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medium-rare-bimbo · 9 months

Text

Stepdad hopper!!

♡Masterlist♡

MINORS DNI

Contains: stepcest, dubcon, age gap, cheating

༺*:ﾟ･✧･:*:ﾟ･♡ readmore ♡･ﾟ:*:･✧･ﾟ:*༻

♡ your mother hadnt been home as much as he wanted her to be meaning he had a lot of pent up needs that he needed to release :(( his hand wasnt soft enough to give him the feeling he wants, his rough callous hands would pump his cock for hours yet still be unsatisfied not to mention the playboy magazines didnt compare to a real womens body

♡ he would be lying if he said he didnt like you before the blue balls hit in fact he had these perverted thoughts as soon as his eyes laid upon you and your short dress and frilly socks, your doe eyes peering up at him as your mother introduced you both, the quiver of your lip as you watched him stalk closer, taking in his entire form

♡ hed be lying if he said he didnt think about you when he slept with your mother. Hed be lying if he said he just saw you as a daughter. Hed be lying if he said he didnt listen to you touch yourself. Hed be a bigger liar if he said he didnt watch you through the gap in your door.

♡ he comes home, angry, a bad day with bad people, he sees you all cute and pretty wearing his favourite sundress with the pink frilly apron he got you. He cant help himself, his instincts are practically howling at him to pick you up and force his cock inside you

♡ you turn to him, wide eyes a smile on your face as you grab the plate of cookies you had made earlier in the day, unsurprisingly your mother is nowhere to be found so it's just you and him in the house

♡ "hey kid where's your mom?"

"mom said she would be home late, something about work and paper, so I made dinner for us! I made cookies too but you can only have one right now, I dont want you to ruin your appetite"

♡ god how he loved you, always taking care of him like the good girl you are, making sure he eats, making sure he gets to work on time, checking up on him, asking how his day was. He adored you <3

"What are we having?"

♡ he pulls out a chair, ready to sit at the dinner table until you stop him

"We can sit in the living room! Mom isnt here so she cant tell us what to do OH! and we're having chicken alfredo"

♡ your eyes crease as you smile at him looking for approval as you peered up at your stepfather, he smiled back, a small smile but a smile nonetheless. He grabbed a cookie, muttering a thank you before popping it in his mouth as he walked to the living room

" you- um you can take a shower if youd like, um-the food wont be done until later a-and you can be all clean before you eat"

♡ you meek voice called out to him shaking with nerves as you talk to him. He huffed out a laugh and nodded his head, turning to head up stairs behind him, he heard your sigh in satisfaction as you watch the big man clamber up the stairs

♡ he groaned as the water hit his tensed muscles, the stress from his body leaving as the warm water came down on him. He was tempted to touched his cock but he feared that he wouldnt be able to control the noises that croaked out of him, despite all his fantasies he didnt want you to come into the bathroom thinking he was hurt only to see his cock out

♡ he dried himself before cursing realising he forgot his clothes. Hopper wrapped the towel around his waist before calling out to you

"Y/N! can you get me some clothes I forgot to grab them"

♡ he heard you shout in confirmation as he leaned back against the bathroom sink. Hearing your footsteps he trotted closer to the door prepared for your hand to shoot in with his clothes, instead the door opened and you stood there with his folded clothes. Your eyes widened and your mouth opened and closed trying to stutter out a response as your face heated up

"I- um- I- okay"

♡ His giant body loomed over yours as you stood frozen in place, staring at this god of a man. Droplets of water dripped down from his neck to his chest going lower and lower until they hit the towel hanging low on his hips.

"'Okay'? Can I have my clothes now?"

"YES- I mean um yes here you go"

♡ you didnt walk away as he grabbed them though, you watched as he took them from your hands, his finger brushing over yours. He stared you down like prey wating for you to do something. the moral part of him wanted you to leave but another part wanted you to act on the thoughts swirling around your head

"Are you going to leave?"

"Yeah I just um- yeah.."

♡ you made no attempt to move too busy gawking at him to hear him properly.

"If you keep standing there you'll have to see things you wont be able to unsee"

♡ that seemed to snap you out of whatever daze you were stuck in, your eyes flicking up to his face as your pupils seemed to turn into black holes. Your mouth trembled as you tried to blurt out anything that came to mind but the thoughts were unholy and youd ruin your mothers relationship if you spoke them

♡ he lurked closer to you letting you smell the musk of his newly fresh body, your thighs pressed together drawing his eyes toward them, Hopper stared down at you reaching his hand to your shoulder and placing it there.

"Are you going to be a good girl and leave?"

♡ You nodded yet still made no attempt to move, breathless and lust driven. He scoffed as you stood still, backing away and unfolding his clothes. Before you could process what was about to happen the towel dropped and in all its glory stood his semi hard cock, He pulled his boxers on and then his pants smiling to himself as your eyes continued to eat him.

♡ he while putting on his shirt he heard a quivering murmur leave your mouth to which he looked at you, staring at you as if asking you to repeat what you said

"I didn't say anything I just- i was thinking out loud"

"Thinking out loud? About what?"

"I um... i cant say"

♡ he huffed out a laugh rolling his eyes

"We're both adults here you can say what you want I wont take offense"

"I um.."

"Go on baby.. repeat what you said"

"I said.. I said my mothers a lucky women"

♡your voiced phased out by the end but he xouldnt care less he understood what you whispered perfectly. His skin prickled with excitement he had been waiting for this day, waiting for you to say something.

"Really? You wanna play house then?"

"I- what"

"You can be mommy and I'll be daddy how about that?"

"I'd love to but I dont think-"

♡ Hopper cuts you off with his lips, silencing anything that came out of your mouth after "id love to", his arms wrapping around your body holding you against him.

♡ he breaks the kiss, pushing you against the wall and once again slamming his lips into yours, stopping any noise from exiting, his moustache scratched your face as you clawed your way at him look for something to steady yourself with, teeth, tongues and spit collided with eachother as he claimed your mouth. Your legs wrapping around his waist as he encased your body

♡ his hands inched their way between your thighs grazing up and down the soft skin, slowly but surely working his way to the pantie covered mound. Hopper circled the area where your neglected clit lay, a single finger swirled around your most sensitive area.

♡ he let your hips jerk up for more stimulation (hed have to teach you some manners later) his bear like hands made their way to the middle of your panties feeling the wet spot your juices had left behind. He groaned into your mouth, an animal like snarl as he pried and groped at your most private part of your body

♡ his cock ground into your thigh the thickness of his manhood pressing against your skin and all though he was wearing pants the tight confines of the fabric didnt shy away from the intimidating size of it. Your head threw itself back as you released a pornagrpahic moan

♡ pulling your panties to the side he finally feels you skin to skin, he growls as his finger get sticky from your slick. his heavy finger eased itself into you stretching the tight hole to prepare for his cock. Despite your wetness dripping from you and soaking his fingers you were still so tight compared to him.

♡ his finger swirled inside you getting a feel of the spongy walls he so desperately thought about. When he slipped his another finger inside of you it felt like a scolding knife and although the pain burned the pleasure burnt brighter, you collapsed into him head laying on his chest and arms curled up in his shirt

♡ his hand left your hole inching it's way to his pants pulling them down to release the throbbing monster attached to his body. Hopper rubbed the swollen precum coated head along you cunt feeling you juices cling to him inviting him to enter you

♡ hopper forced himself into your tight hole, stretching you so much that you dont think any man will be able to fill you the same, you could feel every vein of his thick cock, the way it pulsed as it breached your hole, the way precum leaked out of the swollen head almost begging to enter your womb. You could feel all of him and at some points you felt as if you were going to rip in two from how big he was

"Thaaats it take it for daddy baby"

♡ his thrusts started out slow, tempered and gentle letting your now ruined cunt get used to the abuse he was putting it through, each vein caught on your walls making you fall limp against him however his rhythm picked up as time went on, he was a strong man but not strong enough to control himself around you

♡ your legs are pinned to your chest by his massive hands, your calves resting on his shoulders as he pounds his thick cock up into you, each thrust faulting as he breaches your cervix, youre jolting everytime his dick twitches, his hands forcing your body into itself pressing down on the bulge in your stomach.

♡ you dont know where to put your hands too overwhelmed with the appendage abusing your cunt, your slick and juices are dripping out of your newly damaged cunt and onto hoppers balls and down his thick hairy thighs.

♡ the house is filled with moans, groans, squeals and the sound of skin smacking together but neither of you care. His entire body is encapsulating yours, his frame hanging over you as he uses you for his own pleasure

"My good girl- my- my girl- fuck-"

"DA- daddy- plEAse please please please oh god- PLEASE gentle! Be gentle y'go-gonna break me cant- cant take this! S'too muuuuch"

♡ your sobs seem to fall on deaf ears as his instincts kick in. his mouth made subtle marks on your neck the feral part of him wanted to mark you until you couldnt breath, until your neck collapses in on itself and you have no other choice but to show everyone who you belong to but.. he knows it wouldn't go over well with your mother, he knows that you would never tell her, he knows that youd lie and he knows your mother will pry pry and pry until she figures out that her husband was fucking her daughter.

"That's it baby doing so well for me- T-" he thrusts into you body harshly causing you to pathetically squeal "TAking it so well"

♡ the noises coming from you were nothing but sounds, too cock drunk to form a sentence (not that he minded, he knew his little girl couldnt take him without getting dumb) whines and choked moans flowed out of you as he ruined you

♡ any steam from the shower didnt compare to the condensation on the mirrors your bodies were causing, You clung to eachother like velcro, feeding off of eachothers pleasure

♡ his thumb pressed against your clit swallowing it whole as he circled it like a shark. Your hips jolted as the stimulation became to much, you cried out as he picked up his pace clenching around him as you came on his cock, juices squirting onto his stomach and down his legs.

♡ hopper howled as he came. short yet harsh thrusts continued fell out of him like possessed man as he tried to get his cum as deep in you as possible.

♡ you lay in eachothers brace, still held against the wall as you tried to regain feeling in your body and mind. Praises poured out of his mouth in whispers as you fell in and out of that post orgasm feeling

♡ the jiggling of keys unfortunately broke you both out of your dream like state, hopper placed you down, pulling you underwear over your newly filled cunt before fully dressing himself. Your mother called out to the both of you but luckily she was too concerned on who left the oven on to come look for you. You steadied yourself on the wall as you walked like a newborn doe to greet your mother (hoppers orders)

♡ you stayed the rest if the night eating the, thankfully, edible chicken alfredo, occasionally your leg would jerk up as you felt hoppers thick cum leak out of you, your mother was none the wiser. he stared you down from across the table his foot playing with your ankle as you licked up the white sauce from the corners of you mouth.

#stranger things x reader #hopper x reader #jim hopper x reader #jim hopper smut #hopper smut #tw: stepcest

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hannieehaee · 6 months

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18+ / mdi

content: once again, chan is a fucking loser, smut, f reader, dry humping, handjob, a lot of boob worship (?), spit kink (????) but not rlly, etc. this is a continuation to this, but can also be read as a standalone!

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

wc: 1258

masterlist

loser!chan, who feels like the luckiest bastard alive thanks to his chemistry teacher who decided to pair him up with his years-long crush.

ever since he started college, he thought that maybe he'd finally get rid of the loser nerd persona that had been assigned to him ever since middle school, when he started wearing thick-rimmed glasses to school and joined the anime club.

safe to say, that did not happen. due to his shy demeanor and lack of confidence, he remained an outcast in all situations possible, feeling as if he could never simply go up to someone and strike up a conversation. specially not with you, the pretty girl he met during orientation two years ago. someone who he had so badly wanted to get to know after catching your eyes one day during your intro bio course freshman year.

unexpectedly, now he found himself in your bed, your hands down his pants and your tongue lightly licking into his mouth as he moaned due to the friction. all thanks to his teacher's fateful decision to pair you up. ever since the first time you had invited him to your dorm for your group project (the first time he had ever felt the touch of a woman), you had found every opportunity possible to steal him away again under the vice of 'channie, we need to work on our assignment!'

your meetings tended to go pretty much the same every time. you'd both sit on your bed, pretending you were there for academic purposes as you set down your books and laptops in front of you while having much sinister thoughts in your heads. chan hadnt wanted to assume you'd always invited him over for anything other than studying, which is why he never made a move first, always allowing you to approach him and take him in whichever way you wanted.

that is how he was once again moaning into your mouth, trying to catch your tongue in his as you pulled your hands out of his pants, wanting to unzip them all the way through. so far, the most you and chan had done had been patting under your clothes and making out for a few hours, but it seemed like you wanted to go further this time.

chan felt like his heart was about to pop out of his chest, lifting his hips in order to help you take off his pants. what he hadnt expected, though, was for you to unglue yourself from him to throw your dress over your head before finally sitting on his lap. he had never felt the heat of someone else's body atop his like this before. he felt like he was burning.

"channie ..." you began. "why wont you touch me? you like how i touch you, dont you? dont you wanna do the same?", you pouted as you led his hands to your torso.

he gulped, breathing heavier than ever. "i- yes. wanna- please, show me. i-i dont know how, i-..." was his reply. he lowered his head, feeling embarrassed at being the ripe age of 23 having never felt the touch of a woman in this way.

"i know, channie. but it's okay. i'll show you."

with that, you let go of his hands momentarily to throw off your bra, quickly grabbing onto his hands again and placing them on your tits, "touch them channie," you breathed out, "touch them and rub them. it'll feel so good, i promise."

chan was frozen in place, eyes glued to your chest. he had never felt himself harder in his life. he'd obviously seen breasts before. both in class and through a screen (and he had maybe pictured yours sometimes before going to sleep..), but he had never felt the softness of them in his hands, nor the pebbles that hardened against his touch.

he followed your instructions, moaning at the way you threw your head back due to his fondling of them. your reaction made him intensify his touches. his actions had caused you to start lightly canting your panty-covered hips against his strained boxers, making him feel even more lightheaded. he decided to take initiative for once and lowered his head towards your chest, groaning as his tongue made contact with your nipple.

you let out a loud whine at the sudden contact, immediately pushing his head closer to your chest and grinding against him with more force now. "f-fuck channie. yes, please keep doing that. shit," your moaning kept driving chan insane, thinking about how desperate you must've been for him to have such reactions to his inexperienced touches.

you continued like this for a while. chan licking and sucking at your nipples while you whined and ground your hips against his. eventually this proved to not be enough for you, causing you to drag his face away from your chest and push him to lay fully on the bed, pinning his hands over his head.

"channie .. can i make you feel good? both of us. can i make us feel good?", you shallowed, delirious at the thought of finally meeting your end while with chan. the previous times you had met you had dedicated your time only to making him cum, wanting to warm him up for you before prioritizing your own pleasure.

"p-please. fuck. you dont have to ask. you can do whatever you want, just- a-argh fuck ..." his speech left him as you interrupted him with harsh grinding of your hips, the angle allowing his length to drag against the entirety of your pussy.

he hadnt known how warm and wet it would feel, having only ever felt his hand (well, now yours too) for the past few years. despite having his boxers and the light layer of your panties in the way, chan felt the heartbeat of your pussy pulse against his swollen dick, making all thought leave his head as he planted his feet on the bed and began to carelessly grind upwards against you, no rhythm to his movements but focused solely on chasing pleasure.

you humped against each other like animals, breathing into each other's mouths until you began to crave his taste, licking into his tongue as he threw his head back at the act. you lifted your head a bit, encouraging him to do the same and then directed him to stick out his tongue for you, which he did. you then began to lick and suck on his tongue, making him shake at the nastiness of it all.

he grabbed onto your hips, madly digging them against his with all the strength he could muster. you felt yourself get even wetter at the sheer force your cute innocent loser boy was using due to the pleasure clouding his mind, knowing that you'd cum any second now.

"'m gonna. fuck. gonna cum, channie. cum with me. please," you begged in a high whine.

chan had no willpower to respond and instead did his best to nod, once more throwing his head back as he came, you following soon after.

the aftermath consisted of a very exhausted chan being unable to move or process what had happened. you laid on top of him for a few minutes as you both caught your breaths. you were the first to speak up, lifting yourself off of him a bit, "sorry, i think i might've gotten over-excited," you chuckled, "id been thinking of that for a while. was that too much?"

he smiled moonily as he looked at the ceiling. "god, i hope we never finish our project."

n/a: not proofread aaahhhh sorry

#svt #seventeen #seventeen fanfic #seventeen smut #seventeen x reader #svt fanfic #svt smut #seventeen oneshot #svt x reader #seventeen imagine #dino x reader #dino smut #chan smut #lee chan smut #lee chan x reader

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heartpascal · 9 months

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omg plsss do more platonic father-figure joel fics comforting the reader please i begggg they are so good

carved over the door

▹— joel miller x platonic!reader

▹— summary: you’ve been hiding something from joel, and he finally found out. his reaction is… not what you expected.

▹— a/n: ok this isn’t even like. close to being a favourite but i think the idea is cute, execution just isn’t great!! to be clear, things like this are NOTHING to be ashamed of, but this is gonna touch on how it can make the person feel!! (EDIT as of july, i have no idea how this fic is looking so please go easy, i haven’t proofread it, only tagged a bit of writing on the end to finish it up, so it’s not great)

▹— warnings: father figure joel, reader is illiterate, r is embarrassed about it, therefore says some bad things, is ashamed almost, so please be wary, cute lessons ensue, swearing, lazy writing at the end, use of ‘sweetie’

▹— taglist: @rhymingtree @sleepygraves @wnstice (everything), @auggiesolovey @just-kaylaa @evyiione @lemonlaides @fariylixie0915 @erensloveinterest @dazedshoon @faceache111 @randomhoex @canpillowscry @pedropascalsrealgf @star-wars-lover @coolchick333 @soobsdior @ilybbg @rvjaa @oliest19xx @pedropepsi @sunflowersdrop @truthfuleeyours (pedro)

masterlist

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Being born into the end of the world probably should have killed you off early. Most kids your age were either dying or dead, or being trained to become child soldiers. It was rare for kids born in the pandemic to live, you had been told. Risks of death were everywhere, from Infected, to FEDRA, all the way to all those diseases you hadnt been vaccinated against.

Survival odds were bleak, to say the least, but you were one of the lucky ones.

Life had put you in the path of the only two good people you knew — Joel and Tess. It was them who had saved you from FEDRA’s clutches, though you had never understood why. They had consistently told you that they only looked out for themselves, so was the way of life in the apocalypse, but each time you needed them, there they were.

There was that time you had an infection, and despite the weather being awful and security tight, Joel and Tess had gone out on a supply run, getting a hold of the antibiotics that had saved your life.

You tried to be useful, hopeful that if you helped them enough, as much as they helped you, that they wouldn’t kick you out any time soon.

It’s why you always took it upon yourself to clean their bloodied clothes, to sew up the tears that would have ruined them, to wash the dishes you all ate your rations off of. It’s why you always made sure to use the coldest water, refusing to take any that may be the slightest bit warm from them. Little things like that would surely keep you at least somewhat helpful.

It’s also why you kept your biggest secret quiet.

You had done your best to prevent them from ever finding out, and had they not decided that you could join them in visiting Bill and Frank, you were sure they never would’ve.

They’d known the two men for a while before you had arrived, and this would be your first time meeting them. Joel usually insisted upon you staying at the QZ, too worried over the journey and the risks it posed for you to attend any of their supply runs, but they seemed… content to let you join.

The three of you would be heading straight to Bill and Frank’s, and then straight back. No pit stops, no detours, just one confirmed route.

Your nerves had been playing up the whole time, causing you to jump at any sound, your hands shaking at the sight of Infected, hell — you had listened to every word that Joel and Tess said, though they didn’t blame you. It was your first time outside of the QZ, and they understood how frightening this could be.

You couldn’t decide if arriving at Bill and Frank’s made your anxiety better or worse.

It kept you quiet the whole time you were there, even as Bill tested the three of you, nodding when the screen flashed green. You stuck by Joel’s side as the four of you set up the table, Bill inside the house cooking dinner.

The four of you finally sat down, with Frank and Tess starting up conversation quickly, before Frank stopped, turning to you and saying, “Oh, would you mind going and grabbing a bottle of Barbera, sweetie?”

He was nice, and you didn’t want to get Joel and Tess in trouble with them by bringing you if you didn’t help them out, so you nodded with a nervous glance at Joel. “Sure, in there?” You pointed towards the house, and Frank nodded with a smile, turning back to his conversation with Tess.

You stepped away from the table, glancing back and seeing Joel looking at you with a quirked eyebrow, frown marring his features. You smiled tightly toward him before opening the front door, stepping inside and following the smell of cooking until you found Bill. “Um, Frank said to grab the bottle of… Bar—Barbera?”

Bill grunted, a grumpy expression covering his face, and nodded his head toward another door. You went through it quickly, down some steps, and you just about stopped yourself from crying when you saw the number of bottles around the room.

By the three minute mark, the stairs creaked, and Joel appeared at the bottom, looking increasingly concerned as he saw your distressed expression. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s—it’s fine.” You replied, your voice shaking slightly, and you looked away from him, continuing to scan all the bottles on the shelves in front of you. The labels meant nothing to you, and you couldn’t help but get more upset by Joel’s presence.

He placed a hand on your shoulder as he approached, and didn’t say a word as he grabbed a bottle up towards your left. He led you out of the room, handing you the bottle and guiding you to where the other three were now settled at the table, food set out in front of them.

“Thank you, sweetie.” Frank said kindly as you set the bottle down at the table, quickly pulling your hands back before anybody could see the shake to your fingers.

You sat through the rest of the dinner quietly, barely able to enjoy the actual nice, home-cooked food through your racing thoughts. You answered Frank when he spoke to you, still knowing that you needed to be polite, but you were starting to feel sick.

When the three of you finally made it home, Joel and Tess had shared a number of concerned glances, eyebrows drawn close together as they murmured between one another, still talking quietly even when you dropped down on the sofa, a sigh leaving your chest.

It stayed that way for the next few weeks, and there was an awkward energy growing in the apartment the three of you shared. With your uncharacteristic quietness, and the way Joel and Tess would converse quietly, as if you hadn’t noticed, something was up.

That much became increasingly obvious when Joel sat you down on the couch you slept on, the crease between his brows as deep as ever.

He said your name nervously, and cleared his throat before he continued, “When we were at Bill and Frank’s, I, uh— I noticed somethin’.”

“Noticed what?” You responded when he didn’t continue, your anxiety leaking into your voice in the way it shook as you spoke, and you knew exactly what was coming. He’d realised your secret — he and Tess must’ve been deciding what to do during all of those talks.

“Fuck,” He muttered, clearly unsure how to go about this conversation, “Don’t… take this the wrong way, but, can you read?”

Your heart dropped to your stomach, and you swallowed nervously. “‘Course I can read, Joel.” You replied, snapping at the man, who just frowned more at your response.

He nodded, and reached into the backpack by his feet, pulling out a relatively thin book. He looked almost remorseful, pulling this out when he knew you were lying, and you hated the way that shame pulled at your stomach, making you feel sick as you looked at the letters you couldn’t make any sense of.

“Y’know, there’s nothin’ wrong with not knowing.” Joel said, voice softening as he looked at your panicked expression.

“Except that you don’t want me around anymore, right? It’s fine, but it’s not good enough. Don’t want some dumbass kid who can’t even read hanging around, is that it?” You snapped, anger firing up in your chest as you stood from the couch, fists clenched at your side as you averted your eyes from the book in his hand.

Your cheeks were burning, embarrassment flooding your expression, and your eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

“What? No, kid, sit back down.” He said, pushing you back to your seat by your shoulders. “Don’t go ‘round making assumptions like that. I’m offering to teach you.”

“Oh.”

He snickered at your response, though he looked almost embarrassed to be making the offer, like he was unsure what your response would be.

“So… you’re not kicking me out?”

“‘Course not. Getting ahead of yourself, there.”

“You really wouldn’t mind… teaching me?” You asked, heart still hammering in your chest as you stared at the man, his face softening at your nervous questions.

In response, he moved to sit right beside you on the couch, and opened the book in his hands. “It’s been a while for me, kid, so go easy.”

You smiled at him, wiping your tears before settling close to his side, head gently resting against his arm to get the best angle of his book. He pointed an index finger at the words as he read aloud, pointing new letters out each time they came up. Some familiar words came up, spelled phonetically, and made sense once you’d learnt the full alphabet on paper, but others made much less sense. Like fight — where did the gh come from?

By the time the two of you had made it through the first chapter, you could recognise letters on paper, know the sounds that the letters made, and even read majority of the simpler words, the ones that came up often.

Tess came home a bit later on, after you had fallen asleep against Joel’s shoulder. She raised her eyebrows, a hint of something like a smile on her face as she looked at the two of you, and asked, “Good first lesson?”

Joel wiped a hand down his face, his muscles tense in his efforts to keep still in order to not wake you, and stay awake himself. “Made some good progress.” He acknowledged, his voice barely louder than a whisper as he looked down to where you were slipping from his shoulder. Tess nodded at him, before heading down the hall to get on with unpacking her backpack.

From then on, these sorts of evenings happened a few times a week, almost always ending with you falling asleep against Joel. Your reading ability improved, and when the two of you finished the short book, you started rereading it immediately, now able to follow along more clearly as the stuttered words flowed more easily, and soon enough, Joel was promising to grab a new book from Bill and Frank’s.

The new words were tricky, when starting the new book, but each time you got stuck, Joel was there to help, and eventually, you got used to reading without his help. Sounding out words you were stuck on yourself, just waiting for his confirming mmhm to be muttered before you would continue on.

When finally, you finished an entire chapter without a murmur from Joel, you pulled away from his side excitedly, looking towards his face and seeing his expression being nothing short of filled with pride. He pulled you back to his side, one arm wrapped around you this time, and squeezed your shoulders before urging you to continue.

Feeling your eyes start to slip, words going blurred on the page, you asked, “Could you keep going?” Without questioning you, he continued from where you left off, reading the words out loud and keeping his arm wrapped firmly around your shoulder.

It was strange, hearing that softness to Joel’s voice, when before these lessons, you’d only ever heard the gruff voice he usually had. It made sense, you supposed, given that he remained rough around the edges for everybody who wasn’t you and Tess, but it made you feel… almost comfortable. It was like a safety net was wrapped around you, like nothing could happen to you if you stayed at his side.

You yawned, eyes still trying to focus on the book that Joel continued to read, his finger subconsciously moving along the page whilst he spoke the words.

It wasn’t long before you fell asleep against him, his voice fading to a whisper when he realised. It became something of a tradition between the two of you, these lessons where Joel taught you, and then eventually read to you until you fell asleep. He didn’t mention how much it reminded him of before, of her. And you didn’t mention how much more comfortable you had gotten since the lessons had started.

No longer were you on the edge of your seat, waiting for them to give you the boot. Now, you finally felt… accepted. In a way you never had been before Joel, before being taught something that wasn’t just for survival.

Strangely, it was almost like you could live, rather than survive. You didn’t voice it aloud, but you suspected Joel felt similarly, if his change in behaviour said anything.

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thesiltverses · 7 months

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I don’t know who types up the ask answers on this blog but to whoever’s reading this: how do you all feel about being alive and sentient? What keeps you going, what purpose propels you through this chaotic void? What do you think (or hope) waits for you after your inevitable end? What do you think constitutes a life well lived?

I'm going to answer this in the most wayward and stupidly overlong manner possible, because the previous ask had me thinking about puppets, and I was already mid-way through writing up a book recommendation that's semi-relevant to your questions.

Everyone (but especially people who've enjoyed The Silt Verses and all the folks on Tumblr who loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke) ought to seek out Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Riddley Walker is a wild and woolly story set in post-apocalyptic Kent, where human society has (d)evolved into a Bronze Age collective of hunter-gatherer settlements. Dogs, apparently blaming us for our crimes against the world, have become our predators, hunting us through the trees. Labourers kill themselves unearthing ancient machinery that they cannot possibly understand.

A travelling crowd of thugs led by a Pry Mincer collect taxes and attempt to impose themselves upon those around them with a puppet-show - the closest possible approximation of a TV show - that tells a mangled story of the world's destruction, featuring a Prometheus-esque hero called Eusa who is tempted by the Clevver One into creating the atomic bomb.

Riddley himself, a twelve-year-old folk hero in-the-making surrounded by strange portents, ends up sowing the seeds of rebellion and change by becoming a conduit for the anti-tutelary anarchic madness (one apparently buried in our collective unconscious) of Punch 'n' Judy.

It's a book in love with twisted reinterpretation, the subjectivity of interpretation, buried or forbidden truths coming back to light (the opening quote is a curious allegory about reinvention and cyclical change from the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which is a good joke and mission statement on a couple levels at once) and human beings somehow stumbling into forms of wisdom or insight through clumsy and nonsensical attempts to make sense of a world that is simply beyond them.

It rocks.

The book starts like this:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.'

Riddley's devolved language - a trick which has been nicked/homaged by many other works, most notably Cloud Atlas and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome - is a masterwork choice which may seem offputting or overwhelming at first, but which has its own brutal poetry and cadence to it, and ultimately which makes us slow down as readers and unpick the wit, puns, double-meanings and playful themes buried in line after line.

(Even those first five sentences get us thinking about cyclical change, ritual and myth in opposition to the dissatisfactions of reality, and 'tern' to paradoxically indicate a rebellious change in direction but also an obedient acceptance of inevitable death.)

In one of my favourite passages in literature and a statement of thought that means a lot to me, Riddley has been smoking post-coital weed with Lorna, a 'tel-woman', who unexpectedly declares her belief in a kind of irrational, monstrous Logos that lives in us, wears us like clothes, and drives us onwards for its own purpose:

'You know Riddley theres some thing in us it dont have no name.' I said, 'What thing is that?' She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its lookin out thru our eye hoals...it aint you nor it dont even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan and shelterin how it can.' 'Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatise it mor. It dont realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. What ever it is we dont come naturel to it.' I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.' She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it. We dint begin when it begun we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I dont know what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to it or boyls on the arse of it I dont know. Now lissen what Im going to tel you Riddley. It thinks us but it dont think like us. It dont think the way we think. Plus like I said befor its afeart.' I said, 'Whats it afeart of?' She said, 'Its afeart of being beartht.'

While Hoban is, I think, deeply humanistic to his bones and even something of a wayward optimist, the notion of human beings as helpless and ignorant vessels, individual carriers - puppets, if you like - for an unknowable and awful inhuman power-in-potentia and life-drive that lacks a true shape or intent beyond its own continued survival (even when that means destroying us or visiting us with agonising atrophy in the process) conjures up the pessimism of Thomas Ligotti, another big influence on our work and a dude who was really into his marionettes-as-metaphor.

Let's go to him now for his opinion on the thing that lives beneath our skin. Thomas?

Through the prophylactic of self-deception, we keep hidden what we do not want to let into our heads, as if we will betray to ourselves a secret too terrible to know… …(that the universe is) a play with no plot and no players that were anything more than portions of a master drive of purposeless self-mutilation. Everything tears away at everything else forever. Nothing knows of its embroilment in a festival of massacres… Nothing can know what is going on.

Curiously, both Ligotti and Riddley Walker have appeared in the music of dark folk band Current 93, whose track In The Heart Of The Wood And What I Found There directly homages the novel and ends with the repeated words,

"All shall be well," she said But not for me

These words, in turn, hearken back to Kafka's* famous reported conversation with Max Brod:

'We are,' he said, 'nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that rise in God's head.' This reminded me of the worldview of the gnostic: God as an evil demiurge, the world as his original sin. 'Oh no', he said, 'our world is only a bad, fretful whim of God, a bad day.' 'So was there - outside of this world that we know - hope?' He smiled: 'Oh, hope - there is plenty. Infinite hope, just not for us."

So, we walk on.

We carry this thing that's riding on our backs, endlessly bonded to it, feeling its weight more and more with every passing day, unable to turn to look at it. Buried truths come briefly to life, and are hidden from us again. Perhaps they weren't truths at all. We couldn't stand to look the truth directly in the eyes in any case.

If there is hope, it's for the thing that looks out from our eyeholes, which thinks us but cannot think like us. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. There's no hope for it. Perhaps we don't want it to win anyway. It's nothing, and the key to everything.

The Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas says:

'When you see your own likeness, you rejoice. But when you see the visions that formed you and existed before you, which do not perish and which do not become visible - how much then will you be able to bear?'

Kafka, writing to his father, begins by expressing the inexpressibility of his own divine terror:

You asked me why I am afraid of you. I did not know how to answer - partly because of my fear, partly because an explanation would require more than I could make coherent in speech…even in writing, the magnitude of the causes exceeds my memory and my understanding.

Kafka concludes that while he cannot ever truly explain himself, and that the accusations in his letter are neat subjectivities that fail to account for the messiness of reality, perhaps 'something that in my opinion so closely resembles the truth…might comfort us both a little and make it easier for us to live and die.'**

It doesn't bring comfort to Kafka, whose diarised remarks both before and after the 1919 letter make it clear that he views his relationship with the things (people) that birthed him as an endless entrapment that prevents him from attaining any kind of self-actualisation or even comfort, since he cannot escape their influence or remember a time before them:

I was defeated by Father as a small boy and have been prevented since by pride from leaving the battleground, despite enduring defeat over and over again.

It's as if I wasn't fully born yet...as if I was dissolubly bound to these repulsive things (my parents).*** The bond is still attached to my feet, preventing them from walking, from escaping the original formless mush. That's how it is sometimes.

Samuel Beckett returns again and again (aptly) to this pursuit of a state of true humanity and final understanding that is at once fled and unrecoverable, yet to be born, never to be born, never-existed, endlessly to be pursued, pointless to pursue. From the astonishing end sequence of The Unnameable:

alone alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled, their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-com- ing, another will come, I won’t be the last. I’ll be with the others. I’ll be as gone, in the silence, it won’t be I, it’s not I, I’m not there yet. I’ll go there now. I’ll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait for my turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone, it’s unending, it will be unending, gone where,where do you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again

I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning, all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand, to have eyes to light the way

From Thomas' Jesus:

When you make the two one, and you make the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside and the above as the below, and if male and female become a single unity which lacks 'masculine' and 'feminine' action, when you grow eyes where eyes should be and hands where hands should be and feet where feet should stand and the true image in its proper place, then shall you enter heaven.

Tom's Jesus makes a particularly Gnostic habit of both insisting that the hidden will be revealed and demonstrating the impossibility of attaining a state where the hidden ever can be revealed. Contrary to C.S. Lewis, we will never have faces with which to gaze upon the lost divine and the mysteries that shaped us, and crucially, as Christ puts it, we would not be able to bear the sight of ourselves if we did.

We will never become the thing that's riding on our backs.

Jesus again:

The disciples ask Jesus, 'Tell us how our end shall be.' Jesus says, 'Have you found the beginning yet, you who ask after the end? For at the place where the beginning is, there shall be the end.'

The Unnameable:

I’ll recognise it, in the end I’ll recognise it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he, it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them, the words fail, the voice fails, so be it

The final passage of The Unnameable, which often is hilariously shorn and misinterpreted as an inspirational quote about how if you don't succeed, try again:

all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can't go on, you must go on. I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know. I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on. I’ll go on. †

We bear this thing that's riding on our backs. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. If it was born, it'd be too terrible for us to bear. There's nothing riding on our backs.

It will never speak us into being.

We keep on calling out into the silence, we keep trying to explain or understand the thing that's riding on our backs, searching for a way to birth it before we die. Our words about the thing are crucial, and they're meaningless, and they're all we have, and they're nothing at all. We cannot name it and we cannot express it, but we cannot stop trying, and we will keep turning back to our words about the thing, obsessing over them, tearing them to pieces, putting them back together.

I'm fumbling at something I can't think or say, but fumbling is all we're capable of. There could be beauty and meaning and comfort in the fumbling, but it's also vain, and foolish, and pointless, and we're lying to ourselves about the beauty and the meaning and the comfort, and we're indulging ourselves pointlessly by going on and on about the pointlessness of it. Nothing can know what's going on. We will never get close enough to understand without being destroyed.

Thomas' Jesus again, warning those who seek to reveal what's hidden:

He who is near me is near the fire.

Riddley Walker, reflecting on the Punch puppet's inexplicable desire to cook and eat his own child:

Whyis Punch crookit? Why wil he al ways kill the baby if he can? Parbly I wont ever know its jus on me to think on it.

If you got to the end of this, congratulations: but the above is honestly the most appropriate patchwork of what I believe, what propels me, what I feel.

As for what comes after life, I think it's fairly straightforwardly a nothingness we are tragically incapable of fully knowing or accepting - it's Beckett's unimaginable and unattainable silence, a silence that his characters' voices keep on shattering even as they cry out for it.

-Jon‡

*I can't remember if Kafka makes prominent reference to Czech puppets in his work, which is interesting in its own right given the thematic relevance (the protagonist in The Hunger Artist is perhaps a kind of self-directing puppet show?).

However, Gustav Meyrink - who some unsourced Google quotes suggest was pals with Czech puppeteer Richard Teschner - did write a strange little story, The Man On The Bottle, about an audience watching a 'marionette show' who are too wrapped up in performances and masks to interpret the reality that they're actually watching a human being suffocate to death.

**Thomas Ligotti: "Something had happened. They did not know what it was, but they did know it as that which should not be.

Something would have to be done if they were to live with that which should not be.

This would not (be enough); it would only be the best they could do."

***Beckett's Malone Dies actually kicks off with a related sentiment:" I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there...In any case I have her room. I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more."

† I don't necessarily align myself in humour with Ligotti on a lot of this stuff but I imagine he would recognise both Beckett's writing and Kafka's frustrations re explaining the causes of his hatred for his father as sublimation: finding artistic and philosophical ways of sketching the inexpressible horror and uncertainty of our existence in order to reckon with it at a remove without destroying ourselves. A higher form of self-deception, but self-deception nevertheless.

‡Muna's more of an anarcho-nihilist, I think.

#long fucking post just to say 'i don't know'

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