#and that made their jobs super hard considering they messed up more

[ch33z33]

Wrecking Crew + extras

[foldingfittedsheets]

FFS’ Guide to Mattresses:

The following is a non-comprehensive list of questions I get asked a lot and is hopefully a good resource for anyone looking for a new mattress. I am not a scientist. I just sell beds. All bed knowledge is centered in the US, my apologies to international folks.

If this guide proves helpful you can consider popping a tip over on my Ko-fi to say thanks!

What’s the first step?

Well, first thing is gonna seem kind’ve obvious but a lot of people get mattresses secondhand and don’t think about it. Determine the feel you like! There’s no reason to sleep on a hard bed unless you like it, it’s not any better for your back. The three standard feels are firm, medium, and soft. Soft is called plush for stupid reasons. So find out which you like! It’ll narrow down what you look at, and save you time.

When trying out mattresses, use an A-B method. Do not compare every bed. Compare two at a time, otherwise you end up a confused mess. Pick one between the two that you like better, then put that one up against the next choice.

When you eliminate a bed it’s dead to you. Forget it. It was not as good as your new favorite and does not deserve to be remembered. If you cannot pick between two you will be tempted to try a third- this is the devil talking. A third will just make your life harder. If you truly can’t pick between beds that are comparable and they both feel nice after feeling your feelings then pick the cheaper one.

Lastly, mattresses are a huge example of “you get what you pay for”. Investing will pay off. Don’t get sticker shocked, budget what you can but know that mattresses can be freakin expensive. If you go into a store and see $5000 price tags, don’t worry, that’s not all they carry, but focus on the feel of the bed at first rather than price tag.

If you find one you love but it’s too much, the salesperson will know a comparable roll down or will usually try to help you get a deal. If you can admit, “I like this but it’s too much” they’ll work with you to find a solution.

What firmness is best?

This varies person to person but firm beds are not necessarily better for your body. Really. There’s two parts to a good mattress: support and comfort. Support goes underneath and is generally springs or incredibly dense foam. If a bed has good support, you can get away with lots of comfort.

The comfort layer exists to be gentle on your joints and pressure points. People who sleep on their side really need this comfort layer. Without this your shoulders and hips can’t circulate blood and you’ll end up tossing and turning every time your arm starts to fall asleep.

Back in the 1950’s when interconnected coils were the only thing on the market it made sense that you needed them to be firm, otherwise you’d get no back support. But nowadays coils are individually free standing, they do a much better job supporting bodies and bonus, they don’t have to be rock hard.

Most people should get somewhere around a medium bed rather than super firm or super soft but it depends on the persons preferences as all three can be good for you.

How can I tell if a bed has good support?

I’m so glad you asked. You lay on it. There’s a natural curve to the human spine. Lay first on your back. The arch in your lower back, that’s your lumbar. A good bed will push up and fill that area. If your muscles are trying to maintain that arch all night without help it will cause back pain and tossing. The more a bed fills your lumbar the better you can sleep.

Next, lay on your side. You’ll want to focus on your shoulders and hips. Good support on your back is great, but a mattress should have enough squish not to pinch off circulation. Lay for at least five minutes on your side unless you hate it right off the bat, I’m not saying every bed needs this in depth just the one you’re seriously considering. If you feel like you already need to roll over it’s too hard, go softer.

Should I get a topper?

A thousand times no. Toppers are used as a wide ranging bandaid from “there’s a hole in my bed” to “my back hurts”. Commercially available foams in toppers are significantly worse than the foams found in beds. They break down faster and sleep hotter than what they make mattresses with.

The only scenario in which you need a topper is if you’re stuck with a bed that’s too firm for you and you need it a little softer. That’s it. It can make your bed a little softer. It cannot fill holes or fix a bed with bad support. Generally aim to be over $200+ or the topper will break down ridiculously fast and be super hot to sleep on.

What do I do if there’s a divot in my bed?

First off, waterproof protectors can help avoid this problem, so take your bed divot as a life lesson and use a protector on all beds going forward. Our sweat and humidity breaks down foam like nobodies business, causing permanent damage.

So you have a divot, what now? Depends how entrenched it is. When beds get slept on every night for years the foam where a body lays compresses down, and the foam around it stays untouched. You’ll naturally start sinking. But you can get up and walk or crawl along all the foam that isn’t get slept on. If your divot is years deep it may be beyond saving but it’s worth a shot.

You can also rotate beds head to foot every six months and switch the side you and your partner sleep on or sleep all over the bed if you’re alone in it.

If the bed is over ten years old thank it for its service and get a new bed.

When should I get a new bed?

It’s worth checking your sleep quality at ten years into a mattress. The average life expectancy of a bed is 7-9 years. Not because the bed gave out necessarily but because human bodies change. We gain and lose weight, suffer injuries and age. A bed that worked for us eight years ago might not be what we need anymore. So just general age check is good. This is subject to the kind of mattress, bed in a boxes average 3-4 years of comfort so check in sooner.

But additionally: if your bed has a deep body trench where you’ve been sleeping, or if you’re waking up achey or in pain. There’s health problems that can reduce your sleep but a lot of people never suspect their mattress is sabotaging their rest, so keep it in mind.

How do I clean my bed?

Oh boy. You don’t. This goes back to water proof protectors. Your bed is not something you can pop in the wash. But it is something you will sweat and live in for upwards of ten years. Dust mites, dead skin cells, dust mite corpses, dust mite feces, allergens, skin oils. All those things will seep into the bed over time and spoiler alert it’s not great to breathe it in every night.

Sheets only catch a fraction of it, so a waterproof protector keeps the bed safe from your sweat breaking it down, but it keeps you safe from all the things that can build up in a mattress.

If you must clean a mattress I recommend a professional steaming service rather than trying to do it on your own but take this going forward: always protect your bed.

When should I get a new pillow?

Does your pillow have a waterproof protector on it? If no the answer is probably “right now”. Doctors recommend keeping a pillow no more than two years. This is because they’ll lose support and get yucky gross over those two years. If you get a memory foam pillow and get a protector on it they can last way longer. My oldest pillow was around seven years old.

Cheap polyfill pillows you buy at Target or Walmart are really only going to last three months before they wear out. If you are using more then one pillow at night you need a new pillow. Every time you have to wake up and adjust the multiple pillows you’re losing sleep.

Memory foam pillows can be more expensive but will last exponentially longer so save up and spend $50+ on a pillow you’ll actually get to use for a long time rather than $10 on one that will give you a few months of comfort.

What do I look for in a good pillow?

A good pillow is an extension of your spinal support. It should keep your neck aligned with your spine. Ideally, you are laying on a bed to try out a pillows height. It should match the width of your shoulder.

Most mattress stores can fit you for a pillow, but you can also bring a buddy to check your spinal alignment is straight. Side sleeping is most critical to get the height right. Back sleeping you just don’t want it too tall to force your chin down, and stomach you want it low enough not to push your neck up.

I replaced my pillow, now what?

Okay so now you might curse my name for a few days. Bodies are creatures of habit and hate change. Your neck might be in agony on the old pillow but it's familiar agony. So when you boot that sucker to the curb don't throw it out right away. As if I'd ever actually throw away a pillow when I could just hoard it forever.

Start each night on your new pillow. If you wake up in pain, switch back to the old one. Each night you should be able to stay on the new pillow longer and longer until your neck is finally happy. If the new pillow is consistently an issue after a week or more it may be too tall/low for you, unfortunately.

If I’m sleeping well do I really need to replace it (beds/pillows)?

Are you really sleeping well? Replacing beds or pillows is inherently stressful and a lot of peoples happy place is their bed. It’s hard to give up aspects of that cozy zone. If you’re really truly sleeping well no one is gonna make you change.

But generally if you find yourself asking this question you may be trying to convince yourself that things are good enough and ignoring that they could be much better.

Get a sleep tracker if some kind. Let it run for a week or two to see how much you’re tossing and waking up. If it’s a lot and your bed/pillow are old, it’s a good bed they’ve served their time.

If you ever wake up to readjust pillows (or at any point you’re using more than one pillow or mattress) then yes. You need a new one.

Good sleep is the result of the least disruptions. Anything you need to adjust in the middle of the night deserves a hard look and a boot to the curb.

Why shouldn’t I have my mattress flat on the floor?

Mold. Mold mold mold. Remember when I talked about how human bodies are humid? We put out a ridiculous amount of moisture as we sleep from exhalations to sweat. That builds up in the sponge under you and then your body heat maintains the ideal temperature to grow all sorts of nastiness.

You would not believe the amount of molded out beds I’ve seen. Even in the most arid areas, mold. It’s not worth it. Do not leave your bed on the floor. There’s like 2” frames if you like a low bed. If you must have your bed on the floor tip it up against a wall to ventilate every day. Mold will not wait for an invitation.

Japanese futons get brought up a lot here and first off- they get moved every night and washed regularly. Then left to ventilate. They understand that if they left it there it would mold.

Why do I sleep in X position?

Generally your body really wants your spine to curve in the right ways. Sleeping on your back would be ideal if the bed gave you everything you needed but most beds struggle to fill the lumbar. So when your muscles can’t hold your lumbar curve and want a break you roll onto your side.

Stomach sleepers are a case of back muscles fully declaring that nothing can support them and opting to invert rather than deal with poor support. It’s fully the worst sleeping position.

Before I sold beds I was almost 100% stomach sleeper due to scoliosis and back pain. Sometimes side. When I got my new bed I switched to only side and occasionally even back, which astonished me. As my bed has become less what I need I’ve reverted to occasional stomach bouts and less back sleeping.

Why don’t you like bed in a box?

Let me count the ways.

Box beds are the fast fashion of the bed world. They essentially corrupt the support part of the bed equation in order to get a product that can feasibly roll up and be compressed down. The foams are all lower density than they should be and give out quicker. The coils are significantly less steel.

The world cried out for an inexpensive bed and companies responded by giving you significantly less bed per dollar. They often use fiberglass as their flame retardant a requirement for all beds and there’s many testimonials about how poorly that’s gone for people.

But now the greatest sin of boxed beds is that they have the audacity to be marketed at the same price points of traditional beds that don’t roll up.

This robs the consumer of longevity. They’re a rip off. I sell them now at my store and I will do everything in my power to turn folks away onto beds that will actually do their damn job rather than bed mimics.

If you have a bed in a box, please understand that you’ll still get up to five years out of it, and you’re not foolish for buying one. They’ll still always be better than an old broken bed, just look to replace it sooner.

What is a good price point for a new bed?

This is really subjective, but you can get a queen size bed with independent coils for around $600. That’s the lowest good back support I’ve seen. You’ll get ten years out of it and it’ll be a bed.

Stepping into the $1000 mark gives better back support and pressure relief. Up from that they’re going to get more conforming.

Beyond $2000+ you’re generally paying for cooling. It’s the number one thing people want in a new bed but it costs more to give.

Rank Costco, IKEA, or bed in a boxes?

Bed in a box are my lowest tier, for reasons I’ve spoken of at length.

IKEA is next. They’re generally not boxed as of the last time I investigated ikea beds but they’re also just bare bones. Not a lot of either support or comfort, they tend to be around dorm quality.

Costco is a bit of a cheat here. See, they’re a wholesaler but mattresses aren’t something that overstocks- they’re made to order. Costco still wanted to offer a cheap option. So Costco gets beds made to order for really cheap. Now how can Costco offer it so much cheaper? By putting roughly 1/3 less stuff in it by category.

I had a spreadsheet laid out at one point to compare a sealy I carried against what looked like a comparable Costco bed. Every single component was shaved down. Each layer of foam, each coil, they all were about 1/3 less material than our better bed.

Now of course Costco sells boxed bed. So a non-boxed Costco bed is still better than an old broken bed and Costco will basically always take it back which is why they score higher than others but you’re still only going to get about three to five years out of it.

Do I really need a new boxspring? My old one is fine!

Is it really actually 100% fine? Is it just as old as the mattress? Are you willing to gamble the price of the new bed on the existing structural integrity? It’s been load bearing for the lifespan of a bed and the amount of boxes that are actually good to continue service are few and far between.

A few reasons to get new boxes: new beds are made much more floppy than old style to accommodate adjusting on adjustable bases. Old boxes may not offer adequate support for a new bed. Ideally what’s going under a new mattress is solid. No gaps. If you have slats it’s still ultimately better to put a bunkie board under the mattress rather than sitting it right on the slats. Also mattress manufacturers won’t warranty a bed that is on old boxes or improper support.

Adjustable bases are a wonderful replacement for box springs, bunkie boards should go over slats greater that 2” apart, and try to avoid frames that leave big open spaces under the bed.

If this guide was helpful you can consider popping a tip over on my Ko-fi to say thanks!

[its-avalon-08]

Could you write a story where the reader is an F1 reporter who gets along well with everyone? She’s a close friend, and everyone considers her like a “sister” (or maybe even more for some… I don’t know, let me be delulu here!) and when she gets pregnant, they all become super protective and take extra care of her. For example, if she’s struggling with the heat, they make sure she’s comfortable. Thank you!

golden child of the paddock (all drivers)

✦ pairing - all drivers x female!reader (platonic), carlos sainz x female!driver (non platonic)

✦ genre - protective drivers, romance

The first time Y/N stepped into the F1 paddock as a young, starry-eyed reporter, she felt a blend of excitement and nerves. She was new to the sport, young, and a little out of her depth, but she knew her passion for racing and her natural curiosity would be enough to keep her going. Still, when she looked around at the towering motorhomes, the thrumming of engines, and the throng of seasoned journalists, it was hard not to feel like she was in over her head.

"First day on the job?" a voice came from her side. She turned to see none other than Daniel Ricciardo, grinning with that trademark mischievous smile. He’d noticed her as she was nervously adjusting her press badge.

"Uh, yeah," she admitted, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "Guess it's pretty obvious."

Daniel laughed and gave her a friendly nudge. "You’ll be fine. Just stick around us drivers; we’re way more fun than those old journos anyway."

Just then, a few other drivers came over, drawn by the new face in the crowd. Lando Norris was quick to introduce himself, already full of playful questions.

"So, Y/N, are you here to keep an eye on me?" he teased, giving her a wink. "Because, let’s be honest, I’m the only interesting one on the grid."

"Right," Y/N said, unable to help the laugh that escaped. "I’ll try to keep my focus on you, Lando."

Max Verstappen raised an eyebrow with a smirk. "Good luck with that. But hey, if you ever want the real story, you know who to ask."

Y/N quickly felt herself relaxing as the drivers bantered with her, making her feel more at home. Soon, the entire paddock was buzzing with news of the young, friendly reporter. And the drivers? Well, they seemed determined to keep her close.

Over the next few weeks, Y/N found herself almost part of the F1 family. She’d interview the drivers in the press pen, and somehow, every single one of them found a way to add a bit of personal advice or a subtle check-in.

"Did you eat today?" Lewis Hamilton asked her once, holding out an extra protein bar during a post-practice interview.

"Oh, I… yeah, I grabbed something earlier," she stammered, a little caught off guard.

He nodded, handing her the bar anyway. "You’re going to need the energy. Trust me. This job doesn’t slow down."

Even Sebastian Vettel would occasionally pause to check in on her. Once, he found her frowning at her notes during a practice session. "Don’t worry too much about getting every detail perfect, Y/N," he said kindly. "You’re doing great. Just be yourself—that’s what people connect with."

"Thanks, Seb," she said, feeling a bit of relief wash over her. "I guess I’m just… I don’t want to mess up."

Seb gave her a reassuring smile. "You won’t. Just remember, we’re all here to help if you need it."

Then, there was Carlos Sainz. Unlike the others, his way of protecting her was a bit more… personal. The first time she interviewed him, he was warm and polite, but as the weeks passed, his demeanor shifted ever so slightly. He’d always look at her with this glint in his eye, his smile lingering a second longer than necessary.

"Amor," he greeted her one morning, his Spanish accent adding a warmth to the word that made her cheeks heat up. "You’re looking stressed. Are they working you too hard?"

She blinked, feeling a little flustered. "Carlos, I’m fine, really. Just part of the job."

Carlos tilted his head, giving her a small, teasing smile. "Maybe. But if you need a break, you let me know, sí? Can’t have you running around too much."

The way he looked at her, the gentle tone of his voice, and the pet names—amor, cariño—all of it made her feel a little thrill each time they spoke.

As the season continued, it became clear to everyone in the paddock that Y/N was something special. Not just another reporter but someone who cared about them, respected them, and brought a certain brightness with her wherever she went. And as they got closer, the drivers each took on their own version of ‘big brother’ with her.

One afternoon, she was struggling with some heavy equipment when Pierre Gasly spotted her and practically sprinted over.

"Whoa, whoa, no way, Y/N. We’re not doing this," he said, taking the bag off her shoulder. "You’re not carrying anything if we’re around, okay?"

"Pierre, I can handle it, seriously," she tried to argue, but Pierre just shook his head.

"Not happening. You’re stuck with all of us now, so get used to it."

She had barely gotten over Pierre’s chivalrous intervention when she felt someone tap her shoulder. Turning around, she found Charles Leclerc standing with a concerned frown.

"Y/N, I saw you trip on the stairs earlier. You didn’t hurt yourself, right?"

She laughed, brushing it off. "I’m fine, Charles. Just a little stumble."

He crossed his arms, clearly not convinced. "Alright, well, just… watch your step, okay?"

Everywhere she went, there seemed to be a driver looking out for her. They’d bring her water bottles when it was hot, extra snacks when she looked tired, and Carlos, of course, was always there to check on her, calling her mi vida and making sure she never felt alone.

One evening, after a particularly long day, Carlos found her sitting on a low wall by the track, staring out over the circuit, lost in thought.

"Mind if I join you, cariño?" he asked, his voice soft.

"Not at all," she smiled as he sat beside her.

They sat in companionable silence for a while before Carlos spoke. "You know, everyone here thinks of you as a sister."

Y/N laughed. "Yeah, I’ve noticed. I can’t even carry my own things anymore!"

Carlos chuckled, his fingers brushing her arm. "It’s because we care about you. And some of us…" He paused, his gaze turning serious. "Some of us more than others."

Her heart skipped a beat as she looked at him. "Carlos…"

He gave her a shy smile, something rare for the usually confident driver. "I just want you to know, Y/N. You’re not alone here."

She nodded, a soft blush spreading across her cheeks. "I know. Thanks, Carlos."

Just then, Max passed by, smirking. "Hey, Carlos, not hogging Y/N, are we?"

Carlos shot him a look. "Can’t a man have a moment, Max?"

Max grinned, winking at Y/N. "Don’t worry, Y/N. If he’s bothering you, just let us know."

As Max walked off, Carlos rolled his eyes, but his hand found hers, squeezing gently. "They’ll never leave you alone now, mi amor. Better get used to us all."

Y/N smiled, looking out over the track, feeling for the first time that she truly belonged. Surrounded by a family of drivers, each one ready to support, protect, and care for her, she knew this would be the beginning of something wonderful.

--

It was the last night of the race weekend, and the paddock was almost deserted. Only a few lights remained on, casting a soft glow over the empty garages and tents. Y/N lingered by the trackside, her heart racing in her chest. She had made up her mind—she couldn’t keep pretending she didn’t feel anything for Carlos. But she didn’t think she’d be standing here, ready to confess her feelings in such a big way.

"You got this, Y/N," Lando said, giving her a little nudge of encouragement. The rest of the drivers had banded together, helping her plot the perfect confession for the man who had her heart.

"But what if he… I don’t know, laughs?" Y/N wrung her hands nervously, feeling her cheeks flush. "What if he doesn’t feel the same way?"

"Then he’s an idiot," Pierre chimed in with a grin, his arm around her shoulder. "But trust me, he’s not that dumb. I mean, he calls you cariño every day. I’m pretty sure he’s already halfway in love with you."

Sebastian, who had come along to witness the moment, chuckled. "You’ve grown up so fast, Y/N. Look at you—confessing your feelings like a true professional."

"Just… be yourself," Charles added, giving her an encouraging smile. "Carlos would be lucky to have you."

"Really?" she whispered, looking at her friends with wide eyes. They all nodded emphatically, giving her the strength she needed to take the leap.

As she waited, Y/N glanced back at her team of ‘brothers,’ who were hiding in the shadows with poorly concealed excitement. George and Alex were practically bouncing on their toes, and even Max was grinning.

Finally, she saw Carlos walking towards her, his hair still a little messy from the day, his eyes bright despite the late hour. "Y/N?" he asked, his brows raised in surprise. "What’s going on?"

She took a deep breath, willing herself not to lose her nerve. "Carlos, there’s something I need to tell you. And, um… please just listen, okay? Don’t say anything until I’m finished."

Carlos’s smile softened as he nodded. "Of course, mi vida."

"Right, okay…" She took another breath, staring at the ground, feeling her heart pounding against her ribs. "So, ever since I started here, you’ve… you’ve been one of the best parts of my job. The way you tease me, how you’re always looking out for me, calling me all those sweet names…" She laughed, slightly embarrassed. "At first, I thought it was just you being nice. But then… I realized it’s more than that for me. I… I really like you, Carlos. A lot."

There was a soft gasp from somewhere behind her, probably Lando, but Y/N kept her eyes on Carlos, who looked utterly stunned.

"I just couldn’t go on pretending I didn’t feel this way," she continued, her voice trembling. "And if you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. I just… I needed you to know."

Carlos took a step closer, his gaze intense, and she could see a flicker of emotion in his eyes that made her heart swell. "Y/N," he murmured, reaching for her hands. "You have no idea how much I wanted to hear you say that. I was so sure… so sure you only saw me as a friend."

Her cheeks flushed a deep red. "Carlos, I’ve had the biggest crush on you for months. You call me cariño, amor—it’s impossible not to fall for you."

He laughed softly, pulling her closer. "Well, in that case, let me say it properly." His voice softened, his gaze never leaving hers. "Te quiero, Y/N. I want you, too."

A mix of squeals and cheers erupted from the shadows as the other drivers stepped out, clapping and wiping away mock tears.

"Finally!" Daniel shouted, throwing his hands up dramatically. "Our little Y/N is all grown up!"

George pretended to dab at his eyes. "I’m not crying… it’s just… allergies."

Pierre gave her an affectionate grin, giving Carlos a nod of approval. "You better take care of her, Sainz."

Carlos laughed, wrapping an arm around Y/N’s waist, pulling her into his side. "Don’t worry. I’ll treat her like the queen she deserves to be."

Max crossed his arms, his smile warm. "Good answer, mate. We’ve been waiting for this moment forever."

Y/N looked around at her friends, her cheeks sore from smiling. "Thank you, all of you. I couldn’t have done it without you."

Sebastian raised a pretend glass, grinning. "To Y/N and Carlos. And to all the big brothers who made this night possible."

Lando cleared his throat, looking almost sentimental as he pulled her into a quick hug. "We’re really happy for you, Y/N. But remember, if Carlos gives you any trouble, we’ll be right here."

Carlos chuckled, looking down at her with a playful smirk. "I think I have more to worry about than you do, cariño. With all these guys watching out for you, I’ll have to be on my best behavior."

"And that," Y/N said, squeezing his hand, "is exactly how I want it."

Surrounded by her friends—her family—she felt an overwhelming wave of happiness wash over her. As she looked up at Carlos, the rest of the world faded away, leaving only the warmth of his gaze and the knowledge that she was exactly where she belonged.

--

A few years down the road, Y/N had cemented her place as the paddock’s heart and soul. Fans adored her interviews, and the teams always lit up when she was around. Being married to Carlos only added to the love everyone felt for her, and for Carlos, it made him proud—and fiercely protective.

The first few months of her pregnancy, however, had been kept tightly under wraps. Only she and Carlos knew, and they were still basking in the news in secret. But now, as she tried to hide her growing morning sickness and Carlos’s over-attentive concern, things were getting harder to keep quiet.

One morning in the paddock, Max Verstappen happened to pass by and saw Y/N doubled over, looking pale as she sat on a crate outside the Red Bull garage.

"Hey, Y/N, you okay?" Max asked, concerned, immediately handing her his water bottle. "You don’t look too great."

Y/N tried to wave him off with a weak smile. "Oh, it’s nothing, Max, I just… I think it was something I ate."

"Something you ate?" he repeated, narrowing his eyes. "You’ve been saying that a lot lately."

"Just bad luck, I guess," she said, but the nausea hit her again, and she had to lean over to steady herself.

Max’s eyes widened, and his jaw dropped as he pieced it together. "No way. No way. Y/N—are you…"

Y/N’s face flushed, but she couldn’t deny it, her weak smile giving her away.

"Oh my god." Max’s mouth fell open as he processed it. "Carlos got you pregnant?!"

“Shh!” Y/N whispered, glancing around in a panic. "Max, keep it down! We’re not telling people yet!"

Max clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes filling with tears. "Oh my god. Y/N, you’re pregnant." He blinked rapidly, his lips quivering as he tried to hold it together. "You’re gonna have a little Sainz?"

She bit her lip and nodded, smiling softly. “Yes. But you can’t tell anyone yet.”

Max was silent for a moment, his eyes shimmering. Then he let out a choked laugh and pulled her into a gentle hug, whispering, “I’m so happy for you. You’re gonna be the best mom, Y/N. I can already see it.”

Y/N laughed as he let her go, but not before he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Stop crying, Max,” she teased. “You’re making me want to cry, too!”

“I can’t help it,” he sniffled, looking sheepish. “This is huge! And now I have to protect you and the baby?”

“You don’t have to,” she laughed, but Max was already shaking his head.

“No, no, you don’t understand. I’m not letting you lift a finger,” he said, his face suddenly serious. “And I’m making sure Carlos does the same. You’ll have every single driver looking out for you.”

Just then, Carlos approached, his brow furrowing as he saw Max wiping at his eyes. “Max, what’s going on?”

Max pointed a stern finger at Carlos. “You, Sainz, have one job. You better take care of her and the little one. Or else…”

Carlos raised his hands, amused but wary. “I am taking care of her, Verstappen. Trust me.”

“No, not enough!” Max argued, his voice almost panicked. “She was just sitting here, pale as a ghost, and you weren’t even around!”

Y/N stifled a laugh, but Carlos just smirked, nodding in understanding. “Alright, alright, I’ll keep an even closer eye on her. Promise.”

Max softened a bit, but he wasn’t letting up. “Good. Because if anything happens to Y/N or the baby, anything, you’re answering to me. And Lando, and Pierre, and basically every guy in this paddock who cares about her.”

“Max, I think Carlos knows what he’s doing,” Y/N said, a smile playing on her lips.

Max looked between them, then grinned, his face softening. “Fine, but I’m still watching you both.” He took a deep breath, then pulled her into another hug. “I’m so, so happy for you, Y/N.”

“Thank you, Max,” she whispered, hugging him back. “I think we’ll need you and the others looking out for us.”

Carlos wrapped an arm around her shoulder, giving Max a nod of gratitude. “Gracias, amigo. She’ll have all the protection she needs.”

“Good.” Max wiped his eyes one last time, giving them both a fierce nod. “Because we’re all family. And now… we’re growing.”

--

The Singapore Grand Prix was notorious for its blistering heat, and this year was no exception. The sweltering air clung to everyone, and for Y/N, who was visibly and heavily pregnant, it was nearly unbearable. But duty called, and the FIA insisted that she continue her scheduled interviews.

As she was setting up for another interview, the heat making her dizzy, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “Y/N, what are you doing here?” Lewis Hamilton approached her with a look of disbelief, glancing at her with concern. “You should be sitting in an air-conditioned room right now, not out here in this heat.”

“Lewis, it’s fine,” she said with a weak smile, though she was struggling. “It’s just a few interviews.”

Before he could respond, Max and Oscar joined them, both looking equally shocked.

“Are they out of their minds?” Max muttered, his face turning red with anger. “You shouldn’t be out here like this!”

“Seriously, Y/N,” Oscar added, frowning. “This isn’t safe. You’re not a machine.”

Y/N tried to brush them off, but she felt another wave of dizziness hit her. She steadied herself, but Charles had already noticed, his eyes narrowing. “That’s it,” he said firmly. “This is ridiculous. They can’t make you do this.”

“It’s okay, really—” she began, but the drivers were not having it.

Lewis crossed his arms, looking around with a sharp glare. “Who do we need to talk to? This isn’t happening, not today.”

As if on cue, a member of the FIA walked over, clipboard in hand. “Y/N, are we ready for the next interview?”

Max stepped in front of her before she could answer, his voice low and menacing. “She’s not doing any more interviews. Send someone else.”

The official frowned, clearly taken aback. “Excuse me? This is her job—”

“Yeah, and her job shouldn’t put her or her baby in danger,” Charles interjected angrily. “She’s done for the day.”

Oscar nodded in agreement. “Get someone else. This isn’t up for discussion.”

The FIA official looked bewildered, glancing at Y/N, but Lewis shot him a glare that would have stopped anyone in their tracks. “You have plenty of other reporters. Don’t make us get security involved.”

Seeing no way around it, the official nodded reluctantly. “Fine. She can go. But this will be reported.”

The drivers didn’t care; they were already surrounding Y/N protectively, guiding her towards the paddock lounge.

“Thank you, guys,” she murmured, touched by their concern. “But I can handle this, really—”

“No way,” Max cut her off, shaking his head. “Carlos would kill us if we let you stay out there in this heat.”

As they led her to the lounge, Carlos appeared, having just gotten word of what happened. His expression was a mix of relief and anger as he approached the group. “Qué demonios? Y/N, why didn’t you call me?”

Y/N shrugged, looking sheepish. “I didn’t want to bother you…”

Carlos looked ready to explode, turning to the FIA official who had followed them, probably to try and salvage the situation. “You made her work out there, in this heat, while she’s pregnant? Are you insane?”

The official held up his hands defensively. “We were just following standard protocol—”

“To hell with your protocol!” Carlos shouted, his face flushed with anger. “She’s carrying our child, and you’re risking her health for some interviews?”

“Mr. Sainz, please calm down—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Carlos snapped, switching to rapid Spanish that the official clearly didn’t understand, though the tone left no doubts about what he was saying. “This is unacceptable. Inaceptable!”

“Carlos, you’re going to get fined,” Lewis warned quietly, though he was smirking a little, clearly pleased to see someone giving the FIA a piece of their mind.

“Fine me, I don’t care,” Carlos shot back. “It’ll be worth every cent if it means they treat her properly.”

The official quickly left, muttering something about reporting this to higher-ups, but the drivers didn’t care. They were all clustered around Y/N, making sure she was comfortable as they brought her a cold towel and water.

As soon as she was settled in, Max crouched beside her, giving her a warm but firm look. “From now on, you call us if they try to make you do anything stupid again, alright?”

Y/N chuckled, touched by their fierce protectiveness. “I promise.”

Carlos sat beside her, still fuming, but his hand gently rested on her stomach, protective and calming. “If they pull anything like this again, they’ll have to deal with all of us,” he said, his tone softer but no less serious.

That night, news of Carlos’s outburst—and his subsequent fine—spread like wildfire across social media. Fans took to Twitter, trending hashtags like #ProtectY/N and #JusticeForY/N. Clips of the drivers banding together to protect her from the heat circulated, and the internet quickly turned it into a rallying cry against the FIA’s treatment of Y/N.

@F1Fanatic: "Carlos got fined for standing up for his pregnant wife, and I’m here for it. #ProtectY/N 💪🔥"

@PaddockPrincess: "Seeing all the drivers look out for Y/N is the purest thing ever. She deserves all the love 🥹❤️ #FamilyGoals #ProtectY/N"

@F1Daily: "We all knew Carlos was protective, but the way he went off on the FIA? ICONIC. #JusticeForY/N"

Y/N couldn’t help but smile as she scrolled through the support from fans, all of whom felt like an extended family. With Carlos by her side, and a whole paddock of brothers watching over her, she knew she and her baby would be safe, no matter what.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for trying to get my disabled coworker fired?

I know it sounds bad which is exactly why I’m asking. Please give it a read-through before voting though.

I (18M) work a food service job. One of my coworkers, L (20sF), is deaf, which can make working with her harder than other coworkers. I don’t mind this, and have taught myself some ASL to communicate with her when phones aren’t available.

However, in my half a year of working here, I’ve noticed that she has bad habits compared to every other coworker I have. For example, L comes in late nearly every day. I wouldn’t mind it if it was only by a few minutes, but she regularly comes in over 20 minutes late, and on occasion, being over 40 minutes late. Being the only other person who works mornings in my position, this makes my job harder because I have no clue when I’ll have someone to help me. It’s especially bad during morning rushes, in which I have to do almost everything by myself.

She regularly lies in order to get off as well. At one point, she told everyone in the store she was sick. We let her go for the day, but 30 minutes after she left, she posted about going to a party on her Facebook account. There are other incidents, but this is one of the clearer ones.

There have also been incidents in which she messes up food. Bad. At one point, she poisoned a customer by putting something they were allergic to in their order. It wasn’t even a thing that normally came on the food, so I couldn’t chalk it up to a really unfortunate mistake.

When L does prep work, her stuff usually turns out super poorly as well. With the dough she makes, it’s always so thin that someone has to go back and add flour to it. With the in house sweet cream we make, it’s always unmixed at the bottom. And just a few days ago, the chicken salad she made turned out fucking pink. A coworker got sick giving it the benefit of the doubt and trying some.

L’s also, frankly, really unpleasant to be around. She’s incredibly bossy, which is rich for how lazy she can be. If you’re around her when there’s nothing going on, you’ll hearing about all of her personal drama. Complete with private messages between her and her boyfriend of the week, messages with her doctor with way to much detail about her sex life, and at one point, photos of a dead dog she had run over that morning. All completely unprompted.

She’s also been hitting on me and another coworker recently. I have repeatedly stated I have no interest in romance in general, and the other coworker is taken.

L continues to do these things, despite everyone telling her otherwise. Even when the manager or boss get onto her, she’ll only change for a bit and then go back to her old habits.

The reason I’m asking if I’d be the asshole is because I know it’s hard to get a job while disabled in this country. And L’s been at this job for 3 years somehow. I know that doesn’t excuse a lot of things, but I still have trouble knowing that someone could be going without money they need.

There’s so much more I could get into here, but I already fear that this is too much.

So TLDR: I’m considering pushing for my deaf coworker to get fired because she regularly shows up really late, endangers customers, and makes everyone uncomfortable.

What are these acronyms?

[synthetictorque]

Hi, I’m a housekeeper. I’ve seen plenty of nicely left rooms, and some utter messes that made me almost cry. For the most part, people are super well behaved and I thank you for that.

However, this job is really taxing. I enjoy it, but a lot of housekeepers are usually quite young or they are older, which can be a lot of pressure on them for health and mental reasons. I’ve had to start using braces on occasion.

It’s a difficult job no matter where you go- and one rule I live by is don’t do what I wouldn’t like to clean up. So here are some things you could try to do, and make a hard job a little easier. Please consider re-blogging this so that others can try to help out too!

STRIP LINEN It saves water, but also it saves time for us too if you strip the linen off anything you’ve touched and leave the stuff you haven’t alone. Towels can be reused, but I would leave a note for the housekeeper to alert them.

ROOM CLEANING Most hotels can offer room service, however, in my hotel this can be added on to 10 rooms already. If you don’t need it, please make it known at the front desk or leave a ‘do not disturb’ sign. If you really need it, make sure you move your stuff off what needs cleaning as we cannot touch it.

TIPS Optional, but after cleaning a room with four kids and yogurt in the tea and coffee bowl, it is nice to see a little tip. I personally will take sealed consumable items like soap or once, a whole box of tea. It’s not much, but it has knocked our toiletries cost way down.

BIG BINS If your bins are full, and you know you’re going to have more rubbish, ask for a large bin bag. We have those. You don’t have to break the rubbish bag because you needed to stuff it in.

CUPS, MUGS AND CUTLERY If you have taken food up to your room, if you have a drink from the bar or glass bottles, if you have dirty mugs- consider who has to take those back. If you have time take your things back to where they came from and try to reuse the mugs and cups.

AND FINALLY, KNOW THE CHECKOUT TIME In our hotel, final checkout time is 12. Please go to the front desk even if you have a card box outside your room, and try to be packed and leave as early as you can. I’ve had days where I have 6 rooms, but no one leaves until 12 and I end up working overtime to finish. Check in time is 3 for me, and having guests want rooms while you’re rushing to catch up can make me incredibly stressed.

These aren’t all going to be doable, or present, but please, please PLEASE consider doing one or more of these for us. Any housekeeper will tell you a clean room can make the last bad room seem far away.

Thank you for your consideration and kindness!

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

OC questionnaire

Thanks @oliolioxenfreewrites here and here, @winglesswriter here, @the-golden-comet here, here, and here, @paeliae-occasionally here, and @drchenquill here!

Rules: answer the given questions in the POV of your OCs, then give the next people three more questions!

Holy shit I'm actually caught up?!?!

Previous Questionnaires:

Rounds One and Two Masterpost

Maddie, Ash, Noelle, Ewan, Jazlyn, Lexi, Alex, Carmen

Gwen, Gabriel, Liam, Xitlali, Akash, Jedi, Rose, Sam

See below for: Robbie, Hye-Jin, George, Wade, CJ, Teo, Atsila, Niri

#1- Robbie

Would you consider yourself loyal?

“Well, I don't exactly want to toot my own horn or anything but yeah, I consider myself loyal. If anything happened to Akash, I'd actually lose it. I got into a physical fight in his honor. That was how I displayed my powers for the first time, actually, so that was pretty cool. Sammy, too, I'm very loyal to my sister. And my friends at Alium, they're so dope, I love them, okay? So, yeah, loyal. Me. I'm that. I'm like a dog that way. ... I think that's a good thing. I dunno why I had to say that, I was done. *Sigh* okay I'm just gonna stop now and move onto the next question because holy shit I'm rambling, and I always do that, and I never know when to stop annnd I'm doing it again, okay for real this time. I'm done.”

If you saw someone unhoused on the corner asking for money, would you stop and give or keep going?

“From personal experience, I'd stop. My mother always makes sure I have money, cash, on my person at all times. And unfortunately - well, maybe not unfortunately, I dunno why I said that, the POINT is, I have this thing where if I see something bad happen, and I know I could help, but then I don't, I literally cannot stop thinking about that for anywhere between a full 48 hours to the rest of my life. I passed someone before, because I was late, and then ran back and gave them like five dollars because it ate me up, but they were happy, so that made up for the fact that I was late. Great, now it sounds like I'm humble-bragging. I swear I'm not trying to. My point is that I want to help people. And I'll stop there before I ramble again.”

Pineapple on pizza. Thoughts?

“Gonna be honest, never tried it. But I'm SUPER curious. I gotta know what it tastes like, but I'm scared. Both Ash and Noelle like it. Ash I don't trust at all - that girl likes the dumbest food combinations - and Noelle is interesting because she likes food and knows what goes well together, but also I don't remember when she's ever described food as bad, and she has other pizza toppings that she claims are better anyway. Point is, I'm curious but scared to try it.”

✨ Robbie intro post✨

#2- Hye-Jin

What's your earliest childhood memory?

“Oh, that's difficult. Hmmm... I'm not sure which is the first memory, actually. It's not like I memorized the time and dates of everything haha! [Pause] Okay, fine, I remember. It was the first day of preschool. I had only just turned three. Everyone in the class had these, uh, Assignments, I guess. Roles? Hm... Ah yes, jobs, so everyone in the classroom had responsibility. It was randomized, but I got the "caboose," or the person who stood in the back of the line. I cried really hard because I thought that was the worst job in the world, and my teacher probably hated me. I got to carry a flower, though, so I think that calmed me down.”

Do you dance?

“It's more like did. From, hm... Ah, kindergarten grade through sixth grade, I did ballet, tap, and jazz at a local dance studio. But middle school kinda allowed me to take more extra curriculars that were more convenient, so my parents told me I should probably drop dance after my sixth grade year was a mess. I didn't want to, but y'know it is my parents' money. I wish I could've kept it up.”

What smell you can't stand?

“Oh, cinnamon. I'm so sorry, but I don't like it. The smell, anyway. It's weird, I don't mind cinnamon as a taste. But the smell is too much. Maybe that's weird.”

Other Hye-Jin: OC in three, fun facts, bingo, deep dive, origin, outfit, questionnaire one, questionnaire two

#3- George

What never fails to make you laugh?

“A couple things. One: my sister, Carla. She's actually really funny. Watch a movie with her, and you'll see. She's yelling at the screen, insulting her favorite characters, getting way too invested. She tells me all of her thoughts. Two: stupid customers. Hilarious! Someone told me their newly installed voice activator was broken. They were going to pay me a LOT of money. They programmed their voices and everything! Turns out, they hadn't turned it on yet. Three: Liam. The guy can turn everything into an argument, it's fascinating to watch. But funny as in he's super clever, and he can roast anyone. The funniest day for me would be if they came with me on my job, i had to deal with a dumb customer, Liam roasted them, and Carla ranted about a new movie she found.”

How can you tell if you’ll get along with someone?

“Haha, that's funny. People skills are just a little overrated. It's been Carla and me in our house for a while, and we've been doing fine! I'm certainly not going to make friends doing my job no matter how much the homeowners want to talk to me. Liam is cool, and I knew I was gonna get along with him when we met, so he's literally the only example I have for this question. Okay... I knew I was going to get along with him because I was getting everything hooked up to move a lot of the data to our place, and I was talking out loud and Liam seemed bored so he inserted himself into the one-sided conversation and helped me figure out everything. Then the next day, I was working on one of the computers, and Liam came up to me and just started talking. He said I seemed bored, and I was. Sometimes I can't fix things at superspeed because I have to wait for the computer to respond, or the hardware is delicate or something. He asked me to 'infodump,' he said, about any topic I wanted to. The previous night, I stayed up late reading the entire file on jellysponges, so I just talked about them and suddenly, it was like no time had passed and the computer was done! Liam nodded, said my information would be helpful if he ever got into an Alii marine biology debate, and then he invited me to sit with him at lunch. That was cool.”

Do you prefer sweet, savory, sour, or salty snacks?

“I have been talking for way too long. Well, I mean, you may not think it's that long, but I don't do this unless I'm excited about something, and being a speedster it feels like it's taken forever. Anyways, I like all snacks because I have to eat a lot for my metabolism, but honestly out of those snacks I like salty chips.”

Other George: OC in three, questionnaire one, questionnaire two, fun facts

What is your favorite season?

#4- Wade

“Ooh, that's hard. [A couple seconds of silence.] Sorry, Liam's in my head debating all of them. Alright *claps hands* I think it has to be summer. There's so many things to do, and it is always pretty fun to just make a vacation plan. And the beach is awesome. Teo and Parker and I plan our summer - well I plan it; if the others did it'd be a disaster, and they know it. The point is, our summers rock.”

Where would you like to visit?

“I would like to go to Japan. There's so much stuff to do in Tokyo alone. I haven't been to Comic-Con, and I'd really like to, or an anime con. Being from Florida, I've been to Disney World a few times, but not Disneyland in California. Then again, the one in Tokyo... Man, there's a lot of planning that'd be involved. Can't wait til I graduate.”

When do you usually go to sleep?

“I try to be in bed by ten so I can get to sleep before eleven because high school times are shit and I want at least six hours before I have to get up, and that's still not enough sleep! Parker and Teo have it worse, though, since they both can't get settled down until, like, midnight. Uggghhh, we should ban school before nine.”

Other Wade: OC in three, interview, kiss, questionnaire one, questionnaire two, two truths and a lie

#5- CJ

How long has it been since you last travelled?

“Last summer, my family went and traveled around Sector 8 in Alium. It was so fun. Though I admittedly kinda missed Issa. She would've loved it. My favorite part was seeing an opera, actually. It's quite fascinating.”

Where is your favourite place?

“I find it a little strange to have a favorite place. Sometimes my room is a good place to be but sometimes I just want to leave it. Now, I think you're probably just referring to a place that statistically I'm more likely to be happy in. In that case *shrug* not enough data to say definitively, sorry. However, I sometimes stop by the library and just organize books that are there. They're always out of place. And the librarians know me by name. I don't think I have any bad memories there, so even though I don't go to the library every day, I think that's my answer.”

If the inciting event never happened, what would you be doing?

Other CJ: questionnaire one, questionnaire two

*bursts out laughing* “'Inciting event?' Like, as in stirring up something or like, in a story? Cause this is real life, baby. Okay, I'll play along. I guess one could say it was Rose showing up. I suppose if that never happened, I would just be living life like normal. Rose and I don't have a lot in common, but I enjoy talking to her. She is really friendly and thoughtful. So I guess I would be a friend short. And I would be content, but not as happy as I am now.”

#6- Teo

Do you speak more than one language?

“Uh-huh. Three, actually. English, Vietnamese, and American Sign Language! I'm fluent in all of them. My parents decided to try and teach me ASL when they realized I'd need, like, hearing aids, so they, like, took classes and taught me! And not to toot my own horn but, like, having three languages down meant my brain was, like, SO ready for kindergarten.”

What is your favorite thing to eat?

“Do NOT make me choose. It's literally, like, whatever I'm eating in the moment. Right now *holds up* it's this sandwich.”

What drives you to succeed?

“My boyfriend. And also, like, my own ambitions. I can do a lot of things. Again, not bragging, just a fact. I know, like, gymnastics, acting, improv, role play, those are similar I know, playing the guitar, singing, photography, ballet, graphic design, editing, I can go on. It's literally just me wanting to learn how to do more stuff, y'know? I want to build an impressive ass resume. Not just for, like, jobs, life in general. I'm always looking for new skills.”

Other Teo: questionnaire one, questionnaire two, kiss

#7- Atsila

What's the worst thing you've ever done? Do you regret it?

“The worst thing? Ha-ha-ha, what a question. What, in my opinion? Well, I wasn't paying much attention in my literacy class, so I failed! Hahaha, I'm kidding. I'm just not the kind of person to do terrible things, baby. I guess sometimes my competitive nature has made other people upset, but that's technically not anything I've done. Well, that's settled.”

What's the quickest way to make you laugh?

“I do love watching someone make a fool out of themselves. Deserved, though. I have standards. I won't kick people while they're done, but it's sure funny when those who get in my way fall over. Also, make a sexual innuendo and I'll be on the floor in stitches.”

What is your favorite song right now?

“There's this lovely piece called ‘Who We Become in the Shadows’ by Keano Adler. You wouldn't have heard of it, being Ceter and all. Anyway, I should get back. It was lovely talking with you.”

Other Atsila: questionnaire one, questionnaire two

#8- Niri

Do you sometimes wish to be someone else?

“Sometimes, yes. I don't want to lie. I'm thankful that it isn't constant. Usually, I am happy. Sometimes I'm not. It depends on the situation.”

Do you push forward or take time to rest?

“Hard question. [Thinks about it] I think I rest if I find a task boring. I push forward when I like the task.”

What is your favorite drink?

“I like hot chocolate. It is not just a winter drink!”

Other Niri: questionnaire one, questionnaire two

Tagging @sarandipitywrites @theeccentricraven @reininginthefirewriting @paeliae-occasionally @bread-roses-and-chrome

+ ANYONE ELSE

Y'all's questions: 1) Describe your ideal life. 2) What are you most looking forward to? 3) What's your most unique trait?

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet

[002yb]

Runs to you hands you a note that says "dickjay kink praise" and leaves

Alright, so it's to be expected that I've got a strong hankering for Dick praising Jason and Jason being wrecked for it but like. Jason praising Dick? There's something here and like...it's super cute!! Hear me out:

Jason considering how Dick grew up with applause (at the circus) and how there's no such praise for Dick now, only an expectation to do and to do it without err

And it's not like Dick seems to mind, but Jason can't help but wonder if Dick misses it: the wonder, the awe, the reverence.

None of those things are lacking from Dick's life now, necessarily, but he receives them in different ways. More subdued, more conservative.

Gone are words of affirmation and shows of gratitude, replaced instead with implicit trust as heroes and colleagues and friends shift their burdens onto Dick's shoulders because they have an utmost faith that Dick will help them, guide them, save them

No one tells Dick that he does a good job or in what ways he's extraordinary. Maybe it's because heroes value action more than words? Jason isn't sure, but he thinks it might be a shame.

It's a great thing to know you're respected - to see that reflected in people trusting your skills and capabilities. It's wonderful to know you're well-liked - to recognize it in the way people flock to you, drawn in by some sort of gravity.

It's something else entirely to be praised.

It's on a whim that Jason says it. It's some inconsequential day during a patrol break or after a post-patrol debrief; it's out of the blue entirely - on a day where they happen to be in one another's space. Lounging before another grueling night. Or while Jason is dropping off lunch or a duffel of Dick's stuff at the station at Alfred's behest. An inconsequential day at an inconsequential time but Jason is curious and can't shake what a damn shame it is because Dick...

Maybe Dick doesn't want or need the praise, but he works damn hard and tries fucking hard to be good: a beacon to guide the lost, a hope for those that have lost the light.

So Jason considers Dick, marveling him and the way that Dick bears burden and expectation and is so frustratingly graceful despite the thanklessness of it all

(But Jason knows as well as any of them - they don't do all the shit they do for something as paltry as gratitude...though it is nice, sometimes. To be seen. To be acknowledged. To have someone recognize the efforts and sacrifices made).

But praise is - it's hard? So Jason's whim to praise comes out a tongue-tied mess that undermines his usual wit and eloquence, but Jason stands by it despite how the compliment might have been a little too honest and makes Jason's cheeks flush pink: 'you're really inspiring.'

And Dick is caught off guard by it, incredulous until he recognizes the sincerity in the sentiment and Jason startles a bit because Dick smiles and it's so heartrendingly genuine and breathtaking and Jason can't believe how damn devastating it is

Dick is gracious about it even as he ducks his head and carries on doing whatever he was doing. 'Thank you,' Dick tells him and Jason wants to say more. More and more because he thinks Dick needs to hear it; sometimes it's important to hear these things: 'i appreciate you,' and 'i see you,' and 'thank you.'

Also it's only after writing this far that I've remembered that 'kink' was supposed to be part of this, which uh. Whoops. Let this be wholesome praising praise kink.

[yandere-fics]

♡ How they react to you falling asleep on them prior to dating. ♡

♡ The City Version ♡

(Veronia is missing since the moment you meet her, she kidnaps you and flies away with you so there's no before dating.)

♡ Shame on you for falling asleep on duty. You were literally her maid so slacking off, Y/N? Tsk tsk. She's thrilled on the inside because now you're going to have more reason to listen to her, you wouldn't want to lose your cushy palace job yes? Well don't you worry, she's very gracious and she won't tell anyone how you slacked off. ♡

♡ Actually go ahead and do it again, she won't mind. The head maid is just so mean to you and won't let you take naps, she'll just have to let the head maid know you're her favorite and to give you all the naps you want, as long as they're in her room. She doesn't care if the maid denies you naps anywhere else in the palace, you shouldn't be sleeping anywhere but her room and arms anyways. ♡

♡ So romantic isn't it, being the Crown Princess's favorite servant and taking a nap on her lap as she reads in the library, an area which non-royals are usually restricted from but you're her favorite servant. Meanwhile you feel like you're being punished for sleeping one time because you are so anxious. ♡

When you died you'd still be cursing the day you were sitting with the Crown Princess and drifted off on her shoulder. It was like she wanted to humiliate you, like some toy. She made a big show of forcing you to only nap when it was on her.

She was lucky she was royalty because if even another noble did this, you would have blown up on them ages ago. Maybe if you faked your death you could just nap in peace or if you ran away from the palace, she wouldn't think it was worth it to track you.

She smiled smugly as you curled against her, too exhausted to fight it off despite how much you hated her at the moment. She was so proud that she had her sweet little maid in her arms, peacefully resting, you must love her so much that you can't fight it off.

♡ Oh no, you triggered her aggressively affectionate mode. Prior to dating she's very nonchalant and behaves like she could take you or leave you, she has no cares. That's very much a lie but anyways, once you start behaving affectionately and this certainly counts as affection in her eyes, all her feelings just spill out. ♡

♡ This is the best day of her life, she tell you that you two are dating now as soon as you wake up and she won't take no for an answer. You clearly were just being shy before but you messed up and showed your 'true feelings' when you fell asleep on her. ♡

♡ Please let her have this or she might start to believe you just fall asleep on everyone and you don't do that right? Right?! She's a bit intense with this, just let her think she's special or she may have to kill anyone who has had the pleasure of witnessing you sleeping. ♡

You often fell asleep near her as you travelled together so it was bound to happen when you fell asleep a tad bit too close to her. You often shared a room in inns and sometimes there was only one bed(omg only one bed) so sometimes even with the separator installed, you still woke up near her.

This was far different though. Far too intimate for your liking, apparently when you fell asleep you curled towards her and clung to her as you napped the entire time, something you had never done before but you were rather stressed this week, you'd followed her as she slayed four dragons this week, a higher workload than regular.

It didn't help that Elisha was petting your head when you woke up and she greeted you too much like a lover would when she noticed you woke up. And when the inn keeper came to collect the money, she almost seemed like she was hiding you from view? Super weird.

♡ Her sweetheart falling asleep on her and she didn't even need to force it. What a blessing, she works so hard to become a knight worthy of pledging herself to you, with very little rewards these past months considering how hard you fight for her to allow you knighthood. She struggled daily hoping that soon she'd be able to ask you out. ♡

♡ Now her rewards have finally arrived. She will be expecting it more but she's not going to outright ask. It would be inappropriate to ask that of a lady who is not her lover. Yet. ♡

♡ It's going to be on her mind constantly though. It's what gets her through training, a taste of the affection she will get when she finally has her sweetheart. She thought you would have to be trained before you showed her that affection but it seems she was wrong. ♡

"Uhm Dame Parley?" She's been whacking the training mannequin, over and over, probably for the last two hours. She barely pause for a moment to look at who called for her only to see you.

"Ah! Y/N! What is it that you need Sweetheart?" She wipes off with a towel that you brought her. She hated having her future lover run these errands for her but with the progress she made you wouldn't be her errand girl for much longer.

"Please forgive me for falling asleep on you, I hope this won't affect my knightage test." And that brought her crashing back down to reality, you still were insisting on becoming a knight. Shouldn't you know now that being in her arms gave you the best sleep ever? Suppose she will still have to train you.

♡ She's so delusional that this isn't unusual to her, sure you haven't defined the relationship but you feel the same as she does surely. You definitely felt that spark when you two first met so it makes sense for you to fall asleep on her. ♡

♡ She's just going to continue her work like normal, while being careful not to disturb you, this isn't something to freak out about, sure she loves the affection but she'd rather it be when you're awake and even when it happens she isn't freaking out because it's only natural. ♡

♡ The chillest in this scenario, just don't apologize for it or she might get upset, why are you apologizing for loving her? Do you not know that your feelings are reciprocated? She'll have to clear that silly misconception up right away. ♡

As the assistant to the Court Wizard, you expected things to be weird, you expected boundaries with your boss would become crossed as she was so much older than you. This seemed a tad bit far.

You woke up sitting in her lap and when you asked why she said you fell asleep on her shoulder so she moved you to her lap so you'd be more comfortable. Surely she didn't think of this situation as normal did she?

Ainsley was one to cross several boundaries and just think nothing of it, she kissed you on the forehead when you left the tower for supplies, but this was very weird, considering she didn't let you move once you finally woke up, just cooing at you to rest more. Gods you needed a raise or a job relocation.

[itsnothingofinterest]

Since I have you, btw, I’d like to address something that I don’t see you bringing up very often in your posts: the place that civilians have in the absolute mess that is hero society.

In MHA’s society, heroes are put on a pedestal as being the answer to all of society’s problems, the ones who will always save the day. Tenko’s story is emblematic of this; he needed help, and the so-called “good citizens” paid him no heed or told him to wait for a hero, because they didn’t consider it their job to help him. Thus, he was taken in and groomed by AFO, leading to the current situation.

A lot of your posts talk about how the heroes haven’t substantially changed and how the new generation doesn’t seem to be surpassing the old one as much as they should, but… how much better can you really expect them to be? They’re basically super-powered cops or soldiers. They’ve been trained to be the blunt instruments of society, upholding public order even when that order isn’t necessarily good. And while it’s great that heroes like Izuku and Ochako are thinking beyond that, I don’t think they can or should be made to take all the responsibility on improving things. Just because they’re superhuman doesn’t make them gods. They just can’t do it all (again, especially due to the influence of their training and the corrupt government).

I don’t expect a MHA II, and even considering that possibility, I’m not really sure it would address your complaints with the heroes. Personally, what I’m hoping for is that the civilians follow up on what was said after Ochako’s speech. They should answer her call, mobilize, get the fallen heroes and villains to safety, and after the war, they should factor heavily into how society improves for everyone. That’s my take on things.

(Kind of in response to this post.)

Well I do think a change in the civilian mindset is a potential solution to the faults in hero society, or at least a part of one. (It’d need to be quite a dramatic shift to help more than just the Tenkos of the country though.)

If I may broaden the topic a bit, I'd say in general that any kind of solution I’m looking for would involve some drastic change in one or more levels of hero society to save the people current-day heroes are sweeping under the rug. Could be the heroes, could be the civilians, & government's a longshot but would that work if it happened. That said, relying on the civilians here and now, as we last saw them for that is a bit…well…

The Civilian level

Alright so; my main problem with putting all this on the civilians right now is, even when they let Deku in under Ochako’s prompting, many only ultimately agreed to take Deku in that day when promised a return of the status quo. That deal was even a significant part of Ochako's speech. So they didn’t come out of that looking ready to better the world to me (even before we factor in them triggering Danger Sense when demanding he leave.) And even then, if we took that decision in the best possible light, that’s just one step in the direction of solving just one of the many problems that led to the League destroying so much. Let's not forget their troublesome mindset towards any unseemly quirks like Shinsou's, Toga's, or any heteromorph. And just, in general the civs have a shorter track record of being helpful then...the opposite. It's just hard putting everything, all the hopes for this country pulling its head out of its arse, on one scene of the civs agreeing to house a hero in exchange for the heroes doing their job, you get me?

I mean like, I certainly can get behind the idea of the civilians changing to better help each other not fall to tragic villainy or excuse corruption; they just don’t feel there yet in the same way the kids don’t/haven’t felt ready to save their villains yet.

(To say nothing of how humanity in MHA has a shelf life of around a century at best. And no one left on any side cares to do anything about it even for selfish reasons. So it really feels like small steps towards getting their act together are not the way to go, if for no other reason than another crisis will soon make them all very busy.)

Also, and this is minor in the grand scheme, but we should remember that there are no civilians anywhere near any battleground in this war besides hospital patients and the Todorokis; the rest are all evacuated. So I’m afraid likely we can't end the war with them helping with the clean up and getting folks to safety, and thus build this idea of them carrying their weight going forward. Best we could get is an epilogue with little additional build up of having them all clean up their act. And I'd question the writing of that happening, & that being the big solution to everything that got use here.

The Hero level

Regarding the heroes; well to be honest I don't see a ton of trouble with putting this on them when saving as many as they can is what heroes are supposed to do. Yes under the current system, they’re just super cops in practice; but that’s a flaw in the system capable of being mended, not some unavoidable part of the ideal they’re trying to embody. There's plenty of room for what heroes are to grow to what they should be.

‘Plus I don’t think any Deku-types would really be opposed anyway, he wants to save everyone already, and it feels like the idea of heroes sweeping aside those they don’t save hits home for him’...that’s what I had written before the last chapter dropped while writing this and supported everything I’m saying*. For all I criticize Deku & his classmates; we all know he wants to do more, to save more. Give him the chance & a good idea how and he’ll jump at “shredding the rug with his own hands.”

Maybe it is, from a certain perspective, unfair to say they all need to be like this. But I get the distinct impression that this is what a lot of the hero characters want to be; this is part of the ideal they want to embody. After all, in the aftermath of his forced retirement, even All Might wanted to save Tomura.

(*Btw, sorry this took a bit to write.)

The Government

Ah yes, and it'd be remiss of me to ignore how much of this stems from seeming government policy and general societal reaction to quirk based topics (though there may be overlap there & civilian attitudes). But I want to post this answer sometime this week; so I won't get too into the poor handling of quirks since their inception, the correlating quirk laws, just...the hero commission in general (where would I start?), the effects all this has on hero training as you brought up, or the prison where people get sent for life with no trial or parole. (I don’t care if they’re all supposed to be monsters, especially when we know that’s where they’d have sent Toga & Dabi had things gone differently. “But Tartarus was destroyed,” Yeah but why would they not make a new one?) And probably other stuff I'm forgetting off the top of my head. But suffice to say, there’s a few messes that could be cleaned up there too.

Conclusion

So I guess one way or another, the solution I’m looking for is some dramatic shift in hero society on one or more of the civilian, hero, or government levels to address the causes of the League's fall to villainy. Any combination could hypothetically work.

But the reason I never shut up about a my hero part 2 is that none of them feel like they’re in a state to work like that now. Heroes & civilians on their respective wholes have both made small steps in the right direction and I don't want to downplay that (leadership not so much but what else is new), but both elements need more time & development to accelerate these steps and feel like we could trust them to get anything done in the next century.

[norrisreads]

delicate - yt #22

PAIRING: yuki tsunoda x reader!

SUMMARY: inspired by delicate - Taylor Swift

WARNINGS: fluff, hinge of angst! cheater! ex !!!!!! insecure reader!

FC: karina from aespa

masterlist

“ hi! you mentioned drawing inspiration for your fic from songs. can you write Yuki fic based on Delicate by Taylor Swift where they are both into each other but the reader is so afraid to mess up because of her problematic past? maybe a little angsty to spice it up? thank you xx”

love love the idea of this, hope you’re happy with my take on it <3 yuki needs more love and fics 😭🙏🏻

Being friends with the scuderia alphatauri driver, yuki tsunoda has it’s pros and cons. Having met on a cooking class and being closer to each other after one dinner ‘date’ made you realise the both of you have tons of similarities. you’ve never realised yuki was a driver racing for the formula one, not until you’ve realised you were stopped in the streets by fans asking for a picture with him.

pros are you’re well contented with his presence, not having a single dull moment whenever you’re around him

and cons are being scared to confessing your feelings to the said driver, with a fear of rejection and letting him in your life permanently.

It's okay to consider confessing; what scares you is your fear of being rejected. Rejection and you are not compatible, and neither is maintaining people in your life on a long-term basis.

A terrible memory has to be the day your friends and ex-boyfriend publically humiliated you. It seems like everyone, including their mothers, knew about his affair with your ex-best friend, which made the entire year unbearably monotonous and depressing.

It's safe to assume that you never truly had someone there for you during your difficult times because you were never great with people—that is, until you met Yuki.

Despite his hectic schedule, he was there for you when you were hired for your dream company and even celebrate your 22nd birthday. You've come to realize that you were no match for him because he was there for you through everything.

You were simply a typical lady...a regular person who works for a company and relies upon that job for her income—someone he had met while taking cookery classes during his downtime. You weren't a well-known figure in the industry or an influencer. Perhaps this explains why, unseen to you, Yuki Tsunoda has a major crush on you.

“hey what has gotten you thinking so hard, that you’re not listening to me?” yuki snaps his fingers trying to get your attention which made you realised you’ve been daydreaming

smiling at yuki, “nothing just thinking on what we should get for dinner later”

he took a seat beside you, “i was thinking of this ramen store that i used to go when i was a kid, i wanna bring you there. I’m sure you’ll love the ramen”

yuki pleaded you for a 2 weeks off from your work to attend the Japanese Grand Prix, and you agreed as he was super persistent on making sure you’re on board with the plan.

other than that, yuki planned a whole guided trip (of course him being the tour guide) for you. Showing you places that had meant a-lot to him, bring you to the harry potter house (you’re a huge fan of it, and yuki could tell as you had a raven-claw phone case on when he first met you) and of course bringing you to meet his friends.

“i’m almost done with everything, just give me 30 minutes and i’ll be back. you can walk around with Michael if you’re scared, or i can call over josh to accompany you?”

you had met michael and josh countless times, whenever you’re over at yuki’s house they’ll never fail to be there too. The four of you had surprisingly gotten closer, but with the recent shifting of josh to Ferrari, the outings weren’t rlly quite often anymore.

“yeah i’ll visit josh, i’ve just seen him outside a few minutes ago. Text me when you’re done yuki”

walking around the paddock with josh made you realised that he was a great listener, he listened to you rambling on and on about your life and your feelings towards Yuki.

“give it a try, y/n” josh stopped walking and faced you, shrugging his shoulders

“i’m scared, what if he leaves like the others josh? he’s not someone i would want to let go off”

then you heard laughters, looking at josh in confusion

“him? leaving you? yeah that’s never happening. Have you seen the way he look at you?”

shaking your head , “i shouldn’t be telling you this, if Yuki hears this from me, i’m dead y/n but the way he looks at you? it’s unbelievable but that gaze was a look of a man in love”

with you..?

“don’t joke around josh, it’s not funny!”

but with the seriousness of josh look, it was never a joke

“well it’s up to you to believe me y/n, come on let’s go! Michael just texted me yuki is done for the day”

“why did you not let me know we’re going to a restaurant? i’m too dressed down for this yuki” walking side by side with yuki towards the restaurant

“it’s a family business, i doubt they’ll care of our dress-codes further more you’ll still look beautiful even with a trash bag on”

arriving at the restaurant, the both of you were guided to a table, and a few minutes later, yuki’s uncle greeted the both of you.

“it’s such an honour meeting yuki’s girlfriend, we heard sooo much about you from yuki! we were super excited that you’ve decided to visit japan!”

yuki’s girlfriend…?

“oh no i’m just a friend! it’s an honour in meeting you too, i can’t wait to try the food here!” smiling sweetly to yuki’s uncle and what you’ve missed was the red flush cheeks on yuki’s face.

in the midst of eating and talking, yuki took out a small bag and handed it to you

confused, accepting the bag and you took a look, you were surprised.

it was a locket necklace with a picture of the both of you that he had taken after the first dinner ‘date’ with a date engraved on the other side of the locket.

“y/n, i’ve been thinking and i’ve realised that with you in my life, i’ve looked forward to it everyday. You made me realise that life was worth living and i can’t imagine a life without you. I must say my anger management has been really well after i’ve met you”

the both of you laughed, but yuki was looking forward to your answer

apparently, after the talk that you had with josh. He had raise his concerns about you to yuki, and yuki’s goal for tonight is for you to feel loved.

“i know you’re having thoughts if i will ever leave you, but I promise you i won’t. I’ll stay by your side till we’re old, I’ll celebrate every milestone with you, i’ll never get sick of you y/n. There’s no one else that i would want to live my life with, it does not matter that you’re just a typical girl because what matters at the end of the day is you’re the only one i’ve had my eyes on, so would you be the honour of being my girlfriend?”

and by the end of his sentence, you were tearing up.

“you’re driving me crazy yuki tsunoda”

Yuki holds while stroking your hands, saying, " that’s what i do best, love”

y/n__01 just shared a photo

liked by yukitsunoda0511 krusectrl michaelitaliano and 20 more

tagged: yukitsunoda0511

y/n__01 handsome, you’re mansion with a view

krusectrl thanks to me

y/n__01 thankyou josh 🙏🏻🥹

pierregasly welcome to the club yukitsunoda0511

yukitsunoda0511 will always love you 💙

y/n__01 🥹💙

yukitsunoda0511 just shared a photo

liked by pierregasly danielricciardo y/n__01 and 302,749 others

tagged: y/n__01

yukitsunoda0511 you’re so gorgeous it actually hurts ❤️😇

gaslied22 WHAT? YUKI HAS A GF?

yukifans it was just confirmed today! I’m so happy for them!

tsunodays stop im actually sobbing, they’re so adorable

gaslied22 STOP! the taylor swift song references !!!!!!!

danielricciardo so this is the reason you’re smiling every day

yukitsunoda0511 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

y/n__01 are you quoting a taylor swift song rn tsunoda

yukitsunoda0511 well of course…

another yuki oneshot added to the list, i hope this was a great read! added in a lil ig post of their reveal 🤭🙏🏻

[alexisntedgy]

I certainly disliked the canon ending of ghosts, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have Older-Mia and the ghosts headcanons (most of these are for if she had grown up in Button House )

. Alison switching to a Spotify family account (or the 16-odd years from now equivalent) because the ghosts and Mia were sharing and the ghosts kept messing up her stats by streaming 90s girl bands (kitty) and various bad 80s songs

. She still has collaborative playlists with the more music-inclined of them though. Julian gets annoyed at the amount of song requests Cap and Kitty have for their ones, but he secretly works really hard on the one he shares with her

. Julian sends her money on her birthday (and sometimes when it’s super-not-her-birthday) through his savings account. Mia first became suspicious that it was actually just her mother’s money sent through Julian’s account when she was about 15, because how does julian have any money??? but eventually she accepts the truth- that it’s a mix of the money julian made online gambling and a little extra from her mum

. Occasionally Julian will send a larger sum of money at random, because “if giving her money makes me her favourite ghost, I’m not going to not do it”

. The ghosts are really annoying about gift suggestions for her every single birthday and christmas, and their ideas get more and more outdated and inaccurate for her age as the years go on

. She has sleepovers with Kitty and they watch terrible romcoms :)

. Mia has memories of the ghosts doing performances for her when she was a toddler, and when she couldn’t see them anymore Alison would play music for them all to sing along to, which eventually evolved into karaoke nights with specific parts for everyone

. Her favourite song to perform is the one Kitty and Cap always request, “Reach” by S-club, but that’s a top secret. she still keeps doing it in her grumpy-teenage-years because she knows it must make kitty and cap so happy (which it does)

. She found out James was gay when she was 7 and Alison made a joke to him about how he still fancies the weatherman after all those years. The conversation had been rather brief, with Cap requesting a few specific things for Alison to repeat to Mia. When Mia’s response had been “cool”, he may have teared up a little but you saw nothing

. By the time she’s 13 and has the attention span for it, Pat’s making her watch all of Star Wars. She thinks it’s okay, but she thinks it would be more okay if Pat didn’t make Julian type up a small quiz afterwards as a “fun but educational activity”

. One year in her mid-teens she got a casual job so she could save up enough money to buy the ghosts a nice christmas gift each.

. Julian emails her terrible old facebook memes and she doesn’t have the heart to tell him how unfunny they are

. They play just dance, no matter how outdated it is (although it can be an absolute nightmare when it comes to not bumping into the ghosts)

. Robin sometimes demands to tuck Mia in (although Julian has to actually do that part) and turn off the lights by himself. This goes on way past the age considered normal, but it’s one of the few ways she can feel close to robin, so she keeps letting him do it once a month or so.

[k-ra]

Don’t Look Away

Tommy Miller x F!Reader

Summary: When your parents decide to move across state, you find yourself in a new neighborhood with a new life ahead of you. Tommy Miller was new. And he was exciting. As the two of you grow up together through the 70s, you encounter forces that bring you together and more that tear you apart. The story shows each stage of your life together, including the good and bad ones, and shows just how easy it is to love Tommy miller, as well as how difficult Tommy Miller can be.

Warnings: none this chapter, but there may be some in the future! No use of Y/N

A/N: here it is!! The prologue is finally out. I can’t say when the next update will be, but it’s soon. Super big focus on music in this story because I’m a big 70s music fan lol…anyway that’s it from now sooo enjoy

Prologue

1964, Texas

Tommy Miller was a name you had engraved into your brain. Whether it was his mom calling him in for dinner when the streetlights came on, the teachers at the school cussing out his behavior, or his older brother’s gruff voice trying to get his attention when they threw the ball around outside, it seemed the whole neighborhood knew Tommy Miller. That was just the way it was supposed to be. That was just the kind of guy he was. It was how he was raised and how he stayed. Sure his brother Joel was pretty well known, but he kept to himself a little better than Tommy. Tommy was a name you just knew.

Everyone knew him to be a handful, that much was certain.

When you met Tommy, he was a twelve-year-old boy who hadn’t yet hit his growth spurt. Still with a squeaky voice and an awkward haircut that his mom probably did using a bowl. He wore clothes his mom bought at the mall in town that were too short or two long in places they shouldn’t be. But hey, that was what being twelve was like. He had a little gap in his bottom teeth and a small chip in his canine. But you only saw that when he laughed really hard or yelled really loud.

Your first introduction to Tommy Miller was when the day you moved into your new neighbourhood you had to start calling home. It was a sweltering hot July day-the kind that was not typical, even for Texas. It was the type of day that gave the town a yellow hue. Between the grass that could be passed as straw, dried out and waiting for the next storm and also the yellow of the houses that look the same. The bright orange sun made the sky feel more yellow than blue, and anyone who didn’t know what the South was like, would see this as the apocalypse. It felt like it too. Thickness filled the air that made it feel like a marathon to breathe, and the church services considered what they did to upset their God. It surely must be the rapture. There were no other excuses for this punishment.

Days like these were pleasant for families with pools, or air conditioning-their own Messiah in the current Judgment. But for families such as your own, chores like moving into a house became 1000 times more difficult. Not like that was much of an issue for you. Your job was to “stay out of the way” as your parents both so kindly put it. That wasn’t something you found yourself needing to interfere with either. Parents had a language where they didn’t have to say anything, but you knew what they meant. And today they weren’t messing around. They truly meant to stay out of the way. They were not quiet with their curses and groans as they tried to get the furniture up the steps and into the front door of the new place they called home.

The tough part was waiting for everybody to get the furniture into the house. Despite asking to bring your bed first so that you at least had somewhere to sleep, your parents insisted on bringing in the more difficult appliances and furniture first. The pavement of the steps leading you to your house had gotten too hot to sit on, leaving you awkwardly standing on the grass next to it, with your dads' cassette player he handed to you to keep you busy. He had a Rolling Stones cassette playing inside that made you feel cool like the high schooler you’d see driving around listening to it. Mom thought their music was a bad influence, something about them being degenerate. But at this point, she just wanted to keep you preoccupied.

“Hey pal, you uh, don’t have to wait for us to load all the stuff up, know. It's gonna take us all day.”

“I know Dad, it’s okay.” you shrugged, taking off the headphones that were too big for you.

He sighed for a moment, taking a second to wipe the seat off his forehead with a cloth. His shirt was drenched with sweat, and your mom wasn’t much better.

You could tell he was thinking something for a moment, before the both of you heard:

“Tommy Miller, you better bring me back all my change this time!” a woman's high but gruff voice called as a boy made his way out of the house to the left of yours.

Your fathers eyes followed the sequence of events, mirroring your own. A gear turned in his head-you knew this because when he thought really hard, you could see an extra wrinkle between his eyebrows. “Why don't you go introduce yourself to the neighbours?” he offered, rummaging through his pocket and pulling out two dollars. Your eyes widened as though you'd been handed the key to the city. But as a ten-year-old, this was much more valuable. “While you're at it, get yourself some ice cream, yeah?” You admired the money and he ruffled your hair with an affectionate chuckle. There was a twinkle in your eye that led him to a warning. “Okay, okay, but don’t spoil your dinner or your mom will kill me.” As if she heard, she called for your dad's help setting up something inside.

And just like that, the day was yours and the heat no longer felt so excruciating. You couldn't help but skip down the steps, not worrying about your untied shoelaces. Your attention was called to refocus on the introduction part of your dads instruction. It was clear that the boy was on a mission, already meters away from his house. The boy was further in the distance, but you didn't want to let that get away from you. Despite the cloudless sky, or the sidewalk that was coated with a layer of blur from the heat, you ran down to catch up with him. “Excuse me!” you called.

With a slight jump, the boy with the poorly cut hair and awkward fitting shirt and gapped teeth turned to look at you for the first time. He looked back forward. “Jesus! You scared me girl,” he. You almost laughed at the prominence of his Texan accent. Sure you just moved here, maybe this town was known for a thicker drawl on the words. “Wait, I know you. You’re that girl who moved in next door. The new neighbours.” It was clear then that maybe he wasn’t totally in his own world. Or maybe you were just starting to be a part of it.

“That I am,” you said with a toothy smile as you extended your hand. He seemed a little confused-likely not used to shaking hands outside of baseball games ending. “Where ya headed?” you asked, as he started to walk, his feet kicking a rock in front of him, letting it roll a couple feet in front of both of them.

“I dunno yet. Maybe was gonna head to the general store. Ma said it's too hot to go far.” he shrugged, and you could see the resentment in his face. Was it the resentment about the heat, or his ma? A glint in his eye told you it was both. The resentment stemmed from anything that held him back-the way wild horses felt when people thought they could ride them. Tame them. It was new. Exciting. You took your turn kicking the rock at your feet.

The hum of the cicadas and the buzz of the hellish heat seemed to quiet down because the ringing tune of heaven came from down the road.

The ice cream truck.

Just like that, Tommy looked at you-right at you, like he’s known you forever, his brown eyes opening in wonder and excitement. There was a language of kids on hot days when they heard the ice cream truck. An agreement. A bonding moment. In the distance, the white truck came rolling down, and you were convinced this was a blessing. Like two olympians in the 100 meter sprint, you and Tommy began running towards the white truck, racing each other and yourselves. Before you knew it, the both of you were laughing, as Tommy waved his arms in the air, begging the attention of the truck. You shoved the cassette player under your arm and kept the headphones around your neck.

“Over here!” he yelled with a squeaky voice boys his age tended to have. The truck pulled over for the two of you. Meeting halfway, and it took everything in you not to fall onto the dry, yellowish suburban grass beneath you. You were sure It’d leave scratch marks

A part of you wanted to shove first in line to get your ice cream and a part of you wanted to let Tommy go first. So there you were, waiting your turn. Tommy went first in ordering his cone-maple walnut, and you followed, ordering your own favorite flavor.

“Hey, can I try that?” He asked you, after you both began to dig into the refreshing sweet treats. You nodded, extending the cone. He did the same. Tommy told you next time, he was getting the flavor you had. In the moments proceeding the ice cream truck driving away, you two kept walking , letting the sticky melted ice cream run down your hands. The neighbor boy licked it off his hands, wiping the rest on his shorts. He didn't seem to care much for cleanliness which caused you to giggle.

In the corner of your eye, you noticed him rummaging through his pockets. “Y’know, i still have some money for a soda. Wanna come with me?” he asked and you couldn't help but nod. The day had plenty of time left in it, and you knew you would miss dinner. There probably wasn’t even anything to make dinner with yet.

“There's a store a few blocks down. Cheapest sodas in town. Ma told me if I go, I gotta get enough for the rest of my family. But…” he paused, taking out the change he had and counting it twice. “I got enough if you wanted one too,”

So you agreed, and the two of you set course for the store. Along the way, your conversation picked up on a bunch of different topics. Tommy seemed particularly intrigued by your cassette player. He noticed it when the both of you were stopped at a red light. “That thing yours?”

You considered lying for a moment. To pretend you had a cassette player all of your own.

But you didn’t, “my dads,” regret wiggled its way into your words.

Tommy didn’t mind. He began asking about your music taste.

You listen to Elvis?

Yes.

Johnny cash?

Obviously.

Ritchie Valens?

Here and there.

Beatles?

Yes.

That was a trick, he said. He thought the Beatles were too popular. Or too many girls liked him. You’d convince him otherwise, later.

In the cool air of the store, a small bell signaled your arrival, and you followed Tommy through the unfamiliar store to where the sodas were. Tommy got an orange flavored one and you got your own preferred one, of course letting Tommy pay with his moms money. “Do you like the Rolling stones?” you took your turn to ask, as the two of you left the store. He took a seat on the corner and you followed, ignoring how it burned your bottom, leaving an imprint on your shorts from the uneven gravel.

“I love em!” he said. There was a twinkle in his eye as he looked over at you, and you took the opportunity. Maybe you both said yes because it was cool. Maybe you both really did like them. Next to Tommy, you handed him the headphones and cassette player, pressing the on button for him. At this point you couldn't remember what song played. Something from their latest album. Tommy liked it. That was the first time you noticed the chip on his canine tooth. His smile was wide as he turned back to you. He began talking about how you’d like a Johnny Cash cassette his mom had at home.

Both of you later picked up on the change of colour in the sky, and how the heat calmed, and how the cicadas quieted to make room for the grasshoppers in the evening. You watched everyone return from work, their own little worlds consuming them, as you convinced yourself Tommy’s did. The two of you silently agreed it was time to go back. The streetlights would be coming on soon. Something told you that Tommy didn’t really care-but he knew you did. So you followed the same path as before, and when the rock from before appeared in your trail, you and Tommy raced to kick it first.

It was when you both saw your houses just as they were before, still and warm and waiting, you decided to ask,

“Hey did you wanna be friends?” The question was sudden, but you had realized how much fun you had today. You realized how disappointed you were that you were going to go back inside to your family again.

Tommy took up the steps to his own house, as you did yours. Neither one of you went in. “Yeah, why not.” he said with a laid back smile. “What are you doing tomorrow?” The question was phrased as though it was separate from the conversation they were already having. As though he came up with this idea all on his own. You both stood on your own porches looking at each other from where you stood in the shade. Not much use for shade now, as the rays of hot sun calmed down in the evening.

“Dunno, why?”

Tommy paused for a second before nodding back towards his fenced off backyard. “We got a pool. Supposed to be another hot one tomorrow.”

“Cool,” you shrugged as though you weren’t super excited to have a new friend who lived right next to you. Tommy kept his hands in his pockets as if he wasn’t excited for the same reason. You’d both quickly discover that you weren’t as cool as you thought. You’d both discover that you didn’t care. “I'll come by. Want me to bring some chips and sandwiches?” you offered.

“And maybe some more cassettes,” he suggested, nodding to the device still in hand. You ran a thumb over the surface, realizing how far this thing got you today.

“You got it.”

Tommy looked like a lightbulb went off above his head. “Oh! My name is Tommy Miller. In case Ma asks who you're lookin’ for.” You have your name back. He practiced it on his tongue.

The lights lining the street came on. “See you tomorrow, Tommy Miller,”

And you did. And nearly every day after that. For the rest of the summer, you saw Tommy Miller.

For years later you’d keep seeing Tommy Miller.

And years later, he’d see you.

[popculturebuffet]

Since it was fun doing Cartoon Network, let's try another network of shows. You already talked about The Hub/Discovery Family original cartoons on another ask, so gonna try Nickelodeon original cartoons next (split up by era). Who is your favorite character from each of the Nicktoons from the first half of the 90s from the shows you've seen like: Doug, Rugrats 1991, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh Real Monsters, Hey Arnold, and KaBlam?

LIke last time (Which wasn't commented on) I'll also give my general thoughts but I was hoping this would happen. Doug: Doug himself, a relatable likeable guy and one of Billy West's breakout roles. Though Roger is a close second as while he's an ass, he's one of the better bully characters out there. The show itself was nice, calming and pretty decent all things considered, a grounded slice of life show that paved the way for others. IT's outclassed by some later ones to be sure, but it's still pretty neat. Rugrats: Chucky. He was this when I was a kid, he still is now. I love this neurotic little mess. The show as a whole was pretty great.. I went through a phase of not liking it and while I still like most other nicktoons on this block better, I can't deny Rugrats staying power, classic characters or all time banger episodes. The Movies are also pretty good and something we may be covering at some point. The Ren and Stimpy Show: Not sure if I have a faviorite here. As for the show I didn't really watch it much as a kid or as an adult: I can admire it's craft, and the gag from sven hoek "BUT FIRST, BUT FIRST, BUT FIIIIRRRSSST I"m gonna take a whiz! Don't you go anywhere", was a thing with me and my friend mars back in the day but I just never was that attached. Which is probably good as John K is a monster, but the rest of his crew did a good job as was the voice acting. It was just never really for me.

Rocko's Modern Life: Rocko Himself. Yes once again i'm picking the main character though out of the side cast, you all know who my boy is

But Rocko is such a relatable shy little guy he's hard not to love. Though again Wild Pig will always be goat too so they can share it I suppose. Point is Rocko is the best: a relatable show that hits for both adults and kids. As a Kid I watched it but wasn't really in love with it. As a young adult on the n, this thing became my religion and remains one of my faviorite nicktoons. A true classic with humor, relatablity and a whole lotta 90's nostalgia while still being mostly relevant. Watch this one if you haven't. Aaaah Real Monsters: Hard to say as it's been too long. I like Ickis design but all the design work here is awesome. The show itself is one worth revisiting, with great designs and a truly unique style. Wish I had more to say about it as I don't think Kid me was super on board.

Hey Arnold: Honestly? Harold. I thought this would be hard as the cast for Hey Arnold is truly one of the best in animation history, no exageration the amount of spotlight episodes means just about everyone's fleshed out. But Harold's tend to stick out the most with his Kitten Hostage Situation, Bar Mitzfah and especailly his job with Mr Green being some of the series best episodes. The kid was the right mix of obnoxious jerk and heart of gold. Also before we move on can we just.. appricate that the show has an episode where a child basically kidnaps a kitten, has the police called.. and he's STILL the most sympathetic one in the room next to the kitten's owner? It's a tesitament to the show's power: Hey Arnold is a charming, wonderful little show, one of the best slice of life shows period. Part of the reason doug isn't as good as it was in it's heyday.. is it made room for shows like Hey Arnold to exist. A truly wonderful show that gave depth to just about every damn character it had over time, had a lot of heart, charm and creativity. It's honestly one of the best cartoons period and I stand by that, also having a knack for atmsophere along with it's wonderful cast and shocking maturity (Seriously I had no idead Miriam was an alcholic as a kid or Mr Simmons was gay and had a homophobic mom but both are handled well for the time). True classic.

KaBlam: Character wise let's go by short: June (If Narrowly), The Chief (Tends to get the best lines and is enjoyably Da Chief type character boiled down to it's most hliaroius form), Sniz, Prometheus, Loopy Herself, Race Rabbit, and Tommy. As for the show I did a whole ass retrospective, but in short, it's fantastic. Not the biggest fan of prometheus and bob, but the rest of the recurring segments are all bangers on some level, though P and B is still gorgeously animated, it's simply not for me. It's a fantastic show, animation showcase and time capsule and well worth your time.

[folansstuff]

I'm bored, and you’ve been super kind, so here's a present for ya. I'm gonna try to come up with some genuinely good questions regarding Atticus. Some will be simple, while others will try to dig deeper. Here we go:

1. What is the most important thing in the world to Atticus? His undisputed #1 thing?

2. Would Atticus give this thing up if it meant saving mutantkind?

3. What angers Atticus most?

4. What saddens Atticus most?

5. What is Atticus' biggest flaw?

6. What is one regret he will carry for the rest of his life?

7. What made you follow the official timeline for his story instead of making your own?

8. Who do you think Atticus would be with if Illyana did not exist?

9. Is Atticus a genuinely good person to you? What dark traits does he have deep down, if any?

10. What could potentially turn him to a villain? If anything?

11. If you had to change his powers, what would they be?

12. How much of you has been reflected into this manbear?

And that is all for now! Hope you enjoy.

Thanks for the questions! I appreciate the questions, especially when they're thinkers like these ones. That being said, there are a lot of them so they're gonna go under a read more.

His books. It's Illyana. Of course it is. We are talking Illyana as number one, and then his students and team mates at second.

2. Absolutely not. This has more than once gotten him punched in the face for his stubbornness. His loyalty to Illyana is more than a little bit self-destructive lmao.

3. Atticus is an incredibly laid back dude, but literally any moment when he is forced to interact with Xavier makes him want to rip his hair out. Years of watching the egg-man ruin his friends, students and others lives because he think he knows best drives Atticus up the wall. Also Sinister, he exploded when he found out Sinister was on the Council.

4. SAD! KIDS! As a former traumatized teen and currently mildly traumatized adult, nothing upsets him more than seeing a young person having a rough time. This why he has so many (unofficial) adopted children (consisting of ever single student he has ever had).

5. A combo of stubbornness and, in a smaller sense, cowardice. Atticus has spent most of his adult life avoiding the superhero community, and until Krakoa, he was very committed to never getting involved. This has made him difficult to deal with, especially when he talks to people like the X-Men or Avengers. It also applies to his convictions, cause good luck getting him to budge once he's made a decision.

6. 3 big ones. Not stopping the Avengers from putting the Phoenix into Illyana, Piotr and Emma (he doesn't care enough about Summers or Namor to worry about them.) The other one is not being in Sydney when Australia's Sentinel program killed his mother accidentally. Notably he couldn't actually stop any of this from happening, but he still regrets it. Finally, he regrets leaving his job at Avengers Academy, since the events of Avengers Arena led to the deaths of a bunch of his students. (No wonder he's so protective.)

7. Honestly? It's easier LMAO. Not having to think as hard about the timeline of everything means that I can focus more on character work, which is really my area of expertise. And it's not like I can't mess with canon (the timeline I write in splits off after the 2023 Hellfire Gala) since comic canon is already so bullshit.

8. Uhhhhhhhhhh. I actually don't know? He's kinda crafted to fit well with her so much now that I have a hard time considering it. Maybe Emma? That could be a similar and cute relationship. Same thing with like, Lorna. Maybe there's a cursed timeline where he ends up with Boom-Boom. IDK, Atticus is drawn to people with Issues (and blondes), so that's probably your best bet.

9. Woah, big morality question. The boring answer is yes because I say so. But I think removing myself from that position as his creator, I do think he's a good dude. He definitely has his issues, but ultimately he just wants the best for himself and the people he cares about. If anything dying and coming back fused to a living garden has probably made him even nicer.

10. There's def an alternate universe where he's swayed to Magento's Brotherhood for a while, and I've looked at Beast's descent into villainy as a fun What If? thing. It would have to be if Illyana had died, or he let his more controlling elements take over.

11. Plants or making him a Telepath (of the unwanted voices variety). Honestly every time I write Atti's powers in action it gives me a headache, even though I think they're legitimately cool.

12. Uhhhhhh, some amount. As he developed he's actually gotten pretty far away, but it'd be silly to say nothing about Atti is similar to me. I'm Australian, and am currently in Uni for teaching, so there's the ones that 100% still apply at least. I wish I was as much a bear as Atticus is tho, I'm a little chubby, not quite as cuddly as he is (or hairy.).

[majormeilani]

Do you have any ideas for levels with Rin or Finnegan? Or are they more like an NPC?

kinda!!!

i have THOUGHT about it but i'm not super duper sure exactly what i would do for them.

i know rin would definitely be someone that would upon meeting hat kid or bow kid, she'd comment something like 'ah. so you're the one who's been causing my huge influx of patients lately, huh?' and she'd kinda shake her head with her eyes closed, brows knit and arms crossed, as though she's disappointed in them and then she'd laugh like 'ah! i'm just messing with you! but still, you've got quite the fighting spirit in you, huh!'

rin also works at a hospital that i decided would be located in nyakuza metro and it's possible that rin might make hat kid or bow kid mend and tend to some patients there in various ways. just to kinda lighten rin's work load a bit, as though rin enjoys her job sometimes she would definitely have her work cut out for her. she'd be at work on an important surgery or something so she'd be occupied and in the end she'd offer a time piece in which's shards were imbedded in someone's skull following getting bonked on the head with one (which is how time rifts with storybooks canonically happen LOL) and she'd look intrigued by the timepiece mending itself on its own, but still give it to hat kid or bow kid. rin would say though 'it might be nice to study the properties of such an interesting item, as it could do wonders in the development of a new type of health pon due to these time capabilities it has, but i'm supposing it's better off in the hands of someone who understands how these things work, no?'

finnegan being the pilot for rin's helicopter would probably be mostly a support character and NPC from what i've considered thus far. there's a concept in my mind of maybe a helicopter based level of sorts where you have to help finnegan find patients who called for help and parkour up to them to signal. finnegan wouldn't have a time piece to offer in the end but he'd offer you a flight snack as compensation which would temporarily boost your health and some pons. maybe even a cosmetic of sorts

i think that rin and finnegan could also appear on the arctic cruise too and i mentioned before that rin would probably be found lounging by the pool and she'd say something about taking a much needed break from all her hard work lol. finnegan would be admiring the ocean and remark that it's always been his favorite part of being a pilot is seeing all the bright blue water and how it hugs the land.

there would also be convos that you could have with the two of them that would reveal things about them in their levels too. like how rin developed the health pons and how she regularly brings shipments of them to a hotel over near the desert shores (cassidy's hotel) and how rin sometimes likes to experiment with necromancy and has successfully made a few resurrections

or you could learn about finnegan and how he remembers accidentally throwing up during his first flight test because he was so excited or how he's lost his hat more than 10x by sticking his head out the side door of the helicopter or that even though he's the pilot, rin also has a piloting license.

there was a concept i also considered once before of a hypothetical boss fight for rin but i don't really think it's in character for her to fight hat kid or bow kid honestly!!! but i know that in the case that she did end up being corrupted by a time piece, she would be a very difficult boss to defeat as she would heal herself if she managed to get away from you for long enough and also she'd probably raise some dead zombies or something with necromancy. but like, as cool as it sounds, she would never find any ill will towards the kids because they're just children who have been defending themselves throughout the whole game lolll. finnegan would also never hurt hat kid and bow kid as he's too sweet for that.

[kygerbearr]

getting into high-end ff14 content made me realize 2 things.

1). many people who have particular responsibilities have NO business with them

2). apparently i'm a fucking genius when it comes to shit because i can watch a short guide and understand what to do while everyone else apparently needs several days worth of catch up to do one of the most basic be-here-then-go-here shit on the planet. i have never been more frustrated with humanity. i am so tired. everyone i meet is either someone who takes thing too seriously and has zero skills to back it up or there's people with a wife and kids and a 9 to 5 job and a mortgage who come home from work and are somehow fine with doing MORE work dealing with people who dont know their fucking job and everyone is managed by someone who's an absolute pushover and still expects to be the "leader"

like i don't consider myself very smart. everything in this game appears to be very easy, i don't struggle with any of it, i don't understand how all of these seemingly normal people can struggle so hard with mechanics that have been reused over and over with a new coat of paint, and I feel guilty even suggesting its easy because of how hard everyone makes it out to be

do not believe anyone when they say ff14 is hard. it isn't. it's one of the easiest games i've ever played, i have never felt personally challenged by something in it and the only difficulty i'm having is being around dipshits who somehow don't understand how something works. i feel like i'm in a classroom full of people who showed up to the exam without studying anything and it's like they expect a clear just for showing up. buddy, this fight has so much personal responsibility that if you don't figure your shit out, the WHOLE CLASS fails, and you can't move on until you pass.

and i KNOW its easy because I made my OWN group out of frustration and we cleared THE FIRST DAY WE STARTED RAIDING. the VERY FIRST DAY. I have been with this other group for MONTHS.

this group cannot handle clockwise and counterclockwise somehow. there are markers on the floor arranged in a clock. it got to the point where I had to suggest that people look for a particular number and rotate towards it, and somehow, everyone STILL messed it up.

not only that, but in this group, any time I try to express something that goes against their ideology either the leader gets on my case or one of the members gets on my ass. just the other day I had this fucking asshole who was running shield healer who WASNT APPLYING SHIELDS?? during PROG??? and when I said "hey can we get shields" he was like "no we're good" we were dying. bodies on the floor right in front of him.

so I asked why. his argument? we cant have shields. it would mess up his gcds. I have CLEARED THIS FIGHT ALREADY, AND WITH SHIELD HEALER. so I know we can have shield for Every raidwide. and when I tried to explain how, he got angry and was like "no the fuck we cant and i will NOT have someone micromanaging my gcds" buddy my friend is dead on the floor right there and it's your fault

we proceeded to not hear from him the following week. essentially no-call-no-show but for a videogame and not a real job. whatever, not my problem. just meant I could be shield healer. and that day went super well! we had prog. i was healing. we didn't die outside of people failing their personal responsibilities.

i mean it when I say I genuinely don't enjoy the game anymore. I'm so exhausted from dealing with people who don't give a shit and aren't trying hard enough, are too stubborn to do anything different and hate it whenever I do anything whatsoever that goes against their agenda. it's not a team at all, it's a fake ass leader who can't lead with followers who are so fucking mindless braindead that they think they can mindlessly follow this failure of a leader into a clear for a fight they've been stuck on for THREE MONTHS STRAIGHT.

it takes up so much time out of my week (3 hours on both monday and tuesday so back to back, very exhausting, reminder i dont like these people because they treat me like shit and simultaneously I'm the only person who cares about what we're doing) and there were times where I legitimately would've preferred working (which i cant do while playing this game) and man I hope they get rid of me because my martyr complex keeps me from leaving them until we clear the fight

don't play final fantasy 14 it's not fun it's not worth it and if you do then dont talk to anyone. i legit only have fun when its with my friends and I have yet to meet a person on 14 I could make any sort of meaningful connection with. they're all so normal feeling, they're always like 5 years older than me and it freaks me out, I don't fit in, I don't belong there, and I don't want to stick around in a place I don't feel I belong in. the ONLY good thing about the game is that I can play as a big kitty cat