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hairmetal666 · 9 months

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Steve who goes on a Bake Off type show after Robin, Dustin, and Max set him up as a contestant. He doesn't want to, doesn't think baking or cooking should be stressful, but he's been wallowing since his knee surgery took him out of work and basketball, since his divorce.

His first day on set, he's totally gobsmacked by the sexy host with all the tattoos and long, curly hair. Just, cannot take his eyes off the guy, blushing and stammering whenever he comes around to do interviews, obviously can't stop starring.

After the first day, where he manages to stay comfortably in the middle of the pack, he calls Robin to complain about what a mess he becomes around this gorgeous dude.

Her response is to cackle and say, "Steve! How do you not know who Eddie Munson is? Oh my god, you're a disaster."

Turns out, Eddie Munson is the lead singer of Dustin's favorite band, Corroded Coffin, and also pretty well-known for his dnd YouTube channel. He's been a host on the show for years, only Steve doesn't really pay attention when the others watch it and didn't know.

Eddie, for his part, is losing his mind. He'd known about the beautiful contestant for this season, former college basketball superstar turned coach, having a hell of a shitty year after dislocating his kneecap in a charity game. Eddie--foolishly, it turns out--thought he wouldn't be as attractive in person. He also expected Steve to be terrible and egotistical, a jock through and through.

So, when Steve Harrington walks into the tent in a short-sleeved polo and obviously ironed jeans and is still drop-dead gorgeous, he's fucking flabbergasted. And then Steve has the audacity to be nice? Kind and thoughtful and running to help other bakers when he still has work to do himself? He also blushes so pretty, high across his nose and cheeks, and god does hewant to be the reason Steve blushes like that.

Eddie is beside himself.

Leading up to the second week, Steve schools himself into being calm around Eddie. He can't afford to lose his cool like that every time the host is around. Except, this week Eddie flirts with him shamelessly. Winks at him, leans into space, calls him "m'lord" with this deeply resonant voice that makes Steve want to drop to his knees. Steve doesn't mean to, not really, but he flirts right back, feeding Eddie tidbits of his bakes and looking for any excuse to touch him.

Steve does well for the first half of episodes. He never wins the technical or star baker, but he's regularly within the top contestants. On episode five, though, something is off. He's distracted, forgetful, doesn't leave enough time for his custard to set in the signature. Eddie asks if he's okay, but Steve shrugs and smiles, says "off my game today."

But then, in the technical, he curdles his buttercream more than once, and his genoise sponge burns. Eddie watches as Steve folds his arms above his head and disappears from view. He doesn't hesitate, he sprints from his interview, falling to his knees in front of the contestant.

"Stevie, sweetheart, what's going on?"

"I get migraines," Steve whispers. Trails of wet streak down his cheeks. "I've felt one coming all morning, been trying to stave it off but--"

"Okay, okay," Eddie shakes out his hands. "You can sit out this challenge, yeah? Or take this weekend off. It happens. You'll come back next week--"

"I don't want to stop." More tears fall from his eyes.

"What do you need?"

Steve shakes his head, wry little smile pulling at his lips. "Time to breathe."

Eddie glances up, eyes catching on the camera crew hovering in front of them. He throws both middle fingers up and says, in the most reasonable and even tone, "fuck!" Everyone in the tent looks at him, but he doesn't stop. "Shit!" "Bitch!" Motherfucker!" He goes on and on, saying the filthiest series of things he can think of. The camera crew steps away, another contestant brings Steve a glass of water, and Eddie sits with him.

The other host announces that there are thirty minutes remaining in the challenge.

"Well. That's that, then," Steve says. He stands, patting the naked skin of Eddie's knee where it shows through the rip in his jeans as he goes.

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"Out of time, no cake, no buttercream."

Eddie hops to his feet. "You're going to let that stop you?"

"Well." Steve laughs. "Can't serve this." He gestures to his discarded bowls of frosting, his burnt cake.

"You have time to make another buttercream."

Steve raises an eyebrow. "Sure, but not the cake."

"Cut the burnt off. Cover it in the buttercream. Easy peasy."

"Okay..." Steve stares at his station. "Okay, that could work. It won't be pretty, but--"

Eddie, knowing he's no longer needed, steps away, and Steve gets to work.

Steve tells Robin all about it and, as soon as he gets home from the taping and she's immediately like, "Eddie Munson, huh?"

He shoots her a look. "It's nothing."

"Yeah, him leaping over a table to check on you is surely nothing."

"Robin," he warns.

"What?"

"Eddie would never want a guy like me."

She laughs but quickly grows sober. "Steve. Of course he would. He likes you."

"It's nothing, really." He walks towards the kitchen. "What do you want for dinner?"

Eddie experiences the same harassment from his band members and their manager.

"You're gonna ask Harrington out, right?" Gareth asks.

"That would be a little bit of a professional conflict of interest," he deadpans. He doesn't look up from his guitar.

A puffed Cheeto smacks him square in the forehead. "Hey!" He shrieks.

"He means once the season is done, Edward," Chrissy says.

He wipes the cheese dust from his forehead. "Not a good enough reason to call me Edward. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he's straight."

Jeff guffaws. "C'mon, dude. No way. He's so into you he might as well have a neon sign."

"He divorced a woman."

"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it," Chrissy says.

Eddie rolls his eyes. "I may be considering asking him out. Maybe."

Everyone cheers. More Cheetos hit him in the face.

---

To Steve's great surprise, he makes it to the finals. Not just makes it, he gets a star baker, gets first in the semi-final technical. He's baking in the final and might have a fucking chance.

It's with great surprise, once it's all said and done, that he hears his name announced as the winner. He doesn't have much time to process it, because Eddie is striding towards him. He's not carrying the cake stand trophy or flowers, it's just Eddie.

Eddie who stops in front of him, eyes shining. Eddie who leans in and whispers, "I knew you could do it, baby, I'm so proud of you." Eddie who twines his fingers through Steve's hair, pulling him into a soft, sweet kiss.

The internet explodes as the season airs. Everyone is obsessed with Steve and Eddie. They have fics on ao3, a dedicated tumblr community, edits, playlists, gif sets, a ship name all dedicated to them. The fandom grows after episode 5 airs. Not all the footage makes it, thanks to Eddie, but they still witness him tenderly taking care of Steve and directing the cameras away. Fans start scouring their social medias, looking for any hint of their relationship status; even beg them in comments and DMs to reveal if it was just a showmance.

Eddie and Steve, however, are happy in the quiet little world the carved out for themselves after filming. They aren't ready to reveal anything, even hints, whether or not the show would let them.

Then, the final airs and the kiss is revealed to the world. The ending title cards show a picture of Steve with the rest of the season's bakers and the caption, "Steve threw a party for the other bakers..."

The picture then changes to one of he and Eddie, arms wrapped around each other. This caption says: "...at the home he shares with his boyfriend Eddie."

That night, in bed, Steve says, "I'm really glad Robin and the kids made me go on the show. But do you think it's bad that the thing I'm happiest about, way more than winning, is that I met you?"

Eddie places a slow circle of kisses in the dip of Steve's lower back. "Sweetheart, I'd be disappointed if you said anything else. Now, hush, I have a baking champion to congratulate."

#steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #ficlet #fluff #mutual pining #bake off au #tv host eddie munson #bake off contestant steve harrington #i just finished the latest season and had to make it steddie #mel and sue used to do the thing where they cussed and flipped off the cameras so upset bakers couldn't be filmed

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fxrmuladaydreams · 5 months

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i love you (po5)

pato x introverted!reader

summary: feelings begin to rise after the barber race

wc: 716

notes: this is just me trying this (writing for indycar) out! pls be nice, i’ve only watched a few races and am still learning what’s what. also i promise i’m working on the george story!!

You winced at the screen in front of you, watching as Pato’s car came in contact with Pietro’s, sending the Rahal into the barrier. You hold a hand in front of your mouth as you watch Pato continue driving, grateful that he was okay.

You know he’s going to be upset about the penalty, the radio message coming through your headphones confirms that. He sounds frustrated, angry even.

You know he wanted to do well. For his career obviously, but you knew a small part of him wanted to do well for you. You were still fairly new to Indycar, having watched races from home, sometimes yours, mostly his after he told you he liked having you there when he got home.

This was only the second race you’d attended in person, the first being the previous week in Long Beach. You and Pato had a private relationship. He knew you were more introverted and didn’t want to force you into the limelight before you were comfortable. He was ecstatic when you told him you were ready to attend a race with him. After spending almost a year together, slowly building your relationship, he was excited to finally be able to show you off and introduce you to his other love, racing.

He kept an arm around you during the race weekends, giving you his Arrow McLaren hat to wear while he was driving. He introduced you to the team and showed you his car, rambling on about different things while you smiled and nodded along.

You could tell he was disappointed to finish in the midfield in Long Beach, and seeing him angrily get out of his car after the Barber race you knew he was equally if not more upset.

You stand quietly to the side while he talks with his engineer, following behind him as he walks to the driver lounge.

He keeps quiet as he unzips his race suit, letting it fall to his waist. He searches through a cabinet, finally pulling out a snack, and another he tosses to you.

You don’t know what to say to him, afraid of how he’ll respond. He speaks first though.

“Sorry it was a shitty weekend.” His eyes don’t meet yours as he sits down.

You sigh, sitting next to him. “That penalty was bullshit.”

He looks up at you surprised. He could probably count the amount of times he’d heard you curse on one hand. “It happens.” He shrugs.

“No, it’s not like you wanted to hit him, because why the hell would you want that? And they made you drive through the pit, dropping you down so far you were driving by yourself!”

The scowl on his face slowly disappears, turning into a smile as you keep talking to him, angrily defending your boyfriend.

“They need to open their damn eyes and watch a replay-”

“I love you!” Pato laughs.

You freeze, your eyes widening at the man sitting next to you. “You… what?”

It’s then that Pato realizes what he’s said. He wonders if he should backtrack, attempt to take it back to make the terrified look on your face go away. But it’s as if someone plays a video of your relationship in his mind, showing him all the time you’ve spent together and how you’ve grown with one another.

“I love you.” He says quietly. A blush covers his cheeks as he looks down at his lap. “I wanted the first time I told you to be special, but it just kinda came out just now.” He looks back up at you and sheepishly smiles. “Look, you don’t have to say it back, I know we’re taking things slow, and even having you here was a big step so I understand if-”

It’s him who’s cut off this time as you press your lips to his. You gently hold his face in your hands, pulling away to look into his eyes.

“I love you too.” You murmur.

He grins before leaning in to kiss you again.

“I’m gonna win one soon. A real win, not because someone DQ’ed, and it’s gonna be for you.” He says when he pulls himself away from you, keeping an arm wrapped around you tightly, as if he’s not planning on letting you go.

#pato o’ward x reader #pato o'ward x reader #indycar x reader

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samkerrworshipper · 1 year

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togetherness

matilda’s x reader

this one’s a long one so rip

also pls keep sending request lol i need ideas

your a rookie on the squad, struggling to find your footing in a team that you don’t think you fit into. what happens when a certain conflict arises between you and one of your teammates?

angst, little bit of fluff, 5k+ words

I couldn’t really give you a timeline on when I started to space out, when I started to check out. I knew chronologically it would have had to be a few weeks ago, after the world cup had started, just after my whole life had become a shit storm. It was a process, checking out of your own life, it took time, I think that’s why I couldn’t tell you the one moment that I started to, because there wasn’t an exact moment. Slowly the days just all start to smudge into one big mess, you can’t tell people what day it is anymore or when your last meal was. Which sounds stupid, because those are just mundane things. When you check out of life though those things stop mattering, for me I either sleep obtusely or I don’t sleep at all, I don’t eat, I forget how to look after myself. I try to be discreet about it for as long as I can, but eventually people catch on, especially when you are playing professional sport, because you are surrounded by doctors and athletes that know the signs of burnout.

At around two weeks, I think, I could tell my team was catching onto my behaviour. I was a mess, I came to breakfast in the morning with puffy red eyes from crying at night, I didn’t really talk to anyone unless I had to, I was always tired, I kept to myself a little bit too much. It was a matter of time until I was approached, probably told off for having a shitty attitude. I had predicted that, expected it. What I hadn’t expected was to be pretty much cornered in my locker before training by our team captain, Sam Kerr.

As one of the youngest on the team it was safe to say that I was pretty much terrified of our skipper. Not that Sam was a scary person, she was lovely, considerate to a fault. But she was terrifying in a sense that we all knew heading into the world cup she had one ambition and that was to win at home, at all costs. That’s a little bit intimidating, especially when you know that she is prepared to hand you your ass on a silver platter if you do absolutely anything to jeopardise that ambition.

I’d been sitting in my cubby, lacing my cleats up. Both of my airpods in, hoodie on, tracksuit on, puffer jacket hood on. If I didn’t scream unapproachable I don’t know what did. I’d been sitting there a little bit too long I think, staring at my shoe lace for a little bit long, long enough for someone to point me out to Sam. I’d gotten the fright of my life when Sam’s hand had very gently connected with my shoulder. I’d flinched back almost immediately, before turning around and realising where the contact had come from. Sam looked a little bit offended by my sudden reaction to her touch, but the concern left her facial expression fairly quickly.

“Are you okay kid?”

I hated that question. Three words that drove me insane. I don’t think anyone ever answered that question honestly, because it was so blunt. How were you supposed to honestly answer a person you didn’t trust with the answer to the question.

I pulled my airpods out of my ears purely out of respect, even though I could hear Sam perfectly clear.

“Fine, Cap.”

I thought my words would have been enough of an indicator that I didn’t want to talk to her but she’d taken it as an invitation instead to sit down on the bench beside me.

“You don’t look fine.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, hard enough to draw blood, and focused on completing the task of lacing up my cleats.

“Well I am.”

My answers were short and snappy, closed off. They didn’t leave room for imagination or interpretation. I was a blunt person, I spoke bluntly, I reacted to things bluntly. I’d always been that way and I was pretty sure I’d never change.

“Do you want to talk about it? Because I’m here for you.”

I gulped and finished tying up my first cleat, moving on to pulling the second one over my sock covered left foot. I always put the left one on first, it had become routine for me, that was how I’d tied them before I’d won my first game and I’d stuck with it, it was a superstition that I’d never been able to break and I didn’t see why I should break it now.

“I don’t have anything I need to talk to you about.”

My voice was betraying me, my voice and my eyes. I knew Sam would pick up on my aversion to looking at her in the eyes. I could blame it on focusing on tying up my shoes but she was also sitting directly above them and every time I lifted my eyes I just happened to focus on the wall behind her instead.

“Doesn’t seem that way, Ellie told me that she’s heard you crying in your ensuite at night, she says you don’t sleep very much, which I think your under eyes are enough supporting evidence.”

I let my eyes drift over to Ellie, she was standing on the complete opposite side of the locker rooms, talking anxiously to Kyra and Hailey. As soon as she looked up and met my eyes I could tell that Sam’s approach to me had been driven by her, the anxious look in her eyes was enough of a giveaway.

“Ellie doesn’t know what she’s talking about, the girl talks in her sleep most of the time or she’s on the phone to her girlfriend, I don’t think she’d be able to recall my night time activities.”

I focused back in on my cleats, knotting them furiously with my hands that I had now realised were shaking.

“She seemed to have a pretty good idea, we’ve all seen you’ve been checked out recently. I get if you don’t want to talk about it now around the girls. You seem to be having a bad day. So how about you get yourself through training and then you and I have a chat in private?”

It was phrased as a question but nothing about how she’d said the words came out as a proposition, it was an order. I would have tried to object but I knew it would be useless, Sam had made her mind up and once Sam had made up her mind there was no changing it.

“Sounds good skipper.”

My voice was nothing but dripping with sarcasm, it was my only way of pushing out my very clear distaste with the idea of having to talk to Sam after training. As soon as Sam stood up and I’d checked that both of my cleats were on properly I marched right over to Ellie, pulling her away from the conversation she was in and back over to my locker.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are but telling on me to cap isn’t going to get you fucking brownie points with me, we aren’t friends Ellie, we’re not sleepover buddies. I am working tooth and nail here to be fucking respected and I just got a proper emotional dressing down from Kerr that was pretty much just her telling me that I needed to get my act together. If that doesn’t scream out not fucking respected than I don’t know what does.”

I watched all of the colour drain from Ellie’s face as she slowly became far more uncomfortable in the conversation. She wasn’t backing down though.

“I don’t know what fucking planet you are on y/n/n but we are just looking out for you. I hear you at night in the bathroom, sobbing and balling your eyes out. That doesn’t scream out okay to me. Sam wasn’t giving you a dressing down she was asking you if you were fucking okay, something that we’ve all wanted to do for a few weeks now, we were just all scared to because we thought you were going to rip our heads off, like you are doing to me right now. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about you right now because how you’ve been behaving as of late isn’t fucking normal and anybody in there right mind would be worried about you.”

Ellie and I’s argument had escalated enough that I could tell most of the locker room's attention had fallen to our heated conversation, neither of us were ready to back down though and that much was evident in how strong both of our glares at each other held.

“Fuck you, you aren’t the person who gets to decide whether or not I’m okay or not. So what if I’ve been keeping to myself? Maybe I needed some down time away from this fucking extroverted team that never gives me a fucking break.”

It was a personal dig, one that I had said far too loudly in a crowded room of girls that I actually really loved, it had been like word vomit though, getting thrown out in me and Ellie’s fight.

“That’s not fair and you know it, all anybody here has done is be nice to you and you’ve been a fucking dick to everyone for the last few weeks, it’s not normal. You were so happy at training camp but ever since we’ve gotten here you’ve lost your shit and it’s fucking pathetic because we are your team and family and you should trust us more than anybody else but you don’t you don’t give two shits about anybody here besides yourself and we can all see it. It’s embarrassing having your represent us in your current condition. Your a wreck. You didn’t deserve to be brought up from the under 20’s. Maybe if you spent less time in our bathroom at nighttime crying about how hard your sorry ass life was you’d realise there are people and things on earth that are more fucking important than you are.”

Ellie’s words had taken the air out of my lungs, it wasn’t what I’d expected and even her facial expression reflected that she was a little bit taken aback by her own words. They were personal, really personal. I blinked a few times, trying to get a footing in the conversation but I couldn’t, because what was I supposed to say to a person accusing me of being a selfish heartless team mate? Me and Ellie stood stock still, just staring at each other, both of us obviously waiting for the other to keep talking but neither of us could.

“Ellie Madison Carpenter, out on the field, right now.”

Steph’s voice echoed against the walls of the changerooms, everyone else was standing completely silent and still in the room. I looked around the locker rooms, aware that literally everyone besides Sam who had left the locker rooms after her talk to me had just heard Ellie’s speech. I was too shocked to do anything besides plaster my hand against my mouth and run directly into the bathroom that connected to the change rooms. I did my best to not let any tears fall until I’d locked the disabled bathroom door behind me and I’d slid down onto the floor. Was that actually what the team thought of me? That I was a selfish, useless, coldhearted bitch who was just here for herself? Ellie’s words had hurt my heart and soul, because I didn’t play for myself, I hadn’t ever.

I consciously could hear the frantic knocking on the bathroom door but my subconscious was doing its best to tune it out.

“Y/n, open the door, please.”

“Fucking Ellie, that kid has no fucking filter.”

“How are we supposed to explain to Cap that she locked herself in the bathroom?”

“Fuck we were supposed to be on the field five minutes ago, Tony is going to have a field day giving us fucking suicide sprints.”

Those were a few of the sentences that I made out through the door. They were enough to tell me that I needed to get my shit together, because one thing I couldn’t handle on top of the team thinking I was all of those things was the team thinking I was the fucking emotional mess that everyone seemed to think I was. So after letting whatever tears I had left fall, I flushed the toilet, in an attempt to try and disguise the sound of me furiously washing the redness off of my face then I walked towards the door, took a deep breath and unlocked it. Hailey and Macka were both waiting outside and were very clearly surprised by my exit from the bathroom.

“Alanna, don’t worry about getting skip, she’s out.”

I bit the inside of my mouth again, satisfied with the irony taste of my own blood filling my mouth.

“Sorry, just feeling a little bit sick.”

It was very clear none of them believed my excuse. I tried to push past them though, trying my hardest to avoid whatever awkward confrontation that I was apparently bound to, because both Ras and Mackenzie stopped me before I could take a step.

“Y/n. What Ellie said wasn’t true and it’s okay for you to feel emotions about that, she let the heat of the moment get to her.”

I gulped, swallowing the mixture of blood and sweat that was resonating in my mouth.

“I told you, I feel sick. I don’t give a shit what Ellie has to say, she’s very welcome to her own opinions, this is a free country, she has an issue I’d rather her say it to my face.”

My words were faulty, untrustworthy, like ice that was slowly cracking.

“You are allowed to be upset at her for saying that about you, it was mean and she was trying to get to you. It’s okay for you to have emotions about that.”

I pursed my lips, I hated confrontation. Confrontation was terrifying.

“I told you I just felt sick, I still do. I need to go talk to Tony, can I leave or am I being held hostage until I talk about emotions that I don’t have or feel right now?”

Hayley and Mackenzie both looked between each other, trying to think up another plan of attack but clearly not finding anything telepathically between themselves.

“You are free to go, we’re here for you if you need to talk.”

I rolled my eyes at the two of them.

“Thanks, I’ll keep a mental note next time I need a therapist to talk about my nonexistent selfish feelings with.”

The sarcasm rolled off of my tongue too easily as I walked out of the locker rooms and into the tunnel, slowly making my way out onto the field. It was night training, so the ground was cold and the bright white fluorescent lights were blaring down across the pitch. I looked out across the ground, the girls had already started running whatever drills they’d been instructed to start with which led me to ask myself the question of how long had I actually locked myself in that bathroom for?

I made my way straight over to Tony who was looking at me in that way he tended to when he was thinking about something.

“Ms y/l/n.”

He smiled at me, a little bit too kindly for my liking.

“Coach, I’m feeling a bit sick, I think I might have eaten something funny this morning, probably that granola that looked like it had been sitting out for a little bit to long, I think I should probably just rest for tonight, unless you want a granola vomit mess to deal with.”

Tony’s eyes studied me, my body language, silently assessing my every move.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with what happened between you and Ms Carpenter?”

Fuck, that was me exposed. I looked down to my cleats, by default, because I couldn’t look into his eyes knowing that he knew I was lying straight to his face.

“She approached me, told me that she’d said some things to a teammate before coming out for warm ups that she was sorry for, that I should sit her out for a game because of it. Wouldn’t tell me who she’d spoken to, which made me think it must have been pretty serious.”

I gulped anxiously, fuck. Fuck Ellie for making this whole night a flaming hot pile of shit.

“It wasn’t anything bad, I feel sick, it’s got nothing to do with Ellie, I’m a big girl, I can handle my own problems, she shouldn’t sit out for a week, we need her.”

I let my eyes cross the field, to where Ellie was, her whole complexion had paled dramatically and she looked like she’d just been on a really high rollercoaster.

“We also need to look out for the safety of our players. I'm going to ask you this once and I want you to tell me the complete truth. Did Ellie personally attack you in the change rooms before training tonight? Don’t lie to me, I’ll ask one of your team mates if you do and I don’t want to hear that their answers were any different to yours.”

I bit down hard on my mouth tissue, there was a part of me that wanted to lie for Ellie, even though it would probably land us in more trouble, there was also a part of me that wanted to hand her in, even though in my eyes she hadn’t really done anything wrong, she’d said her peace.

“We were both giving it to each other, she gave as much as she got. I deserve to sit out a week just as much as she does if we’re referencing words said to each other, we were both rude, we got stuck up in the heat of the moment. I promise you, with every bone in my body that it won’t ever happen again, I swear to you.”

One thing that my brother told me when we were growing up was how to effectively lie. There was an art to the practice of lying. The first rule was body language, everyone had a tell, it was about identifying yours and then figuring out how to stop it or disguise it. For example, my youngest brother would always tap his left foot when he was lying. Rule number two is eye contact. You need to make some, but not so much that it’s creepy. People can tell when you refuse to make eye contact with them, so you need to occasionally. Third is your voice, it needs to be steady, your pitch and tone need to be consistent, one of the easiest tells is a raised voice when you lie. The fourth rule is physical change, this one is probably the hardest, because there isn’t anything you can do to stop yourself if you get clammy hands when you are lying, you just have to disguise it. The fifth and final rule is words, you need to use enough that your sentences are coherent but don’t over-sell yourself, summarise what needs to be said, instead of reading off a whole backstory.

I’d broken number five and two whilst talking to Tony and I could tell that he was picking up on it. He looked between me and the field before calling over one of my teammates.

“Mary, can I have you for a second.”

I gulped down the lump that was forming in the back of my throat when Fowler finished off the drill she was doing and ran over to the sideline to stand beside the coach and I.

“What can I do for you, coach?”

He smiled at her, I’d very quickly noticed that Mary was one of his favourites, rightfully so. She was a hard worker but she was also kind, Matilda’s captain material for the future.

“Can you give me a run down of what happened in the lockers before training between Ellie and y/n, from my understanding there was a small altercation, but both of them aren’t telling me the whole story and I don’t have time for beating around the bush.”

I looked at Mary, silently praying for her to downplay it, maybe she hadn’t heard much of it. She was the one to pick if you wanted an honest answer, she couldn’t lie for the life of her, I knew that much. She bit her lip subtly, thinking thoroughly before she said anything.

“None of us heard how it started, we all knew that y/n/n was the one to drag Ellie over to her locker after Cap spoke to her. They were arguing, it seemed harmless. Until Ellie was yelling in y/n/n’s face.”

Tony nodded at her inquisitively, clearly very invested in what she had to say.

“Did you hear what Ms Carpenter was saying to Ms y/l/n?”

I gulped, shaking my head as subtly as I could at Mary, this whole encounter was a headache.

“Look, it’s not really something I’m comfortable with repeating.”

I knew Mary was trying to be helpful but I also knew that statement was going to backfire on her because it made the whole situation sound a lot worse than it was.

“Mary, if you don’t tell me I will get someone else too, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

Mary herself gulped anxiously, her eyes frantically darting between Tony and myself. I nodded at her, clearly seeing her distress and just giving her the permission to say her peace, because apparently it was going to get said anyways.

“She was yelling at y/n/n about how y/n/n was selfish and didn’t give a shit about anybody beside herself. I heard her using something about y/n crying in their bathroom at night against her, saying that she was too worried or self obsessed to care about anyone else on the team. I wasn’t close enough though to tell you exactly what either of them said. I was on the other side of the room, Steph was the closest, if you want information I’d be asking her, not me.”

I could feel my hands shaking in my pockets, this whole situation was giving me anxiety.

“Okay then, thank you, can you go fetch Steph for me, just tell her to come over here.”

Mary nodded at coach, before sending me a silent sorry smile before running back out onto the pitch.

Coach pointed to the bench that was on the sidelines a few feet behind us, silently motioning for me to follow him and take a seat down on it.

“Based on what I’ve just been told, I think that Ellie should sit out for a week, her behaviour towards you was unacceptable and she needs to understand there are repercussions for those kinds of situations. Y/n I know that you’ve struggled to find your footing in the team, I’ve seen you struggling with your mental health. I’m here for you if you ever need to talk about it or if you need help. If those struggles mean that you need to separate yourself from the team then that is what you do, regardless of the decisions you make you are a valued member on this team and you don’t deserve to be verbally assaulted because Ellie has a problem with you.”

I pursed my lips, I didn’t think I’d been verbally assaulted, if anything I’d started it.

“Coach, I started it with Ellie. She didn’t even mean what she said, we need her this week, it’s an important game that we can’t afford to have her miss. I don’t want to be the reason we lose this week just because me and Ellie had a minor altercation, it was nothing.”

I couldn’t ignore the deep frown on his face, it was a mixture of concern and disappointment and it went straight to my heart.

“Coach? Mary said you need to speak to me?”

Both of our heads snapped up at the sudden sound of Steph’s voice. She was standing about a foot away from us, her brow furrowed in my direction.

“Steph, yes, I’m just having some trouble understanding the altercation that went down before warm ups with Ms Carpenter and Ms y/l/n. Ms y/l/n is trying to take the whole blame for it and I don’t really believe the whole story that she’s giving me, so if you could please give me some insight it would be much appreciated, as I am taking this very seriously.”

Steph’s eyes went straight to mine, she was my fellow Arsenal team mate, probably the only person on our Matilda’s squad who I could actually call my friend. She was frowning at me deeply, trying to study my facial expression.

“Y/l/n started it, she pulled Ellie up after having a chat with skipper, but from what I heard she was more just annoyed that Ellie had told skipper about some of her more concerning habits. Ellie was mad about being pulled up on it, typical Ellie fashion she took it to heart and she made it personal. I do recall her calling saying something along the lines of if y/n spent less time in their bathroom at nighttime crying about how ‘hard’ her sorry ass life was then she’d realise there were people and things on earth that are more fucking important than you she was, Ellie also made a lot of comments about y/n/n being a selfish person who didn’t give a shit about any of the people around her. Y/n/n might have technically started it but in her defence she didn’t say anything personal or wrong to Ellie, she was just voicing her annoyance about Ellie telling on her to Sam, Ellie was trying to voice her concerns over Y/n/n but it came out wrong and she was trying to make light of a situation that was not hers to talk about in a public space, it was unprofessional and distasteful behaviour from both of them but Ellie was the one who escalated it and made it worse. All y/n really did was tell Ellie to leave her alone and stop pushing, when Ellie did push too far y/n rushed to the bathroom and locked herself in there. Ellie’s behaviour was unacceptable to say the least and I’ve told her, I’m sure Sam will as well once I talk to her about it. I’ve told Ellie she has to apologise to y/n/n and that kind of behaviour won’t be tolerated towards anybody let alone her own teammate.”

Steph’s rundown of the situation was more factual and foolproof then any of the other versions Gustavsson had received and I knew that he was going to believe everything she’d told him.

“Okay, thank you, I really appreciate your transparency on the situation. I made the right call making you interim captain whilst Sam was out. That’s all I should need for now, feel free to go back to what you were doing, I’ll be out there in a minute.”

Once Steph was out of earshot Tony turned to me, clearly a little bit taken aback by all of the information he’d just absorbed.

“You are going to sit out tonight, call it sickness or whatever you please. I want you to stay and watch though, you should be here and you deserve to be here. I’m going to talk to Ellie after training, and just because you don’t seem to want her sitting out I’ll see how remorseful she is and make my roster decision for this weekend based off of that. I know she’s your teammate and you feel like you are taking one for the team by enabling her behaviour towards you and maybe it was a one off, just a heat in the moment thing as you called it. Maybe it wasn’t though, I’m not going to take chances. I want you to think about your own actions as well, think about how you could have dealt with that situation more effectively. Once training’s over you are going to head back to the hotel with the girls and you are going to spend time with them, proper bonding time.”

I nodded at coach, I didn’t have it in me to argue with him.

“Coach, I’m rooming with her.”

It was my main concern, not that Ellie scared me, I’d pretty much ignored her the whole tournament, not that she spent a lot of time in our room anyways, she spent all of her free time until curfew in other teammates rooms.

“Talk to Kerr about it, get her to switch them around, I’m sure it’s not that difficult. Switch rooms, relax for the night, get some sleep, be back here tomorrow. I don’t care whether or not you feel up to training, just be here. This team is your family and whether or not it feels like it they care a lot about you, they are here to support you if you let them. Sometimes you just need to take the leap of faith.”

I nodded at coach. He was a gentle soul, a good one. He reached over to me, offering me a hug and I took it, letting him wrap his arms around my shoulders. It was nice, it didn’t last long but it felt nice. Once he was done giving me a hug he stood up and followed Steph out onto the field.

I found myself gravitating to a spot directly on the sideline, where our team manager was stationed. She didn’t ask any questions as I sat down on the frosty grass beside her station, I was grateful for that much. I hadn’t talked to her much but she seemed lovely and in the very little interactions I had had with her she had gone above and beyond to make me comfortable in whatever we were doing.

I spent my training, sitting on the grass, watching the team as they ran through a few drills and plays before moving into a full scrimmage. I kept my body tucked in, my knees to my chest, my puffer jacket and hoodie wrapped tightly around my legs and torso to pull my knees even further into my chest. It was a blessing that they’d designed waterproof sweatpants, because I would have probably had a cold and wet ass if they hadn’t. Somewhere along the way our team manager offered me a packet of gummy bears and I couldn’t find it in me to decline her offer, so I snacked on the gelatinous pieces of sugar whilst I watched the training slowly come to an end.

They finished with PK’s and then concluded the session. I stayed seated in my little spot, I hoped that no one had spotted me and maybe if I waited for everyone to slip off the field and into the locker rooms I would just be able to hop onto the bus without being detected. My plan pretty much backfired immediately when a certain captain beelined directly towards me, clearly I hadn’t gone unnoticed to her. I grimaced as she got closer to my spot, my spot that my head had deemed as a safe spot from the rest of my teammates.

Sam didn’t even acknowledge me to begin with, instead turning her attention to our team manager, making pretty common conversation with her. She spoke to her for a few minutes, it was afternoon tea talk, just bullshit. Sam’s specialty. Eventually when she finished up she looked down at me, an eyebrow raised. She motioned for me to stand up and follow her, so stupidly, like a puppy, I did. My muscles were cold and I’d be lying if I said that getting up from the ground hadn’t been a little bit harder than I’d predicted. I managed though and caught up to Sam, following after her as she walked back down the tunnel but instead of turning into the locker rooms we kept walking down the corridor until we came to the video review room. It was pretty much just a conference room, one big room with a bunch of tables and chairs that we used to scout and review our own games. Sam closed the blinds to the room, so no bye passers could see in and turned the lights on.

She seated herself at one of the tables, gesturing for me to do the same, so I did. The first thing Sam did was pull out her phone and start typing something or another before looking up at me.

“Steph told me about what happened between you and Ellie.”

I gulped, biting my lip as I tried my hardest to maintain my eye contact with Sam, I wasn’t going to break, not again. I watched as Sam’s finger made its way to her mouth and she bit down on her nail in a questioning kind of way that I couldn’t explain even if I tried.

“I started it, I was pissed off at her for ratting on me to you.”

My honesty would be appreciated, I knew that Sam valued honesty above anything else.

“I don’t really care who started it, I care about togetherness, you know that. This team needs one thing, cohesion. I don’t care who started it, I care about who the problem was and in that situation it was Ellie, she said things that she had no business saying, with the intention of hurting you. That’s enough to tell me that in that situation she was prepared to jeopardise our team just so she could tear down one of our own. I’ve recommended to Tony that she sits out this week. He told me you were apprehensive about it, I wanted to know why.”

There was a simple answer, and a more complex answer, a part of me knew which one Sam wanted.

“Short answer, Ellie is a crucial part of our team, we need her. Long answer, I don’t think she did anything wrong.”

Sam looked up at me, a little bit shocked.

“Look y/n, it’s clear there's been a lot on your mind recently. A lot that you clearly aren’t prepared to share, and that's okay. I saw on the sideline tonight, you looked like you were mentally in a different place, like you were really worried thinking about something and you’ve been like that for a few weeks. I know that you have trust issues, that you are finding it hard to slot into this team because you are scared to be vulnerable. I am here for you, I won’t judge you, I will help you with whatever you need help with, because I can tell there is something and until you do seek out help for it it is only going to destroy you further.”

Sam’s words receded in me, because she was so right that I couldn’t even try to deny it.

“Am I a selfish player and teammate?”

The words felt so raw coming out of my throat, it was something that Ellie had said that had stuck with me.

“No, I can honestly tell you you aren’t. You play football with so much grace and kindness that sometimes it drives me up the wall watching you help up your opponents who have tripped over. You aren’t a selfish person either, you are more reserved, that doesn’t make you selfish, it just makes you self aware, there is a big difference.”

I nodded at Sam, not sure what else there was for me to do. Her words were full of so much wisdom, so much insight. I still couldn’t find it in me to believe them fully though, my self deprecating brain not welcome to accepting any kind of form of praise.

“Look, change is hard. You are young, inexperienced. Staying somewhere that you’ve outgrown though is only going to destroy you. I know this is a big jump, I wouldn’t have reccomended for you to be here though if I didn’t think it was the right fit. You are a world class player, and a genuinely good person. When you smile, it lights up a room. Your laugh is contagious. It’s clear that you’ve never been cared for properly, never let yourself. You have a family now though y/n. You have people that you can go to when you are having a bad day, people that are going to love you no matter what. Use that, take advantage of it. A team doesn’t function without trust.”

There was something about Sams words that told me she actually understood what I was going through, she was dancing on a line of relating to me and giving me advice, the line was a little bit blurred though.

“Do you trust me?”

I let Sam’s words hang in the air for a few seconds, it took me a little while to formulate a reponse.

“I don’t trust anyone, not even myself.”

Sam’s eyes, those brown orbs spoke to me, more than any words ever could to me.

“You don’t think people care for you.”

“Why would people care for me?”

There was so much insecurity behind the words, years of it all built up.

“I care, I’ll always care. Everyone should have somebody to care for them.”

“You have to care, your my captain.”

It was the last bit of defiance leaving my body, the last of my barriers being used.

“Partly, yes. It’s sort of my job. But I save it for the ones who need it and you seem to be in need.”

I rolled my eyes, another defence mechanism that I used to deflect, to avoid my emotions.

“I don’t need help.”

“Maybe not, but when you’re born in a burning house you think the whole world is on fire until someone shows you it isn’t.”

I didn’t fully understand her cryptic but I got the general idea.

“You implying I was born in a burning house?”

Sam’s head tilted, like she wasn’t denying my statement but also didn’t agree with it fully.

“I’m implying that you are here for a reason. That we are all here for different reasons, different driving factors. The difference between you and some of the other girls is that you are letting your past define you, when it doesn’t. The best part of being here is that when you are out on the pitch nobody cares about anything else, nobody could care less about what’s happened in your personal life. Use that, use that to be happy, to find your motivation. Trust me? Let me show you that this team isn’t just a group of girls, it can be your family if you want it to be.”

I looked at Sam flatly trying to figure out how serious she was, when he face didn’t falter I realised how serious she was and that scared me a little bit. I didn’t know if I was ready for that, ready for a family, ready to feel loved and appreciated. It wasn’t soemthing I’d ever really experienced.

“Y’know that it shouldn’t seem remarkable to you that people who love and care for you actually want to treat you well.”

Those words were the straw that broke my back. I couldn’t help but feel the tears well up in my eyes.

“y/n,” Sam’s voice drew my eyes up to her own “You are allowed to cry.”

I shook my head at her, bringing the sleeve of my jumper up to my eyes to rub at the tears escaping my eyes.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you though?”

It was the amount of questioning behind her face that threw me off, I knew she didn’t believe me but the amount of concern laced into her facial expression hit some place in my heart I didn’t know I had.

“You know that it’s okay to not be fine all the time. You are allowed to have feelings, to feel things other than numb. Look, feeling hurts. Life is pain, life is suffering. Being alive hurts, it’s horror and it sucks. But you are alive and it’s spectacular and brilliant because instead of just living you are alive.”

I continued rubbing at my eyes, trying my best to stop any of the tears running down my face.

“I’ll think about it cap, I think it’s about time for me to head back to the hotel.”

Before I could get up and completely leave the room Sam got in her final words.

“There are poeple around that would miss you y/n/n, people who would be gutted if anything ever happened to you. Just think about that.”

#woso #marry me rn #sam kerr #woso community #sam kerr x reader #matildas #matildas x reader #angst #little bit of fluff #auswnt #ellie carpenter #tony gustavsson #steph catley #wrote this instead of sleeping #all nighter #i’m crying #i’m so tired

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girlboypersonthingy · 7 months

Note

omg i love your blog sm!! it’s been a while since ive been in the fandom and i didn’t think anyone wrote for vld anymore, ahhhh but i love the way you write!! you’re so so talented!! how do you think a love triangle sitch with keith and lance would play out? i love the both but UGHHHH THE DRAMA I LOVE IT😩😩

Oh my god thank you so much! I’m so flattered asfdafh 🥰🥹 I know the fandom is dead to most but not to all. I’m still here and voltron will always live on in my heart ❤️‍🔥 BRO THIS PROMPT??? PLZ ITS SO GOOD AAHHH ENJOY!

❤️Love Triangle💙

Okay first of all, these two would try to win you over IN COMPLETELY OPPOSITE WAYS.

Lance is, of course, over the top and very romantic and kind of cliche but so considerate and thoughtful and sweet.

Keith will be more nonchalant and mysterious, trying to use his skills and talents to impress you. He’s the type to slowly win you over by being very genuine and honest.

It started when Lance threw a pick up line your way and not only was the line terrible…but you actually laughed at it. It brought some pink to your cheeks as well. They both noticed that.

Lance was very smug about the fact that he made you giggle and blush.

Keith was a little annoyed at first, thinking Lance was just being his usual obnoxious self. So Keith just kept trying to make moves on you in his own way.

One day, Lance walked into the training room to see you and Keith sitting beside each other on the floor, breathing heavily as if you’d just decided to take a break. He couldn’t really hear what Keith was saying but you looked very focused, very into the conversation and you two were sitting just a little bit too close for his liking.

Lance didn’t like the eyes you were making at the red paladin

But Keith sure did. He was so excited to be sitting so close to you.

Then it’s like the spider man meme of them pointing at each other like 😧👉🏻 👈🏻😮

“Wait! You like (Y/N)? No no no, you can’t! I like (Y/N)!”

“Well I liked them first!”

“No! No! Dibs!”

“Really? Dibs?” *eye roll*

For the next week, they’re both acting like goofballs around you.

It’s kind of hilarious and very entertaining for you because…you notice that they start adopting each other’s ways of flirting and dropping hints. They do a little swap.

It’s like they think the other person has a better chance with you so they try to switch it up and copy each other. Lance thinks Keith’s ‘mysterious bad boy’ persona is something you’re into. Keith thinks you find happiness in all the silly, goofy things Lance does. So they both try to switch it up in hopes of making you fall for them. Does that make sense?

Imagine Keith trying to use a pick up line on you and failing miserably. He’s probably sweating through his shirt and his mouth is dry bc he’s so close to you, he can smell your shampoo. He’d end up stuttering and then getting really pissed at himself for looking dumb in front of you. May go back to his room and pout if he felt things didn’t go well.

Now imagine Lance trying to be all soft spoken and mysterious, trying to act cool. Lance trying not to talk too much is the equivalent of him holding his breath. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks character and says some dumb, cheesy shit that has you rolling your eyes. He awkwardly shuffles away to his room and also pouts bc he feels like he’s just loud and annoying.

The boys got into a yelling match about it once. The pot just boiled over and all you could do was watch.

That was their very shitty, joint confession of their feelings for you- them screaming about who likes you more, who liked you first, who you’re more compatible with, ect ect blah blah blah

All right in front of you

And all the while, the whole team is so confused

Cue Allura and Hunk stepping in between them because both their faces are turning red from anger and jealousy.

Everyone just looks at Shiro like 👀

Shiro, the dad of the group: 🙄😤 “fine…”

Shiro sits them both down for a long chat and by the end of it, the boys have come to terms with the fact that they both like you and not only is it your choice who you’d want to be with, but there’s a lot of other things to be worried about rn. They shouldn’t, and they won’t, pressure you.

Buuttttt…they do keep up some of the same things they like to do with you.

Keith still trains with you often (and he really enjoys helping you with your stance/posture bc he gets to be touchy✨)

Lance still invites you into his room to play video games (and he always seems out of breath when you sit so close to him, your arm touching his)

They try their best to control their temper around you and they try not to be around when you’re with the other person. They don’t need to see you being all close and personal with someone who isn’t them. :,(

The boys just continue to be their normal selves with you. They figure you should get to know them, the real them, before you make any decisions.

Yes, they both like you.

Yes. They’re both very competitive and very jealous.

But they respect each other and they respect you.

And we are in the middle of an intergalactic war right now, this is not a real priority.

They’ll give you some time and a pace to think about it.

Now comment on this post and tell me who you’d choose 😈 I love them both so so much but Lance is my soulmate for sure

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron x reader #voltron x you #vld #keith x reader #vld keith #keith vld #lance x reader #lance mcclain x reader #lance vld #voltron lance #vld lance #lance voltron #keith voltron #voltron keith #lance mcclain #keith kogane #keith kogane x reader

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randomlifex · 9 months

Text

Sunshine and storm

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ‘♡’- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Go Kyungjun x fem!reader

Plot:the sun shines and the storm doesn’t understand why he likes it, but when his clouds will cover her rays, he’ll do anything to make the sun shine again

Warnings:bad language

Please notice:in this timeline Seun hasn’t died yet so there’s no game going on

This story is a request

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ‘♡’- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The spring weather was approaching, the temperature rose and birds had finally begun to sing all day long.

“What a great day! -you exclaimed, hugging Seun, your friend- and in a few weeks cherry flowers will blossom! Finally my favourite colour will be everywhere again!” you clapped

Seun smiled, putting her book on the desk, then she watched as you sat next to her:

“How can you be always in such a good mood?” she asked

“How can you not be when it’s spring! It’s the season of blooming. Birds sing all day and animals come out from their hibernation”

“You make me nauseous” Kyungjun popped out from nowhere,sitting with Seungbin right behind you. You rolled your eyes hopelessly:knowing how he was, you didn’t expect him to appreciate the cute little things of life

“Man you gotta smile more, you’re always so angry. The situation is getting serious” you mumbled as the teacher came in

“You don’t wanna see me angry, do you, Snow white?” he hit the back of your head with a pen, making you groan in pain, then he shifted into the “I don’t care about the lesson” mood,texting…or at least that was what you thought.

The truth was that Kyungjun spent the whole class staring at you. He had been doing so a lot in the past weeks, shifting his eyes away only when you noticed it. He didn’t know why, but there was something leading him to you, even if he hated it, and acted like the meanest person on earth (not that he was nice, but he had never put you into troubles).

He wasn’t used to it, nor to your constant happy mood; and since those feelings were unknown to him he would find any reason to come for you, even when you were doing nothing besides being a nice teammate.

That day your team had been pretty unlucky:the teacher had decided the members on her own, meaning that if you had to play with good athletes like Hyunho and Kyungjun himself, who was the captain, you had to put up also with those, like Sungpyo and Yoonseo, who were terrible at PE.

She got called out lots of times by everyone, but to Kyungjun the real problem was Sungpyo; or better, he was the victim whose ass was supposed to be constantly beaten in order to scare everyone and get great results.

Hyunho tried many times to stop the bully, but he eventually got kicked out due to a so called “litigious behaviour” ; so, in order to calm everyone down, you tried to spread positivity, like you always used to do.

“It’s okay, next time we’ll score something”

“It can happen, I made mistakes too”

“Don’t think about it and let’s have fun! It’s about having a good time, not winning”

You were dispensing smiles and comfort as you saw that someone was actually on the edge of tears, but Kyungjun got even more mad:

“Ya! Yn! -he called you in the middle of the first break- what the fuck are you doing?!” he was yelling, his eyes burning like fire

“What…what do you mean?” You asked, a little bit scared

“What do I mean? Do you think that’s how you make a shitty team work?!”

“I’m just trying to be positive…they’re all stressed out…” you justified yourself

“Really? -he laughed- are you fucking kidding me?! “Trying to be positive”…bullshit. Do you know what you can do with your stupid positivity? Go home and stay there. Idiot” he scoffed

“But…”

“No buts. You’re getting on my nerves. What’s so funny to be constantly smiling and laughing? Uh? Come on tell me! Be serious for once, and let the captain be the captain. Go to the back lines, you suck anyway in the front” he shrugged his shoulders, pointing to the back of the field.

You looked around you, realising that everyone was staring, the your eyes rested on Kyungjun:

“You know what? -you were holding your tears back- fuck you and this stupid game! Get a new player to cover your shitty back lines. Asshole!” you yelled, running away to hide in the first empty classroom you had found.

Kyungjung looked at you:something inside him shattered as soon as he realised you were terribly hurt. “Did I…did I cover the sunshine with my clouds?” he asked himself, feeling guilty as hell.

You spent the whole lesson crying in a corner of the room, next to the blackboard, suffocating your sobs in order to not be found by anyone. You didn’t want people to see you in those conditions, you had promised yourself to be always happy to make everyone around you happy as well. Your friends used to call you “sunshine” for a reason, and you loved it, just like you loved keeping up your good mood. Why Kyungjun had to ruin everything? You hated him. He was always so mad, so mumbling, so rude…was it so hard for him to relax at least once? And if it was, who allowed him to ruin everyone’s mood? No one!

The more you thought about it, the more you felt sad. You kept seeing his angry face, and his yells wouldn’t stop resonating in your mind. You brought your knees to your chest, hiding your face in the cloth of your tracksuit…until you heard someone.

A hand rested on your leg, squeezing it. You rose your head, seeing Kyungjun kneeling in front of you.

“Go away” you scoffed

“You need to see something”

“I don’t want to. Leave me alone”

“It’s urgent. Come on” he grabbed your arm, forcing you to follow him to the backyard.

“I swear to God if it’s something stupid…” you weren’t even able to finish the phrase as wonder got your mouth to open wide

“You tell me if that’s something stupid to you” Kyungjun said, carelessly.

You didn’t know what to answer, you were too busy staring at the flowering cherry blossom in front of you…the first of the season.

“When did you find it?” you asked, grabbing the boy’s arm

“Yesterday, during the break”

“Why didn’t you show it to me?!” sadness had already left your body. It took nothing to make you happy, Kyungjun thought, but he was okay with that. He didn’t want to see you crying ever again.

“I wanted to, but I forgot. That’s just a stupid tree after all…” he shrugged his shoulders, hiding a smile

“That’s not! -you started jumping- that’s the first cherry blossom of the season!!” you then exclaimed, taking a bunch of pictures.

“You good now?” he asked, still cold. His facade was hard to fall.

“What do you mean?” you blinked

“Are you okay now? You were crying…”

“Yes, I cried cuz you’re a rude asshole” you crossed your arms, giving him your back.

Kyungjun stepped closer, wrapping an arm around your shoulder:

“I crossed the line…” he talked

For a second you were surprised…was he apologising for the first time in his life?!

“But you got me angry there. Don’t do that again” he scoffed, letting you go with a path on the shoulder.

Of course he wasn’t, not openly, not that time, but you knew his intentions when he showed you that tree:he was aware of the fact that he had fucked up, and was trying to fix things in his own way.

“I did not made you angry…you were born angry” you said, sticking your tongue out.

Kyungjun didn’t reply, he simply put his hands in his pockets and walked away; but, once again, he was smiling behind your back.

#night has come #night has come kdrama #night has come x reader #night has come kyung jun #go kyung jun #go kyungjun x reader #cha woo min #cha woomin x reader #kdrama #grumpy x sunshine

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phantomrose96 · 1 year

Note

hi your short story is giving me absolute brainworms it’s DAMN good. I don’t have anything of real note to add so I’ll just ask: is there anything you really want to say about the story but haven’t yet (like trivia or whatnot)?

(938 Seconds Per Second)

Probably that I'd very nearly abandoned it!

The idea started from an article I was reading about time dilation - the gist of it being "okay but what's to stop you from accelerating infinitely? Up to and past the speed of light?" and the conclusion was kind of "you sort of can... from YOUR frame, from YOUR perception of time, potentially. but from a resting frame, you will appear to only ever approach the speed of light." So even if you could perceive yourself traveling 100 light years in a month... to every resting body, 100 years have passed.

So I was like cool! Fucked up potential! I really liked the concept of "you can notice your mistake after 5 minutes and already be 100 years too late to fix it."

I toyed with a few ideas and ended up gravitating towards "what if one shipmate intentionally leaves another shipmate behind... and by the time this is discovered days later, the left-behind shipmate is long dead." I also settled on "what if your shipmate sucked so bad that he causes you to snap and leave him behind"

So I started writing with that as the core idea. Main character Mendoza has the Worst Coworker in the World Universe, and he snaps and leaves Carson behind on a planet.

...But then I was a little lost. I was struggling with the substance. The "what makes this interesting" and the "what ties this all together." Sure I could just write Carson being an ass for 3,000 words and then... Mendoza leaves him behind the end?

I was even struggling with the first draft because part of me was like "what's even enjoyable about reading about a completely insufferable person...?" Even Mendoza himself is no peach. Maybe the whole concept was just unpalatable. I kinda just... ditched it where it was.

Then I came back to it this weekend and decided to kind of rethink it, fresh. And the absolute biggest difference between the early stumbling draft and what I ended up with was Sampson. He actually solved so much. (He existed in the early draft, but not importantly.) He introduced the character stakes and the tying thread to the story I was missing.

Now it wasn't just Carson annoying Mendoza. Once Sampson's tome enters the story, the stakes change. Mendoza is now in the middle of Carson actively destroying the thing Sampson is even alive for. Mendoza is now in a position of actively needing to make choices--he could intervene and try to save Sampson's tome. He could tattle. He could do anything--but he doesn't. Because "not letting Carson win" is the single most important thing. Mendoza doesn't need to be any kind of hero. He chooses not to be.

And now the reader is captive to this conflict, privy to everything Mendoza knows, and does not act on, as Sampson unravels in the background.

And now we have a thread that leads to Carson and Mendoza ending up on-planet together. Carson isn't out there for shits and giggles, he's out there because the plot point about Sampson's tome led to this. Now Carson knows about the cargo, and now he's offering Mendoza the chance to not just be passive witness, but be accomplice to Sampson's destruction.

And it's enticing. It's unimaginable wealth, and it's getting off the shitty ship, and it's never seeing Carson again. Mendoza has the chance to stick to his every-man-for-himself ideals and go along with Carson. And it's interesting to explore Carson's reasoning for why they deserve this! They're the ones who sacrificed 300 years for this journey! Don't they deserve this over some fucker who wasn't even born when this mission started?

And then it reaches one pivotal moment--Carson's gleeful declaration that Sampson will totally kill himself once he discovers what they've stolen. Because now there are consequences to this action. If Mendoza follows through with this, it's with the knowledge that he's gotten Sampson killed. (And maybe he shouldn't care. Maybe it doesn't matter. As he's asserted this whole time.)

Mendoza doesn't do it. He pulls up the ladder after Carson.

He doesn't let Carson win.

And then the ending... the ending where Sampson very much was witness to Mendoza following Carson out of the ship. If Sampson were every-man-for-himself, he could just comply and tell Major Kensington what he saw. Mendoza knew Carson was outside the ship. Mendoza came back. Carson didn't. The ship took off. Sampson knows this all.

But, Sampson has an idea of what, may, have happened. He knows he accidentally revealed too much to Carson. He knows Carson stole the tome which contains information about the cargo. Sampson, maybe, knows what decision Mendoza made.

So Sampson lies to Kensington. Sampson will swear on his life he never saw Mendoza that evening. No one will ever know.

And just!!! It was delightful to find the piece that ties the WHOLE story through. It's not just "your coworker sucks and you booted him to live out 40 years on a planet for your next 2 weeks". It's character-driven now. It's about choices and consequences and the fucked up implications that the time-dilation travel throws in.

#938sps #thank you sdkjdsjjhsd

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edenmemes · 2 years

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last of us (show) starters

ep1- 9.

❝ your t-shirt’s inside out. ❞ ❝ you already know i’m bad at lying. ❞ ❝ you are the person i never wanted to be in debt to. but i owe you. ❞ ❝ after all we’ve been through...everything i’ve done...it can’t be for nothing. ❞ ❝ you know what i see when i look at you? me. you remind me of me. ❞ ❝ i need you to take a breath. ❞ ❝ there’s a leader in you. one day, it could be your turn. ❞ ❝ i never liked you, but still, it’s like we’re friends. almost. ❞ ❝ we’re gonna be brave, and we’re gonna get out of this. ❞ ❝ can’t tell you how exciting it was listening to that fucking conversation. ❞ ❝ there you are. i was getting worried. ❞ ❝ a bad reputation doesn’t mean you’re bad. ❞ ❝ how about we just talk this through? ❞ ❝ this isn’t gonna end well. ❞ ❝ when we’re done, we’ll go wherever you want. ❞ ❝ you’re a dangerous person. you’ve certainly proved that. ❞ ❝ i started worrying you wouldn’t wake up. ❞ ❝ we can help each other. and get that gun out of my face. ❞ ❝ i think i’m gonna love you for a long, long time. ❞ ❝ there’s stuff up there you shouldn’t see. ❞ ❝ you ask a lot of goddamn questions. ❞ ❝ you know, i used to be scared of these people. ❞ ❝ i mean...our luck had to run out sooner or later. ❞ ❝ like to think, for once, we could finally win? ❞ ❝ i mean, it’s the long way or the ‘we’re fucking dead’ way. ❞ ❝ you mumble in your sleep. ❞ ❝ wait, who gave you the black eye? ❞ ❝ no. no questions. just do it. ❞ ❝ you can’t fight everything and everyone. you can pick and choose what’s important. ❞ ❝ nobody’s gonna be coming after you, right? ❞ ❝ you stay close and you follow my lead. ❞ ❝ there’s no halfway with this. we finish what we started. ❞ ❝ you’re a natural leader. you’re smart, loyal...violent. ❞ ❝ it’s a miracle you’re alive. ❞ ❝ okay, rocky start. could’ve been worse, though. ❞ ❝ you know what i’m in the mood for? shitty puns. ❞ ❝ it doesn’t matter. you have to trust me. ❞ ❝ you know, people like to tell stories. ❞ ❝ i’m not in the mood for this. i’m really not in the mood. ❞ ❝ you have a greater purpose than any of us could’ve ever imagined. ❞ ❝ how about we start with ‘thank you’? ❞ ❝ i’d like to go home and drink ‘til my face stops hurting. ❞ ❝ i want you to forget this ever happened. ❞ ❝ i believe everything happens for a reason. ❞ ❝ you can’t be stupid like this. ❞ ❝ you so hungry for vengeance? deliver it. ❞ ❝ i’m not going anywhere with you. ❞ ❝ if we come up against anything, you get behind me and you stay there, okay? ❞ ❝ i’m trying to keep you alive. ❞ ❝ did it make you feel better? did it make you feel safe? ❞ ❝ that’s not my fucking home. ❞ ❝ i don’t want your sorries. ❞ ❝ don’t blame me for something that isn’t my fault. ❞ ❝ oh, finally, some fucking luck. ❞ ❝ you won’t survive for long out here. i can protect you. ❞ ❝ no more questions about me. ❞ ❝ you want your jacket back? ❞ ❝ fuck you, man. i didn’t ask for this. ❞ ❝ besides, it’s the thought that counts. ❞ ❝ wasn’t my fault this time. ❞ ❝ i'm sorry, but this has gone on too long. ❞ ❝ i’ve had...more good days with you than with anyone else. ❞ ❝ i need you to take a breath. ❞ ❝ can we start a fire? i’m freezing. ❞ ❝ the darkness is falling, the sky has turned gray. ❞ ❝ matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves. ❞ ❝ you stay here. you hear anything, yell. ❞ ❝ maybe there's nothing bad out there, but so far there's always been something bad out there. ❞ ❝ so...is it everything you hoped for? ❞ ❝ what do you want me to say? ❞ ❝ you okay? you just seem extra quiet today. ❞ ❝ are you okay? you’re not hurt? nothing? ❞ ❝ there’s no way anyone knows we’re here, right? ❞ ❝ you do what i say when i say it. we clear? ❞ ❝ where would you be without me, huh? ❞ ❝ i’ve been on both sides. ❞ ❝ let’s just handle what we have to handle. ❞ ❝ is it everything you hoped for? ❞ ❝ it doesn’t matter how much you push the envelope, it will always be stationary. ❞ ❝ you hungry? you can share some of mine. ❞ ❝ have i committed a crime? ❞ ❝ it’s got its ups and downs...but you can’t deny that view. ❞ ❝ those things i did...those things that you judge me for, i did those things to keep us alive. ❞ ❝ i swear, i’ve told you everything i know. ❞ �� i don’t wanna talk about it. ❞ ❝ just because life stopped for you...doesn’t mean it has to stop for me. ❞ ❝ i'm alone and forsaken by fate and by man. ❞ ❝ here. this make you all nostalgic? ❞ ❝ thanks for still giving a shit about me. ❞ ❝ i am the bad guy because i did a bad guy thing. ❞ ❝ you keep your eyes on me. and don’t look anywhere else. ❞ ❝ i know this hurts. you’re gonna be okay. ❞ ❝ you think i’ve never done shit like that? ❞ ❝ maybe we just call this one a success and say our fond farewells. ❞ ❝ it isn’t fair, your age...having to deal with all of this. ❞ ❝ i was never afraid before you showed up. ❞ ❝ swear to me. swear to me that everything you said is true. ❞ ❝ do i not look scared? ❞ ❝ just a reminder that if you’re dead, i’m fucked. ❞ ❝ what else am i supposed to say? ❞ ❝ it’s not too late. even now...even after what you’ve done. ❞ ❝ i’m sorry. i have no other choice. ❞ ❝ if you just keep going...you find something new to fight for. ❞ ❝ we did what we needed to survive. ❞ ❝ is that what i am? am i one of the ‘wrong people’? ❞ ❝ i shouldn’t have said what i said. i don’t know your situation. ❞ ❝ i don’t wanna hurt you. i wanna help you. ❞ ❝ look, sometimes things don’t work out the way we hope. ❞ ❝ when do we tell the others? ❞ ❝ well, this is what happens when you fuck with fate. ❞ ❝ i saw what you did...the way you killed those men. ❞ ❝ but first, you have to do something for me. ❞ ❝ be careful who you put your faith in. the only people who can betray us...are the ones we trust. ❞ ❝ you see my face? do i look scared? ❞ ❝ stay awake with me. ❞ ❝ it’s dangerous, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. ❞ ❝ there’s a whole lot you’re not telling me. ❞ ❝ how about you shut the fuck up? ❞ ❝ i would very much like for you to hurt them. ❞ ❝ what i’m about to tell you cannot be repeated to anyone. ❞ ❝ they’re gonna catch us if we don’t run. ❞ ❝ everybody i have cared for has either died or left me. everybody, fսcking except for you. ❞ ❝ lately, there are these moments where the fear comes up outta nowhere. ❞ ❝ i’m not looking for any trouble. ❞ ❝ i think maybe we got a little off on the wrong foot. ❞ ❝ i came here to save you. ❞ ❝ they’re not following us. i think we’re safe. ❞ ❝ i just ran away for a bit, that’s all. ❞ ❝ i thought you were dead. ❞ ❝ you think i can still handle things, but...i’m not who i was. ❞ ❝ oh, maybe i shouldn’t have said anything. ❞ ❝ i should fucking stab you. ❞ ❝ seriously, though, how the fuck do you do that? ❞ ❝ well, i...i don’t know how to swim. ❞ ❝ what the fuck is wrong with you, sneaking up on me like that? ❞ ❝ holy shit, are you dying? ❞ ❝ i was just trying to imagine you wearing that. ❞ ❝ was that the first dead body you ever saw? ❞ ❝ i wasn’t gonna say i’m sorry. i was gonna say that i’ve been thinking about what happened. ❞ ❝ how about you just take the good news? ❞ ❝ why did you bring me here? ❞ ❝ we can just be all poetic and lose our minds together. ❞ ❝ god help any motherfuckers who stand in our way. ❞ ❝ you stay down, you stay low, you stay quiet. ❞ ❝ that easy to give everything up, huh? ❞ ❝ are you gonna kill me? this seems like a perfect place to do it. ❞ ❝ you shouldn’t have had to. i’m sorry. ❞ ❝ you know, you really shouldn’t be all out here on your own. ❞ ❝ turn around and walk away. just go. ❞ ❝ i’ll follow you anywhere you go. ❞ ❝ hold me close to my heart. ❞ ❝ it’s hard to trust strangers. i know. ❞ ❝ i need to know you’re with me. ❞ ❝ the longer i was away...the harder it was to come back. ❞ ❝ did you kill innocent people? ❞ ❝ as much as i love arguing with your stubborn ass...we’re on a mission here. ❞ ❝ don't tell me that i’d be safer with somebody else because the truth is i would just be more scared. ❞ ❝ you have no idea what loss is. ❞ ❝ you’re the one thing i missed from that fucking place. ❞ ❝ when we were talking about hurting people...what did you mean it wasn’t your first time? ❞ ❝ i can’t fucking do this without you. ❞ ❝ it was a joke, okay? in my mind, you loved it. ❞ ❝ well then, give me your hand. ❞ ❝ they haven’t lost faith in you. they’re just scared. ❞ ❝ goddamn it, i wanna punch you so bad. ❞ ❝ looks different in the daylight, huh? ❞ ❝ i know you mean well. i know you wanna protect me. ❞

#rp meme #rp starters #roleplay meme #roleplay starters

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sewermageboy · 1 year

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obligatory "i love gale, I promise i'm not shitting on gale" comment before I start, but:

I feel like with a lot of the "he was groomed" narrative for Gale, people assume it's a given that Mystra came to him when he was a child, right? He says that she was his teacher, his muse, and then his lover, so I can see why people think that she must have been with him since he was a child.

But (I've been going down a Forgotten Realms lore rabbit hole, and found that) Mystra was killed around a hundred years before BG3, and only returned to life in 1479 DR, around 13 years before the events of the game. So unless we're saying that Gale is 30 years old (and in my mind he's more like 35-45), he would have been an adult by the time they met, even assuming that she immediately reached out to him after returning to the Forgotten Realms.

So why is the "groomed from childhood" narrative so prevalent? I think most people (rightfully) have better things to do with their time than reading about the fckn Spellplague on the Forgotten Realms wiki, but apart from that.

I think, especially with how many people (on tiktok especially, as far as I've seen) seem to hate Gale for being "too pushy" or whatever bc of the romance bug, there's an inherent instinct for Gale enjoyers to justify their liking of this character, by explaining away his flaws and his idiosyncrasies by saying "he is the way he is because he was groomed by the goddess of magic", and therefore his flaws aren't his own fault/don't matter, whatever.

It really bothers me when people explain away his flaws like that. He's braggadocious, yes, and he's arrogant, and he's filled to the brim with hubris. Does he have his reasons for that? Yes, of course! But that doesn't mean that his flaws are any less present, and just as much of a part of him as all the good parts. It bothers me when people do this with any of the characters tbh, like saying that all of Astarion's shitty behavior is due to his trauma at the hands of Cazador (which much of it is! But he's also just kinda a shitty person, and that's okay!!)

Like, if we look at Forgotten Realms lore, and say that Gale is around 40, Mystra would have approached him as a young man in his 20s - and honestly, that version of events is still just as fucked up to me as "he was groomed". Here you have this brilliant wizard, who lives for magic and manipulating the weave, and the goddess of magic herself begins to mentor him, teach him, inspire him, and eventually becomes his lover, too. Then, after she keeps showing him magic that will forever be beyond his reach, telling him to be content with his lot, he goes too far - and is discarded in the process, left alone to deal with the Orb in his chest despite Mystra being able to heal him instantly if she wished. And not only does he have to deal with a bad breakup and a nuclear bomb in his chest, no, he's also never able to truly be free of her, as long as he wishes to still do magic - something that is basically second nature to him, and that he could never give up.

I've also seen people conflate his Early Access story (Mystra discarding him first and for no reason, and him ending up with the Orb in his chest as a result of trying to win her back) with his full release one (Him trying to prove to Mystra he was worthy of being shown magic beyond any other mortals, ending up with the Orb, and Mystra discarding him as a result of that), and I feel like that comes from the same place as the insistence on him being groomed - trying to justify his behavior and sanitize him as much as possible.

I understand the instinct to defend Gale from people who shit on him needlessly bc of the romance bug or whatever, I really do. I adore Gale, and I think he's one of the most fascinating characters in the game! But I also think it's a disservice to him to not acknowledge the negative parts of him, or to explain them away as being caused by trauma he might have gone through.

The shitty parts, the ones you can really sink your teeth into, are what make most of the companions so interesting to me!!! And Gale's arrogance, his clumsiness when he flirts and how quick he is to fall in love, his hubris and his anger are all part of that!!

Edit: just wanted to clarify that I have no issue with the interpretation that Gale was groomed by Mystra from a young age in and of itself!

As @galedekarios rightfully pointed out, Larian often plays fast and loose with the timeline, so Mystra's death and her return to the forgotten realms only factor in so much. There's ample evidence in the game for the grooming interpretation, and it's also super fascinating to me, I just don't like that a lot of the discussion of Gale's character seems to boil down to: "but he was groomed, so it doesn't matter", or that many people seem to view it as the only valid interpretation of his character.

#gale of waterdeep #bg3 meta #mystra #gale dekarios #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers

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retromotherfuckers · 2 months

Text

If You Win Or Lose

Characters:

morgan winchester (OC), john winchester, sam and dean are only mentioned, will mciver (OC)

Summary:

after the death of the boy she loves, morgan runs away. but nothing lasts forever.

Warnings:

SPN typical alcohol abuse & violence, themes of mental illness, parental abuse, MAJOR gaslighting, character death. please let me know if i missed anything

Word Total:

2,425

A/N:

you don't need to read When The Sun Sets to understand this. this is a one shot within that universe, but it predates that series, and also the show itself

it is of my humble opinion that john was an abuser, even if the show refused to acknowledge that. this is essentially an insight into his and morgan's relationship

so yeah, this one ain't too happy. i don't think i'm capable of writing happy shit 💀

morgan may have fallen in love w a dude but our girl is not straight

italics are flashbacks or thoughts

dean: 19, morgan: 18, sam: 15

Four fingers of whiskey fill and drain over and over. In the shitty hotel bar, she sat up against the decaying oak wall in a flimsy chair. A hazy world surrounded her, everything moving in slow motion. The few other stragglers had no notion of what was brewing in her mind - the darkness that shrouded her eyes, making colors look muted in the small neighborhood. It seemed no one knew how much she depended on the amber liquid to keep things still.

Morgan had been around people all her life, but she'd never once felt a real kind of companionship with them. She knew her brothers cared because they had to; she knew they tried. She just wished that when they asked if life was okay, they'd somehow know her answer was bullshit. That they'd somehow cut off the lies spilling from her lips and just say that they know.

But Sammy was only fifteen. He wasn't old enough to really be able to tell, and if he could, she was the older sister. What she said was what he believed. And Dean was Dean. Not the best emotional support person.

They never did catch it, and that was the point. As long as she said she was fine, they believe it because that's what they want to hear. They didn't want to know that she hadn't felt like her home was her home in years. Even if that home was the rumble of an engine and cassettes so loud, she couldn't hear herself think.

They didn't know that she had done things only the lowest of the low would even think of just to keep moving. They don't want to know that the only reason she got out of bed was so she could ease the hangover from the night before. They didn't want to know how hard it was to ask when it was her turn for anything better than this and to keep getting ignored. They didn't want to know that her real reason for living was gone but that his dying wish was for her to keep going.

"Just promise me you'll try."

They didn't want to know that sometimes she could hurt so bad that she stopped feeling anything at all. That she knew her heart was still beating, but her lungs had stopped pumping oxygen. That waiting for her eyes to stop feeling so heavy while she watched the world spin was worse than actually being a part of it. And even with all that frigid emptiness, there was a widening hole in her chest where a person used to be. And now that he was gone, the ceiling was about to cave in, and all she had left to hold it up was a little white bag and a bottle.

"Where the hell have you been?" The familiar voice broke her from her thoughts, the same that had been repeating for months, on and off, like a scratched record. She didn't have to look up to see who it was. She knew that voice. It's half of the voices that raised her, but not the one who deserved the credit.

She didn't acknowledge him, stuck staring at her drink. His voice made her shiver, and she was too much of a damn coward to face him. "Around."

"Really?" John said, his tone hardening with her one-word response. "'Cause to me, it looks like you ran away and went missing like a child. For. Two. Months."

She took a large gulp of her drink, almost downing the whole thing in one go. She had rehearsed this conversation countless times, waiting for the flash of civilian life to end and for him to find her. But now that it was happening, she felt like a fishing boat in a storm, tossed around by waves of fear and wrath.

Her father's gaze was oppressive, cold, and unyielding. Green eyes cut into her, making her feel like he was staring right through her. She always felt small around him. He had always known the right words to use to humiliate her.

"Let's go," He ordered, not even sitting down. It was like he knew this wasn't even a discussion to be had. She would obey, and that was the end of it. "The boys are waiting."

"Dad," Morgan began, her voice shaky and horse. "I'm not going back."

She could imagine John's lips curled into a sneer as his eyes bore into her. Daring her to defy him more. "You don't get a choice. You're coming. That's final."

Morgan felt a surge of anger. "Why can't you just let me be? I know what's good for me more than you do."

John stepped closer, his face inches from hers. "You belong with your family, not out here alone when we're not there to protect you. I taught you better than that."

It wasn’t praise. John Winchester wouldn’t know praise if it bit him in the ass. He did teach her better than that, and since she’s deliberately not following orders, she’s less than worthless.

She recoiled slightly, the familiar pang of anxiety twisting in her gut. "This isn't about family, dad, it's about-" She fumbled over her words, unsure if she could say it, but hoping for some surge of courage she hadn't had her whole life. "It's about how you can't stand that I'm walking around without you making my own decisions. You just wanna control me-"

John's hand lashed out, slapping the counter beside her, making her visibly flinch and effectively cutting her off. "After everything I've done for you, this is how you repay me? I don't need to control you; you need me to do it. To keep you alive," he sneered. "And the running away from your shit and pretending we don't exist just proves it."

Morgan's eyes welled with tears, but she refused to let them fall. "Everything you've done," Her voice shook as she spoke. "You've done for yourself and your twisted little fantasy of finding the thing that killed Mom."

He grabbed her wrist, his grip like a vise. "Oh, yeah? And what do you think you can do to stop me?" She yanked her arm free, the skin already bruising. His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of doubt. But then his expression hardened, and he took a step closer, his shadow enveloping her. "You're making a big mistake, Morgan. You'll regret this."

She took a deep breath, her resolve wavering. The sooner she got away, the better. "The only mistake I made was not getting out earlier."

As she turned to leave, John's hand shot out, grabbing her shoulder and keeping her still. His voice was low and twisted with fury. The deep growl and the warmth of his breath in her ear made chills run up her spine.

"You think you can just walk away from me?"

Morgan's heart sank into her stomach. It wasn't a threat, but she could feel one coming. Her strength was slipping away, the familiar terror clawing at her mind. She'd never be able to hide from him for too long. Just look at her now, it had only been two months.

She was smart. But John was smarter.

"You're coming home, whether you like it or not." He took her stunned stillness as his queue to spin her around, forcing her chin up to look at him. She'd probably have marks on her jaw from how tight he was holding her. "You're really gonna leave us to fend for ourselves? You're so damn selfish-"

"I haven't been selfish a day in my fucking life-"

Her father scoffed as if that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "Well, by your logic, you're picking the wrong time to start." He got closer if it was even possible, and he looked at her like she was the dirt he loved to walk over. "Will's dead, Mo, and it's your fault. I told you not to go on that hunt alone, but what did you fucking do? You ignored me, like always. When are you gonna learn that you need me? Boy-Toy's not coming back, you saw to that. Stop wasting everyone's time and get over it."

Boy-Toy. That's all John saw him as now. Even though he liked to call Will's parents the closest people he had to friends besides Uncle Bobby.

Will had been with them for a year and a half when his parents died. They were helping him look for his aunt, the only family he had left. Only problem was they only knew her first name and that she was his mother's sister. So Will, Morgan and Sam searched for his aunt, while John and Dean searched for the demon.

For a while, things were okay. John was slightly more neutral when Will was around, starting fewer arguments and hitting them less. But when he walked in on them hooking up, Dean had to haul her father off of the boy. And then off of Morgan, too.

Two months ago, Morgan was desperate to prove herself to her father. Dean had already completed three solo hunts as a trial run. John wanted to see what he was capable of. Dean surpassed his expectations, as he always did. A rougarou, two vengeful spirits and a vampire taken care of in three weeks.

Will hadn't wanted to go on that hunt without help, but Morgan was frantic. She had to show her father what she was made of, but when Will discovered her plans, he was not going to let her do it alone.

The air is thick with tension, each step bringing them closer to the lair of the wendigo they've been tracking for days. The forest is dense, moonlight barely piercing the thick canopy above. The silence of the night is broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves and the distant hoot of an owl.

"Are you sure about this?" Will whispers, his voice barely audible.

Morgan turns to him, her blue eyes fierce and determined. "Yeah! We can do this, I swear."

They press on, the beam of their flashlights cutting through the darkness. Suddenly, a chilling growl echoes through the trees. Their hearts start racing as they tighten their grip on their chosen weapons. They're close.

The wendigo lunges out of the shadows, its eyes glowing with a malevolent type of starvation. Will fires his shotgun, but the creature is too fast. It knocks him to the ground, claws slashing through his shirt.

"Will!" Morgan screams, rushing to him. He struggles beneath the wendigo's weight, blood pooling from his wounds.

"Go!" He shouts, but his words are so garbled she hears her name, like a plea. "It's too strong!"

And Morgan can't leave him; he knows she would never. She swings her machete with all her strength, striking the creature's back. It howls in pain, momentarily distracted. Will uses the opportunity to push it off him, but the wendigo retaliates with a vicious swipe, its claws sinking deep into his chest.

"No!" Morgan drops to her knees beside Will as the wendigo retreats into the shadows. "No, no-"

Will's breathing is ragged, and he squeezes his eyes shut in distress. "Mo... I'm sorry..."

"Don't talk like that," she says, tears already streaming down her face. "You're gonna be okay, you'll be fine. We'll get you back to Dean. He'll know what to do."

Will reaches up, his hand trembling as he gently touches her cheek. His eyes are wet, too, but he quickly tries to hide the pain he's in. He graces her with a smile, but it's gone as fast as it appears.

"Remember when Dean was giving me shit for how long my hair is?" He waits for her to nod. It doesn't take her so long to react because she doesn't remember. She takes a few extra seconds because she can't figure out why he's bringing that up right now. "You shut him up so fast," he says with a strained laugh. "You definitely liked me first."

Morgan chuckles through her tears, but the light memory doesn't last too long in her mind.

He's dying he's dying he's dying

"But I love you, Mo...please...remember that."

"Stop it. You don't get to say that as a goodbye," she demanded, but her voice didn't have the force to make it believable. "You're not allowed to tell me you love me and then die. It's not fair."

"I'll be okay," he rasps. "Just promise me you'll try. Promise me…" His voice fades from there. He has more he wants to say, Morgan can tell, but he used up all his strength.

"Will, please," She begs, her words cracking. "Don't-"

But Will's eyes flutter closed, his hand falls lifelessly to the ground, and Morgan screams.

She doesn't have it in her to set up a pyre. Will doesn't want that. He says it feels barbaric to him. He came from a hunting family and knew it was to prevent the possibility of becoming was a vengeful spirit, but he’s never wavered. He wants a real burial, like normal people have. He wants his family and friends there; they don't have to say anything, just be there.

"It just doesn't feel right, you know? We should be returned to the earth and all that crap. It's more…I don't know, peaceful."

Hours later, as dawn breaks, she buries him under an oak tree. She stands alone - yet another way she's letting him down. Her heart and mind are in tatters, her tears mingle with the soot. She can't face her family, not after what just happened. She can't bear her father’s inevitable punishment. Or her brothers’ pity. Or the possibility that they hate her for letting their friend die.

With one last look at the makeshift grave, Morgan turns and walks away, the shadows of the forest swallowing her whole. She doesn't know where she's going, only that she has to keep moving.

She looked into her father's eyes and saw the unyielding force of his will. In that moment, she knew she had lost.

Defeated, she lowered her gaze, closed her eyes and barely whispered, "Okay."

John's grip loosened slightly, a triumphant smile creeping across his face. Harder than necessary, he slapped her shoulder in appreciation. "Good girl. Now pack your shit. We're leaving in a half hour."

As Morgan turned towards the exit, she felt the weight of his victory settle over her like a cloak. The life she thought she might have wanted crumbled away, leaving only the cold, harsh reality of her father's world. She walked slowly, each step feeling like a surrender, her heart heavy with the knowledge that, for now, he had won.

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dekusleftsock · 1 year

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I love being right

AND I JUST WANNA SAY THAT THIS IS SO

Oml

Literally this chapter is everything I wanted

(Except the blood kiss I wanted that so bad-)

This too, literally calls her pretty and toga is like “you think I’m what”

Though I’m really really REALLY hoping this isn’t setting them up for a shitty confession scene between ochako and deku bc “She admires her ability to be her true self and feelings at all times”. I’m good. I think that’s less prolific than being able to be honest about your feelings and what you want from them, which isn’t necessarily a relationship.

Though I absolutely ADORE the secret admiration for toga, really good touch and a really good way to show Ochakos parallels of bakugou to deku—a secret admiration of the person that’s been admiring them openly since the beginning. Especially when that trait is something they are currently trying to bury and, inadvertently, become more like them: toga wants to be more hardened and refuse to let anyone see her true feelings, and while ochako isn’t hardened, she’s certainly someone who tries to not let anyone see her feelings at all. To the point where they become a detriment to her. (kind of like deku’s control your heart thing, when aoyama embarrasses her she freaks out and almost costs them their grade)

Now? Now ochako is more closed off. She’s not embarrassed like she used to, she’s not as close to deku anymore, and she’s confronting toga and doing something HEROES DONT DO: seeing a villain as a person and SAVING HER

Her feelings are a detriment when she lets them consume her, she’s long since learned to control her heart, and instead of admiring someone like deku, she admires TOGA. If admiration = love in this series, then Ochako would (theoretically, we’ll see bc I’m not completely sure) love toga. Food for thought.

So, okay. Ochako admire(d) deku because he was a strong hero who knew the direction he wanted to go in, classic heroic mindset and self sacrificing thing. Ochako and bakugou both wanted to become heroes for relatively “selfish” reasons. Ochako for the money and Bakugou for winning for winners sake—to be the best.

Then, it became a matter of winning for people to bakugou, while still keeping the winners mindset. For ochako it became a need to see everyone smiling and happy, along with the money to support her parents. It wasn’t just her parents or the heroes or a little girl like Eri, it was about anyone and everyone. Because everyone deserves to smile.

Toga, however was seen as the selfish one out of her and ochako, and she most definitely is lmao. But so is deku—he is selfish because he would rather sacrifice a city, the world, for Katsuki. He would rather not let anyone know that shigaraki knew he couldn’t control his heart for Katsuki, he would rather lie to bakugous face than admit that he got so unbelievably angry at monoma that he unlocked another quirk.

He would get himself killed for anyone, but he would kill for Katsuki.

And, hm, letting shigaraki onto the ground where he’s near civilians instead of near Katsuki, kind of sounds like togas selfish mindset. Sacrificing an entire city for love? Not very heroic of you Izuku..

Either way, Ochako admired deku bc he was your standard hero, he followed the rules, in a sense. Self sacrificing and smart.

But ochako, as tsu states, isn’t following the rules right now. She’s trying to save a villain, that’s not the formula. Izuku also isnt following the rules right now. He’s sacrificing everyone else for one person.

Ochako literally ADMIRES A VILLAIN! THOSE ARENT THE RULES! Hell she’s literally giving the enemy a weapon, HER OWN BLOOD.

She called her smile beautiful when no one else did. Because ochako loves smiles, and she loves HER SMILE. And I saw people get so angry over this leak because they saw it as excusing her actions, that suddenly she wasn’t a mass murderer. When that’s not the case and that’s not what ochako is TRYING TO DO.

They would’ve been besties as kids and ochako would have offered her blood as a little girl to see her smile and I just KNOW THAT. I KNOW THAT.

The queerest thing someone can do is claim they will give themself to someone forever, and that’s what the blood represents. When you frame it like that, it seems almost like a marriage proposal LMAO

Blood doesn’t necessarily have to be evil or violent, it doesn’t even have to be deviant. If she has someone willing like Ochako then she can still exist and be herself because society can change JUST AS EASILY AS PEOPLE CAN CHANGE.

So thank you Ochako, for not following the rules.

#togachako #I’m sure I’m wrong about some things in this but GAHHHHHH I CANT BE NORMAL RN IM TOO HIGH ON HAVING THIS SCENE FULFILLED #ITS SO UNBELIEVABLY QUEER #ITS SO QUEER TO THE POINT I CANT DENY IT #ITS SO FUCKING QUEER I CANT SEE IT NOT BEING PURPOSEFUL #Dying #dead #bkdk #togaocha #toga Himiko #ochako uraraka #uraraka ochako

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semperama · 1 year

Note

Daniel getting injured in ex-husbands with benefits universe… 👀

This takes place before the divorce. A little bit of a peek into how things might have started to fall apart. Sorry in advance for the angst. <3

It's dumb and petty, but Daniel's pissed at Max for the rest of the weekend.

Max couldn't have done anything. He wasn't realistically going to park his car, jump out, and run to Daniel over something as small as a broken hand. Or even something much bigger than a broken hand. They had this conversation before they got married, about whether they were both okay with the reality of being married to someone with such a dangerous job. It's one thing to take your life in your own hands daily; it's another thing to watch someone you love do it. But they both laughed it off. Of course it'd be fine.

But now Daniel's sitting with his arm in a sling, watching Max win his 6 millionth race in a row, and it's just--he's tired. He's tired of all of it. He wants someone who will jump out of their car and run to him. He doesn't think Max will ever be that person.

"I wanted to bring this one home for Daniel," Max says in his post-race interview, to cheers from the crowd. "We of course hope he will recover soon, but it was important to me to win this one for him."

Daniel knows the cameras will pan to him, so he makes himself smile, hoping he looks the part of the proud husband.

After the race they ride to the airport in silence, Daniel resting his head wearing against the window. Either Max doesn't notice anything is wrong, or he's content to let Daniel wallow in it for now, because he doesn't even attempt to drag Daniel into a conversation about the race or reassure him for the hundredth time that he'll be racing again in no time. He's been oblivious to Daniel's bad mood, for the most part. Too busy, probably. Too focused on racing. Daniel wishes he'd just...reach out. Pull Daniel's head into his lap. Kiss him. But then again, if he tried, Daniel would only push him away. The distance between them feels too big, too impossible.

He makes it about ten minutes into the flight home before he says, "I think I might retire."

Max's head whips toward him so fast, Daniel would laugh if he wasn't feeling so shitty. "What?" Max says. "Don't be stupid. Your hand will be fine."

"It's not about my hand," Daniel says, his anger rising quickly, so he has to swallow hard against it. Why can't Max just understand for once? "I'm just tired of being kicked around by this stupid fucking sport."

"Kicked around?" Max's whole body is tense. "Things have been good, though. I thought you were happy?"

"I was." He was. But now... It can all change too fast. He hates that feeling, of not being in control of any of it. "It'd work out for the best, I think. I've had a long career, and I could be, like, more supportive of you, if--"

"You know I don't care about that," Max says, and yeah, Daniel knows that's true. Despite what he said to the whole world after the race, Max doesn't race for anyone but himself. He's never cared about fans or admiration. Not even Daniel's. And maybe that part hurts too.

"If I do it, will you be okay with it?" Daniel asks, because ultimately this isn't a discussion. It's Daniel's decision to make. "I'm not saying right now. I'll get better and try to finish out the season. Maybe I'll even change my mind and do one more after that. But will you be okay with it?"

Max looks away for a second, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Daniel can see him visibly getting control of himself. It's--fuck, even when he's angry at him, Daniel still loves him so fucking much.

"Of course it is whatever you want, Daniel," Max says when he turns back to him. He reaches across the space between them and wraps his hand around Daniel's good wrist, squeezes it. "I just think you should not make any rash decisions."

"I won't," Daniel says. He turns his hand over, lets Max thread their fingers together. It feels good to touch him. The past few days are still sour in Daniel's mouth, but some of the tension eases when Max brushes his thumb along the length of Daniel's, then brings their combined hands up to his mouth and kisses the base of Daniel's thumb.

"Good," Max says. Then, "I love you."

"I love you too," Daniel says on a sigh. It wasn't so long ago he thought those words could fix anything. Now, he's not so sure.

#maxiel #f1 #my writing #i need to gather all the exes with benefits fics together and put them somewhere #i'm too disorganized!

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randomgentlefolk · 8 months

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CPC CHAPTER 168

I'M GONNA. I'M GOING TO.

Oh thank goodness Frederick has a cat-like flexibility. No but fr tho. The fact that he can fit in small places and just, fold his body??? He's a cat.

OH I AM SO DOWN TO GWEN, AURELIA, THE POSSUM, AND THE RAT PROTECTING FREDERICK LET'S GOOOOO. Also The possum and Gwen's sharp teeth and Aurelia's spit? Heck yeah. AND THEN AURELIA PROTECTING GWEN!! I'm so glad she had a redemption arc :')

OH. OH. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS. Do you understand the amount of time I've been thinking about Frederick throwing a book at his bullies and Leland to the point I want to draw it but give up midway due to unable to draw anatomy of a person throwing a book? Yeah. And Frederick calling Leland a doofus LOLLLL.

Curtis not being able to see shit but still defending the aid kit station pretty well? That's what I call true skill. I mean he's really fighting multiple soldiers with armor and spear, and he's winning. But man his hand tho. I'm guessing those are from splinter and maybe some sorta swelling from holding the broom too long (idk how to describe it) or smth? Those has got to hurt...

HAHAHAHHAHAH I can't believe I didn't expect she would say that LMAO. Also she looks so goofy in the second image HAHA.

Nah the commander really went for Laverne too... Did Leland even agree on that?

Omg....Lorena catching Suzie....Lorzanna....

Leland's strength continues to terrify me. He just broke stair railing that seems to be made from marble, WITH HIS BARE HAND. I swear the Pastel palace is gonna need LOTS of renovation after all of these end.

"You don't decide what you want" oh bull I say, bull. Boooo Leland rotten tomatoes rotten tomatoes boooo nobody likes you go home boooo rotten tomatoes.

Eugh I'm surprised Frederick hasn't broken AT LEAST a bone with how much he got slammed and thrown hardly. The door broke bro the door broke. His spine...

Now that I think about it never have i ever with syrah would probably be wild XD

Okay at this point I am the most glad that frederick told cpc because otherwise many bad things would happen...

Wait a minute. What happened to spider Prez? I can't seem to remember...Did she pass out after breaking the door?

Wait so the Plaidypus isn't the royal plaid army?? Wait cause I'm kinda confused now :') if someone can explain it to me that would be great.

OH CRAP OH NO.

Shit, Frederick fr need a doctor asap. All those tossing around, the dusts, nah...

Okay this is sad and all but Syrah with the long nose made me giggle.

THANK YOU PRINCEL-WHOSE-NAME-HASN'T-BEEN-REVEALD!! Blaine really missed like ¾ of the war lmao.

I swear cpc is responsible for me learning new vocabularies daily.

OH??? BLAINE?? BLAINE??? I don't, I really don't know how to start.

First of all, there's a new meaning to this. So what I'm getting here, Blaine wants to be at the top because if he gets all the attention, Lance and Frederick won't be in trouble because he thought Leland wouldn't notice him much then. I suppose what's in Blaine's mind is, it's better to be neglected by your shitty parents rather than being noticed and verbally/physically abused by them?

Okay, I'm starting to get it. I'm the youngest sibling so I don't know if I'm getting it correctly, but this is what I get: "I will take all the abuse from our father so you, my younger brothers, can live a happy life without being notices by him."

Older siblings, amirite?

So, Blaine has been trying to protect his brothers but because Frederick keeps upsetting Leland and then making him proud, Blaine's plan keeps on being in shambles?

One thing I'm confused about though. Hear me out, Blaine most likely has golden child syndrome right? So how do we draw a line between which act is because wanting to succeed due to believing that's all his worth, and which act is from protecting his brothers?

Oh but he still owes Frederick and Lance lots of apologies though. Don't think I can forget what you said to Frederick in the dungeon, Blaine. That chapter broke me. To Lance, well, to be honest I don't exactly know what he should apologize about, but I feel like Blaine still has to? Sorry, I'm not making sense. Maybe apologize due to not talking to Lance and Frederick about his plan?? Oh man someone help me–

Imagine this tho: Blaine apologizing to Lance and Frederick for letting them get hurt by father, but then Isolde came and assured him that what Leland do isn't his fault. Haha I love to analyze this guy's mental health.

I hope he goes to therapy after this is all over. The plaid princes really need a lot of therapy. Actually the whole plaid family need therapy.

Okay say goodbye to my professionalism for awhile.

OABDUANSUAKSBW BLAINE??? PROTECTING FREDERICK?? THIS IS LIKE A DREAM COME TRUE. LAMBCATTTT THANK YOU LAMBCATTT!!!!

Frederick looks so amazed and I won't blame him cause I WOULD TO. IF I WAS ABOUT TO DIE, And someone suddenly came to save me, then proceed to throw the bad guy and himself out of the window by breaking the window and letting the damn sun rise view come in. I. I would look like that.

Blaine looking at the sunrise and realizing the true meaning of life and contemplating what he has done. I love him so much you got this bro.

Also Blaine turns out to be strong! I remember headcanons of him being the weakest out of the three. I mean that could still happen, but the fact that he carried Leland in which who knows how much he weights, and threw him out of the window. Damn.

But they're still falling though, that's not good. I doubt Blaine will die for that matter. It would be wasteful. He barely had his redemption arc. I'm thinking either he uses Leland to break his fall, or Nell's premonition about the tent save him. But the forest is a little far though... Oh! Or maybe, because the pastel kingdom is full of hills, they would fall and roll down towards the tent! That's a possibility!

SHE'S WEARING RED. I REPEAT, SHE'S WEARING RED!!!! YOOOO I WONDER WHAT SHE DID?? I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER...which is in 20 minutes lmao

That's it for now. See ya next chapter!

Mono out! (But still in to hear your thoughts. Please actually tell me your thought on this because I NEED answers and theories. Also psychology analization will actually make me go insanely happy)

#cursed princess club #cpc #mono reviews

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baiyunli · 1 year

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how to watch baseball now: a primer

This is a long, hopefully-comprehensive guide on how to watch baseball for hockey fans feeling adrift during the offseason — I have constructed this from the perspective of not only how to understand what you’re watching, but how to make it interesting to yourself.

If the numbers aren't interesting to you, forget about the numbers! They don’t have to exist in your version of baseball. Make up your own rules and use them to watch the game. Watch games only for the one kind-of okay player you like. Pick your favourite team because of a video you saw of one of them bouncing a baseball off his ass (Sean Murphy, then of Oakland A's and now of Atlanta Braves). Baseball Olds will try to pretend like the game is this big thing that only people who already watch it can appreciate, but you just have to find what you love most about it.

I’m using the NHL as my best point of reference: in terms of growing the game, I’d say MLB suffers from a very different problem than NHL (other than like, the current uproar around letting queer people exist, which is a throughline in both), in that while the NHL has a very exciting product but can’t reach people where they’re at, baseball is by and large perceived as a boring, slow game and the league will bend over backwards to make polarizing changes to the Boringest and Slowest parts rather than capitalizing on what excites fans about the game. However, both leagues are plagued by Shitty Commissioner disease. Such is the way of life.

Feel free to read all of this, or none of it, but I’ve tried to split it up in a way that makes sense and is easy to navigate. Last note: many people will tell you baseball is the only major sport going on in North America at this time of year. This is false. The WNBA and NWSL are both in full swing—not to mention the World Cup next month. Supplement your baseball watching with a wide variety of sports where you can!

How to Love Baseball

Pick a Team, Any Team

The first step in becoming a baseball fan is obviously picking a team! I could probably give you NHL comparatives and let you figure it out from there, but I don’t personally think your favourite NHL teams have much bearing on your favourite MLB ones, so I’ll give you a quick and dirty rundown of my teams instead and how you might want to pick a team.

The easiest team for me to love is the Seattle Mariners because I live just across the border, and they aren’t good enough to be annoying but also not bad enough to be embarrassed about. They’re just kind of there, which I enjoy greatly. I also love the Philadelphia Phillies because they’re my friend’s favourite team. They went on a Cinderella run to the World Series last year (before losing to the Astros in the final) and are now solidly middling. My other favourites are the Washington Nationals because of their fantastic social media presence and their hilarious stadium traditions. The current-day Nats are very much the epitome of "how can we lose when we're so sincere?"

Some teams you might want to look into are the LA Angels (actually of Anaheim) for Shohei Ohtani, the Milwaukee Brewers for — at least from what I understand — their boyband energy similar to the New Jersey Devils, the Baltimore Orioles or Tampa Bay Rays for an exciting and winningest team, and the Oakland A's for a miserable fan experience including horribly dysfunctional team management and a coming relocation to Las Vegas.

The easiest team for me to hate is the Toronto Blue Jays, which is a result of their god complex re: being the only Canadian team. A funny thing from this season is that the Rays opened their season with a historic 13-game win streak, only to be killed 6-3 by the Blue Jays to end it. Something about Toronto teams and ending another team’s 13-game heater, or whatever.

Also look into any local teams if you can. In Vancouver, our local minor league team is the Vancouver Canadians, and setting up a little picnic on the grass with friends while watching a Canadians game is a summer staple. Here’s a very cute article about them. There are a variety of lower-level and exhibition teams across the world, especially in countries where baseball is incredibly popular. One exhibition team is the Internet-famous Savannah Bananas who are dearly loved on TikTok. If there isn’t a huge baseball foothold in your area, it’s worth looking into which MLB teams are most popular where you live and/or have the most coverage. Some analytics sites like FiveThirtyEight will occasionally create maps showing each team’s popularity in different states, countries, etc. and that can be a great guide.

Petty Rivalries 101

You can always just Google these, but I decided to just list off a few major ones for your perusal: the Yankees and Red Sox, the Rangers and Astros, the Dodgers and Giants, and the Orioles and Nationals. As Toronto Maple Leafs scholar Acting the Fulemin once put it, the point of sports is to be sad in a group, and the counterpart to this is that it absolutely rules getting to see a team you hate lose.

A quick note on the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is that it's brought us one of my favourite ever quotes from ex-Mariner and current Yankee Nestor Cortes:

Once you’ve chosen a favourite team, they’re bound to have some kind of geographic or historic rivalry, and you can search those up to find out the background behind them. Also, I highly suggest deciding on a random team you hate for no reason. It makes the season experience much more interesting and gives you the chance to pray on their downfall whenever possible.

Where to Watch

As with most things about baseball, this will vary by your team. Depending on your cable package, you might be able to watch your favourite team already! That’s great news. Even if you can’t, feel free to turn on the TV, find a random baseball game, and imprint on either of those teams like a baby bird. The MLB website offers games broadcast with an MLB.tv subscription, but if you have an account you can also watch the Free Game of the Day and collected highlights from previous games! This is a great way to expand your team repertoire and figure out which team broadcasts you hate with a burning passion. Local radio stations do commentary on games if you like listening to that.

If you just want to get your feet wet rather than diving in straight away, pretty much every major game of the postseason will be uploaded by some “FirstName BunchOfNumbers” user on YouTube: for example, you can watch Game 1 of the World Series last year by just searching 2022 World Series Game 1 Full Game. However, watching the full game might be a slog if you don’t know what’s going on, and you can learn the intricacies of the sport without having to watch all four hours and twelve minutes of like, the 1962 World Series Game 7 (although that is a very exciting game). In that case, skip to the ‘How the Game is Governed’ section and read on.

All of this pertains to MLB teams, but there’s plenty to watch elsewhere. If you have a local baseball team, you might be able to catch a game or two in-person! Minor League Baseball also has their own broadcasting services and highlights are available on YouTube or their website.

League Structure

The MLB season is 162 games long. Spring training, aka the preseason, begins in February. During the regular season, teams play a three or four-game series with the same team before playing another with a different team. For example, this month the Philadelphia Phillies played 3 games in a row against the Washington Nationals on consecutive days. The day after the conclusion of their last game against Washington, they started a series against the Tigers, which was three games with one rescheduled due to weather, and then another three games against the Dodgers. This leads to a schedule that looks like this:

Occasionally, due to weather issues or other postponement reasons, a game will be rescheduled for the same day as another game against the same team — so they’ll play two full games in one day. This is called a double-header. They used to be routinely scheduled in MLB, but now they’re only played as a result of scheduling problems.

Team-wise, it’s a little more complicated than the NHL. Like the Eastern and Western conferences, MLB is separated into two ‘leagues’: the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). Both leagues have fifteen teams, and until the 1990s teams in different leagues didn’t play each other during the regular season at all, leading to different styles of play, tactics, and rules implemented between them. This is no longer the case! However, it’s important to recognize that unlike the NHL, NBA, NWSL, etc., Major League Baseball comprises two leagues, rather than two conferences of the same league. This matters because individual awards like the Cy Young or Gold Glove are given to the best players at their position in both the AL and NL, and the MLB MVP includes both an AL MVP and NL MVP.

MLB is made up of six divisions, with three in each league: AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, and NL West. A division has five teams. If you know much about US geography, you might notice that the teams in each division don’t actually correspond very well to their geographic location: this is for a variety of reasons, not least of which is expansion teams requiring change in division partitioning, but nobody’s going to fix it at this point. And that’s okay!

Fandom and Things As Such

Baseball fandom, regrettably, is not much of a Tumblr phenomenon these days, but Baseball Twitter does have some incredible gems. The Baseball RPF tag on AO3 is also fairly fleshed out (albeit not to the extent of HRPF) and you’ll find that many authors who write HRPF have dabbled in baseball as well. If you’re lost on where to start choosing a team, going through the AO3 grab bag and choosing a random player who you really like in a fic is also a very respectable avenue.

I cannot stress this enough: the easiest way to learn the game without having to learn the characters is reading baseball AUs. That’s it. They’re ten times more approachable than trying to memorize everyone on your favourite team’s roster, and they abound in HRPF if you’re looking for a landing port. I have witness testimony from Lil (@wymgreenteam) that she learned what pitching signs and shortstops were from the wonderful Jack/Nico baseball AU. It works! Obviously fanfiction won’t teach you everything, but if you’re feeling overwhelmed they can be a fantastic first step and really illustrate the game from a fan perspective.

Other Media

I will caution against taking the ‘consume baseball-related media’ advice too seriously, because I find that unlike baseball AUs, other media involving baseball does not always come from someone who watches and loves the game. Think of it like hockey romance books—just like the main characters of those novels are probably not scoring hat tricks in 5 consecutive games, they probably aren’t reaching such baseball heights either.

With that said, I have not watched Daiya No Ace but I’ve heard that people do enjoy it! For genuine baseball culture-oriented media, Roger Angell wrote fantastic articles and books on the game. I love his book ‘Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion.’ Then there are movies like Moneyball and shows like A League of Our Own which tackle specific aspects of the game and how it’s played. Depending on your eventual favourite team(s), hometown coverage will also play a huge part: for the Phillies, that’s outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer or Penn Live.

Narratives

Once upon a time there was a young man named Shohei Ohtani who was breaking records set in the 1920s while playing on a horrible, failing team that refused to build around him. I assume you have some familiarity with Ohtani, but he is very difficult to describe because he is literally making history. He is the only two-way player in MLB right now: a two-way player is someone who is both a pitcher and a batter; there are a ton of rules about what constitutes a two-way player, but currently Ohtani is the only true two-way player at the Major level. This is not a perfect analogy, but he’s sort of like if Jason Robertson went out there and had a 50-goal season, then immediately jumped into net and played like Juuse Saros. He’s the best all-around player in MLB, and even though he isn’t the best pitcher or the best batter, the fact that he’s incredible at both of them makes him stand out. He also plays with Mike Trout, who’s breaking records of his own, while trying to drag the LA Angels to any sort of notoriety. Here is a prescient article about the Ohtani-Trout era in Anaheim.

Each team has their own current narratives and pairings, but Ohtani and Trout are the biggest one right now. People compare them to McDavid and Draisaitl, but it’s more like if the Oilers had McDavid and Draisaitl but were also one of the worst teams in the league right now. However, Trout is currently in the worst slump of his career while the Angels have won the last 11 of 14 games, so really all this means is that baseball is fake.

Baseball is rife with redemption and villain arcs—you just have to dig a little to find them. I have presented the Ohtani and Trout trainwreck because it’s the closest comparable to the Oilers tragedy, but there are plenty others that really depend on team and current events.

Bush Leagues

MLB teams have a very different relationship to their minor-league affiliates than NHL teams do. There are about five hundred various regional minor leagues, but the MiLB levels are Rookie, Single A, High A, Double A, and Triple A, each of which has two or three individual leagues similar to the AL-NL system in MLB.

The fun thing about MiLB is that it’s a lot closer to home than MLB! Most places don’t have an MLB team, but there’s a good chance anywhere in the USA has a nearby MiLB or regional/collegiate league team. They also have way more interesting names, like the Portland Pickles, Rocket City Trash Pandas, and Sugar Land Space Cowboys. The prospect pipeline in MLB runs a whole lot slower than it does for the NHL, and generally through those Double or Triple-A affiliates, so it’s definitely worth paying attention to minor-league teams and their standout players to see who might be the next rookie on your favourite team.

MiLB player compensation has been an issue for a long time, and the players recently unionized! A few great write-ups on it: 1, 2, and 3.

Regional Popularity

I’ve said this plenty, but I truly do think that finding your baseball niche hinges upon imprinting on a hometown team or a player you just really like. This sport isn’t just an American pastime: it’s hugely popular in Central America and parts of East Asia, and some of the best and brightest up-and-coming (and current) players hail from countries that haven’t traditionally been viewed as bastions of baseball. The game is growing every day, and it’s wonderful to see.

Baseball is very popular in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, and Korea. Out of those, I’d probably say the Dominican Republic has the largest MLB presence, with only American players outnumbering Dominican ones in the league, but the sport is also fast-growing in Japan, Korea, and Australia. Japan won the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which is the baseball equivalent of the World Cup of Hockey, where the best players in the world compete against each other and Shohei Ohtani (captain of the Japanese team) pitched to Mike Trout (captain of the American team) in possibly the most electric moment of baseball in the 21st century.

How to Understand Baseball

How the Game is Governed

Rather than doing a big writeup on this, I figured I would just find some articles and videos that go through the rules well and hold your hand through it! Think of these like helpful assets, similar to the first time you search up ‘what is goaltender interference’ or 'what is offsides' after hearing it mentioned on the play-by-play and a goal got turned over and all the fans were mad and you wanted to be in on the reason why. This is that search.

Baseball Explained in 5 Minutes

How to identify baseball pitches

Everything there is to know about the The Strike Zone in Baseball.

Intro to Baseball: Positions

What’s going on with the DH in MLB? (MLB Originals)

Rules Glossary | MLB - PDF Version

Lastly, once you’ve got a good grasp on the rules and positions, I probably wouldn’t go straight to watching a full game—you want to make sure you’re using your three hours well rather than staring at a game you don’t really get or don’t care about, or both. Instead, watch YouTube highlights of various players and best (or worst) plays of the week! This gives you an idea of what creates excitement in a game and why, and different positional strengths. From there, you can start watching longer clips, like full innings or the highlights uploaded after each game, which give you a better idea of the game’s pace.

Pressing Play

While I was writing this I remembered that a fun and unique baseball tradition is players having walk-up songs when they’re up in the batting lineup.

Most teams will post their players' walk-up songs on Spotify, YouTube, etc. and while there are a few songs that are synonymous with legendary players - like Mariano Rivera's "Enter Sandman" - players usually like to switch up their songs. Often, a song will become emblematic of an era in that team's history (Anthony Rizzo's "Intoxicated" and the Cubs' 2016 playoff run). After a while, you'll notice patterns in what players pick.

Learning about each player’s song rotation can be extremely revealing, like Mark Canha switching his walk-up songs to Born This Way, Vogue, and I Wanna Dance with Somebody in honour of the Mets Pride Night last week!

Diamond Sports Bankruptcy

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about broadcasting or RSNs, but Diamond Sports, the group that runs Bally Sports, recently filed for bankruptcy, which has really affected some franchises’ profit margins and where their games can be streamed. Not sure if this interests you, but you can read about it here!

The Oakland A’s Relocation

Again: I’m not an Oakland fan, but there’s a lot of debate right now about the owners of the Oakland Athletics moving the team to Vegas despite the wishes of the town and city. Rob Manfred, the MLB commissioner, also made rude comments about Oakland fans as a result of their Reverse Boycott Night, where almost 28,000 fans came out to support the team. A professional sports league commissioner acting like an asshole to fans of a small-market team is nothing new, but it’s the culmination of a lot of drama between terrible owners and a market that loves their team.

The Long, Storied History of Cheating

The long, storied history of cheating in MLB encompasses not only stealing signs and tipping pitches, but also foreign substance usage on hands (which pitchers sometimes try in order to change how they pitch the ball), illegal equipment, and more. It’s kind of a lot. The most notable, recent case is the 2017 Houston Astros World Series Win.

Houston’s Fucking Astros

Nobody likes the Astros except Astros fans. They won the World Series last year and are universally hated, not least of all because of the 2017 cheating controversy.

In baseball, ‘signs’ are what catchers use to communicate to pitchers what kind of pitch they should throw. These rely on knowledge of the hitter currently on the plate and catching them by surprise. Each pitcher-catcher battery will usually have their own signs. In 2017, a year in which Houston won the World Series, the team set up a video camera in the center field seats with a full frontal view of the catcher, and they would use that to figure out what pitches the pitcher would throw. Then from the dugout, whoever was watching the video feed at the time would use a signal (audio cues, like banging garbage can lids) to tell the hitter who was up what pitch they had to expect. This was mostly possible because of the time delay between a catcher signalling and a pitcher throwing, which has been changed by this season’s pitch clock implementation.

In 2020, The Athletic published the first exposé article about the Astros cheating scandal, and it rocked the baseball world. Several immediate consequences followed: the Astros GM and field manager (head coach) were suspended for the full 2020 season, and although players received no punishment, the team gave up four draft picks (their 1st and 2nd round picks in 2020 and 2021).

Pitching and Sticky Stuff

Pitchers applying foreign substances on their hands is always a controversy in MLB games. Recently, star pitcher Max Scherzer was ejected and suspended 10 games after an umpire decided his hand was unusually sticky. TLDR: cheating is common, and consequences vary. Nobody has gotten over the Astros cheating scandal.

Expected By Whom

A quick rundown on the analytics side of the game and how baseball stats look very different both in their progress and insights than hockey. This is how you can sound like you know ball.

The Moneyball book does a great job explaining the rise of sabermetrics (baseball analytics) in the early 2000s, starting with Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s. Because MLB doesn’t have a salary cap and their luxury tax isn’t difficult for big-market teams to pay, small-market teams like Oakland have to constantly innovate in their game tactics in order to stay competitive, and that’s why the game today is so numbers-oriented. Watching a baseball game, you’ll see far more stats than you would in an NHL broadcast: OBP (On-Base Percentage), ERA (Earned Run Average), pitching speed, slugging percentage, pythagorean win percentage, and more. Do not fear the big numbers. You don’t have to know what every stat means in order to love the game, but if you watch enough and you hear commentators discussing what, say, Kodai Senga's ERA is, you’ll come to learn what they mean! In a pinch, you can also easily just search up ‘league average [stat]’ to figure out what the standard is.

Some websites that are really instrumental in baseball analytics are Baseball-Reference, FiveThirtyEight, and FanGraphs, plus YouTube channels like Foolish Baseball and statisticians like Bill James and Tom Tango. Baseball is a lot further along in its analytics revolution than hockey, and as a result, such analysis is not just a thing for Stats Nerds but also a huge part of the way the game is played and watched today. Personally, I love stats that assess umpire accuracy in calling strikes, and so Umpire Scorecards on Twitter is one of my favourites.

It's Too Long and Too Much Money

If Connor McDavid played in Major League Baseball and was close to the kind of player he is in the NHL right now, he would be getting paid north of 400 million dollars, not to mention endorsement money. Instead, he sold his soul to a sport where reporters ask about his biological clock and his only consolation for living in Edmonton is his heated driveway.

Because MLB payrolls are so much larger than the NHL’s and they have a luxury tax rather than a salary cap, contracts are worth much more. The sport itself is less volatile as well: both a product of the longer season (larger sample size) and the luck factor inherent in chance-based games like hockey that isn’t present as much in baseball, a player's year-to-year performance is easier to predict and therefore teams feel more comfortable betting on their production. In contrast to the NHL’s 8-year limit & penalty for long contracts (like the Kovalchuk deal), and bridge deals made when a player hasn't demonstrated that their performance is sustainable, MLB GMs often give their stars contracts over 10 years, and for hundreds of millions of dollars total. Mike Trout is on a 12-year contract for almost $430 million, and by several estimates, his endorsements and the money he receives for being named All-Star, AL MVP, etc. brings that up significantly.

MLB front office terminology is very similar to the NHL, but their contracts differ in another important way: baseball players can opt out of a contract and enter free agency. For example, last season Carlos Correa agreed to a 12-year, $310m deal with the New York Mets, but the Mets were worried about the results from his physical and his injury history, so they pulled out of the deal before the season began and instead, Correa signed with the Minnesota Twins on a six-year, $200m contract.

The Used Boy Auction

Drafting in MLB works very differently than the NHL. The amateur draft (the Main one, which is also called the Rule 4 Draft) takes place mid-season and lasts 20 rounds (used to be 40), plus picks that teams are given as compensation for other events. Teams can draft players either out of high school or college baseball—while the majority of players in the early days were picked right out of high school, nowadays the largest percentage are collegiate players. High school players are only eligible after graduation, and they don’t have junior leagues like the OHL or USHL. Players at universities can only be drafted after their 3rd season there in order to avoid going to a university only for drafting purposes.

Teams retain the rights to sign the players they draft until July 15 of the following year, and a player who does not sign with their team is eligible to be signed once again as long as they meet the age and educational requirements (attending an academic institution, three years of college, etc.) Unless the player has consented to be re-selected by their old team, they cannot be chosen again in another draft year. This leads to players like Brandon Belt having been drafted three times, by the Red Sox, Braves, and Giants, and ultimately playing for the Giants after his college career.

The Rule 5 Draft is another major part of the MLB drafting system. It's sort of similar to what happens in the NHL with an expansion draft, but it takes place in the winter every year. As the MLB prospect pipeline moves slower and it's easy for teams to Stockpile high-quality prospects and bury them in the minors due to the team's current success, this draft aims to ensure that young players have a chance to play in the bigs on a team that needs more manpower. Not every team has to select a player in the Rule 5 draft; last season, 15 players were taken, including the Nats selecting Thad Ward and the Phillies selecting Noah Song.

Here's the official MLB description of the drafting process:

Podcasters or Whatever

My most toxic trait is that I unfortunately love listening to sports podcasts, so here are some good baseball ones:

The Athletic Baseball Show

Ballpark Dimensions

Effectively Wild

The Strike Zone

I hope this serves as a useful first step! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want to yell about baseball - I wrote this for two people, so if either of those two people find it helpful, the three hours I spent on it will have been worth it.

#baseball #waiting for spring #yun talks #mlb #baseball primer #i guess???#pinned for the offseason

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