#I sang in a competition ONCE

[thx-sunsxts-addrxss]

I swear if ONE more person asks if I was a choir student I will LOSE IT

[lilnasxvevo]

I wanna do a piano competition AU for The Untamed because my sister and I used to compete in them as kids/teenagers and I like them and I would be able to write a pretty realistic AU because I’d be writing what I know

But I am worried that without this context being known to the average reader, people will just be like oh my god, local white guy writes Chinese American kids being really good at piano, that’s so racist???

Am I wildly overthinking it or do you agree that I should probably write a different AU instead?

[femboyishcharm]

whenever i play mcr around my parents they always want me to play teenagers

[slayfics]

Eijiro teaches you how to use his headpiece.

1.2k words

“You guys are all wrong,” Minoru declared. “Yaoyorozu has the best hero costume.”

“Can you not be a perv just once Mineta!” Mina yelled, bonking him on the head.

You all had been discussing who had the best hero costume in the common room of the dorms before Minoru interrupted with his own opinions.

You rolled your eyes ignoring him and moving on, “Kirishima, I think your costume is pretty cool,”

“What really?!” The redhead perked up on the couch.

“No way! How is that any less of a pervy answer than Mineta?! Come on, what about me? My jacket is pretty cool!” Denki said eager for attention.

Mina ignored Denki’s desperate cry for praise and turned to you, “It is kind of an interesting choice since Kirishima’s costume is basically just pants,” Mina giggled.

Your cheeks flushed at your friend’s words, “No no! I’m not trying to be a creep or anything!” You backtracked.

“It’s ok don’t worry! I uh- didn’t think that” Eijiro said blushing alongside you.

“I was thinking about your headpiece when I answered, you designed it yourself?? It looks so cool!” You spoke trying to redeem yourself.

“Nah- don’t lie. You just like watching him run around without a shirt,” Denki huffed.

“Leave them alone man!” Eijiro said shoving Denki off the couch. “Yeah, I designed it myself,” he spoke turning his attention back to you. A prideful smile on his face from your praise.

“That’s really impressive!” You smiled. “How does it work?? Is it hard to get on?”

“The thing breaks every time he’s in a fight! It’s not that impressive…” Denki mumbled to himself on the floor.

Eijiro ignored him and answered, “It just latches on- it’s pretty simple. I can go grab it and show you.” He offered.

“Oh-ok!” You blushed, as he sprang off the couch to head up to his dorm.

“Wait!” Mina called. “Why don’t you just go upstairs with Kirishima? Then he doesn’t have to make so many trips up and down the elevator,” Mina suggested with a sly smile.

“Are you kidding me?!” Denki exclaimed, but Mina covered his mouth.

“Go you two!” Mina encouraged, shooing at you both with her free hand.

“I uh-,” you hesitated on the couch.

“It’s ok with me,” Eijiro spoke but quickly added- “I mean as long as you’re comfortable with it!”

“I am, as long as you don’t mind me in your room,” you answered.

“Go go go, we’ll be here. Right, Kaminari?” Mina said aggressively to him. Denki giving up just nodded and rolled his eyes at Mina.

“Alright let’s go,” Eijiro waved at you to follow him, with ab apprehensive smile.

Once you both were out of earshot Mina let out a laugh. “Man, they need so much help,” she declared.

“Maybe but- you don’t have to be pushing them together,” Denki complained.

“Oh, get over it. They have been crushing on each other for a long time now.” She answered.

The elevator ride up to Eijiro’s room was long and filled with awkward conversation.

“Could I get in trouble for being here?” You asked nervously.

“Nah I doubt it- besides I’m just showing you how my headpiece works right? I suppose that could be useful to know in the future if we’re ever teamed up together,” Eijiro justified.

“Yeah, you’re right,” you agreed nodding happily.

You both made your way to his dorm door. You briefly remembered what his dorm looked like when your class held the dorm competition- but when Eijiro opened the door it was more intense than you remembered. The bright red curtains brought a whimsical sense to the room, and the posters covering the walls illuminated the room with his personality.

“Oh wow,” you exclaimed following him inside.

“I know I know- I already heard it from Hagakure. It’s not a very appealing room,” Eijiro said sadly.

“No! I love it!” You sang.

“What really?! Thanks,” he said smiling and blushing as he looked around for his hero costume. “All right, here it is!” he said, pulling his headpiece out.

Eijiro sat on his bed, and you nervously followed his lead sitting next to him.

“It’s easy I just put it on like this-,” he said placing it on, “then lock into place on the side.” The headpiece made a snapping sound as he locked it in.

“Oh, I guess that is really easy,” you laughed nervously feeling silly for asking how it worked now. “Can I see it?”

“Yeah, sure!” He answered and took off the headpiece, handing it to you.

It was heavier than you expected and cold to the touch. "Wow, this doesn't bother you?"

"Nope! Keeps me protected from getting hit in my weak spots," He answered.

"Can I try?" You asked.

Eijiro nodded and chuckled in amusement thinking it was cute you wanted to try on a part of his costume, but when you moved closer and placed your hands around his head he froze. He hadn't realized you meant you wanted to put it on for him.

Eijiro felt his breath catch in his throat as you were just inches away from him carefully placing his headpiece on.

You secured the metal piece around his face before catching sight of him staring intently at you. His gaze made your hands start to shake as you went to snap the headpiece in place. His vermillion eyes sparkled as he looked at you with a bashful smile.

The warmth of your hands on either side of him was intoxicating and he felt how could get lost there when suddenly, "Ow!" he yelped.

Your shaking hands had caused you to pinch the side of his face as you snapped the headpiece together.

"OH MY GOD, I'M SO SORRY!" you exclaimed springing up off the bed.

"It's ok!" Eijiro said, reaching his hand out to reassure you.

You wanted to believe him, but you saw a drop of blood drip down to his cheek.  

"NO, YOU'RE BLEEDING!" You yelled, horrified with yourself. You booked it to his bathroom to find some first aid supplies. Eijiro followed behind you- blushing at you rummaging through his stuff in a panic.

"It's ok promise- but let me help you!" He offered.

"Oh man, you're right! First, I hurt you then I rummage through your stuff without asking! I'm the worst!" You proclaimed, dropping your head into your hands.

"No no! Really, it's not a big deal!' Eijiro said attempting to calm you as he brought out a band-aid.

"Here let me help you please!' You begged.

Eijiro smiled sweetly and handed you the band-aid and a cloth, then took his head headpiece off so you could inspect the injury.

Your eyes misted at the sight, "I'm so sorry- that looks like it hurt." You sniffed and dabbed at the injury gently with a cloth to clean off the blood. You moved closer to tend to him, and Eijiro once again felt lost in your close presence.

He smiled down at you, cheeks tinting as your hands grazed his cheek to place on the band-aid. "Believe me- I'm not even thinking about that right now," he said voice low and sultry.

You caught his gaze and blushed at realizing how close you had come to him in your panic. A blush dusted your own cheeks as you tilted your head and asked, "What are you thinking about then?"

sinners: @unofficialmuilover @maddietries @fiannee @derangedmango @reneinii @zanarkandskylines @pastelbakugou @abadbitchblogs @deluluforcarlos55

[chaoticallyfluffy]

I want more of the JL acting like normal celebrities.

Batman and Chappel Roan working together on a competitive cooking show against teams of Kylie Jenner and Danny Devito, Kanye West and Kesha, Taylor Swift and Superman, etc. They are a surprisingly good team who work together great. They end up winning the whole thing and a bunch of wholesome memes start trending about the two of them adopting you after your awful parents kicked you out. Superman and Taylor Swift are surprisingly a TERRIBLE team. They’re disqualified because they never finished cooking their meals as they were too busy arguing. They are memed to be the parents who kicked you out and desperately need a divorce.

Wonder Woman going on a survivor-like reality show about a bunch of celebrities stuck on an island together and all the contestants are whining about things like “My hair is so frizzy and Chad is SO hot, I don’t want him to see me like this omg” While Diana has already chopped down multiple trees, used the wood to make a cabin for everyone, hunted a wild boar which is currently roasting over a campfire she also made with the leftover sticks and leaves, and cracked the coconuts from the tree. The rest of the show is mostly a normal reality show. The other contestants never have to lift a finger and can peacefully gossip and have drama while being well fed, housed, and hydrated. The only real difference is that every few minute the camera switches to Diana wresting a grizzly bear or catching fish with her bare hands.

The masked singer where there’s a person in a colourful parrot costume singing on stage and everyone has to guess who it is. People have guessed many celebrities like Oliver Queen, Bruce Wayne, or even Lex Luther, but they mostly guessed famous singers because the guy is GOOD and there’s no way he doesn’t sing professionally. He sang songs like “Party in the USA”, “Call Me Maybe” and “Never Gonna Give You Up”. People were going crazy trying to figure out who he is. The time finally comes for the reveal. The man slowly takes off his parrot head and... it’s Batman. The crowd goes wild.

The Flash (Barry) and Green Lantern (Hal) make a podcast and spend the entire time going on long rants about their respective interests. Flash talks about forensic science and chemistry for an hour while GL hums in interest or asks questions every once in a while. After that GL rambles about airplanes and engineering for another hour while Flash enthusiastically nods and adds in related stories every so often. Twitter diagnoses them with autism.

Captain Marvel has a TikTok account where he posts himself trying suggestions from his fans. Some of his most popular videos include him juggling a bunch of chainsaws (perfectly, btw), pranking JL members, bedazzling Mr Minds prison jar with fake crystals and speech bubble stickers that make it look like Mr Mind is saying things like “I’m DUMB”, and his most popular by far, citing The Santa Clause rules to Black Adam and convincing him that since he killed his father technically that makes him his new dad (the horror stopped Black Adam in place mid battle, giving Marvel the perfect opportunity to punch him in the face. The punch has been slo-mo’d and memed to oblivion). His Batman mandated PR team has been begging him to stop for months but in response he posts himself TikTok dancing (terribly) in front of a green screen in the background showing an image of the emails while asking for more suggestions.

If anyone has any ideas like this or fics to recommend plz tell me In the comments, I love the Justice League just casually being celebrities.

[etz-ashashiyot]

Chapter 4: Executed Jews

By Dara Horn, excerpted from People Love Dead Jews

ALA ZUSKIN PERELMAN AND I HAD BEEN IN TOUCH ONLINE before I finally met her in person, and I still cannot quite believe she exists. Years ago, I wrote a novel about Marc Chagall and the Yiddish-language artists whom he once knew in Russia, all of whom were eventually murdered by the Soviet regime. While researching the novel, I found myself sucked into the bizarre story of these people's exploitation and destruction: how the Soviet Union first welcomed these artists as exemplars of universal human ideals, then used them for its own purposes, and finally executed them. I named my main character after the executed Yiddish actor Benjamin Zuskin, a comic performer known for playing fools. After the book came out, I heard from Ala in an email written in halting English: "I am Benjamin Zuskin's daughter." That winter I was speaking at a literary conference in Israel, where Ala lived, and she and I arranged to meet. It was like meeting a character from a book.

My hosts had generously put me up with other writers in a beautiful stone house in Jerusalem. We were there during Hanukkah, the celebration of Jewish independence. On the first night of the holiday, I walked to Jerusalem's Old City and watched as people lit enormous Hanukkah torches at the Western Wall. I thought of my home in New Jersey, where in school growing up I sang fake English Hanukkah songs created by American music education companies at school Christmas concerts, with lyrics describing Hanukkah as being about "joy and peace and love." Joy and peace and love describe Hanukkah, a commemoration of an underdog military victory over a powerful empire, about as well as they describe the Fourth of July. I remembered challenging a chorus teacher about one such song, and being told that I was a poor sport for disliking joy and peace and love. (Imagine a "Christmas song" with lyrics celebrating Christmas, the holiday of freedom. Doesn't everyone like freedom? What pedant would reject such a song?) I sang those words in front of hundreds of people to satisfy my neighbors that my tradition was universal — meaning, just like theirs. The night before meeting Ala, I walked back to the house through the dense stone streets of the Old City's Jewish Quarter, where every home had a glass case by its door, displaying the holiday's oil lamps. It was strange to see those hundreds of glowing lights. They were like a shining announcement that this night of celebration was shared by all these strangers around me, that it was universal. The experience was so unfamiliar that I didn't know what to make of it.

The next morning, Ala knocked on the door of the stone house and sat down in its living room, with its view of the Old City. She was a small dark-haired woman whose perfect posture showed a firmness that belied her age. She looked at me and said in Hebrew, "I feel as if you knew my father, like you understood what he went through. How did you know?"

The answer to that question goes back several thousand years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The teenage boys who participated in competitive athletics in the gymnasium in Jerusalem 2,200 years ago had their circumcisions reversed, because otherwise they wouldn't have been allowed to play. In the Hellenistic empire that had conquered Judea, sports were sacred, the entry point to being a person who mattered, the ultimate height of cool — and sports, of course, were always played in the nude. As one can imagine, ancient genital surgery of this nature was excruciating and potentially fatal. But the boys did not want to miss out.

I learned this fun fact in seventh grade, from a Hebrew school teacher who was instructing me and my pubescent classmates about the Hanukkah story — about how Hellenistic tyranny gained a foothold in ancient Judea with the help of Jews who wanted to fit in. This teacher seemed overly jazzed to talk about penises with a bunch of adolescents, and I suspected he'd made the whole thing up. At home, I decided to fact-check. I pulled a dusty old book off my parents' shelf, Volume One of Heinrich Graetz's opus History of the Jews.

In nineteenth-century academic prose, Graetz explained how the leaders of Judea demonstrated their loyalty to the occupying Hellenistic empire by building a gymnasium and recruiting teenage athletes — only to discover that "in uncovering their bodies they could immediately be recognized as Judeans. But were they to take part in the Olympian games, and expose themselves to the mockery of Greek scoffers? Even this difficulty they evaded by undergoing a painful operation, so as to disguise the fact that they were Judeans." Their Zeus-worshipping overlords were not fooled. Within a few years, the regime outlawed not only circumcision but all of Jewish religious practice, and put to death anyone who didn't comply.

Sometime after that, the Maccabees showed up. That's the part of the story we usually hear.

Those ancient Jewish teenagers were on my mind that Hanukkah when Ala came to tell me about her father's terrifying life, because I sensed that something profound united them — something that doesn't match what we're usually taught about what bigotry looks or feels like. It doesn't involve "intolerance" or "persecution," at least not at first. Instead, it looks like the Jews themselves are choosing to reject their own traditions. It is a form of weaponized shame.

Two distinct patterns of antisemitism can be identified by the Jewish holidays that celebrate triumphs over them: Purim and Hanukkah. In the Purim version of antisemitism, exemplified by the Persian genocidal decrees in the biblical Book of Esther, the goal is openly stated and unambiguous: Kill all the Jews. In the Hanukkah version of antisemitism, whose appearances range from the Spanish Inquisition to the Soviet regime, the goal is still to eliminate Jewish civilization. But in the Hanukkah version, this goal could theoretically be accomplished simply by destroying Jewish civilization, while leaving the warm, de-Jewed bodies of its former practitioners intact.

For this reason, the Hanukkah version of antisemitism often employs Jews as its agents. It requires not dead Jews but cool Jews: those willing to give up whatever specific aspect of Jewish civilization is currently uncool. Of course, Judaism has always been uncool, going back to its origins as the planet's only monotheism, featuring a bossy and unsexy invisible God. Uncoolness is pretty much Judaism's brand, which is why cool people find it so threatening — and why Jews who are willing to become cool are absolutely necessary to Hanukkah antisemitism's success. These "converted" Jews are used to demonstrate the good intentions of the regime — which of course isn't antisemitic but merely requires that its Jews publicly flush thousands of years of Jewish civilization down the toilet in exchange for the worthy prize of not being treated like dirt, or not being murdered. For a few years. Maybe.

I wish I could tell the story of Ala's father concisely, compellingly, the way everyone prefers to hear about dead Jews. I regret to say that Benjamin Zuskin wasn't minding his own business and then randomly stuffed into a gas chamber, that his thirteen-year-old daughter did not sit in a closet writing an uplifting diary about the inherent goodness of humanity, that he did not leave behind sad-but-beautiful aphorisms pondering the absence of God while conveniently letting his fellow humans off the hook. He didn't even get crucified for his beliefs. Instead, he and his fellow Soviet Jewish artists — extraordinarily intelligent, creative, talented, and empathetic adults — were played for fools, falling into a slow-motion psychological horror story brimming with suspense and twisted self-blame. They were lured into a long game of appeasing and accommodating, giving up one inch after another of who they were in order to win that grand prize of being allowed to live.

Spoiler alert: they lost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was in graduate school studying Yiddish literature, itself a rich vein of discussion about such impossible choices, when I became interested in Soviet Jewish artists like Ala's father. As I dug through library collections of early-twentieth-century Yiddish works, I came across a startling number of poetry books illustrated by Marc Chagall. I wondered if Chagall had known these Yiddish writers whose works he illustrated, and it turned out that he had. One of Chagall's first jobs as a young man was as an art teacher at a Jewish orphanage near Moscow, built for children orphaned by Russia's 1919-1920 civil war pogroms. This orphanage had a rather renowned faculty, populated by famous Yiddish writers who trained these traumatized children in the healing art of creativity.

It all sounded very lovely, until I noticed something else. That Chagall's art did not rely on a Jewish language — that it had, to use that insidious phrase, "universal appeal" — allowed him a chance to succeed as an artist in the West. The rest of the faculty, like Chagall, had also spent years in western Europe before the Russian revolution, but they chose to return to Russia because of the Soviet Union's policy of endorsing Yiddish as a "national Soviet language." In the 1920s and 30s, the USSR offered unprecedented material support to Yiddish culture, paying for Yiddish-language schools, theaters, publishing houses, and more, to the extent that there were Yiddish literary critics who were salaried by the Soviet government. This support led the major Yiddish novelist Dovid Bergelson to publish his landmark 1926 essay "Three Centers," about New York, Warsaw, and Moscow as centers of Yiddish-speaking culture, asking which city offered Yiddish writers the brightest prospects. His unequivocal answer was Moscow, a choice that brought him back to Russia the following year, where many other Jewish artists joined him.

But Soviet support for Jewish culture was part of a larger plan to brainwash and coerce national minorities into submitting to the Soviet regime — and for Jews, it came at a very specific price. From the beginning, the regime eliminated anything that celebrated Jewish "nationality" that didn't suit its needs. Jews were awesome, provided they weren't practicing Jewish religion, studying traditional Jewish texts, using Hebrew, or supporting Zionism. The Soviet Union thus pioneered a versatile gaslighting slogan, which it later spread through its client states in the developing world and which remains popular today: it was not antisemitic, merely anti-Zionist. (In the process of not being antisemitic and merely being anti-Zionist, the regime managed to persecute, imprison, torture, and murder thousands of Jews.) What's left of Jewish culture once you surgically remove religious practice, traditional texts, Hebrew, and Zionism? In the Soviet Empire, one answer was Yiddish, but Yiddish was also suspect for its supposedly backwards elements. Nearly 15 percent of its words came directly from biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, so Soviet Yiddish schools and publishers, under the guise of "simplifying" spelling, implemented a new and quite literally antisemitic spelling system that eliminated those words' Near Eastern roots. Another answer was "folklore" — music, visual art, theater, and other creative work reflecting Jewish life — but of course most of that cultural material was also deeply rooted in biblical and rabbinic sources, or reflected common religious practices like Jewish holidays and customs, so that was treacherous too.

No, what the regime required were Yiddish stories that showed how horrible traditional Jewish practice was, stories in which happy, enlightened Yiddish-speaking heroes rejected both religion and Zionism (which, aside from its modern political form, is also a fundamental feature of ancient Jewish texts and prayers traditionally recited at least three times daily). This de-Jewing process is clear from the repertoire of the government-sponsored Moscow State Yiddish Theater, which could only present or adapt Yiddish plays that denounced traditional Judaism as backward, bourgeois, corrupt, or even more explicitly — as in the many productions involving ghosts or graveyard scenes — as dead. As its actors would be, soon enough.

The Soviet Union's destruction of Jewish culture commenced, in a calculated move, with Jews positioned as the destroyers. It began with the Yevsektsiya, committees of Jewish Bolsheviks whose paid government jobs from 1918 through 1930 were to persecute, imprison, and occasionally murder Jews who participated in religious or Zionist institutions — categories that included everything from synagogues to sports clubs, all of which were shut down and their leaders either exiled or "purged." This went on, of course, until the regime purged the Yevsektsiya members themselves.

The pattern repeated in the 1940s. As sordid as the Yeveksiya chapter was, I found myself more intrigued by the undoing of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, a board of prominent Soviet Jewish artists and intellectuals established by Joseph Stalin in 1942 to drum up financial support from Jews overseas for the Soviet war effort. Two of the more prominent names on the JAC's roster of talent were Solomon Mikhoels, the director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, and Ala's father Benjamin Zuskin, the theater's leading actor. After promoting these people during the war, Stalin decided these loyal Soviet Jews were no longer useful, and charged them all with treason. He had decided that this committee he himself created was in fact a secret Zionist cabal, designed to bring down the Soviet state. Mikhoels was murdered first, in a 1948 hit staged to look like a traffic accident. Nearly all the others — Zuskin and twelve more Jewish luminaries, including the novelist Dovid Bergelson, who had proclaimed Moscow as the center of the Yiddish future — were executed by firing squad on August 1952.

Just as the regime accused these Jewish artists and intellectuals of being too "nationalist" (read: Jewish), today's long hindsight makes it strangely tempting to read this history and accuse them of not being "nationalist" enough — that is, of being so foolishly committed to the Soviet regime that they were unable to see the writing on the wall. Many works on this subject have said as much. In Stalin's Secret Pogrom, the indispensable English translation of transcripts from the JAC "trial," Russia scholar Joshua Rubenstein concludes his lengthy introduction with the following:

As for the defendants at the trial, it is not clear what they believed about the system they each served. Their lives darkly embodied the tragedy of Soviet Jewry. A combination of revolutionary commitment and naive idealism had tied them to a system they could not renounce. Whatever doubts or misgivings they had, they kept to themselves, and served the Kremlin with the required enthusiasm. They were not dissidents. They were Jewish martyrs. They were also Soviet patriots. Stalin repaid their loyalty by destroying them.

This is completely true, and also completely unfair. The tragedy — even the term seems unjust, with its implied blaming of the victim — was not that these Soviet Jews sold their souls to the devil, though many clearly did. The tragedy was that integrity was never an option in the first place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ala was almost thirteen years old when her father was arrested and until that moment she was immersed in the Soviet Yiddish artistic scene. Her mother was also an actor in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater; her family lived in the same building as the murdered theater director Solomon Mikhoels, and moved in the same circles as other Jewish actors and writers. After seeing her parents perform countless times, Ala had a front-row seat to the destruction of their world. She attended Mikhoel's state funeral, heard about the arrest of the brilliant Yiddish author Der Nister from an actor friend who witnessed it from her apartment across the hall, and was present when secret police ransacked her home in conjunction with her father's arrest. In her biography, The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin, she provides for her readers what she gave me that morning in Jerusalem: an emotional recounting, with the benefit of hindsight, of what it was really like to live through the Soviet Jewish nightmare.

It's as close as we can get, anyway. Her father Benjamin Zuskin's own thoughts on the topic are available only from state interrogations extracted under unknown tortures. (One typical interrogation document from his three and a half years in the notorious Lubyanka Prison announces that the day's interrogation lasted four hours, but the transcript is only half a page long — leaving to the imagination how the interrogator and interrogatee may have spent their time together. Suffice it to say that another JAC detainee didn't make it to trial alive.) His years in prison began when he was arrested in December of 1948 in a Moscow hospital room, where he was being treated for chronic insomnia brought on by the murder of his boss and career-long acting partner, Mikhoels; the secret police strapped him to a gurney and carted him to prison in his hospital gown while he was still sedated.

But in order to truly appreciate the loss here, one needs to know what was lost — to return to the world of the great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, the author of Benjamin Zuskin's first role on the Yiddish stage, in a play fittingly titled It's a Lie!

Benjamin Zuskin's path to the Yiddish theater and later to the Soviet firing squad began in a shtetl comparable to those immortalized in Sholem Aleichem's work. Zuskin, a child from a traditional family who was exposed to theater only through traveling Yiddish troupes and clowning relatives, experienced that world's destruction: his native Lithuanian shtetl, Ponievezh, was among the many Jewish towns forcibly evacuated during the First World War, catapulting him and hundreds of thousands of other Jewish refugees into modernity. He landed in Penza, a city with professional Russian theater and Yiddish amateur troupes. In 1920, the Moscow State Yiddish Theater opened, and by 1921, Zuskin was starring alongside Mikhoels, the theater's leading light.

In the one acting class I have ever attended, I learned only one thing: acting isn't about pretending to be someone you aren't, but rather about emotional communication. Zuskin, who not only starred in most productions but also taught in the theater's acting school, embodied the concept. His very first audition was a one-man sketch he created, consisting of nothing more than a bumbling old tailor threading a needle — without words, costumes, or props. It became so popular that he performed it to entranced crowds for years. This physical artistry animated his every role. As one critic wrote, "Even the slightest breeze and he is already air-bound."

Zuskin specialized in playing figures like the Fool in King Lear — as his daughter puts it in her book, characters who "are supposed to make you laugh, but they have an additional dimension, and they arouse poignant reflections about the cruelty of the world." Discussing his favorite roles, Zuskin once explained that "my heart is captivated particularly by the image of the person who is derided and humiliated, but who loves life, even though he encounters obstacles placed before him through no fault of his own."

The first half of Ala's book seems to recount only triumphs. The theater's repertoire in its early years was largely adopted from classic Yiddish writers like Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and Mendele Moykher Seforim. The book's title is drawn from Zuskin's most famous role: Senderl, the Sancho Panza figure in Mendele's Don Quixote-inspired work, Travels of Benjamin the Third, about a pair of shtetl idiots who set out for the Land of Israel and wind up walking around the block. These productions were artistically inventive, brilliantly acted, and played to packed houses both at home and on tour. Travels of Benjamin the Third, in a 1928 review typical of the play's reception, was lauded by the New York Times as "one of the most originally conceived and beautifully executed evenings in the modern theater."

One of the theater's landmark productions, I. L. Peretz's surrealist masterpiece At Night in the Old Marketplace, was first performed in 1925. The play, set in a graveyard, is a kind of carnival for the graveyard's gathered ghosts. Those who come back from the dead are misfits like drunks and prostitutes, and also specific figures from shtetl life - yeshiva idlers, synagogue beadles, and the like. Leading them all is a badkhn, or wedding jester — divided in this production into two mirror-characters played by Mikhoels and Zuskin — whose repeated chorus among the living corpses is "The dead will rise!" "Within this play there was something hidden, something with an ungraspable depth," Ala writes, and then relates how after a performance in Vienna, one theatergoer came backstage to tell the director that "the play had shaken him as something that went beyond all imagination." The theatergoer was Sigmund Freud.

As Ala traces the theater's trajectory toward doom, it becomes obvious why this performance so affected Freud. The production was a zombie story about the horrifying possibility of something supposedly dead (here, Jewish civilization) coming back to life. The play was written a generation earlier as a Romantic work, but in the Moscow production, it became a means of denigrating traditional Jewish life without mourning it. That fantasy of a culture's death as something compelling and even desirable is not merely reminiscent of Freud's death drive, but also reveals the self-destructive bargain implicit in the entire Soviet-sponsored Jewish enterprise. In her book, Ala beautifully captures this tension as she explains the badkhn's role: "He sends a double message: he denies the very existence of the vanishing shadow world, and simultaneously he mocks it, as if it really does exist."

This double message was at the heart of Benjamin Zuskin's work as a comic Soviet Yiddish actor, a position that required him to mock the traditional Jewish life he came from while also pretending that his art could exist without it. "The chance to make fun of the shtetl which has become a thing of the past charmed me," he claimed early on, but later, according to his daughter, he began to privately express misgivings. The theater's decision to stage King Lear as a way of elevating itself disturbed him, suggesting as it did that the Yiddish repertoire was inferior. His own integrity came from his deep devotion to yiddishkayt, a sense of essential and enduring Jewishness, no matter how stripped-down that identity had become. "With the sharp sense of belonging to everything Jewish, he was tormented by the theater forsaking its expression of this belonging," his daughter writes. Even so, "no, he could not allow himself to oppose the Soviet regime even in his thoughts, the regime that gave him his own theater, but 'the heart and the wit do not meet.'"

In Ala's memory, her father differed from his director, partner, and occasional rival, Mikhoels, in his complete disinterest in politics. Mikhoels was a public figure as well as performer, and his leadership of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, while no more voluntary than any public act in a totalitarian state, was a role he played with gusto, traveling to America in 1943 and speaking to thousands of American Jews to raise money for the Red Army in their battle against the Nazis. Zuskin, on the other hand, was on the JAC roster, but seems to have continued playing the fool. According to both his daughter and his trial testimony, his role in the JAC was almost identical to his role on a Moscow municipal council, limited to playing chess in the back of the room during meetings.

In Jerusalem, Ala told me that her father was "a pure soul." "He had no interest in politics, only in his art," she said, describing his acting style as both classic and contemporary, praised by critics for its timeless qualities that are still evident today in his film work. But his talent was the most nuanced and sophisticated thing about him. Offstage, he was, as she put it in Hebrew, a "tam" — a biblical term sometimes translated as fool or simpleton, but which really means an innocent. (It is the first adjective used to describe the title character in the Book of Job.) It is true that in trial transcripts, Zuskin comes out looking better than many of his co-defendants by playing dumb instead of pointing fingers. But was this ignorance, or a wise acceptance of the futility of trying to save his skin? As King Lear's Fool put it, "They'll have me whipp'd for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipp'd for holding my peace." Reflecting on her father's role as a fool named Pinia in a popular film, Ala writes in her book, "When I imagine the moment when my father heard his death sentence, I see Pinia in close-up . . . his shoulders slumped, despair in his appearance. I hear the tone that cannot be imitated in his last line in the film — and perhaps also the last line in his life? — 'I don't understand anything.'"

Yet it is clear that Zuskin deeply understood how impossible his situation was. In one of the book's more disturbing moments, Ala describes him rehearsing for one of his landmark roles, that of the comic actor Hotsmakh in Sholem Aleichem's Wandering Stars, a work whose subject is the Yiddish theater. He had played the role before, but this production was going up in the wake of Mikhoel's murder. Zuskin was already among the hunted, and he knew it. As Ala writes:

One morning — already after the murder of Mikhoels — I saw my father pacing the room and memorizing the words of Hotsmakh's role. Suddenly, in a gesture revealing a hopeless anguish, Father actually threw himself at me, hugged me, pressed me to his heart, and together with me, continued to pace the room and to memorize the words of the role. That evening I saw the performance . . . "The doctors say that I need rest, air, and the sea . . . For what . . . without the theater?" [Hotsmakh asks], he winds the scarf around his neck — as though it were a noose. For my father, I think those words of Hotsmakh were like the motif of the role and — I think — of his own life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Describing the charges levied against Zuskin and his peers is a degrading exercise, for doing so makes it seem as though these charges are worth considering. They are not. It is at this point that Hanukkah antisemitism transformed, as it inevitably does, into Purim antisemitism. Here Ala offers what hundreds of pages of state archives can't, describing the impending horror of the noose around one's neck.

Her father stopped sleeping, began receiving anonymous threats, and saw that he was being watched. No conversation was safe. When a visitor from Poland waited near his apartment building to give him news of his older daughter Tamara (who was then living in Warsaw), Zuskin instructed the man to walk behind him while speaking to him and then to switch directions, so as to avoid notice. When the man asked Zuskin what he wanted to tell his daughter, Zuskin "approached the guest so closely that there was no space between them, and whispered in Yiddish, 'Tell her that the ground is burning beneath my feet.'" It is true that no one can know what Zuskin or any of the other defendants really believed about the Soviet system they served. It is also true — and far more devastating — that their beliefs were utterly irrelevant.

Ala and her mother were exiled to Kazakhstan after her father's arrest, and learned of his execution only when they were allowed to return to Moscow in 1955. By then, he had already been dead for three years.

In Jerusalem that morning, Ala told me, in a sudden private moment of anger and candor, that the Soviet Union's treatment of the Jews was worse than Nazi Germany's. I tried to argue, but she shut me up. Obviously the Nazi atrocities against Jews were incomparable, a fact Ala later acknowledged in a calmer mood. But over four generations, the Soviet regime forced Jews to participate in and internalize their own humiliation - and in that way, Ala suggested, they destroyed far more souls. And they never, ever, paid for it.

"They never had a Nuremberg," Ala told me that day, with a quiet fury. "They never acknowledged the evil of what they did. The Nazis were open about what they were doing, but the Soviets pretended. They lured the Jews in, they baited them with support and recognition, they used them, they tricked them, and then they killed them. It was a trap. And no one knows about it, even now. People know about the Holocaust, but not this. Even here in Israel, people don't know. How did you know?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That evening I went out to the Old City again, to watch the torches being lit at the Western Wall for the second night of Hanukkah. I walked once more through the Jewish Quarter, where the oil lamps, now each bearing one additional flame, were displayed outside every home, following the tradition to publicize the Hanukkah miracle — not merely the legendary long-lasting oil, but the miracle of military and spiritual victory over a coercive empire, the freedom to be uncool, the freedom not to pretend. Somewhere nearby, deep underground, lay the ruins of the gymnasium where de-circumcised Jewish boys once performed naked before approving crowds, stripped of their integrity and left with their private pain. I thought of Benjamin Zuskin performing as the dead wedding jester, proclaiming, "The dead will rise!" and then performing again in a "superior" play, as King Lear's Fool. I thought of the ground burning beneath his feet. I thought of his daughter, Ala, now an old woman, walking through Jerusalem.

I am not a sentimental person. As I returned to the stone house that night, along the streets lit by oil lamps, I was surprised to find myself crying.

[seeingivy]

sharing

ryomen sukuna x f!reader

**part of my best friend's older brother fic

previous part linked here

--

things change slightly in the weeks that follow. 

according to your mom, who called you very upset on a tuesday afternoon, your dad had apparently decided to stay in town until the end of the month – and on very strict orders from sukuna and possibly any shred of self-preservation that you had in you – you weren’t going to be going back until he was gone for good. 

messages from sammy were few and infrequent, except for whenever she got drunk – something she very clearly got from your mom. always the same message, deeply apologetic and regretful, and it somehow was very slowly melting whatever it was that happened at the funeral. 

or it was just one of those things. 

she was your sister – she was blunt, a little harsh at times, but well meaning. or at least trying to be. but she was still your sister and for some reason, you were just going to get over it, in the real way, without thinking twice. 

but you do realize that it was too naive to think that years of butting heads and stepping on each other’s toes wasn’t going to go away just because you had decided to be friends and sang kumbaya while buying lingerie. 

that much should have been obvious though, since sukuna and yuuji had done their version of that years prior, and yet still had the meltdown they did a few months ago. it was always one of those complicated things you figured – growing up in the same house, being competition, stuck in admiration or hatred. 

the family business, one that sukuna and yuuji both refused to ever be a part of, has fallen at the seams. and while sukuna has no intention of ever working there – much to satoru’s delight – he’s fixing the mess of the finances that were left behind for all of the employees and the stipends that he were going to help his mom. 

meaning he has to go back to town. the town that you refuse to return to for the time being. and he won’t let you accompany him.   

and it’s in the week that he disappears that you wonder if you’re starting to be too codependent. if it’s normal for you to miss someone this amount, to worry about him so much, to the point where he occupies your every thought. 

he tries to call when he can. sometimes they’re a few in between because you know that he’s spending time with his mom, that he doesn’t like being home, that whatever it all is – it’s stressful and he hates it. 

your mom sends you a picture of him once in a while. sometimes you stare at it for a little too long. 

“hi sweet girl. how are you?” 

his voice sounds tired over the phone, the smallest hint of a rasp tinged in with the strained tone. 

“i’m okay, ryo. how are you?” 

sukuna can feel his heart sink at the nickname. at the fact that you use nicknames, terms of endearment, and he hasn’t heard them in days. 

“good, good. are you getting ready for bed?” sukuna asks. 

“yeah.” 

there’s a quiet beat. maybe you should have been more descriptive than that. that was a little flat. 

“is that fucking gel cat strawberry in the spot next to you?” 

you smile. 

“it’s a jelly cat. and yes, it is.” 

“enjoy it while it lasts. i’m going to throw it out the window when i get back.” 

“you’re so rude.” 

he laughs over the line and you can’t help but sigh before immediately regretting it. 

you wonder if he sleeps well. or if he laughs often with the moms or if he’s just run in different directions trying to make sure they’re all okay. 

“oh don’t break my heart, now. you miss me, sweetheart?” he murmurs. 

you can tell by the tone in the voice that he’s trying to coddle you. you almost want to give in just to hear him sweet talk you down. 

“yeah. gets real scary here without you.” you joke

“is that right?” 

“not actually. but you know like right before you go to sleep and the house creaks? i panic for one second and then decide that i should send a prayer out to the universe so i don’t die before falling asleep.” 

“always one for the dramatics.” 

“i know. i’m sure it always creaks but i’ve always shared a room – either with sammy or with mai across the way who was always blasting music. and you snore, so i never even not–” 

“i don’t snore.” 

“yes, you do.” 

“no, i don’t.” 

“i will admit. while it does take me some time to fall asleep, i’ve never slept so soundly with you gone. it’s so serene.” 

you know for a fact that sukuna’s rolling his eyes on the other side of the line. 

“wow, sweetheart. i should just do you a favor and stay here longer then.” 

“every night i wake up in a panic without you! i’ll never sleep again!” you joke. 

sukuna laughs. 

“that sounds about right. but really…i…i’ll be back soon, okay? i don’t like being away for so long.” he murmurs quietly. 

you frown. 

“don’t feel bad. you know you have to be there.” 

“i don’t feel bad. well, maybe i do a little but i mainly just fucking miss you.” he mumbles. 

you smile. 

“sap.” 

you pause. 

“i miss you too, you know?” 

“i was waiting for that. give me a little more.” he responds. 

you smile. mainly at the fact that he expresses what he wants so openly. or that he misses it just as much as you do. 

“i miss you a lot. it feels so weird to sleep in our bed without you that i fall asleep on the fold out couch.” 

sukuna scoffs. 

“you mean you fall asleep watching tv and don’t move because i’m not there to pick you up?” 

“yeah, more like that.” 

sukuna laughs. 

“sleep in the guest.” 

“ew. it smells like yuuji and megumi’s cologne. and while they smell great, i don’t like smelling like them when i wake up.” 

“does our bed smell like me?” he asks. 

“yeah but i prefer the real thing so i sleep on the couch. i refuse to elaborate.” 

sukuna gets it. 

“i’ll be back soon, okay? i’m almost done and then…then i’m running back to you, alright?” he whispers. 

“okay. i do have something planned this weekend for your birthday, but don’t stress about it. it won’t be anything big.” 

sukuna pauses. 

he forgot that his birthday was coming around. 

he would be lying if he was saying that he wasn’t looking forward to it. he supposes that he was your opposite in that way. since no matter what it was, the circumstances good or bad, your birthday had been soured so bad that nothing could make it good – not even him. 

he didn’t blame you. or even take it personally.  

but he couldn’t relate. because he knew you – and it wasn’t arrogant of him to assume that you were going to go all out, no matter the circumstances. not only did you have a bad habit of leaving tabs or notes that were very clearly labeled gift ideas out in the open, but he knew that you would do something special for him, that he’d get to chart in all of the cherished memories that he had with you. 

it would be another sour patch of his that you’d sew right over, with careful and steady hands. but with every milestone that he thought of now, it was bittersweet. 

first birthday with you. first birthday without his dad – not that it really meant much in the first place. 

“no parties.” sukuna clarifies. 

“no, it’ll actually be just you and me. and i think you’ll like it, you–” 

“i’ll love it.” 

you smile. 

“i love you.” you state. 

he’s quiet on the other side of the line. 

“sukuna?” 

“i want to say it back but the moms are staring at me.” he mumbles quietly.

you smirk. 

“say it.” 

“no.” 

“you’re going to let me go to bed without an i love you?” 

“i’ll text it to you.” 

“ryomen sukuna. tell me you love me.” 

sukuna sighs. 

“i love you. call me if you can’t sleep, okay?” 

you can hear giggling in the background. and you’re sure he’s three different shades of pink. 

“i will.” 

--

not even an hour later, yuuji is standing on your doorstep – with a peachy smile and a bag slung over his shoulder. 

“yuuji? you–” 

“sleepover!” 

he walks past you and falls straight onto the couch, placing his bag next to him as he reaches for the remote. you quickly shut the door and take the spot next to him, watching as he starts shuffling through the movies, so cavalier about barging in so late and unannounced. 

“do you always show up to people’s apartment’s unprovoked with all your things?” 

yuuji smiles, reaching forward to flick your forehead. 

“no, just for you.” 

“figures.” 

you watch as he flits through all of the movies, nestling his head into your shoulder, as you return the gesture and lean your cheek against his. it takes two seconds for you to figure it out. 

“did he call you?” you ask. 

“he did. said some weird stuff about tables and carrying stuff. pretty sure he was just asking me to keep you company, which don’t mind if i do.” yuuji responds. 

you smile. of course. 

“i made one half joke about how i don’t like to sleep alone and he sent you running.” 

“isn’t that sweet? i can tell he’s been thinking about you a lot.” yuuji responds. 

you lean back, giving him a confused look. and you can tell by the look on his face that he knows exactly what you’re trying to get at, but pretends otherwise. 

“what? it’s sweet! he asked me to come take care of you.” yuuji clarifies. 

“since when do you find him sweet? no lecture about how he thinks i can’t handle things on my own?” 

yuuji scoffs, before pressing on the princess diaries. 

“you can’t take care of anything on your own.” 

“what a vote of confidence.” you deadpan

yuuji sighs, as you watch the movie start, and both sink deeper into the couch. a telltale sign that you realize both sukuna and yuuji have – one that you deeply appreciate – is that they’re always careful with their words. 

the opposite of sammy really, of your dad too. they won’t talk until they know whatever they’re going to say is something they mean. 

“you can take care of things on your own. but i like that being with him means that you don’t have to sometimes. for both of you.” yuuji states. 

you smile. 

“i like that too. it’s a nice change.” you respond. 

“i’m really sorry, y/n.” 

“i know.” 

yuuji swallows hard, reaching for the remote and pausing the movie before he turns to your side, your limbs now a tangled mess of being criss-crossed as he leans forward. 

“really. i’ve been so shit to you when this is all i’ve ever wanted for you.” 

“it’s okay. this…this stuff is really complicated for you and…” 

yuuji shakes his head, before looking down at your joined hands, fingers interlocked together. 

“this isn’t any excuse but…but…” 

yuuji sighs. 

“when sukuna came back, i thought he was really different. i mean, he was really different. i don’t know what you noticed, but he came back softer. he always gave me my space and let me come to him and we were working back through all of our stuff together.” yuuji starts. 

you’re not sure if you noticed a difference after he came back. he always seemed the same as always – a little withholding, like he was keeping you at arms distance. though, that seems to make more sense to you now. 

“but he’s still the brother i grew up with. there’s still things that i’m sensitive to, that…that i can’t get over.” 

you feel a pang in your chest. 

“i get that. you know…i kind of get that with sammy sometimes.” 

yuuji frowns. 

“yeah?” he whispers. 

you can feel the bitter contempt in your chest lingering. 

“i don’t know. i thought things were going well but…sometimes it’s just the same things as before. she’s just…always brushing me off. so harsh with her words. sometimes i think about the funeral and i’m glad sukuna’s not here just so i can lock myself in here and be alone.” 

you shake your head. 

“it’s like she’s picking at a scab. it’s the one thing i don’t want her to do and it’s the one thing that always happens. and she’s the only person who has that power in the first place, who…who gets to be that sore spot. and i know that it’s just how it is and it’s complicated but…” 

“but you can’t.” yuuji finishes. 

you shrug. 

“you were my scab.” yuuji states. 

you curl your nose in disgust, looking up to find the same expression mirrored on his face before you both laugh. 

“real cute.” 

“i mean…my thing with sukuna was that he was always better than me in every respect. that…that everything he did was perfect, that…that he was born normal and i wasn’t.” 

you cringe. 

“you are normal, you..” 

yuuji smiles. 

“i know i am. i just mean in my head, i always figured things were so easy for him. school was easy, sports were easy. he liked girls – he’d never have to sit there and debate if he was ever going to meet someone who liked him and when if he did, he wouldn’t have to give up his entire family for it.” 

yuuji pauses. 

“you were my best friend. you are my best friend. you’re my thing that’s always been easy. we don’t really fight, spending time with you never gets old, and…and really, you’re the only person i’ve known will always be around.” 

you smile. 

“it just felt like another thing he was going to be better at than me. and it’s selfish, but it was something i didn’t want to share. and i don’t expect you to get it, but…” 

you scoff. 

“don’t expect me to get it? you’re forgetting that i was the one who had to learn how to share you first. and maybe i didn’t say it out loud, but…i had some evil monologues for megumi that i was cooking up in my head.” 

yuuji laughs, almost like he’s relieved. 

“really?” 

“trust me. there was an entire basis behind the petty comments that i was making. i should have been more open with it but…but i don’t hate you for feeling that way. if anything, it makes me kind of happy, i guess. it did feel like you forgot all about me once you guys started dating, but…it’s nice to know you feel that way still. about me. even if it was annoying.” 

you pause. 

“you and i are special. and i can’t speak for you, but…sukuna’s never going to be what you are for me. i love him, but you…you’re not someone who could ever be replaced.” you affirm. 

yuuji smiles. 

“and megumi isn’t what you are for me either. he’s the love of my life. but you’re always going to be my soulmate.” 

you smile, rolling over the word in your head. soulmate – you and yuuji were soulmates. and he leans forward, placing his hands on your shoulder and squeezing. 

“now go on. tell me about him.” 

“what?” you ask. 

“i know you want to tell me about how happy you are. how it makes you feel. and i want to hear it. just refrain from talking about like how big his dick is or whatever and i’ll be fine.” 

you smile. 

“really? you mean it?” 

yuuji smiles back. 

“i’ve unfortunately heard the entire story of what that asshole was doing to you after the fact. it would make me really happy to hear how happy you are now.” 

you lean back on the couch and explain it all to him – french toast, bridgerton mugs (which he winces at when he remembers sammy broke them), emails, his coworkers, kisa, and everything in between. 

you don’t hear the apartment creak at night when you go to bed – instead it’s his labored breaths next to yours. 

--

sukuna makes it back early in the morning to find yuuji making breakfast in the kitchen and what he knows is you facedown still dead asleep in the mound of blankets on the couch. he gives yuuji a noncommittal wave before walking over to the couch and bending down at the side. 

sukuna can’t help but reach forward, brushing his back of his fingers against the softness of your cheek before tangling your hair away from your forehead. he can smell the remnants of the shampoo in your hair, your lips still a glossy pink from the balm you put on at night. 

“wake her up. give her a kiss.” yuuji whispers, now standing at his side. 

“are you crazy? she’s sleeping.” 

sukuna shakes his head, reaching forward to press a kiss to your hairline, before the two of them shuffle back to the kitchen. sukuna settles for a cup of coffee as he watches yuuji make the mix of french toast, the stillness hanging in the air between them. 

“dunno. if it were me and i went days without seeing megumi, i’d wake him up right away. why deprive myself of love and affection?” 

“you should deprive yourself more often. i’ve seen you two kiss far too many times. heard the words gumi bear way more than i’d like to.” 

yuuji snorts. 

“was she happy you came?” sukuna asks. 

“yeah. doubt she heard any of that creaking or anything she was telling you about since we were talking the entire time.” yuuji responds. 

it’s a small breath of relief – that sending yuuji was the right move – only to be coupled with guilt. 

sukuna hadn’t had time to check in on yuuji. 

“what did you talk about?” 

yuuji grins. 

“you.” 

yuuji looks over at him, grinning at him fully this time. 

“special edition bridgerton mugs? twilight themed emails? who knew you were so fucking corny? and that you watch bridgerton?” 

sukuna can feel his cheeks heat up, as he rolls his eyes. 

“she loves that shit. she made me watch it.” 

“no, she didn’t. she told me that you had watched it already and that your favorite season is the first one? not only are you a liar but you have god awful taste.” 

“let me guess. you like kate and anthony, like every other person on the fucking planet?” 

yuuji rolls his eyes. 

“everyone likes it for a reason. it’s perfect.” 

the two of them glare at each other, before giving up, and letting the same stillness take over. it’s not exactly uncomfortable, but there’s something lingering there – the two of them are stuck in their own heads about how they’re going to approach it, and more importantly, who is going to do it first. 

it’s yuuji. 

“the mugs thing is sweet. i’m sorry sammy broke them.” 

sukuna shrugs. 

“i’m bidding on ebay. no big deal.” 

yuuji notes that he responds to the second part of the statement and not the first. 

“i like that you do nice things for her. she really appreciates that you do.” yuuji repeats. 

 sukuna sighs. 

“did she say that?” 

yuuji smiles. 

“all that and more. she really loves you.” 

sukuna lets his eyes wander back to the couch, settling back into how foreign the apartment feels from being away for so long, and trying to let it all come back to him – how it was before he left things, how the two of you were. 

he’s scared he’ll do it wrong. 

“I’m really happy for you too. she’s exactly what you deserve.” yuuji states. 

it’s a weird sense of deja vu that sukuna gets – of the very first night. that loud bar, the mildew smell in the bathroom, and your tear streaked pink face. of the very first time that it occurred to him that there were people who had upset you, who had let you down, and that maybe he was the only person who was good enough for you – because he was the only one who intended to give you what you deserve. 

that he got to reap the goodness of the sweet love when he knew for a fact that he’d always be one to give it back to you, no matter how he was. that he was exactly what you deserved – maybe the only person who was because of how much he loved you. 

“what?” 

yuuji takes a beat. 

“were you expecting the opposite?” yuuji asks. 

“do you blame me?” 

yuuji shakes his head. 

“i am really happy for both of you. but i wouldn’t lie if i said i was more happy for you. i’ve known her a long time – and i’ve always wanted her to have someone who saw her for how special she is. and i always knew that it would happen, it was just a matter of time.” 

yuuji continues. 

“but i’m more happy for you. i had no idea that you had liked her for that long. i only now realize that the only person you could be that open with is her. and well…i don’t fucking know. shit sucked when we were kids. maybe for all of us, but for you the most. i know she loves hard. and i mean it, that’s what you deserve after everything.” 

there’s a lump in sukuna’s throat. he wants to tell yuuji everything – about why he left, about how him being around made it easy for him for a long time, how there was a time where he didn’t think he was going to live past twenty and now he’s reaching yet another birthday on the weekend. 

“i spent my entire life thinking i’d never get to be in love. and i’m not sure if that’s what you thought – but i know you weren’t ever thinking you’d get the girl of your dreams, and that on top of that, that it would be perfect. but really. it’s nothing more than what you deserve, sukuna.” 

but all he does is give him a nod. yuuji’s smart enough to parse what it means – that in the long rambling that he heard last night – he knows he has to learn how to read the silences, the quiet cues. 

“it means a lot to her that you came around.” sukuna starts. 

sukuna clears his throat. 

“and to me too.” he finishes. 

yuuji smiles. 

“and i suppose i should thank you. i always said she was like family to me, but it’ll be nice to tell people she’s actually my sister in the future.” yuuji responds, before squeezing his shoulder. 

sukuna smiles. 

“do you really let her call you ryomen?” yuuji asks. 

“yeah.” 

“thought you hated that name.” 

“i did.” 

there’s a reason that he went by sukuna. because every time that he slipped, he’d hear that godwful venomous voice, of his father telling him that he had given him such a special family name – and that sukuna had done nothing to deserve it. 

sukuna vividly remembers when he was a kid, when he used to beg everyone around him to call him sukuna, correcting them until they virtually forgot that his name was ryomen in the first pace. 

sukuna can feel the dryness in his throat, accompanied with a burning wetness in his eyes. yuuji makes no comment about it. 

“she just says it with so much love.” 

sukuna pauses, trying to will away that rising wave of emotion that was simmering in his chest, and put it away for the time being. 

“what did she get me for my birthday?” sukuna asks. 

yuuji nods. 

“she’s taking you on a weekend trip. a few cities over. she said there’s some cherry blossoms in season and that there’s a few museums that she wants you to see. figured it would be a nice rest for you given everything that’s been going on.” 

sukuna sighs, only because the wave comes back in full force. 

to be loved is to be known. 

clear cut proof that you had heard him loud and clear, when he had bared his soul to you. and not only that, but had known well enough that whatever was stewing in his head was getting dangerously close, maybe the closest it had been in years, to the edge – and that you had every intention to pull him back in the way he had pulled himself out in the first time. 

“is that good?” yuuji asks. 

“it’s perfect.” sukuna responds, before giving him one last nudge. 

sukuna decides that he won’t deprive himself. and instead leans forward, pressing his lips against yours – and pleasantly surprised when you smile right back at him in your sleep, his name honey on your lips, as he sinks into your arms. 

--

next part linked here

an: kind of filler again. sorry. apologies. also two more of this fic before it's done :O

taglist: @porridgesblog @k0z3me @sugu-love @yihona-san06 @bsenpai @sweetenertea @skzismyhome @mykyoon @violetmatcha @rebeccawinters @shotenvinsoot @itzmeme @gojoswifeyyys-world @cutiejg @chilichopsticks @ghostreadersthings @charlie-xo @whoami-72 @heijihattorisgf @megu-meow @complexivelovely @multiplefandomthings @hoebuns @lzaj19 @glossygreene @ramluvr @sureconfused @najaemism @manduse @imhorn1help @gamergirl5125 @r0ckst4rjk @invisible-mori @isaacdaknight @wishmemel @gyros-cum-sock @suftsunshine @i0099 @cowgirlikets @haitanibros0007 @stuffeddeer @yoontaedotin @ec3lipsy @armani78 @awkwardaardvarkforever @kereseth @leave-rae-alone @ruruvia @princess-ackerman @jjkwritingss @lilkiwikiara @opchara @telepathicheartss @starriesworlds @raechu11 @exprimidordefresas @nxxrxm @aalloochaat @strangehuman101 @tzutology

[russellsppttemplates]

how about a little lando blurb with your birthday? Like, you still gave a regular job and work like you did today but then come home to him and it's all fluffy 🥹

Note: this is very self indulgent I have to admit, but very dreamy 🫶✨️💛

You parked the car and got all your stuff from the boot, putting your backpack on and grabbing the cake box to take upstairs along with your bag, climbing the steps as quickly as you could.

Managing to get the key into the keyhole, you got yourself into the apartment, setting your stuff down and looking for Lando, "Lan? Are you home?".

"In the kitchen, baby!", he called as you heard some pots clinking and a wooden spoon hit the pan, "there's my birthday girl", he cooed as you stepped inside the kitchen.

"Hey, baby", you smiled, approaching him and kissing his lips, smiling when you felt his hands squeeze your waist under your shirt.

"Happy birthday, my love", he whispered when he pulled his lips from yours, "did you have a good day?".

"I did", you smiled, letting him hold your hand while he stirred some chicken on the stove with his other hand, "the girls sang me happy birthday and they really liked the cake, and some of the kids remembered it was my birthday and they were very cute", you beamed.

"Did you have that little boy today?", he asked.

"Thomas? Yes, I did - he made sure I got two kisses on my cheeks and a hug", you teased him.

A couple of months ago, your boyfriend picked you up from work, and you were running a little late as your last appointment required you to talk to the little boy's parents to update them on his therapeutic progress and they were late too. What Lando witnessed in that waiting room was such a delight, even if it made him a little jealous of the little ones: Thomas, the cutest six year old boy, was happily sat down with you in the sofa, telling you all about the cartoons playing on the TV while holding your hand in his. The way he seemed so comfortable and happy to talk with you made Lando melt as he watched the whole thing unravel, only being interrupted when he heard the door click open from who he assumed were Thomas' parents. While you updated them, the little boy watched Lando curiously, even showing him the 'well done!' sticker he got from you because he completed all the activities you asked him to.

"I swear he loves you, like, I have some serious competition there!", Lando mused, "he's obviously cute, and he's very kind too, I wouldn't be surprised if you traded up", he winked.

"He is cute indeed, but I much prefer you", you smiled, hugging his waist and taking in the meal he was making.

"Are you sure? He always gets a sticker after all his appointments because he is such a good boy", Lando raised his eyebrows, "I don't get stickers after every race".

"Maybe it's something they could implement, I'll let them know for the nest season", you mused, kissing his cheek.

By the time you had dinner and ate the cake, Lando made sure you didn't lift a finger, keeping you close to him on the sofa once he tidied the kitchen, kissing you and hugging you while watching your favourite show.

"Thank you for this evening", you pecked his lips again, "today was the best day and this was the perfect end for it".

"Anything for my birthday girl", Lando smiled, leaving a few more kisses from your cheek to your shoulder.

(Thank you for sending this in ✨️)

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 2

While attending Jago and Litefoot's knighting ceremony, the Sixth Doctor had to go in disguise because of the grudge Queen Victoria had against him, which was started by the Tenth Doctor.

Once, the TARDIS jumped a time track, leaving the Tenth Doctor at Powell Estate for a week. During this time, he lived with Mickey.

A team called the "Plastic Surgeons," comprised of the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and a lone Auton, won a Mannequin Challenge competition.

The Shopkeeper from the SJAs may have been an incarnation of the Corsair according to RTD.

The War Chief once had an aborted regeneration, which left him deformed, his past and future selves joined together. He had a conjoined dual skull and an extraordinary set of limbs.

The Third Doctor took Jo back in time in an attempt to kill that same would-be-dictator baby but also failed to do so after seeing his Sixth try the same (some of you already know where I am going with this).

After being irradiated on Metebelis III, the Third Doctor was stuck in the time vortex for ten years, dying very slowly.

Ian and Barbara's son became a pop singer.

The Eleventh Doctor once traveled with a robotic copy of a Tyrannosaurus rex named Kevin. His tiny arms made him unable to help pilot the TARDIS.

Kamelion and the TARDIS had a child together.

Missy killed the incarnations that came both before her (Saxon Master) and also after her (the Lumiat).

The Venusian Lullaby sounds like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen because Jago and Litefoot sang it on Venus to soothe the Shanghorn.

The First Doctor caused High Tutor Albrecht to regenerate by experimenting with a perigosto stick and a temporal feedback loop.

The First Doctor rigged a drinks machine to produce mercury during his time at the Academy to experiment with, nearly causing his professor to regenerate.

The First Doctor's dorm room had posters in it and became timelocked after an experiment gone wrong. No one ever figured out how to get rid of the timelock.

Basically, the Doctor was a menace even as a student, but everyone knew that.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

[c0wb0ylikem3]

Our Song

•summary: in which mercedes drivers y/n l/n and lewis hamilton are to compete in another youtube challenge

•authors note: this is an old draft!! Not proofread 😭

•pairings: (y/n x lewis hamilton!platonic)

Compared to other Formula One teams Mercedes were not know for there social media presence, unlike other teams such as Ferrari with their infamous C2 videos and McLaren with there two drivers constantly uploading a new video every week. However when Y/n L/n replaced Valteri Bottas seat in the latest season the fans demanded more content with the girl and her teammate, Lewis Hamilton.

The rain fell as Y/n made her way to the Mercedes media building. She was told to be there fifteen minutes ago however she got caught up by fans who seem to find her anywhere. Entering the building she quickly said hello to the front desk as she dashed to the room she was needed in.

“Glad you could join us L/n” Lewis spoke and she sent a glare towards the seven time world champion. She was drenched, had no time to stop for her daily coffee and now she was supposed to film a video. “It’s not my fault I actually care for my fans”

He gave a look of shock and rolled his eyes at the girls attitude which currently was resembling one of a teenage girl. “Clearly someone didn’t drink there coffee this morning” she sighed taking off her jacket so it could dry off.

“Okay I’m going to explain what we are doing today, as you know during the beginning of the year we asked you two to create a shared playlist for Race Weekends. We are going to be testing you both seeing who put what song in the playlist” The media director explained pointing to the white desk with two buzzers.

Y/n and Lewis took a seat on opposite sides settling in as they set up to record. “Recording in 3…2…1” the director gave a thumbs up signaling Lewis to start the intro.

“Hello and welcome back to another Mercedes showdown off the track” Lewis spoke looking towards you “Currently I’m in the lead because I won the last two challenges while Y/n has only won once” Y/n playfully rolled her eyes “that’s because you cheated at just dance!”

Lewis retaliated “ How does someone cheat in just dance?! We are not getting into this again.” Y/n laughed continuing the bit “So today we are trying to guess who put what song in our 2023 playlist our lovely Mercedes admin will shuffle the playlist and we will have to hit the buzzer and say who put the song in the playlist”

Round 1

The Mercedes admin grabbed her phone and shuffled the playlist the first song began to play, Y/n heard the first few notes the song seemed familiar but she wasn’t sure. Lewis on the other hand knew what song it was “Too Comfortable Future? It has to be one of my songs look her face”

Y/n hung her head low already off to a bad start, although this isn’t a race she can’t help but be competitive towards any competition. “I don’t listen to future like that” Y/n commented before moving onto the next round

Round 2

The next song began to play and she knew it in a heartbeat. Hitting the buzzer Y/n beat Lewis by milliseconds.

“You know a lot of girls be Thinking my songs are about them but, This is not to get confused This one is for you” she sang along to the popular song

Lewis laughed at the girls actions “Best I Ever Had by Drake” Y/n said as she finished her solo “Obviously I love this song but Lewis put this one on the playlist”

The admin double checked before rewarding Y/n the points and she cheered. “Now we are even Hamilton”

He rolled his eyes “For now”

Round 3

Another familiar song began to play, this was definitely one you put in the playlist. Unfortunately Lewis beat you to it like you had in the previous round.

“It’s a Bad Bunny Song i just don’t know what song” he explained covering is face in frustration trying to think of the song’s name “Is it Tití Me Preguntó?”

Luck was now on the girls side as she laughed “Can I answer!” Y/n asked enthusiastically as the Admin nodded ‘yes’

“Me Porto Bonito and it was one of my songs” She smiled victoriously gaining another point.

Lewis sighed shaking his head “That was my other answer I should’ve went with my gut”

Y/n held Lewis’ hand sympathetically “it’s okay not everyone can be good as me” He pushed her hands back returning his attention the admin to begin the next round.

Round 4

The girl was completely lost when she heard the song play . She was not really into EDM music and that was her first thought when she heard this song it had to be Lewis’ song.

Lewis however looked just as lost until it hit him.

Y/n saw his eyes light up as he hit the buzzer “this is one of my songs right? ‘On My Knees’ I forgot who sings it”

“He shouldn’t get the point then!” Y/n exclaimed but she lost the fight nonetheless

Lewis smirked “we are even now!”

Round 5

“YOU BELONG WITH ME” Y/n screamed the song wasn’t even five seconds in as she hit the buzzer causing her teammate to jump in fear at the girls actions

Lewis looked at her in shock and disbelief, he knew she was a fan of the famous singer but not to that extent.

“I think she really likes that song” the admin laughed

Her teammate continued to laugh at the girls actions as she sung along to the song “remind me never to play Taylor Swift around you”

Round 6

“Right now we have the very enthusiastic Y/n in the lead, However this last round is winner takes it all” the admin explained

Both Mercedes drivers had there hands on the buzzer ready to answer

The introduction of the song already gave it away but the two drivers answered at the same time

“DNA Kendrick Lamar” they shouted

Not knowing who should get the chance to answer which driver put the song in the playlist so they could secure ten points the admin told them to play a game of rock, paper , scissors.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors shoot”

Lewis put our Scissors while Y/n put out Paper.

The girl let out a cry as Lewis answered “It was me right?” He smiled ready to win the game

“Unfortunately you’re wrong with means Y/n won the challenge!”

The girl who was once sitting in sadness stood up in cheers “FINALLY!” She cheered as Lewis was left in disbelief

“That was rigged” Lewis said

“Oh now it’s rigged just take the L” Y/n shot back

The drivers had calmed down before filming the outro “If you enjoyed this video leave and like and comment and make sure you follow so you can check out other videos of me destroying Lewis Hamilton” waving goodbye in waves of laughter the so called “short video” took atleast two hours.

Grabbing her phone Y/n looked up at Lewis as he was met with an equally frightened face, “Did you get a call from Toto too” Lewis asked

Y/n nodded “He’s gonna kill us”

[wileys-russo]

Fic idea : reader meeting leah’s family and they all love her, then she’s always invited for family game nights and leah is jealous bc reader always wins but they’re never on the same team and you know how competitive leah is 😂

sore loser II l.williamson

"babe. would you want to come with me on tuesday?" leah asked suddenly as the two of you were sat together on the lounge watching tv at her place one night. "like, to your grandmas?" you asked in surprise, having met leahs mum and brother but not the rest of her family just yet.

"yeah. she's been asking about you ever since mum let it slip i was seeing someone, and i'd love for you to finally meet holly and ben." leah smiled at the thought, not a single doubt in her mind that the rest of her family would adore you as much as she did.

"only if you're ready though! there isn't a rush." leah quickly added, squeezing your leg with a reassuring nod as you took a second to think.

"i'd love to lee. but are you sure they won't mind? i know the tuesdays mean a lot to your family." you asked curiously, leah and her cousins always spending every tuesday night at her grandparents house since long before the two of you had started seeing each other.

"of course not gorgeous, and you are family." leah stated sweetly making your heart melt as you pecked her lips with a shy smile. the two of you had been seeing one another for around four months now, though had really only been official for about two.

"then tuesday sounds wonderful my love."

~

"-and you're sure i don't need to bring anything. and this is okay?" you stressed, gesturing to what you were wearing as an amused leah lay down watching you from your bed, having arrived about an hour ago to help you get ready knowing you were quite nervous.

"yes i promise you don't need to take anything. and you look perfect, as always. same thing i said to the last outfit, and the outfit before that." leahs lips curled into a smile as you nodded, turning back to the mirror and tugging at your top with a small frown.

"hey." leah suddenly appeared behind you, grabbing your hands in hers and gently pulling them away. "you look beautiful my girl. my family are going to love you, same as mum and jacob already do! they can see how happy you make me, hollys always winding me up for smiling at my phone whenever you message. should have heard how she carried on when you didn't come to ibiza! she's been hanging to meet you baby." leah assured firmly, hand softly grabbing your chin, nudging your head up so she could press a soft kiss to your lips.

"ready to go?" she asked as you gave yourself a once over and nodded, taking a deep breath. "good girl, come on then." leah let you go, grabbing her keys off your desk and holding out her hand, wiggling her fingers impatiently as your cheeks flushed red at her praise.

~

"hello family!" leah sang out as she let herself into her grandmas, closing the door behind you and grabbing your hand again, sending you a smile and kissing your cheek before tugging you along with her toward the sound of laughter and chatter coming from the living room.

a loud cheer sounded as the two of you entered, and all of a sudden you found yourself being passed from person to person, leah introducing you as you were pulled into a hug and then tugged away into another by one of her relatives.

eventually you'd made your rounds and were sat down beside leah and holly on the sofa, laughing away as her uncle shared stories of what leah and her cousins were like growing up. "so lee, did you prep her for how much of a sore loser you always are?" holly smirked, slinging an arm over your shoulder.

"sore loser?" you asked with a confused smile, leah rolling her eyes. "yeah its game night! she didn't tell you? oh leah, not even giving her time to prepare? thats just downright sneaky mate!" holly tutted with a shake of her head as you raised an eyebrow at the other blonde.

"i didn't want to overwhelm her! you lot are already too much." leah defended her actions as you joined holly shaking your head at her. "i'm already used to her being a sore loser, we've played monopoly once...i won and we've not touched it since." you teased as leahs mouth opened in offence and holly let out a loud peal of laughter.

"right, i'm claiming her as my partner. you can have ben!" your girlfriends cousin grinned as her grandma yelled dinner was ready, cutting off leah as she started to protest.

holly grabbed your hand and dragged you to sit beside her, leah pouting at you from the end of the table as you mouthed an apology, pulled into a conversation with her aunt who sat at your other side.

~

"-four letters!" holly yelled and you nodded, continuing with your silent gestures as leahs family all yelled and jeered, sledging one another playfully as the night went on.

you'd all already played twister, cluedo and blackjack, and you and holly were on a hot winning streak as a power duo, and leah was not coping well with it.

"movie!" you nodded again, switching up what you were trying to act out. "musical?" holly guessed and you nodded happily, her brother yelling out you had another thirty seconds.

a few guesses later and it was right down to the wire, you and holly were currently tied with ben and leah and you needed holly to guess this for you to walk away with winning yet another game.

the timer sounded right as hollys eyes widened. "cats!" she screamed out and you cheered, turning around the card with a grin, everyone else letting out claps of congratulations, well almost everyone.

"nah nah nah!" leah stood with a shake of her head, scowl plastered on her face as you and holly jumped around hugging each other. "she guessed after the timer. doesn't count!" leah announced firmly, walking over to the whiteboard and rubbing off the win with a stern shake of her head, holly booing her.

"leah love its a game, sit down." her grandma smiled as leah continued to kick off, going as far as to pull out the rules and read them out with a grumpy frown. you knew your girlfriend was a bad loser, and you honestly found this amusing more than anything else.

"right then, tiebreaker?" you called out with a raised eyebrow, leah halting her yelling for a moment as her brother and ben ooohed causing her to flick them a filthy glare. "fine. jenga!" leah decided, disappearing as you smiled shaking your head, everyone moving to clear the table.

you walked out of the room in search of your favourite blonde, finding her grabbing a glass of water. "hi loser-oh sorry, love!" you teased, the look sent your way absolutely withering. "cute." leah replied curtly, refusing to hug you as you wrapped yourself round her taller form.

"when i win are you going to be moody the whole drive home?" you smiled smugly, leah trying to pull your arms off as you held on tight. "you're insufferable." leah huffed, giving up and dropping her arms by her side.

"come on baby, give me a kiss good luck." you cooed, letting her go and tapping your lips. "no, get off." leah refused with a blank stare, shouldering past you as you followed after with a grin, sending holly a wink as you joined her, jenga already set up.

once again, it came right down to the wire, the stack now dangerously unstable as leah took a deep breath, surveying which one she was going to take.

"while we're young lee." you faked a yawn, the blonde sending you a glare as you only grinned, even ben chuckling at leahs expense despite being her partner.

the rest of her family had disappeared to the kitchen for tea and desert, only leahs brother jacob hanging around to watch the aftermath of what had been an incredibly tense game.

with baited breath leah made her choice, gently starting to wiggle out the block. "looking a bit unstable there, nobody breathe or else she might kick off!" you teased, holly clutching at you with an overdramatic gasp as leah flipped you both off without looking away from the tower.

you were certain she didn't breathe until she'd dropped the block on top, the tower wobbling for a moment but not falling. "ha, boom!" leah whooped loudly pumping her fist with a smirk sent your way.

you rolled your eyes at her cockiness, the blonde watching you with an arrogant smile, arms folded over her chest and jaw clenched, you hated how attractive you found it honestly.

ignoring leahs ongoing sledging you surveyed the tower, finally selecting a piece and carefully beginning to wiggle it out, holding your breath with each passing moment, making sure to take your time.

eventually it came free, your entire body unclenching as you gingerly placed it on top. you grinned and gave holly a high five, though the smiles were wiped off your faces as suddenly the tower came tumbling down, blocks crashing to the floor as leah cheered.

what she failed to notice was you seeing her foot quickly dart back from where the blonde had subtly kicked the corner of the table, leah grinning as she assumed she'd gotten away with it.

you chose not to mention it, accepting her teasing with a roll of your eyes, the two of you making your rounds saying bye as leah had training early tomorrow and the night was ticking on.

though once you'd gotten to the safety of leahs car, you sent her a very pointed glare. "you are such a fucking cheat." you accused, smacking her hand away as she tried to rest it on your thigh.

"don't know what you mean my girl, don't be a sore loser now." leah smirked and you huffed, ignoring her for the rest of the drive home much to leahs amusement.

"oh come here. stop being a baby!" leah laughed as she tried to pull you in for a cuddle and you shoved her off, you have successfully ignored her every attempt at engaging with you as the two of you arrived back to your flat and got ready for bed.

"admit you kicked that table over." you warned, the two of you laying practically nose to nose in bed as her cold hands slid up your jumper. "so what if i did? what are you gonna do about it hm?" leah smirked, lips ghosting yours.

"nothing? thats what i thought." leah leant in intending to kiss you as once again you shoved her away, flopping over onto your other side. within a few seconds your girlfriend had climbed on top of you, legs straddling your hips and hand clasping your cheek, forcing you to look up at her.

"you are such a sore loser." you glared up at her, only further annoyed at how good she looked as she gave you that stupid cocky grin of hers.

"maybe. how about i make it up to you then baby girl?" leah all but purred, rocking her hips on top of you and tilting her head with a smirk as a hot flush started to creep up your neck. "and how are you going to do that?" you challenged as she kissed your jaw.

"oh i have a few ideas."

[pandoa]

since childhood!!

you meet as childhood friends

~feat. twst housewardens~ ~twisted wonderland x gender neutral reader~

warnings: reader is not yuu/prefect and is different for each imagine to fit the setting of the boys (ex: reader is fae in malleus', merfolk in azul's, etc.)

if you want more childhood-like fics, i wrote one with ace and jack linked here!

♡the child you meet at a playground and never see again♡

Riddle Rosehearts couldn’t even remember how or when you had joined him, Trey, and Che’nya in their daily time playing outside the nearby neighborhood. He just knew that once he had stepped outside that day—sneaking out of his home during his study time—you, a strange, new child, had been mindlessly throwing a ball to Trey, giggling in the process. Any outsider passing by could have sworn you‘d already known the young trio for years. Odd, but the boy found himself not objecting to your time spent with him and his friends. You were somehow very comfortable to speak with, and Riddle couldn’t help but find your playfulness intriguing.

“Ha! I win again!” you jumped up and cheered with Trey and Che’nya sitting in a small circle as all three of you held up your hands in exhilaration. 

“Congratulations,” Trey said, returning a proud smile. Resting on a grass-filled hill, the three of you helped yourselves to pass the time with a simple game that lasted longer than expected, if you all were to be honest. Riddle—insisting to only observe for the round—caught sight of the way your competitiveness mixed with Trey’s insightfulness and Che’nya’s natural wit. It was interesting. The way you easily conversed with everyone despite only meeting hours ago, he means.

“Hey, red-head!” you then called out to the young boy watching from afar, “Do you wanna play now? I can teach you the basics; It’s really just a hand game.”

Riddle contemplated for a second until walking closer to join the group, “... I suppose I’ll join.”

“Great!” you beamed, “The game’s called Concentration. Basically, we pick a category and all four of us have to go around taking turns saying a word that matches that specific category. Like if it was, for example, colors, then we all could say things like blue, orange, red—you get the gist of it.”

A nod then came from the red-headed child who was now seated next to you.

“The catch, though,” you continued, “is that you cannot at all hesitate when it’s your turn. So no pausing before speaking. This game’s supposed to be quick and fast. Got it?”

“I’m sure I do—?”

“Good! Let’s start.” With a swift clap of your palms, the game had begun as Riddle was practically pushed into the game with your excitement. Truthfully, he had not the faintest clue as to what he had been doing, but he supposed there was no harm in simply trying, yes? 

“Hmmm, the category for this round, then, would be…” you squinted your eyes, appearing to be deep in thought, “Desserts! Go!”

“Vanilla cake,” Trey began.

“Truffles~” sang Che’nya.

“Strawberry tarts,” Riddle quickly replied.

“Crap!”

Crap?

“All this dessert talk made me remember that my parents wanted me to turn off the oven before ever going out! They’re really gonna kill me this time, I just know it!” you panicked as you suddenly explained your predicament, scrambling from the ground to get back up on your feet, “I gotta go, guys! Bye!”

“And don’t think any of you won just yet! It’s a draw until I say so!” you hollered out to the three boys as you left each of them bewildered and confused. Now only being able to see the back of your running form, Riddle found that, just as you had first met them that day, you had similarly disappeared with a clap of your hands like a ghost of a light at midnight.

Riddle wondered if he’d ever see you again. Sevens, he didn’t even get to catch your name.

♡the friend you sneak out with♡

“Why are you so slow? Get moving! I’ve seen sloths move faster than you, dumbo.”

The young Leona Kingscholar, having heard the ceaseless comments coming from your also young form, gave you a classic deadpan only he could display so perfectly within the empty gardens of the Kingscholar palace. No soul had been there as the only living creatures that remained were the critters chirping their music into the night and breeze of the gardens speaking back with delicacy. That, and everyone else within the grandiose palace had been rooms away, probably swaying to whatever music the Kingscholars had orchestrated for the ball that would take place that day. 

“Yeah, well why don’t you quiet down a bit, hm? You’re hurting my eardrums,” the boy replied, rubbing his left ear in annoyance. For the amount of times you both had snuck off with each other, Leona had thought you would have caught on to the main rule of sneaking out: remaining as quiet as possible until it was safe to speak. 

You’ve gotta be kidding me, the chocolate-haired boy thought.

Playfully poking at his side, you began an attempt to tease him even just for a little bit, “Aw, does the little kitty not like it when he hears my oh-so-wonderful voice?”

“Yeah. It’s obnoxious.”

“Hey—!”

“Shhhh!” Leona, albeit quite swiftly, suddenly placed a firm hand against your mouth, causing you both to halt in place behind an unassuming stone wall, “I think the guards are coming…”

Your heart began to race with anticipation. If the palace guards had managed to catch you two escaping a chance to socialize at a royal event, you would never hear the end of it from your families. “... Do you hear them?” a worried whisper mumbled from your nervous figure.

“Mhm, could you keep watch over here?” the boy said as he bent down on his knees, concealing himself whilst facing the other direction, “I’ll go look on the other side.”

Trusting your dear—and sometimes reliable—friend, you peeked your head out from the wall, keeping watch just as Leona said to do. The gardens had been practically deserted; a stillness in the way the gentle wind blew past the branches had almost convinced you that there was, indeed, no one there. 

Was he just… seeing things? you questioned. But your beastman friend would never, right? His senses were probably a thousand times more intuitive than yours. He’d never make such an obvious mistake.

“Uhm, Leona? I don’t think I see any—” you started as your small hand reached out to tap the boy, but not without noticing the way he had been draped against the wall, seemingly knocked-out unconscious as a barely even noticeable drop of drool spilled from his snoring mouth.

“Leona, you lazy wimp!!”

♡the friend you see at one specific place♡

“Are you done yet?”

“No, (Y/n), I am not,” a young octopus-like boy stated as he simultaneously juggled numerous books and papers on all ten of his limbs, particularly focused on the words written on each page. He sat on his own within a shadow-crested octopus pot and looked as if he had not come out of the pot in ages, you observed. Concerning, but nothing new, you thought. “And I won’t be done until far later,” he said, scrunching his face together, “What do you want?”

You mindlessly began poking at a piece of coral, paying no mind to the boy’s slight sass to his tone. “Nothing~ I just thought I could find you here. Turns out I was right.” You watched as Azul helped himself to another book from his rather tall pile, closing another to add to his collection. “Studying again, I see,” a knowing look then escaped your form as your eyes lit with a teasing shine, “Plotting something against me, Azul?”

“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility,” he replied halfheartedly, “Especially if you keep coming here to disturb me.”

You exclaimed, feigning offense, “Never! I’m simply keeping you company.” The boy then peered up to you as you swam closer to him, reminiscing the earlier days of your friendship. “I still remember the first time I saw you here, crying on your own. The growth you’ve had since that day really is admirable—“

“Enough,” Azul shot you an annoyed glare, “It was already unfortunate for you to first meet me as tears welled from my eyes; there’s no need to sugarcoat the memory.”

Jumping at Azul’s assumptions, you worriedly began to amend any insecurities that struck the young boy beside you. “I’m not sugarcoating anything! And crying in front of me that day was nothing to be ashamed of. If I hadn’t heard your voice coming from the pot, I would’ve never come back here each day, let alone know of your existence in the first place.” You let your palm reach forward to hold his—quite soft—face, allowing your innocent touch to spread to him. “You have grown. But it’s okay to cry too, okay?”

“Alright,” Azul mumbled, face still remaining in your small hands. “Anyway,” he continued as he pulled away from your arms, “do you plan on returning home soon? Your family may worry.”

“No, it’s fine,” you shrugged as a soft ocean current moved past the locks of your hair, “I’ll stay here.”

“You don’t have to—“

“I want to.”

Azul had gazed back at you, almost stunned. “If that is what you wish, then be my guest,” he complied.

You then gave him a gentle smile, “Of course.”

♡the friend you find when you are lost♡

“(Y/n)~! Wait for me!” Kalim said, hollering out to your speeding figure under the golden glow of the Scalding Sands as shadows of the plentiful buildings stretched out with the lowering evening sun. What time it exactly was, you did not know. All you had known was that there was still an ample amount of time for you and your new friend, Kalim, to explore the world around you—seeing as the young boy was just as excited as you.

“The town waits for no one, Kalim! It was made for adventure!” you shouted back behind you, almost leaving the white-haired boy for the dust if he had not caught up sooner. “If there’s one thing you should know about this place, it’s that! Or…” a thoughtful pause then cut between your rambles as you stopped in your tracks, “That’s what my grandparents always tell me, at least. Who knows.”

Kalim—who was now standing beside you—then gave you a grin that could send rays of sunshine to shame with its brightness, “Jamil always tells me to never venture to the town, though; maybe he just doesn’t know the kinds of fun that await here!”

“Eh, I know I’ve never met the kid,” warily, your hand began to reach for your other in concern for your newfound companion, “but this Jamil dude doesn’t sound too… fun.”

“Of course he is, he’s my friend!”

“I know he is, but look at us!” you said as you threw your arms up in the air, exclaiming, “We just met today after I saw you wandering off into Sevens knows where, but we still have fun! Jamil, on the other hand, sounds like he stops you from any kind of fun. What kinda friend does that?”

Kalim, still seeming to be unfazed by your concerns as he let out a laugh, shot you his millionth smile of that day, “He means well!”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” you muttered. “Anyway, enough of that! There’s this really cool area in the alleyways I know that’s perfect for—”

“Kalim!” an unknown voice was then heard not too far from the both of you, “Where have you been?!”

“Jamil! There you are!” the young boy to your left called out to the voice as the mysterious figure treaded closer and closer—but not without you tensing up with caution. “This is my new friend—” Kalim started, cheerily pointing towards you.

“I deeply apologize, but there’s just no more time to waste,” the unknown figure, who you now saw had long locks of dark hair, paid no mind to you as he fretted over your giggling friend, “You’re lucky our families haven’t realized you were gone just yet or I’d never hear the end of it. Come, now. We have to get back quickly.”

“Oh, okay!” Kalim swiftly replied as he waved back enthusiastically to you, “I’ll see you again, (Y/n)!”

Yelling your final goodbyes, you saw as the forms of the two children around your age hastily walked back to wherever their home resided, silhouettes following after with the sky setting in front of them. 

Although despite the day concluding on its own, you never could understand why Kalim’s friend, Jamil, was so protective over him. Sure, you thought, the young boy could be a tad oblivious at times—that you could admit—but going so far as to act as a caretaker for the boy as opposed to being a friend? It’s not like Kalim was the son of a very impactful family that needed protection. He’s just a normal kid for Seven’s sake!

Right?

♡childhood rivals♡

Vil Schoenheit had had enough.

Why out of all the students who attended this dance studio, he had to be partnered with you? The young boy had always thought this, what with you two being dance partners despite the clear friction between the both of you since he could remember. The only reason Vil had ever found himself tolerating it was because of the sole fact of your dance instructor’s judgment. You were talented, he reluctantly admitted. And rehearsing with you out of all people would only benefit his own skills in the arts if he ever wished to get anywhere with his strive for perfection.

The pursuit of beauty knows no bounds, Vil thought as he adjusted the strap stabilizing his dance shoes. 

“Vil!” a familiar—but scour inducing—voice then intruded on the boy’s preparation as he turned his face to look at your a-little-too-cheery-for-his-taste form. “It’s so nice to see that you’ve made it to today’s lesson! I remember you were absent last week because of an important commercial shooting, yes? We all missed your…” you halted yourself, unnecessarily emphasizing your words as if to discredit the compliments coming from your mouth, “treasured talent.”

Vil scoffed at your empty sweetness. “I’m sure you did, (Y/n).” The young actor tilted his chin up as if to search for his own thoughts while doing his best to cover the glare he dearly wished to give you at that moment, “Although, you’ll be out next week too, correct? I hear you’ve been casted in a children’s show as a special guest.” The blond-haired child then turned back to the straps of his shoes, mumbling to himself, “... That I also had auditioned for.” 

Feigning ignorance to his bitterness, you continued carrying on the conversation with your precious dance partner—relishing the way he stared at you with envy at your obtained role in the process. “Ah, yes. Well, as you know, showbiz is showbiz, Schoenheit. Not all of us will get what we want,” you gave him a smile he could only read as a way to anger him even more. “Perhaps we’ll both be casted next time. That would be wonderful, would it not?”

“Indeed.”

A single clap from your instructor was enough for the entire studio to grow quiet, signaling the start of class as students began rushing to their places, “Alright, class, it’s time to begin! Places!”

You gave your partner a final grin as the room was filled with music to go with your warm up, “Don’t trip today, Schoenheit.”

“As if I ever would, (L/n).”

♡online friends who’ve never met♡

With technology constantly surrounding him, it was only natural for Idia to have met you in the online world. Where else would a shut-in like himself find some sort of social interaction he'd actually be willing to be a part of?

Gloomurai: korie! u wanna hop on midnite l8ter? live event drops tday

korie66: ayooooo korie66: im down. lez do it >:)

Gloomurai: nice Gloomurai: korie and gloomurai back at it again

Although, he supposed he didn't really know you. Sure, he knew the artificially curated version you would introduce yourself as within the chat logs on public servers. But he had never known the "IRL" version of you, let alone your real name. Still—Idia thought as he sat in front of his blue and black gaming set-up, monitor displaying another game he'd binge that night—it was still nice having a buddy to play numerous games with. A kid like him who had the same interests. A kid who also found freedom within the internet.

korie66: YOOOOOOO GLOOMURAI korie66: GET ON MAGITROPICA RN

Gloomurai: wht? y?

korie66: FREE STUFF

Gloomurai: DONT HAVE TO TELL ME TWICE

Both of your days were spent trading the best items, sharing tips for a new game level, or even just chatting for the fun of it. Each night Idia had even found himself eagerly shuffling to his room, shutting the door behind him, and turning on his PC just to make it in time for your scheduled co-ops.

Eventually, you and Idia had found yourselves much more open with one another as well; a certain kind of trust that could only form with the number of years you had played together. What was the point in finding real-life friends, the young Idia thought as he snagged a bag of chips to eat while playing with you, if he had you to spend time with instead? One friend was all he needed, and you filled that roll perfectly!

Gloomurai: YESSSSSESEES LETS GOOOOO

korie66: NICE GOING GLOOMI~~ WE TOTALLY BEAT THAT LAST BOSS LEVEL LMAO

Gloomurai: YEAH Gloomurai: FR THE BEST DUO

korie66: I SWEAR IM NEVER DITCHING U, GLOOMI korie66: CANT DO ANYTHING W/O YOU LOL

Gloomurai: U BETTER NOT HAAHAHAHAJ

This was all he needed. Your friendship was all he needed.

Idia—now a third year student and housewarden at Night Raven College—sighed as he closed the latest game he'd been playing, cracking his back as he stretched like cat waking up from a deep sleep. Determining it was far too early for bedtime, however, the young man had decided it was a good hour to clear out his PC's memory. It was about time. It had been a while.

Scrolling and deleting through file and files, memories, and unused downloads, Idia had found nothing of importance to him and trashed everything in his path. That is, until he spotted a familiar chat log that read UNSTOPPABLE DUO hidden deep within his message history.

The Ignihyde housewarden gazed at the chat name he knew all too well. A certain feeling then began to rise within his chest as his hand subconsciously guided his mouse towards the familiar icon of your profile picture, still the same as it was years ago.

This is a really bad idea, Idia voiced in his mind. Yet, despite being against his own actions, Idia watched as his own hand clicked your name—only to spot a sea of red text blaring through the screen as he peered at the pixels of his computer:

korie66: Last Active 10 years ago. . .

Idia slumped over in his chair at the text, dejected, "I don't know why I even tried."

Shutting off his monitor, the blue-haired boy then stood from his chair and begrudgingly marched back to his bed, concluding his late night. He hadn't known what he was even expecting, at that point. He'd long knew of your inactivity; it's not like he didn't know what he'd see.

It really was just a shame you never had a chance to meet each other, Idia thought. He supposed, though, that some people were never meant to truly remain friends, to remain together.

And you were no exception to that.

♡the friend you meet by accident♡

“OH SEVENS NOT AGAIN—”

“Hm?” Malleus, who had been peacefully reading a book during his break from his studies, suddenly peered up from his spot in the palace gardens at the alarming shouts coming from the sky. It had been a relatively clear afternoon; one with few clouds in the atmosphere and very few birds soaring above, which only left the young fae even more curious at the panicking screams he could catch from his place beside the flower beds. Gently placing his now discarded book down to the grass, Malleus then made his way closer to the figure as a blur of (h/c) fell from the sky and into a nearby bush.

Thud! 

“Ugh, I knew trying that spell would be a total fail,” the figure, who Malleus could now make out as a fae child around his age, dwelled as they rubbed a couple bruises on their arms, healing themselves. “I guess this is what happens when I don’t listen to Mother, but—"

“Ahem,” Malleus cleared his throat, finally gaining the child’s attention.

“AAAHHH—” you screamed again, only this time with shock at the sight of another living being around you. “Gosh, don’t scare me like that! What if my magic went all kapooey on you?! What would happen then?” you scolded the rather tall boy as you stood up from your previously injured state—skin now pristine due to your magic.

“Hm…” the dark-haired boy before you contemplated your words, “Then I suppose going ‘kapooey’ wouldn’t be very good for me, correct?”

“Exactly! I’m glad we’re on the same page.” You turned your body away from the boy as you inspected your dirt-stained clothes, wincing at the rips caused from your fall into the bush. “I don’t even want to imagine what Mother would do to me if she found out I’d harmed another fae—another child at that, too! Although,” your eyes then followed up the fae’s face and pointed its attention straight towards the two black horns resting atop his head, “you do look a bit different than me… Where are we right now?” No other fae from where you were from had any such horns like his; you were sure of it! You must’ve landed in another land other than your own, if that were the case.

But where, exactly? You thought.

“Briar Valley,” the horned-boy swiftly replied, “The palace, to be exact.”

“Briar Valley?! I must have traveled further than I thought, then!” a frazzled exclaim escaped your mouth as you struggled with your hands to prepare whatever spell had gotten you there in the first place. “I have to go right away! So sorry for intruding, uh…” a hesitant pause ensued as you held out a hand to the child, signaling an introduction from him.

“Malleus. My name is Malleus,” he softly gave you a smile.

You returned his smile with a grin of your own, shaking his hand, “Right. Thank you, Malleus. I’m (Y/n).”

“It was no issue.”

And with your final goodbyes to the fae you’d just met, Malleus then stood and followed your form as you disappeared to Sevens know where. The only remnants left of your presence were the gold, sparkling specs of magic that remained after you casted your spell, filling the palace garden with dust that resembled stars scattered throughout the greenery. Malleus, at the sight of your magic, had then begun to wonder just where you had come from and why you had landed there that day as quickly as you left. 

The chances of seeing you again were slim. Still, however…

“(Y/n),” Malleus had whispered to himself.

“A lovely name for a fae such as themselves, yes?”

a/n: ALL IN FAVOR FOR MORE RIVAL READER X VIL SAY AYEE-AYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

god this was such a nightmare to finish iM SO GLAD I PULLED THROUGH THO I FR GAVE UP HALFWAY ESPECIALLY WITH IDIA'S-

[daydreamsinrosie]

Competition: Draco Malfoy x HP’s sister! Reader headcanon, Part 1.

Hi everyone, I hope you enjoy this off the wall impulsive thought that I had to write out! Let me know if you would like a part 2 😊.

Themes: Harry is a distant brother, Draco bullying the reader a little, feeling isolated/unwanted, tension!!! (Not sexual).

Being the twin sister of the boy who lived doesn’t live up to the supposed title. In fact it means nothing when you were raised separately and behave simply as strangers towards each other.

Never mind being placed in a different house, finding yourself growing up in the walls of Ravenclaw tower with books and a couple of companions as friends.

However, one way you stand out is your intelligence. Smart is an understatement when you’re regularly competing for the top grades and have your praises sang by Professor McGonnagall, drawing the ire of Hermione and half of Gryffindor House.

“Exceptional. Some of you would be wise to follow Miss Y/N’s lead”. The statement wasn’t enough to hide Snape’s disdain of having to be nice for once, resulting in a small laugh from you and then you getting detention reorganising the potions stores for supposed “immaturity”.

Despite the accolades, you can say you fall under the radar and mainly prefer this. Five years in and you know your place at Hogwarts.

Draco Malfoy however, doesn’t.

Draco isn’t sure what kicked in during third year, but all of a sudden you became the subject of his greatest desire and the bane of his existence simultaneously.

Of course, he can’t admit that.

He can’t admit that the flush on your cheeks when you answer questions slightly nervously in class gives him a feeling of pride that he can’t explain.

Or that seeing you dance with a Hufflepuff keeper at the Yule Ball led him to almost throwing his drink on any Slytherin who dared tease him about it.

And he definitely can’t admit that watching you play quidditch as Ravenclaw’s star chaser heats his entire body up and he now struggles to look away from you whenever you were near each other.

So how has he gone about showing any feelings towards you all these years? Bullying, namely.

“Professor Snape! Y/N over here has brother dearest’s penchant for attention seeking, just look at what she’s tried to do with her Sleeping Draught!”

In reality, you had just followed the instructions but had attempted to also brew a remedy to repel any sluggishness from the potion.

“Five points from Ravenclaw for sheer cheek, you should know better than to think fame would work on me.”

Or the countless times he’s jinxed your legs in the hallways to where you simply cannot walk without tripping over yourself or someone else.

Or most painfully, the times he’s used Harry’s obvious disinterest in you as a talking point.

“At least brother Potter knows better than to associate with a teachers pet who eats lunch alone. You’re telling me even the ghosts don’t find you good enough company?”

You can say that you’ve been strong enough to handle most of this, but seeing a look in Harry’s eyes where he’s essentially admitting to agreeing with Malfoy was enough to bring you to tears several times.

Right now it’s the start of fifth year.

Draco’s prefect badge is glossy and reflects brightly on his green robes, and he’s ready to solidify his authority whilst waiting in the prefect’s carriage with Pansy gripping his arm for dear life.

What he doesn’t anticipate is seeing you walk through a few moments later, with a blue and bronze badge mirroring his and a small proud smile on your lips as you sit separately from the other prefects.

Truth is, it’s terrifying to be surrounded by people you know that don’t like you, but fake it till you make it right?

Not so easy to do when you get mainly the same patrolling times to Draco and he ruthlessly persues underclass men.

“Detention to you for liking the Weasley’s, and detention to you because a Hufflepuff staying in the greenhouse past curfew sounds lame.”

“Malfoy, they’re only first years.”

“Want me to give you detention for undermining your authority as prefect, Potter?”

You genuinely didn’t have a response to something so stupid, but sheer embarrassment doesn’t stop you from facing Malfoy directly and simply saying “I dare you.”

And from that evening forward, Draco does what he can to push you into confronting him as often as possible, only to turn the tables and create tension that neither of you can easily rid of.

Some evenings whilst checking classrooms, Draco has you pushed against a table wanting to see you push against him and see a familiar pink blush crawl across your cheeks.

Other evenings it’s flirting with you, only to turn it around and attempt to remind you (and possibly himself) that it means nothing and that he’d rather swallow bubotuber puss than be attracted to you.

And suddenly it’s later in term, post Ravenclaw and Slytherin match in which you contributed to the house’s 100 point lead before the snitch was caught, and now tasked with locating any rogue students switching between common rooms at late-night parties.

Despite assumptions otherwise, Ravenclaw and Slytherin students get along fairly well. Maybe a little too well because Filch and Umbridge seem to have problems with “endless snogging.”

It’s a phrase so daft it gets a laugh out of you and Draco, and suddenly he senses an opportunity.

“I wonder what they would think of the two prefects who also play quidditch snogging in the corridor.”

Thankfully you recognise it as bait.

“If only one of the prefects wasn’t an insufferable toad, that could work.”

“A Toad?”

“Worse than a ferret, I presume.”

And now you’re pushed against a wall with barely any air between you both with a glint in Draco’s eyes and his arms on either side of your head.

You’re not sure if it’s the forced proximity from being so close across this first term, but you recognise just how sharp his jaw has gotten.

And you also recognise how easily he can keep you close to him, his lips only an inch away.

Maybe having someone to snog isn’t such a bad thing really.

“I can promise you, you will regret those words.”

“Really? And how are you supposed to do that, Malfoy.”

Draco doesn’t know it’s the confidence in your voice or the look of determination, but he can’t help himself and before he can argue with himself his lips are on yours.

He’s rough, holding your face in his hands and making sure your lips follow his as you instantly melt.

Time doesn’t exist in the minutes between you two as you both focus on nothing but each other, moving your hands to feel the strength of his arms and wanting nothing more than bringing Draco closer to you.

A second passes and his lips briefly leaves yours, whispering “jump”.

You don’t need to be told twice, and now your legs are wrapped around his waist and his lips meet yours again.

Neither of you want to admit it, but you’re both dreading the moment this is going to end.

[dear-ao3]

go on. explain the drama. edge of my SEAT.

LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I GOT 45 MINUTES INTO TYING THIS AND THEN TUMBLR DELETED IT SO WITH THAT BEING SAID here we fucking go AGAIN

The Curse Of The Second Red Bull Seat

so there are 10 f1 teams, they range from good to bad to mid. one of the teams that is doing outstandingly well right now is red bull. and they have a driver named max verstappen. he’s dutch, and a cat dad. he’s winning pretty much everything at the moment. if everyone’s job is car go fast his job is car go so fast it practically flies.

but all f1 teams have 2 drivers. and f1 has two championships, the drivers championship for the individual drivers and the constructors championship for the teams. each driver gets points when the finish 10 or higher in a race and those points determine who wins the drivers championship and then the two drivers points get added together for the constructors championship. hence, very important to have two strong drivers.

the red bull curse starts all the way back in 2018. at the time the drivers were max verstappen and daniel ricciardo. max was signed to red bull in 2016 and daniel was signed in 2014. max was not on his absolute winning spree yet and he was still quite young, through red bull were still doing decently well.

daniel ricciardos contract with red bull was up at the end of 2018. danny rics is australian, a goof ball, paddock prankster, once sang a song about touching his scrotum and tickling his nutsack (tho perhaps is was the other way around)

he was doing well at red bull (he won in monaco!) and had several podiums and wins with them. but there was something that he didn’t like about them and that was the engine. now every year each team builds a new car to race either brand new or they modify an old one (within certain specs). red bull is not a car company, they are an energy drink company so they don’t have the luxury of being able to go to their factor and individually making all the parts for their cars the way mercedes and ferrari etc do. teams are allowed to outsource parts and redbull was outsourcing their engine from renault (a french brand which happened to also be another f1 team at the time) (they are currently called alpine) and the engines were not doing so great. they kept overheating and causing problems and costing danny rics wins.

enter christian horner, red bull team principle, disney villain and husband of ginger spice. he is very unhappy with the engine as well (and he made some funny comments to renault team principle at the time, cyril, about it) and he wanted to keep daniel as a driver. so red bull announces halfway through the 2018 season that for the 2019 season they would be partnering with honda for their engine. honda had never appeared in f1 before so this was new territory and some people thought this was a risky move.

one of these people was daniel ricciardo. tho, christian horner and everyone else was convinced that daniel was going to stay, they gave him a contract with everything he wanted but he absolutely shocked the world by announcing that he was leaving red bull and signing with renault for 2019.

this was weird for a few reasons, 1. renault made and used the vey engine he was having problems with at red bull and 2. they were not as competitive if a car as red bull. but he still went there and raced for renault for 2019 and 2020 before announcing at the start of the 2020 season that he was signing with renaults rival, mclaren for 2021. re raced with mclaren for 2021 and 2022 and flopped there before mutually terminating his contract a year early and half retired and was a third driver for testing and pr for red bull in 2023 before getting put in the alpha tauri(red bulls less cool sister team) to replace nyck devries over the summer then broke his hand in a crash and was out for several races. this weekend is his third weekend back. this will be come relevant later.

it’s worth noting that in 2019 when danny rics left red bull and max specifically started doing a whole lot better, had no more engine problems and had a fighting chance at winning.

after losing daniel ricciardo red bull signed pierre gasley, a french guy with interesting hair. he was going but red bull was confident in him. at this point they were still trying to beat mercedes and sir lewis hamilton in the drivers and constructors championship so they needed to be on their a game. pierre was in for half a season before they decided that he didn’t have what it took as he kept falling further down the grid and getting less points.

halfway through the season red bull made the choice to swap him with alex albon, who was racing for alpha tauri (the team may have still been called toro rosso) at the time. so halfway through the season alex, who is half british half thai, part cat and just made a silly cereve commercial in his hotel room with his golfer girlfriend, was in. albon did well, he took awhile to get the hang of it but he did score decent points for red bull. he almost placed on the podium twice before getting knocked off track by lewis hamilton.

worth noting that there was speculation that christian horner may have regretted the swap between gasley and albon. pierre went on to win the race in monza in 2020 in the alpha tauri (a medium shit mid field car which is much slower than the red bull). he’s now racing for alpine (previously called renault)

so 2020 was an interesting year, especially towards the end. and especially for sergio (aka checo) perez. checo at the time was racing for racing point which had been previously called force india before the team owner was arrested for money sillies and it went up for sale. it was bought by lawrence stroll, a canadian billionaire whose son, lance stroll was racing for williams at the time. (williams is a whole separate post but all you need to know now is that they were shit at this time). lawrence bought force india with the caveat that his son would be taking ine of the seats, kicking out esteban ocon. they left checo cause he had more sponsors and they needed money.

though for the 2021 season lawrence had announced that he was rebranding the team to aston martin and signing four time world champion sebastian vettel, leaving checo without a seat.

f1 only has 20 seats so if you find yourself without a contract you either retire, become a reserve driver or go back to f2. checo was going to retire if he didn’t have a seat.

he raced his little heart out tho in bahrain and after getting knocked to the back of the grid fought his way up to first and won the race. christian horner called him after and told him that he was being signed to red bull for 2021, replacing alex albon. alex now drives for williams.

checo arrived right at the start of the max doinancd. max won his first drivers championship in 2021 and also in 2022 and 2023, red bull won the 2022 and 2023 constructors championships, so perez did help them get good points but he was lacking a little.

this year has been weird for him. he’s been not finishing a lot of races due to damages and crashes or ending up further down then they want. and remember, he needs to be keeping up with max which is already a tall order.

in suzuka this year checo bumped into hamilton on the first lap and pitted to replace a few parts then went back out after getting a five second time penalty for the accident. he ended up crashing into kevin magnussen at the hairpin on lap 15 and retired his car. he got another penalty to serve at the next race because he wasn’t finishing that one. red bull then decided to instead give him another car to go out in to serve the penalty in and he went out for a few laps then retired that car. he also crashed on the first lap of his home race in mexico, outraging the entire country.

perez is currently about 20 ish points head of lewis hamilton in the debra championship. he’s in second place. while checo has a contract for 2024, there have been rumors that if he can’t hold onto second in the championship (keep in mind there are 3 races left) he will be getting replaced for 2024. this is not confirmed. not even remotely. but, if he does there are three theories as to who is getting the seat. so let’s get into the theories.

daniel ricciardo.

he has already raced for red bull and raced with max on the same team. he is currently in the alpha tauri and red bull have been knows to swap drivers like that before as seen with pierre and alex. it is known that he wants to be in a red bull again before he retires for real. however, he is slightly older which is a risk. he has appeared in a lot of content with max recently and qualified (and i think finished?) above perez in austin.

2. fernando alonso.

fernando is a spanish two time champion, oldest driver on the grid. he’s currently racing for aston martin but there have been rumors that lawrence stroll is selling aston martin because they didn’t do enough of a good job providing a car for his son. if he sells aston martin fernando wants out. and fernando had the talent that red bull needs.

3. charles leclerc

charles is currently a ferrari driver and he’s very good but he’s getting fucked left right and center up the ass with a spork by the ferrari strategy. he does have a seat with ferrari for 2024 but at the mexico gp last weekend he came in third (after running into checho during the first lap) and christian horner of all people defended him in that accident saying there was nowhere for him to go. this is odd because christian horner is an absolute ass who never does this at all ever. ferrari did not aparently show up to celebrate charles podium win and he went to the after party with red bull. he has also appeared in the red bull ig posts recently. ferrari aparently does want to keep him tho and there is a rumor that they are signing alex albon when his williams contract is over in 2025 so be charles teammate.

also there was a tweet from an f1 journalist last week saying that he didn’t want to believe the rumor that he had heard in the paddock and then he said nothing else. people think he is talking about the red bull seat.

so what will happen to the second red bull seat? no one knows.

[miryum]

"Halloween III"

Summary: Detective!Jason Todd x detective!Reader based on Jake and Amy’s relationship

Series Warnings: Swearing, descriptions of violence (but nothing descriptive), guns and other police stuff

Series Masterlist

"Attention, squad! Today is the most important day in the history of this precinct,” Y/n cried out in the briefing room. She raised a dramatic hand and said in a low voice, “for today is Halloweeeeeen!” She turned to Captain Wayne, pouting. “I thought we were going to say it together.”

“I never agreed to that,” he stated.

Y/n sighed and continued, “as you may know, for the past two years, Captain Wayne and I have engaged in an epic battle of wits. The goal: to determine who must call the other an amazing detective-slash-genius.”

Wayne cut in. “The first year, by sheer, dumb luck, Y/n eked out a feeble victory.”

“And last year, I let the Captain win, because he's old and sad,” Y/n retorted. 

Wayne raised a brow and quickly quipped, “sad because the competition was so dismal.”

“Is this meeting about something?” Steph asked from a chair. Jason sat next to her, his nose red and eyes tired.

“It's about everything.” Y/n said, aghast that her best friend would even ask that. “This year's the tie-breaker, a final heist to decide once and for all the true ruler of the six-six. Halloween Heist Three: The Heistening. Tagline?” She pointed at Captain Wayne excitedly.

“This year we both attempt to steal the same object instead of L/n attempting to steal one from me.”

Y/n huffed and whispered, “I gave you one direction on the tagline! Make it snappy. But yes, we will be attempting to steal the same item... this.” She held up a plastic crown etched with faux jewels.

“The crown will be locked in this briefcase, which in turn will be locked in the interrogation room.” Wayne took the crown from Y/n and placed it in said briefcase. 

Y/n sang quietly, “And so unto the briefcase goes the crown!” 

“This year,” Wayne continued, “we have decided to include the rest of the precinct, and so to be fair, we're holding a draft.”

“Everyone who participates will get the night off,” Y/n said. “Captain?”

Wayne hummed. “With the first pick of the draft, I choose… Richard.”

“Alright, I'll take Steph.” Y/n grinned and high-fived her best friend.

“Damian.”

“I take Cass.” Y/n said.

“Todd is too sick to participate,” as if on cue, Jason sneezed. “In fact, I don’t even know why he's still here…” Wayne muttered. “And Drake is too loyal to L/n.”

“Nuh-uh!” Both Y/n and Tim cried. 

“Have you seen his ass-kissery?” Y/n asked incredulously. ”I can’t trust him! Tim would do anything to win your approval, including pretending to be my friend for the past years only to betray me now even though Wayne only joined the six-six three years ago.”

“L/n, you are majorly overthinking this,” Tim said.

“Maybe, but it's a risk I'm not willing to take. Tim’s out.”

“I agree. So we agree that by midnight, whoever has the crown shall be the ruler of the six-six.” Wayne had a rare smirk on his face.

“So,” Steph strolled into the room and said to Damian, “I see you've been assigned to guard the briefcase too.”

“Correct, Brown. I’ve been given clear instructions to keep a close and clear watch on both the briefcase and you.” He nodded towards the briefcase which sat in the interrogation room. He and Steph currently stood behind the two way mirror.

“Well, I have exciting news!” Steph exclaimed. “I found the perfect guy to set you up with!”

“After zero consideration, I'm happy to say, ’hard pass.’ It's incredibly… sweet that you wish to set me up with someone, but I do not trust your taste in men.”

“I have spectacular taste in men. You would love Jon.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “You are impossible.”

Y/n paced the break room. Jason lay on the couch, a blanket tucked over him and a box of tissues at the ready. Y/n had Doordash open on her phone, popsicles ready to be ordered for his sore throat. Jason lightly groaned and turned over in his sleep and Y/n’s head whipped over to him. She crouched down next to him and brushed her hand over his forehead. He officially had a fever and she placed a cool washcloth over his forehead. She went back to pacing the room and suddenly, a Halloween decoration with motion sensors rang out. The cackle of the fake witch blared throughout the room and Y/n cried, “gah! Scary witch! Scary, so so scary!”

“I am not going to meet my next boyfriend through a Stephanie set-up.” Damian crossed his arms.

“It's go time, Brown.” Y/n whispered into her comm from up in the vents. “Holt and Terry have closed the blinds... release the spiders.”

Stephanie discreetly took a bag of spiders out of her pocket and dumped them onto the floor. “Oh, my god! Damian, look! Spiders!” She let out a scream and jumped back.

Damian squatted down and hummed. “Achaearanea tepidariorum. The common house spider.” He placed a finger on the ground and some spiders crawled over his hand. “How did you fellas get in here?”

Y/n strapped herself into the harness and grinned. “Commence operation, ‘oh crap, wrong vent.’” She opened the vent cover and dropped down, suspended a couple metres from the ground. “Oh crap, wrong vent,” she said. “This was a mistake.”

Damian scoffed. “Nice try, imbeciles. You blew it. Honestly, I expected better from you, L/n. It seems as if all my trainings failed to pay off.” While Damian was distracted, Cass used two plungers to suction the window glass off of the interrogation room door.

Y/n smacked her lips. “Yep, we totally blew it. And all because Brown marked the wrong vent.” Meanwhile, Cass silently somersaulted through the window and to the table the briefcase was handcuffed to.

“It's not my fault!” Steph defended. “I thought it was the right vent.” Cass took out a knife and cut open the briefcase and extracted the crown. She placed it between her teeth and flipped the briefcase over, hiding the hole.

“I'm having trouble even believing you right now.” Y/n shook her head, still hanging in the air. “That is the last time I let Steph mark a vent.”

“I'm normally great at marking vents.” 

Cass jumped back through the window and replaced the glass. She whispered into the comms, “lock picked.”

Y/n was attempting to stall for time. “Never, ever, never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, never, ever, will I ever, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never, never, never- I forgive you, and good-bye!” She hoisted herself up at Cass’ command and crawled back through the vents. Steph quickly excused herself and Damian’s eyes flickered to the briefcase. It was still there.

Later, the trio met crowded around Y/n’s desk and she gushed, “wow, you should have seen us, Cass! Steph and I were amazing.”

Cass folded her arms and announced, “I somersaulted through a window, cut the crown out of a briefcase, and replaced everything in under a minute.”

“Yeah, I guess you helped a little.” Y/n stuck her tongue out and returned back to her and Steph. “But our fake argument was super convincing. And all of a sudden, we had to make it longer, and we did!” She took the crown from Cass and stuck it in a filing drawer. ”Anyways, now all we gotta do is guard this drawer until midnight, and the best part is that Wayne has absolutely no idea.”

From inside his office, Wayne towered diabolically over his monitor which showed the video feed and sound from the bullpen, the camera and microphone pointed directly at Y/n’s desk. “She is such a fool,” Captain Wayne said. “Yes, believe I'm the fool. You fool.”

“So we wanted Y/n to take the crown?” Dick asked, peering over his shoulder.

“Sergeant, are you familiar with the Hungarian fencing term, Hosszú Gorcs?”

“You gotta realise my answer is no,” Dick deadpanned.

Wayne explained, “it’s a strategy of letting your opponent win points early on as to give them a sense of overconfidence, thus exposing a much easier target for you later.”

“You think she's overconfident enough?”

From the monitor, Y/n proclaimed, “I'm the smartest woman alive. I'm never gonna die!”

Damian was doing his best to ignore Steph when a knock sounded on the door. Stephanie grinned and said in a high-pitched voice, “oop, I wasn't expecting anyone.” She threw open the door with a flourish. “Come in, Jon.”

A tall, muscular man with dark windswept hair entered the room, smiling brightly. “Hey, Steph. What’s up?”

Steph turned back to Damian. “Dami, this was the boy I was telling you about.”

Damian’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down before he regained his composure and glared at Stephanie. “I know what's happening. This isn't a setup... this is a setup. He’s supposed to distract me from the heist.”

“The heist?” Jon asked, glancing at Steph.

“Shut your cute face,” Damian snapped before scoffing. “I don't buy it. This is an obvious trap and I expected better of you Stephanie. I thought you were one of the smart ones.” He turned back to Jon. “Who are you, really, Jon? If that even is your real name…” He poked Jon in the chest and pushed him towards the door. “Okay. Bye-bye, Jon!”

“Hey, Cass,” Dick shuffled up to her, knowing he was probably about to lose one of his nine lives. “I'm not saying these are from your motorcycle,” He held up a pair of handlebars. “But... I found these outside.”

Cass’ nostrils flared. “You better not have messed with my bike for this heist.” Her voice was laced with venom. ”Let me remind you, Sarge, I'm carrying a weapon and I’m not afraid to stick it to the man.”

“We all have the same weapon, Cain,” Dick deadpanned. However, when Cass pulled out an SRK, he exclaimed, “Geez, Cass! Where'd you get that?” Cass grumbled a swear and stalked off. Relieved he hadn’t died, Dick said into a comm, “Orphan has left the nest.” He swept out of the room.

“And…” Captain Wayne folded his hands together, smirking. “Ding.” On cue, the elevator opened, emitting a ding.

“You wanna see Daddy?” Kori led her daughters into the bullpen. “Come on!” Martha and Tammy were dressed in small replicas of police uniforms for Halloween, clutching pumpkin candy bags in their fists. They had just turned three and looked absolutely adorable with identical pigtails.

“Time for the twin twist,” Wayne said. “And I love a good use of alliteration.” 

“Hey, Y/n.” Kori greeted her friend.

“Hey, guys!” Y/n cooed at her goddaughters.

“We wanted to surprise Dick. Have you seen him?”

“Oh, he just went downstairs for a bit, but he should be back soon,” Y/n said.

Kori nodded and called to her twins, “Martha? Tammy? Do you guys want to take a picture with Auntie Y/n?”

“Yeah!” Martha abandoned poking a sleeping Jason and Tammy looked up from inspecting a pair of handcuffs. Y/n’s eyes narrowed at the question.

“You don't mind, do you?”

“Uh... no, of course not.” Y/n began nodding slowly. “That would be so fun.”

“What if we do it in the briefing room, like you're assigning them a case?” Kori was a perfect actress, delivering her lines with ease.

Y/n hesitated and glanced around for a sign of Damian, Wayne, or Dick. “No, I mean, you know what would be even more fun than that... is if we took a picture right here, and I could have my hand on this cabinet.” She smiled broadly, laughing loudly.

“Okay,” Kori conceded.

“Nailed it,” Y/n congratulated herself quietly.

From outside the window on the precinct deck, Captain Wayne could be seen peeking through, carefully watching Y/n and her filing cabinet.

“Here we go…” Kori held up her camera. Wayne slowly opened the window and rolled through it, crouching on the ground. “Oh, God, it was in video mode... sorry.”

“Take your time,” Y/n reassured her. “I could do this all day. Matter of fact, what if we did one where I had both hands on the cabinet... one on top, and then one on the front?” She took her arms from around the twins and placed them on her cabinet. Wayne crawled to the backside of the cabinet and took out a silenced drill. He began unscrewing the bolts of the backside of the cabinet.

“Uh, yeah? Looks good.” Kori held up her phone again as Wayne stealthily took off the back of the cabinet and extracted the crown from inside. “All right, smile... three, two, one…” The camera snapped just as Wayne stood up and showcased the crown in the picture. “Cheese! Very good.” Kori beamed and gestured to her girls. Wayne somersaulted, akin to Cass, into the break room. ”Great, you guys. Let's find Daddy!”

Y/n snickered and muttered, “daddy.”

As Wayne straightened up, the witch decoration cackled loudly. At the sound, Y/n shot out of her seat and Jason startled from his sleep. “What's going on?” She ran to the break room where Wayne threw the crown into the trash to conceal it. “Aha!” Y/n points an assuring finger towards him. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing…”  Wayne looked around and spotted a can of soda. He picked it up and studied it. “Just enjoying a taste of my favourite beverage, the… soda pop.”

Y/n glared at him. “Really? I have never seen you enjoy soda before.” She clicked her tongue and tilted her chin up. “Why… uh, why don’t you have some now?”

Wayne stared at her, a look of contempt and hatred deep in his gaze. Not breaking eye contact, he took a sip. “It's delicious,” he said, grimacing.

“I don't buy it,” Y/n sneered. “You're making the same face you made when you found a chocolate chip in your trail mix!” She shook her head. “Something's up. I'm patting you down,” she decided. “Though I hope it’s not weird though, work dad. It’s just for the heist.”

“Of course,” Wayne nodded and held out his arms.

Y/n patted him down quickly and swore. “Fuck, nothing but a surprisingly toned set of abs!”

Wayne raised a brow. “And why would I have the crown, L/n? Isn't it still in the interrogation room?”

Y/n put her hands on her hips. “Yes. Yes. Of course. Of course it's still in there!” She sucked in a breath and conceded, ”Welp, I guess I'll see you at midnight.”

“After you.”

“No, after you,” Y/n smiled tightly.

“I insist.”

Y/n glowered and moved past time, triggering the witch again.

Later, Dick met up with Wayne in his office again. “You drank a soda? I’m not sure that's the worst thing in the world.”

Wayne shook his head and looked at Dick like he was delusional. “It was the worst thing in the world... worse than a fruit-forward Riesling.“ He held up a hand to stop Dick from speaking. “And no, I'm not exaggerating. Anyway, I cleverly ditched the crown in a trash can. We must wait a moment so as to not arouse suspicion when we retrieve it.”

“Got it.” Dick moved towards the door then looked back at his capitan and snickered. “Hey... while I'm in there, should I get you a soda?”

“I know you're joking, but on the off chance you aren't… No.”

“The handlebar thing was fake,” Cass announced as she marched back into the bullpen. ”They were trying to distract me. I think they made a play for the crown.”

“I thought so too, but I had my hand on the cabinet the whole time, so I'm pretty confident there's no way they could have gotten it.” Y/n said before opening the drawer to reveal an empty cabinet. “They got it.”

“Look at the back.” Cass squatted and pointed to the cabinet. “The screws are loose.”

“Damn it.” Y/n slammed her fist on her desk. “That son of a bitch is good.”

“Sir, we have a problem.” Dick rushed back into Wayne’s office. “The crown wasn't in the trash can. Y/n must have taken it back.”

“Damn it.” Wayne slammed his fist on his desk. “That son of a bitch is good.”

“We have to get that crown back!” Y/n exclaimed. “I already changed my email to "queeny/nrulez" with a z. Everyone's going to think I'm an idiot!”

“Hello, L/n,” Wayne glared at his detective.

“Captain,” Y/n greeted stoically. “Midnight nears.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Tick tock.”

“Tick tock indeed.”

“But tick tock for who?” Y/n hissed.

“It's ‘for whom.’” Wayne corrected.

“Don't try to provoke me!” Y/n cried out.

At the same time, both captain and detective declared, “I'm going to get that crown back!”

“Wait... what?” Y/n paused and squinted at Wayne.

“Huh?” Wayne shook his head. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

“Yes, I too need to be excused,” Y/n stuttered.

Y/n pushed Cass into the briefing room and whispered sharply, “he doesn't have the crown! Cass, what do we do?”

“Pull the security tape,” she decided.

Damian stepped back into the interrogation room after Dick had informed him of the events. “Richard said you stole the crown when Y/n came through the ceiling,” he hummed.

“Yeah, I can't believe you fell for that,” Steph shrugged. ”You really think I'd mark the wrong vent? I've never marked a wrong vent in my life!”

“You're incredibly intense about vents,” Damian commented. He paused and then said, “wait... so Jon wasn't a distraction?”

“No, he was very real. Handsome, cool, hair as thick as a collie's. I found you the perfect guy, and you drove him off,” Steph said.

“Ugh.” Dami’s head fell into his hands. “I’m sorry. I should have trusted you. Please call him and tell him I messed up.”

“Yay!” Steph squealed.

“Alright,” Y/n and Cass poured over the security tape. “Here I am taking pictures with Dick’s kids.” She sighed and said lovingly, “man, I look so cool standing next to them. Should I have Jason’s kids?” Jason lifted his head up from the next-door table and groaned questioningly. “Go back to sleep, love,” Y/n reached over and patted his head.

“Okay. It's Wayne.” Cass watched as Bruce tumbled through the window and extracted the crown. “Whoa, how did he do that?”

“Man has an insane set of abs,” Y/n explained. “Oh, look, he's got the crown. And he's headed to the break room.”

“He dumped it in the trash,” Cass narrated, exhaling. She fast forwarded the video. “Did he go back and get it?”

In the feed, a janitor slumped in the room and pulled the trash bag out before hauling it away. “The janitor came in and grabbed it. But which janitor? Looks like I'm going to have to squint.” Y/n pushed her face close to the computer and glared at the screen. “Her name is Alice… Alice the janitor.” She glanced at the clock and mumbled, “it's eleven p.m. now. Alice's long gone.”

“How are we going to get her home address?”

“Who's the one person you know who sends out holiday cards to every single employee?” Y/n grinned.

“Tim!” Cass shouted out.

“What do you want, L/n?” Tim didn’t look up from his computer.

“What?” Y/n scoffed and brushed him away. “Why would you assume that I want anything? What I want is to apologise to my bestie, who I hurt.”

“It's ‘whom,’” Tim corrected.

“Why does the word ‘who’ even exist if you're not allowed to say it?!” Y/n huffed. “Anyways, now that I've apologised and you've accepted, can you please give me janitor Alice’s address?”

“This is related to your heist, isn't it?”

Y/n shook her head and stumbled over her words. “No, no. It's- uh, about a crime. I think janitor Alice is... going to kill the president.”

Wayne strolled up to Tim’s desk. “Oh, Drake. There's my protégé.”

Tim took a breath. “Let me guess? You want the janitor's address.”

Wayne looked up at the ceiling and then down to the ground. “Janitor? Address? Alice?”

“I never said her name,” Tim pointed out. He then leaned back in his chair. “Well, isn't this nice? After being excluded by both of you, here I am with the power to decide who wins and who loses your little heist.”

“I wouldn't have it any other way,” Wayne interrupted. ”You are my wisest detective.”

“Pathetic,” Y/n spat. “He can't be manipulated, sir.” She then turned to Tim and begged, “Tim, we are best friends! I know I usually reserve that title for Steph, but now’s a good time for you to take that, huh?”

“Friendship? Ha.” Wayne gawaffed. “What's friendship compared to the respect of a workplace superior?”

Y/n looked around desperately before bending some on one knee. “Timothy Drake, will you-”

“Excuse me?!” Jason shot up from his desk.

“Enough!” Tim yelled out, silencing everyone. “Pretending to be nice to me is worse than being mean. You know what? You want the address?” He picked up his phone and typed away. “Here, you can both have it.” Both Bruce and Y/n’s phones dinged. “Hope you're happy, you selfish monsters.” He stomped to his feet and slammed the break room door shut.

Y/n groaned and murmured, “I feel terrible. We should apologise.”

“Yes, I agree,” Wane said. “You definitely should now; I'll do mine later.”

“Fat chance!” Y/n snarled. “Steph!” she yelled into her comm. “I need you. Meet me downstairs.” 

Y/n, Cass, and Steph stood on the front steps to a tall apartment building, glaring up at it. “Okay, she lives on the sixteenth floor,” Y/n announced. “I think we beat Wayne here.”

“Or did you?” Their Captain appeared behind them, Dick and Damian in tow.

“I'll get the elevator,” Steph offered. When she noticed the ‘Out of Order’ sign, she cried out, “Shit! Looks like we're taking the stairs.”

“Alright, it's sixteen floors,” Cass breathed out. “Pace yourselves.”

Wayne’s team dashed ahead of them and Y/n screamed, “Forget it. Run as fast as you can!”

After a gruelling sixteen floors, Y/n pushed Wayne out of the way and slammed her fist into Alice’s door. “Ha ha! I win. I knocked first.” The door opened and an old woman greeted them. “You're not Alice…” Y/n said.

“You're looking for Alice?” The old woman asked. “She’s having a cigarette on the roof.”

“The roof?” Wayne grimaced.

Y/n burst through the roof door and panted, “yes. I did it. I… I am the greatest- holy shit that’s a lotta stairs- the greatest athlete in the world.” She leaned over and promptly vomited as the rest of the six-six trouped up after her.

“Alice? Alice?” Wayne looked around. “Where's Alice?”

Y/n glanced up to see a woman standing by the edge of the roof. “Oh, there she is. There she is! I did it! I did it!”

Wayne stared at Y/n, disgusted. “Good God.” He shook his head before turning back to the woman. “Are you Alice the janitor?”

“Nope. I'm your worst nightmare.” Alice turned around and took off her cap and the wig sewn into it. 

“Tim Drake…” Y/n gasped. “I don't understand what’s happening.”

Tim chuckled deviously, yet before he could speak, Y/n piped up and said, “allow me to explain. Tim and I were ahead of you the whole time.”

“No, you aren’t part of this.” Tim shoved Y/n back towards Wayne. “Get back to the loser side, loser.”

“Worth a shot,” Y/n murmured. “So how'd you pull it off?”

“Y/n, remember when you set off the witch?” Tim asked, lips curled into a smirk. “You made Captain Wayne flinch, which was weird, since his door was closed, but not weird, since he actually heard it over a bug he planted at your desk.” Y/n’s mouth dropped open and Tim continued, “I tapped into the bug's frequencies, so I had ears on Y/n. However, I still needed to know what Wayne was up to. That's where Jason came in.”

Jason stepped out from behind the door, still wrapped in a fuzzy blanket and his nose more red and snotty than ever before. He said in a nasally voice, “I masterminded the entire plan.”

“Jason, you did one small thing and I had to explain it to you forty-five times because you accidentally took NyQuil instead of DayQuil.” Tim shook his head before beginning his speech again. “He left a tiny crack in the blinds so I could read the Captain's lips.”

"Kori and your kids will distract Y/n. They'll be here at nine-thirty sharp. My waffle xylophone on the cheese man."

“What?” Wayne asked incredulously.

“My lip-reading is not flawless,” Tim admitted. “Now that I knew your plan, it was simple to disrupt. After I got into character, Wayne triggered the witch, which brought Y/n into the room.”

“And I threw the crown in the trash can…” Wayne nodded along.

“Exactly as I planned,” Tim grinned. “Then I sent you all here, placed an out-of-order sign on the perfectly functional elevator, made you all walk up thirty-one flights of stairs, and vomit.”

Y/n grumbled and muttered, “actually, it was three times, if you count all the stairwell stuff.”

“I'm my own person, capable of making my own decisions, and I decided to humiliate you both,” Tim finished his speech.

“One last question: where's the crown?” Wayne asked.

“Oh, it's at Orin’s Bar, the official site of my coronation.”

Tim strode into the bar, decked out in a royal cape and sash. Wayne held up the crown and declared, “all hail the crown of destiny.” The precinct cheered as their capitan concluded, “and all hail who wear it, Tim Drake, the ruler of the six-six.”

“And I believe there's something else you both need to say,” Tim snarked.

Both Bruce and Y/n said, “Tim Drake is an amazing detective-slash-genius.”

“Drinks are on us!” Wayne shouted. Y/n shook her head and he corrected himself. “Drinks are on me.”

“Heyyyyyy Y/n…” Jason sniffed as Y/n helped him through the door of his apartment. “I forgot to tell you but I think I broke up with Rose.”

“You think?” Y/n chuckled. “How about you tell me when you’re not hyped up on meds?”

“I will.” Jason fell down onto his bed. “I’ll also tell you I love ya.”

Y/n stilled and flushed. “O-oh? Really?”

“Yeah.” Jason sniffed once more before falling asleep, snoring loudly. 

Y/n swallowed before leaning down and kissing his forehead. His fever had finally broken. “I’m gonna make you some soup,” she whispered, “and you better eat it tomorrow. I already told Wayne that you’re not coming into work tomorrow, so don’t you dare try to pull another stunt like today.” She moved out of his room and before Y/n closed the door, she smiled softly. “I love you too, Jason Todd.”

[stormblessed95]

Watching Are You Sure?! EP 4

A reminder of how I do these reaction posts as I watch things. I just write my reactions and thoughts down literally they happen. Think more of a bullet point format. I'll include links when I can to videos, thanks to the people who twt who upload clips. And at the end, I'll do a better wrap up of all my opinions. I hope everyone enjoyed the show so far!!

Jungkook calling Jimin Hyungnim was so cute. Followed by the exaggerated listening of instructions to loosen his shoulders lol. And they way Jimin is so fond of JK enjoying riding 🥰

Jimin comparing the moon to which moon phase it is on his back is amazing for me personally thanks

Wait! Pausing to go make myself some tea to drink with them while they have their meal at the Japanese restaurant! 🥰🥰

Jikook are muscle memory kinda touchy man

Tae annoying Jimin with all his headbanging and ending up with a sore neck that Jimin massages for him 🥰 lol why doesn't JKs neck also hurt? Apparently he has a thick neck 🤣

JK filming all their food again 🥺 and I Love his reactions to good food! Tae too. Lol I just know that chef loved having them there appreciating his food so much! I don't even like sushi and they made me believe I would enjoy it 🤣

And he did!

Tae asking why RM wasn't here and Jikook immediately being like excuse you, it's a show just for the two of us. We barely let you in here to guest star because you wanted to and we love you 🤣 Tae "I felt that, thank you" 🤣🤣

V calling Joonie to ask for him to send him come back to me, the song he sang at D day 🥺🥺🥺 and expressing his sincere appreciation for it and for RM. God, my emotions! Tae wanting to crawl inside Namjoons brain basically is so relatable.

Jimin's little smile when Tae played Alone saying he really liked it 🥺🥺 I LOVE hearing them talk music together. It's his favorite song off Face 🥺🥰

Tae saying it (Face/Alone) reminded him of when they (Vmin) talked in your (Jimins) hotel room. Just for Jimin to say that it was JKs room. This just also gives that little bit of confirmation that Jikook are constantly glued at the hip. Always together. Might as well just get them the one room anyway 😂

Jimin taking his shirt off when they get inside and JK immediately being unable to take his eyes off him no matter how hard he tried. 😂🤣 It would've looked less sus at this point to have just openly looked at him sweetie lol

Idk what Jimin's thoughts were when he first got in that pool with Jungkook, but he looked mischievous. Idk what he was going to pull, but it was something inappropriate. Lol the way JK immediately reminded him of the see through glass, "hey babe, the staff and cameras will see EVERYTHING you do next, underwater is NOT safe" and the way they both immediately whipped their heads over to look at it and nervously chuckled. Like kids who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar 😅😂🤣

The hand pushing game that competitive JK has never once "attacked" in when against Jimin. 😂

So so many cuts in the pool. Wonder how long they stayed in there playing 🥰

Jikook wanting to show off their underwater game to Tae lmao who is not interested 😂 Tae just wants to go to bed 😂🤣 not them just watching Tae get ready for bed like absolute creepers 🤣🤣

You are me, I am you underwater 😍😍😍

I'm pretty sure Jimin just propositioned Jungkook after swimming. Idk what he planned to do about it since they are sharing a bedroom with Tae lmfao but I'm fairly sure that's what he did. He was "really craving it" lmfao the way JK laughed and smacked him for the flirting too? 😅😂 The "you don't have to eat. I can it all" is giving "what? I can do it by myself, no worries" type of flirting teasing. If we are going to be continuing with the innuendos 😂😂

Jikook domestically sharing the bathroom. For their showers too? Lol idk. But the way they've got their suitcases spread open next to each other and just pulling from both too? So domestic.the way they sat on the little cushions before bed too leaned all into each other, watching JKs performance on his phone and talking about what he needs to do/film, etc. So fucking domestic

JK saying he hasn't slept at all since NY. Poor baby is so fucking busy. I'm also not saying he sleeps better with Jimin, but I'm also not not saying that

Tae took Jimin's bed (lol?) and Jikook just automatically running for JKs bed and flipping into it all cuddled up together? The only nighttime time lapse we've gotten so far. Lol when they have an additional person in the room anyway 😂 think Tae knew they'd enjoy sharing the bed anyway so felt safe taking Jimins? 😂 The way JK woke up briefly and turned to check on Jimin before moving to the 3rd bed to get snuggled under the covers. That was honestly so cute. Domesticcccc

So much has happened and I'm not even halfway through. Wtf

Tae's poor neck is still sore. Lmao baby you are getting older I guess. No excessive headbanging allowed anymore! Asking JK to massage it for him and JK taking care of it was soooo cute

Jungkookie's mom calling him and asking what was up and bringing up that he was with Jimin twice and confirming he (they?) were coming home for Chuseok 🥺 that was genuinely so cute and sweet

Tae offering to pluck Jimin's one long beard hair for him. Their cute sleepy faces 🥺

Tae offering and giving Jimin a massage while he sings Tae's Slow Dancing. They are so fucking cute I cannot handle myself. Vminkook massage train is something I need. Lol give it to me 😂

Jimin speeding up to pass taekook on their bikes and them both whipping their heads around to look and smile at him was so cute lol and the way they danced at lights too. Adorable. And taekook playing word games!!

The way JK surprised Jimin by hitting the table because he was so excited to eat the food! Lol

Tae just wanting to drop the knowledge that he knows Jimin super well because he knew he wouldn't want a soda while he ate 😂 I love him

JK once again filming his food and filming his Jimin

Jiminie needs a clip or mini ponytail lmfao he keeps holding his bangs back while trying to eat 😂

LOL THEY GOT HIM ONE! and it's adorable!! I wish they showed us whichever Noona came running over to pin his hair for him and the vminkook giggles I'm sure followed 😂🥰 maybe in the behinds lol

Tae calling Jimin Serendipity was 🥺😍🥺😍

Sometimes the giant ass bites they take of food worries me that they might choke 😅 maybe it's the mom in me lol

JK: "you're not a big eater"

JM: "no, I ate a lot. You just eat loads" lmfao

Jimin waxing poetic about Tan 🥺🥺🥺

JK saying that seeing Tan on Vs promos made him miss Bamie 😭🥺

I can't tell if Tae asking JK about paying and JK saying to wire him the money was a skit or not 🤣 probably because it felt like such a normal conversation if my friends and I went out to eat 😅😂 the giggles gave me skit vibes though lol

The cutest little cafe! And Jimins absolute excitement when he spots the cat inside! It's the cafe from Tae's selfies he posted with Jikook!

Vmin constantly with the romance skits lmao

Jikook with the strangers to lovers first time meet cute skits as always too lol

Who was Tae talking to about working out?? Lol

The extremely good looking server Tae skit 😍

The Vmin bickering followed by a cut of them sitting in their own seats and the editor caption of "we don't fight" lmfao show us the rest of their bickering editors!

Jimin saying to look at the pretty clouds and JK following that up with the incredibly cheesy flirty "you're prettier Jimin" and Jimin being so over his cheesiness was amazing. I loved it so much. JK can be such a flirt sometimes and it always flusters Jimin lmao

Vmin talking about how JK is so much stronger than they are. Tae saying that's true but he would never pretend to cower and Jimin saying he isn't pretending, he is just actually scared lmao

"Raggedy Jungkook is back" JK will never live that tan line down. Lol Jimin joining in and then making Tae join in too, he looked so unamused. Lol They are absolutely ridiculous 😂 JK out on so much sunscreen 😂 anytime be does anything ridiculous though it's so cute how he immediately looks for Jimins reaction, to make sure it made him laugh and smile 🥰

Poor Tae's neck is still hurting! I hope he feels better!

Poor JK, hitting his head on the boat and Jimins immediate CPR rescue lmfao!

Jimin's amazing jump and JKs perfect dive!

Tae also hitting his head on the boat! My poor babies lmao! I was going to say the boat needs a watch your head sign, but it has one 🤣

Mermaid Jimin 😍

JK swimming up to Jimin and holding onto him briefly and humming through his snorkel 🥰 the way that even playing in the ocean, they are basically stuck like glue to each other too. The arms around each other while swimming was so cute!

JK and Jimin sharing a bowl of Ramen! The way JK takes a bite, puts the rest of the noodles he bit off of back in the bowl and hands it off to Jimin. By far not the worst way they've shared food (hello lemon) lol but still!

Tae calling the captain over to help him reel the "big fish!" He caught in just for the captain to tell him it was a rock 🤣🤣 Watching the maknae line struggle to fish makes me miss Yoonjin! I need to see Jins reaction to this part of the episode actually lmfao

Not the drone sacrificing itself to the sea 🤣🤣 the confused crew and JKs shook face!!

Tae finally caught 2 fish!! Good job!!! The way he left JM and JK take pictures with his fish like they caught them too 🥺😍🥰

Watching the sunset, Jimin going "this is romantic" 🥺🥺🥺 followed promptly be him getting down to cuddle JK while he records the sunset is so fucking cute.

Jikook cloud watching! This is where they draw their whale cloud picture together 🤣😂 the giggles! They are so precious!!

Tae finally coming to join Jikook in laying down in the boat together (where was he?!) I just love seeing them be so at peace together 🥰🥰🥰 the amount of "I love this" that occured brings me SUCH happiness

Wrap up Thoughts:

A reminder, to also myself that this was filmed Sept 25 - 27th of 2023 and was Chuseok right after they landed 😊 where Tae posted his sunset photo from Jeju that he took while they were on this boat together!

Istg there were so many cuts. I feel like we barely ever got to even see a full conversation. I get that there is 24 hours basically of footage for one day that they trim to an hour of content, but I beg for some continuity. This is why people make analysis posts editors?! You give them too much wiggle room and never a consistent timeline!

Jikook had an extra domestic energy to them this episode, even with all the playing and giggling happening too. Idk what caused the energy shift, maybe just Jimin not feeling sick for once. And with the added bonus of knowing they made the choice to apply for the buddy system too.

They were so cuddly and sweet and observant to each other's ever need. Jimin loves him some biker JK too 😂 and God, JK just never stops calling Jimin pretty. I truly love that for them. So much

The energy with another member around really did just draw out how different Jikooks dynamic is with each other at times.

Say what you want, JKs call with his mother was the sweetest little interlude ever and it absolutely sounded like his mom was calling to confirm he was bringing his boyfriend home for the holiday. Lol I know Jimin went to see his parents too, but that's the energy that call gave! I can't help it!

This was their second trip to Jeju, since they went together in August too. And they flew back home and basically went straight to Busan together to visit their families for Chuseok. I'm so so glad they got to do all that together. I can't wait for the next episode to see how they end their Jeju vacation!