#i can't explain the architectural design bit it just Feels Right

[lilaxwinemoved]

I assign you a uni major based on vibes

History / classics / philosophy / archeology

You liked percy jackson/mythology/dinosaurs as a kid didn't you? You probably know a lot of random facts and have a lot of…. odd opinions. You like the freedom of your major, there's no wrong answers as long as you can justify yourself. And maybe secretly you enjoy the healthy outlet for arguing your point, it won't solve how you feel about that one roommate but all the same. Your family are fairly supportive but you still feel like you have to internalise a lot. Gurl your not gonna get that same hit from your childhood books, try some therapy it'll be okay

Tagged by: @pessimistics

Tagging: @coinquinatvs (whoever you'd like), @voltadcmar , @seeasunset

[suzukiblu]

Parasite WIP is so good and I desperately want more of it! I voted for it in the poll and I’m so sad it didn’t win

Friend, I appreciate you asking after it because it really is one of my fucked-up faves that I really need to work on more, so uh . . . have all 4500 words of the prose so far all together, hahaha. Yes, yes I DID reformat this whole thing into Tumblr-friendliness all for you. THAT IS HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE YOUR APPRECIATION, FRIEND. ( so definitely we are gonna need that read-more down there, lol. )

Clark wakes up. 

Clark didn't even know he wasn't awake. 

"Superman," Bruce says with absolute neutrality. He's wearing the cowl. Standing in rubble. Clark is . . . not standing in rubble. 

Laying in rubble. That's what Clark is doing. 

Bruce is looking down at him very, very carefully, and seems . . . reserved. 

Reserved for Bruce, even. 

"What happened?" Clark asks, trying not to concentrate on the little seed of dread that the sight of that reservation invokes in him. He can hear the heartbeats of other League members, here and there in the wreckage of the street around them. Hear civilians and city noise. Hear Lois and Jon, distantly, and Ma and Pa, even more distant. And . . . Kara–both of her–and . . . 

"We'll go with 'electrocution', but I think we can safely say just about anyone else would've been virtually incinerated," Bruce informs him, distracting Clark from his mental rundown of people he's currently worried about. "Or just exploded."

"Ah," Clark says with a grimace. Well, that explains why his head hurts so damn bad, he guesses.

At least it was him, then, and not any "anyone else"s. 

He pushes himself up. Looks around. He . . . isn't sure where they are, exactly, except that it's probably somewhere on Earth and within the continental United States, judging by the architecture and signs he's seeing and the accents and languages he's hearing. 

He has absolutely no idea how they got here, though. The last thing he remembers is . . . 

. . . he's not actually sure what the last thing he remembers is. 

Not a great sign, that.  

Bruce is watching him. Like he's . . . expecting something, almost. Clark would ask, but there's an odd feeling distracting him. Something's . . . off, somehow. 

Missing. 

Bruce's utility belt is a new design, he notes absently. J'onn is down the street a bit and his costume looks a little different too. And Diana . . . 

Diana is over across the way, and her hair is a couple inches longer than he remembers it being. 

Clark would assume he was mistaken, except for the eidetic memory and all. 

"Hm," Clark says. 

"Hm?" Bruce says. He still sounds faultlessly neutral. 

"Trying to figure out if I'm in the right reality. Things look a little off," Clark replies, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes in concentration. No unexpected sounds or scents. No particular feeling of disorientation that can't be accounted for by being apparently electrocuted. No additional pains past the dull pressure in his head or any immediately obvious peculiarities beyond the minor little scattered differences here and there in his teammates. 

But something is–

"I can't hear Kon," Clark realizes abruptly. He doesn't usually especially keep an ear out for the kid, at least not deliberately, but . . . 

Bruce . . . pauses. 

"You can't," he says, very carefully. It doesn't sound like a question. 

It sounds like something, though. 

"I can't," Clark confirms anyway, glancing around again. He still doesn't know where this is. "Where are we, exactly?" 

"What's the date, Kal?" Bruce asks, and Clark's heart sinks. 

He answers the question. 

Bruce's mouth thins. 

Hell, Clark thinks. 

"We're currently in Keystone City," Bruce says, very carefully expressionless. "We've been here for three days. The date you just provided me was a full fourteen months ago. And Kon-El has been MIA for roughly thirteen and a half of those months." 

Hell, Clark thinks, and doesn't let himself process anything past that. 

"We need to get a scan of your brain," Bruce says. "For starters." 

"For starters," Clark agrees tightly. 

Bruce tells Diana they're leaving, then abandons the rubble and takes Clark up to the Watchtower. Clark goes. He doesn't ask what electrocuted him or who's died in the past fourteen months or if there's anything immediately urgent that he should know. Bruce would've already told him, if there was. 

And he thinks he'd choke on the question if he tried, anyway. 

They go to the med bay. There's a total stranger standing in it who smiles at them when they step through the door. 

"Haven't seen you in here in quite a while, Superman," the stranger observes in amusement, tapping a pen against the clipboard in their hands. "You still haven't been in for that checkup I owe you, you know." 

"He doesn't know you," Bruce informs them evenly. The stranger blinks. 

"Sorry?" they say. 

"He was electrocuted," Bruce says. "Now he thinks it's fourteen months ago. We need a brain scan. Immediately." 

"Hell," the stranger says, their eyes widening in alarm. 

Clark gets the brain scan. 

He and Bruce wait in a convenient exam room for the results, which seem to be taking a while. Bruce seems a bit more guarded than usual, which means Clark is standing next to goddamn Fort Knox right now. He sighs to himself. 

"Suppose at this rate I should call and tell Lois and Jon I'll be late for dinner," he jokes wryly as he folds his arms, no real humor in the comment, and Bruce goes very, very still beside him. 

. . . hell. 

They're not dead. He knows they're not dead, he heard their heartbeats before they left for the watchtower, Bruce would've already told him if either of them were–

"They aren't expecting you," Bruce says with absolutely no intonation whatsoever in his voice. "You moved out eight months ago. The divorce is already finalized." 

"Ah," Clark says, very slowly. He doesn't let himself process, again. Not–just, not yet. "What happened?" 

"You left them," Bruce says, and Clark . . . blinks. 

"I left them?!" he demands incredulously. Leaving Lois is one thing, horrible and impossible a thought as it is, but– "Not just–I left them both?!"

"As you explained it to me, you were no longer interested in maintaining the . . . 'persona' of Clark Kent," Bruce replies carefully, looking just past him. "You said you couldn't stand the screaming anymore. That you appreciated us . . . humoring you for so long, but you couldn't just keep walking around making excuses and lying to everyone while people were suffering and dying just because you had to pretend to be human for a while. So yes. You left them. Haven't visited since Lois finally signed the divorce papers. Haven't spoken to your parents either. You've been . . . erratic. Since Kon-El's disappearance. When we couldn't find him . . . when we couldn't even find out what happened to him . . ." 

"Oh," Clark says, and his heart sinks again. 

He doesn't understand, though. Kon is–he cares about the kid, obviously. Cares very deeply about him. He's pretty sure he even loves him, at this point. But he's not . . . 

It feels terrible to think it, but Clark doesn't understand why Kon disappearing like that would affect him enough to stop being Clark. It's awful, and he still hasn't let himself actually think about it happening at all because he really can't process it right now, but that awful? Really? Awful enough to abandon being any semblance of a normal person? Abandon Lois and his parents entirely? 

Abandon Jon entirely? 

Apparently, yes. 

"Technically you're on unpaid sabbatical from the Planet," Bruce tells him. "We thought you might . . . reconsider, once you'd grieved properly, so Lois pulled some strings with Perry White. He thinks you're having an early mid-life crisis and your co-workers think you're off finding yourself in South America with a bad cell phone plan." 

"I guess I don't believe in satellite phones?" Clark says, trying for wry again. It doesn't work, but he tries all the same. 

"This is unfair of me, but I'm going to take advantage of your current mental state," Bruce says. He's looking at the wall, though there's nothing there to actually be looking at. Not even anything on the other side, at least not according to X-ray vision. "Try to remember how you feel right now, when your memories of the past year return. Try to remember who you are right now, when those memories return."

"Why?" Clark asks, watching him carefully as he does. The corners of Bruce's mouth tighten. Just barely, but undeniably. 

"You've been . . . gone, Clark," Bruce says slowly. "You won't even answer to 'Clark' anymore. You aren't the same man that I . . . that we all . . ." 

The stranger comes back before Bruce has to admit to too many personal feelings or Clark can figure out what to say to any of that, which might be a mercy but might also be–

The stranger looks . . . strange, Clark notices. Nauseated, almost. And definitely distressed. 

"I haven't done brain scans on Superman before," they say, their grip on their clipboard concerningly close to white-knuckled. "And my predecessor apparently hadn't done any in a while either. Last ones in the system are over two years old." 

"What's wrong?" Bruce says, narrowing his eyes. Honestly at this point Clark figures a kryptonite brain tumor would really just be the icing on the cake, and frankly would probably explain some of his apparent behavioral changes and current memory loss. That genuinely makes more sense than anything else, really, even with grief and guilt to contend with.

More sense than abandoning his own damn kid does, at least. 

Although a tumor's the worst-case scenario, obviously. And it can't be any worse than that, really, or any worse than anything he's apparently done to his family this past year, so at least he's braced for–

"There's an . . . organism," the stranger says, swallowing uncomfortably. "In your brain." 

"What?" Clark says. 

"A dead organism, now," the stranger clarifies. "But it looks like it's been there for a while. There are . . . roots. And . . . lesions, too." 

"An organism," Bruce repeats very, very slowly. "In Superman's brain." 

"Yes," the stranger says. 

"I don't . . ." Clark trails off. 

"We need more scans," Bruce says. 

"I ran it four times on two different machines," the stranger says. "It's organic. It's not giving off any recognizable life signs. It seems like it might've been . . . you mentioned electrocution, before?" 

"You think the electricity killed it," Bruce realizes. "And then Superman forgot fourteen months?" 

"I'm not sure Superman ever experienced those fourteen months to begin with," the stranger says tightly, gripping their clipboard even harder. 

Clark was in no way whatsoever braced for this. 

"Fuck," Bruce says. 

More scans happen after all. A lot more scans, a lot of specialists, and a lot of arguing. Everything's a bit of a blur, in a sense. Clark absorbs very little of it, and mostly leaves things to Bruce unless he's asked a direct question about his medical history. His judgment might be compromised right now, after all, whether the . . . organism is dead or not. 

The emergency OR gets prepped. The red sun lamps get set up inside it. 

"Should we contact Lois?" Bruce asks as Clark's shrugging into an ill-fitting hospital gown and preparing himself to possibly die in pursuit of getting a dead who-knows-what out of his brain before it can start to rot there and potentially kill him that way. "Or your parents?" 

"No," Clark says. "Just get this damn thing out of my head." 

If he doesn't survive the removal process . . . 

They don't know what's been going on. What he let happen to himself, somehow.

He isn't going to tell them he's back just to immediately take himself away again. 

He records something for Jon, just in case. It's not enough, but it's–something, he tells himself. It's something. 

It's all he can bring himself to do. 

He leaves the disk with the recording on it with Bruce and asks him to have Dick deliver it, if it's necessary. 

Things proceed from there, and Clark wakes up again a week later in a private room in the med bay, connected to half a dozen machines and needles and tubes and directly facing the sun. Diana is dozing in the chair next to his bed. Bruce is pacing at the foot of it. They're both in costume. Clark feels weak and groggy, but he can hear half a dozen other heartbeats lingering in the hall, so presumably they were expecting him to wake up around now. 

"Mm," he says. Diana snaps awake. Bruce stops mid-step. 

They both look at him. 

"The operation was a success," Bruce informs him. "Textbook. Or as textbook as removing a mind-controlling parasite of unknown origins from a Kryptonian brain can get for mostly-human surgeons, anyway." 

"Do you need anything?" Diana asks. "Would you like us to call your family yet?" 

Clark shakes his head, then closes his eyes and sleeps for another week. 

"Sleep", he supposes, counts as something that he needs right now. 

The next time he wakes up, he's alone in his room and disconnected from the machines and just feels . . . normal, really. Like nothing was ever wrong at all and he didn't just have major surgery that was, essentially, the equivalent of multiple traumatic brain injuries. His hair is already starting to grow back from where it was buzzed down for the surgery, and there's not even any bandages on his head. 

There's no noticeable scarring, Clark observes when he makes it to the little ensuite bathroom to take a look in the mirror. The surgeons told him there probably wouldn't be, given both the methods they'd been intending to use and the nature of his own physiology, but seeing the total lack of proof of what happened to him is just . . . strange, somehow. 

It feels almost like a cheat. Like it should be obvious, in some way. 

There was a parasite in his head. Something controlling him. Pretending to be him. Passing for him. It could've done anything it wanted. 

It did do things that Clark still has no idea about. 

So many things. 

He couldn't even fight it. Wasn't conscious or aware enough to, or just not strong enough to, or just . . . 

He couldn't even fight it. 

And he doesn't know what it did. 

The door opens. Diana walks in. 

"Would you like us to call your family now?" she asks. 

"Yes," Clark says roughly, curling his fingers around the sides of the sink in front of him. "Please." 

"Of course," Diana says with a terrible and merciless gentleness. 

Clark sits down on the lid of the toilet and just . . . cries. Just for a minute. 

Or twenty. 

Diana kneels in front of him and holds his hands in her own. 

Fourteen months, Clark thinks, all twisted up with grief and pain and so, so much regret. He missed so much. He wasn't there for Jon or Lois or his parents. He wasn't there for Bruce or Diana or the League, for either of Kara, for . . . 

For Kon. He wasn't there for Kon. 

Wasn't there for Kon when the kid needed him. 

Kon completely vanished, and who knows if the damn parasite even pretended to help look for him? If it did anything at all for him? Who knows if Clark could've found him, could've saved him, if he'd still been himself at the time? 

. . . who knows if the parasite isn't what made Kon disappear to begin with? 

It took fourteen months of Clark's life, and Kon . . . Kon disappeared two weeks into those fourteen months. 

If nothing else, the timing is a screaming red flag. 

Clark abandoned his son and might've murdered a kid who only ever looked up to him, a kid who he was never really able to fully understand but literally named, and he can't do anything to bring Kon back or to make up for the year that he wasn't there for the rest of his family. 

Their family. 

God, what has he done? What has Clark done, and did Kon die feeling afraid or shocked or terrified? Did he die feeling betrayed? Did he think it was Clark doing it, however it happened? 

Did he die thinking Clark wanted him to die? 

Clark doesn't even know what happened to his body. 

There won't be another resurrection.  

Clark chokes. Diana squeezes his hands. He grips hers like a lifeline and shudders through it. The grief is a terrible, ugly thing. It's one of the worst things Clark's ever felt. 

The guilt is worse. 

"Lois," he murmurs finally, feeling like the weakest man alive. "Could you call . . . Lois, please, and just . . . ask if she'll come. I'll explain it all to her, just–could you call her, please." 

"Yes," Diana says, squeezing his hands again. "Of course." 

"Thank you," Clark says. 

He pulls himself together, more or less, and Diana goes to make the call. She comes back a few minutes later and tells him Lois agreed, but needs to find a babysitter first. Clark in no way blames her for not bringing Jon along and frankly is surprised she's willing to come at all. 

He's not sure what he could even say to Jon right now. 

What can he? 

Diana makes sure he eats something, then leaves for monitor duty. Clark tries not to overthink things. Tries not to think too much at all. 

He spent fourteen months not thinking at all, though, all of it lost in one oblivious blink, so that doesn't work out all that well for him. 

An hour later, he hears the Zeta platform activate on the opposite side of the base, and hears Lois's heartbeat appear inside the watchtower. 

Clark exhales, very slowly. 

He waits. 

Lois comes to the med bay. She doesn't stop to talk to anyone on the way. Doesn't talk to anyone except that stranger Clark still doesn't actually know the name of, who tells her where to find him. 

And then a minute or a millennium later she's standing in the open doorway of his room, and Clark is looking at her. Her expression is neutral, and her hair is shorter than it was the last time he remembers seeing her–the last time he was the one actually seeing her. An inverse bob, not shoulder-length anymore. He recognizes the blazer and heels that she's wearing, but not the blouse or the pants. Not the earrings or the necklace, either. 

And there's no wedding ring to recognize either way. 

Clark wonders what happened to his. 

God, but she's still the most amazing woman he's ever seen, and he's still never once deserved a single part of her. Not even a fraction of a part. 

Especially not now. 

"Kal," she greets, tone just as neutral as her expression, and Clark aches. 

"Clark," he says, just a little too abrupt, and Lois–pauses. 

"Clark," she amends casually as she tucks her hands into the pockets of her blazer, and if he didn't know her quite so well he wouldn't have even heard the crack in her voice around his name, super-hearing or not. "Never seen your hair this short. I kinda miss the curl, not gonna lie. It has charm, you know? Very boy scout next door." 

"I had emergency brain surgery," Clark says. Lois pauses again. Tilts her head. He keeps talking. "Two weeks ago, now. Just woke up again fully today." 

"What?" she says, just staring at him. "You–what happened?" 

"It's . . . unclear, still," Clark replies slowly. "But as far as we can tell, roughly fourteen months back an unidentified alien parasite moved into my brain and . . . took me over, essentially. I don't actually–I don't remember any of that time. At all. Then two weeks ago I got electrocuted in Keystone and the parasite died. The surgery was to remove its body so my brain could heal from the damage it did without it rotting in there." 

Lois keeps staring at him. 

"Fourteen months," she echoes very, very carefully. 

"I'm so sorry," Clark says tightly. "Bruce told me I left you. Left you and Jon. That I stopped being . . . myself. I can't imagine how difficult that was, or how it must've felt." 

"I can't imagine how waking up and hearing that none of us even noticed you were gone felt," Lois says. 

"You never do pull a punch, do you," Clark says with a weak attempt at a smile. 

"I'm sorry," Lois says evenly. "I should've known." 

"No one did," Clark says, then . . . hesitates. "Or . . . we think no one did." 

"You think that's what happened to Kon," Lois says, because of course she's already done the math, and of course she's already had the thought herself. Obviously she would've. 

"The timing is . . . likely, at least," Clark says. "And really, if anyone was going to see my face and notice that a different person was wearing it . . ."

"You have a point," Lois murmurs. She steps into the room. Clark wants to hold her. He also wants to bury himself in the coldest, darkest place that he can find and never, ever let himself see the sun again. 

He doesn't deserve it anymore. 

"I'm so angry that I want to cry," Lois says, her voice very distant and her eyes locked on his. Clark can see her hands fisting in her pockets. "I'm so . . . god. I should've known. You never would've left Jon. Not like that." 

"Bruce made it sound like the parasite was . . . very convincing," Clark says. It convinced Bruce, who may just be the most paranoid mind on the planet, so . . .

"It was," Lois agrees, still without taking her eyes off his. "But I still should've known." 

Clark blinks a little too quickly. Lois tightens her jaw. Takes her hands out of her pockets and leaves them at her sides instead. Clark never thought he'd see them without her wedding ring again. 

"It's been–months, I know," he says, hating himself for thinking he even deserves to say this. "For you. But I still . . ." 

"I love you," Lois says. "Come home." 

There is no possible world in which he could tell her "no". 

Med bay makes him wait for another two hours of observation and runs some scans, but then they let him go. Lois waits with him the whole time. She doesn't call anyone or send any texts. Doesn't leave the room. Barely says a word. Hardly even takes her eyes off him, like she thinks if she blinks he's going to disappear. 

Clark can hardly keep her heartbeat out of his ears, so he doesn't blame her. 

He doesn't blame her at all. 

They go to Smallville. Bruce had said he'd send Dick to pick up Jon from the babysitter's and get him to the farm, and as much as Clark had wanted to go straight to him himself . . . 

Ma and Pa first, he reminds himself. This is going to be upsetting for Jon–most likely traumatic, once it all sinks in. And definitely disorienting. It'll be best if as many of the adults in his life as possible know what's going on in advance, so he can go to whoever he needs to go to; get whatever comfort they can prepare themselves to offer. 

Clark doesn't know how to do this. 

He doesn't . . . 

They don't take two steps onto the farm before a familiar blur is crashing into him head-on. 

"Oh," Clark manages, and Krypto barks excitedly and flies up to lick his face, tail wagging wildly as he jumps all over him. Like he's missed him. Like he's been waiting for him. 

Clark nearly cries again.

"Good boy, Krypto," he tells him, quiet and rough. "I missed you too, boy." 

He scratches Krypto's ears. Strokes his back. Krypto nearly bowls him over in delight. 

Clark buries his face in his neck and cries a bit after all. 

Lois watches. 

Waits. 

Clark spends . . . maybe a little bit too long crying on his dog, and then they all head up to the house. Ma and Pa are both standing on the porch; presumably they heard Krypto barking. They both look a little bit startled and a little bit confused and a lot more pained at the sight of him, and Clark swallows painfully and stops just before the porch steps. 

He looks at them, and he loves them so desperately. Everything they ever did for him, and everything they've ever been to him, and . . . 

"I'm sorry," he says. "I just . . . there was . . ."

God, the way this hurts. 

"It was mind control," he says. "The past fourteen months or so. I was . . . I wasn't. Wasn't here. Or . . . anywhere." 

"Oh," Ma says, and her eyes are instantly wet with tears. Pa blinks very quickly, his hand curling against the porch railing. 

"I'm so, so sorry," Clark repeats tightly, his own hands in useless fists. "But I'm–back now. I'm home." 

"Oh, Clark," Ma chokes, and then they both throw themselves at him. Clark's been hugged by people with strength far past superhuman, but it's never felt . . . 

No. It's never once felt the same way as when his parents do it. 

They cling to him. He clings back. Krypto barks again and swoops around the knot of them, wagging his tail hard enough to nearly knock Lois over with the force of wind it stirs up. Definitely some of the porch furniture gets displaced. 

Clark feels so much. 

They sit together on the porch, Krypto sprawled contentedly across Clark's lap and Lois on the steps beside him. Clark gives Ma and Pa what explanation he can–tells them everything he knows about Keystone and the electrocution and the watchtower and the surgery and waking up. They watch him just as intently as Lois does the entire time. 

He doesn't . . . he doesn't mention his suspicions about what might've happened to Kon. Not . . . not yet. 

He doesn't know how to. Not to Ma and Pa. Not after he brought the kid here and left him on their doorstep with no real direction and . . . 

Just–he'll tell them. He'll tell them soon. 

Just . . . not yet. 

It's not a very long talk, in the end. Ma and Pa take in everything he says and just take it all in stride, just like they always have. Baby in a spaceship? Kid with superpowers? Son who thinks he can save the whole damn world? 

Of course they take it in stride. 

Clark loves them too much to even define. Too much to even wrap his own head around. They're the best people he knows. The best people he's ever known. 

They don't even think there's anything for him to be sorry for. 

It's . . . painful, a little, when Clark realizes that. 

Or a lot. 

So, so damn painful. 

Clark hears the definitely-not-a-Batmobile coming, far down the road. Three heartbeats inside it. Dick, Damian, and . . . 

Jon. 

Obviously. 

Clark strokes Krypto's ears one last time, then gets up. No one asks him why, but he supposes the look on his face must be answer enough right now. 

He steps off the porch and goes to wait by the driveway. 

It's not that long a wait, but it feels like the better part of eternity.

[masonmyluv]

Home race - CL16 🙈

Charles Leclerc x reader

Childhood friends reunited

Warnings: mention of an inchident, some curse words

A/N: this is my first story about Charles Leclerc so pls don’t judge 😅😊

You couldn't believe what you were seeing. Your childhood best friend, actual F1 driver, was back in Monaco. How could you forget? You thought about it since this season started. What if you're going to bump into him on the streets? It's been 5 years since you stopped talking and never got in touch with each other.

While Charles was busy signing for fans, Arthur's eyes wondered further from the crowd and spotted you. "Isn't that Y/N?" He whispered to Charles. "Who?" His brother replied. "Never mind. I'll be over there at the cafe" Arthur said, making his way over to you.

You pretended you were intensely studying the menu (even though you already ordered) when he approached you. "Is this Y/N Y/L/N?" You looked up in a beat, a bit disappointed it wasn't Charles, but his brother. Damn, their voices were so alike. "Yep. That's me" you replied smiling. "I haven't seen you in a loooong time" he said, sitting in the opposite chair. "Same to you. How you've been?" You asked. "Pretty good, got into F2, things are going well. Charles over there is in F1, so he does better than me" he rolled his eyes playfully. "He's not really doing well with all the crashes" you mumbled. "So you're watching? Are you a fan?" He smirked. "Well... only when I'm bored" you said. "Anyways, what about you?" He asked. "You're always changing the subject when you don't like something" you chuckled. "I'm good, I'm studying Architecture here, I still have 3 more years to go". "And do you have someone?" He asked.

Just when you were about to reply, Charles appeared by his brother's side. "Are you trying to hook up? Really?" He said to Arthur. "Bro, it's Y/N. Your best friend remember?" Arthur said, Knocking into Charles's head. Charles looked over to you, still not making out who you were. You were a bit disappointed because he didn't remember you, but you remembered everything about him and still had that stupid crush on your best friend. Or ex best friend.

"You should invite her to the race tomorrow" Arthur suggested. "Even though she watches F1 when bored".

"OOOOH!!! It's Y/N/N" Charles said. "You and your stupid nickname. Yes, it's her" Arthur rolled his eyes. Charles couldn't contain his excitement, so he hugged you. "I missed you" he whispered. "I missed you too". "So you're coming to the race then?" He asked. "Sounds good" you smiled.

-- 5 hours before the race --

"I told you not to freak out" Arthur said, hugging you. "I till feel weird to be here. I basically know nothing" you said. "Don't worry, I'll explain everything you need to know. By the way, Charles's sending you a gift" he said. "Really? After I spent 2 hours to pick my outfit, you give me a t-shirt?". "It's designed by Charles for the race. Come on, you'll look good" he said.

"So did you understand how things are around here?" Arthur asked. "Let's hope for the best" you laughed awkwardly. Man, this sport was something else. "And now Ferrari motor home. And probably Charles is dressing up in here" Arthur said, making his way through the mechanics who we're finishing the last checks on the car. Indeed, Charles was putting on his special Monaco suit and he looked damn hot in it. Fuck, go away stupid crush.

"Y/N, you came. And you're looking good" Charles said, hugging you. "Of course. Wouldn't want to miss my best friend racing right?" You chuckled. "Oops forgot something. Be right back" Arthur said, leaving the two of you alone. "So..." Charles said. "Are you scared? I mean, I would be, driving 200 on these streets. Or are you feeling pressured because it's a home race? I would, I'm always feeling under pressure and I can't work properly" you ranted. "I do feel scared and excited, and under pressure, but I'm enjoying it to the maximum" he replied. He always liked when you asked his questions and were honest with him. "So... who's your biggest rival?" You asked. "Myself". "I would say Verstappen cuz I do like him... and probably Hamilton. He's ok" you said.

"And who's this beautiful lady we have here?"

"Carlos, she's Y/N, my...best friend" Charles said. "Hi. Nice to meet you" you said. "Carlos is my teammate who I don't know what is doing here" Charles narrowed his eyes at him. "Just wanted to wish you luck. But I guess you already have" he grinned.

"I have to get in the car. Make sure your headset is working properly and enjoy watching" Charles said. "Thanks. Wait Charles" you said, before he could put on his helmet. "Yeah?". You leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Win for me, will ya?" You winked, making him blush.

"Watching the two of you is funny. You clearly have feelings for each other" Arthur said. "And where have you been, mister?". "Just letting you have some time with him. And I guess he's going to invite you to the party as well" he said, helping you put on the headset so you could hear Charles's radio. "What party?" You asked. "After the race, there's a party to celebrate. If he wins, he'll want you by your side. If he loses, he still wants you by his side" he shrugged. "Is it starting?" You asked. "Yeah. Pray for him".

"Omg is he okay??" You asked, seeing the collision between him and Carlos. "Yeah it's just the front wing. He should be able to continue the race" Arthur explained.

"Fucking hell why would he do that??? Putain!!! That idiot!!!"

You winced at his words, never seeing Charles so angry before. Sure his own teammate would sabotage him.

"I'm sorry, Y/N/N"

"He's a twat" Arthur sighed. "He still had time no?" You asked. "Maybe, but I guess he already gave up". "Can I told to him?" You asked and Arthur nodded.

"Charles, it's Y/N speaking. Please don't give up, you've worked so hard for this and it's a shame to give up now. This is your empire, Charles, show them who's the king. I know you won't give up that easily. Or so I thought that I know my best friend. I love you, Charles. Make everyone proud"

"You confessed over the radio? You're crazy" Arthur chuckled. "He needs to know. I can't hide it anymore" you shrugged. "Welcome to the family. Officially as Charles's girlfriend" he said, hugging you. "He didn't ask me yet" you laughed. "He will, trust me. Probably the first thing he'll do when he gets out of the car".

And it's first place for Charles Leclerc in Monaco. What a race! The Monaco curse is broken!

And Arthur was indeed right. After congratulating the other drivers on the podium, he ran to where you were and hugged you tightly. "Be my girlfriend? Please". "Hmm I don't know..." you faked thinking about it. "We haven't talked for five years. I still don't know why we did that" you said. "Me neither. I guess it's my fault. I was at the beginning of the F1 career and didn't want a distraction. Sorry for that" he said. "It's okay. Let's just enjoy is being reunited" You leaned in, pressing your lips to his. "God, I can't believe I did that" you chuckled. Charles smirked before pulling you into another kiss. "Get a room. Wait first go to celebrate and then get a room" Arthur said, hugging the both of you. "Or we could celebrate in a room" Charles shrugged. "Gross. Now go, the trophy's waiting" Arthur said.

After the celebration, Charles came back into the garage, smelling like champagne, but you didn't care. And after that, you went to the party and as Arthur said everything you did was 18+🤪.

Hope you like it ❤️🤍

Praying to all odds for Charles to win today 🥹

[dwellerinroots]

Teleportation, or Where We're Going...

All right, I think this'll be my first post on my writing, specifically! Since today's topic will involve DOOM, and most of all DOOM 3, consider that if it peeks your interest. I'll be starting with a subject that I haven't worked into That Infernal Machine as much as I'd like; a good subject to start out with, since there aren't any literary surprises I want to save up my sleeve for later in the story, aha..!

For starters, I'd like to shout to The Making of DOOM 3 - which I'd hoped would be on the archive, it's awesome if you love design work OR DOOM, and if you love both? Yeah, a no-brainer, I've read it at several different points in my life and each time, had a blast - I'll be referencing it a lot in the future, too, most likely. Of all the games and ideas I threw into a blender, DOOM 3 might've given me the most ideas. Starting with a quote from Robert Duffy: "In past games in which we had teleportation, the effect was kind of underwhelming. It was just kind of a noise, and we thought this event should be something that is cataclysmic. We wanted it to be like something ripped from one place in the universe and forced into this area." Nice and evocative, yeah? I bolded the important bits, aha - Some of my early design notes for this - yes, I'm boring enough to jot down notes for my writing, and I regret nothing! It's 2023! - was: "Teleportation, of any kind, should feel like it robs you of something you don't even know you were missing. Every time, without fail." Beyond the thematic device of having the cast slowly losing memory or feeling less at ease in their own skin, I wanted to use it to explain and highlight the architecture; most of which is actually follow-able if you've played Quake I at any point in your life!.. Rather then technology feeling 'cool' or 'useful' or like something that can save people, I wanted teleportation - any kind of travel - to feel like an awful bargain that benefits no one, and ultimately leaves anyone who embarks upon it shivering, cold, and alone. And another thing, dealing with what it feels like when things are brought in to the world I'm writing about... "[DOOM hell stuff] is saying something you know to be true, again and again, until your voice is hoarse, you cannot remember the syllables to words that mean nothing, and you can't even remember what they meant or why they were important to you." More simply, I could've put it's like saving over a file until the data corrupts, but I made a point of writing when I was pretty ill, at first, bahaha! When Hyphen - the character who is a DOOM Imp, natch - brings stuff over from the old country, I wanted to channel some of that feeling. Not only is it really fun to write, I think it goes far towards creating a very ominous ambience, especially when you might not be opposed to the character who's doing all that, but... The end result feels just a mite bit evil. It's something I kind of wish I did more with, but it wouldn't have fit the story just to focus on all the things that are weird. And I'm hoping to have more time and writing planned after I finally finish up..! That's all for now; if you've stayed along this far, thanks for reading; and I really do recommend The Making of DOOM 3, it's a great read. Catch ya around, next time!

[piquuse]

[Mysterious Risotto]

confusion was clear on dear queen's features, frowned brows staring down at very haunting mass of what he barely could tell it was risotto ... maybe. he was starting to doubt his own sight on the matter --wait, was that a fluorescent mushroom ?! " uh. when did this appear on the table. "

let's get hootin'!

          "...I think one of the Savanaclaw students forgot it here? That really tall guy over there, with the blond tail." Deuce's befuddled gesture eventually lands on one of the students who had ran up to join the rest of the crowd on the dance floor. "Oh wow, um, I didn't know Professor Amos could dance like that." He didn't think people's joints could bend like that either without breaking a bone. Yikes.

In the end, however, Deuce's curiosity gets the better of him and he leans in to inspect the rather peculiar-looking dish. It's barely been touched; a sign that there were in fact students attending the university with some of their survival instinct intact, even if it's been somewhat impaired. The smart idea would likely have been to avoid the dish altogether—but then again, Deuce had never claimed to be the sharpest spade in the shed.

And he's just so terribly, terribly curious about what such a bizarre-looking food would taste like... The mushrooms themselves don't look too peculiar (he thinks, at least) and as he continues to gaze at the food he can't help but feel...compelled, so to speak. Compelled to try a bite of it, just a one little nibble.

After all, he thinks, perhaps a bit naively, it was just a purple risotto, right? So against what would have been the better judgement, Deuce ferries a spoonful of risotto into his mouth...only to be surprised by the rich, savory flavor that almost seems to explode onto his tongue.

Shocked didn't even being to cover the spectrum of emotions that held Deuce in an affectionate chokehold. If he were a more erudite type, he had a feeling that even if he had run the gamut of appropriate synonyms to describe how he felt with that one bite, it wouldn't have mattered. Words weren't enough to convey how much he enjoyed this oddly colored risotto, so he would simply have to show it instead!

Newly resolved, he straightens abruptly and turns to face the Pomefiore senior with fervor in those sharp teal eyes, earnest intent lining his frame. "Schoenheit—!!" He begins, but as he opens his mouth to speak a fuzzy sort of darkness peppers his vision; his jaw goes slack in silenced surprise, and suddenly he is no longer at Night Raven University's First Annual Hootenanny.

Instead, he is standing in the living area of a modest little townhouse. It's neatly furnished, if clearly lived-in, and familiar. The architectural style of the interior design is something he would have described as being 'carefree and whimsical', in a way that should not but somehow clearly does manage to function properly. It's a familiar aesthetic, because it is the same sort of common style that was found in the Heartslabyul dorm.

Breathing in introduces the scent of roses to him, sweet in a way that only dried blooms achieved best. From behind him, somewhere outside the house, he can hear the sounds of a party, muted by the walls. From a different part of the house, however, Deuce can hear a woman's voice humming gently to a song that only she could hear. And just like the furniture, just like the roses, that too is familiar.

Warmth creeps into his chest like a vice, and he turns down the hall that he knows will lead into the kitchen, because he knows this house like how he knows who that voice belongs to.

          "Hey Mom, need any help?" Deuce asks, before pressing a kiss to her cheek the way he has done since he was a child. She's shorter than he remembers her being, the last time he saw her, but he abandons the thought as quickly as it comes. She laughs, but says yes.

          "It's just the cake that's left to bring out, but sure, you can carry it out for me." His mom explains, gesturing a hand towards the simple two-tiered cake that she had just placed onto the carrying tray. "Maybe I should have agreed to let that baker friend of yours take care of the cake this year after all. Then I wouldn't have had to clean all those dishes."

          "I'll let him know next time, then." He says, before carefully picking up the cake. "Okay, I think I got it... Can you get that for me?" He asks, once they've reached the backdoor, though she's already pulling it open for him by the time he's finished speaking.

The party he had heard earlier turns out to have been located right in their own garden. It's a small gathering, because there simply is not a lot of open space in the Spade household. Not that Deuce had ever bothered to bring any guests home in his youth in the first place, he remembers.

He...can't quite make out any of their guests' faces, which is disturbing, but something in his gut tells him that he knows these people even if he can't quite place them, and Deuce has always found some value in trusting his gut. With that settled, he lets the matter go for the most part and makes the join the rest of the party, but his mother stops him before he gets through the doorway. When he turns to ask why, he finds that he can't speak.

          "I'm proud of you, Deuce." She says, her matching teal eyes soft with a mother's love. "You're not quite there yet, but I know that one day, you'll get to where you want to be. So don't give up. When that happens, then you can come and join the rest of us here." Her hand brushes against his cheek fondly, and it feels like a goodbye but less of a bye forever and more of a see you soon. All the same, he doesn't want to leave.

But when he blinks, he’s suddenly back at the table with the mysterious purple risotto, and Housewarden Schoenheit is looking at him with an expression that says that he's about to give up on trying to reach wherever it was that Deuce's head had flown off to.

It's...jarring, actually. Because Deuce doesn't even know where he went just then, and doesn't even know where to start with explaining what he just saw. Not that something like that would stop him from trying, of course. But, well...

(It's hard to explain something like that when Deuce starts crying as soon as he starts to speak, y'know?)

[tamespace]

My Real Beef with Minimalism: I Can't Really Afford It

I few weeks ago, I watched the documentary on Netflix called Minimalism. I held off on watching it for a while because I've felt ambivalent about the minimalist lifestyle trend for a few years now. 

That might be strange to people since I am a personal organizer and people embracing minimalism would make my job easier and perhaps obsolete. I'm ok with both of options, which I realize the latter is an unusual standpoint to have on one's job, but more on that later.

What bothers me about minimalism? I didn't know for a long time, though I thought about it often, turning the idea over and over in my head. Wondering why it simply never sat right with me.

I've written about lifestyle minimalism here, here and here, but in previous posts I've just dealt with it in an affable, informative way. 

Then a random conspiring of posts on Twitter yesterday helped dislodge the cause of my discomfort with minimalism. 

I saw this Reductress Post:

I had a blog post on Minimalism from 2013, just when Reductress was founded, going something like this:

Minimalist Lifestyle Trend 

The popular Minimalists, Becker and Nicodemus, were on NPR a few years ago. I was loading the dishwasher while listening and towards the end of their talk they agreed to take listener calls. The calls were, without exception, from women asking about how to clear out the clutter in kids rooms. 

The allure of capsule wardrobes, Japanese organizers and other modern notions seems irresistible in a culture that has a billion dollar  storage industry. We have a real appetite for buying things and now a matching appetite for storing. 

I have watched the growing movement of minimalism ( aka downsizing, down shifting, simplicity, simple living) throughout the world. In architecture, design, futuristic movies and idealized in thousands of photographs on shelter sites. 

The pull, for me, is strong. I love it but I do not think it is the answer for many. In fact minimalism has a following largely in the upper percentage of earners, such that it seems only the wealthy can truly achieve it. 

It is difficult to achieve because our society is set up to be grand consumers but we have also inherited a rightful guilt about throwing things away from our parents and grandparents.

Then during my writing group last Wednesday, I read a draft from my book, Tame Space, on Minimalism and the the Simple Living Movement (you'd be right to think they were the same, but they are only similar, for reasons explained in my book). One writing pal said she agreed, that living minimalist seemed to have an elite quality to it that many who struggle with paying rent could probably not appreciate. Another writing pal said they didn't think it was elitist but that it pointed to a need for an individual to find a set point for themselves, and that for some the set point was minimalist and others maximalist. I agreed with both ideas, though more strongly that it feels elitist but didn't know how to explain it in the moment.

Then I happened to stumble upon Kristin Wong's post on the movie Minimalism on Netflix and this from her site:

While I relate to minimalism on an aesthetic level (and even on a Buddhist level to some extent), something about the trend toward minimalism is unsettling. It seems problematic, at least in the current state of our economy, to push the virtue of minimalism in terms of wealth. Despite being overshadowed by more pressing headlines, income inequality hasn’t gotten any better. The average income of the top 10% of Americans is upwards of $200k and the top 1% earn over six million a year. But the vast majority–90% of people–make an average of $33,000 a year.

And there it is. $33,000 a year for the majority of people. I had a quiet aha moment. Sometimes, living with less isn't a clarion call to the good life. Sometimes, it's just less stuff because we have less money. 

Can you imagine for a moment, living paycheck to paycheck for most of your life and worrying about paying for new shoes for your kid and living on a daily diet of painkillers because you can't afford to see the dentist because your car needs repairs asap - imagine that and hearing about two single guys who were making six figure salaries and walking away from it because they realized they'd rather be fiction writers and live with less stuff? 

If you can't imagine, read Linda Turado's Hand to Mouth. She wrote an essay on Gawker on being poor and a defense of some of the things that poor folks find they are judged for in the media and in politics. The essay was so popular Penguin asked her to write a book. It reminded me a bit of Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (Hand to Mouth by Paul Auster is also good too but labeled fiction) both should be required reading for everyone but definitely for the upper crust who would then tout minimalism less as a great achievement and more as the antidote to their particular kind of moneyed malaise.

In Linda Turado's world, I'd be pretty bitter for a moment about the Minimalist trend (can I have the houseful of nice stuff that you just gave away?) before I had to get back to worrying about how to get new shoes for my kid. Of course, I don't dislike the Minimalists, I'm happy for anyone courageous enough to walk away from financial security to find true bliss and to make a living sharing their method. I like many of their posts on simple living and letting go of things, like this and this.  I reserve my bitterness for many other things life has presented. Like aging, or the current political climate, or people who don't pick up their dog's poop. Bitterness is the contrasting flavor to my sweet optimism that doing what I love - helping people - will someday pay off. Pay off enough to cover basic needs and save for retirement, of course. It currently doesn't.

I do find their repeated message of minimalism as THE answer to be grating as I struggle to live in NYC. It's expensive to live here, but I can't think of leaving, I love it here. I'm proud of my work here. My husband can make his living only here as a publicist for theater and dance. But I know financially I wouldn't cut it in NYC with two kids if something happened to my partner. He's got the health insurance benefits and a living wage. 

I, too, am living the dream of pursuing meaningful work. But if I decide to live minimalist and get rid of excess to barest extreme, I may not have the old macbook that I could upgrade if my current laptop broke or was stolen. I live mostly by my work principles - don't keep what you don't use - but sometimes you have to, you want to, because you are afraid of not being able to buy another. I am afraid to be minimalist because I live largely hand to mouth.

In case it doesn't seem apparent, the seeming luxury of my career choice was driven by sheer necessity: big time gap in my resume meant I could not find work in marketing after 8 years of staying at home with the kids. Also, marketing changed immensely from 2003 to 2013. I no longer had a professional network to help onramp into the working world. Frustrated and clinically depressed, I founded Tame Space in late 2011 after realizing I needed to instantly create a business that spoke to my best skills (organizing and working with people one on one), gave me a flexible schedule to spend time with my kids and allowed me some creative outlet (this blog).

I share the gist of my personal financial situation because that's the reason I've never been able to jump on the Minimalism bandwagon. My finances are too minimalist to play fast and loose with the idea of having very little in my home. If I ever have the luxury, like some of my clients, to unload bags of designer clothes to my housekeeper and design my own minimalist apartment in Brooklyn and have loads of money socked away for retirement and the kids' college tuition, maybe I could stand to let go of everything. Or maybe not, since the feeling of scarcity is sometimes a specter that lives only in your mind and disregards how much money you actually have in your bank account.

I think of my parents and many of my clients and how the feeling of scarcity (whether it's true or not in their situation) is enough to trigger holding tendencies. I say holding because they are not hoarding and forgetting about things in the dark corners of a Collyer brothers home, but are waiting for some feared future time when they may need this extra set of shoes or the old laptop or those glass mason jars or the french yogurt maker.

I hope that one day I can feel unfettered by fear of not being able to buy something I once had and discarded. Until then, I can only see lifestyle minimalism as a delightful path to fulfilled living for the segment of the population who could easily replace anything they once thought they could live without.

In a perfect world, a person considering Minimalism might give their entire household of things to a family who had just left temporary homeless shelter and needed good quality household items and clothes. And hopefully, they'd never need to look back.