#he considered not racing at all next year because there's no point in being here for him if he's not having fun

[endzithefangirl]

"I'm gong to put 'being a WAG' on my CV"

Authors note: Here's a little Max Verstappen x TechCEO!Reader. Bet you didn't see that comng. Anyway, got the idea for this a few days ago, and I guess my love of Italian food made me finish this

Summary: Max's new relatioship causes a social media stir, but the new couple couldn't care less whilst in Italy.

Warnings: English isn't my first language, no use of Y/N, female reader, famous reader

Word count: 2k

You understood it, to a degree. Max had just broken off a three-year-long relationship right before summer break, and now suddenly he was spending the summer with you. Now you’re at the paddock... No wonder people thought there was some crossover.

The truth? You two met last New Year's at a party for some sporting event. You, being one of the sponsors for your country's national sports committee, were invited, and Max... well, Max was Max Verstappen. You hit it off, exchanged numbers, showed him around your company a few times, and took him to all of your favorite restaurants in NYC. But you knew he had a girlfriend; everyone knew. And he was taking care of her kid too.

That breakup was hard on him. He had stopped loving her, but he couldn't just kick a woman and her kid out of his house. Max waited for them to have a huge fight, and then they just... broke up. And to your surprise, he was in New York the next day, saying that he needed someone to talk to. Bullshit. You knew he liked you. Otherwise, he wouldn't have come all the way here 'just to talk.'

But here you were, in Italy, spending time with him before Monza. You were currently typing away on your phone, trying to make peace in the finance department. Max glanced up from his phone every so often, stealing peeks at you while grinning.

He had never quite been so into someone like you. You were smart, funny, talented, pretty, and on top of all that - you were also rich. But you were also the most challenging girl to flirt with Max had ever met.

"You look like you could use a break," he said, after watching you tap away at your work laptop for a few minutes.

"Probably. What's the point of having interns if they don't do anything?"

"Then you should consider hiring me; I'm pretty good at helping out," Max teased, looking up from his phone and sending you a cheeky smile. He loved a woman who was in power, who knew what she was doing, and he could tell you were used to being the boss. "Come on, take a break. You know you deserve it," Max encouraged, resting his hand on top of yours to stop you from working some more.

"I guess I could eat…" You say, closing your laptop. "I saw on Google Maps that there’s a nice pizza place down the road. We can go if you’re hungry.”

Max smiled and nodded. “Yes, I’m starving; let’s go,” he said, reaching for the car keys.

“No, it’s okay, let’s walk,” you stop him. He turned towards you, slightly confused. Usually, women would give anything to drive around with Max Verstappen. Maybe that’s just what makes you special.

The two of you walked out of the hotel, your bodyguard Lenny standing outside the door. The tall, muscular man just nodded as the two of you entered the elevator. Max found it funny that you preferred Lenny guard your stuff more than you. Especially the laptop. He sometimes wondered what you kept in there...

“Is Pierre gonna be at the race?” you asked as you exited the building, breaking the silence.

Max’s head snapped towards you, and he raised his brow. “Uh, yes, of course he is… Why?”

“Because I want to see Kika.”

“Oh, so she’s your secret F1 crush, eh?” Max said, relaxing.

You laughed. “Pierre is a solid seven with a better haircut. Kika is a twelve on a bad day.”

As you got to the bigger streets, you started to understand why Max drove everywhere. Unlike you, who were a chiller and niche celebrity, despite being incredibly rich, Max was a real superstar. Your short walk to the pizza shop became a fan meet and greet, with people coming up to you every three seconds and asking for photos.

“Is this your girlfriend?” one of the people asking for a picture asked. As you finished taking the photo, you noticed Max’s slightly flustered face as he heard the question. He stumbled, but you answered with a simple “Yeah.”

As you arrived at the restaurant, you noticed that Max was staring at you. He seemed… surprised. You laughed at his facial expression. The sound of your laugh calmed him instantly, his heartbeat beginning to return to normal. Max cursed himself in his head; he was better than this. He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Is it something I said?"

Max ran a hand through his hair, feeling his cheeks heating up slightly. "No, no... Not really," he reassured you, trying to sound casual. "I was just... thinking."

"Okay, well I'm thinking about the food. I think a Vesuvius sounds great right now."

Max chuckled and quickly glanced down at the menu to hide his embarrassment. "Vesuvius? What the hell is a Vesuvius?" he asked, though his eyes scanned down the menu, searching for it.

"It's a type of pizza," you teased. "It's been like three minutes; have you not even skimmed the menu?"

Max fidgeted under your gaze, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks again. "What?" he asked with a nervous chuckle. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You tell me. Why are you staring?" Max shook his head, glancing up at you questioningly. He had no idea what you were thinking about. "No... What are you thinking about?" he asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

"There are pots from 4000 years ago found in ancient Egypt that are made out of an incredibly difficult to manage material and are cut to such perfection that they balance on their round bottom."

Max's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He was expecting something totally different. Something that had at least a little bit to do with him. He chuckled, still somewhat surprised as he studied your face. "Where did that come from?" he asked incredulously.

"The Egyptians. They were like, cooking pots and stuff. Royal cooking pots probably, but still," you teased.

Max chuckled again, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're thinking about cooking pots, and here I am, just trying to figure out what I did to make you say that we're together so casually."

"What do you mean? Are we not together?"

"Well, of course we're together," Max said, his voice taking on a more serious tone now. He glanced around the restaurant briefly, making sure no one was listening in on their conversation. "I just... I didn't expect you to say it so casually," he said, his eyes meeting yours again.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know we were keeping it a secret. I mean, I was at the paddock and all last time, and I took days off work to come to this race—"

Max shook his head, realizing you completely misunderstood what he was saying. "No, no, it's not that... I just..." he began, struggling to find the right words. He took a deep breath, his fingers fidgeting in his lap. "It's just... you're so casual about it... and I'm... a bit too flustered for my own good," he admitted, a tinge of embarrassment in his voice.

You softened up a bit. "Oh, okay, I get it. It was just a bit too shocking for you... Yeah, sorry."

Max felt his heartbeat a little faster when you softened, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Yeah, it was a bit... unexpected for me," he chuckled, feeling somewhat silly for being so flustered. "But it's fine, honestly."

"Do you think my stomach is gonna have space for gelato later? There's a really good gelateria; I can see it from the window... They make the ones with the macarons..."

Max chuckled, loving how you were so excited about the gelato. "Well, based on the amount of pizza you usually eat," he teased, a smirk on his face. "I'd say you're probably fine."

"No, they put the macarons on the gelato."

"On the gelato?" Max repeated, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"I've never heard of such a thing," he said, leaning forward to get a better look out the window at the gelateria you were talking about. "Well, in that case," he said with a grin, "we're definitely going there for dessert."

After eating so much that your belts barely held, you came back to the hotel, Lenny greeting you at the door as usual. Max's stomach was stuffed to the brim, but he was in such a good mood from the good food and even better company, he didn't even care. He walked back into the hotel together with you, his hand still holding yours. Lenny greeted the two of you as usual, but Max couldn't help but notice the way Lenny looked at you, like he was analyzing you.

"All good, Len. You go to your room for the night," you said to Lenny. He nodded, smiled at the both of you, and then went off. Max watched as Lenny walked off, then turned to you, a small frown on his face.

"He was looking at you funny," he said, a protective edge to his voice.

"He thinks it's funny. That I'm dating a Formula 1 driver."

"What's so funny about that?" he protested, his grip on your hand tightening ever so slightly. "He just... I don't know, he's a big fan of yours I don't think he's processed it yet". Max's frown relaxed as you explained it, his ego immediately soothed a bit. Of course he was a big fan of his, who wasn't?

"Oh, so he's a big fan?" he teased, a hint of pride and cockiness in his voice.

You take your shoes off and lay on the bed, your stomach bloated from all the good food "Yeah. Talk to him a bit, I think it'll make him happy" You let out groan as you move "I hate you Italy. You has so much good food... I love it though"

Max chuckled, watching as you dramatically threw yourself onto the bed, your stomach protesting the amount of food you just had. "You're such a drama queen sometimes," he teased, grinning as he took off his shoes as well and joined you on the bed. He lays down beside you, running a hand over your bloated stomach. "You'll be fine," he said, though there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Oh, you know what I saw on TikTok?"

Max raised an eyebrow in curiosity, his hand now resting on your stomach. He didn't typically pay too much attention to TikTok, but he was more than happy to listen to you.

"What did you see?" he asked, turning his head to look at you.

"Well first of all, I'm a WAG now. Thank you for that, I will be putting that on my CV. But second, they liked that I was wearing Red Bull merch. I thought they wouldn't like it, but they did"

Max chuckled as you spoke, amused by how casually you mentioned being a WAG, and how seriously you were taking the fact that you were wearing Red Bull merchandise. "Well, of course they liked it," he said with a smirk. "You were wearing the merch of the best team out there."

He gave you a smug look, his hand moving up and tracing a lazy pattern on your stomach. "Not to mention the merch of the best driver out there."

[xxblairexxss]

Pastries

Pairing : Charles Leclerc x reader

Theme : Angst / Fluff

I got carried away and it might be too long for your liking sorry about that! Not proofread!

Charles had asked you to tag along for his interview. It was a casual one. Even the whole set up looked less kind of a formal one and more like a hang-out amongst friends kinda vibe. He had promised to take you out to try the new bakery that had just opened this month and took over the social media the next second they started receiving customers but the invitation for the interview came in last minute and his team had already accepted the offer before asking him since they thought it shouldn’t be a problem considering the fact that he’s on a break.

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“What about the bakery? You promised me last week we could go there…” You hated to be the kind of person but Charles had promised you that he would leave out all work related stuffs and became your full time boyfriend for the weekend but all your hopes were crushed when he told you about his last minute schedule. You had been looking forward to try the pastries you had seen on your tiktok, the pastries videos that you kept on sending to Charles so you knew which one to choose when you visited the bakery.

“I know, baby. The team told me last minute so I couldn’t say no.”

“Then can we go after the interview?” You had been laying on his chest, your legs all tangled up with his while you had the new episode of Black Mirror playing on the screen. Now that you knew you won’t be able to spend time with him this weekend, the new episode was no longer worth watching.

“I can’t. I got another thing coming right after the interview, baby.” Charles knew you would be sad when he told you about his schedule because he had already promised you and though he couldn’t see your face, you didn’t look up to see his face after he mentioned about the interview, he knew you were upset.

“Then what am I supposed to do? I have already cancelled my plan with my friend..” Charles’s gaze followed your figure as you sat up straight and turned to look at him. You looked so dejected and he felt so bad for being the reason behind it.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” Charles sat up along and placed his hand on your neck to plant kisses on your sulky face to which you tilted your face away and scooted away with your arms crossed. “Ouch, that hurts.” He tried to lean in for another attempt on kisses but failed when you leaned away again. “Baby, come on..I’m sorry, okay? I know I made a promise but I can’t not go to the interview or I’ll get in trouble. What if I bring you along? You can take over Andrea’s role.” He placed his hand on your cheek to move your face so you were looking at him.

“Will that be okay?”

“Of course. I don’t think there’s anything wrong having my beautiful girlfriend with me. Does that mean I’m forgiven now?” Charles tilted your chin so you would look him in the eye.

“Fine..”

“Can I get my kiss?” He slanted closer to catch your lips and you covered his lips with your palm. “Baby, this is an abuse.”

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When you and Charles arrived at the set, Charles had introduced you to every of the staffs. You had been together for more than 2 years but you rarely tagged along for any other schedules unless during race week. You didn’t really think it was necessary for you to go unless if you were to show your support for him.

You were sitting along the staffs, watching your boyfriend answering questions here and there while scrolling on your phone but one question pricked up your ears.

“Being Charles Leclerc, does that mean you can get all the girls you want?”

You looked up and saw he was trying to laugh away the question. “I don’t need any other girls. I’ve got the girl of my dream right there.” He pointed at you and the interviewer just laughed along before moving on to the next one.

“Have you ever had any girls who threw themselves on you?”

“I bet your body count is high. How much do you think you could reach if you were single and not tie with one girl?”

“If you were broken up with your girlfriend by today, when do you think you can get her replacement. I don’t think it’ll be hard for you.”

“If someone ask to exchange their girlfriend with yours for a one night stand, would you say yes? Surely the girl wouldn’t say no for a one night stand with the Charles Leclerc.”

You were getting more and more uncomfortable. Sure, the first time he was asked the kind of question, you could take it as a joke but seeing the way the interviewer disrespecting you over and over again, there was no sane woman who would just stand there and let themself being spoken as if they were an item. Charles did very well dodging every questions but it was getting on your nerves how he could laugh and played along as if you weren’t being treated like a joke in front of these men so you stood up and gave an excuse you needed to take an emergency call before walking out of the set. Charles’s eyes were trailing on you as he saw you leaving.

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“Baby, what’s wrong?” He took a seat by your side after they were given a short break.

“What’s wrong? Are you being serious right now?”

“What? I don’t get it.” Charles replied and you could sense a hint of dubiety in his tone as if you were a mad person for suddenly reacting this way.

“How could you not get it, Charles? They freaking disrespected me over and over with those questions and it never once occurred to you that they were treating me like an item?” You stared at him in incredulity.

“They were just joking. You can’t even take a joke now?”

“Oh, I can’t take a joke? You called that a joke? Try to have people talking about my body count and they told you how every guys could bang me if they wanted. Is that funny to you?” You sworn he was asking to be slapped in the face with the way he looked irritated right now.

“You are overreacting, Y/N. You can’t take everything seriously.”

“Are you hearing yourself right now? I was being disrespected how can you—“

“This is why I didn’t want to bring you along with me.” That did it. You went from wanting to explain from your side to just shut your mouth as you stood up and took your stuffs.

“I didn’t even asked you to bring me with you.” You could feel your eyes getting teary and not from misery of what your boyfriend just said, you were infuriated because he didn’t even bother to listen from your side and instead just turned it around and made it seemed as if you were the one at fault.

“Yeah, you didn’t ask me to bring you along but you were also the one who was so morose because I didn’t bring you to get that stupid pastries.” Charles stood up and scowled at you.

“Fuck you.” You immediately stormed away before he could see your tears slipping off and trailing your cheeks. You could hear him calling out your name but chose to ignore it. You hated how the argument went from you complaining to your boyfriend how you were being insulted to your boyfriend made fun of the things you told him.

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You were planning to grab a taxi and head home but decided to search for any bakeries that you hadn’t tried yet and the closest was 20 minutes away. You would have gone to the bakery that Charles had promised to bring you only if it was still opened. You hadn’t had any chances to explore Maranello that much even after being here for the countless times. The scenery, the buildings, the markets and foods were very distracting that you ended up playing tourist around the area.

In the meantime, Charles had to continue the interview and acted as if he didn’t just made his girlfriend upset 30 minutes ago. He tried to ring your phone but of course, all of them were declined.

“Charles, you ready?”

“Yeah? Yeah, I am.” He put his phone away and took his spot back in the centre as the interviewer went back to his spot.

“Where’s Y/N?”

“Ah, she got some things to do.” Charles answered while trying to control his composure.

“Great, now we can talk like two single men.” The interviewer said as he took out his phone and cue cards to place it on the table.

“I don’t think so.” He awkwardly laugh and shook his head to the “joke”.

“Why not? We can talk about girls and sex. I was trying to control the topic in case she got uncomfortable but now that she’s gone, there will be so much more fun topics we could talk about. Something like what’s something you miss doing that your girlfriend didn’t allow you to do after you got into a relationship or if you were given a chance to ditch your girlfriend for a one night stand with any girl, who would it be. Nice topic to talk about, is it not?” The interviewer cackled, looking casual and laid-back even after what he had just said which caused Charles to placed his mic away and stood up.

“I don’t think I can continue this interview.” He was going to walk away when the interviewer stopped him.

“Why?”

“If you chose to continue this interview with those brainless questions then I won’t be able to do this.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my questions. If she found it offensive then that’s on her? Girls are always extra sensitive for something small.”

Charles scorned at what he just heard. He couldn’t believe he fought with you over something that was so obvious right from the start. “I refuse to associate with someone who doesn’t know how to respect my girlfriend. We are done here.”

Joris tried catch Charles to talk it out but he was gone in a blink without saying any words and he was left there so apologize on behalf of his friend.

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Charles spent 20 minutes looking around the area in case you were nearby as they had a restaurant and cafe not far away but you were not in sight so he went home thinking he would be greeted by your beautiful face but it was empty. He tried calling you again but none of the calls went through.

You had an enjoyable time of your life. It was as if you didn’t just cursed at your boyfriend and ignoring his phone calls like nothing happened. You went to a random small bakery that you saw on google, went to get an ice cream, and even ended up joining a balsamic vinegar tasting that you saw from a random website. It was nearly dark when you took a cab home looking all joyous and triumph.

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“Where were you?”

“I was…” You looked away, unable to look at your enraged boyfriend.

“Don’t you know how worried I am? You couldn’t at least text me back so I know where you were?”

“I got carried away.” You started twiddling on your phone charm, still unable to look at him in the eyes. You weren’t actually planning to ignore him all day long but you were too busy taking pictures and videos of everything and you kinda forgotten that you have a worried boyfriend waiting for you at home.

“You got carried away doing what?

“Doing some stupid stuffs.” You rolled your eyes and tried to step aside to make your way to the room but Charles grabbed on your arms which jerked you back.

“What stupid stuffs are you talking about?”

“Just some stupid things, Charles. It’s not important.” You snatched your hand away and walked to the room.

“Are you seriously still on this right now? Can we talk without arguing, please?”

You saw Charles following you into the room and stood behind you as you placed all your items on the dressing table. You could hear him gave a long weary sigh when he realized this conversation was going nowhere, again. “I am a girl who loves to overreact and can’t take a joke, ain’t I? Gotta live up to the nickname.”

“Y/N, can we please stop arguing. I was agitated the whole day not knowing where my girlfriend went and she came home acting all fine as if she didn’t just ignore my phone calls and you ended up pulling a fight again.” He turned you around by your waist so he could look at your pretty eyes and you saw how jaded he looked like.

“I’m not trying to pull a fight for fun. I’m just upset, Charles….”

“Okay, then can we stop wrangling so I can properly apologised? Tell me what did I do that made you upset with me so I can apologise for every single one. I already know the reasons but I didn’t give you a chance to explain earlier so you talk, I’ll listen this time. No fighting, okay?”

You chewed on your lower lip and felt your throat tightening. “I was upset because you didn’t want to listen to my reasonings. You acted as if I was crazy for reacting that way. I’m upset before you turned the argument on me. Upset because it was as if I was a burden for joining you on the interview. Upset because you called things that we talked and planned about as stupid.” A sob escaped from your lips as you covered your face with shaking hands.

Charles pulled you into his embrace but you didn’t hug him back. Your hands were still covering your face. “I’m sorry…”

“All these times I always thought you would always got my back but I was so uncomfortable and I thought you would understand me but I was blamed for trying to make a scene.” Your words came out as mumble from having your face covered and you could feel his arms tighten around your figure, latching you in his embrace.

“I know, baby. I know. I’m sorry I said you were overreacting. I don’t know why I was too blinded to see him disrespecting my girl when it was happening right in front of me.” He broke the hug and stooped down to pull your hands away. “Let me see your pretty face.”

“And I’m upset because you called my pastries stupid. I know you gonna laugh because it sounds funny but I always thought I could talk about random things with you without having the fear of being judge.” Your lips trembled as you cried and wiped your tears every seconds, feeling like a fool now for crying over some foolish thing.

“Look at me, baby.” He stopped your hands from wiping another strand of tears and softly held your face. “I’m sorry if it sounded like I’m mocking everything you have ever told me. It wasn’t my intention. I was…frustrated and I ended up saying those things.” Charles pulled you back into his embrace and he could feel your body shook as you sobbed. “I’m really sorry, princess. What else should I apologise for?”

“Are you playing around right now?”

“I’m not! I genuinely wanted to apologize for every single thing.” He was quick to defend himself as you could feel him shaking his head.

“Did you….regret bringing me to the interview?”

“No, not at all. You know I didn’t mean that, don’t you? I like having you with me wherever I go.”

You stayed silent in his embrace and he stroked on your back until you were done crying and pulled away to find his green, captivating eyes. “Your eyes are all swollen now, baby.” He pecked on your eyes that were still wet from the tears. “Now that I’m done listening, don’t you think you got something to apologise to me too?”

“I’m sorry for ignoring your texts and calls...”

“Please don’t do that again, okay? I was so close to lodge a police report for a missing person.” He sighed in relief. “Can you tell me where did you go today without us getting into another fight again?”

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You told Charles about everything you did whilst he was dying from stress that you were ignoring his calls as you sat on the vanity cabinet and Charles took off your makeup for you.

“And then I saw these kids eating ice-creams so I decided to get one for myself too.” You showed him the picture that you took. “They have lots of flavours!”

“Really? And what did you choose, baby? Must be pistachio again.” Charles had been staring the way you were too engrossed in your little storytelling and thought he might have fallen in love all over again. “Baby, you and your swollen eyes look so adorable.”

“I know.” You circled your arms around his neck and smiled cheekily. “Oh! And I saw puppies! Like a bunch of them!”

“Yeah? Were they cute?” He brushed his lips on your nose.

“They were so cute! And so small too! They were running around and chasing each other.”

Charles pecked on your nose again. “You should have brought me along to do those fun things together.” His arms was placed on both sides of your figure, trapping you in his arms.

“I know, but you were to busy entertaining that prick.”

“I ditched the interview.” He nodded even before you could double check what he just said.

“Why? What happened?”

“I don’t like the way he was talking behind my girl’s back.” He slanted and begin running kisses all over your face again. “Wanna go to the bakery you wanted to go tomorrow?”

“Can we?”

“Sure, why not. I’ll buy you the whole pastries to make up for my mistakes today.”

“That’s a bribery.”

[munsonsmixtapes]

i have an idea!

rockstar eddie taking his younger son to a gig, his son is like 7 and obsessed with reader and her and eddie hit it off

This is such a cute idea!

rockstar!Eddie x fem!popstar!reader

Not proofread!

Eddie would have been lying if he said that he didn’t have a little (huge) crush on you. He had seen you around since you both had been in the same industry and circles and had never gotten the guts to talk to you no matter how much he wanted to. Your beauty was intimidating and he knew that even if he did end up in a conversation with you, he would have just ended up sounding like an idiot.

As soon as he found out that your tour had a stop in his hometown, he knew he had to take his son, who also just so happened to be a fan of yours. Like father, like son, he supposed. Eddie got the tickets as soon as they went on sale and the two of them counted down the days until the show.

How the two of them ended up backstage waiting to meet you, he’d never know. Sure, he had met many famous people at concerts just because he was famous, but he honestly had no clue you that had any idea he existed. He supposed he should have just considered himself lucky.

The room was huge and definitely set up for a meet and greet with all of the snacks and drinks that lined the tables, but the two of you were the only ones in there besides part of your team.

If you were being honest, you had gotten wind of Eddie being a fan and had been hoping and praying that he was going to come to a show and as soon as you found out he was, you knew you had to shoot your shot.

You walked into the room looking like something right out of his dreams in a beautiful red dress and held your arms out for a hug. As soon as he was in them, he could smell your perfume, which was absolutely intoxicating.

“So lovely to meet you,” you said as you pulled away too soon for Eddie’s liking.

“And you as well,” he nodded and you turned your attention to the child next to him who looked like an exact clone of him. You leaned down to his height and put on a bright smile that made Eddie melt.

“And what’s your name?” You asked and the boy’s smile matched yours.

“I’m Matt.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Matt,” you put your hand out to shake and he eagerly shook it then gestured for him to come forward. “You know, my friend Rhonda over there has a bunch of snacks with your name on them,” you pointed to the woman behind him who was standing by the snack table. With Eddie’s permission, Matt raced over to her, leaving Eddie and you alone.

“I know it seems weird that I asked you here.”

“Not weird at all.”

“Good,” you nodded, stepping forward. “Because I have an embarrassingly large crush on you.”

“Good,” he responded, stepping closer to you so you were toe to toe. “Because I have an embarrassingly large crush on you too.”

“So I guess maybe we should go out, then? I’m free tomorrow.” He appreciated how forward you were because if asking you out had been left to him, it would have taken him years to do so.

“Me too,” he nodded. “I can get a sitter.” After your quick conversation, you were ushered off to the stage and Eddie just stood there in shock. During the show and even when he went to sleep, your words just kept ringing in his head. You actually liked him and even asking him out on a date. He was begging to think that maybe, just maybe someone up there liked him.

[red-hot-kick]

Theory: Ryuji was popular, before.

I'm not entirely sure if anyone has really talked about this but I maintain my interpretation that, in the canon of Persona 5, Ryuji used to be very (or at least moderately) popular prior to the events of the story.

This is something I've gotten into before when talking to friends who like the game and the character, but I haven't really considered writing it down until now. The main argument I have is based on three things:

Things Ryuji alluded to in canon (but no one believed him on)

The deliberate choice of making him a track athlete

Typecasting for voice actors

1: "There were girls all over me!"

I don't really have the time to go on a deep dive through all the instances in which he hints at his reputation before the Kamoshida incident, but I think the most clear-cut representation of this was during the scene where he and Ann spend the day with Futaba during her post-palace social rehabilitation:

So here's the thing...I don't think he's lying about this. Nobody in the room would be that impressed to find out whether Ryuji was popular since they are already friends (or in Mona's case, he really just doesn't care), so it wouldn't make sense for him to lie.

Regarding everyone's reactions though, here's my impression: Ann was simply not aware of what was going on with the track team, being predominantly focused on dealing with rumors, her friendship with Shiho, and her modeling career (and eventually Kamoshida's advances once he started doing that shit) and she mentions a few times that she and Ryuji weren't actually close before joining the PT; they were just in the same class in middle school. Futaba hasn't interacted with anyone her age in years and isn't the most reliable source when it comes to what people generally find attractive; just because she doesn't have any interest in Ryuji doesn't mean that nobody her age would. And Morgana is a cat that brags constantly about how cool he is, so he shouldn't be throwing rocks.

There are many other times in the game when you get little glimpses of his social savvy, and from my understanding of Royal (I'm an OG vanilla P5 player and haven't done 3rd-semester yet, so don't kill me) when the track team returns to "how it was", he is getting along extremely well with everyone. Not only was he the team's ace: this kid was also expected to become the captain by his senior year (as briefly mentioned when he bumps into his former senpai at the gym, iirc). That's huge! If his team held him in such high regard, then the general student body of Shujin surely had a similar opinion. This brings me to my next point:

2: Girls like boys that run fast(???)

This is honestly something that baffles me. It's also really difficult for me to substantiate; any source material on this is obviously in Japanese and if I could find any of it, I sure as hell can't read it. The only English-language source I know of I cannot find anymore; I think it was an old Tofugu article? However. If you've watched any romance anime set in a high school during the last 20 years, you might have seen this trope at some point: the school sports festival is happening, and the relay race is kind of a huge deal (it's the final event! a make-or-break moment for the class!). The boy thinks to himself "If I win this race, I'll be able to win her heart/ask her out/etc." Low-stakes drama ensues. Maybe a confession happens.

This is (from what I've been told) based on a long-standing trend of girls and women self-reporting in surveys about how, oftentimes, their crushes in junior or senior high school were simply "the boy who ran the fastest in the races". I have no idea what this means in a broader cultural context. It makes no goddamn sense to me at all. Do not cite me on this. But I think it's worth keeping in mind, even if it's almost entirely speculative (and possibly outdated) information. And even if it's just based on rumors, don't you think it's pretty in-character for Ryuji to go for a track scholarship—despite being adept at other sports like baseball and football/soccer, as mentioned in P5 and P5D—because he was aware of the potential of being more popular with girls? Of course, his priority would be getting the scholarship and paying his way through school to lighten his mother's burden, but hey, getting a girlfriend on the way up wouldn't be half bad!

I think this could also inform us as to why Kamoshida (as a predator who wanted attention from high school girls) felt so threatened by the track team in particular, and why he felt a need to specifically knock Ryuji down a peg and sought out a weakness to do so (as opposed to targeting any of the probably just-as-popular boys on the many other athletic teams and clubs in the school). Just some food for thought on this one! Also, if anyone can find a source or has any insight on the relay race thing, please share. I am so confused about it.

3: Typecasting

So this is something that you really only notice if you are very into keeping up with seiyuu in Japan. I am not one of those people. But I do have some favorite voice actors! One of these being Mamoru Miyano.

So I freakin' love this dude. He's voiced a lot of my favorite characters, sings incredibly well, and has an unreal sense of comedy. He's stated in interviews that his acting inspiration is Jim Carrey, and let me tell you: it shows. He is also quite consistently typecast into certain roles, predominantly as princely pretty-boy types, Coolguys, or complete fucking nutcases. Sometimes all three at the same time (shoutout to my boy Ling FMA!)

ATLUS definitely cast him for P5 because of his comedic chops. But I think they also cast him because having him voice someone like Ryuji is a great way to subvert expectations for the player. I think it's supposed to give you whiplash—"what do you mean the voice of LIGHT FUCKING YAGAMI is coming out of this guy's mouth?" "why does the delinquent character sound like king of the host club Tamaki Suou?" "isn't that Rin Matsuoka's voice?" etc. etc. etc.

(here's a quick list, just to really get the idea across. maybe you recognize a few.)

This is obviously a non-comprehensive list, but something that a lot of the characters he's voiced over the years have in common is that they were considered cool, handsome, or popular. Not just for fans, but within the canon of their stories! So...what does that mean? What does that say about how we should see Ryuji?

I think players are supposed to expect that he will fall into one of those categories too, and then be surprised to find that it's not the case—that he's been isolated and made bitter and resigned by what happened to him the year before.

Speaking of his tone, I think it's very telling that Ryuji actually forgets to keep up the delinquent act a lot in the original JP audio, which unfortunately doesn't really carry over in the ENG translation. The delivery of his JP lines sounds a bit more subdued in comparison too—yeah he's got a lot of energy and is very hotheaded, but when he gets to talking about serious shit, he sounds a lot more regretful and melancholy as opposed to the EN delivery which depicts him as more resentful and outwardly angry. I think before Shit Went Down, he probably had the Coolguy vibe. Still a bit of a rowdy idiot and a showoff, but I think he probably came across to most people as a very friendly, sincere, and popular guy.

So yeah, the girls probably were all over him, at least for a short while.

[lousycapy]

The McLaren drivers dilemma

Alright, I wanted to explore the comparison between Lando and Oscar in term of where each of them is in their career to understand better how McLaren should manage them this year. This is gonna be a long post because I love deep dives so buckle up, and if you do wanna go through it I’d love to read your opinion on this matter.

So, let’s start this off by a simple graph representing someone’s hypothetical development in function of the time they’ve spent practising a certain activity. This relation works because the more time you spend working on something, the more time you have to develop it. Here is our control line :

This will be our control, the starting point is (0;0), since if you spent no time on something you don’t develop it at all, and our finish point is an imaginary limit, because you time is limited wether it is through death or in case of formula 1 racing retirement. Thus, your development will also reach an end-point.

Now when we look at Lando and Oscar, an important factor is that they don’t have the same amount of time spent in formula 1. Oscar is ˜2 years along and Lando is ˜6 years along. We can represent it on our graph like this :

If we were to consider development through time as a linear function, the comparison would end here and there wouldn’t be much of interest to it. However, the function ISN’T linear. When you start practising an activity you tend to learn more then because there are low-hanging fruits in comparison to when you have been practising for a long time, because you’ve already discovered the easy improvements and the next ones are more difficult to identify and could imply that you need to modify what you’ve already trained yourself to do. The function would probably be more of an exponential one like that:

You improve really fast at the start and then start trending towards a plateau, which represents the most that you can achieve before your time of development is up. Another important factor to note is that not everybody develops at the same rate, some will learn faster and some slower. Let’s consider the red curve our standard function, and the one which Lando has been following through his career to make the comparison easier. Here are 3 scenarios that could represent the situation when both drivers reach towards the same end point but with different development rates :

Depending on Oscar’s rate of development, we can observe that his gap to Lando varies from barely anything to quite noticeable. But no matter how fast he develops, in this situation Lando will always be further ahead and thus closer to the end-point. Where the comparison gets interesting is when we recognize that not everyone has the same end-point.

Despite all development being limited by a certain time-frame, the maximum development is naturally higher or lower from one person to another. Maybe one has sharper reflexes or a metabolism that produces important hormones when it comes to their focus more efficiently, the point is that naturally some will have advantages and disadvantages in comparison to others which cannot be diminished through practice of the activity.

And now the question is where do McLaren situate Oscar in comparison to Lando when it comes to his end-point. Because at this point in time it is pretty clear that Lando still has the edge, he usually pulls a tenth-ish over Oscar in qualifying and despite being beaten from time to time, he still generally has the better tire management. But does McLaren think Oscar has the yellow or purple curve of development?

The question is complicated, because you need to identify what is an upward trajectory and what is probably a plateau. When it comes to Lando, his weakness at race starts has been pretty consistent throughout his formula 1 career, and even in the junior series. Over such a long stretch of time, it can be assumed that he has reached a sort of plateau in that regard. This is not a dig at him or anything, just a fact. When you haven’t improved in a decade of practising, it probably indicates that you’ve trained yourself to do something a certain way and are incapable of teaching yourself to do it differently, or that you simply only have incremental gains left.

On the other hand, an upward trend can be observed when we look at Oscar’s tire management. At the start of the year, such as in Australia, Japan and China, the weakness was very obvious especially when in similar conditions to Lando. But the improvement has been noticeable, Spa especially has been clear since both were on two-stoppers and in dirty air, but he’s also been solid in Monza, Hungary and Silverstone. Looking at the tracks he has improved the most on the ones on which he has raced in junior categories, and lacks the most on the ones he hasn’t. Thus we can assume that the more experience he gains on tracks he is relatively unfamiliar with, the more his tire management will improve there.

McLaren’s problem is that at this moment in time, they need to create a hierarchy between their drivers to give them the best chance to clinch a driver’s championship. However, the situation is different from the Max/Checo one, because when Checo came in both were experienced drivers with a few years under their belt, the potential gains to be made were marginal and thus it was easier to determine a first and second driver assuming they were reaching their plateau.

For McLaren, Lando is a relatively experienced driver with a few year under his belt, so a known quantity with an approximate development curve established. But Oscar is a developing driver, we haven’t seen enough of him yet to determine what his development curve should look like. You can’t assume someone’s development rate when they haven’t raced more than once or twice on a given circuit in their career, I’d say once you have 5 data sets it is reasonable to establish what the curve looks like (because you can’t make a curve with two dots, it could be as much of a linear function as an exponential one).

The issue is that they don’t know what to think of Oscar yet. To name him as second driver would be clipping his wings, and you don’t want that. You want your developing drivers to learn and explore, to discover those low-hanging fruits and to improve as fast as they can. By pushing a role onto them you risk stopping this development to the limits you impose. However, right now Lando is in a potential championship fight, and he’d need a second driver to support him throughout the next few gps in order to maximize his chances of winning.

The question is, do they bet on Lando’s chances as of now at the extent of limiting Oscar’s growth, or do they gamble on Oscar’s potential at the extent of reducing Lando’s chances? How long do they want to keep them on the team, would it be better long-term to let Oscar develop into a complete racing driver but to sacrifice some of Lando’s faith in the team, or to alienate Oscar so soon in his career to guarantee Lando’s loyalty? Are they supposed to be teammates for the next decade, or only for the next year? How would forcing Oscar into a second driver role affect his relation to Lando and how the team views him, would they start naturally giving Lando the better strategies at the expense of expressing his full talent? Would keeping them on an equal standing annoy Lando and sour his relation with the team, would he get impatient and jump ship in order to get the first driver status he would deserve if both him and Oscar were at the same point on the time axis? Do they believe they’ll still be competitive in the next few years and thus can afford to sacrifice the 2024 Lando driver’s championship shout, or is this a once in a lifetime opportunity and it is worth confining Oscar to a limiting role in order to get Lando’s championship?

So many factors, so many variables, the McLaren lineup is certainly an interesting pair. It must be headache-inducing to decide how to deal with them, because of these different points in their career they both are at. The dilemma of whether a hierarchy should be established between the drivers is a complex thing, but I’ll still offer my conclusion here.

I’d say considering the drivers are signed until 2026 a minima each, and that they both have similar preferences when it comes to the direction of development of the car (we’ve seen with Lando and Daniel for example, who both have very different preferences, that having to compromise will always leave a driver performing worse than what he is capable of), that it is in McLaren’s best interest to maintain this lineup.

The best course of action in my opinion would be to not establish a first and second driver, because Oscar does noticeably better on tracks he is familiar with. Tracks he is not familiar with are coming up, so that means he should naturally be lacking a bit more there than Lando. Thus, he should naturally fall into a role of rear gunner, without McLaren having to confirm he is their second driver. This way, Oscar doesn’t feel alienated and limited to a second driver role pushed onto him, and Lando still gets the best chance for the driver’s championship. The only downside would be that McLaren don’t acknowledge publicly that Lando is the number one driver, and thus Lando could feel annoyed to publicly be put on the same footing as his less experienced teammate when he has more of a chance at a championship. However, if the team intends on keeping this lineup long term, this feels like the best solution in my mind, as long as the assumption that Oscar will perform at a lower level in unfamiliar tracks is correct.

That’s my piece on the matter, feel free to tell me if you don’t agree with anything I said because I’d love to see different perspectives which are not straight bashing of drivers because GOD I’m tired of seeing underdeveloped takes on the situation at McLaren.

[justatalkingface]

In Lack Of Defense to Aizawa

-And to varying extents literally every other UA staff member, and basiclly anyone in any sort of authority or who just exists in MHA at all.

Something I saw recently (when I started this post, months ago, anyways) that kind of pissed me of (that I'm posting here, with no connections to where it happened, because it was on a nice fic I like and I don't want to bring crap into the comments just because I don't agree with the author's view on something) is the idea that Aizawa is... how do I put this, more excusable because he doesn't know the full story behind Izuku and Bakugou.

And... to some extent, that isn't wrong, is the thing. He doesn't know that Bakugou systematically made Izuku's life hell, so he can't be expected to react to it (you can question how he would react to it, and that's a completely fair thing to be concerned about, all things considered, though that isn't the point of all this)... but. The thing is, he can be expected to react to what he does know/see, and that's the vastly justifiable criticism of him as a teacher comes from.

Day One: Bakugou attacks Izuku for.... existing with a Quirk. And here's the thing, Aizawa does stop that, but Izuku, and most people who read the story, phrase that as, 'Aizawa stopped Bakugou! Good job Aizawa!'. That's not the right response. The right response is: Aizawa stopped Bakugou, as is his literal job; it's not something that should be acknowledged as unique or impressive. Aizawa being the only person in Izuku's life to stop Bakugou is not glowing praise for Aizawa, it's blistering condemnation for everyone else. Not letting your students try to kill each in front of you is, in fact, the bare fucking minimum.

And here's the where the problem starts: Aizawa does that... and nothing else. Good Old 'Expel 'Em All' Aizawa watches a student attack a fellow student in front of him (after, for the record, sabotaging the same student in the race by blasting him with his explosions, which... is also something that, at least, should be something discussed, if not be summarily expelled over, since being happy is expulsion worthy in Aizawa Land, or being someone that reminds him of All Might) and his response is complaining that Bakugou is making him do more work. Which. You know, is bad. He doesn't even scold Bakugou, or warn him, or do anything to punish him for this.

'You're giving me dry eye, damn it!'

Yes. Because, when one student attacks another, that is the concerning point. How it inconveniences you.

(For the record, I'll touch on all the other problems with this chunk of time, which are present but not actually on target for this post, just to be thorough: doing this test at all, when they already passed, doing it on day one, doing it, apparently, because they were excited and/or because he reminded Eraserhead of All Might, threatening to expel Izuku for daring to not having control of his Quirk, being proud he only broke one finger, not doing anything to help him stop breaking his bones, teaching his students that he'll only lie to them by his whole, 'Logical Ruse' bit, (which if anything should make his threats have less bite when he fails to follow through on them every time), and sabotaging the score when, as I've discussed before, there's no way Toru, at the very least, could outperform Izuku on a test around the physical abilities of her Quirk when her Quirk is invisibility.... a test that, for extra hypocrite points, he couldn't have passed as a student.)

Day Two: Bakugou actually tries to murder Izuku in a training exercise. And I say murder deliberately; All Might explained what would happen if he hit Izuku with his gauntlet, and doesn't even argue with that assessment, instead saying, 'He won't die if he dodges!'.

In other words, Bakugou is saying, 'He'll die if I hit him!'

The next day, after reviewing the test, Aizawa says.... 'Bakugou, stop acting like a seven year old.'

Not: we're taking away your gauntlets until you can use them responsibly. Not: killing people is wrong. Not: disobey a teacher again and I'll expel you. Not: Any form of punishment or disciplinary action for, again, an actual murder attempt.

Grow up.

...Do you see where the problem is here?

Beyond this point, there's god knows how many times Bakugou yells at and/or attacks Izuku for Reasons(TM) throughout their entire school life, none of which is actually hidden from anyone, culminating in the Final Exam where Aizawa admits they have problems working together.... which is, in itself, phrasing that puts the burden as much on Izuku as it does on Bakugou. That is, needless to say, bullshit: the problem is completely on Bakugou's side, because Izuku would be pathetically grateful to his abuser if they could work together, and he constantly does his best to make that happen, no matter how often that never actually works for him.

This phrasing fits Aizawa's 'solution', which is to pair them together for their exam against All Might, again putting the burden for Bakugou's attitude on Izuku rather than dealing with it himself, with the (again, lied about) consequences of not going with the rest of the class on their summer outing, along with probably being closer to flunking out of school. This attitude culminates, ultimately, in BvD2, where Bakugou does everything to start the fight, including launching the first blow, Izuku is defending himself, yet they are both held equally responsible.

So. In Aizawa Land, if I walk up to someone with a crowbar, start hitting them, and they hit me back so I don't crack their skull open, we're both to blame for the fight; after all, they hit me, right? Seriously. Has he arrested civilians for fighting back against people trying to rob/rape/murder them? Because under this logic? The victim is just as much to blame as the robber/rapist/murder.

Alright, so as much as these posts are generally scathing criticisms, I do strive to be somewhat fair. All of these points? All of these points apply to All Might. And to Nezu. And Midnight. And Present Mic. And Class 1A. And Class 1B. And... you know what, let me sum it up: this applies to everyone who has seen Bakugou and Izuku interact, and went, 'Aww..., they're rivals!'. Which. Is basiclly every named character with any screen time, barring maybe the original version of Best Jeanist, before he became an empty shell whose only job is to praise Bakugou.

This isn't a unique problem. This is a Bakugou Problem. This is because no one can hold Bakugou accountable for anything he does, ever, and because of his quantum characterization, Bakugou lives in a consequence free reality where he says and does one thing, and literally the entire world goes selectively blind to act like he did something else entirely. It makes him come out of every situation smelling like roses, even if he spent the entire time bathing in shit, and it makes everyone around him pay the price for him instead. I'm only focusing on Aizawa for one reason: because the fandom worships him.

People love the Kakashi replacement more than they did the original model, and unlike Bakugou this isn't contentious; Bakugou may be more popular but Eraserhead's love is far more universal.

Dadzawa, despite being blatant falsehoods, is the most common take on him, but it's not even that that sparked this rant; it's that people look at him as an actual, flawed, person who makes mistakes, but refuse to go to the next logical step on those mistakes because he's 'doing his best'.

Because he's not.

He has never done his best, because he is falling asleep in class. There is no way for me to look at this disaster, sleeping in class, threatening his students, constantly eroding their trust in his words, and think, 'he's doing his best', because he isn't.

'Doing your best' means, basiclly, you never could have done this, because of some inability, but your trying anyways. All Might is trying his best, because he doesn't know how to teach at all (now that he's done training up Izuku, anyways). He's failing, yes, but he's clearly trying.

Aizawa isn't, because he's not trying. Unlike All Might, he can teach, is the thing, he's just choosing not too. Once in a blue moon, when the school administration puts it's baleful eye on him he actually does teach; he did help Momo and Shoto, for example. Problem being, he only did it then, when he was forced to test them, instead of... any time before their exam (while still somehow missing Shoto's entire everything at the same time, which is failure on such a enormous level it's kind of impressive). Then, of course, there's his mini-me, who he took from a skinny branch of a scrub to being able to use his combat scarf proficiently in battle, an absurdly exotic weapon who having an even a basic mastery must have taken months of difficult, intensive training. If Aizawa was 'trying his best', he'd be doing that teaching... you know, at all, basiclly and not when he's being held at professional gun point, or when it's for his one favorite who isn't even in his class.

Aizawa isn't doing his best, he's doing the absolute minimum he can to keep this position.

And just... look. I get that he's tired. I get he has two full time jobs. I get that that's easily the most sympathetic emotion for basiclly everyone these days, that everyone can vibe to existential exhaustion on a soul deep level. But the thing is, every Hero teacher we've seen, period, is an actual Hero. Beyond Aizawa, the only person we see having trouble with that is All Might who is, A, a new teacher, B, canonly shit with his time management and has a long, storied history of overdoing it, and C, is missing most of his internal organs. Forget teaching, every morning the man wakes up vaguely surprised he's still alive! All Might has a great excuse for being tired and overworked. Everyone else? Everyone is also working two jobs, with Present Mic working three, and still handling it a lot better than Eraserhead is.

No one made Eraserhead come in the next day after being brutally beaten to the point where he had permanent damage and was still covered in bandages, which probably set back his recovery by weeks, realistically. No one is making him work so hard he has to take naps in class to stay functional. And yet, he's the only one who can't seem to keep that schedule up.

He chose to have two jobs, and unlike most people with two jobs, he doesn't need them; he's not being a teacher so he can get a steady paycheck and have food to eat, this is a luxury to him, a choice he's willingly making for fun, not to support himself.

What I'm saying is: if the man can't handle being both a full time hero and a full time teacher, then maybe he should stop doing both at the same time. Aizawa being tired doesn't make him a good teacher, it just makes him bad at time management.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello! Just found your blog and I love how you explain yourself here :] Also, your oc is so cute 😭

I'm here for some advice, since I'm still learning about the lore (started playing some months ago). I was thinking of making an oc who's a half fae, and I was thinking of the age thing similar to how Marcille from Dunmeshi ages (she's a half elf). But I didn't know Sebek was a half fae... And I read your post about him and his aging process, and he seems to age pretty similarly to humans...

So I was thinking: do you think that's a "All Half Faes age like this" thing, or could it depend on the type of fae one of the parents is? Basically I want to know if I could still make him age like my original concept or if I'd have to change it HAHDHSBABD

(my other idea is to just make him a full fae, since he'd also be a 3rd year I could just make him the exact same age as Malleus... but I'm still not sure, it doesn't convince me 😵‍💫 Do all faes age in the same way? Could he be "younger" than Malleus in fae years but still be in the same maturity/age range in human years? Idk if you have any info on that 😭 sorry if these are difficult questions! You just seem to know much more about it than I do and idk who to ask 😭😭😭)

[Referencing this post!]

Hello and thank you very much!! 🙇‍♀️

This may not be what you’re looking for, but I don’t think we can conclude one way or another right now. We just don’t have enough information; Sebek is the only half fae-half human character we know of in detail, and 1 is not a good sample size to draw our answers from.

A few other half-fae we’re aware of are Sebek’s older brother and sister, which we know next to nothing about. The older brother is a graduate of NRC, but we don’t have a value for how long ago this was (or even what Big Bro Zigvolt is like personality-wise) so this can’t be used as a reliable metric for how they physically age or emotionally mature.

We know there is life span variance among fae themselves based on the type they are. Whatever kind of fae Lilia is (it has yet to be entirely specified but I think he’s a bat fae?) can up up to 1000 years old. For dragon fae like Malleus, 1000 is considered the age of adulthood (so roughly 18ish for humans) and can live much, much longer. It’s not stated what the maximum age for Sebek’s kind (theorized to be crocodile) is, but we know it must be 500+ since his grandfather Baur was in his prime (as an adult) in the war era of ~500 years ago and is still alive but retired today. Again though, we can’t be sure how this variance would factor into the lifespan of a human-fae child.

The current lore seems to suggest that Sebek and Silver aged similarly, at least as young children. They say that the other boy was one of the few close to their age in Briar Valley (most others are long-lived fae), and they share many childhood memories. That’s the only “evidence” I have of Sebek aging like a normal human. Even then, we cannot be entirely sure since it’s possible Sebek just stops physically aging once he hits a certain point.

It’s also difficult for us to gauge how long-lived races age compared to others. Like, did Malleus age like a normal human up until a certain point and then his physical appearance plateaued at an older adolescent form??? Malleus looks like an older teenager/young adult even though he’s still “a child” by dragon fae standards. Then we have Lilia, who looks the same at 200 and at almost 700… but he looks way younger than Malleus. It’s implied that Lilia is getting up there in age but doesn’t appear elderly at all. Is that just their individual differences or is that the result of their species’ traits?? Again, we don’t know because we know so few fae to compare with.

We also don’t know for sure how this aging impacts their mental and emotional maturity. Currently, Lilia is nearing 700 and Malleus is said to be 178 years of age; the maturity between those two is significant, but that’s probably because being 200 is considered “still a child” for dragon fae (500 is adolescence, so ~13ish?). The gap is too wide for us to discern anything about their development in the time between childhood and adulthood. It’s can also be hard to discern what is “immature” and what is general fae mischief or individual traits, as both Malleus and Lilia can be pranksters but Sebek isn’t.

For now, I’m personally running with the idea that half fae-half human individuals have regular life expectancies until new lore is introduced which disproves it. I’m not going to draw any conclusions about the fae aging or development process, since that’s also left vague.

If you’re making an OC, I don’t think you need to really sweat the details 😅 People bend canon lore all the time for fun, so…

[percervall]

Mamma mia, here I go again {pt5}

Summary: A summer of poor decisions leads you to having to face the consequences of your actions —and the men involved. Pairing: Kevin Magnussen x fem!reader, Lewis Hamilton x fem!reader, Mark Webber x fem!reader Warnings: talk of pregnancy, mentions of a past relationship, Mark being a dick Word count: 2.5k Taglist: @ashy-kit @averagef1fansblog @barcelonaloverf1life @bradfordbantams @dannyramirezwife-simpaccount @doofenshmirtzevil-inc @exotic-iris13 @goldsainz @iloveneteyam @jaypreshpresh @laura-naruto-fan1998 @monzamash @norrisleclercf1 @opheliaas-stuff @roseseraj @szobosz @vellicora

Part 5 of the Mamma Mia series

Despite the fact that you had just had the summer break, not having a race weekend after Monza comes as a welcome breather. It allows you to catch up on tasks you had been neglecting. You finally managed to clean your flat and had just finished the last load of laundry that morning. It also allowed you time to finally schedule an appointment with a clinic to get a scan done. It had felt surreal, getting the black and white confirmation of the pregnancy. You’re still not sure if having a baby is the smartest move right now, but the relief you felt when you saw that the pregnancy was where it’s supposed to be and the heartbeat left you feeling even more confused about the whole situation. Trying your hardest to push all of that to the side, you change into your workout clothes and roll out your yoga mat. At this point you just need 15 minutes of not thinking about anything and you had found yoga to be a great help. As you centre yourself, focussing on your body and breathing through the poses, you begin to feel calmer. Taking another deep breath, you move into the next pose. The calm energy is rudely interrupted by your phone ringing. For a second you consider just letting it go to voicemail but the sound of the phone buzzing on the table is too much of a distraction to ignore. Huffing in annoyance, you get up from the floor.

“Hello?” 

“Hello to you too, sweetheart. Am I interrupting something?” 

“Yes, my workout,” you retort, rolling your eyes at Mark’s tone.

“Mm, if you need a hand let me know,” he says and you can just picture the look on his face. Smug son of a bitch.

“For fuck’s sake..” you mutter, “Get to the point or I’m hanging up.” 

“Oh sweetheart, I’m only teasing.” 

“Mark, I’m not doing this. Again, get to the point or I will hang up,” you reply.

“RIght, yes. I’m in your neck of the woods this week for some meetings and I was wondering whether you’d like to come over for dinner on Thursday? I know typically you’d take a girl out on a date, but I think there’s a few things that have gone left unsaid for far too long.” 

“I-.. I’d like that very much, Mark.” Despite his constant flirting, you’re grateful that he offers the both of you an opportunity to talk.

“I can pick you up if you want or you can drive so you have an out if you need it. I don’t-.. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” You can hear the sincerity in his voice and it breaks your heart a little bit that this is what is left of the relationship you once had with him. 

“Thanks Mark, I don’t mind driving. Not because of the reasons you named, but I don’t want to inconvenience you by having to drive this way twice. Just text me the address and a time and I’ll be there.” Your phone buzzes against your face, indicating you have received a new message.

“You should have it now. Okay, I’ll let you get back to your workout.” You both say your goodbyes before hanging up. You put the phone down on the table and stare out of the windows in your living room, lost in memories. 

Mark and you met in 2012, while he still drove in Formula 1. You had just graduated university with a degree in Mathematics and Engineering, and your thesis had somehow made its way to the desk of Christian Horner. And so, there you were: 23 years old and bright eyed, using the tool you had developed for your thesis to analyse simulator data and translating that into adjustments needed to the set up of the car to extract its maximum potential. While you mainly worked on Sebastian’s side of the garage, you often bumped into Mark during race weekends, always ready with a comment that should’ve gotten him written up. Mark was everything you needed in a man at that point in your life and it felt so good to feel wanted, to feel desired. And then 2013 happened. 

You have to physically shake your head to stop going down that rabbit hole, only now noticing how hard you’re gripping the back of a chair. Exhaling deeply, you let go, flexing your fingers to get rid of the tension. Despite knowing you need to have this conversation before either of you can even think about second chances, you’re not looking forward to reliving how it all fell apart. 

+

Thursday approaches a lot faster than you had anticipated, work keeping you busy even if there wasn’t a race. Having already showered, you’re now standing in front of your wardrobe trying to decide on what to wear. The old you would have gone for something frilly and short. Mark loved seeing you in these tiny summer dresses, and you loved how his hand felt on your bare thigh, allowing him to easily slide up under your dress while you were out for team dinners and tease you mercilessly. Chewing your bottom lip, you peruse your options. Despite it being September, it’s still a balmy 22 ℃ although it will probably cool off during the course of the evening. Feeling the need to reclaim a part of you that Mark stole from you, you decide to go for a dress. Even if you no longer wear those short, cutesy dresses, you still love how dresses make you feel. There’s a femininity that you sometimes feel out of sync with because of your job. It feels empowering, dressing up in a world built for men. Your eyes fall on a recent purchase –a flowy midi length dress in a gorgeous burnt orange. Slipping it on, you brush your fingers over the soft linen fabric, admiring the way the gold buttons catch the sunlight. It’s casual enough for tonight, but it gives you that little boost of confidence that you know you will need to make it through Mark’s relentless flirting. Closing the door of your wardrobe, you slip on a pair of sandals and grab your purse before heading out. 

It turns out that Mark lives a lot closer to you than you had expected when you first looked at the address he sent you. You park the car on the paved driveway in front of the detached house in the outskirts of Oxford, taking in its grandeur. You remember Mark telling you about how his family would come over for the holidays sometimes and so the extra bedrooms make sense. As you slam your door shut, you spot Mark in the door opening.

“Hey sweetheart,” he greets you and you let him pull you into a hug.

“Hey,” you reply softly, following him inside. Mark leads you to a large open kitchen-dining space before offering you something to drink. 

“Wasn’t sure whether you’d want to eat outside or not,” Mark says as he hands you a glass.

“Might as well make the most of this warm weather,” you reply with a smile. Mark returns your smile and takes you outside through the large French doors in the kitchen. 

“Dinner’s almost ready. Please, sit. Make yourself comfortable and I’ll join you in a moment.” 

You do as he asks, taking in the landscaping from your spot on the patio. It doesn’t take long for Mark to start bringing out the dishes, refusing your help. 

“I might’ve gone a little overboard,” he admits sheepishly as he brings out the final dish. The grilled asparagus should’ve been a giveaway, but you can’t help but feel touched when Mark places a lamb roast on the table.

“I can’t believe you remembered,” you say, throat closing with tears.

“How could I forget? It’s not every day you find a pretty girl crying quietly in the corner of the garage after a race –which we won by the way– because she missed her nan’s Sunday roast. She always made lamb, right?” Mark says. You nod and try to swallow back tears.

“Thanks Mark, this-.. This means a lot to me,” you whisper. Mark smiles softly and gives your hand a squeeze. 

During dinner, the conversation mainly revolves around catching up. Mark tells you all about managing McLaren’s rookie driver and how he’s finding it to work at Channel 4 with David. You update him on your appointment, showing the little sonogram picture. 

“So everything’s okay with the baby?” he asks, an anxious look in his eyes.

“Uhu, so far so good. They estimated that I’m about 7 weeks along now.” Mark looks back down at the picture on your phone, a large finger tracing it gently as he smiles. Seeing him so enamoured by the tiny blob on the sonogram brings up a mix of emotions for you; it warms your heart to see him like this, but it also terrifies you that those feelings for him never went away and how easy it is to fall back in step with him. 

“You’d look so hot in those maternity dresses,” Mark comments, his tone flirtatious, “You always look hot in a dress. I still dream about that pink one with the hearts you wore to dinner after Silverstone. You looked so innocent in that dress, but we both knew you were anything but.” 

And then he goes and says shit like that, and it all comes tumbling down like a house of cards. 

“I no longer dress for you, Mark. You lost that privilege a long time ago,” you retort, voice even but there’s an edge to it. You remember the dress he is talking about, remember what he is referring to. Before your food even arrived at the table, Mark had dragged you into the bathroom. He had made some comment about how pretty you looked but how you’d look even prettier on your knees with your mouth wrapped around his cock, and so that’s what you did. That was how your relationship worked: Mark would make a suggestive comment and you would obey without a second thought. Of course he always made sure he took care of you; he was the one who helped you discover you could experience multiple orgasms, would always clean you up afterwards and run you a bath. But despite all this, he always took what he wanted from you first. You wish you could have protected your younger self against the heartbreak that was headed your way, against the feeling of being lost at sea after Mark left you alone in that hotel room with nothing more than the remnants of his fingerprints on your skin. After the dust had settled, you had promised yourself never again; you would never allow yourself to be in that position again. 

“I’m sorry,” Mark says, breaking you from your spiralling thoughts, “for- I’m sorry for how it all went down, how I treated you. You deserved so much better than that,” he adds, referring to the note he left you after that final race in Brazil. 

“Why did you leave me?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Because I couldn’t drag you into my mess. You had your entire career still ahead of you while I needed to get out. That last season was a shitshow, despite the fact that Seb won the Driver’s and RedBull the Constructor’s. I was sick and tired of how the team favoured Seb. I had nothing left to give..” 

“You shut me out, I thought we were in it together.. Or was I just a means to get back at Sebastian?” It’s impossible to not sound bitter, hurt evident in your tone.

“No, Jesus, no sweetheart. You know it started out as a way to annoy him, but my feelings for you were genuine; I loved you, and in many ways still do.” Regret is written all over his face when your eyes meet his. You know your relationship back then was complicated. Of course there was the age gap –Mark is a good 13 years older than you– which somehow trickled into the bedroom where he showed you things that made your previous boyfriends look like clueless little boys by comparison. And as every naive 20-something-year-old with daddy issues would have done, you fell head over heels in love with him, giving him your heart and your body. 

“You broke a piece of me that day that I might not ever get back,” you whisper.

“And I will spend the rest of my life regretting the way I handled things. You’re right, I should’ve been open and honest with you instead of walking out on us,” Mark says, taking your hand in his.

“I’ve spent ten years avoiding you. The ghost of you haunted me in that garage and so when Mercedes called, I took it with both hands. I was a mess those first years, somehow still hoping you’d come back for me. And then it became painfully clear you weren’t and I mourned the loss of you all over again. I hated you for what you did to me, hated myself even more for ever allowing you to get close enough to hurt me, for still being in love with you despite it all. The last ten years I’ve spent building up walls so I wouldn’t have to feel like that version of me again, and look where that’s gotten me.” You laugh humorlessly, biting your lip to stop the tears from falling. “I have become the very definition of a cliche, entangled in a love square and too scared to let any of them in.” 

Before you really know what’s happening, Mark pulls you out of your seat and into his lap. Your legs dangle over the arm of the chair and you bury your face in the crook of his neck. 

“I need you to listen carefully, okay sweetheart? If anyone deserves to take the blame for what happened, it’s me. And if you’ll let me, I will spend the rest of my life showing you just how worthy of love you are. I know all three of us will. You might have a hard time letting us in right now, but baby you need to know that we’re all in if you are. You are worth waiting for.” You take a deep breath, inhaling his cologne. The scent of it helps to calm you down, it reminding you of the lazy mornings spent in bed cuddling. 

“You’re the second person to tell me that,” you mumble as you look up at him. Mark smiles, brushing away your tears with his thumb and cradles your cheek in his palm.

“Then it must be true.” 

You smile back at him, albeit timidly and snuggle into him once more. Alice’s words from a week prior echo in your head. “Keeping your heart shut like this, it’s safe but also lonely.” You’re beginning to wonder whether the cost has been far greater than the benefits of keeping romance at bay. Doing so hurt a good man; had you been able to allow Kevin in completely, you know he would have made you feel safe and loved. You also know Kevin deserves better –hell, you deserve better, but knowing and doing are two very different things, and right now you’re not sure if you’ll ever be ready for this level of love –from any of them.  

Welp, there you have it. Date no.2 🙊

Again, a massive thank you to @curiousthyme and @szobosz for being my beta readers for this chapter, and a shoutout to @monzamash for helping me with figuring out the details for this date

Please feel free to let let me know what you think; your comments, tags and likes mean the absolute world to me 💜

I'm gonna take the holidays off from posting this fic to just relax (and maybe get some more writing done, who knows?), so the last date will be posted in the new year on the 6th. Wishing you all a merry Christmas and all the best for the new year!

[centrally-unplanned]

I saw this slightly-old post making the rounds recently by former alt-right memelord Walt Bismark, on how the alt-right "won" in the late 2010's - positing that as the cause of why it generally vanished. I agree overall with the vanishing part, its not gone-gone ofc but it waned as a cohesive movement. But I saw a lot of people (and generally not alt-right figures) agreeing with its conclusion and I am a bit more skeptical of those.

Its largely a personal essay so I wont address most of it, but it has a summary of five main points that outline essentially "the agenda of the Alt Right at the beginning" to evaluate success upon. Bismark thinks they won on all five, but overall I think this is playing a trick of inventing an enemy to claim you defeated. Anyway, the points:

1: Shift the “Overton Window” of acceptable public discourse to make it politically viable to openly discuss the interests of white people in mainstream politics, in the same way black people or Jewish people discuss their collective interests. 

This one I will grant a partial victory - there was a legitimate intensification of "white as identity" in politics, a making explicit what was implicit in the 2010's. Now ofc I consider this to be a classic horseshoe moment; the hard left at the time was also extremely interested in abandoning race neutrality and valorizing racial identity as an organizing principle, and did it in a very ham-fisted way that the right capitalized on, so it was an easy battle to win - but that is what it is, ofc the wider environment defined the goals & strategy. I mention it however because I do think this is only partial, and the gap between implicit and explicit isn't that relevant. He mentions as an example of this success:

Affirmative action was of course squashed by SCOTUS and the necessary legal infrastructure is being deployed to burn it down. Mainstream conservatives are mobilizing a lot of resources and energy to this end.

But conservatives have been fighting affirmative action for 20+ years, easily. Here is a 1999 article on precisely such a campaign, I literally just googled "conservatives affirmative action [year]" and I get results each time, 2003 had big cases (the Bollinger cases) on AA, etc. I remember "affirmative action bake sale" memes from like 2006 at my uni! What changed between Bollinger and 2023's Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is that conservatives had just had enough time to stack courts, and wait for Supreme Court justices to die. That just...takes time to do! The strategy hadn't changed between 2003 and 2023. And meanwhile, did they win? They won that court case, sure. What do you...think the ethic makeup of the next Harvard class is gonna be? Wanna take some bets?

His other listed victories are things like:

"Vivek defended the Great Replacement Theory on national television and remained a major Trump surrogate. The SPLC would have marginalized him for that 10 years ago. Today because of polarization and MAGA closing ranks they can’t do shit."

And like, the Southern Poverty Law Center would have successfully marginalized a Republican politician in idk 2003 are you completely high right now? Strom Fucking Thurmond was an active Senator in 2003! This is the repeated tactic here, the imagined enemies - there was never a time where liberal institutions could consistently force conservative politicians to kowtow, so you can't claim it as a change.

This is why I mention the social justice horseshoe, because he has this point here:

These days you can complain about quotas etc. being unfair to you as a white man and it’s not inflammatory or low status among centrists and conservatives. Even non-woke liberals won’t really hate you for it, just quietly think you’re a bit of a chud. This was not the case in 2015. 

And this is partially correct, I agree there was some norm shift. But that is because in ~2010 there really weren't any quotas against white men, it wasn't a thing almost anywhere outside of university applications, so the complaint would make no sense. What happened was that starting in ~2012 a huge left cultural movement started that just openly supported active discrimination against whites, Asians and men. They were a small minority of course, and never had much power, but they got enough power in certain institutions like non-profits and universities that there was a string of just very obvious cases of clear racial discrimination against in particular whites & asians (both men and women, white women often got it very bad in this wave). And the large majority of people just saw that and went "uh yeah racism is still bad?" and so now you can say that because its actually relevant to say. From that lens, is this a successful cultural victory on the part of the alt-right? In some sense sure, but really its more a cultural failure of the hard left. The status quo just kept on chugging along.

Ugh that point went long, the others repeat so we will go through them quicker.

2: Elevate identity issues like anti-immigration and the promotion of traditional gender norms to the center of Republican politics. 

A fake enemy here - anti-immigration was already a huge issue for Republicans in the 2000's. It had a huge wave under Obama actually, it goes in cycles like that. And it responds to material conditions; it's a big issue again right now because the immigration numbers spiked massively under Biden, its just way worse of a problem now (primarily due to the booming economy of course). Again a partial victory for the first part, I agree its more salient due to Trump platforming it, but I'm skeptical that it is a big shift - people are memory-holing the Tea Party movement really badly here for example.

And the second point is just obviously false, Republicans always cared about that, and they care about it less now, giving up the ghost on gay marriage for example. The Alt-Right coincided with a decline of the influence of the Religious Right, and it shows on this issue, 0 points.

3: Make it socially acceptable to discuss HBD and the resulting moral implications for leveling mechanisms like affirmative action. 

Peak "log off" moment, it was always acceptable to discuss this outside of liberal/professional circles and there it still isn't acceptable to discuss it. Charles Murray wrote the Bell Curve in 1994 and his been an American Enterprise Institute Scholar for this entire span of time. This is confusing churn for change - the mid-2010's had a bunch of big, mainly online fights about HBD, and then everyone just sort of moved on with the status quo pretty much unchanged. Nothing like education policy, even in Republican circles, has shifted over this.

4: Convince conservatives to stop ceding moral authority to liberals and allowing them to determine who on the Right is verboten or beyond the pale. Make it unacceptable among conservatives to “punch Right” or purge people for wrongthink. 

Sigh, again when have Republicans ever ceded moral authority to liberals? Harvard University could not condemn Newt Gingrich in ~2009 and make him change his mind about anything. And "Republicans don't self-criticize while Liberals eat themselves alive" has been a complaint for literally decades, you would hear that as far back as say Clinton and things like the 1999 WTO protests. Its both true and exaggerated - the Tea Party primaried Republican candidates for wrongthink in 2010, and Trump did the same thing! With disastrous results for the Republicans in 2022. I really, really don't think you can look at Trump's Republican party and say they solved the Wrongthink problem.

5: Expose and dismantle the hypocritical attitude that allows neocons to militantly support Israeli ethnonationalism while brutally repressing any white identity politics domestically.

This one is just a lolwut moment, "brutally repressing any white identity politics domestically", like what does that even mean? Name the concrete policy proposals George Bush implemented in 2007 than Donald Trump didn't in 2018 around this topic. Again a fake enemy, they were never repressed by the right, and ofc are still hated by liberal institutions like universities.

Moving on from any specific point, I think its very telling that very little about free trade vs protectionism or isolationism/support of autocracy abroad enters this list. Because beyond immigration those are the big shifts the Trump movement (which is the mechanism the alt-right has to claim for making its impact) has ushered into the party. They didn't change its stance on sexual politics or "race & IQ" or anything, those haven't changed, but meanwhile the party has completely flipped on things like tariffs or opposition to Russian military expansion. But of course those don't align neatly at all with the issues the Alt-Right fought about in 2015.

The reality the Alt-Right can't escape is that they used Trump as their mechanism for change, and Trump never really cared about any of their goals beyond immigration. He used them and then pursued either bog-standard Republican policy or his own mercurial, autocratic whims, eventually channeling all of this energy into election denialism. I really don't think if you pulled aside frikkin Ryan Faulk in 2014, asked him to put down his graphs about Raven's Progressive Matrices of black Caribbean students, and said "Hey 10 years from now all of this energy is being channeled into pretending that a failed real estate mogul didn't lose the 2020 presidential election", that he would look at that outcome and think Mission Accomplished.

I don't want to fully oversell, there are for example wins Bismark doesn't mention (School choice comes to mind, the biggest conservative win of the past decade besides the protectionist swing). The Alt Right was an influential movement, it earned its place in history. But I do not think it is an example of being a "victim of its own success". I think instead it should be understood as part of the "radical froth" of the 2010's, that bubbled over and then evaporated like its more intense leftwing peers did. It made some mark and then got left in the dust.

Net ranking of the 5 points: 0.5 for Point 1, 0.25 for Point 2, 0 for the rest, 1.25/5.

[miloformula123fan]

Could you do fic for James Vowles with wife reader? Tom Brady was at the Williams garage during the FP1. James wondered what took his wife's attention from him. There, Tom Brady and her chatting up and he feels jealous because she was not spending time with him. Maybe he did something to gain her attention. Just something fluff and PDA. Thanks!!! :))

i'm going to be honest, I finished this a while ago and then just never published it, partially because then James started doing questionable things - like Logan! wtf man! and I feel bad for Franco cause he's doing amazing, outqualifying his teammate and he doesn't have a seat for next year! and zak's run out of funding for f2, like bestie, you have a wholeass f1 team backing you? basically Williams is fucked, and maybe I'm going to become a full time ferrari fan

i suppose they both made q3 tho so??? i won't jinx them for tonight

Please keep requesting - y'all have awesome ideas we agree on a lot of stuff :) - my guidelines are here, and if you want some prompts, they are here.

also feel free to come in and start chatting to me in my asks, would love to get to know y'all better

and if you want to be added to my taglist lmk :)

james vowles x wife!reader

---

James cracked his neck as he stretched taking the headphones off. It hadn’t been the worst FP1 from the entire season and it being Logan’s home race it was important for them to try and get some points on the board for the team.

But for now he was not thinking about that. He was just planning on finding his wife, and maybe curling up on a beanbag with her. He just needed to find her first.

He started asking around the garage, asking if anyone had seen her. Not many had, but a few PR people mentioned that they’d seen her heading towards hospitality.

So James headed towards hospitality. He remembered the PR people mentioning some celebrities coming to the grand prix. But he didn’t really care about any of the so-called ‘celebrities’ that came to Miami and considering he always had the excuse of work to have to do, he barely had to tolerate them.

But all those thoughts exited his head as he entered hospitality and saw Tom Brady sitting at a table, eating lunch. He was attempting not to fanboy at the sight of one of his favourite football players. And it was very easy to stop fanboying when he saw who Tom was eating lunch with.

Y/N was sitting on the table opposite Tom, looking heavily interested in whatever he was saying and nodding along as she ate her lunch. Some of the shy smiles she was showing, James rarely saw, solely because he was unable to surprise his wife a lot. She was unsurprised now when he kissed her or told her how beautiful she was. She appreciated it, of course, but he hadn’t seen this smile since he surprised her with a birthday party.

And then there was Tom Brady, a famous football player, seemingly flirting with his wife.

James was not someone who was very into public displays of affection, or PDA, but he genuinely saw no other option as he watched Y/N laugh again as Tom Brady said something. 

He walked over to the table, throwing his arm behind Y/N’s chair as he leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek.

“Hello Darling. Did you see the end of FP1?”

“Oh, hello James. Yeah we did, we watched the final few minutes here. Sorry I didn’t wait, but I wanted to beat the mechanic rush and I was a little bit hungry. Oh and by the way, this is Tom Brady, y’know, he won the superbowl a few times.”

He laughed and James had to clench his teeth to not spit at him “Only a few times, closer to 7. Sorry, I’m Tom, and you are?”

“James. I’m the team principal for Williams.”

“Oh, well lovely to meet you. Would you like to join us? I’m sure we could pull up another seat, and you could join us?”

“Yes, well I would love to join my wife for lunch, however I have a meeting. If you don’t mind darling, can I join you for afternoon tea?”

“Oh, of course.”

Y/N sat down in the booth waiting for her husband to slide in opposite her. She was not expecting her husband to lay another kiss on her cheek before sliding into the chair opposite, handing over the food.

“Are you okay James?”

“You mean other than whatever is going on with my team, yeah I am, why do you ask?”

“You seem a little tense.”

“I’m not tense darling.”

“Yes you are, now tell me why.”

“I’m not tense.”

“James, I married you 5 years ago. I know when you are tense.”

“Okay. Fine. I was jealous.”

“Jealous? When would you… oh. James,” she took his hands, leaning to try and look at him “James. Were you jealous of Tom Brady?”

“...no.”

“James, it’s okay if you are. But you have to know that I much prefer the sexy, nerdy British team principals than the hot American football players.”

“You… do.”

“Of course. That’s why I married one. I know I’m attractive James. And I know I could marry whoever I want. And I want to marry my sexy, nerdy British husband.”

“I love you too Darling.”

---

taglist: @leosxrealm, @tallrock35, @wolf-knights, @janeholt3, @pear-1206

[f1orza]

Austrian GP thoughts, sorry if I'm not very articulate 🤓 just rambled really not proofread cause I'm busy

Do I think the collison was Max's fault? Yes. Do I think that the contact was inevitable and BOTH of their faults? Also yes.

Max shouldn't have moved during the breaking but they were both driving aggressive. They both wanted to be first, they both know what's it's like to be first and they won't settle for second now. I think in Lando's case he seen that if he wants to be first he has to try harder? Or that you actually have to be "agressive" to get onto that top step.

Do I think Lando was being childish? Yes. And I'm saying this as a McLaren fan.

Though I also think that any sport where you're fighting for first is inherently a bit childish. Might just be because I have siblings and we always used to fight over first place as kids 🤷🏽‍♀️idk

That doesn't justify Lando's response. Even when you're upset and running on adrenaline, you should be able to be handle your emotions I think. (I know as humans it can be hard) but if you're on live tv being broadcasted to millions of people...you should have a better handle on you're emotions; even if you feel you've been wronged, because no one will listen to you if you are acting like that. If you're levelheaded about it people are more likely to listen,(woman experience this all the time.) He needs to work on that and on taking responsibility as well, because the blame isn't 100% on Max.

That's one thing I can say about Max, I wasn't here for the "Mad Max" era but from videos and word of mouth, I can tell he's matured a lot and you can definitely see it. Max had every reason to be upset after this race (but not really), he had a good lead against Lando until RB's slow pit stop and then he went from first to fifth and some might say that's not bad, he still got points, and etc. That's not the point - his race was still affected but he did not go on live tv and speak badly on his friend.

They need to - like Max said - cool down and speak about it afterwards. I personally don't think it is worth ending a friendship with someone I considered a good friend but maybe they see it differently idk. It's something they need to talk about before the next race. And if they believe that it was worth losing a friend over, especially when they know this is situations that happen in racing then....

And I've seen a lot of people mentioning Lando still wouldn't have been first, even with the 5 sec penalty, he would'v been second with George being over 10 secs behind, I can understand why he believed Max ruined his race.

Some of y'all have a very bad habit of taking things fans do out on the drivers. If the FANS keep voting him DOTD that has nothing to do with him, if you want others to win then yall might need to vote more ig 🤷🏽‍♀️ and the chanting on the podium is again rude and nasty behavior but that again has nothing to do with Lando, I can promise you even if he would speak out it will not change anything, people will do what they want and what they feel they are entitled to do. I've seen it happen in so many fandom spaces, some people just don't care. Lewis has told people not to hate George after last race and I can guarantee that there is still people that do.

Now I've also seen people talking about Lando's attitude, I agree on some things and disagree on others. And this isn't me being a "Lando crazy fangirl" trying to justify his actions but I'm just telling it how I see it. So if you disagree okay, but do not start shit with me okay? 🙃 cause I know y'all like to fight around here 🤥

I think Lando feels stuck in that wasted potential. Where people having saying for years you have the potential to be a champion and even with all the hardwork you do, it doesn't feel like it's being shown. And especially as someone who went so long without a first win. Everyone's saying McLaren made a mistake by re-signing you or that your teammate is more deserving of the first seat. You feel like you're letting people down: you're team, family, fans and yourself. Not to mention all the hate you've been getting for NOT winning, then you'll definitely be in a bad headspace. And now that's he's won and KNOWS he can win, he'll want it all the more. He has the fastest car on the grid right now, he IS a good driver (contrary to what some of you believe), and he is a bit more optimistic than last year. Now that first is within his grasp, he's been hungry to get a second one. And I think he's been a bit overconfident about it, but that's honestly all drivers, I think if you are upset about Lando's ego but not other like Ocon than you dislike Lando for other reasons and are just finding excuses now. Even more so knowing he is second in the championship standings. Now that you know you're capable of being first you wouldn't want to settle for second, just like Max. Max constantly talks about not being there for second place but many of the other drivers feel that way, Lando is clearly one of them.

Do I think Max should have just let him go by? no. Because this IS racing and if you want to be first and become a champion you have to work for it. Max has never been the kind of guy to just let you pass him, not even for a friend. So Lando needs to understand that if he wants to keep fighting Max in the future. If you want to prove everyone right or wrong, only YOU can do that and by being overly eager and dangerous, well it clearly doesn't work in your favor 😭 (sorry lando 🤧). Only thing is you do is improve yourself and I'm not surprised that Max is a champion when he is always driving be it racing or sim. If your competitor's are doing a 100% you need to be doing 200%, that's the only way to get to the top.

[valyrfia]

i was thinking about the drivers who don’t have a wdc yet and are most likely to win one in the next 5 years with their current team and this is what i came up with re - their chances:

1. charles - i think his best chance to win his first is 2025. now inarguably, ferrari is the team which has the most left to gain from these set of regulations. they have made some absolutely stupid development choices and still they are pretty competitive? if the rumors are true and they are switching their suspension for next year, it should gear the car balance more towards charles and and that’s all he needs to win races consistently. and i don’t think lewis would instantly be comfortable enough in a new team to contend for the championship (i might be wrong) but charles is the ferrari man.

2. george - my intuition is that mercedes is going to nail the 2026 regulations. and purely that’s why george is probably winning the championship in 2026. he mostly won’t get intense competition from kimi until atleast his 3rd year in f1 just because he is still so young. and max is not leaving red bull before 2026 because switching teams before regulations change would be stupid.

3. lando - now this is where it gets interesting. maybe i don’t really like the guy too much but imo his best chance to win a wdc is 2024. mclaren have a significant pace advantage over the rest rn but it’s not going to stay that way. they will hit a development ceiling and teams will converge. and i think mclaren are going to implement team orders to help lando this year and just because oscar is still in his 2nd season and a little further away from lando in points, he will have to oblige. but this is mostly the last year lando will have that advantage over oscar and unless one of them switch teams, none of them are winning a wdc.

4. oscar - i see him winning a wdc after 2026. now i don’t know out of him and lando, who is leaving the team but i am sure one of them is going to red bull in the future.

i haven’t taken aston martin and newey into account here yet because there are just too many unknowns in that team right now. but somehow i have the feeling they are not going to cook as everyone is expecting them to.

sorry this is so long but i thought since you love hypotheticals you might have some thoughts on this!

I agree with this analysis! Ferrari haven't actually been that bad this time round with the regulations, and while I'm sure they're also looking to nail 2026, they've been vocal about aiming for 2025 with the arrival of Lewis. It will be interesting to see how Ferrari might handle Charles being the one with the championship charge considering their other driver is Lewis Hamilton though...they don't have the best track record with team orders as is.

I agree that Toto is putting all his willpower into the 2026 regulations, however I'm not sure this will mean Merc will win in 2026 necessarily, considering Ferrari are focusing on the same thing. I think Merc will jump back up the field again (since I would probably place as the 4th fastest car in this set of regulations). I also think there's a high possibility that politics at Merc will start to go bad, fast. Toto's made it clear that he wants Max, and if Kimi performs well George could be in real danger. I think Toto will be backing Kimi for WDC contention from 2026 onwards (hence why he wanted him in the car for 2025), so I unfortunately don't see George winning a WDC with Mercedes.

Lando is interesting, because I think there's a good chance that if he gets a WDC, he'll pull a Nico Rosberg and retire from F1 and focus on Quadrant and other pursuits. I get the feeling especially in the last year that F1 is bringing him far more grief than joy, and the massive backlash hasn't helped. I think this is his best year to win that WDC–Andrea Stella wants the future of McLaren to be Oscar and has made that quite clear, and I don't see them choosing him to be their championship contender in the future after this year just from the perspective of "well we tried that, it didn't work". If Lando doesn't win this year, I think he'll stick around for a few more years and maybe even move to Red Bull if Max moves to Mercedes, but I think this might be his clearest chance at the WDC. Especially if the rumours about team orders are true– if McLaren are front of the field again next year, they're giving Oscar priority. I actually DON'T think this is entirely fair–if a decision like this was to be made essentially trading off Lando's WDC chance next year, it needed to be made before the summer break since that points deficit to Max gets harder and harder to overcome with each passing race. But I agree, this is Lando's best shot at it.

Oscar might be a possibility for next year (again if the team orders rumours are true), but we've seen him not be able to beat Charles (who would likely be another title contender) for the last couple of races despite Charles being in a far worse car. So, I would think it's more likely that Oscar fights Charles for future titles once Charles has a WDC, or Oscar is fighting the Mercedes that is being built around Kimi Antonelli. I don't think Oscar will go to Red Bull purely because of Mark Webber–I think Lando is more likely at this point to get pushed out of McLaren.

I will add two things: first I don't think we need to worry about Aston and Newey. This is Newey's retirement project and while I can see Aston improving (and maybe even getting Fernando Alonso a race win), they won't be title contenders. Second, Max Verstappen is a wildcard still. Either he retires soon, or for all the talk of retirement when he was dominating, losing that top step has turned the hunt back on in him and he will want to fight for another WDC after 2024. I can see him moving to Mercedes, or if Lewis ends his Ferrari contract early (as I suspect he might), moving to Ferrari. Heavy on the Ferrari especially, considering Charles has said he'd have Max as a teammate, Fred is obviously deranged enough to go with two n1 drivers as a driver pairing, Max has a personal Michael Schumacher connection, and Ferrari have a history of wanting WDCs in their seats.

[batsplat]

☕️ on marc/dani as teammates? bc so many ppl on here especially have such a simplified and maybe even rose-tinted view of their dynamic imo…..

hm yeah it's a tricky one because I do think there's a lot of genuine interpersonal fondness there that was forged in the aftermath of some equally genuine animosity. for me, it's that development that's particularly interesting... what I personally have always found the most appealing about this rivalry is just how ruthless marc as to someone he genuinely admired and considered one of his heroes or 'references'. like, I think it's a bit different from the dynamic with valentino because it's kind of... vale's the childhood hero vs dani as a rider who's ahead of you who you want to directly emulate in rising through the ranks. with valentino, marc didn't really think they'd ever be competing at the top of the sport because of how big the age gap was, but with dani? different story

which does affect the emotional approach, I reckon - you can admire them and still dream of beating them, you know? like, say you're fourteen years old in 2007 and are getting out your customised casey stoner voodoo doll while he's bitch slapping your two guys, what fantasies are you cooking up in your little brain about meeting your heroes? with valentino, it's probably him grinning at you while handing you your tenth consecutive motogp trophy and telling you how amazing you are... how you're his successor, the one carrying on his legacy... lots of daydreaming of him like, hyping you up after he's retired and calling you god's gift to motorcycle racing, etc etc. who knows, maybe marc was also fantasising about beating valentino in epic duels, but he wasn't really expecting to be fighting valentino, right? whereas with dani? oh yeah, marc might have thought he was great... but in an ideal world, he's ripping the crown off dani's head when dani's a three time defending motogp champion! so crucially marc wasn't blindsided by actually fighting him on-track, and was kinda more prepared for that to get ugly? dani acts as a 'direct' reference, where he's just a few years ahead and marc can see how it's done, basically. but what this still means... he'd admired this guy for years, he had posters of him and all that shit, but the moment they're direct competitors and teammates? all that is just... locked away. no interest no mercy, all he cares about is beating the guy. and marc did still talk about using dani as a reference point, about how much he'd learned from him... but of course that scary fast learning of his was all about beating dani

from dani's side... I'm glad he's gotten to a stage where he's at peace with his career, but. god, it must have been tough. at the end of 2012, he's the in-form rider - more so than jorge. he won six of the last eight races that year. incidentally, this is how jorge is talking before the 2013 season:

obviously, jorge is trying to fuck with dani here, but he's also not really wrong. all four of the aliens have got a lot going on early 2013, but if you had to point at the guy who is dealing with the most pressure? well, it's got to be dani, doesn't it. he was the one who still had something to prove in the premier class, who was now being thrown together with the super hyped rookie. this is how dani spoke about marc at the start of the year:

and here:

and then of course marc beat dani at qatar and then won at cota... granted, dani does a good job of keeping his head and regrouping for the next few races - but it was still an auspicious start, provoking a lot of discourse that wasn't particularly kind to dani. so in that first year, you've got all these different elements - you've got how marc is competing on-track, dani's injury, how marc is already attempting to assert himself within the team, how you've got the behind the scenes warfare between their two teams (again, see this article)... and then dani's issues with marc's actual riding (x, x). now, I think it's worth saying that aragon 2013 is not a case where marc has clearly fucked up. he makes a mistake, yes, but he couldn't have known the slight contact he made with dani would lead to that wire breaking and dani's highside. here's what dani said:

this is a case where different racing philosophies clash, right? what dani's saying is that what happened was a direct consequence of how marc approaches riding - that he's always flirting with contact and this time it finally went wrong. it's the kind of riding dani has consistently disliked, and it's something marc is the poster boy for. in this case, this crash essentially ends dani's title bid. he couldn't walk for three days afterwards. dani criticised race direction for choosing not to give marc a penalty (apart from the penalty points) - this was not something he just brushed off

and, look, you do have to bring it up... dani's experiences with sic will inevitably have influenced how he approached the marc rivalry. I mean, it kind of did for all of them - there's elements of that tragedy that will have bled into how valentino, jorge, dovi and dani reacted to marc. with casey, it's one of the reasons why marc never even had an on-track rivalry with him. now, obviously, dani had big, big issues with sic, a lot of tension including harsh comments in the press and refused handshakes and all of that, as a result of sic's very aggressive approaching to racing. dani was also the one who suffered the most as a direct result, in particular after the broken collarbone at le mans. he's spoken after sic's passing about his regret about how he handled that relationship... how it changed his approach to rivalries, that reminder that there might be things he'd never have the chance to fix

the other sic-related element is that of course, there were easy parallels to be drawn between him and marc, and his shadow did at times loom uncomfortably over debates over hard racing during that period. I think you can feel it most strongly in jorge's response to marc... the echoes of when jorge had gotten in a verbal clash with sic at one of the 2011 pressers and his frustration when his complaints were just laughed off by journalists:

this press conference was from the race before le mans, where sic was responsible for dani's broken collarbone. so if two years later, you've got marc publicly shrugging off jorge's complaints in an only slightly more respectful manner, how can you not be at least a little concerned? yes, marc did have a better feeling of where the limit was, he didn't really push things too far, but... this was still a very recent trauma for everyone and nobody knew how far marc would or wouldn't push it at the time. especially not after the kind of reputation he'd gotten himself in his 125cc/moto2 days. (though of course it's important to note that sic's death wasn't caused by his style of racing, and if anything he'd gotten more sensible in the latter stages of 2011). so the influence goes both ways, right? on the one hand, it all feels a bit too familiar, on the other... well, that's actually a reason why you probably don't want to be too harsh on this kid. because you never know

in the end, the tensest year of their teammate partnership was 2013 - because after that title was sealed marc had won. by the end of the year, it wasn't really dani's team any more. his internal position had already been de facto undermined by casey, but not to the same extent because casey wasn't really interested in playing these games - plus the end stretch of 2012 had definitely cemented dani's role in the team. I've already given most of my thoughts here about how marc takes control of that team, which inevitably touches on some of his nastier behaviour. lying about what parts suited him is the obvious example... he's a ruthless teammate, he openly admits to it. and obviously, dani wasn't always just fine with that. who would be? he's accepted that's part of who marc is as a competitor, and at the end of the day he also had to accept losing. sometimes you just gotta make your peace with a status quo, yeah? it's tricky to strike the balance between not losing the competitive edge and not letting losing to your young teammate year after year drive you insane... dani's always been quite good at focusing on himself, even if a lot of the time 'focusing on himself' involved 'recovering from some horrid injury'

so you know, it's nice that their relationship has gotten warmer since they've no longer been teammates, and for the most part they did keep things civil while they were directly working with each other. also, you do just get over things when you're no longer competing with someone... I've said this before, but there's really only a relatively small number of truly burnt bridges in the paddock ecosystem. thing is, it's quite impressive of dani to seemingly not hold any grudges over what marc did to him... but he easily could have, and it kinda would've been justifiable? it's also primarily down to dani that this teammate dynamic didn't get worse than it was... which, y'know, you can argue if that was the right or the wrong approach, but it also meant he increasingly had to accept a subordinate role within that team - become a non-problematic teammate that honda was happy to sign again. and then you've got marc, who spent years looking up to dani and then spent years being pretty vicious to him and never saw the slightest contradiction between those two things, because of course he didn't! and of course he still has some historical fondness for him as a result of once being his fan... which is an element that has gradually snuck to the foreground again after marc increasingly managed to dismiss dani as a competitive threat. overall, then, as teammates they had their early tensions, then they were 'reasonably friendly coworkers', now they get on quite well. over the course of his career, dani's hardly been immune to drama with other riders, but at the end of the day he's pretty feud-proof on the whole. what kind of a nutter would you have to be to start a feud with dani pedrosa, eh

[escapingrealtiylovinginsanity]

Joe Velasco Part 2 

Part One (Here) Part Three

Joe was ramrod straight with tension. He was trying to keep from pacing like a territorial animal in the space in front of the room you were giving your statement in, but it was hard. His mind had been racing since Bruno had called, and his body was telling him that there were things he should be doing. So many things, his brain just couldn’t seem to supply him with what those things were. He was frustrated and angry, and even though he had seen you and knew you were in one piece, fear clenched in his stomach. And if he was forced out of one more room, he was seriously considering decking someone. 

He didn’t care how irrational that was. He had been a detective with the gang unit for two years and SVU for three. He knew that the victims of assault were more likely to disclose all the information when they were questioned alone. They often felt like they may be judged or looked at differently by their friends and family and in turn often held back necessary and critical information. While he didn’t want to believe that you would feel that with him, he knew that statistics said you would.  

Joe also knew how annoying it was to have extra people in the room while getting a statement. They often talked over the victim, smothered them to the point they didn’t want to talk, or worse started to victim blame their own loved ones. How many times had he cut off worried partners, led angry fathers out of the room, or denied friends or family access to victims because they made his job so much harder? He was usually unapologetic in it too. He was in the right after all. This role reversal and the raw emotion building in his chest at the inadequacy of not being able to do anything, had him promising that he would go into the next situation like that with sympathy instead of irritation.  

He looked back into the window to the room that you were in. You were half slumped in your chair talking to Bruno and Finn. The right side of your face was badly bruised in black and blue splotches from the bottom of your jaw to the top of your cheekbone. There was a cut on your eyebrow, and your bottom lip was busted open just shy of the lower right corner. Joe knew that there was no way that it could be your only injury and the way that you had been favoring your left side only confirmed it. You shifted uncomfortably and looked away clearly unsettled by a question asked. Joe was luckily, or perhaps unluckily, saved from the urge to rip open the door and storm into the room by Olivia and Carisi coming up next to him subsequently blocking the door. 

“So, you and the lab tech that got attacked are together?” Joe nodded stiffly, “You know you have to stay out of this case or risk the validity of it.” Joe had the urge to punch the matter-of-factness out of Carisi. While the other man’s tone was firm, not condescending it rubbed Joe’s raw nerves the wrong way. He had the pull to call the center where you had been attending your training and demand the security surveillance that he knew they had. To locate the man that had hurt you and beat the hell out of him until he was unrecognizable. Only then would he pull out his gun and end the poor bastard's pathetic life. He had never felt more willing to pull the trigger of his gun.    

“I know,” He grumbled coldly, “I’m just waiting until she’s done giving her statement so that I can take her home.” He could feel Oliva’s heavy gaze on him as he continued to look in the window.  

“Velasco you are on mandatory leave for a few days.” 

“Already planned on it Captain.” The lack of argument made Olivia equally suspicious and concerned. Joe finally turned to look at the pair, “You really think I would leave her alone? While the guy that attacked her is out there. While she is the only witness to the rape that could put him in jail for the next fifteen to twenty years.” His voice got deeper, angrier. “I have no intention of giving him even the slightest chance of getting to her again, though I would love for him to try.” Joe’s hand rested unconsciously on the gun strapped to his hip. The words hung heavy in the air as he turned back to the window.  

Sonny was the one who broke the icy silence with a sigh, “I don’t blame you, but how about you keep those thoughts to yourself okay?” Joe didn’t bother to respond. Sonny opened his briefcase and fished out a piece of paper. “Here,” Joe barely glanced at the offered paper. 

“I don’t need that.”  

“Actually, you do. While NYPD doesn’t have a no-dating policy, they do require couples to sign a relationship disclosure. It’s a safeguard when it comes to legal issues including court-”  

“I don’t need it because we already signed one.” Joe cut off Carisi’s impending lecture. 

“You did?” 

“Yeah, six months ago. All the proper paperwork has been signed and filed. NYPD’s ass is officially and legally covered from liability.” Olivia and Carisi share a disbelieving look. SVU was close-knit and secrets were hard to keep in the unit. Keeping a relationship or hookup under wraps for six months was unheard of.  

“Joe, I never got a relationship disclosure from you.” 

“That’s because I gave it to McGrath.”  

 。°。°。°。°。°    

“Can you give a description of what he looked like?” Finn asked.  

“Not really,” You respond without much thought. You were starting to feel beyond exhausted, and the dull pain had turned throbbing. You felt like one big, irritated bruise. 

“Any little thing can help. His race, age, anything that you would be able to recognize him by?” Bruno prodded. You were shaking your head before he had even finished. “Just think about it for a minute. Tell me what you do remember about him.” You sigh heavily through your nose, rubbing at your eyes. You try to oblige him. Normally talking to Bruno was a treat, he was smart and had a wisecrack for every occasion. Right now, you wished he would stop talking altogether.  

“He was white. Maybe mid-thirties? He was wearing a black sweatshirt and navy baseball cap.” You watched Bruno start scribbling on his notepad. A snapshot of the man’s face above you flashed through your mind. A numb feeling took over you and left you chilled to your core. You pulled Joe’s shirt closer around you his sent wafting to your nose in a comforting embrace. “He had blue eyes, like really blue. And...” You pause.  

“And?” Finn prompts gently.  

“He had a tattoo on his neck.”  

“Which side?”  

“Right,” You shake your head at yourself, “No, wait it would be his left.” The picture in your head started to get fuzzy around the edges. “I-I don’t remember what it looked like. I swear I saw it though.” You admit. “I’m sorry, I guess I don’t make a very good witness. It all just happened so fast.” 

“You did great.” Finn disagreed, “Sometimes it just takes a while for it all to come back. Traumatic experiences are hard like that. Memories can come back in bits and pieces.” 

A few minutes later they were telling you that you were all set. Finn opened the door, and you stepped out. Once again Joe was waiting for you at the door. Olivia and another man were standing with him, and you pause unsure if you should interrupt. Their conversation looked serious. Joe makes the decision for you as he comes over to you and wraps his arm around you. You melt into him. You still feel cold from the inside out, and his body heat and the familiarity of his strong body bring you warmth. “I want to go home now.” Your voice sounds whiny and pathetic even to your own ears. 

“Of course, mi amor. I’ll get us a car-” 

“Didn’t you take the bike today?” Joe looked at you strangely like you were the one being weird. When he just stares you furrow your brows tilting your head in question.  

“Yeah...” The word is drug out almost comically long. “Cariño, you shouldn’t be riding... right now.” It was clear to you that he had edited himself midsentence.  

“Seriously? It’s only a few blocks. We could be back at the apartment by the time it will take you to find us a ride.” Joe looked ready to object and the others seemed uncomfortable with the idea. “Or I could just walk it, but I am not taking a cab. It’s ridiculous.” You don’t know why you were arguing with him. Logically it was more than reasonable for you to take a car. The bike would jostle your injuries and leaning for turns would be a painful endeavor. Later, months later, when you were trying to make peace with the day you would realize it had come from a lack of control. You wanted to feel like you had some power and were able to make your own decisions. 

Joe conceded under duress as he led you out to the motorcycle. He put the helmet on your head tightening the strap before forcing you into his jacket. You regretted your decision in the time it took you to get on the seat. It was one of the longest, most painful rides you ever had. You were almost in tears by the time he parked. You struggled to get down and wince grabbing your ribs. The breath had been pulled from your lungs harshly leaving a sharp pain. Joe for his part said nothing as he waited for you to gather yourself. When you find were able to catch your breath he wrapped his arm around you. The gesture was made to seem like it was out of affection and not helping hold you up as you limped to the elevator. However, when you finally made it to his apartment Joe closing the door and locking it didn’t bring you the relief you had hoped it would. 

I couldn’t seem to write anything for a few days there, but I finally got this part done! xoxo  

[mk-nightrider]

Get WIP Wednesday'd nerds. This one isn't from the upcoming chapter, but from a one-shot I started cooking featuring mainly @chadillacboseman's JJ

“Fuck,” Jeremiah “JJ” Mitchell breaths as he stares at the security monitors. “Blade owes me one hell of an explanation.”

Weeks ago now, Special Forces had reached out to Falcon Company with information and a plan. Reports were that the Black Dragon Clan had been contracted to steal research and prototypes from an experimental botanical facility. JJ had thought it laughable at the time. Those reckless drug runners targeting a bunch of plants? Still, Sonya Blade had insisted the intel was good and she had a point when she said it was the money Kano cared about. Not the plants. So JJ had agreed. His Falcon Company would lay in wait while Sonya Blade's Special Forces secreted away the target leaving nothing but a cage to close around whatever Dragon fell into their trap.

Still, JJ had his doubts. Kano always seemed to sniff these traps out somehow so he figured there were only two likely scenarios. One: No one would show and Falcon Company would get a nice little paycheck for sitting out in the empty expanse of Montana for over a month. Two: Kano would use the trap to dispose of some low-level know-nothing he was sick of hanging around. Better than nothing, but ultimately unlikely to know anything Special Forces didn't already.

Despite his misgivings, Falcon Company still planned as if someone competent would show. Focusing on a short list of those JJ considered most competent among the clan's agents. Doors and walls were reinforced in case that big fucker with the man bun and a fondness for explosives showed. Steel bars to drop for someone like Alora, though with her purpose in the gang being brawling he could only imagine her appearing as a scenario two situation. Most of all he'd been hoping for that jackass Carver. How good it would've felt to see that smug smile fade away as the Faraday cage came crashing down to toast his annoying nanobots.

But at the end of the day the simple fact remained. This was supposed to have been a low level theft job for the clan. So why the hell was he here? That cursed red and black figure his men called a demon. On Special Forces documents, referred to only as the Blood Sniper after he began appearing two years ago. Usually miles from the action raining bloody hellfire with a sniper rifle and vanishing long before anyone could pinpoint where he was. The last time JJ had managed to get remotely close to him, he could only marvel at the man's skills because the bastard had immediately blown his artificial leg out with his rifle before turning on his team. Disarming them all with small arms fire and then crushing limbs with an overwhelming wave of blood. There had been no deaths, but a few retirements after that... Not to mention that was the fourth time the Blood Sniper had specifically destroyed his leg. A trend JJ was none to happy about.

His mind raced as he watched the cloaked figure slip from camera to camera. None of their plans could hold him. Not when he could simply turn into a puddle of blood and slip through security measures. He could order his men to group up and pump him so full of bullets he'd be too exhausted from healing. Probably a few more retirements out of that, but... a lump formed in JJ's throat. A rare twinge of sympathy for a member of the Black Dragon clan striking deep into his gut.

No. No he couldn't do that. Not after what he'd seen the first time he'd met the Blood Sniper. Years before he was ever known by that moniker during a Special Forces' raid gone wrong. He could still remember it like it was yesterday. Just how inexcusably sloppy Cassie Cage and her team had been that night resulting in a little girl losing her hand and the boy... He'd never forget the boy. Clothes ripped apart; dried blood on almost every inch of him; the twisted scar he later learned was from rapidly healing from Takeda's ordinance going off next to his head. That unnaturally split black and red hair that he was currently tracking across the cams. Unlike the other members, he couldn't imagine the boy had any choice in the path his life took.

It would be an earful from Sonya Blade later, but... perhaps he should save himself the casualties and just let the boy go.

Tag List: @roofgeese @bdfightclub @meatgrinderminefield

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[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

No. It's not Cancel Culture.

I've seen a lot of people recently saying that the right is embracing cancel alter. Which is actually kind of funny to me because that's never what cancel culture meant.

Long story short cancel culture as a topic or rather, as a phrase was basically invented for one very specific purpose. Cancel culture was invented to a culture of taking stuff from people's past, digging it up by going through various different social media websites blogs or other things, and then posting it online in a very public forum and then demanding others share that to that person's workplace.

"Are you in your 40s - 70s now? Well did you ever do blackface once upon a time when it was not seen as an absolutely atrocious thing to do? Well guess what we are going to do everything in our power to get you fired from your job. Ruin your life. Make sure that you can never make income ever again. And we're also going to try to get your family removed from their livelihoods as well."

"Are you a race car driver? Did your dad say the n-word once before? Did he do it before you were ever born? Well we're going to remove your sponsors and make sure that it is harder for you to have a life because the sins of the father are the sins of the son".

"Do you have an opinion on LGBT things that we don't like? Are you one of those gay people from the past who think that it should have been called a gay partnership rather than gay marriage? Well we are going to make sure that your life going forward as an absolute living hell and that you are not considered part of the LGBT community despite the fact that you were probably there fighting for the rights to be considered normal before any of us were ever born."

Those things generally speaking are what we refer to as cancel culture. Digging things up from 3 to 5 years ago or longer and then bringing them to people you know are absolutely willing (and often incited) to call businesses and jobs and other things and get that person removed from polite society as an entirety.

However, cancel culture is not posting something publicly to a social media site as a way to inform (yes there's a difference. The moderates don't incite. You all do) With no calls to action. Just saying "hey these people exist", and yes there people taking it on themselves to tell businesses that their employees advocate for violence. Because fun fact about speech. I am for freedom of speech under the laws of the Constitution. However calls to action are not free speech. Truth is, a lot of the people who have been fired should have actually been arrested. Because it's not a joke when you tell someone to try it again or to do it again or saying "next time" knowing the implication.

Because if that same exact thing had happened with Joe Biden and you had a bunch of Fringe lunatics on the right saying "next time don't miss", they would be in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives because the justice system leans heavily in favor of democrat power. So, the right is finally learning their lesson. Which is that if a person doesn't support your rights to speak you don't defend theirs. And I know that there are going to be people who don't agree with that. They are going to say that that's not moral or not principled. But you know why I don't care? Because I'm not on the right. And because I actually support free speech. But here's the problem.

If you willingly defend the rights of people who would take your rights away at a heartbeat that's not being called principled that's called being a moron. Because if you were to save someone knowing they would willingly kill you in the same given situation you're not winning any victories. You're not doing yourself any favors. Have some semblance of self-preservation.

Because I can promise you, there is no point in having morals or principles at all if they are only going to be utilized as a weapon against you. Am I saying that you should forsake your morals or forsake your principles? No. I'm saying that if there are other people who value living in polite society the same as you and they would defend you if you were in need then you can defend them when they are in need. You can still have morals and principles. I'm not saying don't.

But stop letting it be a weapon against you. Because when you let it be a weapon against you, all you do is tie yourself down to be beaten. Your morals and principles will mean nothing if you're in a gulag or you're dead. So, forgive me if I am not apologetic towards the people who asked for an act of extreme violence to happen again. Because what was it that the leftist used to call it? Not "cancel culture" but "consequence culture". If a business does not want to keep you employed with them because you publicly express violent rhetoric, that's their right.

Because what was it that Destiny said whenever people got banned when they said learn to code? "It's a private company they can do what they want". Well guess what Destiny. Kick banned you and they can do what they want. Twitter demonetized you and they can do what they want. If you can't stand up for other people's rights whenever you have power you do not deserve to have people who actually value those rights stand up for you when you're not in power anymore.