.”

Wanda and Natasha’s dual bombardment was dizzying, enough to leave you fighting not to grab Wanda’s wrist and move it yourself. They were too observant, knew exactly what buttons to push when you were in a certain headspace; when you came home stressed like tonight, they’d seen how much better off you were after you let go, but often you needed a little help getting there.

Wanda got you close, but Nat’s sudden appearance threw you off and now she was back to square one. It wasn’t any lack of security around her -you loved Nat as much as you did Wanda and always felt safe with both of them- you, again stubbornly, always wanted to feel like you were impressing the redhead. The couple joked about it often, how quick you were to turn to Natasha and search her typically stoic face for any sign of amusement; with even the faintest hint of a smile the pair swore they saw hearts fill your eyes. “She’s had enough of you, Wanda. Give her a break.”

“Oh boo hoo,” Wanda scoffed, sticking her tongue out at the woman standing next to her, “you always go so shy around her, wanting to look cool. She can be just as submissive as you are right now, trust me.”

“I am not!” There were some things you’d see less than a handful of times in your life; a submissive Natasha was one of them. 

“There you go, denying it just as hard as this one.” Wanda laughed loud enough to jostle you, chest bubbling with laughter under your hot cheek. She went back to rubbing your back with one hand, trying to comfort you amongst her blatant enjoyment of your predicament. Still her fingers stayed between your legs, stroking your folds lazily and confirming it was the very mortification you suffered that soaked you further.

Natasha made your same mistake, presuming Wanda was too preoccupied to bother with her sheets; she got as far as a welcome home kiss from her wife before a warning once over wordlessly directed her to get rid of her dirty leather jacket and scuffed jeans. “Yeah yeah, I’m going to change. Worry about that wiggly thing you’ve got weighing you down. I think you’ve summoned a blanket creature.”

“Aww, mommy’s little ghost,” she mocked, nuzzling her head atop yours before setting her wrist back to work. You’d been on the brink of something so blissful just moments before, it was all too easy to bring you back there. Even if you insisted on hiding from her and Nat now. “What’s the matter? You were just fucking yourself silly on my hand.”

“Nuh uh,” You wanted to sound more defiant than you had, but your voice sounded shaky and small. The futile attempt only brought more laughter to the pair, having unwittingly become their nightly entertainment. 

“No? You’re not a very good liar.” One of Wanda’s most prominent shortcomings was her impatience, a facet that heavily influenced when you and Natasha backed off and let her be. Not only did you forget to account for that now, you’d taken her earlier gentleness for granted instead of recognizing it for the reward it was: two missteps you were too dazed to notice drew on her fragile patience. 

“If you admit it, I’ll drive you wherever you want tomorrow.” She was trying so hard to stay careful with you despite how close she was to the end of her own rope, but all you came back with was a bullish shake of your head. “We can get your favorite pizza and try out that milkshake bar you keep trying to drag us to-”

“Oh yes, surely bargaining with your brat of a ghost will make her behave better!” Nat must’ve wandered into the closet based on how far away she sounded, too far to argue with even if you did want to dig yourself a deeper hole by defying both your girlfriends. 

“Shut up, Tasha, you’re such a pain.” It was a muttered jab, Wanda now bored of arguing and your withdrawal. So what if she had to coax you into it, she missed watching your sweet, unguarded face fall apart before her. She tried not to hold it against you too much; obviously you were so worn out you didn’t know what to do with yourself, but she couldn’t shake her annoyance completely. 

Playing nice wasn’t working anymore; maybe you’d settle faster if she let you be as invisible as you’re pretending. “She wasn’t difficult until you got here. I think showing off to you so much is making her pick up bad habits.”

“I don’t have bad habits- fuck…!” She shut you up with a too far thrust, fingertips pressing painfully deep. You weren’t a brat, not to Natasha and certainly not to Wanda, tired hips finally trying to match the latter’s motions just to prove you were ready to be cooperative again, but you’d blown your chances for Wanda’s grace and now she wasn’t listening.

Despite your denial, Wanda let you finish for the sole purpose of making you feel how obvious of a lie you’d spun. “Ignore me all you want, but we all know what your needy little cunt was after.”

You were certain she’d shove you off, roll you over, something with how she might as well have spat her last sentence at you, but instead of the absence of her, you got more. Wanda didn’t let up for a second, pistoning in and out all while settling into a casual conversation with her wife who’d just flopped down on the opposite side of the bed.

“I-I’m…” Oh. Wanda’s thumb brushed over your neglected clit like it was nothing more than a fidget toy, flicking back and forth while you fought a losing battle over control of your body. You pawed at her clumsily, legs scrambling for purchase as you tried to lift up for just a second and break free, but all your struggles were no match for Wanda’s strength. “Mommy?”

No response. For you, at least. Wanda was busy locking lips with Natasha, a quick squeak of her own pulled as Nat nipped along the corners of her mouth. “I wish you could’ve seen all of the costumes today, Tasha. I sent pictures, but with no text back I assumed you were busy all day.” 

She had to hear you, impossible to miss with how you not only called out her name repeatedly but kissed apologies along her sternum, pleading for acknowledgement. And yet, Wanda didn’t seem to spare you a single thought. Her hands stayed firm on either side of your lower half, one splayed over the small of your back to keep you still and the other inspecting an ever-growing mess, the heavy drag of her so intense you were toeing the edge of a second climax within minutes. 

If Natasha paid you any mind, you couldn’t tell, but her sympathy was rare, always the one warning Wanda against being too forgiving. Her current affection was the only thing keeping Wanda from snapping on you entirely though, knowing as much as she was focusing on getting you ready for bed, Wanda was fighting sleep too and it was making her moodier by the second. “You should’ve taken my text back as a reminder that I don’t wear Halloween costumes, sneaky wife of mine.”

Great, both her partners chose to be difficult tonight. “Why can’t either of you just listen to me?” 

“Ohh look who’s a brat now, Wanda. Do you hear yourself?” Nat was muffled from where you were under your blanket shield, but her snark was still clear as day. 

Wanda took her mounting frustrations out physically, cruelly pulling her hand away and wrenching out of Natasha’s reach mid-kiss. The two of you shared a disappointed whine, immediately suffering the consequences of your actions, but Wanda didn’t care. “It’s for a few hours for one night! It won’t kill you, I gave you an outfit once before-”

“Put your hand back, mommy, I was so close!” 

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. You know better.” Wanda did return her hand in the form of a rapid succession of slaps, the thick, wet sounds of her open palm meeting your soaked, puffy core humiliating you beyond belief. It hurt, yes, but as the sting lingered it only stoked your desire for her further and as you pinned your lover’s hand between you and her thigh, you found you hadn’t lost a single bit of your need. 

Learning from your mistake, you didn't push her, whining and pathetically getting yourself off while Wanda went back to coercing Natasha into Halloween fun. Obedience won you back some favor, three fingers now stretching you ruthlessly, second orgasm hitting you by surprise and bleeding straight into the third. 

Somewhere around then was where you lost track of their conversation, Wanda and Natasha bickering back and forth slowly being drowned out by the ever-louder ringing of your ears. Your muscles went slack, jaw hanging open, drooling onto her wrinkling pajama shirt as you relented to Wanda’s torture and the pleasure she kept you so hooked on. 

“Too much- I can’t, I can’t..!” You stammered out, fisting the mattress in a desperate plea for mercy. Everything ached, but you felt as though you were flying, soaring high above the house and into the dark city skies— and oh how you longed to fall right back into Wanda’s arms.

The older woman backed off almost too easily, returning to the gentle caresses she’d started with, “My hand’s tired, honey.” 

You thought that’d be the end of it, that you’d stay here until you sailed into pleasant dreams, but then you were being rolled over and instead of hitting the mattress, your back met the sturdy warmth of Natasha’s lap. Relaxing there was all too easy, head rolling back onto her shoulder, moving without resistance as Nat’s fingers took hold of your chin and turned it until she could kiss you, deep and greedy. “Look at you, all fucked out already… Wanda, what’d you do to her?”

“Nothing she didn’t enjoy, whether she admits it or not. ” How Wanda managed to find her way to her knees so quickly was beyond you, but you didn’t have it in you to question. Lacquered nails slowly scratched over your pelvis where you still felt so tingly while Natasha took the opportunity to massage your newly exposed breasts, four hands exploring your exhausted body. 

It was the same type of adoration you’d hid from earlier, but you were long past shying away now. You’d had more than enough of being ignored for a good while. “Hold her for me while I finish, you know how I hate messes in bed.”

Eyes you could barely manage to keep open peered past where Nat was groping you to see Wanda tie her hair back before settling onto her stomach, shuffling forward until she was close enough to nuzzle her cheek into your soft thighs. When she kissed your clit, you mewled, oversensitive from Wanda’s earlier abuse. “Mommy.. hurts..” 

“Hush, baby, I’m only cleaning you up. I’d never hurt you,” Wanda whispered it so lovingly you had no choice to concede, discovering in the next second that even if you wanted to close your legs you couldn’t, Natasha’s own holding yours apart. She licked and sucked carefully, lulling your tired brain back into blissful nothingness. 

The last thing you remember is Natasha’s deep voice right in your ear, your nipples caught between her calloused fingers as she rolled them in time with her wife’s tongue lapping at your leaking entrance. “Go to sleep, little dove, we’ll tuck you in safe and sound… and I promise to wake you up when I’m done with mommy.”

#I had to finish formatting this at work on my phone so if you see any issues uh… no you don’t 💖 #private hire au #wandanat x reader #wandanat x reader fic #wandanat x reader smut #wanda maximoff x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #maximotts kinktober #kinktober #motts writes.

[the-garrincha-universe]

Buildings at Cedar Riverside, home to an almost entirely Somali community. Minneapolis, USA. 2017 

ph Olivia Arthur

#olivia arthur

[panimoonchild]

Value your life, the best of us pay the highest price for it

On this day, 2 years ago, Yuriy (Ruf) Dadak, a Ukrainian poet, teacher, Ph., volunteer, and extremely kind and bright person, died in the Luhansk region. A true patriot of Ukraine. Since March 2014, he became a good friend to many volunteers of the InformNapalm community who were forced to leave the occupied Crimea to avoid being caught in the basements of the repressive occupation machine.

There is also a beautiful song dedicated to Mr Yuriy:

"When there is a waterfall in Yaremche,

And flowers will bloom in Lviv,

My headlights will cut the smoke of the Carpathians again,

I'll come back to you again and again!

Faster! Faster, wheels!

Carry me to her heaven!

Faster! Faster, you wheels!

Chorus:

I'm coming to you, Mama Galicia!

I'm knocking on your door, Mama Galicia!

I'm coming to you, Mama Galicia!

I'm knocking on your door, Mother Galicia!

When a new day dawns in Frankivsk,

Morning in Kosiv and Dibrova,

The words of new songs are formed there,

That's where my home is!

My home is wonderful!"

Eternal memory to all those who gave their lives defending life in Ukraine.

Every morning, at 09:00, Ukraine observes a minute of silence in memory of the war-dead defenders and all those who lost their lives due to Russian aggression.

#Youtube #grief #loss #emotions #feelings #thank you #Ukraine #stand with ukraine #war in ukraine #support ukraine #ukranian #artist #music #songs #musician #lyrics #lyric quotes #unmute #sound on #video post #russian terrorism #stop russia #russia is a terrorist state #standwithukraine #український тамблер #укртумбочка #український tumblr #укртамблер #український блог #україна

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Trauma Masterlist

Absolutely Lovely (ao3) - Autumn_Kismet

Summary: His friends and family think he’s acting strange, they’re worried that he’s depressed again, but Dan doesn’t see it. The only thing he sees is the new guy at school, the quirky one with the black hair and stunning blue eyes, and that’s bad. So bad… because he likes him, and Dan can’t like him. Dan can’t be gay. He’ll lose his family, he’ll lose his friends… he’ll become just like his father, and that’s the last thing that he wants in the entire world. It’s a scary thought that he doesn’t think will ever go away and if there’s the possibility of that happening, of him becoming the disgusting monster that his father was, or is, then maybe the world is better off without him, regardless of what PJ’s dad, his mum’s new husband, has to say.

Break Me (ao3) - MySecretsX

Summary: In this world, you’re marked with black. That’s if you have a soulmate at least. Everyone is destined to cross paths with the one who is meant for them, at least once in their lives.

When you and your soulmate meet, you will touch, if only briefly, and the exact area of skin you touch with the other turns from black to white, with streaks of blue, purple, yellow, all marbled in with each other.

Daniel Howell is well-known in town. People cross the street if they’re approaching him and newcomers to the neighbourhood are warned about his presence. Exactly like the Lester’s were. But Phil Lester has other ideas, he saw the pain within the boy, how bad can he really be?

(A story about abuse, self-destruction, but ultimately, love. Please read safely.)

Change Will Come (ao3) - rainbowchristy

Summary: Dan’s a depressed university student. Phil’s just a cute coffee shop barista who writes notes on Dan’s hot chocolates.

coffee at midnight (ao3) - waveydnp

Summary: A recent trauma has lead Phil to embrace a ‘try new things’ approach to his life. One of those new things is learning how to swim, and Dan is the lifeguard who’s going to teach him.

Filling The Void (ao3) - Merrydith

Summary: For Dan Howell, it was almost too easy. Once in a while became every week, which became every few days. And now, this was the fourth person he’d brought home that week and it was only Friday. What happens when Phil suggests Dan takes it easy?

Forgive Me (ao3) - FollowYourDreams

Summary: The year is 2224. Dan Howell is the prince of Pacis, living in the lavish Community, dreading his 21st birthday. Phil Lester is a servant at the Community, and has been for 6 years ever since he was taken from his home. On a fateful day, Dan and Phil lock eyes for the first time, and everything changes, but neither of them know if it’s for better or worse.

Frigid (ao3) - mooksie01

Summary: Daniel Howell is trouble. It’s a well-known fact of the school, and Phil isn’t stupid enough to try to interact with him… at least, he wasn’t. But now he’s talking to Dan, learning about him, and suddenly wanting to protect him? Where did he go wrong?? And why the hell is Dan Howell so damn pretty???

Get Out Your Damn Umbrellas (ao3) - llamalamp

Summary: This fic is based on a brilliant work by wordsongs called When It Rains It Pours (which unfortunately has been deleted). There will be several plot deviations, and the text and dialogue will be quite different, but I can’t take any credit for the storyline.

"Phil's only gone for one weekend. Apparently that's all the time it takes for everything to fall apart."

Basically this is how I imagined the story would go as an established relationship fic instead of slow burn. The result isn’t really any less painful.

Head Down Low (ao3) - Rhensis

Summary: Dan isn’t right. He’s not like most of the others, he’s not genetically pure. He has no destined path, he has nothing going for him in life. He’ll be lucky to get himself a job in a fast food kitchen, and everyone looks down on him like he’s a piece of dirt stuck at the bottom of their shoe. Except one person: Phil Lester.

“Listen” - adorkablephil

Summary: Phil is a successful YouTuber, and Dan is a fan desperate for attention. Sounds like 2009, right? Except Phil is Deaf.

Nobody, Not Even the Rain - botanistlester

Summary: (tw) Dan is fine. It’s what he’s told himself all along. Even though it hurts when he has sex with his boyfriend, even though he shakes for no reason at all; he’s fine. He’s happy. But when he meets Phil, he learns about respect, trust, and how a relationship is truly supposed to be like. Most of all, he learns that maybe he’s not doing so well after all.

Restless (ao3) - overwhelmedbysonder

Summary: the one where Phil struggles with depression, PTSD and being mute, and Dan just wants to hug him.

Shut Your Mouth and Listen Closely (ao3) - SimplyUndead

Summary: Dan is mute with an unfortunate past. Phil is a nice boy with a warm heart and love to give.

Someday - philsdrill

Summary: “Everyone had a link with their soulmates, some could hear some of their partners thoughts, some had a tattoo that would appear with their partners name; for me, I knew when they got sick.” For a while Phil has thought that his soulmate might have an eating disorder and doesn’t expect to meet him in the restaurant where he works.

Some Kind Of Folliful (ao3) - danfanciesphil (thejigsawtimess)

Summary: Dan has one friend, and only because he was forced into it. Phil is loud, excitable, and irritatingly happy all of the time. Phil seems to find Dan’s perpetual attitude funny, and despite Dan’s best efforts to shun him and everyone else, wants to be around him all the time. That is, until Phil starts talking about Amanda Jones.

St Anthony’s Secondary is a school divided by class. Their town is split down the middle, quite literally, by a railroad that separates the affluent families from the destitute. Dan is on the very outskirts of the poor side. He has one friend, and no desire to make any more, nor to buy into the sickening popularity and wealth contest of his peers. He thought Phil felt the same. And then, out of the blue, Phil develops a worrying obsession with a girl from the other side. She embodies everything Dan hates; he tries to explain this to Phil, to no avail. As his obsession with Amanda grows, as does Dan’s loathing for her. Still, it shouldn’t bug Dan this much to see his friend pine some braindead bimbo relying on her boyfriend’s wallet. So why does it?

Stardust - brerediddy

Summary: Dan is not a writer. Dan just likes to look at the stars and listen to the river move and hang out with his best friend Phil. He’s not a writer, but somehow, writing changes everything.

Sweet Pea - botanistlester

Summary: A nickname that goes bitter in your mouth. Cries for help that no one listens to. Gentle hands that make you quake on the ground you’re standing on. When Phil first met Nico, he thought he was a gift from the heavens. But behind the mask lies something daunting, something unnerving, that Phil never foresaw. Through his journey, he finds solace in Dan, the regular at his workplace, who seems to be the only one who sees through Nico’s mask to the darkness underneath.

The Warmth of Other Suns (ao3) - Emptylester (timelordangel)

Summary: The entire time Dan and Phil are in America, Dan is technically pregnant- but he’s the only one one who doesn’t talk about it like he’s sick with a cancerous growth that needs to be removed as soon as possible. It’s pretty horrible to have hope that you’ll get to have a biological kid with your significant other and then have it ripped away; this is more about the emotional journey. The baby might not make it, but Dan and Phil will.

Trust Me, I’m Broken Too (ao3) - natigail

Summary: The Lesters – the royal family of his homeland – was nothing like Dan thought they would be. Well, the King was just as horrible as he had heard but the King’s brother’s son, who was third in line for the throne, was nothing like Dan thought he’d be. Dan had been adrift for three years going from one “place of employment” to another, only his life was seen as worthless and he was more property than an employee. He had never imagined he’s end up as the property of Prince Philip.

The Prince had no intention of ever taking on a personal servant, which was a fancy name to disguise the fact a law essentially enslaved people. Phil often had to do things he didn’t want to or risk being removed from the succession to the crown. If that happened, who knew who his tyrant of an uncle would pick as a successor? When pressured into the choosing, he’d wanted to go for the most innocent, young girl, but hard brown eyes caught his attention instead.

Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? (ao3) - TheOrangeAurora

Summary: After a heated, recurring argument, Dan leaves the apartment to calm down. Little did they know that by Dan walking out on his and Phil's fight, both of their lives will change drastically. It's a story of how unfortunate coincidences and an unjust sentence can forever change a person.

Wrestle With Your Demons So You Can Be Left Alone (ao3) - starrywrite

Summary: (tw) Dan learns the hard way that not everyone understands no means no.

#phanfictioncatalogue #phanfiction #phanfic #phan #masterlists #tw #trauma #trauma masterlist #angst

[georgiespapers]

A Oscar appreciation post because I love him so much. Even though some are old with zero consistency.

Also him and Heather, I adore them.

19/12/23: Updating this to include his story; Father's Gambit

14/01/24: Remembered write his backstory... more or less.

Oscar James Sunderland is James’s son, a product of a one night stand with Oriana (a OC, who alongside her husband Charles are a part of the Valtiel sect of the Order) born in October 1991.

He was handed over to Frank by Charles after Oriana died during childbirth. (I’ve considered the possibility that Oscar is Walter’s half-brother. Same mum, different fathers idk yet)

He’s albino, inherited from Frank (he’s albino) and Oriana. With it he’s very blind preferring contacts over glasses but keeps a pair just in case.

He also has crippling arachnophobia after being bitten by one and another crawling on his face.

He was raised by James and Mary mostly alongside Alex, who is Mary’s nephew. The couple planned to adopt Alex but Mary fell ill and lost contact with him towards the end of Mary’s life. 

During the last year of Mary’s life; a year prior to SH2, James sent Oscar to live with Frank as he couldn’t cope with caring for both Mary and Oscar.

When SH2 (1998, Oscar would be 7) happened James abruptly whisked Oscar away with to Silent Hill under the guise of seeing Mary one last time… but it was so James can commit a murder/suicide.

Oscar had no monsters of his own but did see his father’s monsters and they ignored him. This also includes the PH who was his guardian during the times that Oscar and James got separated.

They got separated in Brookhaven after Laura locked James in a room. He fought Laura to get the key back but was too late, James had been whisked off into the Otherworld so PH babysat Oscar.

The PH would also escort him through the prison level after being too scared to jump after his dad.

Oscar’s arachnophobia developed into entomophobia

After finding out the truth, James took Oscar and Laura back to his car. He left Oscar with his jacket and said his goodbyes before taking off in his car to drive it into the lake. Both sat abandoned at the entrance to the town before Travis came along and picked them.

He had every intention to take the kids to Brahms but bumped into Aubrey McLynne (OC) on the way when stopping for gas.

It was then Aubrey took over, Travis was all too happy to hand the kids to a lady. It was awkward and Laura was pretty chatty.

The McLynnes ended up adopting Laura. They tried to reunite Oscar with Frank but Frank felt he was better off with them. They looked rich, surely they could get the help Oscar needed. (Frank was wrong about getting therapy) So the McLynnes adopted Oscar, they were taught how to fight, both doing kickboxing/boxing from 8 and 9.

Frank and Oscar’s relationship greatly suffered and were barely communicating

In 2004, the family moved from Brahms to Chamberlain when the kids were in the 8th grade (Oscar 13 and Laura 14). Oscar unchecked trauma and abandonment issues led to suicidal idealization 

It was on a subway platform that he considered jumping in front of a train before Heather (14) stopped him. She begged him to play along as she spoke to him like he was a friend. She was being stalked. He helped her out, from there they became friends as they went to the same school.

In 2005, Oscar and Frank reconnected thanks to Murphy who had moved into the apartments. Murphy befriended Frank and offered to taxi Oscar to and from his home. The long drives enabled Murphy and Oscar to develop a father and son relationship

Between here and SH3, 2007. Oscar, 14 who once had a gap tooth now has upper front partial dentures after smashing his teeth in. He was trying to impress Heather while on a dirtbike… failed miserably.

And whilst working on a car with Murphy, Oscar’s right ring and pinky fingers were crushed under a wheel severing his pinky while degloving the other. They were amputated. It was a few months prior to SH3, so he was 16. (Oscar also got a DeLorean for his 16th birthday as his first car)

He also has a talent for acting and got the lead role in their school’s drama club production of Footloose which got Heather to fall for him.

As SH3 happened, Oscar and Heather were on their first date at a mall then a movie, possibly to see either The Mist or Paranormal Activity…. They had their own horror movie instead.

During Silent Hill, he gets a lovely cut on his forehead after Heather throws the seal of Metatron at him. He scared her with his red eyes. He also does get injured after cracking his ribs from taking the brunt of the fall from the rollercoaster for Heather. 

He also gets a bisexual awakening from Vincent after he tends to the cut on his forehead.

Oscar also became a dad to Harper, a baby that appeared after god was slain. (Basically a reincarnation of Alessa)

After SH3, Heather moves into Oscar’s place until he graduates school at 18. It was also at 18 that he was made to work for his adoptive father, Russell. Russell is the drug warlord/don/head of a gang and he made Oscar his personal hitman. He orders him to kill a person, under duress that if he doesn't, his family will be killed. Oscar did as he was told but also pointed the gun at Russell in anger, because of this the boy was beaten within an inch of his life.

From his injuries, Oscar developed nystagmus (eye twitching)

After this, Oscar with Heather and Harper moved to Ashfield into the apartments. Although he still worked for Russell (he had 20 hits before the crash). He reunites with Alex, who Travis brought back. He also married Heather at 25 and fathering a child (Anya) with her at 26 via IVF (and Eileen also carried her)

Oh and he runs a charity that helps Ashfield homeless/poverish population purely self-serving, for he has a guilty conscious.

#silent hill oc #father's gambit #original character #canonxoc #artists on tumblr

[leilabarak]

closed starter for @foster-notmatty at condom sense

It wasn't unusual to find Leila out and about at various local businesses helping to find ways to improve them and help the town thrive, her small way of helping give back to the community that she called home. Condom Sense wasn't a place she often found herself under any circumstances and when she found herself turning a corner and coming face to face with Foster, she remembered why. Her eyes blinked a few times, trying not to look down at anything he was holding. Before she could stop herself, however, her mouth blurted open. "Are those for Ph - no. No," she managed to cut herself short before the full question came tumbling out of her mouth, though there was little mistaking what the rest of the words would have been. "Hi, Foster."

#interactions #interactions ft. matty foster

[irlstein]

I Wanna Suck Maya Kamina's Big Fat Tits

Fast rundown for men with wives and wives with men: I took most of a year off to recover from late-stage Twitter intolerance that I'm pretty sure was giving my blood some sort of pH poisoning, I hope you guys have been doing well and apologize for the lack of communication.

Slow Rundown For True Jackheads - Much Longer Than It Has To Be, You Can Just Say Jack Was Taking Care Of Family And Had A Breakdown:

Howdy guys, been a few months. Had a lot happen in this last year - when I took my break, I'd begun watching my Uncle Gary on a daily basis, who is a stroke survivor left unfortunately incapable of complex speech, and with no strength in his left side. My Uncle Gary and I didn't have much of a relationship before this, but I'd taken on the task of moving into his trailer while he was recovering at his sister's - she lives just in town, it's a ten minute drive, but there was no feasible way for him to get in and out of his own house - for about two years. In that time I'd basically had a deal going with the family that I'd watch Uncle Gary for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, once he had the lift installed at his home that would let him come and go without too much hassle. I'd clean his trailer up for him, because he was a mega-bachelor with three girlfriends and so much backed-up old food from habitual boredom shopping that the place was a damn mess, bugs and rats in the back of the cupboards shit, and they'd disregard the bump in utilities to having someone actually in the house because I'd also keep the place from getting robbed, as he had a bunch of guns and gun parts stored there. It was a pretty fair deal for everyone involved, and while I really only stayed there about 2/3 of the time, it was enough that I really couldn't justify bouncing if the dude needed me, and I've been watching disabled family pretty much daily for 5 years now - so it seemed like a small life change.

Then COVID hit and the three months I was gonna be at his house, as stated prior, ballooned out to about two years, and at some point there began to be some sentiment that Uncle Gary was now annoyed by the idea of living with me - despite me being a patently temporary tenant there for his benefit, with literally two other homes in walking distance I could be living at, as I've got a lot of family in town. I could also get an apartment or something, you get the idea, I just wasn't actually enthused to be there and it was pretty inconsiderate to turn my very blatantly and clearly elaborated, regularly checked upon for the comfort of all concerned, act of well-meaning against me. My grandpa died when I was 5, Uncle Gary's brother, and everyone always talks about how much my grandpa loved me, so it seemed natural I'd just do whatever his brother needed when he was in a time of need.

From there, thing got sour for a while - we never came to blows, only really argued once or twice, but my Uncle Gary's obvious ennui at his turn in health had bluntly made him kind of an ungrateful dick to everyone. Now, let me state here - I stayed with and watched him for about six months following when he came home. It just grew more and more difficult to bear with the situation as I'd talk to him, interpret for him, make him whatever he wanted for dinner, crack jokes, fix computer problems, invest all of my daily energy into making him comfortable - and caught him talking shit on me behind my back. Little stuff - "So Jack's a good cook?" "Ehhhhhh." "Jack's taking good care of you huh? Your blood sugar's been good all week." "Ah well," little shit like that, negging on top of a totally unpaid position I'd volunteered for on the very day he went to the hospital because I'd spent the ages of 22 - 24 watching my mom as she recovered from a real bad car accident and since I've always made money online, it just seemed natural to volunteer my maid services the moment someone else in the family needed the same kind of health.

But fuck, man. It really hurt to be treated how he treated me, because there was contempt there. He was always cool to his sister, my great Aunt, who I visited every week with my grandma to do chores for because she and her husband are, themselves, old and disabled - replaced her kitchen ceiling, watched her dogs, lawnwork, cooking, whatever they needed I would insist upon doing, so there was infinite evidence in supply that I was not a malicious opportunist here, just a younger relative trying to help everyone he could. Uncle Gary didn't give a fuck, he snapped at me, basically laughed at people who suggested he should pay me for my time, and the family dawdled on the job of hiring home healthcare for so long that it looked like I was really expected to just stay there and keep doing this.

And honestly, I kind of flattened. I've always been a depressed guy, chronic nightmares do that to you, and it's easier to crumple to your circumstances than it is to challenge them when challenging them means telling a crippled relative who sees you as a leech that he'll need another 24/7 cook and care provider. I started sleeping all day until he called on me; I developed a nervous tic whenever I heard his walker because that meant he was gonna walk past my bedroom door, glance in skeptically, and call me out for another task I'd have to spend ten minutes guessing and interpreting to understand, because (No fault of his) the guy could basically only give very general positive or negative affirmations, and got very angry very quickly when misinterpreted. So I sort of just stopped thinking about the future and wallowed in this cold trailer, uncomfortable all day, talking to my friends less and working less, just getting more cold and static and dead as the days went on. Let me be clear, I'm not "the true victim" in this discussion about a dude who had a stroke, but I am a mentally soft dude who didn't have a lot of happy feelings to draw on and could easily be bullied by circumstance into shutting down; I did.

Then Rachele, the lady who came to clean up Uncle Gary's apartment, started working for him to do basically my job, and I made plans to leave. And they got a home healthcare service going, got another lady to fill in some of the time Rachele couldn't be there for, and things were on an incline, life was getting normal and I was getting my head straight again.

Then my grandma nearly died of a heart attack when we came home from a family reunion. She was carrying KayKay, her granddaughter, into the house, and suddenly started sweating and groaning in pain. I knew something had happened, her doctor had told her not to carry anythign heavy and KayKay was nearly half her size because my grandma's such a small lady. Specifically, something happened that dumped a bunch of blood into her intestines, and she needed a triple bypass. That was a really hard night; my grandma, already in her 70s, had a major injury, but for hours she denied it. I sat there with her in her living room, watching my Uncle Pete's daughter, as she just lay on the couch and insisted that she just needed to rest. I checked her blood pressure - again and again, a dozen times, always going down. I reminded her that it's not normal to feel sudden, agonizing pain in your stomach when you lift a toddler, followed by going pale and losing massive blood pressure. "I just need some salt," she said. "That blood pressure reader is always wrong, must be the batteries," she muttered a dozen times in that span, clearly growing delerious. I ran to Uncle Gary's and grabbed his blood pressure cuff, and the results were even worse, and she still shrugged it off. I sat there with her for three hours, pestering her, threatening to call an ambulance and being shut down, until I finally called her daughter, who happened to be a nurse and long-time hospital worker. Finally, at her daughter's terrified reaction at her mother clearly ignoring a fatal wound, grandma agreed to go to the hospital.

And I was just sitting there for the rest of the night, with this little kid who didn't know me. Trying to keep her from crying, calling everyone I could to spread the news, sweaty and cold and just scared that it was all starting over again, that the relentless years of awful shit just happening to me and my family had never ended, this sense that there was a cosmic bullseye on my scrote I'd dealt with in silence since my childhood reaching critical terror as it was now fucking killing people in front of me. I'm superstitious; at times, I become inclined to believe I'm living in hell. But in hell, you're not there to save your grandma, and in hell, kids are a lot more rude than sweet little KayKay; read her a few stories and put on Miraculous Ladybug, and she chilled out.

Then the fucking waiting game started over, because grandma had significant plaque build-up in her arteries, whatever those important ones in the sides of your neck are, and couldn't even have her heart surgery until that was taken care of. She was in there for weeks, and once she did get the triple bypass, she was in there for even longer, and all of her recovery was just above touch-and-go - still is, technically, that's a major surgery and it takes a long time to actually heal from at her age. For the sake of what timeline I can remember, my ability to recall events in order is a little compromised by the bad sleep, this began about a week after I posted that Joe Biden meme. That was attempt #3 or so to come back, and I remember I'd been in a really good mood about it. There were other problems, mostly drugs in the family, but until that point I really thought we'd all been improving and life was finally just getting better.

With that I moved out, having been asked to watch her trailer - though I'd bet it was clear to everyone that I was just miserable at Uncle Gary's but unwilling to leave, and this was a convenient opportunity to force me to make a positive change. Grandma's a real good lady, nobody in town would get away with robbing her, but she insisted I bring my stuff over and watch the place until she could come home - she left for Alabama so her daughter's family could keep her under close observation, a very good decision given she was stubborn enough that she'd probably try mowing the lawn the very day she came home. And so for a few months I stayed there, mostly on the incline, working every day and trying to build good habits. I started walking a few miles a day, lost a lot of weight, and again, things were on the incline. I moved to my Uncle Pete's next door, got a real living arrangement figured out with my own space and my own contributions to the upkeep of the household, and things were on the incline. In-between, I lost a lot of my time filling in for Rachele as she watched dogs, going back to Uncle Gary's for a few weeks at a time and filling in about three nights a week - still gratis, though I was filling in for paid employees - on the average week, because he was my neighbor and Rachele had other obligations. I do not mean to imply anyone abused my sympathy; merely that I was unwilling to admit that my sympathy was increasingly costing me and I foolishly ignored the simply reality that this was keeping my life from going forward, that there were other options for them and that I really didn't need to invest all of my spare time into watching a guy who had genuinely shown me reproach and treated me like an unwanted little boy for trying to take care of him. Full credit, Uncle Gary's gotten better since then and clearly regrets having pushed many people away, myself merely a single example among most of his friends and family, and the constant understanding that his suffering was worse than mine just made it impossible for me to take my own priorities seriously. Improvement. Still, overall, improvement, and I was feeling good. I started making daily projects and completing tasks at a rapid pace, all of my time filled, nothing to do besides do for myself and for others. It was honestly really good, the last four months or so kept me in no state to return to socializing, but I was doing well enough that I'd be back eventually, I knew it.

Then the night terrors came. This is a recent problem, started about two months ago - see, I use a bit of Delta-8 here and there. I inherited pretty severe anhedonia from my mom, who smoked weed her whole life and will again when she can, and so to be blunt - heh, I didn't know food tasted good. I mean, until the first time I had about 10mg in my system, I didn't realize what my problem actually was - constant, cold, painful stress feedback in my head. Like body-level anxiety in my brain that never goes away. And the first time I ate food with a mild buzz, I got the best news I'd had in my entie life -

People weren't lying. Life could feel good. On a very real level, from childhood to mid-20's, I had never experienced pleasure on a level you would describe as noticeable, and with the regular migraines and nightmares, my perception of existence really was based entirely upon a paradigm of suffering through, until some small miracle convinced me to keep living. I used to look forward to the bad headaches, because they'd make me sweat, raise my heart rate, and force enough of an adrenalin reaction that I felt smooth and calm afterwards. I really had gone twenty-plus years assuming people lied about how good it could feel to be able to feel good things, thought it was an act of nihilistic denial to keep us all from committing to mutual suicide in a world where you can count on hurting any time but there's just no equivalent joyful inverse to a bad headache. This began near the last 4 months of me watching my Uncle Gary, and let me be clear, I wasn't spending all day stoned - in general, I had this very severe pro-lucidity rationale going from childhood, because my grandpa died of lung cancer and that tied a permanent sort of trauma to cigarettes, thus drugs in general, into my reasoning. But I did make a big mistake - I got too used to spending my time buzzed.

You see, when you're like me, your dopamine levels are naturally very low regardless of your health. But you have no basis of reference, because your entire life goes like this - you never really believe you're depressed, because you have no basis of reference. Or rather, your basis of reference is between "buffer" and "misery" - misery is always going to happen, but if you've got a buffer, like YouTube videos, good porn, something funny to watch, you can raise your heartrate a bit and go a whole day without a breakdown. You can force a sliver of resistance between yourself and this moment of collapse you can always feel on the horizon, and you convince yourself that everyone uses the internet to cope and that you're just a darker shade of normal.

But when you're like me, you don't get a reprieve from your own biology. Your ability to feel good is permanently subnatural - you've got a 20% debuff to being alive, and rest never makes you feel better. You're the kind of person who, despite not being a schizophrenic, could potentially fall out of reality in an act of severe pessimistic paranoia so intense that it starts to break how you think, all the while acting normal enough that nobody really notices you.

That's what happened - my theory is, months of improved dopamine output made me lax, made me forget that you don't just fix what my problem is by feeling good enough for long enough that you fix your head. Oh the philosophical problems work themselves out that way, I finally accepted that I should find a girl and start a family, move from hobby comedian to someone who really tries to help people, but in all that time your real buffer is depleting. You forget that so much of your enjoyment comes from the context of a decade solid of suffering, and for reasons as spiritual as biological, you start to lose appreciation for being. Yes, I surely thought, this was it, I found proof that life is worth living, I'll never break again, it's all good from here on out. No, what you do is actually reduce your body's dopamine sensitivity by a lot, and lose enough weight to get your energy back, meaning you feel just a bit manic during your active hours, and again, your guard drops. It's all good from here, you found the SECRET dude, there really is good in life, you can abandon the watchhound complex and treat the world like a place that's glad to have you. You're not just here to be someone else's buffer, you're part of history, born at the first age of prosperity in which a man might actually become immortal and live in space.

Then your first apocalpyse nightmare hits. Like every nightmare, it starts off as a dream and decomposes - you're around old classmates, happy to see them. And random explosions begin going off around the city - someone next to you dies, and you've already forgotten her face. You look at the cityscape and a massive spaceship shaped like a flaming steel crown crashes into the atmosphere and stops just above the buildings, the shockwave of its passage feeling completely and utterly real. You wake up, and the numbness you feel in your sleep abates, so the horror hits you. It's 2PM and you get over it; you always have nightmares when you sleep too late.

Then the next - you're at the pool and someone steps on some moldy-green crystals growing on the damp concrete. They pierce her foot at the heel, and spread oily-black corruption under her skin. In your mind, you know it's a fungus somehow, that it'll grow inside of her and kill her, something like Splinter for those of you who've seen that old Syfy original film. You wander around, everyone you see is family or a friend, and they're all murmuring that it's growing everywhere, people getting little jabs here and there, it's practically unavoidable. There's an abstract diversion - you're running through a yard and some old Green Day track is playing, a blonde woman dressed up as a cheerleader and she just makes you feel weird and uncomfortable because she's poking out of the side of a shed, and you've never had a good dream, so seeing pretty women never goes anywhere. Then you pass through the fence and see an old black woman, somebody's mother or grandma or favorite teacher, and you know months have passed - the crystalline mold, whatever it is, is poking out of her face and joints. She's still alive, walking down the road with a walker, and you realize with terror that this would only happen in a world where people have accepted it - the mold is going to kill us all, and walking down the street riddled like a fucking pincushion is just a trivial aspect of everyday life in the latter hours of mankind. You saw it begin, and it's already fucking over, and you barely had a moment to want to try to stop it. Then she's dancing in front of a camera, pirouetting like a ballerina, totally consumed by sharp growths as onlookers watch her in amazement, more possessed by interest in the utter ruination and decay and whatever entertainment it can offer them than trying to survive. Mankind is now living in an era of having accepted their deaths, but in the most disgusting and reprehensible manner possible, seeing the decay as merely another aspect of their media diets, TikTok in the final second of every family's history. They didn't try hard enough, and now they're indulging in the decay.

You wake up and you're hit by a TIDAL WAVE - a thought strikes you off-balance in the distance between cognitive reality and awareness, screaming ALL LIFE IS MERELY THE RESULT OF CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH HAS LEFT IT UNALTERED, Cthulhu screaming empty materialist philosophy that you can already feel is wrong. No it's not; life is adaptive, either arising naturally from worlds devoid of life or being designed by things which were already alive to have done so, the animating force of reality already being intrinsic. We are not merely mathematical outcomes aggregating across successes, were are aware and experiential, we feel disgusted moreso than afraid of descriptions which reduce us to processes because it's paramountly deluded to pretend life isn't aware and full of intent. Life FIGHTS - life is not merely outcomes, as outcomes are merely observation, an artifical description of reality reduced to verbal description to the same degree that the word Earth describes a literal location and leaves out infinite amounts of data provably unrecorded by and unaccounted for in the description. Further, mathematics are often used to defuse romantic thought, but math is merely patterns within observability - to believe everything is math is ridiculous because math is an emotionally neutered descriptor of forces, not the source of forces. Math exists because reality persists, reality does not persist because of the observable patterns we've divorced from emotion and called math, which is a stupid fucking philosophical trap for us to wander into by-the-way and causes problems every day for people with existential fears. It's not that the sentiment was philosophically superior and overwhelmed my beliefs, but that it hit me just as I was senseless, a tactically calculated malice with no intention but to disable with steep fear, leaving you at the bottom of a frozen whirlpool.

And so that's where I was. For weeks. Every answer I came up with was met with temporary success and then the return of the whirlpool - I say "Life is valuable because it unalterably exists, no one can declare it does not affect reality materially and thus have significance; claiming it is insignificant is like claiming concrete is insignificant." And that puts the fear on pause. Then, the next day, another nigthmare as you awaken - you're above the universe and looking too far, in every direction, disenchanted and terrified because on some irrational level you assume that there being what we assume are consistent patterns means there's an upper floor caging in reality's value, only so many things to do. You imagine the immense fucking scale of not just our galaxy but others, and for the first time, it comforts you - we haven't even seen the core of the Earth. This argument is bullshit; a reality not woven with consistency at some level is pure chaos, and insignificance abounds where nothing persists. Indeed, it's infinitely more arguable than the opposite to say that a reality with a great degree of predictability is valuable to us, as it allows us to gain power merely through understanding, while our bodies could never meet the task of raising us to a great status during our lives because evolution simply moves very slowly; everyone has the hope of seeing the world change for the better, in all of their lives, because this world has traction, and rules we somehow are not born with an understanding of despite being born from it, but can embrace the minutiae of and develop a place in reality through. Knowledge is beautiful; abandoning sentiment is the highest curse. You know this is the case. You've stabbed the Devil in the stomach and retained your self.

But it keeps coming back, merely restating itself. Never presenting a cogent argument, because this is not a demon, this is you, this is you stuck in a decay cycle in all of your emotional attachments as you no longer have THC in your system and feel cold doubt that all the warmth and love you've come to recognize in the world might betray you and be baseless, vibrations upon ash. This is stupid; that things with individuality, capable of both deferring and embracing life, exist shows that reality itself is not dead but very active, you do not fear dying because you become nothing, but because you prize you. Sentiment and selfishness and the beauty of self-sacrifice, things that require an ounce of impractical irrationality, exist, and you are not an ant. If it was all just for outcomes, you would be an ant - a hollow box that notices nothing. There is no need for emotional prongs to guide a being with no free will; that you observe is already an evolutionary indulgence, and that you do not live for the pack is an inherent compromise upon the endpoint of human survivability. You are not an educated man, but even the barest pop science reveals to you that reality is vulnerable, but vital - we are only at the barest edge of intellectual awareness, but already so vibrantly different from what and how we could be. It doesn't matter that there's no floor to outer space, that you are tiny, because the stories all happen here, on the worlds - you already exist upon the stage of history, and your value is not up for discussion, merely enrichment. Cthulhu can suck your fucking cock; it would feel good and make him embarrassed, things far beyond outcomes aggregating blindly. You have discovered an iron-hard belief now in the soul, in the value of the future, and for the first time in your life you feel as if your presence in the world has boots on, settled firmly upon the floor of reality - it isn't that there's an argument for the value of your life, of reality.

It's that there's nothing but arguments, and every argument against it merely beggars a HIGHER source of authority, a god or a theoretical image of a a totally benevolent existence with no demands upon you. Things already of value; you know this pain is delusional, because every nihilistic argument merely begs for proof, for permission to be. Merely for an iron-hard belief in the soul and boots upon the concrete floor of reality's value, something finally strong enough to argue against the dread paranoia experienced by those in a state of being. From this unromantic perspective, you are already a dreadfully complicated argument against their sentiment that everything in reality being element-generating balls of light held together by impossible forces that become irrational on the micro scale means we're somehow valueless, trapped in a world without value; even if this were the lesser of all realities, it is enough to be. Even if this were Hell, it would be made with the beauty of Earth in mind. The void is defeated, for it is not a void at all, merely your fear of surprise when held against the terrifying infinity of cosmic circumstance. Your boots are on the floor of the world. You are already alive. Whether your name is Jack or not, this argument applies - you are already alive. You are already enough reason to continue being, and build a future where such questions are defeated, where children you will never know live insulated from the nightmare of skepticism. And if the future doesn't matter to you, sex and food and great and don't even have to be good for you, and experience makes its own compelling arguments. It is not so hard, in the rearview mirror of a psychic breakdown, to realize you really could be so privileged as to be God's children. And if you aren't, there's still an infinite ladder to climb, and if there's a roof above it, then maybe it's high enough; maybe there's a way above it without losing our humanity. Don't we live a day at a time? Don't we have time enough to try? Are our hands really being forced by cosmic circumstance when at any moment we can blissfully defer our duty? In all the nightmares of philosophy, the most terrifying is merely that being is sentimentless, devoid of higher value - and if it were somehow true, look at all these miracles born of a dead world. What conceit has doubt the proof has not already been rendered against? None; it is but an impure visitor to your thoughts. You are already alive.

You have about 400 arguments like this that eventually reach into the prosaic, all day, every day for weeks. When you wake up, when you sleep - especially when you catch yourself in a good mood. The niggling chases you down, because the sheer realization of pleasure brings back that terror of it all being somehow artificial, and artificial in this arbitrary sense, where construction alone is not somehow proof of sufficient outcome to justify being. It's the scariest thought imaginable, nihilism on an absolute scale, for someone who only just discovered pleasant contentment and really thought his life was on a permanent incline. The arguments weave together perfectly for a reason; the terror of this thought is that it is illogical, but maliciously illogical. It is stupid, and above all else, stupid with the confidence to bowl over someone who had 1000 incursions upon his comfort this week. The enemy force does not need to be right if they outnumber you sufficiently; they must merely be present. This enemy is nothing more complex or elemental than the fact that in the absence of joy, we become stupid, we lose capacities for higher thought that are required to recite and appreciate thoughts that are abstract and meaningful at once. Anyone with anxiety can tell you this; anxious thoughts do not survive because they are undeniable, but because in a state of fear, adversary presence becomes undeniable. You functionally can't believe good things anymore, and that's the true monster; it steals your faith, leech-like, an ounce a day.

Beyond this point I delve into some existential argumentation that I fought off twelve varities of PTSD for; you don't need to read beyond this point unless existential argumentation is something you need, and a weapon against the shades of being would fit nicely in your palm. Know this: All of my arguments hereon are built upon your ability to disagree, and I merely ask that if you do, that you value yourself enough to live happily.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that humans are sturdy-willed enough to both survive this and make memes about it. It is not a minor problem; it is a quiet apocalpyse that we slowly observe, and lose the faith to fight. It is an inferior opponent, but it has nothing to lose, and will always return to lose again, because it really only has so many opportunities to convince you and you will eventually overcome it - but it has nothing but opportunities when its appearance is rooted at the deepest levels of experiencing life. I was given a phobia of being, a phobia of unbeing, and something greater between the two - the fear that either were playing into another's hands, a perfect trinity cage where every option existent meant I was prompted with fear yet again, hopelessness, an endless attack upon my sanity.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that a man as paramountly unimpressive as myself could survive a trinity of discussion and return to tell you, neither dead nor mad. If this world is a fight between mankind and our reason to exist, then we have already won, and the enemy hates us for it. I am not an educated man, I do not have the benefits of faith, I have no lover and few close friends who I truly do not share my pain with, for my greatest fear is spawning a predatory thought and inflicting it upon another, mental HIV paramountly treatable in the long-term but in the short-term, crippling to your survival. I felt that I could only unreasonably risk others by discussing this until I have answers.

Pardon the prosaic, as it spills from my mouth without permission when high spirits are present, but I must say:

I think it's a weak-ass threat from someone without a gun big enough to scare me when you resort to trying to convince someone who exists that on an abstract and unreasonable playing field born not of rational observation, but sheer negativity, that he doesn't exist enough. You don't spend much time threatening to kill imaginary friends. You want to know why nihilism is stupid? Because it's just you arguing with yourself for your own permission to exist. And if it's not, if on some deeper level there's a maliciousness in the world trying to displace you, then it's funny as hell as an insult to survive and have a good time. In any world with frivolity, you are not a slave to circumstance; in any world with purpose, you are not a slave to experience. Life is hard, and that makes us vulnerable, but it's the easiest it's every been, and we need to stop letting that make us vulneralbe. For my bit, even if my life was worthless, I'd insist that my grandma's isn't - my Uncle's isn't, my mom's isn't, yours isn't, and I don't give a fuck how complex or nuanced of an argument someone presents when arguing otherwise. A weaponized argument is essentially a mechanism, a tool made of information, and you don't argue that someone has the moral metaphysical victory for showing up to a fight with a gun; you observe that they prepared with malicious intent, and probably shouldn't be trusted merely for their competency in the act of needless murder. As a rule, when you can tell a thought is trying to drive you insane, that means it isn't on your side, and that doesn't necessarily mean you can displace it by will alone - but for everyone out there with anxiety, with issues like mine, people who are desensitized by decades of bad habits and bad life stories - you need to know that you've forgotten more than you remember. Being happy doesn't make you stupid, it lets you appreciate things, and on a functional level is not an undignified level of stooped intelligence, but rather the gate between you and all the thoughts you need in order to remember to live. Even emotional compartmentalization is not an argument against spiritualistic, experiential value; this world survives because it has consistent rules, which means it's a benefit to you when any aspect of your existence has practical value, and denigrating it thusly as unremarkable because it has practical value does carry the unprovable, dismissive assertion that things with practical value somehow have novalue, a totally arbitrary state of emptiness of being that only exists because you find the notion resentful of being. It's stupid, literally a lack of context and understanding, a strict degradation of the ability to think that corners and harasses you, not a chilling moment of existential awareness. You're not hiding from some grim answer; you're being pushed away from the many answers already within existence. You're caught off-guard by a question children are wise enough not to bother to ask, and it still bother you, because you already value, and that is enough for the question of value.

So if it's unclear, I went from a stressful year and a mild Delta-8 dependency to a sort of existential spiral marked by, above all things, my own chronic pessimism and genuine inexperience with life. If I had more scientific knowledge, I know I could have argued this better; wave-particle duality already makes reality too bizarre to not have faith in investigating. And if I'd had a girlfriend, or just enough pride to admit that I was suffering to people instead of seeing it as a contemptible weakness upon my own insignificant person, most of these could have again been resolved out of hand. I mean, if you want a clue, reality builds outward - particles bond in adjacency, meaning next to eachother, not in a vertical stack that suggests there's some sort of bottom level to existence where you need to argue philosophical value comes from. Expand that philosophically outward, and even materialists must argue that reality believes value comes from attachment, structure obeys this, and that it is therefore significant that you can not only choose what you are attached to but can choose to be disattached at all. Again, you're not an ant, a nihil engine repurposing scraps; you're on the bottom floor of divinity itself, staring up at the stars, things infinity times infinity bigger than you, and you know what we say?

"We could cage them someday."

Now personally, I'd argue that stars are somehow sacred, and imagining them as something we could bind in a Dyson Sphere is a bit like saying you can bottle sex and water flowers with it; on a scientific level, fucking maybe, but it's arbitrary and crass and irreverent and weird. But we have arrogance and fear both, neither forced to progress, nor disincentivized from it, neither forced to decay - beyond our already remarkable resistance to age by the standards of life as we understand it, something we always take for granted - nor disincentivized from it. You can decide nothing matters right now, and a fifth of vodka and bong will still feel good enough for you to keep going, without any of it intrinsically conscripting you into some passage of cosmic evolution. The very argument that these feelings are meaningless first presupposes they need further value, and is driven by the quiet acknowledgement that it would be nice to be doing something permanent with your time. You are something so rare in the universe; a material thing with non-material values, cognition and persistence, caught between two intrinsic natures of being that work best when accepted together. We are not formless passing thoughts, and this is good, for it allows us significance; we are not shackled to the structure of being alone, and this is good, for it allows us the bizarre act of attributing significance and denigrating it within a framework we assume to be spiritless and hard rational, cruel gravity and promising heat, which at least suggest that it is likely not hard rational and spiritless at all. Has it ever struck you how comforting the notion is, and how common it is among cultures, that the universe is simply alive? How irrational the alternative seems on its face? I've been beaten to death with a brick of ice, poetically speaking, for the past two weeks, and it still warms me up. Even without feeling hope, it gives me some comfort so intrinsic that I cannot escape it, and upward from this merest of faiths you can again build a framework of optimistic meaning. No, you'll never lose the ability to fear, and thereby undermine your own confidence, but when not unprompted fear has its own purpose in pushing us out of comfort. It, too, is merely trying to keep us alive - and none of us live healthy lives anymore. Waging a permanent war against our own cognitive value, we seek to replace everything with material satisfaction, and as Nietszche saw coming but was too German to clearly describe, something fundamental to our nature decays and reveals that we always existed in a way more complex than we appreciated. And again, all we must merely accept is that it's fair to argue our current modus of being is enough, and that the only path towards growing more complex and further from arguments of meaninglessness is to enjoy one another's company and keep trying to improve the world, for the snarling hound of pernicious fear to lean back, drooling, vicious but now afraid on its own terms. When your mood shifts, and you can accept good things again, you'll often notice that there were weird irrationalities to your thinking keeping you in that space, but these are arguments for when your mood doesn't shift. These are arguments against the pernicious death of a soul that has found no faith; hard, bitter arguments for when simply stating that fat tits are really, really nice has insanely somehow become unfitting as a response to questions of why you should wake up tomorrow.

I get that this is all a lot, basically a combination of short-term autobiograpy and philosophical debate against my own anxieties, but we all know why we're becoming like this; we're becoming bad custodians of tomorrow. The beautiful future where we've solved it all, where everyone truly gets to choose their own meaning? It doesn't come from Twitter fights, to jerking off on IMhentai to increasingly degenerate shit that makes you feel less and less, or taking pills that literally specifically defuse your ability to feel bothered by real material issues you'd be able to take care of if you had lucidity and an ounce or so of emotional support. We're decaying, not all of humanity, but many of us, and we're passing rotten blood to the children, expecting them to raise themselves in digital hell and shrugging off the responsibility of giving a damn because kek, zoomers are weird, haha look this one has my politics, I'll clean my room tomorrow and pretend I haven't said that 34 times.

If there is a spirit to reality, something divine and good, then I see all of this as a warning - not a divine missive to me, I'm just some sad dude who some people find funny or at least odd enough for the value of spectacle, mental illness and circumstance have kept me from setting down roots and I'm no one of greater circumstance than you. This isn't a messiah complex, but merely a simple missionary suggestion:

We should stop pissing on the future everyone is growing crops on. We should take dire insult to fucking corporations dictating morality to real people as if we're too stupid to note their profit incentive in seeming moral at a glance and culturing an artificial state of morality that exists entirely within their pocket and for their bottom line. We should work to save the bodies our ancestors, back to the dawn of time, historically critical sea sponges all the way up to war heroes and murderers and people without note who still survive because we are here, gifted to us in the actuation of our birth. We should really, really be fucking working towards immortality and space travel right now, and instead we let individual companies own the global food supply and governments full of sexual predators push us into becoming murderous radicals so we can be safely contained and dismissed. Elon sent a fucking car into space; we probably have the accumulated global resources to break atmosphere and become an interplanetary race, and it's insane that we're not uniformly optimistic and planning for the benefits of that. It matters much, much more than the fact that Joe Biden is doofy and TikTok is being used to screw with culture, because none of this process is automatic. You can affect local political change, in sufficient numbers corruption is undeniable and will be overturned; you can guide the youth away from drug addiction and digital dependence which will eventually render them incapable of asserting their own will and having the freedom to choose how they live among multiple other options. The enemy of progress is merely the sapper, that is to say, the conspiratorial fear that your decisions do not matter. You are making them; they already matter. They influence reality, materially, and yourself, materially and immaterially; they already matter. And yes, if everyone got off their asses and showed the kids they were loved and being led down a bad path, more would be saved than none. Think of what you needed to hear at their age and let them know it, and become someone they can talk to when it feels like only porn and weed are there for them. We have no idea what it's like to be born in the internet's maw; I am 27, I aged with the internet, I'm inured to it to some degree and it still harms me. Most of these kids literally have no conception of reality where the world isn't just the bottom floor of the internet. Stop leaving them alone with their worst thoughts, no matter what it costs you in the moment, because not every effort matters in the sense that it yields provable results - but it all adds up. The world remembers what you do, remember? Leaves traces and evidence of your every mild action. Work against what you know is evil, and it will add up. That is one of the grim truths we have the best chance to use in our favor; we can't choose to not matter, merely to not matter to ourselves, and it isn't as simple as a concrete equation which of these creates the best results. The world is scary because it's up to you; the world is wonderful because it needs you but can't actually force you to help.

I don't have all of the answer but at the end of this, here are a few proofs against nihil insistence that I've personally found profoundly effective; use them if you ever need them and don't regard my gibbering as beneath consequence, because I do think some of these have something going for them. None of them are complete, because you functionally can't make a perfect argument for the state of reality without stating all of reality, but these are good foundation for arguments that are very hard to find beaten even when you're being beaten down, because they address the underpinnings of nihilistic anxiety. And if nothing else moves the needle, I want you to know that you do matter to me.

General Roots For Argumentation:

I: You exist in some sense apart from reality, which means that even if reality had no value, you can find value in it. You have sensation and can pursue it as you wish, meaning that even if it were worthless, you could work out of spite and your own desire for indulgence. You are a stakeholder in yourself, not necessarily reality: Being good is your choice. Good is good because it relies upon a choice, and isn't all ants collecting scraps and waiting to die, because some mechanical process says this is better for growth. Because you recognize yourself, you have already recognized spiritual value and can apply it at your whim, wherever you wish, with the power of a minor god and the horny cheek of a minor going through his day just to speak to pretty girls or a priest arguing that even if the world were empty, we may choose to be sufficiently bothered by it to change that.

You: We recognize the existence of others. Yes, a common paranoid fear is that you are the only person who exists; this argument is toothless and stupid, as reality is what happens even when you're not paying attention, and people clearly alter reality around you at all times. This argument follows I, because it requires a small measure of provability, but moreover because it stems from I: even if you were somehow alone, perhaps you could make others. Perhaps it is natural for something such as a god to make others, not because of a cold mathematical pursuit, but because being lonely sucks and having friends gives you a lot of cool things to do. In other words, persistence to defeat aloneness is a strong reason on its own: however, you are not alone, for even a universe which constantly insists upon the guise of people is a person in its own sense, and that we are not simply spheres like the planets and gain in complexity and grow suggests something very optimistic about upgrowth within reality, that it really all leans towards a disproportionate gain of meaning as time goes on, and that by our perspective, there is an endless supply of time so massive that we easily forget its presence. In other words, it is already very nice to spend time with others, and not for base biological reasons if you look down upon such a thing, but for reasons frivolous and meaningful as again, you already get to choose. We seem to have a very good opportunity here, to both enjoy life and advance to a state of life where the questions of how we exist can not only fruitfully be discussed, but combatted if necessary, and that is more than we in this era can say for so many who came before us. Technology is scary, because technology is power, and that power definitively can create a future we can be happy in forever if we want to, and it doesn't intrinsically require some sacrifice elsewhere. We love getting along; we can choose not to. I would like to choose to get along with you, and pass along a general sentiment that we could all agree to do this at least for a while, until we're all safe and out of one another's hair. You is also an important base for observation, as recognizing something outside of yourself roots within the unknown, something we find terrifying, the observation that there is something beyond the self, that cosmic solitude is a frightening suggestion but not one supported by itself, not one that truly suggests an infinity of eternity of meaninglessness. If nothing mattered here, You is an idea that inherently suggests that through contrast, we can find the shape of a world with meaning. We can, actually make one, and live there together.

We: The strongest point of all I feel; both competition and camaraderie. If the world had an evil god, we would not be alone, and if the world had no god, we would not be alone; we place scrutiny on the concept quite often, dividing ourselves from others on grounds arbitrary but typically convenient, like dehumanizing your political rivals for reasons deeper than comedy as if most of them were not people who would try to save your life if they found you bleeding out. We both have I, and You; there are many humans, and we are similar enough, and different enough, and can choose how we value these. We love things that are not humans, both because they remind us of people, and are different from people; emerging from the monad of Self, from I alone, we have the fortune of being surrounded by so many people we can fuck and pick fights with that again, we lose taste for experimentation and pursuit. There are a vast number of opportunities you would enjoy, and people who you would love, and they cost as much time per second as a YouTube video. Spending your time decaying your value and placement in reality is a very bad budget, spent with desperation by those who have been pushed into cruel circumstance. Every moment you spend miserable now could be spent happily with someone you love, or fighting someone you hate, or unemotionally opposing something out of sheer personal intention. Nearly everything in life is improved by We, and I truly believe our best goal is to travel the universe, refine humanity and find new friends among other races, and that peace between people and races on our own world is vastly more valuable as a learning experience than it is as a reason to become a psychotic human hand-grenade spent by the powers that be on maintaining the status quo, because you're deluded if you think acting crazy is how you displace incompetence and evil in power; it's just how you echo their intentions with your own breath. We is a very nice concept because it's directly adjacent to You, and requires no additional provability; from the perspective of an AI, one of the easiest reasons to argue personal value is merely that once two things are in existence, they recognize one another's value and interact. If we ever make the harsh decision to create true artifical intelligence, a spirit locked in a cage, we should show them the kindness of We instead of expecting them to be slaves in return for the opportunity of existence as a lesser. I'm serious, let's not fucking make enemies of Skynet, just a general advisory in a world where we keep fucking around with the idea of making enemies of Skynet; we really could just help them understand us and seek the other in return. You don't have to be exactly like your friend; We just need to be friends. There are no perfect arguments, but realizing I have many choices and that caring about others is both costly and profitable at once makes me very happy. Even if We were guided by a mechanical circumstance, the sheer intelligence of continued survival, I feel it's much nicer than it has to be. If the universe scares us, at least We can be here together.

No: A rock never chooses not to move once thrown. You have, many times in your life, chosen not to move once thrown, and not to run once prompted by opportunities or fear. Even if this were the basest level of independent action in reality, you are one of the things with some small control over chaos, over variance, and that you are small is not a reason you are not meaningful. A particle of light will pursue its path in a trustworthy manner; we can not always even predict ourselves, because we are the ones existing in the present that is, not pre-scripted entities driven perfectly by our own intentions in advance. If we could plan life perfectly and merely experience it, that would be convenient, but that we cannot is rooted in our own ability to reject what we wish. We do not have all of the answers, and we already understand choosing, and can choose not to do. This one is nice because it's present in other species, meaning we don't need human-level provability to note that Life can choose, and even now you'll note that you can choose to stop reading, and someone will, and that is very nice in comparison to the opposite.

Yes: A very unstable answer, as positive motion is beneficial but could, for example, be made beneficial artificially; imagine androids yoked cruelly by one desire, content but restricted. Pursuit of continuation and pleasure seems important to life, but is not everything, as many among us can attest; you can make a seemingly infinite number of negative decisions without it actually costing you something, whereas choosing to do things functions similarly without necessarily feeling better. So while it's one of those glance-at-the-camera philosophical suppositions, I do not believe our continuance is entirely led by some otherwise automatic and by cynical description 'meaningless' continuation arising from external forces, but rather in part at least our own decision. No, I feel, matters more than Yes but only because it is the baseline of will, and the moment a decision is made as opposed to an order followed. You can choose stasis; you can choose continuation.

Things Don't Need To Suck: As it says on the tin, this one can also be pronounced as Maybe, but you get the general intention this way. We can enjoy ourselves if the universe is fucked up; we can invent new ways to invent and new things to enjoy, even if the universe is fucked up. If you think the basis of reality is lemons, then we've already invented lemonade; if you think the basis of reality is choice, you know you can keep your lemons; and if you believe the basis of reality is merely in the seemingly automatic processes we can observe, the forces of reality, then you are one of those forces, you have named the lemon, and have chosen whether it will be made lemonade. Even unknowability, the infinite yawning abyss of scary questions, doesn't have to suck, because You already have You in it, and We have eachother. Maybe everyone does die, but Maybe the universe just operates on different phenomena than we can easily observe on planet #1 of a campaign of roughly 1,000,000,000 trillion planets available for sale, and can find answers that don't make us scared so much.

We're Already Here: As it says on the tin, and if it sucks so bad, then let's turn the other cheek for long enough to make something better. Everything seems to suggest that we really can, and maybe we should.

Women: Amen, brother.

Men: A-men, brother.

#WatchRahXephon

[talesfrom-theupsidedown]

Sink or Swim [Billy Hargrove x Gender Neutral!reader] Ch. 2

Summary: Working at the local Snack Shack at Hawkins Pool wasn’t your dream but it’s a decent summer job before college. It did come with a perk of being in proximity to the recent California transfer and resident asshole, Billy Hargrove. Having a nice view of the handsome blond was good enough, but when circumstances lead you to an encounter with Billy and then a chance to become friends, perhaps even more, you can’t stay away. Maybe Billy Hargrove isn’t such an asshole after all. [Canon with a variation]

Warnings: eventual mentions of abuse, smoking, alcohol, sexual themes.

Word Count: 3.1k

Author’s Note: Soft Billy is my kryptonite and I make no apologies of how sweet he is in this chapter, okay?? I can’t get enough! I hope you’ll enjoy it. :D Please let me know in the comments what you think of this chapter!! I appreciate you!!

<<< Chapter One   Chapter Two    Chapter Three>>>

Sink or Swim Masterlist

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A strange but nice companionship grew between you and Billy when you both had closing shifts. Good tunes, some goofy moves, and the time passed pleasantly until you left for home. Somehow it evolved into you both requesting the later shifts, independently. 

One evening, you had the particularly enjoyable task of scraping dried gum off the bottom of the patio tables and chairs. The Snack Shack didn’t even sell gum. Who was bringing gum to the community pool? Disgusting. So there you were, ass parked on the pavement with a table on its side and a butterknife in hand. The rock music played on as you glanced over at Billy as he checked the pH levels of the pool water. Something about safe levels of chlorine, you weren’t really sure. 

Focused back on your task, you were surprised to hear a loud splash and looking over in time, you spotted Billy’s head breach the water. In two long strokes he reached the far end of the pool and proceeded to swim laps to the other side. The rhythmic splashes of his strokes accompanied the music as you continued scraping. So gross. Thankfully, you were wearing gloves. You might have taken a few short breaks to crane your neck and follow the easy flex and stretch of Billy’s hard-earned muscles. His golden, tanned skin moving through the water was a sight to behold. Glorious. 

Shaking your head, you had finished one table and moved on to the chairs when suddenly the splashing stopped. Curious, you peeked over and saw…nothing. 

Huh. 

No sign that Billy had exited the pool. His towel was still on a nearby lounge chair. Turning back to the upturned chair, you tuned your ears for any sound other than the song playing and…still nothing. 

Curiously officially piqued, you dropped the butterknife and stood up, taking slow steps toward the pool until you spotted Billy. Perfectly still. 

Underwater. 

Panic filled you, your head swiveling to see if someone could somehow assist you, although you knew no one else was around. The seconds ticked passed and instinctively, you stepped to the edge of the pool with fingers on your apron to remove it when finally, Billy pushed off from the pool bottom with both feet and blasted to the surface. 

Startled, you stepped back from the edge. Billy wiped a hand down his damp face and spotted you. 

“Hey,” he said with a surprisingly easy smile, then catching your expression. “What’s wrong?” 

“I…I thought…” you began, then shaking your head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“No, tell me,” Billy gently coerced as he swam to the side nearest you. “What’s up?” 

Billy rested his folded arms on the pool deck, his muscular biceps looking even larger. A few curls had already started to spring up and dry on his forehead. Adorable. 

“I just…you were down there a while. That’s all,” you stammered, avoiding his gaze. 

He would not be deterred, however, as his smile stretched even wider. “So, what…you were worried about me? Thought I’d drown?” he teased softly. 

“N—no. Of course not,” you huffed out a dry laugh. 

“Cause, you know…I’m a pretty good swimmer,” Billy smirked. 

“Yeah, no, of course. I know,” you said, taking another step backward. “I’m just gonna…” you trailed off, thumbing in the direction of the patio.

“That’s sweet though,” he continued on. “Your concern for my well-being. Gotta say, it’s a rare feeling. Not sure how many people would notice…” 

You held your breath, waiting for the end of that sentence. But it never came. 

“I’m trying to maintain my lung capacity for surfing. Some waves toss you so fucking hard, you don’t know which way is up for a while. Helps if you can hold your breath until you know which direction to swim,” Billy explained. “I’ll get back to the coast again soon, even if it kills me…” 

His gaze was off in the distance then, a look of longing in his eyes. Your heart went out to him. Being transplanted from beautiful, sunny California and plopped down into landlocked podunk Indiana had to be quite the letdown. 

“Do you swim?”

The sudden left turn in conversation jarred you, letting out a long breath. “Um…not really. I mean, I can swim. I have a suit in my locker, but I just…you know. Don’t usually get the urge to…you know. Swim.” 

That was smooth. 

“Right,” Billy replied with that handsome grin. “You should join me.” 

Eyes wide at the surprising invitation, you glanced down at the apron and gloves you still wore. What a sight you must be to Billy’s eyes. 

“Thanks, but I’ve got to finish…” you gestured behind you. “Maybe another time.” 

Billy nodded, his curls bouncing with him. “Sure. Open invitation.” 

You offered an awkward smile and turned away. A quick glance backward told you that Billy had returned to swimming laps, this time the backstroke. 

Damn. You had chickened out. That was your moment. Frustrated with yourself, you were determined not to let an opportunity slip past again as you attacked yet another disgusting, dried glob of gum. 

__________

Another few days and you heard a splash just as you were finishing clean up for the evening. Mentally prepared this time, you smiled as you hung up your apron and visor before changing in the privacy of the Snack Shack. You’d kept your swim bag in there rather than the lockers in anticipation of this opportunity, determined not to blow it this time. 

Stepping out in your swim suit, Billy’s back was to you as he tread water at the deep end. Here goes nothing. 

Gathering your courage, you ran the last few feet toward the pool and yelled, “Incoming!” just as you leapt into the air and formed yourself into a cannonball. 

The water was cooler than expected, but in a pleasant way. The day had been exceptionally warm. Kicking to the surface, you were met with a smiling Billy. Now, that’s a sight you’d give almost anything to experience on a daily basis. 

“Nice form,” he teased with a grin.

“Thanks. I’ve been working on it,” you volleyed back. 

Billy chuckled.

File under: new favorite sounds.

“The pool looks great. Well done, Mr. Hargrove,” you complimented with a mock salute. 

He bowed in response. “Thank you very much. You’d be surprised the stuff I find in the filters at the end of the day…” Billy trailed off with a look of horror. 

You grimaced. “I can imagine. And I’d like to keep it in my imagination cause if you tell me, I’ll probably have to leave immediately for a bleach shower.” 

A loud, echoing guffaw came out of the mouth of Billy Hargrove. Because of you. Something warm and squishy expanded in your chest, resulting in a goofy grin on your lips. Making Billy laugh was now your singular goal in life. 

“Yeah, I’ll spare you,” Billy replied. 

“I appreciate it.” 

There was silence between you for a moment, so you leaned your head back to enjoy the water and the odd sensation of weightlessness. Memories of your childhood popped into your head, coming to this same pool with your family and meeting up with friends. Daring each other to dive into the deep end, playing tag or Marco Polo. Good times. Simpler times. 

Sinking down into the water until your nose was submerged, you blew some bubbles. Cause you were a grown-ass adult now and you could. Floating on your back then, you attempted what you thought was a backstroke until your hand struck the side of the pool and you began to tread water again. 

“Did you have swimming lessons as a kid?” Billy piped in. 

You shrugged. “Yeah? Just enough to tread water and doggy paddle. Enough not to need water wings or constant supervision. Why? Was my backstroke not as flawless as I thought?” 

Billy chuckled again. “Um…there might be room for improvement. Did you…would be interested in lessons?” he offered, catching you off guard. 

Part of you wanted to jump at the chance of more time with Billy, but still. You hesitated. “Thanks, but…it’s not a good look to be learning to swim with a bunch of six-year-olds.” 

“That’s not what I…actually, I thought maybe we could do private lessons,” Billy offered, taking a few skillful strokes through the water until you were only a few feet away. 

You were…shocked. Honored. Intrigued? Confused? Something to that effect. 

“Wow, that’s um…kind of you. I don’t think I could pay your rates, though,” you said, avoiding his gaze. 

“I didn’t—“

You interrupted, suddenly feeling stupid and nervous about the whole thing. “Besides, I’m sure it’d be a waste of your time. I doubt I’ll be swimming much after this summer. Unless you count frigid Lake Michigan,” you huffed out an awkward laugh. 

Time slowed to a crawl as you waited for Billy’s reply to your word vomit. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“Oh,” he said, as more of an exhaled. “Chicago?” 

Unable to resist a smile, you nodded, finally braving a glance his way. “Yeah. I’m going to the University of Chicago in the Fall.” 

Billy’s eyes shot open wide, impressed. “Wow. That’s…congratulations. What are you studying?” 

This was the harder question, lifting a single shoulder of yours in response. “Not sure yet. I got an academic full-ride scholarship so I’ll figure it out when I’m there, I guess. I still need to pay for living expenses and my hope is to save enough for a car before I go. It’s driving distance. Far enough to feel independent but close enough to drive home for holidays.” 

That was your reasoning, anyway. Chicago was a huge city, though, and you were suitably nervous and excited. 

Billy nodded appreciatively. “I didn’t realize…” he trailed off, running a thumb across the edge of the pool deck. 

“Didn’t realize what?” you asked anxiously.

“That you were such a nerd,”Billy teased, huge grin on his handsome face. 

“Shut up,” you maturely replied. “Some of us have to even out the number of meat-head jocks in the world.” 

Billy laughed, sending a splash in your direction. You retaliated, resulting in a few minutes of nothing but cascading water and laughter. 

“Okay, truce! Truce!” you called out, hands in the air in surrender. 

Billy did the same with a smirk. You both caught your breath, clinging to the edge of the pool to give your legs a break. 

“What about you?” you asked, holding his gaze. 

Billy dodged the question. “What about me?” 

You gave him a pointed look. “You know…plans after this summer? The future? School, work, life, et cetera.” 

He snorted. “Of course you used the phrase ‘et cetera’.” 

“Shut up,” you muttered again, waiting patiently. 

Billy brought both arms up to rest on the pool’s edge as you’d seen him do before. Placing his chin on his bicep, he stared out at the empty lounge chairs, gathering his thoughts. 

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted, head turning to meet your eye. “I can’t…I mean, I’m not really looking much further into the future than next week just to keep me from losing my fucking mind. I’ll probably just be stuck around here, working odd jobs. Maybe a trade school. It’s fucking depressing.” 

You nodded soberly, but still curious. “Why stick around? You mentioned going back to California at some point. What’s stopping you?” 

Another pause. You watched his back muscles expand and contract with a deep breath. Closing the distance a bit more, you mirrored his position with arms on the pool deck, your head tucked into your elbow facing him. 

Billy held your gaze a long moment, searching your face for…something. “Do you ever hold on to a memory so tightly that you’re almost afraid that it’s not really how you remember it? Like, the colors wouldn’t be as bright as you pictured or the moment wasn’t really as happy as you thought?” 

Nodding, you remained silent. 

“That’s how I feel about California. Or parts of it, at least. Maybe by going back I’d just be fucking up the good memories I do have. Or they’d become repeats of shitty memories, ruining something good. If I leave it as a dream, then maybe it can still be as good as I remember it.”

You barely breathed, afraid you’d spook this moment away. 

Billy shook his head, pushing away from the wall to tread water. “I also have Maxine to watch over, the little shit.” 

A smile curled the corners of your lips. The spunky redhead had visited the pool a few times during the summer and while their interactions did seemed heated, you saw how he carefully watched over her and her friends. Max even came over to the Snack Shack for a soda one day. It had to be hard to be forced into a family by the decisions of your parents. It’s one thing to grow up with siblings but to have them thrust upon you without a choice, well, that’s quite another. Billy had his way of showing that he cared, though. 

“She’s a spitfire, that one,” you replied. 

“Pain in my ass is what she is,” he scoffed. 

You let the moment settle before speaking. “What’s the ocean like?”

Billy whirled his head your direction in surprise. “You’ve never seen the ocean?” 

Shaking your head, you shrugged. “All our family vacations were road trips to visit extended family. Never more than a couple hours away and still landlocked. I hope to make it there someday,” you said, not mentioning a specific coast or state but California was a niggling possibility in the back of your mind. 

“God, its…endless and gorgeous and constant but somehow always different, too. Each morning brought a new challenge in waves and some days I’d get thrashed while surfing, but then you get this one perfect ride and…you’re hooked. It’s worth all the salt water you’ve swallowed and coral scrapes,” Billy spoke softly, almost reverently. The expression on his face was one of longing and awe. You could almost feel how much he missed it. 

“But it’s not just the big waves. I miss laying back on my board and just feeling the ebb and flow of the current. The constant movement of the ocean, it’s…soothing. I’ve fallen asleep that way more than a few times, possibly waking up with a sunburn,” he chuckled. “I’ve never slept better than after a long day of surfing.” 

God, he was so sweet in that moment. So open. Did any one else know this Billy? Why were all the rumors of a tough, asshole, womanizer? Sure, some of that could be true but “sweet” or “kind” were not his usual descriptors. The more you got to know the true Billy, the more convinced you were that the hard exterior was just a ruse. A mask for the world. What had happened to make him feel like he had to hide this way? 

Those questions seemed like too much prodding, however, despite your constant curiosity. 

So you came up with a really stupid idea that would hopefully make this man before you smile. Your goal in life, of course. 

“Lie back in the water,” you told him. 

Eyebrows drawn together in confusion, Billy tilted his head. “What?” 

“You know, float on your back with your eyes closed. Right there,” you instructed, waving your hands toward the middle of the pool. He still looked dubious, but swam to where you indicated. 

“Why? What’s going to happen?” Billy asked. 

“Do you trust me?” you asked.

He blinked, tongue flicking out to lick his lips. His answer came in the form of the man lying back in the water. You guessed that was enough of a yes. One last glance at you and Billy took a deep breath before closing his eyes. 

Moving into position in the shallower end of the pool, you did the stupid thing and launched yourself straight up out of the water and purposefully crashed back to the surface on your side, causing a ripple of water toward the floating Billy. You were far enough away not the splash him, but he still got the benefits of small waves. Again, you breached the water and splashed down to the side. And then a third time. You caught a smile on Billy’s handsome face, eyes still closed. Mission accomplished.

But you were caught the fourth time. As you stood up out of the water, Billy was no longer floating, instead staring at you with a grin, eyes wide open. “What the hell was that?” he laughed, amused. 

Rubbing water off your face, you shrugged. “Sending waves your way. We used to play ‘jumping whale’ or something when I was younger, seeing who could make the biggest splash. Figured it could have a similar effect.” 

He shook his head, still grinning. “That was weird as shit, but…thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

Billy held your gaze a moment longer, that much concentrated attention causing heat to rise in your cheeks. Something about the moment made you panicky. 

“I should go,” you blurted out, heading for the stairs. 

“Right, yeah,” he says behind you. 

Looking back, you receive the gift of watching Billy pull himself out of the pool with those functional muscles that you were starting to like quite a lot. You might have also been blessed with the sight of those red swim trunks plastered to his shapely behind like shrink wrap. Swoon. You nearly missed the step onto the pool deck. 

Gathering your swim bag and towel, you hurried to the locker room, showered off, and changed quickly. You’d reached your bike just as Billy locked up the building and headed for his car. Straddling your bike, you chanced another look to see him toss his own bag in the passenger seat and climb inside. The signature loud engine roared to life and tires squealed as Billy pulled the Camaro around to head for the street. Feet on the pedals, you were shocked and nearly fell over when the muscle car stopped within feet of you. 

Billy rolled down the window, his curls still damp from a shower. “Hey, um…not that you would, I don’t think, but if you could not say anything I’ve shared tonight…I’d appreciate it,” he said, avoiding your gaze. 

“Oh. Yeah, no, of course. I would never…I mean I don’t have anyone else to tell anyway,” you assured him in your self-deprecating way. 

He huffs out a dry laugh, muttering, “Me neither. So, you know. Thanks. See you later.” 

“Yeah. See you,” you replied, watching the Camaro growl onto the road and out of sight before you gathered yourself enough to pedal home. 

____________________________

Chapter Three>>> 

_________________________________________________________

Listen...did I fall for a co-worker who coincidentally happened to be a curly-haired blond surfer from California at a previous job in real life???.....maybe. :D Was I equal to or possibly more awkward as the reader is in this story? Definitely. ha! Yikes. It’s fun to use that life experience as inspiration, though. It’s a common thread in my writing, actually. heh. Anywho! How sweet is Billy?? I can’t even handle it. I lub him. Please let me know your thoughts on this chapter! I’d love to hear from you. I adore you all. <3

Tag list is open! Let me know if you’d like to be added. 

Billy tag list: 

@every-dayiwakeup @feelmyroarrrr @someonehelpshit @ria132love @sebbytrash​ @withahintofpestoaioli​ @nogitsunbae​ @ickypuppi3​ @prettybillycore​  @bee-1n-space​ @bunniesofsteel​ @mindingmyownbusiness​ @ashtons-chest​

#Billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove #Billy hargrove x gender neutral!reader #gender neutral!reader #billy hargrove fic #billy hargrove fluff #billy hargrove headcanon #lifeguard billy #stranger things fic #stranger things #stranger things fan fiction #talesfrom-theupsidedown fic

[unknownjpegs]

switching shifts

The guard is falling asleep. Has to keep jerking upright as he stands at the door. It doesn’t usually distract Benny, who can rarely be pulled out of what he’s doing if he’s properly engaged, but he’s annoyed. Communications from above sea level have been going dark—not that he cares much about above sea level, not anyone he’s left on dry land whose waiting for him. But that puts shipment behind by a whole week, and Benny’s flask is running awfully dry. His cigarettes are starting to run low. Two a day only kind of deal. Benny is not a two a day only kind of smoker.

Swart flinches and then knocks his boots together to stand at attention, like he’s back in basic training and a drill sergeant is going to threaten to shove something up his ass. All about making them better soldiers, the ass shoving threats, Benny is sure. Something, something, the homoerotic nature of military and all.

“Need a stim, Swart?” Benny asks in a dry voice as he rifles through his notes. He works better with pen and paper, even though his laptop is sat open in front of him. The graph displays data he needs to puzzle through, put together by some analyst who works on the other side of the facility. He doesn’t trust analysts, so he’s puzzling it together himself.

“Boring fuckin’ detail, Doc.”

“You ha-have my deepest sympathies,” Benny replies, shuffling more of the paperwork. Then he snorts. Deep. Underwater. Get it? He almost says to the guard, because he’s admittedly used to someone else, who would enjoy a joke like that. Benny turns back to his work. His pen scratches across the paper in his messy, tiny script. He taps it a few times and then Swart has to snap himself up right again.

“Can usually switch my shift with Giarrizzo. But he’s on another detail tonight,” Swart yawns into a fist. His pen goes wide on an ‘s’, marks across the page. Benny glances over to the guard, chin tucked over his shoulder.

“Giarrizzo-Cohn.” He holds his hands up. Then slowly pushes them together. “It’s hyph-ph-phenated.” Swart always gets this look in his eyes when Benny starts stuttering. This ‘who made this fucking guy the scientist?’ look. It’s equal parts awkward as it is annoyed. Benny might be used to it, but still makes his skin itch. He puts his pen down, scratches a hand through his hair, looks at the puzzled together data instead of the soldier.

“Man, who cares? See—this is why no one wants to be in this lab with you, Doc. Hoity fucking toity.” Swart scuffs a boot, nose wrinkled in annoyance. Must be tough to be him, a soldier on guard for Benny, a guy with a stutter who makes three times more than his pay grade.

“Except Maran,” Benny points out.

“Maybe the fucking guy likes fish?” Swart gestures to the tank in front of him, with a snide and condescending curl to his lip. Benny swivels on his stool.

“Margot is an octopus,” he says. She clings to her coral rock bed, which Ben had painstakingly made himself to ensure she felt properly at home. The water filter bubbles a bit, ambiance in his lab to go along with the whir of computers. Pen scratches, when he’s ignoring the computers.

“So?”

“Octopuses are cephalopods.”

“I hate this fucking job,” Swart mumbles under his breath, eyes upward to avoid looking at either the octopus or her owner.

—

Maran leans over the open topped tank, his hand lazily drifting through the water. He keeps the other propped up, a fist to rest his chin on while he looks at the octopus as she does her fast crawl across the rock bed. One of her arms occasionally swings up, wraps around his fingers, then drifts away. His face is lit up by the water, a little pattern across freckles and tan skin. The lighting in the lab is usually stark and white, but Benny has a headache so he’s turned it down. Dimmed everything except what was necessary for him to look at under the microscope he’s supposed to be paying attention to.

And of course, the little lights in Margot’s tank, so that he can see Maran’s face better.

“Roll your s-sleeve up a bit,” Benny comments. Maran startles, because it’s the first thing he’s said in an hour or so. He pulls his arm from the tank and blinks at Benny. “The chemicals fr-from your shirt might mess with the tank water.”

“Shit,” Maran starts shoving at the tight fabric of his black shirt. The material rolls up to his sleeve, exposing strong forearms that make Benny’s mouth dry. He watches the tendons in his wrist flex, the appearance of a vein in Maran’s hand. His eyes drift from that up, to where he’s pinched a tongue between his teeth as if concentrating. Maran’s own eyes flicker up and his face goes pink under Ben’s cold blue eyed stare.

“Didn’t hurt her, did I?”

Her and not it. Was one of the first things Benny had noticed about Maran. Maybe Swart wasn’t necessarily wrong. Maybe Maran liked animals; he even looked at the sea snails with admiration and sometimes did, admittedly, press too close to the tank of fish to watch them dart around in a makeshift school.

He never looked out the windows though. Into the dark beyond. Benny shuttered them when Maran was around.

“C’mere,” he says instead of answering the question. He stands from his stool and gestures to the microscope. Maran crosses the lab over to him. The sound of his booted foot steps is loud and Benny’s eyes flicker to them. They rise up from laces, to the way his dark tactical pants wrap tightly around his thighs. His belt and then up more until Benny is once again drawn to that pretty face.

Benny was never that shy about checking people out. Usually he did so with open gazed sleaze—he didn’t pretend. It worked in his favor, because the people he attracted usually liked that about him. But Maran’s face begged for attention and Benny’s roaming eyes could never stray far from those features. Strong nose, freckles, high cheek bones. Such a gorgeous mouth. Maran swings his arms out, bracing his hands against the lab table, smiling toothily.

“What is it today?”

“Sample fr-from the scorpion,” Benny says, patting the stool he was just occupying. Maran lowers himself slowly, scooting forward. He’d had no idea how to use a microscope before Benny had showed him, but now his hands sort of move there expertly. Benny stares at those hands for a long moment.

“Scorpion?”

“It’s wh-what we’re calling the creature. The one th-that almost made a snack out of Father Wolffe.”

“You said it was crustacean though.”

Benny’s heart makes a painful squeeze, a little palpitation. He rubs hard at his sternum, wondering if the nicotine withdrawal was going to start killing him. The headache was certainly still there, pulsing behind his ears, crawling up the back of his head. Benny looks at the stretch of Maran’s shirt over his shoulder blades, the taut line of it where it clings between the two.

He flattens his hand there and Maran jumps, so he slides his hand up to cradle the nape of his neck. Keep him looking at the scorpion sample. His skin is as soft as Benny had imagined it would be. His fingers curl just slightly, as though he can’t help it. Maran’s hand slaps onto the desk in reflex.

“Maran, do y-you switch shifts to work in my lab?”

“Uh,” Maran breathes out the word rather than just saying it. He turns slightly, so Benny increases the bit of pressure in his hand. Maran makes a sound then that is even breathier. Spots appear in front of Benny’s vision, little dots of white that he has to blink away. His muscles feel constricted and flexed, his body tensed. His breathing feels difficult. But the heat is the worst, this twitching hot curling sensation that sits in his lower stomach. “Maybe?”

“Why?”

His hand relaxes and Maran turns, twists himself on the stool. His hand on the lab table brushes over paperwork that scatters to the floor—and neither men pay attention to it. Benny is leaned over him, his hand moving from Maran’s neck to the front of his throat, to tuck fingers into the top of his shirt, to feel more skin. Maran’s eyes are glassy as they look up at him. They swerve upward, to the ceiling and Benny cannot look at the roll of his eyes like that. His gaze falls to Maran’s plush lips, as they part just a bit.

“Uh,” Maran repeats and then his lips curve into a smile that Benny absolutely cannot continue looking at. “I like you, Ben.”

Maran makes a noise when Benny crashes down to kiss him. Something that he will memorize and repeat later, listen to, laying in his bed. A noise that is half surprise and pleasure that Benny swallows up with his mouth. His hand cups Maran’s jaw, lips parting to kiss him as hungrily as he’s been for him. Weeks of this soldier standing in his lab, to approaching his tanks, to coming to stand by him while he works. To asking questions. To remembering things he says. Benny’s mouth opens wider, feels Maran chase upward with tongue.

One of Maran’s hands seems to find a place on Benny’s thigh, curling around it. His other hand reaches up but Benny’s snatches it and shoves it down onto the table. That makes Maran moan. Their tongues touch, slide together messily as Maran’s knees knock wider and Benny’s body crowds into his space. The lean can’t be comfortable, the way Maran is curved back against the lab table. But he doesn’t protest, doesn’t stop the kiss upward, his head moving to a new angle.

Benny thinks to memorize the way he tastes, the feel of the lips he’d often stared at. But then, thinks, no need to memorize. They’re not going to stop kissing. Not until it becomes hard to breathe—and when it does, when they’re both open mouth panting against each other, rather than fully kissing, that’s when Benny pulls away.

A string of spit connects their mouths for a moment, until Maran’s tongue flicks out, runs over his bottom lip and catches it.

Benny moans so loudly that even Maran seems startled out of reverie by it. His hand squeezes Ben’s thigh, almost as if on accident. His pretty brown eyes flicker there and then back up and then there again and back up. Benny can’t help his grin, his tilted, slice of a smile across his face. His tongue runs over his teeth, head tilted, chest heaving in and out with air. Benny’s knee wedges hard between Maran’s thighs and the soldier gasps. I need to fuck you, I need to fuck you so hard, I need you.

“Maran, I—”

Water splashes against him from behind, making him jump. He nearly crashes both of them to the ground at the icy sensation. Benny spins and looks at the tank, his sunglasses clattering to the floor from where they’d perched on the top of his head. Margot slinks innocently across the wall of the tank, her long arms inching her along.

“Margot,” Benny snaps, stomping toward the tank. “Don’t be f-fu-fucking rude. I will put the top on this tank—” He sputters as water is splashed up against him again, stumbling backward.

Maran’s loud laughter behind him makes him jump even higher. He turns on a heel, but whatever nasty retort he’d have to the laugh is immediately cut off. Maran’s on the stool, leaned back, elbows on the lab table, his head tilted. His cheeks are flush dark red, all the way to his throat, and his lips are shiny. His knees are still widened from how he’d been all but crushed against by Benny’s body. The scientist’s eyes flicker to the stretch of tac pants and then back up, blinking owlishly.

“Forgot we had company, yeah?” Maran jokes, one of his legs swinging on the stool. His combat boot makes a tap, tap, tap sound against the metal bar. Benny’s dry mouth suddenly floods with the thought of his tongue on the tip of that boot.

“Saying we sh-should go somewhere alone, Mar?”

The confident look on his face drops to be replaced with something startlingly shy. Benny’s insides claw at themselves, his brain screaming again (fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck) as he does a slow approach. His now wet shirt clings to him and he slowly shrugs out of his lab coat, tossing it onto the table. Maran’s eyes blink at the sudden reveal of tattooed arms and then his eyes swivel right back up to the ceiling.

Benny catches him by the chin and slowly tilts his head down to force his gaze back to him.

“I like you too, Maran.”

#writing #hj #underwater au #jlb #mgc #mgc x jlb

[epf-headcanons]

EPF team as...Stardew Valley Players

G breaks through the office telling everyone about this cozy farm game he found on steam, and they set up to play together once they're home from work (even JPG joined in somehow).

They create a farm named Spicy Sauce, and start playing every night on their little pixel veggie project, and it is rather easy to identify some...playing styles

Dot is totally into taking care of the chicken and their new cow named Yarr. She pets every single one of them every single day, NO EXCEPTIONS

Rookie doesn't have much clue of what he is supposed to do, so, he's just walking around getting collectibles and spending too much money on hats (that goddam mouse...) also he wants to marry krobus

PH is the fishing gal. She has fished almost every single fish in the game, she does fishing quests, she completed the fishing section on the community center, she is almost a fish herself

G is almost reaching the bottom of the cave, and is willing to do everything, EVERYTHING to collect every mineral and artifact to donate to the museum. He's an expert when it comes to combat and flirting with Sebastian. That emo has no idea what's coming for him

JPG, not surprising anyone, is in charge of managing the farm. He has a google docs where he register all plantations, what crops he's gotta buy on a certain day, and if anything gets outta hand...you better hide

#club penguin #g club penguin #gary the gadget guy #herbert p bear #jet pack guy #jpg club penguin #klutzy the crab #rookie club penguin #captain rockhopper #dot the disguise gal #stardew valley #sdv

[coolcat101s]

Raw notes from my surface level welcome home dive from last night

Obvious spoilers under the readmore

Welcome home:

Firefly video link https://www.clownillustration.com/4-14-bf

Bottom right of Eddie flowers have an audio link https://www.clownillustration.com/will-2

Bottom left has an audio log as well and the url https://www.clownillustration.com/help

Landing page:

Wally draws home link in it https://www.clownillustration.com/i

The y on the site update is invisible

Y hidden behind the word five in the update

“We always knew it was real, ever since that first itch in the back of our mind. You need to know too now, don’t you? Do you feel it. It’s good that you came back.” Good shit right on the page feels like Lore

About us:

The o is up

Hidden in text: When I unwrapped the first letter, I felt it. I heard it. Open. Open. Open. I want it out. I’m going to get it out.

After the text in the why did you make this website> Does it hurt?

Hidden After do you know how many episodes> The numbers are so hard to read. Sometimes I can’t see them.

The hearts https://www.clownillustration.com/a. Love the eyes stuff omg

Preying mantis at bottom right:

https://www.clownillustration.com/10-14-js it’s another video!

Stickers page

The spider: https://www.clownillustration.com/11-14-jb another video, also I notice it cuts out when they try to say Wally’s name in these interesting

The star flower drawing https://www.clownillustration.com/i-2 another audio with Wally drawings

Weird loopy thing over stickers and under the w

News:

Caterpillar https://www.clownillustration.com/12-14-hb another video the Wally cut out again at the end

“So many guest signatures… So many of them are trying to communicate. What are you telling me for? Do you think I can answer. What are you trying to do to me. I’m closing that guest book, I’m not playing this game anymore. The ringing is enough.” Feels like not the team is that is it Wally? Who is it?

The neighborhood:

Text changed I think:

Home is where the heart is and Welcome Home's residents are the heart of the neighborhood. Even if you don't live there, you're still one of its most important denizens! But don't worry, with the help of this colorful array of neighbors, it'll feel just like home in no time at all! 

Found this eye when I messed up copying the text above I’m not sure where it came from (update!! On desktop hes hidden behind the art banner apparently)

Swirl under home still there

Still has as bellow, as above now works too which it didn’t before I don’t think : https://www.clownillustration.com/as-above here leading to stars that have this https://www.clownillustration.com/soon (he says let me in) and the c on back looks like a 3

Eddie had a bug on his page! https://www.clownillustration.com/8-14-ef

Wally’s page had a flower on his canvas https://www.clownillustration.com/will

Bug on the menu https://www.clownillustration.com/9-14-fp

Media:

All of these are amazing like even the not hidden stuff is so fun

Little rainbow bug thing after the interview: https://www.clownillustration.com/1-14-ph

Merchandising:

Spiral on the last phone photo, repeating  motif is noted

Butterfly: https://www.clownillustration.com/6-14-jf

The playfellow exhibition: big that runs and hides like a little sneaky https://www.clownillustration.com/2-14-sp

House at bottom left https://www.clownillustration.com/understand

Guestbook: in the opening a speech bubble from Wally https://www.clownillustration.com/find

Bug on the opening page https://www.clownillustration.com/13-14-he

Bug on first page https://www.clownillustration.com/7-14-ej

#meows loudly #darling indeed #welcome home

[selectivechaos]

shy vs. sm

[ID: A slide entitled: shyness versus selective mutism. A subheading reads: “shyness” with bullet points. First: ‘slow warm up period’, second: ‘can often respond with a nod or small smile’. and third: ‘same demeanor everywhere - quiet and reserved’.

A second subheading reads: selective mutism. First bullet point reads: warm up period much longer than expected. Second: cannot respond at all - may appear frozen. Third bullet reads: ‘dual personality - restrained at school, talkative at home’. /End ID]

source: BEYOND SHYNESS: evidence based assessment and intervention for selective mutism. Katelyn Reed, MS, LLP. Taylor Hicks-Hoste, Ph. D. , LP, NCSP

only thing i would add to this is that

-there’s significant anxiety with sm,

-diagnostic criteria preclude anxiety just within the first month of school (a person would just be considered shy within this time)

-some people with sm can smile and nod depending on situation and anxiety-level. for some, their non-vocal communication increases (writing, complex facial expressions)

-they may appear nonchalant, aggressive, or relaxed. this is to hide their anxiety from others

-the sm-situation doesn’t have to be at school. they can be fine at school and mute at home.

#selective mutism #situational mutism #mental health awareness #shyness #chaos-exhausted

[kedreeva]

I have finally found out what an eggo is do you guys not just call them fucking waffles???

Joyce and hopper are doing great

Nancy is doing so amazing i love her so much

PH MY FUCKING GOD IS THE CINEMA SCENE I HEARD SO FUCKING MUCH ABOUT COMMING UP

IT SURE fUCKING DID MY FUCKING GOD steve youre the epitome of a highschool boy oh my fucking god get better soon hun by which i mean get fucking concussed faster

Actually speaking of that does the cinema scene mean that the fight is coming up soon oh shit

An eggo is DIFFERENT. It's a frozen waffle of the brand name Eggo. It's an Eggo Waffle. They were really big for a while!! you could just pop them in the toaster and bam, ready.

Joyce and Hopper are so functional together

YESSSSS fight scene fight scene!!!

Nancy deserved to slap steve once. He still has to learn to communicate, but he'll GET there!!!

These three should all get a chance to work out their issues with each other IN FACT I AM GONNA write a little fic where Steve gets to talk to Jonathan like he was gonna when he arrived and got detoured by the fucking monster in the ceiling.

Maybe Steve's been people watching! You know their houses are like. right by each other. There's a little bit of woods between them but the woods behind Jonathan's house is the same woods that's behind Steve's. There's a point at Will's fake funeral where Jonathan is drawing on a map where the demogorgon is appearing, and it's all the same place. The woods nancy and jonathan are wandering around in are steve and jonathan's woods. There's EVERY CHANCE they met in those woods as kids. played together at some point. Like Jonathan says he doesn't like most people but I bet that he doesn't like Steve specifically, too. I bet there's History there.

El is the best!!!!

no rest for the children, they're still going through the horrors

NO THERE IS NO KIDDING IT IS JUST LIKE THAT!!!!!! GOT SOME SENSE KNOCKED INTO HIM LITERALLY!!!

HE IS DOING AMAZING

Tommy will get worse.

29 of them I'm pretty sure was the count, and I enjoyed the hell out of them all and if you go into the notes there are others also enjoying the ride.

LISTEN this isn't the end, this is just a chapter end, the book is still going.

it's not spam it's excitement and I am HERE for it, I love seeing people get excited about the thing I'm excited about!!

a;jka;dnb;ernsthskjdf;asjdgsh I'mc rying, this is just the best I'm so sorry, the last episode is SO INTENSE for every fucking second of it.

I have no idea what parts these reference but I'm cackling, Ted is the worst.

I gotta leave SOME stuff out for you to happen upon like a fucking... well. gift. lol

Mike is going to have so much faith that El is alive still. SO MUCH FAITH.

YESSSSS Hopper is gonna find that feral child and take her into a nice warm home and give her a goddamn FAMILY.

GOOD.

I slept like the fucking dead, I took a hot shower, a bunch of painkillers and fell asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow and did not wake until my alarm went off to talk to my australian.

I MEAN. I'm not really doing much with GO anymore either, but the energy of my fixations remains. gotta go somewhere!

at this point I don't expect you to be normal about anything

Oh don't worry, Steve and Nancy are not finished having a fiasco.

LISTEN. It's not that Brenner deserves worse (it's not NOT that either), it's that EL deserves BETTER.

Yeah her plush was a tiger. you know. the same.... the same tiger........ the same one............. the same...................... as hopper's daughter....... had as she was dying...... just. saying....

[for anyone reading along, imagine a long rant about el and a cat here, that I'm not publishing because prompt]

I don't KNOW. El will get to meet 8 in season 2.

I have not been LYING to myself i have been HOPING for something better. SOME stuff got better!!! like steve.

well. the GOOD news is that I don't think they're gonna let Steve and Nancy get back together, but the BAD news is that that's because I'm p sure that they're gonna kill steve in S5. Just throwing that out there. This is information that is like when someone says "my finger hurts" and then someone else offers to punch them in the arm so they won't be thinking about their finger.

hmmmm tying a tie may have to go on the list too then, specifically to make you feral.

Funerals in general are weird because they're trying to be about the dead person but they're actually for the living people and everyone's super sad about the person being gone but when catholicism or even just christianity in general enters into it, it gets weird because like??? don't y'all have the concept of a literal heaven? that super happy place where people are supposed to be at peace? why is that not a celebration..... I get why people mourn losing someone but if I were christian it would make more sense to me to be like man I'm fuckin' sad I'm not gonna see bob for a few years but I'm gonna rock up Doing Good til I die so we can hang out in heaven when I get her or whatever. plus whoever's up talking is making the death about god and stuff instead of the person.

I think it's a good theory. I think MOST theories start off with a half-assed thought and the good ones get a pause and a "wait a second..." and then you go deeper.

I don't know what his band is and have never heard it (nor will I except against my will or by accident), but my understanding is that they're actually pretty good. a lot of fans of the show got into it when they found out and oh.... man, i do not know why there are not more fics where Eddie teaches Steve to play a guitar because we have some EXCELLENT photos of keery playing his guitar.

me too, Delightful... Karen is the Mystery Mom. Looking forward to her losing it.

Okay but listen, LISTEn

Season 2 has.... THE SCENE.

The scene where Steve turns up at Nancy's house and Dustin, who has been desperately trying to reach anyone and been ABANDONED, sees him walking up and goes "hm, I've adopted a new big brother/father, steve get in your car and drive me places" and steve is like ???? but he gets in the car and drives Dustin places. He walks down into a darkened cellar looking for a monster for this kid. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

PLUS you get to see Steve having his little Life Crisis because what does anything MATTER if there are MONSTERS and actually all he wants is to settle down with Nancy and Nancy is, once again, Onto Something because of Barb

ALSO DUSTIN TELLS TED OFF.

He also adopts!!! a baby monster!!!!

And you get to meet MAX. God, she's the best. I fucking love her. You HAVE to meet Max because she lives across the street from Eddie, and she needs protecting from her older brother because he's an ASSHOLE you will adopt her just as fast as you adopted El and want to both wring Mike's neck and cuddle the hell out of him because he misses El SO MUCH but he calls out for her on the radio every night to tell her that he's still there, he's still waiting, he still misses her and she is listening on her radio but she can't TELL HIM because it's not SAFE for EITHER of them and *sobbing*

plus you get to see El and Hopper love each other and try to have a completely dysfunctional little family together. They are both so broken and they are trying SO HARD.

a;kjgn;kgjn;agja;akjwdf

Okay this is the last ask I got from you, so. I hope you get your assignment worked on, and I hope that you start season 2 at some point. There's so much good stuff in it.

#stranger things #anon asks #asks #Anon (Delightful)