#to the point that i had to google a lot of the shit they were saying bec i was like ????? wtf is that even supposed to mean | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

creamflix · 7 days ago

Note

Hiiiii queen, not sure if your requests are open but what are your thoughts on a reader x gym instructor Toji fic? as a gym girly, I’m feining for that shit bjsjsbsh 😭 If you’re not into it, no worries at all, just ignore this! thankyou loveyou 😛 hope u have an amazing day <3

HOT GIRL SUMMER! — toji fushiguro x female reader

18+ content, minors and blank blogs do not interact. gym trainer toji, gym trainee reader. mentions of gojo satoru. toji's kinda a dork. lots of sexual tension. big dick toji yessir. orgasm control & denial. doggy style. fingering (f. receiving). big four: dirty talk, degradation, teasing and praise. slight dacryphilia. overstimulation and mindbreak. hair pulling. semi-clothed sex. locker room sex. p in v sex (protected!! no creampies today folks). crack + fluff ending, somewhat aftercare?

thank you to anon who requested this <3 i hope you enjoy!

— general masterlist ☆ read on ao3

your first day at the gym felt a little like the first day of school — except instead of a backpack full of supplies, you had a duffel bag stuffed with coordinated athleisure and just a tiny bit of misplaced confidence.

toji fushiguro. the name echoed in your head like a mantra, which was completely coincidental and not at all the result of a quick late-night “gym instructor thirst trap” google search. nope, not at all.

as you walked in, the gym smelled of disinfectant and...testosterone? was that what testosterone smelled like? you weren’t sure, but it had a distinct, musky gym-bro-y vibe. before you could question your life choices, a deep, gravelly voice boomed over the general clatter of weights and treadmills.

“alright, rookies! welcome to hot girl summer bootcamp. i’m your instructor, toji. keep up, and you’ll love me. fall behind...and you’ll still love me, just a little less. maybe. let’s go!”

oh.

my.

god.

this man wasn’t just hot. he was illegal. broad shoulders that could probably carry a family of four, a scar on his lips that somehow made him hotter, and those arms — did the gym air conditioning suddenly malfunction, or were you overheating just looking at him?

play it cool, you thought, adjusting your cropped tank top and hoping you looked effortlessly sporty rather than like someone who stayed up all night watching his gym tutorials on youtube.

“you, newbie,” toji pointed in your direction, his sharp green eyes locking onto yours. “what’s your goal for the program?”

your brain short-circuited. goal? what goal?

“uh, uh...i want to — uh…” you stammered, your mouth suddenly drier than a protein shake with no milk. “be able to...carry all my groceries in one trip?” nailed it.

he raised an eyebrow, smirking as if you were the funniest thing he’d heard all morning. “realistic. i respect that.”

as he moved on to interrogate another poor soul about their fitness dreams, you caught yourself staring at the way his tank top clung to his chest. focus! focus! groceries!

the first warm-up nearly killed you.

it wasn’t even anything extreme — just high knees and jumping jacks — but you were convinced your spirit left your body halfway through. toji, however, didn’t seem to notice your imminent demise.

“c’mon, grocery girl,” he teased, jogging over to you during a plank hold. “don’t tap out on me already. what’s that, two minutes?”

two minutes felt like two hours.

“easy for you to say,” you panted, glaring at him. “you look like you eat kettlebells for breakfast.”

toji crouched beside you, his smirk growing wider. “nah, i eat waffles. protein ones. maybe i’ll make you some when you hit your first milestone.”

oh, so you’re a malewife too? just take me now.

you managed to survive the rest of the class, though it involved more wheezing than you’d like to admit. as you grabbed your water bottle, toji sauntered past, giving you a casual, devastating grin.

“good hustle, grocery girl,” he said. “see you tomorrow?”

you nodded, cheeks flaming. “yeah, tomorrow,” you replied, already dreading the soreness that was about to hit you in waves.

walking out of the gym, you made a mental note:

stop chanting his name during your nightly activities, because that would definitely get weird if you slipped up in class.

figure out how to be normal around the human equivalent of a greek god.

spoiler alert: you wouldn’t succeed.

— ☆

toji leaned against the front desk, arms crossed and brow furrowed as he eyed satoru, who was fiddling with his phone instead of paying attention to literally anything else. typical.

"seriously, satoru," toji grumbled, his voice a low growl. "five grand for this program? five? you think these rookies deserve me for that price? do you know how many squats i had to watch today? squats, done wrong."

"aw, c’mon, toji," satoru drawled, not even looking up. "think of it as community service. you're making the world hotter one newbie at a time." he flicked his snow-white bangs out of his annoyingly perfect face.

"besides, you love attention. what are you complaining about?"

toji's scowl deepened. "attention doesn't pay my rent, dipshit. if i wanted praise, i'd do push-ups on the street. and don't call this ‘community service.’ i ain't some saint."

satoru grinned, finally setting his phone down. "you're just mad because you can't charge extra for...specialized instruction." his grin turned wicked. "you know, one-on-one, intense focus...maybe a hand here, a hand there."

"you're disgusting," toji deadpanned, though he didn’t bother denying the accusation.

"but i'm not wrong," satoru shot back, leaning on his elbows. "soooo? any student caught your eye yet? some sweaty rookie got your heart racing?"

toji huffed, his lip curling into a smirk. "isn’t it obvious?"

satoru blinked, genuinely curious. "wait, for real? who? the one in the neon pink outfit? or the guy with the weight belt who clearly didn’t need it?"

toji ignored the question, grabbing his water bottle from the counter. "none of your business, dipshit. but let’s just say someone’s got a long way to go before they’re carrying groceries in one trip."

“groceries?” satoru cackled, almost doubling over. “oh, man. you really know how to pick ‘em, huh? let me guess, rookie can’t plank for more than thirty seconds without praying for salvation?”

toji’s smirk widened just a fraction, and he turned toward the gym floor. "thirty seconds? generous. more like twenty. but...they've got potential."

“potential or a cute face?” satoru called after him, earning himself the bird as toji disappeared into the weight room.

satoru shook his head, still chuckling. “toji, you greedy bastard. just don’t make it weird, yeah?”

as if that was possible.

— ☆

day three, and your thighs felt like they’d been personally cursed by the devil himself. you were convinced that even sitting down was a workout at this point.

but toji? toji looked fresher than a damn protein shake commercial — biceps bulging, sweat glistening, and his sharp green eyes scanning the room like a predator hunting his next meal.

and maybe, just maybe, you were on the menu.

you caught him staring again. or maybe that was just wishful thinking? nah. those weren’t just glances — they were slow, deliberate, and paired with that cocky little smirk that said he knew. knew you were stealing glances at him every time he turned his back. knew you were biting your lip and adjusting your shorts every time he got too close.

“grocery girl!” his voice cut through your haze, and you nearly tripped over your own feet.

“y-yeah?” you stammered, clutching your water bottle like it was a lifeline.

“plank position,” he ordered, stalking toward you with a towel slung over his shoulder. “let’s see if you’ve improved since day one.”

improved? babe, i can’t even look at my floor without flashbacks to this torture.

still, you dropped down, doing your best to hold the position without trembling too much. but then he crouched next to you — close enough that you could smell the clean, heady scent of his sweat — and suddenly, holding anything became a challenge.

“hips down,” he murmured, his voice low, and your brain went static.

before you could process it, his hand was on your lower back, pressing gently to correct your form. “like this. don’t cheat yourself.”

cheat myself? i’m about to cheat on my sanity if you don’t move that hand.

“you good?” he asked, his tone dipping into something almost teasing.

“uh-huh,” you croaked, feeling the tremble in your arms spread to every inch of your body.

“ya sure?” he leaned in just enough for his breath to ghost against your ear. “y’er shakin’ like a leaf.”

if you weren’t so oxygen-deprived, you might’ve said something snarky. instead, you clenched your jaw, determined not to crumble under his gaze — or the weight of his stupidly attractive hand.

“good girl,” he finally said, pulling back.

your entire body locked up.

did. he. just.

“keep it up,” he added casually, walking off like he hadn’t just detonated a dirty bomb in your brain.

you managed to hold the plank for another ten seconds before collapsing into a heap, thighs burning and mind spinning.

grocery girl? more like gone girl.

but as you left the gym that night, legs wobbling and sanity in tatters, you couldn’t stop replaying his words.

maybe next time, you wouldn’t just be locking in groceries. maybe you’d be swinging something a little more...muscular.

— ☆

you burst into the gym like a bat out of hell, duffel bag slung over your shoulder, cheeks flushed, and already out of breath — and you hadn’t even started the workout yet.

the weeknd’s smooth, sultry vocals blared from the speakers, which only made the scene more ridiculous. this wasn’t exactly the kind of music that screamed “fitness bootcamp.” but then again, satoru — ever the chaotic piece of shit — was in charge of the playlist. because why not let the white-haired menace control everything?

“late again,” toji’s voice sliced through the air, sharp and low, cutting right into your frazzled panic.

you froze mid-sprint, your brain short-circuiting as you turned toward him. he was standing at the front of the gym, arms crossed, one brow raised in a perfect arch of judgment.

“got caught up,” you said, lamely holding up your water bottle like it explained anything.

toji didn’t budge. he didn’t even blink. instead, his eyes dragged over you slowly, assessing. it wasn’t the fun kind of eyeing-up you hoped for; it was the “how much time are you about to waste” look.

“class started fifteen minutes ago,” he said, his tone laced with that signature mix of annoyance and condescension that had you wanting to melt into the floor.

“yeah, well, blame the playlist,” you blurted, motioning toward the speakers. “you ever try running on time to ‘earned it?’”

the corner of toji’s mouth twitched, but he quickly covered it by rubbing the back of his neck. “don’t try blaming satoru for your inability to read a clock.”

you swallowed, your cheeks heating up even more. “i’ll make it up, promise!”

toji snorted, shaking his head as he stepped closer. “oh, you’ll make it up alright.”

you blinked. “huh?”

“stay after class,” he said simply, his gaze locking onto yours. “you can finish the session one-on-one. wouldn’t want you wasting that bargain-bin fee you paid for this ‘hot girl summer’ thing.”

your jaw nearly hit the floor. stay back? alone? with toji?

your brain immediately jumped into overdrive, filling in all the blanks with...decidedly non-fitness-related scenarios.

“uh, sure,” you managed to squeak, your voice somehow two octaves higher than normal.

“good,” he said, already turning away. “get moving, grocery girl. we’re doing circuits today.”

as you stumbled to the nearest mat, still reeling from the interaction, satoru leaned out from behind the front desk, earbuds dangling.

“one-on-one, huh?” he sing-songed, loud enough for you to hear over the weeknd’s crooning. “careful, rookie. toji’s not great with boundaries.”

toji flipped him the bird without even looking back, and you bit your lip to stop yourself from laughing — or screaming.

you didn’t know whether to be mortified or excited, but one thing was certain: this program was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

toji leaned against the squat rack, arms folded over his chest, watching you with a smirk that had trouble written all over it. sure, he didn’t care who rolled into class late — hell, he didn’t even care if they showed up. paycheck was a paycheck. but you? oh, you were special.

watching you stumble in all flustered and breathless, making excuses about playlists and time management? priceless.

now, you were sprawled out on the bench, your brows furrowed in determination as you pushed up a whole ten kilograms like it was the weight of the world. your form was...passable, at best.

“careful there, champ,” toji drawled, stepping closer. “don’t wanna overdo it. wouldn’t want you pulling a muscle with that massive load.”

you shot him a glare, though the pink creeping up your neck betrayed your attempt at nonchalance. “’s fine. i’ve got this.”

toji crouched down next to you, resting his forearms on his knees as he tilted his head, studying your face. “uh-huh. ya sure? y’er arms shakin’ like a chihuahua in a thunderstorm.”

“they’re not!” you protested, though your voice wobbled a little.

“mhmm,” he hummed, leaning in just enough to make your pulse spike. “y’er breathin’ all wrong too. gotta pace yourself. in through your nose, out through your mouth. like this.”

before you could argue, he demonstrated, exhaling slow and deliberate, his lips quirking into a smirk when your eyes flicked to them.

“got it?” he asked, his voice low and teasing.

you nodded quickly, your grip on the bar tightening as you tried to focus.

“good,” he said, standing up and moving behind the bench. “because i’m upping the weight.”

“what — wait!” you yelped, nearly dropping the bar as he added an extra plate to each side.

“relaaxx, grocery girl,” toji said, his smirk widening. “y’er stronger than ya think. or is it all talk?”

your jaw dropped. “i’m not all talk!”

“prove it.”

you gritted your teeth, determined not to give him the satisfaction of backing down. with a deep breath, you pushed up the bar again, your muscles screaming in protest.

“there you go,” toji said, his voice annoyingly calm. “juusst like that. keep goin’. you wanna make it to after-class, don’t you?”

you nearly dropped the bar. “excuse me?!”

toji chuckled, his eyes glinting with mischief. “you heard me. gotta be in top shape for...extra training. wouldn’t wanna disappoint, would you?”

you sat up, face burning, and watched him walk away, his broad shoulders and infuriating smirk seared into your brain.

what the hell had you signed up for?

— ☆

toji cursed under his breath, leaning on the counter at the front desk where satoru was spinning a pen between his fingers like he had nothing better to do.

“the hell are you even doing here?” toji grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “you’re not even working today.”

“who says ‘m not working?” satoru chirped, not bothering to look up. “i’m in charge of morale. and you look like you could use some.”

toji rolled his eyes. “whatever. just...ya got a condom or what?”

that got satoru’s attention. the pen stilled, and his blue eyes flicked up, wide with mock surprise. “toji fushiguro asking me for protection? man, didn’t think i’d live to see the day!”

“shut the hell up,” toji growled, looking around like the floor might swallow him whole.

“relax, big guy,” satoru teased, standing up and fishing through his gym bag. “why do you need one anyway? didn’t know you were into ‘safe sets.’”

toji’s eye twitched. “just hand it over.”

“ohhh,” satoru grinned, pulling out a foil packet and dangling it between two fingers. “don’t tell me this is for grocery girl? you finally gonna ask her if she’s dtf?”

toji swiped the condom out of his hand, shoving it in his pocket. “shut up, and dtf doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

“doesn’t it?” satoru grinned, leaning on the counter. “down to flexibility? full-body workout? man, she’s been killing those planks lately. bet she could handle it.”

toji muttered something incomprehensible, walking away before he could throttle the smug bastard.

back in the gym, you were finishing your last set, your face flushed and sweat dripping down your temple. despite the tremble in your arms, you racked the weights with a triumphant sigh.

“better late than never,” toji said, his voice low and smug as he appeared beside you.

“jesus, do you ever not sneak up on people?” you snapped, though your smile betrayed the irritation.

“you survived,” he said, ignoring your jab and eyeing you with a mix of approval and something darker. “good. now you ready for your after-class session?”

you blinked, tilting your head in confusion. “after-class? i thought we were done.”

toji smirked, leaning in just enough that you could feel the heat radiating off him. “oh, we’re just getting started.”

his eyes flicked over you, lingering just long enough to make your breath hitch.

“now let’s see how flexible you really are,” he murmured, straightening up and motioning for you to follow him.

your heart pounded as you trailed behind him, the faintest smirk tugging at your lips.

maybe satoru wasn’t entirely wrong about the full-body workout after all.

— ☆

you may have looked like the epitome of gym-girl confidence on the outside, with your matching hot pink spandex set, a perfectly executed high ponytail, and that “accidental” giggle whenever toji smirked your way, but inside? absolute chaos. a full-blown mental spiral.

did you stink? like...bad enough to ruin the vibe? gym sweat wasn’t exactly the kind that screamed sexy glisten. and no, BO unfortunately didn’t stand for bend over — though give it a few minutes and maybe that could change. if you played your cards right.

was your hair still in place? you couldn’t even check without making it obvious. sure, it felt secure, but your elastic had seen things today, and who’s to say it wasn’t moments away from snapping like your sanity?

and your lips — oh god, your lips. you’d spent twenty minutes on that routine before leaving the house, crafting the kind of pout that was supposed to say “effortlessly kissable.” the process itself had been more intensive than a skincare regime, involving a lineup of:

a honey sugar scrub (scrub, rinse, repeat),

a hydrating lip mask (because you weren’t about to let crust ruin the vibe),

a peach-toned lip liner to enhance the shape (read: fake plumpness),

a glossy pink-tinted balm for the natural flush, and

a strategically placed clear gloss dab right at the center for that “i’m dewy and so is my life” illusion.

now? that careful work had probably melted into oblivion, and you were too chicken to check in case it looked like you’d been eating barbecue wings during your bench presses.

but there was no time to worry about any of that now. because toji — yes, your gym instructor toji — had waved you into the locker room with one of those stupidly smug smirks, the kind that promised trouble.

and now here you were, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the empty space, his broad frame taking up way too much room as he leaned against the lockers, arms crossed.

“so,” he drawled, his deep voice practically dripping with amusement, “you gonna stand there all day, or did you actually wanna get to the...extra training?”

you swallowed, your mouth suddenly dry despite your meticulous hydration schedule all day. “oh, um, yeah. totally. i’m ready.”

toji arched a brow, taking a slow step toward you. “you sure? because you look a little...distracted.”

“i’m not distracted!” you blurted, louder than intended. “i’m just...focused.”

he chuckled, low and gravelly, closing the space between you in two strides. “focused, huh?” his gaze flicked down to your lips, lingering just long enough to make your knees wobble.

“then prove it,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “show me just how much you’ve been paying attention.”

your breath hitched as he leaned in, his hand coming to rest on the locker beside your head.

mental checklist? forgotten. lip gloss? nonexistent. your name? who even knows.

but whatever was about to happen, you were damn sure it was about to be worth it.

— ☆

toji had this all planned out — or so he thought.

he was supposed to be the cool, non-chalant one here, the collected gym instructor with the alpha energy. though just thinking that phrase made him grimace. alpha energy?

yikes. he’d rather drop his dumbbells on his own feet than lean into that nonsense.

but still, he had a role to play, didn’t he? lead the charge, keep it professional until it wasn’t. you know, manly things. hot-gym-instructor-guy things.

except now, as he leaned casually (or so he hoped) against the locker, one arm propped above your head, his brain was running through a thousand different scenarios, none of which involved him being the one to lose his cool first.

toji couldn’t help it though — he was sweating. not just the faint gym sheen kind of sweat, but the sweating bullets kind, the kind that made him worried he’d be the one stinking up the confined space of the locker room. which, really, was the last thing he needed when he was trying to exude effortless charm.

he opened his mouth, ready to play it smooth. “so, you —”

and then your lips were on his, crashing into him with so much urgency it almost made him stumble.

oh. okay then.

toji froze for half a second — half a heartbeat — before the message clicked loud and clear in his brain. whatever he thought he was going to say, whatever stupid quip he had lined up, melted into nothing as he cupped the back of your head, pulling you closer like the damn door to the locker room was about to disappear and leave you stranded.

you tasted faintly like strawberries, probably from whatever overpriced lip product you’d slathered on before this, and toji had to suppress the urge to groan. the kind of groan that might make you think he was more desperate than he wanted to admit. but the way your hands fisted in his tank top, tugging him even closer, made him reconsider — maybe desperation wasn’t so bad.

he pulled back just enough to look at you, your lips flushed and eyes wide, and gave a low chuckle that felt more confident than he actually was in the moment. “well,” he drawled, his voice rougher than he intended, “guess we’re skipping the warm-up.”

you rolled your eyes, but your breath hitched as his hand slid down to your waist. “don’t act like you weren’t waiting for it.”

toji smirked, leaning in until his lips brushed against your ear. “message received, loud and clear, sweetheart.”

he might’ve thought he was supposed to be in charge, but hell, he wasn’t complaining about this turn of events.

“now let’s see if you’ve been keeping up with your endurance training,” he murmured, his voice teasing, but his grip on your hips told you he was already taking this challenge seriously.

training? oh, the session was just getting started.

— ☆

you thought you had an idea. you’d done your research, watched enough videos of the kind of stuff that should’ve prepped you for moments like this. but this? this was an entirely new level of freaky, toe-curling, brain-melting insanity.

toji had a system, a stupidly cruel system that you were 90% sure he cooked up just to mess with you. it was simple: he’d trace a muscle on your body, one agonizingly slow swipe of his rough fingertips at a time, and if you guessed the name of it right? well, you’d cum that many times.

easy, right? wrong. so wrong.

especially because right now, this cocky little shit had your gym spandex yanked down to your thighs, your ass perched high in the air, and was treating this whole situation like it was a damn trivia segment on who wants to be a millionaire. except the prize wasn’t cash — it was a full-blown ride to pound-town.

“alright, genius,” he drawled, his voice dripping with amusement as his fingers brushed over the curve of your shoulder, down to your upper arm. “name this muscle.”

you froze, your breath hitching as the cool air brushed against your heated skin. “uh — uh, the...deltoid?” you stammered, hoping the few snippets of your high school bio class would come in clutch.

toji snorted, clearly unimpressed. “correct. guess you do pay attention sometimes.”

the next second, he was gripping your hip, his free hand sliding between your thighs in a way that made your brain short-circuit.

oh.

“‘s one,” he muttered against your ear, low and teasing. “don’t get cocky yet, though. we’ve barely started.”

you barely had time to catch your breath before his hand trailed lower, stopping just above your thigh. “now,” he continued, his tone infuriatingly calm for a man currently wrecking your ability to think straight, “what’s this one called?”

you blinked, frantically rummaging through the dark corners of your mind for an answer. shit, what was it? quad? hamstring? quad-something?

“uh...quadricep?” you ventured, your voice shaking.

toji hummed, the sound vibrating against your skin. “good girl. maybe there’s hope for you after all.”

then he moved. his hand, his lips, the sheer weight of him — every part of him was suddenly everywhere at once, dragging you so close you could barely breathe.

and just when you thought you might lose it, he leaned back, smirking like the devil himself.

“next question,” he said, his fingers brushing over the curve of your back. “get it wrong, and we start all over again. think you can handle that, doll?”

you groaned, face buried in your arms. “‘s isn’t fair,” you muttered.

toji chuckled, dark and low. “oh, sweetheart, life isn’t fair. but this?” his grip tightened, his breath warm against your ear. “this is me being generous.”

generous? you’d show him generous. if you didn’t pass out first.

— ☆

“well, well,” toji murmured, his breath hot against your neck as he trailed his lips down your spine, his rough palms kneading the soft curve of your hips. “looks like someone paid attention in class after all. didn’t think you’d actually pass my lil’ quiz, but here we are.”

you should’ve felt victorious, proud even. but all you could focus on was the heat pooling between your thighs and the way his voice dipped into that gravelly tone, each word laced with promise.

“so here’s the reward,” he drawled, sliding a hand beneath you to spread your thighs just a little wider. “two orgasms. back to back. think you can keep up, sweetheart?”

you shuddered, biting down hard on your lip to stop the whimper threatening to spill out.

toji smirked, watching you squirm under him. “oh no, no. don’t get shy on me now,” he teased, his fingers dragging along your slick folds, collecting the evidence of just how desperate you were. “your little cunt’s doin’ all the talkin’ for ya anyway. she’s real chatty tonight, huh?”

you buried your face in your arms, heat blooming across your cheeks as the filthy squelch echoed in the confined space of the locker room.

“awww, embarrassed?” he chuckled darkly, pressing two fingers into you without warning. “don’t be. she’s got a lot to say, and trust me, ‘m alll ears.”

you gasped, clamping a hand over your mouth as he started a slow, deliberate rhythm, curling his fingers just right.

“ah-ah,” toji chided, grabbing your wrist and pinning it to the locker above your head. “none of that. i said quiet, but not that quiet. lemme hear you, baby.”

you whimpered, hips bucking against his hand as his pace quickened, his free hand gripping your ass to keep you in place.

“fucckkk,” he muttered, glancing down at the ruined fabric of your hot pink pants. “look at that. already makin’ a mess, huh?”

your head shot up, panic flashing across your face. “toji! these are new —”

“not my problem,” he interrupted, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he pressed his thumb against your clit, sending a jolt of electricity through your body. “you shoulda thought about that before you wore somethin’ so tight. can’t even blame me. ya lil’ cunt’s the one makin’ all the mess.”

you groaned, half from frustration and half from the sheer overwhelming sensation as he added another finger, stretching you just right.

“tell ya what,” he said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper as he leaned closer, lips brushing against your ear. “if you make it through both without ruinin’ those pants completely...maybe, just maybe, i’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

“but if ya don’t?” toji chuckled, biting gently at your earlobe. “well...guess you’ll just have to wear ‘em messy next time.”

— ☆

“fucckk, you’re s’tight,” toji grunted, his fingers dragging slick trails over your thighs as he teased his tip against your entrance. “first with those tiny-ass weights, now this? guess i gotta stretch you out for the real deal, huh?”

you whimpered into your forearm, legs trembling from the aftershocks of the first orgasm he’d just coaxed out of you with his damn fingers alone. your head was a haze of pleasure and overstimulation, too lost in it to even realize how thoroughly you’d ruined your cute pink pants.

“hey,” he rasped, smacking your ass lightly to snap you back. “don’t go floatin’ off on me just yet, sweetheart. we’re just gettin’ started.”

his voice dropped lower, the sound rolling through the locker room like a growl as he pressed the fat head of his cock to your slick entrance, giving just the slightest nudge. “shit, you’re fuckin’ drippin’ already. you want it that bad, huh? bet you couldn’t even tell me when your pants hit the floor.”

“toji,” you whimpered, trying to form a coherent thought, but it all shattered the moment he pushed just the tip inside.

“ohh fuucckkk yeah,” he groaned, his head tilting back, a shudder running through his massive frame. “ya feel that, baby? nice and slow…fuckin’ perfect fit.”

he sank in another inch, his girth forcing you to stretch around him. the burn was sweet, electric, and you couldn’t stop the high-pitched cry that escaped your lips.

“shi, don’t go cryin’ on me now,” he muttered, though his voice was laced with a smirk. “or is it just ‘cause s’too big, huh? couldn’t handle me even if you tried.”

your walls fluttered around him at his words, and he hissed through his teeth, gripping your hips to steady you. “oh, ya like that? filthy lil’ girl. already squeezin’ me like you don’t want me to pull out.”

you tried to push back, eager to take more of him, but toji’s hand slammed down on the curve of your back, holding you in place. “nuh-uh, not s’fast. you’re gonna take me slow, jussst like this,” he grunted, rocking his hips forward and shoving another few inches inside.

“fucccck,” he hissed, leaning down so his chest pressed against your back, his voice all gravel and heat in your ear. “you’re gonna break under me, baby, but you’ll fuckin’ thank me for it later.”

you moaned, gripping the locker for dear life as he finally bottomed out, his cock buried so deep you swore you could feel him in your stomach.

“there we go,” he growled, pulling back slightly before slamming back in, the force jolting you forward. “shit, look at you, takin’ it so good. bet you’ll be thinking ‘bout this every time you put those tight little gym pants on again, huh?”

he thrust again, harder this time, his cock dragging against every nerve ending as he set a brutal pace.

“fuckin’ mess,” he groaned, looking down at the slick mess coating your thighs and dripping onto the floor. “but don’t worry, baby. promise i’ll make it worth ya while.”

toji’s pace was merciless, each snap of his hips pushing you further into the lockers as your trembling hands scrambled for something — anything — to hold on to. the metal surface was cold under your palms, a sharp contrast to the fiery heat pooling low in your belly.

“fuck, look at you,” he grunted behind you, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction. “all that attitude earlier, now ya can’t even keep your knees steady.”

you whimpered, trying to push back against him, but your legs were too weak to cooperate. toji didn’t seem to mind, one arm looping around your waist to pull you flush against him as his other hand dipped between your legs. the first stroke of his fingers over your clit had your head lolling back against his chest.

“shit,” you gasped, barely able to form the word as he worked tight, relentless circles against the swollen bud.

“what was that, baby?” toji’s voice was a rough purr in your ear, laced with amusement. “can’t hear you over all that babblin’. ya sayin’ somethin’ real important, huh?”

you weren’t, not really. every attempt to speak came out as a mix of incoherent cries and choked moans, your brain too fogged up to string together a single coherent thought.

toji chuckled, leaning back just enough to grab your tit through the snug fabric of your gym top. “shiit, look at these,” he murmured, giving it a firm squeeze that had you arching into his touch. “what’s this one called, huh? c’mon, grocery girl, don’t tell me you’ve been skipping anatomy class.”

you blinked rapidly, trying to summon any semblance of a logical response, but the only thing that tumbled out of your mouth was a breathy, “b-boobs.”

toji froze. for a moment, the locker room was silent except for the wet, obscene sounds of your slick and his choked laugh. “boobs?” he repeated, his tone a mix of disbelief and amusement.

“uh-huh,” you nodded dumbly, too far gone to register the trap you’d just walked into.

toji groaned, but not the kind that promised satisfaction. he pulled back just slightly, the absence of his cock stretching you leaving you whining in frustration. “wrong answer, sweetheart.”

“w-what?” you stammered, your brain slowly catching up.

he pulled his hand away from your clit, ignoring your desperate whine. “told you, you gotta earn it. and what ya just said? ain’t even a muscle.”

“but —”

“nah,” he interrupted, gripping your hips to keep you from squirming against him. “you don’t even get the extra credit for effort.”

you felt him shift behind you, his cock brushing against your inner thigh, just out of reach.

“toojiiii!” you practically wailed, your voice pitching in desperation.

“naaahh, don’t ‘toji’ me now,” he drawled, smirking even though you couldn’t see him. “guess you’ll just have to wait for round two to get it right.”

the realization hit you like a truck: no correct answer, no dick.

“it’s the pectoralis major!” you blurted out, your voice cracking with panic.

toji chuckled low in his throat. “shit, there’s my smart girl,” he murmured, thrusting back inside you with one sharp, fluid motion that knocked the air out of your lungs.

“fuck, baby,” he grunted, picking up his punishing pace once again. “next time, don’t make me work so hard for it, yeah?”

you’re not sure who to thank first — god, your ancestors, or that one stray eyelash wish you made last week — because the way toji’s pounding into you feels like some divine intervention. maybe all of them had a hand in it. you’re sobbing — like, genuinely sobbing — and not just because of the hair-pulling or the fact that toji’s filthy mouth has been spewing the most degrading things you’ve ever heard.

“shit, cryin’ already?” his voice is rough, tinged with smug amusement as he fists your hair tighter. “can’t handle it, baby? nah, you’re tougher than that. gotta be — still lettin’ me wreck this tight little pussy like it’s mine.”

you hiccup a broken moan, legs trembling so violently you’re barely upright, and the lockers are the only thing keeping you from collapsing. your second orgasm hits you like a freight train, ripping through your body so hard you swear you lose all sense of time and space.

“therrre she goes,” toji groans, his grip on your waist tightening as he drives into you harder, chasing his own high. “look at this mess. got you so fucked out you don’t even know where you are, huh?”

you can’t respond — not with how your body’s spasming, clamping down on him like a vice, dragging him closer to his edge.

“fuck, gonna cum with me, yeah?” he growls, voice strained, his hips stuttering as he holds you so close it feels like you’re merging into one.

him cumming is the final nail in the coffin, sending you careening into an aftershock so intense you’re genuinely concerned you might pass out. both of you stay locked in place, panting heavily, sweat dripping off your bodies as the reality of your very messy situation sets in.

toji’s the first to break the silence, his lips quirking into a lazy smirk. “guess you’re gonna need a new gym set, huh? no savin’ this one.”

you groan, burying your face against the locker as if it could somehow swallow you whole. “yeah, no shit.”

he chuckles, pulling back just enough to smack your ass lightly, earning a half-hearted glare from you. “don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it, baby. besides…” he shrugs, flexing a little in his tank top as he adjusts it. “i still look good in this, so we both won here.”

“we truly live in a society,” you mutter under your breath, earning another laugh from him.

he leans down to kiss the side of your neck, smirking against your skin. “damn right we do. now, c’mon, let’s clean up before satoru comes snoopin’. dude’s nosier than a fuckin’ bloodhound.”

— ☆

toji, ever the professional, seems to flip a switch the moment your sweaty, blissed-out bodies part. he’s tugging his tank top back into place and wiping his face like he’s about to lead another class. the audacity.

his voice takes on this infuriatingly instructional tone, his hand on your lower back steadying you as he rattles off something about muscle recovery or post-workout hydration.

“you’re gonna wanna stretch that hamstring later,” he mutters, glancing down at your wobbly legs that threaten to betray you with every second. “looks like you overworked it — shouldn’t push yourself too hard, sweetheart.”

you blink at him, utterly dumbfounded. this man — this man — is casually chatting about hamstrings while his cum is literally dripping down your thighs and your legs are trembling so hard you could probably register on the richter scale.

“you’re seriously talking about muscles right now?” you deadpan, crossing your arms even though they feel like noodles. “toji, ’m boutta faceplant, and you’re out here giving me a biology lecture.”

he grins, a little too pleased with himself, and leans down to plant his hands on his knees, face so close you can practically feel the warmth of his breath. “what, want me to kiss it better or somethin’?”

“kiss me, idiot,” you huff, tugging him forward by the neckline of that stupidly tight tank top until your lips meet his.

and just like that, the gym instructor act shatters. his shoulders relax, his hand curling around your waist with a gentleness that feels so at odds with how he’d been handling you not five minutes ago.

he hums against your lips, pulling back just enough to mutter, “damn, baby, you’re somethin’ else.”

“soooo, does this mean you’re carrying my groceries now?” you tease, brushing some of your messed-up hair out of your face.

“depends,” he smirks, straightening up and patting your ass with zero shame. “can you walk without lookin’ like a baby deer? if not, ’m keepin’ my hands free to catch ya when you inevitably fall on your cute little face.”

you roll your eyes, ignoring the heat creeping up your neck. “big talk for someone who can’t keep his hands to himself.”

“can’t help it,” he shrugs, leaning in close again with that wolfish grin of his. “you make it too damn easy, princess.”

if he keeps this up, your next gym session might be less about training and more about dodging toji’s wandering hands in the frozen food aisle.

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ruyakasunshine · 22 days ago

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F1 drivers rated on how likely they are to know what ao3 is

note : this is just for entertainment. I will also use this to make a general reminder not to get anything fanfic/rpf related outside of sites such as tumblr, ao3, or wattpad. Enjoy!

This is just the current grid, because if I had to do it with every driver that raced this season, I'd get a surprisingly high amount of drivers to talk about.

20. Fernando

Grandpa. Need I to say more?

19. Checo

In a recent GQ Sport interview, he revealed that he didn't even have social media on his phone. I'd be surprised to hear he has any ao3 tab open up there.

18. K-mag

I don't feel like I need to explain this one. But I also believe that if Haas got him to read a chapter of a wattpad fanfic out loud where he has to replace Y/N with his own name after every penalty point he gets, he would have stopped causing so much ruckus. Or he might even cause more, who knows what goes on inside his mind.

17. Nico Hulk

Hear me out, he doesn't know what a fanfic is, but if he were more popular with the writer, he'd read the shit out of those.

16. Valterri

I could pay actual money to hear him read a 'kidnapped by one direction' self insert story out loud. If there is any Sauber intern lurking here, please consider. Wattpad as a sponsor would bring you a lot of money, think about it. I promise you will see a rise in your fandom if the name of the team was "wattpad kick sauber". I would buy merch. You need the money the way the constructors are going. Think about it.

15. Lance

I don't know too much about him, but I will assume he doesn't spend too much time on social media, or googling himself with all the hate he gets. But maybe if he were to read a strollonso fanfic, we might get to see him have actual expressions on his face. Granted, that would be a look of horror, but I will take what I can.

14. Carlos

I think he might combust if he read any ABO fanfic. I might want to see that.

13. Max

He is too busy sim racing to care. Good for him, I wish I could say the same about myself but alas I am too busy reading the same fanfic for the 23th time.

12. Yuki

I believe if you pronounced the term "Y/N" next to him he might assume that's a car brand. Or, like, hello in a foreign language. Again, good for him.

11. Zhou

Hear me out, fanfics seem to be quite popular in China, and he has a sister, there is no way he hasn't heard of the existences of it. I don't think he has read any though, which is for the better.

10. Franco

Our dear Franquito hasn't been on the grid for long enough to discover the amazing word that fanfics have to offer, but let me tell you that if he hasn't found out stuff yet, he'll find some soon enough. Let the writers have time to write a little bit more about him, and soon we'll get an instagram live of him reacting to those.

9. Liam

I think he is young enough to have googled himself (he had to find something to do since he's been a reserve driver since like the year 2010), but he also hasn't been a permanent member, so he might not have enough material to accidentally stumble upon.

8. Esteban

He googles himself. He knows there are fanfics. And he fucking likes that. If there is a rise of pierresteban fics on ao3 after Brazil 2024, he will be the first one to know let me tell you that much.

7. Lewis

Okay you might be wondering why this senior citizen is up here, and the answer is simple : he is too famous not to know. Like COME ON. He's been here since 2007 (which is longer than some people who'll see this post have been alive for— that's a scary thought for another day), he has been in famous and televised rivalry, and he has to live with the existence of the quote "everything but a lover" about nico and him.

There is no way he hasn't READ a fucking brocedes fanfic. If he is willing, I will teach him how to use ao3 so he can look-up some "fix-it" fics. He might use some inspiration, and who is better for that than tired college students writing about their sad ass in between lectures?

6. George

He seems like the type to lurk a lot around the internet, so the chances of him finding the link to a fic on the third page of google isn't impossible to me.

If you find any comment of someone correcting your spelling, you know who did it.

5. Pierre

He probably googles his name too often not to have stumbled upon a "Reader x Pierre Gasly" wattpad fanfic. sigh.

4. Alex

Alex, I know that you are the second most likely to have tumblr (right after george who actually has an account). The chances of you knowing what a "lemon" is is way too high for my liking.

3. Charles

The C in Charles stands for Chronically Online. My boy was known for liking tweets about himself, and we know that fans talk about fanfics on twitter. He clicked on a link of a lestappen or sebchal fanfic at least once out of curiosity let me tell you this much.

2. Lando

Too chronically online not to have read fanfics about himself. I just know he typed in "lando norris fanfiction" straight in google at least once. Jail.

1. Oscar

Here me out : his sister is a K-pop fan. If you believe that she never yapped about a fanfic she read to her brother, you are strongly unfamiliar with sibling relationships. But the chances of him not listening to her are also very high, so maybe he shouldn't be so high up my list. But oh well.

He is also good at hiding his game, but he is as online as Charles (you thought you were sneaky but we caught you clicking on that link of Max playing air-hocket dear Osc.)

For my own mental health though, I will assume he hasn't read about his own self yet.

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qqueenofhades · 4 months ago

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So I keep seeing people play the "Harris is a Cop, so I'm not voting for her because ACAB" card, and not even pointing out that she was a DA/Prosecutor rather than an actual cop seems to change their minds - as far as they're concerned, working with cops in any capacity makes you a cop. Do you happen to have anything that'd make for a good counterpoint to this argument (or, at the very least, something to make those of us who still plan on voting for her despite our dim views on Law Enforcement not feel so bad about it)?

....Not feel so bad about it?

First of all: these are laughably, incredibly unbelievably unserious people, and frankly, my first advice would be NOT to bother trying to engage with them at all, because there is nothing whatsoever they will ever accept in the way of logical proof to change their minds. First it was "you can't ask me to vote for Biden specifically because of [insert issue here.]" This changed a lot, from Roe getting overturned by the corrupt SCOTUS, to the train strike (hey anyone remember that?) to student loan forgiveness and then had settled firmly on Gaza. So now, lo and behold, they're given exactly what they asked for: a new younger candidate who is not Biden and explicitly more progressive on the Gaza issue (Harris was the first member of the administration to openly call for a ceasefire). So they turn their noses up, rush to their favorite 2020 disinformation founts that were first spouted when they were trying to sabotage her in favor of Bernie (who endorsed Biden pretty strongly before he dropped out), flirt with Jill "Actual Agent of Putin" Stein, and other equally expected and equally bullshit maneuvers. Lololololololol online leftists. Never change, or something.

That said: because their minds are so set that they will never vote for any Democrat ever, you can't really give them any logical information to separate them from this conclusion. I don't have the links on hand, but etc Google and Wikipedia are free: Harris's tenure as district attorney and California AG was progressive even by modern standards, and it was happening in the early 2000s: she refused to prosecute for low-level weed offenses, pushed for harder sentences for assault weapons, performed gay marriages LONG before it was legal even in San Freaking Francisco, refused to seek the death penalty, worked with restorative justice programs, etc. This was after she was a first-generation American child of brown immigrants who took advantage of equal-opportunity education programs to go to law school, and her parents were already high-achieving academics (one a cancer researcher from India and one an economics professor from Jamaica). Sure sure, she definitely seems exactly like Derek Chauvin to me. Critical thinking is great! #VoteJillStein! A literal puppet of Putin and unabashed Assad fangirl is definitely the pro-peace morally correct option here!*

In other words, the morons do not give a single shit about factual reflections of Kamala's record. They do not care about whether her time as a district attorney was progressive (it was) and whether she was actually a cop (she wasn't). They're so wedded at the hip to their braindead disinformation propaganda that now we're going to see the excuses change at lightspeed from why they can't vote for Biden specifically to why they can't vote for Harris specifically. None of it will be remotely tethered to reality and all of it will be in extreme and obvious bad faith. As I said, there are plenty of persuadable voters elsewhere who HAVE been energized by her elevation to candidacy. If you are indeed interested in winning voters to her side (as opposed to having to find reasons to justify yourself to the All Voting Is Evil crowd who will never listen to or believe you anyway), I suspect your time would be better spent elsewhere, and outside the echo-chamber leftist social media space in general.

Aside from that, I have gotten a few hand-wringy asks about Kamala and the election overall, and I gotta say, I am not going to waste my time and effort replying to them. We have about 100 days to win this election or become a fascist dictatorship. We are already in uncharted territory, but the replacement of Biden with Harris went UNIMAGINABLY smoothly, far, far more than anyone (including me) ever expected. It reminds me of the presto-chango that the French center, left, and center-left parties pulled off to replace candidates, IN FIVE DAYS, to better position themselves to defeat the fascists. Compared to that, three and a half months is a cakewalk, but we still absolutely do not, DO NOT, have time to sit around worrying and hand-wringing about this or that hypothetical Bad Thing. It deeply unsurprises me to hear that US Online Leftists are still throwing snits and pitching their toys out of the pram rather than getting on board, but the rest of us don't have any time to waste and need to apply our energy to where it will be best put to use. So yes.

*extreme, extreme sarcasm alert

#shm128iii #ask #politics for ts #kamala harris 2024 #and that's that on that!

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simpee9000 · 3 months ago

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I love your “not just friends” series🥹 im obsessed! Im hoping to see more I love it soooooooooooo muchhhh!!!!!!! Even telling my friends to read it

But I saw a bakugo headcanon by another anon about him having a crush which I wanna add a spin on, what if he rejected this said crush back in middle school but developed feelings after xD I find it funny

Thank you !!! I'm glad you enjoy it so much!

And that is literally Katsuki Bakugo, can't see him not doing it tbh. (This was also a lot longer then I planned for it to be- I just started typing and here we are- 1k)

He isn't confused about a lot of things in life but his feelings definitely stump him. He tries to analyze other people and how they react to people, but the dots just don't connect. He hears people rave on and on about how cute their crush is, but he just doesn't get it.

It's not that he hasn't been introduced to it either. I mean, it's middle school. Everyone is crazy about dating someone even if it's just to hold their stupid hand. Bakugo didn't get it, he honestly didn't want to get it. Sure he wanted to understand it, but only so he could know a weakness or some shit. He didn't want the gushy feelings or anything such.

Rejecting girl after girl was normal for him, people just loved how great he was. But after the first year of middle school that stopped. Mainly because of how rudely he rejected every girl in the past, but also because of you.

You got extremely close with him rather quickly, working your way into his life and friend groups. It was rare to see you away from each other.

Yet when you confessed to him in your last year of middle school, he stood still. It was the only confession he hesitated on. And while you swayed on your feet, anxious for a reply, he tried to cough up any words possible.

But the only ones that came out were. "You're not special."

In the most blunt way possible, he crushed your dreams. With the way he was looking at you, it was like he couldn't fathom the thought that you thought you were good enough for him, different than all the other girls. So you choked up any spiteful things you wanted to say and nodded before walking off.

He didn't necessarily like you then, but the thought didn't seems gross. So when he watched you walk away, he shrugged it off. You'd talk to him tomorrow definitely.

When tomorrow came and went, he was waiting for you to show up by his side at any second. But of course, you never did. You waited a day before showing up to class, but when you did you stuck near your other friends.

It stayed that way too. You only nodded at him after you finished middle school, a small final goodbye.

So it was rather unfortunate that one of your friends happened to be Izuku. It was a hard-built friendship, but he's very forgiving.

You came and visited the dorms often, encouraged by his mother to help him get by easier.

Bakugo hated it, you never even looked his way.

When he googled his feelings he didn't want to believe the words typed on his screen. It was all saying he was jealous. He'd never been jealous of anything, especially nothing Deku had.

Eventually, Kirishima pointed it out, commenting on the glare he was giving Midoriya. He also called him out the next day, when he kept glaring despite you not being there.

The day he cracked was after he fought Deku, after being yelled out by Aizawa he and Deku were told to wait.

Bakugo mentioned your name in a mumble at first before Deku questioned it. "She like you or some shit?"

"What?!"

"You fuckin' heard me," he spat back.

"No!" Deku scrambled for a reason. He knew you had a crush on Bakugo before, but you haven't mentioned it in a while, "Do you?"

"Do I like you?!"

"NO! HER!"

Bakugo's aggression faded as he thought. Everyone was saying that. Kirishima, his dad, and now Deku. He gave a small shrug because he was unsure.

"She still asks about you," Deku decided to say, rather than poke the bear.

"Hm."

"Wanting to know if you're okay. After the sludge, and after.. well you know," Deku mumbled.

The door opened before anything else could be said, but even if it didn't, they both knew the conversation was over.

Feeling the commonly named butterflies in his stomach, at just the thought of you thinking of him still, was odd. It was an entirely new feeling. After googling, once again, he came to terms with the fact that he finally felt all the gushy feelings that everyone else got in middle school. The ones you used to have for him, hopefully still do.

He still waited a year to act on his conclusion first. But he still slowly tried to weave his way back into your life. Choosing to sit next to you when you visited, to othering you the remote.

Everything was without words for a while. Almost a year in he was forced to talk to you often. All conversations being awkward and strained.

Confessing was a different story, it was the last day you could visit before it was officially summer break before the second year. Everyone was all sat around watching TV, people leaving before they got too tired. Surprisingly, Bakugo and you were the last people in the living room. He didn't want to miss a second of your presence because he knew he couldn't see you during summer. He was so glad Aizawa let you stay late.

His head snapped away from the TV when you stretched to stand, silently grabbing your stuff.

"What are you doing?" he spoke before thinking.

You looked stunned, he never talked to you without you talking first, "It's late, I should go. Plus is it not past your bedtime?"

He glared at your joke before looking at the clock. It was 2:54a.m, you asked him out at 2:54 p.m in middle school.

"Do you still?"

"What?" you switched your weight onto one foot, crossing your arms confused.

"In middle school," he sighed, "do you still?"

"You're gonna have to be more specific."

"Have feelings and shit."

He still wasn't looking at you, but out of the corner of his eyes, he could see how you froze.

"I don't know how that's relevant," you huffed, embarrassed and annoyed that he'd be so cruel to bring up the rejection again.

"I do."

"Do what? Know how it's relevent? Of course you do, it's your brain-"

"Have feelings and shit," he mumbled, crossing his arms at how irated you sounded. He was finally making his move and you seemed pissed as hell.

You barked out a laugh, muffling it with your own hand, "You can't think I'm that stupid, right?"

"I'm being serious," he looked at you straight on for the first time. He was always easiest to read when you could see his eyes, and he looked nervous. Out of all the emotions you've seen on him, this wasn't one.

"Oh."

He sighed and looked down, "Don't gotta say anything, you can spend the night in the common room. No one will care," he pushed himself off the couch, turning to leave.

"Bakugo," you called out softly.

"Hm?"

"I might," your voice was shaky, "but I need to think about it. Know that you're not fucking with me or something."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. Take your time. You have my number."

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leftneb · 1 month ago

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There is Something Seriously Wrong with this Logo..... Chapter Two

So. Lots of you have seen this post by my dear partner ( @lailau7904 ) in which the Williams F1 design team get absolutely torn to bits. In the case you haven't read it yet I highly recommend you do because a) it's really fucking funny and b) it makes what I'm about to tell you even funnier. Though you don't have to, this post touches on entirely different things still regarding this one goddamn logo.

The original post starts like this:

Innocent enough, we made an assumption in good faith that the logo displayed on the Wikipedia page would be the same one as the official version used by Williams. Buckle the fuck up because I'm about to tell you why that was the worst mistake we could have made.

Please. Please I beg of you keep reading this took YEARS off our lifespans. Like the original post was fun and all but it was merely the top of the iceberg. If this were an hbomberguy video this would be the part where he reveals that the background was a greenscreen the whole time. More below the cut!!! :333

The Truth

Already after only a few hours after hitting "post" on the dissection, people started pointing out to us that we'd missed an absolutely crucial detail on the Wikimedia page we got the logo from, pay careful attention:

See THIS?

Yeah this means that that image is not, and never was, the official logo of Williams. All along it had been the work of a Wikipedia user by the name of Juanchocarbonero. Here you can even see the (admittedly painful) history of the file as provided by Wikimedia, this image was uploaded all the way back in 2016, it even underwent an update when the team changed their colour scheme to a lighter blue without getting fucking fixed.

But to me the absolutely most painful part about this page is the "File Usage" section. Which gives you a quick preview of just how deep the goddamn disease that is this piece of graphic design sin really spreads.

And just to clarify: the official version of the logo used by Williams on merch etc is perfectly fine. It's a nice piece of graphic design. I still quite like it. But the story doesn't end there. Not even close.

Consequences

When you look up "williams logo" on Google the image provided by Wikimedia the very first result that pops up, if you're looking for a high-quality .png of this logo that, logically, is what you'll end up using. And I mean, why wouldn't you? What reason do you have not to use it? As long as you don't look to close (oops) it's a perfectly fine, high-definition, clean and transparent image of the logo! No shit people are going to use it!

But this raises a question: Why IS it the most widespread version of the logo? That's fucking weird isn't it? Surely if the actual logo used on ex.: the official Williams F1 website (which, again, is perfectly fucking fine) was available they would've just used that, right?

Now. Small problem. If you want you can go ahead and open whatever search engine you use, if you do that I'm gonna need you to type in "Williams logo" into the search bar, and just try finding a picture that is

of the actual official logo (you can tell the bootleg from the real thing by checking if the middle segment of the W has spiky ends or flat ones. We're looking for flat ones here)

high quality (no pixels or blurring visible to the naked eye)

a transparent png (none of that chequered background bullshit)

NOT a logo with any words (such as: Williams or Racing) visible in it. those don't count.

If you didn't feel like doing any of that, I'll just tell you the answer: you fucking can't. Nothing like that EXISTS. The closest I could get are these two, both of which are mid to ass quality, so they don't count either.

No sensible individual is going to scroll google search results for 5 minutes straight just so they can use a 200x200 image, especially when they think a perfect alternative is right there.

I even found several recoloured versions of the diseased logo, including one as a sticker on Redbubble! Fuck me that's a horrible sight!

The Search

Because I wrote the previous paragrahps after we'd figured out exactly what had happened, you might be under the impression that by this point in trying to answer the question "Why the fuck is that image on Wikipedia instead of, idk, the real fucking thing?" we'd at least established the existence of said "real Williams F1 logo". You'd be wrong, because for somewhere around 24 hours after we'd made the initial, horrifying discovery of just how fucked the Wikipedia version is, we genuinely could not tell if that was the official logo or not.

The ones displayed on their website weren't at all downloadable or even copyable, a non-ass quality of the damn thing just didn't seem to exist anywhere, so we didn't dare draw any conclusions. And we were still foolishly operating on the assumption that Wikipedia wouldn't just lie to us. (this is why your teachers hate it when you use it a source btw. like this is the ONE time it's actually been reasonable)

So, in the hopes of finding the offical Williams Racing logo, the non-scuffed one because clearly it exists, somewhere, we consulted an expert on Intellectual Property: my mother!

What this "consultation" actually roughly looked like was: we went on a walk and I started rambling about the Situation from Last Night before she cut me off and pulled up the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, aka the place they store all the Copyright information of like, everything.

BEHOLD:

(pictured; THE ACTUAL FUCKING LOGO I CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S EXISTED THIS WHOLE TIME)

Link to the actual real official legal document because goddamn this rabbithole just kept getting deeper so I like, have that now.

For refence, here is the official copyrighted version and the Wikimedia file overlayed on top of each other. As you can tell, it's disgusting. It's a poor, eyeballed imitation at best.

The copyrighted logo is horrifically low quality because, guess what, that image also isn't downloadable or copyable from the page. I really really cannot blame Juanchocarbonero for uploading his own version to Wikimedia because there legitimately does not exist a version of this logo that is freely available to the public. Like that goddamn abomiation is all we have. It's the effort that counts I guess.

My mother suggested that a possible reason for this could be avoiding the production of knockoff merch, or at least making it recognisable in case it is sold. Think about it, when your logo Doesn't Exist online, no one can use it without a license! It's kind of genius! I'm also about 99% sure they didn't orchestrate it so, it was good luck I guess?

interlude: How the FUCK does Copyright even work

I did immediately think to myself "we should REALLY fix the wikipedia version, like, stat" because I cannot in good conscience have this information available to me and not do anything with it, for the good of the people. However, this poses an issue: was the logo really not scuffed on purpose? Could it be that that version uploaded to Wikipedia isn't a 1:1 of the official logo because of copyrighting issues? To find out I had to look deeper, by comparing the official, website-available logos of various other F1 teams I came to conclusion that: [........................]

Yeah so I wrote that paragraph before actually checking for refences, but even after probably an hour of trying very hard to make sense of the copyright documents and copyright law in general we could not make sense of any of it. According to my mother (again, the closest we have to an expert, like she actually works with copyright in the context of companies but she's not specifically an IP expert. just to clarify) it's actually a lot worse for Wikipedia to have a falsified version of the Williams logo, than it would be to use the copyrighted version. This is because they're spreading misinformation by pretending that's the actual logo. And yet.

According to the Copyright Tag (the one on the top) in the Licensing section of the Wikimedia page for the thing pretending to be the Williams F1 logo, it's fine to use it because just a bunch of shapes. The thing is however, that it says that for pretty much every F1 team's logo, most of which are sourced straight from the official website. So this doesn't really mean anything tbh. According to our local expert (still my mother) it's fucking confusing. So I've decided to leave that at that.

update October 20th: as far as the Wikimedia pages on copyrighting tell me, uploading the official logo could, potentially, get me into serious legal trouble with Williams because of copyright laws. Which is still confusing because as said, every other team's logo is sitting uncontested on their respective Wikipedia pages. So basically we still don't know.

Okay. Backtrack. We forgot to ask something very important:

HOW?

HOW does one fuck up a perfectly fine logo THAT BAD.

WHY does one make their own scuffed tracejob and HOW does it end up like THAT. Clearly something must have gone horrifically wrong for it to end up like that.

I have a theory as to what might have happened:

It was either drawn or painted by hand, for a physical paintjob it's actually sort of impressively precise, but still objectively fucked. For a while I outright refused to believe that it could have been done in a digital program with the types of mistakes that were made, but you'll see this theory (partially) disproven later on so I retract it for now.

Operating on the assumption that it wasn't done digitally, a likely theory could be one involving a picture of scan of the paintjob. If the picture was taken at an angle or the logo itself was on a curved surface that COULD potentially explain the weird sort of slide everything has to it.

From then the picture might have been inserted into a digital art program, and the area of the logo might have been automatically selected using the magic wand tool, which could explain the weird growth at the top and that odd rounded off corner.

We also drew the conclusion that the file itself had been "tampered with" (aka cropped manually) by a human, because no computer would generate a resolution of 3356x2543 (you can that this is the original resolution on the Wikimedia page)

WAIT HOLD ON IS THAT IT?

The question of how the Fuck this guy managed to mess up the logo, and even more specifically why some edges were fine and some weren't (ant colony looking thing on the top left) bothered us so much that I at one point started just looking up "WIlliams logo" with the results filtered down to pre-2017 in an attempt to find when exactly the messed up logo was created. As if that would be any help.

Now what I definitely didn't expect to find was THIS

ENHANCE

Yes, you're seeing it right, THAT is the original 'Williams logo with the fucked up arm angles and lenghts'. Which PROVES that, contrary to our previous belief, Juancocarbonero was NOT the origin of the mistakes. Instead it was [checks notes] a DeviantArt user by the name of Nerdkid56?

The original DeviantArt post, which as of 9:47pm CET on the 13th of October 2024 I am about 90% sure is the actual first appearanace of the scuffed logo, is from May of 2015, which lines up well with the original upload date of the fucked up logo onto Wikipedia (November 2016). At the time that DeviantArt post was almost the only source for the logo.

And in the case you needed any convincing that those two logos are the same, here they are overlayed. You may notice that it's one shape (excluding the rounded corner which isn't visible at this resolution.)

This discovery is essential to understanding why the current scuffed version is the way it is. You might remember our confusion about the way some edges are fine while some are attempting to leave the image, the whole thing is a weird Frankensteinian amalgamation of vectors and magic wand mistakes. With this knowledge we can now assume that the mistakes happened in 2 layers:

Nerdkid56: likely just eyeballed the proportions. I'd guess he drew one arm before the other and flipped it around without really checking the angles. Also didn't give a shit about whether the arms lined up with the base or not. Legitimately bad design made in a digital program.

Juancocarbonero: why he used the scuffed W logo instead of the normal ones that were also perfectly accessible by 1 goddamn Google search is a mistery. HOW he even got access to it is another question I do not think we'll have answers to. And I've already explained some of the things we think may be responsible for the uneveness and bumps. Point is he fucked it up even more.

My theory for why Juanchocarbonero used the scuffed version instead of any other available picture goes like this: it was the only png he could find. Practically every other search result for "Williams Logo" that predates 2017 is a jpeg or absolute ass quality (sometimes both for good measure) so, despite it's flaws, Nedkid56's trace of it could have been the best option available at the time (the quality is actually very very good since it's a vector image, and I guess our friend Juanchocarbonero doesn't have an eye for design considering he didn't notice uhm, everything that is wrong with that model.)

Conclusion

The only way to right these wrongs is to go back, to the very beggining of this saga. Wikipedia. Williams I'm so sorry for what you've had to endure. I know what I have to do now. When I eventually make a proper vector image of the official logo and upload it to Wikimedia it'll all be over. And I WILL do it (but not rn this has already robbed me of like 3 whole days of my life. soon)

All of this is, admittedly inconsequental, but also absolutely fucking hilarious. Like imagine. you. one single guy, you make ONE mistake in a silly little "tracing this logo" project because you couldn't be arsed to check the angles of a silly little W. And some other guy, who you likely don't even know, over a whole ass year later, takes your flawed piece of design, makes it even worse somehow and uploads it to a site from which your little tiny innocent mistake becomes the most widespread version of a logo used by an actual real company worth over 700 Million US Dollars. HOW. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN. WHY HAS NO ONE FIXED THIS??? IT'S BEEN 9 YEARS

Just to give you a final look on just how widespread this plague is, here are some examples of media the fucked up version of the logo is featured in:

this Mr V's Garage video (the original reason we started this conversation in the first place)

the thumbnails of these two videos by Tommo, this one by FP1Will, and this one by RicksF1Addiction

such an amount of random places. likely fanmerch and fanart, and like, pretty much any place someone wanted to use the logo. it's everywhere. if you've ever had the Williams logo displayed in anything you've made I can guarantee you 99.9% chance you used the fucked version

and late thank you to everyone ( @bumblewyn @mid-nighttiger @vro0m @lemonsgovroom @mikraas @leclerced fucking hell I kept needing to add people to this list because compiling all of this took absurdly long) who pointed out our misconception in the reblogs of the original post and contributed to us actually looking into this further. and sorry to everyone for accidentally spreading misinformation lmao (it's too funny not to have been worth it tho) (ALSO it's not really our fault is it)

and to keep the tradition of ending on a live discord reaction:

#please please consider reblogging this if you read through considering the original post (as funny as it was) was just spreading misinfo #williams slander themselves enough already they don't need us to do that #f1 #formula 1 #williams #williams racing #williams f1 #james vowles #williams formula 1 #f1 analysis #technical #lai core #nebrain #neb50 #neb100 #neb200

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xenosagaepisodeone · 3 months ago

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I complain about waning tech literacy every single day but it's become absolutely grating how grown adults my age and older, who hypothetically should have had some experience with a PC at some point from childhood to adolescence, come to me begging to do something for them. There were two separate instances this week where people in their mid 30s at the oldest complained about our computers not working, only to find that it wasn't even turned on. dozens of people who functionally ask me to log into their emails or amazon accounts or how get to a website or even follow a series of prompts because they have no idea what to do on a computer...and again, these are not old people. I know people use google docs moreso than microsoft word these days but....you cant tell me that learning how to use word in the absence of docs is some impossible feat! so many of the design elements are the same! Just fiddle with it! Google that shit! You can tell me "oh well modern consumer tech discourages people from trying new things 🥺" but you cant tell me that the average household doesnt at least have one laptop. One of my supervisors gently reminded me that I can teach people to do things over just doing it for them, but based on the starting point we're working with for a lot of folks I don't think I can cover all of the necessary bases in any less than 30 minutes. And I've got actual work to do.

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wilwheaton · 1 year ago

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When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.

This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.

I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.

I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.

A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.

I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.

I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.

To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.

But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.

After Stand by Me, everything changed. The attention from entertainment journalists, casting directors, and especially teen magazines came pouring in. The movie was a generational hit, beloved by critics and audiences alike, and every single one of us could pick anything to do next.

River’s parents and his agent got him Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford, as his next movie. I also auditioned for the role, but I knew even then that River was going to book the job. He was perfect, and I’d have to wait a little bit for my opportunity to come along.

I went on a lot of theatrical auditions after Stand by Me. I had tons of meetings with directors and the heads of casting at every major studio. It was all a very big deal, and I felt like we were all looking for something really special and amazing as my follow-up to Stand by Me.

At some point, a couple of producers contacted my agent with an offer to play one of the leads in an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” The script was titled The Farm. (It would, of course, be changed when the film was released).

I read it. I did not like it. It was a shitty horror movie, and I saw that right away. It was the sort of thing you rented on Friday when the new release you wanted was already out of the store.

My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

I told my parents I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. I clearly recall thinking it was a piece of shit that would hurt my career.

It wasn’t the first thing that had come our way that I wanted to pass on, and every other time, it hadn’t been a very big deal.

Sidebar: I was cast in Twilight Zone: The Movie, in 1983. The film tells four stories, and I was cast as the kid who can wish people into cartoonland. It was a GREAT role, in a movie I still love. (Note that Twilight Zone had four directors. One of them got three people killed. The segment I was cast in was not that one. I mention this because too many people zero in on this to deflect from what this whole thing is actually about.)

But I was CONVINCED by my parochial school teacher that if I worked on The Twilight Zone, which she had determined was satanic, I would go to hell. (This woman and her bullshit played a big role in my conversion to atheism at a young age, but when she told me that, I was all-in on the supernatural story they taught us in religion class.) I was so scared, more scared than I’d ever been to that point in my life, I cried and wailed and begged my parents to not make me do the movie. And I never told them why, because I was afraid my dad would laugh at me for being weak and afraid. My agent tried to talk me into it, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s the only thing I deeply and truly regret passing on, and I really hate I made that choice for such a stupid reason.

Okay. Back to The Curse.

This time, when I told them how much I hated it, they wouldn’t listen to me. My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

That is, until they made me take a meeting with the producers of the movie, in their giant conference room on the top floor of a tall building in Hollywood. All I remember about this place was that it was huge; the table was way too big for the five of us who spread around it, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the room was still dark. There was a weird optical illusion in the center of the table, this thing they sold in the Sharper Image catalog, made from two reflective dishes with a hole in the top of one. You placed an object in the bottom of the bottom dish, and it made it look like that object was floating above the whole thing. They had a plastic spider in it. What a strange detail for me to remember, but it’s as clear in my memory as if I were sitting in that room right now.

One man, who I presumed was the executive producer, was European or Middle Eastern (I didn’t know the difference then, he was just Not Like People I Knew), and I was instantly afraid of him. He was intimidating, and seemed like a person who got what he wanted.

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

I don’t remember what they said to me in their pitch or anything other than how uncomfortable and anxious I was to even be in that room. I tried so hard to be grown up and mature, but I — and my parents — was way out of my depth. I’d done one big movie and that was it. We didn’t have my agent with us, who had lots of experience and would have known what questions to ask.

No, in place of my experienced agent, my mother had decided she was going to be my manager, and she tackled the responsibility with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her absolute incompetence and inability to go toe-to-toe with producers the way my agent did. She was outwitted, out-thought, and outmaneuvered at every turn.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

At some point, this man, who is represented in my memory by big Jim Jones sunglasses under dark hair above an open collar, said, “We are offering you a hundred thousand dollars and round-trip travel for your whole family. We will cast your sister, Amy, to play your sister in the movie.”

It all made sense, now. I was only thirteen, but I knew my parents were pushing me so hard because this company was offering me — them, really — more money than I’d ever imagined I’d earn in my life, much less a single job.

I knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, was to say no. There would be other opportunities, and it was stupid to cash myself out of feature films for what I thought was, in the grand scheme of things, not very much money.

It’s incredible to me that I knew all of this. It’s incredible to me that I could see all these things, plainly and clearly, and my parents couldn’t (or, more likely, chose not to).

So after this man made his offer, all the adults in the room ganged up on me, selling me HARD on this movie.

My mother said, “Don’t you want your sister to have the same opportunities you’ve had? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to go to Rome? Think of all the history!”

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

I don’t think about this very often, because it’s super upsetting to me. Right now, I’m so angry at my parents for subjecting me and my sister to this entire experience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In that moment, I felt bullied and trapped. All these adults were talking to me at the same time, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to go home and get out of this room. I just wanted to go be a kid, so I did what I’d learned to do to survive: I gave in and did what my parents wanted.

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

But here’s the thing: when you watch The Curse, you are watching two children, me and my sister, who were abused on a daily basis. The production did not follow a single labor law. They worked us for twelve hours a day, on multiple film units (while I work on First unit, second unit sets up and waits for me. When I should get a break to rest, they send me to Second unit, then to Third unit, then back to First unit. I was 13.) without any breaks, five days a week. I was exhausted the entire time. I was inappropriately touched by two different adults during production. I knew it was wrong, but I was so scared and ashamed, and I felt so unsupported, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother would blame me. Anything to keep the production happy, that’s what she did. That was more important to her than the health and safety of her children. The director was coked out of his mind most of the time, incompetent, and so busy fucking or trying to fuck one of the women in the cast, he was worse than useless. He was a fading actor who was cosplaying as a director, as in over his head as my mother. My sister and I were never safe. Instead of harmless atmospheric SFX smoke, they set hay on fire in barrels and blew actual smoke onto the set. They took buckets of talc, broken wood, bits of wallpaper and plaster, and threw it into my face during a scene inside the collapsing house. My sister is in a scene where she goes to get eggs from some chickens, and they attack her. So they hired Lucio Fulci, the Italian horror master, to direct her sequence. His idea, which everyone was totally on board with, was to throw chickens at my sister. Live chickens, live roosters, live birds. Just throw them at a nine-year-old girl. Oh, and then tie them to her arms and legs so they’ll peck her. All of this happened under my mother’s observation, and with her full participation.

Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

If just ONE of the things I can remember happened to someone I loved, I would have grabbed my kids, gone to the airport, and flown home. Fuck those abusive assholes in the production. Let the lawyers sort it all out. Nobody hurts my children and gets away with it.

My mom says she “had some talks” with the producers. She claims that, once, she wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. (God, what a fucking dump that place was. It was just slightly better than a hostel.) I have no memory of that, but honestly the entire experience was so traumatic, I’ve blocked most of it out.

The movie was the commercial and critical failure I knew it would be. My parents spent the money. I don’t know what they spent it on. I got to keep fifteen cents of every dollar, so . . . yay?

My sister and I hardly ever talk about this. I suspect it was as upsetting and traumatic for her as it was for me. I told her I was writing about it, and asked her if she remembered anything. She told me she’d been lied to her whole life about this movie. Our mother let her believe she had been cast on the strength of her audition. “I was excited to work with you,” she said. She reminded me about some stuff I’d blocked out, including a scene where my character’s older brother (played by an actor named Malcolm Danare, who was kind and gentle, and made both of us feel safer when he was around) shoves my character into a pile of cow shit. When it came time to shoot the scene, the mud they’d put together to be the cow shit looked an awful lot like cow shit. When Malcolm pushed me into it, we all found out it was real cow shit. I was FURIOUS. The director had lied to me and had allowed me to have my entire body shoved into an actual pile of actual cow shit. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember he treated me the exact same way my father did whenever I got upset: he laughed at me, told me I was being too sensitive, reminded me that he was the director and he wanted to get a “real” performance out of me, and concluded, “If it bothers you so much, we’ll get you a hepatitis shot,” before he walked away.

My sister also recalled that, after she survived the scene with the chickens, it was the producers’ idea to give her one as a pet.

Okay, let’s unpack that for a quick second: you’ve been traumatized by these birds, so we’re going to give you one as a pet. That you’ll somehow keep in your hotel, and then will somehow get back to America. It will shock you to learn that neither of those things happened.

She remembered, as I do, the huge fight I had with my parents in our kitchen, where I told them I hated the script and I hated the movie. I didn’t want to do it, and I hated that they were making me do it.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

“This is the only film you are being offered,” my mother lied to me. She made me feel like, if I didn’t do this movie, I would never do another movie again in my life. I had to do this movie. As my father bellowed, I had no choice.

Both of my parents denied this argument ever happened. Can I tell you how reassuring it is to know that my sister, who was also there, remembers it the same way I do?

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them.

But one thing she told me, the thing I did not know, the thing that makes me so angry I want to break things, actually managed to make the entire experience even worse than I remembered it.

There’s a scene after her chicken incident where I check up on her in her bedroom. She’s got cuts and bruises, and I guess we talk about it. I don’t remember and I can’t watch the movie because I’m terrified it will give me a PTSD flashback (I’ve had one of those and I recommend avoiding it). Here’s the thing about that scene: she has some cuts on her face, and those cuts are real. They are not makeup.

I’m going to repeat that. My nine-year-old little sister had actual cuts on her face that were placed there by an adult, on purpose.

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them. My sister told me our mother wasn’t in the makeup room when this happened — honestly, it seemed like our mother was strangely and conveniently absent when most of the really terrible things happened to us on the set — and when my sister told her what they’d done, she “lost her shit” at the production. She was pissed, I guess, which is appropriate and surprising. I wonder what would have to have happened for her to put us on a plane and get us home to safety? I mean, her son being abused daily didn’t do it, and her daughter being CUT IN THE FACE ON PURPOSE didn’t do it.

I just . . . I can’t. I can’t understand or comprehend allowing your own children to be physically and emotionally abused. They were literally selling my sister and me to these people, like we were some kind of commodity.

This was a tough conversation. My sister’s experience with our parents is very different from mine. My sister and I love each other. We’re close. I know it’s hard for her to hear that her brother, who she loves, was so abused by her parents, who she also loves. I was really grateful she made the time to talk to me about it, and grateful the experience wasn’t as horrible for her as it was for me.

As we were finishing our call, Amy also remembered one man, a young Italian named Luka, who was our driver for the movie. I haven’t thought about him in thirty years, but I can see his face now. He was kind, he was friendly, he taught us how to kick a soccer ball, and in the middle of an abusive, torturous experience, he stood out as a kind and gentle man. I mention him because she remembered him, which made me remember him, and goddammit I want at least one small part of this thing to not be awful.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares.

Ultimately, as I predicted and feared, this piece of shit movie cashed me out of respectable films forever. I got offers for movies, but they were always mindless comedies or exploitative horror films. They were never the serious dramas I wanted to work in after Stand by Me. The industry looked at me and River, wondering if one or both of us would become a breakout star. They quickly saw that River was doing real acting work, and I was in this piece of shit. For River, Stand by Me was a beginning. For me, it would turn out to be pretty much everything, at least as far as film goes.

There are thousands of reasons film careers do and don’t take off. Maybe mine wouldn’t have taken off anyway. Clearly, it’s not where my life ended up, and I’m super okay with that now. But when all of this happened, it hurt and haunted me.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares. Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

This annotation is the last thing I wrote before I turned this manuscript in, because opening these wounds is hard and painful. I put it off as long as I could, and I feel like I’m still holding back, because just this small glimpse of the experience has taken me a week to write. I can’t imagine trying to go back and unpack the whole thing. (Note that is not in the book: I’ve made an EMDR appointment to work on this because the nightmares have come back after the weekend).

Fuck The Curse, and fuck every single person who exploited and hurt two beautiful children to make it. You all participated in child abuse, and you all knew better. Shame on all of you. I hope this follows you to the end of your life. I hope that living with what you did to innocent children has been as hard for you as it has been for me, because you deserve no less.

#tw abuse #tw child abuse #tw exploitation #child actor #still just a geek #lucio fulci #trauma survivor #speaking up for the child who was silenced by his abusers

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