#also ive used a lot of pretty strong language here

[that-faerie-in-the-corner]

ok fuck it since ive apparently Lost It Entirely here and am past being precious about this i will give my own personal random headcanons on various iliad characters, some of these have actual reasons and some are just Vibes lets GO

Helen likes stargazing, she's knowledgeable about the stars and how to use them to navigate (yes this is kind of because of the myth of her becoming a protector of sailors after her apotheosis). Now, imagine Helen, who's so familiar with the night sky and knows what it should look like at this place and time of year, on her way home from Troy and spotting a whole ass new twin constellation in the sky.

Menelaus does not enjoy hosting people he does not know well, it stresses him tf out, to get through it he usually drinks and sticks close to Helen, who's significantly more socially intelligent and better at working a room. When it comes to diplomacy, it usually works out that Helen does most of the negotiating/shmoozing part and Menelaus is the figurehead and then takes care of the logistics/"paperwork" part, which usually goes pretty well for them. So when the envoy from Troy shows up Helen is like Look go take care of your grandfather's funeral I can finish this up I do most of the talking at these things anyway, don't worry about it, I'll be ok, what's the worst that could happen

Hector and Andromache were trying for a baby for WHILE before scamandrius came along (hey siege or not Priam's getting up there in years and the royal family would probably be nervous about their crown prince not having an heir), Andromache was getting worried that she couldn't get pregnant but then! Their long awaited miracle baby! One must imagine once Andromache was ready to share the news, Hector, who had been about ready to explode trying to keep quiet about it, running around the palace shouting about how his wife is with child and he's going to be a father, just pure unbridled joy and excitement that no one had seen on him in years that's enough to make Andromache think Well maybe it'll be ok, maybe things are going to turn out well for once.

Out of all of Hector's siblings, Andromache is closest to Cassandra. Andromache looked at her husband's sister who is perpetually on the brink of losing her mind and went Ok she's real for that, actually

Even compared to the people around him, Achilles speaks in an abnormally formal manner in general conversation, he needs to impress upon people that he is Intelligent and High Status and such (and it may partially be something he just picked up from his mom). Also he just loves to hear himself talk, he talks like an orator, loud and enunciated and like what he's saying is Important even if its really not

conversely, Patroclus is more To the point and usually doesn't speak unless he has a point to make, he prefers to hang back and listen. He has acquired SO much potential dirt on like, most of the camp, Odysseus is probably aware of this and has tried to enlist him to use this knowledge in some Scheme

Achilles has an Intentionality to how he moves, he's straight-postured and graceful, almost like a dancer. Hector has a similar kind of intentionality to his body language, but he doesn't really make a Show of it like achilles does, he's not concerned with being perceived as strong or powerful he just needs to be it, carry himself like someone worthy of being best of the trojans and the heir to the throne

Diomedes carries himself in a way where he is very clearly not comfortable being still, always at attention, he literally sits at the edge of his seat, always at the ready in case he needs to grab a spear and GO

Paris curses like a sailor in general conversation, his ass does not have a filter. His speaking patterns are noticeably not really "high class" like his siblings (because, you know, he didn't grow up with the aristocracy). He talks a lot with his hands, he spreads out, gets comfortable, takes up space, in a way that sometimes makes Hector genuinely nervous

also paris is very touchy-feely, his ass is invading your personal space. Most of his family and peers think that this is fucking annoying, the only people who like it to any degree are Hecuba (she loves to hug her baby), Aeneas and, secretly, Hector

thetis (an immortal sea nymph who doesn't often interact with humans, with her son's impending death hanging over her head) is understandably kind of weird about boundaries. She shows up at the camp at random intervals with no warning, often at inopportune times, to bother achilles about some random thing, which often spooks the men because of how uncanny she is like generally and then Achilles is just like Alright, yes Mother, thank you Mother, can we talk about this later Mother I'm busy, we've talked about this (somehow, he manages to have a degree of patience with his mom that he doesn't have for literally ANYONE ELSE on the planet its fascinating)

achilles and diomedes have had a steadily escalating rivalry for like eight years that Odysseus routinely provokes and eggs on ("hey, Diomedes said he could do (x) better than you", "hey, achilles said (y) about you") to get the two of them to fight harder/take more land. they're both smart enough and familiar enough with odysseus to independently figure out what he's doing by now but they're both so competitive that it keeps working anyway

agamemnon was initially disappointed when he found out his first child was a daughter and not a son, but then he held Iphigenia for the first time and immediately forgot that disappointment because Oh. Oh. Oh I think this is the most beautiful being I've ever seen. This is amazing. Holy shit. I think no man has held a better child. Cly, are you seeing this? We made this. Oh my Gods

Iphigenia is, at heart, a schemer from a long line of schemers. By the age of twelve she figured out the kinds of things she needs to say to convince each of her parents to get her what she wants with a like 95% success rate. This often involves telling one parent that the other parent wants the thing she doesn't want/doesn't want the thing that she does. You would be shocked at how often this specific ploy works

[protectorcraft]

mutual liked the gripe post which reminded me to write it. okay hi im pyxis and im gonna talk about a trope the isat community falls back on a lot in writing that bugs me okay thanks

this is gonna be long and probably annoying so im putting it under a cut. open at ur own risk. heavy spoiler warning thanks.

okay. how do i start this. a thing ive seen in quite a few fics and theories, and its that the islanders are directly- and purposefully- responsible for their own disappearance. usually i see it framed as "the islanders made themselves disappear/attempted to wish away knowledge of wishcraft because it was dangerous" and like. hm! i dont think so.

take this with a grain of salt as ur local cracker but considering the framing of the island's disappearance- abrupt, sudden, disastrous- something everyone was talking about- the disappearance definitely falls more in line with the metaphor of some sort of disaster or, as is a significant theme in the game, colonialism/imperialism and the subjugation of cultures.

this was- 100%- not the islander's faults, and blaming them completely misses the point of the matter.

while people can say wishcraft is dangerous- and really, it is, there's no getting around it- it also seems like it was an important piece of the Island's culture and based off the few islanders we meet, probably used fairly regularly in day to day life. siffrin, for example, literally uses it on the regular without even realizing it. the knowledge of how to do it properly is probably pretty ingrained into the average Islander's brain. to them, it's just a fact of life! i mean, literally all the scriptures we see on wishcraft (and astronomy) ingame are written in the Islander language. they were The Experts on this stuff. (not to mention that this proves the knowledge was in the general public's grasp, even if it required knowledge of their language to learn about)

so it just doesnt make sense that they'd wish something so important to them away like that- sure there was probably discourse amongst them about the dangers of these practices, but they would know enough to know attempt something as risky as, say, wishing away all knowledge of their country or any one big thing. not to mention wishcraft is weird- technically speaking, siffrin's wish probably wouldve had a lot less effect if all the energy of the failed wishes hadnt culminated into their successful one.

and before you bring up how op the kings wish is- remember that a good 75% of the game is exposing all the ways the other characters foil siffrin, including the king. the king, who supposedly made a wish to freeze vaugarde- but did he?

a lot of the king's dialogue, when he isnt gushing about vaugarde and how much he loves it, is about his grief surrounding the loss of his own country. when given the chance, he'll grasp at any opportunity to remember anything about it, even if its putting trust in the hands of a stranger who is literally here to kill him for help. its pretty clear to anyone with a brain that he's not being ingenuine about this.

and, see, siffrin's true wish was masked over by their other wish. its one of the game's big red herrings. yadda yadda yadda how do we know that the king's true wish was really the "preserve" vaugarde, huh?

"where are you going with this we've gotten wildly off track" no we havent! get fucked! i think the kings true wish was the remember his country- and, yknow, there's probably a fair few islanders remaining. probably yearning to grasp even a fragment of their lost culture, hoping and dreaming and wishing for answers. not unlike the king, perhaps? perhaps a culmination of half baked wishes being fueled by one, fully formed wish?

yeah, you get where im going with this.

so perhaps wishcraft isnt quite as strong as we assume it is? that the soul intent of one person isn't necessarily going to give you godlike power in most cases- mind we're not quite grasping the full scope due to loops. Whole Situation. but that's not why we're here.

if the Islanders had enough faith in the rest of the world to provide them with their wishcraft knowledge- then i doubt they wouldve wished themselves or their knowledge away. nobody would do that.

and if the rest of the world did, indeed, have access to that knowledge, then there's a fair chance some other group could be responsible. a group who doesnt even recall their own responsibility because it's been wiped from their memories.

like, idk.... a more on the nose version how colonizer countries bury their own history of misdeeds from the general populace?

idk man. idk. just feels weird to me that so many people seem to have immediately gone towards the Cultural Suicide route for some reason. you have to be willing to acknowledge that the isat universe is definitely not the perfect, pristine world you think it is. and maybe folks just need to be willing to acknowledge the actual brutality the metaphor is alluding to.

after all, an entire island- all of its peoples and cultures- disappeared.

[everybodysaynoooooo]

Save Me - Kim Taehyung ff [Chap IV]

Synopsis: Two crowns are crumbling. One heir who won’t yield. And a bodyguard who stays just a little too close. In a world where masks fall faster than heads, he’ll have to decide who’s worth trusting —before everything falls apart. He wanted peace. He found war —and a bodyguard with more secrets than commands.

k.taehyung x f.oc

Words count : 10,8k words

Genre : Kingdom AU, enemies to lovers, bodyguard x royalty, fluff, angst, smut, slow burn

Chap content : Battle scene, mention of blood/wound, strong language, mild tension, Taehyung is a dick, slight tension, minors dni!

If anyone wants to be tagged for this fic, don't be afraid to ask !

Gentle reminder that all rights are reserved, so please do not copy, translate or repost my stories. Also I do not own BTS or their actions, the stories are fictionnal and does not depict real-life events or involve any actual member of BTS.

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The royal servants of Irinian are used to chaos.

They’re used to sudden requests that must be fulfilled to the letter and in the shortest possible time. They’re used to doing a lot with very little.

Back at the palace in the Capital, things were buzzing like that every day —at least before the crisis erupted in Hestidia and we all got scattered across every corner of the Kingdom.

To begin with, there’s the music —a miniature orchestra on every floor, playing nonstop, all at my little sister’s command. The habit became so deeply rooted that even when the child isn’t around, the halls of the royal residence echo with music all day long.

The second a royal child sets foot in a building, musicians start playing —case in point, that idiotic group of violinists who followed me here and took several days to get rid of.

The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes: everyone in my family has some sort of whim like this.

My mother the Queen, for instance, used to love having tea with her ladies-in-waiting —she did it every morning, always in a different room or location.

My younger brother is obsessed with chess —to the point that he summons a so-called champion every week, just for the thrill of defeating him.

Because really, who in their right mind wouldn’t let a Royal Prince win?

And then there were the receptions —not a week went by without some grand affair at the Capital Palace. Always over-the-top. Always so dazzling that guests walked out starry-eyed and speechless for hours.

So yes, the royal household staff is used to noise, nonsense, and sudden absurd demands.

But I’ve never seen them as panicked as they were today.

Oddly enough, after the whole scene in the field right before I went to see Jimin, Min’s been… easier to deal with —and by that I mean, she’s finally started following my orders.

Well. Following is a strong word.

Let’s just say she takes them into consideration —which, all things considered, is already a massive change.

When I ask her to fetch something, she still grumbles like before —but now she actually does it, or at least gets someone else to.

When I tell her to go groom my horse instead of breathing down my neck, she obeys —although I suspect that has more to do with her affection for Xylos than for me, which is perfectly fine as long as she leaves me breathe.

When I tell her to leave me alone because I want to be by myself, she now walks fifteen paces behind me instead of five.

And the time I told her to go kill a deer during a hunting trip ? She rolled her eyes with what I’m pretty sure was the full extent of her strength —completely unfazed by the fact I could’ve had her head chopped off right there— but she did it. And faster than I could’ve done it myself, mind you.

I don’t know what got into her to cause this sudden shift —and frankly, I don’t care— but I have to admit, I don’t hate it.

Let’s not get carried away.

She’s still rude and insufferable, but at least — at least — she listens to me.

Kind of.

When it doesn’t bother her too much.

Only when it doesn’t bother her too much.

Just earlier, for example: A dressmaker showed up at the castle with her entire kit to prepare my outfit for the upcoming ball. Naturally, everyone was ordered out of the room, but Min stayed put —as if anyone but me would dare deny her permission. All the staff seem to already adore her. Tch.

Anyway, when I ordered her to sit down —because she was irritating me, standing there doing nothing with her hands clasped behind her back— she glared at me. 

Glared. At me.

Then she flashed that infuriatingly innocent smile of hers and said some bullshit like, ‘I wouldn’t dare sit while my dear Prince remains standing.’ Blah blah blah.

She gets on my nerves in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

“Forgive me, Your Highness, I’ll need you to lift your arms…”

Without even glancing at the nervous dressmaker fumbling to take my measurements, I lift my arms —barely— and let out a loud sigh, halfway between annoyed and bored.

Min turns to me immediately, one eyebrow raised, and shoots me the most contemptuous look I’ve ever received in my life.

She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes might as well scream: You call yourself a Prince, and you can’t even stand properly?

I tilt my head slightly, raising an eyebrow of my own. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

She can say —or think— whatever she wants. If this tailoring session is going to bore me to death, I won’t bother hiding it.

I already have dozens of suits anyway. With the number of balls the Royal Palace hosts each year, there’s no avoiding them.

But honestly, what’s the point in having so many frivolous outfits if you only wear each one once?

And while we’re at it, why the hell does this stupid dressmaker need to take my measurements every time? Can’t she just use the ones from the suit I got last week?!

Another sigh escapes me —more frustrated this time— and turns into a growl when she makes a clumsy move and nearly stabs me in the ribs with a pin.

You have got to be kidding me. Who let this walking disaster touch me with needles?

I grit my teeth, on the verge of losing it, when someone knocks at the door, slicing through the already-fragile silence of the room.

The second the sound rings out, Min straightens and heads for the door, so fast you’d think she’s just as on edge as I am.

Good.

I refuse to suffer alone through this farce.

I keep my eyes on her as she speaks with a maid at the threshold —and as the dressmaker nervously drapes a piece of fabric over my shirt, I try to focus on something —anything— and attempt to make out what Min and the maid are saying.

Useless.

Min’s clearly been trained to keep her lips unreadable —she barely parts them when she speaks —I swear she does it on purpose. And since the maid stayed behind the door, I can hardly see her face.

When she finally leaves, Min returns to her spot against the wall as if nothing happened —as if I weren’t even in the room.

Which, of course, irritates me further.

“What is it?” I ask at last, teeth clenched as the dressmaker drops a pin and makes an enormous fuss picking it up.

Min arches a brow, like she’s surprised I even care —as if there’s anything better to look at in this room. “She came to inform me the convoy is ready to depart.”

Oh, right.

That stupid convoy.

Let me guess —my personal guard is about to be scattered to the other end of the Kingdom again ?

“Hm-hm,” I reply with a glare toward the dressmaker, whose very existence is now a personal offense.

“I ordered the Special Guard to prepare to leave with them. With the upcoming assembly, the King asked for as many men to be regrouped as possible. I thought it best my soldiers be there as early as possible.”

The last part is delivered in a slightly different tone —not quite hesitant, but not neutral either.

As if she’s asking for my opinion without actually asking.

Which she is —she’s indirectly asking if I mind being separated from the Special Guard.

Min, asking for my opinion? I almost want to laugh.

Slowly, I unclench my jaw and shoot her a smug smile, eyebrows raised. “So what you’re saying is… you’ve arranged a little tête-à-tête for us until Mudfront, Min?”

I expect her to scoff, or at least roll her eyes —but she doesn’t.

No, instead, her eyebrows climb higher than mine, and an incredulous look crosses her face.

“I’ll admit, I expected you to order me to leave with them,” she says at last, almost amused by the reversal. “But if that’s how Your Highness chooses to see things, who am I to challenge your thinking?”

Touché. And I’m the one who ends up rolling my eyes.

“Don’t tempt me, Min,” I mutter, knowing full well that even if I did order her to leave, she’d just hit me with her usual ‘I obey the King, not you’ speech —and all I could do to answer that is glare.

She doesn’t respond, her eyes drifting instead to the dressmaker, still messing around with her cursed pins, forehead drenched in sweat. “When this is done, we can leave whenever you wish. Mudfort is only a couple hours on horseback —we’ll easily arrive before nightfall.”

All she gets in response is a grumble, mostly because I’m still trying to set the dressmaker’s hair on fire with my eyes. With how much she’s being paid for this stupid suit, you’d think she could do her job properly, for heaven’s sake —but no, obviously.

Min doesn’t seem to mind. “Of course, if you’d prefer, we can always leave tomorrow morning, well rested.”

That gets my attention. I glance up at her, eyebrow raised. She has that usual unreadable expression —and yet, I swear I can see the hint of a smirk in her eyes.

Unbelievable.

Did this brat just imply that two measly hours on horseback would be too tiring for me?!

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” I reply with a smile so fake it practically drips poison. I don’t even try to make it convincing. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about your leg.”

Her mask cracks for a second —bingo— and that glint in her gaze vanishes, replaced by something harder.

Classic Min —glaring at me in every situation. Meanwhile, my smile sharpens like a blade.

“You should get some rest. An injury like that must be excruciating.”

“Your Highness is too kind,” she grits out, jaw tighter than mine had been moments ago, eyes darkening at my victorious smirk.

“I know. I get that a lot,” I shoot back coldly, and the smile vanishes as I glare at her again.

She narrows her eyes, lips parting as if to say something —but stops short when I raise an eyebrow in challenge.

Pure delight.

“That’s enough. I’m done,” I snap suddenly, waving the dressmaker away like I would a fly. “Just make sure the outfit is ready by the day after tomorrow. Until then, get out of my sight.”

Min shoots me another judgmental look —a luxury the dressmaker can’t afford, bowing low enough to kiss my feet before scuttling out with her things.

Min opens the door for her —and surprisingly has enough respect for etiquette to hold it until I pass too.

I start walking down the hallway, headed for my room —never in my life have I needed a bath more than after that idiotic invasion of my personal space— and, as always, Min trails close behind.

But I’ve barely taken ten steps when a maid approaches, silver tray in hand.

“Your Highness,” she starts timidly, head bowed so low I can barely see her face —but that’s fine. I love talking to hair —notice the sarcasm. “A letter for you. The messenger said it was urgent.”

It’s only when she says letter that I notice the slim envelope resting on the tray. My eyes go straight to the seal —still intact— and I recognize the emblem instantly.

Half a flower. In a half-circle.

From the corner of my eye, I see Min looking at the letter too. She says nothing, her face a perfect mask.

I take the letter without a word and start walking again. The maid bows and disappears, and soon the only sounds in the corridor are my footsteps —and Min’s, behind me.

Jaw tight, I open the envelope mid-stride. The paper inside isn’t a real letter —just a few scribbled lines, and thank the stars for that. No time to waste on pleasantries.

And yet, those few lines are enough to bring me to a dead stop.

Change of plans. I ran into some trouble, but I’m fine. I’ll explain at Mudfront. J.

It takes me a second to realize I’ve completely frozen in place.

Trouble? Mudfront?!

Jimin is supposed to be in hiding.

I’m the one acting like a show pony so the plan can move forward.

Jimin is not supposed to be at the Spring Ball in Mudfront in two days.

No one expects him there. No one even hopes him there.

So why...?

Shit.

Trouble.

The Special Guard must’ve found him —I’d bet anything on it. He was going to meet them eventually anyway, but this… this hits different. This feels heavy —on my shoulders, especially.

What if he didn’t make it? What if they caught him, forced him to write this?

What if it’s a trap? No way in hell am I letting anyone use Jimin to serve my father’s ends.

And above all —how the hell did they find him so fa—

“Is something wrong, Your Highness?”

The calm, composed voice behind me snaps me out of it. Female. Controlled. Unreadable.

It doesn’t betray a single thing —and when I turn and find myself face to face with Min, who’s moved just a little closer, her expression is just as unreadable.

Still that same neutral look, focused but somehow distant —and yet, she’s standing close enough to read the letter over my shoulder.

And her eyes—

Her fucking eyes are shining with that look I hate.

That little glimmer of intelligence, of insight, of self-assurance that drives me so mad I want to rip those perfect hazel orbs right out of her perfect face.

And I couldn’t even begin to describe the force with which I stare at her, because at that exact moment, facing those two vast, brown abysses she calls eyes, something clicks in my head.

The other night, when I got back, Gallien —who’d come to take care of Xylos and, as usual, talked three times more than necessary— had laughed about seeing a strange bird fly off from the castle, heading west.

He figured some servant had borrowed a bird from the aviary to send a letter to their family.

But the Royal Family only uses carrier pigeons.

And the bird Gallien described? Sounded a hell of a lot more like a bird of prey.

It was her.

It had to be her.

I knew she was nothing but a damn spy —she must’ve grown suspicious after seeing me leave for the woods and rushed to pass on the intel.

I knew it.

Goddamn it, I knew.

I should’ve shot that fucking bullet straight through her head.

The words are out of my mouth before I even register the thought —and I turn on my heel without giving myself the satisfaction of watching her face crumble.

“Why don’t you go check the manure pit and see if I’m in there, Min.”

After almost a month working by his side, I still couldn’t say for sure if the Prince had become slightly less unbearable… or three times worse.

I’d had the stupid impression things had improved. That he’d finally come to terms with the fact that I’m his bodyguard now, whether he likes it or not. Hell, I even dared hope that letting him shoot me in the thigh without saying a word would soothe his nerves and finally calm him down.

Well clearly, I was dead wrong.

I’m not exactly the easily rattled type —hard to see how I would’ve made lieutenant in the special guard otherwise. In fact, I’d even say it takes a hell of a lot to scare me.

And yet… I’ve got to admit that the glare the Prince shot me in that hallway completely froze me on the spot.

It wasn’t the fact that he was glaring at me that caught me off guard —it was how intensely he did it. Like if he’d had the chance to slit my throat right then and there, he would’ve done it without blinking. And judging by the words he spat at me before storming off, I’m guessing he really considered it.

I’ve somehow gotten used to being on the receiving end of his constant dagger eyes —to the point where I’m not sure his face can do anything else— but this time, I was left speechless mostly because I honestly couldn’t think of what I’d done to piss him off that badly.

Then again, maybe I don’t even want to know. That fury of his mostly resulted in one thing, for now: a silent, tension-charged ride all the way to Mudfront with not a single word or look exchanged… and a peaceful kind of quiet once we arrived, since His Highness won’t even bother to bark orders at me anymore.

Good. At least I can do my job in peace.

I just make sure to watch my back twice as much as before —I wouldn’t want him to push me down the stairs and actually succeed just because I wasn’t paying attention.

Not that there’s much danger of that here —Mudfront is one of the rare royal residences without an upper floor. Everything’s built on one level, which means the estate spreads over a much larger area than most.

This is where the Spring Ball takes place every year, thrown for the younger generation of the royal family. It’s not so much a celebration of the returning sun as just another excuse to throw a party —but I guess you’ve got to find something to keep all these princes and princesses busy.

Usually, heirs from the other kingdoms are invited too, but this year —thanks to the crisis in Hestidia— it’s just the King’s own children in attendance. Along with their personal entourages, of course.

I can already tell it’s going to be exhausting.

Since the Prince’s personal guard is still stationed at the border, the special guard made the trip from Ebonwick to escort His Highness —and I, obviously, came along in his shadow. As ordered.

When we got here, I had the pleasure of reuniting with Princess Taeyeon’s guard, and met the team assigned to the Prince’s younger brother, Taehui. The other heirs —four kids even younger than Taeyeon— don’t have individual teams yet. Just one bodyguard watching over the lot of them, and honestly, he smiles way too much for a man forced to babysit royal toddlers.

All in all, the estate’s packed with soldiers. Not to mention all the courtiers and servants sent along for the event. I’ve attended Spring Balls before, of course —but I have to admit, the rumors weren’t lying: Irinian really is the grandest of the Kingdoms —you only need to show up at one of their parties to see it.

Cutting-edge décor. Gold everywhere. Exquisite dishes laid out on silver trays. Centerpieces taller than two men. Famous musicians. The best dancers from the region…

Oh yeah. No question about it —the royal family definitely knows how to throw a party.

Almost makes me nostalgic for the good old days.

For the occasion, they swapped out my usual black uniform for something more “refined” —though the color stayed very much the same.

My standard black shirt was replaced with a sleek, tight-fitting cotton piece, embroidered with the King’s crest in gold thread on the high collar. They also gave me a new pair of boots —slimmer, more elegant. A pair that definitely screams less “soldier.”

And when the maid who’d been prepping the Prince for the evening saw me come out of my room, she begged me to let her get me ready too —and as much as it pains me to say it, she was so insistent I ended up caving, even though I’d firmly refused at first.

And I keep telling myself: this is stupid. This ball is a perfect setup for anyone looking to strike at the heirs. For nearly a month, they’ve all been scattered and hidden across the kingdom for protection —and now, suddenly, we gather them in one place for the sake of a little soirée? It’s a dumb idea, honestly —no wonder the King deployed so many guards for the occasion.

I really don’t have time to be getting pampered —I should already be by the Prince’s side, keeping an eye out for danger, even if the only thanks I’d get would be another barked insult.

Yoongi’s always saying I’m too soft for this job. And maybe he’s right, because now my scalp itches like hell thanks to the glitter the maid dusted into my hair. She mumbled something about the Crown Prince’s bodyguard needing to look just as dazzling as he does —but all I took from it was that she mostly wanted someone prettier and less grumpy to play dress-up with.

And honestly, just for that, I’ll put up with the damn glitter.

As the weeks went by, I eventually came to accept that I’m not the best at reading His Highness Prince Taehyung’s moods. In fact, the only emotion I can reliably identify on his face is anger—and, occasionally, weariness —though that probably has more to do with the fact that those are the only expressions he ever deigns to wear in my presence.

And yet, tonight, surrounded by twirling melodies and people who seem physically incapable of stopping smiling, I feel fairly confident in saying this: Taehyung does not want to be here.

Not that I know why —or even care to, for that matter.

Still, even from five paces behind him, I can see the strained smiles he offers to those who come up to greet him, and the way his gaze keeps flicking back over his shoulder —as if I weren’t here precisely to do that job for him.

And right now, while the music plays louder and wilder than ever, and the ladies’ gowns whirl at the center of the great hall, the Prince is leaning against a marble column, a glass of alcohol in hand.

And though I’ve grown used to seeing him irritated, disdainful, or simply aloof, I find myself unsure what to make of his expression at this moment. Because he doesn’t look any of those things.

He just looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Which almost makes me wonder if this whole ridiculous soirée is fraying his nerves as much as it’s fraying mine.

His brown outfit —the color of the Kingdom of Irinian— is breathtaking, embroidered in gold thread in every direction, and the palace servants clearly outdid themselves in getting him ready. But despite that, something doesn’t sit right. The attire shines; his face does not.

I wonder what could—

“Big brother!”

The Prince and I turn in unison toward the voice —high-pitched and excited, unmistakably that of a young girl. And not just any young girl: Princess Taeyeon, hurtling through the crowd in her little brown dress, headed straight for her dear older brother.

The Prince’s eyes widen slightly, and he instinctively sets his still nearly-full glass down on a nearby table —just in time for Taeyeon to crash into him and wrap her tiny arms around his legs.

“I doubt that’s the kind of conduct becoming of the Kingdom’s princess…” I hear him mutter, raising a brow, though he still presses a hand lightly to her hair —the most intimate gesture etiquette allows in public.

Unbothered by his words, she tilts her head up at him with a beaming smile. “I missed you so much, brother!” she declares.

The Prince opens his mouth, likely to reply —but he doesn’t get the chance.

Because right then, by some miracle —or perhaps curse— the Princess’s eyes drift away from her beloved brother and land on me, five steps away, as though she’s only just noticed I’m there.

And from that moment on, Prince Taehyung is all but forgotten in the mind of the young child.

“Harin!” she cries, even louder this time, and I swear her eyes light up.

She barrels toward me with even more force, making me stumble back a step under the impact. Just like with her brother, she wraps her arms around my legs and hugs me tight —tight enough to make me swallow a grimace when she presses against my wound.

It’s mostly healed —almost a scar by now— but damn, it still stings like hell.

A sheepish smile tugs at my lips as I awkwardly try to pry her off, gently. She only squeezes harder in response. I vaguely recall her governess, Marge, saying that when the Princess demands cuddles, one must oblige —but is that really going to fly in front of the entire court?

Judging by the glare Prince Taehyung is now shooting me, I sincerely doubt it.

Then again, that glare doesn’t particularly scare me. Not only because it’s been nearly a full day since he last tried to incinerate me with his eyes —I was starting to worry at the lack of it— but because it doesn’t feel like anger, not really.

It feels like he’s sulking. Sulking that his little sister chose to run to me instead of listening to what he was about to say.

Honestly, I’m almost grateful for the attention. It’s the most interested he’s looked all evening, even though this whole party was supposedly organized to lift the royal family’s spirits. We’ll just call it a win that he’s back to actively hating me.

“You lied to me,” the Princess suddenly exclaims, pouting up at me.

I blink. “Pardon?”

“You said you’d come visit me again!” she complains, even stamping her little foot -and out of the corner of my eye, I see the Prince raise a brow, clearly amused.

Oh, great.

“Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing today, Your Highness?” I try, forcing a conciliatory smile. She seems to consider it for a moment before finally accepting it, her grin returning full-force.

“You have to come back to the palace again, we’re soooo bored!” she insists, pouting again with those ridiculous puppy eyes.

Behind her, the Prince bristles. “Taeyeon, enough. Behave,” he snaps, and she releases her grip —though one small hand still clings to my trousers.

For the first time since the corridor incident, the Prince looks at me with something other than murderous intent —or… well. Maybe just less murderous. His expression is no longer furious, but guarded, suspicious. A look that says you better have a good explanation.

But before he can interrogate or threaten me —which, let’s be honest, is probably seconds away— another voice joins the scene.

One I never would’ve expected in the current political hellscape tearing our kingdoms apart.

“Well! A family reunion, is it? Lucky you…”

The Prince turns around like he’s been struck by lightning. He shifts just enough for me to catch sight of the man standing behind him.

Slightly shorter than Taehyung, narrower in the shoulders —enough that he was completely hidden behind him a second ago. His face is long but fine-boned, with a sharpness that’s softened by round cheeks.

And above all, his eyes —narrow, gleaming, curling into crescents when he smiles —more so than Taehyung’s ever do when he’s mad.

As if that weren’t enough to identify him, there’s the perfectly styled blond hair, the signature of his family, and the soft pastel yellow of his suit —the color of Hestidia.

Standing before us, smiling like this is all perfectly normal, is none other than Prince Jimin —the most wanted man in both kingdoms. Possibly in all the Known Lands.

I don’t know which of us looks more stunned —me or Taehyung— but judging by the way Jimin chuckles, he finds our faces very entertaining.

I’d figured out —by following Taehyung around under protest, granted— that he was somewhere in Irinian.

But here, tonight ? I wasn’t expecting this.

Beside me, Princess Taeyeon gasps in delight, snapping me back to reality.

“Your Highness,” I blurt out, bowing hastily, my voice a little unsteady from sheer surprise.

When I straighten, I find myself face to face with the radiant smile of the Hestidian heir, his eyes crinkling again in that warm, seemingly genuine way.

“You must be Miss Min, I presume? I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

His smile grows —impossibly— and I slowly nod.

“That’s correct, Your Highness.”

“Oh, call me Jimin, please,” he exclaims, looking almost offended at the formality. And with surprising grace, he lifts my hand to his lips.

Prince Taehyung nearly pops a vein, and I’m pretty sure I’m wearing the same expression. Did he seriously just kiss my hand like I’m some noble lady?!

“I could never,” I manage once I recover. It only makes him smile wider.

“Well then, I suppose I’ll just have to keep asking.”

A sharp cough ends our exchange —Taehyung, obviously, visibly irritated. Jimin turns toward him, and from the way he presses his lips together, I’d bet he’s trying not to laugh.

Neither says a word —they just stare, silently, eyes locked in some secret conversation I couldn’t begin to decode. Then, finally, Jimin turns back to me, the grin returning.

“Would you do me the honor of a dance, Miss Min?”

Taehyung groans and rolls his eyes —I, on the other hand, think my eyebrows just flew straight off my face.

The contrast between the two Princes couldn’t be starker —or more unsettling.

“Y-You flatter me, Your Highness, but I must decline. You may be here to enjoy yourself —I’m here to work.”

Taehyung throws a pointed glare at Jimin that, for once, seems to align with my own thinking. Jimin just keeps smiling.

“However,” I add —hesitant at first, then more confident— “there’s a young lady here who would be delighted to accept.”

Both Princes turn toward Princess Taeyeon, who blinks at me in surprise.

“Princess Taeyeon,” Jimin says gallantly, that same glowing smile on his face, “you look absolutely radiant. I would be honored if you’d share this dance with me.”

The Princess’s cheeks turn pink with pleasure. “The honor is mine,” she replies shyly, finally releasing my trousers to take his offered hand.

As he gently leads her toward the dance floor, he tosses me a wink before turning away. Taehyung grunts and rolls his eyes again —but doesn’t make a single move to stop them.

No. Instead, he leans back against the marble column once more, eyes fixed on his friend, who’s now doing everything he can to make the little princess laugh as he spins her around.

“You knew he’d be here?” I ask after a moment, my voice breaking the strange stillness between us, despite the orchestra just meters away.

“I know a great many things, Min,” he replies, enigmatic as ever. His voice drops to a whisper. “As do you.”

I turn toward him, frowning. I don’t like the tone he’s taken. “I had no idea he would be here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I couldn’t care less what you don’t know, Min,” he cuts in coldly, his voice laced with disdain. “What I care about is what you do.”

When he turns to look at me, his black eyes have regained that sharp, chilling glint —that silent threat that’s not so silent anymore.

“And that’s exactly why you’re going to be a good girl —and stay far, far away from my business.”

The Spring Ball goes the way all Spring Balls do.

Grandiose. Dazzling in its extravagance, deafening in its endless music and dancing, exquisite in its delicacies and tiresome small talk.

But more than anything, slow.

Maybe it’s not very gracious of me to think that —especially considering the whole thing has practically been organized in my honor— but, honestly, not even the alcohol can cheer me up. At the palace, they serve me better wine —and at least there, I can enjoy it in peace.

Here, the music splits my ears —it’s even more “festive” than what we have at the palace, which is saying something— and not five minutes go by without some Lord or Lady —whose name I wouldn’t remember even if I cared to try— coming to interrupt me with the same meaningless nonsense the nobility’s been recycling for years.

The returning sun. The upcoming receptions in the Capital. The Princess’s birthday. The young Princes. The Queen —who, apparently, still looks twenty despite being well past that. Blah blah blah. 

Occasionally, the conversations get a little juicier. A baron rumored to have gambled everything away, a lady said to be cheating on her husband… And then, sometimes —when the wine is flowing and the tongues loosen— people dare to whisper about the death of Princess Jiwon. Sometimes. Some really rare times.

In short, nothing but the usual dull noise. Just gossip so insipid it almost makes me want to strike up a conversation with that ferret Min —at least she doesn’t waste time repeating herself and gossipping about all this bullshit.

In the name of tradition —and mostly just to get people to leave me alone— I grant three dances to three different young ladies, all blushing and stammering the moment my hand brushes theirs. Which only leads to awkward small talk and an impressive number of crushed toes —mine, I should specify— and that surprisingly does nothing to improve my mood.

The whole time, Min stays at a distance, leaning against the wall like a shadow. I can feel her watching me from afar —me, and anyone who might come too close— but I have to admit, when she wants to, she can disappear pretty well. After a while, I almost forget she’s even there —though I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol dulling my senses or if she’s actually decided to give me some space tonight.

When the music finally dies down and my third dance partner walks off, face as red as a beet after one of those ridiculous deep curtsies, I don’t even try to stifle the weary sigh that escapes me.

What the hell am I doing at this giant masquerade.

Thankfully, no one notices how fed up I look —or maybe not “thankfully,” actually. A bit of scandal might’ve spiced things up.

A more upbeat melody starts playing —something fast, jubilant— and the crowd rushes to the center of the ballroom while I retreat as quickly as possible.

Two circles form: a large one, and a smaller one inside it. Everyone’s doing the same sequence of steps, a sort of bizarre jig that looks suspiciously similar to the ones villagers perform during local festivals.

A little too rustic for my taste —and that’s being generous.

But in the middle of the grand ballroom, with people twirling and laughing and shouting, all you see are spinning dresses and smiling faces —in other words, everyone’s having a grand old time.

And that’s exactly the moment I choose to slip away.

Not that I’d planned it —no secret agenda tonight— no, this time, it’s almost innocent. The sight of all this carefree joy, so wildly disconnected from the crisis shaking both our kingdoms, is enough to make my skin crawl. The cool breeze that hits my face the moment I step onto one of the small balconies feels like the first breath I’ve taken all evening.

Slowly, I lean over the railing and let my head fall back, eyes closed. From here, I can still hear the music, but it’s ten times softer than in the ballroom —and mixed with the gentle sounds of nature and the wind, it actually feels… peaceful.

A part of me knows I can’t really blame them —these people who dance with no weight on their shoulders. In Irinian, the only ones truly aware of the situation in Hestidia are my father, the Council, and me —and Jimin, now that he’s left his Kingdom. And while I have a strong suspicion that Min knows more than she lets on, it would be naive to expect the rest of the nobility to be even mildly alarmed.

To them, it’s nothing more than what the King allowed the papers to print: a few peasants here and there rising up in protest, unhappy with their lot. Nothing Hestidia can’t handle.

And yet, no matter how often I remind myself of that, it doesn’t stop the nausea rising in my throat when I watch them laugh and dance like none of it exists.

“The party not to your liking?”

I don’t even have to turn around to recognize that bright, familiar voice approaching from behind. I don’t bother straightening up, just open my eyes again.

“Rarely is,” I reply simply, bringing my glass to my lips as I watch the gardens. “I tend to prefer quiet over wild celebration.”

“Quiet? Now that’s a concept your family’s never quite grasped,” Jimin jokes, letting out a little laugh as he leans against the railing beside me.

“Oh, believe me, I’m well aware,” I mutter with a sigh —and I surprise myself with how easily his little chuckle pulls a faint smile from my own lips.

Silence settles between us. Comfortable. Calm.

He watches the party through the glass while I keep my gaze on the garden. Both of us, quiet smiles lingering.

Then, after a moment, I’m the one to break it. “You should’ve warned me you’d be here tonight. With all my siblings under the same roof, who knows how many assassins might try their luck. That’s completely irresponsible.”

He just smiles wider —clearly amused by my concern, dressed up as scolding.

“I did warn you,” he says, looking rather pleased with himself when I raise a skeptical brow. “In the letter. I told you we’d meet again in Mudfront —what, did you really think I’d sneak in like a rat and not take advantage of all this fun?”

He lets a beat pass. I don’t answer. Of course, part of me had understood he’d be here tonight —I just didn’t expect him to make such a show of it.

Didn’t expect him to show up glowing in his Kingdom’s colors, to dance half the night without a care in the world —of which at least four times with my sister, claiming he “just can’t resist her little face,” or some other bullshit like that.

It’s reckless —borderline suicidal— but it’s also just… Jimin.

People think he’s on the run, hiding, desperate. He does the exact opposite. Shows up right in front of the entire court, more radiant and proud than ever.

“A party of this magnitude shouldn’t happen without me,” he declares, as if reading my mind. His smile fades now, gaze drifting back toward the ballroom. He reaches for my glass and takes a sip without asking.

I twitch at his nerve —but let him. I’ve had enough of it anyway -and the wine’s not even that good.

“When my father finds out you're here, he’s going to send the royal guard after you,” I mutter.

He just flashes a smug little grin. “I don’t remember you being this scared of your dad,” he quips —and laughs when I shoot him a glare. “Don’t worry about the Special Guard. I’ve got it under control.”

That catches my attention. I turn toward him, narrowing my eyes. “What do you mean, ‘under control’? Don’t tell me you—”

He cuts me off with a nod. “They were on me barely two days after we saw each other at the tavern. No idea how they got here so fast, thought —didn’t you say they’d already gone back to Hestidia?”

Now it’s my turn to nod, eyes narrowed. “Hmm.” Then, after a short pause: “Someone must’ve seen us.”

By someone, I obviously mean that sneaky little weasel Min. All of this is her fault.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter much now, anyway,” he shrugs. “I’ve got it under control. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, so mister Cat-Eyes agreed to listen to you?” I mutter, borderline sarcastic.

“Who? Oh, the lieutenant? Hmm-hmm. He was actually pretty reasonable. Way less awful than you made him sound.”

I raise a doubtful eyebrow.

I vaguely recall saying Min was worse than a thorn in the foot. But right now, I can’t quite remember if I said that about Cat-Eyes or not. Doesn’t matter. I didn’t spend long around him, but it was clear enough he was the less unbearable one of the two. And of course, I got stuck with the disrespectful leech.

“Your bodyguard, too. They’re really alike —think they’re related? She seems charming, anyway.”

I let out a short, scornful laugh and don’t even bother answering the first part of that sentence. I could not care less about any potential blood ties between my bodyguard and Jimin’s. All I know is she gives me a constant urge to look over my shoulder —and that’s already too much.

“Even if I agreed with you on that, trust me, it’s just an act.”

He gives me a sideways look that reeks of disapproval —not that it changes anything for me.

“Maybe you should loosen up a little, hmm?” he starts, and I cut him off with another scoff.

“Yeah, great idea. Let me relax in front of my father’s watchdog. Genius move, Jimin.” He rolls his eyes. “Look, I’d bet good money she’s the reason the lieutenant found you so fast. She just shadows me, waiting for the slightest excuse to report everything I do to my father—”

“Actually, I’m not so sure about that.” He cuts in, thoughtful, swirling the last of his drink in small circles. “Ever since I met the lieutenant, and contrary to what I expected, he hasn’t brought up the King even once. Doesn’t even seem interested in taking me anywhere. I barely had to negotiate —he just said he was here to protect me if needed, nothing more.”

His words give me pause. Could we have been wrong? Was the special guard really sent just to protect us in this mess —and nothing else?

No. No way.

“Maybe he said that just to earn your trust.”

Jimin narrows his eyes, clearly mulling that over, gaze distant… then shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t think so… But don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on him.”

“Hmm-hmm. So am I,” I mutter, jaw tightening at the mere thought of Min.

He grins mischievously. “Yeah, maybe a bit too much of an eye, if you ask me.” At my glare, he adds, “What? I’m just saying —you act twice as suspicious when you're constantly on edge around her—”

“Alright, thanks for the commentary, but now shut it and let me handle my mess alone, would you?” I grumble, snatching my glass back from his hands. He bursts out laughing.

“You’ve always been way too tightly wound. You gotta chill out, Taetae,” he snickers, all proud of himself as he throws out that ridiculous nickname he used when we were kids.

“I said: shut it.” I growl, and he just laughs harder.

He opens his mouth to say something else —still half-laughing— but he doesn’t get the chance, because like a lightning strike splitting a tree, the lights in the entire estate suddenly go out, and dozens of panicked screams erupt from the ballroom.

On instinct, Jimin’s hand clamps around my arm like he’s scared I’ll disappear into the sudden dark. The building and the ballroom are plunged into such complete blackness we can barely make out the panicked nobles crowding together. The night’s already fallen, so we can’t count on any light from outside, either.

Inside, it’s chaos —no need to strain to hear it. Screams, crying, sharp bangs, the distinct sound of skirts swishing and colliding as everyone rushes in every direction at once.

From the balcony, I can even see nobles bolting from the building, running toward their carriages so fast it looks like they’re…

…running from something.

And above it all, the orchestra has gone silent, replaced by the rising panic of Irinian nobility.

My jaw tightens. I take a step toward the room, trying to see, to understand —but it’s no use. It’s pitch black.

Still, the cries echoing out of that room are as clear as can be: something serious is going down in there.

I take another step forward to get closer, but Jimin’s hand tightens on my arm, stopping me. When I glance over, he’s staring toward the room too —but he looks far more alarmed than I probably do. Worried, sure, but more than that —he looks scared. And it doesn’t take me long to understand why.

This scene —it’s too much like the one he lived through in Hestidia, at that other ball, months ago.

And just like that, doubt hits me like a stone. What if someone inside is here for him?

“We need to get to the front entrance,” Jimin whispers, voice shaky, eyes glued to the darkness beyond the ballroom doors.

I frown, puzzled, and his grip tightens a little more.

“Lieutenant Min and his men are stationed all around the estate. That was his idea —to watch the perimeter, check everyone coming in, try to spot the assassin… I wanted to tell you about it but—”

A gunshot rings out from inside the ballroom, cutting him off, and I flinch. Jimin clutches my arm with both hands now, fingers digging in. When I meet his gaze again, he’s not just scared —he’s terrified.

And with the screaming inside rising even higher, I make the quickest decision of my life.

I have no idea what’s going on in there —but there is no way I’m gonna stand here doing nothing while Jimin’s in such a state of mind.

“The front entrance, huh?”

I’ve lived through my fair share of mass panic. Bombings, stampedes, riots… Which is exactly why I’m a little pissed at myself for taking so long to react when the lights went out.

You didn’t need to be a genius to notice the Prince was even less thrilled than usual about my presence lately. So, not wanting to push my luck, I’d kept my distance all evening. Worked better for me anyway —in a ballroom that size, it’s smarter to have a wide field of view, and for that, a wall’s a better vantage point than hovering right behind your protectee.

So when the Prince slipped out onto the balcony, I didn’t follow him. Didn’t really feel like getting yelled at again to “go dig through shit and see if I’m in there.”

Yeah. That one still stings.

So instead of testing His Majesty’s already thin patience, I stayed in the hall, keeping to the wall, just making sure no one joined him out there.

Only one person did —Prince Jimin, after a few minutes. And I didn’t see any reason to stop him. As tempted as I was to eavesdrop, I held back.

Curiosity’s already cost me a bullet to the thigh and a faceful of insults —more than time to cut my losses.

Time passed. Slowly. Boring as hell. I tried to keep myself busy —by watching young Princess Taeyeon laugh at some joke a courtier whispered all the while keeping an eye on the balcony door— but the amusement didn’t last long.

At some point, I was practically hoping something would happen. Anything. Even someone spilling wine on a dress would’ve done the trick —just something to break the monotony.

And maybe I hoped a little too hard. Maybe, just maybe. 

When the lights went out, I froze. Just like that. Couldn’t move for a solid ten seconds, too stunned to do anything.

A party, all laughter, music, and glittering lights —suddenly turned to chaos, drowned in darkness and silence?

Way, way too familiar.

It wasn’t until Taeyeon’s bodyguard —the one who replaced me when I was reassigned to protect Prince Taehyung— came crashing through the ballroom doors with such a bang that it triggered another wave of screams, then bolted toward the Princess, who’d burst into tears, that I finally snapped out of it.

Squinting, I tried to scan the room, looking for anything —anything at all. Armed men taking advantage of the blackout to sneak in, maybe. But even if they had, I couldn’t have spotted them in the pitch black the room was swallowed in.

Too familiar.

The only sliver of light came from the balcony doors, still ajar —but it was so faint it barely helped. Just enough to let you find the exit, not enough to see your way through the room.

And then, as the other guard scooped up the crying seven-year-old princess and started running, my brain finally kicked back online.

The Prince.

Eyes locked on the balcony door, I started to run —only to smack face-first into a noble barely two steps in.

“Who— Are you a guard?! Please, what’s going on?!” he cried out —nearly in tears— and, since he couldn’t see me, he started patting my face with his gloved hands like he thought he might recognize me by touch.

I tried to answer, but everything hit me at once —the roar of panicked screams, too many hands grabbing at me for safety— and when I finally found my voice, it got swallowed by the noise, even I couldn’t hear what I’d said.

“Excuse me, I need to get through,” I said louder, gently pushing the noble aside to reach the balcony. But others grabbed me.

“Wait! You can’t leave us!”

“Do something, can’t you see everyone’s terrified?!”

“How on earth did all the lights go out at once?!”

“Please, I just need to—” I tried again, but it was useless. Dozens of frantic voices drowned mine out completely.

And then the gunshot —loud enough to split ears open. Far too close.

I remember ducking by instinct, dragging down anyone I could grab. The next second, the screams hit a new peak, and my ears were ringing like hell.

But worse than the noise was the panic that surged inside me —not like the nobles’, but just as intense.

There was someone armed in that room, surrounded by terrified nobles —and nobles in a panic don’t do anything useful. They scream, they run in circles, and they expect someone else to save them —because, well, they’re nobles.

Only this time, there’s no way to see anything —and again, someone in that room has a gun and clearly isn’t shy about using it.

And in the middle of it all, the Prince —my entire damn reason for being here— is unprotected.

If I had to sum this whole situation up in one word, it would be shit. Or, in a few more: fuck-all hell, Min Harin is the dumbest idiot in all the Known Lands.

After the shot, the chaos somehow got worse —with nobles shoving and bolting in every direction, it was impossible to move without being knocked sideways or shoved two steps back.

A bunch of them made it to the big doors and fled the room —maybe even the building. More shots rang out, but the noise was so deafening now, they barely registered.

After several endless minutes of full-blown panic, some soldiers showed up with torches. The light didn’t do much, but if you grabbed one, you could see maybe two steps ahead before it turned to pitch black again.

Still, better than nothing, I guess.

I pushed my way through the mess toward them —not too gently— even though the room had cleared out a little. And by that, I mean around fifty nobles had managed to escape —out of the four hundred packed in here tonight.

One of the soldiers recognized me and handed me a torch, visibly relieved to see someone from the Royal Guard. I guess I should’ve felt flattered —instead it just added more weight to the pressure already crushing me, with the Prince still nowhere in sight.

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking the torch and turning to the others. “Priority is finding the royal family and getting them to safety. Pass the word. We also need to—”

I didn’t get to finish. Another shot went off —this one landing in the wall just beside one of the men I was talking to. Out of instinct, I turned my head the opposite way, trying to spot the shooter. But as I squinted into the dark, the soldiers took it as some sort of cue and scattered, their torchlight bouncing away across the room.

I shook it off fast and made my way toward the balcony with quick, determined steps now that I could at least see. I needed to join the Prince, and fast. Who knows if there isn't another shooter hidden somewhere ? Or a few ?

But I never made it to the balcony. Because just as I set foot on one of the little steps leading to the glass doors, a dull thud rang out —and one of the torch-bearing soldiers collapsed in front of me.

The torch rolled across the floor and kept burning, the only reason I saw his body at all…

…And the person standing over him, knife in hand.

I’m not someone who get scared easily. Really —if not, I wouldn't be where I am today. But seeing that, my blood ran cold.

I blinked, convinced I was seeing things. When I opened my eyes, the body was still there —but the figure was gone in the dark. I stood frozen for too long, breathing hard and way too fast, trying to convince myself I hadn’t just seen what I know I saw —a faceless figure draped in a long plum-colored robe, holding a blade longer than my shin.

And I must’ve imagined it. No way that figure was really there —and disappeared the second after. But even as my brain screamed that it was impossible, the image kept replaying every time I closed my eyes.

So I gripped the torch tighter in one hand, my pistol in the other, and ran toward where I thought the figure had gone. I jumped over the soldier’s body —definitely dead— and plunged into the darkest part of the ballroom, the direction the figure would’ve taken to vanish fast —the far end, where the shadows are thickest.

I scanned what little I could see, searching for them —though if they were really wearing what I remembered, they’d blend right into the gloom.

I stopped near a toppled table, half out of breath —my breathing way too fast and ragged. I should probably be worri—

“No, please, I’m begging you, I—”

The plea somehow makes it to my ears, snapping my head violently in the direction it came from. And when I spot its source, I freeze for good.

There, at the base of the wall, stands that same figure, this time crouched over another man pinned to the ground. A long, skeletal hand slips from the dark clothing and coils around the man’s throat in a deadly threat. A torch, fallen to the floor a few meters away, casts a sickly light over the scene, throwing the figure’s shadow onto the wall—three times its size and three times as terrifying.

My throat tightens at the sight —this can’t be real, it just can’t be—

And then suddenly, for some reason, my eyes tear away from the figure and land on the man caught in its grip. His face contorted in fear —yet still recognizable.

Because it’s a face you may have seen dozens of times in portraits hanging across the Capital.

The King’s second son. Prince Taehui.

The moment I recognize him, time seems to slow: the Prince screams, the figure raises its free arm to reveal the ugly knife it’s holding, pulls back to aim—

—and is violently flung backward when the bullet from my gun hits it square in the temple.

The Prince chokes, instinctively clutching his throat as the figure’s hold collapses. He sits up, coughing, spitting, and I rush over and crouch beside him.

A quick scan of the room —things aren’t quite so dark anymore thanks to my torch. But there’s no sign of the figure. It simply disappeared. 

The Prince clutches at me shakily as he straightens up. “Breathe, Your Highness.” He nods, massaging his throat, and a brief ‘thank you’ slips from his lips as our eyes meet. Up close, his resemblance to Prince Taehyung is even more striking than in the paintings —they’re nearly identical, save for Taehui’s smaller eyes and slightly longer face. He looks younger, too —I’d guess barely past twenty. Much too young to come this close to being murdered, anyway -if there’s even an age for that.

Once he finally catches his breath, he glances around —and it’s only thanks to that that I think to do the same. That’s when I realize the ballroom has nearly emptied. The chaos, the screams —all gone in a blink. Soldiers now pour in by the dozens, each carrying a torch, and in less time than it takes to say it, the grand hall is lit again. Not as bright as before, but enough to see clearly.

“Can you stand?” I ask softly. The Prince grimaces and looks down at his leg. A small, round wound. Right in the middle of his thigh.

I wince in sympathy. I know for sure what a bullet to the thigh feels like. “I’ll help you.”

He nods and lets me slip his arm over my shoulders. We rise together. He grits his teeth, but the thanks he mutters this time sounds more genuine.

We’ve barely taken a few steps when a soldier spots us —one of the young Prince’s men.

“Are you alright? Where’s the assassin?!” he demands, still tense and alert.

“Gone,” I say, shaking my head, just as confused as he is about how they vanished so fast. But the Prince is top priority right now. “His Highness is wounded. He needs immediate care.”

The soldier nods hastily. “Of course, I’ll—”

“What the hell is going on here?!”

The soldier freezes, eyes widening at the sound of the furious voice behind him, and silence falls in the room. I swear even the Prince beside me flinches. The soldier steps aside, and just my luck —I find myself face to face with Prince Taehyung, whose clenched jaw and fists say plenty about his current mood.

Beside him stands Prince Jimin, eyes darting between me and Taehui, his brow furrowed with concern.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding when I see them both alive and well —untouched, even— and it turns into a full exhale when I spot the man behind them, torch in hand. Dressed head-to-toe in black, in a plainer uniform than mine, cropped hair and a thin scar at the corner of his mouth— Juhel, Yoongi’s right-hand man.

So Yoongi did find Jimin.

“I believe I asked you a question, Min,” Prince Taehyung says, his voice so sharp it might slice straight through me. He looks like he’s two seconds away from lunging at me the way the assassin did at his brother.

I swallow hard, irritation bubbling up inside me, tangled with the panic and confusion from seeing the shadow figure. This is really not the moment for one of the Prince’s moods —I need to talk to Yoongi. Now.

“It appears an assassin infiltrated the building… and attempted to take the Prince’s life,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady.

“Oh, it appears?” the Prince repeats with a sneer, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Brilliant deduction, Min.”

Behind him, Jimin places a hand on his shoulder in a calming gesture and mutters something I can’t hear—but it doesn’t have the desired effect. If anything, it seems to make things worse. I can practically see the flames in Taehyung’s eyes.

“Would you care to explain how this happened, considering your very job is to prevent exactly that?”

I don’t answer. I’m not stupid enough to speak when he sounds like that —for he looks ready to skewer me for breathing wrong. His younger brother, apparently, doesn’t realize.

“My brother, she didn’t do anything, it was me who—”

“Shut up. I’m not talking to you.”

Taehui’s face goes pale at the cold, disdainful tone. My breath catches —because I’ve never seen Taehyung this angry. And believe me, I have seen him angry. Like, a lot. 

“We were caught off guard. It won’t happen again,” I say eventually, the silence stretching so long it turns suffocating.

Another derisive scoff. “It better not. And next time, maybe just introduce yourself as my brother’s bodyguard, since you were clearly more eager to protect him than, say, the Crown Prince or Prince Jimin.”

The silence that follows his words is deafening. My eyebrows shoot up slowly, and my mouth falls slightly open.

He can’t be serious.

I stare at him, stunned, and after a moment of disbelief, without even meaning to, I lower my head and let out a dry laugh.

This has to be a joke. A fucking joke.

“Do you have something to say, Min?” Taehyung says, his tone so acidic it’s a miracle it doesn’t peel paint off the walls.

“Besides the fact that you’re one of the most shameless men I’ve ever met? Not much,” I reply, lifting my gaze back to his. At this point, I don’t care if the soldiers or either Prince see the fury in my eyes —I’ve had it.

Jimin practically chokes beside him, but Taehyung doesn’t react —at least no more than usual. He just raises a single eyebrow, the threat in his eyes back in full force. “I beg your pardon?”

Translation: You have two seconds to change your answer before I slit your throat.

Let him try. I’ll fight him anytime.

“You heard me just fine. If I wasn’t there to protect you at the time of the attack, it’s because I took into account the many times you made it perfectly clear that my presence irritates you. Forgive me for such an unforgivable mistake —even though, thank heaven, it didn’t result in any real consequences tonight.”

I slowly remove Taehui’s arm from around my shoulders and only briefly check that he can stand on his own before stepping toward the Prince. I don’t look away from his eyes once, fury burning in mine —fury I didn’t know I had in me.

“And yet, Your Highness, I was under the impression that you were grown and intelligent enough to understand that just because you don’t want me to do my job doesn’t mean I won’t do it.”

He doesn’t blink. Not once. Even as I step so close the tips of my boots nearly touch his. I catch Jimin from the corner of my eye shifting forward, as if worried we’re about to tear each other apart. I don’t think he’d be that useful if anything of that kind ends up happening. I’d be more than glad to rip these stupid black eyes out of his face.

Taehyung just clenches his jaw so tight I can see the muscle twitch in his cheek as I speak the most disrespectful respectful phrase I’ve ever said to a royal.

“You don’t want me as your bodyguard —fine. I can also accept that you don’t like me —that’s not necessary for me to do my job correctly, after all. But if I may, I find it a bit rich to scold me for protecting another royal when you’ve told me, time and time again, that you didn’t need my protection.”

My teeth are clenched so hard they might shatter —just like his, judging by the grinding sound coming from him. “You arrogant little—”

“Now if Your Highness will excuse me,” I cut him off, raising my voice deliberately, letting the restraint I’ve kept so far give way to pure anger, “One member of the royal family —whom I was hired to protect, as you mentioned it— is injured. While you, conveniently, are not.”

I take a step back. My glare never wavers. And if he looks a little stunned by the sudden shift in my tone, his eyes are still full of silent, vicious threats, like he’s silently swearing to me he’ll give me the slowest and most painful death as soon as he can. He opens his mouth —but once again, I’m faster.

“I have no doubt you’re dying to unload your rage on me. And believe me, I’d be thrilled to hear it. So I suggest you kindly wait until I’ve dealt with your brother’s injury —or, if you’re that impatient, go check the nearest manure pit to see if I’m in it.”

<- Previous - Masterlist - Next ->

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

Can we have a deeper analysis in Sabo's shape language study please? It's amazing how you make him give different vibes with just his hair and I like to understand how does that work.

Oh. I'm SO glad you asked.

(The Post In Question)

Okay so this isnt the first post ive made about shape language,

Here are the others:

ASL Shapes Strawhats Shapes

i'm just gonna copy and paste the definition i have for shape language from those posts here so i dont have to write it all again.

Shape language is defined as “a concept used in art and animation to communicate meaning based on shapes we are familiar with” (source). This concept uses circles, triangles, and squares to convey an idea of the “personality” of the design without using any words.

In designs, using circles and rounded edges in your silhouette and detailing gives the design a soft and squishy look. They tend to be harmless, approachable, or changeable.

Designs using squares gives the design a solid, sturdy, and strong look. They are supportive, reliable, and inflexible

Lastly, triangle designs are sharp and directional. They are dynamic, dangerous, and unpredictable.

That's base level but here's more in depth description of each design for ya:

this one is up first!

You may notice how in this design, his hair isnt in large clumps like the others are. His hair falls delicately and waves gently with little to no hard angles.

In this design, i was trying to convey the idea of "he wasnt born to fight, but he's molded himself into someone who will." I tried to depict that by making his hair all light and feathery, his facial features soft and rounded, but also showing how he's modified his body in a pointy and aggressive way.

I didn't want to only go hard edges with the piercings though because much like he's strayed from his mold of being delicate, he's also strayed from his mold of being a cruel noble. so some of his piercings are rings, AKA: Circles.

You may also notice the different in how I've drawn the collars of these guys. the collar of this Babo's black coat falls softly, and its' arc is rounded. The shoulders don't have any padding and it rounds at the corner.

This Man Is Round.

Next up is this Freak

This is supposed to be Triangle Him.

His hair is in larger, hard angled clumps. Indicating that he probably cut his hair himself. He did... greattt. I already headcannon him as someone who cuts his own hair, but i dont think this one ever gets any better at it.

The hard angles on his teeth, his scar, his jaw, his collar, that line i forgot to erase on the left, and his coat all give indication that this guy is Dangerous and you probably shouldnt mess with him.

I didn't have any real deeper meaning to this version, I just wanted to make him look as opposing as I could. this guy is "what you see is pretty much what you get."

Even though he doesn't have a lot of deeper meaning, I think this one is my favorite of the designs. I really love these colors on him and his hair was really fun to draw. I think I wanna draw him again at some point. I think this version of him would be very funny paired with Koala. I'm chuckling thinking about it:

Koala and her Armed and On Fire kindergartener

And lastly this guy

Sabo's base design is very rectangle coded. From his Hat, to his face shape, to his coat. So this version was very easy to make as I didn't actually need to change that much!

I think maybe I could've made his design a little more complex? But also I think there is a beauty in simplicity for this one. He looks straightforward, reliable, and kind. He seems like the kind of guy who gets his hands dirty, not because he likes doing it, but because he does what he must for the greater good.

I really love his hazel eyes, too. I think it brings a nice warmth to his design that is really nice.

Additional comments:

I love talking about this stuff. I love designing. I love art. I love drawing so much it's so fun

Everytime I get to sit down and make some funky doodles my brain feels like 🧠🤸🧘🧜🧚🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🧚💃💃💃💃💃💃

If you got this far thanks for reading :)

I usually have a description for my designs and my choices and stuff and I forgot to do one for this post, it makes me happy to see that it was missed :)

[cconfusedkat]

Lmao i thank my audience for inspiring me to make new refs for characters when i already have proper ones 😭 the sketch is messy cuz i lowkey wanna make him standout the most (even more than allure) and play around w lyndwyrm aspects ,, plus body language change since hes The most positive person in the family 💀

Yapping under the cut cuz i wanted to point out some things i did for the sketch so far )which is Not finalized to clarify,)

-That nd just wanting to give him new clothes- maybe v shirt change with a litle hook at the top connecting it and smth similiar to compression gloves ,, im just trying to think of how the hell he can function with a long tail all day nd like. Herm maybe it could also be more loose shorts too and a hook behind it as well- yah nothing will make sense till i complete it

Honestly i might try to give him more open clothing ? Idk ,, im ngl he might as well just throw on some early roman clothing im thinking of-

Which giving him a more top build than bottom build rlly encapsulates his arm strength compared to the other one where you prolly couldnt guess hes strong enough to grow roots under ground with his command ,, its sorta similiar to how allure has more of a bottom build and they have stronger legs/thighs than arms? Giuseppe is the same way like leshy anyways- giuseppe relies in his arms for strength thus top heavy, kall bottom heavy cuz shi has stronger legs than everyone (girl walks around w six everyday too ofc shi does lmao-), heket top heavy cuz of strong biceps and forearms, shamura bottom heavy cuz they use their legs more often and theyre pretty strong leg wise (they do have muscles though! Ive yet to draw that), and narinder is top heavy cuz he uses swords all day-

Im too lazy to edit back on the build word so i meant top heavy vs bottom heavy bodies woops

Aaliyah is probably the only one i can think of who has neither, shx's just flat

Ummm. Sozo is top heavy cuz he works with his arms a lot- he skipping leg day that's why I didn't give him a naked ref yet cuz bros got such funny legs /sil no he doesnt rlly hes got calves just not thighs lmao-

Sorry absolute YAPFEST over here ,, Boy im getting tired ill finish his ref when i wake up

[saltynsassy31]

Saw your post for asks about Blurr and Swerve so here's some random questions before I head for dream land.

Would they have pet names for each other?

What sorts of drinks would they make the other?

What's your favorite hc's for them?

Favorite au to see them in?

And one more. What are your favorite fun (or sad :D) canon facts for them?

THANK YOUUUUU YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SEND ME ANYTHING

And this is where I say that I still have my ask box open for Blurr and Swerve pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseeeeee keep sending me stuff, doesn't have to be asking me you can just send anything about them pleaseeeeeee

Ahem, anyway

Putting it under the cut cuz it got long and I hate scrolling too much on my blog to find something gkskaka

I think they would! Mostly Blurr, cuz I feel like he's a sweet talker. So stuff like "love" or "Sweetspark" would be the more commonly used. Swerve would say things like "Babe" or "honey" (or whatever the equivalent of honey is for cybertronians). But I think they'd come up with ridiculous pet names for each other based on inside jokes, one more ridiculous than the other XD

Additionally, I think it would be Blurr who would start using pet names, as Swerve would over think if he should or not. But the second he sees his opening, he'll get all giddy and excited about using them XD.

Now, for drinks, that depends on your hcs for how drinks/fuel works for them, since there isn't a solid answer tbh. But I do have still sorta of an answer that also relates to my favourite HC for them so imma just merge the two answers.

My HC is that Swerve's love language is making drinks for the person he loves/cares for. He'll try to perfect the drink to their liking, adjusting little things until its perfect. He uses his metallurgist skills to aid him in that regard a lot. He'll ask the other's honest opinion on the drink and chanfe it accordingly.

And a HC a friend introduced to me that I really love for Blurr is that he keeps a lot of mental notes/notes in general. He process the world pretty fast (as OP told him in his spotlight issue), so that makes him understand things before anyone else. Which makes him great to read people. And also means he noticed this little behaviour from Swerve, he caught on pretty fast, actually. So, in turn, he started to do something pretty similar. Making a drink that was to Swerve's liking.

As for the type of drinks each would like. I think Blurr would like something with a bit of a kick to it, strong and electric to the system. While Swerve is a huuuuuge sweet tooth XD But also really enjoys drinks that burns. So starts sweet then absolutely burns his throat as it goes down.

And favourite au? Oh I just have to say Keferon's Mecha Pilot au. I MISS THEM SO MUCH YALL I WANNA SEE MORE OF THEM IN THAT AU AGAIN!!!! It's the reason why I even started to ship them in the first place, so I have an obvious soft spot for it.

And canon facts? Well, since they only interact like...twice in canon, I'm assuming you mean individually.

It's hard to pick just one ngl gkskaka especially for Swerve, I love everything about him.

But let's see.

I'll go for Blurr first. But my favourite, canon fact about him would have to be that he has a bit of a bad short-term memory due to his high speed collisions LMAO. It was mentioned only once, and played mostly for laughs. But man, the amount of angst you can extract from just that one little bit of info, which fans certainly have! XD

Oh! Also that he played board games with Drift when the two were both Wreckers.

For Swerve, gosh, I think I'll have to say that he's the only known bot with 3 fingers (in idw continuity at least). Enough that everyone (even himself) comments on it none stop. And a pet peeve of mine is when people forget that XD.

So much so that, if you look at my bird au, you'll see I also only gave him 3 fingers.

Thoooough I do have to make an honorable mention of his encounter with the DJD, where he encountered Vos and Tarn doing the most horrific, gore fest shit ever (force feeding another bot their own insides) before getting shot. And that left him mute for 6 months.

Again, another thing mostly played for laughs, but Jesus christ was that awful.

[talon-dragonbeast]

Can I ask abt your dragon lore? lol. I mean like. more about your species? can they talk, are they sapient, behaviors, temperament, biology, etc. If u want to share! I just thought it would be fun to ask and I love learning abt how others experience dragonness. I was also curious abt how u awakened as a dragon? I’m questioning currently

yes!! sorry for taking so long to answer, but to be fair its a question which required a pretty in-depth answer lol. so here we go!

my species of dragon has similarities to both reptiles and birds (and a little bit of mammal too). im a reptile because im cold-blooded, have scales over most of my body, spines running from head to tail, big shield plates on my neck and chest, eyes with sliced pupils, a long strong tail, and my claws and teeth are similar to those of crocodiles. im similar to a bird cause i have feathers on my wings, my mouth resembles a beak in shape, i have bird behaviors like nesting, and my body is built for flying and thus pretty aerodynamic. and finally, i say im a bit mammalian bc ive got ears and horns, and bc of the general shape of my body, being quadrupedal and semi-digitigrade (my front legs are plantigrade, while my back ones are digitigrade), with long limbs and strong bones, and because i can make sounds like growls or roars that sound a bit like those of big cats.

i cant talk as a dragon and my species doesnt have a language, cant use tools and cant understand human words. im basically a very intelligent animal, like a crow. my species does have a society, but we're very solitary beings so its pretty rudimentary. we raise our young communally, and once they reach maturity they are encouraged to leave the nest and find their own territory. we have Roles which are our version of genders in humans, but instead of tied to a biological sex theyre more about your place in society. so for example, there are Protectors (who have a territory that they guard, typically associated to more solitary dragons like myself), Providers (primarily hunters, they bring resources for their mate or dragonets; very nomadic) and Carers (theyre by far the most social role; as the name implies, they are the primary carers of our young, but they also keep balance in a community). sex or gender arent that important to my species, but we do mate for life.

im an omnivore, my diet consists mainly on meat, fish, and fruits, but i can eat functionally anything (except straight-up leaves, which i cant digest). im primarily a predator and a hunter, but i also forage a lot of my food. im agressive as a dragon, so that combined with being very intelligent makes me pretty dangerous to both humans and other animals.

hmm, what else... oh! i can breathe fire! its not like in most depictions of dragons though, in which theyre used as a perfectly functional flamethrower; i cant really project it or aim it at anything, it only goes as far as i can blow it. i dont exactly know how it works, but from the way my instincts tell me to just blow in a specific way to produce it, i can guess its like a gland or something that contains very flammable gas, that when it comes in contact with oxygen it catches fire.

as for how i awakened as a dragon, i realized first that i was nonhuman in some way (like i viewed myself as not human, but wasnt sure what species i was yet) because i felt wings on my back since i was very young. first i googled "phantom wings on your back?" and came across the word otherkin in a very old blog run by a spiritual dragonkin. upon seeing that there were others like me who felt phantom limbs and saw themselves as not human, i began questioning my species. i thought i was a crow at first because of the wings, but i tried on the label and it felt just wrong, so i thought i wasnt nonhuman after all. i basically dropped everything entirely for a few months, but the wings i felt on my back were getting stronger and stronger, and on top of that i also started feeling other things like claws and sharp teeth. so for the entire summer i tried on different species to see what fit: avian (bc of the wings), angelkin (i immediately dropped this one bc religion makes me very uncomfortable lmao), harpy (bc of the combination of wings+claws+teeth, but it wasnt quite right), monsterkin (felt weird to call myself a monster), and finally in a fit of inspiration i had a random thought: "what if im a dragon?"

i immediately got a rush of euphoria from the thought alone. this hadnt happened with any of the other labels, so i decided to start exploring it a bit more. the phantom limbs i felt matched those of a dragon (though the feathered wings threw me off a bit), i had very draconic behaviors like hoarding, liking shiny objects, flying urges, instincts get to high places, etc. and most importantly, it felt so good to call myself a dragon. like i could see myself as a dragon perfectly, i could imagine what i would be like as a dragon, i could do dragon behaviors almost effortlessly. being a dragon never felt like i was acting or putting on a mask, it didnt feel like i was "forcing" myself to be that way; it just felt natural, like i was always this way. thats what finally made me start identifying as dragonkin i think: the easiness of it all.

good luck on your questioning journey! i know it can be hard to find out what species you are, but remember to not overthink it too much! it can be tempting to start analyzing absolutely everything about yourself in hopes of finding your species, but overdoing it can cause you to lose yourself in the process. take it easy and remember to follow what feels right to you, without worrying about what others might say or do. this is your journey, not anyone else's!

[kata4a]

so in addition to vocabulary, I'm also trying to make flashcards for general points my Akkadian textbook makes about the language. here are some specific things the textbook says:

I.

Exceptions to the rule of vowel syncope occur: (a) regularly at the end of a word; (b) regularly before a vowel; […] (f) in some Summerian loanwords.

while it's tempting to have a single flashcard that asks "What are the exceptions to the rule of vowel syncope?", having to remember all six clauses in my answer is pretty cumbersome, and violates the principle that flashcards should be atomic.

instead, my approach has been to create six flashcards of frankly kind of stupid form, "What is Huehnergard's vowel syncope exception (a)?" etc.

of course it might be possible to digest the information a little more thoroughly: "What are the regular exceptions to vowel syncope" and "Before what letters does vowel syncope sometimes not occur" would be pretty reasonable flashcards. but what to do with the last exception? Q: "What types of word does vowel syncope not occur in?" A: "some Sumerian loanwords" is pretty gross

II.

The endings for attributive adjectives are the same as those for nouns, except for the masc. pl.

I have a number of flashcards which ask questions about declension/conjugation, e.g., "What are the masculine genitive plural endings for nouns?"

for some reason I balked at creating a bunch of identical flashcards for adjectives, and instead only made one card, "What are the masc. pl. endings for attributive adjectives?" in retrospect, I don't think that would have been unreasonable

III.

The masc. plural of substantivized adjectives usually retains the adjectival endings -ūtum / -ūtim; occasionally, however, the noun pl. endings also occur, as in nakirum, pl. nakirū when substativized.

The feminine singular of an adjective may be used as an abstract noun, indicating the quality described by the adjective: damqum 'good'; damiqtum 'goodness' Sometimes, the meaning of the substantivized feminine form is more concrete: dannum 'strong'; dannatum 'fortress'

I really have no idea with these "occasionally" statements. I've mostly just been trying to create lots of example words, e.g. a vocabularly cards for "dannatum / fortress," and one asking "What is the plural of the noun nakirum?"

IV.

(a vocabulary entry)

nakarum, nakirum, and nakrum 'hostile; foreign'

related, I don't really know how to deal with byforms. in this case, I just created a flashcard directly asking "What are the byforms for the word for 'hostile'?" but I'm not sure how nicely this generalizes

[atthebell]

do you know any good free spanish courses out there? im doing some of the busuu course bc it helped me quite a bit w pt but it seems to lean somewhat towards eu spanish than latin american spanish which is what im going for (sorry im sure you've already answered this, you were just the first person i thought of that learned esp as a foreign language)

in terms of busuu, ill add that their portuguese also leaned a bit towards european portuguese at times (which was part of why i stopped using it-- also bc the focus on travel vocab was not helpful for me personally)

for spanish, i learned it in school growing up, so unfortunately i don't have a ton of recommendations for self-study/online free courses. i have some stuff in my language learning tag that might help, but i don't have any personal experience with those methods since i learned it in a fairly straightforward academic setting and also by proxy of living in sd. i know some of the resources ive reblogged before do have some solid testimonies from folks, and if anyone else has recommendations, feel free to send them.

i will say that in terms of language learning in an academic setting, i do personally find that kind of structure helpful, especially in terms of accountability, but i think any method that involves consistent practice and some level of immersion (this can mean talking to native speakers or consuming a lot of media in your target language) is beneficial regardless. i got a really strong basis for language learning across the board (vocabulary for certain things, understanding roots and parts of speech, etc.) partially through having a really strong foundation in english and through how i initially learned spanish, and in my opinion it's made every language ive learned since far easier than it would have been otherwise. i was lucky that i really enjoy language learning and have always had an interest in it and my teachers were pretty solid most of the time and helped to create that foundation. ill add here that a lot of u.s. americans (and from what ive seen, plenty of other english speakers) don't learn certain terms that describe language functions and that makes it more difficult to learn any other languages-- my first spanish teacher had to teach us all what a preterite was, for example, and i still don't know most tense names in english, only in spanish 😭

i would suggest finding at least one textbook to use alongside any other methods (there are free ones linked in my tag) so that you have some clear direction and explanation of concepts, in case that isn't present in other resources.

also my biggest rec is always to find something you really enjoy and take part in it in your target language; if that means music, there is no shortage of music in spanish, if it means tv shows or movies or even setting whatever game you're playing in spanish, you can do that. i always recommend, once you get to a certain level, trying to read a book you've read before in your target language-- that means you'll be pretty familiar with the english and will make reading through it easier, plus you'll pick up new vocab for things you're familiar with already. and of course there's always watching streams. if you want to learn how to swear possibly more than anyone else on this planet, you can watch roier 🩷 please don't talk to strangers like how he talks though 😭 ill never forget foolish calling rubius a pendejo and him being like does he fucking hate me...

[salaciousslut]

You can literally call me anything you want to sweetheart <3 and ive been told by quite a few people that im handsome 🤭 i'm having a pretty good afternoon myself, work's been super easy today. I hope your afternoon (im assuming 🫣) is going well too! And i really like talking to you a lot, i think youre a pretty good conversationalist.

I was a lil worried you would be opposed to me biting on your shoulders but im practically a dog sometimes and, well, i guess you should be more worried about becoming my favorite chew toy 🥺 I looove biting ppl, its its own love language <3

If you keep talking like that you might just end up on stretched out on my strap 🥰 Its been a while since i had a pretty little thing under me and clawing at my back. You'd be so fun to use <3 I wanna leave marks all over you if im being honest, like anywhere you let me bites, hickeys, bruises, whatever i can leave on your pretty little body <33

Also its such a damn shame that we cant just cuddle together and i cant hear you talk about your interests. I know i'd have a good time just listening to you talk about stuff and i would probably end up info-dumping about one of my hyperfixations 🤭

handsome and sooo strong that work has been easy. what a dreamboat hehe!! my afternoon is okay! its rainy and gloomy here but im trying to keep spirits up!

i wanna be a chew toy hehehehe!! as long as ur okay with me biting back sometimes!! just a lil tease, nothing too hard! like you said, its a love language

strap 🥺🥺🥺 you can really do anything to me and i wont oppose!! i wanna be covered in pretty marks to remind me of our time together!!! plus i need to be fucked soon or else i might explode!!!

omg i love info dumping!!!! i love rambling on and on about stupid things but also listening to people talk while my heads on their chest 🥰 i wanna know everything about everything ya know?

[dear-ao3]

riddle me this. what does a 50 million dollar drive, a giant helmet made from recycled materials, the british media, safety infringements, an aborted start, six red flags, rain, team orders, the first black flag in seventeen years, the dutch national anthem and ayrton sennas 1990 mclaren all have in common? 

stumped? well i’ll tell you. 

it’s the 2024 brazilian grand prix.

the last race of our second to last triple header. a sprint weekend. and chaos in its highest form.

today is november 23, 2024 and make sure you get a snack because this is a long one. 

we started the week off pretty strong with lance stroll getting broken up with on his birthday.

well, maybe. 

his girlfriend deleted all of the pictures of him off of her instagram account on his birthday, which really doesnt look good. and this really set the tone for the week of bonkers shit that was now upon us. 

things like lando being asked about the dreaded Last Week With Max incident. in an interview he was asked (told?)

“Are you aware that people watching at home don't want to see the fight between you and Max for the world championship ending in radio messages, tedious steward inquires, time penalties? They want to see you racing nicely and cleanly.” 

lando was in agreement clearly because he said 

“And so do I! And I do.”

max on the other hand still remained max about the situation 

he was asked  during the press conference: “a lot has been said since mexico. are you going to change the way you go racing this weekend?” 

and max said, like a badass:

“yeah, ive heard that before in my career. its my tenth year in formula 1. i think i know what im doing!”

christian horner brought receipts, as in actual data sheets, to his mexico gp media session about how max’s penalties from mexico were unjust. i don't think that anyone really listened to any of this though because the penalties were never unturned. 

one penalty that they did figure out what charles’s swear penalty from the press conference in mexico. the fia finally made a decision. charles will be pleased to know that he does Not have to do community service with max. but honestly (and this is now my own opinion here) why give one guy community service and not give it to the other? max apologized for his language Before he said “the car is fucked.” charles apologized After once he realized what was going to happen. not really sure here why the fia is out to get max but whatever i don't make the rules. also. the fines and the community service seem to Only be confined to the press conferences because as we know. people have cursed in the cool down room (lando in singapore notably) and also many have over the radio (checo, franco, charles, george, etc etc) and they have not been told anything. hm. in any case though, we have more important things to focus on than weird swear bans. 

like charles leclerc nation going insane when this video was posted, which is a new contender for best weird yet still sexy video of charles on the ferrari page

liam lawson told everyone that he is “not here to make friends, im here to win.” following his Incidents with fernando and also checo at the us and mexican gps. which is interesting for a few reasons. 1. hes in a vcarb and statistically they have not won a single thing all season because they are vcarb and 2. he was soon after seeing being besties with yuki.

oh and also. max reacted to (was asked about?) the whole liam flipping checo off while they were driving in mexico thing, and max said “Checo, I think if I did that to you, I would be quite afraid leaving the country.”

and there were also the usual “this is checo’s last race weekend” general threats. weve seen these before. so theyre not worth wasting typing space on because i cant imagine that theyre going to fire him this late into the season. and why would we talk about the goofy red bull rumors that always are swirling everywhere when we could instead talk about lewis hamilton and franco colapinto.

lewis hamilton praised the crap out of franco colapinto. at the press conference on media day. as we all know franco is a lewis fangirl. so. he honestly might still be in a state of shock.  

“It's always great to see young people, young talented individuals get the opportunity to come through and shine, and he did that in the first race. We had a great little battle and it was super safe. It was hard but fair. [...] He's saying it's not for him to decide, but my advice would be - I would be pushing on my side to make sure I'm doing absolutely everything. At the end of the day, he's got to continue to focus on doing his job every weekend, as he is, and hopefully, he's got good people behind him who are doing the right job to make sure that he's here racing next year.”

and low and behold a few hours later franco did make a fangirl post about it.

also. brazil is Not franco’s home race, but they are now officially in south america, so it was like a home race adjacent for him (hes from argentina) and the crowds were definitely in agreement. we will get back to that later. 

there was a fan at the race who saw him in the paddock and yelled at him “FRANCO. CAN YOU SIGN MY SHIRT? IT’S A KNOCKOFF ONE. FRANCOOOOO” and he lost his shit over that. because remember a few weekends ago he told everyone to buy williams knockoff merch cause it was just as good and not as much money?

we also had some helmets. valtteris had coffee on it because its something that brazil is known for.

oscars had funny little androids on it that were all different hims (he also said he only recently learned that it was polite cat and not sleepy cat)

esteban had some brazil themed stuff

lewis had a senna/brazil tribute helmet

lewis was also going to get to drive ayrton senna’s 1990 mclaren after qualifying on saturday.

oh and of course we had stake do a funny little meme thing on their twitter because theyre quite known for their funny little meme things.

is this a terrible glimpse at media day? yeah absolutely but u know what i have 7 pages of notes front and back from the races themselves so deal with it i suppose. unlike what some of you may think, i 1. do not want to be writing this post forever and 2. also have other things i need to do.

one person was not at media day though and it was fernando alonso and it was because he was in the hospital im pretty sure somewhere in spain for what im also pretty sure was intestinal issues. he had also been out last week for media day due to sickness, but he was back for the race. between this and lace’s probable breakup it was shaping up to be a banner weekend for aston martin, and it was only going to get worse!

someone who definitely didn't miss media day though was sebastian vettel. if you don't know who sebastian vettel is, he was a four time world champion, menace, shit stirrer and boy toy twink esque guy who is now mostly unreachable and is the epitome of “hey i cant do nothing to nobody no more” and comes out of hiding maybe twice a year to subject the grid to a new arts and crafts project. but do not be fooled. this is the same guy who was asked, after winning his first race, if it was the best moment of his life and he said, and i quote “you obviously weren’t there when i lost my virginity.” anyway, this time his arts and crafts project was a giant helmet made from recycled materials paying tribute to ayrton senna. and yes, he made the whole grid get in the helmet. his whimsey is still off the charts.

he was also wearing really terrible shorts. as in they were long, over the knee khaki shorts. some things never change. 

he also tried to make a bet with sky germany about max winning the championship. sky germany refused.

ok im not even going to Pretend to know what happened during the practice session. max got a 5 place grid penalty for sundays race because he took a new engine.  i think george’s car briefly broke? idk. he did get it fixed tho and ended the session in p2, behind lando who was p1. and then we had a special guest in p3.

who was it? well i will give you a clue. it was NOT kevin magnussen!!! why? because he wasn’t feeling well.

so, everyones favorite (team dubbed) “super sub” jumped back in the cockpit once again. 

you guessed it, it was ollie bearman!!! originally i think he was supposed to just be in for practice (and yes he did get p3 in practice). but since its a sprint weekend (yeah, i forgot that too) that means theres only one practice session and then sprint qualifying later that day. and so. the way formula racing works. is that whatever driver drives the car for qualifying also needs to drive the car for the race. they cant get replaced if the car has already qualified. 

ollie by the way had never driven in brazil before. he said that he did it once in a video game. and now he was about to do it irl in a real car. he also got a phone call at 6:45am saying heyyyyy buddyyyy you wanna jump in the car this weekend? we happen to have an opening! and well that's not the exact quote but that is what happened.  

and then haas announced that kevin was not going to be racing that weekend due to sickness. ollie responded in a definitely very normal way which was “of course condolences…i mean, give my best to kevin.” and then he was officially In The Car for the weekend. what could do wrong???  

well lets just say that a Lot happened:

starting with lovely and wonderful Sprint Qualifying. yes that’s right. this is a sprint weekend. why does the fia do this to us guys. 

two things were important to note. 

there was a slight threat of rain

2. the track had been resurfaced and it was bumpy, which is not great when you're driving over 200kph. it really can affect your vision and also your back

lewis had trouble with the car a few years ago when it was porpoising and he was also not doing great at this race. but merc said that he was “all good.” he was not the only driver complaining about the bouncing though. it was extreme and it was dangerous and we will hear more about it later. 

i think that franco took a nap at some point. at least its in my notes so it must have happened. and i think that it was also in the car. unfortunately i don't have a photo. like many other things on this post you will just have to trust me.

aston martin had decided that their car sucked to massive degrees and rolled back their upgrades all the way to suzuka. u know, just to see if they could figure out what the fuck was wrong with their car. Unfortunately though they could not because both of their drivers got out during sq1. 

one team was pleased with what was happening and that was mclaren. they had a new rear wing that was brazil specific and also apparently legal unlike the last one and they were Flying. in sq2 lando took the fastest time with a 1.09.0. on medium tires. last years fastest time was 1.10 on soft tires, so in the words of the commentators, “norris is on another planet!” this was good for them because they hadnt actually been sure they were going to be able to race. theor freight for their car (and some other teams cars) had all been delayed cause they were shipped in wooden boxes and you cant ship things in wooden boxes to brazil because they need to protect the rain forest.

the commentators, mostly karun, also lamented about the swear bans, which they rightfully thought were stupid as hell. he brought up a good point though which was “are you going to have translators for every language? how are you going to monitor it?” because very few of them speak english as their first language and most speak more than 1 language so it is possible they could just curse in Not English

but we don't have time for that right now. not when ollie bearman had just knocked checo out of sprint qualifying. that’s right, ollie went just slightly faster, pushing checo from p10 down to p12. 

liam and checo also almost crashed. which wasn't a surprise but it was still funny.

also surprising was that oscar pulled out a pole lap at the very end of sq3, a 1:08.899, only a few thousandths faster than lando. 

“where did that come from?” karun asked. “was he saving something in his pocket away from his teammate? that is a very fernando alonso trick”

regardless of what it was, he was still on pole. for the second time during a sprint. 

“very very happy,” oscar said in his interview. “try and win obviously…starting from the best seat in the house, make sure it stays that way.” which is an important surprise tool that you should all remember for later. later being the sprint race. 

they all lined up

oscar, lando, charles, max, carlos, george, pierre, liam, alex, ollie, lewis, nico, checo, franco, valtteri, fernando, esteban, yuki, lance and guanyu. 

and before we get into the sprint, lets get a little reminder on the championship standings.

1 Max Verstappen 362

2 Lando Norris 315

3 Charles Leclerc 291

4 Oscar Piastri 251

5 Carlos Sainz 240

6 Lewis Hamilton 189

7 George Russell 177

8 Sergio Perez 150

9 Fernando Alonso 62

10 Nico Hulkenberg 31

11 Lance Stroll 24

12 Yuki Tsunoda 22

13 Kevin Magnussen 14

14 Alexander Albon 12

15 Daniel Ricciardo 12

16 Pierre Gasly 9

17 Oliver Bearman 7

18 Franco Colapinto 5

19 Esteban Ocon 5

20 Liam Lawson 2

21 Zhou Guanyu 0

22 Logan Sargeant 0

23 Valtteri Bottas 0

so max, lando and i believe also charles and maybe oscar?? were still in contention for the championship title. and as a reminder. oscar was starting on pole, with lando, charles and max all behind. lando was able to knock some points off of max in mexico with the time penalties that he racked up and was really hoping to continue to do that in brazil. so max needed to get around charles at the start asap so he could start duking it out with the mclarens.

and speaking of mclaren, there was some good speculation that we might get faced once again with the “papaya rules” aka mclaren team orders. as in, oscar might have to let lando past.

and so. lets see what happened on lap 1. 

well. max did not pass charles. lewis dropped several places, ollie dropped several places, and the two mclarens started to pull away from the rest of the pack, especially oscar who managed to get half a second ahead of lando. 

so we had a slightly new running order:

oscar, lando, charles, max, carlos, george, pierre, liam, nico, ollie, alex, checo, franco, lewis, esteban, valtteri, yuki, fernando, lance and guanyu

and then max and charles started battling on lap 3. by lap 4 charles had taken the fastest lap. and by lap 6 he had closed the gap to lando and was in an epic drs train because lando had also closed the gap to oscar.

george had also started struggling, probably because he was in a mercedes, and was trying to get passed by pierre gasly, in a alpine. 

lando meanwhile, was still up in p2 and not entirely pleased. 

“yeah, im not sure what were doing here i thought we talked about this” he said over his radio right before he locked up and fell out of oscars drs and into charles and then also max’s drs. he was probably referring to, why the hell hadn’t mclaren done their team orders business yet?

well, his race engineer, will jacobs, had absolutely no information to offer for him, he instead said. “understood keep doing what you’re doing.” 

“yeah whatever,” lando said, unimpressed. 

there was some announcer speculation that oscar might give it up to him on the last lap, on the last corner, similar to what lando did to oscar way back in hungary. hungary? idk. its been a long season. and its still even longer.

anyway. checo had been stuck down behind nico hulkenberg in 11th for a very solid nine laps, unable to pass him. he finally managed it on lap 9. his reward? another haas to pass! ollie bearman! he managed that a few laps later and was met with quite possibly his biggest foe: liam lawson. who, just to add even more insult to injury, was in the last points position of the race.

mclaren meanwhile had decided to do some team orders, but not the ones that lando wanted. they told oscar to drop back to give lando some drs, to rescue him from the charles and max inferno that was chasing him. and oscar did. the top 4 though were still separated only by 4 seconds. 

and charles, he understood the assignment. he was racing absolute balls to the wall, elbows all the way out. doing anything and everything to keep max behind him. 

max was though, unimpressed. 

“ah come on charles man, so many mistakes,” he said over the radio. 

charles was told about this post sprint, and he had a funny little reaction. unfortunately i could only find that reaction in gif format.

in any case, i believe this was a clip from sky sports, possibly probably alex jaques who said after that radio "that is max verstappen urging a rival that he's had since his childhood to stay with the McLaren because he wants the ferrari to stay there. but that error has created now two battles instead of a four car battle for the lead."

to make it worse for max, lando could have gotten ahead of oscar here, but alas there were no team orders. so he could not. and also he was still slightly too close to charles and max to not be under threat from them. still, oscar was told to floor it to open the gap between lando and charles, for the potential swap. 

and there was nothing that charles could do about it cause he had absolutely no battery power. 

will jacobs finally decided to mention the team orders threats on lap 17. “we are happy to hold these positions until the last lap.” 

to which lando said “yeah i will overtake.” 

and so it seemed that the commentators were correct. there was a prophesied last lap swap coming from mclaren. 

in case you're tired of this mess, checo was still battling for 8th place with liam. he managed to get it very briefly. and then he lost it because he locked up. 

oscar went fastest on lap 18. and then max also passed charles. 

so it was game fucking on at the front of the grid. and everyone, including gp, max’s race engineer, knew it. because he told max on lap 19 “cmon mate, lets chase em down.” 

mclaren responded as anyone would. by telling oscar “verstappen we believe is faster than leclerc” on lap 24. which is like. fork found in kitchen. max is the king of putting that red bull in places that it should never be allowed to go and that is the front of the grid. 

speaking of red bulls, checo finally managed to pass liam lawson for 8th. and he did it cleanly without locking up this time. and liam didn't even flip him off.

and mercedes, to no ones surprise, had no race pace. 

then! interestingly! there was a yellow flag! but the cameras didn't quite cut fast enough so we didn't really see what happened. turned out that nico hulkenberg had pulled off with an exhaust issue. he was technically off the track, but it was not in an overtaking spot (can overtake during yellow flags) and he seemed to still be trying to maneuver the car further away from the track, so the announcers said that this would not hurt the overtaking battle that was looming between the mclarens and max. the cameras then jumped back to that, kind of ignoring nico. 

they had still not swapped, and max was gaining. 

then the cameras cut Back to nico hulkenberg. and he was now out of the car. standing on the grass near some barriers. and this picture doesnt really do it justice but he is about 15 feet from a live race track

(there was still a yellow flag in that specific sector but he was OUT OF THE CAR next to a FORMULA 1 TRACK with NO SAFETY CAR) 

there was now though a Threat of a safety car. gee i wonder why. his car was stopped not too far from the track and he was standing on the track, it was a massive disaster waiting to happen. 

and so, mclaren gave the team order to swap positions. 

lando and oscar did. 

and immediately.

and i MEAN IMMEDIATELY they called a virtual safety car. 

oscar had dropped back into the clutches of max verstappen and max had just revved up to pass him when suddenly! no no! safety car!

which was interesting.

but we will get back to that in a minute.

now, under a virtual safety car, cars need to keep the gap between them, but the track can go green at any moment and without any warning. 

and max was on top of that. “pay attention to this!” he said over radio “because if hes (oscar) on purpose driving slow (to give lando a bigger gap) report it!” 

oscar though seemingly remained on his best behavior. 

and on the last lap the virtual safety car was announced to be ending. 

max was getting antsy behind the two mclarens and pulled up next to oscar in preparation for the track going green, but it went green a second too late and oscar was able to pull away and make a beeline all the way to the checkered flag while still keeping max behind. 

lando came in first, followed by oscar, max, charles, carlos, george, pierre, checo, liam, alex. lewis, franco, esteban, ollie, yuki, guanyu, and lance and nico DNFd. 

oscar was clearly very disappointed about the result (remember he said after sprint qualifying that he wanted to hold onto his p1). and karun wondered aloud if “mark webber will negotiate a bonus for oscar with that, he should.” cause remember, mark webber was the infamous number 2 red bull teammate to sebastian vettel who was forced to pretty much give up anything and everything for him. and, need i remind you, this weekend seb was running willy nilly around the paddock getting drivers to get in his giant recycled helmet. all very distressing things for one mark webber. 

oscar also said that it was “a bit tricky….bit bumpy….learned a lot for the race tomorrow.” 

lando said that “we work well as a team together….i thanked oscar….he deserved it but you do what you have to do.” 

later, in the press conference, an interviewer congratulated oscar on his win. oscar, confused, said “i don't know what i won but thank you” 

max said that he “had to wait for some mistakes and luckily they came” in regards to overtaking charles. “it took a bit too long with charles…but whenever hes on the drs, hes very hard to attack!”

charles said in a later interview about max “i think max was a lot more on the reserve at the beginning then started pushing at the end. he had more pace, he did a better job with tire management”

lets remember that these two are Not Teammates. 

max though was brought to the stewards though for a vsc infringement (when he pulled next to oscar) because that is Not Allowed. and he ended up with a time penalty that demoted him to fourth. so charles ended up finishing third. and he got a penalty point on his super license.

but what about that safety car call? 

well i am so glad that you asked. 

the post race show opened with one will buxton talking to one andrea stella, the mclaren team principal. and here was what he had to say about the mclaren 1-2:

“very good news, a mclaren 1-2… [we had a ] clear conversation with both drivers [before the race]” here he then called them both number 1 drivers again (which everyone thought we were past) “[it was] very risky swapping even with 1.5 seconds [to max], we were waiting for a few more seconds to materialize, but it never did” 

will buxton, ever the shit stirrer and also as we know, probably the number 1 person pissed at mclarens team strategy this year, then asked why lando was so upset over the radio. 

andrea was having none of it. “well i already answered the question didn't i? when you're a number 1 driver you get nervous when you are behind…we needed to do a very good job to stay ahead of him [max].” 

he then departed and james hinchcliffe quite literally Stumbled into frame with his own thoughts on the mclaren swap. “it ended to plan, it didn't go to plan,” he said. “they got very lucky with the vsc.” 

he then talked about the vsc. “the timing of the vsc was weird to me” you know with the driver being a solid 10 feet from the track with zooming cars? “i don't think it was done the best it could have been done.” 

and this seemed to be the general consensus everywhere else online. why on earth wait to call a safety car when quite literally we had a driver who was out of the car and standing next to the track? that is quite literally a Safety Problem. and given the timing of the mcalren swap, it seemed Possible that perhaps race control had been waiting for mclaren to swap before calling the car. which is, as im sure you could all figure out, kind of weird and sketchy.

but aside from that. there was still much praise for max. “max played it so smart today,” james said, referring to max selectively murdering charles’s tires by fighting with him for the first half of the race. “with not the best car on track hes still performing above expectations.” 

there was some proper francomania in brazil. so much so that flights from argentina to brazil had sold out. franco said on the post race show that “the rivalry between brazil and argentina is in football not motor racing.” 

pierre had scored a p7 which he was happy with. mostly because it was a points position and those are kinda hard to come by at alpine. 

lewis though just about wanted to quit. they asked him how his race pace was and he said “horrendous. one of the worst races ive had” which is really saying something when you remember that he has had 353 race starts. he wanted to change the car entirely before quali. 

and lance stroll also winked at esteban ocon while they were interviewing ollie bearman. 

most notable quote from the post sprint was this, by max:  

the interviewer asked him: “lando said ‘i don't have to change my driving style, if anyone has to do it, it's max.’ do you agree? you won't change it?” 

and max said: “[im a] three time world champion. i don't have to change anything.”

max, as some of us may forget, is a very good driver, he’s just in a shit car this year and other people are very very fast. finally. but he is in fact a 7 time world champion. he won every race except 3 last year. he’s insane and he loves this sport. it never pays well to underestimate max verstappen.

and with that absolute banger of a line, let’s get into qualifying. 

what's that? its delayed? why is that? 

oh! cause its raining!

like comical, almost biblical amounts of rain. 

during the delay we had one will buxton and one james hinchcliffe speaking to us about all the current drama.

for example: is checo doing enough? apparently christian horner has dialed back the intensity of his support, so whos to say! but then again, this is red bull, they drop people for anything and everything

and they briefly mentioned the audi seat cause everyone is in contention for the audi seat apparently, including gabriel bortoleto, who is currently leading the f2 championship and a mclaren academy driver.

but they mostly debated their favorite topic: what the ever loving fuck is going on at mclaren. 

specifically, this edition: Why Didn't They Swap Cars Sooner????

(please know this conversation was had in rain jackets in the pouring damn rain and it looked like they were like uh we got no broadcast happening cause downpour we need to fill the time we need to fill the time hmmm what to do oh! we got will and hinch! give then a microphone and let them go for it! and that they did)

james thought that they left themselves exposed to max and charles for too long, and apparently mclaren said that it would swap the cars at the first opportunity originally but then they didn't swap when they said over the radio that the gap to leclerc was significant. 

will buxton had a theory: “they’re trying to do it without upsetting either driver” 

he then, in true will buxton fashion, went completely and totally off the rails about it: 

“andrea stella wrote the guidebook for team orders when he worked at ferrari. where is that? [why aren’t they saying ‘you work for us, you do what we say’?]”

“the team [the drivers] needs to understand who pays the bills here” james added.

“if they don't lay down the law now they put themselves in an awkward position or later” will said about how this would affect the future of mclaren because if they were already starting to win now and be in contention for the championships then whos to say that they couldn't do it again next year?

and then, somewhat inexplicably, they stopped talking to us and we had no screens no nothing no view on anyone for about 40 minutes. all we could assume was that qualifying was delayed. 

and that it definitely was. 

once we finally got a visual on the track again it was in fact still raining, and only getting worse. 

but if theres one thing about formula 1, its that they know how to have fun in the rain.

like how they let ted loose in the pit lane and he stalked through the mercedes garage, and proudly told the whole world that bono, lewis’s race engineer, has a carbon fiber cup of tea. and then the camera zoomed in on it.

 

he then also tried to talk to toto by picking up a headset and shouting into it “we miss you toto!” but instead of getting to toto the message went to jack, toto’s son?  

and then someone, i don't remember who, perhaps it was karun, told ted to “look at fred vasseur, hes a handsome man most of the time.” 

the crowds were shouting “ole ole ole franco!” which was different from their usual chant of “ole ole ole senna!” and will buxton told franco that “flights from buenos aries to sao palo have sold out, that's the affect you are having” franco was impressed.

ollie bearman, who has objectively, by the way, been thrown now into three increasingly more insane race weekends (saudi arabia with like a few hours notice, singapore, and now the hellscape that was the giant rain storm in brazil) decided to do the sensible thing and take a nap.

"at his age it's gonna be his bed time soon, right?" one of the servus tv announcers said about ollie.

lewis decided to brave the rain to take some aesthetic rain pics

which he then posted on his instagram story

kimi antonelli was not so lucky. he got shoved into the rain by some mercedes mechanics. for sport.

george meanwhile was off jumping in puddles

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and looking like a polite bowling pin wearing maybe some toe nail polish

and jack doohan made everyone tea in the alpine garage

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oscar had a lovely little chat with fernando alonso

and then so did mark webber 

perhaps the most insane part of this was that no one and i mean no one knew how they were going to decide the grid order, should qualifying not happen. and as it got progressively more and more delayed, that was looking like it was going to be the case. 

the race director told everyone at one point that it was “not really possible to qualify” which was you know, a problem, since that needs to happen in order for them to race. 

hilariously, there was nothing in the regulations for if someone like this were to happen.

next years regulations said that championship standings could be used for qualifying order if qualifying was not able to occur, but that's not this years regs so they couldn't do that. there were though regulations for what should happen should qualifying for a sprint race not be able to occur and that was use the standings from practice 1. and there was also regulations for what should happen if qualifying could not occur on a normal race weekend and that was use the standings from practice 3. but this was a sprint weekend in the main grand prix. so should they use the standings from practice 1? that would be particularly advantageous to haas who had ollie bearman come in third. should they use the standings from the sprint race? that would benefit mclaren. 

“i’ll add this to the list of reasons why i’m glad im not a steward,” karun said.

they continued to debate. everyone went back and forth. theyre going to use practice 1! theyre going to use the sprint! they’ll use sprint qualifying! 

they got a hold of mike krak (the aston martin tp) who said that it was “a bit too dark and a bit too gloomy and a lot wet” definitely too wet for racing. 

sure enough qualifying was then switched from “delayed” to “postponed” perhaps indefinitely. 

there was a chance that they could move qualifying to sunday morning. but the weather was not good for then either. and so the session ended, with no one knowing what the fuck was happening and sir lewis hamilton interrupting f1 ceo Stefano Domenicali’s interview saying:  

"I wanna go out give us better wet tyres and warming blankets so we can go out!" 

and that was it

now, rain at the interlagos circuit is not exactly unheard of. mostly because it is literally interlagos (between two lakes, in portuguese)and theres been some insane rain races here before. namely 2016. max, who was still nearly a rookie and only in his first full year at red bull at that point had qualified fourth but ended up down in 16 with 15 laps to go due to some oversteer and pit stopping. he managed to make it all the way up to 3rd by sheer willpower and insanity alone and toto wolff called it “the verstappen show” because it was “physics…being redefined.” 

another infamous rain race was the one in 2008, the season finale race and where lewis hamilton won his first world championship title at mclaren. he almost lost the title to felipe massa at ferrari. felipe won the race, and lewis was running in 6th around the last few corners to the checkered flag when the person driving in front of him, timo glock, started going slowly and he managed to pass him for 5th place, which was all he needed to get to win the championship. but there were a few minutes of celebration in the ferrari garage where they thought they had won the drivers championship, until lewis crossed the line. and “is that glock going slowly?” is one of those very famous facing quotes

and last year at qualifying in brazil it ended with an absolutely biblical storm (according to crofty) and we got the infamous max verstappen storm lap for pole position

the running fan theory though as to why there was such massive amounts of rain this year was that nelson piquet was in the paddock. why does this matter? well. nelson piquet (a three time world champion and also father of max verstappen’s current girlfriend kelly) was fined 1 million dollars and banned from entering an f1 paddock again as punishment for racist and homophobic comments he made on video about lewis hamilton. and he was just there. in the red bull garage. like nothing was wrong. (this is made infinitely worse by the way that f1 drivers have since been banned from making “political statements” on the track and etc, mostly because lewis in 2020/21 did a bunch of advocating for black lives matter and got some other drivers in on it (he was stopped by the fia for wearing a shirt that said “Justice for Breonna Taylor” and sebastian vettel did some other advocating for the environment and also lgbt community, so they cant really even complain too much about this) 

lewis did though tweet this tweet after that whole incident.

but anyway. qualifying. what was to come of qualifying??

well. let me tell you. 

qualifying was postponed until 7:30am on race day, local time. and the race was moved up to i think 10:30 ??? am? to try and avoid as much weather as possible. which was good progress for f1 cause usually they don't do this. 

it wasn't great for the drivers though who had to be awake at about 4am, barely ate food and jumped into the cars. esteban ocon set his alarm at precisely 4:31.

and george had coffee on an empty stomach. lando had a nutella sandwich. and off they went.

and by off they went i mean, it was still raining. “wetter than a fisherman’s boot” according to crofty.

but they were qualifying.

ollie had never driven an f1 car in the wet before. which he was about to get a whole lot of experience doing.

some drivers though really love the wet. rain at at f1 race, while scary, is sort of a neutralizer because it really comes down to the skill of the driver and not so much the car. george loves the wet (a la spa 2021 when he managed to qualify a shitbox williams in p2) and so does esteban and lewis and max among others.

lance also likes a good wet race. “well hes canadian, lance stroll,” crofty said. “he’s rather good on the ice.”

and to make it extra fun, theres no tire warming blankets for the wet tires to save money, which seems a little counterintuitive, but they don't really get used very often. 

everyone was whipping around, dodging the puddles as best as they could, trying to clear the track of water a little, and we had some interesting people up in the top 5. as in the top five was esteban ocon, fernando alonso, yuki tsnuoda, checo perez, and lance stroll. 

and then, could it be? in this economy? a red flag??? 

it indeed was! and it would not be the last!

it was franco, he had found the wall. he was okay. but the car was not. 

and there was not a lot of time to fix it.

karun took this time to tell everyone that he thought that franco could not possibly get the red bull seat (which was a thing that was being debated hotly in the paddock despite franco saying that he was not in talks for a seat last weekend) because of incidents like this due to his own inexperience. 

crofty brought up a separate but interesting point which was that in all the previous times that we have had qualifying on a sunday, a german has been on pole. 

he is of course, correct. 

japan 2004: michael schumacher

japan 2010: sebastian vettel

australia 2013: sebastian vettel

texas 2015: nico rosberg

japan 2019: sebastian vettel

and there was of course only one german on the grid right now. nico hulkenberg.

“its written in the stars!” crofty proclaimed loudly and to the general annoyance of karun, who did not want there to be a german polesitter this race because then crofty would be “insufferable” about it. 

while they were debating that, the red flag had cleared and everyone went out again. including george russell, who was so impatient to get out that he overtook in the pit lane and despite being impeded a few times, still managed to put his mercedes in p2. 

max got his lap time deleted and was now stuck down in 12th. lewis still needed to get out of the bottom 5 and lando was stuck in 15th. 

everyone had one more lap. 

lewis managed to only go 14th. then got pushed to 15th.

lando managed an okay first sector but needed “a middle and final sector of his life here” in order to clear the elimination zone. and he got a personal best in the middle sector but still only managed to go 14th. he was safe, but lewis was out. along with ollie, franco, nico and guanyu.

(“your run of german poles on a sunday is gone,” karun happily told crofty)

lewis, as could be predicted, was very unhappy with his car. as he should have been. according to crofty he is “one of the top 3 drivers of all time in the wet” and yet. here he was. in the wet. out in q1. 

at the start of q2 it was not actively raining, which was good news. but it was still slippy and people still had on wet tires for the most part. 

george went for a little spin but he was okay. no damage and no walls for him.

carlos was not so lucky. 

he found the barriers. another red flag. 

later he said that he had clearly misjudged the grip.

his crash was pretty big, bigger than francos, and again, theres less than 5 hours until the race. 

everyone was ushered back into the pit lane as the track was cleared and repaired. 

at the time, oscar was leading, followed by george, lance, max, liam, checo, valtteri, fernando, charles and carlos with lanco, pierre, alex, yuki, and esteban in the drop zone. 5:51 to go. 

when they came back on track fernando alonso somehow managed to go fastest. could it be his first pole in over 4000 days???

and as everyone was on their final flying lap, including lando and max and checo, the yellow flags came out. it was lance stroll, he had gone off. 

again, like in the sprint, the cameras did not immediately cut to him. but the announcers said that “i think race control are waiting for these laps to count before calling the red flag.” because several people were on flying laps and it was the end of the session, so it would not be resumed after the red flag.

lando crossed the line. he went fastest. almost immediately the red flag was called. max and checo were unable to finish their flying laps. 

the red flag has had to be called cause lance was in “a dangerous position” 

later, there was a half baked excuse that they thought that lance was trying to get the car moving which was why they did not call the red flag. this, by the way, was the state of lance’s car:

it was clearly not in any state to be driven. 

and yet. it took them 40 whole seconds to call a red flag for this. the previous two red flags were called in under 5 seconds. 

and, need i remind you, that the delay of this red flag allowed for lando to get himself out of the bottom 5 and also knocked max and checo out of the qualifying session. 

now might also be a good time to mention that max had a five place grid penalty for changing his power unit. so he would be starting all the way down in seventeenth. 

and he was fucking pissed. 

because remember. the 40 second delay of this red flag allowed Everyone to finish their flying lap Except for max and checo. so q2 ended with lando in first, followed by fernando, oscar, liam, alex, charles, esteban, george, lance, and yuki with valtteri, max, checo, carlos and pierre all getting eliminated. 

also this is a very very valid safety complaint. it should not take that long for a red flag to be called when the car is not moving, had three clearly broken wheels and is also 15 feet from the track. all the worst accidents in f1 happen when there is a car that is already not moving from an accident or a problem and then it gets hit by another car. there have already been people who have died this way. it does not need to happen again. 

aside from the bs flag call, checo was also pissed at red bull for entirely separate reasons and those reasons were because red bull had waited really long to go out for the final run which was part of the reason why they were not able to finish. 

“cmon guys,” he said over radio. “we gotta do that better…if everyone is already waiting at the end of the pit lane why don't we go?” 

fans were outraged at this. one commented on instagram under a post about the teams qualifying positions “what is checo's garage doing? seriously???” and a red bull mechanic named greg commented underneath it saying “giving him the same tools as max.” then, a second red bull mechanic named charlie commented responded to greg, saying “why you lying for”

so. shit is certainly hitting the fan in more ways than one at red bull. 

but back to qualifying. 

there were no red bulls. which was odd. but we did have nine cars: both mclarens, both rb’s, and one aston, one mercedes, one williams, one ferrari and one alpine. what an interesting mix. 

and it was about to get even more interesting because fernando alonso found a wall. 

another red flag. 

“red flag was much quicker that time,” crofty said. “19 seconds instead of 40.” 

and another wrecked car.

the standing order, with 6:59 left on the clock was lando, alex, oscar, esteban, george, charles, yuki, liam, fernando and lance. 

and the rain could be coming back. 

but there was good news for some people! like alex albon who was, according to crofty “on course for his highest start” as he was currently sitting in p2 rather comfortably. 

and in anticipation for the rain to re start, everyone had already queued up in the pit lane, despite the fact that the track had not yet been green flagged. 

“it’s like the post office on a tuesday morning. you go down to get a box of stamps and they're already queuing up!” crofty said, making absolutely no sense. 

thankfully there was no need to dwell on it because the track went green and they all spilled out again. 

yuki went off and into the gravel, but was able to get out. so there was no red flag. 

that came a few minutes later, for one very, very unfortunate alex albon. 

yes, the same alex albon that had been on course to have his highest ever start. that alex albon. 

and it was a big crash. he ping ponged right across the whole track like a very expensive and very broken ping pong ball. 

he had no idea what happened either. over the radio he asked if the brakes failed. 

and now williams had two very, incredibly broken cars to fix in just about three hours. remember that this team is held together by an excel spreadsheet. 

three minutes, thirty one seconds to go. 

and esteban ocon was seated at the front of the pit lane, waiting. behind him, the remaining six cars still left in the qualifying session from hell. remember this was all before ten am. at least two of them were running on only coffee and nutella. 

“if i were him [esteban ocon], i’d select first gear and then wait ten seconds,” crofty said, speaking about how to impede lando and waste time, who was behind him, when coming out of the pit lane. 

“oh you’re naughty,” karun said. then he went on a rant about how you physically cannot lie to the stewards because they will find out out. he apparently knew this from experience. 

esteban did not impede lando and oscar upon exiting the pit lane. they all came out as they should. 

“glad to see esteban found his first gear no problem and is out on the track,” crofty said. “[this is] quite the day in the championship battle.” 

and that it really was. five red flags, seven cars still standing, max verstappen starting p17, lando finally starting to really close the gap to him in the championship, qualifying at 7:30am on a sunday, race in three hours, rain, back end of a triple header, no one’s been home in a month, and everyone was awake at 4am. 

still, lando managed to improve his time, staying on provisional pole. oscar locked up and didn't finish his lap, he stayed p3. 

liam lawson was gaining. he went second. 

he was then replaced by yuki. for second. 

then esteban ocon pulled out a third, splitting the two racing bulls.

lando extended his pole lap a second time. 

and then george pulled out a p2. 

charles unfortunately did not get in on the p2 fun. he stayed 6th.

and so. 1 hour and 45 minutes and five red flags later, with only barely 3.5 hours to the race. we finally had the starting order of the 2024 brazil gp.

p1: lando norris

p2: george russell

p3: yuki tsnuoda

p4: esteban ocon

p5: liam lawson

p6: charles leclerc

p7: alex albon

p8: oscar piastri

p9: fernando alonso

p10: lance stroll

p11: valtteri bottas

p12: checo perez

p13: carlos sainz

p14: pierre gasly

p15: lewis hamilton 

p16: ollie bearman 

p17: max verstappen

p18: franco colapinto

p19: nico hulkenberg

p20: zhou guanyu

one person wasn’t satisfied with their position and that was charles leclerc. 

“that's p6” his race engineer told him over the radio. 

“that's fucking shit” charles said.

the top three were definitely pleased though.

“a lot going on today,” lando said, accurately. “a little surprised.”

“really pleased to be lining up p2,” george said.  “i loved it [coming in early] to be honest. maybe this is the format for sunday morning.”

“very tricky,” yuki said. “certainly enjoyed it. feels much better than yesterday, good pace.”

yuki also ran into all of his mechanics in victory.

and we got this hilarious picture. 

and i know what you're thinking. did everyone manage to repair their cars in time for the race? 

yes. everyone except for alex albon, that is, who had to withdraw from the race due to significant damage.

what? that was not what you were thinking? 

oh. you want to know if lewis got to drive sennas 1990 mclaren?? 

yeah! he did! before the race! and he did it no handed, in the rain. not to be biased here, but that's my fucking seven time world champion.

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and. finally. without any further ado. the race. or more accurately, the drivers parade. 

charles was standing with pierre and then Yanked his had away from him so that he could shake hands with max. they seemingly developed somehow even more of a soldiers bond here, having a weird unspoken agreement that they were going to stop mclaren at whatever costs, because honestly what else could these two be yapping about, looking like they were teammates? especially when max was one minor inconvenience away from burning down the entire paddock?

meanwhile george and alex were causing all kinds of problems, completely oblivious to the scheming going on around them

and that about sums up the drivers parade. 

onwards. 

to the race. 

it was still slightly raining when the cars all pulled off for their formation lap. and unfortunately that was where the chaos began. 

with lance stroll going off during the formation lap. he then turned out of it and got himself stranded in the gravel after boinking into the wall and was effectively stuck. 

and so there was an aborted start. some drivers, the several at the front, started to go around the track again, but their was confusion from others (like max) if aborted start meant that they did go around again or if they just sat on the grid and waited for the mechanics to come back out. in any case, everyone ended up going around again. 

in the end, it ended up being that lando, the polesitter, was not supposed to go around again. and he did. and a lot of people followed him around. and no one knew if anyone (like his engineer) told him to go around again or he just did it on his own. he was still noted for going, and the whole mess was going to get brought up to the stewards later. 

because what were they supposed to do in that instance? penalize everyone? 

“yet another reason why im glad im not a steward,” karun said.

one thing was for sure and that was that lance definitely should buy his mechanics dinner that night as an apology because they had worked very hard to fix his car only for him to bin it again. (though the car had been in several pieces not too long again and there was a chance something was not connected correctly, he did say later that the car had felt pretty bad to dive in the formation lap) 

this isnt even the first time that a car hasnt completed the formation lap in brazil. just last year charles leclerc crashed on the formation lap due to steering failure. 

once they all arrived back on the grid after formation lap 2 the mechanics came back out and started rechecking the cars and etc while they waited for lance’s car to get cleared. and the mercedes mechanics made a sneaky little adjustment to the tire pressure, hoping that no one would notice. unfortunately, they noticed. 

onto formation lap 3! and thank god! everyone made it this time!

so with 18 cars and a rainy race ahead, lights went out and away they went into lap 1.

george was able to hold onto the lead! 

and at the end of the first lap (which everyone blessedly survived) we had the following order: george, lando, yuki, esteban, charles, liam, oscar, fernando, pierre, lewis, max, franco, ollie, valtteri, nico, guanyu and checo.

that's right. max made up seven places. seven. and lewis had made up five. they were coming. max especially

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checo meanwhile had briefly gone spin, hence why he was now down in last place. 

max passed lewis for 10th, already back into the points by lap 2.

george took the fastest lap on lap 3, already leading by 1.5 seconds. lando took it from him on lap 4. there was no DRS due to the rain, so lando was going to have to pass george the old fashioned style. 

ollie bearman briefly went off the track after a small incident with franco, but he was able to rejoin.

and max passed pierre for 9th on lap 5

and then was up to 8th on lap 6 after passing fernando

meanwhile, along with lando, george, yuki and liam were all also noted for the starting procedure infringement at the beginning of the race. they would have to go with lando to the stewards after the race to hear their fate. meaning that no matter what the outcome of the race was, there was still a chance that they could get slammed with penalties after, so who knew if the real winners would in fact be the winners. 

max, who had followed the rules for the starting procedure, took fastest lap on lap 7 as he started to close the gap to oscar in p7.

lando had started to eat into george’s lead a little, and george was now only .8 seconds ahead. 

and the stewards noted the incident between ollie and franco. ollie received a 10 second penalty for causing a collision. which didn't really make a lot of sense to people as franco didn't really even have any damage.

max was declared to be the fastest man on track, faster than george, as he still zoomed up to the back of oscar. 

meanwhile, lewis’s car had started bouncing, but george seemed unaffected as he took the fastest lap again on lap 10. 

max passed oscar on lap 10, now in 7th. “he came from so far back,” oscar said, entirely not expecting it. 

“max has tremendous confidence,” karun said.

and might i remind you all that it is RAINING

and then he passed liam for 6th on lap 11. unsurprisingly, liam was more compliant with max passing him than he had been with checo passing him in mexico). he was only 2.5 seconds behind charles, who was in p5. he had already made up 11 places in 11 laps in the pouring freaking rain.

lewis was not having as good luck. he went off the track and then got passed by franco. 

“if i was haas i’d be annoyed with the penalty,” the announcers said, referring to ollies 5 second penalty. “nothing is wrong with that williams.”

by lap 15 there was a four way battle brewing for third. yuki, esteban, charles and max. who again i will remind you was 17th a mere 15 laps ago. this performance was starting to put even his 2016 brazil rampage to shame. 

lewis was still not doing nearly as well, he tried to pass franco and failed. 

lando was still in second behind george on lap 17 and said that he was struggling to overtake and that they were slow on the straights. 

and to top it all off. the rain was set to get heavier in 15 minutes time. 

charles, meanwhile, was managing to keep max behind. maybe he had brushed up on his skills since yesterday when max had called him out during the sprint for making so many mistakes over the radio. 

no one had boxed yet. and the rain was starting to come down a little heavier. “getting slippery with these worn tires in the wet” nico said on lap 18. 

and now as we know, its a crapshoot at best figuring out when to box for tires when its not raining. all that gets compounded into a fuckshoot when its raining. because it its expected to rain more soon, you'd want to put on new tires closer to then so that you have a better chance at clearing the water. plus theres always a chance it could get red flagged and then you could get a free pit stop. so the teams needed to get to the point with the big rain and then box for tires and hope that that was the right choice and that no one went off before then.

lando was back to gaining on george on lap 18

and ollie passed lewis for 14th

hamilton was clearly struggling in the mercedes, but george was leading? so was it a lewis problem? was it a car problem?? no one knew

max, meanwhile, was still under a second behind charles, no drs, on lap 20. charles had managed to hold him up for 9 laps and counting, which was a true feat when you remember how many places he has already made up. 

“car’s not driveable mate,” lewis said on lap 21. “locking up, bouncing everywhere.” apparently the mercedes had some kind of a brake problem, but george was managing it just fine. he was still leading. 

on lap 22 max tried to pass charles

charles, clearly, did not let him

“that was charles leclers knowing exactly where max was going to go and defending it a long way out!” karun said.

“he was squeezing me!” max complained. “he didn’t leave a car’s width!” 

no one else seemed to have this view though because the stewards did not note the incident. 

carlos was seemingly having some kind of car problem as he stopped behind ollie and lewis after going off the track briefly. 

and this was all looking like it might be a good time for some new tires. 

by lap 24, with heavier rain rolling in any minute, here were the standings:

george, lando, yuki, esteban, charles, max, liam, oscar, pierre, fernando, nico, ollie, lewis, franco, carlos, checo, valtteri, and guanyu.

the drivers had to make the call for the tires to go to the wets, according to the announcers. its something that the driver has to feel, not really the team, because the driver is the one in the car. 

charles pitted for inters on lap 25.

not full wets, which was interesting (wets have more groves on them, inters have less, and they were about to have a shit load of rain)

lando asked to box to overtake george on lap 26. mclaren wanted him to stay out, despite his protests that he wanted to box for new tires. so he stayed out. 

liam lawson meanwhile went off the track due to contact with oscar. he came back on in 9th.

nico hulkenberg pitted for inters on lap 26

lando was half a second behind george on lap 27

and apparently those inters didn't work too well for nico hulkenberg because he went off track and managed to get stranded on some banking.

a virtual safety car was called on lap 28, though not before esteban ocon managed to pass yuki for third.

again, who knew why it took them so long to call the safety car. 

many people decided to pit. 

oscar, fernando, lewis, ollie, carlos and checo.

and at this point, mercedes was finally reported for adjusting their tire pressure on the grid, which is not allowed! and also very bad news for george should he win the race because usually that behavior results in a disqualification and i don't think that george could handle another dsq after winning this season.

nico hulkenberg, meanwhile, was able to get back on the track

and the virtual safety car ended.

right as george and lando went to pit. which was incredibly unlucky

prior to this, george came on the radio to say that he thought that it was now red flag conditions. and he was probably correct.  

“i think this is going to go red mate,” he said on lap 28. “this should go red. we cant keep a car on the road like this. theres going to be big crashes. theres a big puddle through 4 and 13. there will be a crash there. i think stay out. it should go red.” and that would be good because then george could get his free pit stop and also maintain the lead of the race. 

“understood, understood,” his engineer said. “so box, box.”

“i think, no, its going to go red,” george repeated. 

“box box. box, box. box, box. we need to box,” his engineer said. and so george had no choice but to box. 

someone who didn't box was esteban ocon. he chose to stay out and with both lando and george pitting he was now leading the race on lap 29.

liam lawson and yuki tsnuoda pitted. 

and after all the pit stops, we had:

esteban, max, pierre, george, lando, yuki, charles, oscar, fernando, valtteri, lewis, carlos, checo, ollie, franco, guanyu and nico.

“after a truly awful season,” crofty said. “alpine is 1 and 3.” that they were. somehow. maybe it would stay that way. 

and after all that. lando finally managed to pass george. but only for fourth, not for first. 

and the safety car was deployed for rain.

so now no one could pass anyone. 

esteban ocon had a 7 second lead on max verstappen. 

and franco colapinto took this opportunity to pit for new inters. 

oscar got a 10 second penalty for causing that collision a way long time ago with liam lawson.

and merc were still under investigation for the tire pressure thing.

and then all the others were still under investigation for the start procedure mishap as well. 

at this point, max had gained 15 places. pierre had gained 10. 

and behind the safety car they all pootled along. esteban, max, pierre, lando, george, yuki, charles, oscar, fernando, liam, lewis, valtteri, carlos, checo, ollie, franco, zhou and nico

that was, until franco had a huge crash.

and once again, there was the return of the red flag. 

so now williams had crashed three whole times during the weekend. remember, they have no money and hardly any parts. and the mechanics were distressed beyond belief.  

lando hopped on radio, annoyed with the mclaren strategy error because now everyone at the front (two alpines and max) would get free tires and he would not have the opportunity to get back to the front after they pitted. 

george on the other hand….

“so, red flag, red flag,” his engineer said. 

“fuck!” george cursed. “i fucking said it! shouldve stayed out!”

yuki got a pep talk immediately after getting out of the car from team principal laurent 

and oscar jumped out of his car and immediately apologized to liam lawson for the incident.

“theres a proper variety bag of pick and mix penalties that need investigating,” crofty said. 

including nico hulkenberg who was being investigated for restarting his race after getting assistance from the marshalls pushing him back onto the track

and the results were in. he got a black flag. meaning he fucked up so bad he was disqualified. he was out. and it was the first black flag in 17 years. team haas was really doing it different this year. cause remember kevin got the first race ban in 12 years this season as well.

and ted just happened to watch nico get told this. he felt very awkward about it.

“i cannot watch this anymore, it’s too depressing,” ted said, turning away.

it was then announced that the race would be restarted as a rolling start. in 10 minutes. 

max sprinted down the pitlane. meanwhile george and lewis peacefully scootered. they might still get disqualified for the tire pressure. they didn't seem to care.

george even stopped to get his boots cleaned as he stepped into the car (which yes i know is a thing cause they were wet with water but it looked so funny to see the mechanic wiping his feet like he was a princess)

and alpine, as we know, would be starting 1 and 3. they had not been in the top 5 all season at all whatsoever. 

george did not like that there would be a rolling start. “that’s more dangerous than a standing start,” he said over the radio. 

and carlos thought that they needed 2 or three laps behind the safety car to decide. cause remember it is still very much raining.

but it was officially a rolling start. in six minutes. a rolling start meaning that they wouldnt line up on the grid, they’d go out and do a slow lap and then just zoom! go!

carlos had a problem with his tires as they pulled out onto the track. “ricky,” he said. “these are not new inters. which ones are these? ….hello?” ghosted by his own team.

and they went racing

zhou and bearman ended up in the grass pretty quickly, but they were able to get back on.

lando also went off and came back on just ahead of george. george took the position back.

and charles briefly went off. 

on lap 34 esteban was still leading and had managed to stay 1.5 seconds ahead of max

hamilton overtook alonso for ninth.

ollie went spin spin spin into the barriers on lap 37. he was able to get going again but he had boinked his front wing. which had already been replaced during the red flag.

and yuki suddenly didn't have pace anymore because he was down in 8th. and getting hunted down by lewis.

ollie went off again. “interlagos is really testing him,” crofty said. yeah no shit. prior to this race he had only driven the track once in a video game (not even the sim!) and he has no experience with f1 cars in the wet, much less this much wet.

on lap 39 esteban ocon was still leading by 2.8 seconds now.

and then carlos ended up in the barriers. no red flag, just a safety car. 

he was okay. but he didn't get out of the car. it then became clear that he was trying to get the car out of the barriers before getting out. and thent here was a tractor on track. with a safety car. in the rain. cause that's safe and totally didn't happen at all during the fatal 2015 japanese gp.

it was at this point that they realized that most people who had gone off track had done so because they had gone over the white lines. and remember, the track had just been resurfaced. and despite the anti slip paint, they were still slipping. hm.

also, the last time that alpine had gotten a double podium was back when they were lotus with kimi raikkonen and romain grosjean in 2009 (?)

and, because this race wasn't already interesting enough, there was potential for more rain at the end of the race. 

the safety car ended and they all went racing again on lap 43. ocon, verstappen, gasly, russell, norris, leclerc, piastri, tsnuoda, hamilton, alonso, lawson, perez, bottas, zhou, and bearman. the remaining 15 cars.

and max finally managed to get in the lead. all the way up for 17th place at the grand prix from absolute weather hell. 

lando went off! dropping all the way down to 7th!

meanwhile liam passed fernando for 9th

and fernando went off the track, triggering a brief yellow flag.

max was already 1.5 seconds ahead of ocon. doing what he does best and making a gap. no one had ever won from 17th before at brazil either

and he took the fastest lap too, on lap 45

so our new order was: 

max, esteban, pierre, charles, george, oscar, lando, yuki, liam, checo, lewis, ollie, valtteri, guanyu and fernando 

mclaren popped on the radio with some infamous papaya rules and told oscar and lando to swap positions, so now oscar was in 7th and lando was in 6th, minimizing the damage to the gap that lando had just managed to close in the drivers championship very very minutely. 

charles was noted for rejoining unsafely

and max took another fastest lap on lap 48

“massively impressed with the alpine’s pace in these conditions,” karun said. 

the last time that two french drivers finished on a podium was in 1997 in spain

on lap 50 checo and liam lawson started to battle for ninth. the commentators brought up the ever present talks that checo might not be in f1 next year. 

oscar briefly went off the track, but managed to stay ahead of yuki, who was chasing him down.

and lando, despite the swap, was still quite stuck behind charles, despite having more pace. and we had already seen charles keep max behind for many many laps, so there was no doubt that he would continue to fight with lando. he and max were low key now teammates, after all

and yet, there still might be more rain

checo was still trying to pass liam lawson. he was still failing. 

fifteen laps to go (finally)

max was still leading esteban, pierre, george, charles, lando, oscar, yuki, liam, checo, lewis, ollie, valtteri, guanyu and fernando on lap 55

and checo still could not pass liam

max had an 8 second lead

and even if the race ended up getting red flagged and not resumed for rain, everyone would get full points because the race was more than 75% complete

checo and liam had a minor incident. it was noted. “he drove into the side of me!” liam complained

on lap 57 ted popped on to give his Insignificant and Unnoticed Award of the Day “to fernando alonso, he was 20 seconds down and now hes cut it down and is going to overtake zhou.” 

 max took yet another fastest lap, he was now 10 seconds ahead of ocon

“hes never changed one iota since he came in,” crofty said about max. “sometimes when you get penalized for the same thing over and over you do need to change.” though honestly, max was proving that he really didn't need to change, because he went balls to the wall with confidence unlike any other, and was leading a race he had started in 17th by 10 seconds. in the rain.

and george had managed to get within a second to pierre gasly

if pierre could hold onto third, alpine could jump from 9th to 6th in the constructors championship. which was estimated to be a difference of 50 million dollars in prize money.

lando was told over the radio to go close to leclerc. “i am!” lando said. “what do you think im doing?” 

by lap 63 max was still leading. this time by 13 seconds.

max was set to get 18 points more than lando at this race, and that was before any start penalties that lando might get awarded. 

and he took another fastest lap

on lap 66 max was leading esteban, pierre, george, charles, lando, oscar, yuki, liam, lewis, checo, ollie, valtteri, fernando and zhou

“looking like he [max] will be a 4x world champion and hold off the threat of mclaren,” crofty said.

and then, fernando alonso’s radio crackled to life. 

“i will finish this race for the mechanics, they did a very good job today,” fernando said. “but my back hurts so much, there is so much bouncing. this is not normal.” and he did sound very in pain saying that. this re brought up concerns about the porpoising on the track. lewis had complained about it earlier and its been at no other track this year, meaning that it must be a track thing. meaning further that the track was probably resurfaced badly. because this is not normal. and yes, fernandos been having a terrible time during the triple header. hes been sick, he was in the hospital, he missed media day. this is still not normal though and cant be attributed to that.

lap 68. nearly to the end now. and max was leading by 18 seconds. 

“he’s got more god given talent in a finger than some drivers every have,” karun said,

and meanwhile his teammate was down in 11th, trying to pass lewis for 10th. and failing.

last lap! finally!

and max won by 19 seconds! and he broke the record for most consecutive days leading a championship, breaking the record previously set by michael schumacher. and made it from 17th to first in the rain, despite all odds, in a car that barely worked, no drs, just spite and rage and pure talent. a true world champion

one by one, everyone else crossed the line

p2: esteban ocon

p3: pierre gaslu

p4: george russell

p5: charles leclerc

p6: lando norris

p7: oscar piastri

p8: yuki tsunoda

p9: liam lawson

p10: lewis hamilton

p11: checo perez

p12: ollie bearman

p13: valtteri bottas

p14: fernano alonos

p15: zhou guanyu

“brilliant for alpine today, disastrous for mclaren,” crofty said

max, predictably, was absolutely thrilled saying that it was "SIMPLY LOVELY"

he sprinted to his mechanics, screaming and celebrating everywhere. he kissed kelly. he did not kiss christian. 

this was only the 5th time, in this history of formula 1. 1125 races. that a race had been won from 17th or lower. 

alpine was also thrilled.

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the funniest part was esteba ocon’s radio, where they asked him “did you think we were going to be here?” and he said “funnily enough, no!”

ruben barichello did the post race interviews. 

max said that he “stayed out of trouble, made the right calls.” he had 17 fastest laps. which you can watch here.

and you can watch all of his overtakes here.

esteban was also thrilled. “what a day that was after a difficult season! very happy to be on the podium!” they didn't know that the car would perform this well in the wet. 

and pierre was equally as excited. “its incredibly for the whole team…in these conditions everything was possible. im absolutely buzzing right now….would have been easy to just give up but we never give up.” 

because lets remember where alpine started at the beginning of the season. heaviest car on the grid. and also the slowest. and now, here they were, with a double podium. and scoring the most points out of any team at the brazilian gp (35)  

alpine even made a little graphic, reminding everyone of this:

also, id like to remind you, that pierre and esteban don't really get along. they used to be friends and now theyre not for complex reasons, and they were so overcome by the emotion of their double podium that they effectively ended the french civil war

the cooldown room was quite excitatory. never had we ever seen a podium where everyone was so insanely happy to be there. max said in the cooldown room to esteban that "You were fast. You were so fast I was happy to settle for second."

and of course. we got our dutch national anthem. she was back ladies and gents! she was back!

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and we had the goofiest looking podium selfie

esteban and pierre dropped their champagne bottles down to their mechanics. they celebrated. they were on top of the world.

prior to today, esteban had 5 points. today he scored 18.

“red bull might feel a bit more back in the game,  but they still need 2 drivers,” crofty said. “mclaren are leading by some 46 points.” 

max though, now had a 62 point lead on lando.

and so lets see what our favorite dynamic duo, james hinchcliffe and will buxton, had to say about all of this in the post race show.

“i don't know what we were missing,” james said. “we had everything.” and he was right.

starting off with the fact that max absolutely showed who was boss and now lando has to score 21 points every weekend in order to beat him in the drivers championship. prior to this weekend max hadnt been within 20 seconds of the winner at all in the last ten races. and today he won by almost 20.

and alpine hadnt finished in the top 8 all season!

“i take my hat off to them” will said. “they were 19th and 20th in bahrain, their car was overweight, there was no hope and they got their heads down and they got it done.” 

then we were joined by yuki and liam lawson.

“it was like floating around!” yuki said about the conditions.

“i nearly crashed probably 10 times,” liam said. “i came into the pitlane and i tried to stop nad i wasn't stopping. crazy race.” 

the two of them said that they just didn't have good luck today and got stuck behind others in dirty air. “shame pierre got p3 and they overtook us in the championship,” yuki said. “but we keep going.”

then they examined the start. lando, george and yuki all went for the second formation lap. esteban ocon asked over the radio if he was supposed to say where he was and the tea, said yes. but then they eventually told him to go. james said that this was not great and someone from the team should have reminded the drivers of the procedure. 

lando, george, yuki and liam were all going to see the stewards about the start.

then they moved on to discussing lando. “lando did not have his day when max showed his absolute best,” will said. 

lando said in his own interview that he was “just unlucky with the vsc pit. just that's life sometimes, not talent, just luck….still made a couple of mistakes in the end, little unfortunate….4th was the best anyone who boxed could do.” which, its unclear what hes really talking about here. if hes saying max just had good luck or if he had bad luck. in any case, insane to call a run from 17th to first just luck and not talent. and will buxton agreed.

“verstappen proved once again that he is the best in this sport. to beat the best you need to be better than the best.” and today lando wasn't.

james was in agreement with will, saying that mclaren did make some bad calls and also that max has a habit of putting his car where it doesnt deserve to be

first lando lost to george, then the safety car pit, then his mistakes on track, then he lost position, then he swapped positions and still couldn't get past charles. it was “enough mistakes that it does come down to his driving,” will said. “max was ruthless today. there was no drs and he [still] found it.” 

“doesnt take many mistakes to lose to max” james added.

mclaren also posted one of the strangest post race videos ive ever seen. usually theyre like somewhere in the paddock or whatever. this week they were in what appeared to be a weird dark closet, with lando and oscar only half in frame. oscar sitting on a desk and lando sitting in a spinny chair next to andrea. and it vaguely looked like they were all being held hostage. oscar aso said that “lando has one sock on inside out and that sums up our weekend.”

then they moved on to mercedes. 

“my take is that iv we stayed out we would have been at the front,” george said. “i was pretty angry at the time cause i wanted to say out” because he was confident despite the conditions and thought it would get red flagged. 

by comparison “lewis hamilton looked like he was having a horror show today in the first half,” will said. 

“hes been unsettled with the race car,” james said. “his highlight was before the race even started,” as in driving sennas car. and it was. 

lewis had this to say on instagram about the whole thing

“Grateful for the team and the engineers, we did our best out there but it was a hard race throughout in really tough conditions. This could’ve easily been a weekend to forget but the energy and passion from the fans have made it memorable for me. I still can’t put into words how it felt to drive Ayrton Senna’s car. To share that with this crowd means everything to me. Thank you Brazil for the support and the love. I feel it, even on days like this, and I send it back to you 🇧🇷🫶🏾”

checo, they said “was having a good comeback drive, but then that incident with lawson threw him off.” 

and ollie “equipped himself pretty well.” he said that it was a “tough race…finished p12, quite close to the points…really tough day, learned a lot that's for sure…racing in these conditions the water is quite rare and valuable.” 

will was disappointed in the stewards decision with his 10 second penalty. and they gave him two penalty points as well. 

will tried to also look on the bright side for sauber by saying they could have gotten their first points. 

james was unimpressed by this take.

“i’m trying to out a spin on it, i just want them to get one point this season!” will said. 

they then moved to feranndo alonso, commenting on the amount of pain that he was in at the end. “very 2022,” james said. “havent heard that in awhile, especially with the wet” so it was definitely the track surface itself. 

there was also a clip of fernando getting out of the car post race where he almost needed help from the mechanics.

and they were unimpressed with lance. “he had the ability to get it onto the black and he drove it into the gravel.”

and nico, to them, very obviously got disqualified because he had help from the marshals, something he should have known would happen.

they agreed that it was a tough day for williams. especially losing a place to alpine in the championship.

ferrari also have a “tough day…at the end of two brilliant gps” and charles was “kind of in no mans land today.” 

james agreed. he said they “just never had that spark….salvage what you can kind of weekend.”

“all good things just come to an end,” james said, realistically. 

also on the not having a great day list was oscar. though he thought his penalty was deserved. “it was tricky,” he said. “just trying to stay on track was difficult at some points” 

they also spoke with oliver oakes, the alpine team principal. “big result today,” he said. “we were confident [staying out] was the right chouse but we werent sure [about other peoples choices to stay out]. today is a bug result, doesnt chage what we are doing….gotta stay humble and keep pushing.” 

and alpine were definitely humble about their win

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but they also hula hooped in the trophy

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“i just want to say so many words but i need to calm down first,” pierre said. “unbelieveable, its historical for the team….its been difficult..at the end of the day we never give up…no one thought one alpine could make it onto the podium this year and we made it two…there is so much to say but from p13 to p3 im so happy.” 

and esteban said “i don't know ig we are in reality right now it this is just a dream…my alarm rang this morning at 4:30 and we had no idea….[ive kind of been] thinking when is my rime going to come, if we all had the same car…the cars they level out in some tracks.”

and finally, we had max. “I was very frustrated in qualifying, but tried to use it as motivation in the race….made all the right calls again…was hoping for two points so this is amazing.” he was also asked how driven he was and he said “we had moments, but after that quali where i knew we'd be fast, i nearly destroyed the entire garage. i was barely able to hold myself in. but i started the race very driven. i think i'm the best when i driven, i don't show it an awful lot, but usually yes.”

he was also asked about lando and he said that “if you look a few hours ago it was the other way around…three hard races to go, we need to make no mistakes.” 

so turns out, after all that, max’s quote from earlier in the weekend was correct. he is a three time world champion and he doesnt need to change how he drives. 

this though was too much for the british media to handle and they didn't bother to show up to the press conference. which max called them out on.

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in the end, no one ended up getting penalties from the start and mercedes did not get disqualified. mercedes got fined 5000 euros for each car. and the stewards agreed that "The gate to access the grid was not immediately opened. The FIA accepted that given this short notice it was extremely difficult if not impossible for the teams to follow the procedure prescribed in the technical directive"

which meant. this was our current championship standings. 

for the drivers

max verstappen: 393

lando norris: 331

charles leclerc: 307

oscar piastri: 262

carlos sainz: 244

george russell: 192

lewis hamilton: 190

checo perez: 151

fernando alonso: 62

nico hulkenberg: 31

yuki tsunoda: 28

pierre gasly: 26

lance stroll: 24

esteban ocon: 23

kevin magnussen: 14

alex albon: 12

daniel ricciardo: 12

ollie bearman: 7

franco colapinto: 5

liam lawson: 4

zhou guanyu: 0

logan sergeant: 0

valtteri bottas: 0

and the constructors

mcalren: 593

ferrari: 557

red bull: 544

mercedes: 382

aston martin: 86

alpine: 49

haas: 46

rb: 44

williams: 17

stake: 0

“fun to watch it all, cool to watch it all, but at the end of the day you have to congratulate max verstappen for another championship win,” james said. “by far most dominating performance of the year and one of the most ever.” 

“we leave you with one message resonating louder than ever,” will said, staring directly into the camera. “mess with the bull, you get the horns. we will see you in las vegas.”

the 2024 formula 1 silly season and drama master post, part 2 (part 1 here)

Hello and welcome to ah fucking fuck auto caps fuck fuck fuck how do i turn off auto caps AHA there we go okay. take 2

hello and welcome to the great and very insane formula 1 2024 season drama post, part 2. if you are new here or are just looking for part one (which contains the previous 16 (?) races, the off season, pre season testing and everything else, that can be found HERE. (a word to the wise: open it in a browser, not the app, and preferably on a computer to avoid crashing. its fucking long). 

what the hell is formula 1? car go fast. fastest cars in the world zoom around tracks at top speeds of over 300kph, piloted by the top 20 drivers in the world. it might not sound dramatic, but oh man. you will Not be disappointed. this post focuses on the drama, the insanity, the sheer what the hell how is this a serious sport. no legitimately. we've just about seen it all this year. grindr, dogs, watersports, ice cream brands, its all here.

the point of this post? to educate, to catalog the insane drama, and to just have a good time. people like to gatekeep this sport, there is also a lot happening. i try to make it easy to understand. again, probably best to start at the beginning of the post because it does a pretty good job of explaining things, which i began way back in january, and can be found HERE (again, shes long, be careful)

and, as usual, if you do not want to see this post EVER AGAIN, block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024

and a second caution, i assume this post will be getting long as well. including this one we have minimum 9 updates left!

anyway, those of you who have been following along the whole time, welcome back! i know we got a little delayed. and i know we’re on a new post, so lets just briefly take a second for me to explain what the fuck happened. first i had an anatomy test, second i work 2 jobs with fuck ass hours, third tumblr decided to stop letting me look at any of my drafts, fourth tumblr support ghosted me about the drafts issue and the post was half saving half not so i just decided fuck it, were going with post 2, electric boogaloo, and fifth, i decided to start typing this instead in a google docs so. many changes. if you're new here i am usually more on top of this.

but here we are. were back on street circuits. we’re in baku, azerbaijan, for the start of the last third of the season. 8 races remain, world championship titles are still within grasp of multiple people. the drama is dramaing. and today is september 22, 2024 and lets fucking go. 

first and foremost, on account of the fact that this post is late (again, see above), were going to have to do a bit of a speed run. if you're new here, i promise that this is not representative of my normal dedication to the update post. and for those asking, yeah, ill probably compile it somewhere better than a tumblr post after its all said and done, but we don't have time for that now. 

what we do have time for is the Off Week (and like some of the media stuff). and it was filled with silliness: 

george russell decided to wear what can only be described as slightly ugly yellow short shorts with his taylor swift shirt that he got at the eras tour. this was baffling for several reasons, the main reason being that i don't think the internet knew that he was capable of wearing a graphic t shirt

fernando alonso got his aston martin valkyrie finally. in case you are unfamiliar, a valkyrie i think is the worlds fastest street legal car. he posted tweets about this that made it seem like he wanted to fuck the car. hilariously, the car broke down an hour later.

we also had the very thrilling conclusion to grill the grid. oscar won and he somehow managed to look more pleased about his grill the grid win than his first race victory. 

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nico rosberg went to the green awards and he wore a fantastically insane teal blue suit. yes i know hes not a current driver. but you all like hearing about him so ask and you shall receive. unfornunately i cant find a picture of it though

and also not a current driver is mick schumacher, but my roommate asked me to include that he was seen on his girlfriends instagram being bad at golf. like. exceptionally bad at golf. like he hit a tree 20 feet in front of him.

also playing golf was lando norris. except he managed to look like try bolton from high school musical 2.

he also talked about the world driver championship with his friend max fewtrell while they were playing golf. unfortunately i lost this link in the sea of technical difficulties, but the gist of it was that he was saying that there is still hope for him to beat max in the championship (hes about 60 points behind right now). lando doesnt usually talk about the championship because he doesnt want news outlets to paint him as “desperate” so this was interesting

charles leclerc had an insane off week. first he rear ended someone in monaco. then he spoke at a yacht conference. he was not scheduled to speak at said yacht conference, he was there doing something else and they were like hey you're cool people know you, heres a microphone. he alsp ended up on a weather channel while promoting a karting event he was doing for the jules bianchi foundation (his god father, the one who died during the f1 race in japan 2014). he also changed his instagram pop and re centered it because some random tiktoker told him it matched his aesthetic better.

oscar piastri posted a photo of himself sitting in the cockpit of a plane and then promptly deleted it. because he posted it on 9/11. for anyone who doesnt know what that is, that was when some terrorists hijacked commercial planes and few them into the world trade centers in nyc and the pentagon in washington dc

max verstappen also posted a plane pic with himself and lando norris, but he did not delete it.

we also had the return of daniel ricciardo’s jpg instagram account, which is kinda like a finsta for photos that hes taken. i think lando started this a few years ago. 

heading into the race week we certainly got a weird ass batch of pr. including but not limited to:

lewis hamilton was back on top and slaying in the fit game. as was yuki. 

lewis hamilton also exposed george russell as listening to katy perry pre race. katy perry and taylor swift (this was after he claimed that he liked listening to old school rap music.) though, lewis then started singing wrecking ball???? confusing vibes all around

george was not off the hook yet tho because some intern definitely make him say skidibidi toilet or whatever the thing is idk, i might be gen z but im not insufferable, okay? actually george in baku was just all kinds of unhinged

george and alex also got up to something, what it is no one knows but it is clearly something

max pulled up to the paddock de aged about 10 years. picture one is of him in baku in 2015 (i believe he was 17) and picture 2 is this year. no i am not kidding. 

and franco walked into the paddock telling everyone about argentinian mate (which is a drink, not a friend)

and max shoved a microphone out of the way so everyone could gossip

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then of course, we had some slightly more relevant drama

haas announced that ollie would be replacing kevin at baku. in case you forgot, kevin magnussen received a total of 12 penalty points over the season so far, which means he gets one race ban. how did he get the points? well he was mostly wreaking havoc on everyone else so that his teammate, nico hulkenberg, could drag his car into the points. lets all remember the time in saudi arabia where he managed to get 20 seconds of penalties by basically driving like a mad man just to make sure that nico could keep his position after he pit stopped. anyway, nico was kind of pissed about the race ban situation and said “maybe the guidelines for F1 penalties need to be reviewed as the stewards ‘want to get involved’ no matter the contact.”

in any case though, k mags was out. and ollie was in. we’ve seen ollie before. notably he subbed in for carlos sainz at the saudi arabia gp when carlos had appendicitis. he managed to get points as well. since then, he has been announced as a haas driver for 2025 and is now subbing in for k mags (haas, later in the week called him a super sub. clearly no gen z person read that over.) he can do this because ferrari has a haas engine so they share reserve drivers.

adrian newey finally got employed. i know! i can hardly believe it either! but he did! and youll never guess where! 

ferrari? no that would be too obvious. 

mercedes? nah

williams? no too much of a shit show

aston martin? ding ding ding! just the right amount of shit show! 

that is right. newey is going to aston for 2025. 

apparently he was offered a “good package” according to himself, which i assume means pay and also the fact that lawrence stroll made him a shareholder? stakeholder? whatever its called. in the team itself. basically he has a lot of power. 

he said that he always wanted to work with fernando and lewis. and he couldn't do both. and aston had a better package than ferrari. 

fernando looked positively evil during all the announcement pictures. and called the team "definitely the team of the future" and for those of you who don't know, fernando is positively evil. hes just been stuck in a shit box and we havent seen very much of him, but man does he know how to evilly slut it up. so that will be fun to see.

by contrast, people said that lance was not excited enough. and well. lance 1. has resting bitch face and 2. never really looks excited about anything. also he lives in a world where take your child to work day somehow became his job. (his dad owns the team).

lewis hamilton was asked what he thought about adrian not going to ferrari, and here's what he had to say:

"i feel like, while I have mentioned before that it would be an honor to work with adrian, i have been privileged to work with two championship winning teams that didnt have adrian."

mclaren announced pato o ward would do FP1 in mexico. who is pato o ward? hes one of mclaren’s indycar drivers and one of the f1 reserve drivers. he is incredibly charming and definitely runs his own social media as seen here:

mclaren Also claim they figured out who their number 2 driver is and they claim its oscar. i say they claim because the statements were a lot more complex than that. essentially, according to andrea stella, the priority is to the team first, then lando and then oscar. so they didn't outright say that oscar is the number 2 driver and i am willing to bet real money that this is because mr mark webber, oscars manager, has something in oscars contract that prevents him from being a number 2 driver. this is of course because mark webber was one of the most infamous number 2 drivers in f1 history to none other than menace war criminal sebastian vettel, who in their time as teammates, managed to win 4 back to back world champions. or, top to bottom if you're mrs darbus from high school musical. 

lando was asked about this and he said that yes, the team does support him. though he would not expect oscar to give up a win for him and that it is more complex behind the scenes. i suppose we will see if there are any papaya rules coming out this weekend….

and oscar said "i think the main point is its not purely just going to be me pulling over for lando every single race, because thats how none of us, including lando, wont want to go racing, if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded."

max verstappen commented on the mclaren situation as well. which was funny mostly because red bull has one of the most defined number 1 and number 2 drivers of any team. he said "you look at it form oscar's perspective, he is closer to lando than lando to me. they have to deal with that."

and allow me to put on a tin foil hat as we are about to talk about the future of the red bull seat. because all i have to offer here is a baseball hat and a red bull can. 

a long time ago we talked about the red bull cans. the ones that red bull makes to promote f1. at the end of last season red bull put max and checo on the red bull can. this season at the start it was just max on the red bull can. well. now checo has reappeared on the cans too. and i will tell you what i think this means. it means that checo is not getting swapped this season, which was a possibility for awhile. 

but! there is more! 

daniel ricciardo made an instagram post this week. and it was very interesting. but most interestingly he was wearing a red bull hat.

which he does occasionally, no big deal really. he did race for the for several years, he technically does currently. BUT then he showed up TO THE PADDOCK wearing the red bull hat.

which is Big Interesting. usually you show up in a statement outfit or wearing the team kit. and daniel is not a red bull racing driver. he is a visa cashapp racing bulls driver. they might be owned by red bull but they are Not the same team. so why the red bull hat. in the paddock. well, the rumor is that hes taking checos seat for 2025. and the rumor is that this will be announced before mexico. so checo can have a proper send off. 

and with that. the baku lore. 

theres a lot that has happened at baku. as i said its a street circuit. and i think its the fastest street circuit. but over the years theres been some notable events. 

such as the great kimi raikkonen radio for gloves and steering wheel:

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they gave mini kimi this week gloves and steering wheel in honor of that

the max and daniel crash in 2018 when they were running p1 and p2 respectfully

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and of course. how could we forget. charles’s infamous “i am stupid” radio.

speaking of charles, he crashed again in fp1. not quite in the same spot, but nearly. he took a picture with the marshalls. 

then in fp2 he rage quit, basically saying that the car sucks. 

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but he was back and better than ever in practice three because he managed to top the time charts. welcome back fuck ass ferrari.

some other teams definitely experienced the lows but not really the highs of baku during practice. like lance stroll who came on the radio to say “this is not a car” (good thing they have adrian newey now, right? 

franco colapinto also cut his ear before practice on the neck strengthener stretcher thing that they all use and the team wanted to give him stitches but he was like no no no i need to be in the car in about 5 minutes im not doing that. so he jammed on his helmet and jumped in the car. he also crashed and when he went to the medical center he took off his helmet and there was blood everywhere and they were like no no no you cannot race! and he was like no! this is not from the crash! and then explained it and they let him do qualifying. 

also im pretty sure? ollie bearman crashed? in practice? but frankly i don't have time to google it so whos to say. 

but alas. qualifying. 

i know i know this is kind of a shitty update. i promise ill go all out in singapore. i PROMISE. 

so as i said. its a street circuit. high speed. 90 degree corners. and also windy as hell. we also had the dynamic duo of karun and harry in the commentary box. 

max led the first practice, george led the second and i think charles led the third. or some order like that. 

slipstream here is almost essential (slipstream: going behind another car to reduce the wind drag so you can go faster) 

charles has the last three pole positions (first in qualifying) here in baku, but he has never won. by comparison, red bull have never had pole here but they have won. 

and franco has never been to baku before. 

i think that's all the exposition that we need here. 

q1 started with max complaining about his car. “the car is jumping around like crazy on the rear axle” he said. despite this he was sitting in p3. 

the mid field battle though….the mid field battle was heating the hell up. mostly because none other than franco colapinto, who if you will remember, has never been to baku before, had split the two ferraris. he was in third for the moment, .109 seconds behind carlos sainz and .159 seconds ahead of charles leclerc. we still had a lot of qualifying left to go, so this was probably not going to stay, but it was still insane. he was pushing insanely hard, nearly kissing the walls. clearly he had learned from his crash in practice. 

the two mclarens waited until the very end of q1 to do their final flying push lap, and oscar made it through, but tragedy struck for lando. 

lando was in the middle of his last flying lap, time was ticking down, and there was a Very Brief yellow flag on the track. now, according to rules, you cannot complete your flying lap if there is a yellow flag. so lando pitted and was stuck down in 17th and out of qualifying. this would be the first time that he was out in q1 since vegas last year (which if i remember correctly was also not his fault) 

now though, of course nothing is ever that cut and dry. people thought that there had been a mis showing of a flag. yellow flag means that a car is stopped on track, white flag means that a car is going slowly on the track. and people thought that there had been a yellow flag shown when it was actually supposed to be a white flag (if there had been a white flag then lando would have been able to keep doing his flying lap) lando himself said that he had no idea what people were talking about because there is a light on the steering wheel that lights up when flags are called and he had a big yellow light. so it was clearly a yellow flag. 

if you're concerned about lando being able to pull it out of the bag, id like to point you in the direction of the mexican gp last year where lando qualified 17th and finished 5th. on a track that was hard to overtake on. he can be absolutely insane when he wants to be. worry not gentle reader. 

in any case. also out in q1 was daniel ricciardo, valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu and esteban ocon.

and notably, williams, who was on fucking fire this weekend as we already saw, finished q1 with alex albon in second (ahead of oscar) and franco colapinto in 8th. pierre gasly had somehow managed to also get into 4th. and nico hulkenberg was in 7th with ollie bearman in 13th. i told you the mid field battle was heating the hell up. 

q2. everyone zoomed straight out of the gate. they didn't want to get lando norris’d. but, speaking of that, if lando managed to get no points in the race and charles managed to win, charles would overtake lando in the drivers championship. mark webber himself told this to charles, who was absolutely baffled. 

in any case, charles was kinda suffering right now and that was because he was not getting slipstream from carlos to make his lap faster. meanwhile, carlos seemed to be actively trying to give charles the slipstream because he came on radio to say “he keeps missing the tow” 

and amazingly, franco colapinto was 4 tenths AHEAD of alex albon. alex albon who had not been unqualified by his teammate once since the start of 2023. ex red bull driver alex albon. that alex albon. 

max topped the times in q2, followed immediately by charles. insanely, fernando alonso managed to drag the aston martin to fifth. and franco was right behind him in 6th. by comparison alex albon was in 10th. 

and from q2 we lost ollie bearman, yuki tsunoda (who has never qualified lower than 8th in baku), pierre gasly, nico hulkenberg and lance stroll. so yes, ollie bearman managed to outqualify nico hulkenberg. this is ollies second ever f1 race. 

steaming on forward to q3. 

we had, for review, in q3 the following: 

both ferraris, both red bulls, both mercedes, both WILLIAMS (has not happened since vegas 2023), plus fernando alonso and oscar piastri. 

right out the gate it was wild. 

“red bull! theyve re found their mojo! or have they!” karun said. red bull were in 5th and 6th and not entirely sucking for the moment. 

everyone did one flyer and then came out at the end for a second flyer. 

here were the standings: 

charles, carlos, oscar, george, checo, max, lewis, alex, franco, fernando

and everyone was making it to the line and all was going smooth until-

wait a second what is that

could it be! alex albon! with the air box fan still on his car! surely not!!!

oh but it was! and harry and karun were like oh wow so unfortunate for williams tisk tisk

meanwhile ted jumped on the radio to Loudly announce to everyone that this was insane and if i have time here i will put the rant he ranted cause it was Fantastic.

and what do you know i have time

so we had 3 minutes left qualifying and everyone was pulling out of the pits for their last flyer when oscar hopped on the radio to say

"the williams still has the air box fan in"

"oh what an error! disaster for williams!" karun and harry said. they speculated if the marshalls could get it or if the session needed to be red flagged. but alex threw the fan off the car.

and then they asked "ted have you ever seen that before?" and ted did not hold back:

"ITS A MASSIVE YELLOW FAN HOW COULD YOU MISS IT???!!! HOW COULD THE MECHANICS MISS IT???? I CANT BELIVE THEY WOULD MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE DOWN AT WILLIAMS! SUCH AN EXPERIENCED BUNCH OF GUYS AND GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WILLIAMS OPERATIONALLY? HOW COULD YOU SEND A CAR OUT LIKE THAT?"

alex, obviously, got fined for an unsafe release 5k euros. he also had to throw the fan off to the side and got slightly covered in dry ice. he did not get to the a second flying lap. 

franco did tho!

and here were out qualifying results: 

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: checo p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: fernando p9: franco p10: alex  p11: ollie p12: yuki p13: pierre p14: nico p15: lance p16: daniel  p17: lando p18: valtteri p19: zhou p20: esteban 

oh ho ho but we werent done yet. because pierre gasly got disqualified from qualifying. for failing fuel flow regulations. and lewis was going to have to start from the pit lane for changing his power unit. 

everyone, and by everyone i mean oscar max and checo, pretty much said that charles was going to get pole no matter what, they knew this coming in and the best they were trying for was second

onto the race. 

notably, this is considered a checo track. this was one of the three races that max did not win last year. because checo won it. its a track that he does well on, evidenced by the fact that he qualified above max in qualifying. so people were expecting big things from him.

and so, we head into lap 1.

charles managed to hang onto the lead. checo passed carlos straight out of the gate for third and max managed to pass george to take fifth. lando had managed to get ahead of nico and up into 13th. notably, franco held onto 8th and ollie was able to hold onto tenth. 

someone who was not doing well was lance stroll, who came on the radio saying that he had a puncture. this was from contact with yuki. lance had to pit for fresh tires and was pretty immediately thrown to the back of the grid. 

by lap 2 lando had managed to get past daniel and was in 12th, he was trying to get past yuki next, which he managed by lap 3. yuki also lost a  spot to nico. 

also slaying in the mclaren was oscar, who took fastest lap. then charles took fastest lap.

and lewis hamilton, who had started from the pit lane, was up to 16th. already. somehow. though he was displeased with the tires, sayig that “this tire is pretty bad” over the radio. 

yuki meanwhile was clearly having a problem because he had started going very very slowly. thought the pit wall said that he had no problems. this would later turn out to be false but we will indulge them for the time being. 

franco was STILL ahead of alex albon on lap 6. STILL. 

lando on lap 8 managed to push his way into points positions, overtaking ollie bearman for 10th. though this was where things were about to slow down for him because in front of him were alex, franco and fernando, who were all very close together and would be hard to get past. 

george was back in bad luck hell as a plastic bag entered his airbox. will he ever catch a break. 

on lap 11 nico hulkenberg finally caught up with ollie bearman and passed him for 11th. 

and max’s car was not working. to potentially no one’s surprise. “i have zero bite in the car” he said. and this was probably true because checo was a whole 6.5 seconds ahead of him. insane gap. 

several pit stops later that i will not detail out because we simply do not have the time, alex albon ended up in 4th and lando ended up in fifth. and oscar was about to get undercut by checo. 

“mojo seems to be back for checo perez” harry said, correctly. 

mojo was back for him indeed. and now he was right behind lando. 

and if you will recall, according to mclaren themselves, priority at mclaren is the team first, then oscar, then lando. but oscar was ahead of lando. so what did mclaren do? 

they asked lando do hold up perez, but not compromise his own race. 

remever a long time ago when i said mclaren wouldn't have any internal drama this season? man how i was wrong.

lando managed to hold up perez for around a lap or two before he got past. this was crucial because this was during when oscar was in the pits. 

thanks to lando and the power of the papaya rules teamwork, oscar ended up coming out in 4th, only .706s ahead of checo. 

mclaren are working together everyone! mclaren are working together!

meanwhile, turns out that yuki did indeed have problems because he retired on lap 17 with a hole in his sidepod from the contact with lance on lap 1. this was now two races in a row where he had had to retire for reasons out of his control. 

several more people pitted. and eventually charles was back out in front, oscar was in p2. until he wasn't. no, he didn't dnf. he overtook charles! he was in p1! he popped out of nowhere! nowhere being 2 car lengths back and just flooring it to spring around charles like a little silly slinky! karun called it a “good, fair and robust defense,” which sounds like its descibing notes in wine. but this was not wine. this was the baku gp. and we were only half done. 

ollie bearman was defending against lewis hamilton, holding on tightly to 14th place. 

charles was still behind oscar and he could not get past, despite the fact that he was still very much in spitting distance. “they are pushing like crazy or they have more grip than us” he said. 

carlos got past both lando and alex albon and was up into 4th

this brought max up behind lando. max was on 11 lap old tires and lando was on 24 lap old tires. but lando still defended like hell and managed to hold onto sixth. max was 0.632 seconds behind lando on lap 25 when he said that “my brakes are not working.” this was hardly a surprise. max has hated the car since china.

also experiencing technical difficulties was sir lewis hamilton. he was stuck down in 14th and was first told to do “everything you can do to get the surface temp down” of the tires. he said “im trying” then several laps later on lap 29 he came on the radio to say “are you seeing how i have to drive this thing?” “yes,” bono, his engineer said. “quite effective though.” 

max was still half a second behind lando. mclaren faked a pit stop call over the radio to get max to pit. he did not. 

but, george russell did manage to pass him. which was “not good for max’s world champion aspirations.”

this was also when ted very bafflingly said that “if i had a sofa in the pit lane i would be jumping up and down on it” im not sure what that was in response to. 

meanwhile, ollie was still holding off sir lewis hamilton. and charles was trying to get oscar to pit again by lying over the radio. it was not working. 

lando did a pit stop finally and came out a whole 15 second behind max. he was hoping to catch max by the end of the race. but it might be tight. lets go last lap lando. 

“lando, imagine andrea on your shoulder saying ‘zero wheel spin’ in every exit,” lando’s race engineer said. if you're confused, everyone else was too. 

10 laps to go and here were the order of affairs:

oscar

+.449s charles +1.865s checo +2.989s carlos +16.530s george  +1.909s max +11.535s lando +9.715s fernando +2.589s alex +2.451s nico +4.667s franco +1.590s lewis +1.261s ollie +1.791s pierre +9.205s daniel +23.919s esteban  +.789s lance +3.862s valtteri +3.631s guanyu 

lando was determined. he took fastest lap on lap 43 and was 8.8s behind max

at this point, the leaders were starting to lap the cars in the back. “the back markers are starting to come up,” checo’s engineer said to him. “its going to get messy.”

“hold onto your hats and if you don't have one go get one and hold onto it” harry said. harry would turn out to be correct. 

we had the top 3 all running very close to eachother, that was oscar, charles and checo and “welcome to the party carlos sainz!” who was now 1.2 seconds behind checo in the four way battle for the lead.

definitely not leading was lance stroll, who retired on lap 47 with a brake problem. 

oscar managed to pull ahead of charles by 1.5 seconds, finally knocking him out of DRS range. so now it was a three way battle for second. and charles had “no rear tires. no rear tires at all.” 

and, just like i said he would, lando managed to pass max on lap 49. he was closing the gap slowly in the championship. 

“verstappen’s day goes from bad to worse,” harry said. because lando still had fastest lap, so he would score 3 more points than max. which is important if lando wants to beat max in the championship (though i think hes still like 60 points behind)

meanwhile! franco managed to pass nico hulkenberg for 10th! he was in the points!!!! at his second race!!! 

but this was short lived because there was a crash! a big smackeroo! between carlos and checo!! checo was mad, carlos didn't know what happened. 

what happened was that carlos was trying to pass checo but checo did not move over. it was deemed an equal fault accident. both of them were utterly confused at what happened and apparently spent 20 minutes in the medical center being utterly lost and aparently saying that sometimes this sport sucks. and! contrary to what several people said! checo did not bang on carlos’s helmet after the crash. 

the crash actually caused chef's dad to have a heart attack. he is stable now.

and well. this clip of george from the post qualifying interviews definitely didnt age well:

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but! since we were a matter of a few laps from the end, this meant that the rest of the race was finished under a virtual safety car. 

which meant 

OSCAR PIASTRI WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GP

and george inherited p3! 

and on his own merit too! no safety cars, no team orders, no weird shit! 

“yes!” he whispered over the radio. 

he almost fell getting out of the car, then gave us all the “one moment” hand gesture before properly celebrating. 

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he also got driver of the day! 

(this was marginally better than george russell, who said over the radio “i cant get any rubber (to pick up on his tires) all im getting is leaves”)

gunther steiner also hosted the post race interviews. which was interesting. 

george said that the most difficult part of the race was “driving full gas into a wall of carbon fiber on the penultimate lap…the vsc should have come out sooner” 

charles bashed ferrari because they didn't do any high fuel runs in practice. 

oscar was entirely pleased. “i managed to overtake and hold onto it for the next 35 laps..one of the better races of my career.” and honestly, oscar winning a race straight after mclaren basically announcing that he was their number 2 driver is nothing short of hilarious.

and! mclaren was now leading the constructors championship by 20 points! for the first time in ten years!!!!

the top three had a moment outside of the car that was filled with baffled: 

and oscar's engineer tom got to stand on the podium with him. he usually takes a selfie with oscar after each race he podiums at, but he was too excited to so george took this picture for them

(george also aparently demomished oscar in a game of uno on the plane, immediately humbling him)

george also shielded himself from the champagne on the podium

the cooldown room reacted to the crash in a very straight forward manner:

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and very quickly cause its midnight and the singapore gp starts in 8 hours, the post race, speed ran: 

-mark webber told off laura winter for thinking that oscar didn't have good tire management

-alex albon was “super happy, that's a lot of points for us” (williams finished in 7th and 8th). he cut his own interview short when ollie bearman arrived, saying “I can go, im happy to go” and then waving comically. 

-williams was so pleased with this result they blasted everyone with champagne. and they overtook alpine in the constructors championship! this was also their best race finish all season

-(and a quick note, if youre going to really blame logan for being that shit of a driver here, please remember that the car he was driving was several rounds of upgrades behind alex's pretty much the entire time he was driving it)

-ollie became the first driver to ever score points in his first two races for two different constructors because the double dnf pushed him up to 10th place. he said that there was not much difference between the haas and the ferrari, the ferrari was just red

-franco continued to charm everyone and flirt with the reporters. 

-they interviewed george and lewis and the camera had to be adjusted for george's height. it was comical and resulted in my favorite edit so far of the season (sound on)

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-lando looked pleased and happy for once. he said about holding off checo that “i didn't hold him up i just had to cool my tires a little.” he was delighted to be leading the constructors for the first time in ten years and he defended alex albon saying “i struggled to get past alex for a while, which is common, alex doesnt make mistakes.” he also ratted on max for going to fast during the VSC and said “i didn't complain, facts were stated.” and to sum it all up he said that “im executing things well, i’m very quick…i’m not going to be the happiest guy, but i am never the happiest guy….car is performing well everywhere…some red cars behind us seem to be our biggest competitors right now” 

-by comparison george insulted all of pirelli. the tire people. “pretty infuriating that it (the pace) changes this so much….its black magic, people who make the tires don't understand the tires…..for 20 laps we had a car not worthy of points and for 20 laps we had a car fighting for victory and the only difference is the tires.” 

-lewis was notably upset after the race and walked through the paddock with his helmet on, not wanting to talk to anyone. but he did talk to franco and ollie and congratulate them on a job well done defending against him and racing against him. franco even fangirled over this on his instagram. 

-charles was clearly upset with ferrari. he was so upset he posted a thirst trap.

-and oscar. oscar was very happy this afternoon. and his mom was there! she doesnt usually come cause it scares her, but nicole was there today! 

-mclaren celebrated with a hell of a lot of champagne. both oscar’s wina and lando’s insane recovery, and the fact that they were leading the championship. red bull have been dethroned, at least for now. 

-there was so much champagne that lando took off his socks to spray it. all seems well at mclaren. 

-at least one thing is for sure, oscar had a better time here this weekend than last year when he got food poisoning and only ate four pieces of toast

and with that. we head into singapore. quite literally as it is starting in a few hours. again, i apologixe about this post. its a little sad, but the next one will be better. pinkly promise. 

see you all soon!!!

[ad1thi]

kiss cam

lets just please pretend that cricket matches have kiss cams. based on this textpost

--

"Bhenchod!" Tony yells, earning him some looks from the people around him, but he pays it no mind because that was almost a boundary damnit

It's been 15 minutes since Rhodey said he'd go get "snacks" but Tony saw him eyeing up one of the women in the row in front of them so he just does a cursory search before turning his focus back to the game

"fuckING RUN CHUTIYA," he can feel his voice going hoarse but it doesn't matter cuz his words are covered by the screams of gora fans everywhere because Stoinis is attempting to throw the ball back to the stumps before Pandya gets there

Tony holds his breath the whole time, leaning forward as if it will somehow make Pandya run faster; and there's a breath of a second between when the ball hits the stumps and Pandya makes it in

On the grounds, the umpire pulls his fingers to mimic the shape of a television, and as one- the crowd turns to the screen to wait for the third umpire call

"My guess is he didn't make it," says a voice behind him, and Tony startles back to bang into someone's chest

He whirls around, furious, "and who the fuck are you then?"

The guy shrugs, eyes twinkling, "I played a bit in college. There's no way Hardik ran faster than Marcus threw"

Tony huffs, "because a gora knows how cricket's played," he says before turning his back to the screen just in time for a large red "OUT" to flash

"I told you," the guy says smugly before holding out his hand, "I'm Bucky"

Tony puts on his pastiest smile, "And I'm not interested"

He slumps back in his seat when the umpire whistles for half time, looking at the score morosely

There's still Dhoni to come, and Kohli, his baby, is playing absolutely brilliantly. But 320 isn't a joke- and Pandya was a huge blow

"So what got you into cricket?" Bucky whispers into the shell of his ear, and Tony has to grip the sides of his plastic chair to keep from falling out of it

"I'm desi," he says blithely, "its in my blood to be into cricket"

"Fair enough, Bucky concedes, "but I've got to say- Mahendra made a much better captain for you guys than Virat"

There's a twang to his voice, and the names sound foreign on Bucky's tongue. In other circumstances, Tony might've found that attractive

This is not other circumstances

In this circumstance, Tony spins around to face Bucky fully, absolutely livid, "Kohli is India's most successful Test Captain, he's the number 1 batsman in the WORLD and he's been Vice for years in what world is he not -"

Tony trails off when he notices that Bucky is holding back laughter, and crosses his arms against his chest, "I'm sorry is my passion amusing to you?"

"No its just," Bucky blinks a couple of times to steady himself, "you're real cute when you're angry doll"

"I'm not your doll!!"

Bucky winks at him and opens his mouth to say something, but the speakers drown them out

"It's time for.....kiss cam!!" There's a ridiculous amount of confetti strewn into the air, and Tony turns to watch the screen because anything is better than looking at Bucky

(even if he is gorgeous, his traitorous mind supplies)

The Kiss Cam catches a pair of teens who look like they're on their first date, a couple who use the opportunity to get engaged, and an old pair who're wearing matching India jerseys

"We have time for one more kiss cam," the announcer booms across the stadium, and the camera spins around to fall onto - oh fuck no

Tony can see himself turning red (which is a big fucking deal given his dark complexion) on the huge screen; but Bucky clearly has no such hang ups because he wraps a fist around Tony's jersey and tugs; slanting his lips over Tony's

Tony's hands fly up to cup his face on instinct, bending slightly a better angle and that's, thats not half bad actually

Bucky's a good kisser, a really good kisser, and Tony flicks out his tongue slightly- licking into his mouth when Bucky parts his lips

They're both panting softly when they seperate, and the kiss cam has definitely moved on- but Tony can't seem to move his forehead off Bucky's

"What's that you were saying about not being my doll?" Bucky asks in a raspy voice, and Tony deigns to give him a reply, instead focusing on the match that's resumed

He does however, shift slightly so he's leaning against Bucky and allows Bucky to curl an arm around his waist when he's not standing on his feet and yelling- so he thinks that's enough

Fin

--

more desi!tony here , here , here, here and here

[dilucsfav]

have you ever made a fanfic of the reader being a dom to people who are least expected to be a sub, example is dottore since people think he's a dom or even zhongli?

NO IVE ACTUALLY NOT REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS?? well i have but never acted on such deed (no shame in the sinning game)

I had lots of fun with this! ive never written for some of these characters before so this was a challenge :) PLEASE TELL ME IF YALL WANT A FEMALE VERSION, THERE ARE SO MANY DOMMY MOMMY CHARACTERS I COULD WRITE ABT

also,,, should i do this with very sub/switch genshin men, except them being dom to the reader instead?? like for example kaeya, tighnari, xiao, childe, scara YES SCARA IS A FUCKING SWITCH DONT EVEN ARUGE WITH ME

idk y’all should let me know anyways here’s your guys’ meal of men tonight

dom reader x genshin men hcs & scenarios (ft. dottore, zhongli, cyno, alhaitham, diluc, dain, ayato)

warning(s): LOTS of nsfw,,, actually mainly that tbh LMFAO

Dottore

at first, he'd only let you toy w/ him cuz he thought it was cute and he could easily tease you about it later

but shocker... you actually end up flustering him in the process. dummy fooled himself tbh

actually he was quite surprised that you were able to suade him with your words and body language

"Oh, doctor... don't keep me waiting...!" you'd moan and cry, grab his shirt collar and yank him to your lips, teasing his throat with your thumb and giving his body glances

made his little act crack SO fast

you'd easily get some neck kisses in while he's dazed, his flustered face staring ahead as his hands hesitate to wrap around your pretty hips

bro is high key into biting?? like definitely would allow you to squeeze a hickey or 2 in

oh, youre a big sweet talker?? good, use that to your advantage cuz you could REALLY tease this harbinger through facial expressions and super good fucking persuasive language

^^the tone of your voice... mhm that's what makes him crack

his throat between your fingers and a smirk on your lips as you kiss the tall, flustered man. literally he doesnt know what to do LMAO

HE'D COVER IT UP TOO LMAO CUZ BEING VULNUERABLE IS TOO EMBARASSING FOR THIS DICK FACE

every time you try to bring it up he'd instantly deny his reaction

^^"I was not flustered. I was just allowing you to have some fun."

dw doctor daddy, we all know ur a fucking dirty lier

call him a good boy, see what he does

Zhongli

yeah so- this man probably folds so easily over you

spoiling this big baby with kisses will result in his blushing mess of a face. trust me.

"My dear Zhongli, hush. Please let me do this for you."

^^barely takes any begging from your part. he'd allow you to spoil him any day

secretly just loves it but shh you dont know that <3

every kiss and peck and hhhhh will just make his blush grow

bonus points if you include inappropriate touching

"im the geo archon" this, "im rex lapis" that...... but how about we talk about his moans when you pull his fucking hair?

(or the crack in his voice when he's begging you to do the nasty w/ him)

^^ or his whimpers when you give him hickies?? he'd ABSOLUTELY be into marking, and you cant change my whore ass mind

stop cuz when you fluster him he instantly becomes so submissive its literally so funny

he would literally convince you with his fucking noises HES SO VOCAL JUST LIKE ITTO

(actually now that i think about it, the only geo character that wouldnt be vocal would be albedo? god hes so fucking hot i need to write for him soon

you being all cute n shit is enough for his breath to be taken away. hes so so in love w/ you hhhhhhhhhh

Cyno

cyno is literally so fucking daddy he makes me-

your actions would fluster him. i dont think he'd ever admit it, or be super vocal about liking it, but he'll never try to stop you (cyno is such a manwhore i'd fuck him so fast yall dont even try me)

yall ever thought about cyno's STRONG love for riding? no? hahah,,,.............

well i fucking have.

^^he would just lay back and let you ride him omfg me next pls

^^...perhaps small thumb rubs into the side of your thigh to encourage you to keep going. only if youre lucky ofc gotta be grateful

"Ah, Cyno... gonna be a good boy for me and let me f-fuck you? Hm, mm?"

phew the reader is kinda hot idk, kinda want them to dominate me instead of cyno

OMG STOP THIS ISNT NSFW OR ANYTHING BUT HE'D GET SO FLUSTERED N HAPPY IF YOU LAUGH AT HIS SHITTY FUCKING JOKES. HE'D BLUSH AND GET ALL NERVOUS AND HAPPY HELP

(this is random, has nothing to do with the fucking hcs, but yall seen that tighnari x cyno nsfw drawing on twitter where kaveh spends the night w/ them and tighnari is riding cynos dick with kaveh trying to sleep next to them? and kaveh is like "i wanna go home..." no? just me? k.)

would probably get flustered if you two are making out and you use tongue. idk cynos a little silly. definitely weird ass would let you spit and lick all over him and he’d thank you, what a manwhore

Alhaitham

who wouldve ever imagined a submissive haitham? not me for sure

he'd literally gasp when youre being dominant and teasing his pretty cock

chokes on his words. he'd probably let you choke him with a necklace, collar, or just something around his neck that you could pull

oh you thought i was joking? no.

"be a good boy, now, Haitham. only good boys get rewards. Do you think you deserve it?"

^^as you’re pulling the bidings against his neck

ok personally alhaitham isnt my type, but if ur taking submissive alhaitham...?... i may. MAY. SLIGHTLY jog for him

jokes on him, you'd get a such a rise and pleasure from his submissive ass

unfortunately... we have yet another victim of the big tiddy game. he'd totally want you to touch all over his man titties

^^not even just the boobs, he turns into an absolute slut when you praise his body

trace your fingers all over his abs and watch him get off so fast LMAO

when i die, i hope i dont get to the gates of heaven and get dragged down to hell cuz i like writing about silly little submissive men getting hard

I FEEL LIKE HE ALSO JUST WOULDNT KNOW WHAT TO DO?? SO WHILE YOURE DOING YOUR THING N SHIT HE’D KINDA JUST STARE AT YOU? flustered haitham at a loss for words, how cute 💔💔

hear me out hear me out. he’d praise you sm but in like a “please keep going im gonna cum” submissive type of way? you know what i mean?

ngh imagine his face getting all pathetic and weak god ngh im no slut for alhaitham but god

Diluc

I LOVE YOU DILUC, PLEASE LET ME CALL YOU MY GOOD BOY AND MY DARKNIGHT HERO AND ALL THAT CORNY SHIT

anyways

i rarely see any sub diluc fics i need to fix that soon BUT ANYWAYS

when hes being bossed around by you he'd become such a whore but in such a respectful way

HE'D ABSOLUTELY SAY "yes sir/ma'am" when youre the dom GOODDDKDKDD

he' take your wrists whilst he’s on his knees, staring up at you, waiting patiently for you to command him

im drooling as im writing these for diluc btw btw

he's not really used to such attitude but he wont question it in the moment CUZ HE LOVES THE ATTENTION

hear me out, HEAR ME OUT.

^^^ ….ive always headcanoned this, but diluc is definitely NOT a dirty talker (i strongly believe this fight me) or tbh i don’t think he’s that good of a talker during sex either way

^^^ but hear me out. imagine he’s like fucking you, but your fingers are holding the back of his ponytail to keep his face jerked forward, where your lips are just touching his ear lobe while you praise him and whisper sweet nothings into his ear?

ARE YOU FUCKING LISTENING ARE YOU HEARING ME OUT, DONT TELL ME HE WOULDNT FOLD AND GET FLUSTERED FROM PRAISE

“Mmm, oh s-so good for me! Keep it going, ahh, just like that. That’s my Diluc.”

drooling sweating crying sobbing and

i think he’d totally be down bad for some soft dom… like you praising him, commanding him and being rough with him, but at the same time so lovingly and gently?? yes pls hes totally down

Dainsleif

y’all dain simps are some other type of down bad fr (that’s a good thing i promise)

absolutely another victim of loving riding. absolutely. HE’D BE A BOTTOM SO FAST IF THAT MEANT HE WAS ABOUT TO BE RODE FR

dain would whimper. im literally so right

this has nothing to do with him being submissive but why the hell would he sweat so fucking much during sex? idk i love dain but he looks so musty IM SORRY IT HAD TO BE SAID

not trying to dain slander im sorry im just nervous ive never written for him b4💔💔

call him a bad boy and naughty and tease him just a bit and he’ll fold

honestly i think teasing him just would make him so antsy, so on edge, so desperate and impatient, he would just get all whiney and flustered and such a manwhore

HES THE FUCKING DEFINITION OF MANWHORE LETS BE HONEST HERE

push him against the mattress, maybe even yank his hair a little and tell him he’s a piece of shit that needs to beg for attention and to be kissed by your gorgeous lips

stop if you gave him a blowjob and tease him until he can’t take it just imagine tears staining his cheeks while he’s begging you to give him a break

HE WOULD CALL YOU MOMMY/DADDY. HE ABSOLUTELY WOULD YOU LITERALLY CANNOT CHANGE MY MIND IDFC

he’d curse from overstimulation, prolly screaming “shit” 80 million times and “fuck” every time you chuckle or smirk at his desperate ass

“Oh, you want me to stop? When you begged and pleaded me to touch you badly, Dain?”

^^ i can imagine you listened and stopped, but then he’d get sad and beg for it again LMAO

such a mess for you and wouldn’t try hiding it tbh

Ayato

okay im actually so excited to write for him, ive never written for ayato but i’m not really into ayato im sorry guys (i like his sister though)

It kinda startled him a bit when your fingers grazed his chest and you pinned him against a wall—

would actually kinda fight it at first?? but he also wouldn’t after a while cuz he looks down on everybody and thinks he’s better than everybody else LMFAO live laugh love ayato

anyways,,, when you’ve got him between your fingertips, instantly you become royalty to him.

you are called either ma’am/sir, or you’re called my lady/prince/your majesty

^^or some shit like that idfk ayato’s fucking wild as hell

hear me out… ayato’s absolutely, 100%, definitely, into sucking your fingers

just imagine you’re going to town on his dick and you shove your fingers down his throat to make him stop crying so fucking loud

god and he’s totally into it pls— sucking on your fingers so good so that he’s quiet just for you🙏

“Hush up, Ayato. You don’t want Thoma to hear you when you’re this vulnerable to me, do you?”

bro would gag and cry and grip your body and and

he’d so rough, dirty, submissive, but just like diluc, in a respectful way

imagine brushing your thumb on his beauty marks and the little moles he has— his heart would skip a beat

dw, you and ayato wouldn’t have to worry abt bothering anybody cuz im fucking thoma in the next room

[xuune]

Hi! I've been following you for a while (don't really remember why or when) and I love your art! I just wanted to ask:

What's your favorite and least favorite part of animation?

oh cool! thanks for sticking around for so long :) honestly, if you've been following me for some time now it might've been either bc of my fanart, oc art, or both haha

thats a big question which prompts for a big answer so here's me rambling about it below B)

when asking fave/least fave things abt animation, its hard to answer without getting in depth on a variety of things LOL. animation, as a medium and field, is very nuanced with its own concentrations so its kind of a disservice to not recognize those areas esp when the skills u learn have a lot of overlap on how it improves other areas of study

i had practice in some 2D/3D ani, storyboarding, visdev, 3D modelling. here's my general experience with all of those:

2D

fave: figuring out how movement is created, rough animation stage, analyzing and figuring out timing/spacing, esp love the fact that you are creating motion, not pretty illustrations to gawk at, seeing the entire ani come together at the end feels very rewarding

least: cleanup and colors lol, feels very time consuming. if im gonna spend time making lines clean, id rather do that with an illustration piece

3D (in maya)

fave: can rely on the program to do the heavy lifting while you do the keys and adjustments, doing 3d actually enhanced my understanding of how the body moves in motion and space and where drag, follow thru, overshoot could be applied in both 2d/3d

least: i dont get to draw :( majority of my experience in the adjustment process is looking at a mass nebula of graphs and figuring out where i fucked up or smoothing out areas and fixing it. prefer 2d since i can just redraw what looks wrong vs scavenging thru multiple graphs. also modelling the key poses can feel like it takes forever vs drawing it

storyboarding

fave: creating strong, key story beats, keeping drawings rough when possible, shorthanding drawings, researching reference for shot compositions + studying them

least: can be very hard figuring out how to fill in the gaps between certain beats, easy to become uninspired/uncertain abt a sequence drawn

visdev

fave: seeing the final piece come together, figuring out composition, blocking in values/shapes, character design, research phase/looking for references and creating moodboards

least: i hate doing backgrounds lol. complexity affects how much i'll end up dreading it. personally not a fan of working on pieces for very long. im also not a fan of constantly doing paintings/bgs as a job

3d modelling (in maya)

fave: painting the model and texturing it, uv mapping and arranging it

least: the modelling part. fuck up 1 part and you fuck up the rest, you'd have to restart from square 1 or be lucky enough that you had a previous save before the fuck up. a proper process matters a lot in saving yourself the pain and headache from fixing everything (i redid a model that i worked on for 3 wks 4 times bc of my fuck ups)

overall, as a field of study

fave: its fun getting surrounded by others who can talk the same language as you do. ive always wanted to be around people who can get as hyped up and excited over discussing and analyzing story and animation, since i didnt have that with some of my other friends or family members. i've also been able to build proficiency in variety of programs too, which is useful. working in a team project is fun if you've got the right kind of ppl and that makes the experience fun when you the project finished. i've worked on various short films for rough animation, and i always love seeing the final film/composited shot and going "i worked on that part!! look at how nice it turned out with the rest of it! whoever did the [cleans/colors/compositing] did so good!!" i think my biggest satisfaction in this field is understanding the why and how something works (i.e. why/how does this animation effectively sell its movement? what makes these boards convey strong story moments? what about this composition is so appealing? why does this story beat matter to the rest of it? why do i/what makes me care about these characters?) it can easily deter people, but this field's a huge time commitment and youre constantly evolving your own craft. it doesnt come easy to everyone, but when you start seeing your own mileage, it feels very rewarding and pays off

least: industry's hard to get into lol, its kinda like that no matter where you go and once youre graduated, the time you spend in limbo is primarily working on your portfolio and catering to studios you wanna get into. its also easy to get the impression that being a "somebody" and maintaining a reputation matters to just increase your chances and connections of getting a job. that shits hard to deal with when youre not the most extroverted person on the planet, and even if your classmates do know you, are you gonna be the one that they end up talking about constantly or regarded highly a lot? names spread within circles, and it can feel like a competition to just get yourself known. its very easy to beat yourself up over seeing other people's work too. we're desperate, we're starving, we want our work to be acknowledged and validated, we want a job that satisfies our creative needs.

this field is incredibly demanding and its more than just having fun and drawing pretty pictures when much of it is a collaborative effort for a project. the disciplines you learn will majority of the time, without a doubt, will be applied for a larger team. at the same time, what you learn has overlap into other areas too which is always fun when you have this moment of "holy shit, i get it now"

[otonymous]

Fever Dreams (MLQC Gavin - NSFW)

Description: Gavin lets you in on the contents of his wet dreams… Warnings: NSFW/18+:  Explicit/graphic language — reader discretion is advised.  Potential trigger warnings: mentions of IV lines, hospitals, minor injuries, brief mentions of trauma, Eli’s sense of impending doom, vaginal intercourse, profanity, masturbation Word Count: ~3K words (~15 mins of sweet, sweet hospital lovemaking 🤣) Author’s Notes: Close your eyes.  Imagine that Gavin is by your side — muscles flexed and lips so close they practically brush against the shell of your ear when he whispers the following:

“I hope you enjoy this fic, which was based on and inspired by Gavin’s Whispers/Biting The Ear (咬耳) ASMR from the CN server, beautifully translated by the incredibly talented and gracious @cheri-translates​.” 🤣

In all seriousness, I’m extending a massive THANK YOU to the sweet @cheri-translates​ for providing me with the awesome goods that literally left me breathless!  This fic would not have been possible without you! 💕 With that being said, hope you all enjoy it and happy reading! 🥰

👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼

It was easy to forget at times; that Gavin was made of flesh and bone like everyone else.

That lionhearted though he was, the man wasn’t invincible, no matter what he would have you believe: hiding winces behind smiles and brushing off bruises blooming blue like they were nothing at all.

It was little wonder then that when the phone rang that night, it was Eli’s voice on the other line.  And as you stood before the bathroom mirror, wrapped in nothing but a towel and watching the colour drain from your face, the stilted manner of his speech made it increasingly clear he was unused to delivering bad news.

“I’m gonna kill him when I see him,” Gavin swears under his breath, the hand with the IV drip attached pulling into a tight fist by his side.

Now you understood why.

“They’re making a fuss over nothing, keeping me in hospital for observation.  It’s just a few scratches.”

Amber eyes train in your direction, the earnestness in their tender depths melting the edge of the anger you felt at always being the last to know anytime your lover got hurt.  And when he tries to smile despite the bulky bandage plastered on his left cheek, your resistance falters.

“ ‘They’re making a fuss over nothing.’  I bet you’d say that even if you were missing a limb, Gavin Bai.”  

Suddenly exhausted by the anxiety that made you rush to the Special Task Force hospital upon receiving Eli’s call, you slump into the chair at his bedside, still annoyed but relived to find that he was well enough to laugh at your sarcasm.

“Hmm, I must be in a lot of trouble if you’re calling me by name like that.”  

Smirk spreading on that handsome face, his eyes take on a mischievous twinkle that makes him altogether impossible to resist.  You couldn’t help but think of that rough and tumble high school senior who threw furtive glances in your direction every time he walked past in the halls, lip cut and face bruised.  

“Come.  It’s too late to go home now and you can’t sleep on the chair like that.  Join me on the bed.”

Voice breaking through your reverie, Gavin holds out the hand that wasn’t hooked to the drip — large, strong and inviting.  You hesitate, fingers fiddling with the hem of your shirt as you look towards the door.  

“I-I really shouldn’t.  We’re in a hospital and there won’t be enough room for the two of us.  You, especially, need a good night’s sleep, being injured—”

Three dull pats sound in quick succession to interrupt you.  Turning your head, you see Gavin scooting to one side of the bed, hand beckoning towards the newly vacated space.  “The beds here are larger than the ones in your average hospital.  STF perk, I guess.  But if you insist on refusing then…I guess I’ll just have to accompany you in sleeping sitting up—”

Relenting with a click of the tongue, you snatch the pillow from his grasp just as he begins propping it up behind his back, sliding it beneath his head as you gingerly crawl in next to him.

“That’s my girl.”

Gavin’s whisper is electric in your ear, low and seductive in a way that made you question the innocence of his motives, wondering if he was already aware of the sensations his body pressed to the side of yours was eliciting.  His lips curve in a smile on your forehead, breath dancing hot across skin.  And when he reaches for you, the sight mesmerizes: long, tapered fingers smoothing slow along the strands of your hair.

“Eli must’ve called while you were still in the shower.  You didn’t even have time to dry your hair, did you?  Look at how wet it is.”

And though you were on the verge of telling him that it wasn’t only your hair that was wet, you thought better of it.  There was a heaviness in his tone, weighed down by the concern that inevitably arose every time Gavin thought you weren’t taking care of yourself: encouraging you with bites of the BBQ pork rice he brought in takeout containers whenever you skipped meals during late nights at the office, draping his jacket over your shoulders when you shook from the cold — having decided on form over function in a lightweight but pretty new dress worn especially to impress on date nights.

“Don’t worry, it’s almost dry anyway.”

“Hmm.”  Faint displeasure taints his acknowledgment, but you close your eyes to the furrow in his brows, unable to focus on anything other than the touch of his fingers on your skin — calloused tips tracing the line of your jaw to traipse over the chin until finally coming to rest on your lower lip.  He is so close you can feel the tail end of your exhalation being drawn into Gavin’s next breath when he says:

“I know I really scared you this time.  I’m sorry.  I was careless, but it won’t happen again.  Please don’t be mad, okay?”

Eyes opening to the sight of his, you study the specks of gold embossed in amber, beautifully familiar.  See your reflection in the dark pupils holding your face in loving regard.  Felt your heart chill at the thought of Gavin one day not returning home.  And when the sting of tears arrives to redden the tip of your nose, you turn away, unwilling to add to his burdens with your own.

“All I ask…is that you be open with me.  I know you want to protect me, Gavin.  You don’t want me to worry.  But it’s much worse to have to guess about whether or not you’re lying just to be kind.  I’m a grown woman and your partner, so please don’t handle me with kid gloves.  Let me take care of you too, sometimes.”

Staring at the patterns on the curtain drawn around the bed, you listen for the rhythm of his breath — slow and even in the ensuing silence and punctuated only by the intermittent beeps of machinery, the weight of your concerns slowly sinking in before he finally relents.

“Okay.  I won’t keep anything from you anymore.  I promise.  So please…could you let me just…”  

A hand wraps around your waist, grip firm yet gentle as he pulls you close beneath the thin sheet.  You feel his mouth on the nape of your neck, Gavin’s kisses falling hot and insistent between muffled words.

“…hold you, like this?”

Nodding, you bite your lip, barely suppressing a moan to feel his fingers crawl beneath your shirt; warming themselves on the soft skin of your belly, tracing circles about the navel.

“Seven days.  It’s been…hmm…seven days since I’ve last held you.  It’s too long.”

The last statement is breathed into the curve of your neck and shoulder, your boyfriend inhaling deeply as he buries his face into the space, the embrace around you tightening as if touch alone could communicate all the longing he wasn’t quite able to put into words.

“It was a difficult mission.  I couldn’t sleep.  And anytime I did, I would dream of you.  Always of you.  Want to know what we did?”

Cotton-mouthed, you resort to nodding again.

“Then be a good girl and turn around first.  I want…need to see you…that’s good.  In my dreams, we’d be together, just like this.  I’d have you in my arms, so close I could feel every inch of your body…how hot it is…just like now.  No, don’t move away.  I like it. I’ve got a fever, but I’m also feeling chilled.  I want your heat.”

Those amber eyes are dark now, half-lidded and veiled with lust — proof that Gavin’s increasingly shallow breathing was not an exaggeration.  It was a look you recognized; the expression his handsome face wore the moment he saw you again after a mission had kept him away for too long.  It typically resulted in entire weekends spent in bed, limbs entwined as Gavin made love to you over and over again.

Until you were boneless and spent.  

Until your lover was satisfied that he was thoroughly reacquainted with every curve of your body.

You reach for him: trembling fingers tracing the line of his brow, thumb circling the apple of his cheek.  Gavin closes his eyes, exhalation shaky as he nuzzles into your palm to lay a kiss on that, too.

“Your touch feels cool on my skin.”

“Oh!  I’m sorry—”

“No.  Don’t be.”  Fingers curling about the wrist that pulled back, Gavin gently guides your hand towards his forehead.  “It’s nice.  I like it.  But…my back is warm too.  Do you think you could help me lower the temperature there?”

Swallowing, you start to inch your hands towards the open back of his hospital gown.  Gavin softly groans to feel your fingers running along the ridge of his shoulder blades, caressing defined muscles and faded scars you had committed to memory long ago.

“Is this all right?”

Now his turn to nod, Gavin’s head drops back, accentuating the bob of his prominent Adam’s apple in that strong, thick neck.

“I’m...ah…also feeling hot here.”

Large palms fall over the back of your hands, guiding them over his rib cage until they find themselves on the hard muscles of Gavin’s abdomen.  Thighs pressing together beneath your skirt, you trace that defined V-line — touch featherlight in a way that draws out a shudder, goosebumps blooming across the expanse of Gavin’s skin.

Suddenly, you freeze to hear footsteps approaching in the hallway beyond the door.  And just when you start to pull away, Gavin stops you with a whisper:

“Don’t worry.  The nurse has already been in to check on me tonight.  They won’t be back again, unless…unless they see that my heart rate has become unusually high.”

He winks.

“Besides, if they find you here, I’ll just say that, um…I’m afraid of sleeping by myself in the dark.”

That smirk again.  You wonder at what point your boyfriend had become so cheeky, knowing just the right things to say to get his way.

“Could you help me?  I’m burning up…right here.”

Lower and lower, he guides your hands, leaving them to their own devices when they reach the waistband of his boxers.  Barely breathing, you watch as the expression on his face transforms from anticipation to euphoria the moment you slip past the elastic, fingers circling his hardened length with a loose grip.

“Officer, you weren’t lying!”

Gaze already heavy with want, the chuckle Gavin lets out in response has never sounded so sexy.  “It’s because I’m running a fever.  Or perhaps…it’s because I’m thinking of you.  Do you think we should…make it even hotter?”

You wet your lips, feeling Gavin twitch in your hand at the sight; feel the vein pulsing on the underside of that thick shaft as he continues to swell in size.  Firming up your grip, you begin to stroke in earnest, trying to maintain your rhythm despite the distraction of your own throbbing pussy, despite the way you grew increasingly wet to envision him sliding into your depths, satin panties clinging to the lines of your folds.

Smoothing your thumb over the liquid arousal beading at the tip of his cock, you draw wide, slick circles over velvet skin — paying especial attention to the ridge just below the swollen head because you loved how Gavin sounded when caught in the throes of ecstasy.  It pleased you to pleasure him — the man who never thought twice about putting you before himself.

Always so strong, always fearless, you loved to watch him fall apart.  Over you.  Beneath you.  In you.  Held in the palm of your hand or folded to your embrace.  You could feel the tension leaving his body — worn out and battered — each time he returned to your side from a mission, the trauma of all the things he couldn’t talk about seeping from every pore as you sought to show him love with the swing of your hips, the kisses you showered upon his sweat-soaked face.  With the normalcy only the simplicity of a home-cooked meal could restore.  “I love you,” he’d smile and say, amber eyes blinking once, twice…as if Gavin couldn’t quite believe you were real.  “I really do.”

“This is the first time someone has stayed with me in the hospital, let alone shared my hospital bed.” Gavin’s voice is low, thick with emotion in between shuddering gasps elicited by each tug along his length.  “Who would’ve thought that...even at a time like this…I’d be lucky enough not to be alone.”

“I’d never let you be lonely,” you say with a sudden vehemence that surprises even you.  “Never again.”

He smiles, gentle eyes glistening when his large hand approaches to cup your face.  Gavin touches you as if holding something of infinite importance, “Angel” falling from his lips in a soft utterance.

“I don’t think I can sleep tonight.  I don’t want to.  What about you?  Will you…stay up with me?…Help my fever break—”

You kiss him deeply, swallowing his words even as your tongue pushes past teeth to meet Gavin’s in reunion.  You had missed him; missed the way he tasted, the hint of mint that lingered in the breath you shared, as if your very lives were as entwined as your bodies in embrace.

To lose him was to lose yourself.  

And so, you give yourself over to the man who gave so much and asked for so little in return.

“Then I won’t sleep either.  I want to stay with you.”

Throwing one last glance at the door, you rise to your knees, skirt bunching at the waist as you straddle his hips.  Eyes wide, Gavin starts to move before you stop him, saying “Let me” as you push him back onto the bed before the IV line could pull taut.

You loved how Gavin looked at you, the artless way he wore his heart on his sleeve — showing in the pink of his cheeks, the blush creeping all the way to the tips of pierced ears.  It was a side of him only you were privy to; unguarded and unfiltered.  He watched you now, those amber eyes lit with a dark hunger to follow the motions of your hands: one pulling dampened panties aside as the other spreads glistening lips, guiding his cock along the length of your slit before you ease yourself onto his hard heat.  

Unable to stop the moan that escapes, you slide…lower and lower…until the flesh of your buttocks meets the muscular plane of his pelvis.  But the sensation continues — electricity spreading towards the very pit of the stomach to curl your spine, chest opening to receive all of his love.

Breathing barely controlled, Gavin bites hard on his lip in a bid to stay quiet, unwilling to attract the attention of curious staff.  “God, you feel so good.  I just…just want to move.”

“No, let me…let me be the one to take care of you this time.  Please.”

For the second time that night, Gavin relents, yielding to your exquisite torture even as he fought to leash the animal impulse that spurred him to rip free of the machinery and fuck you until the bed collapsed.  Hands clenching tight around the bedsheet, his knuckles grow white, as if the flimsy fabric were a lifeline keeping him from being swept away each time you lifted and lowered yourself onto him.

For everything about you drove him mad, from the tight, grinding circles you drew with your hips whenever he was fully sheathed, to the clenching embrace of your arousal-slicked walls that held him like no other, as if the entirety of you were created with him in mind.  Or, at least, it was a fantasy he harboured; to think that fate had a hand in ordaining you his sole queen, and him, forever your humble servant.

“Ahh, Gavin!…I…you’re so deep, I’m com—”

You don’t get to finish before your mind blanks.  All you could focus on was the sudden grip of Gavin’s hands on your hips and the shift of your weight forwards when his knees draw up, giving your lover the proper leverage to pound hard and fast into you from below until your arousal pools to drench those six-pack abs.

It nearly overwhelms you; the orgasm that makes you collapse onto Gavin’s chest, the contractions that hit like tidal waves moving through your body.  They spur him on, continuing to fuck you so hard the bed shook, each and every thrust hitting just the right, swollen spot to keep you elevated on that high.  And when you whisper

“I love you”

before your tongue extends to suck the lobe of his ear into your mouth, the tension building in the taut muscles of that perfect body breaks.  

You hear your name leave his lips in a deep moan, feel him leave a part of himself in the secret space between your legs.  Taste the salt of his sweat on kisses laid upon the pulse of his neck.  Waited for his racing heart to slow before telling yours it was okay to do the same.

And when his arms wrap tightly around your body, “I love you, too” returned with palpable affection, you let yourself fall into slumber…knowing that even in dreams, Gavin would meet you there.

👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼👂🏼

Thank you so much for reading!  Check out more of my work here! 📚

[chibimyumi]

Hey! I really liked your analysis and they got me back into the manga. Thank you so much! By the way, I was wondering what are your thoughts on Yana Taboso's writing? I think she's really good at foreshadowing and making strong characters but I could do with less fanservice. Anyway I'm curious and thank you for the blog recomendations. Also please take care of yourself and take the time you need. Self care is important!

Dear Anon,

Thank you for your considerateness and sweetness! (*ÓAÒ*) You take care of yourself too! After having indulged in your thoughtfulness, I now finally come to your ask (^3^)

The great things!!

I entirely agree with you that Yana is very good at foreshadowing and making strong characters. I personally find it amazing that Yana managed to take the super stale “secret twin” trope.......but made it INTERESTING AND ACTUALLY NICE!! I didn’t know this trope could be nice until Yana happened!

Another thing I find stunning about Yana is how incredibly skilled she is at language. Kuro is still really nice translated, but I cannot stress enough how goosebumps-inducing it is when read in the original Japanese. Hence my “Lost in Translation” series...

Obviously there are countless things I find amazing about Yana, otherwise I wouldn’t have this blog to begin with... but what truly blows my mind most is her ability to fix things. She clearly wrote herself into a corner at the beginning with characters like Lizzie, Meyrin, Grell - and to some extent also Lau - and yet managed to get herself out of those corners by just PUNCHING A HOLE through the wall.

Before and After

I am eternally impressed that Yana wrote Lizzie to be nothing but a foil for O!Ciel to show off his virtues, and yet managed to turn that around for most people.

Yana never pretended she did not write Lizzie to be the main source of annoyance for O!Ciel, but she did give Lizzie's past behaviour some substance at least. If anyone is interested, in this post I have gone into a bit more detail about how Yana has changed her writing of Lizzie over time.

The first time I met Meyrin I thought it was just English “Maylene” or something, and I had no idea why her language was so weird. When I first read in the Character Guide that she is supposed to be Chinese, I gasped. “Wait, is THAT supposed to be the indicator of her Chineseness......!? OMG.... YANA!?”

In Japan because Chinese people are phenotypically almost identical to Japanese people, the way Chinese people are stereotyped in Japanese media is usually bad Japanese. This choice of Yana’s betrayed her susceptibility to this degrading stereotype..... like she had against women... *points at Lizzie*, LGBT people... *points at Nina and Grell*.........

Even though Yana had written herself into this corner which unfortunately established Meyrin as character, she still managed to SORTA save Meyrin. In this post “Lost in Translation IV” I explained how she did so. TL;DR: The flashbacks of Meyrin proves that Meyrin’s English is perfectly fine, and that her “Engrish” is in fact the result of her understandable failure at mimicking Sebastianese.

Though even at the beginning it was quite clear that Lau is more intelligent than he lets on, Yana did not do a great job at showing that Lau’s clown act was intentional. It seemed more like Lau was a clown most of the time, but had his bright moments every now and then... and then there is also the stereotype of THE Chinese man who is hellbent on making references to Chinese culture at every given chance.

Ever since the Mansion Murder Arc however, it became very apparent that Lau truly was using his clown facade to lower other people’s guards against him. That was very cool! But in the Weston Arc, it became explicit that Lau actively used Chinese stereotypes to use other people’s bigotry against themselves, and I applauded it! In this post I wrote a bit about me cackling at the relatableness of that action by Lau’s.

I have already written a lot about how Yana has been making amends for how dirty she had done Grell and who she is supposed to represent, so I shall not add anything anymore. Basically, this post sums it all up.

So.... these characters are more or less fixed.... Yana...redeem Nina or just yeet her please.... she is funny, but insufferable.

The not so great things......

Yeah... I really could do with less fan-service..... Yana, your writing and art is good enough to maintain a good fanbase... you don’t need to pander to creepos to hold down your job. PLEASE. This even actively goes against the message you seem like trying to convey. You portrayed an entire pedophilic cult, one narcissistic pedophile (Druitt), and another crippled pedophile (Kelvin) as revolting for preying on children, but then you do this yourself??? WHICH IS IT, YANA? STAHP. The minors who like this stuff are vulnerable to you sexualising them, and the adults who like and support this don’t deserve any more feeding........ STAHHHPPP!!!

Another thing I think Yana could do better is consistency.... ESPECIALLY with Sebastian ≽▽≼ At times his demon powers are just plot convenience... Click here for the most blatant inconsistencies in Kuro in my opinion.

The final thing I wish to mention is probably a very widely shared one... namely pacing. If you read Kuro in one go the pacing is in fact pretty good in my opinion, but the chapters are really short and there’s a month between every one of them. Whether a chapter is the old 40-50 pages per chapter, or the current 9 pages at worst nowadays... we still pay for the same price... Yana.... please take a break. We love you, and we will also after a break.

Well, that’s been it for me ^^ What do you all love the most and hate the most about Yana’s work?

Related posts:

Lost in Translation I

Lost in Translation II

Lost in Translation III

Lost in Translation IV

Inconsistencies in Kuroshitsuji

Nina......the predatory queer.... omg

Druitt.... the predatory queer-coded pedophile...omg