#All that I know is that this call-out post went up about 9 months ago in indigenous facebook groups

[quasi-normalcy]

.

[orchidyoonkook]

To What We Were Before, And All The Things After | JJK | Ch. 7

Title: Hard Goodbyes and Favourite Colours

Pairing: Prince!College Student!JK x Fine Arts Major!(F)!Reader

Series Rating//Genre: (M) | College AU, Mild Royalty AU, Smut, Angst, Fluff, S2F2L, Indiffernce to lovers, sloooowwww ass burn

Summary: Nel flies home, Yuri flies back, Jungkook can't stop thinking about the other night. And you? Gods, don't even get me started.

Warnings: T, language, fluff (?), angst, reader is ~not~ okay for a chunk of this, bye bye Nel! it was nice to meet you, Yuri being the bestie she is, playful antagonism, JK thinking a lot, some photography technical words but nothing scary, reader is painting again, shocker.

Word Count: 4,463

Release Date: July 9, 2024. 2:00PM

A/N 1: Hi this was supposed to be released like a month and a half ago but then i went to europe and my brain was anywhere but near electronics. Anywhooo here she is, as always thanks for waiting and I'll try to be more consistent now that post vacation depression has kicked in.

Series: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six

Sometimes life works out incredibly conveniently for you, like when Nel’s flight leaves a half hour before Yuri’s gets in at the same airport. 

But then it sucks again as your week with Nel flies by so quickly it feels like you’ve had no time at all while also having so much because of all the new memories you’ve both made. 

Currently in a rideshare and airport bound, because you will be in no way okay to drive back, your grip on Nel’s hand is strangling as you take in every last second of time you can get with him. He keeps giving kisses to your forehead, nose, cheeks, mouth; anywhere he can get access to really. 

He doesn't want this week to end just as much as you don’t. Fuck this fucking sucks so much.

The driver pulls up to the terminal drop off, and you both exit. Nel grabs his bag from the trunk, now filled with little mementos from your week as well as his clothes. A pressed flower from the greenhouse, museum postcards, a doodle you did for him while he was sketching, and more, all tucked away for safekeeping. All the only physical things he can hold onto until he sees you next. 

Walking into the airport, you make your way up to the check in desk, paperwork already in hand. Nel checks in and you request an escort pass, determined to spend every last moment together. 

There’s a lump forming in your throat that you’re trying to swallow. It’s thick, like a ball of unending peanut butter you can’t get down. And your chest feels like a black hole has opened inside of it, right where your heart is supposed to be. Every second that ticks away allowing another drop of the warmth you have with him to be sucked right out of your sternum.

Painful doesn’t even begin to describe this feeling. 

As beautiful as your week was, the reality of the present is setting in, and the closer you get to his gate, the closer you are to tears. You’re trying your best to blink them away, but you won’t be seeing him until winter break, and even then, that’ll only be for a day or two at most before you have to wait till summer to see him again. So it might as well be goodbye for those full 6 months.

It hurts. It hurts so bad to have to go through this over and over again, to have this separation from the one you love, even if it’s only temporary. Funny how temporary can sometimes feel like forever when you’re in the middle of it. 

Funny how the concept of temporary doesn’t make the gash in your heart open any less.

You don’t want him to go, but you know he has too. The faster he goes, the faster he can come back to you. 

You hate that he has to go in the first place. You just want him to stay. Please, just stay.

But he can’t. 

You reach his gate and before you know it, his flight’s being called to board and your tears refuse to stay inside any longer, the lump succeeding in its plot of victory. They spill down your cheeks in silent rivers, wet splotches on the neckline of your shirt forming as they flow. 

Maybe they’ll create a little lake in the hole he’s leaving you with. There’s certainly enough of them to fill it. Something to fill the void a little until you can see him again.

Nel takes one look before scooping you into a crushing hug, a desperate echo of the one from a week ago. His own tears now staining.

“I love you so much,” he says. You don’t see his eyes squeeze shut, nor do you see him memorizing your smell, as he kisses the top of your head. And his voice wobbles as he whispers, “It’s not forever, it’s just for now.” 

He says those words every time you two part, whether it was for a day or a year. Never goodbye or so long. Never see you later. 

They’ve always been a small comfort in otherwise shitty situations. 

“Just for now,” you get out through quiet sobs, gripping onto him even tighter as you shake. 

It takes you a couple deep breaths before you can say anything without breaking. “I love you too. Please be safe, message me when you land, and do well on your final exams.”

He smiles at that last bit, and your tears free themselves again. You’re going to miss seeing that smile in person.

Nel pulls you in once more, tighter. “It’s always harder when my good luck charm is halfway across the world, but I’ll manage.” Your sobs stutter with a broken laugh, and you’re pretty sure his sweater is going to have tear stains on it. “I promise I’ll message as soon as I can. And I’d wish you luck but you never need it. You always do well.”

The announcement for final boarding calls and both of you freeze in each other's arms. You don’t want him to go. He doesn’t want to go.

But he has too. 

You separate only enough to kiss. It’s messy and wet and gross, but you don’t care. It’s the last one you’ll have for a while and you never want it to end. 

But it does. 

Nel pulls away, and you reluctantly let him. He grabs his bag with one hand, the other holding onto both of yours as he backs away until he can no longer reach. Your arms drop to your sides with the traces of his warmth on your skin.

You watch as the boarding crew welcomes him on, and he takes one look back at you. 

You wave, mouthing ‘I love you.’

He mouths ‘I love you’ right back, and turns the corner.

You waited for Yuri at her terminal after dropping off Nel and taking five—okay ten—minutes to violently sob in the bathroom. 

She took one look at your half smile and puffy eyes and smothered you in a hug. Smelling like sunshine and ocean water, it was exactly what you needed. 

“It’s okay Sweets, you’ll see him again before you know it. This year will pass by so fast, just you see,” she tells you through your whimpers, the tears having returned the second her arms were around you.

They dry sometime on the way home. It was a thirty minute ride back to school, and they fell silently for a solid twenty before you even got in.

You hate goodbyes. 

But Yuri’s seen this three times now, and she always knew that a warm drink and junk food were in your immediate shared futures when she did. Screw healthy coping methods. It may be 9:30pm on a Sunday night, but that won’t stop you from downing a pint as you drown your sorrows in sweet, sweet cookies n cream. 

Yuri also knows you need a distraction, so she doesn’t hold back on telling you every detail of her vacation. 

The duke from a few weeks ago had been a dud. ‘Shit personality and even shittier sex’ according to Yuri. No consultation needed. 

But this new guy from the Ilcalos Islands sounds promising. He’s a Count of something she can’t remember but in her words, “big heart and even bigger dick.” 

That makes you giggle. And you’re happy for her. 

“Bitch, the second night he did this thing with his tongue and an ice cube and oh. my. god. I think I’m in love. That man could do whatever he wanted to me and I’d still say thank you afterwards,” she’s rambling at this point and you’re mentally apologizing to the driver for having to hear all of it. 

You, on the other hand, don’t mind at all; gladly welcome it actually. You want your mind anywhere other than the present right now. 

You don’t want to start crying all over again. By the morning you’ll be fine, you’ll have let out everything you needed too. But between then and now, it’s a matter of mentioning the wrong words or seeing an intriguingly designed building that could trigger those pesky tear ducts.

So you listen to Yuri go on and on about this guy, all his techniques and what she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since she last saw him. His number is already saved in her phone under a very inappropriate name, but you expect nothing less from her. 

You love her for it. For this. 

For knowing what you need to stay afloat right now and not allowing you to throw the anchor overboard with your leg chained to the end.

You really fucking hate goodbyes. 

You’re staring at him. 

Like, full on, no bars held, staring at him. 

And Jungkook’s pretending he doesn’t notice.

You’re sitting in your chair and he’s back in his beside you at greenhouse cafe. Your half done painting of pink flowers sits in front of you, his laptop screen’s filled with this week's newly assigned ‘Studio Portrait Techniques 1’ homework. 

His half finished coffee on his table. An empty pastry bag on yours.

His hands on his keyboard, yours gripping a brush.

And you’re staring at him. 

He’s hoping it’s because this is the first time you’ve seen him since Nel left. 

But it’s probably to do with the fact that he hasn’t looked at you once today. Or the fact that he’s barely spoken at all when he usually can’t seem to shut up when it’s been more than 48 hours since he last saw you. 

Because it’s also the first time he’s seen you since he was with Adaline, imaging she wasn’t Adaline.

“You’re acting weird,” you say.

“No I’m not,” he responds a little too quickly, eyes still focused on his computer.

Yes he is. He really, totally is. 

“Yes you are, you won't look at me and you’ve barely said two words since I got here.” Well your knack for observancy is still intact.

Normally that's a good thing, but right now?

“Did I do something wrong?”

No. No you didn’t.

He did.

He let his emotions get the best of him in a moment of weakness. He let himself become so overwhelmed with feelings he isn’t allowed to have. He let them win for a single night.

And now if he isn’t paying the goddamned consequences. 

After that night with Adaline, Jungkook had woken up filled with regret. He’d crossed a line he didn’t even know he should have drawn in very dark, very permanent ink.

For letting himself, just for one moment, imagine what it would be like to be with…

And things are harder than ever to shove down now. He can’t look even look at you without thinking about it. About what he did. What he wanted. 

Wants.

Fuck, he’s in over his head.

Jungkook forces himself to look at you, putting his years of social training and emotional masking to good use. It sure as hell came in handy during times like this.

Because you can never know. 

He can’t lose you because he's unable to get his shit together. It’s not your fault he feels like this. 

So he lies. Both to you and to himself, hoping it might help him believe it.

“Nothing’s wrong Dali, just focused on my work is all. We got assigned a big project on Monday and I’m planning out all my shoots.”

You look hesitant, like you can see right through his bullshit excuse that was only a half excuse because this project is massive. 

“If you say so,” your tone implying you don’t believe him, but thankfully, you let it go and lean closer to him to see. He pretends his breathing doesn’t hitch, “What’s the project?”

“It’s my final assignment for a class, I have to do a series of five portraits. Each one with a different style, capturing a different emotion, and they all have to be of the same subject to show the true versatility of my work. It’s easy to make things look different when it’s different people being photographed,” he explains.

Therefore, this assignment, and all of its working parts, is huge. He’s glad it’s due in the middle of December because it’s going to take him almost a month of planning to get it all together; backdrops, concepts, costumes, previsualization, focal lengths, props, equipment, lighting setups, etc. And then when the planning is over: to shoot, narrow down and edit. 

But that’s the point of it. To have the students demonstrate they know how to effectively expand on the definition of a ‘portrait’ instead of having one concept in mind and sticking to it. 

‘To broaden your creative approaches to seemingly simple constructs,’ as his professor would say.

He loves the way this professor does assignments. How she layers them so that not only does he learn how to shoot multi-concept ideas for the same project type, allowing him to add to his creative portfolio, but they also force him to break out of the expected conclusions for an idea and think outside the box. 

“Oh wow, that is a lot,” you say. Because you understand long running projects. 50 hour paintings don’t just happen in a day. “Do you have any ideas yet?”

“Yeah! I have them all already, actually,” he turns his computer towards you and you see a point by point list of summarized ideas.

- Bright and bold - happy, bright smile, colourful gels - Black and white, soft light: gel or bounce? Silk diffuser  - profile with water falling on face - relieved - Focused on passion - candid, regular colour. Diffuser? Or silk flag? - Normal colour profile, stark lighting - serious, front facing body, profile facing left, no visible clothing, “regal” _|(_*-*)>_. Flag.  - Mysterious - black background, white smoke, barely visible model, lower half of face painted black, upper half white, striking purple eyes (contacts?). Flags. Gels? 

“I’m really excited for this project,” he says, “it’s just the prep that’s going to take a while. Getting it all mapped and planned out. It’s mostly concepts right now.”

You nod, understanding once again. Though very different mediums, visual arts and photography are similar in many ways. 

“Adaline going to be your model?”

It doesn’t surprise him you think that, but he has no intentions of ever using Adaline for assignments or homework. 

“Actually, I… uhh…” he trails off. Jungkook’s trying to get the words out, he is. But they’re surprisingly difficult for some reason, and getting caught in his throat. 

Which makes his earlier anxious state come back in full force. 

It shouldn't be this difficult. It won’t be the first, second or fifth time he’s asked you.

Get the words out Jeon. Put on your professional face, this is nothing new.

He fails, instead, his voice comes out barely above a whisper as he says, “I was going to ask you if you would.”

You somehow hear him. 

“Me?” you look dumbfounded. 

“Yes, you.” He’s always used you for homework assignments before, so he’s not sure why all of a sudden this is surprising. Maybe because it’s a final assignment versus a weekly one? The effort will be greater? 

“But you have Adaline? I assumed that she would take up the position of model when you guys started going out.”

Oh. That makes more sense. 

But that is one mistake he won’t be making again, because he did ask Adaline. 

Once.

It was recent, Nel was still here and he didn’t want to disturb you because of that. Plus Jungkook was just trying to get a jump on his upcoming assignments anyway, taking a page from your book.

So he asked Adaline. And she leapt at the opportunity, like he expected.

What he didn’t expect, was when she essentially directed, staged, lit and posed every. single. shot. so that she would look her best. 

All he did was click the capture image button when she said too. 

And after the shoot, before he could even think to look at the pictures, Adaline was already there, holding his camera, going through them and deleting any picture she deemed ‘ugly.’

He was left with less than 20 images from the shoot where he was ordered to take over 200. And she even made him switch out one of the three he narrowed down for one she liked better. 

So no, he would not be asking Adaline to model. 

Ever again.

“Nah. You’re a lot easier to work with because you don't care how the pictures turn out, and let me do my thing. Adaline cares a bit too much, and has to have approval on all of them before I submit.”

You snort. “Seriously? Is she that self absorbed?” a quirked brow places itself on your face to match the smirk now on your mouth.

That’s new.

Your tone towards Adaline has always been neutral, if not a bit sharp when he talks about her. 

But this one? It’s like you know her, and knew she was like that, but didn’t know it was this severe. 

Adaline is very popular...maybe you two met and it didn't go well?

It certainly sounds like you don’t like her, if those six words were anything to go by. Which, he guesses they shouldn’t, but he knows you well enough by now to know the difference.

And if he’s honest, that wouldn’t shock him in the slightest. You two are nothing alike, and thank god for that. 

He covers for Adaline, like any boyfriend would. Though it stings a little bit.

“She’s just careful about what images could be leaked to the press. Can’t really blame her for that.”

Your face changes minutely, as if a second of understanding passes through before you turn to go back to your painting, and mutter, “no, you can’t,” placing a splash of pink on a flower. 

He returns to his work as well, switching the portrait assignment out for a different one. He needs to get his mind off it for a while before circling back. 

And the fact that you didn’t answer him. 

Deciding on a Design and Visual Culture assignment due next week, he dives in head first, resuming his earlier state of focus and avoidance.

Jungkook’s editing a picture when you stretch. 

You often hunch over your work, so you try to stretch every 30 minutes or so. Your arms are in the air and he catches a peek at the nearly finished floral study. 

They’re some kind of vibrant pink dangling flowers, and you’ve captured the likeness of them quite well, to no surprise of his, so he goes to compliment it but you beat him to the punch.

“Shots blurry.”

Jungkook does a double take at his laptop screen. He’d spent the better part of 40 minutes editing the image and hadn’t noticed that.

Because it’s not. It’s perfectly crisp and clear.

When he looks back to you, you have a shit eating grin on your face. 

Ah, he knows that look. 

You love to tease him about little things like that, giving him mini heart attacks. ‘Pay back for that first day,’ you claim. 

Well…

Two can play this game, so he plays off your comment.

“Oh, you're right. Thanks,” and he switches to another image. 

Your grin falters but you recover quickly.

“No problem.”

See, while you know how to playfully harass him about his pictures, Jungkook knows how…particular you are about your colours. How they need to be labelled correctly instead of by their umbrella terms like ‘blue’ or ‘red.’ Because blue or red could mean any one of the dozens of ‘sub colours.’

‘It’s not blue, it’s cerulean,’ you’d remark. 

‘That’s not red, it’s burgundy,’ you’d correct him.

You’re always correcting him, and it makes his pants tighten a little bit every time. But that’s on the other side of the line he does not cross anymore. A nice, big, fat, permanent, protective line. 

Jungkook settles for a more subtle method of attack. Using this little fact and your ridiculously extensive knowledge of flowers against you. 

He never thought the defense and attack lessons his father put him through would come in handy like this. But he’s glad for them now. It was the only time he could ever outsmart you.

He gestures to your canvas. “Those pink flowers are pretty, what are they called?” 

“Their common name is Lady’s Eardrop. And they’re magenta.”

Hook, line, sinker. 

He doesn’t even have to try, you walk right into it every time.

“Lady’s eardrop? That’s a weird name…do they come in other colours besides pink?”

You don’t look up as you reply. 

“Magenta, and yeah. Some are plum and magenta, some are a buttery white and magenta, and then some have this like, almost dark tangerine hue, but they’re a different type, longer. Not the same as those,” you point with the end of your brush to the greenhouse, where the fully magenta lady’s eardrop sits in the window. 

“And are these pink ones your favourite?” he’s really trying his best to keep a straight face as yours contorts with an eye twitch at every use of the word.

“They’re. Magenta. And sure, but the plum ones are pretty too.”

“Noted, the pink lady's eardrop are your favourite among eardrops.”

You break, turning to him, voice raising in minor annoyance. Jungkook bites his cheeks to keep a smile at bay.

“They are magenta. Not pink. Pink entails a lighter hue, there’s more titanium white in pink. That,” you point again, “is very clearly, magenta.”

He has to. 

He can’t help it. 

You’re sexy when you're assertive, he thinks. Tip toeing on that nice, big line.

But also hilarious. 

“Same difference.”

He can see the fire in your eyes blaze.

“No, not ‘same difference,’ they’re magenta!”

He’s leaning in. “Pink,” eyeing your lips as you speak. 

You lean in too, enunciating every syllable to prove your point. “Ma-gen-ta.”

Your noses are mere inches from touching. 

“They’re pink, Van Gogh,” he backs off before he does something stupid that he’ll regret, “Don’t get so invested.”

You back off too, sass still very evident when you reply, “They’re fucking magenta, asshat. Two completely different colours and you’ll label them as such around me.”

You’ve always had a mouth on you. One you aren’t scared to use when necessary, especially around him. So he doesn’t push any farther, knowing he’s already gotten what he wanted and then some. 

But also because sitting has become slightly uncomfortable. There was a stiff breeze, he tells himself.

Thank god for baggy, oversized hoodies. 

Returning once again to his work, he puts an elbow on the table and places his hand on the left side of his face to hide the massive smile that’s trying its best to turn into a smothered laugh.

Unfortunately for him, he lets his Princely guard down around you and so he forgets to force it down to an uncomfortable degree like he would at the palace. His laugh slipping out as a strangled noise and he quickly turns it into a cough, hoping you don't notice. 

But you do, because it’s you. Of course you do.

And the look on your face is priceless.

“You did that on purpose!”

“What?” he says way too high pitched. “Nooo, I would never, one hundred percent intentionally, say pink just to get back at you for pointing out the non-existent blur in my perfectly clear picture.”

He can see you trying to control your features, can see you failing and giving up by facing your canvas again, smiling to yourself.

“I was wondering how many times I could get you to say it. I think that was somewhere around ten? Gotta be a new record.”

You roll your eyes at him, but your quirked mouth remains. 

“You’re such a dick,” you quip.

“Yet, you like me anyways.”

You mumble something incoherent.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Awe, c’mon now. Fess up.”

A pause, before, “I said I just remembered I don’t know your favourite colour.”

No you most certainly did not, but he’ll let it slide.

“Black.”

“Ugh, boring.”

“What?”

“Boring,” you say again with absolutely no hesitation and proceed to grace his eyes with your own. “And technically not a colour. Black’s a shade.”

Jungkook offers up a non-smothered chuckle, saving his throat from further shenanigans.

“Whatever, Seurat, it’s still black. What about you? What’s Miss High and Mighty All Knowing of Colours’ favorite?”

“It’s still a shade,” you repeat.

“It’s still my favourite. Answer the question,” he presses. 

You give him an unimpressed stare. 

“Violet. Royal violet. The one your dad wears a lot,” your expression softens to one of wonder as you continue. Like you didn't just refer to the King of the nation you live in as ‘his dad’ so casually. “And when it’s not that, it’s this bright yellow. Like sunflowers or daffodils. Or the colour leaves turn in the fall when the light hits them from above just right.”

It’s Jungkook's turn to stare now. You look lost in your own head, envisioning the colours you describe, seeing them dancing in your eyes. And he can’t help himself, you glow when you speak about something you're passionate about.

“Why two?” 

“Why not?” you answer, still dreaming, colours swimming in oceans of thought. Your voice is almost whimsical. “Don’t you get bored of one colour for too long? It’s nice to switch things up every now and then.”

His reply brings you back down to earth, albeit slowly.

“Red.”

“Hmm?” you touch ground.

“If you won’t accept black, then red. The rich dark one, like blood.” He chose the first colour that came into mind, not really caring which one. 

He did like red. Red looked good in many ways. On cars, clothes, lips...

But he chose the first one that popped into mind because after hearing your favourite colours and the reasons why, he started to like them more than all the others too.

“Red’s a great choice, strong,” you say, allowing him the blanket term just this once.

“Thanks.”

There’s a moment of comfortable quiet between you before you break it.

“When do you need me for the shoot?”

Jungkook’s eyebrows find his hairline. 

That was a yes, right? You’re saying yes?

“Uhm…soon, I’ll let you know the specifics when I do.”

“Sounds good.”

He was going to leave it at that, but adds, “Thanks, Y/N.”

He hasn’t said your name since the assembly. 

Always nicknames when talking to you. Always. 

Never your name. 

Not once in two months. Almost three.

You—

An inhale.

You…like it.

The way it sounds coming from his lips.

Exhale.

Chapter Eight: Photo Shoots and Blasphemous Discoveries

A/N 2: She's shorter but chapter 8 is like 11k so far, so I hope that makes up for it!

A/N 3: As always, Thank you for reading, loves. Xoxo - Yoon <3

<- Back

[crljhnn]

Math tutor

Pairing: Rodrick Heffley x fem!Reader

Summary: Rodrick is continuously unsuccessful in asking you out, so when he finds out that you are now tutoring his younger brother he decides to use this to his advantage. The only problem, Greg doesn't play along.

No physical description of the reader; No use of y/n

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: None

>Posted on AO3 as well<

“So that means x equals 9.” The answer comes out more like a question.

You've been tutoring Greg for about three weeks now and he finally, for the first time since starting this school year, seems to understand what is going on during math class.

“Yes, that’s right!”

“Really?”

While Greg wasn’t the first Heffley you ever tutored, he was the first to actually listen to what you said and process your explanations.

A few years ago you were taking the same math class as his older brother Rodrick who, back then, quite literally begged you to give him some tutoring lessons. While you didn’t like the idea of spending extra time at school to teach someone math, him apparently being so desperate for help, tugged at your heartstrings, making you give in.

On top of that, him being kind of cute and your teeny-tiny crush on him helped convince you as well. However, this adoration you harbored for about three months at that point, died about 5 minutes into your session.

He was barely paying attention to what you were saying, focusing more on drumming his pencils on the edge of the desk while humming along, using every breath you took to change the subject, mostly telling you about this little band of his. The straw that broke the camels back was when he dared to ask why you wanted to end the session only 15 minutes in, following it up with a „That was fun, let’s study together again soon!“.

Since you felt rather disrespected by that, you haven’t really spoken to him since. The highest form of communication was a forced smile when he would greet you in the hallway. You don’t have any common classes anymore.

However, your fiasco concerning Rodricks tutoring lessons didn’t stop his mom from asking you to tutor her younger son who, unsurprisingly, was falling behind in math as well. The significant difference this time was, that you were being paid. So even if Greg turned out to be just as uninterested in what you were saying as his older brother, it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time, at least for you.

That’s how you ended up in the local library every Monday and Wednesday for the last few weeks, explaining math to the younger brother of your former crush.

Today was different though. Since the library had to close down for a week, because of renovations, you decided to meet at the Heffleys house instead.

The last thing Rodrick expected, when he went downstairs to raid the fridge for snacks, was finding his crush of 3 years sitting in his living room.

Having his eyes fixed on you, he misses the last step, causing him to stumble, managing in the last second to grasp the railing to stop himself from face-planting. The result was him reaching the end of the stairs with a loud crash.

“You surely know how to make a remarkable entrance.”

“Haha yeah, hi.” He nervously scratches the back of his head “What are you… hah… what are you doing here?” ‘Stay cool Rodrick, you got this!’

“What does it look like? She’s tutoring me dumbass” The oldest Heffley son honestly didn’t even realize his younger brothers presence until he spoke up.

“Ah cool, so uhm good luck?” With another awkward laugh, he turns around and runs back upstairs.

Back in his room, he begins to panic, if he would have known that you were here he would have prepared better. But he’s sure he can still wing it.

First of all, he’s calling the band over for practice, I mean, he has his own band, chicks dig that.

He has it all planned out in his head, he will put on nice clothes, a nice perfume, and maybe even a bit of eyeliner as well, surely you’re into that. Then he’s gonna go downstairs, let his band in, and have a little jamming session with the boys.

Then there are two possible ways how the plan could continue to play out.

Possibility one, you hear his band playing from the living room and are so impressed that you just have to go and get a closer look. After that, he is going to invite you to sit in on practice for a bit longer. At the end of the session mesmerized will be an understatement to describe your state of mind and you won’t even have to think about it twice when he finally asks you out on a date.

The second possible outcome of you hearing him play is that you, while amazed, are still too shy to come up to him, so he will take a little break to get himself something to drink. Like one of those movie cliches, he’s gonna come in all sweaty, taking a sip of water and then emptying the rest of the bottle over his face and body to ‚cool himself down. Women find that hot, right? You definitely won’t be able to take your eyes off of him then.

While he is daydreaming about you drooling over him, he simultaneously digs through his closet, trying to find this one specific band shirt, that he bought after overhearing you gushing about their newest album. At the same time as he finds it, he hears his friends pull up, making him change in record speed while leaving his room to go back downstairs.

“Oh my god thank you for finally changing your shirt, the last one was smelling disgusting after you’ve been wearing it for like two weeks straight.” Greg had picked up on Rodricks crush on his tutor instantly, quickly deciding that using this new information to mess with him is the best form of revenge for the years of torture his brother put him through.

“Ugh shut up.” He turns to you “He’s lying you know. I change my clothes an appropriate amount of times. I actually just got ready for band practice. You remember me telling you about my band right? The boys are gonna be here any minute now.” He tries to be casual by leaning against the railing of the stairs but ends up stumbling instead.

“Yeah, I remember,” You don’t seem too happy about it though “But why do you have your shirt on backwards?”

Rodricks head snaps down. Fuck. Greg giggles. An awkward silence follows.

He's saved by the doorbell ringing, followed by the other Löded Diaper members walking in.

“Hi bro!”

“Yo Rodrick!”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Why do you have your shirt on backwards?”

This time it’s you who giggles.

Sensing how embarrassed their band founder is, the boys take pity on him and rush him away.

After Rodrick explained his plan to his friends, resulting in him getting hyped up by them, they played for a while. After about 30 minutes he concludes that you won’t make the first move, which brings him to execute plan B of his strategy: to take matters into his own hands.

“You got this man!” He jogs back towards the living room, expecting to find you and his younger brother still studying but instead, he is greeted with Greg sitting in front of the tv playing video games.

“Oh is your tutoring session over already?” He tries to sound unbordered but fails horribly.

“Yeah you know I found it really hard to concentrate with this loud music, so we cut today short.” Greg grins up at the oldest Heffley child.

“Listen up you little shit-” he doesn’t finish his sentence. Maybe he could use Gregs help for his own benefit since you always seem to flee when he tries to make a move. It was the same a few years ago.

He had it all planned out back then as well. First, he was gonna ask you out for a study date, well that didn’t quite work out and it ended up more like a tutoring session. However, the result was that you two were spending some alone time together, so you could say that he roughly reached his initial goal. At least he counted it as a success.

Then Rodrick was going to make you fall for him. And how was he gonna do that? By impressing you of course. And what is the best way to impress a girl? Being in a band! Easy.

Well, that didn’t work out, driving you away even further. So maybe he could use his younger brother to get some inside info on what you like in men and what makes you fall for them.

Rodrick is fast to lay out his new plan to Greg.

“And why would I assist you with that? What is in it for me?” As expected, he is not exactly keen on helping his older brother out. So threatening it is.

“Cause if you don’t, you will regret it.” Greg is about to refuse again when he gets an idea. This would be the perfect way to get revenge on Rodrick. He is just gonna spin around everything you say and make his older brother ruin every chance he's ever had with you.

“Alright fine, I’ll do it.”

—

“Okay spit it out!” You and Greg are seated at your usual table at the library “You haven’t been able to sit still since you got here, what’s wrong?”

“I have a question.” He is not looking at you.

“Okay shoot!”

Greg has been thinking about how to interrogate you about your type without raising suspicions since the day he agreed to help Rodrick. “So there is this girl I kind of like and I wanted to ask you for advice. If a guy would want to go out with you, what would he need to do to stir your interest?”

“Well, every girl is different so-”

“Yeah but what about you?”

That confuses you a bit, but Greg asking you for girl advice was cute enough for you to not overanalyze it further.

“Well me personally, I like sweet and considerate guys,…”

—

“So what did she say?!” Rodrick was waiting for his younger brother at the front door, attacking him with questions as soon as he was close enough to hear.

“Calm down! So first of all she said, that she likes assholes you know, just your typical badboy!”

—

“…you know, the kind of guy who listens to what you have to say and really values your opinion. I want someone who actually hears what I say and shows that he is interested in me as a person...”

—

“She wants someone who is just a natural leader, an alpha, someone who makes decisions for her and shows dominance by interrupting her frequently. Also don’t seem too eager, she said she finds that overwhelming and just too much. Play it cool, act like you don’t care.”

—

“… so that means I also prefer deeper compliments, not just about my looks. Of course, it's nice to be called pretty every once in a while, but there is nothing worse than a guy repeatedly telling you how attractive you are, without ever appreciating anything else about you! Like is that the only thing about me that you like, my looks?…”

—

“She also likes to be complimented about her looks a lot, the more the better. Don’t even bother with any other kinds of compliments. ”

—

“… And lastly, never compliment a woman by putting other women down. The whole ‘Oh you're just not like other girls’ thing is deeply rooted in misogyny. It’s never a flattering compliment when it's only working because you are putting someone else down.”

—

“And lastly, she wants to feel special, you know, the best compliments include a comparison, for example, tell her how she is prettier than other women!”

Rodrick was hastily writing everything down.

“Thank you so much, I owe you!”

“No problem”

—

While you forgot about Gregs weird behavior as soon as you go back to explaining math, you are reminded of it again later, when he asks you to have your next session at his house, without giving an actual reason.

The weirdness reached its peak when he, shortly after you arrived at his house the next week, excused himself to quote ‘Look for, uh… you know,… a thing? That’s in my room’, then went to the bathroom instead, and ‘coincidentally’ as soon as he left his older brother showed up.

“Heyyy what’s up?” Rodrick mentally revises the list he learned by heart last night.

‘Be an asshole’ he kicks your water bottle that was standing next to you, “Oops…”

“Rodrick what the fu-”

‘Show dominance’

“Pick it up!”

“Excuse me? What is wrong wit-”,

‘Act like you don’t care’

“Quit talking like I care about what you have to say, what was your name again?”

“Wh- We both know that you know my name, what the fu-”,

‘Compliment her looks’

“You’re hot!”

And lastly, ‘Make her feel special by comparing her to other women’

“Especially compared to the other girls at school”.

A perfect delivery. He did everything that Greg told him to do. But why did you seem so angry? You looked like you were ready to swing at him.

That’s when he saw it. His shitty little brother was watching the interaction through the slightly opened bathroom door, holding a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. When he catches Rodricks eye he slams the door shut.

“I’m gonna kill you!” He is sprinting towards the room his brother is hiding in, banging his fists against the door.

“What the fuck is going on?” You haven’t been so confused in a long time. That’s when it clicked for you too. That’s why Greg was acting so weird, that’s why he asked about YOUR dating preferences specifically. He asked for advice for Rodrick but must have messed with his brother, based on the older ones reaction.

“Rodrick, were you trying to hit on me?” Your voice is heavily laced with disbelief.

The boy stopped his obnoxious assault on the door.

“Did it work?”

You barely hold in your laugh. “Sure.”

“Wait really?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Your smile is kinder now, finding this side of Rodrick, where he is eager to appeal to you, really endearing. Shit, are your feelings for him coming back? You definitely were completely over your crush before, so how did he so easily wrap you around his finger again?

“I would have never guessed that you out of all people were into me, you know, after the little stunt you pulled a while ago.”

“What do you mean?” Rodrick is confused, when did he do something that made you believe that he wasn’t interested in you?

“Our tutoring session? When you completely disrespected me by not even listening to me after you were the one to ask for help.”

“I was listening to you! It's just hard to concentrate when you are so… you! And your voice is so…” Wow he just has this way with words “And I didn't intend for it to be actually studying when I ask you. I just wanted an excuse to hang out with you, maybe impress you a bit, my band being the impressive part by the way, and then later ask you out on a date.” He scratches the back of his head sheepishly.

“And this little scene that played out just now, I guess that was Gregs doing?”

“Yes, since it didn’t work out the last two times I tried to get you to go out with me, I thought this was the best way to do it.”

Oh, your crush was definitely back, and bigger than ever at that.

“Well you never actually asked me out, maybe that would have been enough.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know, guess you have to ask to find out.”

[charmedreincarnation]

Ya bitch got into the void state

Champagne anon here and your mf girlll got in the mf void state and manifested her dream life. This happened a week ago, and I’ve been chilling but I do wanna share my story to help others. Gotta give Thanks to Maya, and so many other bloggers and even anon. Y’all hoes will forever be in my heart, and I’m forever grateful 🥹 also Maya girl you told me when I succeed to get into detail and I got nothing to do for the next two hours so imaaa just share it all here in detail.

I also wanna especially thank all the black creators on tumblr!! I didn’t know there were so many of us using the law. It always seems the world is so against us, and there’s nothing we can do abt it but nahhhh!! we can all live our best melanated lives regardless. Periodt, as we should it’s about goddamned time after everything we’ve been though 😂

Anyways!!!! after reading this: https://www.tumblr.com/charmedreincarnation/717864613626134528/im-your-bubble-anon-but-i-made-this-burner-to success story yesterday I got hella motivated. I read that shit and I thought I posted it on accident because it was everything I had been through, and had been thinking anyways. That anon ate your tumblr habits btw. If y’all haven’t seen my good sis’s sucess post go check that shut out rn, On god it will help.

At the end that anon (my mf dawg 🙏) included that they manifested for everyone. Now ion know if that shit actually work tbh. I’ve seen people say you can and can’t, but tbh the vibes were too high for me to doubt. I was like ight, okay fuck it, ima leave my dream life. Whether it me, that anon, or the devil himself ion give a fuck.

So that’s whatssss a bitch did!!! I just affirmed all day it was very fulfilling. People who hate on affirming are mad corny. I can’t lie that shit works hella fast even if you don’t believe it. Idk if that anon’s void manifesting helped or what but I didn’t do much and after 3 months of trying I entered the damn void state. I’m mad I thought I had to be on some ghandi shit to do this (no hate to him hes da man) but you rlly don’t y’all. BUT LEMME TALK MY SHIT ALL YOU NEED IS AFFIRMING AND PERSISTENCE.

Anyways I went go bed excited asl!! I wrote my script that was like 10 pages long I can’t lie I did the most… but it’s whateva. I woke up in the void state after waking up at 4 am or sum, and i was like oh shityyyt lemme manifest rq and skrttt out this hoe. So that’s what a mf did 😂😂

Anyways the part y’all’s is waiting for. This is what ya girl manifested

Desired face and body. I was in shock how all the details came to life. Y’all im a solid 100/10 it’s giving natural bbl and Aliyah. I swear to gahhh everywhere I go people be trying to peep. I’m not used to being treated like a fucking celeb everywhere I go, whole time it’s just my fat gyattttt

Being the hottest 16 yr old IT GIRL at my school, and having lucky girl syndrome. People call me a mini jayda wayda, but tbh I’m better than her now. No hoe is ever gonna cheat on meee like they did her…bye. She’s still gorgeous as fuck tho

Perfect school life. Your girl is set to be the Valedictorian when I graduate (my school has 4!) I’m also sophomore year President, captain of the basketball team, apart of some volunteer programs through my school, and so much more. My resume and college application is abt to be so fuckin fire in 2 years. As I should Columbia is a competitive ass school 😤😤 that aside everyone always tryna link, I got 3 guys fighting over me (whole damn love square), so many people tryna be my friends, teachers love me, and I excel in everything I do.

My Family being rich assss fuck. My dad got a Wikipedia now and his net worth is 22 million dollars. He owns a hedge fund company now, we love a man in finance 😍😍 AS HE FUCKING SHOULD. He got a material gurlll daughter. Two in fact now.

Fire ass crib. Bro it’s a 9 million dollar penthouse, perfect for ragers. I woke up here and my room is decorated to my personality, pintrest clothes all in my closet, I got an exotic pitbull and frenchie, and the house is just mad clean and fire, I’m obsessed with it. Rarely ever wanna leave now.

My mom not being strict. That bald headed ass hoe use to be mad annoying. Y’all know how Haitians are. Mad annoying as fuck and strict for no reason. Now I go out everyday and come home at midnight and no one gives a fuck. Everyone minds their own business as they should.

Having an older brother and younger sister. I was an only child, because I was a miracle baby bc my mom was infertile. Now she got 3 of us, so she can stop being only in my buisness. I’m just playin I love my mom regardless she’s just hella clingy. Anyways my brother is mad protective but also be wrestling mad aggressive for no damn reason. He gave me a bruise but it’s whateva Ima get my lick back. I also always wanted to be an older sister, bc I’d love to be a role model! My sister is 10 and adores me soo much it’s so adorable 🥹 lmfaooo, she’s mad spoiled by me and my mom but it is what it is.

Successful lip gloss business and being a successful drop shipper. Now you didn’t think a sista wasn’t gonna give herself a career just because I’m young right 🤨🤨 we’ll ya wrong. Ya girl is making 200k-400k a year. I barely even use my money cause I got an allowance from my parents… but still, financial literacy and wealth is so important to me especially as a black woman.

A pookie bae. Y’all know I wasn’t gonna deal with finding a loyal cute and funny guy in nyc. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Anyways I got me a fine ass boo. I just wrote down all the features I wanted in him like for exampleS finically secure so he can spoil me, handsome as fuck, tall, funny asl, kind, little clingy, deep raspy voice, nice hand, good hygiene and style,yanno yanooo !!! Plus some other shit and whewww the void did me so good. Nowww my boo bear is a lil cracker and I’ve never dated a white boy befuh but my am I surprised. I wake up everyday with some long ass appreciation texts and plans already made ! Y’all know I love me a dominant man who knows what he wants. He’s got some nice ass clothes, nice car and crib, made me a passenger princess and spoils me way too much. He doesn’t complain abt my mood swings and simps in the best way possible. Not to mention he’s fine afkkk he’s giving vinnie hacker. He’s also 6’1 and I’m 5’1 so that height difference is soooo hot I can’t lie I feel so so safe with him 🫣 I could go on all day but in short he’s more than perfect

+ so much more but this is what shocked me the most. Anyways I’ve been living like this for the past week and it just feel so natural. I keep forgetting I got into the void but whateva I’m the only who knows anyways. Anyways live yo best life and neva give upppp. I gotta go but I’ll probably eventually make a blog. My names angela so look out for it. I’m just mad lazy soo idk tho !!!

Angela out 🫡✌️

Girl this was so fun to read, I’m just as excited for you lmfao. I love seeing black women win, and thank you for sharing your methods! Enjoy your best life and come back if it resonates with your life bae !!!

[singsweetmelodies]

a little while ago, i got this ask asking me if i could make some sort of introduction to the pierre/charles ship and all its lore. and since they are, without question, my f1 rpf OTP, my answer was oh my god yes of course. it's taken me a little while to compile all that lore - because boy, is there a lot - but it's been one of the happiest research projects of my life, without question. and i think it's finally ready to go!! so, with no further ado...

ABOUT PIARLES: a (not-so-brief) introduction to f1 rpf's french friends to lovers ship

so the first thing you need to know about piarles is that they're childhood best friends. not that uncommon in a sport like f1, to be fair - most of the drivers grew up together, racing against each other in karting. but pierre and charles are a little different in that they aren't just karting acquaintances: the two of them (and their entire families) are genuinely good friends.

in fact, if you ask either pierre or charles about the other (and interviewers often do) one of the first things they'll probably say is "we've known each other for a long time," quickly followed by "we used to go on holiday together when we were kids." and they ALWAYS say this with the fondest expressions 🥰 even if you take shipping completely out of the equation, it's clear that these two have a very long-standing and very close friendship, with many fond memories which both of them seem to treasure very much.

in charles' own words:

"Pierre! We know each other since... a long, long time. We used to go on holidays together when we were children with our parents, and uh... we did quite a bit of mess together when we were children, but (laughs) very good memories. And the relationship never really changed throughout the years, even though we have taken different paths, because he was a bit older, so we weren't always in the same categories. But we would always call each other, text each other, go on holidays together... and yeah, I just have so many memories." (source - watch from timestamp 2:06)

pierre tells a very similar story:

"He's definitely one of my best friends. Charles is a very nice person and an incredible driver. We met when we were 9 years old and created a very strong bond. Our parents are very close, and we went on vacations from when we were 10, so we created lots of memories. We were teammates in karting when we were 12, and today we find ourselves in Formula 1. It's a pretty incredible story. But for me the most important part is to see the person he's become, and he hasn't changed since he was young." (source)

i think it's important to note that these aren't the only times pierre and charles have spoken about each other in glowing terms like this - no, it happens quite frequently. pretty much every time they're asked about each other, tbh. (i'm not going to add quotes from every single time here, though, because we would be here for the rest of the month if i tried. 😅) the point is, piarles are pretty damn close, and think very highly of each other.

but it's not just them that are close: like i mentioned in the first paragraphs of this post, their families are close, too. they really are childhood friends in that "your family is practically my second family" sense, which i think is something really special.

here, for example, is pierre's father jean-jacques talking about charles:

Charles is part of the family. We've known him since he was nine and when he started in karting with Pierre. (...) When the races were in England Charles was sleeping at our place, and when the races were in Italy, Pierre was sleeping at Charles's place. Then Pierre moved to F4. I don't think there have ever been a big rivalry between them even though their careers were similar. Charles is part of the family probably even more since Hervé passed away. Our door will always be open for him and he knows.” (source)

🥹

what's more, charles has also said numerous times that it's hard to maintain true friendships in f1 - but his bond with pierre is one of those rare exceptions:

It’s rare I think, it’s very rare to have a sincere friendship in F1, because there’s a lot of competition. So yes there’s friendship, but it’s not always entirely sincere - but with Pierre it really is, and it has always been. (source)

they're friends. they really are friends, not just friendly coworkers, like many of the other f1 drivers are. pierre and charles genuinely like and appreciate each other's company very much - which, even if you put shipping completely aside, is just such a wonderful thing, and always makes me smile so much.

one of my personal favourite moments was when pierre talked about charles on the beyond the grid podcast in 2023:

"That's why I really like these chats that I can have with Charles, because I know with Charles, discussing about both our lives, we won't judge each other... because we know what it's like and we just speak very openly about various things. And I know it's almost like a happy place or a comfortable place where you really feel you can open up. He'll understand, I'll understand him..." (source - listen from timestamp 32:01)

if that doesn't make your heart melt at least a little bit, then i don't know what to say to you.

... no, actually, i do. if this kind of sentimentality won't do it for you, how about a bit of silliness and humour?

that's right. like any good childhood friends, pierre and charles also have an embarrassing nickname for each other: "calamar," which is french for "squid." (we know that they call each other that courtesy of charles' insta).

what on earth is the origin of this nickname, you may be wondering? well, according to pierre...

"It goes back to a long time ago when we were kids, like... nine, ten years old. We would go on holidays together and spend more time. I don't know. It just came, like one day we decided to call each other calamar, which is not really such a beautiful nickname, but yeah it was just for fun. We were kids and we were laughing. And actually, we have many other nicknames because we were teammates also in karting and we spent a lot, a lot of time together. So, a lot of nicknames came alongside all this time. And this kind of stayed with us." (source)

as pierre said in this quote, "calamar" is not even the only nickname they have - pierre sometimes calls charles "charlito" and also "charlo," while charles calls pierre "mon petit."

and as if that's not enough, they're also that pair of boyfriends friends who always have to bring each other up in conversation. if there's ever an interview question along the lines of "which f1 driver would you...." then you can pretty much bet pierre will answer "charles," and charles will answer "pierre."

for example, here is pierre choosing charles as the one f1 driver he'd take for a drink. and here is charles naming pierre as his best friend in the paddock. oh, and here is pierre saying he'd choose charles as one driver to take with him to a desert island. there's more, but i think you get the idea 😆❤️

so yeah! that's a quick(ish) overview of the background/context of piarles - AKA the french (yes, i know charles is monégasque, but he SPEAKS french) friends/boyfriends on the grid.

(if you'd like to know more details about their friendship, especially about their pre-f1 years, then i recommend this post and its follow-up compiled by the incredible @vegasgrandprix. these posts really are a treasure trove for piarles history & lore!)

but now that i've painted a pretty clear picture of their friendship, let's move on to some more shippy moments, shall we? the "lovers" part of friends to lovers <3333

believe it or not, eveything up till now was just the background information about piarles. it's more than enough to build an OTP on already, i'd say - but wait, there's more!

the thing with pierre and charles is that along with being friends, they are also french (or....french-adjacent. close enough) which means that they have absolutely zero problem with being very openly affectionate with each other.

this has given us some very delicious shipping moments, which i will now try and give an overview of. (my fellow piarlies: if i've left out one of your favourite moments, please forgive me - they have so many moments with each other, and tumblr has a post character limit, so there was just no way for me to include everything, much as i wanted to. but i do think this is a good introduction!)

let's start with perhaps the most iconic piarles moment of them all: monza 2020, aka pierre gasly's first win in f1.

that was a crazy, wonderful day in so many ways - first of all, the race itself was insane. pierre started 10th on the grid, and with a lot of luck + a safety car that really worked out for him, ended up leading the race and defended from carlos sainz with DRS to get his maiden win. this was almost exactly a year after he'd been dropped from red bull, so the win was pretty much the biggest fuck-you to everyone @ RBR and comeback moment for pierre that was possible. it was also a dream come true (every f1 driver dreams about winning a race!) and you only need to look at any interview pierre did afterwards to see how much it meant to him.

what makes it even more insane, though, is that charles was right there to congratulate him and watch his podium. keep in mind that, in the same race, charles crashed out - both ferraris did, in monza of all places. i don't think anyone would've been surprised, or held it against him at all, if charles just kept his head down for the rest of that day.

but no. even though he wasn't medically cleared after the crash yet (!!) charles went to parc fermé anyway to congratulate pierre. remember that thing i said about them being french and very open with affection? well:

here are some pictures of the monza piarles congratulations hug. (am i the only one who thinks it looks like charles wants to kiss pierre in that second pic?! god....) here and here are some more angles of the hug to go insane over, if you like.

you can also watch it in video format here - and yes, charles really did pull pierre out of his hug with romain so that he could congratulate him himself. i know. (also, yes, pierre does pat charles' ass just before they go their separate ways. what can i say? french.)

as if that's not already insane enough, charles also stayed to watch pierre's podium despite not being medically cleared yet after his crash. (we have to thank netflix FOREVER for providing us with that specific behind-the-scenes shot 🙏 drive to survive - you did well that time, you really did.)

and afterwards, charles said:

It was just a dream for one of us to get into F1 one day. In the end we’re both in F1, we’ve both won a GP, both of us in Monza. (...) I was really happy that day, even if my race went wrong, his win made it a good day. (source)

your honour. who says that about another driver's win, especially on a day where you yourself had an awful race? if that's not love in a sport like f1, i don't know what is!

i really could talk about monza 2020 and how much it means for a very long time, but i will rein myself in to just one final comment: isn't it rather beautiful to think that pierre & charles' names will always be next to each other in the monza winners list? charles won there in 2019, and then pierre won there in 2020. talk about soulmatism ❤️💙

now, moving on to another absolutely iconic (and delightfully gay) piarles moment: baku 2021, aka that time pierre and charles had an awesome last-lap battle for the P3 podium spot.

it was very close racing, with them swapping positions several times down the straight - but they kept it clean. in fact, they kept it so clean that someone remarked it's like they know each other by heart. yup. totally a normal thing to say about two men racing.

equally normal was charles' comments after the race:

"The last lap was my favourite part of the race. It was crazy and had a lot of actions. With Pierre it was hot. I'm happy for him for his podium." (source)

and as if that's not enough, he also GRABBED pierre into a hug in parc fermé, and then held him incredibly close while congratulating him.

you can watch this hug in video format here and gif format here, if you want - and i really recommend doing so, because it's insane to see how charles quite literally crashes into pierre's personal space and yanks him into a hug. (here is a close-up of their helmets during said hug - and you can just say it with me. GAY.)

that's still not all, though: charles congratulated pierre twice after the race. once on the outlap (with a thumbs-up and a middle finger as pierre's car drove past his, LMAO) and then on social media as well (with a nickname and a kiss emoji).

he ALSO commented on pierre's instagram post about the race with another kiss emoji:

so, apparently, charles was thinking about kissing pierre quite a lot in baku 2021. 🤭 an iconic day all around!

and as it happens, 2021 brought us another iconic piarles moment - though this one is a whole less happy. i'm talking about styria 2021, aka that time pierre and charles had contact in a race, and pierre had to retire from that grand prix.

here is the official f1 news article about the incident - the long and the short of it is that charles misjudged on lap 1 and crashed into the side of pierre's car, ending pierre's race. naturally, pierre was furious and upset, especially because the alphatauri was actually a good car in 2021, and he'd stood to score really good points that sunday.

now, for most f1 girlies, an incident like this between childhood friends immediately brings up vivid brocedes flashbacks. and, to be honest, it wouldn't have been that much of a surprise if this had indeed soured pierre and charles' friendship - we saw exactly this happen with pierre and esteban, after all.

but no. charles went to see pierre post-race to clear the air between them, and although pierre was furious with him, he didn't let it ruin their friendship. in fact, when he was asked how the incident affected their friendship, pierre had the following to say:

"Yeah... I was really sad to end 15 years of friendship. He is no more my friend (laughs). No, no, it's... honestly, it was really painful, you know, you work so hard the whole weekend for Sunday to score points, and then after literally like 20 seconds, the whole race was over. So, quite a difficult one to swallow, but, you know, we know each other, with Charles, we have a lot of respect for each other. He came to see me after the race - I was still pretty pissed off with him, but, uh, we knew before last Sunday, nothing ever happened between us on the race-track, and we knew one day it would happen. Unfortunately I paid the price more than him, but yeah, it's racing, unfortunately. (...) It's painful, it's racing, it happens sometimes - I just told him to make sure it doesn't happen another time, and... we're fine." (source - watch from 17:01)

i think that styria 2021 is vital piarles lore not because it's a fun shippy moment, but rather because it shows the strength of their connection. an incident like this could easily have destroyed their friendship, but they didn't let it. they mean enough to each other that they let what happens on-track stay on-track and not affect their closeness off-track. and that, i think, is something truly special - they were tested in a way which has destroyed f1 friendships before, and yet they still came out stronger.

iconic indeed.

on a happier note again, now, there is also montreal 2022, which many piarles fans consider one of THE seminal piarles moments. the race itself was not so memorable for our boys this time, but what they did off-track is.

that is to say: pierre and charles went on a dinner date. then, they were spotted driving around the streets of montreal in a white ferrari. and THEN, as if that's not mind-blowing enough already... charles posted, to his public instagram story, a video of pierre wearing his charles-leclerc-16 branded ferrari hat.

these screenshots are peanut quality, i'm sorry, lmao... but all of montreal 2022 feels a bit like a fever dream in the best way, so i think the blurriness just captures the vibes, tbh.

we're not quite done with montreal 2022 yet, though - earlier on the same day, charles also had a very sweet hello with pierre's parents. you can just SEE how much pierre's parents love charles, and isn't that just the most heartwarming thing 😭❤️

now, one final thing about montreal 2022: pierre never posted his infamous photo dump after that race. that might not seem particularly important, but... this is the only race of 2022 for which pierre DIDN'T post a photo dump.

there are a thousand and one theories about why he didn't - maybe he just forgot, maybe he had a busy weekend, maybe he didn't have any photos he wanted to share. or, in a more shippy interpretation... maybe he does have photos, especially photos of charles, but he doesn't want to share them/wants to keep them all to himself. we don't know!

one lucky piarlie got to meet pierre in london in 2022 at an alphatauri event, and actually asked him about the montreal photo dump thing. here is what he said (courtesy of the lovely @they-call-it-traffic 💞)

the descriptions there... you can just picture pierre's expressions & smirks SO perfectly, right? he is insane. they are insane. #investigatemontreal !!

anyways. moving on one year again: 2023 brought us pierre and charles' basketball date:

as well as two tennis dates:

(i call them "dates" because pierre and charles spent a significant time together during them, hanging out & enjoying each other's company and looking at each other with major heart-eyes. obviously, irl, they aren't officially dates - in fact, both pierre and charles had their irl girlfriends along with them when they attended wimbledon. but who cares too much about irl -- this is a rpf post 😉)

i'm not going to spend too long explaining the lore behind these, because i'm already flirting with the tumblr post character limit 🙈 but basically, what happened is that on all 3 these occasions, pierre and charles chose to hang out together at events completely unrelated to f1, simply because they are friends and like each other's company. (that, to me, is always a measure of how much f1 drivers actually like each other - whether or not they choose to spend time with each other when they're not forced into proximity by f1. pierre and charles pass this test with flying colours.)

the basketball date is particularly insane, because that day was actually an event which charles, pierre and esteban attended. but you wouldn't know THAT from charles' post about it. charles fully cropped esteban out of his post - he really said "esteban who? i only spent time with my friend pierre 😌" and he said it with his whole chest.

ALSO, while we're on the subject of the basketball date and social media - pierre and charles co-posted a reel about it on instagram. yes. CO-POSTED. you know, like a couple co-posting about their date.

piarles basketball date, you will always be famous!!

(P.S. - a lot of piarles fans refer to this 2023 basketball date as "basketball date 2.0" - and this is because pierre and charles have actually done this before, in 2021. i really can't talk too much about that date - character limit, my beloathed - but let me just say that pierre draping his arm round the back of charles' chair is something that lives rent free in my mind. rent free.)

another thing that lives in my mind rent-free is charles being interviewed at their first tennis date, and calling pierre his best friend <3333 love is friendship set on fire, etc etc!

... so, okay, when i said i wasn't going to talk too much about the lore behind the tennis & basketball dates, i lied a little bit. but in my defence - they were insane for these, they really were!

anyways. now, let's skip back in time a little - because i would be very remiss if i didn't include pierre and charles' 2016 joint championship celebrations.

in the year 2016, pierre was the GP2 champion and charles the GP3 champion (GP2 and GP3 are the old names for F2 and F3). in a very pretty twist of fate, they both clinched their respective titles at the same circuit, in the final race of their respective series - and then, of course, they celebrated together.

here is an adorable gifset of them celebrating together after the final GP2 race. and here are some more pictures from the official Prema photoshoot for the GP2 & GP3 champions (yes, they did a joint photoshoot together. even Prema ships it, apparently!)

actually, while we're on the subject of celebrating together: pierre and charles almost always congratulate each other for their significant achievements in f1. see: charles making a point to congratulate pierre on his podium in baku, as i discussed earlier in this post, and again in zandvoort 2023. (both times with a kiss emoji, mind you). similarly, check out pierre seeking charles out in parc fermé to congratulate him for his bahrain 2022 season-opener pole, and then congratulating him for his win twice over on social media. (and these are just a few examples out of many!)

this is one of those things that sets them apart from many other f1 rpf pairings: they both seem genuinely happy when the other does well. and like. they are COMPETITORS - but they're good enough friends that they can still celebrate each other's achievements genuinely and happily. that is insane!!

yes, sure, it's good sportsmanship to congratulate other drivers for wins/podiums - but that is usually done with a handshake in person or a copy-paste "congrats to XYZ" in the post-race interview, or something like that. one rarely gets the sense that it comes from a place of genuine, deep happiness for the other driver being congratulated.

pierre and charles are just on a whole different level. they specifically seek each other out in parc fermé, hug each other with so much enthusiasm that it looks suspiciously gay, and also post about each other's achievements very fondly on social media.

again, this is something you might see a driver do for their teammate - for example, charles congratulating "carlos and the team" for a win in singapore - but almost never with a freaking KISS EMOJI. and a pet name. and so much genuine joy.

just... yeah. they care about each other so much, and are each other's biggest supporters ❤️

it's not just in good times that they're there for each other, either: 2019 was a truly difficult year for both pierre and charles (pierre especially) but they were still there for each other when it mattered.

the prime example of this is monza 2019, which was one race after pierre's demotion from red bull, and also one race after anthoine hubert's death. because the fia has no sense of basic kindness or decency, naturally they put pierre into a press conference that very weekend.

the video of that press conference is very hard to watch - every time pierre is asked a question, you can hear how much he is struggling to hold it together. honestly, the sole good thing from this presscon is that at least pierre had charles beside him.

here is a post i made where i discuss this in a bit more detail, but essentially: charles sat as close as possible to pierre for the entirety of that conference - close enough that their shoulders were practically touching - as a non-verbal gesture of support. you can see the difference in space between charles & pierre vs all the other drivers, and there's no way that was accidental. charles might not have been able to voice his support for pierre out loud right then, but it's there in every part of his body language.

another very meaningful moment is also from 2019, when pierre went up to charles pre-race in spa:

"I told Charles before the race, please win this race for Anthoine." (source)

and charles did. 💙

then later in 2019, when pierre got his first podium in brazil, guess who was right there to hug and congratulate him? that's right.

this was another case where charles' own race fell apart - he had a crash with his teammate, in fact - but he still made a point of going to hug pierre after his P2, and going on social media to tell pierre and also the whole world that pierre deserved that podium. that's what i call supporting your best friend.

now, at this point, you might be thinking... well, pierre and charles have it all. whether you're looking for happy moments or deep emotional moments or suspiciously gay moments to fuel your shipping fire, it's all there.

and you'd be right! they do have it all. though i will say this - one of the complaints i've heard whispered around this fandom is that piarles is a fun ship, but they don't have any content videos together like teammates do. so it's harder to ship them, because you don't get to see them actually interact with each other aside from like 5-second video clips...

to that i say: well. they might not have any teammate videos together, but oh boy. as of 2023, they do have something else: the squeezie video.

i could talk about the squeezie video for MONTHS, i really could - but let me try and keep it brief. so, squeezie is this french youtuber who has this "who's the impostor?" video series in which he gets a couple of celebrities to join him on the show, plus some people from a certain profession, and then they have to guess who actually does that profession and who's the impostor.

the day that pierre and charles were guests on the show, the professions were "firefighter," "midwife," "flight attendant" and "school counselor." this resulted in absolute chaos of the best kind - ah, man, i cannot even begin to describe to you what a glorious mess it was. that video had everything from charles & pierre cradling fake babies, to charles & pierre extremely dramatically accusing each other of lying, to pierre making dirty hand gestures while charles blushes profusely, to charles & pierre play-acting being naughty schoolkids (feat. charles saying he fell asleep in class and woke up from a nightmare screaming "box box" 😭)

here are some screenshots of some of my favourite moments:

the way they LOOK at each other... GOD.

anyways! you can watch the video here. my recommendation is to watch it with the original french sound track - there is an english dub available, but it sounds incredibly strange to hear american accents coming out of pierre & charles' mouths, off-sync with what they're actually saying. it's a MUCH better experience to watch in french, so you can hear what they actually said, and enjoy how they interact with each other. (english subtitles are available!) alternatively, you can find some translated highlights here, courtesy of the incredible @sedicii <3333

aside from all the still-can't-believe-they-actually-did-this-on-camera content, one of the things that makes me feel the most insane is that pierre and charles both chose to appear on this video. there was no contractual PR requirement saying they both had to participate in it, like with teammate challenges - no, they did it in their free time, because they wanted to.

i mean, sure, that video was definitely good for PR for both of them, but the point stands that they didn't have to do it, and they certainly didn't have to do it together. they CHOSE to - and what's more, they said at the end of the video that they'd do it again.

that's so central to pierre and charles, i think: they choose each other, time and time again. they freely choose to spend time with each other, because they genuinely like each other and enjoy each other's company. so much so that you will find them together at least once on almost every race weekend.

no, seriously. it's a very unusual race weekend if pierre and charles aren't spotted together at least one time. whether it's being glued to each other's sides on driver's parades, or chatting in the background of some or other interview, or just walking through the paddock together... they will find each other.

there are SO many instances where this happens that i would be here for over a month if i tried to list them all - and i'd still probably miss some. but here are some of my personal highlights!

pierre and charles finding each other pre-race in jeddah

pierre and charles chatting in the media pen in the background of one of alex's interviews

pierre and charles walking together in vegas (feat. fond smiles)

pierre and charles being baby gossip girls in 2018

more baby piarles in 2018

even more baby pierre and charles chatting in 2017

and just to round things off: most recently, pierre and charles walking together in jeddah 2024

and many, many more... including a whole bunch of moments we'll probably never know about.

that's another thing that makes me more than a little insane about these two: pierre has actually said, in so many words, that they'll never share everything about their friendship.

In the end we have the same life, we grew up together. We've done many things together, but you won't hear about all of it. (source)

all these moments that we see, that we go insane over... that's probably not even the half of what they've actually done together. and that makes me feel some type of way. if this is just the small pieces of their lives & interactions that they choose to share with the public, then just imagine what else there could be...

....buuuuut that'll start becoming a fanfic if i let myself carry on with that line of thinking too long. (can i just say one thing about that, though? the piarles fanfic community is absolutely INCREDIBLE. such talented writers, such wonderful people... just, chef's kiss all around!!) but, yeah! i think this post has gone on for more than long enough now, haha.

so, to conclude: pierre and charles really are the epitome of a friends to lovers ship: they get along famously, they genuinely seem to love each other's company and are always laughing together - and they can very often be found giving each other the heart-eyes/looking at each other like they're in love. if it's warmth, joy and friends to lovers feels that you're after, then look no further <3333

thank you so much for reading! and i do hope that after all this, you're at least a little bit in love with piarles, too ❤️

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for trying to block evade?

This happened several years ago, so I'll put the ages that we were at the time.

I [17F at the time], had an extremely close friend [17F] of 3+ years, and I still haven't found any kind of friendship that came close to the level of trust / openness that was there. So some of this backstory ranges from 14yrs to 17yrs.

My home was abusive, and she and her mom helped me figure out what was rational vs irrational, normal vs not normal, and pointing out local resources to get help - which was absolutely amazing and I could not thank them enough.

She invited me to her house pretty regularly, a couple times a week. We'd have hours of skype calls. She got me roped into Undertale & the fandom. Well, not that we really interacted with the fandom at large. We only publically posted some of the art and barely got noticed haha. Between the two of us, we had something like 26 AUs and had a lot of rp with multiverse shenanigans - like over 1200+ pages of google docs rp, because that's where we did like 90% of it. After we hit like 100-200 pages, we'd make a new doc so it wouldn't take so long to load. And we had like, at least like 9 docs I think. I was mostly in it for her, because it was really fun to just make up stories together. I could've done it with any fandom she threw at me, undertale is just the one that was popular at the time.

At one point, I think when we were around 16, I asked her if she wanted to start dating. She said something along the lines of maybe in the future, but not right now - she wanted to focus on school. Even though she declined at the time, she did say she appreciated me asking and that it meant a lot to her. And there were 0 hard feelings about the answer, we just kept on going the way we were going.

She got hit with a really bad level of depression, and stopped coming to school. After 2-3 days, I started calling her every day around lunch time just to check in on her and see how she was doing. See if there was anything I could do to help - bring some snacks, catch her up on classwork for the couple classes we shared, stuff like that. This was for couple months. More than just a mental health day, and the only reason she gave was Depression.

After a week or two of the daily calls, there was probably an aspect of toxic positivity on my end. Like "You gotta Do Something to avoid being trapped in your misery, even if it's just baby steps like sitting outside on the porch or going on a walk down the block" Not maliciously, but more out of not knowing how to handle a situation like this & genuinely wanting to help her because of all the help she's offered me in the past & fueled a little bit by fear because Depresssion is the excuse that my abusive parents used to justify their shitty behavior & neglect. Not because I was afraid of what she'd do to me, but more what she'd do to herself. That's one of the only things I could think where I went wrong, which I completely acknowledge and understand now.

She was still inviting me to her house, and we were still doing our normal thing there. Drawing and writing stories together.

After 4-5 weeks [? estimate, time is an illusion] of her not showing up to school, I can't remember if I asked if it was helpful or if she suggested that I stop calling every day. Calling every day was making her feel worse.

I did end up calling the next day or two at lunch - crossing the boundary was not my intent. We had planned to hang out on the weekend again, lunch is just when I remembered & had time to call to ask if she still wanted to hang out or if she wanted some space. I think she said yes to hanging out, didn't mention anything about crossing the boundary. Same with the next day - there was something I needed to ask clarification on, it wasn't a check in, nothing was mentioned of the boundary. I can't remember what it was now. This is another one of the places where I think I went wrong, which I acknowledge & understand.

I did stop the check ins like requested though. After those two off days, I did stop calling her every day at lunch.

She finished out the school year having shown up to class maybe 3ish times, I think.

Again, we were still hanging out regularly. There was no indication that I was doing anything wrong, there was no indication that anything I was doing was wrong. She was still the one inviting me to hang out at least half the time.

There were some problems that I was noticing that I just wanted to have a casual chat about and figure out, but she kept pushing it off as a "I don't have the energy right now, we can talk about it later" and we'd go back to the fun things. I don't really remember what those problems were.

In the summer, I went to a different state to visit my older sister that I hadn't seen in years. I talked to her about it, I was excited for it. We were still chatting regularly during my trip over skype or discord.

And then, during my trip that I was so excited about, she drops this bombshell. She sends me several massive messages detailing out a bullet point list of everything I've done wrong, that she's explicitly breaking off the friendship, and blocks me. 95% of things on that list either flat weren't true, or gross misunderstandings of what happened.

It was genuinely horrible things too.

For example, one of the things on the list was "Suicide baiting" or "Suicide guilt tripping" or something along those lines, which had happened several months if not a year before this. -I've only ever communicated feeling acutely suicidal to her 1 time. -Long before that, she made me promise that if I ever felt suicidal that I was supposed to immediately talk to her about it, for her own peace of mind so she wouldn't worry about me. -I reached a point of feeling acutely suicidal due to abuse at home & general existential dread, that happened to be during a time we had an issue.

I purposefully waited until after the issue was resolved, like 2 weeks, before telling her. I did that specifically so it would not be taken as a guilt trip or a form of coercion while still holding as true as I could to my promise. She made me promise to tell her, it was something very important to her. I made very clear to say "this is something I experienced a couple weeks ago due to unrelated things, it is resolved now, I got help through xyz means and genuinely feel better. You made me promise to tell you so I am telling you, I didn't want to say anything while we were having a problem for xyz reason." I just wanted to talk, and clear up the misunderstandings. I wanted to have a good conversation about figuring out where the communication went wrong, try and figure out how she came to these conclusions, and how that differs from my point of view. Do something to work it out, and just talk about it, and try and salvage this 3+ year friendship.

After I realized I was blocked, I was going through so so many emotions all at once. The whiplash of going from 5 to 100, Upset that I wasn't given any sort of chance to explain, the 5 stages of grief, being thrown away like the gum off your shoe, worrying about her and if this was the stage of isolation for depression, holding out the hope that we could still just talk and work things out, angry that she kept pushing off and refusing to have any sort of serious talk before this, doubting if anything she had said on 'normal vs not normal' - particularly communication styles, thoughts that maybe she was abusive and manipulative all along, maybe I was continuing the cycle of abuse, trauma flashbacks, anxieties that I had since squashed as 'irrational', fear that this was a sign that she was about to fucking kill herself and maybe the whole list was a lie so I wouldn't try and reach out and stop her, doubting my own reality and maybe the entire list she sent me was true and she was justified in her actions.

Simultaneously trying to process intense feelings and realities if it was true and I'm really secretly a horrible monster, if it wasn't true and she was about to die, and old traumas getting dug out of the grave.

God I was such an emotional wreck and did not know how to process or understand anything that was happening.

This is where the AITA comes in -

I was pushing through back to back panic attacks trying to contact her and figure out what was going on. I didn't want her to die, if that's what was happening. I didn't want to be discarded and thrown away like a piece of trash, if that's what was happening. I didn't want to have 0 chance of learning & growing as a person even if this friendship wasn't salvageable due to my monstrous nature, if that's what was happening.

So I block evaded like fckn crazy. Gmail, pet game sites, discord, skype, deviantart, whatever online platform that we shared that had messaging enabled. I called her phone several times. On the 3-4th call, her mom picked up and told me that none of the above was true. That she wasn't about to die, that I wasn't being thrown away like trash, and that I wasn't a monster. She didn't agree with her daughters actions and thought it unfair to me, but ultimately it was my friend's choice. All simultaneously which just did not compute.

If the list she sent me was true, I was a shitty horrible person. If it wasn't, and she isn't about to die, then not be able to just have a calm sit-down conversation at some point about it and clear it up - if I wasn't worth even attempting to make that effort then I was being thrown away like trash. I kept trying for days afterwards to talk to her - just, anything at all. Nothing got through, she never responded to anything.

And... that was that.

I didn't have a chance to talk to her again. I didn't have a chance to clear up misunderstandings, or understand what I did actually wrong and where, or any sort of closure.

Sometimes if I'm remembering it and feeling paranoid, I'll check and see if she's alive by looking at her online profiles for any activity. Like, maybe once a year tops now. According to the petgame sites, she's still alive at least. I'm assuming she got new social media. Literally it's just a "is she alive, do I have to worry about causing her suicide" check, I don't stalk or look into anything further than that.

Anyway, AITA for how extensively & desperately I was block evading?

What are these acronyms?

[kanmom51]

JK live 23 September 2023 (NYC)

20:11 or 8:11 pm EST

cr./to the creators of the media used in this post.

or

24 September 2023 9:11 am KST.

Coincidence? Starting the live at 8:11? I think not.

And not the first time he goes live at that time either.

So yeah, JK came live at 8:11 and ended the live at 13:23 minutes.

13 again? Coincidence again? Given that he said his goodbyes at around the 12 minute mark and then waited (?) for it to reach 13? Maybe. Fact is it did.

OMG, he opens up the live like this:

He's so damn adorable.

And it's a Bratz lip gloss, lol.

How can you not love him?

Anyway, JK starts the live saying long time no see and with talk about 3D coming out on the 29th. He tells us how it was his idea to add the clip at the end of the GCF performance, but someone ruined the surprise by running it during the rehearsals, which they obviously weren't supposed to. Oopsy. Spoiler king was spoilered. Lol.

He is a little fidgety, feels like he's doing the live cause he needs to, rather than really wants to... just a feeling I had.

JK says that as much as he was busy he actually did have time to come to us live, but, and this is where JK has decided to place the boundaries that he himself kind of tore down just a little while ago - he talks about there having to be a push and pull, but I guess he realised, perhaps with some help from others, that tearing down those walls between himself and us has also created an expectation from some fans for more, too much. Also, there needs to be some mystery (he was probably told) and leave the fans with a want for more...

I don't think this is the end of the JK we came to know and love the past few months, but I do think that he is trying to re-assess and set some boundaries between the artist that he is and us as fans.

And truthfully, let's be real here for a sec. Us, the fans, we were kind of a filler in. When the real thing is there, and the time to enlistment is getting shorter and shorter, and there is a choice between the two, who do you think he will choose? A 3 hour live with us or a sleepover with JM? I really don't think the choice is such a difficult one. Do you?

JK asks how the performance was. Hasn't monitored it yet (oh, and believe me when he does he's going to be hard on himself). And yet, even though he heard from fans they liked it, he feels he did better at rehearsal. Says it's a jynx. On the day of the performance his throat got dried up. It's called anxiety or nerves JK. If only there was someone there with him to calm those nerves...

And before you come at me, yes. I do feel he was anxious. He was a little closed up and distant as well. The enormity of it. The having to speak English. The being there ALONE. There were these little moments of disconnect during the performance. Maybe if he would have started his set with the more lively songs it would have helped, but if only there was someone there to support him and calm him, that dryness in the throat he talks about... yeah, non existent. My opinion. Fight me.

Then Jin shows up in the comment.

I mentioned that it felt like he did the live because he had to (after the performance and the 3D teasers dropping). Jin showing up in the comments, his reaction, felt like relief in a sense. He was really happy.

He saw one of the members commented, went in to see who it was and was really happy to see him.

The whole interaction between them was so older and younger brother, lol.

Jin with the "stop touching your hair", the whole call me convo (JK saying the times aren't lining up him being overseas and Jin answering with him texting Jhope 300 messages a day, as in "you ass, you can always send me a message instead", lol).

Watch the interaction here:

What did I take from the interaction with Jin?

First of all, that JK was really happy to see him. Not JM level happy, of course, but really happy. Do I say what I'm thinking? About members showing up in his comments and his reaction to them? Nah. In this instance I will take the fifth.

Second, we get it straight out of the horses mouth: JK is enlisting soon. Not like we didn't know it already. Like seriously. But there are those, solos mainly, that seem to still think that JK won't be enlisting with the others. Well, JK made it abundantly clear in that conversation that he's definitely enlisting and it's happening soon. It's the "I'll be joining that party soon" (as in the Jin and Jhope army party) and it's in the "you'll be out while we're still in so take care of Army until we're done" whole convo as well.

Anyway, you gotta love Jin.

Moving on.

JK tells us that 3D is different from Seven - and to look forward to it.

Wanted to thank army that came to the concert, thank K army for taking the time and supporting him.

29th September is Choseok. JK says the reason the song is released that day is he thinks we will like it more. Ok, yeah. Not the tight schedule and looming enlistment. Well, he does hint about it. Starting up about the reason it's hurried, and why he's been in a hurry, but leaves it up to our imagination. I guess we know, right? If they want to be back by mid 2025 enlistment needs to happen by at the latest start of 2024. And in the little time left he has the single and an album to release. And my guess is there is more too. Some set for before enlistment, some set to land while they are away. JM and him.

He asks "what's after this? what is it?" laughingly answering "your curious, right?"

"What is it? I am really looking forward to it." he says cheekily.

Then he says he's working hard in preparing something for us.

And then he looks down and finds the exact comment he wants to answer:

The Weverse translation is a little different.

The gist is the same.

We have JK recognizing a JM comment and answering it specifically. And I say specifically because there were PLENTY of Tae comments in his live. Layover, Tae, Slow dance, screaming at him to just say a god damn thing about Tae's album or releases. But our man, he stood fast, lol.

And don't get me wrong, I don't think he doesn't support Tae or want him to succeed. He's his bandmate and friend. But you know what he ain't, is his boyfriend. That is the one and only Mr. Park Jimin. So, it's not that JK doesn't care, it's that Tae just ain't on his mind. Wasn't it Tae that used to say, repeatedly, that JK just ignores him? Lol. But even if Tae isn't on his mind, the comments, they can definitley serve as a fucking annoying reminder. Which JK chooses very loudly to ignore. And making a statement of sorts while doing so, by reacting, out of all of those comments, to the one relating to JM.

That's what I call a big ass JK FUCK YOU to the cult.

Anyway, we were talking about JK's reaction. And when you talk about reactions you look not only at the verbal but also the body language.

The way he leans in to read the comment once he recognizes it's about JM.

The way he does that head tilt when talking about JM's dancing.

The neck crack.

The hand gesture.

Let's talk about the hand gesture for a second here.

Man knows the choreography. That hand gesture was him doing part of the choreo. Muscle memory. And his eyes and facial expression.

Also, have a look at this:

Ok, so it is funny how JK knew JM posted to IG and watched it as well... You know, considering the man told us he not only deleted his own IG account but deleted the app from his phone all together...

Thing is man monitors SM. We know that!! You think he wouldn't have seen it on Twitter? Or TikTok? JM's dance is all over the place. So yeah, my initial thought was: hey, how did he see it without an IG account? But then, you know, when common sense took over, I realised he could have seen it ANYWHERE. We know he monitors. We assume he monitors JM and Jikook accounts. He would have seen it either way.

But in any case, as I mentioned, this wouldn't have been the first and only time he has seen this choreo or dance.

JK continues to tell us he's going out for diner with staff. A good reason indeed to end the live (that like I said, he wasn't in the feels for).

And continues telling us to be curious.

Didn't someone tell him curiosity killed the cat?

At the end of the live JK makes us know he's monitoring SM (like I said before, something we already knew). He knows what fans are saying. He talks about the good. And he is thankful for those kind words.

But he also sees the bad. We know it!!

Ooh, btw, do we talk about that ring JK was wearing?

This is the second time around we have him wearing this kind of ring.

Interesting.

So to sum it up:

In those 13 minutes and a bit of his live, he mostly spoke about the performance, 3D coming out, talked to Jin in the comments and answered the comment that happened to be about JM.

I guess that wraps it up.

[sabi0229]

Darius analysis of season 2

So in someone's review for the new season they mentioned that Darius wasn't really active as a character which I sort of agree on and they also said that he's trying to be social which actually got me sort of thinking. In season 1 of chaos theory it started with Darius and it was mostly focused on him grieving about Brooklyn so for season 2 I think they just wanted to move and show into more depth of the other characters and how they are dealing with their emotions with all this chaos happening.

So with Darius in season 1 he was isolated for a very long time I think because Brooklyn's death is probably like months months ago maybe it was like giving a year who knows I don't know the exact time length but given darius's encounter with the bend in episode 1 gave me the idea that he was alone for a while isolated just complete isolated even with the call with his brother it made sense to me that he talked to no one for months so he was away from society not very social and then he had to go on a car ride with Ben and they went all over and started to interact so I think in season 2 with zanya don't know if I'm spelling her name right probably not.

He tries to talk with her more even though he's awkward he is trying I think he is his little social butterfly self again it's very similar to season 1 of camp Cretaceous where he was basically locked up in his room ever since his dad died which was probably also months ago or maybe almost a year soon and his brother mentions that he never leaves his room exactly how he said he never leaves his cabin and he wasn't social and he was very awkward in the first few episodes meaning he was going back to society and trying to be social again so I think this is just another reset for Darius trying to become more social again and becoming more social means just saying anything that comes to his mind which is why I think he started blabbering about dinosaur facts again I'm not complaining I was so happy that he started talking about dinosaur facts again

because I remember on one post I said I really hope he did the dinosaur facts again I predicted it hahaha so happy that he actually started talking about dinosaur facts again. it did kind of annoy me though that Zanya sort of ruined some moments about it but I get it because she's actually also living with dinosaurs and her dad's kind of a little nerd too but when she mentioned about showing off I really don't think that was Darius showing off what he knows I think that was just him being his little social awkward self not knowing what to say and that's what he just says cuz that's what he knows best to start a conversation.

I think the whole experience in this season for him was not making sense to him in some sort of way his eyes kept giving the emotion of unsettling like he just didn't know what was going on it reminded me of season 5 of camp Cretaceous where can Kenji betrayed him and he didn't know what to do and he just shut down this is what it is really reminding me about especially in episode 8 or 9 where he found out about Ben knowing Brooklyn is alive. He just stood there and it really reminded me of when the group was fighting over Kenji who's really at fault was it his dad or him and he just stood there not giving crap but in reality in his mind he is going through all of this stuff but doesn't show it because in his mind he's also telling himself that he has to stay strong and if he breaks down then he knows he cannot help the others if he is weak

Along with the fact when he found out that Brooklyn was alive I also think that in his mind he was possibly thinking he was going crazy because after they got out of the create he started to believe that it was someone looking like her meaning he probably thought he was hallucinating from the adrenaline because it is possible sometimes too hallucinate from adrenaline and reminder he just got chased by the amazing eyeless baryonyx which I think should have more screen time so he is still pumped full of adrenaline and he probably is thinking this is the broker and a girl that looks exactly like Brooklyn and I probably going crazy yes. But later he finds out that she is not a random person that its actually Brooklyn not someone that looks like her so he's like okay I'm not crazy but I'm not okay

I also think that it's really great how they put kenjis and Darius brother relationship back it felt so good to see them being Brothers again that there was just no hatred and they are actually experiencing the most pain probably out of everyone sort of everyone is going through their own thing but I think like Brooklyn's death affected them the most in my opinion of course because they both loved Brooklyn and they both really didn't know what to do I mean they both isolated themselves they literally live in the middle of nowhere have you noticed that

So with the ending they are probably going to be talking about this a lot they are going to be processing a lot and they are going to show different ways of expressing their emotions.

Kenji is the brother that has visible emotions he shows his anger, and when he's upset he lashes out. He shows his emotions well not all emotions for example when he was sad about his father's death he tried to cover it up but I meant more as of it in anger way that he shows his emotions but for Darius he doesn't really show his emotions so one will be suppressing them like he usually does and the other will be just lashing out so for season 3 I think we're just going to possibly get a lot of Kenji outbreaks and Darius just dissociating overthinking everything that is my opinion and my prediction for season 3.

I also want to see more interaction with Darius and yazz because she went immediately to him when she knows something was wrong with Kenji I mean she's a psychology major so she will notice things wrong with people so in season 3 she's probably going to notice how Darius and Kenji were more affected and she will probably try to talk to them. Darius is easy to open up to some people I really think that there's a possibility that he is just going to straight up lie about his feelings and season 3 like I just have like this gut feeling that he's going to be like I'm fine and has a completely different expression on his face

Okay I sort of got sidetracked here but I am going to do the rest of the Nublar 6 analysis reviews

Also when did I become a therapist just analyzing everything I think that's a bit too extreme of me but I just really like to analyze characters and just give out my opinion

so there will be more characters and if there is something you want me to analyze and just talk about and by talk I mean rant I will totally do that because I absolutely love analyzing stuff and ranting about it I absolutely love it

[zeeohoh]

A/N : Oh my gosh this is my first fic and I'm impulsively writing it so it isn't proof read or I might overthink it and not post it.

pleaseee give me prompts or recommendations, not limited to Spencer! Any member of the BAU, or Criminal Minds, I am only halfway through season 9 so no spoilers!

I'm currently on 09x15 of Criminal Minds, and this episode is directed by our very own Mr. Gibson.

"Do you wanna come upstairs?"

(Gn!reader) after a particularly exhaustive case that struck Spencer the hard way, reader tries to be there for him ( this isn't a romantic fic but is up for interpretation/ as you wish ;) ) .

I've been a part of the BAU for about seven months now, I transferred a little while after my time in the field under the SOC, but I had assisted them on multiple cases before and was familiar with most of the team so the transition wasn't hard. I was great friends with Penelope already because she'd help me on my cases sometimes if she had the time to spare, she would invite me to her movie nights and outings and from there on I befriended the others. I was good friends with everyone on the team except Spencer, we weren't on bad terms or anything, but things were rocky, I had no doubt that he trusted me as a team member. Perhaps he just needed more time to consider me as anything more than that.

Everyone slept soundly in the bau jet as we headed back for Quantico. The team had been in Wisconsin for the past 6 days trying to chase down an unsub that had been kidnapping teenagers and sending letters to their parents written in their blood. This case was mentally and physically draining. I was sitting next to Morgan, who was sound asleep with his headphones on, occasionally stirring in his sleep, uneasy, he had taken a couple of hits chasing the unsub with JJ. The unsub might've gotten away if it wasn't for Spencer literally throwing himself at the unsub to subdue him. He may not look(or be) the most physically fit person on the team, but over the years during his time working for the FBI, he'd been more than able to stand his ground.

I couldn't fall asleep on the flight back so I thought I might as well make some coffee, as I was preparing the pot, I glanced around the jet and locked eyes with a certain Curly haired genius with a book in his hand, he looked like he'd woken up not long ago, I held up the pot in my hand as a way of asking him if he'd like some and he simply nodded with a tight lipped smile. I grabbed both of our coffees and set his down on the table infront of him.

"Thank you, Y/N, I thought you'd be asleep"

"I was, but Morgan keeps stirring in his sleep, and that woke me up, what about you? What's keeping you up? I figured you'd crash the second we boarded the jet, you must be exhausted"

"My side hurts from earlier so I can't find a comfortable position to sleep in, I'm just waiting to be back in Quantico so I can hopefully rest at home"

"Do you want- uh- would you want to sit here instead? I know the plane lands in the next 20 minutes and we're already almost there but-"

"I'd like that, thank you, Dr. Reid"

"Spencer"

"What?"

"Call me Spencer, if you'd like, Reid feels too formal, like we're nothing more than co-workers" he almost whispered the last bit ,there was a hint of disappointment written all over his face.

Was he...upset that I didn't call him Spencer?

"Okay, Spencer, I am just used to calling you Reid, has a nice ring to it, and for the record, I don't consider you as just a guy I work with, you're more than that" I smiled at him. "You can go back to your book if you want, we don't have to talk or anything"

"Oh okay" he looked as if he wanted to say something else but decided against it and reached out for his book instead

We sat in silence as he went back to his book and I leaned back in my seat and shut my eyes, the silence wasn't awkward, the silence was comfortable.

After landing, everyone filed into the bullpen as Penelope greeted us all with warm hugs.

"Everyone take the weekend off, I'll see you on Monday, Morgan, Reid, take care and let me know if you need anything"

Reid headed to his desk to grab a few things and I stayed behind, waiting for him.

"You haven't left yet?" He questioned me as he approached the elevator

"I was just waiting for you, we take the same train home so I figured we could head back together"

"I'd really like that" Spencer smiled at me.

I don't just want to walk him to the station, I really want to walk him home, just for my peace of mind, I don't know why, I just do

"You just missed your stop" He asked me as the doors closed on what should've been the stop I got off on everyday. "Are you walking me home?"

"...Is it okay if I do that? I mean it's not that I'm worried that you can't get back on your own with you being hurt, it's just that for my peace of mind-"

You're rambling, Y/N, big time

"Y/N, it's okay, I really appreciate you doing that, it's very thoughtful of you" he cut me off

We walked towards his apartment building as we talked about our plans for the weekend, Reid decided to stay in this weekend and recover while I will probably be spending the next two days doing movie nights with Penelope or meeting up with JJ.

We came to a halt as he stopped infront of a building I presumed he lived at, I actually had no idea where he lived until this moment.

"Well, this is me"

"Okay, have a nice weekend,okay? If you need anything, please don't hesitate to call, I am serious, I live close by anyways"

"Would you like to- uh- Do you want to come upstairs?" Reid looked at me expectedly.

"I wouldn't want to intrude, besides you should definitely get some sleep, Reid- Spencer, you've had a long day"

"I have a strong cup of caffeine in my system, I'm tired, yes, but I'm nowhere near sleeping, we can order take out, my treat, besides, some company would be nice, your company would be nice, if you want to ofcourse, don't feel compelled to say yes"

"I'd like that, thank you, Spencer, but please don't hesitate to tell me if you change your mind and want to sleep instead or want to be left alone."

We headed up to his apartment and he set up an old Silent movie for us to watch, enjoying the takeout, we got so caught up in talking that I didn't even realize how late it had gotten, we were on our second movie before I heard the silent snoring and looked over to my side to see Spencer fast asleep,I finished the rest of the movie and got up from the couch to clear the table and throw away the take out boxes, I reached into his go-bag and took out a blanket he sometimes carried with him and placed it over him.

He looks so angelic when he sleeps, so peaceful

As if sensing me staring at him, his eyes fluttered open and embarrassment flushed his face as he realized he had fallen asleep while I was still over.

He turned his head and locked at the clock, 01:23

"How long was I out? I am so sorry , I had trouble sleeping the past few days and when it finally came to me it just had to be when you were here."

"Hey, don't worry, it's fine, really, you looked so peaceful sleeping that I didn't want to wake up, I'll be out of your hair now"

"It's late right now, Y/N, it isn't safe for you to go out alone ,not that I'm in any way hinting that you can't take care of yourself, you could throw Morgan over your shoulder if you really wanted to or Two Morgans for that matter but the point is, I don't want you to go-" he let out a sigh and looked down at his hands that rested on his lap. "If I asked you to stay, would you? I hadn't slept this well in a while and I'm sorry if that's weird but-"

I cut him off "point me to the bathroom, I have a fresh set of clothes in my go-bag that I can change into"

This man must have been more exhausted than I thought he was because he was asleep again as I stepped out of the bathroom, as I leaned down to wake him up to sleep on the bed instead, I glanced at my phone that had a new notification, from Spencer

Please take the bed, make yourself at home and turn off your alarms for the morning, Goodnight Y/N

P.s thank you for staying with me tonight, it means a lot"

I poured a glass of water and placed it on the table next to the couch, incase he wakes up thirsty and headed for the bedroom.

Goodnight Spencer, Sweet Dreams.

His bed was so comfortable that it wasn't long before I slipped into a blissful sleep.

[exeggcute]

my work's quarterly pride ERG meeting is tomorrow and I'm on the fence about going, but it's at 9 AM and I already have meetings from 10 AM to 1 PM (plus a 2 PM I'm probably gonna decline because if you put a meeting on my calendar without asking first I just won't go out of spite lol) but also, last time I went, the vibes were kinda bad. which is fair enough for a corporate thing where only six other people show up and you've never met any of them before so you're not sure who actually has something to be proud of.

but also, like. at the one I did attend three months ago. we all had to go around in a group therapy-ish fashion and share our "rose and thorn" and then "a piece of queer media that's resonated with us lately." so I panicked and said the dead ringers miniseries starring rachel weisz and rachel weisz (which is so fucking good btw. stream dead ringers 2023) but got six blank stares. in an attempt to appeal to their gen X sensibilities I was like "oh... you know... it's a reimagining of the cronenberg movie..." and still nada. then the organizer of the meeting gave her answer, which was that she'd been watching an amusing little animated series called hazbin hotel. and in that moment I knew I was trapped in a bad tumblr post where the enlightened OP takes a stand against the gormless cartoon fans and proudly announces "well unlike you losers *I* enjoy real culture, like david cronenberg 🙄" and everyone claps. except of course I was the loser in this scenario because that's how these things play out in real life, even though the only statement I was trying to make relates to the kinds of things I would let rachel weisz x2 do to me. so idk if I can go back there.

[floras-imagination]

Robbers, forever? 🖤 matty healy x reader

CHAPTER 1

series masterlist

summary: Y/n and Matty break each other's hearts multiple times over the years, yet they find themselves unable to stay away from each other... and this is the beginning of their love story 🖤 authors note: This story is inspired by some of my fondest memories shared with an ex (but I've made some changes to better align the story with Matty's character), and each chapter is accompanied by poems I've written about that relationship. I've posted them on my poetry blog, so just click on the links you'll find in the chapters:) Hope you enjoy it as much as I do 💘 (i think it's so cuuuute) word count: 2,6 k warning: y/n struggles with a restrictive ed in the first few chapters (but it's just kinda mentioned in the diary entry at the beginning)

August 2012

Dear Diary, I wish I were stronger. I wish I could beat this illness, but I just can't. Every time I try to recover, I fail. I've been doing so well in the last few months, but it's always the same. As soon as I'm doing better I mess it up again. Why do I keep lying to myself? "I'm in control." "Just one more day." "I can stop if I want to." But I never do. A day turns into a week, and suddenly weeks have passed, and I can't control it anymore.

----------------

Y/n sat in her living room, having some dinner while watching the news. As she glanced at her phone, she noticed an incoming call from an unknown number.

After considering it for a moment, Y/n became curious, so she decided to answer. "Hello?"

"Y/n?", a male, familiar voice asked.

"Matty?", she asked slightly confused, immediately recognizing the man on the phone.

"Surprised?"

"Uhm... yeah, kind of, I guess. Haven't heard anything from you in ages. How've you been?"

Matty and Y/N have known each other from school. After they graduated a few years ago, they sometimes still bumped into each other in town, enjoying a nice chat and updating each other about their busy, somewhat messy adult lives. Though their paths seemed to cross every once in a while, they never really tried to stay in touch.

"Great, actually," he answered. "George and I got a bit bored, so I was wondering if maybe you wanna hang out with us?"

"Hang out with you?"

"Yeah, we'd pick you up."

"Okay, let me get this straight," the girl stated. "You and George got bored..."

"Yep."

"and out of all the things you could do, you chose to ask me if I want to hang out with you?"

"Now what's wrong with that?" Matty asked, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, to call someone you have never called before, asking them to hang out on a casual Thursday.

"Well, I don't kn... Wait! Where did you get my number from?"

"Doesn't really matter, does it?"

"It does matter somehow."

Suddenly, the sound of a car horn made Y/N jump.

"Nah. We're here by the way. You're coming?"

"Matty! It's 9:30; I'm already in my pajamas!" she exclaimed.

Matty laughed. "I don't care what you're wearing."

"And who even gave you my address?"

"Just get your ass out here!" he snickered into the phone. "Now!"

"You're insufferable!"

"Yeah, I know," he shrugged it off with a smirk.

"Give me at least a sec to put some clothes on." Not waiting for an answer, she hung up. Despite her confusion about Matty's suspicious call, she changed into a pair of jeans and a hoodie, quickly grabbing her jacket and keys as she went downstairs to leave the house.

Matty sat on the passenger seat of George's car, his arm casually dangling out of the open window. "Hi, Y/n!" he greeted her with a big smile on his face, causing y/n's bewilderment to grow.

"Hi, Y/n!" George called from the drivers seat.

"Hi...", she hesitantly answered, shyly waving her hand toward his direction.

"Come on, get inside!" Matty said excitedly.

"Matty, I still don't kn..."

"Sshhh!" he cut her off, pressing his index finger on his lips. "It'll be fun. I promise."

Y/n opened the door and placed herself on the backseat, putting on her seatbelt as George started the engine, ready to drive off.

"How are you Y/n?" Matty asked.

"Uhm.. fine, I guess. Bit tired. I have work tomorrow."

"Are you still working as a nurse, Y/n?" George asked.

"Yes, I am. How's your music thing going?"

"Absolutely amazing", Matty answered immediately. "We're currently working on our first album. It's gonna be a fuckin' banger, isn't it George?"

"Oh, definitely!", George added.

"That's cool. I'm so happy for you guys. Can't wait to hear it," Y/n grinned.

"You're gonna be the first to hear it when it's done.", Matty beamed.

George shook his head, trying to hide a chuckle as he glanced over to the overly excited Matty. "What?" Matty reacted.

"Nevermind," George now laughed.

Matty shook his curls out of his face. "Idiot."

"Where are we driving?" Y/n asked as she slowly got more comfortable in the presence of her old classmates.

"I don't know," both Matty and George stated in unison, looking at each other as neither of them had a clue about their destination.

"Maybe we can park the car over there," Matty pointed towards and empty parking space he randomly saw.

-------------------------

After George parked the car, Matty quickly left the car to open the door for Y/N.

Their gaze locked for a moment, as she looked up at him from her seat "Uhm.. thank you," she chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're welcome," he waved it off. "Don't mention it."

George rolled his eyes at Matty's silly behaviour. "Ouch!" he squeaked, as Matty stabbed him with his elbow.

"Ah look! A church," Matty stated as the three of them were heading towards one of the city's churches. "Quite stunning, isn't it?"

"It's just a church, mate," George raised an eyebrow at his best friend.

"Shall we sit down on that bench over there? Hope I won't go up in flames. Wouldn't that be fun, huh?" Matty asked.

A slight chuckle left Y/n lips, as she realized that going outside with Matty and George wasn't as bad as she expected. She was actually glad that she picked up that call. A little bit of distraction from her mind and her self-destructive thoughts had been long overdue.

"Do you smoke, Y/n?"

"Nah, it's disgusting."

George threw his head back in heavy laughter before patting Matty's shoulder, who looked at him in his usual clumsy way.

"What is it with you today, George?" Matty asked, shaking his head. "You're acting kinda weird."

"Me? No idea what you're talking about," he kept on laughing.

Y/n was still standing in front on the bench, while only the two boys were sitting.

"Anyway," Matty looked away from George, turning his face toward Y/n. "You know you can actually sit down here beside me." Matty said as his curls were dangling in his eyes again. He pushed them aside with his hand as he continued, "We don't bite, you know?"

"Well, I certainly won't," George still couldn't get over whatever he was laughing about. "But I wouldn't be so sure about Matty."

Matty kicked his foot against George's. "I'm sorry about him. He's usually not like that."

"It's okay, I'd rather keep standing. I just wish I knew what he's laughing about, so I could join in," the blonde girl chuckled.

"No, I think it'd best if he kept it to himself", Matty said with a pointed look at George, his tone firm, implying he should refrain from sharing the source of his amusement. "... wouldn't it, George?"

"Ookayy... this is... weird," Y/n said while observing the two musicians, trying to figure out what was going on.

Matty knew why George was enjoying himself this much, but he didn't want anyone else to know, especially not Y/n. He instantly started to regret that he had told his long kept secret to his best friend earlier that day, since George was on his best way of ruining Matty's well-thought-out plan.

George cleared his throat as he finally pulled himself back together. "Mh, mh...," he hummed. After lighting his own fag he handed the lighter over to Matty so he could light his.

Y/N watched as he blew the smoke out, which slowly meandered all over his face before evaporating into the cold, dark night. As he slowly opened up his eyes, their glances met for a second but she looked down at her feet immediately, to avoid having any more eye contact.

"I kinda miss going to school with you guys," Matty informed them. "Do you miss it too sometimes?"

"Nah, certainly not," George answered, but Matty's eyes were fixed on Y/n.

"Yeah, I do," Y/n chuckled. "Do you know who I miss the most?"

"No, who?" Matty asked, before he quickly added "Ah, no, wait! I know it!"

Y/n raised her eyebrow, waiting for his answer.

"It's me!"

George and Y/n looked at each other before bursting out in laughter.

"Oh damn, Matty. I wish I had an ego as big as yours," Y/n snickered.

"Yeah, well... okay. Who is it then?", Matty shrugged.

"It's Mr. Miller. I kinda miss his bad jokes"

"Haha, yeah, he was such a pervert, though."

"Yeah, I know. That's what made it so funny," she answered.

"I mean, he was only that funny because his jokes were so bad. Ridiculous." George added, slightly chuckling under his breath.

"Wait... doesn't he live over there?" The girl turned around, pointing towards a house across the street from the church.

"Uhm..," Matty thought for a moment before he continued "Yes! He does! He told us about the annoying chimes of the bell tower right in front of his house, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he did. Wow, that's amazing. Come on, let's see if he's home," not even waiting for a response, she started to make her way across the street to Mr. Miller's house.

"Y/n!" Matty whisper-screamed, "Are you insane? It's half 10. He's probably in bed already, shagging his wife or something."

George laughed at Matty's words. "I'm in. This is fun. Come on Matty. Don't be such a wimp." He stood up from the bench they were sitting on, walking over to Y/n.

Matty was still sitting on the bench, his arms crossed in front of his chest like a little kid left behind by his parents.

"Matty!" Y/n turned around to call him once again. "Get your ass up!"

Matty rolled his eyes before he got up, slowly strolling over the street to where is friends stood.

"Who's gonna ring the doorbell?" George asked, looking at Matty, who immediately responded in denial. "Don't look at me like that! I won't do it."

"And you want to call yourself a man? Pathetic." Y/n snapped in annoyance.

Surprised but kind of impressed by her answer, the two boys looked at each other and shrugged.

"I'll do it then," y/n informed them before she rang the doorbell at Mr. Miller's front door.

After waiting for a few seconds with no answer, she decided to ring the bell again.

"I think no one's home.", George said.

"I told you he's under his wife!", Matty stated.

Y/n chuckled as she looked at Matty to respond "Yeah Matty, you might be right. Let's leave then."

"I'm always right. Don't know why no one's ever listening to me," he said as they walked back to their bench across the street.

Now it was only George who sat down again, while Y/n and Matty stood in front of the bench.

"Imagine..," y/n started as she turned around to face Matty "like what if they were really in there..."

"They were!" Matty interrupted her. "Believe me."

They both chuckled in unison at their silly and dirty imagination. As Matty sought eye contact again, she tried to cover up her mouth with her hand, feeling a bit insecure. This time, she didn't look away but locked her gaze with his, looking up at the curly-haired man. Suddenly, something seemed to click in her. The sound of his laughter touched her soul like rays of sunshine, covered in sweet melodies. Like the myelin sheath of axons, allowing them to reach her ears even faster than the speed of light. She didn't yet know that this exact moment would change her life forever. That this exact moment was the start of a series of memories she would never get rid of. She didn't yet know that if a magical creature offered her to relive one day of her life, she would unhesitatingly choose this one.

If she had known all this, she probably would have held onto this moment longer. Maybe her question would have been something like 'Can we stay a bit longer?' or 'Can we make this night last forever?'

But instead, she said "Can we go home now? I'm kinda freezing, and I have to get up very early tomorrow."

"Yeah, sure thing," Matty said. And even though he wanted this rather intimate moment between the two of them to last forever or at least a little bit longer, he slowly loosened his gaze from hers. "George? Come on, off we go."

George stood up, and they slowly walked back to the car, neither of them saying a word. It seemed as if something magical lingered in the air. George had noticed that something had happened between Y/N and his best friend — something that changed the entire atmosphere around them, adorning it with a sweet, metaphorical scent.

🖤[poem 1]🖤

As Matty was about to open the car door, Y/n stopped him. "Look! There's a firefly!"

"Where?" Matty asked, wildly looking around.

"Right there, in your hair," she pointed up to his messy curls. "Wait, don't move." She carefully reached out her finger to his hair, trying to let the little firefly crawl onto it.

"It's so cute, isn't it?" she asked, showing him the insect on her finger.

"It is. I've never actually seen one before. Have you?" he asked while admiring the glowing creature on Y/n's finger.

"No, I haven't."

"Look, there's another one," Matty stated as he pointed his finger in the air next to Y/n's face.

Just a few seconds later, they found themselves surrounded by hundreds of fireflies, their gentle glow illuminating the dark night around them.

George was already sitting in the car as he rolled down the window, curious why his friends were still standing outside of the car. "What's going on out there?" he asked.

Done admiring the fireflies, Y/n and Matty got in the car. "Man, you missed out on something. About a million fireflies were out there!" Matty exaggerated.

"Oh really? I see them all the time in my garden," George answered casually as he started driving.

"You must be kidding!" Matty stated in surprise.

"No, like literally almost every single night!" he laughed and kept on driving towards Y/n's house to drop her off.

🖤[poem 2]🖤

🖤[poem 3]🖤

--------------------

When George stopped the car in front of Y/n's house, she unbuckled her seatbelt, getting ready to leave the car.

"So, uhm... it was nice to hang out with you, guys," Y/n said.

"Yeah..." Matty started before he was cut off by George.

"Yeah, Y/n. I'm pretty sure Matty liked it too," George teased, wriggling his eyebrows.

"Thank you, George," Matty rolled his eyes at him. "But I think I can speak for myself, can't I? I'm a big boy, I suppose." He turned around to face Y/n in the backseat. "So, yeah. I loved it. It was fun. Maybe we can hang out again at the weekend?"

"Yes, I'd love that," she shyly smiled in response.

"Great."

"Okay. Well, goodnight then," she said, opening the door to get out of the car. "See ya, guys!"

"Bye, Y/n!" George waved.

"See ya!" Matty called out of the open window as she was already out of the car, opening her front door, waving goodbye with a smile on her face.

After she disappeared into the house, Matty immediately turned around, confronting George. "You fuckin' idiot!"

"What? What have I done now?" George laughed.

"George, I'm telling you...," Matty warned him. "If you ruin this..."

"I won't ruin anything, mate. I think you need to settle down a bit. Tonight went quite well, didn't it?"

"Yeah... Yeah, I think so," Matty looked outside the window, his tired head resting on his hand, his mind replaying the evening's events like scenes from a movie...

_____________

Let me know what you think xx

[canonicallyobserving911]

Buck & Eddie: Buddie Endgame!

Before 7x5 aired, I decided to take a break from 911blr and Buddieblr since the BTS pics and the "supposed leaks" for 7x5 showed they were about to do another wash, rinse and repeat with both Buck and Eddie. Their storylines have been seen before and at this point, they've become predictable. Anyway, I'm glad I took several days off because I figured most of the people who watched it would see Buck on a date with T*mmy and it would prompt them to start "Jumping ship" (Eddie’s words from 7x4) even though the whole situation was rushed and there's no substance there. If people did jump ship, they have every right to do so but just in case they're new here and they haven't watched all of Buck's train wreck relationships starting in season 1, the facts are Buck is making the same mistakes he's made in the past even though in 6x1, he said he didn't want to do that anymore.

Here's the thing... I'm not trying to convince anyone about who they should and shouldn't ship because everyone has their own preferences. However, I do think it's interesting how some are choosing to forget or just don't want to acknowledge/admit the fact that T*mmy did the same thing to Buck that both Taylor and Natalia did but it didn't take him multiple episodes to do it either.

Here are the cycles...

WASH: He showed up to the loft UNANNOUNCED.

RINSE: He kissed him.

REPEAT: And then he left him standing there dazed just like they did.

BONUS SPIN CYCLE: He told Buck to "Take care of yourself" (he just said it before he showed up unannounced and he said it while they were at Air Rescue when he was trying to date Eddie 👀).

Therefore, it appears the only difference between T*mmy and Taylor and Natalia is, T*mmy's a man which seems to be the only reason why some are willing to look past his bad character traits (discussed here) based solely on that fact. He's just like Buck's previous relationships where it starts off with Buck being kissed like he's in some kind of fairy tale or some BS and then it follows the same pattern as before (as indicated above).

I'm not going to go into the Buck and T*mmy of it all or lack thereof any further because this post is about Buddie and only Buddie!

I've witnessed the REAL LOVE Buck and Eddie share and it's the reason why I have and always will ONLY ship them with each other. They've built a family together and the fact is they know each other inside and out. They don't have to pretend and they know how to take care of the other one. They agreed to have each other's backs years ago and they've continued to do it. Chris views Buck as his second dad and he was doing it way before Eddie updated his will and named Buck to be Chris' legal guardian. Chris called Buck when Eddie was having a mental breakdown and it's obvious he could have called 9-1-1 but he didn't. Reminder, Buck and Eddie are both first responders so he could have called emergency services but he called his other dad, the man who told him months before Eddie was shot that he's not going anywhere 👀.

Buck has cried, screamed and clawed at the ground while trying to dig through 50 feet of wet earth to get to Eddie. He's also crawled underneath a ladder truck (one of the things that tried to take his leg) to save Eddie after Eddie was shot by a sniper in front of him. Eddie’s blood splattered all over Buck’s face and he was in a CATATONIC state of shock until Capitan Mehta tackled him to the ground.

Eddie was the one bleeding out but he was conscious enough to ask Buck "Are you hurt?" before he went unconscious for the last time from the pain of being shot with a large caliber bullet. Eddie climbed up a 70 foot ladder while it was extended in the air without being harnessed in to get to Buck after he was STRUCK BY THE SAME BOLT OF LIGHTNING AND WAS CATAPULTED OFF THE BASE OF THE LADDER to get to him. He was the one who restarted Buck’s heart after Chimney had been doing chest compressions on him for 3 minutes. Trust, that last 17 seconds was ALL EDDIE DIAZ! Eddie took Buck to play poker to help him keep his mind off the fact that he died so he could relax and have a good time.

THAT'S LOVE!

Buck’s own definition of love describes EDDIE DIAZ and only Eddie Diaz! Therefore, it's ridiculous that people are literally trying to dismiss Eddie’s love for Buck just because some dude with a sorted past (with Buck’s found family. Hello Taylor Kelly anyone?) put his lips on Buck and kissed him the same way all the women Buck’s been with did.

Buck and Eddie are IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER and they're each other's ENDGAME!

The point of this post is people can ship whoever they want but I HAVE AND ALWAYS WILL SHIP BUDDIE because they share a once in a lifetime, love of their lives, soulmate type of love that transcends space and time.

I'LL NEVER SETTLE FOR A KNOCKOFF VERSION OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP. WHY? BECAUSE FOR ME ANY ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS they've had or will have with others resembles a cheap piece of costume jewelry that looks ok from far away until you get up close and realize it's a cheap imitation of the real thing.

Why would I settle for Buck to end up with a KNOCKOFF version of Eddie?

I won't!

And why would I settle for Eddie to end up with some babysitter who's more in love with her brother when Buck’s already been shown to be another one of Chris' parents?

I won't!

Buck and Eddie DESERVE THE REAL EPIC LOVE STORY that 9-1-1 has been showing and telling the audience about them for the last 6 years and no other love interests have or ever will compare to what they mean to each other.

Ship whoever you want but I only ship BUDDIE and I always will.

[trivalentlinks]

saw this cute reddit Am I the Asshole post by reddit user tway23421 with peak enemies-to-friends energy and thought my friends here might like it.

Also here's another enemies to friends story from its comment section with a similar energy, but from the rebellious asshole kid perspective (by reddit user D_OShae)

AITA (Am I the Asshole) abbreviations:

WIBTA = would I be the asshole

NTA = not the asshole

[Image ID

1st image: reddit r/AmITheAsshole

Posted by u/tway23421 11 hours ago

WIBTA for spraying some kid with my garden hose daily after he walks all over our lawn

I (37M) live with my wife (37F) and son and daughter ( 9 and 11 respectively).

Recently, there has been this kid who comes by our house after playing soccer and either rides his bike or walks over the lawn with his cleats on his way home.

It started out as me giving him stern looks whenever I saw him, then it slowly progressed to me asking him to just go around.

The last time I asked him to stop he made a point to stomp extra hard and twist his feet in to the grass to piss me off.

Since then Ive just been hosing him. The first time I sprayed him with the hose he ran off, but then for some reason he just started standing there while I hose him like he enjoys it.

Its now progressed to me sitting on my lawn chair pointing my hose at him, and him just staring at me while he does so. Sometimes we even make small talk.

Im ngl, it started off as a really bitter relationship, but Ive actually gotten to know the kid quite well, we talk for maybe 15-20 mins everyday, and he doesnt seem to mind being hosed down after sweating hard playing soccer.

He comes by daily and we just shoot the shit while I hose him and he stands there for a bit.

Wife told me I need to stop, even after I explained it to her she said Im making us look like childish idiots.

I guess I could stop, but honestly its really funny waiting for him to come by and I see no harm in it. WIBTA?

2nd image:

Comment by D_OShae 4 hours ago:

NTA, and this is actually kind of sweet.

When I was in my teens, I used to visit a small greasy spoon (diner) where my friend was a waitress. This old guy (late 70s) came in every day at the same time and sat in the same booth. He would order one of three meals. One time I sat in "his" booth doing some homework (and drinking a ton of coffee refills). The man came in and told me -- not asked -- that I needed to move. I did. It happened again a couple of weeks later. He called me a little bastard for sitting his both. A couple of days later, I did it again on purpose. He called me a little bastard and told me to move. I moved my books. The man grumbled and sat down.

Over the course of about two months this scenario got repeated. Somewhere along the line I asked him about a ring he wore. The stories started to come out. I learned he and his late wife came to that restaurant for over 20 years to have dinner. I was sitting in her place. However, I kept asking questions, and he kept relaying his stories. This man lead an AMAZING life, and I listened to any tale he wanted to share. This went on for two years.

When he died at the age of 81, I went to his memorial. I met his children and grandchildren. When they asked how I knew him, I told them my tale. His children laughed because he called everyone a little bastard, male and female alike. Then I began to recount some of the stories he told me. His children verified some, but then they heard stories he never told them. I ended up meeting with his children several times to tell them everything he told me.

Mr. Banhke, I am not a believer, like I told you many times, but I still think of you and your incredible life. You are not forgotten.

]

AITA (Am I the Asshole) abbreviations:

WIBTA = would I be the asshole

NTA = not the asshole

[ryeriy]

don't you remember?

warnings: mentions of sex, fluff

navigation post

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a/n: the story is told from two different tine zones so yeah. this is inspired by one of my favorite songs called isn't it midnight by fleetwood mac and this is probably my favorite because of it. I'm going to link the song because it is so good.

mentions: @hischierhaze @67-angelofthelordme-67 @huggy-hischier94 @francesfarhadi @trevorzegrizz @cole-mcward48

5:06 PM, ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

"Dude, I swear she's real! I saw her with my eyes! She's not fake!" Trevor exclaims at his brown-haired friend, who's laughing at him.

"She's not real Trevor, all you've told me is that you met her at a bar and had sex, you said you didn't even see her face and said she was pretty! You also said she was like a hippie and was qoute on qoute, calm, cool and collected. You don't even remember her name! She's not real! Wouldn't you think you'd remember a pretty girl?" He says while laughing at him. Laughing at how delusional he is sounding right now. "Jack, I'm not making this up! I had sex with her!" The delusional dark-haired one exclaims. "Whatever, you're lying." Jack sighs.

9:06 PM, PORTLAND, MAINE

"(Y/n)! You didn't have sex with THE Trevor Zegras. It's impossible!" Exclaimed a dirty blonde, beautiful, young women.

"Um I did! Remember when I went to Anaheim to see my sister? Well I came across an individual who happened to be him and I had sex with him!" I argued against the blonde. "Well yeah I look a bit weird and my personality is a bit questionable but that doesn't mean anything!"

"Well why didn't you get his number (y/n)?" She questioned me, I was looking clueless. "It was late Kat! I had to go to the airport to catch my flight!" "Yeah? Well you had enough time to screw each other but no time to exchange numbers?" Kat explained to me. "When was this anyways (y/n)?" She asked me. "Few months ago..." "And you didn't tell me till now! Jesus (y/n)! You claim you had sex with a famous hockey player and you don't think of telling me?!" Kat yelled at me for answers that I didn't have.

I explained to her what happened. Kat still denied to believe a single word that came out of my mouth. We kept arguing going back and fourth. The ding on her phone silenced the two of us. She checker her phone. "Oh that's weird." She said while making her face. "What is it now Kat?" I say while laughing at the face she made.

5:49 PM, ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

"Ha! What a coincidence!" Jack says while pointing to his phone. "Yes?" Trevor questions him. "Well remember how I said I had this friend who lives in Maine?" He said. "What about her?"

"Well I texted her saying that you know, you keep blabbering about this girl who doesn't exist. She responded and said lol funny story. She told me that her friend, (y/n), and she is blabbering like you saying she was in Anaheim to vist family and she had sex with Trevor Zegras." Jack sighs.

"Can you ask your friend for her number?" Those are the words that slip from his mouth. "No I told you so?" Jack questioned questions. "What's. Her. Number." He repeats himself. "Fine, I'll ask her."

10:13 PM, PORTLAND, MAINE

"Oh my God, Kat! You will never believe this!" I jump up and down smiling so hard at my phone. "What?" She says while looking over at me. "He texted me! Trevor freaking Zegras texted me!" She rushes over to look down at my phone and she's in shock.

"I didn't think he would do it!" Kat says while sighing. "Do what?" I ask her. "Give him your number!" Kat wasn't making sense. Is she secretly friends with Trevor Zegras and decided not to tell me? "Wait are you friends with Trevor Zegras or something? Is that why he texted me?" I ask her. "No! My friend Jack is thoug-" I cut her off before she finished the sentence. "Jack Hughes?! You're friends with Jack Hughes and didn't mention it!?" I'm shocked. What else is she hiding, she's not Kat. "I didn't think I had to." She says while laughing. I sigh and laugh with her.

"Now, if you excuse me I have a very hot hockey player to talk to." I sa my while laughing and walking into my room. I heard Kat sigh as I walked into my bedroom. She probably turned on the TV or something for her.

6:30 PM, ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

"Dude! She's actually texting me!" Trevor says to Jack. His face is bright red while he's looking at his phone. "I'll leave you to you it." Jack leaves the room and he leaves Trevor to be in love and fall for this girl he met once. The two started chatting for a long time, a really long time.

y/n <3

Hey, it's Trevor! I don't know if you remember me but we hooked up that one night. I just wanted to say I'm sorry that we didn't keep in touch but I'm texting you now so I hope you see this and we can talk :)

Hey! I'm y/n btw I don't think I introduced myself the first time we met. I'd love to keep in touch with you. You know when I first told people about our interaction they didn't believe me but since my friend, Kat is friends with your friend she had to believe me I guess lol.

Nice to meet you y/n. I was hoping we could talk. If you're not busy right now because if you're busy I can talk later but no rush.

I can tell you talk a lot.

Is that a bad thing?

No I like that about you :)

Thanks....so do you have time to talk...?

For you? Of course I do.

11:46 PM, PORTLAND, MAINE

I've been talking to him for just about an hour. I'm so in love with him already. We've been talking about almost everything you can talk about. All of the sudden a call notification pops up on my phone. Oh wow. I'm shocked. He's calling me. I pinched myself to make sure this whole thing wasn't a dream. I answer the call and hold my phone up to my War.

"Hello, (y/n)." I hear him say. I feel like I just melted from the overload of all this. I feel like a million butterflies were released into my stomach. I feel like my hear is going to explode from how fast it's pounding. "Hey." Is all I can say.

"How's it going pretty girl?" I can hear him smiling over the phone from California. He can probably hear me being a complete boy crazy mess for him.

"Good now that you called." I say while laughing at the end. I can hear him laugh along too.

"So, Jack was telling me his friend was from Maine. I'm assuming that's also where you live?" He asks. I still can't believe this actually happening to me.

"Yeah. She and I are roommates." I reply to him. I hear him let out an Mhm. I'm so anxious waiting for him talk again.

"Isn't it midnight for you? You know since your like on the other side of the world?" I laugh.

"Yeah almost. You do realize I'm not on the other side of the world? I'm just across the country." I say while laughing. I hear him let out a chuckle.

"Same thing." He says with a pause. "I'll let you go since you probably should sleep. I'll talk to you later?"

"Yeah, talk to you later." I say back to him as I hang up. I smile while I bring my phone down from me ear. I'm so in love with him.

[depressedbagpipe]

Ka-Chaow (Charles Leclerc x female!reader)

Chapter one

Words: 3310 Warnings: mentions of alcohol and being drunk (guys, please, don't drink alcohol), some anxiety thrown in there, a couple of bad words, google-translated italian A/N: it's lights out and away we go! welcome to my crazy world in which i got into f1 right when the season was ending and now i can't wait to see every race. also, cause I'm still kinda new and I'm not Italian, any mistakes that i make in regards of *everything*, feel free to correct me, and be nice about it ;) A/N (II): italics are thoughts and phone calls and the email, bold and italics are messages, just bold is the location ;)

Series Masterlist Next chapter

Chapter one

London, November 18th, 2022

The weight of my bag was the only thing preventing me from sprinting to my desk. Several manuscripts I had yet to finish, together with my laptop, and all my personal items, hung from my shoulder as I made my way into Mr. Williamson’s wing. I cringed at the sound of my heels over the polished floors, making various heads turn my way as I sprinted by as fast as I could. 

Eventually, I got to my desk, conveniently placed just outside Mr. Williamson’s office. The slight clutter was hastily thrown away with a flick of my wrist, making space for my bag, and turning my computer on at sprint time. A quick glance at the office before me told me Mr. Williamson hadn’t arrived yet. Thankfully. 

Checking my wristwatch, I sighed in relief at the time. 

9:32 am. New record. 

Now relaxed, I took a seat in my uncomfortable chair and started typing away on the keyboard, going over all the emails and meetings I had to schedule for the day. 

Half an hour later, Mr. Williamson showed up.

‘Good morning,’ he said in his usual hoarse morning voice.

‘Good morning, Mr. Williamson, would you like your usual coffee order?’ I asked in rehearsed practice.

‘Yes, please,’ he responded, struggling to open his office's glass door.

‘You gotta push,’ I noted while I grabbed my coat and my wallet, trying not to laugh.

‘Right,’ he grumbled, finally opening the door and leaving it open. 

He stumbled a bit over the expensive rug, looking around before taking a seat on his bigger and far more luxurious desk. His briefcase fell over when he placed it on it, dangling over the edge, and only once he was fully seated, I left my post.

That’s how every morning went for the past year. I would arrive in time –usually–, be ready at my desk until Mr. Williamson came in late –usually–, make sure he got to his seat in one piece, and go down to the ground floor where the company’s private Starbucks had its own space. 

One Americano, and one iced vanilla latte to go, please. Once again, those words were deeply burned in my memory. 

‘How is he doing this morning?’ Jeremy, the morning barista, asked as he took the order.

I shrugged, swiping the company card over the payment terminal. ‘Still pissed off drunk.’

‘So, the usual?’ he chuckled, motioning me to the end of the bar while Amanda, his workmate, made the drinks.

We both leaned over the counter separating us, talking in hushed voices, so the other customers wouldn’t listen to our conversation.

‘Honestly, I don’t know how much he can go on like this. I’m starting to feel bad for the guy.’

‘Girl, he cheated on his wife, and she rightfully left him. If he deals with his own mistakes by getting wasted every night, it’s up to him,’ Jeremy sent me a pointed look.

I bit my lip. ‘I know, but you should see him. It stopped being funny eight months ago. Do you know how many meetings I had to reschedule because he wouldn’t even pick up his phone? And I don’t mean his personal phone, I mean the company phone in his office. All he has to do is press a single button and talk,’ I winced at the memory.

‘Here you go, have a nice day!’ Amanda gave me the drinks, and I smiled gratefully at her. 

‘Well, as soon as he keeps ordering Americanos, I’m not complaining. I’ve doubled my hours here solely based on his caffeine ingest. And you know how much I need the money, so he better keep those orders coming,’ Jeremy winked.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. ‘If he ends up in rehab, I’ll blame you.’

He shrugged. ‘Fine by me. He’s an asshole.’

I laughed with a small shake of my head. ‘Bye, Jeremy! See you in a couple of hours!’

Getting back into the elevator, I made a mental note of everything that had to be done that morning. Meetings, meetings, and more meetings, until either Mr. Williamson got fed up and left, or I dropped in exhaustion for a quick nap.

The walk back to my desk felt longer than usual, the hefty workload of the week finally catching up to me as it normally did every Friday. I left my own coffee on my desk and quickly gave my boss his Americano, to which he merely responded with a grunt. He had his sunglasses on and was massaging his temples as if his life depended on it. 

Making a face at his state, I bent down and took off my heels, knowing the constant clicking would be painful in his hungover head, and went back to my desk, making sure the door to his office was closed. Grabbing the phone, I was quick to cancel the first meeting he had in ten minutes.

With a sigh, I grabbed one of the manuscripts and resumed my reading, reading every page twice and making sure no typo was missed. 

It was both a blessing and a curse, working at Ink’n’Paper. We were one of the world’s leading publishing houses on all sorts of literature, and consequently, the huge workload that we bore was overwhelming. Ink’n’Paper had been my first and only real job in the publishing industry, starting as an inexperienced intern and working my way up until I became the assistant of a household name in Historical Non-Fiction. It hadn’t exactly been my first option, non-fiction, but the pay was good, and I was desperate to prove myself. Next thing I knew, it had been three years since I’d started, and I was pretty much the only one making sure the whole department didn’t burn down due to my boss’ sudden neglect.

It was a few hours later, still sometime before the end of my workday, that I –or rather, Mr. Williamson– received the email. I had been managing all his accounts ever since the very first day he stumbled into the office completely drunk, Vodka bottle in hand, and screamed how much of a cunt everybody was on that floor, and then passed out on his rug, not before puking all over himself. After the embarrassment and degrading task of cleaning, not only him, but his rug too, I had taken over his entire life, managing even his dental care appointments for him, knowing he wouldn’t even be showing up to half of them.

I was surprised at the sender, for the name was oddly familiar. Maurizio Arrivabene.

Frowning, I quietly opened the message.

‘Buonasera, Stephen. I know it’s been a while, but as you’ll understand, these past few years have been a rollercoaster here. I was actually thinking about your past offer, and I know I’m a year too late, but I would love to look into it more. I’ll be in London next week after the season’s over, maybe you’d like to have some coffee (or tea, whichever you prefer), and talk about the book? I know here at Ferrari we need some push, whatever results we get this weekend. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Take care, Stephen. Sincerely, Maurizio.’

I widened my eyes at the email. Maurizio Arrivabene. Ferrari’s old team principal. I quickly gathered my planner and a pen and pushed open Mr. Williamson’s office door. Thankfully for me, he now seemed much better.

‘Sorry, Mr. Williamson?’ I took a few tentative steps toward him.

‘Yes?’ he lowered his spectacles, halting his typing on his keyboard.

‘You’ve received an email from one Maurizio Arrivabene,’ I pronounced his name in a heavy accent, the same way my dad would whenever he talked about his homeland. ‘Something about a book offer, maybe?’ 

His face broke into a smile. ‘Oh, Maurizio!’ he stood up from his seat. ‘I haven’t spoken to him in a while! How is he?’ he asked me. He still reeked of cheap alcohol.

‘I don’t know, sir, but he wants to meet with you next week.’

He clapped. ‘Fantastic, schedule a meeting with him.’

I coughed. ‘Well, the thing is, he sent an email to you, directly. I believe he’d like something more casual,’ I said, yet I opened my planner to check his schedule.

‘Well, then, I shall phone him immediately!’ he grabbed the phone on his desk, and rapidly frowned. ‘What’s his number again?’

I pursed my lips. ‘He didn’t write any, sir. I think you shall write to him directly.’

‘Of course! Let me just…’ he sat back down and typed something on his computer. ‘What was my email again?’

I groaned soundlessly, quietly making my way to him and fastly typing his correct credentials. Standing closer to him, I noticed the many wrinkles in his suit and the many hair strands that fell on the wrong side of his side part. Shaking my head, I pointed at the email.

‘There it is.’

‘Okay, when am I free for tea?’ he responded after a few seconds, his eyes reading over the words.

‘Well, you did cancel three meetings with the entire Editorial Department so… I rescheduled them for next week, but you should be free Friday afternoon after work,’ I checked all the time slots available, scribbling down the possible dates.

‘Why couldn’t we meet on a weekend? We don’t work on weekends,’ he said.

I paused. ‘You don’t work on weekends. I do. And I’m guessing this is a possible job offer, therefore counting it as part of the workweek at least allows you a free meal covered as company’s expenses,’ I recited off my head. Too many times I have said that.

Mr. Williamson widened his eyes. ‘That’s brilliant! You’re right, let’s schedule for next Thursday.’

‘Friday.’

‘Friday. Wow, who taught you that?’ 

‘You did, sir.’

‘Well, I’m a genius, then.’

‘If only you were sober enough to realize that,’ I muttered as I finished writing on my planner. Louder, I replied. ‘Remember to save the day and respond to the man. Don’t keep him waiting.’

I walked back to the door. Mr. Williamson nodded his head. ‘Will do!’

With another sigh, I sat back on my chair, cracking my fingers before typing in the response to Maurizio Arrivabene on behalf of Mr. Williamson, and making sure to set reminders in his calendar for every day of the week until his tea date. 

The pay is good, at least. 

—

‘You should have seen him. I mean, he’s like a toddler!’ I complained from my spot on the couch. 

‘I don’t know how you keep working like that, you’re basically a babysitter at this point,’ my mother said from the other side of the phone.

I hummed in agreement, looking up at my feet. They dangled from the other end of the couch, as I took up the entire space by laying down. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what to do. I told Rosanna from Human Resources to notify me whenever there was a new vacancy, but it’s been months.’

‘Honey, I can’t tell you what to do, but do you think head editor is the right job for you?’ she asked. 

I stopped. ‘I think so. I mean, I’m good at it.’

‘Yes, but do you like it?’

I paused again. 

That question had been roaming in my mind for months. At first, the job had been nice. Reading manuscripts for a living, correcting the mistakes, meeting with the authors, and getting to know them first-hand… Again, maybe historical non-fiction wasn’t what I originally envisioned my future like, but the pay was good enough to get me my own apartment and to live independently. At the rate the economy was going, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. 

But then Mr. Williamson had suddenly neglected his own job when his life started spiraling down, and I had been the unfortunate soul to try and collect the pieces of his broken person. I was suddenly managing, not only my life, but his, and needless to say, he wasn’t an easy person to handle. Despite the many conversations to get him to sober up, every morning was a complete wild card, not knowing whether he would even show up, and if he did, would he be conscious enough to work.

On the bright side, thanks to his many absences, I had learned how to manage the editorial department pretty much completely on my own. I knew the names of every single worker, even the janitors and the night guards working late shifts. I had written, rewritten, corrected, presented, contacted, hired, fired, and despite knowing I was perfect for said role, my heart still longed for something different. The reason why I even had studied Creative Writing all along. 

‘But only writing doesn’t pay the bills’, Mr. Williamson had said one morning, a month into my newly appointed role as his assistant. And ever since then, I had almost forgotten about my own dream of becoming a novelist. 

‘What do you think I should do, then?’ I asked her.

‘Honey, you’re old enough to make your own decisions,’ she laughed.

‘Mom, I need your advice! I know I’m old enough but right now I’m at a crossroads!’ I complained, lifting my arm and covering my eyes with it. 

‘You know what I think about writing for a living,’ she mused.

I groaned. ‘Yeah, I know it’s not your cup of tea, but I promise, I’m good. Great, even.’

‘I wouldn’t know, you never let me read anything.’

‘Well, yeah, it’s embarrassing.’

‘You need to get over that eventually, honey.’

‘It’s easier said than done,’ I sighed. ‘Besides, everything I have written so far was just reports and boring commercial synopsis for historical books, unless you really wanna read that…’

‘Honey, whatever you choose to do, just make sure it makes you happy. And that at least you’re getting money out of it.’

I took a deep breath. ‘I think I need to sleep this one over.’

‘It’s probably for the best. Let me know, whatever you do,’ my mother said. ‘I gotta go now, book club starts in fifteen minutes and I still gotta walk by Linda’s house to return her copy. Will you be fine?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. Wait, your dad wants to talk.’

‘Great.’

‘Hey, chicken pie!’ I chuckled at my dad’s voice.

‘Hi, dad,’ I smiled.

His tone was excited. ‘You’re seeing the practice?’

I nodded before answering, my eyes glancing at the TV, where the first day of race weekend was airing from the Yas Marina circuit. ‘Of course, I am. Not paying much attention, though.’

‘Well, nothing interesting so far. You wanna FaceTime tomorrow for quali?’

‘Yes, please,’ I groaned in delight. ‘I wish I could be there to watch it with you, though.’

I could hear his smile through the phone. ‘It’s alright, chicken pie, I know you’re busy lately. Everything alright with your boss?’

I could hear my mom yelling at him in the background of the call. 

I bit my lip. ‘Ask mom, she got all the details. Shouldn’t you be leaving for book club too?’

It was his turn to groan. ‘Don’t remind me.’

I laughed. ‘What was it?’

‘To Kill a Mockingbird. No bird in it.’

I audibly laughed at him. ‘Please, don’t say that out loud, you’ll be banished from the club.’

‘Oh, what a pity would that be,’ he said in his most mischievous voice possible. ‘Wish me luck, Principessa.’

‘Ciao, Papà!’ I laughed, finally ending the call in a fit of giggles. 

Shaking my head, I leaned my head back on the pillow and continued watching the practice, remembering the puzzling email addressed to Mr. Williamson. 

Multiple explanations littered my head as to how on earth Mr. Williamson knew someone as Maurizio Arrivabene, both from such different spheres, but then again, Stephen Williamson had always been a renowned author and an even bigger editor. It was possible that both men had coincided at some point in history, but I tried not to dwell much on it. I had a week until I found out what the fuzz was about. 

Groaning again once the free practice was over, I finally stood up from my couch and walked towards the small kitchen, opening the fridge in hopes to find something available to eat. Some leftovers caught my eye, and with a shrug, I took them out, threw them in the microwave, and sat down back on the couch once the food was warm enough to eat. 

Browsing through HBO for something to see, I settled on my annual rewatch of Parks and Recreation, anything to get my mind off the horrible week I just had. 

My phone pinging broke me out of my daze. Wiping my hand clean on my dirty pajamas, I quickly read over my friend Angela’s message.

‘You shouldn’t check Alec’s Instagram story, but I also think you should.’

With a frown I opened the app, seeing the familiar purple-ish circle around my ex-boyfriend’s face. The video was enough to bring a few tears to my eyes. His arm was around some other girl, and her crimson-painted lips left stains all over his cheek. His smile was wide, and he looked quite happy, wherever he was. 

I rapidly closed the app off, throwing my phone to the other end of the couch, now in desperate need of a glass of wine just to forget what I had just seen.

Breaking up with Alec had been hard, but seeing him off with someone else was even harder. Not only two months ago we were talking about living together, and now it felt like I was seeing a stranger through my screen. My job had been slowly taking over every aspect of my personal life too, and while I couldn’t blame Alec for feeling neglected all of a sudden, especially after three years together, it still hurt. I still missed him every night, morning, and any other time in between. He had been my best friend for so long, and one of my main pillars ever since I stumbled out of college, completely lost, and in frantic need of guidance in the adult world. We were both still kids that had become adults together, and I was having a harder time than I wanted to admit to trying to forget about him. 

Taking a big breath, I closed my eyes, touching the soft couch in an attempt to ground myself. 

Big breath in, big breath out. 

After a few minutes, I felt myself calm enough, resuming my dinner and my binge-watching, now more than ever desperate for sleep after the intense day. Technically I had every weekend off, but I still had many manuscripts and emails to send the next day, thankfully from the comfort of my own home. 

It was only in bed that I allowed myself to relax, turning off my phone, and grabbing my crochet set. It was a habit I had picked up lately, something so far out of my field of expertise, yet so relaxing once I got the hang of things. Working on my silly bucket hat every night before sleep was pretty much the highlight of my existence. And I was so invested in it, that only after I was finally done with it I realized I had been sitting for three hours in the same position, my eyelids dropping and my back hurting. Getting the needles out of the way, I finally laid in bed, and it only took a few minutes to fall soundlessly asleep.

—

A week later I found myself in the same position, crocheting a summer top in my bed, late in the evening after yet another exhausting week, when I received Mr. Williamson’s message. 

‘Book a flight to Italy. We’re going to Maranello.’

Next chapter

General Taglist: @angiewhoohooo, @azaleaniath

[personasintro]

Hi Mimi. Can I ask you for advice.

I have a friend who is mad at me because I’m not calling her back 24/7, and because I can’t hang out all the time and have to cancel due to the fact that I work and they sometimes, even if I have plans, call me in.

I couldn’t attend her boyfriend’s surprise birthday dinner, who she’ve only been dating for like 4 months and I’ve only met twice, because they wanted to go out late at night and I was working the day before, during, and the day after. However that particular day I got to finish my shift early because it was raining so my boss told me to just go home. On my way home another friend called me, who I haven’t seen in four month because we live 1h and 45min away from each other. My birthday is in two weeks but she’s going on vacation soon, she asked if we could meet up in the city and have dinner, this is like 4-5pm, because she wanted to celebrate me by buying me dinner. I said okey. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. We meet up, have dinner, order some drinks, and I post a video of us. The other friend, not even 5 minutes later, sends me a loooong message about what a bad friend I am without even knowing anything. I didn’t answer her right away and decided to wait until I was home. I got home at like 8:30, and the dinner was around 9-10isch so even if I didn’t go out with my friend I couldn’t go and celebrate her boyfriend because I needed to sleep.

She really went off on me, said a lot of things, and made me feel so shitty for nothing. So I wrote back and told her, we’re not kids, I didn’t do anything wrong, I explained briefly why I went out with my friend, and I also told her it’s my life and nobody can get mad at me for my choices, even if I was free that day it still shouldn’t be a problem because I don’t have an obligation to anybody. I also told her that I think it’s wrong that she decided to message me when she saw I was out, she could have waited and brought it up the next day instead of basically trying to ruin my night. I also texted her “don’t worry about this now, go and have fun, enjoy, let’s talk face 2 face when we get the chance” She then texted me back saying “I am celebrating his birthday all weekend, we can talk another day, I don’t have time to deal with this now”. I wrote back “sure”. My first thought, before I calmed myself down, was “so you have time to ruin my night, and start this whole thing, but you don’t have time to finish it?”.

Am I the asshole? Hahaha this sounds like a reddit post, I wanted to write it there but I don’t want to take a risk of her seeing it. Your account, your stories and you are also my comfort zone. I just feel safe here, which is why I am sorry for the rant and headache you have now. I just don’t like to talk about other people with other people, which is why I’m not asking for advice from my friends. But at the same time I’m desperate because I feel like I have done everything for her but just because I have work and have to prioritize myself I’m suddenly a bad friend for not attending her bfs dinner who I’ve only met twice. I mean it’s not like I missed her wedding day. It’s not like I was talking shit about her or told everyone her secrets for her to call me awful names and paint me as the bad guy. It’s not like the plan hanged on me, and I said no, and everybody stayed home but then I went out anyways. They still went out and had fun, so why should it be a problem if I was there or not.

I just want to add that this friendship is solely about me being there for her, I’m basically her therapist. I’ve never ever had demands on her or how she should treat me. I’m so drama free like this is my only drama in life atm in the past 6 years. I’m so easy going. You know that last year on my birthday she didn’t wish me a happy bday, and last year I asked her 6 times if she wanted to go on a vacation and she said no, but then she posts on snap that she’s going on a “random trip” with a girl she met 6 month ago at a gym who she doesn’t even talk to anymore because she feels that the girl was to clingy. I didn’t say anything because I thought it’s okey I’m not gonna ruin her day, vacation or whatever for something so silly, it’s HER life. I’m always there for her, even if I’m busy I always try to show her that she is not neglected by maybe sending her a song, or meme, or even going as far as telling her that I’m gonna be busy and that she can call me if it’s an emergency otherwise I won’t be so active. I always have her back, she calls me 4 in the morning and I pick up without blinking twice. My parents treat her as a second daughter, I’m always there for her as much as I can, and I just have to add that last month, I didn’t sleep for 36h and had a 10h shift the day after, but I still went out with her because she needed a friend due to having a bad day. I neglected my mental health for her. And our convos are 90% about her, 7% about random stuff, and 3% about me, and I STILL DONT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT because idgaf. Im honestly so unbothered I really don’t care, but right now I care because I feel that the text she sent me, and the way she wanted to paint me, and the words she used even though I’ve never ever had anything negative about her coming out of my mouth…I just feel like this is so unfair and I don’t know what to do. Should I end the friendship? Or maybe talk to her and try to make her understand? Im just so lost and this is honestly so sad because we’ve been friend for 12 years if not more. I don’t want it to end over something so silly…

Much love💜

Again I’m sorry for ranting, if you have advice I want to thank you for them. And I also want to thank you before hand for taking the time to read this. I admire u and ur stories!

I just have to add: she’s not a bad person, her good qualities overshadows the bad ones, which is why we’re still friends.

This message was sent a while back and I am sorry for responding only now. Maybe you were able to figure it out on your own or things happened after this. But all I can recommend for you to do is to talk to your friend, if you haven’t already. If I were you, I’d try to communicate and make her see where I am coming from as well and then… there’s nothing much you can do from there. You’ll see how she takes it and whether she’s able to see your side or not. Regardless of everything, she shouldn’t take you for granted and cut you some slack.

Like you said, you don’t want your friendship to end over something silly but maybe it’s not something silly at all. In the end, you don’t want friends who makes you feel guilty and take you for granted all the time. Just the fact your entire friendship seems to be focusing on her rather than on both of you says a lot. You shouldn’t be treated that way and you do deserve someone who equally cares about you as a person :)