#it's not going to be long because i don't want it to ruin me

[yolli-es]

you should do jinx giving reader a tattoo of her name 🙏

That's much better, isn't it?

Tags: possessive, jealousy, manipulation.

You are so active omg, is it because of season 2? I also have to say that this is quite proprietary and reminds me of a Yandere!Jinx.

This is starting to get annoying. Everything was going so well, and now?

Usually, you were always closely connected to each other, not just emotionally. It was so long and constant that it became an unspoken rule of Zaun. You've done many things, from having dinner together to revolution.

But now you've suddenly started going out "on business" too often. How could Jinx not worry?

Jinx followed yours next time. It's only for your safety, of course. A couple of hours, and she saw the root of the problem—the weird girl you were discussing with. A small, about 20 years old. It was annoying that she caught your attention like that. Weird, painful, and absolutely unbearable. It took all of Jinx's strength to contain herself. These meetings continued, and, in fact, there was nothing too close about them. On the contrary, you kept your distance and spoke absolutely calmly. Which could not be said about this girl. She was strangely leaning towards you, constantly fixing her hair and trying to touch you all the time. Jinx was really nervous, waiting for the right moment to ruin everything.

The moment when you give in to her.

This did not happen, and the truth came to light.

Luckily, it was much more prosaic. You were sneaking off to meet a jeweler for a cute hair clip. It was a gift for Jinx for your third anniversary. With all the running around, she forgot about it. How awkward...

"So... this is for me, huh? It's very beautiful," her fingers slid over the chilling metal of the small pin. The shape of the curved cross suited her. She didn't know what kind of metal it was, but it shimmered blue and pink in the light, remaining chillingly black in the shadows. Beautiful.

"Cool, huh? I had to work hard to get this, but... whatever. It was worth it." You seemed happier than Jinx herself, leaning over in front of her as you picked up her right braid and wondered where to put it, "It might not be very practical, but I'm sure it's really cute. Don't worry if it gets lost, okay?"

You finally looked at your girlfriend and understood her mood. She shrank, looking tensely at the floor and picking at her pants with her nails. Stuck in her dark thoughts right now. However, having anticipated your next move, Jinx spoke up: "I have a gift for you too." It suddenly dawned on her; her eyes lit up, and her back straightened. Jinx was ready to flare up with impatience. "M.. yeah? I'm so glad it is. I like it already, trust me," you giggled, sitting down next to Jinx as she grabbed your hands in anticipation. The hairpin would wait on the table for now. "Oh, something unusual," Jinx sat you down with your back to her, stood up, and rushed over to a huge box of art supplies.

You sat quietly, expecting something like a painting or a painted gun. The same one you got last time. Two is better than one!

Jinx will always be unpredictable.

When the noise became more than an explanation, you finally turned around. There was a small table behind you with colorful bottles on it and... a tattoo machine? This can't be.

"Ta-dam!" Jinx sat down on a chair on one side of the table, gesturing for you to sit opposite. "What? Wait, wait, you want to give me a tattoo?" Your voice wavered. You loved Jinx and trusted her in many ways, but let her give you a tattoo? "Oh, come on!" Jinx rolled her eyes, slamming her head down on the table, "You think I can't do it? Don't tell me you didn't check out my tattoos. I got them myself, you know!"

This didn't give you any confidence.

"No, you know... I just don't know what kind of tattoo I want," you turned away, shrugging awkwardly. Jinx chuckled, propping her head up in her hands and licking her lips. "I already decided, toots. What could be cooler than your girlfriend's name, hm?", Her voice sounded confident. So you didn't take it as a joke. However, Jinx didn't let you answer, grabbing your hands and not very carefully sitting you down opposite. "You know, I saw you with that girl... I was worried," she started slowly and from a distance. "You did nothing wrong, and I didn't doubt you. And yet, people are very tricky," she paused, gently taking your hand and looking into your eyes, "So I would like you to have a small tattoo; how about you? I promise it will look stylish." That stumped you for a minute. Yes, you wanted your tattoo, and yes, you love Jinx. But getting one for that reason? "Please," Jinx looked at you with her doe eyes, and that huskiness in her voice was driving you crazy. "Oh, maybe just one, huh? A small one," you chuckled. 

Of course, Jinx was manipulating you for what she wanted. In the most childish and stupid way, you just couldn't help but sneer. Was it a double game, and Jinx knew about your understanding from the start? It doesn't matter; She has already started working.

Pink is the most beautiful color, isn't it?

Despite her obviously selfish desire and rather daring start, Jinx did everything carefully. After all, it was your first time doing it, and she couldn't make you feel anything other than excitement and admiration. She was spinning around you, unable to sit still, turning on music, telling all sorts of nonsense, and taking breaks to relax. She just didn't want to make things worse than she probably already did.

It all ended quickly.

"That's much better, isn't it?", Jinx couldn't help but smile as she looked at the fresh tattoo on your skin. "You look your best, as always, toots." You liked it no less; it actually looked sweet. And very possessive. You liked this display of her love; this affection gave you a strange strength.

You smiled as you took her hand and said with a deliberately innocent look, "Okay, now it's your turn."

The problem is that you love her no less.

Still, there is not a word about yandere in the request, so she's just super jealous and possessive. I hope that the person who asked was thinking about something like this 🙌🏻

[maxwell-grant]

I think it’s interesting, considering how most live-action superhero adaptations kill off the villains after their debut, that both The Batman and The Penguin end with the villains not just living, but set up to return and somehow cause Even Bigger Problems down the line. Is this just because it’s the first Batman film adaptation that’s a capital-F Franchise, so the writers need the villains to stick around long-term, or is something else going on?

Almost entirely comes down to the fact that The Batman was not meant to be Batman's origin story - by Reeves' own admission, it was the origin story of the Rogues Gallery. They got the Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes guy and he did a story about the boots-on-the-ground gritty perspective on larger-than-life terrors emerging from the ruins and failings of human civilization, taking the struggles and wars and laborious processes that others shy away from and putting them front in center. It's just this time, instead of kaijus and parasites attacking and destroying the city, instead of apes emerging as the Mad Max warlords rising from the ashes to fight over the world, we have Batman villains in that role instead.

To me, that was actually the conception - if we weren't going to do a Batman origin story, but we were going to do it in the early years, I thought well, in the comics, the rogues gallery characters often are creating their alter egos in response to the fact that a masked vigilante shows up in Gotham called the Batman.

And so I thought, oh well, what we could do is see all of the rogue's gallery characters in their origins, like Selina Kyle before she's Catwoman, and that we could go into, as we're looking for a suspect, we could go to a nightclub, a nightclub could be the Iceberg Lounge and we could see a pre-kingpin Oz, and we could see, you know, a Riddler who is declaring himself the Riddler sort of because there's a Batman. And so all of that was sort of built into the conception. - Matt Reeves

It's far from the first Batman film adaptation to be a capital-F Franchise, even if that aspect was there - Reeves initially pitched the movie as an HBO series, and throughout production pitched additional show ideas such as an Arkham show or a Gotham PD show, The Penguin being the only one that survived as far as we know. This pulls off an origin from the Rogues Gallery better than every other Batman media ever made, and there's a couple of reasons why it does so and why the villains get to take center stage here:

Part of the difference between the way Nolan tackled realistic Batman, and the way Reeves tackles realistic Batman, is that Nolan needs realism to explain Batman, and Reeves needs realism entirely in the service of making Batman weirder. Pattison Batman is the weirdest Bruce ever put on film almost entirely because he lives in our world while still being Batman in every way that counts - Keaton Bats slept upside down in a cave, but he lived in a Tim Burton world. Adam West Bats is weird, but everybody is like that or even weirder than he is, he is the comedic straightman to everyone else. And where as Nolan needs Batman to be the thing that makes sense, Reeves needs Batman to be the thing that doesn’t make sense.

Nolan wanted weird difficult irreducible villains opposite a logical pragmatically sensible Batman, and Reeves wants exactly the opposite. For Nolan, even besides the Joker who was defined entirely around the lack of a real explanation for him, you have his take on Two-Face, Bane, the Al Ghuls, characters that don't demand that much reasoning or explanation because they can act and exist in ways that defy logic, while Batman's the guy who has to hold the center of logic and reason. Where as here, Pattison Batman is the most interesting and complicated and larger-than-life figure this world is dealing with in much the same way that Ledger Joker was for his movie, and everyone else is in the position of starting out and having to deal with Batman and the paradigm shift he brings - nobody else in the movie is quite the character they were supposed to be, that's something they're all growing into in response to their nightmare city and what this titanic freak in armor represents to them.

Even The Riddler is ultimately explainable, human, reducible to his tantrums and vulnerabilities, even without you knowing in-depth his character and backstory that would be elaborated for Dano's Year One. Even The Penguin - he may be larger-than-life, he may be unexplainable on some level, but we know all too well all of his failings and feelings and life story and all the cracks in his persona that he killed Victor to try and bury. But Batman? Next to everyone else, he is still an anomaly, he is just Like That, even to his own detriment and that of the city, and he learns that he must apply being Like That to something better.

Reeves is not interested in doing "Batman vs [X]" movies, the movies are going to be focused on Batman's arc first and foremost, which means the villains will never really take them over the way they've usually done - this is a world where it's the villains who react to Batman, not the other way around. This frees them from the burden of having to exist in direct relation to how much they can directly menace Batman, and it makes it so that these are characters that can carry their own spin-offs, which is probably a lot easier for WB to work with because these are spin-offs that they don't really have to get Pattison to show up for, but they can construct in ways that don't even need Batman to be physically there. Even after The Penguin, they might not have to do that Smallville/Gotham song-and-dance of teasing a main character who'll never get to be here, there are a lot of other things happening in Reeves' Gotham besides the existence of Batman, even if the existence of Batman has changed all of them. So structurally speaking this series has a ton of room for reocurring villains, and building it has been one of their top priorities. In fact, this ONLY gets to do so because the movie already laid out the entire groundwork for them and how it all ties together.

See, the way Batman stories do the rise of a Rogues Gallery and how it affects the city and therefore Batman always follows a sort of a 7-step program:

Gotham City is ruled by crime, crime that takes away the Waynes (Falcone / Carl Grissom (89) / Falcone backed by the League (Nolan) / the Falcone-Hill-Wayne triumvirate (Telltale) / Gotham S1 and first-half of S2)

Crime begats Batman, who beats Crime

Crime + Batman = Weird Crime (Jack Napier becomes Joker after an encounter with Batman (89) / "we still haven't picked up Crane and those other Arkham inmates btw check out this weird card" (Nolan) / Black Mask and the international assassins + Joker's rise (Arkham) / Children of Arkham (Telltale) / the Indian Hill experiments and patients (Gotham)

Weird Crime Replaces Crime (The Long Halloween / Joker takes over the mob (89) / the mob is so impressed by the pencil trick they give Joker all the money (Nolan) / Joker literally replaces Black Mask in the process of becoming Batman's main enemy (Arkham) / Penguin assassinates Mayor Hill and the Children enter a war with Mayor Dent (Telltale) / Indian Hill breakout and Maniax cult and etc (Gotham)

Weird Crime is a Rogues Gallery now (Penguin and Catwoman and Max Shreck in the sequel (Burton) / Joker and Two-Face become separate problems, Bane + Talia + Crane + Catwoman in the sequel (Nolan) / after Origins a whole asylum full of them (Arkham) / Riddler + The Pact and John becoming Joker proper (Telltale) / Gotham S3 with Tetch and Riddler and the Legion of Horribles

The city is changed by the new paradigm

Batman responds / expands or retracts in response to this change

(4 and 5 don't necessarily always happen one before the other, mind you, frequently you do have a Weird Crime Rogues Gallery before Weird Crime replaces Crime at the head of the table)

And you can apply this to most other Batman stories that don't automatically start and stay at level 5. But where as all of these have to stretch the process across sequels and continuations, The Batman is the first Batman work that gets to do all 7 of them in one row. It gets 1 and 2 done offscreen before the opening act and shown to us how they happened throughout the movie's reveals, 3-4-5-6 comprise the Riddler's plot + the other United Underworld members roped into it, and it ends with 7. Even the Batmanless spin-offs follow the process: The Riddler: Year One covers Eddie's perspective on 1-2 as he enters stage 3 and prepares it for the movie, and The Penguin covers 4-5-6, leaving us waiting for Bruce's response back to stage 7 where The Batman ended.

And up until The Batman, the process behind the creation of a Rogues Gallery had never really been much of a process - comics that go into the transition like Long Halloween/Dark Victory just show the fall of Carmine Falcone -> the freaks waiting in the wings causing it or happening immediately after. Gotham tries to work that escalation gradually and it starts relatively "normal", but it's always dancing around the premise and the central black hole and the building blocks don't have anything to do with each other - the gang wars and Penguin have nothing to do with Bruce investigating a conspiracy, which has little to do with Gordon and Bullock investigating weird serial killers who keep escalating, and then eventually we get that Hugo Strange was building freaks in his basement at the orders of the Court/Ra's the whole time until they all just escape. You can piece together how Batman works that aren't about this transition ultimately touch on most of those 7 stages and have their own version of it as soon as they introduce Gotham City in a pre-Batman/pre-villain state, but the connections are always rather tenuous and not necessarily connected to each other (and it's fine, y'know, not everything in a story always has to come from the same source).

But everything in The Batman follows a long chain of dominos that had to happen for this system to become the way it needs to be for Batman villains to emerge. Everything started in that one night Thomas Waynes saved Carmine Falcone, everything started from that ensuing connection and Thomas' failures leading to a city ruled by mobsters for 20 years and the sheer level of rot and corruption and human misery that creates and justifies the existence of Batman, and thus The Riddler in his example. Everything we get in The Penguin is the result of this paradigm shift and total civic collapse, showing the destruction of Carmine's empire as well as his legacies torched and mutated by Sofia and Oz respectively. Everything is still connected. The United Underworld guys featured in the movie live and dwell in entirely separate spaces and represent entirely different things, and they're still all connected in the same chain of dominoes, which allows them to expand and cover entirely separate narrative real estate while still giving it all cohesion.

The movie never has to specifically establish a system full of supervillains or made for them, it has to establish a system so utterly fucked and dominated by Falcone, so utterly failed by every institution and body of government and system imaginable, that it creates Batman, and the minute Batman arrives and survives long enough to be a third power / a fifth state, people in his wake trying to respond to him or do the same things he does, as a response to the same afflictions he faced and to his example or influence, are the only logical thing. Without needing to literally show the other rogues waiting in the wings, The Batman established an entire world of possibility just by very smartly using the 4 big ones + Carmine and showing why and how this regular American city becomes a place where supervillains bombing city blocks and running for political office can become a facet of daily life. Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Riddler - positioned as separate from each other as possible to show the ways in which this is, and maybe always has been, spreading fast out of Batman's control.

And now with The Penguin, reinforcing the chokehold of crime in the city in it's old ways as well as the corrupt mutated new ones brought on by our boy, as well as a new Batman Villain (possibly two, if Eve Karlo ever gets her hands on suspicious make-up) arriving from Penguin's side of things so that it's not just Batman who has a Rogues Gallery to deal with, not just Batman who has terrific enemies waiting in the wings for a chance to enact their own forms of justice and revenge, no, that's just what life is like in Gotham now, forever.

[revelboo]

Please, more Jazz 🙏🙏 it's one of my favourite storyline of yours, and I honestly love jazz so much, the nicknames are doing things to me 🫡

Don't feel pressured tho, take care of yourself. You're the best! 😋

I’m good. Just slow down when I write long form rather than these quick fics

Over It Now Pt 13

IDW Jazz x Reader

• Spreading out the blanket on the grass in the shade of the pin oak, he fidgets with the pillows he’d taken from the furniture on your porch. Satisfied, his attention turns back to your house. Watching your shadow moving around in the kitchen, as he heads back to the house and waits. When you finally open the door, you’ve got a tote bag in your fist as you awkwardly shuffle out the door with your crutches. Not even protesting when he reaches to pick you up and carry you across the grass to that pile of pillows.

• When he’d asked if you’d share a meal with him, it had seemed so silly to you. Knowing neither of you can eat what the other does, but he’d looked so serious when he asked. Not smiling like he’s teasing you and that’s what had made you agree. There’d been something real and vulnerable in that request. It’s chilly outside even with your jacket and you shiver as he settles you in the midst of what you’re certain is every decorative pillow and cushion that had been on your porch. “Thanks,” you say, reaching to touch his servos as he nudges a pillow closer and sets your crutches aside.

• “Surprised at how domestic I am, doll?” He asks, flashing a grin as he sits with a leg outstretched and the other drawn up, that little touch spreading warmth through him. Waiting until you unpack your strange smelling human food before reaching for his own energon cube.

• He’s sipping at that glowing goop, and you can see the mesh of his throat working as he swallows. Reminding you that even if he’s metal, he’s alive. It’s not like you haven’t known he wasn’t just a machine for a long time now, but it strikes you every now and then. “Just surprised you’re behaving,” you counter as you pick at your food, very aware of that visor flaring slightly. That he’s watching you eat with open curiosity to make you feel self conscious.

• “Nah.” Watching you shiver and huddle into your coat, he’s leaning forward. Picking you up plate and all, and settling you on his thigh against his frame as you inhale. “I have a reputation to maintain.” Servos lingering against you, he waits for you to get mad. But it’s your turn to surprise him by leaning into him. It’s only that he’s warmer than you are and he knows it, but that little show of trust throws him off balance.

• “The lying,” you say as you take a bite and he stiffens against you. Immediately on guard making you almost let it go. But that’s you, always unable to leave well enough alone. “You want to talk about it?”

• “Nothing to talk about.” He’s smiling still, but it feels brittle as one of his servos gently taps against your ribs. Wants you to let it go, don’t push. Don’t ruin this for him, because he just wanted to share a quiet moment with you. A little peace. Because the truth is that he doesn’t know how not to lie anymore. Playing spy, wearing a smiling, harmless face to hide how awful he really is underneath. Smiling instead of screaming at the things he’s been forced to do throughout the war. Things that haunt his recharge. That’s why he needs this, needs you. Your innocence reminds him of who he’d been and what he’d lost. And protecting you so you don’t end up broken and bitter like he is? It’s everything. “I’m just a liar, doll.”

Previous

[chrisbesitos]

ballerina!reader and dealer!chris that finally make amends and ballerina reader is happy until her mom comes over and doesn’t like Chris not like it matter to her or Chris

Now, you and Chris are officially dating. He asked you a couple weeks ago, you're having wonderful days. The dealer guy who was always flirting with girls at parties and having sex with them, now he's not available anymore and has a pretty big on his finger. You're not the type of jealous girlfriend, but it's good to know the girls are not going to flirt with your boyfriend. He's only yours.

Laying on the couch with your legs intertwined, you and Chris are watching a silly romcom movie — your choice, of course — on the TV. You two are almost falling asleep under the comfortable fluff blanket, suddenly the sound of the doorbell makes you get up. You huff, climbing out of the couch, Chris now is waking up, clearly annoyed by someone who's in the door, interrupting their cozy afternoon.

You walk until the door in lazy steps, praying to be someone who mistakes the house. Your heart starts to race when you open the door and face your mother, your eyebrows frowned in confusion.

"What are you doing here?" You ask, your voice cracking by the weirdo feeling on your chest. The weirdo feeling is actually fear. The last time you saw your mother, you ruined your non-relationship with Chris, but now you're dating and you don't want to ruin everything again by the fear you feel of you mom.

"Is this the way to treat your mother, Y/N?" She says, stepping in without permission. The familiar voice makes Chris pay attention to what's happening, he remembers your mother's voice and what happened the last time you saw her. Chris lifts from the couch, walking towards you and putting himself behind your body, embracing your waist. "Uh, you. What are you doing with this boy?"

"He's my boyfriend." You say, taking sharp breaths, you were always a coward around your mother, but not today. You'll never let her treat Chris badly again. You hold Chris' hands, lifting your chin to show your courage, your mother narrows her eyes, clearly not approving your relationship, but you're already a grown woman.

"Boyfriend? You deserve better than this."

"Goddamn it, mom! Leave me alone, it's my life and not yours, can you let me live my life? I can't handle you anymore, Chris is my boyfriend and I don't fucking care if you don't like him, because I do! And if you don't agree with this, you can do this away from me." You say, pushing Chris' hands and pointing your finger in your mother's face. Her eyes widened in shock, she never expected you to say this for her, but she's deserving to hear this for a long time. "You can leave now, we don't want you here."

She left without saying a word, you hold your breath until Chris closes the door. He cups your face with his hands, admiring your glassy eyes, he smiles at you.

"Don't cry, babydoll. You're so brave, you face your mother." Chris says, brushing your cheek with his thumb. You nod in agreement, you embrace his neck with your arms and hide your face on the crook of his neck. "I'm so proud of you, doll."

"I was keeping this for a long time, now I feel better." You mumble, Chris rubs your back, walking back to the couch with you. He throws you gently on the couch, laying by your side after, he kisses your cheek. You feel loved by Chris.

"My brave girl."

tags ; @lizzymacdonald06 @lushjunkie @sweetreliever @watercolorskyy @ivysturnss @brianna-grace12 @blahbel668 @gabri3la-sturns @stvrnzcherries @unknvhx @pvssychicken @all4l0vee @i4longhairchris @sluttybitchformattsturniolo @sophand4n4 @sturniololetstrip2 @zayluvss @sturnsmia @sofieeeeex @ifwdominicfike @planettori @jetaimevous @leclecwifey16 @mattswifeyx @joclyn240 @voqueflms @pepsicola-pussy @sturnobsessedwh0re @chrissturnioloswifeee @sturniolossss @imonlyhereformattfluff @sturniolosluttt

masterlist. | taglist.

[loveaurapearl]

First Out (Wild Life Spoilers)

Hey guys, I'm still reeling from Wild Life's first permadeath, and it had me thinking.

Mumbo wasn't supposed to be the first out. It was meant to be Scar. The winner of Secret Life was meant to be the first to die.

What lead me to think that?

First, the Secret Keeper wanted Scar to be the villain and in my head, I don't think it was because they wanted Scar to win. Sure, in the life series, it's kill or be killed, but you need alliances to make sure you don't die first. You can't fight an army alone if your name isn't Technoblade. So by making Scar the villain and trying to make everyone hate him, the Secret keeper was trying to get him killed early. Sure, they didn't want him out first since the Canary Curse was still activated, but still they wanted him out early. But that didn't happen. Scar managed to wriggle his way through the other teams so their eyes were on other people and not him.

Now why did they want Scar to be the villain? Because he was a thorn in their side since the first session. He failed his first task and then got Grian, the guy they hate and the ruler of Life series games, to make a loophole so he could get a re-roll, messing up their order of plans and accidentally giving Scar a really easy 'HARD TASK'. (Anyway, that's my headcannon on why Scar's Hard Task was so much easier than any of the other hard tasks we saw later in the season.) Scar used Mumbo's task to bribe him so he looked the other way so Scar could easily complete his task. Scar got Bdubs killed even though he was Green and he found a loophole in their task so there would be two winners in the Chicken game. He distracted the Wither for so long that it made everyone gather up and defeat it and the Warden with the only casualties being Jimmy, Mumbo, Grian trading his life for Scar's, and an accidental death of BigB on Scar's end. Grian cheated to spare Scar's life by allowing him to log off then log back in. And Lizzie managed to break the curse on Jimmy, allowing Jimmy to not go out first. So the Watchers turned their heads to Scar, the watcher's favorite, and decided that the only way to hurt Grian was to hurt Scar. And while their plans work on making Scar the villain, it worked too well. Scar wasn't just going easy and he won. Sure, Grian helped him a bit with bringing Gem and the Scotts' health low, but it was all Scar's skills that got him the title of winner.

Wild Life was meant to be the Watcher's revenge on Scar. After all, they allowed him to be paired up with Jimmy and Lizzie. Scott said it himself that their teaming up would mean they would be out of the series the fastest. And while the Watchers hate Scott, they realize he was right. So to try and restore order, they decide to let Scar have friends and then kill him so fast that he couldn't even be allowed to enjoy it. And session 3 was when the Watchers struck. They were so close to Scar losing his final life thanks to the invisible Snail trap that Martyn used. Martyn, an agent of the Watchers who they had been using for years and who was the winner of Limited Life because of their will. Sure, it meant the Canary Curse would be broken, but they didn't care. Scar would be gone and his team would be in ruins. They were so close too. The snail almost ended Scar's series. But then Grian, who had been avoiding Scar for so long and was trying to deny his feelings towards him, stopped the world and ended the Session early before Scar could die. Grian ended the game early for Scar again, and they weren't happy.

The one guy they wanted dead was now alive all thanks to Grian. It made them extra mad because it meant Scar now had a chance to not only live but thrive. They knew that if they didn't get him with snail now, they wouldn't know when Scar would be out next. And that's what Scar did. Scar not only got back to Green by killing Etho and Grian, but he managed to help the Canary regain his lives even after Martyn accidentally killed him with Jimmy's own trap by using Grian's own trap against him. And it was all thanks to Grian.

So the Watchers were glad to hear Grian vow his revenge against Scar and Jimmy, it meant that Grian was now on their side. They were so sure the Canary Curse would continue and Scar would be dead soon. And it at first worked, Grian got Scar on Yellow due to his admin 'Watcher' powers and it seemed like things were going well. But then Scar called out Grian for cheating. For using his Admin/Watcher powers against a player and this snapped Grian out of their trance. For all of Wild life, Grian had been using his Admin/Watcher powers more and more. At first, it was harmless, he knew all the Wild Cards. It would be impossible for the game to happen if Grian did not know the Wild Cards and Grian refused to simply just watch the games like the Watchers originally planned. But then Grian began using his Admin/Watcher powers more and more. Threatening to use his powers to ban people and using his powers to have an edge over the other players. He was becoming more and more like the Watchers he hated.

But then Scar called Grian out. Scar, the only one who could get to Grian, saw what Grian was doing, saw that it was unfair to the other players, especially him, and called Grian out for cheating. And it gets to Grian. At first, Grian tries to brush it off as them just being even. After all, Scar did the first underhanded shot by shooting him off the Bridge of the Spanners' headquarters, so it was only fair that Grian got him back. But the more and more he thought about it, the more it bugged him. He tried to ignore it. Try and push it to the back of his mind, but he couldn't. And Grian realizes he made a mistake. That he abused his Watcher powers and was becoming more like them. So to try and make amends, he gives Scar the mace. But of course, it wasn't that simple. Scar didn't care that much about the mace. What he truly, truly wanted was to have Grian back. To end their fighting and to be Best Friends again. To be like Third life again.

And it brings Grian back to his humanity. It made him remember the good memories and that he doesn't have to be like the Watchers. And to hear Scar say 'What happened in Third life?', it softens Grian and they become Allies. Whether or not Scar remembers what happened in Third Life, it doesn't matter since Grian fully believes Scar doesn't remember anything about Third life except for Mr. Bubbles, Pizza and their friendship. (To be honest, I have no idea how genuine Scar was when he asked about what happened in Third Life. On one hand, he sounds like he means it. It doesn't sound like he's lying. But on the other hand, Scar is a master liar, and he remembers the Lilacs and Poppies like it was yesterday. So it's up to interpretation.)

However, Grian still wants to save Mumbo and Skizz. He still wants Jimmy dead, so there was still a chance that at least the Canary Curse could continue. Sure, Jimmy prayed to the Watchers to be spared, but the Watchers don't care, they just used his wishes to make sure Tango wasn't out first.

But... Mumbo didn't want Jimmy to die first. Mumbo wasn't a heartless fellow to a fellow struggling red life and thanks to Scar, Grian allowed Mumbo to spare his life. However, we all know what happened next. Mumbo, not checking if everything was secure, not checking if everything was safe, not seeing the warning signs that the mine was dangerous, saw Gem moving away from Jimmy and trying to get a life back activates the TNT minecart track. And... with one lever left active, Mumbo dies in a firey explosion. Grian, not looking at Mumbo, only hears an explosion as Tango's wind burst thrusting him into the air and saving his life, and is left paralyzed as he sees his friend's burnt corpse. And in the first time in forever, Grian is allowed to grieve. And the world stops and pitied Grian. Grian, who was seen as the source of all the lifer's suffering and a villain who must be slain for all of Wild Life, was pitted and was finally seen for who he was, human. Sure, Grian was close to being like the Watchers. Much closer than he ever had been before. But thanks to Grian protecting Scar in Session 3 and preventing Scar's final death, Grian was saved from himself and the Watchers. It was thanks to Scar and their friendship that saved Grian but at the cost of Mumbo's life.

Mumbo, poor Mumbo, only wanted Grian to look at him like he did to Scar. Mumbo who wanted Grian to love him like he did Scar. Mumbo who wanted Grian to save him like Scar. But it was too late. Mumbo wasn't a fighter and unfortunately, there are some things not even Watchers can protect you from. Only when it was too late, did Grian finally look at Mumbo like he did with Scar. Just like Third life...

[two-wizards-in-a-trench-coat]

saw the post abt top surgery so i wanted to ask : in your personal experience, what would you say is the right age/amount of time to deliberate on getting top surgery?

im still really young so im paranoid that ill rush things and make the wrong choice or something (i know this just sounds like im buying into terf propaganda.. i just dont have any actual older trans folk to ask abt this irl)

I don't think asking yourself whether you really want top surgery or not is buying into terf rhetoric tbh. It is a fairly big change to want and thinking about it seriously is just that.

Personally I'm 23, and have known I wanted top surgery since I was around 16. I've known people that did it as soon as they were of legal age/had the money for it and I've known others that waited a lot more than that. Personally I'd say the right time is however long you need to gather info about top surgery, all its up and down sides, and to get yourself into a situation where you are safe to go through with it (aka people to take care of you in the aftermath, not living with people that might be hostile to it...)

I don't know how the procedures work in your country, but here in Belgium I first had to meet with a social worker (specialized in medical transition) that gave me the rundown, a lot of helpful advice, and gave me a letter of "informed consent" and the surgeon's email. If you have the equivalent wherever you live, these are the kind of people you can go to in real life to share your doubts and fears.

ALSO, no matter the medical procedure you want to do for your transition, you can stop whenever YOU want. You can set up appointments with doctors and surgeons, and suddenly you realize you don't actually want it? Put a stop to it, cancel the appointment.

Currently we live in a world that spams the news with claims that all transgender individuals are "ruining their bodies". With this kind of climate it makes sense that we sometimes feel like that's something we might be doing.

I didn't get on testosterone for years despite being of age because I was scared I would regret it. And now 1.5 years on it, it's definitely one of the best decisions I've made in my life. I don't regret the time I spent weighing the pros and cons, it was the time that I needed to be fully comfortable with the reality of medical transition.

tldr, there is no ''right'' timeline for any transition of any kind. The only thing you need is to be comfortable with the rhythm you're setting. While we can't speed things up most of the time, we can certainly slow them down if we want.

[boofeine]

AAA – ljh

pairing: woozi x afab reader

genre: smut

summary: you decide to make jihoon cum under your good care and you wouldn't receive different.

warnings: mdni, oral (f and m receiving), handjob, gagging, a lot of spit, praise, slow sex, not penetrative, unprotected, fingering, body workship, cum play, swearing

a/n: happy jihoon day!!! birthday post for birthday boy and my strong thoughts of woozi having the greatest ace potential on seventeen as part of the ace community 🫡

tags: @huen1ngk4i @aaniag @svteensworld @kooqitas @unlikelysublimekryptonite @yorkutis

Jihoon is a shy man. Don't get him wrong, he doesn't lack attitude, quite the opposite, he takes a lot of action, he just needs time to make sure that's really what you both want and feel totally comfortable and in it. That's a big part of it, that's one of the reasons sex with Jihoon is so... addictive. It's intense and has not a single pullback or doubt. He needs to have that something more. Sex for just sex is not for him.

You were getting impatient, you tried seducting him through it. Sure, you could use your words, but it's more fun to make you both figure it out. Jihoon isn't dumb, he notices the way you shoot those hungry eyes to him. The way you smile pretending to give attention to everything he's saying. Your gaze going from his eyes to his lips and them back up again. He looks unbothered though, but that's because he's too afraid to sport a hard on if he stares for too long.

And you're all so sure about it, having your back pressed on the mattress, your wrists pinned by his hands on top of your head as he kisses the outline of your jaw and neck. You mewl under his soft lips that let open mouth kisses to your torso and love bites just above your nipples. Your back arching for him, in need of his mouth somewherelse more needed. "You're just so impatient, aren't you?" He whispers, looking up at your face and God how that needy eyes say so much, the brows shut and mouth agape, he wants to ruin you.

He smears his tongue around your nipple, the most erotic moan leaving your mouth as you finally get the feeling you've been waiting on. He sucks and licks as he cups your other breast, changing sides to give the same attention to the other boob, pinching and playing with the one who lost his mouth. It's all too much, the ache and wetness between your legs get way too uncomfortable before he trails down with his kisses. His hands leave your wrists to grip your waist instead, keeping you in place so he can lick a long stripe of your folds. Your legs spreading as if it were instincts. His tongue alternating between fucking your hole and draw circles on your clit. "Fuck, Jihoon! Feels so good!" you praise and whine. The knot on your stomach finally undoing as you come undone on his mouth. He growls and laps on your center, drinking in all your juices. His cock rock hard on his boxers, ruining the material with his precum.

He makes his way back up, hovering over you, keeping his weight up as he stares down at your naked form and fucked out state as your chest rise and fall out of breath. He doesn't waist time in kissing you, your tongues swirling together, your own taste adding to it as you whimper on his lips, your pussy heated all over again. "You're so hot. I can't ever get enough of this" He adds.

You feel your body burning hot, not wanting to wait anymore, you roll his body to the side, pressing him on the mattress as you take your place above him. Your mouths unattaches for a moment, but dives back to the kiss right after.

You let your fingers go inside his hair, grabbing a full hand of it. With your other free hand, you cage and bring his wrist to your hair, stopping the kiss to lend softly the words "Do it for me". Your foreheads press together, eyes locked as he pulls your hair back, arranging and taking it on a ponytail. Without saying much more, you go down on him. His breath hiss watching you getting on your knees in between his legs as he watches you hand his base, giving a kitten lick to his cockhead, a sigh of satisfaction coming out from him. You let a kiss over it, so teasingly soft that makes him want to lose his control and just thrust inside your mouth. You take his head first, wrapping your mouth around it and sucking it with hallow cheeks, leaving with a loud pop. You look up at him, your palm going up to smear your spit and his arousal around his head with your two middle fingers, you scissors it, making a fist right after, bumping down his length. That's enough to make him let out a breathy low moan, his head going back as you start to bump him. He swears under his breath as you take him on your warmth mouth again. Your head bobing around what you can take as you fist the end.

With your legs on each side of his laid body, you go up to kiss him again. You go back to his length, fisting it in circle motions. He can feel your soft hands on his lower belly and around his cock, the same for you as your belly get all wet with his pre cum. He slides his palm over your sides, grabbing your waist as he brings you closer, your clit pressing over his balls, making you moan. Your face going down on his jaw as he grabs your ass cheeks, pushing them aside.

"Shit, baby, feels so good" His grip on your hair tightens when you finally reach for his balls, massaging it. You can see his eyes rolling back by your hooded view as he lets out a proper moan from the back of his throat. He've lost control, cuping your face and making you stay in place as he starts to thrust inside your mouth. The change in who has the control makes your legs press together as he pushes in more than you believe you can take. Your eyes watering as you dig your digits onto the skin of his thighs. You whimper and whine around him, a final thrusts making his cockhead poke the back of your throat as you gag around him, he groans pleasantly, taking his length out slowly, leaving your lips with a sloppy sound and a line of spit connecting them two together. You try to catch your breath, your chin all wet as well as his dick, your saliva and his arousal slipping down to his balls. Jihoon caresses his thumb on your cheeks, caging your chin on his grip to make you look up at him "Fucking gorgeous. Come over here" He praises, pulling you to him by the hair.

You push your upper body up, your palms landing on his abs as you suddenly move. Jihoon's face changes in confusion as you turn your back to him, going down again. Your legs are spread, your wet cunt just there in front of his face. "Fuck, you're going to ruin me" He lets out as he spreads your folds apart, your pussy clenching with the motion as he smears your arosal on it. "You're dripping, babe" He states, his fingers sliding easily as you moan his name, the pet name doing wonders to you as your body responds, a rush of your juices coming out of your entrance as Jihoon stares hungrily, his tongue coming out to lick his lips as he watches.

In the same position you are in, you take him in your mouth again, his cock twitching under your tongue before you start moving. On the other side, he draws circles to your sensitive muscle, teasing your entrance with his fingers. You whine, your ass wiggling asking for more of him. He laughs endeared by your neediness. Hearing your prayers, he thrust two fingers in, making you whimper and hault the rhythm you've set around his length. He keeps thrusting slowly, easing your hole as he goes more inside each time. Your whole body squirm when he reaches your further spot, your mouth leaving him, not being able to get anything done. "Fuck, Jihoon!" You moan out, at least bumping him so he feels something too. The tip of his fingers pressing over your g spot as your back arch with a whine.

He sighs, out of breath, his body losing weight as he lets go of you. You move to face him again as he isn't aware, feeling the post orgasm thrill, his eyes closed and body light. "Look at me" You say softly as he opens his eyes slowly. As soon as your presence is known, you lick his newly hot cum from his skin, his toned abs hardening under your tongue as you lick him dry. "Goddamit!" The sight nasty enough to make his cock spurr one last line of cum before starting to get back to its flacid state again. You suck everything clean, drinking his every drop, sitting down on the back of your legs with a small smile to your face that mirrors his under you.

"Oh! Do you like that, pretty?" He teases. There's no doubt by the way your walls pulsate around his digits and hug them tightly. Before you know, he's back at thrusting his fingers, his thumb making his way up to your clit as he caresses your ass with his free hand. You swear the room is spinning, your whole body hissing as the familiar knot starts to build on your stomach. You know it wont take much for you to cum. So, taking some action, you press his cock down over his lower belly, keeping massaging the flesh as you take his ball on your mouth. His legs shake under you, and you smirk proudly. Your tongue goes flat where his balls connected, licking the thin flash. Jihoon's hips bulk up to your mouth as he swears and moans, his fingers going faster on your whole, giving in how desesparate he is. "Shit, Yn, I'm gonna cum" he announces. His fingers curling inside you again as you moan and suck him harder. He feels the way your pussy sucks him in, he knows you're close too "Gonna cum with me, hm? Cum for me, babe" He pushes your high, his palm leaving your ass to fuck your clit instead.

It's all too much, your face burring to his legs as you, unintentionally, puts force around the grip you have on his cock as he grunts, stopping everything he's doing to grab your waist and pull your ass to him. His tongue laps on your center, his soft tongue on you clit while your head goes back as you finally cum on his mouth. He hums, drinking in all your cum that keeps coming out. Goosebumps spreading all over your body and the sweet taste of you on his tongue, soon after he can't take it anymore either. Jihoon cums. His hot white spread, messing all over his belly and stomach. Yours going down on your inner thigh.

[windvexer]

How do you feel about the stance that you shouldn't read tarot for yourself about a situation that upsets/ worries you while you're still feeling upset about it?

I think it's a solid stance.

I've been reading tarot for a really long time, and the one thing that has always remained true for my practice - and what I have seen in others - is that you can't produce an accurate reading without impartiality.

Emotions are information, and that information overrides impartiality. In my experience this is true when it comes to tarot and indeed all forms of divination.

It has been a very long-standing rule of mine that querents should never send me background information on a question. That is because the background information leads me to form a judgment, and then I can't accurately interpret it.

And this is for a third party, probably someone I've never even talked to before. And my emotions can still override impartiality.

"Can I get a relationship reading for J? We had a falling out 2 months ago when I caught him texting other girls but now I'm giving him a second chance but he's being secretive with his phone again."

Okay, well now I feel a certain way about J. And no matter what cards I pull, I am going to have this emotionally driven narrative in my head. Even when I try to push it away, it's going to cloud the reading. Those emotions are going to discolor my interpretation, even if I pull cards that are technically accurate.

Imagine how much more distracting and misleading that emotional information is when it's my life, my strong feelings, and my personal investment in the outcome of a situation.

Getting an accurate reading under those circumstances is very difficult.

In my experience, while I'm upset it is very easy to produce readings that seem to be intense, solid, and affirmative according to my own verifications - only to realize later on that I literally just made the whole thing up, and none of it was true at all.

In addition, it's a bad idea in terms of mental health. If I'm already upset and anxious about something and I pull negative cards, I'm kicking myself while I'm down.

I'm not saying a person has got to be emotionless to perform divination. But I do think that a person has to stand in their own power. (Interpret that as you will). If you can find your power in being upset, like standing in the eye of the storm, perhaps you can read accurately while actively upset about the situation. I can't, and I don't think many people can.

So it's not as if being upset on a topic "magically" ruins the card pulls, or something like that.

I just think that it ruins our place of perspective, so that we are digging in the mud looking for a path forward, when we really should be sitting on a nice throne looking down at a map.

I think it sets you up for failure, and puts you at a very high risk for feeding yourself complete nonsense that you've decided is actually true, and then making bad decisions based off of bad intel.

And, IMO it's very unhealthy to let your moods hinge on whether you pulled a good card or not. Your emotions shouldn't be dependent on whether you pull Sun or Devil. But I think that people turn to divination in these circumstances precisely because they want to feel better. It's a risky game, and it's not a good idea to get in the habit of letting tarot poke at your bruises.

[nomatterwhatnomatterwhere]

Feels (Wistful) like Summer Rain

A.N: Soo... it took me longer than I thought to finish this one. I'm really sorry about this. I'm not entirely satisfied, especially with the ending. I don't know. Let me know what you think. In any case I hope you like it

T.W: emotional abuse ( kinda ?), social anxiety ( done bad but still)

Max's pov: Feels (Warm) like Sunlight

Kelly's pov: Feels (Harsh) like Winter Wind

Misunderstanding Max was not difficult, in fact he made it quite easy. And you had always read too much between the lines

That was why you hadn't insisted when Max had wanted to change the subject when you'd alluded to Kelly.

Part of you wanted to insist, to know if it was worth it after all, to take a step back. But another part didn't want to hurt Max any more than the rest of the world already had.

He hardly ever gave it away, but he didn't like being labelled the villain of the story. The villain of every story.

Who would?

Yet with the character he had on the track, with his racing manner, he was perfect for the role.

You remembered perfectly his eyes asking you to confirm what the tabloids reported, whether it was true that he was unfair and violent.

You remembered well how easy it was to see his poker face collapse at the slightest hint, and how no one seemed to notice.

Or maybe they pretended not to notice.

Because people like to see what they want to see, what suits them, and it didn't matter if they ruined other people's lives with their way of doing things.

Because people had seen Max's raw talent and had decided that that sixteen-year-old boy was the ideal villain in a world of competitiveness where only the best can triumph.

That's exactly why you meant every word you said, that you were truly sorry, because you had seen how happy Kelly had made him, and you really hoped the two of them had parted better than the gossip pages let on, and it hurt that you couldn't be more of a comfort to him at that moment.

But you didn't belong there.

Not any more. For a long time.

Max had caught your eye long before you realised it.

Your situation at the time wasn't the best, but that didn't mean you were easily distracted, quite the contrary.

It had been rather strange how between acting as if nothing was changing at school, and dealing with foster care at home, it had been Max who had caught your attention.

Max didn't attend classes much, and no one really knew why, plus his home situation wasn't much happier than yours.

Only yours had been handled much better. His were rumours that were somehow confirmed.

Maybe he had attracted you because you thought you were similar, even though you knew how different you really were.

Those few times you saw Max at school, he never tried to hang out with the others; no matter how much his gaze lingered on the groups of kids at recess, he never got up to go to them, and they always kept their distance from him, but Max never seemed to mind so much.

You, on the other hand, always had anxiety about being alone, you didn't want to stay with your thoughts. But you also got anxious when you were with your friends, because you were never really honest with them, because you didn't want to argue with anyone, because you never took sides for fear they would get angry with you and leave you alone.

Somehow neither of you were really comfortable with the others.

You found out why Max was so absent because you asked the Vermeulen, your foster parents.

It had taken you a while to open up to them, not because they were mean or you didn't like them, they were just different from what you were used to, and you didn't want to be a burden of any kind to them, who had welcomed you with open arms first into their home and then into their family

It had not been easy for them either, the therapist who had dealt with you had said that your adapting so much to what others wanted was the result of a trauma that you had not yet realised you had suffered.

And how could you, what the psychologist called ‘trauma’ had been normal for you until child welfare workers had turned up on your doorstep asking you to pack your bags.

In fact, you had difficulty understanding why they had taken you away from your parents: they were not violent, had never beaten you and they had never made you lack anything. Of course they often shouted at each other, about things you didn't understand, but wasn't that something all couples did? They demanded that you behave well in every situation, that you never talk back, and that you do well at school, but there was nothing strange in expecting you to be a polite child. They weren't affectionate parents, but that didn't make them monsters, most people don't like physical contact and your parents were that kind of person.

The Vermeulens had given you an mp3 so you could listen to the music you wanted when you were studying without feeling guilty about the volume. When you travelled by car Vincent, Mr Vermeulen, always took the longer and more scenic drives because you liked to watch the scenery change, and you could listen to a few more songs because that mp3 had become your best friend. They had taken you to see The Nutcracker at the theatre because it was your favourite CD in Mrs Vermeulen's vast collection, Julie, you had listened to it so much that she had bought a copy just for you.

For Christmas they had taken you to a Christmas fair because you had never been to one, with Julie putting your scarf over your nose every three times so you wouldn't look too much like Rudolph and Vincent holding you on his shoulders when your feet started to hurt.

The best thing, though, was seeing the two of them at the candy stand arguing over which was better between liquorice and gummy bears, only to see you choose milk candy. From then on there were always packets of those sweets around the house

It was this blatant distinction between your parents‘ and the Vermeulens’ way of doing things that made it difficult for you to open up to them: You loved your parents, but Julie and Vincent made you feel not only valued but also part of something, and that made you feel ungrateful and unappreciative.

That was a thought you didn't feel ready to share yet though, so you diverted to the other thought that wandered through your head with no intention of paying rent

"He participates in a lot of races, that kid is a karting prodigy."

Max wasn't family, but Vincent couldn't deny that he had a keen eye for the little devil that haunted his go kart track, perhaps because you could see from afar that little Verstappen had talent to spare, or perhaps because a bit like you, he looked to him like a child older than his age.

Maybe that was why he didn't object when Julie, after a doubtful look from you, suggested you spend some time at the go-kart track and see for yourself how good your classmate was

The go-kart track was your second - third ? - home. You liked how every time you went there you felt relieved of a burden, you felt free of the tension of having to be attentive to everything around you, that was probably why you had never noticed Max before.

But once you did, it was hard not to notice him: he was one with the kart, he looked like he was made for racing on the track.

It was also hard not to notice his father: Jos Verstappen was someone who made you feel strange, somehow Jos reminded you of your parents even if you didn't quite understand how that was possible.

Your parents would never have left you somewhere because you had not achieved the desired results in a competition. Jos always seemed to be dissatisfied with what Max did, and Max seemed sad, even though it was obvious that he loved racing on the track

You had approached him after Jos had left him stranded for the umpteenth time. You knew he'd come to pick him up. If he hadn't, his mother would have done it. But that time he seemed the most broken you had ever seen him.

You weren't sure what it was, but since that day something had clicked between you: it was the reading between the lines, the catching of a different look from the usual, the slight change in tone, the getting to know each other so intimately that made your relationship with Max so immensely different from any other.

It was something that grew with you over time, something uniquely yours but that everyone around you perceived, even without really understanding it.

That was why you thought you had a special place in his life: apart from his family, you were the person he spent most time with on and off the track.

You always knew what was going on in his head without him uttering a word, not that Max was one who didn't speak.

Max could talk a lot when he wanted to, and when he talked about something he liked - racing, engines, winning - he had a light in his eyes that made it impossible not to be spellbound listening to him.

To say that Max wasn't popular would be a lie, you remembered with deep affection his confused look when he found a stack of Valentine's Day dedications on the counter, his gaze seeking confirmation in yours, as if to ask if what was happening was normal, and his not knowing quite how to act about it.

It was something Victoria often teased him about, not knowing how to read those social interactions

"Probably all the space in his head is taken up with strategies for competitions."

You really thought you had a chance, you saw it: you saw how Max sought your gaze before others, how he somehow searched for your approval, your support. How he was looking for you.

At least until Kelly had arrived and reality had hit you like a bucket of ice water as the ground beneath your feet crumbled.

You wanted so badly for him to love you back that you had seen things that had never been there, because obviously Max had never had a thing for you.

Because otherwise you wouldn't have seen that look in his eyes, as if Kelly had attached the moon to the sky.

You wouldn't have seen that smile so joyful when he talked to her, when you had waited years to see him smile like that.

You wouldn't have felt like you were in the way.

It sucked to feel that way. Rejected. It hurt so much that even the thought of feeling that way again led you to avoid seeing his races, limiting yourself to messages of good luck or congratulations, but even those were short-lived

"I think I've lived Max's life enough" was what you told the Vermeulen after days of silence "Racing is his passion. Not mine. I think it's time to try something new" you had finished with a small smile, resigned, but at least not forced.

But that didn't mean they didn't stay awake with you when you cried at night, in case you needed something.

You wouldn't have needed anything.

But they kept leaving you over the kitchen counter a cup of hot chocolate, bitter, because you had long since given up the absurd amount of sugar that was milk candy.

They had both been open and understanding when with downcast eyes you had asked, whispered, if it was all right for you to walk away from that world

"You're your own person, and it's just right you try different things and what works better for you. Our world doesn't have to be your world. And that won't change what we feel about you"

You realised you were crying when Julie wiped the tears from your face. She had just painted her nails.

Relationships with the Verstappens went on without too much trouble, they had only diminished, sleepovers and outings with Victoria were still a must have and Sophie had never made a secret of how much she enjoyed your company.

Only once had you been asked if you would like to see one of Max's races live again.

Neither of them had insisted when you had declined due to an important commitment that day, but neither of them had missed how tense you were at the question.

It was true though, even if you had wanted to go, you couldn't because you really had an important commitment.

Since your time away from the world of racing you had tried different things, but radio was the one you felt most at home in: whether you were put on the assistant director's desk or the leaderboard or whatever, you felt you were in your own world.

When you had been offered to replace one of the announcers you had accepted, even if it meant not sleeping until the next morning. It was worth it, in the end, because they had confirmed you for that nightly column which, although niche, had seen a significant increase in ratings since you had been hosting it. The audience liked your approach, they interacted more, even at that ungodly hour, and even for the other hosts it was clear that that was your place.

The YouTube channel came later, even though it wasn't entirely your idea: at first it was stories or live feeds on Instagram, but your audience seemed to like it and they suggested you expand it, so you did.

There were people who didn't like you, who thought you were fake and posh, and who enjoyed sending you unkind comments. But it didn't matter any more.

There were people who liked you, even without ever having seen you. People who without knowing you thanked you because you had said something that made their day better, or because they felt understood by someone.

(That had been another reason for your broadening the topics of discussion on your channel).

Deciding to do a live broadcast from the kart track had been something you had been thinking about for a while. Even though you had drifted away from the world of racing, it had always been a part of you, and it would come back to greet you cyclically when you got notifications of start times, qualifying results or penalty investigations.

You hadn't managed to completely detach yourself from what had been your world for most of your life, those who knew you simply didn't know this side of you.

You were embarrassed to say that the reason you no longer followed the sport so assiduously was because it reminded you of how your first crush had rejected you without realising it, and you were even more embarrassed to think that that little crush on Max Verstappen had never really got over.

But the kartdrome was not just the more or less painful memories of Max. It was also the hiding between the tyres to study, the milk sweets you offered to everyone who came in, the people who switched from karts to formula but always went back to their roots, so you decided to give it a try.

You didn't know how you would react if it went wrong, but fortunately for you your interest in the sport seemed to be appreciated, so much so that you found yourself walking around a paddock again after not setting foot there for years.

Returning to breathe the air of racing was strange: it wasn't something new, but it was different from what you remembered.

It was strange to move around and meet people who wanted to take a photo with you, hug you or just say hello, you didn't think you had brought much to what was the world of car racing, yet everywhere you turned there were people who seemed to think otherwise.

It was even stranger to meet familiar faces long before they became famous. You'd known them from Max's races, you'd even stopped to talk to some on occasion, but you hadn't kept in touch.

"Look who's finally back"

It had taken you a while to realise that Esteban was talking to you: you couldn't remember ever having spoken a word to him when you went to watch the races. He must have noticed, as he snorted a laugh before showing you a photo in which oh, yeah, that was definitely you wearing a sweatshirt kindly donated by Max standing next to you

The other kid in the photo must have been Esteban but in your eyes he was so different that you had to alternate your gaze between him and the photo before you really realised.

"You were always nice to everyone. It was a shame not to see you around any more."

He had been the first to say it, but after meeting other drivers the general thought seemed the same: you were someone who, despite everything, stuck out.

Not once had the thought of how you would behave if you met Max crossed your mind.

That's why you didn't know how to react when you met him.

Although perhaps it was more accurate to say that it was he who had met you.

It wasn't that you hadn't recognised him, you were realising that the man in front of you, with the two glasses in his hand, wasn't one of the many people there.

It was Max Verstappen.

The same Max Verstappen who didn't know how to deal with others, who watched from afar as the other children played, not knowing which way to approach them.

You didn't know what it was, whether an involuntary reflex or something else, but you broke that embarrassed silence.

Yours was not a question to be answered with ‘less than you think’, and you were ready to ask for an argument if he did not ask another question

"Why didn't you come to the Redbull pit?"

That wasn't a question to ask someone you hadn't seen in a long time, especially not in that tone that almost seemed to accuse you, when he had no right to do so

"Sorry what-"

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming to the races? I could've-"

"I didn't have to tell you tho" maybe you had been too blunt in answering him, but it was true. You didn't have to give any information, plus it would have been weird to tell Max with whom you had been radio silent for years "We hadn't talked in ages, I couldn't just text you. It didn't feel right, you know?"

You had seen his gaze change and could feel the wheels turning in his head, but you too had started to ask yourself some questions

"Didn't think you knew I was there … Was it Vic who told you?"

"Heard you on the radio"

Oh. You didn't think Max was a radio guy, honestly. Not least because even though they'd changed them, your column times still remained infamous.

There was another silence that led to your apology for his break-up with Kelly, a subject Max didn't seem to want to talk about at all, given the fleeting change of expression.

He was pensive. And sad. Yet more proof of how important Kelly was to him.

Somewhat resentfully you wondered if he had ever made such an expression thinking about you, although you found it difficult that between all his commitments Max found time to think about you. He hadn't thought about you since he started dating Kelly, why would he now

"I can get you a pass, if you plan to watch the race"

You had laughed.

What else were you supposed to do in a situation that oscillated between the ridiculous and the comical

"If I plan to watch the race? I don't think you will ever find someone who's not here for the race. Well, they sure have other things to do, but you know what I mean"

It was common knowledge that the Montecarlo race was the VIP hangout, and you didn't think you had to be the one to explain it to Max

"I appreciate the thought, but I already got my pass, but thank you"

you backed away from the railing you had been leaning against, convinced that the conversation would end there, now that you had nothing to go on talking about, but what he asked next left you mildly surprised

"Even for Quali?"

He "You… “ remembered "have my attention"

It wasn't common knowledge, but you often preferred qualifying to racing: there was something about pre-race performances that gave you goosebumps, an adrenaline rush you could never quite describe. Max knew it. He'd listened to you for hours as you explained how the qualifying air was different, and he often agreed with you, even if he would just put his head down and let you talk.

Time may have passed, but he still had that same expression that you had never been able to put a name to.

You had smiled when you recognised Raymond's voice greeting you: he had been Verstappen's manager for as long as you could remember, but it was he who had steered you into the world of radio. You owed him a lot -

(Did that make you an honorary nepo- baby of some kind?).

After asking him to pass on your apologies to Ray you were drawn into another conversation, and then another and another, that you almost didn't notice how Max's presence followed you around like a shadow, though not physically, and how that seemed to make the others uncomfortable.

Almost.

It had been like stepping back in time for an evening: sensing his gaze from a distance, knowing exactly what he was thinking with just a glance, having conversations that lasted a blink of an eye, a slight smile or a shake of the head

And you were pretty sure the next day you would have regretted not clarifying the situation right away.

It had come back to you why you thought you had a chance with him, why you had seen things that had never been there, why you had fallen in love with him

Misunderstanding Max wasn't difficult, in fact, he made it quite easy.

And you had always read too much between the lines

[spirk-trek]

Hey so, it's me. The debbie-downer vaguing you in the spirk tag. I didn't mention you directly because my post wasn't directed at you, although it was made in response to checking some of your posts because I do have Unification in my filtered list (content and tag), so those fanworks? Behind a button, so my choice to look is all my own. (I didn't send the anon, though. That was someone else, sorry to say.) It sucks that that's how tumblr's system works but yay content filtering! Tumblr didn't always have that.

I didn't make that post to start drama, and I'm not the sort to get my kicks by being a contrarian for opposition's sake (like. I'm a Shatner fan. In a lot of online Star Trek spaces, I might as well say I hate K/S or Leonard Nimoy or kick puppies in my spare time, you know?), but I did make it in anger and for that I apologize. I should have waited longer on it to phrase things better or simply have deleted it from my drafts after typing it out. (But it's out there now and I'll live with it.)

I do understand where the joy of connecting the past to the present comes from (as a lot of your posts do with connecting old and new fanworks together), and that a lot of people are celebrating the Unification short as a culmination of 50+ years of K/S despite their initial separation according to the initial story, but for me (personally! I want to stress that. It's just me and my own opinion here), I keep seeing it as a valuing of what a company is finally offering fans rather than the celebration of fans who saw where K/S's story ended at the time, rejected that ending that was offered by the corporation, and made their own ending for K/S, without looking towards any official channels as a guide for their visions. That's what my post was about, where my anger was from, those questions--what becomes lost in fandom if we accept canon from the corporation that holds the copyright? What does it say if we look towards that same canon as being above what fandom has already envisioned? In a fandom as old as Star Trek's, one that laid so much groundwork that we take for granted, to overlook that worries me.

I suppose the biggest issue here is it's too similar, like a reflection in a mirror: on one side, Unification stands as the canonization of what the fandom has envisioned all along. It culminates. On the other, Unification appears as a bone tossed to finally appease fans who have seen K/S from the start and it feels too little, too late. Ironically enough, the short has seemingly managed to divide people, but it's too early to tell how lasting such a division could be.

Hopefully I've cleared the air by this. Unification clearly is not my cup of tea and I'm honestly not trying to ruin anyone's fun (most of my posts have gone untagged for a reason but I forget tumblr still parses for post content to index. Yikes. That post was tagged, though, because it was a snap decision made in anger and I wanted my thoughts to be seen). One could argue the short wasn't even made for me as I've long wondered if I will watch Generations because I've read the summary and didn't like it. But that's the joy of fandom and transformative works. We can look at the story and pick our favorite parts and rewrite the ones we don't like. If we didn't do that, fandom wouldn't exist, or it would but it wouldn't be as much fun.

Sorry for the essay in your inbox and for causing any confusion and hurt. I hope you've had a great day 💛

i'm not going to lie, it does hurt a little. i wasn't going to answer this publicly but i don't have the time today to have a private convo and i don't want you to think i deleted it or ignored it, so here we are.

i don't think unification made spirk any more canon than tmp did. i don't think the short was made with k/s in mind at all, even as a bone to toss starving shippers. star trek at large was never intended as a love story between them, but people have always seen it anyway. 

i'm conflicted about the use of nimoy's likeness too. despite that, i think that they did it as respectfully as they could have and involved the right people. it was a goodbye, not using him for a cheap cameo or advertising purposes (yes i know it was an "ad" like everything is, but it's not like spock holds up a coke at the end). you can disagree with me, and i understand your point of view. that's why i said i understood where that anon was coming from. 

what i see is william shatner and others taking a story that ended in a way that was disrespectful to both characters, one of which he himself has been playing for the majority of his life, and trying to fix that. it doesn't mean there's no corporate greed involved. both can be true. at least they posted it on youtube, they didn't premiere it or put it behind a paywall. it was just eight minutes, and less than a quarter of that had nimoy's face in it. my favorite part of the whole thing was seeing tos kirk meet his future selves. i love that even though they both die out of their times, they find each other in the end. 

i don't want to be an activist or defend or endorse anything, i just... 

those zines i tagged were 1) a poem by della van hise that was so accurate to the short that others were already reblogging it (i posted it weeks ago). i found it super interesting that she wrote a poem about them meeting again in death before tmp/wok even came out, let alone this short. 2) i was gushing about unification in the tags. 3) another poem about being side by side, which again, i found incredibly relevant. the other one i posted was because it went well with the others visually. it has nothing to do with unification other than the fact that spock is laying down. 

this has just made me sad tbh. i'm not angry and i love your analysis/fan work so much, so :( idk, i don't want anything i post to be divisive or disrespectful. i wasn't even worried about that before. i just really needed a win and maybe i clung to that a little too hard :/

[sillylilyposting]

People are to willing to legitimize

Oh boy let's see what she means by legitimize

The whole point of lolcow culture is to ruin people's lives for fun.

No the plan is to extract the funny from it.

So when you come out trying to Critique target is a terrible person but - you've already given it to much legitimacy by treating it as a trustworthy source of information

You don't become immune to criticism because people don't like you

People made careers out of turning Christine Chandler's life into a real world Truman show,

Just call her Chris-chan? Also no people interacted with her videos she herself was putting online, her own website and uploads. Also how does this theory track with Yandev, Nikocado, etc who just did weird things with little to no prompting?

With her every action scrutinized and documented to a degree that serial killers subjected too.

Again she made videos consistently of herself by herself

Without that stalking, without the way people sought to push her to do something to keep the entertainment going, without people actively conspiring to drive her insane, she would not have been noteworthy enough for any of the things she done to be worth remembering.

I'll agree some of the stuff she did was prompted by other people's bullying and prompting, she still did bizarre things in her day to day without it but she still filmed and explained her odd acts and lest we forget nobody made her SA her mother! Just like nobody made Yandev be a pedophile there is no excuse of: "The meaning internet people made me!"

_

Hell, without all that, it's unlikely she would have ever done most of the shit she's done.

Provably wrong

Its only the very fascist harassment that made her actions probable or noteworthy in the first place.

So to try and condem lolcow culture, while judging the target based on information only avaliable BECAUSE of lolcow culture is completely fucking backwards. Furthermore it's how they recruit.

I can't keep restating facts... uh chrischan made video herself! So, quite literally what your trying to do here condem the culture with info avaliable because of it, this argument eats itself, christ.

Every single mother fucker who rots on kiwi farms started from the premise that "kiwi farms is terrible, but they've got it right this time about [minor e-celeb you are way too obsessed with] and their hook are in you. Because your on the site reading a thread on the person you hate, and since your there you might as well read a few more

Never used Kiwi farms myself, don't plan to, you have a plenty of stupid harmful and wrong takes regularly avaliable. You keep shifting the argument as you finish each paragraph, a goldfish would be more focused than you

And now they have their hooks in you, You're a nazi

Nazis, Hooks, Kiwis, scary stuff girl. I wasn't aware Kiwi farms acting like Frostmourne or is it more like the One Ring?

Multiple times in the past someone has come to be about someone supposedly being predatory and linked to Kiwi farms thread going "i know is awful but..."

Holy fuck this post is so long... does that mean the people who dm you are all Arthas?

_

No if it comes from Channer (channel?) trash, it is automatically a lie. They do not care about the things they pretend to care about.

Joon the king, sai, Ant, etc vague post, Journalists cover stories girlie, they can be as invested as they want personally and can push a narrative if they are inclined but the mark of a good journalist is presenting a story as unbiased as possible, I am not saying Kiwi farms writers are unbiased or journalists.

They care only about ruining the lives of trans, mentally ill and neruodivergent people for their own entertainment. Truth, Lies, it doesn't matter to them. Both are equally valid for their goals.

Lily seems to want to push the narrative that there are absolute sources of information... dangerous and vaguely authoritarian. There is such a thing as GETTING A SECOND OPINION!

If you were abused by someone and you went to Kiwi farms to give testimony: no you weren't. you're a liar, and you know you're a liar. You wouldn't be there if you weren't.

Not letting "These people who claim victim hood are 100% lying, and don't you doubt me when I tell you that" slide here

Lolcow culture should be inadmissible the court of public opinion.

Glad you added the court of public opinion, thought you were posting this as you got shoved into a cop car

So long as that continues to not be the case the harassment the stalking would only get worse.

Do stupid things win stupid prizes

And you can't buffer your criticism of it by agreeing with them.

The dumbest take she's made, its not weird that when someone accuses you of in decending order Rape, Grooming, and Incest Fetishism that agreeing to it would and SHOULD make the situation worse for the RAPIST

That POST WAS TO FUCKING LONG OH MY FUCKING GOD!

[syneilesis]

Three hours, one coffee shop, and two cappuccinos later, I wrote the beginning of a WMMAP fic.

[lazylittledragon]

i keep trying to think of funny/poetic ways to talk about all the things i'm feeling right now but i honestly can't so. i'm really sad about what happened with my partner. i know he was an inconsiderate prick about it and that i didn't do anything wrong and i couldn't have prevented it but i'm just really fucking sad.

[deoidesign]

Hii! I have been recently getting more and more obsessed with your art and webcomic and was wondering if I could use your art as like a profile picture? (With credit!!) If not that's perfectly fine! :)

yeah you can use my art for whatever as long as you're not stealing it or selling it

I don't mind if people print my art out for themselves either. I do sell prints, but it doesn't bother me either way

In general I don't post anything that I haven't made my peace with all that comes with sharing my art publicly! So feel free to use it as you please pretty much.

Giving me credit for the things I've made is respectful and helps me in my career, and I would hope that most people intend to respect my work... And the people who don't respect my work were never going to whether I asked or not.

I make my work for other people to enjoy it, I want you to enjoy it!

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

sorry for only saying this type of shit lately but i kinda wanna drive a car straight into a brick wall at the highest speed possible

[throwing-roses-into-the-abyss]

unlocked a new diy skill: learned how to drill a hole in wood