#that means something it means a lot actually

[plutoslastwords]

I would love one of baby Norris most viral moments that would be iconic

who is this diva?

lando norris x daughter!reader

summary: lando is apprehensive about posting his daughter online, but when he does, the world loves it. a collection of small moments that the fans adore.

w/c: 1.4k

warnings: none!

a/n: maddie's active era???????

~~~

A hotshot F1 driver having an unexpected kid right in the peak of his career was practically gold dust for Formula One fans. As soon as word got out that you were born, the super keen fans were already in every comment section in any relation to Lando begging to see a picture of his newborn.

Ever the protective dad, Lando refused. He wanted to keep you private, you were the most precious thing in his world, he wanted to keep you to himself, keep you safe away from the prying eyes of the fans. 

He was also struggling with learning how to be a single dad. He was still young himself, and now he was in charge of an entire person, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. He was beyond lucky to have his family and friends there to help him, but looking after you still took a lot of his time, delaying the process of actually introducing you to the world.

At one point he thought that it would be a good idea to show you to the world by bringing you to a race, meaning that he wouldn’t have to make a whole instagram post about it. His mom, however, quickly shut that idea down, ‘The paddock is no place for a 6 week old, Lando.’

He knew that at one point he would have to make a post acknowledging your existence, but there always seemed to be something holding him back.

It wasn’t until your 4 month birthday that he finally posted you onto his instagram. It was a simple picture of you in a little bear onesie, next to a big ‘4’ balloon which you’re looking at with a lot of distaste. In spite of this, it came with the caption, “We all love the number 4 in this house!!”

The most immediately explodes. It quickly becomes his most liked post, hell probably the most liked post in the entirety of F1. This is what he was scared of, he hated how much attention that you were getting, you were still a baby, and now north of 5 million people knew who you were. 

After that, he didn’t post you again. His comments were still filled with people asking where you were, how you were doing, what your name was. He ignored all of them, trying to keep you as private as possible, but he should’ve known that that was impossible from the get go. He was an F1 driver, it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake to hide an entire child from his fanbase. He was scared of even leaving the house anymore, in fear that the paparazzi would follow and people would get more pictures of you.

The first picture of you got leaked a few weeks before your first birthday. He should’ve been expecting it, he’d brought you to your first race. You were sat in the private hospitality with his family, going in through the back entrance so that no one would see you, but someone had obviously found their way into the suite, and snapped a picture, posting it, and quickly seeing hundreds of thousands of views.

It made Lando feel sick to his stomach that he couldn’t protect your privacy. He got in contact with some lawyers, who managed to get the picture taken down, you were a minor after all, people weren’t allowed to take photos of you, but he knew that this wouldn’t stop people taking pictures of you.

After your first birthday (which involved a lot of tears from him) he decided that the only way to stop people trying to find and post so much about you was to take matters into his own hands.

It wasn’t everyday, or even every week for that matter, but he started implementing pictures of you into his usual posting schedule. Sometimes, it would be a picture of you within a photo dump from a race weekend, maybe a story of you in your pushchair whilst the two of you were out on a walk. 

It worked as he hoped, people were less eager to get sneaky pictures of you, and he was able to feed them pictures of his own choice. In some way it was actually quite nice to get to share you with the world, you were his favourite thing on the planet.

You soon began to gain your own fanbase, people grasping onto every picture that Lando posted of you, commenting about just how adorable you were. Some of their favourites included:

A picture of you on Lando’s ski trip with Max F and Pietra, all wrapped up in a baby moncler jacket, sat down in the snow with the biggest grin on your face. 

A picture of you in Ibiza on summer break, wrapped up in a little towel as you built a sand… castle? Sculpture? It wasn’t clear. 

But their favourites were the videos that Lando posted. 

‘Who’s cap have you got on, baby?’ 

You giggle in the background, crawling around on the floor, with a blue cap that’s much too big for you covering half of your face. ‘Calos!!!!’

‘Carlos?’

‘Calos!!!!’ You squeal

‘Why not daddy’s cap, angel?’

‘Calos!!!!’ You screech, suddenly charging as quick as you can forward, but since you have a Williams cap covering your face you’re about to go right into a table.

‘Oh shi-’ The video hears Lando say, before it cuts out as he rushes to stop you from giving yourself a concussion.

–

You’re a bit older in this one, on the plane home after Lando had just won a race.

‘How was the weekend, baby? Good?’

‘Good, daddy!!!!’ You beam, as he holds you in the lap, holding the phone in selfie mode so that you’re both on the video.

‘Yeah, what was your favourite part?’

You think long and hard about this one, ‘Leo!!’ You eventually squeal. Charles and Alexandra had brought the little dog with them that weekend, and you had gotten the chance to meet him. You were immediately enamoured, refusing to leave the Ferrari garage so that you could cuddle with the dog.

‘What about Daddy winning? Was that not good?’ He tries

You shake your head, stubbornly, ‘Leo!!! You win all the time!’ You retort, going back to colouring in your animal colouring book.

Lando shows that to the camera for a second, before returning to his face, and he gives them an exasperated look, then kissing you on the forehead and ending the video.

–

In the fan’s favourite video, it’s not Lando filming, but you. The camera is far too close to your face, too little to understand how to properly film a video.

You’re giggling and running around the house, before stopping to show the camera your toys.

‘This is rabbit!! She likes strawberries, like me!’ You show the camera a light grey, slightly tattered rabbit that Lando had gifted you when you were first born. 

‘This is panda, she likes broccoli, but I don't…’ You say that you love strawberries so much because rabbit does as well, so Lando decided to tell you that your panda likes broccoli, in an attempt to get you to eat the vegetable, but it did not work. 

‘Oh this is my car! It looks like my daddy’s car but it’s better!’ You show the camera a mini Mclaren, perfect sized for you, you’re about to get in it when a voice appears from the background of the recording.

‘Baby, have you seen my phone?’

You pause, ‘No?’

‘No? Why’s it a question, angel?’ He says suspiciously, coming into the room, appearing in the background of the frame. ‘Oh are we filming videos here?’ He coos, lifting you into his arms and taking the phone from you, turning off the video.

You both go off and do other things for a while, but he finds the video again just before he goes to bed, he watches it back, silenting swooning about how sweet you are. He decides to post it, thinking that it would be sweet for everyone to see how cute you are.

The world goes wild over the sweet, domestic video, it’s all Lando sees on his timeline for at least two weeks. But he’s not angry, he’s so happy that he gets to share your happiness with the world.

~~~

a/n: thank you for reading :D

[enwoso]

how convenient | alessia russo x child!reader x leah williamson

grumpy masterlist | if you haven’t already i would recommend reading first heartbreak to get up to speed

the sidelines of the pitch buzzed with the usual saturday morning chaos — parent's chatting, children chasing stray footballs as whistles blowed too often and not enough. but leah had stood still, arms folded across her chest. her eyes locked on the man across the field.

harrison.

it was almost poetic, convenient if you will, even if it didn't make her stomach twist that the next time she saw him would be here.

at your football game. the one he was meant to show up for last time. the one he'd promised. the one he then conveniently forgot.

leah could still hear alessia's voice over the phone, quiet and tired as she'd spent the entire evening calming you down as the tried her best to stay calm over the phone as she retold the story to leah. 'she asked me if he even loved her, le.'

and that was it. that was the line.

you deserved a hell of a lot better than a broken promise with whiskey on its breath.

so leah waited, watching your entire game. you playing with that familiar fierce focus which had been missing the previous week as your blonde curls bounced as you ran for the ball. but something in your movement lacked the usual sparkle — it hadn't properly returned since that weekend.

when harrison finally wandered to the edge of the field, the game now finished. he’d been there since the 14th minute — leah had been watching.

a coffee cup in one of his hands, phone in the other, looking more like he'd stumbled out of bed then just stepped into fatherhood afterwards.

leah didn't hesitate after making sure that both alessia and you were occupied and distracted. you running circles with your teammates as alessia spoke to some of their parents, engrossed in a deep conversation. so you both wouldn't see what leah was up to.

"didn't think you had it in you to show up this time," she said, quiet but cutting sharp.

harrison blinked, startled, then smirked faintly, "leah. thought i might run into you today."

"lucky me."

he sipped his coffee looking out to the field, avoiding eye contact with leah. "so i take it less has sent you over here to lecture me then?"

"no, she doesn't even know i'm over here talking to you. i'm just here to watch the kid, who actually showed up."

his jaw twitched slightly, "look, i know i messed up. i didn't mean to forget - i had a lot going on that day."

leah raising an eyebrow humming slightly at his well, pathetic words, "enough going on that you forget your own daughters name?"

he flinched, taking another sip from his coffee. a beat of silence falling over the two as they both looked over the field, arms leaning against the barrier.

"i said i was hungover. i didn't mean it. i was half asleep, and—"

"—and yet you still found time to answer a phone you didn't remember promising her on."

there was another beat of silence, for a second too long, and then his face hardened.

"you don't know what it's like," he muttered, jaw clenched. "you don't know me, you don't know what i've got going on. what we had, how hard it was. you think because you're playing happy families with my ex and my kid, you know everything?"

leah took one step closer, her voice dropping into steel. "i know enough."

he just scoffed, amused almost as a smirk appeared on his face. "no, mate you know alessia's version. that's it."

"no, mate. i know a hell of a lot more than you." that stopped him in his tracks.

"i know how before she goes to bed she has to say goodnight to all of her teddy’s so that they don’t go to sleep sad. i know how she still draws you in every picture she makes cause she doesn't want to hurt your feelings. i know how hard alessia fights not to to bad-mouth you in front of her - no matter how angry she is with you. i know what it looks like when a little girl asks if her dad really loves her—and means it."

harrison looked away. he didn't say anything. he didn't have anything to defend him self with.

"you think this is about you and alessia? this isn't about who's in her bed now." leah added her voice quieter now, but somehow more dangerous. "it's not. it's about that little girl you keep letting down. and if you're not going to be a dad and a proper one at that then don't expect the world to wait while you try and figure out how."

for a moment, the only sound was the distant sound of children giggling and parents chatting as the field started to get less busier of people, the morning of football starting to slow down.

then—

"she's my daughter" harrison said, but it didn't sound as strong as convincing as he wanted it to.

"your right she is, so start fucking acting like it" leah replied, snappy and sharp as if she had a response to every thing he said. "because she deserves better and she not going to keep giving you pieces of herself for you to just drop every time it's convenient for you."

leah turned without waiting for a reply, she didn't want to listen to his pathetic voice any longer. she'd heard enough and said what she wanted to say.

watching as the group of parents surrounding alessia's was getting smaller, as she jogged to catch up with you two. alessia looked over her shoulder, sensing leah's presence. "you all good?"

leah reached for alessia's hand, slipping her fingers effortlessly between hers with ease, "yeah, just had something to take care of."

alessia raised an eyebrow, curious but also didn't push. instead making a mental note to ask later on. "that right?"

"yep, all sorted though. don't worry, love"

you rushed back to leah and alessia having said goodbye to your friends, as you were already mid-sentence. "did you see when i almost scored mama? i kicked it so hard!"

leah grinned, the tension easing from her shoulders just at the sound of your voice as she ruffled your hair, "i saw, you were brilliant today, you little superstar!"

and as the three of them walked off the field, you chattering away, alessia leaning in close as leah anchored them to her side — harrison being left stood alone in his own thoughts by the sideline .

watching what it looked like when someone actually showed up.

[salem-s]

SUNRISES, PENALTIES, AND LOSING SLEEP OVER YOU ── RAFE CAMERON ONE SHOT

── SYNOPSIS when Rafe can't sleep, he ends up at the soccer field to get some practice in. however, he can't seem to stop his sunrise practices when he discovers the pretty girl who reads on the bleachers is there every morning. ── WARNINGS language, so much fluff??? ── WORD COUNT 5.6k. ── NOTES consists of jock!rafe and nerd-ish!reader, college au, mainly rafe pov. ── SONG OF THE CHAPTER everything is embarrassing by sky ferreira

Rafe contradicts himself this time -- he actually doesn't mind being up before the sun if that means some more practice...and some peace and quiet.

Surprisingly, he's quite the night owl, fighting the plague that puts him to sleep by distracting himself with literally anything he can get his hands on, even if that meant school work that's been pushed off for the last minute. He can go all night at a bar and he's the only one out of his friends to be able to actually pull all nighters on their designated movie night.  

While this has severely skewed his sleeping schedule, Rafe prefers to get things done while the rest of the world around him is asleep, you know, for some alone time.

Sure, Rafe's a pretty social guy: he enjoys time with friends and his teammates and classmates, and he definitely jumps at the chance to spend time with them whenever he can. It's a pretty rare occurrence where he isn't with someone or talking to someone, because he's a light converser and easy to fall in stride with. He's the stranger that people often fall in love with and never see again, perhaps it's the handsomely boyish smile or his ability to talk to a brick wall. 

And yet, there's moments like right now where some alone time is needed. 

Once again, Rafe's been up for nearly a day now, the sun just peaking over the horizon behind him, signaling the start of a lot of people's days (and the end of his, since it's Saturday and he'll need to recharge before going out tonight). The sleep simply...doesn't come to him.

Not easily, anyway.

After nights out with his friends (or when they go to bed), Rafe normally tinkers with things in his room, building trinkets from scratch or blueprinting random designs because he's bored, which he doesn't normally admit to people. His ability to draw was something his father always told him to push down deep, to ignore and focus on the money-driven careers of the world: business, science, all that crap.

Well, his father isn't here. And even if he was, Rafe wouldn't really care, anyway.

Sleep doesn't come very naturally to him during the night, which is highly unusual considering he has no insomnia or trouble sleeping. He just doesn't get tired. Usually the sunrise shining through his window signals him to try and sleep. 

He doesn't recall the last time he's really looked at a sunrise, this time being exceptional with colors portraying burning passion and dragon fruit, and the dirty-blond hums to himself, halting his movements to stop and enjoy it for a second.

The soccer ball planted on the ground by his foot is still as Rafe's balance. He holds himself together to take a deep breath in and observe the world around him.

Sure, he's never up this early but, goddamn, it really is pretty.

Hues of pink, orange, purple emerge in sight, getting lighter by the second and changing into something more tranquil. He's at ease. There's something more content and comforting about sunrises than sunsets, and while he cannot put his finger on the exact reason, he deems this a fact. 

Rafe mentally notes to do some sunrise workouts more often. 

At his university, he's on the club soccer team, which isn't the big leagues but it keeps him and shape and the competition isn't nearly as stressful, which he likes. Rafe enjoys the sport to have fun, and while he does care about winning and beating these other lame schools, at the end of the day it's just putting a ball through a net and spending time with his teammates, so he never holds a grudge if his team loses.

He's spent so many years fighting for love, fighting for affection, fighting for meaningless trophies to impress his father that in the end he just...realized it is what it is. Once Rafe learned the implication of life will happen anyway regardless of how certain things go, his outlook on competition changed.

Anger subsided into contention, rage simmered into acceptance, and fear contorted to nonchalance.

Rafe learned a long time ago that, no matter how athletic he may play or how many As he may earn, nothing will ever satisfy his father's insatiability for perfection.

That lifted a considerably heavy weight off his shoulders, once he started living to please himself rather than everybody else.

Of course, he still plays with heart and the frustration of the game naturally spurs during heated moments. But the implications of self pressure are no longer there, and Rafe has found incredible solace with his teammates.

They usually go out after games to celebrate, win or loss, anyway.

Rafe can't really argue with that.

The reason Rafe's alone now is because 1. all of his friends are sleeping and 2. he didn't get drunk enough to pass out.

He had a couple shots early in the night, but curse his heavy weight intake for making it hard to get drunk. So now he's here at the practice field at the ungodly hours of the morning - because he's bored and doesn't want to sleep just yet, and he doesn't have to worry about any classes, just about his plans tonight. 

Besides, his skills could always use some tidying up. 

Rafe goes back to his workout routine after his admiration for the sky, the sun rising behind him mindlessly while he dribbles the ball up and down the field to practice his precision, working on mind trick tricks in terms of scoring (Rafe is a forward, no way could he play defense).

Sweat glistens his forehead as the coolness of the night gradually dissipates, and he doesn't know how long he's been on this field, maybe a few hours? Days? At this point, someone could've told him he's been here for a year and he'd probably take their word for it.

But Rafe, after shooting the ball and missing, notices someone sitting on the bleachers with a book.

You.

A very pretty girl, who now has the book in your lap and is instead watching him.

Rafe just shrugs and gives a welcoming wave with a smile that you definitely can't see, but instead of waving back, you instead close the book with such gentleness and sit up to speak.

"Isn't the ball supposed to go in the net?"

Rafe recoils.

What?

He bites back a laugh because at this ungodly hour, everything is funny no matter what. He decides to ignore the hot raspiness of your voice and pushes it to the back of his mind, because he'll want to think about that later.

Despite his internal turmoil, Rafe plants his hands on his hips and cocks his head to the side. "I don't suppose you could do better?"

You chuckle sweetly, even Rafe can hear that from the distance and thinks it's faint music to his ears. "No, I can't. Have fun playing kickball, though."

Rafe simply stands there, blinking with a dumbfounded expression and a hint of a grin, taking a moment to soak in the faint image of you, a beautiful stranger, who goes back to reading your book. Shamelessly, he continues staring at you, as he can can make out how your silhouette is swallowed by a crimson hoodie looking comfortable enough to make Rafe yawn.

Fuck, now he's tired.

It doesn't take long for Rafe to pack up his things after doing some last work-downs and begin walking off the field (and of course the exit gate is right by the bleachers). The sun is now risen, just barely, and he can already feel the heat coming to bite him in the ass. He's never been a fan of the heat, especially at the start of the school year where it's basically sweltering summer.

Besides, he's been yawning for the past few minutes and his movements are more sluggish than they were before, so he takes this as a hint to finally get some rest.

You look up from your book and notice the alarmingly attractive soccer player leaving. Going against your normal tendency to hide and avoid talking to people you don't know, you can't help but feel inclined to smile when the stranger perks up and makes eye contact with you. The wild thumping of your heart only augments when you notice how pretty his eyes are, a bright blue despite the exhaustion behind them.

Rafe sends you a boyish smile and a nod, almost as if he's known you forever and bidding you a familiar farewell.

Once he gets closer, he notices your coffee sitting idly beside you, ice melting as the sun starts beating down on it. He also notices how pretty you really are, much prettier up close.

"Do you always read at the ass crack of dawn or what?" Rafe decides to pipe up, making his tone lighthearted so you don't think any different.

You huff out a laugh. "I've been here every morning since the semester started, and I'm just seeing you for the first time, why?"

Despite the certainty of your tone, Rafe doesn't ignore the sheepish look that immediately creeps on your face, trying to act cordial but he can tell by the way you're wringing your fingers together, you're somewhat skeptical of him. He decides to spare you and not to comment on the nerves, because he also feels heat in his face (he's gonna blame the workout, not the hot stranger talking to him). 

"Late night, couldn't sleep, and I was bored so I thought I'd shoot around until I got tired."

"Wait a minute," you say, your tone suddenly serious and your expression indulgent, "you haven't slept yet?"

Rafe shrugs nonchalantly, not taking into consideration that other people have normal sleeping schedules, finally meeting someone who does.

"Nah, this is normal for me. I'm surprised you're up...willingly...that's honestly terrifying and I'm scared of you," he jokes and spins the soccer ball on the tip of his ring finger. 

You widen your eyes and let out a low whistle, the look of shock coating your features. "Not sure if I should be fearing you instead. I can't tell if you're a god or just fucking stupid."

This makes Rafe bark out a laugh, one that he doesn't expect to come out, but the fact that this beautiful, fragile, and relaxed stranger just dropped the f-bomb nonchalantly is somehow fucking hilarious to Rafe...or perhaps it's the lack of sleep that makes his perception of things much more different and jagged.

Either way, he doesn't care, because the smile on your face is something Rafe's mind is never, ever going to forget. 

"Probably the latter, unfortunately," Rafe admits in that cheery self-deprecating tone that everyone takes normally. "Well, sunny, I'll leave you to it."

Then he pauses for a second, biting his tongue to refrain from saying something too forward.

"I'll hopefully see you around?"

Your blush intensifies (at the nickname or his confidence, you don't know), and neither speak on it. "Yeah, that'd be nice. See ya, kickball."

Before Rafe can defend his sport, you open your book back up and pick up where you left off, lounging back and crossing your legs to get more comfortable as Rafe splutters and huffs out a response that you seemingly ignore.

Your small smirk of victory makes Rafe want to either punch it off or kiss it off. Please don't ask him which one he prefers. 

Rafe's been at the soccer field almost every morning now for the past week. 

He figures that he'll sleep during the day on the weekends and in between his classes during the week, setting a multitude of alarms and not getting the amount of sleep he wishes to. His sister, Sarah, hassles him because she wants to meet this stranger who's been taking up all of Rafe's free time, finally happy that her brother is 'seeing someone' who isn't a complete jerk.

His best friend, Kelce, begs Rafe to introduce them or at least tell them a name, and have even tried to sneak out of his apartment with Rafe to spy on them (to which Rafe immediately shut down). But Rafe likes the idea of keeping you all to himself, just for a little bit.

Sure, his sleep schedule is even more messed up, but seeing the beautiful stranger every morning is such a goddamned bonus.

Oh, and it's no longer stranger. He learns your name the third time you see him.

Rafe learns that you're majoring in graphic design but that you have a serious love towards history and art, and immediately shy-ed away when he asked you to draw something, anything, on the spot.

And Rafe thinks it's so attractive that you're calm, collected, and easily embarrassed. You're shy, no matter how much you try to hide it. But you've been getting more and more comfortable with him every morning and he counts that as a huge step in his book. The books you read every morning are nonfiction pieces for your classes, and bring a sketch book a couple times a week as a substitute when you don't feel like indulging in history at the ass crack of dawn. 

He's been practicing soccer every morning now and his teammates comment on his change in precision and dribbling, and all Rafe can do is shrug and bitch about how he's the best on the team and can't help his natural talent (which his friends are used to hearing, and immediately humble him).

Well, little do they know you're the entire reason for that, and Rafe teeters between telling you that or keeping that to himself. 

The only downside to all of this is that Rafe's sleep schedule is...no longer. 

He stays up during the night, partying, sketching, whatever, and then makes his way to the field around five-am to practice and wait for you to get there (to make it look like he's already been practicing), and sometimes he doesn't even practice but instead waits on the bleachers for you if he has a game that day, not wanting to push it.

But then Rafe stays with you well into the morning, time that he usually spends sleeping is spent talking and chatting ears off.

Pathetically, he doesn't want to miss a day with you, yet he's really fucking tired.

Maybe you'll understand? Or you won't, and Rafe will have to go back into a panic to figure out if you're actually into him or not. 

Rafe genuinely thinks he's dumb, because you'll graze his hand against his or subtly compliment him, and he doesn't know how to respond, and will just carry on normally because he doesn't want to assume anything is going on.

Because if there's nothing happening between you, then Rafe doesn't want to be embarrassed for thinking that way.

Rafe needs verbal confirmation if you're into him, because these subtle ways of being touchy and flirty are very confusing to a dumb person.

A.K.A., him.

The realization that you're horrifically down bad for Rafe Cameron hits you at approximately 3:22am on a random Sunday, a week after you meet.

You'd gone to bed around eleven, trying to get some early shut eye before your Renaissance history exam tomorrow. The prep had you cozied up in the library all day, forcing yourself to reiterate the material to no end until you were seeing your handwriting in your head when you shut your eyes.

That's usually your tale-telling sign to know when to wrap it up.

But the effort to get plenty of rest proves fruitless in its attempt due to the giant fucking spider you see a foot away from your face.

Panic rises in your chest.

After all, you often wake up naturally during the night at least once to turn over or stretch your legs and sometimes think you see something, like the hoodie on the back of your chair that looks like a person or the piece of string on your floor that emulates a snake. In the moment, you try to convince yourself that it's one of those pranks your brain likes to play on you.

When it moves, however, that's when you scream.

You fliiiiiing off the bed, landing harshly on the tile with a thud, probably dragging half of your bedspread with you as you fumble for the lamp switch on your dresser.

The light makes it worse, because it proves your suspicions as you stare at the biggest spider you've ever seen on the wall, inches from your pillow.

Of course, you panic.

Heart racing, you freeze in your spot as you can't seem to take your eyes off of it, scared that it'll disappear into your sheets or behind your bed if you move or look away for a fraction of a moment. It's a standoff, you realize, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

And there's no way you're getting near it.

Your fingers shake as you reach for your phone on the dresser, not once taking your eyes off the creature. Once it's in your hand, you pause and suck in a breath.

What the fuck is your phone gonna do?

Think, you repeat in your head. Breathe. Call Laney.

Your thumb ghosts over your best friend's contact, but your heart sinks when you catch a glimpse of the time.

Christ, it's the middle of the night. No one is awake at this hour.

You groan, eyes flickering between your phone and the spider that stays still on your wall, probably thinking of its plan to kill you, or whatever arachnids normally plot.

Trembling in place, you run through your options.

A. You could attempt to throw something at it, but that would only work if you had a guaranteed throwing accuracy, which you do not have. This will probably result in you missing entirely, and the spider vanishing in your sheets to never be seen again. Nope.

B. You could attempt to call Laney or your RA for some roadside assistance, but you know that Laney of all people, who once shrieked and ran from a wasp (it was really a fly), would really be of no help. And your RA often slept through a lot of concerning events, as in multiple fire alarms, a cat fight right outside his door, and, once, a literal firecracker. Nope.

C. You could grab your lighter and attempt to light it on fire. Given the circumstances, you're also guessing that's a fat nope.

D. There's a-

Your endless spiraling comes to a halt when you get a text, a fucking text, none other than from Rafe Cameron. At three in the morning.

Rafe: hey! someone make a greg and rowley edit to fake plastic trees. got me fucked up lowkey. heres the link. lets debrief about it later.

A moment passes and you blink hastily at the message, wondering if your eyes are playing tricks on you or if he, truly, is awake right now casually looking at god knows what. You re-read it once, twice, double checking the time stamp he sent it, mere minutes ago, and your chest pains in embarrassment at what you're about to do.

Your gaze darts from the text to the spider and back to the text.

God, your options are thin.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you're pressing on his contact, hitting the call button.

It rings once. "Please don't tell me I woke you up from that stupid text."

"No, um." You bite your lip as you eye the spider. "Uh, are you busy right now?"

"Besides talking to you? Nothing, pretty. Isn't it past your bedtime?"

You hate how your cheeks burn at his nonchalance, but are thankful he can't see you right now, even though he might at some point in the nearby future.

"What's wrong?" Rafe's tone morphs from teasing into what sounds like concern.

"It's stupid," you whisper, swallowing your pride. "But, uh, there's a giant spider in my room, I'm not kidding the size of my palm. I'm just, like, kinda freaking out?"

There's shuffling on the other end, a grunt, then a thud.

"Ow," Rafe grumbles and it sounds far away, as if you aren't meant to have heard it. "What dorm are you in?"

Your heart flips. "Shaffer. But Rafe, you really don't-"

"Room number?"

"509. But-"

"Nah," he interrupts nonchalantly, as if he won't entertain the thought of not helping you. "I'll be there in five. Talk to me, what'd you do today?"

Rafe arrives in three minutes.

Creeping to the door without taking your eyes off the spider, you open it to reveal Rafe Cameron, clad in sweatpants and a ridiculous graphic t-shirt (that looks like it's inside out), hair disheveled and sticking in every direction, holding his phone to his ear where you're still connected on the call. His green sneakers are untied. His smile is bright.

You try not to stare. You really try. Especially since you're supposed to be keeping an eye on the problem to begin with, but it's hard to resist when he looks so disgustingly endearing.

Eager, even, to help you out.

"Good to know it hasn't eaten you yet," Rafe jests, hanging up the call and putting his phone in his pocket.

You swallow the lump in your throat and step aside to let him in. "You really didn't have to-"

He places a cool palm over your mouth, startling you into shutting up.

Blinking stupidly up at him, all your senses are inhibited when you realize how close he is, how you can smell his cologne and see how bright his blue eyes really are.

"None of that." Rafe grins at your wide eyes. "Now, where is it?"

It's almost annoying how fearless he is.

While you're huddled in the opposite corner of the room, hugging yourself through your thin pajamas, Rafe simply scans the scene in front of him: the array of sheets and blankets hazardously scattered on your floor, the spider on the wall, your hand-sized penguin plushie that Laney got you as a joke. He can't help but cheekily smile to himself, getting a glimpse of you through the items you have, the photos you have hanging up, delaying the arachnid trapping for a moment to be selfish.

You catch him staring at a photo on your wall under your miscellaneous posters, and clear your throat.

Rafe snaps his head back to you, as if forgetting why he's here. "Right, sorry, pretty."

You reel as you watch him. Looking around for items he can use for the entrapment, Rafe settles on a discarded empty coffee cup from your trash can, kneeling forward on your bed and holding the cup underneath the spider.

The thump of your heart only gets louder as you see him nudge it with his own bare hand into the cup.

Once the spider is in it, he simply puts his palm over the top, covering it with not so much a second thought.

Rafe stands normally, tilting his head with puzzlement when he turns around to face you, wide eyed and, frankly, a little horrified.

"What?"

"Wh- You-" You splutter. "You touched it."

All he does it shrug, as if it literally means nothing. "No biggie. You have any ops on this floor? I can set him down so he crawls into their room instead."

After you escort him (from a distance) to relocate the spider outside, Rafe only deems it polite to walk you back to your room. On the way back in, he catches a glimpse of himself in the window and winces at his appearance, so the whole walk back he's been subtly trying to flatten down his unruly hair. You stifle a laugh each time he brings his hand up to mess with it more, undoubtedly making it worse.

By the time you get back to your door, it's worse than before. But he's never looked better, in your opinion.

"Um, thank you," you say sheepishly, toying with the strings of your pajama pants. "I know it's late. Or early. Whatever you wanna call it."

Rafe's smile couldn't be bigger. "I was up anyway."

You frown. "I don't think that's very good for you. You know, not sleeping."

Your tone reeks of concern, frankly a little embarrassing to express such distress for his well-being despite knowing him for only a week now.

But he barely seems fazed by it, instead shrugging. "Maybe. But then I wouldn't have answered your call, hm?"

The amused gleam in Rafe's eyes make your head fuzzy.

"I guess," you mumble. "I'll get you a coffee for your...troubles."

Rafe laughs boyishly, leaning against your doorframe as if he has all the time in the world to talk to you. "No need, pretty. I'm a certified arachnid relocator. I'm putting this shit on my resume. You honestly did me a favor," he rambles. "Needed a new job to put on there, anyway."

You can't help but roll your eyes, not really understanding how he has the energy to quip with you right now.

"Right, put it under your specialty in kickball," you tease, fighting a smile when you see his brows raise. "Will you please try and get some rest?"

"Depends," he hums, tilting his head to the side in contemplation. "Will you be at the field tomorrow?"

Ignoring the way your heart leaps, you shake your head. "Can't. All the more reason to catch up on sleep, no?"

"Are you asking me to?"

"Begging, really."

Rafe then nods, but not without trying - and failing - to suppress a stupidly large grin. "Alright, fine. For you? Anything?"

When you finally convince him to go back to his room (only the building next door), you can't help but lie awake in your spider-free bedroom, staring at the dark ceiling as your mind replays the last thirty minutes over and over.

Yeah. You're already in deep.

Rafe's been meeting you for a few weeks now, ever since the spider incident, almost every morning to talk and hang out.

A couple days a week you'll get coffee before classes to keep Rafe stable, and he discovers that you two always have something to talk about, and if there's silence it's always comfortable and natural. You often watch the sunrise in silence when it first awakens, and then carry on your normal routines when the beauty is over. 

It's so stupidly endearing to him that you let him share your moment with him.

Safe to say he's horrendously down bad...despite his overwhelming fatigue.

This morning has been exceptional rough for Rafe, because around three in the morning while he had been bored tinkering with things in his room, he suddenly remembered a paper that needs to be written before his noon class.

Of course, it's the middle of the night. He knows you're definitely asleep and there's no way he'd wake you up for something like this.

Naturally, Rafe spirals into a messy panic, standing in the middle of his room for a few moments debating on writing the paper here in his dorm or just taking all his things to the bleachers and doing it there while waiting for you. He does have a couple hours to spare, but Rafe doesn't think when he grabs his backpack, laptop, and book and runs out of his dorm.

The darkness of the night has never bothered him, not while the moon shines above him and illuminates his path. It's one of the reasons he loves nightfall so much, is because of the beauty of the moon and the light that it reflects on the earth. He wishes he could see the craters more clearly so he can soak in all of her beauty, but tonight he's in too much of a rush and panic to really think about the deep ideas of the moon.

When Rafe gets to the bleachers, he immediately opens his laptop and starts writing, whipping his book out so that he can reference quotes and cite pages while he lazily goes off his shitty outline he wrote a few nights ago about the premise of his paper. The words he hastily types come out as lethargic unpleasantries, and he really, really tries to focus to make it good, but his head keeps lulling forward and his fingers shake from fatigue.

He doesn't even care. He's a STEM student anyway, so literature isn't really at the top of his list of things to care about.

But god forbid he misses a morning with you.

So he lounges back on the bleachers, ferociously typing away everything he can and scraps together every piece of knowledge he has about the book.

And that's exactly how you find Rafe a few hours later: head tipped back with his legs stretched out, laptop discarded beside him with a black screen, light snores emitting from his mouth and his hair disheveled in every sort of direction.

And you think you're gonna melt at the sight. 

Rafe is startled awake by a loud squawking by his ear, and yelps quietly while he shoos away the crow on the fence and tries to remember where he is and what he was doing. He sees the sun...the soccer field...holy shit, where are-?

You, sitting next to him with his laptop in your lap, waiting patiently for him to wake up. You try (and fail) to suppress a grin as you notice how disheveled he is right now, who's trying to piece together what he had been doing before he passed out.

"Good morning," you greet warmly. "Sleep well?"

"What time is it?" Rafe immediately asks, mind fuzzy from the short amount of sleep. "I have class at-"

"Noon," you interrupt calmly, trying to ignore how stupidly attractive his morning voice sounds, "I was planning on waking you up in an hour or so in order for you to have enough time to get there, but your professor emailed you and the rest of your class to tell you that class was cancelled for a family emergency. So I wasn't going to wake you at all, but that crow had other plans for you. Sorry."

Rafe sits up and rubs his eyes, cracking his back and stretching from the uncomfortable position, still foggy as he looks at your pretty and yawns. "I need to...I need to finish a paper. It's about-"

"Frankenstein?" you interrupt again, looking very prideful. "Don't worry, I've read the book before so I finished it for you. I also re-wrote everything you wrote because...well...it wasn't making sense. I mean, no offense or anything. I kinda submitted it already since it was still due at noon, so..."

Letting out a breath of relief, Rafe slouches and utterly destroys his posture as he regains his ability to think coherently.

His mind catches up to the situation. You found him asleep, finished his essay for him, and waited for him to wake up so you wouldn't disturb him?

Yup. Yeah, it's official, he's smitten with you.

"I don't know how to thank you," murmurs Rafe, unknowing of what to even say, scratching the back of his neck as he peers over at you.

You simply shrug, handing the laptop and book back to Rafe (of course while grazing your fingertips together, hopefully intentionally).

"Think of it as..." You rack your brain for words. "...Me returning the favor. You know, for the spider."

His mind is mush.

All he can think about is you not thinking twice to help him out, despite his idiocy and consistently scrappy appearance. Somehow, somehow, he hasn't driven you away yet. Just when he thinks he's fucked something up, you come back.

"That was- I wanted to do that for you."

Once again, you shrug. "And I wanted to do this for you."

Rafe blinks stupidly at you, unable to form a coherent thought. What ends up coming out of his mouth is, "You wrote a paper."

"Yeah."

"For me."

"Well, I couldn't submit the garbage you came up with. No offense, or anything, but I think you confused Frankenstein with Frankenweenie."

"That's a common mistake."

You manage to crack a smile. "Is it?"

Rafe decides it's one of the prettiest things he's ever seen. "Mhm."

But, of course, he has to ruin the moment by yawning so horrendously audacious that he nearly groans in self inflicted embarrassment.

"Sorry," he winces when he comes down from it, rubbing the side of his face in exhaustion. "That's my body's involuntary response to when a pretty girl writes my papers for me."

You roll your eyes to push away your shyness, to ignore the heat flushing your cheeks.

"You really should get some rest."

Rafe yawns again. ""M not tired."

Despite the dark circles under his eyes, Rafe looks perfectly content on these bleachers, leaning back onto the row above and lounging brazenly. His head is lulled in your direction, looking up at you with those pretty blues and a half lipped smirk that seems to be permanently etched on his face whenever he's with you.

You wring the ends of your shirt, nervously biting your lip under his intense gaze.

And you're speaking before he can call you pretty again.

"Well, how about this. After you get some sleep, we can...we can get dinner? We can even do take out, or I can try and chef something up in the communal kitchen, or something..."

His mouth drops open.

You trail off, unsure of what to make of his flabbergasted expression. Is he...Is this not what you thought it was?

But Rafe is over the moon, unable to get that stupid shocked look off his face as he realizes holy shit he thinks you're asking him out? and he can't find the energy to move, he's frozen, relaying the thought over and over in his head that you, of all people, are into him.

Are you? Or is this some sort of friend-quality time thing that's going over Rafe's head because, contrary to popular belief, he's very smart when it comes to blueprints and designs and sometimes mathematics, but also very dumb when it comes to pretty girls.

Is this a direct invitation on a date or not? His tired brain doesn't know how to think strai-

"I'll take that as a no...?"

Rafe blinks his way out of his thoughts at the sound of your voice again, and he finally finds the words and mumbles out a curse word as he notices the confused guise on your pretty face.

He immediately widens his eyes.

"No, no, no-"

Your brows raise.

Rafe recoils. "Yes! Well, I mean yes, yes, I'll get dinner with you. Sorry, I just...Yes, I'd love to." 

You find it in yourself to laugh, and subtly let out a breath you've been holding for all that time Rafe had been yelling at himself in his head, debating the context of the invitation.

Blinking blearily, Rafe shakes his head, trying to figure out if he's still sleeping and he's dreaming, or if this is actually happening to him. But with the intensity of his rapid heartbeat and the way you look so vividly real and present, he deems that this is in fact not a dream, and this is happily real life.

"Good, because I don't know what I'd do if you said no," you joke, twiddling your thumbs out of nerves and letting out a low chuckle. "Probably never talk to you again."

Rafe waves you off with a proud look on his face, a wide grin, saying your name with such a saccharine tone that it makes your brain go fuzzy.

"Oh please, like I'd even think of blowing off my very own essay-writer. I may be stupid, but I am not an idiot."

This makes you laugh with that stupidly adorable smile that you can't seem to fight off that well, and Rafe takes in how beautiful you are, with your perfect grin and bright eyes that remind him of the the lightness in his chest when he finds something funny, or how your sweet voice smoothes over the ridges and hills of his heart and fills in the gaps affectionately.

(Which is painful for Rafe to endure because he loves it so much).

"You are pretty stupid," you admit quietly, timidly. "You're stupid for losing sleep over me."

Rafe closes his agape mouth at the fact that he's been caught. "Well it's worth it." Then softer, "You're worth it."

You roll your eyes and stand up, Rafe watching you do so. "You shouldn't have to accommodate your entire schedule for me. Honestly, you should go home now and sleep," you suggest earnestly, because all you want is for him to be at his best.

"Only if you'll come with."

Your heart skips a beat and you find yourself rolling your eyes once again, but this time feeling heat creep up on your neck no matter how hard you try to fight it.

It's always something about the way Rafe flirts with you so effortlessly, and how you can tell he means it. 

"Fine," you agree gently, saying it as if it was a bad thing (although your suppressed grin gives that away), "c'mon, you stupid idiot."

So, Rafe gets his things together and leaves the signature bleachers with you, this time finding the gall to slip his hand into yours, gingerly squeezing.

All this time, he wondered what it'd be like to hold your hand, and safe to say it's even better than his preconceived expectations.

© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work unless given permission.

notes some fluff for these hard times. hope you enjoyed!

[anniflamma]

AnniFlamma, we all love your fanart and animatics of Epic: The Musical, please don't let a few shitty people demotivate when 100x those people love and adore the stuff you make, along with all other animators!

Stay safe and take care, we will always be here and I can't seem to repeat this enough but we love your art

Thank you and everyone for reaching out to me. I will be honest with you all that what happened did upset me a lot, but I am very lucky to have people to go to for support. I will even blame some of them for making me cry, my friends, I mean, because if I am upset and if someone asks me if I am okay, I just break down. 😅 But I used our little server as a ground to vent, and right now I feel much better now.

But I will still be honest that I meant what I said that my interest in making Epic fan content has reduced a lot. I still love Epic, and I still really want to do the whole Ithaca saga, but I have also realized that posting content about it has caused me to feel anxious.

An example is when I finished The Challenge animatic, I felt an extreme wave of anxiety when I was going to press the upload button. And the worst thing? My anxiety confirmed the fears. I have gotten tiktok comments saying that I am a freak for drawing Penelope nude despite it being in a non-sexual way. Apparently, I have to be constantly reminded that female bodies are icky and the world hates women. Aaaaaaand then to get hit by that TikTok video of thousands of people shitting on me, Duvetbox, Gigi, Mircy, Neal, and so many more…

If you have noticed, I have posted less, all types of content for Epic. I don’t do my headcanons anymore, I never wrote that full review of Epic, I feel less keen on drawing fanart, let alone joking about shipping here online. I remember when I made a joke about shipping Aphrodite and Athea because they were the only female characters interacting with each other (ignoring Hera), and then I took it as a critique that Epic failed the Bechdel test. After that, I got plenty of anonymous messages about how I am an evil person for shipping those two goddesses… Just say that you don’t know what the Bechdel test is and block me... 😑

I also hate how my first negative experience with the Epic fandom was pure homophobia toward my Bible animatics. Like, they used negative language toward gay people to tell me to make Epic content instead. There is this weird obsession where people expect me and other artists to only do one thing, which is Epic, and if we dare to do something else, we get punished or infantilized, like we didn’t have any say when Casper commissioned us for Stories of Styx. Don’t get me started on how fucking awful people were to Casper and Teagan….

I hate how people easily tell others things, only for them to unquestionably believe everything said about me. Like the amount of "Anni made Ody/Circe porn, uwaaaa!!" And then, the moment someone questions them and forces them to realize I never made such a thing, they double down and say that I shouldn't have made Circe nude in the original animatic "cuz female bodies are icky" or the classic "Well, I haven’t seen the porn video, but someone told me it existed, so I’m going to believe it exsits." Like, you could tell these people that the sky is green, and they would believe you.

Then there’s that whole "Anni supports rape" or "Anni felt bad for the suitors and wanted Penelope to get raped" insanity. Those quotes stems from ppl was crashing out when I made a post criticizing Epic’s way of addressing the topic of rape. In that post, I was suggesting that I would like the story better if Odysseus were actually morally ambiguous when killing the suitors. How could anyone even think Ody was in the wrong for killing the suitors because he wanted to protect Penelope? How can he be a monster after that? I don’t know, I support a husband protecting his wife from gang rapists, but I guess that was the worst thing for me to ever say, huh? Like, how dare I criticize their almighty Jorge…

It’s insane that I have an easier time handling hateful Christians compared to TikTok Epic fans. 😅

Oh well... I’ve had so many bad experiences with the TikTok Epic fandom over the past two years. And eventually, you just want to log off.

I’m thinking of stopping posting Epic content at all on TikTok as a first step. If TikTok Epic fans hate my fanart that much, then I’ll do them the favor of never seeing it from my account. I will, however, continue posting my Bible animatics there. And if I continue working on my Hold Them Down animatic and if I ever finish it… I will only be active here on Tumblr and on YouTube.

And so, at this moment, I will take a pause from Epic. It probably won’t be that long because, despite everything, I love that musical. But I also have to remind myself that, despite there being so many negative remarks toward not only me but the other artists, there is a lot of love from you actual fans. I have about 138K subscribers on YouTube. That’s 138K individuals who love my work so much that they want to see more of it. THAT IS TOTALY INSANE! And I will never forget that! And I am so thankful for all of you and your support. Thank you and I love you guys! 💕

I’m also planning on making a better-formulated post about this another day. All of this is just me ranting and want to take a short break, focusing on something else.... Maybe... Venice the musical? 😅

[xarrixii]

had Boyfriend™ do this with his choice for character because he uses reddit (and also created. most of their original concepts. cough. they're just so fucking cool)

Tried to convince best friend to leave his job, AITAH?:

Hey guys, I have to leave out a lot of detail to keep everyone unidentifiable but here we go. My friend works at a big time company and is super talented. We used to work at the same company together, however I left after a couple disagreements with upper management. I now work for a grassroots organization and I feel like I'm actually making a difference for once and my skills actually mean something. Me and my friend have been friends for years, long before we both worked at this company, and I know they're experiencing the same difficulties and disagreements with management as I was, so I reached out and offered for them to come work at the same joint I do. I know our organization could really use and benefit from his skill set and he could really help others. The offer didn't go over well and I'm having second thoughts. AITAH?

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

[catssluvr]

dating pre-crash natalie scatorccio <3

⭑.ᐟ The type of girlfriend to make a tape with all of the songs that remind her of both of you or just you in general and gift it to you on some anniversary.

⭑.ᐟ Will get you a yellowjackets shirt with her name as joke just to be looking starstruck at you when you actually wear it to her games and practices.

⭑.ᐟ Talking of practices, she’ll come up to you while you’re sitting on the stands waiting for her after it’s finished, wrapping you in her arms from behind and peppering your face with kisses while you complain about her being sweaty.

“Nat!”

“I thought you said i look hot when im sweaty :(“

⭑.ᐟ Half of your make out sessions are cut off by her giggling, Nat just really can’t hold herself in when anything gets serious. But it’s mostly just her being silly in love for you.

⭑.ᐟ As soon as she’s comfortable enough around you, be prepared for her to be doing full on dance presentations in front of you while screaming the lyrics of the song playing in the radio

⭑.ᐟ Her favorite nights are when she gets to sleepover at your house, glad to be away from her house. You’ll watch rented movies while eating tons of snacks that she insisted on buying until you get too sleepy and fall asleep bundled up together.

⭑.ᐟ Nat always saves money to buy you something nice on your birthday or on your dating anniversary, she thinks it’s a great way too show you how much she appreciates and loves you in her life.

⭑.ᐟ Smiles so wide when you buy something for her, even if it’s just a new nail polish because she ran out of it.

⭑.ᐟ Absolutely loves to tease you about simple things just to make you blush.

⭑.ᐟ Is sooo giggly when sleepy and loves to be babied too, making grabby hands at you while you’re doing your skincare and begging you to join her in bed soon.

⭑.ᐟ Has a lot of cuteness aggression towards you and will randomly playfully bite your bicep, giggling when you scowl at her for doing so.

“It’s just a love bite :>”

⭑.ᐟ Comes up with a nickname for you that no one else uses but also likes to call you ‘angel’ or ‘baby’ when you two are alone or in intimate moments.

⭑.ᐟ All of her teammates tease her about going soft for you and breaking all of the badass performance just for you. To which she mostly responds with an huff, knowing it’s mostly just the truth.

⭑.ᐟ Tells you that she loves you in between sweet kisses that she presses to your lips, fingers grasping your shirt to make sure you stay close to her until she’s ready to let go.

⭑.ᐟ Seeks you every time she needs comfort, knowing she can trust you with her life. Climbs up to your window if that means she’ll get to spend the night by your side and away from what isn’t actually her home.

⭑.ᐟ Has and will continue getting into fights if anyone bothers you or ever makes fun of you, not really minding the consequences when she gets to have you cleaning up her bloody nose.

⭑.ᐟ Loves it when you do her makeup before a party, making you sit in her lap while you do so and running her hands up your thighs while telling you how pretty you look.

⭑.ᐟ Throws little notes to your desk during class whenever she’s bored out of her mind and not sitting next to you - probably because the teacher realized she wouldn’t shut up and pay attention when she was with you.

“you look amazing, angel <3”

“ughh how are you not bored?? this sucks”

“meet up at the convenience store after school? we can go to the lake and make out till the sun sets :)) so romantic, rightt?”

⭑.ᐟ Nat definitely slips her hand into your back pocket or slips her fingers into your belt loops while walking with you, more out of need to be close than anything else.

⭑.ᐟ Turns into a golden retriever when she’s around you, opposed to the whole black cat persona she’s known as. Absolutely giddy as soon as you walk into the room.

[complainblogforthevoid]

I've finally figured out an argument that convinces coding tech-bros that AI art is bad.

Got into a discussion today (actually a discussion, we were both very reasonable and calm even through I felt like committing violence) with a tech-bro-coded lady who claimed that people use AI in coding all the time so she didn't see why it mattered if people used AI in art.

Obviously I repressed the surge of violence because that would accomplish nothing. Plus, this lady is very articulate, the type who makes claims and you sit there thinking no that's wrong it must be but she said it so well you're kind of just waffling going but, no, wait-- so I knew I had to get this right if I was gonna come out of this unscathed.

The usual arguments about it being about the soul of it and creation fell flat, in fact she was adamant that anyone who believed that was in fact looking down at coding as an art form as she insisted it is. Which, sure, you can totally express yourself through coding. There's a lot more nuance as to the differences but clearly I was not going to win this one.

The other people I was with (literally 8 people anti-ai against her, but you can't change the mind of someone who doesn't want to listen and she just kept accusing us of devaluing coding as an art) took over for I kid you not 15 minutes while I tried desperately to come up with a clear and articulate way to explain the difference to her. They tried so many reasonable arguments, coding being for a function ("what, art doesn't serve a function?") coding being many discrete building blocks that you put together differently, and the AI simply provides the blocks and you put it together yourself ("isn't that what prompt building is") that it's bad for the environment ("but not if it's used for capitalism, hm?" "Yeah literally that's how capitalism works it doesn't care about the environment" she didn't like that response)

But I finally got it.

And the answer is: It's not about what you do, it's about what you claim to be.

Imagine that someone asks an AI to write a code and, by some miracle, it works perfectly without them having to tweak it---which is great because they couldn't tell you what a single solitary thing in that code means.

Now imagine this person, with their code that they don't know how it works, goes and applies to be a coder somewhere, presenting this AI code as proof that they're qualified.

Should they be hired?

She was horrified, of course. Of course they shouldn't be. They're not qualified. They can't actually code, and even if by some miracle they did have an AI successfully write a flawless code for every issue they came across that wouldn't be their code, you could hire any shmuck on the street to do that, no reason to pay someone like they're creating something.

When actual engineers use AI what they do is get some kind of base, which they then go though and check for problems and then if they find any they fix them, and add on to the base code with their own knowledge instead of just trying different prompt after prompt until they randomly come across one that works.

People who generate code like this don't usually call themselves engineers. They're people who needed a bit of code and didn't have the knowledge to generate it, and so used a resource.

And there you go. There are people who have none of the skills of artists, they don't practice, they don't create for themselves. When they feed the prompt to the AI they then don't just use the resulting image as a reference point for their own personal masterpiece, and if they don't like it they don't have the skills to change it---they simply try another prompt, and do that until they get something they like.

These people are calling themselves artists.

Not only that, these people are bringing the AI generated thing to interviews, and they are getting hired, leaving people who slave over their craft out of the job.

And that is the difference, for the tech bros who think AI art isn't a big deal.

[ihateswansmorethananything]

This took way too long and I don’t even like it, kill me please

It may be a bit cringy but it’s currently 2 am and I’m too tired to care

Is there any context? No! Just make one up haha

I totally just made this because I’m a sucker for Jack being head over heels for Davey the second he sees him

@nitttstdsdtoastd asked for Javid and I will deliver 🫡

(I totally made this for myself)

Sarah is another person we can add to the “is annoyed by Jack’s tendencies” pile

[plutoslastwords]

Hi please can you do Oscar!dad toddler sees him crash or something

leads, letdowns and lollipops

oscar piastri x daughter!reader, lando norris x piastri!daughter!reader

summary: baby piastri sees her dad take quite a big crash, a strange man in orange calms her down

w/c: 1.6k

warnings: description of an f1 crash

a/n: first time writing for anyone but lando... but he still makes an appearance

~~~

A Formula 1 race doesn’t really make much sense for a 3 year old. As intently as you’re watching, you just can’t quite grasp everything that is going on.

It is the Melbourne Grand Prix, which daddy told you means that it’s his Home Race. You don’t know what that means, but he said that it was important to him, which means that it’s probably important to you as well. 

You don’t particularly enjoy watching your Daddy race, you much prefer when he holds you, talks you through what's going on when you watch replays on the TV. As much as you love your Auntie Hattie, it’s not the same as when Daddy holds you close, soothes you when you get antsy.

“You’re daddy’s starting on pole today! That means he’s starting at the front…” Hattie coos at  you, you just look at her, shooting her a slightly confused nod. You think that starting at the front sounds like quite a good thing, but you’re not completely sure, everyone looks very stressed. 

“Is daddy going to win?” You murmur to her, looking up at her with wide, innocent eyes, carbon copies of your father’s. 

“I hope so, baby, he’ll be very happy if he wins, and we want your daddy to be happy…” You nod more convinced at that, you do want your Daddy to be happy, so you also want him to win. 

You shift the big headphones on your head before the race starts. Daddy says that you have to wear them because it gets very noisy when he races, and also you’ll be able to hear his voice super loud through them, even though he’s out on the track. As much as you want to be able to hear Daddy’s voice, the headphones are very big and very heavy for your little head, so it takes a lot of adjusting. 

When the formation lap starts, your Daddy is in the lead, so naturally you cheer for him, Hattie explains to you that they haven’t actually started racing yet, ‘this is just a warmup, baby!’, which you don’t really understand, but you quiet down. 

Finally, the race actually starts. The people around you cheer, Daddy is still at the front, so you let out an excited giggle.

“Daddy’s at the front, does that mean he’s won?” You ask Hattie excitedly, tugging at her shirt as you rest in her lap.

“Not yet, baby, he still has to do quite a few more laps of the track”

“Oh. How many, how long until Daddy wins?”

“About 50 more, so maybe another hour and a half?”

“Oh, that’s quite a lot…” You mumble. You’re not sure if you really want to watch this for another hour and half, nothing very exciting is happening.

Another few laps pass, you sit quietly in Hattie’s lap, watching the orange car on the screen. At one point Daddy passes another car, which confuses you, you thought that Daddy was meant to be at the front?

“Why is Daddy going ahead of that red car? I thought he was first?”

“That’s Lando, baby, Daddy’s teammate, they drive the same car, but Lando was in 3rd, but now he’s 2nd..”

“Oh… I like Lando” You smile, Lando had given you a lollipop this morning, going straight into your goodbooks. 

It’s about half way through the race when two cars at the back have a bit of a squabble, causing some people near you to take in sharp breaths, breathing out in relief when it’s certain that no one is hurt.

What no one was expecting, however, was a piece of debris to stay on the track, not on the racing line, but definitely there, to cause a lot of damage.

Oscar comes racing past the next lap, on set to win the race with the pace that he’s going, when he falls just slightly off the racing line, nothing that would be of any issue normally, but today he goes straight over the piece of debris.

This causes a chain reaction of unfortunate events. In the space of about 5 seconds, someone is yelling ‘Puncture!!!’ Then Daddy is spinning and then he’s straight into the wall, the car in all sorts of pieces.

Everyone around you gasps in horror, Hattie tightening her grip on you, taking the headphones off of your head so that you can’t hear Oscar’s radio in case of the worst. However, the lack of headphones opens your ears to the noises of the garage, people are shrieking, shouting, hand over their faces, calls of ‘is he okay?!’, ‘is he replying?!’.

Your Grandma has a hand clutched over her mouth, a look of pure horror on her face, the orange men in front of you all sporting looks of equal distress. You put the pieces together that something is wrong. Daddy is in that broken car and he hasn’t come out.

All hell breaks loose. Tears immediately well up in your eyes, as you start sobbing into Hattie’s shoulder.

The race is red flagged, the driver’s all coming back into the garages.

Whilst you’re buried in Hattie’s chest, Oscar does come out of the car, causing everyone to release a sigh of great relief. His condition, though, is still unknown. He looks slightly shaky as he gets out of the car, and is whisked straight into the medical car.

You come out of your hiding place when an orange car comes back into the garage, a man with a strange yellow helmet getting out of it. That’s not Daddy.

“Where’s Daddy?” You sob to Hattie.

“He’s just at the doctor’s baby… He’s okay, I promise, everything’s okay baby…” she tries to soothe, but it’s clear that she doesn’t fully believe the words coming out of her mouth, causing you to sob harder. 

As the family sits with baited breath, you sobbing, the lollipop man from before comes over. You see him talking to your Grandma, probably trying to tell her that he’s okay, he saw the crash and he’s probably a bit winded but he’ll be fine. Although it manages to soothe your Grandma and aunts, you’re not one bit comforted, tears still freely flowing down your cheeks. 

He comes up to you, taking you from Hattie’s arms, bouncing you on his hip. “Hey sweet girl… your Daddy’s okay, I promise…”

You shake your head, not at all convinced.

“No, no, angel, he sent a message to Tom, you know Tom, and he told Tom that everything was okay, and he was okay. They’re just gonna run a few checks to make sure..”

You look at your discarded headphones, Daddy said that you’d be able to hear him through them, but you’d taken them off. Maybe there is a chance that the strange lollipop man is telling the truth.

“Wanna see Daddy…” You sniffle, your sobs subsiding.

“Yeah? Let me find someone who can take you to see daddy, okay?”

You shake your head, pouting, “You take me to see Daddy.”

“Oh, angel, I’ve gotta go back to the race in a few minutes… But I promise I’ll find someone super nice to take you to go and see Daddy, okay? What about Mark, you like Mark?” He gestures to Daddy’s manager, Mark, who looks like he’s getting ready to go to the medical centre to check up on Oscar.

You give the lollipop man a slight nod. You do quite like Mark, but the lollipop man is being very kind, soothing you almost as well as Daddy does, you don’t know if you want to leave him.

Lollipop man smiles, handing you to Mark, who holds you tight as he walks to the medical centre. He’s talking to a lot of people on the way, you get the sense that he’s quite important.

Finally, you reach the medical centre. The person at the front takes one look at Mark Webber with a crying child in his arms, and just lets you both in, not wanting to pick a fight today.

Mark takes you through a few corridors until you see Daddy. He’s on a bed, sitting up and talking to a man in a white jacket, the doctor you think, still in his racing clothes.

“Daddy!!!” You squeal, lurching yourself out of Mark’s arms and sprinting over to where Daddy is, hauling yourself onto to bed and snuggling right into him.

“Oh, hi bug…” He strokes your hair, a soft smile forming on his face, “What’re you doing here?”

“Wanted to see you!! Y-you had a big crash!! I was scared Daddy!!” Your wide eyes threaten to spill tears again.

“Oh, baby… no, no you don’t have to be scared…” He lifts you up and into his lap, stroking your back soothingly, “Daddy’s okay, see, ‘m right here, angel…”

“The lollipop man said that you were okay… but I didn’t know…” You sniffle

“The lollipop man?”

“He’s got a weird name, Daddy” Oscar lets out a little laugh at that, Lando, most likely.

“Yeah? Did he look after you?”

“Yes Daddy! Do you think he’ll give me another lollipop?”

“Another? I don’t know baby, have you been a good girl…” He coos, his crash completely forgotten now that you’re back in his hold.

You nod your head rapidly, to which he just laughs at. How could he ever deny you anything when you’re as cute as that…

“You can have all the lollipops in the world, baby…”

You grin so hard he’s worried that your face might split open. “I love you Daddy!!!!”

“I love you so much more, my baby…” He says soothingly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

~~~

a/n: two posts in a week?? who is this girl

[what-even-is-thiss]

A lot of people misinterpret me saying that I’d prefer to not be bullied for being blonde as me saying I’m oppressed for being blonde or something. I’m not saying that. I’d just prefer that people in general don’t get bullied for things out of their control and I find that speaking about my personal experience of being severely bullied as a child for everything that was different about me including my natural hair color is a good starting point for that sort of discussion.

Like are you applying the things that you believe in even to people you don’t think deserve that kind of grace? I’ve found that a lot of people’s convictions break down pretty quickly once a group is identified that it’s okay to bully. I’ve experienced this as both a fat person and a blonde person. Granted I’m not systemically oppressed for my hair color but it’s still something out of my control.

And people will say “try experiencing racism” or something in response to my point. You’re right in that I do not experience racism. The societal problems that people of color face in relation to their hair are worse than mine. I try to acknowledge this whenever I can.

Fact remains though, you’re still bullying someone for things outside of their control and I don’t think that’s a good habit to get into. I can’t control my natural hair color any more than anyone else and I’m also of the belief that lifting the oppressed up is generally a better tool than tearing others down. Especially other persons oppressed by other factors.

“It’s not that deep though”

Isn’t it? I’m not only thinking about myself when I push back. I’m bringing attention to this tendency that people have to thoughtlessly punch at traits outside of a person’s control. Again, do you hold to your own principles even when interacting with a group that your group has deemed okay to take a swing at?

Being bullied for my natural hair color isn’t the primary concern in my life. In fact, I don’t speak about it very frequently. It’s not something that keeps me up at night. However, I still don’t prefer to see people saying they hate blonde men irl or other uncomfortable things. I am simply out here existing as I am. And if I can use my position in this as a person not oppressed in this particular area to bring attention to a larger issue then I’m going to do it.

I would simply like to live in a world where it is not socially acceptable to say horrid things to people about things outside of their control. I’m not being a whiny baby here. I have a clear goal in mind. Think about why you may have found it to be acceptable to perpetuate this sort of behavior and who it’s actually helping. Maybe you don’t care about my feelings, but there’s probably someone out there you care about that’s hurt by these kinds of hurtful statements. Perhaps you yourself are. It’s not just about hair color. I take issue with the broader thing that these mean statements about my hair color represent.

[himasgod]

Can I request the Twst first years with an S/O who wears glasses? And one day while they're out her glasses fall and break so she asks the guy to be her "seeing-eye boyfriend" until she can get her replacement pair?

FIRST YEARS X READER

Where your glasses break

How would first years react if your glasses broke and you asked them to be your "seeing-eye boyfriend"?

The fall was almost cinematic—one second you're both walking through the courtyard with milkshakes in hand, and the next, your glasses clatter to the stone path with a crisp snap that silences your breath.

Ace blinks down at the broken frames.

“...Well. That sucks.”

Very helpful commentary.

You groan, squinting at the blurry world around you. Everything’s turned into a watercolor painting, pretty, but useless. You reach for your bag, already fumbling for a cleaning cloth or something that might do the impossible and fix them.

Ace crouches down beside you, holding up the broken arm of your glasses like a forensic detective.

“Yeah, no saving these. They're totally toast,” he says and grins.

“Guess you’re stuck with me now.”

You blink. “Huh?”

“Your seeing-eye boyfriend. Come on,” he says, puffing his chest.

“I volunteer as tribute.”

“You? You’d lead me into Crowley's office just for fun.”

“Bold of you to assume I’d wait for an excuse,” he shoots back, clearly enjoying this way too much. Still, he steps in beside you, grabbing your hand with more confidence than usual.

“Don’t worry, babe. I’ll be your noble guide through the treacherous lands of blurry hallways and evil staircases.”

Honestly? It’s kind of adorable.

Except…

“Ace,” you hiss as you walk face-first into a hedge, “that was definitely a bush.”

“Oh, oops.” He stifles a laugh. “My bad. I was looking at a crow that looked kinda like Riddle.”

You smack his arm, and he catches your hand before you can escape.

“Okay, okay, for real this time. I swear I’ll guide you”

And he does. Sort of.

Ace’s version of “guiding” includes narrating everything in dramatic tones (“A wild vending machine appears!”), making traffic beeping noises at crosswalks, and waving off student with

“Move aside! VIP coming through.”

But in between the jokes, he’s surprisingly attentive. He warns you about uneven pavement. He helps you down stairs. He gently turns you in the right direction when you start to wander. And when someone asks why he’s being so clingy, he just says:

“Can’t help it. Gotta take care of my favorite person, right?”

When your new glasses finally arrive a few days later, Ace squints at you dramatically.

“Huh. You were even cuter when you were blurry. Guess I’ll just have to date you all over again in HD.”

The moment your glasses fall, Deuce gasps like he just witnessed a crime. You tripped over a rock and fell to the ground. He scrambles to pick them up before you can even get up.

“Are you okay?! Did you hit your head? Oh no—your glasses…”

One look at the snapped arm, and he looks genuinely distressed.

“I can’t believe I didn’t catch you! If only I’d moved faster—”

“Deuce, it’s okay,” you laugh softly, reaching out to pat his shoulder.

“They’re just glasses. I’ve got a backup pair somewhere, I just need to find them later.”

“But you can’t see without them, right?” He holds the broken pair like he’s holding a wounded bird.

“Then—I’ll help. I mean, I’ll… um. Be your… your seeing-eye… boyfriend?”

The way he says it makes you smile.

“…Yeah,” you reply, slipping your hand into his. “That’d help a lot, actually.”

Deuce turns red immediately. His grip on your hand tightens just a little.

Walking with Deuce as your guide is like navigating with an overenthusiastic, overprotective golden retriever. He’s very serious about the job. He announces every step, every turn, every uneven stone like he's defusing a bomb.

“There’s a crack in the pavement coming up. And uh—three steps down. Careful. Okay, good. We’re clear.”

Sometimes you have to stop and remind him not to overthink it.

“You don’t need to call out every single pebble,” you tease.

“I just don’t want you to trip!” he insists, puffing up. “What if you fall and break something? What if I let go and you bump into a wall? What if—”

You gently squeeze his hand. “Deuce. I trust you.”

That short-circuits him for a few seconds.

“…I won’t let you down,” he says, a little softer. “I’ve got you.”

And he does.

He slows his pace to match yours. Offers his arm like a perfect gentleman. Even tries to describe the world around you so you don’t miss out.

“There’s this really pretty bird in the tree ahead—it’s blue and has this weird feather that sticks up—kinda looks like it has a cowlick…”

When you finally get your backup pair of glasses a few days later and slide them on, Deuce stares at you with wide eyes.

“You’re amazing no matter what, but seeing your eyes properly again is…” He stops himself, going bright red.

“I-I mean—you look beautiful. Always. I’m just glad I could help.”

You smile, reaching for his hand again.

“You were the best seeing-eye boyfriend I could’ve asked for.”

He beams. “Anytime.”

The second your glasses hit the ground, Jack’s ears twitch. He doesn’t even hesitate—just crouches and scoops them up, holding the broken frames in his hand like they might somehow fix themselves if he stares hard enough.

“You okay?” he asks, already checking you over for injuries like a concerned older brother. “Did they cut you or anything?”

You shake your head, though your squint makes Jack frown.

“Can’t see much now, though,” you admit, trying to hold the glasses up to judge if they’re wearable.

They’re not. One arm’s completely snapped off and the lens is scratched.

Jack stands straight, folding his arms.

“Alright. Then I’ll walk you back to Ramshackle. Or wherever else you need to go.”

You tilt your head. “You sure?”

"Of course. I can’t just leave you wandering around blind. That’d be irresponsible.”

“Then… can you be my seeing-eye boyfriend for a few days?”

His tail stops wagging. You can almost hear the reboot noise in his brain.

“I—uh. That’s… yeah. I can do that.”

True to form, Jack is efficient, steady, and very aware of his job. He walks at your pace, always slightly in front or to the side so you have an anchor. He doesn’t talk too much—just enough to say things like “step here,” “slippery patch coming up,” or “handrail’s on your left.”

At one point, you trip slightly on a slope and instinctively reach for him—and Jack immediately grabs your hand, pulling you against his side.

“You good?”

“…Yeah,” you mumble, flushed from the sudden proximity.

Jack doesn’t let go. In fact, he holds your hand the rest of the way. Quietly. Warmly. His fingers are a little calloused, but they’re gentle.

When you get your replacement glasses, Jack glances at you with this subtle but very "Jack" kind of softness.

“Glad you got them back. But… if they break again, I wouldn’t mind helping you. Just so you know.”

He turns his head to the side quickly.

“…It’s not a big deal or anything.”

But his tail is wagging again.

The crack of your glasses hitting the ground is followed by Epel’s immediate gasp of, “Whoa—shoot! You okay?!”

He’s already dropped his bag to inspect the damage like a concerned old farmhand looking over a busted tractor.

“Ahh, the frame’s toast,” he mutters. “This sucks, sugar…”

You blink through the blur. “Everything’s fuzzy.”

“You want me to… walk you back or something?”

“Actually, you’re my seeing-eye boyfriend now,” you say, holding out your hand like you expect it.

He stares at you, face going pink so fast it looks like he was just slapped by the wind.

“Y-you can’t just say stuff like that without warning!!” he sputters, but then his hand grabs yours with no hesitation.

“I mean—fine! I can do that. No big deal.”

Epel is really trying to act cool about it, but his grip is just a little tight, and his ears are red for the first ten minutes of walking.

Unlike the others, he talks a lot. But it’s cute.

“Okay, sidewalk dips here. Careful. And—hold on, lemme go first and check if this puddle’s too deep. You ever step in one’a those and get water all in your boots? It’s the worst.”

He occasionally grumbles at people for walking too close to you.

“Watch it, pal. She can’t see, alright?”

At one point, you misstep and bump your shoulder into a wall, and Epel whips around like he’s about to punch the brick.

“I should’ve warned you! Dangit—sorry, sugarplum. Here, lean on me more, I’ll walk closer.”

He does, too. He even lets you rest your hand on his arm like some kind of prince.

When your new glasses arrive and you slide them on, Epel tilts his head.

“…Yeah. Still just as pretty.”

He pretends he didn’t say that.

You don’t let him pretend.

Your glasses hit the ground. The arm snaps. The lens pops out. You sigh.

Sebek screams.

“DISASTER! UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN—?!”

You cover his mouth.

“Sebek. Please. Breathe.”

When he finally calms down enough to form words that aren’t shouting, he immediately drops to one knee to inspect the glasses like they’re some ancient relic from Briar Valley.

“This is a serious matter,” he huffs, standing tall again.

“You cannot possibly navigate this campus with impaired vision. What if you trip? What if you run into an obstacle? What if—heaven forbid—you encounter a DISGRACEFUL STUDENF who knocks into you?!”

You blink at him. “So… wanna be my seeing-eye boyfriend?”

He short-circuits for a full five seconds. You could hear the error tone.

“SEEING—BOY—WHAT? I—!” His face is rapidly changing colors, caught between panic, pride...

“W-well! If you insist! Of course it would be my DUTY to assist you!”

And assist he does.

Sebek walks exactly half a step in front of you at all times, loudly narrating your surroundings like a royal town crier.

“WE ARE APPROACHING A SET OF STAIRS. I REPEAT—A STAIRCASE. DESCENT REQUIRED.”

You try not to laugh. “Sebek, I’m right here.”

“I AM MERELY ENSURING MAXIMUM AWARENESS!”

Honestly? For all his dramatics, he’s weirdly good at this.

He even swats someone’s backpack out of your way at one point and scolds them for “failing to consider the visually disadvantaged.”

You almost feel bad when your new glasses arrive and you don them again.

Sebek blinks. “…Ah. You can see again.”

“Yep! Thanks for helping me so much.”

He nods stiffly, trying to hide how flustered he is.

“It was nothing. Merely what any exceptional man would do in such a situation!”

You step closer and kiss his cheek.

He explodes.

[mangled-by-disuse]

I do think this misses the biggest reason Hunger Games works and the knockoffs don't, which is just: Suzanne Collins knew what she wanted to say.

A lot of subsequent YA dystopias are barely dystopias - they aren't motivated by message, they're motivated by aesthetic. What does Divergent's world tell us about our own? What does Maze Runner reflect in our society? At worst, they're completely nonsensical "would it be fucked up or what?" settings, but even a lot of the better ones are muddled and trying to address too many things at once.

Panem is a pretty simple world, as far as message goes. It's literally in the name: "what if panem et circenses was the only real policy?" What if everything was appearance and show, and this was intentional? What would that hide, and how would that affect the hidden? Capitol or District? Arena or daily life? Real or not real?

And that carries over into every aspect of the story. It's a complex story, in a lot of ways, but it can be complex because it knows exactly where its focus is. It looks you in the eye and says: do YOU know what's real?

Is the revolution real, or is it just a changing of the guard? Is Katniss a hero or does she just look like one? Is the Capitol populace an evil mass to be wiped out, or do they just look like one? Over and over: what's real, what's true, what matters?

And because that is also the starting point for the setting itself (the Capitol uses show and pageantry above everything else, and everyone is made to be a tool in that performance), it not only feels cohesive, it justifies the dystopia. Like, Panem isn't realistic and doesn't make real-world sense, but it doesn't have to, because it's like that for a reason.

Many stories with the aesthetic of dystopia, especially the ones in this subgenre, have a random dystopia - it's not motivated by the themes of the story. To take Divergent as an example (because it's bad and because I happen to have read it): what does the setting, the division by personality, the weird class divide... what does that actually mean? Besides "Tris is special", what do the factions contribute thematically? If people were divided up by, idk, hair colour instead of personality traits, would that say something profoundly different? I don't think so, because the dystopia is set dressing. It isn't actually about "when we divide people into teams we suppress individual thought" (which is what it looks like on paper) or "it's bad to decide people's whole life when they're teenagers" or anything concrete like that, it's about "hey cool action sequence".

and there are better and worse iterations of that kind of issue, but I think Hunger Games is one of the best modern dystopias (not just YA ones) for staying focused and clear in what it's about. And it leads into all the points OP made, which definitely help the books a lot, but also it's just inherently easier to read and easier to get into a deeper discussion with.

The setting isn't like that because dystopian sci-fi is fun and exciting and fashionable. It's like that because the setting is the story.

Reasons The Hunger Games Works and None of the Knock-Offs Do:

I just reread The Hunger Games Trilogy, and I have some thoughts about why they work so well and so many others just don’t.

Katniss Is Lucky: At every turn Katniss gets lucky. This isn’t a “anyone could have done this but no one’s tried before” or “main characters is special in some way” story. If Katniss’s name had been called instead of Prim’s, she probably wouldn’t have won. If anyone other then Peeta had been called she wouldn’t have won. If Cinna had picked any other year to become a stylist she wouldn’t have won. If her father hadn’t been a hunter she wouldn’t have won. If Madge didn’t give her the pin (how Rue decided to trust her) she wouldn’t have won. I can’t really explain why this is so important to me, but it is. Katniss isn’t special or super powered. She’s lucky.

Katniss Is A Symbol and 13 Has an Army: Katniss is not a rebel leader. There isn’t a group of ragtag teenagers who follow her and take on a corrupt government all on their own. She’s a symbol to inspire the people in the districts to fight, but no one ever puts her in charge of an army. Why should they? She’s a 17 year old, traumatized, child. The only time we do see Katniss lead is at the end of Mockingjay, and then it’s a group of about ten people, most of who end up dead and the mission doesn’t succeed. More importantly, 13 beats the capital because they have a fully functioning, highly trained, military ready to go.

These Are CHILDREN: Yes, every young adult story focuses on a teenager, but so many of these stories seem to forge they’re talking about teenagers. They act as if they are twenty somethings, or in the society set up you are considered an adult at 16. The Hunger Games hammers you over the head with the fact that these are kids. Katniss goes to school. I do not know a single hunger games rip off where the main character goes to completely normal every day school.

The Death’s Aren’t Shock Value: Yes, Prim’s death is shocking. It’s heartbreaking. I knew it was coming and still cried. That’s not why it’s there though. The point is how far Coin is willing to go to make sure Katniss is on her side. Everyone else’s deaths also have a point. Finnick and the others on Katniss’s team show the sacrifice people are willing to make for the cause and for Katniss. Cinna to show Katniss what happens when she resists. Rue is the cruelty of the game. Madge, the cruelness of the capital.

The Goal Is Clear: Mazerunner comes to mind with this one. What was the actual goal after the first book? Hell if I know. In The Hunger Games series there’s no fancy plan or convoluted thing they need to do. The plan is simple. Hunger Games and Catching Fire: “Don’t die”. Mockingjay there’s a lot of background stuff happening, but for Katniss the goal is always one thing: kill Snow. Everything she does is a straightforward line to that goal for almost the entire book.

Gale and Peeta: Both Gale and Peeta are totally realistic and reasonable love interests for Katniss. Neither of them are always nice or always perfect, but it easy to see why Katniss struggles to balance the two of them. There is no clear choice between the two. More importantly, the choice is representative of a larger concept. Katniss herself makes the comparison, saying Gale is rage and Peeta is calm. It’s not just between two guys, it’s between two ways of life and what Katniss needs in her life.

She Picks Peeta: I can not stress enough how important this is. In any of the knock offs I guarantee you that she would have picked Gale. Or, more accurately what would have happened is they would have switched Gale and Peeta’s personalities. Peeta would have been the angry, tortured, mysterious guy, and Gale would have been the kind, artistic, best friend. In this case, she would have still picked Peeta, but the whole point would have been lost. For all intents and purposes it would have been picking Gale. But no. Katniss picks Peeta. She picks calm and peace rather then giving in to Gale’s anger.

[lukolathoughts]

Miss Nicola - supporting LGBTQI rights

Dearest gentle reader,

I have been itching to write a blog post now for a few weeks, but not really knowing where to begin. There have been frenzied weeks and days of activity, but then silence and the fandom meanders like a lost boat at sea. We are often rudderless without the reassuring presence of our ship captains - Luke and Nicola. This also tends to get the sub fandoms spouting nonsense claiming to have seen Nicola in Birmingham or some ridiculous crap. I didn't want to bother her by asking for a photo! No photo, no proof my friend.

I'll talk about me for a moment. I had a week from hell last week. There was something so upsetting for me to deal with, I couldn't go into work as I was crying that much. Try to explain this to your manager: that nasty comments on YouTube made you late for work. Luckily, she is an understanding person and I have told her about my YT channel. Saying some things out loud to real life people make me sound barking mad. But it is the price you pay for being public on YouTube. It also makes me an easy target. I am used to online trolls and people who hate me for saying that Jake is gay and believing in Lukola, but when the stab in the back comes from a supposed friend, it really is the ten of swords. My phone blew up that much, I opened my eyes that morning genuinely thinking Lukola had launched. My hope turned to ash, when I saw what was really happening. I share this with you all because, I have had to have a reckoning with myself the last week. My online life and my real life are not the same. My real life is way more important and I actually need my job, so messing it up because I've got people I don't really know online saying mean things about me, that are not true, shouldn't matter. But it still hurts. But I also realise, they are trying to stop me sharing and trying to ruin my credibility and reputation in order to send me off into my discord crying never to return again.

Well think again. No one tells a Sagittarius woman what they can and can't do. I am made of stronger stuff. Love will always conquer hate. No one puts Baby in the corner, and I will not stand for it. I have scaled back most of my online life now. It had helped me cope with the last year and losing my friend, but sometimes you have to go back into reality. I'm never leaving the ship though. You'll have to chuck me overboard and I'll still jump back on like Rose from Titanic. "I couldn't go, Jack! You jump, I jump, right?"

Anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about Nic. I love Nicola by the way and nothing I say here is a criticism of her or her choices. I see what you're doing though, miss Nicola. I said in my last blog that the shit would hit the fan when Jake has to start press for his new upcoming BBC3 drama What it feels like for a girl. I will admit I have not read the book. Regardless of who Jake is playing, it is reportedly an all queer cast, a queer director and at least one queer writer that I know of. Why would the director of an all queer cast hire a straight man in a homosexual role? If this show is as big as It's a Sin, that aired on Channel 4 a few years ago, then there will be press and a lot of it. There will be press from queer magazines also. Jake is currently in an awkward position, because some press believe he is in a romantic relationship with Nicola Coughlan, a woman who is also 14 years his senior. So, what will Nicola and Jake do?

Jake is holding onto his cash cow with both hands and Nicola needs Jake to continue to pose as her boyfriend to stop the media digging. But honey, they know. It was clear all the press at the SAG awards knew exactly what was going on and they were not afraid to say it. The 'happy ending' comment levelled at them directly by a reporter, had Nicola stunned and Luke smiling like all his Christmases' had come at once.

Nicola knows what is going on. She knows there is a deadline and she knows if she doesn't extricate herself from the narrative she is dating a gay man, she is screwed basically. What is she doing? She's getting out her, I love gays!! T-shirt, hats, scarfs, sunglasses, whatever. She is doing it. Look at me, I love queers! I love her for this and I already know she is an advocate for LGBTQI rights. She has a ton of gay friends. The fandom knows this of course, but do the general public?

At the Neutrogena event on 27th March 2025, there was a very tall drag queen doing some MCing. We know Nic loves drag queens and has been to many shows, so this is nothing new to us. I'm not being overly cynical that the drag queen might have been there for a reason, right? Neutrogena is a product that is targeted at women mostly for their skin products. What has that got to do with a drag queen? I just found it odd.

Next up we have Nicola's Pink Pony Club Post that she shared to both her Instagram stories and grid last Thursday 10th April. The song by Chappell Roan is synonymous with the gay community and one that Jake danced to at her concert last year in a pink cowboy hat. "You guys, remember when my old flat was a gay hotspot!" Nicola, posts 4 polaroid's of her looking fabulous in pink and lays them on a pink blanket. What made you feel so nostalgic, Nic? Or are you sending a message? Look at me, I have loved my gay besties for donkey's years. Prominent gay friends such as JVN and Jack Rooke commented all in agreement, that indeed, Nic's flat was the place to be. And, no I do not think Nicola is coming out herself as gay. Get real, she is supporting her friends and peers.

Then there was yesterday's selfie of Nicola wearing her black - 'I just wanted to say if you are trans and reading this, I love you and so do all my mates' T-shirt. There a few other details in that post that other bloggers such as @toriaaniin have covered beautifully, so I won't go into it here. My eyes sprung wide when I saw this post. I know she advocates for the charity Notaphase.org and I commend her for doing this, but two queer posts in a few days seems to be a lot for Nic, when lately she hasn't been posting at all.

There is also the male hairdresser Halley Brisker in her Opalex video on her Instagram, They make a big deal of letting us know he flirts with male makeup artists. Nicola is clearly good friends with Halley and it is an endearing watch. But to me this seems like a lot of overkill in the last few days for the general public to look at her Instagram and instantly know, yes Nicola does love the girls, the gays and Luke Newton. (FYI Halley Brisker is married to a woman and has children, but to the general public this conversation is implying Nic is comfortable with these conversations).

This, in my opinion, is setting the stage for the final act. I can see Nicola doing some sort of article or interview where she clears a certain narrative up. If you notice, Douglas has also been quite forceful again in implying certain things about Jake and Jake himself does not stop others from posting suggestive posts and videos of him. Nicola must remove herself from this mess in order to move forward with her own career and life. Hanging onto old connections are no longer serving her personally and professionally. Her engagement on Instagram is down by a lot, so I'm told and she is losing followers. She has done all she can career-wise for Jake now, he has to make his own way.

If this does not happen and we remain in this weird heteronormative bubble, I fear the press for What it feels like for a girl, will be a shit show. The truth will come out eventually and it will drag both Jake and Nicola down with it.

[vonbabbitt]

ok since people asked about the evil au. also please keep in mind this is a very 2000s/2010score au. its edgy and campy for fun

Isono Miki: Ultimate GFE Streamer

leans HARDCORE into GFE. constantly trying to manipulate money out of lonely people to fund a super bougie and comfortable lifestyle. snakesnake basically

Harada Keizou: Ultimate Butcher

butcher for the sole reason that he truly does enjoy chopping up and segmenting animals

just way over the top campy "haha i love killing and blood soooo much!!" 2010s deviantart creepypasta style

Chiba Airi: Ultimate Scammer

does exclusively ads for scummy faulty products and subscriptions and supplements so she can make mad bank

when we were discussing this in call we just kept saying "buy supplements" over and over and over again so thats the vibe

Kamimura Kazutoshi: Ultimate Cleanup Crew

its the same job but now he does it on the opposite side of the law

works directly in tandem with hasegawa, cleans up evidence and gets rid of bodies etc

personality wise....hes mostly the same LMAO

Hayashi Mai: Ultimate Hitman

doesnt ask questions. gets the job done

just in it for the thrill of the hunt. personality mostly the same but gets a bit feral edgy style when shes getting closer and closer to catching her target

Wada Masanari: Ultimate Con Artist

works with chiba and handles her phone lines

impersonates people's voices to give them the run-around when theyre trying to do something like cancel a subscription ("i wanna speak to the manager" "hi yes this is the manager now.")

buy supplements

Sasaki Hitomi: Ultimate Dictator

hey man gotta do something with those leadership skills

absolutely ruthless war criminal. this one is probably the most evil i think

Ojima Takeshi: Ultimate AI Artist

"nakamigawa i actually really like this design but i honestly think you could buff it up a lot with midjourney"

calls himself a "prompt engineer"

"wow cool drawing! i ran it through chatgpt to improve it a bit"

just a hardcore AI bro. thinks AI art is the absolute effing best and definitely real art

Okazaki Hanano: Ultimate Superhero

okay so shes not evil anymore

we thought it would be funny if in this evil AU shes just good now

still the rival of tsuno manami though

Hama Ran: Ultimate Occult Evangelist

just a straight up cultist

considers himself an "angel hunter", hunts down alleged "angels" and kills them in the name of his cult

tries to rope other people into his cult evangelism style

Tsuno Manami: Ultimate Supervillain

yeah pretty much what it says on the tin here

shes evil now

except shes actually good at it unlike okazaki

wants to take over the world or perhaps just blow it up maybe

Hiroaki Nakamigawa: Ultimate Model Coach

coaches young fashion models extremely harshly and pushes his fashion VERY hard

basically just yells at and insults these teenagers until they get eating disorders or quit forever

BRUTALLY mean

Tamba Ruiko: Ultimate Detective

except she absolutely fucking sucks at it

her detective-ing is an active detriment to everyone and actively sabotages crime scenes

she has no idea she sucks

Hasegawa Ken: Ultimate Information Broker

one smug motherfucker

works directly with kamimura in their little two man mafia

collects peoples information and uses it to blackmail them out of a massive amount of money and resources

Watari Nishino: Ultimate Demolitionist

we thought arson was way too basic

so now she blows stuff up with huge bombs

just for fun i guess. and can fun ever really be evil? certainly no way

Yanagi Shigeki: Ultimate Pick-up Artist

teaches those sigma male courses on how to pick up women

massive chauvinist

treats women like cattle and acts with the full intention of picking up as many of them as possible

[mediumgayitalian]

"Don't cry."

"...I'm not."

"Omigods. Will. Don't cry."

"I'm not!"

But there are welled up tears making his eyes looking huge, and even as he bites it his lip still trembles. In seconds there is the slightest of sniffles.

Nico groans, slumping against the handle of the grocery cart. A WASPy mother glares at him in passing. He glares back and sics an errant soul onto her monstrosity of a hairdo for good measure.

"Will," he groans, metal bar digging into his forehead, "Will, it's a lemon."

"I know," Will sniffles, bravely. "Just -- leave it. Let's go."

Nico moves his arm, just enough to watch his too-tall over-empathetic dumbass best friend try and fail to pull himself together in the, and Nico cannot emphasize this enough, very public grocery store in the suburbs of Long Island, where people stare.

And, like.

The staring is not too unusual.

Will is in cutoff shorts and flip-flops. It's early March. Climate change is not that bad yet. The two of them are wearing neon camp t-shirts -- Nico's good, goth t-shirts have been stolen from him to be 'washed' -- and are both, Nico must emphasize again, fifteen years of age, with a grocery cart each full to the actual brim with Pop Tarts, Twizzlers, medical supplies, socks, and silly string. Will is approximately nineteen feet tall. They make a scene. That is a fair evaluation.

But rare is the day where Nico cannot quell the stares by reflecting hellfire into his eyes. Mortals usually flee in terror or at least walk away traumatized. Today they aren't even looking.

"Will," he says, as gently as he can manage. Will looks over, after a minute, and his bright eyes look so glassy and miserable that whoa, hey, Nico can manage a whole lot gentler than he thought he could, can't he. He reaches up and pats a palm against Will's wet cheek, swiping a thumb under his eyes. "Do you. Want." He glances over at the lone, half-dried up lemon on the floor by the produce baskets. "Would you like to take the lemon home with us.

"Yes," says Will quietly. Nico's hand falls away and Will wipes his face, crouching down to scoop it up. He hesitates before putting it in the cart, cradling it against his chest. "It's just." He looks at Nico through his eyelashes. Nico tries to smile encouragingly. Based on the immediate tears and sobbing of a child directly behind Will's shoulders, he is unsuccessful. "If we don't take it, no one will, you know."

"Yes," agrees Nico slowly. "Due to the fact that it is garbage."

Will snatches his hand back like Nico had smacked it, glaring hard. Nico is really starting to consider those bipolar pamphlets Kayla left pointedly on the Apollo table. Yeesh.

"It's not -- garbage! Just because -- just because something isn't as good as everything else doesn't mean it's garbage!"

...Or not.

Ah.

"Ah," says Nico. He clears his throat. "Ah."

Some cultures attribute tact and gentleness to his father -- Death accepts all, and in facts invites all, to reside with Him. He will take your hand and guide you to whence you have never travelled, where you have no kin. He will speak to you in your shock of your life and your triumphs. He, when you have no one, is your compassionate, voluble friend.

Hazel inherited all that, unfortunately. Nico got the dead-eyed stare and fruitiness.

"Uh," he tries, anyway, "if you were a rotten lemon, I would take you home."

Will looks at him skeptically. "You would?"

"Y -- uh, yes. I would make." He wracks his brain. "I would use you to clean surfaces."

"...Oh."

"Yes. Like -- chopping boards, and the like." He makes a karate chop motion with his hand. He immediately takes the hand and shoves it into the untraveled depths of his pocket, which is a challenge due to the fact that it took him forty minutes to paint his jeans on this morning, and vows to cut its quisling digits off as quickly as possible. Why is he alive.

He is grateful at least that his friend is about as stupid as he is.

"That would be a good use for me if I was a rotting lemon," Will agrees. He looks down at the rotting lemon cradled in his hands. "Maybe we will use you to clean."

"Yes," Nico says, gentle coaxing. "Now let's put the lemon in the cart, okay? We're almost done. We just need the nineteen quarts of ice cream Cecil paid me ninety dollars not to disclose to Chiron. Let's go."

"'Kay."

Garbage lemon safely laid among a braid of licorice packages, dead centre in the cart, they move on. The stares follow them, but Will at least does not seem to mind -- used to it, veteran camper that he is -- and slides his arm through Nico's crooked elbow. Nico takes that as the opportunity it is to steer him away from the cake that a nefarious teenager has pushed to the floor, lest that set him off next. They have only minutes until they make it to the cash register, where Nico will pay for whatever Will is watching him scan, and are home free.

"Hey, Nico."

Nico hums, eyeing the self-checkout line. "Yeah?"

"Would we still be friends if I was a worm?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

[boegy]

This is an awesome guide and I want to add a few of my personal choices to it and provide more resources.

Note: I am, by no means, an expert.

Disclaimer: Some of the suggestions below may be missing features you are used to. It's free, roll with it. ���

Level 1:

Another browser extension you should know about is LibRedirect. With it, you can pass links over to alternative sites to view the content. Be aware that the majority of the alternative sites are run by volunteers and enthusiasts; they don't always work 🙁 Small note: The name "Libre" gets used a lot by privacy-respecting and open source alternatives where previously they might have used "Free" or "Open".

Level 2:

Adobe Alternatives DuckDuckGo uses Bing for results, I also use StartPage for Google results. There is a desktop app for watching Youtube content called FreeTube that I recommend. It's a front-end for YouTube and Invidious servers (which re-stream YouTube content).

Level 3:

AdGuard is fine but if you are setting up a Raspberry Pi anyway, consider Pi-hole as an alternative option.

Level 4:

If, for some strange reason, you disregard the above guide and think that putting AdGuard on your phone is a reasonable alternative to the suggestions here, I would suggest that you DON'T. It may be different now but when I tried it the Android app it asked me to install a certificate. It does this so that it can modify websites you visit to block more ads. The downside is that it also allows them to read everything that would normally be encrypted. They may not be doing anything nefarious with it, but it's a risk I'm not taking. So, if a third-party you don't trust asks you to install a certificate, DON'T.

Level 5:

Awesome Piracy If you don't want to sign up for usenet and prefer to use torrents, get a good VPN and lock the torrent client down to only use the VPN connection. There are torrent tests you can do to see if your IP is exposed. In your VPN client, pick a country where copyright isn't a word! 😉

Level 6:

In addition to ReVanced, I want to also promote the app NewPipe which can be downloaded from the F-Droid store. F-Droid is an app store for your Android phone that hosts open-source apps and tells you every dirty detail of what each app does, privacy-wise. NewPipe is a YouTube alternative/Invidious front-end for Android.

Level 7:

Custom Windows playbooks are awesome and while I don't know Revi very well, but I will definitely check it out! Just browsing the docs I noticed that they default to the Brave browser. This is a personal opinion but I don't trust Brave as much as open-source alternatives. They have tried some interesting attempts at monetization in the past that make me suspect. Use the browser you are comfortable with instead and use a well-known, good adblock like uBlock Origin or uBlock Origin Lite. In addition to Firefox and its derivatives there is also Chromium and Ungoogled-Chromium if you want something familiar to Chrome.

Level 8:

Seriously, use Linux if you can (and if you do, make backups of your important files first!). Ignore Linux users that tell you to use Arch or an Arch derivative, it's not for beginners. When stuff breaks you just have to figure it out. Ubuntu, Mint, and Pop! are great for beginners but if you play games they may not be the most up-to-date for that. (Pop is especially behind at the moment 😭 but I'm hoping that changes soon) I personally use Fedora which is also great for beginners, is very up-to-date, and never gives me problems. However it does require one post-install setup step to replace the media codecs with "non-free" ones to make some media playback situations work. Other than that, it works so well that I actually find it boring compared to the usual amount of tinkering I'm used to! Fedora has two notable derivatives: Nobara, which is slightly tweaked for improved gaming performance and includes the media tweaks, and Bazzite which is similar to SteamOS but for general hardware (it's for gaming-specific setups like handhelds and living room gaming where you need a controller-focused interface).

Level ???:

You can host your own websites (webapps) made by others! I fell down this rabbit hole after Google killed Reader and I found self-hosted RSS alternatives. Later, I set up Docker and now I run dozens of useful webapps for all sorts of things! Try stuff out!

Hopefully this is helpful to someone. Feel free to ask me general questions about any of the above. If you have setup questions or technical issues, please contact the creators of the above projects first, as I can't cover everything everywhere. I try to, though! 😂

In case anyone is curious, I'm a software developer (mostly in web development) with a lot of general IT skills and troubleshooting experience and I spend a lot of my time tinkering with Linux, FreeBSD, self-hosted apps, open-source software, and supporting Windows systems that are all over the place. I have experience going back to MS-DOS, using Linux since the late 90's and have been running Linux as my primary system for over 5 years now (since Valve released Proton).

Thanks for reading!

genuinely wild to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV or listen to music or something and there are ads. I haven't seen an ad in my home since 2005. what do you mean you haven't set up multiple layers of digital infrastructure to banish corporate messaging to oblivion before it manifests? listen, this is important. this is the 21st century version of carving sigils on the wall to deny entry to demons or wearing bells to ward off the Unseelie. come on give me your router admin password and I'll show you how to cast a protective spell of Get Thee Tae Fuck, Capital