#if you read this whole thing please you have my utmost respect

[dear-ao3]

the boys are fucking BACK BABEYYY and so am i, your friendly neighborhood saph. hello. today is february 25, 2024 and here we are, back at it again with another update. a very long update. please be prepared for how long this is.

this is, everything you missed if you didn't watch all 24 hours of pre season testing.

now before we get into this. i need you all to note that it is nothing short of a miracle that this update exists. not only did i spill water all over my laptop this week but my apartment ceiling started pissing at the severe unadulterated hour of 6:45am yesterday (and the guy who fixed it was a lewis hamilton fan?? that story is here) and then i broke a jar of peanut butter all over my kitchen. so i am exhausted. i am spent. and i am so tired of writing this update. so please, i beg of you, enjoy this.

now before we can get into the Pre Season Testing Drama, we first need to talk about the sir lewis hamilton thirst trap selfie curse.

what? you might be saying. is that a thing? did you mean to say those words in that order? and the answer is yes.

according to urban legend (and instagram) when sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie, someone in f1 looses their job/resigns/gets fired, etc.

lets take a look at the evidence from 2022:

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few days later sebastian vettel announces that he is retiring

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few days later its announced that daniel ricciardo is leaving mclaren before his contract is over

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few hours later its announced that nicholas latifi is leaving williams at the end of the season

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few hours later its announced that mick schumacher is leaving haas at the end of the season

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: two days later mattia binotto, the ferrari team principal, announces that he is resigning at the end of the season.

now im no scientist. but that seems like some strong correlation.

and sir lewis hamilton posted a thirst trap selfie earlier this week. and we all know what's going on with christian horner right now...

speaking of!!

there is another Rumor afoot in the paddock. the rumor being that christian horner is going to announce that he is resigning on february 28th. this would be just before the season officially starts. and yes, its just a rumor. but as we know, thats how most f1 news starts. as a rumor.

also red bull had a meeting after the first day of testing at their hospitality. it was speculated this was to announce to everyone horner is resigning. horner was at testing. but he was not in his team shirt. interesting.

it also came out that apparently there are over 100 pieces of evidence against horner. ford is mad (as they are going to be supplying red bull with engines) and they want this thing resolved. horner was asked about it at the press conference and he basically said he can't say anything cause its ongoing (and that was before the 100 pieces of evidence thing)

also! apparently horner was offered the opportunity to resign for "health reasons" at the end of last year, before all of the allegation rumors got out. he refused.

but well get back to testing in a moment.

first! some slightly irrelevant but still funny news:

this is not really news but apparently zak brown, mclaren ceo, was a normal guy who went on wheel of fortune when he was younger and won a bunch of money which he used to finance his racing career, which didnt really work out for him, but he had enough connections to eventually much later on become the mclaren ceo. which is. kinda wild. (via the red flags podcast)

drive to survive season 6 came out on netflix on friday. it is about the 2023 season and i haven't watched it yet but apparently lando norris asks lance stroll if he can "wank" yet after his wrist injury

christian horner apparently unfollowed max verstappen on instagram

pierre gasley, the very french alpine driver, posted a photo of himself pulled over and getting breathalyzed on instagram. this was soon after deleted, probably by his pr team, but it was fucking hilarious. and before you get all oH hEs pRomOtiNG dRinKiNg aNd dRiVinG, apparently getting breathalyzed when youre pulled over is just something they do in france.

pierre also apparently knew that hamilton was going to ferrari before it was announced. but he refused to say how. the answer to that is likely that charles leclerc told him, because they are besties. so zhou can keep a secret, but clearly charles cannot

gunther steiner, the disgraced haas team principal, is making a return to the paddock in the form of a member of the permanent presentation team for RTL germany. basically hes going to analyze and discuss the races and all that good stuff. which is great for him!

carlos sainz posted a video of himself making pancakes to an audio clip form an interview last year where he explains how to make pancakes. its funny because the audio and the video actually provide very little instruction for how to make the pancakes.

we found out that when the hamilton to ferrari news broke, lando norris was actually in a cave in vietnam with some of his friends. and when they all got out of said cave and turned their phones back on, his friend said "oh lewis is going to ferrari!" and lando thought that he was playing a prank on him.

the official fia photo day.

god. the photo.

every year they do a Drivers Photo. and it normally looks like a kindergarten school picture:

or they get fancy and do something like this:

well not this year.

this year they decided to make it look like they were all contestants on the bachelorette. if the bachelorette was the world championship.

now i understand this is the first time youve all actually seen all the guys photos on this post. so ill take a minute to tell you everyone's names:

from left to right

valtteri bottas (ass calendar man), carlos sainz jr (proud owner of a Volkswagen golf hatchback), nico hulkenburg (hates when daniel ricciardo says his name), lance stroll (canadian), max verstappen (once ripped down a door for his cats), yuki tsunoda (hates working out in the morning), logan sargeant (a literal florida man), charles leclerc (cannot park a car to save his life), kevin magnussen (his daughter helps him put on his gloves), pierre gasley (has cardboard cut outs of the drivers in his garage), fernando alonso (sponsored by tiktok???), sir lewis hamilton (slaying as usual), lando norris (ok WHO put him next to george russell he looks so small), oscar piastri (reportedly has never used a comb), george russell (man of memes), daniel ricciardo (a car mechanic), checo perez (drives a minivan), zhou guanyu (can keep a secret), alex albon (has an entire instagram just for his pets) and esteban ocon (gave ryan reynolds one of his helmets)

and with all that aside. lets get into pre season testing. grab a snack. get a drink. or maybe go to bed. this is a long one.

first. what the fuck is pre season testing?

pre season testing is the week before the first race of the year. the teams have all revealed their new cars for the season and this is the first time all the cars are together on track. its mainly to test set ups and collect data, kind of fine tune everything before the first race and make sure nothing is going to explode. its also a chance to check out what your rivals are up to and see if youve got a hot chance in hell this year. it takes place over the course of three days, with two four hour sessions each day. each team is allowed to have only one car on track at a time, so they split their drivers between the sessions.

its not really about going As Fast As You Can tho (much to the commentators general chagrin), and all the teams are changing the car set up throughout the sessions (tires, fuel, etc) so you can't really tell whos going to slay and whos going to flop in a season just from testing alone. the commentators all bitch and moan throughout testing though that no one is going Fast, so much so that one of them, jolyon palmer, named the last bit of the day when the track is the best "power hour" where Hopefully the cars go fast. and they made him this graphic for it:

but teams generally dont go as fast as they can because sometimes they like to hide some of their pace to surprise the rest of the grid at the first race.

testing is largely important because the data they gather data to help tell them how to make their car faster for their upgrades for later on in the year. so after testing they're already making upgrade packages for months in advance.

and, as commentator/presenter will buxton said, building and setting up an f1 car is a lot like building ikea furniture. the first time sucks but then it gets a lot easier.

"saph," you might be saying. "did you really watch 24 hours of testing just to write this post?"

yes i did. and i took notes :)

now. as excited as we all are about the boys being back on the track, we also get to hear the commentary. people have asked where they can watch f1. im pretty decently sure you have to pay to watch it (tho if someone knows of a free version throw it in the comments) and i have f1tv pro (which if youre going to pay to watch f1, pay for f1 tv pro because you get to see the onboard cameras and all that good stuff), so i hear the sky sports announcers. for the races i listen to the international broadcast (which Yes may be Slightly Biased but i want to hear crofty ok sue me). and the announcers. well. they have their fun. i also sometimes can't tell them apart when theyre talking cause they all have British Announcer Voices so if i fuck up who said what i apologize.

testing, can be pretty boring. theres long stretches of time where not a lot is happening and they have to make it sound interesting for people, so they talk about nothing (like in vegas where they talked about the plot of oceans 11 for a good 20 minutes and managed to get it wrong) or they shit on the teams.

and before we get started, a quick bit about the tires.

if youre new here, there are Several kinds of tires for f1:

c1: hardest tire c2: still hard but slightly less hard c3: mid tire c4: soft-er c5: softest inter: transitional between wet and dry tires wet: for rain and wet conditions

generally, the softer the tire the faster your car will go because theres more grip. each track uses different tires depending on the configuration and this becomes a bit part of the strategy. for example, for one race the options could be the c1 c2 and c3 and for another one it could be the c3 c4 and c5.

and one more disclaimer: i was mostly listening to testing as opposed to having my eyes on the screen the whole time. so i may have missed a few things. everything in here though, unless otherwise stated, happened at testing.

now ive gone back and forth on how to work through the testing drama, and ive decided to just split it up by teams. the days are slightly irrelevant. and there are some parts where i get into the weeds a little on the car mechanics and set up and everything, but i really tried to make it entertaining. so without further ado:

Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls (RB)

Apparently. the visa cash app racing bulls team doesnt want to be called visa cash app and they also dont want to be called racing bulls. despite the fact that this is their name. the commentators found this very silly. so they're calling the team RB. for racing bulls. again, the commentators find this stupid with one of them even saying that he hates calling them that cause the initials "mean nothing." they went on a tangent about how the team and company is registered under racing bulls so they should be called racing bulls. but alas. they are RB. aparently theyre called rb because it is "more snappy" but rb does stand for racing bulls. though that did not stop them from calling them both alpha tauri and toro rosso (the teams previous names) accidentally. and alex albon was asked what he thought about the rb team and he said "now when we say rb are we talking about yuki and daniel?"

this also sparked, i believe it was will buxton (?), to go on a long tangent about the history of every teams names in formula 1. this ended with the statement: "they could call themselves dave if they wanted" the brand doesnt matter.

then they also shitted on the livery. because it looks a lot like the old toro rosso livery. someone (i dont remember who) said something along the lines of "it looks like they were digging around at the factory, opened a cupboard and were like hm looks like we've got loads of silver and blue paint lets just use that. and we've also got loads of blue pants leftover lets use those in our uniforms"

which is hilarious. but also it kinda does look like that:

other drivers and the commentators though said that, clowning aside, the rb team seems to be doing pretty well. considering that they are sharing a lot of parts and stuff with red bull, this would be obvious. but they could be the dark horse of the season.

laurent mendies, the rb team principal, who may actually be more French than pierre gasley, seemed very optimistic, calm and collected. though i am not sure a french guy with thick black glasses and a curly gray almost mullet would be capable of being pessimistic.

also. their drivers, yuki and daniel, remain nothing short of iconic:

here was yukis instagram story:

and daniel ricciardo had several unhinged moments. including one interview where he expressed the desire to eat a fly for "protein" that was flying around his head. and when he was told the official name of the car (rb vcarb 01) and he said "??? is that what its called??"

daniel said the car is "alright." and he has driven many many red bulls so he knows a good fast car when he drives one. he said that they are definitely not last years red bull and he pretty firmly said that they wont be on the podium next week. the current goal is getting to q3 (round 3) of qualifying. and thats not a fairly hopeful statement from daniel ricciardo. so. perhaps they are just a mid field team.

also we've had an update on zak brown's statement on the partnership that exists between the rb and redbull teams. zak said that technically red bull and rb are currently existing within the current f1 regulations (as in, red bull is not breaking the rules by owning two teams) but he thinks that the rules should change to not allow this, as literally every other sport is not allowed to have two teams at the same level.

Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber

similarly to RB, the commentators also shit on stake. they shit on stake throughout the weekend, the name and the color. but i believe it was ted kravitz (the f1 presenter who often hangs out in the pitlane) said in session 1: "if its got carbon fibre or not, living breathing or not, its flouro green, thats the philosophy down here at sauber" the teams also do something during testing where they put flow vis paint on the car and drive it (to see air flow) and its neon green most of the time, so you can see it, and they were like man. every time a sauber car comes out of the garage i keep thinking whos doing a flo vis test again? but its just sauber!

mclaren even really shit on them in an instagram post (that was quickly deleted and i tried to find it in a screenshot but i could not) where they posted a photo of the mclaren on the track next to the sauber and then the mclaren again covered in flo vis paint with the caption "did stake sneeze on us??"

the name shitting was also present. they decided to call the team sauber tho instead of stake and kick because "thats the name of the team, the others are brands" and yeah, they're correct about that. but in the second session of day 1 one of the commentators stumbled through the whole team name and then said "stake kick sauber, choose your own adventure at that name!"

aside from literally everyone shitting on their name and their color though, they did well. they were flying a bit under the radar, but still doing pretty well. their car notably is the closest set up to last year's red bull, with them copying a lot of the design elements (aside from the nose of the car, which is different). and i know that doesnt mean a whole lot to a lot of you, but basically the car is entirely different than it was last year and since they copied a lot of the elements and shape of the fastest car last year, the hope is that they will have some pace this year.

Williams

now williams, unsurprisingly, had a few problems. on the first day, alex albon was the only car to stop on track and it was due to a fuel pump issue. james vowels, the team principal, explained this very seriously. with the same level of serious that he explained his daughters christmas outfits 2 minutes later.

then in session 2 of day one, logan sargeant spun out with a gearbox issue. which is deeply surprising. and i will tell you why. ive alluded to this before but mercedes and williams have something of a partnership because mercedes supplies williams with some parts (engines, gearboxes etc.) so. Williams made the decision to run the 2023 mercedes geabox in their 2024 car (which is allowed). and that gear box was incredibly reliable. so the fact that theirs fucked out. not so great for williams.

there was also kimi antonelli talk. which ill get to a bit more later in the silly season section, but! james said that maybe they dont want to put kimi in their car anyway. meaning they wouldn't sign kimi if mercedes asked them to. which is! interesting!

and williams changed around their front wing to make it more uwu sexy (faster). though alex albon said that their straight line speed does not seem to be as fast as it was last year. this is not necessarily bad because their car was Only fast in a straight line last year. and as you know. tracks have turns. but this year it seems, at least according to alex albon, that they have "more options" as in the car does more than just go fast in a straight line.

alex also came into the commentary box and chose violence. within 4 seconds of being there he said "may i expose you guys a bit? it smells like champagne in here." he was so committed to the bit of proving that the commentary box smelled like champagne that he brought it up three separate times and even went as far as to sniff the container of wipes that they use to wipe off the mics to see if it was that. (it was not). (the commentators were also so outraged at this accusation that they brought it up at least four more times throughout testing. they determined that it was in fact the alcohol wipes)

they asked alex to predict what would happen next week at the bahrain grand prix. (there is a lap time record that people speculate will be broken next week, likely by red bull) and alex said the following:

"max is going to have a 25 second lead. hes going to go for a pit stop at the end of the race and hes going to go for his fastest lap at the end and break the lap record. [various discussion about him going already being at the bar by the time the other drivers cross the line] or he could be here cause clearly theres the champagne here."

alex also talked about the iconic george russell intro pose from 2023:

so according to alex:

"so i asked the people who filmed that why did you choose that video of george? and apparently i think it has to do with everyone's height that only george esteban and me could do it? thank god they chose george! everyone has that pose i think everyones got it. im sure they could have 20 drivers easily doing the whatever that thing is." and honestly i think hes onto something because landos pose was similar to georges but not as dramatic (likely because hes smaller and his arms probably didnt reach as far as georges do) and this picture got memed to high hell and a half. so. f1 if youre out there. please release the video compilation of all the drivers doing the george russell pose.

aside from all that though. he is excited about williams and about the car and everything that they have coming up. which sounds like it could be promising! but again! its only testing! and their testing kind of went the worst of everyones testing with all the problems that they had.

logan said in his interview that he is still "fighting the car a little more than [he wants]" but that hes excited for what they have coming and that hes hopeful that they will get their crap together and the car will be better because things are lining up as expected.

they also mentioned about 198120928 million times that "logan put on five kilos of muscle over the break and he is feeling very confident in his preparation for the next season" so hopefully he will do better than one single point this coming year.

and, they had this very very flattering angle of alex albon:

Haas

well. they were exactly where they expected they would be. dead last. they also said that they suspected that they would be dead last during their car launch.

there was one fantastic shot of nico hulkenberg in the cockpit holding a pair of pliers. would have loved to have known what he was doing with those.

and on day three kevin was in the car in the garage with a hammer doing Something in the cockpit?? what it was no one knows. commentator speculation was that he was fixing some padding. but it was at the very end of his run. so. hm!

the team principal, ayao komatsu, seemed very optimistic though? and seemed to have a plan? which seems good for them? he did say they had a few random car problems but they were able to run through all of the tests that they wanted to, which is always good.

haas had the most wind tunnel time of all the teams (wind tunnel testing time is determined by your position in the championship and haas came dead last and dead last gets the most time) but they wasted most of this wind tunnel time creating an upgrade package for the 2023 austin race which epically flopped.

haas's biggest problem consistently is the tires. their cars eat their tires. much like the tractors eating luigis radial tires in cars 1. and once they get their car to stop eating tires it will be significantly better for them. cause they have good pace on qualifying days but then it all falls apart on race day because they have to race for longer and the car chomps on the tires. its kind of unclear if they've gotten any closer to solving this problem, though the drivers are optimistic. kevin said that he thinks their tire problems have lessened a little, but we haven't seen race pace yet so whos to really say.

haas though have been pretty low energy. very accepting of the fact that unfortunately, they're probably going to be dead fucking last again.

at the end of day two they did all the stop and start and safety car tests and for the race restart test there were idk maybe 6 drivers lined up for the test and k mags was one of them. all the other drivers decided that they were going to Race Race off the line (trying to pass eachother, full sparks flying, etc) but apparently no one told kevin this. and he was very surprised that the cars were racing.

Aston Martin

they did pretty well. well. perhaps i should say that fernando alonso did pretty well. fernando was up in the top 3 quite a bit and the car, at least according to the commentators, seemed fast.

they spoke to one mike krak, the team principal of aston martin, who said that they definitely want to re sign fernando. when asked if fernando was happy, cause recall that he wanted to see what aston were doing before considering any other contract from another team, said "is fernando every happy?" which is very villain of fernando.

fernando alonso was, however, happy when during the red flag on day 2 he was sitting in his car the entire time. the red flag was upwards of 30 minutes. his seat must be quite comfy because everyone else got out.

there is some speculation that aston martin may have created a rocket ship. were not entirely sure though because most of the cars dont show their full pace during testing. but they do seem to be pretty even with mclaren.

and during his interview Fernando was as pleased as fernando can be. as in he said that the car this year was better than the car last year. which is something when most teams like to be vague. he did though say that red bull is definitely fast and "i think 19 drivers in the paddock now will think that they will not win the championship." and thats a pretty definitive statement. no one said it as directly as this, but it seemed to be the general driver consensus that max and red bull are winning this year again.

Alpine

alpine are happy with their performance. but last year they had a stupid amount of drama, so they are likely to be pleased because there is no more of that. jack doohan, their test and reserve driver, had a lovely conversation with the commentators during day two where he said that basically the team is exactly where they want to be in terms of set up. they do seem solidly midfield though. which is decent for them.

also! alpine put more paint on their car. the nose of it is now more blue. and according to the alpine technical director, the race pace gain of not fully painting the car is .03 of a second. which in formula 1 means 2 or 3 places sometimes. (its a race pace gain because painting the car adds weight and formula 1 is a weight game with the cars and paint is something that often gets sacrificed to make the weight requirement)

they had something pop off of their car on the front while they were driving. which isn't Great.

this being said. they weren't particularly stand out. they didnt bring the softest tires so we didnt get to see their zoom zoom pace, but the commentators seemed in agreement that they might have a lot of work to do. they are hard to place right now in terms of where all the teams line up.

they were talked about the least by far. but apparently they might have the least aerodynamic car of everyone.

Mclaren

reportedly the vibes were "good" in their garage. thats the thing about testing, you have to mostly judge the body language of the teams and if people seem stressed and worried then thats reason for despair. but mclaren seemed mostly pleased.

except of course when will buxton called their car "neon orange" on twitter and they responded back and said um actually No its Papaya. will buxton went on a very long rant during the afternoon session of day two of testing about how the mclaren is actually Not painted Papaya because "papaya is a creamier shade of orange" and he begged and implored the viewers at home to google search "pantone papaya" and compare it to the f1 car.

and i hate to say it. but i think will is right.

they went on another long tangent about color and the absence of color and pigment. and the freaking blue and black or white and gold dress from like 2012. all normal testing talk.

moving on from that. the commentators want lando to win a fucking race finally. so that he can move on from that pressure and get on with his career already. cause hes fast. but until he gets that win. whos to say.

lando also had fastest lap in session 1, .8 seconds ahead of max verstappen, for quite a little. before max went faster than him. for seemingly no reason other than he could. and then max's race engineer (gp) made this lovely face:

which caused many people to be like welp! thats it! were all fucked! red bull is going to win everything again!

(max verstappen also apparently sent that photo of gp to gp after testing and max said that "i sent that footage to him where hes smiling! he doesnt like to be on camera, so he was a bit like 'argh! i shouldn't have done that!'")

but back to mclaren:

they also talked a good bit about lando and oscar. the commentators seem to think they're kind of on a level playing field. now that oscar has a year under his belt and a few podiums, he seems to have found his confidence and he Could be very close in points and everything to lando. this is good. they need a strong pairing to bring the fight to red bull. and mclaren yes always say ohhhh we can't compete with red bull. and then they do. so we respectfully do not listen to a single thing that they say about not being able to take on red bull.

and they also said that oscar is more confident. which is true. in the few media things hes done he seems to actually want to talk to people instead of just follow around lando. kind of a lot like how lando was really quiet his first year at mclaren and just followed around carlos before growing into himself.

oscar also made a bold prediction that fernando would go to merc.

and this technically wasn't at pre season testing but while were talking about oscar being sassy he did this interview and well.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Fast And The Curious (@fastcuriouspod)

yeah.

aside from that mclaren were dealing with a little bit of porpoising. which is the driver bumping up and down when they're driving. this was a large thing back in 2022 (and the origin of the iconic "change your fucking car" clip from drive to survive). and they had a problem with landos clutch (could have also been the fuel pump?), he had to stop on day 2 and 3 for awhile for them to fix that. but again, the team seemed pretty Unworried.

my personal favorite photo of lando from testing was this one, and since i can't find a real photo of it on the interwebs you will all have to tolerate the garbage quality of the snapchats that i sent my sister:

they do seem Quietly Confident. they did not really do all All Out Fast Lap (they didnt bring the softest tires that you would use for the all out fast lap) so they clearly are confident if they didnt want to test that. though they didnt really do too many laps in comparison to the other teams at testing, which isn't always great. so we shall see.

Ferrari

ferrari did decently well. with the exception of the drain cover incident on day 2.

now. this is not the first time that a ferrari has fallen victim to a drain cover. the first drain cover incident was in free practice 1 in las vegas 2023. carlos sainz ran over a loose drain cover about 9 minutes into practice, it blew a hole clear through the bottom of his car and delayed the start of practice 2 by i think it was 6 hours because they had to check the whole track again. he also got a 10 place grid penalty for having to change his power unit (even though he clearly didnt have a choice)

charles's run in with a drain cover was not nearly as dramatic. it was a painted over cover on some curbing on the track that got loose and damaged the bottom of his car. not so great. also sets a terrible start to the season for mr leclerc who is Notoriously Unlucky.

notably:

during 2023 charles had a dnf (did not finish) and dns (did not start) and a dsq (disqualified) from starting pole position (first). in his 5 years in f1 he has only finished i think 2 of his home races (monaco) and has never been on the podium there. he gets fucked by the strategy. and during testing he now runs over a drain cover. brilliant.

and one report of the incident framed it like this for some reason:

and the commentators clowned on him a lot during the first day of testing, when max verstappen decided to pass him:

“first move of the year and it was a red bull overtaking a ferrari, who would have guessed”

“poor little charles leclerc already has to be looking at the back of a red bull"

“oo another overtake. charles is getting overtaken left right and center”

but back to testing. this incident caused a red flag about 2 hours and 30 minutes into the first testing session on day two. and they had a red flag for about a half hour or so before they decided that they would not resume the session in order to make repairs to the track. which is very unfortunate for the teams because they only have a limited amount of testing time. they extended the afternoon session to 5 hours to accommodate the time lost during the red flag.

carlos, weirdly, blamed himself for the drain cover situation because apparently he saw it loosen before charles hit it, went to talk to the marshal about it and then charles hit it. ferrari tho were pretty nonplussed about the whole thing though. they had parts to fix it and it wasnt nearly as bad as the vegas incident.

aside from that though, ferrari seemed as confident as they could be with red bull being the insane team that they are. carlos had fastest lap on day 2 of testing and charles had fastest lap on the third day of testing, with max in 4th. and the commentators were pretty convinced that ferrari could bring the fight to red bull in terms of qualifying, not necessarily the race, just like last year. of course, its just testing, this is mostly for set ups and isn't actually representative of race pace. but still!

they interviewed fred vasseur (the team principal) and honestly i was so surprised at how aggressively french he sounded that i forgot to listen to most of what he was actually saying. literally this is the most french man i have ever heard. i knew he was french. but i didnt know he was this french! hes more french than the rb team principal. anyway. what did fred say. i have no idea. i think he said that the car is doing well (but dont have too high of expectations!) and carlos and Charles are doing well. he complimented carlos on handling the lewis hamilton situation pretty professionally all things considered. seriously go look up a video of him talking.

the car seems to be set up more to match charles's racing style than carlos's, but they both got very good laps out of the car and were consistently in the top 3 times. carlos actually had the fastest time of all of testing, which was a 1:29. charles and carlos both seemed pleased with the car in their interviews. carlos was more vague with his answers. when asked what charles thought about testing so far he said “it feels like every winter test which means that we dont know a thing” and then when asked about red bull he said “red bull unfortunately remains quite ahead." which is true.

charles was also asked about his new ep by will buxton during his interview. and when i say asked i mean will said “its testing so we need to talk about the important things. you have an ep out!” an ep that he apparently wrote in a day and a half??? (its called dreamers its very good). and then he was also asked if he is going to collaborate with lewis hamilton on an album next year. because that is a reasonable thing to ask during testing. charles said vaguely that he would talk with lewis about it. so. whos to say! we could get a ferrari album!!!

then the commentators debated what song charles and lewis should duet. and the consensus was everybody hurts by rem. yeah. says a lot.

and, perhaps most importantly, we got our closeup on charles leclercs eyes (which is a staple of any f1 event, the camera guys love giving him a good little zoom moment)

they also talked a good bit about the lewis hamilton to ferrari drama.

and, in case you need a refresher on why this was a wild bit of drama, this instagram reel is a good summary:

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and the general consensus was that if anyone said that they saw this coming, they were lying. they also are pretty convinced that, despite the fact that lewis is not allowed to bring race engineers etc with him from mercedes to ferrari, it would be highly unusual if some people didnt go with him. because in f1 the contracts are "water tight" and theres nothing that money basically can't solve. the person most likely to follow lewis is his race engineer, bono. one of the commentators said that they "can't see lewis putting up with the same radio calls as charles and carlos." this is probably referring to the infamous ferrari radios where they tell charles to stay out on track, then call him into the pits after hes already passed the pit lane or tell him to come in then change their minds once hes already turned in and tell him to stay out. it is also. a fantastic dig.

but also. at ferrari, sir lewis hamilton would be getting back together with fred vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, who he raced for in the junior leagues back in the day, effectively nicely bookending his career. and as they pointed out several times, it will be a good learning experience for charles to work with a world champion of lewis's calibre.

Mercedes

now mercedes. there was quite a bit of discussion around the seat positioning in the car. lewis hamilton wanted the seat further back and they finally put the seat further back. so now its in a set up where he will perform well with it. (looking forward to his time at ferrari next year though, that seat is further forward. this led to a long speculation of Will Ferrari Listen To Lewis, which i think i already talked about in a previous update).

there was also the mercedes front wing. mercedes put a front wing on their car this year that was different than the usual front wing. here we have the 2023 mercedes front wing:

and here we have the 2024 mercedes front wing:

as you can see where those arrows are pointing. the top bit of the front wing closer to the nose is very narrow to make it more aerodynamic and also stay in regulations that both sides of the wing must be secured to the car. still, this could be illegal in terms of regulations. the fia said that they would wait to deliver a verdict on it to see how much dirty air it produces.

they also are now sponsored by whatsapp. and this year they decided to make the radio button on their steering wheel a whatsapp button:

yes. f1 is a very very serious sport.

ultimately though. mercedes showed up. they kinda flopped last year and the car looked hard to drive. but this year they were positively slaying. not as good as red bull were but they were still slaying.

there was a whole lot of talk about the lewis and george situation. will lewis hamilton still be treated as the number 1 driver this year or will they treat george as the number 1 driver? lewis, as we know, is leaving to go to ferrari next year and it will be george carrying the team so are they going to still give lewis the winning strategy?? we dont know. lewis has said that all his focus is on mercedes this year so i think that he thinks that hes still going to be treated as the number 1 driver. george, for what it is worth, said that hes not really concerned about whos getting the seat after lewis because hes already had a top tier teammate, he knows mercedes will make a good choice.

george and toto had some funny moments on the cameras. toto raised his eyebrows at one like he was on the office:

and toto tried and failed to block george from the camera here (this was the only picture of it i could find that wasnt a gif):

Red Bull

ah red bull. well. as predicted they came and they slayed. and this was due to one man. adrian newey.

who the hell is adrian newey you might be asking? he is the chief technology officer at red bull racing. meaning that basically, he designs the car. and he is very, very good at what he does. so good in fact that he has been offered chances to work on space ships and turned them down to stay at f1. according to the commentators the last time he made a bad car was when he was at mclaren in 2003 and that wasnt because it was bad, it was because it was ahead of its time.

apparently. one year red bull was like hey. hey buddy. dont follow any regulations. just make us the fastest car known to man. just for fun.

and he did.

and it was so fast that no one could drive it.

anyway. this is the fit that this man was pulled up in in the garage:

which is nothing short of terrifying in a way that i cannot articulate. everyone else in their team shirts and then this guy looking like a dad who just walked away from a grill, about to kick everyones fucking asses.

but anyway. what on earth have red bull got cooking this year.

well ill tell you. as that is very much the point of this post.

to put it very simply. red bull took the concept that mercedes had in 2022/2023. the very one that mercedes tossed out because they couldn't figure out how to make it work. well. red bull took that and adrian newey said. hm. i can make this work. and then he did.

and this is important for a few reasons.

excuse me while i get into the weeds of car build a little here.

on the sides of the cars are these things called side pods and they regulate the air flow and cooling of the engine and all that good stuff. red bull last year put the intake on the opposite side as everyone else. so this year everyone copied red bull (because why wouldn't they??? red bull slayed last year) and then this year red bull were like hm well were not going to do that. they flipped the intake back on the other side, basically using the old mercedes side pods.

theres a lot more to it than that, but for all intents and purposes, thats what's going on

and everyones like? will this work? what the fuck is red bull doing? is newey getting ahead of himself ala mclaren 2003? only time will tell.

but as commentator/presenter rachel brookes said during day three "if it aint broke dont fix it, unless of course youre adrian newey because then you can make it better."

however, they seemed to have a 2 second lead over everyone in testing, and they really didnt hit a full out race pace at all (likely because they are confident) (the ferraris had faster laps than max did but they were on slightly softer tires) (most of max's runs were on harder tires (they didnt run anything softer than a c3) and they were still passing everyone which is impressive). and. max verstappen did notably say that the car does "everything i want it to." so looks like red bull will be at the front again. and the gap to them is probably larger than anything thinks it is. but who, if anyone, will bring the fight to them?? ferrari, mercedes and mclaren all seem capable of it.

on top of this though, red bull is planning a large upgrade for their car seemingly early in the season (perhaps as early as race 5) which means they could get faster. the gap between red bull and everyone else could really widen. though, its been speculated that the gap wont be As Much as it was last year.

red bull does though apparently blast 2010s pop music in their garage (seemingly the only team that does so?) and general consensus from instagram was that they were playing the darude remix of sandstorm.

also max looked far more comfortable in the car than checo did. which is not surprising but also in a year where checo has to be on his best behavior to keep his seat, thats not great news for him. especially remembering the supposed clause in daniels contract that says he could replace checo if hes not performing early in the season. only problem with that is that historically checo does well at the beginning of the season and then drops off towards the end. but, we saw several times max taking fastest lap of the session, and checo never took fastest lap of the session.

interestingly we heard very little from horner. we did see him in the garage, he was back in his team polo for days 2 and 3 (i think?) but there were no real zooms on him or anything. it would seem though that regardless of whether or not he leaves this year though, red bull are set to win because the car has already been developed and all that. when theres a team principal change theres usually not real changes seen until the following season because of how the development process works.

on day three, about 20 minutes into the first session, one checo perez ran over quite possibly the same drain cover as charles leclerc and loosened it up. again. another red flag. another stop. and it was quite a long stop because they had to come up with a better solution.

and well. it was entertaining to watch them try to get the drain cover back in order at least. one of the commentators noticed that they were hitting a hammer with a screwdriver, which, same.

and several people shitted on drain cover two, electric boogaloo. including our good friend the mercedes instagram admin:

and lando's ln4 twitter account:

the drain cover part 2 incident forced them to combine practice 1 and 2 for day 3 together to ensure that everyone got a fair amount of run time. so it was a 9 hour straight day.

Silly Season Speculation

so so so on top of All That then there was a good bit of speculation on Silly Season. lets get a run down:

-ultimately, the whole silly season hinges on the mercedes seat

-commentators are Pretty Fucking Sure kimi is going to go to merc. but they need to decide if they're doing this for 2025 or later because he still needs to prove himself in f2. but its unlikely that they would sign someone else for Just One Year

-toto is likely Not going to let kimi slip through his grasp like max verstappen did

-recall tho. james vowels (williams team principal) doesnt really want to sign kimi antonelli to williams.

-however, merc needs to make up their big ass minds because the driver market will not move until merc decides whos getting the seat because Everyone Wants The Seat

-carlos it seems has literally every option open to him. sauber potentially but that seems like a long term project and he is in his Peak f1 years and will want to jump into something that will perform with him. he wants to win things. he could go back to alpine. he could go to williams if they perform well. or aston. or even merc.

-reguardless though, it seems like lewis signed with ferrari because he lost hope in merc. there are many instances where he said that "i want this to change on the car, this has to change on the car" and he was right and they didnt change it. and then he wanted a longer contract and they also said no. and he said fuck this im out.

-there was also speculation that the merc seat could be open to anyone. even people who already have contracts. could buy themselves out of it to go to merc. cause a merc seat doesnt pop up often.

-as we know. checo, liam lawson, yuki and daniel all want to second red bull seat. the commentators came up with a great solution to this problem and it was. why dont you just put all of them in the simulator to see whos the fastest? and unfortunately that wont work because as good as a simulator is, it is not a real car and some things do not translate. its still anyones guess who will get the seat.

-estie bestie is confident that he could stay at alpine because he thinks that he is doing well and he has been there for several years already. but he is also hopeful about mercedes because he is actually still under the mercedes umbrella. he was their test and reserve driver for i believe 2019 and he was in the mercedes junior program. there are a lot of people thought who severely doubt that this will actually happen.

-also alex albon is confirmed confirmed to have a williams contract for 2025. so hes off the market.

-theres at least two f2 drivers who might be up for f1 seats: ollie bearman and kimi antonelli, as well as then liam lawson. so potentially 3 people on the current grid could be out of a seat at the end of the year.

and finally. the speculation of What The Order For The Championship Will Be!!!

its widely regarded that red bull are going to be in the top spot again. so there wont really be a fight for first, but there will be a fight for 2 3 and 4. so that puts the upper mid field as being ferrari, mclaren, mercedes and aston martin. the only solidly mid field car could be alpine, same as last year. then the back of the field as haas, williams and stake.

the consensus though was. this is going to be an interesting year. the cars are all probably closer in pace than we think. no one had an absolutely jackshit run in testing. and by summer break, we should have a very close fight for at least 2nd 3rd and 4th playing out.

and with that. im going to take a nap.

thank you everyone for taking the time to read this ridiculously long update im sorry if i got a little in the weeds, there was a lot of info to sort through lol. and i see all of you commenting and sending asks saying that ive converted you to being a fan. im so glad were all having fun here :)

i will see you all next week for the FIRST RACE RAAAAAAAAA and the Official start of the season.

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

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

under the cut we go

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

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

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

so let’s meet the teams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

let’s meet our drivers!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

feel free to add on and peer review me

[suosgirl]

Helloooo! I was wondering if you are taking requests for Wind Breaker?

If yes, can I ask for a story or headcanons about Suo meeting and getting curious (and eventually falling for) a f.reader who is like a princess for Shishitoren?

In my head it would be funny to see Suo challenging and interacting with Choji and Togame (who are already threatening Suo to stay away from the reader). I mean, he can be kind of mean when he wants, and still wear a smile.😆

Thanks for hearing me out!

And let me say, I realllyyyy love the way you write!🩷

Shishitoren's Princess (& Her Guard Dog) | Hayato Suo x Reader

Word Count: 7471

୨ৎ Read me before interacting!

୨ৎ Pairing: Hayato Suo x Reader feat. Shishitoren (literally most of them), Jo Togame, Choji Tomiyama, Mitsuki Kiryu, Haruka Sakura, Akihiko Nire

୨ৎ Warnings: mdni, f!reader, manga spoilers, ooc (definitely ooc sorry ah), angst, harassment, swearing, kissing, miscommunication – if I’ve missed one, I apologize + please let me know!

୨ৎ Note: oh my goodness – I'm actually so sorry for how this took me (and how long this is ૮꒰◞ ˕ ◟ ྀི꒱ა). I loved loved loved this idea so much, and thank you for the sweetest words! I really hope this is somewhere in the ballpark of what you were requesting! Thank you again for the amazing idea! I love you!

You hadn’t meant to cross over to their territory – truly. It’s just that Togame had mentioned that his favorite Ramune flavor had been out since last night, and Tomiyama had been going on and on about this new snack that just wasn’t available at the usual corner store that you guys frequented, so you found yourself with a mission on your mind and your wallet in your hand.

Pretty, perfect, caring adorable you. With a smile that could heal any scratch and a heart that seemed to never run empty. You were the pride and joy of Shishitoren – their mascot in every sense. 

You knew everyone by name. If someone asked, you could name at least 5 things about each person from the top of your head. You could name their allergies, their likes and dislikes, and even their interests – all because you listened to them.

You were attentive and warm – quick to lend an ear if someone was having a bad day or offer advice if they asked.

And it was scary how well you could tell if they were in the dumps – it becomes a running joke that you have some kind of emotional superpower when it comes to them. It takes just one look, one look before you’re bringing them to a secluded corner and asking them if they’ve got something weighing on their minds.

You knew their personalities, knew their stories, knew their hearts. 

The only time anyone avoided you was when they knew they did something wrong – because they knew you’d be pulling them by the ear and scolding them. And, as much as some of them wanted to get mad, they just couldn’t bring themselves to – because having someone care for them so fiercely was a feeling that not many of them had ever experienced, and from the bottom of your heart you truly cared.

After every fight, they knew you’d be the one to patch them up. Bofurin had the townspeople, sure, but Shishitoren had you. You, who would set up tables in the Ori with every inch of space taken up by ointments, antiseptic spray, gauze – the works. Whatever injury they had, as long as not severe, was taken care of by you. 

If it was serious and required hospital attention, you were the one bringing them there – eyes sharp and tongue at the ready to yell at anyone who dared to treat them differently or deny services.

And these boys … they had the utmost respect for you. You, who had nothing but love to give, never expected a single thing back. You cared for them, genuinely, and saw them as your own brothers to fuss over and worry about and love. 

You were family – and honestly, Togame and Tomiyama were just glad to have met you after their fight with Bofurin. 

You’d moved to this side of town just a little after the whole thing, and when you’d gotten lost in the dark alleys with your phone on 1% and tears in your eyes, it was Tomiyama who walked you home. He’d talked your ear off the whole way, of course, but he was surprised at how you were able to keep up with him. You were actively responding to him, asking questions, keeping the conversation going – and Tomiyama liked that. 

And when you’re delivered safely to your front door, you ask if you can exchange contact info. His eyes light up, and he’s quickly saying yes and that he’d love to hang out with you again.

He doesn’t expect you to reach out to him the next day though, asking if you can give him a thank-you present for going out of his way the day before. 

And when you show up to the Ori, with a bag of assorted goodies in your hands, you’re met with more men than you could count, all with eyes staring wide at you.

They expect you to run away, honestly, because they know what they look like. They know that you’re probably a sweet girl, sure, but they were a gang – plain and simple. A gang working on reform, sure, but a gang nonetheless. So, if you were to drop your little goodie bag in fear and run for your life, well, it would probably be the most appropriate response.

Instead, what you do is gasp, point an accusatory finger at Tomiyama, and exclaim, “WHY didn’t you tell me that there would be more people here?”

You quickly hand him the bag, muttering out an “I’ll be back”, and in less than 30 minutes you’ve got your hands full with 5 more bags, packed to the brim with even more snacks.

With Togame, it takes just a little bit longer for him to warm up to you. Not that he doesn’t already like you – it’s just that he’s, well, a bit more reserved and a bit more quiet and observing (a lot more quiet if we’re comparing him to Tomiyama). 

It’s when, during a fleeting conversation, he mentions that he plays Go with the elderly men at the public bath – and he watches you perk up at his words. Immediately, you’re asking if it would be alright to play with him sometime, and while he’s hesitant, he ultimately says yes at the sight of your bright eyes and wide smile.

He admits that he thinks you’re just bluffing, until you actually plan a day to play, and now you’ve got him thinking that maybe you’re good? Maybe, you’re a secret Go prodigy or something? Maybe you’ve got a secret or two up your sleeve and –

He wipes the floor with you. Absolutely demolishes you. But you’re happy about it, laughing at the result, and he’s confused because you didn’t win? Did you … did you know how board games work?

You’re quick to tell him that you enjoyed it because you got to spend time with him, got to know who he is as a person because of how he played. 

You leave him standing on the street, a bottle of Ramune long forgotten in his hand (his prize for winning) and his mouth open in surprise.

And when you notice he’s not next to you anymore, you turn around with a smile on your face as you ask, “Don’t you feel that you know me a little bit better too?”

Yeah, they were glad that you got to see them as they were now, with hopes and dreams and emotions. They don’t dwell on the idea of you meeting them before then – they don’t want to. Because if they thought about it too long, they’d have their answer.

You deserved to be happy and healthy and protected. You, who filled a hole in Shishitoren that they didn’t even know existed. 

And now you were an irreplaceable part of their lives, so precious and so important that they began to understand Bofurin. They had you – someone that they would do anything in their power to protect – to keep safe from harm.

You were Shishitoren’s Princess.

After that, Tomiyama and Togame were stuck to you like glue. Always thinking about you, always concerned, always wondering where you were. 

You’re running late and they haven’t got a text letting them know why? They’re out on the streets, danger flashing in their eyes and prepared for the worst. However, when they see that you’ve been distracted by a stray cat on the road, all they do is let out a laugh and join your side. 

They hear you sniffling and see that your eyes are shining with tears? They’re immediately on you, asking who did this to you, with a promise to make them pay for it tenfold. “You can’t really beat up allergies,” you laugh, before sneezing into a tissue. Immediately, the Shishitoren boys are rounded up, their eyes focused and determined – to get you allergy medicine.

You were everything good in the world, bottled up into someone who could make even the rainiest days seem a bit more brighter and the hardest challenges a bit more bearable – and they didn’t want anyone infringing on their happiness.

So when Hayato Suo, from Bofurin, comes across you one fateful day – they’re absolutely livid. 

You hadn’t meant to cross over to their territory – truly. It’s just that Togame had mentioned that his favorite Ramune flavor had been out since last night, and Tomiyama had been going on and on about this new snack that just wasn’t available at the usual corner store that you guys frequented, so you found yourself with a mission on your mind and your wallet in your hand.

And honestly, you loved them, you did, but the way that they treated you like a delicate little flower sometimes felt a bit too stuffy.

What? Did they think you just patched people up for fun? That you knew how to medically treat someone just short of a nurse because it was your hobby?

You’re too absorbed in your thoughts to realize where the directions on your phone are taking you until you’ve already passed the train crossing border that connects Bofurin’s and Shishitoren’s territory. You’re spit out onto a street that you’ve never seen before, but you shrug it off.

When you find the corner store, you make quick work of your shopping list, even grabbing some items for yourself, before you’re out the door.

It’s when you’ve barely taken a few steps down the street that you feel it – the staring on the back of your head.

While you were in the store, you’d felt their eyes on you, but you’d ignored it, hoping that it was just a fleeting moment of curiosity. Now, you see that it was the eyes of a predator stalking their prey.

You pause, before quickly taking out your phone and sending a quick text to Togame and Tomiyama – they just need one small clue and they can fill in the rest – so you send your location. 

And when you finally turn to face your stalker, you snap a photo of their face. For insurance, you assure yourself. Just in case. 

He’s taller than you, with a smirk on his face and his hands in his pockets. You feel uneasy at his presence, and you look up and down the street to see that no one’s around.

Damnit damnit damnit. 

“You’re really pretty, totally my type. Could I get your contact information?” he’s asking, but the tone that he’s saying it in doesn’t leave any room for objection.

“No,” you reply, simple and straight to the point. Then, you stay standing there, and you wait. 

“Never turn your back on an enemy.”

Togame had said this briefly, once, while the both of you were watching everyone spar.

When the man takes a step forward, you take one back, maintaining the distance between you and him.

“Oh come on – it’s just your number. Don’t make this such a big deal.”

He’s holding himself back and you can see it. You can see the way his hands are twitching by his sides now and the way his breathing is starting to speed up.

“Always keep an eye on your opponent~! You wouldn’t wanna miss anything!”

Tomiyama’s words run through your mind next, and you will yourself to maintain your facade.

You’re starting to get just the slightest bit worried now, though. It really shouldn’t be too much longer, you think. Any minute now. 

But a minute passes by, Togame and Choji aren’t here, and the guy’s got his hand wrapped around your wrist so tightly that it’s starting to throb.

“Please – leave me alone!” you yell out, but it’s going through one ear and out the other. He’s smiling down, dark and sinister, and it’s then that you remember something so crucial that you can’t believe you forgot it.

“Kick them, um, down there. It’ll hurt, a lot. But that’s a last resort type of move, alright princess?”

Those self-defense lessons are paying off, Togame. 

You make a mental note to thank him when he gets here.

You kick the man, hard, and when he releases your arm you step back as fast as you can, but – 

The plastic bag you had once held in your hand, now filled with the sloshing liquid and the broken glass of Togame’s Ramune bottle, causes you to slip.

Your hands shoot out and you close your eyes in anticipation of the fall that never comes because strong, warm arms are holding you up.

You let out a sigh of relief – finally. You’re brought to stand, but before those hands can leave your body, you’re swiftly grabbing them to wrap around your waist and leaning your head on their chest.

“Geez, took you guys long enough –”

The sight of a black jacket cuts you off. Black, with green embroidery.

You quickly push yourself off, eyes wide and cheeks red because you had just initiated a very intimate hug with someone who was a complete stranger.

“I-I’m so sorry! Oh my gosh – I thought you were someone else!” you blurt out, hands covering your mouth – and he looks as caught off guard as you are.

His eye is wide, mouth open just the tiniest bit, and – he’s cute.

“Wow, I don’t get thanked like that too often,” he smiles, and you’re mortified at his playful reaction.

“I –,” You open your mouth to apologize again, but he’s got a hand on your shoulder, quickly cutting you off.

You look up at him, and the smile’s still there, but it’s different now – it’s frightening.

“Would you mind stepping to the side for me? It seems some people just don’t know when to quit.”

You hear shuffling behind you, and you’re quickly brought back to the situation at hand. Nodding, you get out of his way, and it’s as soon as you step past him that you hear a sickening thud and a groan of pain.

When you turn, you’re relieved to see that the man who’d been harassing you is on the ground, and if you were to guess, probably out cold.

“Wow… You made quick work of him,” you don’t try to hide the awe in your voice and Suo finds it both endearing and concerning that you’re praising him.

Concerning mainly because, well, you don’t seem to be the type to leisurely enjoy street fights. 

And now you’re right in front of him, inspecting his face and body to make sure there aren’t any cuts that need to be treated or any injuries that need tending.

It’s second nature at this point — ingrained in your body and soul.

Cute, he thinks, very cute that she thinks he touched me.

“Do you see anything wrong, love?” he jests, enjoying the way you’re so diligently scanning him from head to toe.

“No, I don’t think—”

You are, once again, mortified by his teasing. No one at Shishitoren spoke to you like this, and sure they called you Princess, but to you, it held the same value as sister or friend.

“S-sorry, force of habit… ah, thank you for saving me! I sent my friends a message but —”

You’re cut off by the sounds of two distinct voices yelling "Princess", and Suo’s quick to prepare himself for another fight.

However, when he sees Togame and Tomiyama run around the corner with panic in their eyes and desperation in their voices, he’s just confused.

And when they spot the two of you, with an unconscious body on the ground, it gets even more confusing. Because why are they walking over here and why do they have scowls on their face and —

“Princess, what were you thinking?”

Tomiyama and Togame are all over you, Togame’s hand gently grasping your chin to move your face from side to side, and Tomiyama’s got his hand on your wrist, softly thumbing at the bruised skin.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

Suo’s observing all of this, and he’s trying to rack his brain for any information about you. God, he really wished Nirei was here right now.

He’s never heard that name before or seen your face, so this must be a recent development. But with the way they’re fretting over you, you’d think that you’d all been childhood friends or something because the way that they’re worrying over you is definitely not normal.

You try to push their hands away from you, embarrassed that you have an audience, but they don’t let up so all you’re able to do is grumble and huff as they inspect you from head to toe.

“... He hurt you,” Tomiyama whispers, and you grab his wrist before he starts stalking toward the body on the floor.

“It’s okay um – oh, I don’t know your name, but he helped me out! Everything’s fine – really! Please, let’s calm down,” you plead, and all it takes is one look at your anxious face for the both of them to ease up.

Now, Suo really wants to understand.

“Suo … thanks for protecting her. This idiot didn’t tell us she was crossing over into your territory. It’s our fault, sorry,” Togame explains, one hand scratching the back of his neck and the other draped over your shoulders.

Suo takes a moment to respond. Who would he be, after all, if not an instigator?

Because — who were you? You – who could turn the Shishitoren leader and his second in command into mere puppies with your sweet voice. You — who had them running like their lives depended on it. 

“Ah, I’d save a sweet girl like her any day,” Suo says, testing the waters, and he gets the exact reaction he was hoping for.

Togame and Tomiyama stiffen up beside you, as you gasp in surprise at his words. 

And suddenly, there’s a shift in the air – and it’s deadly.

You sense it, of course, because who wouldn’t be able to feel the heightened electricity and the low hum of buzzing coming from Togame’s and Tomiyama’s chests?

And you, ever the de-escalating expert, quickly blurt out, “Ah, wait! I need to go back to the store! Give me like 5 minutes!”

Before they can get a “no” out, you’re already out of their grasp and beelining it for the convenience store.

It’s silent for a moment, with just Suo, Tomiyama, and Togame looking at one another.

Finally, Togame breaks the silence.

“Look, Sakura’s a friend –”

“And Ume-chan too!” Tomiyama chimes in.

 “ – and I hope we’re not stepping on your toes here but don’t get any ideas.”

Suo knows he should stop. He should probably apologize, and let them know it’s not what they think. That they’ve got it all wrong. But … he really can’t help it – not with the way that they’re hissing at him like cats. It’s adorable – and you’re adorable.

He was never really good with holding back his tongue, anyway.

“I think she can make her own decisions, don’t you?”

Togame and Tomiyama do not take kindly to his words, and so it begins – a passive-aggressive verbal war.

“Ha, right. It’s been fun, eye-patch-kun, but we really oughta take her back home. You know, so that we can patch her up,” Togame says, and though there's a smile on his face, Suo understands the underlying message behind his words.

She got hurt in your territory, under your patrol.

Suo smiles back at him.

“Ah, sorry! I wasn’t quick enough to save her, but I’m glad I was able to sort this out before things got out of hand,” Suo replies.

All you guys do is blow things up out of proportion – with violence.

“If we’d been here, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt in the first place.”

“Hm. But you probably would’ve gone overboard.”

“Watch it –”

“Ah, sorry!”

It’s when Tomiyama finally opens his mouth that Suo realizes he’s been uncharacteristically quiet, and when they make eye contact, Suo’s smile deepens – because Tomiyama looked like he was ready to maul Suo into pieces, like a true Lion.

“Ume-chan and Furin are our friends,” he says, eyes darkening with every word, “but she’s our family – I think it’s best if you stand down.”

It’s at that moment that you come racing back towards them, your hands full of goodies and a grin on your face as you exclaim, “I got it! I got it!”

You hand Togame his Ramune, Tomiyama his snack, and … you hand Suo bottled tea.

“Sorry, um, I wasn’t too sure what you liked – but this is my favorite drink! Ah, um, if you don’t like it … Suo … I won’t be hurt. But you strike me as a tea lover so –”

You’re bouncing on the balls of your feet, hands wringing behind your back as you ramble and Suo can’t help the sweet smile and the small laugh that escapes his lips before thanking you.

And as soon as he’s done, you’re being whisked away back to your territory – back to your home.

As you walk through the passing, with Tomiyama’s arm intertwined with yours and Togame’s arm draped over your shoulders, you briefly turn around, just to catch one more glance of Suo.

He’s standing there, smiling as he raises his hand to wave at you. You smile back at him with a glossy look in your eyes before Togame softly flicks your forehead.

Your attention is on Togame now, pouty and dejected, before turning your head indignantly as you begin to lecture him about how you’re supposed to thank someone when they help you, and that it’s the nice thing to do.

In the heat of your lecture, you miss the way that Tomiyama and Togame also turn back to look at Suo.

In the darkness of the tunnel, Suo swears he can see their eyes glinting, and his smile only deepens. 

Their eyes, daring and territorial, only say one thing.

Ours. Ours. Ours. 

He had to admit, he wasn’t expecting this turn of events but he was intrigued now. 

And, it’s only after the three of you disappear that he realizes he never learned your name – your real name.

So, when he volunteers to take over the patrol where the Furin territory ends and the Shishitoren territory starts, who can blame him?

What Suo doesn’t know, though, is that after this little incident, you’re permanently banned from walking alone ever again.

(Of course, you’re not actually banned. But, you are given a scolding afterward – which, in your eyes, is rich coming from Togame and Tomiyama, but sure, whatever.)

🫧𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐

The next time Suo sees you, it’s when he least expects it. 

You’re in Bofurin territory, with a small first-aid kit on your lap as you tend to the child in front of you. You’re smiling at the sniffling little boy as you wrap some gauze around his ankle, your fingers adept and swift, as if you’d done this countless times before.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it? You’re so strong!”

You ask him how it feels, and the little boy beams up at you, the tears in his eyes long gone and instead replaced with immense gratitude.

You smile down at him, playfully scolding him to be more careful as you pat his head softly.

And then Suo sees you hand him a lollipop — a lollipop — and it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

So, really, can you blame him for sneaking up behind you and whispering into your ear?

“What brings you to Bofurin territory, princess?”

You yelp in surprise, before turning around so fast that Suo worries if you gave yourself whiplash.

Once your blush has gone down and the surprise of seeing him wears off, you explain that you’re here to get some bread for Tomiyama from the Cactus bakery.

He’d been saying that he wanted fresh bread, but there weren’t any in Shishitoren that you knew of. And as soon as he mentioned the Cactus’s Anpan over on Bofurin's side of the tunnel, well, who could blame you for taking that opportunity to not only do something for him but also for yourself?

Which, of course, was to hopefully run into Suo.

“He sent you all the way over here to pick up bread for him?”

“Hm? No, of course not. This is a surprise for him!”

“I see – I was wondering why you didn’t have your guard dogs around…”

“My guard dogs?”

“Oh!” you laugh and Suo thinks it’s the most pleasant sound he’s heard in his life.

“You mean Tomiyama and Togame? No, they don’t know I’m here. It wouldn’t really be a surprise if they knew, right?”

Suo’s starting to see it now – why they care for you so much. But he wants to know more, so he asks about the kid you were tending to.

“Ah — I saw him playing with some kids and he took a nasty fall. I didn’t think it was right to let him go home without care, so I patched him up. I hope that’s okay?”

Suo finds that he really likes talking to you. He likes how expressive you are, how kind you are, and how thoughtful you are. And he finally learns your name. He likes that about you too – it’s cute.

So, naturally, he offers to escort you to Cactus – purely just to keep an eye on you, he convinces himself.

And when he escorts you back to the border, all your goodies in one hand and his arm in the other, well – 

He doesn’t care enough to find justification for his actions. He just really liked you – plain and simple.

When you let go of his arm, he’s already grieving the feeling of your body pressed to his side. 

You were warm, soft, and he’s sure that if he ever got the chance to taste your lips, sweet.

“Let’s exchange contact information! That way, you can be my guard dog when I’m here,” you say as you pull out your phone, and Suo’s so so glad that he ran into you today.

When he adds your contact to his phone, he puts you down as Princess.

When you add his contact to yours, you put him down as Guard Dog. 

🫧𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐

After that, you and Suo try to meet up. But… well…

You don’t see the point in trying to hide it. You were, after all, your own person. You could think for yourself, make decisions for yourself, and speak up for yourself. You were so open to loving and the Shishitoren boys knew this – so why should you hide it?

And when you had something on your mind, you were determined to make it happen. So, you don’t see why it would be any different with Suo. You had met him twice now, and you wanted to keep seeing him. To keep talking to him. To maybe even date him.

But to Shishitoren, this was equivalent to losing you – and they could never let that happen.

So Shishitoren never lets you see him – and it’s not like they’re barricading you inside the Ori or blocking the entrance to the border (though, they’ll admit that the thoughts crossed their mind in one way or the other).

No. They do it in a way that they know will make you stay with them – by acting like big babies.

The first to fall was Arima – 

You’re about to leave to meet up with Suo when Arima runs into the Ori, cries of pain leaving his lips as he whines at how much it hurts. You drop your bag immediately, texting Suo a panicked text about how something came up and that you’re sorry but you’ve gotta cancel today. 

You have Arima sit down, all your supplies laid out next to you as you ask him what happened and – 

It’s a paper cut.

But he’s babbling about how deep it is and how much it stings and it takes forever to just disinfect it and wrap a bandage around it before you realize that half the day’s just flew by for a minor injury.

Second was Kanuma – when he got a bad haircut.

Third was Sako – when he suddenly, out of nowhere, began asking you for advice about how you would approach someone who you used to look up to but lost respect for, who you vowed to fight and win against, only to lose against them and have them apologize to you (you, obviously, struggled with what advice you could even give him).

Fourth was Tomiyama – when he lost his favorite pair of sneakers.

Fifth was Togame – when he lost an eating challenge for the first time.

“It’s for the good of Shishitoren,” they say as they prepare the next victim.

Eventually, you find yourself tending to almost all of Shishitoren’s wounds, whether physical or emotional, and you just can’t believe that they’re fighting against you and Suo so hard.

But, in between all of that, you and Suo still manage to sneak in hushed phone calls and sweet texts.

Always asking about how the other’s doing, always talking about how your day went. He looks forward to it, he realizes, laying in bed as he hears you start to slur the ends of your words, drifting off into sleep.

And you send him photos all the time – it could be of a cat you came across while on the way to the Ori, or a drink that you tried that you liked – and with each text, with each phone call, Suo finds himself becoming smitten with you. 

You, who would remind him to drink water and to at least eat something small to get through the day. You, who had perfect memory and would follow up with the things that he’d talked about days ago, just because you were interested and curious (he’d mentioned that there was a tea spot that he frequented in Makochi, and it only took a day or two later for you to bring it up again, this time with all sorts of questions and comments like “I looked at what they serve! Which one’s your favorite?” and “I’d love to go there with you sometime, Suo – if I ever get the chance”. He’d only said the name of this tea shop once, but you remembered). 

And sweet, kind, loving you – who seemed to know whenever he had a particularly tough day. You were so attentive to him, which was surprising because all your interactions were never in person, but it seemed that you could understand his mood just based on the extra second it took for him to answer the phone or the way he responded to your text. And the thing was that Suo was great at masking his emotions – an expert, even. But you, who could just sense these things about other people, were giving him the chance to open up if he so chose to. You never pressed, never battered him for an answer. Just a simple – “I feel like there’s something on your mind, but if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay! Just know that if you ever need a shoulder to lean on, I’ll be there for you Suo.”

And, above all, you never stop trying. You never stop trying to escape the clutches of Shishitoren to see him – though you apologize every time your plans get thwarted as if you both weren’t expecting the same outcome.

But Suo doesn’t see you again, for months – not until a huge fight breaks out, and you’re honestly the last one he expects to see rushing onto the aftermath of the battlefield with a backpack filled to the brim with medical supplies and a determined look on your face.

They didn’t know Shishitoren was going to get involved and fight alongside them, didn’t know that the aftermath was going to be this bad. But if Suo had known that you’d be running to meet everyone afterwards, well – 

🫧𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐

He sees you a mile away, and he’s so relieved that you’re not hurt. That you’re up and moving. That you’re here. But he’s also surprised and caught off guard because – why were you here?

It’s then that he sees your bag, sees the way that you’ve got your hair up and out of your face, and the way that you’re scanning everyone up and down so fast that your eyes never stop moving. 

My little nurse, Suo thinks, rushing to the injured like the sweet princess she is.

Little did you know that as he was fighting, there were only 3 things revolving through his mind – Bofurin, Makochi, and you. He fought to protect those 3 things that were so very dear to his heart, and to be greeted with the sight of you after winning? Well, it couldn’t be anything less but a sign of his hard work. A reward, if you will.

He sees you run up to Umemiya, serious and purposeful, as you open your mouth and wait for a response. Umemiya, though very confused, gives you an answer that you seem satisfied with because you nod, then thank him, and now you’re running towards Suo, and you make eye contact, and he can’t wait for you to dote after him and take care of him and – 

You smile at him, scan his body, nod –  and walk right past him. You never stopped for him, actually. You just kept moving. Just kept walking.

And Suo just watches – he watches as you make your way over to where Shishitoren is laid out, watches as they all let out a sigh of relief when they see you safe and unharmed, watches as they start talking animatedly to you as you start setting up for aid.

And you’re standing there with a pained look in your eyes as you nod at their words halfheartedly, more focused on the injuries that they’re sporting on their bodies than the words coming out of their mouths. You’re going from person to person as fast as you can, and although Suo can’t hear you, he can read your lips as you tell every single person – “I’m here now. It’s okay. Thank you for fighting. I’ll take care of you.”

He watches as you get to Tomiyama and Togame, and sees the way your eyes start to water as they pat your head and tell you that they’re fine – even though you have eyes, you can see how hard they’ve fought. Instead, they’re fondly thanking you for coming all this way just to take care of them.

And suddenly, everything got a bit too real for Suo. A bit too scary.

Because he didn’t realize how hard he’d fallen for you, in between those two fateful meetings, the constant late-night phone calls, and the never-ending texts.

It hits Suo like a train. He wanted to be the one that you search for in the crowd. He wanted to be the one that you’re fussing over. He wanted you to patch him up. He wanted you.

He was in love with you.

And he shuts down – completely.

He goes silent, uncharacteristically so, to the point that Sakura and Nirei are starting to get worried.

“What’s wrong, Suo-san?”

“Suo, what’s the matter with you?”

It goes through one ear and out the other – no response, no indication that he’s even present at the moment.

It’s when you’re patching up the last member of Shishitoren that you feel the heat of an eye on you – and your body reacts before your mind can.

Suo’s name is the only thing running through your mind as you finish up as fast as you can – and you’re off.

You’re making your way to where all of Bofurin is sitting, just barely slipping out of the grasps of the Shishitoren boys.

It’s Togame, with his long limbs, who reaches out and puts a hand on your shoulder and it’s Tomiyama, with his fast reflexes, who has your hand in his.

“Princess, no–”

“Let me find Suo.”

“But you don’t even –”

“Choji, Jo – let me go.”

They hesitate. You’d never spoken to them like this before. Never used their first names before. Never been so cold before.

But they weren’t fools. Even if you tried to hide it, they’d seen the way you sneaked off to talk to him or the way you thought you were hiding your phone when you were responding to him. Anytime they’d bring something up that had even an inkling to do with Suo, you were excitedly adding in your input – all while stumbling over your words as you tried to be mysterious. 

(They’d done a test, actually. All they did was bring up the word tea and you were fighting for your life as you kept accidentally saying Suo’s name when talking about your friend. 

“Ah, Su– AH, I mean, my friend really likes this type of tea.”

“Oh! That’s S– my friend's favorite place in Makochi!”

They didn’t have the heart to tell you because, well – you really sucked at lying.)

And they realize, with heavy hearts, that you were never theirs to lock up in the Ori. You were so kind, so lovable, so sweet, because that’s just who you are as a person. 

You were protected, sure, and healthy, sure, but you weren’t happy.

You, who were the embodiment of everything that Shishitoren was working to protect, had made a choice and they weren’t respecting it the way that you respected them – and they were being, well, selfish.

And when they finally let you go, you sigh in relief. Making your way over to where Suo’s sitting, you yell out over your shoulder, with so much spite, so much anger, and so much love – 

“You act like I’m never coming back – stop whining like puppies!”

Togame’s and Tomiyama’s eyes widen in shock before they both laugh lightly at your words in disbelief.

You really knew how to scold them.

“... she’s talking about you.”

“... nah, she’s definitely talking about you.”

🫧𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐

When you made your way over to Suo, you were met with guarded and curious stares from all of Bofurin. Too focused and too determined, you brush it off. You knew about the fight that they had with Shishitoren, sure, but you thought that they had patched everything up? And Shishitoren had fought with them for this big battle, so why the curiosity?

If only you knew the real reason everyone was staring at you.

Instead, you find yourself running past all of them with Suo’s name falling from your lips, and when you see him, he doesn’t respond.

You pause, dejected, before repeating his name.

No response. 

Now you’re worried – and scared.

You recognize Sakura and Nirei, based on how Suo had described them briefly, and you immediately begin asking them what happened.

“Sakura, Nirei – is Suo okay? Did he get hurt? Does he need first aid?”

You’re met with silence – and shock.

“H-huh? Do we know you?”

“U-umm – sorry, have we met before?”

You pause at their response, looking at them confused.

You blink once, then twice, then three times – before glancing at Suo.

Unresponsive and unperturbed.

You introduce yourself slowly, giving Sakura and Nirei the chance to remember you – because they must’ve heard your name at least once, right?

They hadn’t.

And now you’re standing there with hundreds of eyes on you, as you come to terms with the fact that maybe … maybe you’d been wrong this whole time.

You clear your throat before timidly asking a question that you fear you already know the answer to.

“Did he um… did he not tell you about me? Uh… about us?”

And suddenly – everything goes to shit.

Shishitoren rises up in arms, walking over to where you are because why did you look so confused and why was Suo ignoring their beloved princess – 

All of Bofurin is staring at you with their mouths wide open, processing the words you’ve just said –

Sakura’s spluttering, desperately trying to form words as he continues to just point back and forth from you to Suo with shaky hands – 

Nirei’s got his notebook in his hand, flipping through it like a madman because how could he miss something like this, and had Suo ever talked about you? – 

Suo’s unresponsive, still – 

And then, to top it all off, Kiryu gasps because he’s finally solved it. He’d seen a text on Suo’s phone, so brief and so quick, but he was sure that the person Suo was texting was – 

“Oh! You’re the one he’s been texting! You’re Princess!”

At Kiryu’s words, you snap. 

And no one, not even Togame and Tomiyama, had ever seen you this angry, this upset, this livid.

You weren’t expecting him to go around screaming your name all over Makochi, but what you did expect was at the very least maybe his friends to know. Was that so absurd? You never tried to hide your feelings for Suo from Shishitoren (They tried so hard to stop it) so why wasn’t it reciprocated? Did he not feel the same way? Had you looked too deep into his actions and created a fantasy in your mind? Did you not really know him as well as you thought? 

Or worse – had he been toying with you? 

Oh, you were pissed – and poor Suo didn’t have a clue.

You go to stand in front of him, eerily calm and sickeningly sweet as you call his name one more time.

“Hayato Suo.”

Now that – that brings him back to his senses. You watch him blink in succession as he grounds himself, before his eye darts to you, to Furin, to Shishitoren – and he quickly puts the pieces together before letting out a stiff laugh.

“Ah – I was hoping to introduce you properly to everyon–”

“Am I a joke to you, Hayato?”

Suo freezes at your words. 

How could you, who had unknowingly wormed your way into his heavily guarded heart, be a joke?

But he realizes now – and he feels, for one of the few times in his life, stupid.

Because you love with your heart on your sleeve, and Suo loves with his heart tucked away.

And really, Suo should’ve known, because you’re you — you who gave Shishitoren something to protect and to hold close to their hearts, safe from danger and harm’s way.

You press on, fighting through the anger and the embarrassment and the fear you feel rising inside of you.

“Tell me Hayato, answer me. Was I? Hm? Did you have fun?”

“No, I –”

“Every call, every text – did that mean nothing to you? Was I just being delusional?”

“Wait I –”

You’re so close to him now, softly jabbing your finger into his chest as your words begin to get more and more shaky.

“Do you feel powerful, Hayato? Making a Shishitoren girl fall in love with you–”

You stop yourself, teary-eyed and vulnerable, and you feel so stupid. Because what hurts more than anything is giving someone all your love, all your time, all your energy – all for it to have been for nothing. You thought he felt the same, truly. But now? All you wanted was to walk away from all of this, walk away from Bofurin, and never ever look back.

He grabs your hand, desperately, as your words sink in. He wants to – no, needs to make sure that he’s not just hearing things. That he’s not just imagining it.

“You … love me?”

You pause, taking the chance to actually look at him. You see hope on his face, and you furrow your eyebrows in response.

“... is this another joke? Of course, I love you, you idiot. You would’ve been the first one I ran to but your leader said you guys were all patched up already so I –”

Everyone’s eyes turn to Umemiya, who shrivels under the attention and wordlessly mouths an “I didn’t know!”

But your eyes are only on Suo’s, and Suo’s is only on yours.

And Suo lets you see him, truly see him, for who he is. He doesn’t shy away from your stare, doesn't put on a mask, doesn’t push his feelings into the box that’s been his safe haven for so many years. 

Your eyes flicker with uncertainty and fear, but you convince yourself to try one more time. Just one last time. 

“Hayato Suo, I really do love you,” you whisper, so slowly, so hesitantly, so scared.

Then, with everyone’s eyes on the both of you, Suo slides one hand to the small of your back, and the other to cradle your face.

He wanted to learn how to love with his heart on his sleeve – just like you.

“… again.”

“… I lov—”

His lips cut you off, and honestly, you’re not even mad. Not when he’s pulling you flush to his body, his hand slipping to the back of your neck, and your fingers grasping at the collar of his jacket.

Black, with green embroidery.

“I love you, too – but I’m afraid there’s too many eyes here for me to show you how deeply I feel for you, Princess – I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Dazed, all you can manage is a soft nod and a flutter of your eyelashes before pulling his lips back to yours.

Suo smiles into the kiss. He was right, you were as sweet as he thought you’d be.

[thefallennightmare]

Dreamstate-Noah Sebastian x Reader[JP UNIVERSE]

Parings: Noah Sebastian x Musician! Reader

Warnings/Tropes: language, angst, fluff, smut(18+), star-crossed lovers, right person/wrong time, cheating, talks of mental abuse, talks of death, depressive thoughts, talks about not being able to conceive, and endometriosis.

Summary: “I can wait for years, heaven knows I’m not getting over you.” A story about two star-crossed lovers, that always find their way back because their souls are entwined. The universe desperately attempts to bring them together, no matter what the cost.

Authors Note: Hi my loves! JP has been around for ONE YEAR! I am so thankful for all of you. I appreciate every single one of you more than I can ever express. This one-shot takes place between chapters 29 and 30! Also please know that I do not mean any disrespect to Keaton or his memory. Everything I've ever written was done with love and appreciation for him like I've done from the beginning. 🪽🖤 I will not hold it against you if you do not want to read because of it. But please know, that it's done with the utmost respect.

Tags[CLOSED]: @blueskylinesx @missduffsblog @hayleylatour @sleepyomens @loeytuan98 @artificialbreezy @marvelousmal @bngurngheart @lma1986 @wild-child-7747 @calleyx13 @illmakeyousaywow @jaded-and-hollow-souls @shayzillaaaa @badomensls @shadowseve @collective-heartbreak @klutzy-kay24 @sorrowsofsilence @sweetlittlekitsune @shilohrosechicken @itsafullmoon @toospooktocute @niicoleleigh @thatchickwiththecamera @hoe-for-daddywise @whenthesummerdies @thisbicc @sammyjoeee @joe9cool @ozwriterchick @happi-goth @softvgold @cncohshit @heyyoplayer @rain-down-on-me @respectfulrebel @reader13000 @koskeepsake @malerieee @cheyyyyr @myownthoughts12 @noahsbong @laurpartyprogram @cloudykoookie @jessiskyee @sideeyenoah @badomensls @bellaboo967 @rxdlstgn @anthemheatwave @lobolocaamo @cncohshit @amelia-acero @karenfranco @collidewiththesavannah @xserenax-13 @supersquirrel1996 @themodern-daywednesday @oxythoughtin7715

THIS IS FICTION. NONE OF THIS IS REAL.

NOAH

Blinking my eyes open, I looked around my surroundings and noticed that I was no longer in my bedroom fighting with Y/N. I was on the tour bus, our tour bus, and when I craned my head to the side to peer out the window in my bunk, I sucked in a breath at what I saw. An oddly familiar venue with a red roof. 

“What the fuck,” I muttered while rolling out of my bunk on the tour bus. “How hard did I hit my head last night?” 

During my fight with Y/N, she threw one of her sketchbooks at me in frustration and it hit me directly in the middle of my forehead. That was the last thing I remembered before waking up here in our tour bus. We didn’t have a tour planned which made this whole scene even more confusing. I stretched out my long limbs, feeling the bones pop into place, as I walked towards the front area of the bus and made it outside, wondering where the rest of the guys were. 

“Jolly? Nicholas?” I called out. 

A sudden commotion on the far end of the bus caused me to whirl around and my heart thundered in my chest with the sight before me. It wasn’t the group of people that gave me pause. It was the lone female in the group with her long blonde hair and familiar smile that made my skin slick with sweat. 

"Nice to meet you. I'm sure they've already said this but we're huge fans of Hollow Souls. Noah has your music on the playlist we play during the wait time for our shows,” Nicholas smiled while extending his hand towards the familiar blonde. 

"Shit, you guys sure know how to make a girl blush," she laughed lightly while bouncing on the soles of her feet.

“Y/N,” I breathed. 

"Malcolm, your directions-." 

Just as footsteps thundered down the steps of the bus behind me, the scene around me spun on its axis and darkness crept in. Bile rose in my throat as I felt my body being lurched forward onto the cold concrete, scraping up my palms and knees. 

“I should not have had that gas station burrito,” I grumbled while clutching my stomach. 

Slowly rising to my feet, I leaned my hand up against a car I had been literally thrown in front of, suddenly making me tilt my head towards it. This wasn’t the tour bus I had stepped down moments ago. In fact, I was in an entirely different place than before. 

“This is one fucked up dream,” I dragged my hand down my face. 

An angry voice from the other side of the van had me stepping around it slowly, not wanting to be detected on the off chance this wasn’t a dream and I was sneaking up on someone who could kill me. 

"You don't have to worry about Noah hurting her. That's the farthest thing from his mind. He might be stubborn as hell but when he cares about someone, he makes sure they know that,” Nicholas smiled over towards Chase and Malcolm. 

Furrowing my brows, I glanced over to Folio, seeing him shake out his hair before putting his hat back on. "He's a Scorpio, what did you expect?" 

“That was fucking rude,” I muttered under my breath. 

"Whether or not they admit it, they both need each other," Jolly smiled down over the cliff. 

Peering over the hood of the car, I saw two faint figures on the beach and sucked in a breath; all the memories from our beach day came flooding back in as Y/N and myself waved up at the group of guys. 

“How hard did she hit me with that sketchbook?” I rubbed at my forehead, still feeling the sting from earlier. 

It was clear that I was dreaming of past moments Y/N and I shared but I couldn’t get over how real and vivid everything was. Almost as if I traveled back in time to these moments and saw it from a different perspective, not my own. 

Why was I dreaming of these moments? Did it have a meaning? Or was it just because my brain was fucked up from all of the fighting Y/N and I had gone through?

Before I could get comfortable in this dreamstate, I felt the darkness creep in on the edge of my vision once again and all at once, my body was thrown through a tunnel only to be spat out seconds later; a different scenery from the last. 

I was now in a hotel room, unsure when and where because frankly from the years of touring the hotel rooms began to blend together. It was then that I got a look at myself in the reflection of the mirror in the room and I sighed. My hair was short, indicating what I already knew. I’d been jumping in between moments from my past. 

“Hi, angel.”

“Hi,” a soft voice broke through the quiet of the room, causing me to look over at the bed. 

No. 

My past self sat on the bed with Y/N, her head in my lap as I ran my fingers through her hair. It was evident no one could see me because I was standing at the foot of the bed, watching as my past self lowered his lips onto Y/N's, capturing them softly. 

Our first kiss. 

My heart fluttered in the confines in my chest, remembering the feeling that filled me that day. Through the dread and intense sadness from losing my best friend that day, Y/N’s unwavering comfort eased away the darkness that crept in. 

“About time, huh? I’d been trying to set you two up for years.” 

My body froze at the voice that lingered in the air; the familiar voice that I hadn’t heard in years.  I choked while whirling around at the voice, ignoring the couple in the bed who were muttering something about Mario Kart. 

The room spun rapidly before I could get my bearings, the floor getting ripped out from beneath me and my body slammed back and forth against the void before I fell onto a couch in yet another room. This one I immediately recognized, all of those feelings of hurt and abandonment crept back in as I let out a shuddering breath. 

My past self, donning those ridiculous braids, dragged a finger over the large tattoo on Y/N’s back as she cuddled the pillow close to her chest, a soft giggle echoing in the room. 

"Way down the road maybe one day in the future- to live in the middle of nowhere with a dog, cats, and a family of my own. In my wooden home that I built."

My eyes screwed shut, knowing what was going to come next. The calm before the storm. All because I asked a stupid question. 

“Think of how far you’ve come from this moment, Noah. It was rough getting there but it was worth it.”

Snapping my eyes open, I glanced around the room looking for his face. It was his voice, surely he had to be here. 

“Where are you?” I said. 

As I blinked, the scene changed yet again and now I was standing in the rain, it chilling me to the bone. Wrapping myself deeper into my hoodie, I gazed around to see my past self standing in the rain as well with Y/N, trying to stop her from getting in her car. 

“What easy way, Noah? This isn’t easy!” Y/N sighed. “None of this is easy!” 

“No it is, actually.” My past self nodded. “Don’t think about anyone or anything else. What do you want from me? What do you want, angel?”

She rapidly shook her head, choking on a sob. “It’s not that simple.”

“What. Do. You. Want?” I watched myself enunciate every word with a pound fist to my chest. 

When Y/N remained silent, I grasped her face to bring her into my warm embrace, even with the rain. “God damn it! What do you want?”

The pain in my own chest was evident, remembering how gut wrenching it felt to ask repeatedly what Y/N wanted. That night had started off great, only to be ruined by Bailey. It was my fault ultimately for not being clearer about our breakup. I tried not to dwell on it much because of how far Y/N and I have come since this night. 

A snicker sounded from my left. “Did you really quote The Notebook? Never pegged you as a romance film kind of guy.” 

Looking at the voice, I let out a gasp when the all too familiar smirk appeared on a face I hadn’t seen in years; one that my heart yearned to see again. His form began to fade in the darkness as it danced around both of us, dragging us back down. 

“No. Please, wait!” I reached for him only to be thrown into yet another memory. 

How long had I been asleep? Did this fucking sketchbook render me useless? Was I passed out on the floor of our bedroom? 

Another thing I couldn’t figure out: why was I being thrusted into my own memory lane?

A commotion of voices halted me as I stood in a crowd of people, still undetected, and when I caught a flash of red, my breath caught in my throat knowing exactly what memory I’d been thrown into. I no longer was soaked to the bone due to the rain; I was dry. 

I'm not afraid of the war you've come to wage against my sins.

I'm not okay, but I can try my best to just pretend.

The music echoed loudly in the room and I frantically looked for the couch, knowing my past self would have been sitting there. I watched as he rose from his seated position and started to push his way through the crowd, looking for Y/N as our song played; a siren call looking for their lost soulmate.

“This was one of the most irritating moments of my life,” I sighed while crossing my arms over my chest, watching as our past selves kept missing each other. 

“Do you know how hard it was to make sure you guys found each other at the right moment that night?” That voice snickered behind me. 

Whirling around, I saw those eyes that shined bright with so much light. Just like before, the second I caught sight of him, he disappeared before I could grasp him. I wasn’t sure what was more irritating: being thrown around in an imaginary void or not being able to fully see the presence that had been following me. 

For quite longer than I thought, apparently. 

Expecting to be dragged down into another memory, I simply turned on my heels to see I was now standing in a hotel hallway. My past self stood no more than two feet in front of me, hand rubbing at his chest. The words he muttered fell on deaf ears as my eyes locked with the man holding my past self up. I knew I felt someone's arms around me that day, keeping me from falling to my knees. 

“Keaton, I need you, man. Please tell me everything will be alright.” 

As a soft breeze blew past the three of us in the middle of the hallway, I kept my eyes locked with the materializing figure over my past self’s shoulder. 

“You’ve been with me this entire time,” I breathed with the realization. 

He wore a soft smile as he nodded, before slowly fading away. “It’s okay.”

Then all at once, the world around me shifted one final time, throwing me back into my bedroom at home and I fell onto the bed with a grunt. It seemed like I was back to where I was before I went on a dream walk down memory lane, Y/N’s scattered sketchbook on the floor at my feet. Movement in front of me caught my eye as I slowly rose and tentatively walked over to the bathroom, seeing Y/N and me standing there. Both of them were standing in the middle of the bathroom with bright and hopeful smiles. 

“I don’t remember this,” I said with my hands on my hips. 

I watched as Y/N wrapped herself around his midsection, both of them swaying to something before they looked over to the phone on the bathroom counter with even wider smiles. 

"Should we post it?" She asked.

Other me smiled bright, love filling those once dark eyes. "Instagram story. On there less than twenty four hours. Once we post it, lets turn off our phones to just focus on us."

“How’s she doing?

Jumping at the voice over my shoulder, I finally saw him standing in front of me and not in the ghost form he’d been all those times before. 

“Keaton,” I breathed, almost immediately wrapping my arms around him in a hug. 

His infectious laughter echoed when I tackled him. “Good to see you too, Noah.” 

We stayed like that for a long moment, trying so hard to ingrain how it felt to hug my best friend again into my memory and when we eventually pulled away, I sniffled while whipping away a stray tear. 

“I miss you so much, man,” I admitted with a shaky breath. 

“I’m always with you, Noah. Right here,” Keaton pointed to my chest then to the tattoos on the side of my hands. “And right there.” 

Ignoring the couple behind me in the bathroom, not knowing what they were waiting for, I kept my attention on Keaton. 

“You know, when I'm sleeping I sometimes talk with you. But every time I wake up, it’s like I'm waiting for a miracle.” 

I sniffled one more time with a shrug before continuing. “Maybe when the night comes, I'll find you in another world.”

“I’m not the miracle you need, Noah. But believe, it’s closer than you think.”

“Huh?” I asked, not quite sure what he meant by that.

“How’s she doing?” Keaton asked again, the colors in the room suddenly fading away, only to be replaced with a bright white light. 

My brows furrowed. “Who? Y/N?” 

Instead of answering, his smile reached his ears and bid me a final goodbye with a wink before turning on his heels and walking farther into the void of white. 

“What do you mean?!” I called out after him, desperately wanting to run after him but my feet wouldn’t move, feeling heavier than concrete. 

“In time the price of peace will cost us everything but all the love you leave carries on,” Keaton’s voice spoke in my mind one final time. 

A loud gasp fell from my lips as I sat up in bed, covered in a thick sweat as it lingered on every inch of skin. The fabric of my shirt clung to my back as I frantically looked around the room, my heart nearly bursting out of my chest. I was back in my bedroom and noticed that the sketchbook wasnt where it previously was. Matter of fact, neither was the broken picture Y/N threw at me before the sketchbook. 

My gaze locked on the date that was shining bright on our alexa home screen causing me to cock my head slightly at it, air catching in my throat. 

No. 

No way. 

It was not possible. 

“Clearly I’m dreaming again,” I murmured to myself before pursing my lips and pinching my thigh. 

“Nope, not dreaming,” I yelped in pain. 

The bed shifted next to me causing me to look down at the naked form on Y/N as she lay in a tangled mess of bedsheets and blankets. 

“Hmm,” she hummed with a smile after setting her phone down on the pillow next to her. “Astrid and Faye want to meet up with me today. I guess they both have some special news they want to tell me.” 

I blinked. “Huh?” 

“I guess something happened after The Ghost Inside set with Faye last night and Astrid found out something pretty important,” Y/N said. 

I could barely speak, still being dumbfounded with the date on the Alexa home screen. 

“Maybe I'll invite them over once I'm back home from the art store. I figured it'll be alright since you have therapy and we’re not going to dinner until four,” she sat up while letting the sheet fall to her lap. 

I was still in a state of shock that I couldn’t even gaze at her perfect breasts, my mind whirling with so many different emotions. All I could do was numbly nod.

“I must say,” she smirked while brushing away the hair from my face, laying a kiss on my lips. “It’s always great to wake up to you every morning. But on my birthday, it’s extra special.”

[rae-and-mezo]

Can you do when yn treats the house elves like their her children and the boys (ominis,sebastian, gareth,and amit) or the girls (poppy,natt,imelda, and Anne) get jealous or you can put whatever reaction!😊 please do this I'm begging 😭

A/n: I love this!! Some of them are shorter because I didn't know how to expand on their general opinion. I tried so hard to not repeat myself!

Characters: Sebastian Sallow, Ominis Gaunt, Garreth Weasley, Amit Thakkar, Poppy Sweeting, Natty Onai, Imelda Reyes, Anne Sallow

Sebastian:

Honestly, he's kind of annoyed.

Like the treatment of Elves is infuriating, sure, and he agrees with being kind obviously. But do you really have to cancel a date because Ticky the Elf wants to perform a dance for you?

And why do THEY get forehead kisses every day and he only gets them when he's sitting down? Maybe it's because he's just tall but HEY.

At first the elves are scared of him, and he hates it. He goes out of his way to show he means no harm but didn't intend to get roped into the mess.

Why do they want him to come see the room MC had them decorate in the room of requirement?

Why the hell is one asking him what MC prefers: Vanilla or Chocolate? They want to make her a cake? Okay...but he expects a piece.

Slowly he comes to love them as MC does, like a dad with a kitten.

Ominis:

My boy is...confused? But delighted.

The Gaunts had a house elf! Her name was Cinder, and she was more like a mother than Mrs. Gaunt. He always treated her with utmost respect and the way his parents treated her made him sick to his stomach.

His whole Hogwarts career he has tried to be very polite to the elves, letting them know someone cares.

And when you show him your army of elf friends, he is delighted!!

Asks them all their names and some more general questions.

One of them learned a new song or something of the like? He is listening with a patient smile on his face even though it is the worst thing he has ever heard.

They don't really understand his blindness actually. They're supporting but ask him tons of questions. I think Ominis would really like educating them about how he experiences the world as long as they aren't being patronizing.

He adores listening to you interact with the elves!!

He asks them so much advice and input on how to show Cinder he appreciates her. Like...does he give her a gift? Will this upset her? Is this too much?

Also, he remembers like everything. Tries too at least. You come into the common room late, telling him about how you were helping an Elf read a muggle book? He asks you if you've gotten to his favorite part. That particular elf tends to like the romance novels, and chapter nine is when the hero gets the girl.

In short, he loves the elves almost as much as you do!

Garreth:

He's so dumb. I love him.

Coming from a poorer family, Garreth had never seen a house elf until Hogwarts. They were strange creatures.

And then you have a whole crew?? Okay, but he wasn't expecting it.

He...he has trouble seeing them as sentient beings. I hate to say it, but he does! Of course, he respects all they do for the castle, but at first, he doesn't understand why you like them so much. He treats them not unlike a pet.

You tell them to be polite and introduce themselves, and he is so weirded out by each one introducing themselves and shaking his hand.

They pick up on his hesitation and come to you with their worries and after a lecture from you, Garreth is ready to try again. Reluctantly, but he is.

Is it possible to embarrass yourself in front of a house elf? If it is, Garreth does it. He's so scared of saying or doing something wrong that he ends up embarrassing the hell out of himself.

He grows to see them as they are: intelligent and sentient creatures that have a lot to offer. After a while he is comfortable enough to give them high fives in the hallway, or gift them things (mostly prank items, and then he has to teach them it is meant to be funny and not an attack-)

Amit:

He honestly has learned not to think twice about anything when it comes to you.

So, when you ask him to meet you in the room of requirement and you're surrounded by elves? A little strange, but it doesn't deter him from asking if you got all the notes down for DADA.

The elves scatter when he speaks, running to look like they are working. It surprises him, and even more so when you hush him as you coax them all out.

They do NOT like him at first because he comes at inconvenient times and how are they supposed to prepare you hot chocolate before bed when you're off looking at star charts??

And meanwhile poor Amit is working hard to get their seal of approval because anything you like he does too. It's very important to him!

Well one day they mention that they like the Gramaphone and the pretty music but the Gramaphone isn't working as of late. It gives you an idea, and now Amit is standing in front of a mini crowd playing his little violin heart out.

The elves kinda overwhelm him with how many there are and how needy they are to you, but it amazes him how you are so patient with them.

If there is a house elf language, he is learning it. Both to impress you and try to win over your little army.

Basically, he is slightly intimidated by the elves, but he loves you so he tries his best to get along with them. He definitely is no longer taking the food at dinner for granted, that's for sure.

Poppy:

She's so sweet.

At first, worries that the elves might have malicious intent because of how often they were pulling you away. But quickly she realized it wasn't the case.

The elves already adore her as she has always been incredibly sweet to them. Plus, in third year she saved a baby house elf which sparked her interest in them as more than servants.

She's more like their friend than parent, though, she thinks it's incredibly sweet how loving you are towards them.

Gets them ALL christmas presents. every single one. Doesn't tell you about it and holds you when you're overwhelmed by the kindness!

They will all follow her around, and she responds to every one of their jokes and makes sure she never leaves them out of conversation.

Makes funny faces at them from across the hall just like she would any other friend and it makes them feel welcomed.

After late nights in the vivarium, Poppy is dragging you to the kitchens. Even though you don't have to be dragged there. You two sit on the counter and recount your adventures to the elves while they busy themselves making you a snack. If there are dishes to be done she offers to help even if they decline.

Natty:

Always up for some adventure! Finds the elves fascinating honestly.

"Theoretically, if a master gives you a sock to wash, are you free? Can you choose your own clothes? Wait, if you can, are you allowed to shop for them? That would be so-" "Natty..." "Right, sorry."

She treats them like she would treat anybody else tbh. In her home country, she never had house elves and the concept of having someone thanklessly serving you makes her sick. So, she does her best to show her appreciation.

However, the elves will NOT take time she wants to spend with you away. They want to talk to you? Fine, but Natty is there too.

Tells you later how cute you are when you're interacting with something you love.

She gets the elves to help make you a GIANT Christmas present.

She and the elves see each other as equals and are friends!

Imelda:

Another jealous one. Omg.

Sure, elves are mistreated. It's wrong. But maybe they deserve to be kicked around a little when they KEEP YOU FROM QUIDDITCH PRACTICE!

Would never harm the elves or speak harm about them, but they have come to recognize her glare meaning "Hey, it's MY turn with my partner."

One elf in particular is pretty snippy and Imelda gets into fights with him almost every time they see each other.

Oh, the elves know to keep your broom in pristine condition. It seems to make you happy that it never needs work, and they have an agreement with Imelda. A polished, clean, and ready broom for your nightly rides means another hour where she doesn't come in and bother them.

She is NOT above coming into the kitchens just to annoy the house elves. They unfortunately know this.

Imelda would never ever see the house elves as anything less than what they are, but she doesn't hesitate to use her advantages.

She taught a group of the younger elves to swear. You still haven't quite forgiven her for it.

Anne:

I love Anne sm :)

Your relationship with the elves...doesn't surprise her in the slightest.

She doesn't understand, as Elves aren't anything special in her eyes. They're sentient creatures that have feelings and thoughts, just like humans do. Why would she treat them differently than anyone else?

The elves are very sweet, but c'mon. She was going to teach you to garden Hemlock without poisoning yourself!

Honestly, she doesn't mind that you baby them, but she definitely has sat you down and explained they don't need babied.

Admires you and how you treat them! Just doesn't understand it, that's all.

Admires you and how you treat them! Just doesn't understand it, that's all.

[subzeroparade]

Vanitas has me in a chokehold. I am OBSSESSED!!!!! What do you suppose Godwyn's relationship was with his father and mother? I am desperate for headcanons 🥺 It's so interesting because, after the revelation of Messmer potentially being the unwanted child, I wonder what it's like being the queen's favorite, Marika's most beloved child, the demigod everyone in the lands truly loved (aside from Miquella, of course), like holy shit.

Thank you!  If you’ve read Vanitas, then I think you have them all lol. Almost all the headcanons I think are worth sharing tend to make it into my writing. 

Since Vanitas includes flashbacks to Godwyn’s youth, his relationship with his parents varies as he ages. But most of the fic deals with Godwyn coming into his “prime”, or almost - though not as self-assured as he is in Narrow Porcelain Plinth of Flesh - so there’s a period of realisation/maturation he goes through based largely on 1) the recognition of one’s parents’ mortality/fragility (in the case of Godfrey) and 2) separation from and rejection of the ideals/values/notions imposed by parents (in the case of Marika) and being willing to, quite literally, disappoint a parent, and their idea of a legacy, to become fully oneself. Making peace with the dragons is the one big, consequential rebellion among all of Godwyn’s more meaningless little ones in the face of the future laid out for him. 

But as a young god I headcanon him as a mama’s boy lmao.

(And in a similar vein to Miquella, I think - who in my writing/headcanon is very close to Godwyn - in the sense that Miquella is driven to do what pleases his father, take up his interests and his mantle, only to later find himself fundamentally let down by it all. I like to imagine the Greater Will’s influence having a sort of depersonalising effect on Marika/Radagon - stripping them of their more recognisably human qualities - and even in that utmost expression of godhood, both Godwyn and Miquella looked at their respective mother/father/god, and decided they didn’t want that to be their legacy.)

To your point about Messmer - I am inclined to try and piece things together with the DLC only while playing it, so I haven’t really speculated or given much thought to Messmer’s place in the whole thing - but I am excited to see how that adds another layer of complexity to the melodrama of this fucked up family •ᴗ•

Ty for the ask! Here’s a (WIP stage) panel from an age-old unfinished thing of Godwyn’s tomb effigy. 

[averyhotchner]

Avery's TopGun:Maverick recs pt.2

alrighty, almost 3 months later, here is my list of favourite TopGun: Maverick fics that no one asked for. like last time, it's mostly hangman, rooster and a bit of bobby boy. but i am slowly starting to fall for mickey and coyote.

please make sure to follow the age limit set by the writers!

jake "hangman" seresin

Fuck: The Universe (mini-series) by @roosterbruiser

okay maybe this is recency bias, because i did read this whole mini series yesterday and today, but still. it checks all the boxes, and of course i love the trope of jake is an ass to everyone but his girl, who also happens to be way better than him. also part 7 cracked me up.

real friends (series) by @starlightstories

i read real friends then found fuck: the universe, and i realized i really really really like the loverboy jake grumpy reader trope. i have no shame.

hey stupid, i love you (one shot) by @callsignseagull

okay this fic is very personal to me. i genuinely felt like the reader in this fic because i'm going through a very similar thing right now, and it tamed so many of my insecurities. i can't wait to reread soon!

loving you is... (series) by @demxters

guys frat hangman. that's all.

sleepy baby (series) by @discount-shades

the lengths at which this man goes just to find his princess, goals.

Where I'm From (one-shot) by @sometimes-i-write-good

sweet man jake, back at it again stealing hearts

Minimal Losses (series) by @ohtobeleah

this series and the rooster prequel NCIS ARE SO GOOD. im a sucker for this shit.

Sweet Nothings (series) by @sweetlittlegingy

yup! yup! yup! make sure you get your blood sugar checked before reading this because it's so damn sweeeeeet

Seeing Red (series) by @call-sign-jinx

picture this: its 2015, you're on wattpad and every single fic is a social media fic. but THIS? this is everything. the amount of work that goes into making a single text screenshot, not to mention the plot! its truly incredible and had be crying, laughing and sitting on the edge of my seat. i can't praise this series, and the other fics in this universe, enough.

yours (one-shot) by @theharddeck

this one... yeah its cute. but its down right sinful as well

bradley "rooster" bradshaw

I Will Always Love You (one-shot) by @amysteryspot

this one is short and sweet and honestly made me cry while eating my blt quarter pounder.

Pamper Night (on-shot) by @dagger-wren

okay this fic started as a cute little date night/self care night fic. BUT THEN, the ending had me falling in love with this dysfunctional squad. of course rooster and his girl are mom and dad, like who else.

Eat It, Twilight (one-shot) by @fandomxpreferences

okay i know this is a hangman fic, but i dont care. the rooster bff part was what i loved the most. also the plot is highlarious, and its probably because i was high when i read it, but still. chefs kiss.

Terms of Endearment (series) by @ohtobeleah

this series will be the death of me. each time a new chapter gets released im holding my breath on whether its gonna be all angst or all fluff. but either way i know its beautifully written.

And They Were Roommates (series) by @starryeyedstories

this. its hilarious and i cannot wait for more!

robert "bob" floyd

Christmas Gift (on-shot) by @call-sign-jinx

one of the most common bob fics i see is him with a teacher, and honestly i love it. who else would be as sweet and as patient as this man. i have the utmost respect for anyone who works in education, ESPECIALLY those who work with kids under 13. anyways, love this fic.

King of My Heart (one-shot) by @croimilis

dunk bob is the sweetest person ever!

Apple pie (mini-series) by @andorskenobi

the warning is very real, pls take it seriously <3

honorable mentions:

@sunlightmurdock @callsignvalley @toms-gf @make-me-imagine @callsignsaturn @madsnowstorm @jupitercomet @katsu28 @sehnsuchts-trunken @roosterforme (literally anything emily writes will be on a rec list i make)

i just wanna send my love to all the writers on this platform. whether you're just posting your first fic, or just finishing your 5th series, i appreciate you so much. i don't always have the time to comment and i'm dumb and don't understand how to reblog efficiently (working on it), but please know that all the effort and time you put in to making these works is truly admirable and i wish i was as talented as any of you.

okay thats all for now. i need to start making these more often cause theres so many i left out, i was just too lazy to scroll and find them.

[running-with-the-feels]

saw a post on twitter about how in mkx kuai liang bowed to hanzo the japanese way and prepared tea in the japanese way as well as the utmost sign of respect what are your thoughts 🎤‼️

oooooooo my god do I have thoughts

Basically, that scene is my roman empire, and it lives in my brain Rent Free.

I think that Kuai Liang was just going out of his way to make Hanzo as comfortable as possible. Like he knows where they are, he knows how hard being here must be for Hanzo given what the Lin Kuei did so he's doing literally anything he can think of to say "I am not a threat, please hear me out"

I think he's also trying to soften the blow as much as possible, like there's no way to make telling Hanzo about the truth of what Quan Chi did not hurt, but Kuai Liang is trying so hard not to be cruel about it.

So he tries to show Hanzo by bowing the japanese way and preparing the tea in the japanese way that he wants this to be a chance to communicate, that he respects the pyromancer and his clan enough to learn at least part of their customs so that Hanzo feels a little bit less like he's just walked into a trap.

And the thing is, it works! You can see that even tho Hanzo is doubtful and suspicious of wtf is going on (and honestly that is a very fair reaction to the situation), he's listening to Kuai Liang. He's trying to hear the guy out!

It's also pretty clear that Kuai Liang is comfortable with the motions of preparing the tea, like there's no hesitation or fumbling (which might just be bc the game designers didn't want to deal with animating that but I choose to read into it anyways) so its obvious that he practiced this. He wanted to get it right!

And I just can't help but wonder what else Kuai Liang had in place to try and ease communication between them, to try and make Hanzo more comfortable. Like, did he find any Shirai Ryu items that had been taken as trophies and intend to return them (bc lbr, the Lin Kuei def took trophies)? Was he going to offer to let Hanzo stay the night? Like what was the rest of his plan had Frost not intervened?

Like Kuai Liang went so far out of his way to show Hanzo "I mean you no harm, I just want to talk" in the most polite and respectful way he could and Hanzo sees that! It's why he's so confused during the whole interaction bc to him it doesn't make sense. Kuai Liang should, rightfully, hate him.

And, just a side note, I don't think Hanzo ever blamed Kuai Liang for trying to kill him that one time. Like, Hanzo wasn't gonna let him, but he knows that he killed Kuai Liang's brother, so I think he understands why Kuai Liang hates him so much. It's why (as I read into it, this isn't confirmed) he doesn't kill the cryomancer in the mkx blood ties comics, and instead just leaves him there to bleed to death (dick move tho) bc he doesn't want to kill him. He just wants their feud to stop, bc he doesn't have any quarrel with Kuai Liang.

He might not like the Lin Kuei, but the ones responsible for what happened to him are dead, and by now I think he'd have figured out that Kuai Liang wasn't involved. So he's not trying to be the guy's best friend, but part of him doesn't want to be his enemy any more (I have so many thoughts about that whole interaction too, like that is my second Roman Empire)

But, back to the topic at hand:

The thing is, no one would have expected Kuai Liang to do all that. No one would have ever expected him to try so hard or be so kind about it. He now has proof that Hanzo did the very thing he's been accused of for years, he killed Bi-Han unjustly. Kuai Liang would have been well within his rights to simply send Hanzo that information some other way, without ever facing him.

Hell, he'd be pretty justified in just killing Hanzo over it bc all of these characters seem to agree that vengeance and justice are about the same thing (I mean, canon is slightly more nuanced than that, but that's the general gist of it).

And i think Hanzo knows that, and a part of him almost wants Kuai Liang to do it after he finds out.

but he doesn't

Instead, Kuai Liang offers him an alliance and an apology for what the Lin Kuei did (which, btw, I know we see real regret from Hanzo in that same scene but he does owe Kuai Liang an actual apology with actual words) and lets their feud end. Kuai Liang takes informatoon that would drive anyone else mad with rage and grief (*cough* Hanzo *cough*) and instead chooses to be kind.

I really wonder what that scene would have looked like if Frost hadn't interrupted, if she had trusted Kuai Liang to make the right choice and just let it happen.

How would that change their relationship and its development?

How would Kuai Liang have broken the news?

What else had he planned to say and would Hanzo have listened?

Roman empire guys, roman empire

[acacia-may]

Hiya Acacia! For the salty ask game; may I ask for 1, 4, and 11 please 🥰? It can be for any fandom, but if you want a specific one it can be Black Clover!

Alright Lyra! Let's get salty about Black Clover ^^

Necessary disclaimer above the cut: These are just my own personal opinions based on my personal tastes, perceptions, and feelings regarding the series, stories, and characters and their relationships. I genuinely have the utmost respect and absolutely no ill will towards anyone who has a different opinion than me. In fact, I have always said that one of the greatest things about fandom is that we can all experience and perceive these amazing stories and characters in very different ways but still love them. Even some of my dearest fandom friends enjoy different pairings than me or see our shared favorite characters in wildly different ways than I do. I personally find it very rewarding to have respectful conversations about our differences of opinion, and I hope that my opinions will also be respected. Also, I don't vibe with just mindless bashing things, so even though this is about to get very salty and a little snarky, I'll try to keep it respectful and all in good fun. I am not tagging anything and am hiding my thoughts under the cut so you all don't have to be subjected to my hot takes and "Salty Acacia," if you don't want.

OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Yami paired with any of his Black Bull subordinates!! I mean I guess I get it if you don't see him as a parental figure to them, but in my mind, this whole group has Daddy Issues™️ and collectively adopted this man as their father-figure. The idea of adding romance in there just gives me the ick. Especially with Finral...It's just such a personal squick for me that I will just never understand it. Sorry not sorry.

Also, Langris x Mimosa. I do not vibe with that. It's not as visceral as the Yami x a Black Bull ships, but it's just not my cup of tea at all and I genuinely can't imagine them (as I personally perceive them) ever having a romantic interest in each other since she's kind of like a little sister to him in my mind. I know people, including friends, who ship this pairing and I respect that. I've actually read fics about them trying to understand it and the appeal, but ultimately I'm just never going to get this one personally. It's just not for me.

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

YamiFin. See above. I know a lot of people ship it, including people I know and consider my friends, and I know it is because they view their relationship in a wildly different way than me and do not imagine those paternal, familial vibes between them that I do. Like I said in the disclaimer, I respect their differences of interpretation and opinions, so again nothing against them. For me, however, I personally do not vibe with that ship on every possible level. Again, in my mind, Yami is just such father-figure to him that this is just viscerally a NoTP for me.

Vanessa x Yami is the same way but less intense(?) I guess because she has shown a canonical romantic interest in him at least back when he was the only man she had ever seen... (which doesn't seem healthy, so that's a really big nope for me. Also again with the father-figure vibes!!)

I guess Mimosa x Langris is a NoTP too, but it doesn't give me as much of the personal ick as the Yami ones and I don't think it's that popular, so it feels a little unfair to list them here even if I really, really don't vibe with that one. Still, it's a no for me!

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I'm not entirely sure who is unpopular in the fandom at large because I feel like we kind of have our chill, small corner of the BC fandom here and that's where I hang out. I guess I would say Langris because I think he is a pretty dislikable character and even though I feel like most people tolerate him a little more after the Spade Arc, he isn't the most popular when he's really one of my personal favorite characters in the series. I feel like he has a lot of depth to him, and he interests me. I don't excuse his bad behavior or the way he treated his brother, but I think I can understand the why behind his behavior and appreciate that he has been having a good arc. He isn't as terrible of a person as I thought he was in the beginning. Even I used to detest him, but now he's a favorite.

I'm not sure who else is unpopular? Um...I feel like Mimosa gets a lot of undeserved hatred sometimes because of the whole shipping war (which I also don't understand), and that irks me because I think she's actually a pretty cool character and it's not fair that she gets written off and/or disliked for shipping discourse outside of her control. If y'all are so obsessed with her gettting in a relationship with someone who isn't Asta just ship her with Yuno or something I guess??? It's really not that hard! I like her friendship with Klaus and Yuno and her cousin relationship with Noelle a lot. She's also had a good arc! (Sorry that's one wasn't very salty...😅)

[ephemeronidwrites]

if you're still doing the OC codex entries. "your OC talking about your favorite quest" for vrenika, please

Oh, those will be open forever, or until I go through them all for all the OC's I have (whichever comes first). Feel free to hit me up whenever / ifever you'd like to see another one.

That goes for every one of my (five) followers, btw, as well as anyone who happens to wander lost into my writeblr and is curious just what the f*** they've stumbled into.

14: Your OC talking about your favorite quest

(I shocked myself—and also made myself a liar—by somehow knocking out this one in, like, an afternoon. So treat the other one as a freebie that no one asked for?)

An unopened letter found in an abandoned, derelict property in Kirkwall’s Hightown, languishing out of sight behind a broken, dust-covered statue in the foyer.

Fenris,

I know you’re busy with your own issues these days, and I apologise for bothering you with something outside of your concerns, but you’re the only person I could think of who could give me advice about something like this.

Now that they’ve gotten some of the cleanup out of the way, it seems they’ve decided to have the funeral for Saemus next week. They’re giving him full Andrastian rites.

You don’t know him, not beyond his name and face. I’m aware of this. To be quite frank, I’m not even sure how well I knew him.

What little I do know about Saemus tells me this: he would not want his body turned into public theatre like this.

I’ve already been to Elth the Grand Cleric about this and she assured me that the Chantry will treat his memory with “the utmost respect” and “all the dignity due his station”, but the thing is… I know that was the very station he absolutely loathed.

And she refused to talk about Petrice. I can’t shake the idea that if it wasn’t for what that Petrice did oh, what’s the use of writing about it here?

I don’t know if you even want to help, given the way you feel about If you don’t, I’ll understand. But I am at my wit’s end about this and I’m grasping at straws here.

If it was just a matter of me taking matters into my own hands, I’m used to that sort of thing. I took over things after my father died. After Mother died. I mean, sure, I fucked it all up in both those cases, but those were my mistakes to own. My family, my people. I can take responsibility for my own mistakes. Or try, anyway.

I can’t take that risk with Saemus because he’s not mine. But I also can’t give up on him because he has no one else. No one knew him better than I did, except his qunari friends. And they’re all dead at my hands. So now it’s fallen to me to remember Saemus as he really was as I think he would have wanted to be remembered and… I don’t know what that all would mean, and I don’t know how to even start going about knowing.

Again, you have no reason to be dragged into any of this. But you’ve spent time among people who are… sort of like the Qunari? I’m not sure what exactly all that involved for you, but I do know you know a whole lot more about their tongue and any rules they might have around this sort of situation than I do.

Please, help if you can.

I would have come to ask you in person but the last… oh, I don’t know, six times I came by the townhouse you weren’t there. If you’re not going to be there, or show up to Wicked Grace, at least smear some slaver blood on my door within the week. Or whatever else is convenient for you. Just some kind of sign to let all of us know you’re still kicking.

(Yes, even Anders, I promise you. He’ll draw fuel from his seething hatred of you. It’s healthy for him. You know how he is.)

Hoping you’re safe, wherever you are,

Vrenika

P.S. I just realized after writing out this whole thing that you might not be able to read it all. But I gave myself hand cramps writing it, and the ink’s just finished drying, and if you come over to tell me (correctly) what a massive idiot I am that’s exactly what I wanted from you anyway, so here goes nothing.

[obsessingoverl]

Hi i'm kind of confused about the pinned post, for a number of reasons.

My main point of confusion is how you would know what is truth/how the world works without any religion? I've read Descartes' arguments but not much else; But it seems like it's more of a thing one feels in their soul? The closest I can think of for irreligious people would be like morals (particularly terminal/core values) but those are generally rather nebulous than believing that a specific book is correct (or rather thinking that god is real & that god wrote that book).

I also am rather confused by the similarities to physics/history. There are many experiments confirming the laws of physics, and (almost) nobody who says otherwise. I'm by no means a theologian but the validity of the events told in the bible i believe aren't nearly as certain, and there's no real way to confirm it.

To me it seems like you're saying "I believe the continuum hypothesis (math thing that I believe has been proven to be unprovable) is true in my heart and will only base my mathematics on it, even if it means calling other people who don't believe it bad mathematicians (bad analogy I know but the point is I wouldn't base my opinions so strongly on something I know to be not insignificantly likely to be false, particularly when it conflicts with other ideas & when it affects other people.

I also want to double check that you conform to god's morals to get into heaven? Or just because he says it's right and he is the utmost authority? (Neither of which are particularly appealing I prefer having a combination of different arguments rather than one which I am to treat as infallable)

Ok wait what are you asking?? Your questions are not particularly clear

I am religious. My fundamental understanding about how the world works is based on my belief in my Heavenly Parents. Everything else about religion is designed to expound upon that understanding of God and help us grow closer to Him.

I believe that the Bible is true as far as it is translated correctly. There are many aspects of the Bible a a historical record that are verifiable, and as for the miracles, well, there's God.

I do not believe that people who don't believe in my religion are inherently bad people. Also, you seem to be making the mistake referenced in my pinned post. Religious people don't believe that the existence of God is false. To us, its kind of like gravity. Its just there, and you can't really debate its existence because it does exist*. When you say it "isn't insignificantly likely to be false" and so you wouldn't base belief on it, you are misunderstanding how religious people view the world. Thats the whole point of the post.

As for conforming to God's morals...I lean towards the latter, but it's complicated. How many of His morals do you genuinely disagree with though? For the most part, why would that be bad? And getting into heaven...I'm mormon its much more complicated than just the standard Christian understanding of heaven

Anyway, please ask some clearer questions, because I am happy to talk religion with anyone who remains respectful.

*you can technically debate it but I'm trying to make a point about how religious people perceive God so yk

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

AWW MY LOVELY ARIII 💞 i’m incredibly sorry that this was so late, i had the fattest nap ever known to both man AND womankind (13 whole hours is WILD 🤯). whelp ig it’s just my sleep debt catching up on me :((( but tysm for checking up on me bby! i rly hope uve had a good day today. don’t forget to eat well, drink water nd get those full 8 hours of well deserved sleep!!

ahhh work was sm chiller than i expected yesterday. i work part time at mecca (australian equivalent for sephora) and there was not a single 12 year old sephora kid in sight! phewww 😮‍💨 i remember once, majority of my shift was spent cleaning the glow recipe aisle bc some 10 year old thought it was a good idea to spill the samples everywhere 😭 that was not fun hsjsjs

AND OMFG TOJI W SUNNIES 😻😻 the things i wld do to see toji in summer istg. ig i just have a thing for dilfs atp 🤷‍♀️ hahaha i doubt i cld fix him tho but iss okk 🥲 ALSO ALSO YOU AND SUGU WLD WORK SO WELL TOGETHER HSHSHSH. relationship goals right there!

uni bf sugu wld definitely have a tattoo or two asw as some piercings. no bc why do i feel like a helix piercing wld suit him SO WELL THO. like i genuinely believe sugu’s jewellery game wld be unbeatable. like i can see his piercings and all that (cs i picture him with more than one piercing iykwim) lookinf so aesthetically pleasing and HAJSJSJK. also the turtle necks are SO REALL. like he would 100% wear glasses whilst he’s in his dorms or maybe during campus asw. ++ i feel like he wld suit those reading glasses so well but he’d be the type to wear it occasionally and i can just imagine like most of his classmates like ‘wait you wear glasses!? 😮’ rahh we were robbed of a uni geto fs :(

also i saw how ur a lit major and can i just say that’s like the coolest thing ever what?? hsjsjsj lit majors seem so so cool omg. oddly specific question but dy guys have like a certain amount of time you spend reading a certain book?? if so, how long is it usually? ahh i’m sorry if that was a stupid question 😭 i read INCREDIBLY slow but i wanna get back into it yk. my reading slump’s been going on for far too long but idk which book to read to help me get out of said reading slump hshshsh. i’m still in awe that ur a lit major tho 🥹 like i hold utmost respect for all lit major students. i shldve guessed that u majored in lit/smth remotely to do with creative writing bcs your sugu drabble was written so BEAUTIFULLY AHHH. okok my words probably don’t do it any justice but it was just written so well to the point it was mind blowing yk? ahh i wish my brain worked like urs!! i 100% see sugu as that caring and doting bf who’d just be hyper aware of everything about you down to the smallest things ever. he’s just so sweet and so loveable istg 🥰🥰 i think about cult leader geto at least once everyday (roman empire much!) but i literally cannot emphasise how much i loved ur geto drabble omfg. the yearning was just 🤌🤌🤌 especially during that scene where mc brought up how sugu must’ve loved his bsf a lot, the change in his mannerisms were so subtle yet it was so evoking at the same time. like sure it was subtle, but it was enough for mc to k that she had hit a sore spot. also i just thought it was perfect in symbolising the strong bond sugu had w toru. like the mere mention of toru wld cause sugu to have like sm nostalgic memories rush back to him. HAKSJSJ thank u sm for gracing us w your drabble bby. im not even exaggerating when i say that it genuinely pulled my heartstrings HARD. hshshsh it was such an enjoyable read!

btw to answer ur question earlier, i’m currently pursuing my bachelor of biomedicine with a major in integrated dental sciences. i’m a stem girly thru and thru. idk australia has this funky thing where we specialise in our degrees almost instantly (i’m not too sure if it’s the same for other countries).

++ i was scrolling on pinterest earlier and i came across this

HELLO WHY CAN I LOWK PICTURE SUGU JUST MUNCHING ON HIS BAGUETTES IDK 😭 emily in paris who? i only know suguru geto in paris 😌

tysm for taking the time to read all this ari 💗 i appreciate you so so much. hope you’ve had a good day/night so far! mwah ilyyy <333

UKI MY DEAREST <3333 no need to apologize pls!! i’m so happy that you got a bunch of rest!!!!! :33 AND I’M SO GLAD WORK WAS CHILL TOO gosh the glow recipe thing…. 😭😭 u have my condolences. i’m proud of you for working so hard!! pls pat yourself on the back since i can’t 🫂🫂

DILF LOVERS UNITE BTW i’m soooo weak for toji…….. for all the jjk dilfs actually……… they’re just so good. toji w sunnies is gonna rot in my brain atp he would look so perfect 😵‍💫😵‍💫 ur brain is so big uki. AND EVERYTHING ABT COLLEGE BF SUGU PLS HAVE MERCY ON MY HEARTTTTT he makes me feel ill………… THE HELIX PIERCINGGGG YOU’RE SO RIGHT!!!! and him wearing glasses in his dorm….. i would simply Explode he’s sooooo bf it’s crazy :(((((

AAA AND YOU’RE A BIO MAJOR THAT’S SO COOL WHAT????? dental care too!!!!!! stem girlies have my heart and respect always always always 🙏🙏🙏 in my brain the stem girlies and liberal arts majors r holding hands :33 we respect u sm yknow!!! as for your question……. honestly i don’t rlly keep track of how long it takes me to read a certain book 😭😭 i think i usually work under the assumption that i read like. one page per minute?? ish??? but that also totally depends on the format…. so i can’t rlly give u a sure answer :’3 BUTTT pls never be discouraged to read a book just bc u read slow!! that’s normal!!!! reading becomes so much more enjoyable when you find a book that you enjoy and have fun reading, and at the point the time won’t matter bc you’ll be done before you know it!! aaa i’d love to give you some recs but i’d have to know more abt your taste 😭 a book i read recently that wasn’t toooo long + was written beautifully + made me cry LMAO is ”the travelling cat chronicles” by hiro arikawa!! if you like cats it’s def for you :33 usually when i find books to read i check a summary and some quotes just to get a feel for it, so that’s a good idea if you wanna find one that suits your taste!!

……. i hope that’s at least . a little bit helpful PHDKDBF i’m sorry uki 😭😭 i’m probably the least competent lit major when it comes to giving advice on reading BUT i’m cheering you on!!!! literature is sooooo genuinely wonderful when you aren’t being forced to read a book you don’t like for school lmao. and if you want recs my dms and inbox r always open for u!!! don’t hesitate to ask <333

aaaaaaaa but uki 🥺🥺🥺🥺 pls i cried you are SO unbelievably sweet ….. ur tags on the geto drabble made me feel so warm!!!!! and i’m just so giddy that u liked it!!!!! all ur words r so kind pls T—T i also love and adore cult leader geto…. i genuinely think he would be so soft and doting and sickeningly devoted to his beloved. he just loves them so much his heart completely overflows :(( our nostalgic sappy wife……….. he means the world to me

AND PLSSSS THE SUGU PIC 😭😭😭 he’s so sillyyyyyyy i love him sm <333 ty for that cute little treat hehe, i hope your day/night is going super well too!!! and tysm for taking the time to write this out, i love chatting w you <333 here are some other silly gojo images in return >:3 … the resemblance is uncanny i fear . our kitty cat of all time !!!

[aaronburrdaily]

August 25, 1809

Yesterday at 10 A.M., A.E.A. called with his relation, John, professor of chym.,¹ greatly distressed that an official duty of which he had no notice till 8 this morning obliges him to delay his journey till to-morrow morning. Invited me to go with him to a village only two miles off to see the manner of discharging the duty, &c. The subject is the division of a common among the parishioners; agreed to go, but went first with Professor J. Afzelius to see his cabinet, his mineralogical cabinet and laboratory. Two hours there and much amused. Complains that he can get nothing from America. At 12 with A.E.A. to ———. Walked; warm weather; found there two priests; two of the assessors, several peasants. Whilst they were talking over their business I went to see the tomb of ——— who reigned ———. It is a tumulus about the size and the form of that which you saw at Cincinnati. It is placed on a rocky eminence; has a fine view of the castle and cathedral of Upsala and of the orangerie,² which, though about 300 paces nearer than the castle, appears like one of its offices. We were at the house of a respectable farmer. On coming in, brandy, beer, and skolpen on the table, of which I partook. At 1, brandy, beer, bread, cheese, another meal. About 1/2 p. 1 we were called into dinner. Brandy, bread and cheese again; a very good dinner. The first course, as in town, was salt fish, ham, sausages with * * * * ³ beans nicely dressed; then, I forget what; then fillibonk; then roast chicken and ham. The business was settled with the utmost good humor. Home at 5. At 6 Mr. Torner invited me to visit the library again; passed there two hours and took note, which you will see, of several books. Home at 8. Read till 11 in Coxe's volume on Sweden. Interrupted by an unexpected visitor; unexpected and unsolicited; 3/4 rix dollar. Couche at 12. Lev. at 1/2 p. 7. My first business this morning was to examine into the state of finance to determine whether or not Gam. might dejeune⁴; found that he could not. Continued reading Coxe and finished the volume. He is more accurate and more intelligent than other of the travelers heretofore mentioned. Please to read him, for I have been over much of the same ground; seen the same things and some of the same persons. A.E.A. came in at 10 and says that he will call at 1 with his carriage and that we shall lodge to-night at Sigtuna. Adam Afzelius came in and gave me a mem. in his own handwriting and in English of the several articles from Africa respecting which I was most desirous to be informed. Then Professor A. with London papers to the 7th August; offers me, as does Adam, all sorts of civilities. And now the clock strikes 1 and I am looking out for my eschort.⁵

Oeusterly,⁶ August 25, 1809. Left Upsala at 1/2 p. 3 with A.E. Afzelius, Haradshöfding of Upsala, in his coach (phaeton) with post-horses. Rode through this beautiful plain to Gamla Upsala, 1/2 miles Swedish; to Ugglesta Vail, 1 mile Swedish. The whole distance 1/2 miles Swedish, or 10 English miles. A cabin for post-horses and a cotè⁷ a very respectable-looking farm-house for lodging, &c, for travelers. In the garden plenty of currants and goosberries⁸ with which made free. This indulgence is everywhere as with us. On to ———. Among the pictures are several said to be of the first masters. Was particularly struck with one of Aurora, Comtesse de Koningsmare, who frightened Charles XII.; wrapped in a silk manteau; the bosom, the left foot, and right knee (and something more) bare; in the open field, before sunrise, alluding to her name.⁹ A fine landscape. A portrait of Anne Bullein,¹⁰ ux. Henry VIII.; beautiful and interesting. The chateau a large square building; twenty-two steps to ascend to the first floor. Paid ——— to the old woman. The chateau suffering for want of repairs; passed 1 1/2 hours here. The plain narrows; little rocky hills, but always small fertile spots highly cultivated, and excellent roads, not a stone as big as an egg. The next stage is 2 1/8 Swedish miles or 15 English miles. A peasant's house; an air of comfort and plenty as in all. Got horses presently and on to Oerubro; a very neat, comfortable inn; beds, maid, everything neat; were all abed, but got up cheerfully and got us supper. A wild fowl, sort of grouse, fish, salad, and fillibonk. While supper was getting, we walked to the furnace.

1 So in the MS. Burr did not use the more modern form, chemistry. 2 Orangery. 3 Undecipherable. The word looks like snip. 4 Breakfast. Should be the infinitive déjeuner. 5 So in the MS. 6 For Österby. 7 For à côté. At the side. 8 So in the MS. 9 Aurora. 10 For Anne Boleyn, mother of Queen Elizabeth.

[yaz-the-spaz]

As someone with Hashimoto's disease can you be like super careful insisting that she can't be pregnant because of it because like... that's some hurtful shit.

i never insisted that she can’t be pregnant because of it. please read my words carefully. i’ve only ever said it’s very hard to get pregnant, not impossible. but i’m sorry if anything came across as hurtful as that was not my intention and i wish you all the best in coping with the condition

[edensrose]

PLEASE NOTE :

This is the shortened version of my fic When Darkness Reigns, if you are interested in the full fic please read it here

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐒

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ dark!thranduil / reader / sauron

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ part two

ʚ pairing : dark!thranduil / reader / sauron | mairon

ʚ cw : dark themes ៸៸ possessive & obsessive behaviour ៸៸ corruption ៸៸ manipulation ៸៸ mentions of blood ៸៸ mentions of death ៸៸ dark themes in general, viewer discretion advised

ʚ note : don't even ask me how I'm speed-writing all of this bc I don't know lol. here's part two to start of my new series. so in love with these two, this may just expand from a three-part series haha. translations are in comments <3

( part 1 ) ( part 3 ) ( masterlist ) ( ao3 )

“Y/N,’’ 

“Y/N. . .” 

“Y/N please wake up,’’

Releasing the sheets from your clutches, a voice pulls you from the depths of your mind and back into the pure light of glimmering candles, safe from the raging flames which once threatened to consume you whole. You part your lids to face a soft sea of crystal blue rather than tiger’s eyes and draw a relieved sigh as splodges of colour sharpen to form a pale face with fair features. 

“Legolas. . .’’ You couldn’t be more grateful that it was him to appear before you. The sweet, kind elf rather than the monsters plaguing your visions. “Are you alright?” Almost in hesitation, he questions your recent state of despair and takes a position at your side. 

You sit up, hand threading into your locks as you furrow brows. “Yes, it was simply. . . a nightmare.’’ Your own words had you second-guessing. To what extent could these apparitions be considered mere dreams of dread? And how much longer could you fair without crumbling altogether? Unfortunately, your questions would remain unanswered — but there was one thing you knew for certain. . . 

They were consuming your entire being. 

“Must have been quite the nightmare to have brought on such a reaction.’’ For a moment you are confused, only to follow his gaze towards the shards of glass scattered across the stone floor. You tense, before easing a sigh and bringing two fingers to either temple. “I am sorry if I startled you. . . Legolas. I assure you, I am fine.’’ 

He remains sceptical, your words doing little to ease his worry, but he chooses to question not and instead finds a seat on the edge of the bed; his father’s end. “I will take your word for it. Might you allow me a few moments of your time?” It was impossible to deny him, especially with his polite request accompanied by pleading hues, so you nod and shift in the slightest to allow him more room. 

This was far from uncomfortable, if anything — Legolas was one of the very few that held your utmost trust, safe for his father. Simply put your relationship with Mirkwood’s prince may not have been that of a motherly figure, yet definitely one of a guardian with a mutual respect from either party. To him, he was more than happy that his ada found a second chance at happiness, especially given the fact that elves seldom fall in love twice; so one can imagine his joy when he discovered it was with someone who he both trusted and admired. 

“I do not mean to pry. . .’’ The clear of his throat catches your attention and subsequently your gaze. “I am merely worried for your well being. . . If I may ask, what was it that you saw?” There was something he held back, a little tidbit of information kept — “You. . . kept calling ada’s name.’’ 

Ah, there it was. 

Enough to reveal just why he persisted and alternatively, jog your memory back to those hazy visions. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

“Iniðil,’’

“My precious iniðil.’’ 

“Mai!” 

A laugh echoes through the stone corridors as your hands find purchase on his shoulders. His lips smother yours, pressing a series of pecks and kisses as his hands clutch the backs of your thighs. “We are at risk -” kiss “of getting -” kiss “caught. . !” Barely able to speak a full sentence without his lips interrupting and consuming you whole, you invite him in by hooking your legs to his hips despite the contrast in prior words. 

“And?” 

“If . . . Aulë comes back -”

“Forget him, focus on me.’’ He pushes you further, nestling between your legs once he fully props you upon the smithing table. “Mai. . .’’ Sighing in content against his lips, you opt for looping arms around his neck and burying fingers into auburn tresses. 

“My little iniðil. . .’’ 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Was that it?

The terror-filled vision? 

You could have sworn. . . 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

A cry rips through the air, once gentle hold morphing into searing aches as your knees hit the bloodied ground. “M-. . .Mai,’’ through clenched teeth you just barely manage a cough of his name and instead, splutter out an ick of crimson essence. 

With a hand to your chest and coiling around tattered material, you can all but stare into once soft, amber hues now set ablaze, much like the world around you. “I warned you. . . precious iniðil.’’ He caresses the back of your head, comforting, soothing, only to shatter the tender sensation with a cruel digging of nails into your scalp. 

Another cry flees your lips as you altogether limp into him, like a withering flower pleading for mercy. “Mairon. . . Mairon,’’ you sob, failing to fight back the waterfalls. 

And as you are forced to stare up into those malicious pools, you wonder in woe: how did it come to this? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Mairon? 

Mairon. . . 

That sounded nothing like the elvenking’s name. Had Legolas heard wrong? Surely he must — 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

The hand buried within your locks jerks, hoisting you up until your feet dangled below. Shooting your hands up to seize his wrist, another wail seeps into the air thick with smoke and embers. With eyes screwed tight you prayed, an anguished beseech for the creator himself to tear open the heavens and rescue you from this dreadful torment. 

“Mir nin, will you not look at me?”

It’s enough to pry your lids wide with shrunken irises and pupils at the new voice invading your ear canal. Amber long gone and instead replaced with a deep, sickening azure that leaves your stomach churning and head spinning. 

“Th-. . . Thranduil?” 

Pangs stab your scalp and you keen at the feel of talons clawing into your locks with significant vehemence. “Yes, mir nin, were you expecting someone else?” His voice is but a chill, low and laced with a mixture of ice and venom, yet still manages to retain its typical eloquence. 

That, however, was the only entity that symbolised his every-day self, everything else was a mere shadow of what you had come to know as your king. Atop his head a crown of wretched thorns adorned his silvery mane, which framed skin paler than white. Surrounding his eyes was a darkened hue, creating an intense distinction to accompany his thick brows. And still, he appeared ever as gorgeous — but far from what you knew. A dark deity. 

“Why do you appear so shocked? Surely, you should have seen this coming. . .’’ He leans in, crisp aura bringing shivers down your spine. It perfectly contrasted that man’s emanation, yet was equally as threatening. “After all, the signs have been in front of you this entire time.’’ 

The elf tilts his head, crooning at your hushed cries. “Like an angel weeping. . .” “Thranduil,’’ you choke, effortlessly tugging at his wrist in hopes to ease his clutch. “Thranduil, please.’’ 

“Please what, meleth?” 

“Please. . .

come back to me,’’ 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

“Y/N?” 

Warmth that finds your knuckles prompts an abrupt jerk as you yank your hand back and dart your head to the voice’s direction. With wide, frenzied eyes you originally gape in surprise, only to exhale at the sight of a gentle countenance brimmed with concern. 

“I. . . I would rather not talk about it, Legolas.’’ 

This time, he accepts your denial with no more pester, fearing to send you into another state of aversion. And in his haste to change topic and take your mind off of whatever twisted visions seeped into your conscious, he unintentionally caused the sinking feeling of your heart to amplify. “How have you and ada been?” 

Stiffened like a statue, your gaze slumps to the silk-woven sheets below. “Thranduil?” The name falls from your lips in a tremble, leaves a sting on your tongue and an ache in your chest. How was your relationship with the elvenking fairing, he asked? An answer you wished held at least some positives. He barely spoke, let alone was in reach. The bed was often left cold, much like your skin which missed his warm caresses and mild touches. How could one see any silver lining in that? 

Legolas catches your drift as you attempt to collect your words and brush him off with an assurance, a lie you fed yourself day-in and day-out. It’s simply a phase. A mere bump in the road, a little setback. And such deceit was what you held fast to as the stability of your relationship with the king dwindled above your very head. 

“Should I -” 

“Ion nin.’’ 

Deep tones capture both your attention and you needn’t glance up to recognise who stands at the entrance of your bed-chamber. In an instant Legolas is up on his feet, clearing his throat as if to apologise for his lax position beside you. “Father, you have returned.’’ 

Unlike the prince your gaze remains hung with the sheets becoming most interesting, it seemed. As such you relied on hearing alone to decipher that your lover drew nearer. “I have.’’ You feel them, deep sapphires boring into your very soul. 

“Leave us.’’ 

The austerity of his tone leaves not only you, but his son stunned. Such a tone to be used on him — and out of the blue for that matter. “Father -”

“Legolas, I will only speak once.’’ The prince grows rigid, almost in disbelief at the sudden cold shoulder presented to him by his beloved ada. He exchanges but a glance with you, filled with a hundred emotions, a thousand questions. . . but he obeys. With nothing more but a bow of his head, Legolas exits the room and finds his way back from which he came, leaving you and the king to your own devices. 

For a second you are left speechless, mouth dry and words clogging your throat as you try to comprehend what could have possibly brought on such icy mannerism towards his one and only son. In this moment you observe his every move, wondering if you were next to face his wrath as he strides forward and finds himself seated at the foot of the bed. 

“Why. . .” “Why what?” He arches a brow when the expectation for you to continue is left vacant. You swallow the cotton in your mouth and subconsciously twitch fingers around the linen. “Why did you speak to him in such a curt manner?” Every word, every breath is hesitant, as if you were walking on eggshells. “He was only checking in on me. . .” With cautioned tone you observe as the king removes his crown and shifts closer, nearly jumping straight out of your skin at the sudden blur before your eyes and the newfound pressure against your stomach. 

“I merely wished to have you to myself, is that too much to ask?” 

After registering his new position, you find yourself peering down at his head nestled against your abdomen, with arms looping your waist as his eyes shut altogether. It leaves you surprised, taken aback. . . when was the last time he held you as such? When butterflies ran rampant within your belly and warmth spread throughout every corner of your body?

“Th-. . . Thranduil?” 

You receive but a murmur, a simple hum as he relaxed his muscles and the entirety of his form into you. It left a fuzzy feeling in your chest, one thought to have been forgotten. So, instead of questioning him any further and possibly ruining this rare occasion, you opted for threading your fingers into his delicate, long locks and shutting your eyes with contentment. Normality. . . oh, how you missed it. To have his tender touch, his warmth returned. You could have sworn you were in nirvana. 

And a twinge of sadness almost pricks your heart, for it brought to your attention a sorrowful realisation. Had neglect craned its ugly head to such an extent? To the point where even the most basic of actions had you up in cloud nine? 

If you allowed yourself to dwell on the thought for much longer you feared that you might lose sight and waste this precious moment. So, forcing down the lingering thought and putting it under lock and key in the deepest crevice of your heart — you chose to relish in this rarity of affection. 

Unbeknownst to you that whilst you eased, Thranduil's mind was far from composed. A series of curses, spluttering rebukes and symphonies of terror which hung like a thick cloud throughout his conscious. The repetition of a plain but devastating statement that shattered his being whole.

I want her

I want her,

I want her. 

He could still feel it. The retching sickness twisting his stomach and brining his lungs in bitterness, threatening to cave his entire body inwards from the sheer intensity of his ire and ignominy. He failed you; was his reminder. He failed you. 

To think that he, the great elvenking, was brought to his knees, stripped of all authority, all pride. A damn puppet, a willing one at that. And for what? What possessed him to give up everything he once knew — believed in. To discard every moral as if it were that of the lowest value and filth; allow obscurity to make its home within his head and devour him from the inside out? For what? 

Such queries were answered by the lone heartbeat thrumming against his ear, a steady, unwavering melody which for a quick moment sated all the maledictions of his conscious. One which harmonised with his own, a rhythm that reminded him exactly why he chose this path and would choose it a hundred times and over.

You. 

For he would walk through dragon fire for all his life, cross the greatest of seas, suffer a thousand torments.

All for you.

.

.

.

.

.

And it was that very statement that carried on with him in the weeks to come. Where he would face adversaries woefully similar to that fateful night in dol guldur. As Sauron requested his presence more often than he would deem pleasant, made mentions of you far more than Thranduil would have appreciated — the only thing to keep from total insanity were those four simplistic words. 

It was for you,

It was for you. 

“It is. . . for her.’’ 

Already white knuckles grow paler in colour as they tighten around the smooth stone of the washbasin. Trembling fingers mimic quavering shoulders and jagged breaths as Thranduil battles with the demanding voice echoing the depths of his mind. It was nothing, at first, a mere whisper when all this madness began. Yet now it grew into a demonic roar, never-ending and insistent on one thing and one thing only:

To let it in. 

To the elvenking’s credit he has fought it back throughout this long-awful period of time, driving it back to the pits of hell from where it came. But now it grew more than a challenge to deter, a constant ringing in his ear that brought forth a constant headache and haze. Give in, 

Give in,

Give in. 

Thranduil rasps for air, seeking soothing relief to his lungs which burn as though drenched in searing hot magma. And when he finally pries his lids open to gaze into his reflection, the face staring back at him leaves his grip limp and his body hunching over. 

Soulless, navy blue hues accompanied by skin paler than he could have ever envisioned. Grinning lips that taunted him, mocked him, as sweat pooled into the creases of his forehead caused by his furrowing features. He felt sick, bile rising in his throat as waves of nausea entrapped him. His body practically begged with him, with whatever twisted being consumed his mind — mercy, mercy. 

‘Leave me be. . . Leave me. . . be. . .’

Jaw clenched, teeth grinding together, he seethes through with his words once more, firm and teetering a feral growl. “Leave me be.’’ 

Ripples overtake the water and much to his relief, the apparition fades as though it was never there in the first place — leaving the king to sigh and heave himself upright. He sucks a breath, fully assuring his composure before he even thinks of leaving the bath chamber. 

It filled him to the brim with dread, these moments of torment.

For he didn’t know how much more he could take. 

Drawing a breath through his nostrils, Thranduil ensures every fibre in his body is at ease, splashing water over his face with cupped hands for good measure and prematurely ending his instant of sought-after relaxation. It was obvious that being alone did little to subdue the flames of internal warfare — which is why rushes of solace flooded over him when an angelic voice breached the noiseless void. 

“Thranduil?” 

He turns, ready to find his way back to the bed-chamber before abruptly faltering in step at the realisation that he miscalculated your whereabouts; for you were not in the bedroom as he originally had concluded. Instead, you stood at the large, arched entrance of the natural pools that made up the washroom. 

Damnit, how long have you been there? 

“Mir nin,’’ he attempts to masquerade any query-raising antics and searches for his robes. “May I be of aid?” Perhaps if he played it off, the creator would have mercy on him and reveal that you only recently found your way down those steps. Instead he’s met with nothing but deafening silence, far from that of comfort as finds his clothing and prepares to slide his arms through the sleeves. He made the mistake of looking at you, and that is when he knew. 

For your expression held that of utmost concern, a twinge of worry which instead reflected tenfold within your hues. He loses his voice for a mere second before mentally cursing himself out and continuing his act with an arch of his brow. “Mir nin, why do you stare? Is there something bothering y -”

“Thranduil. . .

what was that?”

The area plunges into chills. Rhaich! Just as he dreaded! 

“Pardon me?’’ The elf stands straight after neatening out his clothing, trying with great effort to keep up the mirage of normality. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you -” “Thranduil.’’ 

His throat runs dry, body stiff yet mind racing. The look in your eye told him everything that he needed to know — his chances of brushing this off were next to nil, but most importantly: there was no more fooling you. This only became more apparent when you stepped closer and allowed him to peer further into the glazed whites of your eyes. “I can hold my tongue no more, meleth. Please confide in me, what is wrong?” 

Thranduil’s gaze lingers everywhere, the floor, the intricate designs on stone walls, the pools, anywhere but into your own. “I. . . haven’t the slightest idea what you -” “Spare me your lies!”

For the first time in what felt like centuries, he heard your voice careen octaves higher than your usual tone when addressing him. Yet he can dwell on the shock not, for his attention is grasped by your continuation. “Thranduil, do you expect me to idly stand by while something is evidently wrong with you?” The tremble in your voice mimics that of fingers which twitch into the material of your dress. “This has been going on for long enough. I require answers, here and now.’’ 

What was that festering feeling? Anger? It might as well be, for how dare you to demand such things of him? As if you knew a damn thing — no. No that’s not him talking. 

Thranduil forces down the venom threatening to spill and instead straightens his form. “Y/N. Do not be ridiculous. Do you truly believe there is an issue when I have already stated otherwise? Surely you hold regard for my word, do you not?” 

“I don’t.’’ 

His teeth teeter the line of clenching but he instead chooses to tighten his jaw. “Excuse me?” “I said it clearly. I hold no regard for your word.’’ Palms draw upwards as your hands clench into fists. “For months you have altogether torn apart any and all regard I may have for your word. For months you have turned the cold shoulder, avoiding every question I bring up and creating this growing void between us. Yet you expect me to still hold regard?” 

“Y/N. Enough.’’ 

“No!” 

His eyes widen, surprise mixing with outrage at your blatant refusal to abide by his commands. “I can do this no more!” He’s unable to choke down the bitterness any longer and veers his head to shoot you a glare. “What is it that you want from me!?” “An explanation!”

“Explanation for what?” He seethes, using every fibre in his body to shove down the screaming choir in his head. Barely holding on by thread, he forces himself to turn from you, hoping that the action of keeping his line of vision elsewhere will save him from letting the darkness win. "Everything! An explanation for everything! This estranged behaviour, the number of times you shun and turn me away. The crudeness towards every breathing being in Mirkwood and not even to MENTION your own son! Me!" You take a step closer, barely registering his heaving chest. "As your lover do I not deserve to know when an abrupt change occurs? Do I not deserve to know of the truths you lock away and the lies you continue to splutter?! As your queen do I n —"

"Enough!" 

Within a flash he lurches forward and snatches your wrist, jerking his head so that his face is brought a mere few inches from yours. "You demand answers from me that you could not even begin to comprehend! An explanation? Is that what you seek!?" 

Before your eyes morphs the very image that haunted your mind every time you laid your head to rest. Skin blanching to frightful extents as sapphires are engulfed by murky, malicious blue; shrouded with all kinds of deviltry and malevolence. A frigid feel that outdoes ice itself, threatening to consume you entirely as you come face-to-face with the one, distorted image that became everything you ever feared. 

"You wish to know of what truly lurks behind this guise? To be aware of all this foulness?" The grip around your wrist turns into a familiar, stinging pain as nails dig into your soft flesh. "I wonder how you would react to it all. Would you still accept me?" A click of his tongue as he yanks you nearer. "Of course not. You would run, would you not? You would look me in the eye and detest all that I have become. You would fear me, this darkness." 

And as he leans in, your vision takes him as another form. With auburn tresses and fiery amber pools, the familiar, fair face which stabbed your heart with dread. 

"Tell me, Y/N. Would you love me still?" 

His words sounded like an echo, a repetition which rang through your mind interval after interval. And when you hauled yourself back and stumbled into the wall, your imagination at last let up and done away with the face you had only ever seen in your dreams. 

"M-. . . Mai. . . ron. . ."

Your murmur is the only thing that draws him from his world of void, prompting him to grow rigid altogether as every muscle within him tenses. "What. . . " he breathes. "What did you say?"

It is only when he turns does Thranduil realise that you are long gone, leaving him with nothing but your hurried footsteps that resound down the vast corridors. Just as he expected. . . you fled the first chance you got.

His last remaining sanity fought for front, to shove down the tremendous haze of miasma clouding his better judgement and bringing carmine shades to his vision. Yet with every reminder of the recently transpired event, he fell deeper into the pit he oh so strenuously crawled out of a mere few moments ago. You left him. You ran. You abandoned him. 

Thranduil's head, previously hung, now slowly lifted so that he stared at the arch from which you exited. And with a wicked curl of his lips a deep, cruel chuckle resonated from the depths of his chest. "Very well. . ."

"So it has begun." 

He pursued forward, trailing behind unhurriedly as he listened in for your rushed footsteps. Had you already made it to the gates? Silly girl. Thranduil clicks his tongue once or twice but nevertheless follows the path in which you ran. 

Frazzled, heart galloping and threatening to leap straight out of your chest as the scene replayed itself on repeat. Images that you thought would only occur in your dreams now seeping into reality and leaving you frantic, terrified. Perhaps running was not of the wise but what could one do when put into your position? But sprint and try to escape the horrors of truth, the horrendous dreams which tormented your mind that now may as well be premonitions of what is to come?

And as you tore your way through the intricate hallways of Mirkwood, those two names rotated within your head, upon your tongue.

Thranduil

Mairon

Thranduil,

Mairon,

As if you were going mad, a crazed mantra as you finally found the gates, thankfully open, and fled into the forest without any regard for the creatures that lurked within every crevice — for at this given moment? They were meek in comparison to the darkness that loomed from inside the palace. Thick, dreary and radiating off of one man and one man only. 

Who knows how long you ran, how far you pushed yourself in the pursuit for freedom from the dreadful reality you found yourself in. For all you knew it could have been a mere ten minutes, perhaps thirty, but at last you halted, stumbling over to catch a breath for your blistering lungs as you leaned onto a beech tree for support.

However, no sooner than you had stopped to rest did regret flood into your stomach as a breach of the previously noiseless atmosphere sent your spine pin-straight. 

"Mir nin, do you truly think you can run from me?" 

Lacking any and all virtue, a voice drawls into the night. Low, firm, yet sickly melodic in nature, its call leaves the hairs of your arm upright and goosebumps forming across your skin. How close was he? How did he get here already!? You scramble for answers in frenzied darts of your eyes around the gloomy forest and when you find none, adrenaline is what you rely on to kick-start your flee. Pushing through the agonising aches that spasm within your knees accompanied by the practical screams of your lungs, you resume where you left off.

Running through the Woodland Realm and praying to every holy being that you could recount to save you from the treachery you feared, from the voice that mocked and laughed at your feeble attempts of escape, the haze that left you confounded on which was right and where was left. 

Had you not gone down this path?

No,

No it was that part.

Right?

No.

Unbeknownst to you that all the odds were against your favour, for the realm of the elvenking was far more complex that what many were led to believe. There were reasons not many ventured into these woods and like the fool you were you forgot each and every one of them. For this was the king's domain, his kingdom, and over it cast a spell of confusion for all those unfortunate souls who he deems unworthy of his trust and thus leads astray. And at this given moment in time? 

You were one of those poor, woeful souls.

So he played around with you, tampered with your mind and cruelly led you to believe that you were escaping him — only to speak into the night and bring forth tidal waves of fear, followed by floods of bewilderment as you attempted to find your way out of this vast and convoluted forest. 

It was only when you could go no further, when your heart threatened to seize all movements and your lungs burned as if they bled, a metallic taste clear at the back of your tongue as your muscles finally had enough and ended your exertion. Knees hit stone, yet the pain feels like nothing in comparison to your inflamed chest and the excruciating soreness throughout your skull. Gasping and wheezing for the sweetness of air, you ball the material of the dress between your fists and nearly collapse altogether into the cobblestone below you.

Forever and a half is what it took until you finally managed to catch even a quarter of your breath, with sweat pooling at your forehead in an evident sheen and body wracking with overwhelming jitters. You hunch over, hands finding the stone and a strange sense of ease rushes across your form at the iciness of its feel. Icy — stone? 

Your mind jogs out of its haze when the realisation that you now sit upon stone is brought to your attention. With sluggish, splintered movement, you raise a gaze towards the ebony walls that encircle the area. Tattered, ruined and far from structured — perhaps once before yet definitely not at present. 

A stench permeates the expanse and leaves your nose wrinkling with disgust when you finally manage to sate majority of the burning in your chest. With quivering limbs you struggle to stand as you intake this new, foreign region and a tense feeling subsequently jabs your heart. 

"Well, what do we have here?"

Ignoring the ache of your muscles you spin around to face the direction of the deep, rumbling tone; eyes wide and frenzied as you expect nothing but the worse. Which is exactly what comes to pass. 

Pupils shrink drastically together with irises and a strangled scream lodges itself in your throat. Instead, you let out a spluttered rasp as you stumble over your own two feet in an attempt to create a reasonable distance between yourself and the obscurity of shadows before you. "Wh-What are —!" Startled. Barely even capable of completing a comprehensible sentence as your gaping hues fix on the growing darkness that inches closer. Menacing, sinister and threatening to overtake your entire being with its wrath. 

“Stay. . . Stay back -” Nearly tripping over scattered stone, you feel a horrid chill flushed to your shoulders and it only takes you a minute to realise that you were trapped between a wall and the looming creature which faltered not in its advancements. “Paavheavic.’’ It was barely discernible, yet a part of you knew it was most likely an insult, given the shadow’s guttural snarl.

“To think, a maiar reduced to something so feeble.’’ You barely register its words, for you are scared out of your mind and rigid like the stone that surrounds you. A ringing filled your eardrums the closer it drew, prompting hands to cup your head as you nearly double over from the deafening screech. It’s intense, devastating, and not to mention — stirring the anxiety within you like a wildfire and inciting flames that sought to leave you lightheaded due the heaves that wracked over your body. 

Panicked, fever-induced from both the searing sensation in your chest paired with that awful, piercing chime that leaves you gasping for mercy. “Please. . . Stop, stop it hurts!” Tears flood your gaping lids, blurring your already tainted vision as nails dig crescent marks upon your scalp, clawing at your head as if trying to rid the blaring of dissonant symphonies. 

“Stop — Please! Please just stop!” 

Your cry teeters the line of a harrowing scream as your head feels as though it is about to be split in two and your eyes loop back into your skull. Immense, excruciating pain that strikes throughout your entire body and finally, your knees give out. Expecting the fierce hit of cobblestone over your spasming nerves, eyes screw tight and await the frigid impact. 

But it never comes. 

Instead, an airy pressure keeps you afloat, surprisingly warm in comparison to what you anticipated. When you glance up it is revealed that the accumulation of shadow and fog now flushed against you, preventing your quivering knees from evoking your downfall. You wish to scream, but your voice is lost — you attempt to jerk away and yet every muscle and fibre within you clenches, subjecting you into nothing but a quivering lump against the creature. 

You can do nothing but stare, features displaying evident distress as you prepared yourself for the worst. The entirety of your life flashes before your very eyes with a few scenes you could not account for, but they nevertheless felt true, felt real. And as you inhale a sharp intake when the corner of your gaze sights an arm manifesting from the shadow, you locked your eyes brimming with salty tears and await imminent demise. 

And yet. . .

All that comes from it is a tender, tepid caress of your hair, fingers threading into your locks and running through them in a single, delicate stroke. Muddled and filled with hesitance, your gaze slowly returns to the darkness which pressed against your form, embracing you with unforeseen benignity. 

“I suppose such a reaction is to be expected. . .’’ It appears to grunt at the fear and confoundment still shrouding your stare, only to draw what sounded like a sigh. “I wonder. . . Would this form appease you?” 

The shadow contorts, morphing into the structure of a tall figure, first an outline of a man then a burst of colour to reveal soft, untattered skin. Its head extends auburn tresses, framing a now fair face of stunning, elegant features. The limb on your head shifting into a delicate yet large hand with a thumb not resting upon your cheek. But the thing to seal the deal and take your breath away was none other than his distinct, dazzling and amber hues which peered into your own with a look once long forgotten. And in that moment every unfamiliar scene and vision came rushing in like vigorous tidal waves, awakening centuries-worth of memories, sensations, feelings and leaving you breathless as the curtains of obscurity are finally torn away to reveal all that you once knew, all that was before. The gleaming, absolute truth. 

“M-. . . Ma-. . .’’

“Say it.’’

His hand, tender in touch slips to caress your cheek, brows dipping as he bores into your very soul, dripping into it eons of adoration. He leans in, face barely an inch from yours as his free arm loops around your waist. “Say my name, Y/N.’’ Tears double in your eyes, spilling to your cheeks as you exhale in breathy dibelief. 

“Mairon. . .’’ 

“Mairon,’’ 

A broken sob flees you as arms hook around his neck and without an ounce of falter, pull him in so that soft lips crash against your own, taking what was yours all those millennia ago. And for a moment he disregards any and all sense of the outside words, instead focusing on the beating heart which found his once more as he pulls you in and returns the kiss with inexorable passion. 

Fingers tangle within his fiery mane as he opts for drawing your face near, tilting it to pour every ounce of affection, every speck of passion into this long-awaited exchange of love. He almost forgot it, the feel of your lips, the comforting warmth you emitted, and in that moment he allows his mind to venture back to the days before; when all he felt was you. 

After minutes of entrapping one another in overwhelming rushes of ardour, you reluctantly part, yet with leisurely measure, as if frightened that any abrupt movements would end it all if this just so happened to be a dream. Your eyes found his once more, locking onto his pools of shimmering gold as you exhale with quivering breaths. 

“It’s. . . It’s really you. . .’’ Still in disbelief, your hand traces to his face as if trying to discern whether this was a mere fragment of your imagination. “Please, tell me it is really you, Mairon. . .’’ He chuckles, warmth encasing your hand which he brings to his lips in favour of pressing them to your knuckles. 

“It is, iniðil. I assure your eyes do not deceive you. . .’’ He leans his forehead against your own, shutting his eyes and exhaling at the newfound presence behind him. “I have missed you.’’ You glance up, smile faltering as silvery tresses catch your vision. 

“However. . .’’ 

Your lids grow heavy as your muscles slowly ease and your find yourself craning into him further. “I require you to rest, for now.’’ In an instant, your body limps against his chest and he catches you with ease, glancing over his shoulder towards the icy aura. 

“And what was that?” The voice only barely meets your ears as the world around you turns to darkness. “Do not question me, elfling.’’ A hand finds your hair, cradling the back of your head.

“You will know in due time.’’ 

[chil2de]

Your sharing a bed with the JJK men hc's were incredible 😩 special mentions for Megumi's bed head, Nanami being a secret cuddle bug, and Yuuta having to drink both iced coffees (that fucking sent me fjdndnfd I could picture it so clearly).

You're super talented so could I, er, possible get a NSFW version? 👀 💳💥💥💥💳💳💥💳💥

Thank you so much 🥺💕

hello anonie!!! thank you dear i’m so glad you liked them!! please the credit card emojis had me cackling LMFAOOOO you really made my whole day out here!!!(THE ICED COFFEE WAS MY FAVOURITE PART TOO)

well i managed to hit the max amount of characters allowed in a tumblr post with five characters alone so i’m going to have to split this up into several posts. it just kinda happened ig

characters in this post: itadori yuuji, gojo satoru, okkotsu yuuta, fushiguro toji (megumi was supposed to be here but i had to reserve him for next post😔)

this work is nsfw. if you’re new here, please read my disclaimer before proceeding. thank you and enjoy!

based off of this post

itadori

- itadori would prob be a ‘deer in the headlights’ if you woke him up in the middle of the night

- but after that? shit, he’s so nice to you. so kind and generous for his baby girl. whether he’s fucking you ‘cause he thinks you might be able to sleep after an orgasm or there’s just an incessant desire for him- doesn’t really matter all that much to itadori. he loves you either way :)

- gets horny so easily LMFAO

- would 100% dick you down if you asked him to and i like to think that he still keeps his really sweet personality during sex cause aaaa he would be so soft and reassuring

- hardcore dom yuuji sounds sexy as all hell but let’s be real… this man won’t kill a fly and apologises for stepping on ants. only exception being angry sex but overall reserving hard dom for sukuna :)

you pepper tiny kisses onto itadori’s face, treating him with the utmost care like handling fine china. his skin feels so soft against your lips, and he smells very faintly of milky soap. there’s some traces of brand cologne on his shirt, as well as his natural scent.

“yuuujiii-“ you coo, blowing air very gently. when he doesn’t stir, you run your fingertips through a bundle of his cotton candy tainted hair. it evokes a reaction from him, so you continue to press him.

“y-uuuu-ji!”

after a few moments, itadori lets out a soft whine before grumbling incoherent blabber. “i won’t eat the pineapple! kugisaki will scream at me!”

you giggle before prodding him again, when finally he relents and jolts awake, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted at how close your face is to his.

“‘s it morning yet?” he wrinkles his nose, stifling a yawn. you emit a hum in thought before wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling you into him. itadori squeaks in surprise when he feels you latch your lips onto his neck, suckling and carefully breaking the bonds underneath his sensitive skin. his moan comes out groggy, still laced with sleep.

“that drives me crazy, you know that, right?” itadori laughs, though his voice comes as a wobble.

“i know. and they look so good on you too, hm?” you giggle, caressing one hand from his neck and then down to the hem of his shirt. your fingertips flutter against his bare skin and he shivers physically and audibly. you smooth your palm flat along his chest, dragging your nails carefully against his muscles.

“kinda.. wanna.. go to.. sleep.. but i don’t.. wanna fall asleep…” itadori mumbles against his pillow. the fabric muffles most of it, but there’s a strain in his voice that leads you to believe he’s moaning lightly. guess after sukuna ripped his heart out, this area hasn’t been quite the same, huh?

“so? then go to sleep, yuuji. i’ll be fine-“ “-no way! i gotta take care of you”

“so why don’t you?”

“‘m going to! i was asleep just half a minute ago!”

“and besides-“

he shifts himself up into a sitting position, leaning his back against the headrest. itadori opens his arms, motioning for you to crawl on top of him. without any haste, you clamber over his built frame, ghosting just over the print of his hard dick.

“not that i mind but- we did, you know, in the morning already-“ “oh, shit, sorry- it’s totally fine if you don’t want t-“ “-just messing with you!”

itadori pulls your neck down and gifts you with the same treatment you were offering him earlier. his tongue is hot and wet against your skin and you can already feel the precipitation forming at the back of your knees. calloused yet tender hands smooth around your waist and he smooths his palms over your shoulder blades.

after itadori’s satisfied with the mark he left, you can’t help but groan a little into his mouth when his lips suddenly claim yours. he drinks you up, relying solely on your taste like he’s drowning and you’re the air he needs.

itadori takes his sweet time cherishing you, or rather it’s still his state of half slumber, but you can feel a dull ache prick your abdomen. you scratch up his shirt, motioning for him to take it off. you’re unsure what comes over you, but shit, you don’t want him- you need him.

“heyheyhey, ‘s okay. don’t worry, i got you.”

“i’ll take care of you.”

“just relax, okay? i got this.” he only coos with sweet reassurances, peppering small kisses and handling you with the utmost precision.

you whimper, balancing your palms flat against his abdomen for additional support as you sink down onto itadori’s cock. he lets out a hum of content, forehead bumping against yours as he allows you to adjust.

“you good?” he murmurs after a few moments, capturing a few strands of your hair in between his fingertips. you nod meekly and itadori hisses out a breathy exhale. he’s sure that if he goes rough as shit you might end up more broken than being able to sleep, so he screws his eyes shut and exhales to maintain his composure.

blazing hot lips scrape against your ear, and his voice comes out in a husky tone.

“tell me how you want it.”

by the lords of everything and all that is holy, itadori only chants the same phrase over and over in his mind. it’s a miracle that he’s able to think straight with all the blood rushing to his cock. he’s more than happy to take it slow, reward you with slow and long strokes while he showers you with high praises. but he can’t ignore the twitch that he experiences when he envisions that pretty lil fucked out face of yours, all messy and ruined for him.

you mutter that you have no preference, that you don’t care because anything he’ll do for you is perfect, and it only gives him a beaming smile at your words.

itadori grabs the scrunched up ball of his shirt that he was wearing before ripping the fabric into half with his bare teeth. you watch his eyebrows perk when he notices how fucking hot you just found that, evident with the way your walls fluttered around him.

“here, babe.”

you part your lips and he stuffs the fabric into your mouth, there’s a little bit of excess hanging out, but he reminds you that you look sexy as hell either way, on top of his dick like that with your hands on his chest, legs spread, face flushed and ready for him.

“don’t wanna be wakin’ anyone else up.”

yuuta

this man is about to end my whole career

yuuta wouldn’t bring it up on his own accord just because… respect.. and he doesn’t want to pressure you or make you uncomfortable into doing things you’re not ready to.

it’s kind of a gray area for him because he doesn’t relish the idea of bringing up sensitive and/or extremely awkward topics so he really said ‘i’ll leave it up to future me’s problem’

but holy shit. let me absolutely tell you.

the second you hint at it? anything of the sorts? 0 to 100. he is FREAKY you cannot tell me he’s innocent just LOOK at the man

can make you scream with ease. all that practice he’s been doing with handling katanas? he doesn’t need his dick to make you cum. will gladly lick up your leftover juices and remark with a smile on his face how ‘it tastes good, angel’

similarly to itadori, i think he would be sweet and patient when asking for your preferences, etc, but after that you’re gonna have to find something to bite onto

“and? what’d you tell her?” yuuta remarks from over his fanned out deck of three cards. his gaze flickers to you as he awaits a response before using his index and middle finger to lay down a +4 card.

“red, by the way.”

you huff and glare at your boyfriend, picking up four cards and attempting to hold them in such a way that they don’t all fall and rattle to the floor. truth be told? you’re seriously a sore fuckin’ loser. you don’t know how he does it, but you’ve never managed to win a game against yuuta.

“i told maki-san that it’s her problem, not mine. if she’s so pressed about people taking them, why does she keep noodles stored in the fridge? really, noodles in the fridge? they’re really spicy as well! made my nose run like hell.” you scoff in distaste, throwing down a random red card on the pile.

“you totally ate them didn’t you?” yuuta giggles, beaming you a wide smile.

“also.. told her that i didn’t see them instead but- yeah.”

“aren’t you worried she’ll find out? oh, and, uno.”

“she might just beat me up to be honest, and, uno, you say? not anymore, love.” you sneer, throwing down a +4 card.

“i want green.”

“i’d protect you.” yuuta states over his cards. you feel like cracking a joke and laughing, but there’s absolutely zero implication on his facial features to show that he’s joking. that, and his serious tone, of course.

you flip your cards down onto the table and yuuta squeaks, pointing towards them.

“uh- i can see your cards-“

“it’s okay, not like i was gonna win anyway.”

at this point, yuuta’s mind races a hundred miles an hour. he’s panicking, blood pressure raised, heart thumping and throat clogged. oh, shit, did he do something wrong? did he upset you? is it ‘cause he said he’d protect you with no regards to the fact that you’re perfectly capable of fending yourself off against maki? fuck, he’s such a god damn screw-up, can’t even take care of his girlfriend correct-

“hey.”

your fingertips slide around his neck, hands interlocking at the base of his head. your thighs balance on his lap and you straddle him, legs either side of his.

he can’t help but hitch his breath, holding it in as though one wrong move and you would dematerialise.

“what’re you thinking about in that head of yours?”

whether you’re referencing his mini panic attack just now, or if you’re referring to all the multiple times he’s battled just bending you over and railing the absolute shit out of you, there’s not much room for debate when you brush your clothed sex up against the print of his dick.

yuuta snakes his slender hands around your throat, holding it in place. you can feel the arousal pool and wash over you, and you’d be more than surprised if you hadn’t soaked through your clothes.

he lets out a breathy laugh, devastating your stomach with butterflies due to how attractive he sounds. yuuta’s soft lips brush the shell of your ear and his other hand moves to rest on your waist,

“why don’t i show you?”

before you can utter a tease something along the lines of “show me what? how you’re too scared to hit me in bed?” you’re already down, flipped over and bent over the table you and yuuta were using moments prior ago for uno. the cards have splattered all over the wooden floor and you only hiss in discomfort as the cool surface scratches against your delicate skin. your boyfriend towers over you, leaning down as his torso clicks into place against your back. even through his titanium white jacket, you can feel his calm and collected heartbeat. he rests his head on your shoulder, nudging his face into you.

“don’t scream, okay? or, try not to, at least-“

his warm fingertips ghost over the curve of your ass, where he pinches the skin there before delivering a loud slap. you squeak, back arching as you jolt from the action. he proceeds by grabbing the inside of your thighs, long middle finger hoisting around your underwear and pulling it to the side. he makes note of the red lingerie you’re wearing and gives you a small chuckle, peppering a kiss to the side of your face.

“-unless, of course-“

“-you’d prefer everyone hear me fuck you stupid.”

“safe word’s blue, angel. i love you and thank you.”

truth be told, you were never sure what to expect from yuuta. hell, you’d never really seen the man’s dick before, sure you caught glimpses in the morning whenever he’d wake up but it’s really not the same. nothing in the world can compare to the first time you felt his piping hot tip brush up against your slicked cunt. and it was embarrassing, actually, the way your pussy was seething for him already.

with a firm hold on your tailbone, yuuta utilises his lower body strength to ram his dick all the way inside. there’s a garbled and choked moan that hisses from you when you feel your walls wrap and deform around the girth of yuuta’s dick. you whine even more so when you can physically feel a thick vein that decorates his shaft.

“the mirror.” yuuta commands in a low tone, redirecting you to glance at the same mirror you’d always fantasised about him fucking you in front of.

his eyes are half lidded, riddled with concentration. it reminds you of that feral and focused gaze he gets during serious battles.

“don’t look at me. look here.”

you trail the outline of yuuta’s arm veins as a result of him rolling his uniform sleeves up; following his v line that points towards his dick. you can only gawk in awe when you realise you’ve taken him to the base of his shaft.

his gaze locks with yours for a split second and he snaps his hips out until just about his tip is visible inside your cunt.

and shit, if his pretty pink cock isn’t the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, especially with that attractive curve. you’re sure the gesture is just to wind you up, but you can’t help but swoon at him showcasing his pride to you.

“so- mmhf- pretty-“ you whine, words jumbled and breath caught when he slams his dick inside without any prior warning. you can only shriek in exclamation when his tip bruises your cervix, and you’re unsure whether you lament the sensation or not.

he only gives you a cheerful hum, reminding you of his usual cheery disposition. it’s not until then that you realise how much of a fucking beast he’s acting right now.

“right? i’ll put it to good use, i promise.”

gojo

- i know we’re all thinking the same thing here lmfao

- trying to sleep? good for you, now, open your legs for satoru.

- oh you can’t sleep? atta girl, down on your knees for satoru.

- bye i can literally imagine gojo saying some dumbass shit like “think you were trying to sleep but i couldn’t help but think how good my dick would look down your throat like that. sorry, love, you’re not sleeping tonight.”

you blink your eyes in turn with the cicadas chirping aside, stifling a yawn. everything around you down to the very last detail screams at you to sleep, but you just cannot. from the pitch black night that floods the room obscurely, to gojo’s even and quiet breathing beside you. you’ve tried it all. you’ve counted an excess amount of sheep, you’ve tensed and relaxed your body more than you can remember. hell, no matter how many times you’ve flipped the pillow you always seemed to feel less exhausted each time.

you can’t watch netflix, because you’ve binged all your favourite shows. it’s not that you’d wake gojo up because, who cares? by the time you finish scrolling through the endless lists it’ll be time to get up.

you ponder over the things you can do, continuing to subconsciously blink furiously. that is until gojo makes note of your stupid actions and starts giggling like a high schooler at his first sleepover.

“what the hell are you doing?” he snorts, cackling into the pillow like it’s the best joke he’s heard for quite some time.

“shut up, satoru. i’m trying to sleep you ass.” you tut at him, berating him for ruining your divine concentration.

gojo audibly shifts onto his stomach, his right arm crosses over the back of his head as he lazily rests his palm onto his scalp. the other arm preoccupies itself by landing it smack bang onto your chest, fingers wandering up to cup your breast.

“satoru, huh? that’s daddy for ya” he remarks, still giggling in a state of half asleep.

“uh-huh. goodnight.” you dismiss him and his nonsense.

“just go take a shower. always helps me whenever i can’t sleep.”

“hm? you’re giving me actual good advice and being a normal boyfriend? i think i might be asleep already, this is the best dream ever.” you remark sarcastically, prying gojo’s glued wrist off of your breast and sitting up. you could go for a shower, actually. you’re not sure why but it’s always so therapeutic to take one at night rather than the morning.

“huuuh? how could you say that? you’re so mean, (y/n)-chaan! i offered you my love and the world and this is how you repay m-“

“-goodnight satoru. i love you.”

“don’t think professing your love for me will change my mind! i’m still upset at you right now, young lady!” gojo shouts from over his pillow, exclaiming and irritating you in the way he knows how to best.

“yeah, yeah. okay.” you mumble softly to yourself, bearing a wide grin from ear to ear nonetheless.

when you move to crank the water on in the shower, you realise that you didn’t bring along a change of clothes. you momentarily pop back into the bedroom to ransack the drawer for anything that you can find.

“are you back to apologise for being so mean to me?” gojo whines and you can see the pout evident on him even when it’s pitch black.

“no, i’m just here for clothes, satoru.”

you hear him mumble something but it’s muffled by the sheets he’s underneath so you don’t heed any attention to it and resume in taking a shower to help keep your insomnia at bay.

with a ginger step and a small ‘oopf’, you heave yourself into the large shower that only a headass like gojo would bother buying. it’s reminiscent to what a hot tub looks like on the inside, with surrounding jets practically in a full 360 degrees. the things so steep that there’s a small step up in front of the shower outside the actual structure. it must have cost quite the fortune.

you reach in for the built in shelf to grab ahold of some of your toiletries as you allow the water to fall in a gentle sprinkle, almost like rain. there’s an audible squeeze reminiscent to trying to get the last ounces of ketchup as you apply some body gel to your hands, lathering it up.

despite standing, the warmth of the water leads your muscles to feel less tense. the only noteworthy downside is that the running water is tremendously loud. how on earth is gojo sleeping through all that racket?

slender fingertips ghost over your inner thighs. you can feel his wet and sturdy chest in place against your spine.

“surprised to see me?”

“you know i can’t let my baby talk shit like that.”

really? that’s his issue at hand here?

“so which is it?”

“acting like an intolerant brat because you’re tired or ‘cause you wanna get dicked down?”

gojo loops his arm underneath your leg, bending it up. you almost topple over in the process and you lay one hand flat against the tile.

“don’t answer that. sometimes it’s so obvious that you’re such a whore for my dick.”

“huh?! what the shit are you saying?” you snap at how correct he is.

gojo yanks your face back, digging his fingers into your cheeks as he forces you to face him. it almost sends your neck into two pieces, straining to look back at him.

“oh, really princess? just the other day you were begging me to fuck you”

“remember that? couldn’t wait so you rode me in the car? you know, baby, all you gotta do is ask.”

your legs tremble and psyche wobbles when he pries your mouth open with his thumb, promptly before spitting into it.

“don’t bother with the bullshit. i’ll play the games, not you.”

he drags his hard cock against the curve of your ass, slapping it against you.

“i don’t think i feel like fuckin’ you right now.” gojo sneers, humming sardonically. his lips quickly latch onto yours when you spin around to meet his gaze. like the fucker he is, gojo moans and whines into the kiss- lips ravaging you whole and tongue capturing your essence.

“baby girl, i was gonna let you top me. you know i don’t let anyone do that.”

his long middle finger prods against your cunt, forcing itself in with ease.

“damn, you’re soaked. you really wanted to milk me dry that bad?”

you hate him. hate him so fucking bad. he flashes you that attractive smile of his, azure eyes sparkling and snow white hair disturbed with water.

gojo pulls his finger out before sucking onto it in front of you, lapping all the excess arousal off.

“i’m not playing with you tonight.”

toji

- i literally don’t even need to say anything here

- just be sure to make a hospital check up appointment or something

- um-i uh- please remember to breathe after this one? maybe touch some grass? ALSO my first time writing for toji AAA i hope he’s okay

maybe if you don’t breathe? nah, that wouldn’t work. there’s still air acting around your limbs when you move so you’d be disturbing the barriers there. let’s see… maybe bit by bit? surely if you slowly inched his shirt up? then again, wouldn’t toji chew you out halfway through? maybe you should just give it to him straight up? just slip your hand under his shirt. come on. but he looks so peaceful, sleeping like that.. long eyelashes fluttered closed, lips relaxed and not scowling. his eyebrows are softly arched. he looks so soft, lips parted, chest rising and falling with every breath.

fuck it. just do it. cuddle him already.

you muster up all your courage in one fell swoop and you bend one leg over toji, resting it just above his groin. your right arm sprawls out over his chest and your hand rests against his toned arm. he’s already sleeping with one arm bent up with his hand supporting the back of his head, so you utilise the free real estate to nestle your head in the crook of where his shoulder and collarbone meet.

when he doesn’t move after a while, you deem your life to be safe and exhale with ease.

“you’re not asleep.” toji states in a groggy, husky tone. it’s supposed to be a question, but, coming from him it almost sounds like a challenge.

“yes?” you squeak out meekly.

“‘yes?’ you asleep or not?”

“i can’t sleep again.” you murmur against his shirt and he exhales a small sigh. the arm that you’re clinging onto moves to draw small circles on your thigh that rests on toji.

“when’d you notice?” you inquire, glancing down at his large wrists.

“like five minutes ago. nice try, kid.” toji snorts indifferently, chuckling at your behaviour.

when you don’t make an effort to respond, toji’s interest peaks and he lets out a small hum of intrigue when he follows your gaze.

he turns his head, brushing his lips up against your temples.

“see anything interesting down there?”

“as a matter of fact-“

you nestle yourself in between toji’s large and built thighs, digits curling around the waistband of his boxers. he only smirks at you through the dark, cock twitching through the fabric. you notice toji hover his hips up so that you can slide his boxers off for him and you happily oblige.

“-i do.” you chime, licking your lips.

it’s cute, though, if you thought toji was gonna let you handle him like that all by yourself.

as you kiss a trail up his thick shaft, toji yanks ahold fistfuls of your hair before grabbing your face off of his cock.

“who said you could suck my dick? that’s real cute.”

“thinking you actually have a place in my house.”

“i didn’t train you to be such a depraved slut. know your fucking place, because this isn’t it.”

“how many times do i gotta tell you? you don’t belong here. look around. do you see anything that shows a woman lives here? no? that’s because you’re nothing but a fuck doll for me.”

toji hisses out profanities at the gag you spew when he slams your tiny little mouth back down on his dick.

“lose the teeth you imbecile. unless you’re trying to tell me that you can’t suck my dick properly.”

incessant whines and garbled sentences are muffled by toji’s cock. whatever remnants you had of your vision are nothing but a blur as tears stream your cheeks, nose running and sniffles resurface in a repeating pattern over the slick sounds of slurping and gagging. your mouth stretches as far as it can go and the corners of your lips shriek in despair. you can feel the skin there stretch and pull beyond what’s considered normal.

even through all that, you manage to glance up at toji through your water logged lashes. you’ll be a good girl for him. you need to be.

“fuuuck. that’s a pretty sight.” he grumbles and a deep chuckle resonates through his chest. within a few moments, toji fumbles to reach for something.

you can only wince and screw your eyes at the suddenly blinding flash of a light in front of you. one can only assume he’s taken a photo of you in your humiliating state.

you can feel the fear settle into your veins when that telltale ping of a message being sent vibrates throughout the room. if you were to listen hard enough, you could hear a notification go off in the next room over.

your throat feels raw, jaw tense and locked open. it’s been a good twenty minutes of toji face fucking you to teach you a valid lesson. it’s all in the will of him wanting to drag this on, savouring every miniscule slurp, whimper or gasp. when his strokes start to feel sloppier than usual, you can’t help but feel relieved.

as you squirm about due to toji shooting hot ropes of his thick cum down your throat, the door softly clicks open.

“megumi. you’re just in time.”

“she’s way more obedient than your mom ever used to be.”

[jiminrings]

yoongi grills stem koo’s ass <3

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

stem koo wants to explain himself and yoongi may not want to listen

"hyeji's never packed you a sandwich before?"

jungkook pales at the mention, mouth drying when he sees yoongi bring up the soft smile that doesn't comfort him at all

“the one that’s all knuckle?”

oh my god

IS THIS A RIDDLE????

yoongi tilts his head in amusement when this pathetic excuse for your past crush is calculating what he just said in his mind

what is a sandwich that’s all knuckle?? but it doesn’t even rhyme!!

aren’t riddles sUPPOSED to rhyme????

jungkook’s more than well-versed in stem-related problems that are just rephrased 237 times over and over so that it wouldn’t be as easy to solve

he can solve that!!!

but this!!! :O his mind is short-circuiting pls do not approach him

“hm?” yoongi’s smile patronizes him further and puts him on the spot, straightening his figure and jungkook’s quick to stop him from coming back inside your dorm

“i want to-“

“i asked you — have you ever had a knuckle sandwich?”

yoongi enunciates with so much clarity that kook finds his mind blanking, tripping over his words he hasn’t even formed yet

“i-is it-...” he stalls, trying to rack his mind for the bread he’s not sure he’s ever even heard of in his life, “i-is it like, a pork thing? uhm, t-the pig’s knuckle? and then you put it between, uhm, bread?”

,,,, laughable

jungkook’s supposed to be smart, isn’t he? or atleast that’s what yoongi thinks he’s supposed to be

lmao he would’ve laughed at the boy’s poor attempts if only he wasn’t furious at him

he’s dumb but not the endearing kind ://

“no,” yoongi drawls out, pretending to fish something out from his pocket

jungkook watches in intrigue, thinking that yoongi’s reaching for his phone to show him a picture of what it looks like

the hypothetical situation in jungkook’s mind is clearly not the one that happens

jungkook SHRIEKS as he stumbles on his heels backward — crystal clear to him that yoongi was not looking for his phone, but instead balling his fist and him being the receiving end

almost the receiving end

yoongi almost sucker-punches jungkook in a blink, fist literally a millimeter away from his nose and the only thing he could see at the moment is red

... red and jungkook’s wide eyes that have never carried this much fear up until now

“that’s a knuckle sandwich, kid. would’ve fed it to you if only y/n isn’t in the room right behind me.”

holy fuck

his heart is beating right against his ribcage and that shouldn’t be possible, fists closing upon themselves nervously as he tries to soothe his thumb so his mind relaxes

spoiler alert: it doesn’t work

jungkook’s mind is all over the place, even more rattled than it was when he takes a text without studying (he was so low he got a 98), but the only thing that’s clear is that you’re behind this door

“yoongi — mister yoongi, please. i-i need to explain myself, and if only you let me try, i can!! i swear. i’m not forcing you but-...”

there he is again

jungkook’s only been in his sight for like two minutes but his eyes are already sore

“why are you even here?” he scowls and even if the younger boy’s taller than him, every bit of his posture and demeanor at the bite of his words scream small, “why go all this length for someone you stomped on today, then have the gall to be a crybaby about it?”

he's speechless and it only serves him right, looking at his mudded-up converse and trying to focus on anything besides the guilt within

"m-my explanation," jungkook mutters, hands behind his back as if he's being scolded, “will you tell y/n?”

yoongi releases an agitated breath at him muttering your name

he dOESN'T get to say your name!! no!!! not after what he did to you

“i’m not concerned about you. what i decide to do or not, has nothing to do with whatever you say right now.”

kook solemnly nods, and even if yoongi's much harsher in your words compared to yours, the gravity of yours with him not being related to you cuts deeper

there's nothing else he could care about, actually

jungkook follows campus curfews to a T and would come home two hours earlier in the rare event that he goes somewhere

but now, he couldn't care less when the dorm master could just be there any second and he'd pass a hall monitor like usual

for the whole day, you were the only one that occupied his mind

"i know hyeji isn’t the one."

god, it was clear as day

he'll be the first one to admit that he can't read people very well, but he knew from the start that it's probably not hyeji who's been packing his lunchboxes

jungkook sometimes takes attendance in behalf of the professor because as much as he's shy, he's also a teacher's pet

the classes she shared with hyeji? she wasn't present everyday for the whole duration of two weeks, and how could it be that she still managed to make him a lunchbox if she wasn't present in the campus at all?

there was a probability that it could've been her, but it was so low that it sat right next to improbable

"i-i entertained the possibility briefly that she was, but then nothing was making sense the more i thought about it."

jungkook sometimes also checks papers because his professors trust him enough and he has perfect scores anyway, so he uses his own as his answer key

"i needed to interview y/n for an assignment, a-and a signature above a name was needed and it was just so familiar."

the moment he racks his head for hyeji's writing, it seemed fAR from the writing on the sticky notes on the lunchboxes

"then she seemed mad at me, but when i went to her on the field to try and confront her-" jungkook pauses and almost whispers the next part, the shame on his skin starting to seep into his bones, "she told me that we weren't related for me to feel hurt about it."

yoongi clenches his jaw, a pressure forming on the center of his eyebrows because he knows where this is leading

"a-and i thought it was hyeji again."

jungkook can't bring himself to be elated that it's been you the whole time because he might be a little too late; a little too late when he's already subjected you to the heartbreak you didn't deserve

"i-i didn’t know what clicked in my mind but i was just so hurt that-"

that's the fiNAL straw for yoongi

this has been him trying to keep his anger at bay the whole time, but this one!! this one he can't just accept

"you are a fucking asshole. honestly."

jungkook slightly winces with the sudden cussing, but it barely scratches the surface

"you think you’re the only one hurt? tell that to me who’s never seen y/n cry so hard before — or even cry at all."

his explanation wasn't an excuse and he knows it, but nonetheless, it tears him apart

"i’m sorry."

his lips quiver and he's trying sO hard not to cry in front of his senior, but yoongi doesn't feel even the slightest remorse for the kid

"i don’t care. you don’t apologize to me; you apologize to y/n. whether she forgives you or not, which for the record i don’t think she should, you cannot take back what you said."

if what jungkook said was eVER said to yoongi, given that he had the same circumstances as you did, he wouldn't know how to bounce back at all

it's a pain he doesn't wish to feel and he could only helplessly look at you who's trying to navigate it

perhaps you don't even plan to navigate it — knowing you, you're just gonna sail through it all to the point you're not giving yourself enough time to even realize that you already are

it was the same cycle of trying to move on without grieving through it properly that it hurts yoongi and seokjin and the tiny amount of people around you

"grovel at her feet. cry her an ocean. commit penitence. whatever you wanna come up with, no matter what, you do not make my y/n feel like she isn’t deserving of love."

you're family and yoongi goes above and beyond for family.

"i don’t care if you make up. i don’t care if you don’t. all i know is that in any other place besides outside the room she sleeps in, i’d hurt you like you hurt her."

jungkook almost wishes that yoongi punches him now and he won't even try to dodge it

"i deserve it."

"you do."

they whole-heartedly agree and it's the only time that yoongi can get behind jungkook's words

"i’m always gonna be on y/n’s side, kid."

there's no other way around it and as much as you know it or not, you've cemented your position in yoongi's heart unknowingly

"the only way that i’m gonna be on yours is when you’ve earned my utmost respect," he can't even see when that happens, crossing his arms across his chest, "and you don’t."

jungkook's tears are falling to the floor but they don't get on his cheeks, the sudden set of footsteps coming from his side making his head straighten and wipe his eyes immediately

he's the only one alarmed and he spares yoongi a glance, then to said person

yeah right that couldn't have been you :((

the guy who's approaching doesn't stop walking and he looks like.... he's uh,,, coming to where he's exactly standing????

he seems oddly familiar though

“oh, taehyung!"

where did he hear that name before??

taehyung stands at the same height as jungkook, maybe a centimeter or two taller, but he just couldn't stop looking at him from the corner of his eyes

yoongi's oblivious to jungkook's ongoing deduction, immediately engulfing taehyung in conversation

"y/n’s already asleep. i could do her part of the project-“

he offers because he recalls that right, you told him that taehyung's coming over to finish your shared project of a business plan late tonight

uhhhhh you're kinda zooted and going through it rOUGH so yoongi doesn't mind doing your contribution for you

“yoongi!! oh no man, it’s not what i came here for," he leans for a side hug, eyes landing on jungkook to drop a polite smile to acknowledge him

jungkook only slightly bows, confused but even more intrigued because he heard your name in the conversation

"i just uh, i just saw y/n crying while i was on my way home awhile ago, and i didn’t get to ask why, but i felt bad, so i came by to drop some cookies.”

oh

taehyung continues talking and it leaves yoongi and jungkook stunned, but he only focuses his attention on the former

“you looked like a hazelnut cookie kind of guy, so i baked some too!! is y/n allergic to peanuts? i put some too in a separate container in case she is.”

yoongi laughs and they go from there

IT'S LIKE JUNGKOOK ISN'T EVEN HERE!!!!

baby he's here he's nOT a hallucination!!!!

despite the fact that he's sticking out like and (unacknowledged) sore thumb, no one makes a move to take the conversation elsewhere

“thanks, tae. damn, you did all this yourself?”

yoongi whistles when he takes the tupperware opening it and almost watering at the sight

he doesn't mind baking cookies for you in case you wake up hungry, but taehyung really just did himself a nice favor without knowing it

he smiles softly, eyes narrowing in intrigue now that he realizes

"taehyung. no offense, but you’ve only interacted with y/n like once and it’s only for a project. why would you bake her uhhh 28 cookies?”

hehe

“35, actually :D”

tae interjects, waving him off when yoongi's jaw drops even further

“yeah, i know. i just felt so sorry for her — i’m not related to y/n but i just felt like i wanted to make her feel better.”

jungkook's jaw locks at this, his breathing becoming shaky all over again, fists balled this time

“it’s like,, economics!! i don’t actually know, maybe??? i’m in visual arts. y/n took over my part for me when i was sick-“

".... so you made her 30 cookies."

taehyung's the personification of a golden retriever and now that he thinks about it, jungkook reckons seeing him more than a handful of times

he laughs deeply at yoongi's rebutt and it may be in unfortunate timing that jungkook realizes he kNOWS him

he's in the same year!! he's the one that takes the portraits for the school paper and it's always his name in the credits

"good night, yoongs. hug y/n for me. tell her i'll take over her part, no questions asked."

taehyung walks away and he's perfectly content even if he didn't get to give you the cookies like jungkook thought he would

"night, taehyung."

yoongi looks at the retreating figure briefly, then looks at jungkook pointedly

he doesn't realize that he's still budging and listened on an entire conversation, dropping his head when yoongi points to the elevator

"bye, jungkook."

"good night, yoongi."

he feels hesitant to leave but it's probably for the better, putting his hands in his pockets still not enough to make his hands stop trembling

kook stops at the middle of his walking, turning his head to look back at yoongi whose mouth already has crumbs

"c-can i see y/n tomorrow?"

"i'm not her dad."

jungkook nods somberly, leaving it at that while his bulk of emotions consume him

he thinks all about the ways he could attempt to make it up to you, a million ideas in his head but his head doesn't hurt

his nose twitches at the lingering scent the cookies left, annoyed at the persistent smell and perhaps the boy that brought them

jungkook's never really liked cookies.