#like yes we are still less than a third into the season

[chxrryrose]

the ‘oh liverpool has had it easy’ ‘someone tell slot it’s not always gonna be this easy’ is getting old already especially when at the same time they still wanna keep pushing us being in control of the title race (11 games into the season!!) so if we don’t achieve it they can drag us to fuck and say we failed again.

[irisintheafterglow]

he's the death you chose (you're in terrible danger)

summary: married life with husband!gojo means cleaning up bodies at 2am.

wc: 1k

cw/tags: mentions of violence, blood, and deaths (nothing graphic), mild angst/comfort with happy ending, some swearing, yes this is the albatross coded

note: honestly not sure where this came from! was just listening to ttpd and thought about what being married to gojo realistically would be like (aka always being targeted as his weakness that it becomes routine). hope you like it :)

likes, reblogs, and replies are always appreciated <3

Wise men once said, “Don’t sleep with your windows open,” and you should have listened to them. If you had, there wouldn’t be three dead mercenaries in your living room, and another somewhere in your kitchen. There were five, originally, but you figured the last one was being hunted down a hallway as he tried to escape your building. The blood-spotted microwave’s clock reads 2:08 when you glance at it to grab cleaning supplies from the cupboard. 2:10 is when Satoru re-enters the apartment and kicks off his shoes. 

“I called Ijichi; he’s sending over cleaners right now,” he says, carefully stepping around the blood and curse guts splattered on the floorboards. Stray drops of who knows what speckle the photos on the bookshelf and he wipes them with his sleeve, scowling. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” 

“Yeah, there’d probably be less of a mess,” you admit, wiping down the kitchen island and guiding the crumbs and dust into the trash. “But they’d still be dead, so I guess it doesn’t really matter in the end.” 

“You handled yourself pretty well for being out of the country for a few months,” he adds appreciatively, retrieving the carpet cleaner from under the sink and sprinkling it onto the living room floor. “I still think it’d be better if you lived on-campus, though.” He squints in the pale moonlight at the pile of abrasive powder and decides to dump a little bit more for good measure. 

“I know–Hey, what’d I tell you about wasting the carpet cleaner? A little goes a long way, remember?” Satoru sets the tube down and puts his hands up in surrender, reaching back and tightening his blindfold before he approaches you in the kitchen. “I can hear your thoughts as they make their way to your mouth, dear.” 

“Look, I know what you’re gonna say–”

“Don’t ask what you’re about to ask, then, if you already know the answer,” you interject with that lightning-quick wit he adored so much. You move to grab the broom from next to the fridge, but he gently catches your wrist and turns you to face him. 

“You’d be safer there,” he continues and you pull your lips into a tight line. 

“Only place I’m safe is wherever I'm with you, realistically.” You had a point. In any other circumstance, the sentiment would be sweet if it wasn’t horribly true. You’d heard time and time again from Satoru how he stared restlessly at the ceiling, anxious about what danger might be coming wherever you were. He theorizes that the higher-ups promoted you to spite him, to have you travel even more often than he was and visit more places across the globe than any seasoned sorcerer would be comfortable with. Phone calls weren’t enough to verify that you were safe; he had to see you, feel you, know you were alive. “This is, what, the second time this month? The first time was when I came back from Paris, right?”

“I don’t think that was this month. It might’ve been the last week of the month prior. Monaco, maybe?”

“Eh, same thing. They always come after me when I get back from Europe. You think they’re trying to catch me off guard or something?”

“I don’t know if we can predict a schedule with these guys, babe,” he grimaces. As much as he liked that you were making light of the situation, the churning in his gut about what could have happened if he didn’t come was too painful to ignore. “Your dad would kill me if he saw how much danger I put you in.” 

“It’s a step up than sneaking me out of the third story of the house, I’ll admit,” you tease. How you could still find humor in times like these, he could never fathom. It’d taken months to convince your father to let Satoru court you, let alone marry you. To your family, he was an impediment, an obstacle, and, unfortunately, the love of your life. “Maybe even as bad as the food poisoning you got from that one place in Sendai.”

“I don’t think ‘in sickness and in health’ is supposed to apply to attempted assassinations. Food poisoning and sprained ankles, sure, but that other one toes the line a little too much.” The frequency of your life in danger was why he wanted you to live full-time on one of the Jujutsu Tech campuses and become a teacher, like him. Sure, a selfish part of him wanted you closer all the time, but he’d pick your safety over your proximity any day. 

“How far are the cleaners?” You yawn, washing your hands at the sink and scanning for everything in your home that needs to be wiped or scrubbed. 

“Ten minutes, tops. I can wait for them if you wanna go back to bed.” He knew you weren’t going to take him up on his offer. You were never able to sleep properly after attempts like this unless he was in the same room. “Though I know you won’t.”

“Isn’t it a little fucked up that we know how the rest of these nights usually go?” You chuckle, a soft, airy sound that takes some of the weight off of Satoru’s chest. You were truly sunlight incarnate and he was the darkest, unseen side of the moon. 

“I’d say this is all my fault, honestly.” You look at him curiously and he shrugs. “I’m the one who made you fall in love with me, after all.” 

“By that logic, I’m also partially to blame,” you point out, flashing him the ring on your left hand. The glow of cursed energy Satoru had embedded into the gemstones glows like Christmas lights in the darkness. The energy was more concentrated than your own body’s natural reserves, allowing him to pinpoint you immediately as long as you were wearing it. Danger and plans A through Z, and everything in between that came with marrying the strongest sorcerer in existence. “I can’t count the number of people who warned me about you.”  

“Why didn’t you listen to them?” 

“Because they’re not you,” you smile. “If you say that you’ll keep me safe, then I trust you to keep your word.” Sunlight incarnate, he thinks again, and God help anyone who tries to block you from him.

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[forhappysake]

Late-Night Talking

Author's note: This can be read as part 2 of "Never Forget a Face," or it can be read as a stand-alone. 5k words, not proofread xoxo.

Summary: After you get to know Spencer, the team starts believing you may be more than friends. Despite pushing back against their jokes, you and Spencer quickly realize they may not be wrong.

Warnings: fem!reader, spoilers for season 12/13, mentions of typical BAU-level violence, age gap mentioned, one bed trope that i LOVE, no smut just some heavy fluff/making out at the end

“Checkmate,” Spencer said. 

You groaned. 

The soft glow of an antique lamp illuminated your surroundings. You sat cross-legged on an old leather armchair, resting your head in your hands. Spencer, across from you, looked a little too amused. The pair of you had been at this for roughly two hours. 

“I’m not sure why you decided to make that last move. If you want, I can show you some additional strategies and what I would have done in your place,” Spencer rambled. If it were any other man, you likely would have rolled your eyes and told them to shut up. Something about the way he spoke was entirely genuine, and he knew he had your best interest at heart. 

“No thanks, Spence. I think I’ve met my match for the day,” you said, rising from your seat. You stretched your arms above your head. “I could go for some coffee, though.”

He smiled as you turned to walk toward his kitchen. In the three weeks since the two of you had spent the evening talking, the two of you had only become closer. This was the third night this week that you had found yourself enjoying his company. 

“Do you want a cup?” you called behind the counter. 

It was quiet for a second, and you could imagine his eyes narrowing in thought as he weighed his options. “Sure,” he said. “Could you make it with-”

“Lots of sugar and a little bit of coffee,” you finished for him, appearing from behind the island with two cups in hand. “Here.”

Spencer thanked you, taking a small sip before setting the steaming cup on the side table. “Perfect,” he acknowledged. 

“Oh really? Maybe I should pursue a career as a barista,” you joked, whirling the mixture around in your mug with a small red stirrer. 

Spencer let out a small laugh before he grew quiet for a moment. He looked at you thoughtfully. “Not that I think you wouldn’t be good at it, but I think I - or uh - we prefer to have you on our team.”

As you opened your mouth to respond, your phone buzzed in your pocket. You set your coffee on the side table next to Spencer’s and pulled it out, unveiling Penelope’s name and face buzzing across your screen. 

“It’s Penelope,” you said. Spencer shot you a knowing look. 

You raised the phone and answered her video message request. Her face filled the screen. 

“Hello, my lovely,” she said to you in her usual bubbly manner. The bright pink bows in her hair and the way they matched what you could see of her dress made you smile. 

“Hey, Pen,” you greeted. “What’s up?”

“That’s the less lovely part,” she said, her smiling turning to a frown. “I need you in the office in an hour or less. We have a case.” 

You sighed as you shot a glance at Spencer who was staring at you from across the chess table. “Right, I’ll be there. Thanks.”

You were about to hang up when she spoke again. “Oh, wait! Y/N!”

“Yes?” you asked her, a bit confused by her sudden urgency. 

“Have you talked to Spencer? You’re the last one on my call list and I haven’t been able to get ahold of him for twenty minutes.” 

Rather than respond, you flipped the camera around to unveil Spencer sitting on the edge of the armchair. “Yeah, I think I can get ahold of him for you,” you quipped. 

Penelope gasped. “My two favorite BAU babies spending time together? Be still my speckled heart.”

Spencer groaned, looking directly at the camera. “Penelope, we’ve been over this. I’m 36. I’ve been with the team for over a decade. I’ve done time in a maximum security prison. I haven’t been a BAU ‘baby,’” he made air quotes with his hands, “for ten years.”

Penelope rolled her eyes, causing you to giggle and causing Spencer to furrow his brow. “Oh, Dr. Reid, your wit is charming but I fear you’ll always be a BAU baby in my mind.” 

Spencer huffed. 

“Regardless, it’s nice to see my babies together,” she said, her cheery disposition fading as she began clacking on her keyboard. “Anyway, I’ll see you lovebirds in an hour. Peace!”

You and Spencer had both frozen at her final statement as her face faded from the screen. Lovebirds?

In an attempt to diffuse the awkward silence that had fallen over the room, you cleared your throat. “I have to run home and grab my go-bag.” You rose and made for the door. Spencer remained seated, a perplexed look on his face. 

“I’ll see you in an hour?” you half-asked. 

Spencer snapped out of his thoughts, finally noticing that you were standing with your hand on his doorknob, ready to leave. 

“Y-yeah. Of course. See you there,” he said, offering a small yet sincere small. 

You drove home and grabbed your things, Penelope’s statement still ringing in your ears. Lovebirds. 

Sure, you enjoyed spending time with Spencer. In the month since you’d met him, you’d gotten to know him quite well. You knew how he took his coffee, what books he was working through at the moment, and how his therapy was going. However, you didn’t think that qualified you as lovebirds. 

You shook your head as you pulled into your parking spot at work. You were overthinking it. Penelope called people questionable names all the time. Just last week, the HR department was forced to give a seminar on workplace conduct after some of Penelope’s most famous lines were brought to the attention of the department. 

Spencer had leaned over to you during the presentation, nudging you with his elbow. “Last time they gave one of these, Penelope got in trouble for calling our friend ‘dark chocolate thunder,’” he whispered. You had widened your eyes at him and looked appalled as he offered a small, mischievous smile, turning back to the front.  

You paused for a moment before entering the building and thought about how that interaction had made you feel. The butterflies in your stomach took flight when he nudged your arm, the tingling sensation running through your veins as he whispered in your ear. Maybe Penelope wasn’t as far off as you thought. 

Regardless, you had a job to do. So did Spencer, for that matter. Based on the worried glances your coworkers gave you when you walked into the roundtable room, you could tell it was going to be a doozy. 

Emily and Spencer walked in moments later, taking their seats around the table. He offered you a small smile, which you kindly returned before focusing on Penelope’s presentation at the front of the room. 

Another serial killer, another flight that was going to take you across the country. 

For three days after touchdown in California, the team worked around the clock. On the third day, the team went out in pairs to keep watch over the local parks in town, from which women were being kidnapped and subsequently murdered. Emily had asked you and Spencer to stay behind at the police station in case any new developments came about.

By the time night fell, you weren’t sure when the last time you’d slept or eaten was. You were sitting on a couch in the meeting room assigned to the BAU for your time in California. You’d zoned out at the images of the victim’s bloody bodies before you on the coffee table, your eyes glazed over and bloodshot from the lack of sleep. 

When someone placed a hand on your shoulder, you jumped in surprise. 

“Just me,” Spencer said, putting one hand up in surrender. He’d walked in through the open door, you hadn’t even noticed his entrance.

You rubbed your eyes. “Sorry. What’s up? Any news?”

Spencer shook his head, sitting down next to you. He cleared his throat. “You could sleep, you know? I can always wake you if something changes.” 

You yawned. “I appreciate the offer, but don’t you think that’s unfair? You haven’t slept either.” 

He shrugged, glancing sideways at you. “I didn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time for three months of my life. This is nothing.” 

You looked at him in that moment. Truly looked at him. The small scar on the side of his neck where a few stray curls ended. The stubble on his cheek, getting longer each day you worked this case. Finally, your eyes met his. 

“Alright,” you relented. “Just promise you’ll wake me up if something changes.” 

Spencer nodded. “I’ll be right here next to the phone. Rest for a little bit.” 

Without another word, you sunk further down on the couch and laid your head back, falling into a dreamless sleep. 

SPENCER’S POV

I developed this habit of staring at clocks while I was away. Some might think that makes the time pass slower, but on the contrary, I found that the minutes flew by faster if I could zone out at something for long enough. 

I found myself practicing this same habit as the night passed. The only thing that pulled me from my daze was Y/N’s body shifting on the couch next to me. 

I turned to look at her. She rested her head on the back of the couch. Her hair had fallen haphazardly over one side of her face. The black top she wore was dangerously close to slipping off her shoulder. I leaned forward to strip off my suit jacket and gently lay it over her, the thick fabric wrinkling. As if on cue, she subconsciously pulled the jacked around her figure, burying her face in the material. 

I felt my heart warm at the sight and bit back a smile. She was still too innocent for the job. Probably too innocent for this world, frankly. But the pleasure of getting to know her had made Emily’s decision to place her on the team a no-brainer. She was, by all intents and purposes, a ray of sunshine. 

“You two look cozy,” Luke spoke from the doorway. 

My eyes shot up to face him. I tried to act casual like I wasn’t just oogling over my coworker.  “Oh. Yeah, she is.” 

Luke rolled his eyes. “Jig’s up, Reid,” he started, leaning against the doorway. “You’ve been looking at her like that for weeks. Why don’t you just ask her on a date?” 

I cringed. “Why does everyone keep insinuating that we’re somehow romantically involved?”

“Well let’s see,” Luke held up his fingers to count as he spoke. “You guys talk to each other like, all the time.” One. “You didn’t tell her to move when she accidentally sat in your seat at the conference table.” Two. “I know for a fact that she’s been out with you at least three nights a week, hence why she didn’t come out with Garcia and me last weekend.” Three. “You actually laugh when she tells you a joke.” Four. “You keep staring at her-”

“Alright, I get it,” I interrupted, holding up a hand to quiet him. I sighed. “You’ve forgotten some pretty important details in your explanation.” 

Luke raised an eyebrow. “Like what?” 

It was my turn to do the counting. “She’s roughly eight years younger than I am. I haven’t the faintest clue if she’s seeing anyone. She’s only known me for a month and she happens to know about… my history.” Luke glanced up at me, a touch of sympathy in his gaze. “Prison time is not exactly a turn-on to most women,” I admitted. 

Luke took a deep breath. “Well, I hope it works out however you want it to, Reid. I can say this for sure, I haven’t seen you this happy in a year.” 

I watched him begin to walk away before he turned to look back over his shoulder. “By the way, we caught the guy. Wheels-up in thirty.” 

With that utterance, he was gone. 

READER’S POV

The next thing you remembered was Spencer gently shaking your shoulder. “Y/N,” he said your name quietly. 

You rolled over, groggy as you pulled the blanket tighter around yourself. “Yeah, what’s up, Spence?” 

“The case is closed. We’re going to get ready to go home.” 

Your eyes shot open. “Really? I can’t believe we missed it,” you said, sounding somewhat disappointed. 

Spencer shrugged. “I think I would prefer the comfort of this place than being out there.” He pointed out the window where a steady rain had begun falling over the parking lot.

You groaned, peeling the blanket off your body. It was just then that you realized it wasn’t a blanket, but Spencer’s jacket. 

“Oh. Uh. Here you go,” you offered it back to him. 

Spencer took it from you, immediately beginning to overexplain himself. “Sorry, I just thought you looked kind of cold and your shirt was hanging off your shoulder so I thought it would be better if I-”

“Spencer,” you cut him off. “I was just going to say thank you.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah. Of course. Sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing. Let’s just get out of here and back home.” You offered him a warm smile, reassurance that he hadn’t overstepped your boundaries. 

You found it quite endearing, actually- him having covered you up. When he smiled back, your stomach did a backflip. God, you were screwed. 

The two of you hurriedly packed up the files strewn about the precinct and drove back to the hotel. The flight home was relatively uneventful. You did, however, notice Luke giving you one of his mischievous smiles. Halfway through the flight, you couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Luke, what is your deal?” you asked quietly not to wake JJ, seated next to you. Spencer, who sat across from the table on the jet’s couch, sneaked a glance up from his book, slyly listening in to the conversation you’d started. 

“Did you have a nice nap earlier this evening, Y/N?” Luke asked jokingly. 

You rolled your eyes. “As a matter of fact, I did. Why are you asking?” 

Luke glanced over at Spencer. “I saw loverboy went out of his way to keep you warm.”

It was your turn to glance at Spencer, whose cheeks were turning pink as his lips pressed into a thin line. He looked back down at his book, acting as though he wasn’t listening. 

You leaned forward across the table. “Look, Luke. I’m not sure what delusions Penelope is feeding you, but Spencer and I are just friends. Just like me and you. Just like me and everyone on this team.”

“Uh huh,” Luke said, unconvinced. He popped a piece of candy into his mouth. “When’s the last time you spent three evenings at my apartment?” 

“Maybe I would spent three evenings at your apartment if you were intelligent and mature enough to keep up an adult conversation,” you shot back. 

Luke raised his eyebrows. “Touched a nerve there, did I?” he joked. 

“It isn’t funny, Luke,” you scolded. “And for that matter, I happen to be seeing someone.” 

That caught everyone’s attention. You saw Spencer twitch out of the corner of your eye, his brow furrowing has his grip on the book in his hands became firmer. Luke laughed. 

“You have been going out with someone?” he asked, somewhat incredulously. 

You took offense to his reaction. “Why is that so hard to believe?” 

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. I just hadn’t heard about this before.”

“Well, I don’t exactly go out of my way to talk about my personal life. Now if you’ll excuse me,” you tapped the empty coffee cup in your hands. “I need to replenish my supply.” 

You made your way to the back of the jet. Seeing the coffee pot empty, you began the task of brewing more. 

“Was that true?” Spencer asked from behind you. 

“Jesus,” you said, trying not to jump out of your skin, “You’ve really got to quit sneaking up on me like that.” 

“Sorry.” He stood awkwardly in the doorway, blocking your view of the rest of the jet. “But was it true?”

“Which part?” you challenged, watching the dark liquid fill the pot.

“The part about you seeing someone.” 

Your cheeks reddened. “No. It wasn’t true. I just wanted to get Luke off my back,” you admitted. 

Spencer sighed what almost sounded like a sigh of relief. “Was the rest of it true?” he continued. 

“What do you mean?” You looked at him, genuinely confused as to what he was referencing.

Spencer took a step closer to you, and you could feel the heat coming off his body as he looked down at you. He lowered his voice to a near whisper, “The part about us just being friends.” 

Oh. 

“Well, I- you know we haven’t really ever discussed if we would even… I- I don’t know,” you stuttered. 

Spencer nodded and the serious expression on his face faded to his normal friendly facade. “Right. I just wanted to check,” he said casually before making his way back to his seat. 

You were in shock regarding the conversation that had just occurred and remained that way for the rest of the flight. You found yourself glancing at Spencer often and occasionally, you’d catch him looking at you too.

You put your headphones in, in an attempt to take your mind off of it. The reprieve of the music in your ears was short-lived as JJ nudged your shoulder. “Did you hear Emily?” she asked. 

“What? No, what did I miss?” you looked around, confused, before Emily appeared beside you. 

“Sorry, I should’ve checked to make sure everyone could hear me,” she apologized. “Change of plans. We’re stopping in Tennessee. I just got a call from an old colleague. They need some help.”

You tried to hide your disappointment. All you wanted to do was get home to go to bed. Not to mention, you needed time to think over this whole Spencer thing. However, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. 

Two hours later, you were on the ground in Nashville. 

The team stumbled into a hotel lobby. It was 2 a.m. You could tell you all looked terrible, and you weren’t sure you all smelled much better.

“Alright,” Emily said, coming back from the check-in counter. “Here’s the deal. Since I booked last minute, I could only get four rooms. We’re going to have to double up.” 

You watched as pairs were quickly formed. JJ and Emily stepped to one side. Tara and Luke to another. Rossi and Matt even joined up. You and Spencer stood awkwardly next to each other. 

“Right, well, here are your keys,” she handed you the room keys for yourself and Spencer. You sighed and took off for the elevator, Spencer in tow. 

The elevator ride and walk to the room passed without a word. When you stepped into the hotel room, you immediately flopped your bags on the ground and dropped to the floor. 

For the first time in two hours, Spencer spoke. “What are you doing?” 

You didn’t get up, still lying prone on the floor. “Relaxing.”

“Do you know how many germs are on the floor of a hotel room? If I had to estimate, based on research-”

“Spence, please,” you cut him off, “I’m getting up, I’m getting up.” You rolled over and sat up, looking up at him. 

It was also the first real glimpse you’d caught of the room since arriving, and you felt your stomach drop when you grasped one key detail. 

There was only one bed. 

Oh. Oh. 

Spencer followed your eyes to the single bed. “Don’t worry, I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said sincerely. 

You scoffed. “Spencer, that’s ridiculous. You’ve told me time and time again how your back bothers you because of these terrible hotel beds. I can’t imagine what state sleeping on the floor would leave you in. I’ll do it.” 

He shook his head. “I would never expect you to do that.”

“I know." you weighed your words carefully. “We can share the bed, you know? It won’t be a big deal. As long as you’re comfortable with it, of course.”

Spencer looked between you and the bed for a moment. “Okay,” he said simply, throwing his bag on the ground. “Do you prefer a certain side?” 

You hummed, standing up from the floor. “Do I want the slide closer to the AC or the side closer to the window?”

Spencer smiled, raising his eyebrows. “These are some tough decisions.”

You nodded. “I’ll take the window. You can have the vent.” 

“How thoughtful,” he quipped. 

You bent over and began going through your bag. “You can go ahead and shower first, Spence.”

He nodded. “Alright, I’ll be quick.” 

Grabbing his bag, he disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. You heard the click of the lock and sighed in a mix of relief and disappointment. He hadn’t brought up your previous conversation. Maybe he hadn’t meant it or maybe he meant it differently than you interpreted.

Pulling your pajamas from your bag, you resigned yourself to sit on the edge of the bed and wait. Minutes later, Spencer reappeared. His hair, slightly damp, hung down over his eyes. He wore a pair of plaid pajama pants and a loose t-shirt that clung nicely to his biceps. 

He looked good. Really good. 

You were lucky you didn’t start drooling right there. Spencer caught your gaze. “Is there something on my shirt?” he asked seriously. 

You shook your head, averting your eyes. “No! I mean - no. Not at all. I’m just tired.” You stood up from the bed and without another word, shut yourself in the bathroom in an attempt to get yourself under control. 

SPENCER’S POV

It had been five minutes and seventeen seconds since Y/N went to take a shower. I laid back on the bed, head propped up by some pillows, and thought as the time passed. 

It had been five minutes and forty-five seconds of me thinking about how to approach this conversation with her. 

I knew after our exchange on the plane that I’d have to come to terms with my feelings eventually. Even if I’d only known her for a month, I couldn’t help but gravitate towards her. I loved her smile, the way she laughed at my jokes, and how she genuinely listened when I talked. 

Most of all, I was starting to think I loved her. 

When I heard the bathroom door open, I tried to be nonchalant. I reached for my book on the side table and quickly began reading through it, flipping pages as I finished them. I felt a dip in the bed and saw her sit on the edge out of my periphery. 

She was slipping her socks on, facing away from me, her damp her hanging loosely in front of her face. I wanted to do nothing more than tuck it behind her ear and kiss her right then and there. 

I had to be logical, I told myself. I shook the thoughts away and tried to focus on the book in my hands. 

READER’S POV

Spencer didn’t speak to you when you came out from the shower, offering only a glance and a small smile as he skimmed through the book in his hands. After slipping on your socks, you tucked yourself under the covers next to him, turning off the light next to your side of the bed. 

It was silent for a moment before you heard his book thud down on the side table. “Goodnight, Y/N,” he said, flipping the lamp off.

“Night, Spence,” you said back. You rolled to your side so your back was to him, trying to minimize the amount of space you took up in the bed. 

The two of you stayed that way for twenty minutes. You breathed slowly, trying not to think about the man in the bed next to you. Just when you thought you may have relaxed enough to drift off to sleep, the lamp next to Spencer’s side of the bed flipped on.

You kept your eyes shut, pretending to be asleep as you felt him shift in the bed. You wondered if he was just restless, struggling to wind down after working so many cases back to back. Seconds later, he spoke.

“I know you’re awake. I think we should talk,” he said quietly. 

Your eyes shot open. You rolled over to face him, trying to remain calm. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

“Let’s play a game,” he suggested. Your eyebrows shot up. You did enjoy a good competition. “I’ll ask you a question, you ask me a question. How does that sound?” Spencer asked. 

You searched his eyes for any hint of mischief but found none. Who were you to say no? You sat up in the bed, crisscrossing your legs as you faced him. 

“Shoot,” you challenged him. 

“Does it bother you when the team suggests we’re romantically involved?” 

You hadn’t quite expected that one. You looked around the room, taking a deep breath as you pondered. “Not as much as it probably should. Does it bother you?” you countered. 

Spencer shook his head. “Only when I thought it made you uncomfortable. Now that I know it doesn’t, no.” He paused for a second, narrowing his eyes at you as he tried to pick out his next question. 

During this lull, you reached for your water bottle on the side table and took a quick drink. “Do you find me attractive?” he asked. 

You nearly spit out your water. 

You sat up a bit straighter, trying not to let him see just how attractive you thought he was. “Well… that’s quite a direct question. But, yeah. Yeah, I think you’re attractive.” 

Spencer nodded, satisfied, though he didn’t look smug. Just content. 

“Do you think I’m attractive?” you asked. 

Spencer glanced up at you, his hands folding and unfolding in his lap as he tapped the tips of his fingers against his thigh. “Very,” he admitted. 

The two of you were quiet once more, not sure what to do with this newfound information. 

Spencer cleared his throat and you could hear the doubt and concern seeping into his voice when he spoke again. “Does it bother you that I’m older than you are?” 

You figured that was coming. “No. You’ve never made me feel younger or dumber for it. I often forget we aren’t the same age.” You shrugged before continuing. “Does it bother you that I’m younger?”

Spencer thought for a moment. “No, it doesn’t bother me. I was just afraid you’d think I was strange for finding you attractive since you are younger than I am.” 

You laughed. “Spencer, I find you strange for many reasons, but our age difference is not one of them.” 

Spencer smiled shyly at you. He seemed to appreciate the endearing way you used the word “strange” to describe him.

“Can-” he stuttered for a moment, you could tell he was nervous about his next question. He took a breath, building confidence. “Can I kiss you?” 

Your breath caught in your throat, eyes widening immediately. He turned a bright shade of crimson, his confidence seemingly wavering. “You can say no, of course. I’m sorry if I made this weird, I just thought-”

“You can kiss me,” you interjected. He looked at you, his crimson blush fading away but his eyes still uncertain. “I’d like for you to, actually,” you reassured. 

Spencer sat up straighter on the bed, his earlier expression gone serious as he moved closer to you. He gently placed one hand on your cheek, holding you in place as his lips met yours. 

His lips were soft. In fact, everything he was doing was soft. The way he gently cupped your face, the way his other hand had come up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, the way his mouth moved against yours. His tongue probed your mouth open, a small moan eliciting from him when you allowed him access. 

The tenderness disappeared quickly as he kissed you with more urgency. The two of you fell back on the bed like teenagers. 

His hands moved from your face to your waist, holding you firmly against him. You tested the waters by moving your hands up his back and into his hair, earning a sigh of approval on his part. 

You slipped a hand under the front of his shirt, trailing your fingers across his chest. He pulled away from you, gently grabbing your hand.

“Too far?” you asked in a small panic, quickly withdrawing your hand from under the fabric of his shirt.

“Not at all,” he shook his head sincerely. “I just don’t want to get carried away.” 

Spencer sat up, his hand on your waist bringing you up with him. You both leaned back against the bed, your head resting on his chest. 

“I want to do everything with you,” he said lowly. You could feel his voice rumble through his chest as he spoke. “I want to do all of this and more. However, I do believe you deserve more than some random hotel with the guy who has only known you for a month.” 

“You're not a random guy," you corrected. You were a bit disappointed, but you understood and appreciated his sentiment. It was silent for a moment. "So where do we go from here?” you asked, genuinely curious. 

Spencer smiled, wrapping his arm tighter around your waist. “I think I should start by asking you on a date. How do you feel about Vietnamese food?” 

You raised an eyebrow, looking up at him. “You know I am very passionate about pho,” you joked. 

“Yeah,” he rested his chin on the top of your head, “How about when we get back, we go out on a real date, in a real restaurant that isn’t my apartment, and we make this something real?”

You lifted your head up to meet his gaze at eye level. “I’d love to,” you said with a smile. “On one condition,” you added. 

It was his turn to act surprised. “What’s that?” 

“That you don’t refrain from kissing me until then. I do enjoy being close to you,” you answered. 

Spencer grinned at you. His arm around your waist pulled you in for a soft kiss on the lips. After a moment, he pulled away. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he answered.

You laid your head back on his chest as he flicked off the side table lamp, the two of you quickly falling asleep wrapped in each others' arms.

[covid-safer-hotties]

also preserved on our archive

By Erica Sloan

These days, it’s tempting to compare COVID-19 with the common cold or flu. It can similarly leave you with a nasty cough, fever, sore throat—the full works of respiratory symptoms. And it’s also become a part of the societal fabric, perhaps something you’ve resigned yourself to catching at least a few times in your life (even if you haven’t already). But let’s not forget: SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID) is still relatively new, and researchers are actively investigating the toll of reinfection on the body. While there are still a lot of unknowns, one thing seems to be increasingly true: Getting COVID again and again is a good deal riskier than repeat hits of its seasonal counterparts.

It turns out, SARS-CoV-2 is more nefarious than these other contagious bugs, and our immune response to it, often larger and longer-lasting. COVID has a better ability to camouflage itself in the body, “and it has the keys to the kingdom in the sense that it can unlock any cell and get in,” says Esther Melamed, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of neurology at Dell Medical School, University of Texas Austin, and the research director of the Post-COVID-19 program at UT Health Austin. That’s because SARS-CoV-2 binds to ACE2 receptors, which exist in cells all over your body, from your heart to your gut to your brain. (By contrast, cold and flu viruses replicate mostly in your respiratory tract.)

It only follows that a bigger threat can trigger an outsize immune response. In some people, the body’s reaction to COVID can turn into a “cytokine storm,” Dr. Melamed tells SELF, which is characterized by an excessive release of inflammatory proteins that can wreak havoc on multiple organ systems—not a common scenario for your garden-variety cold or flu. But even a “mild” case of COVID can throw your immune system into a tizzy as it works to quickly shore up your defenses. And each reinfection is a fresh opportunity for the virus to win the battle.

While you develop some immunity after a COVID infection, it doesn’t just grow with each additional hit. You might be thinking, “Aren’t I more protected against COVID and less likely to have a serious case after having been infected?” Part of that is true, to an extent. In the first couple years after COVID burst onto the scene, reinfections were generally (though not always) milder than a person’s initial bout of the virus. “The way we understand classic immunology is that your body will say to a virus [it’s seen before], ‘Oh, I know how to deal with you, and I’m now going to deal with you in a better way the second time around,’” says Ziyad Al-Aly, PhD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine and the chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.

But any encounter with COVID can also cause your immune system to “go awry or develop some form of dysfunction,” Dr. Al-Aly tells SELF. Specifically, “immune imprinting” can happen, where, upon a second (or third or fourth) exposure to the virus, your immune cells launch the same response as they did for the initial infection, in turn blocking or limiting the development of new antibodies necessary to fight off the current variant that’s stirring up trouble. So, “when you get hit an [additional] time, your immune system may not behave classically,” Dr. Al-Aly says, and could struggle with mounting a good defense.

Pair that dip in immune efficiency with the fact that your antibody levels also wane with time post-infection, and it’s easy to see how another hit can rock your body in a new way. Indeed, the more time that passes after any given COVID infection, the less of a “competitive advantage” you’ll have against any future one, Richard Moffitt, PhD, an associate professor at Emory University, in Atlanta, tells SELF. His research found that, while people who got sick initially during the delta phase were less likely to get reinfected during the first omicron wave (as compared to folks who were infected in a prior period), that benefit leveled off with following omicron variants.

There’s also the fact that no matter how your immune system has responded to a prior strain (or strains!) of the virus, it could react differently to a new mutation. “We tend to think of COVID as one homogeneous thing, but it’s really not,” Dr. Al-Aly says. So even if your body successfully thwarted one of these intruders in the past, there’s no guarantee it’ll do the same for another, now or in the future, he says.

Getting COVID again and again is especially risky if it previously made you very ill. Dr. Moffitt’s study above also found that the “severity of your first infection is very predictive of the severity of a reinfection,” he says. Meaning, you’re more likely to have a severe case of COVID—for instance, requiring hospitalization or intensive care, such as ventilation—when reinfected if you had a rough go of it the first time around.

It’s possible that some folks are more prone to an off-kilter immune response to the virus, which could then happen consistently with reinfections. The antibodies created in people who’ve had severe cases “may not function as well as those in folks who’ve had mild infections or were able to fight the virus off,” Dr. Melamed says. Though researchers don’t fully understand why, some people’s immune systems are also more likely to overreact to COVID (remember the cytokine storm?), which can cause serious symptoms—like fluid in the lungs and shortness of breath—whenever they’re infected.

Being over the age of 65, having a chronic illness or other medical condition, and lacking access to health care have all been shown to spike your risk of serious outcomes with a COVID infection, whether it’s your first or fifth fight with the virus.

But you’re not home free if you’ve only had, say, a brief fever or cough with COVID in the past; Dr. Moffitt points out that a small subset of people in his research who had minor reactions with their initial infection went on to be hospitalized with a repeat hit. The probability of that might be lower, but it’s still a possibility, he says.

Even if you’ve only had “mild” cases, each reinfection strains your body, upping your chances of developing long COVID. A 2022 study led by Dr. Al-Aly found that COVID reinfections also increase your risk of complications across the board, regardless of whether you recovered just fine in the past or got vaccinated. In particular, it showed that reinfection raises the likelihood that you’ll need hospitalization; have heart or lung problems; or experience, among other possible issues, GI, neurological, mental health, or musculoskeletal symptoms. “We use the term ‘cumulative effects,’” Dr. Al-Aly says, “so, multiple hits accrue and then leave the body more vulnerable to all the potential long-term health effects of COVID.”

That doesn’t mean your experience of a second (or third or fourth) infection will necessarily be worse, in and of itself, than what you felt during a prior case. But with each new hit, a fresh batch of the virus seeps into your system, where, even if you have a mild case, it has another chance to trigger any of the longer-term complications above. While the likelihood of getting long COVID (a constellation of symptoms lingering for three months or longer post-infection) is likely greatest after initial infection, “The bottom line is, people are still getting diagnosed with long COVID after reinfection,” Dr. Moffitt says.

Researchers don’t totally know why one person might deal with lasting health effects over another, but it seems that, in some folks, the immune system misfires, generating not only antibodies to attack the virus but also autoantibodies that go after the body’s own healthy cells, Dr. Al-Aly says. This may be one reason why COVID has been linked to the onset of autoimmune conditions like psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

A different hypothesis suggests that pieces of the virus could linger in the body, even after a person has seemingly “recovered” (reminder that SARS-CoV-2 is scarily good at weaseling its way into all sorts of cells). “Maybe the first time, your immune system was able to fully clear it, but the second time, it found a way to hang around,” Dr. Al-Aly posits. And a third theory involves your gut microbiome, the community of microbes in your GI tract, including beneficial bacteria. It’s conceivable that “when we get sick with COVID, these bacteria do, too, and perhaps they recover [on initial infection], but not on the second or third hit,” he says, throwing off your balance of good-to-bad gut bugs (which can impact your health in all sorts of ways).

Another unnerving possibility: The shock to your system triggered by COVID may “wake up” a latent (a.k.a. dormant) virus or two lurking in your body, Dr. Melamed says. We all carry anywhere from eight to 12 of these undetected bugs at a time—things like Epstein-Barr, varicella-zoster (which causes chickenpox and shingles), and herpes simplex. And research suggests their reactivation could be a contributing factor in long COVID. Separately, the systemic inflammation often created by COVID may spark the onset of high blood pressure and increased clotting (which can up your risk of stroke and pulmonary embolism), as well as type 2 diabetes, Dr. Melamed says.

There’s no guarantee that any given COVID infection snowballs into something debilitating, but each hit is like another round of Russian roulette, Dr. Al-Aly says. From a sheer numbers standpoint, the more times you play a game with the possibility of a negative outcome, the greater your chances are of that bad result occurring. And because every COVID case has at least some potential to leave you very ill or dealing with a host of persistent symptoms, why take the risk any more times than you need to?

Bottom line: You should do your best to avoid COVID reinfection and bolster your defenses against the virus. At this stage of the pandemic’s progression, it’s not realistic to suggest you can avoid any exposure to the virus, given that societal protections against its spread have been rolled back. But what you should do is take some common-sense precautions, which can help you avoid any contagious respiratory virus. (A cold or the flu may not pose as many potential health risks as COVID, but being sick is still not fun!)

It’s a good idea to wear a mask when you’re in a crowded environment (especially indoors), choose well-ventilated or outdoor spaces for group hangouts, and test for COVID if you have cold or flu-like symptoms, Dr. Al-Aly says. If you do get infected, talk to your doctor about whether your personal risk of a severe case is enough to qualify for a Paxlovid prescription (which you need to take within the first five days of symptoms for it to be effective).

The other important thing you should do is get the updated COVID vaccine (the 2024-2025 formula was recently approved and released). Unlike getting reinfected, the vaccine triggers “a very targeted immune response…because it’s [made with] a specific tiny part of the virus,” Dr. Melamed says. Meaning, you get the immune benefit of a little exposure without the potential of your whole system going haywire. Getting the current shot also ensures you restore any protection that has waned since you received a prior jab and that you have an effective shield against the dominant circulating strains. Plus, research shows that being vaccinated doesn’t just lower your chances of catching the virus; it also reduces your risk of having a severe case or winding up with long COVID if you do get it.

So, too, can the deceivingly simple act of keeping up with healthy habits—like exercising regularly, eating nutritious foods, and clocking quality sleep. Maintaining this kind of lifestyle can help you stave off other health issues that could increase your risk of harm from COVID, Harlan Krumholz, PhD, a cardiologist at Yale University and founder of the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), tells SELF. “Given that we will be repetitively exposed to the virus, the best investments we can make are in our baseline health,” he says.

Doing any (or all!) of the above is a big act of compassion for yourself, the people you love, and your greater community. “For the average person, it’s like, ‘Oh, COVID is gone,’ but they’re just not seeing the impact,” Dr. Al-Aly says, noting the invisibility of long COVID symptoms like disorienting brain fog and crushing fatigue. The truth is, in plenty of people, just one more infection could be the difference between living their best life and facing a devastating chronic condition.

[bellshazes]

Taxonomy, like adultery, is a sin - but since it doesn't stop the Bdubs Patented Third Wheel Effect, we won't let it stop our categorizing its manifestations either.

The Third Wheel Effect

Bdubs has been engineering partnership and love triangles since his first SMP over a decade ago. In fact it's the consistency across such a long time that obscures the pattern's specifics: it's easy to tell he likes to play on jealousy and cast himself as a villain, but harder to look past the variations of who is pulled into what role obscures the fact that there's truly a small group of overlapping tropes where the players of each role may change, but fundamentally, it's the Third Wheel Effect all the way down.

The Tropes

WELCOME HOME, CHEATER: The earliest, but also the most flexible, as Bdubs is just as happy to have the B-Team in jeopardy because Genny caught him shacked up with Etho as he is to confront Doc for making out with Ren in his absence. As long as someone's mad with cause, it's good fun.

I NEVER LIKED HIM ANYWAY: In contrast to Welcome Home, Cheater, in this subset it's revealed the presumed original pair was a lie, and the third person has had his heart all along. The willingness of the surprised third party is mostly irrelevant to the high drama unfolding, probably under duress in a death game. In a certain light, the crumbling of Team BEST is not not this.

iS THIS A HAPPY COUPLE?: If you read the last description and thought it was missing handcuffs, you know where this is going. For some reason, partners are shaken up and new ones are established on the threat of death if they don't work together. Whether there's still lingering longing for the new third wheel is an open question. Oddly, tends to backfire with a karmic kind of irony, like Impulse and Bdubs' death in Double Life, or dying to your own bear trap anyway in Survival of the Fittest.

POWER STRUGGLE: Bdubs has a habit of appointing heads of state and then somehow acting affronted when he transitions from election champion to one of many civic advisors. Suddenly the subtext turns sharply toward not just governance but government affairs. The threatening third(s) may be or act oblivious to their alleged love triangle, like Cub's nonchalance at Bdubs' rage while they both worked for Mayor Scar.

THEY DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE I DO: Most often instigated directly by Bdubs, the triangle becomes a game of tug-o-war - or at least Bdubs sees it that way. This is especially likely as a result of a Power Struggle, although Etho gets a less angry, more angsty flavor of this in some Life seasons. Also plays very well with Welcome Home Cheater.

Conclusion

Although Etho is a focal point of many past and present love triangles, sometimes even instigating conflict related to them himself, Bdubs' pattern of needing a third wheel to flesh out relationship dynamics is both broader and more predictable than it might appear. Any combination of players who will yes-and him and let him be a little stupidly vindictive or encourage interpersonal drama is a valid combination. It's Etho happily playing into Bdubs' natural wheelhouse and drawing it out of him pre-emptively that adds to them being a pair with no set configuration but that is more enduring than any other alliances they've made over the years.

[scoops-aboy86]

If You Were Serious (Secret Admirer pt 7)

Okay, so there will be more than seven chapters. For now, please enjoy Steve on painkillers and creative mix tape shenanigans.

(The crossed out thing after the first "Dear" is the first line of an E.)

wc: 3226 / rated: T / set end of/after season 3 / also on ao3

Dear I

Dear Secret Amdirer,

Sorry, painkillers kicking in. I got pretty banged up in the mall, in the fire. Well, less the fire and more getting hit by stuff. Mall fell down. I have ribs and eye and nose, and concussion this time so I had to stay over at Robin’s because someone had to keep an eye on me sleeping and my parents are still out of town. Dustin said I won at upper body injury bingo but I didn’t even know I was playing, that sounds like really a shitty game. 

Anyway, I haven’t been home so I don’t know if you tried to call. If you did, don’t worry!!! I’m not mad. I don’t not like you anymore just because you’re you. And this isn’t the durg drugs talking because I read your letter first before they kicked in, but I have to write this ASAP so it can get to you faster. 

You could’ve called back that night but if you needed some time to breathe I get it, it’s cool. And I kinda had a feeling after that you might be a guy? Like, shit, man, they’d eat you alive in this town. Not me, I learned my lesson after Jonathan wrecked my face after I called him and his family some bad things. I deserved that. Kinda funny how the next year he stole my girlfriend and now I like you. If you could still be interested in somebody who used to be like that. 

I know I like you because when you hung up I was really worried, you sounded like you were breathing really fast, maybe a panic attack? I have those after nightmares now. Robin too. (Don’t worry, we bonded and she’s like my sister now, she says we’re playdoh soulmates

“Oh my god, I knew explaining who Plato was was a bad idea. It’s platonic, Steve, not Play-Doh.”

“Stop reading over my shoulder! … How do you spell that?”

“P-L-A-T-O-N-I-C.”

“Thanks Robbie.”

she says we’re playdoh soulmates platonic soulmates.) I was worried about you and thought maybe you might be a guy but, that wasn’t as important as wanting you to be okay, you know? You still wrote me all those nice letters. You’ve made me feel really good about myself, why does it have to be different just because you’re not a girl? I can’t tell you why Robin knows about this stuff but she says I might be bysix bisexual. Not sure why I need a big fancy word for it when I didn’t have one for liking girls, I just know I care about you a lot and want you to like me. 

And you’re not a coward, you’re very very brave. You reached out first, you went for what you wanted even when I didn’t get it and tried to ask for too much too soon. And then you kept coming back to try again, even though I kept doing that. That’s so brave. 

I’m not feeling so awake anymore so I’m going to stop and have Robin mail this for me. (No way am I going out dressed like this. Her dad wears grandpa shorts dude, it’s pretty bad.) I’ll write more when I’m feeling better. Are you okay? Hope you weren’t anywhere near the mall the other night. Thanks for the rainbow song I will look for it.

Love Steve 

~

Once Eddie is done reading, he screams into his pillow for a different reason. Several, actually. 

First, he’s been so sure for the past week or so that he would never hear from Steve ever again. The only reason he’d checked his mail today was because he should have another zine coming in soon. He didn’t, but there was a yellow envelope with familiar, if slightly messier than usual handwriting on it. And inside that, stationary with colorful geometric shapes along the edges that Eddie now surmises is Robin’s. 

Second, Steve isn’t even writing to tell him to fuck off right to hell. Because yes, Eddie had heard the rumors about Steve calling Jonathan Byers a queer. The irony does send a seam of semi-hysterical laughter through his screams. It’s fine. It’s fine!

Third, Steve hasn’t been avoiding his calls. He just hasn’t been home. He’s hurt, and it sounds like his head and torso took quite a beating. Eddie remembers seeing him around school both times after the other concussions and that had looked bad enough, and that had just been his face. This sounds worse. 

Fourth, Steve is… still interested? Has talked to someone about this and might be bisexual?! Eddie’s never had anyone talk to someone else about him, has always been completely anonymous with a possible option of becoming a dirty little secret. And then the letter ends with ‘Love Steve.’ Love? Love Steve?!

Fifth, Robin knows he sent Steve that ice cream. Eddie doesn’t know what all “platonic soulmates” entails, but what if she tells him? What if she already has?!

Sixth, despite being injured, and having panic attacks apparently, Steve is still asking if he is okay. 

Seventh, beneath his name Steve had also doodled a lopsided happy face with what he can only guess is an ice pack balanced on top. Or… maybe it’s hair. Or some kind of hat. 

Any of these would be enough to make his head spin on their own, but it’s all happening at once and he doesn’t know what to do. So he screams into his pillow for a while longer, kicking his feet for good measure. 

He wants to rush out and find Steve, wherever he is. Wants to call him, but doesn’t know what he would say even if he did know the number to reach him right now. What he could say. Wants to wrap both arms around him and kiss his poor head better. Hell, if he’s turned Steve gay he doesn’t just want, he deserves to make that guy the little spoon for the first time in his life probably and just. Hold him. 

Except… he’s not sure he’s ready for face to face yet. He will be! Soon. Once all the emotions bubbling in his chest have settled a little. And after he’s pinched himself a few million more times just to make sure. But until then…

A thought occurs to him, and Eddie rolls over to frown consideringly up at the ceiling. He’s sent Steve words to comfort and reassure him before, right? Maybe there’s something else he can send, a different way of offering a part of himself to Steve until he works up the nerve to face him for real. 

It’s just going to take him a little time, and some recording equipment. 

~

Dearest Steve,

I hope this address is still okay to write to you while you stay with your friend, but I don’t know where she lives. 

You have no idea 

Holy shit man. Holy shit. Are you serious? No, strike that, you’ve been nothing but genuine in these letters and I trust you, I do. Holy shit though. It’s you. Clearly I never thought I’d actually have a chance, from the way I approached this whole thing, so you must forgive me for how utterly poleaxed, completely flabbergasted, and genuinely gobsmacked I am. 

And shit, I’m still sorry for hanging up on you. That golden years line—and this heavy secret of the most basic fact of who I am weighing on my shoulders, pressing down so hard I couldn’t breathe. I wish I’d just said something. But you’re right, I needed… space? And a push, to work up to writing the last letter I sent you. I got yours the day I put that in the mail, by the way, and that spun me even more because what if you read mine and took it all back?

But you didn’t. You didn’t, sweetheart. I’m still reeling in the best possible way. Again, axed like a pole, flabbers gasted, and gob thoroughly smacked.

Enough about me. More than enough about me. You’re concussed; I ought to wrap that gorgeous head of yours in bubble wrap and offer to fight all your battles henceforth, even against falling buildings. I’m glad you have someone out there who’s looking out for you though. I guess… you’ve told Robin about some things? Maybe these letters? Which is absolutely fine, by the way. It’s great! Fuck knows it wouldn’t have occurred to me to explain what bisexuality is, since I hardly dared to dream so big and only swing the one way myself. You’re an amazingly open-minded person by the way, Steve; I hope you know how rare that is, especially in a place like Hawkins. And Robin too, apparently. Please give her my highest regards, she is an angel among mortals and an inadvertent champion of this sad wet rag of a human being (me). 

At any rate, wishing you the speediest of recoveries and I hope you’re already feeling at least a little better. My condolences on the grandpa shorts, although personally I’m convinced you could wear a trash bag and still look like an Adonis. 

It’s taken me a little longer than I’d like to send this because I made something for you. Enclosed is a tape with some of the songs from our call that you said you liked, played acoustically by yours truly. Rainbow In The Dark is one of them. You mentioned having nightmares, and whenever I had bad dreams as a kid my mom would play for me until I calmed down. She’d hum instead of doing the words, to make it more like a lullaby. I hope it’s at least a decent distraction, sweetheart. 

Let me know if you like it? I can make one of your favorite songs too, just you let me know what they are. In the meantime, I remain, as always—

Your Secret Admirer

~

“You should tell him that you know,” Robin whispers, at some point during the fourth night in a row they’ve ended up crashed on the same bed listening to the Anti-Panic Attack Metal Mix. 

Her dad sleeps like the dead and her mom sleeps with earplugs in because he snores, so they get away with it, but Steve always insists on laying on top of the covers anyway. The friendship is still new, for all that they’re trauma bonded, and he wants to make sure she knows he’s not getting any funny ideas, that he gets the whole lesbian thing, that even though he’s new to being into a dude he’s committed to it and not wishy-washy or greedy or whatever.

He fiddles with a loose string on the blanket for a minute before answering. “No… I don’t want to freak him out again. It’s all going to be on his terms from here on out, no more pushing.”

“Well you’ve got to do something. Come on Steve, I’m invested now. Ask to meet him.”

He rolls his eyes. “What did I just say?” 

Immediately he gives an inward wince, because that came out bitchy. But Robin just snorts and murmurs “Fine,” sounding amused rather than offended, so he relaxes. 

They exist in silence for a while, side by side. Just close enough to not feel alone, drifting on the soft notes and low, rich hum. It’s soothing. 

“What if,” Robin starts, and ignores Steve’s huff. “What if you go somewhere you know he might show, and then give him the opportunity to talk to you?”

“Oh yeah,” he scoffs, “like what?”

“Summer house party.” Her whisper picks up a little in excitement as she warms to her own idea. “I bet we can find one that’s coming up soon. Everyone knows that Munson sells, it’s one of those never invited but always welcome things. Then if he doesn’t come to you, just buy some weed and see if he says anything.”

“No,” Steve whispers back. 

She rolls over to squint at him in the dark. “Just think about it, okay? You wouldn’t be forcing him to do anything, just… providing an opportunity. Come on, Stevie-evie, this is my chance to see a gay love story go right.”

“Vetoing that nickname.” With a sigh, he rolls onto his side too, facing her. “My face still looks like raw hamburger meat, Robs. I have like zero charm right now.”

The swelling has gone down, at least to where he can open his eye again but the bruising remains spectacular. It looks like a sunset exploded across the side of his face, and not in a good way. 

Robin rolls her eyes. “You’re more than just your face, dingus. It wasn’t your rugged jawline, sculpted cheekbones, or pimple-free forehead that wrote those letters, it was you. Steve.”

He goes to wrinkle his nose at the descriptions, but quickly remembers that’s still a bad idea with a swallowed grunt. “Please, never describe me again.”

“I make no promises. And anyway, if you’re willing to try makeup I think we could get most of it covered so no one’ll ever notice. Not at night, anyway.”

That gives him pause. He rolls onto his back again to think about it, staring up at the ceiling of Robin’s bedroom and tracing imaginary constellation lines between the glow in the dark stars she has up there. Beside him, he feels her settling on her back too without having to look. 

It’s not like when he’d found a little brother in Dustin—who has visited pretty much every day during Steve’s convalescence, sometimes with Erica or Mike, Lucas, and Max in tow, spouting off things he’s read in books about the various still-healing injuries. As annoying as it is, Steve appreciates that the little dork took the time to study what’s wrong with him enough to provide armchair diagnoses and give him advice about things that he already knows. 

Robin is… more of a twin than a sister. (Which, yeah, twin sister, whatever. That’s not the point.) They’re on the same wavelength in a way he’s never experienced before, not with Tommy or Carol or even Nancy. The closest thing Steve has ever had to this was during basketball games, in the heat of a play where everyone on the team knew where everyone was and where they’d be and how to work together as a unit, perfectly in sync. Only with Robin, it’s all the time. Sometimes they can even finish each other’s sentences—though they try not to do that around her parents, in the interest of not wanting them to think they’re a couple. 

They’re more like a pair of bonded kittens at the pound, Robin says. Must be adopted together. (“Okay, but why can’t we be dogs? Dogs are cooler.” “Because, dingus, you have a one-hundred-and-twenty-seven step hair and skin routine and you’re incredibly aloof when you want to be. I could go either way, but you’re one hundred percent cat.”)

“Maybe,” he whispers finally. 

He’s not sure she’s still awake—he’s not sure he’s still awake, with the soothing music lulling him back to a calm he hadn’t felt even before he’d gone to bed the first time. But he wants to think she hears it, just like he wants to think that he’ll run into Eddie and find out what it’s like to hold his hand, maybe even kiss him, all in the same night. He’s worn lip gloss, he can deal with a little makeup. 

“Maybe I’ll go.”

~

Dear Secret Admirer,

Thank you for the tape, it’s perfect. It helps me get back to sleep because it feels like you’re there, watching over me. Like nothing bad can happen. Sometimes the nightmares still come back after but I think it’s getting better. It takes a while, you know? Last time, after the after Billy after my last concussion it took a while to stop having bad dreams. I guess the mind needs time to heal too, even if the stuff that happens to it isn’t as “real” as breaking a nose or a rib. Who knew?

I really am serious, yeah. Even though I’m me. Whatever that means. I don’t really know what to do with myself or what I want right now. (Except you. Kind of cheesy, but maybe you like that about me? I guess it’s something I always tried to hide before because the guys would’ve made fun of me, fuck knows Tommy did all of junior year, but I kind of like the idea that maybe you saw it anyway.) Once my face heals up me and Robin are going to try and get jobs together somewhere else because we’re cats that have to stick together or we’ll get stressed out and claw all the furniture. Other than that I don’t know what I want to do except leave Hawkins someday. But stick around to make sure it’s to see the kids graduate. Dustin’s starting high school in the fall, maybe you could keep an eye out for him? Curly hair, no collarbones, ego bigger than the whole state, total nerd but in a good way, even if he’s sometimes a butthead about it. He plays that game with dragons and those weird looking dice, do you know it? Him and his friends Mike and Lucas are kind of bully magnets. (Max is starting freshman year too but she can take care of herself in that department.) They’ve all been pretty down after the mall and with Will and moving away and everything. Erica, Lucas’ little sister, I guess I’m her “babysitter” now too, is still in middle school but I don’t know if she’d be glad or insulted if I waited around to see her graduate. She can take care of herself too. She and Dustin were with us for most of the Starcourt burning down and it was a lot, but kids are resilient. I don’t think she gets nightmares, not that she would ever admit to anyone if she did even though in her own words “we’ve bled together.” She’s getting into the nerdy dice game too and is planning her campaign for President of the USA as soon as she turns, what, 40? 50? Whatever age you have to be before you can do that. I’ll probably still be in a town like Hawkins with another lame retail job by then, but she’s got my vote. She’d do a hell of a lot better job than Regan, that’s for sure. 

Is your mom My mom never sang to

Also, you are really good at guitar, man. I still think about your hands, I bet you have long fingers. Really… What’s a word for ‘good with his fingers’? I think about that sometimes. I don’t really know what kind of stuff two guys can do together except the obvious but I think about that a lot. I want you to play me like your guitar. I’d let you fight my battles too, at least until my ribs get back to normal and then we can both fight both of our battles. You know I’d do that for you, right? If you ever need me. I really like these letters. I really like you.

Love, Steve

P.S. If you were serious about making me another tape (which you really don’t have to, this was already going above and beyond), my favorite songs are…

Tag list (and if you missed the earlier chapters check the "#secret admirer steddie" tag on my blog): @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @tangerinesteve @steviewashere

@cryingglightningg @theresebelivett @sleepy-steve @rozzieroos @lunaraindrop

@just-my-latest-hyperfixation @wheneverfeasible @swimmingbirdrunningrock @yesdangerpls @matchingbatbites

@ihavekidneys @p0lybl4nkk @grtwdsmwhr @cheesedoctor @whalesharksart

@thetinymm @envyadams-vs-me @practicallybegging @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @dauntlessdiva

@nerdyglassescheeseychick @fuzzyduxk @chaosgremlinmunson @greatwerewolfbeliever @goosesister

@dolphincliffs @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @beckkthewreck @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao @kurofuckingshi16

@bookworm0690 @millseyes-world @live-laugh-love-dietrich @the-tenth-mus-e

[everythingne]

out of the woods — LS2

After a short break during her time as a Ferrari reserve driver, loud-mouthed driver Dhanishka Dubey resurfaces when she moves up to f1 under Ferrari. She’s back to terrorize her ex, none other than Logan Sargeant when she conquers him once again this season, just like before, just like always.

But when faced with your first love, and your only love, it's hard to let those feelings past. Especially when a relationship was prematurely ended, especially when she's everything you aren't, especially when you never got over his love.

logan sargeant x ferrari!ex!oc

fc: iffat marash (adult) hamda al qubaisi (young)

warnings/notes: mentions of past car accidents, multiple incorrect dates, butchered pasts for logan and oscar, [] used to denote other languages being spoken, yes the title is taylor swift ok, the oc is indian, however the author is NOT, pls pls pls correct me on any inaccuracies ♥️ let me pretend logan didn't have a bad season by putting him on par w oscar. this is for MY mental health !!

(part two)

14 NOVEMBER, INSTAGRAM

scuderiaferrari made a new post!

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, logansargeant, and 238k others…

scuderiaferrari: welcoming dhanishka dubey to the f1 team from her past position of reserve driver this season! she will be the first ever bahraini f1 driver, and the third woman to take to the grid. dhaniska is currently sponsored by @ monsterenergy and @ colourpopcosmetics, she’s bringing a bright, energized feel to our team this season!

dhanishkadubey: so so excited to be here!

charlesleclerc: sometimes i still hear carlos… singing in the distance…

⤷ dhaniskadubey: smooooooooth operatoooorrr

⤷ carlossainz: you both act like i died, i just changed teams.

⤷ charlesleclerc: rip smooth operator &lt;;/3

user2: this is so a jab at williams .

⤷ user3: how ??

⤷ user2: @ user3 dhanishka is logans ex girlfriend

⤷ user3: OOOO

⤷ user4: NO WAY???

oscarpiastri: pls don’t run me off the track again (i will beg if i have to)

⤷ dhanishkadubey: no promises ossie ♥️ (get on ur knees)

⤷ oscarpiastri: AYO??

danielriccardio: DANNY 2!!!

⤷ dhanishkadubey: DANNY 1!!!!

dhanishkadubey made a post!

liked by charlesleclerc, logansargeant, landonorris, and 298k others...

dhanishkadubey: might be the prettiest thing i have ever worn?? happy diwali to u all and a (late) happy 22 to me ♥️ (yea, i AM feeling 22.)

tagged: anyadubey

anyadubey: ily&lt;3

user1: MOTHER IS MOTHERING EVERYONE!!

liamlawson: u look like a very nice disco ball ! happy diwali

⤷ dhanishkadubey: u look like a very nice young man ! thank u!

user2: god we don't need this conceited bitch on the track.

maxverstappen: happy birthday, happy diwali, and welcome to f1!

⤷ dhanishkadubey: thank you max !! looking forward to challenging you this seaon :)!

user3: shes going to get someone killed

14 NOVEMBER, TWITTER

28 FEBRUARY, BAHRAIN

"It's a pre-season dinner, how badly can it go?" Anya asks me, eyes darting down to my sari and then back to my face as she works on pinning the pleats to my shoulder as I adjust them and secure their positioning.

When she’s done, she squeezes my arms as she stands next to me in her much more casual western clothing. We look like opposites, me in a bright red sari and her wearing a black dior sweatshirt and jeans. She grins, “you look stunning by the way."

"Thanks, Anya," I give her a little side hug, passing her to continue fixing myself up in the mirror ahead of us. I huff as I adjust my earrings and bracelets, tacking the former down with eyelash glue, "I just worry if like… Logan says something.”

“You’re gonna let a man, a white man no less, make you worry?” Anya paused, hands on her hips as she looks at me in the mirror of our parents home, the little cookie cutter complex we lived in the corner plot in.

“Plus what would he even say?” Anya crosses her arms, “that whole thing wasn’t even your fault.”

“I know but… I was still Trident’s golden child when it happened. People are always gonna assume I had something to do with it. I’m lucky the FIA didn’t take anything away from me, I’m honestly lucky the team admitted I had nothing to do with it.”

“Does Logan blame you?” Anya leans on the doorframe to my bathroom, “because that’s the only opinion that matters.”

“He might. I… it made him break up with me. So, I don’t know.” I sigh, “but it’s just one guy, I still have Oscar, Charles, Carlos and Daniel.”

“I still don’t get Danny.” Anya muses, and when she sees my confusion she waves a hand, “No, not him, as your nickname.”

“Oh, a reporter called me ‘Dan-ish-ka’ and not ‘Dun-ish-kah’ and someone on Twitter thought she called me Danny and it just—rolled from there.” I laughed softly, turning back to Anya as I motioned for her to move out of the door so I could grab my bag and such. She did with ease, moving to grab the keys to my (but hers when I wasn’t home) Porsche Taycan.

“And, that’s when there were rumors I was joining Red Bulls Junior team as well, instead of Ferrari’s, so it all just kept stacking.” I grabbed my purse off my bed and dropped in a small perfume container, my lipstick, and a few other essentials, “people called me ‘Danny 2’ and it got to Daniel Ricciardo himself, and that’s how we started talking.”

“Oh that’s actually so cute.” Anya grins, following me out to the kitchen where my mother is forcing my father to help her make biryani while she’s fixing up the bar for a party they’re having tonight.

“Alright, [Momma, Dad, how do I look?] Do we like the red one better than the silver one? Anya helped me pick this one out, [she thinks it’s some sort of new style with the solid color.]” I call in the usual mix of Marathi, Arabic, and English out household uses. As I pause in the kitchen, Anya’s fixing my sari out of her own nervous habit. My mother gasps, pushing past my father to take me into her arms with a bright smile.

“Oh! Dhanishka, wow! [You look amazing! I love this one,] is it new?” My mother looks me over and I nod, seeing the hint of my father’s smile from the kitchen that makes my heart sing. He rarely showed his support on his face, but since everything with Trident and the subsequent fall out and mental break, he tried his hardest to show his love for me and Anya. He did a good job.

“Yeah, [it’s from Manish?]” I say, turning back to Anya who nods.

“All of my girls, [so stunning.]” My father grinned, wiping his hands off before giving me a loose hug as to not get anything from his hands on my outfit, “Do you need anything to eat before you go?”

“No, [dad], I’ll be fine. Thank you.” I squeeze his shoulder, and my mother makes me stand back so she can take about a dozen photos of everyone with me. Once the photos are done, we wave goodbye, and it’s off to the restaurant they’ve picked.

I would’ve settled with anything in Manama, honestly but eating at somewhere down by the Four Seasons is perfect.

Anya drops me off to the front of the restaurant and I slip in, greeting the staff and letting them point me in the right direction. My hands are slick as I pull out my phone from my bag, Charles letting me know he was coming in right behind me, and I turn to see him, Max, and Carlos.

“Dhanishka!” Charles grins, leaning down to give me a quick hug, “Oh, this is the one you sent me? It looks nice.”

“Thank you. Figured I’d come in looking like I at least belong in the country I’m in, since I don’t quite fit in with the people yet.” I shrug, fiddling with the red fabric in my hands, feeling the beading against my knuckles. Catching my worry, Charles turns to the two who awkwardly greet me with half hugs and congratulations on driving along with them this season.

Once everyone’s stepped back, Charles nodded to them, “You guys go ahead, we’ll see you in there.”

Carlos and Max move behind a curtain and into a doorway, but Charles grabs my arm gently and pulls me back into a hallway leading to the bathroom, hands finding mine and squeezing them.

“Stop overthinking this, it’s a room with a bunch of stupid men. Basically the same thing you’ve been dealing with for like—over ten years.” Charles looks at me and I huff, pulling my hands back from him and fixing my hair for the third time since we’d gotten to the hallway.

“I just—what if someone brings up the crash? Or me racing with Trident?” I stammer and he shakes his head.

“I’ll deal with it. If anything happens, I’ll help you. I’m in your corner.” Charles takes my hands once more, squeezes them, and then lets go of them, “now, are you ready?”

“As long as you’re next to me, yeah… yeah I can do this.” I nod and he grins, moving ahead to open the door for me. I follow him, taking a slow breath before nodding and moving into the little reserved dining room. At the sight of me, a few conversations halt and I scan the room before noticing Oscar moving away from Logan to come greet me.

Logan’s… the same. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, crinkles in the corners of his eyes and a permanent smile line as his lips fall from a grin when he spots me. I take him in, his crisp blue suit with the jacket discarded—sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tie a bit loose and fuck, he looks confident and calm. He’s nothing like me in this moment, almost like we’ve swapped.

“Dhanishka.” Oscar steps in my eyeline, breaking the stare down between me and the American boy, and I smile at the Australian as he gently takes me in a hug.

“Good to see you, Oscar.” I close my eyes in the hug, and he steps back.

“Nice—fuck what’s the word—sa..” He holds up a hand when I go to tell him and then snaps, “Saree!”

“I’ve trained you well.” I laugh, complimenting his black suit, noting the decorative papaya colored inside of his jacket and little McLaren ‘81’ lapel. He says Lando has the matching ‘4’ and I make some joke that’s lost over Daniel chanting my name as he comes over to give me a tight hug.

“How’s my mini-me?” He asks, making sure the beading doesn’t hook on his suit as he steps back, I laugh and tell him I’m good, leaving out the part where my ex has been staring at me since I came in the door and I’m about half a second away from yelling at him to look elsewhere.

Luckily, Alex pulls Logan’s attention away— flashing me a small apologetic smile before bringing him over to the little minibar on the opposite side of the room.

“Do you drink?” Charles asks, hand on my elbow and I nod. My parents were lax with drinking and stuff as long as it wasn’t a holiday where I shouldn’t be. He grins and guides me to my seat, Oscar, Daniel and now Carlos tagging along. As I'm settling down to sit, Oscar on my left side with Lando on his left, Charles asking me what I’d like to drink. After a quick peruse of the menu, I settle on a margarita, and he whisks off to the bar to get it while Daniel sits across from me.

“You’re nervous about Logan, aren’t you?” Daniel leans across the table as he speaks, Carlos sitting next to him and taking a sip of a drink. Lando leans to ask Oscar something in a hushed tone besides me, and my eyes flicker to their whispers momentarily before settling back on Daniel.

“I just don’t want someone to bring up Trident, for either of our sakes, its a sore subject.” I huff, looking around the room, everyones clumped off in the groups I expect to see, a few stragglers between each group either drifting to the table or the bar.

"I'm sure if someone tries, it'll get shut down pretty quick." Oscar turns to me after filling Lando in. Charles sits on my other side, setting down my margarita and taking a sip of whatever drink he'd been coerced into drinking. I assume Max had something to do with it when I eye the gin and tonic in his hand.

"I know, I know. I just worry." I hum, bringing the margarita to my lips as a few more people settle. Logan is sitting a few seats down on the other side of the table, giving us both a clear view of the other. I know it's not intentional, but it makes my skin crawl.

Oscar has Lando switch seats with him, claiming he doesn't wanna hear whatever the two will shout over him, but I know it's so that he can help distract Logan. I remind myself tot hank him later.

I set down my margarita glass, standing up to formally greet Yuki as he comes to sit next to Daniel and I notice Logan's eyes firm on the glass. As I sit back down, I know why he's staring and my cheeks warm. Red lipstick stains the edge of the glass, something that I used to use to stain his lips back when we'd sneak kisses between Trident and HWA's paddocks and in hotel elevators.

And he might have had power over me because I was afraid of causing a fight at my first event with the F1 drivers, but being civil and lying down never got me anywhere in racing. So, when his eyes linger on my lips, I 'accidentally' make a show of pulling out my purse and setting it on my lap. My dark red nails clicking along the zipper as I pull it open and pull out a compact mirror and the same tube of red lipstick he'd bought be back in 2021. Logan bought it days before the crash, a Valentino refillable lipstick, more expensive than I deserved. He'd proudly given it to me, claiming his mom had the idea after my long term lipstick had finally run out. It was still shade 22R. The only shade I ever wore.

Even if Logan had bought the lipstick, I still liked it. It looked nice on my lips, complimented my skin, transferred just enough for my liking.

Across the table, Logan's eyes dilate in a sort of recognition as I swipe the tube across my lower lip. My dark eyes watching his light ones out of my peripheral as I watch myself in the my little red compact Valentino mirror. I'd bought it since it matched the tube of lipstick, and I know he recognizes that too. His bottom lip disappears under his teeth in a soft hiss. I know he knew exactly what lipstick it was. He'd bought be the first one, I just got it refilled after.

And if I purposefully fuck it up, using my finger to fix it just to rile him into silence as he looks away flustered, no one else comments on it. Except a cheeky grin from Daniel who muffles a laugh into his palm, pretending Carlos said something to him.

I have the upperhand at the moment, and it eases my panic. Charles looks over at me, sending me an odd look as a click my mirror shut a little louder than I probably should, but a just send him a tiny smile in response and he doesn't question it as I drop both items into my Coach purse and hang it on the back of my chair once more.

Once everyone's settled, it's Max who stands and thanks everyone for coming and thanks Charles for helping him organize the little dinner. Menus are passed around by two waitresses who speak in soft voices as they explain the specials to us in groups, and then we're off to pick our food and mingle. I settle on a 'keto bowl' type dish with salmon and a small appetizer of these little potato wedge things Daniel claims I have to split with him.

And I get a stronger drink because each time Logan even looks in my direction it makes a knot form in my stomach.

"Are you gonna ignore him all night?" Lando turns to murmur to me when we're getting our appetizers. It's been twenty minutes of odd tension and I can tell Lando's getting a little irritated by it.

"I've ignored him for three years. I can do it now." I say back, a little sharp, but when I see Lando's not asking out of irritation but rather worry, I soften and whisper, "It's fine. I..."

Trailing off, my eyes find Logan's accidentally, and it's like I can't look away. It's the second time we've made eye contact, and maybe its the margarita swirling in my stomach and pumping liquid courage through my veins, but I can't look away. It's like we're trapped for a moment, breaths caught in our throats. His voice fails in whatever story he's cheerily recounting to Oscar and Alex, and I see the former look towards where Logan's staring and he makes a bit of a worried expression.

I swallow, Pierre screeching in laughter pulling us from the moment, and I turn back to Lando as Logan rips his eyes away to look at Oscar.

"It's just... hard." I muse and Lando nods, he doesn't say anything about Logan after that as I turn back to Charles who gives me a tiny reassuring nod and then introduces me to the aforementioned Pierre who's come to stand behind us. I keep myself turned away from Logan for the rest of the meal, appetizers swallowed quickly between Daniel and I, Yuki and I sharing drinks and stories as we wait for dinner, I'm at least seven drinks in and happily going for an eighth.

My high tolerance doesn't fail me, but my bladder is close to doing so. With as much tipsy grace as I can muster, I slip out and down the hall to the bathroom, and when I'm done there I stop to freshen myself up in a mirror in the hall. I reapply my perfume, check my teeth, and wipe off a faint smudge of lipstick on my nose from when I had taken a rather large bite and smushed my lip up.

I hear the door click shut and glance over, throat going dry at the sight of Logan. I turn back to the mirror, digging in my purse for my lipstick once more, and he silently passes behind me without a word.

Somehow, that hurts more than anything.

But it's not like I'm making myself available to speak, so I finish tidying up my lipstick, and go back into the room. I grab more drinks for most of the table, thanking the bartender who comes around to help me bring all the drinks to the table.

Entrees arriving at the table passes me in a blur, I'm somehow shoved in a story with Yuki, Zhou, George, Esteban, and Max. I don't even know what they're really saying as everyone's laughing and speaking over one another, but I just enjoy being included.

I eat slow, laughing along with Daniel when he pops into whatever debate Lando, Carlos, and Charles, have pulled him into. And when the hyperactivity dies down as more of us get a bit sluggish from drinking, I eat a bit quicker to finish up my food so it helps my stomach have time to digest before I leave and helps my tipsiness lessen.

I check my phone, it's about ten thirty when we finish eating, and then it's kinda just a free for all hang out for a while. A few people start trickling out after it hits midnight. I know some of them have training tomorrow, as do I, but I kinda can already tell I'm not getting much rest tonight. Alex leaves in a group of about half the table, and I'm helping Charles and Max clean up as the rest slowly trickle out. Eventually I'm escorting Charles to a car as he waves goodbye to Max with a drunken laugh on his lips. Once the driver is on his way, I pluck my phone out of my purse and look through my messages. Anya's on her way, running late due to having to park her car far away since we had a lot of guests at the house.

"You shouldn't... ah," A familiar voice chimes and I look over to where Logan stands. He's far enough away to not be intruding, but close enough to shift towards me a bit as some random men pass behind us on the nearly vacant sidewalk, "You shouldn't stand out here alone, Dhanishka."

Him saying my name makes my heart leap into my throat and I pocket my phone, speaking gently, "Thanks for the concern, but I assure you I'll be fine. Anya's just down the road."

"Still, you know my mom would beat my ass if she knew I left a girl out here alone." He pauses, "Especially if it's you." And his voice trails off. For years his mother had helped raise me, my parents still spoke with her frequently—hell, she and her husband were at my house right now. And I know he’s right. But I can’t say anything past the bump in my throat. My silence makes him shift as he adjusts his grip on his jacket over his shoulder. It was an exceptionally chilly night for some odd reason. A cool breeze ripples across my shoulders. Bahrain was a desert, the lowest we got was 10 degrees celsius, nothing like the zero it was settled at now.

"You can stay." I say after a while and he visibly relaxes, still watching me out of the corner of his eye. The 'few minutes away' Anya texted me feels like a joke as the time stretches on and on and the cold bite of the air gets worse. I try using my saree as a bit of a scarf, but the red fabric is thin and does little to help.

After ten minutes, my teeth start to chatter as the street empties of most people and cars. It's a short hour or so lull when not much will happen at all before people start morning commutes. Beside me, I hear Logan huff. He moves closer and I look over to see him settle his jacket across my shoulders.

"Don't need you getting sick before the first race." He says softly, now far closer than he has been all day. I know I thank him, because I feel the words leave my throat, but I can't hear it over the blood rushing past my ears.

He'd broken it off with me, I never loved another. I still wore the same shade of lipstick and the same perfume, the same songs played on my Spotify whenever I had a chance. Taylor Swift blasting in my ears on long drives, Eminem for parties, Beyonce or Shakira for hyping myself up. I followed the Miami Dolphins loosely because I knew he loved them, and after all this time I found my heart still could be held in his hands. No matter how hard I tried to ignore the feeling of blush spreading across my chilly skin.

After a moment of us just staring at each other, the dim light being broken by passing cars, he whispers, "You can't ignore me forever. As much as you want to, the media is gonna stick us together the first opportunity they have. And... I know I remind you of Trident. I know I remind you of that 'crashgate' shit and maybe I should since you took my victory away."

"You and I both know I had nothing to do with that accident." I turn back to Logan, now fully facing him. I feel suffocated, the scent of his cologne on his jacket covering my perfume, like some sort of silencer washed over my voice. He still wears the same brand from back in the day, from when I stole his jackets and hoodies rather than being gifted them. It felt like a sick metaphor. Somehow we were the same after all this time, yet we would never get to be that again.

"Oh, come on." Logan laughs through a taught frown, threading a hand through his hair, "Now, I can believe that your team principal planned for your teammate to crash into me if I was ahead of you without you knowing. But when they told you to let your teammate overtake you for no reason, you didn't stop to ask why?"

"I did ask why, did you read the FIA reports?" I say back, wind whipping across the street and blowing my hair in front of my eyes like a blindfold.

"Or how about when the accident happened? Why did you keep racing?" He asks, sharp, and I can tell it's something thats been brewing. Years of silence on my end after he'd snapped with tears in his big blue eyes, telling me he 'couldn't do this anymore' and I let him walk away.

But I held my ground, as I always had to do. On my own once again, ostracized, I step closer and rip my hair away from my face in frustration that it wont stay back, "I was told I had to, Logan! I begged them to let me know what had happened to you and they refused! I didn't care about Viscaal! I cared about you!"

"Then why did you let me leave?!" He shouts and the whole street goes silent. We breathe heavy, almost chest to chest, eyes boring into each other with unshed tears. It's a gaping hole in my chest he claws at, trying to scrounge up answers I've buried six feet in the ground. I hear the sound of a car pulling up, I know its Anya without looking.

"What was I supposed to do?" I whisper, ripping his jacket off my shoulders and shoving it into his chest, "Beg you to come back? Apologize a hundred times? You didn't want to see me, you didn't care. I let you go because you wanted to go, and I'm fine with that."

He stares at me and I sniffle, cursing when I realize I've let the tears fall, and I continue, "I never would've let them do that to you if I knew. If I knew, I would've gone right to the FIA, you know that. Don't drag my name like the media already has, please. I can't take it from you of all people, Logan."

We stand in silence for a few more moments and then I turn around, passing in front of Anya's car to get in. I pause with my hand on the handle, watching Logan watch me with this expression in his eyes I can't read. Maybe I was wrong, maybe Logan and I weren't the same anymore, but I don't stop to think too hard as I rip open the door and throw myself down. When I slam the door, Anya puts the car in drive without pausing to ask anything, and pulls away as I desperately try to not watch Logan in the rearview.

"Can we just... drive?" I ask after a long silence and my sister nods, cracking the windows to let the cold air circle around us. I take a slow breath and tilt my head up, swallowing down my emotions until I feel a cool numbness roll across my skin. A familiar numbness.

It's going to be bad again, I can feel it in my chest.

--

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@struggling-with-delia

[nasa]

12 Great Gifts from Astronomy

This is a season where our thoughts turn to others and many exchange gifts with friends and family. For astronomers, our universe is the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve learned so much about it, but every question we answer leads to new things we want to know. Stars, galaxies, planets, black holes … there are endless wonders to study.

In honor of this time of year, let’s count our way through some of our favorite gifts from astronomy.

Our first astronomical gift is … one planet Earth

So far, there is only one planet that we’ve found that has everything needed to support life as we know it — Earth. Even though we’ve discovered over 5,200 planets outside our solar system, none are quite like home. But the search continues with the help of missions like our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). And even you (yes, you!) can help in the search with citizen science programs like Planet Hunters TESS and Backyard Worlds.

Our second astronomical gift is … two giant bubbles

Astronomers found out that our Milky Way galaxy is blowing bubbles — two of them! Each bubble is about 25,000 light-years tall and glows in gamma rays. Scientists using data from our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered these structures in 2010, and we're still learning about them.

Our third astronomical gift is … three types of black holes

Most black holes fit into two size categories: stellar-mass goes up to hundreds of Suns, and supermassive starts at hundreds of thousands of Suns. But what happens between those two? Where are the midsize ones? With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, scientists found the best evidence yet for that third, in between type that we call intermediate-mass black holes. The masses of these black holes should range from around a hundred to hundreds of thousands of times the Sun’s mass. The hunt continues for these elusive black holes.

Our fourth and fifth astronomical gifts are … Stephan’s Quintet

When looking at this stunning image of Stephan’s Quintet from our James Webb Space Telescope, it seems like five galaxies are hanging around one another — but did you know that one of the galaxies is much closer than the others? Four of the five galaxies are hanging out together about 290 million light-years away, but the fifth and leftmost galaxy in the image below — called NGC 7320 — is actually closer to Earth at just 40 million light-years away.

Our sixth astronomical gift is … an eclipsing six-star system

Astronomers found a six-star system where all of the stars undergo eclipses, using data from our TESS mission, a supercomputer, and automated eclipse-identifying software. The system, called TYC 7037-89-1, is located 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus and the first of its kind we’ve found.

Our seventh astronomical gift is … seven Earth-sized planets

In 2017, our now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope helped find seven Earth-size planets around TRAPPIST-1. It remains the largest batch of Earth-size worlds found around a single star and the most rocky planets found in one star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on a planet’s surface.

Further research has helped us understand the planets’ densities, atmospheres, and more!

Our eighth astronomical gift is … an (almost) eight-foot mirror

The primary mirror on our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is approximately eight feet in diameter, similar to our Hubble Space Telescope. But Roman can survey large regions of the sky over 1,000 times faster, allowing it to hunt for thousands of exoplanets and measure light from a billion galaxies.

Our ninth astronomical gift is … a kilonova nine days later

In 2017, the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and European Gravitational Observatory’s Virgo detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. Less than two seconds later, our telescopes detected a burst of gamma rays from the same event. It was the first time light and gravitational waves were seen from the same cosmic source. But then nine days later, astronomers saw X-ray light produced in jets in the collision’s aftermath. This later emission is called a kilonova, and it helped astronomers understand what the slower-moving material is made of.

Our tenth astronomical gift is … NuSTAR’s ten-meter-long mast

Our NuSTAR X-ray observatory is the first space telescope able to focus on high-energy X-rays. Its ten-meter-long (33 foot) mast, which deployed shortly after launch, puts NuSTAR’s detectors at the perfect distance from its reflective optics to focus X-rays. NuSTAR recently celebrated 10 years since its launch in 2012.

Our eleventh astronomical gift is … eleven days of observations

How long did our Hubble Space Telescope stare at a seemingly empty patch of sky to discover it was full of thousands of faint galaxies? More than 11 days of observations came together to capture this amazing image — that’s about 1 million seconds spread over 400 orbits around Earth!

Our twelfth astronomical gift is … a twelve-kilometer radius

Pulsars are collapsed stellar cores that pack the mass of our Sun into a whirling city-sized ball, compressing matter to its limits. Our NICER telescope aboard the International Space Station helped us precisely measure one called J0030 and found it had a radius of about twelve kilometers — roughly the size of Chicago! This discovery has expanded our understanding of pulsars with the most precise and reliable size measurements of any to date.

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with what’s going on in the cosmos every day. You can learn more about the universe here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[therainscene]

I’m obsessed with @wheelersboy’s theory that Mike thinks Will is in love with El. It’s one of those takes that’s so simple, yet so perfectly explains every odd little detail you couldn’t quite account for before, that you know you’re on to a winner.

I always thought it was bizarre that the Willel reunion at NINA was framed in blatant love triangle imagery:

If this was supposed to be yet another reminder that the sad widdle gay boy has fee-fees for his best friend, we’d expect him to be gazing at Mike or otherwise looking conflicted at both of them. But he isn’t. His steady, adoring gaze is for El only. Yes, he loves her, but that love is strictly fraternal, so why the romance symbolism?

Is it straight-bait? This scene comes after his thinly-veiled love confession to Mike (in the same episode, no less), and the Duffers and Noah both made a point of confirming that Will was gay in post-vol.2 interviews, so making the audience think that Will is in love with El clearly wasn’t the intention here.

The Willel romance-coding isn’t for the audience -- it’s for Mike.

We often joke about Mike being crushed that Will didn’t laugh at his vomit green socks, but follow Will’s gaze -- it’s a little hard to see in the still image, but he’s staring at El, checking to see if she’s going to heed his advice. Mike's discomfort isn’t because he’s upset that Will didn’t like his joke, it’s because he doesn’t understand the weird tension between these two and is frustrated that his attempt to lighten the mood didn’t dispel it.

Mike’s smart enough to correctly connect the dots by the time Will starts sobbing in the van though: Will is destroying himself in his efforts to be supportive of the relationship between his best friend and the person he’s in love with.

But heteronormativity and a severe inferiority complex lead him to draw the wrong conclusion -- he thinks he’s the best friend and El is the one Will’s in love with, and that gets confirmed in his mind when he catches them making goo-goo eyes at each other at NINA.

And not once, after figuring it out, does he get jealous about it -- he guides El into Will’s arms at NINA, he looks conflicted as hell during the “I love you” monologue as Will hovers over his shoulder -- he just wants them to be happy and is prepared to put his own feelings aside to make it happen, even though it would hurt him terribly to do so. Exactly the same fucking thing Will is doing. It’s utterly farcical. I love this theory so much.

I’d like to springboard off this by taking a look at what it implies about S5.

Between Will’s history with Vecna and the Wonder Twins foreshadowing--

--it’s looking pretty likely that Will and El are going to be spending a significant amount of time together next season.

So we can already see that conditions are perfect for Mike to go through a similar arc as Will did in S4: being a third wheel between his best friend and the person he’s in love with and feeling like he can never truly be more than a third wheel, leading him to sacrifice himself in an effort to support what he thinks they have together.

Mike is very much at risk of doing something stupidly self-harming in S5 -- this is the same kid who jumped off a cliff to protect Dustin’s baby teeth, after all. He feels like he has no value if he isn’t needed by Superman. And there’s a goddamn mind-reading despair demon stalking his friend group.

Of course, it’ll all work out in the end. He’ll be saved at the last moment, the truth will be tearfully revealed, and we’ll finally get that big, dramatic, affirming kiss for our OTP.

You might have noticed that everything I’ve said in this analysis so far is consistent with either Byler or Milevn being endgame.

Many Milevns and GA members don’t just believe that Milevn will triumph over Byler -- they believe there isn’t any conflict between Milevn and Byler in the first place. The lack of evidence that Mike isn’t into boys is meaningless to the heteronormative mindset -- he’s the protagonist and dating a girl, therefore he’s straight, therefore Will’s hopes are dead in the water, therefore Mike has no romantic dilemma to solve.

By introducing a misunderstanding in which Mike imagines that his best friend is competing for his girlfriend -- couching his dilemma in relatable heterosexual terms -- the audience will be forced to accept that Mike is experiencing a distressing internal conflict involving Will and romance that won’t be resolved until the queer truth comes out.

The GA felt bad for Will in S4 because they assumed there was nothing he could do about it, but they’ll be tearing their hair out with frustration at Mike in S5 -- “you’re wrongly assuming he’s straight, you idiot! Just talk to him and this will all be cleared up!!”

It would be an absolutely genius way of getting the audience to question heteronormativity without them even realizing they’re questioning heteronormativity.

Once Mike’s queerness is revealed, the parallels between his arc and Will’s will suddenly become clear, and the audience will realize that, despite his straight-passing invisibility, Mike was just the other side of the same gay coin Will was on all along.

[Part 2]

[genericpuff]

The Mishandling of LO’s S3 Mi(n)season Hiatus - Part 3 2/2

ALRIGHT. THIS IS THE LAST PART. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

I had completely forgotten how long the mi(n)season finale for S3 was, but I suppose it makes sense considering it was operating as the true cliffhanger before the 4 month break.

If you haven't read the first 3 parts of this episodic breakdown, please go check these ones out first:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 1/2

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

CAUTION: THIS IS PART 2 OF THE THIRD PART OF A 3 + 1 PART SERIES IN WHICH I WILL BE SPOILING MUCH OF EPISODES 251-253. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS TOPICS SURROUNDING SEXUAL ASSAULT. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. BRACE YOURSELF.

We've gotten delusional Leuce. We've gotten erasure of the SA. We've gotten a complete bastardization of the original myths that this story got its claim to fame on. The dread has set in, and all I want to do is get off Mr Bones' Wild Ride. But we have one more stretch of mind-numbing track to go, because the reveal of Persephone starting winter was not the end, oh no. The true cliffhanger of this episode - upon which the fans and critics alike have sat on for 4 months - proves that when we think Rachel has gotten crazy enough in this circus she calls a "retelling", she manages to prove that yes, she can make things even crazier, and no, you will not have a good time.

Ironically, despite that opening, I actually have a lot less to say about this last part of Episode 253 than I did about the first part. Obviously there's no feasible way to top "Persephone causes winter", but this episode does come rather close in its absurdity. Ultimately, if these essays have proven anything, it's just how much Rachel retcons things, to such an extent now that she seems to be retconning or outright forgetting information that she established just a handful of episodes prior. You'll see what I mean here as we go along in this.

As soon as it's hinted at that Persephone has started winter, we cut away to Apollo. Because, as per LO tradition, we can't spend longer than 10-15 panels on a single scene.

Already this seems like... really odd framing.

This is Apollo. A character who has been a villain since basically the beginning of the comic, when he sexually assaulted Persephone. This is not something that's up for debate. This is not something that can be refuted, as much as the comic may try to erase it or twist it into something else.

And yet, the vibe I get from this is, "Misled but good-deep-down character being taken advantage of by a sinister being." This isn't the type of framing we should be seeing around a character like Apollo.

I mentioned it ages ago in my post about the SA erasure that it really feels like Rachel is slyly trying to make Apollo empathetic, from giving us an entire episode in his perspective to adding extra panels into the books to making Persephone weirdly reminiscent of feelings for Apollo that she never had.

One thing I also touch on in that post is how Apollo is framed against Zeus. Zeus is also a villain character for much of the series, and even after he's "redeemed", the fanbase still considers him largely to be an antagonistic force. So to have Apollo be trying to take down Zeus comes across as very "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and I really don't like seeing that framing when it's regarding a rapist.

And this scene largely feels the same. It feels like Rachel's trying to sway the audience into believing Apollo is like Draco Malfoy - a misled boy who "didn't know any better" and was being manipulated by a greater evil. If you haven't guessed by now, that "greater evil" is Ouranos.

Why is it Ouranos? In my opinion (so take this with grains of salt) this is because they need to somehow "one up" Kronos and give Persephone and Hades a tangible force to fight against, to draw a clean line in the sand between "good" and "evil" so that we, the audience, will be forced to categorize Persephone and Hades as "good" and someone else as "evil".

But really, why Ouranos? We're told that he manipulated Gaia to use her powers in an attempt to create "hierarchy" (whatever the FUCK that means, I don't think Rachel really understands how societal hierarchies are created) but there's NOTHING to imply that he was tyrannical or "evil" in the same way that Kronos has been depicted. Rachel's basically submitting this whole plotline to "well it's in the prophecy" but there was NOTHING dictating that she had to try and write a "prophecy" storyline to begin with. So as a result, it feels very tacked on and it's hard to tell what the point is, it really just seems like Rachel watched too much Marvel one week and decided that Lore Olympus - a fantasy romance - needed a big bad.

And by extension it feels like Apollo is being used as a pawn in this dynamic. By making him subservient to an "evil" force, it means he can labelled as definitively "evil", and thus it gives Rachel a vehicle to have Apollo taken down - or even perhaps empathized with much like in the Draco Malfoy sense - without having to touch the SA plot that she set up and never resolved.

He was evil before, but he wasn't the kind of evil that Rachel could write around. Because she doesn't know how to write SA or give her female characters any sense of retribution or agency. We've seen that already with her robbing Demeter of winter and Persephone of her feelings regarding the SA. There was never going to be a chance in hell she was going to be able to write herself out of a plotline she's been procrastinating for 4+ years.

That said, this is just a vibe I get, so I'm not gonna speak on it much more. This is one of those "we're really not gonna know until the comic returns" situations.

Once again, Rachel's trying to make Apollo seem like a "master manipulator", but she's also trying to make him seem like he's the one being manipulated, but she's ALSO trying to write him as a big dumb idiot who literally can't grasp consent. Apollo has to be one of the most inconsistently written characters in the entire comic, and yes, that includes Persephone. Again, it just goes to show she hasn't been able to fully commit to the SA plotline because Apollo's motivations and intelligence levels change with each passing episode. Sometimes he's being nefarious and plotting to overthrow the King, other times he's literally asking a nymph if she'd be willing to cut her hair to look like Persephone. The comic can't choose and so we, the audience, can't tell why Apollo is even still here.

Again, this is SUCH bizarre framing. If we're to believe that Persephone has been "cursed" by no longer being able to create Spring, only Winter, then does that make Ouranos and Apollo the heroes here? Because Ouranos is right, if Persephone is causing winter, that's going to kill the mortals, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what she's trying to do. So what are we left with? A plotline where Apollo and Ouranos might actually have a point about how she rushed into a marriage with the King of the Underworld and sacrificed everything that gave her agency and power - both metaphorically and literally - in the process?

Again, this is why Rachel fundamentally misunderstands the original purpose of The Hymn to Demeter and how she's, by and large, made her retelling worse in an attempt to be "subversive". It puts the plot and character motivations in a place where it's hard to tell what the story is trying to say, I can understand if maybe Rachel's trying to write a conflict where Apollo uses this information to manipulate her, but it doesn't help that knowing EVERYTHING we know about the H x P relationship within the context of this comic, Ouranos has a point that Persephone's union with the King of the Dead is problematic. It might not be the same "problematic" that we're all thinking of, but it really just reinforces the criticisms of this relationship. Is the comic really asking us to say "fuck the human race, they're in love" ??? Because that's NOT what the point of the original myth was in the slightest and it's just a really weird place to put your audience in.

It's 4:45 AM right now as I'm typing this so my thoughts are a little scattered, but all this really feels like is an attempt on Rachel's part to create a new "big bad" for her to use as a distraction from the SA plot and to give Persephone a "flaw", but that "flaw" really only takes away the strength of another character.

Oh, and by the way? This whole "you need the fertility goddess" thing? THE COMIC HAS ALREADY TOLD US THIS WON'T WORK BECAUSE SHE HAS TO BE IN LOVE WITH APOLLO FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO USE HER POWERS. SO RACHEL'S ALREADY WRITTEN HERSELF INTO A CORNER THAT SHE'LL EITHER HAVE TO SOLVE OR RETCON ENTIRELY. DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS SO ABSURD???

This line is kind of jarring because we had the Kassandra prophecy at the beginning that talked about the herb, but the prophecy Ouranos is talking about is the one about the sons of kings overthrowing their fathers. I definitely forgot about that one for a hot second reading this, I didn't get how this sequence related to the poisonous plant thing because they're framed as completely separate prophecies. It's not like Kassandra said in her initial prophecy that this plant would be used to overthrow a King again, she just said that the plant still existed and Psyche figured it out on her own that Apollo was gonna use it on Zeus. IDK that's just something that bugged me (also again, why are they believing her prophecies when we literally just had it established an episode ago that no one believes her prophecies LMAO)

Because if it wasn't enough for LO to have one Evil Robot Jeff Bridges villain, it had to throw in another one for good measure. It's just a line of dads and grandpas going back centuries waiting for their turn in the ring with Persephone.

lmao I love this 'hint' at Apollo being the one to write the note from Hebe and leave the cupcake for Zeus. Like... duh? We already put that together as SOON as Psyche said gasp "Zeus!" and then it showed Zeus eating the cupcake while Psyche called him on the phone telling him Apollo was gonna try and harm him. This sequence of 'revealing what really happened' doesn't work here because we've already been told what happened.

Except we know he won't. There's no tension to this whatsoever.

That's Hebe by the way.

It's odd that Apollo is embracing this prophecy when he has a kid himself. He literally has a fully grown son in this comic. I guess Apollo forgot about that, just like Rachel.

And that's it. That's the midseason finale. Ouranos is the new twist villain and Apollo is... whatever the fuck Rachel plans on doing with him.

Now, this leads me to my original motivation to create this series of reviews. It spawned from a conversation we were having in the Discord, discussing what it must be like to be a free reader who hasn't paid for the FP episodes that are still behind a paywall. This is not standard for LO, it hasn't kept FP episodes behind paywalls in the past during long hiatuses like this. I can even prove this with screenshots from the Wayback Machine, during the last midseason hiatus:

(whoof, that rating has dropped. I know it doesn't seem like much but for a series with millions of readers, by law of averages it takes a LOT of poor ratings to pull that number down compared to a series that only has a few readers)

Point is, this is the first time Rachel/WT have done this. Now, I will make this perfectly clear, I don't think this was a decision that was purely on Rachel. WT controls much of the backend like paywall costs, release dates, etc. so I'm not gonna go pinning this on her.

However, I do think this is a completely bungled attempt at trying to get people to pay up. LO has been dropping in views steadily but surely since the midseason break for S2. It's not pulling in the peak numbers that it used to, while it does still pull in a lot more views and money than other series on the platform, it's nowhere near the juggernaut that it once was in terms of record-breaking numbers, and I think WT knows that. So this really comes across as a stunt to get readers to FP, assuming that people will HAVE to pay if they're left waiting for 4 months.

But here's the flaw in that logic - people are still going to have to wait 4 months anyways. Reading those 3 locked episodes, especially all at once, will still leave you in the same place as you were beforehand.

And it shows in the numbers that people aren't falling for the bait.

Again, 17k likes still isn't anything to sneeze at for a FP episode, but it's still just barely above the new average that LO has gained over the past two years. I remember a time when those like counts would be 30k+. And now, despite being on break 4 months with these episodes still locked behind a wall, it's barely able to scrap by its new average of roughly 14-15k, and that average is when episodes are actually updating.

Obviously like counts = / = viewcounts but when they fluctuate, we know that the views have to be as well by extension, at least to some extent, and that's still engagement that's dropped of in and of itself. And we can also see a rough look at how the views have dropped off through the comic's landing page. Now, it's hard to compare data because there was a time when WT actually didn't give follower/view counts on the landing page (this was also when the like count capped at 99k) but we can still see a downslide in growth very visibly in the view count, sub count, and most of all, the rating, which has been steadily dropping for years now.

August 2020:

May 2021:

November 2021:

March 2022 (don't get confused by the 995 million, this is where view count comes in):

September 2022:

March 2023:

Today (October 24th, 2023):

Again, there's no way to get a true clear picture of LO's stats beyond this surface level data, but it does show that LO is just not getting the rapid growth it used to. People are moving on from it. And while its view and sub count are steadily increasing (albeit slowly for a webtoon that gets as much marketing as it does) the average rating is going down. It's clear that the majority of LO's growth happened between 2018 and 2020, which would make sense as the series was still relatively new compared to how it's become old news today, and Webtoons experienced a boom in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns - a boom that they think still applies in the year 2023, judging by their attempts to import as many series onto the platform as possible and capitalize on an audience that just isn't there anymore.

All of this leads me to wonder - what's in it for free readers after all this? Because if you recall from where we started, the cliffhanger they started on was Hades - possessed by Kronos - attempting to strangle Persephone, a cliffhanger that was resolved within seconds for FastPass readers. If they don't FastPass after that, they'll be met with numerous reveals that don't even make sense for the plot as a whole (such as Leuce making up the text messages).

Again, I don't want to claim that this was a decision on Rachel's part, but it really seems like either she didn't plan this hiatus, or her inability to write naturally without the need for addictive-style formatting as a crutch made it so that the free readers would be given the worst midseason premiere ever.

And what are we, the FastPass readers, going to return to? There are still so many plot threads that have been left unresolved, multiple villains being setup, and as far as Webtoons and Rachel have revealed during NYCC, LO is supposed to end by the spring. That's 20-30 weeks TOPS, which isn't exactly a whole lot of wiggle room for a writer like Rachel who's chronically bad at pacing and getting to the point of the plots she's established.

I know there are so many readers right now anticipating the return of this comic, some of whom genuinely believe this comic is "better than ever" and others who are critical of it but hope that the comic will come back in a better state after the hiatus. But right now there's so much evidence to support the contrary - that LO is about to come back in as bad, if not worse, condition than it was in when it left.

And through all this, for a comic that's finally ending after 5 years, I have to ask - where is the hype? Why are Webtoons and Rachel keeping the finale of this comic behind closed doors? Where's the promotional art, the hinting at what's to come, the attempts to generate any semblance of excitement for the readers who are still left after clinging onto this ride for 5 years? Why were the fans themselves barred out of their own communities during the majority of the hiatus?

And that just leads me to an even more discouraging thought. This is not meant to accuse Rachel or make assumptions. It's simply a thought that I had while thinking about what the series could possibly pull upon its return, so please, take this with MOUNTAINS of salt. It's one thing I hadn't considered with the knowledge that LO will be returning with 3 episodes still behind a paywall, a 'buffer' in and of itself for Rachel to work off of.

Rachel only technically needs one episode ready for the release. Not three as she normally would if the episodes had been unlocked like in previous hiatuses. That's not including whatever buffer episodes she would need beyond the upload schedule, but she's proven to be chronically bad at maintaining a buffer as well since day one.

We haven't seen any promotional art. No hinting. No hyping beyond what's been seen for her "Rachel Smythe Presents" series.

With all that in mind, I have one question to leave this on:

Has Rachel even started working on Episode 254 yet?

[bluedalahorse]

on flaws as opportunities and organizing the beef

I’m in the place now where I have enough distance from Young Royals season 3 to think about what felt flawed about it for me, and it led me to some interesting revelations about how I understand the characters and the story.

And to be clear: this does not mean I didn’t love season 3 with every fiber of my being, or that I think it sucks forever. Even a great production has flaws. The wonderful thing about being in fandom is that we love our shows deeply but also like to pick them apart, and in picking them apart we come up with ideas for future fics and fix its and character studies. Writing flaws are always an opportunity.

Anyway…

Thesis statement: Wilhelm and Simon don’t actually have the same beef with August, and the show should recognize that.

Or, to put it more formally, August causes them different problems that need to be addressed differently. I think that by acknowledging that more directly, and leaning into the discomfort that creates between Wille and Simon as a couple, the writers could have cleaned up some of the Wilmon-related messiness I saw in season 3 and have been mulling over for a while.

Caveat: I still need to do a full, formal rewatch of the third season. But I’ve rewatched here and there these are my preliminary thoughts.

To start, let’s recap Wille and Simon’s conflicts with August in season 1. For Simon, August is a bully and a gatekeeper when it comes to the world of Hillerska. He makes fun of Simon for being “socialist” and puts Simon in a position where he’s bringing in alcohol and then drugs for richer students’ recreation. August doesn’t pay Simon back for the alcohol the first time, which also shows a profound lack of awareness of Simon’s financial situation. Despite bullying Simon, there are times in August’s mind that he probably thinks he’s done Simon a favor. I do think, as flawed as he is about it and as much as he’s making weird speeches and doing aggressive forehead kisses, August assumes he’s really helped Simon out by getting him on the rowing team. But from Simon’s point of view this is all just more gatekeeping. Simon sees Hillerska as his ticket out of Bjärstad, and he wants to succeed in his merits as a student and a musician. But the way August treats him reminds him that his talent matters less than how many favors he can do rich boys. It also reminds him that he’s expendable to Hillerska students—August is absolutely ready to let Simon take the fall for the drugs when he feels it threatens his position.

Wille, meanwhile, is not excluded or gatekept by August but rather included more than he wants to be. Prior to the release of the video, Wille mostly finds August’s “come here and let me play your surrogate big brother” antics annoying. The debate over whether to let Simon or Alexander take the fall for the drugs is something that increases Wille’s ire toward August and makes it more serious, enough that we see Wille out August for his money troubles. But Wille also entrenches himself further in the system as a result of their argument—he still uses Alexander as a scapegoat, and he offers to pay August’s boarding fees afterward as an attempt to restore the peace between them. Their relationship isn’t seriously fractured until August releases the video. This harms Wille in the sense that it sets Wille up to deny his authentic self and makes it hard for him to engage in intimacy without trauma getting in the way. In essence, it puts Wille in a similar position of trauma that August was put in when the Erik and the third years initiated him. (Much much much more publicly, yes, but let’s note that transfer of trauma, because YR is about cycles.) 

The video also throws Wilhelm into a space where he starts to doubt his connection with Erik, because Erik told Wilhelm he could trust August. At the end of 3.4, Wille tells August that Erik would hate what he did, but I suspect he’s been wrestling with the uncertainty over whether Erik would really accept him and Simon for a long time. I don’t know if Wille really trusts Erik even though he says he does. In my opinion, it’s August’s release of the video that first brings this sense of doubt about Erik into Wille’s mind, and for three seasons we’re watching him slow burn toward actually voicing that doubt and grappling with it.

I think it’s tempting to believe that the trauma of the video release unites Wilhelm and Simon against August, and makes them feel the same sense of pain and loss, but ultimately I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not sure I see Wille and Simon as two boys in love against the world, at least not in a way that isn’t complicated. For Wille, the video affects his ability to express himself authentically and makes him doubt his relationships with his family. For Simon, the scandal of the video will now forever follow him when he wants to break free of Bjärstad and become recognized for his own merits. These are different harms from the same event that need to be dealt with differently.

One of Wille’s flaws is that he doesn’t fully realize that. I think he tends to center himself without realizing it, and sees the harm that happens to Simon as an extension of harm to himself. I actually think this is pretty interesting, and pretty in line with how Wille would have been raised as a prince. We see Kristina telling him that everything he does reflects on her and the family, so it’s natural that Wille might see a threat against Simon as a threat to himself without really thinking through how they’re going to be impacted differently. And the “prince” as a literary archetype has always been somewhat rooted in the “rescue” of others.

I explained this to @heliza24 and she said something really smart, which is, “the thing that necessarily gets lost when you muddy that is how much Wilhelm’s violations of Simon resemble August’s violations of Wilhelm.” And she’s right. I’d been trying to find a way to say that some of Wille’s actions in s3 remind me of August’s more toxic traits, and that part of Wille’s hamartia in s3 is he can’t see the ways he’s behaving similarly to August even as he shuts August out. When August releases the video, it puts Wille in a position where the royal court and Kristina are forcing him to conform more-more-more, and to hide his authentic voice from the world. Wille in turn inflicts that on Simon, acting as the royal court’s mouthpiece when they want Simon’s songs or May Day pictures deleted. We see Simon worn down to the point where he’s almost fading away. It’s actually pretty upsetting.

To that end: I also can’t help draw parallels between Wilhelm’s insistence on public gestures of affection with Simon and the way August and Felice walk arm in arm after they get together, the way he clearly wants to be seen with her. I also look at the way Wille craves Simon’s constant emotional support—especially on the night of his birthday—and see August reaching out to Sara as his emotional support lifeline.

Now, for what it’s worth, I still don’t see Wille as this awful, irredeemable person. (I don’t see August as this irredeemable person either, for that matter, and this is part of why I see Wille and August’s healing as intertwined and interdependent.) But I do think one place that season 3 fell flat for me was in the way Wille never got to recognize that his own issues with August and Simon’s issues with August weren’t exactly alike. And for Wille to recognize that some of the things he’s trying to do to heal aren’t equally healing for Simon. (Seriously, I almost tore my hair out when Wille joined the choir. It wasn’t a romantic gesture to me—I found it creepy! Let Simon have one space to himself!) 

It probably would have helped to have one scene where Simon articulates that to Wille, and really point it out. I get it if we don’t have time for Simon and August to resolve their shit in one season, and since Wille is the protagonist, he and August resolving their shit is going to take precedence. But when Wille and August are still at odds in the first part of the season, I do feel this vibe where like, Wille assumes he’s the avenger for wrong done to both him and Simon. And I kind of wanted to see that reckless avenger vibe get addressed.

@heliza24 probably describes this better than I do, but season three does have a habit of obscuring Simon’s agency from the audience, mostly so the writers can manipulate the audience’s reactions to Wilhelm and Simon, and especially so they can keep us in the dark about the fate of the Wilmon relationship during the breakup cliffhanger between episodes 5 and 6. I don’t know if this was the greatest choice, to dangle the cliffhanger over our heads, because it ends up moving a lot of Wille’s development into the last 10-15 minutes of the season and creates an issue in pacing and character arc. I wonder if they could have spaced his character arc out a little more and infused the tension into other moments and ideas. I think that could have been more satisfying.

Incidentally, this is a season 3 writing problem that’s foreshadowed in season 2 with the way Felice and Wille’s friendship is written. Felice essentially becomes Wille’s confidant as Wille attempts revenge on August. This makes sense, as Felice has her own beef with August based on how awfully he treated her in their relationship, and she’s friends with Wille, so it’s a natural alliance. But once again, it’s different beef, impacted by Felice moving through the world as a Black girl with a rich white mom, and not a white boy prince, and Felice never gets a chance to say so. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it does matter because season 2 episode 3 ends with… Wille kissing Felice just to feel something!!! And at the beginning of episode 4 everyone’s talking about what happened and what might be a new relationship between Wille and Felice!!! Gosh does that remind anyone of Felice’s predicament in the middle of season 1? It sure does remind the random girl in the choir, who says Felice only dates bluebloods!

The thing is, I wish Felice had been able to make that comparison more explicitly in her conversations with Wilhelm. Things obviously don’t get as bad with Wilhelm as they do with August, and Wille and Felice talk things out. But Felice doesn’t get to express herself about that as much as I wanted her to, and we don’t get much of a sense as to whether or not this changes Felice’s views of Wille’s revenge plot. She forgives him pretty quickly, and I don’t know if she should have. Just a little more careful planning on the writers’ parts could have given Felice the agency she needed in season 2.

Anyway! Let’s talk about stakes. The stakes for Wilhelm in season 3 are that he’ll become August—or more accurately, that he’ll construct an armored facade like August has constructed to get through life, and that he’ll hurt other people in the process. (This is true for Wille even with him being queer, I think. Wille may be queer, but his whiteness and wealth and power and literal hired staff of PR-minded humans are going to frame how the rest of the world responds to that queerness.) Whereas for Simon, Sara, and Felice the danger is that, in order to maintain their place in the upper class system, they’ll become dependent on someone like future August or future Wilhelm, who has a lot of power and spends most of their life in armored facade mode. 

Wilhelm and August reconciling is still important, because when they recognize one another’s humanity, they can actually be vulnerable with one another the way they need to be, and take that armor off. And I think by forging that relationship with one another, they have a space to really question the values they are raised with and act better to loved ones in the future. But we’re really just witnessing the first step. And there’s a lot more steps they need to take with one another, and with the other people in their lives.

What can I learn from this as a fan and writer?

Thinking about this actually helped me understand a point of view in fandom that I’ve always disagreed with. I still disagree with it, but I think I understand it better now. Periodically I’ll encounter points of view where August is seen as the worst kind of evil, the sort of person where you unite with each other to take him down once and for all. You know… Avengers Assemble! Or something. In some fan’s minds, he’s the kind of guy everyone at Hillerska should turn against at once and ultimately reject for the sake of narrative catharsis. A symbol of the corrupt system and nothing more.

And I never really saw August that way. He can be awful and annoying at times, and extremely harmful at other times. He often makes things much worse for our other main characters a lot of the time. Often times he is the most direct representative of the system that’s causing them problems. On the other hand, he’s also capable of really, truly caring about people and community, as much as he gets in his own way about it. We also know a greater extent of his trauma now and how it affects him. All in all he seems as human and as in need of liberation as all the other characters of Young Royals. It makes sense that he’s the one of five who hasn’t left behind the system yet, but I feel like one day he can maybe get there. I feel like those are the writers’ intentions, and the show’s intentions overall. Certainly this is also the version of August that Malte’s acting reflects.

I think I also understand now why I don’t always see eye to eye with others about Wille. I adore Wille, but I think sometimes the assertion others make that “Wille has one brain cell and it’s being in love with Simon” feels threatening to me rather than adorable. Wille is really really fascinating to me in that falling in love nudges him to question things about his position, but it doesn’t erase his relationship to his privilege entirely, and he can be pretty flawed in how he understands his power and how it plays out in a relationship. I think for others, they might see Wille as protective and caring toward Simon. Whereas I see him (and prefer to see him portrayed) as intending to be protective but definitely at times overstepping and putting Simon in a more negative place than before. I think part of this is caused by a writing problem in seasons 2 and 3. We see the negative impact the relationship can have on Simon—look it absolutely breaks my heart when Ayub mentions how Simon deleting his social media will make him sad—but I don’t know if Simon gets as much of a chance to articulate that to Wille or even to the audience as I want him to. And I also see Simon and Wille’s very different conflicts with August as part of that.

Moving forward… these flaws in seasons 2 and 3 don’t ruin my love of the show. They aren’t me saying the show is bad. They’re disappointing, because Young Royals is so good in so many ways that it sucks when it does let us down. But basically everything I like has a flaw one way or another, because literally no work is perfect. And right now I’d rather look at the flaws in YR and say, this is something I can learn from and play with in fanfic.

(And sometimes there are times when tumblr wants to explain all the flaws of a show away and idealize it and I wonder… can we not do that? Because sometimes claiming a show is perfect and flawless limits discussion and creativity. I get just as frustrated with people idealizing the Wilmon pairing and putting it on a moral pedestal, which has ultimately led to me blocking the tag from my dash. I like them a lot more when I think about them as complex teenage humans who fuck up a lot and not a godlike ideal of romance. I love them, your honor! But I think I need to love them independent of the tag.)

As for where this goes in fanfic, I think this once again leaves things open for fans to explore. Once again, I think there’s a whole interesting story to be explored in terms of how August and Simon work through their shit, and how that really has to happen in a space that’s in part independent of Wille. A shared relationship with Wilhelm might be the catalyst for why they’re working through their shit, but some of what’s going to happen has to happen without him there. (For what it’s worth, I think we see flashes of Simon and August beginning to understand one another throughout the series—Simon is running some really interesting mental calculus when he realizes August has an eating disorder, shout out to Omar’s acting there—but those threads always get dropped or interrupted. It’s infinitely frustrating to me as someone who likes both characters and wanted to see them talk honestly for once but didn’t quite get that.)

I also think this gives me interesting questions about where Wille and Simon’s relationship could go next in fanfic. Independent of the monarchy, I think Wille is still going to have to work through his instinct to be an angry avenger or reckless rescuer at times, and the part where he assumes he and Simon are harmed in the same way by the same things. Even in a world where Wille doesn’t have a title, he’ll still have wealth and white privilege that Simon doesn’t. And I don’t think that has to get in the way of their future happiness, but watching them navigate through that is something that draws me into a story idea.

So, you know. This has been an update on my fannish desires. At least, my fannish desires that do not involve the rest of the YR characters, various ships on Heartbreak High, and Interview with the Vampire season 2 finally airing today. There’s a lot going on in this brain and none of it is the work I need to get done.

[missezramay]

ted lasso, post-finale thoughts.

I went into the finale thinking yeah, if the writing serves, I can accept any outcome even if it's not exactly what I want. Instead, I was hit with a plethora of mixed emotions I didn't expect to have. Confusion, anger, hurt, annoyance, small bursts of joy in between, and just deep sadness. Almost 20 hours later and I'm still incredibly dissatisfied and processing. For the most part, finales should provide a feeling of celebration and relief. I... don't feel any of that.

I'm just really trying to pinpoint why I'm so sad.

Of course everything inevitably has to come to an end. Of course Ted was always going to reunite with his kid. Of course it's not about winning or losing. Of course Tedbecca can remain platonic if that was always the plan. Of course that's the way life goes, but...

For a show (and this season particularly) that constantly encouraged us to 'believe' and 'hope' in the idea that 'everything will work out', all those 75 minutes did was take me on an unsettling, emotional journey for no concrete reason other than to mess with the audience (the opening scene was just adding salt in the Tedbecca wound I've had since S2). Because everything in a macro sense, "worked out". But the WAY it "worked out" does not sit well with me?? And it's supposed to? For a lot of people (on Reddit/Facebook, lol), it was enough?? Richmond not technically winning and Ted leaving like that without so much as a tear? What am I missing??

When I tell you I'm trying to embrace the good parts, I'm really trying. Yes to KBPR & the women's team, Yes to Colin kissing his fella, Yes to Rebecca & Mae & the guys owning the club, Yes to Roy becoming Manager.

So... why am I still so upset? Hmm, let's see.

The boys' musical number? The cutest. Ted didn't think so.

Nate's apology? Heartbreaking. Ted didn't bat an eyelash.

Rebecca begging twice for Ted to stay? Ted, absolute silence.

Beard staying/getting married in London to his toxic gf? Comic relief, haha, fine. Except Ted wasn't there as Best Man.

Don't even get me started on the huge disservice to the Roy/Keeley/Jamie triangle.

Now listen, I get that he misses Henry & Henry misses his dad. I'm not that cold. A father/son's love is important. It was always the catalyst for this show; for him to work on himself so he can be a better father unlike the one he grew up with. That's fine.

But on this particular week. His last week with his Richmond family. There was NO sense of him being sad to leave them. He can be sad about missing Henry but he can ALSO be sad about leaving. No, he just completely checked out. He let everyone pour out their hearts (Hannah's getting her third Emmy, mark my words) to him, and he just stone-faced the entire time.

THIS DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME.

The argument is that he was internally processing, he was overwhelmed, he was trying to distance himself so it would hurt less. Fair points, okay. But this is a television show, moreover, A FINALE. TV characters, while relatable, are heightened versions of ourselves, there so we can better process our emotions and learn to handle things better in our real lives. Ted deserved MORE dialogue and displaying MORE emotion than whatever this was.

We're never going to see him again. We're over here crying along with Rebecca, Nate & Beard, but he didn't sob once. Even though he spent three years building a family with them. I even thought, hey at least he left his legacy with Trent's book but newsflash, he wanted his name taken off that too! Complete erasure.

I just feel so robbed of better moments. Like there were nice moments here and there. But they could've been BETTER. Honestly, Nate & Rebecca's breakdowns were close to perfection, so much love there. But the lack of dialogue and Ted not reciprocating? Broke ME.

I just cannot. understand. this. choice.

Massive sigh. I'm just truly baffled by the way everything wrapped up and not getting the satisfied feeling that one half of the viewership got. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that means something. It carries weight. Also, for a "three-season arc" that was planned well in advance, why all the rewrites and parallels and fakeouts... it's just cruel. But as the theme says (and maybe this was a warning all along), yeah, I guess this might well be it.

This show has given us so much and the last season flailed for the most part. I don't want to disrespect the show by being negative and cynical (looks like I failed!!) or cast blame on anyone in particular. The cast/crew are amazing people and I'll be grateful for being a part of the journey but I'm just so sad and this feeling sucks and I will never get over it.

Going to miss them. x

[lc-holy]

My other thoughts on season 5:

We all thought it was Marinette who was going to confess first, but it was actually Adrien who did. And we all thought it was Adrien who would confront his father in the end, but it was actually Marinette who did.

We learned that the reason Marinette couldn't confess to Adrien wasn't that she was afraid he'd reject her (although Marinette was afraid of that too), but rather that she couldn't confess because of her trauma-induced anxieties. (But I'll be honest, even without justifying Marinette's trauma in the derision episode, we know that Marinette has been harassed by Chloe for a long time and that she's a big part of the reason for Marinette's anxiety).

Early on in season 5, Alya makes it clear to Marinette that Adrien is interested in her. And the Adrien's confession didn't really surprise Marinette. The important thing was to find out how Marinette will manage to face her fears so that she and Adrien can finally be together. Adrien's patience and kindness had a lot to do with it. He took the lead in their relationship to ensure Marinette's comfort until she was ready to confess.

In the final third of the season, it was Marinette who took matters into her own hands to free Adrien from his father. It's not that Adrien didn't do anything; on the contrary, he tried to talk to his father several times, but it was always to no avail, as Gabriel had such a hold on him. But we were still treated to the Representation episode where Adrien was able to tell his father everything that was on his mind. But in the end, even as Chat noir, Gabriel got the better of him. There could be no Monarch-Chat noir confrontation because of Adrien's nightmare. He was already very unstable at the start of the Conformation episode, so how could he face his father and discover all his secrets in this state?

Some may not like what I'm about to say, but I think it's great that Adrien didn't confront his father. We already see in many stories people who suffer abuse go directly to confront their abuser to free themselves, so why not tell the story of a victim who can't confront his abuser? Especially since Gabriel can easily control Adrien.

And I love how Adrien's friends were there to support him and helped Chat noir beat Gabriel in the Representation episode!

And Marinette managed to free Adrien, but not without consequences. It's not just "the knight who freed the princess from the evil dragon and happy ending!". Gabriel leaves her with all his heavy secrets. The idyllic ending we're shown at the end is just Adrien's vision. It's as if Gabriel has hidden all the horrors he's committed in a box wrapped in beautiful gift wrap. Only Marinette and a few others know the contents, but prefer not to say anything for Adrien's sake.

And please know that I don't blame Marinette at all for keeping the truth from him, it's extremely difficult to tell truths that could break the person you love. And I don't understand people who say she has to tell him the truth because otherwise she's a bad person. It's so much more complicated than that... Especially as Marinette also has the right to take a breather...

Still, I can't wait (and I'm afraid too) to see when the truth comes out.

 But there's very little room for Ladynoir, is there?

Er... yes. One of my main criticisms of this season is the cruel lack of Ladynoir ! There are very few Ladynoir moments, even platonic ones. Not even a discussion at the end of the two episodes of the kwamis choice. Or when Ladybug suddenly trusts Felix in Pretension. Chat Noir is just a little surprised, but that's all.

I can understand that Ladynoir is less present because Adrien and Marinette are much more focused on their relationship as Adrinette. And Ladybug and Chat Noir had no conflict this season. This is a season that was supposed to wrap up several arcs, but because the episodes are short and there are so many arcs to wrap up, ladynoir is sidelined. But honestly, apart from the few moments I mentioned above, I didn't find the absence of ladynoir all that bothersome. (Still, I'm sad I haven't seen much of them this season).

And as I said, this season was supposed to conclude several arc. So we have the end of the Chloe arc, the Lila arc, the Gabriel arc, the Ladynoir arc and the Adrinette arc, but the end of an arc doesn't mean it's really the end.

Chloé is far from Paris, but will surely return worse than ever. (or perhaps a redemption? but I don't think so), Lila no longer exists but she becomes Cerise and possesses the butterfly miraculous, Gabriel is dead but his statue is there to remind us that he's still here after all.

The Ladynoir arc concluded in the first third of the season.

Chat Noir abandons his feelings for Ladybug, as he realizes his feelings are not reciprocated, and focuses on his feelings for Marinette. Ladybug begins to have feelings for Chat Noir, but as he no longer has feelings for her, she decides to focus on her feelings for Adrien. In the final episode, Ladybug and Chat noir found a balance in their great superhero team. Chat noir and Ladybug stand next to each other in front of all the other superheroes following them.

Adrinette's arc :

Adrien managed to be more enterprising in his love relationship and to be a good support to Marinette. Marinette faced up to her fears and had the courage to confront her boyfriend's father several times before setting him free. They had their fairytale ending.

But some things don't add up, not only does the end of the lovesquare arc set us up for an Adrinette conflict over the secrets Marinette is keeping from Adrien, but the relationship between Chat Noir and Ladybug is also incomplete. For example, Ladybug has never confessed her feelings to Chat Noir. To me, Chat Noir and Ladybug's feelings haven't changed, they're just hidden for now.  

Cerise seems to have more rage against Marinette than Ladybug. Especially in the post-endcard re-creation. While Gabriel was very angry with Ladybug and Chat noir, is Cerise more likely to take it out on Adrien and Marinette's relationship? 

Although I was initially skeptical about Adrien and Marinette breaking up, Cerise could potentially be the cause of a future Adrinette separation. Maybe i’ll be totally wrong, but I think there will be a conflict between Marinette and Adrien that will relaunch the lovesquare in some way.

To sum up: like the end of Gabriel and that idyllic ending that feels more like a dream than reality, the conclusion of the lovesquare for this arc left a lot of people dubious. As if something were incomplete. An ending for Marinette and Adrien will only be satisfying if there's a reveal, so yes the story isn't over. Adrinette and Ladynoir will be confronting new issues and conflicts next seasons. It's a new beginning for everyone.

 One last thing about what Adrien said to Marinette in the garden: "I don't know if I'll ever manage to be like him [his father]". I saw a lot of people angry that Adrien had suddenly forgotten all the horrible things his father had done, and that this meant Gabriel had been redeemed. I'm sure Adrien still knows what his father did to him, especially when he tells Marinette that he feels freer when he's with her. I interpret this as a kind of guilt on Adrien's part. Adrien has always had a sense of sacrifice, especially in helping Ladybug, but the only time he refuses to go and fight for everyone's safety is when his father dies. He must have felt some guilt or perhaps admiration for his father at the time, but that doesn't mean he's forgotten all the horrible things his father did before.

And if you still have doubts about whether the writers gave Gabriel redemption at the end of the season, here's what Thomas has to say about it :

[hourglassfish]

On Season 1, Episode 7 Part Three : Risottogate

OK look,

Go and get yourself an ecto cooler or something, cus this is long, OK? This is long.

You comfortable?

Alright, let’s go.

don't forget the Xanax!

Elevated Beef (stock)

There’s a connection drawn between Sydney and veal stock in the Bear. She spills it all over herself during Brigade. Claire interrupts Carmy purchasing veal stock for menu testing her bone broth idea at the end of 2:2.  It’s an interesting ingredient to align her with: a staple of French cuisine, something you’ll find in a professional high end kitchen but not necessarily at home, a distinctive, practical component which provides a subtle, solid umami base for a range of dishes.

The first time this connection is drawn is during one of my favourite interactions: the ‘plum haribo’ story in Brigade. Marcus has decorated his work station (I love him), and despite the fact that Carmy says he’s having flashbacks (eeeeeeek), I think he is happy to see this coming together of his two worlds.

They start talking about this fancy plum dish, and a gelee component (which will reappear in Honeydew!) that had to have a very specific texture. Carmy has been talking about the dedication needed to make this dish work with pride, presenting the texture of the gelee as a huge challenge, something it took someone a year to figure out. Sydney cracks it in less than a minute. Veal fat. She knows what’s needed, and she knows why: it congeals when it’s cold. Boom!

Carmy’s response to this always amuses me. He is not…dismayed exactly. Not quite. After all, it’s a reminder of her brilliance, and also that that world is not so far away.  That being said, she cuts across a punchline here; and what was a mystery to the best chefs in the world for a year is immediately obvious to her, to the extent that it’s not even really a flex on her part: she states it quite diffidently. Marcus’s gleeful ‘Mission Accomplished’ is very different from Carmy’s, which is a bit more ‘…oh.’.

On rewatches where I feel charitable, Carmy then implements the brigade cus he's been reminded that he has someone close by from that world, he has an ally that speaks his language, who is talented. On days when I feel less charitable, I combine this with him later talking her through the differences between stock/jus/demi-glace in front of Tina  like an asshole, and see him handing the brigade over at that specific moment, in the specific way that he does as passive aggressive. Most days I’m with the former! Still…we’re back in the grey areas of Syd and Carmy’s  dynamic. Where all the good shit is!

He's so glad she figured that out so quickly, absolutely not feeling a type of way about it, nope, not at all

I wanted to start with this story cus it opens up three things for me:

a) just a frisson, a hint, a delicious drop (!) of competition between Syd and Carmy 

b) the question, beloved by fanfic writers everywhere, of what the dynamic between these two might have been if they had met in a different context.

c) a third, messier thing, about Carmy going away, tooling up, coming back and it needing to be worth something, that going way. As far as he knows at this point, It didn’t achieve what it was meant to achieve, it didn’t get Mikey’s attention. Maybe he didn’t need to leave Chicago to do it. Sydney's talent tickles that tension, as does Marcus's (trios, trios!). So what was it for? What were the past few years of his life for, if a bunch of this stuff was in Chicago all along?

Who was Carmy away from Chicago? Who is he without his family? We’ve only seen one flashback so far, very much from inside Carmy’s head. The way he tells it is very different from what we see. At Al Anon, he describes himself like this:

‘when somebody new came into the restaurant to stage, I’d look at them like they were competition, like I’m gonna smoke this motherfucker’.

But you're tall and sexy, so don't worry about it babes

Gosh. Yes Chef!

I don’t think Carmy holds anything like this level of aggression towards any of the original staff of the Beef: it would be absurd: they don’t have his training or experience. For the most part we see doing the work of pulling a team together, which explicitly involves putting that kind of competitiveness to the side.

I don’t think he has this energy for Sydney.

Not quite.

I do think it’s an important thing for us to learn about his character. I do think that we are told it at the beginning of Episode 8, after Sydney has quit, because there are ugly feelings around the risotto dish. I do think that those feelings drive a lot of how Review goes down, and that Carmy knows this.  

This ferocious comparison and competition, used as a driving force, is a part of who Carmy is, and a part of the kitchens that he has come from. In another context, Sydney would have just been competition. And he’d have been trying to smoke her.

Let’s follow a humble bowl of risotto through THREE EPISODES, and about 5000 words, good GOD.

Tracing the Journey of the Risotto: Unanticipated

I tried to find appetising pics of her cooking the risotto but mostly it doesn't look very aesthetic, so here is Syd in my fave of her scarves.

A Risotto, playing on ‘tongue in cheek’ is first tentatively pitched in Sheridan, as an idea for a new menu that they have ‘spoken about’. Carmy is… noncommittal. He’s not into it, but he doesn’t say that, he just doesn’t really engage. I think there are a bunch of valid reasons to not be into it, tbh. I’ve ordered risotto to go. It’s always kind of gluey and disappointing. Sydney isn’t given a clear no, so she decides to cook it: it becomes something she has to convince him on.

He doesn’t get to try it in this episode as there are drugs to sell and about a million different fires to fight. We know that she dreams about this dish though. In this episode she talks about how thinking about her mistakes with Sheridan Road keep her up at night,  but the last images of the episode are of her dreaming: beef… raspberries… cola… fire: there it is. Cola braised short rib. We’re back in the realm of deeply personal creative expression that I spoke about in part two. That anxious energy around failing with Sheridan Road? Is going somewhere else, is being transformed. This is important, and has the potential to be profoundly healing. This dish has meaning for her.

The dish returns in Ceres. Syd is an unstoppable force with the dish, and having said she wants to be listened to, is not listening to several requests from Carmy for more time. Stressful! He deals with it well, at first. He is calm, and polite and asks her to hold on. Which is not a no. But then -

 ‘I know everybody you used to work for, I called them before hiring you’

oooooh weeee.

There is nothing wrong with him seeking out references. His reasons are logical, and he’s transparent about them. Personally? I think it’s sensible to let employees know you’re seeking out references to avoid paranoia, but it’s not a legal requirement. People do it informally via whisper networks all the time, both purposefully and by accident. Gotta say though, the phrasing and the timing of this ‘reveal’ made me wince.

There are a million different theories of feedback, of how to give and receive it well. One argues that feedback must be asked for, accurate and measurable. If it’s not measurable, then you are nitpicking. If it’s not accurate, you’re hating. If it’s not asked for, or at least delivered in an environment where it’s anticipated, it is unlikely to be received well. Carmy, unfortunately, delivers a whopper of unanticipated feedback here: ‘me and all your old bosses (I know EVERYONE YOU USED TO WORK WITH)have been talking about you and they all agree on this flaw’.

YIKES

Would I let Syd stab me for a bowl of this? Maaaaybe. Maybe.

My reading is that he wanted to ask for her patience, and to say that his decision to pace out the changes is coming from experience, but he’s being backed into a corner, so he summons up the spectre of her old bosses for back up. Syd had opened up last episode, and is still very vulnerable about Sheridan, so he unintentionally wounds her here. We can read this in her response. He says her employers said she was smart, talented,  green and impatient, she hears ‘me and everyone you’ve worked for think your business failed because you were green and impatient, that’s why you’re here, and why this dish can’t go on the menu’. This dish is getting entangled in so many other things about where they’ve come from.

He does take the time to reframe it: outlines his practical concerns, and starts to articulate that he wants to maintain calm before they make more changes - 

And then Sugar is banging on the door, demonstrating his point.

At this point, Carmy is trying to build a parachute. They don’t have one when Jimmy comes to visit in Hands, but they do have one that becomes Richie’s bail by Braciole. Reserve building takes steady, dull consistency, but this isn’t communicated, and they don’t agree on a timeframe for the menu development, or even to come back to this conversation. This is small stuff, I know I sound nitpicky! But in my experience managing people, tension builds in the unknowns, in the places where there aren’t specifics, especially when you have a team member like Sydney who is ambitious and dynamic.

Sydney is firmly in the realm of the job that Carmy specified here. He is dialling business, she is doing everything else. If you’re a nerd and you zoom in on her CV, she has done menu development before. She is green, but not that green. She is impatient, but she also doesn’t have the same complicated relationship with change at the Beef that pretty much everyone else but Marcus does. The risotto is the first unofficial test of the impact of strain on their (messy ass) working dynamic, to Review’s much more official gauntlet.

Why would they write a proper CV and film it if they didn't want me to spend 5 minutes hitting pause repeatedly until I'd read it?

*squints* designed daily specials with complete creative control! At Alinea! A THREE STAR MICHELIN RESTAURANT! At the time they wrote this, it had held and retained those stars for twelve years! She is not new to this!

Tracing the Journey of the Risotto Two: Unmeasurable

They try again with the risotto later. She is a little more patient, initially. She makes the effort and he thanks her for it. He tries it, which she really wanted (surely that will convince him!), and she has modified her request, from to-gos, to trying it as a special. Her equivalent of baby steps. She listened. She’s trying. Lovely Angel and my main man Ebra come by, taste and support Carmy’s ‘tremendous’.

But here Carmy gives feedback that isn’t measurable. It’s not perfect, but he doesn’t say why, even though he knows, and it’s an easy fix! He’s nitpicking, because he doesn’t, for a bunch of practical reasons, want to put risotto on the menu, but doesn’t want to shoot her down. He asks her if she understands after she has explicitly said that she doesn’t (cus he’s not being up front), and then doesn‘t explain himself. He’s not really asking if she understands, he’s telling her to stop. It’s not really the dish that’s not ready, not really, it’s him, he’s not ready to make a new raft of changes, to think through the gap between the Michelin star excellence he has come from, and the budgetary, practical restrains of where he’s at.

I think this is really fair. Or at least understandable. Carmy just wants to catch a breath, and he has to have oversight on so many different things at once, adding something else to that must feel terrifying. But the way he communicates this shuts down and restricts: he switches the dynamic from one where they listen to each other (which requires that they both explain themselves) to one where he tells and she does. It doesn’t really give her anywhere to go, so her frustration is inevitable and also understandable. Measurable feedback! Clarity. If you don’t want risotto on the menu Carmy, rip the band-aid, and say it, and say why. Get her to work on something that is going to fit with the menu in a different way, in the way that you want, and be clear about the way in which you want to shape it!

He knows he’s not been great here. Carmy apologises for ‘being shitty’ later in the episode (as others have noted, it’s a shit apology) and he also starts his apology with ‘needs acid’ in 1:8. He knows that a lot of Review is to do with this dish.

When Carmy apologises about being shitty later in Ceres, she doesn’t mention that she put the dish out earlier. It’s framed as a little moment of.. if not revenge, then a little something for herself. I think she knows it’s not OK, not really, or she’d have mentioned it, and her face says a lot when she says it’s cool.  I’m not a chef, I only ever worked FOH, but my instinct is that its dodgy and it fills me with unease. A grey area. A pop of tension.

Tracing the Journey of the Risotto Three: Hating

Whenever I think about the strikes, I think about the broader ensemble in this show.

The next time the risotto turns up, it’s being mentioned in a review. A lot happens here, so I’m gonna bullet point out all the references, then analyse some of them afterwards. I’m also gonna jump a whole bunch, cus I want to stay tightly focused on the risotto itself, and the dynamic between Syd and Carmy as relates to it:

Ebra reads the review out!

Syd has a lovely, gentle smile for Ebra as he reads it, her whole body relaxes as she taps at the tablet. This validation clearly means a lot to her. Ebra’s dynamic with both Sydney and Marcus is consistently a joy to behold. When he tells her in Dogs that she’s given Marcus a lot of confidence, she glows, and I think it’s something she really needed to hear. He’s subtle about it, but he never makes her life difficult when she implements the brigade. There’s something about the oldest member of the team, reading the review out, a little haltingly cus English isn’t his first language, that doubles down on the love that can be present in the Beef, making it all the more jarring when –

Carmy cuts across this and starts talking about the day’s opening with a ‘stop reading that shit’

Fam ‘that shit’ just described your food as elevated and elegant! In the foodie heaven that is Chicago! In your restaurant which is kind of failing! It’s your team’s first review since you’ve been there! So straight away you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, because what has got his knickers in a twist?

Carmy is justified in being pissed off about Syd’s actions here. What he is not justified in, is not finding a way to celebrate the review itself with his team, who deserve to have this moment. It’s a milestone for them to get some external validation, and the restaurant, quite frankly, needs it. A five star review! Tina squeals with delight when she hears it. Before a new program and a busy shift is the perfect moment to read this out, and go into the work feeling good. A united, gassed up team? Would have killed those to gos.

Sydney is also responsible for this messiness though. In going rogue the episode before, something which could have been about the team becomes about her in a way that is sticky, and it becomes harder to celebrate. It was not her intention, but this is the outcome.

Ebra ignores Carmy

(cus he’s redundant and white JK JK don’t cancel me)

There is a double edged shout out to the team

‘the staff moves are next level’: this is such brilliant, important feedback from a team that has had to weather so much change! Also calls back to Richie:  ‘Uh oh, Sydney making moves!’ in the car in Hands.

‘The sandwiches are so delicious as ever, but the standout dish that... that, that encapsulates all, this was the risotto with braised beef. The rice was luscious with a surprising ribbon of brine running through the sauce. The chef obviously knew what she was doing’

THAT REVIEWER IS A SNITCH

Did Syd know that reviewer was a reviewer? I dunno man. Maybe! She’s Chicago born and bred, knows the food scene well. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that she’d recognise him. Maybe she just wanted some good immediate feedback, while she was feeling shitty! Maybe all she wanted was him to send a message back to the kitchen that’s like tell Syd the risotto was great: the impact of his Review but on a much smaller, less disruptive scale.

I think it’s genuine coincidence, which unfortunately looks… not like that. The thing is: the reviewer being a reviewer isn’t what the issue is. The issue is giving food not signed off by her boss to a customer.  She'd have never gotten away with that at the places where she was before. Putting the dish out is going rogue, regardless of who she gives it to. It’s not a team move. If Carmy called in her old bosses for back up, she calls in his potential new customers. Eek. EEK.

Sydney desperately tries to get Ebra to shush, to no avail

(extremely funny work from Ayo, but also he’s pissed, and she either already knows it, or already antipates it – it’s hard to get a read on how long they’ve been in and when they learnt about the review)

‘river of brine, huh?’ 

Carmy, you little snark!!! This is very much his wheelhouse of expressing displeasure, he loves a little jab to the emotional solar plexus. My reading of his line is that what the reviewer tried and what Carmy tried are different, because if it had a ribbon of brine in it, I think that means that there was enough acid. Syd has two dishes, and she’s specific about Carmy trying one and not the other, so my reading here is that Carmy’s POV is not only did a dish go out of my kitchen without my sign off, but it was different from the dish I was given to try. Wince. Wince, wince, wince.

Sydney and Carmy have a fucking excruciating conversation.

Just the worst.

Carmy is not happy, but feels unable to voice this in a way that seems reasonable: he’s busy and stressed about to-gos, he hasn’t moved past the unreasonable feelings of resentment and annoyance to the clarity which enables you to articulate how you feel and why, and because Syd’s gamble paid off! It’s a net positive for the restaurant so it feels counterintuitive to reprimand her, but there is a conversation they need to have. He really does not want to have this conflict, because it’s complicated, and is, like most big blow outs over something small, about so much more than a plate of risotto.  He breezes over the conversation, but you can’t start with that ribbon of brine opener and then tell me shit’s not weird.

Compare this to Brigade, when Sydney is asked what’s up, and she is brave enough and vulnerable enough to be like – here are the things that weren’t OK, here are my expectations, here are my boundaries.

On the other side of the conversation, Sydney knows that she has slipped across a slightly odd boundary, but doesn’t acknowledge this. It’s good he liked it! All’s well that ends well. Right? RIGHT? But if he hadn’t? Very different conversation. It doesn’t matter who he is! He could have been anyone - someone that left a weird Instagram comment later, or someone who didn’t finish the meal and complained. Whatever the case may be, giving it to him unofficially was not an act of partnership, or listening, even if the initial communication was shitty.

She knows she’s overstepped,  but she doesn’t apologise and doesn’t acknowledge the specifics of what she’s done wrong, because she does not want to have the conflict that could come out of this either. She seeks affirmations that they are OK rather than trying to actually find out how Carmy feels and why, because at this point she doesn’t really want to hear it. She is seeking this conversation out 20 minutes before open! It’s not the time for a thorny, complex discussion.  

Compare this to Brigade. Carmy knows Sydney is pissed, and makes the effort to speak to her, in private, armed with the peace offering of Ebra’s Suqaar. He is very careful in that conversation to ask open questions (‘what’s going on with you? Say more?’) that enable her to respond honestly. He persists despite her having her walls up around the fact that she’s pissed. Sydney does not do this. The power dynamic makes it hard, but still. If she wants the connection needed to power reconciliation, that bravery needs to be in play.

are you sure we can't just power through this with sexual tension?

Sweeps congratulates her and tells her she’ll have to tell her dad

Hope Mr Adamu got a newspaper clipping!

Carmy says the sandwiches are totally different and the reviewer is a fucking hack. Syd looks sad.

This moment is why I opened this essay talking about veal stock. We are back in a moment with a gap between what has been said, and what has been heard. The reviewer said the sandwiches were delicious as ever. That’s not a criticism at all! These are not words that justify being called a hack! Carmy is pissed because the reviewer says they are delicious and they always have been, that Carmy has not improved on the staple that was there before him.

And that shit hurts his ego!

His whole thing was going off to learn ‘how to be better than mom and dad’s piece of shit’. We know he’s changed a bunch of things about the sandwiches. In Hands,  Sydney mentions that they’ve switched to market produce, which I’m sure is not unrelated to Richie’s ‘You’ve been here for two weeks and we’ve had money problems for two weeks’ in System. In Carmy’s time there, the bread’s changed, the method for cooking the beef has changed, the way they braise onions has changed.

To that customer? Delicious as ever.It’s not a dismissal, or an insult.  It is a reminder that Carmy didn’t have to leave, and go through all he went through, that there was delicious food and skills to be learned and refined without it. We know Michael was a talented chef. Even now, with all of where he’s been, Carmy cannot surpass him or his memory.

The person that does surpass that? Is Sydney. With food his palate did not deem good enough! Sydney who has not had to leave Chicago and her family. Sydney who has found a way to be creatively free, even at The Beef, in ways that Carmy has not really been able to, because his primary concern has to be money. There is understandable resentment here. But there is competition to the way Carmy cooks, something to prove, someone to smoke. There are reasonable feelings here, but some of them are really ugly, too.

Tina describes Syd as Jeff’s friend

This is a strange little line – because we know that Tina respects Syd as a chef at this point, and she doubles down on it later when she asks Syd to teach Louis skills, like she herself has been taught. So why’s it there? My feeling is that it’s there to remind the audience of what Syd and Carmy’s relationship is usually like. I wouldn’t call it friendship, I think they operate in a weird place that defies labels, but they have this synergy which drives the business. Tina evoking that in this moment draws attention to the fact that they are not in that space right now.

He's just got a very sweet face, it's hard for me to believe he's in trouble at school

Richie has a loud, performative conversation with Carmy about many things, but for the purpose of this section, he states that they don’t do risotto, asks if they’re going to, and Carmy definitively states that ‘no, they’re not going to do that’ he also repeats Syd’s phrasing that it was ‘an accident’

She stabbed the wrong ass if you ask me!

Nah, but for real, this is nasty work. I’m gonna come back to it in the next (penultimate!) bit of writing about the Beef, the Bear, Richie & Michael, Syd & Carmy. For now, I will simply say that Carmy is doing up major pass agg here, and it’s nasty to watch. He’s really, really unhappy with her,  and he’s struggling to hold it in, so it’s coming out in unhelpful and unpleasant ways that feel like humiliations in front of the whole team, and punishment.

There are really valid reasons for Carmy to be annoyed and to not want to talk about it right now.  The problem is that If you don’t create a pressure valve you take responsibility for, you will end up a) exploding instead (lol) and/or b) releasing that frustration in unhelpful and harmful ways.

They move towards this with their ASL sorry in Season Two. But here, Carmy says and implies a bunch of things to Richie that he needed to say explicitly to Syd two episodes ago, and two minutes ago: that he has no intention of putting risotto on the menu, and that he thinks her saying it was an accident was bullshit. He wants Syd to know it’s not OK without the hard, painful work of having to engage in conflict with her. It’s shitty.

Sweet Louis asks what a ribbon of brine is

He seems like a good boy, bring him back!

A BUNCH OF STUFF THAT I WILL WRITE ABOUT NEXT TIME HAPPENS

Richie, Syd and Carmy, it’s delicious (a nightmare).

Syd attempts a second conversation with Carmy – having vented some frustration  at Richie, and seeing how her workload is piling up and becoming untenable, she is much more open here. Carmy is not.

She’s blunt – we’re not on the same page. Carmy lies and deflects – we’re good, let’s get through the shift. He has his hands on his hips, with as much of his body turned away from her as possible, during this conversation, and walks off half way through it. Even if everything had gone right, this shift would have been a nightmare for Syd.

Everything is awesome!

The penultimate mention of the risotto is here. There is very little I can say that has not been brilliantly said by eatandsleepwell here - https://www.tumblr.com/hourglassfish/726487509540962304/eatandsleepwell-melonatures-this-one-second?source=share so I’m gonna link it.

That’s the last we hear of risotto for now, other than a quick reference to Syd as an arrogant and condescending ribbon of brine from Richie later. It doesn’t turn up on the tasting menu at the Bear, where it defo feels like a riff on risotto could have replaced one of their pasta dishes. That switch from rice to pasta feels pointed.

Spaghetti

Let’s treat The Beef as a character. If Sydney’s ingredient motif is veal stock, then The Beef’s is that family spaghetti.

Cheap and simple. Fucking delicious. Makes no sense and shouldn’t work, but was somehow the best seller on the menu. Distinctively Italian. Stuffed full of drug money(!). Always, always presented at the table with love, like a gift. You can elevate it if you want, but the fact of the matter is that even at its very best, it’s only gonna hit so hard cus it reminds you of simpler times, like the ratatouille (that is not a ratatouille!) from the movie Ratatouille.

Carmy rejects that meal at the top of the series. It ‘doesn’t make sense on the menu’, so he doesn’t care that people loved it. So far, so EMP. When he starts to cook it in episode one, it feels like a relenting to Richie’s bullying, and him throwing WHAT WE NOW KNOW WAS PROBABLY A FEW THOUSAND DOLLARS in the bin at the end of the episode feels like this exhilarating rejection of mediocrity. They change the lines for System, but in the pilot, Carmy literally cannot make the spaghetti, that last lesson from Michael is a real missing puzzle piece.

In Braciole,  when he gets the recipe, he goes to cook it, for family. It’s really nice, that scene, feels comparable to Sydney making omelette. It’s quiet, and Carmy seems content, if wistful. The pork instead of beef panic of earlier is put to the side for now. The previous day, Carmy has gone to Al-Anon and confessed, unburdened himself. Then followed two quiet days and a blue hued night of atonement: he reaffirmed his commitment to Richie, paying his bail and keeping watch all night, gave Tina the night off, apologised to Marcus and acknowledged that his behaviour towards Sydney wasn’t acceptable, as well as speaking to her about her dish, like an adult. Carmy has to do all of this before he finds the money, before he gets the validation that he’s really longing for from his brother.

JAW getting his Emmy, his Golden Globe, his SAG Award, his Bafta, his future Oscar Winning role.

If The Bear at its core is about grief, and the void that Michael’s death leaves, then one of the big journeys of Season One is the subsequent death of the Beef, ready for its rebirth as The Bear in the following season. Review is the short sharp stab to the gut, of Sydney leaving, and taking any hope that it can be reformed as is, with her work. I don’t think the nature of a puncture wound, and the shortness of that episode are unrelated.

Braciole is more of a death rattle: Jimmy’s debt keeping them trapped in shitty work they don’t want to do, situations that spiral out of control and descend into violence, their parachute turned to bail money. But Michael wanted more for his brother than that, and he has left him a foundation. He does not have to burn the place down, there need not be smoke and hellfire. There’s another avenue for rebirth, one where ‘set this place on fire’ does not have to mean an insurance scam, but instead can mean an ignition of all their ambition and dreams.

To get there there has to be an ego death first, a moment of hubris that gets our protagonists fresh, and clean, so they can move to the new. Sydney sees and experiences the worst of herself (more on this in the final part!). Richie gets stabbed (more on this in the next part).

Carmy? Carmy has to encountera crisis where not only could his training not save him but many of the lessons he learnt while he was away and his reasons for going in the first place actively made the situation worse, and those that had faith in him and his preferred system turned away from him, deeply hurt. His ego gets in the way of connection, and it shatters the partnership that he needs to make it all work. He is clinging to old ways of being that has not served him, but he needs to move forward into what is new. And he does.

Well.

He tries.

SMDH

WHEW

Another long one, sorry fam. I’m almost there though. Am I sorry? No, I’m grateful if you read it, and I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope I’m pulling this together coherently, that I’m showing a sort of throughline to the way I view Episode 7. I don’t think Sydney is perfect! I do think her walking out is narratively and politically (the show wants better for the workplaces its drawn from) necessary, and I hate, hate, hate the simplification of that decision to ‘he shouted at her so she bailed’. Please, you can’t think this show is well written and think her decision is as simple as that, it doesn’t make sense. That exit is crafted so that it is inevitable, there is a movie’s worth of build up to it.

We’re looking at Richie, Syd and Carmy next time, fam. I am trying so hard to cut it down cus it’s currently sat at 15,000 words, but I’m gonna try really hard to edit down, OK? I’m gonna try really hard.

I can’t respond but I value reblogs and comments so much!

This is part of a five part series! You can find the rest here:

Expect More: Syd and Carmy's relationship,

I know you'll be listening: Marcus, McDonald's and Freedom

Risottogate

Hiring New Fucking Broads: Syd, Richie and conflict;

"That's Not You" The Moment Syd Walks Out

[gildeddlily]

I just hated this season.

yes, it was really really rushed, but we're not gonna talk about the end. we're gonna talk about how Reginald Hargrreves is the only decent character?

they ruined Fives because they wanted him to have a love story (how could that be necessary for a story to be good how fucking how) and by making him ten times less mature and smart than last season.

they ignored every bad thing Allison did and painted the others as mean for still being angry at her basically, and they basically made up this whole thing about her relationship with Klaus? in the first season we see Klaus mainly interact with Diego, who he's closest to, and Gives. in the second season he interacts more with Allison, but not in a she-has-to-stop-the-addict-from-killing-himself way. in the third one? never even heard of childhood stories where she set everything apart to save him. so yeah, it looked like a sort of pity party for Alison which I didn't want after what she did in season three??? I'm all in for redemption arc, but this wasn't redemption, it was just covering things with a rug.

Klaus was also butchered: at the start he was interesting with all the "I finally have something I can control", but they quickly went back to his first season persona and ignored years of progress (not talking ab his addiction, but his way of thinking). like, just say that you don't want to write character development man!!!

with Reginal they explored his idea of sacrifice, they played with his character and finally made him less of a bastard, by making him a hypocrite which is the most human thing to be. he berates others for putting one person before the whole word or timeline, and he ends up doing the same for his wife, just because he was lonely which is the most human thing in the world again.

(and he was all "you weak humans" at the start which makes this all more genius)

so yeah. I'm too mad to say something that makes sense!!

[rocketinthesky]

We’re not meant to be, but my heart refuses to listen

Max already found his soulmate, and is in a committed relationship with her. But why is his heart defying fate and pulling him back into George’s orbit?

- A Soulmate AU (GAX)

-fluff, slight angst, happy ending, canon divergent, rated Teen and up

Part II —> (Part I) (OR read on ao3)

Didn’t quite work out, though.

The information whirs around in Max’s mind like an incessant chant, George’s soft whisper still hot against his skin every time he remembers his words.

They’re on break for the summer, and Max doesn’t really get to see George. It would be easy, in theory, to text him if he’s free to hang out. Maybe for a game of paddle. Or lunch. Or a drink. But it’d be equally weird. They’re friendly, not exactly friends.

When race week comes back around, Max finds himself anticipating seeing George more than the actual race. Part of it has to do with the car devolving into a shitbox mid season. Max feels a little resigned. He has already locked in the championship. He doesn’t have the mental energy to expend towards a car that stopped performing.

His eyes immediately latch onto George when the man appears in his Mercedes polo, approaching the spot where he and a few other drivers are standing and idly chatting.

George meets his gaze, holds it. He grins, wide. All teeth, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Nose slightly scrunched up in that cute way of his.

Max smiles, clapping him on the shoulder when he’s finally standing next to him. He gets swept up into a conversation with him—random small talk about whatever really comes to mind. His eyes continuously flicker down to his exposed wrist, the husk of a tree inked on his skin, delicate branches reaching out and bare. He absentmindedly scratches his own wrist.

“Planning to grab dinner at this Italian place later with Lando and Alex. Wanna join, mate?”

The invite takes Max a little by surprise, but the answer leaves him faster than he can even process it.

“Yes.”

George’s responding beam feels like the lifeblood running through Max’s veins.

Dinner goes well.

Contrary to expectations, he doesn't end up fourth-wheeling the three friends. Rather, George seems to be striking up conversation with him more than the other two, and Max can't find it in himself to complain.

They don't drink since they still have their third free practice session tomorrow, but Max still feels a slight staticky buzz under his skin at how close George is next to him, their sides touching. Max has to fight the urge to press closer still. He can't possibly be that greedy.

Max and George head back together, George offering to drive and saving Max the uber fee to the hotel. It helps that they're staying at the same hotel.

There's something about talking to George that makes it difficult to...stop. Max keeps wanting to prolong the conversation, wanting to hear George's voice, a lot rawer and deeper, a little slower and language less refined than when he's talking for the cameras. It's always engaging, interesting, sometimes a little ridiculous with the constant banter.

Max can't help but lament reaching their hotel, signaling that they need to part ways for the night.

When Max reaches his room, he flops onto the bed with a groan. He can still feel the heat of George's palm seared onto his shoulder from when he said 'goodnight'. He turns over his wrist, stares at the rose inked on it. It looks wilted to Max, even though he knows that's physically impossible.

Just then his phone buzzes with a phone call. He sighs when he sees the name, feeling a bone-deep exhaustion settling within him. The guilt eats away at him as he picks up, and greets his girlfriend. The guilt isn't enough to force him to pretend to be happy. He'll just hope she thinks it's because of the race preparation.

He perks up a little, not so much with excitement, rather with his nerves setting alight at her hesitant yet unyielding words.

"We need to talk, Maxy. Not now, obviously. When you're...back. I'm sorry for springing this onto you right now. I just...sorry."

The call disconnects, not giving Max the time to either process her words or come up with any response.

Shit. Max thinks. Shit, shit, shit.

He fucked it up, didn't he?

Max, for all his oblivious demeanor, knows that those words, that tone, can only really mean one thing. What pains him—no, scares him—is that he feels a sickening sense of relief over it.

He wants to throw up.

Grabbing his phone, he opens up Instagram and instinctively finds himself opening up his messages with George. They haven’t sent any messages in weeks. Max doesn’t think they’ve ever had a proper conversation over text, even.

Max

what’s ur room no.

?

George

508

Max blinks a few times at his phone screen, unable to process reality. The reality of him impulsively asking George about his room number, the reality of George telling him without demanding any sort of explanation.

He gets out of bed embarrassingly quick, barely remembering to grab his room key-card before walking out, making his way towards George’s room.

George opens the door at the second knock. Max’s breath catches in his throat seeing him; George, shirtless, only donning a pair of boxers. He must’ve been ready for bed.

“Did i interrupt your sleep?” Max croaks out, feeling both apologetic and flustered. He tries very hard to keep his eyes focused on George’s face and not let them wander down. He notices George looking over him too, definitely noticing that Max is still wearing the same shirt and khaki shorts from their dinner prior. George, thankfully, doesn’t mention it.

“Nah, mate, you’re good.” George smiles. He back away from the door, opening it wider. “C’mon in, then.”

Max does, a tad dazed from everything that’s been happening. He hangs his head low even when he walks over to the sofa and plops down. The cushion shifts and he feels the air beside him become warmer as George situates himself right next to him.

“Everything alright, Max?”

“Yes,” Max replies, all too quick, mostly out of instinct.

Obviously George doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t push it either. He claps Max’s shoulder and gives it a short squeeze. The fleeting touch is alarmingly grounding.

“Anything to drink?”

Max turns his head enough to flash George a wry grin. “Gin and tonic?”

George barks out a laugh. “Not until the race is over, buddy.”

Max grimaces, sighing in defeat. “Just…plain water then.”

As George walks to the mini-fridge, Max’s eyes follow him of their own accord and he’s rudely reminded of George’s…bareness. Jesus, did the boxers have to be so tight? Max swallows around the shameful lump in his throat, quickly ducking his head just as George turned around to head back to him. George's lack of self-awareness is starting to annoy Max just a little as he accepts the offered water bottle with a murmured thanks.

They stay like that, sitting in silence. George quietly scrolls his phone, still next to Max, the heat of his body emanating off him and sheathing Max in a warmth that has the numbness subsiding a little.

Max idly scratches at his soulmate mark on his wrist, ignoring the tenderness of the spot from his repeated abuse.

“Earth to Max,”

Max registers the palm waving right in front of his eyes with a jolt, blinking away the bleariness of his eyes. He raises his head to find George looking at him, a hint of worry leaking through the friendly smile he’s sporting.

“Huh?”

“I said, you’re welcome to crash here for the night. If you want.”

Max’s face is alight at the mere prospect of spending the night in George’s room, and it must show if the teasing glint in George’s eyes is anything to go by.

“Mate, why would i crash on your couch when i have my own bed just downstairs?”

George chuckles and shrugs. “You can take the bed.”

Max arches a questioning eyebrow. “Why would you take the couch when you have a perfectly comfortable bed to sleep in?”

George laughs loudly this time, nudging Max’s side as he does so. “I’m a gracious host, not a doormat. The bed is big enough for two grown men and then some.”

Max’s heart leaps to his throat. George Russell might just be the death of him.

“You’re serious?”

George shrugs noncommittally, as if he didn’t just offer his colleague and rival racer to sleep beside him in the same bed.

“Your call, Max.”

Max’s treacherous heart has already made its decision.

Max only hesitates for a moment, seeing George already settling under the covers on the left side of the bed, contemplating if taking his shirt and uncomfortable shorts would be too bold and strange. But he’s too exhausted to be hung up over it and decides fuck it before divesting himself of his shirt and shorts till he’s only left in his boxers, just like George. George would have no right to complain since he brought it upon himself, and of course he doesn’t look like he’s even thinking of complaining as he watches Max tentatively getting into bed.

The distance between them is a chasm, further widened as they both curl up on their sides and face each other. George’s chin is tucked under the sheets, mouth hidden beneath them, but from the crinkles at the corners of his eyes Max can tell he’s smiling.

Max suddenly feels like a kid again, having a sleepover with a friend. Sharing a bed, fighting the urge to giggle for absolutely no actual reason other than the lack of burden in their company.

George’s company lifts the weight off Max’s shoulders, just a little, and he finds himself fighting a grin, a little incredulous at this whole situation. It’s George who breaks first, shaking with suppressed laughter, before Max ends up giving in and joining.

It’s a strange sight; two grown men giggling like children, sleeping in the same bed, facing each other. The distance between them feels lesser now, though neither have shifted closer.

“Feels like I’m back to our karting years again.” George says.

He’s resting his head on his hand, wrist exposed. Max’s eyes are wired to look, mirth dimming the slightest bit as he sees that same inked tree for the umpteenth time.

“Yeah.” Max says, wistfully. “Feels a little silly.”

“Silly’s good, sometimes.” George says, quieter now.

Max’s eyes turn to look into his. Everything about George is infinitely softer under the yellowish dim glow of the lamp which is still on. Max’s fingers itch with the urge to rake through George’s bangs. They’ve gotten quite long, the curls almost reaching his brows.

“It is.” Max says, clenching his hands into fists under the sheets to stop himself before he can do such a thing.

“G’night, Max.” George says, twisting his body towards the nightstand to turn off the lamp.

“Night.” Max mutters, burying himself deeper into the comfort of the sheets, letting his eyes fall shut with the darkness now sheathing the room.

He has the best sleep he’s had in a long, long time.

Funny story, this will have one more part aha. Welp :pp i rly am just going with the flow. Let’s see where Gax take me! Originally i thought this would be angstier but as always i’m just not very good at that lol this was pretty fluffy. But wtv Gax deserves happiness! They deserve fluff!!!! Ty for reading and i hope you enjoyed hehe <33