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twisting-roads · 27 days ago

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DEBUNKING COMMON RAIN WORLD MISINTERPRETATIONS

The target audience for this was for people who don't know too much about the game as well, so I'm going to explain things that a normal player might already know.

Rain World is known for how it simply throws you into the world with almost no tutorial, and is often praised for it.

But this lack of explanation if you do not go out of your way to find it has also lead to a lot of misinterpretations from those who did not read all the game’s available information, or misunderstood what they were being told. I used to watch some RW lore videos that would explain and summarize these things, and in the past I believed them.

I’ve since stopped doing that after having some time to actually process what I’ve been reading, and I’m here to say...

YOU ARE ALL WRONG ABOUT RAIN WORLD.

Ok, hyperbole. Not everyone believes these, and art can always be interpreted in different ways by different people, and I won’t stop you from having these beliefs. But also, there’s plenty of ingame content which completely disproves most of these unsubstantiated points from those who do not fully research the game before making videos about it.

Looking at you Tale Foundry…

The purpose of this is to pick apart some of the sadly far too common points I’ve heard many times before from Youtube videos, to Tumblr posts, to people I’ve spoken to on Discord.

Starting with my least favorite…

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“The 5 karma were seen as sinful”

Obvious westernization of a game based off fucking Buddhism aside, there’s no ingame text directly supporting this claim. There isn’t any that says otherwise, but we have good reason to believe this isn’t the case.

The 5 natural urges, as they’re sometimes called, were NATURAL. They were what bound you to the cycle. They never worsened your life or made you a terrible person should you keep following them, but an aspect of life on the same level as suffering or ecstasy.

Hey, I’ll break down the 5 karma and their meanings to show you that they're not just "sins"

I believe the natural urges have 2 different meanings: an animalistic one, and a more “human” one.

KARMA 1 This obviously represents violence, as you see one guy stabbing the other. I believe it also represents competition and intense emotions, For example: Artificer experiencing intense grief and lashing out in violence as a result. It was not the violence that started it, but her emotions. (Yes, its Downpour. But it’s a good point.)

KARMA 2

They’re having sex. They’re fucking. They’re- ok you get it. Karma 2 represents reproduction. But, I also believe it’s desire. Joyful bodily experiences, and such. The 2 figures seen here are in a much more playful pose than if they were simply doing this only to reproduce. No, they’re having fun.

KAMRA 3 Connection. Bonding with others. Yet also trade and personal belongings. Attachment to things that are not yourself.

KARMA 4 It’s mentioned ingame that this represents gluttony It’s overindulgence, you know. Similarly to karma 2, it can also be searching for fulfillment. I'm not particularly good at telling what the meaning of this could be.

KARMA 5 Self preservation. Self preservation can come in many forms, from an animal running away from a predator or somebody getting defensive after being accused of something or being threatened, this one is rather vague about its meaning.

I do this to show that the 5 urges have very NEUTRAL meanings. It being positive or negative is entire dependant on context. They’re not sinful, get out of here with that Catholic shit!

The 5 karmas have both positive, negative, and neutral contexts which they can fit into.

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“The ancients hated being alive”

The ancients simply hated the cycle itself and its unknowable properties, as well as being much more aware of things like karma and the urges. Rather, they valued being effortless to disconnect themselves from this cycle.

“This was an eternal dilemma to them - they were burdened by great ambition, yet deeply convinced that striving in itself was an unforgivable vice. They tried very hard to be effortless.” – Bright Green Pearl (DS)

Some practices did of course include things like starving yourself, but as mentioned by Moon, these methods proved to be mostly obsolete. Void Fluid fundamentally changed their culture from what we see. Rather, we do see the ancients enjoying life and valuing it in their own way, which is INCREDIBLY important to some of the games themes, but I’ll get into that later.

"[...]'In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids[…] Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel nobly decided to ascend in the beginning of 1514.008, after graciously donating all (ALL!) earthly possessions to the local Iterator project (Unparalleled Innocence), and left these memories to be cherished by the carnal plane.The assorted memories and qualia include:Watching dust suspended in a ray of sun (Old age). Eating a very tasty meal (Young child). Defeating an opponent in a debate contest, and being applauded by fellow team members (Late childhood/Early adulthood).’...and the list goes on. I'm sorry, little creature, I won't read all of this - the list is six hundred and twenty items long.” – Deep Magenta (SH)

There’s quite a lot to pick apart here, I had to cut down some parts short, but even the cut parts have important details. Just not important enough for me to bring up here.

The Memory Crypts we see ingame are… well where memories are kept. The qualia (personalized experiences) is stored within these mutated fleshy neural organisms referred to as “cabinet beasts”. These of course, contain the “living memories” or qualia of those who have ascended. There are people smarter than me who have already covered these ideas of course, so I won't go TOO indepth.

The ancients greatly valued titles and achievements just as us. They still lived normal lives. As well as this, they valued personal experiences and memories of the carnal realm so much they built an entire citadel to store memories.

As we can see as well, Seventeen Axes has quite a lot of enjoyable memories from throughout their life. Eating nice food and winning a debate contest and getting validation from their peers? That sounds rather… complacent with the 3rd and 4th natural urges, doesn’t it?

I do not believe this screams “I hate being alive!” as much as people have made it out to be, and is honestly ruins part of the game’s messages of compassion and personalized experiences, especially in the game’s ending where Survivor dreams of home.

“You have no name. I once had! I was embalmed, adorned, readied for the journey. So proud. There was jubilation! My name was sung, loud and clear. Did they know? That I didn't quite leave, didn't quite stay? Should I be ashamed? That I linger here, where my memories are kept? Should I be ashamed that I now envy your flesh prison?” - Four Needles under Plentiful Leaves

This is leaning into personal theory territory, but...

I personally believe that the ancients were somewhat terrified of the unpredictability of the cycle and the fact that life would always have more suffering in it.

RW’s religion is heavily based off Buddhism. This is well known of course. The Cycle is a variation of Samsara. Now, I’m not Buddhist, and I’ve tried to do my research about some of these topics. Feel free to correct me, I’m simply going off what I know. (Also I'd love to hear what you have to say regarding your thoughts on the game!)

In Buddhism, each new life you could be taken into the body of an animal, or even end up being tortured in hell for a very, very, VERY long time if you made the wrong decisions, which made escaping it as soon as you could seem like a rather reasonable thing to do.

The ancients never fully grasped the scope of the cycle, and the prospects of having your soul wake up in the body of some miserable worm with no memory of your past or any ideas of your future might’ve seemed bleak.

Suffering is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean they hated being alive, like I said before.

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“Rain World is post-apocalyptic.”

It really isn’t. There was never any apocalypse. The ancients simply left on their own accord, leaving behind their mark on the world that will slowly be buried once again in the ever so present cycle.

“The bones of forgotten civilizations, heaped like so many sticks.” - Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets

The world is thriving, even. The purposed organisms left behind have evolved and taken over and become it’s own ecosystem.

The iterators are dying though. Dying very slowly, but soon they’ll all decay and everything will move on.

It’s all just another manifestation of the cycle.

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“The creatures in Rain World cannot die”

This is definitely something I hear from people who haven’t played much of the game and only hear about it from outside sources and watch the gameplay.

Yes, it is easy to believe this. As slugcat, when you die, you wake back up again. This is entirely a gameplay thing and not actually related to the lore. Saying this might seem like I'm avoiding the question at hand here, but the rules that apply to you do not seem to apply to other creatures.

Every creature in the game has a 4 integer ID (it can go higher, but not in a standard playthrough).

This makes every creature you see an individual of sorts with its own randomized values or appearance.

As well as this, creatures spawn from specific marked dens. When you kill a creature that spawns from a certain den, the next cycle, that creature’s ID will never appear again. Instead, the den spawn is replaced by a creature of the same species with a different ID, or a new species entirely.

Through gameplay, you see that the respawn rules that apply to you do not apply to other creatures. I’ve heard many points about how these dead creatures are transported to another alternate universe where they are alive, but I really do not want to delve into that theory. You do that yourself.

Excuse my unprofessional language, but this is kind of stupid. Billions and billions of little timeline splits accounting for every single insect and microbe that dies seems far too complex of a solution. Occam's Razor and all that.

With this gameplay element you see, I also want to give LORE explanations as to why this is incredibly stupid.

1) If death had no impact, the 5 natural urges would not matter

If no creatures died, there would be no point in eating (karma 4), competing with other species (karma 1), or any form of self preservation (karma 5). Reproduction (karma 2) has no role and there would be absolutely no reason to do anything any longer. All natural processes would be useless.

2) Light Blue Pearl

The information received from the cycle is most likely from the Light Blue Pearl, found in Outskirts.

“[...]The repeating mantra is important because it symbolizes the cyclical nature of life and death, and the termination verse is a symbol for ascension above and beyond it. I don't know how familiar you are with the nature of life and death, but I imagine like all living creatures you have some intuitive knowledge? Then you know that death isn't the end - birth and death are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring. Some ramble in agonizing longevity. But the basis is agreed upon: like sleep like death, you wake up again - whether you want to or not. This is true for all living things, but some actually break the cycle. That doesn't apply to you or me though, you are too entangled in your animal struggles, and for me not breaking that cycle is an integral part of the design. Our mantras keep repeating.”

“Then you know that death isn't the end - birth and death are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring.“

This line is very misunderstood. Moon specifically mentions birth and death. She mentions death. She never brings up the notion that nothing truly dies either.

As well as this, Moon says that “some say”, implying that even the ancients weren’t sure what the cycle was either. This is more important to my point regarding how the unfathomable nature of the cycle was why the Ancients were so averse to it from above, though.

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“Sliver of Straw found the solution.”/"There is/isn't solution"

No she didn’t.

Ok fine I’ll explain.

If you’ve played Rain World you know that the purpose of the iterators is to find the solution to the “Great Problem”, the problem of how to ascend ALL living creatures.

You’ll also know Sliver sent out the Triple Affirmative…

“[...]affirmative that a solution has been found, affirmative that the solution is portable, and affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable. She's also one of few that has ever been confirmed as exhaustively incapacitated, or dead. We do not die easily.[…]” - Pale Yellow (SL)

After sending out this affirmative, the iterators became conflicted. They never could figure out if she really ascended and had found the solution, or if it was some sort of catastrophic error.

The answer to the Great Problem is clearly intended to be as obscured as possible. There cannot be an answer one way or the other. The themes of it and the endless tolling of the iterators would not be as impactful if we knew there was or wasn’t a solution.

“[...]Either way, after that these different factions developed, as well as a huge forensic effort to recreate and simulate Sliver of Straw's last moments. Some of the simulations were wrapped in a simulation wrapped in a simulation, in case something dangerous might happen. Nothing much has come from it.[…]“ - Pale Yellow (SL)

Here’s my favorite way of explaining what I mean…

Imagine Schrodinger's Cat, the famous thought experiment. There’s a 50/50 chance that when you open the box, you either find the Solution, or find out there is No Solution.

Except you cannot open the box. And the box is entirely theoretical and nobody’s seen it. It seems impossible, but maybe one day you’ll find that box. That’s what the Great Problem is.

Sliver apparently having found the solution would have completely broken everything. Five Pebbles wouldn’t have ended up hurting himself and Moon had Sliver finding the solution been known with certainty. He was taking a shot in the dark.

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“Ascension is akin to suicide.”

I strongly believe this point harms the role that ascension and the void sea play in Rain World’s narrative. Ascension is meant to be a final destination, a goal you build up to and prepare for when you’ve lived every bit of life you possible could, and can now move on.

Bringing up the Memory Crypt pearl from earlier, Seventeen Axes lived an incredibly fulfilling life from what we see, and ascended happily.

As well as this, Buddhism strongly encourages those who wish to liberate themselves to discover their own path, which is also subtly shown through the gameplay, as there are many many routes you can take to Five Pebbles, Looks To The Moon, and The Depths.

I do also think this is why Five Pebbles failed. He tried to brute force his way to ascension.

Suicide implies that ascension is only meant to be a fruitless escape and that it’s wrong to ascend. I�� do not want to go into why suicide is bad. It’s a strong topic and I’m just here to talk about video games. But ascension is a neutral thing that you can choose to do or not do and to wait until you’re ready.

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Conclusion...

I really only have the time to cover these 6 misconceptions, and I believe it should be enough. There have been many others I’ve seen, such as the ancients being malicious or that there weren’t any civilizations before them, but there’s not as much to say about them, and they aren’t as common.

Rain World is a very confusing game. I’m not upset at people who think these things to be true, and I do not believe they’re stupid or don’t have any media literacy. I just wish that the people who did actually cover this game did some more looking into it, and actually discussing it with Rain World fans.

Also I should say, that during this entire discussion I have avoided talking about Downpour- RW’s DLC- as it’s more of a official fanmade project. And so much of what it says may not be entirely in line with Vanilla. Because my life isn’t easy and of course there has to be an incredibly divisive and confusing thing like this that I need to avoid bringing up so that way the conversation isn’t muddled.

Thanks if you managed to make it through all this by the way

#txt[]#itref #rw #rain world #rain world lore #rain world ancients

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fruityumbrella · 4 months ago

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one piece is set in a nautical world with presumably nautical idioms and exclamations to match, right, like swearing by the sea rather than on a god etc. to wit, there's five seas (the four blues + the grand line) so we can assume when you're feeling particularly dramatic, you might refer to all those vast oceans to get your hyperbolic point across.

keeping that in mind, lets live in a stupidly romantic corny ass world for a moment ok? take my hand.

"I swear on all six seas, if you don't shut the fuck up right now—"

"What?" Sanji looks at him like he's stupid. Nothing new, really.

"Ha, even you're going deaf having to listen to your own annoying ass whining all the time, Cook. I was—"

"No, you—"

"Don't interrupt me! Oi!" he yelps as a wooden spoon bounces harmlessly off his shoulder. He's not impressed that Sanji manages to catch it before it hits the counter.

"You said six seas," Sanji states.

Zoro stares back in lieu of an answer.

"Huh, maybe this has something to do with why you're always lost. There's only five seas, dummy."

And ah, now he gets what the idiot cook is on about. He's surprised and a little disappointed, honestly. You'd think the guy would be a little more aware about his own fucking dream, but whatever. He's got that annoying smile, smug and cocky like he's oh so much better than Zoro.

"Would you like me to count them out for you? I know it's a big number, it's probably confusing for a simple creature like you."

Zoro crosses his arms in clear warning, something the cook, as always, blatantly ignores. He's leaning on the counter that's between them now, eyes sparkling with glee. Idiot. Zoro's thoughts do not have a fond tone to them. Thoughts don't have tones at all, thank you very much.

Sanji lifts a hand and proceeds to count off on his fingers with the precision of a drill sergeant.

"I'm sure you at least know our ocean, the East Blue. There's also the West Blue, North Blue, South Blue, and of course the Grand Line," he wiggles all his fingers as he puts his thumb up for the last one like he's emulating fireworks.

Zoro snorts indelicately. "And?"

Sanji frowns with a tilt of his head.

"And?"

Zoro holds up his index finger.

"And," he says, stifling his amusement as Sanji goes cross eyed trying to follow said finger as it arcs towards him, "your All Blue. Dummy."

He punctuates the last word by poking Sanji in the forehead, snickering when he sputters and swats the digit away in a huff. Then Zoro's words finally sink in, and he straightens up almost too fast. It's not endearing at all.

"Wait," he says quietly, "you count it?"

Zoro doesn't like how Sanji's looking at him with an open expression he's not usually allowed. He looks earnest and sincere. Zoro feels suddenly out of his depth.

"Don't you?" he deflects uncomfortably.

"Well yeah, but that's different. You're—" he shrugs half heartedly and looks away. Zoro can't tell if the end of that sentence was going to disparage him or the cook. Odds are likely split down the middle. Sanji keeps looking at him, and he feels pinned. The bright look is gone, replaced by something more reserved but perhaps...searching? Considering, at the least. It's making him increasingly self conscious. He needs to get out of here.

"Okay. I'm gonna steal some alcohol now," he says shortly, striding to the cabinet and swiping a bottle before Sanji blinks out of his stupor.

#i see that in fic sometimes where theyll say like. 'for seas sake' or smth similiar and its like. so unnecessary honestly. not in a mean way #i think theres this misguided notion of like 'oh people in this fantasy world wouldnt say 'oh my god' bc they dont have God' but #1. yes they do conceptually 2. theres absolutely christians in op anyway. mihawk wears a cross for some reason. kuma lived in a church! cmo #3. other cultures (source: me) use god as a swear as well sbhdns #ANYWAY not the point of this post. i am just holding a sickly sweet scene in my hands like a baby bird i need to put it somewhere #lest i be tempted to shove it into a grounded fic and ruin the vibe entirely #always soooo embarrassing to write (let alone share) smth so cheesy but i think esp bc i know its SO ooc for zoro.#well whatever he gets a break from being his real authentic uptight unromantic jackass self its ok. be cutesy dw about it<3 #zosan #roronoa zoro #black leg sanji #vtxt #vfic

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leclsrc · 2 years ago

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you know it ✴︎ cl16

genre: porn WITH plot (for once?! everyone cheered), humor, bit of fluff... oh inaccurate depictions of the 2022 season sorry

word count: 7k

Charles is a bit disappointed the pretty girl he harbors a crush on doesn’t have him listed as a Formula 1 crush. He is a lot disappointed that you two can’t fuck.

nsfw warnings under the cut!

18+ because... degradation, praise, charles is a bit switchy here lol, penetrative sex, a bit of ass play sorry...., oral (m receiving), semi public sex, yeah

title from this. i love u guys im so sleepy

Joris insists there’s some big present waiting for Charles in his car, to celebrate the middle of the season that has, and will no doubt continue to stretch into a period of conflict and strategy woes. He yanks off the beanie sitting on his head, listens to small talk drifting between Joris and Carlos as they all walk toward their cars to alleviate the bubble of nerves in the low of his stomach.

Sure enough, there’s an unassuming box lying on the driver’s seat. Joris slides into the passenger seat after Carlos drives away with his girlfriend, his grin shit-eating and mischievous. The door is half open when Charles takes the box to inspect it. White, with the Ferrari logo printed neatly on the centre (very classy touch), the sides are signed by different members of his team. He scratches through the seal and pulls the flap open.

He’s been given a quasi-official Ferrari box of condoms.

Thirty-six condoms, at that, small squares neatly lined up next to each other. Talk about a welcoming present. Not a camera, not racing memorabilia, not a new pair of shoes. Just condoms. Thirty-six of them.

“A mid-season pick-me-up,” presses his friend, giddily. The shorter male lounges comfortably on the seat, a blissful look of pride on his face. Laughing with exasperation, Charles wedges the box shut and tosses it carelessly into the backseat, preparing to drive. This isn’t his first rodeo with weird gifts—he’s half-sure he got adoption papers from an especially excited fan once before.

“You are such an asshole.”

“It’s also a congratulations on winning literally every race so far present,” Joris adds. It’s hyperbole but has a ring of truth to it. As the season closes, Charles’ chances of holding up the trophy this year increase.

Despite himself, Charles has a better outlook on his chances for the remainder of the season, driving-wise. He’s given it his all so far, and the rest looks promising enough. He only hopes he’s right. Netflix also increased the amount of people getting into the sport, so he’s dealing with tons more fans and nosey DMs, but it’s not too much of an impediment to a hopefully stellar season.

Charles makes a right. “Do you plan to use them?” Joris asks then, a teasing tone taking on his voice as he scrolls through his phone.

“No, not really,” Charles says, lying straight through his teeth.

“You’re a fucking liar, you are.” He whips his head toward Charles, observing his stoic side profile. “You’re single, haven’t gotten laid in months—”

“—weeks.” Corrects Charles with a cough, the defense coming at an embarrassing speed.

“…Case in point. And sports gets everyone horny. And if you didn’t know, Mattia actually OK-ed the condoms, so you’ve basically been greenlit by your boss to fuck half the world. Thank me later. I’m proud of myself.”

“Sports gets everyone competitive. Because it’s sports. Which, you’re conveniently forgetting, is my life profession.”

“Loosen up,” Joris whistles lowly. “You think Lewis got seven titles by being a closed-off celibate? It’s practically tradition to fuck around if you’re single in sports. And, for others, being in a relationship is barely an obstacle, anyway.”

Charles hates to admit that Joris is right—because he is. Racing isn’t racing without the extravagant parties that follow, and the girls and guys brought back to hotels for reasons known to everyone. People from everywhere come to the paddock and the clubs—models, influencers, actors. The pent-up energy has to go somewhere, he supposes.

But even if the little shit is right, Charles still maintains a level of dignity. Ergo, he’s steadfast in his belief that he will not be sleeping around or putting this godforsaken box of condoms to any semblance of use while the rest of the season progresses. He just hopes he won’t eat his words.

—

Monza kicks off with a 1-2 and secures Charles with a comfortable lead ahead Max.

He is high on adrenaline all night, toasting and chugging to the win, snapping pictures with Carlos, proud out of his mind. It’s everything he’s wanted and more, a quench to the thirst he’d developed over the season, a slap in the face to his doubters, a kiss on his. He texts his family, friends who aren’t present, some other people who he feels are deserving of a personal announcement, and pockets his phone.

“Now would be a great time to put that gift to use,” Carlos says at some point, when everyone in the garage is kicking back alcohol and slowly preparing to move the celebrations someplace else.

Charles cringes visibly, having almost forgotten about the dreaded gift, and totally forgotten Carlos’ knowledge of it. Even with the recent win, he’s already thinking of the next, the promise of a two-peat, another podium, hell, another 1-2. The condoms were honest to God the last thing on his mind.

They break apart an hour later, when Charles is heading to the hotel and Carlos is headed somewhere else. He’s almost to the exit when someone calls his attention in a curt English voice.He turns and finds Lewis jogging toward him, outside of his race suit and back in the fashionable apparel Charles merely wishes he could pull off.

“Lewis,” he waves, pacing toward him to save the extra few seconds of waiting.

“Amazing, amazing race, man,” the elder compliments. “You’ve got the best chance at the title here.”

Warmth melts into Charles’ body and he offers praise back, which—praising Lewis is just about the easiest thing in the world. Nerves bleed out of him as the conversation continues, the atmosphere of a finished race a welcome accompaniment to their strategic talk.

“Headed to a party, yeah?” Lewis asks when they’ve both exhausted the topic. Charles gives a half-hearted shrug, already energized enough from such a momentous win, and he nods in response. “Nah, I get it. Sometimes you just gotta sleep. But hey, if you’re ever free, we should go get dinner sometime.”

—

The “dinner sometime” happens in Singapore. Having gotten P1 beside Lewis and therefore once again high off the adrenaline, Charles claps Andrea on the back and retrieves his phone to view two texts. One reads Put the condoms to use yet, champ? from Joris, and the other Can I take you up on the dinner? from Lewis. One goes answered and the other goes muted on his iMessage.

A little something he failed to remember was Lewis’ plant-based diet, a fact that hurtles back toward him when he can’t find steak on the menu of this classy, hole-in-the-wall type of restaurant. Of course Lewis would know these types of places, he thinks. He’s a millennial semi-hipster with a separate Instagram account for his dog.

Charles ends up ordering pasta, and Lewis beside him orders a cacophony of very vegan, hippy sounding meals, the quantity of which could feed the two of them. “I hope you don’t mind,” Lewis says when the waiter departs, “but a friend is actually joining us tonight.”

“Sure,” Charles says honestly. As long as it’s not some deranged hyperfan, he does well in social situations. Right then, Lewis calls someone over. Charles looks up, squints through the dim mood lighting to try and make out the nearing figure. And then you’re sitting down across them, smiling softly, exchanging hellos with Lewis.

A little something Lewis fails to remember is his “friends” can just as well be called “celebrities,” because he is, after all, a sporting legend. So if Lewis says “friend,” Charles will assume it’s a “friend,” and not a world-famous model whose face is plastered everywhere on and offline.

“Charles Leclerc,” he says blankly.

You introduce yourself, sliding easily into a bout of questions, apologies for missing the race, you’re impossibly jetlagged, it’s crazy. Lewis chips in with something about how he’s already ordered food for the both of you, and this and that, and Charles is hopeless, staring at your face the entire time. He hopes he looks more sexy than aloof or, worse, starstruck, because it’s turning out to be the kind of situation where he looks like the deranged hyperfan, and not the other way around for once.

To be clear, Charles isn’t a fan of you. He just knows of you, because honestly, who doesn’t at this point? You’re talking on and on about how your latest shoot with Jacquemus was a pain because you shot in a tank top in sub-zero weather, but you express it like it’s the most profound topic on Earth.

Lewis turns to him and, in an (eventually successful) effort to include more of Charles in the conversation, goes, “She’s a big Formula One fan, Charles.”

Okay. Common ground. Charles lifts both brows smugly, his eyes flickering back over to you. “Really?”

You meet his eyes and smile, looking downward and blinking owlishly. You’re so pretty, long lashes fluttering as you blink and try to find an answer. Christ, you’re so painfully his type.

Lewis chimes in again—“Really. And not just because she and I are friends. I mean she was into racing before we got acquainted. Honestly. Quiz her and everything”—then excuses himself to “take a call.” (His phone wasn’t even ringing—total bullshit—but Charles is ultimately grateful for it.)

You make a face of shut up toward the departing Lewis, and Charles exhales a quiet laugh at your defiance. You clear your throat and come up with an answer.

“I’m not a big fan,” you say. “I’m more of a casual, ‘every once in a while’ type of fan.”

“That’s what every big fan of sports says,” Charles says smoothly.

“Is it?” You ask, cocking your head to the side, making a tch noise. You chuckle before going, “Well, if you insist, I’ll be honest. I didn’t want it to come to this, but okay. I am a fan… of Red Bull.”

Charles fakes extreme offense, his jaw dropping as if totally scandalized. You laugh, throwing two hands up in faux surrender. “Not Red Bull,” he says, his tone making him sound even more devastated. “You’re telling me you—don’t tell me you think Max Verstappen is attractive.”

“I mean, a bit!”

Charles makes sarcastic sounds of disapproval, and you laugh. Charles leans forward, and you do, too, both of you smiling. “So you’re into the angry drivers?”

“I’m not into a specific kind of driver,” you say casually, your tongue peeking out to lick over your bottom lip. Your voice is as soft as it is firm, slow and demure, matching the way your eyes glint. You’re impossibly pretty. He almost can’t handle it.

“So who’s making the cut?” He prompts, interested.

“Well, for starters, drivers who are my age,” you say slowly. “I turned twenty-four this year, so anyone within that bracket.”

“Oh?” Charles pretends to delve into deep thought, teasing. “Maybe Stroll? He’s very funny, speaks good English. You can never really say no to a Canadian.”

Your face warms, and you hope your flustered state isn’t too obvious as you shake your head. “He seems fun, but I prefer somebody a bit… a bit older.”

“Older…” he hums. “Pierre, perhaps? Tad bit older, real charming, great driver. I can introduce you. We’re good friends, you know.”

You click your tongue, smiling shyly. You bite your lip and it takes everything in Charles to not turn on his horny gears when he sees you, big eyes and lip bite, look so pretty. “You tease me,” you say meekly. Charles covers a cough with a chuckle and adjusts his position on the seat.

Later, after Lewis comes back in (“Long call, eh? It was about Roscoe.” Bullshit again) and you all get to order drinks, and you’ve departed in your private car, pressing an air kiss to Lewis and waving goodbye to Charles, he turns to the Mercedes driver and hums.

“Next time you have one of these”—he points to the restaurant, gestures to the front door—“dinners, let me know, okay?”

“Ah.” Lewis winks, smirking. “I’ll be sure to.”

—

Understandably, your schedules never seem to mesh well together. Lewis ends up giving Charles your number as compensation.

He stares at the contact longer than he’d like to admit, when he’s marinating in the sweltering heat of Austin. He’s finished much of his work for this half of the day so he’s mostly watching the engineers work on the last bits of modification for Sunday; he cherishest the free time and drafts, reads, and rereads texts, scours Google and Instagram for pictures of, and anything related to, you.

There’s a few new articles about buying a new car (a Benz, much to Charles’ chagrin) and new photoshoots intermittently scattered across Europe, with all sorts of brands. He sees a picture you’ve posted of yourself smiling at the camera and thinks of how pretty it would look as his lockscreen.

Am I seeing you soon? He texts finally. He hopes it’s enough to let you know who he is.

Hopefully is the reply. He smiles the whole day.

—

You’ve been texting and calling almost everyday, conversations stretching continents. He only sees you next in Mexico, Friday night, at a club Lewis has rented out for a crazy price that will no doubt be replenished in days anyway. He’s dropped to second here, but the thrill riding in him makes up for his disappointment. The place is so crowded—everyone and their mums seem to have been invited here—room blinking purple and blue, each step vibrating with the heavy bass of EDM. He catches you right as you exit the washroom area, and you look pleasantly surprised to see him.

He saw you earlier, when you were doing shots of tequila and chatting with with Bella and Lewis, but just as quickly as he spotted you, you’d dipped back into the sea of people. Now is better, he thinks. You two are alone.

“Charles, hi,” you say casually. You’re wearing a tight top and a short skirt that, despite Charles’ best efforts, always cast his gaze downward. He wonders what’s underneath, hungers to get his hands there. But he’s nothing if he’s not patient, willing to play the long game.

He takes a step forward, his gaze steady on you. Charles isn’t the tallest driver, but he’s got a big presence. You swallow, taking a step back to accommodate him. He smirks. “You look pretty.”

“You flatter me,” you say thickly, smiling, inviting him closer. The air is hot around the both of you—when your eyes flit around, they see nobody. You’re alone together. His eyes pierce into yours so deep you feel like breaking eye contact, exhaling as you take another step back—evidently, you’re distracted, because you stumble.

His arm circles around your waist, and once you steady, the hand moves down to your hip. It stays, a reminder of what you might be getting soon. You smile curtly, wondering what this might look like to a bystander, a stranger. Somebody might want to piss and walk in to see the strongest world champion contender’s hand on Chanel’s poster girl’s waist.

“Is this okay?” He asks softly against your ear.

“More than.” You say, breath shaky. “It’s more than okay.”

He chuckles. “Good. I’d hate if we couldn’t fuck before Abu Dhabi.”

Your finger traces down and wraps around the belt loop of his jeans. “Who said anything about fucking?”

Charles exhales a laugh, his lips curling upward into an amused smile. “Ah? I can’t fuck you, then?”

“I’ll let you fuck me when you’re holding up the world champion trophy,” you say sweetly, tugging him closer. “That’s okay, right?” You stare up at him, blinking, pouty. He wonders, is this how you might look with your lips wrapped around his—

“That’s about a month away.” His composure barely wavers, his hand traveling lower, blunt nails digging into your ass. Your breath hitches.

“I’m aware,” you say lowly. So be it, Charles thinks—he’s got thirty-six condoms for a reason.

“Define fuck,” he says, voice rough.

“Penetration.” You’re quick with it, cocking your head to the side. You lean back confidently, testin him, eyes batting flirtatiously.

It’s time he get a little creative.

—

Daytime weather is hot and the paddock is swarming with people, but Charles has his sights set on somebody sitting in the Mercedes hospitality. He manages to get out of morning meetings earlier, wedging himself out of the room and passing by a mirror to fix his hair with admirable concentration. He’s in the middle of combing through it when a force tugs at the hem of his polo, causing him to stumble backwards.

“Uh—Carlos? What the hell?” He asks, brow raised defensively. Facing him are Carlos, Joris, and Pierre, arms crossed over their torsos and amused expressions on their faces.

“What are you doing?” Asks Pierre, cocking his head to the side.

“Fixing my hair.”

“Pussy appointment?” Joris interjects; the vulgarity of his statement earns him a poke on the side from Carlos, who clicks his tongue.

“Wh—I don’t—”

“You are shit at lying, mate,” says Pierre, his lips curled into a devious smile. “Who is it?”

“It’s nobody,” he lies.

“Charles,” says Lewis suddenly from behind them, waving his arms to get the former’s attention, “are you going to go over and say hi?”

Hook, line, and sinker. He’s been caught. “Well, well, well,” Carlos starts, mischievous.

“Guys—” Charles says, attempting to make an excuse.

“Looks like your vow of celibacy isn’t so far off after all,” Pierre adds. “That one over at Mercedes is going to break it, eh?”

“Yeah.” Joris says, smirking. “Lucky George, huh.”

The three face him, incredulous. “I was kidding,” he fibs, once he realizes his epiphany is wrong. “Kidding.”

Charles walks off, and ends up seeing you right where he expected you, sitting beside Lewis in a tiny dress with your hair pinned up into a bun. Almost naturally, your words fall into the flirtatious back-and-forth you’d started at the dinner, hyperaware of the cameras snapping your pictures. At some point, the Brit excuses himself to “take a call” (again, bullshit) and leaves the two of you alone.

“See anything nice on the paddock?”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” you say with a teasing smile, head cocking to the side to gauge his reaction. He chuckles.

“Did you get a picture with Max?”

“Only a ton.” You pause. “And Daniel, too.”

“Ah, you’re just crushing on the whole paddock, now are you?” He pokes his tongue into his cheek, leans forward.” Uh, Checo?”

“Pass,” you say with a nose scrunch. You’re so fucking pretty.

“Lewis.”

“God, pass. He’s not ugly, but he’s my brother at this point.”

“Pierre.”

“Horribly French, but… smash.”

“Are you not into the French?” He smiles. “Good to know. Hmm—Carlos.”

“I’d be stupid to say anything other than smash.” You narrow your eyes, licking over your lips. “I’m into the Ferrari guys, is the thing.” His gaze travels to your crossed legs, long and disappearing into the hem of your dress.

He smirks. “Are you?”

“I really am,” you hum.

“Are you staying long? All weekend?”

“Yeah, I’m free from work for now,” you say casually. “Any recommendations on what fun things I can do here?”

“I can think of…” he says, smirking a little. “A few.”

—

Stupid places to have sex, number one: a motorhome.

Still, Charles is crowding you up against the wall of the room, swallowing the whimper that leaves your mouth with his own. And still, this isn’t sex. At least not the kind he wants the most. He mentally praises Carlos for being able to decipher the typo-laden text he’d sent out on the way here, one hand around your waist, the other barely capable of typing with how fast his brain ran. Clesr the fuckng room npw now npw it read. Thank God.

Your mouth tastes like champagne, and everywhere else smells divine. Your hands roam impatiently over his shoulders and you make muted noises of frustration at your inability to pull his shirt off. You settle for letting your hands crawl underneath it, stroking over his abs.

“D’you remember what I told you,” you pant, his lips insistent on your neck, “at the club?”

“Yeah,” he says, grunting at the memory.

“Okay.” You breathe. “Let me suck you off.”

“Fuck,” he groans. “Jesus. Okay. Fuck.”

You giggle, and he watches intently as you drop onto your knees, looking up at him through thick lashes. You’re insistent, pulling the zip of his jeans down and tugging his cock out. It’s pretty, thick like the rest of him, already hard.

He’s at his limit, having you here like this, on you knees and stretching your lips around the tip of his dick. Your eyes barely leave his, fluttering as they tear up when you take him in your throat.

He throws his head back, squeezes his eyes shut, lets a hand unpin your bun and thread itself into the untangled hair. If he looks at you, he’ll see your head bobbing up and down on his cock, and he genuinely needs to hold off the orgasm first.

He rocks forward into your mouth and feels your throat close up around him. That’s enough to weaken his resolve, send grunts out of his throat that he can’t keep quiet.

“Oh, shit,” he says, feeling every part of your mouth and throat around him, warm and tense. He can’t help but thrust harder, steady but not too rough, growing more aroused with every sound of you choking on him.

His gaze flickers toward you. You’re teary-eyed, lips dotted with spit, choking yourself on his cock. Just for him, here in public. You pull off, blinking tears away from your face and looking up at him smilingly.

He laughs, guiding his cock back into your mouth, watching the way your brows knit together, pleading, almost. You're at his mercy, he thinks, thrusting harder, listening to your coughs. He loves seeing you like this, innocent face messy and slick with spit and precum, eyes big and needy.

“You like that?” He grunts. “Look at me.”

You nod the best you can. Yes, you want to say. Give me more, I love it.

“Yeaaah, fuck. I know you do,” he says through his teeth, staving off his orgasm the best he can before he releases all over you. The image alone of streaking you with his cum, claiming you all over-eyelashes, tits, cheeks splashed with cum-is enough to send him closer to the edge. “Gonna cum,” he grunts.

You moan around him, the vibrations causing his eyelids to flutter. You shake your head, pulling off and wrapping your hand around his dick, stroking slower. “Not yet,” you say sweetly, watching him throw his head back in pleasure and frustration. He runs a hand through his sweaty hair, exhales shakily.

“Shit.” He whines. “Come on, baby. Make me cum.” He cups your jaw, stares down at you.

You stroke him faster, lip between your teeth. “Okay,” you say with a smile. “Cum for me, Charles.”

He stops staving himself off, falls into the pleasure and relief of your hand around his cock until he’s tense all over, knitting his hand into your hair and pushing you backwards so he can press his tip on the flat expanse of your tongue and let his cum shoot there. It drips from your tongue and lips onto your chin and you giggle, swallowing it, scooping up the rest to push into your mouth.

You stand, licking your lips slowly. “I owe you,” he pants, zipping himself up. Already he’s thinking about what he can do to you in return. Tease you, like you did him, bend you over his lap or sit you on it and make you whine and writhe and wait and cum.

“I’ll hold you to that, champion,” you murmur, kissing his cheek and slipping back outside.

—

Ferrari’s advice is shit and despite his good mood and quick-witted driving, Charles finishes in fifth—not too shabby, but disastrous for his overall standings.

He suffers through a horrible debrief where attempts to defend his honor go unheard, his mood wilting and wilting until he’s at the media pen and ushered in front of some network he hasn’t heard of. They’ve probably paid to get a good seat here.

He’s in a shit mood, he hasn’t seen Joris or Pierre or you in hours, and has only faced red-faced frustrated superiors and now, wide-eyed journalists with loose mouths. The media’s done the mandatory speculation between the two of you, so he already expects questions of that variety, but it’s still hot and angry when he does.

Are you banging the Marc Jacobs model? The Irish reporter asks with a wink, so very unprofessional and not at all belonging to reputable media. The hot leggy one who has fuck me eyes?

Charles clenches his jaw, rolls his eyes, says fuck off mate and shoves him backward a little, then walks away and readjusts his cap. The clip makes Twitter and he feels even worse with the amount of troll accounts telling him to Jeez, take a joke.

After the ordeal, in your hotel room, you sigh softly and run your hands through his still shampoo-smelling hair. “You didn’t need to do that,” you say, a bit strictly. He knows you’re grateful, though, and a bit proud.

“I wanted to,” he insists softly. He forgets to leave before morning; when he does, he forgets his official Ferrari shirt hanging on the seat, leaving in a spare one instead. It’s got his number across the back. You don’t tell him.

—

In between Mexico and Sao Paulo, he manages to catch a flight to New York to peek into one of your photoshoots. It’s for Chanel and he’s half-sure he’s taken more pictures of you than the official photographer did. At this point your vague relationship status has caught onto headlines everywhere, and he doesn’t miss the curious murmurs from paparazzo that follow him as he enters your apartment later to greet you.

You’re in a pair of shorts and a tank top when you open the door, greeting him with a tight hug and leading him inside with a loose grip.

“Wine?”

“Please.” He eyes the wide area, the big floor-to-ceiling windows and the art on the walls. “Hungry?”

“Mmm.” You hum, sliding a glass toward him. “Starving.”

“Pizza?”

“Something else.” You smile. He tears his eyes away from your tits, poking out of the thin cotton, and coughs.

The both of you end up on the couch, your legs draped over his as you talk about racing.

He’s ranting about how he’s neck to neck with Max now, and the final verdict will likely be decided at Abu Dhabi, a fact that sends nerves all through him. You’re listening, you really are, but it’s difficult to keep listening because his hand, big and rough, is stroking your bare calf as he talks absentmindedly.

You offer the occasional mmm-hmm and uh-huh and even the oh really to sell it, but he doesn’t seem to be conscious of how many sparks are coursing through you because of his hand on your leg. He just talks and talks, accent curving into curse words elicited by the competition.

And his voice, rough and deeper when he slides into Italian phrases, gets in your head, reminds you of the way he’d moaned when you had his dick in your mouth. You like that? he’d said, panting, heavy, hot. His hand remained in your hair, controlling you the same way you did him. Fuck.

When you blink, he’s stopped talking, and has likely noticed your wandering imagination if his teasing smile is anything to go by. You cough, clear your throat, adjust your thighs. You’re thinking—you can’t stop thinking—about what happened in Mexico, not just in the motorhome but in the club where he’d let his hand sprawl over your ass and stay there, possessive.

The tension rises. I owe you. He really does. You reach over and grab your phone from the coffee table, snap a few pictures of him. “—Hey!” He protests, scrabbling to grab it from you while balancing his half-full glass. “I look god awful.”

You stand up, review the picture. He looks so impossibly handsome. “You’re right, you do,” you say, pouting.

He reaches over again, chuckling, and you avoid him. “Foul play!”

“Tch. At least show it to me,” he says defeatedly, so you do: presenting your screen to him.

Quickly, he makes a grab for it, but you just escape his grip, ending up right in front of him and leaning over. You’re losing your balance, digging your toes into your carpet to maintain stance. He spares a glance at your shorts, riding low on your hips, showing a bit of thin lace.

Charles tugs you forward by the hem of your top and then takes your wrist into his grip—the force of his grab makes your tits shake underneath your flimsy tank top. It’s dragged down so far your tits are spilling out. His eyes flicker down to them, dark, and a pretty smile spreads across his face.

“Come on, give it,” he challenges, eyes narrowing a little. You bite your lip, inwardly liking this a little too much—being at his mercy, trapped in his strong grip. You’re flustered and it shows.

He wrestles you onto his lap with ease, his arms steady around you. You stare downwards, dark eyes meeting his, hand on his broad shoulder for leverage. He’s so pretty, you think, so hot and handsome and you need him right now. Through his jeans you can feel how thick he is, his dick growing, getting hard and huge under you. It feels big even through a few layers—you can’t help but imagine how it might feel inside you.

Your phone clatters to the carpet behind the couch. “I win,” you say breathlessly.

He grabs your hips and jerks his upward, letting his stiff dick press up even more against your shorts.

“I think I’m the winner here,” he says gruffly, hands feeling you up all over. He thumbs at your chest, rubbing over your tits. You shiver—it feels good having him on you like this, your mind turning to mush.

“Shut up,” you laugh, shakily. A hand wanders in between your thighs, another coming to squeeze your barely-covered ass. You can’t focus on much, just his hands roaming everywhere and his hard dick pressing against your core. He shoves your hips downward again, his cock hard and perfectly against your pussy.

“You feel that?” He asks; it leaves him in one low breath.

“Yeah,” you say, whimpering. “I want it.”

He grinds up against you again, his thumb teasing the hem of your shorts. Closer to where you want it. “Don’t think you could even take it, baby.”

“I hate you,” you say. “You know I can.”

He laughs. “We’ll see, yeah?” You find a rhythm of grinding down against his cock, nestled right against your ass. He’s everywhere and you can’t handle it anymore, finding yourself craving him more and more.

You moan against his neck—and then come to your senses. “No.”

He smirks when you pull away. “Tempted, were you?”

“Not…” You pause. You’re sweaty, flushed all over, and your panties are sticking to you from how wet you’ve grown. “Not very.”

—

Abu Dhabi is a son of a bitch.

It comes with meetings, meetings, debriefs, calls, meetings. Everything is riding on the night’s race, the flurry of social media a welcome source of anxiety for him as he watches the hours whiz by. You’d missed seeing him, understood he was busy; you send a selfie to compensate and it gets him calm enough to last the pre-race buzz.

Time speeds by with lunch, coaching, drills, talks with Carlos and Mattia and even Max, who displays support as strongly as competitiveness. Before he even realizes it, he blinks and he’s in his suit, adjusting his balaclava, inhaling, exhaling. Everything is just the way he likes—needs—it to be.

He drives himself to P2 behind Max, eyes shut.

All else seeps into him, natural method, natural routine. He flexes his thumbs. Through the team radio his engineer goes good luck, and Charles’ practice bleeds into his subconscious. The air is heavy, with tension and excitement, the division of blue and red. Everyone’s eager to see who claims the title.

The lights go off and everything is left to skill, blurring into noise and turns and expletives yelled into the team radio. He can’t even feel himself think, turning with dexterity and overtaking with the kind of vengeance he hasn’t let out in a while.

For all his trying, Max keeps up just the same, keeping a neck and neck level for the relative entirety of the race. They’re milking out the last few laps together, and Charles feels every fibre of his being work toward this, just this, nothing but this right now. Nothing but the finish line.

You got this, Charles, says the engineer, voice heightening. Maiden world championship.

He nods to himself, trusts his instincts and when he catches sight of the finish line, he thinks: he’s the best driver on the grid.

So he revs faster, and the rest descends into—

Absolute fucking chaos.

—

He’s smiling when he approaches the reporter, who’s already holding the mic with wonder. He asks for a message in Italian, then reminds him—and the crowd—that, in case he forgot, he’s world champion. Charles thinks he genuinely can’t ever.

“What are you doing to celebrate?” He asks then, smiling.

Sweaty, with damp hair and shiny skin, he smirks and leans closer. “Someone, I hope.”

—

“Hey there, champ.”

You’re already leaning against his hotel room door when he gets there, after the chore of wrestling himself free from the rest of the team pressuring him to get drinks. Carlos helps out, babbles something or other about Charles being “busy with something else”—which isn't wrong, not at all. He offers a smooth wink, bending down to kiss you.

Your mouths meet, softly first then increasingly messy as he pins you against the door. You push away, breathing heavy. “I don’t know what you’re into, but I don't want the top floor of this hotel seeing us fucking.”

“I wasn’t into that, but now that you brought it up…” You swat his arm and he laughs, unlocking the door and pulling you inside. You’re clinging onto him—his arms, his chest, anything, kissing up his neck and jaw. He groans at how needy you are. All for him, he thinks. Probably soaked through your panties and it’s all because of him.

“C’mon, pretty girl,” he says gently, voice low as he leads you to the bed. He catches sight of your shirt and a brow raises. “Did you buy that?”

“Hmm?” You look down, following his gaze and blinking. The shirt you’re wearing is loose, hanging off your shoulders and hastily tucked into your miniskirt so it looks like you actually have trousers on. “Oh. No, this is yours.”

“Mine.” He smiles a little. “You look so good in it, princess.” His hands mindlessly grope at you, hungry, sneaking underneath your skirt to feel at the lace there.

In retaliation, you lean forward, unbutton his jeans and tug at it.

“You left it at one of my”—you gasp, feeling his finger sneak its way beneath your panties—“my hotel rooms.”

“Pretty girl, pretty shirt, pretty lace, yeah?” He tugs, lets the garter of the skirt loosen and fall off your hips on its own. “Red.”

“You take too long,” you groan.

“You’re just eager,” he laughs, thumbing at your clothed cunt.

You’re so wet, evident even in the lazy circles he rubs over your entrance. You’re aching, desperate, begging almost. So he gives you what you want, maneuvers you onto his lap and pushes your (his) shirt up to stuff your mouth with it.

It won’t work for long, but it’s enough. He pushes your panties to the side and pulls his hard dick out. You’re sitting against it now, leaking slick onto it, at his mercy, branding his name and his number across your back. It’s hot.

He stares at the way you rock softly against him, hungry eyes meeting yours. “You’re so pretty, baby. Ruined.”

“Fuck me already,” you say, voice throaty, innocent.

“Can you take it?” He asks, teasing you, slapping his dick against your clit softly. You whine.

“Please,” you insist. “I want it. Make it fit.”

He’s a massive tease with it, his breath fanning against your skin, hands sticky on where they’ve hiked your shirt up. He lowers you, slower, against the tip of his dick and he watches your eyes flutter when you sink onto it. After ages of waiting. Your grip’s like iron on his shoulders, moans leaving you in quiet bursts of pleasure.

You’re far away, dumb from the feeling, you barely register the way he shoves the shirt back into your mouth to keep you quiet. “So fucking tight, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say. It’s muffled, barely intelligible. “For you.”

You’re only able to take it because you’re so wet, so turned on, face and brain filled with nothing but pleasure. He can’t take it.

“Mmmfh,” you say, muffled by the bite of cotton in your mouth. You’re sweaty, flushed, overstimulated—you don’t know where to focus. On his lips against your jaw, his hand on your neck, the way your pussy swallows his aching dick. “It’s so big, I—”

“You okay?” He asks, breathily. Smiling. He’s in control, but still he sounds whiny—almost, if not as desperate as you. “You’ll take it all for me, won’t you?”

“Oh god,” is all you muster, letting him stretch you out even more, gushing all over his cock. “I, I—”

He moans, his grip tight against your waist, watching his dick bury itself in you. “You’re getting me so full,” you whine. “So deep, I feel it—” you taper off into a moan again when he presses hs thumb to your clit, distracting you from the stretch as he finally, finally bottoms out.

“Good?”

You nod. So good, give me more.

You grind against him, let the shirt fall out of your mouth. “You’re getting my dick so wet,” he comments, breathless. “So pretty for me, too.”

Growing antsy, he attempts to move, but you whine. Your turn to tease, you think, after he was a dick to you just now. “Not yet,” you say, lip caught between your teeth. His hands are tight around your waist. Desperate.

You squeeze around him, watch his brows knit together, a grunt leave him in a frustrated exhale. “You wanna fuck me?” You tease against his neck, blinking innocently.

“Yes,” he replies, not missing a beat. You pout, like you’re empathizing with the problem you’re causing; you grind slowly against him and he lets out a guttural fuuuuck. He’s so big, so hard—you can feel every inch of him inside you.

“Tell me again, Charles,” you say with a giggle. You’re so hot like this, face flushed and timid, hips moving slowly. He could cum just from the way you bite your lip, the way a whimper slips out of you when he hits the right spot.

“—Yeah,” he says, sweetly. “I want to—please, let me fuck you. C’mon, baby, can I?”

“Aww,” you tease.

“Can I?” He asks again, voice deep and thin with the need to fuck you, thrust up into you and make you the dumb one. His face is flushed and desperate. “Can I move, baby? Let me, please.”

You’re not stupid. You know—if his flushed, pleading face and big green puppy eyes are anything to go by—that he’s going crazy, growing antsy. But you’re not complaining.

“Hmm,” you say, feigning genuine thought. “I don’t know, Charles. Feels good just like this. And you want to make me feel good, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Yeah.” You repeat, staring into his dark eyes. He’s frustrated, desperate, flushed all over and sweaty. His fingers dig into your hips. “I’ll make you feel really good, baby, if you let me.”

“Go ahead,” you say softly, “fuck me, please.” And he’s thrusting upwards to meet you halfway. It’s knocking you out, almost, the pleasure of it, the dizzy onslaught of euphoria. He’s stretching you out so well, whining softly into your neck and yeah, you two have waited far too long to have this. You

“Fuck,” he grunts, lids squeezed shut and head rolled onto your shoulder. “Go on, baby, ride it, make me cum.” He cups your jaw, reaches his thumb into your mouth. It’s too much, all of it. He makes you suck on it while thrusting up, dizzying you with his cock.

He grabs handfuls of your ass, teases his thumb at your tighter asshole just to watch your eyes flutter, feel your cunt grow wetter. “I’ll fuck you even fuller next time,” he says; the implication gets you hot.

You bounce harder, chasing release as his thumb teases over your ass, the tip of it just thrusting in enough to elicit strings of moans out of you. “Come on, ride me,” he goads. “So good for me.”

“Fuck,” you pant, “cum in me, please.”

You cum first, writhing around him and riding your orgasm out in lazy grinds over his hard cock. You want to see him cum, see his eyebrows knit and his mouth release pretty whines, feel him claim you inside, hands hot and heavy on your ass. He does, with a guttural fuuuuck, shoving his dick up in you to the base and spurting all his cum in you.

He thrusts, watches his cum leak out of you, fucks it back in, in a vicious cycle. You shiver, blinking coquettishly and watching along—and then you’re both crumpling over each other on the bed behind you. You pant heavily against his chest.

“Hey.” He muses out loud, drumming against your skin.

“Yeah?”

“I have thirty-six condoms we need to go through. Wanna go on a date?”

#f1 #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc drabble #charles leclerc smut #f1 x reader

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flawseer · 2 months ago

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Ok, these time rate me the Jade WInglets

I've been sitting on this work-in-progress picture for so many months now. Maybe if I post it here, I'll finally sit down and finish it.

Very long post incoming.

Discussing the Jade Winglet

Okay. So, you want me to rate the Jade Winglet group. That’s going to be very easy: I love all of them.

It’s also going to be extraordinarily hard because... well... I love all of them. How am I supposed to put them into an ordered list? It can’t be done. So I guess what I’m going to do is: First I will put them into a tier list, and then I’m going to just talk about each of them individually for a bit.

But on account of aforementioned adoration I have for all of these guys, said tier list is going to be very lopsided. The tiers are going to be “I adore them with the intensity of seven suns”, “I really like them”, and “I very much like them, but...”. You’re going to have to imagine that there are five or so more unused tiers below that.

Let’s unceremoniously get that ranking out of the way first. From top to bottom, the tiers are:

I adore Turtle, Qibli, and Winter.

I really like Moonwatcher, Kinkajou, and Peril.

I very much like Umber and Carnelian.

As for more in-depth commentary, here is a disclaimer: When I think about these guys I mostly consider books 6 (Moon Rising) to 9 (Talons of Power) and the first half of 10 (Darkness of Dragons). The second half of 10... if I’m being honest, I didn’t really enjoy it. I don’t want to go into it too much here, if you really want me to talk about my misgivings with the second arc finale, put a message about it in my inbox (it’s not just the obvious thing; it actually mostly pertains to Winter and the absolute nightmare ending he got saddled with, and some very unfortunate character implications).

Some of my musings are also going to be a bit critical. I just want it to be clear that I make these observations as a fan of the series. It’s a good practice to think critically even about media that you like. It helps you better understand why you like it in the first place. Also, I make no demands to be agreed with. This is just how I see it.

Anyway, enough stalling, let’s get into it. Not in order:

Turtle

CW: Parental abuse

Turtle is the most wonderful thing to ever happen in the history of the universe. I wake up every morning and the first thought in my head is “Ugh, another day in this backwards reality where Turtle is not real! No thanks!!” Then I go right back to sleep disappointed until the next day. Okay, maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic. But I do think that everyone’s lives would be greatly improved if Turtle was real.

Turtle is a very vibrant and insightful character who, much like Winter, is unfortunately cursed with a pair of malicious and incompetent "parents". Some of his scenes really hurt to get through if you’re a parent yourself or have ever had parental feelings. The first scene he is in, when Moon observes him arriving at the academy, his mother makes a passing comment about how Turtle has no value because he cannot inherit the throne. Turtle is within earshot when she does this. And he has no overt reaction to it, which to me hints that Coral asserts this about her male children so frequently that he has accepted her line of thinking and internalized it. He just accepts it as the truth. That is heartbreaking.

And then there is his father, mild-mannered and ostensibly gentle Gill, who killed Turtle’s budding interest in writing as well as the entirety of his self-confidence back when he was a kid, by assigning a little boy a task that was well beyond him (and only to him, even though there were more people present who could have helped), and then made him believe he killed his unborn sister when Turtle inevitably couldn’t do what he was asked. The narrative really tries to make Gill sympathetic in that moment by insisting he’s speaking in anger and doesn’t really mean it, but um, no. I don’t buy it, dude. You just gave a little kid a lifelong guilt complex because you couldn’t think of asking more people for help. Or taking the egg with you while you left the hatchery. Or telling Turtle to take a message to the palace guard so someone who didn’t still have their milk teeth could mount a proper, organized search while interim guards were posted in the hatchery. Or literally any of the thousands of other options that didn’t require traumatizing your own son.

As a result, Turtle became emotionally reclusive. He registers to others as dull, placid, unpassionate, and boring, like he cares about nothing and is content to never strive for or achieve anything in his life. He himself explains that writing used to be something he was into at some point, but then lost interest in. But I don’t think he has. He still loves literature and thinking about stories, he's still doing it in his internal monologue. He just denies it because he subconsciously feels the need to punish himself. I imagine he still gets that drive sometimes, to sit down and start writing again. But every time he thinks about it, or catches himself wanting anything, his father’s voice resurfaces in his mind, telling him that he killed his sister and doesn’t deserve it. And then he self-punishes by depriving himself of everything he loves doing and every positive emotion associated with it. Because he is convinced he is guilty for failing his father, when in actuality, the opposite is true.

The tragedy is that, if Gill had known how much damage he caused and wasn’t in a situation where he needed a flowchart to keep his 30+ sons apart, he probably would have apologized. He doesn’t strike me as malicious, just horribly, horribly incompetent as a parent. But as things played out, Gill is no longer able to fix his mistake. The only person who can now grant Turtle the forgiveness he needs is himself. I hope he will be able to do it.

Turtle truly is an endearing character and a wonderful son undeserved by his parents. If I could adopt him right now I would. In fact, I’m gonna do it. Hold on while I get the papers. Wait, I have to finish? Uh... okay.

Moonwatcher

In a sense, Moonwatcher may be the most interesting character in the entire cast. She certainly had the potential to be my favorite character period. But there are a few points holding her back.

The thing about Moonwatcher is that, more than any other character, she requires meticulous care and attention to detail to be written well. The reason for this is that, when you’re writing for Moon, you also technically write for every character she interacts with. She is written brilliantly in her own book, since the narrative is allowed to focus on her; Moon Rising may thus actually be my favorite book of the second arc. It’s very enrapturing, seeing her navigate the academy’s social dynamics after growing up as, essentially, a feral jungle child, and battling with her own feelings of loneliness and inadequacy.

The thing is though... Wings of Fire has a bit of an odd quirk. Something I’ve noticed with regards to its writing is that, whenever a character is not particularly in focus during a scene, they often get reduced to their most basic traits and will rigidly act according to them regardless of prior context or external factors. I call this phenomenon “Auto-pilot”. If you’ve read my Mail Call #3, this is what I think happened to Tsunami during the second arc—Tsunami’s basic traits are that she is bossy, emotional, and blunt, so she spends the entirety of her page time as a deep-sea-themed wrecking ball who yells at everyone and dismisses everything as “ugh, nightwing powers” and “Peril was bad in book 1 once, I hate her forever”, despite having other, more pressing matters to prioritize.

Whenever Moonwatcher gets set to auto-pilot, it is very depressing. She needs careful, attentive writing to shine, and whenever she doesn’t get it she turns from the most interesting character into a dull brick that recites exposition and occasionally exists to be fawned after by boys. Tragically, the auto-pilot hits her bad after Winter’s book is done, and she never manages to escape it afterwards, save for maybe one or two scenes. There is a particularly egregious example in book 10 that, in my opinion, does permanent, irreversible damage to her character. It’s all a bit soul-crushing if dwelt on.

So yeah, I like Moonwatcher. I really do. I just wish the strong way she was written could have carried through the entire arc.

Winter

CW: Parental abuse

I initially didn’t really know what to make of Winter when I read Moon’s book. He seemed kind of like a buttface who was needlessly hostile and unapproachable. But he really comes into his own in his book, and looking back at his earlier scenes with that new context makes it all make sense. He became one of my stand-out favorites after that.

Winter really has a lot in common with Turtle, so much so that I wish those two actually had some deeper interactions with each other. Like, at one point Turtle saves his life, you’d think they would want to talk about that some time. Where Turtle’s parents are one half malicious, one half incompetent, Winter’s are pure malice AND incompetence. Blessed with three children, they managed to completely ruin one of them, almost ruin the other, and then the third one is kind of out of focus so I don’t know how he is faring, but I doubt there is a lot of love there either.

In a way, you can draw a lot of parallels between Winter and Icicle, and Zuko and Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender—The unfavorite who tries to do right but constantly fails to live up to his father’s/parents' warped standards, and the prodigy who seemingly has her father’s/parents' approval but secretly suffers from the abusive parenting just as much, but in different ways. Hailstorm then tries to take on the role of Iroh, an older figure that acts as a source of positivity and genuine love, and offers a reprieve from the abuse. But where Iroh is an adult drawing from a lifetime of wisdom, Hailstorm is just the slightly older sibling who comes from the same abusive household battling the same demons, so his effectiveness in countering the toxicity is limited.

Where Zuko pursues honor, Winter strives to be strong. Both his parents and his sister perceive him as weak and label him irrelevant. While this hurts him deeply, I don’t think Winter fully surrendered to his inferiority complex until he heard his brother mirror the same sentiment at him. Winter is repressed and struggles with processing his emotions—Thus he heard the words Hailstorm only said to save his life and took them at face value. Even the person he loves the most, the only source of affection and affirmation in his life, thinks he is weak. This is what drives Winter to feverishly desire strength and thus adopt a persona of the strongest thing he knows: a stoic Icewing warrior.

This is why he acts the way he does in book 6: aloof, threatening, unapproachable, invincible. But all of these traits are diametrically opposed to his actual personality, which is warm, compassionate, and just wanting to be loved for who he is. So whenever Moon reads his mind, he comes across as a confused mess of conflicting emotions. Because he is pretending to be something he isn’t.

The interesting thing here is that Winter actually is genuinely strong. He is just unable to recognize his own worth, due to the toxic way royal Icewings are raised, warping his perception of what strength means. When he meets Foeslayer, who is said to be an ancient enemy of his people, his mind cuts through the veneer of tradition and old bullshit justifications and sees her imprisonment for the cruel injustice that it is. He then undoes that injustice and frees her. It takes an incomprehensible amount of personal integrity and willpower to just casually defy the will of your entire country like that. This is equivalent to treason; by aiding her, Winter risks becoming an enemy of his people on par with Foeslayer herself. And he does it anyway, because it is the right thing to do.

This dissonance in his perception of strength with regards to his Icewing upbringing, and the actual strength he embodies and has embodied all this time, is something I would have liked to see explored more in the finale or something. As it stands now, he got pressured into putting his life on the line in the battle for Jade Mountain, has sworn loyalty to a people that mistreated him and tried to ruin him from a young age, and then got saddled with an existential nightmare of an ending that leaves me baffled to this day.

In terms of personal misfortune, he certainly is the Starflight of his group.

Qibli

CW: Parental abuse

Qibli is a very charming and versatile character. It is easy to imagine him in a variety of different situations and the scenes almost write themselves, especially when there’s another person with him whom he can bounce off of (figuratively, though I wouldn’t put it past him to try to literally bounce off of someone too). The 10th book posits him as some kind of parallel to Darkstalker; the latter even overtly states this and tries to recruit him as a manner of apprentice. It’s interesting because I think they are actually pretty different.

Qibli excels in situations where his options are limited. He is great at thinking on his feet and coming up with solutions to problems within a restricted framework. He'd be great in an escape room. This ability of his is shown throughout the arc, but it is especially visible in Moon Rising, where his presence in a scene often makes Moon stronger, or more adept at solving problems, because his mind is breaking down the situation for her in a way she would be unable to see on her own.

The twist then comes in when you take Qibli out of that limited framework, by giving him power. His pronounced intellect is very peculiar; it needs limitation to be brilliant. When he has unhindered access to all-powerful magic (i.e. doesn’t have to clear his ideas with another person), he turns into a colossal idiot who buries cities in sand and almost blows up inhabited mountains.

It only follows that, if you were to give Qibli what he wants and make him an animus, it would absolutely ruin him. The great intellect he cultivated would wither and, unshackled from the limitations that forced him to think critically and be his most excellent self, he would end up destroying himself, and likely others too.

Another interesting facet of Qibli is how he works as a parallel to Winter and Turtle (and Peril to an extent). All of these characters come from broken homes and have suffered under abusive parental figures. Qibli’s case in particular is interesting because it showcases how your circumstances can make a difference in how well you handle that issue. Qibli suffered under a tyrannical mother and a pair of cruel siblings, but in contrast to his peers, someone from the outside noticed his suffering was able to intervene—Thorn saved him from his hell and became his rescue parent, restoring his confidence and sense of self-worth.

Because of this, when his turn comes to confront his demons, while it is still difficult and painful (because trauma always is), he is able to navigate the confrontation with comparatively more grace and control than the others. The contrast really shows how difficult it is to escape a toxic relationship if you are still mired deeply within it, and how you need to put some distance between yourself and it before you can see where you are and what needs to be done with improved clarity. That is the path to healing.

I could probably keep talking about Qibli for 15 more paragraphs, but I’ll spare you.

Kinkajou

Every protagonist (and a good deal of side characters) in Wings of Fire is broken, usually has some kind of gut-wrenching past (often due to terrible parents), and struggles to find their place in the world. Luckily here is a pink-and-yellow Rainwing who is just happy and everything is fantastic and wholesome, right?

CW: Forced starvation

Nah, Kinkajou had it pretty rough too. The story plays it like it’s a humorous quip when she finds out Moonwatcher is her roommate and bemoans that nobody is taking her “trauma” seriously, but... yeah, it actually is legitimate trauma. She was captured, bound, and trapped on a hell island without sunlight for several weeks. While there, she was not fed, and she helplessly watched people whom she knew from early childhood starve and die. Death by starvation is not pretty, she likely had to witness her friends slowly being driven mad by hunger until they withered away, and couldn’t do anything about it. Then she was rescued and returned to a home that didn’t believe her pain was real, that claimed she made it up for attention, and that some people who she thought of as friends didn’t even notice she was gone. The only one who believed her was a stranger whom she had met maybe a few hours ago.

Personally, if that happened to me and I came home to that, I’d likely have pulled a Chameleon and said “Screw the Rainwings, I’m moving to the desert.”

That Kinkajou is still able to be positive and full of energy after that is a testament to her immense mental fortitude. She might actually be one of the most stable and resilient characters in the story. Some things shake her up for a bit, but nothing can crush her.

Still, I imagine there are some times, after a really bad day maybe, where she wakes up in the middle of the night. And there, for just a moment, she is scared to open her eyes... because she might be back on the Nightwing island and has to watch someone else die.

Peril

Peril is a bit of an odd case in arc 2. She gets grouped with the protagonists of that arc and the ending implies she is integrated into the Jade Winglet as their new Skywing. I have no real problem with that, in fact it’s good on her that she’s made a little less isolated. But to me, Peril always felt like an awkward appendix to that group. Her only real friend in there is Turtle; for the rest of them they feel more like vague acquaintances, like she's tolerated for being Turtle's friend.

To be fair though, that friendship with Turtle is really strong; it’s an exciting and deep character dynamic. But if I was forced to tie Peril to a group of protagonists, my first instinct would be to associate her with the first arc protagonists instead.

This poor girl has been through it. Everyone seems to hate her and wants her to leave, sometimes for understandable reasons and sometimes it just seems bizarre. I already went into Tsunami’s disdain for her in an earlier post, but I also vaguely remember a point in Escaping Peril where she meets Qibli and he gives her a withering glare for some reason. That confused me, to be honest. I thought “What’s YOUR problem with her? Have you ever even met??” Like, I guess the Outclaws were in direct conflict with Burn since they lived in the same country, and Peril was an infamous elite combatant under the command of one of Burn’s allies, so maybe Peril killed people he knew? But then he gets over his disdain really quickly and with no comment, so whatever happened can’t have been a big deal after all.

My favorite part in her book is when everyone--after having learned about Turtle’s powers--chews him out for not having helped his country during the war, and Peril cuts through the tripe by saying something along the lines of “So if he uses the power he was born with to serve his Queen it is honorable, but when I do the same for my Queen I’m a murderer and deserve to have things thrown at me?” I love all of these guys, but they really deserved to be called out for their double standard and feel stupid for a bit.

But yeah, I really enjoy her friendship with Turtle in the end. And since he accidentally made himself virtually indestructible, it means Peril can now get all the friendly hugs she craves.

Umber

Umber is cool. He has a potentially interesting relationship with Turtle, which is implied in the latter’s book when it is mentioned that they sleep with their backs touching to comfort each other about their respective siblings not being there.

Unfortunately he gets written out of the story arc very quickly. I wish I knew more about him.

Carnelian

I like Carnelian. I feel like she had a lot of potential that gets wasted by her death, for not much gain. It is used to give Queen Ruby a reason to come to Jade Mountain and kickstart the events of Peril’s book, but the same could have been accomplished by having her learn that the Academy is housing Peril and going there to demand the extradition of a (in her eyes) dangerous and murderous fugitive.

Same as with Umber, really, I wish I knew more about her. I already said this during my Smaugust drawing session, but I like to pretend that she and Bigtail didn’t die, and instead had a mini arc about recovering from their injuries. It also has the side effect of averting some very unfortunate implications that come with Bigtail’s death.

~~~

I think that’s all of them. Good lord I talk too much. Please don’t throw crocodiles at my face for it. Tumblr is my queen, and--much like the Queen's former champion--I was made to do it.

#wings of fire #dragon #wof #digital art #wof art #flawseer scribble #flawseer talk #character analysis #wof turtle #wof moonwatcher #wof winter #wof qibli #wof kinkajou #wof peril #wof umber #wof carnelian #flawseer reply #long winded #long post

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