#but not really understanding how Christians actually use those words

[mimi-cee-genshin]

Neuvillette really loves to remind me to "be sanctified." LOL. As a Christian, I found it hilarious the first time I tested him out in the character trial.

[lxclerc]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏 | 𝐝𝐫𝟑

SUMMARY: daniel will never allow himself to love you but you’ll never let yourself not love him. REQUESTED: nope WARNING: significant age gap (reader is 20, daniel is 27), suggestive language but no smut, christian horner but i actually made him bearable, forbidden love, angst  PAIRING: rbr!daniel ricciardo x horner!reader WORD COUNT: 7.5k

NOTE: you guys don’t understand, this has been in my drafts for months and i’ve been struggling to finish it for so long. DISCLAIMER: this is completely inspired by @yungbludz dr3 fic called "too young" so the idea and concept belongs to her!

please don't be a ghost reader bc i am starved for validation!

— next part

MASTERLIST

if you wanted me then you really should have showed.

Daniel knew he shouldn’t have continued it. The first moment he laid his eyes on you and you flashed him that smile, he knew he was fucked. You were young and you’ve always looked at him with those adoring eyes. It was addicting, Daniel quickly realized. You and everything about you was addicting to him. 

Daniel also knew that it was his job to stay away, to make sure there’s distance between the two of you. He’s the older one after all. You have just turned 20 and he’s venturing into his 30s. Daniel thought he could treat you like any other, not fall for you the way he knows he is, but it’s impossible to not return your smiles and even more impossible to stay away. 

And god, it wasn’t like you made it easy for him. You aren’t stupid nor are you naive, but you’re armed with your youthful recklessness, pushing and pushing at him till he breaks. The way you run into his arms every other race, celebrating him no matter the result. The way your touch lingers just a second too long to be appropriate or how you angle your body fully towards him whenever you talk. The two of you were dancing about just how far you can go and how far Daniel would allow you. 

You’re stubborn though, your recklessness and the excitement getting the best of you. You’re determined to make Daniel break one way or another, determined to get what you want. 

Entering the red bull motorhome, no one pays you any mind. They’re used to your presence, following your father around paddock to paddock and so they pay you no mind as you pass by Max’s driver’s room on the way to Daniel’s. You don’t bother knocking, already knowing he’s alone. 

Daniel was in the middle of zipping down his race suit, turning around to find you quietly slipping into his room, a small smile on your face as you wrap your arms around his torso, your face against his back. 

Daniel released a shaky breath at your sudden closeness, shutting his eyes in an attempt to calm his nerves. It’s his job, he reminds himself. His job to keep you away. His job to not selfishly keep you to himself and so he gently removes your arms, turning to your pouting face. 

“Be a good girl,” he all but muttered, not realizing that those words only make you want to push more. 

“You did great,” you say instead, allowing him to step away from you. Everyone knows about your little crush on Daniel. Or at least that’s what they think it is, a phase, a school girl crush. You’re relentless, flirting and teasing, hand on his thigh, chin on his shoulder, a chaste kiss on his cheek. Always pushing till Daniel can feel himself slowly breaking, what’s left of his resistance chipping away. 

Oftentimes when you tease him, Daniel does his best to laugh it away. “Maybe in ten years, kiddo.” he’d say, loving the way your lips pout at him. 

But despite himself and what he should be doing, Daniel teases you too. He teases you by placing his hand too low on your back, his lips brushing against your ear when he’s whispering something. His touch is always firm on your skin, holding you back, keeping you in place. Daniel thinks he’s doing the noble cause of keeping you an arm’s length away but his body demands your presence, unable to fully push you away. 

He could have told you to stop. He knows this and so do you. But he doesn’t because Daniel may be acting all self righteous but the thought of you pouring all your affection and attention to someone else was unbearable for him. It’s selfish he knows but you’re so intoxicating, so addicting. He can’t bear losing you but his guilty conscience can’t bear having you either. 

He throws a smile at you, your adoring eyes making his heart flutter. “Thank you, sweetheart.” 

You situate yourself on the couch, watching as he continues zipping down his race suit. This is why you don’t stop because you know he wants you too. He wants you as much as you want him. You watch his back muscles flex as he removes his fireproofs off, slipping on a fresh shirt. You stay because he lets you. You’re here because he lets you be here. How can anyone ever say that Daniel Ricciardo isn’t as besotted to you as you are to him?

You smirk lightly as he faces you. “Maybe we can celebrate it over dinner.”

Your tradition of asking him out and his tradition of rejecting you had him laughing as he sat down on the sofa next to you, legs spread out as he placed a hand on your knee. “Maybe when you’re old enough, angel, I’ll go on a date with you.” 

You pout lightly, shifting so you’re fully facing him. A smudge of lipstick on your lower lip and your eyes big as you stared at him. You grab his hand from your knee, entwining your fingers together as you bring his hand to your lips, planting a soft kiss on his knuckle, your lips soft against his skin. Daniel inhaled a deep breath, swallowing as he watched you. How could he ever think he can stay away? 

“Sweetheart,” he mutters, a warning. You’re pushing too far, touching him far too gently. 

You grinned, schooling your face into a perfect vision of innocence if only you’re able to rid that mischievous glint in your eyes that Daniel adores so much. He rarely ever calls you by your name, always a variation of a pet name or another either in that soft voice as if you’re a doll he’s terrified of breaking or the quiet warning voice letting you know that you’re pushing too far. Your favorite though, is when he’s drunk and far too intoxicated to even care about right from wrong, his arm wrapping themselves around your waist as he pulls you flush against his side, fingers gently grazing your face as he actually says your name. His voice is husky and always full of lust and adoration.

“God, Y/N,” he’d breathe against your ear, lips grazing your earlobe. “You’re going to kill me someday.” 

“Daniel,” you mocked but nevertheless you return his hand on your thigh and if you placed it just a little bit higher, no one has any proof. Everyone thinks your infatuation with Daniel is just a phase, a young woman being enamored by an older man, everyone has heard that story before. Even your father never took it seriously and by their ignorance, they never noticed the way he looks at you and the way he lets you touch him. Daniel doesn’t touch you, at least not enough and not in the way you want him too. The hand on your thigh or knee or back always remains firmly planted there but Daniel does let you touch him. “I’ve never heard of such an uptight winner.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. “Someone has to keep you in line.” 

It may be Daniel’s job to keep you away but he never did say he’s good at it. He doesn’t stop you as you shift closer to him, your hand placed on the crook where his jaw meets his neck as your lips gently pressed against the side of his lips. Close enough to know that you taste like strawberry chapstick and the coffee you drank earlier. Close enough to make him want more. 

Maybe if everyone knew how the two of you acted when you’re alone then they’d be more concerned. All they’ve ever seen is Daniel shooting you down and rejecting you with a joke. They’ve never seen the way he watches your lips, hand squeezing your thigh as you hold him in your palms. 

The truth is that Daniel has given you full control of him and his body. He may warn you and he may stop you sometimes but he’s a selfish man. He wants you so desperately, like a man starved or a moth dangerously drawn to the flame. If you asked nicely enough with that sweet voice of yours, Daniel would grant you anything. 

You pull away before he can say anything, grinning as he groans. You grab his hand, pulling him up with you. The way he towers over you gives you a different kind of satisfaction. Knowing he can do whatever he wants with you has you hooked. “Come on, everyone’s waiting for you.”

“You’re cruel,” he tells you, his hand lightly pushing your hair back. “Absolutely cruel.”

You go on your tiptoes, placing your hand on his chest as Daniel slightly leaned down. Pressing a feathery kiss on his neck, you whispered against his skin. “Maybe if you tell me what you want.”

Daniel stiffened, his hold on you turning from gentle to stiff. “I shouldn’t want what I want.”

“That’s not my problem then.” With that, you pull away from his touch, throwing his door open as you all but skipped out of his drivers room, claiming victory. There’s nothing more exhilarating for you than getting a reaction out of him. Nothing gives you more satisfaction than watching him lose his grip on that resistance he’s stubbornly clutching. 

You appear on your father’s side, a wide grin on your face that had Christian narrowing his eyes at you. “Were you bothering Daniel again?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Y/N,” your father said in that tone that you know so well. It’s his not quite disappointed but still disapproving tone. He’s used it when trying to tell you off or discipline you. “You have to get over your little crush.”

Your grin only widens as you meet Daniel’s frustrated eyes across the room. He’s trying hard not to seem bothered, usual infectious smile on his face as he tries to avoid your gaze or the tightness in his pants. You only planted a chaste kiss on Christian’s cheek, not saying anything else before you’re out of the motorhome. 

If only they knew. 

but we were something, don’t you think so?

When you arrived at the party, half the team was already drunk out of their minds. Max saw you first, a smile pulling at the boy’s lips as he embraced you. Others may disagree due to their unwarranted hatred for him but you find Max to be incredibly perceptive and thus a great friend. He knew there was something real between you and Daniel the first time he saw the two of you act around each other. He’s incredibly sensitive to the people around him and not at all like the cold, detached driver the media portrays him as.

“I’m surprised you’re not as drunk as the rest of them,” you told him with a smile. 

“I think Daniel is going to kill me with his mind,” Max jokes as his arm stays around you, the aussie across the room with the mechanics and engineers, dark eyes trained on you. 

Daniel raised his glass up as your eyes met, the redness in his face told you he’s already halfway drunk. You feel a flutter of excitement at his invitation. You loved Daniel most like this, a little drunk but not too drunk, enough to let go of all of his reservations when it came to keeping you at an arm’s length. 

“I’ll see you later,” you tell Max with a smile, squeezing his hand before you slip out of his hold. Max playfully rolls his eyes, already knowing where you’re going but you pay him no mind, making your way across the room to where Daniel stood. 

Daniel, already tipsy like the rest of the bar, immediately laid his claim as his arm sneaked around you, pulling you to his chest disguise as a greeting hug, perhaps not looking much different from the one you and Max had just shared if it isn’t for his cold lips grazing the sensitive skin of your neck. 

“You look beautiful,” he whispered, pulling away from you but keeping his hand situated on the small of your back. He has to touch you. He knows he shouldn’t but with you looking like that, it’s practically impossible for him not to.

With that same mischievous glint in your eyes, you lightly smirk at him. “Just beautiful?”

“I’d say ravishing but I don’t think I’m drunk enough for that,” he admits, taking a swig of his drink to which he offers to you. 

You practically preen under his half drunk confession, happy that the little white dress you put on did as it’s supposed to. “Considering we’re in Austin, I don’t think you should be offering me a drink, Mr. Ricciardo.”

“Right. Forgot you’re a little baby,” he says, hand slipping a little lower. There’s a certain mockery in his voice but perhaps not aimed at you but rather on him, being reminded once again just how young you are. 

But of course, you being you, took it as a challenge, grabbing the drink out of his hand, chugging it all down in one go. You try hard not to let the bitter taste show on your face, having the urge to spit it all out but instead, you grinned smugly at him, your arms wrapping themselves around his waist as the dark club lighting gives you a false sense of confidence. “What was that?” 

Daniel practically groans at your sudden closeness, your scent overwhelming his senses and his spinning mind but he doesn’t push you away. It doesn’t even enter his mind, morality and logic being thrown out the window after a few glasses of alcohol. “Sweetheart, you’re gonna get me in trouble.” 

And god, the thoughts running through his mind as you stare up at him like that with big adoring eyes and pouty lips that looks so fucking kissable is enough to get him locked up. “Let’s make it worth it then.”

With that, you grab a bottle of what you assume to be vodka from the table the members of the team are occupying and then his hand with your free hand, pulling him away from the crowd and into the hallway leading to the toilets. The club, a high end one known for its VIP guests, thankfully has clean toilets as you pull Daniel inside, not even caring what it must look like. 

“I know I’m drunk but I’m not drunk enough to fuck you in a bathroom,” he tells you immediately. 

You roll your eyes as you shut the door behind you, making sure to lock it. Usually, Daniel makes a point not to use such vulgar words with you and the sound of his breathy voice along with the visualization he presented in your mind was enough to cause a shiver. 

The thought of you with your dress bunched up your waist, his hands all over your skin, in places you’ve been dying for him to touch, had your cheeks turning a bright red, lust mixed with the alcohol you gulped down fogging your mind. 

Daniel must be thinking of the same thing as he buries his hands deep into his pocket, taking a step back from you – which isn’t much considering the tight space you’re in. The thought of you on your knees for him, the tip of his cock hitting the back of your throat as you look up at him with those eyes was enough to have him straining his jeans. His usual light eyes looked a shade darker as he studied your features, as if making a point to put space between the two of you in a way to prevent himself from touching you. 

You took your time opening the bottle, using it as a way to stoll as you avoided his eyes. “Don’t worry, my intentions doesn’t involve seducing you into fucking me in a club bathroom.”

“Could have fooled me, baby.” Daniel all but scoffs from your words but says nothing else as you lean against the sink, taking a sip of the vodka that immediately had your face scrunching in disgust before you offer it to him.

“It’s unfair that I don’t get to drink at all, don’t you think so?” You tease lightly, a weak excuse but you know Daniel would accept it rather than speak your real reasons out loud. 

Speaking it out loud is dangerous. Speaking it out loud is admitting it to himself along with the fact that he hadn’t exactly stopped you as you pulled him away, his own hand gripping yours minutes ago as you navigate your way through the throng of people. 

So instead, he accepts the vodka and takes his own swig, much smoother than you had. “I can’t believe I’m aiding underage drinking.” 

You grin at him again. You both know he would do anything you ask without asking them. He’s weak, puny with your touch and how being with you makes him feel as though he’s going 250 miles per hour. There’s a certain adrenaline that comes with you, a certain thrill of knowing he shouldn’t be there, that he shouldn’t be letting you touch him.

He is but a man after all and god knows he’s a man fueled with desire – desire for your lips, your body, for you. How is he meant to say no when you’re looking at him like that? 

You reach forward, pulling him by his shirt. You’ve always been a lightweight and he’s drunk enough that his hands found themselves on your hips. “You know, if you’re never going to go out with me, you should kiss me at least once. Maybe I’ll move on after that.”

Daniel raised a teasing eyebrow. The thought of you moving on from him didn’t exactly give him pleasant feelings but he plays it off. “Is that so?”

“Hmm,” you agree, innocently nodding your head along. “Since you won’t fuck me.” 

His finger pushed back your hair back, exposing your neck for him to plant feathery kisses on, his lips causing you to stiffen. You hadn’t actually thought he’d indulge, thinking he’s already used to your suggestive teasing at this point but Daniel must be drunker than you thought as his hold on your hip tightened, pushing you against his body. 

“Such a fucking tease,” he muttered, tongue swiping along the sensitive skin on your neck. “I’d ruin every other boy for you if I fuck you, baby, and that just doesn’t seem very fair.”

Your breath is shaky as your hand slipped from under his shirt, feeling the defined lines of his abs. You half expect him to push you away as he had before but Daniel’s far too gone to care, your touch going straight into his most sensitive nerves.

“Could you actually?” You tried to sound smug but your voice came out shaky as Daniel’s hand slipped down your bare thigh. 

Daniel placed his forehead against yours, his conscience desperately fighting to hold on to his logic but it’s like the taste of your skin had him going crazy and he can’t help but wonder if the taste of you is as sweet as you look. 

“Not here,” he says with a breathy groan, his want eventually winning over his logic. “Wanna be stone cold sober for that.” 

It’s your turn to groan, so incredibly wet you can feel it pooling on your underwear. “Now who’s the tease?” 

You practically let out a grunt of protest as he moves away from you, returning the space between the two of you as he once again buried his hands deep into his pockets. You roll your eyes at his resistance, taking another swig of vodka.

“Behave,” he tells you lowly. 

You throw your hand up in innocence, begrudgingly accepting that you’ll have no choice but to stay on your side of the small bathroom. 

if my wishes came true, it would have been you.

For the longest time, you had been content with whatever the two of you had. You were both addicted to the thrill of practically sneaking around, knowing glances and lingering touches. You knew it wouldn’t be possible. Daniel would never allow himself to fully fall for you but you can’t help but want it anyway. 

Your life continued on as it is with you teasing him every chance you got, him rejecting you with a joke to try and pull the pout of your lips. Everyone would laugh – mechanics, engineers, your father and you’d pretend to sulk before a smile eventually paints your face. 

You like the game. You like being the only one knowing the meaning of his stares. You like that when you’re alone, he can’t handle not touching you. You like the challenge and the continuous pushing till one of you breaks. You’ve always been patient, a little cunning, biding your time as you kept your eyes on the prize. You don’t mind waiting. You don’t mind the half confessions and the hesitant, regretful touches. 

During the summer break, you hadn’t hesitated to text Daniel every chance you got, even calling him at night when you know your parents and your siblings are asleep. You would have worried about bothering him if only his reply didn't immediately come and your calls barely had time to ring. 

You know he likes talking to you too. He would have told you otherwise. He keeps up with your flirting and teasing, listening as you talk about your day. Sometimes when you say you miss him, he says it back with that tone in his voice – helpless, as though missing you renders him defenseless. 

The race after the summer break, Daniel hadn’t hesitated to hug you just as tight as you did him despite the people around you. Everyone but Max didn’t think much of it, passing it off as a friendly hug between two friends who hadn’t seen each other for a while. 

That same night, after the high of the race, you’re waiting in the car with him as everyone packs up. You’re waiting for Max and your father, scrolling through your phone as Daniel draws circles on your knee.

“I have something to tell,” he says after a while, making you look up at him. 

It’s dark inside the car but you can still see Daniel’s profile as he faced you. “Yeah?”

“I haven’t told anyone yet. Not even Christian,” he starts, the sentence immediately had you tensing up. Rumors about Daniel’s future had been circulating around all month. His contract would be ending soon and every team’s desperate to have him. You always thought that was all it was though; rumors. You knew there had been tension between who’s first driver and who’s second but you always thought Daniel would renew his contract. 

“Don’t,” you say immediately, your heart sinking to your stomach at the mere thought of it. 

Daniel’s hand on your knee stops, offering you a smile when he sees the sadness in your eyes. “We’ll still see each other. It’s not like I’m going away. We’ll still see each other around the Paddock.” 

Tears suddenly blurred your vision. Daniel would be leaving Red Bull and you along with it. “It won’t be the same.”

Daniel was a little taken aback by your tears. He’s never seen you cry before and he quickly decides that he doesn’t like the sight. “We’ll still be frie–”

“Don’t you dare say friends,” you warn. “We aren’t just friends, Daniel, and you’re lying if you say otherwise.”

His movements halted, the silent fury in your voice impossible to miss. The two of you never actually spoke of whatever you are. All of it remains unspoken, a silent agreement and he never thought you’d bring it up so easily. “Y/N–”

But at that exact moment, the car door opened, cutting him off as you immediately pushed his hand away, trying your best to discreetly wipe your tears. Your father was focused on his phone, oblivious to the tension he had just walked into but Max, who obviously saw how Daniel was touching you, could see your tear stained cheeks. 

He tries to get your attention to silently ask you if you were okay, but you stubbornly stare down at your phone, ignoring Daniel’s worried glances being thrown at you. 

“Y/N,” Christian says, finally looking up from his own phone to you. By then your tears have dried and the darkness in the car hides your red eyes. “Your mother was asking if you’re coming home. I already told her that you’re staying till next week–”

“No,” you cut him off, your voice a little shaky. If Daniel hadn’t spent every night thinking about you, he wouldn’t have noticed it either. “I want to go home.” 

You kept your eyes forward despite Daniel’s stare at the side of your head. 

Your father’s eyebrow creased. “I thought you said you wanted to stay till Monza?” 

“I changed my mind,” you say. “I’d like to go home. As soon as possible please.” 

Christian stared at your face. You might think he didn’t notice but he is your father. He knows something, something that made you immediately want to get away and if you want to leave then he wouldn’t stop you. He nods finally, “alright. I can have a flight fixed for you later. I’ll let your mum know.” 

You force a smile on your face, still completely ignoring Daniel’s stare. “Thanks, dad.” 

Throughout the night, you ignore Daniel. You don’t answer his texts or calls nor open the door for him. Perhaps it’s childish but the thought of him leaving you hurt much more than you wanted to admit. It felt like a betrayal. You always believed there was something more between the two of you, something unspoken and unsaid. Sure, you liked to play but you genuinely did believe it was something real. It feels as though he was abandoning you, choosing to run rather than face whatever’s been brewing between the two of you for months. 

He’s going to leave you and you’re starting to realize that maybe you are young and naive like he always implied you were. Maybe everything was just your imagination and he feels nothing for you at all. Maybe you’re just a stupid teenager to him, playing you on his palm.

But that doesn’t sound right either. Daniel would never. Even if he doesn’t share your feelings, he would never do that to anyone, much less you. 

Eventually though, he stops knocking on your door and your phone chimes with another text saying he’ll give you space, reminding you that you know where he is when you’re willing to talk again. And like the previous messages before that, you ignore it. Instead, you pack up your things and head straight to the airport. 

As you watch the scenery change till the view of home comes around, you feel as though you’ve just got your heart broken, once again feeling like a teenager after your first breakup with your first boyfriend. But somehow it hurts more.

The next few days aren’t much different. You ignore Daniel’s messages and calls, throwing yourself into spending as much time with your little siblings as possible. During your time away from the paddocks and from him, the ache in your chest doesn’t subside but you do manage to put your childishness away, your logic returning to you. 

At first, you stubbornly held on to your belief that he’s abandoning you, easier to paint him the bad guy to give yourself the justification of being angry at him. He says you can remain friends and that you’d still see each other around the paddock, still spend time together, but you knew it would be different. Your schedules wouldn’t be the same. You wouldn’t have any reason to follow him around throughout the day. You would lose him, spend much less time with him. You’d no longer have little moments in his drivers room or loud laughs in the plane. 

It would be different – the kind of different that you don’t like but despite it, you know your actions are unjustified and childish. Max is a great driver and he’s meant to do great things. It’s obvious that red bull is investing more time on him and you know that Daniel doesn’t deserve that. Daniel doesn’t deserve to settle with being second to Max. He was doing it for his career and you’re making it about you

And so despite your aching heart and the sinking fear in your stomach that you’d lose what little of Daniel he gives you, you eventually come to the conclusion that you owe him an apology. He doesn’t deserve to be ignored by you when he’s only doing what’s best for him and his career. 

So after two weeks of ignoring him, you decide to put away your pride and call him back. However, anyone who knows you knows it’s your ego that drives you. You’re as competitive and as arrogant as your father. You don’t like being told no or admitting your mistakes. Wasn’t that why you’re still chasing Daniel? 

And so you spend the entire day making excuses after excuses – whether it be playing with your sister in the pool or taking your brother to the park. You made excuses and scenarios that would keep you away from your phone. 

Though as you open twitter, you realize maybe it’s for the better. The words before you are glaring and piercing accompanied with a picture that makes you want to throw your phone against the wall. The account that posted it is an F1 gossip account, one that you followed months before mostly as a joke after a particularly hilarious fake rumor about Max. You absolutely regret not unfollowing it now though as the photo that greeted you is one of Daniel, wearing one of his party shirts and looking a little drunk as he exits what appears to be a club, a woman whose face you can’t see properly is behind him, their hands entwined and their heads bowed. 

“Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo seen leaving a club holding hands with a mystery woman.” The caption cruelly said, making you want to vomit as your chest suddenly felt heavier. 

That night, you locked yourself in your room. This was worse than him leaving Red Bull. This is worse than any high school heartbreak you’ve been through. You were right after all. You are just a child to him. He played you so well. And like a naive idiot, you fell right for it. 

You were wrong. Daniel is that kind of person. He feels nothing for you. There was never anything real between the two of you. You had imagined everything, so desperate for him that you’ve fooled yourself into thinking that he might feel the same. 

At the end of the day, no one can be blamed but you. Your own stubbornness to let him go eventually being the cause of your heartbreak. 

Max calls you. You know he knows and he knows that you know. He leaves you a bunch of messages as well. Eventually though, you realize he’s just being a good friend checking on you and so you send him a text assuring him you’re okay. Your mother calls you for dinner, you claim you're not hungry, not even opening the door for her. An hour later, she calls for you again, mentioning you hadn’t had lunch. You assure her you’re okay. Your father texts you, asking if you’re fine as your mother let him know that you aren’t eating. You tell him you’re just tired. Two hours later, your mother sends in your little sister, your known weakness. You eventually give in, unable to resist her adorable toddler face as you accept a sandwich. 

Daniel calls you. He texts you too. He spams all of your social media. Far too tired, you shut off your phone, placing it screen down on your bedside table as you cry the night away.

A week passes and little by little, your sadness turns to anger. Suddenly it didn’t matter that he’s leaving or he doesn’t want you back. The only thing that matters is to get even. After you read your siblings a bedtime story, you open your phone for the first time in a week, ignoring the multitude of notifications coming in, nearly all from Daniel, and dial your father’s number. 

You tell him you miss formula 1. You ask if you can join for the next few races. Not having heard from his eldest for an entire week, he’s more than happy to have everything fixed for you and the next day, you’re on a plane to Belgium. 

You arrive on a Friday morning and despite your body craving sleep, you hop into the shower, making a point to perfect your makeup and curl your hair to perfection. You wear a white flowy, backless dress that barely reaches your thigh – casual enough to not have anyone question you but revealing enough to turn heads. 

You’re a woman scorned with a mission in mind. If Daniel doesn’t want you, well then you’re just gonna have to show him what he’s missing. 

When you step into the Red Bull Motorhome, it’s half an hour before quali. Immediately, Daniel who’s squatting in a corner with headphones on, turns to you, his eyes slightly widening as it meets yours. You look like you walked out of a daydream and Daniel can feel his heart mending and breaking even more at the sight of you. 

The past month without you has been complete hell. Every after race, he always expects to find you sneaking into his drivers room only to be disappointed each time. He never thought how much you’re integrated into his day till he had to adjust without you in it. His hand craves to touch you, his arms craves to hold you. Your fading scent in his clothes haunt him with each day that passes.

Now though, you’re back and Daniel swears you’re a devil sent from his very own personal hell to torment him. But he never was good at ignoring temptation as he pulled himself up, making a beeline towards you. Your presence, your scent, you overwhelm him as he stands in front of you, his hands itching to reach forward and pull you towards his chest.

“Y/N,” he starts, voice breathy as though he can’t quite believe that it’s you. He’s gotten so used to imagining you in order to cope with missing you that actually having you so close again feels like a fever dream. 

“Good luck out there,” you say and the sound of your voice after so many weeks is enough to cause him shivers. You casually pat his shoulder as you push yourself past him.

Daniel is frozen in place. He expected you to scoff, frown, pout. He expected you to glare at him and maybe even scream. He expected anger because he knows it’s what he deserves but he feels his heart break a little as you offer him a smile – not like your usual ones that he adores, but rather a polite, detached smile lacking both emotion and sincerity. You’re looking at him like he’s a stranger, someone who doesn’t matter, a presence you’re only tolerating. 

This is worse than anger, he decides. Anger and fury he can take and maybe he can even match but your cold indifference he knows he will never be able to handle. 

He watched as you walked towards Max, that usual smile you’ve reprieved from him now on your face as you throw your arms around the dutchman. He watches as Max’s hand settles on the exposed skin of your back. You’re punishing him. And maybe a part of him believes that he deserves it. You should have punished him long before he let it come to this, but still, he despises the sinking feeling in his stomach. 

but it would have been fun if you would have been the one.

Daniel is slowly but surely losing his mind. He’s a mess and it’s all your fault. The sight of you with your tiny dresses and perfectly done makeup walking around in the paddock as you smile at everyone but him is cruel. 

But the sight of you in some new other man’s arms is worse. A mechanic or an engineer, an intern or a trainer. You entertain everyone that gives you attention, letting them touch you and stand close to you as long as Daniel can see. It’s driving him insane. You refuse to talk to him, not even giving him a chance to start a conversation. You even refuse to look at him and if Daniel isn’t completely at his wits ends, he would have acknowledged how much your actions hurt. He misses looking into your eyes. He misses your scent and your smiles. He misses your jokes and your laughs. He misses everything about you but instead he’s stuck watching you from afar. 

Eventually though, you’re unable to play your game forever and Daniel is unable to hold himself back much longer. Justifications that this is the best for you no longer means much to him as he stared at you from across the club — another goddamn club. 

It’s your 21st birthday celebration and Daniel is sure that if he hadn’t been part of the team, you wouldn’t have been forced to invite him. It’s not like his presence makes much difference though considering you haven’t looked at his general direction the moment he arrived hours ago. Instead, he’s left by himself, watching the way your hair bounces as you jump up and down, a careless smile on your face and your laugh often echoing around the club. 

Daniel thought you looked sinfully beautiful, some guy’s arms around you as the two of you jumped to the beat. 

He also thought that you’re a goddamn pain in the ass, his resolve slowly slipping away as he watched you. You’re doing it on purpose, he’s sure. Taunting and teasing, pride and ego and the need to get even. Truly, he knows you too well.   

As it turns out though, it’s you who breaks first. You hadn’t meant to, far too drunk to understand anything apart from the fact that you missed him. 

Daniel turned around for a moment, having decided that if he’s going to watch you and wallow in jealousy the entire night then he might as well get drunk. He may not be the best at keeping you away but he is good at staying away, determined to follow your lead if it meant ending whatever the two of you had for your own good. 

Perhaps this is the universe giving him a chance to correct his mistakes, to actually put you first over his own selfish desire to keep you for himself. 

And if it meant you hating him then Daniel is going to force himself to live with it. 

But still, the sight of you suddenly gone from the corner of the club you’ve been occupying the entire night and suddenly he couldn’t help the sudden worry sinking in his stomach. He waits for a few minutes, hoping you just went to the bathroom or something of the sorts but when ten minutes passes and you’re still not back, Daniel’s worry becomes far too much to ignore as he pushes himself off the bar stool, fighting his way through the throng of people. 

He goes to Max first, asking the dutchman where you were to which the younger driver replied with a small shrug, far too drunk to even properly process his words. Daniel rolled his eyes, all but marching into the women’s bathroom as he checked for you only to find it completely empty, seemingly only increasing his worry. 

It’s a few minutes later after practically turning the entire club upside down that he finally finds you, keys of his rental car in his hand with the purpose of going to your hotel to see if you’d made it home safely.

But he stopped in his tracks at the sight of you sitting on the pavement, head against your knees and shivering. You look small and vulnerable and he can’t help the way his heart breaks.

“Y/N!” He calls, jogging towards you. “Are you okay? Did something happen?” 

You look up, eyes squinted as he kneeled before you, hand instinctively going on your shoulder as he assessed your figure for any sort of injury or explanation. 

“I’m fine,” you muttered, voice small and hoarse. Earlier you were full of life as you drank the night away, determined to show Daniel what he lost but now your body feels heavy and all you want to do is cry. 

Daniel stared at you and the defeat in your eyes. Heaving a sigh, he shrugs off his jacket and places it around your shoulder. He knew that he should probably take you to your hotel now but you looked so lost and terrified that he can’t phantom the thought of leaving your side. 

And so he stalls. He stalls by sitting next to you instead, making sure there’s space between the two of you. 

And for a moment, there’s nothing but silence. The loud music from the club doesn’t reach you nor does the chatter. All you can hear is the way your heart breaks once again so close after so many weeks. You want nothing more than to wrap your arms around him and let him comfort you. You want to let him fix everything and let you naively hope.

But too many words are left unsaid and too much heartache has been caused. You regret it all now; your petty revenge plan and walking out on him when he told you he was moving. You regret ignoring his calls and seeing that photo of him with a girl. You regret the months spent before that falling for him believing you had any control of yourself, believing that you’d easily pull yourself up if you fell. 

And you understand now too. You understand now why Daniel has always held back, why he never truly allowed himself to love you. It’s because of this. He never wants you to feel this. He was trying to spare you from having to experience this kind of heartbreak once you realized nothing will ever come out between the two of you. 

Daniel has always been longing. He’s always been lust and desire and hope. You never thought he could be pain too. 

“You’re allowed to love me, you know,” you say, barely a whisper. “Please love me.”

It takes Daniel a few moments to answer, feeling his heart seemingly getting heavier in his chest as your voice breaks. He never wanted to see you so broken, especially not because of him. 

“Loving you was never the problem,” he finally says, his voice just as quiet as if he’s telling a secret to the winds. “Loving you too much was.”

“You can’t love someone too much,” you say, your tone becoming defensive as you desperately clutch onto straws of hope that maybe the two of you could work out. “You just love me.” 

And Daniel finally looks at you, meeting your eyes for the first time in weeks. “I do. I do love you. I love you so much that I’m not stealing your youth from you. I love you so much that I refuse to take advantage of you.”

You couldn’t help the tears that slipped from your eyes as all of your will shattered. You couldn’t help the way you flung yourself at him as you sobbed into his shoulder. Daniel’s arms around you are instinctive, holding you close to his chest as if he could hold you together as you break apart. 

And he’ll let go of you now. He took you to your hotel room and kissed your forehead goodbye. He let you keep his jacket as he removed his arms from around you. He wiped your tears as his own fell. It was a goodbye, an ending. 

Daniel loves you. He loves you with his entire soul. And that’s precisely the problem. He loved you so much he’d let you go.

“Maybe in a few years,” you all but plead as you clutch at his shirt, knowing that letting go of him now might mean forever. “When I’m old enough, you can love me again.” 

He smiled. As if he’d ever stop loving you. “In a few years then.” 

He used to believe there were only two types of love; the kind you’d die for and the kind you’d kill for but god, he’d live for you. 

taglist: @ricsaigaslec @dragon-of-winterfell @coffeehurricanes @rdtbattinson @privcherry7 @miniminescapist @sebsdaniel @strelcka @writing-about-current-obsessions @amsofftrack @lostinketterdam @bisexual-desi @cialovessirlewis @multilovebot @lovelynikol16 @troybolton-14 @ohthemissery @dr3lover

[fanttasttica]

Family

Helion x reader, Rhysand x daughter reader

You never knew your parents and yourself. One day you decide to leave your home and try to find something about yourself and your family. You come to the Day court, where you meet their cunning High lord, who also happens to be your mate. But your mate isn't the only person you found..

warnings: mentions of nudity

words: 2764

It was a nice summer day. A wind gently caressed your cheeks, as you were looking at your friends, who were enjoying the day with their families. Fathers, mothers.. siblings. That was a luxury you have never known. You never knew your father or mother. The closest thing you had to parents were Christian and Lucille, who found you one day and raised as their own. You actually thought they were your parents, until they came clean when you reached your eighteen birthday. They knew you deserve the truth. Since then, you were jealous and happy at the same time for your friends, who had families on their own. You were watching them from a smaller distance, as they were laughing together wishing you could have something like that too. Not that you were not grateful for Christian and Lucille, you loved them but.. You wanted to find out who your parents were. Whose violet eyes were looking at you in the mirror? Did you have the same black hair as your mom? Was your smile similar to the smile of your father? Those were questions you earned an answer for.

You grew up in the mountains in Night court. Your village was quite small, nothing extraordinary here. It was not far from the borders the Night court shared with the Day court. You could walk there maybe after two or three hours. That means that sometimes you meet people traveling between these two courts. People who were more than willing to share stories. That was how you found out about Amarantha being dead. You knew her, of course you did. Everyone in Prythian did. She trapped all High lords under the mountain, took their powers.. They were helpless until one day a human girl named Feyre freed them. You were fascinated by her story. She was now your High lady, finally being happy with Rhysand, your High lord and you found that really nice. That they found each other after all that. You heard all stories about them and about other High lords and interesting people from travelers, merchants.. You were always listening to them very carefully, until one sunny day, when you decided to stop being the listener and become the traveler, narrator, yourself. It was an opportunity to get to know new places, people.. and maybe find out something about your parents.

“Are you sure you want to go? I mean..it can be really dangerous.” You smiled at your friends. “I am sure. I love you guys, I love this place but.. I just want to try and find out something about my parents, about me. And I think that's the thing I cannot accomplish here.” She sighed and nodded as a sign that she understands you. “Well.. I will not stop you, if that is really what you want. Just.. be careful and don't forget us.” You hugged her tight, trying to find back tears. “How could I ever forget you? You are my best friend, sister, even though we don't have the same parents. I will never forget you, don't worry. And also.. this isn't definitely the last time you see me. I will come back.”

It has been almost two months since you left. After almost a month of traveling, you came to the town which was surrounding the palace of Helion, the Day court´s High lord. Probably the sexiest male alive. You had only seen him once, from afar when he was walking and talking with some of his friends near the shop you worked. You found a job in a smaller café, simply because you needed money and you also quite quickly fell in love with the city and wanted to spend some time here. You weren't sure how long you were going to stay.. A few months? Year? But it didn't really matter. Your job did not only provide you with the money , no. It also helped you meet a few nice people you befriend and could spend time after work. It was nice, the days were not the same as in your old village. Every day brought something new, new skills you learned, new friends.. But the one day that stood out above all the days.. was the one when you met your mate.

It was almost noon when the bell rang and he walked into the café, where you were currently working. Helion stood in the doorway and was looking around the place as if he was searching for something, or rather someone. And then, suddenly, he looked at you, his already big smile grew even bigger. At that same moment, you felt something in your chest, in your heart. Mating bond. It snapped immediately, taking the air from your lungs. You blinked a few times, not daring to move or look away from his gaze as he walked closer to you. “Hello my little sunshine.” 

From that moment, you didn't spend a day without a stolen moment with Helion. You found out that he already knew about the mating bond. It snapped for him a few minutes before he came in, as he was casually walking around the café. He saw you and needed only a few minutes before you he plucked up the courage to go talk to you. You decided to take things slowly. He was coming to the café, where you chatted when you were working. After a week he invited you to a date, to a beautiful restaurant, theater, then he took you on the picnic.. And that's basically how you ended up waking up in his large bed, with nothing but sheets on your naked body. 

You two were seeing each other for almost three months. It was already winter, but that did not bother you. Helion was hugging you, his big and warm body was better than any blanket in the whole world. You were enjoying this quiet morning in his embrace, when you felt he was already waking up. His breathing changed and grip on you strengthened, as if he also wasn't ready to wake up and leave your bed. You giggled at him, whereupon he grunted. “Is there something funny, sunshine?” You sighed happily. “Just one certain High lord who is behaving like a little child who doesn't want to share his toy with anyone else.” He chuckled, turned you around, so you were now lying on your back on the comfortable mattress and he was towering over you in all his glory. You bit your lips at this sight. “But I don't want to share you with anyone else.” He started placing soft kisses on your neck, which was full of hickeys from the previous night. “I don't think that's possible. My shift is starting in an hour and you also have a lot of work.” You argued, trying to keep your thoughts clear, even though the idea of ​​spending the whole day with your mate in bed was more than tempting. “That's why I want you to quit. You know I can take care of you, I want to take care of everything you need or want” This time it was you who chuckled at his idea. “And what would I do? Spend all my time in your bed, waiting for you to return? It would be boring.” You caressed his beautiful face. Admiring his beauty, before he spoke again. “You could always come with me to the meetings, sit on my lap and warm me.” He winked at you, as you punched him slightly in his biceps. After that his face grew more serious. “I love you Y/N. More than my court, more than the sun, more than everything else.. Just say you want this and I promise I will give you everything in the world. I will make you my High lady. My equal. Just one word is enough.” 

It wasn't that hard a decision. You loved Helion with your whole being. You couldn't imagine a day without him. So you finally agreed. You gave him your answer that day, in the evening, when you served him dinner made by you. It was simple, private and even though Helion was known for parties, he really appreciated this. Mainly because after the meal he could immediately take to to the bedroom and fuck you all night without any disturbance. The only thing that was left to declare you his High lady. You urged him to wait a little. When you officially accepted the bond you also moved to his palace the next day and you simply wanted to get used to the new surroundings and to the bond, which was now stronger than before. He of course agreed to your wishes. But you still were slowly making plans for the celebration, because you decided to make this event publicly. Helion thought that it was only fair for his, yours, people to have an opportunity to witness this moment, when the first High lady of the Day court was crowned. And believed him, wanting to also make people happy, to make a good first impression and that was probably not possible if you were hiding in the shadows on that important day. You also decided to invite your and some of Helion's friends, which also included some other High lords and their families. You personally invited Thesan - High lord of the Dawn court, High lord of the Winter court and his wife, Tarquin, who was Hugh lord of the Summer court and lastly.. High lord, High lady of the Night court and their Inner circle. 

Before every meeting with other High lords you were incredibly nervous and Helion was trying to calm you down as he could and he was successful, but this time.. It was different and you weren't sure why you felt this way. Your heart was beating rapidly in your chest, your hands were sweating.. Maybe because you were supposed to meet the only other High lady that existed? Or maybe you were just nervous because you have heard a lot of stories about all of them? Rhysand was the most powerful High lord, his mate had powers of all seven High lords and her sisters were made by the Cauldron.. Not mentioning Cassian and Azriel, who were alive for more than five hundred years and killed more people than you have met in your lifetime. “Don't worry Y/N. They are really nice and don't bite more than me and you are already used to that.” Helion winked at you and you rolled your eyes at him. This was something about him that you absolutely loved and at the same time found annoying. He was such a flirt. “I know and I believe you. Honestly.. I am not sure why I am so nervous.” You as and at the same time tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. Before your mate could respond to you, you heard the sound of the door opening. You looked behind you and to your surprise you met the same eyes you had  and they stared back at you in shock.

There was silence as the others entered the room as well. They were looking at you with shocked expressions and you returned it, mainly to the man that had the same eyes as you. And after a few moments you noticed that the eyes were not the only thing you shared. You also had the same hair, similar features. In the end it was Helion who broke the silence. “I.. I never realized that.” It wasn't surprising he was not very receptive to these things. “That's.. How?” High lady asked, turning to face her mate, who also finally recovered from the shock. “I have no idea, Feyre darling.” He took a few steps towards you. You looked at Helion, not sure what to do. What to say. Was it even possible? Was this really your father or was it some cruel joke made by the Cauldron? How did it happen? “It's her.” You heard a sweet voice from the group. A girl, a woman, in a pink dress came closer. You shared a confused look with your mate. “The girl from my visions. Rhys's daughter.” 

To this moment, the only person who almost made you faint was Helion but when that woman said those words.. You had to grab your mate's strong arms, because otherwise you would be laying on the ground. This did not go unnoticed by your father and your mate, who grabbed you by your waist, holding you firmly. It was not only supporting in standing, it was calming you at the same time. Your father looked with worry. “Are you okay?” He asked you, you nodded in response. “I am, it's just.. a shock.” He smiled at you. “That's understandable. It's a shock for both of us. Well.. for all of us. He turned to his mate and Inner circle, as if he was having a quick conversation with them. After that, they came closer, introducing themselves with bright smiles. You have learned that the lady who was obviously a seer was Elaine, sister of your father's mate. It was Feyre who introduced herself to you last. It was a little bit weird for you, since she was a little bit younger than you and practically your step-mother, but she seemed nice. “By the way, what are you doing here? And how did you find my daughter, Helion?” You almost forgot they didn't know. Inviting High lords to your celebration was also a moment when Helion introduced you to them as his mate for the first time. He looked down at you and you gave him a simple nod. “Well.. she is my mate. And also my future High lady. We wanted to invite you to the celebration personally.” 

Once again, they were shocked, especially your newly found father, who was looking between you and Helion. You wanted to say something. Something that could make this situation a little bit less weird, but couldn't find the right words. In the end, silence was broken by Cassian's and Morrigan's augh. “Well, I did not see that coming.” Your aunt said with amusement in her voice. You smiled nervously, wanting nothing more than to disappear into the thin air. “Congratulations, it's amazing.” Feyre told you kindly and shook Rhysand's hand, so he would wake up from his trance. “Yeah.. congratulations.”He looked from you to Helion. “You better make her happy.” His words warmed up your heart. It was nice of him to look after you only after knowing you for maybe ten minutes. Maybe you were an adult, but that didn't mean you couldn't create a loving bond with him. After the first shock, you finally felt happiness. You had a parent! A father! And at that moment you realized something. With a hope in your eyes you turned to Elaine. “Do you also know who my mother is?”

The smile on her face and the faces of the others froze. Well, except for you and Helion, since you didn't know anything. Elaine swallowed hard, making eye contact with both your father and Feyre, again having some type of silent conversation. After a while, your father sighed. “Your mother.. Well.. Things get a little bit complicated here.” He breathed out. “Maybe you already heard of her. It is.. Amarantha.” It had to be incredibly hard for him to say that. After he said that, he looked away, hurt from memories that came back only after saying her name out loud. 

Of course you were in shock after finding out who your parents were. Being the daughter of the most powerful High lord and also a person who imprisoned not only him, but also your mate and a lot of other people.. Being the daughter of the person who killed and who was the main villain of many people's nightmares wasn't the best thing that could happen to you. But you were lucky to have your mate and also your father on your site. After finding out, you were really sad, angry, ashamed and also worried about what other people would think. What would Helion think? But luckily, he didn't care at all. He supported you, when you were recovering from the news and trying to accept them. He supported you when you tried and later successfully created a bond with your father, but also Feyre and their Inner circle. You were very lucky to have him, to have all of them. You finally had your own happy family.

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

Hello!! I was wondering if you have any book recommendations for Appalachian folk magic? Especially for a beginner, I’m familiar with our local “old wive’s tales” but I’d love to learn more!!

Hello there! I have answered this question before but I have some new resources so I'll list them here! It really depends on which part of Appalachia you are looking at! And if you want to dig deeper the ancestral roots of the family you are looking at. For example my family has a lot of Welsh and British influence because that was our family source so a lot of those beliefs lingered and changed throughout the years!

Someone from Pennsylvania would likely have a lot more German roots for their practice. But despite the root differences for the folklore these practices stem from they do still share a lot of connecting points! But having babbled all of that here are my favorite books on AFM specifically. (Mind you Christianity takes a super huge part in the practice so a lot of bible and doing things in threes for the Trinity is involved!)

Authors to check out:

H. Byron Ballard- A pagan who also practices AFM, from the NC side of Appalachia, a lot of people hate her writing style which is a bit ramble-y. I also dislike the term she uses for her own practice but that is a super simple and small complaint honestly. I own all of her books on the subject, which should say something.

Jake Richards - From Eastern TN like me! A lot of what he talks about are things I have seen before, and he breaks down complex concepts like burn blowing into something relatively easily understood. HOWEVER HAVING SAID THAT the author is partially Melungeon, so he does have some Hoodoo mixed in from his grandmother's side iirc? He does label these things in his works and explains that they are not for everyone which I do appreciate.

Rebecca Beyer - While vaguely Wiccan toned, which I attribute to her publishers/raising, she's a transplant to Appalachia and if you're looking for herbal information on Appalachia and to wax poetic about how even with a ton of people settling there SO MUCH of the natural herbs and plantlife still survive, read her work! Her work on foraging safely and environmentally is so SOOOOO good.

Brandon Weston - For Ozark Mountain range/German/Dutch Appalachian work! He has written quite a few books on the subject and all of them are a treat!

Roger J. Horne - For how to dig into folklore and apply it to your own practice! This author is pagan and does blend in some traditional work with the Appalachian but I do enjoy his work and how he applies folklore. This author is also FROM Appalachia which is nice to see.

INDIVIDUAL BOOKS TO READ: Appalachian Folk Healing by Jake Richards - A republication of a very old book on remedies and 'spells', while kitschy and stupidly worded, after all it was a popular book created just for sales reasons, some of these remedies are things I remember having done to me! Good for both a giggle and actual information. TW for mentions of animal parts, hunting, illnesses, the G slur, period specific phobias and racism.

Albertus Magnus - These books all supposedly written by an ancient guy, were actually mildly common on traveling salesmen's trucks and wagons. So as a result a lot of people in Appalachia had access. Like the book above it is very stupidly worded and definitely of their time. Same TW as above.

Pow-Wows or Long Lost Friend - Another Pennsylvania Dutch book! Very good and very clear.

Southern Folk Medicine - A book that breaks down a lot of common medicinal beliefs in the South which does include Appalachia! Sadly not just Appalachia but a very good book regardless. THIS BOOK MADE ME UNDERSTAND THE THEORY BEHIND BLOOD ISSUES MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE EVER HAS.

Moon Eyed People - A collection of Welsh folktales that brewed within Appalachia from Welsh immigrants. Very good book imo!

Granny Buck's Dibs and Dabs - This book is so worth the price tag! One of the more expensive books in my collection, but I'm fine with that. Granny Buck covers a lot of topics and I can feel the accent through the wording!

Signs, Cures, & Witchery - More German Appalachian stuff! This book and it's interviewees are from the Kentucky side of the mountains!

Witches, Ghost, and Signs - This book is based more in the Southern Appalachian area! Georgia, SC, NC, and TN specifically! Lots of folklore here, but does mention some not so great bits of the lore, but that is expected.

The Foxfire Books - What began as a school project exploded into a collection of true to life stories and idioms from Georgia elders within the mountains. SO SO GOOD OKAY? For everything. How to plant, hunt, make musical instruments, anything from the mountains? They cover.

[hilacopter]

You say ur a zionist depending on the definition but you believe jews are indigenous to the levant? That is the definition why don't you just call urself a zionist

see the thing is I genuinely think a lot of the whole zionism controversy mostly stems from a giant stupid misunderstanding and people not being properly informed. me telling someone I'm a zionist can either give them the right idea or the completely wrong idea.

let me paint a picture for you: a self-identified zionist and a self-identified anti-zionist walk into a bar. the zionist thinks the definition of zionism is wanting a Jewish state in the Levant, they want peace and a two-state solution. the anti-zionist thinks zionism is kahanism, they want peace and a two-state solution. "are you a zionist?" the anti-zionist asks, "yes" the zionist answers, and they immediately get into an argument. "anti-zionism is antisemitism!" the zionist shouts, "zionists are fascists!" the anti-zionist yells. of course this could all have blown over peacefully if they had asked eachother what zionism is, but why would they need to? what else could the word possibly mean?

I respect people on this site who identify as zionists, providing of course their meaning is wanting Jewish self-determination and not denying the right to Palestinian life and self-determination alongside us (remember I'm literally saying all this as an Israeli, if anyone wants Jewish self-determination in Israel it's me because my life quite literally depends on it). but I feel like they create a lot of unnecessary conflict for themselves by identifying as such and in most cases not explicitly stating what they mean by zionism. I know there's the desire to make dumb people understand the actual definition of the word, but with how much the misconceptions have already been set in stone I think it's a battle we cannot win.

there's more to all this though, buckle up for a pretty long post because I have a lot to say which I won't religate to the tags for once. first of all, I genuinely think a lot of anti-zionists, especially on the younger side (saying this as a minor myself), do not even have a solid definition of zionism in their head. they just see all of their peers shitting on it and follow along, making up whatever zionism means in their head along the way. since in leftist spaces it's not very acceptable to actually ask about the cause, why everyone is doing what they're doing. you have to take everything for granted, after all you wouldn't want to look uneducated by not knowing what zionism is! (this aspect of leftism 100% comes from cultural christianity btw)

there are also many anti-zionists who, at least to some extent, do know zionism means self-determination of Jews in the Levant and wanting Israel to exist. a lot of which think Israel is a white colonizer state, unaware of the history of the region, how more than there are ashkenazi Jews in Israel there are mizrachi Jews expelled from Arab nations, and are unaware of Jewish indigeneity to the Levant. how this land was originally Judea, only renamed Syria-Palaestina after being conquered from us and having most of us expelled. unfortunately the vast majority of pro-pal activists are very much simply jumping on the trendy train, not bothering to actually do their own research about the history of this insanely complex conflict and simply know everything by word of mouth from other equally uneducated leftists. I do think a lot of these people genuinely just don't know and aren't actively denying Jewish history on purpose, I've had like two cases happen where I told anti-zionists of this sort about Jewish indigeneity to the Levant and they just went "really? I had no idea". but of course for every person like that, there will be a person who will double down and dismiss it as propaganda, a myth and a fairytale. those people can go fuck themselves, clinging desperately to their half-assed worldview rather than willing to own up to being wrong and better themselves. denying Jewish history. or in a rare case of exceptional shittiness an anti-zionist can view zionism as wanting Jewish self-determination in the Levant and know that Jews are indigenous, yet still choose to identify as an anti-zionist by that definition for what can be a myriad of horrible reasons, usually complete tride and true antisemitism.

so in conclusion, I don't identify as a zionist outright until I know what kind of anti-zionist is asking me the question. is it an anti-zionist who just wants peace as much as I do, or is it an anti-zionist who wants me and my family dead? I've had people call me a zionist, non-zionist, anti-zionist and I don't really know what to expect each time. I feel like this approach leaves the most room for me to open good faith discussions with people and educate them on the subject as someone who actually knows xir shit, more than the average pro-pal at least, rather than having them immediately dismiss me as whatever definition of a zionist they have. not that good faith discussions are easy to have with people on tumblr dot com, and really online in general, but I'd rather have the option in the rare case of an actual open-minded individual who is willing to listen to Jews and better themself.

[fromchaostocosmos]

I'm very frustrated with how the various youtubers and streamers talk about Ben Shapiro.

Because they do not understand or have the proper context when talking about him and everything he represents.

They also often go into antisemitic territory when mocking him, while it is unintentional and something they may not not even know they are doing, they are doing it none the less.

When they mock his voice or call him Shabibo that is actually antisemitic territory.

Due to a history of Jewish people having our names stripped from us and voices and names mocked. Now I too find his voice to be personally annoying, but I won't mock it because of said history.

It is not about the curtsy that Ben Shapiro deserves or doesn't deserve, but rather about deciding when it is okay to employ antisemitism against a Jewish person.

The answer is never.

The overwhelming majority of these commentators are not Jewish and the few that are Jewish don't seem to know any of the important details that make what Ben Shapiro says so dangerous for all Jews and such a false representation.

See what is not presented in discussions about him is that Ben Shapiro is not there to pull in a Jewish audience he is there as a token Jew to help further pull in an christian audience.

That is what makes it all so very insidious in nature. And sadly some Jewish people get fooled by this too because they do not look beyond the front facing facade he wears like costume, but they do not actually listen the words he says.

Ben Shapiro harps about a 'war on christmas' which no Jewish person would seriously do or care for. Especially any Ashkenazi Jews with our very long long history of being murdered in mass on xmas. Christmas eve is became seen a spiritually impure night that it would be called Nittle Nacht in Yiddish and Jewish people would purposefully not study Torah that night.

American Jews, like many others who belong to non-christian religious and cultural groups, have to deal with living a majority Christian country and country that culturally Christian and only makes concession for Christianity.

Has Ben Shapiro ever talked about that or the actual fights to get time off for our Holidays? No because that doesn't fit the narrative. But business having employees switch from 'merry christmas' to 'happy holidays' most certainly does.

Ben Shapiro has explicitly stated that he believes that conception is when life begins which is something to no in keeping with any Jewish held belief anywhere.

We hold life begins at first breath, the mother comes first (I wrote mother because that is wording used in the various writings, but really it would be the pregnant individual comes first), and that it doesn't just need to physical health on the line it can also be one's mental health at stake in order to need an abortion

Ben Shapiro talks about Judeo-Christan values, which a bullshit term that was created after the Holocaust to make it seem like Christian Antisemitism played no role in what happened and that the Church was not a guilty party. It is also a term that essentially holds Jewish people hostage.

He uses this term and talks about these shared values. So I have to ask what values?

Is respecting the elderly, caring for the sick, kindness to others, tending to the poor, and such? Because those are universal values and can be found in pretty much every culture and religion.

What about original sin? Heaven and Hell? Can someone be the literal child of G-d? Does G-d have literal hands, a actual face? What is the gender of G-d?

Just some questions to start with since you know we clearly have the same values and stuff.

Because Judaism would say: No such thing as original sin and in fact Hebrew doesn't have a word for sin we have words that mean things that wrongly translated in English as sin, but no, word for sin. We hold all people are born blank we go through and have experiences and make choices and those choices speak to who we are.

We believe in This World and The World to Come and the spiritual washing machine so to speak, but no a big nope to heaven and hell. No to Satan too. There is the HaSatan which means prosecutor who is as the name means in the Ultimate Court.

When we say "we are the children of G-d" it is poetic flourish and is metaphorical not literal no one can be the literal hild of G-d.

Same way we anthropomorphize G-d so that we have an easier time contextualizing G-d because otherwise it can be hard to wrap your mind around.

G-d is both genderfull and genderless at the same time. It depends on what you are talking about, in what context, and what aspect of G-d of you using. For example the Voice G-d and Presence of G-d are both in the feminine in Hebrew.

These have just been a tiny amount of examples from a vast vast array them.

My point is that if all these people are going to talk about Ben Shapiro especially ones with large followings please bring on someone who is actually knowledge and qualified to talk about this so the facts can properly be presented and explained.

Like I on occasion will listen to Leftovers podcast in background it hosted by Ethan from H3H and Hassan Piker and in the most recent episode that I was listening, which I had to stop because I was getting to annoyed by, they where talking about Ben Shapiro.

It was very frustrating for me. I get that Hassan might be very politically involved and knowledge about stuff, don't really know I don't watch him, but I was thinking the whole time that this is not an area you know.

You are talking about Jewish stuff and things related Jewish views points and you have no clue what you are talking about. You are talking about a religion and culture you just don't know anything about and are trying to debunk Ben Shapiro.

It will not work because you don't have necessary information and understanding to do so.

And you are missing the biggest point of it all which is again Ben is there as a draw for Christians. Because for these kinds of Christians having a Jew give a stamp of approval gives it some kind veneer of legitimacy.

It validates them and allows them to not have to feel guilty for crimes against Jewish people that they are party too.

This doesn't mean they like Jews or want us around or interested in our problems or helping us.

It is all about them in the same way they have Candace Owens tell them all the thing they want to hear so they never have to self-examine or reflect on anything and can assuage their white-guilt and keep of being horrific anti-Black.

They don't care about Black people or Black issues because they listen to a Black woman talk.

It is all for self-serving interests that they have been Ben and Candace there. While many seem to get that point (if you didn't get it before well get it now) in regards to Candace Owens and the purpose of her employment they miss that very important detail when comes to Ben Shapiro.

[artist-issues]

Your words and your posts have been incredibly disheartening for me to see. My mother left the church. She is not an apostate, but she did question the church’s teachings in secret. She completely left faith when I was born. I have congenital heart defects, which I was born with. I nearly died on the operating table. For this reason, my mother and I do not believe in God, who is said to be all-powerful and all-benevolent. My mother is a wonderful person. She risked her life in the Covid-19 pandemic as she works at a hospital. If anyone deserved to live in an eternal paradise, it would be her. Your LGBTQ+ views have also upset me. My oldest friend, who I have known since before I could even remember, is transgender and gay, and have been more supportive to me as a disabled person than any Christian has been. I’m only 18 years old, yet I know that you chose faith over experiences with the wonderful parts of humanity. Respectfully, please reconsider your views on gay and trans people.

I truly appreciate how thoughtfully and respectfully you typed out this message. It is clear that these matters mean a lot to you and I'm going to go ahead and assume that you aren't speaking out of any kind of hate.

I would just offer you a counter-perspective, and maybe by understanding where I'm coming from, you can see that I'm not speaking out of any kind of hate for people, either. I'm half blind. I was born that way. My twin sister and I were taken by emergency cesareans-section when we were incredibly, dangerously premature. My twin was given no chance of survival; the cesarean was just meant to give me a 50% chance of survival. At the time, my mother was recently married to a 19 year-old drug dealer after her own father abused and abandoned her and her mother. She'd been living apart from the faith for years, rejecting God to follow the occult or whatever political party had hear heart at the time. My father hated God.

But when my sister and I were fighting for life for weeks on end, and nobody was sure if we would live or die, and they had to bring us home with heart monitors because our hearts would literally stop beating several times a night, my mom realized how helpless she was to do anything to save us. And she prayed. And we lived. Both of us. Not only that, but my father, at 19 years old, addicted to drugs since the age of 13, narrowly escaped death and gave his life to Christ. After a whole life of having no social skills unless he was high, doing whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted, and caring about nothing but himself, now he is a Pastor (bi-vocationally; he is also a tradesman working with his hands) and has given me and all my family, and many other families, everything we have in our lives through his dedicated and faithful life. He and my mother have been happily married and serving God with their whole lives for almost thirty years now.

And not only them, but me, my twin sister, my younger sister, my little brother, my grandfather (who was an actual killer and drug addict as well) we all know God. We all have a relationship with Him. And that's the biggest most wonderful gift He gave us, out of all those wonderful things He did for us. Saving my life, my dad's life, my twin's life, changing who they were and making them new people.

I'm not telling you all that to like, compare disabilities or traumas or whatever. That would be ridiculous for lots of reasons. But I'm just trying to be honest.

It's not a religion or a system of beliefs that I've subscribed to. It's not a social flag I live under. It's not something I do just because my parents or the people in my immediate community have shown me. It's because He's real, and He showed Himself to me—when it's just me and Him, and nobody else's opinion or say-so matters— and it's all really true—everything the Bible says. And He's so much better, and so much more benevolent, than anyone on earth can describe to you.

And, at the same time, when you understand who He is, and who we are...the question isn't "how could a good God let anyone go to Hell instead of paradise?" The question is, "how could He let any of us live after what we did?" It's hard. But seriously, just play pretend with me for a bit, if only to "understand my perspective." Pretend there was a God, all-powerful, endlessly loving, in fact, Love Itself. The love that was His very nature spilled out so much that He created—created beautiful, amazing, complex creatures who were intrinsically full of worth and light, and made to reflect Him, that Love, back to Him, and share in it. A big happy family.

And then those creatures from the dirt committed cosmic treason and said "screw You, I don't care if You created me and I don't care if You love me or want to be in relationship with me: I want to be You. I want to call the shots." And those creatures from the dirt basically did the cosmic version of climbing in their father's lap to spit in His face, and go stab each other over fleeting pleasures in the gutter because the mansions He was offering them wasn't as good as pretending they could be gods of their own lives.

That's the story. Thats what happened. Read Genesis, if you have the time and if you're of the heart to. And because of what we chose, we got twisted up. I'm sure you read that, in my posts. So even the thing we were made for—love—got mangled up inside us and we can't express it the right way anymore.

He would've been justified in wiping us out. Starting over with new creatures. We were His creation. He gets to decide what we are and what to do with us: we betrayed and insulted and defied our rightful King. But He's not like that. He had no reason to--no obligation to--but He chose to do the work and make a way for us to be back in relationship with Him. And He chose to do it by subjecting Himself to unimaginable torture and darkness, which would have been ours by right if He hadn't taken it for us.

I know that you love your mom. It is plain to see. And I understand the feeling. But if you really get to know the God of the actual Bible, instead of just the memes and the flawed people who try to explain Him—if you really get to know Him, between you and Him, you'll see that He actually loves your mom more than you do. And He loves you more than you, or anyone, does. Because He knows you both better and more intimately than you even know Yourselves. He made you. It'd be like an author getting to dive down into the story and tell their characters everything about themselves.

That's the kind of love we were made for. The kind of love that is there even though you don't deserve it, even though you're not entitled to it—the kind of love that would die for you while you're still hating Him.

I mean just stop and think about it, clear your brain of everything everyone has ever told you about LGBTQ+ and all that. And just think: can you love someone wholeheartedly and still know they're in the wrong? Even when they wholeheartedly believe they're right? Even when they're hurt by you believing they're in the wrong? Of course you can. Anyone who's had a loved one with a self-destructive habit, like alcohol addiction or an abusive lover or just a toxic personality trait or two, can relate to that common sense. They can say, "of course I love you. That's why I'm telling you to stop doing this, it's hurting you, it's not good for you, I know it doesn't feel that way, but it's the truth."

So if you believe that there are some circumstances where that applies, what makes it so unloving for this hypothetical God, who knows the best thing for your friend and knows your friend better than you do, to say so about being LGBTQ+? Why should LGBTQ+ be any different?

Well, the answer, of course, is that you don't believe it is true that it's wrong. Because, if we rewind, you don't believe in God. But you just told me that you came to that conclusion kind of...after feeling hurt by Him. You almost died, first , then your mom chose to leave Him behind and go ahead and live as if He doesn't exist. And you did, too.

But let's go back to playing pretend. If God exists, then He didn't act how you think He should've, as an "benevolent" God: He didn't do YOUR version of "good." So you abandoned Him. (We're pretending like He exists, from your perspective.) He didn't do your version of good, you feel mistreated, so you walked away from Him.

But He would never do that to you. If He's the kind of person the Bible says He is, He doesn't treat you that way. When you (humanity) didn't do His version (which is the only real version, since He invented it) of good, He didn't abandon you. He totally could have. But instead He made a way for your relationship to get fixed. But you have free will. So He's not going to force you to love Him and accept the gift. If you want to continue for all eternity without being with Him, you can. He gives you that option.

But then don't wonder why people who choose that option don't get "eternal paradise." Because according to the Bible, that's all heaven is: getting to be in relationship with God forever. Fully who He made you to be. If you don't want that, He won't force it: in fact, He couldn't. It wouldn't be just, and He is always just.

The truth is, after what we did to Him, none of us deserve anything from Him. I didn't deserve to survive in that ICU. Neither did my sister. Neither did my father or mother or grandfather. None of us should be allowed to inhale another breath; we're the King's people who betrayed Him and tried to steal His throne. But He is so good that instead He turns around and adopts us.

I know this is rambly. But you messaged me so genuinely, I just sort of wrote this as if I were sitting down and talking it all out, one word in front of the other, with you. I don't know you. I know these are very hot button topics, and very personal issues; but like you, I think they're of the utmost importance.

So I will keep considering the LGBTQ+ and transgender issues—but you have to understand that I'm in service to the King, so to speak. I love Him, He loves me, and He's my God. When I consider any part of reality, it's impossible to do so without Him as the center and standard of truth. Without Him, who gets to decide what's right or wrong? Just me. And on my own, I am inconsistent, selfish, ruinous. But I'm not on my own. And in the meantime, I'll ask you to consider God, the real God, of the Bible. Not what a church of whatever denomination tells you—not to start with. Not what I tell you, or anyone tells you. Just what He said about Himself, straight from the Bible. Let Him speak for Himself. Thanks for reaching out.

[alarajrogers]

Just re-reading some of my old "for the love of God vote for Biden so we don't get Trump" posts, and I'm super happy that instead we have Kamala Harris, who people seem to be excited about... but I did notice a recurring theme in the leftist opposition (aside from refusal to actually understand electoral politics or pay attention to what's going on outside of the one issue they care about):

"We need to smash the existing system because it doesn't serve anyone! We need a revolution!"

It is understandable that Americans should believe in this fantasy. We have been taught that our Glorious Revolution that started this country was the height of righteousness and a wonderful thing for the whole world.

The problem is, it wasn't a revolution except in the most technical sense. It was the overthrow of a distant colonizing power and the institution of locally controlled government.

"Revolutions" that get rid of distant colonizing powers and grant the locals self-governance are often pretty successful, because the locals have a structure for self-governance already -- no distant colonizing power has ever been successful by installing nothing but puppets at every level of government in the entity they're trying to govern. But they're not really revolutions. They're the overthrow of occupying powers.

France took inspiration from us, misunderstanding what our "revolution" really meant, because they hadn't had 250 years to understand colonialism and what it meant and how it behaved... and their revolution involved unspeakable bloodshed and then takeover by a strongman who wanted to conquer Europe, and came damn close to doing it. How many French people died in the revolution? How many in the Napoleonic wars? Yeah, eventually they got their shit together and got a better government in place. It only took them a hundred years after the revolution... which, by the way, killed 16,000 French people. There were not that many nobles in the country. During the century of unrest that followed -- Wikipedia quotes this:

"Every [French] head of state from 1814 to 1873 spent part of his life in exile. Every regime was the target of assassination attempts of a frequency that put Spanish and Russian politics in the shade. Even in peaceful times governments changed every few months. In less peaceful times, political deaths, imprisonments and deportations are literally incalculable."

The Russian Revolution killed even more people. They started with the idealistic notion of a state that would wither away, and ended up with totalitarianism, and widespread hunger and black markets, because their version of Communism had to start with a state strong enough to strip everyone's property. They had a brief period of free press and free speech from the mid-80's when the Wall fell, to the 10's when Putin started turning them back into a colonizing empire. Now they are no better off than they were before the Revolution -- overall better food and health care, maybe, but less freedom to speak out against the government.

Oh, but our revolution would be different, right?

I want y'all who hope for revolution to seriously ask yourself these questions:

In the US, who has the most weaponry (outside of official government functions like military and cops)? How strong is our military? How leftist are our soldiers, in general? How leftist is the country, in general? Who controls the media that tells most of the country what to think?

I will answer those questions for you:

Right wing gun nuts who hate queers, Jews and Muslims and are not real happy with the notion that women and black people are human

Strong enough that if every single right wing gun nut rose up in revolution to kill our elected leaders, the military could put them down

Not very leftist at all

Our "left" is the rest of the world's center or moderate right

Big corporations, and a disproportionate number of evangelical Christian billionnaires who control those corporations

In other words, a violent leftist revolution is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. Never. Not in our lifetimes, at least. And I'm including three year olds in that "our" there. And if it did, it would probably condemn our country, and most of the world, to unrest for a hundred years, and might result in us ending up with a far-right-wing dictatorship at the end of the churn.

The far left wing of this country -- the communists and extreme socialists who want to see all or most capitalism destroyed -- are a tiny minority of the nation. The progressives, who want stronger socialist protections but are okay with capitalism existing with stronger controls, and who want to see all people being treated as equals, are not a minority but have almost no guns in comparison to the right wing. Guns are actually necessary in rural areas due to the existence of wolves, bears, coyotes who will eat your chickens, etc, so even if we had excellent gun control measures, the majority of the non-government weapons would be held in the rural areas, which are predominantly white, Christian, and have been largely taught that queers, Jews, Muslims, atheists and socialists are evil subhumans. But most of the non-military weapons are held by cops... who exist to protect property rights and are so riddled with racism, sexism, ableism and corruption that good cops often end up dead rather than being able to change anything.

When do you think a minority of leftists who mostly do not have guns are going to be able to mount a revolution against the most powerful military in the world, against cops who are willing to drop bombs on civilians (check out the story of MOVE in Philadelphia, and recall that the cops have gotten worse toward civilians since then), against the people who feel like they're not really safe unless they have twenty-seven guns in their home and they know how to shoot all of them?

Your leftist violent overthrow of the wealthy will never happen, because all the wealthy will do is use the media to redirect a substantial number of you into attacking Jewish doctors and lawyers for being "rich" instead (or for being "Zionists", which is happening right now, because anti-semitic hostile powers like Iran and Russia have infiltrated your leftist spaces and filled them with misinformation), and the people who should share your class consciousness think you should be dead for not being a straight evangelical Christian, or for believing in Communism, or both.

Your only hope is to change the culture. Change the government through non-violent ways like peaceful protest, calls and letters to your representatives, and voting. Change people's beliefs by writing, teaching, running for office and speaking, controlling school boards to make sure the next generation are taught to question authority and not mindlessly accept everything the media tells them. Make things better in little ways, then crow about it so everyone knows you did it, then use that to prove that you could make things better in bigger ways if you were given the power to do so.

You have tried, election after election, to "teach the Democrats a lesson" by withholding your votes, to make them go further left. As a result they went further right. Because if leftists don't vote, why should an elected politician care what they want? Go after the people in the middle who could maybe be pried loose from the right wing, by catering to them. That's how we got Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act and welfare "reforms" that fucked over poor single moms and why we still don't have national marijuana legalization despite the fact that Bill Clinton admitted to smoking it in college. When a strategy has not only failed to work but has made matters much worse, over the course of at least 20 years, maybe 50, why do you keep pushing it like it changes anything?

You argue, votes don't change anything. Has nothing changed in 50 years? Corporations have more power now than when Howard Beale yelled "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore" in the movie Network, in the 70's. Real wages are down. The job I do paid $90 an hour in 2010 and now it pays $70 -- that's not "with inflation", that is actual numbers. AIDS happened and killed untold thousands of gay men, drug users, hemophiliacs and people who needed blood donations, because the left wing didn't come out to support Jimmy Carter, so we got Reagan instead. Reagan didn't cause AIDS, but he did his damned best to make sure that AIDS research got no federal funding. Many things got worse because you didn't come out and vote.

Things have also gotten better. Because people who are nowhere near as far left as you economically, but who believe all humans should have rights, have voted, so now we have a world where on paper everyone is equal and discrimination is illegal, which is nothing at all like a world where everyone is actually equal but a hell of a lot better than a world where people are allowed to legally discriminate. But meanwhile things turned to shit for the working class. Because you guys are the ones who put pressure on the government to protect people's economic rights, and you abdicated because you wanted to teach the politicians a lesson. Well, you sure did. You taught them that nobody who votes cares all that much about economic justice. It's only now that late-stage capitalism and corporate/right-wing control of our economic system has gotten so toxic it affects the middle class, that we're seeing any economic reform at all or any pushback against corporations -- because you gave up. Because you declared, on the basis of no evidence because most of you are 20 and the rest have become so beaten down by life that you're hopelessly cynical, that votes don't matter.

The right wing buckled down and voted. Every election. Dogcatcher, school board, municipal waste authority, whatever. Vote for the person who gets you closer to where you want to go. And as a result, we are on a precipice where, despite how unpopular their extreme ideology is nation-wide, they are on the verge of being able to achieve it -- the rollback of everything we've successfully achieved throughout my lifetime, 55 years of progress, gone. Or, we can have leadership who have been trying to push a progressive agenda, uphill both ways but they're doing what they can.

This is where we are. Because you want moral purity. You want to absolve yourselves of all the bad things American leaders do by not voting for any of them. But since you had the power to vote and you didn't use it, there is no absolution for you. Everything an American leader does that is worse than what his opponent would have done, your hands are dirty if you didn't vote against him. And if you wilfully refuse to understand that voting third party in a presidential election is basically not voting at all, and that all it does is make both of the large national parties that are capable of winning ignore you, and that this behavior is why we are in such a shitty place right now...

Well, maybe you think your conscience is clear, but honestly, you are the guy standing next to the trolley lever operator, saying, "Well, I didn't do anything to stop him from making sure 1 guy died instead of 5, because making 1 guy die is as bad as making 5 guys die, so my hands are clean!" And then the next trolley operator comes along and wilfully kills the 5 people on the train tracks and you didn't stop him either, because the last guy killed 1, and you refused to accept that your choices were 1 or 5. And because you gave away all your actual power, and fantasized about power you don't have and never will, you imagined that someday, in a perfect world, you and your friends will fix the trolley system so it never hits anyone. But you aren't even engineers, you won't pick up tools, you don't join public transportation planning committees, and you won't even stop the guy who keeps turning the lever to kill 5 people because the 1 on the other track gives him money, because the other guy killed 1 to save 5 and that makes him just as bad in your eyes.

[iwillsearchtheuniverse4u]

Study Session

Warnings: Smut! Pure filth actually Oral! (on female anatomy) Sex! in a public bathroom BDSM! (kinda, not really)

Summary: Mingi is a philosophy major and he gives the reader free study sessions. Except they are not free.

It was one of those painfully slow Wednesday mornings and I was passing through the park in front of our department's building. The ground was frozen with little crystals forming on the cement but there was no snow in sight. The cold weather had always made me feel just a little bit more annoyed with the exam season slowly approaching and there was no way to stop it. Since there was noone around I let a tiny curse word escape my mouth as I noticed my fingers going numb tightly holding the strap of my tote bag. My phone vibrated in my hand reminding me to hurry to the study session I had been dreading for weeks.

He was a university senior of mine. I had known him since my freshman year which had been exactly a year and a half ago. He was the kind of handsome everyone would whisper about in secret but noone would dare approach. His tall wide frame emitted a presence similar to that of an old oak tree and the fact he was majoring in philosophy kind of coincided with that. He would always speak in a low raspy voice making you listen even more intently to his carefully structured sentences. Many people from my literature department respected him dearly as he was praised even by our professor for Philosophy of Literature, one of the most difficult classes which I had failed the previous year. 

Song Mingi himself was now standing right in front of me with his hands inside the pockets of his long black coat. His black eyes were piercing directly through me as I stopped in front of the entrance to the main university library. "I'm right on time, I thought I was going to be late," I said to break the silence. I nervously fiddled with my tote bag looking around to catch a glimpse of anything else than his beautiful face. The library was almost empty since all the students had left to celebrate Christmas with their families and I was not raised Christian. I guess he was not either. 

"We'll start with Derrida's deconstruction. You mentioned it was the most difficult to understand," he stated in his low tone already turning away from me to pull open the door. His coat skimmed my calves before he motioned me to enter first. We sat at the desk furthest away from the entrance facing eachother. I had had no idea just how difficult this was going to be for me as a girl who had never even properly talked to a man like him before. But he was the first my department seniors would direct me to for help with this god-forsaken subject and I had no other options if I ever wanted to graduate. It was not like I had never spoken to him before but we had never been together like this, just the two of us and it made me strangely fidgety. I tried so hard to play it cool but my shaky fingers gave it away when I was taking the notes out of my bag. I noticed his elegant long fingers playing with his silver rings as he was looking around the empty library. His blue highlights made his raven black hair appear even more dreamy. Observing him up close made me realise just how handsome he was.

After an hour and a half of him explaining all of the details about the main exam material and my endless stream of questions I let my forehead softly land on the wooden desk in exhaustion. “Mingi, I feel like I’ll never get this. It all seems so similar and I have no idea how to explain it by myself.” I looked up with teary eyes at the brink of giving up and saw his smile with a hint of what it seemed to be rosy cheeks. I was lost for words as I had never seen him blush before and I could not find a reason for it. “Don’t worry, you will do just fine…” he said as he clearly had trouble maintaining eye contact with me. I finally realised what the problem had been all this time. As I was hunching over the desk in self-pity I was also exposing my chest because my white sweater had a pretty deep v-line. As soon as I noticed where his eyes were wandering I sat up straight and tried to clear my throat. I couldn’t help myself but to notice his tiny lip bite as he looked back at the notes so it kept my mind occupied for the next thirty minutes of his explanation.

“Wait, no! That’s not the point I was trying to make here,” he said, annoyed, and walked around the desk to sit next to me. “Jakobson analysed language as a system of relationships. If we talk about the poetic function of language the message focuses only on its own words that have been used,” he tried to explain pointing at the underlined words in my notes. He sat so close to me I could feel his breath on my arm and I couldn’t keep my head clear anymore. It was like the idea of him touching me had consumed me completely. I felt my cheeks burning and I was sure he had noticed too but I was too afraid to even look at him. “If I say something like ‘your skin must taste as sweet as honey’ what function does this message carry?” he asked with a slightly deeper tone. I looked at him and his eyes were darker as before, he definitely wasn’t looking at the notes anymore. His eyes wandered around my body again. “Ehm…poetic?” He didn’t break eye contact at all as his hand started to move toward mine on the desk. His pinky traced my arm all the way up to my shoulder and then he moved his hand to my thigh. He suddenly grabbed it tightly making me audibly gasp. I was so shocked I couldn’t move my body at all, his eyes kept mine locked in a very intense staring contest. “That’s a good girl,” he whispered as his long fingers started moving upward along the innermost part of my thigh. When he reached my clothed core I couldn’t stop a moan from escaping my lips and my eyes from closing. I suddenly had a sudden burst of reason hit me and my hand instantly stopped his from moving any further. “Mingi, there are definitely librarians around and the cameras are everywhere…ahh!” My loose grip on his fingers wasn’t enough to stop him so he rubbed my jeans exactly where it mattered. I squeezed my thighs together in pleasure and gripped my chair to hold myself up. When I finally caught his eyes he was grinning at me with fire in his eyes. He moved his face closer to my neck and whispered: “don’t worry, I wouldn’t let anyone see you like this, all worked up. You look too stunning.” He stood up, buttoned up his coat and led me to the bathroom.

He opened up a stall in the men’s bathroom and lightly pushed me inside. After closing the door behind him he pushed me against it and pursued what he had been doing before in the reading room: sliding his fingers up and down along my clothed wetness. I couldn’t stand up straight so my body automatically slid down along the door but he held me up by my waist. For a moment he stopped his teasing and moved his face closer to mine. “I really do want to know if you taste like honey. Everywhere,” he whispered before kissing my lips with a certain amount of gentleness. I gripped the door behind me as the sloppiness of his kiss elevated and all I could focus on was his body grinding against mine in waves of pleasure. I could feel all of him, every inch of his warm body against mine, his growing erection right against my lower belly. The fire from our mouths spread all over. As his lips moved down along my jawline to my neck all I could say was: “then taste me.” It seemed to have made him more eager and dangerous. The bruises on my neck weren’t going to be easy to hide the next day but that wasn’t a problem for me to solve at that moment. The only thing I wanted was for Mingi to touch me where my growing pains were. I pushed his shoulders down, trying to get him to go down on me as soon as possible. I undressed my sweater and he took his sweet time sucking on my breasts. My moans were hard to control so I put my hand over my mouth to at least try to silence them while he reached my bellybutton and unbuttoned my jeans. It all happened so quickly but the next thing I felt was his tongue in between my folds producing so much pleasure I could barely hold myself back from pushing his face closer. I grabbed his raven black hair in pleasure with one hand while the other was still desperately holding on to my mouth to keep the moans from disturbing the whole library. He sucked on my clit right to the breaking point and then suddenly stopped which left me aching for more.

“I’m gonna make you work just a little bit harder for this,” he said as he looked up at me. He looked ten times hotter sitting on his knees in front of me, licking his fingers before inserting them inside me. Both of my hands instinctively reached for my mouth to silence myself but the moans kept coming out stronger as his lips joined his fingers and synchronised. As I reached my orgasm, I said through my moans: “M-Mingi…aahhh… I need you inside me.” As soon as I got off my high, he stood up and kissed me, making me taste myself on his tongue. I reached for his black leather belt and unbuckled it in a hurry. “Fuck, you’re so hot when you’re needy,” he whispered right into my ears, his warm breath on my neck. I let the belt fall on the floor but he picked it up and tied it around my hands behind my back. After that his hands were all over my ass while his lips were producing art on my neck again. “It’s okay if you’re loud, just make sure to say my name so that everyone knows who’s responsible,” he said and smiled at me.

I heard him unzipping his pants while I was trying the hardest to stay quiet. He took a condom out of his wallet and rolled it on his already dripping dick. He entered me slowly and filled me completely. I could feel every inch of him painfully twitching inside me as he tucked my hair behind my ear and whispered: “tell me how much you want this, use your words, baby girl.” I could barely keep my composure at the sudden wave of pleasure that ran like electricity through my body when I heard his low voice sounding like he was begging me to give him permission to move inside me. “Mingi, I want you to fuck me like this is the last day of our lives.” His cock twitched inside of me and he cursed quietly as he started pounding into me with my name on his breath. At that point I couldn’t even remember my own name, let alone keep myself from moaning Mingi’s name. My tied hands were knocking into the door behind me with every grind of his body against mine. He started moving faster and cursing in between moans so I knew he was getting closer. My second high came and my walls tightened around his cock which made him come too. His head fell back and his whole body shook against me while he rode out his orgasm. I couldn’t stand up properly after he finished so he held me up and kissed me gently to calm me down. He stroked my cheek when I caught my breath and cleaned me up with a tissue. When he unbuckled the belt from around my wrists I could already tell my neck wasn’t going to be the only thing bruised the next day.

“We should do this more often,” he said with one of his eyebrows raised suspiciously as we were leaving the bathroom. “The tutoring, I mean.” His cocky smile made my mind run wild. The library was empty but my flushed cheeks were still making an appearance. “Maybe next time I can do a home visit,” he said as he squeezed my ass.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

how do you keep your faith even while such horrific things are going on in palestine? i've been a christian all my life and i understand that the question of why god allows suffering is one that people have always been asking, that we can never really know the answer to, but it's just so hard for me to see things like this, all of these innocent people being terrorized and murdered in such evil ways, and understand why god can't stop it from happening. in church we pray for both israel and palestine and it feels so pointless, and just makes me frustrated that i can't actually do anything to stop this. especially knowing that even bethlehem, the place of jesus's birth and home to many palestinian christians, is being attacked and churches are being bombed. it seems pretty clear that the people committing these atrocities are never going to open their hearts and stop, and the world leaders who would have the power to make them stop either don't care or directly support them. i do not want to believe that god doesn't exist, or that god would just sit by and watch all of this happen if it were possible to stop it, but it's such a struggle at times like this. i feel like it shouldn't be and like i should've had this figured out by now. it's okay if you don't answer this, i just love your blog and have learned a lot from it over the years, and am incredibly saddened by the state of the world right now.

Hey there, anon. I feel with you and stand with you in your struggle. I also gently suggest you work on letting go of the sense that you "should" have this figured out by now. Firstly because learning to release myself from "shoulds" is something my therapist taught me and it's been super helpful for showing myself love; secondly because I believe it is deeply, deeply faithful to ask these questions, to demand to know where God is in the face of evil — not just once, but continuously across our lives.

If at any point we think we have it "all figured out," if we think we've reached a fully satisfying solution to the problem of how a good God could "let" evil things happen, we're more likely to be numbed by fatalism or become complacent in the face of injustice. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (may his memory be a blessing) put it when asked why God lets bad things happen to good people,

“God does not want us to understand, because if we ever understood, we would be forced to accept that bad things happen to good people, and God does not want us to accept those bad things. He wants us not to understand, so that we will fight against the bad and the injustices of this world, and that is why there is no answer to that question.”

Ask the questions. Bring all that you feel — your grief, your confusion, your frustration, your doubt, your fear — to God. Study and pray and converse with others.

And while you're doing all that, and accepting that it'll be a lifelong exploration, act.

Let your love, your words, your actions be the divine response to injustice — because for whatever mysterious reason, God chooses to act through us, through all who follow Their call to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly" (Micah 6:8).

___

So yeah, I can't tell you why God doesn't just jump in and stop the evil, why God seems to limit Their own power to intervene (or even to lack that power to begin with), why God respects our free will even when we misuse it to such great harm (though you can see the bottom of this post for places to explore all those questions).

But I can tell you where I believe God is in the midst of all the questions, all the loss, all the suffering — and that's not on some lofty throne indifferently observing our pain; God is right there in the midst of that pain.

Where is God in the face of hate, violence, death? God is co-suffering with us, shouldering the burden with us.

In Exodus 3:7, God says They don't only see the enslaved Hebrews' misery, don't only hear their cries, but that They know the people's suffering — an intimate knowing, as of one who experiences it themself.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that when humanity fails to welcome the stranger, visit the prisoner, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the oppressed, we fail to do those things for him — for he identifies so intimately with all whom the world calls "least" that he is one with each and every one of them.

So I don't know why God doesn't just fix everything, dammit! — it's the first question I'll be asking Xir when I die, because wtf!!

But I do believe, and I do draw some comfort knowing, that God does not leave us to suffer alone. God is one with the oppressed; God shows ultimate solidarity to the oppressed; and God acts with each of us who act for and with and as the oppressed.

And the good news in the midst in this horror is that there are things that all of us can be doing to act in solidarity with the oppressed!

Our efforts truly are making a difference. Politicians and whole governments across the globe have been startled by the resistance to pro-Israeli propaganda and solidarity with Palestine. The change is slow, but our protests are making an impact. Palestinians have been asking that we keep protesting, boycotting, educating, spreading the word. Because it is helping, slowly but surely.

As long as Palestinians refuse to give in to despair, we too must continue to fight. Palestine will be free. We will not stand silent as genocide occurs.

Boycott as many of the companies named by BDS as you can. Notice that they're focusing on a narrower, more targeted group of companies than some of the enormous lists people keep sharing — that's to help us avoid becoming overwhelmed! So boycott what you can from their list; these are the companies directly contributing to Israel's violence. And spread their list to anyone you can.

If you live in a country with a government that has yet to join the call for a ceasefire — and especially if you, like me here in the US, live in a country that is actively funding/otherwise supporting Israel's violence — call or email your representatives to demand a ceasefire.

Resistbot can help make that easy, in the US at least.

Educate yourself about the history of Palestine and Israel. It's important so that you can recognize lies and propaganda, and also so you can speak knowledgeably about the issue with others. It's also important because understanding and simply bearing witness are two big things Palestinians ask of us. You don't need to know everything, but know enough to bear witness, to remember the loss, and to debunk bullshit when you see it.

Here are some places you can get educated — link to free ebooks; article on current events; article with current perspectives from Gaza; and I've been reblogging news & resources as I see them over on @a-queer-seminarian

Post about what Gaza is going through on social media!! Don't let the fight die down! Talk about it with friends or others you think might be swayed to join the fight if they had the information that most media stations are failing to report on.

Stand up against Islamophobia in all forms.

Stand up against antisemitism in all forms. As Christians, this includes recognizing and uprooting supersessionism in our biblical interpretation, our liturgy, our hymns, etc. It also means learning about Christian Zionism.

One of Israel's primary arguments for the "necessity" of its oppression of Palestine is that Israel is necessary because nowhere else on earth is safe for Jews. They're right that nowhere else is safe for Jews; but they're wrong that Israel is safe for Jews — an settler-colonialist state, a war zone, a state that requires every civilian to serve some time in the military, is not safe for Jews either. But as long as they can point to the antisemitism rampant across the globe, they can use that as an argument. So to counter Israel, and much more importantly to stand in solidarity with Jewish people across the world, don't let antisemitism go unchecked.

Join in protests in your area. Follow Jewish Voices for Peace or Jews Against White Supremacy for info on such events.

Link to places to offer fin.ancial support

Want more ways to act? Check out https://www.palestineaction.org/

___

There is no easy answer to the question of suffering — but even so, it can be helpful to explore it deeper, to examine what conclusions others have drawn over the eras. If you want some resources for your wrestling, here are some:

This post goes into the basics of theodicy, the "the intellectual effort to jerry-rig three mutually exclusive terms into harmony: divine power, goodness, and the experiences of evil"

Then there's my #theodicy tag where I put all posts / links about this issue

I also have a long-ass YouTube video diving deep into "the problem of suffering"!

___

I hope this response brings you comfort and courage, friend. Don't be afraid of questions, of grief, of concern — let them galvanize you for the struggle. Solidarity forever <3

[chrysalis-the-butterfly]

People who have been following me since 2022 will know that I have a bad habit of becoming obsessed with things I haven't actually watched. The Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers film became my new special interest in 2022, but I didn't watch it in full until 2023, when I finally got Disney+.

Well, it's happening again.

Right now, I'm mildly obsessed with Hazbin Hotel.

Now, I haven't seen none of it. I've watched the pilot on YouTube, and I've watched the first episode of the Prime Video series (which is freely available on YouTube). I don't have Prime Video, so I haven't seen the rest of it.

But I have been listening to the songs, browsing Tumblr for talking points, and watching scattered clips and reviews and essays on YouTube - which is basically what I was doing with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.

I'm a Christian (awkward!), and it initially bothered me that the show didn't mention God or Jesus at all. Not that I'd have wanted them to poke fun at God or Jesus ... but I'd assumed the series was meant to be a satire of Christianity, pointing out how much it sucks that its believers can be so judgmental and unforgiving when the faith is supposed to be about love and forgiveness. So I was quite surprised by the reveal that the angels don't actually know what gets you into Heaven. What, you don't even have the Ten Commandments? You don't have any rules that you impose? You can't satirise Christianity if you don't understand what you're satirising!

But upon reflection, I guess Hazbin Hotel is meant to be seen more as a cautionary tale about hypocrisy and second chances and redemption - about those concepts in general, rather than how they're (mis)used specifically by Christians. It's about how the people preemptively labelled "bad" who do bad things are clearly proving they're bad, while the people labelled "good" who do bad things are defended and justified because there must have been a good reason for what they did. Even if a good reason isn't apparent. And the settings of Heaven and Hell are just being used as vehicles for that social commentary.

It seems as though Hazbin Hotel is not really about Heaven and Hell, it's about life on Earth. But there are still some things that are interesting to think about from a theological viewpoint.

To close this slightly rambling post, here are some even more scattered thoughts, which may evolve if I actually get to watch the full thing:

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

"You Didn't Know" is a banger!

As is "Poison". Kind of reminds me of "All You Wanna Do" from Six: The Musical - in that it's a bop, but the lyrics are dark because they're about sexual abuse.

I really enjoy the "I'm a Disney Princess in a Hellish landscape" thing that Charlie's got going on.

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

I hope we get to see more of Emily and more of Heaven in the second season.

I wasn't sure about Vaggie at first, but she's grown on me.

My favourite characters are Charlie, Vaggie, Emily and Angel Dust. I refer to them as Charlie's Angels.

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

After a year of basically binge-watching loads of kids' cartoons on Disney+, it's still feels jarring to watch a cartoon where people say the F-word a lot.

Wait, Angel Dust has a twin sister? Molly? And she might be in Heaven? Is that girl with four legs we see in Heaven supposed to be Molly, or is she just a random background character? Why is she in Heaven when Angel Dust isn't? Are they going to be reunited? Is Molly friends with Emily?

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

[sophieinwonderland]

im a bit nervous to say this cause i really dont involve myself in tulpa discourse other than stating im accepting of tulpas, but its my understanding in life that people can't own actions. yes certain cultures and religions may have their specific way of doing something and make it their own, but that doesn't mean they own that action, they own the way they do the action. (im using own kinda liberally im not trying to imply they have some sort of legal ownership lol) but so with tibetan buddhist tulpamancy (i cant for the life of me remember the word they actually use) they dont own the concept of creating another entity in your mind or "self" but they do own the way they do it and their beliefs attached to it. im trying to relate this to something but i cant think of any analogies that would be as specific as this, and i dont want any anti-tulpas to see my general example and think im comparing to very different things.

Yeah, I think tulpacourse can be pretty difficult to wade through sometimes. Personally, I'm not entirely sure I even agree with the concept of owning your own beliefs. Even in a figurative way. Aside from, maybe, actually totally closed cultures.

I see beliefs as things that are meant to be shared, adapted, or sometimes even torn apart and scavenged for scraps. And sometimes, I do think the way these things happen might be offensive to some people who feel connected to them.

I don't really feel like this applies in the case of tulpamancy at all because I think it's so far divorced from Tibetan Buddhism as to not share any beliefs with it whatsoever.

But this was something I thought about a lot during the whole thing about God being plural. Because there, I'm playing directly with people's very sacred and personal beliefs. And I'm doing so in a way that some people are going to find offensive.

And the thing I decided is that... I don't feel like Christians have ownership over their beliefs. Not in a way that they would get to dictate who can use them or how they're used.

Yes, they can complain if they find something offensive or blasphemous. And some will do that very loudly. But I don't think I should feel obligated to avoid offending people either.

Especially when Christianity is itself based on Judaism. In fact, basically every old religion is a permutation of a permutation of a permutation, dating back thousands of years to religions which would look very differently from anything that's practiced today.

And I also think again on certain practices that some might consider offensive, such as the conversation on Godspouses where some people believe they both can communicate and marry certain deities. I don't see that people from those religions have any sort of right to police the beliefs of others. They can be offended by godspouses if they want. But that doesn't mean the godspouses are somehow in the wrong for their beliefs and experiences nor should they feel obligated to change how they worship and connect to their deities to please others.

...

As a side note, there was another fun note to come out of the tulpa AMA that I wanted to share. Michael Lifshitz is working with a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism to write an article on the practice tulpamancy was based on, going over texts that have never been translated to English!

So that's something pretty cool to look forward to! 😁

[eclairfromleclerc]

Hello everyone. It’s been a long long time since I posted here but I guess life has caught up. I have been writing this chapter for god knows how long because I just couldn’t bring myself to write certain scenes. I still have so many ideas and directions about where this fic can go but as you understand, I need my time to actually try and write those ideas. I am now giving you the 8th chapter of this story which is a generous 14.6 K words to make up for my long long absence. I really hope there will be people still interested to read this. Always keep in mind that english isn’t my native language so pardon any mistakes or inclarities. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Wait patiently for the next part. Take Care, xx.

All’s Fair

(Toto Wolff x Reader) Chapter 8

chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 6 chapter 7

Landing in Jeddah feeling like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders, after closing the deal with the Bahraini investors from your Monday meeting, is the only thing you could have asked for. Nothing has been bothering you for the past few days but the fact that Christian still hasn't said anything about you being late to your meeting, made you feel a little weird. Your little text exchanges with Toto made up for the whole madness.

As soon as your phone connects to the network you see a new notification popping up.

Christian Dad Horner 

No need to come over today, I got everything scheduled for the press, me and Helmut will handle it

Get some rest.

You raise your eyebrow reading , not knowing what your father is up to. Is he drunk? Is he out of his mind? You lock your phone and get off the plane. You check in your hotel, go to your room and settle in. As you take your clothes off your suitcase you find once again Toto’s Mercedes shirt in it and you take it out and put it on a hanger and in your closet. Thursdays are supposed to be a fun day in the paddock because of all the media and generally relaxed vibe that everyone has. The fact that no sessions take place on Thursdays doesn’t mean everyone isn’t working hard but still Christian thought your presence was not necessary, so here you are. Your phone rings with a new notification

Wolff

What’s your schedule for the press today?

You 

Christian told me he and Helmut will handle it, I won’t be joining today

I am just bored, sitting in my hotel room 

You open the camera on the app and snap a picture of your computer on your bed and some snacks nearby and you hit send

Wolff 

So you get to relax.

Enjoy it for all of us who have to work

You 

Will do :)

You spend the rest of your day in your room and meet Max to grab dinner at the hotel restaurant. Much less eventful for a usual race week Thursday. 

The next day you wake up, have breakfast and get ready to leave for the track. You check you have everything you need with you including your iPad and your badge to get in the paddock and you drive the Aston Martin, you lease for the weekend, to the track. You get to the entrance and scan your badge. To your surprise the screen in front of you shows a red cross and a message saying ‘Access Denied’. You try once again but the same message appears. You reach for your phone to call Christian to get you from the entrance. You wait for a couple of seconds before you hear his voice, the noise from the garage familiar to your ears. 

“Hey Dad” 

“Hello” you hear him answering

“It seems like my pass isn’t working, can you please come here and let me through?” you ask

“Oh I am quite busy right now sweetheart.”

“Can you send someone else instead?” 

“Um, I am sorry I have to tell you this but there’s a reason why your pass isn’t working.”

“What ?”

“It is going to remain like this for sometime, before I trust you to come back to the team”

“Did you cancel my pass because of what happened on Monday?”

“You should have been ready for this. I can’t discuss it more right now, we are having a meeting before FP1”

“Can you at least let me know about the meeting?”

“No, you are not in the team currently so, nothing to share. Feel free to fly back to England or Monaco with the next flight you find” Christian tells you and then ends the call. 

Thank god you thought about moving a bit further from the entrance so no one heard your discussion with your father. You feel a rush of anger coming at you but you hold yourself and walk as gracefully as you can back to your car, as people are watching you. You drive off the track and you pull over at the first parking space you see. You sit there in silence, since you were so confused that you didn’t even think to put some of your playlists on, and you try to realize what is happening. You let out a scream and tears roll over your face as you think of your father and all his five year old antics. But then you get the best and the worst idea you could possibly come up with. You drive fast back to your hotel and you run to your suite. You open the closet, grab Toto’s Mercedes shirt, stuff it in your new bag  that you haven’t worn in public, put on some tight black pants, some flat shoes and search furiously for that Mercedes face mask that Toto gave you that day in your travel bag. You get back to your car and drive to the track again, pulling over to wear the shirt and making yourself look like a mercedes employee. You leave the car a bit farther than usual so that fans don’t recognize you coming out of the car with the Mercedes gear. You once again walk to the paddock entrance. Hair tied on a bun, face mask and huge Gucci sunglasses covering your face. You get there not having thought of a way to get in. So you go with your instincts. 

“Hey” you say to the security guard. 

“Hi, how may I help you?” 

“Um, I am a new employee for Mercedes but I can’t seem to find my badge to get in.” you say with the best American accent that you have. Not that it mattered since the guard was Saudi Arabian. “Can you maybe call Mr. Wolff to come here? I’ll explain the situation to him” 

“I’ll reach Mr Lord.” he says

“No, no. You should call Mr.Wolff instead. I am not sure Mr. Lord is aware of my arrival here.”

“I’ll try to call Mr. Wolff then.” 

5 minutes later you see the Austrian walking to the entrance of the paddock and on his way there he waves to people, greets others and takes some photos. 

He goes to the security guard that called him

“What is it?” he asks

“This lady claimed that she’s a new employee for your team but she seems to have lost her badge, she insisted that I should call you instead of Mr. Lord.” 

Toto turns to look at you and you don’t hesitate. If you are going to get in, this is your chance. 

“Hello Mr. Wolff. My name is Mindy Roosevelt, I am here from the American branch of Daimler.” you say-again in your american accent- not being even 1% sure that you are making any sense. “I was sent here to assist you but it has been a really tricky week for me.” you look at Toto and he looks as confused as ever. “I was supposed to be here yesterday but my flight was canceled so I had to travel to Abu Dhabi to catch a connecting flight.” you try to give him hints of who you are, not being sure he understands. “ I had to look for the advisor of Daimler US Anri Hakkassan to give me my badge but then my wallet got stolen at the airport so I was left without a badge and my ID to show you who I am.” you see Toto’s eyes getting wider and wider as he realizes who you are. Your story seemed convincing for the security guard but Toto can’t leave you outside. He takes a deep breath 

“Ah yes miss Roosevelt I was waiting for you all day. Sorry to hear this. Come on.” he says and signals to the guard to let you through. You walk in the paddock and to the Mercedes hospitality, Toto not hesitating for a minute at the thought of you coming from another team. As soon as you both get in you see Bradley drinking coffee in the main lounge area of the motorhome and he greets you.

“I don’t want anyone bothering me for the next half an hour at least” he says to Bradley and he walks to his office as you follow him closely. You close the door behind you and Toto reaches and locks it. You take off your mask trying to apologize for the mess you’ve created. 

“I am so sorry Toto” you say and you hear him laugh 

“What is this?” he asks as he continues laughing

“Are you mad at me?” 

“No, I am just wondering how the hell you got yourself in this situation.”

“Christian blocked my paddock pass”

“He did what?” he asks looking slightly amused 

“This isn’t funny Toto, you know how much I love being in the team”

“That’s why you are hijacking my team?” he asks

“Christian thought that removing me from the team for a couple of races is a good way to punish me for being late at that meeting we had.”

“He did it just because you were 35 minutes late?” 

“You don’t realize Christian has a mind of a five year old when it’s about work right?”

“You said the investors were not mad that you were late, you even managed to charm them into signing a deal.”

“Yeah but Christian was mad, and he says it’s not about the investment, it’s about basic work ethic. Anyways, I can’t buy a paddock pass because I am not the type to sit in the lounge to watch the race. I need to be in the team. Plus I can’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me depressed because I am not at the pitwall or the garage.”

“How stubborn.”

“Yeah I am.”

“That’s very Horner of you.” he tells you and you roll your eyes at his obvious reference to your father’s stubbornness.  

“You are my only chance Toto, the other teams don’t even have a reason to accept me, except from Alpha Tauri, but I can’t go begging Franz about a paddock pass when he is clearly influenced by my dad.”

“Why are we even your only chance, we are your main competitors.” he asks

“I swear to god Toto I will do anything just to be here until Christian decides to drop the farce that he started. I will sign an NDA, I will keep my mouth shut about anything I see, I will delete it from my mind. Just let me be in the garage for the next few races.”

“How many races?” he looks at you

“I don’t know 3 maybe 4?” you tell him barely whispering.

“That’s a lot.” he replies “But for you I’ll try to do my best.” 

You try not to scream as you stand up from your seat, walk to his chair and hug him. You catch him off guard as he widens his eyes but then you feel his tension leaving him. 

“From now on you are Mindy Roosvelt and you came here to assist me as a part of your internship at Daimler US. You studied in New York, and you are American. You don’t know for how many races you’ll be here but it’s not long term.” Toto says taking his teacher look

“Understood.”

“You should never remove your mask in front of others, just tell them that you are at risk or something. Don’t wear high heels. We should do something about your hair so that people won’t realize it’s you and I advise you to wear sunglasses as much as possible, I’ll have Lewis hand me his collection from the Police Collaboration.”

“I’ll buy a wig. Can I have some more shirts and a couple of masks?”

“Is this shirt mine?” he asks and you nod “Looks good on you.” he says

“I’ll use yours then.” you tell him and you see him grinning. 

“I’ll have someone send you a couple of shirts, pants and shoes. I'll request your new paddock pass and I will be printing your NDA.”

“If anything leaks into Red Bull I swear I’ll be the first to go to court even if I am innocent.” you tell him and he laughs “Don’t laugh, I need you to see how serious I am about this. I won’t be saying anything to anyone.”

“I trust you. The NDA part is only about the team having to be legally protected.” 

“Okay” you say 

“Your office must be ready. It’s just the room next door, please lock it when you’re in.” he advises you “And please don’t forget your American accent once you go outside.” 

“I won’t forget. If we happen to see Christian around, just stay calm, I’ll handle it.”

“Okay” he says and you sit in silence for a couple of minutes. 

“I’ll go next door now.” you say and you stand up. “Oh sorry Toto, can I ask you about one last thing?” 

“What is it?” 

“Christian told me that I am free to leave with the next flight so I will be checking out of the hotel and I thought maybe I should be at the Mercedes hotel?” 

“I’ll arrange it. See you later.” he replies as you put on your mask and go to the room next door.  

20 minutes later you hear the door knocking, you stand up and reach for it 

“Who is this?” 

“Miss Roosevelt, I am Mariah. Mr. Wolff gave me something for you.”

You put your mask on and open the door 

“Come on in.” you tell her and she steps into your fake office

“I have this new iPad for you, Toto wanted you to have this. It has all of the passwords you’ll need and direct access to Toto’s schedule so you’ll know where you will be going and what you’ll be doing.” 

“What passwords are there?”

“Company email, team communications and private accounts.” 

“Okay thank you Mariah.”

“If you need anything else please do not hesitate to ask me, have a nice day.” she tells you and she leaves the office as you lock the door and remove your mask

You reach for your phone and text Toto 

You

Didn’t need to have access to all of this

Wolff

You have to If we are planning this lie correctly. 

I also sent you the details on your company email about the hotel room. I arranged it.

You 

Give me a minute I’ll have to get used to all of this.

The iPad is nice, I’ll give it back once I get all the details.

Wolff

Adaptability is key

Keep the iPad I don’t want you walking around the paddock with your old one, it’s practically a part of your looks, everyone will realize it’s you

Wolff

Anyways gotta work, I will be in the garage with Nyck for FP1, you’re welcome to hang by the fantasy island if you ever get the energy. 

For any question just text or call. 

You sit around for a while until your phone rings with a new notification from your calendar for the session starting in 5 minutes and as soon as you get it you stand up and leave for the garage. This time though it feels different. You used to take all your stuff with you in your pit wall seat but now there’s no pitwall seat, you’ll be just standing next to Toto, in the garage. You never got to stay in the garage, Christian always made sure you had a place at the pitwall, the garage was essentially a passage to get from the hospitality to the pitwall. You never spent a whole session in there, but now you will. The difference is the garage is not the one you are used to. It’s the Mercedes one and it’s clean, organized and much more hospitable than the one at Red Bull. At the long entrance of the garage there’s someone looking at you, making sure that you’re one of them. Little does he know, you think. 

“I am looking for Mr. Wolff.” you tell him

“He’s sat at the fantasy island with Nyck. You’ll see them once you get in.”

And you certainly do. The fantasy island splits the garage in two smaller ones for the two drivers of Mercedes, you get next to Toto and you don’t say a word. You look around you trying to take everything in, how the garage looks, how everyone is focused on what they’re doing and Toto next to you trying to manage everything that’s happening. He’s too far in to realize that you’re next to him and he nearly jumps as you touch his arm. 

“Sorry” you say quietly behind your mask. 

“It’s okay, I never realized that you came.”

“Well, I couldn’t turn down the proposal, plus I am supposed to be your assistant so I have to be with you.”

“I am not complaining.” he says and thank god Nyck is too busy chatting with Bradley next to you. Bradley hasn’t asked anything about you, he just keeps looking and staring at you but he’s not saying anything. 

For the next half an hour you see Lewis and George doing their laps, coming and leaving the garage during the session but during all this time you realize that you haven’t looked at the RedBull’s performances. The Mercedes garage felt like home for some reason. You weren’t doing nothing, you were just standing with your headphones on hearing comments about the car that you swear to yourself that you will never reveal to your team. Next to you Toto sits and watches the whole team working like a well oiled machine that he engineered. You are sure that he feels proud of himself, he has that grin on his face that makes you think so. You don’t know him really well but you have learned to pick some of those signs from the times that you’ve seen him around or that you’ve hung out with him. Again all of your thoughts are interrupted by a vibration from your pocket where your phone is. Goddamn it.  Another calendar reminder but this time it is from Toto’s calendar that you’ve managed to sync to your iPhone earlier. 

Meeting: Team Principals, FIA and F1. (1 assistant is allowed to attend) 

You widen your eyes at the notification and you tap Toto’s shoulder who is watching the timings and the data in front of him. He turns to look at you and removes the headphone from your side. You do the same but you realize Nyck is looking at you. 

“Sir, I just got a notification about your meeting with the F1 and FIA execs.” 

“It is half an hour after the session ends right?” 

“Yes but am I required to attend?” you ask

“Miss Roosevelt I believe that you were asked to be here as my assistant so since the meeting allows assistants it is your duty to be there.”

“Okay Mr. Wolff” you say and put your headphones back on to watch the rest of the session. 

“If you feel uncomfortable just excuse yourself and leave.” he turns and tells you and you nod. 

After the session in which your cars -yes, Mercedes cars- finish 1 and 3 you leave the garage and go back to the hospitality while waiting for Toto to finish his press duties.

Wolff 

I am done with my interviews, meet you outside our hospitality in 5?

You

Yes, I will be there. 

You leave and find him at the spot he told you to. You walk side by side to the race control building where the meeting is supposed to take place, him towering over you and you feeling miniscule beside him. When you are just outside Alpha Tauri’s garage you see your dad discussing with Franz and you roll your eyes praying that they will just let you go by. You get temporarily relieved when you are already past them but of course Christian has to talk to you. The man is trouble without trying. You hear him yelling “Hey Toto” from your back and you turn to face him. Toto frowns a bit but his expressions are mostly covered by his sunglasses. 

“Are you heading to the meeting?” Christian asks

“We are, yes.” Toto replies as you keep walking, Christian catching up with you. You take a sharp breath trying to persuade yourself that he won’t understand who you are. You’ve got your face covered after all. 

“I’ll join you.” Christian announces not even asking Toto who is clearly getting angrier. “I don’t believe we’ve met before” he says and turns to you.

You freeze but you regain your strength and reply to him “No, we actually haven't.” 

“I am Christian Horner, team principal of Red Bull Racing.” 

“Mindy Roosevelt, nice to meet you.” you say in your best American accent hoping that you won’t get recognized. 

“And you work for Mercedes I see. Let me guess’ Public Relations?”

“No, I am here to assist Mr. Wolff for a couple of races, it is something like an internship from the American branch of Daimler.” 

“I figured from the accent that you might be American.” Christian replies “Are you planning on staying at Daimler or leaving to get a job at motorsport?” 

“I don’t know yet I’ll see where it gets me.” you answer

“If you plan on staying here please text me your details, I got a very interesting assistant position for you.” 

“You had your daughter as your assistant from the beginning of the season, what happened to her?” you ask, trying to understand what he’s doing but you hear his phone ringing. 

“It’s complicated with her, I need something stable, and I know Wolff always gets the best of the best so I might have to get a taste.” he replies as Toto, who was silent before, scoffs in the background. Christian checks his phone and excuses himself as he runs back to the Alpha Tauri hospitality center. 

You let out a breath that you didn’t realize you were holding as you are walking to the meeting. 

“Red Bull will be trying to have technical directives for the next few races to try and stop us.” Toto says. 

“I know, I built that case and all the arguments. I know exactly what to say to convince the FIA in favor of Red Bull.” you reply “Can I talk during the meeting?” you ask

“What do you mean talk?”

“Like defending our team’s points, why technical directives shouldn’t be changed, and counterarguments.” 

“No, your role is the one of the assistant, not the meeting participant. You will only be allowed there to keep notes.” 

“I can write my points to you and you can read them and elaborate more, can’t I?” 

“Yes, you can write notes for me to read.”

“Nice, let’s get no regulation change for today.” 

“Isn’t this bad for Red Bull?”Toto asks

“Right now I am working for Mercedes, and Mercedes is only treating me right.” you answer

Toto raises his eyebrows “I am both flattered and surprised by the fact that you want to favor us.”

“You know what Toto? I am tired of thinking how Christian and Helmut will be using my case to present in this meeting. I worked hard for this and I was supposed to present my point. This meeting was supposed to be my first one.”

“Didn’t you go when you were younger?” 

“No, I didn’t Christian always had his assistant with him and never managed to get me in even when I started working part-time for him. It is frustrating to see how your own father looks to replace you at a job. And now the team that I accidentally got in, even has the ability to read my notes and present a solid case.”

Toto doesn’t say anything, he just looks at you, his body language revealing that he is scared to say anything to you. 

“Am I really that bad?” you ask 

“No. Don’t you ever say that again. You were great, you got a deal with some investors, you helped run a team and you are doing a good job at even being an assistant in the team you probably hated the most.”

10 minutes later you are already sitting at a long table. Toto is sitting on your left. You take your new iPad and a Mercedes notepad with a matching pen and rest it on the conference table in front of you as team principals and other officials are taking their seats to start the meetings. Once everyone is gathered there Stefano starts the meeting with all the formalities needed the conversation starts and after a while you start discussing the burning issue. You open your updated document that you had created this morning with all the arguments and the possible answers that could be said from Mercedes’ side, those ones you hadn’t given to your father. This was only to help your presentation to get the regulations changed but now you are using it for the opposite reason. Christian finishes presenting all the planned points and it’s time for Toto to express his opinion. You managed to write a couple of things on paper and showed him some of the points that he needs to discuss. The man has done this countless times you’re sure but he’s totally letting you handle this. 

“Okay, this is an answer to Christian’s concerns about how the regulations right now are not in the right direction. I do not have an exact answer to each and every point of Christian’s speech but I will be trying to get most of them.” he says and glances at the paper in front of him “I’ll start by Christian’s point that the issue affects multiple teams, when in fact it’s not even the majority of the grid that faces the issue that you are aiming to get changed. I can’t see the reason for the regulation change, clearly it’s not that dangerous to drivers health according to doctors and also it would be a huge waste of our resources to just redesign certain aspects of the car when we have the budget cap this year. That’s how I see it.” Toto finishes his monologue and all the eyes are on him. 

“Clearly there will be a vote for this.” Stefano says 

“Thank you for the notes.” Toto says turning to you and you nod back

Later on the vote takes place and the results are the ones that you expected. That means increased performance from Mercedes and Red Bull chasing them right behind. In other circumstances you would be fuming but now you are happy Mercedes got the chance to stop the regulation changes with your help. The meeting ends and you lobby around for a little longer but afterwards you are back to the paddock walking to the garage for the second practice session. Toto walks by your side and you feel he wants to ask you about what happened there but before he can you inform him you will need some time in your office and you leave him behind. 

You get back to your office and you text your friend Sara who lives in Monaco

You

Are you in Monaco?

Sara

Of course I am in Monaco.

The question is where are you?

You 

Issues with dad, he won’t let me enter the paddock because I was late in a business meeting and now he removed me from the team

Still in Jeddah though

Listen, I need a favor from you and your magic contacts in Monaco

Sara

I don’t wish to know more about the dad-daughter drama

But I am here to help you with whatever you want

You

I need a place to stay in Monaco

Sara

You can crash on mine or I’ll book you a hotel

You 

I am thinking more of an apartment tbh

Sara

How long do you plan on staying here?

You 

Permanently?

Sara 

OMG, you’ll become a fellow Monegasque?

I will be in contact with my estate agent

You

Yes, I am planning to finally start living in Monaco. I don’t even know if Christian will take me back to the team to be honest but even if he does I can still live in Oxfordshire or in my apartment in London.

Sara

How fast do you need it?

You 

As soon as possible please 

You lock your phone as you take a deep breath to realize the decision that you just took. Moving to Monaco has always been your dream, since you have been to the Grand Prix there you fell in love with the place and you have spent quite some time in Sara’s house during the summer when you were younger. But now you want to do this alone, you want to feel independent in the country that you loved so much. You immediately think of contacting your father. You decide email is the best option. If he wants to be a bitch so will you

Hello father, 

I am sending this email to inform you about my decisions. I will be moving to Monaco in the next couple of weeks, on my own. I believe I will be able to make my own living with the money I currently have. I am requesting my last paycheck from the team since I have been fired and I am not aware of your intentions to hire me back or not. I wish that my personal space in our estate in Oxfordshire remains unchanged in case I am able to return to my obligations to the team, and I inform you that the apartment in London will still be mine. I am still in Saudi Arabia arranging my flight to Monaco. I will be quite busy during the next few weeks so I will not be able to contact you. Should you decide that I am able to come back to the team please inform me. 

Wishing you the best. 

And send. 

You go back to the garage 20 minutes in the session and you spot Toto sitting alone at the top of the fantasy island wearing a pair of headphones while another one is resting  on the desk in front of him. You go to his right and check the timings. Currently Mercedes 1-2. He looks at you and removes the headset so he can listen. He hands you the spare headset.

“Isn’t this Nyck’s?” you ask

“No this is yours, Nyck is not joining us at this session.”

“Thank you” you say and you wear the headphones 

During the rest of the session Toto shows you all the graphs about the car performance as well as all the communications systems in the team. You are convinced that he is not supposed to do that, it’s knowledge that an assistant could live without knowing and wouldn’t affect their job but still he seems so invested in letting you understand how the team works. This experience is not about gathering information for Red Bull, you think. It’s more about how a team should be and how correct management is done. Something that you feel is missing from Red Bull. The session finishes and Lewis and George are back to the garage with another top 3 finish for the team. 

As soon as your day ends you drive your Aston Martin back to the Red Bull hotel, pack your baggage, check out and drive to the airport where you are supposed to leave the car. When you manage to do so you go to the car rental area of the airport and visit the kiosk of the company Toto texted you about and get the keys to a brand new Mercedes AMG. Shortly after that you get dressed with your Mercedes gear once again and drive to the Ritz-Carlton to check into your new room. 

Turns out Toto has not only arranged a room for you but it’s also a huge fucking suite that you’re sure most Mercedes employees wouldn’t even consider having. You take a look at the suite and you open the closet door to find it full of Mercedes team shirts, hilfiger pants and the usual Mercedes designed puma shoes. You snap a picture of the closet and you decide to document those weeks of alternate reality that you are currently living in.

When the anxiety of the weirdest day you’ve lived wears off you check your phone for your newest messages

Sara

Gerard just reached out to me.

He has a wonderful loft 2,5 km from the Quartier Du Port.

Generally peaceful location

Sea views as well

Let me know if you want to see it.

You 

If you can go there and get some pictures please do. Thank you &lt;3

After that long day you realize that you didn’t get the chance to have a proper meal so you decide to order room service to finally eat something. You think of how pathetic it would look if you eat alone in this huge suite and before you can even cope with that thought you reach for your phone and call Toto. He picks up after 2 rings

“Hello” he says

“Hi, how’s everything?”

“Good, I am getting ready to go downstairs to the restaurant to have dinner, how are you?” “Oh same I was thinking of getting some room service for dinner since I can’t actually go to the restaurant to eat, but the suite is big enough to not feel restricted in one room. Thanks for that by the way.”

“I am sure you’ve only lived in suites for the whole year now so I thought why not. Don’t let the rest of the team know that though.” he says and you hear his laugh on the phone. You stay quiet and he does the same but when you actually decide to say something he speaks again “Maybe we can have dinner together now” he says.

“That’s why I called you in the first place” you admit, but you think you definitely sound a bit in despair. “I can’t order food for two people though it might seem weird.”

“You can come over to my suite, I’ll make sure that it will look as if I am having a meeting with either James or Shov.” he suggests

“Is it okay?” you ask again

“Definitely, I will be ready in 10, suite 264. See you.” he says and terminates the call.

You take a look at the closet trying to decide what to wear. You choose a graphic t-shirt and your most comfortable pants paired with your white sneakers, the only flat pair of shoes that you carried with you. You take a look at the mirror, readjust your hair, put on a nude lipstick and after 10 minutes you are finally ready to leave. You put on your mask because your goal for today isn’t getting caught from walking in some hotel corridor and you navigate your way to suite 264, you knock on the door and Toto is right there letting you in. He’s wearing a pair of black sweats and a gray T-shirt but he is barefoot. 

“Hey” you say and you walk in the suite looking around. It does look like your suite when it comes to furniture but the rooms are a little more private. There’s a desk that has turned out to be more like Toto’s office for the weekend. You sit on the couch while he closes the door behind you and walks in the living room. You take your mask off and sit there looking at the ceiling. Toto stands in front of you with a menu card in hand.

“I was thinking, maybe pasta?” he tells you

“That’s what I planned to order today.” you laugh as Toto reaches for the phone on the table next to the couch and orders 2 plates of pasta ai funghi with two glasses of red wine. 

“They’ll be here in 30 minutes” he tells you

“Great” you reply and stand up. You look at the place around you, stand up and walk to the desk. You sit on the only chair there and you put on his round glasses and put on your serious face as you move your fingers on the mousepad of his mac which -to your surprise- is unlocked so you are able to navigate in his computer. You open up his email but still he doesn’t react even though you are looking at you closely and you start typing and reading out loud. 

“Hey Michael, I am just sending you an email.” you say and you keep being serious while you hear Toto bursting in laughter at the couch.

“Lewis is the best of all time, he did nothing wrong, everything is red bull's fault.” you say again and he keeps looking at you. 

You keep joking, acting like you are typing a new email “Hey FIA, it’s Toto, please let us use the das. It's a great innovation and we are so smart to think about it. We are not illegal, or at least that’s what James Allison and Shov said. It’s not our fault that we are both smart and sexy. Thank you in advance.” 

“That’s not what I said” he laughs

“I’ll need proof for that.” you say “Would I make a good Toto Wolff?” 

“The best. I’ll be sure to leave you in my position once I retire.” 

“What will Daimler say for that though?” 

“You are doing your training so why would they have an issue?” he replies and you laugh. 

“Isn’t this suite a bit too big just for you?” you ask

“You have the same one but yeah it is a bit big.”

“Mine isn’t as big.” you say “Most times I feel lonely in those suites. Mine don’t have kitchens though.” 

“You cook? Too bad we have ordered already.” 

“Maybe another time.” you say and you hear the door knocking. 

“Quite fast.” Toto says and he stands up to open the door. 

You walk around the suite once again and enter his bedroom and look at the open closet which is once again full of Mercedes button ons so you grab one and put it on. You hear Toto talking and you go back to the living room but he’s still talking to the person outside the door. 

“I am kinda busy here Cynthia. I am sorry.” you hear him say

“Please Toto.” a female voice replies “Is there someone else? Is that why you ordered two plates, two glasses of wine?” she asks

“Cynthia I am in the middle of a very important business meeting, it’s about tomorrow’s qualifying and James is waiting inside to eat so that we can continue our meeting. Thank you for the service.” 

“Will you call me when you are done?” 

“I will be asleep when we are done.Thank you” he says and closes the door. 

You stand there in his living room wearing his button up feeling stupid for believing this thing could go anywhere further. 

“I should get going.” you say 

“Now that the food is here?” he asks but you don’t reply, “Is this shirt mine? Are you going to take this one too?”

“I will get back to my suite and you can call Cynthia, or whatever her name is, and tell her that James is gone and that you are okay for her to come back and do whatever you two do together.” 

“Wait, are you jealous? Of Cynthia?” 

“I am not jealous, just not in the position to get involved with someone who’s fucking around with the girl who brought him room service 3 times.” 

“I am not involved with her.” he says

“Well she seemed awfully too comfortable to be just a stranger Toto.” 

“What do you want to hear?” he asks

“That you’ve fucked her?” you tell him

“We slept together once last year.” 

“That’s all I needed to hear. Goodbye Toto.” you say as you walk towards the door, his shirt still hanging on your shoulders but before you can leave he manages to grab your hand 

“I only saw her once this year and I just said hi. We hadn’t spoken since last year but as soon as I arrived she didn't stop appearing in my way. She had reached out several times since we left last year but I never got back to her.” 

“So she’s nothing to you?” 

“She was just a fling.” he replies and you turn around to sit on the dining table. 

“Fine” you say, irritation apparent in your voice “Am I just a fling?” you ask yourself in your head so you decide to ask the same to Toto who is holding the pasta plates leaving one in front of you and one opposite to you  on the table. He doesn’t answer, instead he does the same with the two glasses of wine. His silence makes you feel like his answer is not the one that you want to hear but as he leaves the glasses on the table he doesn’t sit down, he stays there towering over you and looking at you. 

“If it was just a fling I wouldn’t risk destroying my team for it. Also I wouldn’t have done anything that I’ve done for you in any case.” he replies. “Technically you can’t even call it a fling because we only made out two or three times and we were drunk.” he says and just stays still “And still there are two glasses of wine that I ordered on that table. I am never going to learn, am I ?” he laughs

“Sorry ?” you ask but he leans in, reaches for your face and kisses you catching you off guard. You stay still in your chair as he sits opposite to you not saying anything

“The wine is red” he says then

“I can see that.” you reply

“They say that red wine can get you drunk easier.” 

You try to understand where he’s going with this

“And?”

“We haven’t drunk any of it yet so we are sober”

“Why are you explaining this to me like I’ve never drunk before?”

“This is the most sober that I will be tonight and you said that I didn’t have the guts to make a move without being drunk.” he says

“You won’t get drunk with a glass of wine Toto.”

“I know I won’t but still I didn���t want you to blame this on a single drop of alcohol.” he replies and you smile and you start eating. No one talks during dinner but you are laughing at each other when you’re struggling with eating the pasta without actually making a mess. It feels natural to just sit there and eat with his company, like you are finally where you are supposed to be. For this moment you forget everything else and you focus on what you are currently living. After some time you both finish your food and you see Toto standing up. 

“We should finish our wine on the couch.” he says, taking his glass and you copy his moves. He sits on the couch and you do the same but you don’t sit close to him. You rest your back on the couch arm and lay there putting your feet on his lap. He turns and looks at you but he doesn’t say anything. He rests one hand on your feet and he grabs his phone with the other one unlocking it and looking at his mails. 

“Do you want to work?” you ask

“It’s Friday night so no.” he replies

“Then close your phone”

“What can we do instead?” 

“Talk like normal people?” you tell him

“About?” he asks

“I am thinking of moving to Monaco” 

“That’s a bold choice, have you thought about it enough?” he asks

“I have and I think it’s the best thing I can do to be honest, I have some of my friends there and I really want to leave home, I really can’t deal with Christian while he keeps treating me like this.” 

“That’s good.” he replies “What about going to the factory ?” 

“How are you doing it? You live in Monaco and you also have to go to England at the factory.” 

“It’s really tiring to be honest, you need to have a place to stay close to the factory “

“I have my apartment in London available.” you tell him

“London to Milton Keynes isn’t that easy to do on a daily basis.” 

“Anyways, going to the factory isn’t my main priority right now, I am not even on the team.” 

“You are on Mercedes.” he says

“Is this an invitation to Brackley?” you laugh

“You swore it was just for a few races, not that you will be staying permanently” 

“It was my masterplan to get hired by Mercedes.” 

“We don’t want you with us.” he jokes

“Why?” you ask 

“You are distracting the team Ms. Horner.” 

“How am I even distracting the team?” you say whining “People don’t even know who I am except from you.”

“You answered for me.” he tells you “And now I have to deal with you walking around Monaco.” 

“Oh sorry, I’ll cancel my plans then.”

“Oh no, Monaco needs a twist.” he says and you look at him but say nothing. He doesn’t attempt to start a new conversation, he just readjusts on the couch, grabs the remote and opens the TV. He navigates through Netflix’s homepage and you eventually make him watch a movie which he tried to convince you not to watch. Again, none of you speaks during the movie. Halfway through, you realize you’re far too invested in the movie and turn to look at Toto who is fast asleep on that same couch. You decide that there’s no point in staying longer in his suite and you remove your legs from his lap as smoothly as you can, you grab your phone and your shoes which you had earlier taken off and head to the door tiptoeing. 

“Stay here tonight.” you hear his raspy voice which takes you by surprise and you almost scream

“It’s better that I leave, you are tired and need some sleep.” you reply

“There’s a spare bed if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“And there’s an empty suite down the hallway.”

“Come on, aren't you bored to leave when you can just sleep here?” he tells you and well, he’s kinda right. Plus it’s not like you don’t want to spend some more time with him and it would definitely be questionable if someone saw you leaving his suite at midnight. You don’t go back to the couch but you leave your shoes down while Toto eyes every single move you make. 

“It’s quali day tomorrow, we need to sleep. Come on.”  you tell him and you walk to his room. Seconds later he follows you and enters the room. 

“I’m taking the left side.” you say and he smiles at you with a sleepy face. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to sleep in the other room?” he asks

“It’s not like it will make any difference. Except if you have a problem.”

“No, definitely not.” he replies and both of you lay on the bed, facing each other. 

“I’ll wake up earlier to go to the gym, then we can get ready and hit the track. We’ll have breakfast there.” he says and you nod. He seems very calm, eyelids heavy with sleep so you decide to lean and kiss him goodnight. As you come closer to him you can now feel his scent and warmth and you put your lips on his. The kiss is slow and sweet, somehow different from the rest that the two of you had shared up to this moment. 

“Goodnight Wolff.” you say

“Goodnight Horner.” he replies and both of you drift to sleep. 

The next day you wake up without an alarm and you find the bed next to you empty. You hear water running and figure out that Toto must be taking his post gym shower. You keep laying there and grab your phone to go through new updates and messages. Not a lot of time passes until he emerges from the bathroom wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist and he holds another one trying to dry the water off his hair. You admire the sight for a while and you say “Good Morning”. He looks at you and replies

 “Good Morning Horner. Slept well?” 

“Very much thank you” you say “How about you?”

“Slept really well, and I started my day with a good session at the gym with George and Lewis.”

“Oh that must have been interesting. I would have loved to join you three.”

“It would be funny to see their reactions.” he replies as he dries his hair on a smaller white towel while he’s looking at the nightstand on your right where his things rest . He tosses the towel he was holding on a white chair in the room and he approaches you. He climbs on the bed and puts one hand on the headrest while his other hand is stretching to reach the IWC watch on the nightstand. His already toned muscles are a little more observable now that he’s lingering above you. You draw a sharp breath at the sight trying to contain your thoughts and your self but you still look up and stare at him while he makes sure that he gets the watch. When he actually does, he looks down at you and he catches you staring. 

“What?” he asks, staying still in the same position and you don’t answer but instead you scoff. You take a quick glance on his body and you let your instincts take over. You grab him from his neck and pull him down for a kiss. He immediately reacts by holding your face with his now free hand and he pulls you closer as he deepens the kiss and bites your lip. You melt into the kiss still laying down as you feel your heart racing faster than any racing car you’ve ever seen. Your breath gets quicker as you get the sheets out of your way trying to feel his skin on yours. Toto mutters “Fuck” in between your kisses making you a little crazier. He breaks the kiss and walks to the end of the bed, he grabs your legs and starts leaving trails of  kisses all the way up from your calf to your upper thigh until he stops and looks at you, eyes full of lust. He lingers above you for a second or two and he looks at you intensely trying to make sure that he has your consent for his following actions. Once you understand what this is about you nod while you're trying to regulate your breath. 

"Stay still for me baby" he requests and you try to follow his order by just laying there as he dives his head between your thighs. Your breathing gets faster and deeper as he works his way down on you making you feel like you’ve never felt before. You sense his smile while his tongue makes circles down on you. It’s more sensual than you’ve imagined it to be. And god the man definitely knows what he’s doing. He keeps going on for a while with the same dedication as he started and you feel getting closer and closer to your absolute limits. You look down on him as he now uses his hands on you, and you see him staring back. “You look so good baby” he says and all you can manage to say is his name followed by a moan. “Toto I’m so close. Fuck” you say out of breath and he dives in once again as if he heard the magic phrase. He works his magic and shortly after you probably have the best orgasm you’ve ever had. Then he stands up, his hardness still apparent. You manage to regain your strength and crawl at the end of the bed. “Time to take care of you love.” you tell him and he looks at you with a sparkle in his eye. You reach for his neck and pull him in for a long kiss as you move your hand down his torso and on his crotch. You feel him, how hard he is, and you’re secretly taking pride in your effect on him. You start touching him, trying to make him feel good in your hands. His breathing gets faster as you continue and you can sense him coming closer and closer. You want to give him your best so you slowly lean down but he stops you. “Let me feel you?” he asks, almost sounding tortured. You feel a burning desire in you. You’ve imagined this for some time. You cannot say no, not now. Instead you say “Yes please” and get on his lap. You kiss him, while you’re repeating in your head “i am actually fucking Toto Wolff”. You give him one or two strokes getting ready for him but instead of following he looks around, probably for protection. “I am on birth control” you tell him and he turns his attention back to you. You place yourself in the right position as you feel him pressuring your entrance. Once he’s in you start riding him until  you feel yourself getting out of breath. All this time muttering his name like a mantra and he is just repeating something in the lines of “God you feel so good.”, both of you feeling like you’re in another world. As soon as he gets that you are tired he lifts you up and lays you down on the bed. Now he is on top and he’s thrusting in and out in a rhythmic and satisfying way. He looks you in the eye. It’s not awkward. Not even close. You both seem to enjoy it quite a lot. It’s not after a long time that both of you finish at the same time, in an almost poetic way. 

Now both of you lay naked on Toto’s queen sized bed. No one is talking. You just lay on his torso while his hand is round your shoulders. At some point you decide to break the silence

“That was a decent start to the day.” you say and Toto looks down on you 

“Beats the early gym session to be honest.” he says

“I would be angry if you preferred going to the gym with Lewis and George to having sex with me” 

“If it wasn’t for the gym you wouldn’t be here now”

“You think it was the ‘semi naked with a towel’ appearance that made me want to sleep with you?” you laugh “I would give it to you any time of the day, even if you were wearing a garbage bag Wolff.” 

“Nice to hear that you are unreasonably horny.” 

“It’s not without a reason though. I think you’ve figured out that I do not consider you a bad looking man.” 

“I have yes.” 

“All I had to do is to just find the courage to just throw myself at you.” you laugh 

“And you kind of had to be drunk to do so?” he asks

“Yes”

“Isn’t it ironic though?” he says “That we actually slept together during the moment of our biggest clarity and sobriety?”

“What is it with the philosophical questions Toto? I just wanted to have sex with you for a long time and I did.”

“Long time I hear?” 

“Yes, are you surprised?” you ask

“No, just glad that I am not the only one. Was it good at least?” 

“God Toto, you’re asking the cringiest questions.” you say “Yes, god, it was perfect.”  you answer and you hear Toto laugh. 

“Now as much as I want to stay here and repeat this through the day, we have to go to the track” he says

“Ah yes, I am dying to get some breakfast as well.” you say and Toto laughs 

“I’ve already had mine” he says with a smirk and as soon as you get what he’s talking about you grab your pillow and start hitting him playfully. 

“Come on, let’s get ready.” 

A hour or so later, you find yourself parking a shiny black Mercedes at the track's parking area while being already disguised as your alter ego, full on Mercedes’ gear.  Today you are wearing Toto’s shirt, which is a little oversized but you manage to style it in a great way. You grab your bag, draw a sharp breath and open the door. You walk to the paddock and scan your pass as you go totally unnoticed by people around you. To them you look like a regular Mercedes employee that they have no reason to care about. Little do they know that this is actually you. To be honest you kind of love the calmness of it, how no one is chasing you for a photo or a statement on a recent drama or event of the F1 world. You just walk unbothered. You get so caught up in that thought that you don’t actually notice how fast you got to the motorhome. You get in and put on your show, greeting the majority of your colleagues that also seem ignorant to your presence there. You go to the buffet area and grab a tray for your breakfast which you eventually bring to the small office that Toto managed to provide you. Once you settle in,  you sit down to eat but you take a photo of the breakfast as a part of documenting that crazy weekend. You also decide to send the photo to Toto. 

You 

[photo]

Grabbed breakfast and brought it to the office. Drop by if you don’t have anything better to do. 

Wolff

Just walked in. I’ll grab my coffee and be there in 5. 

You 

Cool.

Five minutes later you hear a knock on the door followed by “Miss Roosevelt it’s Wolff here.” 

“Coming.” you say and unlock the door for him to come in. 

“Hey” you say

“Hello” he answers and looks at the full tray “You got quite a lot of food there.” 

“Yeah, that start to the day just opened my appetite.” 

“That’s good to hear” 

“So, what am I supposed to do today?” 

“Well, practice starts in 45 minutes and then we have qualifying.” 

“I am aware of the program, thank you.” 

“You won’t let me finish my thought will you?” he says

“Sorry” you tell him and look at him 

“I am thinking, maybe you can join me and Nyck in the garage for practice.” he pauses to think “And then you can take a look at the data before qualifying.” 

“No I cannot do that” you say 

“Why not? I know you can read data, you have the basic skills and knowledge to judge a performance run.” 

“I don’t want to be involved with your data. It’s confidential.” you reply.  It is actually crazy that Toto is okay with the idea of you handling the team’s data, as if you are not his number one opponent. 

“I know it is. But I trust you, plus there’s an NDA that you’ve already signed. And the fact that you deny reading the data makes me want to give you access to them more than before. Because I know how serious you are about not leaking stuff.” 

“Okay I will take a look, but only for a short time.” you tell him 

“Oh and then I want you to do a tour to a group of visitors that will be coming to the garage.” 

“Aren’t there people responsible for this?” you ask, reminiscing the fact that in Red Bull you have people who are responsible for the hospitality packages. 

“There are but they are shitting their pants because Christiano is dropping by later.”

“Who is Christiano?” you ask, slightly confused

“Ronaldo” he replies

“He’s coming to the race?” 

“Yes. He’s actually coming both today and tomorrow and the team is invested in doing everything perfect for him.” he says and you are still staring at him with your mouth open “We are a bit short staffed in that team so an extra help would be amazing.” 

“Good. I’ll do that too.” 

“Great, thanks love” he says and you freeze at the name but before it gets too awkward the door knocks. 

“Toto, this is James, do you have some time to review the quali strategy?” you hear through the door

“Yes, I will be there in a sec.” he replies “Gotta go now, i’ll see you in 45 right?” 

“Right” you tell him and he is out of the office. I

You spend the next 30 minutes scrolling through twitter and eating the breakfast that you got earlier as well as taking a look at Toto’s schedule for the day. Later on you leave the office, mask on once again, and make your way to the garage and to the top of the fantasy island where Toto and Nyck are waiting for the session to start. Both cars are in the garage waiting for a sign to leave once the lights at the end of the pitlane turn green and at the same time all the mechanics are making the final touches on the set ups. You greet everyone sitting on the fantasy island and put on the spare headphones as you did the day before. The session is done as usual, the drivers  going in and out of the garage to change setups on the car to find an optimal one for the qualifying. Performance runs are also on the programme but only during the last fifteen minutes of the session. Everything concerning telemetry is being sent directly into Toto’s computer on top of the fantasy island as soon as each lap ends so that he can see how they are done and areas where they can be corrected. The session ends quicker than it usually does when you are at Red Bull because suddenly all the chit chat becomes interesting and not as boring as it is with Christian. 

“P1 and P2 huh?” you ask him. Nyck is already out of the garage, something about having to talk to some foreign media made Toto let him leave before the small pre qualifying debrief.  

“It isn’t bad is it?” he asks back.

“It is not for us” you tell him “ It is for the rest of the grid though. I bet Christian is fuming right now.” 

“It is not bad for them. If we are in front they will have to innovate more to reach us. It motivates them.” 

“I bet they are not seeing it this way though.” 

“Is Christian really fuming if we finish in front in practice?” 

“Yeah, he’s not a fan of coming second in any session of this sport.”

“Too bad for him.” he says and you laugh. At this moment your phone rings with a notification from the calendar app reminding you of an interview Toto has to attend. 

“Oh, I am seeing now that you should be outside the media pen for an interview.” you tell him

“I am very much aware, thank you.” 

“Well, why are you not there now?” 

“I prefer to hang out with my beautiful assistant instead.” he compliments you

“Oh my god, shut up” you laugh and he does the same “Come on, interview, now!” you say as you tug him and try to push him to the corridor that leads to the paddock playfully. 

“That’s unfair. I am the boss. You are not in the position to prohibit me from doing anything.” he laughs as he walks reluctantly to the paddock. 

“Well, it seems like I am in charge of what you are doing so technically I am allowed to tell you what to do.” you tell him “I will be enjoying a cold cup of coffee in the meantime.” 

“Once again, that’s unfair Horner.” he says the second part whispering so that people are not able to hear. “Also, you have work to do. The telemetry data is already in your email inbox waiting to be read and commented on, so if I were you I would actually save the coffee for later.” he says and you look at him flabbergasted. “Oh and as soon as you are done with that you have the little tour to do in an hour and a half. Take care Ms. Roosevelt.” 

Before you are able to form a sentence he is already gone, more like running to the media pen. You on the other side, walk back to your office, open your new iPad and take a look at the data. The lap times look good, still slower than the lap time that you calculated the pole position would be on, but they look good. In the data you can see clearly that the engine mode is in a much less aggressive setup that you are sure will change during qualifying. You add some comments using your iPencil concerning parts of where you think the drivers can gain time, as well as some questions for the strategists and the mechanics. When you are done, you forward your notes to Toto’s email and check the clock to see that it has actually been 1:30 hours and that it is actually the time to go meet the people you will be giving your tour to.

You find them all standing on a circle by the garage entrance at the paddock, discussing, taking pictures and being excited. There are 5 of them, 3 guys and 2 girls, all of them close to your age. You approach them and greet them. One of the girls looks gorgeous. The boys aren’t bad either. 

“Hello everyone.” you say “You must be waiting for a paddock tour right?” 

“Yeah” one of the boys says and the rest of them nod. 

“Okay!” you say in an excited tone, trying to engage with them. “I am Mindy. I will learn your names during the tour I suppose.”

“Nice to meet you” says one of the girls “Likewise” you answer “So, should we start? Are you all excited?”

“Very.” one of the boys says.

 The tour starts and you take all of them for a walk in the paddock to see all the motorhomes and where you actually work and you are actually describing all the details about what you are showing to them. You take them by the media pen, where you spot Toto giving another interview for pre qualifying. All of the guys and the girls get very excited and try to snap a picture even from far away. Then you take them by the garage but just before you manage to get in, you receive a new notification on your watch

Wolff

Just finished the interviews at the media pen and managed to see your notes and questions on the telemetry data. I forwarded them to James and he immediately got back to me asking who made all those brilliant notes and questions. I guess you are wasting yourself with management, you should become a mechanic instead. 

Oh I also caught a glance of you and the guys during the tour. I hope that you are doing alright. We don’t want to make Ritz’s employees sad, we still have a few days left before we check out. 

You read the message and realize that the people that you’ve been interacting with are people working at your hotel. So you decide to stop the tour and actually get to know them. 

“You know what? Let’s introduce ourselves before going into the garage.” you tell them and walk back to a bench located at the paddock. 

“So as I told you before I am Mindy Roosevelt, I am currently working at Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 but my position is totally different to what I am doing right now. I am actually working as an assistant to upper management, but the hospitality team has a very special guest for this weekend and they were busy enough so you are left with me.” you say  “Go ahead, introduce yourselves.” 

One of the guys starts talking “I am Ahmad Hussain and like everyone here, I am working at the Ritz-Carlton in Jeddah. I am working as a cook in the hotel kitchen so everything that you’ve tasted in the past few days might have had to do something with me.” 

“I loved everything that I’ve tried, thank you Ahmad.” you tell him

“I am Benjy Ayad, I am half american half saudi arabian and I am currently working at the Ritz-Carlton as an economics advisor.” he says

“Mohammad Dawoud, and I am working at the Ritz-Carlton in room service.”

“Oh, I will be requesting for you Mohammad.” you laugh and he takes a bow showing his honor. 

“I am also working as room service at the Ritz.” you hear one of the girls saying. This time it’s the pretty one

“That’s nice. What is your name?”

“I am Cynthia Jones.” she says and you freeze as you realize that the girl standing in front of you has slept with the man you slept with this morning. Jealousy as well as curiosity are your main feelings so you ask for more information. 

“Sounds very non-Saudi Arabian. Where are you from Cynthia?” you ask

“I am from the UK actually. I was born and raised there, my parents are British but all of a sudden I ended up here. I was looking for a position in management in some big companies here in Saudi Arabia and I got this job as a part time until I figured things out but I ended up staying for two years.” 

“That’s crazy. And why management? Do you have a degree?” 

“Yes, I actually do. I got my degree in Switzerland and I tried pursuing it but right now I haven’t found anything that I like.” 

You nod in agreement, trying to register all the information that you’ve learned from her directly. Toto was secretive about their relationship so learning even the slightest about her is important. Finally you turn to the last girl left

“Alina Mohammad, I work as a receptionist at the Ritz. Nothing to know exactly. I was born and raised here and I got a degree in touristics so I got the job of my dreams.” 

“You guys seem really happy with what you are all doing. I hope you keep doing what you love.” you say “I mean you all managed to buy a paddock pass that most people wouldn’t dream buying at what? 24?” 

“No actually we didn’t buy a pass, the team invited us to join today’s action.”  says Benjy

“Oh shit, I didn’t know that.” you say 

“Yeah they came in last night and handed us the passes just before our shift ended. We went crazy.” says Cynthia and you look at her. 

“Sorry Cynthia, if I may ask, what time do you finish your shift on average?” 

“I don’t know, maybe like 11pm or something? Yesterday I finished at that time.” she replies. At this point you are now sure, Toto asked her to come there today. There’s no other explanation. As soon as he saw her he wanted her to come back. That’s why he invited her. It wasn’t planned for you to do the interview, but he changed it to make you interact with Cynthia, to actually hurt your feelings. 

“Mindy, is everything okay?” Mohammad asks as you have totally zoned out

“Sorry, I spaced out for a bit. Yes, everything is good. Shall we continue with our garage tour?” you ask and they nod. You go back to the garage trying to explain as many things as you know about the things there. To be honest, your mood isn’t quite the same as it was before you knew who the beautiful blonde by your side was. Luckily, the tour comes to an end 30 minutes later but sadly it is qualifying time so you have to be by Toto’s side by the time the session starts. Cristiano Ronaldo is also there by Toto’s side. You nod and greet him as Toto introduces you and you just get back to work. 

During qualifying you sit there, not talking, just looking at the screen and the timings and occasionally checking your burner twitter account for any comments.  Although you are pissed at the man next to you you definitely don’t want Mercedes to qualify in bad positions so through Q1 and Q2 you are relaxed since it is obvious that both cars will be through to Q3. During Q3 you keep your fingers crossed and mostly during the last runs for pole position you keep praying as you usually do in Red Bull. When the timer runs out Lewis and George are sitting P1 and P2 respectively, locking the front row for tomorrow’s start and as soon as the team figures it out, the whole garage erupts in cheers. Toto reaches Ronaldo for a handshake, celebrating the results.  Your eye catches the guys from earlier cheering and hugging each other, taping with their phones. Toto turns to you and you do a high five with him as he smiles at you. You remain indifferent in his reaction, keeping yourself busy until George and Lewis are back to the parc ferme to congratulate them. Once you are done with that you simply say goodbye to everyone there and leave. 

You go back and grab all your things and without saying a word to anyone you drive back to the hotel. When you are ready to go back to bed, you see a new message

Max Emilian Verstappen

Where are you? I missed you on track these days. 

You

Sadly Christian thought it was a fair deal to throw me out of the team for god knows how long.

Happily for you I will be out of your way for that time so you will relax. 

Also congrats for the P3 today, it was a decent run but the mercs had the pace. 

Max Emilian Verstappen

Oh Christian…

Shut up, I already miss you. Are you in England?

Thank you H.

You

I am in Monaco, at a friend's house. 

You feel kinda terrible for lying to him but there’s not much you can do. 

After you chat with Max for a while, you order some food to eat but then get another message. 

Wolff

Lost you after qualifying and when I asked they told me you had left. That wasn’t a bad result. 

Anyways I am going back to the hotel and I am planning to order something to eat, you can hang around my suite if you want and we can discuss strategies for the race. 

Let me know what you are about to do 

You 

I’m not feeling very good, sorry. 

And tomorrow I will be coming in late, probably an hour or so before the start

Wolff

Okay. Do you need any help? Should I drop by your suite? 

How am I supposed to work without my assistant?

You 

I am not your main assistant Woff, you have a hundred people helping you, me not being there won’t be a huge issue

No, don’t come. 

Just let me fucking be for once okay? 

Later on you see that he read the message and didn’t reply. You take a hot bath and go to sleep for tomorrow. 

You wake up the next day pretty late but just in time considering the fact that you are planning to leave in 2 hours. You order breakfast to avoid having something at the track and start getting ready as you are waiting for room service to arrive. You eat and then leave. 

Since you left the hotel earlier your time of arrival is estimated earlier than you actually planned so you decide to take a drive in Jeddah’s streets to soak in the country. An hour or so before the start you actually arrive at the track. You park your car and walk to the hospitality. Then you lock yourself in your office and just read notes for the race. Later on you hear a knock on the door. 

“It’s Wolff” you hear him say and you open the door even if you don’t want to. You don’t speak. You stay there and look at him. “Are you feeling okay?” he asks 

“I am okay, yes.” you reply “Do you want anything else?” you ask him since he’s standing there just watching, 

“Why are you acting like this?” he asks

“Like what?” 

“Like Christian Horner’s daughter?” 

“Yeah, you should be expecting that since that’s exactly who I am” 

“You haven’t been like this since Bahrain.” he says

“Well if you don’t like it then you should call Cynthia.” you tell him

“Is this what this is all about? Are you jealous?” he asks

“Listen Toto, if you want to discuss this I will discuss it outside this office please.” you tell him

“Okay then, follow me.” he says 

“What? Now?” 

“I want to solve this right now if it’s okay.”

“The race starts in 30 minutes.” you say 

“It will take less than 30 minutes, follow me” he says 

Both you and Toto walk in the motorhome before he manages to open a door at the end of the hallway. You climb off the stairs and you reach a place somewhere in between a wall and a closed section of the motorhome. 

“Speak” he says 

“Bossy much ?” you ask

“Yes, now please tell me how did the whole Cynthia thing reoccur after yesterday morning?” 

“Don’t tell me you don’t know.” you tell him

“I do not have a clue.” he says 

“You don’t have a clue about inviting her here?” 

“Who?” 

“Yesterday you made me do a paddock tour to a group of people.”

“Yes, they were the Ritz employees, I am aware of that”

“So you are aware that Cynthia Jones was proudly here watching F1 and enjoying qualifying with a VIP pass right?” 

“I was not.” he says and honestly he seems like he’s telling the truth. 

“You didn’t see her in the garage?” you ask

“Well, believe it or not I do not see everyone who is in the garage.” 

“You didn’t invite her ?” 

“Nope.” 

“She said that she got her invitation right after her shift ended. And her shift ended after you saw her.”

“I was aware that they were going to be here. Just not the names of who was coming. The hotel management was supposed to do a draw and pick 5 people to join us as a gift. It’s part of our contract.” he replies

“So you didn’t know she was coming?” 

“I am going to say no once again.” he says “You can search my messages if you want to.” he says as he hands you his phone. 

“I trust you.” you tell him and you hand him his phone back 

“After all I am not that big of an asshole to invite an ex fling and then sleep with you the next morning.” 

“Don’t you dare do this again.” 

“Invite people or sleep with you?” 

“Oh Wolff fuck off.” you joke

“With you, gladly.” he replies

“Shhh” you tell him 

“You are not going to shut me up this way.” he says and then looks at you “Also take off this goddamn mask now that no one can see us, I am tired of seeing you with it.” 

You take of your mask and smile at him

“You’re sure that no one can see us here right?” you ask and he nods. 

You lean on him and kiss him, catching him off guard. He returns the kiss as he smiles in it .

“I am sorry, Wolff. I won’t overreact about Cynthia again.”

“It’s alright Horner.” he tells you. 

“The race starts in 15, should we go?” 

“Let’s go.” he says and both of you walk back to the garage and your usual places. 

At the start of the race both Lewis and George start off well, keeping their initial positions with Max lurking just behind George. Standing next to Toto, you have access to everything on his computer so you see lap by lap each and every thing you’ve learned to look for in order to plan a strategy in your head. When things get tough and Max gets behind Lewis in P2 your brain is running as fast as it can. The Mercedes strategists are proposing possible pit stop strategies based on the data that they have. However they don’t know one thing that you do. As an executive at Red Bull you have to be aware of code phrases over the team radio, which to be honest can’t be forgotten in a day. So as you’re seeing in the data Lewis is trying to manage his tires and you hear the message “Okay Max, it seems like we are going for a one stopper here.” , you feel the bells ringing in your head. 

The “It seems like” phrase is a code name for doing exactly the opposite that the phrase says so you are 100% sure that they are going for a two stopper in order to win. Something that Mercedes has done countless times. 

Toto had told you earlier that if you want to intervene you can press the button and speak but he thought that you wouldn’t be crazy enough to actually do it. When you crack the code of the Red Bull strategy you immediately press the button saying strategy and speak. 

“Red Bull is going for a two stopper.” you say and Toto looks at you with his eyes wide open. “In about 5 to 10 laps they are going to be back on the softs to chase us. I would suggest pitting Lewis for a second time, turning the engine up and trying to chase him.” 

“Are you sure?” he asks

“The “It seems like” is the key phrase Toto. Please let Lewis know. ” you tell him

“Okay. Do what she said. I am waiting for your calculations. Get back at me in two minutes.” he says while pressing the strategy button 

“Thank you.” he says. 

Later on it seems like Red Bull is caught off guard by Mercedes’ move and they try saving it as well as they can but they fail. At the end of the race the checkered flag is out and Lewis wins the grand prix in Jeddah. 

“Yes boys, come on. Amazing strategy” says Lewis through the radio as everyone in the garage is celebrating. George finishes P2. 

“Thank you for the amazing drive Lewis.” says Toto 

“Get in there Lewis!” says Bono through the radio. 

Toto turns to you and says thank you while he’s off to congratulate the other team members. After Lewis gives his post race interview to Naomi Schiff, you storm off to the pitlane to watch the podium ceremony. Max is also there and he seems a bit disappointed by his streak of P3’s during the season, but you’re barely worried. Right now you are celebrating about Lewis and George. You take your phone out and snap a picture or two. After the champagne opens and the trophies are given you go back to your office and lock yourself there once again. You’re hearing all the congratulations from people in the hospitality center and you sit on the office couch feeling that happiness and euphoria of winning. You haven’t spoken to anyone since the race ended but you are now just laying there happy. A long time after, you hear a knock on the door. You’re sure it’s Toto since the race debrief and the interviews must have ended by now. You ask who it is though.

“It’s Lewis. Can you please open up?” he says and you freeze, stopping dead in your tracks. You put on your mask and you open the door. 

“Oh my god Lewis hi. Congratulations on your win.” you tell him

“Thank you Mindy. It’s Mindy right?” he asks 

“Yes it is.” you tell him

“And you’re a Daimler intern?” 

“I am yes.” 

“Can you please take off your mask so that I can remember your face?” he asks and at this point you are pretty sure he knows that you’re not who you say you are. 

“I am sorry but I am at great risk, I don’t want to get COVID or anything.” you tell him trying to avoid the situation. 

“Don’t worry, I am wearing masks and I also tested negative this morning, so you can take it off.” 

“Is it okay if I don’t want to?” you tell him

“Yes it is.” he says and he turns to face the door, finally going to leave. “We will be outside celebrating the 1-2 with the team, it will be amazing if you come, even for the picture.” 

“I am not sure I have to be there.” 

“I know you had something to do with that win, this strategy didn’t make itself Horner.” he says and you freeze as you register how he called you. 

“Excuse me?” you tell him 

“Next time that you fight with Toto, don’t do it outside my driver’s room Horner.” he says. “I know what happened between you two, I saw you without your mask and I saw you kissing my Team principal, there’s no denying.”

“Shit. Toto said no one could see us.” 

“I could see you but Toto thought I would be at the grid by then when I clearly wasn’t.” 

“I am sorry. You can’t say this to anyone.” you tell him

“I don’t plan to, I just find it funny that you switched teams.” he says

“Yeah, I had to because my dad’s an asshole.” 

“Okay, now you get what everyone’s saying right?” he laughs

“Yeap.” 

“You should come outside, let’s celebrate. You earned this victory as much as I did. Plus I want to have you in the picture. You can wear your mask.” he says and he extends his hand to make you stand up from the couch. 

“Okay” you say and you walk with him 

“Oh and by the way, Wolff is heads over heels for you, I am pretty sure he’s liked you for a long time and he hasn’t stopped thinking about you. That Cynthia thing is completely bullshit.”

“Really?” you ask him and he nods smiling. 

Both of you walk outside to celebrate that amazing day with your amazing achievements. Mercedes really feels like home for you. Toto’s eyes light up when he sees you outside, in between the mix of employees. He stands by your side for the photos and then all of the team starts playing with champagne. It’s a really great night in the desert that makes up for the craziness of the weekend which makes you relax ahead of the new week coming up. 

[esyra]

Insinuating Hamas are going to just willingly give themselves up to Israeli police to be tried in court for Oct 7? That seems unrealistic at this juncture.

Yes, captured Hamas criminals can and should be trialed like the Nazis were trialed.

The rest will be judged by their God.

This is no longer criminality, Hamas is an existential threat. This is not retaliation, it is kill or be killed.

Otherwise this is what Hamas has promised, hear it from their own mouth, don't take my word for it:

https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-official-ghazi-hamad-we-will-repeat-october-seven-until-israel-annihilated-victims-everything-we-do-justified

I'm sorry, do you live in a society? Do you know how the law system works? Does anyone willingly gives themselves up? Doesn't the United States has a mass shooter on the loose? Is he gonna give himself up? Walk up to the court and say, "Let's start this"? Wait, I have a better idea: let's bomb the State in which he was born until he comes out! Now that's a great idea.

No, genuinely. Did you read what you wrote?

I'm gonna finish this up saying Memri TV is used as a joke by actual Arabs and Arabic-speaking people because:

1. They're always mistranslating and decontextualizing information;

2. Memri was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer and an Israeli political scientist;

3. Both of them are strongly connected to Likud, Israel's far-right party;

4. They're sometimes really funny, like "by Allah behave yourself, I will give you a taste of my shoe" is a classic!

I'm not being able to access the link (I don't know why, it doesn't seem it's missing a part but it's not loading) but if that's part of his recent interview for Lebanese television then, Memri as always mistranslated bits. Overall, the interview was about him saying that al-Qassam will continue fighting against Israel's occupation, that they won't stop until they're free from Zionist oppression and "treacherous Christianism" — likely in reference to Christians cheering on Israel's actions, which goes against Christ's learnings that Islam also believes in. What he did said about October 7 is the following: "We did not wanted to harm civilians, but there were complications on the ground."

But I guess "collateral damage" is only for the Americans and Israelis.

Fun fact: he also said Israel is an existential threat to Gaza's existence, and he has past and present on his side because guess who keeps suffering mass displacements and massacres every single year? Palestinian territories!

Unless you're happy to be a hypocrite, then please understand what you're saying. Both in Gaza and West Bank, Israel has consistently confiscated, robbed, harassed, dispossessed, arrested (without charges), killed and expelled Palestinians from their own homes. If you think killing is acceptable to those who are in danger, then why are you arguing with me against Hamas?

[pascalscoffin]

Away From The Devil pt. VIII

Full Pedro Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Pt. IX

Warning: Minors Go Away I Will Kick You In Your Forehead. I just don’t want kiddos here. Reader is around 24, Joel is 56. Reader is female and uses she/her pronouns. Joel’s trying so hard to behave, pray for him. Mentions of David. Reader grew up Christian but the real kind not the David kind.

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Joel was suffering, after Ellie was up and dressed you were on the road again, and then the Fleetwood Mac CD was being pushed into the radio, your fingers crossed before you cheered when it started to play the first song. It was one of those CDs that had all their best hits on it. It was just loud enough to hear without disturbing any conversations. The sun was at the perfect angle and it shined on you just right and made you look like a goddess and god he was… he was in rough shape.

The windows were down, rushing air in while your head bobbed and your lips mouthed along to every song that came on, your brain eager to memorize it. When you weren’t doing that you were distracting Ellie, trying to give her reasons to talk or laugh, even if it didn’t always work and it was obvious Ellie wasn’t in the mood to talk.

You were beautiful, it was just a fact Joel couldn’t get away from or deny in the slightest of ways. You had a whole life ahead of you, though. Sure it may not be much of a life with the apocalypse and Joel destroying any chance there might be of the world going back to the way it was any time. But you could find someone your own age, someone that would love you properly and would be better attuned to someone your age. Joel was old and it’s been years since he was with a woman your age or even one remotely similar to you.

You reminded him of before, how easy it was to be happy then and how fleetingly the emotion came now. Despite what you’ve seen and done you still had that aura about you, like nothing could take your smile from you and he found himself admiring that more than anything.

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You drove for a while before the SUV started to make an odd clunking noise and the radio died out as smoke started flooding from the hood. With a curse Joel had pulled over and got out to check under the hood while you and Ellie waited in the car. “You okay?” You asked her softly, turning your head towards her with a small frown.

Ellie shrugged and glanced back at you. “I’m fine. Just… sucks.” She sighed as you nodded, chewing on your bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Ellie.” You cleared your throat and turned your body towards her a little better. “I… I know you… were looking forward to it.” You looked down. “They did try, though.” God you felt like shit lying to her but her finding out the truth meant killing her relationship with Joel and whatever kind of friendship was blooming between the two of you. “They just… they were idiots, Y’know? They were working off of a maybe anyway.” You shook your head. “They were never sure it was going to work. They were just… praying it would.”

Ellie scoffed a bit at your words and you tilted your head. “What?” “Praying- funny choice of words.” She muttered and you frowned a little. “How so?” “Reminds me of David.” You straightened up a little and cleared your throat. “David was a shitty example. Of a man and a preacher.” You looked forward and clenched your jaw.

“Did you actually believe any of that shit?” Ellie scoffed lightly and you looked at her in the rearview before sighing heavily. “… I guess so, yeah.” You muttered. “Before my parents… yeah I did. When we were stuck traveling.. stuck out here. It was one of the things my mom taught me. My dad taught me some survival stuff, my mom taught me to count and read and all the other stuff. Religion was one of them, she’d read me the Bible and then I’d fall asleep to her breaking it down so I could understand what it meant.”

You shifted a little. You hadn’t really believed, or even thought much about God since your mom’s death. She’d told you to keep your faith, it was the one thing no one could take from you in this world… and as she withered away she took it with her, proving herself wrong.

“We prayed a lot and… it did make me feel better. I guess… and then she died and… it stopped feeling right.” You stared at the sliver of Joel you could see through the gap between the hood and the car, watching him try to wave the smoke away so he could look at the engine.

“Why?” You looked over at Ellie and frowned before looking away again as you tried to think about why. “… when I lost her… I lost what little bit of myself was left, I guess. What little… belief.. in anything. I had left. With my mother gone, really gone, he could do what he wanted whenever he wanted to… I couldn’t believe in something that was.. letting it happen.” You scratched your forehead and cleared your throat loudly.

“Why- why-“ you sighed and looked away before looking at her. “Why are you asking me about this?” Ellie blinked a little and shrugged. “I…” she frowned and shifted. “… why’d you keep going if you didn’t have anything to believe in… how..?” You blinked a little and looked down when you saw her rubbing her arm, opening your mouth to try and say something before you were interrupted.

“Well she got us close enough.” You looked over as Joel closed the hood and made his way to the drivers side door that was propped open. “We gotta walk the rest of the way. Probably about a five hour hike. But we can manage that, remember?” Ellie got a small smile on her face as she nodded, looking away from you to look at Joel. “Yeah.”

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Most of the hike up the mountain was silent, your fingertips sliding over trees as you passed by them, trying to think of something to say to Ellie, your conversation in the car digging at the back of your brain. You guessed Joel was getting a little tired of the silence because he kept looking back, like he was expecting you and Ellie to be talking at some point before he finally spoke.

“… Sarah and I used to hike like this all the time.” He looked back at Ellie and you could tell this was really about trying to connect with her than anything. “Wouldn’t say it was her favorite thing. She wasn’t a fan of the mosquitos and such. But she was a big climber, or scamperin’. That’s probably the right word. That girl, she’d see a big rock and just pew.” He shot his hand upward and you couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“She would’ve liked you.” He looked back at Ellie again but his eyes shifted to you for a second as well before looking at Ellie and then forward again. “Not to say, the two of you were the same. Definitely different kids.” “How so?” Ellie asked, probably her first words since you started the hike.

“Well she was a lot more… I wanna say girly, and I’m not saying you’re not girly.” “I’m not.” You laughed and shook your head. “Yeah, you’re not.” Joel agreed. “So that, heh, she was taller, she had a killer smile-“ Joel immediately defended himself, looking back at Ellie. “Again, not saying that you don’t. But you know why I think she’d like you?” “Why?” “Cause you’re funny. I think you would’ve made her laugh… Anyway, I bet you would’ve liked her back.” “Yeah. I bet I would’ve.”

As you got to the top of the little mountain/hill, you could see what Joel had referred to as Jackson several times throughout the drive and raise your brows. “There you go.” Joel looked at Ellie and then the community. “… holy shit.” You took a deep breath.

“Not much further now.” You follow Joel as he started walking, you could hear the smile on his face and you hoped he could enjoy it, hoped he could be at peace now. You hoped Ellie could be happy, too, and find something to care about besides finding a cure for a degree of humanity that you weren’t even sure deserved to be saved.

“Hey, wait.” You looked back at Ellie spoke and slowed to a stop a paces ahead of Joel. She looked at the two of you for a minute before muttering. “Fuck.” And walking closer to Joel, you stepped up to them curiously as she looked at Joel.

“Back in Kansas City you asked me about the first time I killed someone… when I got bit in the mall I wasn’t on my own. My best friend was there, and she got bit too. We didn’t know what to do and she says… ‘we can just wait it out, be all poetic and just lose our minds together.’… and then she did.. and I had to…” she looked up at Joel and took a deep breath. “Her name was Riley, and she was the first to die, and then it was Tess, and then Sam.” Joel shook his head.

“That’s not on you-“ “I know-“ “look, sometimes things don’t work out the way we hope. You can feel like-like you’ve come to an end.. and you don’t know what to do next but-but if you just keep goin’… you find somethin’ new to fight for- and maybe that’s not what you-“

“Swear to me.” You looked at Ellie and furrowed your brows. “Swear to me that everything you guys said about the fireflies is true.” “I swear.” Joel nodded and then Ellie looked at you. You nodded slowly. “Yeah, I swear.” You said softly.

Ellie stood there for a while, looking between the two of you before she nodded. “Okay.” You don’t know how convinced she was.. but it didn’t seem to be very and you just hoped she’d never find out as the three of started down the other side of the hill.

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Ellie walked ahead of you and Joel after that, the two of you walking side by side as you gave him the occasional glance. “So… Jackson. It.. it’s a, a decent place.. right?” You cleared your throat as Joel looked at you and furrowed his brows before nodding. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “They have Christmas trees.” He chuckled slightly when your eyes lit up. “Like with the lights and everything?”

He nodded. “Mhm. Lights and everythin’.” You grinned, just barely remembering going to see the Christmas lights with your parents before it all went to shit, flashes of lights and your parents’ smiles flickering through your mind. “And there’s no cannibals?” You were only half joking. Joel looked at you and chuckled lightly as he shook his head. “No cannibals.” You nodded. “Good.” You laughed lightly and sighed as you pushed your hands into your jacket pockets.

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When you got closer to Jackson a few people rode up on horses and you froze between Joel and Ellie and took a step back. “Joel-“ “you’re fine.” Joel looked back at you and held his hand towards you, nodding a little. “They’re makin’ sure it’s us.” He looked away from you towards the people on the horses.

“Joel. Welcome back.” Joel nodded to the woman on the horse. “Maria.” You looked between them with a small frown, feeling an awkward tension between them as you shifted. “Who is she?” Maria looked at you and you slowly crossed your arms, uncomfortable with all the eyes now glued to you.

“She’s.. a friend.” Joel looked back at you, and you could’ve sworn you saw his gaze soften and his eyes trail over you before he looked at Maria. “A friend?” Maria raised a brow and Joel nodded. “Where’d you meet her?” You looked down when you finally registered the dog, everything else drowning out as your heart sped up in your chest.

The dog looked mean, glaring and growling at you as it stepped closer slowly. When it got to you, though, it jumped up and put its paws on your torso. You blinked rapidly and looked up from the dog cautiously as it jumped down. Next thing you knew you were on the back of a horse with Joel, headed to Jackson.

You were quiet, looking around you as the group of horses trotted along, your hands holding onto the back of Joel’s jacket to keep you stable without actually grabbing onto him.

When you rode into Jackson a guy with long black hair and a goatee came up and helped Maria off her horse, greeting her with a kiss as Joel hopped down and helped you off the horse. His hands felt warm on your hips and they lingered a bit before he pulled away.

“You picked up a stray.” The dark haired commented as he pulled away from his hug with Joel, this must be Tommy. “This is y/n. Y/n this is Tommy. Joel’s brother.” Ellie commented. “She is fucking awesome, Tommy. She killed a Clicker! With just a knife!” You felt your cheeks warm up as Tommy’s eyebrows shot up, looking at Joel, who nodded.

“Well- then it’s great to have you around. I’m sure you’re gonna be a great help.” Tommy nodded with a smile and dropped his hands to his sides. “Alright, I’m sure you guys are hungry and stuff so we’ll grab something to eat, and then you guys can head to your house.” His eyes fell to you. “We uh… have more empty houses if you want one to yourself?” He suggested. “Joel and Ellie’s place only has.. two bedrooms so unless-“

“I’ll sleep on the couch.” Joel took your things off the back of the horse as he spoke and you looked at him curiously. “What? Joel, no, I can take the couch, it’s fine.”

“I can take the couch.” “Joel- no- you’re gonna have back problems or something.” “I ain’t that damn old.” “Joel you literally are, just shut up and let me take the couch.” Ellie looked at Tommy and mouthed. ‘Oh my god’ before looking at you and Joel. “You guys could always share.” You and Joel looked at Ellie quickly, your face burning as a smirk spread across her lips.

“… or you can have your own place.” Tommy suggested. “No.” You said quickly, clearing your throat, you didn’t want to be alone, not somewhere new. “I… we’ll just… talk about who sleeps where later.” Ellie threw her hands up but didn’t say anything, instead walking next to you as you walked towards the main area.

“Dude that was your chance.” You looked down at Ellie and shook your head. “There was no chance. He looked like he was gonna blow a gasket when you said we should share.” Ellie rolled her eyes and mumbled something you couldn’t quite hear as you stepped in.

As you say with your food you pushed all thoughts of David to the back of your mind, how Silver Lake had similar cutlery, how if David was here you’d been sitting with him, alone, with his hand somewhere on your back or thigh, possessing you without even saying anything.

But you weren’t with David, you weren’t back in Silver Lake. You were with Joel and Ellie, in a warm building with warm food and nice people who weren’t going to hurt you.

You’d be okay here.

You had to be okay here.

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Taglist:

@romanarose @orcasoul @caitlynsixxx @shotgun-shelby @aspecialgreenie

[borntolurk]

METATRON: or an explanation about why his inclusion in the S2 and S3 narrative is fascinating and weird, actually

Originally, this was going to be a stupid, unlikely, and mildly cynical theory about what I think is going to happen in S3 and how it might compare to my third least favorite TV show finale.

But while I was writing it I went down a Metatron rabbit hole and honestly? It's pretty crazy. Like, really crazy.

Part 1: Metatron

So who is Metatron, anyway?

(This gets a bit detailed but I promise it pays off!)

I think a lot of people, because Metatron is in the book (which is a Book of Revelation parody), assume that he was also a figure in the New Testament- or barring that, in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. But he wasn't! In fact, Metatron isn't in Christian scripture or early literature at all.

Metatron is really a (very nearly, he's also mentioned in Islamic texts) Jewish figure. The exact origins are a bit fuzzy to me, as while I'm a scholar of Jewish history this isn't my era (it also gets pretty mystical and my worst grades were on mysticism-related papers), but essentially you're not seeing the name until a century or two after the Common Era at the very least. In antiquity, the name is largely found in the 3rd Book of Enoch (and later other Merkabot/Hekhalot literature) and in the Talmud.

The 3rd Book of Enoch is a work whose origins date back to anywhere from the 1st to the 5th century CE and it continues the themes of the 1st and 2nd books which discuss Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam in the Book of Genesis. In Genesis, Enoch is noted as having been taken by God rather than dying, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Book of Enoch expands on this idea of Enoch being a massively powerful figure in Heaven (keeper of treasures, God's right hand figure, leader of the archangels, etc)- and even potentially being a lesser/dual version of God. In the 3rd book in particular, the word Metatron is used to describe him.

For those who are aware of Jewish theology, it might have occurred to you that the idea of there being a duality of God in any way is a pretty fraught one; Enoch is largely non-canonical in Judaism*, but it was still cited reasonably frequently by Jews in the early Common Era. In the next few centuries, we start to see more mentions of Metatron (at this point, not explicitly identified with Enoch) in Jewish literature, and this becomes a pretty big deal.

We then have three Talmudic mentions of Metatron, and one of them (Avodah Zarah 3b) is relatively minor, but does suggest, importantly, that God deputizes Metatron to do tasks that God would otherwise do. The other two are more interesting here. In Sanhedrin 38b, we see a debate between Rav (Rabbi) Idit and a heretic, who suggests that perhaps Metatron, which Rav Idit has mentioned as a representative of God, should be worshipped on par with God; Rav Idit makes clear that this is not correct.

The most interesting, though, is the story in Chagiga 15a, which tells the story of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah, otherwise known as Acher (the Other, signifying that he is a heretic). The story of Acher is a quite famous one, but here it's told with a particular twist that didn't make it into the versions that I learned in Jewish day school- the involvement of Metatron and its influence on the precise nature of Acher's heresy.

Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah was a 1st century rabbi and teacher who was one of the leaders of his generation who is described as having been one of the four rabbis who entered the "Pardes," or orchard- and he cut down the saplings, becoming a heretic. This is usually interpreted to mean that he was exposed to deep, fundamental understandings of God which caused him to turn away. In this particular version of the story, what he saw was a vision of Heaven in which Metatron was sitting in God's presence. To Elisha ben Abuyah, this was a massive affront to God- surely one should stand in God's presence! This led him to believe that maybe there were two powers in Heaven, and thus led him down the road to heresy and the epithet Acher.

The story continues that as a result, Metatron was beaten with fiery rods to make a statement that he was not parallel to God, contrary to what Acher believed. Metatron was also asked why he hadn't stood up when Acher arrived, to avoid the conclusion. The answer is that the Metatron had permission to sit in order to "write the merits of Israel."

And, because of this heresy by Acher, Metatron is given permission to erase Acher's good deeds. There is a voice from Heaven saying that all sinners may return- except for Acher. This leads to Acher's purposeful slide into heresy more broadly (his first stop is literally to a sex worker, something that would be unacceptable for a rabbi, to PROVE that he's now gone bad).

(Also worth noting- in the Jerusalem Talmud, an entirely different reason is given for Acher's heresy- not that he believed in dualism but that he was angry about unfair human suffering.)

The story of Acher is interesting, in this context, for two reasons:

it's another indication that Jewish tradition is going to absolutely reject any possibility of duality and

it gives a clear indication of what Metatron's power is

So... we know all that. Now what? (You may already have some inkling.)

Part 2: Cosmic Megatron

I've called this section by this name because everything I'm going to say should be foregrounded by my belief that most of this is likely coincidence.

Metatron is a character in the original book of Good Omens, and as far as I can tell is there to fill two functions- to have a heavenly representative and thus avoid having to write dialogue for God, and so that they can have a joke where Pepper confuses him with the Cosmic Megatron, apparently a toy made of plastic, which features laser cannon and can turn into a helicopter.

(He's also called the Metatron- I'm not 100% sure why.)

We know from what Neil Gaiman has been saying that he and Terry Pratchett wrote the book in a pretty casual way. Obviously, the book is written with a certain amount of knowledge about the Bible and Judeo-Christian** religion, which from things that Gaiman has said I think he attributes to their being two bright, well-read men who were educated in a Christian-majority country but which I'm sure also included a decent amount of research- hence the bit in the beginning with different calculations for the year of creation. (Gaiman is of course Jewish but I don't get the impression that he had any formal Jewish education, though I could be wrong.) But it seems to be written largely as satire of some pretty well known Christian concepts, for the most part, though nicely detailed.

That's why my assumption is that Metatron must have been included as an offhand joke, by one of them who had heard of him as a spokesman figure in some other context. Because despite the fact that the Book of Enoch is known within Christianity, that's largely the 1st Book of Enoch, not the 3rd, which is the one where the name Metatron is identified with Enoch. If there are any scholars of Christianity reading this, please correct me if I'm wrong, but- I don't think that Metatron would be a familiar angelic/heavenly figure to the average person given a cursory de facto Christian thinking in purely Christian terms. Therefore, presumably the name was one that either Pratchett or Gaiman had heard in another context and that one of them (possibly Pratchett, as he was apparently the one who mostly wrote the kids) thought would make for an entertaining joke about plastic toys that turn into other plastic toys.

We then know that in a hotel room, after they wrote Good Omens, Pratchett and Gaiman plotted out a potential sequel, tentatively titled 668: Neighbor of the Beast. We know that this was going to feature more of Heaven's side, as Gaiman said in the run up to the expanded S1 (which of course featured the new-to-us characters of Gabriel, Uriel and Michael) that the angel characters were already part of the plan for the sequel. We also know, of course, that S2 is meant as a transition to S3, which is the actual plot to the sequel book.

Obviously, we don't quite know yet what that plot is going to be- but presumably, at some point in it Aziraphale was going to go up to Heaven. But presumably Gabriel, who we can now be quite confident was written out of S3, would have been part of that story in the book! The fact that we AREN'T getting Gabriel in a S3 that's based on a sequel idea that specifically included Gabriel (or so we're told) means that that role must be filled by someone.

It seems very likely that

what would have been Gabriel's role is being filled by Metatron and

Metatron wasn't necessarily supposed to be in the sequel, and thus (in theory) S3, at all.

Now Point 2 is only a guess, and it's entirely possible that it's wrong. But I wonder (and this is a totally separate theory, in some ways) whether the role that Metatron played in S2 is one that would have been played by Gabriel if Jon Hamm had wanted to stay. The casting of Sir Derek Jacobi in S1 was not one that implied to me that this was a character who they had plans for- it was a one-scene role in a show with a decent number of minor cameos for well known actors. His return this season was honestly a pretty big shock to me- and seems to be setting him up as a significant figure in the upcoming season. (Which, incidentally, seems like one that can be pretty easily acted in voiceover/green screen, making it a good role for an actor who may not want a full six episode season of a show.)

So- whether we accept my above hypothesis as true or not- why Metatron?

Part 3: Cosmic Metatron

So mostly these are questions. I obviously don't know the answers any more than anyone else does. I could even be wrong about some of my basic assumptions as far as the timeline.

But regardless, I think that the use of Metatron will be incredibly interesting this season for a few reasons.

First of all, let's discuss the Book of Life. It is, unlike Metatron, actually in the Bible- both Hebrew Bible and Old/New Testament. (In fact, the Book of Life is mentioned in the Book of Revelation- the main source material for the book/S1!) In Judaism, the Book of Life is actually something that is still part of Jewish tradition to this day. On Rosh HaShana, the first day of the year, our prayer for a new year is so that our names can be put in the Book of Life due to our good deeds.

We already know, from Part 1, that Metatron is God's scribe, who writes down people's good deeds- and while the story of Metatron and Acher above is never directly connected to the idea of the Book of Life, the thematic similarities are undeniable and it seems pretty clear that they're talking about the same idea. So we have a potential connection between Metatron as a potential character in Good Omens with the Book of Life as a potential concept in Good Omens- along with the fact that a person can be erased from the Book of Life with eternal ramifications.

It seems pretty clear that, whatever reason Pratchett and Gaiman may have had for including Metatron in the book, he now has a pretty solid reason for being here in the show, based on what we already know.

Also relevant is the status of Metatron. In the 3rd Book of Enoch, we know that he is God's right hand, head of all the archangels, and even is given a title that connotes him as a "lesser God." Which is, as noted, pretty theologically wild for Judaism, and a big reason why Metatron and Enoch don't get a lot of play in contemporary Jewish theology (besides for mysticism). We also know that it's the idea that there can be TWO powers behind the throne that led Acher to be eternally condemned as a heretic.

Someone posted a VERY interesting meta here- I can't find it right this moment- which suggested that God is no longer really around in the world, and that the Job minisode- the final time in the show's chronology when we hear God's voice as anything but narrator- Heaven is bathed in golden light, whereas afterward it has a more sterile and empty white light. I find that to be an fascinating idea- that Metatron is actually serving in some kind of parallel-God role in God's absence.

I'm not going to pretend to know WHY this is. There are lots of interesting potential plot angles- you could have Metatron deposing God, you could have God purposefully withdrawing from humanity/the bureaucracy of religion (maybe something similar to in Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment, which would actually make quite a bit of sense if this was part of the unwritten sequel as he could have recycled the idea), you could have some kind of a power struggle, etc. But it does seem clear- we have Metatron as what is essentially a Godlike figure, with enough power to completely depose Gabriel, shut down the other angels, and elevate Aziraphale (if that's indeed what he does- he is at least able to convince Aziraphale that he has that power, which is something).

We have a Metatron strong enough for someone to, potentially, question whether maybe HE'S the one exercising Godly power. And potentially face the worst of consequences for those questions, consequences that we know Metatron is able to deal out. Consequences which were already threatened in S2.

Now that would certainly fit in VERY well with the kinds of plots we might expect from a Good Omens 3...

It also could lead to a fascinating dynamic if they give Metatron an origin story of being Enoch. Having the big cheese in Heaven be someone who used to be human? That's a fantastic concept, just like how S2 centered a character for whom so much can be explained by the fact that he's a demon who was once an angel.

Basically, I think there is the potential for some interesting stuff here.

Caveat

None of this answers a separate question that I have- why bring in a Jewish angelic figure for a story as intensely Christian as the Second Coming? I have a feeling that the answer is going to be "because it's fun"- regardless of how Metatron is used. That said, if there ends up being a narrative where there's Metatron representing the vengeful God of the Old Testament and Jesus as a nice dude who represents something more forgiving then... Idunno, I'm not gonna be super thrilled.

And also- I'll put it out here now- I didn't love S2. Among other things, I think it was pretty simplistic and I don't think that it developed its ideas to their full potential. I don't know that I trust S3 to be as interested in these details to have ANY of this show up in the plot. It could totally be that Metatron is only there because he's in the book, and the Book of Life is only there because it's in the Book of Revelation. Obviously, I don't know.

But I do think that, whatever Gaiman does write if the show gets renewed, there's a lot of material here for him to work from, if he wants to.

*with the exception of among Ethiopian Jews- in fact, the only extant complete version of the 3rd Book of Enoch is in the Ethiopian religious language Ge'ez

**this is a terrible term and I use it only under protest