#posting about this fucking guy on my main i just love him. what if you lost your sense of self to your overwhelming sense of misery 💯💯💯

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I DIDN'T KNOW LEONA KNEW ABOUR RAVEN'S CRUSH ON J WORD QUNFKANSKD does he tease her about her? does he takes advantage of this knowledge in some way?

also the “angsts about not being "the one"” made me kind of sad tho ngl jqnfkwnakdns DON'T DO THIS TO ME. (cries in a corner)

[Referencing this post!]

I MEAN... I feel like Raven's crush is obvious and easy to tell 😭 Girl is so bad at hiding it. Various other students in the cast (even ones she's not particularly friends with) such as Vil, Ace, Floyd, and Rook are aware of it. There's no way that someone as perceptive and as smart as Leona would let that one go over his head!

I think of this knowledge as being a constant source of angst for Leona (y'know, because it plays into his whole inferiority complex about being "second best, never first place"). He can't have his skills acknowledged, the crown, the interdorm magift tournament win, love... Life's not fair. If he's in a really bad mood, he might make a bitter jab about it. Maybe something like, "Why don't you go crying to that slimy eel bastard, since you clearly enjoy being lied to so long as it comes with a generous side of cooing?" If he's feeling more confident, he definitely finds ways to use the relationship for personal gain. For example, in the hostage situation my friend wrote, Leona is pressuring Octavinelle to hand over the money owed to Savanaclaw by using Raven as a bargaining chip. I guess she's just another pawn in his 5D chess games sometimes.

Speaking of Savanaclaw, I like to imagine that (because they admire their dorm leader so much) they're all super supportive of Leona and act as his wingmen + hype him up when he's clearly brooding. You can see the beginnings of this dynamic in the EBG posts, particularly when the mobs make Raven follow Leona around and how Ruggie often asks her to be more patient with him. In a lot of my Leona and Raven interactions, Ruggie tends to be the main wingman. He thinks it's funny seeing his dorm leader act all grumpy over prey and teases him about it, especially when Leona fucks up and acts overly aggressive/scares her. Really, Ruggie ends up being the guy helping Leona out the most by mediating arguments, running related errands, and gathering info on Raven's likes/dislikes (for a price, of course).

Jack is the underclassman that’s a little slow on the uptake. He sees how Leona stares at Raven and assumes they got beef. Ruggie shakes his head at Jack and tells him he doesn’t understand at all, he’s still an immature puppy! Jack wants to know what’s up, but he also doesn’t want to intrude on his dorm leader’s personal life.

As for the general Savanaclaw mobs 😂 I guess I just like the idea of a group of really buff guys being super invested in their aniki finding happiness. Real bro’s bros! ^^

[cakepoppresent]

Have More Faith

Benji is such a soft-hearted loser with Malcolm. That's why Malcolm is so spoiled, rivals Veroincas level of spoiled and entitlement lol

End of main story updates! Next week I'd be posting random gameplay pics of other sims I've been meaning to play!

Transcript under the cut~

Benji: Malcolm...Your face what happened?

Veronica: Benji...he got into a fight with some loser

Benji: He did what?

Veronica: I feel a little bad. I was hounding on him hard about Luna then these losers started saying some horrible things about Luna and he just snapped

Benji: What about the other dude?

Veronica: He’s pretty fucked up. I was able to get Malcolm outta there in time but you never know if that person will try to press charges

Benji: What did you tell him exactly

Veroinca: I just told him he wasn’t being fair to Luna and you know that too.

Benji: I know I know but...

Veronica: There are no buts Benji. This isn’t fair to Luna or you, you can’t keep walking around egg shells because you’re scared he’s gonna explode. Luna is hurting too

Benji: Don’t worry about it. I'll deal with him tonight

Veroinca: I hope so becasue I told him he has until the end of the week to reach out to Luna or else I’d call Gideon to beat his ass

Benji: Jesus V. Gideon? Thats cold

Veronica: Whatever! Just make sure he reaches out to Luna or Gideon will beat your ass too!

Benji: V left...

Malcolm:...

Benji: You wanna tell me what happened?

Malcolm:...

Benji: You can’t keep quiet about this forever. We have to talk eventually

Malcolm: Fine.

Benji: Do you want me to be honest?

Malcolm: Might as well. Veroinca already ripped me a new one

Benji: I say this with all the love in my heart but you are being too hard on Luna

Malcolm: I know...

Benji: She loves you a lot you know that yes?

Malcolm: I know

Benji: You don’t have even speak with Andre. What’s most important is being there for Luna. If he ends up being a bitch Luna will know she has you to lean on. If he isn’t then at least you can learn the truth

Malcolm: I’m just scared.

Benji: You have to have more faith in Luna, at the end of the day the real enemy is your Dad. He hasn’t reached out once since Andre was exposed, and never calls or checks up on you guys.

Malcolm: That’s cuz he’s a bitch

Benji: More of a reason to go easy on Luna. Its you guys vs the world

Malcolm: You’re a part of us too you know that right?

Benji: Oh? Am I?

Malcolm: Of course! You’ve always been a part of Luna and I. Always!

Benji: Then listen to me when I say you need to reach out to Luna okay? I can be there if you want but please don’t ice her out anymore okay?

Malcolm: Fine...

[naggingatlas]

'thats not his role in the story!' hm i wonder what the point of it is then. hm i wonder what the dead pixel scene means. hm i wonder what wrong organ are trying to say with the context of 'awesome male friendship' and 'corporate hell where the only woman onboard is constantly under ridicule, abused or forcibly forgotten yet is the catalyst' if not this. hm i wonder how curly's physical agony being a direct parallel to anya's mental agony, stripped of voice, agency, just like her, and being forced to watch what happens while not doing jack shit, just like he used to, plays a part in this. i wonder what the moral of him being the final girl says about living with the consequences of your inaction, because of sentimentality, because of status, career and social. hm i wonder whatever the fuck this game was trying to say. hm i wonder what else is on this person's blog Oh Lord there's yaoi penice.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[fujii-draws]

OKAY! Chatot rant in tags below! Read at your own discretion.

[chibi-scone]

It’s been said before and the fact that I’m an Izzy simp aside like having a character who survives the most certain death shit ever (shooting himself in the head at point blank) and literally being nicknamed by another character “indestructible” and then become a symbol of protection for a whole group of people die from a fucking bullet to the side that was established in universe to have no vital organs in order to “atone for his sins” or however you wanna spin it and have him say he wants to go after (see point one) literally trying to kill himself in the show that is literally about growth and betterment of the self in a cruel world that wants you dead and where the main (and mostly queer) characters survive the most batshit insane injuries is like COSMICALLY stupid writing like I don’t even understand how you get there and the fact that it’s supposed to be a kind/ happy/meaningful ending is beyond me

[tempest-teacups]

the house is white, and the lawn is dead

[boy-armageddon]

YES my username on yt is a blood bros reference :33 i need to go to crimes world again i know in my heart and soul that i love her but i seldom show her attention .. i need to care her more ..

HOOFRAY!!!! also pretty please do!!!!!!! for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[arolesbianism]

I have obtained a new oc and in the process I've already signed myself up for needing to make at least 3 new ocs for his story which he now has despite me initially Intending for him to be a side character for a different side character to hang out with. My townhouse has over 200 characters on it.

[minisugakoobies]

Cross My Heart | KMG

Pairing: Mingyu x GNReader (afab)

Genre: smut, porn with the barest of plot, friends to lovers (?), non-idol!AU

Rating: M (18+)

Warnings: pussy drunk mingyu, late night texting, biting/marking, fingering, lots of flirting, lots of teasing, grinding/dry humping, dirty talk, cunnilingus, face sitting, come eating, hand job, mingyu's a messy boy, OC is needy and mingyu loves it, mingyu has maybe the tiniest bit of a praise kink, use of pet names - pretty, mingyu requests death by pussy

Word Count: 5.2k

Disclaimers: NSFW, obviously I don’t own SVT - they just inspire me

Summary: Your crush Mingyu wants (to eat) you.

Text Prompt: You: I can’t stand you Mingyu: Then sit on my face

A/N: Hiiiii I'm writing for svt now and I'm starting with Mingyu because he's driving me insane. This is actually the first in a planned series of 13 svt fics based on text prompts. I'm fully in my self-indulgent era, so this is for everyone who, like me, needs some munch 'Gyu right about now 👅

Unbeta'd as usual. If you like this and want more svt fics from me, please let me know! I'd love to hear what you think (but please be kind I'm fragile 🥺) 💕

SVT Masterlist 💜 Main Masterlist

It’s finally here. After months of planning, you and your friends have flown halfway around the world for a week of vacation. The six of you arrived just a few hours ago, and after the long flight, the long wait at the airport for your luggage, and the long drive to the hotel, you’re exhausted. 

Well, mentally you’re worn out, at least. Your body? Is still on your old timezone, where it’s currently tomorrow morning. So it thinks that you need to be awake, even though it’s night where you are. You had stayed awake the entire flight here in order to avoid this very problem. 

Fucking jet lag got you anyway.

Unlike you, Seungcheol and Vernon are having no issue sleeping. The three of you are sharing one room, while Minghao, Wonwoo, and Mingyu are sharing another. You glance over at the two lumps tucked in their beds, snoring away like you would be if your body wasn’t so confused.

Because you’re trying to be a good friend and let them sleep, you’re lying on your bed, scrolling lazily through your various social media apps. You could watch something, but you don’t really have the focus right now. Yet you want something pleasing to look at. Something to mindlessly enjoy while you wait for exhaustion to overwhelm you. 

So, naturally, you turn to your favorite nightly pastime - scrolling through your social media apps, looking for any new posts from Mingyu.

It’s an addiction, borne out of your raging crush on your friend. Well, really, he’s Minghao’s friend, you don’t know him as well as you do the others, but still. You’re friendly enough around each other. Which is because Mingyu is so nice, such a sweet and funny guy who always makes you feel more than welcome whenever he’s around. 

He’s also a blatant flirt. At first, his cocky smiles and playful words made you think he might be interested in more than just being your friend, but it wasn’t long before you realized he’s like that with everyone. So you tamped down the hope that burned in your chest, leaving only a simmering crush to smolder forever.

It’s morning back home, where most of your friends have barely started their days, so your feed is fairly dead. There are a few photos from Wonwoo from the flight, including one of Minghao sleeping with his mouth open that you immediately save to your favorites, a couple from Vernon, and, of course, several from Mingyu. You tap into his page.

Mingyu’s an avid photographer, particularly of beautiful things - breathtaking landscapes, delicious meals, himself. Mostly himself, to be honest. Not that you’re complaining. It’s maybe the most mutually beneficial relationship you’ve ever been in. Mingyu loves to provide pictures of himself. You love to admire them. A win-win all around. 

You tap back to home and refresh your feed. A new post appears, from Mingyu. The jet lag must be getting to him, too, if he’s awake and posting right now. The photo is another selfie, this time of him lying in bed, one arm resting behind his head, showing off a perfectly sculpted bicep. God. Could he be more gorgeous? 

Clicking into his page again, you rub your thumb over the screen to make his photos flip by in an endless parade of hot Mingyus. It’s ridiculous, you muse, watching picture after picture roll by, to think about how much time Mingyu must spend on these photos. Making sure he’s got the perfect lighting to bounce off his muscles just right in those gym selfies. Or figuring out the best angle to show off that sharp jawline of his. Just ridiculous. And yet, every second isn’t spent in vain, considering how the photos drew you in like shiny trinkets to your magpie eye. 

It would be so easy to think of Mingyu as a modern day Narcissus, endlessly snapping selfies, drowning in his own reflection on his phone. But he’s never struck you as conceited. It’s something else - a desire for connection, perhaps. A need for-

A tiny heart floats up your screen and you gasp. Shit. You just liked the post the scroll stopped on - one of his many gym selfies, frame zoomed in on his torso, his hand clutching the bottom of his shirt to show off his rippling abs.

Your eye drifts to the date of the photo. Posted eight months ago. 

Quick as lightning, you hit the screen again, shattering the little heart icon. Your pulse is beating too fast. There’s no need to panic. He couldn’t have seen that. Maybe you’re overreacting, but no one needs to know you’re lurking in his profile in the middle of the night, especially not him. 

A notification drops down over Mingyu’s face. A message.

Mingyu: Someone’s up late. 

Ah, damn. You were too slow. And now he’s in your DMs. 

After taking a moment to shriek quietly into your pillow, you write back. 

You: Can’t sleep

Mingyu: Same. Jet lag’s got me fucked up

Mingyu: You know what always helps when I can’t sleep?

You: What?

Mingyu: Creeping through someone’s old photos

Even though he’s not here looking at you, your neck flames with embarrassment anyway. You could play it cool. If only you knew how to do that. 

You: Shut up

Mingyu: It’s ok, I’m flattered

You: Oh fuck off

Mingyu: No really, I am

Mingyu: I like that you want me so bad

Pressing your mouth firmly into your pillow, you swallow another screech. Here we go. Right into the flirting. You can’t handle this right now.

You: Idk what you’re talking about

You:  It was an accident

Mingyu: Oh you were accidentally admiring me? 

You: How did you even notice? Are you just staring at your phone, waiting for attention?

Mingyu: I mean yeah

You snort. 

You: You’re ridiculous

Mingyu: Maybe. But I’m honest about it

You: I’ll give you that

A few seconds go by, then a minute, then two. Maybe you’re boring him. Maybe he’s found something else to entertain him. Or someone else.

When the next notification comes in, you jolt a little. 

Mingyu: What else will you give me?

And now your heart does a funny jump as you stare at his words. God, what a question. How you wish he were asking for real, and not just being playful, like he always is. 

Would it be too real to reply with the truth? “Whatever you want?”

You: I don’t know

You: What do you want?

Mingyu: What if I say you?

Suddenly you don’t understand words.

You: Why would you say that?

Mingyu: Because it’s my answer

Mingyu: I’m being honest again

You: That’s the jet lag talking

Mingyu: Oh come on

Mingyu: You really don’t know?

You: Know what??

Mingyu: How I feel about you

Is he being serious right now??

You: If this is a joke I don’t get it

Mingyu: Not a joke

Mingyu: Hold on

The notification icon on your app suddenly lights up. One heart. Two. Three four five. You open your notifications and immediately start laughing. Mingyu’s going through your oldest photos and liking them, one by one. 

Mingyu: See? I’m obsessed with you

Seungcheol grunts in his sleep, and you press your arm harder over your mouth, trying to muffle yourself better.

You: You’re so annoying, oh my god

Mingyu: So annoying that you can’t stop looking at my photos at 1 am?

Mingyu: Or flirting with me?

You: Is that what’s happening? Are we flirting?

Mingyu: Ok don’t act like you don’t know

Mingyu: I flirt with you all the time

You: You flirt with EVERYONE all the time

Mingyu: Yeah but I only mean it with you

Like any other time this happens, any time his words make your head spin, you put on the brakes, stopping before you start to believe you might have a chance. 

You: You’re so dumb

Mingyu: Are you really going to pretend you’re not enjoying this?

You: Who said I’m pretending?

Mingyu: Me. I know you’re loving this

Mingyu: Because you want me soooooo bad

You: Shut uppppp

Mingyu: Go on, yell at me

Mingyu: You’re cute when you’re mad

You: No really

You: I can’t stand you

Mingyu: Then sit on my face

Your mouth falls open, an amused huff of air escaping in a befuddled laugh at his unexpected response. 

You: What?

Mingyu: Come shut me up. Sit on my face.

You’re blinking so hard, you can hear your eyelids clapping together.

You: Fuck off. Stop playing. 

Mingyu: Who’s playing? I’m serious

Mingyu: Smother me with those gorgeous thighs of yours. I’ll go out a happy man. 

Your gorgeous thighs? He’s never said anything like that before. What the fuck is happening.

You can’t help but picture it - him lying on his bed, you kneeling over him, fingers tangled in his dark hair as you ride that pouty little mouth of his. It’s not the first time you’ve fantasized about it, but it’s the first time the vision has felt… possible. 

Mingyu: No response? You’re just gonna leave me hanging like this?

You: Don’t tease me

Mingyu: Trust me, there are a million ways I’d love to tease you, but this isn’t one

You lay down again, rolling onto your side, curling in on yourself, like you’re trying to contain all the excitement rushing through your veins, keep it from spilling out and over into the room where your friends are still sleeping.  

You: You’re really serious?

Mingyu: Cross my heart and hope to die

Mingyu: Between your legs

Again you laugh.

You: You’re such an idiot

Mingyu: Does that mean you’re not coming over?

You: Like right now??

Mingyu: Why not? 

Mingyu: Wonwoo and Minghao both slept on the plane. They went out exploring

Mingyu: I’ve got the room to myself

You bite your lip, a little harder than you normally would, the sharp sting confirming that you are not dreaming and this is, in actual fact, happening right now. 

You: I guess if I’m not sleeping anytime soon

In the dim light from your phone, you eye the path to the door. You can easily make it out of the room without waking anyone. Should you so decide. 

You: I could come over

Mingyu: I promise I’ll make it so good for you

Mingyu: Eat that pussy like you deserve. Make you cum on my tongue over and over

You inhale sharply. He’s definitely never talked about your pussy like that before. Reading his words has you positively throbbing.

Mingyu: Please, just let me taste you

What else is there to say to that but -  

You: I’m coming over

It’s a short walk to Mingyu’s room. A rush of anticipation hits you as you raise your hand to knock. It doesn’t take long for the door to open, bringing you face to face with the man whose social media you can’t stop stalking. Mingyu’s shirtless, grey sweatpants hanging alarmingly low on his hips, and if you weren’t already planning on crushing him with your thighs, this insta thirst trap of an outfit would push you right over the edge. 

“That was fast,” he laughs, stepping aside to let you in. “Did you run down the hall?” 

“I thought I told you to shut up,” you shoot back. 

“And I thought I told you to make me,” he smirks, reaching for you at the same time you reach for him, practically mashing his teeth against your lips as he pulls you in for a kiss. Despite what he just said, he’s kissing you, too eager to wait for you to do what he demands. 

It’s rough and messy, all teeth and tongue, both of you doing your fair share to keep the other silent. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say speechless, because Mingyu’s definitely not being quiet, moaning into your mouth, and you’re certainly whining loud enough for the other rooms to hear you.

He presses you back into the door, chest to chest, hip to hip. You tilt your head and he follows, chasing your mouth, as if he’s needing another taste. Your hands roam over his biceps, his shoulders, his neck, covering every inch of warm skin that’s exposed, and he slips his arms around your waist, holding you impossibly tight. Not for one second do your lips part. This is the type of kiss you’ve always read about in your favorite stories - the one that makes your knees weak, makes your head float, makes you forget everything but Mingyu. 

It’s delicious. It’s amazing. It’s every superlative you can think of. But it’s not enough. You want more. Part of you wants to tell him to get on with it, take you to bed, because you’re here to make him eat his words by eating you, but the other part isn’t about to quit kissing him any time soon. 

Thankfully, Mingyu takes care of your dilemma by eliminating the choice. Without warning, he bends his knees and lifts you, big hands secure on your thighs to hold you close to him. Okay, now it’s like one of your stories, the way he lifts you like you’re lighter than air. You’d swoon if you weren’t so busy licking into his lips. All that time in the gym is really paying off

He carries you to his bed, displaying his impressive thigh strength by slowly lowering himself into a sitting position, bringing you into his lap. You loop your arms around his shoulders, desperately seeking his mouth, as if the 0.2 seconds between kisses might kill you, which, honestly, it feels like it might, and you’ve never been in this situation before, making out with the man of your dreams, so for all you know, it will, so why risk it? 

“Stop me if I’m going too fast,” he says between kisses. 

“You can go as fast as you want,” you reply, without even a second’s pause. “Just don’t stop.” 

“Damn, and here I was worried I was coming off too excited,” he grins, face lighting up in delight. Then he kisses your cheek, whispering against your skin at your offended huff. “It’s okay, I like how needy you are for me.”

“Shut up,” you groan, but you know he felt the way you shuddered, so you give up the weak protests and start kissing him again, twisting your fingers in his hair to keep him close. 

Mingyu finally stops laughing when you take his bottom lip between your own, sucking and licking at the plump skin. With a groan, he digs his fingers into your sides, and he starts to guide you back and forth, rolling you over the eye-catching bulge in his sweatpants. It’s a sight that makes you clench, thinking about how much you want to sit on it now, just pull him out and ride, too needy to feel him inside you to even take your clothes off.

But again, you want more. You want what he’d promised earlier.  

He nips his way down your throat until his mouth latches at the base of your neck, sucking and biting, and you whimper, squirming in his hold. “

‘Gyu, please!”

“Please what?” 

He doesn’t lift his head, too absorbed in sinking his vampire-like canines into your soft skin, not sharp enough to pierce, just hard enough that you know you’ll have bruises blooming there tomorrow, little souvenirs of this moment. 

Please everything, you think. You want it all, whatever he’s willing to give, you’ll take. You’re feeling greedy as fuck right now. 

“I want what you promised me.” 

“Hold on,” he intones seriously, right before laving his tongue over a fresh mark. “Let a man at death’s door enjoy his last moments.” 

“Oh my god, you’re so stupid,” you groan, grabbing his face and smashing your lips together. He’s just - just such an idiot, such a stupid sexy idiot and you want him more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life.

“Fine,” he says after a few minutes of frantic making out, a cheeky grin spreading across his face, hands circling around your ass, squeezing as he pulls you closer. “Time for my last meal.” 

He kisses away your embarrassingly pleased moan, and then he maneuvers the two of you around so he’s lying on the bed on his back and you’re straddling him. As he watches with rapt attention, you peel off your shirt. Since you’d been dressed for bed, you hadn’t bothered to throw on a bra. Judging from Mingyu’s expression, you made the right call.  

“Pretty,” he breathes out, wide eyes finding yours, and you have to take a beat, have to take a moment to sit and let the reality of the situation wash over you. The two of you are here, together, in this hotel room half a world away from home. Both wanting this. It’s clear to you now just how eager Mingyu’s been since you walked in. He wasn’t lying - he wants you just as much as you want him. 

With this new understanding, you stand up to slide your shorts and panties off in one go, before straddling him again, and lowering yourself for another kiss. Immediately, his arms are around you, gliding down your back, all the way to your bare ass, taking the biggest handfuls he can. 

“You drive me insane. So pretty, so hot.” 

Mingyu’s words kick the simmering heat in your gut into a full blown fire. You moan into his kiss, grinding yourself against him. One of his hands grips your side, helping you chase the friction, while the other slips between your bodies. When his fingers brush your inner thigh, he lets out a strangled groan. “Oh fuck, you’re so wet.”  

“Your fault,” you gasp, lips fervently pressing against his, licking at the seam of his mouth until he allows you in, so you can roll your tongue over his like you roll your hips. 

“Then allow me to make it up to you,” he grins, long fingers cupping your mound, trapping the heat there in his palm as he rubs it against you. You keen, thighs already twitching. You’re going to lose your mind before you even get to his face. 

You’re not alone in that feeling, as he suddenly reaches for your thighs, urging you to crawl up his body. “Get up here, please,” he begs, flat out begs you, and you slide forward as fast as you can. You need his mouth, right now.

Hovering over him is a little surreal - MIngyu’s big brown eyes are gazing up at you in a perfect replication of your favorite daydream, only it’s so much better than you’d ever imagined, because the expression he wears is one of complete awe, like he’s the one living out his fantasy. Again you feel bold, so you run your fingers through his hair, nails lightly scraping over his scalp. He moans quietly, low in his throat, like he’s trying to hold it in, and your mouth quirks in a half smile as you kneel. 

“Nice knowing you, ‘Gyu.” 

He hums a happy note, lips vibrating lightly just as your cunt reaches them, and you moan quietly. You don’t settle all the way down, because as much as you were playing along with this whole death-by-pussy dream of his, you are slightly worried that you might actually suffocate him, if not because of your weight than because of your dire need, that you might get too lost in the aching desire that’s building inside you, spurred on by the way he’s brushing the lower half of his face and down your folds, just breathing you in, teasing you with his touches but not giving you what you so desperately want. 

“‘Gyu,” you whine, tilting your pelvis forward, to catch his tongue as he traces your inner thigh, leaving a trail of saliva behind. He blows a puff of air across the wetness, sending goosebumps running at the cooling sensation. 

When you try to shift again, he’s quick to wrap his hands up around your hips, holding you still. Not hard enough to hurt, but strong enough to let you know - he’s in charge now. 

“Stay still, pretty,” he murmurs, tenderly pressing a kiss into your skin. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my promise. Cross my heart, remember?” 

With that reminder, he pulls you down further onto his face. His tongue slides into you, nose bumping your clit, and you whimper, hands flailing at your sides, seeking something to cling to, finding nothing but the warm air around you. The pressure on the sensitive bud combining with the wet hot muscle plunging between your slick folds is overwhelming in the best way.

“‘Gyu, oh, that’s so good!”  

Mingyu nods his head vigorously, nudging his nose around, letting his tongue drag up and down your slit. It almost feels like he’s agreeing with you, backed up by the way he grunts brokenly, this deep rumble in his chest that gets strangled halfway through his throat. 

You’re not sure at what point you start thrust your hips. Mingyu helps you find the right pace, big hands guiding you forward and back, forward and back, until you feel the rhythm all the way from your ears to your toes. 

As his mouth slides up to suckle on your clit, his left hand also snakes upwards, cupping your right breast, thumb rolling over your puckered nipple. You shudder, nerves sizzling like power lines, lit up by his every touch.

“‘Gyu…” Mingyu’s mouth pulls another whine from you. You glance down, catching the furrow in his brow, the sweat dripping down his temples. “Oh my god.” 

“Mmmmphf,” Mingyu agrees, or so you assume, unable to understand anything he might be mumbling into you. A particularly sharp suck on your pulsating clit makes your back arch, and Mingyu’s hand falls from your chest, disappearing behind you. 

The sudden rustling of fabric draws your attention. You glance over your shoulder, only to whimper when you catch sight of Mingyu’s hand stroking his erection, band of his sweatpants hastily shoved down, stiff cock so flushed it brings a matching heat to your neck. 

If you were more limber, you’d reach for him, give him a helping hand, but you can’t stay twisted around for long, not when Mingyu’s tongue makes you refocus on his mouth. It’s too difficult to think about anything else right now but the way he keeps plunging inside you, using the thick muscle to fuck you shallowly. 

You can’t stop mewling like a cat in heat, rutting back and forth over Mingyu’s tongue. Even in your daze, it doesn’t escape your attention that Mingyu’s absolutely pussy drunk at this point, depraved moans buzzing endlessly against your most sensitive spots because he refuses to detach his mouth from you long enough to let them escape. Every muffled note reverberates deep in your core, joins the tense chord that’s building inside you to a crescendo. 

“‘Gyu, please.” 

At the sound of your plea, Mingyu stops stroking himself, bringing his hand around to find your clit, middle finger drawing circles around and around and around. 

When you double over, hands sinking into the plush bedding on either side of Mingyu’s head, he grunts, tipping his head to the side so he can speak. “You okay?” 

“Fuck, Mingyu, ‘m good,” you giggle, suddenly hit by a burst of glee, perhaps due to the lack of oxygen in your head, since all the blood in your body is concentrated in your clit right now. “I’m having an amazing night.” 

Mingyu hums again, sounding very pleased, and you meet his gaze, and suddenly you wish his phone was nearby, so you could snap a photo, because this look - hair mussed and clinging to his forehead, pupils blown, nose to chin coated in your glistening wetness - this is a look worth capturing.

“Yeah, me too,” he says, chest heaving as he catches his breath, and the sincerity in his voice steals your own away. If you had any nerve, you’d confess something right now, something you weren’t planning on telling him tonight or tomorrow or maybe ever. But you keep silent, only breathing a tiny exhale of surprise as he slides out from under you, and nudges you onto your back.

Mingyu folds you in half easily, because you’re giving no resistance, letting him shape you the way he desires, and then his mouth is on you again. Now that he's lying facedown between your legs, he’s able to get some much-desired friction without using his hands, grinding his neglected cock into the bed as he concentrates on you. 

His tongue glides over your throbbing nub again, and then his right hand ghosts over your slit. You whimper a soft “Please,” and that’s all he needs to slide his finger inside. The intrusion has you squirming, urging him silently to go deeper, and to your relief, he obliges. But he also locks his other arm over your legs, holding them so you can’t keep bucking your hips up. 

“I said, stay still,” he mumbles, with no anger or heat behind it, just amusement, laced with a slight tinge of cockiness. He knows he’s frustrating you, judging by the curl of his lips as he plunges his finger in and out slowly, way too slowly, teasing you with what you need most. You try to press your hips down onto his hand, to make him glide faster, but he just leans into you slightly, big arm stopping your movements. 

Your whine is beyond petulant. “Don’t tease me!” 

“Pretty, I promise you, when I tease you, you’ll know.” 

And then he adds his middle finger, curling both, pressing on the most sensitive spot on your inner wall. Over and over, his fingers flutter, massaging until starlight bursts behind your eyelids. 

“It’ll be something like this.” 

He withdraws his hand.

“Gyuuuuuu.”

If he was slightly cocky earlier, he’s fully arrogant now, face breaking into a wide grin while he laughs. “Wow, so whiny. You do want me bad.” 

“I swear to god if you dohhhhHHH-”

You break off in a moan when he lowers his face again, loudly lapping at your wetness. Clever fingers alternate between scissoring and stroking, following the changes in your breathing, and you hope that he’s close to being satiated, because you’re teetering on the edge of your climax, only the slightest bit more stimulation necessary to push you over. 

“Mingyu. Mingyu, I’m gonna cum.” You open your eyes, raising your head enough to look at him, to watch with a dropped jaw as he buries his face in your cunt, his own eyes closed in ecstasy, and oh, that’s it - “Oh god, I’m gonna cum!” 

Your warning cry - though clearly appreciated by Mingyu, who groans in answering refrain, hips humping the bed furiously - is ultimately unnecessary, given how hard your walls suddenly clench around his fingers. He doesn’t stop his ministrations, fingerfucking you through your orgasm as your lower half trembles beneath his heavy arm. He holds you in place as best he can, sweetly kissing your clit, while you wail and writhe, pressing your palm into your mouth to keep your cries from waking the rooms around you. 

Eventually your tremors slow, turning into occasional twitches, before your body finally relaxes. Mingyu continues to lap at you, every pass of his tongue getting lighter and lighter, until he lifts his head. He’s the perfect image of lust, eyes dark and desirous, and you claw at his shoulders, needing him close again. 

“Kiss me.” 

He wipes his face with the back of his hand, smearing you over himself more as he rises up to meet you. His cock is hard between you, and you moan, knowing that you did that, that he got this turned on just from eating you out, and extend your fingers to wrap around him.

The unbidden sound he utters when you take his cock and slide it through your soaking folds, coating it in your wetness, is the filthiest sound you’ve ever heard.

“Careful, pretty,” he pants, looking down at your hand. Under his close gaze, you circle the head of his cock before rubbing your thumb over and around the slit there. “‘M close.” 

“Wanna make you come, ‘Gyu,” you tell him, and he hisses, hips bucking into your grip. 

“Fuck.” His long fingers cover yours, guiding you into a faster pace. “But I’m gonna make a mess.”

“Do it. Make a mess.” The need to make him completely fall apart takes possession of you, makes you say things you’ve never said to anyone else. “Come all over me.” 

Mingyu whines, chin dropping to his chest. He’s barely blinking as he stares at your entwined hands. 

“Pretty… don’t say that….”

“Please, ‘Gyu.” All shame has fled your body. “I want it.” 

No further encouragement is needed. Mingyu grunts a few times before he’s painting your stomach in so much white, in little drops and big splashes, doing exactly what you told him, eyes rolling back in his head as he does.

When his high abates, he sits back on his heels, gazing at the mess he created, all the sticky sweat and semen that covers your body. A delirious thought comes to you. Is the sight beautiful enough for him to want to take a picture? 

“Wow,” he murmurs after a moment, shaking his head. “You’re even prettier when you’re covered in me.” 

His dead serious expression is enough to break the haze of lust hanging over you. You throw your arm over your face, too flustered to look at him. “‘Gyuuuuu!”

“Changed my mind, I’m calling you ‘whiny' from now on.” The bed shifts as Mingyu rises. He laughs all the way to and from the bathroom, laughs even harder when you glare at him, reaching for the towel he holds. He surprises you by nudging your hand away. “Let me.”  

His touch is so gentle as he wipes away his mess, then your own. When you’re both clean enough, he lays on his side, draping his arm over you. “Think you can sleep now?” 

Oh, you can sleep. You’re feeling satiated in a way you haven’t for a long time, and now that the rush has worn off, you could knock right out. You should probably go back to your room, ride this calm wave right into sleep, not let yourself get too excited at the thought that this vacation might be the best one ever.

Instead, you grin, sliding your fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. “Yeah. But I don’t want to.” 

“Oh?” Mingyu’s smile mirrors yours. “What do you wanna do instead?” 

“I might have some ideas.” 

He lets you pull him down for a kiss, humming eagerly.

“Tell me what you want, pre-”

A sharp rap on the door startles you both.

“Dude, don’t you dare!” Minghao hisses through the wood. “We’ve been out here forever!” 

If you liked this fic, please consider reblogging! Likes do not help it get seen by other readers. 💕

© 2024 by minisugakoobies. Crossposted to AO3. Please do not copy or repost. I do not allow translations of my work.

[sweeterlovers]

MARRIED IN VEGAS / LANDO NORRIS

lando norris x reader / SMAU

FACE CLAIM / none!

WARNINGS / mentions of drinking and purposely misspelling words

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landonorris got mmarrkisx

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user6 ??????????????????????

user567 what the actual fuck

user000 LANDO??????

user7 the question i have is which drivers accompanied lando to get married?

user5 definitely carlos

user89 WHOS THE GIRL??????

user92 no cause why are the photos so aesthetically pleasing???

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ynuser marrrriesd vgasj 😭👜😍👛💗🤤

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yourbsf GIRL WHAT???????

yourbsf ANSWER ME RIGJT NOW

ynuser whtat?

yourbsf omfg how drunk are you??

ynuser dunk lebron 🏀

yourbsf lord help us all

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landonorris posted on their story!

liked by carlossainz55 and 17,927 others

[ she’s sob so hungover dheaiinwjsi @ynuser ]

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ynuser bro delete this zh en rmnow

landonorris enlish?

user56 BRO JUST JARD LAUNCHED THE HARD LAUNCHED

user0 wait she’s hot asf

user8 LANDO IS SHE NAKED?

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f1wags GOSSIP: lando norris and his recently announced wife who he married in vegas (drunkenly) have been spotted in California together!

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user67 wait this pap pic is so cute

user8 guys her @ is ynuser!!!!

user589 why is lando in sunglasses and a hat??

user9 maybe he’s still HUNGOVER

ynuser oh hello guys

user7 so casual

user92 hello mrs. norris

user89 WAIT THEY’RE MATCHING OUTFITS 🥹🥹

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ynuser as of lately 🌇

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landonorris hey mrs. norris

ynuser hello there mr. norris

user67 so like yes

user02 the color scheme of the post 😍

user10 i’m sorry lando but she’s my wife now

landonorris no.

user675 HE ACTUALLY RESPONDED 😭

carlossainz55 do you remember me?

ynuser yes mr. smooth operator

user8 I KNEW IT CARLOS WAS THERE WITH LANDO

user20 carlando ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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landonorris wifey wifey wifey ❤️🤍

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user57 y/n is in fact wifey

user78 ugh she’s so fine

user89 lando is really bragging over insta

user0 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

ynuser hey husband

landonorris hello my wifey

user024 no cause i love them guys

user23 it’s confirmed lando married a BADDIE

user35 need need need

user6 lando needs to know that she’s OUR wife now

landonorris i refuse!! y/n is my wife, plus she has my last name 😏😏

user211 lando no need to get territorial…

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ynuser honeymoon vacay

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landonorris 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤

user5 calm down there lando

user502 if i were married to her… i’d be thirsting on the main 24/7

yourbsf gorgeous girl! and well him��.

ynuser LMFAOO I LOVE U BAE

landonorris ?????

user99 island girl!

user02 okay guys let’s talk about how rom-com this whole thing is!

user3 FOR REAL

user02 like your a famous athlete who gets drunk and parties too hard and you marry a stranger and you both slowly start to fall in love

ynuser who’s going to write the script???

user79 I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

user65 wait y/n did you know who lando was?

ynuser god no.. i thought he was some youtuber or something ngl

user89 LMAO

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SWEETERLOVERS - a little smau in honor of the last vegas grand prix <3

[strab3rr]

(long story and no short sorry) GUYSSS I DID ITT

I INDUCED IT!!!!! I WAS PURE AS A FUCKING BABY

IDK WHAT TO SAY (ok enough w capslock)

i have so much to say and not a thing at da same time idk how

anyway i want to begin with thanking you @b4ddprincess bc youre the reason i realized why i started this thing. thank you for making my life better and make me realized what i need to do: nothing. (its same for you guys, all u have to do is nothing)

two fuckn years ago i said to myself that i need a better life, quiter life, less fight with everthing bc everything was so loud and not clear i was feeling lost like a child in the market, and i wanted to make things better for myself in every way, but the main idea of my reasons to wanting to get in the void was: making anxiety go and having better people in my life. but the ''voidlist'' just never stopped bc im kinda greedy(having the idea of controling on your life, the idea of that power makes you greedy. yes thats a thing) anyway the more i add to the list the more i feel like im movin away from my desires then i feel depressed bc ive overcomplicating it bc theres so many things to do but i dont do anything so nothing happend bc i was waiting to be someth happen. and then i started doing awkwardly silly things such as: void routines and challenges and (im embarrassed of this one bc i was too desperate) drinking water

youve read it correct drinking water.

i was sooo desperate for having those things id do anything to get them.

i am simple. i want what everyone wants🎀🎀🎀: shifting realities bc i have so many crush and i need them to be crush me in bed(for 2020 girlies)

being an academic weapon is so easy for me🎀(bc of the urge to make my family proud) +dream collage

being the girl that everyone gets along w(basic needs)

being the girl who is pretty not cute(trauma response)

glowing aura(cats loves people w glowing aura yes thats a thing too)

dream body n hair(bc i deserve this🎀)

healthy (girlyfriend)friends(basic needs)

and of course him, my sp(i cant tell wich one at that time but i releived that its not him now, bc MY BELOVED CURRENT BF. guyss he is the one. dont u dare ask me how you know? i literally manifested him🎀)

then i realized i can have everything bc its my reality so why not add these:

new phone, +macbook air

dream apartment of my own

pinterest closet

lifa app for this reality

financially free-money(a lot. like really a lot)

knowing 4 languages like a native person(bc i want to be diplomat so bad) +sign language(its in general)

a little drama(its not gonna hurt anybody)

my parents being more lovable and away from me

every time i try to get in, either i was failing or falling

and im sick of it, sick of it so much i quit.(for a year)

then i go to the theraphy(ofc no im jk ilove being crazy)

one day i saw a post ss from tumblr about pure consciousness on pinterest and i was like whaat is thiiss. no mention of void so i thougt its a diffrent thing and i download the tumblr again and search everything abt it. and same excitement again after one year same thougts and same list popes up in my head. and i was like ok maybe this time itll happen.

still waiting to be someth happen so nothing happend, it was such a waste of time trying to get in while i was already be, i was already what i want to become. i was that girl that everyone gets along with but i couldnt even see bc i was too focused on wanting to be. but still tried every night and failed. and again tried-failed-quit circle bc.. have you ever met me🎀

4 month ago i saw the girl, iconic blogger and the goddess of my dreams, her @b4ddprincess thx again love u so much

a post pops in my fyp and i see the words ''pure consciousness'' i was like noo not again. and i was serious abt it i wasnt gonna read the whole thing but it attract me n i couldnt resist it so ive read it from the top to the bottom. and she got my interest so i stalked her page from the last and to the first post. it was quiet a beautiful journey for me. lasted like 3 days, the end of the 3rd day i was ''woaw it was this easy all along? u cant be serious.'' she was. i tried one last time, no breathing exercise, no ridiculous routines and no waiting something to be happen. it was just me being real me chilling out asf.

and it was this easy and it should be this easy bc being your 4d self is being nothing also being everything at the same time. if u wanna be everything you should be nothing first(as wizardliz saying: drop the old story, leave the victimhood, for being better stop being bitter etc.)u should make a space for everything first and then u can be everything.

for being 4d self of yours stop being your3dself.

sooo long story (no)short i am writing this from my mac in my new apartment(in middle of the night bc i couldnt sleep and then one tumblr notification reminded me i have a success story to share too) and my phone buzzing two minutes a time bc of my friends while im writing this, so if theres anything wrong ignore it pls.

oh u asking my bf how cute, hes sleepin in my bed now, exhausted from the work n school balance.

YWS SCHOOL!! im in my dream collage and im going to be in paris for a week. i deserve a vacation i guess(its for another conference), i kinda hate french men bc theyre so mansplaning(not like how i imagined, its hard to be friends w them)girls are cute but i feel like theyre aware im not permanent there so we just con buddies still cute and hepful for this foreigner.

and i canceled the lifa app thingy bc i can be my purest consciousness anytime i want, so i am my lifa app.

and thx to 4 languages i make a lot of money and that brings us to the pinterest closet, yesterday i realiased that. theyre not comes to me w an imaginary way like i imagined! i go outside for shopping casually and theyre there luckily i have enough money to buy them.

and my family theyre living in our hometown now so as i want it to be, we are away from eachother.

and the most magical thing: SHIFTING REALITIESSS

i did 5 world before i met w my bf. it was such a wonderful experience. if you have doubts abt shifting you can go fuck urself

because sir i did it and i am very sure that dean winchester being my husband is not a daydream, fantasy nor lucid dreaming. believe it or not he kissed me GOD HE KİSSED ME(someone should stop me i have a bf)

is there anything i missed let me see.. cats i have 2 cats now and theyre adorable. glowing aura-check

the girl who is pretty not cute- check +make anxietygo-checkcheckcheck

dream body and hair- check and check

i wanna give u a info i didnt have all my desires by being my4dself

not directly actually. but i have them all. and thats the point.

im not trying to be a blogger but if you have any question abt anything, id be happy to help

now i need to upgrade things in my farm byeess

loves, siena.

[batsplat]

quick follow up to this bit

was also reminded of this valentino quote

He speaks about my shoulder like he was the best shoulder doctor in Melbourne Hospital.

what WERE they cooking

(I can't like. prove this because obviously we simply do not have solid 'evidence' for casey's thinking here either way, but given this is a speculative post about how I'd narrativise these rivalries.... do think the screenshot above is basically my theory for why casey had a thing about valentino's injuries. to such an extent that valentino picked up and commented on it! after laguna and throughout 2009, there were various waves of discourse about casey having been 'broken' by valentino - first due to casey's dip in form in 2008, then because he had to take some time off in 2009. the fact that it was an invisible illness that he himself could not explain in a sport that is all about the big, glaring obvious injuries - one that was treated as a sign of mental weakness, something he was ALWAYS susceptible to being accused of... very much the opposite of valentino's shoulder and leg in that sense, which was way easier to explain and was immediately taken seriously. my suspicion is that for casey, it was about not being extended the same grace as valentino was, being frustrated at how much leniency valentino was being granted when casey was always being harshly judged. of course, valentino (in classic demented rider fashion) was if anything downplaying the severity of the shoulder injury and only admitted after it was more or less healed that he'd been terrified by how long the recovery period had dragged on and had feared he would never be the same rider again. casey's lack of empathy on this count is completely justifiable and he does also obviously have a point, but it's still an interesting part of his character. it's what makes the rivalry with valentino so very interesting - there are lots and lots of ways in which valentino directly made casey's life miserable, but then there are other ways in which valentino's mere presence, his existence, someone whose treatment casey could compare his own to, that also contributed to casey's hatred towards him. firstly by getting more empathy than casey did and the general injustice in how the sport was 'always' on valentino's 'side' in a way it never was for casey, secondly by having this reputation of 'breaking' rivals that... well, y'know, valentino was presumably more than happy to be the beneficiary of the whole thing, but it's not like this was actually a line he spread himself, including with regards to casey. he didn't have to! it's kinda just... an awful coincidence that casey's 2009 absence was always going to be treated with suspicion and he HAPPENED to have a rival with valentino's very specific reputation?? the perfect storm! which gets you to this odd point where... if anything after that casey is the main instigator in terms of the sheer vitriol of the rivalry - but it's built on years of seething resentment that valentino at times almost seems taken aback by... and then reciprocates with interest because of course he does. because that's just how valentino ticks. fundamental lack of understanding for each other!! valentino kinda accidentally being casey's perfect foil!! casey having a million Legitimate Grievances against valentino but still somehow managing to project 85% of his other issues with the sport on valentino too!! they're soooooooooooooo. so!!)

if you were to direct a motogp movie (or make a one season of television) what season or rivalry would you make it about? and more interesting what artistic liberties would you take? it doesn’t have to be a straight up biopic bc imo those are often boring, instead it could be something like velvet goldmine (1998) aka fictional characters whose real life counterparts are pretty obvious, veering in like rpf territory. anyways👀

did you know. one time this guy put a curse on this other guy. and he never won a race again

anyway, look, I do feel like by this point that's the BORING answer from me, but obviously it's where my mind first went. I'm not sure I'd actually want it out there in film form because by now it's badly enough remembered that it's like, my cute little niche story, and I think there's something fun about the Wider World even within the motogp fandom not exactly getting how bonkers the whole thing was. (I know other humans have canonically watched motogp 2004 but I swear even journalists have forgotten some key key details and it's kinda annoying but also fun.) bold words from someone who's been blogging about it!! weird gatekeep-y instinct. but basically my job here is done as far as outreach is concerned - I wrote a very long post, now I get asks about it twice a week that allow me to think about it some more with the four other people who care, perfect balance. that rivalry doesn't need to go mainstream!! the whole point of it is that it's kinda cruel but narratively pleasing that it's gone under the radar, because it's another sign valentino won. but obviously, I cannot literally make a film about this, so the hypothetical repercussions I think maybe we can put aside for a moment here

okay I came back to this bit of the post after I increasingly got into of the spirit of coming up with dumb ideas, but it did make me flesh out what I'd even WANT from something like that. I'm with you anon, a lot of biopics are boring!! if you want to just know what happened, please just literally go and 'watch the races' and 'read books' like what are we actually getting here. you kinda want to give it a purpose for existing, right, a way of portraying real/mildly fictionalised events in a manner that is also taking some kind of stance on the material AND is doing stuff you can't do 'in real life'. thing is, look, you could make 2006 into a film, and I'm sure it'd be perfectly nice because it's fundamentally a solid underdog story (well, inherently winning a title with repsol honda is NOT being an underdog but you can write it that way), but also what are you doing beyond just telling people what happened? I feel like that generally about single seasons, they're not really doing anything for me. I was also turning around the biaggi/valentino rivalry in my head in part because that's the one valentino gave as his answer for 'rivalry he would turn into a film' (marc big wet eyes sitting right next to him), but like. a film about that rivalry from valentino's pov is fundamentally not something I'm interested in. you have all these isolated very memorable moments that make it work as a rivalry, like you can absolutely spin them into a dramatic yarn that goes through the genesis of their conflict to middle finger gate to punching gate to assen + donington + sachsenring + phillip island 2001 and it's basically *insert rousing music* successful coming of age. at most you can lean into the fact valentino became successful at being a dick. like idk it's fine but also what's the point? valentino is challenged in a sports context by biaggi, he's challenged because he realises his words have consequence and the press actually reports the words he says to journalists (the horror), but he is fundamentally not challenged on a personal level. that's the entire point, right? it's the ultimate comfort zone rivalry - biaggi is a dick who it is quite easy to hate and also reacts poorly to valentino's initial provocation. the animosity escalates and it is inherently fun to beat him. valentino is mean to him, but it's not like he even really crosses any lines to beat him. like you can make it into a film, and if you twisted the material a little bit you could make it satisfying, but I don't want to!

now the way the writing process of this post worked was that I was going to breeze through a bunch of non-sete/valentino rivalries and explain why I think some of them don't work for our purposes here, but then I ended up writing myself into changing my mind. so my take on the biaggi rivalry is that actually, you CAN make it work but it has to be from biaggi's perspective. basically, I think you've got to amadeus it (a web weave I have been thinking of making at some point btw). so,,, it's a meditation on talent and how unfair it all is, maybe minus the bit where salieri poisons amadeus (I know that doesn't happen in the film) or dresses up as amadeus' father to, y'know, make him write a requiem on his death bed. and it's not amadeus in that HERE, the clown prince gets a happy ending! but it's more like, in thematic terms, I think you have to zero in on this bit. biaggi didn't have parents who shoved him on a bike when he was three years old, he didn't have parents who were invested in his motorcycling career (or even necessarily particularly invested in him), he started the sport late and discovered that, yes, he did have a prodigious amount of skill in it - but one that he started honing far later than valentino did. he approached his career with a sort of grim resolve, surly and irascible and not interested in making friends with any of his competitors but very, very good. he goes away from the race track and dates all these models, he irritates fellow riders, he's not part of the gang and he's happy about it. he's very successful! four 250cc titles, wins his first ever race in 500cc at a time when doohan was very much winning everything. he's also just like,,,, an interesting and spiky enough character it's not hard to make him come alive

but then of course you have this gradual emergence of the amadeus character, the one who challenges his established position in the court of,, well... motorcycle racing, and also as the guy italians rooted for! and valentino's obviously, y'know, in so many ways the exact opposite from biaggi, and he's super young and cheerful and lively and is doing all his silly celebrations and is being a bit camp and goofy and treats motorcycle racing as a party (you really want to lean into the culture clash here, like in amadeus it's because you have stuffy austrian court vibes but here it's because everyone is having their bones broken every two minutes and just how... kinda grim a lot of motorcycle racing was). and he's also this innocent! yes, he insults biaggi, and yes, in retrospect we know valentino is kinda evil, but at the time he was a kid with a big mouth who was a little taken aback by how that biaggi feud sort of escalated beyond what he'd actually intended it to do! and biaggi just, hates him. and I think, sorry to the real man max biaggi here, but you've got to play with how once they're actually competing with each other, it's miserable how there's just this unbreachable gulf in talent. like, whatever biaggi does he cannot win! he isn't going to defeat valentino over the course of a full season! which is depressing and horrible and CRUEL, because there's this inevitability to the whole thing... and also! because valentino doesn't DESERVE it. and you don't have to go full salieri pleading with god to explain how god could give this CLOWN all this talent, but it's kinda the same vibe! how is it valentino, who is constantly just having a laff and canonically maybe wasn't the biggest gym-goer in the paddock and is just generally seen as, y'know, a bit of a dandy, this foppish clown who everyone loves and who doesn't have to work hard to be good - how is he the one who is winning so much!! it's miserable and unjust... and I think how you portray this is that you really emphasise the kinda, repetitive nature of the defeat. like, I think you probably want to make this into a non-linear narrative where all this biaggi backstory is communicated somehow but you don't just start it when he was born or whatever - you start it in 2001 when they're competing for a title and already hate each other. and then you heavy on the time loop vibes. the whole cinematic language and all that other shit should emphasise how all these weekends are structured in exactly the same way and if you're losing to this one guy, all these different weekends can start feeling the same. it bleeds into each other, it feels inescapable, you're trapped in this narrative you can't change... worst of all, you even return to the same places again and again - like play with that! biaggi keeps coming back to where they had the fist fight, to where valentino first insulted him all those years back. you play up the disorientation and the misery of it all, plus biaggi canonically gives us all this kinda messy freudian shit to play with like how he was dating 'valentina' and his relationship with her was falling apart because of how miserable valentino was making him. it's all there!!

ANYWAYS the way you conclude this story is!! welkom 2004!! so again we can artistic license this a little bit and, uh, ignore sete (though I do also think it's fun if you lean into biaggi being displaced as a rival and staring at them being friendly and happy with each other from the outside) - but the key bit is that valentino is finally making the big error. biaggi wasn't winning titles on a yamaha, since he left yamaha has gotten worse, now valentino is making this big mistake out of his own hubris. language of cinema that shit and make everything brighter and more hopeful.... the time loop is finally over, biaggi has escaped, this year will be different!!!! everyone in his circle agrees, valentino is fucked. step off the plane at welkom (pre season testing didn't happen in this universe) and it's literal dawn of a new day... staring out at the sun and finally, biaggi can move on, can live a new and different life. anyway. obviously we all know what's coming next - you have this big dramatic climactic race where biaggi throws himself at valentino again and again and again and he comes so close to winning it... but he doesn't. and you have valentino living his best life, being delighted, but the film is focusing on how like,,, we're bleaching the joy back out of biaggi's life, how actually he's returning to what he already knew. and it ends on the podium, with the camera focusing on biaggi on that fucking second step or zooming in or whatever (idk how cinema works) and it just finishes on this shot of biaggi dead-eyed in a bleak world, trapped again for eternity aka until the end of the 2005 season. done!! I'm not sure this is quite what valentino had in mind, but. well. that's how I'd do it

this is from the pushkin play from 1832 not the 1984 film but like. low key pushkin already kinda nailed the essence of sports rivalries in the 1830s and we just have to acknowledge that sometimes

right. so the casey rivalry is where I'm going to go completely off the wall. skip this bit to get to the slightly saner stuff. this is also one I fully admit to sometimes playing around with in my mind anyway, but. uh. I'm gonna be taking this one in just. well. places. I do have a vision here but I also don't quite know how to explain it in a way that doesn't make me sound like I've lost my mind, but well if you're still reading this then that's on you. so lemme get this out of the way: the classic sports biopic formula would work well with casey. if I had to point to a single rider I would sports biopic-ify, it's casey. so you have all this kinda,, obvious adversity that's easy to get across, and it's a narrative you can follow chronologically without too much trouble. you've got all the childhood stuff, the australian racing club not letting him join them, the move to britain, the rising through the ranks, it's also this very biopic-friendly 'nobody ever believed in him apart from like three people' stuff. and the premier class is also narratively satisfying, from the rocky rookie season to the kinda shock success to then all the lows of 2008 and 2009 and the physical ailments and the anxiety and then the switch to honda and the title and then him deciding to retire... that's all good stuff! you can absolutely biopic-ify it! gun to my head and sure, I can walk you through exactly what bits of his life I'd focus on and put in what order and so on, and I think ultimately you could make a very good sports biopic from that

[some mild gore to follow in this next section]

but also. thing is. that's fine. it's just not where I want to go here, because again I feel like at that point you can also pick up his autobiography and just read it - because what you're basically doing here is just filming that. and I get how this stuff works, you're bringing the story to a wider audience, you can show stuff in a different way in that medium etc etc, and that's all great but also I don't care about bringing stuff to a wider audience. I care about doing fun stuff in my brain. so what I'd actually do here is just, basically, go in the exact opposite direction and ditch all the realism. genuinely, ditch the live action stuff, we're going animated - what I'm interested in here is stuff where we need to be able to fully suspend our disbelief and lean into some surreal shit. I'm not going to bury the lede here: my idea is that you take that thing where casey said he hated how ducati was ruining the bike by letting valentino's yellow encroach on it and, basically,, just go all in on that bit. like come on, that is so singularly visually evocative, it truly captures a lot of what's going on thematically in that rivalry. (see also x and x for the most relevant casey posts.) casey sees valentino as the malevolent force, this infection! he associates him strongly with a specific colour, one that can be sickly or unnatural or just... evil. malignant, malicious, malevolent, all the m words. to casey, valentino is a personification of everything that is wrong with the sport. valentino is literally the walking manifestation for so many of his issues, from the dangerous riding to the lack of respect to the lying to the cult of personality to the obsession with image and the media to the backroom games to the politics to the injustice of how different riders are treated differently, like!! he's literally all of that! this is a topic for another post, but this plays out in a lot of kinda, weird and funky ways where it's a two way street and sometimes when casey talks about motogp you go 'actually I think that's just valentino?' (btw he also does this about 'europe' right I don't think those are europeans you hate casey that's literally just valentino) and sometimes when he talks about valentino it's kinda? this feels like it's about a little more than the bloke himself? and basically, right, I think you need to take this to its natural conclusion where casey used to admire him and look up to him and want to emulate him on track and then gets disillusioned when valentino's worshippers turn against casey and casey is the one to bring valentino down to earth and... listen, I think you need to play around with valentino being a literal god. and I think you need to have casey stab him to cover up the yellow on the ducati with blood

okay. look. the idea here, right, is that we're basically making the subtext text, and just digging into that process of 'bringing valentino back to earth', of taking on a god and having the audacity to succeed, and also treating valentino as this sort of. infection in his own mind. the bike is literally being infected!! casey may have left the ducati but he STILL has some fidelity and love for this project, those were his people he worked with, and now valentino is coming in and just twisting everything around himself!! but also I think how this functions is that, okay, so you have all this normal stuff that's the actual 'plot' in the 'real world', but the ISSUE with the real world is that there's a lot of stuff that just. isn't possible there. like the thing casey wants in that rivalry but is never going to have is... a captive audience. a big problem casey has in that rivalry is that he doesn't get the chance to actually say a lot of stuff to valentino. he starts using the media more and more and plays the game on valentino's level, but there's still this disconnect where mr straight talking is the valentino rival who valentino never really blanks or freezes out like... there's a disconnect! there's valentino the person, who casey never quite figures out how to just straight up hate, and then there's valentino the character, the racer, the rider, the god who casey DESPISES. but when they're doing small talk at pressers and podiums, casey doesn't get to talk to that version of valentino! he just talks to valentino the person, who obviously isn't literally a different person but is also not going to explain to casey where he's coming from, is he, and also isn't someone who casey can explain to where HE is coming from. and that gulf... it does bother casey. I don't think he can quite verbalise why either, but there's just... this creeping tension. I think it'd be easier for casey if valentino really were more of a caricature, just kinda a dick in all walks of life. and there's just these canonical hints of that... the way casey talks about how he's sure valentino as a guy is fine, but he never knew valentino like that, the whole 'I'd like to go with valentino for dinner to tell him where I was coming from in that rivalry' thing, like!! it's there

so basically EYE think what you should be doing is using the wonders of storytelling to actually. embrace that element. and just leave realism behind now and again. valentino is a god, he is literally worshipped, he's part of this pantheon that casey is trekking to reach. casey is brave enough to take him on in combat, he is the first one who is truly able to draw blood. he sees how valentino isn't just a god of joy or battles or speed or the SUN or any of that other stuff - he's a disease, an illness, a god who is also a false prophet... the worship never quite goes away, because who ever truly gets rid of their valentino rossi complex, but casey eventually is given the chance to face a chained valentino and kinda,,, ritualistically publicly humiliate him using the ducati as both this sick thing that has to be 'cured' and this symbol of valentino's failure. I'm sorry, visual language goes brr here, like chain him up, do weirdly eroticised torture idc!! (psst psst valentino's fucked up shoulder also extremely goes brr here, casey low key a teensy bit weird about valentino's injuries? his thing after the 2010 leg break where he goes 'why's everyone making such a big deal about this other people break their limbs too' and then after 2011 jerez immediately asking whether valentino's shoulder is okay in just a very obviously passive aggressive way. literally he opens with that, valentino isn't using it as an excuse or anything, for some reason it's already on casey's mind and I would politely contest it was out of genuine concern for valentino's wellbeing!! it's just kinda? I'm so compelled by it? I suppose it is kinda about how valentino's suffering gets taken more seriously than his own? how those absences are received differently by the motogp world? idk I find this fun because casey does know this is one thing valentino can't really be blamed for himself, so it just slips out a bit? but yeah, casey + valentino's injuries, nobody's talking about it but I sure will, let casey get weird and mean and a teensy bit sadistic about valentino's injuries in an artistic manner.) crucially I like animation as a medium here because I think it's easier to lean into surrealism when you don't have to hand hold the audience so much through the suspension of realism, also there's just some imagery you can do in cooler ways through animation where in live action it may just look. weird. (I think you can also do one of those things where you have a live action film with only those specific bits animated but also... why? it just feels like in live action you need more 'justifications' for things, like am I saying casey is having some weird hallucinations and is losing his mind? no I just want to have weird vision sequences ffs.) the colour stuff!! valentino/casey is big on the colour coding as a rivalry, to the extent casey is even, y'know, drawing attention to it in the literal text!! yellow and red are banger colours, valentino is big on imagery himself with all his sun + moon motifs, it's kind of all there to make the easy next step to kinda zany surreal imagery. ritualistic stabbing works better in animation, you can kinda get the blood to like. drip down and overwhelm the yellow illness that's slithered out across the bike

and. AND of course what this entire set up allows you to do is.... give them an opportunity to talk. they can't talk in real life! casey CAN'T give him his real thoughts on anything, and fundamentally valentino can't either. they're opponents. they're strangers who chat sometimes. it's not just that they aren't friends, it's that fundamentally they cannot be friends - because their ability to do their actual jobs depends on a certain level of professional distance. valentino of course does have a decent read on casey, and vice versa, because when you're figuring out how to defeat someone then (if you're valentino) you're looking to play the rider too. valentino's entire approach depends on focusing in on his rivals and attempting to throw them off, to make them unravel. he's watching casey closely!! the entire journey of casey's first three seasons in the premier class essentially becomes like, this god of their world focusing in on him. figuring him out. trying to gnaw away at him. obviously, animation also allows you to go big on the panopticon-y imagery which is kinda fundamental to their rivalry, because of their fundamentally oppositional stances to 'performing' for the ever present cameras where there IS a little bit of common ground in they have both struggled with it. but valentino isn't going to ever say that to casey! casey isn't going to open up to valentino! so if you give them,, you know, a different arena to express themselves, where casey actually has this external figure to talk to (as he's like, cutting him open I guess) whereas valentino actually is put in a position where he's allowed to respond, where he can taunt casey a little bit, where he can interrogate casey's approach and also the similarities between the two of them and how casey has been forced to become a little more like valentino to challenge him... because the thing is, right, valentino is so big on message discipline with his rivals and has completely stopped talking about that rivalry post mid 2013 that, first of all, you have this complete imbalance in who's been telling this story for the past decade, but second of all you kinda don't have a sense of what valentino would respond? idk!! I think this is mainly fun as a thought exercise for me specifically but also I do think it's kinda, digging into some of the bits that make this narratively work as a rivalry, how valentino in this rivalry is actually just kinda... removed. like he's not really emotional about it!! at most he's a bit bitchy, but even that just feels about The Game. it's the most extreme in this regard followed by jorge - but with valentino's other feuds you kinda... see a bit more an unguarded moment, see something a little more real there. the casey rivalry feels so uncomfortable precisely because valentino is a little... inhuman in this one. I mean, if you want to have valentino as some kind of cross between a deity and a monster in any of his feuds, this is the one. casey's just an obstacle to him. idk don't you think casey kinda wants to chain valentino down and stab him and make him see casey a little more... well, I think he should want it and I think it'd be fun to see and get them to talk to each other. ugh and also all the implications of making the faith vs non-believer elements more literal... casey the heretic!!!

there's some obvious stuff here you'd have to figure out, like 'how do you make this work as a narrative even to people who aren't familiar with casey stoner at all' and 'who the fuck do you think the target audience is here' and 'you do know this is not the kind of thing that would ever be made, right, go back to the casey stoner sports biopic like a sane person' but!! I do think it's material you can make work if you're just,,, efficient and smart in how you're actually telling the 'real life' version of the rivalry. also in my head this is. idk. an animated limited series not a film, which then brings in other stuff like 'episodic structure' because I'm fundamentally opposed to tv shows that think they're films. and look, I'm not going to write an entire film script treatment here, I just think a good writer can figure this stuff out. blood on the ducati is the framing device for everything else, simple. lots of animated floating eyes I reckon, first casey is watching valentino and then valentino is watching casey and the whole world is watching them... and it does bleed into real life just a little, where you're wondering whether casey is actually imagining/dreaming this stuff or valentino is or if they both know it somehow... you can get away with more ambiguity in animation. anyway, if you do want more thoughts on this one specifically for whatever reason, let me know because this one I do actually have more on

also laguna 2008 is a bit tortoise and the hare coded if you really think about it

[end of gore]

so. on to jorge. hm. the thing about jorge is that he was kinda writing a coming of age film in his own head, so like - yes, that's what you do go for? you can play it straight and follow how jorge has cast his rivals, or you can pin the whole narrative on the fact that jorge has cast them - the kinda artificiality of the narrative, the way jorge is this storyteller who isn't being recognised as much as he thinks he should be, isnt adequately appreciated. the way there's this three way discourse between what jorge thinks the story is and what the public thinks the story is and actual. you know. reality. I think this is a bit more light-hearted, like you know how the best stories about teenagers take their emotions seriously but also let them be kinda silly? because young people are silly! jorge was silly! he's got a lot of CHARM because he's so cocky and naive and full on and intense and awkward and kinda off-putting and tactless and a bit all over the place and so painfully, painfully young, like he's a good protagonist because that's a KID. but also, obviously there's also a lot of extremely not light-hearted bits of his story - everything about his father, his manager... idk this one's another one where, I don't just want to make it a generic sports biopic, and I'm trying to figure out the clear narrative arc here? I mean, you can point to the end of 2010 and really lean into him choosing victory on-track over popularity off it. the problem with 2010 is that it does not work as a dramatic season, yeah sure with the magic of biopics you can hack at it to shit but also. idk. what are we getting out of it. I think for narrative purposes you want to maybe narrow in, and end it at the end of 2008, with the switching of the numbers this kind of moment of emancipation? but also! this feels like we're straying a bit too far away from the fun sports elements and I don't want to REALLY suggest all the ways in which you could mine jorge's personal trauma in a jokey tumblr post, so I'm gonna move on from this one

the problem is 2015 just straight up doesn't work as a jorge-centric narrative, except in a very kinda comic way that leans into how absurd his role in that season was. 2012 as a season is a bit... y'know, it's fine. okay it's mostly terrible, but that's fine too. but it doesn't have a great narrative hook. which kinda leads you to the problem that I do think the valentino rivalry is more... juicy from jorge's pov, because for valentino, jorge is just kinda? an obstacle? idk he's more normal about it, it's just his job to destroy the guy, you know how it is. but also 2009 does work better narratively from valentino's pov, like it's the build up to catalunya specifically you can dramaticise... idk though, I do love catalunya but my heart isn't really in this exercise because I think valentino isn't really being... challenged here? it's a title fight where he's fundamentally using a set of tools he's already perfected, to beat a guy he doesn't really give a shit about. when the italian press is down on him pre catalunya, it doesn't spark any genuine self-doubt - it's just a handy source of extra motivation. there's no epic highs or lows that season, not real ones. and yes I know I was talking about making valentino who gets stabbed repeatedly to cover up an infection a moment ago, but that reflected real EMOTIONAL truths!! I'm committed to thematic fidelity more than I am to literal fidelity

genuinely I think the best way to tackle jorge is with the jorge/dani parallel journeys... what, film? tv show? maybe show actually - you don't have one coherent narrative Statement per se but you're constantly charting those journeys in reference to each other, really rooting it in their respective points of views, no neutral detached cinematic language like I want everything to be very much written to be from their eyes!! going from one to the other and back again. and you're charting these different journeys, right, and how they both captured different flavours of like... emotional successes and failures. I think it's actually about failure, yeah, about having to accept there's something you can't have and might never be able to get - whether that's universal love or a premier class title or whatever - but Actually, that might not be the end of the world. and during this process, they go from being enemies to tentative friends!! guys who realise they can maybe actually understand each other better than they thought!! this real moment of interpersonal connection. you have all these media narratives and the managers and so on and the fact they're competitors as these built in reasons why they've just been pitted against each other from the start... but y'know, again, it is also just a bit about maturing, about being able to set that aside, about making your peace with defeat and failure as an element of growing up. you can't win everything, maybe there's something you really really really want and you're just not going to get it, but at the end of the day it's kinda... yeah. self-acceptance. idk this is the nice one

so with marc you can go several different ways here I guess, and again he's also perfectly decent sports biopic material, probably second to casey in that category like yeah sure do the comeback story. but also, we do already have a very good self-produced documentary about what he thinks the narratives of his career are? idk this is also just a personal taste thing, I'll leave him to doing all the injury stuff himself, I don't have much to add there. we'll get to the obvious one in a second, but I was trying to figure out if there were other places I massively felt like you need the cinematic touch. and, again, the 2013 season is obviously very exciting!! but also, you have it covered in.,,,, multiple documentaries, I don't feel I have a take their either? his rivalries with dani and jorge aren't really substantive enough to sustain a bit of cinema. dovi... I mean, what are you saying there? what's the arc? I feel like if I tackled dovi, I'd go somewhere else and really go all in with the ducati stuff, and make it a bit more... you know, stark, stripped back, basically just the emotional component of how much he gave to that project and how he managed to beat away one rival after the next and how it all ended up falling apart in a kind of anti-climactic way? he's also good sports biopic material, but in a way I think the marc rivalry is the bit of his story I have the least to say on. so eg, 2017 is a dramatic season, but he's also kinda fine after it? he always knew it was a long shot, he tried his best and he got really close and then he lost. you can't amadeus it because dovi isn't (fictional) salieri. basically, I think what I'm saying here is that dovi is too well-adjusted to feature in this post. though I'd totally watch a film about his 250cc seasons, like it's a bit annoying because HE is the underdog who loses both title fights to jorge, but it'd still be kinda fun idk. I wouldn't really know what to do with the material but if someone made the film I'd absolutely watch it

right then. the thing about sepang 2015 is... yeah, sure, of course you can do it, it already exists as a narrative but... yeah, what are you adding!! idk I always think when you're adapting something, you kinda need to have a reason for it? I mean, what are you doing that's not already there in the footage? idk maybe this is just a sign of having been a fan of this sport for one too many years but to me the idea of sepang 2015 can get a bit boring (or maybe just repetitive) where I need a new TAKE on it to really get into the idea of fictionalising it. like where's the auteur's touch y'know, what can I still add to this!! but it also needs to WORK for someone who is new to the story, which kinda just makes you want to tell the story straight.... y'know the story is strong enough and COMPLICATED enough to stand on its own and it IS good but I don't really have anything interesting to say beyond 'yeah sure that'e be neat'. I can't tell you why, but I also don't think the casey approach quite works here? the idea of providing a framing device with which valentino and marc can actually talk to each other... eh. don't like that. hm. okay wait actually I just turned it around in my head for... a while and I think I've got an idea to make the worst motorcycle racing film of all time. so, my central stupid film-making gimmick here is just. centring the fact we're completely reliant on a few guys and what they're telling us in making up our minds, and our removal from that story and the imperfection of their perceptions and so on. so I think you kinda make a point of... not actually showing the motorcycle racing? like, you always show it by showing other people watching it, you're showing the tv screen rather than the actual racing. even in the cinematic medium, you're centring the theatrical aspects, where you drill it down to just a few characters. valentino. marc. uccio. marc's fuck ass manager. maybe a crew chief or two. keep it limited though, all the others are kept at a distance - you're constantly focusing in on the same few characters. and very early on you basically just like... get them to fourth wall break by telling you, the viewer, with their actual words how racing works for them, what meaning they take out of it - and again it's this remove because we're never allowed to actually feel the racing for ourselves (no helmet cams), and it sets up that as the tragedy unfolds, again and again we're just hearing from them what happened. it's all zoomed in on how claustrophobic the entire situation is, like doing the race direction room after the sepang 2015 is perfect for that kind of thing, and crucially they're only ever addressing the audience because they can't address each other. but fourth wall breaks also obviously draw attention to artificiality! I realise they are very much like, lame gimmick central, but also are these men not inherently about lame gimmicks... idk it's basically the same story but at least it feels like a kinda interesting way of telling it. kinda trite, but cinema allows you to get to the point and let valentino actually play with the camera... so literally take it into his own hands and lead it around and tell the story from his point of view. and you can play with how they do both change in what stories they think they're telling, how they're constantly revising their own stories, how their stories completely clash with each other... like. make them literal narrators. that's my pitch

so. one interesting pattern that has come up with my approaches to these rivalries is that with the exception maybe of the 2015 stuff, I feel like I'm more naturally inclined to treat valentino as a narrative device and centre his rivals. a big part of this is that valentino is a fantastic narrative device. he's kinda. this looming presence in every narrative in this sport where you can just sort of use him as a sort of way to poke away at all these other riders. the monster everyone loves who you are trapped with. BOO!! he's gonna eat you! which is fun! but ALSO, crucially, several of these rivalries aren't that emotionally challenging for him!! again, with casey right, he wants to beat him, but he's not having a crisis of faith over losing to casey. he thinks casey is annoying, he wants to beat him because he wants to win. valentino is casey's foil, but casey is not valentino's. valentino makes for an excellent personal antagonist to casey, but the reverse just isn't true. casey isn't forcing valentino to reexamine his approach except 'ramping up the levels of being a dick on-track' - like, yes, that's a serious competitive challenge, but also valentino is very comfortable in his own skin in that rivalry. sure, you could have valentino have some kind of massive revelation about the casey rivalry, but like. he doesn't in canon. he changes his behaviour towards casey in pretty predictable ways depending on what the relationship demands from his perspective at any given time. there's nothing more there

now, obviously you know where I'm going here. there IS a rivalry where you can make the argument he changes as a result of it, there IS a rivalry that tips him over the line and makes him to do stuff he hadn't done before that, there IS a rivalry that happens to coincide with a period of his competitive life that challenges him both personally and professionally. now, look, I have already talked about the sete rivalry. you know what I think about this rivalry - and if you don't, I really already have told the story here and here and here and here and also here. I think this works perfectly well as a narrative in its own right, and it's one you can tell from either perspective... but you kinda need both. I think again you probably naturally lean towards starting it from sete's perspective and that first proper meeting (I mean, idk if it is their first actual meeting, but it's the logical obvious place you start this story) with sete giving valentino advice during his first 500cc test and valentino just, y'know, ignoring him and being a cocky shit and then crashing. so you get to see sete being kinda exasperated by the whole thing. also, obviously ibiza is like, a key framing device here, like it's the most obvious in-your-face way of tracking their relationship with each other. I don't actually know how often they partied there together, but it must have been at least twice and if the commentators are to be believed it must have included 2003. artistic license and you can add one or two more times, but mainly you want to focus in on 2003 onwards right. so you've got this 2002 one where it's, y'know, high point of their friendship and in the name of narrative efficiency, you establish here that sete is looking to make the honda switch. the emphasis is on how valentino has been winning everything but on the flip side you're getting the first insight into his discontent. and there's a bit of a vibe of, what could you possibly have to complain about? like you are winning so much? so it's late one night where they've had this slightly unguarded alcohol-fuelled moment of genuine vulnerability but in the end it's actually characterised by how... unsubstantial the link between them is, because they wouldn't talk about this kind of thing with each other and they might both be similar in some ways but also don't gettttttt each other. it means you can return there as a location in 2003, where you've just had sachsenring and valentino's dramatic loss but they're still partying together and it's like. obviously In The Air that not everything is quite right... their relationship is already gradually altered and twisted because you're introducing this element of actual stakes and competition (obviously in 2004 they do NOT spend that time together, as far as we know anyway, and you can show them being very much not together at ibiza as a very obvious Oooh Things Will Fall Apart and maybe already haveeee)

and I do think basically I've already said what I think the themes here are,,,, several times by this point, so I'm not going to belabour the point. I think all of this fundamentally works as a narrative with like, minimal massaging and rearranging of the elements for dramatic effect. it's all there already, everything from sete's arc with the [insert non-tasteless way of covering a real life tragedy that fundamentally alters the course of sete's career] and how that leads to sete becoming the challenger and how he does want to win and his eventual downfall. with valentino, you have the element of liberation and self-discovery and... well, growing into your own but also kinda having the narrative drawing attention to how 'growing into your own' can involve becoming a fully realised character who is essentially quite cruel? you have this kind of... build up, right, towards this moment of revelation, where you lay bare who these two people actually ARE at sepang 2004, and then again at jerez 2005. valentino has gone his own way, he has freed himself from the chains of honda, he has embraced individualism and the chance to define himself and his own legacy and stand on his own two feet and not rely on the strongest bike or all this stuff within honda where they chose him as their flag bearer, for better or for worse... like he comes to his own here! he takes the step from 'great rider' to 'legend' because he gets to this dramatic moment of stepping into the unknown, he takes this massive risk that could have cost him so much, and it ends up elevating him. but it also puts him under duress, and in that moment he reveals himself - whatever sete did or did not do at qatar 2004, EVEN IF sete did all that shit, what you are left with is valentino vowing to ruin this man. valentino uses sete to make himself 'better', to fuel himself as a competitor. valentino turns sete into a tool in his own story. and again, thematically you've got all this stuff about how sete was managing the image of the rivalry and how valentino took advantage of that - how sete needed it to remain respectful and valentino was completely willing to abandon that. like, you have two protagonists who really are similar in quite a few ways, who think they have this shared understanding with each other, but when it comes down to it? they end up being super painfully different

now I can go on about this and how to play it straight, basically, you can just do that rivalry and I think it'd be cool and fun and very easy to arrange in a good narrative way. BUT I've kind of already. done that. like I don't want to suggest a film that is basically a nicer version of my tumblr posts. so I want to take this in a slightly different direction, and I think what we need to consider with this rivalry is this: what if you made the curse literal? basically, what's always kinda charmed me about this rivalry is that the curse should not work and all the misfortune that befalls sete after that is so comical that it's kinda... what do you do with that? and the answer is you just lean all the way in. my pitch is this: what if valentino sells his soul to the devil?

so, you know faust, right, and you know the bit at the start of goethe's faust where god and mephistopheles are basically making a wager over how corruptible this one human is. and faust is like... he's kinda disillusioned, he feels that everything he's dedicated his life to in academia is fundamentally hollow, gets very close to committing suicide. and faust has gone a bit new age-y, gotten into all this mystical shit and he's got this pentagram that ends up preventing mephistopheles from leaving his presence in their first meeting... and basically what the devil can give him is like, the chance to attain some true pleasure, and for that faust is willing to bet everything - so if faust can just have that, then maybe eternal damnation is worth it. and look, I'm not going to summarise the entire plot of faust here and it does go off the wall a bit with all the gretchen stuff, but the point is you have this version of the devil who is fundamentally a cynic and is attempting to win an argument with god by making this human succumb to his own nihilism. and what faust basically does is like, abandon his normal life where he's trying to live by normal virtues and goes off on this journey with the devil. and there's this little moment where mephistopheles,,, pretends to be faust and takes on the role of an academic adviser (you know how it is) and seduces this random student away from the word of god and sends him down a wretched path, which ends with this bit:

like, a big part of faust's tragedy is supposed to be about... well, hubris, of the relationship of god to man, of no longer being afraid of the devil... and obviously, this is all framed very much in terms of religion, but at the end of the day it's also about, you know, having purpose - faust is living a life that no longer has any meaning to him, all of his knowledge and studies now no longer fill the void inside himself. his nihilism opens the door for mephistopheles, and is what makes him willing to accept the devil's terms. now, and I am so very sorry to goethe here, I think we have some material we can use here to explore the valentino/sete rivalry. obviously, you can't do a one-to-one, you need to get rid of some of like, the depression and all that - there were times when valentino was feeling 'a bit low' in 2003, but not 'faust thinking everything he'd done in his entire life was pointless' low, yeah? also, unless you want to do a real long view here and even then it can't really be justified, there obviously isn't really a 'tragedy' here from valentino's perspective. like, he wins! this isn't valentino's tragedy, it's sete's! I was being a bit facetious when I said he was 'selling his soul to the devil', and you can kinda parse mephistopheles' motivations in different ways depending on what flavour and what interpretation of him you're dealing with here. you don't 'damn' valentino, you essentially just turn him into a tool of the devil!

so, this is how this works out in my head: the devil works more broadly as the manifestation of competitive impulses, the kind of 'how far would you go to win' question as a bloke who shows up and literally talks to the characters about it (magic of cinema). he's also engaging with valentino feeling like his victories no longer having meaning, with being disconnected from honda and from the entire culture there and just feeling like he's going through the motions. there's this element of like... opening the door to what is essentially a journey of self-actualisation, bringing him closer to being a 'god' but also allowing him to fully come into his own and become himself. to win on his own terms. I reckon ibiza is my preferred narrative device where the devil talks both to sete and valentino there (separately), first literally as a mysterious stranger and then... maybe not? he's talking to them at times of their lives when they're not at ibiza and it's not happening there in the physical world and they both end up kinda having to confront they're dealing with some potentially malevolent supernatural entity. but the important elements of the devil is that a) he's not going to do anything the humans don't actually ask for themselves, and b) everyone knows he's following his own agenda and you should be careful of the requests you make of him. so it's kinda like... essentially, the backdrop of this rivalry unfolding is they're constantly being challenged to decide what lines they're willing to cross. which culminates at qatar... and maybe you do have sete making like. a teensy mistake. a teensy error in judgement, one that is both real and deliberate but he could not have known would get that reaction and instantly regrets. and valentino, who is I think inherently sceptical of the devil coming to offer to help him and maybe does crank out the pentagrams (remember, the whole point of faust is that he was too arrogant to be scared of the devil, or one of the points anyway), in a moment of fury does decide - no, actually. I will take that step. I will curse sete. now the thing is, dramatically this is a teensy bit tricky because when you're talking about being damned by the devil, usually the consequences are a bit more severe than 'not winning a motorcycle race again' (yes, you can get into how sete did also seem genuinely cursed after that, cf his ambulance/bus crash situation, but again we are flirting with being in poor taste in this tumblr post). but the thing is, right, you have to lean into the silliness here! qatar 2004 is inherently silly, a CURSE is inherently silly, like real life is already silly here! you have to engage with the people where they are, and for these athletes all this shit is so heightened that the emotions are full on. like, valentino would've sold that guy to the devil! and to him not winning another race is basically the worst thing that can happen

so, obviously, you get to do the actual curse stuff. curses are inherently campy fun, the devil doing curses is campy fun, getting valentino rossi to crank out the pentagrams is inherently campy fun. you get to play around with this, right, like you know that bit in the brno 2005 race commentary where the commentators are talking about how valentino might as well have a little radio to talk into sete's helmet to remind him of how sete had fucked up at the sachsenring. OBVIOUSLY obviously obviously it is just so... idk scrunchy and fun to have this idea of valentino becoming a malevolent enough force to literally do that.... like damn the commentators did kinda eat with that?? ughhhhhh do you ever think about sete leading the qatar 2005 race for most of the way???? like that's SO fucked up because you literally have articles from about the race going 'hey maybe sete can break his curse' and then the commentators are talking about curses having one year expiration dates but obviously they!! do not!!!!! there's one race where sete goes off track and the commentators are talking about how valentino will surely have smiled into his helmet like that's so fucked!! it's so fucked!! but idk I think basically you have all this creeping curse-y stuff and devil stuff and then you get this twist and then it just becomes misery zone for sete until you sort of. compress the timeline and have him retire without getting into what happened at the end of 2006. and valentino just relishing in all his very worst emotions. and you've got sete who was the better man after jerez 2005, who took the high ground again and again and again and it did NOTHING for him.... and then he's cursed and his career is finished and the devil has had his fun getting mixed in with mid noughties motogp. and now obviously this is inherently kinda dumb and corny and silly but it's the devil!! mephistopheles to me is allowed to get up to dumb shit sometimes, let him have some fun!! idk I like curses being literal idc

I think the obvious critique here is 'this doesn't really feel like it gets the message of faust'. which, yes, is true - and obviously the way narratives are structured, a satisfying resolution isn't 'well selling your soul kinda slaps, actually'. and my statement to respond to this argument is as follows:

this is essentially canonically what happened. valentino DID do something kinda evil and it DID work out 100% for him and it DID kinda slap. at least when you add in the devil, you're making explicit the bit where it is a little bit bad. also, is sports not inherently about selling your soul for success... the story of valentino and sete is essentially about how we are twisted by competition, how pretending that we don't wish ill to our opponents is inherently dishonest. it is about lifting a facade for something that is already inherently there in the souls of men. this is obviously inherently a deeply cynical stance, but this is also a deeply cynical story beyond all the fun battles and camp dramatics. the devil is a cynic and he is basically the point of view character of goethe's faust - he's the one who is positioned closest to the audience. sports is all about living out some of humanity's worst instincts in a relatively low stakes setting, which means we get a free pass to have fun with a deeply cynical story that goes 'maybe selling your soul to the devil is fine, actually'

do I stand by this stance? not really, but the whole fun of storytelling is that sometimes you can just be kinda mean. I think goethe would get it... you can tell which character he enjoyed writing the most

the OTHER way you can do this is centre everything around qatar 2004 as like,,, the mystery box element...... okay look I have now made two posts that go WAY too deep on the 'what really happened' element but I do loveeeeee the whole thing like I would just make a film about that very end of the season and we show it from all these different angles as different characters narrate what happened... like fuck all the riders I want to hear from whichever mechanic used the scooter... the gresini mechanic who gave evidence to race direction.... various honda higher ups the crew chiefs like this is jb vs juan martinez it's war!!! obviously you still have the same emotional/thematic hooks as the general rivalry does but idk I would have a LOT of fun figuring out how to structure that, I loveeee mysteries... maybe I'd write it as a mockumentary yeah..... this one's just fun

anyway. a lot of stuff going on in this post, huh! you can probably tell I didn't edit this much. my classic tell when I edit my tumblr posts is I remember how 'paragraphs' work. unfortunately all I have energy for are like. a bunch of rants about things in my brain. I think when tumblr tells you that you've reached the maximum number of characters per paragraph and you need to figure out where to put a break, it's probably a bad thing? on the whole, my stance is I don't have anything AGAINST mildly fictionalised versions, but for me I'm always more of a.... well I want to take advantage of the full specificity of the events as they happened or just come up with a completely original story. kind of person. I know this ask probably wasn't looking for my 'what if you bled out valentino as he's strung up above a red motorcycle' vision but yeah. with a lot of biopics I'm always a bit 'well you could just read about this couldn't you' like I need stuff to take some kind of a stance on the material it's using... all my stuff takes a stance. that's all I've got. obviously all these stances mean that basically none of these things could ever be made. and I know what I said above but if they called me up to write the casey stoner biopic script treatment, I would also do that. if you've actually read to this point, give me a shout - you're a real one and I love you

[loganlermanstanaccount]

Show me where it hurts (part 1)

Miguel O'Hara x spiderwoman!reader

(AO3 Mirror), Part 2, Main Masterlist

summary: Miguel's acting weird, and you make it your mission to find out exactly what's going on.

warnings: no warnings for this chap, pg-13, swearing and canon level violence. smut next chapter xoxo

a/n: this is a combination of 2 asks and this post I saw on here a while ago: flirty/ snarky fem reader, Miguel during a ""rut"" (I don't know if it counts as a rut really, but its to do with his animal instincts/DNA) and Lyla playing matchmaker.  I had so much fun writing this, enjoy :D

(i wrote this pre seeing spiderverse 2, so i think characterisation is a little off, esp for Lyla, apologies! I'll fix it in my upcoming fics)

edit: I use the term "bichita" which I have been informed can be read not as I intended in Spanish. I'm not a native speaker so I want to apologise in advance. I'm doing more research for my future fics and leaving this up as a testament to my stupidity. Spanish speakers, feel free to correct me / clown my ass in the comments. My bad guys :(

wc: 3.6k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You think Miguel is avoiding you. 

One of your closest friends, giving you the runaround for months, it seems. Calling the two of you close friends is a little extreme, sure. You've only known O'Hara for two years, and been in love with him for slightly less than that, thank you very much. And yes, he refuses to call you by anything but your last name. And the last time you saw him he wouldn't so much as look at you, but that was besides the point. 

"..the point," You tell Lyla, in between exasperated bites of cereal, "... is that aren't elite forces of spiderpeople supposed to, you know, have some spiderpeople kick ass once in a while? And where exactly is our fearless leader? I haven't seen O'Hara's scary ass in weeks, and I'm starting to miss it."

She gives you a look, one that says this isn't what I'm programmed for , but you pointedly ignore it. 

"His ass, by the way." You clarify. "I very specifically miss his ass. Remind me to get his routine. I know girls that would kill for…"

"How the fuck did you get in here?" A voice croaks. You turn behind you and see Miguel, not in his suit, but wrapped up in a blanket like he's just woken up. And he looks rough, like a train ran him over on the way here: puffy eyes, splotchy skin, tension kneaded into his brow. 

"Wow." Your spoon drops into the milk. "You look like shit.." 

He furrows his brow even deeper, if that was possible. " Mierda. You shouldn't be here." 

"This isn't quite the welcome party I was expecting, man. I'm the only one to actually turn up to one of your meetings, and this is what I get?" 

"I thought I told Lyla to cancel," He mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

"Cancel? Since when do you miss a chance to talk about rules and protocol?" 

"I don't have time for this-" 

"-and I'm not leaving without a proper explanation. Is everything okay?" 

"It's actually way worse now you're here." He deadpans. 

"Haha ." You turn to Lyla. "You drop everything to travel halfway across the multiverse and this asshole won't even say thanks." 

"Thanks, but this asshole needs you to leave. Now." 

This is the most he's spoken to you in forever, and you hate that you like it. You just want his attention, however it comes. If that means dragging this out so maybe he acknowledges you, touches you, looks at you - then so be it. Squinting, you get closer to him. You scan his face for anything to latch onto. You put a hand on his shoulder, still searching. 

"You sure you're alright? You know you can tell me if-" 

"Si, si." He grits his teeth, looking away. "M'just fine. I'll explain…. later."

"...because I'm your right hand man?" You grin, poking at his brow. "Stop frowning so much Miguel, you're gonna ruin that pretty face of yours."

He flushes, nervous, and swats you away. "-what? N-No. You're not my right hand man and I like my face just the way it is. Now, leave. "

Making your way to the door, you tap your nose teasingly. "You know where to find me!" 

When the door closes with a click, you make your way down the corridor, and stop in your tracks when you hear it. It's muffled, but with the strain of your supersenses you can make out Miguel's voice just beyond the wall. 

"I just…. don't want her to see me like this… Lyla, it's not happening… I can't tell her…." Tell her what, exactly? 

Resolutely, you make up your mind. Miguel O'Hara's got a secret. And before you leave for home, you're gonna do everything in your God given power to wear him down and find out. 

~~~

Despite his insistence otherwise, you liked to think of yourself as O'Hara's right hand man - and most of the other spiderpeople thought so too. You were one of the very first he recruited, after crash landing onto your earth like a spiderman-shaped meteor; the two of you were inseparable. Miguel was stubborn and headstrong and thought he was right all the time. Infuriatingly, he was, but that didn't stop you from telling him to get his head out of his own ass when his ego grew too big. 

He was different around you, you think. Softer, sometimes. Harsher, other times. He told you what you needed to hear whether you wanted to or not; the result of mutual respect and agonising persistence. Slowly, you had chipped away his hard exterior; the one he built because he thought he needed to push people away. In that regard, you were similar, but this need manifested in you like a weed - an awful, awful compulsion to joke and laugh at your own expense, to keep others at an arm's length. You had spent your whole life picking and pruning away at yourself, looking for perfection. Even after all this, multiverse-hopping and fighting alongside people who were the closest things you had to friends , it wasn't enough. There was still something missing. 

Ironically, Miguel had told you something similar the one of the last times you had spoken. You had fucked up a mission, well and truly. In the aftermath, all you can remember is coming back to base, limping on Jessica's arm. 

"She's hurt!" She cries out. Lyla materialises and leads you both to the med bay, inspecting any visible wounds. There's a deep laceration, sticky with blood, at the base of your stomach. You shift onto the bed and hiss with pain. 

Miguel is quick to follow, face twisted with confusion, pain, sadness. Even in your haze, you feel the tension radiating off of him as he drags over a cart of supplies. 

"What happened?" He strains. 

"I don't even… it happened so fast. We got ambushed, and all of a sudden I'm on the ground. I wasn't thinking straight and… " She sobs. "...she jumped in front of me. God, she saved my life-" 

"-wasn't your fault, Jess." You croak, trying to sit up. "And I'm fine. Just need to walk it off…"

"Sit, bichita," His nickname makes you frown, despite yourself, and you settle back down. "Lyla, what's the damage?"

Your vision goes spotty, and Lyla's voice barely registers. All you can feel is searing pain in your side, but Miguel is warm, oh so warm. You clutch his arms, and force him to look you in the eye. 

"M'ready, Miguel." He nods weakly, but you don't think he understands. "I mean it . I can lead, j-just need another chance and I won't let you down… Jess, tell him that I can-" 

"It's okay. I believe you. You just need to relax for me, hmm?" He clutches at your hand, tight, and it's like you're the only two people in the world. "You did good. I promise."

Faintly, you nod. You feel a pinch at your arm, and Jessica's there, with an empty vial of something in her hands. The pain washes over you, and you fight to keep your eyes open. In those last few moments of light, you swear you feel a shaky kiss pressed to your temple. 

"Sleep, mi bichito amoroso. Sleep."

When you come to, you're still in the medbay, moonlight streaming through. Well, artificial moonlight. Time worked a little differently here, something Miguel explained to you a while ago - God knows what about dilation and quantum interference. It makes you smile now, remembering his frustration as he tried to explain to no avail. You were the only spiderman this side of the multiverse without a degree in quantum tech, you had said with a lopsided smile. 

You move to sit, and pain shoots up your side. Groaning, you push through it, determined to get out of this bed and find the others. As if on cue, Miguel walks in, almost leaping towards you. 

"You should… mierda ! You should be resting in bed."

You pout as you stumble into his chest. He hooks an arm around you and leads you back. You clamber in, sighing. "M'fine, O'Hara."

"Your guts were halfway out of your body less than 24 hours ago. So stay put, or you might give me another heart attack."

You scoff, incredulous. "You were worried?" 

He shrugs. " 'Course I was."

"Why? You know I'm practically indestructible." You give him a shit eating grin, and poke the frown appearing at his brow. He doesn't bat you away like he usually does. 

"Famous last words, bichita." He sighs. You can't speak a lick of Spanish, but you know he only calls you that word when you've frustrated him to his limit. So you take it as a win, for now. 

He drops into the chair next to you. "How are you feeling?" 

"Just peachy, dollface." You wink, and he doesn't so much as groan. 

"I'm being serious. You went through something pretty traumatic…"

"You want me to tell you it hurts, so, so bad, daddy? " You pout and flutter your eyelashes mockingly. Miguel shifts in his seat, unable to make eye contact. 

"That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean, O'Hara? I feel fine. And in a couple of days, I'll feel even better, and I'll be up and about. I can finish what we started and-" 

"-no, absolutely not." He frowns. "A couple of days? I'm sending you home-" 

"You can't do that! On whose fucking authority?"

"On the authority of you almost fucking died ! Keeping you safe is our priority right now-" 

"God, is this my punishment? This is a low blow, O'Hara. You know how hard I've worked for this: months of surveillance and intel a-and I did everything by the book, just like you told me to." You croak. "I fucked up . I know that, and I feel terrible. Give me a chance to make things right; that's all I'm asking. I can do it, I know it. "

He looks at you for a moment, something heavy in his expression. His face contorted, he strips you down to the bone with just his gaze. His voice is so quiet, you almost miss it. 

"....you're still trying to prove yourself, aren't you?"

Honestly, it catches you off guard. You don't even know what the fuck that means, let alone why he said it.

"I don't… I d-don't…?" 

"They all love you. Respect you. More than me I think, sometimes." He chuckles at that. "You're good at what you do. The best . What else are you trying to prove? What else do you need ?" 

Your throat goes dry. You couldn't speak if you wanted to. 

"I'm not punishing you. You made a mistake, but you don't need to be crucified for it. I just want to keep you safe. I can't… we can't lose you."

"Miguel-"

"-this isn't a discussion. And I'm not trying to argue, although I know how much you like to argue." He inches closer, cupping your face gently. You try to move away, blinking back tears. But his hands are steady and he strokes your jaw with so much tenderness you think you hear your heart break. He's pretty, so pretty. You don't deserve him, you think. "There'll be time to fight, bichita. Rest. That's your mission right now."

"C-can't sleep." You breathe. "It hurts." 

Miguel pauses, head tilted like he's thinking. He taps your shoulder. "Scoot over."

You do as he says, and he slips into the bed with you. It's a tight fit, but he manages, placing you on his chest with an arm gently around your shoulders. You bury your face in his hoodie, sniffling and hoping he doesn't notice you choking back sobs. Absentmindedly, he settles into a rhythm, gentle breathing and playing with your hair, soothing you softly. He pretends he can't hear the tears. 

"M'gonna stay here until you're asleep. For as long as you need."

You nod, unable to speak for fear of breaking down. 

~~~

The days after felt like a blur. You woke up to Miguel gone, and an ache in your heart. Jess visits as much as she can, and Ben calls you a couple times, to see if you're okay. Peter B brings Mayday, and she clambers all over your bed, bringing some life into the room. Miguel doesn't visit per se - you hear whispers of him, Lyla visiting in his stead for comprehensive status updates. Once, you wake up in the night to see him on the adjacent chair, head lolling in deep sleep. He looks peaceful, calm - one of the first times you haven't seen his brow furrowed with worry. Of course, he's gone by the morning. 

The very last time you saw him, he opened the portal home. It was weird, after everything, but if Miguel felt the same you wouldn't know. Talking at a thousand miles a minute, he alternates between assuring you they'll be fine without you and situation reports from spider people all across the multiverse. Things you'd missed whilst bedbound, asking for advice before you left. He trusted your judgement and the thought warmed your heart, almost making you forget that he completely brushed past the previous nights before. 

You still remember the last thing he had said to you, which would've been weeks ago, now. 

"...and if you need anything, and I mean anything, you call me directly. Not Jess, not Ben, and certainly not Peter B. Call me, and I'll answer, I promise. You need help, you need advice, you just need someone to talk to, then-"

"-I call you. I get it, O'Hara. Will do." He opens the portal, watching as you walk towards it. He can't take his eyes off of you, even though you can't see him. At the last moment you turn, and run towards him. You almost knock him over with a hug. Burying his head in the crook of your shoulder, he hugs you back, ever careful of your injury. Separating, your smile almost knocks him over again. Weakly, he smiles back as you head through the portal, back home. 

You're left with that feeling, of his arms around your body - warm, so warm - as you putter about by the switchboard. After careful deliberation (you were really, really bored ) you'd taken to manage the Multi Modal Multiversal Switchboard - as aptly named by Miguel. Everyone else called it the Big Red Phone of course, but he had insisted on calling it by its proper name . Every. Time. 

The thought makes you chuckle as you call up Peter B. His icon flashes on the screen in front of you. With a click, he picks up the call, his face materialising holographically in front you. A little hand reaches up and tugs at his ear. 

"Ow… ouch … Dad's on the phone, honey."

"Aww! How's my favourite Parker doing?" 

"Not bad, actually! MJ just made us probably the best burger this side of New York-"

"-sorry, Peter? Me and May are trying to have a conversation." You hear her giggle in the background. Her gap toothed grin pops into frame and she babbles excitedly. "...yeah, exactly May. That's literally what I said."

"Okay, okay, that's enough." He puts the toddler down and watches her scurry away. "You're feeling better, I see."

"Yeah, back in action. Thought I'd check in."

"All good here." He squints, trying to take in your surroundings. "You're at HQ?" 

You hum.

"Could've sworn Lyla cancelled…"

"Yeah, didn't get the memo. But I think something's wrong with O'Hara."

He gives you a weird look. "Uhhh, what makes you think that?" 

"He won't even look at me. Was it something I said? Something I did?" Your eyes narrow. "...what do you know, Peter?"

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" He scoffs, a little too quickly, clutching his chest like you've offended him. He's stared down some of the scariest villains around, but the look you give him is truly chilling. "Just… uhhh. You didn't hear this from me." 

"Naturally…"

"We tracked 'em down, the guys that ambushed you and Jessica."

"The Sinister Six? From Earth-215?"

"Yeah, but by the time we got there, it was just Kraven and some of his goons. Miguel got there first, and…." He gulps. "He was pissed. Trashed the whole place looking for the rest of 'em. Beat Kraven half to death and we had to pull him off."

"Shit."

"Yeah, it was pretty rough. Never seen him like that before. And just generally? He'd been weirdly quiet, a little grumpy, more aggressive on missions. I don't know what's gotten into him."

"Hmmm. Thanks, Pete."

"No problem, sweetheart. And if the big guy asks… "

"...this didn't come from you, I know." Weakly, you smile. "Say hi to my favourite Parkers, for me." 

" 'Course I will. We should celebrate, if you're back officially. Mine and MJ's is always open."

"Good to know. I'll see you around."

He waves goodbye, and the hologram clicks off. Sighing, you try to piece together what you've just heard. 

Miguel: acting weird. Well, you knew that already. Aggressive was new. And Lyla? She had canceled, but not for you, for some reason. An honest mistake, perhaps. But Lyla doesn't make mistakes… 

You stew for a couple of hours, puttering about the switchboard, twiddling your thumbs. Something's wrong, and for some reason you're afraid to see him. To have him look straight through you, again, when you ask to do the same. Show me where it hurts. Tell me how to make it better.  

On the way there, you chew your lip in anticipation. In the corridor, you're outside the door to his place, hand hovering above the door. To knock, to call. In the harsh fluorescent light, you hesitate. 

"Lyla?" Nervously, you sink down onto the floor. It's hard to explain, but you don't expect her to actually come; to materialise in front of you. 

"How can I assist you?" She says with a ding. 

"Uhh… hi. Just wanted to talk." You pause, clicking your tongue. "Can you be honest with me?" 

"I can only be honest with you. It is not in my programming to lie, unless specified by my owner."

"Sure. Cool. It's about him, actually. Is Miguel okay?" 

She tilts her head, as if processing your request. "Okay is a subjective term. Is Mr O'Hara alive? Yes. Is Mr O'Hara physically well? Yes. By those terms, he is okay ."

Too vague for your own liking. "I guess I meant more… his emotional state. To the best of your knowledge… in your opinion , Lyla: is Miguel okay?" 

"...I believe Mr O'Hara is experiencing some emotional turmoil."

You frown. "Oh. Do you know why?" 

"Mr O'Hara has instructed me not to disclose that information with you."

"Fair enough. But you don't have to tell me… I could just ask questions?" 

She nods. "There is nothing in my programming that prevents me from answering some questions within certain parameters." 

"Did I do something? Not just today but… last time I was here. Did I say something to hurt or upset him? Is that why he's acting weird?"

"No." She says blankly. "And yes. I suppose it is… complicated." She gestures around that word. 

"I'm a little confused, Lyla."

She sits next to you, on the cool tile. Not that she could feel it, but it feels more intimate - like two friends talking. The extent of Lyla's consciousness, you weren't sure of. Was she alive? To you, she might as well be. Could she think, feel, emote? Maybe, maybe not. You weren't smart enough to understand the nuances of her programming. But you were human enough to see it in her - something glittering beyond the surface. 

It could be projection, but you swear her voice is softer. "He has a name for you. When he speaks about you, and to you. I have it logged in my memory database. Do you know what that is?" You shake your head. 

Lyla opens up her palm and projects videos and images - little Miguel's popping up in her palm, tinny and gruff voices ringing through the hallway. They say your name, shout your name, whisper it. Some say other things in Spanish. Curse words had always been your assumption, and he had given you no reason to think otherwise. Now, having it played back to you, you hear a tenderness in his voice you would've missed. Words and phrases that come up again and again…

"Bichita." She repeats. "Bichito del amor. Mi bichito amoroso. "

You shake your head, still confounded. "...I don't speak Spanish, Lyla." 

"Little bug. Sweetheart. Lovebug. My little lovebug." She clears her throat. "I believe they are terms of endearment."

Steadfast, she directs you towards her palm. Another small Miguel appears, and you think it's him from this morning. 

"I thought I told you not to let anyone in, Lyla?" 

"I did not let her in. She let herself in using the code you previously gave her, Mr O'Hara."

"Yeah, for emergencies. Fuck. Mi bichita, too smart for her own good."

"...If you are in distress, I believe she would understand, Mr O'Hara."

"I just think it's too much. I don't want her to see me like this." 

"According to Alchemax files, previous subjects showing this kind of aggression benefitted from-"

"Lyla, it's not happening, no chance. I can't tell her."

The figure blinks out of her palm. "Mr O'Hara has forbid me from telling you about certain things."

"...but not from showing me." Your eyes meet hers. You give her a watery smile. "Thank you." 

With a hint of a smile, she nods and is gone from the corridor. You are left alone, with nothing but your thoughts of little lovebugs rattling around in your brain.

_

_

_

[koobiie]

bestowing my highest honor as an artist to ffxv (drawing the characters in fun outfits)

thoughts under the cut

RREAAAGHHHH SO EXCITED TO BE DONE WITH THIS!!!!! it took me forevarrrr but i soldiered through as an act of love. now excuse me. yap time

OKAY SO the concept behind this was originally specific fashion subcultures for everyone!l ike noct emo ignis dark academia etc. but then decided i didnt want to pigeonhole it all and just freestyled outfits i thought would look nice on everyone

noct - i do think noct would still be emo-ish but also opt for comfy baggy stuff a lot. something you could just fall asleep in on the spot. note the details of bass pro shop shirt (of course) XV necklace, little moon + stars accents, carbuncle + fish keychains. i also wanted his metal band logo shirt to spell LUCIS but i forgor some letters but its not very readable anyways

ignis - ignit ooohghh ignos ignaurs. sorry i made him serve so much cunt it will happen again. i drew him first cause that kind of inspired this whole thing i love him so bad if i didnt draw it id explode. not much detail to note except his collar pins are like his double blade thingies

luna - lunaaa the concept was “clean girl aesthetic” idk if that happened but im actually really happy with how it came out! might be my favorite of the bunch just because she looks so pretty and happy. your honor she should have been able to just be a normal girl and just. chill

prompto - prompotoooo i had trouble picking his vibe!!! my first thought was techwear?? because weeheeeehee he loves tech and well... you know... but then i realized i didnt really like the look of anything i saw + it was so bulky and dark and serious for him! ending up going with some more youthful and baggy. i was considering something more loud and colorful but ended up not going with it. i feel like in canon he'd be too nervous to have such a flashy fit and would want to just look "cool" to fit in with the boys lol. itty bitty details here - chocobo keychain, pompompurin and bi miku buttons, and his lanyard is kings knight themed! i also thought it was funny to write LUCIS on his shirt like you know those shirts that just say BROOKLYN or TOKYO or SAN FRANCISCO and thats it. thats what its like

gladio - okay i know this is going to sound like a lie but im not horny for gladio like at all, hes my least favorite, i think he's just alright. but also i KNOW in my heart of hearts that he would LOVE being a leather daddy and so i had to make it happen. main detail to note here is that his tank top has the motifs of a cup noodle! i didnt know what else to add cause you know.. hes the cup noodle guy.. but also i didnt want it to be so in your face about it with a big as logo so kept it subtle!

(side note the leather daddy gave me an idea for a post where its like noct and prom go to a gay bar all nervous but then they run into gladio and its like "p: GLADIO YOURE GAY?" "n: nevermind that PLEASE dont tell ignis we snuck out" and then ignis walks up and theyre all like WHAT THE FUCK!!!! caption would be "the gang finds out theyre all bisexual." probably wont draw it but i think its very funny lol)

iris - iris my sweetheart.... definitely leaned into the scene vibes here and also that one image of the blonde emo anime girl. details here - of course the moogle big ass backpack and keychain (can you tell i love keychains), but also her buttons are an iris (the flower) and also a crown with hearts (haha symbolism)

anyways oh god i didnt mean to write an essay down here. usually i keep this in the tags but this time i just had Too Much To Say. can you tell i put a lot of thought and love into this . anwyays. *walks off into the sunset and fuckig dies*

[ham1lton]

HE SAYS TO BE COOL (I DON’T KNOW HOW YET)

pairings: jenson button x maneater!reader.

warnings: large age gap - around twenty years. a lot of judgement and criticism as there is scrutiny of your relationship.

summary: after a party at a mutual friend’s, you and jenson are photographed leaving together. the large age gap causes concern especially after your admission that you had a crush on him as a young driver.

author’s note: so this is NOT a part of the main maneater storyline. this is just a what if scenario. just something indulgent for the maneaters out there who go for dilfs! last time i checked the friendship group poll, it was practically 50/50 so until that’s decided, there is a big group of all them. also as per usual, there is a poll at the end so please vote <3

— a part of the maneater series ꕤ

liked by messybitch1, landonorris and 1,728,838 others.

ham1ltonshaderoom: after the release of lewis hamilton’s newest almave drink, formula one driver y/n l/n, better known as maneater, was seen outside of the event looking quite cozy with former formula one driver and forty-four year old jenson button. how are we feeling about this new power couple, ham1ltons?

view all comments

user1: poor lewis. his drink release has been completely overshadowed by this news 😭

user3: age gap couples never last long lol. good luck but he’ll move on to the next twenty something as soon as she shows one sign of aging.

user34: SHUT UP HES SO FINE 😭 i’d do the same as you y/n girl.

-> user51: LIKE 😭😭😭 bffr. most of the ppl here would fold for their older celeb crush.

user7: idk who’s benefiting more from this relationship? but it’s definitely not love.

user9: Y/N!!!! I’LL SAVE YOU!!!

user2: not jenson going through his mid-life crisis post-divorce. girl u can do better.

user8: maneater… pls say this is a publicity stunt.

-> user73: no cause this genuinely might be her ticking off her childhood crush list. which is real but idk if it’s good for her?

user6: is she fucking all the aging drivers? or is jenson the only one stupid enough to say yes?

user25: i support it. i met my husband when i was 21 and he was 37 and we have been together almost twenty years this may. not all age gap relationships are inherently bad.

-> user4: you’re a victim 😕

user12: y’all are gross. any of us would jump at a chance to date our celeb crush. jenson is hot and y/n is a consenting adult. she’s not a child anymore. she didn’t even know him as a child. bffr.

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liked by bestie2, georgerussell63 and 3,828,782 others.

yourusername: what do you do when you haven’t seen your besties for ages? do a photoshoot in the middle of the street. how did you spend your weekend?

view all comments

bestie1: we look so good!!! it was soo good to catch up babe. we missed u!!!

-> bestie2: we’ve all been so busy it’s insane how we’ve not been able to see each other more. i was going insane without my girls!!!

user1: is she not even gonna address it?!

-> user6: big ass elephant in the room.

user4: we knew how you spent your weekend ms l/n.

landonorris: am i not your bestie? why wasn’t i included?

-> georgerussell63: or me?!

-> alex_albon: or me? 🤨

-> logansargeant: or me?? 😕

-> oscarpiastri: i get why i wasn’t included tbf.

user10: u think posting pretty girls will make us forget ur weekend escapades? … maybe. keep posting.

user2: can you guys not make everything about a man? who cares if she’s dating jenson? what does that have to do with her ability to do her job or advocate for causes?! i feel sorry for her because you guys clearly dislike her for stupid reasons and are twisting this into a way to jump her ‘ethically’ which doesn’t even make sense. the only problematic thing she’s done is date a man older than her. grow up, my god.

*liked by landonorris, bestie1, bestie2, georgerussell63, oscarpiastri, alex_albon, logansargeant and 45,728 others. *

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liked by charles_leclerc, bestie1 and 1,092,728 others.

yourusername: italy, i love you ♥︎

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user3: get you a man that flies u out whenever ur sad.

-> user7: why are we not assuming she flew HIM out?

-> bestie2: he definitely flew her out. lmao.

user89: feels like a disaster waiting to happen lol.

-> logansargeant: not every relationship is like your parents. get therapy instead of projecting onto strangers.

user6: still a whore. i can’t stand this bitch.

-> oscarpiastri: stay mad! she’s young, successful and has many people who love and support her while you’re cursed to just scroll through her posts and seethe in your head. this one sided beef is crazy 🤣🤣!

user9: they’re cute!! idk how i’m the only one who thinks this.

user67: she’s still ugly.

-> alex_albon: looked at your pictures mate and cheers, my nan just vomited.

user12: when he leaves her >>>>

-> georgerussell63: 6.220.183.12

-> user3: NOT THE IP ADDRESS HELP?2&/&

user8: jenson. call me when you need a real woman.

-> bestie1: where is the real woman you speak of? she’s definitely NOT you.

user21: honestly? i just can’t get on board with this ship.

-> landonorris: you can’t even afford a ticket 🤣 delete this.

user10: i’m not saying shit cause why the y/n defense squad dragging people in the comments 😭

liked by oscar.priv, alex.priv and 21 others.

maneater.priv: NEED HIM CARNALLY <3

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bestie1priv: thank god he doesn’t know about ur priv account. i think he’d combust.

-> maneater.priv: nah he giggles. he thinks its funny.

oscar.priv: everyone on a campaign to save you from jenson when they should be saving jenson from YOU!

bestie2priv: LOVE U BOTH <333 cutest couple!

lando.priv: dare you to post this on ur main 😏🤣😁😝

-> george.priv: 43.0.109.12

-> lando.priv: MAN COME ON 😭

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