#i don't think i spend enough time thinking this through

[cherie-doll]

LADS: When You Don't Give Them Attention

༻ Xavier, Zayne, Rafayel, Sylus, Caleb ༺

₊˚✧ Xavier just wanted a few moments with you, despite how heavy his eyelids felt and how he should be resting in bed right now; he knew he wouldn't rest peacefully until you came to bed with him. Usually, he wouldn't even stay up waiting for you, but he felt particularly clingy tonight for some reason. It's like falling asleep with your favorite plushie from when you were a kid; you no longer needed it, but it still provided a sense of security and comfort that nothing else could replicate. Xavier kept coming up with excuses to get up, like going to the kitchen for a glass of water, or needing an extra blanket, etc... all just so he could walk by you sitting in the living room with a reading light on. What was so interesting about that book? But you had become so absorbed into the story you hadn't even realized how late it had gotten!

₊ ೀ Zayne tries his best to respond to all the messages you spam him with. Right after he finishes work he picks up his phone to read all the messages you sent him. You know he's not going to respond right away, so you usually get busy doing something else while you wait for that notification from Zayne to arrive. He's answered all your messages and tries calling only for you to not answer. He frowns, slightly disappointed; as he's used to you picking up right away. He's already thinking of what restaurant you'll visit when he passes by you sitting contently on a bench at the park. You don't even notice his gaze lingering on you as you're too busy trying to make friends with a pigeon. Zayne is amused that you managed to occupy yourself long enough that you don't even notice him standing directly behind you. Which when you do feel him you startle.

༄༢ུ࿓ Rafayel will let you know when he's feeling ignored. He's overdramatic and sassy and won't shut up about it. You're seriously tired and trying your best to finish your work, it's not like you're ignoring him on purpose! "I know, I know" as he complains about the fact that you told him you'd be done 20 minutes ago and it's been wayyy longer than that. If only you could close your laptop and cuddle and spend some time with him. Instead, you're stuck stressing over work. Seeing your furrowed eyebrows he decides to stop pouting and instead help you. The corners of this mouth go up in a soft smile as he comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around you and nuzzling his face into your neck. "I think this is good for us both." Perhaps he did help boost your productivity so you were able to finish early.

ᨳ᭬ Sylus knows every game and trick of yours, so he thinks you not answering his knock right away is you playing a prank of some sort on him. He waits a few more moments, the image of you giggling behind the door in his mind. But there's silence, not a sound when he rings the doorbell. He looks around and peeks in through one of the windows, well thankfully, he knows the code to unlock your door. He walks into your apartment and hears shuffling and plates clattering in the kitchen. There you are with headphones on, completely unaware of your surroundings as you unload the dishwasher and hum to yourself. You don't even feel his tapping on your shoulder nor do you turn right away when you spot his face reflected on a spoon. Suddenly, you feel his hands coming to the sides of your head, removing your headphones and his laugh is heard clearly.

❦ Caleb would come home and wait for when you would run into his arms like you usually did. But he's a little confused when he doesn't hear your footsteps nor you calling out his name. Maybe you were occupied with something? He roams the house; checking each room he passes looking for you. He tilts his head at not seeing you in your usual spots; you're not in your favorite armchair, nor are you in the kitchen grabbing a snack, and you're not in the bedroom either. Like a lost puppy, he stands confused in the house, not knowing where you could've gone. How strange of you... when suddenly he catches a glimpse of you through the window. You're peacefully gazing at the sky, headphones on and completely unaware of Caleb's presence. He decides not to disturb you and observes how serene this scene looks.

[myownwholewildworld]

losing my mind over your old man!joel... i need him and his broken dick so bad... drools.

anyways, thinking about running out of viagra but you're both insatiable- you just need joel to fuck you, it's real bad. and ofc joel is hung like a horse, so you get the idea for him to fuck you with his limp dick. it's not perfect but it works well enough for the both of you and joel ends up cumming, completely soft, inside you :3

lowkey would be hot as hell if that's the time the ends up getting you pregnant

OH MY FUCKING GOD GOOB, this made my pussy throb what the ffffffffffffffffuck 🫠 this is so fucking hot i honestly am gnawing at the walls of my enclosure. everyone knows that old man!joel miller has a big ass breeding kink, his only purpose in life, his dying wish if you will, is to have your belly round with his kid... fuck fuck fuck fuck

so i reckon it would be something like this...... if people would like to see this as a fleshed out idea, let me know 🫡

a very quick oldman!jackson!joel miller x f!reader drabble, where you both deal with a limp dick situation... 18+ mdni

“Honey, I don't think it's working...” Joel mouthed, sweat gathering on his prominent brows. You were laying on his bed, fully naked and with your legs parted. Joel was kneeling between your thighs, his flaccid dick stuffed in your panties, rubbing your throbbing clit with his cockhead under the garment. “No luck?” you asked breathlessly, propping yourself up on your elbows to glance up at him. “Let me suck you then, I'm hungry.” “Nuh-uh,” he tutted with a heavy huff, dragging his limp dick along your slick folds.

You whimpered, eyes focused on how the outline of his gifted cock moved below your underwear. You couldn't see how he was humping your drenched slit, but you could feel his girth snugly slotted between your swollen pussy lips.

“We can make it work, baby,” you promised, eyes fluttering shut when his mushroom head brushed your writhing clit again. “Just stuff me full, there's more than enough of you for the both of us.”

Joel's pinched brow suddenly relaxed, his darkened eyes searching for yours. He looked at you in disbelief, as if his old man's hearing was betraying him.

“What? With... with my limp dick?” Joel husked out shakily.

“Mhm, yeah... Trust me, I'll be gentle, it won't hurt. I promise,” you mumbled reassuringly, your warm hands lovingly caressing his forearms.

Joel warred with himself. He didn't think you'd hurt him at all, you never could. But this was humiliating enough as it was. What if he didn't get hard once inside your pussy? What if he could never get it up again without the blue pill?

“I... I dunno, sweetheart. Don't wanna disappoint you anymore than what I already have,” he admitted in a hush, embarrassed, guilt eating him up from the inside out.

Joel sat back on his heels, his cock sliding out of your damp panties. His dick was as soft as twenty minutes ago, not even an incipient erection in sight.

You quickly sat up, getting closer to him. You lifted your legs over his thighs, wrapping them around his waist, so your pussy was flush with his cock.

“Hey, I am not disappointed at all, alright?” You pecked his lips, a soft smile curling the corners of your mouth. “I am horny as fuck right now. Look,” you grabbed his right hand and slithered it down your belly, dipping it below your panties. You guided his fingers to your slick seam and gasped when you forced his ring finger to flick your clit. “Feel how wet I am? It's all for you, because of you. I love you. Please, I will make it good for both of us, I swear.”

Joel's balls grew heavier and warmer, the feel of your tacky arousal slipping through his fingers making him feel lightheaded. He didn't deserve you, your patience. Your love. But he was damn grateful for whatever put you in his way. He would spend the rest of his life proving to you that he was worth it, worth the effort.

Joel gave you a soft nod.

“Okay,” he conceded, kissing the tip of your nose.

You squealed in excitement, but your little giggle mutated into a muted sob when he pressed a tight, lazy circle on your nub. Eager to have your pussy swallowing his limp cock, you pushed your panties aside for him, while Joel lead the tip of his cock to your gushing entrance with his free hand, the other still stimulating your clit.

He pushed in ever so slightly, and your soft, velvety cunt engulfing his mushroom head.

Joel groaned, feeling how you squeezed your inner walls tightly to then release the hold, making room for him.

“You good? No pain?” you checked in on him. Joel shook his head no. “If it hurts let me know, we can stop whenever you want.”

Joel's heart contracted in his chest, your love like a blanket around his old loving muscle. Slowly he kept on going, pushing in as your legs hugged him tighter, your abundant slick the best lube. There was no painful friction—despite how soft he was, his cock was furrowing it's way down your cunt smoothly, with ease. Until he was fully seated inside your sweet pussy, feeling warm and cozy.

You gasped, your expression so blissful it tugged at his heart, and teased him a little with a soft squeeze.

“Oh, fuck... I am so full right now...” you mewled, leaning forward to kiss him, his fingertips still working your clit raw. “You're so big, even if you're limp, baby... Is it... is it okay if I clench?”

“Yes, please,” he mumbled, mind fuzzy with pleasure.

You gradually clutched around him, compressing his flaccid cock until you were extremely tight around him. Then you relaxed your walls fully before you slowly squashed him again, gently pumping him, cockwarming him.

“There's no rush, baby. Even if you don't get hard, it's okay. This is... fuck, this is more than enough,” you mewled, draping one arm around his neck to kiss him gently.

“Love you, sweetheart. You're so good to me, for me,” Joel muttered, pulling your bottom lip between his teeth while his fingers lovingly stroked your soft, palpitating bundle of nerves.

[whoevenisjavier]

EROTICA

part 1 | part 2

pairing: no outbreak!joel x reader

The plan was to finish your thesis. You didn’t actually want to meet a neighbor with a past you can google and a history caught on tape. Or did you?

a/n: the adult content t-shit gave me ideas. btw, my first story here and I swear this is not a TED talk about morality. critical thinking? yes, bc the story needs it. moral lectures? absolutely not. porn? you'll see. this is just for fun — enjoy, i guess. the storys finished already, so I'll post the next chapter soon.

additional tags/warnings: 18+, mdni. reader is 26, joel is 50ish. no outbreak. joel is a dad. conversations about porn. inaccuracies about joel miller (I know his parents aren't chilean but bear with me). javier peña is there too. do I have to add anything else here? I don't know how to do these things.

wc: 9k

This time, your parents aren’t waiting for you at the bus terminal like they’ve done every year for the past three. It’s a good thing, a sign you’re standing on your own now, with your own car, but you still miss seeing their smiles through the fogged-up bus windows.

That moment always made you feel like you belonged somewhere.

Driving through the streets of Lake Placid on your way home feels like walking through your childhood memories. The stores look almost the same — sometimes with a fresh coat of paint — and the people, though not exactly familiar, are the daughters and grandsons of the adults you grew up around before moving to New York. Their faces carry just enough resemblance to make you do a double take.

When you park in your parents’ driveway and pick up your phone for the first time in two hours, there’s a message from your mother.

“We’re in the backyard having a welcome barbecue for the new neighbor! You can go up to your room and rest if you want some time alone or come eat. Can’t wait to see you. X.”

You smile as you step out of the Jeep, the door creaking behind you, and breathe in the cold, clean air rolling down from the mountains and the lake that wraps around the village where you were born. Your parents’ house sits above Mirror Lake Drive, right at the edge of the hill on the northeast side of the village, and from your bedroom window on the second floor, you can see the lake and the distant peaks of the High Peaks.

A far cry from the view outside your New York apartment: nothing but gray swallowed up by buildings. It’s the perfect setting to finally finish your thesis.

As you grab your two suitcases from the back seat, your eyes wander to the house next door, which had been empty for the past three years, mostly because the previous owners were asking too much for it.

Buying real estate in Lake Placid takes careful thought, since turning a profit is unlikely even with upgrades and expansions – the village is just too isolated. So if you’re buying here, it’s not for the money. It’s because you want a life far away from the city.

The house in question is a larger and more luxurious version of your parents’, made of gray stone, with cute white-framed windows, and for the first time in months, you see the lawn freshly trimmed and a new pickup truck parked in the driveway.

Probably the new family your mom mentioned.

The house is empty when you walk in, but you can hear laughter and voices drifting up from the backyard. You head the opposite way, climb the stairs to your room, drop your bags, take a shower, and spend a good while debating whether to sink into sheets that smell like home for the first time in ten months or go downstairs and find something to eat.

Hunger wins.

You throw on a warm sweater and go down. When you open the back doors, six pairs of eyes turn toward you, but it’s your mother’s squeal that makes you smile, followed by the tight hug she and your father give you.

“There’s our girl,” your father says to the others, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as he says your name. You give a small wave. “She always comes home for the holidays.”

The couple sitting together you recognize. They’ve been friends with your parents for years.

But you don’t know the woman who smiles sweetly at you, and you definitely don’t recognize the man, at least twenty-five years older than you, who keeps a neutral expression as he sips from a beer can. He doesn’t seem particularly friendly, but maybe that’s just the impression left by the slightly graying mustache and broad shoulders.

Two minutes later, you’re settled into a lounge chair with everyone in the backyard, a warm burger on your plate and a cold beer in your hand.

“I told Joel he’d have trouble with the house,” says the sweet-smiling woman to your parents, continuing the conversation they were having. “But he really wanted a place here, so I just supported him.”

“What kind of trouble are you having with the house?” your mom asks Joel — the mustached man, now officially identified.

“Nothing major,” Joel replies in a deep, firm, polite voice. “Had to redo the plumbing in two of the bathrooms and fix the heating in the kitchen sink, but it’s all fine now.”

“And are you liking it here?” you venture. You glance at the woman. “You and... your wife?”

Joel gives a faint smile.

“Tess isn’t my wife. And yeah, I’m liking it. It’s peaceful. Not too many teenagers. Feels like paradise.”

“What’s with the teenage hate?” you ask, half-joking, half-serious, silently filing away the Tess isn’t his wife detail.

“Fewer teenagers means fewer cell phones.”

Your response is a light laugh that earns a slight eyebrow raise from Joel, but you go back to your burger and let him be.

The conversation between the adults shifts to Fleetwood Mac, Lake Placid families, suggestions for places Joel should check out, and gossip about someone’s daughter who apparently got knocked up by the neighbor’s grandson, or something like that. You listen in, partly because you’re curious about the latest news (true or not) in the town you grew up in.

Your parents mention that you’re staying longer this time to get a change of scenery and finally work on your thesis, and that’s when the dreaded question comes. From Tess.

“And what’s your thesis about?”

Your mother holds back a laugh, because despite the seriousness of the topic, the initial reactions are always the same.

“I study anthropology,” you say. “My thesis is about the influence of pornography on male behavior over the years.”

That’s because the way men acted around you had always bothered you. When you were ten, wearing a cute chiffon skirt to the grocery store, they stared. When you were fifteen, walking home from school in your uniform, you heard disgusting things shouted at you on the street.

It wasn’t until you got older and realized that behavior like that isn’t natural (and why would it be, if women don’t do it?) that all your anger turned into the foundation for your research.

Tess raises her eyebrows and smiles slightly while the older couple gasps in surprise. Joel doesn’t react at all, except for rubbing the condensation on his beer can with his thumb.

“That’s a very interesting topic,” Tess comments, glancing at Joel, who briefly looks at her, then back at you. “Do you have any conclusions yet?”

“A few,” you say, though you already know the core of your research is the objectification of women’s bodies for the industry’s gain. “But I don’t want to bore you—”

“What’s your research method?” Joel cuts in before you can finish.

“Sorry?”

“Your research method. The system you’re using for the thesis.”

“Mixed methods,” you say, but you sense something more behind the question. Something slightly aggressive that you can’t fully pin down. “I did some fieldwork in New York.”

“Did you interview anyone from the industry?”

You shake your head.

“No one agreed. At least not the newer actors and actresses. The more established ones charged absurd fees just to answer ten questions.”

Joel says nothing, and the silence is broken when your father makes a joke about the topic. Everyone laughs—including you.

The barbecue lasts another hour at most before people start saying their goodbyes. Your mom wraps up two burgers for Joel, and he thanks her sincerely.

Then he turns to you and says:

“Good luck with the thesis, sweetheart.”

You nod, and you could swear you catch a faint smirk at the corner of his lips before he waves goodbye and walks off.

You run into Joel again at the market three blocks from home, standing in front of the fruit display, looking stuck between red grapes, green grapes, and oranges.

Joel’s voice comes suddenly from your left.

“What deep philosophical truth are you hoping those grapes will reveal to you?”

You startle, turning toward him with your hand over your heart as if that could slow it down. Joel raises one eyebrow as he begins placing seedless green grapes into a plastic bag.

He’s wearing worn jeans and a plaid flannel shirt over a white T-shirt. Thin-rimmed glasses rest on the strong bridge of his nose.

He smells like pine and something expensive—you guess it’s aftershave.

“Hi,” you say first, then quickly add, “I was trying to decide between grapes and oranges.”

“Grapes are sweeter this time of year.”

“But I like sour fruit.”

“Then go for the oranges.”

“But grapes are easier to eat. More practical.”

Joel gives you an impatient look, and you answer with a laugh. You grab a plastic bag and start selecting oranges.

After a short silence, while Joel ties off his grape bag and begins picking oranges too, you ask:

“Are you liking it here?”

Joel murmurs:

“There are some interesting things. Sarah likes it.”

“Your wife?” you ask quickly. Too quickly.

“My daughter. Just turned fifteen.”

Oh. Great. He’s a dad. You glance at his hand but see no ring. Joel notices.

“What’s with the marriage obsession?” he asks, although not rudely.

You shrug.

“I’m just curious. And you’d better brace yourself. The older ladies in Lake Placid are going to eat you alive with questions about your relationship status.”

“Really? Why do you think that?”

You freeze with your fingers wrapped around a particularly juicy orange. Without meaning to, you basically confessed that you think he’s a catch: attractive, polite, middle-aged, apparently wealthy, and tall. What other reason would the ladies have to shift their attention from their knitting?

You avoid his eyes.

“You bought the house that had been on the market for years. They’ll want to know who the buyer is,” you say, a half-truth.

He grunts, as if to say he doesn’t care about any of that, ties his orange bag, and places it in the cart. He glances at your basket, scanning the hygiene items (specifically the pads) and the chocolate bars.

“Did you drive here?” he asks.

You shake your head. He does too.

“Then let’s go. I’ll give you a ride home. It’s raining.”

His tone doesn’t invite objection and you don’t want to argue. Silently, and after grabbing a bag of green grapes too, you follow him through the market. He picks up a box of chocolate cereal, milk, kale, and oats, and then you both head to the checkout line.

You pay for your items first, so you end up waiting under the automatic doors, arms crossed beneath the blasting air conditioner.

People come in shaking umbrellas, mumbling about how unexpected the rain is or how cold the drops feel.

Older women walk in, spot Joel, and start whispering to each other with that smile every woman — no matter her age — immediately recognizes. The universal woman-smile.

He, seemingly unaware to all of it, pays with his card, grabs the bags with one hand, and walks over to you.

“Need help?” he asks, motioning toward your three bags.

You shake your head. He nods once and tilts his head toward the door, signaling for you to follow him across the crowded parking lot.

His pickup truck is parked near the exit—big and sturdy. You both get in at the same time. The inside smells good but feels stuffy from the rain, so he turns on the A/C and runs his hand through his graying hair to shake off the water.

“It rains a lot here,” he mutters as he starts the engine and buckles his seatbelt. You do the same. “Not sure I like this humidity.”

“Where were you living before?”

“Los Angeles.”

Your eyebrows rise. You can’t picture him with the stereotypical California vibe. It doesn’t fit.

So you ask the million-dollar question:

“What did you do there?”

The sound of the windshield wipers is your only response for a few seconds. Long enough for you to wonder if you crossed a line.

“A bit of everything,” he finally says, and you understand that he doesn’t want to talk about it. Yeah. You were being nosy.

Weird. Joel is weird, and everything about him makes you feel like you should think he’s an assassin, or a retired California mobster, anything that would kick your survival instincts into gear. You probably shouldn’t be sitting in a closed space with him like you’ve known him for years.

“Nothing illegal,” Joel adds when your silence starts to stretch.

That makes you laugh.

“Very reassuring.”

He smirks. At a red light, his fingers tap lightly on the leather steering wheel.

“How’s the thesis going?” he asks.

“Honestly? I haven’t opened the file since I got here.”

“Procrastinating?”

You hum in agreement, resting your head against the seat.

“I think I’m stuck.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“I need to watch some films to move forward.”

He freezes. Then he lets out a low chuckle. You defend yourself:

“I’m serious. I need to understand which narratives work best and why, and connect that to how they influence real-life behavior.”

“Makes sense,” Joel says.

“It does,” you reply, a little proud. You glance at him. The shape of his nose, the mustache, the gray-streaked beard. Then you add, “But it feels weird watching porn in my parents’ house, even if it’s for educational purposes.”

“Porn isn’t always for educational purposes?”

You gasp in horror.

“No!” you exclaim. “Porn is not educational. People don’t have sex like that in real life.”

“Hm…”

“You disagree?”

“I do,” he says plainly. “People do have sex like that.”

“I didn’t mean physically, Joel. Sex is easy: a good position, one thing inside the other, and done.” You catch yourself, because not all sex involves penetration, and something about Joel makes you think he wouldn’t mind sitting through a lecture on inclusivity if it came to that, but you add: “What I meant is that sex doesn’t happen like that. It’s not normal to open the door for the pizza guy and two seconds later be bent over the couch.”

“Says who?”

The frustrated growl that escapes you seems to amuse him. You know he’s teasing, and his grin proves it, but you can’t resist continuing.

“Not to mention the incest plots or the underage fantasies. Do you really think sex happens like that?”

His smile disappears instantly.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“No, I’m not. You can’t separate porn genres like some are less harmful than others, because even the ones that seem ‘harmless’ fuel the same industry that writes those sick scripts.”

“We’re here.”

He cuts you off with that simple phrase, and when you look out the window, you realize he’s right — you’re in front of your house. You turn your gaze back to him, and he meets it firmly, returning all the intensity you just threw his way.

You swallow and reach for your bags.

As if you hadn’t just delivered a monologue on the ethics of pornography, you simply say:

“Thanks for the ride.”

He doesn’t respond. You step out of the truck and walk to the door of your house, feeling like a kid who just got scolded, which is ridiculous. But even more ridiculous is the fact that Joel only drives away after he sees you walk safely inside, even though he literally lives next door.

You meet Sarah — Joel’s fifteen-year-old daughter — the next day.

After running along Mirror Lake Drive, you get home with your lungs burning and your body drenched in sweat, the elastic band of your pink sports bra stuck to your back. As you’re kicking off your sneakers at the door, you spot a pair of pink Converse, way smaller than anything anyone in your family would wear.

In the kitchen, there’s a skinny, unfamiliar girl sitting at the counter, two open books spread across the marble, her curly hair pulled up into two puffs.

She lifts her head, and her brown eyes hit you with a soft echo of familiarity.

“Hi,” you say, as if it’s totally normal to have a stranger in your house.

She waves back. Before you can ask “who are you?”, your mom walks into the kitchen and calls your name.

“This is Sarah, Joel’s daughter. Sarah, this is my daughter I was telling you about.”

Sarah gives you a shy little smile, and you smile back, a bit frozen by the fact that you’re standing face-to-face with Joel’s daughter. You’re not even sure why it freezes you.

“Joel had to spend the night out because he needed to go to New York, and he asked if Sarah could stay with us,” your mom explains.

“I’m old enough to stay alone, but my dad’s crazy,” Sarah chimes in, and you laugh.

You don’t think she’s old enough to stay alone, especially in a new town, but you don’t say that.

What you do say is:

“So, Sarah... what are you studying?”

Sarah needs help with her social studies homework, so after you shower and change into something comfortable, you sit down next to her and go over the assignments together. That’s when you realize she’s ridiculously smart and funny, slipping little jokes into the conversation, blending internet memes with historical facts, and talking to her turns out to be genuinely easy and fun.

Your mom serves dinner, you both eat, and then you settle onto the couch with your Kindles, each of you leaning against an end and your feet meeting in the middle of the cushions.

You’re in the third chapter of Ghost Radio when she calls you.

You peek over the top of your Kindle to let her know you’re listening.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“Twenty-six.”

She looks up at the ceiling as if doing mental math. Then, reaching some conclusion, she raises her eyebrows.

“Why?” you ask.

“No reason,” she shrugs, turning back to the book she was reading. Another question follows, this time without looking at you. “Are you dating anyone?”

“No. I ended my last relationship six months ago.”

“Was he older?”

“No,” you say with a laugh. “I mean, yes, but only by about three years. Why do you ask?”

Sarah wiggles her feet like she’s a little too excited about something.

“Just scientific curiosity,” she says, but her tone sounds more like a villain plotting something mischievous.

The next morning, Joel comes to pick her up at eight o’clock. You’re the one who opens the door since your parents left early to go to the farmers’ market to buy honey and vegetables.

He’s standing on the porch, wearing a thick leather jacket, jeans, and heavy boots. He looks exhausted, and the two-day beard growth makes him even more intimidating.

“Good morning,” you say.

Joel looks you up and down in your pajamas: heart-printed pants and a tank top. You realize too late that you’re not wearing a bra.

“Good morning,” he replies, lifting his eyes back to your face. “I’m here to get Sarah.”

“She’s finishing breakfast. Come in.”

Before he can protest, you turn on your heel and walk away, leaving him no choice but to step inside and follow you to the kitchen. You hear his slow, hesitant footsteps as he returns to the room filled with the smell of butter and coffee.

Sarah is sitting at the counter, devouring pancakes. Joel walks over, presses a kiss to the top of her head, and they exchange a few quiet words before he says something that makes her nod and hop down from the stool, leaving the kitchen.

You hear her going upstairs, probably to grab her things.

“How was the trip?” you ask, filling a mug with coffee and placing it in front of him on the marble.

Joel stares at the pink mug like it’s a threat but eventually wraps his big hands around it. You take a sip from your own cup and look at him over the rim, just the counter between you two.

“Good,” he says simply. He gestures toward the coffee. “Thanks. I needed that. Drove back and forth without stopping to rest.”

“Just thinking about it makes my back hurt.”

“I want my bed.”

You watch him over your cup, blowing on the surface of the coffee. You imagine him in the silence of his own house, in his bedroom, in his own bed. You wonder what color the walls are, what the sheets look like, and whether he sleeps clothed or not.

“Sarah’s really smart,” you say, pushing away the mental images.

That earns a small smile from him.

“She’s fantastic, my girl. But she’s cocky, so don’t tell her that.”

“She takes after someone.”

“I’m not cocky.”

“I’m joking,” you say lightly, offering peace because you don’t want to relive the animosity from the last time you saw him. “Is the coffee good?”

“Very.”

“Want to take some pancakes? Bet you’re hungry. I’ve eaten, Sarah’s eaten, and my parents always grab breakfast out when they leave early.”

Joel drums his fingers against the ceramic, looking like he’s fighting an internal battle, as if accepting food from you would be a terrible crime. Still, you take his silence as a yes and start stacking the remaining pancakes into a thermal container.

When you’re done, you walk around the counter and hand him the container with both hands.

“Here.”

Joel takes it with his left hand. With his right, he reaches out and gently pinches your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says quietly, and you freeze.

He walks past you, saying something to Sarah, who apparently has come back downstairs. Feeling a warm flutter deep in your belly, you turn and follow them to the living room. You hug Sarah goodbye, promise to send her books for her Kindle, and then walk them to the door.

You smile when Joel thanks you for looking after Sarah and asks you to pass his thanks to your parents as well.

You watch them cross the lawn between your gardens, and just before Joel enters his house, he turns to look back at you.

You could swear he deliberately and slowly sweeps his gaze over your body—from your feet to your head.

And then he goes inside.

And you have to mechanically force yourself to close the door.

That same night, you start watching the films.

As you work through your research, you put together a report listing the names of the ten most famous stars from each decade between 1970 and 2020, five male, five female.

You already have a pretty clear idea of what defined the main point of pornography in the ’70s: the start of structured scripts and absurd, fantastical narratives that, one way or another, tied a woman’s pleasure directly to a man’s. Like in Deep Throat, where they came up with a story about a woman whose clitoris is located at the back of her throat. You can already guess what the most "effective" method of stimulation would be.

Porno chic was created to make adult content more palatable to the general public, especially as debates about the legality and morality of filming started to gain traction during that decade.

Sitting on your bed with your laptop open in front of you and your tablet resting on your lap for notes, you watch the films at 1.5x speed while eating green grapes.

You knew you might get aroused watching them, because dopamine responses are inevitable, but apparently there's nothing about '70s pornography that even remotely stirs your body. It feels like you're watching a National Geographic documentary.

You can't push away what Linda Lovelace wrote in her autobiography about the most famous film of that time, the one that made millions of dollars: There was a gun pointed at my head the entire time, she said.

You swallow hard and return to your notes.

By the end of the first week of this stage of your thesis, you finish watching the films from the '90s. You note the radical shift in the female body ideal — all the actresses with breast implants — and the peculiar aesthetic of VHS tapes, since this was the era when films started being widely distributed in that format.

What stands out most, though, is the shift in perspective. Gonzo-style pornography centers the camera exclusively on the man, making him the sole focus, and by extension, reducing women to mere tools for male pleasure. The camera's focus on women's bodies is restricted almost entirely to their genitals, which explains a lot about the birth of violent pornography during that time.

If women exist solely for male pleasure, then it’s no problem if they’re violated, right?

And just like that, the normalization of male domination in pornography begins, which, of course, spills over into social behavior.

You shut the laptop in front of you and lie down on the bed, closing your eyes. You doubt even a sixteen-year-old boy has seen as much porn as you have in the past few days, and there’s still so much left to do.

You reach for your tablet and pull up the list of male stars from the 2000s.

Tyler Cross, Javier Peña, Max Thunder, Ryder Grey, and Clint Fury.

Is there someone in the industry whose only job is coming up with these ridiculous pseudonyms?

You get up, leaving everything behind, and head toward the kitchen to find something to eat. It's already past eleven at night, your parents are asleep, and the only light in the living room comes from the lamp. On tiptoe, you’re halfway to the kitchen when the doorbell rings.

You freeze like you're in the middle of a crime scene.

A doorbell ringing at eleven at night in Lake Placid? Something must be on fire.

When you open the door, it’s Joel standing there on your parents' porch, looking anxious.

“Hi,” he says. Another meeting where you're in pajamas and he's fully dressed. “It's dangerous to open the door in the middle of the night like that.”

“Great way to start a conversation. I'm calculating how many seconds it'll take me to get to the kitchen and grab a knife.”

You get a somewhat tense smile.

“I’m still not used to these small-town habits.”

“I get it. I would never open the door for anyone after eight p.m. in New York, but here it’s normal.”

He nods, then asks,

“Were you sleeping?”

You wrap your arms around yourself as a cold breeze sweeps by.

“No, I was studying. Is everything okay?”

“I need a favor,” he says bluntly. “Sarah’s asleep, and I have to head back to New York. Can you stay at the house tonight?”

“Is everything okay?” you repeat.

“My brother’s wife just went into labor. He asked me to be there. I should be back tomorrow night.”

Your eyes widen, and Joel nods as if to say, “Exactly, got it?” You hold up a finger to ask for a minute, then run upstairs to grab your slippers, your robe, and your phone. When you come back, Joel is still on a call but waits patiently until you close the door before leading you to his house.

He lets you step inside first, and even with the urgency of the situation, it feels a little like you’re a twenty-year-old girl walking into a guy’s house for the first time, especially when Joel shuts the door behind you, finishing up his call.

The house is warm, clearly lived in by a family. There’s a big rug in the living room, a brown leather couch, and pictures of Sarah hanging in the hallway: lifting a soccer trophy, carrying a skateboard, the two of them at the beach. A line of photos shows her growing up, from a baby all the way to now.

The last photo is of her at Jewtraw Park, right here in Lake Placid.

“You can sleep in my room if you want. If that’s too weird, the couch is really good too. I left some blankets and a pillow right there,” he says, pointing to the armchair. Then he adds, “Everything’s clean. The guest rooms aren’t ready yet.”

You roll your eyes.

“I know, Miller. Relax. I’ll manage.”

“Okay. Give me your number. I’ll text you so you have mine. And if you need anything, call me.”

You say your number, and he types it into his old, barely-hanging-on iPhone.

“Thanks,” Joel says, genuine. “Really.”

You smile and give his arm a quick rub without even thinking about it.

“No problem. Just let me know if you need anything.”

After showing you where Sarah’s room is, where the extra blankets are, and telling you about ten times you can eat whatever you want, he leaves. You quickly text your mom, explaining the situation and letting her know you’re staying at Joel’s, then settle down on the couch.

Little signs of Joel are scattered around the house. The reading glasses forgotten on the coffee table, the suede jacket hanging by the door, the boots by the entryway, the faint smell of the same lotion you caught on him at the store.

You feel a little like a criminal as you get up and start quietly wandering through the rooms.

The kitchen is beautiful and organized, but there are a few dishes left in the sink. Since you’re still awake, you start washing them.

You move on to the dining room, all wood furniture and a classic chandelier, and then to a small office off to the side. It feels almost too empty except for the bookshelves. Just a desk with a laptop sitting on it, making you think it doesn’t get much use.

You head upstairs.

Sarah’s door is closed, but you walk softly down the carpeted hallway to the room at the end.

You push the door open, heart pounding like you’re about to find a monster—or Joel sitting on the bed saying, “Snooping where you shouldn’t be?”

Instead, you find a huge bed neatly made with gray sheets, dark curtains, and matching desks on either side. There’s a closet and a door leading, you assume, to a bathroom.

It’s empty in the way you’d expect a fifty-year-old man’s bedroom to be.

You almost give in and crawl into his bed but force yourself back downstairs, turn off the main lights, and curl up on the couch, which really is pretty comfortable.

It takes a while to fall asleep in a strange house, but when you finally do, your dreams are filled with gray beards and gray sheets.

You wake in the middle of the night to the ping of your phone. You rub your eyes, still dazed from sleep, and grab the phone from the pillow beside you.

4:47 a.m.

It’s a text from an unknown number:

“Hi. Joel here. Sorry for the hour, I hope you’re sleeping. I just got to New York. Please let me know when Sarah wakes up. I’ll need to call her.”

A sleepy smile tugs at your lips at how formally he writes, no abbreviations at all. You save his contact as Miller.

You type back:

“hey. don’t worry. I’ll let you know. everything ok over there?”

“Why are you awake?”

You don’t tell him it was his text that woke you.

“New place… light sleeper.”

“I see.”

An “I see” with a period and everything. Then another message:

“Yes, everything’s fine. I’m in the waiting room, and Tommy’s with his wife. She’s been in labor for seven hours.”

You type: “ouch. hoping all goes well. lmk if u need sth”

“What kind of vocabulary is that?”

“don’t you have bigger things to worry about, grumpy?”

The impossible happens: Joel Miller sends you a smiling emoji.

You reply with one sticking its tongue out.

His next message comes in text again:

“Tell me about your thesis.

“you’re really curious about it.”

“It’s an interesting topic.”

“sure… men and their obsession with porn.”

“I’m not obsessed with porn. I don’t even remember the last time I watched it.”

Your fingers freeze over the keyboard—it sounds way too intimate.

You type back:

“last time I watched was this afternoon.”

You get a single question mark in response: “?”

You clarify:

“for my thesis. I’m at the stage where I have to watch films.”

“Oh. How are you doing that?”

“picking stars from each decade and watching two movies for each. starting with the 2000s tomorrow.”

Joel reads your message but doesn’t reply right away, which is odd. He had been responding immediately. You wonder if something’s happened at the hospital, if everything’s okay with his sister-in-law.

You stare at the screen until it goes black. Three minutes later, his reply pops up:

“Who are the stars from the 2000s?”

“looking for suggestions?”

“No.”

You open your report from iCloud and copy the list of male and female stars from the 2000s. You send it over.

He reads it. Another little pause.

“I see.”

Then another question:

“And how are you watching? Like a documentary?”

“yeah, pretty much. I put on the films, watch them critically, and take notes.”

“And they don’t affect you?”

“in what way?”

He reads the message but doesn’t answer. After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, you take a deep breath and type courageously:

“are you asking if I get turned on?”

Again, no response.

Still, you type back:

“i do. it’s inevitable and natural. but only starting with the '90s films. the ones from the '70s and '80s were way too gross for that.”

This time, a reply comes.

“Gross?”

“yeah. the men were really disgusting. it’s obvious they had no idea how to have sex to actually please a woman.”

“I see.”

You picture Joel Miller, tall and broad-shouldered, sitting in a sterile hospital hallway, texting you about porn while waiting for his nephew to be born.

The thought makes you smile to yourself. You burrow deeper under the blanket and decide to be a little bolder.

“do you have a favorite genre of those movies?”

“To watch?”

You frown. What else would it be for?

“yeah”

“I don’t watch them.”

“okay, but if you were going to watch one today, what type would you choose? one with a storyline, straight to the point… what? help me out for the research.”

You almost chew on your lower lip as you watch the little “typing” bubble appear and disappear three times. Finally, he sends a simple response:

“No storyline, not a lot of talking. Something filmed in the morning, in bed, right after waking up.”

“morning sex?”

“Yes.”

Before you can stop yourself, your mind fills with images of Joel’s bed, the same gray sheets now rumpled and tossed aside. The cold morning light pouring through the window, the scent of him still on the fabric, the warmth of sleepy skin, the scratch of his beard against the sensitive part of your neck.

A big hand adjusting and lifting your leg into the right position, low, sleepy moans filling the space.

You snap your eyes open wide.

“got it,” you type back, heart racing.

“Do you have a favorite genre?”

“i hate porn,” you reply.

“Okay. But if you were going to watch one today, what would you pick?”

He’s throwing your own question back at you, meaning you can’t dodge it.

You type the whole answer at once but hesitate a dozen times before finally pressing send, knowing Joel will understand exactly what you mean and exactly what you like. It’s probably not right to tell your parents’ neighbor, who’s at least twenty years older, but you don’t take it back.

“in the car. an age gap where he looks a little older than her, slightly graying, and he’s desperate for her, desperate to do things to her in the backseat.”

“Things?”

“you know what I mean.”

“Say it clearly.”

“desperate to go down on her.”

And again, he responds:

“I see.”

Your cheeks burning, you turn off your phone screen.

But another message buzzes through:

“Good choice.”

You cross your legs and lock your phone again.

The next time you wake up, it’s to Sarah poking your cheek with an insistent little finger. She’s standing over you by the couch, looking at you like you’re a science experiment.

The sunlight pouring through the living room windows makes you wonder if it’s already past ten.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, still poking your cheek.

Yawning, you answer,

“You’re about to have a baby cousin.”

Sarah squeals.

Joel calls her twenty minutes later, right after you text him—carefully avoiding rereading the messages you sent each other during the night—that she’s awake.

Afterward, you eat breakfast together, and Sarah gets ready for school, where she’ll stay until six in the evening. You wait until the bus picks her up before going back to your house, crawling into bed, and sleeping a little more.

When you wake up again, it’s time to log onto a video call with your boss, even though you’re technically on vacation.

You help your mom with some work in the garden, bake muffins, and by late afternoon, you lock the door to your bedroom, find a cozy spot in bed and open your laptop again.

2000s.

Now all the actresses definitely have implants, bleached hair, heavy makeup, thin eyebrows, and elaborate hairstyles: exactly the fantasy for any guy with a DVD player and one hand free.

But it’s also the beginning of the internet era, meaning access to all of it is even easier than it ever was with VHS tapes.

Roleplay everywhere. Boss and secretary, student and teacher, best friend's mom, best friend's dad. A fantasy world that definitely fried a lot of men’s brain circuits.

You start with the male stars.

First up is Tyler Cross. He's a tall actor with spiky, gelled hair, a tribal tattoo on his left bicep, and a defined six-pack.

You watch a POV movie, new at the time, and another where he plays the older brother’s best friend. It’s set in a girl’s pink-walled bedroom, teddy bears thrown to the side, and it’s all absolutely disgusting.

You glance at the clock after finishing Tyler Cross’s films. 5:55 p.m. You figure you’ve got about fifteen minutes before Sarah gets home, so you decide to at least start Javier Peña’s movies.

You type his name into the search bar.

The results flood in. One of the first titles you see: No Overtime for the Babysitter: Daddy Comes Home Early!

You roll your eyes. Great, now they’re coming for babysitters’ labor rights too.

You click the movie. It takes a moment to load.

The cover stares back at you while the loading icon spins.

The actress is gorgeous, with breasts you immediately envy and long black hair. Her lips, glossy and slightly open, look like she’s mid-moan. She’s one of the first actresses you’ve seen who isn’t drowning under a pound of makeup.

The scene starts with her dusting some furniture in the living room.

She’s wearing a mini-skirt and a light blue crop top made of thin fabric that shows her stomach. Definitely very appropriate attire for her job.

The sound of a door unlocking fills the room, and then it swings open.

The actress sighs:

“Oh! Mr. Peña! You’re home early!”

The camera pans to Mr. Peña. You blink at the screen.

Javier Peña has that classic '80s kind of handsomeness. He’s tall, lean but broad-shouldered, his dark hair messy in a way that somehow suits him. The thick mustache above his tight lips and the long sideburns give him the look of an old-school movie star, and you have to double-check the release date of the film. 2002.

He’s wearing a button-down shirt and a loose tie, his gray blazer slung over his left shoulder. But it’s his brown eyes that catch you — because they’re familiar. It feels like you know them.

“The meeting was canceled,” Peña says, tossing the blazer onto the couch. “My daughter’s asleep? You can go now.”

The gasp that escapes your mouth is quickly muffled by your hand when Javier Peña’s voice fills your ears through the headphones, because you immediately realize where you know it from.

The voice is a little softer, younger, with more of an accent — but it’s the same voice.

Joel Miller’s voice.

“She is,” the actress says sweetly, crossing the room. Javier looks her up and down — from her bubblegum-pink painted toes to the way her chest strains against her top. “Are you sure, Mr. Peña? You seem really stressed out. Can’t I help you with something?”

You freeze where you are, heart hammering against your ribs. Holy shit.

“Help how?” Javier asks, raising an eyebrow, pretending to be disinterested.

She smiles, grabs his hand, and leads him to the couch, urging him to sit.

You’re almost ready for her to drop to her knees in front of him, because that would be the obvious next step, but that’s not what happens. The actress — Mila, her name — circles behind the couch, leaning over him to start unbuttoning his shirt.

“You’re so tense, Mr. Peña,” she says, pouting as she undoes each button. “Taking care of the house by yourself, your daughter…”

The shirt falls open, revealing a firm, broad chest.

“So responsible… No one to help you out…” She leans in and whispers against his ear: “No one to suck your cock.”

The shocked laugh that bursts out of you is immediately covered by your hand again.

Javier’s shirt falls completely open, and he takes Mila’s hand, guiding it straight to his pants, her long red nails vivid against the gray fabric.

“I’ve got you for that.”

“Mmm…” the actress moans, massaging him through the fabric. She runs her hands back up his shoulders. “That’s right. You do.”

She moves to kneel in front of him, but Javier clicks his tongue and says:

“Take off your clothes.”

You feel a pulse low in your stomach. The actress smiles and obeys.

Once she’s fully naked, she starts to kneel again, and Javier spreads his legs wider, tossing his shirt aside.

She massages him through his pants for a few more seconds before tugging the zipper down and pulling his pants down with both hands. He’s not wearing underwear, of course he isn’t, and suddenly, you’re staring straight at Joel Miller’s cock.

Large, hard, slightly veiny, every inch of it.

Javier shifts on the couch, gathers all of Mila’s soft hair into one hand, and with the other, guides himself to her mouth, and—

Someone knocks on your bedroom door and you nearly slap the laptop closed.

“Honey, I think Sarah’s getting home from school. Aren’t you going to greet her?” your mom asks.

“I am,” you say, but your voice comes out too soft. You clear your throat and try again: “I’m going, Mom. Just a second.”

“Okay!”

Your mom leaves you sitting there, staring at the wall with wide eyes and a racing heart, so much slick between your legs you have to stand up, clean yourself, and change panties before going downstairs to greet Sarah.

She gets home, you both go into Joel’s house, you make her a sandwich, and she heads upstairs to shower. You stay on autopilot, your head still completely full of Javier Peña... and Joel Miller.

Holy shit.

The man was a porn actor.

And apparently, a very successful one, because you distinctly remember seeing that his films topped the charts for years. Is he still doing it?

You rub your eyes and fight the urge to shove your fist in your mouth and scream.

The irony is almost too much. Fate is throwing a former porn star into your lap when it knows all too well the thesis you’re writing, and all your hatred for the industry.

You order pizza for you and Sarah. You eat while watching a cheesy teenage romance movie that keeps her glued to the TV. When she’s yawning hard, you ask if she has any homework (she doesn’t) and send her off to brush her teeth and get into bed.

She hugs you goodnight and heads upstairs. You hear her brushing her teeth, then the door to her room closing.

You take a deep breath. Pull your phone out of your pocket. You type in the search bar: Javier Peña. The image results flood the screen.

Joel Miller in a thousand different styles. At industry parties in clothes that scream early 2000s, at photoshoots with other actresses, even holding up a trophy that reads—

You lean in closer to make sure you’re not misreading it.

Longest Orgasm of 2006.

Wow. Congratulations.

The Google summary confirms it: Joel Miller, born in 1981 in Arlington, Texas, to Chilean parents. Porn actor, best known as Javier Peña. Joel Miller became an advocate for porn actresses’ rights, one of the main reasons he left the industry in 2010.

One of his last public appearances as Javier Peña was in 2016, co-hosting an adult film awards show alongside Tess Servopoulos, his former career agent. Since then, very little is known about Joel Miller, though several producers have tried to lure him back with massive paychecks, even for solo work.

You hear the key turning in the lock.

You lock your phone at record speed and sit up straight on the couch, eyes wide open. Joel will probably think that you’ve been doing cocaine on his coffee table.

He walks in, shrugging out of his coat, and looks at you.

“Hey,” he says, kicking off his boots. “Everything okay?”

You nod, then try to use words:

“Hey. Yeah.”

Joel gives you a strange look, glancing up the stairs.

“Sarah’s asleep?”

You nod again.

Oh, Mr. Peña. You must be so tired. Can I help you? My God. You’re the babysitter working overtime.

“Are you really okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Um… I…” you rub your hands over your thighs. “I’m just tired. That’s all. Is everything okay with your sister-in-law?”

“She’s fine. I’ve got a nephew now,” Joel murmurs, collapsing onto the couch across from you, legs spread, hands over his eyes. “And he’s so small. I almost didn’t have the nerve to hold him. I don’t even remember Sarah being that tiny.”

“Ha ha.”

At your awkward laugh, Joel drops his hands and studies you carefully, narrowing his eyes. He watches you for a moment, like he’s seeing right through you.

Joel says,

“You found out who Javier Peña is.”

You freeze, hands clenched in your lap. Joel rubs his temple with a heavy sigh and sits up straighter.

“Which one did you watch?”

You swallow hard.

“The babysitter one.”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific than that, sweetheart.”

“The film’s from 2002. I think the actress’s name was Mila? She was trying to comfort you about being a single dad.”

Joel raises both eyebrows.

“I know the one,” he says with a dry, humorless laugh. “Right. Here it is. I was Javier Peña for ten years. I guess I still am, when the paycheck’s good enough. I made porn movies. They’re out there.”

“Still are?”

“Not for films. Just for appearances or special gigs at awards shows.”

“Oh.”

He says your name firmly.

“That industry — it’s your thesis. You know those actors and actresses are real people. I’m one of them. Are you going to stop treating me like a normal person now?”

“It’s weird,” you say softly. “Sorry, Joel, but it’s weird seeing you like… that… and then coming here and seeing you being Sarah’s dad, being… Joel Miller.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not,” he sighs, collapsing back onto the couch. “I’m way too tired to be mad, honestly. We can talk more about it later if you want. I’ll even help you with your thesis if you need. But not tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for staying with Sarah, seriously,” he says, shifting back into Dad mode. “Let me pay you.”

“No way,” you say quickly.

He opens his mouth to argue, but you cut him off:

“You said you’d help me with my thesis, right?”

He just looks at you. You explain,

“I’ll take that as payment.”

Slowly, he nods. And just like that, you have a deal.

That night, you head upstairs again and lock the door.

You open your laptop, type Javier Peña into the search bar, and scroll through the films. One title catches your eye: Neighbors: The Lust Lives Next Door.

The irony.

The title is ridiculous, sure, but the movie isn’t. He’s the married woman’s neighbor, and when her husband goes out of town, Javier shows up at the door asking if everything’s alright because he heard a noise and got worried.

He’s wearing tight jeans and a short-sleeve, light pink button-down shirt.

They head upstairs to check the bedroom.

She sits at the edge of the bed while Javier kneels down to look under it, but when he straightens up again, he sees the actress isn’t wearing any panties. Of course.

Two minutes later, Javier spreads her legs and goes down on her for a good while, his dark eyes locked on hers. And you could swear the moans are real. Either that, or she’s a damn good actress.

It’s when Javier starts whispering in her ear — loud enough to be picked up by the mic, but low enough to sound private — that your own fingers hover at the waistband of your pajama shorts.

He grips her thigh firmly, legs wide open, about to sink into her, both of them watching where they meet.

“Like this?” Javier asks.

She nods.

He licks his fingers and touches her clit. Her left leg trembles slightly.

“Sensitive? You’re not gonna come again for me?”

You swallow your shame and remind yourself that no one will ever know about this.

You slip your hand into your panties.

You close your eyes, listen to Javier whispering filthy things into the actress’s ear, and feel your pulse thudding in your ears and the slickness between your fingers.

[imnez-daydreams]

the art of noticing

pairing : benjamin poindexter x reader

warnings : extremely suggestive below read more, not outright explicit in detail (cause im not talented enough for full on smut lol) but just to be safe, don't read if below 18 !! quite a few religious themes/imagery too.

a/n : hii ! i've never written fanfiction before let alone anything spicy but the dex brainrot was too strong so please bear with me. special thank you to @kyamiia for inspiring me and letting me expand on the idea based on this, and to @babyangeldex for being THE sweetest ever with her encouragement, especially on me wanting to write for the first time !! credits for the header images goes to @bullseyelover, THE no1 bullseye fan hi i love you !! hope you enjoy fellow dex lovers <3

dex notices things.

it started even before you guys got together.

dex's eye for details only intensifies when he crawls his way into your heart. your home. your shared home. it was one thing being able to look through the glass of your apartment window, studying your routine. timing his sips perfectly to yours, anticipating that look of bliss when the coffee hit just right. pretending that faraway look and smile out the window was directed to him, reserved for him.

now though, dex doesn't have to be delusional anymore. there's no need to time his drinking with yours because he is making your coffee and spending the mornings with you. he knows just how you like it. he's memorised all your morning routine steps, catalogued every small tick in your face when you eat your breakfast, has your glossy eyes from watching your favourite romcom seared into his brain. he knows how to see that satisfied and "on cloud 9" face. how to be the reason for that pleasure.

when you laugh at dex's poor attempt of a joke, really laugh with your eyes crinkling in the corner, he thinks his heart stops. he thinks this is it. the sound of an angel come to gently lead him towards the afterlife, with the way your laughter wraps around his body like the soft embrace of an angel's wings.

so it makes perfect sense for dex's penchant for noticing to seep into your shared bedroom too. he needs to remember everything, he needs to file away every little sound, every facial expression. keeps it in the folders of his mind, locked away for nobody else to see. only unlocking these memories when he's hard at work, away from his angel. clings to the image of you, the sound of you like a lifeline. counts the seconds down to when he can finally lock up his place of worship again because you're back in his arms. but its not just for himself, to keep his hunger satiated. its for you too. so he can replay your reactions to everything he does and says. analyse what made you feel good. what can make you feel even better. let you float up to the same high he gets from watching you, being with you. don't worry, he'll be there to catch you in his protective embrace when you land back down.

the first time he sunk to his knees for you, he never took his eyes away from you. couldn't bear to, not when your face was so beautifully contorted in pleasure, pleasure he was giving to you. the rising pitch of your voice, the up and down movement of your chest, the low tilt of your eyes to keep that eye contact with him going. when you absentmindedly reach for dex's hair, tugging the short hairs at the back while begging with that sweet saccharine voice of yours,

"pl- please dex, i can't anymore. i need, ohmygod, i need it please, i need you dex"

it takes every. single. cell. in dex's body to not roll his eyes to the back of his skull and finish in his pants then and there. his years of military training, experience as FBI-SWAT all lead up to this moment. to practice that honed skill of restraint. he can't let go until you have, until you've reached that peak. when you do, you collapse backwards with a heaving chest. dex unclenches his bruising (posessive) grip on you, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. not to waste a single drop, he licks his hand clean while slowly standing back up from his place of worship.

the sight that greets dex has him believing in God.

your hair is tousled just above your head like a halo.

your eyes that look up at him are completely glossed over, a single tear slowly cascading down the right side of your face.

your smile, oh, your sweet loving smile. directed at him, only him as if he was the answers to your prayers.

those aren't what drives dex over the edge though, oh no.

its you.

you looking like the epitome of an angel.

slowly hiking up your legs, opening them up shyly.

"more? please, dex?"

if this is how dex dies, he believes its worth it.

a/n : thank you so much if you've read to the end <3 !! this is very very beginner so pretty please be nice if you reblog with comments/ramblings, though i'd still appreciate any kind of support with likes/reblogs/comments hehe. (also yes i wrote this on my phone on drafts, and nearly got a heart attack when the draft vanished and accidentally uploaded before i was done so if you saw ... no you didnt)

[requiem-for-a-raisin]

Jude Jazza - The Abstinent Beast Devours Love

*Fan translation for funsies! IP owned by Cybird, translations are my own and may be inaccurate. 18+ MDNI. See About page for more info.*

:readmore:

The products we handled at Raven became very popular, and we were very busy traveling here and there.

When things finally settled down, I found myself on the bed with him holding me from behind.

But…

(This is no good, this is just not enough Jude for me...)

Maybe it's because I haven't had any contact with him in two weeks, but I can't control my desire and I fidget on the bed.

Jude

“What the hell are ya doing?”

Neema

"Um...”

(I'm sure I'll get teased if I say there isn’t enough Jude…)

I don't want to be teased, but I want to do it. I started thinking about how to set the mood.

Neema

"Jude-"

Jude

"Huh?...Hmm..."

She turned her body around and captured his lips, carrying out her plan to get him in the mood. Her kisses, pecking at him like a little bird, gradually deepened, and she clung to his neck as her tongue met his.

But Jude pulled his lips away.

Jude

"Go to sleep."

Neema

"Huh?"

He pulled the cushion closer and got into a sleeping position.

(…If it comes to this,)

I straddle him as he lies down and shower him with kisses. Then I grabbed his right hand and bit his long fingers sweetly. Jude's eyes widened as he exhaled in annoyance.

Jude

“Do ya really wanna?"

I kiss his fingers and reply.

Neema

“Yes, I do."

Jude

“…I’ve got yer word on that.”

Neema

“Hmm? Whoa!”

A moment later, my vision flips and I am pushed down by him.

Jude

“Ya’ve been sleeping like a baby every night.”

Jude

Just when I thought I had finally settled down, ya come up to me with a dirty look on yer face and ask me out. It really pisses me off.

He bit me on the neck, and my body trembled with a pain stronger than usual.　

I was staring into his feverish eyes, and I almost got scared even though I had invited him to do it.

(When Jude stares at me with those eyes, it is usually when he is going to do something terrible to me...)　

As I had expected, my clothes are torn off in an instant and he twisted the tips of my breasts before I had time to resist.

Neema

"Hiiah."

As I writhed in pain and pleasure, one of his hands reached between my legs, covering the area that was starting to get wet, and began to poke the area just above with his thumb.

Neema

"Ah, wait!”

Jude

"I ain’t gonna wait."

He rubbed hard, and his index finger was buried in the nectar that was overflowing from inside.

I was in a daze from the ecstasy I hadn't felt in a long time, but the attack that followed was much more intimidating than usual.

Neema

"Oh, Jude!”

I'm being stirred and crushed, and I feel like I'm going to explode with pleasure. But, his movements are stopped so many times just before I reach my peak, and I feel an unbearable ache.

Neema

"Why..."

Jude

"Why? Ain’t it obvious?”

As I unconsciously shook my hips and rubbed him against my sweet spot, Jude pulled out his finger and replaced it with something hot.

Jude

"Gonna make you cum right here!"

Neema

"Ahhh!"

In an instant, a shock like a bolt of lightning ran through me from my toes to the top of my head.

With just one thrust, everything went white before my eyes, and he moved his hips violently, not caring that I was already convulsing around him.

Neema

“Wait, wait, ahh!”

The sound of his thrusting was too rough, but my body was delighted for the first time so long that I accepted it.

(It wasn't supposed to be like this…)

I was just supposed to spend a sweet and happy evening with him, but this made me feel like an animal.

The moment he stopped moving and his heat was removed from inside me, I tried to escape to the top of the bed, but he quickly filled me again and I collapsed onto the sheets.

Neema

“Ahh!”

Jude

“Whatcha running away for? Ya asked me for this yerself."　

I turned around fearfully at the voice that came from above. Jude bit my shoulder with a twisted smile.

Jude

"Brace yerself, princess."

That day, I was pawed, teased, and tortured by a beast with amethyst eyes. I was devoured completely, body and soul.

[turtleshelf]

I need more fics about the batkids school lives and from the perspective of their teachers and I need them now. Fuck it, put some of them on IEPs, I think that shit would be so good.

Give me Damian where when putting him in school, Dick and Babs have to fudge some (not completely inaccurate) diagnosis' to get him put on an IEP and in the behavior classroom so he can have social skills education literally built into his day. So that he has a small classroom setting of other kids with their own problems so he doesn't feel so singled out by his own like he would in gen ed classes. Him slowly integrating into not just American society but also into interacting with kids his own age with the safety net of the behavior classroom and teachers that are literally designed and trained for kids who lose their composure and lash out to fall back on. He's disliked or written off by most teachers as a behavior case, but there's are a few who hold a soft spot for him, he likes to gift them art.

Give me Jason on an IEP because of how much school he missed when he was homeless, being given the tools and resources to catch back up to where he should be. Show him being quiet and keeping his head down trying to catch up. The first time he gets in a fight he was defending a younger student, he cries in the office afterwards, and privately none of the staff can really blame him even if they do have to follow through with a consequence for the fight. Show him reserved and jumpy when health class moves into their unit about drugs, he comes in with Bruce the next day to talk to the principal and is excused to the office with a alternative assignments until they move onto their next unit. Teachers tend to like him, and they're always a little surprise when he gets into fights.

Give me Dick in an ELL (English Learn Language, program for students learning English) program that allows him to slow down and get a grip on the basics of the English language. Give him accommodations that translate his assignments into a language he already knows, so he doesn't have to spend hours attempting to translate his homework and then translate his answers. Show him being reserved at first, then popular and smiley and kind until something ignites his short fuse. Show his growth of the short fuse getting longer as he gets better control of his emotions and learns time and place. Teachers don't know what to make of him, sometimes it's like he's a completely different person day to day. He's got this little troublemaker smile that tilts dangerously on his lips before a fight, his teachers think he's either going to run the world or destroy it one day.

Give me Steph whose school has to go on lock out because her father who doesn't have custody shows up and attempts to check her out for the day. Give her fidget toys and break passes. Show her spitefully doing assignments for teachers that don't like her so well that they have to give her an A: "Oh you think The Great Gatsby is the best book ever written? Here's my essay on why it's the worst book ever written and should stop being taught in schools." The arguments are sound, her writing is flawless, her sources are bulletproof. Most teachers don't have much of an opinion on her, she just another popular girl to them, but there are a few that are with her during the father debacle, who saw are angry and sad and scared, who hold a soft spot for her.

Give me Tim who keeps his head down and turns his work in late on crumpled and stained papers, but it's all flawless work. He shows up after three days absent with deep circles under his eyes and a shallow smile and explanations for his absence that are just sound enough that they can't poke any real holes in them, even if most don't believe him. He's friends with the rowdy, popular kids but he's always careful to keep just to the sidelines of their trouble so he never gets taken down with them in consequences. His teachers whisper about the disorganized genius who they hope gets himself together, because he could do great things.

Give me Duke who's snarky and quick thinking, but comes in some days quiet and with a far away look on his face. His best grades are in PE and it drives his teachers crazy because he's smart enough to honor roll if he ever put the effort into his work, it just doesn't seem to interest him. Give him accommodations that he can't be cold called on in class and never has to present presentations because he doesn't do well being the center of attention. He's always fidgeting and looking at the clock like he has somewhere better to be, he disappears to the library every lunch.

Give me Cass, who nobody can seem to really pin down. She's so startlingly unobtrusive that her teachers often forget she's there until she's standing right infront of their faces. She doesn't talk and from her writing it's clear that she's not familiar with English even if she can get by. The first time anyone hears her voice, Bruce picked her up from school early and she bounces over to him calling "Dad" before giving him a hug, the office staff feel a ripple of shock travel through them as they realize that it's not that she can't talk it's that she doesn't. She gets pulled out of classes for ASL tutoring, but not speech therapy which causes a few raised eyebrows after the revelation that she is capable of speaking. She looks at people with this intensity that makes them feel like she's looking straight through them and most teachers won't admit it, but it freaks them out.

Give me batkids with preferential seating accommodations so they never have to sit somewhere they feel exposed and unsafe. Give them early transition accommodations so they're not caught in the crowded halls during passing periods. Give them phone accommodations, so they always have a direct line to Bruce/Alfred/their siblings. Give them extended test taking accommodations, because once you've literally defused a bomb or raced across the city to stop a murderous meglomaniac doing things on a time constraint is just, not good.

For angst, give them teachers/subs who "don't believe in accommodations" and put end up putting the batkids in bad situations. Give them panic attacks when their accommodations are violated.

Give me teachers gossiping about the batkids and their odd quirks in the office or during their planning period. Give me first year teachers who flounder trying to figure those kids out and veteran teachers to just can't make heads or tails of them. Teachers marveling about how they can all be so alike while sharing absolutely no DNA. It becomes common knowledge that Bruce Wayne is a little less "Brucie" than he'd like the media to believe, but hell that's his business, and he seems to be doing alright by his kids. Give me haggard parents Bruce and Dick getting called to speak with the principal, or in IEP meetings, or at parent-teacher conferences.

Idk I just feel like this is a really untapped market we could be writing for here and I love outsider pov fics so much.

[traincat]

Do you have any favorite Peter Parker character designs? Older and newer? And any one that you'd just personally prefer for him?

Yeah, I feel like I've definitely developed like, a preferred Face for Peter built over various designs throughout the years. (The caterpillar eyebrows are very important to me.) The thing is, I also think, allowing for the wide variety of artistic styles he's been drawn in over the years, up until recently Peter had a pretty consistent design overall.

I really like how both Romitas draw him, for example, but for different reasons. John Romita Sr has a very romantic take on characters in general, which you know, makes sense, he drew for romance comics. It's his art style that really moved Peter away from Ditko's spikier characterization into a more romantic, mature leading man.

(ASM #66) Don't love how often he has blue eyes in this period (I am solidly Team Brown Eyes when it comes to Peter) but I do appreciate the evolution of his design, and I think Romita Sr is so foundational in that. (I like Ditko's design for him, too, the OG and all, but I think considering the evolution of Peter's character, this kind of forward movement with his design makes a lot of sense.) You can kind of see what I consider the hallmarks of Peter's face emerging here -- the thicker eyebrows, the more pronounced jaw, the one roguish curl of hair over his forehead. There's a personality that's developing here, and I like seeing how it evolves, especially because I think John Romita Jr is an artist who really especially brings it home.

(ASM #121-122) And I love how Gil Kane then kind of sharpens that design, especially when Peter is emotionally distressed. The way the prominent brows draw in, the tenseness of his expression, even the way that one forehead curl gets increasingly disheveled -- it's so good.

(ASM #141, #143, #146) Love Ross Andru's face for him, too, and the range of emotion he brings. I think Peter's not really a complete character until he's suffered three losses -- Uncle Ben, George Stacy, and Gwen Stacy. (And I don't think George and Gwen specifically have to be George and Gwen in non-616 continuities, necessarily, but rather people who occupy the roles that George and Gwen represent.) So I like that his features become more defined at this point, and I do always think of Peter as someone who has prominent features. I don't like when he's bland-looking, because I think that plays into the notion of him as a "relatable" hero not because he has relatable problems (the reader relates to his circumstances) but because he's Just Like You (he relates to the reader's circumstances). Having stronger, more defined facial features, rather than just being any guy with brown hair, helps drive home that he is an individual character with his own personality and traits.

I especially love both Sal Buscema and John Romita Jr's takes on him.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #180) I especially like how Buscema draws Peter's build, especially in regards to both Harry and Norman here. Harry is spindly, delicate, and Norman is broader, but Peter has a very athletic build that fits him as Spider-Man. I like him on the lankier side, but still obviously a guy who spends a ton of time doing acrobatics.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #199) I also really like how he draws Peter's resting bitchface. I tend to lean towards Peter kind of having a permanent scowl unless he's with someone he loves or around kids. The lines that man is going to have by 40. It's very lucky everyone he's attracted to is the kind of person to have a twelve step skincare routine and enough mental fortitude to put him through at least three of those.

But when he does smile, I think JRjr in particular nails it.

(Peter Parker #78)

(ASM v2 #55)

(ASM v2 #50) And I know this is about Peter, but the dimples he draws on MJ are so cute. But yeah, for me, when I think about what Peter's face looks like, I mean, first off, I think -- "Ordinary. Saddest face I ever saw. (...) He wants me to be okay, and he's giving me this." Because I'm obsessed with that summary of him from Spectacular Spider-Man v2 #14.

Because I think he should, on first glance, be a little ordinary -- and ordinary doesn't mean plain here, necessarily. He looks at home walking down a busy city block.But he should be a person you could pass on the street without everyone's heads turning. You might remember him in an hour. You might not. I do think he should be handsome, but not in a movie star way. So I like him with those distinctive features that are maybe not thought of as the most conventionally handsome -- big bushy brows, hair that's got a wavier texture, line between his brows before he's even twenty-three. I always write him with a big nose, because I like the schnoz on him, and I have a tendency to describe it as crooked because let's face it, he's gotten hit in the face a lot. A face with character.

But honestly there's a lot of Spider-Man art I like, and I think up until the last kind of decade and a half, a solid majority of artists on his titles have drawn him in a way I like, even if I don't click with their style. (I don't personally vibe with Ramos' art, for example, but you can't deny in the early 2000s he was drawing some brows on him.) So I think for me the big things are strong features, athletic and lanky build, and that his personality comes out in his face and his body language.

(ASM #509 & #510)

[hua-liansimp]

Thinking about how OG!SQQ would react if YQY actually formed a meaningful relationship with someone (other than him).

I'm thinking of someone who is or almost as influential as YQY, who can actually be a part of YQY's daily life. For example one of the other peak lords or someone from his own peak. Their relationship doesn't even have to appear romantic or start out that way (mostly because I believe YQY would just gently let down the person when he figures out their intentions), but strong friendship. Real friendship. Maybe they went on a mission together and they were drugged with truth serum and YQY ended up spilling all of his dirty secrets and feelings to this person, and now they have to be kept under close scrutiny (so they don't tell anyone about YQY's weakness). Except! Except they actually develop a relationship, a slow, genuine friendship through the months after (and when was the last time YQY actually opened up to someone? It feels... Strangely nice. YQY hasn't felt this light in years. His new friend is wrong about saying that YQY should tell SQQ what actually happened in the past, but it still feels nice to come clean). The other person doesn't give up on YQY, doesn't let him clam up and keep them out. (I think for this you really need someone who can actually bully YQY, but also someone YQY can feel like he can be useful to. Or perhaps even someone who reminds him of Xiao-Jiu? Someone who reminds him of one of the children from his own childhood?) Gradually, they start spending all of their time together, though it's almost always the other person who initiates it, not YQY. But he doesn't seem to mind it, not at all.

Their sect siblings and the disciples are watching - and behold, someone saw YQY laughing?! Genuine, inelegant, bark-like laughing?! YQY is seen hugged by this person, dragged around, manhandled, touched so freely as if he wasn't the Sect Leader?! YQY's smile sometimes turns strange when this person is around - were all of YQY's previous smiles fake?! You can't even run into YQY anymore without that other person present! They're like a pair of bonded cats! They're calling them the Twin Sect Leaders now!

The occasional visits to SQQ never stop, neither do the gifts, but SQQ is watching carefully. I don't think he would do anything at first, but it would hurt. He might think the other person is only trying to get close to YQY because he is the Sect Leader, maybe he thinks YQY is a naive idiot for letting them so close, but he is watching and he is wondering. Does YQY actually care for that person, instead of keeping them at arms-length like he seems to keep everyone? Is he being completely replaced? Scoff, it's a wonder it hasn't happened sooner.

Deep down, I think it might be hell for SQQ. Seeing someone occupy the space beside YQY that he used to occupy - Qi-ge seemingly has a new nearest and dearest, someone he can fully dote on again, someone he can devote all his time and annoying (fake) earnest sincerity to. He probably forgot about SQQ completely. Why would he even remember that dirty orphan who clung to him so pathetically? He has already left him in the dust once, so why does it feel like it is happening again? (I think SQQ might gradually work himself up enough to a) Leave the mountain b) kidnap YQY's new friend to make them come clear about their intentions or/and c) have a qi-deviation breakdown that almost kills him.)

Meanwhile YQY's new friend is trying to slowly push YQY into mending his broken relationship with SQQ or at least coming clean to him, for YQY's sake. Those idiots are clearly meant for each other.

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Too Like the Lightning, part of the Terra Ignota series, by Ada Palmer. I generally try to be a lot nicer about books written by living authors, on the off chance that they read what I'm saying. For example, I tried not to be very mean about the Baru Cormorant series, which I thought was pretty bad but had some strong points I could highlight, but I was perfectly willing to go in on Madame Bovary. All I can say is, I tried. You see, Too Like the Lightning is straight up terrible, and it is basically impossible to find anything nice to say about it at all.

Too Like the Lightning is an unbelievably stupid book. Now, I don't require total scientific fidelity from my science fiction, not unless the author signals I should. But I do think authors should be at least broadly aware of what laws they are breaking to get what they want, and Palmer very clearly isn't. Basically everyone has the predictive/prescient powers of Dune characters through mathematical oracles, despite this being provably impossible. Everyone travels in cheap supersonic private jets that probably also have VTOL capability, which are powered by Fucking Magic presumably, the author sure as hell doesn't seem to care. This wouldn't be as annoying if the book didn't spend so much time musing on the deep sociological effects of the FM-powered aircars, while entirely forgetting that evidently both Fucking Magic and oracles apparently exist and should probably affect society in some way also. There's also more minor points. At one point, the first of the aircars is analogized to the Nina and Pinta and Apollo XI, all of which were notable exploration vessels, not technical breakthroughs. The appropriate comparisons would be to something like the Kitty Hawk Flyer or Stephenson's Rocket or some of the Trevithick machines. Sure, it's a minor error, but for a novel this pretentious, all errors are serious. There is no appreciable narrative reason for this error either. If the book were edited, perhaps someone would have noticed.

The ideological and historiographical (more on this later) background is also just kind of dumb. The book is trying to make some tedious liberal points and also say that we need to have very serious discussions about like sexism and racism or whatever. What the content of these discussions is supposed to be is extremely unclear, and as far as I can tell simply the existence of them will basically fix things on its own because discussion is magic and leads to Truth and such, except, of course, when the narrative needs for it not to. Also destroying a book is kind of like killing a person, and other trite garbage. Anyway, where the book actually ends up is in my opinion quite far from the apparent intent, but unfortunately not in a very interesting way. Suffice to say, if I wanted to read kinda racist gender-normative rapey fiction with clockwork twists scattered around, where all the characters are secretly serial killers (notably Mycroft and the Saneer-Weeksbooths) because that makes them edgier or something I guess, I suspect I could still do a whole lot better than Too Like the Lightning, for example by reading self-insert Wattpad romance novels about pop stars, or werewolf erotica, or self-insert Wattpad erotica about werewolf pop stars. The incest is boring as hell and cowardly, too. It's a book that's trying to shock you, but the author doesn't know how to actually do that because, again, just not very good at writing at all. It doesn't help that the pacing is so horrible that none of the shocking twists actually land, especially since absolutely nothing keeps actually happening. Sure, Too Like the Lightning is the way it is for a reason, but so is the werewolf erotica, and helping other people jack off is a far more noble pursuit than jacking yourself off.

If the book is so stupid, why do a lot of fairly intelligent people seem to like it so much? Well, a lot of those people are Rationalists it seems (or close enough to it), and Rationalists have insanely bad taste in fiction for some reason. Actually Rationalists have insanely bad taste generally speaking but it's especially marked in fiction. And it's obvious why Rationalists would like the book, it treats intelligence as a comic book superpower the way they do, there's group homes and libertarianism and all sorts of other stuff they like. But there's a more fundamental feature that I think a certain kind of nerd loves about Too Like the Lightning. It's the omnipresent didactic tone, just like with Baru Cormorant, though here it's somehow even more obtrusive. Some people evidently like it when the author has a character read an encyclopedia entry for a paragraph or two for no particular reason, or pointedly make and then exhaustively explain a reference. I suspect it's because if they knew the reference, they feel like very clever students who read ahead, and if they didn't know the reference they feel like they are learning. I think it might be a form of high school nostalgia, the nerd version of student athletes unable to move on. Which is normal I suppose, I still think about doing amateur theater after all, but it does seem kind of embarrassing. To me, at least, the didactic tone always feels insulting regardless of if I knew the reference or not.

This insistence on transforming most of the characters into condescending lecture or encyclopedia entry delivery mechanisms understandably has serious consequences for the readability of the novel itself. It is impossible to believe that any of the supposed 10 billion people in the Hives that we barely ever see any actual traces of are actually persons in the eyes of the author or the narrative. Nor are most of the several dozen very important characters we do meet, to be fair. There is a single character, Eureka, who reaches the dizzying heights of "is an actual character" and she barely shows up. Thisbe is the only other one under consideration, but, eh, nah. Everyone else is functionally just a rhetorical device, because outside of the exposition most of the novel is poorly stylized as philosophical dialogue in Enlightenment style.

According to the Author's Note, Palmer sincerely wants to be participating in the Great Conversation. Now, this is a lost cause from the start. You cannot engage in a conversation by just parroting the words of others, and if you don't have any ideas of your own (and it is quite reasonable not to, there are so many people and so few ideas to be had), then a bare minimum would be the ability to rephrase or synthesize them. Now, maybe Palmer can do this, in lectures to students. Or maybe not, I have known instructors like that too (especially in history, lately). All I know is that Too Like the Lightning is no thoughts, all cliches. But if there were original ideas, the framing device would interfere anyway. You fundamentally cannot participate in a conversation while maintaining plausible deniability for everything by hiding behind your fictional characters, as Palmer does with Mycroft. Whenever I object to, well, more or less any feature of the novel, its fans can always say that actually I just haven't been paying enough attention to the unreliability of the narrator. This objection tends to be either false or irrelevant, but it's a pain in the ass to prove, and the only reason it is possible in the first place is that the author is actively refusing to stake out a position to be held to.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's out of cowardice. Palmer seems to have noticed that the tradition of the conte philosophique and the genres that take off of it includes a lot of different styles and narrative devices, and has ultimately decided to use most of them, invariably quite poorly. I've read conte philosophique, and it does not read like conte philosophique, sorry, the writing is all so painfully 21st century. Ironically, the one major device for philosophical stories I can think of that was not used, the travelogue, is the one I think is clearly most appropriate to the sort of worldbuilding-based speculative fiction Palmer is engaging in here, both from a practical and a historical perspective. The eclectic stylistic muddle makes the novel much longer without giving it any additional depth, the styles do not complement each other, and also the author very obviously does not have the skill required to pull any of it off. Authors, unless exceptionally competent, should pick at most one gimmick per work. Might not have helped here, but it's good practice either way.

One of the techniques that gets talked about with regards to the book is the unreliable narrator, probably because the device is referenced in the book right at the start. In fact, contrary to what people insist, it is not really present in the sense I would understand it, of a narrator styled as deliberately deceiving the audience in order to promote his own agenda. Since the narrator of Too Like the Lightning, like basically every other character in the novel, evidently only actually has an agenda or motive as an informed attribute, there is no way for the reader to reason their way to the implied meta-narrative of what "actually happened", because I'm pretty sure that meta-narrative doesn't actually exist. As far as I can tell, the only actual function of the extremely tedious and obtrusive in-universe narrator is to justify telling the exposition in a particular twist-preserving order, which, again, is not what the unreliable narrator is.

The novel really does consist almost exclusively of dry narration and loredumps. Nothing ever happens in this miserable 460 page slog. I really mean this, nothing actually happens and nobody really does anything except flit around irrelevantly at supersonic speeds. A bunch of characters talk to each other, or talk at each other, or read the encyclopedia at each other. But it turns out none of that actually matters, because enough of the characters are basically omniscient (except for all the stuff they can't know otherwise the story falls apart, even though there's no conceivable way they wouldn't know) that there is no appreciable difference between characters talking at each other and thinking at each other, which they also spend way too much time doing. None of the dialogue serves to develop the characters, because, as discussed earlier, there aren't any. None of the dialogue serves to establish the plot or stakes, because the plot gets retconned every other chapter with yet another tedious twist so there's no real point in following the intrigue, which I'm pretty sure consists mostly of plot holes by the end anyway. Worst of all, a consistent pattern in these retcons is that it becomes clearer and clearer that an alarming number of the conversations in this book are actually functionally just a guy talking to himself.

It kind of makes sense that the novel is more or less entirely people talking to each other (well that and poorly done metatextual horseshit) because it turns out the novel endirses a fundamental theory of historical change consisting entirely of people talking to each other, specifically, a variation on Great Man Theory that says change happens because the most important members of the very real and existing natural aristocracy get into a room together in order to figure out what's going to happen next by finding the smartest bestest boy from among them all and all just doing what he says, and then maybe some other stuff that doesn't matter happens after who cares, all of the actual persons have made their decisions. History of ideas people are basically all wacky, but this seems extreme even for them, so I sure hope Palmer isn't actually teaching anything like this. In addition to being based on a variant of it, Too Like the Lightning references and then explains its own reference to Great Man Theory, and naturally has its own Great Man in the narrative itself, the guy talking to himself from the last paragraph, and boy is he unbearable.

The guy in question, Y.U.D.D. MASON, is genuinely in the running for the most insufferable character ever written. I wouldn't mind him being written like a particularly annoying teenager with delusions of grandeur who has evidently somehow read both far too much and far too little philosophy so much if the novel did not take every single opportunity to make it absolutely unquestionable that this horrid little git is in fact an unparalleled superhuman intellect omniscient oracle capable of outright mind control through speech alone. And no, that's not a unreliable narrator thing. My understanding is that somehow this gets much worse over the course of the rest of the books, which I will not read because frankly 460 pages was an unreasonable test of my patience and commitment to reviewing everything I read and finishing everything I review. Apparently at the end he starts a civil war and becomes God-Emperor of Humanity or whatever, who even cares.

Look, a persistent obsession with Mars, nonsensical car-based revolutionizing of transportation, references to De Sade, excessive confidence in mathematical oracles, these are not the preoccupations of a serious thinker, these are the preoccupations of Elon Musk. Musk really is a convenient example of the sort of Great Man that actually exists by contrast to the ones you get in fiction and in Carlyle. Richest man on the planet, widely acknowledged power behind the throne of the most powerful state out there, owner of what was once (you know, before he bought it) regarded as the online public square, AI magnate, rocketman, surely here we have the Great Man of our time? Except, wait, we know him. We know him from his irrepressible habit of Posting, his now decades of pathetic self-promotion, his desperate need to turn himself into a living meme to get the attention he never got from his father, and which he in turn will not give to his two dozen kids. He is a massive loser whose aesthetic interests consist of the most accessible symbols of coolness and futurism that he can find, up to and including the glyph 'X' and memes that got old over a decade ago. What does it say about Too Like the Lightning that half of its aesthetic language is not only shared with this fucking loser, but is even projected out to the 26th century? Nothing good, that's for sure.

It is my opinion that novels should be edited. Unfortunately publishers do not seem to agree. Editing could never have made this book good, but it might at least have informed the publishers of the scale of mistake they were in the course of making. This novel was a lost cause the moment it was accepted for publication, which happened by a mechanism I am still quite unable to explain. The Author's Note does contain a very helpful list of the extraordinarily many collaborators allegedly responsible, of whom I would pick out for particular discredit the editorial decision-makers and the peers who apparently encouraged the creation of the work. That this book was written was a mistake, that it was published was a travesty, that it got sequels is an absurdity. The existence of Too Like the Lightning is an enormous embarrassment to the entire genre of Science Fiction, whose reputation was frankly already quite bad for very good reasons. Anyway, I'm never going to read Worm that's for damn sure.

This novel made me afraid to write my own intended stories, for fear that they will end up like this. Ordinarily, this is where I mention what kinds of person might enjoy the novel, recommend it to someone even if I did not like it myself. Frankly, I think I have provided enough information for people to figure out whether or not they would like it, but I have to confess that I do not think anyone should read this book, including the ones who would enjoy it. It's not for moral reasons or anything, I just think the book is that bad.

[dinnersyummy]

“Hey there, Summerboy!” - Luffy x Reader ✩౨ৎ

Summary: You're sent off to spend a summer in a town with your grandparents. You don't think much of it, only two long painfully boring months, right? Nope, everything turns around once you meet Luffy. Two whole months quickly flew right by, it wasn't enough time to spend with him, and yet you still had so much you wanted to say.

WC: 1559

Cw: not proofread, use of y/n, fluffy, somewhat slow burn?, modern au, english isn’t my first language, lmk if there's any more!

A/N: Listened to summerboy by lady gaga, got an idea for this + inspired by this one fic I read over on wattpad! Summertime Sadness by cassi- anywhoo, i'm down to write a few jjk and one piece drabbles so feel free to request!

Link to chapter two:

*divider by petalpxl on tumblr!*

—--

“Let's get lost, you can take me home

Somewhere nice, we can be alone

I've got my summer, summerboy

Don't be sad when the sun goes down

You'll wake up and I'm not around

I've got my summer, summerboy”

Only for the summer, only for two months is what you kept telling yourself. Your parents had the great idea of sending you off to live with your grandparents in a town in the middle of nowhere for the summer. According to them you’ve apparently “grown too accustomed to the city” which is nothing short of absurd. But nonetheless what else was there to do this summer? Not much, this was the year that you were finally gonna start university plus most of your friends had moved away for college or were on vacation. I had just gotten off the phone with mom, great. I have around a week till I leave, it’d be an agonizingly slow 5-6 hour bus ride. Welp, what's been done has been done, can’t really do much other than endure it. I mean, God does give his best battles to his strongest soldiers, right?

—----

I’ve packed my bags, it's the night before I leave. I open up my journal to quickly jot down something.

Entry 1, 6-12-2015

In all actuality, I’m not sure how to feel about spending a summer away. I haven't visited my grandparents in years but I'm glad to be seeing them soon. I don't have much to say at the moment but I'm interested in what this town holds in store for me.

—----

After a tremendously long bus ride down here I finally made it. It's been hours since I’ve last gotten up and it feels like I’ve lost all feeling waist below. Now I have to haul all my stupid luggage over to my grandparents house. I have their address written down on a little scrap piece of paper dug deep somewhere into my pocket, I fumble around until I find it and uncrumple it. A scratchy voice pierces through the silence, “Ya need any help?” He spoke up pointing at my luggage. My head whipped toward the source, before me stood a scruffy dude with a straw hat. “Yeah..that would be nice” I mumbled,

“What? Ya said something? Quit with the damn mumbling will ya?” He laughed.

“Hey, do you think you could show me the way over to this house?” I pushed the piece of paper with the address into his face.

“Oh! That's gramps and grams’ house out by the hills! Are you new around here?”

“No not really, I'm here to spend the summer with them.”

“Ohh, I see you're one of ‘em city folk!” He smiled gleefully, extending a hand. “The names Luffy! Yours?”

“Y/N, thanks for the help!” I reached out and shook his hand, Luffy’s grasp was firm, reassuring. He quickly retracted his hand.

“C'mon we don't have all day, these suitcases aint gon’ move themselves now are they?” Luffy exclaimed, and with that he sprang back off into action.

“Wait!” I barely managed to yell out. He was way too damn fast!

“Y/nnn, hurry up will ya?” Luffy groaned, he already had 2 of my suitcases leaving my backpack and one other suitcase which I grabbed. “Let's go now” I said with one final squeeze of my suitcase handle. “Just follow me!” Yet again Luffy ran off into the distance kicking up a little dirt cloud in his path.

—------

Lord that really took me out, running up a hill in the scorching sun is unfortunately not for the weak. I tried to catch my breath, I’m out here panting like a damn dog yet Luffy hasn't broken a single sweat. I look up at the deep cobalt house, not much has changed since the last time I was here. The lawn was still precise as ever, the tulips were in full bloom, and the everlasting willow tree near the pond. In a way it was almost comforting; there was at least one constant in my life. Luffy’s voice snapped me out my thoughts,

“What ya standing there for? You gon’ ring that doorbell or what?” Luffy cocked his to the side.

“Oh yeah” I fidgeted with the doorbell for a moment, *ding*, a beat of silence passes, then another, and suddenly I hear a set of footsteps thumping on down. “Y/N!” The door flew open, and I was abruptly enveloped into a warm embrace — the air was knocked out of my pipes, and I was almost swiftly knocked off my feet. “Grandma, can’t breathe here” I barely managed to wheeze out, I tried patting Nana on the shoulder as a means to let go but nothing got through to the lady. It took another final shove to finally be able to breathe again.

“You’ve grown so tall and gorgeous!” Grandma squealed as she pinched my cheek.

“Thanks” I said as I rubbed my stinging cheek.

“Oh, I see you’ve already met Luffy! He's quite the helping hand around here, like the sun in a way!” I looked at Luffy who seemed quite pleased with the title and praise.

“Heh, it’s all in a day's work!” He murmured as he scratched the nape of his neck. He can't really be all that, now can he? I thought to myself.

“It sure is hot out here, ya’ wanna come on in and get ya’ self a cup of sweet tea?” Nana asks.

His eyes shot open at the mention of sweet tea, “Of course! Not a thing in the world I’d trade your delicious sweet tea for!” Luffy rejoiced letting himself in. “Go on ahead, I’ll be there in a moment” Grandma nudged me forward and with that I soon followed after Luffy.

The inside of the house was cozy, there was just the right amount of clutter; not a single wall nor shelf was left undecorated. The rugs had all sorts of little intricate designs on them and there were little plants adorning each corner. Just down the entrance was the kitchen where Luffy was situated with a glass in hand.

“You need to try some of this stuff” He spoke up, handing me over a glass full of sweet tea. I accept it without a second thought and gulp it all down.

The tea was delicious — it was hitting all the right spots. The sweet tea seeped down my throat leaving a chill behind. Just then grandma walked into the kitchen, “Grams! Your tea is yummy as always!” Luffy boasted, “Mhm, it's quite refreshing” I added nodding my head in agreement.

There was a wide smile plastered across grandma's face, “Thank ya’, dearies!”

“I think I should get going now, the suns starting to set” Luffy said with a slight frown, “Thanks for having me!”

“It's nothing sweetheart” Grandma waved him off as he sped out the door, “Be safe and come back soon!” she added. “We should move those suitcases of yours into your room now, shouldnt we?” Grandma asked. “You’ll be staying in your moms old room in the attic by the way, I’m sorry about the mess. I didnt have enough time to clean the place up.” she quickly scrambled out.

“Alright, thanks a lot and don't worry about it.” I replied before grabbing as much luggage as I could in one go upstairs.

—----

The roof is slanted downwards, and the furniture had a thick layer of dust on it. I shove my luggage off into a corner, that's tomorrow's problem, not now. I sat down on the bed. It surprisingly wasn't dusty like just about everything else in this room. I closed the windows, scurried over to my backpack to fetch my journal, and then I retreated back to bed. I turn on the little lamp beside me and start writing.

Entry 2, 6-19-2015

Today's my first night in town. I met a goofy dude by the name of Luffy who wears a scruffy little straw hat. He's way too energetic for his own good, wonder where he gets it from. I wonder if I’ll talk to him again, he seems interesting. The heat here is almost unbearable. I don't think I have it in me to go outside for any longer than 10 minutes. I’m looking forward to what tomorrow has in store for me.

—---

I put my journal and pen away — I turn off the little lamp next to me. My eyelids were heavy with sleep, I quickly drifted off into a deep slumber.

CHAPTER TWO

[redibinch]

Laserfrog wedding ceremony in the rainnn

[solaceofthestarz]

ai art isn't better than real art, because art isn't about being good

[runawaymarbles]

at this point i am simply uninterested in any opinion on a hot-button political topic that treats human beings as a mass of meaningless hypotheticals

[musical-chick-13]

Can someone tell me that it's okay if I didn't do any creative work on this today. Please.

[queer-crusader]

Man this day has taken it fucking out of me

[savage-rhi]

🫂