#we can do better. we can absolutely all do better.

[gravegoer]

ok ok hiiiii hope your doing well! Um this may be odd, but, imagine an au where fem reader sleeps in the same bed as best friend sevika but place a few pillows between each other because fem reader believes she's not into girls despite her best friend being an absolute hottie 😞

My Best Friend ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

this is ALSO one of my fav tropes, so thank you for this.. and yes I'm doing well ty summary: sevika could treat u better than he can !!! never let a man stop you from finding your wife. thats the moral for tday.

masterlist , upcoming: "First time" and "Safeword" wink

Sevika has been your best friend for a few years (although she would never admit it) and shes seen you through your best and worst.

After breakups with shitty men, she knows to find you at the last drop, laughing at your drunken state before dragging you home.

This was one of those nights.

She had you slung over her shoulder while she keyed the lock on her door, grunting at your head that lulled on her shoulder, "Are we home..?"

Sevika nodded, dragging you through the doorway and sitting you on the couch gently. She grabbed a glass from the kitchen and filled it with water for you. Her heavy shoes thudded on the wooden floor as she made her way back to you.

Sitting beside you, she held your chin, pouring water into your mouth, "I don't like seeing you with those blunder-heads."

You gulped down the cold water greedly, attempting to soothe the dryness in your throat. You held her by the wrist to steady her hand.

Sevika scoffed, and you knew she was referring to your exes. You giggled at her seriousness, "I don't think I like being with them."

You felt the pressure lift from your head, feeling more sober. Clinging to Sevikas arm, you sighed, looking up at her. "You're lucky you dont have to deal with boyfriends."

Her features twisted, contorting into a sour look, "You don't have to either."

"Hm?" You hummed, mindlessly tracing the rim of your glass.

"I mean, you could always try women."

You laughed and said teasingly, "Like at the brothel?"

Her eyes widened, and her brows furrowed, lips almost pulled into a pout, "No, no, like a girlfriend."

"What? Are you volunteering?" You smacked her on the arm and laid back further into the couch.

She smirked, Sevika’s cocky demeanor returning to her, "I wouldn't mind teaching you a few things."

You made a fake sound of disgust but laughed afterward. Although you couldn't deny she was beautiful, her thick arm was warm in your hold, and the angles of her face softened when you spoke.

Sevika treated you like no man ever had before. She was sweet in her own way, ans actually listened to what you had to say. You know she would never do anything to hurt you, and infact she was the one that picked you up after you got hurt.

You had never been interested in women, but Sevika definitely piqued your interest. Maybe it was all the memories you shared or the way she treated you. But maybe it was the way her V line connected to the waistband of her pants, emphazised by the warm light, the way her hair stuck to her sharp jaw that clenched under your gaze.

She interrupted your thoughts, "It's late, you should get to bed."

"Already? You aren't going to stay?"

She smirked again, revealing the flattering gao between her teeth, "All you have to do is ask, doll."

Heat rose to your face at the nickname. Maybe it was just the alcohol in your system, but it was starting to get hotter. You bit your lip, looking up at her through your lashes, "Please stay Sevika, I'll even make you breakfast before you leave in the morning."

That was music to her ears. At that, she stood up, grabbing your waist to take you with her. Eventually, she got tired of your stumbling and slowness and picked you up, arm under your legs, and prosthetic on your upperback.

You smiled, wrapping your arms around her neck, throwing your head back dramatically. She shook her head at your playfulness while kicking open your door.

Sevika tossed you onto the bed as gently as possible, and your eyes widened at the suggestive position you were in. She loomed over you, shadowing your body. Your knees were slightly bent and legs spread, almost inviting her between.

You could imagine her crawling up to you, hands pushing your knees apart to draw your face into hers. Instead, she sat beside you, leaning against the headboard and lighting a cigar.

Rolling your eyes, you pulled the blankets over you and laid facing away from her. She snickered at your mood change and patted you on the shoulder, "I want pancakes."

You didn't respond, humming at the thought of food. For the next several minutes, you could hear her mindlessly flicking her zippo top open and closed, flame flicking on and off.

You imagined her thick fingers against the cool metal, fire illuminating her always-bruised knuckles. Then, you imagined her fingers on your waist, then in your hair—

You groaned, shoving your face in the pillow, attempting to drown out the thoughts. The sound of her zippo halted before a small tiss, was heard.

You could feel the weight shift behind you as she moved to lay down, resting a hand on your back. Shimmying away from her touch, you rolled over to face her.

Sevika's eyes opened, and you immediately missed the peaceful look on her face. Now her brow was cocked and her lips curled downward.

Her grey eyes bore into yours as you spoke, "Only my girlfriend should be touching me in bed like that."

You mocked her words from earlier, but without any harshness. Her lips drew into a tight line, "I get it. You aren't into women. Im not trying anything funny."

She didn't have to say it because you knew she wouldn't. But a part of you didn't quite mind if she did.

"Okay, then—"

You picked up a few pillows, placing them between your bodies. "There."

She deadpanned, "Are you serious?"

You snickered, not responding, before turning back to your original position. After a few seconds, you heard her sigh and lay back down, definitely facing you. Sevika reached over the barrier to tug the blanket further up your frame, shielding you from the cold.

She treated you better than any man had, and you both knew it. Maybe you'll finally do something about it over some drinks tomorrow.

i laaaaauuuvvvvvvv best friend sevika, idk if ill make a part 2 tho, i have some more fics coming out soon, some kind of suggestive?? and nsfw..????!! so follow for that, all cumming this week

comment to be added <333

taglist: @thequeenreaders @hangezoes-wife @thesecondhandwoman @slut4sevika @kylorey25 @sylencr @jinxjinxjinx12 @morphids

[dollishmehrayan]

# BATBOYS WITH A SUNSHINE!READER ── .✦ ( basically batboys with a optimistic reader )

a/n: this was requested by anon (here) but anywayss i think I’m gonna do the world tour thing after my winter inspired fics/hcs end on like February 28th! (Dw i’ll still do the world tour thingy in between) but yahh also I desperately need writer mutals + mutals I mssg daily like I’m a very kind person idm if you dm me at like 4 AM, tags: (batboys x fem!reader)

© dollishmehrayan — ( all rights reserved to me. These works cannot be reposted, translated, or modified. Thank you for understanding dollies! )

DICK GRAYSON ── .✦

Absolutely smitten. Your optimism is like a magnet for Dick, who thrives on positivity.

He calls you his “little ray of sunshine” (even if you roll your eyes at the nickname).

If he’s feeling down, your relentless optimism is a game changer. “How do you do that? How do you make the world seem so… bright all the time?”

Constantly teases you, especially if you’re being overly cheerful during random moments. “Are you seriously smiling right now? We’re getting ready to head to bed!”

But secretly, he loves it. Your energy balances his occasional doubts && insecurities. (he lovesss positive people who live in their own world)

Dick starts picking up on your habits leaving little notes of encouragement, giving random compliments to strangers and realizes how much better it makes his day.

JASON TODD ── .✦

At first, he’s skeptical. He’s not used to someone so genuinely cheerful, and he might think you’re putting on an act.

“How are you this happy all the time? What’s your secret? Coffee? Dark magic?”, “I just like seeing the world differently, I’m a poet in my mind.”

But over time, he warms up to your positivity and even craves it (to a point he gets sad if you aren’t around for more than 4 hours). You’re the light that cuts through his darker moments and more sulking personality.

“I don’t know how you do it, but you make me feel like the world’s not completely screwed.”, “what did you say?-“, “Nothing go back to sleep.”

He pretends to be annoyed when you try to cheer him up after a rough day, but he secretly loves when you coax a laugh out of him.

Jason starts jokingly calling you his “emotional support sunshine.” He’ll tell Roy, “Yeah, they’re like my personal antidepressant.”

Will protect your positivity at all costs. If anyone tries to dim your light, they’ll have to deal with him.

TIM DRAKE ── .✦

Finds your optimism so refreshing. Tim can be a little too caught up in stress and overthinking, so your energy is like a breath of fresh air.

He’s constantly asking, “How are you so happy all the time? Teach me your ways.”

If you leave him little notes of encouragement, he’ll treasure them forever. He has a drawer full of them and pulls one out whenever he’s having a bad day.

Sometimes, your cheerfulness makes him feel a little guilty. “You’re so good, and here I am being a grump.” But you always remind him it’s okay to have bad days.

Tim loves how you bring optimism even to his most chaotic moments. “Yeah, sure, we’re being late, but hey, at least it’s not raining, right?”

He’d be a little overwhelmed by your energy at times, but he admires you deeply for seeing the good in everything.

DAMIAN WAYNE ── .✦

Damian does not know what to do with you at first. Your cheerfulness is a complete mystery to him.

“Why are you smiling? We are surrounded by incompetence.”

He pretends to be annoyed, but deep down, he finds your positivity oddly comforting.

Over time, he starts looking forward to your optimistic take on things. “Yes, fine, maybe there is a silver lining. Stop gloating.”

You have a knack for breaking through his tough exterior. If he’s grumpy, you’ll say something so genuinely kind that he can’t help but soften.

Damian secretly loves how you see the good in him, even when he doesn’t see it himself.

He starts to mimic your habits, like giving Alfred small compliments or trying to look on the bright side, but he’ll deny it if you call him out.

BRUCE WAYNE ── .✦

Bruce admires your positivity but doesn’t always understand it. “How do you manage to stay so cheerful in Gotham of all places?”

At first, he worries your optimism will make you naive, but he quickly realizes it’s your strength.

Your energy is a stark contrast to his brooding nature, and he starts leaning on it more than he cares to admit.

When he’s stuck in his head or doubting himself, you always know what to say to pull him out of it.

“You make it sound so simple,” he says after you give him one of your pep talks. But he smiles because somehow, you do make it simple.

You bring a sense of warmth and nostalgia into the Wayne Manor. Bruce finds himself more relaxed when you’re around, even in the middle of chaos.

He’ll never admit it to the others, but your optimism is one of his favorite things about you.

[reconstructwriter]

Absolutely agree with all of this and @kailthia "From my own experience and from talking to other people about their experiences as kids and teens, letting your kids do mild weird shit often prevents them from doing bigger, more actively dangerous shit."

As kids my sister and I were allowed to do all this stuff and we turned out just fine too. Our parents weren't the only ones afforded such a loose hand - and for the better. Those parents who did look down on 'backbone parenting' with the temporary tattoos, my sister for shaving her head and both of us for dressing how we wanted? They were astounded at how responsible we were as teenagers.

The little things can also lead to important lessons. Let kids do what they want with their bodies such as haircuts and clothes, and they're less likely to put up with big stuff like physical abuse of their bodies as adults. Get kids input on family meals can teach valuable skills like making grocery lists, food budgeting, healthy eating and cooking.

On the flip side being a tyrant about little things can lead to big consequences. Highly regulated desserts as a child can lead to those young adults eating pretty much nothing but dessert there - an unhealthy and rather expensive habit. Especially after the cavities set in.

Ok, so here’s a thing. I talk a lot about autonomy and freedom for children, and a lot of times that comes up in really radical ways, dropping out of school, running away from home, *big life choices*.

But that’s not the only place where we curtail kids’ freedoms. Like, say a little girl’s getting a haircut and she wants to get half her head shaved so she looks like Natalie Dormer in The Hunger Games, like, first the barber’s going to look to the parent for permission (which is already fucked up) and then the parent’s almost certainly going to say no and tell the barber to trim a few inches off or whatever it is they think their hair should look like and…

What I’m getting at is that so many of the things we think we need to protect our kids from are *fucking harmless*. Shaving their heads, going to the supermarket in a spiderman costume, eating ketchup for dinner, these things are not going to seriously harm anyone. In so far as they are mistakes, they are mistakes that kids should be able to just make and gracefully recover from.

And I think the mindset here – that children need to present *normally* because otherwise what will people think of them, and what will people think of their parents – is *precisely* the same mindset that leads to abusive shit like “quiet hands” and ABA. That it doesn’t matter what they want, what’s good for their well-being, what matters is that they *look and act* “normally”.

Like it seems like there’s something akin to a curb-cut effect here? Where this mindset hurts developmentally disabled children more, a lot more, but maybe the most efficient thing to do is just to tear it out by the root, to criticize it wherever we see it? 

Like it’d be nice if we could just say, if they’re not hurting anyone, kids should be allowed to look and act the way they want to, they should be able to cut their own hair or flap or crossdress or refuse eye-contact or have cereal for dinner or not want to be touched and it should be the parent’s *responsibility* to fiercely defend their child’s right to do those things and set those boundaries against anyone who wants to give them shit for it, not to victim-blame and say no you can’t do those things because people will give me shit about it if you do.

[avelera]

Can we hear your thoughts on Jayce’s and Viktor’s intelligence? I can’t help but feel like Jayce is often…dumbed down. Which feels insulting to the both of them.

Rarrrr.... I should be doing other things... but this is a rage button issue for me... so....

Jayce is just as smart as Viktor.

The reason he doesn't come across as just as smart has multiple elements:

1 ) Arcane S1 in particular does a lot of sleight of hand to set up Jayce as facing down a corruption arc where he's tempted by fame and power. They achieve this in multiple ways. On an emotional level, they often zoom out for his more tender lines and zoom in when he says something dumb or unfortunate.

Intellectually, they tend to show things like his chalkboard after the fact, when he's not at it, but they show things like Viktor actively working in the lab quite a lot. Basically, we see Viktor doing a lot more active science stuff while he's doing it, but with Jayce we tend to see the effects of the science stuff he's already done, like presenting prototypes that are already made, him holding hexgems that are already created, showing equations and notes of his that are already complete instead of showing him making them.

Overall, this creates a visual impression that Jayce is the dumber of the two, because we see him doing less actively, but if you pay attention he's doing at least as much science as Viktor regularly, it's just more off-screen.

2 ) Viktor wouldn't partner with someone who's not as smart as him.

Viktor reroutes his entire life to work with Jayce after reading his notes on Hextech. It's insulting to Viktor's intelligence to think he would "lower himself" to working with Jayce. Jayce is his equal, his partner, they compliment each other and both accomplish things the other couldn't.

For my money, Viktor is the more out-of-the-box thinker, Jayce comes from a family of tool makers and he tends to think in straight lines, most of his innovations are direct results of the spells he saw his Mage do, like weightlessness and transportation, while Viktor tends to come up with things like the Hexclaw and the Hexcore.

But both are also craftsmen and tinkerers, and it was Jayce's idea originally to do magic with technology, Viktor is working with him to innovate on that vision.

3 ) Jayce is a better public speaker and he's physically attractive and muscular, in a way that makes people underestimate his intelligence. It is very common for people who are good at speaking, people who are of above average attractiveness and, god forbid, people who keep an exercise routine to be seen as less smart even though those things have nothing to do with one another. Because Jayce is seen as the "face" of Hextech it's assumed that he's the lesser intellectual partner, when the truth is, it's just a division of labor. Viktor is terrible at public speaking and doesn't like doing it, Jayce is charismatic so he does it.

He's not a gym jock, his muscles come from the forge where he makes absolutely mind-bogglingly advanced items like Caitlyn's sniper rifle and his own hammer, the guy is basically making Hadron Colliders over an anvil. But because people tend to judge based on appearances, people tend to think he's dumb.

4 ) Jayce thinks in straight lines. He's incredibly direct. The reason he agrees to raid the Shimmer Factory with Vi is because he's sick of politics and he's sick of the corruption, and he wants to just deal with a problem directly. That's why he and Vi bring out the worst in each other, because they both think like that, and straight lines aren't always the best way to tackle a difficult problem, but Jayce is a scientist, he's used to seeing a problem and just fucking solving it.

The problem is, that doesn't work for all problems. He's incredibly smart as an engineer, literally Ambessa can't even find a scientist in Piltover as good as him and Viktor, but he's not widely read. He's not a politician or a diplomat or a social scientist. This also lends to the perception that he's dumb but you'll notice, Viktor is never put in a position to make decisions like that, Mel is never put in lab to solve a scientific equation, and in general, most characters aren't put in a position where they have to perform at the top of more than one field in the way Jayce is, so yeah, Jayce ends up looking dumb because he has to handle being the leader of a city when he spent his life working on Hextech and promoting Hextech. Of course he's not going to be perfect.

But that's also another case of sleight of hand, we see Jayce failing at more things because we see him thrown in a position to impact more things. A lot of characters maintain their image of being smarter or more skilled than him because they're not asked to work outside their range of skills nearly so often.

[capquinn]

I think abt decorating the apartment with Quinn and then he tricks you into getting under the mistletoe with him and goes “oh you remember the rules”

blushing and kicking my feet picturing this. what a sweet thought 😭🥹

It happens when you least expect it.

One moment, you’re carefully arranging stockings along the mantle — because Quinn’s first attempt had them completely uneven and absolutely not aesthetically pleasing — and the next, he’s suddenly loitering in the doorway to the kitchen with that look on his face. The one that says he’s up to something.

“Hey, can you come here for a sec?” he calls, his tone so casual it immediately puts you on edge.

You glance over your shoulder, already suspicious. “If you’ve tangled the lights again…”

He laughs, shaking his head, hands tucked behind his back like he’s hiding something. “Nope. Lights are good. Just come here.”

You hesitate, narrowing your eyes at him. “Why do I feel like you’re up to something?”

“I’m not up to anything,” he insists, but his grin is too big, too playful to be convincing.

Against your better judgment, you leave the stockings and make your way toward him. The closer you get, the more obvious it becomes that he’s hiding something.

“Alright,” you say, stopping just shy of the doorway. “What is it?”

He tilts his head ever so slightly, feigning innocence as his gaze flicks upward.

That’s when you see it: the small sprig of mistletoe dangling right above where he’s standing.

Your jaw drops as you look back at him, and he’s already grinning, the picture of shameless mischief.

“Oh, would you look at that,” he says, glancing up toward the mistletoe like it’s just magically appeared, his voice dripping with mock surprise.

“You actually put up mistletoe,” you say, crossing your arms but stepping closer anyway.

He nods, completely unfazed. “It’s festive. Classic. Very on theme,” he says, his tone so casual it’s almost believable. Almost.

“All this just to sneak a kiss?” you tease, shaking your head, though you can’t stop the grin that creeps in.

He shrugs, the picture of feigned nonchalance, but there’s a warmth in his gaze that gives him away. As you come to a stop in front of him, his hands slide to your waist, his touch light but firm enough to pull you closer.

“You know the rules,” he murmurs, his lips quirking up in that boyish grin that always gets to you.

You roll your eyes but don’t pull away, letting his thumbs brush against your sides as his nose dips, brushing against yours.

“Feels a little desperate, Quinn,” you tease softly, your hands slipping up to rest on his chest. “You could’ve just asked.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he murmurs, dipping his head slightly to press a quick kiss to your hair. His breath is warm, the soft affection in the gesture making your stomach flip in that familiar way only he can manage.

“Very smooth,” you say, tipping your head back to meet his gaze, eyes sparkling. “Did you rehearse this?”

He hums thoughtfully, his forehead dropping to rest lightly against yours. “You think I need to rehearse to get a kiss from you?”

“Maybe,” you tease back, your lips twitching. “Depends on how much you want it.”

His laugh is quiet, his nose brushing against yours again before his lips find your cheek. “More than you’d think,” he says softly, his voice dropping just enough to send a warmth blooming in your chest.

You lean into him now, your hands curling into the fabric of his sweater. “So what now, Hughes? Are we just gonna stand here, or are you gonna—”

Before you can finish, his lips are on yours, soft and deliberate, stealing the rest of your words in a kiss that’s as playful as it is tender. His hands tighten at your waist, pulling you closer with a quiet ease, his thumb brushing lazy circles against your side. The kiss deepens naturally, unhurried and warm, his nose brushing against yours in a way that feels achingly intimate. There’s no rush, just the quiet certainty of his touch, his lips lingering on yours like he’s savouring the moment, like he doesn’t want it to end. When he finally pulls back, his breath mingles with yours, and the faintest smile curves his lips — soft, teasing, a little smug.

“Still think it’s desperate?” he murmurs, his voice low, warm, and entirely too pleased with himself.

“Maybe,” you reply, breathless but grinning, rising onto your toes. You press a soft, fleeting kiss to his lips, just enough to leave him leaning in for more. “But it’s working for you.”

[slashmagpie]

Break Like an Artist

My fic for @hermitadaymay's Solstice Social Collaborative Fanwork Event! I was paired up with the wonderful @eydilily to create something spooky, dramatic and contemplative featuring Gem and Pearl, and it's been an absolute blast putting this together. Please go check out Eydi's art for this AU, it's absolutely gorgeous. CWs: description of a corpse, dismemberment, loss of awareness, fire/flooding/destruction, and depiction of a panic attack. Wordcount: 5.8k

There is a plague sweeping Pearl's hometown.

One by one, she watches as her friends fall to the infection, the colour and life drained out of them and leaving hollow, apathetic husks behind. Even with the devastating loss of her friends, her village, and her regular life, the worst part of this situation is not the infection.

It's that Pearl knows that Gem is the one spreading it.

[Read on AO3]

It’s a grey day in the fishing village that Pearl calls her home. Not that it’s ever not a grey day, at least not anymore. She stares out of her window at the thick encompassing fog that’s claimed the bay, at the desaturated buildings that dot the shore, and she twirls her paintbrush in her fingers. 

The canvas is blank, of course. She doesn’t remember the last time she sat down to paint and didn’t end up with a blank canvas. It must have been—months ago, at least. Back when the last monster from the depths had attacked, and not a single person had had the heart to fight back. When Tango’s house had been shattered in two, and Tango with it.

(He seems to be dealing well with the loss of his arm, at least. Or, as well as you can deal with anything, when the only things inside of you are all-consuming numbness and apathy. Pearl feels it in her chest, the yawning emptiness, and thinks that if she were to lose her arm right here and now, she also wouldn’t be able to summon the energy to care.)

She’d painted after that, though. She remembers it vividly, waking from a nightmare and running to her studio to capture lashing tentacles and inky waters and splatters of crimson blood. It’s a frenzied piece, a disturbing piece, and the moment she’d finished it she’d been filled with so much dread that she’d turned it around to face the wall and refused to look at it since.

The dread’s gone now. Along with the anxiety, and the uncertainty, and the fear. It’s all gone, and Pearl’s left sitting here, paints drying on the palette as she stares at an empty canvas.

Across the house, she hears her front door swing open and closed. A familiar voice shouts, “Pearl? Pearl, where are you?”

“Studio,” Pearl calls back, her voice flat. She continues to twirl the paintbrush as she waits for Gem to trek her way across the house to find her.

“Studio,” Gem echoes as she pushes open the door. “Oh, Pearl, are you painting again? Oh, I’m so happy for—oh.” The joy in her voice vanishes as she takes in Pearl, sitting on her stool, paintbrush raised and canvas empty. “Oh, Pearl…” 

Sympathy. Pity. Concern. Pearl can pick apart the emotions in Gem’s voice, even if she can’t feel them herself. She stares back blankly, because she can’t find it in herself to care about either aspect of the situation, whether it be her own inability to paint or the way that Gem’s looking at her like she’s a wounded animal.

“Come on,” Gem says softly, crossing the room and gently prying the brush from Pearl’s fingers. Pearl lets her. She’s not really painting, anyway. “Let’s get you to bed, shall we? A nap will do you some good.”

Pearl lets Gem help her up, lets Gem allow Pearl to lean on her for support as they make their way back to Pearl’s bedroom. It’s not like Pearl has any difficulty walking. She’s not sick, she’s not injured, she’s just…

Cold. Empty. Not quite lifeless, not in the way Mumbo had been when she’d last seen him, skin and eyes and hair all the same shade of grey-white-nothingness as he’d stared into the distance, completely unresponsive. Listless, maybe, is the better word. She’s halfway to a fate worse than death and she cannot find it in her to care at all.

She feels colder where Gem touches her. She looks down, and she’s not sure if it’s her eyes playing tricks on her, or if her skin is more desaturated where it brushes against Gem’s. She lets Gem help her into bed, lets Gem fluff the pillows and fuss around her, lets Gem sit next to her as she hands Pearl a bowl of soup (“Your favourite!”) and watches her to make sure she eats.

If Pearl were more herself, she would care about what Gem’s doing to her. Care enough to stop it, maybe. Care enough to—no, not to confront her. Every time she’d tried, the words had gotten stuck in her throat. Because she’s known for a long time who’s been behind all of this, behind the corruption leeching all colour from their village, their home, their friends—

And she’d never said anything. Too worried about Gem’s feelings. Too worried about their friendship.

…Pearl realises, as Gem goes to take the empty bowl and brushes her hands against Pearl’s, that she’s not worried anymore.

She waits quietly as Gem washes the bowl in her kitchen, chattering to fill the silence as she does, updating Pearl on their friends’ conditions. Her tone is bright and optimistic, even as her words are dour. Scar seems to be doing the same. Grian’s getting worse. Joel’s down to communicating only in broken phrases—but he should be fine. It definitely won’t be like Mumbo, or Cub, or…

Gem returns to Pearl’s room, regarding her for a long moment before bending down to give her a hug. “Get better soon, okay?” she says into Pearl’s ear. “It’s not the same doing my rounds without you.”

Pearl knows that she’s not getting better. So does Gem, so Pearl doesn’t bother pointing it out. She just nods, lets Gem withdraw, lets Gem run one last hand through her hair.

“You should rest, Pearl,” Gem says, stepping away from Pearl’s bedside. “I’m going to go check on Impy now—”

Pearl’s moving before she’s even properly registered it, grabbing onto Gem’s wrist with force, holding her in place. Gem freezes. Pearl looks up at her through strands of greasy, greying hair.

“Gem,” she says, and it’s the first thing she’s said in days, and her voice is hoarse and her throat sore from the strain.

“...Pearl?” Gem replies, and she sounds almost scared.

“Gem,” Pearl repeats, getting used to the sound of her own voice in her mouth again. “I know.”

Gem laughs. It’s a nervous, tittering sound, the laugh Pearl remembers from when they’d gotten into trouble together as kids. “Know what?” she asks, voice strained. 

“That it’s you,” Pearl says flatly. 

Gem stares at her.

Pearl stares back.

Gem swallows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “Pearl—”

“I know you’re the one doing this to us,” Pearl says, more specific this time, choosing her words carefully, and Gem—

Gem tries to pull away.

Pearl tightens her grip. 

“Pearl,” Gem whines, eyes wide, tugging. “Let me go—”

“Why?” Pearl croaks, and Gem snaps her mouth shut.

---

Pearl’s in the midst of mixing a particularly tricky shade of green when there’s a loud, frantic knock on her front door. She sighs, setting down her brush to rest, and gets to her feet. “I’m coming, I’m coming, hold on!” she calls as the knocks continue, echoing through the house.

She pulls the door open and Tango’s there, a nervous ball of energy, just about ready to bolt. “Pearl!” he calls. “Pearl, come on, we gotta go—” 

He grabs her by the arm and drags her off. Pearl just barely manages to close her front door behind her.

“Wha—? Where are we going? What’s going on?”

“Something washed up on shore,” Tango explains. “The whole town’s there, c’mon.”

Accepting that she’s not going to get an explanation out of him, and now deeply curious about this something, she lets Tango lead her down to the shore by the lighthouse. Sure enough, the whole town is there, a chattering crowd gathered around a spot on the shore that Pearl can’t quite see. Impulse is standing on the edge of the crowd and catches sight of them, raising his arm in a wave. Tango makes a beeline towards him, ducking under the crowd, and Pearl follows behind, apologising to False and Keralis as she bumps into them.

“Did you decide what to do with it yet?” Tango asks as he comes to a halt and finally lets Pearl go.

Impulse shakes his head. “We’ve decided it’s Gem’s call,” he says. “After all, she’s the—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence as the crowd suddenly goes silent and parts for Gem, her hair wild and eyes wide behind her thick-rimmed glasses. She’s got her lab coat pulled on over her day clothes, clearly not prepared for this in the slightest. She reaches the front of the crowd and stops dead still, staring at the thing that has washed up on the shore.

Pearl follows her friend’s gaze, and sees it for the first time.

It’s a body. Of course it is. A corpse, taken by the sea and ravaged by the waves and washed ashore by the brutal bay currents. The body’s clothes are torn and sodden, the skin beneath so pale that it could practically be paper. Pearl is stricken, for a moment, with the mental image of her taking a brush to this canvas, filling it back in with colour, painting contours back into its skin, breathing life back into the body.

She shakes her head violently, banishing the thought. Where did that come from? This isn’t a canvas, it’s—

It’s a person. A person who was alive, and is now dead, washed up on the beach like a dead whale and just as much of a spectacle. His eyes are open but rolled back, only the whites showing, and his hair is white too, just as pale as his skin. It stands as sharp contrast against the dark fabric of his torn clothes, a mask wrapped around the bottom half of his face.

Pearl swallows hard and averts her gaze back to Gem, who looks just as disturbed by the body as Pearl feels. It takes Gem longer to pull her eyes away, to glance around the crowd. “I’ll—I’ll take it back to my lab,” she says. “Investigate, and—and give him a proper burial.”

The words reassure the crowd, a low chatter beginning up again. 

“Skizz, will you help me carry him?” Gem calls.

Skizz does, stepping forward from the crowd and helping Gem maneuver the bloated corpse. Pearl finds herself looking at it again, noticing dark striations in the skin, caught in glimpses between the tears in the clothing as it’s moved. 

She shakes her head again, forces herself to look away as the body is carried out and the crowd disperses. The image of the body lingers in her mind. Something settles uncomfortably in her stomach, and she wishes that she’d never opened the door.

---

Things go back to normal after that. Or, well, as normal as they get in the village, at least. False monitors the currents and warns of any incoming floods or monster attacks. Impulse and Tango work maintenance on the fishing boats that Grian and Skizz and Keralis take out into the bay. Mumbo runs the fish market. Cub and Scar come and go along the trading routes. Joel maintains security, or at least the illusion of it.

Gem hides away in her lab running experiments she never explains, and Pearl paints.

She tries to return to her usual fare, brightly-coloured landscapes with fantastical features, but something about her paintings rings hollow when she looks at them. She decides she needs a change, to switch things up and just relax, so she pulls out her paints and a blank canvas and begins with no intentions. Her movements are fluid and free and thoughtless and she falls into a flow state that lasts hours, until she blinks her eyes and awakes to find a portrait before her, a colourless face in full saturation.

The corpse’s visage, so alive she can’t believe it’s not breathing, stares back at her from her easel, and Pearl flinches like she’s been burned.

She hides that painting away, face turned towards the wall, and returns to painting landscapes. They come easier now, and for a time Pearl feels normal, as long as she ignores the canvas in the corner.

It’s Impulse who notices that there’s something wrong first. It’s not surprising that he’d be the first to pick up on it, really. Skizz is his best friend, after all. Of course he’d notice when Skizz stopped laughing, stopped joking, stopped drumming out tunes with his fingers on the side of his boat. And when Pearl sees him, she notices changes too—his skin paler, like he’s spent several weeks locked inside a basement instead of out in the summer sun, his eyes no longer their regular bright blue.

“Hey, Skizzly,” she greets brightly, trying to play at normal, throwing him a bone to grab onto.

Skizz just glances at her before responding with a flat, “Oh, hey Pearl.”

Pearl’s smile falters. “How are you feeling? Impulse told me you’re a little under the weather.”

Skizz shrugs. “Fine, I guess. Did you need something?”

Pearl swallows, something cold sinking in her guts. “No, no, just checking in on you.”

“Gem already checked on me,” Skizz says. “She said I’m not sick.”

“Gem’s not that type of doctor,” Pearl reminds him with a weak smile.

Skizz shrugs again. “She’s the only doctor we’ve got.”

Pearl tries her best not to let that unsettle her.

---

It’s not just Skizz.

It starts with him, but it doesn’t end there. Keralis is next, and then Grian. Mumbo gets sickest the quickest, going from his anxious, affable self to a nearly-unresponsive husk within a week. That scares them all, because even Skizz is still responding when spoken to, still moving when instructed to, even after nearly a month of being infected with… whatever it is that’s going around.

False gets sick without anyone noticing, sequestered away in her lighthouse until she comes into town for groceries looking like a photograph that’s been left in the sun for too long, and that’s when people really start to panic.

And that’s when Gem declares, with all the authority that being a doctor of anthropology afforded her in a tiny town with no real doctor, that she’s putting everyone into quarantine until they can determine the source of the illness. 

“I’m not sick,” Pearl tells Gem when her friend knocks on her door, dressed in full lab gear, her hair out of its usual ponytail and falling forward around her face. She’s pretty sure she isn’t, at least, having hyper-analysed the shade of blue in her eyes in the mirror every morning for the past month. 

“I know,” Gem says. “I want to—I need to—can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Pearl says, stepping aside. “Of course.”

Gem enters, heading down the stairs into Pearl’s living space and staring at the paintings on the wall. Pearl watches her for a moment before stepping closer, resting a reassuring hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“What’s eating you?” she asks.

Gem snorts out a laugh at that. “I’m not a real doctor, Pearl,” she says.

“I know that.”

“They all need me to be a real doctor for them. I—” She breaks off, runs an anxious hand through her hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I need help.”

Pearl raises her eyebrows. “I don’t know how I can help,” she says. “I’m even less of a doctor than you are.”

“I know,” Gem says. “But you’re my friend, and I trust you, and I need—please?”

She stares at Pearl, bright green eyes magnified through thick glasses lenses. Pearl has never been able to say no to those eyes.

“Okay,” she agrees, letting out an uncertain breath. “Okay. What do you need me to do, Dr. Tay?”

Gem laughs again, high-pitched and anxious, and Pearl feels hot and cold all at once.

---

They do house calls. Once a day, Gem and Pearl, and sometimes Impulse, will make a round of the village, checking in on everyone. Gem brings some of her lab equipment and a notebook, where she scribbles down all the readings she takes from her instruments and any observations she makes. After the first week or so, Pearl also takes to bringing a sketchbook and a small travel painting kit, attempting to record the desaturation rate in her friends’ colours. 

It doesn’t matter which way they look at it—the situation is bad, and rapidly getting worse. Most of the town is infected now, and Skizz is approaching Mumbo’s level of deterioration. Cub fell ill two weeks ago, and Tango—

Well, he’s not quite grey yet, but he looks washed out where he sits at his table, especially next to Gem, all bright copper and ocean blue and forest green. His voice is flat, all of the emotion in it gone, and while he responds in full sentences to Gem’s questions as Pearl attempts to capture the moulded-straw colour of his hair, none of his words sound like him. 

Gem wraps up her check-in, and Pearl follows her out, paints packed away in her bag and sketchbook held carefully so as not to smudge the paint. Impulse is waiting for them outside, staring out into the bay, where a low-lying fog has been hanging for days. 

He glances over at them, voice shaking as he asks, “How is he?”

Gem hesitates. “About the same?” she offers. 

Pearl shakes her head. “Worse,” she says, offering her sketchbook to Impulse, pointing out the differences in values between the colours she’d sampled from Tango two days ago to the ones she’d taken today. 

Impulse’s hands are trembling as he hands the sketchbook back to her. “What do we do?” he asks. “They just keep getting worse—Gem, what do we do?”

Gem’s eyes are fixed somewhere out at sea. Her expression is so scarily blank that Pearl would worry she was infected if not for how bright and vibrant she looks against the backdrop of the village. (Are the houses getting greyer? Surely not—surely it’s just the fog, and the fact that the sky has been overcast for a fortnight now—surely—)

“We look after them best we can,” Gem says. “I’m trying—every night I’m working on a cure.”

“And do you think it’ll work?” Impulse pushes.

“I have to,” Gem replies. “It has to.” 

Pearl swallows, and does not voice what all three of them are thinking: what if it doesn’t?

---

Impulse turns up one morning a shade dimmer than he had been the day before. Pearl notices immediately, her stomach lurching at the sight of him. He offers her a smile that’s smaller than his usual ones, a greeting that’s a little flatter than it would usually be. Pearl’s not sure if Gem even notices.

But Pearl notices, and her eyes sting, and she throws herself at him in a way that catches all three of them off-guard.

“Uh, Pearl?” Impulse says, stiff and uncomfortable beneath her. “You okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Pearl mumbles against his ear.

“Pearl?” There’s a peak of distress in his voice but it’s not enough. Gem hears it, too.

“Oh no,” she breathes.

“Okay, guys, seriously,” Impulse says, pushing Pearl away. “What’s going on?”

They just stare at him.

Realisation dawns across Impulse’s face. “No.” 

“Maybe…” Gem sucks in a breath. She reaches out to take his hand and squeezes it. “Maybe you should go home, Impy. Get some rest.”

“I’m fine,” Impulse protests. “I’m…” His protest crumbles under their gazes. He slumps, and Pearl knows that he would normally never crumble like that. He’d protest and fight back and keep working until he passed out on the docks and had to be carried back to bed.

“C’mon,” she says softly. “I’ll help you home.”

Impulse doesn’t protest that either. He knows, as well as the two of them do, how this ends. He knows that there’s no fighting this.

Pearl, very valiantly, does not cry about it.

---

With everyone except the two of them infected, Pearl manages to convince Gem to split the rounds, with her taking half of the houses, and Gem taking the other half, swapping halves every couple of days. Gem is reluctant, but she has no good argument against Pearl’s that this is more practical, and so she agrees.

And that’s when Pearl notices.

She thinks she’s imagining it at first, but the colour swatches in her sketchbook back up her suspicions, damning evidence she can’t ignore.

When she visits her rounds, she finds that the people she’s visiting appear to have stabilised, at least for a couple days, no greyer today than they were when she saw them the day before. And then she swaps with Gem, and notices that Gem’s half of the rotation are far paler, far less responsive, than they had been the last time Pearl had seen them. They stabilise for a couple days, and then they switch, and Pearl’s original rotation have deteriorated massively in the several days since. 

There’s really only one conclusion she can draw from that, and she doesn’t want to draw it. She doesn’t want to believe that the one responsible for this is—

The fog is a permanent fixture of the village now, blanketing the bay in a thick blanket of quiet. Pearl finds it hard to sleep, even the familiar sound of waves muffled by the mist. Kept awake into the early hours of the morning, she finds herself in the studio, a brush in hand, letting the paint take her where it will.

And where it takes her is familiar: the village, desaturated and coated in fog, dark looming shapes in the mist beyond, rising out of the ocean. And there, in the midst of the painting, a bright spot in all the gloom, is Gem, so vibrant she practically lifts off the page.

Pearl stares at it for a long, long time, and then places it face against the wall and tries her best to forget about it.

---

In all the dread, they’d forgotten something important.

The sea isn’t safe. It never has been. Growing up in the bay you learn how to weather the storms, to predict the tides, to flee from floods. You learn how to build barriers, and you learn how to rebuild once the ocean drags them down. 

Pearl knows that her village can handle the sea: she’s seen them do it time and time again over the years. Together, they move as a well-oiled machine, responding to threats from the depths with weathered ease. That’s why she doesn’t expect it, she thinks. 

There’s never been a monster attack that False didn’t warn them about.

But False isn’t capable of doing much of anything at the moment.

And so when the tentacles rise from the waves, there isn’t a warning.

Just a deafening krk-crash that wakes Pearl from a dead sleep with a bolt of adrenaline that’s nearly nauseating. She scrambles from her blankets, still in her pajamas, and rushes up the stairs to throw on her boots. It’s edging towards winter now, the weather much milder than the summer months, and though it’s not cold by any stretch of the imagination the chill of the air still makes her shiver. She grits her teeth, racing from her front door to the village proper, and there—

There’s a sea monster, dark purple tentacles reaching out to the shore, destroying everything in its wake. The fish market is half gone, and it’s awful, but it’s a relief, in a way, because nobody lives there.

“Gem!” Pearl screams into the night.

“Pearl!” she hears echo back, followed by distant footsteps, growing ever-closer. 

Gem’s face is flushed, her hair wild, her eyes wide. She’s also in her pyjamas, her lab coat that’s been ever-present for months now gone, and Pearl finds her eyes drawn to dark striations in her skin. They look like—

“Pearl,” Gem says again. “We need to get everyone out, away from the shore, up to the research centre—”

Pearl nods. “Got it,” she says. She points towards the docks and says, “I’ll head over there.”

Gem nods. “Be safe,” she says, and then she’s off again, pelting in the direction of the lighthouse.

Pearl doesn’t bother knocking as she throws Impulse’s door open. He’s still lucid enough that he’s been startled awake by the noise, though it hasn’t driven him to do much more than put his shoes on and stare out of the window at the dark shapes rearing up out of the fog.

“Impulse!” Pearl cries.

“Pearl?” Impulse says, glancing at her with dull eyes.

“We need to get people out,” she says.

There’s an extended pause, then, “Okay.”

“Can you get Skizz?” she asks. “Tango, too, maybe? I need to go to the beach, help everyone down there.”

Another extended pause, then a nod. “I can do that,” Impulse says. He moves too slowly, not driven by the same panic flooding Pearl’s veins, but it’s good enough. It has to be. Pearl doesn’t have time to consider the alternative.

She goes racing off for the beach. She throws open Keralis’ door first, relieved that he is, at least, wearing underwear when she drags him from his bed and into the night. She leaves him there while she grabs Grian from his hut, and then takes them both by the wrists, pulling them along behind her while she races for the cliffside.

It feels like hours that she races back and forth, grabbing her friends from their homes and dragging them in various states of comprehension to the safety of the cliff before running back into the danger zone. Grian’s hut is gone, and so is a large portion of the road. The tentacles have taken a chunk out of the farms further up the coast. Gem’s been taking the people she rescues a different route up to the research facility, the path that Pearl’s taking cut off to her by debris.

Once she’s got everyone on her side of town, she collapses panting on the grass, her lungs aching with the strain. There’s a fire somewhere down on the shore, someone’s lantern knocked astray by swinging tentacles. Her eyes burn just from looking at it.

A voice says, “I got him.”

Pearl looks up.

It’s Impulse, manhandling a colourless, greyscale Skizz.

Pearl goes cold.

“Where’s Tango?” she asks.

Impulse blinks. Slowly. Too slowly.

“Oh,” he says. “I’ll go get him.”

Pearl shakes her head, rocketed up to her feet by panic once again. “No, I’ll go,” she gasps. “You stay here.”

And then she’s off running again, beelining for Tango’s house, praying to any higher power that will listen that she’s not too late. Her lungs ache. Her legs burn. She can’t quite catch her breath. She’s shaking.

And then she’s knocking down Tango’s door, grabbing him from his bed against the far wall, dragging him away—

The roof coming down sounds like thunder, like the sky split open and gutted for parts. Pearl goes down hard, stars bursting behind her eyes, her breath coming out empty and then as a whine. She blinks, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark, for her ears to stop ringing, and that’s when she hears it.

It’s—not a scream. More of a whimper, or a wail, stretched out and awful and pained and punctuated by short, desperate gasps. It goes straight to her stomach, straight to making her sick, and she doesn’t want to look. Doesn’t want to move.

But, god, she has to, doesn’t she?

She wiggles her fingers, her toes, and lets out a deep groan as she pushes herself up onto her hands and knees. The world has narrowed in on itself, the open air of Tango’s house reduced to a crawlspace, and she shuffles down it, rubble and debris tearing her skin open and leaving bloody red marks on desaturated wood. It is a far cry from the blood she finds, practically brown with how much colour has been leeched from it. 

“Oh, my god,” she chokes. “Tango…”

Tango just moans in response. She can’t tell if he’s pale from blood loss or pale from the infection, but either way it has the effect of making him look half dead. He’s half buried beneath the rubble, body jerking with what she can only assume is pain, barely felt beneath the weight of numb apathy.

“I gotta get you out of here.” The words taste acrid against her tongue. Or maybe that’s the smoke. She can’t tell. “I’ve got you.” She grabs Tango by his good arm and grimaces. “It’s gonna be okay.”

It’s not a reassurance for him. Not really. Pearl’s familiar enough with his condition by now to know that he can’t really care about being okay at this point.

It’s more for her as she does her best to get leverage in the small space and pulls. 

When Tango screams, she knows it’s completely involuntary, an animal howl of agony that stops her short. Pearl gasps, tears on her cheeks, head spinning. “Please, no,” she begs, and she doesn’t know if she’s talking to him or the higher power that’s been ignoring her for weeks. “No, no, I gotta—I—”

“Pearl?”

“Gem!” Pearl cries. “Gem, please, I need—it’s Tango—he’s—”

“I’ve got you,” says Gem’s voice, familiar and close as footsteps pound across rubble. There’s a series of grunts and clunks as rubble shifts, and then there’s light pouring into the crawlspace, which is no longer so much of a crawlspace. Gem stares at the two of them, Pearl in tears on her knees and Tango half buried and lying in his own dull blood. 

“Okay,” she gasps out, and she sounds terrified. “Okay,” she repeats, steadier this time. 

Pearl wants to be relieved, but she’s just on the other side of hysterical. Gem’s holding an axe, which she must have used to clear the rubble, and she steps forward with it held between white knuckles.

“Hold him still,” she tells Pearl.

Pearl swallows. “Gem?” she whispers.

“Please.”

Gem glances down at Pearl, and god, she never has been able to say no to that, has she?

She shuffles forward, puts her weight against Tango, holds him still. Squeezes her eyes shut.

It doesn’t make it any better.

It doesn’t stop her from hearing the sick crunch of the axe cutting through bone or the blood-curdling scream Tango lets out.

It doesn’t stop her from feeling the sudden lack of resistance as she pulls Tango’s bleeding body away from the rubble, leaving his arm behind.

---

Pearl manages to hold it together until they’re able to get Tango safe and stable. Once the wound has been cauterised and disinfected and bandaged, and he’s left sitting with a mostly-unresponsive Skizz and an Impulse who’s just aware enough to be awkward about how little he feels for his friend, she walks away from the town’s refugees on the hillside until she can no longer hear them, and they can no longer hear her. She stands for a moment, surveying the damage below, the sun rising over the sea and the flooded streets and destroyed buildings, and she sucks in a breath that knocks her to her knees.

The panic attack comes in quick half-breaths and waterlogged wails, her hands gripping at her hair and pulling it hard enough to hurt. The world blurs around her as she chokes on saltwater and bile, her ears ringing with screams and funeral bells. When the hands settle on her shoulders she barely feels them—only feels them when they rise to her wrists and untangle her fingers from her hair.

“—earl? Pearl. Look at me. Come on, I know you can do it.”

“Ge-em,” Pearl chokes out. “I can’t—I—”

“I’ve got you,” Gem soothes. She takes Pearl’s hands in hers, squeezes them tight, real and grounding. “See, come on, that’s it. Breathe with me.”

Pearl blinks tears from her eyes as she tries to time her breathing to Gem’s. She’s not very good at it, her heart too quick and Gem’s too slow, but it helps, dragging her down from the high of panic. 

“That’s it,” Gem breathes. She lets go of Pearl’s hand, reaching up to push the hair out of Pearl’s face, cupping her cheeks in her palms. “See? Nice and calm. Everything’s fine, see?”

“Yeah,” Pearl agrees, and the words feel hollow. Her panic feels hollow, somewhere above her body, her soul sunken to somewhere below her knees. She sucks in a breath, lets Gem wipe tears from her eyes with her thumbs.

Gem is so bright. A searchlight in a storm, a ray of rising sun through the dark. The world seems to grey around her. 

Pearl reaches out, splaying her hand against Gem’s cheek, a clumsy echo of Gem’s own reassuring, grounding touch. Gem is still so bright, vivid enough that Pearl doesn’t think any paint could capture it. 

And Pearl, held in comparison, is grey and dull. A shade, drained of life.

She swallows. Lets out a shaking breath. Looks up into Gem’s green eyes, sees the fear and regret in them, and can barely summon her own panic or hurt in return.

“Oh,” she says, and the word falls like a stone, plunging into the depths.

---

Pearl lets out a breath. “It was the body, wasn’t it?” she asks, loosening her grip. “The one that washed up. It did something to you.”

Gem swallows. She pulls away, holding onto her own wrist where Pearl had dropped it, clutching it to her chest. “I’m so hungry, Pearl,” she whispers. “I fade so fast now. I need… I need…”

“You’re going to kill us.” Gem flinches at the words. “You know that, don’t you, Gem? You’re going to kill us. You are killing us.”

“I just need your colours,” Gem replies, a whine in her voice. “I just…”

“What happens when we’re gone, Gem? What happens when you’ve taken all the colours? What happens then?”

Gem stares at her. There are tears in her eyes. They don’t quite fall, but Pearl can feel them drip into her hollow heart. There’s an ocean between them now and Pearl doesn’t have the wits to cross it. She doesn’t care enough to cross it, and she doesn’t feel enough to care about that. 

“I have to go and check on Impy,” Gem repeats, her voice thick. “I’ll see you later, Pearl.”

“You won’t,” Pearl calls after her as Gem hurries for the door.

Gem doesn’t reply, just slamming the door shut in response.

Pearl sits in bed for a long time, staring at the wall with hazy vision. Her thoughts are muffled under the thick fog that chokes the village, and so when she finally stands, she’s not entirely sure why. She lets her body carry her back to her studio, picks up a canvas from against the wall, and places it on her easel. She sits down in front of it and stares.

Gem’s face stares back at her, the only alive thing in a dead and colourless world.

[pricegouge]

ugh i was at a hotel last night and something happened and all i could think of was ‘i HAVE to tell gouge!’

essentially i was in the hottub sipping a little cocktail by myself until i was joined by two older men. they kept their distance and kept to themselves (i assume to avoid scaring little afab me on my own) but ALL i could think of was Nik and Price finding cute little reader alone in a hotel hottub and doing the absolute opposite.

like each of them taking a place on either side and continuing their conversation as if reader isn’t there but squishing the poor lamb between them.

eventually they get handsy, maybe feed the sweetheart a few more drinks than they can handle. and of course they can’t leave the sweet little thing drunk and all on their own! the only responsible thing to do would to be take the little lamb back to their room with them😵‍💫

anyway i might be insane.

~💉

got yourself in hot soup :/

honestly, you should have known better, taking your third drink for a walk. you would have been fine - really- it's just, well, who are you to say no when a handsome man with a devastatingly hot accent offers you another?

he says his name's nik. he hadn't had his leg against yours at the time, borderline indecently cut shorts letting the fine threads of his copious leg hair grate against your thigh. you'd flinch away, but the man on your other side is almost worse. nik calls him john, but he introduces himself as price. where nik's soft, price is made of steel wool. denser. a little bit meaner, too.

not that either of them are rude, exactly. they're plenty charitable. in a sense; share their drinks with you when you run out. fix the straps of your top when they slump. it's just that you hadn't planned to drink with two strange men tonight, and they're a little bit too insistent, price's gruff bark just a bit too teasing whenever you try to pull yourself to your feet.

'nough already?

yeah, kinda.

you've had enough of their hands, at least, but weren't sure how to stop that, either - not now that you've let it go on so long, each touch more innocent than the one that followed until you're not even sure where it began. maybe when nik had first handed you that drink, blunt fingers lingering. maybe later, when he'd laid his arm across the back of the tub. ostensibly, it was an excuse to dig strong fingers into the tense belt of muscle that blanketed his mate's shoulder, but the crook of his elbow sat just a bit too snug against your neck to be an accident.

or maybe you were looking too far into it. there was no way two grown men who'd clearly come together were hitting on you, after all. not when their big hands kept churning the water, reaching across you to pet at one another. even if it kept you incidentally locked in their strong arms.

'just keepin' ya upright,' john winks, and you've half a mind to tell him off for thinking you need it, but next thing you know your tops come untied and you're clutching your chest, embarrassment boiling worse than the tub. sloppy. maybe you do need their help.

they're nice enough not to laugh, at least. nik tuts as he gathers your ties, big hands surprisingly gentle, matching his voice when he leans in close and asks if you think you're ready for bed yet. you don't trust yourself to speak so you just nod, hide your face in price's shoulder as he helps you to your feet with a warm hand spread across your back. you're so busy why your skin already feels familiar with his touch there that you barely notice as they corral you into an elevator, nik confidently selecting the top floor without asking for you input.

you're not sure why you apologize but you do, meek when you tell them you're actually staying on the fourth floor. nik says that's nice. john says it sounds like a good place to grab breakfast. neither of them select it.

"where are we going?" you try again, stomach falling out beneath you as the lift rockets up without it.

"our room, of course," john scoffs as if it should all be very obvious. his fingers toy with the strings of your top again. again?

nik's tone is final when he speaks again, a low rumble you can barely hear over the whirl of machinery. "said you were ready for bed, milaya," he reminds you, just as john gives one last tug to your strings.

nik is not as nice about helping you retie it this time. good thing they've got the whole top floor.

[reiyaus]

imagine construction worker! toji being in the crew who’s helping you build your dream home.

visiting every week to almost everyday because it was your only way to see him, the thought of just asking him out never came to mind. you weren’t exactly as slick as you thought, however.

it’s when you only approached him everytime you had a question did he realize you had a thing for him. not that he minded, though. he liked how flustered you’d get when he’d flex his biceps or when he’d grunt extra loud if he sensed you getting near.

the way you took so much time to prepare talking to him was cute too. how your throat bobbed up and down before clearing your voice; gently poking his arm (intentionally) before muttering his name.

toji would pretend not to hear at first, and ask you to repeat until you were practically yelling- only because he liked the sound of his name with your voice.

if honest, he didn’t actually know the answers to half of your questions. like how you didn’t know what the stuff you were asking him about meant anyways. for both of you, it was just an excuse to hear each other’s voices a little longer, and to see each other before your house gets complete.

it’s so obvious to his boss and co-workers that you’re absolutely smitted, like he is with you. it frustrates them when the building process fails to meet the deadline, having to work overtime because of a little work romance.

it doesn’t bother you though. there was nothing wrong with staying at your grandma’s a little longer. and he had no problem ditching his friends to have lunch with you.

yet, when the house does get finished, you felt a sense of loneliness, failing to remember that you can still contact each other outside of work. he becomes gloomy too, but watching you walk around and surveil the interior made him proud to have taken part in making your life better.

you’re about to thank all of them when he pulls you aside and brings out a little flip phone, almost like a bread crumb in his hands. his lockscreen was a low-quality photo (fitting to his ‘old-man’ persona) but 3 figures were you able to make out: two furry friends and one young boy in between.

it takes you some time to realize that the picture isn’t him as a young boy, but rather this child. you glance at him, his face practically sweating bullets and a shaky grin on his lips.

“this probably isn’t the best time to say this but, do you want to go on a date… someday? an actual one this time- i mean. i’ll introduce you to my son, and hopefully we can take things further now.”

[qwimblenorrisstan]

(im back, christmas break is here!!)

tw: mentions of abuse, violence, sexism (but secondary gender), omegaverse dynamics, crying, heavy angst no aftercare (again)

The uncomfortable tension in the room was palpable as they all sat in their usual debriefing room. Usually, the nest was a place for such a personal and volatile topic such as this, but none of them felt worthy of being there now. Not with how they’d treated you.

Soap was tapping his foot against the floor, the pattern uneven and sporadic, until Gaz snapped at him.

“Could you quit it, mate?” It had come out harsher than he’d meant. Soap huffed through his nose but obliged. They were all tense and on edge, their usually oh-so-controlled scents now sour and bitter with unease and anxiety.

In the field, they had their skills and weapons to fix problems, to take out the enemy. But here, back home? They had absolutely nothing in this fight. No amount of backup or fights could win this for them. In this fight, they were the enemy, and the only way to win this was by fixing the sacred little strand keeping you together that they had so carelessly unwound until it had snapped.

Ghost looked to Price. His hand was in his beard, thoughtfully running through the hair, stressed as Ghost has ever seen him. A sour pang of guilt shot through him. If he hadn’t tried forcing you to his scent gland, then you wouldn’t be in this position, and he wouldn’t have messed everything up, again—

“Y’re thinking too much.”

Price muttered, Simon’s feelings clear through the thick scent that somehow seemed to overpower everyone else’s in the air. He swallowed thickly. They needed a plan of action, some way to fix this, and the only way Price saw things being mended was by a lot of time and effort.

Gaz let the silence simmer for a moment, before speaking up.

“Cane Baker Syndrome, I looked it up yesterday night, it’s just like the med’ said. PTSD. Do you think…?”

An alpha being abused wasn’t as commonplace as it had used to be. Only 50 years ago, if you’d stepped into the common era, you’d see alpha’s being forced to work for a family they’d been forced into providing, their protective instincts abused. Among the more insane practices had been scratching out an alpha’s scent gland, so they couldn’t scent or get attached to their offspring, meaning the omega got the child all to themselves.

Awful things such as that had been outlawed years ago, but still happened in little forgotten corners of the world where loopholes existed.

“We can’t know for sure, but based on their reaction, I’d say we have a safe assumption. When they’re in a better….state of mind, we can ask a few questions.”

Price answered, voice heavy with an edge of guilt that seemed to grow richer by the second. Soap’s incessant tapping started up again, anxiety clearly chewing away at him. He couldn’t defuse you or the situation they’d created so easily like any other bomb he might during a mission.

“Could we get a background check on them?”

He asked, a hint of desperation in his tone. All he wanted was for you to be better again, for things to go back to normal, for a second chance.

But as they all split up, and he went to the nest, usually all so warm and comfortable and smelling of their sweet, rich scents combined, all he found was isolation among his team, sour scents mingling with rotten ones, a few sniffles and the salty scent of tears, he knew one thing.

They’d made their bed. Now they had to lie in it.

(sorry for the short part I’ve been playing cod bo6 multiplayer a lot and I’m kinda addicted + depressive episode, but there’ll be more soon I promise!!)

Part 1 | Part 2 |

[dukeofankh]

I'm gonna try and be charitable here, which is not something you have done to me so far. Please read the first sentence again. Does your vision for deradicalizing right wing men "begin AND end with other men telling them that that is gross and to stop it"? This posts starts with an if/then statement. If the "if" does not apply to you. The "then" does not apply to you.

Like, this is a response to a very specific idea, one that was plastered all over every social media environment I consume after the US election. The idea was that clearly, since Trump had done better among men, and since misogynistic men don't listen to women, feminist men needed to do their damn jobs and fix men. If they had been doing their jobs already, Harris would have won. Women will (because this was largely coming from radical feminist voices) just haaaave to go full separatist and abandon the project until men had sorted themselves out.

The idea I am railing against here is that men are some monolithic group, wherein feminist men can...pull rank? Peer pressure Trump voters? The idea I am criticizing is one that thinks that "men" and "The patriarchy" are synonyms and if women are looking around in feminist spaces and seeing men who claim to be allies, then they are clearly lying because if they were really feminists they would have gotten their whole gender in line by now.

If you also think that those ideas are dumb, then we are already in agreement. I am not pointing out how difficult this is because I don't think that it's important to try anyway, I'm pointing this out because plenty of people are saying things about how to change men's minds that betray complete ignorance of how patriarchal social structures between men actually operate. Both because a lot of women trust women's read on how men think more than men telling them how men think, and because they are not interested in changing men's minds. They are radfems, pouncing on a very shocked, hurt, and scared population and trying to use the situation to push gender essentialism.

I do, absolutely, do everything I can to push men I know in a less hateful direction. It doesn't do much. But hey, maybe it's doing something. Maybe when I tell my coworker that believing "men and women are just good at different things" is totally incompatible with the clear respect he has for the two female carpenters he works with, it makes him think twice the next time he flips out about trans people after listening to a podcast. I do that sort of thing. I do not just smile and nod. What I am saying is that the current worldwide scourge of misogynistic fascism on the rise is not because your personal male friend is only pretending to be a feminist to hang out with you. He does not, actually, have the ability to mind control every misogynist in the country.

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[solxamber]

Hi can I have Ignihyde for # 8, fluff or comedy. Thank you!

Anime Boot Camp || Idia Shroud ft. Ortho

For the Holiday Event! || Prompt: "This is non-negotiable" ; Genre: Fluff with Comedy ;

You should’ve known better. You really should have. But Idia had given you one of those rare, half-excited, half-nervous smiles, and you’d been putty in his hands.

“Sure, Idia,” you’d said with zero hesitation. “I’d love to watch the new season with you.”

A seemingly innocent offer. A simple act of camaraderie. And then, Idia had dropped the bomb.

“Great. We’ll start from season one. It’s non-negotiable.”

Season one?

“Wait—how many seasons are there?” you asked cautiously, trying to keep the panic out of your voice.

Idia adjusted his tablet, the glow highlighting his sinister grin. “Nineteen. Not including the movies, OVAs, or the bonus material. But don’t worry, the filler episodes are only about 35%.”

Your soul left your body.

“I—uh…” you stammered, searching for an escape. “Do we really need to watch everything? I thought we were just watching the new season?”

“You can’t watch season 20 without context!” Idia exclaimed, horrified. “You’d miss all the foreshadowing and character arcs! It’s essential to the viewing experience.”

You looked at him, and there it was: the genuine excitement in his eyes, the rare spark of passion that made him absolutely irresistible. Damn your stupid heart.

“Okay,” you sighed. “Let’s do it. Start from episode one.”

Idia’s face lit up, and if you weren’t already melting, his quiet “Y-you’re the best,” would’ve sealed the deal.

That’s how you found yourself on Idia’s couch, sandwiched between him and Ortho, with snacks piled precariously around you.

“This is the start of a life-changing journey,” Ortho said cheerfully, handing you a soda. “Big Brother has been waiting for someone to share this with forever!”

You glanced at Idia, who was trying to hide his blush behind his hoodie.

“You sure we’re not biting off more than we can chew here?” you asked weakly as the opening theme of season one blasted from the giant screen.

Idia waved you off. “Nah. If we watch at 1.5x speed, skip the ending songs, and only take five-minute breaks every eight episodes, we’ll finish in about four days.”

“Four days?”

“Non-negotiable,” he reminded you smugly, tossing popcorn into his mouth.

By day two, you’d developed Stockholm Syndrome for the characters.

“NO, KAZUTAKA, DON’T DO IT!” you yelled, clutching the blanket you’d stolen from Idia’s bed.

“It’s his tragic backstory arc,” Idia explained, completely unfazed by your emotional outburst. “He has to do it for the narrative payoff in season 14.”

You groaned. “This show is going to kill me.”

“It builds character,” Idia said, smirking.

Meanwhile, Ortho was a model of efficiency, pausing episodes precisely for snack breaks and bringing you hot towels like you were at an anime spa. You were starting to think Ortho might be the MVP of this whole operation.

“Ortho, you’re a saint,” you said as he handed you a cup of tea.

“I just want to support Big Brother’s happiness,” Ortho chirped, beaming.

Idia mumbled something unintelligible and pulled his hoodie tighter.

By day four, you were fully invested.

“THE PLOT TWIST! I KNEW IT!” you screamed, nearly knocking the bowl of chips off your lap.

“Pshh, called it back in episode 47,” Idia muttered, though the gleam in his eyes said he was enjoying this more than he’d admit.

“You did not!” you argued.

“I’ve seen this, like, three times, noob,” he retorted smugly.

Ortho, who had already created a mini shrine for your endurance, clapped in delight. “You’re catching up to Big Brother’s level of dedication!”

When the final credits rolled, you leaned back with a dramatic sigh. “We did it. I can’t believe we actually did it.”

“I can’t believe you survived,” Idia said, looking at you with a mix of awe and amusement.

“Maybe a family sometimes,” you said, stretching, “is just you, your crush, and his technomantic humanoid brother.”

Ortho tilted his head. “Does that mean you’re officially part of the family?”

You froze, glancing at Idia. His face was redder than a lava eel, and he was aggressively pretending to read something on his tablet.

“Well,” you said, smirking. “That depends on your brother.”

Idia groaned, burying his face in his hoodie. “You’re insufferable,” he mumbled.

And yet, when you shifted closer to nudge him playfully, he didn’t pull away.

Masterlist

[hs-is-loml]

Found My Love In Portofino. (n.c)

Pairing: Nicholas Alexander Chavez x Fem!Reader, Ex!Lando Norris x Reader

Summary: fans are starting to figure out that you and lando haven't been together for a while, and you've been soft-launching your new man lately.

Type: Social Media AU! face claim is Luisinha Oliverira!

Warnings: cheating rumors of lando with magui, probably a few grammar errors. very few lando norris mentions other than the first twitter thread. UNEDITED

a/n: haven't written anything in a hot minute so bare with me for this one! aka i have found a new hyper fixation and it got me out of my writer's block...

masterlist

twitter

instagram

iked by lilymhe, joaofelix79, flonorris1, and 1,041,972 others

yourusername i found my love in portofino

view all 98,593 comments

worldchampionsisaid she is glowing🤩

→ outer_bankzz it's that breakup afterglow...

→ carlosandy/n no fr cause that is not lando in the second picture

carmenmmundt missing you lately!

→ yourusername call me when you're back in monaco!!

lovelovelove ugh the caption!

→ plsmarrymey/n our girl is in love🥰

lilymhe Y/N WHO IS THAT MAN??

→ yourusername you might've seen him before...

→ welovey/n y/n, please just hard launch this man already

gayfory/n NOT JOÃO LIKING THIS

→ ogf1wags i hope she's not actually with him😭

→ kachowkachow imagine... lando with magui and y/n with joão

y/nismothering i can tell this man is hot

→ liked by yourusername and 417 others

twitter

instagram

yourusername just added to their story

instagram

nicholasalexanderchavez has posted

liked by yourusername, paytonkoch, and 1,461,537 others

nicholasalexanderchavez the view while we're in italy

view all 115,182 comments

oneaddiction I WAS RIGHT😭

→ staystrongy/n yeah, the girl's top matches with y/n's recent post about being in love in portofino...

→ comebacktogh you guys are like detectives or something. fbi should hire you guys for our man luigi😳

→ theauthor you see what i did there?

twitterstan came from twitter and safe to say this is definitely y/n-

welovey/n can't tell whose view is better y/n's or nicholas'...

→ mengoingaroundincircles this is my sexual awakening because they're both so hot.

landoandy/nforever y/n looked better with lando💔

→ welovey/n get over it. they've been broken up for AGES. let our girl go.

→ y/nismother yes because going to a 6'1 tall, beefy man is such a downgrade...

yourusername funny seeing you here-

→ liked by nicholasalexanderchavez and 1,596

→ nichloasalexanderchavez you've been to portofino lately?

lilymhe @/yourusername THIS IS HIM???

→ yourusername maybe...

shared post by yourusername and nicholasalexanderchavez

liked by alexandrasaintmleux, iamrebeccad, anasainzvdec, and 2,913,468 others

yourusername and nicholasalexanderchavez my better half.

view all 196,975 comments

nicholasalexanderchaves you've had me the moment you tripped on the red carpet because i caught you staring

→ yourusername NICHOLAS, you did not just comment that on here.

→ nicholasalexanderchavez does it help that i just love the hell out of you?

alexandrasaintmleuz what can i say ferrari just does it better🤷🏻‍♀️

→ iamrebeccad alex, this is not the time or place...😭

→ wagsforlife alex is not playing about loyalty

thepaddockfloor going to miss this girl during races

→ womenwomen this is so real because who am i supposed to stare at now while the men do their little races...

gfsidehoe we already saw this coming

yourbiggestfan the photobooth pics are just the cutest

→ liked by yourusername and 398 others

→ yourusername it's my absolute fav!!

netflix this couple is too hot to handle

yourusername can you tell that i love this man's hands?

→ lilymhe BABE THIS IS PUBLIC

→ yourusername oh i know.

gayfory/n they are so perfect together

[p1astr81]

second chances

in which: Lando tries to get his ex girlfriend back.

pairing: Lando Norris x pop star!fem!reader

genre: angst/fluff

warnings: cursing

an: this is part 2 of “second place”, but I think it could also make sense as a stand-alone.

part 1

‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ ‧ *

Performing with the wound of a breakup fresh in your heart was difficult, but the roaring crowds and their endless support made it a little easier.

You just finished up yet another show, the twelfth one since you’d broken off things with Lando three weeks ago. Kiké—knowing how hard the breakup was for you—walked in silence next to you and you navigated the backstage area. He simply offered his presence, which was a mild—but much appreciated—comfort to you.

Your eyes were trained on the way the dim lights made your boots sparkle. The last song on the setlist was the most emotional for you. A love song written for Lando. You nearly cried while singing it, and were struggling to keep it together even now.

Kiké only left your side once you reached the door of your dressing room. “Can you travel on the bus with me again?” You asked him softly. Between the last city and this one, Kiké joined you on your tour bus. Usually, he’d fly between locations with the other dancers, but he was more then happy to spend time with you.

He nodded. “Absolutely. We have to finish our show.” He joked, getting a smile out of you.

You bade him goodbye, and stepping into your dressing room. As soon as the door was closed, you let the tears fall, letting the door support your weight as you tried to not crumple to the floor.

A soft call of your name broke through the sounds of your sobs. You gasped, straightening up and reaching for the door handle. Your flight response automatically ceased when your gaze met Lando’s.

Your eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t you be in Spain?” The tone of your voice was venomous, but he chose not to take offense to it.

“Yes, but I wanted to see you.”

You scoffed at that. “Who even let you in here?”

“Your security. I assume you haven’t told them?” You didn’t answer his inquiry, but that was answer enough.

“Look, I know I treated you like shit and I was never here for you, but I want to be.” A little late for that, you wanted to say. But you settled for a roll of your eyes. “And these past weeks have made me realize that life without you sucks.”

A heavy sigh fell from your lips ass you pushed off the door. You wandered over to your desk, and began taking your makeup off. Lando, left in silence and without a response, continued to sit quietly on the couch.

You glanced at him through he mirror. He was fumbling around with his fingers. “You can’t just show up here and expect me to take you back.”

Lando met your eyes through the reflection. “I know. But I really do mean it. Even if we’re just friends, that’s enough for me.” The fact you hadn’t told him to fuck off yet was honestly a step in the right direction for him.

Your eyes found the cotton pad more interesting than him. “I don’t know. You made me feel like I wasn’t worthy of your time. You can’t just fix that with a sorry.”

He stood from his spot on the couch and cautiously stepped to your side. “I’ll be better. Every show I can squeeze into my schedule, I’ll be there.” He nodded.

Having missed the feel of your skin on his, he wanted to reach out, place a hand on your shoulder, or your arm. But he refrained from doing so.

Considering his proposition, you bit your lip. “You said that before, Lan.” You muttered. He heard the disappointment in your voice and wanted to curse himself out for it.

He nodded. “And I regret not following through but I promise this time. And if I don’t honor it, that’s it. I’ll never bother you again.”

It was a terrible idea. You knew it was. Opening your heart up to him again, giving him all the power to tear it in two once more, it was risky. But with a sigh, you accepted. “One slip up, Norris, and I’m blacklisting you from my shows.” You joked.

———

In the coming weeks, Lando honored his promise to its fullest extent, and then some. Even the shows you didn’t expect him to be at—the ones that fell on a Sunday night, only a few hours after a race—he was there.

He’d even spend a couple hours after the shows with you in your tour bus before he inevitably needed to catch a flight.

So after a month of him showing up consistently, and proving himself, you finally gave into him.

It was after one of your shows, you were sat in the tour bus as it stood stationary. The both of you were planted on the couch, your legs across Lando’s lap. You’d been talking for the last hour and a half about seemingly nothing. And then you licked your lips, and bit your lip softly before calling his name. He looked to you with big brown eyes like a little doe. “I think you’ve proved that you’ve changed.” Lando’s brows raised, hopeful. “And… if you’d still want to-“

“Yes.” He replied without even letting you finish. “Sorry.” His gaze shifted to his hands which sat on your bare legs. His cheeks went red. “Continue.”

You laughed and shook your head. “No, I think you got the point.” You sifted in your seat, and leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek.

[hearts4maddison]

❅ A Cozy Christmas!

| Lando Norris x Reader.

- pairing: Lando Norris x Fem!Reader. - warnings: fluff..fluff and more fluff,only some swearing kissing flirting,kinda sexual? let me know if i’ve missed any. - summary: After a chaotic f1 season comes to an end You and lando bask in bed at home all day long as a cold December day rolls around in Monaco.

- Note: Merry christmas! to everyone who celebrates and over all have a wonderful break! And yes can you believe i posted like i’m alive probably gonna disappear again? this isn’t the best kinda rushed it but enjoy!

————————————————————

The cold crisp December feeling lingered around the air in Monaco and sheet of snow covered the grounds. Sounds of Tourist,cars and people out shopping for the holidays ringed out in the air through the window of the penthouse.

Looking over to the night stand the clock time in bold numbers read out 10:30 half of the day already passed laying in bed in his arms Lando’s arms.

looking down seeing the side of lando sleeping face, his face buried into your chest the feeling of his arms tightly wrapped around your waist as he lets out a small huff shifting around under the warmth of the covers.

your hand slowly makes its way to his face moving his soft curls out of his face as he slowly shifts his eyes fluttering open adjusting to the light as he gives a dazed look

“couldn’t get enough of admiring me?” Lando says his voice groggy as he gives a goofy smile.

“sure mr big ego good morning to you to?” You reply rolling your eyes

“don’t worry i know im just so handsome and talented and-“ He says before you cut him off

“okay! okay! we get it” You laugh out

“just making sure ya know?” he replies his lips going to the soft skin of your neck leaving small kisses there

“lando..We need to get up” you mumble your hands going to his hair feeling the softness of his curls

“Nu uh ive got absolutely nothing to do..other than you?” He says with a shit eating grin on his face.

“Seriously!”

“i can’t help it but seriously i’ve got nothing to do other than be in bed with you.” he whispers against your neck his arms tightening around your waist

“so you don’t wanna do anything all day?” you ask

“Nope i’ve missed you my love..so much i just wanted to get home to you all season” he says locking eye contact with you before kissing your lips

“hm i couldn’t wait till you were home”

“im home now and i don’t want to do anything other than be here with you” Lando says giving you another soft peck on the lips

——————————————

And he meant every word. He refused to get up mostly get off you constantly kissing your face leaving softy pecks everywhere. The amount of times you had tried to get up for the bathrooms but he would protest keeping you in place.

Eventually you gave up trying to go and kinda accept that you weren’t leaving the bed any time soon and you didn’t really complain. You had him home,in your arms content.

However it got to point you had finally convinced him to let you get up and he was not happy but you made it up to him by moving to the kitchen making Hot chocolate with shit loads of marshmallows and whipped cream.

And the once calm and content atmosphere turned into hectic as you and Lando put up christmas decorations around the house aswell as decorating the tree.

“..Lando! That bauble doesn’t go there!” You say throwing a bit of tinsel at him

“Hey watch it! i have vision alright” He said giving a upset face

“well if the vision is putting a bunch of random tinsels and gonks on the tree then..?”

“..your just mad i’m a way better designer than you” he mocks

“.i think you should stick to f1” You scoff

“keep that attitude up y/n” Lando says shaking his head

“Or what?” You challenge rolling your eyes

You managed to get out before lando picked you you up throwing you over his shoulder.

“Knew we should’ve never gotten up!” he says

“Put me down! Now!” you respond kicking your legs around in the air as lando walks to the bedroom.

“Nope! ow! stop the kicking you muppet!”

“rude” you grumble

“Don’t worry i’ll make it up to you.” he says before closing the bedroom door

————————————————

In the end the tree was finally put after many interruptions but it all came together the greens and red standing out in the corner of the room. The whole penthouse giving a christmas festive look.

You lay your head on Lando shoulder as the movie plays in the back as you feel his lips kiss your head before shifting so your leaned into him breathing in his strong cologne in.

“Still think we should’ve listened to me-” he says with a laugh

“shut it” you say looking up at him

“Yes ma’am” he says while laughing as you push him slightly making him laugh more as he wraps his arms around you and kisses you.

“..that’s what i thought”

—————————————————

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE! i hope you enjoyed this it’s not that great idk if i’ve made any spelling mistakes but please tell me if i have!

[honeytonedhottie]

fostering and living out confidence⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🧁🍬

CONFIDENCE ANALOGY ;

think of unshakable confidence as a fragrance, there are three layers to fragrance, the base note, mid note and the top note. thats what makes the fragrance stick and creates the scent we love so so much. confidence is similar in that way, its not just a mask or a front, at least not authentic confidence.

SOOO after thinking of this analogy im going to structure todays post like that, just to keep things simple and easy to apply. anyways, lets talk about confidence…💬🎀

BASE NOTE ;

the base of self confidence is self love. period. you can think of a billion other ways to say this but the base will never change. the base of ur self confidence is how much you love yourself. so how do we get a strong base? a strong foundation of self love thats gonna make sure that our self confidence remains intact?

start treating yourself like someone that u care about. treat urself like you would a friend, would you criticize them harshly for every mistake? would you tear them down when they’re struggling? no, you’d encourage them, remind them of their worth, and help them grow. now it’s time to do that for yourself. cuz why are u treating others better than u treat urself?

a really important aspect of self love is FORGIVENESS. forgiving yourself and having compassion for yourself cuz we hold ourselves to such a higher standard then we do others, especially if you're a perfectionist. and that can become really toxic, really quickly.

MID NOTE ;

the mid note of self confidence is trust in yourself. it’s the belief that you can handle whatever life throws your way. it’s knowing that even if you stumble, you’ll figure out how to get back up. its knowing that YOU'LL HAVE UR BACK even if others dont. we can build up our self trust by...

♡ doing what we say we'll do

♡ following thru on promises made to ourselves

♡ practicing self discipline

♡ trust ur gut feeling

♡ say no when u dont want to do something

some words that u can add to ur vocabulary to be more confident and advocate for urself properly is "absolutely not" or simply NO. theres so much power in the word NO so make sure to use it more…💬🎀

♡ honor your feelings and honor your wants + needs

self confidence is the mid note of confidence because without self trust, ur confidence wavers because you’re constantly second guessing your abilities and choices and thats not sustainable at all. you have to know and TRUST that ur that girl. bcuz u are.

TOP NOTE ;

the top note of confidence is how u express yourself. its the top note because thats what radiates outward and its how the world notices u first. self expression is how you own ur individuality, how you voice ur own opinions. how u express urself AUTHENTICALLY. in essence, self-expression is about living boldly and unapologetically as you. because isnt it so freeing to just be who you are? now what are some ways we can cultivate our self expression?

♡ having creative outlets

♡ exploring ur interests

♡ having ur own personal style, signature, brand etc

♡ journalling

GET COMFY IN UR OWN SKIN ; 

i feel like the most confident people are dancers. i feel this way cuz of the way my own confidence SKYROCKETED after i started dancing. i feel like dancing gives u a sense of control over ur own body and its just amazing.

whenever i feel like i need a little boost of confidence or i wanna feel sexy and good in my own skin i DANCE. and i promise that it helps so so much. i dance around in my room in my panties all the time and it’s like therapy. 

embarrassment does NOT exist, stop making urself feel awkward or embarrassed for making mistakes sometimes, learn to laugh and not take everything so seriously.

ALTER EGO CONCEPT ;

an alter ego is a persona you create—someone you embody when you need to channel certain traits, strengths, or energies that you might not fully feel in your everyday self…💬🎀 

using an alter ego is super helpful when it comes to confidence because it helps u to detach from ur insecurities. you temporarily set aside your fears and limitations and adopt the mindset and behaviors of your alter ego.

using alter egos can even help u to access different strengths that u never knew u had because ur removing the limitations that u place on urself. lets talk about how to create an alter ego.

HOW TO CREATE AN ALTER EGO ;

first start off by identifying the traits that u want to have, then give ur alter ego a name and an identity. u can even go as far as to visualize ur alter ego, anchor them with symbols, and practicing embodying them. some examples of people who used the alter ego concept include beyonce with sasha fierce, and kobe bryants black mamba.

[demonic0angel]

Dan being forced to go to anger management therapy hosted by Harley Quinn.

(I refuse to believe that Dan would be forced into anything, so this is a Dan in Arkham AU lmao)

Wraith huffed angrily. “And that’s why he deserves pain and suffering.”

Harley stared at him in fascination, tapping a finger on her lips. It had been weeks after their breakout from Arkham, and Wraith was quickly becoming a good friend of the Sirens. It had reached a point where now, he was spilling his secrets over a glass of wine (stolen from a Bruce Wayne-endorsed party), about a boy he used to be and the timeline he came from.

It wasn’t the weirdest thing ever, since this was Gotham after all, but it was still both disturbing and thralling.

Harley could not help but stare as Wraith grumbled to himself, blue eyes flashing crimson and sharp fangs being bared in a snarl. Then she asked, “Did your sister ever say anything about this?”

Wraith huffed and swirled his wine lightly. “She said it’s a form of self-hatred. Because I blame myself for our family’s deaths, I blame Danny too. But I don’t care. We are the same person but we are not the same. He is still human, while I have transcended past mankind to be something greater.” His fingers clenched on the stem of the wine glass. “It’s not fair how he gets to be happy, but I can’t.”

A god complex, a superiority complex, and an inferiority complex, all born from the loss of family and self-identity. His psyche was absolutely damaged by his previous experiences, and trauma had made him into something very, very twisted. It was probably true that he was not human anymore, but it was so interesting how he had abandoned his humanity so thoroughly and thrown it aside.

“You can’t?” Harley asked. “Or you won’t?”

Wraith’s expression twisted. “I can’t.”

That didn’t seem right.

He was happy when eating red meat and drinking expensive wine. He was rather happy when they went shopping and included him in their jokes and games. He was plenty happy when he talked about his sisters. He was very happy when interacting with Nightwing, who seemed to effortlessly peel away his layers to reveal a playful, gentle personality that did not seem to be a facade.

“You seem happy around Nightwing,” Harley said. “And us. What do you think of that?”

Wraith glared at her lightly, but he didn’t seem angry, not like how he was when he talked about his little brother, his other self. The venom in his voice and eyes when he talked about his younger self would’ve been better deserved if he was talking about the Anti-Christ, but Harley didn’t voice this.

“Nightwing has the purest soul in this world. It’s strong and beautiful because of how kind it is. It should be a crime to be cruel to it, not when he’s so… good.” His expression gentled and he swirled his wine again before taking a sip. “And you and the others are… nice to me. I don’t want to spoil your fun.”

Harley beamed. “Aww, we like you too, Wraith-y poo!”

Wraith rolled his eyes and took another sip. Harley poured him some more without him asking, and they drank their wine in silence.

Eventually, Harley said, “It’s not healthy to hate yourself so much, y’know? Maybe you don’t want advice, but I think your sister would agree with me. You should let go of the past and live in the present. That timeline doesn’t exist anymore, does it?”

Wraith scowled. “It may not exist anymore, but I came from that timeline. I am who I am because of my family’s deaths and because of Danny.” The hatred in his voice was deep and potent, making Harley shiver. “It can never let me go and I can never let it go either. The past shaped me in ways that cannot be undone.”

Harley took a sip of wine to think. Then she said, “Well. No matter what, me and the girls are here for you. And I think Nightwing really likes you too! Really!”

Wraith hummed, eyes half lidded before he turned and looked at her with a quirk to his lips like a small, genuine smile. “Yes, I know. Thank you, Harley.”

She grinned. “No problem!”

They continued drinking together in companionable silence.