#self-help forum

[eegyo]

Now, is always the best time to start.

I am a bit off my rocker 80% of the time, but -

I will be strong and confident. I have no choice 😀

I am 2 years into my dream career as a professional athlete, and quite frankly, I am surprised I have made it this far.

Not because I have achieved anything great, no. But more so I feel like I’ve been living on the precipice of insanity and depression (legit) everyday since I’ve arrived here.

I came from a very elite level in my sport in my home country, and was suppose to be a “big fish in a little pond” when I entered into the current league I am playing in. But I feel as though I am the worst athlete I’ve ever been here, and that I am sliding down this slippery slope to only getting worse.

My teammates don’t really like/respect me as an athlete, and are not supportive.

My confidence has been at an all-time low in my career for the past year and a half.

I do not feel as though I am improving

I feel ashamed that I am not better at my job when people had such high expectations of me coming in

I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of opportunities

I don’t want to be a cloud of sadness, and I try so hard not to fixate on the negativity of my situations but it’s all-consuming.

I genuinely desire to enjoy and grow my career while I still can, but I feel as though I am at the end of my rope mentally.

So I reach out to you oh, great tumblr community — who has been my safe haven since middle school (over a decade ago) — what advice/words of empowerment can you give this lowly athelte?

I feel as though I have read every mental psyche book, listen to every psychologist’s podcast; did every meditation and yoga seminar available to bring me to my “center”/inner peace; I have spoken to my coaches, friends, family etc. I have been searching everywhere for an answer but am still coming up on empty about what’s truly wrong with me.

I love my job so so much, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to play the sport that I have loved since I was a child; having the chance to live out you lifelong dream/goal is a luxury that I know many don’t get to have. So that’s why I just need a bit of help.

I hope this reaches the right people because I truly want to move onwards and upwards.

Please send good vibes, or ominous positivity if you have any.

Thank you❤️

[bacchuschucklefuck]

the never stop blowing up vhs is where cute twinks go to get harmed

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

How to Start Writing Again When the Spark Fades

Sometimes the well of creativity runs dry, leaving you staring at a blank page with nothing but frustration. But trust that the art of writing is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. Here are some ideas to help you reconnect with your writing practice when you feel like your passion has dimmed.

Redefine Your Environment Consider taking a deliberate step outside your usual writing space. The environment in which you work can drastically affect your mindset and creative flow. Even if it’s setting up in a different corner of your home, finding refuge in a local café, or enjoying the subtle distractions of a park bench, a change in scenery often signals a mental reset. This isn’t about permanent relocation, just a simple shift can break the monotony and stir new ideas that have been hiding in plain sight.

Embrace Imperfection The pressure to produce perfect prose can be paralyzing. Give yourself permission to create something imperfect yet honest. Think of every sentence you write as a rough sketch, a necessary experiment in understanding your own voice. When you allow yourself the space to write without the weight of perfection, you invite experimentation and genuine self-expression. That freedom lies at the heart of rediscovering why you fell in love with writing in the first place.

Set Incremental Goals for Continuous Momentum When the idea of diving into a full chapter feels overwhelming, scale back to manageable, bite-sized projects that feel achievable. Instead of demanding a polished page, challenge yourself to write a paragraph or even a single sentence each day. These micro-goals build a foundation of small successes, gradually restoring confidence and momentum. Over time, these consistent efforts enrich your creative reservoir, proving that every little step is indeed a victory.

Engage Deeply in the Process of Freewriting Allow yourself to spill thoughts onto the page without judgment or expectation. Freewriting is an exercise in vulnerability and self-exploration, offering you a space to unburden tangled ideas and unexpected insights. In these unfiltered moments, you might stumble upon a germ of an idea or a rediscovered passion that rekindles your creative fire. Embracing this unstructured approach can transform an intimidating blank page into an open canvas of potential you haven't tapped back into.

Rekindle Old Inspirations There is power in revisiting the work and moments that first ignited your creative spirit. Even if it’s rereading an old journal entry, rediscovering a favorite piece of literature, or reflecting on the stories that once moved you, reconnecting with your past inspirations can shed new light on your present creative journey. This reflective practice not only reminds you of your original passion but may also reveal new directions for your current writing endeavors.

Create a Consistent, Loving Writing Routine Creating a structured yet gentle routine can help reestablish your relationship with writing. Treat your writing time as a vital appointment, a moment carved out just for you. Even if inspiration seems scarce, the simple act of sitting down, opening your notebook, and letting words flow without self-censorship can be incredibly healing. Over time, this practice transforms writing from an obligation into a ritual of self-discovery and mindfulness.

Connect with a Community That Understands Engaging with fellow writers can remind you that you’re not alone in this struggle. The shared experience of creative highs and lows can be profoundly comforting. Join writing groups, participate in online forums, or simply reach out to someone whose work inspires you. These interactions foster a sense of belonging and accountability, encouraging you to keep writing even when the path isn’t clear. In the gentle exchange of ideas and feedback, there is often a spark that reignites your dedication.

Every writer’s journey is unique, filled with ebbs and flows. If you’re feeling disconnected, know that these moments are integral to growth. Embrace each phase as an opportunity to rediscover writing on its own terms, and allow your passion to guide you back into the words you love. If you need any advice from me, never be afraid to send me an ask.

Until next time, Rin T.

[luveline]

Pls reader who’s always wanted a baby but is too scared to ask hotch to have one with her — he’s his usual understanding self and also whipped and nearly cries cos he gets all emotional?

—you and Aaron misunderstand one another. fem, 2k

You debate yourself for weeks, on and off, alone or with company, and aided by the internet. 

Is it okay to want a baby when you have a step kid? Does really wanting a baby mean I don’t like the first one? Your search engine spits out forums and web articles alike that say the same things —of course it’s okay. Wanting another kid doesn’t mean you don’t love your first; craving to be a mom to a baby doesn’t mean you don’t love Jack, even though he had his own mom when he was a youngster. 

You read a little about it. Books recommended by the articles, and stories from women who became step-moms to children with mothers who had heartbreakingly passed away. It’s a guilty thing to be the mom or stepmom to a child who’s natural mom has died. You might always feel cruel for stealing her moments, for loving her ex husband, and raising her baby. But Jack isn't just someone’s baby, he’s Jack, and you don’t think you could’ve helped yourself. You would’ve loved him no matter what. 

Once you’ve worked past two different types of guilt, you’re crushed by your reality. Jack is nearly nine years old. Your husband isn’t exactly spry. Like, there’s nothing wrong with him (besides a stomach full of scar tissue and partial deafness in one ear), but he’s not a spring chicken, either, and he seems content with your life. In what world would he want to change diapers again? 

The same world where he gets to kiss a little cheek, you think hopefully. Where you get to make it together. Maybe… he loves you enough to try, even if it’s not something he’s pictured. 

You settle, and you decide to be brave. You’ll ask Aaron to have a baby with you, and you won’t feel guilty. 

You realise you can’t face the answer, is all. If he says no it’s gonna break your heart. If you never ask you’ll never get one, unless it’s an accident, and that’s not a good idea, either, you’d never purposefully want a baby to find out later on that the dad doesn’t want them, even if you’d be enough. You know you’d be a good mom, and that you could deal with things alone. There’s an avenue you could take where you have your baby no matter what, it’s your life. 

If only you didn’t love Aaron as much as you do. The idea of being without him is a horror you don’t want to contend with. 

Aaron can sense your constant mental back-and-forth, though he hasn’t guessed what it’s about yet. If you give him time he might get there on his own. He watches you thinking and he wraps a hand around your leg. Weird thing to do, but he’s not normal. He’s a gentleman mostly. Rare moments like this betray his character, how he loves you, pulling your leg toward him and hugging it to his chest despite a strange angle.

“Honey,” he begins softly. 

“Not tonight, I have a headache.” 

“That’s not funny,” he says, smiling, “you know you don’t have to say anything else besides no.” 

“Can’t imagine being with someone who needs a reason,” you say, softly as he had as you lay back against a minky cushion, “‘m lucky my love’s such a gentleman.” 

“You can’t deflect all night.” 

“I was only kidding. Take my pants off and we’ll–” You gasp a laugh as he squeezes your thigh. “Shit, don’t do that!” 

“You don’t have to be so crass about everything,” he says, joking. And people would tell you he has no sense of humour. “I’m trying to ask if you’re okay. I know you’re dodging the question, but I was gonna persuade you.” 

“Oh, yeah?” you ask, letting your knees tip apart, punished by another awful squeeze. 

“Honey.” He kisses your knee. Your heart is pressed on from all sides. “I just want to know what’s upsetting you lately. I can tell it’s important, but I can’t work out what it is.” 

“It’s not. Not important, I mean.” 

“I’ve been putting my mind to it. There aren’t many things that could take up this much of your attention. I worried you might’ve been chafing with Jack, but you’re as sweet on him as usual. I worried you might be having second thoughts about us, but you’re not. You’re too careful with your wedding ring to have me think you don’t love me, and–” He rubs at your leg. “You’re as tactile as ever. You aren’t drawing away from us. I don’t want to think about it, but I’m worried you’re sick or something similar and you aren’t telling me.” 

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” you say, startling you both, “please don’t worry, I’m not sick.“ 

“You’re alright?” he asks. 

“I’m about as healthy as I usually am.” 

“But?” 

You can’t not tell him. You’re married. He loves you. While you’ve driven yourself crazy wondering how much, he’s been worrying you’re poorly. It’s unfair, and you can’t do it much longer. 

“I have been thinking about something for a while,” you confess. 

“And a lot.” 

“Yeah. I think about it every day.” 

Aaron turns your face to his. You’d have to change positions to kiss, your leg firmly locked in his grasp. He doesn’t lean in, holding your eye with a seriousness rarely given at home. He looks as though he’s had a long day. “I can’t think of anything you could say to me that I wouldn’t still love you by the end,” he says quietly. 

“It’s not about love.” 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” 

“Because there are things we won’t agree on.” 

“I can’t agree if you don’t tell me what you’re thinking,” he says. 

“I know. I’m not not telling you because you aren’t allowed to disagree with me, I’m just scared.” 

“Scared?” he asks, frowning now, that square wrinkle at his brow deeply carved. 

You have to build yourself up for a long time before you can say what you want to say out loud. He waits in the quiet, his expression impossible to read. 

“You know how much I love Jack.” 

Aaron’s hands are still on your leg. “Of course.”

“And how much I love you.” 

His lips part, but he doesn’t speak. There’s a dawning understanding on his face as he stops touching you, his hands falling to his lap resoundingly. “What’s going on?” he asks. 

You aren’t encouraged by his response. 

He doesn’t want a baby. Saying it is admitting to a difference between you both, one that might make him angry. You’ve never had him angry with you.

Usually, if he noticed your flicker of fear, he’d have rushed to correct it, but Aaron does nothing now. He simply waits. 

“I wanted to ask you to have a baby with me,” you say quietly, watching him for an emotion and finding him with a blankness he’s practised over years. You’ve no hope of discerning him. “But I don’t think you’ll say yes. I’m sorry. I just want it.” 

He swallows roughly. “Oh.” 

“I know it’s not something we’ve talked about much.” 

His hands return. His fingers slip up your calf until it’s trapped in the hinge of your knee, pulling your thigh to his chest. Hip to hip as you are, you’d think it would be uncomfortable, but he’s gentle. He leans down to rest his cheek against your knee. For a moment, you’re his to look at, squirming with nerves and depressed to have disappointed him. You fight the urge to run. 

“For a second I thought you were about to tell me you’d cheated on me,” he says under his breath. 

You startle. “What?” 

“You looked so sorry, my mind went straight to the worst. You looked like you knew you were about to hurt me.” 

His sincerity is aching. 

“I could never do that.”

“I know, I’m sorry for entertaining it…” He picks up his head. “I never thought you’d be scared to talk to me about anything. It was the only thing I could think of that you might’ve done wrong.” 

“I thought you were angry about the baby.” 

“Is there… a baby?” he asks tentatively. 

“No.” You rub the painful throb between your eyes. “No, there isn’t a baby. I just meant you’d be angry at me for asking. Disrupting our life.” 

“You think you’re disrupting us by expressing what you want?” 

“It’s a big thing.” 

“Can I put you out of your misery?” He turns to take your face into his hand. “I would never be angry with you for wanting something, especially a baby. And I can tell how much this has worried you, so while I can’t promise the answer is uncomplicated, I’m happy to say yes to you. If you want a baby and you want that with me, of course I’ll say yes.” 

“Jack–”

“Honey, you’re thinking too much about Jack. Children have siblings. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Is that why you brought him up first?” 

You look away, ashamed to be read. “Sometimes I wish you didn’t know everything.” 

“Honey, I don’t.” 

Your smile is unbidden and somehow deeply felt at the same time, chancing a happy look at him. He’s smiling too. “You’re serious? You’d have a baby with me?” 

He turns into you even more, raising his remaining hand to your opposite cheek, holding you sweetly, putting you nose to nose. “I wish you’d asked me before you worried yourself sick. I would love to have a baby with you, sweetheart. I didn’t realise it was something you wanted already.” 

“I want it with you,” you say, matching his low tone. 

“And I want it with you. How couldn’t I?” 

You fight the sudden heat of tears, your heart pounding in your ears. ”I figured Jack is growing up, you’re so busy, and things have only now calmed down–” 

“Who cares?” he asks, laughing. 

“I thought you might.” 

“I’m sure I will, but not right now. You want a baby?” He gives your head the gentlest squeeze between his hands. “Sweetheart. You want to have a baby?” 

“Yeah, I do.” 

“Then let’s have a baby.” Aaron’s shaking his head, pulling you in, his lips glancing off of your cheek as he hugs you tighter than he ever has. You lose all the breath in your lungs. 

“Don’t hurt me,” you tease, relaxing for the first time in weeks in his arms, “or I won’t be able to have one.” 

“I could never hurt you like that,” he says easily. “Oh, sweetheart.” He says your name. He says it again. 

All that fuss for nothing. You confess on a high, “I want one so bad I don’t know what to do with myself half the time, I– I went to the mall a few days ago to look at the baby stuff, just to look, and I wanted to ask you when I got home but I lost my nerve.” 

“You did?” 

“Yeah, I even picked up this little babygrow with flowers on the feet but–” You fluster at the memory. “Sorry, that’s so weird.” 

“It’s not weird.” He encourages you away with another rough swallow and scares you half to death —if he cries, you’re gonna sob. His eyes are definitely glassy. “We should go, you can show me.” 

“Really?” 

“We have to start preparing at some point, right?” 

You climb onto your knees and vault on top of him, arms around his neck, no chance he can get away. He takes it like a champ, returning your ecstatic laughter with a more content chuckle, a big hand spreading out protectively over your shoulder.

A baby, you think, unaware that Aaron’s thinking the exact same thing, with the same reverent warmth growing in his chest. A baby. 

[cbeargyu]

affection ✧.* c.soobin

summary: you weren’t looking for love. just… something. a hand to hold, a moment of quiet, a heart that didn’t feel so heavy. but chasing affection in the wrong places had left you emptier each time — until you met him. soobin. kind, gentle, patient soobin. you pushed him away when he tried to reach the parts of you you didn’t want anyone to see. but he stayed. he saw the broken pieces and didn’t flinch. and somehow, just standing next to him felt like coming home.

pairing: nerd!soobin x fem!reader

tags: angst, hurt/comfort, unrequited love, slow burn, mutual pining, emotional vulnerability, past trauma, soft smut, comfort sex, college au, emotional intimacy, fluff with heavy angst, crying during sex, heartbreak, toxic ex (jaehyun).

warnings: sexual content (soft smut, explicit but tender), emotional vulnerability, references to emotional manipulation/past toxic relationship, crying during intimacy, self-worth issues, mentions of emotional trauma, angst-heavy scenes, mild cursing, reader has intimacy and trust issues, soobin is the softest human alive and will make you cry (18+ only, minors DNI).

notes: i’m so happy and grateful for all the love the beomgyu fic has received — it truly means a lot to me 🥺🖤 just a reminder: English isn’t my first language, so thank you for your patience! This is also my first time writing smut, so I hope you enjoy it and feel the love I put into every word.

soobin never planned to go to that party. he had a project due on monday, a group report no one else was helping with, and a whole list of unread notifications in his coding forum. parties weren’t his scene. they were loud, chaotic, full of meaningless chatter and fake small talk.

but his roommate, choi beomgyu begged him to go — “come on, hyung, the girls from visual communication are joining this time. you can't code your youth away.”

so, reluctantly, soobin showed up, neat as always — white button-down shirt, black slacks, and his usual black-rimmed glasses that he adjusted every few minutes out of habit. while his classmates shouted over music and downed shots of soju like water, he sat at the far end of the table, sipping a soda, quietly observing.

that’s when you walked in.

he saw you before you noticed him. you wore confidence like perfume — not overwhelming, but impossible to ignore. your black crop top hugged your body perfectly, a short skirt revealing just enough, and those heeled boots clicked against the floor like a beat only you could walk to. your hair fell just right. your eyes scanned the room like you already owned it.

and then they landed on him.

you tilted your head curiously. he looked different from the others — formal, stiff, awkwardly seated like he was out of place. but there was something about him... maybe it was the way his lips twitched nervously whenever someone made a joke, or how his fingers tapped rhythmically on his glass, like his brain was always working on something unspoken.

you slid into the empty seat across from him.

“hi,” you said, voice clear and sweet, but assertive. “soobin, right?”

his eyes widened slightly. “y-yeah. How’d you—?”

“you’re the only one not yelling,” you smirked. “kinda refreshing.”

he chuckled nervously, pushing his glasses up. “i guess i don’t blend in much.”

“that’s a good thing,” you replied without hesitation. “wanna drink?”

he hesitated, eyes flickering to the soju bottle you were holding.

“i don’t really drink.”

you leaned closer, a playful smile on your lips. “i won’t let you overdo it. promise.”

something about the way you said it — lighthearted, but sincere — made him nod.

you poured the drinks. one. two. light sips. soft laughter. his walls started to come down, little by little. you asked about his major. he asked about yours. you joked about how communication students always had to look flawless for presentations, and he admitted he didn’t even own hair gel.

then, the conversation shifted.

“so, uh,” soobin began, scratching the back of his neck, “i’ve been playing around with some indie game engines. just as a hobby. i’m trying to create this… interactive narrative? like a retro pixel art game with moral choice-based paths. i know it sounds kinda nerdy—”

“nerdy?” you interrupted. “that sounds sick. wait—so, like, the player’s decisions affect the storyline?”

his eyes lit up. you weren’t mocking him — you were interested.

He nodded, and as he talked, he got more animated. His voice rose with excitement as he described the branching paths, the artwork, the emotional arcs. he didn’t notice the way you shifted closer, your hand now resting on the table near his. he didn’t notice the way your thigh gently brushed his leg under the table.

“so... moral choices, huh?” you say, chin propped on your hand as you watch soobin’s eyes light up with every word he speaks. “like what? save the princess or let her die?”

he laughs, warm and unguarded. “kind of. but more... morally gray. like: help your friend cheat on an exam and risk your own grade, or tell the professor and lose the friendship.”

you raise a brow, intrigued. “damn. that’s... deep. and very specific. did that happen to you?”

he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “no. maybe. it’s a hypothetical.”

“right,” you say with a smirk, reaching for the soju bottle to pour another round. “well, professor choi, i hope you gave your digital friend some slack.”

“i made two endings,” he replies, then pauses. “wait, professor?”

you shrug, tilting your glass toward his. “you talk like one. all serious and nerdy.”

“i’m not that serious,” he protests, smiling now, more relaxed.

you lean in slightly, voice soft. “you kind of are. but I like it.”

he’s silent for a moment, blinking.

then, in a softer voice, he asks, “what about you? i’ve been rambling this whole time. what’s your major again?”

“media production,” you say casually. “i make pretty things look important.”

he smiles. “sounds fun.”

you nod. “it is. lots of editing, lots of late nights. but i like telling stories.” you pause, your gaze dipping to his lips for the briefest second before locking eyes again. “even the fake ones.”

he laughs at that. “maybe you could help with the cinematics for my game.”

“only if you give me creative control over the main character’s love story.”

he raises a brow. “that’s... oddly specific.”

you wink. “everything’s a love story, soobin.”

he swallows, hard.

but he noticed when you suddenly leaned into him to hear better — the bar had gotten louder, the music thumping. your shoulder touched his. your chest grazed his arm. and for the first time in his life, choi soobin forgot how to breathe.

you didn’t pull away.

neither did he.

you both sip your soju, and for a moment, neither speaks. the table around you has gotten louder. someone yells out a drinking chant. you glance sideways, then lean in just a little more so he can hear you.

“you know,” you murmur near his ear, your breath warm against his skin, “your friend beomgyu is wasted.”

soobin follows your gaze. beomgyu’s halfway off his seat, swaying dramatically while trying to sing along to a girl group song.

he huffs a laugh. “he’s always like that. gets drunk off three shots and starts performing like he’s on music bank.”

you turn your face toward soobin��s, still whispering. your lips are inches from his ear. “at least he’s not in the bathroom with a sunbae.”

soobin blinks. “what?”

you grin. “my friends went with a few. they’ve been gone for a while.” you pause for dramatic effect. “you do know what happens when girls go to the bathroom with sunbaes, right?”

soobin’s entire face flushes.

“i—uh—i mean—maybe they’re just—talking?” he stammers.

you burst into soft laughter, brushing his knee with yours under the table. “you’re so pure, soobin.”

“i’m not!” he protests, but he’s still red, ears pink and glowing.

“oh, really?” you tease, tilting your head. “then why are you blushing so hard?”

he opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out. he looks away, adjusting his glasses, trying to hide the way his eyes keep drifting back to your lips — still glossed and shining from the soju.

you lean closer, your voice barely above a whisper now. “you’re cute when you’re flustered.”

soobin freezes.

you smile.

and he realizes something, right then and there: you're not just beautiful. you're dangerous.

the music booms louder. someone starts chanting for shots again. but for you and Soobin, the world has narrowed into one tiny space: the few inches between your face and his.

he’s looking at you like he’s not sure if this is real — like you might vanish if he blinks too long.

but you don’t.

instead, you stay close. too close. your perfume has wrapped around him like a spell, and your knee is still brushing against his. the room is hot, but it’s nothing compared to the burn beneath his skin.

“soobin,” you whisper again, teasing, your voice honeyed, “are you really as pure as you look?”

“i—” he starts, voice dry, but you cut him off.

you tilt your head and, without warning, you press your lips to his.

it’s soft.

just a taste.

he freezes for a second — surprised, breath caught — and then, like something deep inside him snaps, he kisses you back.

harder.

with need.

his hand finds your waist, gripping tight, pulling you closer with a quiet desperation. you gasp slightly against his mouth, not expecting the sudden boldness. but you love it. you lean in more, wrapping your fingers around the collar of his button-up shirt, tugging him toward you.

he tastes like soju and mint gum and something that’s just… soobin.

his other hand fumbles before settling on your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek. there’s something both unsure and intense in his touch — like he’s scared he’ll mess it up, but even more scared to stop.

you pull back just enough to breathe, your lips swollen and your eyes glazed with heat.

“not so pure now, huh?” you murmur, teasing again.

he looks at you like he doesn’t know whether to kiss you or confess something bigger — but he chooses the first, crashing his mouth back onto yours with a groan that rumbles from his chest.

when you shift closer, almost climbing onto his lap, he holds you with more force than you expected. his fingers dig into your hips as if anchoring himself, as if he doesn’t want to let go.

your hand slips beneath his shirt, palm brushing his stomach, and he exhales sharply against your mouth. his lips move to your jaw, then your neck, uncertain at first… until he hears your soft gasp.

“let’s go,” you whisper in his ear, breathless, the suggestion hanging hot in the space between you.

he stiffens. “to… my place?”

you smirk. “too far.”

your hand slips into his, firm and electric.

“my apartment’s closer.”

you don’t wait for him to agree.

you just lead him out — past the pulsing music, past beomgyu still singing in his drunken stupor, past your friends who are nowhere to be seen — and into the cool night air, where soobin’s heart beats so loud he’s sure you can hear it.

he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

but he knows he’s not stopping you.

and that he wants this — you — more than anything he's ever wanted before.

your apartment was dimly lit — soft, warm, intimate. the moment the door clicked shut behind you, it was like the air changed. soobin stood there for a second, his eyes scanning your space like he’d just stepped into another realm. then you turned to him, a teasing smile curling at your lips, and tugged him gently by the hem of his shirt.

he followed like gravity.

the first kiss happened slowly — a hesitant brush of lips that turned into something deeper. desperate. heated. you tasted of soju and strawberry gloss, and he tasted like restraint finally snapping in half. his hands found your waist, clumsy at first, then firmer, as if he was trying to memorize the shape of you with his fingers.

clothes fell off in pieces — half-forgotten in the trail from the hallway to your bed.

soobin’s eyes never left yours, even when you pulled him over you, even when your nails raked softly down his back. he asked you quietly if this was okay. you answered with a kiss that made him groan against your mouth.

and when he finally moved inside you — shaky but tender — it wasn’t perfect.

it was better.

it was real. hot. messy. and achingly good.

you guided him, whispered to him, taught him what you liked — and he listened. god, he listened. every sound you made, every arch of your back, he responded like he was being graded on it.

and if he was, he passed with flying colors.

he was intuitive. curious. attentive.

no man had ever made you feel like that.

the climax hit you like a wave crashing too fast — unexpected and all-consuming. his name fell from your lips like a secret, like a confession. and when it was over, when you lay tangled together in the silence of your room, your heart was racing not just from the sex, but from him.

you should’ve felt satisfied.

instead, you felt… addicted.

the hum of the editing lab wrapped around you both like a low heartbeat. it was almost midnight, and the room had long emptied, save for the soft glow of the screen and the occasional sound of soobin typing, hesitant, as if even his fingers were overthinking.

you leaned back in your chair, eyes on the render but mind somewhere else — maybe still tangled in his sheets from last night.

“you okay?” he asked quietly, glancing sideways at you.

you nodded, absently. “just tired.”

"so..." he starts, voice low, not meeting your eyes. “last night. i didn’t mean to stay so long.”

you tilt your head, smirking. "you mean, you didn’t mean to keep me up 'til 3 am?"

his ears flush pink, but he chuckles. “well, you didn’t seem to mind.”

you lean in, your voice dropping an octave. “i didn’t.”

it was a half-truth.

you weren’t tired. you were numb.

not from exhaustion, but from the repetition — the cycle.

work. touch. release. silence.

he opened his mouth like he wanted to say something more, then stopped. instead, he scrolled through the code, pretending to focus, but his eyes kept drifting.

you noticed. of course you noticed.

you always did.

“you know,” you said, breaking the silence, “your animation loop still stutters at frame 27. i can help you clean it up later.”

he smiled — small, shy. “you don’t have to. I already owe you too much.”

you shrugged. “it’s your project, soobin. i’m just… happy to be part of it.”

another silence fell, but this one was heavier. His gaze lingered on you longer now. not the way he did when you were naked and under him. this was different. softer. wanting.

you hated that look.

so you stood up, stretching slightly, letting your shirt ride up just enough to tease.

“i should go,” you said.

he blinked, caught off guard. “already? it’s not that late—”

“you need rest,” you cut in, grabbing your bag. "big day tomorrow.”

he hesitated. “can i… can i come over?”

you turned to him slowly, a small smirk tugging at your lips.

“do you want to?”

his ears flushed. he looked down at his hands. “you know i do.”

you stepped closer, just enough to feel the warmth of his breath. “then say it.”

soobin looked up, meeting your eyes. there was something fragile in his expression — hope, maybe. longing.

but you didn’t let it bloom.

you leaned in, brushing your lips against his, soft and fleeting. a kiss with no promise.

no future.

“i’ll text you,” you whispered. “if i feel like it.”

then you turned and left, the door clicking softly behind you.

it was past 1:30 a.m. when you heard the soft knock at your door.

three short taps. hesitant. familiar.

you were in bed, hair loose, wearing nothing but an old oversized tee and underwear, your laptop glowing softly with a paused movie. for a second, you thought you were imagining it. but then it came again — one more knock. you got up slowly, half-annoyed, half-curious.

when you opened the door, there he was.

choi soobin. hoodie slightly damp from the drizzle outside. his glasses fogged up. eyes wide, like he didn’t plan on actually doing this until he did.

you leaned against the frame, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “couldn’t sleep?”

he looked down, hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

“i couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he admitted quietly. “i didn’t want to wait for a text.”

your lips curled slightly. “bold tonight, aren’t you?”

he gave a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “can i come in?”

you stepped aside, not saying a word. he brushed past you, and you closed the door behind him with a click that sounded like permission.

as soon as he turned around, you pressed him against the wall, your hands sliding under his hoodie. he gasped softly, but his hands found your waist like instinct.

“i wasn’t sure you’d come,” you murmured against his jaw, lips ghosting over his skin.

“i told you i would if you asked,” he whispered, already breathless.

“i didn’t ask.”

“you didn’t have to.”

you kissed him then — no teasing, no buildup. just lips crashing, hungry, messy, desperate. he kissed you like he’d been starving for it, like he’d imagined this moment a hundred times, and now it was finally real. your fingers tangled in his hoodie, pulling it up, and he broke the kiss only to help you tug it off.

your hands roamed his chest, down to his abs — firm, warm. he wasn’t the scrawny nerd you first thought he’d be. He had strength, a body that surprised you. you tugged him down by the waistband of his sweats, eyes locked on his, voice a low whisper against his lips.

“sit back for me, soobin.”

he blinked, confused, aroused. “w–what?”

you pushed gently at his chest, guiding him to the edge of the bed. he obeyed without protest, legs parted, hands gripping the sheets.

“i want to taste you,” you said simply, dropping to your knees between his thighs.

his breath hitched. “y/n…”

you smiled up at him, slow and sinful. “relax.”

with one hand, you pulled his sweats and boxers down in a single motion, exposing him fully. He was already hard, flushed and twitching, and the sight of it made you ache.

“shit,” he whispered, covering his face with one hand. “i can’t believe this is happening.”

you leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his inner thigh, then up, up — teasing, warm, slow. he trembled under your mouth. when you finally took him in, inch by inch, his hand flew to your hair, not to push, just to hold. like he needed something to ground him.

“f–fuck, y/n—” his hips bucked slightly, but you pressed a hand to his stomach, holding him in place. your tongue swirled around him, dragging moans from his throat like music.

“you feel so good,” he groaned, head falling back. “i don’t think i’m gonna last…”

you pulled back just enough to say, “then don’t.”

then you took him deep again, your rhythm relentless, cheeks hollowing, eyes locked on his. watching him fall apart under your touch. his thighs tightened, his moans got louder, breath ragged.

“y/n— i’m— i’m gonna—”

you didn’t stop.

you stayed right there, even when his hips jerked, when he spilled into your mouth with a broken, helpless cry of your name. you swallowed, slow and deliberate, then licked your lips as you sat back on your knees, wiping the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand.

he looked down at you, completely wrecked.

“you’re gonna kill me,” he whispered, eyes still glazed.

you just smirked. “not yet.”

then you pulled him down to the bed, climbed on top, and whispered against his lips:

“soobin,” you whispered, voice low, sultry. “you gonna just stay there, or are you gonna fuck me like you mean it?”

his eyes widened, dark with desire. “i don’t wanna mess this up.”

you stepped closer, pressing his hand against the curve of your ass. “then don’t.”

That was all it took.

he grabbed your thighs and lifted you easily, like instinct, like he’d wanted to do this forever. you wrapped your legs around his waist, lips finding his again as he carried you, bumping into the walls, breathless laughter between kisses. when he laid you on the bed, his hands trembled — not from fear, but anticipation.

he knelt between your legs, pulling your panties down slowly. watching your expression. eyes flickering between your parted lips and the way you bit them.

“god, you’re beautiful,” he whispered. “i’ve never seen anything like you.”

you smirked, “then show me how much you like what you see.”

and he did.

his mouth, warm and eager, exploring your skin, your thighs, your core. It wasn’t perfect, but it was passionate. raw. messy. and so damn real. you moaned his name, fingers tangling in his hair, and when he finally slid inside you — slow, deep — he gasped like it was the first breath he’d taken in hours.

“so tight,” he groaned into your neck. “fuck—i... i love this..."

you rocked your hips against his, matching his rhythm, breath against his ear. “feel me, baby. you’re inside me now. nothing to overthink.”

his pace quickened, your bodies moving in sync, sweat slicking your skin. his name spilled from your lips, breathy and broken. he looked down at you, jaw clenched, fighting to last.

“i’m close,” he warned.

you cupped his face, kissed him deep. “then don’t hold back. cum for me.”

he did — with a soft, choked moan against your neck, his whole body trembling. and you followed soon after, your climax crashing into you like a wave, sharp and sweet and overwhelming.

you lay there for a moment, tangled in sheets and each other, chests rising and falling in sync.

but then, the moment passed.

you pulled away first.

no words. no promises. you grabbed his hoodie from the floor and tossed it to him.

“It’s late,” you said, voice flat now.

he nodded, quietly getting dressed, still catching his breath. “right. i’ll… see you tomorrow? for the project?”

you smiled faintly, eyes unreadable. “of course.”

and just like that, he left — around 3 a.m., hoodie half on, hair messy, heart heavier than he’d admit.

you lay back in bed, staring at the ceiling.

he was addictive.

but this wasn’t love.

just affection.

the next day, you were already in the media lab by noon, hair up in a clip, sipping an iced coffee like nothing happened. like you hadn’t spent half the night moaning his name into your sheets. you were scrolling through some reference animations when you heard the door creak.

he walked in — soobin, hoodie slightly rumpled, eyes darker than usual, laptop tucked under one arm like a shield.

“hey,” he said, voice low, careful.

you didn’t look up right away.

“hey,” you replied casually, then shot him a glance. “you look like you slept five minutes.”

“three,” he muttered, sitting beside you. “thanks to you.”

you smirked. “you're welcome.”

he chuckled under his breath, but the way his eyes lingered on your collarbone, on the way your fingers tapped against your straw — it wasn’t casual for him. not anymore.

“so… did you get a chance to work on that npc dialogue system?” you asked, flipping the screen toward him.

he blinked. took a second too long to switch gears. “yeah, uh—yeah. i built the first tree structure. i’ll show you.”

you leaned closer, shoulder to shoulder, like nothing. like you hadn’t had him inside you hours ago.

he shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his position, fingers suddenly awkward on the trackpad.

“you okay?” you asked, feigning innocence.

he nodded, then… hesitated. “do you… always do that?”

your brows lifted. “do what?”

he stared at the screen. “act like it didn’t happen.”

you tilted your head, biting back a grin. “did you want a commemorative plaque or something?”

soobin flushed immediately, lips pressing into a line. “no. just—forget it.”

silence stretched for a moment. you let it.

because you were fine. it was what it was.

friends. collaborators. occasional bodies tangled in bedsheets.

no promises.

no future.

just affection when the night hit hard and the skin craved warmth.

you leaned in again, voice low and playful, barely above a whisper. “i like you better when you’re coding instead of catching feelings.”

that made him laugh — small and bitter, but still soobin.

“yeah,” he murmured, “me too.”

you sat side by side, going over the storyboard edits for soobin’s game. but his knee kept brushing against yours. your fingers kept finding excuses to linger near his. every time you spoke, he looked at your lips instead of your eyes.

a laugh. a brush of fingers when you reached for the same pen. the hum of your breathing syncing unconsciously as you leaned over his sketchpad, discussing the new character render.

but the tension was undeniable — thick, like summer air before a storm.

you shifted in your seat. soobin’s gaze followed the curve of your mouth when you smiled at something dumb he said. his knee bumped yours under the table — once, twice — and this time he didn’t move away.

your eyes locked.

he licked his lips.

you tilted your head.

“are you going to kiss me,” you whispered, “or just keep pretending you’re focused?”

soobin blinked, startled — but only for a second. his hand cupped the back of your neck, pulling you in with a hunger he rarely let slip. his mouth found yours in a kiss that was wet, desperate, a little uncoordinated, but still made your body heat like a fever.

you straddled him in the lab chair, fingers digging into his shoulders as his lips mapped your throat. he groaned quietly when your hips rolled against his. you loved how sensitive he was, how new it still felt to him.

his fingers fumbled at your waistband, and yours slipped under his hoodie, nails grazing the skin of his stomach.

and then—

his voice broke through the haze.

“i think i love you...”

time paused.

the kiss didn’t end — not completely. but you stilled in his arms, lips barely touching.

he looked up at you, chest heaving. there was no mask, no hesitation in his gaze — only raw, trembling honesty.

you swallowed hard.

“someone could see us,” you murmured, pulling back slightly. your hand pressed flat against his chest. “we shouldn’t… not here.”

he nodded slowly. “right. sorry.”

but you saw the flicker in his eyes.

he knew you weren’t talking about getting caught.

and you knew… he meant every word.

soobin picked at his food, eyes blank, fingers tapping against the side of his glass.

beomgyu dropped into the seat across from him with the energy of a man who hadn’t just bombed an engineering quiz. “yo, you look like someone stepped on your graphics card.”

before soobin could reply, minah slid in beside beomgyu, planting a kiss on his cheek. “hey, babe.”

soobin blinked. “you guys are dating?”

minah giggled. “it’s recent. we met at that party a few weeks back. y/n introduced us.”

beomgyu grinned. “she’s basically the campus matchmaker.”

soobin tried to smile.

minah looked at him with a knowing softness. “she said you two are close. working together?”

“yeah,” he said, voice low. “the game project.”

“she always puts her heart into everything,” minah said, stirring her coffee. “she’s one of the kindest people i know. genuinely warm. i’ve never seen her turn anyone away.”

beomgyu smirked. “you sure that’s all it is, soobin? that game project?”

Soobin froze, caught.

minah’s smile wavered. “can i… tell you something?”

his throat tightened. “yeah.”

minah took a breath. “she dated someone last year. jung jaehyun. from the film department.”

beomgyu’s eyebrows rose. “that asshole?”

minah nodded. “he cheated on her. more than once. manipulated her too — made her feel like everything was her fault. she loved him so much, and he treated her like she was disposable. it took her almost a year to recover. she still isn’t fully herself.”

soobin felt the blood drain from his face.

“she stopped believing in love,” minah whispered. “she’s terrified of it now. of letting someone in. that’s why she pushes people away when it gets too real.”

suddenly everything made sense.

the kiss that ended too soon.

the soft panic in your eyes when he said those words.

the coldness in your voice that didn’t match your trembling fingers.

you were afraid.

not of him — but of what he made you feel.

the soft hum of the bustling street outside the café filled your ears as you stepped out into the cool evening air. you hadn’t expected to see soobin again so soon after that moment in the lab — after everything.

but there he was, standing a few feet away on the sidewalk, looking lost in thought, as if he had been waiting for something… or someone. the moment you saw him, your heart did something unexpected. It skipped, then raced. the last few hours replayed in your mind like a movie — the confession, the words you couldn’t quite process, and the tension that clung between you two.

it felt as if the air around you was thick, but in a way that made it harder to breathe, harder to stay composed. you didn’t know what to expect. but you couldn’t walk away now. not after what had happened. you hesitated, then took a step toward him, the streets buzzing around you as you made your way through the crowd. and when he turned to face you, his eyes met yours, searching. they held something — hope, maybe.

but beneath that, a vulnerability, something you’d never seen in him before. “soobin,” you said softly, just to break the silence that seemed to hang in the air. his lips parted as he spoke your name, but before he could say anything else, he took a step closer.

“i didn’t expect to see you here,” he said with a small smile, his voice a little breathless. you stood there, unsure of what to say next. the weight of your emotions was too much to voice. you’d been trying to keep your distance, but everything you’d told him in the lab — everything that had been left unspoken, was still so fresh. "y/n," he began, his tone softer than before, as if he was carefully choosing his words. "i heard something earlier... from minah. about you and jaehyun."

you froze for a moment, your heart dropping to your stomach. you hadn’t expected this, not now, not after everything. the mention of jaehyun's name immediately brought a rush of old memories — the good and the painful.

soobin noticed your reaction, his expression filled with concern. he continued, his voice quiet but sincere. “she... she told me about your past with him. how he hurt you. how you’ve been carrying that pain for a long time.”

the words hit you like a cold wave, and you immediately felt the familiar wall go up inside you. the one you had built after jaehyun shattered your trust. you tried to keep your composure, but it was hard to suppress the hurt that resurfaced in an instant.

"i didn’t mean for anyone to know," you said softly, voice barely above a whisper.

soobin stepped closer, his gaze steady but filled with empathy. "y/n, i... i didn’t know. but hearing that from her, i just want you to know that i’m not like him. i’m not going to hurt you. i care about you."

it was like everything about him had a magnetic pull on you, drawing you in. but what was it? you wanted to understand it, but you weren’t sure you were ready for that yet. you had never really thought about falling for someone again — not after what jaehyun did to you. but soobin? he was different.

from the moment you met him, something in you had clicked. his presence, his voice, the way he made everything seem lighter. it had been almost a shift in your routine. the days had become brighter, the moments when you found him beside you felt full of a warmth you hadn’t realized you’d been craving. and, just like that, your feelings for him had grown, but slowly. subtly. almost like an invisible thread that tied you to him.

and now, standing here, you realized that in the short time you’d known him, everything had changed. your world had shifted, in the best way possible. you couldn’t even remember what life was like before him anymore. the routine of school, the small annoyances that once felt like mountains, they didn’t matter anymore when you were around him. soobin made everything feel like it could be okay, like things could be light again. he made you smile without trying, made you laugh just with the way he looked at you, or the way he spoke to you. and as your heart raced now, looking at him, you realized it had been him all along, ever since that first encounter.

he took a slow step toward you, his eyes full of something sincere. “i never expected to meet someone like you,” he said. “you… you’ve made things so much better. i wasn’t sure how to say this before, but now, i have to tell you. i’m really glad i met you.” your heart skipped a beat. the words, his honesty, made your chest tighten.

"i am too," you whispered. "but i’m just... scared. you know?" he paused, looking at you with understanding.

“scared of what?” he asked gently.

"scared that i’m not ready for this," you admitted, trying to keep your voice steady. "scared of... falling for someone again. what if i screw it up? what if i can’t do this? i don’t want to hurt you, soobin."

soobin stepped closer, so close that you could feel the heat radiating from him. his voice was barely above a whisper.

"y/n... i'm not going anywhere. i’m here for you. whatever this is… i’ll be here, for as long as you’ll have me." you felt like you were losing control of everything inside of you. his words, his sincerity, the feeling of being cared for in a way you hadn’t felt in so long, it made your heart ache in the best possible way.

you looked up at him, meeting his eyes, and for the first time, you felt a flicker of hope. but then the fear crept back in. the fear that maybe you weren’t ready to trust again, that maybe you weren’t worthy of someone’s love, especially not someone as kind as soobin.

"why does it have to be so hard?" you whispered, almost to yourself.

soobin squeezed your hand, his voice steady and calm. "because it’s worth it. if we give it a chance. if you give me a chance."

you didn’t know what to say. the vulnerability that you felt in this moment was overwhelming, but you also realized something. soobin wasn’t asking for perfection from you. he was asking for honesty, for a chance to show you that he wasn’t like jaehyun.

and despite all the fear, despite the scars left by the past, you wanted to believe him. you wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, things could be different.

soobin and you walk into your apartment, the door clicking shut behind you like sealing a secret. neither of you speaks—there’s no need. the electricity between you crackles in the silence, heavy with all the things you’ve both wanted to say but instead chose to show.

soobin shrugs off his hoodie in one smooth motion, and underneath, the fitted polo clings to his arms, hugging every inch of muscle you’ve fantasized about. your eyes drag over him, slow and hungry, and he catches your gaze, a smirk twitching on his lips.

“come here,” he murmurs, voice thick with intent.

you don’t even make it to the bedroom before his hands are on your waist, his mouth crushing into yours with a hunger that steals the breath right out of you. you melt into him, fingers gripping the fabric over his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart pounding like it wants to break free.

the kiss deepens, lips sliding, teeth nipping, tongues meeting with desperation. he backs you into the wall, grinding his hips into yours just enough to make you gasp. one of his hands travels under your shirt, grazing the soft skin of your waist, while the other cups your jaw to tilt your face and devour your mouth deeper. you moan into the kiss, your knees going weak, and he catches you like he was waiting for it.

“you feel so good,” he breathes into your neck, licking and sucking at the skin there, leaving you marked—claimed. “you drive me fucking insane.”

by the time you reach the bed, your shirt is gone, your bra unclasped, and soobin's hands are everywhere—greedy, but still careful. he kisses down your chest, slow and savoring, like he’s worshipping you with his mouth. then his fingers slip under the waistband of your panties, finding you already soaked.

“fuck,” he groans, voice rough, eyes hooded as he pulls them down. “look at you. so wet for me already. you want this?”

“god, yes,” you whisper, breath trembling.

he slides a finger inside you, slow at first—testing. then a second joins, curling just right, hitting that perfect spot that makes you whimper and arch into him. he watches you like you’re his favorite sin, completely mesmerized by how you fall apart under his touch.

your moans get louder, higher, your body trembling as he picks up the pace, his thumb circling your clit with expert pressure. he kisses your thigh, murmuring praises between each stroke—how beautiful you look, how tight and perfect you feel, how he could stay between your legs forever.

when your climax crashes into you, it’s sudden and overwhelming. Your walls clench around his fingers as you cry out, your hips jerking and your thighs trembling. he doesn’t stop until he’s milked every last spasm from your body, until you’re panting and spent and completely undone beneath him.

“shit… that was so hot,” he says, his voice low, lips brushing against your cheek as he slowly withdraws his fingers. you catch his gaze and, feeling bold, you take his hand and pull his glistening fingers into your mouth, sucking them clean while holding eye contact.

soobin lets out a broken sound—half-moan, half-growl—as he crashes his lips to yours again, desperate, messy. he pulls you into his lap, settling you on top of him, both of you half-naked and feverish with want.

your body is still humming, trembling in the aftershocks of your climax when soobin kisses you again—hungry, desperate, like he’s chasing something deeper. his hands don’t leave your body, fingers tracing over your hips, up your stomach, down between your thighs again.

you whimper when he strokes you, still sensitive, but the way he looks at you—so enamored, so lost in you—makes the overstimulation morph into pleasure all over again.

“you can take it,” he murmurs, pressing soft kisses along your jaw. “you’re so fucking perfect like this… i need to feel you again.”

he doesn’t wait for an answer. his fingers glide between your folds, spreading the wetness he’s already coaxed from you. he groans low, almost a growl, as he guides himself to your entrance, teasing you just enough to make you whine.

then he pushes in, slow but deep, stretching you inch by inch.

a gasp leaves your lips as he bottoms out, your body molding to fit him. he shudders against you, his arms wrapping around you tight like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

“fuck—” his breath stutters. “you feel so good, baby… so fucking good.”

he starts moving, slow at first—rolling his hips in a steady rhythm, savoring the way your body clenches around him. His forehead rests against yours, and when you open your eyes, you find him staring at you like you’re something sacred.

that’s when his voice breaks.

“i love you,” he confesses, hands gripping your waist like a lifeline. “god, i love you so much it hurts.”

tears spill from his eyes, slipping down his cheeks before he can stop them. the rawness in his voice, the vulnerability in his touch—it makes your chest ache.

you don’t answer with words. instead, you hold his face, kissing his tears away, soothing him with soft whispers, with the warmth of your body moving in time with his.

then you shift, pushing gently on his shoulders, guiding him onto his back. he lets you take control, his lips parted in awe as you settle on top of him, sinking down onto him so slowly that he swears under his breath.

“fuck—” he gasps, head tipping back against the pillow.

you start moving, rolling your hips, riding him at your own pace, watching the way his brows knit together, how his hands grip your thighs, his lips falling open in pleasure. he looks wrecked beneath you, completely at your mercy.

“you’re such a good man, soobin,” you whisper, leaning down to press kisses along his damp cheeks. “you don’t have to hide from me. i see you… and i want you. just as you are.”

a broken sound leaves him—half-whimper, half-sob—as his hands slide up your back, pulling you closer. you keep moving, slow and deep, letting him feel everything.

his hips stutter under you, his breathing turning erratic.

“baby, i—” he cuts off with a strangled moan, his body tensing beneath you. “i can’t— i’m gonna—”

“cum with me” you whisper, kissing him deep as his release overtakes him.

soobin lets out a wrecked, breathless moan, his whole body shaking as he spills inside you. sis hands grip your waist, fingers digging into your skin as he rides out his high. his chest rises and falls in heavy gasps, eyes fluttering closed, overwhelmed and undone.

even as the tremors subside, the tears don’t stop. you brush them away with gentle fingers, pressing soft kisses over his damp cheeks, his forehead, his lips.

“you’re okay,” you murmur. “i’ve got you.”

he exhales shakily, arms wrapping around you as he pulls you against his chest, still buried inside you, still trembling. he doesn’t say anything, just holds you—like you’re his anchor, his salvation.

and you let him.

because even though you didn’t say it back, he knows.

he feels it in the way you kiss him. in the way you hold him. in the way you don’t let go.

and for now, that’s enough.

he stops, just for a second, forehead pressed to yours, his breath shaky and shallow.

“i love you,” he says, barely louder than a whisper, but it hits like thunder.

you freeze, just for a moment. your heart skips, your lips part—but you don’t say it back. not yet. instead, you kiss him. slow, deep, tender. you pour everything into that kiss—every spark, every silent yes, every beat of your heart screaming me too.

he exhales like it’s all he needed. you hold his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones, and whisper, “you’re everything right now.”

he nods, tears brimming in his eyes.

and for the rest of the night, you show him. again and again, in every touch, every breath, every moan—you show him exactly what he means to you.

it’s more than just affection.

[hrrtshape]

How to stop checking 3d no glue no borax

how to stop checking 3d?? no glue, no borax, no spiritual snake oil, just the facts.

right, so, you want out. you want to stop checking 3d like it’s a stock market crash, like it’s a renaissance painting where, if you just squint hard enough, the divine truth will reveal itself. you want to stop, but you keep doing it, and now you’re here, which means you are both self-aware and in trouble. let’s fix that.

let’s diagnose. checking 3d, whether compulsive, casual, or full-tilt existential crisis, is a symptom. you are looking for proof. confirmation. a wink from the universe that everything is working, that your assumptions are correct, that the metaphysical postman hasn’t lost your order. it’s like shaking a polaroid before it develops: you think you’re helping, but you’re just interfering.

here’s the brutal truth, courtesy of every dead philosopher worth their salt: reality doesn’t care if you check. schrodinger’s cat is going to be what it’s going to be whether you pry open the box or not. your job, if you actually want to stop checking, is to stop thinking you’re the forensic analyst of your own existence. because you’re not. you are the architect. and architects don’t micromanage bricks. they draw the plans and trust the builders.

so, the method. no glue, no borax, no manifesting mala beads necessary. just strategy.

i , replace the action :  every time you catch yourself checking, do something else. immediately. drink water. text a friend. recite some poetry (preferably by someone dramatic, like plath or pound). make this a rule: if you check, you must also perform an arbitrary task, like doing a plank or translating a sentence into latin. you won’t like this. that’s the point. your brain will get bored and stop the cycle.

ii , reframe the impulse :  checking is a power move in reverse. you are telling the universe you don’t trust it. that’s embarrassing. stop doing that. act like someone who already has what they want, because people who have what they want do not spend their free time poking at the logistics of their own happiness like it’s a faulty ikea table.

iii , refuse to engage with time :  checking is a byproduct of impatience. impatience is a byproduct of thinking time is linear and oppressive instead of weird and malleable. ignore time. pretend it doesn’t exist. pretend you are a 14th-century aristocrat who has never seen a clock and moves exclusively by candlelight and gut instinct. the more you detach from time, the less you will care about what happens when.

iv , control your narrative intake :  what you consume, you become. if you’re constantly reading anxious forum posts and scrolling through tiktok videos of people catastrophising, congratulations, you’re marinating in doubt. stop it. read things that make you feel powerful. read war strategy. read virginia woolf. read a single wikipedia article on some obscure form of combat and let your brain steep in the idea that you are the general, not the foot soldier.

v , become so interesting that you forget to check :  this is the most important step. if your reality is boring, you will check on it like a neglected houseplant. make your life impossible to check on. fill it with distractions so lush and decadent that you forget to care. become the person who is too busy living to investigate. read difficult books. learn weird skills. get obsessed with something obscure and ridiculous (medieval astronomy, japanese joinery, renaissance poison recipes). make your brain so occupied with living that it forgets to spiral.

last thing, and this is crucial: trust like it’s your job. because it is. trust is not passive. trust is an active, radical decision. the moment you commit to trusting, fully, unflinchingly, with the audacity of a gambler pushing all their chips forward, you become untouchable.

so go. don’t check. do something better.

[1800titz]

TWO

The one where Y/N and Harry are neighbors in an apartment complex, he's got a bunny called Snuggles, he makes softcore porn spanking people (it's a REALLY LOUD HOBBY), and Y/N has definitely called the police for a domestic disturbance next door.

HI. This is the second part of the early access spanko fic!! Definitely read part one first if you already haven’t (otherwise this has like 0 context LOL). Reblogs/feedback always super appreciated. If you like a fic, sharing the work with the reblog button and leaving a comment/sending an anon keeps writers motivated to keep posting on this platform for free! (ꈍ◡ꈍ) <3

FETISH masterlist : PATREON masterlist (293.7K+ words of content and updating) : MAIN masterlist

CONTENT/WARNINGS: Y/N being a researcher™ (Harry makes porn and she can’t stop herself— but personally I can’t blame miss girl), spanking, impact play, dom/sub dynamics, sexual undertones/smutty insinuations

WC: 7.5K

There is no correct way to process the fact that your next-door neighbor has a cult following dedicated to the way he punishes women.

Frankly, Y/N believes this is a societal oversight. 

No self-help book, no forum of anonymous witnesses crowdsourcing coping advice (there are, however, online symposiums dedicated to the opposite end of the spectrum, Y/N quickly discovers, feverish warmth blistering across her cheeks). But there are literally zero guidelines delineating the proper protocol to navigate the realization that the man that lives next door (one she’d falsely accused of utilizing the patriarchy’s favorite party trick— nice one) is, in fact, just a beloved authority on consensual suffering. A guy who rearranges a bad attitude with his hands, or whatever is folded up between his fingers. The face— or lack thereof (the wide cut of his shoulders, the broad line of his splayed thighs, the practiced, capable ease of his hands, immortalized in 1080p)— of recreational corporal punishment.

And there are things about a next-door neighbor that one should not, under any circumstances, ever discover— how long, exactly, his refractory period lasts; what kind of guttural, wrecked sound crawls from the pit of his chest mid-orgasm; the way his inky, toned forearm looks, flexing, right before he plants a bruising smack to someone’s ass, punctuating the reciprocal whimper with a low, devious hum. 

Unfortunately, Y/N is now acquainted with all three— two by forcible default and one by self-destructive curiosity. 

These are the kinds of revelations that seep into the marrow and rearrange something fundamental— settling things back into place in a way that will never quite be the same. Epiphanies like finally learning the family lore, only to discover an unaired true crime documentary tangled into the roots of the tree. Or manually coming to the conclusion that the crush someone had to a talking animated animal during childhood actually translates to their adulthood taste in men. The way the young woman handles the situation involves seeing things she will never unsee— things which will shape her perception on the rest of everything forever. 

It’s all Harry’s fault, really. 

It starts like this: true to his word, he keeps the volume of his nightlife antics to a minimum. It’s a new standard born from the figurative ashes of that night— and perhaps the ashes of a charred kitchenette in an apartment on the eleventh floor, as far as the rumors she’s heard detail. The walls no longer rock under the grind of his headboard. The obscene, lazy drawl of his voice, curled at the edges with sex, tapers into nothingness. 

It’s serene. 

So blissfully silent that Y/N no longer spends her nights with her pillow tucked over her chest, contemplating voluntary asphyxiation. 

And the quiet tastes metallic. Heavy, wrong. It’s not the peace that makes her uneasy so much as the means behind it, and the weight of her regret sits like an anvil across her chest when she lays flat on her back and stares up at the popcorn ceiling. This is a pyrrhic victory.

Nobody ever told her how to recover from falsely accusing an innocent man of violent crime either, by the way, and definitely not if she were to do it in a packed parking lot, like she was vocally denouncing androcentrism and domestic abuse through a megaphone. She’s publicly shamed a man of integrity (and obscenely active dick game), and she’s become the unwitting villain of an erotic tragedy in the process.

Y/N drums her fingers over her knuckles, forearms pasted to her tummy, as she lays flat on her back across the mattress. The fan whirs. The rich culture of willing sadomasochism and honey-drenched moans has been bulldozed. In its place resides an unnatural, guilt-soaked silence.

She’s gentrified his sex life.

There’s this eerie, monk-like devotion to abstinence now. The walls used to be alive with sound: the breathless little whimpers, the unfiltered, incomprehensible praise spilling from his mouth in a voice dipped in something warm and ruined. Now? Nothing. The auditory depravity she once resented is now a phantom limb. She didn’t realize how accustomed she’d become to the rhythm of his vices until they were gone; like a street that used to be full of neon-lit sin, now sanitized into a vegan brunch spot with really shitty, overpriced sandwiches. 

Anyways, in theory, there are worse things Y/N could be doing at midnight. 

Cutting her own bangs, for example. Cyberstalking an ex that ghosted her in 2017 (kicking off the trail of breadcrumbs with a google search and then LinkedIn, maybe, because she suspects she might still be blocked on Instagram). She spent one night falling down a forum rabbit hole cataloging a conspiracy on how birds aren’t real. There is a vast variety of terrible decisions the young woman could be making. Nothing, however, quite contends using her designated sleeping hours to surf through an archive of her soft-eyed, tragically beautiful neighbor using his hands to fold women into a state of obedience as if practicing origami. 

She tells herself it’s a form of research. A yearning to be more… open-minded (given that the whole celibacy streak has her feeling like one of those PTA moms lobbying for romance book bans). Besides, the curly-haired brunette had practically invited her to take a look into his hobbies— opened up the page and showed her, casually said words like “you can look into domestic discipline… if you wanted to understand a bit better.” And really— what better way to take accountability, foster crucial character growth within herself, and accept her neighbor for what he is, with open arms, than to take a deep dive into his self-published porno collection?

Maybe part of it is guilt. The knowledge that she’s not only humiliated a man and basically twisted his arm into outing his NSFW extracurriculars in front of a crowd, but somehow managed to kneecap his entire operation in the process. At the very least, if his dick isn’t just out of commission altogether, he’s certainly not entertaining… the other thing. It’s too quiet. Maybe part of it is the shame bubbling up as she chews into the slick inside of her cheek, sprawled on her back. But the other part? 

That’s pure, unadulterated fascination. The morbid kind of curiosity that gnaws in, the kind that should probably be dispelled and left unentertained— the depraved kind that ripples at Harry’s cherubic locks, wide-set shoulders, toned arms, hulking palms. Curiosity killed the cat— that’s how the expression goes. It’s a good thing then, Y/N thinks wryly, the tip of her pointer dragging along the trackpad, that she’s not a feline. 

There are a few thoughts that smack Y/N as soon as she opens the webpage, one of the first being: the catalog of thumbnails feels like a violent act against her very sense of propriety. It’s an extensive panoply, to say the least. The filthy, rectangular display images, stacked in rows upon one another, all showcase women and an oddly familiar torso, a set of legs, usually coated by another body. Some are shot from the same angle, and others from another; women strewn over a knee with underwear bunched to the crooks at the backs of their knees, a handful of different shades. Different contours to their shapes, different hair that drapes over their downturned faces—

The breath Y/N sucks in chills her teeth. 

One thing remains consistent across the visual library— Harry exists in almost all of them. The pictures are cropped right across the tops of his shoulders, all of them, the young woman supposes for the sake of protecting his identity. But the rings are the same. The tar-shaded medley of tattoos branded across his arms is the same. In one photo, his palm rests across a faceless woman’s hip, as if to keep her slotted in place, fingers digging divots into soft flesh, and Y/N makes out one eagle wing peering out along his forearm; on the opposite side, a trio of nails that peek out from beneath the sleeve of his tee, the anatomical heart. 

Amongst the sordid array of half-naked silhouettes in vulnerable positions, the shape of her groggy-eyed reflection ghosting over the glowing screen of her laptop sits like an omen. It feels like an intrusion. Something so public, not meant for her eyes to see, and yet…

She clicks on one of the videos; a random selection made from the middle of the page, however far down she’s managed to scroll. 

Very quickly, Y/N discovers that Harry— her neighbor, Harry, the same man who occasionally knocks on her door to swap a misdelivered set of envelopes, who Y/N ogles from the end of the hallway like a longingly-observed-from-a-distance, unattainable rom-com love interest— has made an entire pastime out of turning women into docile, whining things with nothing but a palm full of deliberate, measured strength and a voice like a warm brand. Harry, as it turns out, does not just… spank— he undoes. He peels women apart at the seams, bends them over his lap into willing angles, like they are little more than deserving vessels for discipline, and leaves them so thoroughly wrecked they wear their surrender in a film like a second skin.

The video starts off simple enough, with an empty screen— lens of the camera twisted to face the foot of an empty bed. Teak frame, hardly raised off the floor on its legs, with a crisp, white comforter tucked up under the corners of the mattress. If not for the content matter— the awareness that this angle is purposeful, that the bed serves as some ominous cog in a raunchy, disciplinary mechanism— Y/N would spend an interesting amount of time admiring his bedroom decor. 

The aesthetics absorption is short-lived. A woman with burnt umber hair enters the frame from the periphery, her back facing the camera and a bleary splotch coating her side profile for the brief increment that she turns enough for the lens to catch her face— a manually added edit for identity-protection. She’s manhandled by the scruff of her neck from whatever corner the offscreen debauchery was occurring prior, and her steps are sloppy, like her feet are working on overtime to keep up with the pressure of the man pressing nearly flush to her back, his own feet nearly kicking practiced, languid steps between her clumsy soles. Harry.

He twists, sitting back onto the foot of the mattress (the angle changes, zooms, crops, as he moves, until he’s only an impersonal figure— wide shoulders, big hands, a set of legs), and his meaty thighs, draped in cozy gray sweats, splay wide apart. The posture takes up space in this all-too-casual, easy way, like a confidently relaxed implementation of innate power. Y/N blinks, chewing into her index nail. The girl on the screen lingers in the spot where his touch abandoned her nape, not quite tucking into the place between his knees (so obviously reserved for her), like she’s hesitating, until he lifts his forearm and wriggles four fingers on one palm into a universal motion meaning come hither.

Y/N is still coping with the injustice of his posture by the time the girl on the screen snakes between his open legs. First of all, there is no reason— none, whatsoever— for him to be sitting like that. Chiseled thighs— but soft enough to feel a bit of give, she’s stared long enough at him in shorts to assess (to notch her teeth into, feel the soft layer of tissue before unyielding muscle, she imagines)— split obscenely wide. One massive, ring-hugged hand coming to rest easy across her hip, over her denim shorts, the other draped nonchalantly over his own thigh, palm down. Fingers decorated in gold bands, loose. Patient. The image is so artless— effortless— and inherently such an indisputable display of dominance; of authority. An absolute certainty that if he says to bend, something (or someone) will fold.

It makes the young woman’s head feel fuzzy. Something warm bubbles deep in the pit of tummy, that soft spot of her underbelly, and a dirty thrill clambers up along the knobs of her spine. The visual of her neighbor, a man she doesn’t know well enough— who exists like a misplaced cherub, or a picturesque romantic heartthrob with nice forearms— manspreading and petting over another woman’s hip like a gentle prelude before full demolition mode—

It’s a lot. It’s freaky, in all senses of the word, and her thoughts on the matter feel tangled like a set of wired earbuds crammed into the bottom of a tote bag. Y/N is not a prude, and she’s not naïve, either— most people, usually the ones you anticipate the least, have far filthier penchants behind closed doors than imagined. Fetishes— it’s all just part of the human experience. But seeing Harry, elbows flaring as he undoes the buttons on the girl’s shorts, not gently (all deliberate), and hearing what curls into his voice when he says “Tell me why we’re doing this.” makes Y/N’s stomach feel funny.

His voice is a low purr that rattles the cheap, built-in speaker on her laptop, and the sheer volume alone has Y/N’s shoulders flinching and her fingers stretching forward to lower it. There’s that blip of shame coiling up in her chest, making her lungs feel a little tight. Squeezing thin between her teeth as she tightens her jaw. This is something Y/N probably shouldn’t be watching, but the thought gets suffocated by a heat that licks at the edges of her consciousness, spreads through the soft tissue of her, dense and seeping. 

Curiosity, after all, is a mighty incentive, and morality, at this moment in time, is a weak deterrent.

The faceless silhouette between his knees— all silky drapes of dark hair, soft, unfamiliar lines— rolls forward on the balls of her feet, and then back, like she can’t stand still. 

Something curls into the edges of her voice when she answers, “Because… I had an attitude,” too.

“Because you had an attitude—“

The picture across the screen is dirty in this soft-toned, nuanced way, like a fuck-me set of lace against skin or a hand that lingers too close. A kiss with just a little tongue; it’s not outright, but it’s lewd in a thick undertone.

“That’s right.”

His thumbs tuck under the sides of the (now) unbuttoned shorts, and the way his voice bleeds into Y/N’s ears has her mouth feeling dry. He slips the denim down the girl’s thighs, unceremoniously letting them slide the last bit down her calves until the article pools around her ankles. It’s almost like a dance— a second-nature choreography; his palms settle on her hips, and her hands over his shoulders when she steps out. Then, he nudges the article out of the way, coasting it across the floor with a socked foot. 

With only the thickening heaviness of the empty silence and the imminence puddling in the space between them, zappling like a charge, Y/N chews into her lower lip. His hand lifts, then lands along the side of the girl’s hip— one benign pat. The faceless woman bends over one of his legs; first bracing her weight onto her palms, planting them onto the mattress, then lowering herself into a comfortable position, diagonally stretched out with her chest flat against the sheets and her hips slung out over one of his thighs, her legs stretched out in that empty space, toes curling—

His other leg cages those, rising and then pinning over the backs of her knees in a way that’ll surely prevent motion.

Y/N feels lightheaded. He presses her down like she’s something breakable; something his.

“We’ve had this problem before, haven’t we?”

Besides the curly-headed brunette’s (camera currently angled to sever this aspect of his appearance out) posture, there’s his tone. His voice is hard, but it’s not harsh; shaded in tinges of firmness, but not scathing. It’s a display of unyielding dominance, of control— a secondhand confirmation, as if the placement of leg and the way he coasts his fingertips up the back of the young woman’s bare thigh don’t embody that power enough. His words are soaked in condescension, too. A subtle, delicate note that manifests hand-in-hand with the pose, the hint of raw humiliation there, the way he digs his fingertips lightly into the dimpled flesh under his grip like he expects a verbal answer to such a patronizing question. 

The woman points her toes, balls of her feet dug into the carpet, and rolls forward on her feet, hiking her hips with what little range of motion she can, folded over his leg and barred by the placement of his other. A soft grunt seeps from her mouth when he lets up and grazes his fingertips from just above the back of her knee. The sensitive spot makes her wriggle, but he doesn’t comment on it. 

“…Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

Then, of course, there are his hands. They’re capable, massive things; long, lithe fingers coated in the same assortment of chunky rings he dons as he hands off their mismatched mail. The same fingers that brush her own cruise up the back of a naked thigh, plucking at the edges of the woman’s panties. They’re not racy; nothing special— just a practical pair of yellow cotton blotted in blue flowers, like the kind someone wears to be comfortable around the house, or the kind worn to exercise, and the subtle detail adds to the domesticity of the ambiance; reaffirms the thought that this is something almost too personal, too private, to watch. His fingers fix the placement, tucking the fabric up just a little higher. 

“…Yes, we’ve had this problem before.”

It’s the devastating way they brush over skin, the new light Y/N sees them in at the grounding press in the beat of silence— a kind of imminent calm before a storm— that makes her stomach ache. Y/N anticipates the punishing smack when it comes, on one hand, but the sudden swat in the recording still makes her jolt. It has her pulse stuttering, then kicking hard against her ribs at the sharp sound of skin-on-skin breaking apart the silence. 

“Yes, Sir,” Harry corrects, a measured edge of stern authority creeping into his tone as he lets his hand rest loosely right below the area he struck. “You know better than that. Are you going to give me a hard time today? Do you need a reminder of what happened the last time you did that?”

There’s no window for the opportunity to respond, because he plants another blow to the spot where his hand had settled as he talked, palm snapping harshly against the sensitive skin along the back of her thigh. A pink splotch blooms in the shape of his hand over one of her asscheeks— one ruddy handprint from the initial admonishing smack, and the second slap, aimed lower along the same side, has the woman’s legs tensing as her torso twists a smidge and a muffled “ouch” spilling from her. 

“Tha’s right. Ouch. This is what happens when you’re a brat—“

Slowly, Y/N’s fingertips scroll over the trackpad, and she clicks forward, further into the video. The cursor lands somewhere three-quarters into the video. What paints her laptop screen is a new image; the camera angle is still set in the same way, only now, the two have repositioned. Her neighbor, no longer sitting at the foot of the bed, lingers up against the wall now, bracing his weight in a relaxed posture with one shoulder pressed to the plaster. With the angle, the lens captures a bit of his side— his back, his legs in those devastating, low slung sweats— and the way his attention is directed to the woman, who’s twisted to face the same drywall. 

It’s not their stances or the change of scenery so much that make Y/N’s cheeks burn, as it is the circumstances. That yellow fabric Harry had tucked up over her curves sits low now, cuffed around her knees, and her backside has been smeared in swatches of a less-saturated cerise; the kind that looks like it packs heat like a furnace over the surface of the skin. The young woman can practically feel it through the screen, glowy and warm in this feverish way, and her face heats like it’s imitating the observation through pure osmosis. 

The set-up feels like a raunchy scene from one of those school-girl punishment roleplay pornos— the panties bunched over her knees, the way she stands there, facing the wall, fingers interlocked ahead of her, dangling in the empty space. 

The faceless woman is in a half-slouch. Shoulder pressed to the wall, camera bifurcating the shot right below her throat (clipping three-quarters of the way across Harry’s shoulder blades in the process), one ankle crossed behind the other. It’s only then, with the new framing, that Y/N recognizes the size difference— the height difference. The way he nearly looms over the other woman (almost too similar to the way he towers over her). Given that the majority of the last vantage point involved sitting and being folded over, the detail wasn’t as obvious, but with a different perspective, it’s so much more blatant. In a way, it makes something squirm in her stomach— the clear discrepancy between their sizes, the thick coat of dominance across his shoulders, the way his hands seem to dwarf everything in sheer width, planting punishingly onto soft, raw areas, squeezing, touching. Her posture mirrors his, only it radiates less of the relaxed, self-assured air that glaze’s the man’s— instead, it’s broody and sulking. 

The screencap takes a moment to load into motion, but the sound of Harry’s low, patient cadence oozes through the speaker, along with the subsequent, nonchalant sniff from the girl in the silence. Y/N’s not sure how far into the lecture the video has skipped— what more preluded the clip, how the video had unraveled from point A to point B. But when the video keeps going, all Y/N knows is that it soaks up her attention like a deviant sponge. 

“What did I tell you to do?” Harry muses, calm and soft, arms crossed over his chest. The phrase is molded like a question, but sounds too close to a command to be misconstrued.

“To…” the woman rolls her shoulder, shifting on her feet, “stand in the corner.”

“To stand in the corner,” Harry echoes. The sound of skin fabric brushing plaster— a hard sound, like a weight shifting— permeates the quiet gap as he moves a touch, “Did I tell you to slouch and pout in the corner?”

Y/N blinks. Whatever the woman says is incoherent and low, unable to be picked up by the speaker, but it doesn’t matter, because Harry doesn’t seem to quite catch it either. He steps a smidge closer, the tone of his voice shifting.

“What was that?”

The girl sighs; it’s this loud, theatrically excessive noise, steeped in the aggravation that she’s obviously been muscling down, and her shoulders sag forward as she teeters on one foot to face him more.

“No, Sir.”

“So stand up straight,” Harry advises, ignoring the obvious bite in the response, and then tacks on like an afterthought, upper body swelling with the breath he takes, “And fix the attitude while you’re at it— no, don’t give me those eyes.”

The woman huffs, her motions emphatic and sluggish, before she straightens out, only to slouch back down and murmur something that the camera doesn’t pick up, once again. 

“Pardon?”

Y/N’s hand stretches forward on its own accord, fingertips toggling over the keys to slightly raise the volume. Her speech is still significantly quieter than Harry’s clear tone, like a mutter under her breath, but it’s much easier to pick up on with the altered settings when she expresses, “I just don’t understand why I have to stand here.”

There’s this beat of silence then, oddly reminiscent of that calm before the storm when the gears in his head had rotated as she was pressed over his lap. One of his arms slinks from the muscly cage they’d built over his chest, and his palm settles over his hip instead— still leisurely given the context, but the words come out a little sharper, hinted with exasperation.

“You— Because I told you to do it,” her neighbor states, the quiet range of his voice failing to lessen the careful intensity the phrase teems with. It’s a kind of juxtaposition that warps Y/N’s mind— seeing Harry, typically so soft-natured, now, so matter-of-fact and chock-full of inflexible authority. An irate note wheedles into the otherwise molasses-smooth, hard tone, his accent thick with scolding, “You know very well how this goes, you know very well why you’re standing here. So don’t get smart with me, yeah?”

“I’m not getting smart with you.” 

“No? What’s happening right now?”

To an outsider, the terse way he talks might come off uncomfortable. Demeaning, even, to the naked eye. And it does, a little bit, to Y/N— but those degrees of domesticity she’d noted earlier, the subtle shadings that vignette their back and forth, push the impression into another territory. He’s stern, yes— doesn’t raise his voice for the dominance there to crowd his inflection and highlight his point— and the way he talks to her intentionally seems to ride along that degrading ledge of condescension. But just as comfortable as he seems to be, one shoulder planted to the plaster he’d steered her toward, she also seems to be, volleying back quiet quips. Annoyance-laced complaints, disagreeing— and it’s just as intentional on her behalf when she argues back, high-pitched and higher in volume (borderline whining), “I’m standing here, like you told me to, and I asked a valid question—“

For whatever it’s worth, although Y/N is a stranger to practically both people onscreen; although this type of dynamic is unfamiliar to her in its entirety; although most of her comprehension on the video thus far has been based on blind context clues (given the sharp fast-forward over the material)… she can tell that what’s going on is entirely consensual. The foundation between them is riddled with intention, cemented in a kind of trust that you wouldn’t interpret upon first glance. 

So really, it’s less daunting and more of an anticipatory surprise (as the detail-oriented viewer, at the very least), when Harry’s palm strays from his hip and cups over one of her asscheeks, the way he pets and squeezes deceivingly gentle, before he cuffs loosely over her upper arm and takes a long, languid step back. “Well, let me give you a more valid answer, then. I’ve decided we’re not quite done.”

Walking her back by the grip— not tight, just controlled— over her limb and twisting her to face the bed, Harry leaves her huffing as he steps offscreen. Instead of folding over the bed, her shoulder turns, as if she’s looking back over it, and then she stretches forward and reaches down to the panties tucked around her knees, shimmying them up over her thighs. As she slides them back into place, she pulls her shirt down over them (as much as it will reach, at the very least; pink still blooms out below it, daubing her asscheeks, a bit of skin along the backs of her thighs), and then she pivots on her feet to face whatever direction Harry went into. Whatever the sight is, obscured from the lens, it peels a girlish groan out of her and a resultant, dry huff of half-laughter from him as he ambles back into view. With his palm wrapped over the stem of the object and the other end making soft taps against the other palm, the devious, half-amused hum, and the easy gait, he almost looks like a villainous correctionist. 

Whatever… tool resides in his grasp stays a cryptic inside joke between the pair as the woman on the screen steps toward him, her arms stretching out and her hands snaking against his sides.  

“You know this one, don’t you?” Harry muses, a note of exaggerated glee shaping his tone as she curls her fingers over his ribs loosely, pressing close. A nervous peal of laughter bubbles up from her, and Harry hums, swaying on his feet a little as she teeters closer. Then, he makes this mirthy sound, like a gust of air expelled from his nose, before he murmurs, “What’s funny?”

There’s another beat of silence, but this one is less charged, like the tension has been fractured a little (if only for a short while) as the edges chisel into something softer and the veil slips. 

“Why…” another bout of giggles garbles her tone as she clings onto him, “do you have that in there?”

“Just for you,” the man responds matter-of-factly, breathily, “I know, y’don’t have to tell me, I’m so thoughtful.”

When his hand (the one not currently wrapped over the handle of whatever interestingly-stored implement he’s procured) slinks to cup over her heated hip, however, the discovery drains a bit of the playfulness from his drawl. “Who told you to put your panties back on?” 

Instead of answering the question, she rocks forward onto her toes, hands slinking from his sides to rest up on his shoulders. 

“Pull them back down.”

The tone he uses is glazed with no-nonsense, but simultaneously manages to land like a dare to be challenged. Once more, in place of abiding by his order, the woman groans quietly. 

“Pull them down,” Harry repeats, deceptively soft-toned, “I didn’t tell you to do that.” 

She hums, and her voice sounds small and coy when she prods, “Why don’t you pull them down?”

“You don’t want me to have to pull them down.”

From the way her hair dangles, Y/N can tell she’s thrown her head back. She sighs, punctuating the subsequent silence to her quip with a giggle. “Why don’t you pull yours down?”

Despite the way she clings onto him, by the sound of his voice, it’s evident that any teasing lightheartedness has dwindled off. The hand that had cupped over her hip reaches to lock over her forearm, stretched up to his shoulder, and he physically removes the touch, “M’serious. Stop it. We’re not done yet… put that lip away.”

A long sigh seeps out of her as he coaxes her off of him, and with the same sluggish motions that she’d straightened her shoulders with earlier, she takes a step back and tucks her thumbs into the sides of her underwear. She hesitates. Harry sighs and crosses his arms.

“Go on.”

Slipping them down only a tad doesn’t seem to please him in the way she’d hoped. 

“All the way.” 

They sit at an awkward half-ride, slung low on her hips (only slightly more indecorous than his own sweats), and she makes another begrudged sound of protest before giving in and shimmying them back down to settle mid-thigh. 

“Thank you,” Harry tells her, sarky and dry, and then he waves out to her— between them— with whatever’s in his hand, “It’s your very favorite.”

The uncertainty in response to his statement manifests as reluctance to her body language as she slinks closer again, palms pressing up against his tummy. “Hmm, no…”

“No?”

One side of her dark hair hangs lower over her chest as she cocks her head. “Naaah…”

Unwinding from her embrace, the man makes his way back to the bed. He grasps a pillow that’d been propped up against the headboard, only to set it onto the foot of the bed. Then, he hikes one knee onto the mattress over the comforter and unceremoniously unveils what he’s been holding in his hand all along by tapping it over the spot onto the pillow beside him. 

It’s a wooden spoon. A staple in kitchens; the kind that lives innocently in a drawer, crammed between metal spatulas, and whisks, and tangled salad tongs. The kind that’s meant for cooking. And now? The tool’s been repurposed— made into something ideal for sauces, soups, and (evidently) scaring incorrigible brats into obedience.

“Come on,” Harry drawls, holding his arm out and pulling her in when she slowly takes his hand, “Over here.” He knocks the same area with the shallow bowl on the end, snorting when she stalls, “…All fucking— lovey-dovey, now.”

In spite of the way the man’s words themselves are almost mean, they’re said in this soft, teasing way that suggests they wear a smile, and the emphasis lies in the way his fingertips trace up from the back of her hand, across her forearm. Up to her elbow. It’s an oddly fond touch. She mirrors the action, her own fingers climbing smoothly across the sensitive, soft skin along his own forearm, only it’s along the other side, palm up. Then, she squeezes her fingers into his thick bicep, over his sleeve. 

“Yes,” her voice comes out stained with a whine, and sounds small and petulant, from the unanticipated shift in plans, “because we were done.”

He tuts, and lets go, patting at her hip with the wider end of the rebranded kitchen utensil when she doesn’t immediately fold over, crossing her arms and cupping her elbows like the lack of physical engagement has left her cold. 

“C’mere. Don’t make it worse.”

It’s when she’s stretched forward over the foot of the bed, flat on her tummy with her ass propped up and her legs angled out, ankles crossed, that Y/N gnaws into her bottom lip until the skin nearly turns white under her teeth. 

Because Harry smooths his massive palm over the bruised skin, and then picks the spoon up and drags it in a little circle over one side, voice low and drenched in something that scrapes too close to sex to ignore, “Yeah, you know this one, but I don’t think you remember. So let’s jog that memory. See what this one feels like again, hm?”

The first smack makes this deafening crack sound that eclipses the reverberating thud his palm had made, and a galvanized spark ripples up Y/N’s spinal column, just hearing it. The response is instantaneous— the woman makes this wounded noise into the sheets, like an unintelligible swear someone would make stubbing their toe, or slamming their knee into the corner of a coffee table, and her whole lower half coils and contorts as she twists her hips away, and then sinks back into place. 

Instead of soothing and petting over the spot where the implement had swatted, he digs the rounded edge into the small of her back pointedly.

“Pretty rough, huh?” Harry comments quietly, “…I think we’re getting back up to speed.”

She makes another garbled noise into the comforter and then says something that sounds an awful lot like, “That’s not nice.”

He snaps at the other side with the implement— hard enough for her whimper to come out as this brittle, squeaky breath that sounds squeezed out of her throat. Then again, low on her thigh, where a small, raspberry-tinged spot in its shape flares as consequence.

“I know it’s not nice,” Harry agrees, and then he tips forward a tad to caress one fleshy globe (it’s really just a ruse— an examination of the marks disguised as affection, tugging the skin taut under the flats of his fingers) before he lets go and plants another blow against that little crease where ass meets thigh, drawing a squeak and a hitch forward of her hips. “But it’s not nice when you make your bratty, little remarks, either.”

Y/N swallows. 

It’s almost overwhelming— well, not almost. It is overwhelming; watching the emotional rollercoaster, the way the route along the tracks shifts starkly somewhere between the playfulness and the way the man starts hammering in, coaxing little, breathy grunts and hisses, like her ass has personally wronged him in a past life. Y/N is just a bystander watching a playback and she’s ready to apologize. Maybe, partly for witnessing moments that so clearly belong behind closed doors, not broadcast across her laptop screen. The sexual charge, even despite the lack of actual fucking, fingering, and/or fellatio, is so present. Unmistakeable. Loud, actually— the kind of atmosphere that says give it fifteen minutes, maybe ten, and he’s going to be digging his fingers into her ruddily bruised hips like they’re malleable handlebars and fucking into her from behind as if the only things more important than staunch obedience are the noises he can pry as he bottoms out. It’s still pornographic, raunchy, before it even gets to that point— and the little are-you-18+-are-you-lying-to-us, double pop-up the young woman had encountered entering the website checks out. 

What’s worse is that— as if the cosm is testing her fragile sanity by all measures— the shape of his cock has actually, physically started straining into a surprise guest appearance. The thickened, swollen outline of it shamelessly sits up under the cotton, impossible to ignore (which is a whole other series of revelations to unpack). It’s not even the main focus of the video, all things considered, but it sits there like it’s under a glowing spotlight. 

Y/N isn’t twelve— she’s seen the outline of a dick before. She’s watched porn. She’s had sex. The kicker here isn’t the phallus imprint, so much so that it’s… Harry’s. Her neighbor, Harry— rococo fever dream with operational legs, the kind of man you’d make unintended eye contact with in a coffee shop and lose the next seven months of your love life to. She has to look at him after this. Run into him in the hallway, coexist, accept whatever misfiled mail he hands off, and pretend. 

And it’s big. Lying fat and heavy against his right thigh, straining the soft gray fabric taut. Because this gets him off. This is something he does, just an average, casual form of sadomasochistic foreplay on a Wednesday night, and then he probably fucks whoever he is doing this to—

With each harsh smack, the woman’s foot has hitched a little higher, higher, knee bending back, heel making little, incremental jolts up like a reflex. Her face is buried into the sheets, hair cascaded in wild clusters around her, arms tucked up under her head. Little mewls and stuttery noises that sound stretched somewhere between a laugh and cry flood like muzzled pleas. It’s one particularly stinging hit that makes her whole body tense; she rolls up onto the toes of one foot, the other folded back enough to impede further impact, and a grunt that sounds sealed behind her teeth slips and then morphs into an oh that sounds an awful lot like knocking your funny bone against a hard surface. 

“Ugh— Sir—“

“I’m not done,” Harry states pointedly, “I don’t think the lesson’s sunk in yet— put that foot down,” and then he pats back at her calf with the flat edge, sighing.

She rocks forward, whining, but slowly lowers her foot, kicking it back up instinctively when he smooths the face of the spoon over that crease where ass meets thigh again. 

“Why?”

He pauses, no laughter in his tone despite the words— only concentration— before he catches her ankle in his palm (alongside the stem of the spoon) and manually pushes it down, “Why? Did you just ask me why?”

“Yes.”

The thing is, it’s one thing to know. To live in proximity to something and learn its weight through osmosis; to absorb through walls, through muffled moans and rhythmic headboard squeals and creaks, the velvet-soft sound of incomprehensible pleas and praises. It is another thing entirely, however, to see it. To witness the mechanical rhythm of it. The choreography.

It’s another thing to watch Harry— Harry from next door, with the nice hair, and the nice dimples, and the nice forearms, who has stood, damp from a post-shower haze, smiling like he isn't a threat—  currently pixelated on her screen, sleeves pushed to his elbows, one knee hiked up on the bed, voice buttery and cruel as he says, “Because it’s in the way.”

She starts to argue, laughter coloring her tone, “That’s not—“

Only, her sentence becomes punctuated (and cut short) by the next round of blows, seamless and merciless, prying a high groan instead and a stray hand as she untucks it from under her head and waves it back. The motion causes the man to pause again, and this time, he sounds far more sober (words low, serious), as he catches her wrist in the other hand and pins it to the small of her back.

“Do not bring your hand back again,” Harry orders, quiet and low. Under the way he’s got her arm pressed back, Y/N can see the faint way the young woman’s back rises and falls as she breathes quietly. “Do you understand me?”

The words are almost imperceptible, but she picks up on the quiet “yes, Sir,” the girl amends with, her fingers flexing loosely. Harry lets up, unclasping the grip over the joint and shifting on his knee as the woman slowly tucks her arm back under her.

“You don’t do that,” he reaffirms. 

And then he continues. 

Watching the unconventional practice is one thing— despite the dirty thrill that’s been pin-balling up her spine for the duration of the video, everything feels detached, in a way. Removed could be the right word— this is an …exercise that these people partake in, apparently habitually, but it feels entirely separate from Y/N and her life. Almost. Because the moment something threads into Harry’s voice again, dripping sultry in a way that shouldn’t be— probably isn’t meant to— Y/N recognizes that her body’s been responding. 

When he speaks over the woman’s frantic whimpers, tone laced with borderline vulgar authority, and asks, “Are you going to be a good girl?” and she rocks forward, mewling, “yes, Sir.”

A searing flush works up across Y/N’s cheekbones and she sucks in a soft breath through the tight gap between her teeth, eyes dry and aching from how long she’s kept them open without realizing. There’s a warm hum in the trench of her belly that feels almost electric, all too familiar, and a tender pang sits between her thighs. Perhaps the most overwhelming revelation amongst all of this is that by some seedy, twisted volition unbeknownst to Y/N— she’s turned on. Horribly. Ravenously. Turned on by the firmness saturating his voice, discipline clinging to every word, the way his hands look, his forearms, the sharpness of his swing, the effortless, quiet sense of power that’s molded around the shape of him. And it’s a difficult epiphany to grapple with to say the least. When the young woman’s hazy mind catches up with the rest of her body, the thought webs along her skull like an invasive crawler plant and nearly makes her flinch; she’s undeniably, unequivocally aroused by the view of the man next door— all boy-next-door charm, revised— pressing soft-colored, surface-level bruises into the woman beneath him with a kitchen utensil. Tension dusting his knuckles, rings bold and shimmering when they catch in the light, deep rubescent hues kissing her skin and blooming out wide across the full slope. 

And Y/N is wet. The heat licks along her core in quiet devastation before she recognizes she’s been clenching her thighs. It’s in a way that suggests Y/N wants to take her place, and it’s something she’s unwilling to admit to herself. 

“Say it,” Harry demands, unfazed by the sharp gasp from her that swells in the midst of his statement, “‘I’m going to behave, Sir.’”

A soft swear gets tangled in the woman’s throat, webbing up in the soft, flexing tissue, overthrown by another heaving breath. 

“I’ll behave—“

This man is— brief, longing glances from across the hall, bunnies, anfractuous glances before the elevator doors slot together that feel almost book-bound in this rose-tinted-glasses, can’t-grapple-with-the-concept-of-the-way-your-attractiveness-makes-me-feel way. The guy you definitely have post-breakup-sex with, but in a wholesome, I miss you because it was right-person-wrong-time and you-were-really-good-in-bed-and-to-my-soul kind of way, rather than a drunk spiral you regret in the morning. Soft, wet hair when he stops by her door to hand off misplaced mail from his hybridized collection.

Y/N slams her laptop shut. 

Technically, the screencap will still taunt her the next time she props it open and turns the device on, but the heat lapping over her psyche and body feels too stuffy and suffocating, so it’s a problem for another day. If she touched her face, she’s sure she’d feel something too similar to the sear of the sun. And if she reached between her legs? 

Well, that’d be a problem for the next few months.

Read the next 13.3K here now or > access on tumblr 05/12/25

[coquettepascal]

brave girl

summary: you decide to try something new when you believe you're home alone. joke! you aren't home alone. at least joel is willing to help.

tags: 18+ smut, joel miller x afab!reader, dbf!joel (it's mentioned twice,) pillow humping, f!masturbation, sexual frustration, getting caught, crying, insecurity, anxious!reader, softdom!joel (kind of idk,) soft!joel, neighborly!joel, tooth rotting sweetness, clit rubbing, kind of size difference-y, praise, nicknames like baby, sweet girl, sweet one, brave girl, etc.

a/n: yayy i wrote a fic !!! this is VERY birthday girl adjacent btw so if you liked that you'll like this (and vice versa!)

wc: 2.2k (not beta read)

You know this isn’t how he wants you.

No guy willing to fuck around with his best friend’s daughter wants it to be like this, where she’s sniffling and crying into his shirt, pushing herself not to squirm away from him. The normal idea of this would be for him to meet you at a beach, or a barbecue, or something else summer-y and sexy, and then you’d fuck and then oops-wait-you’re-his-daughter!? That’s how this should be, right? 

But no, instead you’re in the midst of your semester off, and sure you had met Joel a few times over the holidays when you came down to visit your old man, but you didn’t think this would be happening. 

Joel shifts behind you, reminding you that the position you’re in sucks for him. You’ve heard him complain about his back before, and now the ridge of your twin size bedframe is digging into his spine. You wish you had the energy to move or help him, but your eyes are bleary and your body is frozen from anxiety, which is better than the embarrassment of earlier. Thinking about the humiliation… a flash of hot red runs up your neck at the memory.

You had been trying something different. After scrolling online for a little while on some forums, you made the decision to try humping your pillow. Penetrative sex wasn’t something that felt good for you, and rubbing your own clit gets boring after the fourth night in a row. So yes, you decided to desecrate the pillow you’d been frustratedly tossing and turning on for the past week. 

It had started out okay. And literally just okay is how you would describe the experience. After being excited at the idea all night last night, and into the morning before your dad left for work, you had basically jumped onto your pillow the second the door clicked shut. Your flimsy undies were supposed to work as some sort of extra friction, and they kind of did, but eventually you just resorted to rubbing yourself while you were hunched over your pillow. The friction just wasn’t right, your pillow was too soft and there was nothing to truly rub against so it just frustrated you more. Your anger peaked when you realized that you had been all excited for no reason and you quickly lost steam on the jerking-off part of your morning, resorting to huffing and puffing into the pillow which pissed you off so bad. 

But when he had found you, or rather, just opened the door, you were crying. 

For whatever reason, you felt embarrassed about the pillow situation. You’re how many years old and you can’t make yourself come? Fingering yourself feels “weird” so instead you humped a pillow? Shame quickly overtook your frustrated feelings and you ended up crying into your sheets, clit abandoned and fingers slightly wet. Maybe you just weren’t meant for something like this, maybe you just weren’t meant to have sex or be sexy. What kind of girl were you? Surely a broken one, surely a stupid one. Nothing could feel worse than this self-created humiliation. 

Except, obviously, Joel finding you. 

“Are you oka– woah,” is what he had said before slapping his free hand over his eyes. Joel was annoyingly quiet sometimes. Without his work boots clomping beneath him he was a quiet guy with quiet movements so long as he was on carpet, so you had no clue he was in your house. He wasn’t there last night, so what the hell was he doing there now?

A little yelp had left you as you tugged your shirt down and shoved your pillow back to its rightful spot on the bed in a flurry of movement. Blush pink had crawled onto your face and shameful red snuck up your spine, seizing your neck to stiffen your posture. 

“What are you doing here?” You had asked, a guilty lilt to your tone.

Joel was standing there, clearly also flustered, with his hand still over his eyes. 

“Your dad kept sayin’ he’d fix the cabinet in the upstairs bathroom but he didn’t,” Joel begins to explain, his hand dropping from your door knob. “He’s back at work now and I uh— It’s my day off so I figured I’d lend a hand. Then I heard you crying or uh, something.”

You decide to stare into the bottom corner of your room, beside Joel’s feet.

“I was crying.” It isn’t a lie. 

Joel nods, almost takes his hand off his eyes, then decides to keep it on. 

“Why?”

And you probably shouldn’t have answered honestly. You should not have told Joel that you were crying because you feel like your pussy is broken, or maybe that your brain’s broken, and that you haven’t come in weeks because you keep getting so in your head about it. But you did, and that wouldn’t have been so bad. Would it have been bad to vent to your dad’s friend about how you can’t bust a nut? Yes, always. But it’s worse because it’s Joel, Mr. Fix-it-Felix himself, who just has to help everyone. 

But you didn’t exactly say no when he offered.

So now, you’re here, with your body cradled between his thick thighs, the denim of his jeans scratching at your lower back while one of his arms cradles the upper part of it. Joel said it was fine for you to put all your weight on him, and so you did. Your head rests on his shoulder, eyes focused on the aging, freckled, skin of his neck. 

You had warned him you’d probably keep crying, but he said it was okay. 

“You bare under the shirt, baby?” Joel asks softly. Your head nods your answer, eyes burning. 

The shirt is draped between your thighs as your knees are propped up but apart. Joel’s hand comes down and hesitantly hovers there, fingers just brushing the fabric before cupping you through the fabric.

“Can I touch underneath?” He asks.

It takes you a second. Humiliation is still coursing up and down the lengths of your arms in little waves of tingles that tickle weirdly. Can Joel touch underneath? You barely know how okay you are when you’re touching yourself, can you really handle him doing that? 

“I don’t know,” you admit. 

His chest moves heavy underneath you, a steady beat of up and down that reminds you of those automatic baby rockers. Joel doesn’t move his hand from where it is on you, and he doesn’t look down at you either, thank God. The anxiety, the unsure tension in the room, it’s stunting you from getting what you need. You don’t know what you can and can’t handle, you don’t know your body anymore. Something about this situation, which is already twisted, is only made worse now. Both of you know that much, but Joel seems to know more.

“Do you want to know?” 

His voice is quiet still, a rumbling noise that still shudders with nervousness as he says want, like he knows you might say no. Joel is someone you can stand saying no to, you know he’s faced greater disappointments than not helping his best friend’s daughter get off. But, you don’t want to say no. You don’t want to say no, but you don’t want to say yes either. 

You just want it to happen. 

One of your hands, the one that was reached up to clutch onto his shoulder, trembles as it comes down to guide his hand underneath. Your shirt drapes still, allowing you some modesty, a shield from his eyes.

“‘M not shaved,” you say apologetically, your voice tight from tears. His hand is just sitting there, motionless, and that sense of frustration is back. You don't want this from him, if you wanted something still you'd go back to humping your pillow. 

Please, you want to say to him, please show me this can be good, that I can feel good still. Take me somewhere I can't.

He's too hesitant, gently cupping over the somewhat trimmed hairs. Deep down you know why he's hesitating, he feels bad about this, but you're already crying so what's the use in anxiety?

“Joel,” you say his name like a reminder, even though you're just as scared as he is. He responds quickly, nodding and saying “yeah, sorry,” before his hand is finally moving.

“M just gonna start like this, okay sweetie?” His voice swims in your ears, quiet as you rest yourself against his chest again. Joel's movements are slow, practiced, as he rubs just over your lips, applying pressure to your clit in a gentle way. Everything he does is him testing the waters, making sure it's still okay. 

“Are you scared?” he asks. 

And no, not exactly. You aren't scared of anything in particular, you're just overwhelmed, but that's a lot of words and you can't find the words to put together a sentence right now. You hum something similar to a “kinda” and luckily he gets it.

Finally, he sinks a finger deep enough to actually feel how needy you are. A puff of breath leaves him, and maybe he’s surprised at how wet you are considering how scared you are. Another weird noise escapes your chest as you push your face higher, nose to his adams apple as you try to disappear beneath his jaw. Slowly, he begins to rub over your clit. It’s only one finger, a little overwhelming, and you squirm at the pressure. “Too much,” you complain. 

Joel, thankfully, doesn’t seem insulted by this, and instead eases up with the pressure. Your knees start to close together subconsciously, everything in you feels so conflicted and you don’t know if having Joel Miller help you was the best idea. But then he starts talking.

“Don’t want you to focus on my hands, sweet one,” he says. It isn’t self deprecating, but more of a suggestion. “Want you to focus on me, okay? It’s just me.”

Your eyes, which had previously been squeezed shut, open. You can see the freckled, tan, skin of his neck. It’s bumpy, and you can see little hairs that stray from his normal beard pattern. There’s a birthmark just below his collarbone that you’ve seen before when his shirt’s neckline slides the wrong way, so you must be tugging on his clothes in some way. You focus on that spot as his voice continues to lull your mind.

“It’s just me, right? Just Joel, you know me, hm?” He asks. It’s as if he wants to keep you in the moment, to keep you as awake as he seems to be. Joel’s head settles down more, his bristled chin resting on the top of your head as his hand works a little more intensely. 

You barely even recognize that you’re still crying as you let out a soft “uh-huh.” Big, hot, tears are rolling down your cheeks as you cling to him. His wrist is warm as it rests between your legs, his hand even warmer, but you try and listen to his words. 

“Yeah, it’s just Joel. I’m just helpin’ you for a bit, okay baby? You gonna let me help you?” It’s working. You can feel your stomach tightening, and even as tears still spill out, you’re nodding yes. If there were any words you could get out of your mouth you’d tell him yes, yes please help me, but unfortunately nothing will come out. Joel isn’t doing anything specifically technical with his movements here, just rubbing your clit slowly, using any of the wetness that leaks out of you to his advantage as he talks in a smooth tone. 

“You’re doing so good, so perfect. You just keep focusin’ on me, alright? I’m right here, I’m holdin’ ya,” he reminds you. Your eyes shut for a moment again, and your hands that were flopped beneath his bent knees are now gripping at your sheets. He notices you squirming and tilts his head down so his cheek rests on your head now. Against your back is his chest, his heart thumping beneath his skin at a steady beat. If he is hard, you don’t know, but you don’t care either. He’s helping you right now, this is about you. It’s about you, tucked under all his warm, soft, body. It’s about how he feels so safe for no reason, and how he’s encouraging this. It’s about how he’s fine with you crying, that he isn’t pulling away or asking if you’re okay. Joel knows it’s okay because he’s making it so, he’s grounding you with words and setting fire with his hands. “Just me and you, me and my brave girl,” he says. 

It’s probably the softest orgasm you’ve ever been brought to. A choking feeling crawls up your chest, choking your noises while rushes of blood bloom up your body to your head. It leaves you dizzy, breathless, boneless, and nearly deaf. You can barely hear what Joel is saying, but he’s definitely realized that he’s helped you plenty.  Your chest is heaving as he presses a kiss to your scalp, mumbling words about how brave you are, how pleased he is. It’s the first real orgasm you’ve had in a really long time, and maybe he knows, because he doesn’t make you move at all. Joel lets you lay back on him, removes his hand and adjusts your shirt so you’re covered again.

“That’s a brave girl now,” he murmurs softly, “you just rest now.”

[cottonlemonade]

Mr Steal Your Girl

word count: 1311 || avg. reading time: 6 mins.

pairing: post-time skip!Kenma x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff, University

warnings: spoilers

synopsis: Kenma tries to ask you out but has awful timing

It was already hard enough to dress for a normal date but finding an outfit for a blind date you didn’t want to go to to begin with was impossible.

Your best friend was annoyed that she couldn’t take you and your chronically single self on any double dates and so decided to take matters into her own hands. At least once every few months she would close her eyes and pick a random guy walking around the campus cafeteria and ask if he was interested in a “cool, funny, smart girl that was just too shy to ask herself” and most of the time that was enough. The date was set, your friend dragged you along and you had a miserable two hours before being allowed to return to your natural habitat - your dorm room.

In her defense, most guys she selected were actually very nice. And except for the last one who had forgotten his wallet, then ate his weight in burgers, let you pay, and had since vanished without a trace or payback, they all knew how to behave. They kept the conversations going, complimented you, and usually asked for a second date, but you liked being alone and besides, dating was stressful. Who needed the whole hassle of getting dressed up and leaving the house? You wanted someone who liked to spend their time indoors, watch movies, play games, build a Lego set or two, snuggle, and snack.

Kenma was convinced that you were perfect for him. Witty, had excellent taste in games and music, and a figure that put every body pillow he ever received as a promo gift to shame. He spent the better part of any lecture twirling his pen in his long fingers and staring at the back of your head, then quickly snapping his eyes the other way, pretending to look intently at the monitor upfront if you happened to turn around during a stretch. He remembered overhearing one of his former classmates once saying that asking someone out was easy, but now that Kenma absently drew a heart with your initials on the side of his notes, he found he didn’t share that sentiment. Partly because he didn’t like to go out in the first place, so how would he convincingly invite someone to something he didn’t even want to go to either?

None of his friends knew about his crush on you and he wasn’t going to admit it to them. Not because he would be embarrassed if they knew, but because he didn’t want to be grouped together with your small and not-so-secret on-campus fan club - a bunch of desperate boys who all wanted a piece of the chubby queen of homebodies. So he denied any allegations that quickening his sluggish steps on the way to the lecture hall to sit in your vicinity, his sleep-deprived heart eyes and doodle-adorned notepads meant anything. Pondering, he tapped the tip of his pen onto the paper, trying to figure out a way to invite you to play games with him, romantically. He wasn‘t going to stoop as low as to ask Kuroo for help and instead took to the wild seas of the internet for advice.

As he scrolled through the many many forums, sifting through mostly bad ideas, he overheard one of your friends say, “It‘s just dinner and a movie. Give him a chance. He is the captain of the swim team after all.“

Kenma‘s heart sank - and then bounced back up immediately when you groaned.

“Look, it‘s sweet and … a little concerning how much you care about my love life, but I‘m not interested in him. Or anyone really. I just prefer to be alone.“

100% understanding and agreeing with you, Kenma chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking if it would come across as weird and creepy if he were to ask you to be alone together.

“But I worry about you.“, the friend pouted.

You laughed and gently put a hand on her shoulder, “Not everyone meets the love of their life at university.“

In truth, you just didn‘t want your friend to know about your ridiculous crush on Kodzuken. Your heart had almost jumped out of your chest when you first spotted the tell-tale half-dyed ponytail in your class and heard the all too familiar voice during a presentation project. It was silly, really, and you did well pushing your infatuation to the very back of your mind.

After all, whenever you tried to catch a glimpse of him he would look away immediately, making it all too clear that wasn‘t interested in a conversation.

It was no use either way. Your friend wouldn‘t stop pushing until you were social for an evening so you chose your usual - well fitted jeans and a thin, long sleeved sweater to keep the cold and any potential bodily contact to a minimum. Your friend waved when she recognized you getting off the bus. She was already waiting in the arms of her boyfriend with a tower of a guy right next to them, who, when seeing who his set-up was going to be, looked a little disappointed. Oh great.

Kenma felt more pathetic by the second. All day he had tried to work up the courage to catch you in a calm minute to ask you out before your date. If it went well with that guy, chances were he wouldn’t ever let you go (if he knew what was best for him), so this was basically his last opportunity ever. When he didn’t manage to ask during class, then neither during lunch, nor in the library he never went to before, and neither at the bus stop, he thought he might as well face the fact that it wasn’t meant to be. But he found himself a few hours later behind you in the queue at the movie theater, he heard you were planning to go to. He would have to ask now before he’d have to buy a ticket. As he politely waited for a lull in the conversation between you and the Iron Man your friend set you up with, Kenma tried to busy himself with a game on his phone to calm his nerves. But he became so engrossed in a level that he missed his chance and could only watch you walk away with your friends. He should just give up. This was ludicrous.

“One ticket to whatever movie they just went to.”, he said before he could stop himself.

Just turn around. Turn around and leave. Come on.

But his feet had other plans. With the overpriced movie stub in hand, he shuffled to the auditorium and searched in the crowd for you. Unfortunately, the first marker he found was the tall guy next to you, talking to your friend and boyfriend, leaving you to sit quietly and awkwardly to the side.

He walked up the steps and your eyes met. Your cheeks blushed, as did his, and with the confidence of a deflated balloon, he came to a halt next to you, hands in his pockets.

“Hey y/n, I’m Kenma. I’m in your business class.”

“I know.”, you said and he was already relieved. First hurdle down. Now, carefully…

“Do you wanna go to a gaming café together?”

“Wha- right now?”

“I mean, yeah, if you don’t have anything else going on.”, he looked past you to the guy who just stared at him in disbelief and added in appeasement of your date, “Nothing personal.”

You exchanged a look with your friend who was just as shocked as the others and she shrugged. You turned back to Kenma.

“Sure thing.”

He held out his hand, then felt silly doing so and was about to lower it when you grabbed it.

“Lead the way.”, you said brightly and he did.

[igotanidea]

Too hot to handle: Jason Todd x reader

SMUT MDNI!

As usual sorry for all the typos, grammar mistakes etc. I really had to post it XD

***

Y/N was fuming.

For no reason at all, falling down the internet hole, she found herself on some stupid forum for stupid horny women who couldn't keep it in their pants.

Clearly those bitches were getting hot and bothered for Red Hood, shamelessly sharing their dirty thoughts and comments on some parts of his body and the things he'd let him do if--

Fuck.

She could have Tim or Babs trace their IP addresses in a second and could pay them a visit of a very possessive, angered and super jealous girlfriend.

Her hands were almost itching to write a few spicy comments herself, spilling the beans of whose body Red Hood was touching almost every night. Whose lips he was devouring. Whose most sensitive parts he was tasting with his tongue, begging for as much as a drop of sweetness. Whose moans and gasps he got to hear, whose voice was his drug, whose curves he was worshiping on his knees.

Obviously, she couldn't do that, but the thought of Jason's muscled body on top of her, his hands tracing her skin and joining her in the intimate dance had a side effect seeping through her panties. 

She needed him. 

With the need that could not be satisfied with her fingers or even the toys she had stacked safely in the locked bottom drawer.

Jason ...

Come home...

Can't you sense how much I want you now...

She almost prayed to the moon on the sky to bring her lover back to her. 

***

That little tingling on his skin was something new and as much as he hated to put the thought into words, it was like a spider-sense. The one of Y/N’s second favorite self-appointed hero – spiderman.

Y/n…

Was that feeling because she was in danger?

Did someone hurt her? Did anyone dare lay a finger on his precious girl?

Jason gritted his teeth, clenching fists, anger at a purely potential enemy flooded his brain.

It was a quiet night either way, giving him a perfect opportunity to take a quick detour and check on his angel. Just a look and assurance that she was safe, to help him keep going and push him through all the shit and doubts.

Y/n….

***

He did not expect her to sit in front of Netflix at 2 am. She had work in the morning so why on earth was she watching the series?

“Hey!” he called, probably a little bit too loud, causing her to jump on the couch and almost drop the mug. “Sorry…”

“Next time give me a heads up, will you?” she muttered with a pout.

“Um- okay. What’s with the attitude?”

“Nothing.” Y/N scoffed angrily, turning back to the TV.

“Can I please get my girlfriend back? You know, the other one? Nice and caring? The one who would ask me if I’m hurt or maybe need patching or a post-patrol kiss?” Jason teased moving in front of the screen, successfully blocking it from her view. “Wait… Y/N, are you watching “Too hot to handle?" His laugh filled the room, because honestly that might have been the funniest thing in the whole week. His serious, a bit reserved, goody-two-shoes girl had her eyes on the show about horny singles.

“Shut up…”

“Oh, I will most definitely not shut up about it. Are you hinting at something, here? Cause you know, you don’t need a show like this if—” he switched a little, coming closer and leaning over her silhouette on the couch

“Shut up, Jason!”

“Whoa!” his hands raised in feigned surrender “someone’s feisty today, aren’t you?”

“I’m not feisty. I’m furious!”

“At what?”

“Girls!”

“Wait, what?” Jason frowned “I am confused.

“Girls! Women! The ones who are trying to bang and –”

“I thought you liked banging?” he sent her a knowing smirk

“Jason!”

 “Come on, sunshine, you cannot hide that blush.” He pointed out, brushing fingers over her reddened cheeks, raising her head so she had to look into his eyes “What’s gotten into you? Tell me the truth.”

“Stupid internet.”

“Mhm. Okay. Care to elaborate?”

“Did you know the girls are getting hot for the Red Hood on some stupid forum?”

“Nope. Did not. But… did it make you jealous?” he smirked, expecting her to deny and squirm in embarrassment that he accused her of such low feelings.

“Yeah…” Much to his surprise, she decided to be honest. It truly was a strange night. “Yeah, I was. Jealous and furious. Hence the “Too hot to handle” marathon.”

“Hm? Can’t see the correlation.”

“It’s so shallow and selfish and mean, but – the show is so silly and most possibly fabricated. I may, or may not have been trying to diminish women who are openly horny….?” Her voice became barely audible at the end, as if she was ashamed to admit her own .

“Oh, you silly little one.” Jason laughed, pulling her onto his lap and brushing hair out of her forehead. “You could have led with that.” His lips brushed over her forehead

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“You should have told me, that coming across girls leching over me-“

“Over Red Hood!” she interrupted and he only laughed again.

“Over me” he underlined  “- got your knickers in a twist.”

“It did not!”

Great, now she was trying to deny it. Too bad it was too late and he was in the mood for the games anymore. He felt the need to assure her that she was the one, though also expressing appreciation for said open horniness and for a little bit of jealousy. It made his ego soar.

“Didn’t it?” he teased, grabbing onto her waist and laying her on her back, hovering over her, moving fingers up her leg, until it reached the hem of her sleeping shorts. “Maybe I should check myself then?”

His hand brushed over the inside of her thigh, causing her to let out a sharp exhale.

“Oh, right… My little minx is not wearing panties at all. So it seems like you have been telling the truth after all. You did not get them in a twist…”

He leaned forward, pressing his lips to her, a sudden sweet distraction allowing him to yank those silly little shorts down, exposing her want without any care in the world. Opening her legs and wrapping them on his waist, without breaking the kiss for even a second, Jason pressed his weight on her, distributing it evenly on his forearms, to not crash her.

“Mmm. Tease.”

“And you love every second of it.” He smirked, grinding against her core, sacrificing his favorite tactical pants to her warmth and wetness. Not much of an exorbitant price for what was waiting at the finish line.

And even though it was just the beginning of the marathon, they were already gasping heavily, grasping onto each other, pulling each other closer and closer. She was so needy and he loved it. The more bothered she was, the easier it got for him to end on the winner’s podium. His cock was hardening by a second, making it almost painful to be kept in the pants, but he was holding back.

“Jason…” she moaned, reaching down his torso, sneaking hand under the waistband.

“Not yet, baby.” All she got in return was her hands pinned above her head in a very vulnerable position, completely at his mercy. And to add to it all, Jason lips attached to her pulse point, sucking the sensitive skin, making sure to leave a dark purple hickey. The one she wouldn’t be able to cover easily. “Not yet…” the grip on her wrists faltered for a second, but not enough to allow her to break free.

Jason was skillful and knew exactly what he was doing.  Feeding her with the false hope of freedom only for a second, only to grab her hands in one hand, using the other to roll her sleeping shirt up, exposing her breasts, but not taking it off fully.

“Hello, lovelies…” he muttered, before diving between her tits, getting the arching back and multiple sounds of pleasure in return. “Yeah… keep those sounds coming, baby…”

His lips traced a scorching path down her cleavage, making her want skyrocket, smirking upon the feeling of her legs tightening on his waist and her hips grinding against her jeans.

“Not yet.” He commanded again, pressing her back flat onto the couch. “Not yet…” his eyes flashed with something primal and animalistic. There was something devilishly turning on with having her naked under him, while he didn’t shed a single piece of clothing. And he was going to exploit that opportunity to the maximum.

With a quiet laugh that sounded almost sinful, Jason bent down and traced tongue over the flesh of her soft, warm breast, purposefully avoiding the little pink button that was begging for his attention. Yes, his ego was skyrocketing upon hearing her cries of pleasure and broken gasps of his name on her swollen lips, followed by the flexing of her body against his touch.

Yes, he might have been acting a little dominant, but they both knew it was not going to go on forever. 

Deep inside Jason was sweet and romantic, definitely putting soft, tender lovemaking over hard and rough sex.

And really, it didn’t take him long to give in to her pleadings and entreaties, moving lips to her nipple, sucking and biting on it gently.

“Oh yes!” she cried out, closing her eyes and from that moment things started taking on the pace. Jason groaned from the sensation of her breast in his mouth, letting go of her wrists, allowing her hands to tangle in his hair, only adding to the feelings burning inside his chest and groin. Abandoning lavishing attention on her chest, he guided her hands to the hem of his shirt and with  interlaced fingers and eyes never faltering from each other’s face they pulled it over his head, exposing his toned upper body, covered with fresh bruises and cuts.

“So you are hurt…” she whispered, touching the pads of her fingers to the newest purple mark on his pec.

“I didn’t notice…” his voice was deep, calming and full of adoration “All I notice right now is you…” he grabbed her hand pressing it to his lips, kissing all over her knuckles.

“Then come feel me too…” she moved upwards, pressing her lips to his, wanting to feel that chapped warmth on hers. And once their mouths met it was a sensation incomparable with anything else. Ironically (or not) making out like this, with their entwined bodies, separated only by the material of his pants, slowly, tenderly, focused only on each other, leaving the whole world behind was turning her on more than actual penetration.

Which did not mean she didn’t want to go all the way.

“Is it time yet?” she whispered, with a little bit of teasing in her voice, breaking the kiss only for a second.

“You are ruining the moment, sunshine.” He chuckled, tracing kisses up her cheek, all the way to her ear, softly biting on her earlobe, causing more tickling than actual pain. Y/N responded with a little chuckle as well, cupping his cheek, bringing his lips back to hers once more. Without breaking the making out for even one second, Y/N removed his belt and undid the button on his pants. Then, with a few kicks and swings of legs, they managed to set him free from his confines, finally feeling each other from head to toe.

“How’s your jealousy doing now…?” he teased, guiding himself to her entrance, grabbing onto her waist, rolling his fingers in tiny circles on her sensitive skin.

“Who’s ruining the moment now?”

“No idea. Who?” he chuckled. It was so good being with her like this. In the moment of intimacy, that was meaningful but deprived of the seriousness that could ruin the tenderness. Perfect mix of softness and love, seasoned with a bit of well balanced humor and  sarcasm that bonded them in the first place. “You ready for me, baby?”

“So ready.” She smiled, shifting and squirming to allow him to slide inside better and maximize the pleasure of unity for them both.

“Mh. Hello there…” he smirked and without missing a bit started to move inside her. Slowly, but intensely. Building up and drawing the tension. Moving hands on her body in time with the thrusts, fueling the fire that was meant to warm but not burn. “Is this what you wanted?” he looked at her face searching for the answers behind those e/c eyes, filled with longing and devotion.  

“Yeah… Good thing you helped me realize what it was that I wanted…” she started matching his movements, kissing him again.

The tension between their bodies was building slowly and steadily. There was no rush. They had all the time in the world, that suddenly shrunk to only them two.

Jason and Y/n.

Y/n and Jason.

Together.

Connecting seamlessly, with bodies joined and heart beating only for one another. Creating their own bubble of beauty and wonder in the darkness and danger of Gotham.

“I love you…” he muttered, leaning forehead on hers, needing to say those words before everything turn into the blur and haze due to the slowly approaching tidal wave of climax.

“I love you…” she responded, feeling the exact same need, knowing well enough that those three little words exchanged before the post-bliss was far more meaningful and far more true.

***

“How’s the hate on horny women doing now?” he muttered against her hair, some time later. It could have been minutes as well as hours cause once they busted the pleasure door open time suddenly became relative and meaningless.

“Hm? What women? Wait a second. Are you really trying to tell me there are other women somewhere?’ she looked at him with a tease, raising an eyebrow playfully. “I am fairly convinced there are only you and me. No other men or women anywhere.”

“Hm… What I’m hearing is that I’m the only guy in the world for you?”

“It depends on—”

“Because sure as hell you are the only woman for me.” He added quickly, knowing what her condition was. “And no silly internet forum or contestant of so-called hot, naughty Netflix show could change it.”

“You got soft, Red Hood.” She smiled, nuzzling into his chest and placing a little kiss on his chest, close to his heart

“I can be hard when it counts, though.” His heart picked up the pace as her lips touched his skin “Honestly I can be anything you may need from me.”

“How about we both stay ourselves?”

“Works for me.”

Jason's arms wrapped around her pulling her to his chest for more and more aftercare and cuddles. It was a quiet night after all and he could indulge in some time with his beloved Y/N.

[reasonsforhope]

"In drought-stricken areas, communities facing water shortages, or even in residential and commercial buildings eager to improve their environmental footprints, atmospheric water generators represent a new frontier in water production.

While it might sound like a tidbit from a science fiction movie, even the driest places on earth have moisture in the air that can be extracted and used for everyday necessities like plumbing and drinking. 

Unlike traditional dehumidifiers, which also pull moisture from the air, AWGs utilize filtration and sterilization technology to make water safe to drink. 

And while there are plenty of AWG companies out there — and the science itself isn’t novel — AWGs are becoming more efficient, affordable, and revolutionary in combating water scarcity in a myriad of communities.

Aquaria Technologies, a San Francisco-based AWG startup, was founded in 2022 to help provide affordable and clean drinking water in areas most affected by climate change. 

Using heat exchange and condensation, Aquaria’s generators draw air into their systems, cool that air below its dew point, and as it condenses, capture that water and filter it for consumption. 

As the cycle continues, the generator’s refrigerant vaporizes and goes through a process that cools it back into a liquid, meaning the heat transfer cycle repeats continuously in an energy-efficient and self-sustaining system.

“I’m sure you’ve had the experience in the summer, you take a glass of a cold drink out of the fridge and then water droplets form on the side of the bottle,” Aquaria’s co-founder and CEO Brian Sheng, said in a podcast episode. “That’s actually condensation.”

Sheng continued: “The question is, how do we create condensation? How do we extract water out of the air in large volume and using little energy? That’s what our technology does. We have created both active and passive cooling methods where we use special materials, and we’ve created heat exchange and recovery systems and airflow design, such that we’re maximizing heat exchange, and then we’re able to extract large volumes of water.”

Aquaria has created a number of generators, but its stand-alone model — the Hydropack X — can replace an entire home’s dependence on municipal water, producing as much as 264 gallons of potable water per day. 

Other models, like the Hydrostation, can provide water for up to 1,500 people at parks, construction sites, or other outdoor public areas. The Hydropixel can make 24 gallons of water per day for a seamless at-home application, requiring a simple outlet for power. 

“Atmospheric water generators present a groundbreaking solution to the global challenge of clean water scarcity, leveraging the humidity present in the air to produce potable water,” the company’s website explains.

“This technology is versatile, functioning efficiently across diverse climates — from arid regions to tropical settings. From rural communities in developing countries to advanced cities facing unexpected droughts, atmospheric water generators have a wide range of applications… transforming lives and providing secure, clean water sources.”

Considering an estimated 2.2 billion people lack access to clean water globally — including in American cities like Flint, Michigan, or Modesto, California — innovative solutions like AWGs are vital to maintaining the basic human right to clean water. 

The World Economic Forum has begun to dip its toes into this technology as well, implementing public and private partnerships to introduce AWG units in Arizona’s Navajo Nation, where the machines produce about 200 gallons of clean water per day.

“When combined with an appropriate level of community engagement and triple-bottom-line business (people, planet, profit),” a blog post for WE Forum said, “this model can be a powerful stopgap solution where few exist today.”

Similarly, according to New Atlas, Aquaria has a partnership with developers to supply its technology to a 1,000-home community in Hawaii later this year, relying entirely on atmospherically generated water.

The company also has a “Frontier Access Program,” which partners with water-related NGOs, community project developers, and sustainable development groups to deploy this technology in areas most in need.

Regardless of their use cases — in homes, in communities facing water shortages, or at aid sites navigating natural disasters — AWGs have a minimal environmental impact. Sourcing water “from thin air,” requires no plastic bottles, no large-scale plants using up loads of energy, and no byproducts that can harm the environment."

-via GoodGoodGood, August 27, 2024

[ourdawnishotterthanourday]

Catch Me — Xu Minghao

✧ Let's bring out the beast, shall we? ✧

Plot: Picture this… you join an exclusive sex club and meet a mysterious man who helps you embrace your darker tastes.

🎥 Starring: fem!reader x mystery man!Xu Minghao 🎥 Genre: dark romance; suggestive [+18], light angst 🎥 Word count: 0.9k+ 🎥 Warnings: swearing, primal kink (I explain it a bit but feel free to look it up if you’re unsure), light knife play (no blood) 🎥 Notes: alright, so this is a little different from my usual writing but I recently read the Legacy of Gods series by Rina Kent and let me tell you I AM OBSSESSED!! so ofc I had to incorporate it into a fic hehe. hope you will like it 🤭 🎥 Shout out: thanks again to bestie @nothoughtsjustfic for reading over this as always 💜

♡ REBLOGGING AND/OR FEEDBACK WOULD BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED — DON'T BE A STRANGER PLS ♡

Set The Scene Masterlist —  Masterlist

Crazy. 

That was the only word you could think of to describe the situation you’d gotten yourself into on this dark and gloomy Friday evening. 

If anyone were to see you right now, running frantically through the forest in the middle of nowhere, they’d think you were in immediate danger.

But that was just the thing. Your life wasn’t in jeopardy… not really. In fact, you had very much agreed to partake in this sick and twisted game. 

It all started with Rose Haven, an exclusive sex club you’d signed up for in an attempt to find something that was more your taste, so to say. 

Although you were by no means a virgin, you’d never really found sex enjoyable, unlike your friends, who swore it was the best thing on earth. Of the few guys you’d been with, none had managed to make you cum, nor had they bothered with anything more than missionary or doggy to get themselves off before taking their leave. 

You’d then turned to porn, hoping that it would be better without a useless, self-centered guy getting in between you and your orgasm. But that didn’t do it for you either. It was all so anticlimactic and fake, you felt like you needed something more, even though you weren’t sure what that something was supposed to be. 

It had gotten to the point where you were starting to believe that maybe you were the problem — abnormal, defect, whatever you wanted to call it. 

But then you’d come across Rose Haven, and you learned about a whole list of sex kinks you didn’t even know existed. That’s how you eventually discovered the world of primal play, aka a type of predator–prey dynamic in which both parties let their primal instincts come out during sex. 

You‘d been intrigued from the start, wondering how something so raw and animalistic could be considered elating and pleasurable. However, the more you read through the club’s primal play forum, the more you began to realize that perhaps this was exactly what you needed. Maybe giving into your instincts for once would finally give you what you were looking for. 

And what better way than to do it with a random stranger, someone who didn’t know you at all, someone who wouldn’t judge you for indulging in something like that, someone who — just like you — was trying out new kinks because regular, boring vanilla sex was not cutting it for them either? 

Yes, you knew it sounded totally crazy and you were pretty sure that none of your friends would understand, but you still signed up that same evening, filling out all the required information and your preferences and submitting the form before you had a chance to back out. 

And now here you were, being chased through a dark forest by a hot guy whom you’d been matched with less than a week after sending in your application. 

You didn’t even know his name. All you knew about the guy was that he’d engaged in primal play before, and his member ID, which was mentioned in the attendance invitation you’d received earlier this evening — it also stated the safeword and the off-site location you were currently at. 

When you arrived at the eerie-looking cabin, you’d been alone. And when he still hadn’t shown up ten minutes after the original meetup time, you started to second-guess your choice to come.

But then he was suddenly there, scaring the living daylights out of you when you felt his warm breath hit the back of your neck. It was only when you turned around and he showed you the card displaying a member ID that matched the one you received, you felt yourself start to relax. 

Next thing you knew he told you to run as his lips curled into a devilish smirk, one that was enough to get you moving.  

Where, you didn’t know. You could barely see anything in the dark, the trees all looking similar and your vision slightly blurring the longer you ran. So you stopped behind a big tree for a moment to catch your breath, keeping your ears open for any sign of the guy. 

A twig snapping on your right caught your attention and your heartbeat sped up instantly as you waited, your body shaking with adrenaline. 

“Oh, thank god.” You breathed a sigh of relief when you realized it was just an innocent bunny. You slowly pushed yourself away from the tree and turned around before taking a step, only to freeze when a piece of metal was suddenly pressed against your throat. 

“Gotcha, little rabbit. You really have to work on your technique,” he mumbled against your ear.

You swallowed nervously, too afraid to move but at the same time curious to see what would happen if you did. 

“Don’t even think about moving. I won’t be so nice next time.” His voice was harsh this time, sending tingles down your spine and to your pussy as he increased the pressure on your throat. 

Fuck, how was he having this effect on you already? You don’t think you’d ever gotten that wet this fast. But here this stranger was, doing just that while manhandling you like a freaking psycho. 

Within the blink of an eye, he removed the knife and forcefully pushed your back against the large tree, leaving you with nowhere to go as he trapped you with his larger form.

Then the knife was back on your skin, right below your throat, sliding down slowly and leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. 

A loud ripping sound echoed through the empty woods, and you watched with big eyes as your dress fell to the ground in tatters.

A terrifying smile overtook the man's features as his hungry gaze moved over your trembling form.

“Now, little rabbit, where do we start?” 

**BONUS CONTENT**

Dear Ms. L/N,

Due to unforeseen circumstances that we cannot disclose, member 234448 is unfortunately unable to attend today's appointment that was supposed to take place at 10pm.

If you wish to reschedule the appointment, please fill out the attached form as soon as possible and we will do our best to arrange something.

Thank you for your understanding and as always, stay safe.

🌹 Rose Haven  

Your breath caught in your throat as you read over the club message you'd received over two hours ago.

“Something wrong, little rabbit?”

Your gaze shot up instantly, locking with mystery man's dark orbs as you tried to keep your cool.

If your supposed ‘date’ had canceled on you, then who the hell was the man that had just ravaged you in the best possible way in the forest?

To be continued…

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If you wish to be added to the Set The Scene taglist, please fill out this form. We will only add those with age indicators in their bios to the taglist due to potential NSFW material within certain scenes.

[lemurchick]

Another 'wonderful news' from Russia for your consideration! This week, the BRICS forum on traditional values took place in Moscow. And it was fucking insane.

In short, the opening meeting was BRICS countries representatives verbally jerking off on how well they oppress or plan to oppress their people especially women. The only person who bothered to contradict this narrative was Egyptian female writer Doha Mustafa Assy.

I will translate some quotes from the russian article. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7311174

Russia: "At some point the roles for women have begun to change towards independence and self-sufficiency. We, of course, love and respect our women very much, but we want them to pay more attention to their families, men and children. We do not want them to strive for business, politics, economics, power, or culture. <...> The main traditional value is the preservation of natural purpose, where a woman continues the family line and a man inspires her to give birth to children."

Pakistan: "Any traditional religion upholds and promotes social values and traditions. No father would want to harm his family. No mother would want to break up or disintegrate her family. This <rejection of family values> is deliberately imposed on us and promoted by some power circles”

Ethiopia: "In our country it is traditionally women who do the cooking, teaching children and other family duties. So the man's role is not as big as the woman's, and this tradition gives the man the freedom to behave like a child." (?????)

Uganda: [This country experience is “extremely important to the discussion of legislative protection of religious values,” emphasized russian politician Dmitry Kuznetsov, referring to the fact that in Uganda same-sex relations are prohibited, and in some cases violators face life imprisonment or even the death penalty.] “We did this to make sure that the country would be preserved. I would encourage countries to behave in such a way that the culture that exists in each country is not imposed on others.” btw Brazil and South Africa representatives didn't say a word here even though their countries legalized same-sex mafrriage years ago.

Brazil: "Marriage in no longer a goal for our citizens and the country has the highest divorce rate in history. Meanwhile, children are most often left with their mothers, with fathers unwilling to take part in their upbringing. As a result, many Brazilian boys are growing up without a father figure and 9% of male inmates in prisons don't even know their father's name. Shifting the balance in favor of women leads to the fact that the position of feminism is growing, and the number of people who identify as LGBT people is growing.” At the end of his speech, he marveled, “This is my first time in Russia, and I didn't know you guys were so conservative. I'm so happy, it's so impressive!” He also admitted that “the people of Brazil know nothing about Russia,” and Dmitry Kuznetsov promised: “We will come to you and tell you all about our saving conservatism.”

Egypt: As I mentioned in the beginning the only person who actively argued against this trend was Doha Mustafa Assy. She said: "We on the contrary has a struggle against patriarchy. Tradition and religion are not on women's side, they help men. A lot of women in Egypt ask for divorce only because they feel like slaves at home. He (the husband) has the right not to let her leave the house according to tradition. BRICS is India, it's China, it's Russia, it's Egypt. We are very different. And maybe what you are trying to do in Russia has already became a problem for us”.

To be honest I don't know what will come out of this forum. Maybe it's just empty posturing, maybe BRICS countries just sent people who had free time on their hand here as a formality. But I despair reading these quotes; twenty years ago we sent a singing duet posing as lesbians to Eurovision; ten years ago I was watching lesbian drama Blue Is the Warmest Colour in a full theater. Soviet Union gave women some attempt in an equal rights in fucking 1917 and we were the first country to send a woman in space. What happened? How has it turned this way? We are now friends with some of the most patriarchal countries in the world and with fucking North Korea. They are planning to remove the Taliban's terrorist status.

What the hell.

[thegreatstoryteller]

The Great Shift: Awkward Tales - Vignette 1: The Nervous Flirt

When the Great Shift hit the world, everyone was thrown into chaos. However, eventually society resettled into a new and more accepting form. At some point everyone would have to get used to their new bodies… right?

Well for a few individuals out there, after the great shift, they still were… adjusting. No matter how much time happened, some were cursed with an awkward new perspective in life. 

Maxwell, was nervous. More nervous than usual! Before the great shift, he had recently come out as gay to his close friends and family! While, they were all super accepting and happy for him, that didn’t solve his issues… talking to people he liked! No matter how many times he tried, he would turn into a stuttering mess whenever a hot guy was in the vicinity. He was lucky enough that his small unassuming frame meant no one could see his failures.

When the great shift happened, he thought things might be different.  New body! New me! That was the mantra he’d heard many people say as he had browsed forums and self help spaces. Turns out many people just needed a new body to reorient their social skills and  come out of their shell! At first Maxwell thought he’d be one of them!

He knew that he was a lot stronger in this body. He still wore his glasses, but these arms were no joke. Plus he didn’t have any skin issues anymore and he finally had some decent facial hair to work with! It all seemed to add up to something of a turning point for his life. 

That wasn’t the case.

Turns out a new body came with the same issues PLUS a few new ones too. Maxwell couldn’t form a straight sentence around hot guys, even newly hot guys who had never been hit on before! Even if Maxwell was just as handsome and good looking, his words fell apart at the slightest bit of attraction. Not only that, but his pool of attraction doubled. Apparently the guy he’d become was bisexual and loved flirting with men and women! So now not only did hot men make his speech a mess, but beautiful ladies did as well! A single hot woman could ruin his night if she asked for directions! A studly man asking if he wanted a drink would have him run out of the bar! No matter what seemed to happen, Maxwell was still an awkward dork.

Going from 5’5 to 6’2 didn’t help either. Now everyone could see this towering confident stud look like a complete fool! And his quick escapes were a thing of the past since every time he tried to run away he’d trip over his large size 15 feet. The last time he tried to flee from a failed flirt he knocked over two waiters and spilled 3 drinks over the person he was talking to. He needed some help. 

His friends did their best to console him, but even they had difficulty finding a clear solution. 

“Come on dude, you’ve got to stop biting your nails!” Beth, his best friend since college said after another night of failed flirting.

“I’m sorry Beth!” Maxwell whined in his new voice. Previously that expression was met with more nasally tones, but now even his wines made such flirtatious sounds when it came out of his new deep voice. “I just can’t stop thinking about that couple that asked if I wanted to join them tonight. The guy was soooo hot! He was like some kind of bodybuilder! And the girl! She could’ve been a super model. And i just froze and ran away!”

“It’s ok. I know that you want to pursue a relationship post shift. There’s no shame in striking out. Lots of people are having a hard time finding love.” Beth chimed in trying to comfort her friend.

“Easy for you to say. You and your fiance got Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth’s bodies! And you’re still together!” Maxwell complained, burying his head in his pillow, still shirtless and showing off his impressive arms.

“I… I admit. We did get lucky. I know all our friends love Marvel, and my fiance and I are mega nerds… and the role play in the bedroom is fun and-”

“Beth!”

“Sorry! I just mean, that nothing is hopeless.  You’ll find what you’re looking for soon. And hey, if it helps you can try flirting with me and Erin tonight.” Beth offered.

Maxwell blushed… and then slowly nodded. Maybe flirting with two of his biggest celebrity crushes would solve his issue after all.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Every so often I'll watch one of those "actually, d&d SUCKS" videos to self flagellate myself look for for genuine critique/unique game design perspectives and more often than not I'll just be gritting my teeth together the entire time like

NONE OF YOU ARE ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME, YOU'RE SITTING AROUND IN FORUMS THEORYCRAFTING "OPTIMIZED" BUILDS IN A PERFECTLY SMOOTH MATH-SPACE WITH IDEAL CONDITIONS, INFINITE RESOURCES, AND A DM WITH NO INTEREST IN DOING ANYTHING BUT RUNNING COMBAT ENCOUNTERS. CRITIQUE THE MATH ALL YOU WANT, YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT THAT THE NUMBERS THERE TO FACILITATE A FANTASY ADVENTURE STORY YOU'RE TELLING WITH YOUR FRIENDS.

-ahem-

Maybe it's because I've always been a drama kid or fully drunk the Critrole/D20 koolaid but I just can't get into the head of someone who engages with d&d from a "mechanics first" perspective. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE game mechanics, and I've amassed quite the horde of homebrew/3rd party content to help fine tune both my characters AND my campaigns to try and get what I want out of them but the only time I've had the impulse to optimize a character was seeking out a way for me to better express who they were through the lens of gameplay; Making sure the cocky sniper or duellist had the damage output to back up their boasting, or the failwizard had the right kind of "useless" spells sell the fact that they really were an apprentice in over their head while still having fun.

I suppose if you're the sort of chessbrained person who sees the rules as immutable and only prioritizes "wining" d&d would be a broken game, but then you'd be mistaking our fandom's vibrant storytelling engine for the lackluster tactical skirmish game WotC is intending on turning it into.

[bioethicists]

Come Chat about Psych Abolition + Harm Reduction!

Over the past several weeks, I've hosted 5 Zooms where we chatted about psych abolition + its futures + the work we want to see in the world. It was a deeply healing experience for me + I appreciated hearing from all of you so much more than you could even know. As I discussed, I am hoping to host a second set of these Zooms, this time 6 in sequence, focused on harm reduction + psych abolition. Harm reduction is both my vocation + my passion in life + I'm really excited to share about it with you all.

As some people requested, the format this time will be a little different- I will open each session with a brief (~15 min) presentation from either myself or one of my comrades discussing the topic + explaining crucial works in a way that is accessible to someone with no prior knowledge of harm reduction. After that, we will chat similarly to the format of the first set of meetings, bouncing ideas off one another + sharing what resonates with us + what doesn't.

A reminder to anyone who wants to attend that under no circumstances may anyone contact the authorities as a result of anything spoken about during the Zoom. Free discussion of self-injury + suicidality + substance use are expected without fear of being “crisis” intervened upon. That being said, the goal of these chats is not necessarily to be a support group but more to talk about psychiatric abolition, build community, + increase knowledge.

I will be doing 3 weekday evening sessions + 3 midday Saturday sessions (apologies to those who observe Shabbat! My Sundays became a bit haywire), hoping to accommodate people with different work schedules + time zones. They will be via Zoom. Each topic will repeat 2x, but I still encourage people to attend both if they want to chat more about it! 'Lurking' (aka camera off, no speaking) is encouraged! Any way that you want to show up is okay- we regularly have people attend who do not engage at all, or only engage in the chat. Chat messages are read aloud by me to ensure that chat participants feel equally included in the group.

Also, I am looking for people who have resources that may be helpful for these, as well as people who might be interested in speaking about their experiences with these topics. Unfortunately this is all just done by me, in my office, so I don't have compensation to offer, but anyone who wants to contribute in any capacity is encouraged to reach out <3 Elliott @trans-axolotl will be giving the presentation portion for Harm Reduction (Self-Injury + Suicidality).

Also, if you would like to join the Madness + Liberation forum where we discuss psychiatric abolition at greater length, please feel free to fill out my Google Form here.

Those of you who need a dial-in number, please message me on Tumblr or send an anon + I will provide it.

Resource Masterlist

Summary of the first set of sessions, Substance Use

Summary of the second set of sessions, Disorderly Eating

Summary of the third set of sessions, Self-Harm

(image by asako narahashi, 2003)