#what do you mean it doesnt have maple syrup in it... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dear-ao3 · 11 months ago

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montreal! filled with groundhogs, rain, and *checks notes* mercedes not absolutely sucking ???? hm. that wasn't on my bingo board. today is wednesday, june 19, and as long as tumblr lets me continue to update this post, lets get into it.

first of all. on account of the fact that this post is late. like a lot late. and were about to head into a triple header weekend. we are speed running this. as in right now its 11:27pm on 6/18 and i'll be damned if this thing doesnt get posted before i go to bed. (usually i take 3 days to write this). so hop in. hold onto your hats. its gonna be fast.

-the week started off with an absolute bang. what kind of bang? an estie bestie bang:

-kind of unclear whether or not this was at all related to the events of monaco, or if this was in the works for awhile and they just decided to announce it now. either way, weird timing.

-so who will be replacing him? as usual, we have absolutely no idea. alpine have aparently been in talks with both jack doohan and mick schumacher though. jack was also announced (pretty late i might add) that he was going to be driving in practice 1 in Canada. (unfortunately practice 1 ended up being pretty much a shit show but more on that later). mick's name has come up a few times recently as a possibility for a new driver, both at mercedes and at alpine. hes currently the mercedes reserve driver but he races for alpines endurance team (he did le mans this weekend and was serving cunt until the car aparently lit on fire, or so i was told idk i dont really know that much about le mans)

-the next day another announcement was made. by red bull. it said to stay tuned.

-it meant nothing. they re-signed checo for 2 more years.

-jumping away from the sillies of silly season we have the sillies of the week

-oscar, charles and the other lecercs continued to be legends on twitter and keep up the adoption thing:

-oscar also schemed how he was going to make canada his home race as well. i dont think that he succeeded.

-aside from that. valtteri drove a zamboni

-lance did the most canadian thing in the world and did promo with tim hortons

-speaking of strolls, lawrence stroll (lances father and owner of the entirety of aston martin) is aparently unhappy with the teams performance and wants to figure out what they can do better

-they also announced the new car regulations for 2026. theres a lot to unpack there and you can read a condensed version of it here on f1's instagram if you want. or google it. but essentially the cars are getting smaller again and they are getting rid of drs. which is great if youre a woman because now men need to come up with another way to ask women to prove their knowledge about f1 (since they cant ask "what does drs mean?" anymore) (it means drag reduction system ok now get out of my house) or oscar piastri who has been in a toxic relationship with drs for awhile:

-zak brown continued his tradition and finally got the tattoo of the miami circuit to celebrate landos win

-danny rics put maple syrup on his helmet, it was actually kind of a slay. well. a slay to everyone except jacques villeneuve who basically said that non canadians should not touch maple syrup. he had other things to say about danny rics but we will get there later

-oscar also decided to shit on alpine once again at the press conference saying "knowing you can fight for a win is a bit nicer than you know trying to fight for a point" and how did we know this was a dig at alpine? well he apologized to pierre after

-pierre was asked what he thought about esteban as a teammate. it took him a shocking amount of time to come up with an answer

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-moving onto practice 1

-it rained. quite a lot.

-practice got red flagged because of the rain but the clock was still running which meant they were all just kinda sitting in the garages doing basically nothing. kicking their feet actually in the case of mclaren. but it gave people like jacques villeneuve time to shit talk people

-i dont know too much about jacques, he's from canada and was the 1997 world champion. he also looked vaguely like a a backstreet boy and dylan O'Brien when he was driving

-aparently he just says bonkers shit and gets paid to do it. kinda like nico but with less class and more sass. this weekend his main target was danny rics. he said during practice 1 that: “Why is he still in F1?We’re hearing the same thing now for the last four, five years — we have to make it better for him, poor him. It’s been five years of that. Sorry, no, you’re in F1. Maybe you make that effort for Lewis Hamilton, who’s won multiple championships. You don’t make that effort for a driver that can’t cut it. Can’t cut it? Go home, there’s someone else who can take your place.”

-aside from that pile of sass, we also had speculation that kevin magnussen is not going to get resigned after his monaco disaster crash and everything else this season, we had speculation about kimi to merc for the millionth time and more speculation that carlos is either going to williams or audi. stand stuff, fork found in kitchen

-since the red flag for the rain lasted so long, and zhou ended up crashing and causing another red flag, practice where people were on the track was very short and jack doohan who was doing a practice session for alpine, did not get to set a timed lap and only did 2 laps total. he does not get a do over for this practice session.

-also. lando took one of his infamous red flag naps:

-why is this infamous? well because of the original nap that he took during the red flag during spa 2021 and the commentary that crofty said over it (admittedly this was the day after a really big crash that he had but thats neither here nor there, left right nor center):

-the cars that did make it out on track kinda went slip slide everywhere

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-there were also ground hogs. but there are usually ground hogs in canada its part of the charm.

-i didnt watch practice 2 or 3 cause i was busy. but max had at least a few problems:

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-qualifying. another thing that i did not watch. because i was in the middle of nowhere driving through Pennsylvania. so i found out all of this via the family group chat when my cell phone decided to have service.

-it was announced that yuki re-signed with vcarb for 2025. this is great news for yuki who is becoming a hot commodity as a driver and there was even talk that he may get bought out by another team for 2026 if he continues to serve as he is now. this also means liam lawson is running out of options.

-anyway lets get a rundown of the starting positions:

-p20: zhou. no surprise.

-p19: nico. somewhat of a surprise cause he usually gets a little higher than that.

-p18: Esteban. normal. he also had a 5 place grid penalty from monaco.

-p17: valtteri. also normal.

-p16: checo. second week in a row that he was out in q1. and right after they announced that he was re-signed at red bull. it seems that history is repeating itself here with him. i wonder if he gave us a proper disaster class during the race.

-p15. pierre. again normal

-p14. k mags. mhm normal

-p13. LOGAN HUNTER SARGEANT. for the first time this year he made it through to q2 hot diggity dog! he has still not out qualified his teammate alex albon but he has out qualified checo 6 times in his career in f1 (which i believe is 30 races)

p12. carlos. ariana what are you doing here. it would seem the ferrari disaster is back.

p11. charles. thats right both ferraris were out in q2. utterly insane. seems the monaco bad luck caught up a week late. ollie bearman's live reaction was insane

-p10. alex. a williams slay. second q3 appearance of the year

-p9. lance. standard.

-p8. yuki. happy to see him in q3 but i think everyone was expecting for him to be a little higher.

-p7. lewis. disappointing after having p1 in practice 3 but unfortunately average for him this year.

-p6. fernando. nice good.

-p5. daniel. really stuck it to jacques telling him that he should retire with that one. he later said “I still don’t know what he said, but I heard he’s been talking shit but he always does. I think he’s hit his head a few too many times, I don’t know if he plays ice hockey or something.”

-p4. oscar. good.

-p3. lando. good.

-p2. max. hey wait a second...?

-p1. george russell??? ariana what are you DOING HERE????

-the wildest part of this was that max and george actually tied for pole position, but george got it because he set the lap time first. but! was this to be the start of merc getting their shit together? had they finally done it???!! i dont know! but george did bring back the 2023 f1 intro pose which everyone memed to hell and did on top of his car:

-onto the race

-first oscar had funny commentary about the driver's parade

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-and then they all lined up. lights out. away we fucking go.

-it was a wet start to the race. and stake was starting from the pit lane for some reason or other i dont remember why. both haas cars were starting on full wet tires (more treads) and everyone else was on intermediate tires (less treads but wear better)

-"oh canada!" crofty said. "what do you have in store for us today!" sheer chaos. that was what was in store.

-haas managed to slay. like an absolutely inordinate amount. like on lap 5 k mags was running in 4th (up from 14th) and had the fastest lap and i think nico made it up to 9th, possibly higher. reguardless the wet tires were working for them. you can see how much kevin was slaying here:

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-ferrari was doing the exact opposite of haas. as in they were not slaying. almost immediately charles had some kind of engine problem that did not want to resolve itself.

-by lap four charles was already asking if everything was okay with the engine. it was not. but he was told to keep pushing anyway.

-by lap 7 he asked "how much am i loosing on the straights" "quite a bit" "i dont want this answer when i am asking please tell me" "half a second"

-it was the beginning of the return of the ferrari school of clownery.

-all the while george was leading. and he kept leading until lap 21 when he was passed by lando

-wait by lando

-when did he get into p2

-wait a minute

-oh i see

-lando max and george had been involved in a close battle, all trading fastest lap back and forth to eachother for several laps. lando managed to get past max on lap 20, which was greatly helped by the fact that there was no drs until lap 18 because of the rain.

-sorry guys its 1:10am

-so lando passes george, then max passes george. on lap 22

-by lap 23 lando had managed to get 4.5 seconds ahead of max. which was very good news.

-what was not good news was that it was going to start raining again and everyone on intermediate tires was about to get fucked. which was literally everyone.

-they were just talking about the tire strategy and how much time people were going to lose pitting and hm well it would only be half of that if there was only a safety car!

-and poof! just like magic! a safety car appeared!

-shape of a williams form of logan sargeant on lap 25! i think he tapped into a wall. he was out. the first DNF but definitely not the last.

-everyone pitted. except for lando who pitted later. this would probably come back to bite him later

-lando came out in third behind max and george.

-"what goes around comes around" said gp, max's race engineer. "that's miami back."

-the safety car ended on lap 29.

-charles came into the pits on lap 29 to resolve the engine problem, hopefully. and if you can count on ferrari for one thing its to have a fuck ass tire strategy. so not only did they not fix charles's engine problem, they also decided to put him on hard tires. on a wet track. hard tires are not wet tires. what the hell is going on in the house of commons.

-and then, on lap 32 alex albon made up for the ferrari fuckery by having the most beautiful overtake known to man. a double overtake. on danny rics and esteban ocon. he is in the blue car that goes through the middle. please just watch it.

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-meanwhile, back at the clown factory, ferrari seemed to realize that they had made a tire strategy mistake and pitted charles for intermediaries on lap 33. he also was getting lapped by max on lap 33. yes. charles was running in dead last.

-as the track started to dry, people started to slide around in their intermediate tires, so people started to come into the pits.

-including charles. who pitted on lap 43 to retire his car. he even cheered when they told him they were retiring the car. prior to his retirement charles had expressed his desire to just stop because they were loosing so much time to everyone else. charles later said that "it was hell from the beginning to the end" after the race his press officer tried to coach him on what to say and he told her "ill say what i want" pr menace charles is back

-everyone started to come in for slicks (not wet tires) (not the omegaverse thing) except for lando who stayed out to build a huge gap to max (lando was running in front after max pitted) to hopefully get a free pit stop and still come out ahead of max. and he almost did it. but it didnt work. max passed him.

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-george had caught up with lando and ma as well and now he and george were battling for second. george passed lando on lap 50 for second but he ran wide on lap 51 and lando passed him back.

-a wild toto wolff appeared on george's radio at this moment, sounding a bit like darth vader and telling him to "focus george focus."

-at this time checo decided to continue his disaster class in How Not To Act After You Get A Contract Extension by ramming his rear wing into the wall and then driving back onto the track, littering debris everywhere, because red bull did not want to cause a safety car which would have compromised max's lead. he pulled into the pits and retired. cars are not supposed to drive looking like this

-checo got a 3 place grid penalty for the spanish gp because of this and i believe the team also go a fine.

-also jokes on them because literally on the next lap there was a safety car anyway because of a crash between alex and carlos because carlos spun and ended up taking out alex. both of them retired. thats now five DNFs if youre keeping count

-all that and it might rain again

-lewis pitted for hard tires. this was the start of some merc controversy because later lewis claimed that he did not know that george had been put on mediums and had he known that george had been put on medium he would not have taken the stop for hards.

-the safety car ended with max in front, then lando, oscar and george all practically on top of eachother.

-oscar was given the option to go past lando and try to take the lead from max on lap 63. he did not take it and stayed where he was.

-on the next lap oscar had some contact with george after loosing drs from lando and lewis passed george, taking 4th spot.

-now pay close attention here

-lewis then passed oscar for third on lap 66

-the first time all season he was in the podium spot

-george passed oscar on lap 67 for fourth

-there was a brief yellow flag on lap 67 where yuki spun onto the grass and barely missed getting slammed into by a haas. there were aparently debris on track and lando was begging for a safety car

-george then passed lewis for third on lap 69

-gasly also passed ocon on lap 69, which ocon didnt want to have happen, but he was given team orders. he did eventually concede and let pierre through to try and fight daniel. pierre was not able to and the team did not have the cars swap back. esteban was not happy with this, saying over the radio after the race that "i am too nice, too nice! ive done what i had to do but you yuys didnt do what you had to do" most of his anger was probably because they were both in points positions and since they didnt swap the cars back, pierre got more points than esteban did that Esteban thought that he didnt deserve

-and so, thus the race came to an end.

-max won, followed by lando, george, lewis, oscar, alonso, lance, daniel, pierre, esteban, nico, kevin, valtteri, yuki and zhou.

-max said he had fun, lando said it was chaos, and george said it felt like a missed opportunity. lewis said absolutely nothing about it after pulling up to parc ferme in his car. absolutely brutal to get passed by your teammate on the last lap though.

-mercedes was not done with the weird decisions though

-they tweeted this after the race

-which is odd because you might be remembering that lewis came second in the chinese gp sprint race and did in fact bring home a plaque from that. well. you wouldn't be the only one to remember that because practically every merc fan brought that up, so much that merc had to make a public correction

-this has sparked the opinions that. hm. perhaps lewis is getting fucked over by merc. because how do you forget a whole second place when your car was in fact a shit box at that time???

-aside from that they did actually include landos champagne pop on tv this time. and it was the first time he and george were on the podium together since f2 in 2018

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-so. more silly season speculating.

-carlos aparently has been reportedly offered a four year contract from williams. carlos also has said that aparently every team that has not re signed their drivers yet has offered him something, but he is still unemployed. his contract might be announced next week at his home race

-esetban ocon may go to haas

-merc seems like they want to sign kimi and probably for next year though people think that that might be a bad idea because Yes max verstappen was signed to toro rosso at 17, but that was a junior team to red bull and carlos sainz was his teammate and he was also a rookie. kimi would be jumping into mercedes which is a top 4 team and have george as his teammate who will have been in f1 for 7 years and also be replacing a 7 time world champion. max replaced daniil kyvat. who (sorry) is significantly less well known than sir lewis hamilton. so he could crash and burn

-reguardless, the fia changed the rules so that drivers can get their super license for f1 at age 17, previously it was 18.

-ollie bearman is expected to go to haas

-adrian newey is rumored to have signed with ferrari. fork found in kitchen,

-gunther steiner, the disgraced ex haas team principal, shit on checo (from the monaco week) saying that "you sign a 2 year contract, you qualify 18th and then you crash trying to go from 17th to 16th" thats probably not an exact quote but its pretty close.

-jos verstappen is convinced that red bulls period of dominance is ending, aparently.

-and when asked why mclaren has better form than red bull max said "mclaren have two cars!" scoring points

-lance stroll squashed rumors about alonso being better than him in the funniest way possible by saying that "people say he is super good, and i beat him in the last few weekends. so take it as you want."

-lewis hamilton invited mary mcgee, the first american woman to race motorcycles, as his guest for canada.

-i also forgot to include from last week but lewis was on hot ones and he bashed the mercedes car live on air. its a good one.

youtube

-and for the government regulated mclaren update. what are they up to. uh. this.

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thats that! as i said. we've got a triple header coming up, spain, Austria and Britain. and things are already happening. next update will be better. its 2:27am. not bad for three hours, lol. see you all next time.

Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?

a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season

under the cut we go

silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.

so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.

of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.

so let’s meet the teams.

red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.

mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.

ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.

mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.

aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.

alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.

williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.

alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.

alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.

haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.

so those are the teams. it is important to note that:

-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.

-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.

let’s meet our drivers!!!

starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:

max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.

lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.

george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.

lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.

oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.

lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.

so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.

charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.

carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.

sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.

daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.

liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED

yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.

alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.

logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.

fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).

pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.

esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.

nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.

kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.

valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.

zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.

and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.

feel free to add on and peer review me

#not a tag #from saph #saph explains silly season 2024 #f1 #canada gp 2024 #formula 1 #im probably missing things but this is the best that were getting sorry to disappoint everyone #Instagram #Youtube

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dragon-kazansky · 4 years ago

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Undeserving attention | Helmut Zemo

Requested by @daydreamer-in-training

Gender neutral reader

Sometimes in life there comes a moment where you have to make split second decision. It's a decision that comes to you immediately, with instant reaction time.

This was one of those occasions.

Everything had been going as planned up until that point. You had done what you needed to do, focused on the job, did everything as expected. Everything e except keep an eye out for extra threats.

They snuck up on the pair of you.

Helmut saw him in the corner of his eye. You clearly hadn't. It was in that instance when he realised what was happening that he made the decision.

Protect you. He had to protect you. Instinct took over.

A gunshot rang out. Zemo stepped in front of you. He heard your scream when you realised what had happened. The pain was unbearable, but he just gritted his teeth as he went down.

Helmut Zemo had taken a bullet for you.

You instantly forgot about what you were doing and turned your attention to the Baron. Shock and worry had take over. Suddenly the mission wasn't as important.

You knelt down beside him, hands hovering over the wound.

"Zemo!"

He doesn't say anything, just looks at you. The wound hurts horribly, but rather him than you.

He passes out.

Now you panic.

It takes a lot of effort to move him and get him back to the safe-house, but you do it. You do it because you were not going to leave him. You couldn't.

When Helmut wakes, he has no sense of how much time has passed. His body aches and his head feels foggy. As he moves his head, the cloth you had placed on his forehead fell. He blinks a couple of times to try and help him focus.

He's in bed, half naked from the waist up, bandage wrapped securely over his wound. His coat rests over the back of a chair near the bed.

The one thing he noticed the most right now is that he is alone.

Did something happen to you? Did he fail in protecting you?

He sighs, head resting back. He would never forgive himself if you got hurt, or worse, because of him.

The door clicks open and for a moment he panics. He's vulnerable right now.

Then he relaxes.

You're here and you're safe. He succeeded. He took the hit for you and you're OK.

You smile when you see he is awake and rush over to his side. You check him over, your hands being so gentle with him as you fuss over him.

"I'm so glad you're awake. Are you in any pain? Do you need anything? Are you comfortable?"

He almost wants to laugh at how fussy you're being, but instead he just lies there looking at you.

"How long have I been out?"

"Just a day. I was scared."

He subconsciously reaches for your hand and holds it. You don't say anything, just let him do it.

"You saved me?"

"Of course I did."

His eyes flicker over your face. He is trying to read you, but doesn't know what he's looking for.

"You shouldn't have."

You look at him, shocked to hear those words. You hadn't expected him to say such a thing. You were rather hurt to hear them, actually.

"What do you mean?" You ask, voice soft.

Those big brown eyes of his looked so sad.

"You should have left me."

"Why would I do that?"

His hand squeezes yours. There is pain behind those eyes. Something doesn't sit right with you and you can feel your heart cracking away.

"Helmut..."

"I'm not worthy of your care. I don't deserve to be saved. I took that bullet for you. You should have left me there to die."

You shake your head quickly.

"No. Don't say that, please." You try to hold back the tears you could feel threatening to fall.

You place your other hand over his and bring it to your lips. You kiss his knuckles, his palm, his wrist. You kisses his hand all softly, yet urgently.

"Don't ever say that," you scold him.

"Y/N..."

You shake your head quickly. He stops whatever he was about to say and looks at you. He hadn't thought about how you would react to his words, but he wasn't expecting you to be so upset.

He wasn't worthy of your tears.

"You are so worthy, Helmut. You deserve your redemption. There are people who care about you, so don't go saying those things."

He watches you.

"I didn't know you felt that way," he speaks softly.

"Of course I do. It's impossible not to when you're so charming and suave," you chuckle.

He smiles.

That looks so much better on him than those sad eyes he had before. You move one hand to his face, caressing his cheek gently. He leans into your touch and you smile.

"Please don't ever say those things again."

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

You lean in and kiss him. It's so gentle and so soft, he isn't sure he it actually happened, but the smile on your face tells him it did. He smiles back just as softly.

"You need to rest. I need you back in top form before go back to work," you tell him, about to let go.

However, Zemo doesn't want to let go just yet. He pulls you down gently. You find yourself resting over him. His arms snake sound you and hold you to him.

"Don't go."

You sigh and smile softly.

"Alright."

He holds you. There in that moment he promises to shake every bad thought from his mind. How could he ever say those things when he has you right here.

Sure, he still thinks you could do better and that he doesnt deserve your love and attention, but he also doesn't want to lose you.

He smiles to himself. He was a very lucky man, that was for sure.

@ajeff855 @moonstuffsteve @sky-writes-stuff @lieutenantn @lostghostgirl94 @friday18eo @yaskna @my-blood-is-maple-syrup @gingerwriter97 @lunamooney2406 @wilder-fangirl @belle82devart @hb8301 @stardancerluv @killeromanoff @cathrin2405 @zemosimp420 @charistory @sleepyflutist18 @supercharged-tatertot @belle82devart @sexyundeadtrash @realremyd @goddessofmischief03 @myybebe

#helmut zemo #helmut zemo x reader #baron helmut zemo #zemo x reader #marvel #tfatws

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taco-and-mango · 5 years ago

Photo

everyone else was making Shlorpian OCs, so here’s my lil family. more info under the cut!

so because I never half ass anything that’s not important, I thought way too hard about what it would be like if they appeared on the show and how they’d fit into the mix so here’s some fun facts, including potential voice actors:

Viyma - would be voiced by Chelsea Peretti - worked as the Shlorpian equivalent of a doctor, specializing in the process of cutting plant material off of people to use to create replicants - on Shlorp she was a total bombshell, I mean look at the curve of her head godDAMN - used to using her looks to get stuff/favors - actually really smart and works hard on things she gives a shit about (her job, family, bocce ball) - was in the same class in the Academy as Korvo - they fucking hated each other - they also hate fucked each other - robe looks like it flares out for dramatic effect but really she's just got A Fat Ass - Big Top Energy -started growing her replicant later than others in her age range because she was Married To The Job and didn't prioritize creating her own as opposed to helping others create theirs - Wine Mom, but never says no to vodka - has a soft spot for replicants (not just hers, she's pretty nice to Jesse and Yumyulack as well) - makes fun of Korvo for not having his ship repaired by now and refuses to help - partially because she has no idea how because she had someone do her Ship Repair classwork in the Academy but Korvo doesn't need to know that Xechee - probably voiced by Kristen Schaal idk lmao - Viyma's replicant - struggled to grow during her incubation and emerged from the soil earlier than normal - real pipsqueek - not actually dumb but def naive - never knows wtf is going on but is just happy to be there - chose female pronouns relatively early for her age - likes flowers a whole lot, hence why she wears one (it's not fungus from lack of handwashing, Viyma's checked) - her fingers never grew properly, just her thumbs, so her hands look like little mittens - will only eat food if you put maple syrup on it first - too young to really be helpful on the mission as of now but she's fun to have around Phin (full first name is Zelphin) - would be voiced by Joel McHale - pupa expert, and unlike Terry, he actually knows shit about the pupa - he and Viyma were kind of into each other before news of the asteroid came out - was friends with someone on the committee to assign mission partners and might have... influenced him to partner him and Viyma together - used to be a huge fuckin dweeb - Terry pantsed him at the Academy once but considering they wore robes nobody saw anything and it wasn't actually that funny - he's still salty about it though - Shlorp version of Be Careful Who You Made Fun Of In High School - Terry doesn't hate Phin but Phin definitely hates Terry - gets into microbrewing at some point probably - really into the Rugged Camping Dad aesthetic, owns 12 flannel shirts - petty af - cocky and constantly overcompensating - a pretty good dad to Willow and Xechee regardless - Don't Talk To Him Until He's Had His Coffee Willow - would be voiced by Ilana Glazer - Phin's replicant - mellow as hell, kind of a hippie - doesn't wear shoes - won't eat meat, and won't even eat fruits or vegetables bc they're technically living - eats straight up dirt to survive (Shlorp version of a vegan) - still smokes weed, and will eat anything while high - a little older than Jesse and Yumyulack, like 16-17 in earth years - discovered yoga pants and can never go back - was training on Shlorp to work in the Solarium and take care of incubating replicants - as a result, she's really into gardening and plants on Earth - got made fun of a lot on Shlorp for picking a dumb name like Willow and not a proper Shlorpian one like Xanthiolix or Greg - probably has a yoga and mediation Instagram

Yeah but then I was like ‘wait why would they interact with the Earth fam if they’re supposed to be on another planet? so here a basic summary of what would go down:

A new neighbor moves in across the street from Terry and Korvo named Brent and they NEED to get to know him better.

Korvo believes he would be able to assist with ship repair because he saw him changing the oil in his car once and I mean, come on, he would definitely be able to lift things Korvo couldn't. With those arms?? (also basically he wants to be friends with him and maybe fuck him but doesn't want to admit that). Terry wants to be friends with him because he saw the big screen tv in his living room and also thinks he'd be into doing butt stuff. He doesn't seem offput by aliens either, so that's a plus!

After a few failed attempts to befriend him they notice a space ship, very much like theirs, in his driveway. Was Brent in disguise this whole time?? Could he be a Shlorpian who could help them with ship repair??? And then Terry doesnt have to hear Korvo complain about how he never helps with ship repair???? Even better!

Then they find out the actual Shlorpians are Viyma and Phin, Korvo and Terry's respective rivals from their homeworld. Not only would they never help them with ship repair or the Pupa, but apparently they're both dating Brent? And they're going to constantly be around to spend time with him???

GREAT.

Yeah I haven’t drawn Brent yet but I like poly couples and I figured it’d also give these clowns an excuse to visit earth and annoy the Solar Opposites fam. They met Brent at Trader Joe’s because their uninhabited planet doesn’t have one so they would make the trip idk shut up

I’m new to digital art (and it’s been a while since I’ve drawn at all because of reasons but I’ve been wanting to get back into it) and I drew Viyma first, so she looks kind of rough but I think I’ve already improved! I did Willow and Xechee (pronounced Zee Chee btw) last and I feel like I was starting to get the hang of what tf I was doing. Hopefully I’ll be able to draw the canon characters soon (and maybe Brent and their pupa)

#solar opposites #solar opposites oc #solar opposites ocs #these took way too long #Xechee has my entire heart btw #Willow too but #c'mon look at Xechee

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chaoticbunwon · 5 years ago

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Not Friends Anymore

Part 3

Pairing: KihyunXReader

Sunrays hitting your face made you jolt up from your bed. You wondered how come you ended up there though. As you were getting to leave your bed sudden pain striked your head, HANGOVER! You sat back holding your head in your hands "You shouldnt do that again you know you cant handle it" a familiar voice echoed in your room. You looked up as your heart raced and there he was standing in your bedroom's doorway arms crossed on his chest and a serious expression on his face still looking ethereal. "what are you doing here Kihyun? and where is Naeyon?" you asked glaing at him. "She said she has some work to do she'll be back in the evening, now freshen up your breakfast is ready" he turned around in order to leave your room. "wait, why are you here? why are you being nice? why are you acting as if nothing happened?" you looked at him with confusion to which he just smiled and said "can we talk about it later? please get up now" he pleaded. You listened to him and when you were done you went back to the kitchen to meet him. "here! sit down" he passed you your favourite waffles with maple syrup on it. "I bet you are very hungry just finish it up and then we'll talk" he said. you finished eating hurriedly just to talk with him. he watched you carefully while eating and was constantly smiling at you. "Now" you said "care to explain?" Kihyun blinked his eyes several times "Listen Y/N, I know that I've been avoiding you for few days" he said hesitantly "few days?" you back fired "its been months you arent talking with me properly you suddenly stopped meeting me and yesterday I saw you in the club-" you were holding back your tears "I know Y/N. I.. I am sorry. I shouldnt have treated you like that and about yesterday it was all a misunderstanding" "A misunderstanding?" "yeah. well the girl you saw with me was my distant cousin, you dont know her. she's here for her vacations and wanted to visit places, I wasnt even interested but she insisted. I had to listen to her" he sighed "well though I should have rejected it" "cousin? she was your cousin? but that doesnt explain why you were avoiding me before?" you asked "yeah about that it was a... I mean... How should I put it?" Kihyun said, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, obvious nervousness on his face. "What is it Ki?" you touched his hand reassuring him to say whatever was in his mind. Listening to his pet name from you reassured him "I know what I'm going to say is stupid but, I was afraid-"

"afraid of what?" you asked

"afraid of loosing you. Well I heard you talking with him and I thought you liked him and he liked you and I thought maybe it wouldnt be a good idea to stay, be friends with you-" "Kihyun what are you talking about?" you asked him with confusion

Flashback

It was your movie night ritual with your best buddies. As Naeyon was on her night shift she just cancelled the plan so it was just you and Kihyun today. "can we just watch beauty and the beast?" you pouted "But we've already watched it for like thousandth times?" he said mockingly "I hate horror movies" you muttered under your breathe "I can hear you" he laughed "you are a dumbass" you teased him "yah! how can you?" Your phone started ringing suddenly "Ki can you pass me my phone?" "yeah sure" he glanced at your mobile's screen it was Jaehyun's call. "I'll be back in a minute." you excused yourself and went inside your bedroom.

Kihyun's POV

'Why is she taking so much time? Should I check? no no that's not a good idea' he fighted with his own thoughts. After waiting for several minutes he decided to look for you. He headed towards your bedroom, was about to knock on your door when "Oppa~ you are asking me out for a date?" stopping in his tracks he listened to your voice confessing to Jaehyun "ofcourse I'd love too" you said. He felt wrong for eavesdropping but couldnt help he wanted to know what you were talking. Kihyun could imagine your smiling face while talking to Jaehyun, your voice said it all "yaa yaa I love you too baby~" the words which he didnt ever expected from you for someone else stabbed his heart like a knife and tears started welling up in his eyes "see you on our date night then" you hanged up the call, thats when Kihyun ran back to the living room and sat on the sofa as if nothing happened though all he wanted to do was cry out loud. The mere thought of the girl he loved, had a crush on for all these years has fallen for someone else broken him into pieces.

#monsta x imagines #monsta x scenarios #kihyun fanfic #monstaxfanfic #monsta x fluff #monsta x kihyun #monsta x #kihyun angst #yoo kihyun #kihyun fluff

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cynicalrainbows · 5 years ago

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The Next Best Thing Chapter 15

Catalina arrives early, when they’re still finishing the last of the birthday pancakes.

Anna is spreading Nutella with a surgeon's precision to ensure it covers her pancake right to the edges; Anne is running her fingers through a maple syrup puddle on the table and licking them. Baby Catherine is chewing on a bit of plain pancake in her highchair and Mary is putting the pan in the dishwasher.

She’s only eating the strawberries but she aims a cuff at Anne when Anne asks if it’s because she’s on another diet and tells her to mind her own business.

Anne subsides with a giggle and steals a spoonful of Nutella straight from the jar, whispering that Mary couldn’t fit into her new jeans when she tried them on last weekend. Mary’s face goes redder than the strawberries and she looks crosser than ever- but they’re interrupted by the doorbell.

Cathy abandons her own pancake-face (with a Father Christmas beard of snowy white whipped cream- it looks excellent even though she’s not really that fond of the taste of whipped cream) when she hears Catalina’s voice in the hall doing the boring grown up Garden’s looking lovely, traffic, parking, price of petrol stuff that all grown ups seem incapable of not saying when they meet each other.

(She’s glad that when she sees Anne and her other friends, they can just jump right into talking about interesting things like books and television and whether rubbing two jelly aliens together and putting them in the freezer makes then make a tiny alien baby, and is it murder if your tamagotchi dies because you weren’t allowed to get down from Sunday Lunch to feed it, and is it true that if you swallow chewing gum, it ties up your stomach and kills you, and how it is that the chocolate in the bottom of a Cornetto manages to taste so much nicer than normal chocolate, and why is it that sharpening your pencil is boringboringboring when you’re in the middle of drawing a picture but really satisfying and fun when it means you get to stop doing handwriting practise to do it, and is it true that there was a boy in Year Four who stuck his whole finger into the teachers special electric pencil sharpener on a dare and had the tip of his finger sharpened away to nothing?)

She doesn’t quite have the courage to interrupt- but when Catalina sees her hovering in the doorway, she interrupts herself and stops agreeing with Anne’s Mum that the price of petrol is extortionate nowadays and gives Cathy such a big hug it lifts her right off her feet.

‘Mija!’

She lets herself cling tight for a moment and then lets go- she isn’t a baby after all, although there’s a little bit of her that wishes she was Kitty’s age so she could be picked up and cuddled properly.

‘How are you?’

She nods. ‘I’m ok.’

Anne’s Mum does a bit lipsticky smile like a lady in an advert and asks if she slept well and she nods again. ‘Yes thank you.’

She hopes Catalina has mostly forgotten last night and doesn’t bring it up to Anne’s Mum.

(She knows grown ups can be so sneaky like that sometimes, sharing your secret things with one another and pretending they’re doing it for your own good.)

She especially hopes that Anna won’t say anything- she hasn't yet but you never know, and even though Cathy doesnt think she’d say anything on purpose, she might just by mistake. She can’t even ask Anna to keep quiet because then Anne will hear and want to know what it is that Anna is meant to keep quiet about.

And Anne is terrible with secrets.

Not with keeping them, she’s actually very very good at withstanding all sorts of secret-spilling torture, even Chinese Burns, but with wanting to know other people’s. Once she knows them, she’s always perfectly happy to not tell anyone else, on pain of death- but Cathy still doesn't want to have to explain everything about last night to Anne. She doesn’t want Anne to think that she didn’t enjoy her birthday after all.

Anne’s Mum says that Catalina would be welcome to stay for a cup of coffee- or a Cappuccino or an Afogato even- but that the Photographer will be arriving soon. She says the word like photographer should have a capital letter.

Anne bobs up out of nowhere, licking Nutella from her fingers and asking what photographer and can’t Cathy and Anna stay to play a bit longer.

Anne’s Mum hisses at her not to be silly, of course they can't stay and of course Anne knows who the photographer is, she’s told her all about it.

‘It’s for the birthday photoshoot.’ She adds to Catalina and Catalina nods politely and says it sounds lovely.

‘But it's not my birthday.’

‘Well, it'll be like a second birthday.’ Anne’s Mum’s smile is still there but it’s looking a bit forced now.

Anne seems to perk up a bit at the idea of a second birthday, and Cathy is just wondering if she’ll be allowed to have two birthdays two if this is now a Thing, when Anne pauses.

‘But then Cathy and Anna have to stay or it won't be a proper party!’

Anne’s Mum gives an impatient little sigh. ‘Of course it isn't a proper party! I do wish you'd listen- it's a photoshoot, like I said.’

‘But you just said it was my second birthday!’

‘For goodness sake Anne! I shouldn't have to explain every little thing to you- you’re eight now, you're not a baby!’

Anne scowls.

‘You’re going to say goodbye to Cathy nicely and then go and have a shower so you can be ready…. With any luck, your friend’s parents will be here soon too before the other children get here.’

Cathy wonders if Anne’s Mum has forgotten Anna’s name.

‘But if there are other children anyway, why can't I have Anna and Cathy?’

‘Well it's only fair!’ The smile falters and is hurriedly replaced. ‘They’ve come to the sleepover so we thought it would be nice to spread things around a bit and let your other friends be part of the photoshoot!’

It’s uncomfortable and horrible listening to Anne get scolded: it feels like there is something sad and grey making the air heavier.

Anne’s mum is scowling like she’s really really annoyed and she’s so glad that Catalina is not like Anne’s Mum and doesn't get cross when she asks questions- she knows if she was suddenly told she was having a photoshoot, she’d be asking even more questions than Anne.

Actually, she’s glad Catalina is not like Anne’s Mum, full stop.

‘Which other friends?’

Cathy wonders if maybe Anne has got some other girls from their class coming to play once she and Anna are gone, and it’s not a nice thought, but then Anne’s Mum starts saying names and she doesn’t recognise any of them.

‘-and Ingrid and Patience and Harriet-’

‘But I don't like them!’

‘Of course you do!’

Anne does an experimental single stamp of her foot; it’s like a challenge. ‘I hate them-’

They don’t hear the rest, because at that moment, Anna comes into the hall, looking confused at all the commotion, and Anne’s Mum sighs and seizes Anne by the wrist and tugs her further down the hall.

It’s all a bit awkward. Catalina is asking Anna how she is and if she had a nice time at the sleepover but she can’t listen properly, because really, all she can pay attention to is the cross sound of Anne’s Mum’s voice as she hisses things in Anne’s ear while she Anne squirms and whines and tries to pull away.

When they come back, Anne has stopped arguing.

‘What do we say?’

‘Thank you for coming, Cathy.’

She hates how Anne looks now, all sad and crumpled and flat. It's not at all how you should look on your birthday (or even the day after your birthday) and she has to hang onto Catalina’s hand tightly to stop her stomach from squeezing uncomfortably.

She can only manage a little ‘Thank you for inviting me’ in response, which doesn’t really feel like a good enough response considering it was her first sleepover ever, but Catalina squeezes her hand and then smiles warmly at Anne.

‘I hope you had a lovely birthday, carino. A photoshoot sounds like it will be lots of fun- im sure Cathy will be very excited to hear about it on Monday. I'm certainly interested in hearing about it!’

(She might be annoyed, at any other time, at Catalina calling Anne one of the names that’s really just for her- but she isn’t now. She just wants Anne to go back to looking normal and happy like she usually does.)

Catalina squeezes Cathy's hand again, and bit more firmly this time and she realises she’s meant to add something.

‘It'll be like being a celebrity…’ She’s not sure if she sounds very convincing so she tries harder. ‘You’re so lucky, Anne! Everyone at school will be so jealous!’

Anne’s Mum gives an approving nod and beams at her, and she turns her head so she doesn’t have to see it. Anne gives a very small reluctant smile. She doesn't say anything but she looks a tiny bit more cheerful as she goes up to shower, Anna trailing behind her.

They say another goodbye and thank you to Anne’s Mum and then they’re out onto the pavement.

She’s still holding onto Catalina’s hand but Catalina doesn’t seem to mind, she swings their joined hands between them.

‘So how was the sleepover? Did you have a lovely time mija?’

She nods.

‘What did you do? Did Anne like her present?’

‘She loved it. She said it was her second best favourite present.’

‘What was her first?’

Cathy describes the heelies and Catalina laughs. ‘Thank goodness! I was going to ask if you girls had had a fight, to get those bruises-’

Cathy twists her arm and notices for the first time the purply blue bruises blooming.

‘It’s ok, they don’t hurt. I only fell over a bit. Anne fell over much more but that’s because she was trying to do a jump like the ice skaters on tv.’

‘Well I'm glad she liked her presents so much. Poor little thing.’

(Cathy isn’t sure why Catalina calls Anne poor- everyone at school, even the teachers, know that Anne’s parents have more money than sense. This means they’re rich.)

‘Anna thought my present was really good too. She said her present was really boring next to mine and she’d have to think up something more interesting next time.’

‘What did she get Anne?’

‘Jewelry making set. You can make earrings that you can wear even if you don’t have pierced ears.’ She hopscotches along the paving stones- it doesn’t really work like proper hopscotch though because they’re too close together. ‘Although Anna has her ears pierced already.’

(She’s a tiny bit jealous of Anna’s tiny gold studs- they look very cool. They’re not enough to make her want holes punched in her ears though, even the thought makes her feel a bit sick. Anne thinks she’s silly- she’d LOVE to have her ears pierced.

She’s not allowed though, because ear piercings are one of the few things Anne’s Mum and Jane agree on, albeit for different reasons: Jane thinks Anne is much too young, Anne’s Mum says it’ll make her look common.

Anne doesn’t think she’s too young, and she says that she doesn’t care about looking common because she wants to look cool...but neither Jane nor her Mum will budge.)

‘Did Anne like it?’

‘I think she did. She said that we could all make jewelry for the Inca Princess next time Anna and I came over to play. And then Anna cheered up a bit. I think she was worried Anne wouldn't like her present.’

Cathy doesn't feel like saying that she was also worried Anne wouldn't like her present. It feels funny also to be talking about Anna and not talking about the night before….but hopefully, it maybe means that Catalina has forgotten all about it.

She doesn’t bring it up on the walk home anyway- Catalina listens with great interest to an edited version of the story of the little attic girl, giving very appreciative gasps in all the right places and not interrupting even once to ask silly questions about whether or not the little girl has a swimming pool.

‘That was an excellent story mija.’

‘Really?’ Catalina looks like she means it.

‘Wonderful- very imaginative. Makes me glad we don’t have an attic!’

Cathy giggles. ‘Anne said the little attic girl would come to my attic tonight and I reminded her that we didn’t have one and she said that next time, she was going to make up a story about a little girl who lived in a flat. Anna said it didn’t sound very scary.’

‘I suppose you’ll have to wait to hear it to know if it is or not.’

‘Anna said I should make up another story for next time.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll tell me if you think any more up, I’d love to hear them.’

‘Ok.’ Perhaps she’ll make up a story specially for Catalina- a special grown up story that has grown up things in it, like when they play Soap Opera in the playground and everyone plays that they’re having cancer and babies and cocktails. ‘It might be scary though.’

‘That's ok, mija. You have to let the muses guide you when you’re creating.’

Cathy knows all about the muses already- they’re spirity things that give you ideas and imagination when you’re doing art or writing, they’re what Catalina blames when she’s having trouble phrasing an idea for work.

(Not only are the muses very friendly to Artists of All Kinds, they are actually rather useful when it comes to the resultant mess of artistic endeavour.

Catalina introduced her to the concept on The Muses on her second week, the first time she’d tried painting in her new bedroom and coincidently the first time she’d made any actual serious mess there.

It hadn’t been her fault that the paint had spilled like it did and it hadn’t spilled much, but it had been enough to make her ponder what it would be like to see her godmother Properly Angry.

She hadn’t, until that moment, considered what a Properly Angry Catalina would look like. As she thought about it- and it wasn’t a terribly nice thought- she also realised that whatever form it took, there was nothing she could do about it. There wasn’t anywhere else for her to go.

She wondered if, seeing the paint, Catalina would think about that too. She wondered if it would make her regret having to be the one to take care of her.

She’d never been scared of her godmother, but she was when Catalina saw the paint.

‘Ay dios mio, what IS that?’

She tucked her chin down into her chest. ‘Paint.’ Her voice is very small.

Catalina fanned her face. ‘I thought it was blood, I thought-’ She shakes her head hard, like she’s shaking thoughts away, then touches it and frowns. ‘It’s dried. Why didn’t you tell me before, it would have been easier to- Oh mija, it’s alright, don’t cry-’

She started looking guilty rather than annoyed.

Once Cathy was settled in her lap, scrubbing her sore eyes with a tissue and only hiccuping a little bit, Catalina had very nicely explained that while it was technically Cathy’s fault for spilling the paint, it was also her own fault for not telling Cathy to put down newspaper before she started painting and that maybe having a cream carpet was just asking for it, whatever that meant.

‘So perhaps it all balances out, querida.’

‘Are you really cross?’

‘Do I look really cross, mija?’

She considered. ‘No.’

‘Good, because I’m not. I know it wasn’t on purpose. Let’s just both try to remember the newspaper next time, ok?’

‘Ok.’

‘And we’ll blame the muses for this one.’

Once Catalina had explained about the muses, she’d said that they should probably get on with cleaning it up ‘before someone else sees it and thinks you’ve got a body hidden under your bed.’

She’d still felt a bit wobbly, when she thought about the stain. Catalina had given her a big cuddle and said that a little paint wasn’t the end of the world and that it would probably come right out. It turned out though that Catalina herself wasn’t really sure how to get paint out of carpet, so she’d gotten out her phone to check- ‘There’s no excuse for not finding things out nowadays, mija’- and she’d even let Cathy type the question into google herself.

The paint had come out on the second attempt, and Catalina had made her promise to always tell her right away if anything like that ever happened again.

So everything had worked out alright after all, even if she still hadn’t seen Catalina really, properly angry yet.)

Going back to the flat feels funny because it feels like coming home but everything also looks a little bit different- Catalina reassures her that it’s just how things feel sometimes after a trip.

‘It’ll go away mija’

Cathay still cant help looking around though. ‘Why are the books different?’

‘What’s that?’

Cathy points at the bookshelf- the spines are different colours.

‘Just felt like it was time for a little shuffle around, it makes me remember which books I haven’t looked at for a while.’

This makes sense.

It’s the middle of the morning: Catalina has a mug of the dark, rich coffee that she buys in little paper sacks from the special food shop in town. Cathy likes the smell but not the taste, although she hopes that will change when she grows up because coffee seems to be all that grownups drink. Coffee and wine, except she isn’t sure if she likes wine yet- Catalina lets her sip at her coffee when she asks but she hasn’t yet given in over Cathy’s requests to be allowed a taste of her merlot.

(‘Maybe when you’re nine or ten, mija. I just don’t dare any earlier, the harpies would tear me to pieces.’

Harpies is what Catalina calls the other mums at school; Cathy isn’t allowed to tell anyone that though, even Anne, on pain of every unpleasant torture, mi vida.

‘A glass?’

‘A sip. A very little sip. And not until you’re older, like I said.’

‘I could just not tell anyone.’

Cathy is quite good at not telling people things, she’s good at keeping secrets- which is why she doesn’t even give Catalina a list of some of her best, most well kept secrets to prove it- like how Anne spilt blue nail polish on the carpet in Mary’s bedroom and blamed it on Kitty even though it wasn’t exactly a lie because Kitty had been playing with it too and it really could just as easily been her and honestly, it would have been fairer, all things considered, for Kitty to be the one to spill it, considering she’s only little.

Catalina is shaking her head.

‘But I’m very good at keeping secrets!’

‘I know, mija-’

‘I didn’t tell my teacher that you did the last sum for me on my homework.’

Catalins gives her a stern look. ‘Good because as I recall, that was a deal we made so that you would go to bed and stop worrying about it.’

‘And I didn’t tell her. So you could let me try and I wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘But wouldn’t it be a bit pointless if you couldn’t tell anyone? Wouldn’t you want to tell Anne?’

This is true- it’s actually a bit pointless if she can’t even tell Anne, although Anne surely doesn’t count as anyone- but she doesn’t want to weaken her position so she shakes her head steadfastly, and Catalina laughs and says she’ll be a wonderful lawyer when she’s older and gives her a kiss on the top of her head rather than a sip of wine.)

They have fancy twisty pastries with apricot jam and Cathy has a mug of warm frothy milk with a tiny bit of coffee in it, a pinch of cinnamon and a sprinkling of brown sugar. It doesn't matter that it’s not real coffee- it's much nicer than coffee anyway.

The coffee milk in the special china cup with her name on it, even though she’s already had one breakfast because Catalina had said she hadn’t eaten yet and did she think she could manage elevenses even if it wasn’t quite eleven?

She thought she probably could, having not finished her pancake and she was right. The apricot pastries are delicious; she thinks it’s what sunshine would taste like sunshine was spreadable. Catalina says that’s the best description of apricot jam she has ever heard.

She’s reading one of her library books- the last time Catalina had visited her, back when her parents were alive, she’d brought one of the series with her and read it aloud while they were waiting for lunch to be ready and she’d quite liked it, but now reading it for herself, she doesn’t recognise all the characters.

Catalina had read her a story about Juliana and Diane and George (who was really Georgina) and Anne and Timmy the Cat, who were cousins and had adventures on an island- but when she tries to read it for herself, the names are different and the children are different and it’s a dog not a cat, who keeps on licking everything and barking and it’s just not as good as before.

(She has no idea why the children decided to swap lovely clever Timmy the Cat for a horrible barky, licky, bitey dog. She thinks it was a bad decision.)

She wonders if maybe she picked out something different.

Catalina has a big thick book that looks dusty.

‘What are you reading?’

‘Mmm?’ Catalina looks up and then nods as if she’s had to replay it in her head. ‘Oh!’ She says something in Spanish and then adds ‘But it’s called something else in English, of course.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘A little boy called Pip and all his adventures.’

‘What sort of adventures?’ She’s wondering if it will turn out that they’re the sort of adventures the children are having in her book and Catalina smiles.

‘No island, mija, you’d be disappointed. He meets an escaped prisoner out late one night and he helps him to cut off his chains and run away. And later he goes to a big old beautiful house, which has a room all ready for a wedding that never happened.’

‘That’s strange. If it never happened, then it’s not anything, so how can she have a room for it?’

‘They had everything ready but the groom didn’t turn up so the lady sits in her wedding dress next to her old cobwebby wedding cake all covered in dust and thinks about how sad she is.’

‘Oh.’ That sounds spooky but also interesting- she thinks maybe there’ll be an old cobwebby cake in her next scary story because for some reason, the idea of something that’s meant to be so happy being all forgotten and abandoned makes her feel shivery and she’s sure Anne and Anna will feel just the same way. Then she thinks of something else.

‘Why was he out at night at all? Not the prisoner but the little boy.’

Catalina looks uncomfortable for some reason. ‘I think he was just playing.’

‘But weren’t his parents worried about him?’

There’s a little pause and then Catalina says ‘He didn’t have any parents, querida.’

‘Oh. How old was he?’ Maybe the boy is nearly grown up, like in Secondary School.

‘Seven.’

She isn’t quite sure how she feels about that but she doesn’t feel like asking any more questions so there’s a little silence before Catalina says that she’s just finished the chapter.

‘I think I need a little break from reading.’ She puts her book down on the floor, face down. ‘Want to come and keep me company, mija?’

Cathy nods slowly and puts down her own book, except she uses a bookmark because she knows that’s the proper way to treat a book.

(Catalina is hopeless with bookmarks and always refuses Cathy’s offers to lend her one.

‘I’d lose it in a moment mija, and then I would have so much guilt! But thank you, all the same.’

Cathy has big plans for when her class starts their textiles projects, in which Catalina’s poorly treated books AND her sad, bookmarkless state, feature quite heavily. But she’s keeping this a surprise.)

She hasn’t finished her own chapter but she doesn’t like the way that these strange new characters keep telling George she isn’t allowed to do things because she’s a girl. She supposes it’s nice that Anne is allowed to cook- cooking on a real fire outside sounds very exciting- but she wonders if she ever gets tired of it.

‘It’s not the same as when you read it. They’re really horrible to George. And they don’t even have a cat anymore.’

She climbs up onto Catalina’s lap and Catalina wraps her arms around her.

‘I might have….changed some bits when I was reading it to you. I thought it would make the story better.’

‘It DID make the story better. Now it’s boring.’

Catalina considers. ‘I could try reading it to you my way if you like, querida.’

‘That’s ok. I think I’m going to take a break from reading too.’

‘Ok.’

Catalina cuddles her closer and for a while they just sit like that. She thinks about the little boy meeting the prisoner out at night, with no one to worry about him, but it’s not too bad to think about when she’s got Catalina’s cardigan tickling her cheek and Catalina’s chin resting on the top of her head.

Maybe she’ll include a prisoner in her next story too. Maybe he could even team up with the little attic girl and they could go around scaring people and sewing up mouths together.

‘Did he have a godmother?��

‘Who?’

‘Pip. Oh- no, he didn’t. He had an older sister, he lived with her instead.’

‘Like Anne and Mary.’

‘Anne still has her parents, mija, you know that.’ But Catalina doesn’t sound so very certain when she says it.

There’s a little pause, and then Catalina quietly asks if she’d like to talk.

‘About what?’

‘About last night mija.’

‘What about last night?’

She's being deliberately annoying but she can't help it because maybe if she carries on, Catalina will change her mind and they won’t have to talk about anything.

She wouldn't even mind Catalina getting really cross (she doesn’t think), whatever really cross is for Catalina (because she still isn’t sure), but she doesn’t, just puts her book down and takes another sip of naslty bitter black coffee.

‘About the phone call we had.’ She pauses. ‘There's no need to look so worried querida- I promise you're not in trouble, I'm not going to tell you off- and we don't have to talk now if you really would rather not. It’s just that last night, we talked a bit about some of the things you were worried about. And about your mum and dad. I think it would be a good idea to talk about some of those things properly- not because i think it will fix them but….maybe it will make them a bit more ordinary to talk about them. And perhaps less scary. I don't know.’

She actually sounds a bit anxious, much less self assured than usual. Usually, Catalina talks like she knows exactly what she’s saying and why. Now she keeps stopping and starting, like she’s worried she’ll say something wrong.

‘I want you to feel like you can tell me anything- that there isn't anything you have to keep secret unless you want to. And you can always always talk to me. About anything you want. Ok?’

She nods. She wonders if Catalina really means anything- anything.

‘Good, bad, sad, happy, whatever. And you can ask me anything, I don't want you to ever feel like you can't ask a question.’

Cathy thinks. ‘What if you can't tell me? What if it’s secret?’

Catalina smiles. ‘Then I will explain to you why I can’t tell you. But I won't be cross with you for asking, that’s the important thing. And I will always try to answer, if I can, alright?’

She nods again. ‘Will you tell the truth?’

‘Yes. It doesn't seem fair to ask you to be honest if I won’t be honest myself. And we do need to be honest with each other, mija. It's the only way.’

‘The only way for what?’

‘The only way to….keep our family going. Going smoothly, I mean. We’ll be a family whatever happens, of course, smooth or not.’

‘Are we a family?’ It’s a surprise to her- she’d sort of assumed that wasn't a word that applied to her any more, like Mother and Father and Parents.

‘Yes i think so.’ Catalina looks serious. ‘You and your Mum and Dad are still a family, of course. But you and I are a family too. At least I like to think we are. If that's ok with you of course.’

Cathy thinks about it. ‘If we’re a family, does that mean I have to call you Mum?’

Catalina looks shocked. ;Oh no! No, definitely not querida, I promise I'd never want to try and take your Mum’s name or place. I never at all meant that. I'm still your godmother- your Mum will always be your Mum. Not all families have a Mum and a Dad.’

‘Like in the story about Tango the Penguin.’ It’s a book she had when she was very little, but she can still remember the story.

‘Exactly.’ Actually, she thinks maybe Catalina sent her the book in the first place.

She could ask more questions about it- some that she’s mildly curious about, and some that she could probably make up if she felt like making this bit of the conversation stretch out longer...but she decides not too because Catalina is looking all anxious now and it's making her feel a bit guilty.

It’s alright- the thought of her and Catalina being a family is ok. She’d rather have Catalina for her family than anyone else, if she can't have mum and dad and she knows that she can't.

She wriggles into a more comfortable position in Catalina’s lap.

‘Ok. We can be a family.’

‘Good.’ Catalina smiles like she’s really relieved. ‘Good.’

After a while, she says, ‘There’s something I thought you might like to look at mija. I’ve been meaning to for a while and then last night, I thought of it.’

She stiffens slightly. She isn’t sure how she feels thinking about last night- one minute, the scary feeling seems very far away and all she can think about is stupid things like how babyish she must have sounded crying into the phone, and then the next, she can remember it very very well and it makes her feel shaky and sick, like she’s standing somewhere high and looking down.

She buries her face into Catalina’s cardigan and then has to come back out because the fluff is making her sneeze and Catalina laughs and slides her gently off her lap and says she’ll be back in a moment.

She wraps both arms around her tummy, hugging herself and wondering what The Thing will be.

When Catalina comes back in, she’s holding an old shoebox.

#six #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfiction #six fic

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allbeendonebefore · 5 years ago

Note

Any headcanons for Oliver? I read the list of headcanons for some of the other provinces that you did and I’m very curious.

oh boy those were ages ago i’ll dig up a few so i can remember the vibe of the things i wrote

for those of you just joining us, my past headcanon posts

BC | AB | SK | MB 1 + 2 | NB

while other provinces are torn between living in one city or another or out in the middle of nowhere, oliver doesn’t have that issue. he lives in toronto and holidays in one of an entire network of cottages across the province and does not feel conflicted about that in the least. and he doesnt live “in toronto” in the gta, he lives IN toronto in some old annex style house and good luck getting rid of him.

he LOVES living alone, he relishes his independence, he does NOT miss being trapped living with jean NOT ONE BIT!! he does NOT create fake arguments over what should go over the mantle or what to make for dinner with the chattery squirrel outside because he’s LONELY.

Self indulgent headcanon but since he understands how difficult it is to live in the city and how valuable a good education is, he will occasionally rent out the basement to a quiet and tidy university student or two. He has a soft spot for kids who are trying to find their feet and figure out who they are away from their parents (as long as they do their chores).

Despite his downtown living and his urban elite image, he has experience working in factories and on farms and that tends to catch people off guard. He knows his way around milking a cow and he loves to tinker with machinery, getting his hands dirty doesn’t bother him even though he does love to mope and solicit pity.

he just cannot physically help being overdramatic and bitchy, it’s just the tough outer layer he developed trying to survive american assimilation (and jean’s cutting words lol). he thinks his sarcasm is among his most endearing quality, since the people who Get It always laugh.

OF COURSE THERE ARE GRADES OF MAPLE SYRUP ??? why Wouldnt there be

he thinks his most relatable story is tfw you cut the bag of milk too open and it sloshes everywhere and doesn’t get the mixed reception at parties

It’s not that he doesn’t drink or that he’s against drinking, per se, at least, not anymore. He just likes being the designated driver because he likes the moral high ground, not because he’s secretly a mother hen who wants everyone to get home safe.

he grew up in the southern... peninsula (you know that... sorry i get so confused about whats north and west in ontario.)Anyway it’s not that he doesn’t Also represent Northern Ontario, it’s just sometimes hard to pry him out of his original comfort zone and he sometimes gets stuck in his own head in the south.

it’s not like mani would know what to do with all that space up there anyway, it’s just best that he takes care of it, it’s always best that he be left to manage things, he’s just more organized, he’s the brains, he’s the one with the vision, no he does not accept constructive criticism, what kind of leader would he be if he was openly questioned... that’s not how he was raised at all. imagine, entertaining other people’s ideas.

Ollie likes to think he’s the rational one but pretty much every move he made in his early days was out of fear and anxiety; he can sometimes be overly cautious and people who just go out and do things just baffle him.

He’s really open with his feelings (particularly when it involves complaining, which he loves) but he’s horrible at delegating tasks or asking for help. He also gets easily frustrated when people have given up on helping him without him having to ask, but he still insists on trying to do everything himself.

is it weird i cannot fathom him in anything but an mlm relationship lol

He won’t forgive rude behaviour, even if he appears like a doormat to an American. He remembers when he’s been rude to and compensates by being overly polite. The only person who’s immune to this seems to be Jean, who always seems to be getting away with being rude...

that said he drops way more f-bombs than most of the others and americans always either think it’s either adorable (and make fun of his perceived accent) or are SO SHOCKED that their INNOCENT BABY FRIEND would have such LANGUAGE!

has such. a weird. distorted. romantic idea of what road trips are. i dont know if he knows how to travel in places where rest stops arent cleaned every couple hours or if he’s ever had to pee in the bush or stay in a place without electricity in the time that he’s owned a car.

he’s always been a huge natural history nerd, he loves spending time in natural history exhibits and geeking out over weird birds and fish and minerals.

shakespeare in the park anyone?! shakespeare in the living room??? shakespeare over zoom conference? reciting shakespeare while outside oil painting the fall colours?! DID SOMEONE MENTION SHAKESPEARE.

he also loves sailing and swimming and he’s got a weirdly extensive canoe collection squirreled away somewhere.

had a LOT of pressure on him as a kid to be the Good and Perfect child, not like those nasty yankees. He’s not very good at acting out and being rebellious, but he will absolutely stand his ground on an issue that’s dear to him, particularly if his control over something is threatened.

anywhere you can’t take a train to is fake adn should not have been counted

he’s still an avid tea drinker and has lots of opinions about tea time and has been making the same recipes for literally 200 years (jean puts up with this because he cannot be assed to make his own little fine cakes, ok, and if ollie has extra for him to take home its to his advantage. if oliver makes extra specifically because he knows jean likes them, that’s for him to know. and same with homemade fudge and butter tarts and candy and ice cream, neither of them outgrew their sweet tooth)

also he’s somewhat motivated by jean’s blunt reactions to his baking because thats how he’s going to survive the blue ribbon baking and jam making events against those tough and bitter old ladies, jean is perfect practice (although some of his best and most nuanced insults don’t translate very well)

his french is not bad nor is he embarrassed of it, he’s annoying in both official languages.

he gets mad when you say he’s practically interchangeable with matt but he still seems to think the things he does are things that all canadians do or like or have, i mean, why wouldn’t they? but they still owe him for that.

he compensates for his relative lack of interest or seeming inability to ask the others how they’re doing (because thats rude! and prying! and he’s sure they’re just fine! he doesn’t meddle anymore because people get upset when he rearranges their pantries) with an almost weird obsession with his self image and what’s happening internationally

#IM SORRY I TRY TO MAKE THE HEADCANONS NOT ALL SALTY AND BITCHY OLLIE BUT #pc: ontario #pc headcanon #hapo rambles #hapo replies #Anonymous

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beesmygod · 6 years ago

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this is what riverdale is about (part 4)

part 1

part 2

part 3

i’m back, to continue from where we left off. obnoxiously, i’m going to take a minute to plug my patreon, which is primarily for my webcomic but i also do movie reviews and talk about bad books i find so if you like these posts, you’ll probably like those as well. all i ask....is one dollar a month.

anyway fuck that let’s get back into this.

images are from the riverdale wiki

SEASON ONE (PART 2):

the last picture show: immediately this show reveals that our beloved jughead has been living in a nearly abandoned drive-in that he also works at. too bad for him, because it’s closing down. hilariously, literally nobody in his circle of friends cares and call his make-shift house a crack den. owned. its revealed an anonymous buyer purchased it from the town and the mayor decided to sell it to whoever.

archie brings flowers to his teacher-girlfriend’s recital and when he and grundy (and his dad) head to pop’s for a good ol malt or whatever, betty confronts him about his relationship. betty is hurt when he says grundy believed in him when no one else did and goes home with renewed purpose: take grundy down.

veronica’s mom is caught having a heated argument with a member of the southside serpents gang next to a dumpster by cheryl who, as she delights in misery and disaster, captures it all on camera. she shows veronica, who confronts her mother who brushes her off.

betty lures grundy into a fake interview for her school paper instead of going to the police. betty seems to be determining all of this based on the fact that she didnt have any social media until a year ago, which really makes me question betty’s journalistic bonefides. its framed like this means she didn’t exist before she got a twitter or whatever. its really weird. more relevant is that the only record of a geraldine grundy.....WAS AN OLD WOMAN WHO DIED 7 YEARS AGO!!!!! she takes this information to archie as well, who doesn’t care at all. he’s way too horny to care.

betty breaks into grundy’s vw bug and finds a gun and her real i.d. with her real name. archie is still too horny to care, even though betty (again, really overstepping her journalistic bounds) says that grundy might have killed jason (BASED ON THE EXISTENCE OF A GUN BETTY!!! COME ON). archie finally asks grundy straight up what the fuck is going on and she cops to trying to escape from an abusive husband, hence the gun and fake names.

jughead finds out that archie’s dad’s construction company won the bid to destroy the drive-in. its a bad time to be jughead. he tries to ask archie’s dad not to tear down the drive-in. through this convo we learn that jughead’s dad was fired from andrews construction several years ago for theft. a scene after this reveals that veronica’s mom is facilitating the purchase of the drive-in with the mayor pn behalf of her incarcerated husband.

i’m so glad the wiki reminded me of this line, word for word: everyone (and i mean literally everyone in town) goes to the drive-in for one last hurrah, where the southside serpents are guffawing up a storm. veronica somehow silences them by saying “You know what happens to a snake when a Louboutin heel steps on it? Shut the hell up or you’ll find out.“ it sucks so bad. veronica then witnesses her mother having an encounter with the same gang member who she is revealed to be paying to drive down the value of the drive-in property so hiram lodge can buy it for cheap.

archie and grundy are caught in a passionate embrace after betty’s mom reads her diary and goes on the warpath, rightfully telling her to get the fuck out of town or she’ll reveal her to be a child molester. grundy agrees to leave and archie is heartbroken. the last show of geraldine this season is her ogling two teen boys. horrible. leave, woman.

jughead leaves his shitty home and on his way out is accosted by the same gang member who was talking to hermoine lodge and is revealed to be....JUGHEADS DAD!!!!!!!!!! whatever.

heart of darkness: the town is abuzz with jason’s upcoming funeral and the teens of riverdale are fighting over who gets to take the dead kids spot as captain of the football team in a really normal and not at all super ghoulish way. archie is working his heart out now that his favorite teacher/pedophile has fled town. he has his time wasted by a member of the pussycats, valerie, who nets him a meeting with a music songwriter who tells archie he doesn’t have time for his shit. its a weird and totally pointless scene in the long run. it doesnt matter because archie’s music thing never comes to anything. the guy tells archie later, when he returns with sheet music, that his songs suck shit and he hates his music and to get out of his office.

jason and polly’s (betty’s sister) relationship seems to be at the center of whatever happened to jason, so betty starts asking around town about her sister, by using dates as a cover to ask probing questions to members of the football team. she also tries asking her father, who explains that polly and jason had a fight, polly tried to kill herself and so was shipped off to a mental institution. learning about jason’s death fucked her up again so they shan’t be exposing her to more sordid info about the events. the only information they get is that jason was selling drugs to raise money to leave town.

betty and jughead trace this thread to find out why jason would want to leave town but veronica is already finding out firsthand after she is invited to the blossom mansion for the world’s worst sleepover before the memorial (cool timing): the blossoms are all insane. they make their money on maple syrup, using the funds to build riverdale as we know it. veronica and cheryl bond over their awful parents and versonic encourages cheryl to act out at jason’s memorial FOR SOME REASON. KNOWING FULL WELL WHO CHERYL IS.

demonstrating extremely normal judgement, betty and jughead plan to raid jason’s room during the memorial to find clues. cheryl goes full hamlet, throwing herself on the coffin and weeping during her eulogy. they use this as cover to sneak away and go commit the worst social faux-pax you truly can do. however, they are interrupted by cherly’s senile grandmother, nana rose, who mistakes her for polly and reveals polly and jason were engaged.

betty takes this information to her father who reveals he already knows but forbid the arrangement because the blossoms and the coopers have been trying to kill each other for decades over the whole maple syrup empire thing. betty and jughead later suspect her dad broke into the sheriff's office to steal his files related to uhhh everything i guess; a hunch which turns out to be correct.

meanwhile veronica’s mom is sent a live snake by the serpent gang, calls big strong fred andrews to come save her and then asks him for a job.

faster pussycats! kill! kill!: first of all fuck, the name of this ep.

archie, for some reason because i guess he doesn’t know what embarrassment is, decides he’s going to play an original song he wrote for the school talent show. he immediately gets stage fright at the try-outs and wusses out. veronica goes behind his back to sign him up anyway. thanks, asshole!

valerie, from the last ep, quits the pussycats because josie is slightly more stressed than usual about uhhh the talent show. also because she has a crush on archie for some reason.

hermoine, while acting as fred andrews’ new secretary, realizes he’s fucking BROKE. why’d he hire her? who knows. too late now. she suggests firing some people (for example............her, maybe, fred) but fred cant bear it...and is hoping to be saved by the newest construction job he doesn’t know that hermoine is manipulating under the table. much like his son, fred is now too horny to care and they make out while veronica watches awkwardly.

the remaining pussycats try to figure out what to do about their missing member problem. josie’s mom helpfully lays out that they need a strong woman of color, but not one prettier or more talented than josie. enter...VERONICA!!! who is miffed because archie replaced her with valerie in the talent show duet. veronica is now scientifically less pretty and talented than josie by show standards, which just rules because i love thinking that there are teen power rankings in riverdale.

betty and jughead make their way to visit polly at The Sisters Of Quiet Mercy which is literally the best name for a goth cover band in the world. surprise! polly is pregnant with jason’s baby. polly reveals she and jason planned to run away together, but she was caught by her parents and sent away. she then awkwardly asks how jason is and someone has to break the news to her.

josie’s dad makes a brief appearance, which i absolutely do not remember at all. i thought he only showed up in season 3 which makes mayor mccoys character arc way more awkward. anyway, the mccoy family, the andrews and the lodges all have dinner together to discuss business and its awkward as all hell. no one at the table likes the andrews.

betty straight up asks her dad if he killed jason and her mom laughs her ass off at the idea of betty’s soft white suburban ham shank looking dad being able to kill a weed much less a human. keep that in mind.

veronica’s mom forges veronica signature on a form allowing andrews construction to move ahead with the job.

jughead and betty kiss after talking about how they arent their parents. keep that in mind. anyway, betty takes jughead to a car polly mentioned that full of EVIDENCE. they take picture of it and leave the car to go tell the sheriff because i guess suddenly no one has cellphones. jughead and betty return with the sheriff later to find the car has been light up by an unknown person. almost immediately after, bughead tries to rescue polly at the institution only to find she’s already bailed. welp.

josie and valerie make up and all four pussycats perform. josie’s dad walks out on her performance? harsh. cool dad moves.

archie sings and the crowd loves it. who gives a shit.

a kid died, guys. come on.

#riverdale

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speakofthedebbie · 9 months ago

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you (read: i) asked so you shall recieve: radioapple fic recs august 2024 update!!

the following are the ones from the last post w/some minor changes (think: misspellings and even more osas praising) (sorry for the re-tags!!):

Bedtime Rituals to Try out Before the Next Angelic War by @miribalis

just yes. thousand times yes. so basically my boy luci has some sleep troubles and that somehow leads to a qpr with al look its been a while ok just read it

Managerial Liberties by the same fella

these two tags explain it pretty well

something that sticks out to me about this is that charlie is actually (reasonably) cold to adam and like. im actually surprised with how little ive seen that. i mean i dont think id be exactly buddy-buddy with my besties killer either. only 4 chaps as of writing but already looking to be a radioapple classic. has the same vibe as bedtime rituals, but it is NOT a sequel

devils don't fly (don't expect me not to fall) by @corgiss

also just yes. basically a really not cool joke evolves into a blossoming romance because why wouldnt it. (man if i had a nickel for every radioapple fic that had a masquerade that was sabotaged by the vees- *gets shot bc i cant mention osas yet*)

i’ll hold you close (i’ll stay the course) by the same fella

the entire time i was just going "yas king! put that egotistical flatscreen in his place!!". basically luci reminds the overlords who he is and vox shows he can be more of a threat than he lets on.

ykw fuck it just the entire series (i didnt mention i would give anything to not give a shit (but i do) and my perfect rock bottom (my beautiful trauma) because the first one sounded a lil too angsty and ive gotten enough of that from other sources [pointedly glares at Quietly, It Slips Through Your Fingers, Love {also coming up later!}] and the second is (mostly) smut

Of Saints and Sinners by the forever amazing @morningstarwrites!! (if you see this i have a serious question: is this your first time ever writing a fic? because how do you get so much right the first time- [not even beginners luck could explain this level of skill])

if youre even half the radioapple fanatic i am and havent read this, literally what are you doing?? i could sing its praises until my death bed but ill hold off so i can explain whats happening. basically after burning down a meeting room several times, luci and al make a deal ("not a deal!", luci laments to the void): they will attempt to be civil and maybe even friendly, with some daily compliments sprinkled along the way, and by the end luci will owe al a favour. whats the favour? read it yourself dammit! seriously, 10/10, i foam at the mouth every friday

Quietly, It Slips Through Your Fingers, Love by Starlit_Rainfall (no tumblr in sight, so AO3) (i. urgfgh. what happened. i was just smiling over the fluff while crossing to go to school. where did it go. where did it gooooo)

if thats anything to go by, the last few chapters have been rough. the fluff feels so far away that i cant even explain what happens. luci was waxing poetic about swimming in maple syrup for al, i remember that much. lilith is particularly an asshole even tho we havent seen her yet (or maybe we have. idr, mightve chatted with al) also emily is there (fallen) and has a lil smth to do with als and liliths deal. if you read it, warning for the gut punch of angst that starts chap 32 "She/Her" (though the chapter before that, "Should Alastor Know By Now?" ends pretty rough too)

Freely We Serve by @romanaxe

i dont remember how i managed to stumble upon this but im having a great time. basically alastor is a new sinner fresh in hell (but time doesnt matter and the whole cast is still here) and thinks "what better way to gain power than be the personal assistant of the heartbroken king of hell!" features a 6-7 (rosies words) year old charlie and a morally dubious lilith (also i loved eepy al X3)

A Family Forged in Hellfire by Green_Ghostwriter (once again, no Tumblr, so AO3)

this ones a bit newer (10 chaps), is so far mostly exposition and the slowburn pot hasnt even been put on the stove, but as just a hazbin fic in general i see the potential. basically its a 1920s(30s?) au where heaven decides little charlie doesnt deserve to be raised in hell and is sent to earth with a "foster" family where her actions in life will determine witch realm she will return to after death. her "parents", al and mimzy, are given false memories so they can claim the girl as their own and gee i wasnt kidding when i said it was a lot of exposition. erm honestly explaining anymore would tech be spoiling so go read it!!

The Red Thread That Binds Us by @scun-gilli

{{future me prefacing this by saying i have no idea where i was going with yesterdays thought process, all you need to know from it was im on chapter 27. also scungilli your comment is making me very worried 😟 well theres no mcd tag so im sure itll fine, right? RIGHT, SCUNGILLI??}}

basically its a king x kings guard au where al and luci grow up together and only grow closer after a. certain life event for al (its fine guys trust :)) [she said, like a liar]) then al is sent off for royal guard training school (ik its not called that i forgor 😭) but dw he comes back. just watch out for graphic depictions of injuries (i think thats this fic) angst and a sneaky eve bc radioapple fics are allergic to happiness (or maybe im not looking hard enough lol) (also im really tempted to make the friendship bracelets they had 👀)

somewhere down the line by kj_crwm (AO3 link)

this one starts off as human!alastor/lucifer but by the middle(?) its just regular radioapple. basically al is encountered by luci while finishing off a job who agrees to keep quiet. luci just keeps on showing up, reveals hes the devil to which al us just like "lol ok" and eventually they get in a relationship (ooh lala 👀) but they break up after saying some hurtful things to each other (oh nono 👀) with luci promising al they will never cross paths again. if you watched the show then well. you know that doesnt happen 😂 most human!al radioapple have al summon him (no hate to them) so this was an interesting change of pace

new recs below!! ↓↓

Alastor and Lucifer do whatever the Hell this is (series) by Vagabond_Sloth (personally asked, no Tumblr, but they might make one 👀)

i know this is radioapple fic rec post but... *cough* Husk and Angel do a Romance for some soft huskerdust *cough* anyway- basically, a perplexing flower arrangement leads to a blossoming something between the resident radio demon and king of hell. seriously, its some good shit, and the author is really nice!

A Compliment A Day by @decembercamiecherries

spinning this around in my head at all times

basically, a classic "charlie makes al and luci compliment each other as a bonding excessive" but it does not disappoint (check out her other three radioapple fics too)

a lovely night (lalaland is that you??) and pancakes, small talk by @mirotic_chess (X Twitter account)

in a lovely night they do a lil dancey dancey and in pancakes, small talk luci makes some pancakes!!

Sin and Sentiment and Time On My Hands by demon_fawn (supposed Tumblr leads to a dead end)

oh my god future debs here and i am so fucking tired of doing these descriptions but. um. the plot for sin and sentiment def seems very interesting and time on my hands is an incomplete (but good!) attempt at radioapple week. hmm not sure if they still post bc the most recent update was july 12th

honestly just every radioapple fic by @otoshigo (i think ive read all but Forbidden Fruit of the Poisonous Tree)

if you look underneath the little island that is radioapple, on god otoshigo is one of the creators holding it up. all 19 (yes, 19. we eatin good tonight [excluding forbidden fruit]) of their radioapple fics are fantastic, buuut if i had to recommend anything specific: A Guide to the Care and Maintenance of the King of Hell (fuck count furfur!) and The Devil's Trip to the Big Apple

not to continue the trend, but basically anything by @thief-of-eggs (even the singular huskerdust) but personal recommendations: Trust and Hair Pets and Let Me Be Your Shelter (sickfics 🔛🔝)

idk if youll catch me doing the descriptions for these anymore shit was exhausting

tagging time!!!! (i want to end it all)

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bucketspammer4life · 1 year ago

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Mac but he introduces the boxers to his other biological uncle Mad Clown and the boxers lose their fucking minds and Don sees that Mac, Pete, and Clown are all related and finds out about Ravioli Mafiosi and why nobody talks about him (Mafiosi, Pete, and Clown are brothers, Mac is the nephew)

Mac has the best worst family tree ever i love it

Joe would be TERRIFIED of mafiosi, to the point where he would have to put his sass down for a sec, as for mad clown, he would just be mildly annoyed

Von Kaiser? Also scared, but not to the point where he drops his usual attitude, he just has his guard up, as for mad clown, he would just get pissed off because he doesnt really like clowns

Disco Kid wouldnt care much since he would just be busy making the classic "i cooka da meatball mafia mama mia spaghetti" jokes

King Hippo probably gets chased by both since he probably breaks spaghetti in half when trying to cook it

Piston Hondo would be scared since both of them are good boxers, not to the point where he would shiver his timbers like joe, but more of a respect - fear kinda thing

Bear Hugger probably puts maple syrup in pasta so you can expect what goes on

Great Tiger would just be a bit amused and wouldnt care, like why should he care about some orphan's 3 uncles returning??

Don Flamenco just.. Goes insane, what do you mean a man that was presumed dead, a criminal and a clown is all related to that one orphan he got his ass whopped by????

Aran Ryan would just lose it at don flamenco's reactions, he just finds the whole thing amusing

Soda Popinski would just watch it all unfold while doing his thing like "damn. didnt know you were italian"

Bald Bull is just confused about the whole thing, hes out here having a aneurysm trying to comprehend macs family tree

Super Macho Man finds it amusing also, but the only reason he finds it funny is because the "i cooka da meatball" keeps getting to him

Mr Sandman is just baffled, in shock

#punch out #headcanon #punch out wii #punch out headcanons #bald bull #don flamenco #aran ryan #glass joe #piston hondo #great tiger #little mac #pizza pasta

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northeastartist · 5 years ago

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Hometown Updates

So, as of the start of the quarantine, things seem to be getting weird, and crazy, and pretty scary.

Maine has about 55 cases confirmed, and a good chunk of them is in my county. Its weird because people are still going shopping- the stores are being slightly raided- and some people have already self-quarantined. Schools have shut down for 2-5 weeks, and all students have to learn from home- not the best.

Currently, my hometown has recently had a huge shut down- the local big corp. store- L.L. Bean, since we are the birthplace of the guy who made a remarkable boot, which is incredibly startling since the store is usually open 24/7, and now its closed for 2 weeks, as well as other major stores. So the only open businesses are CVS, a couple smaller goody stores and the local pizza place.

The air is what really is scaring me. Its never this dense and frightful, not unless it was a cat. 4 hurricane or the biggest blizzard came in and blew in 10 feet of snow. You could get a nose bleed from the intense atmosphere. I guess the world carries that as well.

But for anything, our family is fine. My dad doesnt tend to interact with his clients much and my mom is doing everything to practice good hygiene. We are decently stocked on rolls, even though the Karens and other paranoid people hogged all the fucking toilet paper. I mean--

This is my local Walmart, the first day when the virus started getting serious. But we are all set. Just things are hella tense. Once this is all over I'm treating myself to a me day out to just be like 'hey you made it, chill'

How am I doing, you 9 active followers are wondering? Well, I'm doing my best. I'm struggling to get my room clean from a winter of nesting- aka messy room- and just... In reality? I'm stressing the fuck out. All Im trying to do is keep my sanity in check. Thankfully I have ACNH, and I'm able to access the internet.

I just... This is really taking a mental toll on me.

It was supposed to be Maple Sunday this weekend- a Maine tradition that kinda brought in spring. No one is gonna enjoy the sweet scent of maple syrup being made. Its a fairly bitter 'welcome to spring'. Hopefully this will end, so we can properly have a good summer, yeah?

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artificialqueens · 6 years ago

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Twist Of Fate - Ch11 - (Trixya) - katyahzamo

A/N: Here we are folks, the penultimate chapter of this fic! Things are slowly falling into place with these two and I can’t believe it’s been three months since I started writing it. Thank you everyone, for your continuous support and lovely feedback!

A reminder: Trixie is a hairdresser and Katya is a struggling photographer slash yoga instructor. Lesbian AU. Read the chapters on AO3 and/or come hang out on my tumblr katyahzamo. Comments are welcome and encouraged!

Katya wakes up sometime around eight in the morning the next day, with sweat on her upper lip and on the back of her neck. The air is stuffy in her bedroom, and only when her eyes open does she remember that she’s forgotten to leave the window open before falling asleep.

Additional source of heat is the pile of blonde curls spread across her bare chest, with an arm and a leg hugging her close as Trixie Mattel sleeps peacefully snuggled up to her. Katya can barely feel her arm that got trapped under Trixie sometime through the night, and there is a certain soreness in her thighs that reminds her it’s been a while since she’s had sex… or done strenuous yoga for that matter. Still, she has a large smile on her face as her fingers trail through blonde hair splayed across her collarbone, feeling her heart speed up at the mere thought of the last night’s events.

Seeing Trixie naked, getting to kiss every single inch of her soft skin… it was better than any fantasy Katya’s imagination could have conjured up in many lonely nights when she thought about it. Trixie was both gentle and teasing, and heat pools in the bottom of Katya’s stomach as she remembers Trixie between her legs, eating her out like it’s the last thing she’s going to do. Her thighs squeeze when she recalls the sounds that Trixie made as they fucked, as she made Katya come, over and over again, until they fell asleep snuggled together, too tired to move a muscle or put any clothes on.

Katya is pulled back to the present when Trixie snorts in her sleep and it almost makes her laugh out loud, but she remains silent when she slowly untangles their limbs and slips off the bed, in desperate need of a shower, a cigarette and some food.

Trixie doesn’t wake up until two hours later, to Katya’s great delight, since she has plenty of time to run to a convenience store right across the street, buying some toast, eggs, maple syrup and a pancake mix which she prepares quietly in her narrow kitchen that she barely ever uses for herself in the morning.

It seems that it’s the smell of French toast, eggs and bacon that rouse Trixie from her slumber, and she’s standing in the doorway, in one of Katya’s shirts no less, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and a bright smile on her face. It makes Katya’s heart jump violently and then drops to her ass. The shirt strains a little over her chest, but reaches her thighs nevertheless. She looks sexy as all hell.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, birthday girl. How did you sleep?”

“Mmm really good, but I think I fully didn’t move all night. Everything hurts.”

There is a little pout on Trixie’s lips, that playful one that Katya has seen so many times in the last twenty-four hours, and it is hard to breathe for a moment before she flips the pancake.

“Maybe you can do some yoga with me later?”

“Hard pass. I’d rather do something else.”

Katya turns her head, and Trixie is there, leaning her hip against the counter, her eyes big, and brown, and staring at Katya’s mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Mmm.”

A second later she hops on the counter to sit there and gets a toast and nibbles on it, watching Katya who puts the last pancake on the plate, turns off the stove and comes in front of her. Trixie’s knees part instinctively and Katya settles between her thighs.

“This is really good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I usually don’t eat white bread that much but I was starving.”

“I also made you pancakes and bought a little candle so you can blow on it. Even though you don’t celebrate your birthday-”

“Oh I celebrate it.”

Katya, who had her hands resting on Trixie’s bare thighs and was brushing her fingers up and down lazily looked at her with her eyebrows raised.

“But you told me last night you-“

“I did that only so you would finish what you started.”

“Oh my god.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

Trixie’s wide grin makes Katya cackle, all with head thrown back in delight.

“You’re such a fucking brat.”

“It’s what you signed up for, mama.”

They laugh and Trixie drops the toast back on the plate when Katya leans in to leave kisses under her jaw and down her neck, her eyes closing instinctively and arms wrapping around Katya’s shoulders. She leans up seconds later to capture Trixie’s lips with her own, and before long Trixie has her nails dragging down Katya’s back and Katya desperately digs her fingers into the soft flesh of Trixie’s thighs.

“God you’re so sexy.” Katya’s words are barely a breath she speaks into Trixie’s open mouth, and are greeted with a soft moan before the kiss becomes needier, causing both of them to grind their hips towards the other.

“Trix-“ Katya starts again, but Trixie’s fingers are already trailing down Katya’s abdomen and past the hem of her boxers, finding her wet already. Feeling Trixie’s cold fingers pressing against her clit makes Katya gasp into the kiss, and she adjusts her hips so Trixie can have more access.

It doesn’t take her long before she drops from the counter and on her knees, to Katya’s surprise, in the middle of the tiny kitchen. With Katya’s boxers discarded on a nearby chair and Trixie’s mouth between Katya’s legs, Katya is reduced to a shaky, moaning mess minutes later, barely holding herself upright by leaning back and gripping the countertop with one hand and Trixie’s hair with the other. She comes without much effort and Trixie’s fingers knuckles deep in her pussy, and Trixie playfully kisses her before going for a shower; leaving the Russian disheveled and barely able to put her underwear on and set up the table for breakfast.

“So you know Mrs. Davis, right? Kasha Davis?”

They are sitting on the couch, Trixie’s feet in Katya’s lap and a plate of pancakes in her own. Katya made her blow a single candle she found in one of the drawers and make a wish she then refused to share with Katya. It won’t come true if I do! She said and interrupted Katya’s laugh with a lingering kiss and a hug in a silent thank you. They moved to the couch immediately after and put a movie they weren’t paying attention to, too distracted by kissing and Trixie force-feeding pancakes to Katya, who refused to eat pieces that had maple syrup on it.

“The older, rich lady that comes to Honey? Yeah I know her.”

“Her daughter Jean is having a Sweet Sixteen party in two weeks.”

“Oh god don’t tell me she’s gonna be on MTV or something.”

“How old are you?” Trixie laughs loudly and Katya swats at her ankle playfully. “No, grandma, she won’t be on a show that ended ten years ago, but-“

“It didn’t end! It’s still going!”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah! I’m pretty sure I watched it last week.”

They bicker for a little while longer, until Trixie pulls out her phone from underneath her and stares at the Wikipedia article with her mouth open, and Katya laughing loudly at her.

“I’m right, huh? It’s still airing.”

“Who the hell funds this still?”

“Mrs. Kasha Davis?”

“Right!” Trixie tosses her phone Katya’s way, who catches it and laughs again, doubling down on intensity when Trixie glares at her and then Katya raises her arms up in surrender.

“I’m sorry! Go ahead, what about her daughter?”

Trixie blinks at her pointedly a several times more but then her expression softens when she speaks again.

“Latrice called me while I was still in Wisconsin. Apparently, Mrs. Kasha Davis wants me to do her daughter’s hair. And her daughter’s best friends’ hair. And probably makeup too. There will be like… seven or eight girls there.”

“Trix, that’s great! They’re loaded, they will probably pay well.”

“Right? There’s a problem, though. Maybe one you can help me with?”

Katya tilts her head and can’t help but grin back when Trixie bats her eyelashes again, feeling her heart thump at the sight.

“What do you need?”

“They need a photographer. Apparently there’s a company who organizes these things and they usually send a photographer and a makeup artist in a bundle. And it’s hard for them to find a photographer on their own on such a short notice. So…”

“So if you don’t find a photographer, they will go with the company.”

“Right. I know you’re busy and you’re getting like a thousand jobs offer an hour but…”

“Trix, being booked one week in advance is barely a thousand offers.”

“I know! But you’re so good and all these modeling agencies are fighting for you, and I know teens are not your thing but…”

“I’ll do it.”

Trixie’s eyes widen, and her smile too. Money aside, this sight alone makes Katya think that hanging around teenagers the entire day makes it totally worth it.

“Really?”

“Yeah! I mean, they are loaded and I can probably get a rate as high as I get for weddings so…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence since Trixie has put the pancakes away and is pulling her down towards herself, her soft pink lips covering every inch of Katya’s face, causing her to burst into laughter, over and over again. Doing what she loves to do and with the girl that she’s pretty sure she’s in love with? Who would say no?

The two of them stay on Katya’s couch for the remainder of the morning and early afternoon, cuddling and watching Casablanca that comes on, parting reluctantly only when Trixie says she needs to go into Honey even though it’s her last day of paid leave and it’s her birthday. Since Katya needs to work on engagement photos she’s taken the day before, she lets her go, but not before spending fifteen minutes kissing at the front door and agreeing to see each other that evening for birthday celebration, and the next day, when Katya would pick Trixie up from work and go with her to test out a new lens in the park nearby. As she watches Trixie get into her Uber while she smokes on the window, Katya wonders what she did in her largely miserable life to finally get so lucky.

“No, go back. Details bitch. Is she a top or a bottom? What does she like? Did you talk kinks yet?”

The connection on Violet’s side is not really the best, and Katya has to squint at her own phone to recognize that the pixelated blur is in fact her best friend, calling her from the other side of the continent, after having blown up her phone when Katya told her Trixie began spending almost every night for the past week.

“Vi, I can barely hear you, what?”

Maybe she is trying to avoid the subject altogether now, at least until Violet is in the same room as her, since sleeping with Trixie is… different. She is not just a tinder hookup or a casual dating thing that Katya had no issues talking about with her best friend in the past, all details included. Now, she is afraid of sharing too much with the universe, fearing that the universe might yet again be a bitch and take it away from her.

Just that morning Trixie left her apartment to go to work, and she woke Katya up by dragging her to the shower and kissing the sleep away from her puffy eyelids, then proceeded to make them both coffee after which they sat by the window as Katya smoked. Trixie’s thumb rubbed her knee as they talked about their plans for the weekend. It has been surreal, more surreal than any other thing that had happened to Katya in the past year. Considering all the changes that she went through, this being the biggest one, it was a lot, and now difficult to put into words.

How can she even begin to describe the happiness she feels to get to spend every single free moment with Trixie when it seemed just like a distant fantasy only a month ago? No words could even begin to come close to describe how beautiful Trixie is, or how funny. How her nose scrunches lightly when she yawns over her cup of coffee in the morning or how she chews thoughtfully and looks into the distance when she thinks Katya isn’t looking. Anything she could say to Violet pales in comparison to the warmth in her chest when Trixie kisses her collarbone and talks sleepily before drifting off and the way her small apartment rings with the sound of Trixie’s absurdly loud laughter. Katya is happy, and it’s a scary thing to even fathom talking about.

“Fine, you don’t have to tell me now. Is it good at least? Is she good?”

The connection clears enough for Violet to see the wide grin on Katya’s face, the crinkles around her eyes visible even through the blurry video.

“She’s the best, Vi. I’ll tell you everything when you get back.”

“So, I want my hair to be wavy, but not too curly. I don’t wanna look basic, you know?”

Katya is barely holding in her laughter as Jean continues chattering on, giving precise instructions on how her hair needs to look like, the funny part being the way Trixie’s eyes are bugging out a little. Katya can see that Trixie is holding in an exasperated huff too, but nods along and keeps saying okay as the girl continues talking.

“And please don’t give Amanda the same hair as mine, she’s been trying to copy me for months.”

“Isn’t Amanda one of your best friends, dear?”

Mrs. Kasha Davis is sitting in the chair next to her daughter, flipping through the menu that the caterers have brought minutes after Katya and Trixie walked through the door of the gigantic mansion where the Davises lived. Her eyes lift up towards her daughter, a perfectly shaped eyebrow quirked.

“Mom, I told you fifteen times already, I have to keep Amanda close because she has the pull with the cheerleaders. But I can’t stand her, all she talks about is Justin Bieber and we all know he’s so 2013.”

Katya cackles at this when her eyes meet Trixie’s, and the girl looks at them in the mirror.

“What? You know I’m right.”

“You sure are.” Katya says amusingly, lifting the camera and adjusting the lens before she snaps a photo of the mother and the daughter, with Trixie fiddling with the scissors in the background.

Both Trixie and Katya woke up at seven in the morning to get everything ready for the Sweet Sixteen party, or at least the part they play in it, since Latrice instructed them both on what Mrs. Davis loves and doesn’t love, and when she saw Trixie getting nervous about her first big gig, encouraged them both that Kasha, despite being a rich white woman, has a kind heart and will tell them if anything is amiss.

They had no issues finding the house in the outskirts of Boston hours later and Katya expected to see swans in their larger-than-life front yard that had a fountain decorated with endless balloons and pink bows. Despite the kitschiness of it all, Katya appreciated how this girl’s parents went above and beyond to make their daughter’s birthday special. Jean, all teenager drama aside, is not as snobby as Katya expects most girls of her class to be, and she spent half an hour discussing photography with her before they sat down for hair and makeup.

Soon after they shit talk Amanda, the head cheerleader walks in with half a dozen of other girls and Trixie sits them all down and gives them catalogues to browse for hair styles they want, while Katya walks around, taking quick photos as girls get ready, of the tables and canopy set in the backyard, of the house and exterior decorations, and finally of Trixie.

The only dress code for the party is to incorporate something pink in their outfit, since that is the main color of the event. Trixie sure looks the part n her baby pink dress, slightly loose around her shoulders and flowy around her legs and reaching down below her knees. Her thick curls are pushed in a ponytail and makeup is as soft as one could imagine it being on a warm September day. She looks like she walked out of Katya’s wildest cotton candy dreams. Katya, in return, sports only a dark pink button up shirt that she matched with the black pantsuit, the jacket tossed aside as soon as they arrived to the house.

Katya feels smug whenever she notices Trixie swallowing every time she looks at her, and remembers how breathlessly she complimented her that morning when she saw Katya get out of the car to kiss her hello in front of Kim’s building when she picked her up.

She sees Trixie looking at her now, a curling iron in her hand and a little smile on her face that Katya snapped a photo of seconds before, and now has the wild urge to go over and kiss her senseless. Instead, Katya walks past her and squeezes Trixie’s hip lightly before she walks out of the spacious, bright-lit room and into the back porch of the house. Some of the guests have begun arriving already, mostly family members including older aunts and uncles. Mrs. Davis has told them that the main event would be after seven, when half of Jean’s school would be coming over for the party, but the afternoon was reserved for the older family members and friends of Mr. and Mrs. Davis.

Katya spends an hour or two walking between the tables, introducing herself to people who want to know her name, and taking photos much to the guests’ delight. Despite having initial reservations for an event like this, Katya realized that older rich white people are a goldmine for photography opportunities, and she has already given out a dozen of her business cards before she sees Trixie on the porch too, drinking something that looks like pink lemonade.

“Almost done?” Katya comes to stand next to her but only after she’s quickly snapped a photo of her, feeling her heart grow ten sizes when she sees Trixie pose playfully.

“Yep. Jean was right, Amanda talks about Bieber more than you talk about your Russian weirdo bands.”

“Hey!” Katya cackles and nudges her with her hip, sending Trixie into giggles too.

“They’re a cool bunch, though. They keep asking me if I can redo their makeup too.”

“How could they not? You’re the incarnation of their favorite Barbie they played with up until two years ago.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“What? I think you look beautiful.”

Trixie’s blush is visible even in the slight shade of the porch and Katya is grinning proudly.

“God, if we made out right here, right now, do you think we’d look unprofessional?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Katya!”

“What? You think dykes would be too much for the poor old aunt Shirley over there?”

“She’d fully be clutching her pearls.”

“Oh there you two are!”

The voice of Mrs. Davis makes them both jump a little and they turn around, their expressions slightly flushed and guilty. Katya prays she didn’t hear any part of the conversation they just had. But, even if she did, Kasha shows no signs of it.

“Trixie, dear, Jean is absolutely glowing because of your handiwork. You did a marvelous job!”

Trixie grins and Katya’s heart skips several beats. She’s so proud of her.

“I’m glad she’s happy with it. I only have two more girls left and I’ll be done.”

“Beautiful! Katya, we’ve agreed you’ll be staying here until nine, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Mrs. Davis.”

“Please, darlings, call me Kasha. You’re making me feel old.”

All three of them laugh and Katya nods.

“Anyway, I’m here to offer you to stay for the party too, Trixie.”

“Oh you really don’t have to, I-“

“No, nonsense! You can keep Katya company and David ordered too much food for this amount of people. I insist.”

Katya and Trixie look at each other and Katya gives her a non-committal shrug, even though all she wants is to have Trixie around for the entirety of the day. It would definitely make the remainder of the party more bearable.

“Okay, I’ll stay then. Thank you. If you need me to help with anything-“

“No, absolutely not. You can finish up the hair and makeup, and I might ask you to touch up mine later in the afternoon, but the moment you are done you’re a guest like everything else here.”

“Thank you M- Kasha.”

“Oh you’re both welcome. Now if you’ll excuse me, I see my mother-in-law calling.”

Both Trixie and Katya laugh at the eyeroll and the wink Kasha gives them, and watch her trod across the lawn.

“Better go get Amanda ready before she cuts my head off.”

Katya laughs and takes her hand briefly, kissing it.

“Go. I’ll be out here. And bring me one of those lemonades when you’re done.”

The remainder of the afternoon goes by fast, and Katya barely has time to shove some of the food in her mouth while people call her from one side of the lawn or another, wishing her to take photos of them in different poses and with different family members and friends. It’s well past six in the evening and the majority of the adults are already tipsy and ready to dance, so the DJ is already in his spot too, forced to take requests of songs that range from Frank Sinatra to Spice Girls. When five minutes pass without anyone calling out her name, Katya decides to take a bathroom break while she still can, since the only people who like having their photos taken more than middle-aged people are teenagers, and almost a hundred of them are soon to start arriving through the door.

The bathroom offers a welcome silence and Katya feels her head pulsating a little bit, but she has to admit to herself that she is having fun, more so because she knows Trixie is going to join her soon. What makes her the happiest, though, is the fact that Trixie will be coming home with her later and they will get to snuggle on her worn out couch and talk to each other about the day they had.

Just as Katya flushes and goes to wash her hands, there is a brief knock on the bathroom door and Katya calls out that she’ll be out in a second. When she does open the door, she sees Trixie standing on the other side, the look on her face making butterflies in Katya’s stomach dance for the millionth time that day.

“Oh hi.”

“Hello.”

Trixie’s hand pushes her lightly from the door and back into the bathroom again, and follows her in an instant before she closes the door and locks it.

“I’ve missed you the whole damn day.”

“Me too.”

Katya wraps her arms around Trixie’s waist and Trixie cups both sides of Katya’s face and leans in to kiss her – her soft lingering kisses that Katya returns eagerly, humming contentedly.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you all day.” Trixie mutters into the kiss and Katya kisses her again, and again, and again, until she’s backed into the wall and raking her fingers through Katya’s waves, the feeling of blunt nails against her scalp causing goosebumps on the back of Katya’s neck.

“Did I tell you how hot you are in that fucking suit? Holy shit.”

Katya squeezes Trixie’s waist in response, digging fingers there and grinding against Trixie’s thigh just a little, their mouths inches apart, both of them breathing heavily.

“Do you think it would be unprofessional if I bent you over in our client’s bathroom and fucked you senseless?”

That makes Trixie’s mouth fall open and she kisses Katya softly again, and Katya knows that she’s considering it. They both know it’s a probable thing that would happen if their kisses lasted for more than five seconds.

“Probably. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you can do that later tonight when we’re back at your place?”

“Sounds like a solid plan.”

Katya is the first one to rejoin the party, her neck still flushed from how easily worked up Trixie has gotten her, but her dark red lipstick is in place once again and her hair brushed out. There is an ache between her thighs for a while after, especially when Trixie comes to join her soon after with a hand on Katya’s lower back, but knows that they still have a few hours to go.

Taking photos of teenagers is definitely more work, since they ask to see how they look in photos every time they are taken, but they are also ready to go with Katya’s ideas of crazy poses, so Katya finds herself having a lot of fun. Both her and Trixie, who watches the entire thing unfold, are invited into several selfies too an hour into what turned into a photoshoot with the cheerleaders.

It’s well past nine when Katya packs up her camera, and when she comes out to the lawn that is now lit up with hundreds of small lights and with a crowd consisting now mostly of people under twenty, save some of the adults here and there, she finds Trixie surrounded by several girls who keep asking her about the hair products she uses to make her curls be the way that they are. Once Katya reaches them, Jean begs them both to stay a little bit longer to join the dancing since the band has taken over, and Trixie is the first one to give in.

An hour later Trixie and Katya are still on the dance floor, and no one seems to care that they are dancing with each other and not talking with anyone else aside from several older cousins who are there more out of solidarity for their cousin’s birthday wishes more than anything else. When the fast-beat song changes to something slower, Katya pulls Trixie close and Trixie leans her head on Katya’s shoulder as they sway slowly.

“This is like a prom I never got to have.”

Katya pulls her head from where it rested, leaned on top of Trixie’s, in surprise.

“You never went to your prom?”

Trixie rolls her eyes but laughs.

“Of course I went to prom, but I never got to go to one with a girl that I liked.”

Even though Katya knows that Trixie likes her, she’ll never get tired of hearing it.

“Did you go with a guy, then?”

“Yep, Bob. We were the only two out gays in the entire school so no one really wanted to do anything with us.”

“I’m sorry, Trix.”

“It doesn’t matter, we had a lot of fun. And I get to redo it with you now.”

“Does this mean I forgot to buy you flowers and that I’m a horrible girlfriend?”

Trixie lifts her head up to meet Katya’s eyes and only by the expression on her face does she realize what she just said.

“So that’s what you are, huh? My girlfriend?”

Katya grins wider, and kisses the small crease that formed in the corner of Trixie’s eye as her smile grows too.

“Yep.”

“Cool. Then I’ll need those flowers.”

“I’ll get them for you as soon as we get out of here.”

They leave the party shortly after that, and Katya does stop in front of a little flower shop whose owner knows Katya from before, and who gives her a bouquet of lilies that she passes on to Trixie when she gets back in the car.

“Are we having a little Imagine Me and You moment now, Katya?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Imagine Me and You? The best lesbian movie ever made?”

“Never heard of it.”

“And yet you know that Sweet Sixteen is still airing? I’m breaking up with you immediately.”

The ride to Katya’s apartment is full of their bickering and Trixie’s loud laughter, and Katya can’t remember a better day at work in her entire life. A part of her wishes that she and Trixie can do things like this forever. She loves photography, and getting to finally do it for living is a dream come true, but now she wants to share that dream with Trixie. As she watches Trixie kick off her heels and stretch before she joins her on the couch, Katya thinks that it’s probably too early to even bring it up. She knows that Trixie has been planning to leave Honey for a while now, but Katya doesn’t want to put a strain in their very new relationship by proposing something like that. They have time.

An hour later they are still on the couch, their carefully applied lipsticks gone and their clothes discarded on the floor. They barely spoke anything in the hurry to get each other off, the tension between them building for the entire day and released only when Katya fucked Trixie until her thighs shook and then gladly returned the favor. Katya felt so exhausted afterward, especially with Trixie cuddling into her side, both lazy to get up, shower, and go to bed. The silence breaks shortly after, and Katya didn’t notice that Trixie has been chewing on her lip nervously for at least ten minutes before she speaks.

“Katya?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to talk to you about something.”

“Shoot.”

“Remember when I went back to Wisconsin to be with family couple of weeks ago?”

“Yes, of course I remember.”

“I went to see Pearl too.”

The name Pearl, spoken out of nowhere, and in that context, sucks all of the air from Katya’s lungs and suddenly she can’t breathe, so she sits up. Trixie, who was leaned on her, sits up too, bringing the blanket to her chest, suddenly feeling exposed. Katya opens her mouth once, both unsure of what to say and not understanding why this is being brought up now, then closes it. Then finally:

“Okay.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you back then. I wasn’t sure where you and I were going and there never seemed to be a right time. This is also not the right time, but I have to tell you anyway.”

This exact moment not being the right time is an understatement. Katya’s jaw is clamped shut, but all she can do is look at Trixie, and wait. After all, she has no idea what seeing Pearl means in this case, and wants to give Trixie the benefit of the doubt. Shiver passes down her spine, but it has nothing to do with being cold.

“And I know you and I didn’t talk about it at all, but our breakup went really badly, and I was afraid that I hurt her so I – I needed to fix it.”

Met with Katya’s silence, Trixie seems to falter a little bit, but she continues talking.

“So Bob and I went to Chicago and Pearl and I met over lunch and talked about… everything. Nothing happened obviously, I knew I didn’t love her that… way, and I knew I liked you, so I wanted to do the right thing and bring us both closure.”

A part of Katya, that has been under considerable strain and threatening to snap since Trixie started the conversation, loosened up and she let out a small breath. Nothing happened. Yet, there is an irrational part of her that’s still hurt about it. It’s not something she can help.

“Why are you telling me this now? That was almost a month ago.” Her voice too is slightly strained, but Katya tries not to project her insecurities on Trixie. Her insecurities are what ended every single relationship she’s had so far. There weren’t many.

When Katya didn’t snap, something that Trixie apparently expected, the corner of her mouth pulled into a small smile and she shrugged. Despite the rollercoaster of emotions that Katya went within two minutes time, she can’t help but want to hug Trixie when she sees her this way.

“You called me your girlfriend tonight. I was afraid that mentioning Pearl would fuck all of this up, and these past couple of weeks have been the best I’ve had in my life.”

“Mine too.”

Trixie’s face seems to light up at that.

“And tonight you called me your girlfriend and I became aware that I can’t hold this back from you because I don’t want to hide anything from you, Katya. I really, really like you and I want us to work. More than I want anything else.”

“Trixie…”

“So I had to say it. And I see that you’re upset and I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know and not find out from one of our friends or something.”

Katya reaches out and takes Trixie’s hand for the millionth time that day, and pulls her close, meeting in a kiss as she closes the distance between them, and Trixie readily responds.

“Thank you for telling me.” Katya speaks when they pull away, and Trixie leans into her side to snuggle her again.

“Thank god. If we had to fight it would have killed me.”

“How did Pearl take it?”

Trixie lifts her head to see that Katya’s looking at her, and they smile at each other.

“She was surprisingly okay and appreciated that I wanted to clear the air. She’s going on a big world tour and said it was for the best anyway.”

“And you’re okay? You guys were together for a long time.”

“Trust me, Katya, I’ve never been more okay with anything in my life. I have you.”

—–

#twist of fate #katyahzamo #lesbian au #slow burn #mutual pining #trixya #soft smut #rpdr fanfiction

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