#very high effort post yes

[rosinkreutz]

[sparklinglemmy]

Saw a post on main and went "someone make this happen" and I thought "wait I can make it happen" so I did :d

[erabundus]

scaramouche turning himself into electro for fun jumpscare shenanigans was 100% based on my brainrot theory that he would have an alt sprint and i'm too attached to let it go.

[ca-3]

Almost forgot his neutral expression in gif form!!

P5 Joker but he's in the Omori game 🗡️

More to come soon(?)

[npdclaraoswald]

The thing about the wild replies to posts that go around talking about fandom misogyny is that, at least for me, I did have to make an active choice to care about female characters.

There's less of them and they are often written with a lot less to work with and it's easier to focus on dude characters. But I had to look at myself and wonder why I was willing to read pages and pages of meta and fic and headcanons for Julian Bashir when I wasn't interested in the same for Jadzia Dax when they have a similar amount of screentime. Why I wasn't interested in Captain Janeway when she's the lead of her show. Yes, writers are often sexist, but the writers were ableist and homophobic and so on with a million male characters, but I was willing to put the work in to love them. At some point, the viewer/reader/listener's own sexism plays a part in their willingness to engage with a character.

So I had to actively choose to seek out those meta and fic and headcanons for female characters. And it is significantly harder to find than it is for male characters, because most of fandom hadn't questioned their own sexism. But what little of it there is out there is often just as high quality and interesting as the stuff I was already looking at, if not more so because there's the added dimension of fighting against the writers' misogyny, which often requires even more engagement and creativity.

It was, for me, a process that I had to continually work on to care about women characters as much as I did guy ones. But it got easier the more effort I put in. And now those posts about how no one cares about female characters are very relatable to me.

But the way people respond to those posts, it's always "I can't change the fact that the writers are sexist! It's an immutable fact that female characters are less interesting! You're attacking me personally over something that I can't change! And actually, you're the sexist for not realizing how terrible these female characters are and how you're victimizing me asking me to care about them!"

Besties, I promise it is something you can change. You just have to put the work in

[dead-weight-vents]

We need significantly more harm reduction posts/tips.

No, you shouldn't turn to purging, you shouldn't take laxatives you don't need, detox shit does nothing -that's the point of your liver and kidneys, if you feel like you are going to faint or your heart rate is too high please eat something and go to the ER if you need to, your brain is literally eating itself so try to eat 500cal worth of food or more to help that and anything below that is nearly useless, try to actually prevent a binge by eating what your body needs- not distracting yourself, pay attention to your nutritional needs, fiber, protein, minerals, and vitamins is very important and you should be eating it even if your not eating carbs (which you should still be eating but I understand if it's too scary to do so), yes, you are sick and shouldn't promote and worship your ED, it is not your friend.

The biggest part of having an ana buddie is having someone tell you when you SHOULD eat and not push you too far. Stay away from ana coaches.

Starving for a month or starving for years, regardless you have damaged your body in some way. Your bones, organs, immune system, will have permit repercussions even well into recovery. Especially if you relapse over and over too. The sooner you get better the less damage is risked.

There are so many ways of getting thin and not hating your body. If you even think you don't want to do this any more, please, please, please take your chance out.

If not as a community we should still take the time and effort to keep each other as safe as possible.

Please remember to be kind to yourself and others, everyone is already going through something.

[kitashousewife]

“yes, rintaro?”

“hi-jesus, a warning next time would be nice,”

“you called me,” you huff, picking at the now dried mask on your face in the small reflection of the facetime. “what do you want, rin?”

suna is outside, walking rather quickly as the background is blurred around him. he lets out an airy laugh before looking at the screen.

“i’m drunk;” he smirks, continuing to walk but tripping a little, shaking the camera. you raise your eyebrows at him to continue. he sniffs. “and i’m coming over.”

“is your house broken or something?”

he giggles, then shakes his head. “nah, yours is closer though.”

you sigh and accept defeat. you knew your best friend was in the neighborhood from his social media posts, so it’s no surprise he’s deciding to drop in. it’s late though, well past midnight. you shuffle into your bathroom to rinse off the mask, setting your phone on the counter.

“when will you be here?”

he clears his throat and swallows. “i’m walking up the stairs, so 2 min-fuck-minutes,” he trips up the steps and groans.

“what? okay give me a minute, i’ll be right there,” you wash off your mask quickly and run to the door, realizing too late as you slide on your socked feet that you’re only in a t shirt, suna’s t shirt. you open the door to find a very intoxicated suna, leaning against your with heavy eyes and a smile, which turns to a frown when he sees you.

“hey, that’s mine,” he taps the collar of your shirt before pushing past you, slipping off his shoes and throwing his coat on the floor.

“you reek, rin. god, where were you?”

he smirks. now making himself comfy on the couch despite your protesting glares.

“the club a few blocks away, it was packed and-“ he hiccups. “y-yeah it was just busy. aran was there,”

“don’t fall asleep on my couch,” you tap his leg as you walk past, tidying up a little. he opens his eyes and sits up, slumped into the cushions. “how do you feel?”

suna doesn’t answer. he scrolls on his phone at full volume, completely ignoring you while chuckling at the different videos he comes across.

one of the worst things about your best friend was how stubborn he is normally, but that stubbornness triples when he’s had enough to drink.

you stand in front of him with your arms crossed for a few more seconds before you clear your throat. he finally looks up and waves.

“rin, why don’t you-“

“so yeah, aran was there and-“ he laughs at something on his phone, losing his train of thought.

“how about you take a shower?”

“no,” he pouts again. “why don’t you take a shower?”

you huff. “i’m calling aran to get y-“

“i think i’m going to take a shower,” he grunts, standing up and following you to the bathroom while you grab towels for him. when you finish turning the water, he begins to lift up his shirt.

“uh-uh,” you laugh to yourself and slip out the door, pulling it shut. “you can do that in private. take your time, i’m going to bed.”

“but what if i wanted you to see?”

you stutter. “y-you’re drunk, rin. just shower, please.”

you hear him clamber into the shower soon after and retreat to your bed. as you settle in, suna’s comment continues to nag at you. sure, he jokes around and has his fun with you. but in the many years being his best friend, he’s never made any sort of effort to make a move on you.

you feel dizzy, suddenly picturing suna in a way you had never before. it felt like jumping off the high dive and into water all at once.

“what am i supposed to wear?” a very wet suna waltzes into your room with a towel on his waist, and you wish you could jump into that pool right now. you can’t take your eyes off his torso, eyeing the defined muscle as they flex with every step.

“there’s s-some of your clothes here from last time, they’re clean i just forgot to give them to you,” you jump out of bed and rummage through your closet before handing him his belongings.

“oh cool,” he walks back to the bathroom, bumping into the wall on the way. you slink back to bed without another word.

just as you’re drifting off to sleep, your mattress dips.

“hi,” suna breathes, getting under your covers with you.

“what are you doing?” you hiss, voice a whisper. he stares back at you with an irritated look.

“painting a picture, what does it look like? i’m going to bed,” he huffs, pulling your covers over him and leaving your legs exposed to the cold air.

“rintaro,” you pull the covers back over you and he groans. “i don’t want to hear it! if you’re going to sleep in my bed at least share.”

he remains quiet, making himself comfortable on the other side of the bed. meanwhile, your heart is racing and your mind is fighting between being bothered and pining over your best friend.

“did you use my shampoo?”

“of course i did,” suna’s voice is tired as he finally settles in. “the extra stuff you gave me sucks. and you smell good so thought i’d use it,”

your heart skips a beat. you don’t say anything, though.

your eyes get a little heavy, mind finally relaxing as the heavy sounds of suna’s breathing lull you to sleep.

the next morning you wake up next to your best friend, blinking a few times before you get a good look at him. he’s resting against the pillow, your blanket pulled up to his bare chest while he scrolls on his phone.

“good morning rin,” you mumble, yawning and sitting up. “did you sleep okay? are you feeling today today?”

“slept great,” he mumbles, eyes not leaving his screen. “i feel okay. head hurts,”

you nod, handing him your water bottle and an aspirin from your bedside table which he happily takes.

“thanks for letting me stay here by he way,”

“of course,” you watch as he sits up, blankets falling to his hips and showcasing his muscles once more.

“i feel bad that you had to deal with me,” he looks you in your eyes and for some reason, it feels different from normal. you shrug.

“i don’t mind.”

he smirks and gets comfortable once more, but begins typing on his phone with a giggle.

“what’s so funny?”

“nothing,” he smirks at the screen. “i just told aran we slept together, though.

“rintaro!”

[almostfoxglove]

HOLD STILL

written for @punkshort's AU August Challenge

RATING: Explicit (18+) PAIRING: Bodyguard!Dave York x f!Reader WORD COUNT: 3.4k CW: Dave's filthy mouth, pwp, smut (cockwarming, unprotected piv, creampie, sorta soft-dom!dave but really he's just bossy, sorta praise kink, a couple pussy pronouns don’t look at me), and one nonsense tense switch just for the hell of it I guess.

SUMMARY: On your last night together, Dave agrees to compromise.

read on ao3 | almostfoxglove masterlist

You want him, but he won’t fuck you. Not once, not even quickly, not even with just his hands. Dave York—ever stoic, unflinching—insists on doing his job and his job alone. And you, as he so enjoys reiterating, are not his job. Protecting you is. 

For three weeks you’ve smothered the calendar hung on the kitchen wall with another red X each morning, whittling the days until you give your polished testimony and say goodbye to him for good. Now the court date looms heavy on the horizon—it’ll rise tomorrow with the sun. 

In the meantime—these last, dwindling hours—you roam the grand rooms of an apartment rented for your protection, your anonymity, at the very skirt of the city where you’d surely have lost your mind if not for him. Stationed diligently at your side, hand never more than a twitch from the grip of his gun. So many hours spent alone you've memorized his form: how he looks scanning the curtained windows for any whisper of danger. How he's never complained when you choose cheesy reality shows from the TV guide. Teaching you how to play Spades with a deck of cards soft and worn—from his home, maybe, though you never ask—and letting you win the first hand, lips quirked when you call him out on it, then unapologetically wiping the floor with you for the rest of your isolation. 

Yes, you know him, though only in image. Broad and sturdy, shirts each neatly ironed and squarely tucked. The hard line of his jaw and the fullness of his bottom lip. His hair always swept neatly from his face, even when you know he’s recently woken up. Never scruffy, never stubbled. Clean shaven and the smell of nice hotel shampoo.

It’s wrong, how you try to prod him to no avail. No matter your efforts, he says nothing of the way you adorn your body: lacy slips and satin sets at night, hugging silhouettes during the day, hair always done, lipstick never out of place even though you can’t leave the apartment or stand too near the windows. Dave is the only one who sees you, save for the days or hours when he leaves you his clumsy understudy to step down from his post.

He must know you do it for him.

It’s wrong, but you asked once, early on. Tonight? 

And Dave’s mouth pinched into a flat, polite line. Unreadable, his face drained of its emotion. His declination drawled deep and heady, a voice that curled your toes and more than once kept you panting alone in your bed that’s not yours at all, just two doors away from his, fingers needy and swirling. No, honey. Not tonight.

Repeated in your mind until it warped like an overplayed tape.

No, honey.

Honey.

Honey.

Not tonight.

Tonight.

Tonight, he is gone—your last together before the trial—leaving you in the hollow apartment with his proxy, stung. Same dark clothes, same holstered gun, same little piece nestled in his ear, but not half of what you want. You want Dave: a man as solid as he is driven, immutable as he is tempting. Assigned to protect you until you deliver the account that’ll send a monster away.

Perhaps you’ve liked the game—how he watches you, but never gives in—but now it’s lost its shimmer.

Lights dimmed for the evening, all black curtains drawn, the vaulted ceilings of the kitchen feel miles high as you perch on a barstool at the breakfast counter to stare at the calendar taunting you across the quiet room. Beyond the pristine halls you’ve lapped all day like an anxious dog, the city serenades you. Traffic squealing through streets, sirens singing in the distance, the occasional shout of someone walking by outside, eight floors below. 

You are not, at night, permitted to part the curtains, lest someone get a glimpse of your illuminated face, but you long to open one now, see if Dave is out there, returning to your little castle turret one final time. Because it’s possible he won’t come back at all—that his coworker will escort you between lobby and truck, between truck and courthouse, between courthouse and whatever comes next. Maybe home. That you’ll never see Dave again, let alone throw caution to the wind and ask once more, tonight?

And then, just then, as your stomach begins to sink with disappointment, you hear the sudden crack of the front door unlocking and the creak of its surrender. You’ve conjured him, somehow, past the stroke of midnight. Then low, rumbled whispers, the unmistakable tone of Dave’s voice mumbling to his understudy. Your heart speeds as the door closes again and his stand-in retreats into the hall. How dizzying, the sound of locks settling into their rightful places, turned by Dave’s unerring hands. 

When he appears in the dining room behind you, bomber jacket hanging from one arm, he tucks a tiny apology into the twitch of his lips—or maybe it’s meant to be a smile. “It’s late,” he says, as your eyes drink him in. Polished as ever, despite the hour, not a stitch out of place. “Should be in bed.”

You shrug, hoping you might appear indifferent. “Couldn’t sleep,” you say, aware of how the satin of your robe slopes off your shoulder with no intention of righting it.

Does something darken in his face then, or do you imagine it? You can’t be sure, not in this umbra, at this time of night. Jaw ticking, Dave strides cautiously toward the dining table, drapes his jacket over the back of one glossy chair, and sinks into the seat at the head of the sleek table, same as usual. A quiet kind of reign, his claiming this position, always, for every meal. He scratches his cheek, slips the gun from the holster at his belt to rest on the table, and as he leans back you indulge yourself—how can you not—in the slight buck of his hips as he shifts to stretch out his legs. 

“Need your rest,” Dave chides softly. No edge to his tone.

Sighing before you can stop yourself, disappointed all over again as his gaze draws off you to the windows and drapes. On duty, still. On duty, always. Not you. Not tonight. “S’the last night,” you reply, staring at the calendar again. One little red X to go. “You weren’t here.”

Behind you, his deep and measured breath. The shiver of that unflappable restraint, you hope, but you don’t yet dare to look back. He might spook.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

You don’t budge. Don’t move.

“You hear me?” Voice a little harder now, solidifying. When he speaks to you, you always look him in the eye—or you always have before.

Electric, your heart. Revving just a breath faster, just a hair harder, at the sound of him huffing in frustration. Your lips tick up in one corner, hidden, a secret meant only for you. When Dave says your name, your whole body purrs and you at last turn your head enough to let him glimpse your profile, still withholding your gaze.

“Pouting,” he scolds, this time meaning it. “That what this is?”

“Avoiding me,” you counter. “That where you were?”

Dave hmphs, darkness fading and softness returning to his tone. “Course not, honey.”

You look at him now, properly. Barstool spinning as you push off the counter to face him. Under the dusk of dimmed pendant lights over the dining table, Dave glows. In the time you’ve looked away, he’s unbuttoned his shirt one button lower than it’d been when he walked in.

One button lower than you’ve ever seen him wear before.

“Said I’m sorry,” he says again, head tilted. His foot comes out to nudge the leg of the chair beside his, angling it in your direction. “Come here.”

He means for you to sit, maybe play a hand of Spades, but as you slink off the barstool you have no intention of taking the seat. Warmth flushing in your chest, cool, conditioned air greeting your bare legs and collarbones, all the skin not covered by your sleekest sleep set. You swear he drinks the sight of you, for once, as you cross the kitchen toward him. Eyes dark not only from shadows, from the time. Or else you hope, as you come to a stop between Dave’s knees, that the way he’s not yet blinked means what you want it to.

Lips parting, a breath from speaking when you beat him to the punch and ask, “Tonight?” Your chin lowered and eyes searching his. It’s the last night. Might as well show your hand while you still can, before he slinks back into the underbelly of a city where you know he’s lived for years but you’ve never once glimpsed him, and not just because it’s busy.

Because invisible is what he’s paid to be, what he’s good at. Unseen until the fist of him is needed, the gun.

Pink striping his bottom lip, a swipe of his tongue, eyes boring into you. The slightest shake of his head, clean-shaven cheeks sharked in the shadow and golden light. “Honey.” Not a no, honey. Not a not tonight. Just honey, like you’ve imagined.

Emboldened, you caress of your fingertips across his shoulder, tracing the seam of his crisp, pale blue dress shirt. So handsome, always so handsome. A man who takes care of himself, who tidies and cleans without your needing to ask. Spotless, always. Reserved, always. Killing you, always, with every brush of his gaze. 

You draw your fingers towards his shirt collar.

“Can’t,” says Dave, softer still. Breathy, almost. You pet the knife-cut of his pressed collar, the button just below it, and his Adam’s apple bobs slowly in his throat. Again, he shakes his head so slightly it looks more like a twitch. A reflex to say no. Not a desire to. “Can’t fuck you, honey. Wouldn’t be right.”

You bite your lip, brows drawing together, not lifting your hand from the button placket of his shirt. “Just tonight,” you breathe, and bat your eyes a little.

At last Dave’s dark eyes drop from yours, scanning the length of you above him with searing precision. Consideration. You slant your head to one side as his gaze slides back up, hesitating on your silk-draped chest, and you suck a sharper breath before it returns to meet yours. He cuffs your wrist with his hand to halt your teasing as he shakes his head once more, licking his bottom lip again with greater meaning. A glint in his eyes, lust finally flaring. 

Pride swirls in your stomach, honeyed and wanting. Then he tugs you by the hips with such reflexes you hardly register the movement of his hands before you’re on him, straddling him in the chair, your thighs framing his hips. Held. Your robe fanning behind you, over his knees. Heart pounding dangerously close to a cardiac event.

Dave tsks softly, smirking when you whimper, trying to roll your hips over the heat of his crotch. Those careful, deadly hands lock them in a vice as he clicks his tongue. “Not gonna fuck you,” he murmurs, and you lean in to kiss him but he pulls his head away. “Not gonna kiss you either. Not right.”

You don’t care about right. Now you pout for real, forehead wrinkling, staring at his upturned lips. You feel the unmistakable twitch of him growing hard against you and your cunt throbs in reply, needy and slick. You try to wiggle again but Dave pinches your hips in warning. “Look at me,” he repeats, that edge to his voice that curls your toes, and your eyes snap to his.

“Good girl.”

You moan quietly, made liquid by the tender swipe of his thumb over the satin of your sleep shorts. Your eyes fluttering at such a tiny stroke, not even the meeting of skin. 

“You can’t move, okay? Only allowed to sit.” When you don’t answer, too lost to the throb of his cock against your begging core, Dave pinches you again, voice gravelly in a way you’ve not heard before. “You hear me?”

Nodding, you hum. Can’t quite get out the word. 

“Need to hear you, honey. Gonna hold still for me?”

“Mhm,” you whine, fighting your every instinct to grind down against him as you meet his lust-blown eyes. “Yes. Only allowed to sit.”

Dave puffs a hot breath out that sends a wake of goosebumps across your chest. “Good girl,” he coos, and your brows pinch at the praise. “Soaking me already, honey. Can’t sleep like this, can you? Just need to turn your brain off, hm?” The movement of his hips below yours is so slight you might imagine it, that tiny grind as his cock grows. You nod, whine softly, and both his thumbs stroke your hips gently before stilling again.

“Show me, honey.” So quiet. So little air between you, and yet too much.

You scan his face until he offers a small nod. Those brown eyes hooded by dark lashes, devouring you without need for the press of his mouth. It’d be soft, you’re certain. The caress of his lips. Maybe the rest of him is hard and deadly, but those would be tender, careful—they’d take you apart, breath by breath. With the same precision with which he darts between shadows and cleans his gun and beats you at cards and tucks your hair behind your ear when you’re falling asleep on the couch, he’d dissolve you kiss by kiss with a kind of grace.

It’s his lips on which you pin your gaze as you let one hand drift between your legs, dipping easily between silk and skin—your body made jelly so quickly and by so little contact, already wet. You pray you don’t imagine the sharpness of his breath when your knuckles accidentally graze against his slacks as you slip your fingers between dewy folds. Then: your hand rising in the dim light, shining, honeyed. Dave watching them, the corner of his mouth cracking just a little. Tensing into his cheek.

He grunts, good girl, and then he’s lifting you just enough to peel down the zip of his slacks, flick open the button, but when your eyes fall hopeful for a glimpse of him he tsks, hooks one finger beneath your chin to tilt your face up, whispers a soft eyes on me, honey as he pulls himself out where you can’t see.

As his knuckles brush against the wet gusset of your shorts, nudging them to the side. Finding no panties to move.

As the head of his cock—plush, warm, weeping—nudges against the ache of you, the thrum of your longing.

He grins, wicked.

Then pressure, a moan lost to the air you’re hardly conscious of and the stretch of him, the slow press in and the ache of your cunt swallowing his girth inch by inch. You whimper, eyelids shuddering like old film, catching only still frames of Dave’s expression as he lowers you gently, burying himself in your drooling heat until you come to rest at his base, flush and full.

So full. Light-headed, sparkling. Your hips must rock because he squeezes your waist. “Hold still, honey,” he coos. “Remember?”

The terms of his touch sounded alright just a breath ago, but now you can’t imagine how you ever agreed. How you’re supposed to stay still with him throbbing inside you like this, heavy and sweet, exactly what you need. A flicker in his eyes like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you, how he’s scrubbing out every thought in your head. Cocky, yes. But earning it.

“Dave,” you sigh, breathy and desperate. Your cunt clenching and squeezing and pushing out slick, probably ruining his slacks but he won’t let you look down, just tilts your head up gently every time it hangs slack. “Please.”

His breathing catches for a beat, then it’s steady again. “I know, I know,” he murmurs, keeping his finger under your chin to keep your eyes on him—but he hardly needs to. You’d swear the whole world drained away the second he slid into you. There’s nothing else past your bodies, past this one dining room chair. Everything else disappears like magic. The trial, the dread, the drone of city noise. The slow leak of your heart knowing this is goodbye—all of it. Gone.

You’d have sworn it impossible to come like this, with no movement at all, but you will. You do. And months from now—safe in the swaddle of your actual apartment that for weeks has stood hollow and dusty, plants withering sadly on their windowsills—you’ll lie in bed longing, missing, remembering. Trying to recreate the swipe of his thick thumb on your clit as you replay this moment in your head. How you whined, wanna take care of you when Dave still wouldn’t let you move, even when you were close, just swiped and swiped his thumb until you were something more than alive, transcending.

How his pupils had set ablaze with your whispered plea. How you’d realized that was the point, for him. The begging and the not giving in.

How he’d growled, “Taking care of you is taking care of me. You don’t think I’m gonna come the second this pussy strangles my cock? ‘Cause I am. S’all I need, honey, just give it to me—”

His voice the thunder to your body’s crackle and lightning.

“Let her take care of me, that’a girl, that’s it, just like that honey, she’s so tight—fuck—so fuckin’ tight around me, just squeezin’ me, gonna come when you do, pretty girl, let me have it.”

How it hit you like a white bolt of heat and light, every cell in you tense and flaming, then melting, boneless on his lap as he murmured sweetly, grunted, tried to lift you off him just in time and you’d finally, finally touched him—lucid in an instant, hands slammed down on the muscle of his shoulders. Mumbling amidst your aftershocks, inside, inside, inside. Eyelids stuttering again, back to picture frames as your cunt seized and begged in tandem.

The snarl of his upper lip.

His knotted jaw.

Tongue sucked against his front teeth, resolve crumbling.

The allowance granted to your hands to stay right there, fisting his shirt collar as his locked your waist in a bruising vice. His hips bucking only once, grinding the head of his cock deeper, deliciously, almost too good to take. 

“Fuck, fuckfuck—yeah, that what she needs, honey? Needs me to fill her up?”

You’ll remember your own reply as you near a second-rate heaven in the nest of your duvet at home, all frantic hands and thrusting digits and eyes slammed shut, repainting him in your head. Golden in that gloomy light, hair straying out of position across his misted forehead for the first time. Yes. Please. Dave. Yes. Inside. Please—and his grunt, dark and sweet as caramel, as burnt brown sugar. That tiny grin dragging at his soft lips, pleased. You’d pleased him, surprised him maybe. 

That can make you sparkle now, to remember.

“Okay, honey. Okay—shit—gonna give it to you, hm? Gonna give you all of it, baby—she’s squeezing me so goddamn tight, fuck, wanna stay here all night—”

Then the granting of a wish, the heat of him spilling into your cunt, the unmistakable slide of slick leaking between your thighs and onto his; you didn’t have to look to know. You could feel it, that wholeness overflowing. You can almost feel it now; three fingers might be a poor attempt at recreation, but you fall off the cliff all the same, his name on your tongue, a cry in the night, all the curtains dark and drawn as you come down breathless and drowsy, your whole body limp and spent as it’d been that night with him—when he’d tucked himself away and petted your hair back from your face, so gentle with you, cooing that you did so good, honey. Such a good girl. Gonna get you into bed now, hm? Need your sleep, honey. Come on. 

Carrying you into your not-real bedroom, tucking you in so tenderly, like he hadn’t just taken you apart at the molecules. And Dave’s lips were just as plush as you’d imagined when they grazed your forehead, his big hand petting your cheek once more, then turning out the lights. That deep timbre whispering from the doorway, goodnight. The door clicking shut. All of it perfect. How you’d known you mattered more than a job for just one moment in time.

dividers by @saradika-graphics - tag list & some mutuals <3

@ak-vintage @thethirstwivesclub @la-vie-est-une-fleur29 @hediondoamor-blog @harriedandharassed 

@burntheedges @la-eterna-enamorada29 @goodgirlwannabe @guiltyasdave @for-a-longlongtime

@littlemisspascal @luxurychristmaspudding @tonysopranosrobe @evolnoomym @sweetpascal 

@spacelatinos4life @sweetpascal @biggetywitch @wannab-urs @jolapeno 

@pedgito @pastelpinkflowerlife @jessthebaker @rav3n-pascal22 @sixhours 

@noisynightmarepoetry @clawdee

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard info compilation Post 3

[Part 1] [Part 2] Post is under a cut due to length.

There is a lot of information coming out right now about DA:TV from many different sources. This post is just an effort to compile as much as I can in one place, in case that helps anyone. Sources for where the information came from have been included. Where I am linking to a social media user’s post, the person is either a dev, a Dragon Age community council member or other person who has had a sneak peek at and played the game. nb, this post is more of a ‘info that came out in snippets from articles and social media posts’ collection rather than a 'regurgitating the information on the official website or writing out what happened in the trailer/gameplay reveal’ post. The post is broken down into headings on various topics. A few points are repeated under multiple headings where relevant. Where I am speculating without a source, I have clearly demarcated this. if you notice any mistakes in this post, please tell me.

Character Creation

All armor and clothing options will scale and mesh to any body type [source]

The character creator has lots of sliders for body parts and overall shape, none of which are tied to the voice or pronouns (she/her, he/him, or they/them) that you choose [source]

"Epler took special care to show off the extensive curly and textured hair options in the game, including several versions of braids and locs, noting that increasing these options in particular was very important to the team" [source]

You can change your character’s physical appearance at any time during the game, but not their class or backstory [source]

"Each individual class has some variability, too; even the mage class has some up-close-and-personal attacks, since a mage player character could still conceivably have an assassin backstory and would therefore need to have some attacks to accommodate that sort of career path" [source]

" "We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about skin tone,” Corinne said. The character we made, a Black elf, seemed to glow in the bluish light of a nighttime scene, and under bright sunlight, I could see the richness of his color. Corinne: "We want to make sure that skin tone is reflected authentically" " [source]

" “We have dozens and dozens of hair types,” she said. “And they’re fully affected by physics.” The quality and variety of choices I saw delighted me. The rows of bouncy, luxurious-looking hair of all curl types and textures (and yes, the annoyingly ubiquitous “Killmonger cut” was among the options, what can you do?) brought the biggest smile to my face in the hour I spent with Busche and The Veilguard." [source]

Story and lore

NPCs will remember when you chuck a shopkeeper through a plate-glass window [source]

" The game’s story sees Solas intact a plot that will result in the deaths of thousands. When his justification that “people die, it’s what they do,” falls on deaf ears, you and your merry band of misfits have to stop him " [source]

" “Early in the demo and in the trailer, you’re in a part of the world you’ve never been in – Tevinter,” Epler tells me. “Tevinter is known for being a place of high magic; visually, it’s different. Obviously in Origins you’re in Ferelden, which was grubby, muddy, and very visually different and distinct. That said, it’s the first hour of the game, so we’re only seeing the prologue. As you go deeper, you’ll find that the game can be just as bloody and just as grim as Dragon Age Origins, 2, and Inquisition. For us, it’s that feeling of contrast. You get moments of higher fantasy magic coming back to the world through Solas’ ritual, but also things get pretty grim, and things get pretty dark in some spaces for sure.” " [source]

"Snappy dialogue" [source]

The game is really about each of the companions [source]

Narrative narrative narrative! [source]

The Shadow Dragons are an underground resistance that engages in guerrilla warfare against the corrupt mage rulers of the Tevinter Imperium [source]

"Varric has created the group called the Veilguards, recruiting a veritable group of weirdos to pursue Solas, who’s carved a path through the magical empire of Tevinter" [source]

"There’s intrigue to the game’s tale already, with Varric hoping he can convince Solas to stop his plan of tearing open the Veil: a wish by the dwarf to save a dear friend. There’s a fascinating relationship that's already being set up, Varric and Solas as opposing narrative forces, with your character, Rook, pulled between them" [source]

"There’s extra context to flesh out dialogue, with short descriptions that help give a vague idea of how things play out. The example we were shown was Rook trying to take down a gang leader inside a bar. We could choose to defuse the situation with either words or weapons, but the catch is you don’t know how effective those approaches will be" [source]

" Busche explained that the team wanted to give players a game where locations were imbued with just as much personality as the characters. “That meant making contrast from the areas that are dark and decaying to the areas that are illuminated with magic,” Busche said " [source]

" “This is a part of the world where magic has been embraced,” Busche said. “It is a society of mages and magic in this world is inherently colorful. So whether we’re seeing them use magic for everyday purposes like signage or using them as spells, that color really comes through.” " [source]

We will visit the Necropolis of Nevarra [source]

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc

There are dozens of abilities and spells [source]

The game has an easy mode [source]

There is a setting where your character can't die in battle [source]

"The Rogue class in our demo had a bow with recharging arrows for ranged attacks, and dual blades that could unleash a furious flurry of instantaneous blows" [source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[canmom]

"don't post links to pirate sites" as a security through obscurity strategy seems... weak. if a pirate site is so obscure that almost nobody can find it, it's also essentially pointless.

but yes, if a pirate site is common knowledge, the feds will be working on destroying it. so the idea is i assume to achieve an intermediate level of obscurity, where you have to have a certain amount of talent for asking the right people or searching the right things to find it. but... whatever capacity for research you are asking people to have on that front, the feds are equally capable of it, and they have a whole lot more time on their hands for tracking down pirate sites! security through obscurity is a losing game for piracy. the perfect sweet spot where people can find your pirate resource but the feds cannot is something of a mirage.

if not that, than what?

the current piracy system involves a few different tiers of accessibility, and various components that are more or less decentralised.

torrents are the most resilient tech because to stamp out a torrent (with DHT enabled) you have to suppress every seed. so, you have big public torrent trackers like TPB; these are well known and rely on hopping domains and redundancy for security. the ratio of seeds to leeches tends to be low, but the number of users is large enough that there will be at least a few seeds out there for most stuff. torrent clients have gotten a lot better at seeding strategies that take into account your seed ratio and what's currently available in the swarm, so if you just leave everything on seed and open your torrent client fairly often (use a VPN though lol), you don't really need to think about it.

then you have private trackers; these operate on an invite basis. the problem with this is that when the pool of users is so small, the odds of a given seed being online are also small. to prevent torrents dying, they gamify it: you get points for seeding and if you don't have enough points you can't download anything until you seed more. to help people get back in the game there will be 'freeleech' events. being active on a private tracker takes a bit of work.

and of course you have to get in in the first place, which tends to require a proven track record of seeding on other private trackers, and some kind of interview with the operators. getting involved in private trackers is a much bigger ask, you have to figure out where to get your foot in the door, and work your way up to the more insular trackers. it's like a mini subculture. it's valuable, but not scalable.

at the top level of inaccessibility is the warez scene. this is a whole subject that i'm not even gonna get into, go read wikipedia. historically this is where the files actually come from, before getting distributed on public trackers, usenet etc. but good luck getting in there lmao, they are understandably quite paranoid.

of course, for stuff to get on pirate sites you need somebody to go the effort of ripping and encoding it. this is where a major point of failure exists. when RarBG went down recently, the biggest loss was not the existing archive of torrent links, which can be backed up - it was that they were very active at converting scene releases into torrents with a decent balance of file size and quality, which then filter out into the various public trackers. that is much harder to replace! but what killed RarBG wasn't even suppression by authorities - according to their statement, it was a bunch of the admins getting covid or dying or fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war, which made the whole operation impossible to continue. so despite the thousands of people who download RarBG torrents, this single point of failure was overstressed and broke.

as far as the ethics of spreading links to pirate sites go... if it's something like a mega drive, yeah, the chances of a takedown are pretty high if it gets noticed! no question. but those things are by nature short-lived; if you want to use that for archival you're building on sand. there's also databases like emuparadise, but there was no saving that through obscurity, it just took Nintendo a minute to bring the case.

in this kind of centralised case, the clock is ticking from day 1. what we want is to maximise the number of people who are able to save copies while it's up, and then some of those people can put it up again somewhere else and keep the authorities playing whack-a-mole. (for a small collection of files, a sensible measure would be to make a torrent and a mega drive side by side, so that people can download the mega drive and then add the torrent to their client to seed if it gets nuked.)

as for torrent sites, the thing is that torrents rely for effectiveness on a swarm that is either very large or very responsible about seeding. if it's a public tracker, it has to be well known or it's pointless. instead of security through obscurity, the form of security for these sites is try to make the resource itself hard to take down - operating the tracker/archive in countries that don't have copyright treaties, maintaining mirrors, and of course distributing as many seeds as possible so the torrent can stay alive even if the site goes down.

the major problem with a dead torrent site is discoverability. if it's harder to find the torrent, fewer people will download it, the existing seeds will gradually go offline, and of course you can't download a torrent that you don't know exists. and while you could imagine a system of broadcasting metadata about a torrent (title, encoding etc.) in a DHT-like way but that would be so vulnerable to fakes and spam. maybe some kind of cryptographically signed 'this torrent is good' declaration is possible? I know certain torrent clients tout discovery features, but honestly I don't know how well they work. I'm sure there are projects that are way ahead of the game than me on this question.

but yeah anyway trying to browbeat people into not sharing links to pirate media is 1. futile, by the time you see it the cat is out of the bag 2. not a sustainable strategy for security. if you wanna lecture people, 'use a VPN and seed your torrents' is evergreen ;p

[scientia-rex]

I made that post about how smoking is bad—actually, no, I’ve made two relatively popular posts about how smoking is bad for you. Raises your chances of dying from multiple factors including heart disease and stroke in addition to lung (and mouth, throat, and bladder) cancer.

I am always so baffled by the responses going “well I could die from something else!” Yes. You could. Statistically speaking, you will most likely die of heart disease, stroke, or cancer, if you live in the US. Your average life expectancy is somewhere around 78 for women, 76 for men. Many people die younger than that, for a lot of reasons. Many of my patients have illnesses that will shorten their lives. I hate to split it into “fault,” as if there’s some kind of perfect way to live a blameless life. (There isn’t.) The numbers, however, are both clear and pitiless. People who smoke are more likely to die younger than they otherwise might have.

Medicine is a numbers game. My job is not to psychically predict exactly what will punch your ticket and when. It is to improve your odds. I want you to both live as long a life as possible but also as high-quality a life as possible. I want for you to live a life you enjoy.

It’s that simple; it’s not sinister. I’m not out here going “I’ll tell them not to smoke so they can have LESS FUN before getting hit by a bus at 30!”

Because smoking isn’t actually fun. What it is, is a very quick (and faster = more addictive) reduction in physical feedback systems that heighten anxiety. Withdrawal of an unpleasant stimulus is rewarding. (Technically, it’s a negative reward; the negative doesn’t refer to a moral judgment, but the addition or subtraction of a stimulus.) Something that is very rewarding very fast will be very addictive. It’s why crack cocaine is also so addictive—it is also a very fast and very potent reward. It’s also why benzodiazepines like Xanax are so addictive to so many people; it’s a slower peak blood level but the removal of severe anxiety is profoundly rewarding.

So smoking can make you feel better when you do it. But your body will try to fix any broken signals. It doesn’t just want to be able to signal to you when you need to feel stressed: it has to be able to signal you, or your long-ago ancestors would have been eaten by predators. So it ramps up the signaling. Now you’re not smoking because you feel better than baseline; you’re smoking to get back to baseline.

That’s why quitting sucks. When you quit smoking, all of the sudden your body’s signals of stress that got dialed up to 11 to overcome the nicotine are just out there at full blast, making you feel scared and jittery and irritable. It’s why when you quit benzos (or daily alcohol) cold turkey you can get life-threatening seizures. It’s why when you stop alcohol you’re likely to have sleep disruptions that can persist for weeks to months.

That’s why things that help reduce the suckage can help. Nicotine patches, lozenges, or gum. Chantix. Wellbutrin. Slowly stepping down the nicotine level on your vape. Eating more, eating things you like. (I would 1000% rather have a patient be fat than be smoking. I know other people will be shittier to you if you gain weight. Living is worth it.) Being kind to yourself helps you quit smoking. You need to recognize that “quitting smoking you” is not your baseline you. It is you with an invisible illness that will take weeks to months to get over.

And sometimes you can’t face that hump right now. But if you want to maximize your odds of the longest and healthiest possible life, knowing that any number of terrible things can happen to you at any time, making the effort—over and over again, if you need to—is the best shot you have.

There are a couple of conditions where smoking does markedly reduce symptoms. The well-known ones are schizophrenia and Crohn’s disease. If you feel not just better, but better like this is a medication for you, like you poop blood or hear things without it, talk to your primary care provider, because there are other medicines that might be safer and/or more effective for you. The landscape around pharmaceutical research has shifted dramatically over the last 30 years. We have more options than we’ve ever had before. Maybe this doesn’t have to be the expensive, dangerous medication that half-works for you. And if what you’re self-medicating is your anxiety, nicotine is a pretty crappy medication for that, because it doesn’t fix you; it changes your baseline to an even shittier place.

You have bodily autonomy. You can make your own choices. I will never go to a patient’s house and slap the cigarette out of their hand. But if what you want is the longest and healthiest possible life, smoking makes your odds worse.

The number of people who think that I, as a doctor, would be unaware of how profoundly unfair bodily health can be amazes me. It’s like the first Father Brown story, where Father Brown is explaining to the villain that someone whose main job is to hear about all of the terrible sins people have to confess cannot remain naive. My job is watching people age, or filling out their death certificates. One or the other. I prefer watching them age, but everyone will die. Someday my doctor will be filling out my death certificate. I’ve removed one potential contributing factor from that line—maybe I’ll get diabetes, maybe I’ll get cancer, maybe I’ll have a workplace accident, but “smoking” isn’t going to be on that line anymore. That’s the best I can do. I can’t psychically predict my own death, either; just play the numbers, try to do my best, and hope.

[astrobydalia]

Astro knowledge

A short more educational post for y'all!

work by astrobydalia

Pisces/Neptune rules marketing while Gemini/Mercury is more about sales. They’re both deeply related but difference is Gemini is the salesman that appeals to your reason and resorts to mind games (Mercury) in a one-on-one to convince you why you should buy into something. Marketing on the other hand is ruled by Pisces because it appeals to the collective unconscious (Neptune). It’s all about crafting subliminal messages that make you see that product/idea as more appealing even when you know what you're seeing is not realistic. Very related to propaganda as well. This is also a field that requires a lot of creativity, they're constantly using metaphors, hyperboles or even making up little fictional stories to sell a product...

I've already said this but for anyone new, the planet that rules real love is moon not Venus. See the full explanation here

Where Sagittarius is in your chart will bring luck and happiness, but Taurus does give off expansive (or dare I say expensive) energy too. Where Taurus sits in your chart is an area of your life that will be more grandiose in nature cause Taurus rules over indulgence and pleasure. You could experience some sort of privilege when it comes to this house, the themes of this house come to you in abundance with little to no effort. Some examples:

Taurus 1st house: have a striking and bold appearance, gives off luxury and attractive vibes regardless of their looks. These people could come across as a "high value woman/man" without trying

Taurus 7th house: very active and abundant love life, lots of suitors and business partners landing on your lab, they want to provide for you and/or give you lucrative opportunities

Taurus 9th house: having access to high quality education or elevated knowledge. Probably attended a very exclusive or expensive collage, payed vacations vibes, easy and frequent relocations

Taurus 10th house: almost untouchable reputation, very respected and liked by others, is always seen as innocent or harmless, lots of success with their ventures

The 2nd house also talks about your roots and upbringing but in a more objective and material sense. This house and the position of its ruler can be very telling of how your actual social and economic context shaped your basic values. It can also talk about your house as the 2nd house rules over real state, lands, properties, etc. The 4th house is more about your home, how you were raised within that reality and how it impacted you emotionally at your core

Example: Libra risings could come from an environment that shaped their values around survival and money gains due to Scorpio 2nd house (I've seen very commonly they come from marginalized groups or humble beginnings or very financially competitive environments). So they have a family that is very demanding and expected them to work or be a boss from a young age (Capricorn 4th house)

Speaking of, 2nd house does not ONLY rule money!!! It rules RESOURCES and anything that you own that is highly valuable and you can put a price on!!!! And yes of course since these things are valuable they can be easily monetized, traded, used to make you money. This can be your skills, assets, real state, etc. The 2nd house is your piggy bank basically

There's a lot of talk about how 11th house is how you make money in your career while 2nd house is how you spend it. Well this is technically true but I'd like to add more explanation to this. In derivative astrology 11th house is 2nd (money) from the 10th (career) so it does show how you actually make money from your career. 2nd house is where you get money but 11th house is how you make money. Your 11th house is the multiplier (credits to @cosmicpuzzle for that fact) while 2nd house is where your financial stability lies on. In other words 11th house is indicative of how you generate more but 2nd house is all about what you already have, its about what you can make with what you OWN already, it deals with money that is already available through your resources' value (again, you piggy bank). This does 'make' you money in a way like if you lose your job and are lacking money your 2nd house where you turn to for example if you own a house you can rent it, you can buy a rare item that costs a lot, selling your art or any other natural skill, etc. The concept of value is important in this house bc it can increase or decrease (while 11th house increases and multiplies). The more valuable your resources are the more potential money you have available which means more financial stability and wealth. Anyways hope all that makes sense

We often refer to water signs when talking spirituality but truth is fire signs are very spiritual in nature as well. Fire symbolizes the spark of life itself, nothing could exist or be created without it. Aries deals with the basic ontological conception of 'I am, I exist', Leo is about how the self manifests and create itself and Sagittarius is about the purpose of the self. Living beings need heat to thrive/live and just like fire radiates heat your spirit radiates energy, creativity, passion, action, inspiration, purpose... and that's what fire signs represent. I'd say fire represents the fundamentality of spirit while water is more about the complexity of inner world.

Just like Aries is the "natural" ASC for a birth chart, Libra is the natural ASC for a composite chart cause a birth chart represents the chart of an individual (Aries) while composite represents the mutual relationship between two people (Libra)

When you develop the themes of a certain house in a healthy manner, you naturally start attracting the themes of the opposite house. This goes to show you that things in astrology aren't as compartmentalized as they seem, everything works together in certain way SPECIALLY axis'. Examples:

You need to focus on yourself first (1st house) to find the right partner (7th house)

You need to investigate and learn (3rd house) in order to find higher answers (9th house)

When you invest successfully (8th house) you earn more available resources (2nd house).

When you develop your hobbies and individuality (5th house) you find keen people (11th house)

When you heal spiritually (12th house) you find healthier habits (6th house)

There's this misconception that you have to disregard your South Node in order to develop you NN, but the thing is the SN is the starting point that can lead you towards developing your NN. This can happen as a harsh and painful lesson tho if you liger too much on your SN. For example NN in Libra need to learn to compromise in this life, there's a lot of focus on the self and independence, but eventually this placement teaches them that if you really wanna develop yourself in full potential (Aries) eventually you'll need others (Libra). If they linger too much on Aries SN they could experience a harsh lesson that forces them to count on others

work by astrobydalia

[nothingbutnowhere]

Paging Doctor Riley!

18+

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x reader

~3.9k words

Tags: 18+ Explicit, medical pelvic examination roleplay, 'virgin' roleplay, reader is mentioned to masturbate with toys frequently, mentioned reader has received previous gynecological care, glove kink, praise kink, fingering, lube, squirting, cunnilingus, tit play, fingers in mouth, unprotected PiV, light manhandling, multiple reader orgasms, reader referred to as 'good girl' with no other gendered language, post sex banter, if I've missed anything that needs mentioning please let me know

Prologue 1 | Prologue 2

It's just a routine exam, you think to yourself, you've done this before, it's going to be fine.

That doesn't stop your heart from pounding in your chest as you sit and wait in the exam room. You're wearing the typical smock with a sheet over your legs for cover, but it's not enough, your nipples are definitely visible through the thin fabric. The cool air of the room peaks goosebumps over your legs and arms.

Two firm knocks rap against the door and you flinch, head snapping towards it.

It opens.

Oh no.

"Good afternoon miss."

He's hot.

"Hi," you squeak.

He's tall, muscles bulging from his white lab coat, carrying himself with perfect posture as he walks over to you.

"Doctor Riley," he says, holding his hand out for you to shake.

His eyes meet yours, deep brown, intense and focused over the blue surgical mask that covers the lower part of his face.

You introduce yourself, thankfully moving on autopilot, as you reach out and shake his hand with as much poise as you can muster. His hand is large, strong and warm, a contrast to your shaky, clammy one. The watch on his wrist probably costs more than your annual paycheck.

Before you're unpinned from his gaze, he looks you over, gaze neutral. He turns to the desk, but it doesn't do much to calm your nerves.

"You're here for a routine exam," he says as he logs in to the computer.

It's not even framed as a question, god this man might kill you. His voice is deep and measured, and clinical.

"Yes."

You try not to stare at his hands that minify the mouse and keyboard as he clicks around, typing a few things.

"Are you currently sexually active?"

The question settles a sense of dread in your tummy. You know it's routine but you hate admitting it, especially now to your hot doctor who now knows you can't get laid. You send a small plea to the universe to quell your embarrassment.

"No. Never."

He doesn't so much as blink, continuing to stare at the screen while he clicks boxes.

"Do you masturbate?"

Well you've never been asked this before. Is it even an appropriate question?? After a second too long you answer.

"Yes."

"How frequently?"

If it's possible to die from embarrassment, well, you'll find out.

"Um, depends."

"Roughly how many times per week?"

There's a joke there, but not one you're brave enough to make. The number is very high and you feel the need to lie, because that kinda makes your lack of sexual activity more embarrassing. But lying to a medical professional seems like a bad idea.

"Five to seven."

He doesn't miss a beat.

"Any specific concerns you have today?"

Yeah embarrassing myself in front of you, you think, though it's too late for that.

"No."

He stands and walks away for a few moments to wash his hands.

This is great, everything is fine. Think of anything else than what's about to happen, literally anything else, just don't think about-

Your efforts fail terribly, as all you can picture, all you can feel is his hands on you, thinking about him thinking about your masturbating. Which he's definitely not, because this is his job! People tell him that all day, surely there's no way he dwells on it. 

You shift on the bed, the cold sweat of anxiety is only making you more miserable. The subtle rub of your thighs sends some... extra sensations up your spine. Oh god, are you already aroused? You hope not. The lube will help disguise it. It's fine, probably. Stimulation is often met with arousal, a concession you can make while ignoring the fact that he hasn't touched you yet.

He returns and you watch as he pulls on the blue nitrile gloves. They fit tightly, requiring an extra tug to situate, and he lets the material snap.

Is he fucking with you? He has to be fucking with you. 

"Lay back, feet up on the bed apart, and move to the edge."

His instructions definitely aren't though. They're firm but not unkind and you don't have to think to follow them. The cool air of the room is uncomfortable on your exposed skin and your knees try and awkwardly close.

"Legs open," he reminds.

They do.

The blanket on your legs prevents you from seeing him as he sits down in front of you, but you're completely exposed to him now.

This whole thing is starting to feel like a fever dream. A dreamy doctor about to feel you up, good lord, you need to get a grip.

"Take deep breaths. Try to relax, it'll make this much easier," he says, voice softer now.

Fuck. You were never good at hiding your emotions, he probably thinks you're just anxious. Honestly that's a better scenario than your current predicament of embarrassed arousal. One, then two deep breaths later, you're mildly more relaxed.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Yeah." Sure why not, we don't have all day.

"Good."

You swallow audibly.

"Light touch on the inner thigh, then the vulva. External then internal examination."

You've done this before, it's fine. 

His gloved fingers make gentle contact with your skin, but the small twitch in your leg only pushes into him further. After a moment his they slide down and brush against your pussy.

You stare pointedly up at the ceiling, forcing your diaphragm into slow breaths.

His warm fingers parting your labia have no business being this gentle. The tip of one large finger strokes slow between the inner and outer, on one side then the other. You had no idea you could be so sensitive, and have to grind your teeth to prevent a shiver of pleasure from making your legs shake.

"Healthy tissue, very good," he hums after a few moments.

Your throat is too dry to respond.

He doesn't move on though, continues to feel and stroke and press, avoiding your clit. None of this feels very clinical, but then again your brain is scrambled eggs. The gentle touch feels so good, no one except for you has done this, and even you haven't gone this slow, usually opting to go straight for the kill with fingers or a vibrator on your clit. It's an examination but it feels like... More than that somehow. Adoration.

How bad would it be to just relax into it? It's not a bad thing to enjoy touch, even though this isn't the most opportune time for it.

"That's good, just relax."

His voice is calm and reassuring. See? Not so bad.

He spreads your lips again and runs one finger through your slit. You can feel the tell tale slip confirming your arousal, knocking some sense back into you because you're at the doctor's office! What the hell are you doing, enjoying your pelvic exam, getting off from your doctor who is none the wiser. Well, not anymore. You hope he doesn't say anything.

"Bit of arousal at stimulation. Very common."

You're mortified, frozen to the bed.

"I'm sorry," you say, the only thing you can think to say.

"Nothing to worry about."

"Ok," your voice comes out as a whisper.

You want to believe him. Unfortunately, neither your embarrassment of being caught enjoying a clinical exam nor his reassurance does anything to change the fact that your body is thrumming with warm pleasure.

His hand rests on your lower belly. You expect the internal examination to start now but his thumb strokes the skin above your clit, far too gentle to be doing much examining. One, two passes then his thumb runs over your clit.

A shiver runs though your body uninhibited, and you have to cover your mouth to keep from crying out. The intoxicating ball of pleasure sits heavy in your stomach.

"Very sensitive," he says, though maintaining his clinical composure his voice is definitely lower than it has been

His thumb then presses down right above your clit and pulls the hood back ever so gently.

You're suspended, not breathing, ready for his touch and the ever tightening band in your tummy to snap.

But he gently lowers it back down and removes his hand.

"Perfect. Moving to the internal exam now."

His voice sounds mildly strained. 

Very good. Perfect. 

It wouldn't matter how he sounded when he called you that. Well, technically he was calling your vulva that... Did that make it better or worse?

A cap clicking open and closed recalls your attention.

Internal exam, right. You can handle that. Definitely. No problem. You haven't been thinking about his fingers inside you the whole time, not at all.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Yes."

You sound strained too.

"Touch on the inner thigh."

His fingers are slightly wet with lube but not cold. Once again he slides his fingers down, leaving a little wet trail in their wake. He swipes fingers over your opening, though you probably don't need the lube at all. 

"Two fingers. Let me know if it's uncomfortable."

You feel them start to press against you, he's slow and gentle like before. The initial press just past your lips is fine. But the stretch is too much.

"Wait"

He stops and pulls away immediately.

"It's, um, too much, maybe just... Start with one?"

It's painfully embarrassing to voice. Sure the doctor can stay clinical since this is his job but the innuendo- if you can even call it that, you're literally asking for one finger in your pussy- probably isn't lost on him.

"Of course."

He begins again.

"Touch," he says, hand resting on your thigh for a second longer before moving down.

One finger slides in easier. He's still slow and gentle which only makes it feel more intimate. He slides out, maybe brushing a little more firmly against your g spot than necessary, but you're already swollen around his fingers, it's probably just inevitable.

Two fingers start to push in a little easier. You're taking deep steady breaths, focusing on being relaxed and not clamping down to give more stimulation on your g-spot, grind, and come, like your brain screams to do.

"That's it, nice and easy."

The reassurances makes it worse and you make the mistake of picturing what's happening- two of his thick, gloved fingers glistening with lube and your slick sliding into your wet, swollen pussy, expensive looking watch on his wrist. At the same time he presses past your g-spot which makes you clench involuntarily. Fuck.

"Alright?"

"Yeah," your voice cracks.

To your horror, this time the embarrassment makes the arousal more intense, more urgent. Your brain knows your hand has been shown, it seems to think there's no point in hiding.

"Response to stimulation is normal."

Oh you want to respond alright. You feel every millimeter, during the few moments it takes for his fingers to be fully inserted. It's a pleasant fullness, his fingers reach deeper and are wider than your own. The glove tries to be the barrier that keeps this from being intimate and sexual but it's only backfiring, arousal hot and pulsing inside you.

"Going to place a hand on your lower abdomen and press."

"Ok."

You try to relax, focus on the pleasantness rather than the arousal, but it's difficult with his hand pressing down, moving soft and gentle, glove crinkling and rasping quietly over your skin. After several presses his hand rests fully on your lower stomach, thumb brushing lower and lower, over the sensitive skin above your clit once again. Your brain is buzzing, body scorching, daring him to do it.

His thumb rolls gently over your clit.

You finally allow yourself to moan. If he's going to provide stimulation, you're going to give him a response.

"Fuck," you say, breathless.

He stills but doesn't pull away.

"Want me to stop?"

"No"

His fingers curl into your g-spot, and he finally starts to give proper, firm circles over your clit.

"Gonna- oh my god-" you moan.

Your cunt spasms around his fingers, electricity sparking through your body but it's not nearly enough, barely enough to take the edge off.

"One," he says, but before you can process the implication, his fingers start moving inside you and yeah that's it. Stroking instead of just pressing into your g-spot, other hand continuing to circle on your clit.

After a few moments there's pressure building up behind the tingling of the incoming orgasm. It's coming at you fast, you know it's going to hit hard. You've only heard of this sensation before but it's too late to stop it, too late to try and say anything because by the time you're opening your mouth all you can do is cry out as your toes curl, body releasing the pressure and you feel liquid running down your ass. You've fucking squirted on your doctor, and he's dragging you through the rest of your orgasm with his fingers on your clit. He pulls away when you squirm from overstimulation.

"Good, two," you hear him breathe, voice no longer clinical and professional and the low growl makes your thighs twitch besides his head.

You gasp as you feel his face pressing into your thigh- and to your twisted amalgamation of horror and arousal- it's wet, slicking your thighs with what can only be your own squirt as his lips press slow, messy kisses down, closer and closer to your pussy. Your eyes are closed but you hear him slip off the stool he was sitting on, and feel as he guides your legs over his shoulders, low enough that he's probably kneeling on the ground in front of you. He sighs when you relax and let the solid weight of them rest comfortably. He kneels up and your hips lift up off the bed, partially folding you over. One strong arm wraps around your leg snugly, hand gripping your skin like you'll slip away if he doesn't.

You can surmise what's coming as his lips trail further and further down but could never actually anticipate the feeling of his mouth on you, warm and wet and consuming. Following the same methodology as his fingers, his tongue and lips slowly explore every centimeter of skin, dragging through, over, and between, taking your lips into his mouth and sucking. You moan, eyes squeezing shut, hands gripping your smock for grounding as you resist the urge to push into his mouth. You almost lose it when he circles your clit with the tip of his tongue, flicking over it before pressing his lips to it over and over like a kiss, opening and suckling. You're dazed, obviously never having experienced this before but vaguely think this'll probably be the best you'll ever get.

His tongue slides down, starts to circle your opening, dipping in briefly where your slick and his spit has gathered.

"Taste so fuckin' good," he says, almost to himself, mouth close to your pussy so you feel the vibrations.

"Knew you would the second I saw you. Sweet thing, all for the taking on my exam table."

His words are filthy. You begin to moan but are interrupted by his tongue sliding in.

You gasp, eyes flying open, hands instinctively reaching down, only to meet the blanket resting over his head. There's only a half second hesitation about pulling it off before you do. You're not prepared to see his face, or rather his eyes flicking up to meet yours, tongue buried inside you. The focus and intensity are so different than earlier, maybe a little softer now that he's feeling you, holding you, and pleasuring you, not examining and observing.

His hand clenches tighter into your thigh, pushes his face further into you with a groan, eyes fluttering. You can't help but slide your hand through his hair and encourage him to stay right there, keep doing whatever the fuck he's doing with his tongue that's making you lose control, pant, and grind into his face. His hand reaches up your body to squeeze and play with your tits, smearing slick across your chest.

That's one way to get a breast examination.

It takes several minutes for your orgasm to build this time but he doesn't seem to care, working you steadily and thoroughly. And soon enough you're there, body hot with molten pleasure, you're going to come again,

"Close-!"

But there's an ache that wants more. All caution has been long since thrown to the wind and it doesn't even occur to you to be embarrassed to beg.

"Please, Doctor Riley, want you- fuck."

"Want me to what?"

"Want you to fuck me, please."

His hand slides down back to your clit and rubs firmly until your back is arching and you're nearly suffocating him with your thighs as pleasure rushes though you uninhibited. 

"Good fucking girl, three." 

Finally you drop back, breathing hard, still tingly, vision unfocused. He lifts your legs off of his shoulders and gently settles them back. You look up at him, now unmasked. Some scaring on his face and definitely handsome, to you anyway.

He doesn't put on a show to undress. All you can do is watch as he simply stands, and pulls his cock out.

Wow. He's perfect. Big, which makes sense considering his stature. If the look in his eyes with his face dripping with your slick is any indication you're about to get fucked within an inch of your life.

"Gonna make this nice and comfortable for you yeah?" he says, uncapping and squeezing a generous amount of lube out.

"Ever used anything more than fingers?"

"Yeah, I have toys" you squeak out.

His lips twitch in what you think is an uncharacteristic smile, though it's not friendly. The gleam in his eyes should scare you.

"Specifically?"

"...vibrators and dildos."

"Good girl."

Something absolutely glows inside of you when he says those two words, and you're shameless preening in it. And continues to glow as his hand strokes his cock for a few moments. It could have been an hour with the way you're enraptured by his gloved hand, studying how exactly he strokes, twists his wrist and thumbs over and around the head.

"Hold your legs back behind your knees."

It takes a moment, but you get your jellied legs to comply. Once you're spread he steps closer, hand squeezing your ass as he rubs his cock up and down your slit. You shudder from the overstimulation on your clit and are ready to beg again but he has no intention of toying with you. His thumb presses down on his cock until the head catches on your opening. He stares down at where you meet while beginning to push in. But his eyes catch yours after a moment, he's trying to concentrate on your face but part of his brain is focused elsewhere. You try an experimental squeeze around his cock and he groans, eyes closing for a moment, control slipping. That's probably dangerous but honestly you want him to eat you alive- not that he hasn't already eaten you.

A few more shallow strokes and he's pressed fully into you, not even moving but his thickness alone is able to press against all the good spots inside you.

"Please- I'm ready," you whine, trying and failing to grind against him with your ass so tightly squeezed in his hands.

The first drag of his hips backwards makes you both moan. He starts to roll his hips deep and slow, watching you intensely, but you can barely keep your eyes open on account of them rolling back in your head. Some unknown spot deep inside you pulses, and throbs, and aches as his cock hits it again and again.

"That's it sweetheart, like it nice and deep, yeah?"

You nod enthusiastically, tears leaking out of the corners of your eyes.

There's some sort of sounds in the room which you can't place until his hands come off of your ass, and he's shoving two fingers in your open, panting mouth.

You exclaim, or try to, but quickly give into sucking shamelessly and laving your tongue over and between his fingers. The taste of lube isn't the best, but ignorable in favor of remnants of your own slick, his cock.

"Don't mind if you bite," he growls.

He pulls out all the way, then his hips snap forward quickly and firmly, and your teeth scrape his fingers. His cock twitches and you feel precum add to the lube and slick inside you. You're jostled around for a second, his knee coming up on the bed to give him better leverage. And then he really starts to fuck you, pounding you into the mattress, head kissing your cervix at this angle, so fucking deep.

"Good girl, fuck, you must play with a lot of toys, takin' it this good."

You agree nodding your head, mumbling unsuccessfully around his fingers, wishing you could tell him how good this was, so good to just lie back and not have to deal with fucking yourself. Since you can't, you squeeze your cunt as tight as you can around him, causing him to fall on one elbow beside you with a snarled fuck. You're so close now, face directly above yours. It's far too intimate, especially starting into his captivating eyes, pupils blown wide, framed by pretty blonde eyelashes. He slides his fingers out of your mouth and reaches down to play with your clit. You throw your head back as another orgasm threatens to overtake you, but his hand pulls away.

"Not yet"

Your head tilts back and you pout. He's staring at your lips, eyelids heavy.

"Kiss me."

Both of your arms come up, one around his shoulders and the other hand cradles the back of his neck, pulling him down to meet your lips.

It's messy and it's good. Doesn't seem to matter that you have no experience when you're both too fucked out to coordinate anyway. Tongues against lips and teeth, it doesn't matter when he tastes good, kinda like you, but mostly his own.

His hand slips down to your clit again, soft pinches and rolls taking you to the precipice.

"C'mon, come on my cock, give me four, be a good girl"

"Oh- close- oh, fuck!," you gasp, sinking your teeth into his bottom lip to keep from screaming.

You inadvertently pull his hair, which you think is what causes his orgasm, slowing his thrusts, twitching cock spilling into you. The sensation is novel and your pleasure boils over. Your legs spasm, your core clenches, pleasure hits you in waves, whiting out your vision.

...

You come to with Simon nearly crushing you with his weight.

"Si you're squishing me."

"Hm?" he grunts, half asleep already.

"Roll over."

He does roll, but takes you with him and holds you tight, preventing you from extracting yourself from the bed.

"You good?" he asks.

"Yeah," you mumble into his chest.

"Lemme hold you a bit."

"It's sweaty."

"Doctor patient privileges."

"That is not what that means."

His arms only settle heavier on you, now ungloved hand rubbing your back gently.

"Shh, relax with me for a second."

Your breaths sync after a while, the slow exhales calming your hammering heart.

"Did I do good?" he asks quietly.

"Of course you did," you say, snuggling into his chest, "Five stars. Excellent beside manner. Very thorough."

"Only 'cause I had such a lovely patient. Won't be getting any referrals from me though."

"S'fine with me. Love you."

Simon gives you a long kiss on the forehead as if to say, I love you too.

...

More Simon

I do NOT consent for my works, part of my works, or my ideas to be used for ANY form of AI.

A/N: Thanks for reading the first smut I've ever posted!

[norrizzandpia]

Let Me Be Happy. Don’t Be Mean. (LN4)

Summary: Y/n is not experienced in the realm of dating. For years, she has convinced herself that no man sees her as lovable. So, when a guy steps into the picture who checks off all the boxes, making her feel secure in his feelings towards her, she’s elated. However, when she goes to share in the excitement with her best friend, he ruins it all, along with it her happiness, by uttering three small words.

Warnings: language, mentions of grinding

Note: this is very very little women coded but nobody is related. You’ll see. Once again, this is a sad ending, but a happy one will be up soon. I just wanted to get something out to you guys because it’s been so long since i posted and im finally feeling up to returning to you all. Genuinely, i feel like this isn’t my greatest greatest work, nothing quite worthy of a comeback fic, but i hope that doesn’t deter you all <3 ill be back with some of my regular abilities soon just a bit rusty so forgive me lol

Y/n had never had a boyfriend. There were failed talking stages and men who stole longer-than-preferred glances at her, but there was never an official, labeled and definite boyfriend. A part of her life which her friends always teased her for, a part of her life which she was secretly so deeply insecure about. Throughout her twenty-two years spent on Earth, she had been told that she was intimidating, that she was “too pretty” to be approached, but, as high school passed and she graduated college without anyone putting in effort, the passing thoughts of “something is wrong with me” took hold. Maybe it was the way she dressed, or the fact she liked musicals; maybe it was the friends she hung out with, or the jokes she made; maybe it was her looks, or her smile; maybe her laugh was obnoxious, or she didn’t seem like girlfriend material. She could never escape the feeling that she was inadequate, that somehow, over the years, she had molded herself into a person that no one else would stick around for romantically. Somehow, she wound up unloveable.

Lando, in the beginning, was a maybe. Becoming friends with him was, if you asked her, one of the scariest things she had ever embarked on in her life. Famous, rich, and successful Lando Norris loved her company, even adding in a few questionable and suggestive comments in the midst of it all. Her friends, however relentless, had continuously talked about the possibility of Lando liking her, but she shut it down every time. With the way she had forced her brain to be wired, Lando would never see her as more than a friend. The comments about how beautiful he thought she was, though, she could never explain.

“Are you going to answer me or what?” Y/n’s eyes focused back to the man in her mind, sitting before her at his kitchen table and staring at her as if she had died and came back to life.

She leaned her body against the counter, “Yeah, sorry. What’d you say?”

He scoffed and laughed all at once, “You didn’t hear anything I just said? Are you okay?”

His eyes flitting over her face made her chuckle and shake her head, “Yes, I’m fine. I was just thinking about the upcoming projects I have for work.”

He nodded, though his slightly furrowed eyebrows portrayed confusion, “Okay… Well, Max invited us to go out tonight. There’s a new club a few blocks down that he got on the VIP list for. You in?”

Deciding that maybe going out would somehow remedy the strong belief that no man wanted her, Y/n nodded.

—

“Can you hear me?!” Lando screamed into Max’s ear. His best friend looked at him, a drink in both their hands, and laughed.

“Yes, I can hear you, dumbass! When you yell right in my eardrum, it’s hard not to! What’s up?”

Lando was hesitant before leaning in once more, his tone lowered an octave, “Who is that dancing with Y/n?”

Max followed Lando’s eyeline, finding his good friend grinding up against a man he couldn’t even recognize.

He shook his head, “I don’t know. At least, she’s having fun!” His laughter at his comment died down when he turned his head to see Lando pouting.

Max scoffed, “Mate, you can’t be upset with her venturing out. She doesn’t even know you think of her that way!”

Lando shook his head, “I don’t see her that way.”

Max shoved his shoulder, “All I hear is denial, denial, and fucking denial. When you wake up one morning and find out you loved her all along, don’t come crying to me when you realize you’re too late because she’s with someone else.”

Lando laughed it off, though the pit in his stomach made him want to puke up the alcohol he had consumed for the night. Maybe he had just had one too many, he told himself.

Yeah, it was the alcohol consumption.

Max’s piercing gaze leveled with Lando’s, liquor coursing through the Brit’s veins as he said lowly, “I’m sick and tired of that bullshit.”

Lando rolled his eyes, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Max nodded feverishly, “Yes, you do! You know I can’t fucking stand the way you shun your feelings for her! I know it’s probably a dick move on my part to tell you how you feel, but if you keep dancing around her, you’re gonna lose her. I don’t want to see that for you.”

Lando shook his head briefly, coolness flowing from him as if Max’s words didn’t strike panic within his blood, “I’m not going to lose her, Max. I think alcohol makes you overdramatic.”

Max groaned and stomped away, liquid sloshing out of his glass as he retreated into the crowd. Lando’s eyes were left to fall back on his Y/n. The man’s hands were on her hips, swaying hers against his as he kissed her neck. He hated the sight and he didn’t know why.

Truthfully, he did know why.

—

“If a guy visits you at work with your favorite coffee order, does that mean he’s interested in you?” Y/n waltzed into the sunlit living room of Max’s apartment, Lando sprawled out on the couch as Max scrolled through his phone on a big chair in the corner.

“Uh, yes.” Max replied quickly, before Lando had the opportunity of selfishly saying no.

Holding her phone in one hand and the other balled in a fist, Y/n blurted, “Are you sure?”

Max pulled himself from his slouched position, looking at her intently and not daring to see the way Lando was eyeing him. He could feel the fiery gaze on his shoulder, “No man is going out of his way to buy you your favorite coffee and come see you at a corporate office for .2 seconds. Trust me, Y/n, the man likes you.”

She nodded her head side to side, “Mmm, maybe.”

”He’s right.” Lando murmured, a heavy heart as he watched her gaze snap to his, as if his thoughts on the subject convinced her more of what was right in front of her.

Max side-glanced him, a war in his head as he tried to decipher Lando and whatever he was trying to accomplish.

“You think?” She whispered, looking down at her phone when it buzzed. A blush across her cheeks made Lando’s heart squeeze.

Did she smile that way when he texted her?

Lando cleared his throat, “What’s this guy’s name? Is this the same guy you were dancing with at the club?”

She nodded, “Yeah, it is. His name is Chris.”

“Last name?” He continued, listening intently for the information.

Y/n laughed, “What? Are you going to Instagram-stalk him or something?”

Yes.

”No. Just curious.” He smiled lightly. All the while, Max was rolling his eyes.

”Chris Greenberg.” She smiled back, a moment between the two where Lando seemingly couldn’t tear his eyes off the grin displayed in front of him.

He sat back, “Alright, most generic name I’ve ever heard, but okay.”

She shook her head at Lando, the smile still on her face as she plopped on the couch beside him.

His arm instinctively draped around her shoulders, his hand toying with the ruffled fabric of her shirt. Lando tried not to fall into the mess of her in his mind yet the soft skin under his fingertips made his mind get away from him. He didn’t want it to be real. He didn’t want the morning where he woke up and he found out he was in love with his best friend to come.

But, he also couldn’t bear the thought of Chris touching her in the way he does. He willed himself not to think about Chris seeing her naked or taking care of her in the way Lando always had. Maybe he had never kissed her, but he had held her hand in moments of pain and he had been there for her when no boyfriends had the privilege of being able to show up. Lando had always been something to her and she had always been something to him, they both knew that.

He wanted her to stay single and he wanted her to stay his precious girl.

And suddenly, he couldn’t deny what he felt for her.

On the couch, with Max a few feet away from them and his fingers only lightly grazing her warmth, Lando’s eyes turned to her and he gave into the pull that he had been fighting for years.

A minute away from begging her to see him for what he needed her to, her phone lit up between them. One singular notification lit up the screen, her lock screen a picture of them two after he had gotten his Silverstone podium. A notification which was from Chris, a blushing emoji next to his name.

His mouth opened from the words he so recklessly wanted to say, he realized what he was about to do: confessing feelings he found out about five seconds ago while Max was sitting next to them. So embarrassed and slowly reaching a state of distraught, Lando retracted his arm from her body.

Y/n grabbed her phone from the space between their legs, opened her phone, and giggled at whatever stared back at her.

Lando knew his face said it all. He was always facially expressive. If she had turned her head, or Max, they would’ve seen it written all over his face. The sickening realization that he was in love with the girl sitting beside him.

Part of him loved that they weren’t paying attention to him, but another part wished she would move her head a few centimeters, catch his eyes, and let him study the way she took his breath away.

—

“Where are you going?” Lando stumbled over his feet as he ran to the door. Y/n in a black, tight dress looking stunning had alarms going off in his head.

Her hand on the door knob, “A date.”

“Why?”

She laughed slowly, “Um, because? Chris asked me? I said yes?”

Lando’s hands rested on his hips, gray sweatpants slugging low on his waist as he stared at her, “Where’s he taking you?”

She mirrored his stance, “Why?”

He scoffed, “Because! I should know where you are! What if he tries to kill you and nobody knows your location?”

Y/n rolled her eyes playfully and opened the door. In the crack, Lando could see Chris standing against his car with flowers in his hand, looking like everything Y/n deserves and more. Chilling as he realized he’s trying to fight something that is not meant for him. Y/n doesn’t deserve him. She deserves someone who will sleep next to her every night, who won’t leave her every weekend for their job. She deserves someone who is available and dependable. He isn’t that. He will never be that. Chris already is that.

“I will be fine, Lan. Thank you for worrying, but Chris is a nice guy.” She smiled, not giving him room to argue as she slipped out and closed the door.

He stared at the wood for a moment or two, hearing her giggles from outside and knowing how taken she sounded. He wanted her to turn around, to open the door back up and say something that would give him confirmation that Max wasn’t right; that he didn’t realize too late the things he felt for her.

She would never come to the door and Lando would, after fifteen minutes of waiting and hearing the tires drive away, slink back to his bed.

—

She came to the door. Knocking frantically and rambling the moment Lando opened it, Y/n burst into his apartment.

Lando’s hands raised in the air, “Woah, woah, woah, slow down. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

He watched her face light up before she took a deep breath and withheld his favorite smile, “The date went so amazing, Lan! He is so considerate and… and he listens! Lando, he sat there and listened to me ramble about my family, my friends, and everything else about my life and then asked me questions about the things I was mentioning! He likes the same things I do and he’s so cute and I can genuinely feel like he really likes me this time! He puts in the effort! He! Puts! In! The! Effort! Lando! Seriously, he’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a guy!”

Even though he knew it before answering the door, her bursting summary of this perfect guy solidified it for him.

She came to the door, but she didn’t come for him.

He stared at her, his heart emptied out of hope as he watched her big smile dwindle down.

”Why don’t you look happy for me?” She cocked her head as he stared back at her, a dead expression adorning his usually calm face.

”I love you.”

Lando watched her face drop, a hopeful smile morphing into a void. Her bag dropped to her feet and she leaned her head forward, “Stop.”

He blinked at her, “What?”

She looked back up at him, “Stop, Lando. Don’t say that.”

He scoffed, “It’s true!”

Glistening tears pooled in her eyes, “Lando, stop. Don’t be mean.”

He shook his head, “Y/n, I’m not being mean. I’m being honest.”

She roughly wiped the wetness that had fallen to her cheeks before looking at him with such a deadly gaze, “No, you aren’t! This is so fucking selfish of you! For once, I’ve found someone that will put in the effort and that I can genuinely trust in making the right decisions when it comes to me! And, now, here you fucking are, telling me you love me! It’s fucking cruel! Can you just let me be happy just this once? Why can’t I get my chance to be in love? You’ve experienced it! Why can’t you just let me do it?!”

He took a step closer to her and she took one back, “I do want you to be happy! I want you to be with me!”

She crossed her arms, “Oh, and you’re going to make me happy?”

“I will try.” He whispered.

She memorized the heels strapped around her feet, “Not good enough.”

He reared back, “What?”

She willed her eyes to meet his, “Not. Good. Enough. Chris will be good to me, I know that. I can’t trust that you’ll be good to me or be good to me until you get bored and find someone else to have fun with.”

”Is that what you think you are to me?” He asked, his heart reaching out for her, but breaking into pieces for how she views herself in his life before he can get there.

She looked up at him, eyes reddening under the tears, “If I meant something to you, if you loved me, you’d want me to be with the safe option.”

His hand trailed up her arm as tears fell from his cheeks similarly to hers, “I can be the safe option.”

”No, Lando. No, you can’t. I want Chris. I can’t deal with whatever life crisis you’re in the midst of right now.”

He groaned, “It’s not a life crisis. It’s me realizing what you truly mean to me.”

She waved her hand, “Sure, Lando.”

She moved away from his cornering, taking steps toward the door before Lando stopped her, “Don’t tell me I don’t love you.”

”I’m going to. I won’t give up the first guy to genuinely show me I mean something deeply to him for someone else who just apparently figured out they loved me after years of spending time together.” She continued by confirming his deepest fears, “You’re not reliable. You can't always be there when I need you to. That’s fine. I understand, but I’m not going to put myself in a spot to get hurt for you.”

He pleaded with her, “Why can’t you just give me a chance?”

”It’s not worth it, Lando.” She stared at him, “Let me be happy.”

”You can be happy with me.”

She shook her head, “Everything looks clearer in the morning, including your feelings for me.”

”What does that even mean?” He questioned, her form retreating to the door and practically screaming at him to let her go.

She sighed, “I’m sure you’re just tired. I’m sure you don’t mean any of this. How could you? Lando, you could get anyone. I’m not the girl you choose.”

Tears falling harder, he exhaled a quick breath, “You are the girl I choose!”

”And how long until I’m not?”

A silence followed, one that gave her enough time to open the door and leave. What was supposed to be the start of a new chapter for her turned into a reference to a past one.

The past chapter in her life where she loved Lando just as he described to her seconds before and a chapter where she convinced herself he would never feel the same. Still, she believed he never would. That what he had said to her was an episode, some dream he was sleep-talking in.

Lando would never pick her in the long run.

Even when he said he would.

[talesofesther]

the one who stayed

Sebastian Sallow x Reader

Summary: For a moment, Sebastian thought he lost you, and now the guilt for what happened is eating away at him.

A/N: Yes, this is very random. I debated a lot on whether to even post this here or not, but, this Tumblr is, before anything else, a library for me to store my own works. I post everything I write here, so I figured this one shouldn't be the exception because I did like how it turned out.

Masterlist

Cold. That was all your brain could register at the moment; how the ground felt so cold underneath you.

"She's not moving."

You could hear a familiar, urgent voice right beside you. But as the seconds slowly trickled by like blood dripping from an open wound, it became increasingly hard for you to understand what exactly that voice was saying. Yet you could still register the fear laced within the tone, you could feel it in the shakiness of his hold.

Trembling hands held onto your arm, one of them slowly brushing against your skin until it found your hand.

You wished you could see his face right now. Sebastian had always been bold, confident. Though you were almost certain there would be a faint blush hidden under his freckles right now because of the intimate gesture.

But your eyes were heavy. Try as you might, you couldn't seem to blink them open. Come to think of it, your whole body felt heavy, maybe that's why you couldn't move. Even breathing was slowly turning into too much effort.

The hand holding onto your own tightened its grip.

People were talking around you. You couldn't make out any words anymore, they sounded like nothing but faint noise. The tune of his voice still kissed your ears, however; even if you couldn't recognize the words, you knew it was him. And he sounded erratic, scared. There was a tightness to it, syllables getting stuck in his throat; it was all wrong, you didn't like to hear him in this state.

A deeper voice was there too — you instantly recognized the timbre that belonged to the man who was always crushing Sebastian's hopes — and in the back of your mind, it brought anger to your chest. But there was nothing you could do anymore. Wisps of remaining magic tingled on the tip of your fingers and held your heart in a tight, hurtful grip. Maybe you'd gone too far.

A pair of rough hands then picked up your body, taking you away from the cold embrace of the catacomb's floor.

And when the blood dripping from your nose reached your lips, coating your tongue with a metallic taste, you realized that maybe you did go too far after all. Part of you could already hear the keepers berating you for rushing your abilities.

Consciousness slipped from your grasp shortly after that. Your head falling limp against someone's shoulder, and feeling a hand still holding onto yours.

—

Hogwarts' hospital wing was pretty quiet most days, only with the usual first year who scraped their elbow falling from a broom or suffering the effects of a spell gone slightly wrong. They never stayed for long though, nurse Blainey was all too used to these types of encounters.

Yet every now and then, one of the beds stays occupied for a longer period of time.

There were several beds — their metal frame and pale sheets doing little to ease the hospital vibe — one beside the other on each side of the spacious room.

You were glad to be put on one which stayed further away from the main doors; it made for more calmness this way. You had no need to engage with the unfortunate first years and could focus on leaning back and feeling the soft wisps of sunlight kissing your skin from the high window behind you.

It bothers you that you can't exactly remember how you got here. The nurse hadn't filled you with much information either; she told you an older man had brought you in, talking about a casting exercise gone wrong and you overworking yourself; she also said you remained unconscious for about 15 hours before finally waking up — pale, weak, confused.

Most of those feelings still crawled under your skin. Your body is still feeling 10 times heavier than it actually was. You wanted to get up and run off to find Sebastian but you had a nagging sensation that, if you did so now, you'd fall face-first on the floor.

The fabric of the thin blanket draped over you felt soft as you worried it between your fingers, nearly tearing it apart. The last thing you remembered was being in the catacombs, with Sebastian, and wanting to do nothing but protect him — both from himself and his uncle.

His uncle.

Could it be that he was the one who actually brought you back to school?

You doubted Sebastian would have the strength to carry you all the way back here — as much as he might fight you on that argument.

Running a hand through your hair, you pulled at the roots. Your frustration escaped with a long sigh.

The old floorboards creaked under a new weight. At first, you assumed it would be nurse Blainey coming back to check on you. But, from the side of your eye, you caught a glimpse of green, and your heart fought against your ribs, trying to escape your chest.

Sebastian stood a few feet away from your bed, though you could hardly recognize him. The brown locks of his hair were all over the place, way messier than usual; his eyes had a red tint to them, mixed with dark circles of someone who hasn't slept in a while; his usual grin was nowhere to be seen, instead replaced with a pained frown; his hands held onto his robes with a death grip.

"I heard you were awake."

His voice didn't sound like the one you had grown to love.

"How are you feeling?" The question stumbled past his lips and he avoided your eyes shortly after. He sounded as if you would yell at him to leave at any moment. It only got you more confused.

"Better, a little weak still," you bit at the inside of your cheek. This moment shouldn't feel as fragile as it does. "Care to tell me what happened?"

You didn't think your tone was harsh, but Sebastian flinched at your voice anyway. Bad memories washed over him like a bucket of icy water.

He met your gaze before hesitantly closing the distance between you, choosing to sit at the edge of your bed.

He looked worse up close. Eyes distant, trapped elsewhere.

"We were fighting against my uncle and the-" Sebastian gulped, guilt squeezing at his throat like barbed wire, "the inferi."

You acknowledged his words with a soft nod, slowly remembering things as he spoke. You pushed yourself up to sit straighter, just a couple of inches closer to Sebastian. He looked like he needed it.

The words lingered on his tongue. You never thought you'd see him this way; hesitant, lost, regretful. With tears on the verge of spilling over his freckled cheeks.

"You were trying to reason with my uncle; and me, for that matter," Sebastian chuckled halfheartedly, "trying to stop us from killing each other, when the inferi started to close on us. You didn't think twice, and all I saw were lighting strikes coming through the ceiling of the catacomb, destroying everything but us, and… you laying on the floor afterwards."

Memories were clearer now. Sebastian had attacked his uncle after he destroyed the relic and they started exchanging spells at each other while the inferi slipped from Sebastian's control. Everything could go very bad, very quickly. You remembered trying to speak with them, make them see past the anger clouding their judgment. But it was to no avail. What you remember the most, however, was seeing Sebastian so focused on his uncle, and unaware of the mass of inferi coming towards him.

You really hadn't thought twice at all. Ancient magic flowed through your veins like wildfire; it was all you could feel. The rumbling of thunder became your heartbeat. You killed each and every one of the creatures, burning out all of your energy in the process.

"And what of Solomon?" You found yourself wondering.

Sebastian pursed his lips. His eyebrows scrunched slightly as his body tensed for a moment and then relaxed again. "We stopped fighting as soon as I ran up to you. I- I begged that he'd help me bring you back to school. I'm not sure where he is now." His body shook with each intake of air. "Or Anne."

"Well, guess my plan worked after all. At least I got you to stop fighting," you tried to lighten the heavy air around you and Sebastian, mustering a teasing grin as you tilted your head to try and catch a glimpse of his eyes.

Sebastian worried his lower lip between his teeth to keep it from quivering. There was no witty remark, no ironic comment. Nothing. His tears were one blink away from spilling over.

Maybe if you listened closely, you'd be able to hear your heart shattering. For him. For this broken boy barely holding the last pieces of himself together in front of you, for this boy who stood so desperately alone in the world.

You reached out, your hand closing tightly around Sebastian's — because you couldn't bare seeing him alone one second more. Your thumb brushed against his skin. You could feel his trembling. "We'll find him, and Anne. I promise we'll figure things out, Sebastian."

He was shaking his head before you even finished speaking, squeezing his eyes shut and causing a single tear to roll down his cheek. "No, you don't understand," his broken words fell from his lips at the same time he pulled away from your touch.

"I never-" Sebastian stood up then, choking on his own breathing as he looked at you with a mix of longing and anguish. "It was never my intention to hurt you… I'm sorry," he whispered, so quietly that if the hospital wing wasn't as empty as it is, you would've missed it.

"Sebastian, you didn't-" you cut yourself off when he abruptly turned away from you and started marching towards the main doors of the spacious room, putting as much distance between you and him as he could.

The fatigue still gripping at your muscles was the last thing on your mind when you threw away the covers and stood — albeit on shaky legs — to go after him. "Sebastian, please wait," you called, grimacing as he took your heart with him.

Ultimately, you didn't go very far. Nurse Blainey stopped you in your tracks before you could even reach the middle of the room.

—

The sun rays shining through the tall stained glass windows were warm against your skin, doing little to help with your current sleepy state as you tried to at least pretend to be paying attention to class.

"It's been nearly a week, Ominis." You groaned, folding your arms on top of the table so you could lay your head down, "do you think he's mad at me for trying to stop him?"

The boy sitting beside you chuckled quietly, twirling his wand in his hands. "Darling, I don't think Sebastian could be mad at you even if he wanted to."

Before you could ask what he meant by that, Professor Binns walked by a little too close for comfort; his ghostly form sending a shiver down your body.

"He's been spending most of his evenings hiding away in the Undercroft," Ominis felt around on the table until his fingers brushed the fabric of your robes, he gently closed his hand around your wrist and squeezed comfortingly. "I believe it would do both of you some good if you went to see him."

—

It was mostly dark out already. The sky slowly filled with stars as night settled in and a soft cold breeze hung around the DADA hallways. The pristine floors reflected the image of your shoes, pacing back and forth restlessly.

You were having second thoughts. Apprehension tugged at your heartstrings because as much as you didn't want to admit it, the sight of Sebastian walking away from you so desperately that day had stung.

Though no matter how much you stalled, you knew you'd relent. The sleepless nights you've been going through lately are enough of a telltale of the effect Sebastian has on you.

A deep breath filled your lungs and you closed your eyes, pleading for your heartbeat to settle as you pushed open the door to the Undercroft.

The familiar warmth hugged you instantly. All of the candlelights dimly shining against the stone walls forced away the frown that clung to your brows. You'd never blamed Ominis for being so protective of this place, it really was the perfect hideaway.

You found Sebastian pretty quickly. He sat on the floor against the far wall to your right, knees tucked close to his chest as his wand moved delicately, making a paper bird flap its wings and fly around in front of him. The bird fell limply to the floor when Sebastian's eyes landed on you, however. You thought you saw him gulp and straighten his back too, but other than that, the Slytherin boy expressed no other reaction upon seeing you. It felt almost as if he was expecting your arrival.

Your feet were momentarily frozen to the stone floor, Sebastian's gaze burning through your soul. You also couldn't help but notice how lonely he looked, just sitting there by himself; it made your stomach turn unpleasantly. You wondered if he considered himself deserving of it.

It was as if you spoke with your eyes for a beat. You saying that if he wanted you to leave, you would. And Sebastian pleading for you to stay.

All that could be heard were your steps echoing through the Undercroft as you carefully came to sit beside him. Your shoulder just shy of touching his.

The silence wasn't a comfortable one, but it also wasn't awkward. It was just heavy. There was a tension in the air that none of you knew how to address.

Sebastian's knuckles were white around his wand, he sat stiff beside you, not once glancing your way.

You figured that if you didn't speak, you'd be sitting in silence for hours. You glanced down at the paper bird that lay discarded on the floor, your lips quirking up just slightly as you picked it up; "you know, my mother taught me how to make these when I was younger. Without magic, that is." You chuckled. You rarely spoke about your parents, it was a sensitive topic. But it was your way of trying to make Sebastian feel more comfortable to share what he was feeling with you; what was bothering him.

"I used to get rather frustrated when I couldn't get it right the first times," you gently inspected the small bird with your fingers, thumbs running along the smooth white paper, "but she'd always tell me to take a breath, count to five, and start again."

With your eyes fixed on the paper bird in your hands, you didn't notice Sebastian's eyes fixed on your profile. The grip on his wand loosened slightly as he committed every detail of you to memory.

A shiver ran down your back when you finally turned your head to face him again. He was close, your breaths mingling as the lines of your relationship blurred and burned with the candles.

"Sebastian…" You breathed, watching the way his eyes darted to your lips and back to your eyes, "about what happened at the catacombs, I'm-"

"Don't you dare say you're sorry." He cut you off suddenly, voice quiet and a little choked, but firm.

"I am, though," you leaned your head back against the stone wall, involuntarily leaning closer to him as your body gravitated to his warmth. "I'm sorry things didn't go as planned, but I promise we're not gonna stop looking for anything else that might help Anne."

Sebastian averted his gaze from you, furrowing his brows. You saw tears steadily collecting on the bottom lid of his eyes, despite his efforts to hide them. "Stop it," he mumbled.

You shifted in your seat, your jaw set tightly in place. The beats of your heart against your chest were painful. The thought of Sebastian distancing himself from you was painful. So much so that you fear you'd be willing to do anything to fix it, within reason or not.

"I mean it, Sebastian, I will do anything-"

"Stop it! You don't get it, do you?" He snapped, his eyes burning into yours again and shining under the candlelights. "I saw you laying on the floor of that damned catacomb and I thought you were dead!" The syllables broke and stuttered past his lips, the pain and fear he felt that day came back in waves and twisted his expression.

You were stunned to silence, watching as Sebastian opened his mouth, lower lip trembling as he searched for his voice again.

"Do you have any idea of what that felt like?" He whispered, words strangled and squeezing his chest until he had trouble breathing. You were nothing but a blur in front of him. Sebastian pursed his lips to try and keep himself from breaking. Speaking it out loud somehow felt like making it real. "I thought I'd just lost you, and… and it would be my fault."

The feeling of your gentle thumb carefully brushing against his cheek brought Sebastian back to reality, and he realized his tears were already dripping down his chin.

"I would never blame you for what happened," you shook your head, smiling sadly as you felt your own eyes sting, "you were just trying to help your sister, when everyone else had given up."

"I will cure Anne… but not at the expense of you," in some ways, he looked surprised at his own words; at the truthfulness of them. He gulped back a sob, "I thought I could control it," Sebastian breathed in sharply, avoiding your gaze but leaning into your touch, "I went too far, as Ominis has probably told you a thousand times already."

You chuckled softly, sneaking your fingers over his jaw and until they disappeared between the brown locks of his hair. Sebastian closed his eyes briefly at your comforting touch, allowing himself to melt against you. "He's more understanding than you give him credit for," you smiled.

That got half a smile out of Sebastian, his freckles highlighted by the candles around you. His hand inched closer to your free one resting on your lap, the tip of his fingers timidly closing around yours, craving more of you. His pupils were blown wide when he finally looked up at you again.

"I promise to never do anything this reckless again." His low tone left no room for doubt.

You leaned in slightly, feeling his fringe tickle your forehead. You thought you heard him trying to suppress a gasp, but maybe it was your foggy mind playing tricks on you.

There was a glint in his eyes you'd never seen before, still shining with remains of his emotions; but vulnerable, calm, loving.

"I am quite fond of your reckless side, though."

Your unexpected words brought an endearing blush across Sebastian's freckles. You felt the shape of his teasing grin when his lips touched yours.

⋆* ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Thank you for reading this little story. Feedback and reblogs are literally what keeps me motivated to continue posting here, so I’d appreciate it if you could take some time to reblog and comment if you want. <3

Sebastian’s taglist: @milkiane @v1ci0us

[soaringwide]

Pick a Card: What do you need to hear right now?

Hello and welcome back to a new pick a card reading!

Today is a general and open one, where we're going to look at What you need to hear right now.

As always this is a general reading meant for multiple people so it might not resonates 100%. There are only three piles and a shit ton of you. Takes what resonates and leave out the rest.

Check out my pinned post for more pick a cards or to book a paid reading.

PILE 1

Cards: 10 of Cups, King of Swords, 5 of Swords, the Chariot, the Empress, the Hanged Man, Queen of Cups, 4 of Pentacles, the High Priestess, Sweet Oblivion, Acceptance

Right now, you seem very preoccupied, by the idea of happiness and emotional fulfillment. I see you wanting more from life and not wanting to settle for your current circumstances. You are an idealist who wishes to enjoy life to its fullest, and I think that includes multiple areas of you life because you don't want to neglect any aspect of it.

But at the same time, there is this idea that your idea of ultimate happiness is an ideal, and ideals are not reality. Reality is uncertain and mysterious, we never know what's around the corner, and I think you're trying to get a hold of that by using your logic over your heart to try to understand and break down what it is you want from life. Truth is, when we want something, even when we get it, it never quite look like what we imagined, and that's quite a struggle when we want to control outcomes.

And I think you're fully aware of the fact that there are going to be some losses on your path towards this beautiful goal of yours. Perhaps you even have already experienced some. You might be wondering if that was all worth the effort in the end and feeling quite defeated on the inside. There might be frictions with you values and feeling like you have to sacrifice something dear to you.

However, despite these sour feelings, you feel like you have to stay determined to make it work and get out of the realm of what's known and comfortable. With the Chariot paired with the Empress, representing respectively Cancer and Venus, there is this idea of slow but unstoppable movement toward you ideal. It's really hard for you to let give up, unthinkable even. Both characters are crowned in stars, representing the hope for something better and the faith you have for yourself.

What you don't see, however, is that you are currently trapped in your own perspective and struggling to see things in a new angle. You are tied to the emotional baggage of your past and it's like you're trying to run away from the pain but you can't, you're stuck with it because its part of yourself, of your story. And I think to some extent you fail to see how these past emotions are affecting the way you see the situation. You learned to be very protective of your well-being, up to a fault because, right now, this inflexibility is creating struggle and pain where there is no need for it.

I also see that you're so focused on the prize that you're blinding yourself to everything else, which is part of why you are stuck in some way.

You advice regarding this situation is all about accepting that you cannot control everything, nor that you should. As we pointed out things will not always unfold the exact way you want them to, which is not necessarily a bad thing. You don't need to know everything, to see 10 steps ahead. It's okay to not know what you are doing, no one does. Yes you are doing that because you want to feel safe, but that's not how reality works. You can't trick your mind into thinking you have full control over your life, that's a delusion, and you're missing out on the mysterious adventure that is life.

So you need to let go a bit, surrender your desire for control and float through life with peace in your heart. What will be, will be. Some things cannot be changed with force and willpower alone. Some things are out of your control and all you can do is accept and let things unfold naturally. Right now you need to let loose a little and learn to have more faith in life and to trust that sometimes, the detours are exactly what we need to experience.

Key words: crisis of faith, winning at all costs, go big or go home, sunken cost fallacy, if i don't help myself then who will, crawling out of a hole, disillusionment, swimming against the current vs floating with it

PILE 2

Cards: King of Cups, Empress, 7 of Pentacles, the Hermit, the High Priestess, 3 of Swords, Ace of Wands, 7 of Cups, 8 of Pentacles, the Hanged Man, 3 of Cups, 8 of Swords, Rebirth

What you're being asked to look at today, is your emotional balance and the emotional work you've done on yourself to nurture and repair. It seems you've been working at it for quite some time, steadily and patiently. You've been caring for yourself, healing, like a gardener working in his orchards day after day, waiting for the harvest to finally come.

And you did quite well it seems! A lot has been accomplished already. You've done the work and sought inner knowledge; with bravery you looked at every shadow, every past hurt, every trauma, and you've learnt so much from it. You really consciously took the matter into your own hands and were directly acting on your issues. It still hurts at time though and you might be wondering when it will cease to be painful. Truth is, you keep touching the wound so it's probably not helping. I see you quite stuck in waiting for this harvest, the harvest being the point where you feel finally free from all of this ready to seize life again.

You also went through a time of isolation that made you stronger, but I'm also getting that you're struggling to get out of that isolation mode out of comfort and fear mostly. Sometimes when we go through something hard, it makes us feel alienated from others, like it's hard to relate to the everyday problems of people who were lucky enough not to go through something traumatic. It can make you feel envious, or at the very least, a bit disgusted and void of interest to connect with those people, because they just don't get it, and honestly, some people lack the emotional intelligence necessary to handle people who suffered a lot…hence the isolation.

What you don't see, is that you're ruminating your problems and that it's past the point of being helpful. It's like you're going over it again and again and again, trying to see if you can find yet another answer that would end the search once and for all. You're clearly overthinking your feelings and obsessively trying to find a solution to something that has none. What is done is done. Yes you need to mourn, yes you need to let time and introspection sooth the pain, but at some point, the only thing left to do is to move forward again.

The advice regarding this is that you need to drastically change your ways. Flip the way you live on its head. The cards point at getting out of this isolation mode, because the only thing holding you back is yourself in this case. It's like you're scared of going out into the world. You might not feel ready. You might not feel strong enough. You might not feel adequate for this world. But it's not true, it's just another result of overthinking your past hurt. It's time to step out and connect with other people. Celebrate, have fun, laugh, connect with others sincerely and without fear of not being understood. Yes some people won't get it but you'll also be pleasantly surprised by others, and you won't know until you tried.

It's time to leave the old behind, the old being those past hurt you're so familiar with, and this way of being you became so used to contain yourself in. You've spent enough time in the cocoon, now is time to break free from it and spread your wings. It might not be easy in the beginning, you might need to learn to fly again and it will be scary, but it's so, so worth it.

So ask yourself what living your life fully looks like to you. If you were completely free if nothing was holding you back, what would you want to? What would you want to become? Switch the overthinking from the tiny box you stuck yourself in, to the expansiveness of a mind that wants to reach to every corner of the world. The sky is the limit and it's time you look up.

Key words: breaking the shell, chrysalis, rebirth, being stuck in a maze of your own creation, scared to open up, meaningful connections, sunlight, removing the bandage

PILE 3

Cards: 6 of Pentacles, 6 of Swords, 2 of Cups, 2 of Swords, 2 of Pentacles, 10 of Cups, Page of Swords, 3 of Cups, 5 of Swords, 7 of Swords, 10 of Pentacles, 8 of Pentacles, the Great Goddess, Spirit of the Tree

The theme of your reading today is centered around the way you connect to others, be they people or spiritual forces.

More precisely, in the act of service you do for others, with a strong emphasis on keeping the balance in the exchange and the necessity to preserving the harmony between your thoughts and feelings.

With two 6 cards in this position, this highlights reflecting on the way you find the middle point in the way you give and receive your time and energy, but also what it costs you mentally and emotionally. This is a general reading so it's quite nebulous without context, but to some it could point at a specific relationship, or if you're someone who provides service for others, it could point at that, and it could also be relevant for those who do spiritual work.

In any case, what you're clear on in this situation, is that you've reached a point of no return. It's just no possible to keep doing things as you're doing them right now. You've been contemplating this recently and reached the conclusion that you can't make everyone happy at all costs, despite your desire for things to be perfect for all involved. You are sacrificing yourself in the process, to an extent that is not healthy for you. Exchanges between people are never fully balanced and that's just reality, but in the long run you should find some type of balance and not just giving yourself to keep everyone happy but yourself.

What you don't see in this situation is that you're getting the short hand of the stick when it doesn't have to be the case. If every interaction feels like a battle that you have to fight to sourly win, then was it really a win? Others can be here for you as well, for support and enjoyable shared moments. You should be able to all get something from this. If they never give you that, is it truly worth investing yourself in it?

There is a strong need for protecting your boundaries mentally as well. You don't see how letting others step all over you is detrimental to the way you perceive life. It maintains you in your little box where you need to expand your horizon. I think you somewhat lost that side of you. The side that seeks truth, that is strongly rooted in its individuality and critical mind. The you that seeks mental stimulation and adventurous ideas.

For the advice, you need to be honest with yourself because from what I understand, you do see the situation clearly, but for some reason, you're not acting on it. It's like you're lying to yourself a bit. You keep trying to make things work in this very unbalanced state, harming yourself in this task for the sake of others.

You need to look further and think of your abundance and legacy. What will you be remembered for? For what you did to others? It's very noble of you, but what about your enjoyment of life? What about your personal goals? What about what your heart desires?

Think of trees: we now know that despite being fully rooted in themselves and being whole and independent life forms, they do live in community and are able to communicate with each others across species and help each other. The big tree provides shade to the small plants, and the small plants keep the ground moist and fertile. They all benefit from this and create an ecosystem for all to live in.

You are being called to re-balanced things within you and in your life. To get to the root of this blockage you have regarding exchange and service in order to transform yourself. Perhaps what you're doing is actually detrimental to your ultimate goal, and being a bit more focused on yourself, selfish, even, would be the key for more stability.

Key words: giving and receiving, overworking yourself, beneficial selfishness, harmony between extremes, losing yourself in the work, waking up to what matters to you, long term goal, the wisdom of trees, creation and destruction