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leftneb · 1 month ago

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There is Something Seriously Wrong with this Logo..... Chapter Two

So. Lots of you have seen this post by my dear partner ( @lailau7904 ) in which the Williams F1 design team get absolutely torn to bits. In the case you haven't read it yet I highly recommend you do because a) it's really fucking funny and b) it makes what I'm about to tell you even funnier. Though you don't have to, this post touches on entirely different things still regarding this one goddamn logo.

The original post starts like this:

Innocent enough, we made an assumption in good faith that the logo displayed on the Wikipedia page would be the same one as the official version used by Williams. Buckle the fuck up because I'm about to tell you why that was the worst mistake we could have made.

Please. Please I beg of you keep reading this took YEARS off our lifespans. Like the original post was fun and all but it was merely the top of the iceberg. If this were an hbomberguy video this would be the part where he reveals that the background was a greenscreen the whole time. More below the cut!!! :333

The Truth

Already after only a few hours after hitting "post" on the dissection, people started pointing out to us that we'd missed an absolutely crucial detail on the Wikimedia page we got the logo from, pay careful attention:

See THIS?

Yeah this means that that image is not, and never was, the official logo of Williams. All along it had been the work of a Wikipedia user by the name of Juanchocarbonero. Here you can even see the (admittedly painful) history of the file as provided by Wikimedia, this image was uploaded all the way back in 2016, it even underwent an update when the team changed their colour scheme to a lighter blue without getting fucking fixed.

But to me the absolutely most painful part about this page is the "File Usage" section. Which gives you a quick preview of just how deep the goddamn disease that is this piece of graphic design sin really spreads.

And just to clarify: the official version of the logo used by Williams on merch etc is perfectly fine. It's a nice piece of graphic design. I still quite like it. But the story doesn't end there. Not even close.

Consequences

When you look up "williams logo" on Google the image provided by Wikimedia the very first result that pops up, if you're looking for a high-quality .png of this logo that, logically, is what you'll end up using. And I mean, why wouldn't you? What reason do you have not to use it? As long as you don't look to close (oops) it's a perfectly fine, high-definition, clean and transparent image of the logo! No shit people are going to use it!

But this raises a question: Why IS it the most widespread version of the logo? That's fucking weird isn't it? Surely if the actual logo used on ex.: the official Williams F1 website (which, again, is perfectly fucking fine) was available they would've just used that, right?

Now. Small problem. If you want you can go ahead and open whatever search engine you use, if you do that I'm gonna need you to type in "Williams logo" into the search bar, and just try finding a picture that is

of the actual official logo (you can tell the bootleg from the real thing by checking if the middle segment of the W has spiky ends or flat ones. We're looking for flat ones here)

high quality (no pixels or blurring visible to the naked eye)

a transparent png (none of that chequered background bullshit)

NOT a logo with any words (such as: Williams or Racing) visible in it. those don't count.

If you didn't feel like doing any of that, I'll just tell you the answer: you fucking can't. Nothing like that EXISTS. The closest I could get are these two, both of which are mid to ass quality, so they don't count either.

No sensible individual is going to scroll google search results for 5 minutes straight just so they can use a 200x200 image, especially when they think a perfect alternative is right there.

I even found several recoloured versions of the diseased logo, including one as a sticker on Redbubble! Fuck me that's a horrible sight!

The Search

Because I wrote the previous paragrahps after we'd figured out exactly what had happened, you might be under the impression that by this point in trying to answer the question "Why the fuck is that image on Wikipedia instead of, idk, the real fucking thing?" we'd at least established the existence of said "real Williams F1 logo". You'd be wrong, because for somewhere around 24 hours after we'd made the initial, horrifying discovery of just how fucked the Wikipedia version is, we genuinely could not tell if that was the official logo or not.

The ones displayed on their website weren't at all downloadable or even copyable, a non-ass quality of the damn thing just didn't seem to exist anywhere, so we didn't dare draw any conclusions. And we were still foolishly operating on the assumption that Wikipedia wouldn't just lie to us. (this is why your teachers hate it when you use it a source btw. like this is the ONE time it's actually been reasonable)

So, in the hopes of finding the offical Williams Racing logo, the non-scuffed one because clearly it exists, somewhere, we consulted an expert on Intellectual Property: my mother!

What this "consultation" actually roughly looked like was: we went on a walk and I started rambling about the Situation from Last Night before she cut me off and pulled up the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, aka the place they store all the Copyright information of like, everything.

BEHOLD:

(pictured; THE ACTUAL FUCKING LOGO I CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S EXISTED THIS WHOLE TIME)

Link to the actual real official legal document because goddamn this rabbithole just kept getting deeper so I like, have that now.

For refence, here is the official copyrighted version and the Wikimedia file overlayed on top of each other. As you can tell, it's disgusting. It's a poor, eyeballed imitation at best.

The copyrighted logo is horrifically low quality because, guess what, that image also isn't downloadable or copyable from the page. I really really cannot blame Juanchocarbonero for uploading his own version to Wikimedia because there legitimately does not exist a version of this logo that is freely available to the public. Like that goddamn abomiation is all we have. It's the effort that counts I guess.

My mother suggested that a possible reason for this could be avoiding the production of knockoff merch, or at least making it recognisable in case it is sold. Think about it, when your logo Doesn't Exist online, no one can use it without a license! It's kind of genius! I'm also about 99% sure they didn't orchestrate it so, it was good luck I guess?

interlude: How the FUCK does Copyright even work

I did immediately think to myself "we should REALLY fix the wikipedia version, like, stat" because I cannot in good conscience have this information available to me and not do anything with it, for the good of the people. However, this poses an issue: was the logo really not scuffed on purpose? Could it be that that version uploaded to Wikipedia isn't a 1:1 of the official logo because of copyrighting issues? To find out I had to look deeper, by comparing the official, website-available logos of various other F1 teams I came to conclusion that: [........................]

Yeah so I wrote that paragraph before actually checking for refences, but even after probably an hour of trying very hard to make sense of the copyright documents and copyright law in general we could not make sense of any of it. According to my mother (again, the closest we have to an expert, like she actually works with copyright in the context of companies but she's not specifically an IP expert. just to clarify) it's actually a lot worse for Wikipedia to have a falsified version of the Williams logo, than it would be to use the copyrighted version. This is because they're spreading misinformation by pretending that's the actual logo. And yet.

According to the Copyright Tag (the one on the top) in the Licensing section of the Wikimedia page for the thing pretending to be the Williams F1 logo, it's fine to use it because just a bunch of shapes. The thing is however, that it says that for pretty much every F1 team's logo, most of which are sourced straight from the official website. So this doesn't really mean anything tbh. According to our local expert (still my mother) it's fucking confusing. So I've decided to leave that at that.

update October 20th: as far as the Wikimedia pages on copyrighting tell me, uploading the official logo could, potentially, get me into serious legal trouble with Williams because of copyright laws. Which is still confusing because as said, every other team's logo is sitting uncontested on their respective Wikipedia pages. So basically we still don't know.

Okay. Backtrack. We forgot to ask something very important:

HOW?

HOW does one fuck up a perfectly fine logo THAT BAD.

WHY does one make their own scuffed tracejob and HOW does it end up like THAT. Clearly something must have gone horrifically wrong for it to end up like that.

I have a theory as to what might have happened:

It was either drawn or painted by hand, for a physical paintjob it's actually sort of impressively precise, but still objectively fucked. For a while I outright refused to believe that it could have been done in a digital program with the types of mistakes that were made, but you'll see this theory (partially) disproven later on so I retract it for now.

Operating on the assumption that it wasn't done digitally, a likely theory could be one involving a picture of scan of the paintjob. If the picture was taken at an angle or the logo itself was on a curved surface that COULD potentially explain the weird sort of slide everything has to it.

From then the picture might have been inserted into a digital art program, and the area of the logo might have been automatically selected using the magic wand tool, which could explain the weird growth at the top and that odd rounded off corner.

We also drew the conclusion that the file itself had been "tampered with" (aka cropped manually) by a human, because no computer would generate a resolution of 3356x2543 (you can that this is the original resolution on the Wikimedia page)

WAIT HOLD ON IS THAT IT?

The question of how the Fuck this guy managed to mess up the logo, and even more specifically why some edges were fine and some weren't (ant colony looking thing on the top left) bothered us so much that I at one point started just looking up "WIlliams logo" with the results filtered down to pre-2017 in an attempt to find when exactly the messed up logo was created. As if that would be any help.

Now what I definitely didn't expect to find was THIS

ENHANCE

Yes, you're seeing it right, THAT is the original 'Williams logo with the fucked up arm angles and lenghts'. Which PROVES that, contrary to our previous belief, Juancocarbonero was NOT the origin of the mistakes. Instead it was [checks notes] a DeviantArt user by the name of Nerdkid56?

The original DeviantArt post, which as of 9:47pm CET on the 13th of October 2024 I am about 90% sure is the actual first appearanace of the scuffed logo, is from May of 2015, which lines up well with the original upload date of the fucked up logo onto Wikipedia (November 2016). At the time that DeviantArt post was almost the only source for the logo.

And in the case you needed any convincing that those two logos are the same, here they are overlayed. You may notice that it's one shape (excluding the rounded corner which isn't visible at this resolution.)

This discovery is essential to understanding why the current scuffed version is the way it is. You might remember our confusion about the way some edges are fine while some are attempting to leave the image, the whole thing is a weird Frankensteinian amalgamation of vectors and magic wand mistakes. With this knowledge we can now assume that the mistakes happened in 2 layers:

Nerdkid56: likely just eyeballed the proportions. I'd guess he drew one arm before the other and flipped it around without really checking the angles. Also didn't give a shit about whether the arms lined up with the base or not. Legitimately bad design made in a digital program.

Juancocarbonero: why he used the scuffed W logo instead of the normal ones that were also perfectly accessible by 1 goddamn Google search is a mistery. HOW he even got access to it is another question I do not think we'll have answers to. And I've already explained some of the things we think may be responsible for the uneveness and bumps. Point is he fucked it up even more.

My theory for why Juanchocarbonero used the scuffed version instead of any other available picture goes like this: it was the only png he could find. Practically every other search result for "Williams Logo" that predates 2017 is a jpeg or absolute ass quality (sometimes both for good measure) so, despite it's flaws, Nedkid56's trace of it could have been the best option available at the time (the quality is actually very very good since it's a vector image, and I guess our friend Juanchocarbonero doesn't have an eye for design considering he didn't notice uhm, everything that is wrong with that model.)

Conclusion

The only way to right these wrongs is to go back, to the very beggining of this saga. Wikipedia. Williams I'm so sorry for what you've had to endure. I know what I have to do now. When I eventually make a proper vector image of the official logo and upload it to Wikimedia it'll all be over. And I WILL do it (but not rn this has already robbed me of like 3 whole days of my life. soon)

All of this is, admittedly inconsequental, but also absolutely fucking hilarious. Like imagine. you. one single guy, you make ONE mistake in a silly little "tracing this logo" project because you couldn't be arsed to check the angles of a silly little W. And some other guy, who you likely don't even know, over a whole ass year later, takes your flawed piece of design, makes it even worse somehow and uploads it to a site from which your little tiny innocent mistake becomes the most widespread version of a logo used by an actual real company worth over 700 Million US Dollars. HOW. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN. WHY HAS NO ONE FIXED THIS??? IT'S BEEN 9 YEARS

Just to give you a final look on just how widespread this plague is, here are some examples of media the fucked up version of the logo is featured in:

this Mr V's Garage video (the original reason we started this conversation in the first place)

the thumbnails of these two videos by Tommo, this one by FP1Will, and this one by RicksF1Addiction

such an amount of random places. likely fanmerch and fanart, and like, pretty much any place someone wanted to use the logo. it's everywhere. if you've ever had the Williams logo displayed in anything you've made I can guarantee you 99.9% chance you used the fucked version

and late thank you to everyone ( @bumblewyn @mid-nighttiger @vro0m @lemonsgovroom @mikraas @leclerced fucking hell I kept needing to add people to this list because compiling all of this took absurdly long) who pointed out our misconception in the reblogs of the original post and contributed to us actually looking into this further. and sorry to everyone for accidentally spreading misinformation lmao (it's too funny not to have been worth it tho) (ALSO it's not really our fault is it)

and to keep the tradition of ending on a live discord reaction:

#please please consider reblogging this if you read through considering the original post (as funny as it was) was just spreading misinfo #williams slander themselves enough already they don't need us to do that #f1 #formula 1 #williams #williams racing #williams f1 #james vowles #williams formula 1 #f1 analysis #technical #lai core #nebrain #neb50 #neb100 #neb200

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darcylindbergh · 4 months ago

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I want all you vote blue no matter who folks to suffer just as much as all the disabled ppl you left on the wayside as soon as biden said the pandemic was over. All of you talk about solidarity but as someone disabled by covid its all so shallow. You are all so happy to stop masking and let covid keep killing. You cant even pretend its not true. 95% of dems stopped giving a fuck as soon as their guy said it was fine to. And every time i bring this up i get told i just gotta vote biden or other people will be in danger. Like me and those like me havent already been sacraficed by all of you. You all will have to live with that because i wont be alive much longer. Vote Blue! Vote Blue! Close your ears and vote blue because now YOU are afraid.

sure, we can deconstruct this one too.

this one's cleverer than ms terf because frankly a lot of disabled people DO feel abandoned vis a vis the pandemic and masking, and that's definitely something that needs to be addressed. but this anon is not addressing THAT - they want to address how i shouldn't vote blue.

here's a couple things we can pick out:

i've recently responded to posts about gaza and terfs, so this anon has simply picked a topic i haven't addressed yet like they're playing whack a mole

blames biden specifically for their topic of choice

pitches a you versus them division while explicitly attacking the idea that the left can express sufficient solidarity (implying it doesn't matter whether you vote)

specifically disparages voting for biden while scoffing at the idea that failing to do so will place other people in danger

make it personal while using inflammatory language: "i've already been sacrificed" "i wont be alive much longer"

mocks voting blue out of fear or out of the idea that failing to vote or failing to vote blue will result in a negative outcome

of course, not voting blue (either by splitting the vote, as in 2016, or not voting at all) will certainly not result in an improved outcome for disabled people. anon doesn't even pretend like there's a viable alternative that will improve life for disabled folks in the us.

failing to vote blue will just result in republicans in power - who are as a national platform anti-masking, anti-vaccinations, anti-obamacare, and anti-healthcare reform. so what we have here is someone who is using the disabled community as a cudgel to divide the left and discourage voting - because don't you know you specifically are a bad person for being against disabled people?

anyway here's a short list of things the biden administration has done over the last 4 years to improve the situation of millions of disabled folks in the us:

Biden's first 100 days re: disability reform

Biden admin recognizes long covid as disabling

Biden admin directs $200 million to programs supporting aging Americans and their caregivers (5 days ago)

HHS strengthened rule banning discrimination based on disability (May 1, 2024)

Dept of Education cancels student loan debt for over 300,000 disabled borrowers who cannot work (Aug 2021)

Biden admin seeks to end subminimum wage for disabled (and tipped) workers (2021) - Biden's DOL has been actively working on new regulations regarding disabled worker protections, although the recent decision ending Chevron deference by SCOTUS's conservative bloc will make it much more difficult.

there's definitely still more work to do - passing the marriage equality for disabled adults act, for example, and seeing through the end of subminimum wages - but republicans aren't gonna do it. these bills died in the republican-controlled house. voting blue down-ticket is the only way folks are gonna see any progress.

#darcy answers #deconstruction #us politics

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struwberrii · 5 months ago

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haikyuu!! at an american high school ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

here are my silly headcanons on how i think the karasuno first years would act if they were american high school students teehee

pt.2 pt.3

ヽ(^◇^*)/

hinata

probably runs to lunch

one of those dorky try hards in gym

wears matching neon nike shorts and tops

literally cries if he ever gets in trouble in class

water bottle flips randomly (he never lands it)

his mom drops him off at school every morning

jumps to touch the top of every doorframe

everyone judges him and thinks hes weird but hes gen the sweetest guy if you ever talk to him

he has a phone he just cant bring it to school guys

offers to do stuff first when the teacher asks (like brings attendance to the office or asks other teachers for dry erase markers)

middle school humor (hes kinda funny sometimes tho lol)

kageyama

lets you copy his homework because he knows its all wrong (or gives you wrong answers on purpose)

wears hoodies everyday even during summer

scared to put lip balm on in public because someone once asked if he was gay because of how he applied it

friends with hinata but is kind of embarrassed of him

girls actually like him but dont talk to him because hes so quiet

probably talks to girls from different schools

plays roblox with the others when they have breaks during practice (he hasnt updated his avatar since 2016)

still reads strictly picture books

also a try hard in gym

still does streaks on snapchat

tsukishima

refuses to acknowledge hinata and kageyama outside of volleyball club (he thinks theyre embarrassing)

constantly gets in trouble for having airbuds in or being on his phone

tries putting girls onto his niche music taste then its just cigarettes after sex

if you arent one of his friends or a pretty person hes probably gonna be rlly mean to you im sorry

has hot topic pins on his bag (yamaguchi forces him to shop there with him and tsuki always ends up walking out with a new pin)

dresses very basic but still nice

bros a bully

tries to correct teachers and make the teacher look dumb

if he can tell he actually hurt your feelings he'll say it was just a joke and gaslight you

him and yamaguchi just talk shit all lunch and study period

walks to like mcdonalds for lunch sometimes

yamaguchi

bully on the DL

the only reason people know hes mean is because tsuki is his best friend

always has fruit for lunch

probably in band and plays literally the biggest instrument in the world

he always smells weirdly minty

has the silliest stickers on everything, his notebooks, laptop, headphones

bought sonny angels for him and tsuki

everyone thinks hes gay

him and yachi are art class buddies

brings his switch to school sometimes

rides his bike to school

lowkey stuck in his 2020 indie phase

yachi

has the cutest stationary

takes all her notes on her ipad and has that paper texture screen protector

ali express warrior

shes the sweetest girl in school

probably a closeted lebanese

already has her drivers permit (probably gonna be the first person in her grade with a license)

packs her own lunches everyday in bento boxes

has a private instagram account with like 20 followers and declines everyone she doesnt know personally

always has lotion, gum, perfume, medicine, chargers, everything. she is not taking any chaces

shes like if the 2019 soft girl pinterest aethetic became a person

reminds teachers about the homework

secretly watches youtube during class

she does NOT play about her art projects

her and yamaguchi trade stickers

probably still uses that 2019 kanken vsco bookbag

⋆｡‧˚ʚɞ˚‧｡⋆

sorry guys half of this list is just me being an extreme hater and projecting

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supernovafics · 2 months ago

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series masterlist | last part — next part

pairing: modern!college!steve harrington x fem!reader, bestfriend!eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 4.4k words

warnings: explicit language, angst, mentions of reader’s strained relationship with her parents

summary: the first night in mexico with steve is not as weird as you thought it would be, but it’s hard to avoid thinking about everything that happened with eddie

CHAPTER TWELVE | ❝𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖❞

Fall Semester 2016

You figured that the first night was weird because the first night in a new place was usually always weird.

But then the next two nights were somehow worse. Alone in a room that you were slowly starting to wonder if it would ever feel like “home.”

You sat in your bed and stared up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, but when you looked at your phone, you saw that only twenty minutes had passed since the last time you’d checked it. An annoyed sigh left your lips as you closed your eyes again, willing sleep to come.

Unsurprisingly, after another few minutes, it didn’t, and that made you grab your phone and call the one person that you wanted to talk to at that moment.

When Eddie answered with a soft and tired “Hi,” you asked, “Hey, are you busy right now?”

“At one in the morning? Not really, no.” When you didn’t laugh at his joke, he became serious. “You okay?”

“This is probably dumb and I already feel that way for asking this, but can you come over?”

“Yeah, of course,” He didn’t hesitate to answer and then things got quiet for a second before he asked again. “You okay?”

“I’ll explain when you get here,” You said, not wanting to go on what you felt like would be a neverending ramble about your current thoughts over the phone. “You can even take the bed if you want. I’ll sleep on the floor. Doesn’t matter to me.”

“I’m not gonna kick you out of your bed,” You could practically hear him shaking his head at your offer. “I’ll be there in ten.”

He actually made it in five minutes and you were greeting him with a small smile and a promise to give him as many blankets as he needed to be comfortable on the floor when you opened your door.

“So, what made you wanna do this impromptu sleepover?” Eddie asked once he was settled and you were back in your bed. You knew what the lighthearted question was really saying, What’s wrong?

“I feel dumb because I should’ve known that this was gonna happen,” You said, starting your answer in the middle because you knew that he’d catch on immediately. “We both know how I am when things are too quiet. But, after my roommate situation last year, I thought this single dorm thing would be better. But, actually, it sucks. Now, I weirdly miss the nights where I had to fall asleep to the sound of her talking on the phone.”

“You’ll get used to this,” He said, but you weren’t entirely sure if that was possible. You did appreciate how encouraging he sounded, though. “Hey, do you want this old TV that my uncle’s been meaning to get rid of? It’s just sitting in my room back home collecting dust right now. You can leave it on all night and it’ll probably make it easier to sleep.”

“Shit, that makes so much sense,” You said. It was the easiest fix and you were now realizing that it probably should’ve hit you before.

“We can get it this weekend,” Eddie told you. “I’ll even give you the old VHS tapes I used to play on it all the time. Lots of horror movies.”

You let out a quiet laugh. “I don’t know if falling asleep to Friday the 13th or Halloween every night is the greatest idea.”

“Okay, yeah, makes sense. There are also some cartoons.”

You smiled then. “Now that sounds great. I get to find out what cartoons Eddie Munson loved as a kid.”

He laughed. “It was a lot of things that were just weird knockoffs of Barney because that’s all my uncle would buy.”

“That sounds very cute,” You said, still smiling. “Thank you, though. Seriously. And thank you for being here right now too.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”

Not even with Chrissy? You wanted to ask that, but you didn’t because you had a feeling what his answer would be and you didn’t want to make things weird or awkward.

So, instead, you said, “Thank you for ruining your back for me.” You shifted a bit, turning on your side toward him. “We can still switch if you want. I’m fine with taking the floor.”

“Not gonna happen,” He told you and you decided against once again trying to convince him otherwise.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Spring Semester 2018

There was a mourning period that came and went. And it didn’t even feel that overdramatic to call it that.

Stupidly, you expected to wake up the day after the moment you had with Eddie at his apartment and be completely over him— because you now knew that he’d never see you as anything other than as his best friend. There was no point in having even a little bit of hope for something equivalent to “a fairytale ending,” so you expected every other part of you to understand that too. But, apparently, an almost three-year-long crush couldn’t end that easily.

A part of you felt like you were back to Freshman year— pretending that everything was fine and normal. When, in reality, nothing was fine, and instead your life now felt like you were stuck in a really bad movie or nightmare.

You didn’t just feel hurt by the rejection— which technically wasn’t an outward rejection, but it felt just the same— you also felt embarrassed about everything you’d done over the past month. Even when days passed and the hurt faded into a wholehearted acceptance that still also felt a little sad, everything else stayed.

Steve was the only person that you could possibly admit any of this to since he was a part of the whole fake dating thing. You could tell him that it all ended up being an entire waste of time for you. However, somehow the thought of telling him only made you feel even more embarrassed.

He was so settled on the idea that this would work for you, and he continued doing things in hopes of making something happen over the last few days. It all felt so wrong now, but you simply pretended that it didn’t because you found it too hard to be honest.

You instead actively forced yourself to stop thinking about how everything had changed and how you were the only one who was aware of that fact. And it actually wasn’t the hardest thing to do. Except on the nights when it seemed as if there was nothing to do but think.

It was usually easy to drown out your thoughts with the sounds of whatever was happening within your apartment, but the circumstances were different at this moment since you weren’t in your room or the apartment at all. Instead, you were in a different country in a random bed with Steve sleeping right next to you.

You’d been exhausted after the flight and the hour drive to the fancy resort, but once you were actually settled in the huge bed that barely filled out the even bigger room, you couldn’t seem to sleep. Neither you nor Steve had been able to figure out the TV, you couldn’t even find the remote, but you figured that was fine because you thought you’d fall asleep easily. Clearly, you were wrong, though. And you now couldn’t stand to lay in the silence anymore.

You slowly pulled the blanket off of you and got out of your side of the bed— the left had been designated as yours and the right was Steve’s. The bed was also big enough that you had declined his earlier offer about putting a sort of pillow divider to make things more comfortable for you. In your head, sharing a bed with him probably wouldn’t end up being the weirdest part of this trip.

You maneuvered pretty well in the dark. Finding your sneakers that sat by your already haphazardly picked through suitcase and slipping them on, and then grabbing your phone and room key off of the nightstand and slipping both into the small pocket of the pajama shorts you were wearing.

It would’ve been easier if you just left without saying anything to Steve because you’d probably be back before he could even notice that you’d been gone. But, for some reason, it didn’t feel entirely right to do that.

“Hey,” You whispered as you stepped a little closer to him. “Steve?”

His eyes didn’t open as he shifted a bit and let out a soft, “Hmm?”

“I’ll, um, I’ll be right back.”

“Where you going?” He asked, words quiet and slightly mumbled.

“I can’t really sleep, so I think I’m gonna check out that twenty-four-hour buffet for a bit. The one that they mentioned when we were checking in.”

“Okay,” He said, eyes opening and he rubbed them for a second before pushing a quick hand through his hair and getting out of the bed.

You shook your head at his actions. “You don’t have to come.”

“I know,” He said but kept moving, standing up and going to grab his sneakers.

“You really don’t have to come,” You told him. “I already feel bad about waking you up.”

“It’s the middle of the night, and Robin told me that if anything bad happens to you during this trip, she’ll kill me.”

Hearing that made you laugh, and it didn’t entirely surprise you. “When did she say that?”

“Yesterday, when we were all watching TV at your place,” He answered as he grabbed his phone and pocketed it in his sweatpants. “It reminded me a lot of the game night conversation.”

“It also felt like The Godfather to you?” You asked, pulling open the door as he walked over to you. Abruptly going from the darkness in the room to the harsh and bright lighting in the hallway made you squint.

“Yeah, it did,” Steve told you and then rubbed his eyes again. “Jesus, it’s really bright out here.”

“Please go back to sleep. I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“Wow, good to know that you want me to get murdered by your friend,” He joked.

You smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I promise I’ll protect you.”

He kept walking with you, though— heading down the hallway toward the elevators— instead of turning around and going back to the room. You wondered if Robin hadn’t playfully threatened him (in your head, the only way you could imagine it was playful) would he still be this adamant about being with you right then.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

“Did we really come here just so you could get cereal?”

“I told you not to come,” You said as you picked around the dry bowl of Cheerios. “Also, nothing would have happened to me if I was alone right now. Unless you think that that drunk couple would’ve kidnapped me or something if you weren’t here.”

You gestured in the direction of said couple that were the only other people at this buffet aside from a few workers; they were sitting barely twenty feet away from you and Steve and looked as if they were in their entirely own world as they shared a bowl of ice cream.

Both you and Steve abruptly looked away when they started passionately making out with each other.

You let out a quiet laugh. “Wow.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Steve started, grabbing a handful of cheerios from your bowl. “I don’t think kidnapping you would’ve been on either of their minds right now.”

You weren’t going to admit it, but you were actually glad that he stayed with you. Sitting at this random table with him in this near-empty room was a lot better than being alone with your thoughts.

You suddenly wondered what time it was, but you also didn’t care enough to check your phone. “What time do we have to meet your parents in the morning?”

“They wanna get breakfast at eight,” He answered, and you nodded at that. “Apparently, they’re really excited to see you.”

You gave him a skeptical look. “Normally, I would think that’s a good thing, but is it in this case?”

Steve shrugged. “Yes and no. At this point, I think it’s just gonna be a lot more of interrogating you— them trying to see if you’re truly the “right person for me” and all that bullshit. Pretty much the same thing that happened at the dinner, but it’ll probably feel a little worse since we’re gonna be seeing them a lot for the next few days. But still, even if they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t tell me to break up with you or anything, they’re mainly just happy that I’m in something serious.”

You nodded again. “I know your parents can be super intense and overbearing, but in some weird way, I think it’s actually kinda nice that they, at least, care, I guess, about your “love life.” I sometimes wish mine did.”

Steve shook his head. “Yeah, but mine don’t actually care, though. They’re only so focused on my love life because they care about themselves and their image.”

Maybe that should’ve been obvious to you. Because hearing him say that, and when you thought about all of the other things that he had told you before about his parents, it made a lot of sense. “Okay, I fully take back my previous statement.”

“What’s up with your parents, though? You never really talk about them,” Steve said. “How do they feel about you going on vacation with a guy you just met?”

You shrugged halfheartedly. “I don’t know how they feel about it because I kinda forgot to tell them. Well, not kinda, I did. I did forget to tell them about this.”

It had been the farthest thing from your mind. And deep down, you could even admit that you purposely pushed away the thought of telling them because you knew that they probably wouldn’t have cared that much about it, anyway.

“Oh,” Steve said, and then things became quiet. You wondered how insane you probably sounded to him right then, or how fucked he must’ve thought your relationships with your parents were if you didn’t tell them about this. “Okay, so if I don’t end up getting murdered by Robin after this trip, it’ll definitely be your dad then.”

You were immediately grateful for his lighthearted comment. You could feel yourself inwardly sighing in relief. The tenseness— that was probably only firmly planted on your side of things— quickly washed away. “That would never happen, but if it did, I’ll once again protect you.”

“Thank you, that’s all I ask,” He joked, smiling at you.

You were abruptly reaching over the table to fix his hair, there was a part of it that was sticking out weirdly— it was the bedhead, you figured. “Sorry, that was kinda bothering me. Anyway, this is very random and a complete one-eighty from what we were just talking about, but do you ever think about how different some things in your life would be, maybe even how better they would be, if certain things had ended up working out, or if they had ended up happening?”

Maybe it was the slight sleep deprivation that made you ask that question— that felt like it was the only thing that could correctly explain the abruptness of it. A similar version of that slightly confusing question had also been the exact thing that you’d been wondering about barely thirty minutes ago before you refused to continue to sit in silence and in your thoughts about Eddie.

You were pretty certain what your answer to it was— a resounding yes; you thought about “what-ifs” a lot, probably too much.

A part of you expected Steve to ask why you were asking that question, but he didn’t. “In what way do you mean?” He asked instead.

“Romantically,” You didn’t hesitate to answer, and then you shook your head at yourself when you realized what you were saying. “Actually, that’s probably so dumb of me to ask you since you don’t care about relationships and all of that.”

“I do think about it,” He told you. “Old relationships and stuff. What went wrong, what could’ve gone better…” He trailed off, letting out an awkward laugh and breaking your gaze. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, this is probably way too much for a middle-of-the-night conversation,” You said and realized just how true that was. You now wished that you had brought up some random lighthearted question about a movie or something.

“No, it’s fine. I’ve just never really talked about this before,” Steve said, and you were about to tell him that he didn’t have to talk about it now if he didn’t want to, but he continued before you could say anything. “Um, I think saying old relationships is a stretch, actually. I’ve mainly just thought a lot about the last one, I guess.”

The high school relationship that he had mentioned to you on Valentine’s Day, you remembered. It was the last serious one he’d been in. You wondered what it had been like, how equal parts amazing and devastating it must’ve been if it turned him off of relationships completely for the foreseeable future.

“This question is probably so stupid, so please feel free to tell me exactly that, but do you ever miss her?”

“Sometimes, sure, yeah. But, it never really happens that much anymore. And whenever I feel like I miss her now, I think it’s more of me just missing what we used to be instead of me really missing her specifically. Does that make sense?” He looked up at you then and you nodded. You honestly felt as if you understood him completely— missing the picture itself but not necessarily who was in it.

It was that analogy that somehow made you realize something that you maybe should’ve realized earlier. Specifically, during the moment also on Valentine’s Day when you asked him why he didn’t do relationships and he pretty much said that he didn’t want to get his heart broken again. He was scared of it now, of love and relationships. It wasn’t just about it being easier not being in relationships and not falling for someone, it was about it being a scary fucking thing to do again.

It honestly made a lot of sense. So much sense that you really didn’t understand why it didn’t hit you sooner.

You didn’t say this to him, though, because it didn’t feel right to, and a part of you also really hoped that you were entirely wrong about it. Because this would shift everything that you thought you knew and understood about him.

It would be a thousand times easier if you solely took everything that he previously said to you at face value. If your understanding of him and who he was and what he wanted was as simple as what he had told you that night outside the arcade and what he’d been telling you this entire past month. He didn’t want to get involved in anything serious for simply that exact reason— he didn’t want to.

You had only nodded in response to his “Does that make sense?” question and you knew that you probably should’ve said actual words, but you couldn’t think of what exactly to say right then. And then Steve was speaking again before you could figure something out.

“And I guess that’s when I kinda think about that question you asked— wondering about how different things would be if it all had actually worked out,” He said. You’d completely forgotten that that question had even started this conversation. “But, it’s kinda hopeless and dumb to think about it, though, right? Because the outcome can never change, so what’s the point of even wondering about it?”

“Yeah, exactly,” You said softly, abruptly thinking about Eddie again. “What’s the point…”

Steve looked at you for a second before giving you a small smile. “Why was that question on your mind at,” He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “One-thirteen in the morning?”

You suddenly felt really close to telling him what happened at Eddie’s place days ago, and the conclusion that you had come to about everything; the timing honestly felt pretty perfect. But, you still couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t about you feeling sad about the entire thing, it was about feeling stupid. And you honestly didn’t even think that Steve would judge you or think that you were stupid— he’d probably feel bad for you, you realized, which somehow felt a thousand times worse.

“I don’t know… I’m always getting randomly existential in the middle of the night, I think,” You answered, and then immediately shifted the subject. “Hey, what’s the name of your cousin who’s getting married?”

“Charlotte.”

“Okay, got it,” You nodded. “I felt like that was information I should probably know.”

“And her fiance’s name is Charlie.”

A part of you wanted to laugh, but you held it back. “Woah.”

Steve nodded, also recognizing how slightly ridiculous that was. “Yeah. Once again, I’m sorry that I’m putting you through this whole thing.”

You gave him a playful smile. “As long as you protect me from any weird family members, like I’m protecting you from Robin, I’ll be fine.”

You remembered then that this fake dating thing wasn’t at all about you anymore, it was about him. And you quickly decided that you’d make sure to play the “happy and in love” girlfriend part really well— just like he had for you this past month— so that he could get what he needed out of this. Because, at this point, that was all that really mattered.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

You gave Steve’s hand a quick squeeze. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Your parents are looking over here. Just do like a quick peck thing,” You said, looking up at him.

He didn’t question you further and instead closed the small bit of distance between you two and pressed his lips against yours. You weren’t sure if you expected it to feel weird or unnatural, but it didn’t. Actually, it happened so quickly that it really didn’t feel like anything at all.

When he pulled away, you gave him the sweetest smile that you hoped didn’t seem too exaggerated or fake, as you two continued walking toward his parents and a handful of his other family members.

That would probably be the easiest part of the next few hours. Before you were forced to embark on a hike that you weren’t at all excited for, but Steve couldn’t get you two out of. It was during breakfast when his mom mentioned it and she was so adamant about making you and Steve come along too.

“It’s gonna be fun. According to the tour guide, we’re going to get to see the prettiest view of a waterfall,” Anne had said and you finally nodded and agreed to go because you knew that she wasn’t going to take Steve’s attempts to say no as an answer.

Now it was two hours after that forced yes and you were in an outfit that didn’t feel entirely great for a hike— denim shorts and a black tank top— but it was the best that you could do; you hadn’t prepared “hiking outfits,” or any sort of workout attire for that matter. And walking over to Steve’s parents and other family members, which he quickly whispered to you were a few of his cousins and aunt and uncle, and seeing them look a lot more prepared than you were, didn’t do much to ease your sudden out-of-place feelings.

“We still have a few minutes before we have to leave, come to the gift shop with me,” Anne said to you before either you or Steve could say any sort of greeting to her and his dad.

You gave her a small smile and let your hand drop from Steve’s. “Okay.”

You met his eyes for the briefest second and he gave you an encouraging look, and then you were following his mom to the gift shop that was right next to the lobby.

“How’s everything going?” Anne asked you as she started looking around the small shop, stopping at a shelf of ceramic mugs.

The question felt weirdly vague, but you still answered it as if you weren’t slightly confused. “It’s been good. Thank you again for everything. You really didn’t have to invite me to this whole thing.”

“Yes, of course, no problem. Tom and I are happy you’re here,” She smiled at you. “And we can tell that Steve is too.”

Inwardly, you waited for the shoe to drop. For her to suddenly come out and say that she and Tom actually hated you because you weren’t from “their world” and you hadn’t been handpicked by them.

However, with what Steve reminded you about last night, you remembered that it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about them liking or not liking you as a person, it was about them being happy that Steve was simply in a “serious relationship.” And all you and him had to do was show that.

“I’m glad that you guys approve of our relationship,” You said, looking away from the bracelet in your hand that cost way too much and made you realize that this gift shop was way too fancy. You met Anne’s eyes. “Steve was worried about that. It was why he waited so many months before telling you guys about us.”

“Well, it’s probably obvious that you’re not exactly who we would’ve chosen for him. We always wanted him to be with a certain type of girl from a specific kind of family, you know?” You nodded at her words because it felt like that was all there was to do. “But, maybe this is better for him; at least, for now. And it’s so easy to see that you make him happy— probably more than Nancy ever did all those years ago— so that’s great.”

Nancy. Finally knowing her name made her feel more real to you. You still knew absolutely nothing about her, though, aside from the fact that she and Steve had been happy and in love at one point in time.

You weren’t entirely sure how to respond to Anne’s words that felt like the kind of compliment that was actually more of an insult. It was almost funny because there it finally was, somewhat of a shoedrop. She really didn’t like you.

But, clearly, the show you and Steve were putting on was working, and you were inwardly sighing in relief at that realization because that was all that mattered. Ultimately, you decided to simply smile at her. “Thank you. He makes me really happy too.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

next part!

taglist (lmk if you want to be added or taken off<333); @eddiernunson , @loulouloueh , @the-aster , @blckburd , @totally-bogus-timelady , @yujyujj , @irhdifartzamfyaa , @mochminnie , @munsonssweets , @blckbrrybasket , @xprloki , @definitionwanderlust , @dwcode , @sun-fiower-seed , @keerysfolklore , @damon-loves-pie , @lodeddiperrodrick , @bisexual-and-intellectual , @munsonburn3r , @negomi123 , @khena , @facexthexsunshine , @seatbacksandtraytables , @suckerfordylansstuff

(if your user is crossed out it means i can’t tag you</3)

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x fem!reader #eddie munson x reader #bestfriend!eddie munson #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington angst #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fic #stranger things fluff #stranger things imagine #steve harrington imagines #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington series #stranger things series #stranger things fic

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blorbocedes · 7 months ago

Note

Why is there such intense sexual tension between gp and max

I really think the meat of the dynamic is max can trust him to be honest with him, and in turn max can be his most unfiltered honest self.

the driver and race engineer dynamic is a very intimate one. if you think of the car and the driver as the horse, the raw power that wins the races, then your race engineer is your rider -- calm and firm in guiding you to victory. f1 is a huge team production, each driver has a whole factory of people behind him making sure everything goes smoothly. but during the race the driver's only direct connection to the team is the voice in his ear, relaying strategy, warning them of other cars and track limits, encouraging them and even admonishing. this is the man you trust with your life, literally, coming out of blind spots like out of the monaco tunnel and trusting your engineer to tell you whose behind you.

with max and GP, GP's been his race engineer since 2016. that's a very long time and a very long relationship. max is obviously redbulls golden boy and literally everyone's job in the team is to keep him happy, from his tp to helmut it's all praise (and he's doing an outstanding job to get it), but GP in a way is the only person who isn't and by the function of his job can't be a yes man to max. he has to relay him the truth. you'll see GP isn't often impressed by max, and even bets against him making pole. The guy who knows your data and braking points and how you keep crossing over track limits isn't gonna be too impressed by you even if you're god's gift to racing. He makes max earn his post race praise. He's even curt, and outright direct when max is whining on radio. Likewise, max knows he can be aggressive in high pressure situations, yelling at him to not talk to him in the braking zone and that GP can take handle him. There's trust in that too. And if he feels he went too far, he will sheepishly get GP ice cream post race. Their dynamic on radio is one that makes us the viewers we're witnessing a couple having a domestic tiff. that's because GP gives back as good as he gets. He doesn't coddle max, if max makes the wrong call then GP will call him out on it. my favourite radio is when max was yapping why didn't we do etc etc and GP was straight up do you want to switch jobs? how about you do your own next lap.

this is the man you can be your worst self in high stress situations to and he will take you as you are. that's basically a marriage.

obviously despite all the headache max causes, GP loves working with him. he literally said max is the driver he wants to retire with. he has a photo with max in his living room, instead of his wife 😭 likewise, max literally has a clause in his contract that he gets GP. max is someone who is loyal to a fault and GP's been with him since his very first f1 win. that's his emotional regulator baldie.

the sexual tension comes from the fact that GP is 17 years older than him and max wants to get rawed by him 🧑🏻‍🦲❤️😋

#max/GP #max verstappen #gianpiero lambiase #drivers and their engineers #blorbocedes ask

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lemoncrushh · 5 months ago

Text

This Is Me You're Talking To

Summary: You and Harry are divorced, but you both still have feelings for each other.

Warnings: Divorce, smut (sex with the ex), angst, lots of feelings

Word count: 3924

A/N: Written in 2016. Inspired by the song of the same name by Trisha Yearwood. Obviously, this isn't for everyone, but it's very personal to me and one of my favorite things I've written. Please be kind.

Hate is a strong word. At one time you might have felt like you hated him. But it had been a year now since the divorce and you'd both moved on. You'd resolved that you just weren't meant to be together and were never really on the same page. In the beginning of the relationship, you'd convinced yourself that you were okay with his busy lifestyle and the fact that your time together was limited. But after five years of marriage and two kids, you'd come to resent him for that exact fact, and you finally agreed it was time to separate.

Two months ago, you were out with friends for a long overdue girls' night out, the kids staying the night with your mother. You hadn't expected to run into Harry. You saw him regularly when you would drop the kids off for their time with him, but other than discussing their needs, you didn't speak to him very much. It just wasn't necessary. Knowing what he was doing with his personal life was no longer your business and frankly you didn't care.

So, when you were about to make your way to the bar behind your friends, you stopped in your tracks when you saw Harry slipping his arm off the back of a beautiful brunette. One of your friends twirled around to give you a wide stare, the other muttering "oh shit" and asking if you were okay. You rolled your eyes and assured them you were fine before continuing to the bar.

After ordering your cocktail, you caught a glimpse of Harry looking your way out of the corner of your eye. Quickly turning back to the bartender, you gave him a smile and a healthy tip when he handed you your glass.

"Y/N," you suddenly heard in an all too familiar voice.

"Hi, Harry," you sighed, barely looking at him.

"Out with some friends?" he asked with a weak smile. You knew that smile. You knew all of his smiles, actually, and what each one meant. This was his nervous smile.

"Yeah," you replied emotionlessly before taking a sip from your straw.

"You look amazing," he commented, stepping closer to you.

You shut your eyes for a moment, telling yourself his words didn't mean a thing. "Thanks," you said, eyeing one of your friends in hopes that she was ready to move to a table.

"How are the kids?"

"Fine," you nodded. "They're at my mom's."

"Good. I'm looking forward to seeing them next weekend."

You continued to nod, having nothing to add.

"How've you been?" Harry inquired.

"I-"

"Baby..." you heard a female voice from behind Harry. You saw her painted nails on his shoulder before you saw her face. "Let's go sit over there."

"Love, this is Y/N," said Harry, gesturing toward you. "Y/N, this is Sharla."

It took all you had not to quirk a brow, but instead you extended your hand, shaking the other woman's.

"Lovely to meet you," you smiled with pursed lips.

"You too," she said nonchalantly before releasing her hand from your grip and placing it on Harry's bicep.

"Well, I guess I'll...see you..." Harry grinned shyly.

"Yep," you nodded once more.

"Good for you," you suddenly heard behind you as Harry and the brunette walked away.

"I'm proud of you, Y/N," your other friend said as she wrapped her arm around your neck.

You let out a breath. "Gotta admit," you muttered, "that was harder than just seeing him when I drop the kids off."

"Well of course it was. Is that the first woman he's dated since you?"

"I have no idea," you replied, turning around. "But that's the first time I've met one."

"C'mon hon," bestie number one looped arms with you. "We're gonna find you another man."

You chuckled as you walked with your friends to the other side of the room.

"What the fuck kind of a name is Sharla?"

"Desiree had a little cold this week," you explained as you handed your two-year-old to Harry's open arms. "She seems okay now, but I put some medicine in the bag in case you need it."

"Alright," nodded Harry before turning to his daughter. "You feeling better now, Desi?"

Desiree beamed her angelic smile. "Better."

Harry gave her his mini version of a fist bump before giving her a kiss on her forehead. "Wanna watch TV with your brother?" Bringing the little girl into the living room, he set her on the sofa next to her four-year-old brother.

"Cameron, get your shoes off the couch, please," you instructed.

The little boy kicked his shoes onto the floor without prying his eyes from the cartoon he was watching. Crossing your arms, you turned to Harry.

"Something smells good," you commented.

Harry grinned. "Thought I'd make some spaghetti."

"Look at you," you quipped. Then you gazed around the room. "Where's Sharla?"

Sharla had been at Harry's the last two times you'd dropped the kids off. Though she'd been pleasant enough, you could feel her eyes throwing daggers at you the entire fifteen minutes you were there.

"Um...dunno," replied Harry with a shrug.

"She was busy?"

Harry ran a hand through his hair. "We broke up."

"Oh," you said softly. "I'm sorry."

Harry raised his brows and quickly looked away. "Yeah."

Biting your lip, you watched Harry turn for the kitchen where he stirred the contents of a large pot.

"Well, I guess I'll be going," you muttered.

"You um..." Harry stumbled, "wanna stay? For dinner?"

"Oh, I don't-"

Your words were quickly interrupted by the buzz of a timer.

"Damn, forgot about the garlic bread." Harry hastily opened the oven door and grabbed the baking sheet, not bothering to put an oven mitt on.

"Shit, bloody he-"

"Harry!" you exclaimed, just as he dropped the baking sheet on the counter.

"Sorry," he said, thinking you were upset at his cursing in front of the children.

"What do you think you're doing?" you scoffed.

You grabbed his hand and pulled it to the sink, running cold water over it. You could hear Harry's heavy breaths as he stood next to you, his chest heaving.

"You can't just grab something out of the oven without gloves, Harry," you scolded.

"I know," he mumbled. "I was..."

You lifted your eyes to him, his pouty lips partially open as heavy breaths continued to puff out.

"You were what?" you inquired.

"Distracted."

Exhaling slowly through your nose, you averted your gaze and returned to the task at hand.

"Looks okay," you cleared your throat, turning off the water. "Doesn't seem to be burned too bad. But you might wanna put some ice on it."

"Thanks," Harry said so low that you barely heard it.

Reaching in the freezer for an ice pack, Harry turned his back to you as you dried your hands on a dish towel.

"Daddy!" squealed Cameron as he came trotting into the kitchen. "Are we having pasketti?"

"We are, little man," Harry confirmed.

Cameron danced to the table, taking his seat without being told. Walking over to him, you kissed him on the cheek.

"Goodnight, baby, Mommy's going." Giving him a hug, you walked past Harry to kiss your little girl goodbye.

"You sure you don't wanna stay?" you heard Harry ask.

Lifting Desiree in your arms and propping her on your hip, you returned to the kitchen. "I don't know..."

"There's plenty of food," Harry gestured toward the pot. "Way more than we'll eat."

"It does smell good," you hesitated.

Harry gave you a smile. This was different than his nervous smile from earlier. This was his 'c'mon, you know you want to' smile. Stepping up to the stove, he grabbed the wooden spoon he'd been stirring the sauce with, bringing it over to you, his hand underneath to catch any drops.

"Give it a taste," he said.

You let him gently lift the spoon to your mouth as you tasted the delicious Italian seasonings.

"What do you think?" he asked.

You swallowed. "I think I'm staying for dinner."

Harry continued to smile as you walked over to the table and set Desiree in her high chair. Harry got a bowl ready for Cameron and set it in front of the patiently waiting boy. Then he did the same for Desi, giving both children a sippy cup of juice. You sat next to your daughter as you watched her starting to make a mess.

"Desi, you're gonna get more on your tray than in your mouth," you chuckled.

"She likes it that way," joked Harry.

You couldn't help but beam at him as he laid a plate of spaghetti and garlic bread in front of you, another plate for himself next to you. Returning to the kitchen once again, he uncorked a bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

"Cheers," he said when he handed a glass to you and sat down. You clinked glasses and took a sip.

"Oh that's the good stuff," you commented.

Harry winked. "You noticed."

Early in your relationship you'd confessed to Harry that you had a weakness for red wine. One night he surprised you with an expensive bottle that knocked your socks off. After that, he always made it a point to get it again for special occasions.

"What did you get this for?" you inquired.

"No real reason," Harry shrugged.

You eyed him as he took another sip and set his glass down, digging his fork into his spaghetti. Raising a brow, he looked at you out of the corner of his eye until you quickly picked up your own fork.

The four of you had a pleasant dinner. For some reason it didn't feel odd or uncomfortable. It felt like old times, although your kids were a year older.

After the meal, you helped clean up, wiping Desiree's face and setting her down to let her run back to the living room. Just as you were cleaning off the table and Harry had put the leftovers in the fridge, you turned around to find him pouring more wine.

"I hope you're not pouring that for me," you scoffed.

"Why not? You always used to drink two glasses. Sometimes three."

"That's when I didn't have to drive home," you rolled your eyes.

"Who said you have to now?" Harry asked before taking a sip from his glass.

You narrowed your eyes. "Harry."

"Wha'?" he sounded.

Shaking your head, you were about to reach for your purse that you'd left on the counter when Desiree emerged from the living room and took your hand.

"Mommy!" she said with excitement.

"What baby?" you asked her.

"Sit wiv meee," she replied, tugging on your fingers with her tiny hands. You followed her lead into the living room where she pointed to the sofa and demanded for you to sit. When you obliged, she climbed into your lap. Looking up, you saw Harry with a massive grin on his face. Then he crossed to the room to Cameron's other side and sat down beside him.

"What are we watching?" you whispered in Desiree's ear.

"Pooh bear!" she answered.

You and Harry sat through the rest of Winnie The Pooh and half of some other program that came on after it until you realized both kids were asleep. With delicate precision, you rose from the sofa with your baby girl in your arms, and Harry scooped up a sleeping Cameron. He followed you down the hall until you stopped at Desi's room and laid her down in her bed. Pulling the covers over her and pushing her hair back from her face, you kissed her temple. Then you met Harry in the hallway and traded places, giving Cameron a goodnight kiss. Shutting their doors, your eyes met Harry's and you gave him a tight-lipped smile before heading to the bathroom. When you came back out, he was standing in the kitchen again.

"Thanks for the dinner," you said softly. "It was nice. You know, to be with the kids and put them to bed."

"Yeah, usually I have to read them at least two stories each," he smiled. "Just something about their mum, I suppose."

You blinked, lowering your gaze. "Well anyway, thanks. I'll come pick 'em up Sunday."

"Wait..." he insisted when you turned for the door. "You're not gonna finish your wine?"

You twirled back around, the full glass of wine still sitting on the counter. "Um..."

"It's your favorite," said Harry, lifting the glass. "It'd be a shame to waste it."

"Harry," you shook your head, "what are you doing?"

He shrugged. "Wha'? I'm not doing anything. I just thought you'd like to have your wine. Just because we're divorced doesn't mean we can't be in the same room, does it?"

Licking your lips, you dropped your bag and keys on the counter again. He was right. It wasn't like it meant anything. You could be civil. "Okay."

Taking the glass from him, you followed him into the living room and sat on the couch.

"How's work?" he asked you.

"Ppppffff" you sounded, nearly spitting out your wine.

"Was that not a good question to ask?"

"You wanna talk about my job?" you rolled your eyes.

"I just wanna know how you're doing, Y/N," Harry remarked. "I know you don't believe it, but I do still care."

You sighed, sitting back in your seat. "It's fine. Work is good. No major complaints."

"Good," Harry nodded, "I'm glad."

His eyes seemed to be burning into yours so you had to look away, taking another sip of wine.

"Have you been seeing anyone?" you heard him ask and you flinched.

"Why?"

"I just wondered. You deserve to be happy, Y/N."

You huffed and shook your head.

"What did I say?" he looked taken back.

"Sorry, I just don't get out as much as Harry Styles. I don't have the opposite sex throwing themselves at my feet. Or the same sex, for that matter."

"Y/N..."

"What happened with Sharla?" you asked, rolling your eyes again as you pronounced her name.

Harry let out a low, short chuckle. "Sharla...was...not for me."

"But she seemed so perfect for you, Harry," you teased.

He narrowed his eyes. "No, she wasn't. Far from it."

Your expression softening, you tilted your head. "So what did happen?"

"She didn't want to be with someone who had kids," he swallowed. "Simple as that."

"I'm sorry," you muttered.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "It's alright. There were other things too, but that was sort of the deal breaker."

"What other things?" you asked curiously.

Harry looked at you and puckered his lips in thought, no doubt trying to decide whether he wanted to divulge this information.

"She wasn't very bright," he stated matter-of-factly.

You let out a giggle, covering your mouth with your hand.

"She once asked me what country Alaska was in."

"Oh my god," you laughed harder.

Harry chuckled, shaking his head. "I know. That shoulda been a red flag."

"Poor thing," you said.

"Who? Her or me?"

You threw your head back laughing some more until you realized you should keep your voice down since the children were sleeping. You finished the rest of your wine in one large gulp, setting the glass on the coffee table. It was then that Harry got up from his seat and walked to the kitchen, returning with the wine bottle.

"Harry!" you exclaimed when he started pouring into your glass.

"Not much left," he insisted. "We need to finish it."

With a scoff, you took the glass. You figured you might as well. You were already feeling tipsy, so it wasn't like you'd be driving right then anyway. Besides, as much as you wanted to deny it, you were feeling comfortable with Harry for the first time in over a year. Maybe it didn't have to mean anything. It was just...nice.

"Oh hey, I wanted to show you something," Harry finally said after you'd been sitting in silence for a few moments. Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he swiped the screen until he stopped on something that made him smile. "Here."

You took the phone from him and noticed it was a video. Pressing the screen, it came to life. In the center was Cameron sitting on the floor, a toy drum between his legs. You could hear the sound of a guitar strumming in the background and a voice singing, no doubt Harry's. As soon as Cameron started banging on the drum, little Desiree showed up in the screen, doing her best to dance to the mixed rhythms. You watched the video in awe, smiling from ear to ear. By the end, you were all choked up.

"That was great," you commented, handing the phone back to Harry. You sniffed and wiped your eyes.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

You nodded. "I loved that. You're..."

As your voice trailed off, you felt Harry shift on the sofa, sliding closer to you.

"What was that, love?"

"You're such a great father," you declared. "They love you so much."

"I love them, too."

"When did you take that?" you asked.

"Bout a month ago," he replied. "I kept meaning to show you, but forgot."

You nodded silently. Looking into Harry's eyes at that moment, you felt a sudden wave rush over you, like you were being pulled under. It was like the feeling you used to get with him, when things were good. As you lifted your glass to take another sip, Harry reached for it, stopping you. Taking it from your hand, you watched him set it on the coffee table. Then scooting even closer to you, he slid his hand under your ear. When he tilted his head to kiss you, you didn't stop him. You'd known it was coming, it was one of his signature moves. But you allowed his lips to press against yours. Even when he continued with the kiss, slipping his tongue inside, you didn't stop him. Instead, you allowed your body to come alive, urging him to keep going.

Dragging his lips down your neck, he felt him hum against your skin. His hands encircled your waist, the pads of his fingers traveling up your back as your own hands got tangled in his hair.

"Harry..." you finally sounded, not really sure how you planned to end that sentence.

"Tell me," he demanded, his voice low and raspy in your ear.

"What?"

"Tell me you want me," he finished. "Just like you used to. I need to hear it again."

You swallowed hard, not immediately fulfilling his request. When he lifted his head to look at you, his emerald eyes looked dark and full of fire.

"Tell me, baby," he repeated.

"I want you, Harry," you admitted. "I want you to make love to me."

With a nod, Harry kissed you passionately before rising from the couch and reaching his hand out for you to take. You followed him into the bedroom where he kissed you again, lifting the hem of your shirt until it was over your head and dropped on the floor. You fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and removed it, adding it to the pile. You wasted no time removing your jeans and underwear before you lied down on the bed.

As Harry hovered over you, warnings began to go off in your head. It had been so long. Your body missed his so much it ached. But your head was telling you this might not be a good idea.

When his lips met yours again, however, your body won out. You were so thirsty for him, you knew you had to have him, even if it was wrong.

Neither of you said a word. Your actions and your eyes spoke everything. With heavy eyelids, slid down your body, licking and sucking your nipples the way you liked. Everything he did was the way you liked. He knew your body better than anyone had or ever could.

When he made his way between your legs, you gasped and closed your eyes. His hands on your thighs, he nipped at your clit before sliding his tongue up your slit. He worked his magic, moving in circles, slowly at first before picking up speed. You grasped at the sheets beneath you as you felt yourself reach the edge, your toes curling.

"Oh my god," you finally sounded, a low deep moan rising in your throat as you felt the orgasm rip through you.

It wasn't until you were coming down, catching your breath, that you took in your surroundings and realization hit you. This wasn't your husband. He hadn't been for a long time. You had moved on a while ago. Yet, here you were in his bed.

Kissing your inner thighs, Harry lifted his head and returned to hovering over you. You legs trembled from the aftermath as he gave you a lopsided grin.

Harry didn't ask if you were ready for him. In all your time together, he just always knew. He didn't need to ask. You were always ready for him. Your body craved him. Swiping his hand up your wetness, he used it to lubricate his erection before entering you. He thrust a few times before you turned your head to stare at the wall. You weren't sure why, but you could feel the tears coming. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, you told yourself.

Grabbing hold of your thigh with one hand, his other next to your head, Harry moved in and out at a steady rhythm until he finally slowed to a stop.

"Look at me," he breathed.

Your head still turned to the pillow, you fought back the tears.

"Please," he begged. "I'm inside you baby, you can't look at me?"

Your chest shook with sobs as you finally lifted your eyes to look into his. Although they were dry, they revealed the same feelings and emotions as yours.

"I love you, Y/N," he declared. "I never stopped."

As another tear trickled down your cheek, you lifted your hand to touch Harry's face.

"You still love me too, don't you?" he asked.

Biting your lip, you nodded. Harry leaned his forehead against yours.

"Then what are we doing? We should be together."

A tiny sound rose from your throat as you threaded your fingers through his hair. Lifting his head slightly, Harry looked at you.

"Yeah?"

"Yes," you heard yourself agree, making Harry smile.

"God, I've missed you," he groaned, his hips slowly pumping once more. "So much."

"I missed you too," you admitted, your eyelids fluttering from the sensation.

"Feels so good."

You nodded again. You couldn't deny it. He felt incredible. He'd always been the best, the only one who could make you feel this way. So loved, so desired, so wanted.

You came together within minutes, panting with clumsy kisses. Afterwards, Harry turned out the light and pulled the covers over you. He didn't have to ask you to stay the night. Once again, he knew. He always knew.

As you lay there in the darkness, you wondered what this meant for the future, for your family. Maybe you didn't need to decide right away. Maybe you could start over, take it step by step. But one thing was certain. Wrapped up in Harry's arms was like home. And that's where you wanted to be.

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed, please like, comment, reblog or send me a msg!

MASTERLIST | KO-FI | FEEDBACK

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whilomm · 10 days ago

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and you know that theyre gonna blame leftists for the election once a fucking gain

not all the people who "dont reallt care about politics", didnt vote, that are gonna wake up tomorrow and just get confused, "huh, trump won? weird. thought people hated him" and move on their day

not the idiots who heard trump talking about lowering groceries and gas prices and genuinely thought "well, I want lower gas prices and groceries" and voted for it

not the dems for STILL running the fucking "playing all the sides" campaign, not the dems for taking so long to realize how unpopular biden is even among those who dont pay attention to jack shit ("hes old... grocery prices...gas prices..."), not the dems for continuing the condescending bullshit, not the dems for still refusing to give jack shit to the muslim americans who felt fucking betrayed and feel like its "damned if we do, damned if we dont"

not the longstanding american tradition of massive voter disenfranchisement that makes voting impossible for some, and juuusssttt inconvenient enough for others that they end up not voting (like my coworkers who didnt even REALIZE they needed to register to vote and it was too late)

no, none of those things, its the tiny ass contingent of leftists who were still deciding to not vote at all post biden dropout, and we're gonna spend the next 4 years hearing about it just like everyone blamed bernie bros for 2016 (despite literally more people flipping from bernie to hillary than flipped from hillary to obama in 2012)

#buzzy #uspol #us elections #us politics

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raayllum · 2 months ago

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Transcript of Aaron Ehasz Interview (Sept 2024)

Podcast link here. Transcript down below with bulk under a read more.

R: Alright so welcome back to the Wordswithdragons podcast, and today I’m joined by a very special guest, the co-creator of The Dragon Prince, Aaron Ehasz.

A: Hello, thank you for having me today. Glad to be here.

R: Thank you so much for being here. Um, yeah, so, as we semi touched on, it is the 6 year anniversary of The Dragon Prince this September 14th.

A: Yeah.

R: Do you have any thoughts, reflections, feelings about the show having gone on for this long and being such a big part of people’s lives?

A: I mean for starters, it’s really hard to believe it’s been on for six years. Like that seems insane to me. Cause it seemed like we had — Justin and I had been working on it for so long before it finally came out because we had worked on the story and then gotten feedback, and help in improving that pitch and bringing it out and we had it set up at Netflix, and we had to — we wrote the pilot obviously, and we didn’t know where we were gonna produce it, and found Bardel. So there was so much time between even just starting to think about it and when it came out.

R: Yeah, cause that was like 2015, right?

A: Yeah, I guess we started the journey in 2015 and we got with Bardel by the end of 2016, and it got released evidently in 2018, so... Yeah, yeah, cause I remember even we were writing kind of the end of season 3 when we had that panel with Marco and named the character after Marco.

R: Oh yeah.

A: The character [chuckles] from the first episode, we only had an opportunity for him to say his name out loud in that last episode because we were writing the ending while we were showing the episodes for first time, so. Anyway, that’s my reflection, it’s great it’s been six years.

R: Yeah. I know The Dragon Prince has been a really like — both life changing and I think, like, life affirming experience for a lot of people, myself included. So we just really appreciate everybody’s hard work on the show and are very excited for season 7 and hopefully beyond as well. As well for any future projects that Wonderstorm comes out with, like Bonders sounds amazing.

A: I feel — well first of all, thank you for saying that it’s life affirming, that’s such a nice thing to hear about something you’ve worked on, but I also agree that Justin and I feel a ton of gratitude for the whole team and the work and heart that everyone put into making this. I think people wanted it to be meaningful and special and that takes a certain kind of energy and vulnerability to build something like that, that you share, and our whole team really did give that in building the show.

R: Yeah. I think for sure. I think that’s like, um, I was even — I was rewatching some of the show earlier for — for a parallel, and it was the scene between Avizandum and Zubeia when she goes to him in like her kind of corruption dream semi-nightmare, and obviously that’s such a heartfelt, touching scene, and it’s always so strange. Because on the one hand, you should hate Avizandum, he killed Sarai and Rex Igneous has rightful criticism of him, but then you watch that scene of him and he really did love his family, so I think the show being able to draw out those strong, conflicting emotions for so many of the characters is one of the reasons why it connects with people to the degree that it does.

A: And that’s one of the themes you probably see in the show — just gonna make a quick —

R: Yeah, yeah for sure.

A: Avizandum, which is that being a good dad can make up for awful lot of [R laughs] monstrosities, as long as you’re doing it in the name of being a good dad. I’m joking, uh. Of course, yeah, Avizandum was always meant to be a complicated figure like many of our characters.

R: You mentioned that you guys have been working on — I think season three during this panel with Marco, or Marcos, and I remember, I think you’ve said before that the seasons get worked on concurrently, that there’s a decent amount of overlap.

A: Yeah.

R: I’ve always wondered, because we know — obviously, I’m a big Rayllum fan — but I’ve always wondered, cause I know they weren’t originally planned, and then you guys were boarding season two when you were like, “Hey, maybe this should be a thing,” and then probably like shifted and tweaked things or changed things to write more towards that in the future... Um, I’ve always wondered, if there was time, like at that time, to go back and change anything in season one for them, or the season one that we see was just like that?

A: I don’t recall there was time to change season 1 — that does happen because we are working on things in parallel because we are working on something in the script and then some time later we are working on the later stage of production, like an animatic, and we’ll be able to kind of give notes or even make changes with the knowledge of what’s coming, so that has happened. But in the case of Rayllum, I don’t think so. I mean, I think — again, I remember...

R: It was a while ago, yeah.

A: We were rekindling, or when we were realizing that something was being kindled between them, it was watching an animatic so that shouldn’t have informed our writing of season one, but our later stage stuff. But we weren’t trying to force anything so it got in there naturally and I don’t think we went back and changed anything.

R: Yeah, that’s what I’ve always — they had those kind of vibes to me from like episode two and three, obviously season two brought a lot more people on board, but I was always curious. Cause in season one, like, I think, it feels so natural, it feels so organic, and like I’ve shown — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s a great way to connect with friends and family and you kind of catch up with each other like through the show, of “oh have you seen the new season yet?” and that sort of stuff. And so when I’ve shown the show to like my brother-in-law, who is not plugged in at all, he also kind of picked up on it in season one, so I’ve always been curious.

A: You know, what else, I’ll even say, I think we initially, intentionally planned they weren’t going to be a couple. We were like “Oh yeah, no, they’re—”

R: Friends, yeah.

A: Friends, with different views of the world and they journey together, and we don’t want them to be a couple. We’re not — we’re definitely not targeting it. I think we were intentionally not targeting it, and then it was “too bad creators! [R laughs] We’re going to fall in love despite everything you’re planning.”

R: Well, that very much I think even fits what they represent to each other, of like you don’t have to do this path that you think you have to do...

A: Yeah.

R: You can be something new. I always kind of felt like Ezran and Zym were — felt very kind of like designed as foils, as like a pair, of like through Zym, Ezran learns more so like how to grow up, and they’re both like the princes who will be king, and then Callum and Rayla also kind of felt sort of like developed as a pair, in terms of like — he needs to gain more confidence, she’s pretty confident on the surface.

A: Yeah.

R: She needs to learn how to open up, he’s really good at being open especially in the beginning.

A: Right.

R: So I was always like...

A: He needs to be murdered, she needs to learn how to murder someone.

R: Yeah! They complete each other, yeah. Uh... Some other questions that I had [rapid typing]. So I guess, maybe, I have some questions that are more season specific, in respect to time, but I also had like more general questions.

A: Okay.

R: So, one of the things I’ve always love in general and really love about The Dragon Prince is its like use of philosophy and like its deeply interested in ethical and moral questions, and presenting some answers for some of them, but like are those the right answers? We don’t know.

A: Right.

R: So I know King Harrow’s choosing of Lady Justice’s blindfold is a pretty apt comparison to John Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance—

A: Yes.

R: Of, you know, you strip away everything that you could have, like advantages, disadvantages, and think, would the system work for me? Which has been useful when I’ve like, had to tutor students in philosophy actually, but I was curious, were there any like philosophical concepts or ideas that people really, or you really, wanted to work into the series? ‘Cause we have a lot of trolley problems.

A: Right. Um, probably. I mean like, I should say, I was a philosophy concentrator in college so I absorbed a lot. Things like Rawls, I had a class with John Rawls, and thought that was a really interesting concept and I liked including it, and I thought we can include it in a fun way, the idea of justice. So other philosophy probably makes its way in, it can makes its way in accidentally or subconsciously, so nothing specific right now comes to mind. I will say, as with kind of Avatar before this, I don’t like to have — I’m not trying to have a right answer, ever. I’m trying to have the characters have a deeper understanding of what they’re struggling with, and y’know, move in a direction of deeper understanding, so if anything, it’s more interesting to me to see conflicts between maybe philosophical approaches that are different and see how — Oh well, this has these kinds of results, and positives and negatives, and this has... so that the audience can have a chance to say, “Oh well okay, I have some thoughts on that,” or “here’s what I feel,” and that’s why sometimes I think we see the fandom actually kind of go back and forth—

R: Yeah.

A: On — around characters and people’s choices, and things like dark magic or Viren, which are controversial, are things where like, I do not have a strong point of view on... the kind of binary right or wrong of... Viren in the long term. He’s made a lot of wrong choices and he’s made a lot of choices for good.

R: Yeah.

A: He is an arrogant and power hungry person and he’s also a caring and loving father and someone who wants to have a positive impact on the world, right, like?

R: Yeah.

A: So those conflicts play out in him. But similarly, I think with maybe most of the philosophical ideas I can think of, I’d rather get to like a place where everyone just has a chance to entertain those thoughts and ideas and struggle with them, or hold them in an authentic way, and then can come to their own conclusions and feelings. I mean, I have some deep feelings about like, the world, and how can people be optimistic or not pessimistic or—y’know, what it means to hold onto hope or what it means to try to move past conflict, and I have beliefs that there are conflicts that get so you know, kind of sewn in, that they feel they are impossible to untangle, and especially if the game you’re playing is who started it, or who did the worst thing, where you can’t just ever untangle it. You can’t ever find a right or wrong, so how do you get past that? That’s one of the questions I was hoping Rayla, Callum, and Ezran would try to—

R: Figure it out.

A: Struggle with. Anyway, I’m giving a very long winded answer—

R: No, no.

A: That’s the philosophy that comes to mind. If something comes to mind for you, you can bring it up and I can go, “Oh yeah, that was probably influenced by so-and-so.” [R laughs] Or maybe not.

R: Well, one of the things I loved about season six was kind of — you see, even... One of the things I thought was really interesting was we see, not quite like that return to trolley problems, but we see Aaravos at the end of season 5 is telling Viren you have to make the sacrifice so that you can live, and then we see Rayla tell Callum, “Hey, if the choice ever happens, you also have to sacrifice me,” for — so Callum can live, but also for like the greater good and that sort of stuff. And then you have Kpp’Ar, who — I love Kpp’Ar, I think he’s terrible and interesting and I love him.

A: Awesome. He is — we’ll learn a little more about him in the future, but yes.

R: And obviously when Viren’s like, “A child will die,” and this is a kid that Kpp’Ar would’ve known, and we see in The Puzzle House that he loved these kids, and whatever is up with the Staff is bad enough that Kpp’Ar’s like, “Okay. I’ll make that sacrifice.” Which feels very much in a way like he’s given up on dark magic, and to a certain degree he’s both given up on the mindset of dark magic, and maybe also hasn’t given it up in the same way. Like I love that — Claudia, you know, obviously, puts Viren above all else, is she always right to do so? Maybe not, but we get why she’s doing it, that’s a hard thing to say. And then we have Callum, who also seems inclined to put Rayla above all else, and because we like Rayla more, we’re like “Yeah, he can do that, it’s okay for him to do dark magic for her, that’s fine,” even if there’s also like, consequences. Cause most characters in the show, like you said, everybody kind of wants the same thing, they wanna have a positive impact on the world, they want to protect their loved ones, but what constitutes that world, what they think is a positive impact, or who they want — how they protect those people, that’s all very malleable and can fluctuate. Viren says “Claudia, you’re on the wrong path,” and we’re like yeah, he’s right, and Karim says the same thing about Janai, like the exact same thing, and we’re like, well he’s wrong.

A: Yeah. I mean a lot of things come to mind when you’re talking through that, but one is there’s often a conflict between rigidity and rules and some kind of compassion, or emotional decision, and those decisions are hard, right? Like I dunno, maybe Kpp’Ar should’ve said, “Okay just this once, it’s Soren,” or not, I don’t know. I mean obviously Kpp’Ar had taken himself to some deep horrible place and he really had, actually. And was like, “Okay, dark magic is just corruption when you start and keep going down this path, but this Viren’s kid so I don’t know.” One of the things here, I think there’s a relationship between — you know, sacrifice plays a role here. Sacrifice and thinking about generations and generational conflict and thinking you know maybe in a way I think is interesting. I think about the beginning of season 6 when Claudia has done all of this and sacrificed another life but also sacrifices some of her soul or whatever to save her dad and he’s like “No no! This is not the way! A parent is supposed to do this for a child but never the other way around,” right? And there’s something to that I find interesting which is — it’s almost the inverse of children having the opportunity to start anew and break cycles, parents potentially have the opportunity to make sacrifices that don’t pass by burdens onto their kids, but sort of like that’s the mirror I see a little bit, in terms of how do you have generational change and evolution? It’s somewhere in younger generations being able to not get stuck on conflicts and burdens, but also the older generations recognizing that they may have to be the one to take the — and this is I think a natural... I dunno, it’s something I think about a little bit and came to mind when you were talking. So we’ll see more about what is the meaning of sacrifice and when — when do you... trade? Yeah.

R: Yeah.

A: Side note on sacrifice. You’re familiar with Game of Thrones? You’ve watched all of Game of Thrones?

R: I’m decently familiar, yeah.

A: Okay.

R: And if not, I can have Kuno explain it to me later, so.

A: One of the things I love about the sacrifice Ned made, that we didn’t realize he’d made until I think the very end of the series, we realize — a sacrifice to his kind of reputation, right? And I’m talking about him representing Jon Snow as his bastard to protect him, right? Think about that, that’s a sacrifice, he had to go through the anger — he didn’t tell his wife the truth, he didn’t tell anyone, because it was the only way to protect the child, and as a result he lived with — even though the truth is that he was a really honest, good, or evidently he didn’t go cheat on his wife, he sacrificed that part of his reputation to protect Jon, at least how I see it. I think things like that are kind of interesting. I dunno.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I think it speaks to that idea of — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s so much about choices.

A: Yeah.

R: Like one of the things I really really liked about season 6 was that, you know, Callum is like, “Okay, I’m going to get myself purified, healed of dark magic,” and Rayla was his light, which was very validating, cause I had noticed in season two there was like some framing so I was like well “Maybe, maybe” you know? And then slowburn buildup but it was — I think that was a great moment that really paid off. And he’s told “if you ever do this again, it’ll corrupt you completely.” And whether he will or won’t — I personally think that he will, but spoilers, you know — but whether he will or won’t, I think it’s really nice because now whatever choice he makes, he’s making with the full context, of what this would do to him.

A: Yeah.

R: Whereas in season two, yes he was making his choice to do dark magic then, and I don’t necessarily think he would make a fundamentally different one if he had known what it would lead to, but there’s a different kind of awareness. Like I always of it would’ve been so easy to have Harrow not know that Viren was going to kill Zym, cause that’s such an easy way to kind of let Harrow off the hook of well Viren went off and did this on his own, and Harrow had no idea, and blah blah blah, right? Cause we like Harrow, he’s a — again, he’s a good dad, we’ll forgive a lot. And instead, it’s not his idea but he’s fully aware, he signs off on it. And I think constantly pushing characters to make hard choices — kind of like what Ezran says, “these aren’t dreams, these are choices.”

A: Yeah.

R: You can choose love, you can choose to make... It’s something that makes all the characters feel so fully developed and interesting, so I always appreciate that you guys push them to make the hard choice.

A: Yeah. Cool. Thank you.

R: One question I did have is, uh, Karim is one of my favourite characters.

A: Okay. Unusual person. A lot of people hate — or love to hate...? I love him too.

R: I also love Kasef, so I think I just kind of love everyone, because I’m like well, they’re really interesting. I feel like [Karim’s] arc was one of the things I loved most about season 4 because you can see him really wrestling with his choices and I love watching him fail, cause that’s kind of all he does, so that’s always fun. But I am really curious obviously now he’s been betrayed by Sol Regem, Katolis is in ashes and maybe they’ll blame Karim for that cause Sol Regem is like — dead, and now, presumably his only hope is going to be that his sister doesn’t execute him on the spot?

A: Yeah.

R: So is there anything you can tease about Karim’s arc in season 7?

A: Yeah, so — so it’s not just Karim, there’s an army of people who betrayed Janai, and — and...

R: What do we do?

A: Yeah, what do we do? That will be something we’ll have to see them grapple with pretty much right away in the season. Especially cause [Karim’s army] showed up for this battle where they were never even — they were just planning to sweep up the ashes afterwards, so when they didn’t get the dragon support they needed, I suspect they lost really quickly.

R: Yes, yeah.

A: So uh... Yeah, but basically as of the start of season 7 — all of them are prisoners of Queen Janai and the question is — what do you do with that? What do you do when you have an entire army and your own brother who betrayed you? And so that’s — we’ll find out.

R: Yeah. [Laughs]

A: But yeah.

R: Yeah. Another question I had going forward was Terry and Claudia obviously I thought had a really beautiful relationship arc, particularly in season 6, and we saw in season 4 the lengths he’s willing to go to for her, and how Terry, I think, is a great example of how there’s a lot of character traits where we think “oh, if you’re a selfless, helpful, accepting person, you’re a good person,” and I feel like Dragon Prince does a really good job of how, Rayla’s selflessness can be great but it can also be kinda bad, or, um, Terry can be super accepting, maybe a little too—

A: Yeah.

R: —accepting sometimes, right? So I feel like at the end of season 6, it will presumably be him, Claudia, and Aaravos for a little bit now that he’s out of the prison. And it feels like maybe Terry might hit a breaking point?

A: Here’s what I will say — Terry is a really special character and if you watched him, he’s so good, and what we’ll find out is, he is — there is an episode called TRUE HEART and he is someone who has a true heart.

R: Oh that’s so sweet.

A: It’s very impossibly rare and special — but also we all understand what a true heart is in some way and we’ll learn a little more about that. But yeah, the question of what will Terry do, what can he do, is difficult because he has a very strong sense of right and wrong, but he has a very deep capacity for love and he loves Claudia with all of his heart. Where does that present an impossible conflict, it may... we’ll see a challenge.

R: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

A: I’ll also throw in like I sometimes see some parallels between Terry and Uncle Iroh—

R: Yes.

A: Though Uncle Iroh I think has a very different journey. Iroh is kind of a recovered problematic person who now has some wisdom and enlightenment, so in terms of the difference between the purity of a true heart versus where Iroh is more of a later stage enlightenment, the love that they have for the kind of complicated person that they are with is similar to me. And the way that they both sometimes have to, or don’t have to but...

R: Choose to?

A: You have to give that person the space — you can’t force them to choose right or wrong, you can be there with them, you can try to guide them, you can — but ultimately you have to give them the space to fail, and eventually, you may have to turn your back on them.

R: Yeah.

A: At some point. I don’t know. But um yeah — I still see them as connected characters in my mind.

R: I think I can even see some of that with even the way Callum is with Rayla, like season five onwards, of like “I’ve hit my turning point, I’m not mad at you anymore, and you can steal my key, you can lie to me, and I’m not going to have you open up to me out of guilt or obligation, I want you to tell me what’s going on when you want to tell me what’s going on, and I’m going to give you the space for that.” So I think it speaks to that unconditional love that I think—

A: Yeah.

R: —a lot of the characters are blessed to have. But I do see the Terry Iroh connection. So another thing that I thought was really interesting was — obviously next season is dark magic, and I’m very hopeful that maybe we’ll learn more about the origins of dark magic or Elarion, even.

A: Great.

R: Because I know when I was watching Sol Regem burn down Katolis, it made me think of what might’ve either happened or almost happened to Elarion in the past, you know?

A: Yeah.

R: Even down to Ziard and Viren both die, kind of deflecting and trying to save people, with the same staff, you know, and how the cycle continues to just always repeat itself over and over again. And if there was like — yeah, cause burning down Katolis was a massive shakeup, you know?

A: Yup.

R: And what maybe the process was there, with the — Aaravos seems like he’s trying to repeat the cycle of like “Oh I’m going to take down the dragon monarchy or I’m gonna use that vacancy to my advantage, and mess with the Sunfire elves.”

A: He has a specific vendetta against Sol Regem, obviously, but it’s one where he has played it out in... What’s certainly meant to be implied, even though we’ll find out more later, is that one of the great mysteries of Sol Regem’s life is that his mate disappeared and he never found her. He’s the freaking Dragon King, and she disappeared. And though we don’t know how or what happened, while she was buried alive. He killed her. He didn’t even realize it, somehow. Somehow, Aaravos manipulated him into killing her, and he doesn’t — I dunno, I assume Sol Regem does understand when it must have happened, but that moment, it’s like an impossible — it’s meant to be just...

R: Awful.

A: He’s tortured him for 1000 years or whatever, without him knowing he was being tortured by Aaravos, and now he’s given him the mercy/cruelty of knowing the resolution to the mystery was that he killed her. And one of the things that worked well with that was that, we had sort of said Sol Regem can smell the truth from a lie, so he has the horrible curse of being able to know this is the deep dark truth. So I dunno, I think um, are we going to find out more about that? So, if we can eventually get the Book Three novel out [R laughs], we will find out more about that.

R: I did wonder, I was like “Maybe this is something that was gonna be in the book three novelization.”

A: Yes, we will find out more in the book three novel, it may be a year or so before unfortunately. And then I don’t think we’re gonna get too deep into that in season seven, that’s part of — it is involved in what we’re thinking about as the third arc, understanding and resolving the third arc, is gonna go a little deeper into...

R: Some of the history, yeah.

A: Some of the stuff that happened with Sol Regem. But yeah, no, I — it’s enjoyable to have these figures like Aaravos and Sol Regem who are ancient and operate over the course of centuries and are incredibly powerful, yet they can’t — or at least Aaravos, they can’t conflict directly as easily, and so Aaravos has played this really complicated game. Anyway, but yes Sol Regem is part of that, but there’s — there’s more, there’s more people who — beings that took from him. He feels that Leola was unfairly punished and that that was — you know, he sees a future and he has something... All this time, a burning — it’s the twisted form of his love, in which he’s full of hate right now to the beings who brought this about. Obviously, Sol Regem played a role because he’s a rules dragon.

R: Yeah, yeah.

A: He is the one who betrayed her to the Cosmic Council ultimately — but how do you punish the Cosmic Council? That’s a bit more complicated.

R: Yeah. No, I remember finishing season six and just being so impressed with the story. Like, taking that direction, and almost doing a lot of recontextualization, because it’s one thing to have like your worldbuilding where “magic in the story works like this” and it’s just very kind of like hand of God, you know? Like oh — cause the magic system has always been unfair, that’s why we have Callum, you know? It’s another thing to say we’re going to have characters in the story who are responsible for it being unfair. And now we’re just going to have that in terms of conflict and themes of destiny. We have about seven, ten-ish minutes left I think.

A: Probably seven, if that’s okay?

R: Yeah. Of course.

A: I’ll throw one other thing in there, which is that — cause characters experience things that change them: has Aaravos experienced — I’ll phrase it as a question, even though probably the answer is here, has Aaravos experienced much that has changed him in the last — since the death of Leola? I mean certainly some things, and is what’s happening now changing him in any way? Is it satisfaction, is it the relationship with Claudia, and what does that mean to someone? That’s a question that I think we’ll have to watch play out a little bit.

R: [Intrigued] Okay. Yeah. One thing that I really liked about Leola’s character was I felt like she had pieces of each of the main trio in her? Of this very helpful innocent well meaning child, kind of like Ezran — and I have also always seen Ezran as autistic as well cause I know that Leola canonically is — and then you also kind of have the whole oh she gave / helped humans have primal magic, which obviously Callum has. And even just being this young elven girl punished for her compassion and mercy, that felt a lot like Rayla. And when making the choice for Leola to be Leola, was that something intentional or like the choice for it to be a child rather than another loved one?

A: It was very intentional that it was a child... And we talked through other versions of Leola that could’ve been, in other ages, genders, relationships with Aaravos that an important person was lost. Some of the things I liked about the way, Leola both as a child, children are the cycle breakers.

R: Yes, yeah. I think it was the strongest choice.

A: And in particular also, the idea of coding her autistic was a little bit like not as cued to kind of accept the social order and the order of things, but actually more open in a way to in what some people see as like — something that’s broken which is not taking those cues, something else about that — not being bound by it that allowed her to have compassion that crossed the line in terms of the perceptions of what the Cosmic Order needed to be in it — but it made her more, both as a child and an autistic person, to make that choice and do what she did that changed everything.

R: Makes a lot of sense.

A: [Her being a child] also frames it with some innocence obviously right? It’s not calculated, it’s kind.

R: Yeah.

A: So I dunno.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been curious about how Ezran might be challenged now that Runaan is back in the picture.

A: That’s a great question. That’s a great question. I mean, it’s so weird, it’s like no one even asks that, it’s like “Cool,” Rayla’s like “I’m gonna go get him. Awesome! Runaan’s back.”

R: Yeah I’m like either — either Callum is like “Ezran will be totally fine with it,” and Ezran is probably not going to be fine with it, or maybe Callum knew that maybe it wouldn’t be great, and kept it under wraps. Yeah, I’m so excited for that like trio, potential broyals conflict, so...

A: Well, I mean, Ezran is a very special kid and he’s very positive and kind and forgiving and all of this. But we’re talking about, Runaan is back.

R: Castle’s destroyed.

A: Katolis is rubble. Where does that leave him?

R: Yeah.

A: You know? I mean — so I’m excited about that part of Ezran.

R: I know the fandom is really, really excited for Ezran to get to be — not that he hasn’t always been complex, but to get to be like messier, of letting his emotions maybe get the better of him and that sort of thing. So people are definitely hype for that, for — cause I feel like season six really brought home a lot of things for Soren, and it seems like season seven is going to do a similar thing for Ezran, so that’s — that’s really exciting. Um, with our final couple minutes, I wanted to see — do you have any questions that you want fans to ponder or to be thinking about?

A: Um... Gosh. I don’t think I have anything specific that we haven’t talked about, but you know. On some level, like, you know how do you take the tragedies and conflicts that we all inevitably face repetitively and relentlessly and kind of learn to move forward in hope and optimism? I think that’s more of a question of like how do you personally learn to process — all the kind of bullshit in the world, and process it, and still move forward as a kind, connected—

R: Measured person.

A: —hopeful person? That’s a challenge we all face in our lives, so that’s like...

R: Yeah. Well, I think the show does a good — really good job at asking and challenging that — that question. Uh, yeah, I think — I think that’s our time for today, uh. Thank you so much, this was...

A: It was my pleasure.

R: This was a lot of fun.

A: It’s always my pleasure reading your theories and your—

R: [Gasps] Oh my gosh.

A: Honestly, I came on today and to tell the truth [R laughs] a little bit intimidated.

R: Oh my God.

A: You’re so—

R: I also felt intimidated [laughing] so don’t worry.

A: You’re so insightful and articulate, that I almost am like [R laughs] what if they catch me that there’s something not as smart in the show as I thought it was?

R: Oh my gosh, no, you’re fine.

A: [Overlapping] So anyway, I really enjoy what you write—

R: [Overlapping] I’m also a writer so I know what it’s like to be like “I did this subconsciously,” it’s — yeah.

A: I love what you instigate in the fandom and the kind of conversations you support and engage in. I’m a huge fan of yours, so.

R: Oh! Thank you so much, that’s so sweet. Um. And I am a huge fan of yours.

A: Yay. That’s a great way to end a podcast.

R: That is a great way. Okay. Alright, well thank you so much, hope you have a great day, great week, uh, and — yeah. Okay.

A: Alright, and I’ll see you soon, we’ll do this again sometime, I hope.

R: Yes! Yeah. Okay.

A: Alright. Thanks again. Alright, bye.

#tdp #the dragon prince #podcast #cast and crew #wordswithdragons #aaron ehasz #transcripts #interviews #s6 #arc 2 #transcription

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moonbear-from-space · 19 days ago

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To everyone still mourning over Venom 3 don't worry I got some stuff that might help that. Big reminder once again to not harass any of the people that worked on this movie. It all comes down to creative choices at the end of the day or some higher ups being in control and so on. There's nothing we can do about it, please be respectful and mature.

However there is some hope, the post credit scene shows a black cockroach that likely could be Venom. I have a feeling there not quite done with Venom yet we don't when it will happen or what will happen but I really don't think it's the end. Maybe Venom will be in some crossover movie, maybe even appear in the third Spiderverse movie, who really knows for now.

Other things that I heard before rumors going around that a animated rated R Venom movie that seems to be in the works same with a Spider-Man animated movie too that's also planned to be rated R. While the Tom Hardy Venom trilogy maybe over perhaps in a few years we will see a new reboot of sorts for a different take on Venom, but still who really knows. We don't even know if it's gonna happen at all.

In the meantime you have plenty of content for Venom outside of the trilogy. Pretty much over 30 years worth of content that you might find enjoyment from. The 2016 run of Venom is a perfect example that proves that symbrock is very much cannon in the comics. Same with Venom: First Host and some parts of the 2018 run too. (Granted I haven't read a lot of it.)

There's the original 1993 Venom: Lethal Protector, it's fun, silly, camp and enjoyable love me some 90's Venom stories. ^-^

You also have 1996 Venom: The Hunger and its sequel in Marvel select #5. The new Lethal Protector comics and the new Separation Anxiety mini-series. Marvel Midnight Sun has extra DLC content where the game is sorta a dating sim in disguise where you hang out with Eddie and such. If you don't wanna get the game just look up the cutscenes for yourself, there worth a watch. Pretty much any media of Venom is worth looking into.

I hope some of these suggestions are worth looking into and I hope you give some of these a chance, sure there not the versions you maybe familiar with but if you wanna fill that void after the last dance. I know comics are expensive to buy at times so you probably know where to look to find them for free.

Feel free for anyone else to add to this, if you have some fan fictions, fan art or even your own fan-made Venom comic, then promote it right here. I want to try and bring a positive spin on this whole situation as I know not everyone likes unhappy endings. So I hope this helps in any way.

#venom the last dance #venom 3 #venom movies #venom #eddie brock #old man yaoi #symbrock #venom comics #veddie #venom movie #venom trilogy #eddie x venom #marvel #marvel movies #venom symbiote #my dumb posts

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elly-grace · 6 months ago

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Friends don’t look at friends that way

Pairing:Joe Burrow x reader

Word count: 1505

September 2014

Today was your first day at Athens High School, but you weren't a freshman. Your dads business opportunity has led you here for your senior year. Only knowing the people on the dance team, which you were a part of. You honestly didn’t know them well enough to call them friends yet. The only person you knew on a personal level was your new neighbor Joe Burrow.

Joe was the quarterback on the football team, but he didn’t act like a football player. He was kind unlike any other football player you have had interactions with. He was smart as well. You could have an intellectual conversation with him.

Suddenly you are pulled from your thoughts by a knock on the front door.

“Let’s go Y/N don’t want you to be late on your first day.”

You and Joe had grown close over the summer. Often hanging out on the weekends.

“Coming, geez give me a minute.” you yelled through the door going to open it.

Once out the door you locked it and got into Joe's car. Of course Kid Cudi was playing in the background.

“Our schedules are the same,” You said after examining his schedule.

“That's cool!”

Joe knew that already he made sure he had the same classes as you. He enjoyed your company, but he would never tell you that. You could tell he was behind the identical schedules.

“You did this, didn't you?”

“Maybe,” You gave him a ‘I know it was you’ look and he sighed. “Yeah.”

“I mean thank you, I guess”

You both laughed as he pulled into the school parking lot.

“See you in class.” you said closing the car door. You didn’t want to walk to class with him or walk into the building with him because of the amount of attention it would attract. So you hurried inside and hoped that no one saw you get out of his car.

When you made it to your locker there stood Lacy the captain of the dance team.

“Hey, just so you're aware practice is on the field tonight. We have a game on Friday and the boys won’t be there till later.”

“Okay thank you.”

She walked away and you put your books in your locker and headed to class.

The only bright spot of your classes was actually having someone to sit by. Joe made sure to save you a spot in every class, even during lunch. But the school day was soon over and practice was in full swing.

The boys walk out of the locker room during your last run through of the halftime routine. Once Joe saw you he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. His friends took notice.

“Ohhh does Burrow have a crush on the new girl?”

“No, we're just friends.”

“Friends don’t look at friends that way man.” His team mate said then patted his back.

January 2016

Joe and You both ended up at Ohio State, both of you were buckeyes. You made it on the dance team and he was on the football team. Although he was redshirted he showed up to every game and every practice. There you guys met one of your best friends Sam Hubbard. He was part of the football team with Joe. They instantly became friends and Joe introduced him to you and things clicked. The three of us soon became an unbreakable trio. Often spending your weekends together, most of the time you guys just went to get coffee. You guys tried to go to the bar one time, but never again. Joe and Sam would get extremely protective over you, Joe even punched a man who hit on you. Your movie night tradition remained which now included Sam.

Both of them showed up to all of your dance competitions and performances. You showed up to all of their games. But today was a huge day, they both flew out to Florida to support you at nationals.

You were extremely nervous, you couldn’t focus. You were shaking running through the routine in your head over and over again. Joe saw this and knew he needed to help you out.

He ran over to you and gave you a huge hug, upon feeling Joes touch your nervousness faded. Your teammates took notice of your reaction to seeing him.

“Hey, you got this! I’m gonna go sit by Sam but I want you to know that I believe in you.”

He then turns his back and walks over to Sam.

“Wait, are you two together?” Sarah asks, pointing Joe out.

“No, we're just friends.”

“Really? Because friends don’t look at friends' way.”

You sighed, you knew she was right. You did have feelings for Joe but you two could never be together, it just wouldn’t work.

“And friends don’t do what he just did for you. I can tell he loves you.”

You tried to shake the thought from your mind. Joe couldn’t have feelings for you. Could he? No he could have any girl he wanted, he didn’t want you.

August 2018

Today was a rough day, Joe was leaving for LSU, he decided to transfer after being redshirted his entire career at OSU.

“Come visit me, I’d love for you to see me play.”

“I promise I’ll come see a game. If not this season then next season.”

Joe smiles and gives you a hug, once he pulls away he walks to the car. You waited until his car was out of sight then you ran to your room and started crying. Robin noticed and followed you.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” She said rubbing your back as you continued to cry.

“I think I’m in love with your son, and he doesn’t know I exist in that realm. He thinks of me as his best friend and that’s it.”

Robin knew the two of you loved each other. She had a similar conversation with Joe about a month ago. She couldn’t tell you that though. She just offered you a small smile and continued to comfort you.

First day of school

Today was going to be incredibly tough. You had to walk into school without Joe and Sam. You kept your head down, only paying attention during classes. You walked down the hall until you hit something hard.

“I’m so sorry.” You said keeping your head down.

“No worries. What’s your name?”

“Yeah, Im Y/n. What’s your name?”

“Cody, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You’re on the football team aren’t you. You look kinda familiar.”

“Yeah, I’m the tight end.”

“We’ll nice to meet you Cody but I gotta go”

“Wait can I maybe get your number?”

You smile and nod, grabbing a post it out of your bag and giving him your number. Then walked away.

It didn’t take long for you two to start dating, Cody was kind and sensitive. You went to every game, although it felt weird supporting a different number than Joes.

You were so busy with Cody you sort of forgot about your promise to Joe. You didn’t visit him and definitely didn’t see a game. But you did continue to call him every night.

After a few months Cody started getting really jealous of your relationship with Joe. He ended up making you block Joe's number. You listened to Cody, you thought you loved him. But by April you were sitting in your dorm crying because he broke your heart.

There was only one person you wanted to text, but you couldn’t bring yourself to text him. You had been avoiding him for a month what would he think if you reached out to him?

So you texted Sam, who responded right away. He came to your dorm with ice cream and movies. You sat and talked for hours, before Sam told you to text Joe.

You called Joe but he didn’t pick up.

Summer before Joes heisman season

Joe came home and didn’t even walk into his house. The first thing he did was go to your house. He let himself in using the hidden key. He was upset and hurt but most of all he was worried about you. Walking up the stairs to your room he heard crying. He opened the door and ran to you and hugged you.

“Shh it’s okay.” He said soothingly while brushing your hair.

“How can you be so nice after what I did to you?”

“Sam filled me in, am I hurt yes. But you are the most important person in my life.”

“I- I didn’t want to but, he made me.”

“Shhh I know, I know.”

You cried harder. You missed Joe so much, you missed his embrace.

“Don’t ever let a man make decisions for you again. You are strong.” He cooed in your ear.

You pulled away and looked him in the eyes.

“Joe?” you asked

“Yeah?”

“Friends don’t look at friends this way.”

“Friends don’t look at friends this way.” He said then kissed you. It was full of passion and need.

Thank you @funnyjb for proof reading ♥️

#joe burrow x reader #joe burrow #nfl x reader #nfl #cincinnati bengals #x reader #sam hubbard

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sinnamongirls · 1 month ago

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ALL NATURAL, CHAPTER ONE: drop the game.

a 2016 college au patrick zweig x f!reader fic

you’re a reporter for the stanford daily forced to cover a speech and debate tournament. lucky for you, there’s a really hot nerd there.

author notes: this is literally the first time I’ve published fanfic since middle school eek! but im really proud of this one heheh even though it is incredibly long (the next chapter will be shorter I swear)

contains: mentions of alcohol, suggestive language, dual pov’s (patrick and reader), reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns, but no physical traits are described.

“Speech and debate? Seriously? Kendall, come on.”

Kendall just rolled their eyes at you. It was 10 am, and you, the Stanford Daily’s head general coverage reporter, were already pissed.

It was Kendall’s fault, really.

If they’d given you the co-executive editor position, they wouldn't be dealing with your smart ass complaining about assignments every time you got one.

Last year, you were quiet as a church mouse, never complaining with the previous editor about your assignments.

But the last editor wasn’t your childhood best friend, turned roommate and coworker. The last editor was a bitch, frankly. And you both were a year closer to graduating. So you really cared about what you were writing.

And you weren’t a sports person, or an editorial person. You liked campus, the hustle and bustle of it all. And that meant covering it all, even the lame ass stuff like speech and debate.

“Don’t complain. I won’t give you anything if you keep it up.” It was a lie. You both knew it.

“But.. speech and debate? Seriously?”

“It needs coverage, and it’s too far off campus for me or the advisors to feel comfortable sending an underclassman. You have that much of an issue, take it up with Nadine or Lucas.”

You huffed.

“Fine.” Walking out of the editor’s office of the Stanford Daily, letting the door slam behind you, you sighed. First issue of junior year, and your article’s on fucking speech and debate. At least it wasn’t Model UN.

You looked at your phone. Class was in 20 minutes, and the building you needed to be in was 10 minutes away. Time to hustle.

“Okay, remember: first exam next Monday, you all are gonna crush it if you study!” Dr. Abernathy’s voice was so high, most times she sounded like a chipmunk, especially when you were walking out of the lecture hall after hearing her voice for almost two hours twice a week. But, she was the only one who taught media psychology, so there wasn’t much of a choice. The midterm, however, had you worried. There was a saying in the Stanford journalism program: pass any of Phoebe Abernathy’s exams, buy a Powerball ticket immediately.

That mantra had found its home on a sticky note on your bedroom mirror for the whole summer. Preparing you. Kendall thought it was stupid, but Kendall also considered themselves president of the Dr. Phoebe Abernathy fan club. It was a stupid club, with one member: Kendall Jefferson-Mcall.

Walking back to your car, you checked your texts. There were about 10 from Kendall. Your assignment for tonight: where it was, what needed to be photographed, and who needed to be interviewed. You skimmed it while walking, making sure not to walk straight into traffic.

One of the interviewees' names rang a bell in your head. It was a distant one, though, because you couldn’t tell where you knew it from:

Patrick Zweig, co-captain. Junior. Pre-law. You’ll know him when you see him.

“Really helpful, Kendall.” Muttering as you climb into the car, you stare at the text for a while. Then you see the time. The tournament was at Berkeley, so you needed to hustle back to your apartment and get ready.

Berkeley was full of cunts.

Grade A, top tier, cunts.

Patrick would rather die than debate them. They’d been shit since Patrick had joined the speech and debate team. His freshman year was the year Berkeley won the national championship, and they had never let it go. And it got to Stanford pretty bad— they’d lost every time they’d competed against Berkeley since Patrick was a freshman.

It was annoying as hell, and every time they had to travel to Berkeley for a debate, Patrick wanted to die.

Seriously, he’d considered faking sick, or taking a whole bottle of Benadryl before.

But, he’d finally convinced Tashi and Art to make the hour journey to Berkeley to watch him. They supported him when they had tournaments at Stanford, sure, but any tournament that required driving more than 30 minutes? Forget it.

Patrick Zweig was more than Stanford’s men’s tennis star. A whole lot more. Co-captain of the speech and debate team, vice president of his fraternity, Phi Iota Chi, member of the Pre-Law Society, and one of the best students in his class.

But deep down, a part of him hated people knowing that he was smart. He liked being the hot athlete in the top frat on campus. High school was his time to be smart- he was valedictorian, student body president.

College was his time to be the best at tennis, get shit faced, and generally, have fun.

His dad did it, and that’s how he became one of the best real estate lawyers in Upstate New York.

But he still found himself pacing the green room in Wheeler Auditorium, wondering if he should stop dumbing himself down in front of normal people, be more proud of his intelligence, and accomplishments.

But day drinking on the weekends was way more fun, and didn’t require thinking, for the most part.

“Pssst, Zweig,” It was his teammate, Samira. She’d cracked the door open, peeking her head in. Patrick turned to look at her— she had a new hijab on- cardinal red. Samira was Stanford, as far as Patrick was concerned. That girl bled school spirit. She was ready to kick Berkeley’s ass. “We’re on in 5 minutes, you wanna prep with me, or are you good?”

Patrick shook his head. “I’m fine, I think.” He wasn’t, but he couldn’t let Samira know, or she’d flip out, and Samira being emotional would fuck up their entire strategy against Berkeley.

“Good, good, I’m glad. See you in five.” She smiled, and shut the door. Patrick let out a long, exasperated sigh once the door was shut.

“Fuck.” Patrick really, really needed a win. Not just a speech and debate one, but a win in general.

Wheeler auditorium was massive. The biggest auditorium on UC Berkeley’s campus, it was also the oldest, and it was a national historic landmark.

That made up for the hour-long drive across the bay.

You studied the people in the room, trying to spot the best places to get pictures of the action. Good thing you had a press pass, because there were a lot of ugly looks. Surprisingly, the auditorium was pretty full on both sides, and you could’ve sworn you saw Tashi Duncan and Art Donaldson sitting on Stanford’s side. But you put that aside, as the action was starting.

4 people took the stage: two from each school- you could tell who was who- the girl and guy from Berkeley both wore outfits with blue and gold. And then Stanford’s team came out: a woman, about 5’5” in a modest black dress with a cardinal red hijab, and a tall, toned man with curly black hair, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit. He stood at the right podium, closer to the back of the stage. The woman stood closer to the stage's edge. You could read her name clearly from where you were crouched on the floor: Samira Hadi.

You couldn’t quite tell what his name tag said, though.

The debate was interesting, all things considered. You resisted the urge to scroll on your phone in the middle of it when it got boring.

But at the very least, Stanford won. So it wasn’t a total waste of your Monday night.

Patrick was pretty sure he blacked out when he heard the words “First place, Stanford University!” Come out of the announcer's mouth.

He snapped out of it when he felt Samira bear hug him, the weight of her body (he was pretty sure she did powerlifting or something, she was jacked) and the smell of her vanilla musk perfume brought him down to earth. If Samira drank, Patrick would buy her as many drinks as she wanted tonight.

But as Samira hugged him, jumping up and down from excitement, he noticed someone in the front row. Well, in front of the front row.

Dressed in business casual, she was out of place— usually Patrick saw the same 20 people in the crowd for his tournaments. But then he saw the reason for this, incredibly attractive, outlier: a shiny Stanford Daily press badge dangling from your neck.

Aha. It made sense. He figured you were either a poor freshman forced to trek to Berkeley for their first assignment, or an overworked upperclassman fed up with the paper.

But just as quickly as Patrick saw you, you were gone.

And Samira had drug him back to the green room, where Tashi and Art were waiting, with flowers no less.

“Guys, really?” Patrick feigned being upset at them. He could never. They were good friends. He didn’t mind being their third wheel. Honestly, he didn’t have a choice: Tashi was Phi Chi’s sweetheart, and Art was the vice president of membership education, so the world of Phi Chi and Patrick’s friend group got a little incestuous. In a good way, though. Tashi sat the flowers down on a table behind her, and hugged Patrick. Tashi was wearing her favorite green satin dress, and like always, it fit her perfectly. Art wore a basic black suit, but it looked good on him, too. That was the thing- Patrick may have been a legacy of Phi Iota Chi, but he used it for good, like making sure every single member has at least one perfectly tailored suit.

Because Patrick, and Patrick’s father, hated a sloppy suit.

“We had to, hell, Tashi was gonna give them to you even if you lost.” Art smiled as he handed Patrick the flowers. They were the high-dollar grocery store ones- a sign it really was Tashi’s idea- she worked part time in the flower department at the Whole Foods by campus. Patrick looked at Tashi.

“You made this bouquet, didn’t you?” Tashi gave him a sly smile in response.

Samira lingered by the door, but a knock, and the muttering of one of their coaches caused her to leave, leaving the green room to just be Patrick, Art, and Tashi.

The dim lighting of the hallway was honestly kind of eerie, but the main auditorium area was filled with loud, butt-hurt Berkeley fans, and that’s no place for an interview.

“Can you say and spell your full name, your class, and your position on the team for me?” The recorder rested in your hand at about chest level for you and Samira.

“Samira, S-A-M-I-R-A, Hadi, H-A-D-I. Senior, Captain of Stanford’s Speech and Debate Team.”

“Thank you. So, this win against Berkeley, I know it’s been a long time coming, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, it has. They won at Nationals back in 2014, and they haven’t let us, or anyone really, live it down. So it’s very fulfilling for the entire team.”

You looked behind Samira’s shoulder at the green room door. You know the guy on Stanford’s team was in there. But when Samira was pulled out of the room by the team’s faculty advisor, you could hear some other voices in there- another male voice, and maybe a female one, too.

She could tell you were looking back there, but didn’t say anything. You continued the interview, and after the recorder clicked off, Samira spoke.

“You need to interview him?” Even though you knew it was coming, the question caught you off guard.

“Huh?” You replied.

“If you need a quote from him, I can go grab him.” She never said his name, which you found odd. But maybe Kendall was right, maybe you’d know ‘him’ when you saw him.

“N-no, I think I’m okay. I got 2 quotes from you and from your faculty advisor. I think I’m good.”

“Okay. If you don’t need anything else, I’m gonna head out before it gets too dark.” Samira smiled, and walked off. You were standing in the hallway, alone.

You looked at your watch. It was around 8:30 now. You needed to head back too. If you didn’t, Kendall would think you’d died.

By the time you got back across the bay and back to your apartment, it was 9:30. You opened the door to your apartment, and there Kendall was, sitting on the couch.

“Hey, how’d it go?” They were sprawled out on the couch in their PJs, a bowl of guacamole on the coffee table and a bag of chips by their side. Some shitty Lifetime movie was playing softly on the TV.

You dropped your keys on the entryway table, bending down to take your kitten heels off. “It was okay.”

“Get good quotes? Good pictures?”

“Yeah, I got good material. You can look at it tomorrow.”

“Okay, good. Did you see him?”

“Who?” You cocked your head to the side, sighing as you stood flat footed on the cold hardwood floor.

“Patrick, dipshit. I figured you’d drool all over him.”

So he was Patrick. That name sounded familiar to you, but you couldn’t place it.

“I mean, I saw him. I got pictures of him, b-but he had friends visiting him after the competition, I think. He was in the green room, I couldn’t get a quote. But I got a quote from Samira and the faculty advisors.”

Kendall nodded, popping a guac covered chip in their mouth. “Good enough, thanks, babe.” The two of you had called each other babe since junior year of high school. It was a great way to piss off anyone who thought the two of you were dating.

“Yeah. What are you watching?” You studied the TV screen. The volume was turned down, but you could see women yelling passionately, and a very scared, blood-covered man behind them.

“Some Lifetime true crime movie, I dunno. I watched Miss Congeniality, and Pretty Woman, then settled on… This. It’s honestly trash.”

“Why not watch Housewives?”

“Didn’t wanna watch it without you. Plus, it was a rerun of DC, so.”

“Oh, ew.”

You walked over to the fridge, grabbing a cold bottle of water out, and then headed towards the couch, sitting next to Kendall. They switched the channel to Bravo, where you were both greeted by another scene of two women screaming at each other. It was the glorious world of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and the two of you watched at least 2 hours worth of toxic, shitty reality TV, until you checked the time and noticed it was almost midnight.

“I have class at 9 in the morning, I need to head to bed.” You yawned, standing up. Kendall turned the TV off. They looked up at you, their green eyes twinkling in the warm lighting of your shared living room.

“Okay, grandma. You have fun with that.” Kendall turned their phone on, typing rapidly. You envied them, in a way. They didn’t have class until 3pm tomorrow, but they still spent most of the day working on the paper. Busy busy bee.

“Goodnight, Kendall,” you called out as you walked into your bedroom.

“Night, bitch.” They replied from the couch. You shut your bedroom door, sighing.

You resisted the urge to stalk Patrick on instagram. He definitely had a girlfriend. He was good looking.

But why did you know his name?

Your phone lit up with a notification. A reminder of an assignment due tomorrow. It was your sign to go to bed.

You could stalk Patrick tomorrow. Consider it research while you write your article tomorrow.

Tonight, you needed to rest.

So you changed into your pajamas, crawled into bed, and fell asleep. And dreamt of him.

When Samira left the green room, Tashi broke her silence.

“Wanna go out?”

“Fuck yes.” Art and Patrick replied.

So the three musketeers drove back across the bay, went to some bar on the edge of Stanford’s campus, and got royally shitfaced, resulting in Art getting a pledge to drive the three back to the Phi Chi house.

Being a fraternity executive team member had it's perks. Living in the house was one of them.

Patrick told Tashi and Art goodnight, and headed down the hall to his room.

The whole time they were out, he couldn’t shake the face of the reporter from the Daily out of his head.

And to make matters worse, he didn’t have a name to go with a face.

Shit.

His head started throbbing, and he took that as his sign to go to bed.

He wondered if Tashi knew her.

Tashi knew everyone.

But he fell asleep before he could think about asking Tashi about you.

He may or may not have woken up the next morning, dealing with the aftermath of a wet dream and a next-level hangover. You woke up perfectly fine, ready to face the day.

Some would say that’s a match made in heaven. But we’re not there yet.

#challengers #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x reader #challengers fanfic #josh o'connor #patrick zweig x you #challengers x reader #challengers 2024

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