#real Facebook reactions

[gender-euphowrya]

there are things we know that have been said and demonstrated a thousand times and yet every time it feels like you're just learning this

[mixingandmelting]

I loved your posts about how the batboys act when they’re crushing on the reader, and I was wondering if you had any hcs on any questionable habits they’d have when crushing on the reader. I’d imagine bc it’s Gotham city and it’s dangerous they’d be quite protective they’d probably know what route you take to work, when you get home, etc. or really just anything else stupid or weird they’d do if they liked you 😂

Dick: Surprise

Up from where he’s perched on the roof, he coos at seeing your eyes snap right then to left.

“Just a step closer to the street lamp…” He mumbles, his patience already running thin in anticipation and excitement. And, bingo, you’re right where he wants you.

Pressing send on his phone, he quietly jumps down and lands right behind you as you stand there, checking the text you just received.

“What does he want now?” You grumble your breath, not all realizing the head that leans over your shoulder and stays right next to your ear.

“Who wants what now?”

“Eek!”

For a minute, it’s silent. Your face beet red with a hand covering your mouth. His eyes on you in disbelief. Then:

“Pfft-“

He bursts out laughing, laughing even harder when you smack his arm and tell him to shut up.

“Dick!”

“That’s my name.” He quickly tilts his head, dodging your fist.

It can’t be helped, him teasing you like this. He’s a vigilante in love, head over heels for you to where he changed his patrol route so it would be timed when you leave work and he could follow you around with the excuse that he’s doing his job whenever he gets caught by you. Surprise attacks? He tells you it’s his way of making sure you have your guard up when it’s actually a small bonus for himself since your reactions always manage to send warmth and happiness down his spine, knowing your attention is on him.

Also how else would he be able to spend more time with you on a daily basis?

Jason: Weaponry

Same time, same place. He blankly stands in front of the glass shelf, mentally debating what to get you.

He’s been playing bodyguard, walking you from work to your place every night (sometimes following you when he’s being Red Hood but you didn’t need to know that) only to find out up to earlier today, you were walking in the city with the highest crime rate in the dead night and unarmed.

“Do you even know any self defense? Own self-defense?”

“No…? Why would I?” The urge to facepalm felt so real, questions on how you got it this far in his mind.

“Have you… ever considered…?”

“Why when I have you?”

…Fuck.

He rubs his face with hand, trying to smother out the flames blazing under his cheek. Whether it was intentional or not, he hasn’t figured out yet. What he does know is that you’re so smooth and cheeky, mostly likely unaware how the simplest things you do can affect him so much. Precious and so darn cute that it becomes another reason for him to worry about you from the desire of needing to protect you and your adorableness in case anyone else were to notice and snatch you away because of it.

The shopkeeper's bell rings and his hand holds a plastic bag for a change when he exits the store. A pepper spray, a switchblade - some beginner friendly stuff. He was on the fence with the personal alarm that’s disguised as a keychain considering he already had a tracker on you just in case. But having another one might not be so bad, right?

Tim: Social stalking

“Amateurs.” He snorts to himself, listening to his siblings’ conversation over the coms.

The whole following around the city is such an old classic. GPS tracking with the latest cutting-edge technology? Sure, it’ll help with keeping track, finding places to go and, maybe, where to eat on the next hang out. But the real way to do things is to do what he does: follow every social.

Snapchat, Facebook, hell even Pinterest and Tumblr, he follows you on, your socials a cornucopia of your likes and dislikes whether it’s current or in the past. How else would he have known to get you Elden Ring or that one hoodie you’ve been eyeing the past few days? Also, did you really think it was a coincidence that he’d bring up going to that one new bakery last week during the time you suddenly craved for baked goods?

The best part about it is how he’s still connected to you even when he’s not physically there and can’t text you. Reading and liking every post you make about your day fills his heart, saving any photo you take on to his phone with a dopey smile especially if it’s of you. You’re just a button away rather than miles, making him think about you constantly.

So he mutes everyone on his end and goes back to the problem at hand, that is figuring out how to become mutuals. After all, you don’t know that he knows and follows you. But he really wants to comment on your posts, especially on the latest featuring you in a Red Robin hoodie while fanning over it in the caption.

Duke: Light fluctuation

Small orbs of light surround the two of you as you both walk through Gotham Park on a summer night.

“Woah, look at all these fireflies! I think it’s the most I’ve seen so far!” Your eyes sparkle, smiling with childish glee and excitement.

“Y-yeah, it sure does…”

Mentally, he screams. He’s sweating bullets, begging everything in the universe that you didn’t hear his voice crack.

It became a thing now where every time he’s with you, he’d subconsciously emote through his powers. Just the other day, he had to distract you from looking down at your shadow because there were heart-shaped shadows surrounding yours. Last week was worse. He was on patrol, saw you, and started glowing like a glow-stick. A fucking glow-stick. The only saving grace for that incident was the sun coincidentally shining behind him when he waved at you though he didn’t appreciate the texts he got in the group chat asking why he was emitting light brighter than said star.

Now there’s this, his powers completely filling the park. At least there are actual fireflies blinking here and there in between but he’s pretty sure ninety-percent of those lights are from him.

seeing you haven’t suspected anything, he starts to unwind and enjoy the walk. Until his phone vibrates.

A hand over his face, he groans when it’s a text from Bruce, annoyance turned into horror at the news clip his mentor has sent him asking if he knew anything about the light-dome phenomenon that’s occurring.

“Duke, you good…? You don’t look great…”

“Just peachy.” His voice pitched, struggling to suppress his tears of despair.

Damian: Following around

He refuses to be slandered by Drake. Unlike the other who failed to trick his team members with a stupid disguise (like seriously, the best name he could make up was Mr. Sarcastic?), he was able to follow the son of Superman undetected by acting as the latter’s substitute teacher AND bus driver

Also, the older male does realize they do this all the time regardless of civilians or criminals alike, right? It’s nothing much different to that. If anything , it’s killing two birds with one stone where he’s able to observe you while being available to protect you if anything were to happen by following you around.

It can’t be helped, when, in his opinion, you’re not aware of your surroundings. It’s one thing for you to not realize that he likes you but it's another when One too many times, there would be someone getting too touchy with you for his liking leading him to have to them away.

Hence the current situation where he’s leaning against a tree and putting away the mini sketchpad with another completed sketch of you in it.

“What’s so great about that book anyways?” He grumbles as he watches you read the same book the fifth time this week at the stump of the same tree he’s on.

He startles when you suddenly snap the book close.

“Da- Robin, I know you’re in the tree.”

“Tt.”

Dammit. He got caught again. With that, he jumps down while preparing to face your annoyance. At least you’re thinking this is the first time, neither denying or confirming how many times he’s done it so far.

[pucksandpower]

So Good to Her

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Summary: the public reacts to the TikTok challenge you and Charles inadvertently participated in

Read So Good to Me (about the TikTok challenge) here

The TikTok that the British influencer posted of his encounter with you and your incredibly generous boyfriend quickly goes viral, racking up millions of views, likes, and comments within mere hours.

It spreads like wildfire across social media platforms, with people sharing it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook — even LinkedIn of all places. Everyone marvels at this mystery woman with the boyfriend of all boyfriends who casually sent her €10,000 just to buy a pair of shoes.

In a cozy London flat, a group of university students and diehard Charles fans gather around a laptop, eyes wide as they watch the now-viral video for the umpteenth time.

“I can’t believe Charles has a secret girlfriend!” Megan, a petite blonde wearing a red Ferrari cap, exclaims. “How did we not know about this? We follow his every move!”

Her best friend Ethan nods in agreement, his brow furrowed. “Seriously, who is this girl? She’s drop dead gorgeous and apparently Charles is just casually sending her 10 grand for shopping sprees?”

“Okay but like, goals though,” Lexi chimes in dreamily, clutching a Charles Leclerc poster to her chest. “Imagine having a boyfriend who’s not only mega hot and talented but also spoils you rotten. She’s living the dream.”

Ethan scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, he can’t just throw money around like that. I bet this whole thing was staged for clout.”

Megan shoots him a withering glare. “Don’t be ridiculous. What would be the point? Charles is already one of the most popular drivers on the grid, he doesn’t need to pull PR stunts for attention.”

“Plus did you see the way he talked to her on the phone?” Lexi points out, rewinding the video. “That was not acting, that was real love and affection in his voice. I’m so soft for them already, ugh.”

The trio falls silent as they watch the clip again, zeroing in on every little detail and facial expression from both Charles’ mystery girlfriend and the clearly shocked TikToker.

Ethan chuckles and shakes his head. “I still can’t get over her reaction though. Just a guy who loves driving fast cars — I mean, the cheek! She really knows how to keep a secret, gotta give her that.”

“An icon, honestly,” Megan declares. “The fact that she told him to donate the money to an animal shelter too ... okay, I can’t even be mad. She seems like a sweet person.”

Lexi sighs happily, starry-eyed. “They’re literally a power couple. The sheer confidence and BDE of it all. I’m so jealous but also like, rooting for them? We have to find out who this girl is!”

As if on cue, Megan’s phone pings with a Twitter notification. Her eyes widen as she swipes to view it. “Guys. GUYS. The TikToker just confirmed her first name is Y/N and posted another video with a few more details about her!”

“Well don’t just sit there, play it!” Ethan demands, practically launching himself across the couch to peer over Megan’s shoulder at her phone screen. Lexi scrambles to join them, bouncing with anticipation.

In the new clip, the TikToker is grinning excitedly at the camera, an extra bounce in his step as he walks along the same Monaco street where he first approached you.

“Right, so I’m sure by now you’ve all seen my video with Charles Leclerc’s girlfriend go absolutely mental viral,” he begins, running a hand through his artfully tousled hair. “Which, can I just say — thank you so much for the insane support and love, you lot are the best fans ever.”

“Get to the point,” Ethan mutters under his breath, earning a sharp “Shh!” from both girls.

“Anyway,” the TikToker continues. “After she left and I finally picked my jaw up off the floor, I did some digging. I headed to that little boutique she mentioned in the call with Charles, just to see if she actually went in and bought anything. Thought maybe if I asked the staff, they might be able to give me some more info, you know?”

Megan, Ethan, and Lexi all subconsciously lean closer to the small phone screen, hanging on to his every word.

“So get this — not only did she buy the shoes, she apparently also went next door and purchased, and I quote, a frankly alarming amount of lingerie. The cashier said she dropped over 5 grand like it was nothing!”

Lexi lets out a scandalized gasp as Ethan chokes on his sip of Red Bull. Megan just shakes her head in wonderment. “The actual legend,” she murmurs reverently.

The TikToker laughs and waggles his eyebrows suggestively at the camera. “I don’t know about you lot, but I’m definitely sensing some spicy thank you for the shopping money activities were planned for a certain Ferrari driver, if you know what I mean. Get in there, Charles!”

“Gross, I so did not need that visual,” Ethan grumbles, but there’s a slight smirk playing on his lips all the same.

“Oh shut up, as if you wouldn’t do the exact same if you were dating Charles,” Lexi retorts with a playful shove to his shoulder.

“ANYWAY,” the TikToker presses on, “I did manage to squeeze a few more details out of the lovely shop girl. Apparently Charles’ girlfriend is named Y/N, no last name given for privacy reasons. But she’s a regular customer and, I quote, an absolute sweetheart who only ever has glowing things to say about her man. So there you have it, folks — Y/N and Charles are the real deal and we’re all just peasants watching a fairytale unfold.”

Megan sighs dreamily as the video ends. “Y/N and Charles,” she repeats to herself, already typing the names into her social media search bars. “God, even their names sound good together. I have to find out everything about her.”

“Dibs on making their ship name hashtag go viral,” Lexi calls out, already furiously typing away on her own phone.

Ethan snorts and rolls his eyes affectionately at his friends, but there’s no denying the small, reluctantly impressed smile tugging at the corners of his mouth too. “I give it two days before they’re papped together on some glamorous date night now that the secret’s out. Hope she’s ready for the attention dating an F1 star brings.”

“With that level of confidence and the way Charles clearly adores her? I think our girl Y/N will handle the spotlight just fine,” Megan says confidently.

Lexi nods in firm agreement. “Yep, a true queen. Charles better lock that down and wife her up real quick before one of us tries to snatch her for ourselves!”

***

In a cozy apartment not far from the very street where you had your memorable encounter with the TikToker, three young women huddle around a laptop screen, eyes wide and jaws slack as they watch the now viral video for the umpteenth time.

“I can’t believe this,” mutters Isabelle, a pretty brunette with an impressively encyclopedic knowledge of Formula 1 stats. “Charles has a girlfriend? Since when?”

“And he just sent her €10,000 like it was nothing!” Exclaims Maia, nervously twirling a strand of her platinum blonde hair. “I mean, I know he’s loaded but holy shit, the way he spoils her ...”

The third girl, Claire, bites her lip, a pensive look on her delicate features. “Did you hear what she said at the end though? Just a guy who loves driving fast cars. She was obviously talking about Charles. But the way she said it, all mysterious and like it was some inside joke ... I don’t know, it just rubs me the wrong way.”

Isabelle scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Please, she was totally gloating. Didn’t even have the decency to act a little humble about the fact that THE Charles Leclerc is apparently head over heels for her.”

“Exactly!” Maia chimes in, nodding vigorously. “Like okay, congrats, you bagged a hot, rich, famous race car driver. No need to rub it in the rest of our faces.”

Claire wrinkles her nose. “I just don’t get the vibe that she actually cares about him, you know? I mean, who asks their boyfriend to send them money in the middle of the day for some stupid shoes? While he’s working? She seems like such a gold digger.”

“Ugh, you’re so right,” Isabelle agrees, her lips curling in distaste. “Poor Charles is probably blind to it because he’s so gone for her. He didn’t even hesitate to transfer that money!”

Maia sighs dramatically and falls back on the bed. “God, it’s so unfair. Why can’t I find a man who’s that generous and totally obsessed with me? I’d treat him so much better than she does, you can already tell.”

Claire hums and taps her chin thoughtfully. “You know what, I think this smells fishy. How do we even know she’s actually Charles’ girlfriend? For all we know, she could have paid some guy who sounds like him to play along for a TikTok clout.”

Isabelle’s eyes narrow as she considers this possibility. “That’s true ... I haven’t come across any photos of them together or anything. Why has no one ever seen her before if they’re supposedly so in love?”

“Exactly!” Claire exclaims, growing more animated. “I’ve been a Charles fan for years and I’ve never seen or heard anything about a girlfriend. If they’re really dating, there’s no way it wouldn’t have come out before now.”

Maia sits up, suddenly energized by this new conspiracy theory. “Oh my god, you’re right! She’s probably just some wannabe influencer trying to get famous by pretending to be with Charles. That’s so pathetic.”

Isabelle nods slowly, a determined glint in her eye. “You know what? We should do some digging. Try to find out who this girl really is and expose her for the fraud she clearly is. Charles and the world deserve to know the truth.”

“Yesss, I’m so down for an investigation!” Maia says gleefully. “Imagine if we’re the ones who reveal that this whole thing is fake. We’d be doing Charles a huge favor.”

Claire is already pulling up Instagram and Twitter on her phone. “Let’s start by going through the comments on that TikTok and seeing if anyone has identified her or posted any receipts. There have to be some clues somewhere.”

The girls spend the next few hours poring over social media, searching for any scrap of information they can find about the mystery woman who has supposedly captured Charles Leclerc’s heart. They work themselves into a frenzy, convincing each other more and more that you can’t possibly be Charles’ real girlfriend. In their minds, you’re clearly just an opportunistic clout chaser looking for your 15 minutes of fame.

“God, I hope Charles sees through her act soon,” Isabelle says for the hundredth time, shaking her head. “He’s too good for some two-bit gold digger who’s just using him.”

“We’ll make sure he finds out who she really is,” Claire assures her firmly. “And then he’ll have no choice but to dump her lying ass.”

Maia sighs wistfully, hugging a throw pillow to her chest. “Do you think once he’s single again, I might actually have a chance? Like, if I run into him at a race one day and strike up a conversation, maybe he’ll realize I’m the girl he’s meant to be with ...”

“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Claire says with a laugh. “First step is taking down this fraud of a girlfriend. Then we can daydream about being Mrs. Leclerc.”

The girls giggle and go back to their social media sleuthing with renewed determination. They’ve decided you’re public enemy number one and they won’t rest until they’ve exposed you for the fake, money-hungry, clout-chasing liar they’re certain you must be. In their eyes, they’re crusaders for truth, fighting to save their beloved Charles from your clutches.

What they don’t realize, of course, is just how very real and very deep Charles’ feelings for you actually are ... and that you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, Internet conspiracy theories be damned.

***

In a dimly lit basement somewhere in Italy, a group of die-hard Charles Leclerc fans huddle around a computer screen, their jaws dropping as they watch the video for the umpteenth time.

“Guys, are you seeing this shit?” Enzo, the self-appointed leader of the group, asks incredulously. “Who the hell is this girl and how did she bag Charles freakin’ Leclerc?”

“Dude, we don’t even know for sure that it’s actually Charles,” Giovanni points out skeptically. “She never said his name. It could be some other rich dude with a fast car.”

Enzo scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, who else could it be? €10,000 like it’s nothing, is it possible that Leclerc has a secret girlfriend we don’t know about all this time? A guy who likes driving fast cars? It’s obviously Charles! Our boy is LOADED and that’s exactly how he’d spoil his girl.”

Luca nods in agreement, a dreamy expression on his face. “God, can you imagine being with Charles though? Having him call you all those cute pet names and just showering you with love and gifts? I’d fucking die.”

“Yeah, she has to be the luckiest woman on the planet,” Enzo sighs wistfully. “I mean, I’m straight, but even I’d let Charles ruin me, you know what I’m saying?”

The other guys murmur and nod in emphatic agreement, all of them momentarily lost in a fantasy of being Charles Leclerc’s pampered significant other.

“Okay but like, how is this even fair?” Giovanni gripes, breaking the spell. “The rest of us mere mortals are out here busting our asses on Tinder and Hinge, praying a decent girl will swipe right, and Charles just gets to date a literal goddess who is probably a model?”

“Life isn’t fair, Gio,” Enzo says solemnly. “Charles is on a completely different level. He could have any woman he wants and they’d all say yes before he even finished asking. The rules don’t apply to a guy like that.”

Luca suddenly sits up straight, his eyes widening with realization. “Holy shit, guys. Do you know what this means? If Charles is taken, that’s one less F1 driver on the market for all those grid girl groupies to throw themselves at! Maybe the rest of us actually have a chance now!”

Giovanni snorts derisively. “Yeah, you wish. Those chicks are still gonna be busy trying to get with Sainz or Verstappen or Norris. They’re not gonna settle for some nobody Ferrari fan. Let’s be real.”

“Wow, way to kill the vibe, Debbie Downer,” Luca mutters. He turns back to the computer and hits replay on the video, watching enviously as the TikToker clearly shows the €10,000 bank transfer on your phone. “Seriously though, how is this chick not freaking the fuck out? If Charles Leclerc randomly sent me 10 grand I’d be screaming and probably pass out.”

“She’s probably used to it,” Enzo says with a shrug. “I bet this is like, a regular Tuesday for her. Just casually strolling around Monaco, stopping into designer stores whenever she feels like it, Charles’ black credit card weighing down her Hermès purse. The bougiest of WAG lives.”

“God, what I wouldn’t give to trade places with her for just one day,” Giovanni says longingly. “Can you imagine getting to wake up next to Charles every morning? Having him make you breakfast and give you forehead kisses and tell you how much he loves you in that sexy accent?”

“Okay, now you’re just torturing yourself, bro,” Luca laughs. “You’ll be lucky if you can get a Tinder match to agree to split the bill at McDonalds.”

“Why you gotta bring me back to my sad reality like that?” Giovanni groans, chucking a throw pillow at Luca’s head. “Let me live vicariously through Charles’ bougie mystery girlfriend for a little while longer, damn.”

Enzo sighs and leans back in his chair, hands behind his head. “You know what the craziest part of all this is? The fact that Charles managed to keep a whole ass girlfriend hidden from the world. Like, the media has been speculating about his love life forever and no one had a clue he was actually in a serious relationship. That man moves in silence like a ninja.”

“Yeah, and did you see how he just casually threw out that he loves her?” Luca gushes. “He was all I love spoiling you, you deserve the world. My dude is head over heels for this girl and I am LIVING for it.”

“Ugh, why can’t I find a man like that?” Giovanni whines dramatically. “All I want is a guy who will write me cute Instagram captions in three languages and buy out the Gucci store for me but I guess that’s too much to ask!”

“Maybe if you stanned Charles harder, the universe would reward you,” Enzo snarks. “Start leaving thirsty comments on his shirtless pics, see if that manifests your dream F1 boyfriend.”

“Bold of you to assume I don’t already do that,” Giovanni retorts with a smirk. “How else do you think Oscar Piastri ended up in my DMs last night?”

“Wait, WHAT?” Luca and Enzo exclaim in unison, whipping their heads around to gape at their friend.

Giovanni bursts out laughing at their shocked faces. “I’m just kidding, jeez! You think I’d be sitting here listening to you losers if Oscar freaking Piastri actually messaged me? Puh-lease.”

“Man, don’t even joke about that,” Enzo grumbles, clutching at his heart. “You really had me going there for a sec.”

Luca huffs and slouches down in his seat. “Can we get back to being jealous of Charles’ sugar baby girlfriend now? I was enjoying that more than whatever the hell this conversation turned into.”

“She’s not his sugar baby!” Enzo argues. “They’re clearly in love! Did we watch the same video? The way he talked to her was mad cute. That’s his GIRL girl.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Luca concedes, holding his hands up in apology. “Charles might spoil her but he obviously adores her for more than just her looks. That’s the real relationship goals right there.”

“Imagine being so secure in your love that you can just ball out on your partner like that and know it’s only going to make them love you more,” Giovanni muses. “Cannot relate.”

Enzo nods sagely. “Charles is just built different, man. In more ways than one.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Luca agrees. “So, are we watching this video another 50 times or are we moving on to the Grill the Grid compilation I found of all of Charles’ most adorably flustered moments?”

Enzo grins maniacally and reaches for the mouse. “Oh, you know we’re watching the hell out of this absolute gift again. And then we’re gonna spend the next three hours cyberstalking Charles and seeing if we can find any other crumbs about who this legendary mystery woman is. For research purposes.”

“This is the most productive thing we’ve done in months and I’m not even ashamed,” Giovanni declares, cracking his knuckles in preparation for the intense social media deep dive they’re about to undertake.

***

In a crowded sports bar in Dublin, a group of die-hard Ferrari fans gather to watch the latest race. But today, there’s another bit of F1-related content that has their attention. They huddle around a phone, repeatedly watching the now-infamous TikTok video.

“Can you believe it? €10,000 just like that!” Exclaims James, a tall, lanky guy with a mop of curly hair. “I mean, I knew Charles was loaded but damn ...”

“Forget the money, did you see his girlfriend?” Tom, a stocky redhead, chimes in. “Absolutely stunning. Like, how does a race car driver land a girl like that?”

Mark, a quieter guy with glasses, rolls his eyes. “Uh, maybe because he’s Charles freaking Leclerc? The man’s a beast on the track and has the face of a Greek god. Girls probably throw themselves at him left and right.”

The guys all mutter in begrudging agreement, a note of envy coloring their voices. On screen, the video replays yet again, showing you confidently calling up your boyfriend and securing the small fortune without batting an eye.

“God, what I wouldn’t give to have a woman look at me the way she probably looks at Leclerc,” Tom sighs wistfully.

“In your dreams, mate,” James scoffs. “Girls like that are way out of our league. We can’t compete with a Ferrari paycheck and Monaco real estate.”

“Still doesn’t seem fair though,” grumbles Mark. “The dude’s already got it all — talent, fame, money. Leave some for the rest of us!”

On screen, the video reaches the part where you coolly inform the gobsmacked TikToker that you don’t need his measly €2,000 and he should donate it to an animal shelter instead. The guys let out low whistles, clearly impressed by your classy move.

“See, that right there, that’s what separates the Monegasque princess types from regular girls,” says James with an air of authority. “We would’ve taken the cash in a heartbeat.”

“Speak for yourself, I’m a man of principle,” Tom jokes, puffing out his chest exaggeratedly. The others snort and shove him playfully.

As the video ends, the guys sit back, each lost in their own wistful imaginings of what it must be like to be Charles Leclerc. To have the money, success, and effortless charm to win over a girl like you.

Mark is the first to break the contemplative silence. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong,” he muses thoughtfully. “I mean yeah, Charles is a lucky bastard, no doubt. But that girl, she seems like a real catch too. Like the kind of person who’d keep you humble and grounded, even when you’re a superstar athlete with the world at your feet.”

The others consider this, nodding slowly. “Fair point,” concedes Tom. “Behind every great man and all that jazz. Leclerc may have his millions but he still needs someone to call him out on his BS from time to time.”

“Exactly,” agrees Mark. “And did you hear the way he spoke to her on the phone? The dude’s completely smitten. He may have all the money and fame, but I bet she’s the real prize in his eyes.”

“Alright, alright, settle down Dr. Phil,” James interjects with a good-natured eye roll. “You gonna start writing romance novels in your spare time now? Maybe they’ll make a movie — The Tifosi Who Loved Me: A Charles Leclerc Story.”

The guys all crack up laughing at that, the tension broken. Their envy towards Leclerc’s charmed life remains, but it’s now tinged with a newfound respect and even a touch of empathy.

“Y’know, jokes aside, I do hope he realizes how lucky he is to have her and treats her right,” Mark says sincerely as their chuckles subside. “A love like that seems rare these days.”

Tom reaches over to clap Mark on the shoulder. “No worries, mate. Did you see the dopey grin on Charles’ face in those paparazzi pics of them together that came out earlier? That man is whipped with a capital W. He knows he’s got a keeper.”

“As he should,” nods James sagely. “Behind every great Ferrari champion is an even greater woman keeping his ego in check. Tale as old as time.”

On that note, the guys clink their pint glasses together, silently saluting the unnamed woman who stole the heart of Charles Leclerc and the envious admiration of Formula 1 fans worldwide. The mystery girlfriend with impeccable style and a heart of gold.

As the pre-race coverage starts up on the bar TV, the guys settle in to cheer on their favorite driver, their fleeting jealousy replaced by the camaraderie and excitement of race day. But in the back of their minds, a single wistful thought remains — what they wouldn’t give to find a love like Charles and his girl seem to share. Guess that’s just one more thing to add to the list of reasons to idolize Charles Leclerc.

***

Among the hordes of viewers obsessively replaying the clip are three best friends gathered for a girls night at a posh Parisian penthouse. Colette, the willowy blonde draped across a velvet chaise lounge, takes a sip of her champagne and shakes her head in wonder.

“God, can you imagine having a boyfriend who just casually drops 10k on you like it’s nothing? Talk about relationship goals,” she sighs dreamily.

Next to her, Nadia snorts derisively while scrolling through Instagram on her phone. “Oh please, like that’s hard to find. I bet loads of rich guys would do that for their girlfriends. It’s not that impressive.”

From her perch on a tufted ottoman, Stephanie raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Really? You think Liam would send you that kind of cash without batting an eye? Mr. I-Need-To-Check-With-My-Financial-Advisor-Before-I-Buy-A-New-Tie?”

Colette erupts into giggles at the scathing impression of Nadia’s banker boyfriend. Even Nadia cracks a reluctant smile before tossing her sleek dark hair.

“Whatever. I’m just saying, that TikTok chick’s boyfriend can’t be THAT special. I’m sure if we did the same challenge our boyfriends would come through too,” she declares with more than a hint of competitiveness in her voice.

“Oooh yes, let’s do it! Let’s recreate the video and see what happens!” Colette squeals, bouncing up and down on the chaise with excitement.

Stephanie, ever the voice of reason, looks uncertain. “I don’t know, guys ... isn’t it a bit tacky to demand money from them like that? What if they get mad?”

Nadia rolls her eyes. “Oh come on Steph, live a little! It’s just a silly experiment. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Okay, okay fine,” Stephanie relents, unable to resist her friends’ cajoling. “But I’m blaming you both if Omer breaks up with me over this!”

“Deal!” Colette grins impishly as she grabs her phone. “I’ll go first — let me call Henry and we’ll see if he’s as generous as Mystery Monaco Man.”

With a deep breath, she dials her property developer boyfriend and launches into her rehearsed plea as soon as he picks up. “Baby!” She whines. “You’ll never believe what happened. I’m out with the girls and my Louboutins broke! Like the heel just totally snapped off. I’m absolutely gutted, these were my faves. Is there any way you could send some money to my account so I can grab a new pair on the way home? Pleeeaaase, I’ll love you forever!”

There’s a heavy pause before Henry’s clipped voice comes through, tinged with annoyance. “Christ, again with the bloody shoes? What is it with you women and wasting my hard earned money on bits of leather you don’t need? Can’t you just take the broken ones to get fixed?”

Colette’s perfectly glossed pout trembles, her blue eyes shining with disappointed tears as Nadia and Stephanie look on in pity. “Never mind,” she mumbles. “Forget I asked. Chat later.” She hangs up and flings her phone down despondently.

“What an ass,” Nadia spits. “You deserve so much better.” Colette shrugs sadly but rallies as she turns to Stephanie expectantly.

“Okay Steph, your turn to give Omer a ring! Let’s hope he restores our faith in rich boyfriends everywhere.”

Stephanie grimaces but dutifully calls her Qatar-based hedge fund manager beau. In her most saccharine voice, she makes her case. “Habibi, you know that gorgeous YSL bag I showed you last week? It finally came back in stock but only for today! Could you maybe pop some cash in my account so I can treat myself? I’ve been working so hard lately and-”

“Wallahi Stephanie, how many handbags does one woman need?” Omer cuts her off irritably. “If I buy you this one, I don’t want to hear any more whining for designer things for at least 6 months, got it? I’ll send you 500 euros, that should more than cover it.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks, I guess ...” Stephanie replies glumly before ending the call. She shakes her head at her friends. “Well, it’s something at least?”

“Hardly,” Nadia scoffs. “These men, I swear. Okay, time for me to show you girls how it’s done. Watch and learn, ladies.”

With a confident smirk, she video calls Liam who answers distractedly, clearly still at the office despite the late hour. “This better be important Nadia, I’m right in the middle of-”

“Liam. Focus,” Nadia cuts him off crisply. “I need you to send €10,000 to my account right now. No questions asked.” She arches a commanding eyebrow, daring him to argue.

Liam just blinks at her for a moment before letting out an incredulous laugh. “I’m sorry, you need me to do what now? 10 grand, are you mad? For what possible reason?”

“To prove you love me,” Nadia retorts smugly. “I saw this thing on TikTok, some girl’s boyfriend sent her-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Liam interrupts. “I’m not one of your little social media playthings to manipulate for views, Nadia. My money is not a toy. I’ll buy you a thoughtful gift for your birthday next month, but I’m not in the business of flinging cash at you for no reason. Now if you’ll excuse me, some of us have real work to do. Goodnight.”

With that he abruptly ends the call, leaving Nadia staring at the blank screen, a red flush of embarrassment and anger creeping up her elegant neck. Stephanie and Colette exchange knowing looks.

“So … that went well,” Stephanie quips sarcastically.

Colette sighs morosely as she flops back onto the chaise, hugging a silk pillow. “Maybe that girl’s boyfriend really is one of a kind. God, I bet she feels like the luckiest woman alive. Can you even imagine being THAT loved and adored?”

Nadia seems to deflate, her bravado evaporating. “No,” she whispers. “I can’t. You’re right, Col. Mystery Monaco Man is clearly in a league of his own. I bet he makes her feel like an absolute queen every damn day.”

Stephanie nods thoughtfully, twirling a lock of hair. “You know what though? Good for her. She seems lovely and down-to-earth in the video. If anyone deserves that fairy tale romance, it’s a girl like that who doesn’t even realize how special it is.”

“Ugh, so true. god I’m depressed now,” Colette groans, reaching for the champagne bottle to refill her glass. “To Mystery Monaco Man — may he set the standard for rich boyfriends everywhere. And to the girl who’s lucky enough to love him — may she live happily ever after and never take a single moment for granted.”

“Hear, hear,” Nadia and Stephanie chorus, clinking their glasses against Colette’s.

As the bubbles fizz on their tongues, the wistful faraway looks in their eyes betray the same thought — what they wouldn’t give to trade places with you for just a day, to know what it feels like to be cherished so completely by a man like Charles. To them, you’re living the ultimate dream.

If only they knew the best part isn’t the extravagant gestures or lavish gifts.

It’s the little moments. The soft kisses pressed to your temple. The fingers intertwined with yours. The sleepy smiles over morning coffee. The shared laughter and inside jokes. The unwavering support and unconditional acceptance. The bone-deep feeling of safety and coming home.

That’s the real fairy tale. And no amount of money could ever buy it.

***

Back in Monaco, Lando Norris slouches comfortably in his gaming chair, eyes glued to the triple monitors in front of him. He’s meant to be reviewing telemetry data in preparation for the upcoming race weekend, but the notification chime from his phone proves far too tempting. Lando picks up the device, fully intending to only glance at it for a second before dutifully returning to his work.

But then he sees it — the TikTok that at least a dozen people have sent to him in the past hour alone. Curiosity piqued, Lando clicks on the video and watches intently, his brows steadily rising towards his hairline with each passing second.

“Wait, is that ...” he mutters to himself as the clip plays out. When your boyfriend’s voice comes through the speakers, Lando’s eyes bug out comically. “Holy shit, it is Charles! And Y/N!”

A knock on the door makes Lando jump slightly. Before he can respond, a familiar mop of tousled chestnut hair pokes into the room. “Hey mate, did you see-” Max Verstappen starts to say.

“The TikTok of Charles simping hard for Y/N? Yup, watching it right now,” Lando finishes for him, eyes still glued to his phone screen in fascination.

Max invites himself into the room fully and flops down on the couch. “Absolutely crazy, right? Who just casually sends their girlfriend 10k for a random pair of shoes?”

Lando snorts. “Certainly not you, you stingy Dutchman,” he ribs playfully. Max chucks a throw pillow at him in retaliation.

“Hey, even I splurge on my girlfriend sometimes!” Max protests. “I just bought her ... erm ...” He racks his brain trying to remember the last lavish gift he purchased unprompted.

“A six-pack of Sugar Free Red Bull last week?” Lando supplies dryly.

“... Shut up.”

The two dissolve into snickers before turning their attention back to the TikTok, which has now looped to the beginning again.

“Charles is so whipped for Y/N,” Max observes, shaking his head in amused disbelief. “He’s just asking to get taken advantage of, throwing money around like that.”

“I think it’s kinda sweet,” Lando admits with a shrug. “He just wants to make her happy. Don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same if your girl asked!”

Max scoffs. “What, fall victim to a gold digger? No thanks mate.”

“Y/N’s hardly a gold digger and you know it,” Lando chides. “She works hard for her own money and buys plenty of expensive gifts for Charles too. They just like spoiling each other ‘cause they’re in luuurve.” He draws out the last word in a silly voice, making dramatic kissy faces.

“Yeah, yeah, true love and all that sappy bullshit,” Max says dismissively, though there’s no real heat behind it. “I’m just saying, no way in hell I’m sending 10k on command for a pair of fucking shoes!”

Lando hums thoughtfully. “I would.”

Max’s head whips around to stare at him incredulously. “You what.”

“If it was the right girl? Sure, I’d do it,” Lando says nonchalantly. “Maybe not for something frivolous like shoes, but if my girlfriend called me up and said she needed 10k transferred ASAP? I’d do it, no questions asked. You gotta have that level of trust.”

Clearly torn between wanting to take the piss out of his friend and feeling a reluctant sort of respect, Max just grunts noncommittally in response before turning back to rewatch the clip once more.

Debate rages online among the fans about the cute interaction. Most find the whole thing adorably romantic, cooing over what a doting and generous boyfriend Charles is. They swoon at the obvious love and care between you two, speculating excitedly in the comments about when Charles might pop the question.

Others are more cynical, rolling their eyes at Charles “simping” so hard and accusing you of only dating the Ferrari driver for his money. However, these naysayers are quickly drowned out and ratio’d by your legions of adoring supporters.

Through it all, you and Charles pay the speculation little mind, blissfully wrapped up in your fairytale romance.

Charles returns home that evening to the mouthwatering aroma of his favorite pesto pasta dish wafting from the kitchen. He grins when he spots you at the stove, swaying your hips to the sultry jazz music playing from the speaker as you stir the sauce. Quietly, he comes up behind you and slips his strong arms around your waist, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“Mmm, smells amazing,” he murmurs appreciatively.

You turn in his embrace and loop your arms around his neck, smiling radiantly up at him. “Welcome home, Cha-Cha,” you greet him, using the silly pet name that never fails to make him chuckle and scrunch his nose adorably. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“And what’s for dessert?” Charles asks with a playful waggle of his eyebrows.

Biting your lip coyly, you untangle yourself from his arms and saunter off towards the bedroom. “Come find out after we eat. Oh, and I picked up a little something special to express my gratitude for earlier ...” you call over your shoulder with a wink.

Charles’ megawatt grin could power all of Monaco for a year. Viral TikTok or not, the Monegasque knows he’s already the luckiest man in the world to have you as his partner through this crazy ride called life.

No amount of money could ever compare to the joy of being loved by you.

[k1mbe3rly]

Hii, I was wondering if you could do a yandere se-mi headcannons/story?💕🫶

real.

Yandere Se-mi headcannons

warnings: kills, NSFW, ⚠️WLW STRAP⚠️

Yandere! Se-mi who will obsess over you and constantly stalking you and watching your every move, and will go to great lengths to keep you to herself.

Yandere! Se-mi who slowly becomes extremely possessive and jealous, lashing out at anyone who she perceives as a threat to yalls relationship

Yandere! Se-mi who will try to control every aspect of the your life, from who you talk to, to what you do and where you go.

Yandere! Se-mi who does emotional manipulation to control you and what you’re interested in, using techniques like guilt-tripping and gaslighting to make things go her way.

Yandere! Se-mi who becomes violent if she feels like you’re trying to break away from her or if she feels like she is losing control of the relationship.

“Why haven’t you came over in 2 days? what the hell is going on huh?! fucking cheating on me you slut?!”

Than proceeds to fuck you harshly while her hands are wrapped around your throat, tightening and softening her hands around it.

Yandere! Se-mi who buys many airtags and places it in your purse, and car., she also buys small cameras and places them around your house when your fucked out on the bed and can’t even move after she fucked you

Yandere! Se-mi who follows you thru malls, grocery stores and even when your with your friends, she also makes sure when you tell her your with your family that your actually with your family

Yandere! Se-mi who forces you to give you all her passwords to anywhere you can communicate with other people snapchat, instagram, facebook, messenger, and twitter

“Who the fuck is ‘Jun hee’ talking about her baby daddy isn’t myung gi?”

Yandere! Se-mi who records you getting fucked by her strap and moaning and crying for her as she pinches and pulls your nipples a bit than proceeds to send it to anyone who flirts with you

Yandere! Se-mi who drags you to a public bathroom only for you to get yelled out and fingered roughly

“Why is your ‘Childhood friend’ looking at you like that hm? the second we get home i want you to block them okay baby? Your mine. Cum on my fingers baby, Do what i say..”

Yandere! Se-mi who notices one boy who keeps texting you and even visited your job after she got a notification from your account with him texting you

“I’m glad I got to see you, wanna do that again some time?”

Yandere! Se-mi who know believes you cheated on her, so not only she goes and finds the guy and kills him brutually but goes to you with bloody hands and fingers you with his blood on her hands

Yandere! Se-mi who is fucking with you with the strap roughly as tears filled your eyes moaning loudly, she’s gripping on your hips hard enough to leave a bruise as she said soemthing that immediately turned you off

“Fuck! you know you kinda sound like that one boy i murdered for you” she said smirking as she wanted to see your reaction

Yandere! Se-mi who notices you stopped moaning and stared at her in fear as she kept thrusting into you, eventually she stopped

“What did you say..?” you spoke to her, “Nothing baby you just look so sexy right now..” she whispered to you, “No i heard what you said..what do you mean? did you actually kill someone Se-mi?!” you yelled out, “He was stealing what’s mine.”

Yandere! Se-mi who watches you cry in fear as she threatens that if you ever leave she’ll kill you too but deep down she won’t cause she just loves you so much

Yandere! Se-mi who has to strangle you down after you tried running for the front door

“Are you serious? your being so ungrateful! fucking went out of my way and murdered that stupid slut for you! and this is how you reward me?”

Yandere! Se-mi who ties you up teases you until you can’t take it

“Tell me you’ll stay with me. Tell me you won’t leave me and i’ll let you cum and even untie you”

“I’ll stay you! i promise! Just please i can’t take it anymore! I’ll be with you forever!” you cried out sobbing as she smirks, that night you had the biggest orgasm and find yourself crying silently on the bed as she cuddles you

[noobsoconfusing]

‘domesticated dawg’.. domestic!hamzah

contains reader insert! and nsfw kinda at the end

- for his whole damn life, everything hamzah wanted was a home

- sure, he had one before, but to be honest, it was just a house. no meaning behind it other than his family living there with him.

- so when he eventually moved out, loneliness began hitting like a truck..

- he found himself alone. constantly trying to fit into everything mandy and martin did, but he understood his friends also wanted privacy

- although hamzah wished he could just live with his friends, everything seemed funner with them. mandy was nice, always sharing martin with him, letting him interrupt their conversations to add comments, making jokes about whatever and they even had a group chat!

- but still, that life was not his, it was martin’s. it was mandy’s. not hamzah’s.

- god, he so craved a relationship as beautiful as his friends. it made him so sad knowing that the only girl he pulled ever was in elementary school :(

- so when you stumbled upon his hectic life, he knew he was NOT letting u go. ever. never ever.

- and mother of god, you were just so so so perfect? how could you? like, for real, he asks himself everyday what the hell did he ever do to deserve such a beautiful human by his side

- as the relationship develops, he finds himself doing stuff he only dreamed about

- he enjoys every single little thing you guys do together, cherishes every moment with you, even when you’re not around he keeps your id picture in his wallet

- makes sure you don’t have to move a finger!!!

- dishes? he does em! the bed? he makes it! clean the cats litterbox? on it!

- sometimes you wake up to the faint smell of something burning, and you’ve gotten used to it by now it’s even comforting .

“sweetheart….” he’d whisper not to disturb your peaceful slumber, however the noisy rattling of the dishes and the blender going off earlier had you already awake.

“hmm?” you murmured slowly opening your eyes, his big eyes stared at you like a squished bug, it made you giggle how eager he was to serve breakfast in bed.

“you are never gonna believe what i just prepared!” he excitedly said.

you smiled, sometimes hamzah was like an excited toddler showing you everything he did or found.

“so like, last night i was on facebook and found this super cool french toast recipe and tried to make it today for you but uh… we didn’t have eggs… or bread.” he paused and you tilted your head. “so i also tried to make pancakes with water and the mix but uh.. you never really showed me how to lower the flame so uh, they’re bricks now…” he nervously scratched his head

he was so cute, or so you thought.

“it’s okay, hamzah, what did you make then?” you asked, invested heavily. he always managed to surprise you somehow.

quickly, he got up the bed where he was straddling you, and ran to the counter where he had left the plate.

“anyway, cereal!” he smiled so big waiting for your reaction of approval.

“wooooow! my favourite!” you smiled too.

“i know right!”

- hamzah tries SO hard to please you :(

- actually tries to spend every single hour of the day with you, due to his job he finds himself being at martin’s often, so he brings you with him each time!

- late night editing with him, where you two are just snuggled together under the covers, hamzah has his blue light glasses on, and you think, man, what a sight to see!

- hamzah actually thinks you guys are married..

- not to be intense or anything, but to him, being with you means for life. you guys are going serious. no escaping from this man now. no backing down now.

- you and the cats are his little family. he has found a home in you and is willing to keep it forever <3

- every moment with you counts to him.

- in the mornings you two brush your teeth together, sometimes he spits toothpaste on your hand to make you mad, which doesn’t really work because you do the same to him and then it all ends in a laughing fit

- HE HAS NO SENSE OF PRIVACY T_T

- you could be taking a shower and he’s right outside of the shower curtain taking a shit and talking about whatever was on his mind

- when you’re using the bathroom he would burst the door open to grab something he left inside, unapologetically look at you and smile innocently

- since your little house –apartment– is rather small, whenever you use the kitchen together he has to constantly guide you around in order to not bump into each other

- grabs your waist to prevent you from slipping if he spills milk or water..

- literally just an excuse to touch you, though.

- sometimes you’re cooking and he just sneaks behind you to give you a back hug. rests his chin on top of your head and stays there for a while

- needs you constantly ngl

- if there’s something wrong with the house, such as a leak or a burnt bulb, he would try his best to fix it himself to prove you he’s capable of everything

- usually ends badly and you have to call someone else to fix it but hey! he tried!

- since you both are not very extroverted, house dates are perfect.

- movie nights under the dim lights of the apartment that lead to make out sessions..

“h-hold…” you tried to say between sloppy kisses being planted on your neck. “hold on!” you laughed out loud when the hickey he was giving you tickled your collarbone.

“mhmm, why?” you could feel his warm breath as he murmured against your skin.

“movie…”

“rather do you, though.” he replied.

- ordering take out that just ends up on hamzah and you racing to see who can eat more

- he loves to see you wearing his clothes <3 like, it actually makes him physically happy and super fucking proud

- loves how his hoodies are undeniably big on you, and how his shirts falls down to your thighs, covering you up so perfectly. knowing you enjoy wearing his clothes just makes him realise how much you both need each other pretty much always

- hamzah has mentioned –to you– before his desire to actually grow your family a bit more, no more cats though, no dogs either. a baby, maybe. or two. three?

- and he was super blunt and serious about it, also. like he was being DEAD SERIOUS. he loves you, dude. this man is a family man.

“we are very serious, right?” he asked you out of the blue.

“yeah, of course.” you replied looking at his direction. the bed sheets covered his body so you could only see his face peeking out. it was funny.

“no but like, im super serious about you, about us… i love you a lot and i feel so deeply about you, is that alright? do you not feel weird about me? like, do you actually like me or…?” he rambled, and you knew how self conscious he could get sometimes ;(

“hamzah, i am so very serious about us too, i love being with you, why would you doubt that?” it made you sad, but you had to constantly reassure him.

he leaned in to kiss you, so soft and desperate at the same time, like he was trying not to break down.

“serious, right?” he asked again as he broke the kiss

“yeah, very serious, hamzah.”

a moment of silence. he played with your hair, then subtly touched your face in the dark, tracing your features.

“okay but speaking super fucking seriously, i wanna impregnate you and i wanna raise our children and live until we’re super fucking old, that alright?”

he deadpanned. and you never felt so loved, even if his ways were… odd. you knew he cared, and you did too!

“yeah. that alright.”

- morning sex hits hard w hamzah btw. so when you’re still tired and wanna be together you opt for this one as an excuse to get up until the evening

- this man needs you so much that he actually for real wants to merge your souls together

- but as he cannot do that yet, he settles for your bodies..

- sometimes when he’s working he just :( needs you and your warmth and your embrace and your presence and you you you you

- he’s obsessed with you to say the least

- yeah so cockwarming.. where he just begs for it, and you cant say no to that wet dog face :c though you know he wont even last a minute without moving cuz he’s needy like that.

- his hands are grasping at your waist for mercy, keeping you down and linked to his own body. he tries his best to keep still, though you wouldn’t mind if he actually started thrusting

- loves how warm you’re always :c it’s almost embarrassing how pathetic this man is for you

“mmm, im… oh, god! f-fuck, im sorry, can i…?” he whimpers, his eyes shut and his work long forgotten on the desk

and god, yeah. you need it too. he’s been inside for what felt like fucking hours. you were just as needy and desperate but didn’t wanna say anything :(

“yeah j-just…yeah..” you managed to say, your face buried in his neck, inhaling his cologne.

it was so damn intoxicating, you felt so drunk on him.

- big on aftercare. he wants to make you comfortable and loved, which yeah you feel like that around him. tho he also needs aftercare from you sometimes..

- hamzah thinks, you found him to save him. save him from his loneliness, his misfortune, everything. he is so glad that you exist and decide to share your existence with him.

- hamzah now doesn’t have to look for a home in other places. he doesn’t have to look out for love, for company somewhere else. he has you, you’re his home now. now and forever

- you’re a home that’s not taken. a home that’s not temporary. a home that waits for him everyday. a home that provides love and care. a home that he doesn’t feel he’s intruding..

- a home he doesn’t wanna run away from. not ever

>_<

down bad for this kinda hamzah bruv anyway hope some1 likes dis

[sophieinwonderland]

Hello fellow Tumblrites!

Yay! Glad to hear it!

So here is the deal... Apple CEO Tim Cook donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural committee. He foolishly thought that bending the knee in advance would get him favor with the new regime.

The problem with fascists is that once you surrender, they always want more.

Trump earlier on truth social threatened to put a 25% tariff on Apple.

The above real post on Truth Social was followed by a sharp drop in Apple stock.

The real Tim Cook, like so many other corporate leaders, is afraid to stand up to fascism. They are afraid to explain the realities of manufacturing in America and why even with tariffs, it's still cheaper to produce in other countries.

If we cannot look to corporate for resistance, we can at least manufacture it ourselves.

What I am asking is that you help me spread around this tweet.

This is not real. This is a product of paint.net because we're too cheap to pay for Photoshop.

What we need you to do...

Reblog this to help it spread around Tumblr and get more people involved in our psyop.

Copy the image of the fake tweet from Tim Cook and share it on at least one other social media website you use. It can be Twitter or Facebook or Truth Social if you are on Truth Social for some reason. You can post it on a subreddit that you don't mind getting banned from for spreading misinformation. Add your own reaction to the post about what you think of what "Tim Cook" said.

Try to aim for posting this on websites where you will find conservatives who might pick it up.

Be prepared to defend the validity of the tweet if challenged. If somebody mentions that they looked at Twitter and didn't find it there, you can claim that it was deleted.

If somebody makes too good of an argument against the tweet's existence, such as finding this post that spells out the strategy, just ignore them and don't give them any further attention. Block if necessary to hide their corrections or make sure you get the last word.

Whatever you do, absolutely never break character and reveal that you know it's fake in front of Trump supporters on other websites. You can tell your friends though if you want to get them involved.

If you come across someone else on another site spreading this tweet, be sure to like and share it to boost them.

What is this really going to accomplish?

The most ambitious goal would be to have this take off and spread everywhere, even getting picked up by lazy right-wing media who will help goad The Trump Regime into threatening even higher tariffs on Apple, further driving a wedge between them and making the real Tim Cook regret his donation.

That is a pretty lofty goal and it would take a lot of effort and luck to get it that far.

Even if it doesn't get there, every single Trump supporter who believes this misinformation is another Trump supporter who will be less likely to buy an Apple product.

We can still hurt their bottom line. We can still punish them, at least a little, for bending the knee and trying to pay off a wannabe dictator.

And it can be a little fun too! 😁

So, who's in?

[valdevia]

I like showing your art to my family and convincing them its real

If you did this through text, please send me a screenshot, I always love seeing people's reactions!

Also do let them know it's not real before they pass it along, lest we end up with another situation where my art is spread uncredited through facebook for years until some tiktok account with a million followers finds it and records herself reading it and everyone reports her and she gets the video taken down and she never posts again.

[wilwheaton]

This is from Star Trek Wholesome Posting on Facebook.

And because it's a FAQ, here's the story of The Infamous Clown Sweater, as I told someone who asked there:

"I did this fundraiser for EFF in San Francisco in ... 2001? 2002? Something like that. It was at DNA Lounge, and after we were done, this person came up to me with this horrific sweater (jumper, for you non-Americans). They told me it was part of The Infamous Clown Sweater Project. What's that, I asked. They told me they are getting as many people as possible to wear it and pose for a photo, which they would then upload to their webpage -- not website, webpage, because it was 2001 or so -- for all to see.

"Of *course* I was down for it, and that face I'm making in the first photo is my very real reaction to the _awful_ stank that was just infused in the acrylic fibers.

"The second picture is from a con about ... 2014? Something like that, based on how I look. Someone actually made their own version of that horrible sweater for me. One arm is too long, on purpose, the neck is all stretched out, on purpose, and it fits poorly, on purpose. It's so damn funny to me, and it came along at a moment when we were doing this "then and now" thing on Twitter (before the fascists took over).

"I still have the second sweater. I have no idea what happened to the original. Last time I checked, the website that hosted all those pictures -- so old it was manually coded in html, predating even Flickr -- was lost to the sands of time.

"But it never fails to make me smile when this picture comes back around. It reminds me of a specific time, when there was just so much hope for the online future we were all building."

And for those of you who are too young to know what Riker giving Wesley his "fondest wish" is, well ...

Wesley wanted to grow up to be a blue-eyed blond who I'm pretty sure the costume designer wanted to fuck?

GEORDI! You're not helping!

Look. I love you, Commander Riker, but ... you're gonna want to try again. Wesley's fondest wish rhymes with "marathon betazoid orgy on risa".

[after-witch]

Damn Your Eyes Chapter 2 [Yandere Ren Hana x Reader]

Title: Cream and Sugar [Damn Your Eyes Chapter 2] [Yandere Ren Hana x Reader]

Synopsis: A fateful meeting at a bookstore between you and Ren Hana, years upon years after your escape from Strade, turns into a coffee shop date. You're not supposed to accept drinks from strangers, but Ren's not a stranger--so it's fine, right?

Word count: 5,322

notes: yandere, descriptions of violence/death/wounds, drugging

AO3 LINK

How did one get over something like Strade? Get over that house and that basement? How do you move on with your life when you’ve seen someone’s guts spill out of their body while they’re still alive, and you’ve been instructed to pick them up and play with them for the delight of sick fucks watching it all on a paid stream?

The pretty answer, the one everyone recites when asked, because that’s what you do: with therapy and time and forgiveness for yourself. You take it one day at a time. You treat yourself. 

The real answer: You didn’t. You don’t. You can’t. 

Not fully. Because “getting over” something like that means it will eventually no longer affect you, no longer being a part of you. 

And sure. You will, eventually, go about something that feels like an ordinary life. 

You will walk into a grocery store with a tidy little list, you will roll your eyes at the rising cost of laundry detergent, you will smile at a cashier who says they like your outfit. You will date and drink coffee and sway to your favorite song while making dinner. 

But inside, inside of you , you are still there--still hovering at the last step of the basement stairs, listening to someone’s guttural shrieks as their skin is blow-torch melted down. Still clinging to Ren in the middle of the night, flinching when his hands wander over a recent gouge, a hastily stitched cut--an accident, he whispers, and you’re never sure if you believe him.

And that is what happened to you. 

It took years, of course, to even get close to that semblance of normalcy. A few years were spent in feverish hiding, running from place to place with no paper trails that might lead some gorehound that subscribed to Strade’s torture porn sniffing at your door, hungry for more. 

But you settled down, in time. Slowly. Bit by bit, piece by piece, inch by inch. 

That took years, too--the settling. 

It started with staying in an apartment for more than three months at a time. It started with going to the grocery store wearing only sunglasses, instead of sunglasses, a wig, and the most nondescript clothing you could fish out of a bargain bin. It started with applying for real jobs, not just seedy work that paid cash, quick.

It ended here, in this quaint little home that you shared with your husband for the past five years, though you’d lived together for longer. It ended here, with a modest marketing career that you’d built up after going back to college. It ended here, with a life you built for yourself; frail and a bit unorthodox, but a life nonetheless. 

You wouldn’t have been able to survive, if you hadn’t adapted. There is only so much terror the human man can manage before breaking entirely, and so--adaptation. 

It was a gift that your husband didn’t mind your… differences. The heavy insistence on home security, the desire for privacy, the slow way you gave trust to strangers--if you gave it at all. 

Some things did bother him. He grumbled about your lack of social media presence, and you’d once had an awful fight when his sister put a photo of you on Facebook that you’d demanded, in furious tears, be taken down. 

But, deep down, it wasn’t like you could blame your husband for bucking against your near tantrum-like reaction. For the way he sometimes sighed as you locked the front door with triple locks, and an electric sensor. For the way his jaw sometimes set, when you did something that wasn’t normal to anyone who hadn’t been the extended torture victim of a serial killer that doubled as a snuff porn producer.

Because you knew--deeper down--that you were still haunted by the ghosts in that basement. Strade and the torture victims and Ren and yourself, shaking like a leaf, bleeding onto concrete. You knew, even if the man you slept beside in a bed every night had no inkling of it, that you could never step back across that threshold and be the way you were before.

But.

And there’s always a but, isn’t there?

But… that was okay. It was okay that you could never go back; it was okay that you were someone new; it was okay that you weren’t okay, and you’d never be okay in the fullest sense of the word.

Your life was a life you created out of shaking fingers, something clawed out with dirty fingernails. It wasn’t perfect, but it was yours.

What more could you ask for, after Strade?

What more could you ask for, after anything ?

--

Books are a vice. More than smoking, more than sex. You could give up sex, you could swear you’ll never buy another pack of smokes, but you could never give up books. 

Okay, okay. You’re being over dramatic and theatrical. But how can you think of books as anything other than a sinful pleasure when you’re surrounded by these shelves and stacks, imagining that one day you can afford an extension on your home and dedicate an entire room (or two--why not, in a daydream?) solely to books?

You’re not even supposed to be here today. It was your day off, and your calendar was packed to the brim with mundane errands. Today’s schedule certainly didn’t leave room for indulgently browsing at a bookstore, but sometimes you just have to live a little, don’t you? 

Although if you come home with yet another bag of books, your husband is bound to shove his face into the nearest couch cushion and scream. But c’mon. It wasn���t your fault that you’d long since run out of shelf space and were prone to stuffing the books into boxes that cluttered the closests. 

Your fingers wander over the spines of the books crammed onto the shelves, catching the uneven mismatched spaces between with every dip. The spines are often worn and weathered, some of them even peeling a little. 

This was why you preferred secondhand bookstores. No neat lines of fresh new books set up to catch the eye and make a sale here. No, instead there were countless books shoved together with no care for size or color or sometimes (depending on who was stocking that day) even genre. 

For instance, today you find a battered paperback copy of Carrie by Stephen King right next to a suspiciously pristine How to Keep Your House from Drowning that probably still has an uncracked spine. That poor soul, with a messy house. Maybe they should have read the book. 

You’re about to keep moving when, on second thought: Your partner might get a kick out of finding that book on his nightstand. Or he’ll chuck it at your head (lovingly) for bringing it into the house. It’s a 50/50 gamble that you’re willing to take.

And so you go to pull it out, a private little grin on your face, just as another hand reaches across for Carrie.

Fingers and elbows bump together and you feel that slight flush of awkward embarrassment rush to your cheeks as you sputter out, “Sorry!” Your voice even goes up an octave, an annoying habit that you’ve been trying to train out of yourself.

The stranger pulls away and mutters their own low apology. They sound just as awkward as you, which makes you feel a little better, at least, so you turn to look at them and offer an embarrassed smile and you think, briefly, maybe you’ll grab Carrie for them or cheekily ask if they were going for the cleaning book--

But when you turn to look at them, all thoughts and cheek are snuffed out.

Not because the man in front of you is wearing a nicely tailored business suit and matching fedora hat; a dark gray complimented by a muted burgundy tie. Like he’s off to a meeting or comes from a big city where such outfits are often found in shops and cafes during lunch hours.

Not because the man in front of you is attractive, with red hair with a bit of ever so slightly silver sticking out from underneath his hat; his cologne, soft but spicy, tickles your nose. 

But because the man in front of you is Ren. 

Older, yes. His hair and face peppered with signs of time, just like yours. There are scars on his face that you remember--some etched onto his flesh right in front of you, and some from that gray area of before, when Strade had yet to take you--and some you don’t. 

Your body is lead, your throat is closed up. Speech and movement are now foreign, unknowable things, because Ren is standing right in front of you.

It takes you a moment to shake it off; no, two moments. No, three. 

And then you can finally speak, although the word comes out hoarse and whispered, like every ounce of spit in your mouth vanished the instant you saw him. Perhaps it did. 

“ Ren ?” 

He blinks. His eyes narrow, eyebrows furrowing. For a terrible moment, you find yourself thrown back down the basement steps, when knowing the difference between Strade’s brows furrowing in annoyance or amusement could mean the difference between the degree of your upcoming burns.

And then his expression opens, widens, just enough for you to recognize that he knows who you are now and you’re here, in a bookshop, decades on; not there, not in the basement, where you left Strade’s corpse to rot.

Ren--for he is Ren, and you know it--lifts his hat, his lips turning up in a smile that makes your heart twist painfully, and shows just the bottom edges of his ears in greeting.

He says your name and your ears ring, high and tinny. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a cashier standing at the till rearranging trinkets while clearly spying on whatever bit of vaguely interesting gossip this might turn into during their lunch break. 

You had, in truth, imagined this moment before. Countless times. Usually at night, though you weren’t terribly picky; a long trip on a bus, head pressed against the window glass, was also a great time for such thoughts. 

You’d imagined finding Ren some day, in many different ways. 

In some fantasies, you look him up in the phonebook (a stupid idea fit only for a fantasy, because Ren would never put himself out there like that, just as you hadn’t) and give him a call and meet up at a park and you apologize until your lungs stop working. In another, you run into him somewhere else, a store or park; a coincidence just like this one. In still others, he finds you, offering to meet in a public space because he knows you’d be scared and he wants you to be comfortable and Ren would definitely think of things like that, considering your shared experiences. 

In your daydreams, you had a speech prepared. It was always moving, of course. It culminated in a soft, unbearably sweet hug where the two of you squeezed out the pain from the preceding decades and parted in mutual understanding. Maybe with each other’s phone numbers on slips of paper. 

But those were daydreams. This is real life.

In real life, your throat feels closed up; your eyes burn with hot tears that want to spill out, and everything from your chest to your cheeks feels hot and swollen. In real life, it is not the daydreams but your nightmares that worm their way into your brain: those nightmares you have (yes, have, still--even this far down the line) where he hates you, where he tells you that you left him there like he’s nothing, where he throws back all your whispered conversations in the dark back in your face.

In real life, you can only stammer out, expecting the nightmarish worst: “Ren. I’m s…sorry. I’m sorry . I shouldn’t--I shouldn’t have --”

Ren raises his hand; his brows furrow again. He says your name, once, twice. Softer. Gentler. 

“It’s okay,” he says, low. You don’t know if he means that it’s okay that you left him (it isn’t, is it?) or that it’s going to be okay or that he’s okay or--

Ren must sense your upcoming lack of steady breathing, because he places one steady hand on your shoulder. The way he used to do, when you started thinking about the fact that you were going to die in that house, and it would be an awful death, and the thought of it made you want to tear into your own skin. 

It brings you back down to the ground, which only makes you want to cry for a different reason.

Ren’s face has a touch of sticky pity on it when he smiles at you. 

“Why don’t we go somewhere we can sit down and talk?” 

--

You are sitting in a coffee shop across the way from a fox man who used to be tortured with you in the basement of a serial killer's home that doubled as a snuff film studio. There are people around you, but they might as well be invisible, be nothing at all. 

Because every nerve in your body is focused squarely on Ren, sitting in front of you with a muted awkward expression as the pair of you wait silently for the barista to call up your order. 

Neither of you have spoken since you sat down.

Sweat is beginning to stick to your neck, but you don’t want to move without warning--don’t want to startle Ren. If you do, maybe he’ll run off, and… no. He wouldn’t run off now. You can tell. He’s not like he used to be, and neither are you. 

There are decades between you, and yet--and yet that thread is still there, isn’t it? You could never fully cut it. Maybe it pulled, instead. Pulled and pulled and eventually lost all of its slack on this unassuming afternoon, when the two of you met again in a bookstore. Reaching for books with cracked and weathered spines, lines creasing over the paper like scars on the skin.

Your scars. His scars. 

How many times have you traced over the marks on your skin? How many times has he? Maybe he didn’t do it anymore. Maybe he was in a much better space than you, and that’s why he looks so awkward and you feel like your heart is about to pound right out of its chest. Because he’s moved on and you, stupid thing, just woke up in the basement in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

His shoulders straighten; you imagine, under his hat, that his ears have perked. For a moment,, a familiar sensation washes through you. Danger. He’s coming down the stairs and it’s going to hurt.

But Strade is dead. And you are alive, and Ren is alive, and his attention only raised because the barista set both of your coffees down on the counter. Nothing more than that.

Slowly, the world seems like it regains its normal gravity. The sweat clinging to your neck feels silly and not ominous. You can breathe, and the world of the coffee shop seems to settle around you like it would have on any other day.

“I’ll get them,” Ren says, quietly, eyeing you with wariness–like he’s the one worried about you bolting. Fuck. He’s probably right to think that; a moment ago, you might have been the one to run.

Ren pauses after he stands up, and there’s something soft and sad in his eyes when he looks at you. Part of you thinks he’s about to say that he’s going to leave, that this was a mistake. But instead, his lips curl and the softest of smiles, and he asks:

“You still like cream and sugar?”

Oh. 

“Yes,” you say, automatically. But you don’t. Not anymore. Tastebuds change and you drink it black with no cream, when you do bother to drink it. It’s not worth correcting, and you don’t. You just watch as he grabs both cups and heads over to the counter on the far side of the coffee shop, where there’s oodles of sugars (and sugar substitutes); creamers; and little tins of milk to add to your drink. 

Then your phone vibrates, and the “fuck!” that comes out of your mouth is involuntary. It was about the time that you should have been heading home, bookstore stop  notwithstanding. What were you going to say to him? That you’d run into someone from your past that used to get tortured with you? That you remember what Ren looks like when his flesh is sliced into and pulled apart? 

You heading home? Took ground beef out for dinner. Tacos?

Your thumb hovers over the phone screen. You’re going to lie. You already know that. Even if you were ready to tell him about your past, it would not be like this. Even you, not particularly attuned to mobile etiquette, knew it was better to confess something like this in person. Although the temptation to confess it all and  add silly emojis to punctuate the gritty details was very strong.

Ran into an old friend , you type, finally. They want to hang out a bit. Tacos are fine, don’t wait up! Xoxoxo.

It feels so normal. And that’s okay, isn’t it? That you’re being normal right now. It’s a sign that you’ve come so far, if anything. And you’ll take any of those signs that you can manage to get, so when the text comes in–

Can’t wait to hear about it!

I don’t guarantee there will be tacos left. 

Kidding.

… Maybe.

–you let that normalcy wash over you, and it helps you settle as Ren returns, coffee mugs in hand.

His expression is lighter, too. He probably notices the weight off your shoulders, the way you’re trying to look interested and perhaps even excited to see him, rather than looking like you’re about to throw up on a half-empty stomach.

He slides your mug across the table and you can tell at a glance that it’s going to be sweet. A hesitant sip, your tongue curling back from the warmth and inevitable sugar, confirms it. Milky and creamy, just like you used to take it.

“Do you live around here?” Ren asks, taking a sip from his own mug.

Such an average question. It’s almost enough to make you snort. Really, you should be asking him when he got out of that basement and whether or not he ever thought about cutting you open and if he still had dreams, like you did.

Instead, he’s asking something you might ask an old high school friend that you haven’t seen in twenty years. 

Fuck. What a world you live in. 

Maybe he senses your thoughts. Maybe the two of you really are in tune from what you went through together. Because he cracks a smile, the edge of a sharp tooth showing. And then the smile spreads and turns into a little chuckle. It’s not the giggling snort he would sometimes fall into at the house. It’s something older and more reserved, but that shouldn’t surprise you. You’re the same way.

You take another sip of the coffee. It really is too sweet. That’s how you took it at the house, though. It was better to drown your sorrows in creamer and packets of sugar–pilfered from diners that Strade went to, sometimes to scope for victims–than mope about them all the time.

“I really am curious,” he says, voice light. “If you’re okay with telling me.” Something different in his tone. Offense, maybe? God, it’s strange, being on the lookout for what someone’s tone really means again. 

But it’s just Ren. You shouldn’t be so worried about it.

“It’s fine,” you say, just as light. “Yeah, maybe about half an hour away? I have a little house…”

Ren’s eyebrows raise. Not in surprise, exactly. But in interest. It relieves you, just a little, that he didn’t let out some sarcastic remark about having your own place away from him.

“Do you have a garden?” He asks. “You always did talk about getting one.”

A twinge in your heart. Bittersweet and old. Sometimes at night, when the two of you were allowed to curl up together, you would talk about a fantasy world. A world where you never came here; where you’d be and what you’d do. Sometimes, you’d be in a pretty little cottage with a pretty little garden in a pretty little town.

Well. Your garden is pretty, even if your house isn’t an adorable cottage and you live at the edge of sprawling suburbs where you have to drive 20 minutes to get to anything useful. Close enough?

You tell him about it. The house and the garden. You even tell him about your partner, and maybe his smile does quirk down a little, then. But you could be imagining it. 

“Do you have kids?” Ren asks, next. If he were anyone else, it would be a mundane question--the kind you ask every couple who's been together a while. In Ren, it feels different. Serious. Sincere. He tilts his head a little, taking another sip of his coffee, which prompts you to do the same.

Kids. Hah. It wasn’t like the thought had never crossed your mind. But it didn’t happen. For a lot of reasons, it didn’t happen. Mind and body and the basement worked against you, and maybe there was a part of you that was afraid to bring anything into the world, because you knew it could be taken away. Taken to someone’s basement and hurt and hurt and hurt –

Ren says your name.

Ren’s hand is on yours. 

You glance down at his hand–see a familiar scar, see that your hand underneath his is curled up and tense–and then look  up at his face. 

Oh, the passing of time. 

“Me neither,” he says, softly. Like he knows why you didn’t and couldn’t, and maybe he was the same way. 

It hurts too much to think about. So you clear your throat and slowly pull your hand away, letting it rest on the now cooling mug of coffee. You take another swig, despite it not being to your taste anymore. Ren really did put in a lot of creamer.

“What about you?”

His head tilts, almost slow, almost curious.

“Me?”

He blinks.

You blink back. 

“Do you live around here?” 

A smile–an Ahhh sort of smile. 

“No,” he says, simply. He shakes his head. “I travel a lot.” He nods his head. “For business.”

“Oh,” you say. “What sort of business?”

A flicker in his gaze. Something sharp and familiar. It’s gone too soon to matter. 

“This and that,” is all he says.

And there’s a strange sort of realization in your head. A fuzziness that seems to spread right to your scalp. This is all too casual, too normal. It’s not at all what it was supposed to be, when you met. Asking about homes and gardens and kids and what you do for work; fuck, you two had been tortured together. Had watched people die. Had helped other people die. 

This should have been about more than banal pleasantries. This should have been about reconnecting. About that thread between the two of you that couldn’t be cut, even now.

Maybe it’s that fuzziness in your scalp and maybe it’s the lurching of your heart, but you reach out your hand again towards Ren; your hand and your heart reaching and aching –

“Why did you run that day?” Soft and to the point. All the years have led to this question. 

The question drops your hand straight to the table. The thud feels harder than it sounds. What ease your heart had mellowed to earlier melts away entirely, and you can feel adrenaline beginning to pump, your heart pounding and racing. Your ears hurt.

Why did you run? It’s the question you wanted him to ask, isn’t it? The question that would lead to your big sappy explanation and apology and the sentimental hug before you two parted ways, perhaps with phone numbers in your pockets? 

But now that Ren is real again; now that he’s here, lines around his eyes and a touch of silver in his hair, you don’t know how to answer.

You ran because you were scared. Scared of people from Strade’s fucked up streams finding you in that house. Scared of Strade’s corpse rotting in the basement. Scared, too, of Ren. Of being chained to him, or by him, and you could never be sure which was more likely. 

You ran because you weren’t strong enough to face whatever was left behind for you in that fucking house. 

Thickness lodges in your throat but you swallow against it. This is not a daydream. This is real life. And you have to own up to what you did now. 

“Ren, I–” 

The words don’t come, because the world suddenly spins. The fuzziness prickling on your scalp, your ears ringing, your heart going too fast–this has all been too much for you, you should have known that. There are brief thoughts–heart attack, stroke, fuck, fuck, FUCK–and then Ren’s hand is gripping your upper arm so you don’t fall out of the chair. 

“Are you okay?” Your vision is clear enough to see the concern in his face. His brows furrow together and he looks around, telling someone– ”Yes, I'm going to get her home” --and you’re about to tell him not to take you to the hospital because your insurance has a high deductible for the emergency room when another dizzy spell hits you, and you’d rather be in debt than dead.

“Should I call an ambulance?” He asks, voice low, calming. Your mind latches onto it. You’re not alone, it’s going to be okay. Someone is here to take care of you, and if you have to go to the emergency room, well, it couldn't have happened at a better time.

Ambulances cost too much money, though, and Ren 

“Could you drive me?” Even as you talk, you know something’s wrong. The words come out too slow, a little slurry. Almost like you’re drunk. 

Ren starts to shake his head and your dizzy self makes a pitiful sound. 

You swear you can see Ren’s ears twitching underneath his hat. You don’t have the presence of mind to think about why–where and when he’s heard that pitiful whimper before–so you just cling to him as he gently pulls you out of your chair.

He grabs your purse and carefully leads you out of the shop. Someone holds the door open, and he tells them that you’re going to the emergency room, thank you for the concern. Your head swims and you might mumble thank you to them, too, but you’re not entirely sure. Are you dying? Is it a stroke? Will the last thing you texted the love of your life be about dinner? It’s funny in that awful, delirious sort of way.

“Ren?” You ask, helpless. You’re holding onto him as tightly as you can, but your fingers feel fuzzy. Your whole body feels fuzzy, actually. Heavy and strange. Drunk and leaden.

“It’s all right,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you into my car, all right?”

You don’t have the presence of mind to wonder why his car is already out on the curb, running, with a driver in the front seat. You aren’t coherent enough to think about things like that; but then, even before you drank the coffee cup laced with a sedative, you didn’t notice the black car following the pair of you down the road to the coffee shop. 

You didn’t notice it follow you to the bookstore, either, nor did you give it a second glance when it pulled out of the lot after you stopped in at the grocery store to pick up a few miscellaneous items.

You really had lost your touch after all these years.

Ren grips you carefully while he opens the back door to the car. It’s roomy, expensive. Clean black leather seats that probably don’t show stains. Up front, a driver sits, wearing a hat and sunglasses and a uniform.

There’s a brief thought–Jesus, what does Ren do for a living to afford this?--before Ren is helping you crawl into the backseat.

The movement only makes you dizzier, and you’re telling the person in the front seat, whoever they are, that you need to get to the nearest hospital please.

They don’t even turn to look at you. It’s strange. But then Ren is there in the backseat with you, and you’re mumbling the same thing to him. Rattling off your symptoms–dizzy, fuzzy, confused, tingling hands. You try to remember the test for a stroke but can’t.

Ren smiles at you.

Why is he smiling? That thought comes through loud and clear, but it doesn’t stick for very long.

“Ren,” you say, slurring. “The hospital, the nearest one is… I think it’s… you have to…”

And those words, difficult as they are to get out, slowly drop away. Because while your mind is not capable of many things right now, it is capable of registering something unusual.

Ren. 

He doesn’t look worried anymore. No more concern furrowing his brow, no more softness. 

Instead, he looks pleased. There’s a smug smile on his face, and you’ve seen it before, but it’s older now. Wiser. Less impulsive and more assured. 

A cat–a fox–that caught the canary. And you, what little remains of your logical mind tells you, are one dumb bird. 

And he knows that you know. Because he jerks his chin at the driver in the front, who must press some kind of button; the doors lock. Loud. Hard. Your numb hands fumble for the door handle but no matter how much you try to shove the door open, it doesn’t budge.

 You're locked in.

“Back to the hotel for now,” Ren says. Not to you. To the driver. Who–to your horror–begins to pull away from the curb.

“Oh, no–” You try to scream. It’s not quite loud enough. Not quite sharp enough. but maybe someone can see you, even through the tinted windows. Or they’ll hear you and tell someone, who will maybe tell someone else, who might call the cops. If you’re lucky.

Ren’s hand cups your mouth firmly. 

“Don’t waste your energy, you’ll need it soon.” The hand moves from your lips to your cheek, resting there. The look in Ren’s eyes is blurry–whatever he drugged you with is making it hard to focus–but you recognize bits of it, because you felt the same damn thing.

The awful mixture of nostalgia, regret and ache.

Maybe if you explain everything. Tell him why you ran. Apologize like hell. You won’t be hugging after this, but you won't be drugged up (what did he give you?) in the back of his car, either. 

“Ren– the hous e–I ran–I–let me explain, it–”

Ren’s hand trails back to your mouth. The sharp edges of his nails graze against your nose.

“Hush. We’ll talk about all that later.” 

Later?

Oh, fuck –

There’s an awful, stabbing pain in your thigh–you look down and see Ren pulling away a syringe with a bright silver needle.

Ren–you try to say his name, but when you open your mouth, nothing comes out. Your lips gape and close and words no longer form.

Your head is swimming now, all highs and lows, dipping and rising over waves that never seem to end. It’s like you're falling asleep in the worst way, hard and rocky.

Like you’re falling backwards down the basement stairs. 

Ren’s voice is the last thing you hear before you black out.

“Sweet dreams.” 

[meadowfics]

funerals

husband!father!kang dae ho x f!wife!mother!reader

this is apart of my 'kang family' series

warnings: death, angst, childhood trauma (again I know sorry), new permanent character dropped.

the heat felt different back in your home country. not in a bad way, it was just unfamiliar. it is thick and humid in a way that clung to your skin, whispering reminders of a childhood you barely remembered.

you stood outside the chapel, your black dress clinging slightly to your waist as a soft breeze drifted past. it smelled like grass, like wildflowers growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. beside you, dae-ho stood quietly, his hand resting against the small of your back, his other hand holding your carry-on bag from the rented car.

you never imagined you would ever be back here. not like this.

just two days ago, you were home, your real home now back in south korea, laughing with seo-ah as she painted tigger stripes on dae-ho’s face with a makeup brush, rocking byeol to sleep after another late-night feeding, sipping warm barley tea while folding laundry. it was supposed to be a normal week.

suddenly, the call came.

a voice from your past. a distant cousin who thought you had vanished years ago, who believed the rumors that you, like your mother and older sister, were gone. however, she found you on facebook. when she did, she sent you a message which told you something you hadn’t prepared for.

your father was dead.

you hadn’t seen him since you were six years old. an entire lifetime ago. a time when your mother grabbed your wrist and pulled you through airport security with nothing but two small suitcases and a promise you didn’t understand.  

you never saw him again.

you didn’t cry. you didn’t scream. you just stared at the text message.  

when you told dae-ho, his reaction was immediate.  

“we’ll go,” he said, without hesitation. your husband noticed the urgency in your eyes.

“the girls?”  

“jia can watch them. she’d be happy to.”  

now here you were in your home country, standing on foreign soil that still knew your name.  

you felt strange. not empty, but not full either. just… somewhere in between.

dae-ho glanced at you, squeezing your waist gently, “you okay?”

you nodded, unsure if it was a lie or not, “i think so.”

he looked at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable but warm, “you don’t have to be. not here.”

you breathed in slowly.  

“i don’t remember him,” you admitted, “not really. just flashes. just his laugh, the smell of his coffee. how he’d lift me up after work even if he looked so tired.”

dae-ho didn’t speak. he only pulled you in closer, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. the silence was respectful. grounding.

“i’m not sad,” you said again, softly, “i think i’m mourning the idea of him more than the real person. the dad i wish i could’ve known. i always wondered if he looked for me. if he missed me.”

dae-ho pressed a kiss to your temple, “i’m sure he did.”

you didn’t say anything else. all you did was stare at the doors ahead. the thing is that mourning someone you barely knew wasn’t like the grief you felt when you lost others. it was quieter. more complicated. a bruise instead of a break.  

yet, it still ached because this was the man you should have had. this was the goodbye you never expected since you already said goodbye before.

the air inside the funeral service hall was thick. it is not just with incense and whispers, but with something heavier. memory. grief. time.

you stood beside daeho in silence, staring at the rows of mourners in disbelief. you expected no more than a dozen people, maybe less. it stunned you to see how many had come. there is maybe a hundred people. there were old men in suits, women in traditional dress, young adults clinging to handkerchiefs, their eyes red. the space was warm with presence with history.

it felt foreign to you.

your mother’s funeral had been a formality. three coworkers of hers. no eulogies. no warmth. your sister’s... slightly more. a few classmates, polite nods. no one stayed long. it all felt empty.

this?

this felt... full and heavy with love. as if the man in that open casket had touched the lives of everyone in this room.

you couldn’t speak. you didn’t know how to make sense of this man who was yours, and yet — wasn’t. a father you hadn’t seen since you were six. a man your mother demonized until the very end.

your heart pounded as you slowly approached the casket, unsure why you even wanted to see him. you left daeho by the seats as you approached the casket alone… maybe you wanted closure. maybe proof. the whispers of the crowd faded into white noise.

there he was.

your breath caught. you stopped at the foot of the casket.

your father.

of course his face had changed, but not unrecognizably. he is older, softer. silver streaks in his hair, the creases around his eyes deeper, carved by years you hadn’t witnessed but his jaw, his lips… it was yours. that familiar bone structure that your mother used to curse when she looked at you.

he looked peaceful now like he was somewhere better. maybe he had already been there in the years you missed.

you just stood there, absorbing him. the version of him who might have changed. grown. healed.

suddenly, a quiet presence moved close beside you.

you glanced over, expecting a stranger, maybe someone paying their respects.

the young man standing beside you was not a stranger, not quite. the boy’s eyes were rimmed with red, a stubborn tear threatening to fall as he stared down at the same face.

he didn’t look at you. not yet.

he just murmured, mostly to himself, “he was the strongest man i’ve ever known.”

your eyes flicked to him. he couldn’t have been older than twenty years old. he is tall, with a kind face and a grief that hung around him like a second skin.

“according to my mom, he used to drink a lot,” the boy added quietly, “he told me that he lost everything before i was born but then he got clean and built his life again. everything you see here... he did it all over from scratch.”

your throat tightened. something raw twisted in your chest.

“i wish i got to know him,” you whispered.

the next words would break you. the boy will say it so casually, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“yeah… my dad was amazing.”

your breath stopped and everything in your body went still.

you turned to him slowly, heart thudding like thunder in your ears.

“…dad?”

he looked at you now, confused, blinking.

“yes. this was my dad,” he said again, softer this time like he could see the tremble in your lip. he didn’t understand the weight of the word he’d just used.

you didn’t speak for a few seconds.

you just looked at him, this boy with your father’s eyes, with something soft and unsteady building in your chest. your hands trembled at your sides. a hundred emotions collided at once: grief, disbelief, awe, envy. something unspoken cracked open.

voice breaking, you said:

“he was my dad too.”

the boy’s breath caught.

those eyebrows furrowed, and his lips parted like he was about to speak, but didn’t. he stared at you for a long moment, and then something clicked in his eyes. recognition. realization. memory, maybe or a whisper of a photo he had once seen.

“…are you y/n?” he asked.

you nodded, barely able to form the word.

he swallowed hard, “he told me he had two daughters. my older half-sisters but... he thought you were gone.”

you exhaled shakily, a tear finally slipping down your cheek.

“i’m still here,” you said, “mi... she passed away thirteen years ago but i’m here.”

he looked away for a second, emotions storming in his face. he nodded slowly.

“i’m ezra,” he said, “i… always wanted to meet you.”

you tried to speak, but another wave of emotion rose up in your throat, choking you. you reached for something to steady yourself…but it was daeho’s hand that found yours first.

he had come up behind you quietly, watching. his eyes darted between you and ezra with silent concern.

“is everything alright?” daeho asked gently.

you looked at him, your hand still in ezra’s.

“daeho,” you said, voice thick, “this is ezra. my… my um… brother.”

something soft shifted in daeho’s face. surprise, but not shock. warmth. quiet understanding. he gave ezra a small nod, then looked at you with nothing but love.

ezra gave a small smile.

“do you both want to talk outside?” he asked.

you nodded.

together, the three of you stepped out into the light. your heart was full of everything you never thought you’d get… and all the things you’d still have to work through.

the sun hung low over the distant skyline, its golden light filtering through the trees that framed the edges of the cemetery. you sat on the bench quietly beside ezra and daeho, the late afternoon breeze brushing softly against your skin, warm enough to feel like some strange comfort in all of this. 

your hands were resting on your lap, fingers locked together tightly…until daeho slid his hand over yours, gently loosening them.

ezra leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he exhaled through his nose. 

"dad told me that he met my mom maybe five years after you left," he started, his voice steadier than it had been inside. 

"they met at this hardware shop she was working at. he was still rebuilding his life back then, but he was... really different already."

you blinked slowly, processing.

"he was clean. sober. had been for over a year when they met. he was trying to build this business from scratch. something with woodworking and furniture, he was really good at it. said it helped him stay grounded."

you stayed quiet, listening, feeling every word land with more and more weight.

you remembered your mom talking about dad working with renovations and stuff.

"i was born a year after they got married," ezra continued. "it was always just us three. he... he was amazing, y/n. like, breakfast every morning, dad jokes, helping me with math even though he sucked at it," he chuckled softly, and the sound pierced through your heart like light through a crack, "he was there. all the time. even when he got sick. he still found a way to show up for me.”

you swallowed hard, nodding slowly, but the tears were there…just barely held back.

this wasn’t the man your mother screamed about when you were a kid. this wasn’t the monster she told you to hate. this wasn’t the man she said didn’t love you. this man? this version? this father? he could have been yours. if she hadn’t taken you away. if she hadn’t made you believe you weren’t wanted.

"y/n..." daeho murmured beside you, his thumb brushing over your knuckles as he noticed your silence shift. your eyes shimmered with that soft, hollow ache, and he already knew.

you had missed out on so much.

"i'm sorry," ezra said softly, eyes catching the slight tremble in your lip, "i... didn’t mean to make you upset. i just thought you should know. he talked about you. both of you. he thought you were gone. not... dead, just unreachable. i don’t even think he knew about mi’s death."

you took a breath, voice finally escaping, "i wish i could’ve known him like that."

he was still an alcoholic when he was still with your mother. ezra didn’t speak, only nodded gently in understanding.

daeho shifted slightly beside you, offering his presence like he always did…quiet and strong. he could see the similarities now. ezra’s eyes held the same peace yours did when you were content. the boy’s jawline had the same curve. 

when he smiled, even for that brief moment, it was the same small, lopsided smile you gave when something made your heart flutter.

"how’s life in korea?" ezra asked, trying to ease the mood, to distract from the grief welling in both of your chests.

you looked up, clearing your throat gently, "it wasn’t easy. my mom forced us there when i was six. it was a new language, new everything. i didn’t know anyone, and... she wasn’t the best."

daeho looked over at you softly. he knew what that meant. what you didn’t say. what you’d lived through.

"but i made it," you continued, your voice lifting just slightly, "i survived. i live in a quiet town just twenty minutes outside of seoul now. it’s calm. beautiful, actually. i’ve got a little home with a garden, and my husband..." you glanced at daeho, smiling faintly, "he makes it all feel like home. i have two daughters now. seo-ah, she’s four and a half and byeol, she's just six months."

ezra's face lit up for the first time that day, his eyes softening with wonder. 

"nieces?" he said with a little grin, the first real one.

you nodded, "they’re happy girls. they’re with their aunt right now, daeho’s sister. they’re everything to me."

"what are they like?"

you laughed, "seo-ah’s this fearless ball of sunshine. she loves soccer, climbing trees, getting her clothes dirty. byeol’s still tiny, but she’s calm. observant. i think she’s gonna be the thinker."

ezra beamed, "sounds like they have a really good mom."

you didn’t know what to say to that. your throat tightened, but you smiled softly, blinking back the sting in your eyes. 

"thank you," you whispered.

after a beat, ezra asked quietly, "what... was mi like? i mean, before..."

your heart sank slightly.

you folded your hands again, fingers nervous. “mi was... really creative. she was into everything. music, art, theater. she had this spark when we were kids…always dancing around, talking about dreams. she had a huge laugh. too loud for school plays. but she was... she was so bright.”

you didn’t want to tell ezra the downsides to having your older sister in your life… it just wasn’t the time to do so.

ezra smiled, listening.

"she struggled," you added, "she had a lot of pain that went unnoticed. untreated. our mom... didn’t make it easy and when mi passed, it felt like the world just got quieter."

he nodded, absorbing the weight of it.

"she didn’t die from sickness like dad," you added softly, "she took her own life and my mom... she died the year after. bone cancer. it was a lot."

"i’m sorry," ezra said again, his voice thick, "i didn’t mean to open old wounds."

"it’s okay," you said, finally reaching out to rest your hand on his arm, "i think... this was meant to happen. us meeting. maybe not in the way i hoped, but still. we just met but i am happy to have met you, ezra"

daeho looked over at you, his eyes holding nothing but admiration. this woman beside him… who had survived so much, who loved so hard despite everything, who now sat beside her newest discovery aka her younger brother like a tether to a family she thought she had lost. you are the bravest person he knew.

ezra nodded, then smiled, “you know, when you first walked in... i thought i recognized you. you have his eyes. i guess i do too.”

you turned to him, really looked at him.

"yeah. you do."

you stayed there a while longer. the sky slowly turning orange as the sun dipped lower, the breeze gentle. there were so many holes in the past you’d never be able to fill but this, this moment, felt like stitching something back together. a start. a piece of healing you never knew you needed.

back inside the funeral home, the walls seemed quieter now, as if the weight of grief had settled into the air and hushed every whisper into something sacred. the scent of incense still lingered, and the soft murmur of conversations blended with the slow piano music humming in the background. 

you walked back through the door, daeho by your side, as ezra gently motioned for someone to come over.

from what you could guess, it was her. ezra’s mother. your father’s wife.

the woman’s hazel eyes widened softly as she approached, her footsteps slow, almost reverent. she looked at you with something between disbelief and recognition, as if the ghost of someone long ago had stepped into her present day.

“oh my goodness, y/n!” she pulled you into a hug. you hugged her back as if you’ve known about her for a very long time except for an hour ago.

“you look just like him,” she whispered, hand over her heart, her voice trembling with emotion, “so beautiful.”

your heart clenched at those words. your mother had never looked at you like this woman just did…not with awe, not with kindness. your voice came out quieter than intended. 

“it’s... nice to meet you.”

she nodded slowly, studying you, “i always saw you in the old photos. you and your sister. your father… he never stopped loving you both. he always said he hoped one day he’d find a way to see you again. we even tried searching once when you would've been thirteen years old but there wasn’t much to go off of.”

you nodded, your throat tightening.

suddenly came that question, inevitable and soft, “is your sister here?”

you froze for a second, but ezra quietly murmured, “mom…”

you placed a hand on his arm and gently shook your head.

“no,” you said, “she’s not here. she passed away thirteen years ago.”

the woman’s face fell. she sighed, her voice a breath, “i’m so sorry. she was my stepdaughter too, even if we never met. i still hoped…”

you nodded in silence, your heart heavy. the woman’s eyes lifted behind you, and her expression warmed as she noticed daeho.

“and who is this?” she asked gently.

you turned slightly. 

“my husband,” you said softly, almost proudly, “this is daeho, kang dae-ho.”

she smiled as she extended her hand to him. 

“her father would’ve loved you,” she told him, with such certainty it made your eyes sting, “he really would’ve. i don’t know you that well but he wanted her to have someone strong, someone kind. you have that face.”

“thank you,” daeho said, bowing slightly as he shook her hand, “that means a lot.”

ezra walked away to linger near the casket again, and something pulled you back toward it with him, to that space where your father lay peaceful, untouched by pain. you moved slowly, your heels silent against the polished floor. 

the tears you had been holding since your arrival threatened now to spill over, the closer you got.

you stood beside your half-brother, eyes scanning your father’s face. he really was gone. and suddenly, it wasn’t just a man lying in a casket…it was all the years you never got. all the birthdays missed, the comfort that could’ve been yours, the warmth of a father you never got to meet again, not as an adult. not as a mother. not as someone who had healed so much, only to discover another piece missing.

your tears fell. slow at first, then steady. your hand rose to your mouth, as if to keep them inside, but it was no use.

ezra looked over, unsure, until you turned toward him and opened your arms. he didn’t hesitate. he stepped into your embrace, arms tight around you, like two people trying to hold each other together when the world had shifted beneath their feet.

you held him like you always wanted to be held as a child…safe. close. known. you hoped ezra had that. to say you were happy for your father’s growth would be an understatement. he had done what so few men did… he had changed to become better and to become loved.

goodness, how you wished you had seen it. you wished you heard him laugh again. you wished you could’ve watched him rebuild, even from the sidelines.

you wished seo-ah and byeol could’ve met him and love him as their grandpa.

“i missed him,” you whispered into ezra’s shoulder, “i missed him before i even knew the version of him you got to love.”

“he would’ve been so proud of you,” ezra said back, just as quiet, “he always said... he hoped you were okay and that he hoped... wherever you were, you had peace.”

your knees nearly gave out at that, but daeho was there, behind you now, sliding his arm around your waist, steadying you.

you had survived a hell he never knew. your father had lived a redemption you never got to see.

yet somehow, through different roads, you had both made it to love. you, with your husband and your babies. your dad, with a family and a second chance.

you knew things happened for a reason. standing there now, holding onto a newfound brother, a grieving son, and the ghost of a father who’d once lost you... you finally understood how much you’d missed him and how, maybe, you still had time to reclaim what pieces you could. not from him, but from the family that remained, from ezra. 

you stood near the casket a few more moments after the embrace with ezra, your fingers lightly brushing along the edge of the polished wood as you tried to memorize the lines of your father’s face. 

even in death, he held a presence that felt far away but deeply familiar, like a song you knew from childhood but could no longer remember the lyrics to.

unfortunately, your mind wandered.

yes, back to those games. back to those cold dorms. you remember the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. the stifling scent of sweat, fear, bleach, and blood thick in the air. it was the third night after red light, green light, and everyone was still shaken. 

daeho had collapsed that night, trembling with the kind of fear that words couldn’t reach. you’d held him against your chest, your hand over his back, trying to ground him through the waves of his panic. your man’s tears had soaked into your shirt, and your free hand had brushed the strands of his hair back as he finally fell asleep, trembling less with each second.

you hadn’t been able to sleep.

instead, you’d looked up at the massive glowing piggy bank suspended above the dorms. so much money hanging above your heads, as if it were meant to make the blood and death seem worth it. 

your eyes locked onto the glass, staring at the way the gold shimmered, and suddenly, the thought struck you so violently that it nearly stole your breath.

your father… was my father alive?

it had been so long since you thought of him in any real way. your mother had painted him as the devil. during those games that night… standing there, alone, surrounded by strangers who would kill for cash… you’d remembered a moment. you remembered a a warm voice and a hand helping you into your shoes as a child. a man who didn’t seem cruel at all. you cried that night. you hadn’t cried for him since you were a little girl. you did then, alone, while daeho slept beside you in the dark. 

you cried wondering if he was dead. if he’d ever searched for you. if he even remembered your name. now, here you were looking into the eyes of a young man he raised, a son who’d gotten everything you wanted. he got love, and comfort. everything you thought you’d never find.

ezra was scrolling through his phone now, his hand trembling slightly as he pulled up his contacts. he handed it to you, and you added your number quietly.

“here,” you whispered, your voice thick, “just in case.”

he smiled faintly, then looked at daeho, “can i add you too?”

“of course,” daeho said, already reaching for his own phone, “you’re family.”

ezra swallowed at those words. he blinked quickly like he was holding back emotion, nodding as he accepted it.

“thank you,” he said softly.

“do you go to university?” you asked, sitting beside him on the bench again, “i don’t want to bother you at any time, especially with the time zone difference between here and korea if you have a busy schedule..”

he laughed gently, “i do. final term coming up but… i want to see you again. if that’s okay.”

“it’s more than okay,” you said, “maybe… when you get time off… you can come to korea. meet your nieces and we can talk more.”

ezra’s eyes lit up, “really?”

you nodded, tears forming again, “really.”

for the first time since meeting him, you saw something in his eyes that mirrored your own. the quiet grief of what was lost. also, the fragile hope of what could still be found. you and ezra had grown up in two completely different universes, both orbiting around the same man. somehow, now, the threads were weaving together.

you reached out and gently squeezed his hand. “maybe we didn’t get what we needed from our childhoods,” you whispered, “you said you’ve always wanted to meet your only siblings. i’m sorry about mi but now i can be here whenever you need anything.”

ezra smiled through watery eyes, “i’d like that.”

you didn’t know what the future would bring. maybe just a few messages now and then… maybe shared holidays one day… maybe a whole new branch of love for your daughters. 

however, this new discovery might’ve healed something inside of you that you’ve thought was impossible to ever heal.

kang family series linked here

[cryptocism]

I got some questions if that’s ok? lol

1: has Thad ever admitted his feelings to Kon? (Probably not lol)

2: let’s say Thad does, what’s Kon’s reaction?

3: got any headcanons/triva stuff for Thad?

4: what about Bart?

oh boy ill do my best to give decent answers!

1: hmm i think it would depend on the circumstances? but overall ur right probably not haha. Thad navigating new and terrifying relationships in an absurdly neurotic and dramatic way is one of my favourite avenues to take his character so if he ever DID it would have to be extremely embarrassing for everyone involved

2: ppl may have gathered im a big fan of unrequited/onesided romance lmao so 90% of the time id say Kon tries to let him down easy

3: ohh Thad headcanons...

i mean piggybacking off of the konthad discussion i do think of Thad having a crush on Kon as a very puppy love/hero worship kind of crush. like i can't really see them in a real relationship bc im too attached to Thad putting Kon on a pedestal lmaoo. like here's this guy who is also a clone but still has his own identity/life/friends/interests outside of Clark and yet also has an amicable relationship with the guy and his family! it's all Thad has ever wanted!!! and with the rose-coloured lenses on he doesn't clock all the ways Kon actually really struggles with basically all those things.

yall already know abt my goth Thad propaganda which is based on very little except that he'd likely want to differentiate himself from Bart's appearance and a vibe that he's naturally drawn to a darker/edgier aesthetic (based on his palette-swapped black Impulse suit and the needlessly dramatic cloak and the look CRAYDL goes for when they inhabit the technoplasm monster)

^this is a little in conflict with another canon-adjacent headcanon which is Thad's hyperactive level of social awareness. i do think he wants most people to like him unless he's deemed them an enemy, so he fronts a very amicable sociable young man when he's around strangers or people he wants to impress. im reconciling it with the countercultural goth aesthetic by saying he can contain multitudes :P (also i think of Thad as having a delightfully dialectical brain that both desperately wants to be unique and special but also instinctively tries to comply with societal expectations)

not based in canon at all but i think he should be into the kinds of animals people find weird/gross/strange. #1 rat/snake/spider/insect defender he should have a pet snake named cornwallace or something.

4: aand Bart headcanons!

i really like how into video games he is especially in his solo and i would love to see that explored more as a genuine special interest. he tops speedrunning leaderboards and finds the insane easter eggs and secrets. his username (which is either his full legal name or an inscrutable series of numbers and letters no inbetween) becomes infamous in several online circles. ppl beg him to start streaming but Bart doesn't care he's in it for the love of the game

i really enjoy Bart having an eclectic aesthetic big fan of the grunge skater stuff he was wearing in the 90s and in sprinkles throughout the 2000s. one thing abt modern comics that makes me a lil sad is how everyone seems to have the same general sense of style :( (which is more a fault of tight deadlines and lack of characterization rather than the fault of the artists lbr)

the man strikes me as a collectibles guy he likes the fun of tracking down rare trading cards/action figures/etc and the satisfaction of a complete set. i think he would use facebook marketplace worldwide and have endless frustrations trying to communicate with the sellers

i want his having read a whole library to actually have an impact on things so i do think he has a grasp on most latin alphabet languages (having read every X to english dictionary) so his vocabulary is awesome but his grammar and accent are Trash (like he can read signage but struggles to hold a coherent conversation)

[biancasaidstfu]

The drastic difference in reactions in the sides of the fandom to the silence is very telling. Lukolas are just sitting in calm patience which to be honest we kind of deserve a medal for our patience. And the other side is hysterical. If they’re so right, why are they so upset?

No one knows these people in real life. We don’t even know the real story behind half our Facebook friends and we’ve met a bunch of them in person. We’re seeing only a snapshot of anyone’s life on social media.

I’m over generalizing here (so please forgive that) but I’ve noticed that many of my very close friends in happy relationships rarely post on social media about each other OR together. Their husbands rarely ever comment or react to their posts and half the time that includes their kids 1st day of school pic. On the other hand, my close friends who I know have crappy relationships are always posting about how happy they are and how great their spouse is (like all the time). I’m guessing you can tell I’ve seen a lot of these posts this week around the holidays. 🤣

I have a point I promise (lol). As Taylor Swift says so eloquently ‘you can hear it in the silence’. I guess I’ve just realized through this fandom that’s only true if you’re really listening.

LISTEN. TO. ANON!!!!

[weaselandfriends]

The Making Of: Fargo

Today, May 4 2025, is the tenth anniversary of when I started Fargo! To celebrate, here is a behind-the-scenes/retrospective on the work. Enjoy!

I. This Is Your Brain On Anime

I started writing Fargo at the lowest point in my life. I'd been watching anime.

For years, I'd managed to not watch anime. Sure, there was Pokémon as a kid, and to a lesser extent Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh. And as a preteen cinephile who followed the Oscars, Spirited Away's Best Animated win got me to pick it up on DVD. I'd later seen a handful of anime films that similarly carried cinephile credibility: other Miyazakis (Nausicaä, Princess Mononoke), Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Paprika. But I had always refused to watch anime anime. You know what I mean. The seasonal stuff.

In 2007, the final fringe of Wild West internet before Facebook changed everything, seasonal anime was exploding in popularity. A lot of this was due to sheer accessibility. No longer did you need to find a VHS release of some OVA or hope for a play on Adult Swim. Fan subbing and dubbing communities rendered more-or-less anything showing up in Japan available to worldwide audiences via a nifty new site called YouTube. This level of immediacy, combined with the niche tight-knit communities that governed the internet prior to social media, made following seasonal anime a social event. Week by week people posted reactions, reviews, theories, and memes, driving up engagement and rapidly expanding anime's reach as an entertainment medium.

The big breakthrough title in this regard is 2006's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a massively influential show that changed the look and feel of mainstream anime for years. But my first brush with the anime community came via the following year's Lucky Star, by the same studio and with the same moe stylings. As I prowled the boards of Nintendo's official forum, Nsider, and its successor Nsider 2 (after Nintendo, in characteristically Nintendo fashion, annihilated the site from existence without warning), I found myself constantly bumping into people posting pictures of these four hyper-cutesy anime girls with candy-colored hair. They were everywhere. Teenage me took one look and came to an unshakeable and incontrovertible conclusion:

Only girls would watch this!

Saccharine aesthetic? Lack of plot? And, god, all of the characters are girls? Girl show. No doubt in my mind. Nah, none of this "anime" crap for me. I'll stick with real media, like Leprechaun 4: In Space (which I eagerly stayed up until midnight to watch on the SciFi Channel) and Eli Roth's splatterhouse classic Cabin Fever.

Then some devious motherfucker, I don't even remember who they were, told me something truly insidious, something that would haunt me for years to come. "Hey," they said, "what if there was a show like Lucky Star except they all killed each other with knives? Wouldn't that be awesome?"

And they recommended me Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

(They showed me an AMV with a similar feel to this one to entice me. Unfortunately that original AMV is lost to history.)

I wound up bingeing the entire 50-episode show, in 10-minute chunks on YouTube, across a single 24-hour period. I couldn't stop myself. It was the same obsessive consumption that would infest me when I discovered Homestuck five years later. Obsession so intense that after I finished it, I immediately went crawling in search of more anime and devoured Death Note in another 24-hour span.

Emerging, blinking, back into the sun, I looked around and realized I couldn't go on like this. I couldn't plunge headlong, headless, into anime. I could not become the dreaded "weeb."

So I cut off anime. No more. As quickly as my drop into the abyss began, I ended it. And a few years later, when I went to college, I cut off the internet as a social experience altogether. No more forums, no more chatrooms. I was an adult. Time to do adult stuff, like read classic literature, write novels, and play League of Legends for 10 hours every day.

Despite how it sounds, college was a great time in my life. I enjoyed learning, enjoyed going to classes, enjoyed reading textbooks, enjoyed writing essays. And I was good at it, very very good—even with the 10-hour League sessions. I felt no need to reconsider anime.

Then I graduated.

Graduating college was like slamming face-first into a brick wall. My entire life until then had seemed to be building toward something. Academia is a series of stepping stones to more prestigious levels of academia (middle school! high school! college!) with a golden gleaming Adulthood at the end of the line, omnipresent. And I did it! My success in college got me a job, eight hours in an office five days a week, much better than anyone else in my post-recession cohort. Adulthood accomplished.

It was miserable. That gleaming paradise Adulthood was a sham. I was doing less work and less difficult work than at college but they were demanding I spend way more time doing it. All sense of fulfilment vanished. There was no longer progress, no bigger and better things on the horizon. I had nothing to hope for. I'd achieved the thing people tend to hope for, and THIS WAS IT. The notion that consumed me was that my life had slipped into overtime, a dead zone past its expiration date, treading water in misery. I also had a 90-minute daily commute in SoCal traffic.

My free time was cut down to a fraction of what it was in college, so no more 10-hour League sessions. I tried to maintain my schedule of reading 50 pages and writing 2,000 words a day, but I no longer had the time or energy, and it didn't make sense why I didn't have the time or energy, because I was doing things that were so trivial and easy compared to my college courseload. Work was an arbitrary time-wasting machine with nothing ahead except 40 more years of work. I wanted to die.

Despairing, seeking nothing save relief, I turned back to anime.

In a Skype groupchat I wound up in, there were two teenagers with their fingers on the pulse of the latest anime buzz. They were my guides back into this wretched world. First, I was served up Fate/Zero, which I consumed quickly (though not with the same leisure time to afford a 24-hour binge) before asking for seconds. I was then recommended Angel Beats. Okay, I said, typing Angel Beats into YouTube, which seven years after Higurashi I still assumed was the main way to watch anime. The first result I got was called Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan. Aha, I said. Angel Beats, Bludgeoning Angel, I know what this is. It's an alternate translation of the title.

It's the kind of comedy of errors that could only happen to someone who timewarped directly from 2007 to 2014 with complete ignorance of the intervening years. Angel Beats, of course, is a tearjerking Key show about students in the afterlife coming to grips with their tragic deaths. Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan is about an angel repeatedly bludgeoning a boy because otherwise he will grow up and create a world where every woman stops aging at 10 years old—a so-called "Lolicon Paradise." (As someone who reads classic lit, seeing the bizarre cross-cultural route Nabokov's novel has taken always amuses me.)

When I started Bludgeoning Angel, I was a little uncertain whether I had the right show. Its tone didn't quite jive with Bingus and Bungus in the Skype chat. Hesitantly, I decided to react in chat to the first thing that happens in the show. "Haha," I said. "The angel really just killed that guy."

In a sadistic twist of fate, this is somehow exactly how Angel Beats begins, too. My friends responded as though everything was total normal, and I figured I must have the right show after all. Thus, I wound up watching the entirety of Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, which becomes increasingly surreal, violent, and depraved as it goes on, and only learned my mistake after the final episode. That show probably tainted me forever.

Afterward, I watched the real Angel Beats (in my depressive stupor, it made me cry), Mirai Nikki, and the "only for girls" Lucky Star (it also made me cry). I was getting hooked. It was only a matter of time before Bingus and Bungus recommended me a true landmine. They did. "I think you might like this," Bungus said, tepidly, not exactly sure.

"Hit me," I said.

II. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

The League of Legends-induced timewarp that imprisoned me in college had the side effect of allowing me, in early 2015, to watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica completely blind. I hadn't the faintest idea what it was about, or even a hint of its reputation. Bungus said, "Watch it," and I watched it.

Believe it or not, this blindness backfired. Despite the sanctity people place on spoilers, expectations are a crucial component of the narrative experience. Unaware of what I was watching, I was not nearly as impacted by what I saw. The much-famed Episode 3 twist was nothing to me. Why? I was certain, absolutely certain, the death wouldn't stick. I felt extremely confident either Madoka or Sayaka would make a wish to bring Mami back to life.

Nonetheless, the show grew on me. The cute exterior steadily transforming grimmer was a Ratatouille flashback to Higurashi; there's something so delicious about how jaggedly the hyper-poppy upbeat OP jumpscares in the middle of increasingly hopeless situations during the show's back half. After 12 episodes and a movie I needed more. Not more anime. More Madoka Magica.

I didn't get it from the spinoffs, of which there were several even then, most of which I knew nothing about. Instead I went looking for it on more familiar terrain, another relic of my 2007 timewarp: fanfiction-dot-net. This is where people go to engage with media fandom, right? I hit up the Madoka page, sorted content by number of reviews, and got this:

Well, sort of. Fargo wasn't there yet, obviously. The other five were, in this same order. I opened To the Stars, read a chapter or two, found it impossibly boring and nothing at all like the show, and discarded it. Resonance Days, A Happy Dream, and cat's cradle [sic] all looked like shipfics, which was not my speed. That left one fic, which I would read in one day home sick (legitimately) from work, one fic that would prove massively influential on the idea for Fargo I didn't yet have.

Puella Magi Homura Magica by Lestaki, despite its second-place position on this prestigious list (behind only a work once described by acclaimed guy-with-a-blog Eliezer Yudkowsky as the most prescient depiction of future warfare ever written), is a fanfic I have never heard anyone mention once in my now 10-year stint in the Madoka Magica trenches. Even in the subculture it is a blank of memory, which makes sense if you look at its publication and last updated dates. It came out May 24, 2011—barely a month after the show finished airing—and was unceremoniously abandoned, incomplete, little over a year later. It's easy to see the fic emerging in the frenzy of activity prompted by the show's immediate popularity, rising on the tide, and vanishing under the waves of works with more temporally dogged creators.

So what is it?

PMHM is a three-arc story set after the show (and ignoring, of course, Rebellion, which it predates). Its first arc focuses on the three-man band of Homura, Kyoko, and Mami as they prepare to fight against a "demon prince"—an exceptionally powerful, city-destroying wraith—that Kyubey predicts will be born in Mitakihara soon. The demon prince is so powerful that the trio cannot possibly defeat it on their own, causing them to soon be joined by a ragtag team of original characters, spinoff characters, and a contracting Hitomi. The squad butts heads, but ultimately manages to come together to destroy the demon prince when it appears.

The second arc revolves around an inter-city magical girl war. The Mitakihara girls, for reasons I don't fully remember, have to invade and defeat an OC magical girl warlord in charge of another city. Both sides amass allies until the final confrontation involves at least a hundred magical girls. At the end of the arc, the OC villain reveals she manufactured the war to put Homura in a situation where she would be forced to continually use her time-rewinding powers to save Kyoko and Mami (whom she has come to care for over the course of the story), which is part of the villain's plot to generate enough karmic potential that she can create a new Madoka-esque god. Homura is aware that every time she rewinds time, she is helping the villain usurp Madoka, so she's torn between saving her living friends and saving her conceptual girlfriend.

That's where the story abruptly ends, mired in a series of repetitive chapters where the villain keeps finding ways to kill Kyoko and/or Mami and forcing Homura to turn back time. (It seems the author trapped themselves in the concept of showing each timeline in detail and lost momentum fast.)

And that's where Fargo begins.

III. Williston

Fargo was not a conscious work. Unlike most of my fiction, it was not assiduously planned. It was not kicked around in my head for years before I started writing it. It was not drafted and redrafted. Fargo was a creature of instinct, and because of that even now I look at it with a certain sense of wonder. Both Chicago and Cleveland Quixotic originated with me examining Fargo, trying to see what made it so popular, and laboriously reengineering whatever I concluded was the cause (I was wrong both times).

It emerged in my head not as an idea, but a vibe. Frigid, frostbitten wasteland. A tough, take-no-bullshit magical girl, dead inside. She'd use a Gatling gun. Long brown coat.

I was 60,000 words into a draft of a story I'd been planning since I first read Homestuck in 2012, a story I was tentatively calling Soulstealer but would eventually call Modern Cannibals. But I didn't want to write it anymore. At work, I was still miserable. I wanted to write a work of misery. I wanted to write a miserable human being. I abandoned the Modern Cannibals draft despite how far along it was (I was at the scene where Z. rescues Kiki from Mitchum's party). I began, as if automatically, writing something else. It was the same surrender that had led me to anime in the first place. The path of emotional, intellectual least resistance.

It's probably because I was on this path that I wound up unconsciously borrowing so many structural and worldbuilding cues from Puella Magi Homura Magica, especially in the first arc, with the Williston archon substituted for the Mitakihara demon prince. It wasn't even a conscious decision to do what I had seen in PMHM; I didn't realize the overlap until later. I was putting onto page the last thing lodged in my brain, and that was it. At work, I'd recently learned about the homeless crisis in Williston due to the shale oil boom, and that wound up in the story too.

Basically every part of the first few chapters of Fargo manifested on the page without me having any idea what it would build to. When Kyubey told Sloan to go to Williston, I knew he was being deceptive, but I didn't know how, and certainly had not figured out his elaborate plot to defeat Homura yet. Ditto Omaha. Clair Ibsen as Sloan's detested rival was a name I flicked onto the page at random (combining Clair, the gym leader from Pokémon, with Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright, because I figured a character from Minnesota should have a Scandinavian surname). The girl, unnamed, who scuffles with Sloan in Chapter 1 was not yet Anoka; I had no plans for her to reappear, nor plans to make her relevant to how the Williston archon was born. When writing Chapter 2, I had no conception of Delaney or Erika (another Pokémon gym leader) as characters until I started writing them, at which point their personalities emerged, fully-formed, all at once. I didn't know Delaney's backstory, only that she was suspicious.

What made Fargo work is that I very quickly figured this stuff out.

Throwing these ideas and characters onto the board was like putting myself in an escape room, and the challenge then became to figure out how everything slotted together. It was around Chapter 4—which I had written fully before I started posting the story, and which was about the time I realized I actually wanted to go through with what was starting to shape up as a long and ambitious work—that I started seeing the connective tissue. Kyubey's plot came into view, as well as Omaha's role in it. (Hence why Chapter 5 begins with a scene involving Homura.) I figured out Delaney's backstory, though I hadn't yet figured out how she was part of Kyubey's plot yet. The end of the first arc formed in my mind: Erika dead, Delaney alive, she and Sloan en route to Minneapolis to fight Clair. I had the beginnings of an idea how the second arc would go; there was the ghost of an idea for a third arc, but that made the story seem impossibly long, so I wrote with the belief everything would end with Clair. By the end of the arc, when I had started thinking about Clair's goons, I had the idea for Anoka, and incorporated her into the Williston archon's origin story.

I think there are still signs of lack of foresight. The actual plot of Fargo's first arc is like the plot of a Legend of Zelda game. Go to three different places, fight three bosses, then go to the final dungeon where the final boss awaits. What the characters actually do, narratively, is spin their wheels in endless action sequences; all sense of progression is driven by the slow unveiling of Delaney and Erika's backstories, which recontextualizes them as characters, as well as broadening hints toward Kyubey's plot. And Sloan's gradual recovery from the precipice of despair, of course.

That last one was a mirror of the author. Fargo was an immediate smash hit of the kind I had never seen before; I was getting two to three comments per chapter, and they were good comments, too. Before, I hadn't even been able to beg friends and family to read my novels. (I once described the plot of a pre-Bavitz novel to my grandmother; she said, "That doesn't sound any good at all.") I expected obscurity, an obscurity reflected by the aggressively anti-SEO title I decided on as a joke (Fargo being a movie I don't particularly like, and the only real overlap between that one and mine being neither is actually set in Fargo). Receiving any reception at all was a miracle.

At the same time, I moved closer to where I worked, killing my daily commute once and for all. Time, energy, and hope were surging back into me. The dream I had always harbored of being an internationally-renowned author seemed to be finally coming true. Everything was looking up. Riding this momentum, I no longer worried about the ambitious length of my story. It was worth it. I was in for the long haul.

IV. Minneapolis

Clair's personality emerged as the natural foil to Sloan, the brutish, instinct-driven meathead: elegant, careful, intelligent, poised. It was my get-out-of-the-escape-room problem solving that led me to realize this made her similar to Kyubey himself; that connection inspired the plot twist that she was, in fact, a homunculus created by him, which turned into Delaney being a homunculus too. (In early Williston chapters, I repeatedly focused on Delaney's dead eyes to foreshadow her sociopathic turn; this pedestrian bit of description became eerily serendipitous for explaining how she changed her eye color with magic to hide its natural red.)

As an author, I myself was transitioning from Sloan-esque instinct to more careful and intelligent planning. I'd already come up with Anoka, but the other Minneapolis girls emerged in ways I thought would play well off of Clair, emphasizing her uncanny and aristocratic coldness. I entered the second arc with more elaborate plotting, where I would set up characters like chess pieces and knock them over in spectacular and fulfilling ways. It all centered around the Yaldabaoth fight, which was the first part of the second arc I came up with, in a first arc sense of unconsciousness: A massive monster of light, crawling across a city, chasing magical girls as they sped around in a car.

There were some speed bumps. This arc featured the only time while writing Fargo that I scrapped a scene and rewrote it; this being the Terminatrix's introduction, which originally showed her receiving her commission from Kyubey. I felt it was plodding and tedious compared to her current introduction, which remains highly popular. (As a side note, Puella Magi Homura Magica also includes a character whom Kyubey pays to kill magical girls he doesn't like.)

Otherwise, though, I was locked in. Everything just worked. I came up with an idea for a character or a plot twist and it made perfect sense with what I had already established. It was like magic. It was effortless. I was reading literature again, too, after a year away from it; my prose improved as a result. There is unparalleled exhilaration in growth. It was like academia all over again, where I learned new things day after day and always seemed to be ascending to some better place. I started imagining future greatness. It wouldn't stop here. Fargo was just the start. My next work would be even better, would be read by more people. (Modern Cannibals remained bouncing in the back of my mind.) It wouldn't be long before I was breaking out of the internet and into the real world. They'd be talking about me...

V. Mitakihara

Why did Puella Magi Madoka Magica mean so much to me?

Because, as I mentioned, it didn't leave an immediate impact. A lot of what I look at now as masterstroke storytelling—Mami's death, or Rebellion in general—I first watched insensible, uncomprehending, somewhat blandly being washed over. Only a few months prior I had watched Lucky Star, a work that would heavily inspire one of my future stories (Cockatiel x Chameleon), and was profoundly and immediately emotionally affected by it in a way I almost never am. I cried at its conclusion. There was something unbearable and tragic in the ending of such a nice world, no matter how inoffensive that ending was; in the banal high school life it depicted, I saw reflected what I had lost forever, been sealed away from on this side of Adulthood.

(Which explains why my mindset on it changed so radically from when I was an actual high schooler, its ostensible target demographic.)

I didn't have a similar reaction to Madoka Magica. I liked it, for sure, but it was not an emotionally harrowing experience for me. Yet it grew in my mind, in ways I didn't consciously understand. It kept crawling, kept forcing me to think about it, until there was no option but for me to drop what I was doing and write over 300,000 words of fan fiction for it.

I never figured out the answer until a few years later, when I chanced upon a post someone made on Tumblr. "Okay," it said, in typical I-know-everything tone, "but can any of you tell me a single THEME in Madoka Magica?"

It made me think. What IS Madoka Magica about, beyond a plot-and-character level? The story, at least in the show, is so lean and tight that it lacks a lot of obvious signposting in this regard. It's easy to look at Madoka Magica and see a sharp story founded on a series of slick twists, with a banal hope versus despair angle for a bit of emotional punchiness. Regardless of whether you agree with that assessment or not, it certainly couldn't have been what I saw in it to make me so obsessed, right?

It's not even like Madoka Magica is a story that lends itself to fanfic, past the level of shipfic or slice of life AU. Its extreme economy of characters renders it vitriolic to expansion. Everything that matters in the world of Madoka Magica is happening in Mitakihara to five specific people. The system extends beyond them but in a useless way; magical girls in Osaka or Russia or Fargo exist, but they are doomed to irrelevance, doomed to die pointlessly. Every canonical Madoka spinoff falls into this same pratfall; the best involve the backstories of the main cast or past Homura timeloops, the rest fail to rise above sideshow.

I think what gnawed at me, what made me brute force a new narrative into this story that doesn't need one, was the reflection I saw in it. The Lucky Star kids with all their hopes and dreams and pleasant optimism tossed into the clanking reality of Adulthood, forced to work jobs with no point and no hope until they finally just died. The more I rewatch the show, the more I become consumed by a socioeconomic reading of it, the financial disparities between the characters (Hitomi, free from all of this, is rich; Madoka, the redemptive savior, is too—while Mami is faking it and Sayaka is shabbily middle class in a foreboding and monotone apartment complex, consumed by dreams of an upper-class recital she once saw), the conversations Madoka has with her parents (who tell her again and again what "being an adult is like," only to then give advice that is utterly unhelpful), the emotionless and mercenary way Kyubey dissolves all meaning in the universe to a system of pluses and minuses.

Unconsciously, the socioeconomic aspects of the original story emerged in Fargo with even more exaggeration: Sloan is introduced in terms of her outrageous poverty, everyone else is on the economic fringes (prostitutes, drug dealers), and only Clair lives in a state of financial stability. (There's a sideplot in the Minneapolis arc where she plans to gentrify the city by rooting out its Ramseys, all in service of creating a model community to show off online.) Sloan pursues monomaniacal revenge for a betrayal she suffered at Clair's hands, but the crux of the reader's disdain for Clair lies in the unctuousness of her wealth and the disposable way she treats her employees. Plus, there's the plaid-shirted workers who osmose around Williston, silent as they fall into pits and keel over dead on the streets, parts of an economy founded on resource extraction not all too dissimilar from Kyubey's own system (though he, ironically, wonders at one point why humans would get so up in arms over such a "primitive energy source").

Sloan is a have-not and Clair is a have, so there's an innate sympathy for her in favor of her archnemesis, on top of the innate sympathy readers have for protagonists over antagonists. This all sets the stage for what is in my opinion the best part of Fargo, its third arc, where the story's thematic elements come together in more interesting and subversive ways. It's all predicated on Sloan's quest for revenge having been faulty from the start, her motives much less ironclad than they first appear and her bullheadedness making her the perfect pawn in Kyubey's schemes.

The best aspect of the third arc is how Sloan is irrelevant. Seeing the outcome of her self-absorption cuts her off at the knees, and she has to grapple with the fact that the world is a lot bigger than her immediate purview. Ultimately, her role in the climax is tangential, a singular meaningful wrench tossed into a much larger machine that manages to prompt an unexpected positive outcome. She barely even factors into the penultimate chapter. (Fun fact: Chapter 41, Love, with its 10+ character POVs, was both directly inspired by Ulysses but also by a comment I got during the first arc hoping for more POVs with drastically different writing styles.) The emotional power of Sloan's arc stems from her coming to peace with her own inadequacies, both morally and in terms of greatness, and in that way she wound up being a mirror for me to the end, didn't she? In academia, I believed I was going to be someone important, and much of the existential dread of my workplace came from its boundless mediocrity. Fargo allowed me to come to terms with that mediocrity, both in the story and without; though much of that "coming to terms" was based on the new delusion that my popular fanfic would spur me on to mainstream literary success, a delusion I would not need to reckon with until after the minimal readership for my next work, Modern Cannibals.

This also explains my decision to frame Madoka's magical girl heaven as a giant office job. Though I would also defend that decision from a textual standpoint, given the esteem Madoka has for her company suit mother, and how she visualizes her mother as an example of "successful" adulthood in contrast to the cruel failure of the magical girl system.

Lastly, there's the instinctual level of things. All this socioeconomic stuff was not explicitly clear to me even as I was writing it; I didn't consciously think "Oh gotta make this about having a job." It just came out that way, an expelling of the self, the same way I unconsciously modeled some of Fargo's structure and worldbuilding on Homura Magica. The same way, I suppose, I modeled the emotional thrust of the story on Madoka Magica. A bleak downward spiral of misery and death culminating in a sudden and unexpected redemption. When, as a teen, I watched Higurashi, I remember being bowled over by its unexpectedly happy ending. I'd never seen anything like it, not in something otherwise so macabre and pessimistic. As a teen, I enjoyed that ending as a subversion of expectations, an original and novel idea. As an adult, watching Madoka Magica, it held a lot more emotional potency, and that potency was, like everything else, unconsciously replicated in Fargo.

When I wrote that final chapter, I remember being utterly drained. The finish line was in sight and I had been doing this for a year, for 300,000 words, far longer than any other story I'd ever written until then. I remember feeling like my prose was sloppy, like I was stumbling right at the end, like the chapter was no good. But the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, and now when I reread that chapter I see nothing wrong with its prose or technique. Even stripped bare, exhausted, that unconscious emotional core remained, and maybe that sense of being stripped down, so that nothing else is there but it, is what gives it so much power.

VI. Retrospective

There are flaws in Fargo. The prose is not always my best, and there are stretches that are clunky. In Chapter 3 I wrote a 5,000-word fight scene, and became possessed by the notion that all subsequent fights must be even longer, which led to some truly overlong combat sequences. There are a lot of continuity errors and mistakes, some small, some embarrassing (there's a scene where Clair tortures Delaney with boiling water and it's clear I had never boiled water before). And, significant to me, there is a lack of thematic complexity compared to my other works, with long parts of the story that aren't interested in meaning anything at all, at least overtly.

That last part might not really be a flaw, though. There is a singleminded focus on plot and character in Fargo, prompted perhaps by the unconscious way I wrote it, that was a major driver of its success. Nobody has ever complained about the continuity errors, either. At the end of the day, people might care a lot more about what comes from the heart, rather than what comes from the mind.

I'm glad, though, to be writing this retrospective on the heels of When I Win, an assiduously structured work with a lot of deliberate thematic potency that managed to achieve similar levels of success as Fargo. For a long time Fargo was a millstone around my neck. What I once looked at as the start of my literary rise started to seem like its peak. This work that I, its author, so poorly understood, could not replicate even when I tried, and yet was by far my most popular story... It was a terrifying prospect for a long time. Though a lot of detail in this regard should probably be saved for if I write a Making Of post for Chicago in the future. (Side note: Despite the prominent role Cicero and the Chicagoans play in the final arc of Fargo, with their own unresolved theater of worldbuilding, I had no intention of writing a Fargo sequel until after the "commercial failure" of Modern Cannibals.)

Even at the depths of my self-esteem, though, I never resented Fargo or its success. It's a story I like. It's a story with a lot to like about it. And, even if I don't fully understand it, it's a story that has a lot of myself in it.

Thank you, everyone, for reading.

The concept art throughout this post was created by Phetaritette, from whom a fan once commissioned art of the main characters. At the end of the Making Of posts for Cleveland Quixotic and When I Win, I talked about where I got the names of the characters from, but other than the two Pokémon gym leader names and Henrik Ibsen reference I mentioned before, most of the names in this story were dredged from people I once knew. The only other exceptions are Erika's surname, which comes from Frank "Doc" DuFresne from Red vs. Blue; Bloomington's surname, which comes from rapper Dennis "Ghostface Killah" Coles (who would be the primary template for the rapper Malkwon in Modern Cannibals); and Hennepin's surname, which comes from League of Legends pro player Johnny "Altec" Ru.

[the-californicationist]

I don't know if you're taking requests (You can ignore this if you're not)

I remember reading something (it was either on facebook or a twitter thread) about a guy who made a tinder account of his girlfriend to see how many likes/swipes she'd get

And boy he didn't realise how many men swiped right on her. I think within an hour she got like over 1000 (he was ready to buy his girlfriend a cow, a camel, diamond ring. Basically anything she wanted because he realised how lucky he actually was that she wanted him)

ANYWAY

I can't stop thinking about the cod men doing it. Like what would their reaction be??

I feel like Kyle would just shower you with gifts. Oh you glanced at that designer handbag, he's in that shop with his card out. He don't care about the price

lol this is such a funny premise! i wish i had seen the video!! here's my take, otherwise known as how to tease Gaz within an inch of his life.

Get Ratio'd

“What do you mean switch? I don’t wanna be on that bloody app in the first place, babe,” Kyle scrunched up his nose at your proposal, but you pressed him.

“C’mon! It’ll be a laugh. Just for fun, Gaz. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

You had seen a viral video, and now you had an idea. There was a couple who had switched phones for the night to swipe through each other’s dating apps, just to see how many hits they’d get. The woman in the video seemed defeated after trying her best to dress up her man’s profile and not finding any matches, but the man looked like he was shell-shocked, and he told her they were deleting these apps right away. Experiment over. So, you were curious. You knew Gaz was a handsome man, so you were eager to see how you’d do. 

He peered down at you over his nose and sighed, handing you his phone. You sat on the couch together, downloading the apps, picking out pictures, making sure to set the settings to casual dates only. No need to trick people into thinking you were actually on the market. 

“I just don’t want you to get jealous, love,” he smiled, genuinely concerned, "I've been told I'm a handsome chap." You smiled back,

“No worries, babe.  I can take it.”

Finally, after everything was set up, you switched phones. The boys would be over in just a few minutes, and you were eager for all of the likes to start rolling in. 

“We should make ourselves a little wager, yeah?” You suggested, knowing Kyle wasn’t one to shy away from competition.

“Aye, alright. Most likes wins?”

“Nah, most messages. ‘Cause that takes guts. And we’ll stop after the football game.”

“You’re on,” he smiled, giving your butt a playful slap as you went to buzz the boys in from your front door. 

The match was on for a good twenty minutes before you even got your first notification. Your heart sank a little when it looked like a bot, some garbage about “You look lonely. I can fix that. Click here!” It wasn’t a real girl. You showed Kyle and he shrugged, 

“It counts. It’s a DM, innit?”

“Alright,” you said, trying to get a peek at his app.

He swiped the phone away from you,

“Ah-ah! No peekin’.”

“Oh, c’mon, babe. No one wants to do me?” You whined, pouting at him.

He snaked his arm around you, palming your arse in his wide hand, 

“I wanna do you, babe.”

“I know,” you giggled, raising your hips to give him more access, earning yourself a hard squeeze, “I just thought I still had it.”

“You definitely do, babe. This is just a toxic app. Don’t think about it.”

So, you put it out of your mind. You got exactly three more messages for the rest of the night. One girl sent a friendly “Hey!” with a smiley emoji, another sent a photo of herself doing a sort of duck lips thing in a low-cut top. Finally, you got one that said, “Is that your real name? Just want to make sure I’ll be screaming the right one later.”

You cackled, showing the boys. Soap laughed with you, his eyes wide at her sexy message, and Price gave you a good-natured eyeroll. The only thing Ghost said was,

“Has he showed you yours yet?”

You looked over at Gaz who was burning a hole through Ghost with his glare, and he shut off your phone screen and put it in his pocket. 

“No… why?” You asked.

“No reason,” Ghost retreated, drinking his beer and fixing his eyes back on the match. 

A few minutes later, you excused yourself to go to the bathroom, and then you lingered in the hallway, listening to the conversation happening between Gaz and his friends in your den. 

“Oh, mate,” Soap whispered none too quietly, “You are in fuckin’ trouble, ain’tcha?” 

“Shove off, Johnny. Help me figure out how to fuckin’ delete this,” Gaz hissed.

“Well, son,” Price didn’t even bother to lower his tone, sipping on his whiskey with a smile on his face, “You bloody well won your bet.”

“I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Gaz handed your phone over to Ghost who was gesturing for him to give it. 

Ghost read the message aloud,

“I could call you beautiful, but since beauty comes from within, I’ll just have to check for myself… Fuckin’ hell. That’s rank.”

Soap was looking over his shoulder, scrolling furiously, reading as he did,

“Your eyes are stunnin’. You’ve got beautiful eyes. Wow, your eyes are beautiful… like, c’mon mate, a little creativity?”

“You don’t want to read the creative ones,” Price warned, taking the phone from Ghost, reading his favorite, “Jus’ wonderin’ if I should respect the fuck outta you or fuck the respect out of you.” 

Gaz leaned back on the couch, exasperated,

“What am I gonna do? I gotta buy her one of those fuckin’ bags that cost as much as a goddamn Aston. She said she wanted to do Bora Bora, or was it Fiji? Maybe I can take her for her birthday? How much are tickets?”

“Mate, you’re cooked,” Soap muttered, then gasped, “Oh, Christ. Look at the size of this one's fuckin’ knob!”

“Help me book her a bloody spa day. Do you think she wants jewelry? Holy shite, this bloke just sent a screenshot of his bank account. What the fuck?”

“She’s already with you, mate,” Ghost shrugged, “What’s the bother?”

“He’s bothered ‘cause now he knows that,” Price grumbled, checking his watch, “...in under an hour, she could have a quarter of the population of London bangin’ down her door just to smell the inside of her bloody shoe. And he’d have…”

“A bot and two birds,” Gaz frowned, crossing his arms.

“A bot and two birds,” Price nodded, sipping his drink and turning back to the game. 

You wandered back into the room, plopping down beside Gaz, pretending you hadn’t heard the discussion that had just transpired. Gaz put an arm around you almost protectively, kissing your forehead,

“Hey, babes. What was the name of that spa you wanted to book? Thought we could go together this weekend.”

“Kyle,” you turned to him decisively, “Show me the texts.”

“No,” he shook his head, turning back to the game.

“Kyle,” you squeezed his thigh.

“No! You don’t need to see all that.”

“All what?”

“The one hundred eighty-seven messages that he —” Soap interrupted, but Gaz cut him off.

“Oy! Mate! Shut up.”

“Just show her,” Ghost rolled his eyes. 

“One hundred…” You were in shock, and as Gaz handed you your phone back, you scrolled through the mess that he had been hiding from you, “Oh, God…”

“Yeah…” Gaz sighed, “So, if you want that purse that the Kardashian whats-her-name had, just add it to the cart, alright? Jesus.”

You were shocked by the level of attention you had received, but when you saw the content, you had to stop yourself from dying with laughter,

“Not sure if I’m just hungry or if you truly are a snack. Either way I’ll eat you. Oh, no. Look at this one: My cock’s a rescue, wanna give it a good home? Wow… these are rough! How many dick pics did you get?”

“Too many,” Gaz shook his head. 

“Aww, baby,” you hugged his neck, teasing him, “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. None of these blokes is half as fit as you.” 

“Dinnae you see the fuckin’ knob on Fabio over here? He's askin' for your Venmo. I say you should send it.” Soap chuckled, shocked, flipping back to one of the profiles.

Gaz fought him back, snatching the phone, and you laughed with the others, shaking your head, 

“So… what was that you were saying about a handbag?”

After the laughter eventually died down and the boys had gone home, you helped Gaz clean up the kitchen. Then, you both deleted the app and returned your phones, glad to be done with your little experiment. You decided to tease your man just a little further, 

“Well, you won the wager. What’s your prize, love?”

You expected him to take the bait, to bend you over the counter and claim you possessively, using you to let out his frustration. But, he turned serious, his expression almost somber, and he kissed you softly, disarming you.

“You are my prize,” he purred, “And I’ll do anything to show you how lucky I am to have you.”

“Hmm… anything?” You smirked, tucking your hand into the waistband of his jeans and pulling him closer. 

Finally, that rakish grin you loved so dearly was back, spreading across his face, 

“Name your price, love.”

You pretended to think for a moment, letting your hands wander down into the warmth of his pants, palming his growing cock, playing with it and feeling it throb for you, then you winked at him, 

“I hear Tahiti is nice this time of year.”

He raked his hand down his face, but he was hiding a smile, groaning,

"Tahiti..." Then, after a breath, he snatched you, holding you in his arms, carrying you kicking and giggling to your bedroom, "C'mere, you. Tahiti can wait."

AO3 Link

[omgwhatchloe]

MODERN AU GANG MEMBERS IF THEY WENT VIRAL/WERE KNOWN ONLINE

-dutch should be cancelled but people genuinely think he is crazy so they dont bother. he is used for reaction videos, memes and one of his videos was even on the news when they were discussing banning social media. everyone has given up trying to tell him the entire world is laughing at him and thinks hes crazy.

-johns entire social media used to flop until he got his scars. now all he does is try to prove his scars are real (like that one account from 2022). he hasnt realised yet all the comments are taking the piss out of him, a doctor account proved they were real months ago but he never saw that.

-arthur went viral once when he posted a video of charles and his dog. he hated the notifications and found the comments about his and charles relationship incredibly corny and annoying. he never posted again.

-sean has so many followers because hes always just filming hashtagless videos of him breaking into places, in random countries, screaming in the middle of restaurants, ‘adopting’ wild animals etc etc. lenny is also regularly featured on his account as his boyfriend.

-micah went viral BECAUSE he was getting cancelled in his early 20s. everyone knew his face, he literally could not go anywhere or do anything. he has never posted since. no one can post micah on their accounts either, not that theyd want too.

-hosea is a facebook king. his tiktok account is literally user79286160 and comments on all sean and johns posts. his comments are always at the bottom and go completely unnoticed.

-tilly was an iconic tiktoker and YouTuber who posted vlogs, motivations, outfits etc who got cancelled because she made a huge mistake exposing the wrong person, thinking she was exposing a hater. like, she almost ruined their lives and didnt know what to do, almost got a lawsuit. she ate too hard😔🙏

-lenny barely posts but when he does its the most weird shit. like just a silent, hashtagless picture from his camera roll that slowly zooms out. him walking down the street for 10 minutes. him doing filters. the gang constantly ask him why he posts what he does, and they havent got a straight answer yet.

-mary-beth is a tumblr and pinterest girlie, she has the most followers there and her tiktok account is slowly growing. shes known for being in a lot of fandoms, and making a lot of trends for them. her instragram is also aesthetic.

-javier posts music mostly on youtube and tiktok, but also tries to back dutch up in his videos. people think hes joking. he “collabed” with john (ppl dont realise they are best friends) and that went viral.

[two-white-butterflies]

monopoly go | mv33 | part two

Description: A stranger keeps striking your monopoly go base. You search him on Facebook and decide to settle your losses.

part one |

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yourname_awesome: might need myself a london boy 🇬🇧

liked by 23,283 others

>comments

maxverstappen1: pretty

maxverstappen1: the background is so pretty - yourname_awesome: list of all the poeple that asked. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. - - maxverstappen1: talk to me when you can spell people properly - - - yourname_awesome: talk to me when you can spell noodle properly 🥱

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EMILLIAN ATTACKED YOUR LANDMARK.

EMILLIAN STOLE 20M IN A MEGAHEIST.

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yourname_awesome: decided to square up with this 🤬 after he attacked my landmark. what's thatp icture? oh, that's meant for lewis hamilton...he just wrote his name on the top.

liked by danielricciardo and 67,392 others

>comments

maxverstappen1: ??? Post my pics when you can spell properly - yourname_awesome: comment on my posts when u aren't stealing from my base anymore - - maxverstappen1: Won't be commenting for the foreseeable future - - - yourname_awesome: Simply Lovely!

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humpyfumpy: SOMETHING IS SUSPICIOUS BETWEEN MAX AND THE GIRL HE'S BEEFING WITH....I CAN FEEL SOMETHING BREWING

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Y/N ATTACKED YOUR LANDMARK.

Y/N STOLE 5M IN A HEIST.

Y/N STOLE 72M IN A HEIST.

YOU PAID Y/N RENT.

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INSTAGRAM

maxverstappen1 STOP

yourname_awesome my reaction

maxverstappen1 reacted to this message. (❤️)

yourname_awesome ???? THAT'S SUSPICIOUS

maxverstappen1 MY reaction

yourname_awesome who is that girl ur with?

maxverstappen1 Idk i found this picture in the internet

yourname_awesome nah bro go back to ur other hoes

maxverstappen1 No

yourname_awesome 🤣

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Stolen glances from crowded rooms - that's all you were. You couldn't understand your dynamic with him, in texts the chemistry was there but in real life? He's awkward, rarely even speaks to you. "Do you think that he's a little tongue tied?" your best friend asked and you tilted your head sideways.

"What?" you inquired and she shrugs. "Men are shy when it comes to girls that they like." "Are you suggesting that he has a crush on me?" you furrowed your eyebrows and she nods. You scoff, "He's not a teenager," you chuckled.

She rolls her eyes.

"It's just a suggestion," she antagonized.

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"I've never seen a picture of you two together," Daniel takes a sip of his beer. Max glances at you again - eyes filled with adoration but no words exit his mouth. "Don't expose him, Daniel." Lando winks - Max freezes and they all exchange a knowing glance.

You lean back on the chair.

"Why would we need a picture together?" you giggled, placing a piece of apricot on your tongue. "Because you're friends," Lando saved his friend. Max was shitting bricks at this point. "Acquaintances, we've only known each other for a week." Max managed to let out.

You raised an eyebrow.

"You're hurting me with your words," you joked and he replies with a smile. "My bad," he breathed and his friends push him off the chair. "You can make it up to me by letting the boys take a picture of us," you smiled - seriously into him.

Not just because he was a Formula One Driver (it was a factor) but also because of his humor. He was hilarious... and handsome. "Cheese Maxie," Daniel says while pulling out his mobile phone.

The hug was basically second-nature.

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danielricciardo: Too cute not to post? @maxverstappen1 @yourname_awesome

liked by 1,283,219 others

>comments

standingina1950sgym: THE HARDEST HARD LAUNCH OF ALL

yourname_awesome: NAWW NOT YOU EXPOSING MY TATTOO

maxxieeelover: The matching shirts?? - yourname_awesome: pure coincidence huhu 😭

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@sugarhightano @lovelylunas-world @ironmaiden1313 @duck-duck-goose-18 @itsjustkhaos @daniellarogers @darleneslane @lilbeyotch1d