#anti lance <- i guess | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maplesyrupsainz · 1 year ago

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˖⁺｡˚⋆˙i told my friends u were the one | 2023 grid˖⁺｡˚⋆˙

pt2

pairing: 2023 f1 grid x nepo baby y/n prost reader (she/her)

genre: social media au

warnings: nepo baby spoiled girl :) this is part 2!!!

summary: in which everyone's favourite nepo baby has to share her time between all the f1 garages

a/n: second part:)) any guesses on who she could be dating💌

request!!!!: I would love a smau with reader who’s a nepo baby but is everyone’s fave nepo because she’s just living life aesthetically and the grid loves her and she’s hinting at a soft launch (idrc with which driver)

fc: gracie burns

my masterlist

part 1 • part 2 • part 3 •

instagram ->

yourusername

liked by lance_stroll, carlossainz55, and 683,193 others

yourusername i guess the race season started

view all 8,193 comments

user1 this post screams my bf is f1 driver lance stroll

carlossainz55 ferrari garage missed you this weekend

yourusername i was preoccupied 😔

lance_stroll better luck next time

landonorris not fair y/n ur supposed to share ur time between all of us

yourusername i'll do better next week i promise

charles_leclerc you better

user2 got so many conflicting feelings

user3 ikr so many mixed messages likee

user4 as a y/n lover this race season is gonna be so fun

yourbff

liked by yourusername, lilymhe, and 19,283 others

yourbff life following my best friend around the world

view all 4,183 comments

user5 IS THAT LANCE AND Y/N

user6 URMMM

user7 well

yourusername i love u so much im soo lucky 🍀

yourbff i love u

user8 i feel changed by this post

landonorris are u avoiding me y/bff/n

user9 he's always in everyone's business for no reason

twitter ->

instagram ->

landonorris

liked by yourusername, danielricciardo, and 702,928 others

landonorris slay

tagged: yourusername

view all 4,183 comments

user14 the caption

yourusername slayyy 🧡

danielricciardo of course ur behind all of the slaying

yourusername what's ur problem

oscarpiastri you slayed lando!

user15 why is everyone saying slay😭😭

user16 yet another spanner in the works

user17 LOL didnt lando confirm that they're just friends

charles_leclerc y/n orange doesnt suit you

yourusername will keep that in mind thanks

landonorris shutup charles

yourusername posted a story

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, and 291,283 others

landonorris get over it

oscarpiastri you can ignore him & talk to me 😊

mclaren he's in trouble for this

yourusername oops

scuderiaferrari this would never happen at our garage

yourusername thank u ferrari ❤️

yourusername

liked by scuderiaferrari, charles_leclerc, and 849,293 others

yourusername on race days we wear red ❤️‍🔥

view all 13,293 comments

user18 why is the most exciting part of race weekend seeing what teams garage y/n picks to hang out at

user19 no fr why is it so funny

scuderiaferrari and the crowd goes wild!

charles_leclerc looks much better ❤️

yourusername thanks i feel honoured fr

oscarpiastri anti slay😕

landonorris 😔😔

yourusername you had your chance !!

user20 not y/n bringing slay into the grid vocabulary

pierregasly we wanna join the competition y/n

yourusername of course you can contact my secretary and we'll be in touch 😊

lance_stroll im her secretary

yourusername no you arent

yourusername posted a story

liked by lance_stroll, pierregasly, and 362,193 others

landonorris hard launch when

user21 WHO IS HEEE

user22 whoever he is is the luckiest man alive i fear

user23 i wont rest until we get a hard launch

user24 could it be a ferrari driver considering she was there today😭😭

yourusername

liked by pierregasly, francisca.cgomes, and 793,193 others

yourusername alpine was the most fun so far because it has kika

view all 5,283 comments

francisca.cgomes had the best time giggling with you.. come back soon

yourusername i'll be back as long as you are there😻

pierregasly okay? that's my gf can you relax

yourusername shut up pooerre

user25 POOERRE😭😭😭

estebanocon i love y/n!

yourusername i love estie bestie!

estebanocon 🤔

user26 im so obsessed with y/n being all over the grid every race weekend

user27 i love her so bad

user28 y/n prost u will always be famous

lance_stroll come back i miss you

yourusername aww you sweet sweet boy

user29 wait.. i love them

lance_stroll posted a story

liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc, and 548,023 others

user30 URM HELLOOO Y/N

alex_albon FREE HER

lilymhe we want her

maxverstappen1 you are hogging her

lance_stroll you snooze you lose

twitter ->

instagram ->

yourusername

liked by logansargeant, lilymhe, and 892,193 others

yourusername & here's to my real friends!!!!

view all 18,345 comments

landonorris ?? what the hell y/n

yourusername the last pic is me when the weekend ends & i have to leave williams garage

lilymhe you r so obsessed with us not even a pic of urself on this one

yourusername i would just distract from the pure slay vibes

logansargeant 💀 stop saying slay

yourusername no.

user34 lol y/n loves williams so much

user35 & when williams merch sales increase because of this post then what?

liked by yourusername and williamsracing

williamsracing we love you y/n! keep slaying

alex_albon not you too 💀

yourusername 😊😊😊

maxverstappen1 the order you have chosen to visit each team garage in is alarming

yourusername aww is maxie angy coz he wins everything but bitches??😕

danielricciardo HAHAHA

maxverstappen1 nevermind you are no longer welcome at red bull

user36 💀 poor max getting bullied

yourusername

liked by danielricciardo, redbullracing, and 972,191 others

yourusername i remember this garage being much more fun when daniel ricciardo was around ...

view all 26,283 comments

user37 is she allowed to say that...

user38 one thing about y/n is she will always say whatever she wants

maxverstappen1 i respect the honest review i will do better next time

yourusername aww dont worry max emilian i had the best weekend 😊

kellypiquet ❤️❤️❤️

liked by yourusername

danielricciardo i just laughed out loud at this

danielricciardo this is such an unprovoked comment

yourusername omg yay it worked i got your attention

danielricciardo you need therapy

landonorris i've been saying this!

user39 daniel ricciardo stans rise

twitter ->

instagram ->

yourusername

liked by lance_stroll, lilymhe, and 842,194 others

yourusername u were my daisy 🌼

view all 8,183 comments

user40 omg she's insanely beautiful

lilymhe please y/n give me one chance

yourusername one? i got a million for you

alex_albon ?

lilymhe why are you trying to ruin a special moment between two girls

charles_leclerc wow

danielricciardo wya y/n?

yourusername ur mum's house

landonorris are you from tennessee

yourusername dont you say another word

oscarpiastri slay 🧡

user41 🤔

yourbff how has ur side profile sent half the grid running away blushing

lance_stroll it's not just the side profile i fear

yourusername female gaze vs male gaze..

yourbff omg im living in hell

THE END 🤍

1K notes · View notes

nico-di-genova · 6 months ago

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A Lesson in Braking

Chapter 2

Read on Archive of Our Own

A/N: hehehehehehe (my only thoughts while writing this fic).

Warnings: NSFW and a brief mention of anti-harm dorm furniture.

“I fucked an old guy last night,” Lance says to Esteban, when he’s lying on the floor of his dorm room, head resting on the Spider-Man pillow he bought Esteban for his birthday last spring. “Behind the Barnes & Noble. Hand job.”

Esteban hums. He’s sitting at his desk that he’s moved to slot beneath the single small window of his room, curled over his laptop and working on some complex string of numbers. Three weeks into the semester and Esteban is already drowning in assignments – Lance doesn’t envy him.

“He ate my cum,” he continues, picking at a fraying edge of the pillow. When he pulls at the red string it snags on the fabric and then releases, growing longer in Lance’s grip. He should buy Esteban a new one, maybe a whole bedspread to match. The thought occurs that he could buy a matching set, just to sleep on during the nights when he’s too drunk to get back to his own place and crashes in the living room.

Esteban hums again, pushes his glasses further up his nose, keeps clicking away on his laptop so that the number sequence only grows longer. Lance can only catch pieces of it from where he’s lying on the floor, head angled backward to stare up at Esteban as he works. But even the small bit he can see is enough to give him a headache.

“When I kissed him I tasted it.”

That gets him.

Esteban sighs, leans back in the chair as far as it will go given its anti-tip design – dorm furniture made to prevent kids from hanging themselves from their light fixtures – rubs at the bridge of his nose and then falls back forward with a groan.

“You’re telling me this, why?”

Lance pouts, tips his head further back on the pillow so he can get a better look at Esteban with one arm on the back of his chair, leaning down to stare at him with mild judgement.

“You don’t want to know about the old man sex I had?”

“I can barely tolerate hearing about the normal sex you have.”

Lance laughs. The spider-man plush, also bought by Lance from the birthday trip to Disneyland last spring, rises and falls on his stomach with the movement. Technically, he has homework for his intro to Marketing class, but it’s more fun to laze around on Esteban’s dirty floor, talking about his sex life, than it is to learn about how to make people buy things. Besides, he’s grown up listening to his dad rant about his successes in the industry, so much so that his first word might as well have been entrepreneurship. It shouldn’t be a hard class to pass.

The dorm room is so tiny he almost runs the whole length of it, one foot nearly to the door, his head at the base of Esteban’s chair, one knee propped in the air. One of his arms is spread wide enough that it’s laying underneath Esteban’s bed, fingers toying with the shoelace of a sneaker that’s been kicked off underneath. It’s a familiar sight by this point, Lance taking up space in Esteban’s room, his life, with ease and spreading out enough that he can be found in nearly every corner of it. Esteban always makes room for him, sometimes will join him on the floor when his course load isn’t too much. But junior year is already different from the two prior, kicking off with a speed that is giving Lance whiplash.

He misses Sovi, the freshman dorms that once made him feel caged, but provided infinitely more freedom in that they weren’t tied to the paths that had led them here.

“My normal sex life just involves Pato, you’d rather hear about me fucking Pato?” He asks, smirks, just barely dodges the pencil Esteban flicks down at him.

“I don’t want to hear about you fucking anyone! Get a journal!”

Lance muses, “I guess there was also that one guy a few weeks ago. From that party in Q,” the building a few doors down from Esteban’s. It sat on the shore of the lake and far enough away from the central hub that university police tended to overlook it. Esteban had called Lance four beers deep a week into school and told him to get there quick, didn’t specify where ‘there’ was, so Lance had to use Find My to even locate him. When he’d pulled up the party had been in full swing on the third floor, and he was welcomed into the cramped apartment by Esteban who reeked of alcohol and weed. Lance ended up fucking one of the guys who lived there, riding him hurriedly and enduring the guy keeping a sweaty palm pressed to his mouth so he didn’t make too much noise in the room they’d locked themselves in.

Esteban squints at him, “You said that guy was shit.”

“He was.” He came first and then didn’t even bother to get Lance off.

“So why the fuck would you want to talk about it again?”

“Because you don’t want to hear about the good old man sex.”

Esteban’s nose crinkles in disgust, “Well how old was he?”

“I didn’t ask.”

The mechanical engineering is quickly forgotten, Esteban spinning around fully in his chair and staring at Lance with wide eyes. Lance grins up at him innocently, flutters his eyelashes, scoots over on the pillow as a silent invitation for the man to join him on the ugly blue carpeted floor. Esteban doesn’t take it, yet, Lance is still confident he can convince him.

“How old did he look?”

“I don’t know, forties maybe?”

“Forties?! What the fuck, Lance!?”

“What?”

The deadpan stare Esteban gives him isn’t new, it’s pretty standard actually. “You are insane. And stupid.”

Lance, because he likes testing his luck, pushing at the boundaries of his and Esteban’s friendship, seeing where the line is so he can be prepared for when it snaps, keeps going, “I’m seeing him again tonight.”

He wishes he’d been filming, just so he could preserve the way Esteban’s eyes get impossibly wider. Finally, Esteban gets out of the chair, but he doesn’t join Lance on the floor, instead he paces the length of the room, hands held on his head and mumbles a rapid string of words that Lance doesn’t quite get but he thinks are mainly swears.

“You are joking, yes? Tell me you are joking.” Hands on his hips, towering over Lance, he looks like a giant. Tall and lanky with big eyes behind his wire-rimmed frames.

Lance hadn’t been. He’s been texting Fernando since late last night, ignoring calls from his dad in the process. So far the conversation has consisted of little substance, just enough to establish that Lance is a junior, Fernando is retired, and lives in one of the mansions on the other side of the lake that is right outside Esteban’s prison cell-sized window. Mainly they’d talked about Fernando’s cock, how Lance is upset he didn’t get to see it, taste it – how he’d like to return the favor preferably outside of the backseat of a car and somewhere a bit more comfortable.

He wants to be called beautiful again, reverently, spread out on silk sheets and spread open by Fernando’s fingers. He blames the accelerated horniness on the dry summer he’d just had, the time spent at his father’s house with little else to do and no one to hook up with because Lawrence had insisted on spending as much time as he could with Lance. They’d gone to the track to watch a few races, the office where Lance was meant to be shadowing, galas and banquets, and the golf course most mornings so Lawrence could ensure Lance actually had something to show for the tuition he was fronting. Lance knows it was mainly a last ditch effort on his dad’s behalf to maintain their relationship, before Lance slipped off back to Florida and began predictably sending him to voicemail. Which is why he had even bothered enduring it in the first place, when he just as easily could has gone off to the Mykonos with a group of guys from his frat.

He'd refrained from debauchery all summer, was paying the price for his abstinence now. But, like always, the cost was something to which Lance paid very little, until the bill began to raise eyebrows, as Esteban’s now are.

“Lance. Tell me you are joking!”

“Why would I be joking?”

Esteban glares down at him, while Lance sprawls out further across the thin carpet, concrete flooring beneath digging into his shoulder blades, and smiles. It’s wide, lazy, slow to draw across his face. The sort of shit-eating, self-assured, smirk that Esteban hates.

“It was good sex, Este! He did this thing-“

“Stop! No! Stop! I don’t want to know.”

Lance stops, goes quiet, but continues to smirk. In his pocket, he feels his phone vibrate, probably Fernando again. They’re meant to be meeting in a few hours, once the suns gone down enough that being outside doesn’t make him feel like he’s melting. When Fernando can take him to the bar in the shopping plaza nearby and treat him to a beer before he fucks him senseless, as he’s been promising all day.

He doesn’t tell Esteban this, figures he’s maybe traumatized him enough for the day. Instead, he changes the topic to Esteban’s course load, feigns interest in the math still open on his laptop. Esteban is all too willing to explain it to him, to turn his attention away from the phone Lance pulls from his pocket and grins at with cheeks turning red.

Fernando has sent him a photo of his outfit, button of his slacks undone, zipper pulled low, hand holding the waistband below his hips. He has a tattoo on the inside of his forearm, close to his wrist, something Lance hadn’t noticed in the dark of his car last night, but that he now can’t draw his eyes away from. It’s a cross of some sort, produces the sort of sacrilegious thoughts that he can’t linger on for too long for fear of losing his religion.

‘Wear something nice,’ Fernando’s text says, when he manages to read it.

Lance doesn’t own much that fits the description, other than a suit he saves for formals, but he figures it maybe doesn’t actually matter that much. Fernando promises to rip whatever it is off of him anyway.

Esteban throws another pencil at him when he tries to show him the photo, holds his hand up to block the view and then lands the writing utensil right on Lance’s nose.

------------

His dad calls when he’s fresh out of the shower of his own apartment, steam curling in the air around him and his phone vibrating steadily against the granite countertops of his humid bathroom. He answers before it goes to voicemail, figures he owes his dad this because it’s the third time he’s called since that morning, and he doesn’t want to risk pissing the man off too much.

“Hey,” he says as he’s wrapping a towel around his waist, slicking his wet hair back out of his face with his free hand. He leaves the phone on speaker, lets his dad’s voice fill space as he busies with getting ready.

“I’m going to assume you’ve been ignoring my calls because you are going to class.”

He only has one class on Tuesday’s, and it’s finished by noon. Advanced golf merchandising, a pointless elective where he’s meant to be learning the management of a retail location. He takes notes, enough to retain the important bits, but he already knows management isn’t where he’s going to end up. His dad would secure him some corporate position within his company before that was even an option. Which, he doesn’t want either, can’t stand the thought of being forced to wear a shirt with a collar every day.

“Yeah, I just got back from campus,” he lies, he’s been hiding out at Esteban’s since class ended, it’s seven now. The lie comes too easy, but the truth would only hurt the both of them – that Lance is avoiding his father because their conversations hurt more than they help these days. That Lance is growing, but it’s in a direction away from Lawrence, from the idea of who his dad thought he would be.

His dad wishes Lance were still small, and Lance wishes that too, but only because when he was a child hurting his dad only resulted in a brief scolding. Now it leads to awkward silences that neither of them know how to fill.

“Class is going well?”

“Um, easy so far, yeah.” They’re only three weeks in. “Other than this financial accounting class, it’s brutal.” He’s already had to ask Esteban for help, already knows he’s going to need to visit the library for tutoring.

He wipes steam from his mirror with the palm of his hand, catches a glimpse of his dripping reflection. Somehow, he needs to assemble himself into something relatively attractive within the next ten minutes, only for it to most likely come undone the second he slides his helmet over his hair. There’s a twisted sort of humor in him wondering how best to style himself for Fernando, while he’s on the phone with his father, pretending to care about classes that had stopped being fun once Lance realized they were actually supposed to lead to something.

“You spent all summer looking at the books,” Lawrence says. Which is true, but it had made more sense when things were hands on. Now it’s just a jumble of words and numbers on a whiteboard, a professor who knows the course is meant for weeding out those who are too weak to continue, and who looks at Lance every time he shows up late with a knowing sort of disappointment.

People didn’t used to look at him like that, it’s a growing sentiment the more Lance stumbles.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just- it’s different. All reading and equations and- I don’t know. I’m not a numbers guy, dad, you know this.”

“You got it pretty well while you were here.”

Only because he’d felt his dad’s eyes on him the whole summer, felt the pressure and the weight and need to prove he could do something. His professor doesn’t bother to look at Lance once he’s sat at a desk, which means Lance zones out, doodles designs in the margins of his notes and then wonders why the numbers don’t add up while he’s doing homework later.

“It’s different,” the exasperation in his voice is audible, he pauses where he’d been drying his hair with a towel pulled from under the sink. Closes his eyes. Breathes. “But I’m trying. I’ll- I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will, Lance. I didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

They’re being careful around each other, the eggshells just beginning to crunch beneath their feet. Neither one of them want a fight and Lance can feel the tension of it through the phone, the tightening of something in his chest that threatens to break every time he speaks to his father now. This is why he lets it go to voicemail.

Fernando texts him, he sees the notification come through as he’s staring at the phone, hands braced on the bathroom sink. Probably asking if he’s on his way. Lance’s hair is still dripping water in cold tendrils down the back of his neck, a puddle forming on the carpet at his feet. He hasn’t even bothered to find an outfit or brush his teeth.

“Look, dad- I- um, I gotta go. I have a, uh, a study thing with Pato-“

“Oh, okay, yeah. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Lance closes his eyes again, bows his head, tries not to care about the hurt that’s audible in his father’s voice and finds that it somehow manages to dig between his ribs anyway. He hangs up before there’s the chance for the line to fracture further, and then he busies himself with texting Fernando back.

‘You are still coming?’ Fernando asks.

Lance says he’ll be there soon, and then he focuses on the toothbrush in his hands, getting himself ready, and ignores everything else.

-------------

“I need a drink!” Lance yells over the music, leaning further into Fernando, who holds him up with ease. “A shot!”

Fernando’s hand on his waist tightens when Lance rocks on his feet. They’re standing in the press of bodies on the dance floor, people on all sides. The crowd makes it easy for Lance to press against Fernando, the flashing lights adding to the disorientation. No one notices the way Fernando’s got one hand gripping Lance’s hipbone, the other on his ass, tucked into the pocket of his jeans and cupping the curve of him.

They’re the same jeans he’d worn last night, pulled from the crumpled heap on his floor and slid back on because he couldn’t find anything else. If Fernando has noticed he doesn’t say anything, too distracted by the white linen button-up that Lance wear, only half done-up and exposing nearly the full expanse of his chest in the multicolored lights. Lance knows it puts the chain around his neck on full display, makes his collarbones stand out, shows how broad he is, and produces the impressed reaction Fernando had exhibited upon first seeing him.

He’d bought Lance his first drink, and then the first requested tequila shot, leaning on the bar top and staring at the exposed column of his neck as Lance tipped the liquor back and downed it with practiced ease. Lance had seen the way Fernando’s eyes had darkened as his adams apple bobbed, looking from the corner of his eye just to see the response that would be elicited with the movement.

“What do you want?” Fernando asks now, hand on his hip coming up to pull Lance down to him so his lips just barely brush over Lance’s ear.

He shudders, breath stuttering when Fernando’s fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck and pull just enough that there’s the promise of something better later. He’s been teasing Lance since Lance first arrived, the ghost of a touch, a tongue tracing over the sweaty line of his neck, enough to have him hard in his jeans but never doing anything to solve the problem.

It’s the most public foreplay Lance has ever engaged in, even if everyone is too drunk or too involved in their own games to even notice.

“Vodka?” Lance yells, knowing he probably seems young for only ordering shots, but he’d only just turned twenty-one last October. Most of his experience with alcohol has been bagged wine fountained before entry to a party or the mix of Kool-Aid and whatever liquor could be procured into a giant tub for jungle juice. Shots are simple, uncomplicated, and he knows he can handle them. Plus they hit fast, or at least feel like they do, give him the liquid courage needed to grind against Fernando as Pit Bull blares around them in the crowded bar.

The Keys is a mixed sort of space, half occupied by college kids who were too lazy to drive all the way to Rusty’s and half-filled by the locals who are looking for fun outside of their mansions. It means he and Fernando don’t draw attention, Lance fits in with the group of kids in their backwards caps and low cut shirts, Fernando blends with the guys in their pressed button-ups and black slacks. He just looks hotter than the others, the pants hugging his waist and ass well, clearly tailored. And the peak of a tattoo Lance gets on the back of Fernando’s neck as he follows him back up to the bar, Fernando’s hand around his wrist towing him through the crowd, separates him enough from the older guys smoking cigars outside on the patio. He wants to know what the tattoo is, slide Fernando’s shirt off his shoulders and trace the ink with his tongue.

But that’s for later, for now he lets Fernando guide him, lean him against the bar top, slide a hand back into the pocket of his jeans because the shape of his palm over his ass is becoming familiar. He flags down the bartender, orders two shots of Vodka and then they tip them back together. Lance can feel how flushed his neck is getting, wonders if the red of it is spreading to his chest, his cheeks. His hair that was still slightly damp from the shower is frizzing in the humidity of the packed space, falling over his forehead.

Fernando stares up at him, lips wet with vodka and his own spit when he licks them, Lance follows the movement, starts to lean forward like he intends to taste the lingering alcohol himself. Fernando stops him with a hand on his chest, fingers splayed across bare skin, index finger dipping into the hollow of his clavicle. Lance shudders, Fernando feels it.

“Let’s get out of here, yes?”

“Yes.”

Lance can’t drive his bike, just drunk enough that he knows he couldn’t keep his balance. Instead, he climbs into the passenger seat of Fernando’s Aston Martin, and deposits his own keys in the cupholder, casting a forlorn look back at his gear in the backseat. The same seat he’d come undone in last night, now occupied by his motorcycle helmet with the sticker of a cat waving the Canadian flag – something Pato had found online and ordered because ‘it’s Canada, Lance! You know, you!’. Fernando had asked him about it when he parked earlier, traced the outline of it before Lance had taken his helmet off, lifted Lance’s visor so he could see his eyes more clearly as he did so.

When he looks back at Fernando in the driver’s seat the man is staring at him. Lance knows what it looks like when someone wants him. He knows the way Pato gets all slack jawed and dopey-eyed, eyes flicking to Lance’s lips every two seconds even though he wouldn’t even try to kiss him. But Fernando’s look of want is different, more demanding and all-encompassing. He looks like he’s plotting the best course of stripping Lance out of his clothes before they’ve even reached their destination, like he is thinking of the best way to take him apart.

Maybe it’s because he’s more experienced, or maybe it’s because he’s less. Lance doesn’t know enough about him, anything really, to know if he is the first man Fernando has hooked up with or not. They still haven’t found much time to talk, or maybe just haven’t wanted to make the effort. Lance is okay with that, his idea of foreplay is not long discussions and get-to-know-you’s. He doesn’t have the patience for that, much prefers Fernando’s method of cutting to the quick and easy of it. Which Fernando does when he leans across the console enough to grab Lance by the chain around his neck and pull him in for a kiss.

Lance is still not used to the kissing, just opens his mouth and lets Fernando’s tongue slide into it because he’s not practiced enough. He’s okay with letting Fernando take control, likes how he doesn’t have to think about it, just follow. Fernando tastes like vodka, and Lance swallows the familiar taste of it when their spit mixes and he can no longer tell whose is whose.

When Fernando pulls back Lance tries to chase him, is stopped again by a hand on his chest, firm and unyielding.

“You are still okay with coming to my place?” Fernando asks, and something in the way he says it is slightly sobering. It makes Lance remember his bike two spots over, prepared to be abandoned for the night and hopefully still there come morning.

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“I will drive you home, instead. If you want. Up to you.”

“No. No I’m good. Trust me.” He’d prepped himself in the shower and everything, knew what he was getting into before a drop of alcohol ever touched his tongue. “I’ve been thinking about this since last night.”

Fernando eyes him, glances down at his chest where his skin is still red and hot and bare against his hand.

“Okay. God, you are beautiful.”

The praise shoots straight to Lance’s cock, has a quiet moan escaping him, something he only just barely manages to bite back with the press of his teeth into his bottom lip. Fernando catches it anyway, grins like he’s realized the praise wasn’t just a one-off from the hand job last night, but something Lance actually enjoys.

"Don’t worry, pretty boy,” he promises, “Make you feel better soon.”

#strollonso #strollonso fic #a lesson in braking #a lesson in braking fic #my fic #gang they make me maybe a bit unwell #also!! don't say anything about it lowkey being toxic rn #I know!#(it's intentional)#I have a path #let me stroll along it

67 notes · View notes

beabnormal24 · 7 months ago

Text

Hi, I just need to vent.

I do not have the words to tell you how much I love Landoscar. They’re so compelling to me and they do actually have such a good chemistry, and I loved Oscar’s reaction when Lando thanked him and I love the way they always seem so fond of each other.

As of recently, I haven’t been able to read many Landoscar fics, the reason?

Let me write you down some of the tags:

Carlos Sainz is an asshole

Carlos Sainz is a villain

Anti Carlos Sainz

Anti Sainz

And alright, I mean, you really want to have a villain, and instead of using any single other name you have to use Carlos? Alright, I guess (at least they tagged it…)

But how is it possible that it’s happening in almost every single one of them?

Let it be clear, I am not talking about just Carlos, I hate it when a story’s villain is another driver, it’s my personal preference, but honestly I’ve only seen this mostly happen with Carlos.

The worst part? Some of them went as far as depicting Carlos as an ab*ser.

An ab*ser.

Do you even realise what that word means? How heavy its significance is? I am not even going to go into details because private things are meant to be private, but I can assure you that if you use that depiction for a REAL PERSON and not for an imaginary character, then no, you do not know what that word means at all.

Oh, and isn’t it funny that it’s the same people who (rightfully) complained so much about having Trump in the Mclaren garage this weekend? The same people who said that (rightfully) Trump is an ab*ser and he should not be there?

And then those same people went around and described Carlos - a person they do not know, a person who does not fucking have any accusation, a person who should not be in prison, a person who you only hate just because he fucking races, a person who’s a real person - as an ab*user.

As I said, this can be said for other drivers as well easily. But honestly, it’s only Carlos I’ve seen around getting this treatment.

My personal opinion is that this fandom is getting sickeningly toxic.

Oh and not to mention the death wishes to Carlos, Daniel, Lance and sometimes I’ve read George, as well. That is, to put it in simpler words, incredibly disgusting.

Please, learn how to be kind to yourself and others before posting stuff online.

#carlos sainz #f1 #formula 1 #f1 rpf #this is getting out of hand #idk if it’s the new generations but it seems to me that nobody is able to understand the actual weight of words

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princessfoothings · 1 year ago

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Guys guys guys. Mentopolis is such a big story, such a big city, that several things can be happening all over the city and we would never know. And in fact, I think there are things happening all over the city that are central to the redemption arc of Elias Hodge that we just never hear about.

Because after Impluse grabs the packet, SOMEONE has to look at it, analyze it, think "Oh boy, this is a mind control gun! I better go talk to my boss about it", decide to bring a grappling gun, GET a grappling gun, (presumably) have a whole conversation with Elias's boss after which he gets shot with the mind control gun, and decide to JUMP OUT THE WINDOW, all without the rest of the mind really knowing about it.

Even before that, someone in the mind got Elias to take copper supplements—as a habit. Thats not a one-off decision, but a choice that requires several steps to carry out, multiple times. The conscious mind knew about mind control.

These are not impulses, instincts, or running on autopilot. These are conscious, intentional decisions. Major Logic seemed to have no idea what was going on (I'm guessing Ambition had blocked his access to information somehow) but some people in the conscious mind had to know. They were receiving sensory inputs until Elias jumped out the window and hit his head.

I don't think it was one person who was doing all of these things. I think they would have been important enough that the players would have run into them. No, I propose an anti-mind-control conspiracy made up of several lower-level government workers that worked to help Elias overcome the mind control. Conspiracy may be too big of a word, but we know that people other than the PCs were working to get Elias to survive. Individually or together, several people got Elias to take copper supplicants, grab the grappling gun, and jump out the window, totally unconnected to the PCs. I propose that Norrel and H. V. Lance were both part of this group. That was how Norrel knew about the copper supplicants that he used in his gun, and he knew mind control was a concern way before the rest of the mind.

But that leads me to another point. When Elias was falling from the building, he seemed to forget he had a grappling gun. If the PCs had not interfered, he would have just fallen to his death. The concepts that got him to jump out the window with a grappling gun were somehow unable to get him to use it. So let me ask you this:

What was Madam Loathing doing in Ambition's office when The Fix came to visit?

Ambition was meeting with some other businessmen, so likely the answer is that Loathing had just, or was about to, take them over. But she was already hiding in the room when the Fix entered. This is the time frame between when Elias jumped out of the window and before he used the gun, a time when we know Loathing was at city hall. I think she found and killed/took over the people who helped Elias.

The PCs were not the only people looking out for the big guy. Mentopolis is just so big that they never knew about the people who died to give them a chance to fight back.

#d20 #dimension 20 #d20 mentopolis #mentopolis #elias hodge #the fix #mentopolis spoilers #dimension 20 mentopolis

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itsblasttothepast · 5 months ago

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How can they make everything that is happening to Checo about Charles?? It’s so annoying seeing stupid things like this in his tag here. Like Checo has a whole market that he is marketable and sponsors want to sponsor him but apparently Charles is better than him in it. https://www.tumblr.com/1633lover/755884520629321728/everyone-talking-about-daniel-replacing-checo

To be honest, most of the european press and the anti-checo people are pretty sure Checo is out of RBR. I mean, they are taking it for granted, and it's the reason they are guessing who will get the seat.

I think they are getting Charles involved because they feel Ferrari is screwing him over (ironic that they don't see they're doing the same to Checo, even Juan Pablo Montoya made a video about it, and he has been pretty anti-checo most of the time), and moving to RBR will be better for him.

All the Daniel, Yuki and Charles fans are speculating, thinking that Checo will be fired; and even when I like the drivers, they also have their flaws.

I've never understood why people feel the need to crap on others, I mean, I don't like Lando, but I don't spend my time doing posts to hate him and say horrible things about him. I don't know why Checo in particular attracts these kind of comments and negativity. I honestly, in all my time as a F1 fan, have seen this intensity with other drivers, I know people criticize Lance, Lewis, Esteban... but with Checo is another league of hate.

And honestly, when I saw the post you are referring to, I kind of laughed. They say Charles will bring fans... I mean... are they really oblivious about Checo's fanbase?? We just made Chestappen canon 🤣, we make sure he wins surveys at X (the titty one was just deserved though), we are planning a fucking trip to Catemaco just to help him! Checo has the most loyal fanbase ever!

So let's keep supporting Checo and avoid all the negativity. And to be clear, I don't hate Charles, he's super nice, but cursed as well.

#f1 #random f1 ramblings #anon questions #please calm down with the checo hate people #sergio perez #checo perez #charles leclerc #I was thinking of posting the answer to my picture with Damien saying 'she isn't even a Checo fan'#but I thought that would be too much 🤣

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dizzyduck44 · 1 year ago

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Ok desperate times, desperate measures.

It’s time for some anti Red Bull crimes just to make the end of season interesting.

I’m taking a guess here on where people’s cars and previous results should put them in the race.

So lap one George is going to gently walk Max off the track, but do enough damage the cooling goes or something and he has to retire. (Sorry George it has to be you because third times the charm this season, this time you will get him to DNF). I’m gonna let you finish 5th or 6th (see the Lance caveat later).

Right Lando, Lewis get gone off down the road. All you have to do is keep it on the grey stuff and have fun racing each other, so you get some tv time.

Oscar, Charles, Carlos, Fernando. You need to keep Checo busy and most importantly off the podium. Daniel if you could loom ominously behind that would be perfect.

Ok so in a world where they manage to fix damage to Max’s car, Esteban, Pierre, Alex, you have two jobs here. 1. Protect Yuki. 2. Make Max’s life really really difficult. You all have just cause, so just channel your inner Fernando.

Ok Valtteri, Zhou, Logan, Kevin, Nico. You are going to have a great race, great race. Lots of screen time, because every time a Red Bull comes up behind you to lap you, you are going to be blind to blue flags and your radio is going to be dead ok? Valtteri this is your moment. You have our permission to be a dick. We love you, we will all find this funny. Go for it.

Ok Lance, I haven’t forgotten about you, it’s just make a decision are you going to retire the car by lap 10 or race like you did in Vegas? The latter options means you are going to be tailing Yuki through the pack.

Right we are aiming for a Lando win (that way the press can stop asking him the damn question and Max will be kinda happy about the result), with Lewis and Yuki on the podium (cos God knows he’s earned some real recognition this season).

Oscar and Lance can fight for 4th and 5th followed by George. (sorry Ferrari I don’t think your car is going to be good enough for top 5 this weekend).

Pierre I would love for you to get the podium you want, but the universe wants Yuki on there more!

One national anthem plays (driver and team, same country), Lando and Lewis drown Yuki in rosewater (Yeap that shit again) and we all stagger off to recover from a long arse season and wait for the drivers to start posting Christmas pics followed by pre-season thirst traps.

No one needs to hear from Christian Horner. Max isn’t expected to murder another song.

Who’s with me?

We all go off into 2024 lying to ourselves Adrian Newey, the God and Genius he is, hasn’t already designed a championship winning beast for next year.

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avidbeader · 8 months ago

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So, I've been doing the Great Sheith Reblog for a while now, gradually reblogging almost everything I shared before that was tagged as Sheith. Lots of art, gifsets, fics and recs, old merch posts, and meta to go around with the occasional dash of salt because lord, dumbness about shipping brings out the salt sometimes. But most of the time it's a lovely nostalgia hit and a reminder of why I still love this ship with all my fandom heart. It's bittersweet sometimes, seeing the usernames that left with Tumblr's worst decision ever, the fellow fans who have moved on to other things, and yes, the hopes and dreams we had before Season 8.

Long blathering under the cut: musings about the persistence of anti-shippers and what queerbaiting actually means.

But occasionally what both amuses and frustrates me is how things line up because it's 2024 and we still have klantis/antis over on the former Twitter spreading the same lies about Shiro and Keith - about their ages, about how they met, about what their relationship is. Right now over there, arguing is happening again because someone put up a clout-chasing poll about which mlm ship was the most influential and included KL but not Sheith (KL beat Johnlock and then lost to Hualian, so I'm happy twice over). Side note - I think if we take "influence" as a completely neutral term, then yeah, KL has been a huge negative influence on fandoms as it was one of the places that allowed puriteen attitudes and anti behavior to grow unchecked for so long. That helped turn some ship fandoms into cults, in which you had to believe with utter certainty that your ship would be canon or you weren't a "true" fan of the ship. That put more emphasis on opposing a rival ship through wank and harassment instead of focusing on the joy and fun of creating for the ship you supposedly love.

And that poll prodded someone to create a Google Form for soliciting answers as to what the biggest examples of queerbaiting are in media. And of course people are saying KL and Adam/Shiro, among other things that are not at all queerbait. These are examples of people guessing wrong and getting mad about it. Queerbait requires that the producers/writers/etc. say outright that a ship is going to happen and then it doesn't, without any influences from the powers above them making changes. Not received fan "wisdom". Not marketing doing things without consulting the producers.

And I just reblogged someone's ask in which they said they felt queerbaited by Sheith solely because of the "brother" line in "The Black Paladins". The answer is excellent and worth a ready if you haven't seen it on my blog already.

Breaking it down:

KL is not queerbait. KL was never planned as a potential ship and LM/JDS said so multiple times. They said it never occurred to them as a possibility and by the time KL's popularity took off they were too far along in the writing to try and go back and make changes, because animators need time to draw. LM flat-out said she was surprised that it became a thing. If the producers are telling you over and over in no uncertain terms that a ship had never been on the table and couldn't be added to the table now, that's not a case of queerbait. And they spoke of Lance's love interests as female every single time. JDS/LM never said anything that would lead fans into thinking KL was a possibility without the deliberate and willful misinterpreting of their words.

Adam/Shiro is not queerbait. Adam is a minor character in a series with a large cast. He has two functions: to be evidence of Shiro's status as a queer man and to be a "face" for all the pilots that died in the first wave of Sendak's invasion. Some people try to claim that LM and JDS queerbaited with their answers at SDCC 2018, but they're wrong. The only thing LM said was that we would see more of Adam in S7. And we did. She did not promise we'd see more of him with Shiro. That was people inserting what they wanted to hear, just like them trying to elevate Adam's status to a fiancé when again, LM clearly stated that they were serious and considering getting engaged. Not engaged. Not married. Just a couple that was serious about each other but broke up.

I don't consider Sheith to be true queerbait. It might fall under the cryptoqueer situation explained at the end of the post linked above, but JDS and LM were mostly very careful to talk of Sheith in terms of deep friendship and devotion to one another, after the initial wave of support for fan content during S1, prior to the klanti movement taking off. The only thing that skirts the line for me is a quote, I think from JDS, saying that if Shiro had a new love interest it would be someone he has known a long time. Or maybe that was about the romances in general being developed over seasons and not Shiro-specific - I would need to research. (Yet more proof that the endcard "wedding" was not planned since we didn't see the unnamed groom until S7 and they never interacted.) And that was said before studio execs started meddling and caused the trainwreck of S8.

I do think we were supposed to have an open ending for Sheith. Klantis like to point out a storyboard artist claiming that "no one wins" this ship war as evidence that KL was supposed to happen and got changed, but that statement applies if Sheith is left open-ended and Allurance happens, even without the endcards.

When I have a chance, I'll try and dig up the links for the various quotes I mention above. Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

#voltron #sheith #why K/L and A/S are not actually queerbait despite anti claims

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mugglebrn · 30 days ago

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97﹕ sender has hidden an injury from receiver , and receiver finds out . (war verse)

HIS FINGERS ARE TENDER DESPITE THE URGENCY IN WHICH HE PUSHES BACK HER HAIR AND HOOKS HIS THUMB BENEATH THE ANGLE OF HER JAW TO TAKE A LOOK AT HER NECK. Hermione makes a noise of discomfort and then another of vain irritation when she feels a good chunk of her curls fall away, enough that's there's a noticeable lightness to the right side of her head. "I'm okay, it didn't hit anything vital," incredibly luckily considering the intention behind the diffindo casting was most definitely to sever her jugular, and all she had was a nasty, but mostly superficial cut beneath her ear and an uneven haircut. She guesses she's going to have to go short for spring.

If they make it out of here alive. Which, considering the anti-apparition, anti-magic wards in place, is becoming increasingly slim.

Draco makes a huff of noise she assumes is reluctant acceptance that she's okay before turning away from her and going to look around the room, searching for a weak point. She does the same, tucking away her now useless wand in favour of throwing things at the windows at the far side of the abandoned sitting room in the futile hope they'd smash.

It goes like that for the better part of an hour, both of them lobbing ideas at each other and trying to cast spells against what they figure might be weak points in short bursts that fracture the silence (and in retrospect, she does most of the talking). They're well into hour two before a break comes in the form of him slumping against the discoloured wallpaper and sliding to the ground where she joins.

"I guess our best bet is wait and hope," Hermione mutters despondently, that very notion going against every fibre of her Gryffindor being. When all she gets is another strained sound, she looks at him in earnest, thankful for the abundant windows that bathe him in moonlight. He's pale. Far more than he normally is. With his normally rosy lips pallid and sweat speckling his brow despite the frigid air, a hazy quality to his eyes as he stares at the looming oak tree beyond the North side window. Dread lances through her, white and hot, eyes raking downwards, coming to land on a dark, wetness seeping through his shirt. She's on him immediately, pulling up his button down and coming face to face with a gaping wound in his side, still oozing blood at a rate that while not immediately lethal, is concerning considering they're trapped here for god knows how long with no magic and no supplies. Very suddenly the unusual quiet from him makes perfect sense and Hermione feels sick with the guilt over not noticing this sooner. How had she not noticed sooner?

"W-why didn't you tell me?" she thinks she knows the answer even as she asks. Trembling hands now covered in his warm blood coming up to run over his contrastingly cold skin, searching for any more injuries he might have hidden from her before tracking back up to bracket his cheeks and force him to look at her with those glassy eyes. The look in them confirmation of her suspicions before he's even opened his mouth to answer.

He hadn't wanted to worry her.

#signetrings #( verse : war. )#( answered. )

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antiquepearlss · 2 months ago

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i have more fall asks for u muahhaah

OKAY... who from tts do you think likes candy corn and who do you think hates it

i think rapunzel likes it, she likes anything sweet i think we can all agree on that. eugene & lance both love it as well, its cheap and a good sweet to snack on, i think lance likes it more than eugene but they both enjoy it. Cassandra hates it, smth about her idk... varian has always been kinda iffy abt it but i think his dad has always liked it(the only sweet quirin probably enjoys) so varian kinda grew up around it. and the girl both have very different views on it, kiera hates it witg every bone in her body, and catalina likes it & always steals it from lance when he buys some lol

and hugo is the monster that likes the chocolate/maple ones.

also whats your opinion on it...(im curious, i love love lovee candy corn but everyone i know outside my family despises it😭🙏)

So like, I hate candy corn, so I want to say everyone else hates candy corn, except Hugo because he’s wrong and he sucks.

But I guess I’ll take this seriously lmao. Rapunzel loves most sweets, I can see her liking it. Same with Lance and Catalina. Eugene and Varian don’t hate it but they don’t really like it either. I think Varian would eat it but Eugene wouldn’t, and probably reposts anti-candy corn memes. Same with Cass. Kiera despises it. And Quirin liking candy corn and only liking candy corn is canon to me now thank you.

#Varian is being peer pressured into liking corn shaped wax #tts #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rapunzel #eugene fitzherbert #varian #lance strongbow #kiera and catalina #cassandra tangled #🎃

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superseal76 · 17 days ago

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BONES!!!!

Ooo I was hoping someone would give me BONES!!

• favorite female character - Brennan of course

• fave male character-SEELEY JOSEPH BOOTH

• fave season - hmm season 3 maybe??

• fave cast member - David Boreanaz

• fave ship - BOOTH & BRENNAN

• character I’d die defending- idk I’m not one to fight over a fictional character lol but I guess I’ll say Booth

• character I can’t sympathize with- PELANT

• character i grew to love - Lance Sweets🥹

• anti otp - Booth and Hannah and Brennan and Sully …in fact I didn’t like B&B with ANYONE who wasn’t B&B.

#ask game #bones #B&B #Seeley Booth #temperance Brennan #David Boreanaz #I enjoy these things #but I might do one a night #don’t wanna spam people

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myimaginarywonderland · 25 days ago

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No, I am actually going to be that person:

Stop trying to talk down on fucking Anti tags.

I am so tired of you all being like "Drivers deserve no hate, they are human too blah blah". Guess what. Humans fuck up. They get called out for it like they should so they can learn. Sugarcoating especially won't help in a fandom that is already centered around the most privileged fucking people imaginable (majority being cis, straight white men)

Humans also have people that like and dislike them. Do you not think that these tags were created for a purpose? Most of us saw that we didn't like a driver and just like most of you guys want to connect to people who do, we want to connect to people who don't.

Stop trying to argue that you fandom experience gets ruined by anti tags when fans have specifically created those tags so they wouldn't ruin your experience.

I am not excusing deaths threats or threats of violence in anyway but that is not what 95% of anti posts are about. Threats of any kind aren't okay but that is not the case in most posts, hell the majority do not have that.

You create your fandom experience. There are so many kinds of subfandoms that yes are aften found connected to the main fandom. So if you want to avoid one of those fandoms, block tags that are related to it. All of us who interact in and with anti tags are specifically doing that to make your fandom experience easier and more comfortable. We know how hard it can be to navigate a fandom so we are trying our best to make clear where not to go yet you all keep insisting that it is still horrible etc.

This is a sports fandom. People dislike teams, players in every fucking kind of sport. People have preference in every kind of sport. Therefore the same will happen in F1 only instead of players it will be drivers.

Nowadays we have the incredible privilege of being able to choose what fandom spaces to enter, how we want to create those experiences.

Yes, there are still people who do not know fandom etiquette but that really is a very small minority.

I also find it funny that only when your favourite white boy is suddenly under criticism are you all complaining about hate meanwhile drivers like Max and Lance where cyberbullied since they entered the sport as teens, Lewis still has to face racism from within the motorsport community, ...

Again: Anti tags do not mean death threats or violence should ever be allowed there. Those have no place anywhere.

But Anti tags are not made to threaten drivers. Anti tags are a result of people personal negative opinions on drivers that they want to share with others just like the normal tags are a result of people's personal positive feelings that they want to share with others. Both of these people deserve their place in fandoms, on completely opposite ends as to not disturb one another.

#f1 #sorry for the rant #but i am actually pissed off at so many of you all insisting we do not need anti tags

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myddrinmob · 5 months ago

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Coeden Onnen

“Why do you want to be a knight so much?” Merlin asks him. The source of a dream can be illuminating, in its own way. Lancelot, behind him, answers in a low tone. Something of melancholy sits upon his tongue. “When I was a boy, my village was attacked by Frankish raiders - God alone knows how they had gotten so far west. I imagine the village must be gone now.” He pauses, and Merlin turns to see him fidgeting with the leather cuffs around his wrists. “They were slaughtered where they stood. My father, my mother. Everyone. I alone escaped, further west, to my mother’s people in Armorica, and then, when I was ready, to here. I have devoted my life to the art of combat, and now -” he shrugs, “- everything I fought for. Wasted.” Not wasted, Merlin thought. Such skills were never wasted. But he saw that there was no way to convince Lancelot of that now. “I give you my word,” he said, prompting Lancelot to raise his head. “Whatever it takes, I will make this right.”

Chapter 5! Our boy Lance has arrived! *Insert celebatory horm noise here*

The Lancelot episode is one of my favourites, and is the beggining of Arthur amassing his knights who are noble in spirit rather than blood - something that we'll come back to in later episodes, and which I intend to give a different take on than the show's.

Gaius: The First Code of Camelot states that only those of noble blood can serve as a knight. Uther created the knights to protect this kingdom from those who wished to destroy it. He knew he would have to trust each of his knights with his life. So he chose them from the families that had sworn allegiance to him.

(I have Opinions on how medieval-fantasy stories deal with noble class - I started writing it out here, but it got so long that I thought it would be better off as it's own post. So keep an eye out for that! For now, suffice it to say that it's going to change.)

The other thing I'm doing a bit differently compared to the show, highlighted in this episode, is the anti-magic competancies of a kingdom apparently famous for them.

Uther: You must prepare your knights, Arthur. Arthur: Have faith, Father. We'll be ready.

Are you, though?

Look, I love swords as much as the next bi, but a suitable weapon for every senario they are not. You want to fight a huge, aerial creature? With a short-range weapon?

Like, they didn't even go for greatswords. I'm just saying.

You want something with reach, and you want something that can control its movement. Given that griffins aren't real, and that we don't really have winged animals of that size anyway, I chose to think of it as if they were fighting a boar that was particularly aeorodynamic. And for boars, you use spears, and you use crowd control - usually dogs.

Now, whether or not Uther and the rest of his retinue have ever fought a griffin specifically, we do know that they've fought dragons. They were so good at it that most think dragons extinct! A griffin is just a small dragon that doesn't breath fire - an easier dragon, really, a cakewalk. Even allowing for most of the actual fighting force being made up of men too young to have seen the Purge, the tactics would still be known by those in charge - it would surely be part and parcel of any training Uther put Arthur through, as much as would be relevant at least.

So, if we assume that these people can at least make an educated guess as to the best way to combat the griffin, and we assume ideal tactics match what would work with irl large mammals -

“And a spear for each man,” Arthur says, mind already whirring, thinking how to best defeat this novel enemy. “For the beast will likely not close with us.” Uther nods. “You see the shape of our attack already. As you prepare the knights, so I shall prepare the armsmen, the hunters, and the falconers.” “The falconers? Whatever for?” “You said it yourself, Arthur. This beast has wings. Your knights will have the best chance of killing it if we can remove that advantage. Those that work in the royal mews were invaluable once in our eradication of dragons. Weighted nets, game hounds, mimic whistles. And for the guardsmen, bows and buckets of thick tar.” “You hope that we can lure it, and then ground it.”

Spears for everyone in that courtyard, and nets for controlling its movement. I kept the, frankly stupid, decision by Uther later to send the knights out unsupported and in the dark to finish the job - he is still a man of high hubris, convinced that there is nothing magic can make that he can not defeat. But that first fight needed changing up.

Two other minor descisions, about the two I think are really the stars of this episode:

Gwen's changed role in this ep is really a continuation of her new role in the season - Merlin's best buddy, and co-conspiritor in shennanigans. She isn't going to sit around while her friends run headlong into danger. No sir. She's going to go with them of course, nervous but brave. Is there going to be fighting? Well, later canon episodes show that someone (Morgana?) has taught her at least the basics with a sword. I went with a bow this time, mainly as a salute to the very medieval British tradition of peasants being damn excellent with bows - sometimes it was a legal imperitive to practice so many hours a year, specifically to make sure that the levy in wartime was as good as can be.

The other thing Gwen gets in this ep is -

Merlin speaks, in a manner Gwen has never heard, does not know, but which tugs against her like a half forgotten childhood memory.

A clue for you all, which I'll not be explaining for a while yet.

Onward"

You may have noticed in the flavour text at the top of this post a brief line about the Franks, and about Armorica. This links in with Lancelot's backstory, as I've decided to construct it.

The character of Lancelot is from the French & German versions of the Arthurian mythos, with a recurring spot among the Dutch, and doesn't really enter the English canon until later. It seemed right to keep him French, or as French as you can get before France is even around. The Vulgate has him as from "in the borderland between Gaul and Brittany", which I like, and helps lay down some new and interesting threads.

The Franks did indeed move from east to west during their various conquests of what was once Gaul, and I imagine that Lancelot's village fell around or just after the fall of the Kingdom of Soissons in 486 - the rest of former Gaul, save Brittany and Septimania, would fall during his lifetime.

Having this early nod to the Franks - Germanic peoples who migrated into and conquered much of the former Roman Empire, doesn't that sound familiar - will help me put more substantial bits in later. It seems right - in a show that talked a big game about a Golden Age TM, and what aspects of pervious ages (Uther/Romans, druids/Celts) to bring forward - that we should consider the real world changes that were happening during the theoretical years of Arthur's life.

As for Brittany - for those who don't know, Brittany=Armorica, the most celtic part of France (they still have morris dancing I think), and a destination for migrants from Britain during this period. I imagine the reverse was also true. Either way, places like Cornwall kept trading with Armorica, bits of the Iberirian penninsula, and further still.

(Cornwall is one of those weird places that got more Roman after the Romans left, in part due to the continued stability of their trade. Grass is always greener, I guess.)

I have no idea if this was deliberate on the part of the writers, but when they made Igraine of Cornwall into Igraine du Bois, they opened a rather neat posibility: the du Bois family, established in Armorica, from a long line of Romanised Gauls, powerful enough to put themselves forward as nobles if they weren't such already, emmigrating to Cornwall in part or full sometime after 410.

I wonder if Lancelot ever met any?

#bbc merlin #season 1 #lancelot #lancelot du lac #guinevere

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invisibleraven · 2 years ago

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If music blares and no one cares who your unruly heart loves

It's time for prom, only Julie is less than enthusiastic about it.

Read it on AO3 HERE!

Word Count: ~3.5k

This is my entry for the Free Day of @polyshipweek 2023!

I decided to write a prom story as my beloved @daintyduck99 created another gorgeous moodboard that you can see below that truly inspired me. I really hope you enjoy!

Julie scowled at the posters plastering the hallways of Los Feliz High. It seemed every inch was determined to remind her that prom was coming up. Once upon a time, Julie was like most every girl, fantasizing about going to prom, dancing under the twinkle lights, wearing the beautiful dress, having a real night to remember to cap off her high school experience. But now…

Well now she could care less because the stupid administration would never let her go with who she wanted.

Not that either of her boyfriends had asked her, mind you, and Principal Lessa was usually understanding, but given a small group of teachers had put up a stink about same sex partners going (which was struck down when the PTA was lead by a couple of lesbians) she doubted they would be so understanding about a threesome of partners.

She slumped off to the cafeteria, still making a face even though it was pizza day, the least objectionable school lunch. Her mood only soured when she got to her table to find Kayla gushing over how her boyfriend Lance asked her to prom just last period.

“Hey, what’s with the gloom cloud?” Flynn asked, offering her a ranch dipped carrot stick.

“Prom.”

“Since when are you anti-prom?” Carrie asked. “Just last year you told me you couldn’t wait to shop for a dress, as long as it wasn’t as voluminous as your quinceañera one.”

“That was when my date wouldn’t cause a stink.”

Flynn and Carrie shared a sympathetic smile. “I mean, you could still go. Do one dance with Luke, one with Reggie, then let them dance together. I know it’s not quite the same but…”

“We couldn’t get pictures done of all three of us, or have a dance all together, or even really share a table without one of us getting asked where our date was,” Julie grumbled.

“You were the one who didn’t want to advertise you were dating the guys until after we graduated,” Carrie argued. “You wanna keep it on the down low, you can’t exactly go to prom all together.”

“You know why we didn’t tell people,” Julie said. Carrie lowered her eyes, because she did know. Heck, when Julie started dating both boys, none outside of the three of them was supposed to know, but over time they had shared the news with their friends and explained why they had hidden it. There had been some hurt feelings, but in the end, they had all understood. “But I guess I didn’t really think about what I was giving up to be with them. It’s worth it, more than. They're the loves of my life-but… I still wish we could just go to prom.”

“Who’s going to prom now?” Reggie said as he sat down beside Julie, passing her an apple and snagging her celery sticks.

“Kayla and Lance,” Flynn supplied, sending Julie a i got you look.

“He prom-posed right in front of the whole history class,” Carrie said.

“Prom-posed?” Luke asked as he took the space on Julie’s other side, swapping her milk for a diary free one. Gosh, what would she do without them? Julie had been so deep in thought half of what had been on her tray would have gone uneaten. She gave them both a grateful smile before explaining.

“It’s when a guy makes a big production over asking a girl to prom, like it’s an over the top proposal.”

“That’s a thing?” Reggie asked between bites of celery. “Why?”

Julie shrugged in response. “I don’t see why you can’t just… ask you know? I personally would be mortified if anyone did that to me.”

“You don’t want some over the top spectacle?” Luke asked, though his voice was a little tense.

“God no,” Julie said, screwing up her face. “It’s embarrassing, and it puts too much pressure on the askee to say yes in the moment. I’m good with something private and simple. For prom, or anything beyond that.”

“Good to know,” Reggie said with a wink. Flynn looked at where Luke was frantically and subtly waving off the members of the marching band who had just entered the space. They looked a little put out, but retreated, and all Flynn could do was stifle a giggle. Looks like Julie’s himbos weren’t as dense as she thought about asking her-they just had no idea how.

She might just need to step in and help-it spelled disaster if she didn’t.

First things first was to confirm that the guys were actually planning on taking Julie to prom.

Scratch that-the first thing for Flynn to do was find out if they could.

She was sure she saw Mrs. Pearson the secretary suppress a groan when she saw Flynn, but buzzed Principal Lessa all the same, then waved her back. “Miss Taylor, what can I do for you?”

“It’s about prom.”

The woman’s shoulders sagged. “Look, you know I had nothing to do with the whole no same sex partners thing right? I fought long and hard to ensure you could go with your girlfriend.”

“I know,” Flynn replied. Principal Lessa was a lot of things, but a homophobe wasn’t one of them. Sure, she wasn’t the faculty supervisor for the GSA, but she knew the woman also drove around with a Pride sticker on her bumper year round. “This is concerning Julie.”

“Oh, I know you agreed to DJ, but if her band or Dirty Candi want to do a few numbers, I won’t say no.”

Flynn grinned at that, knowing neither band would turn it down. Okay, Luke might, but she had a feeling the rest of the Phantoms would outvote him. “I’ll pass the offer along. But no, this is about her date.”

“Does she want to bring someone from a different school? I already made allowances for that. As long as they’re of age, they’re welcome.”

“It’s more so the number of dates she wants to bring,” Flynn explained.

“Ah.” The principal folded her hands. “Misters Patterson and Peters I presume?” When Flynn shot her a bewildered look, the woman smiled. “Please, I’m not blind. The way they all look at each other? The little stolen touches? They aren’t as subtle as they think they are.”

Flynn laughed a little at that, they really weren’t. Plus the number of people who knew was growing larger every day, as all their friends knew, as well as Julie’s family. Not sure if Luke’s family was in the know, but Flynn was sure they suspected. She was positive Reggie’s folks didn’t know, but she also knew that the second he turned 18 just a few weeks away, right after they graduated, Reggie was getting out of that house and into Victoria’s spare room. Heck, she was fairly certain he practically lived there now. They all had a running bet that the three of them would be shacking up together by the fall anyways, but no one wanted Reggie living with his awful family any longer than he needed to. That was a big part of why Julie wanted their relationship secret-who knows what Linus Peters would do if he found out.

“So can they go together?” she asked, inching forward in her chair, a hopeful, pleading expression on her face.

Principal Lessa sighed. “Miss Taylor, I wish I could say yes, but the teachers who tried to stonewall you would definitely say something, and I don’t think I have it in me to fight another battle for the sake of three students.”

Flynn sagged in her chair. “That sucks.”

“However…” Principal Lessa said, a sly smirk on her face, “I can tell the photographer to look the other way if any students want group photos done, I’m sure Carrie would love an official photo done with the Dity Candi girls and their dates. And I can distract a few chaperones during the couples dances if Julie wanted to dance with both her dates at the same time. Someone has to ensure the punch isn’t spiked right?”

“You’re crafty, I like it.”

“Well thank you.” The woman smiled at Flynn. “You’re a good friend to Julie. I’ll try to get the more understanding teachers to keep an eye out during the dance, so go tell her it’s okay, but I am totally looking the other way.”

Flynn gave her thanks and ran off. She had some himbos to find.

DJ Flynn: Yo, boy band, you and cowboy gonna ask Jules to prom?

Guitar Hero: Well yeah, we had a whole plan and everything!

BassBabe: No, you had a plan. I told you Julie wouldn’t want a big thing!

Guitar Hero: Come on, you know she loves a good serenade!

BassBabe: Not in front of the whole school.

DJFlynn: Look, Lessa said it’s ‘okay’ for you guys to go together, and she has your backs as much as she can, so figure out something a little more low key and ask our girl out okay? She’s super bummed about this whole thing.

Guitar Hero: Already working on Plan B

BassBase: That means he’s writing a song.

DJFlynn: 🙄 Of course he is. Oh, Lessa says you can have 3 song slots if you want, Carrie and the girls are getting the same offer.

Guitar Hero: Prom band? Seriously?

BassBabe: Alex and I say yes. Plus then Julie has to go.

DJ Flynn: Exactly what I was thinking. Now go ask her!

“You gonna tell me where we’re going?” Julie asked as her boyfriends led her by her hands.

“Nope, you’re just gonna have to trust us,” Luke said.

“We’ve got you Julie, always,” Reggie promised.

“I would feel better about that if I weren’t blindfolded,” Julie retorted.

“We’re almost there, just one more step down,” Luke instructed.

Then the blindfold was pulled from her face, and Julie gasped. They were in her backyard, but it had been transformed. The trellis and trees were covered in fairy lights, with soft candles flickering around on the table. She could hear music playing in the background, a romantic ballad that she wouldn’t suspect the type of thing either of her boyfriends would listen to.

And there, on the cobblestone terrace, were scattered flower petals and a series of tealights spelling out one question: Prom?

“Oh,” Julie said. “You’re really asking me to prom?”

“Of course boss,” Luke replied. “Did you think we wouldn’t?”

“I-I guess I didn’t think you would, given we were keeping things a secret. Reggie what if…”

“Ssh, it’s okay darlin’,” Reggie soothed her. “I’m going to stay with Tia from now on. Why wait until my birthday?”

“So… no more hiding?” Julie clarified.

“I already told my folks, apparently they guessed long ago. They aren’t thrilled, but honestly I think they’re more pissed I’m putting off school to get our music out there,” Luke said.

“I don’t care what my parents think,” Reggie said firmly. “They haven’t cared about me or my life in ages. MeeMaw knows, she’s cool with it, and Julie, your family has practically adopted me, so I know they approve.”

“So prom?” Julie asks. “We can really go?”

“Lessa got our back and a contract for us to do a few songs,” Luke assured her. “So, you wanna be our date?”

Julie grinned and rushed into their arms, kisses being exchanged left and right as she agreed. “Surprised you didn’t prom-pose via song,” she said to Luke.

“He nearly did, I convinced him to keep workshopping it for a few years down the line,” Reggie said with a wink. Luke scowled good naturedly but pulled him in for a kiss, and Julie just shook her head. She could wait a few years to hear the song honestly.

But she already knew her answer for when she did.

Later, her lips swollen, the yard cleaned, and a song in her heart, Julie checked her phone and laughed.

DJ Flynn: Did the himbos ask you yet? We need to get you a dress ASAP

Ju Ju Bean: They did. We can hit up the shops tomorrow. Lunch is on me because I’m sure you had multiple hands in this.

DJ Flynn: Girl I didn’t do anything, but I’ll never turn down free food!

Julie shook her head. She knew Flynn would never tell her the part she played, but she felt a rush of fondness for her friend for making her dreams a reality.

Prom night was warm and lovely as Reggie pulled up to Luke’s house. Beeping the horn and grinning as Luke appeared at the door, and was halfway down the drive when his mom called him back. Placing three boxes into his hands and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Luke gave her a warm smile and pecked her forehead, then was off again. “Hey babe,” he said, sliding into the truck and pulling Reggie into a much more indecent kiss. “God I love that I can do that whenever I want now.”

“D-do you guys resent me for making you keep us a secret?” Reggie asked as he drove off, eyes resolutely on the road.

“What? God no!” Luke said vehemently. “Reg, babe, you did what you had to do to stay safe and keep a roof over your head. A few months of not having to share our relationship with the world and have you all to ourselves? That was nothing. Julie and I know you’re worth more than being public. But it is nice that we can be now without worrying.”

Reggie couldn’t help but smile at that answer. “I love you, you know that?”

“Yeah yeah, you big sap, love you too. Now, let’s go get our girl,” Luke replied, the both of them dabbing their eyes of moisture as they hopped out of the truck.

Julie flounced down the stairs as the bell rang, brimming with excitement and nerves. “Papi!” she called. “They guys are here!”

“If you three think you’re not getting pictures done before you go you’re insane!” Ray called back.

“Camera is on your desk!” Carlos yelled from the living room.

“Gracias mijo!” Ray called, smiling as he emerged with the camera seconds later, opening the door. “Well well boys, don’t we clean up nice.”

And boy did they!

Reggie was in a sleek suit, the jacket and vest a shiny red satin covered with little black butterflies. Luke was in a navy blue floral number, though Julie was willing to bet he’d lose the jacket mid way through the night, as he had already confessed to getting Flynn to tailor the shirt to be sans sleeves. They saw her and Julie giggled as their mouths opened slightly.

She gave a small twirl, showing off her white high tops covered in hearts, the sparkly skirt of her purple dress flying around her, and the light catching in all the rhinestones bedecking the leather jacket that had once been her mother’s. “Well, will I do?’

“Damn boss, you look good,” Luke said with a low whistle, only giving Ray a sheepish grin when the man lowered his eyes on him.

Reggie fared not much better as he stammered out a soft wow. He then reached out to the porch, pulling in three heart shaped balloons. “For the pictures,” he explained.

Luke got the three boxes his mom had shoved at him-boutonnieres for them all. They had gone with dahlias, Julie’s favourite flower in a nice white colour. Julie swore there was something in her eye when the boys slid hers over her wrist, but it must have been catching because their eyes were equally glassy as she pinned the flowers to their jackets.

Ray took as many pictures as he possibly could, capturing every moment, and making sure he got lots of pictures of the three of them together-”Just in case the one at the school won’t,” he said.

“Thanks papi,” Julie said, pulling him in for a hug, and Reggie stole the camera to capture a few shots of her and her dad, as well as the one that Carlos would allow before they had to hit the road.

They went off to eat, happy enough to get burgers from a local diner, not needing anything fancy. Their friends all met up with them there, everyone looking mighty fine indeed. Alex blushed when Reggie gave him an overexaggerated whistle, but Willie came and spun him, and that made him look infinitely pleased in his sheer shirt and blush pink jacket that somehow completely complimented Willie’s black suit covered in golden marigolds.

Carrie was in a slinky sparkly pink number with a high leg slit while Flynn’s turquoise tea length dress shimmered every time she moved. All the Candis were in theri signature colours, but Julie silently thought their dates lacked a bit of creativity given they were in simple black suits with ties to match their date’s dress.

Finally it was time to head to prom, which was being held at a local hotel. The space was awash in soft purple lighting, with a photo backdrop of shimmery silver fabric, and disco balls hung from the ballroom. They spent quite a bit of time getting photos done, and Julie pulled Flynn in for a hug when she found out the girl had convinced Lessa to allow group photos, and that she had also booked them a good chunk of time.

So no one said anything when Julie, Luke, and Reggie stepped up for their turn, doing a mix of corny and sweet poses. But Julie liked the last one best where her boys were kissing each of her cheeks, the joy evident on her face.

Dirty Candi had agreed to do their first song at the beginning of the night, and the floor was packed as they did their thing, Carrie looking radiant up on the stage. Julie giggled as she bounced and twirled with her boys, then over to Alex and Willie, then to Flynn before going back to a flailing Luke and Reggie who were doing some overly complicated swing maneuver in the silliest fashion possible.

Flynn stepped up to the DJ booth next, playing a few songs, and Julie knew it would be their turn soon, so she dragged the boys backstage to get ready. They rocked out, and gosh Julie had never felt so alive. Here she was, at prom, playing with her band, getting to dance with her boyfriends, and it felt like she was at the top of the world. Nothing could wipe the smile off her face.

They kept dancing and playing throughout the night, and though she wanted to, at every slow song, Julie would only pull one of the guys in, or let them dance together. She knew Principal Lessa had told Flynn she would try to keep the less liberal staff members at bay, but Julie didn’t want to push it.

Finally, it was coming towards the end of the night. Flynn glared at her. “Girl I did not go to Lessa just so you would have to pick and choose, go dance with your boys. I’ll mess with anyone who even tries looking at you funny.”

Julie bit her bottom lip, but then she saw Luke and Reggie’s hopeful faces, and she let them pull her towards the dance floor. Sandwiched between them as they swayed, Julie closed her eyes, feeling oh so safe and loved here in their arms. She could hear a few murmurs and whispers but when she opened her eyes, she didn’t see any hateful or confused looks. Only soft smiles, and… money changing hands?

God were they so obvious her classmates had been betting on them? Julie hoped someone she knew won the pot, and tittered to herself when she saw Willie shove a rather large stack of bills into his jacket. Good for him.

Julie didn’t pay attention to who won prom queen, but she was a little surprised to see that Carrie hadn’t run for it. “Eh, I have plenty of tiaras,” the blonde said. “Christina deserves it.”

Julie looked to where the perky cheerleader was dancing with a guy Julie swore was in the D&D club and played in a local metal band they had crossed paths with a few times… but shrugged. They looked super cute together, and honestly Julie was happy enough dancing on the sidelines with her own princes.

It was late by the time prom was over, and they headed back out to the truck. Sure they could have gotten a room, but Ray had trusted them to come home, even offering to let them sleep (just sleep mind you) together, and they weren’t about to betray his trust after all the support and love that he had given them.

So Julie ended prom night in her cozy jammies, snuggled up between her two boys, soft smiles on all their faces as they yawned. “So, prom all it was cracked up to be boss?” Luke asked.

“It was lovely, thanks for making it such a nice night,” Julie replied.

“Anything for you darlin;” Reggie mumbled, nuzzling into her curls.

Julie yawned once more, letting her eyes drift closed as Luke began to snuffle on her other side. Sure, Julie knew that the world might not always be kind to the three of them, but for one magical night, they got to be together, and that made it truly a night to remember.

#polyshipweek23 #my stuff #writing #fanfic #peterpatterlina #rukebox #julie and the phantoms

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