#i love the villain-of-the-day formula

[protect-namine]

so I've been watching episodes of batman 1966 every now and then and it's so charming and funny to me that by the end of each cliffhanger episode I usually would say "same bat-time, same bat-channel" along with the narrator

today it was a catwoman episode and of course she captured batman and kidnapped robin and there was gonna be the cliffhanger. I was getting ready to say the usual end-of-episode spiel but then I lost my mind when they changed the ending to "same cat-time, same cat-channel" like omggg they changed it!!!

[coralinnii]

❋ You said what now? ❋

↳ He accidentally found out your feelings

feat: Ruggie ⭑ Chenya ⭑ Lilia ⭑ Epel

genre: fluff (uhh for the most part), humour,

note: no pronouns used with the reader, no explicit spoilers for book 7 in Lilia’s section, reader is referred as human in Lilia’s section, reader is implied to be a first year in Epel’s section, bad cat-related wording in Chenya’s section

Fun fact: while not obvious in the English translation, if you listen to Chenya’s Japanese voice lines, he likes to say “nya” at the end of his sentences.

Will I keep that fact in mind anytime Chenya pops up? Absolutely.

Also, I just started my college classes again last week (which is why I didn’t post last week). All of my classes are dense with text and quizzes so…I need to study real hard which will most likely eat up my time for writing. Good ol’ inconsistent me~

Although, I’m taking History and we focus a bit on the age of nobility and old kingdoms…so maybe some inspiration for my villain/ess!au series (or maybe not cuz history is weirder than one thinks…)

How it happened

Perhaps a little sneaky, Ruggie is someone reliable, resourceful, and fun to be around. You started to fall for him and even that sneaky side of his became endearing to you.

But bigger, financial priorities occupy the hyena beastman’s mind more than anything else. Unless he can make a madol from it or get a freebie, his interest in anything else is seemingly non-existent. It was rather easy to keep your feelings to yourself when the topic of love rarely, if ever, comes up.

So it came to a surprise to you when the shaggy-haired sophomore mentioned his coworkers at a part-time job he picked up in town.

He started ranting about how a duo at his workplace started an unlikely relationship a few days ago. According to him, the two were from two different worlds and didn’t appear to be either of their types.

“Doesn’t make any sense if you ask me” he mumbled, scratching his fluffy head by the sudden revelation at his job.

You nodded and hummed as he recounted his workday with you, but in all honesty, you didn’t share his confusion over the so-called sudden pairing. By the way Ruggie described the couple, it does sound like their personalities wouldn’t mesh well and would theoretically clash too much for anything to bloom between them.

But attraction follows no simple formula. No one can stop themselves from falling for someone. You yourself were an example.

“Love is never predictable, Ruggie.” you commented without thinking, perhaps too distracted by the cute love story of Ruggie’s coworkers or it could be that you’re drowning in the warm feelings from being so close to your crush that your mouth is running too comfortably on its own. “I mean, I never thought you were my type but I still ended up-“

You shut your mouth before you could finish but looking at the wide-eyed expression on Ruggie’s face, the effort was moot.

“You still ended up?”

…Shoot.

What happens now?

Colour him shocked. Ruggie never entertained the idea that you would like him, out of all people.

He could’ve pretended not to figure it out, or convince himself that it was a misunderstanding. But he knew when he saw your flustered embarrassment and your cute stuttering trying to come up with an excuse, there was no misunderstanding. You like him.

Ruggie has a good amount of ego and he wouldn’t downplay his boyish good looks (odds are it got him out of a few close calls), but in a school of celebrities, royalty, and guys with money coming out the wazoo? He knows when he’s outmatched.

To be honest, his brain froze for a moment at your slip up. He clutched his heart which stuttered out of beat, his ears and tail stood in attention like a meerkat. Jack was worried watching his upperclassman in such a daze while folding laundry, heck it even got Leona raising a brow over the uncharacteristic clocked out look on his shorter dormmate.

But, Ruggie is a workaholic hyena. Always planning his way to work up the ladder to earn some good madol. Even if he likes the idea of making a family of his own, romance wasn’t in his peripheral vision at the moment. Not while he’s working multiple jobs at once. He would honestly feel a little bad because he knows he’ll end up ignoring any poor soul stuck with him.

As bad as it is, he might at first think to pretend he heard nothing about your feelings. He couldn’t bring himself to make you go through that, to be in a relationship where work takes precedence over you.

But then he thought it wouldn’t be so bad…snuggling up to you during one of his rare free time. Maybe you’re the type to surprise him with lunch and he could rest on your lap while you brush his hair. Would you maybe rub his sore muscles after an arduous club training session? Having boyfriend privileges means no one can complain when he slides up to your side, keeping your attention to himself without having to share…

Screw it, he’ll figure something out. He’s a greedy hyena through and through

Shyeheehee! Better be ready for what you’re asking for. Once I’ve set my eyes on something, I’m not lettin’ it get away!

How it happened

This man is a literal magic trick, appearing and disappearing to revel in the shock of his unsuspecting audience. As elusive as he is, the times he does show up brings a shock of joy and excitement to you.

It seems that the purple-haired student has made it a habit to join the Heartslabyul’s unbirthday parties from time to time, enjoying the occasional chaos and keeping you company to your conflicted delight.

You didn’t know why but Chenya made it his mission to fluster you every chance he gets, with cheeky comments and sly touches as he leads you away from incoming mishaps such as a stray splash of paint or a flying slice of cake. You don’t know why but the cat-like menace has taken a shine to teasing you out of the blue. Sometimes he would suddenly whisper nonsensical riddles into your ear, or tap your shoulder to then poke your cheek as you turn. Small silly pranks that should annoy you but your body becomes filled with butterflies when he smiles that charming grin at you.

How maddening, you thought as you fell for another sneaky surprise from the impish beastman. Once again, Chenya appeared right behind you, smiling just over your shoulder which gave you and your friends a fright (for different reasons) to which he took pleasure in, judging from the mischievous grin on his lips.

Your shouting caught the attention of the other Heartslabyul students and recognizing the white jacket and castle emblem, their eyes boiled with competitive rage. An RSA student? On Night Raven territory?!

“Ah, looks like fun time is over. I’ll just show meowself out~” and like a mirage, Chenya’s figure disappeared as the NRC students failed to catch even a strand of his fur. Not even when he took a second longer to fade out just so he could teasingly tickle the tip of your nose with his fluffy striped tail.

The students kept on making a fuss, eager to teach the mischief maker a lesson for trespassing on rival territory. You sighed at the wasteful effort, assuming that Chenya would be smart enough to have left long ago.

“Why must my crush be such a frustrating person?” Angry hollers and Riddle’s commanding cease-and-desist orders overwhelmed your tired voice, and your soft words ended up softly carried off into the wind.

But your words caught the interest of a curious ear before it disappeared.

What happens now?

Curiouser and curiouser. He was not expecting such a confession. Though to be fair, he supposed you didn’t mean for anyone to hear it.

Chenya found joy being in your company. The shock in your bright eyes followed by your cute laugh sends a warm, giddy feeling in his heart that he just could not stop. He had a feeling he knew what these feelings could be but he was content with what he could get in the rare moments he can see you.

But now, when he realized what your cute reactions meant? That sends whole new exciting feelings within him. It’s fuzzy and warm as usual, but now also shocking and thrilling. The sneaky beastman is grinning for more than one reason now.

He won’t immediately confess back. Considering this wonderful predicament where you don’t know he knows of your affections, his playful nature compels him to milk the fun of this situation for all its worth.

If you thought his cheeky antics were bad enough, you haven’t seen his flirty side till now. Playful taps on the shoulders become sneaky grabs by the waist, and just when you think he’s gone, his signature grin would grace your vision as he fades into view, a little too close to your own face. Sometimes when he feels emboldened, Chenya would sweep you off your feet for a spontaneous walk along the sweet breeze.

When you’re finally at your wit’s end, when all his teasing and heart-fluttering gestures fills you to the point of combusting in flustered frustration, that’s when he’ll finally tell you his reciprocated feelings, perhaps while stealing a quick kiss when you least suspect it. All to see that terribly adorable look on your pretty face.

Every adventure requires a first step. I’m excited to see where we’ll go together from meow on~

How it happened

See, you thought he already knew. You swore he did. Why else would he tease you so much with his sweet compliments and flirty jokes? The mysterious senior spoke to you as though you were a naive child crushing on their older peer, which you supposed wasn’t entirely wrong.

The way he treated you with so much care and love that you wondered if he already suspected of your feelings and was being considerate to you. He listens to your rambles as though he has all the time in the world for you, compliments you on your achievements as though he’s genuinely proud of your hard work, and he jokes with you with that boyish charm of his. But the scarlet-eyed fae never pursued further with advances with you, which made you think that perhaps this was just who Lilia was, a strange but friendly man, unwilling to hurt your feelings. Were you grasping at straws and misconstruing his intentions?

With a heavy heart, you tried your best to give up your hopes but maintained a cordial bond with Lilia, not wanting to avoid the jovial fae so suddenly (well, without having to explain why anyways)

But one day, when you were walking with the smiling senior, he started talking about a souvenir shirt that Kalim had given him during their club meeting. It was a shirt patterned erratically with various colours and pictures of tiny bats littered about. It was an eccentric visual of fabric but it strangely fits the equally eccentric man.

“What are your thoughts? Would I not look absolutely adorable in this?” Lilia asked, holding the shirt in front in his uniform with a boyish smile, his fangs peeking out slightly. But you rolled your eyes as you sighed exasperated by this man’s antics.

“Don’t you think that’s unfair for you to ask me?” You looked at him with a pout, somewhat irritated at the mature fae you’re trying to get over. “Of course I’d said you would, considering how much I like you”

For a rare moment, Lilia turned wide-eyed at your words. “Pardon? Do you by chance… harbour feelings for me?”

Turns out, he didn’t know at all

What happens now?

Guess you can still surprise this old man. He had his suspicions but for all he knew that was how the youth were these days. He was fond of your shy expressions whenever he was around and he could hear the quickening of your heartbeat, but he didn’t want to assume. Perhaps you were just more on the skittish side.

In the centuries he lived, he saw love in many forms. In the recent centuries he lived, he got to experience some of those forms of love he’s seen, with the pain and joy that comes with it. To him, it couldn’t ask for more as he lives out the last few centuries he has left.

You however, were still vibrant like a freshly bloomed flower in its prime. Was that why he just couldn’t take his eyes off you? He couldn’t help but watch in admiration as you lived with almost enviable vigour. He felt pulled, entranced to be by your side for even just a moment, just to see that beautiful gleam of life (and love, he realized) in your eyes.

But Lilia felt a beat of guilt in his heart. Your life is so short in comparison to his own. You should be sharing your youth with someone as brilliant as yourself, not pining over an old soul like himself. Humans are fickle creatures but he supposed with such short lives, it’s best to be curious and experience all one can without regrets.

He would be honest with you, sharing his thoughts with you as though warning that your affections were better spent with someone that suited you better. It would be up to you to convince the stubborn fae that he was your choice, that you already decided he suited you just fine. All you’re asking from him is if he shared the same feelings as you did.

“I may have tried to get rid of my feelings before, but I’m choosing not to run away this time,” in your eyes, Lilia sees that same vibrant gleam that mesmerized him, almost breathing a new sense of life into him. “All I ask is if you feel the same way”

And he does. He’s lying to himself if he hasn't thought of a life with you where he could steal surprise kisses throughout the day, where he could bring you to soar through the night skies as he takes you to explore the world with him. He imagines a life of silliness but also a life of blissful content as he gazes at you like a beacon of light in his life, a new reason to live a bit longer.

Lilia feels ensnared by love once more, but the burning warmth in his soul is just too invigorating. He’s looking forward to this new chapter in his life, with you.

I do hope you’ve prepared yourself, my dear. Eternal love with a fae should not be taken lightly. But rest assured, I look forward to our new adventure

How it happened

You were Epel’s close friend and confidant, someone who he can share his achievements and woes with. Being so new to the college, the two of you depend on each other through thick or thin and along the way, you grew to see the lavender-haired freshman as more than just a companion.

He has a bit of a temper and is quick to the jump at times, but he was always there for you and even though he doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with them at times, he respects his seniors and takes their lessons to heart.

When he talks about how much he dislikes his height or his feminine features, you nodded along for his sake but you couldn’t tell him that you were actually in disagreement. You adore his fluffy locks that you occasionally got to touch with his permission and his light blue eyes felt like calming waves of the purest lake. Epel constantly swore to you that he’ll have his growth spurt and will even tower Leona in height, but you like how you could hold him close to you without issue.

You love all that he is, even if he’s not too keen on some parts himself

But you kept this all to yourself. You thought Epel had other priorities on his mind and you were scared that confessing would ruin the friendship you’d built with him. For now, you were content to be by his side for however long you can.

You were dead tired during a particularly harsh Flying class with Coach Vargas and you were barely conscious enough to keep your eyes open. It took everything you had to just nod along to whatever Epel was saying, something about some Savanaclaw students?

“Who they think they are, callin’ me cute like that? I outta rip off their yapper for underestimatin’ me.” You weren’t helping his point when you thought how cute his accent was as he grumbled about his day. You were falling in and out of consciousness but thought you should at least reply back to your friend…anything at all…

“I’m sorry…that happened…even though…I think…you’re really cute…”

You were already out cold to notice your friend frozen in place as you finished your drowsy comment, your head landing on his stiff shoulders.

What happens now?

ALDFIUAHLBWAIGLH

Congratulations, you broke your friend and you don’t even remember it. When you woke up, you couldn’t figure out why Epel was as bright red as his hometown’s apples. Epel couldn’t even bring it up without getting too tongue-tied, his accent sputtering out incomprehensible words.

The blue-eyed freshman was raking his brain for an explanation. You thought he was cute…really cute to be precise, but what does that mean? Did you like him? As in like-like him? Is it normal for non-countryside folk to just say something like that? But most students around here tend to mean it like an insult but you weren’t like them, you would never do that to him. So what did you mean by it??

Left without a choice, Epel thought about who he could ask about this, maybe one of his seniors. But he immediately reconsidered when he realized who his seniors were (Vil and Rook will never let this go and there’s no way Leona would entertain this conversation) and turned to the only adult he can trust, his meemaw.

In his letter, he asked his grandma what it means when someone you cherish calls you cute (not mentioning who) and after a few days of fidgeting and awkward encounters with very confused you, he finally got an answer from her.

“STOP SITTIN’ ON YOUR KEISTER TWIDDLIN’ ‘ER THUMBS! GO AND ASK, DAGNABBIT!”

And that’s how you were confronted by a flustered Epel about your cute comment one random school day. To be fair, you probably didn’t fare any better when you realized you let your thoughts slip out.

You may have confessed your attraction to him but Epel can still be the first to make the first move. Relationships and dating are all new to the petite freshman and honestly he felt a little weak in the knees, all the nerves wracking his body like his first broom ride. But the past few days, he couldn’t stop thinking about being with you, sweeping you off your feet, impressing you the only way he can, to have your eyes solely on him like he does when you’re around. Heck, he thought what it’d be like to grow old with you, holding you like no one else can as you spend day and night by each other’s side. All these thoughts and more is what spur him to take the next step.

I ain’t too great on love and romance, but I’ll work hard to show ya how much ya mean to me. I promise that!

[theemporium]

Character B, being someone who likes to hug something in their sleep, ends up using Character A as their makeshift pillow. Character A isn’t too keen on it at first but they end up accepting their fate. (It’s the best night of sleep they’ve probably ever had since they were a kid.) 

I need this as fluff with max because there was one interview where he said he wasn’t big on spooning/cuddling and I as this and immediately thought about it

this is so🥹thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

.

As much as the Dutchman tried to deny his feelings for you, it was clear to everyone else in the world that he was head over heels.

He was blunt with his words and how he felt, never shying away from them when questioned. Though, that being said, he wasn’t always the most aware of his own feelings. And when he was, it wasn’t instinctive for him to yell them from every rooftop so everyone in the world knew how he felt. 

Max bottled his feelings. He let them linger and fester until he was ready to confront them. And despite every single sign in the universe pointing out that he was in love with you, he was nowhere near saying the words aloud to anyone, or even himself.

But that didn’t stop him from showing you he loved you in simple gestures that felt like an instinct rather than a chore.

It was a surprise to most of the paddock that the two of you even became friends, let alone anything more. 

You were opposites in every sense of the word. Max was blunt and direct, you were calmer and more patient with people. Max was seen as a villain to a large majority of the Formula One world, whilst you were a walking, talking ray of sunshine. Max was the golden boy of Red Bull racing, and you were a hardworking member of the Mercedes team. 

And despite it all, you two were a bonded pair known throughout the paddock. 

There would be countless little things Max would do for you that would confuse the people of the paddock. The way he would seek you out the second he was relieved from his duties in the garage or the media pen. The way he would bring you snacks and drinks even if it meant venturing into a sea of silver to find you. The way he would always have an extra hoodie or jacket for you in case things got chilly by the track. The way he would always drive you to and from the paddock, even if it meant he had to stay longer after the races on Sunday when he could leave. 

Though your favourite ritual was the movie nights you would have. 

They were sporadic at best, but you were both committed when you had one. It was usually after one of you had a bad day, when you weren’t quite ready to talk it out but wanted the distraction regardless. 

It had been a tiring day for Max in the media pen, but when he saw the look on your face as he approached the Mercedes garage, he knew it was nothing in comparison to the day you had. He was soundless as he took your backpack from you and headed to the car, barely saying a word until you reached the hotel. He told you to change into something comfier and make your way to his hotel room afterwards. 

Dinner had already been ordered by the time you arrived, and he silently handed you the remote so you could choose the movie. 

Max’s lips twitched when he noticed you had picked New Moon, only snorting a little when you rolled your eyes and jabbed his side for judging your choice. But he remained quiet as you two ate, enjoying the movie as though you hadn’t made him watch it a million times. 

However, he failed to realise just how hard the day hit you because it wasn’t even thirty minutes into the movie when he felt your head on his shoulder. You were both lying back on the bed, the pillows fluffed behind you and the duvet covering you both. It was comfy and it made sense.

And yet, in all the movie nights you had together—in the whole time you had been friends—never once had you shared the bed. You would always make your way back to your hotel room by the end of the night. 

But here you were, fast asleep and tucked into his side. 

Max was frigid and tense at first. A part of him knew he could have just slid away from you, guided you towards the other side of the bed. He could have shaken you awake and carried you back to your hotel room. Hell, he could have even taken the couch or the floor if it meant he had his own space. 

But he found he didn’t really want to.

He told himself that it was the dinner and the long day that had tired him out. That he could no longer fight the sleepiness and exhaustion in his body, that it wouldn’t be worth the effort to move you away. He told himself all of that on a loop as he switched the tv off, as he shuffled down on the bed so he was comfy, as he let you wrap yourself around him like a koala. 

He told himself that he didn’t like it and it was a one time thing as he fell asleep. 

When he woke up in the morning, he was almost surprised to find that you were closer than you were before. Your legs were entangled and your arms were wound around his torso, your cheek pressed against his chest as you slept peacefully. 

He was warm, though it wasn’t unbearable. The heat and weight of you pressed up against him wasn’t as irritating as he assumed it would be. It was comforting. In an odd way, it was soothing, assuring even. 

He was almost annoyed when you woke up.

“You’re not as grumpy as you usually are,” his teammate noted when he entered the garage that morning, ready for the first free practice session of the day.

“I guess I had a good night’s sleep,” Max replied simply with a shrug of his shoulders.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Did you get laid or something?”

Max rolled his eyes. “That’s not the only way to have a good night's sleep.”

Daniel just raised his hands in mock defence. “Alright, don’t bite my head off,” he murmured, though there was an amused smile on his face. “Is it a new stuffed bear? Maybe I should put you down for a nap if you’re getting cranky.”

His chest almost tightened at the thought of napping with you, of having you wrapped around him once again, of feeling that sense of calmness wash over him. 

“You’re hilarious, mate.”

“I know.” 

Yet, Max couldn’t help but spend the rest of the day wondering how he could convince you to sleep in his bed again.

.

[disneyprincemuke]

never grow up * fem!driver

a collection of stories of when she first started out in the paddocks to the end of the season

pairings: sebastian vettel x fem!driver

word count: 4.7k

notes: hey i started this last tuesday and jusT finished it because i had the longest week known to mankind LMFAO

(series masterlist)

pre-season testing, 2023

sebastian is almost knocked back at the sudden presence of another in what he assumed was going to be an empty garage.

test session wasn’t for another couple of hours. but there, at the far end of the garage’s exit towards the pit, sat the driver. she sits on the floor, slouched over as her legs are crossed over one another.

“you’re early!”

“i couldn’t sleep,” she answers almost immediately. she turns her head to get a glance at sebastian. she gives him a small smile before turning away again to face the empty pit and grandstands. “i figured i should just sit here and take it all in.”

he smiles, closing the door behind him. he manoeuvres in and stops right next to her. he puts his hands on his hips. “i know, right? i didn’t sleep well days leading up to my rookie year either.”

she turns her head and furrows her eyebrows. “i didn’t think someone like you got nervous.”

“oh, i was terrified,” he laughs, finally bending down and dropping himself on the concrete floor next to her. “but i can only imagine the nerves, especially in your circumstance.”

“yeah, a woman in formula 1.” when he turns to look at her, she’s fiddling around with her thumbs. “first of its kind in decades.”

she laughs dryly before leaning back, resting her hands against the gravel. years ago, following her friends into formula 3 seemed like the biggest feat. then eventually, prema took a chance on her and threw her into formula 2 with the big guys.

even then, racing on the track and sharing the paddocks with bigger names like max verstappen and fernando alonso, formula 1 still seemed so far away. with good reason too, considering that her promotion announcement had been torn apart and overanalysed by the media.

everything, from mid december to early february, everyone had been tearing her apart.

but sebastian has been watching her since she started racing in f3 in place of oscar, after moving up to f2. she’s a joy to watch on the track.

and while he’s put away his years of being a villain to the public eye, he lives to prove everyone wrong. his first year as a race engineer, and then to have a woman as his driver? he would love to see it.

he is confident in the way she holds herself behind the wheel of a race car. there’s no doubt she’s a world champion in the making.

“no,” sebastian wags a finger in the air, “you’re a driver in formula 1. everyone in this garage — in the factory — supports you. we wouldn’t have put everything in developing the car for you if we didn’t think you’d be out here wrecking everybody.”

she sighs with a shrug. “i guess.”

he pats her firmly on the shoulder. “i’ll be here every step of the way, kid.”

bahrain, 2023

sebastian feels a presence looming over him as he scans the car with the andretti's engineers. he turns around with an eyebrow raised, locking eyes with the younger girl staring up at him with wide innocent eyes and a hopeful grin. a small smile stretches on his face as he straightens his back. “hi!”

“hi.” she glances away momentarily and licks her lips. she meets his eyes again with a soft sigh and a slightly wider grin. she hums as she sways, fingertips tapping against one another. “i have an interview.”

he nods hesitantly, raising an eyebrow. “alright.”

“okay.”

sebastian watches her curiously, not moving away from her position in front of him. she hugs she can on pepsi against her stomach as her eyes dart all over the garage. “is everything okay?”

“of course!” she answers almost too fast. she perks up with a smile and curious eyes. “i have a favour to ask.”

“anything, kid. what is it?”

she takes a deep breath and breathes out slowly. she looks away momentarily again and huffs. “well, you see… people keep staring at me when i’m walking around. it’s kinda… scary. they scare me.”

“okay? are they saying anything to you? who is it? give me names.”

“they’re not! but i can feel them whisper as i pass by — that’s never a good sign.”

“i’m sure they’re not gossiping about you, kid.”

“yeah, but, you know? i don’t like the possibility that they might be doing just that. and sometimes they point.”

sebastian smiles, slowly realising what she’s getting at. “do you want me to come with you?”

she hums, scrunching her nose and pressing her lips together. “do i? want you to come with me? what a bother!”

he shrugs, slowly walking away from her. “that’s okay, i was just offering. i’ll just see you–“

“yes! yes, seb! please, please,” she whines, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the exit to the paddocks. “please come with me. i’m scared, i’m nervous, and oscar and logan are missing.”

he laughs, throwing his clipboard onto the table. “okay, let’s go. i’ll show you the best spots, kid.”

saudi arabia, 2023

she stares with wide eyes as she tries to process the question in her head. it’s the first of its kind, to be asked something like that. it echoes in her head like some of record player, unsure how she’s supposed to answer that question.

“do you think you’ll last longer than a couple of races like the last woman in formula 1?”

are they waiting for her to slip up and bring another woman down? a woman that’s basically urged her to even start racing in the first place?

is she supposed to say something that they could twist to make it sound like she’s against other women making it to where she is now? she’s just not sure. who even thinks of that question?

“is that question really appropriate?” sebastian steps forward with a hand on her back. “did you really sit there, watching this brilliant young woman walk towards you, and think that that’s an appropriate question to ask?”

“no, like i mean–“

“she will no longer be doing interviews with you. i don’t give a fuck who you work for,” sebastian mutters, slowly whisking the shocked girl away, shielding her away from the cameras.

she stays planted on the ground, head turning to follow sebastian slowly walking away. “no, it’s okay, really. i was just a little taken aback by the question.”

“no, this interview is over.”

sebastian shoots the reporter one last look before successfully whisking the young driver away from the cameras. “you don’t have to answer every question, you know?”

“it’s rude if i don’t,” she sighs, shaking her head. “i have to answer. what if they start thinking i’m a snob?”

“why is their problem if you’re a snob? if they ask you stupid questions, they can’t keep expecting sane answers,” sebastian scoffs. “write your narrative, don’t let them dictate and twist your answers.”

azerbajian, 2023

“seb,” she cries, nuzzling into his side as the marshals escort her. she has tears in her eyes as she approaches him by the medical building, finally pulling her hair back as sebastian takes her into his arms. “i’m sorry.”

“no,” he hums, rubbing her arm gently. “the important thing is that you’re okay, kid. don’t think about the crash at all.”

she shakes her head against his chest, finally letting out a soft sob. “but it’s so unlike me to crash. i’ve been racing for years!”

“these things happen.” he cranes his neck and pulls away slightly to glance at her face. she’s all red with tears streaming down her face, hiding her face away from curious race attendees. “you know what we should do?”

she mutters a soft ‘what’, rubbing her nose roughly as she glances up at him with sad eyes. he’s only gotten to know her better recently in light of him taking her under his wing, but it’s a very different energy when she’s like this. it’s not something he wants to get used to.

“i’ll walk you to the med bay, and then i’ll go and get you some ice cream. does that sound good?”

she shakes her head and sighs, letting sebastian wrap a protective arm around her as they walk. “i don’t want ice cream.”

sebastian gasps softly, flashing her a bewildered stare. “what? you don’t what?”

she sniffles. “i don’t feel like eating ice cream.”

“oh, come on,” he giggles, squeezing her cheek very lightly. “i’ll get you extra marshmallows and even add sprinkles in.”

she looks at him from the corners of her eyes, a small smile playing on her lips at his suggestion. “really? and extra chocolate syrup? just this once?”

sebastian nods with a smile. he moves over to her other side when he sees a camera approaching them, waving a hand in the air to shoo them away. “i’ll even let you eat a whole pint.”

australia, 2023

sebastian trails behind her, juggling between his phone and her helmet in her hands. he watches with a proud smile as she is stopped by a reporter.

“what does it feel like to be the first woman to score in formula 1 after years of the drought?”

she giggles giddily, stopping to answer a question. “hi! um, yes, it feels amazing to be the one to do it. it’s not a lot of points, but it really means a lot to me.”

“of course. do you think you can maintain this performance throughout your rookie season? what are some challenges you think you may face in the year to come?”

her eyes widen at the several questions for her. it feels just like they haven’t had any serious questions regarding the race for her since she started the year. sometimes they do, but it’s never really anything good that would reflect on her.

she looks over her shoulder, meeting sebastian’s eyes, as she smiles at him widely, as if to ask him ‘do you hear these legitimate questions they’re asking me?’. sebastian only gives her a warm smile in return with a thumbs-up.

she turns away and tries to come up with a proper answer to the question. “i think with sebastian’s help, it’s definitely made the transition a lot easier. hopefully i can stay consistent in the races to come. and my biggest challenge? definitely trying to catch up to max.”

they share a laugh. she turns around momentarily, looking at sebastian for approval of what she’s just rambled on about. sebastian gives her another smile and a nod, making a gesture to turn her back around.

“well, i think that’s everyone’s biggest challenge thus far into the season. thank you for your time today and good luck.”

miami, 2023

she holds the phone against her ear, temple laying against the window to stare at the paddocks. “where are you?”

“what do you mean?” sebastian’s voice comes through her phone, making her raise an eyebrow. “i don’t start as early as you today.”

“what? i’m supposed to walk into the paddocks by myself?” she shrieks, lifting her head. she looks around outside the car, watching the several people walking in and out.

“yes? aren’t you with oscar and logan?”

she tears her eyes away and turns to the other two men inside with her. “i don’t trust either of these idiots to not embarrass me walking in!”

logan throws his arms in the air, turning to her from the driver’s seat. his arm pokes between the two front seats, reaching to the back to try and hit her. she scowls and smacks his hand away, scowering away into the far corner from logan.

“you will be okay, kid. would you rather you walk in by yourself?”

she lets a moment pass. “okay. you got me there.” she sighs and rolls her eyes. “fine.”

monaco, 2023

“i’ve got an interview!”

he sees a shadow pass through the bottom of the car, prompting sebastian to jump up. the girl is already halfway towards the large exit that leads to the pitstop with a lollipop in hand. “coming!”

“it’s okay!” she holds her hands up in front of sebastian, grinning as he comes to a stop about three steps from the car.

sebastian tilts his head and frowns slightly. “what?”

“yeah, it’s a rookie interview. i got my bodyguards with me again today!”

he raises his eyebrows with an impressed grin. “oh! you’ll be okay without me?”

“yeah!”

as if on cue, two men — one in orange and on in blue — pulls up to the garage. “let’s go, loser!”

“okay,” sebastian laughs, greeting the two with a smile. he pats his driver on the back. “be back in one piece. i’ll see you later.”

“absolutely,” she grins. she runs around the car, throwing her arms around him and squeezing him. “you got my pepsi in the freezer?”

“i got 2 of them in the freezer just for you kid,” sebastian whispers, squeezing her back. he presses a kiss to the top of her head and waves as she starts walking away. “be safe!”

canada, 2023

“you don’t possibly need me just to get a cup of coffee downstairs, do you?” sebastian sighs. despite his complaint, he still follows the young driver down the stairs of the andretti racing home to get a drink.

and it’s been one their routines every race weekend: getting coffee together after their daily team meeting in his office. it’s endearing, really, how much she relies on him every weekend when she feels that the paddocks have their eyes glued to her too much.

“do you not like spending time with me anymore, seb?” she jokes, looking over her shoulder to tease him. “you can just say so.”

he laughs in bouts of sarcastic ‘haha’s and scowls at her slightly. “that’s not what i mean. half the season has come and gone — shouldn’t you be more comfortable roaming by yourself?”

“i guess,” she shrugs. “i just feel like being with you today!”

he pouts his bottom lip out and presses a hand against his chest. “oh, thank you. how thoughtful.”

sebastian stops in the kitchen of the office, grabbing the two custom andretti mugs with their names on the handle. his cup’s got her name and autograph, and hers with his. he extends his hand to her. “you know how i like my coffee, kid.”

“of course! i’m like your personal barista.”

austria, 2023

sebastian pushes the door open with a soft knock. “kid, are you better?”

“no! go away!” she shrieks, chucking a small pillow towards the door. “where are my meds? is logan seriously not back with them yet?”

he puts his hands in the air to surrender. “he’s trying to get here as quick as possible. are the cramps still bad?”

suddenly he feels like he wants to crawl into a random hole and stay there — the glare she is giving him simply made him wish that he never bothered to open his mouth.

“i don’t know. you tell me at the state you see me in,” she growls, eyebrows furrowed. “like–“

she whines again, clutching herself as she curls herself into a smaller ball on her beanbag. she closes her eyes and nuzzles her face into the stuffed koala with a soft cry.

“kid,” sebastian sighs, scratching his head. it sucks seeing anybody like that. “is there anything i can do to help? logan should be here any minute.”

“i want pepsi! freezing pepsi! like, with small bits of frozen pepsi in it — that’s how cold i want it.”

he hums. “i thought you shouldn’t be drinking cold drinks on your period?”

“you asked me how to help! i want pepsi! my frozen can of pepsi!”

he scrambles to run out of the room. “okay! i’ll get it from the fridge!”

silverstone, 2023

she shakes her arms and adjusts the neckline of her fireproofs. “i can do it.”

“yeah!” sebastian cheers, pumping his fist into the air. “i believe in you!”

“exactly. i can do it!”

but despite her words of encouragement for herself, her feet stay planted on the ground. her fists are balled by her side as her body stiffens up by the door with a scowl.

sebastian tilts his head, moving his head around hers to take a look at her face. he glances at the door. “do you have any intention to actually do it?”

“some time in the next hour, maybe,” she sighs. she turns around to sebastian and shakes her head. “i can’t do it, mate. i want to go home.”

“what?” sebastian throws his head back. he turns her back around and pushes her forward. “i promise you won’t die.”

“how do you know that?”

“you’re just walking the paddocks to the building to film a shoot with oscar and logan. you’ll survive the 2 minute walk, i swear.”

she huffs and pushes the glass doors open, glancing back at sebastian. “i’ll make a run for it so nobody has the time to realise it’s me.”

he shrugs with an impressed smile. if he were in her shoes, he never would have thought of that. “whatever works, kid.”

italy, 2023

“seb.” the girl drags her feet along the floors of the garage, hunched over slightly with a hand clutching her stomach. “how long til the first round of practice?”

“about 20 minutes,” sebastian says, looking up from his clipboard. by the sound of her voice, he already knows what’s going on. his suspicions are confirmed when he sees her at her state. “fuck’s sake.”

“i’m sorry. i promise i won’t take too long in the toilet.”

“we told you to stop eating ice cream before you have to get on the track,” sebastian sighs, throwing his head back. he puts the clipboard down, annoyed, yet he still reaches forward to wrap a protective arm around her shoulders and guides her towards the door leading to the paddocks. “your track anxiety doesn’t go well with ice cream, remember?”

“the idea was good in theory — it was pretty warm earlier.”

sebastian sighs and shakes his head. “you know where to find the meds for your stomach, right?”

she frowns, looking up at him. the pale lips and the sweaty forward simply told him everything he needed to know. he laughs with a small nod. “okay, i’ll deliver them to you with a glass of really cold water, okay?”

she nods with a small smile. “okay. thank you, seb.”

singapore, 2023

“what do i do with this?”

sebastian slowly turns to the girl with a scowl on his face. “what do you mean?”

“what do i do with this?” she repeats, putting her arms in the air in question. she turns to look sebastian in the eyes with eyebrows furrowed. “where do i put it? is it even mine?”

“they will make a replica for you to bring home.”

“but i live in an apartment with two hyperactive kids — they’ll only break it.”

“your ki– you mean kidnapper and stubby? just put it up away from them!”

“i,” she trails off, shaking her head. she lets her stare linger on the trophy sitting on the table in her driver’s room with worry. “i kinda don’t want it unless it’s a trophy for a race win.”

“complacent!” sebastian laughs. “are you that confident about being a race winner?”

“you don’t think i could win a race?”

“wait.”

“that’s kinda mean, seb. i don’t know.”

“you know that’s not what i mean.”

she shrugs and turns back to the trophy. “we just need to play bumper cars with max on the track, maybe.”

“maybe? definitely.”

she shrugs and puts her hands on her hips. “i reckon we just need more street circuits to throw max off. then maybe we get liam to be my teammate next year!”

qatar, 2023

sebastian looks up at the sound of the click of his door. he raises an eyebrow, frowning at the girl trying to silently escaping his office. “where are you going, kid?”

she stops with a hand on the door, head poking out as she smiles. “i’m going to get us coffee downstairs.”

he frowns and furrows his eyebrows. “without me?”

she squeaks slightly as she raises her eyebrows in shock. “i was gonna bring it back up here to you so we can chat while we discuss race strategies.”

“oh.”

“is something wrong? do you prefer drinking something else?”

sebastian shakes his head with a small smile. “no reason. you used to ask me to get coffee with you.” he puts a hand on his chest. “have you grown to hate me, kid?”

“aw, seb! it’s not like that!” she coos, running back into the room. she runs over to his side, resting herself on the armrest and throws her arms around sebastian. “i just thought i’d like to finally go get it myself, you know? you won’t be around forever.”

sebastian has to admit — that one kind of hurt him a little. he’d come out of retirement to step into an unlikely position in the sport so he could be part of her development as a driver. and also because he was starting to regret his decision slightly, but that’s besides the point.

and also the fact that he’s grown quite fond of her. while he’s got three children of his own back home, it’s just different with her.

“wow, kid. counting down the days to my eventual retirement that i won’t take back?”

“no, you misunderstand me, seb,” she giggles, resting her cheek on top of his head. “i just wanted to be a big girl; like you always tell me to be in the paddocks every weekend!”

brazil, 2023

“you’ll be okay without me?” sebastian hums, raising an eyebrow as he stands in her hotel room. he sinks into her pillows on the bed as he watches the young girl darting around the room to gather her things. “i can come if you want.”

“logan and oscar will be with me,” she grins, scrunching her nose with a soft giggle. “unless you would like to come with us, seb?”

he scoffs, folding his arms over his chest. “no way. i don’t understand valorant like you kids — i would have more questions than anything else. you don’t want that, kid.”

she laughs, shoving her items into her small purse. “it’s blythe’s finals! and i’m just as clueless about valorant as you are. the 3 of us know nothing.”

“i’m just upset you hadn’t invited me in the first place.”

“it was last minute! just come with us, seb!”

“i don’t have a ticket.”

“one of the players’ my sister. we’ll find a way to get you in without a ticket.”

sebastian raises his eyebrow. “wow, corruption has gotten to you quick.”

“no, that’s literally how we’re able to attend. blythe pulled strings.”

he rolls his eyes, a small smile growing on his lips as he pushes himself off the bed. he actually does want to come along. finding out he wasn’t even part of the original plan hurt, yes, but he doesn’t want to push himself to be a part of plans that he’s not invited to.

“okay, if you insist.”

las vegas, 2023

she raises an eyebrow, scoffing. “you’re fucking kidding, right?”

max raises his eyebrows, turning to the girl with an impressed grin. while she’s not one to shy from cussing away from cameras, doing it with a room full of cameras and reporters is simply a different thing. he glances at sebastian who has his chest puffed out and eyebrows furrowed since the question was being asked.

the question was easy: how do you do your hair for race weekends, and how does it always look good after the race?

kimi is right, his lecture that weekend in austin has finally taken its mark in her brain. why are all the questions directed at her during press conferences always redirected back to her womanhood?

if she wanted to be asked about her makeup routine and collection, she’d have started an instagram live instead of wasting her time on this stupid couch.

“it’s unfair, don’t you think? you’ve asked me one question about racing, now suddenly it’s about my hair?”

“in a sense that–“

“i’m just curious. i’ve raced the races of what i can give this year to prove that i should be respected as a driver. why are you asking me about my hair?” she raises an eyebrow. “you’re a 50-year-old man. what have you got to learn from my haircare routine?”

max snorts and sebastian bursts into laughter. she clenches her jaw, genuinely getting slightly agitated. she meets sebastian’s eyes who only gives her a thumbs up with the proudest smile.

it’s nice to finally see her standing up for herself.

abu dhabi, 2023

sebastian holds the phone up to his ear, looking into the designated car that she’d taken to the paddocks that night.

“yeah?” a soft voice comes through, getting overshadowed by the loud music in the background. “what’s up, seb?”

“where are you? i’m at your car.”

he hears her hum in confusion. “what do you mean? i’m already in the paddocks, seb.”

he scratches his head, raising his eyebrow as he looks towards the busy entrance of the paddocks. “what do you mean? i thought you’d wait for me outside? aren’t logan and oscar coming in later than we are?”

“yes. but i arrived before you so i thought i’d just wait for you here,” she explains. “did i forget something?”

“no, it’s just,” he sighs and starts making his way to the row of gantries, “you’d usually wait for me if you were by yourself. i thought we were doing the same — i completely forgot that you’re a big girl now.”

he hears her laugh, louder and wholeheartedly. “seb, that’s so sweet! i can’t believe you looked for me even though i haven’t said anything!”

he rolls his eyes. “oh, shut up.”

— bonus

“seb, look what i got you over the break!” she shrieks, jogging into his room with a paper bag in her hands. “i got us matching somethings!”

he raises an eyebrow, looking up from his phone. “what? you got me something?”

“yeah! i wouldn’t have gotten my first points without you, so i wanted to get us something to celebrate our first points as a duo,” she giggles, sitting on the seat on the other side of the table.

she puts the paper bag down and starts pulling a set of mug out of it. she hands him a mug and holds up her own excitedly.

he looks at the mug. it’s got her name on the handle and her signature messily printed over their names mushed together into one in big and blocky purple letters.

“look at the bottom.”

‘long live — all the magic we made’ with the date of the australia race is carved into the bottom of the mug.

he smiles, looking up. “you really didn’t have to, kid. but thank you. this is so thoughtful.”

she claps silently, jumping on the spot with a giggle. “it’s just a small token to remember one of the times we made history together.”

taglist: @wcnorris @treehouse-mouse @laura-naruto-fan1998 @mindless-rock @ironmaiden1313 @angsthology @cherry-piee @christianpulisic10 @elliegrey2803 @cashtons-wife @darleneslane @nikfigueiredo @happy-nico @namgification @sadg3 @a10vely-yutazen @mellowarcadefun @glitterf1 @megatrilss1885 @peqch-pie @gentlyweeps-world @woozarts @meadhbhcavanagh @inejismywife @2bormaybenot @love4lando

[oofthwoods]

'23 grid ── ˙ ̟ the echo !!

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 :: an overview of fem!driver relationship with a few drivers on the grid. just a bunch of cute headcanons that i can't get out of my head. i only added the ones i feel she would be closest with, but feel free to ask me about any other driver!

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 :: recommend reading the introduction for the backstory.

˒ ⌕ — MICK SCHUMACHER ( 47 )

more than mere teammates, mick and her have been glued to the hip ever since they met. with both of their parents being ex-formula one drivers for the same team, it was clear from the very start that they would see each other very often. as kids, wondering around the paddock, as teens, supporting each other on the track and now, as young adults, competing against each other on porsche and f1.

while mick is a sweet, introverted guy who tends to think about every word that leaves his miuth, she is the complete opposite — loud, bashful and someone who should have a bigger filter between your brain and mouth. is the epitome of orange cat × golden retriever, and fans eat it up.

while mick sometimes can calm her, it's more likely that she brings him into her shenanigans.

˒ ⌕ — MAX VERSTAPPEN ( 33 )

her and max couldn't have a more different upbringing. while he was roughly shaped into a champion by his father, she had been carefully brought into the motorsport world by yours.

they've met during her years as a red bull junior, and what started with max being a bit annoyed by her non-stop talking quickly turned into an honest friendship, where they both can say whatever they want.

it leads to max saying the most unhinged things and her being the only one who jokes along instead of feeling concerned.

˒ ⌕ — LEWIS HAMILTON ( 44 )

probably one of the cutest driver pairings in the grid. fans love to dig out old picture from the two and compare to it now.

lewis has always had a soft spot for her, ever since she was a kid roaming around in the paddock. he would show her his car, explaining all the things to her and claiming that his team was better than whatever team her dad was on.

once she came back to the paddock, now as a driver, he took one look at her and immediately took her under his wing. they both are, in their own ways, alone within the rest of the grid and he wouldn't let the media, or anyone for what matters, dim her light.

on the daily, he is always checking up on her, not in a overbearing fatherly way, but more as an older brother figure.

during her first months he managed to convince the media outlets to pair them both together for every interview, and he was always quick to shut down any stupid question sent her way.

if she annoys him for long enough, she manages to make him agree to coordinate his outfits with her.

˒ ⌕ — FERNANDO ALONSO ( 14 )

similar to lewis, she met alonso when she was very young. although he had a bad reputation during that time, she always loved to hang out with him, because she loved how cool he looked every time he won a race.

it took him some time to warm up to her, as he was never that great with kids when he was younger, but when she gifted him a drawing she had made of him winning a race, he was done for. yes, he was still seen as some sort of villain, but everyone agreed that he looked more human when she was on him arms.

he would grab her from her father's garage (with his permission, of course) and would take her to his, always waiting with her favorite flavor of pizza. it became a tradition for the both of them to eat it before a race, being his or hers.

whenever he could, he would watch her races from her garage, proudly wearing team merchandise with her name on it. when she won her f2 championship, he made sure to stand closely to the podium, and he would deny it, but he cried a bit when she raised her trophy.

such a cute duo because he tries to keep up with the things she likes, but still doesn't fully understand everything, so one day he would randomly say that her outfits is slaying and would leave with a polite smile while she stands there, confused, wondering where the hell did he learn that.

still tries to continue their pizza traditions <3

˒ ⌕ — LANDO NORRIS ( 04 )

they both barely knew each other before her debut in f1, but somehow clicked instantly. it might be because of their self depreciated tendencies, or their constant sarcasm. who knows? the only thing that matters is that when a reporter asks a stupid question, they can communicate with a single glance.

lando tries to get her intro photography but gives up once she couldn't fully understand how to correctly operate a camera. claims that she is a pretty good model to make up for it <3

somehow they know everything about everyone. it's a mix of lando knowing the drivers very well, and her knowing a lot of the mechanics of different teams. whenever something happens in the paddock, they both definitely know.

˒ ⌕ — GEORGE RUSSELL ( 63 )

met simply because she thought his pose was so funny that she had to ask him if he thought about it previously or decided to just wing it during filming. he was slightly confused that she seemed so friendly after they had just net, but quickly understood that was simply how she acted.

the most meme worthy duo. with his perfect timed actions and her dynamic facial expressions, their faces are always seen together plastered on twitter.

the butt of most of her jokes. she constantly sends him tiktoks and he claims that he is tired of it, but always sees each one and gives a little commentary.

if lewis is her caring older brother, george is her annoying one.

˒ ⌕ — OSCAR PIASTRI ( 81 )

the two of them have a long running joke because they don't know when they met. they've never competed against each other, as he was always one year above in the series, and never raced for the same team, but somehow, they feel like you've always been friends.

(they once actually sat down to try and trace back to their first meeting, but only got as far as to a gala in 2020, but they both remember already being friends during that.)

people thought they would never see them interact because of their distinct personalities and were very surprised when she pulled him into a hug after their race in bahrain.

always bantering and joking, oscar likes that she understand his sense of humor and don't take it too seriously.

˒ ⌕ — ALEX ALBON ( 23 )

met solely because she felt the need to tell him how pretty his girlfriend was. he was very confused but appreciated the compliment (even though it wasn't dedicated to him).

after that he kept getting drawn by her straight to the point comments, always failing to conceal his laughter after she says something, either during debriefing or interviews.

she pretty much became his and lily's daughter. they take her out to eat after races, lily tries to teach her how to golf and alex convinces her to die her hair if she scores at least 10 ponths.

[mickeym0xley]

hi. i dont go here but I wanna talk.

imagine being Josef Newgarden, 13 and after trying a few sports and not being too good at any, you starting karting, you immediately pick up four titles. you love it. you travel to europe and become the first american to get a Formula Ford Festival title. Europe is harsh to you and in 2011 you return back to america. Something about the home soil fuels you and you win an Indy lights championship. you get into indycar the next year.

meanwhile, across the world in New Zealand, Scott Mclaughlin becomes the youngest driver to win a Supercars race. He breaks the record for most wins in a single season. He's dominant, simple. He's just like you in every way possible. Little do you know, your future best friend is watching you become Penske Perfect. He's watching and rooting for you from an ocean over.

In 2021, Scott comes over from Supercars. You werent ever too close to anyone on the grid- but you two click. You were so used to keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, that you let him in.

in 2021, you have a best friend. you both know that being teammates and friends won't work for long. you both can bet on it long before it happens. in 2022 you create a youtube channel and start making little videos with Scott. People like you guys, they think you're funny. You're not just Josef Newgarden, 2x Indycar champion and Penske driver, but also you're 1/2 of Bus Bros. This is the closest you've ever been with a teammate on this level. It's an emotional dynamic. It carries on into 2023 with a little less passion. Heartbreak in inevitable. Some days you wanna make sure he's okay, other days you hope he suffers. You wanna break his leg- quick and aggressively, he wants to beat your skull in. You'll film a Bus Bros episode that weekend and pretend you didn't openly say that in an interview. You mindlessly believe it will be resolved, that you two can fix it when it falls apart. Scott is a realist, saying you're a limited duo. You're both too egotistical to believe you're wrong is what he says.

2023 wraps up and it's your worst season finish. What happened to Penske perfection? You were bigger than the whole sky, a demon on ovals. You were everything Penske represented. Scott's making you soft. What happened to your perfection that people said was impossible? Scott is not only your best friend, but your teammate. And he's starting to win. He's the friend you held as close as your enemies until you realized he was just like them. Coming into the 2024 season, you unfollow everyone. Rumors are spiraling and you end Bus Bros, quietly taking down the merch site. Scott refuses to answer questions besides saying to ask you about it.

It's the streets of St. Pete, Penske has an illegal car- you all know about it. You and Scott get a 1-2. Podiums are publicity, everyone has their eyes on you. Be as cordial as you can, you'll crop him out of your photos later on instagram.

The cooldown room is more tense, Scott refuses to sit by you. The cars illegal, they figure it out in Long Beach. The St. Pete 1-2 gets stripped away from you. Scott sees things level and you're hungry only for another win, to be seen as the winner you once were. The Barber press conference is an embarrassment for you, you're spilling your guts on a white table while cameras flash. Scott admits to it and takes subtle digs at you in an interview. (x,x)

Scott takes pole position at the 500. Scott leads the most laps. But you won. Your hunger motivated you and here it is, the proof you're better. You lost your best friend for it. you're the first back to back Indy 500 race winner since 2001-2002. People are calling you the villain. This is how it ends. Scott makes fun of you during your speech, "I still love you my bus bro." And thats how it ends. You're still cropping eachother out of posts. You seldomly talk. It's not over though, and it never will be.

Oh and Will Power is there.

[riacte]

Big Terracotta and the "Let's overthrow Rendog" storyline

My knee jerk reaction to Ren saying they would be making minigames to fight over the permits because they wanted the plot to progress was "oh no NOT again". I initially thought of the minigames in the King Ren arc finale but I suppose it's also similar to the Mycelium War finale. I love minigames, but it's like another Ren vs Scar plot, which might very well (but not necessarily) extend into Neighbourhood vs Mountain plot (and I guess the Redditors will cry about a "civil war" because they've been anticipating it since the season began).

First of all: Big T is basically Ministry rebranded. It doesn't contain everyone from the Neighbourhood, but it's inherently linked. From what I remember of that stream from months ago, Ren's idea was for the Neighbourhood (at the time the Ministers) to band together and sell terracotta. To me, the Neighbourhood feels like it's become a conglomerate of its own: they live next to each other, they collab together, build farms and minigames together, and they have storylines together. The Ministry storyline pretty obviously formed the basis and set the tone. False's rivers permeate through the entire neighbourhood. They have a meeting spot and maps and roads and villager set ups and the bank of Iskall. It's not just "people conveniently live close to each other"— it's "people whose individual storylines intertwine". We got invested in the Ministry storyline. The minister roles felt fairly early season to me, so no surprise that it ended. Now we get Big T, which seems like an optimistic look forward with the idea of a "permanent" branded group because it's about selling a highly wanted commodity.

But what if it's not.... permanent? What if Short-T gets the permits? What then? Another rebrand? I have absolutely no doubts that the Neighbourhood, broadly speaking, will continue to hang out as a neighbourhood. At least until they run out of space / ideas in there. So it's not like they'll stop interacting if Big T ceases to become a thing, but that's exactly what it is— Big T gives them something to do. A common storyline. A collab opportunity.

Back to the Ministry storyline. It's a typical "Rendog seizes power" arc that we've seen before, prominently in S9 King Ren arc. But the thing is, it kind of fails at sculpting Ren as this awful leader who needs to be overthrown. (Partially due to Cleo's mic not working when they suggested overthrowing Ren, and there were also talks of people doing a coup, but in the end Ren decided to take the matters in his own hands.) Ren tries to be incompetent and bossy but they all end up indulging him. Because, despite everything, Ren is good at bringing people together, both in and outside of the game. He organises stream weekends (the others were thanking Ren on his shift during the last stream weekend, a while ago on another stream weekend Scar made Ren tear up with his heartfelt words). He "annoys" people into following him, and then he gets scared of the power, "annoys" people into overthrowing him, and BOOM Rendog kickstarts another plotline by playing the villain (again. And again).

(Arguably, Third Life also kinda followed this formula. I had a feeling Ren was trying to make the Red King unlikable by barging into people's houses and demanding them join the Red Army, and Martyn did "claim" he had "planned" to "betray Ren" from day one (looking at the camera with knowing but non-judgmental stare) but didn't do it.)

Point is, Ren has the personal charisma and thick enough skin to start groups and wrangle people into joining them. He's silly and the hermits love him, so they kind of bemusedly smile and let Ren drag them along. That's his first way of uniting people. Ren's second way of uniting people is by playing the villain, which he often employs and tries pushing it into this direction. In the Ministry plotline, the first way worked, but nobody cared enough to overthrow Ren (lol) so the second way didn't work that well.

... And I feel like Ren doesn't trust himself to play the role of a good leader. He has to be evil. Because he likes dramatics and being publicly humiliated (side glance) and killed. And also because he doesn't like playing the role of a good leader despite having clear visions of infrastructure / change he wants to achieve (S10 roads, S9 Hermit Quests). If anyone's dreaming big about community storylines and banding together to work on something, it's Ren.

So my fear for the Big T storyline is that Ren will seize power again and turn evil so they can overthrow him and Ren volunteers to be the villain for plot progression. I like seeing Ren being in the leader role. But to see him be overthrown again feels a little sad considering what they all went through so far. I don't want more self sabotage. I don't want Ren to go "yeah it's fine you can have it". I don't want Big T to lose the permits and disband. Obviously Big T isn't just Ren, but Ren is the main guy who does story and roleplay.

Good news: Big T contains competitive people who will no doubt enjoy defeating Scar and Bdubs. Bad news: those are the exact same type of people who like trapping Ren in pits. Even if Big T as a whole pulls through, I hope Ren doesn't do something stupid on purpose to set himself up. I want the power of friendship and neighbourhood solidarity to win. It's such a good overarching storyline and content.

[stillness-in-green]

To Those Left Behind: Answering the anger of the survivors in My Hero Academia vs. Hosoda Mamoru’s Belle

Yes, it's another "What [X] Did Right That BNHA Is Doing Wrong" post. I'm not trying to make this a series, but what's a girl to do when everywhere she looks, she sees other stories that are handling elements of BNHA's endgame with far more grace and rigor? Hit the jump.

The Formula: The Hero vs. The Critic

A bugbear of mine in superhero fiction is when The Hero is presented with someone critiquing their heroism who immediately revokes their objections when The Hero saves them in turn.  The basic shape of the story is as follows:

The Hero is confronted by The Critic in some situation that lacks immediate danger.  The Critic has issues with The Hero’s day-saving activities.  Perhaps in some earlier battle between The Hero and Some Villain, The Critic suffered property damage; they might also be an innocent bystander (or relative thereof) who was harmed in the fight.  They might simply be a stickler for laws The Hero may or may not be acting in accordance with.  Perhaps they even take issue with the suffering Heroes themselves endure, though in the case of this specific storyline, they’re more likely to be thinking of a different Hero in their lives than the one they’re actually confronting.[1]       

The Critic presents an obstacle to the combat-focused method that is superhero fiction’s default mode of conflict resolution.  They may endanger The Hero’s activities by threatening legal/institutional reprisal, or they may just be there to make The Hero feel bad about themselves.  The Critic may be framed very sympathetically by the story, or they might simply be a buzzkill, but regardless of the degree of empathy the story chooses to afford them, they are a hurdle to be overcome.       

The Hero is unable to cogently argue for their own position because superhero narratives are not about offering real life justifications for vigilantism.  Rather, because the default mode of conflict resolution in a superhero story is being a superhero, the story circumvents The Critic’s objections by placing them in danger, offering The Hero a chance to save them.       

Having thus been personally saved by The Hero (or, to put it more cynically, having personally benefitted from what The Hero does), The Critic promptly gets over all of their objections, even the ones that seemed to have been founded in well-considered ethical frameworks rather than traumatic experiences.

1: “Hero’s civilian loved one has a problem with their heroics” is a whole different story!  Typically that story is used to mine for drama in The Hero’s personal life; if it’s not there to serve as an ongoing relationship stressor, it’s more likely that the civilian loved one will get over their objections as a result of seeing The Hero save an uninvolved innocent than because they are themselves directly saved by The Hero.

This, to me, is simple sophistry.  “You say you don’t approve of what my saving people costs, but what if I saved you, huh?  Then would you like me?” is a cheap gotcha that relies on The Critic being incapable of separating rational ethics from their direct experience.  That’s not to say that ethics shouldn’t have a foundation in lived experience, of course, but one also can’t de facto rely on one’s emotional responses to dangerous, traumatic situations to guide e.g. public policy.  Emotional responses are not inherently fair; they can be myopic or prejudicial.  For the same reasons of impaired partiality that guide judicial recusal or juror screening, a single personal experience with being saved by a superhero cannot be assumed to write superheroes a blank check for everything they do while in costume.

And yeah, I realize that I’m being ungenerous here.  I assume that the storyline above is meant to be read as The Critic lacking sufficient empathy for those The Hero saves and coming to a greater understanding of the terror and desperate need experienced by bystanders when Some Villain attacks.  I can understand the general thrust of things!

Still, that story structure does not require The Hero to grow—all they have to do is endure and keep doing what they’ve been doing all along.  All the growth is experienced by The Critic as they’re led to empathize, not with The Hero, but rather with the other underdeveloped side characters—or more likely bit characters!—The Hero saves.  And even that empathy is usually less spotlighted than The Critic’s gratitude, which can feel especially distasteful when it feels like the story is emphasizing how noble The Hero is for saving this jackass Critic that’s been giving them so many problems, and isn’t The Critic just so thankful now that they’ve been humbled and shown the error of their ways?

It’s not a story that, to my eye, usefully challenges The Hero or The Critic, merely a self-serving narrative that assures both The Hero and the audience that The Hero Was Right All Along.  I can see the appeal of the “No, you move,” flat arc as much as the next person, but that story just feels like, if you’ll forgive my crudity, setting The Hero up for easily-earned asspats.

Let’s look at some different permutations of the formula as it appears in My Hero Academia.       

The Critics of My Hero Academia

Over the course of its 400+ chapters, My Hero Academia portrays a lot of criticism of the state-sponsored Pro Hero industry the story depicts.  There are people who criticize the laws that form the basis of professional heroics, people who think Heroes work too hard, people who think Heroes don’t work hard enough, people who think Heroes are too commercial, people who think Heroes are a shiny façade over a corrupt and ugly reality, people whose way of life has been ruined by the rise of Heroes, and on and on.

Unfailingly (and often to its considerable detriment), the flawed but valiant Heroes of My Hero Academia continue to uphold their system and their activities as valuable, admirable, and—most crucially—the only reasonable solution to the problems created by the superpowers wielded by the setting’s inhabitants.  Any Critics they face are destined to be proven wrong; neither the Heroes nor the author have any real desire to explore meaningful alternatives to the Hero System.  Many of its Critics are thus presented as cynics operating in bad faith or outright Villains who only resent the Hero System because it makes their criminal activities harder!

However, there are Critics who are treated as more valid by the narrative: those whose objections to Heroism are rooted in the family bonds and/or love and care they hold for specific Heroes.  It’s this type of Critic—and MHA’s response to them—that I want to look at in more detail.

> Case 1: Izumi Kouta

Kouta is the single most clear-cut example of the “The Hero saves and thus convinces The Critic” narrative the series has to offer, as well as foreshadowing much more extreme damage in other characters the audience will meet later on.  An orphaned child whose parents died in combat with Some Villain, Kouta has grown resentful of Heroes and surly towards the society that worships them.  He doesn’t understand why a bunch of strangers were so important that his parents would choose to prioritize those strangers over their lives with him.  Deku The Hero has no idea how to address this, and therefore roundly fails in his first few attempts to verbally engage with Kouta.

It’s not until Some Villain[2] shows up to menace Kouta with the threat of gruesome murder that Deku’s able to connect with him.  Note how this scenario puts Deku back in his comfortable heroic wheelhouse.  Sure, he breaks a bunch of bones in the process of fighting Muscular, and it hurts a whole lot, but beating Muscular does not require Deku to triumph in an ideological battle; he simply has to be the best at Punching Really Hard.  It’s quite straightforward and simple by comparison!

[2] As it happens, the same one who killed Kouta’s parents, but that’s an incidental detail; the narrative would have gone the same way with any Villain who was willing to threaten the life of an uninvolved child.  My Hero Academia simply has a surprisingly low number of Villains who fit that criteria.

Does being the best at Punching Really Hard actually address Kouta’s ideological problem with his parents choosing Heroism over being with him?  Well, no.  Kouta simply pivots into idolizing Deku and never brings up his parents or his trauma surrounding their deaths again.  Having come to understand how much it means to be Saved, Kouta gains a new appreciation for the value of Those Who Save, but this valuation is entirely focused on the Hero who saved him, without resolving the question of why said Hero is valuing the life of some stranger over his own familial bonds—and whether it’s correct for The Hero to do so!

My Hero Academia simply doesn’t care about Kouta as anything other than a vehicle for allowing Deku to feel confident and proud in his chosen career, and thus its portrayal of Kouta as Convinced Critic fails to escape the clang of intellectual dishonesty so frequently present in narratives of the type.

Sidebar—The Case of The Critic as Family:        Midoriya Inko Inko’s opinions on Deku’s heroics present an obstacle twice, with the former instance being much more compelling.  Her confrontation with All Might is much closer to the “Hero’s civilian loved one has a problem with their heroics” story I mentioned previously in a footnote, but with a major shift that pushes her closer to The Critic’s role: Deku’s age.  If Deku were an adult, Inko’s objections would simply be fodder for relationship drama, but him being a minor means Inko has a degree of parental authority she’s capable of wielding in his life—over his objections, should she choose!  This allows her to pose a very direct threat to his further ability to engage in heroics.        In the end, however, the obstacle is resolved in mostly the standard way of the loved one objector.  Deku’s prior rescue of Kouta—and the fan letter Kouta sent him as a result—is used to prove firstly the value to others of Deku’s Heroism and secondly the personal fulfillment Deku derives therefrom, leading Inko to back down after making both Deku and All Might promise to be more mindful of their lives when facing danger.        Both will go on to disregard this promise almost entirely, of course, but by the time Inko’s objections resurface post-Jakku, their potential impact has been firmly diminished: Deku has gained resolution and power such that nothing Inko could say would stop him from leaving, and so her objections no longer pose a meaningful threat to his heroism.  Indeed, her role is so diminished that said objections don’t even rise up to the level of a relationship stressor or something to make The Hero feel bad about himself—she’d have to actually interact with Deku or be present in his thoughts for either of those to be the case, and, post-hospital, the story allows her neither.

> Case 2: Shimura Kotarou

“Heroes hurt their own families just to help complete strangers.”  Kotarou is a man who sees himself as having been abandoned by his mother in favor of Heroism.  Even though she left him a letter about how he was in danger because of a “bad man” she had to go and fight, even though he almost certainly knows that battle took her life, he blames her for his horribly traumatic abandonment.  His grudge likely goes even further, too: given both the woeful shortcomings of Japan’s alternative childcare system[3] and his own personality as an adult, I would be shocked if Kotarou’s subsequent upbringing wasmarked more often by joy and belonging than by pain and alienation.

3: Which, I note, has not been so improved in the rosy glow of the heroic future that a monster like Ujiko was unable to get a foothold in it.

In Kotarou’s eyes, even if Some Villain was endangering him, that was only happening because his mother was a Hero to begin with.  If she hadn’t chosen that career, made that enemy, Kotarou would still have both parents, and he wouldn’t have grown up in an almost certainly overcrowded children’s home with the deep societal stigma of being an "orphan “unwanted child” knotted around his neck.

Unlike the other examples of this type of Critic in the story, Kotarou’s bitterness is never assuaged.  Instead, down to their strikingly similar names,[4] he serves to illustrate a possible dark ending of how Kouta’s life might have gone if a Hero had never (oh-so-Heroically) gotten him through his wrongheaded (per the narrative) stint as a Critic.  And though Kotarou’s life was ended as a direct result of that resentment, it also outlives him, winding itself into the deepest roots of his son’s equally venomous opinion on Heroes.

4: A disclaimer: Their names are less immediately similar in the Japanese, where Kou and Ko are given entirely different kanji (洸 and 弧 respectively). The ta parts of their names, while also using different kanji, do have a base radical in common: 汰 and 太 both include the 大 radical. That's certainly close enough for wordplay jokes to make sense, even if they're not as close as the official rendering of the names (Kotaro and Kota) makes them look.       

> Case 3: Shigaraki Tomura

Shigaraki is MHA’s other key invocation of the Hero vs. Critic narrative, though his permutation is quite different from the norm by virtue of the fact that he is also a Villain.  While his own critique of Hero Society is in the “shiny façade covering its true ugliness” camp, Shigaraki also adopts his father’s beliefs as his own, echoing Kotarou’s definition of a Hero at Jakku.  Notably, this was part of a speech delivered to a bunch of Heroes who, seeing as they themselves were the danger he was facing at the time, were considerably less nobly determined than usual to Save The Critic!

At the time, Deku had neither an answer to Shigaraki’s accusation nor even the willingness to grapple with it.  As of this writing, while he’s much more invested in understanding Shigaraki’s pain, but he still lacks an answer to the root causes of it.  It remains to be seen what exactly he’ll come up with, but at current, he remains stoutly determined to treat Shigaraki as nothing more than a shell over the Crying Boy that Deku believes remains at Shigaraki’s core.  This is none too promising in terms of doing anything to challenge the standard Hero vs Critic narrative!  The premise that Deku will save Shigaraki functionally demands that that “saving” (whatever form it winds up taking) will in and of itself end the opposition Shigaraki currently poses.       

The Critic obstructs The Hero.  The Hero saves The Critic.  The Critic no longer obstructs The Hero.

And then The Hero goes on being the main character, while The Critic passes without protest into the rearview mirror as The Hero’s story moves on.

Let’s take a look at a story that dares to try something different with that over-familiar narrative.      

Hosoda Mamoru’s Belle

Naito Suzu is a girl who lost her mother to Heroism, and Suzu has never forgiven her for it.

Immediately, the change of focus electrifies.  The main character of Belle is not a Hero who must prove herself to a Critic; she is The Critic!

Or is she…?

To get a bit more detailed, when Suzu was a child, no more than six years old, her mother strapped on a lifejacket and, over Suzu’s protestations and pleas, waded into floodwaters to save a stranded child.  The child, put into that same lifejacket, was pulled out of the river by other bystanders.  Suzu’s mother was not.  In the young Suzu’s eyes, her mother gave up their life together to save some stranger.

Over a decade later, Suzu still hasn’t come to terms with that.  She loves music—a pastime her mother encouraged—but now its association with her mother means that Suzu can’t sing without feeling a visceral nausea that leaves her retching and shaking with all that unprocessed fury, grief, and frustration.  She’s introverted at school, with only two close friends, and her relationship with her father is distant and awkward.

This is the state of affairs when one of Suzu’s friends ropes her into trying U, a bonkers virtual reality playground/social media platform/fantastical internet-alike that’s taken the world by storm.  In U, hiding behind a digital avatar with the face of a Disney princess,[5] Suzu finds that she can sing without being wracked with panic and distress.  Before long, and with her savvy friend’s help, “Belle” is a full-on internet sensation, giving virtual concerts watched by millions.  It’s when one of those concerts is crashed by a mysterious and much-maligned user called the Dragon that the real plot kicks in.

5: Literally; Suzu’s online avatar was designed by Jin Kim, a longtime Disney animator and character designer.

It’s from that point on that Suzu begins to shift.  Recognizing in the Dragon a fellow wounded soul, she’s drawn to find out more about him.  When a real-life crisis of the ugliest kind finds him, she risks everything she and her friend have built so that she can find and save the boy behind the Dragon—a boy she has never met.  It’s only after Suzu has made that leap—when she is staring into the void, not yet knowing how she’ll land—that she has the epiphany: This is what her mother felt.  This is why her mother acted as she did.

The movie still has some places to go in seeing Suzu’s gamble through—saving the Dragon is a major plot element!—but the other main plot element, the story of how Suzu reconciles and finds closure with her mother’s death, climaxes there in that moment of truth.  Whatever else there is to say about the film’s perhaps overly faith-driven resolution of Dragon’s plot (and there is, to be sure, a lot to say), its resolution to Suzu’s positioning as The Critic in regards to the actions of her Hero mother is a perfectly elegant, sublime solution to the problem, convincing me of The Critic’s turn in a way no other story ever has.

In My Hero Academia, as in so many other traditional superhero properties, Critics are present as obstacles for the Heroes to overcome.  The story does not care if those Critics understand the Heroes themselves; it merely wants them to accede that the Hero is right and they are wrong.  It puts problems in their path that it insists only The Hero can solve and thus browbeats Critics into acceptance.[6]  Far from presenting any alternate paths for The Critics and The Heroes to come to an accord, the story uses the specter of gruesome death—Kotarou’s death at the hands of the son his anti-Hero stance led him to abuse; Muscular’s gleefully murderous rampage—to leave Critics with no other choice: Validate Heroes or die.  And the audience is, very clearly, intended to read this blatant false binary as intellectually honest and emotionally rewarding.

6: This pattern becomes even more egregious if you expand the lens from Critics who are grappling with the actions of Heroic family members out to the more traditional Critics whose issues resolve around collateral damage.  Look at the scornful holdouts Shindo and Tatami encounter, for example, or the angry journalist woman whose mother was hurt in Gigantomachia’s rampage, both of whom recant their skepticism after witnessing the scale of the threats Heroes face.  You see echoes of the pattern in the final arc as well, wherein Endeavor’s fanboy comes back around on Endeavor as a prelude for skeptics all around the globe being moved to prayer by All Might’s grotesque battle against All For One.

In Belle, on the other hand, The Critic is not overcome by being saved themselves.  Indeed, while Suzu is saved at one point (some of Dragon’s AI creations help her escape from U’s peacekeeping force, a group as self-righteous as they are self-appointed), not for one instant does that experience cause her to mentally align herself with the feelings of the child her mother saved.  Rather, the story puts Suzu in a situation where she must save another.  Thus, she reconciles with The Hero not because the plot corners her into becoming a Victim in need of help, but because her own actions bring her to a place of true empathy.  She validates The Hero’s past actions because, in her own moment of crisis, The Critic herself becomes The Hero.

Would that superhero stories like My Hero Academia could treat its Critics with even a fraction of Belle’s respect for Suzu’s interiority and agency.

[creabirds]

creabird's fics master post

charles/max

your heart, love (has such darkness) | chaptered fic, roman empire inspired fantasy au, enemies to lovers, rated e, 48k [fic post | fanart]

“Who did this to you?“ The question escaped Max in a low growl, sounding more animal than human. Charles’ eyes widened for a fraction of a second before narrowing, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “Your men,“ he answered, as if it was obvious. And it was. “No, who exactly?“ Max hissed, “because I ordered them not to hurt you and I will cut their fucking heads off for defying their commands.“ The provinces' war against the empire has been raging for years, but finally, Max Verstappen and his rebel army are close to bringing their enemies to their knees. The dire situation has the empire's most powerful warrior, Charles Leclerc, il predestinatio, running right into Max's arms in an attempt to stop him before it's too late. Max wants the empire's darling for himself, but their relationship is much more complex than that of a villain and hero, king and concubine. Though Charles is chained and collared, nothing is really as it seems.

bare your teeth verse | on-going series, a/b/o drivers au, enemies to lovers, rated e, 3-4k each [fic post | fanart]

part one: see me bare my teeth for you

It has been five years since Max gave Charles his mating bite on a rainy day in Val d'Argenton. Five years of Charles keeping his head down and ignoring it had ever happened. Until the day he set foot in the paddock, freshly signed to drive in F2, his dreams becoming true. Only there is one problem: his mate is too close for his body not to react.

part two: bound with the curse don't want this bubble to burst

Charles has finally made it to Formula 1. But reaching this milestone forces him closer to Max than ever before. On and off the track - they fight, and they clash. Grudging acceptance bubbles over into rage once again after the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix, with Charles on Max's private jet and nowhere to run.

part three: it feels better biting down

Charles has not stepped foot outside of his apartment for the entirety of the lockdown. He has not seen anyone, especially not Max, so he is shocked to find him attempting to break his door down, deep in his rut and desperate to get his hands on Charles. For once, the tables have turned and Max is the one out of his mind with want.

part four: i cut my teeth on people like you

Ever since spending his rut with Charles, Max's jealousy has been going haywire. It doesn't help that their relationship is more strained than ever. Winning his first championship and seeing his omega congratulating his biggest rival instead of him is the final straw.

late night devil (put your hands on me) | one-shot, vampire/priest au, rated e, 5k [fic post | inspo art | fanart]

Welcome to the Halloween Special! “Don’t worry, I’m a priest here at St. Fiacre, you are very welcome. I can call for a doctor in the morning, as well,” Max explained. As he turned towards the man, coming eye to eye with him for the first time he was suddenly struck by the beauty of him. “It is not that, I would love to come in,” the man offered, a shy smile curling over his mouth and creating a set of dimples on its corners. Max tried not to stare. “However, I simply cannot. I am not allowed, so to speak,” he explained. “What,” Max looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Why?” The man flashed a broad smile and Max could not avoid looking. What he saw were fangs.

the world is so much wilder than you think (all the mermaids have sharp teeth) | chaptered fic, siren charles au, get-together, rated e, 22k

Charles' eyes focussed on him, bright green, not in a scary, alien way, but more like the sunlight had caught in his irises, making them appear brighter and more saturated than usual. Only there was no sun. It was the middle of the night. Max felt an itch in his fingers and feet, as if he was being pulled forward magnetically. Charles blinked again, and it was gone. Max sat back on the chair with a grunt. He hadn’t noticed he had been in the process of standing up. “What?” he asked, not even sure what exact question to phrase. “Oh, you know, this is the part where you find out that supernatural creatures exist?”

i'm starving, darling (come and get some) | series, grid slut charles au, rated e, 5k

Well, it wasn’t like he was actively looking at his ass. It just seemed to always be in his line of sight. Like in Baku, when Max couldn’t stop himself from constantly glancing over to where Charles and Checo stood waiting for him to finish his interview because Charles kept dropping things. His racing-driver-instinct-eyes had immediately snapped over to the exaggerated movements in his peripheral vision and he couldn’t even tell what exactly it was Charles dropped because all he could see was a full view of butt in a fire-red racing suit. Max had considered whether he had gone insane and had started hallucinating due to a recent lack of sexual gratification (sue him, but he was a busy man) and Charles’ proximity and relative attractiveness (it was off the charts). And now this. Max was finally, thoroughly convinced. He’s doing this on purpose, he thought. His phone pinged with a message.

called to the devil (and the devil said hey) | one-shot, charles goes to red bull au, get-together, rated e, 16k

Charles joins Red Bull in 2025 in the hopes of finally winning the championship in a reliable car. Max is a suspiciously supportive teammate. Or: Max Verstappen's very secret retirement plan.

charles/max/carlos

hot in it (no stopping it) | series, grid slut charles au, threesome, rated e, 5k

14:43 [from Max Verstappen] [image attached] come over and bring a long pair of pants for charlie Carlos opened the message to view the picture and had to suppress a groan, lest the mechanics next to him would suspect anything. It was a shot of Charles, he recognized by his bright red shorts, even shorter now that they were pushed up and bunched around his upper thighs by a big hand that could only belong to Max. Beneath Max’s hand was an angry-red looking bite mark. The perfectly straight row of teeth indented into the skin was easily recognizable.

charles/carlos

maneater (make you spend hard) | series, grid slut charles au, rated e, 2k

“Do you like getting head, Carlos?” he asked, then. He had never claimed to be smooth nor subtle. He watched as Carlos’ eyes became comically wide before he narrowed them again, staring at Charles intently. “What?” “Blowjobs? Getting your dick sucked?” Charles tried again, a sly smile on his face, being very aware that Carlos’ question might not have been due to a lack of understanding of the terminology used at all. Carlos blinked at him and he swore the blush on his cheeks got a tad bit darker. “I mean— yes, doesn’t everyone?” he rasped, voice slightly airy. Charles’ tongue slipped out to wet his lips and he watched Carlos’ eyes flit down and back up to his eyes in a matter of milliseconds. “Sure,” he hummed, “but I also like giving it,” he grinned.

charles/grid

greed (i want it all right now) | one-shot, sex pollen, magical pussy, gangbang, dead dove for dubious consent, rated e, 9k [fic post]

Charles has to sneeze, and laughs. His Secret Santa seems to have had his fun with it, adding some fake snow to douse him in. He does not notice the nervous glances the producers behind the camera share. He reads the card, out loud, but falters as he tries to process what is written there in elegant cursive. “Since you are a lazy gift giver I will help you out this year,” it says. Charles furrows his brows. Or: Charles wakes up with a pussy. The grid is delighted.

yuki/pierre

inches in between us (i want you to give in) | one-shot, friends to lovers, rated e, 8k

4 times yuki sent pierre into gay panic + the one time he gave in alternative title: yuki being outrageous and pierre losing his shit (canon)

[kairiscorner]

me when ken is causing my ben reilly mood rn (this bitch rewatched the barbie movie wow!!!)

ben reilly x reader headcanons

he finds intelligence attractive. YOU CANNOT TELL ME THIS STRONG, BLONDE ASS HIMBO DOES NOT FIND INTELLECT HOT, OK, LIKE... drop random niche facts to him, explain a theory, teach him a new math formula and he's in love with you.

he offers to open jars and packets for you, ironically he struggles even though he's so buff, but he manages to get it done by breaking the container.

that, or you do it for him easier and he just falls more in love with you.

(inspired by the barbie movie my beloved <3) ben only has a good day when you look at him. like he knows you have a lot of other people to talk to and look at and fight with on missions, but when you look at him, omg, his day is MADE, HE IS WITHOUT A DOUBT IN LOVE WITH YOU EVEN MORE <333

he offers to carry you when you're too tired to walk on missions, or when you're just feeling lazy.

his dream is to carry you in his arms while swinging around the city and doing the spider man kiss with you.

LIKE HE ALWAYS ASKS YOU AFTER MISSIONS, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S RAINING, IF HE CAN SWING UPSIDE DOWN AND YOU KISS HIM

he also finds you super hot when you reject him, like... you're so out of reach, yet he loves and wants you. he has a hard time knowing when too much is too much, so you constantly have to remind him of personal space and that he's being too clingy, but ben's puppy dog eyes..........

ok, but when a villain lands a hit on you, FUCK NAH HE AIN'T TAKING THAT HE GETS ANGRY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG ASS WHILE AND FUCKS. THAT. VILLAIN. UP.

he is the adoptive kid of miguel o'hara, man knows how to get feral it just takes a lot to get him there (or just seeing you in danger is what starts it up)

he constantly says "i love you" in an over-the-top manner, LIKE HE WILL PROFESS HIS UNDYING, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR YOU IN THE LOBBY WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE AND DEFINITELY COME BACK, BUT HE TREATS IT LIKE HE'S GONNA BE AWAY FROM YOU FOR A LIFETIME

he broods and mopes when you're not around like a sad lil puppy :(

then he immediately perks up and smiles more when you're back :)

shut him up with kisses <333

[afreakingdork]

Weak Spot - Chapter 66

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

The last thing you see before you lose a hand or as I like to say, this week's chapter art by @aimike17

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Marathon Sex, Somnophilia, Bondage, Feral Behavior, Feral Donatello, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Public Sex, Dom Donnie, Human/Turtle Relationships, Turtle Noises, Roleplay, Sexual Roleplay

Synopsis:  A love story of villainous proportions! Though it hadn’t come easily, as these things rarely do, you found yourself in a whirlwind romance with a handsome and mysterious mutant. His idiosyncrasies had been easy to ignore as attraction grew into something more. However, will love endure when the unknowns about him end up being far darker than you ever considered?

SCREECHING AFTER THE FACT SHOUT-OUT TO @tmntxthings for helping me out with this chapter too! She's a freaking saint when it comes to helping me cook!!!

Fem!Reader References/Warnings Below Cut

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

LAST WARNING FOR THE 🍋 UNDER THE CUT. MINORS DNI!

Fem!Reader References/Warnings: gun, robbery, threats of murder, blood, broken bones, bra removal, clit suck, folds, and the typical pregnancy mention

“Tarp.”

“Check.” You patted down the many plastic sheets.

“Mirrors.”

“Big and small.” You tiptoed around a floor length one and over to the table where a handheld one lay.

“Paint.”

“Check.” In a little swivel, you held out a hand in demonstration to the litany of choices.

“Brushes.”

“Check!” You turned your outstretched hand into a pointed finger to the cup sporting many.

“Spot testing for allergic reactions, check. Scheduled time is blocked so we have the entire day. This leaves mess where tarps have been laid out in accordance to my mapping.” Donnie lifted his head from a screen to stare down where plastic sheets disappeared into the bathroom. “Bedroom otherwise prepared, which leaves clean up…”

You nodded in time, itching to get ready.

“Clean up.”

His repeated line brought your attention.

He was in motion toward the bathroom before you could even ask.

There you heard the clatter of the shower curtain as you followed.

“No, no!”

You reached the door frame and looked in where he was holding a bottle of his soap. “What?”

“Colloquially I may say body wash, but this is technically a cleanser!”

“Okay…?”

“Cleanser retains skin’s natural oil!”

Your fingers squeezed the jamb as you waited for him to elaborate.

“It won’t properly clear paint! Water-based or otherwise!”

“Oh…”

He shook the container. “We would need excess which I have not planned for! The new formulation isn’t due for another week!” 

You grimaced sheepishly. 

Donnie sighed and then turned to gripe at you. “While I may have increased my order to account for your utilization, it will not be enough. If you recall, we had the addition of your soap for grimier circumstances. With my wash it would take multiple lathers to scrub away all residue. This would leave us without cleanser before more arrived, id est, we were meant to have purchased a separate and appropriate soap.” 

He hadn’t been shy about his complaints. When you had first moved in, you had your own body wash, but after a while it seemed easier to just use his. While the formula was supposedly made for him alone, it also made your skin feel comfortably supple.  “Uh huh...”

“Y/N, this is a problem!” He brought the bottle over to you.

You took the offering, found it light as described, and turned your head toward the sink. “Okay… We have other soaps… How about the hand soap right here?”

He made a noise of revulsion.

“Or dish soap?” Your head lolled as you looked at him.

His features curled into twisted horror. “You are describing a replacement worse than simply letting the paint dry!”

“If it dries, it just flakes off, doesn't it?”

“I won’t even dignify that with a response.” He spoke caustically.

“Donnie, the dish soap is good enough for ducks and oil spills. It’s their whole branding, it can’t be that bad-”

“These are neither oil based paints nor are either of us waterfowl!”

“That’s not what the marketing scheme is trying to-!”

“I refuse!”

You made an annoyed sound and were just shy of stomping your foot. “Donnie, it took forever to get the tarps down according to your plan!”

He folded his arm.

“Donatello!”

His beak rose with a haughty turn of his head.

“So, that’s it!? No body painting because you forgot soap!?”

“Me?” He came down with a fiery gaze. “We made the list together!”

“And you’re Santa Claus checking it twice! You ordered everything!”

“Blame goes both ways. You wound me and therefore I’m even less inclined to continue our activity!” In a flap of his hands, he shooed you.

Irritated, you stepped away only for him to begin to kick up the tarp behind you. “What are you doing!?”

“As you so kindly put it, there will be no body painting today! I am cleaning up!”

“Don, come on!” You blocked him from messing up the ground cover further.

He towered over you.

“We spent all that time testing brushes to make sure they felt right against you! Hell, we spent forever trying to figure out the best way to write on each other. Markers grossed you out and there was so much trial and error for smell and texture and everything! Then, getting the stuff and the time and setup! Please…!”

“We have a process for a reason. This is an undertaking, not to be done on a whim.” His eyes were down, ready to calculate moving you out of the way.

You stepped around his toes to cage him in. “Do you still want to?”

He reared with an annoyed shake. “Have you not been listening!?”

You whacked your hands against his plastron. “Obviously I have! I’m asking if you’re just trying to find an excuse out.”

“Of course not!” He was further offended. “I put forth the effort because I wanted this! We both did!”

“Then why are you giving up so easily!?”

“I’m not! I’m rescheduling. We can attempt another after we have the proper wash.” He found that to be his last word on the situation and moved to get around you.

“I can go to the closest store. There’s a shop two blocks from here and I know they have body wash!”

Donnie stalled, but didn’t look.

“It’s not going to be a great brand, but all soap strips right? As long as it’s for the body, that’s good enough?”

He was clearly processing.

“Please…?”

“Not all.” He glanced. “I have stipulations.”

“Shoot.”

“The product must be free of sulfates, parabens, phthalates, mineral oil, retinyl palmitate, coal tar, hydroquinone, triclosan, triclocarban, formaldehyde and its derivative releasing agents, and even the slightest form of fragrance.”

Your lips parted as you weren’t prepared for such a long list. “You need to send that to me.”

“I will go with you.”

“Yeah!?”

“Calm, this is still your task. I would only rather waste a portion of my time.”

You frowned.

“I don’t care if I ruin the mood.”

You gave one tepid sigh before looking at him with a withered expression. “Your skin care is important.”

“As how it feels and what goes on it.”

“Yes. I’m not making light, I’m just…” You gestured out to how your bedroom was coated in plastic wrap. “We worked so hard. I… no, we were really looking forward to this…” 

“I acknowledge the frustrations.” He dipped in to press his beak to your head.

You lingered only for a moment. “Now?”

“Now.” He agreed and you both moved to leave.

Getting shoes on, you were both out the door and heading to the store. Right where you said it was, the micro grocer was a dingy, but serviceable place. Donnie made his stand outside and only helped you by writing out his request list in an app. With your phone in hand, you entered and only glanced at the shopkeeper. A young guy scrolling on his phone, he ignored you while you headed to where the toiletries were. Several options, you picked up the first to start reading ingredients when the door opened again.

Background noise of another customer, you sneered at one of the banned ingredients and moved for the next bottle. Scanning through that one’s tiny print, you squinted to examine it closer when you heard a huffy voice.

“Hurry up…”

Your head lifting with an odd weight, you leaned just enough to look past the shelf you were at.

At the register, whoever had walked in was clearly robbing the place with a gun shaped figure lifted up through his jacket.

Staring, you saw the man at the counter struggle with the machine. “It won’t open unless you make a purchase. I don’t really know-!”

“Fake one, stupid!” The gunman hissed, jerking his coat.

You looked toward the front window, but couldn’t see Donnie.

“Trying to be a hero!?” You weren’t sure how, but the gunman must have caught a glimpse of you because he spun around.

Donnie had been right next to the front door. 

He would have seen the guy enter. 

He would have heard the commotion, no matter how quiet. 

“Hey, you listening?!”

You didn’t move your pupils, but the guy at the register chanced a shaky hand toward the phone.

“Dipshit!!” The gunman stalked toward you. “You hear what the fuck I’m saying or not!?”

Without moving your head, you looked the man up and down. 

He appeared small.

He was technically taller than you, but you couldn’t help but shrink him in your mind.

He appeared pathetic with his spindly form and terrible stance.

He looked like he’d jumped into this store on a whim to steal a quick buck in the middle of a slow weekend day.

One thing out of place was sending him into a rage. 

You arched a brow. “I’m kind of busy.”

“You’re…?” The flared anger was snuffed out in a confused instant.

“Yeah, my boyfriend is really particular about his body wash.” You shook the bottle in your hands so he could see it better.

“I’m… What the FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?” Doubling down, he yanked the gun out of his jacket pocket to properly point it.

In a way, you were surprised he actually had one. 

You expected someone like him to have just faked it with his hand. 

Your heart rate barely blipped at the matte black object.

In contrast to your steady blood pressure, you saw a very familiar rush of black behind the gunman. 

It was a move imperceptible to anyone else.

When had your senses become so honed?

You guessed it was somewhere along the pipeline of generally dating a mutant and having almost died.

You had seen things the average person couldn’t dream of. 

Guns seemed so archaic in comparison. 

That explained why you weren’t scared.

You’d dealt with enough.

This pathetic trash wasn’t worth your adrenaline.

You had full faith in your mate and yourself. 

“He’s very particular, ya know?” You shrugged.

“Wha…?” The gunman wilted again at your second rebuttal.

“About this…” You looked at the shelf. “About me…” You turned your attention toward the barrel. “He’s waiting for me.”

“If you think your stupid ass sob story is going to-? You know what, fuck you! Empty your pockets, NOW!” The pistol shook and rotated.

“No.”

He blinked.

“I don’t think you understand.” Your head tipped and you could feel the unhinged quality your features took on. “I’m warning you. Put that gun down and walk out or else.”

If the man’s initial anger level was at a one and he doubled it on your first refusal, then his current boiling point broke mercury. “STUPID, FUCKING-!”

Metal crunched so loud it caused the racks of goods to reverberate.

Standing beside you was Donnie.

Extending out from his body were two of his mechanical arms.

One of which was clasped not only around the gun it had just devoured, but the gunman’s hand.

“I tried to tell him.” You gave Donnie a sugar coated look.

Your partner tipped his head toward you in acknowledgement.

Pain delayed, the gunman screeched and the first drops of blood began to trickle out from where his firearm was now part of him.

“You.” The other mech arm blurred as it caught the man by the chest and slammed him into the ground so hard that the floor depressed around him.

You tucked into Donnie’s side and overlooked the crater. “I have an idea.”

“Yes, my love?” Donnie turned to you with faint interest.

The gunman gurgled.

“We’re busy. Let’s have him take himself to the police. He can confess and we won’t have to deal with cover ups or statements.” You touched Donnie’s arm.

Donnie hummed, unconvinced.

The gunman pawed at the mech arm crushing him with his only available hand.

“What do you think?” You looked down at him. “You go or you die?”

“M-my h-hand!” He squawked.

“You point a gun at my mate.” Donnie leaned back with you moving in tandem and the mechanical arm hoisted the gunman up into the air. “Now you ignore their generous offer?”

Reality struck the gunman and he twitched. “I-I-I-I’ll g-go!”

“I’ll know if you take a single step otherwise.” Donnie’s grin split excitement. “I do hope you will.”

“N-no! I-I’ll g-go r-right t-there!!! P-please!!”

Donnie glanced at you with a smoothed out expression.

“Sounds like he gets it.” You rested your chin against him.

Donnie’s lids lowered with affection and the mechanical arms released.

The man hit the floor with another squeak of pain before he scrambled. He smeared blood from his broken hand out in a wet streak before he stumbled on a twisted angle straight towards the door. As if in a movie panning shot, you and Donnie both watched after him and caught sight of the young man at the register. 

His hands were up in surrender.

A phone hung from one of his palms.

“He called the police.” You told Donnie. “ETA?” 

Your boyfriend checked his gauntlet for a tiny screen projection. “Ten minutes.”

“Hey, we really just wanted to buy some soap. Is it cool if we keep looking?” You raised your voice a little to address the shop attendant.

The guy gawked.

Donnie seemed to realize something and in a slow withdrawal, the mechanical arms retreated and morphed back into his battle shell.

As if on cue, the attendant’s hands similarly lowered. “Seriously?!”

“Yeah.” You held up the body wash bottle still in your hand.

“… Whatever, sure!” The attendant slumped in a stool and mumbled about his day.

“Okay, I was almost done with this one.” You walked back to the selection with your eyes glued to the tiny print.

Donnie came with and curled around your back, pressing impatient kisses to your neck.

“Sweet, I gotta focus.”

“Love you.” He husked in your ear.

“Me too.” You spoke distantly. “Ugh dangit, not this one either.”

The moment you reached to put it back on the shelf, Donnie took advantage of the real estate and groped under your lifted arm.

You held back a moan. “D-Don…!”

“Want you.”

“I know, but the paint…” You fumbled the last bottle, but kept it from falling off the shelf.

He churred honey into your ear.

You shuddered as you turned the bottle over to read. “I saw you run up behind the asshole. I’m surprised you waited.”

He released a hot breath from where he was nibbling your ear lobe. “You were stunning. I wouldn’t dare interrupt. That control, incredible.”

“I didn’t do anything…” Your eyes drifted and you leaned to give him better access.

He latched to give you a hickey close to your hairline.

You released a shaky breath.

He gave a final hard suck before moving his lips away only long enough to mumble. “I see sodium palmitate, which falls in a similar group. Try the bar.”

“I-is that on there? Damn…” You put the bottle back and he moved with you as you grabbed said rectangle.

A churr rumbled in your ears as you found the ingredients list scant and to the point.

“This one’s perfect, fuck, this one.”

“Very good.” He pressed a wet kiss below his mark and removed himself from you.

You stumbled a few steps before making it to the register to pay.

“Uh, thank… you…?” The young man mumbled unsure as he rang you up.

“Sure.” You shrugged and caught the soap bar to leave after the transaction.

“You’ll receive payment for the floor.” Donnie tossed casually as he followed you out.

You heard the attendant give another confused thanks.

Your legs pumped with power walking purpose back towards your apartment. Donnie’s longer legs kept him easily in tow and he had a light hearted air as you walked. Reaching your apartment in record time, you both jockeyed at the front door and in doing so a question popped out of you. 

“You going soft?”

He slowed and turned to you with a curious shift of his pupil.

“Hot or not, there was a gun pointed at me. I doubt there’s much what if, but it just feels like usually you would have killed or maimed anyone the second they tried a stunt like that.”

Donnie sugared his gaze before he bent in, nice and slow, to put his face on level with yours. With a lethally cute tip of his head, his gaze simmered. “So what if I am?”

Your stomach somersaulted.

“So what if I am going soft?” He repeated and the tip of his beak took the faintest whiff of the air.  “Maybe I prefer domestication…? Doesn’t smell like a problem.”

You murmured his name and the door felt especially heavy where you were stuck holding it.

“Being kept…” He flicked a low lidded gaze over you. “I was not aware of the advantages. It seemed a noose, but a docile predator has the same bite while no longer having to fight to be fed.”

“It’s about how they use it…” You whispered and ghosted your lips over his before charging inside.

He followed close after and, as you tried to deviate toward the elevator, he hooked your waist. You were launched up several flights of stairs in a way that reminded you of a tender version of your first night together and this time there was no need to fumble at the door. You slipped in first and took a few dancing steps with your purchase obvious in hand.

Donnie leered behind and you deposited the soap bar in the bathroom before meeting him in the bedroom. The kiss there seared intensity, but starkly contrasted the slow way he worked up the bottom of your top. You mewled against his lips, struggling with quick urges and he scolded you with promises of more. You relented and broke apart long enough for him to disrobe you.

Bra as a last hold, you took your turn to steal his sweater away and did so with far less grace. You dragged him with his long arms on a tug and he chuckled his way to wrapping them around you. Both for a hug and then for the greater purpose of unfastening your bottoms, you peppered him with kisses. He lounged in them, slowing as he shimmied fabric down your hips. By the time your bottom hit the floor, he was drunkenly shoving his tongue into your mouth.

Winding and sipping on heat, you melded together. Your bra was soon popped and you tipped your body to let it fall from your shoulders as he did his own fly. Coordination had you both naked and clothes were kicked away toward the living room before you pulled him to the paint selection.

“Mark me as yours.” His voice ghosted your ears.

You both exhaled and sighed dreamy as you picked black for its sharp pigmentation. Selecting one of the soft brushes that he’d designated for his skin, you dunked bristles to pigment before bringing up a darkened tip. He eyed it and then you with trust so full that it threatened to drip the same as your implement. Moving forward with a flexible wrist, you swiped black over his neck. A reclamation of his brand, he handed himself over and the loll back of his head said the sensation felt good. Stroking to enhance and taking care in making a bold collar, streaks dripped and rolled along his musculature. It adorned his painted choker with black pearls that beckoned you to swipe over the plump tips of. 

Donnie surfaced enough to try to watch you as you finger painted from the pool and wrote your name amongst the drip just under his blackened throat.

“If found, please return to…” You teased and kissed his cheek.

He churred lightly. “May I?”

“Of course.” You held the brush out for him and he politely declined.

You followed him to the table. He took a long time selecting his own instruments and in the meantime you cleaned your brush. Capping off the black paint, you set the brush off to dry in a little section of the table that was set up for that. Donnie then approached you, ready, with a carefully turned paint canister in one hand and a medium sized precision brush in the other.

“Stand over here.” He gestured and walked himself toward the middle of the bedroom.

You trailed after and strained to see what color he had.

“Don’t look.” He grinned knowingly. “Eyes on mine. I want to surprise you.”

You adjusted your posture to look at him comfortably. “Won’t I be able to tell from the strokes?”

He hummed with little interest. “Maybe.”

You watched the way his lids fell as he uncapped his paint. His little lashes moved as a brush of their own, protecting the dimensionality of his eyes. You watched every little dip and dart of his pupil as he acquired paint. His focus shifted, all engrossed, as the brush dabbed wet to your arm. First with a blot so he could test the thickness and viscosity of the paint, he swiped and adjusted his brush’s load before he committed to a full stroke.

A swift line that he focused on cleanly finishing off, there was a curl of movement. In an attractive turn of his head, he must have looked at the paint pot to get more on his brush. You were enamored to watch your mate work with this new point of view. So often when you were on the receiving end, he was doing his best to distract you. Now you only had clear attention and with it you could commit all of him to memory. From another swipe to your current arm and then moving to the other, you tracked him the whole way. With his eyes focused on the task, you got to see every emotion pass over them.

You understood the phrase windows to the soul, but the phrase took new meaning when you watched him like this. His dedication flowed out in acts of service and he was a machine ever taking information in. If you were to agree with his domestication comment, you’d only do so because he’d allowed it. He was a wild animal that had judged you in a lengthy trial period before he ever chanced bowing his head to your worth.

It was an honor bestowed as great as knighthood and, as such, Donnie knelt before you. You wished you still had your paints to both lay your decree and also because you could now see you had missed a spot on his collar. With his head down you could see the missing connection clearly and wanted to belt off the green. It would match his villainous color scheme nicely where he’d left his mask on and you hardly noticed him painting your legs until he lifted up with a satisfied smile.

“Done already?”

Donnie grinned and went to put his brushes up. “One moment for the reveal.”

“Yessir.” You tried to parse out the damp skin and what it marked off.

It was clearly each of your limbs, but hadn’t seemed to be a complicated design.

Before you could ponder further, Donnie appeared behind you to lead you over to the mirror. “Eyes.”

You let him move you and followed only his gaze in the reflection.

In a quick shuffling to get you full framed, he then nodded for you to look at yourself.

You did and found the slightest purple on your arms. You turned first to the right, finding two connected blocks on your upper arm, but also revealed two disconnected ones on your legs. Your smile grew as you turned the other way and found more purple pixels, all identical replicas of Donnie’s markings. “Interesting brand.”

“I do appreciate a theme.” He kissed your cheek over your shoulder. “You look ravishing.”

“If it’s a theme, you forgot the green.” You chewed your lip and leaned into him. “I love it. Understated, but you.”

Donnie chuffed. “Skin needs to breathe. A full-body paint job would cover your pores and chance a disruption of the sweating and cooling mechanisms in your body. if we were to test something like that, might as well have a cloaking broach.”

You turned toward him. “What is that? You’ve said it before and I think Shelly has like… alluded to it?”

“It’s a stone that allows one to cloak their appearance.”

“Got that much.” You teased and made it obvious you were returning for the paints.

He followed you to clean his brush. “A mystic item then.”

“Do you have one?” You picked the same pair you had before and gestured him to the bed.

He sat on the crinkling tarp covering and waited for you. “No. I liken my visage.”

Half sitting on the edge, you leaned around him to close the painted collar and then drifted brushstrokes down his front. “I do too.”

He churred affection.

You tried to paint his plastron and frowned at how the different texture streaked the paint. “How does the stone figure out what you should look like? Do you think of an image in your head and it makes it happen?”

“Some thought, but as with most mysticism, it trends illogical. Let’s imagine if you were to don it and you chose to cloak as a turtle mutant.”

You nodded both to him and how you tested various brushing techniques to get the black to lacquer.

“You may not be a softshell.”

That caught your attention and you sent surprise toward him. 

He had latent irritation creasing his features. “Unfortunately there’s a certain luck of the draw. There’s a high chance you may be, considering my DNA…” He reached out and pressed a targeted digit into your pelvis. “… is soaked into yours, but I digress. It isn’t assured.”

You stalled a stroke and kissed him hard.

He held you a metered amount away to protect your paint work.

You tapered off for a few needy presses before reluctantly continuing. “Is that why you chose to disguise yourself with make-up instead? Didn’t like the way the broach changed you?”

He gave a faint chirp of approval at your memory.

You stole another kiss. 

“I feel compelled to clarify: I’ve never used one.” 

“Don’t like the chance of how it’ll change you.” You corrected. 

You chuckled and felt his approving air follow you down onto your knees so you could have better access to painting further down his plastron. 

“Share?”

“I was just thinking this would totally turn into washboard abs.” You gestured to him and layered on extra coats to thicken the lines you’d drawn.

“You’re curious?”

“Not really.” You tried to make a circle, but it wasn’t clean. “You don’t like it, so I’m not really interested.”

“You wouldn’t prefer me human.”

It was a statement and, though he hadn’t asked, you knew he needed reassurance. You sent it up to him by fully stopping and giving him your full attention. “Never.”

He had a wickedness to his gaze. “Monster fucker.”

You splatted your brush right into his beak and he chuffed droplets to clear his nose.

Still, he laughed and you continued your work with a pout.

Criss-crossing lines, you did a few touch ups, before you sat back to look at your work as a whole.

“I could acquire two.”

You moved your attention to his face.

“For science. I appreciate that sort of intrigue.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“It’s not a physiological change. Only cosmetic.”

“And mystic.” You gave a lazy grin.

He sneered.

“Anything with you.” You stood.

He took a deep breath before doing the same. “Shall I see your masterpiece?”

“Please.” You swept your hand in a gesture to the full length mirror.

He moved to his reflection and recognition hit him immediately. “A harness.”

“Yes, my pet.” You pressed to his carapace and kissed his arm. “That’s kept.”

“I never considered…” He tilted his head.

“Wearing one? I doubt that.” You came around to look him over again.

He shook his head. “You didn’t connect the collar.” He pointed at this throat and then down. “I never thought to wear a harness without.”

“Oh…”

“Oh.” He mimicked your interest. “I’ll whip something up.”

“Use the link rings.” You leaned into him.

“Of course.” He kissed your forehead and took your chin. “Make-up gave me an idea.”

“What do you need?” You held up your brush and paint.

“Same purple paint, thin square brush.”

“Got it.” You moved to trade off your equipment and brought his requested materials back.

“Eyes closed.”

Your lids drifted and you tipped your chin up for him.

He startled you by catching your lips first then he moved to paint. Careful around your eyes, you felt him make more rectangles skirting down your cheeks. He then was careful over your lids and brows. He blew lightly to seal his art and then moved you gently over to the mirror. You held firm with closed eyes until he gave the signal and opened them to find he’d done an inspired extension of his markings on your face.

“I look cool…” You admired his work around blinks.

“Very…” He breathed warmth into your ear.

You tipped your head for him and he pressed kisses down the side of your neck.

A distraction, a cool brush dabbed your lower back and you arched with a small gasp.

“You k-know…” You managed as he painted what was clearly another rectangular shape. “I’d figured you go womb tattoo before a tramp stamp.”

He slowed only for a moment before he ducked his head to ensure his design. “Dangerous.”

“How so?”

“I would only need the correctly imbued ink.” He skirted your ass and you twitched with sensitivity.

“What…?” You drunkenly slurred as he exchanged his brush for a hand to squeeze the thick of a cheek.

“With such and the correct branching symbol, my birth control would be rendered useless.”

“Ah!” One of his fingers skirted between your legs.

“Best not to give me that power as of yet.” A finger ghosted your sex before another came around and pressed a thick stroke to your upper mons.

Your voice pitched and your head fell to see he’d smeared red paint across your lower belly. “Wha…?”

“Bed.” He nudged you in the direction, but kept himself out of sight. “I need to mark your inner thighs.”

You nodded and the moment you took a step, he slipped a finger into your folds. Knees weakening, you stumbled towards the bed riding his digit. It tested and teased your entrance and you were left to catch the edge of the mattress. He manipulated you only enough so you were sturdy before he disappeared. It took a moment to catch your breath, but you rotated and sat. He appeared, already on his knees with a brush in hand. With him before you, you spread for him and hiked your legs up against the tarp on the mattress. Your feet slid a few times as you tried to find a foothold and he lost his patience to bury his face into your core with a churr.

You cried out his name as he tasted you. His hands occupied with his brush, he rooted deeper with only his snout and lapped at your essence. Your appendages free in contrast, you fisted his mask and pulled. He clearly resisted and you saw through your delirium to how he was specifically keeping his snout from bumping that red blotch he’d made. An odd adornment hanging above your crotch, he licked up a fat stripe to suckle your clit and you bucked against his face once before he retreated. “Damned I can’t do both!”

You slumped a metered amount. “Can’t both cum in me and eat me out?”

“Yes.” He growled lightly before lifting an arm with a brush. His other appendage dipped to support the first and his perfected posture reminded you of a calligraphy master. You meant to ask if that was a skill of his, but the moment the moistened brush tip touched your thigh, you felt a current rip through your flesh. In expert strokes, the feather light tip wafted over you leaving blocks in its wake. You couldn’t help but compare it to the saliva and slick dripping from you. In contrast, it clung to you thick and wrote out a binding contract.

Property of Donatello down one inner thigh.

A prepared table that was ready to house marks of his ownership was left blank on the other.

You were leaned forward to look them over when he rose up enough to reveal his throbbing erection.

“Oh fuck…” You gasped.

“Shall we begin? See just how much of me you can hold?” He carved out a promise in scalding breath as he lined himself up with your weeping sex.

“D-Donnie, we have time. It’s not a race…”

“It’s not?” He smiled and was slow in bending forward to claim your lips. “I believe it is. Did you honestly think I wasn’t still competing with that inane heat-brained bastard?”

“That’s you-u-u-u!” Your word warbled as he pressed his glans in.

“Me.” He spat and shifted his angle with his hips alone to sink into you.

You moaned and moved to hold him.

He caught your limbs before he gave his body over to you. 

You felt something wet smear higher than anything between your legs.

For a moment, his weight dropped onto you and he gave a needy wriggle as if his cock wasn’t fully stuffed to its usual depths. 

You groaned at the pleasurable weight and felt how his entire body retreated as he pulled a calculated amount out. 

Look down. 

You looked. 

Where there had once been red, there was now purple. 

Looking up, you saw the same purple blotch on the bottom of Donnie’s plastron. 

Only his was rimmed with blue where yours had red. 

He had mixed the colors to create his own on your body right on the spot where you’d balloon with his kid. “Fuck me.”

“My pleasure.”

You wished you could say you lost track, but it was patently untrue as. Donnie, without fail, stopped each time he filled you up to make a tally mark on your inner thigh. He’d then wait, regardless of how far along you were, to ensure the dash would not smear. It was only then he’d return to you with a vigor that seemed to only grow with each symbol. 

By five you were delirious and he broke from sex to spill paint. Moving to abstract, he brought you back through slick digits that slid smoothly over your skin. He forewent brushes and dotted off designs until you were present and returned the favor. Together you tumbled and Donnie marked off zones with reminders of the memories they carried. It was a list of his downfall and you told him so. He churred warmth and between affectionate kisses, you drew lazy lines that covered his scars. The constant slick turned the many paints a neutral brain tone and with it an idea struck you.

Instructing him to get on his belly, you straddled his thighs with several bottles. You mixed outside the canvas of his body before you descended on his carapace with purpose. He was initially unnerved as you filled in the scarred gaps to his shell, but he settled at the firm pressure and reassurances that this is what you did in exchange. For each piece of him that he’d offered over, you patched them carefully to where they were meant to be. You’d never allow him to regret his decision to love you and it was when gnarled skin was filled in did you press your full palm down to the center of his spine.

“Donatello, you have my heart, my word, my everything. Whatever you choose, soft or domestic or otherwise, I’m going to make sure you can do it to your heart’s content.”

You stilled thinking he’d give a mating call or something of the like, but he sat silent.

You stared down at your hand that blended in with the color of his rough shell. 

“Y/N.”

His voice sounded watery and you tried to quell concerns. “Yeah?”

“Let go so I can gather you.”

You hadn’t considered you were holding him back. The moment your hand lifted, he flipped you over and made a thousand vows in return.

💜NEXT💜

What can I say other than I love my betas @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

[paper-gold-theories]

*spoilers for those who have not read Chapter 10 - 14 of The Risky Heist*

Villainous Theory/Observation: Miss Heed's One Eye Open Sympathy Act

When Miss Heed puts up an act to gain sympathy from people you can see the cracks of her personality showing clear signs that she is lying.

She does this to get people to do what she wants, take her side because they feel sympathetic towards her, and/or just to get attention from them.

Another reason, exclusively for her followers, might be because the formula is temporary and one of the ways that will snap them out of their mind control if they find out Miss Heed does not return their feelings. Hence she needs to act a certain way to cultivate a parisocial relationship to make sure her followers retain their zombified state.

During the act, she will close her eyes and act dramatically when stating her lie and she will open one eye once she is done. As if checking your to see if you have fallen for her lie, see your reaction of how effective her lie is and/or checking to see if the cost is clear and she can stop her act.

Here are some examples of Miss Heed doing that:

While she is streaming, Miss Heed says she is lonely and opens one eye after she says that. This act to garner sympathy from her viewers and proceeds to love bomb them saying she feels a little bit better because she has followers in order to cultivate her parisocial relationship.

She probably does this so many times, that it becomes a habit even when she can't see her followers while she is streaming.

----

When Miss Heed says she is ugly when Flug says he is admiring her beauty and afterwards opens one eye to see Flug's reaction to know if she needs to keep up the act.

This act is to make appear insecure so that Flug will feel sympathetic and give her attention and she can extort him for money for a photo, even though she has feelings for him, is basically a millionaire, and already mind controlled him to use him to create her formula. (though for this act, it sprinked with a little bit of truth as she appears not to like that her eyes is not pink does not have hearts and hair are not natural pink)

----

Miss Heed fake cries to gain sympathy from her followers so that they will go and hunt down the villains and "rescue her" for what they've done to her. And opens one eye to see their reaction.

When she sees that her followers are not doing anything, she shows her true colours and reveals that she is pissed off and humiliated rather than sad.

But you can see that she is extremely sad because she lost all of her followers. From the way that she doesn't open one eye afterwards.

----

From the Arenque News on Miss Heed's release, You can see Miss Heed using the same fake sympathy dramatic act by seeking a comforting hug from Captain Estrada and quivering her bottom to show as if she's "traumatized after being attacked by villains and the injustice she faced for being wrongfully locked up." and then opens one eye after she does this to see if her lie is effective.

In reality she just got out of her private yacht, and got her hair redyed and styled, contacts, and probably a makeover to look good for the fake photo and possibly using eye drops to make herself look like she's crying, as seeing from the previous example, she appears to not be able to produce real tears when she fake cries (her mascara was running because she was dropped in a vat of her formula).

----

One day she texted me at midnight, crying, telling me she needed help. I snuck out of my dorm in area B of the Institute, managed to sneak past the night guards, and made my way to her dorm in area C. She was at a window crying and I sat down with her and we talked, after a while she told me that me being there made her feel better.

However, this began to be a recurring event, that would happen at least 3 times a week, she would text me to come over and her mood would change radically every time I did. I asked her many times why she only wanted to complain to me instead of implementing any of the solutions I suggested but she just gave me the plane*, not literally, otherwise I would have been very happy.

(*Note: "gave me the plane" (daba el avión), is a Mexican expression meaning to ignore someone.)

Finally, based on Flug’s journal notes, above, I also theorised Miss Heed also used the same body language on Flug during their Black Hat Institution days after she texted him that she needs help to get him come to her dorm to get attention from him.

When he sat down to talk to her, she probably fake crying as she tells him a fake or over dramatic sob story while she closes her eyes and opens one eye to see if Flug believes her.

And Flug probably noticed the signs of her fake sympathy act after continuously sneaking past the guards to her dorm 3 times a week, risking a dangerous punishment if he gets caught.

Probably feeling a bit used by his friend, he calls her out on her behaviour by asking her why she only wants to complain to him instead of implement any of solutions he suggested in helping her.

However she just ignores him and continues "crying wolf" to get attention from Flug and also take advantage of Flug's friendship in the process. And despite this, Flug kept coming to her every time she texted, probably worrying what if this time when she texted him she really does need his help.

However just like "the boy who cried wolf" when Miss Heed really needs Flug's help in escaping the facility (not knowing if she will be able to before the events of Risky Heist), Flug probably got flashbacks from the Black Hat Institution days, of how he thought she was using him for attention, and this was confirmed now after finding out she stole his thesis, left school without a word to join his Arch-Nemesis, and mind controlled and used him to create the perfect formula for her perfume.

So even though Flug still has some lingering feelings for Miss Heed, in light of everything that she had done to him, now revealed and knowing that he and her are different people on different sides from when they were in school: he is a villain and she is a hero and Black Hat will most likely punish him for helping a hero.

He decides to cut his losses, break the cycle of being used and falling for her tricks and decides not to help her.

(The look he gave her was like "Yeah not this time...")

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

i read a lot of YA and NA and i really want to see more of the “dark” heroine/villainesses in these enemies to lovers/dark romance ships but it’s just very obvious that a lot of the popularity comes from people loving the reinforced gender roles tbh… a “bad girl” will get hate for having the same traits the evil or morally grey male love interests have. a “hero” love interest isn’t automatically signaling the burn the world down for her vibes. a hero isn’t always good though! ugh. i’m rambling. i know this could be as seductive as the norm but im a new writer and haven’t thought it through yet 🤬

Yeah those shelving categories are a hotbed for reinforced gender roles with zero actual critical thinking. This is partially because they currently function as offshoots of genre romance, just without as strict formula requirements. And gender essentialism is genre romance’s bread and butter. It’s also muddied by the lip service paid to feminism and #girlboss protagonists, when the actual story is wildly regressive.

There’s definitely a huge general double standard when it comes to female characters and morality though. Audience misogyny is just always going to be an issue, and a lot of people simply will not engage with female characters with the same compassion, or willingness to try to understand them, as they would a male character.

Personally, I support women’s wrongs 🤷‍♀️

There’s something incredibly compelling (and sexy) about women written with the same complete disregard for likability as male characters. I’m obsessed with female villains and antiheroes. More women should be pathetic, deadbeat drunks, or unfeeling, power hungry murderers, etc.

Anyway, I think it’s also important to keep in mind whether you’re thinking of “villain” as a moral designation, or the narrative function of an antagonist. Similarly, a protagonist doesn’t have to be a “hero,” in the sense of being moral good. You can have a deeply selfish and immoral protagonist doing evil things if you want, and you can even put them up against a worse evil, or just someone who is opposing their goals.

I think what draws people to a lot of villains is that they’re often driven, deeply flawed, and in high emotional conflict. All these things are interesting, and they result in interesting scenes. Whereas there is the tendency to try to sand down protagonists or keep them within some sort of barrier of respectability and morality, and that doesn’t have to result in blandness, but it absolutely can.

Like if you don’t want to write about good, nice people saving the day, you really don’t have to! Don’t be afraid to let your protagonists suck! Especially the women!

[moxpunk]

Moxie's Big-Ass Retrospective on Games She Played This Year

There's going to be a lot of games under the break, and I'm going full-hog on spoilers. Honestly, I'm going stream-of-consciousness with these, so there's not going to be a clear point made for some of them. Just how I remember them and how I feel now looking back.

Final Fantasy XIV This is my current MMO of choice, and it's been this massive part of how I spent my time this year. The patches and content continue to be great, even if I breeze through it all in a few days after the patch when plugins/mods are back up. I've definitely noticed a dip in my interest lately. I think it's because we've hit a good stopping-point for the plot and junk, so most of us are just waiting until the pre-patch of the new expansion next year. RP continues to get fucking worse and worse for someone that plays a lalafell, since the community at-large (especially the modding community) is actively hostile towards lalafells and their players. Having to check every single venue to see if my middle-aged potato is going to be treated like a child by the hosts gets exhausting after the umpteenth time. Still love the game and I poke at it on a regular basis.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom One of my favorite games I've played this year, but also one of the most frustrating in hindsight. There was a ton of lost opportunity in multiple aspects in this game, and it's sorta the thing I keep coming back to in my head. I loved the exploration and fucking around with physics and just getting to play around in Hyrule. It's a magical experience that I think transcends the fact that 2/3rds of the map is essentially re-used. The Underground was a missed opportunity to shove lore of ancient civilizations in there, Ganondorf was a missed opportunity to finally depict him as a tragic hero with Hyrule being the villains for once, and no plans for DLC or even a Hero Mode is a massive miss for me wanting to return to the world.

Baldur's Gate 3 Hands-down my favorite game of the year by a massive margin, but like TOTK, an immensely frustrating experience. The game is half-cooked in so many areas, and the bugs are plentiful to the extent that they can't really be ignored. The pathing system continues to be the Larian Special of being jank as all hell, with my characters running in the opposite direction of the path it lays out for them. I played this one on stream, and I cannot remember a single stream where I didn't have at least a handful of frustrations with the combat system. Hell, I had to completely restart my file in the middle of Act 2 because Karlach's romance bugged out. I continue to be very upset and frustrated at how goblins are treated, doubly so since in order to pursue the Good Route with Halsin, you have to attack fucking children. I don't care if they're goblins, they're kids. Also very disappointing we don't get a single short-race origin character, meanwhile half of the cast is some form of elf. At least it's nice letting me be full-on cock-out trans. Despite that, the writing and characterizations in this game are unparalleled. It's immensely refreshing to finally have a RPG where you fucking roleplay, after years of it being dialogue that doesn't matter in the slightest other than "points towards the good/evil ending". I love the Brain Slug Squad immensely. This game is probably going to become part of my "play this every year" list because there's just so many different ways to play through this game.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Been waiting for this game (or a game like it) for fuckin' years, and it's everything I wanted and expected. I know a lot of people went into the game expecting some massive thing that lasted hours and hours, but my memories of JSR/JSRF was a game that I could reasonably beat in an afternoon or two because I just get into the flow and know what I'm doing. Cyberfunk is the purest successor to JSF that I can thing of where it just adds to the fun formula of the past. Incredible game, love seeing the mods coming out for it, hope we get another game in the universe since Team Reptile said they aren't doing DLC.

Pizza Tower Love this game, adore the movement and the music, absolutely fell off at about the halfway mark. I think it's because a lot of stuff was coming out at the time, and I just kinda played those instead. One of these days, I'll beat it and be very satisfied, but for now my gremlin-brain that demands collecting every single collectable and getting at least an A-rank on every stage gets exhausted just thinking about it.

Elden Ring Opened the game up after upgrading to a new PC, marveled that I could run it on Ultra with the game keeping a smooth framerate, killed a few enemies, remembered about the fucking giant ants in this game and how there are zero mods to remove/change them, and then turned the game off and uninstalled. Begging someone to make a mod that gets rid of the fucking ants. Please. I've already gotten every trophy in the game last year, so any incentive I have to return is predicated on that.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty So, I'm going to give my thoughts about the base game and the DLC, since I played both. The base game continues to be this utter fascination to me where my brain adores just existing in the cyberhell future of nonstop advertising (if I have to hear YO YO YO MY CHEWERS SHROOMERS AND FUMERS! one more time I'm going to fucking strangle someone to death) and ultraviolence. The game continues to ride that weird line of "might as well do every side-quest because they're quick enough to get to and there's hardly any compared to Witcher 3" and "oh my god I do not care about these fucking sidequests other than I have gremlin-brain". Doing anything with sniper rifles or heavy machine guns is an exercise in frustration thanks to there being zero silenced sniper rifle until late-game and there being no unique HMGs.The DLC is... fine. It's fun antagonizing Idris Alba, it's not fun that the DLC is based around a stealth build, it's extremely not fun that the changed ending is deeply unsatisfying from a narrative standpoint.

Pseudoregalia An adorable little game that I enjoyed quite a bit for the very short time I got to fool around with it. Love the movement, love the style of the graphics, love the little pieces of story. Game doesn't get enough love, so here's me giving it some more.

Potionomics I fucking adore this game. I think what helped endear me was getting to do all the voices on-stream, but who cares this is my retrospective and I get to be biased. Loved the romances and characters in there. I absolutely headcanon Xid as being trans, Roxanne turns me into a babbling idiot, and I relate to Luna so hard it almost hurts. I enjoy that characters remain your friend if you already picked a partner, and you have to have a conversation about "hey, you were kinda flirty for a while and I feel a little weird about that now" for each of them. Breaking the economy by the third competition was immensely satisfying.

Paradise Killer I slammed through this game over the course of a single sleepless night thanks to Super Depression. Love the character designs and how bold they are, love the lore behind the world, got kinda sick of it taking so long to travel from place to place, gremlin-brain refused to let me part with the game until I collected everything. Hope to see a prequel/sequel of some sort, because Lady Love Dies is such an interesting character and I liked the bugfuck-weird world.

Peglin It's Peggle, you're a goblin, you get funky ball powerups, adore playing this game on my phone in short bursts. Not much more to say, it's my potato-chip game.

Rimworld Friend gifted this to me and I got horribly obsessed for like a week. It's a lot easier to grok than Dwarf Fortress thanks to the UI and information being easier to comprehend. I never know how to do the crazy shit in these games, I usually peak at having a little self-sustaining settlement with like 4 characters that live their little lives until a plague or bandit raid sweep through and kill everyone.

Halo: Master Chief Collection Another series of games I got obsessed with and pounded out before dropping it. Halo 1 is like twice as long as I remember, Halo 2's remastered cutscenes are fucking gorgeous and it continues to be my favorite out of the series, Halo 3 I'm lukewarm on it's whatever, Halo Reach is... eh I don't care, ODST I petered out of thanks to playing it with an ex that does not understand videogames, Halo 4 is a slog. Didn't do any multiplayer.

Helltaker Finally played it, beat it in like 2 hours, thought the puzzles were fun and the art continues to rattle around in my noggin.

A Hat In Time Another game that I finally beat after owning it for like the better part of a decade. Cute little game, I don't have a clue what any of the updates and junk do these days. The big mountain level is a fucking nightmare to navigate and explore and that's why I fell off last time.

Puzzle Agent Played this one on-stream because I'm Minnesotan as all fuck and I enjoy Professor Layton puzzles. It's just as good as I remember, even if it's incredibly short.

Kingsway Love the premise, adore that it takes me back to the Windows XP era of using my parents' computer. I had like one good run that died in the middle of things, and I never really went back. I should do this game again at some point.

Loop Hero Another procedural game where progress is usually bottlenecked by gathering base resources in each run so you have a fighting chance. All my runs sorta ended up the same by a certain point and I wasn't really having much fun anymore.

Lethal Company Game scares the absolute shit out of me, I cannot play this game for extended periods because I get heartburn from fear. Excellent experience with friends.

Super Mario RPG I didn't have a SNES growing up, so I never got a chance to play the original. So far, I've been greatly enjoying the remake! I don't have much to say because I've only played like four hours of it on stream.

Katamari Reroll Just beat this game again on stream last week. Extremely fun, extremely short, Lonely Rolling Star continues to make me get emotional and cry, my memories get mixed-up with We ♥️ Katamari when it comes to the final sequence of levels.

World of Warcraft I made the return, and holy shit have things changed in-game. The UI actually looks like it's part of a cohesive artstyle, catching up with the story and questlines after bouncing in the middle of Shadowlands is honestly kind of exhausting, and the RP community is still splintered and fractured between Retail and Epsilon. Controller-support has been my biggest gripe since XIV's is fucking stellar and I do not have the wrists/hands for putting my abilities on the keyboard anymore, I either have to use my janked-out mouse buttons or a controller using ConsolePort which is... serviceable but nowhere near good. Uh, I don't particularly care for the dragon-stuff in WoW's lore, and I still haven't done a single dungeon since I play Brewmaster and I'm so out of whack with WoW tanking that I just don't bother. I'm usually doing RP on my endless ranks of characters if I'm not playing with my girlfriend. Season of Discovery has been a fun thing to do with my friend and our guild, it's sorta what I wanted out of Classic when they announced it. The "No Changes" thing was stupid because we'll never get back the lack of information and endless time we had back then, so I'm very happy to have World Of Warcraft Chopped And Screwed Edition. As much as I still have massive, major gripes with Blizzard and ABK in general... Azeroth is still home for me. It's been important to me as a person. Wouldn't have realized I was trans or poly without it.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT My thinks and feelings on all the games I played this year in 2023. I guess to sum up the year in general? It's been a real shit year for me. Went through like three big breakups, my art output's been dogshit in quantity thanks to mental-health issues, and for the first half of the year people just sorta generally treated me poorly which exaserbated a lot of problems. I'm recovering, but I've noticed it's been a lot slower than it has been in the past. Games are a huge hobby of mine, so I'm glad I've gotten to play some bangers this year. Being more active on Tumblr's been good for my mental health, since I finally feel like I've got a community again after not really feeling like I've had one in forever. Love you guys, stay weird. 💖💖💖

Sorry not sorry for this being so long.

[b-else-writes]

The Great CLAMP Re-Read Part 8: Legend of Chunhyang

Part 1 (RG Veda) | Part 2 (Man of Many Faces) | Part 3 (Tokyo Babylon) | Part 4 (Duklyon) | Part 5 (Clamp Detectives)| Part 6 (Shirahime)| Part 7 (X)| Part 9 (Miyuki-chan)

The RG Veda historical epic that never was, or better off cancelled? While X is widely cited as CLAMP's first unfinished work, there is actually another 1992 stillborn CLAMP work, before we can finally move onto 1993 in the CLAMP timeline. To be a broken record, I had no idea this existed! It’s unsurprising: only 3 chapters were ever published (plus 1 drama CD), before the magazine folded and CLAMP decided to cancel the project (yeah yeah they said they’d love to finish it. They’re liars).

Unlike many of their other discontinued early works, this one actually got a tankoban release, and Tokyopop did the now out-of-print English translation in a single volume with no extra art. Plus, I was hesitant about approaching a work of Korean folklore written by 4 Japanese women, given the history, and my fears were not unfounded. So I’m content that I put off getting the physical release for my collection. Spoilers (?) ahead.

Synopsis: In Ancient Korea, a brave young maiden called Chunhyang, opposes the injustices of the corrupt governing Yangbans. When her mother, a magic-wielding mudang, is kidnapped by their town's Yangban, Chunhyang is aided by the lecherous Mongryong, the Amhaeng’eosa, a secret government agent. Together, the two set off on adventure that will take them across Korea to liberate towns and discover the truth of Chunhyang's father.

The Story: I wrote all of that out, but the reality is what actually exists of Legend of Chunhyang is two chapters and a flashback. It's very hard to judge a story that hasn't settled in or moved further than the set up for the adventure. What we got is entertaining enough - chapter 1 is the inciting incident where Chunhyang’s mother dies and she teams up with Mongryong, 2 has them liberate a mystical flower village with the help of a rain god and twin mudang, and 3 is a flashback that reveals Chunhyang’s dead father was important and killed for defying the Yangban. It’s very Robin Hood, and moves at a good pace despite being pretty standard YA fantasy. Speaking of, I don’t think CLAMP realises most Korean towns back then would have been agricultural. Why does Chunhyang live in a huge villa doing nothing all day? I want my peasant hero, not a disgruntled pseudo noble.

The skeleton for the entire story is pretty obvious (bring revolution to Korea) and I’d definitely be curious to see more of it. But I’m also not sad we got nothing more. It’s a pleasant afternoon distraction.

The Themes: Don’t be a bully and tyrannical governments are bad and must be resisted - as long as they’re Korean (side-eyes that Rising Sun flag in CLAMP Campus Detectives. Ah, Japanese nationalism). It’s 3 chapters, that’s all I can glean.

The Characters: Chunhyang fits heavily into the CLAMP stock heroine: young, spunky, strong, pure-hearted, and athletic, shojo ingenue. Still, while she’s nothing new, I enjoyed Chunhyang. CLAMP has the formula for the fun, palatable heroine we love to see win, and I’m hardly immune. Mongryong was more bland to me, falling hard into that 90s era shojo hero who gets comically beaten up by his love interest, but always suavely swoops in to save her. It’s nostalgic, he’s hot, but that’s it. Maybe with time they would have defined themselves like RG Veda’s cast did (also archetypes), but there’s just so little!

The crumbs of minor characters are equally stock - one dimensional cackling villains, and pure beyond belief good guys. Mongryong’s tiger spirit was my favourite because I love all cats. It’s really the charm of Chunhyang that carries us above - she’s a good balance of fierce and endearing.

The Art: Legend of Chunhyang is interesting in that chapter 1 was brush inked due to their experience on Shirahime, but the remaining art was done with marker pen. The result is chapter 1 feels a bit unpolished, with backgrounds being mostly chunky blobs and quick lines in a way I found distracting. 2 and 3 work much better, with thick swirls of soft magic and flowers, giving Chunhyang a slight distinction from their other early 90s work. The panel work is quite conservative unlike RG Veda, very rarely having dynamic spreads, but satisfactory and readable. Chapter 2 is a standout of circling dragons and flowers. Everyone is gorgeously dressed and pretty. It’s not the best of CLAMP, but it’s nice and elevates the material.

Questionable Elements: While certain CLAMP podcasts have praised CLAMP for essentially rewriting the folktale to make Chunhyang more active - why would you even choose to adapt that Korean folklore then, if your intention is to make a generic Robin Hood sword and fantasy series that has zero to do with the original culture? You could just set it in feudal Japan! It feels very distasteful to deliberately choose Korea as a setting of barbaric unending tyranny that needs correcting. Especially given Japan’s history in “modernising” Korea.

On top of that, there’s a clear lack of research done - a lot of the outfits and hair accessories are inaccurate. Chunhyang’s mother’s decision to kill herself than risk dishonour is also incredibly Japanese (and notably doesn’t exist in the original). I have to cry foul because if you’re going to actually set this in a real ancient Korea, you should do your research. I’m not saying CLAMP are anti-Korean but they show a disappointing lack of care and bias.

Also. How old is Mongryong if Chunhyang is 14. Answer quickly, CLAMP.

Overall: Listen, RG Veda 2.0 this is not. Rather than an imaginative, fantastical, sweeping epic, Legend of Chunhyang is built on very familiar tropes and stock characters with a dose of cultural insensitivity and bias. It doesn’t even have a proper narrative arc, existing more as a “what if” than an almost masterpiece. It’s alleviated by the sheer charm of Chunhyang herself, its brisk, entertaining pace, and the enjoyable art. But it’s no great literary tragedy that it was never finished, and I’d really only recommend it to diehard CLAMP fans who want a quick, pleasant escape on a fantasy adventure.

[themousefromfantasyland]

What are the foundational films of each genre?

Films so historically important to each genre, be it by its tropes or film techniques, that without them no other films of the same type would ever exist.

I will start

Fantasy - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 1937

Animation is a media, not a genre.

And Snow White not only impacted animation as a media, but the fantasy genre as a whole.

The way it laid the foundations for the fantasy musical. The way it defined the formula for the fairy tale film, with princess protagonist, love story, funny side characters, true love kiss as a plot point, and the threatening villain.

The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Mary Poppins would never exist without this film.

Even more mature fantasy films probably wouldn't exist without this film, because this was the film that proved audiences could take seriously a fantasy story in the first place.

Sci-fi - Metropolis - 1927

The first cyberpunk film ever made.

One of the most influential Sci-fi films ever made.

You can see Metropolis influence everywhere from Blade Runner to Tim Burton's Batman. C3PO from Star Wars takes direct from Robot Maria.

The focus on technology. The class struggle. The questions about progress versus worker's rights. Themes still present in cyberpunk storytelling to this day.

Any more examples?

@ariel-seagull-wings @mask131 @thealmightyemprex @princesssarisa @the-blue-fairie @tamisdava2 @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @piterelizabethdevries