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darkmatilda · 5 months ago

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𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: the death of your father brings you back to your hometown, straight into the grip of a long conversation with an old friend, during which you both rediscover who you truly were and how differently you remember certain events.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐭𝐰: spencer reid x female!reader, childhood friends, flashbacks to times when they were 12-14, an alcoholic father, the father's death, brain tumor, death of both parents and grief, lots of inner rage, reader has actually a whole backstory so you need to immerse yourself, father is referred as "y/s", an open ending

𝐚/𝐧: my keyboard was burning as i wrote this

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 9k

Spencer had always found a certain comfort in nights spent aboard the jet.

In the dim light, with its warm, amber glow spilling softly into the shadows, there was a kind of serenity. A quiet that didn’t invite troubling thoughts to creep in but was instead punctuated by the gentle reminders of his team’s presence. The low hum of JJ and Elle’s tired but easy conversation, occasionally broken by soft laughter or the sound of cards hitting the table. The faint whisper of music leaking from Derek’s headphones as he drifted in and out of sleep. The rhythmic rustle of papers as Hotch worked methodically through them.

Usually, in this specific moment, Spencer felt relaxed. The case was behind them, and they were heading home. But that day, an unshakable knot lingered in his stomach.

He tore his gaze away from the chessboard. For a while now, he had simply been staring at it, his mind abandoning any effort to determine the next pawn move. He tried to snap himself back into focus, to analyze the game so far, find the weak spots, formulate a strategy... but he just couldn’t.

Leaning over the table, Gideon shifted back a little, propping himself on his elbow as he studied Spencer carefully.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Spencer, after a prolonged moment of silence, shrugged.

“I’m still thinking about your last move. Of course, for obvious reasons, I’m not going to tell you what conclusions I’ve drawn, opponent...”

“No, Reid, I’m asking what’s wrong,” Gideon repeated, nodding slightly in his direction. His voice softened a bit, as if trying to give Spencer space to open up. His eyes held their characteristic mix of curiosity and concern. “With you, kid. You’re acting strange.”

“According to some, I always act strange,” Spencer tried to shrug dismissively, forcing a small joke. He exhaled heavily afterward.

“But not like this. You’re not hesitating on your move because you don’t know what it should be. You’re hesitating because you’re distracted. You can’t focus, not even on chess,” Gideon stated with certainty. Spencer wanted to shrug again, but he knew repeating the gesture and his disoriented behavior wouldn’t ease the older man’s worry. Instead, he kept staring at the chessboard, avoiding direct eye contact.

“I’m going to ask you one question,” Gideon said, his tone steady yet gentle, “but I don’t want you to feel like you have to answer it. I just want to see your reaction—the rest I’ll figure out myself.”

Spencer couldn’t hold back a genuine chuckle, brief but sincere.

“Are you profiling me, Gideon?”

“That skill isn’t limited to catching serial killers,” Gideon replied evenly. “So, here’s the question—does the way you’re feeling have anything to do with the death of Lieutenant Y/S?”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. A resigned sigh escaped instead. He abandoned any attempt to deny it, to change the subject, or even to lie—it was too precise a hit. A blow too accurate to defend against.

“How do you know?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.

“You usually read through entire newspapers as if they were single-page pamphlets in a doctor’s waiting room. Today, you stared at it for a good fifteen minutes. Then you slipped one of the pages into your jacket pocket. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, so I couldn’t make out which one exactly. But considering Y/S was from your hometown…you knew him. That much is clear.”

The curse of being surrounded by profilers: they noticed everything.

But eventually, Spencer gave a small nod, conceding the point. Deep down, he supposed he did want to talk about it—with someone he trusted, someone who knew him well enough to piece together his worries from something as small as lingering too long over a newspaper.

“He was my neighbor,” he began cautiously, unsure where to even start unraveling the story. Slowly, he reached up to remove his glasses, pressing the bridge of his nose in thought. “His whole family, actually. His wife and…and their daughter.”

Gideon raised his eyebrows, as if everything suddenly made sense. And, knowing him, it probably did.

“An old friend, then,” he said, his voice carrying a faint note of melancholy. “How’s she handling her father’s death?”

Spencer shook his head.

“We…we’re not in touch anymore.” The words felt strange on his tongue, as if he hadn’t said them out loud in years. And perhaps he hadn’t. No one had asked about her in a long time. The words didn’t fill him with sadness exactly—maybe too much time had passed for that—but there was still that odd sensation in his chest. A warm ache, tinged with something like regret. He pushed through it and met Gideon’s gaze. “But I’ve been thinking about her. Ever since I found out.”

“Understandable. Especially since you were so close,” Gideon replied.

There was a hint in his words, a suggestion that settled into Spencer's mind. He truly knew everything.

“I’ve been wondering if I should reach out to her,” Spencer suddenly blurted out. The idea had come to him earlier, spontaneously, and hadn’t let go since. “Maybe not meet up, but…maybe just call. Garcia could probably find her number…What do you think?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m from a different generation,” Gideon started slowly, taking on a more serious, almost fatherly tone. “But to me, things like offering condolences shouldn’t be done over the phone. Especially when that person means so much to you.”

“She doesn’t—” Spencer began, but the words died in a sigh. He couldn’t say she meant nothing to him. Still, he sensed that Gideon had formed an image of their relationship that wasn’t quite accurate, and he felt the need to clarify things. “Listen, I had feelings for her, that’s true. I’m not…not ashamed to admit it.” Why, then, did his cheeks begin to warm? “But what I feel now has nothing to do with that. Above all, she was my friend. And her father…I spent a lot of time at their place. Actually, it was because of him that I even started thinking about going this route. You know, the FBI. I just feel…I feel like I should do it. Reach out to her, I mean. Say I’m sorry, listen to how she’s doing. For both of them.”

When he finished speaking, he felt a slight out of breath, like he’d just run a mile. Well, okay, maybe it was more like he’d climbed the stairs faster than usual. He stared at Gideon, waiting for the next words. But Gideon’s face remained unreadable, his posture still.

Spencer blinked, a bit desperate.

“What? You got me to say all that, and you’re not even going to give me any feedback?” he asked.

Gideon watched him for a moment, then a small smile appeared on his lips.

“Spencer, you’ve already figured it out for yourself. There’s nothing I can add.”

He frowned in confusion. He started to think about it and didn’t even notice when they returned to their chess game. Surprisingly, he managed to move a pawn at last; his mind actually felt clearer. His opponent leaned slightly over the table again, unmoved, pushing the queen despite it being a risky move, one that could change everything.

“Did you tell her how you feel about her?” he suddenly asked, as Spencer remained lost in thought.

Spencer winced slightly, not understanding the question. Before the other man could repeat it, Spencer suddenly understood, and a short sigh escaped his lips. Oh.

He mumbled an unclear confirmation. He had to swallow to clear his throat.

“I did,” he admitted. A deeper breath, as if to wash it off. So much time had passed, he should have done it long ago. He looked more confidently at Gideon, his expression showing some finality, something unquestionable. “But she didn’t feel the same. And that’s…completely okay. Can we get back to the game?”

Gideon agreed, of course. But before doing so, he once again scanned his face. He didn’t smile, didn’t say anything, but despite that, it was clear.

Clear that he truly cared about him.

You couldn’t remember the last time something as simple as sending an email felt like such a challenge. You also couldn't remember the last time you'd written so many versions of a single message, all with the same goal in mind—agreeing to meet up. With someone you hadn't seen in years.

You alternated between typing and holding down the caps lock key, deleting everything. In recent days, you’d been replying to a mountain of messages, not even trying to hide the falseness of it all or force a smile of gratitude when someone insisted on hugging you, offering their deepest condolences. You surrendered to it all like some kind of medical procedure, while feeling the weight of eyes on your face, searching for traces of tears and the despair behind them. Searching for proof that it mattered to you. That you were conforming to their image of no one else but your father. The Lieutenant, repeatedly decorated for his service, who passed away shortly after retiring due to unspecified health reasons (such a nice euphemism for the pulmonary embolism caused by years of alcoholism). A daughter, humbly lowering her head at his funeral, eyes filled with tears, accepting all words of comfort with graceful charm. It perfectly fit the romanticized image of the person your father was.

That bitterness toward the entire situation grew stronger within you with each passing day. At the funeral, you’d been too disoriented to notice it. You felt like an empty field where any thought or conclusion simply withered in its infancy, never able to fully blossom. Too disconnected from reality, too preoccupied with logistics to cry.

But putting aside this self-analysis of your grief (you never bought into the whole five stages theory—though you didn’t deny it might work for some people. You just thought it was too complex a process to be summarized into bullet points), you agreed to meet with Spencer. His message pulled you, however briefly, out of that apathetic void, leaving you genuinely surprised. Only later did it occur to you that this was normal—old friends often reach out after years apart. They comment on vacation photos with flame emojis or laugh-reacts. They send generic birthday wishes. They ask how you're doing when your father dies. Normal stuff.

There had been no falling out between you. Sometimes people are simply separated by distance, by different stages of life, of career, and contact becomes more sporadic until, eventually, it fades. The moment it happens is easy to miss, and you’d missed it entirely. The last time you’d spoken face-to-face was right before you left for a college far from your hometown. Six years ago. By then, Spencer had already accumulated a staggering number of academic accolades, advancing at a pace that matched his brilliance. During your first year apart, you exchanged a few messages—it seemed like the right thing to do. But you’d never been good at maintaining long-distance friendships, and soon enough, his presence was relegated to that most worn-out folder in the archive of your life, simply labeled as childhood.

You had no real reason to turn down the meeting. You were curious about the kind of person Spencer had become. Still, you couldn’t deny, even to yourself, that your primary motivation was to escape spending any more time in that desolate house. A house that bore visible signs of use yet stood conspicuously empty of owners.

You couldn’t shake the feeling that it didn’t much like you. The house, that is. As though it harbored a grudge against you for deciding to leave, and now, upon your return, it had no intention of welcoming you back.

Any excuse to get away from it was a good one.

Your area didn’t offer many options for meeting places, so you suggested the first one that came to mind—a bar. As you walked inside, your eyes scanned only for a familiar face, paying no attention to the mahogany nooks and crannies of the place you knew all too well.

You exchanged a touchless greeting—two polite smiles, nothing more.

And then, the silence settled in, thick with awkwardness.

"I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral," he said finally. The words tumbled out, and he winced the moment they did, likely realizing that opening the conversation this way was steering it down a less-than-pleasant path. He sighed but pressed on, determined to explain. "I only found out about it, well, through the paper. By the time I knew, it was already too late to even think about it. Plus, work…"

"You’ve changed," you cut him off mid-explanation with a simple observation that seemed to spill out of your mouth unbidden. "Maybe that’s where we should start. It’s good to see you, Spence."

The use of his old nickname seemed to throw him off balance.

"Sorry," you added quickly, breaking into a small laugh. "I forgot how much you hate small talk."

"No, it’s fine," he assured quickly. At the sound of your laugh, he shifted in his seat, almost distracted. Even though you weren’t exactly an expert at reading people, it was clear that something about that moment had triggered a wave of warmth in him, the sharp and tender grip of nostalgia. You could almost see the memories flickering across his mind—the two of you racing your bikes to the library, abandoning them haphazardly near the entrance, and bursting through the doors with a triumphant shout of first! Or maybe one of the countless other small moments, fragments of your shared past that sometimes surfaced in your own mind like snippets of a forgotten commercial.

He shook his head, pulling himself out of the haze, a faint smile curving his lips. "I mean, I’ve come to realize small talk isn’t always the enemy. Sometimes it’s just…part of connecting with people. It doesn’t have to feel like this desperate attempt to keep a conversation from flatlining."

You ordered a beer—not because you wanted to drink it, but to have something to fidget with. Still, at his words, you raised it to your lips in an overly dramatic gesture.

"Wow. Words like that coming from Spencer Reid. Who would’ve thought?”

He spread his arms as if wanting to join in on your question. The initial awkwardness between you both seemed to be fading, and it felt like you were both becoming more relaxed.

"You said it yourself, I’ve changed," he reminded you, then raised an eyebrow. "Well, I just don’t know if you meant for the better or for the worse."

You adjusted your posture, like some professional judge preparing to deliver their verdict. The chance to scrutinize him had presented itself, and you were ready to take it.

You'd known each other since you and your family had moved to the house on the outskirts. You weren't exactly a little kid by then, but in hindsight, you weren’t sure you even had memories before that event. If you did, they were insignificant. Anyway, you had always been fascinated by how friendships were formed when you were kids. As an adult, it’s incredibly difficult and usually based on shared interests. You meet at work, a manga club, or a Pilates class. You have to have something to talk about. It’s best when your sense of humor aligns, or at least doesn’t offend each other. Shared views are nice, though some people claim to enjoy a bit of difference for expanding their horizons. But it’s always just a bit.

Well, that’s how it was with you two. You were the little, mischievous adventurer, and he was the know-it-all shadow behind your back. Somehow, he always agreed to your silly ideas, the ones that later got you both into trouble. But despite the differences, every summer morning one of you would show up at the other’s door. It’s hard to compare him to his childhood version when the last time you saw each other, you were both eighteen. But even compared to that, the man sitting in front of you was different. Still young, but with more mature features. His hair was neatly styled, instead of the shapeless mess of long strands. He wore a side parting now. His dressing style, once a bit granddad-ish, was still polished, but it now had the feel of someone who might, at any moment, be heading to the garden to transplant a fern.

That much hadn't changed, you thought, noting his navy cardigan and the collar of his shirt peeking out with a tie. You glanced at his shoes—no Converse or any kind of sneakers, but proper dress shoes.

Then, the last thing—his eyes. The most striking feature of his face, drawing attention like two slightly melted pieces of chocolate. They were penetrating, yet once upon a time, they allowed you to peer into his inner world and his feelings. At least, that’s how it was back then. Now, there was more calculation and seriousness in them. Only after a moment did you realize that the coolness in his gaze was likely a result of the years spent working around the horrors of violent crimes.

You cleared your throat, realizing that your staring had gone on longer than necessary.

"I don't think I can really judge," you finally said, trying to stay diplomatic. "But I'm glad you didn’t give in to the contact lens trend. You've always looked good in glasses."

Spencer gave you a doubtful look.

"When I started wearing them as a kid, you laughed and said it sealed my nerdy reputation," he pointed out.

"I don't remember that," you replied innocently.

"I do. And I think that's enough evidence," he snorted. "I have to admit, though, I did give contacts a try for a while. Just out of curiosity, to see if they were more comfortable and how I'd look in them."

You pointed a finger at him.

"Poser."

He rolled his eyes, amused. This word in combination with someone like him was so absurd that he wouldn’t have been offended even if you’d said it with the utmost seriousness.

"Classic me," he sighed. His gaze had been drifting toward you for a while now, darting away whenever you caught him. Eventually, though, it settled fully on you. "You've changed a lot too. Which, I guess, is obvious considering how much time has passed. Still, it surprises me more than it should. You’ve finished school by now, right?"

"Right. Though I feel like I should be asking you which degree you’re on now."

That sent the two of you down the path of catching up—old-fashioned life updates that somehow didn’t feel tedious or like either of you wanted to change the subject. It turns out, when you’re interested in someone enough, even hearing about their Thursday trips to the farmer’s market for fresh eggplants to make some fancy casserole can feel fascinating.

With genuine curiosity, you caught up on everything that had happened over the years, growing more relaxed as the evening stretched on. Question, answer, sarcastic jab, playful comment. Anecdote, opinion. Gratitude that you’d chosen to come out for this meeting instead of barricading yourself at home, surrounded by the thoughts you still hadn’t confronted and the walls steeped in the lingering presence of your father. A desire to capture your shared laughter, to trap it in time. A tightening in your stomach—though maybe that was just you.

Nostalgia was a dangerous pursuit. It stretched like a rubber band, reaching deeper and deeper into the past, plucking out the good parts. But at some point, it always had the potential to snap back, hitting you square in the face.

“You know,” Spencer started suddenly, his tone quieter, more thoughtful. “I really hate that it took something like this for us to meet again. And that it’s been so long.”

You shrugged, letting out a soft sigh.

“Well, it’s not like you made much of an effort to stay in touch.”

The words landed like a pebble dropped into still water, rippling outward. Both of you stiffened in your seats, and you both noticed it. A part of you regretted saying it, but another part—heart pounding in an inner applause—did not.

Even though you hadn’t delivered it with sharpness or cutting sarcasm, you could see from the way his expression tightened that the atmosphere around you had shifted.

“You didn’t, either,” he pointed out. His tone was calm, almost detached, but above all, honest.

You shifted in your seat, trying to shake off the weight of your own hypocrisy. For a moment, the two of you just stared at each other in silence.

Spencer opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, almost a whisper, carrying an undertone of apology.

“I just want you to know…it’s not like I stopped thinking about you. It wasn’t the news about your dad that reminded me you exist.”

"Spencer, please… don’t lie," you blurted out almost involuntarily. You squeezed your eyes shut tightly for a moment, your temples tensing. Of course, you couldn’t just enjoy a pleasant evening—you had to let your inner frustration spill out. You wouldn’t be yourself otherwise. Biting the inside of your cheek, you pressed on despite that or the expression on his face.

"I mean, I know that’s exactly how it was, because it was the same for me. You crossed my mind a few times, sure, but let’s not kid ourselves. If we had really meant that much to each other, we’d have met up long, long before now."

He shook his head as he listened to your words, simultaneously rejecting them and admitting their truth, as his tense jaw suggested.

"I went to see your parents," he confessed suddenly, hesitating as he wet his bottom lip with his tongue, a faint, somber smile touching his face. "It was actually the only time I came back here, after my mom… after I placed her in a sanitarium. I was hoping to run into you, but your dad said you hardly ever came home."

"Was he sober when you talked to him?"

"It was lunchtime."

You couldn’t hold back and let out a short laugh.

"Oh, boy, you missed a lot."

His eyes softened yet stiffened at the same time in a paradoxical way. You saw how he straightened slightly in his seat, as the saliva that had long been gathering in your mouth threatened to spill. You weren’t sure what you hoped to achieve by bringing up your father. Maybe you were trying to make some twisted, clumsy argument, or perhaps, after everything that had revolved around him in the past few days, your mind instantly turned to his figure every time you were too exhausted to pull up anything else. It was easy. Silence, awkwardness, pain. The memory of your father, the immediate understanding directed toward you. Almost pity, but dressed up in a more pleasant package.

"Do you have any idea what was going on with him in the last few years?" you asked, empty.

"He had a problem? You know, with drinking?"

You tried not to snort in contempt at the question.

"He’s always had a problem," you stated, your hands tightening slightly on your chest under the table. You'd never spoken to anyone about this aloud. Any grievances you had with him were always kept in your head, knowing you wouldn’t find understanding from people who hadn’t lived with your father every day. Who knew him as a cop with an iron fist, but with a big heart for suffering, innocent people. "Well, I don’t know if you remember. Beer as an inseparable part of the day. Or maybe more of the evening. But he had a stressful job, right? It’s normal to have a drink or two in front of the TV, isn’t it?"

Spencer’s lips pressed together tightly.

“He saw a lot of crap every day, so of course, he’d take it out by yelling at his wife,” you continued, not stopping the bitterness building up inside you. It had been there for so long, but never formed into one angry thought. It surfaced every time someone spoke of him in glowing terms, patting you on the shoulder and pitying your loss with a tear in their eye. “Or at his daughter. He had to control everything, right? After all, he worked hard. He deserved to come home to a perfect family, in a perfect house, with no complaints.”

You stopped, closely watching his reaction. Maybe you'd said too much, unloaded too much all at once, putting too much pressure on him.

“I remember when we were thirteen,” he suddenly spoke, in a strangely detached tone. It was as if he was talking about something that had unexpectedly lodged itself in his mind and couldn't wait. “And he let us try beer.”

Well, that wasn't the response you'd expected. But really, what did you expect? You'd told yourself countless times that someone's sympathy wouldn't change anything about your situation. But still, you felt a sting, as if he was changing the subject and brushing off your words.

“He let you try the beer,” you corrected him automatically. Yet, despite your grim mood, the corner of your mouth quivered involuntarily. “But you gave it to me because you didn’t like it.”

The memory flooded you, bringing a wave of others with it.

Another summer evening filled with shouting.

You waited until the two arguing figures disappeared into the kitchen walls before quietly slipping through the terrace doors. You’d started doing this a while ago. Your father had always been strict, making sure your mother sent you to bed at the designated time—unchanged since you were seven. And that year, you were twelve. Anyway, one evening, you lay trembling under your blanket. Even the smallest argument seemed like a horror story in a child’s eyes. You saw the light on at your neighbor’s house—Spencer’s and his mom’s. Knowing that after drinking, your father’s vigilance and control weakened, you decided to take the risk.

You managed to sneak out unnoticed once, then again. Soon, it became normal. You’d return about an hour later when the situation calmed down, and his drunken anger had finally shifted to drunken sleepiness, and he wouldn’t notice your return. You never asked about it directly, but your mom probably knew.

“Can we watch something normal, just this one time?” you whimpered at the sight of another nature documentary on the TV in the Reid’s living room.

Spencer, lying on his stomach on the carpet, jumped slightly, startled when you slipped in through the glass terrace doors. However, he was starting to get used to your evening visits and quickly shook off the shock.

“There’s nothing more normal on earth than the processes that happen on its surface,” he said, turning his gaze back to the TV.

You raised your finger, sticking out your front teeth.

“There’s nothing more normal on earth than the processes that happen on its surface,” you repeated, mimicking his pretentious tone in an exaggerated way.

“Go away.”

“Then give me the remote.”

You chased each other around the living room, trying to wrest the remote from each other’s hands. Your squeals, arguments, and laughter never seemed to disturb Spencer’s mom, which always puzzled you. She didn’t even come out when you accidentally knocked over the bookshelf, sending several shelves of books crashing to the floor, which you both scrambled to pick up in a panic.

You often wondered that every day, Spencer watched those science programs, alone in the living room, with the terrace doors open. The darker thought would occasionally cross your mind: What if, just that one time, someone else had barged in? What would have to happen to pull Diane Reid out of one of those strange states she sometimes slipped into, when nothing around her mattered, not even her own son? But, as you said, those were very rare thoughts. After all, you were just a kid.

“Why can’t you watch TV at your place?” Spencer asked, pouting his lips.

He lost the fight for the remote, and you were now watching cartoons. His eyes absorbed them with interest, even though he denied it.

“Evenings, the TV belongs to my dad.”

“Couldn’t you ask him to let you watch something sometimes?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because no.”

“That’s not an answer!”

But even though he pretended to be unhappy, the terrace doors remained open every evening.

You confessed to Spencer that your father had always been like that. He pretended to be fine, then would crack, and afterward deny everything. You saw hesitation on his face as he listened, especially when you described how things were during your childhood. Spencer Reid liked to be right, and he absolutely trusted his own judgment. He hadn’t been a direct witness to those events, unlike you. Your father had always adored him—the small, smart neighbor kid who skipped grades and always asked so many questions about his work in the police. Of course, he had always been the best version of himself around Spencer. You also suspected that he probably always wished for a son.

His assessment, therefore, might not have been objective. He hadn’t seen what went on behind closed doors. For a moment, fear crept up on you. Did he even believe your words? Or did he think you were just fabricating a tragic story to explain a real problem that, in reality, hadn’t started until after you moved out?

Spencer just gave a barely noticeable nod, his forehead tense.

"You spent so much time at our house," he said quietly, uncertainly. "Why...why didn’t you ever tell me what was really going on? Back then and later on?"

You shrugged. Inside, you could have easily mocked your father’s addiction, but in reality, you were still deeply ashamed of it. Like any family of an alcoholic, hiding his bottles, lying that he was sick when unexpected guests came over, never calling the problem by its name.

"I don’t know. You liked him so much." A moment of silence, swallowing hard. "And he liked you."

"I respected him. Like I think everyone did."

One of Spencer's most painful yet beautiful childhood memories was that one specific moment during the holidays. He always spent them only with his mom, who wasn’t always feeling the best, but that one moment stayed with him as something special. When they stepped out onto the terrace, where they had the perfect view of the terrace of the neighboring house. The family that lived there—mom, dad, and their daughter—would also lean out, and they would all sincerely wish each other a Merry Christmas.

Their house was always decorated with colorful lights and those slightly eerie garden gnomes in the night light. They stood on their doorstep, the three of them. Neatly dressed, their daughter in a red dress with a large bow in her hair, clinging to her mother's side. They always seemed so happy, so perfect to him. A strange feeling would arise in his chest, and he’d move closer to his mother’s side, but that only intensified the sensation of something missing inside him.

"You looked up to him."

"Because I was a kid. Look, just because he had an impact on me, on my future…it doesn’t mean I’m diminishing what you or your mom went through," he finally explained, his voice tinged with a slight crack. His gaze was both confused and sad, still processing everything he’d just heard. "It’s really awful, and no one should go through that. I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t want to? Anyway…I’m sorry for being so clueless."

"You weren’t clueless," you assured him, a weak smile forming on your lips. His words echoed in your mind. “You were just a kid. And I didn’t bring this up to make you feel bad. I’m sorry if that’s how it came across. I just...I wanted at least one person, besides me, to have the full picture”

He nodded, but not in the mindless way that merely signals someone is paying attention. This was different—a deep, understanding gesture, replacing the words that had been growing more difficult to say. You both sat there in silence for a moment, your fingers mechanically tapping out a slow rhythm on the dark wood of the table, while his rested motionless on his knees. It was hard to return to that relaxed, pleasant conversation you’d started with.

“I’m glad we could meet,” you said simply, but honestly.

Usually, saying something like that signals the speaker is preparing to leave. You had already spent a lot of time in the small bar, and with the evening progressing, the crowd hadn’t really changed—only a few more people had trickled in. The thought of going home wasn’t so bad anymore, but still, you hesitated before getting up and grabbing the coat hanging on the back of his chair.

“I am too,” Spencer admitted, briefly rubbing his forehead above his glasses. “But before you go, please, tell me—how’s your mom handling it? Maybe you should give her my regards. I hope she’s...”

He stopped mid-sentence, reading the expression on your face, and immediately understood.

"When...when?"

There was something unbearably unsettling about the plastic chairs in the hospital waiting room. At the same time, you could feel your legs completely numb from sitting in them, yet you also felt you didn’t have the strength to get up. You were effectively stuck, like a prisoner awaiting their sentence. In some ways, that’s exactly what it was.

When you were fourteen, your mom started acting strangely. She got sick—started with mild symptoms like headaches and nausea. Then, she lost consciousness at work, and that’s when they found the brain tumor.

When people hear such news about their loved ones, they often completely change their lives. They pull themselves together to be a support for them, they face the painful reality, and they find the strength to fight their own demons, like quitting alcohol. But your father, he took an entirely different route. It seemed like he was sinking deeper into it. No one really reacted. After all, he was a man facing tragedy; surely, it was okay for him to have one too many drinks. Previously strict with his parenting, he no longer seemed to care much about you.

This threw you into a state of confusion. At that moment, more than ever, you needed an adult, a parent, even if they were the most controlling person in the world. Actually, rules might have even helped keep your family in check, maintaining the appearance of normality.

For the first time, you felt the urge to confide in someone, but you had no one. Spencer had started college, which still seemed absurd to you, considering you were the same age. Your contact with him had dwindled, just when you started thinking of him as a true friend—not the ironic, childish kind. You met from time to time, of course, but it was always hard to open up, especially about what was happening at home. Maybe, if he’d been around, he’d have noticed your dad’s decline. But he wasn’t, and it felt silly to even entertain alternative theories, as if they could change the past.

Your knees shook involuntarily, your fingers almost breaking through them. In the room next door, they were performing the surgery to remove the tumor, which was located in a difficult spot, as the doctor, with a gentle yet experienced face, explained to you in a tone that almost sounded apologetic—as though it was his fault. Your dad had been there with you earlier, but you had no idea where he went with the passing of time. Did you even want to know? No. You wanted to be with your other parent—your mom. You didn’t want to leave that room for a second; you wanted to be the first to hear any news, whatever it might be.

The empty chair beside you was suddenly occupied by someone. You kept your gaze fixed on the floor, staring at your shoes, trying not to suffocate on your own breath. You didn’t notice who it was.

"Two years ago," you informed him. After those words, there was always silence—people calculating in their heads whether two years was enough time for you to have pulled yourself together, or if they should treat you like a fragile porcelain figurine at risk of cracking. You always helped them, softening the tension that followed with something disarming. "But don’t worry. We weren’t really in touch by then, so you don’t have to feel bad about not knowing."

Okay, that was one of the stranger things you could have said. Spencer must have thought the same; his mouth literally fell open in disbelief.

"Of course I feel bad," he managed, his voice a mix of a sigh and an incredulous scoff, shaken yet laced with growing pain. He quickly shook his head, as if trying to snap himself out of it. "Of course I feel bad. I—I don’t know why you’d think I wouldn’t. She’s your mom."

Someone’s hand awkwardly reached out to take yours.

You glanced to the side, realizing with disbelief that the person who had sat down next to you was Spencer.

The boy who would get goosebumps at the mere thought of germs. Who openly mocked the idea of drinking from the same bottle, sometimes blurting out that kissing was safer than shaking hands—only to blush furiously when he realized how that sounded.

And yet, he did it. Hesitant, of course, but he reached for your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze to disguise the trembling. You barely noticed it. Your hand was shaking too.

Modern-day Spencer rested his forearms on the table, leaning forward. The return of your mother’s tumor had been a blow, and her passing, another. Time, however, had marched on, and you had learned to move through life with that weight. Thoughts of her hadn’t brought tears to your eyes in quite some time. But at the sight of his reaction, the familiar sting returned.

To him, she hadn’t just been your mom. She was the woman in whose house he had spent a significant part of his childhood. The one who always stopped herself at the last moment from enthusiastically hugging him on his birthday, remembering his aversion to touch. The one who listened to him with fascination, praising his brilliance while gently, softly asking how his own mother was doing. The one who loved to sit wrapped in a blanket on the porch with a book, watching as the two of you played a self-invented version of chess that involved running laps around the yard before each move.

You leaned back from him, blinking rapidly to dispel the swell of emotion.

Your mom was to stay in the hospital for a while longer. Night had fallen, and though you couldn't remain until morning, your dad was still nowhere to be found. Instead of fruitlessly searching for him, you and Spencer decided to walk home. The empty streets of the suburbs seemed to meditate in the stillness between you, adjusting to the rhythm of your silence.

Your feet, however, led you both to the playground—a place you hadn't visited in years, having convinced yourselves that you were too old for such things. Even though it was summer, a strange chill settled over your shoulders as you sat in silence on the two solitary swings. Each motion forward felt like it brought you closer to the stars.

It wasn’t that night, specifically, but sometime shortly after, you began to realize that you were starting to feel something more. Lightly, in that innocent, teenage way, you found yourself falling for your best friend. At first, you would have rather died than admit it, but the feeling lingered.

Over the next four years, you saw each other regularly but rarely due to his studies. But you awaited each of these meetings with the greatest impatience, while simultaneously becoming more and more terrified of your own feelings.

"I'm so very sorry I wasn't here then," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. You wanted to shake your head in understanding, to reassure him, but he cut you off. "Not even just at the funeral itself. Just...with you."

"Stop," you pleaded weakly. "You didn’t know. I didn’t tell you. I probably missed a lot of things that happened in your life along the way too." You swallowed to wet your dry throat. The words came out with difficulty, your voice trembling slightly. "At some point, we stopped talking to each other—not the first childhood friends to drift apart and definitely not the last. It just.. happens."

"That doesn’t mean it was right," he replied without hesitation, tilting his head, clearly convinced of the truth in his statement. You weren’t so sure, given your hidden feelings, ones you had no intention of revisiting. Not then, not in that moment, not in that bar. During a meeting that was about to end.

"I’ve known you forever. Well, okay, not literally, but I’ve known you since my brain was forming the most—frontal lobes developing and…what I mean is, you’re really important to me. And I wasn’t there for you when both your parents…"

You let the completion of that sentence fade into the space around you. In the bar, which seemed to exist only in the space you occupied. Breathing more heavily, you recalled all the moments over the past six years when you missed him, wondering what he was up to and how he was doing. Which usually went hand in hand. Sometimes he would cross your mind when you saw kids playing chess in the park, other times you simply thought of him, unable to attribute the guilt to any particular association.

"You’re here now," you said gently, unable to say anything else.

He was still slightly leaning over the table, towards you. Suddenly, as if he realized his position, he slowly leaned back into his chair, exhaling more heavily after a long moment of silence.

You were unable to move, the growing sense of guilt shaping on his face. And when he felt guilty, so did you.

Your goal was to rise from the chair, but your body, against your will, made a different move. To both your surprise, it reached for both of his hands resting on the table, clasping them gently. You tried not to focus on their texture, not to compare them to how they had been before, not to search for that familiar feeling, not to flow with the current of any memories.

Simply to keep him in place for a moment.

“Thank you for being here today,” you whispered, gently squeezing his hands. His fingers, initially limp in yours, were slowly beginning to reconnect, though there was a certain confusion in them. The same confusion was in his eyes. “Thank you for coming as soon as you found out. It really means a lot, Spencer. It really does to me.”

For a moment, you both stayed silent, looking at each other. You both thought you would say something more. You would expand on the thought, maybe call him the best friend you've ever had. Perhaps, without thinking, you'd mention that once you had loved him in a way that might have seemed unexpected. Well, both those options passed through your mind like shadows.

“It’s late.” The third option won. If you had a watch, you would have glanced at it dramatically. That was all that was missing to complete this scene. “I really should be going.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out. In the end, he just nodded with silent understanding when he noticed what time it was. Though, it wasn't the time that was the problem. After all, you were both adults who didn’t have a curfew. You could have stayed there until morning. But would that really be good for you?

Slowly, you pulled your coat over your shoulders.

Spencer didn’t move. You wondered if he planned on staying there.

"Do you... do you want me to walk you home?" he asked suddenly, hesitating.

You looked at him, unsure, slipping your hands into your pockets.

"I’m heading the same way," he added quickly, slowly getting up from his seat, even though you hadn’t agreed yet.

You raised an eyebrow in surprise, then remembered that the Reid house hadn't been put up for sale and had been sitting empty for years. You waited until he had put on his coat, and then both of you were exposed to the crisp night air. As you crossed the street, an occasional car passed by with its headlights on, making you both squint. You couldn’t help but think how you never expected that if you ever found yourselves together, side by side in your hometown, it would feel like this. Perhaps you hadn’t even thought that you’d never see each other again. After all, it was quite possible you’d run into each other a few more times. People often bumped into their neighbors from the same apartment block on the other side of the world during vacations, fate had a wicked sense of humor. What you didn’t expect, however, was how present the ghost of your childhood, and the memories it carried, would be during this encounter.

Your steps were oddly small, as though your feet had shrunk. Unconsciously, you extended the walk, turning into a wrong street, just like when you had returned from the hospital after visiting your mother.

“Are you stopping here?” you asked, your gaze absently drifting to the empty swings on the playground you passed.

Spencer’s eyes followed yours in that direction, and his steps even slowed a little. He probably would’ve stopped if you hadn’t kept moving confidently ahead.

“Just for one night,” he replied, adjusting his glasses on his nose. There wasn’t much enthusiasm in his voice. Sometimes, returning to the family home didn’t bring joy to grown-up children, especially when the house had been empty for a long time—or unbearably loud, depending on the family. “I’m actually flying out tomorrow. I just...really wanted to talk to you.”

You nodded, briefly asking about his mom, then about work, though not in a probing way—just the steady rhythm of a lazy conversation. Slowly, the familiar neighborhood began to shift into the one etched deeply in your subconscious, the one you had both memorized long ago.

Eventually, you both found yourselves forced to stop, mainly due to the sight of your family homes. Standing steadfastly side by side, just like you both had during that entire walk.

“Maybe we should meet up,” he suggested quietly, stopping in front of you. “You know, tomorrow. Just for a moment.”

Staring at his face, bathed in the orange glow of the streetlight, you gently nodded.

“And...maybe sometime after that,” he added.

You were a little short of words, but not because you didn’t want to see him again. It was simply that you didn’t like making promises driven by the moment. For now, you both drowned in nostalgia, unwilling to part ways and disrupt it. But who knew? Maybe once you disappeared from each other’s sight, you’d forget each other’s phone numbers again. Your hesitation seemed to stir something on his face. Perhaps he took it as a refusal.

You sighed deeper and rose onto your toes, wrapping your arms around his neck. It was a very slow, lazy embrace, gradually melding into his body as the scent of his clothes began to tickle your nostrils, and your chin sank deeper into his shoulder, like it was a pillow.

Spencer remained stiff for a moment. You’d only hugged before once, when you were packing your suitcase into the car before leaving for college, as far from your hometown as possible. That hug had been difficult for you. This one, although it too was a form of farewell, felt pleasant and hard to break. Especially when he pulled you closer, wrapping his arms tightly around your back, almost lifting the tips of your fingers off the ground. You heard a soft sigh escape his lips before you pulled away to arm’s length.

"So...see you," you muttered, slowly stepping back, heel to heel. You felt like a magnet being forcibly pulled away from a fridge, shaking your head to get rid of the pull.

Two more small steps back, you should have already turned towards home, but his expression stopped you. Full of hesitation, with a clenched jaw, as if he really wanted to add something, but wasn't sure if he should. You were already half-turned with your back to him.

"Would...would things have been different between us if I hadn't given you that letter back then?" he asked finally, pushing his hands deep into his pockets.

The words seemed to bounce off your ears but didn’t fully reach you. At least not completely. Your posture straightened, freezing in place, facing him once again.

"Well, you know," he tried to explain, forcing a small smile. "We would have stayed in touch more over the years."

"What...what letter, Spencer?"

His brows furrowed, his lips parted, but no sound came from them. Suddenly, he froze, expressionless.

"Did you send me a letter?" you tried, completely not understanding what he meant.

Maybe he had written down your address wrong, and it ended up going to someone else who threw it away. Maybe you had actually received it, but tossed it somewhere in your dorm room, too busy to read it. Then, while dressing, you accidentally knocked it behind your dresser, where it gathered dust through all your years of studying, never meant to reach you again. The cobwebs covering its words, whatever they might have been.

"I left you a letter," he finally said, his voice so fragile that you could almost feel it in your chest. "I knew I wouldn't be able to say it to you. And, well...you were leaving, and I had no idea when we'd see each other again. I just...I didn't want to keep it to myself anymore."

A lingering moment of silence.

"I left it on your terrace," he finally added, barely opening his mouth as he spoke.

You pressed your fist to your chest, closing your eyes for a moment.

"I never got it," you confessed hoarsely, still not looking at him, trying to process what you’d just heard. "On the terrace...God, Spencer. It should've been obvious that someone would throw it out. My mom or dad. Especially him."

He suddenly chuckled, but there was no trace of amusement in it. A bit of absurdity, yes. But mostly, the realization, after all these years, that he had messed up and had no idea about it. On the contrary, he had been under the impression that you knew.

"What was in that letter?"

You felt like you wouldn't go back home until you knew. Spencer, however, shook his head in disbelief, his eyes wide with shock.

"You have to tell me," you insisted firmly. "Whatever it was, please. Even if it's no longer relevant. I just want to know...what you wanted to say to me back then."

His temples tensed as he squeezed his eyes shut. A few breaths later, his muscles loosened. Meanwhile, your body remained still, waiting for what you'd hear.

"I liked you," he finally managed to say. A rush of sound filled your ears. Spencer suddenly let out a bitter chuckle. "It was a love letter. As deep as an eighteen-year-old can get. Maybe...maybe it's better you never got it. I’d be so, so embarrassed by it now…"

"You liked me?" you interrupted him.

You had been enchanted by him for years, not even realizing it for most of that time. Spencer, however, was a complicated teenager, both close and distant at the same time. He was reserved when it came to emotions, impenetrable. Sometimes he’d blush, but never once made a move, never.

He shrugged.

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter now," he replied. He tried to smile, attempting to wipe away a certain sorrow that still lingered beneath the surface of his expression. "Back then, it didn't really matter much either. But...maybe it's good that you know now. You have...the full picture."

You laughed in a way that was almost tearful, surprising him. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to figure out what he had done wrong to provoke such a reaction from you.

"I think we should talk," you finally said, nervously nodding toward your house. "Maybe...maybe you could come in?"

With held breath, you waited for his response. You felt the suggestion was a bit silly. No conversation could change the course of the last few years, force its direction or undo what had already been set in motion. But you no longer cared about changing anything that had happened between you two. What was in the past was probably already irrelevant. What you wanted now was honesty. The full picture, as he had said. You wanted both of you to have it.

"I don't think so," he replied, taking an unsure step back. A nervous laugh escaped him, probably to loosen himself up. "I mean... I don’t even remember what was in that letter anymore, if you're still curious. It doesn't matter at all... we don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to feel like you should…”

"I liked you too"

Spencer stopped in his tracks, his hands slipping out of his pockets where he had been nervously hiding them.

"I really think we should talk a little more," you added.

It turned out that those hours spent talking in the bar, just the two of you, hadn’t been enough.

You watched as his chest rose and fell, his head nodding slowly. He agreed.

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agirlwithglam · 5 months ago

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📚 It girl's guide to school 📚

hiii girls! this is part of the big Guide to being the It Girl. this section will be all about school, studying and academics. i'll teach you how to tackle school, get the highest grades effortlessly, and look chic and gorgeous doing it! the rest of the ultimate it girl series is linked! 🎀

guide to getting good grades:

LISTEN IN CLASS. one of the best tips ever. if you would actually listen to what your teachers teaching in class, you’d get to spend a lot less time studying.

ask if you need help! these teachers are qualified for the job, they’re meant to be good at it. so if you don’t understand something, don’t be afraid to ask. and if you’re really too much of a chicken, ask once the class is over or email the teacher. but honestly? half the kids probably aren’t even listening tbh so u do ur thing!

participate in class. actually participating in class will help you so much in recalling the information. it’s a great way to actively revise. you don’t have to be a teachers pet or anything, but if you know the answer, put yourself out there. anyone who judges you simply judges themselves and their inability to speak up.

change up your environment so that you're still interested and excited to learn! you could go to a coffee shop, set up a mini picnic in the woods, go to a library, etc.

use alter egos!! i will never stop recommending this because it really is an amazing tip. either you can create your own alter ego who loves to study and gets high grades, or you could pretend you're rory gilmore or hermione granger!

revision/ study techniques:

feynman technique: teach it to someone else/ to plushies. try not to look at your notes too much, pretend ur a teacher.

use practice questions/ practice exams! trust me this can be so helpful! try and find past exams and go over them in exam conditions so you can see what u missed later. or, you can get all the info and ask an AI like chatgpt to write questions based on it and go through them!

BLURTING! love this method! basically, you write all the information you know about the topic on one page (optional: set a time limit) and then go over it with a different colour pen and add in what you missed. do this a couple times until you haven't missed anything! - you can do this by creating a mind-map, or literally just scribbling down everything you know.

SQ3R method: survey/ skim over the text, question- make questions on it, read- begin reading to find the answers to the questions, recite- summarise the words in a section in your own words, review- quiz yourself on what you just learnt

organise/ prioritise what you need to study using the traffic light method. first, identify the topics, then highlight them according to these 3 colors: red- struggling a lot/ no idea , yellow- okay ish, need to work on it a bit tho , green- good understanding & confident on the topic.

make associations. this is especially helpful for when you need to memorise things. the thing you need to memorise- link it to stuff that you already know.

⭐️ use mnemonics, songs, raps to remember! a couple years back, my science teacher made us create a rap on osmosis (a biology term). and not even kidding, i still remember the simple definition of what it does because of that rap! so create songs or rap and maybe even make a whole music video on it! trust me, not only is it so fun but it really does help keep the information in your mind!

more resources:

huge big list of studying and school

another big study masterpost

100 reasons to study

how to be a whole new student this year

ACE your exams -by me!

study icons:

as i mentioned earlier, channelling the energy of a character who already studies and gets good grades is an amazing way of getting yourself motivated! here are some of my favs & tips to study like them! (p.s i've also added links to the names for a more in depth guide on each person!)

♡ rory gilmore

she loves studying- develop that mindset! have a passion for learning more.

"i can go from 0 to studying in less than 60 seconds"

switch between different subjects when you get bored

ask someone to test you with flashcards

♡ elle woods:

study while you exercise- take care of ur body too!

"what, like its hard?"- i love her sm for this!! if anyone else can do something, of course you can do it too!

be ambitious + have strong source of motivation

get into study groups

♡ paris geller

have the discipline and ambition to do the things that will get you to where you want.

"i want to win, and i'm going to win." - love this, she's sure of herself and confident in her abilities.

prioritise & use to do lists

start early to be the top of your class!

♡ blair waldorf

honestly its so fun to embody her energy of high value, cares about her education, so confident and takes no sh*t from others!

"anything you can do, i can do better"

always have a plan

have flash cards, take notes

♡ hermione granger

always participate in class!

read more about the material. + learn more!

teach others & help them study

finish the hw/ work quickly and do the extra credit!

stylish in school 101:

SURVIVING SCHOOL AIR: here are some tips to staying/ looking pretty and refreshed all day at school bc u and i both know the horrors of school air 🙀 :)

DRINK WATER. stay hydrated - very important. always drink water. this keeps your lips hydrated, face hydrated, and just makes you look a lil less dead.

lip gloss/ lip balm to reapply throughout the day, esp for my girlies with chapped lips! i keep lip balm in my pocket so its always there when needed, but you can also keep it in your locker/ bag/ pencil case.

perfume. you can keep it in your locker/ bag/ pencil case to spray whenever needed and smell sweet and amazing the entire day <3

stop touching your face!! your hands have so much crusty dust and bacteria that can give pimples on your face.

keep hair away from your face. leave it out if you want, but try to make sure it doesn't touch your face too much- it also has tons of crusty musty dusty germs

keep a hairbrush in your locker. listen, i know how messy hair can get during school so keeping it in school is SO helpful to maintain the tidyness and cleanliness

waterproof makeup - if you wear makeup.

sunscreen!! keep. applying. SUNSCREENN!! i'm not going to elaborate further on this point.

ACCESSORISING YOUR UNIFORM!!

this is for the girlies who have a school uniform! i understand it can be so annoying so to have more fun and feel more confident, ACCESSORIZEE everything as much as you're allowed! here are some ideas!

♡ necklesses

♡ bracelets

♡ bows in your hair

♡ bows in your bag

♡ bows everywhere basically 🎀

♡ decorate your ipad/ pencilcase with stickers

♡ headbands

♡ rings

♡ cute earrings

♡ cute watch

♡ nails

♡ a cute clip!

the ultimate it girl series

xoxo, vanilla!

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bloomzone · 7 months ago

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my 2025 goals liiiiiiist ! + how to write your owwwwwwn (by following categories)

1. achieving my body goal (this one)

Category n¹ :Physical Health & Wellness

1. Assess Where You Are Right Now— Start by taking a look at your current habits and your overall health. What’s working for you? What areas can you improve in? Maybe you need more sleep, a better diet, or more consistent exercise. Be honest with yourself about where you’re at.

2. Set Realistic, Achievable Goals— Make sure your goals are specific and achievable. Instead of saying "get fit," try something like "exercise 3 times a week for 30 minutes" or "eat 3 balanced meals a day." Small, actionable goals are more manageable and easier to stick with.

3. Focus on What Feels Right for You— Physical health isn’t just about pushing your body to the limits. It’s about what works for you. Choose exercise routines and foods that make you feel good, not just what looks good on paper. If you don’t like running, try something else like swimming or cycling. If you don’t love vegetables, explore creative ways to make them enjoyable.

4. Track Progress & Adjust— Keep track of your progress, whether through journaling, an app, or simply by checking in with how you feel. If something isn’t working for you, adjust it. Maybe you need more rest or a different workout routine. Listen to your body.

5. Make It a Habit— Consistency is key. Set a routine that you can realistically stick to. It might take time to make these changes feel like a part of your everyday life, but consistency will make it happen. Don’t forget to celebrate small wins along the way to keep yourself motivated.

2. Start getting better grades and studying more

Category n² : Academic excellence

1. Reflect on Your Current Academic Standing— Start by evaluating where you stand academically. What subjects do you need to focus on most? What were your strengths last year? Understanding where you’re at gives you a clearer picture of what to work on in 2025.

2. Set Clear and Measurable Goals— Be specific about your goals. Instead of just saying “do better in school,” break it down into measurable goals like ��improve my grade in french by 10%” or “study 1 hour every day for history.” This gives you a clear direction.

3. Create a Study Plan— Organize your time wisely by creating a weekly study plan. Map out your schedule, making sure to balance schoolwork, revision, and breaks. This will help you stay on top of deadlines, assignments, and revision periods without feeling overwhelmed.

4. Focus on Active Learning— Don’t just aim for memorization—focus on understanding the material. Engage with your studies through active learning techniques like summarizing, teaching others, and practicing problems. This helps retain information better and makes your learning more meaningful.

5. Stay Consistent and Adjust When Needed— Consistency is key. Set aside time every day to study and stay organized with your notes. If something isn’t working, like a specific study method or subject area, don’t be afraid to adjust your approach. Keep refining your study techniques as you go along.

6. Celebrate Small Wins— Celebrate every academic achievement, no matter how small. Whether it’s acing a quiz or simply staying consistent with your study routine, recognizing these wins will keep you motivated and remind you that progress is being made.

3. create habits and add them to my daily routine (learning mandarine,15k steps daily, reading more interesting books)

Category n³ : Habits

1. Evaluate Your Current Habits— Start by looking at your current habits. What do you do every day? What habits are helping you, and which ones are holding you back? Be honest with yourself about the areas you want to improve.

2. Set Simple, Achievable Habits— Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many changes. Focus on a few simple habits that will have the most impact. Maybe it’s waking up 30 minutes earlier or drinking more water. Start with one or two small changes that are easy to implement and gradually build on them.

3. Create a Daily Routine— A consistent routine is the foundation of great habits. Set a schedule that allows you to prioritize your health, work, and personal growth. Structure your day to include time for rest, study, and self-care so that you don’t burn out.

4. Track Your Progress— Keep track of how well you’re sticking to your new habits. Whether you use a journal, an app, or simply a checklist, tracking helps you stay accountable and gives you a sense of accomplishment. If you miss a day, don’t get discouraged—just pick back up the next day.

5. Make Your Habits Enjoyable— For habits to stick, they need to feel rewarding. Make them something you enjoy. If you want to read more, pick books you’re genuinely excited about. If you want to exercise, try something fun, like dancing or hiking. When you enjoy it, you’re more likely to stick with it.

6. Be Patient & Stay Consistent— Habits take time to develop. Don’t expect immediate results—give yourself the space to grow and adjust. The more consistently you practice these habits, the more natural they’ll become. Progress will come over time, and each small step adds up.

7. Reflect & Adjust— Regularly check in with yourself to see how your habits are working for you. Are they helping you feel more productive, calm, or confident? If something’s not working, tweak it. Don’t be afraid to adjust as you grow.

3.devlopping my mindset mooore (I'm sensitive and over thinker typa of person like a loooot)

Category n⁴ : mindset and self-love

idk but girlsssss we should talk more Abt this topic out loud Our mindset shapes everything—our actions, relationships, and success. So this year, we’re cutting out the things and people that no longer serve us, like toxic friendships or self-doubt. When we love ourselves, we don’t settle for less than we deserve. It’s not about being selfish; it’s about setting standards for ourselves and others. You know the type of girl I’m talking about— (to cut) the one who’s always got something to say about other people’s appearance, or how they’re living their life. “You look bad today,” “I hate your hairstyle,” or “Why are you wearing that?” It’s always some backhanded comment that makes you feel small. But let’s be real for a second—like girl WHAT THE FXK .. People who spend all their time focusing on putting others down are usually just projecting their own insecurities. They want to feel better about themselves by making others feel worse. But here’s the thing: we’re not going to entertain that energy. When someone tries to tear you down, it’s a reflection of their own lack of self-love or understanding.Instead of responding to their negativity, we need to rise above. The best revenge? Living your best life and shining even brighter when they expect you to dim. Those types of girls who always have something to say about others' looks, outfits, or choices—they’re just distracted by their own insecurities. If they spent half the energy they put into criticizing others into building themselves up, they’d be too busy focusing on their own glow-up.So when someone throws shade, just remember: it says more about them than it does about you. You don’t need to let their words define you or affect your self-worth. Keep doing you, because your energy is too valuable to waste on people who can’t even recognize their own flaws. And when it comes down to it, anyone who makes you feel like you’re not enough doesn’t deserve a place in your life. Keep your peace, stay focused on your growth, and trust that the right people will appreciate you for who you really are. U are a baddie

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h-sleepingirl · 18 days ago

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Essay: Hypnosis is Irrational

For PSYCHOSPIRITUAL: A Spirituality/Hypnokink Essay Jam

This is an essay about bonfires, Quaker meetings, Judaism, and the entirely transcendent nature of hypnosis. I'm sorry in advance to philosophers and scientists. Don't come for me until you've seen God in the ceiling through your fluttering lashes!

Rationality is a core value of modern western society. Materialism and objective, evidence-based science are seen as the gold standard for how to view the world around us. It’s easy to see why -- this approach has catapulted humanity forward over a relatively short period of time, technologically and philosophically. Finding the truths of the universe through hard evidence and math is extremely compelling and much more logical than basing our views off of conjecture or old religious texts.

Hypnosis entered public western consciousness in tumult. Franz Mesmer’s animal magnetism clearly worked, and he had theories of why, but they didn’t hold up to scientific rigor. Really from its inception, hypnosis has been fighting to be seen as legitimate as a medical practice, and as compatible with evidence-based science.

It’s not that it doesn’t make sense that hypnotherapy fights so hard to be accepted as a “real” discipline, or that it needs to go through studies to be practiced on patients. We value medicine that is objectively safe and effective -- for good reason.

That being said…

I am not anti-science. But I do think if we don’t acknowledge the methodology’s limitations, we are being dishonest and misleading -- with ourselves and with those we teach.

Here’s the thing: We are not doing therapy with our partners. We don’t need to be beholden to these limitations. Not in our theory, and especially not in our practice.

We are free -- more free than any other practitioners of hypnosis -- to accept and celebrate its irrationality.

And when we stop trying to shoehorn our experiences into being understandable, we are free to explore and experience unbelievable things.

In terms of spiritual beliefs, I would describe myself as a skeptic-leaning agnostic. I think that how you are raised is a major religious influence on you, and I happened to be raised in an atheist household. Despite branching off from my family and taking spiritual exploration seriously, I would never confidently say “I believe in God” or “I believe in magic,” nor that I am even particularly convinced by my handful of difficult-to-explain experiences.

While my spirituality intersects with hypnosis, I am not here to tell you that hypnosis is the result of God or magical forces -- and I’m not here to define how hypnosis fits into “magic” or vice versa. I think that too is a kind of rationalization -- it’s trying to explain something nebulous in a concrete way, trying to fit it into a box.

I don’t think that calling hypnosis irrational should cause us to seek alternative, definitive answers outside of science. I think that we as humans need to be comfortable not knowing, not labeling -- a space that can be very uncomfortable for us, but one that ultimately allows us to have less-filtered subjective experiences.

Subjective experiences are the core of hypnosis. No matter what method is purported to be “objectively” best, the one that you should actually use is the one that makes your partner feel trance most intensely. Science simply cannot anticipate, direct, or account for the subtlety of the subjective experience of hypnosis.

Scientific tests cannot accurately measure anything about hypnosis, because hypnosis relies almost entirely on the softest variables: the interpersonal relationship and biases we have, the way a person is feeling or primed on a given day, the slightest changes in tone or delivery or nonverbal language. We might say that standardized hypnosis is a completely different activity from the hypnosis that we practice with real partners.

A brainwave-measuring machine cannot communicate the intricacies and depth of a trance. I would not be surprised, if I was hooked up to an EEG, that many of my “trance states” would not produce expected effects on the device. Even physically observable signs of trance do not tell the whole story -- I can be having an intensely hypnotic internal experience while appearing completely awake. There is simply not an objective way to tell when I am hypnotized -- it is completely based on my own feelings.

And yet, with shocking accuracy, my partner can tell the exact moment that I slip into trance, even if I give no discernable outward response. When pressed, he often can’t identify what the signal is -- it is very, very subtle, if anything.

It is a moment where his focus on me melds into my experience, into my mind.

Really, there have been countless times in hypnosis that I feel with total certainty that my mind is being read or that I am reading my partner’s mind. It’s shocking, and sort of maddening, and I have heard from many others that they’ve experienced the same thing. Our urge is to say, “Well, that’s a result of unconsciously reading microexpressions, of knowing a person’s nonverbal language intimately, of having a robust internal map of a person, being good at anticipating hypnotic responses, linguistic cold reading tricks.” That’s rationalizing, and it’s all very logical and certainly has some element of truth to it -- but it causes us to say “OK, case closed,” and sigh in relief that we can dismiss the question and no longer be faced with it.

The reality is this: Those are guesses. They are probably pretty good guesses, but I believe we fall into this trap of assuming the logical-sounding guesses we make are objectively correct, even in the absence of evidence.

Ostensibly, the vast majority of “answers” we have about why hypnosis works are just that -- theories, models, best guesses. Science doesn’t even have a singular accepted answer on whether hypnosis is an altered state. Often, working within a given theory (or two) gives us structure and allows us to perform more effectively. But when we really think about the nature of hypnosis, the truth is that we really don’t have much of a solid idea why and how it works.

That’s uncomfortable. I’m not pushing that because it’s the cold, hard truth, or because accepting it is some form of mental asceticism (nor spiritual gateway). I’m saying it because living in that liminal space of irrationality will actually change the way you do and experience hypnosis -- because it frees you from the limitations of feeling like everything we do has to make sense.

I have my own theory about why we want to make those logical guesses: Because it feels embarrassing to say we are hypnotists and yet there are things we don’t understand. Because we are afraid of judgment if we say we are actually mind-reading or doing magic, even as a shorthand for a complex invisible process. I think these are unconscious biases -- a result of seeing ourselves as rational people in a rational world. Spirituality is seen as lesser and fake -- entertaining the idea of magic gets you labeled as immature or crazy.

But when you try to remove your biases and think about it, it is crazy that we use just our words to make people forget things, hallucinate things, have orgasms, experience dissolution of the ego. And we don’t really know why.

True curiosity and wonder are hypnosis’s best friends. New subjects who struggle to experience trance or suggestions often are stuck because of their expectations -- they feel like they know what is supposed to happen, so when their experience doesn’t line up, they perceive it as failure. It’s why one of the best ways you can set a person up for “success” in hypnosis is to really cultivate a sense of curiosity, of not being judgmental of their experience, of not assuming they know what is happening.

Even still, this model of trance often has the subject experiencing wide-eyed wonder while the hypnotist actually holds the esoteric knowledge of what’s going on behind the curtain. But in my opinion, the real magic happens when both parties are prepared to question everything they know, to be surprised, to not take for granted, and to observe without rationality.

My most treasured memory is one that I keep close to my chest. Briefly: it was at a hypnosis-friendly bonfire on the autumnal equinox. My partner and I embraced and for an hour had a completely shared experience, wordless and hypnotic and bizarrely spiritual. Neither of us were “driving” -- we were both passengers, almost like being possessed. No drugs were involved, just the two of us in the right place at the right time, able to let go of the feeling that we were “crazy” or being illogical, or that we knew what was going to happen. We were both really shaken by it.

That ultimately led us to being able to have trances, occasionally, where we mutually let our guard down and play without the usual “rules.” We can’t do it intentionally, but sometimes we hit on little pockets of magic, and then the trance becomes like spellcasting, and spellcasting isn’t bound by the laws that supposedly govern hypnosis.

We know that hypnosis is influenced largely by how we expect it to work. We give pretalks to set expectations that often function as suggestions, boundaries, and definitions: “All you need to do to be hypnotized is pay attention -- it’s OK if your thoughts drift.” “Hypnosis might feel different from what you expect, like floating or sinking.” Even: “You can always come out of trance if you need to.”

I believe my partner and I are on similar pages about whether magic is “real.” The word “maybe” does a lot of heavy lifting in my worldview. It’s really more about being open to different perspectives, and playing in different models. So if we can dip into a perspective where hypnosis behaves a bit more like magic -- or otherwise irrationally -- then that actually, literally changes the way hypnosis works.

This is the true nature of hypnosis -- it is a shapeshifter. If you define hypnosis as a science or as a spiritual practice, it works either way. So if you can change the beliefs you inhabit, you will experience wildly different trances. And it may be irrational to assign spirituality and magic to it, but it is not absurd.

In this way, belief and perspective is actually where a lot of the nature of hypnosis sits.

After the “bonfire incident,” I was motivated to do some spiritual seeking, and I started going to Quaker meetings. Quaker meetings are simple but intense: People get together in a room and sit silently, opening themselves up to “messages” from within their own hearts or outside themselves, and if they feel moved to share a message, they stand up and speak it. There is no discussion, just completely passive listening and speaking.

I found this to be an extremely potent spiritual environment. We weren’t meditating, per se, just going quiet. Sitting silently for an hour with no other stimulation was luxurious, and felt quite a bit to me like a kind of trance.

I went regularly for a few months. I never spoke, but I did listen. There was one meeting I remember vividly where I was sitting and thinking about something, and at that moment, a woman stood up, and shared a message that was very close to what I was pondering over.

Then another woman stood:

“I know sometimes in this room,” she said, “we feel like we are all thinking the same thing when someone shares a message. This is one of those times for me.”

There was no fear of judgment, nor proclamation of metaphysical experience. It was just a statement of fact.

Quaker meetings taught me to be curious. If the bonfire opened the door, Quaker meetings honed my ability to be irrational. There was a period while I was going regularly where I was seeing wonder in the world at every turn -- a leaf falling on my back felt like a tap on the shoulder, the wind felt like a whisper.

And when my partner and I were doing hypnosis, my rigid belief system became so flexible that I was utterly open to suggestions about my experiences. He would tell me things and I believed them completely, almost like being on a drug, or completely enchanted. We were doing serious magic back then, tempting reality to peel back and reveal the “truth” underneath. It was intoxicating, and it certainly had an element of danger.

As intense as it was, I found this magic to be frustrating too, because I wanted to understand the nature of it -- I wanted to understand hypnosis so badly, and I wanted so badly for magic to be real. I thought that maybe there was a facet of hypnosis that I’d been missing -- some spiritual facet -- that would take me one step closer to an objective, unified, overarching hypnosis model.

I was right that I had been neglecting to think about spirituality with regard to hypnosis. But of course the idea that was leading to some overarching truth was a red herring. The real truth is that there is no overarching truth -- hypnosis can be seen from many models and perspectives, but there isn’t a singular “correct” one.

I have written extensively about how I feel this is core to hypnosis -- both in educational articles, an upcoming book, and in a personal essay about Judaism. My Jewishness is critically important to me, and has taught me a lot about the value of diverse perspectives, including on the spectrum of rationalism versus spirituality or mysticism.

By some, religion is often seen as incompatible with science (or rationality) -- unprovable mystical forces, an unseeable omnipotent creator. But there have been a number of important rationalist thinkers throughout history, across world religions.

Judaism’s most famous is probably Maimonides -- Moses ben Maimon. He lived in Spain in the 1100s, a time and place where Jewish mysticism was thriving. Maimonides was both a scientist and a deeply religious, learned Jew. One of his greatest contributions to the culture was in codifying Jewish law and practice in the common tongue to make it accessible to the average Jew at the time. In doing so, his rationalism made a great impact in Judaism as a whole.

Maimonides brought Aristotalian philosophy into Judaism, which came with a full rejection of the supernatural -- with the exception of God as transcendent creator. (The creation exists, so it must have been created.) One of his major theological tenets was that there was no conflict between the scientific and the teachings of Torah -- that the revelations of God were completely compatible with science. To Maimonides, for example, angels were not supernatural beings, but a metaphorical personification of the natural forces of the world. There are “angels” for why the wind blows, and “angels” for why we are held stuck to the earth.

If something appeared to be at odds with the natural order of the world -- whether it was from Torah or a perceived miracle -- Maimonides said that was our own lack of understanding, both of science and of the “secrets” of Torah. Essentially: everything that seems irrational has a rational explanation.

There are pros and cons to this, in my opinion. First, it’s neat, elegant, and sensible -- and I think it’s compatible with a measured view of hypnosis. Hypnosis is real -- no one is disputing that -- and while it has unknowable parts to us at our current point in history, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it behaves counter to the natural order of the world.

But I think Maimonides contradicts himself. If you claim to be humbled by the secrets of the world and revelation, why would you so vehemently reject that the world might behave differently than you understand or expect?

How can we claim to “know” the natural order of the world in any capacity beyond what we can observe? How can we claim that our observations are universal or objective?

If we can’t know, we can only experience, explore, experiment. It is brutally human -- reaching out to the world with our limited five senses and our remarkable consciousness. By the nature of us being humans, our explorations will all produce different perspectives and models, all of which have an element of truth to them because all of our experiences are “real,” true experiences.

Hypnosis operates necessarily with/on the human brain -- two unique human brains -- so we each see a unique, limited facet of it. By talking, playing, and connecting with each other, we learn about other facets and perspectives which influence our internal models of it. On a larger scale, as a community, we create, bend, and break rules about it as our community experience evolves. We actually change what hypnosis is, how it works, and how to do it.

Even in just 15 years, I have seen firsthand how hypnosis changes as the community changes. If you look back at historical sources about hypnosis, you can see that we do something radically different nowadays -- which we think of as more sophisticated, but then again, historical hypnotists were doing amazing things too.

Hypnosis as a thing evolves as we explore it more -- as we explore each other more -- and push its boundaries.

We can’t pin down what it is. We can’t model it. But we can participate in it.

It is transcendent -- as Maimonides and Aristotle say God is transcendent; utterly beyond us.

Part of my experience of being hypnotized really intensely is a deeper acceptance of what I am feeling or thinking, moment to moment. It is a kind of radical acceptance that what my brain is doing is important and real. It’s not that I don’t understand that I’m hypnotized, or that I don’t make any critical judgments about what is happening. It’s just partially that if I feel something “weird,” I don’t dismiss it out of hand.

When I am in deep trances, weird stuff often happens. I get spontaneous sensory hallucinations, I get stray thoughts that can blindside me.

Occasionally, I have this unmistakable feeling that I am “seeing God.” That felt like a crazy thought to me the first time I had it -- like a person of capital-F “Faith” would have. It didn’t suddenly make me believe in a higher power, but I was left with that feeling that I had touched something divine while my partner murmured into my ear and took control of me.

Hypnosis is not just transcendent by nature or in a vacuum -- it feels transcendent. It feels like nothing else in this world; it completely transcends language and the realm of usual experience.

It makes sense that when faced with this kind of experience, it makes a skeptical person like me feel for a moment that there might be something more, something ineffable. It makes sense that when I have spiritual experiences with hypnosis, it feels innately spiritual to me.

But also it is true that hypnosis is simply very weird.

Why do I feel like I am connecting with divinity in deep trance? Why do I feel certain that my partner and I are reading each other’s minds? Why have I felt a quality of presence or possession?

I can believe it or disbelieve it all I want. I can rationalize it in any way I want. You can relate to me, or think less of me and judge me. But none of that takes away from what my experiential truth is.

What hypnosis feels like is not just more important than what it “is,” that is what it is. The subjective experience that we inhabit is hypnosis.

Humans are moved by weird, irrational, transcendent experiences. Those are the times our worldview is affirmed or shaken. For those of us who are spiritually open to the idea that the materialistic world might be more than it seems, these moments are bright sparks of light, motivating, inspirational.

Hypnosis does this to me all the time. I am constantly amazed by it. I truly believe the only reason we look at it as a mundane phenomenon is because we assume our world is mundane -- we take it for granted.

But it is not mundane. It is two people communicating in such an intimate way that it behaves like a psychoactive drug. It is striving to know another person so deeply that you innately understand what they are thinking and feeling and you don’t know why. It makes the impossible seem possible; it makes magic feel 100% real.

That’s not some perspective that is out of touch with reality. That is the grounded view of hypnosis.

We are allowed to have crazy experiences with this art. Our main job is not trying to sell people on the idea that it is real. We work so hard to portray ourselves as sane and grounded -- we imitate therapists who need to have an answer to skeptics walking into their office. I think that at a certain point when we are doing intimate hypnosis we are allowed to say, “OK, I know this is real, and you know this is real, so let’s drop the bullshit and acknowledge that what we are doing is actually completely crazy.”

Hypnosis is amazing. It is just amazing. I am not saying that it is completely impossible to understand -- I think it is fair to say at this point that my life’s work is trying to understand it and communicate that understanding. I am saying that we need to not cut ourselves off from amazement, from confusion, from wonder, from not-knowing -- those are crucial to understanding, even crucial to science.

It is a form of respect to the art and to our partners to inhabit a space where we don’t know, to relax our egos and say that hypnosis is more than we can comprehend. To listen -- to ourselves or our partners -- when weird stuff happens.

Hypnosis will grow with us as humans if we let it. We have the opportunity to open ourselves to it, to greet it curiously, and to truly surrender to our exploration.

Sleepingirl (they/she) is a hypnokink educator with over a decade of experience on both sides of the pocket watch. They’re the author of several books, many articles (patreon.com/sleepingirl), and LearnHypnokink.com (a guide through the foundations of improvised hypnosis).

Their body of work in hypnokink is extremely extensive and spans many mediums -- see everything at https://sleepingirl.info/.

#hypnosis #hypnok1nk #brainwashing #mind control #hypnosub #my writing #psychospiritual

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liliannadelaphinehartifelt · 1 year ago

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Lucifer - [ FORSAKEN ]

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I need to write about him…! I literally can't stop thinking about him…like seriously he's been plaguing my thoughts for dayyysssss!!!

WARNINGS: [ MDNI ] + [ NSFW ] + [ SMUT ] + [ CORRUPTION & INNOCENCE KINK ] + [ SUPERIORITY COMPLEX LUCIFER ] + [ SLIGHT DUB CON ]

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It’s no secret that Lucifer gets obsessed with showing others the pleasures of the world and knowing you have yet to experience intimacy and now shy away from it in the afterlife simply because you fear being known as a virgin even in hell drives the fallen angel insane.

He figures your secret out quicker than anyone, always watching you closer than most, going out of his way to cluster and spoil you any way he can. When he's sure you're comfortable with his subtle advances, he moves into lingering touches and straightforward compliments.

You start to anticipate Lucifer’s attention, drowning in it whenever he's near. It’s a strange addiction you can’t shake, never having the chance to experience someone dote on you as much as he does, and he'll give into your sweet pining for him every time and not because he wants to be friends. Though it is rather flattering to his ego that you only have eyes for him.

His true interests in you stem from the desire to turn your soft words into moans of his name, imagining how the sparkle in your eyes will darken with pure lust when he fucks you for the first time, and deciding whether to make you take his cock once or more times than you'll be able to remember.

He simply has to lower your guard first, gifting you expensive items, studying your behavior outside of his company, and diligently building your self esteem with every word he says. It’s a methodical, harrowing approach, but he’s quite skilled at it.

Lucifer says all the right things and does what he can to earn your already cemented trust, and when he's sure you won't refuse his requests, he comes to your room late at night with a proposition.

He doesn't say much of anything when you allow him inside your room, eyes glowing brightly as he watches you perch yourself on the edge of your bed, gripping his cane to keep from touching the soft skin that isn't hidden by your short nightgown.

At first, his staring is something you're used to, don't see as a sign of desire, but rather a habit you assumed he has with every sinner. After a long moment, you begin to squirm, wanting him to speak since anxiety was your worst enemy, and being barely clothed in his presence was a reasonably new milestone for you.

“D-did you need something, Lucifer?” you ask him with a sheepish smile, and the blonde chuckles, biting his lip as he trails his gaze up to yours, “Yes, actually, I do, angel...” He shifts, doing away with his cane and top hat by the snap of his fingers before walking to stand in front of you. He may lack height, but you're shorter, especially sitting on a bed, and the instant height difference flutters your heart. A weird warmth spreads through your body as his scent engulfs you, a mix of pine and apple pouring off his tailored suit in waves and only intensifying as he brings a hand under your chin to lift it.

Lucifer is deliberately gentle, not wanting to startle you but drinking in your timid reactions to his touch. “Wanna help me with something important, sweetheart? It's fine if you don't want to, but you're the only one I trust to ask..” he smiles softly, holding your stare as it wanders his face for any clue to his true motives, but you find no hidden intent on his expression.

You're not naive, to a certain point, but he's far too skilled and manipulative to let you in on his goal, and so when you hesitate to answer him, Lucifer feigns a frown.

“Wouldn't you like to help me, baby doll? I'm your sovereign, after all, and it's only a small favor between friends..” his hold on your chin tightens a tad, and you gulp from the growing pressure he inflicts. You aren't allowed to look away from him then; the space between your bodies was inching towards non-existent as he nudged your knees apart with one leg, and you shivered as the fabric of his pants nestled between your inner thighs. A tender gasp leaves your lips as the fallen angel lowers his head, gradually caging you under his weight and closer to the bed itself, “You'll help me, won't you, sweet girl..” he purrs against your lips, breathing in the sultry whine of compliance you let out, “I'll help you, Luci.” You finally comply, running out of breath by the second, and deathly afraid of disappointing him with a refusal.

He grins, a deep laugh leaving his lips as you lift a hand to keep him at bay for a moment. “W-wait maybe I shouldn’t be doing this….with you…” is you can pant out as he grimaces at your hesitant action.

You don't want him to stop touching you, but you can't think straight with him this close, either, so you're prepared to break away from the devil himself until he smirks before getting a hold of your wrists. “What are you-??” The question dies on your tongue as he pushes you down entirely, grasping your jaw harshly as he kisses you gently, using his other hand to pin your hands above your head. You struggle underneath him for a second, trying to speak but too intrigued by the taste of his tongue gliding against yours, dazzled by the unfamiliar sparks in your core as he presses his thigh right on your clothed cunt.

That singular adjustment had your toes curling, a distinctive wet patch forming in your lace panties and rubbing off on his pristine white pants, and your face deepened another shade of red at the realization.

Why was this happening to you?

How could he possibly endure your hidden filthiness with so much passion?

Didn't he know you'd never done this before?

Never knew how to please another, let alone satisfy the king of Hell?

You felt a sliver of shame run up your spine, your heart beating louder as fear settled in your chest, and a sheen of tears coating your vision. “M’ sorry… I'm getting your clothes…a-all messy,” you whimper into Lucifer's mouth, absentmindedly chasing his lips for another kiss as he pulls away slightly to address your thoughtful apology -as unnecessary as it is.

“No need to apologize, sweetheart. I love to feel how wet you get for me…Dont you? Means you’re enjoying my touch…” he drawls nonchalantly, pecking your lips as you nod in agreement, tentatively rutting your hips against his thigh for more friction. Lucifer hums in approval, studying your new-found reactions and encouraging your body to meld into his.

“It’s only natural, angel. I know you can’t help it….”

The remnants of purity shatter from your consciousness when he sits up above you, suit jacket and vest long gone, and his dress shirt halfway undone to expose his ivory skin. Your break out into a cold sweat spotting the rise in his crotch, a noticeable imprint of his cock stretching the white fabric of his pants, making your head spin.

Still, your focus on his heavenly features falters as he spreads your legs to rest on either side of his hips. A jolt of embarrassment hits you as cold air floods over your wet cunt, practically leaking though he's barely touched you there, and you're tempted to cover up in shame as he lowers his gaze to the sight.

“Please don't look-” you start to protest, voice shakey with worry, but he ignores your plight while trialing a hand down your torso until it cupped your mound. A pool of arousal coated his palm, drizzling past his fingers on contact, and you cried out from the subtle touch. Lucifer cursed, taken aback by your sensitivity but even more enticed by the thought of using it against you.

“It's hard to believe no one ever laid a hand on such a pleasant sinner like you…” he mutters incredulously, fixated on toying with your clit, circling his palm over it while dragging two fingers further past your folds. You gripped the duvet with tight fists, eyes rolling to the back of your head as heat entrapped your core and body tossing about to lessen the new sensation in fear of a high you'd never known before.

“Don't make me…please. Th-this…I-I can't..” you babble softly, reaching to stop his hand with one of your own and attempting to close your legs for an extra measure of protection.

Lucifer clicks his tongue, a twinge of anger biting his pride, “Keep your hands to yourself, or I'll do it for you..” he growls, and you throw him a pleading look, afraid of his authority and terrified of disappointing him.

“But I-” you start to counter his order but yelp instead as he pushed your legs back open, landing a harsh slap on your cunt as a warning, and you heed it this time with a gracious moan. Lucifer's eyes are narrow as your face falls slack, a clear indication you enjoy him being rough despite experiencing intimacy for the first time, “It’s so easy isn’t it?…Enjoying another’s touch… It’s a shame you had to wait so long for it, Angel. Breaks my heart…” he mumbles, a triumphant smirk on his face as he finally pushes one then two fingers into your hot walls.

You mewl at the sudden but slow intrusion, greedily clenching down on his digits with a lazy smile adorning your face, nodding slowly as he starts to pump them experimentally.

“You're tight…warm too. Mmm, you feel so much better than I imagined, sweetheart. Well worth the wait…” The King of Hell praises you fervently, finding your sweet spots without much effort and abusing them to his heart's content. Your mouth fell agape, poised to speak but failing to do so as tempered cries left it instead. You were in hell, and the devil was making your skin crawl with a new sin you'd never thought of indulging.

Pure lust.

Lucifer intended to get you addicted to it, addicted to him, and nothing else.

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Should I make a part 2 or leave it be??? Hmmm. Choices…choices… I hope you enjoyed it either way cause it was just sitting in my drafts for the longest time.

NO TAGS: 🚫

[ BONUS CONTENT + ]

Al don't be mad but you have some competition from this devilish twink- WOAH?!?? Who called him that?!?? (Not me I swearrr) ❤️ Alright ill stop. Credits to creator..

#Spotify #hazbin hotel #lucifer hazbin x reader #hazbin lucifer #lucifer hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel lucifer #lucifer x y/n #lucifer x reader #lucifer x you #lucifer smut #lucifer morningstar #lucifer morningstar smut #corruption kink

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the---hermit · 7 months ago

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My Study Method

I have quickly mentioned my study method in several posts through the years but I don't think I have ever written a proper post about it, so here it is.

I have to say that overall my study method is quite time consuming, but in years of experience it's what works best for the type of learner I am, the materials I have to study and the type of exams I have. I believe these three elements are the fundamental things you should figure out when creating your own study method. Let's go over these things quickly. Firstly I am an history student, tho not all my exams are history based (I have taken some language, philosophy, anthropology and litterature classes) so my method is proofed for most humanities. I am a learner with terrible memory, if you give me a list of things to learn by heart expect me to fail because my brain simply cannot do that. So I have to train myself to learn things when studying for an exam. As for the type of matherials I have to work with when studying for an exam, they are mostly full non fiction books, sometimes I have to work on articles as well, and depending on the class I have lectures to attend.

The fundamental element of my study method are the notes I write. That's why in my daily posts I am constatly mentioning them. The lectures I attend are turned into notes, the books and articles I have to read are turned into notes, everything you leave me with for too long will be turned into notes. The very act of writing is what truly helps me get into the topic, understand it, and memorize it. I might write an indepth post on how I write notes in the future, but for now what you must know is that the goal of my notes is to be the only material I actually study in the end. As I mentioned the very act of writing is itself a huge part of my study process. When I am listening to a lecture I try to write down notes as tidy as possible, and then try to fix them at home if needed. So there's not much to say there, as for the materials I have to read here's how I do it. When I get a book I have to study I usually read a chapter and underline all the important bits that I will be transferring to my notes as I am reading. When I am done with the chapter and have the topic still fresh in mind I write down by hand all my notes. The goal is to write everything I need to know, in a direct and easy way using my own words. By re-elaborating the original text I am making sure I am not blindly copying things, and actually understanding stuff. Once the entire book has gone through this process, the book goes back on the shelf and as I said I only work on my notes from then one.

Once I have all my notes ready a long time has probably passed, but in reading and writing I have already started to memorize things in general. I try to highlight my notes as I am writing, but in case I don't I go back once I am done writing, doing a quick reread and highlighting important stuff. I usually use two different colours: yellow for the important dates and another colour for the other informations. At this point there's two more steps left. Repeating and writing key words.

If writing notes can be counted as half of my studying, repeating outloud is the second half. Since I have oral exams I have to make sure I am comfortable with exaplaining things, showing I have understood things and I am not just midlessly reciting a list, and using the right terms. I am a very lucky person because my dad is both retired and quite interested in the topics that I study, which means that I get a lot of help from him in this phase of studying, because basically what I do is following him around the house for a few days exaplaining my notes to him. If you do not have someone to annoy with your study, talking to yourself works too but you have to speak outloud and honestly pretend you are giving a lecture. If you just go over your notes and read them it is not the same thing, it's way less effective. I usually do two rounds of repeating. The first one looks a lot more like reading and saying things outloud in my own words. By the second one I am usually much more comfortable with informations so I have my notes there only to guide me through topics making sure I don't miss anything. Having someone who actively listents to you is definitely a bonus because if they ask you questions they challenge you in the exact same way an oral exam does, and you make sure your exaplainations are as clear as possible.

The very last step is going through my notes one last time with the goal of writing a long list of key words. This is a tool I specifically use to review things quickly the day of the exam. Usually during my commute I reread the list of words in my head and I mentally make sure I remember about everything.

As mentioned this is a longer study method but it truly locks things in your brain, and paying that much attention to note writing also makes them a tool that lasts in time. If I am interested in the informations of any of the books I read during my degree I can pick the notebook in which I wrote those notes and find the information right away without even having to open the actual book. I usually dedicate a whole notebook to each book, in order to archive and find them easily. I will be writing a specific post on the way I write notes, maybe including a few pictures, but in the meantime I hope this was somewhat helpful.

#kids i have written this the other day and rereading once so there is surely typos and not perfect sentences but i think it does the job #i am thinking of making one more post on how i write my notes since they are so important to me and then maybe writing a post on oral exams #do let me know if something isn't clear or it you have questions!#when i was still working on creating a stuy method i found posts like these quite useful so hopefully this will be helpful for someone #studyblr #studyinspo #study tips #study method #uniblr #university #historyblr #studying #student life #study motivation #study blog #study advice #mine #the---hermit

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spitefulsatanfics · 1 month ago

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=°= Laundry Day =°=

A Castiel x Reader Novella One-Shot

╰┈➤ “There is more to humanity than survival. You look for purpose. And that’s something my kind has never understood.”

— Castiel, Season 8, Episode 7: “A Little Slice of Kevin”

Written by: Little Devil ♡

PAIRING: Castiel x Reader (She/Her)

TONE: Domestic Fluff, Bittersweet Romance, Angel x Hunter, Established Relationship

RATING: 16+

BASED ON: Supernatural Season 8, Post-Episode 8x10 (“Torn and Frayed”)

SYNOPSIS:

He never planned to stay. But Heaven is cracked and bleeding, Naomi’s control is fraying, and the angel tablet sings too loudly in his mind. So Castiel lingers in the bunker—at first out of necessity. Then for you. What begins with silence and folded laundry becomes something warmer: peach jam at midnight, quiet hands in the dark, the sound of your heartbeat anchoring him more than any divine mission ever did. The Winchesters watch him change, slow and strange. And you? You begin to understand just how hard an angel has to fall before he learns what “home” really means.

°• ° •°

“An Angel in the Laundry Room”

There are sounds in the Men of Letters bunker you’ve learned to love—mundane, grounding things. The gurgle of coffee percolating, the distant hum of lore being combed through in the library, the occasional sarcastic bickering between brothers. And lately… the flutter of unseen wings followed by the quiet click of a laundry room door.

You slow your steps at the hallway entrance, watching through the cracked door. Castiel stands stiffly before the washer, looking at it the way one might look at a cryptic sigil scrawled in blood. His trench coat—still speckled from last week’s rain—is slung over a nearby hook. He wears one of Dean’s old Henleys, slightly too tight across his shoulders, and Sam’s clearance-bin joggers that pool slightly at the ankles. He’s barefoot.

In his hands, a towel. He folds it into thirds with a kind of military precision, his movements deliberate, as if performing some sacred rite.

“You fold towels like you're preparing for a celestial inspection,” you say, leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed and heart already softening.

Castiel looks up, startled—but only briefly. The tension bleeds out of him when he sees you. His expression shifts minutely into something you’ve come to recognize as affection. Not quite a smile, not quite neutral. Just… open.

“You fold them differently,” he says simply.

You grin. “You mean wrong?”

“No. Just… inefficiently,” he replies without a hint of humor. His tone is observational, not critical. “But not wrong.”

You step inside, brushing your hip against his. “Well, inefficiency leaves room for love. For… imperfection.”

He studies you, head tilted, like he’s trying to translate that statement in real time. Then, very carefully, he sets the towel down and reaches for your hand.

“Then… teach me. The way you do it.”

So you do. You guide his hands through your fold method—loose, casual, the kind that ends up slightly off-center but somehow cozier for it. Your fingers graze his as you work, heat blooming in small places.

Sam walks in mid-lesson, pauses, sees you two standing forehead to forehead between dryer sheets and haloed in the warm buzz of the machine. He grabs the detergent with a sigh so dramatic it could be heard by prophets.

“Jesus. I’m starting to miss the Leviathans.”

°• ° •°

“Staycations and Peach Jam”

Three days into relative peace—no urgent hunts, no exploding phones, no ethereal compulsions—you're sprawled on the bunker’s couch when you call it.

“Official bunker staycation,” you declare, poking Castiel in the side with your toe. “No cases, no archangels, no existential crises. Just you, me, and enough Judge Judy to rot our brains.”

He furrows his brow. “She is… a legal authority?”

“In the loudest, most entertaining way possible.” You hand him a spoon and a half-eaten jar of peach jam.

Castiel eyes the jar with something close to reverence. Ever since Dean bought it by mistake, he’s taken to it like a moth to flame. You swear you caught him hiding a backup jar in the warded weapons locker.

He settles beside you on the couch, stiff at first. His hand lingers near your thigh, hesitant. When you scoot closer, he exhales softly and lets his palm rest over your leg—like he’s reminding himself you’re real, solid, here.

“Do you miss it?” you ask quietly, eyes still on the TV. “The wings. The sky. The... certainty.”

He doesn’t answer right away. You don’t push.

“I miss… the order,” he says finally. “The clarity of knowing my purpose. Of being… above.”

You nod, not surprised.

“But I don’t miss the distance,” he adds, voice low. “The detachment. I see now… there is purpose in uncertainty. In choosing. In staying.”

You turn your head, meeting his gaze. His eyes glow—not celestial, but warm. Focused. Human.

“I never had a reason to stay before you,” he murmurs. “Now I want fuzzy socks. And fruit preserves. And quiet mornings where I can watch you breathe.”

Your lips part to respond, but nothing comes. So instead, you lean in and kiss him—slow, reverent, the way he folds towels.

---

°• °•°

“Heaven Never Taught Him This”

You wake to humming. Not celestial choir humming—just low, tuneless, concentrated human hums.

Slipping out of bed, you pad down the hallway barefoot. The bunker hums with its usual midnight quiet, broken only by the faint clatter of kitchen activity.

You find him standing at the stove, bathed in the soft glow of overhead lights, wearing only joggers and one of your sweaters—stretched at the shoulders, sleeves too short.

He doesn’t notice you at first. He’s stirring something in a small saucepan, brow furrowed with intense, almost sacred focus.

“What… are you doing?” you ask, half-asleep.

“I found a recipe online,” he says, straightening. “It suggests warming peach jam into a glaze… for toast.”

You blink. “You’re making me celestial jam toast at two in the morning?”

“Yes,” he says, like it’s the most logical answer in the world.

You cross the kitchen slowly and wrap your arms around his waist. He freezes, then relaxes into your touch, exhaling like the air was held in for centuries.

“You’re learning fast,” you murmur.

“At… jam?”

“At being human.”

He turns in your arms, hands finding your waist.

“I am not human,” he says, soft but firm.

You nod. “But you’re trying. You’re choosing. That counts.”

He cups your face, thumb brushing your cheek like he’s memorizing it. “Then I want to keep choosing. Every day. If you'll let me.”

You kiss him again, longer this time, letting the moment bloom like morning light.

Outside, Heaven might still be broken. The world might still need saving. But here, in this borrowed kitchen, your angel stirs jam. Folds towels. Steals your socks.

And finally, finally, learns how to stay.

=✓= Laundry Day =✓=

Written by: Little Devil ♡

For the angel who folded himself into your world, wrinkle by wrinkle.

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #spn imagines #supernatural imagines #supernatural x reader #supernatural family #spnfandom #spn #spn imagine #sam and dean #cas spn #castiel imagine #castiel x reader #castiel supernatural #castiel x y/n #castiel x you #castiel one shot #cas supernatural #castiel

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literaryvein-reblogs · 3 months ago

Note

How would you go about writing in different languages? I struggle with a part where a group of characters are speaking in a language one of the mains does not know and the other one does, but i wish the reader knew what is being talked about. Another aspect is switching between languages when something is meant for the nonspeaker.

A expression in like of "switches to german" fills me with cringe and i feel like just wroting the part in german and adding translation is too confusing

Thanks for all the help with all the advice posted!

Writing Ideas: Using Different Languages in your Story

Keep both languages. Simply repeat the phrase. If you want your readers to understand the exact meanings of words from your source language, you can provide translations within the text. This strategy requires a lot of work for just a couple words, so it’s not practical to use it for large chunks of language. It works great if you only need to focus on a few crucial words.

Sprinkling of foreign language. Write in English, and use the foreign language as little as possible. If you can cut the foreign word out of the sentence without hurting anything, you’re probably fine. But if the meaning of the foreign word is key to understanding the sentence, then rework it.

Provide a glossary. The textbook method. The most comprehensive approach is to provide a glossary of non-English words used in your book. Nonfiction authors use glossaries much more often than fiction writers do. It might be an inappropriate solution if you are writing a lighter book. On the other hand, if your goal is complex cultural understanding, then this approach is by far the most thorough. Downside: The glossary approach requires significant reader buy-in. Not all readers will want to stop mid-paragraph to find a definition in a glossary.

Transliteration. Stick to one alphabet. Transliteration—the process of converting writing into a different alphabet—is a different issue than translation. Unless you have a specific, important reason to include words written in anything other than the Roman alphabet, transliteration is a more effective tactic. Things are more complicated when you are working with a language that does not share the Roman alphabet with English. Any English-reader can sound out Spanish words. The same isn’t true words written in Cyrillic or Hebrew text.

Don't fake it. Respect the language. Sometimes a project requires you to interact with a language you have no knowledge of. The simplest answer is to stick with the full translation method. This will allow you to bypass the problem altogether. However, if your project requires the actual inclusion of another language, you will have to do one of 2 things: (a) Consult a native speaker. (b) Study the language.

Play with language. In your first draft, you can let language run free. Write dialogue and narration in whatever way makes sense for your characters, your setting, and your own writing process. The collision of languages might lead you to unexpected and interesting places. You can—and will—worry about clarity problems when you get to the revision stage. Feedback from beta readers will help you determine what needs to be done for reader comprehension. If you find that you need to bring in any of the other strategies, you can do so at any point.

Full translation. Write it in English. Just because characters are speaking a language other than English does not necessarily mean that you need to actually write non-English words. Often, it is enough to simply indicate that a conversation is happening in another language. You can relate the speech through indirect dialogue. You can simply report the content of the speech, not delivering an exact quote. Because indirect dialogue is understood to be summary, it buys you leeway in how you render the translation. There is no expectation that you are capturing the actual words as spoken. But the full translation method can be used with direct dialogue as well. The 2 main types of translation: (a) Word-for-word translation is more literal, as it sticks to the strict meaning of source language words. (b) Sense-for-sense translation is looser, as it focuses on communicating ideas in the target language.

Narrative summary. Don't use this technique for crucial turning points in a scene. It's more of a shortcut so that you can get the point across quickly and then move on to the good stuff. But if all you need to do is get the point across quickly, then go ahead and summarize it. Sometimes, it's the most economical way to keep the story going, especially if your character doesn’t speak the language. What you lose in style you’ll gain in pace.

Untranslated. Some words are essentially untranslatable. Let it be. If you are depicting a language community where English and another language are routinely mixed together, you might leave some words untranslated. (This strategy can also apply when writing about a language community where people speak different forms of English.) The benefit of capturing the sound of speech can outweigh any reader confusion. Further, you might be writing for an audience who is used to hearing this mix of language.

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Here are some tips from the sources linked above. You can also find some examples using these strategies in the original articles. Try some of them and choose which ones suit your story. All the best with your writing!

#anonymous #writing tips #language #writeblr #writers on tumblr #dark academia #literature #writing reference #spilled ink #writing prompt #creative writing #translation #light academia #writing inspiration #fiction #writing advice #writing ideas #writing resources

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yuurei20 · 10 days ago

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Updated Vil Facts Part 14: Effort (pt3)

We see scenes from Vil’s childhood that likely contributed to his strong belief in always putting in the utmost effort: while his father is supportive of his being cast in villain roles it worries Vil, who wants to be able to stay on stage for the happy ending that he has never experienced.

We see Vil being bullied as a child in retribution for his role as a villain on a TV show, and being praised for carrying himself with so much dignity for a 12 year old. But the same film crew guesses that, for all his talent, Vil might never be cast as a hero simply because he is too perfect: “Vil is too special to play the part of a regular teen that viewers can relate to. Without that relatability, I don’t think he’ll ever pull off playing a hero.”

Vil explains that he would do anything to be beautiful, from the most rigorous training to the most tedious hair and skincare treatments, but this same devotion to achieving perfection in order to succeed at his goal of becoming a hero is possibly the same thing trapping him in villain roles.

In his Master Chef course Vil declares his intention to master everything “from cutting methods to using different implements, so I can refine my movements,” and he does not appreciate the suggestion that he should cover up a burnt part of his cake with chocolate coating, saying, “That goes against everything I aesthetically stand for.”

Vil says that he does “every job with the utmost professionalism” and his resolution for the new year is to “continue to put maximum effort” into his studies while pursuing his ideal of beauty and giving it form, following with, “I don't intend to leave these as mere ‘resolutions,’ either. I will absolutely follow through.”

Vil tells Jamil, “You must never forget to retain a certain boldness in everything you do. Always aim to be sensational. I, personally, would rather die than play it safe.”

Cater comments on seeing all the effort that Vil puts in and Vil responds, “This face was forged from tireless time and passion. Not just my face, either. My mind, my figure, my hair, and my clothes are all practiced, deliberate choices. And every single picture I post is a reflection of those choices.I labor day in and day out through the trends to immortalize the name ‘Vil Schoenheit’…that’s what it means to be a brand.”

#twstvil #twisted wonderland #Vil Schoenheit #vilfacts #twstfacts

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cloverapple · 5 months ago

Note

Thank you for posting! Reading your stuff is a lot of help, and your shifting method is awesome sauce i've been using it for the past two nights (the reasons for why I didn't shift i'm self-aware of and will proceed accordingly, not writing it down here because i feel like it's unneccesarry and don't think you can say much abt it) what I was curious if you could give advice about is: fear of shifting? Don't get me wrong i really want to shift. Been on this journey for years for a reason! And i think soon i'll finally do it, as i've never been as consistent, putting in actual work, as I am and as I do now. Last night, when body was truly asleep and it was just only me, I did my thing trying to shift. And suddenly this weight settled on me, as if the world was too big and too heavy, and i immediately thought "I can't do this" and rolled over with the decision to just simply sleep. Today i talked with a friend about this, and he said it's probably "a fear of shifting, a fear of responsibility", and honestly I agree with this take. Of course I will try again tonight, and will keep doing so until I can push through this feeling and actually shift, but i was wondering if you had a word of advice? Thank you <3

• The way I see the fear of shifting is like: that fear you felt right before the shift wasn’t a failure, it was a sign you were right there.

• Think about it: why would your mind suddenly scream "I can’t do this!" and slam the brakes when you were on the edge of what you’ve been working toward? It’s because, on some level, your subconscious knew shifting was about to happen.

• It accepted it as real, as possible, and that’s exactly when the fear kicked in. That fear isn’t about shifting being impossible, it’s your mind clinging to the familiar, trying to protect you from stepping into something that it's your current reality. Our brains are wired to favor what we know, even if what we know isn’t what we want. It’s like standing at the edge of a cliff with a parachute—you know the parachute will open, but the ground beneath your feet still feels safer.

• So, no, you didn’t fail. Don’t look at that fear as a blockage because it’s not. It’s a precedent to progress, a signpost that you're on the brink of success. Fear is just your mind’s way of saying, "This is real."

To work through it: First, understand that fear is just another form of anxiety—and anxiety, at its core, is the same physiological response as excitement. The only difference is the story you tell yourself about it. When you feel that fear creeping in during the day, don’t shove it down. Let yourself feel it, but flip the script. Visualize the moments you’re genuinely excited for in your DR. Happy, comforting, exciting things that make you want to shift. Feel how easily that fear morphs into anticipation. Emotions are malleable, and once you start associating that tension with excitement instead of dread, you’ll find it easier to move forward.

What you really need to do if fear is your issue, is let go. Stop putting shifting on this towering pedestal. Yes, it’s amazing, but it’s also normal. The more you treat it like this huge, mystical event, the more your mind will see it as something to fear. Shift your perspective. Talk about it like it’s just another part of your day, think of it as routine, affirm it as something natural. Trick your brain into seeing shifting as regular and unexciting, and it’ll stop resisting. Because at the end of the day, shifting isn’t some impossible feat. It’s just you becoming aware of another space you already belong in.

• But let’s go even deeper, to stop that freeze response from hijacking you the next time you’re at the doorway to your shift. We’re going to eliminate the fear before it even has a chance to rise. (yes I'm giving you optional homework because I'm the worst 😁)

The "Normalize Your DR" Exercise

1. Document Your CR Routine. Write down your current daily schedule in your CR. What time you wake up, eat, work, study, relax, everything. Create a schedule.

2. Now create a parallel schedule for your DR. You could do this for the day you're going to wake up in your DR, or next day, depends on what you scripted and feels better for you. What are you doing at each hour? How does your morning routine look? Who do you see? Where are you?

3. Sync CR Time with DR Time. Match your CR schedule to your DR schedule. For every hour in your day, mentally check in with what you’d be doing in your DR at that exact time. This repetitive syncing normalizes your DR in your mind. It becomes part of your routine, not some distant, unreachable dream that your mind fears shifting to.

4. Visualize Throughout the Day. As you go through your CR, take moments to pause and visualize your DR. The more your mind gets used to the idea of being in your DR, the less foreign—and therefore less scary—it becomes.

I hope you can take something from this. Good luck! 💚🩷🫂

#reality shifting #shiftblr #shifters #shifting #shifting antis dni #shifting blog #shifting community #shifting methods #shifting reality #reality shifter #reality shift #shifting tips

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lunette-png · 3 months ago

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Waves of Ithaca

Chapter 7: Unmoored in a Silent Storm

art used: zeiru (hermes) and neal illustrator (apollo)

The sea had always been a part of her. But now, as (Y/N) stood at the shoreline, she wondered if she had ever truly been a part of it.

She waded in, expecting the same welcome she had always known—the water had once felt like an extension of herself, responding to her with an almost sentient grace.

But today, it was simply water.

It wasn’t cold or unkind, but it no longer seemed to recognize her. It did not push or pull as it once had, did not shift with her steps in the way she had always taken for granted.

A wave rolled in, and she moved to meet it, adjusting her footing—but she was just a fraction of a second too slow.

It was subtle. So subtle.

But she felt it.

Her stomach twisted. Was it always the blessing?

Had she ever been truly skilled, or had she only been wielding something that was never really hers?

The thought unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

She turned back toward the shore, her movements slower now, as if stepping onto unfamiliar ground.

And for the first time in her life, the salt on her skin felt heavier.

The rhythmic click of the loom filled the chamber, steady and methodical. (Y/N) lingered in the doorway for a moment before stepping inside, drawn toward the familiar sight of her mother weaving.

Penelope glanced up but said nothing as (Y/N) took a seat beside her, fingers absently tracing the edges of an unfinished tapestry.

“I went to the shore,” (Y/N) murmured, her voice quieter than usual.

Penelope paused. “And?”

A hesitation. Then, (Y/N) continued—

“It felt different.”

There was a silence between them, thick with unspoken things.

“I’ve always believed I was meant for the sea,” (Y/N) added. “But… what if I was wrong?”

Penelope set her hands in her lap, studying her daughter carefully.

“When you were a child,” she began, “you used to stand at the cliffs, staring at the horizon as if waiting for something to call you.”

(Y/N) looked away.

“Your father always said you had a heart meant for the water.” There was something softer in her voice now. “But I always wondered… was it because you truly felt it? Or because you needed to prove something?”

(Y/N) inhaled sharply, but the words settled deep.

Penelope reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from her daughter’s face. “You are more than the sea.”

(Y/N) swallowed. “Then why does it feel like I’m losing a part of myself?”

Penelope didn’t have an answer.

And (Y/N) wasn’t sure she wanted one.

The silence stretched, broken only by the faint whisper of the wind outside. Then, finally, (Y/N) stood.

“I need to clear my head,” she murmured.

Penelope watched her go, hands tightening around the threads of the loom.

(Y/N) walked without direction, letting her feet carry her through Ithaca’s winding paths. She needed space, somewhere quiet—somewhere away from the weight pressing down on her.

Her steps led her to the temple, the scent of incense thick in the air. It was nearly empty at this hour, save for the flickering light of the torches and—

Music.

A lyre, its melody threading through the air like gold spun in the fading light.

She followed the sound, rounding the corner to find a lone figure seated at the temple steps, fingers moving across the strings with effortless grace.

The song was unfamiliar, yet it settled into her bones, filling the hollow spaces in her chest.

The last note faded, and he finally spoke, his voice as smooth as the melody.

“You’ve been lost in thought all day.”

(Y/N) frowned. “You’ve been watching me?”

A knowing smile. “Only enough to know you needed a song.”

There was something about him—something warm. Not in the way the sun was warm, but in the way a fire still burns long after you’ve stepped away from it.

She sat beside him, folding her arms. “Do you always play for wandering souls?”

“Only the ones who look like they’re losing their way.”

Before she could stop herself, (Y/N) exhaled. “I don’t know if I belong here anymore.”

He plucked another note, letting it linger. “And yet, the world has never seemed more drawn to you.”

She scoffed. “That’s not true.”

He turned to her fully then, and for a moment, she felt utterly seen.

“Isn’t it?” he asked, his voice quieter now.

(Y/N) had no answer.

He stood, the lyre now silent. “Perhaps you’re asking the wrong questions.”

Before she could respond, he was gone—disappearing into the temple’s shadowed halls.

(Y/N) stared after him, the warmth of his presence lingering long after he had vanished.

The marketplace was still alive with the hum of voices when (Y/N) stepped through its streets, the earlier conversation with the musician still weighing on her mind.

She nearly missed him at first, leaning casually against a stall as if he had always been there.

“Still troubled, little storm?”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes. “You have a habit of appearing when I least expect you.”

“And you have a habit of looking like you need a distraction.”

(Y/N) exhaled sharply, not in the mood for his games. “If you came just to tease me—”

“Not tonight.” His voice was different.

They walked in silence before he finally spoke again. “Be careful where you step, princess.”

(Y/N) frowned. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“The sea has a long memory.”

A chill ran down her spine. “And what of the gods?” she asked carefully.

“Oh, always.” He met her gaze, something softer beneath his usual amusement. “And sometimes, they watch a little closer than you’d like.”

She swallowed. “Is that a warning?”

“A thought,” he murmured.

Then, before she could react, he reached forward and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Her breath caught.

The merchant grinned, playful once more. “Don’t let the world swallow you up, little storm.”

And then he was gone, like a whisper on the wind.

Far beneath the surface, where the ocean stretched vast and endless, two figures sat in the depths of the palace of the sea.

“She wears the gift well,” Amphitrite observed, watching the currents shift in the great hall.

Poseidon did not look at her. “She has always wielded it with skill.”

His wife’s gaze flickered toward him. “And yet, you are taking it back.”

Poseidon’s grip tightened on his trident. “It was never hers to begin with.”

Silence.

“She is not the one you should punish,” Amphitrite said softly.

Poseidon’s jaw clenched. “She is his kin.”

A pause. Then—

“She is also herself.”

Poseidon did not reply.

The ocean, vast and knowing, churned around them.

AN: helloo— wow, another chapter, who am i?(i am procrastinating). i'm not really proud of this chapter, but i really wanted to write y/n's identity crisis and her interacting with apollo and hermes

#🌊 waves of ithaca #epic the musical #epic the musical x reader #epic apollo #epic hermes #epic penelope #hermes x reader #apollo x reader #epic poseidon

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joc3lynn · 4 months ago

Text

༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ ༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ ༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ

𝐓ɦ𝖾 𝐒ᥣ𝖾ρ𝐆 𝐌𝖾𝗍ɦⱺᑯ !

kind of long blog ahead !

Here I present to you the SlepG method. It is a method I created myself that combines the word sleep and grace into the word SlepG.

What does this method SlepG even do Josie? You ask. It is a shifting method that I tested out myself and I think it could work out good for you too as well. This method could make your body asleep and your mind awake. But our minds are different so you should make your own personalized method that makes you shift the best.

How do I apply the SlepG method? You ask. Well it is pretty simple. Relax, focus on ASMR in the background, and then when you feel symptoms of body going asleep, you simply imagine/assume you are your DR self breathing OR connect your symptoms to your DR.

But let me break it down !

1. Relaxing

You can put on a meditation, focus on your breathing, or just simply lay there. But if you have trouble relaxing I recommend you watch something relaxing like ASMR so you can get into a relaxed state.

2. Focus on ASMR

When you feel truly relaxed like really truly relaxed focus on the ASMR. Studies show that ASMR decreases heart rate which is great for shifting since you’re getting into a more meditative state now as your body falls asleep.

3. Imagine DR self breathing

Once you feel symptoms of your body going to sleep you can now assume you are your DR self breathing they are different ways to do this. Visualization, affirming or just simply knowing you are breathing in your DR.

Or connect the symptoms to your DR like if you feel floaty just assume that your DR self (you) is feeling floaty so that why you feel afloat because your DR self is you right now. And in some time you should be in your DR.

Key Tip :

1. Don’t try to control your symptoms or force your body to go to sleep. Just let your body do their job.

If you shifted with this method or made a variation of it (mini-shifts do count as a shift) then send me an ask or DM me telling me your success if you want to.

- josie

Bye Bye 🫶🏾

༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ ༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ ༘⋆🌷🫧💭₊˚ෆ

Post inspired by @shimmershifts

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voxceleste · 5 months ago

Note

hiiiii you’re one of my favorite fic writers ever and i admire you so much. i wondered if you had any advice for other writers of how to improve? especially for someone who has been writing for years but feels like they’ve hit a point of stagnation/knows they’re “good” at writing but feels like they’re just not hitting their full potential. also, if you had any advice for the differences in working on shorter pieces vs longfics, any guidance or methods that worked for you would be so appreciated!! your work has been very genuinely inspirational to me and i hope you have a great day <3

thank you for your kind words! <3

mileage varies more with regards to writing advice than maybe anything else, so it's possible none of this will work for you.

a common framework in education theory/neurobiology/psychology/etc is that there's a goldilocks zone between comfort and frustration wherein most learning happens. games studies has a similar idea, that a game has to be mentally engaging enough to keep the player invested without making it so punishingly hard that they quit.

writing is pretty much free. unlike most other creative mediums, the scope of a project has no relationship to the value of the materials or tools needed to produce it. you're only limited by your own energy, time, and effort--which can be formidable restrictions, to be fair, but it's not like being a filmmaker, where good-quality equipment and collaborators simply take more resources to afford. writers should take advantage of this. we're really lucky in this way.

the best thing you can do to improve your writing is to attempt projects that feel a little too big for you, or that you're not confident you can pull off. it doesn't have to be "big" in terms of length; a short piece could qualify if the style, tone, structure, subject matter, etc is outside of your comfort zone, but in my experience this has often looked like longer and more complex projects. then again, i love writing long stuff, so take it with a grain of salt--some people just don't, but you mention wanting to try your hand at longfic, so i assume it's relevant. the point is that in order to grow your skills, you have to stretch them.

past fic projects that stick out in my mind for having pushed me to grow as a writer:

story with 4 POV characters, alternating POVs at a regular cadence, where goings-on in each section would affect the other chapters

story with a real-world historical setting that required research wrt material culture as well as timeline/"who was where when"

story that blended a codified and formulaic genre template (het romance novel) with seemingly incongruous story elements (protag being a passively suicidal closeted trans woman and ex-evil mastermind)

the common denominator is having a very specific story i wanted to tell about these specific characters, and digging my teeth into how to do that in a way that felt specific and not just a recycling of common fanficisms… though in all cases, there were at least one or two other fics i looked at for inspiration, if only in a distant way. (those fics, in turn, are often what i'd consider examples of "fanfic that is also just good, ambitious writing," whether or not they would stand alone as original fiction--but that's a different post that's already been made by others.) (they are also full of tropes and are very fanficcy in their own ways!) i had to put a lot of thought into how to approach them in a way that was most true to what they wanted to be in my heart, and usually had one or two specific touchpoints of non-fanfic media that i used to get my bearings, which is a good habit to get into whether or not you're interested in branching out into original fiction writing.

with regards to the transition into longfic writing… writing processes are idiosyncratic and whatever advice i give you has a good chance of being totally useless. it'll probably involve a lot of trial and error, unfortunately. some tidbits:

the worst thing a story can be is boring and this is doubly true for long stuff. i would always rather an author turn the dial a little too far than not far enough to be impactful

can't overstate the utility of a good beta reader as well as a good cheerleader or two to whom you can dump your 2am story thoughts and troubleshoot your plot issues

start the story at the latest possible point in time; many a longfic idea dies on the vine because the author thinks they have to do way more setup than is actually required. this doesn't mean you have to open in medias res with an action sequence, but if you're opening on something more quiet or "expositiony," you should know *why* you're starting there, and should be able to draw up that scene vividly and characterfully

putting a little bit of effort into fleshing out your setting and side characters can help you a ton if you write yourself into a corner. if you're stuck, it's hard to come up with a story element from nothing when your story revolves around two floating heads in featureless rooms

the period between being 1/3-2/3 done is the actual fucking worst. it's miserable every time. the story is no longer a beautiful shining thing in your head, it's an ugly blob of misshapen clay, and you haven't seen it all start to come together yet. it's not you or your project, it just sucks and there's no way out but through

trust your idea! trust your own ability! trust the magic that can be worked in the edit!

if you bite off more than you can chew with a project and aren't able to finish it, or you're disappointed by how it turns out, that's really disappointing and difficult, which i don't want to downplay. but it's not wasted time, even if no one else sees the results of your work. that effort and experience will make you a better writer.

other advice that may or may not work for you:

read a lot of fiction; read fiction that is not fanfiction, especially; read outside of your usual genres/favourite authors; read authors who are known for unusual or singular styles. challenge yourself to write something imitating one of their styles, even for a page or two. what are the characteristics of a paragraph by octavia butler? how does she approach sentences? how is that different from a similar length of text by victor hugo?

read about writing craft, not from bloggers but via well-regarded books. even if you don't agree with all the advice (which you probably won't) or it's not all directly relevant to you, these texts will address fundamentals that apply to almost all kinds of prose and prompt you to develop unglamorous good habits. steering the craft by ursula k. le guin spends each chapter on an element of writing, such as sound & rhythm or punctuation, and includes exercises to put her principles into practice. on writing well by william zinsser is a classic--its focus is nonfiction, but much of the advice is widely applicable. both of these texts are full of example excerpts from great english prose stylists. books like this aren't likely to introduce groundbreaking new ideas so much as train you to become more consciously aware of elements of style you may be less attentive to than you could be.

your only hard limitation as a writer is your own creativity; drive your stories like cars in GTA. you're here for a wild time, not a long time, and if it blows up you can just get a new one.

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satocidal · 2 years ago

Text

—RING RING!!

Say hello to our Operator Number One, and A Fan-Favourite:

── .˳⁺⁎˚ This caller seems to be into Humiliation and Generalised Behaviour of a Male Thot

── .˳⁺⁎˚ Geto Suguru — Starring in ⌞Valedicktorian⌝

Synopsis: your favourite academic rival, he wants to respect you, he really does—but he just prefers seeing you cry more.

— Word count: 5.4k

— A/n: I know I know, we all love a cocky lil shit that my man is <3 and tagging @romiyaro @blkkizzat @driaswrld becauseeee I can <3333 (+this was supposed to be way longer but haha)+i know it's supposed to be more smut and kinky than story line but :( I apparently cannot do that

— Warnings: Smut!!MDNI!!AFAB! Fem Reader x Suguru; teasing on both parts; dubious methods of going along a lot of things; Suguru is almost like a soft Dom; hints at spitting; Suguru eats reader out through her panties; reader almost gives Suguru a strip tease or smn like that; Suguru is a cocky bitch; emphasis on academic validation somewhat; smut begins late; reader is a virgin; Oral (fem receiving)

~November Beginning~

[8:03 a.m.]

Your eyes scanned the board fast, alone you stood towards the first corner—aware all too well you’d never even fall below

the first row.

Rank Marks Allotted

Y/n L/n [Valedictorian] 97/100

Suguru Geto [Salutatorian] 91/100

You didn’t bother lowering your eyes any further—a huge grin remained etched on your smile as you rocked back and forth about your Position, waiting for him to drop by.

Eyes flitted simply through the screen of your phone—mindless swipes, mindless likes passed on Instagram as you patiently, a whole wait of 7 minutes, you counted—how so very careless.

You beamed as his silhouette came into view, and his best friend’s right beside—lanky, they both stood, you never cared enough.

“You’re late,” you murmured as he shoved past you—an audible grown let out even though he just knew with the way you stood, that he was beat again.

But this time the difference stood of a worthy 6 points—just 6, how easily that he could’ve had you.

Satoru simply cackled beside him—indulging you with the very complicated handshake he and you had designed in the first year of your college.

“You're both stupid,” he, satoru, grinned, “I barely passed and that's so sick,” you simply chuckled at his words—joy emerging more so at Suguru’s annoyance.

“You’ve got the scholarship from your football team Toru’, unfortunately for us—6 marks make a huge difference,”

“6 marks don't matter,” Suguru grumbled, a frown lay upon his lips — “we’re not kids-”

“-except you will cry like a kid when you go back to your dorm because 6 points was what stopped ya from Rank 1,”

A smirk you bore—he wanted to drill it out of you so bad.

“The only crying that goes off in my dorm are the girls I bring about,” he smirk was his this time, your face twisted in disgust.

“And had you spent that time actually studying maybe you'd have gotten somewhere—and is that a confession that you’re that bad a fuck?”

He was tall, but the certain way he towered over most was amusing–not you though, never you.

Equals, in most senses of the word.

“But then,” you continued, and grinned wide—“don't suppose two minutes could've saved you from anything.”

A brow he raised, “you've been learning insults from middle schoolers—and what would your virgin ass even know?”

Jaw clenched you stared, Suguru Geto had realized your insecurity quick back in the first year—exploiting to all ends possible.

“Maybe you should try learning from them, gonna help you with grades and STDs,” a thin smile you wore, a thin smile he did too.

“At the end of the day, we both get the same grade, same gpa and probably the same job offers,” he paused—staring at your face—you took your chance, “And yet you’ll always remember that I was the one that beat you to the first place.”

A wink you passed, a clenched jaw he stilled.

—.—.—

[1:10 p.m.]

The semester was finally over—Satoru’s parties galore.

A tradition almost, celebration of his, scoring marks enough to pass—an ‘ode’ he deemed it, to you and Suguru for tutoring him together.

More so just an attempt to to spew you both together, failing just as always.

“You’re gonna show up tonight doll?” Satoru asked—eyes staring at your face from beneath—head placed in your lap, feet in Suguru’s lap as you both read books that couldn’t have been more neglected when the tension between the two fell so high. .

A hummed you passed, “Will you let me say no?”

A snort Satoru let out, answer all too obvious.

You sighed, “Tonight, sure but I have some projects to catch up and-”

“-perfect,” Satoru interrupted, all to your annoyance, “hm?”

“Suguru has some remaining too, right?”

Interested piqued slow and with a topic that deepened his natural frown, he—Suguru stared at you.

“I’m in mood for help from her,”

Eyes narrowed, you scowled, “yes well I’m not offering any either ways,”

“Not like you could,”

“Says the- ah!”

A sharp yelp you couldn’t help when Satoru pinched your side in midst of your banter—Something in Suguru found the noise adorable—he hated this little something, “excuse you?”

“You wouldn’t shut up otherwise, right?” A bashful smile he held, and so it happened you just couldn’t hold him guilty, an eye roll and you paused.

“Whatever, I’ll show up tonight but don’t hold me up for the rest of the week ok?”

“As you wish, doll,” a sharp edge Satoru held to his words, invoking a sense of alert in both you and Suguru—neither daring to consult the other.

[7:55 p.m.]

“And who exactly are we wearing this piece for huh?” Shoko’s eyes fell on you hard—“Who’s got you that hooked?”

A roll of your eyes, “Just wanted to feel cute is all,” you muttered under your breath—and that was mostly true.

It’s wasn’t such that you’d found someone, nor were you dressing to impress, but then, it was out of spite in some sense.

His words rang in your head- in wasn’t an insult really, being a virgin was fine, it was ok, but you hated even the littlest ‘advantage,’ that he could hold on you.

And so you trudged it on, the little black skirt that Satoru gifted you, so small you’d initially kept it only as a joke—and oh how the turn tables.

The top wouldn’t stand any better at all, almost sheer it lay—a floral print to keep what little of your modesty you wanted to show.

Pathetic and desperate, you called yourself, for turning about so easily—pathetically desperate however, you wanted Suguru to be.

[8:15 p.m.]

A step into his mansion, a wolf whistle greeted you.

“Shut up Satoru,” you mumbled, a shy smile playing on your lips—almost guilty, “I know it’s not for me, so who’re you dressed to impress?”

A heat caught up slow on your face at Satoru’s words.

Your eyes landed on Suguru who came sauntering just beside him—jaw clenched at just the sight of him, the perfect way his jean jacket clung to him, “And why couldn’t I dress up for you?”

Satoru’s smirk only grew, all too aware of the hostility and the sexual tension that Suguru and you’d fostered—his biggest mystery lying in the way that it was third year of your college degree and you still hadn’t fucked the lights of each other.

A wink, charismatic, most would say, “because you know I prefer you without anything on princess,”

Had you not known Satoru you’d have probably been disgusted, but wonderous what two years of being together did to a person and their adaptations—and you wondered just why you hadn’t adapted to his black haired best friend.

A soft punch on his arm, you shook your head with a smile, “Really though, you look gorgeous—right Suguru?”

Your eyes moved slow, hesitant almost to meet his, “Yeah sure,” he shrugged casually, and just a little your heart hurt too.

Pathetic.

“You don’t look half bad,” you spoke still, adamant to be the bigger person—adamant to have something going.

He eyed you for a second, then another—a scoff, “what’s up with that top? Fix it please- you look like a slut,”

Silence, the music blaring almost stunned out.

Your face burned, heart all the more—a baffled “what?” Escaped your lips—and possibly Satoru’s, you weren’t sure

You weren’t sure if anything there on..

A roll of his eyes caught you off guard further, heart beat racing despite you when he leaned a little towards you, “if you’re going to try dressing like a prostitute, carry it with confidence—do you have any idea how many guys have been staring? Your boobs are practically falling from in there,”

You hated it, hated his words, his demeanor, his proximity—the way you almost found it endearing that he looked away when you tried your best to fix it, the way he almost ‘shielded’ you from anyone looking at you weird.

You hated it all.

“I don’t need you to ‘watch out’ for me,” you spat—Satoru lay forgotten in the moment, maybe he’d slipped moments ago—had he been there at all?

“Not looking out for you doll, just sayin it doesn’t suit ya,” you wanted to thank the dimmed down lighting, your tears were at the brink of falling, you wanted to punch him.

“What would you know what suits me and what doesn’t,” shaky a voice, drowned by the loud music—a smirk Suguru adorned, “think your rival would pay enough attention on you to know what suits you and what doesn’t,” his grinned only ever widened as he stepped back to stand beside you, “but sure, you do look fuckable,”

Jaw clenched, your eyes stared at each other, “whatever,” a shrug you passed, retired.

“Wait,” and wait you did, persistently at his words, “I’m assuming you don’t know most people here, given you’re the pretty nerd-”

“-do you have anything of material to say or should I go?”

The annoyance lay naked, so did the hurt in your voice.

Suguru was perceptive, perfect in the way his eyes trailed down your body, “I’m just saying, tag along with me—don’t want no accidents happening to my nerd,”

“You’re a nerd too,” a scoff, yours, “that’s what you caught from the whole statement?” A chuckle, his.

You bit the inside of your cheek hard, a mindless nod as you let him hold your hand, unsure of it entirely but never more certain that it was the right thing.

His nerd.

[8:45 p.m.]

“You drink?” A shake of your head and a sigh, his, “Really are a goody two shoes huh?”

A scoff you passed at his words, “Nothing goody two shoes about it, just that I don’t like the taste and-”

A snort interrupted you, “Pardon, the taste? Alright then, let me order my doll a strawberry milkshake,”

Your scrunched face only ever helped his face concort with laughter further, “I’m not your doll, or nerd or nothing. Don’t call me yours.” yours Words all too defiant, he smirked.

“Eh?” A pause, heavy, “Don't remember hearing objection for when you’re with Satoru,”

You bit the inside of your cheek-how exactly could he make everything so tough?

“Satoru’s a friend,”

“I'm not?”

You grinned, the lighting lay dim—his smile a blur, as was yours — “You're nothing more than competition,”

A grin, his too, “Ouch—after we spend so much time?”

“What, you enjoy it? You're masochistic too huh?”

“If you're the one who's gonna be torturing me doll,” a wink he offered, you bit the inside of your cheek, as insufferable as always.

However before a retort would fall, before your grin would broaden, before his smirks would lighten—“Here’s your milk shake ma’am!”

An internal groan and a condescending little, “be a good girl and finish it all up for me doll,”

A groan- which bartender even agreed to make milkshakes? At parties? At night?

Your eyes scanned the tag he kept attached, Toji F.

[11:44 p.m.]

“Suguru,” your words were frenzied, grip tightening on his arm—eyes moving over the surrounding crowd, “I don’t wanna play,”

Drunk.

The usual it was, late the party started and ended up almost at the next morning, you could hear Satoru Hollering down in the background, eyes narrowed down onto the group of your peers that sat in a circle.

Truth and Dare, the tradition.

Everyone you laid eyes upon, drunk, you were sure Suguru himself stood slightly tipsy, saved for your sake entirely, “Cmon,” his words a drag, “It’s just truth and dare, what’s the worst that can happen?”

And you knew well, that was exactly how all the bad teenage movies began.

“Everything, please, let me go if you wanna continue, that’s alright-”

“-no, can’t let you go,” you smiled slightly at the little pout on his face, adorable he surely was when drunk.

“Yes you can, I can walk back from here you know-”

Sudden, all too sudden he pushed you slight, pinned to the wall.

Words interrupted by his weight shifting onto you, your eyes widened at the closeness- “Won’t let you go alone, too many creeps,” a sincere nod was all you could pass, mouth dry and heart racing—he smirked.

“You like this?”

A shake of your head—another pout from him.

“You lie too much,” he murmured against your form, a hand placed softly on your waist—never moving an inch—“you would do well with a round of truth and dare actually,”

You giggled at his words, heart racing fast still as his hot breath fanned over you, “What if I just choose dare?”

Closer, somehow, he only seemed to move closer.

“You’re too chicken to do that,”

“But what if?”

“Do you?”

“Maybe”

“Ok,” he paused—stepping back, “here’s child’s play for you,” the smile he held now was concerning in ways—you didn’t mind it, “I dare you that if I manage to score better than you in the next semester, you have yo do everything I say for a good one day,”

You couldn’t help the laugh you let out at that.

“You have a thing for losing huh?”

A scoff, an eye roll—why was everything from him gorgeous?

“It’s a dare babe, take it or leave it,”

“Sure thing Suguru,”

“Atta girl,”

—.—.—

The tension was held high, the second semester was to end soon—you weren't all so tensed for that, however something did bother you.

Suguru Geto, for the first time that your eyes had seen, was studying.

Day in and day out, the library was where most people would find you—not Suguru Geto, certified fucker of the batch.

“Pass me the book when you’re done please,” your eyes narrowed at the tone, so damn sweet , “please,” uttered so carefully, you wanted to punch him for no reason.

“Of course,” you smiled back politely, wanting to be anything but so.

your eyes flickered over to Satoru—grinning as he texted the girl he met at the party.

“Why don’t you teach Satoru a lil something too though? He could use your help,” it was a constant, you and your little comments, hell bent on distracting Suguru, hell bent on getting more study time than him—hell bent on winning that particular bet.

He’d been drunk, you were hoping he’d have forgotten—hopes always lay crushed, for in the certain way he grinned when he looked at you, it meant something, surely a promise of winning from him.

Suguru Hummed as he always did—hostility between the two of you hadn’t ebbed exactly but it was bearable—he made it bearable, simply readjustments.

Ever since the party, you weren’t sure if you liked the change or no.

You weren’t sure if it was because of the lies Satoru fed you about him wanting you — or the half truths Your heart screamed, of Suguru wanting to screw you.

However, not being rivals never equated to being friends—obvious in the way not even his begging had softened your heart to lend him your notes.

“Why don’t you? Seem pretty done with the outline of it,”

You bit the inside of your cheek, pertaining a gaze on you softly, he grinned, “Too busy to let a friend fail?”

A defiant ‘yes’ you muttered, eyes stuck on Suguru- adding a little, “we’re not friends,” but pausing as the long fingers moved, long fingers reaching out to give you a note—“what’s that?”

He grinned as he shrugged, but before you could open the little piece of paper, folded all so carefully, “ah ah ah,” he chuckled, “open it outside,”

And you did—walking away with a huf—decided that the library was no longer just your spot, not a glance shared with Satoru, focused all so much at the objective of hogging as much study material as you could for the exam.

A sharp inhale though, annoyance seeping in as you viewed the message on the white piece of paper, decorated with all so many hearts, “Good luck losing, doll-face.”

—.—.—

~Night before the Exam~

“You’re sick for this, you know,” Satoru’s words rang in his head, he scoffed, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.

How could it even matter?

The flashlight remained tucked between his arms, working, quick, eyes scanning over the question paper as he stood in the Dean’s Office.

Being a good student, trusted student of course had it perks—the security cameras just somehow malfunctioning could be no coincidence either.

And then again, he wouldn’t cheat a lot, just enough, just to beat you — just enough.

And so the next day, while your confident farce broke just a little to see him ask for more sheets than you, to see him write longer—to see him almost do the exam better than you, something told you that the bet wasn’t made in vain, Suguru Geto was a man of plans.

—.—.—

~1st December~

You were sure you’d left before him, before anyone—as always.

And yet, just the way your stomach twisted when you saw his figure standing by the notice board—his grinning face—that was all it took for you to realize that something wasn’t right.

“The fuck are you grinning for?” The nervousness was obvious—Suguru loved it.

“Mind the language love,” he mused—stepping aside, letting your eyes find their own horror.

Rank Marks Allotted

Suguru Geto [Valedictorian] 95/100

Y/n L/n [Salutatorian] 94/100

And oh how he loved the way your face fell, how he loved the green in your eyes and the red tint of your of your burning ears.

“The test was hard though so you know-” the glint of victory all so evident, “-shut up,” you huffed.

“Shut the fuck up—it’s just-”

“-just one mark? Yeah, no.” He snickered behind you, “and ah? Aren’t you the one supposed to be doing what I say? No more teetering me about, doll,” a wink, a shiver up your spine.

He wasn’t wrong.

“Whatever, what do you want? Laundry done or what? Breakfast-”

Suguru’s head tilted to the side, adorably, as if a puppy’s, “you think that’s bad? Oh jeez y/n,” he grinned, “somebody’s in for a surprise?”

And before the realizations of what something worse had to be, before a retort could befall your lips, Suguru Geto had spoken once more—voice defiant, “To my dorm, now.”

The wind around you was cold, yes but chilly was the sensation you felt down your spine.

The room was organised, books on the right shelf, mangas on the left—his family photo on the right corner of the desk and a poster of his favorite baseball team right in front.

Nothing you would ever find your room as—scrawled up notes lay shoved in every corner—silly gifts from friends and a pile of unwashed coffee cups.

The contrast was thorough.

Your eyes bore into his, his into your figure-“what do you- why are we here?”

Suguru glared for a second, “what did you think would happen when you lost?”

Not this.

Or, well.

You’d assumed Suguru would use his chance to embarrass you, thoughts were quick though, infested you sat through seconds and hours, days even—thoughts of Suguru Geto and your “humiliation”.

It wasn’t that you wanted to lose, but you wouldn’t have minded—and so a blind eye was all you had to offer when Satoru dropped the keys to the dean’s office—a deaf ear turned when you heard him bragging of the plan to his girls, a stifled laugh when Suguru smacked his head for talking too much.

But now that the situation lay bared, maybe, just maybe it wasn’t the best situation to be in.

Maybe, the nervousness finally crept into the skin—maybe, you realised, maybe you shouldn’t have.

Fortunately or not though, Suguru was perceptive as he was caring—somewhat, “Don’t be nervous, I’m not gonna- you know,” he grinned, thoughts pertaining to your imagination—you didn’t like where and why it lead to everything it did.

Suguru hummed as he walked about, you stood all so awkward in the middle of his room—a hand patted the space next to him on his bed, “come on up here doll,”

You didn’t want to, but oh how the feet moved before they could stop.

“I don’t want to,” he smiled, soft, “well, you do realize what I want, right?”

A gulp, “I’ve never-”

“-I know,” he paused, “I’m not gonna force you into it, only if you wanna-”

You did want to, hell if there was anyone you wanted to trust, it would forever be Suguru Geto somehow.

“What if I say no?”

“Then feel free to just lounge about, I’d love talking to you,”

Heart pace quickened, you licked your lips—“I thought you- you’d make me…”

“Not a monster doll, not gonna do nothing you don’t want,” and just then you couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face too, fuck, you really were into him huh?

A bite of your lips, a giggle his—“I think…I think you’ve won fair and square,”

Another small giggle, and boy was everything he did adorable—“you know I cheated-” you bobbed your head, and oh how he was down bad for you too.

“C’mere,”

15 minutes in, you’d already taken off your rings—the rules of the game Suguru wanted you to play were simple.

“You’re too smart for your own good,” he’d chuckled, “but, s’not gonna help today,” a book lay in his hands— “I ask the questions and you answer, for every wrong answer you strip, take off one piece of clothing,”

A grin you passed, “of course,” you’d snickered—sitting across him.

“What is my favorite color?” A brow you raised, confused still as to why Suguru even bothered opening the book which read, “NEUROROBOTICS” when all he bothered asking were stupid questions with stupider answers.

“It’s…white? Or uh, blue?” Shots in the dark, all wrong—what pained you though were his answers—“nu uh,” he grinned, “take something off again, and better not tease me again,” you giggled.

The last two questions were just trivial as this, about him, and you’d answered them right too—except he just didn’t accept them at all.

You cursed internally, for skipping wearing socks because as of now you you were debating for the crucial options, the jeans or the top.

Suguru grinned, “my favorite color’s that though, you know when you blush,” you groaned at his words—chuckling along with him because frankly, when had you ever ‘blushed’ for him at all.

Your eyes moved fast, the top it was.

His eyes were sharp, stuck onto your form, pulled right over your head—Suguru was loving his day.

“White huh?” he grinned, your face burned at the way he stared at your Lacy white bra, “it is my favorite color after all,”

“Ask the next question” you snapped—hand reaching for a pillow to help yourself.

Suguru’s smile was soft, “ok, how about…how long have you wanted to fuck me?”

It physically made you uncomfortable to how hot the tip of your ears had gotten.

“No point lying, since we're both here to fuck anyways,”

You pursed your lips, it was true but then—“since the beginning of this year,”

Suguru chuckled at that, clicking his tongue—“the pants now?” your face dropped, it was risky—it would be a first, and with the way Suguru sat fully dressed, humiliating.

“I'm not lying-”

“Liar,”

“I'm not-”

“I'll make ya take off two pieces if you keep this up,”

Two- pants and either of your bra perhaps, or panties, neither seemed better than the other.

A retired ‘ok,’ you choked out, scoffing at how he smirked when your fingers moved in to pull the pants down, slow—“what's the correct answer?”

“The day you first saw me,”

You despised the way he was correct.

Pushed down your legs and thrown aside your pants lay—your eyes and Suguru’s, trailed up all the way to your calves.

“Matching set? You wanted this to happen hm?”

And you despised the experience and knowledge he had—his gaze remained stuck on the white Lacy panties you'd decided to wear.

For him.

How scandalous.

“Continue the game,” Suguru grinned—”how long have I wanted to fuck you?”

Your mouth ran dry—oh?

“The beginning of the semester?” you guessed, truthfully, heartbeat fastening when he smirked—”you have no idea how long I've wanted you here, like this,”

He stood close now, very close, his hand itself moving to unclasp your bra—warm breath fanning your face, “how long?” you whispered.

“Forever. Since I saw you,”

A giggle you let out—“you- no way, you simp,”

A giggle, his—“and there, you ruined the moment,”

A giggle, together.

“Let me see?” Suguru murmured, pulling away softly, slowly the pillow off of your form—finally, the bra pulled away too—his hands held your breasts softly.

You were sure though, the nervousness all too evident in your face, “easy, I'll take care of you,”

You passed a nod in response— biting your lips as the way his hands squeezed you, held you—his thumb rolling onto your nipples—half hardened they stood already in the chilly air of his room.

“You're damn gorgeous,” he whispered- lips pressed against yours, fingers massaging your boobs carefully, “fuck I- you've never?”

A swift shake of your head, “mm’ gonna corrupt you tonight ok?”

And just like that, pushed down to your back you lay, “spread your legs doll,”

And you did, pace fastening as he leaned into the spot between your legs, hand lingering on your inner thigh—“are you turned on?” the smirk on his face was telling, of course you were, “got turned on thinking what I would do to you? Aren't you just the cutest?”

You were inexperienced, sure, but you weren't going to let him tease you all so much-“hurry it up I- hah!”

Or maybe you would, you didn't know.

A soft gasp interrupted your words quick, two fingers pressed directly onto your pussy, prodding about, dancing slight as he tramped about your opening.

“You must've touched yourself?” the question itself felt sickening, you shouldn't have to tell him—“yes,” you mumble slowly, “ever thought about me?”

Another ‘yes’ indiscriminately fell off your lips.

Right at your position you saw him smile, dumbfounded when he whispered a ‘me too,’

Suguru’s other hand—fingers ran close circles on your thigh, “I won't go all the way tonight, you're scared and that's fine—” you gulped, reassurance flitting through you, “wanna make you feel good though,” and exactly as his sentence ended, he propped your legs all the way to his shoulders, despite all that he was doing, an almost innocent —“comfy?” he dropped in the name of formality.

“Relax,” he cooed, soft and gentle as he slowly leaned in, “you're in good hands ok?” your breath hitched still as the first lick came about, wetness spreading all the more than it already was—you were sure you’d never found yourself all so wet.

“Suguru- I- c-can't we do this without the-”

Without the panties—you were already wrecked for him.

A Cheshire smirk spread on his features from down below, “no, we'll go step by step, that's how the studious ones go, right?” you held back a moan when his fingers found your clit—rubbing slow circles, panties getting drenched in your own slick.

“Was that a moan doll?” his words suddenly caught up—a sharp slap landed on your pussy, eliciting a small cry, ”I wanna hear everything from you doll, every whimper, every cry and moan—everything,” you could only nod, and gasp slight as he dived in to press a kiss against your clothed folds.

“I'm so glad you're wearing white sweets,” a devilish grin his and an embarrassed squeak yours as he pinched your folds through your panties—drenched in result of his spit and licks and your own slick, completely see through.

And all throughout, Suguru was relentless in the way he spread apart your folds easily, peeking at the hints of your exposed cunt.

Fingers hooked to repeatedly rub your clit, so slow, never the right pressure or pace—snickering at how your mouth hung ajar, eyes drooping with pleasure.

Low pants and shy breaths only encouraged the raved haired boy still, sparing fingers and diving right in with his lips attached to your pussy lips and panties—tongue pushing against so obscenely against your hidden hole.

A sheepish grin he held, “Suguru,” you let out a broken sob, “please,”

The whine had him feeling back, looking up at you—eyes never Fuller, almost as if drunk in your juices, “hm?”

“Want more—pl-please,” it was almost a drag, your words.

Sobbing almost, at the way he chuckled—“nu uh, this is still technically your punishment, you know that right?”

But even so, Suguru knew he wouldn't deny you pleasure, just…maybe, just tease you a lot—drive you over the edge with his words before his tongue would do it, but he would get to it, surely.

And deep down he knew it too, he couldn't have had anything in him to deny you it either, not when you squirmed for him so adorably.

Just as before, Suguru attached his tongue to your see through panties, swirling around your folds and nub—until he playfully nimbled on it—basking in your gasp and sudden clutch of your fingers on his hair.

Suguru wrapping his lips over your clit once again, feverishly suckling on the swollen flesh— tempted to just move your panties to the side and eat you out like a starved man who hadn’t eaten in weeks.

But then, even with, close to none, experience that you had —you were sure that is what carnal desire would be presented as.

The idea was enticing, to just have it all flipped to the side—but he wasn’t one to give up so easily—and then he did want to see you suffer and cry all for him. Even if he’s currently losing his mind to actually get a taste of your pussy.

“S-Suguru—please, s’close!” his tongue danced about your folds, warping and swiveling the mushy flesh until your legs started to shake—as did you.

Your back arched, loud moans leaving your mouth—almost pornographic they sounded, as your hand was still gripping Suguru’s locks tightly.

Fat tears rolled down your cheeks with your jaw slightly hanging open but no words were escaping your lips, your body spasmed, your grip on suguru’s hair loosened as you held onto the sheets underneath you instead—before you came really hard, drenching your panties even more with your cum.

Suguru was kneading the soft flesh of your thighs as he looked up to you, licking his lips, practically tasting your cum on his tongue already. You swallowed thickly, meeting his intense gaze on you and before you could mutter or say anything— Suguru had beat you to it.

“Not done yet doll,” he grinned—fingers hooking in the waist band of your panties—“next question decides if you become the good little student that you are, and I teach you how to please me—or you get punished more when I get it actually gt to play with your pussy,”

A broken giggle escaped you, “oh well, what is it?”

Suguru couldn't help but giggle at you too, so damn cute that he found you, “how many times are you cum for me?”

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