#the shape of the face and body is so good

[the-mortifying-ordeal-of]

I haven't gotten to the point of people expressing worry, or my body breaking down, or needing treatment, but I am fully aware that being called "butterface" (aka "she's got a great body, but her face...") and "pizza face" growing up, being called princess (derogatory) or dramatic or crazy or a bully or just mean and scary, and only getting compliments on my naturally flat stomach and bubble butt absoLUTELY reinforced that my body shape is the only good thing about me. Why would I not claw tooth and nail to keep it, my only source of worthiness and desirability? All my pictures have always been from the mouth down (pierced to accentuare), or neck down, essentially between collarbone and upper thigh. I know what pieces of me are wanted, and all the rest that aren't. I have played this game for years, and everyone has always reinforced it. I still remember *where I was* when my childhood bestie complimented my stomach (pierced to accentuate), when my first serious boyfriend nicknamed me CNSF (pierced to accentuate), when AM consistently hyped up my "junk in the trunk," when MUC's sister complimented my arms while I carried a paddleboard, when MUC complimented my shoulder definition, and all those times I'd post suggestive photos here on Tumblr and the positive attention would come flooding in. These are core fucking memories, whereas the rest of my life is a blur. I remember begging my ex to not compliment me, not comment on my body; he later admitted he was offended, upset that I was rejecting his desire, but I knew it would ensnare me to his opinion and I'd lose myself, become obsessed with the part of me he liked most, lose my access to the rest of my body. He gave me so much freedom to cut my hair (despite losing all the compliments), stop wearing makeup (despite hearing my cousin's shocked voice when I let her do my makeup one time and she reacted without thinking "oh my god you're pretty"), stop shaving my legs. But I still know that I'd be better if I was less like myself, better different. People aren't subtle, people can't lie, desire always speaks the truth.

If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital.

If you develop an eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story.

So when I evaporated, of course everyone congratulated me on getting healthy.

Girls at school who never spoke to me before stopped me in the hallway to ask how I did it.

I say, “I am sick.”

They say, “No, you’re an inspiration.”

How could I not fall in love with my illness?

With becoming the kind of silhouette people are supposed to fall in love with?

Why would I ever want to stop being hungry when anorexia was the most interesting thing about me?

~When The Fat Girl Gets Skinny, Blythe Baird

[ohimsummer]

AMENDS

— minors dni, bully! stsg x afab! reader, oral [ f. receiving ], edging, dubcon, dacryphylia, püssy slaps, hair pulling, pet names (good girl, pretty girl, princess)

"let us know when you're ready to apologize, pretty."

a thick cloud of fog smothers your thoughts. geto's words sound so quiet—miles away.

it seems like forever and a day has passed. his large hands trace the curved arch of your back before coming to rest on the globes of your raised ass, presented to him like a feast.

you jolt. a feeble whimper spills from your lips as geto gives a sudden, harsh slap to your pussy. "are you listening?"

he is satisfied with the weak nod of your head, giving a low hum before his tongue dives back into your folds. a tremble runs throughout your body, the ache in your legs getting worse with every clench and tense of muscle.

"you're so stubborn.", satoru huffs, thumbing away a fat tear from your lash line before continuing to toy with a strand of your hair. your head rests heavy in his lap, cheek smushed against his thigh. "all you had to do was wear the co–, uh, necklace."

the stutter doesn’t even take note in your mind. the mention of that damned necklace triggers the memory of how this all started: over the 'gift' gojo tried to bestow upon you, something in which you vehemently declined. especially at his request that you wear it beneath your turtleneck.

it wasn't even so much a necklace as much as it was an obvious collar—a thin piece of leather, pink in color and embedded with silver studs. it connected in the center by a piece of metal curled into the shape of a heart; a similar tag swayed loosely by a silver ring. engraved on either side were their names: suguru and satoru, though gojo was crystal clear in specifying that the side with his name on it was the front.

your eyes are attracted to movement in your peripherals. satoru twirls the collar around his index finger, still ranting on and on about how he spent so much on this special gift for ‘his girl’, and you wouldn't even show gratitude in a simple thank you, let alone the appreciation to wear it at least once.

he shifts slightly and the tent in his pants, inches from your face, rubs against your nose. you remember trying to suck him off at some point, as that’s how he usually preferred your apologies, but no. geto was insistent that gojo be more strict with you, easily swaying his best friend by calling him a softie for you. and now you're stuck, told to actually use your words for once ‘like a good girl’.

what little focus you had is gradually ripped away as geto pushes you closer and closer to another orgasm. he thumbs over your clit, pinching the nub between his fingers for some added suffering, thrusting his tongue inside you to lap up any juices and slick leaking from your hole. you’ve devolved into a sweaty, panting mess within minutes. geto moans against your cunt like a slut, like you’re the best thing he’s ever had. at least one of you is truly enjoying yourself.

it doesn’t take long before you get that familiar, tightening feeling in your stomach. it’s a rubber band being yanked on both ends, about to snap clean in two at any moment. your pussy flutters sporadically around his tongue as you’re forced to the brink. yet another orgasm right at the cliff, overdue to tip over the edge, when-

geto pulls away. he tugs lightly at your clit with his teeth when he does, relishing in your broken whimper. this is making you sick—so sick you’re truly about to break.

gojo’s conversation with himself is interrupted by your tug on his sleeve. casting you a mildly interested glance, his frown deepens, a display of clear disapproval. he sighs in an annoyed, dramatic fashion before tugging you up by the hair to look him in the eyes.

“what do you want?”, he says rather rudely. “told ya not to talk to me anymore unless it's to say you’re sorry.”

you blink, dazed, mouth falling slack but no words yet coming out. shaky hands paw helplessly at his chest as the words drag through your head, barely registering. satoru just stares at you. he thinks you look dumb, but you deserve to after hurting his poor feelings.

“ ‘’m…sorry…”, you barely whimper, quiet and pathetic.

satoru just rolls his eyes. “oh, come on. first, you break my heart and humiliate me and now this half-assed apology? do it properly, at least!”

your vision is hazy, but it doesn’t matter. the two sets of eyes digging into you leave a fiery trail of goosebumps on your skin. geto has finally stopped his insanity-inducing punishment; gojo’s tight fist in your hair tugs at the roots, burning your scalp.

“i sai–, i said—,” you stutter, seeing double, “—i’m sorry for not appreciating your gift, satoru.”

“mm.”, he hums, and you can see the whites of his teeth as two of him grins, proud of finally having gotten his way. “and?”

the thoughts rattle around in your mind. eyelids droop to darken your view before you add on, “and i–, i would be honored to wear it.”

gojo eases his grip to let your head flop back onto his lap. “see, atta girl! was that so hard?"

geto grabs you by the shoulders and hair, far more gently, holding your exhausted body upright as gojo unclasps the collar.

he tugs down the hem of your shirt, excitedly wrapping the leather around your neck. “see, i don’t know why you had to go making this difficult!”

and gojo snaps it on with a ‘click!’, leaning back to admire his handiwork. you feel yourself being tilted further back as geto angles your body to get a good luck at their new claim over you.

“what a pretty girl.”, he murmurs and kisses your cheek, reaching to toy with the tag dangling from your neck.

your head lolls as you’re manhandled into another position. geto’s blurry form is now in front of you, so it’s gojo’s warm chest that you’re sprawled back on, and his long legs that your knees are hooked over.

“since you’re bein’ so good for us now,” gojo whispers into your ear, “i’ll give you a treat, yeah? since we've made amends."

something thick and hot glides over your pussy, up and down, rubbing over your twitching clit. gojo grunts beneath you, shuffles a bit. he rubs his large hands over your inner thighs, grinding his cock between the slick lips of your cunt. he layers kisses up your neck, onto your cheek, ending the trail at your temple, and then reaches down to line himself up with your spasming hole.

geto looms over you to sandwich you between them. he digs two fingers into your cheeks, pulling you into a sloppy kiss where he nips at your lips and sucks on your tongue, spit drooling from the corners of your mouth.

“see how nice we are when you behave?”, he mumbles against your kiss-swollen lips. “tell satoru you’re sorry again.”

the wind is squeezed from your lungs as gojo sinks his full length into you. your words are cut off completely, and geto grins as you arch into him. gojo's tip pokes at your cervix, his balls kissing your ass.

“i’m sorry.”, you whine again.

both men chuckle. satoru kisses your wet cheek again. “it’s okay, princess, i forgive you.”

🎀: @sbgg @paradiseoflosers @deepenthevoid @bubblez-blop @luvvmae @risuola @bunnymacaron @hehehehesthings @starlightanyaaa @higurumapet @suguwuuu @lemonintrovert01 @c3nti-pede @krraayy @notdwenby @beomluvrr @mochacafee @sherb3t @hobarihope @suguwuu @v1xenluna @n3ptoonie @halparkebitch @getos-sugarbby @im-just-here-doing-nothing @gegeeeeeeeeeeex @squishies0102 @mochi-islive @kkncc @mxsocool @mrs-nicoleee @lovesickliyue @astrasworldsblog @euphoriagrae @foreshadowing-forsaken-fuck @euniciane @xocherishxo @sugojosgf @gyaruismind @marichat0n @ichikanu @mikeysflag @xinfvl @sugu-love @b-b-b-my-b-f-f @idkluvv @h-4-bib @starsharkz @sataraxia @apatauaia @savethegoddamturtles @wirelazeee @lcvelina @incognito-veritas @blindbabycadder

[princessbrunette]

… and now introducing, the 10K follower special… ᙏ̤̫ ✧༚

OBX - the nsfw alphabet guide ♡

dearest boobettes,

thank you for 10k followers, whewie how time flies! i am forever grateful for the majority support, kindness and above all patience you’ve exhibited especially during times where real life gets in the way and i needed to step away from writing. i hope you continue to chortle away with me in my asks & enjoy my silly little drabbles,

love from princess ^_^ ♡

A IS FOR… aftercare, ft. pope heyward ♡

it goes without saying, pope has done his research and has engaged in copious amounts of conversations on your boundaries. after sex, he overthinks — massively, always worried that he got caught up in the throes of passion and somehow became aggressive or forceful (…spoiler alert, he didn’t! not to a degree you didn’t thoroughly enjoy, anyway.) therefore, he needs to know what you need, pretty immediately too - almost too an annoying degree.

“hey, too far? tell me what you need baby.” he’s cradling you before you’ve even caught your breath.

“mmph—”

“lets use our words, yeah?” your eyes are shut, but you know that stressed crinkle is sitting right between his brows.

“just wanna lay.” you whine, and he knows that tone means to stop pressing you. if laying is what you want, it’s what you’ll get. he knows he won’t be able to help himself from jumping up to clean you up soon enough, but for now he’s happy to indulge in your sticky embrace, stroking your head and telling you just how good you were.

B IS FOR… body parts, ft. bunny!reader x rafe ♡

rafes favourite body part of bunny’s is undoubtably her lips. there’s just something about them, the shape of them, the colour of them — that makes her always get her way with him. whether she’s pouting them, batting her long lashes when she’s in trouble or painting them with a sparkly gloss, one he probably bought her that week that she’ll leave printed around his cock later on — he can never keep his eyes of them. her tits are pretty fantastic too though, he must say.

bunny’s favourite body part of rafe’s? but there’s just too many to pick one! she is particularly fond of his shoulders and chest and it shows, always stroking down his torso when she’s speaking to him — the muscle beneath his polo perfectly pudged from exercise without being too firm, also making the perfect board for her to scratch her manicured nails down while getting put through the mattress.

C IS FOR… cum, ft.kitty!reader x jj ♡

there is something spiritual about the way kitty interacts with jj’s cum— like she swears she can tell what he’s eaten, how many sips of water he’s had that day and what the weather was like just from the taste of it. she’d lift her head from his crotch, mascara dwelling beneath her eyes as she smacks her lips thoughtfully, waiting for the blonde to catch his breath.

his ringed hand is still planted atop her head, supporting her limp neck as he looks down at her through spent and lidded eyes. “how y’feeling bae?” he queries, noting the pensive look on her face.

“all caffeine.” she hums, brows furrowing. jj blinks.

“y—…uh, what?”

“you didn’t drink any water today? not even a little? what did i tell you? you can’t survive off redbull!” she squints all pissed off, even her nose balling up as jj watches her rise up from her position.

“aint no way.”

D IS FOR… dirty secret, ft. john b x puppy!reader ♡

well, it was his dirty secret. you guess you could say d is also for dad, because that’s what he likes being called the most in the bedroom. it fills some… sick hole in his heart, fuels this odd complex he has around pup. he likes that she relies so much on him, he’s always taken the leadership role in any group so when it’s just the two of them it only feels right. it started off as daddy of course, but he’ll always remember that one sweaty night, roughly 4AM and they’d been going at it for hours, her legs over his shoulders, thick cock hitting that abused spongy spot until the word transformed before his very ears.

“mm—mm—mm—daddy—daddy—dad… dad!” it was music to his ears. apparently enough to have him blow his load at the drop of a hat.

E IS FOR… experience, ft. mouse!reader x jj x pope ♡

until she met jj and pope, she’d never even kissed anyone. well — she tells people she had, one guy — but the one guy in question was her one and only boyfriend in fourth grade (who then dumped her the next day because he wanted to ‘focus on powerangers’. she hates powerangers to this day.) it’s not to feed into her whole innocent aesthetic, you know with the baby pinks and the ballet and the glittery blusher dusted on the apples of her cheeks, no. she was just painfully shy— too touch starved to even imagine herself being intimate.

it wasn’t until she was sat in the middle of jj and pope on her bed, asking them if they could kiss eachother first to ease her nerves before she could kiss them — that she realised how badly she’d been missing out.

F IS FOR… favourite position, ft. lord!rafe ♡

when sabrina carpenter says ‘have you ever tried this one?’ referring to an unnamed sex position on her hit song, juno — the chances are, with lord!rafe, you had. the man was creative, especially when he was high, wanting to see just how far you’d contort and push yourself to submit to him. to bend to his will. but at the end of the day, he was just a man — and he craved that deep intimacy that his favourite pledge could give him, and that was a mating press.

“you like this, hm? feeling all— all close like this huh?” he pants in your face, your knees squished to you in a way that made it hard to breathe, especially with the way he was brutalising your hole.

“mm, mhm. thank you lord.” your voice is spitty and pleading and he chuckles through his exhales.

“yeah. like this one the most. get to see the life leave your fuckin eyes when i pull out. you just want that seed so fuckin bad don’t you baby?” he basically growling so you know he’s close. your eyes struggle not to roll back at the feeling.

“yes. yes lord!” your voice breaks.

“well that’s too bad baby. that’s too fuckin’ bad.”

G IS FOR… goofy, ft. jj x deer!reader ♡

much like mouse!reader, deer is a tough one to crack due to her shyness. however, through hard work and determination — jj discovered that the best way to get her to ease up and let go, was to quite literally giggle her out her panties.

“these are pretty.” he compliments her, warm breath on her neck as they both look between their bodies at her frilly white panties, a red bow at the centre which he plucks at gently. when he feels her tense up, he raises an eyebrow with a playful expression — letting her know it’s still just him, still her silly jj. “can i borrow ‘em?”

she busts into a fit of giggles, and whilst distracted — jj grins, sliding the fabric down her thighs as she writhes elatedly. “what? don’t think they’d suit me?” he keeps her happy and the vibes up as he parts her thighs, her giggles turning into slow breaths. his grin melts into a smirk, prompting an answer. “hm?”

“w—well— i was j—just—”

“mmmhm. yeah, i know. it’s okay baby.” he cooes, lulling her into being just a little more limp for him.

H IS FOR… hair, ft.john b ♡

john b is super hairy down there, never seeming to have the time to groom himself. the hair on his head is thick and wavy, and that’s not exception to his downstairs either, enough to bury your face in whilst deep throating his girthy length, the hair even crawling up his happy trail to his belly button. the sight when he stretches, arms lifted over his head causing his shirt to rise up and expose it has trained your mouth to water.

equally, if anyone is gonna advocate for you having a bush — it’s him. he had access to a load of his dads porno magazines from the 70s that he thought he’d hidden, so since he was younger he’d always had an affection for a pretty lil tuft peeking out some pretty panties. hey, it’s your body your choice as he’d be adamant on telling you — but if you wanted to give up shaving for a little while, he’d have zero objections.

many nights would be spent with his hand just affectionately patting your mound through your panties in bed before casually slipping his hand inside, twirling his fingers around some of the wiry hair.

“john b.” you’d scold, a little hot in the face.

“what, babe? getting a pretty neat bouquet going on down here. love it.”

I IS FOR…intimacy, ft. starwars!au!pope ♡

each time captain pope fucks you, he never knows if it’s going to potentially be his last time before he gets shipped off to some far away planet where all communication with you is severed. hell, sometimes he’s not sure if he’s ever going to make it back from his mission at all.

because of this, when he sneaks away from the bunks to fly to your apartment and spend a night with you — he fucks you like it’s the last time. skin to skin, direct, watery eye contact, arms wrapped around you like he’s never going to let you go as he rolls his hips, sweat dripping down his back.

“stars, i love you. i love you i love you. fuck, i fucking love you.” he groans, eyes fighting to stay open because he doesn’t wanna miss a moment of you, needing to ingrain your image into his brain for those lonely nights away.

“i love you pope. my pope.” you’d cry out, like it was a promise — and it was. a promise to be together properly one day with nothing and no one standing in between.

J IS FOR jack off, ft. stepbro!rafe ♡

before your parents married and you moved into tanny hill, rafe thought he jacked off a normal amount for someone his age. it was like you hit this switch, left him fumbling for control of his own body. it was no wonder he was so angry all the time, you had his hormones going haywire like some kind of teenager.

he was certain he’d had to quickly beat one out in nearly every room of the house. he’d see you in the kitchen, reaching up to a shelf that was a little too high for you — your shirt rising up, tits pressed to the fabric, underwear peeking from the waistband of your shorts and he’d be zipping out the room to relieve himself in the bathroom. he sees you out by the pool, slathering greasy spf over your skin, oiling yourself up in your bikini making you look like some kind of pornstar, and he’s taking a risk — standing in the empty window downstairs, hoping no one enters the room as he tugs one out.

you can’t even do your laundry in peace, rafe worried about the wrong load when he walks in and is confronted directly by the sight of you bent over the washer, digging around for that one pesky sock. he could just take you. right here, right now— but instead he ends up blowing his cum into his own sock that never made it into the wash pile back in his room.

he’ll pass your bedroom, and you’ll be out — so he’ll take the liberty to blow a load into a pair of your used panties in the hamper. you didn’t do anything to trigger him this time, but he felt like you owed him that at least, for all the times you’d unknowingly teased him.

K IS FOR… kink, ft. receptionist!reader x fireman!john b x fireman!jj ♡

unsurprising to all, the sweet receptionist bunking in a tiny apartment with two beefy firemen definitely has a fantasy or two. she knows the realities of how scary these fires can be, so she always feels a little guilty in indulging in being a damsel in distress in her daydreams, her two boys coming to save her from a smoky building before taking her home, spreading her out on the bed and making her feel all better, the two of them still greasy, soot staining their clothes and the scent of smoke radiating from them.

sometimes they get home from their shift when she’s mid fantasy with her hand down her panties and suddenly has to dive out of bed to greet them, all disheveled with her pupils dilated to the moon and back.

“you uh… alright there sweetie?” jj plays into it, knowing something was a miss, smirking. she swallows thickly, nodding unconvincingly.

“mhm! you guys just caught me by surprise! i was uh, napping.” her voice still trembles.

“hold on, you do look a little flushed.” john b touches the back of her neck and her knees buckle. but luckily his fireman instincts kick in and he catches her with ease. god, this was just like her fantasies. “lets lay you down, okay?”

L IS FOR… location, ft. pizzadeliveryboy!pope ♡

when fitting pope into your seriously tight schedule — sometimes it was just the most convenient to fuck in a rather odd location. your car and the kitchen of your house were good enough to get the job done — but popes favourite location to have fucked you in had to be the bathroom of the pizza place he worked at.

now, usually — he was a stickler for rules. the violation of his work place would normally make him shudder, but it was just the way you’d marched in there, so publicly, leant over the counter and whispered “i need it now.”

safe to say you were not talking about extra pepperonis.

he took his break early, and hey — it was a slow day, so he wasn’t too worried about ushering you cautiously but quickly into a bathroom cubicle and fighting your shorts down your legs.

“seriously? while i’m working?” he hisses in a whisper and all you can do is giggle, leaning against your cubicle wall and sticking out your ass temptingly. you match his whisper at full volume, in the moment not caring who hears. it was the closest he could get to a public declaration of love and desire.

“dont complain. know you’ve been thinkin’ about it.”

he definitely had been, so he shuts up and gets to work.

M IS FOR… motivation, ft. shittysoundcloudrapper!jj ♡

what gets jj going, is your eagerness to help him, doing whatever it takes to push and promote his hopeless career in soundcloud rapping. needs a female voice to moan for the backing track again? you’re eagerly setting up the mic and spreading your legs for him. needs a video girl? you’re holding up mini skirts asking which one he thinks you should wear (he says whichever one is shorter.) stuck in a slump with writing lyrics? there’s not much you can do there but spell check them in his notepad with glittery pink pen and make suggestions. each assist made, you do it with the same wide eyed, pleading for approval expression that makes his dick throb.

he didn’t like to admit it, but he was enjoying playing with you too much to make you his certified girlfriend just yet. which makes him kind of a selfish asshole, yes. he just loved watching you melt when he’d come up behind his pretty best friend, grabbing your hips and rocking side to side with you, making you smile because you know he’s about to suck up to you and ask you for something.

“you wanna be my helpful girl?” he hums, and you shudder — instantly and pathetically becoming that wide eyed yes-woman he knows and loves.

“mhm…”

“wow that was eeeeasy mama. you’ll do anything for me, huh?”

“anything.”

N IS FOR… no, ft. daddy!john b x puppy!reader ♡

one thing john b really doesn’t like doing, is pushing pup past her limits — especially as sometimes she doesn’t quite know where they are. when having sex, during particularly intense sessions she gets dazed, unable to think and sometimes even talk for herself because she is just so overwhelmed by emotion and pleasure.

he’d have her face down ass up in the bed, strong arm wrapped around her hips to reach her cunt, rolling her pearl beneath rough fingers as his cock stretches her, collecting cream at the base from her abundance of releases. hes going at a relaxed pace, but pup is limp, unable to let anything out by strained noises.

“hows that sweetheart? we still feeling good?” john b croons, careful not to get lost in his own pleasure to focus on his own. “pup?” he calls when there’s no answer.

that’s a big enough of a red flag for john b to pull out, leaning over her to gently lift her head. her eyes are screwed shut with tears on her cheeks and she’s breathing quickly through her nose. it appears she’s worked herself up into a frenzy. the brunette knows not to panic, as these things happen, simply scooping her naked body into his arms and stroking her head. “how ‘bout a break. okay? did so good for me puppy. juuust need a break. little tiny break.” he punctuates the sentence with a kiss to her crown, doing everything in his power to reassure and soothe her.

O IS FOR…oral, ft. rafe x lamb!reader ♡

with someone as strict as lamb!reader, oral is the loophole rafe needed to get into her panties. in the early days, he weasels head from her — telling her it’s the only way she can properly apologise to him after mouthing off against him after he’d done so much for her. there’s the light threat that he’ll tell on her too if she doesn’t, unspoken and lingering behind their elongated gazes — and that’s enough for her to frantically scamper to her knees, demanding the satin scrunchie from her dresser.

rafe isn’t big on giving oral — but with lamb, he’d see it as a stepping stone into sex. because if he’s eaten her pussy, what’s the point in stopping there? they may aswell go all the way. it’s obscene the way he’d have her on her back on her bed, his knees in both of his hands, spread as far as they’d go revealing her wet, pulsing cunt causing the fabric of her thin white panties to be completely sheered.

“c—can’t, after the first time… i had to beg for forgiveness. if i do this rafe there’s, there’s no going back.” she’s trembling, the poor thing — but not from fear, from need, her clit twitching beneath his gaze just begging to be touched. it was true, religious girls ovulated too.

“yeah? you’d probably start crying if i stopped n’walked away now alright? you want this. no, you — you need this, i can see it with my own two eyes. okay? give in. jesus isn’t watching.” he’s irritable, but if rafe was anything— he wasn’t a total creep. he needed that green light. he needed a yes.

there’s a silence, filled with lambs shuddering and sniffles and he’s honestly about to give up himself before her voice sounds, meek and guilty.

“just… just a little bit. just kiss it a little bit. maybe… maybe touch.”

he huffs out a laugh. sure, just a little bit.

P IS FOR… pace, ft.apocalypse!pope ♡

in a world where everything was a mad dash for safety, sex was the one thing pope liked to take his time with. he saw it as a luxury, a blessing reminding him of his gratitude toward having shelter, safety, warmth, companionship. he was never a risk taker, only ever having one actual ‘quickie’ in an abandoned warehouse when you convince him to take you beyond the gates of kitty hawk. he was stressed the whole time, an eye constantly peeled and unable to fully enjoy you as he bounced you hastily on his cock.

“s’fine popey, no one’s here! nothin’s gonna — mmph— nothin’s gonna happen!”

“you don’t know that. fuck. you better cum. shit.”

back home at the base, he lights candles, lays you down on the blankets in his watch-tower, and gets to work. he rolls his hips languidly, relishing in every noise you make, falling love even deeper when you beg him to go harder, faster. but he never does. sex was one of the few enjoyable things there was left, and he wanted to make each time last. he never knew when it might be the last time, anyway.

Q IS FOR… quickie, ft. farmhand!jj ♡

farmhand!jj on the other hand, he gets off on the thrill of being caught. he doesn’t really want to— but there’s something so scandalous to him about the fact your father is a short walk up the hill, whilst you’re in the barn with him, grinding on his face, calling him daddy.

there’s a rarely a time either of you are able to get fully nude, relying on moving things out the way to put the ‘quick’ in ‘quickie’. he enjoys that element too, taking pleasure in pulling up that little gingham dress and moving your innocent looking panties aside to have his way with the farmers daughter.

he likes to tease you, it’s just apart of his cheeky personality — plucking some hay off your cheek as he fucks into you from the back, hay in your hair and dirt on your cheek on the floor blanket he laid down.

“what would ya’ daddy say, huh? if he saw you like this on his property? ain’t lookin’ too good for you, sweetie.” he teases, tightening his grip on your hips. you whine, which means ‘don’t say that’ in sex talk, barely glancing over your shoulder with hazy puppy dog eyes.

“you’re m’daddy.” you pout in the heat of the moment, pathetically and guiltily making him bark out a mischievous chuckle, biting his tongue.

“yeah? i’m your daddy. okay.” jj repeats with a grin, plucking his hat off his head and dropping it on yours.

R IS FOR… risk, ft. gooner!rafe ♡

look, he’s a rich, white guy in college. he doesn’t care about risks. before you, there wasn’t much risk in his porn obsessed habits, not outside of his search history being revealed anyway. but when he met you, someone who lets him do whatever he wants — it becomes more of a factor.

half way through fucking, he rolls off you, sliding the slippery condom off his cock and heading back to insert himself.

“rafey what are you doin’?” you mewl, shock and concern etched across your features. to be honest, the suggestion of fear in your tone made him throb.

“look, it’ll be fine, alright? i’ll— i’ll pull out, just need to feel that pussy. you gonna let me feel that pussy or no? hm?” he drawls, leaning over you on strong arms, the angle making it hard to disagree with him, infact — you felt your hand floating towards his shaft to guide him back inside, under his spell.

S IS FOR… stamina, ft. puppy!reader x jj ♡

what happens when you pair two of the most adhd, frantic beings in the obx in a bed together? it just keeps going, all night long. catch them when they’re amped up enough, and they’ll go like bunnies.

just when you think it’s over, the two of them catching their breath together in bed— they’ll turn to look at eachother with hazy smiles, before puppy rolls back on top of him.

“want more, jayj.” she’ll always beg, grinding her slick up and down his shaft as it twitches, blood rushing back to it.

“oh yeah? already? don’t need a snack? just… straight back in?” he teases, pretending to think about it until she pouts petulantly.

“dont need a snack want it right now!” she whines, frantically trying to stuff him back inside. he sits up, waving her hands away and cradling her.

“alright, alright no scooby snacks, got it. don’t worry, i’ll give y’what you want, mama.” he soothes, before flipping her on her back.

T IS FOR… toys, ft. toxicex!johnb ♡

let’s be real, whenever you and john b hook up — he wants to show you exactly what you’re missing, so when he feels the need to up his game, he’s definitely not above using toys to bend you to his will, guaranteeing a crazy orgasm you both know no one else can give you.

when you come grovelling at his door, he poses the vibrator he still keeps around as a punishment of some kind for leaving him. he’ll sit behind you on the bed with your legs spread open, holding the pink vibe to your clit as you fall apart.

“you know sweetheart i shouldn’t keep doing this… right?”

“mm—no—mmph john b, please!” you cry, willing to do anything for him to not turn the toy off just before you cum again.

“john b?” he repeats, voice dry and flat. “has it been that long?”

“daddy.” you mewl ashamed and feel him smile, satisfied with an exaggerated nod.

“ah. there it is. ‘guess i can make you feel good again. what’s one more time right?” his tone is sarcastic still as he rubs the vibe in circles, making your legs jerk obscenely, voice squealing involuntarily. “mm. but it’s not gonna be the last time, is it baby?”

U IS FOR… unfair, ft.spoiledexgf!reader x rafe ♡

we all know, when it comes to teasing — spoiledexgf!reader is straight up evil. she breaks less easily, never giving rafe what he wants unless it’s on her terms, using him for that delectable dick and money when she needs it. she knows he still belongs to her completely, and her attitude shows that.

she likes to call him at random times from another phone (because one of them always has the other one blocked on her phone.) just to check if she can still get what she wants. he’ll pick up the phone with “yeah, who’s this?”

“you know who.” she grins, kicking her feet and she hears him sigh, leaning back in his seat, probably pinching his nose bridge.

“what, okay — i’m working, what do you want?”

“i can’t just call to check up on my favourite businessman?” she coos, biting her glossed lip.

“no. you always want something. so what is it— or— or should i say how much? huh? how much you need?” he’s sarcastic, but she can literally him hear scuffling about for his wallet.

“just a humble 300. there are these pair of shoes and… well, i won’t bore you with the details. i’ll be sure to repay you.”

“yeah, you fuckin’ better, alright? not just a piggy bank. not doin’ that shit anymore okay i need something in return.” he demands, frustrated and dick already jumping at the thought of potentially getting to touch her again.

she taps her chin though he can’t see her, fluttering long lashes at the ceiling. “hmm. i’ll see what mood i’m in later. bye rafey.” just like that, she hangs up — waiting for the money to be transferred.

V IS FOR…volume, ft. pope ♡

if there was a contest for prettiest male moan— the trophy would go to pope. he’s not super loud, because you’re either doing it at his place or yours, and with your family situations it was rare you had the places to yourself.

however, you could listen to it forever — the sound of his soft groan in your ear as he’d roll his hips against yours, slipping in whispers of “oh my god.” and “fuck…” under his breath, which was absolutely music to your ears.

sometimes, when he’s super pent up — right before he cums he’ll whimper, eyes screwed shut as he focuses on getting to his peak of pleasure. that was pope at his most vulnerable, and you cherish every moment.

“fuckfuckfuck… you’re so beautiful…shit!”

W IS FOR… wildcard, ft. barry x bunny!reader ♡

you read that correctly — there is a universe out there where bunny and rafe break up, and barry is quick to get his hands on that. he lets her rant at his place, wiping her tears with his knuckle with a joint hanging from his mouth, he takes a huff before holding the roll to her glittery lips.

“he got you fucked up babygirl… know i wouldn’t do that shit right? i’on know, maybe you need a real man to get you right… s’all i’m sayin’.” he lets the smirk slide onto his face. her instinct is to deny him, but why? she’s single now right?

before she knows it she’s pierced on his cock with him guiding her hips, his mouth tasting of something unfamiliar mixed with weed.

“shit, keep that thing real tight don’t you mama? country club di’nt even know what to do with all that.”

X IS FOR… x-ray ♡

when i think of who is packing the most — two characters come to mind. pogue!rafe, who stands at 6ft5– he definitely has the dick to match his huge beefy stature, and dbf!johnb— just the idea of him having to train his friends daughter to take his thick cock is simply mouthwatering.

rafes stands at 9 and a half inches, and john b at 7.5, but way thicker.

Y IS FOR… yearning, ft. john b x reader x sarah ♡

this couple is potentially the biggest gooner duo of the princessverse. as previously discussed, the pair are constantly trying to integrate sex into your life by tricking your innocent mind into thinking it was your idea, so of course they are constantly yearning for you.

when you posted some scandalous bikini pics on instagram — you thought most people would give it a like, maybe a comment and then keep scrolling. what you don’t know, is that two of your closest friends are in bed together, touching themselves and eachother with your pictures pulled up — talking about all the yucky things they’re gonna do to you when they get their hands on you.

“can you picture it john b? her laying right here between us, letting me suck those perfect tits.” sarah sighs softly and john b’s jaw falls open with pleasure as she takes over from his hand gripping his cock, stroking up and down.

“holy shit. i’m gonna cum all over the screen.” he grits his teeth and she sucks on her plump bottom lip, clenching her tanned thighs together knowing it’ll be her turn soon.

“yeah… cum all over her.”

Z IS FOR… Zzz, ft. linecook!jj ♡

jj works long days, but he always ensures to reserve enough energy to lay it on you when he’s home from work. however, when he’s done — he’s done, so if you were planning on having any conversations with him, you have to make sure it’s before he gets his hands on you.

he rolls off you once he’s fucked you through two orgasms, finally getting his own, dropping face down with his pants pulled down.

you catch your breath before rolling over to kiss his bicep. “jayj, left some dinner for you in the microwave if you didn’t get to eat at work…” you blink, hazy eyed and still a bit disorientated. “jayjie?”

you’re met with a snore, low and deep — muffled by the pillow. you giggle, stroking his back affectionately and pressing a kiss to his shoulder. he’ll eat it for breakfast, you suppose.

[luveline]

also idk if it’s cold enough for this ask yet but kbd winter??? family snowman??

KBD —you, Steve, and the girls make a snowman. 1.3k, mom!r

“Steve, I’m so cold.” 

Steve laughs and shuffles closer to you in the snow-covered grass. Your knees are soaked, your scarf falling from around your neck. “Like, you’re gonna get sick kind of cold?” 

You contemplate this. “No. Probably not.” 

“Good. I need your help with this.” 

A little ways away, your Avery attempts to roll a small ball of snow around the yard. Steve made the snowman’s body, a fat blob in the middle of the grass, while you held Beth. She’s not too young to walk but she’s apprehensive of the snow, and the cold, her nose like ice where it’s hidden in your cheek. 

“You almost done, babe?” you call. 

“No!” 

“Beth’s colder,” you say. 

Steve wrinkles his nose sympathetically. “If you need to head inside, you go.” 

He’s attempting to get buttons from an old coat to stay stuck to the snowman’s stomach. It’s not working. 

You persevere in the chill. The cold is sharp in your throat, but some bad weather won’t kill anyone. You take your scarf off and wrap it around Beth’s neck, though she’s wearing a scarf already, laying it flat and covering her ears. She smiles at you, whispering quietly in the chill, “Thank you.” 

“Is it too cold?” you ask. “Should we go inside?”  

“I wanna see the snowman,” she says. 

You press her to your neck. It hasn’t snowed for hours but the temperature hasn’t warmed either. Avery looks happy as a clam in her snowsuit and her hat, scarf and gloves, all matching, a lavender colour like her boots, though they have a white fur piping to match the snowsuits hanging baubles. Beth is outfitted in the same, but her snowsuit and boots are a cornflower blue. 

You and Steve are in whatever you could find. He has a blue scarf, yours was white. Your coat is one of his from a few years ago, and his gloves are mismatched, but you don’t need matching clothes to make a snowman. 

Your legs really are going to freeze to the floor soon. You stand up as best you can manage, Beth’s weight in your arms an ache you know too well. Steve looks at you in alarm and clambers to his feet. “Here, I’ll have her,” he says, slipping his hands under her arms gently. “You really can go inside if you’re too cold, pretty girl, we’ll be okay.” 

You like being called pretty girl. It warms you up a little. “I’ll help Avery with the head.” 

Steve pulls Beth into his neck, murmuring, “Is it too cold out here, baby? You’ll tell me if you’re too cold, yeah?” He kisses her cheek, turning her face gently to the side. “We did such a good job on the snowman’s tummy. When Avery finishes the head, we’ll put it on top and give him his arms and his carrot nose.” 

“Can I do the nose?” she asks. The way she speaks is adorable, so young still, each word an effort to string to the next. 

“Yeah, if Avery can do the arms and the eyes. Is that fair?” 

Avery pushes the snowball she’s created forward with a great oomf. Snow crunches under your boots, thick and soft. “Need help?” you ask. 

“Please, mom.” 

Avery’s raises her nose at you. When she smiles, she reminds you endlessly of Steve. Her eyes are almond shaped like his, brown and hedged with lashes that twitch as you approach. You rub the top of her head through her hat. “Let’s roll it over by the swing, babe. The snow’s real thick there.” 

You and Avery manoeuvre the head. Steve and Beth search for suitable arms at the edge of the yard where the trees like to shed. 

“Mom?” Avery says. 

You huff as you push the ball over again. “Yeah?” 

“It’s not round.” 

“I’m gonna build it up, my baby, don’t worry.”

“Will it fall off the tummy?” 

“We’re gonna make the bottom flat. Don’t worry, baby, seriously, me and daddy have made lots of snowmen. Like, some when we were kids, and some before you were born. He made a really huge one when I was pregnant with you, actually. He said my baby bump inspired him.” 

“Was it big?” 

“Right at the end.” You poke at the bottom of your stomach. “When you’re a baby, you try very hard not to take up too much space in mommy’s tummy, but after a while you get too big and it makes my stomach change shape. Because you were my first, you stayed in one place for a long time. It was right at the end when I popped. I couldn’t help daddy too much with the snowman, actually, ‘cos I was so slow.” 

“Popped?” Avery asks worriedly. 

You squeeze your cold fingers into balls, smiling at her horrified nose wrinkle. “Sorry, it’s just an expression. What it means is that it was a surprise to have my tummy get so big. It happened overnight. Your dad found it super funny.” 

Steve crunches toward you with twigs in one hand, Beth the other. It’s… a really good look on him, this one armed carry. “It was crazy! With Beth, mommy’s tummy grew slowly. But with you, it was like she wasn’t even having a baby for a while, and then wow!” He offers you Beth, who you take immediately, and bends down to pack snow against the sides of the snowman’s eventual head. He sniffs as he does, but doesn’t mention being cold. “This is awesome, Ave. Do you think it’s time to put it on the tummy?” 

“Yeah!” she says, clapping. 

Steve hoists the head into his hands and carries it to the body. He plops it on there with force, making sure it’s steady, and sending the three of you a proud grin when it stays. “Tada!” 

Avery giggles ecstatically. Even Beth laughs in your arms. 

Steve gives Avery her twigs. “Here’s the arms,” he says, pulling his scarf from his neck. “And here’s a scarf for mister snowman.” 

He wraps it around the snowman’s neck. You dig the extra buttons from your pocket as Avery forces the twigs into the snowman’s sides, and Steve retreats to your back door, nipping inside quickly for the carrot. He waves it in the air. “Here you go,” he says, giving it to Beth. “You got her?” he asks you. 

You nod and crouch. Beth’s tongue appears from between her lips as she concentrates, pushing the fat end of the carrot into the snowman’s face, just below the eyes. Steve leans over you to help her when it won’t go in, and then, suddenly, you have a snowman. 

“He doesn’t have a mouth,” Avery says. 

Steve adjusts his scarf. “It’s behind the scarf, honey. He’s got cold lips.” 

She finds this extremely funny, leaning with a syrupy laugh into her dad’s legs. He gets the hint and picks her up, stepping into place beside you, the four of you giving your snowman an appraising look. 

“That’s amazing, huh?” you ask. 

Beth nods into your cheek. She’s warmer than you, but not by much. 

Steve leans over to kiss your cheek. 

A cold gale barrels from the left, sending shivers down everybody’s spines. “Let’s go back inside for some cocoa, yeah?” Steve asks. 

You’re in emphatic agreement. You leave your Frosty to soak in his new home, tracking wet footprints into the kitchen, where Steve turns on the stove’s burners for a quick fix. When you look out the window you smile to yourself, just a little bit proud of yourself for getting such a nice husband, and making such sweet babies. 

Beth sneezes against your neck. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbles. 

Steve’s face drains of any pride. He’s upstairs running a warm bath before you can so much as wipe Beth’s nose. 

[cvnntagious]

:: virgin!chris only wants you to touch him

chris was quick to slide his pants off for you as soon as his brothers had left for the store, both his mom and dad at work. the two of you were completely alone, chris' face reddened at how embarrassingly hard he was in his boxers. "what d'you want, chris?" you asked softly, hand sliding up his shirt to caress his toned abdomen.

he caught your hand in his tender grasp, pulling it down from his shirt as he looked at you beside him. there was a surprising innocence in his eyes for someone who was aching so intensely for you. "touch me," he replied softly, running your hand over his bulge.

"anything else?"

he shook his head, a few of his brown curls falling in front of his eyes with it. "not yet— no," he answered, eyes searching yours for disappointment. "if that's okay..."

you weren't disappointed, though. you were perfectly content with allowing him to ease up into being comfortable in such a vulnerable state with you. for now, you were just happy to be making him feel good.

his breath hitched when you shoved your hand in his boxers, feeling the warmth of it taking ahold of his length. head instantly throwing back when your thumb brushed over his leaking tip, he shivered at your touch. he was so sensitive—you liked it.

maybe it was the intense reaction from such soft touches, or the small pants escaping his parted, pouty lips, but you couldn't help that sense of pride from washing over you. it urged you to make him feel good; better than he already did, really.

you freed his length from the confines of his boxers, taking a good look at it in all its glory. the slight pause made chris want to tell you to stop so he could cover himself up, probably even kick you out and act like nothing ever happened - like you didn't see his dick. he didn't though. as much as he wanted to, he wanted you more. needed you.

when your hand finally started pumping his length, completely unaware of all the anxious thoughts running through chris' mind, they all dissipated immediately. all he could think about now was how good your soft hands felt, body tensing when you made eye contact with him.

his heart started pounding when you opened your mouth slightly, allowing the saliva you'd collected in your mouth to slowly drip onto his already wet cockhead. "a- oh fuck," he breathed, body tensing at the warm fluid being spread and stroked up and down his length.

the pleasure he felt was palpable, and he found his movements becoming more and more involuntary with each slow glide of your hand up and down his length. the agony was almost unbearable, feeling his high so out of reach. "please," he began, hips now starting to jerk up for friction he wasn't able to get with your languid movements.

you smiled at him, causing him to shift uncomfortably under your gaze. "faster, hm?" you asked, picking up the pace with each stroke.

chris nodded, lips pursing as sweet hums of pleasure filled his room. "need- need to... fuck, gonna cum," he warned, abdomen flexing and legs tensing as he moaned louder than intended.

when he felt your soft thumb brush over his now aggravated tip, it sent him over the edge. his head flew back, mouth making an 'o' shape as he fucked your hand, orgasm crashing over him. groans escaped his lips, and he felt his face flush red with embarrassment, allowing you to milk him dry of his sticky fluids.

his head lifted again as soon as your strokes on his length slowed, gaining the courage to look at your cocky grin again. that was, until he was met with your tongue hoovering over his cum-covered cockhead. it practically begged you to leave it alone, judging by the way it was almost red in color under all his white semen.

"wha-" he started, only to be cut off by his body spasming when your tongue met his sensitive tip, a long whine following it.

w/c : ?? a/n : gonna be taking a small break from writing soon, but i'll still answer asks, so send em on in. divider by issysh3ll

[zeedist]

EH, THE INTENTION COUNTS ？ — ALHAITHAM

attempted gift﹕your boyfriend tries to crochet a little gift for you. sfw !! fem!reader x alhaitham, academic setting, short + sweet. word count: 0.6k proofread: sorta.

Inspired by the endearing gift you made for him a while ago, one that still remains snugly tied in his headphones, Alhaitham attempts to make a little something for you as well. Except that in his lovesick inspiration, he entirely forgets that his coordination for crafts is on pair with a slime riding a tricycle. It’s adorable in theory, but in practice, it ends up in a tangled mess in his hands with a somewhat rounded shape with two bumps. 

He isn’t blind. He knows it looks stupid.  

“You can laugh out loud,” he sighs before smiling in defeat. It wasn’t even a difficult pattern to crochet, he just wasn’t good at coordinating for it. The yarn on his hands that looks more tangled than webbed reflects on that.

He isn’t stupid. He knows it’s ugly. 

“I know it doesn’t look great,” he assures you, “you can laugh—”

“Aw, come on,” you snatch the creation from his hands before he gets to throw it to the nearest trash. It’s soft to touch, the wool a faded green. Despite wrecking your brain, the best you can come up with is a weak, “It’s cute! It looks like a dendro slime.”

If dendro smiles had bulging eyes. 

Your boyfriend scoffs, a sound between disbelief and amusement, “It’s supposed to be a Dryophytes cinereus.”

Oh.

Oh. Your brain’s gears turn and your smile falls for a second.

“... Yeah,” you don’t even believe what leaves your mouth next in an attempt to comfort him, “it kind of looks like a frog—”

He isn’t ingenuous. Yet his body language relaxes with a low chuckle, his eyes crinkling into pretty crescent moons as the laughter makes his body shiver besides you. Oh heavens, only you would bother comforting him after messing up a gift so terribly for you. Alhaitham’s eyes find yours as they open, he reassures you, “My dear, you don’t need to lie to me.”

“I am not lying,” you lie.

“Unless the chemical that splashed your eye on your last experiment severely messed up your vision to near absolute blindness, it’s impossible you actually can make a green tree frog out of... That.”

“Well... If you squint your eyes.” 

“It appears more like a eucalyptus leaf that way,” he muses as his eyes narrow into a line. You mirror his action.

“Huh, looks like mahogany to me,” you retort. 

“Not quite, the shape wouldn’t be correct fully and why would I choose such a subject when there are better leaves—” Alhaitham clears his throat, stopping his rambling. His hand reaches for the ‘frog’, if you could call it that even. “Return it to me, I will practice and make you a better one.”

“But I want this one,” you close your hand around it, pulling it away. 

“But it’s ugly,” he sighs, gently trying to pry your fingers open.

“But I want it,” you furrow your brows and that’s all he needs. 

A fond smile curls on his lips before they press a kiss in your forehead, in your temple, in the corner of your eye and the tip of your nose. His hand cups on your cheek, thumb brushing the skin. You can see the pure softness dripping from those turquoise eyes bordered by a sun-colored halo. The smile on his face is so enamored; if any stranger looked at him currently, they would wonder if he had won the lottery. 

“As you wish, my dear.”

He won the lottery the day you loved him. 

[familiarscars]

Lost In Control | Bad Omens | CHAPTER 04

adult content | minors do NOT interact.

⋆ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆. Bad Omens X ex-girlfriend and singer!Reader.

⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. You and Noah had a difficult ending but you still need to support each other for the band.

⋆ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆(𝐒). melancholy, ex-boyfriends, difficult relationships, alcohol abuse, bad words, drug addiction, betrayal, mentions of abuse.

It's okay to not agree with the characters' attitudes during the fic. It's good to remember that the story is fiction from the author's sick mind and of course they will make dubious decisions according to my fantasies. Nothing is done to be compared to reality.

Richmond, Virginia, February 12, 2015.

In dreams, life shaped itself at your will; that was the privilege of staying asleep. In them, you didn’t have to think about how you’d get by alone the next day. Problems didn’t exist when you could idealize a world where they couldn’t touch you. In your room, you were just you, and the demons were nothing more than tenants under your bed.

Demons you weren’t afraid of because you knew that the people in the real world could be worse than anything imaginary trying to haunt you.

Gradually, the river you swam in descended as if being sucked into a whirlpool, and the forest trees around you lost their leaves, which vanished into the air. The echoes of birds and the sound of the current faded when the water no longer touched your skin.

But something still weighed down on your body.

Your airway grew increasingly restricted by the pressure around your neck, and your eyes bulged in desperation as you suddenly opened them, jerking your body upright. It took exactly two seconds to process what was happening as you slept, pushing him away and curling up in your sheets, your nails clawing at the fabric in panic.

Seth, your mother’s boyfriend, erased the dreamscape the moment he forced himself upon you. In your chest, turbulence rocked your heart as you watched the man rise from the floor like a shadow.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t like it?” he sneered, stepping toward you with deliberate slowness, his belt buckle making noise each time it clinked against itself. “If it was that bad, you would’ve woken up a little sooner.”

The air in the room was so dense you could almost touch it, and you curled up tighter in a futile attempt to form a protective cocoon. Your movements were frozen, your joints stiff with shock. At that moment, one thought echoed in your mind: What if this wasn’t the first time? How many other times had he carefully invaded your dreams without disturbing the scenery?

A scream burst from your throat as Seth dragged you by the leg to the edge of the bed. He positioned himself between your legs, and your screams became muffled until your voice dwindled to a rasp. You had never felt so powerless before, reduced to something as fragile as paper in the face of your vulnerability, tears burning your cheeks.

Between his pauses, you tried to struggle, only to realize that wasn’t the wisest choice. Seth had twice your strength, and even though the smell of alcohol lingered in his breath, he remained in control.

When a spark of lucidity seemed to ignite in your brain, it reminded you that you’d always been a damned survivor since the world spat you out and forced you to live in it. Giving up was never an option.

“Keep breathing,” you told yourself in your mind.

You allowed Seth to get distracted while he adjusted himself, slowly reaching your free hand toward the nightstand. Your eyes glared at him with fury—the same fury that propelled you to grab hold of the lamp and smash it against his head, releasing all your pent-up rage.

As Seth lay on the floor, dazed and clutching his bleeding head, you wrapped yourself in the sheet and bolted for the bedroom door. The frantic pace of your heartbeat, as fast as a Formula 1 car, froze instantly when you met your mother in the hallway.

“Mom!” you exhaled, running into her arms. Her embrace didn’t come. She remained stiff, and you felt only her cold touch as she raised her hand.

The sheet had a bloodstain, and as you looked down, you saw that the same stain came from your star-patterned shorts. Tears choking your throat, you turned your attention to her, meeting her apathetic expression.

“Mom, Seth…” you began, your voice trembling. Something about saying it out loud felt shameful, making your body overheat. “Seth hurt me, and…”

Your words were cut off by the sharp sting of a slap across your face, the impact knocking you back. As your hand touched your cheek, you felt something warm mingling with your tears—it was blood. The ring your mother wore on her middle finger had split the skin.

“Cursed be the bearer of sin,” she growled, advancing toward you as you stumbled backward. “Damned for all your life!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Get out of my house!” your mother shouted, pointing toward the stairs. “I won’t raise a filthy creature like you in this holy home!”

“Mom, you need to listen to what I’m trying to tell you!” Your throat might have torn with the force you used to plead your case, but it was useless to her. “This isn’t the first time Seth’s done this, damn it! LISTEN TO ME!”

In a sudden burst of rage, she turned and stormed into her room, ignoring Seth, who groaned in pain beside the bed. Grabbing the first bag she saw, she stuffed it with random clothes in a rush. After zipping it shut, she threw it at you, yanked you by the arm, and ignored your cries of pain as you stumbled along.

“Never again do I want to see you cross this house’s path! Disappear with your profane body from our lives!”

“Mom!”

Accompanied by the shame she always mentioned sinners carried, as she liked to put it, you stood alone in disgrace outside the place you once called home.

At the back of the house, you managed to find a way to change clothes without being seen.

Jeans, a tank top, and boots.

Your stomach was growling with hunger, and it wouldn’t take long before the consequences of speaking too much caught up with you. Perhaps, if you had stayed silent like you always did when you felt his hands linger too long during his so-called affection, or when he insisted you sit on his lap, or all those disgusting looks he threw your way, you might still have a home—a place to sleep and take shelter from the rain.

That was the song half of your brain tried to convince the other was the right choice.

But it never would be.

When you found a warm place to sleep, maybe you’d allow yourself the opportunity to cry, but for now, during the day, you wouldn’t grant yourself such a display of weakness.

At Pearl’s bar, the atmosphere was mellow so early in the day. A few guys were drinking, others chatting with some girls leaning against the counter. When you sat down, you ordered a shot.

Two. Three. Four shots.

Pearl knew you well; you had some familiarity, having lived in the same neighborhood for many years, and she didn’t seem to care that you didn’t have a way to pay for it.

“Looks like someone needs a break, huh?” she joked, pulling the glass from your hand. “You’re not one to drink like this. Would it be too bold of me to ask what happened?”

“Would it be rude of me not to want to talk about it?” you replied, and she nodded empathetically.

“Fair enough. Then I’ll keep you company; it’s slow here anyway,” she shrugged, pouring two glasses of booze. “Can you believe the guy who used to sing here every night just vanished? My dad is freaking out. Our business is already awful, and now we’ve got no live music.”

After finishing your shot, you stared at her for a few seconds. Pearl raised her thick, red eyebrows, unsure of why you had paused. If your voice was good enough was a curious question; you hadn’t sung in a while, and your mom always said your singing style attracted bad things and that it was best to keep quiet.

But you really needed the $60 they paid per night.

It was simple—you’d sing for two nights, save up enough for a ticket, disappear from this place, and never set foot there again.

“Pearl…” you began, tracing the rim of the glass with your finger. “I think I have an idea.”

Six songs. You still couldn’t believe people might actually enjoy the sound of your voice, much less clap for it. Pearl was beaming, saying twice during the breaks that business had picked up, and the bar was abuzz about the new singer.

It created a strange sensation at the pit of your stomach.

“Thank you so much!” you said, trying to hold back a silly smile as you adjusted the old, out-of-tune guitar on your lap. It was from the bar’s storage, and you couldn’t expect much from the dusty instruments they kept there.

“Do you take song requests?” a voice called out from the back of the bar, loud enough for you to hear. From afar, all you could see was a male silhouette, playing with the ends of his long hair.

“Sure,” you said hesitantly into the mic.

“I want to hear Black by Pearl Jam, but there’s one condition,” he said, lifting his head. Meeting his eyes, even from a distance, made your skin burn.

“And what’s the condition?” you asked, the challenge evident in your tone.

“You have to let me sing it with you.”

The bar went wild with the supposed challenge from the mysterious customer who, not getting a response from you, rose from his seat. Tall, with a few tattoos visible beneath his long-sleeved shirt, and a disturbingly defiant smile that grew as he stepped closer.

Once he took a spot beside you, he let you keep the guitar, took another microphone, and when the music started, he locked his eyes on you. It was impossible not to mirror him. Your fingers stayed on the guitar, your voice never strayed from the lyrics, even though you were mesmerized by what was unfolding in front of you.

He didn’t sing with force; his voice was soft and acoustic, easy on the ears. When combined with yours, it felt almost surreal, like the union of two pieces lost until that moment.

It was as if embers were dancing across your skin. A smile escaped both your lips after the chorus, and he seemed to feel it too — as though his voice had finally been completed. No deity, no matter how powerful, could explain such a peculiar twist of fate.

Applause and whistles filled the room as the final note faded. You thanked the audience with a nod and noticed from the corner of your eye that he was still there, standing in the same spot, looking awestruck like a foolish creature.

“You don’t sing half bad…” you teased, putting the guitar back in its place. Around you, the crowd returned to their drinks and conversations after the performance.

“You’re really good,” he murmured, spinning his chair to face you. “How have I never heard your voice here before?”

“Well, I wasn’t desperate for money before,” you replied with a shrug, earning a laugh and a nod from him.

Something shifted in his gaze, and the smile vanished almost instantly when he noticed the bruise on your face. Pearl had cleaned the area, but the mark left by the ring was still visible. He stood up slowly, narrowing his eyes as if to confirm what he was seeing. “Who did this to you?”

His long fingers were determined to touch your face, but in a reflex of self-preservation, you slapped his hand away. Another smile appeared on his perfectly shaped lips, his teeth aligned and gleaming white.

He understood in a snap, without you needing to say a word.

“Hey, calm down, little storm! I didn’t mean to touch you without your permission,” he said, raising his hands in the air as a gesture of surrender. “Let’s start over, okay?”

Still wary, like a cat recently threatened with a bucket of water, you nodded. Slowly, he took a step forward, keeping a safe distance. With care, he extended his hand toward you.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Noah.”

[crystallilytarot]

Choose a gummy shark! Does your k-pop bias/ favourite celebrity have similarities with your future spouse?

Pile 1

Probably not so much similarities in their looks, except that they both are quite tall. Can have the same hair color, but the style probably a little different. But in their personalities there are some things in common. They both are succesful, ambitious, very talented, capable, smart. They are able to make a good life and they want to share it with their loved ones. They probably both had a break in their life, maybe had a different job, had a bad breakup or needed to move to another place. They feel a little bit private, but actually very caring.

Pile 2

They both are quite confident, have a big presence, people notice when they enter a room. But I think they are more similar in their looks, not in their personalities. They both can be foreigners or maybe one of their parents are a foreigner. They both are charming, handsome, beautiful, I would say even sexy or have a sensual aura. They both have a pretty face, probably younger looking than their age, and always will be like this. They have similar face features too. Their hair are almost the same. Also their body shape, the height too, very similar.

Pile 3

They have similar voices, maybe both of them can sing too and they are good at communication too. They probably have some beliefs, values in common. Maybe your favourite celebrity are supporting a case and that case will be important for your spouse too. They both ready to stand up for what they believe, and they are not afraid of working hard. Their hard work make them succesful. They can have some similar face features too, probably their eyes, and they have similar face expressions, especially when they are very focused on something.

[dykedvonte]

One of my mutuals opinions is the "bro code" thing, that Curly is one of those guys who wouldn't care about the victim because the perpetrator is his friend and I'm really banging my head on the wall like that other anon. I've only played through the game once but Curly's behaviour/reactions etc read completely different from the "bro code" thing and I have to wonder if my mutual and I even played the same game.. like the constant digs at him from Jimmy, his body language in his face reveal and so on like you mentioned in your post. While this game is a little different obviously, it kind of reminded of a point in Alice Madness Returns that makes it very clear that Alice's pain blinded her to the abuse of the other children and her failure to act earlier because of it. Curly is guilty of a similar inaction but it doesn't change the fact he was a victim of Jimmy too. I don't think I can look at it any other way because both of these games have really stuck with me.

I genuinely think it really is the idea that people want a simple easy to blame problem and the idea that the only relatable victims of abuse are those that "surpass" it or do a lot to help others. When it comes to victims, especially those that don't fit the typical demographics, who either accidently perpetuate it, enable it or aren't ideal in some way shape or form, people jump to ignore what they went through as it's easier than dealing with those conflicting sentiments.

The bro-code conversation in Mouthwashing stems from a concept I generally dislike that there had to be something about Curly that made him meet or keep being friends with someone like Jimmy. I think people genuinely underestimate how many like decent and good people just know an asshole or are friends with someone who is really bad outside of their view/established dynamics. The game makes it clear none of the inaction against Jimmy is because of a lack of care, it is a lack of understanding from the privaleged postions they have as men to not have to worry about what Anya does/went through and the type of extremes men like Jimmy will go through to cover it up. They are all too preoccupied in their own strifes.

Another thing I see being oversaturated the idea that you have to be a freak, misanthrope or have a disorder to do the thing Jimmy does. The game is an escalation, it's a spiral that I don't see people comment on that Jimmy was not likely having the mood swings and episodes of rage/frustration we were seeing in the game. This is after they all start experiencing the worst moments in their lives that he got THAT openly bad. Of course, this is just my interpretation but much like in real life, people that go to extremes like that usually live mundane lives. It's a pressure cooker affect to where the stress made them pop. It's self inflicted but still the case.

I really think people need to be more willing to acknowledge that not everything needs to be an extreme or in black and white or easy to understand. It doesn't need to be happy or have an answer or solution, especially in the cases where the abused sadly helps perpetuate what they experience. It's not he should've known better from experience or shouldn't he have known what could've happened because victims tend to not like to think in matters of the worst. Not to mention, especially in cases of abuse where it feels so personally directed that you don't expect to happen to someone else.

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 4 part 1

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2])

It's episode 4 If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You, time for two of my favorite things: glam rock and homosexuals. which are basically the same thing if you think about it.

she's like damn, billy, that was ruthless. honestly this is going to make her care about billy even more, not only he's powerful, not only he reminds her of nicky. now he's a murderer too?? perfect son is perfect. I love how she's studying sharon's body with her detective Agnes face, her mind is going a million miles a minute

her third-wall-break winks destroy me. and that poor hairdo. all gone expect for the giant turd on top.

alice being truly and genuinely sorry about sharon. lilia and jen being gossiping hags

agatha honey you're so dainty and feminine, look at you. and that's an interesting and not at all painful tree shape you picked. (I would have never noticed any of this without brightening the scene, it's outrageous. everyone involved in this show is amazing except the lighting department. shame on you lighting department)

whatever alice does openly and sincerely, agatha does secretly or as a joke. parallels, parallels

jen is like, can you believe this bitch

without being asked, alice goes to help digging the grave

that is the idiot I fell in love with and I'm way past regretting my choices at this point!! I know how rio feels now

"coven two" is one of those lines that make you laugh on first view and shred your heart in a million tiny pieces at every following rewatch. this show HAS to be watched at least twice, don't ever trust reviews or complaints by ppl who didn't, because they missed at least half of what makes it great.

a clown running from the tragic truth that her son wrote the Ballad, making sad clown noises all over the Road

when alice is called to referee as the Resident Ballad Expert and agatha looks at her expectantly hands in pockets, somehow extremely obnoxious, extremely gay and extremely sad at the same time

alice is SO above bickering. jen is being a baby because she's mad at agatha, lilia is being a baby cause she's grumpy and a contrarian, billy is sixteen, agatha is, well, agatha. alice is the only adult in the building

just one, huh? that's fine. that's fine. who needs a heart anyway.

the common gypsophila or baby's breath symbolizes sincerity, purity, innocence. does it symbolizes sharon? or is billy leaving it on her grave a metaphor for his naivety and good intentions gone wrong?

billy's romantic ideals of what it means to be in a coven have just been shattered. he set out, consciously or not, to teach something to these witches and of course it didn't work. he is the one who needs guidance, he is the one who's making a mess of things. he's just a kid.

agatha going !! when billy says he wishes he could go home. agatha covertly pointing out that he has a replacement body and she would really like to know how. she's observing him so closely, trying to puzzle out the mystery. exactly like she did with wanda inside the Hex. not revealing her cards just yet, testing and manipulating him. when that strategy blew up in her face so spectacularly the first time! she's so smart and so reckless it makes her practically an idiot

case in point: she's making up stupid rules trying to manipulate billy into shaping the Road the way she wants. that's right, agatha. let's summon another poor victim you can siphon, wonder who's gonna show up! (and she KNEW sharon was laying dead ten feet away and SOMEONE was bound to be in the neighborhood. dumbass.)

aww he's so proud of himself for having brought the spellbook. he's being helpful! he's made his four moms happy!

check, debatable, check

debatable and debatable

I'm gonna give that one a BIG check

yes I know advil spells "vidal", thank you tumblr for letting me know that one. also same, alice.

'esse viridis non es facile' IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! oh I knew my high school latin was bound to come in handy at least once in my life

(by the way the set + costumes combo is giving me such hocus pocus vibes, but you could never tell because the SCENE IS SO FUCKING DARK) (NO I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT IT)

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

I mean girls, you chose to follow the head clown, you have to travel in the clown car. that's on you.

WHY IS THE PRINT SO SMALL???? I LOVE YOU PATTI LUPONE

admit it we all wished it was sharon for a moment

oh?? is that mayhaps someone you know, agatha???

and that's a wrap, see you guys tomorrow!

no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm doing another one tonight. I need to shove all the rio scenes in my eyeballs NOW

go to episode 4 part 2

[blissfullyecho]

Hey echo!! I’ve been following you for a while on my old tumblr account and even bought your book and toolkit which has been a game changer! Was wondering if you have some tips on looksmaxxing for black women- I do agree that looking the prettiest does get you far in life. Also where can I preorder your book? Thank you for the advice you post- I love how you keep it real! I used to be one of the girls that believed in manifestation, affirmations and subs, but you brought me back to reality!

Looksmaxxing Tips

Source: I’m from Miami and currently live in LA.

Disclaimer: I already know I’ll get cancelled for this but this is for the girls who get it.

Hey! Aw you don’t have to be anon 🤍 thank you so much for your support!! Like truly that was very nice and I’m happy you’re still around after my hiatus. First things first, this post is going to get me in trouble but… I’ll do it lol. Remember that time I was cancelled for saying we should be shaving our underarms?

YOUR BODY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR FACE

You know it’s true. You know when you look like you take care of yourself, people treat you better. Yes, you NEED to make sure you’re at a healthy weight. Your face can be absolutely busted, but if you have a nice body, you get a pass. I’m half Hispanic, and my background and your background tends to get on the heavier side pretty quickly. There is so many scientific research about how we develop Type 2 Diabetes quicker and we’re globally at a higher weight. So this is the part when I’m gonna get cancelled: you have to be fit. You have to be in shape. You have to have muscle. You have to be tight and toned.

———- WORKOUTS I RECOMMEND

1. Pilates $$-$$$

2. Barre $$-$$$

3. Running/Sprinting/Walking/Stairmaster $-$$

4. Kickboxing $-$$

5. Solid Core, Barry’s, SoulCycle, Pelaton, etc. $$-$$$

6. Growing Anna Nas (YouTube. For some reason I can’t link YouTube links) $0

7. Pamela Rief (YouTube) $0

8. MadFit (Youtube) $0

——— MY DIET TIPS

1. I eat whatever I want, but I eat so in moderation. It’s so important that you don’t deprive yourself because this should be a lifestyle. I get lunch portions, kids meals, the smallest size of unhealthy foods (like I would get a small fry for example), etc. Ben & Jerry’s has the really tiny ice cream cups that I’ll get if I want something sweet. But food known to cause weight gain, I’ll still eat them but I won’t have normal portions of it because normal portions of those kinds of foods are literally 1,000+ calories.

2. I’m against drinking my calories unless it’s a meal replacement (like a smoothie)

3. I practice intermittent fasting. I’ve done 18:6, 16:8, 20:4, and 23:1. They are all great. I think it’s healthy to give your body a rest from eating throughout the day to allow it to digest. I eat from 12pm-6pm some days, but some days if I’m going out to dinner, I push it back to maybe 4pm-10pm. So many benefits to this, do your research.

4. I don’t eat carbs for dinner. Carbs are essential for energy. Why do I need energy at night? Protein, healthy fats, and veggies is what I stick to. I limit carbs to my smoothie and lunch. But my main dish is never a carb; I like fat and protein as my main dish with a SIDE of carbs like rice or a side pasta dish.

I don’t recommend Ozempic or other alternatives! You’ll get the Ariana Grande sunken in face and look absolutely insane. That’s the side effect that scares me the most, and it usually happens later on after being on Ozempic for it to take affect. I want to keep my face plump.

DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE SURGICALLY

I’m always a fan of a good rhinoplasty, but make sure you come to LA for one. NYC has really good doctors too. Never, EVER get your surgeries done in Miami. Business is so shady in Miami that I don’t trust it. I’m not telling you to get a nose job— I’m saying that’s the only procedure I’m actually for and not against.

I used to get Botox and I stopped. The problem with Botox is that is prevents muscle movement, which will develop muscle atrophy. Meaning, your face muscles will lose shape and strength sooner than normal, and your face will start to sag. My credentials is that I have a nursing degree and I dated a plastic surgeon over the last year.

I’m sure you don’t need lip filler, but a little (like half a syringe) to make your lips go out further is a GAME CHANGER. Just make sure you dissolve filler each time you decide you want a touch-up.

Another trend is buccal fat removal— I don’t know WHY people are wanting the snatched face because it makes you look so horse-like and old. I’m only talking to those who don’t naturally have a snatched face. There’s a difference between looking puffy, and having face fat. Face fat is good, it keeps you looking youthful! So don’t get that done.

Stay away from all other fillers.

COME TO LA FOR BODY PLASTIC SURGERY

I’m the biggest advocate for breast augmentations. I got my boobs done because I wanted them to look more perfect. You just have to make sure you go to a good doctor. Don’t be cheap with it. But getting your boobs done just elevates your look but don’t get crazy. A perky C cup is fine, even a perfect D cup is fine. Get the boobies up and perky. Push-ups and other chest workouts are good to start doing but they’re not going to be total game-changers. If you like your boobs, great. But if you want that perfect body inside and outside of clothes, get the girls up. Give them some volume.

If you have extra flab or skin, go for the non surgical procedures!! I got Morpheus8 done on my inner thighs because I had a bit of loose skin from weight loss (it was like 50lb weight loss and I lost it fast) and my thighs are sucked in and cute now). But it depends on what they have but go to a medical spa ran by a plastic surgeon. Don’t go to the commercial med spas or anything.

Body Gua-Sha is really good to do as well to help shape you up a little. I do this after every morning shower.

GET A SPRAY TAN

Yes, you should get a spray tan. I know you don’t need one, but your skin tone would pop so much more if you got one and they hide so many imperfections on your skin. Everyone looks better tan— everyone. It’s giving summer vibes all year round and I’m here for it. My black friends get spray tans and I’ve seen the difference in real time. Skin just looks so much healthier and younger with a spray tan. But it has to be a spray tan, it has to be a little artificial to look good lol. I know people swear the sun is the best but when I go out in the sun, I turn grey!!!! I turn such a weird color but because I fake tan, I keep my golden color without looking moldy lol. It’s giving that SpongeBob episode when he had the suds. Try it once and tell me how it goes lol. I swear you’ll be obsessed. I actually want you to message me and lmk.

MAKEUP, LASH EXTENSIONS, MICROBLADING

Your lashes should be undetectable. Classic natural set with a wispy and individual mix ONLY. Lashes should only be used for a thicker lash line, NOT for length. If you get strip lashes, make sure they’re natural and WISPY. The more natural and effortless the better. You also look younger and classier too. I’m a fan of a natural looking micro blade, but keep your brows natural. Don’t fan them out or fluff them, but don’t have IG brows. You want to fool people into thinking you’re just naturally like this. Obviously when you go out, do the brows or lashes, but on a normal Wednesday 2pm, it’s not necessary. Makeup should always be glowing. Matte makes you look like a grandma. A subtle glow in the cheeks or nose just gives healthy. Matte gives chalky.

HAIR

Keep it SAFE with hair. Natural color, natural length, healthy hair. How you style it is up to you but make sure it goes with your face shape. Hair that’s too long can be too much and hair that’s too short can make you look a little older. I don’t know if you wear your natural hair or if you install, but if you install keep it at an appropriate length. Think VS model. If your hair is natural and you wear it out, scratch everything I just said :) but keep colors natural and your hair healthy!

—-

I’m running out of space to type, but I’ll say this. Your BEST template is a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Not the new ones lol that show was embarrassing. I’m talking about the OG VS. That’s if you want to be universally stunning. Everyone will turn heads at a VS Angel. You want to give classy, but you also want to give youthful and sexy. Look at paparazzi photos of them being off-duty. Gain style and look inspiration off of them. They got CANCELLED for not being inclusive and it hurt feelings. Now they aren’t making nearly as much money before and the brand is tainted because a few insecure women decided to be all emotional. See what happens when you listen to insecure toads?

I didn’t want this post to be something you can find on the internet because there’s so much about this on the internet, but I gave you some opinions based off things I see that I agree/don’t agree with.

🖤🍸Make sure to check out my book called The Luxe Girl’s Playbook to Life for a fresh perspective on reinventing yourself for 2025. You’ll receive immediate access after purchase.

[spencahreadreid]

and though the town was cold and wet.. S.R X R

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

cute little snow fic with spencer!! fluff, gn reader, no y/n, no gender specifics. any issues, please comment or let me know, I'm open to requests and asks!

Maybe it was the excitement, you and your heart of gold, easily entertained by everything. It could've been the fact that you wanted to continue shaping the ice into 'people', either way, you failed to notice the way your hands were beginning to change colour in the low temperature. Not to mention, your cheeks, nose, ears, knuckles, practically your whole body. Under your large coat and Spencer's scarf, you felt mostly warm between multiple layers he'd begged you to put on, which led you to think it was okay to stay out longer.

So when Spencer came back outside to see you'd rejected the gloves to make more 'intricate' details into your current art, he wasn't happy. To him it looked like an oval with holes in the same formation as a bowling ball, but you claimed it was his face. He noticed the rosewood pink shade your fingertips were turning and crossed his arms over his chest. Standing in the doorway with that gentle and loving but also very concerned expression on his face.

"You know, hypothermia can develop in little as five minutes. If you're not dressed properly, your scalp, hands, fingers and your face are usually the first parts of your body affected-" You stood there almost dumbfounded, the same chunk of round ice slowly melting in your palm, watching him talk with the backdoor half open.

"Oh.. cool?" You could honestly care less about hypothermia, it was almost like a big myth a parent would tell you about so you would come inside. Your eyes never left him, and vice versa, except he was taking in your small figure halfway up the garden. You were trembling a little due to the lack of layers on your lower half.

"The elderly and infants are especially vulnerable, but it can take under an hour for a person to actually freeze to death if the conditio-" you had cut him off by dropping your sculpture and letting it fall, breaking into pieces under you. A new horrified expression came over you, brows furrowing and eyes widening with pure terror.

"What?! You didn't think to tell me that before I came out here with no hat on?" You walked closer to the door, to where he was standing and placed a hand onto his arm, where his wooly jumper was rolled up. He immediately flinched and shivered, pulling his arm away which made your lips curl into a pout.

"You're freezing, honey.. I think we should get you warmed up, hm?" His voice was as tender and gentle as usual, but he felt that if you refused he'd definitely have to be more stern next time. Without even thinking, you nodded, he opened the door fully and let you in before making his way through to the living room to start a fire. He'd been out there with you before leaving to go inside for 'paperwork' (he honestly just got too cold but you let him lie). After stripping off your coat and his scarf, hooking them both up you went to go meet him, rubbing your palms together as you walked through and sat on the carpet by his side.

Wrapping his arm around your shoulder, he decided to ignore the fact your hair was slightly damp from your earlier activity of throwing snow around. Letting you rest close for a while with the excuse of 'sharing body heat'. Soon he decided that hot cocoa would be a good idea.

"Keep your fingers close together, don't get too close to the fire because your hands are in a state where you won't realise it if they get too hot.." he stood up mid sentence and then continued, getting louder as he travelled further and then made it to the kitchen. "You can borrow a pair of my socks I left on the washed pile, they'll help you get warmer faster!"

You shouted back a thanks in response, slipping on the wool socks he'd conveniently left out. You knew deep down he'd left them there for you on purpose, but sometimes you got fussy when he cared too much. Almost like a child being told they need to eat all their veggies to be healthy, if anything like that came out of Spencer's mouth your face would scrunch into a playful scowl. You secretly loved it though, which is what made things better when your loving boyfriend returned with two cups of hot chocolate, both of them extra sweet.

"Warm fluid can help your body warm up, but only for a short amount of time. The temperature change would only be around 2.5 degrees and will only last for around twenty minutes, after that your body will return to the same temperature as before the drink."

The way he wouldn't stop just continuously info-dumping made you smile, he had a fact for everything, but by now it was more endearing than anything. You thanked him for the knowledge and gave him a kiss on the cheek, sending him into a blush, the same kind of pink yours had earlier.

"Are you feeling cold?" Drawing out the word 'cold' you smiled teasingly at him. He shook his head and paid you back with a simple kiss on the cheek.

"Humans blush because of adrenaline release, when you're embarrassed feeling a strong emotion, the blood vessels in your face dilate. It's controlled by the autonomic nervous system and it's an involuntary response."

Another snicker left you and the face he gave you almost read 'whats so funny?' it made you laugh a little more until he finally caught a case of the giggles alongside your own.

"So you blushed because the strong emotion was.. love?" You questioned while brushing up close to his side, voice teasing and almost sing-song.

"You could say that, yeah.."

[yellow-the-monster-girl]

It's late at night and Dr. Etta Gray is feeling more productive than ever. The library is quiet, almost eerily, but she's used to it. She glides over to an old typewriter, a sheet of paper still in it. An almost finished work of many nights - but with any luck, tonight it will by done.

---

It's late at night and Cassius Dracula Jr. has just finished preparations for the ritual. He still has to wait for midnight.

He forces himself to take a deep breath to calm a little. It doesn't work. After all, summoning is hard and summoning Shades is among the hardest. The most dangerous. But he needs that scroll translated. There is only one being who knows Old Carcosan and is willing to help a vampire - and she is a Shade.

That's all he knows about her.

Cassius glances at a giant grandfather-clock near the corner. Thirty minutes to midnight.

---

Thirty minutes to midnight, the young scientist is on a roll. It's a good night today, Etta thinks as her fingers ghost over tiny letters, checking for any errors. There are none. There aren't ever any, but Etta, diligent in her work, always checks anyway.

She pulls the paper out and tries to sign it, but when she reaches for the pen, her hand passes through it. She curses under her breath and takes a moment to regain a solid form. A moment of hesitation before she grabs the pen again. She signs herself as Dr. Gray - and exhales, content.

Etta sets a new blank sheet of paper into the typewriter and checks her phone. Five minutes to midnight. The night is still young. Enough time to work on the next project.

---

Five minutes to midnight, the vampire boy is on edge like never before. What if it doesn't work? What if the Shade is evil? What if..?

He stares at the clock, biting his already short nails. What did the book say?

Place offering in the middle of the symbol.

What kind of monster requests caramel latté as an offering for summoning? Who knows? Certainly not Cassius, who swears he will get a new coffee machine tomorrow. With a warm cup of the best latté the old one could muster, he picks up the book again.

Recite spell precisely at midnight.

Five seconds. Four. Three...

---

On her way for her second coffee, Etta is suddenly intangible again. She hates when that happens. At least she wasn't holding the cup yet.

There's a familial tingle in the air. Electricity. But - but the lightst are all off and so is her phone, so what could- Oh no.

She tries as she might to solidify again. Nothing. In fact, she can see the edges of her own body blurring further and further and...

No no no no no!

She wanted to work on that project, dammit!

---

Cassius is prepared. Every possible reaction the Shade could have, he had accounted for. As he recites the spell, something in front of him darkens, until it takes a vaguely humanoid shape and speaks...

"Whoever you are, fuck you."

Every possible reaction, except this one.

"Uhh... Hello? Sorry?" he tries while mentally panicking and searching his brain for something appropriate to say. No reaction from the Shade.

"Did you seriously summon me on a Friday?" she asks with a sigh.

With no face to read, Cassius can't tell if she's mad or just annoyed.

"I, uh, need a scroll translated..."

---

Etta looks around the room, taking in the details. Ugly-as-hell wallpaper. Ritual symbol on the table, one used in summonings. She stifles a laugh - the runes are all butched up. In the center lies an offering - hope it's not blood or organs or such - YES! It's COFFEE! A small victory.

Then there's the man, young and distinctly vampiric.

"I, uh, need a scroll translated..."

His voice is intriguing from a purely scientific standpoint. He must be newly turned or else has kept up with modern slang extremely well. Slight Elvish accent - definitely modern Moon Elvish. He must've lived in Mist Valley for a time-

No! Etta abruptly shuts up her inner linguist. He needs a scroll translated. He actually meant to summon her.

"And you couln't've picked someone not drowning in works-in-progress?"

He opens his mouth to answer, but she won't let him.

"I mean, I'll do it, but - coffee first."

---

The Shade reaches for the cup, but again her fingers pass directly through it. Cassius feels a small knot of worry in his stomach. He tries an apologetic smile.

On one hand, he should be relieved. He'll be getting his translation, after all. But when he watches her struggle with the cup, he feels everything else but relief.

"Um, miss-"

"Doctor," she corrects him with a slight head-tilt. "Dr. Etta Gray."

Cassius only blinks in confusion.

"Sorry - Dr. Gray - I'm Cassius, by the way - I just wanted to ask - do you need help with that?"

He points at the coffee and wonders if this happens to her often. She lets out a sigh.

"It's the electricity. It makes it hard to hold a solid form."

"Sorry?"

Cassius isn't quite sure what to do, switch off the lights and light up... candles or something? As soon as he does, the Shade - no, Dr. Gray - Dr. Gray solidifies into a distinct form - hey, she has a face now!

---

Etta brings the cup to her newly formed lips and takes a sip - it tastes so good.

"Great coffee," she smiles at Cassius, before setting it on the table again. "So where's the scroll?"

Amused, she watches his eyes go wide.

"Oh! Right!"

He runs out of the room and returns with an old, tattered scroll in his left hand.

"Apparently it's supposed to be in Old Carcosan, but like, I don't know."

Old Carcosan?

OLD CARCOSAN?!

"Sit down," Etta commands the young man, barely containing her own excitement. With a grin on her lips she delves into the text. No, her inner linguist won't shut up now.

---

Cassius sits on the couch and listens to Dr. Gray's barely restrained excitement. The poor woman is practically vibrating.

"It's definitely an old variant of Carcosan, though this one seems influenced by one other eldritch language, one spoken primarily on Yhtil - oh, could this scroll be from the era, when The King In Yellow was first written?"

He shrugs. He's slowly growing tired of answering the same I-don't-knows again and again. Tired and bored. Dr. Gray, it seems to him, is the opposite of bored right now.

"Because that would make it older than anything I've ever studied. It would be fantastic, a breakthrough for linguists AND historians. And mages, likely. It would make this one of the oldest spell scrolls ever, which could..."

As Cassius listens to Dr. Gray, it dawns on him that it's going to be a long, long night.

Visual Writing Prompt #461

[mc-lukanette]

Ladybug stood on a rooftop, dazed, staring up as the magical ladybugs flew up into the sky and dispersed into nothingness. It hadn't even been a year, yet she'd lost track of all the akuma she'd found.

All the time she'd lost.

Dropping her gaze to the roof under her feet, she wondered how many times she'd jumped across it. The rooftops of Paris had all blended together in her mind, which had long since stopped seeing them as buildings or shops so much as something to step across to get wherever she needed to go, or an object to throw her yoyo at to swing somewhere.

Down below, a crowd was cheering for her and Chat Noir. Their faces were hard to see with her vision occasionally blurring, but she felt they were grateful, at least, and the distance was the only reason why no one saw the tiredness in her eyes. Chat Noir, though he stood right there next to her, was simply too busy putting on a good smile to the cameras to see the way she swayed like she was about to fall over.

That's what she told herself, anyway. Besides, heroes didn't get tired, they didn't need breaks, and they certainly didn't demand sympathy from those around them. They were meant to serve as a higher being, perfect in the eyes of the public.

That was all.

As Ladybug raised a hand to give a smile and wave with energy she didn't have, a group of screams rang out.

"Oh no, i-it's another akuma!"

"Quick, everybody, run!"

"M'lady, look out!"

Everything happened so fast. It was hard to catch up and understand where the horror was directed to, but she turned around under the assumption of a sneak attack. Chat's hand came into contact with her shoulder at the same time, the motion of which indicated that he was about to shove her out of the way.

Instead, she saw a flash of teal and Chat was catapulted back onto one of the rooftops a few buildings away. She couldn't even call out his name before something thick and smooth wrapped around her and brought her to the ground, the air leaving her lungs from the shock. She looked down, noting the snake-like scales, and wriggled, but the grip was tight enough that it was hard to get her arms out.

Strangely, it wasn't so tight that it hurt. Maybe there was an opening somewhere?

"Ha." A smooth, strangely mellow voice spoke, preceding a few delicate, harp-like notes. "That joke Hawk Moth made it too easy."

Twisting her head any which way she could to see the source, Ladybug looked up to see the start of the snake tail she was wrapped in, connected to a seemingly male human body like naga in mythology. The boy - not looking that much older than her - wore a bodysuit matching his snake tail, transitioning so smoothly that it was hard to tell where the torso ended and the tail began. Darker teal lines snaked - quite appropriate given the theming - up his arms, all the way to the hood on his head.

The hood cast a shadow over his face, but she could still see the teal mask, the lower corners jutting down sharply into points to imitate fangs. Had she not been in the process of being restrained by him at the time, she may have complimented his style.

A lyre was clutched in one of his hands, explaining the music she'd heard earlier, and he played a few more notes over the cries of the few people who remained below. "You can call me Hoodstrum. I seek the most valuable things in the world and have had my sights set on this beautiful bug for a while now."

"Get in line!" Chat yelled out from afar. "That's my partner you're taking!"

Ladybug rolled her eyes, genuinely unable to tell if this was more about her being kidnapped or two boys fighting over a girl. "This is not the time, Chat Noir!"

Hoodstrum clicked his tongue, unimpressed by Chat's retort, then raised his free hand behind him in a fist. Slowly, his fingers curled open, and with them what Ladybug could only describe as the fabric of dimensions. A portal was opening at his command, more than large enough for the two of them and shaped like a snake's mouth opening wide. She couldn't see what awaited on the other side either, only colors zipping from side-to-side like lightning bolts.

Were they going to hurt?

"They always say that you don't know what you have 'til it's gone." Plucking one string at a time in a slow, taunting motion, Hoodstrum continued, "But don't worry. I'll be sure to put her in a nice little terrarium."

Chat called out for her again, followed by the sound of his boots against the rooftops, but it was too late. Ladybug felt the tail tighten briefly before throwing her, her world spinning as her surroundings blurred into nothing discernible. The sounds of Chat Noir, the crowd, and Paris itself faded in an instant and she braced for impact, her body curling in on itself to protect anything vital from the rough landing.

Only then to feel the impact against something marshmallow soft and pillow-y.

"Uh—?" Ladybug's body unconsciously relaxed at the unexpected sensation, then tensed again when she recognized what must be a trap. The ground below her would be unstable and hard to move around on, giving Hoodstrum the advantage as he floated above it.

Pushing herself up and fighting against the struggle for balance, her fists flew up into her fighting stance. Her eyes searched viciously for any sort of advantages she could have in this boy's lair, such as a defensive spot under the coffee table, the TV to smash over his head, the fridge in the other room to....

wait.

Ladybug blinked, staring at the weirdly normal living room she was in. The floor was a smooth, gray vinyl and the walls were black, curving into an equally black ceiling. The TV stand housed a couple of well taken care of gaming systems, and the coffee table had a deck of cards stacked neatly atop it. There was an opening with an arc shape in one of the walls leading into the kitchen, an electric kettle on the counter emitting steam and even a clear jar of sweets nearby.

Also, was that a bean bag chair near the couch?

She couldn't see any sign of a front door, but there was a hallway that she could only guess led to a bathroom and bedroom or something similar. Point being, this was not a lair, and certainly not a terrarium in the sinister way Hoodstrum had spoken it. Under her feet as well, there was no deception or trap to be caught in, but actual pillows that she'd landed on.

She had to admit at that point that she was officially, utterly confused.

At that moment, Hoodstrum's voice called out from behind her, "I'm glad I aimed right. I would've felt terrible if I missed the pillows."

Ladybug spun around to face him, but stumbled on the uneven surface. That one was her own fault and she went for the obvious solution of stepping outside of the "pillow zone" while Hoodstrum casually slithered past her, the portal behind him long gone. She watched, waiting for him to suddenly turn and pounce at her, yet he laid himself on the couch instead, looking totally vulnerable to any and all attacks.

"Um," Ladybug began, raising a hand to point around the room, "am I missing something?"

He tossed her a smile, stretching his arms before propping himself back up into a sitting position. The long snake tail made it awkward, but he didn't appear bothered by it. "Sorry. This is my first time doing this for someone."

The phrase 'doing this for someone' implied that it was to her own benefit, only making her more confused.

He explained before she could ask any further, "I'm not a villain. I'm part of a group against the Order of the Guardians."

"The Order of the Guardians?" she asked warily. "But how aren't you a villain then?"

He leaned against the backrest, unbothered by the half-accusation. "We don't want to harm anyone; they do. Before the accident, they took kids in even if those kids didn't want it, and starved them as part of their training."

Ladybug bit her lower lip, already eerily familiar with that story. That's what Master Fu had gone through before Feast happened.

Hoodstrum, staring at her with a wealth of emotional intelligence, seemed to know that she understood that already. "They wiped themselves out because they didn't care about anything but their rules. The first one of us knew that and ran away with some of their miraculouses."

At that, her gaze dropped, scanning his body over to search for something she hadn't thought to before. On his wrist, she noted, was a bangle designed like an ouroboros. "Is that what you're wearing?"

"You're learning the notes fast," he complimented with a nod. He raised his arm out to her in a silent offer, adding, "The snake was one of the ones they got away with."

Though still hesitant, she couldn't detect anything suspicious in his posture. One step at a time, she slowly made her way towards the couch until she was within arm's length of him. Taking hold of his forearm and hand, she examined the supposed snake miraculous in question.

It was bizarre. In her limited experience with the miraculouses Master Fu had, it definitely looked like a miraculous: it was an accessory to wear and his bodysuit had remnants of what she might expect, but something wasn't quite right. While the design of the miraculouses was done who knows how long ago, Hoodstrum's appeared modern as if made recently, or perhaps refurbished.

Looking upon her thoughtful expression approvingly, he told her, "I don't know everything, but the miraculouses they stole got taken all over to other people; people who could make them better with the times." He glanced down at it. "Think of it like a record of an old song compared to the music we have now. It's always changing, and we're finding new ways to play and record it."

"So that's why you have other powers," Ladybug deduced, recalling the portal he had opened. She wanted to leave it there, but the nagging voice in the back of her head refused to let go of the scale-covered elephant in the room. "...But the tail? And fangs?"

He grinned, inadvertently showing off the fangs in question. Closing his eyes, he took a deep, steadying breath...

and started to detransform.

She yelped, recoiling from the bright light. Her calves bumped into the coffee table, but she remained standing and instinctively covered her eyes in thought of seeing someone's civilian identity.

She could hear Hoodstrum chuckle, but a different voice was the one who spoke up. "It's fine to look, Ladybug. My holder trusts you."

"N-nggh, but why?" she whined from behind her hands.

She got no answer, but the permission had made her too curious. She lowered her hands first, then opened one eye at a time until she could fully take him in. Rather than the half-human, half-snake she had seen earlier, Hoodstrum looked entirely normal, if a little bit punk. His black pants were torn at the knees, under his denim jacket was a thick midnight blue hoodie - the hood of which had been put down to reveal fluffy black hair with blue highlights - and his white shirt had rips as well as—

"Is that Jagged Stone?" she blurted out, staring at the logo across the chest of the shirt.

"Yeah," he admitted, "he's my favorite singer."

"Mine t—" She clammed up, remembering that she wasn't Marinette right now. Hoodstrum had such a calm, amicable tone when speaking that it felt like talking with a friend rather than a stranger. Was this somehow part of catching her off-guard?

The voice from earlier, as she soon discovered, belonged to a snake-looking kwami flying beside him. He chimed into the conversation, explaining, "Gaining our features are a side-effect of the modern miraculouses. They might be inconvenient for our holders, but it's the price they're willing to pay for our will."

"Will?" Ladybug repeated for clarification.

Hoodstrum raised his wrist again, showing the disguised form of the miraculous. "I can't transform if Sass doesn't want to."

Sass crossed his legs, his long tail curling around them. "The modern miraculouses keep us from being used without our consent, or if we think it might put our holder in danger. It gives us more power in the bond we share and our holders are happy to take the consequence of that."

It was a lot of information at once, but she tried to follow as best as she could. The idea that kwamis weren't slaves to whoever had their hands on their miraculouses sounded almost fantastical, making her think of poor Nooroo under Hawk Moth. "You didn't have to detransform to prove that though."

"I know," Hoodstrum said. He got up from the couch to stand in front of her, gesturing to himself. "But I want to earn your trust if I can, so you don't feel uncomfortable here."

"Here?" Ladybug took another look around, reminded of the situation that led them to this moment, and raised a finger. "Wait, yeah! Why am I here? Where is here? And I thought you kidnapped me!"

He shook his head. "I'll take you back whenever you want. This—" He outstretched an arm to the rest of the room. "—is for you, and anyone like you."

She brought a hand to her mouth, brows drawn together in thought. "I don't get it."

Sass flew up, lounging lazily on Hoodstrum's shoulder, and "pointed" at her with his paw. "You're exhausted. That much is obvious in everything we saw."

Her eyes widened. They noticed? Had it been that obvious to these two that didn't know her? "That...that's normal."

"It's not," Hoodstrum argued with a frown. "Whoever your guardian is, he chose a cat who loves the job. He could've done the same for your miraculous too."

Sass clicked his tongue in a way not unlike what Hoodstrum had done towards Chat. "That's typical of guardians: never ask, just choose."

Ladybug swallowed, wanting to defend Master Fu but unable to. It was true, she hadn't wanted to be Ladybug, and in fact had to when the holder she had intended to replace herself with got trapped behind a car. There were so many times that she thought about giving up or lamented how overwhelmed it made her feel, but she hadn't wanted to question a decision made by someone who seemed so much older and wiser than her.

"So you brought only me here because of that," she concluded, "but... to do what?"

Hoodstrum and Sass exchanged glances that were a mix between concerned and amused, as if the answer were obvious and it was worrying that she didn't understand.

Simultaneously, they looked at her and simply said, "To rest."

"R—" She would have staggered back if the coffee table wasn't in the way, so she opted to wave her arms about in disbelief. "Rest? What? That's it?"

Hoodstrum turned away, moving to walk around the room. Sass remained hovering where he'd been, observing Hoodstrum's movements alongside Ladybug.

"I wanted to talk to you sooner, but I was still learning how to use my miraculous." He knelt down to the TV stand, feeling around for dust. He only stood back up when he was satisfied it was clean. "This place hasn't been needed in so long too. Me and my family tried to update it to make you comfortable, but it took a while."

Sass cleared his throat, Ladybug turning to him as he added on, "You could call this a pocket dimension inside our world. Here, time moves at one-sixth the speed as it does outside. Luka is hoping to make it better than that one day."

Ladybug almost didn't register that Sass had just used Hoodstrum's civilian name, her mind whirling thinking about the massive time bomb that had just dropped on her. One-sixth of the time meant that one hour in Paris was six hours here, and one day was six days, yet Luka didn't think that was good enough? That was already so much!

Even the idea of it being a pocket dimension, she could tell it was the truth. When she listened closely, she couldn't hear a thing that she wasn't aware of in the room: no birds chirping, no cars driving by, and no people chatting idly. Only the sound of her own breathing and Luka's footsteps filled the space.

It was just the three of them - four if one counted her growing disbelief at this point - all by themselves.

Luka continued the mini tour of the space as if none of this was particularly amazing; to him, who had experience preparing all this in the first place, maybe it wasn't. He wandered into the kitchen next, opening one of the cupboards to reveal a whole variety of tiny snack bags in just about any color she could imagine.

"I don't know what kind of food you like," he began, opening the fridge with his other hand to show her the fruits, milk, and such, "so we got whatever we could. I can give the rest to my friends, so you don't have to eat all of it."

Ladybug couldn't say anything, at a complete loss for words. Not moving her eyes from Luka, she went around the coffee table to follow him into the kitchen. Tearing her eyes from him to look at the food - the food for her - was difficult, because she didn't understand even after having it all explained to her.

It wasn't him alone who'd done all this, as he'd openly said, but he'd taken on the primary role. He brought her here, blindly trusted her to the point of letting her know his civilian identity, and for what? So she could rest?

Why?

"That act you put on..." she started to say, because she was certain now that it was an act.

"I needed a way to talk to you without accidentally seeing your identity," he confirmed. Looking off to the side, not wholly innocently, he admitted, "And I meant what I said about value: maybe they'll learn to care about you if they think they could've lost you."

"They care," she claimed weakly; an instinctive defense of the people she worked hard to protect.

She felt a small breeze to her side, Sass flying past her and into the fridge. He pulled a single hard-boiled egg from inside, then shut the door with his tail and flew over next to Luka. Taking a big bite of the egg's top, he almost looked like someone with a giant egg-shaped glass of alcohol.

"Ladybug," he said with patience she suddenly felt she didn't deserve, "We've seen the Face-to-Face interview."

She cringed at the memory instantly, her cheeks growing pink from embarrassment. Of course she recalled that: the interview with Nadja Chamack where she and the audience seemed to care for nothing more than whether Ladybug and Chat Noir were dating. Any time she tried to change the subject or tell the truth, she would be ignored or shot down.

Even Chat himself brushed it off as the price of being a star. Maybe then, the people did care, but only so far as to whether she could save them and get together with who they wanted her to.

She just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

Luka, meanwhile, had been ready for it. He'd made himself their bad guy so that he could offer her this. Guilt tore at her stomach, telling her how much she didn't deserve this.

"I...I have school," she tried.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," Luka supplied easily.

"My parents will wonder where I am."

"You can tell them you're staying with a friend."

"If Hawk Moth attacks while I'm here..."

"We can still get alerts. You'll know."

They really planned it all out. They had an answer for all of her questions and, as she'd already calculated earlier, she'd have six whole days to do whatever she wished even if she stayed there just for one Sunday. It was as Luka said: this was for her.

"...What's the catch?"

Luka smiled sadly at her, at the idea that they would require some sort of payment. There's a three step distance between the two of them and he closes that gap by two, his hands taking hold of hers and squeezing them reassuringly. It hadn't even occurred to her that he hadn't touched her until now, beyond what it took to bring her here. He'd let her get closer to touch him, but it was only when he felt she needed it that he gave it to her.

"No catch. We just want you to enjoy yourself. I'll give you my number and you can call me on your yoyo whenever you want me to bring you here. If you want to quit being Ladybug, we'll help you do that too, but you can still come." He squeezed her hands once more. "I saw you, I wanted to help you, it's that simple. It's not a favor, it's a reward."

She looked up at him. She'd noticed, but hadn't really thought about the fact, that his eyes had been green as Hoodstrum. When he was Luka, they were instead a deep, soothing blue.

She liked the blue, even more than the green.

Staring down at the hands holding hers, Ladybug curled her fingers inwards to squeeze him back. Unable to make excuses to get out of relaxing any longer - a thought she knew should give her much to self-reflect on in her future - she gave in and wondered aloud, "Can we do stuff together too?"

Luka beamed, more than happy to do just that.

[adobe-outdesign]

what do you think of the new pteri day stuff? personally i'm not a fan of the cardinal outfit mainly because something about the face just looks wrong to me, but i like the museum outfit and am glad we got a new one of those. and i think the candy pteri is so funny. i think it's cool to have a choice between a more typical-looking, but still cute, candy pet, and between using PB clothes to turn it into a peep. i've already seen people make hilarious customs with the peep pteri.

Candy: Yeah I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of this one, sorry. I do like the concept of it being based off a Peep (though admittedly most people outside of the US don't know what that is—note for non-US readers: a Peep is a vaguely bird-shaped marshmallow covered in sugar crystals sold around the holidays), and I do appreciate them doing two designs, one "outfit" that's super literal and then one that's more pet-specific, which shows a good deal of effort. Also, the outfit is pretty funny purely from a meme perspective in the same vein as the Maraquan Nimmo.

However, my problem is that we're on two ends of the extreme with both designs: one is literally straight up a Peep(TM) with nothing Pteri-like about it whatsoever, and one is a vaguely glittery Pteri with nothing particularly candy-like about it. Why not blend the two? Give us a Pteri with the same texture, but round out the claws, feathers, etc. Make the eye markings all blobby, give the head feathers and tail that signature Peep flip, make the pupils the little candy dots, and maybe even have a little bite taken out of the wing to show off the marshmallow interior. You could even still keep the same outfit for the meme if you want, but then you'd at least have a high-effort Peep-inspired Pteri instead of a Peep(TM) and a low-effort Pteri colour, which I think is an import distinction.

As a side note, I'm linking this post by @synthaphone out of obligation because it says most of the same things I just did but was published earlier:

Forest (Outfit): Once again, not a huge fan. I've never really liked these hyper-realistic animal outfits; I'm playing Neopets for the neat fantasy creatures, so for me, having an outfit that's just like, a straight-up cardinal feels pretty boring.

Putting aside personal preferences though, I also just find this really uncanny? It's a bad combo of way, way too much texturing and detailing on a very cartoonish body with eyes that really don't belong on that face. The rendering itself is at least objectively well-done with lots of nice shading, but I would've much preferred just a regular non-textured Pteri with the same colors and markings. Once again, the difference between making a Neopet inspired by something IRL and just making something that already exists IRL.

Museum (Outfit): Okay, now this one I do like a lot. I already made a review covering museum outfits and in it I mentioned wanting more that aren't just mammals. The Pteri is a welcome addition, following the same format as the other museum outfits but having the skeleton hang from suspension wires instead of it sitting on a platform like all the others. That's really nice attention to detail and works perfectly with the concept. While the rendering here is still more detailed than Neopets' art tends to be, it's not bothersome as it's not uncanny (being a skeleton) and you can still very easily tell it's a Pteri.

My only minor gripe is that the placard shows just a straight-up pterosaur, which is weird. I get that the Pteri is supposed to look a bit like a pterosaur with the head crest and everything, but just having a real-life dinosaur on there is kind of distracting. That's a very minor point though; otherwise, I'm a big fan of this one.

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

cannot dream of returning to dust: marcnaia [m]

Marc dabs the corner of his mouth. It’s blood—stark, rusting, red.

He looks at Pecco. Startles after a disjointed moment like an old, whirring computer, too little hardware to contain the leaden software of his racing instincts and the bike data. And his soul too, but Pecco isn’t one for theatrics as much as he is for punishment.

“You alright?” He prods clumsily. He can’t not.

Marc shrugs—a disquieting thing to watch. Everything is half a second off, and his body jerks unevenly. “’s fine,” he spits, sharp, all at once. “Long day. But it is good.”

It was, technically.

He won.

Pecco doesn’t know how, exactly, but surely he’s long past asking that. Staring at Marc’s data is like staring at that little phial of fresh, millennia-old blood in the Naples Cathedral. And worse yet, if they tear the wiring out of Marc’s veins, Pecco thinks he’d still be Marc. Miraculous, except their kind isn’t in the business for that.

It’s not flattering. Being close to him at all isn’t flattering.

Marc keeps watching him. The whites of his eyes are too white. His fingers—carbon fiber, dented, dusted—spasm at his side, with a staticky hiss. There’s old blood on his upper lip.

“Here,” Pecco says, automatic. Hands him the towel wrapped around his neck.

One day, it won’t rake its nails through his nerves and sensors, the sheer fucking suffocating awkwardness of existing close him. Marc picks it up warily, wipes down his face twice. Pecco wants to twitch. The hardware embedded in his flesh feels like it’s groaning, overwhelmed, overheating.

“Thanks,” Marc mutters. Then: “I'm fine. You don't have to worry.”

Probably not. And probably impossible. Pecco huffs out a noise that can pass as a snort—reedy as it sounds. “Ok.”

It doesn’t settle anything.

Marc’s motorhome seems three sizes too small for them. Walls scraping against his shoulders, the ceiling too low, Marc everywhere he looks. Marc, Marc, Marc—distrusting, cagey like a kicked dog down to the hard line of his shoulders. Pecco picks at his cuticles until they bleed. The tips of his fingers ache, swollen.

The podium champagne is heavy in his stomach. He feels nauseous—faintly. Maybe they downloaded nervous puking along with his first riding augmentations.

Pecco crumbles on Marc’s sofa. He feels gritty, slow. Like there’s circuit rot in the hollow of his chest, melting his wires together and getting the signals to blur. Marc follows. Sits so close he might hear semantic errors piling up, the stutter of ram processors in overdrive.

He’s a pitiless thing through that—grabs Pecco’s hand and puts it on the crook of his elbow. The flesh one. When Pecco runs his fingers over the skin there, fragile, there’s only the faint knob of a sensor port, as familiar as the shape of his bones.

It’s too much, suddenly.

“You are excited for Sachsenring,” Pecco says. An abrupt, lumbering way out. Next weekend, more racing, easy stuff.

Marc barks out a laugh. Light, airy. “Of course.”

Of course.

“King of the ring. Right.”

It comes out—strained, maybe. Settles all under his skin with a red-hot kind of humiliation, of awe. The fans in this frenzied delirium. Ducati whispering among itself, that he’ll be splendid, glorious, like Pecco hadn’t been winning for them. As much as he humanly could, even.

The problem is that Marc might not be human—Valentino said it first, he remembers. After Argentina. That Marc is too much chromium and stainless steel and copper wirings and doesn’t care for the rest of them. There was a hanged cardboard robot in one of the Misanos, once.

Or he’s too human. The last great thing of real meat and real talent. A modern rider Agostini can admire. A rider from before the current, palatable bikes and the seamless lines of seamless implants.

“Pecco,” Marc says, urgent, gravelly.

When Pecco turns his head, Marc is right there, blinking up at him, looking miserable—pale, wan, cheeks gaunt—and handsome about it.

They’re both very good at miserable. In opposite directions.

Pecco doesn’t see it happening. It’s like an overtake—he only breathes out when it’s done and doesn’t ask questions. He curls his palm around the back of Marc’s head and kisses him. Chases the coppery bite pooling on his tongue with his own.

Marc makes a noise, hard, wanting. Then he’s on Pecco’s lap, wrangling him like a Ducati on the corners, all ten fingers digging into his shoulders. Those little flashes of pain scramble his thoughts, makes his systems fumble in every direction, frizzing.

“Can you,” Marc trails off, sighing against his mouth.

“Yeah, yeah,” Pecco mutters, halfway to delirious, the taste of blood and naked wires clinging to the insides of his cheeks.

He flips them around, presses Marc against the couch, boxing him with his knees. He knows what Marc wants—and doesn’t want to say why he knows. This is a terrible idea, but it was a terrible idea the last ten, eleven times too.

Pecco splays his thumb on the sharp cut of Marc’s cheek. He grins, waggles his eyebrows. It’s ridiculous. Doesn’t make it any less devastating when he turns his head to the side and sucks his finger into his mouth.

He tries to not think about spraying champagne on his face. Fails. Tries to not think about Marc, on his knees, lips spit shiny, and—

Fails too.

So Pecco kisses him again to stop himself, reckless, feverish, and Marc’s hands go under his shirt, the horrible red of it. He fucking hates it. The heat of Marc’s touch, how it flays him open. The mortification and amazement sizzling in his throat. The jealousy.

That Marc gets to be a mechanical haunting and still—still win. That he got bishops calling him a freak, and the Pope pleading sports to cease their fiddling into God’s own most beloved creatures, and Valentino branding him an enemy, and he just keeps going. Keeps winning. Godless twice over, and yet.

That Pecco—sleek carbon fiber, updated processors, the new deal—can replaced by an ugly, bleeding Frankenstein of wrong parts and outdated code.

“You are thinking,” Marc hums, face flushed pink and lovely, the bite of his prosthetic fingers unyielding on Pecco’s waist. It lilts like a question. “Francesco.”

“Hmmm,” he manages to pry out. He hates it a little less now. “About you.”

Marc laughs. “All bad things, I hope.”

And so Pecco laughs too—almost unwillingly. Chokes on it when Marc rocks up, grinds their cocks together.

That close to him, Pecco is washed out. Perfect, passionless.

But at least Marc is also less. There’s an electric hiss, and his entire body jolts. He’s in pain, probably. Parts two generations ahead of him and ancient wires misbehaving together.

If Pecco opened the panel on his back, he’d get to see what massacre of limits stripped and repeating signals is acting up, he thinks. What is hurting him.

Marc clings to pain like he’d cling to a naked razor, though—all maniac glee. When Pecco hesitates, hovering above him, he surges up for the kill. Bites down on his bottom lip, licks hotly into his open mouth. He’s fumbling—greedy and insistent—with his jeans.

“Marc,” Pecco tries protesting, tries slowing him.

The name breaks into a groan. Marc flattens his palm against his cock, eyebrows scrunched in concentration, his tongue between his teeth, sweat gathering along his forehead.

Fine.

Fucking fine.

He has to be in pain, and Pecco is—wired and nauseous and waiting for the moment when the spiral over second place will sharpen him. They are—it has been said—very good at their own types of torment.

Pecco gets to work on Marc’s pants, shoves his own down unceremoniously. He spits on his own palm and wraps it around both of them. It’s smooth, the good synth stuff over his ports and sensors—and, ha, isn’t that a win.

Marc relaxes a fraction. Lets out this tiny, breathy sound. He buries his face against the hollow of Pecco’s neck, his nose brushing against the small, closed panel there. His hips sway in odd lurches, rub them together anyway.

It’s good. Pecco would like to say he’s above liking it, but he isn’t. Can’t lie.

Christ.

His tongue is plastered to the roof of his mouth. He tightens his fist, sinks into the sensation of the head of his cock rubbing against the patch of rough hair between Marc’s legs. Into the absurdity of this, Marc quiet and wanting and greedy under him. Wide-eyed.

“Pecco,” he whispers, clumsily, and then cuts himself off. Kisses the wild flutter of his pulse on his neck rather than speaking.

“It’s fine,” Pecco shushes him, runs his thumb over the vein on Marc’s cock so he stops talking. He has no idea what else this could be.

Proof that they’re human, maybe. They act outside their code and don’t grind to a halt.