#we're also not going to talk about how they don't match

[akunemayo]

just one day│pt 2│flirting with an idol

fic masterlist

pairing: yoongi x reader

content warnings: angst, jealousy, alcohol, inaccurate BTS lore (i agonized over the timelines on this), cursing, y/n is explicitly referred to as female

notes: a scene from this chapter is based off yoongi's rap verse in 'embarrassment' from dark&wild! can you spot it? i also headcanon that y/n is the little female voice that says "yoongi-ah" during yoongi's rap verse at the beginning of 'just one day' because i'm clinically insane <3

words: 4.4k

June 2013 (Debut)

It had been over a year since you've spoken to Yoongi. After that last, disastrous day at the apartment, you never returned. The other boys were confused and hurt, but they were busy preparing to debut. Seokjin knew something was off with you, and once he saw Yoongi moping around as well, he'd put two and two together and realized something had happened between you two. 

"We're officially debuting on the 13th," Seokjin told you over the phone.

"Really? Congratulations!"

"We'll be celebrating that night. Want to join us?"

"I don't know… I'm kind of busy," you said reluctantly.

Seokjin sighed. "Come on, Y/N. I'm debuting. Show up for once, okay? Whatever happened between you and Yoongi can't be that bad."

"You don't know what happened," you replied morosely. "Maybe it's Yoongi who doesn't want me there."

There was a long silence, before Seokjin said, "I think you're wrong."

It was the evening of the 13th, and something had possessed you to get ready and come to the dorm. 

After you'd hung up on Seokjin a few days ago, you'd sat there thinking about it. The past year had been rough—not only because university had started to really pick up, but also because it had been harder than you thought to stay away from Yoongi and the other Bangtan boys. You saw Seokjin decently often, of course, but you avoided the dorm, and the other boys ended up caught in the crossfire. 

You had to admit, you missed them.

Even before opening the door to the rooftop, you could hear them talking and laughing raucously. They were clustered around a folding table, grilling meat on a camp stove. You felt more nervous than you had in months, and kept your eyes lowered as you slid into a plastic folding chair next to Seokjin.

"It's been a while, Y/N," Hoseok said, trying to include you in the conversation. "How has college been?"

You smiled at him gratefully. "It's fine, I guess. A little busy."

"Definitely," Taehyung interrupted. "We haven't seen you in forever!"

"Ages," Jimin chimed in. He, like Jungkook, was still shy around you, but debuting had loosened all of them up a little. They were all chattering, flush with relief and triumph, except for Yoongi, who was as calm and collected as ever. You noticed he'd lost a lot of weight, which was concerning, and his features were sharper than ever, emphasized by his clear, pale skin. He glanced up when you sat—you noticed someone had put eyeliner on him—but he quickly flicked his eyes away, as if unable to even look at you.

A pang of hurt shot through you. For some reason, even though you'd explicitly heard him say he didn't want you around, you'd thought it might be different this time. You rose hurriedly, excusing yourself to use the bathroom.

"Hey, Yoongi, it's going to burn." Jin pointed at the piece of meat that Yoongi had put on the grill.

Yoongi was staring at the rooftop door where you'd left. "What?"

"Your pork belly. It's burning."

He shook his head as if clearing his head. "You're right. I should go talk to her."

"Huh? Are you eating this or not?"

Yoongi shook his head. "You can have it," he replied, getting up so quickly his folding chair folded up and toppled over.

Jin looked around, his face matching the puzzled expressions around the table. " What's with him?"

After you'd washed your hands—and splashed some water on your face, while willing yourself to get it together—you came out, only to find Yoongi waiting on the stairs. Feeling surprised and more than a little uneasy, you took a step back. "Oh… um… do you have to use the bathroom?"

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you," he admitted, avoiding your gaze. "Sorry. I hope you don't think I'm creepy for waiting for you here."

You shifted from one foot to another, feeling awkward. "It's okay."

Yoongi bit the bullet. "So… uh… I don't know if you remember, but the last time you were over at the dorm you might have overheard me and Namjoon talking about something."

"Yeah."

"When I said that I wished you'd stay away, I didn't mean it like that." Yoongi bit his lip. "I like having you around. And I'm sorry if I hurt you."

You waved his words away. "It did hurt me," you admitted. "But it's my own fault for eavesdropping. You don't have anything to apologize for."

He exhaled, relieved. "So… we're good now?"

"We're good now." You smiled at him, feeling some weight lift off your chest. "

Walking back up to the rooftop with you, Yoongi was trying not to notice several things. He was trying not to notice the perfume you were wearing, and how it smelled like flowers and clean laundry. He was definitely trying not to notice the form fitting shirt and jeans you were wearing, and the way they clung to you. And, probably most importantly, he was really, really trying not to notice the knowing looks Namjoon was giving him.

"Here, Y/N. I made you a plate." Hoseok handed you a heaping plate of rice, meat, kimchi, and vegetables. "I didn't know for sure which you liked, so I put a little bit of everything."

You beamed at him. "Wow, thanks."

Yoongi bit the inside of his cheek. It was a perfectly kind, thoughtful gesture on Hoseok's part—but something about it irked him. He tamped down his irritation, tuning back in.

"I actually haven't seen the debut video," you were saying.

"You have to see it now," Taehyung insisted. He jumped up. "I can get Jimin's laptop and play it for you!"

"I can show her," Yoongi interrupted. "Here. Come on." He handed you a spoon and chopsticks, to go with the plate. Taehyung went to protest, but Namjoon kicked his shin.

You glanced at him, a little confused. "Okay…"

As you were following him back down the stairs to the apartment, you wobbled precariously, almost tripping and dropping your precious cargo. Yoongi steadied you in the nick of time, wrapping an arm around your waist. His fingers where they rested on your hip were a little cold, and you felt hyper-aware of each one through the thin fabric of your jeans.

You shivered, and he dropped his arm, suddenly aware of your proximity. 

"Sorry," he murmured. He punched in the door code, and held it open for you. "Ladies first."

"Thanks." The apartment was eerily quiet with all the boys gone. The thought that you and Yoongi were completely alone here, together, drifted through your mind.

Yoongi led you into the bedroom. His bed, one of the bottom bunks, had MIDI equipment scattered all over it. A cheap keyboard piano took up most of the space, and wires snaked everywhere, plugging into an old laptop. Carefully, he cleared some space for you to sit. "Sorry it's a little messy."

You raised an eyebrow. "I'm fine with it, but I'm not sure where you're supposed to sleep." You sat down next to him, pulling your knees up to take up as little room as necessary.

"I don't really sleep," he replied candidly, flicking some hair out of his eyes. Yoongi flipped the laptop open. "Here's the video of our debut performance."

"Wow." Your eyes widened. "That's Jungkook? Hang on… that's you?"

"Yep. Bang Si-hyuk PD had us styled and everything," Yoongi said, a trifle proudly.

"Oh my god." You leaned forward as Jimin did a flip over Hoseok on the screen.

"I helped write the songs," he boasted.

Shocked at the difference in the boys you knew and the ones you were watching, you asked, "Weren't you nervous?"

"Super nervous," Yoongi admitted.

"You don't look like it at all. You all look so confident." You rewound the video back to Jungkook's hat trick. "Especially Jungkook. Wow. I can barely recognize you guys."

Yoongi looked a little abashed. "Thanks."

"Am I still allowed to hang out with you?" you teased. "Now that you're a bigshot celebrity and all."

He laughed. "Celebrity, maybe, but I don't know about bigshot…" 

Yoongi met your eyes and realized that you were much closer than he'd thought. Barely an inch of space stood between you two. This close, he could see faint freckles scattered across the bridge of your nose, even count individual eyelashes if he looked closely enough.

You were frozen to the spot, newly aware of Yoongi's proximity. The look in his eyes was something unfamiliar, and strangely intoxicating. It made you want to lean in.

The moment shattered when someone threw the door open. 

"Hey, we're about to cut the cake… oh." As the door opened, you'd flinched away from each other, but apparently not quickly enough. Hoseok backed away awkwardly. "Sorry."

The door closed behind him, but the spell was broken. Yoongi was blushing furiously, looking anywhere but at you. Fueled by mortified energy, you leapt up. "Cake sounds good to me." And before he could say anything, you were already running out of the apartment and up the stairs.

Bonus…

Hoseok cornered him later. "So, want to explain what that was?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Yoongi mumbled.

"Is that how it is?" Hoseok raised his eyebrows. Normally easygoing and cheerful, the seriousness of his tone surprised Yoongi. "Be careful, hyung. I don't think it's a good choice."

Yoongi sighed. "Believe me, I know." He glanced over to you, where you were laughing, trying to learn some choreography from Jimin. "I keep telling myself that."

August 2013 (2 months after debut)

"How have you never finished Home Alone?" You stared at Yoongi, aghast.

He shrugged. "Dunno. I thought it was kinda boring."

"We're watching it again." You opened Yoongi's laptop, on the (neat!) bed that Yoongi had cleared specially for you. Although Yoongi had been getting busier and busier, the two of you had started spending every spare moment together—messing around and playing music, watching movies, or just laying around talking.

The two of you had become closer than you'd ever thought possible. There was something you just understood about him—the fear and strength he hid behind a facade of gruff uncaring; the care and love that shined through in everything he did for all the other Bangtan boys—it was like you didn't need any translation to know what he thought. And for his part, he came to slowly understand your quiet dreams of becoming a music teacher; your worries about choosing your dreams over something more "realistic"; and your thoughtful attention to those you loved, as well. His sense of dry, deadpan humor matched so well with yours that he could make you burst out laughing with just a look—in a word, it was addictive being around him.

That day the summer heat was out in full force even in the evening, cicadas chirping in the warm humid air. As the movie played, you grew drowsier and drowsier as the heat, the familiar sounds coming from the tinny laptop speaker, and the rhythmic wheezing sounds of an old fan lulled you to sleep. Slowly, you nodded off, and your head dropped onto Yoongi's shoulder.

He froze in place, hardly daring to breathe as the fan blew strands of your hair around, wafting the floral scent of your perfume towards him. Gradually, creakily, it rotated away from you two, and he relaxed ever so slightly.

In that moment, however, you mumbled in your sleep and shifted closer to him until you were practically on his lap, nestling your face into his neck.

Yoongi's mind blanked completely. He could feel your warm breath ghosting against his neck, your arms wrapped around him, and your legs thrown over his lap. Carefully, agonizingly, he inched his arm up, wrapping it around you and pulling you closer.

You responded with a contented sigh, melting into him, and something fluttered in his stomach.

It was some time—he had no idea how long—before he finally regained any semblance of rational thought, and the first thing he could think was, shit. Fuck.

He was in love with you. He was in love with you, and he was an idol under a dating ban. He was in love with his best friend's little sister, and even as he repeated these reasons why he absolutely couldn't fall for you over and over in his head, they were losing their power. Reality, rationality—they were fading away to white noise as he sat there holding you in his arms. He was starting to fall asleep too, relaxing slowly under your weight. 

The movie, which had been running, came to the home invasion scene. One of the bandits screamed, and you snapped awake, only to find yourself sitting in Yoongi's lap, cuddled up against him. 

"Oh!" You lifted your head from where it was resting against his shoulder, already starting to blush furiously.

"You awake?" Yoongi murmured, his voice low and husky with sleep. Lazily, he patted your head, gently guiding it back to his shoulder. "Go back to sleep."

Flustered and confused, you settled against him again. "Yoongi…"

"Mm?"

You couldn't find the words to say—your groggy brain was rolling through a continuous loop of confused protests. His cologne smelled good; like something citrusy, and the ocean, and finally, your sleepy coziness won out, and you slipped back into sleep.

Namjoon opened the door later, returning from the studio. He took in the scene without much surprise—it was pretty obvious to everyone except you and Yoongi (and maybe Seokjin) where things had been heading. 

He cleared his throat loudly and dropped his bag on the floor. When that didn't do it, he left the room, slamming the door as he went.

It was the slam that finally woke you two. Yoongi suddenly found himself laying in bed, with you snuggled safely in his arms. The sky outside was starting to darken, and he panicked. The other Bangtan boys—including your brother Seokjin!—could come back at any moment, and find him in bed with you.

He tried to ease his arm out from under you, but your eyes fluttered open, and met his. Mortified horror and confusion warred in your head, and you suddenly realized you were still laying on him.

Face burning, you sat up. "Wow, it's already getting dark."

Yoongi cleared his throat. "Yeah."

Avoiding each other's eyes, you both scrambled out of bed and hurried to fix wrinkled clothes and messy hair. Yoongi held the bedroom door open for you, as usual, and you squinted against the light of the living room. Namjoon was sitting on the couch reading. 

You shuffled awkwardly over to sit next to him. "What're you reading?"

He held it up to show you the cover. "Kafka on the Shore. It's pretty good."

"I liked it too," you replied quietly. Yoongi was moving things around in the fridge—you could almost hear him trying to work off his embarrassment with quick, impatient movements.

"I went into the room to drop off my bag earlier," Namjoon said, carefully neutral.

Flustered, you couldn't make eye contact with him. "Oh."

"I won't tell Seokjin-hyung, if you're worried about that." He looked at you, not unkindly. "If you want my advice… well." He smiled, a little self-consciously. "I won't assume you want it. Just be careful."

"Careful?" You frowned. "You mean… around Yoongi? Or with my brother?"

"With your heart. Love always takes work… but some relationships take more work than others."

"Oh—no, I don't… it's not… Yoongi and I aren't—" you stammered.

Namjoon shrugged. "I don't know anything about it, and I won't say I do. It's not really my business."

You squinted at him. "You're kinda wise. They gave you such a weird hairstyle for someone so wise."

He grinned, running his fingers over the 'RM' shaved into the side of his head. "Hip-hop warrior by day, philosopher by night. What can I say?"

"Thanks for looking out for me, Namjoon," you told him. "I'll think about what you've said."

"That's all I ask." He returned to his book, and you sat in thought.

After you'd gone home, Yoongi went back into the bedroom, thinking to put back some of the MIDI equipment he'd moved off the bed. He spotted Namjoon's bag by the door—a bag that hadn't been there before he'd woken earlier.

Frantically, he searched his memory, trying to remember if it had been there when you had left the room with him earlier. Had Namjoon… come into the room while you two had been sleeping?

Namjoon cleared his throat from behind him. "Yoongi-hyung."

Yoongi's heart jumped. He turned around like he was facing a firing squad. "Did you… were you…" "I saw," Namjoon said gently.

Yoongi's knees folded, and he plopped down onto his unusually clean bed. "Oh."

"It's alright, hyung. Only…" Namjoon sat down on his own bunk, across from him. "I'm just worried there's a lot in the way, if you want to pursue her." He frowned. "Or if you've succeeded."

"No, no—we never… we didn't do anything. Just fell asleep. Near each other. I don't think she even likes me like that…" Yoongi trailed off, realizing he was babbling. "Uh, anyways. I know."

"I think you guys are pretty good together to be honest," Namjoon admitted. "It's just that I don't want to see either of you struggle." He sighed. "To be really honest, I think she likes you too."

"I don't know if that matters." Yoongi bit his lip. "Or at least, not as much as everything else."

Bonus…

Namjoon left him alone, and Yoongi lay there in bed, taking advantage of the privacy to replay his memories of earlier. He felt a little guilty, like he was fantasizing about you behind your back—but no, he told himself firmly, he was only remembering what had happened.

In his head, he savoured every moment, especially that one fuzzy moment, where, half asleep, he'd heard you call him Yoongi—no "oppa", no distance between you two. Eventually, he fell asleep like that, thinking of how right, how intimate and familiar, his name had sounded in your voice.

November 2013 (5 months after debut, first award show win)

You were back on the apartment rooftop. The boys were all flush with triumph and gratitude, hopped up on barbecue—which they rarely splurged on—and cheap soju, for those above the drinking age. 

Namjoon brandished the glass trophy they'd won that night at the Melon Music show. "First award," he declared. "The start of many more!"

"I can't believe we won it." Jimin was still emotional, sniffling a little. "I can't believe I even debuted. Someone pinch me!"

Jungkook duly pinched him.

"Ow! Not that hard!"

"You asked me to, hyung…"

Looking over at Yoongi, you could tell he was feeling sentimental too, and trying hard to hide it. You smiled softly at him. "You really made it, huh? Now you're a bigshot celebrity."

He grinned back at you. "I guess I kind of am… I can't believe so many people like our music." Glancing down to hide the tears that welled up in his eyes, he added softly, "I can't believe so many people like my music."

"I never doubted you," you replied. "I knew you would make it."

"What about me?" Seokjin reached past you to grab some kimchi. "You believed in me first, right?"

You scoffed. "Don't compare, Seokjin-oppa."

He preened. "Right. You've known me for how many years, and Yoongi only for—"

"You can't compete with him, of course," you interrupted.

Seokjin made a sound of disbelief. "I can't believe this. I've been feeding you—"

"You've been feeding me?"

"—for twenty years at this point," he continued. "And you pick Yoongi over me? I'm still your bias, right?"

"That's a good question," Taehyung said. "Noona, who's your bias? In BTS, of course."

"Hm…" you pretended to think about it. All of the other boys had tuned in, and were paying attention at this point. "Jungkookie!"

Jungkook's doe eyes widened. "Me?"

"Him?" Seokjin complained. "Just look at this face! How could you pick someone over me?"

You shoved him. "Gross."

Yoongi leaned in. "Why Jungkook? Why not… another one of us?"

Shrugging, you gestured at Jungkook. "He's cute. Kind of innocent. I'd pick him if I was into boy groups."

Immediate uproar sounded.

"I'm your brother, you should pick me," Seokjin insisted.

"Are you not into boy groups? You're friends with us!" Hoseok protested.

"I can be cute…" Yoongi mumbled. 

You gestured helplessly. "One question or comment at a time!"

Seokjin's hand shot up.

"Pass!" You waved him off. The boys erupted into laughter.

"You're so ungrateful," he sulked.

Jungkook was grinning. "Want me to sign a photocard for you, noona?"

"Sure, why not?" you replied, playing along. "Jungkook-ssi! I'm a huge BTS fan. Would you sign a photocard for me?"

Jungkook pulled out a pen and a photocard. "What's your name, please?" he asked politely.

"Kim Y/N," you answered. He signed it carefully before handing it to you. You started giggling when you saw it. "To Kim Y/N from worldwide star Jeon Jungkook," you read aloud. It set the other boys laughing again. "Jungkook, what's with this signature?" You pointed at his "autograph"—just a neatly written version of his name.

"I haven't actually come up with a signature yet," he explained. For some reason, this was even funnier, and you all collapsed in stitches, Jungkook included.

It felt like you'd laughed half the night away with the Bangtan boys. But soon enough, most of them were nodding off, sleepy after the adrenaline had run out.

Namjoon, stifling a yawn, gave you and Yoongi—the last survivors—one last look before he went down. "Are you sure you're okay to clean this up all by yourselves?"

"I'm feeling pretty awake. I'm sleeping in your guys' apartment tonight anyways," you reassured him. 

"Well, if that's the case." He shot you an inscrutable look, before disappearing into the dim staircase.

Yoongi looked pretty tipsy. His face was flushed, and he was slurring his words a little. "Y/N," he said, as you were folding up the table.

"Hm?"

"Why is Jungkook your bias? What's so good about him?"

You looked up to see him actually pouting, and had to smile. "Yoongi-oppa, I don't really have a bias. I just said that to make Jungkook feel good."

He frowned. "How come I'm not your bias?"

"Ah…" you were at a loss for words.

"I prepared this photocard for you," he declared, handing you one of his own. It had "Yoongi xxx" scrawled on it. 

You blushed. "Thank you…?"

"And you don't have to call me oppa," Yoongi said.

Carefully leaning the table against the wall, you spared a second to glance at him. "Why not?"

He shrugged lazily. "Don't have to if we're close, right? Aren't we close enough?"

"I don't know. Are we?"

Yoongi moved closer to you faster than you'd ever seen him move, outside of dancing. "Why? Would you like to be closer?"

Your face was burning. "Wh-what?"

He leaned towards you, one hand on the wall behind you. "Do you think we should?" he murmured softly against your ear.

A buzz startled both of you out of the moment. 

"Um. One second." Awkwardly, you fished your phone out of your pocket. "Oh. Hi, Dad…"

Yoongi was mortified. He felt irked at the ringtone that had interrupted him—the atmosphere had been good, after all; he might have really kissed you… and then he felt ashamed. What was he doing, flirting with his friend's sister?

"No, I told you I'm staying at Seokjin-oppa's apartment tonight," you argued. "What? It's much more dangerous for me to come back now!" Pacing back and forth, you sighed. "Okay, Dad. If you insist." You hung up, and looked helplessly at Yoongi. "My dad wants me to come back home. He doesn't like the idea of me sleeping in an apartment full of boys."

Yoongi frowned. "It's so late at night. You can't go back on your own."

"It can't be helped." You were folding up chairs at top speed, trying to finish cleaning up. Yoongi stepped towards you, and took the chair you were holding out of your hands.

"Hey. Don't worry about this. I'll do it." His movements were quick and fluid, and you wondered how he'd sobered up so quickly. He glanced up at you, hair falling over his eyes. "I can go home with you." Yoongi blushed. "I mean, I can take you home. Not that I have a car. Like, I can go with you. To keep you safe."

You smiled softly at him. "I know what you mean."

Neon signs and light-up advertisements cast sickly light on the sidewalk, as you and Yoongi walked to your apartment. 

"Seokjin-oppa used to be really weak; he mostly played a lot of video games." You laughed. "A total nerd."

Yoongi raised his eyebrows. "I did wonder why he knows so much about MapleStory."

"That's probably why he never got any confessions." You looked at him. "You would think so, right? Since he's so handsome? Not a single one, though."

Yoongi couldn't help asking. "Have you ever been confessed to? I'm sure you have." Since you're so pretty, he wanted to add, but held his tongue. 

"Nope." You smiled, a little wistfully. "Not a single one."

Yoongi followed you as you turned a corner. "Really?"

You shrugged. "For some reason, yeah. Is that a little embarrassing?"

"I don't think so."  Idiotic ideas—like confessing to you right then and there—were churning in his head, but he held his tongue.

"It's here." You stopped in front of an apartment complex. "Thanks for walking me home, Yoongi."

He started in surprise, hearing you say his name, no honorific. In the moonlight, your face was palely illuminated, tilted towards him. You were smiling at him, in that way you had that made his stomach flip over and do cartwheels. Something possessed him to lean in, to cup your cheek in his hand. He wanted so badly to lean down, to press his lips to yours, but he managed to tear himself away, letting his hand drop.

"Good night, Y/N." Yoongi forced himself to turn away, to walk away from you. He was afraid to look back, so he didn't see you standing at the door—confused and flustered, lips parted, waiting for something that didn't come.

a/n: it'll probably take me a while longer to actually get part 3 up, because when i posted part 1 i had some of part 2 written already. also, uni is kinda picking up for me and i don't have as much free time (also i started a teen vampire!yoongi wip against better judgement but wtv). i'm turning 19 in literally 3 days lol what am i doing with my life

taglist: @rpwprpwprpwprw @themwordsblog @ohnaurshayla @bubbletsukki @sexytholland

[bingbongsupremacy]

Rehab

Pairing: Robert Reynoldsx Fem!Reader (Plus Size Friendly)

Warning: Y/N use, Reader wears makeup, Drug Use, Mentions abuse

Summary: Bob relapses on the day of your baby's first family photo, almost hurting your daughter. You've never seen him like this. Is he willing to go rehab and fight for your family?

*Not Proofread*

No description of reader's weight/body type, race, or gender.

We're supposed to take a family photo today. It's something I've been looking forward to for months. Our baby's first birthday photoshoot.

I've had the little outfit for weeks: a soft cream knit onesie and tiny socks that never stay on. I even found a matching hair bow. I thought today would be simple. A day to remember.

I'm finishing my makeup in the bathroom when I hear her crying. At first, it's a fussy whimper, but it quickly escalates into a louder, more desperate sound.

I drop the brush and rush out of the bathroom, heart hammering.

Bob is standing in the middle of our bedroom, our daughter cradled against his chest. But it's all wrong.

She's wailing, red-faced, her tiny fists trembling against his chest. His arms look too tight, too high under her armpits. I feel my stomach twist instantly.

Bob was so excited when he found out I was pregnant. The first thing he did was watch videos to learn how to hold a baby properly. He's always held her gently, very aware of how to support her little body. He's never made me worry about him holding her.

"Shhh…shhh, hey…hey, baby girl, it's okay…Daddy's here…come on… you gotta stop crying…" His voice is too fast, words spilling out in a jumbled rush, almost slurred.

It has to be stress. The past few weeks have been very difficult on the team, especially Bob. He's had to deal with team duties while also juggling life as a first-time parent.

He bounces her, but it's all wrong. His motions are jerky and uneven like his knees can't lock properly. His shoulders keep twitching, and I can see his fingers flexing against her back.

"Bob," I say carefully, trying to keep my voice low and calm even though my heart is thundering. I reach towards my baby, wanting to get her away from whatever is going on with Bob. "You're…you're holding her too tight. Let me-"

"I got it! I got it, okay?!" His head snaps toward me so fast it makes me flinch.

I freeze as I take in his appearance.

His pupils are huge and glassy. His eyes dart everywhere; to the window, to the ceiling, back to me, to her face. Sweat drips down the side of his neck, soaking the collar of his button up shirt. His hands tremble as he tries to shift her higher on his chest.

My heart sinks, and I begin to internally deny my fears. He wouldn't. He would've told me if things were getting too difficult. He wouldn't have waited until it was so bad to the point where he felt like he needed to numb it. Right?

"Please…please stop crying, babygirl…I'm trying…Daddy's trying so hard," He mutters, his voice cracking. He presses his cheek to her forehead, but it looks more like he's hiding than comforting.

She cries harder, shrill and panicked. She can sense something's wrong.

I step closer, holding out my hands, palms open and more insistent. "Bob… please. Give her to me before-"

"Don't tell me what to do!" He snaps, frustration heavy in his tone. His anger stabs my heart. He's never spoken to me like this before. Never.

My breath catches. For a split second, his eyes flicker-a cold shimmer, dark and deep, like something shifting underneath. Familiar, frightening gold ribbons quickly spin around his irises. The Void.

My knees go weak.

"Bob, please, she's scared," I whisper. My voice feels desperate and terrified.

He doesn't seem to notice, still caught in his rage.

"I know she's scared! I know! I'm trying to help her, but she won't stop crying and you keep talking and-" He starts pacing in small, tight circles, bouncing her with each uneven step.

The movement sends a flutter of uncertainty tumbling through my stomach.

I see it now, the tremor in his hands. The restless shifting of his feet, his shallow, ragged breathing. The way his jaw clenches and unclenches over and over.

He's got glassy eyes. He's twitchy. His emotions are all over the place. His behavior confirms my suspicions.

He's high.

It hits me all at once, a heavy, choking realization. My heart crawls up into my throat.

He's been acting differently, more withdrawn. I've just been so stressed about the photoshoot, I haven't had the time to look into it further.

I've never seen him like this. When we met in the furnace, he was 2 years sober, due to the experimentation. When we moved into the tower and had our baby, he was still sober. He's never relapsed before. Never even mentioned thinking about drugs.

What happened?

I feel my desperation to get the baby away from him grow. He's too unpredictable right now.

"Bob…please, just let me take her," I beg. I can't keep the tears out of my voice anymore. "You're going to drop her. You're going to hurt her without meaning to. Please Bob. You're scaring me. Please give me my baby. Please!"

He stops moving, his entire body tensing.

Then he looks at me. Really looks. His eyes flick down to my shaking hands, my tear-streaked face, then to the baby, who's sobbing so hard she can barely catch a breath.

His face crumples, horror spilling across it like a broken dam. His eyes widen and he begins to blink furiously.

"I…I was just trying to take care of her...be a-a good dad. I was trying to-to help out. I didn't want…I never wanted you to look at me like that," he stutters quietly, voice hollow, cracking in the middle. "I didn't mean to hurt her...or you. I don't want to hurt either of you. Fuck...you mean the world to me...my entire world, the both of you."

"Bob," I say again, my hands still out, hoping he'll finally give her to me.

Finally, very slowly, as if he's peeling his fingers off her one by one, he lets go of her in my hands. I pull her protectively towards my chest, trying to shield her as much as possible. My heart hammers at the feeling of her tiny fists gripping my shirt desperately.

Bob stumbles back, staring at his hands like they're covered in blood. His breathing shudders, and he curls his fingers into fists at his sides.

"I…I can't…I can't do this right now," He says. His voice is so small it almost doesn't sound like him at all. "I almost hurt her. I almost hurt you...Fuck, what have I done?" He mutters to himself.

"Please don't go," I whisper desperately. "It's okay, Bob. You didn't hurt anyone, it's okay. We need to talk about this. We need to get you help."

He shakes his head. "I'll hurt her…I'll hurt you…I need…I need to get out," He mutters, stepping backward toward the door. "I need to get away from you."

He turns, his whole body trembling, shoulders hunched like he's trying to fold in on himself.

"Bob-"

But he's gone.

The door slams shut. The sound echoes through my chest.

I sink to the floor, holding our crying baby close, my own tears matching hers. "Shh, it's okay. It's okay, baby." I try to calm her down. "Mama's here. It's okay."

The truth is, I don't know if it's going to be okay.

And that terrifies me.

-----

Hours pass.

At first, I just keep rocking her. My shirt is soaked from her tears and mine. I don't know how much time goes by before I realize the sun is starting to set. We missed the photoshoot.

I try calling him. Once. Twice. Five times. Straight to voicemail.

I text him multiple times. He reads the first few messages, me begging him to come home so we can work things out, but the rest are left unopened.

I finally wrap her in a fresh blanket and force myself to stand. My knees almost buckle under me. I make it to the hallway somehow, my fingers trembling so badly I can barely open the door. It's all too much.

I find Bucky first. He's leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping water from his workout bottle, looking up when he sees me. He just got back from training.

His brows pinch together immediately. "What happened?"

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out at first. My throat closes, hot and tight.

"B-Bob...he's gone," I stammer. "He's been gone for hours. I don't… I don't know where he is. He won't pick up the phone. He's leaving me on delivered. He turned his location off."

Bucky's bottle hits the counter with a thud. "Gone? Did something happen?"

I nod, swallowing harshly. "He was high, Bucky. He was high and I don't know how long he's been using. We were supposed to take pictures today for her birthday. He was holding her and I-I didn’t know what to do-I made him give the baby to me and he left."

"It's okay. You did the right thing," He says firmly, eyes steady.

Alexei and John appear behind him, drawn by the noise.

Alexei's eyes widen when he sees me so unkempt. "What's happened? Where is golden man?"

I swallow, looking up at them. "Please. I need help. He could hurt himself or someone else out there. Please find him. I have no idea where he is or where he got the drugs."

"Drugs? Bob's high?" Alexi asks, his usually joyful and playful tone completely serious.

"Yeah. There was a situation earlier today, he left before we could talk about it." I explain, looking at the three men.

John's face hardens immediately. "We'll find him. Right now."

Without another word, the three of them get to work tracking down Bob, starting with finding his phone.

Ava and Yelena appear at the doorway, their eyes scanning over the two of us.

Ava steps forward slowly, hands up. "Hey, we overheard...here…let me hold her for a bit, okay? You look like you need to breathe."

I hesitate, but my arms are stiff and exhausted. I let her take my daughter, watching as she coos softly, disappearing down the hall with her.

I sag forward, setting my head down on my arms. I'm exhausted.

That's when Yelena slips into the chair beside me. She doesn't say anything at first. Just sits. Close enough that I can feel her warmth, but not touching me until I lean in, seeking comfort.

She drapes her arm around my shoulders and lets me crumble against her.

"I don't know what to do," I whisper, my voice breaking apart. "I've never dealt with anything like this. I don't know how to help him. I don't know how to protect her. It's all too much."

Yelena is quiet for a long moment. Then she rubs slow circles on my back, her voice low but steady.

"You shouldn't have to know how to deal with this," She says. "This is not something you were supposed to handle alone. And you don't have to."

I sniff, burying my face in my hands. "What if he doesn't want help? What if it's too much stress for him, all of this, being a parent on top of all the other shit he has to deal with. What if I lose him?"

She shakes her head, squeezing me tighter. "Bob is a good man. He makes mistakes, yes, but in his heart, he is good. He loves you and your baby. I think he needs help right now. However, that doesn't mean he gets to keep doing things like this. If he wants to stay, he has to fight for it. But he has to be the one to choose. You cannot carry him and the baby and yourself. You will break."

A shiver runs through me. 'She's right. But the thought of leaving him…the thought of giving him an ultimatum…it terrifies me.'

I know Bob loves me. I know he loves our baby. I want to believe he'll choose us over the drugs. He's done it before. There's just a small nagging voice in the back of my mind wondering if his relapse will cause him to realize he needs drugs more than he needs us.

The thought of being a single mom scares me.

Yelena tilts her head, catching my gaze. Her eyes are sharp but kind.

"No matter what you decide, I am here," she says. "All of us are. But you have to set the boundary now before it gets worse. He needs help, real help. Rehab. They will give him the tools to recover and be that husband you need, and the father your baby deserves."

The word feels like a weight in my chest.

I nod, letting out a sigh. Yelena shifts closer, giving me a comforting side hug.

"We will help you," She reassures me. "No matter what, we will help you."

Oh Bob. Where are you?

-----

I hear them before I see them.

The low rumble of John's voice, Alexei's heavy footsteps, Bucky's sharp, quiet questions. I stand up so fast that my head spins.

When they come into the hallway, I see Bob between them. He looks… smaller somehow. Defeated.

Bucky's hand is clamped firmly around Bob's forearm, guiding him forward like he doesn't trust him to not run.

"Thank you," I whisper to the guys.

Bucky nods, giving me a long look, " Call if you need us." He says before the three quietly step back, leaving us alone.

Bob stands there, swaying slightly, his hands limp at his sides. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.

"Where did you go?" I ask, my voice small.

He swallows hard, not quite meeting my gaze. "I…I just kept walking. I don't even know how far I got. Just…away. I didn't know where I was anymore. Somewhere along the way, someone stole my phone. I didn't even realize it. Or maybe I dropped it. I-I don't know."

My chest aches. I press my hands to my sides, trying to hold myself together. "You could have died, Bob. You left us. You left her."

"I know," He whispers, voice breaking from guilt.

I draw in a shaky breath. My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I feel dizzy from anxiety.

"You need to get help," I say, my voice firmer now. "If you don't, I'm taking the baby and moving into another room. I can't-I won't have you around her if you're using. She deserves a dad who is present. Who is sober. Who is safe."

His shoulders hunch. He stares at the floor, nodding slowly.

"I know," He murmurs.

I step forward, wiping tears from my cheeks. "I know you love her. I know you love us. But that isn't enough if this is going to become a habit. You've done the work before. I know you can do it again. You are capable of being the dad she deserves."

A sharp breath shudders through him, and he looks up at me finally. His good eye glistens with tears.

"I'm sorry," He chokes out. "I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. I should have come to you before. I should have told you what was happening inside my head."

"What was happening?" I ask softly. "You know I'm here for you...why didn't you tell me?"

He swallows again, shaky and raw. "I…I found an old family photo a few days ago. My mom, my dad…me. I don't even know why I kept it. And after I saw it, I just…I kept hearing my dad's voice. The things he used to say to me. The way he looked at me. How he treated me and my mom..." He sighs. "I started having these dreams…nightmares where I was him. Hurting you. Hurting her. It felt so real, I'd wake up shaking, convinced I was going to turn into him and that I'd really hurt you the way I imagined it. I didn't know how to stop it. I thought…I thought if I could just numb it for a bit, it would go away."

He lifts his hands, looking at them like they might strangle him on their own.

"I was scared of being a bad dad. I was scared of becoming him. I didn't want to add more stress to your plate or ruin the photoshoot. I know how much you were looking forward to it. I kept it to myself, thinking that I was protecting you from the darkness inside of me. And it didn't work. I fucked everything up, just like I'd been afraid of doing. I used. And I put her in danger. I put you in danger. I ruined the day you were looking forward to so much."

A sob tears out of him, and he sinks to his knees right there in the hallway, his head dropping forward.

"I'm so sorry. I should have told you. I don't want to be that man. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose her. I don't want her to grow up with a dead beat dad, thinking I don't give a shit or prioritize my next high over her, because that's the furthest thing from the truth."

I kneel down in front of him, close enough to feel his uneven, shallow breaths on my skin.

He lifts his head, eyes desperate and red. "I'll go to rehab. I promise. I'll do whatever it takes. I'll change. Please…don't give up on me. Don't take my baby from me." He begs. "I love you both so fucking much it hurts."

I close my eyes for a second, pressing my forehead against his. His hands tremble as they hover near me like he's afraid to touch me without permission.

"I don't want to give up on you," I whisper, my own tears dripping onto his shirt. "But I can't let you hurt her. Or me."

"I won't," He breathes, voice cracking completely. "I promise you, I won't. I'll go first thing in the morning, and stay as long as I need to. I want this." He gestures between the two of us. "I promise you, I will get clean again."

I wrap my arms around Bob, tightly holding him against my chest. "I know you will, Bob. I know."

[coolwyous]

LOVEEEEE aaa maphinz, but i’m thinking of maphinz with their child/family 🙏 #needthat hc’s juseyo

DOMESTIC PARENTS!AU MAPHINZ LETS GOOOOOO

never agreeing on one single direction for ANY of the baby decor so they end up combining all their ideas and it's such a cute eclectic combination...... maphinz my angels of compromise.

sophia being VERY particular abt how the kids leave the house like she will never allow their child to go out with a single hair out of place <3 and manon is usually p chill but she is also not about to recieve any "who dressed u" allegations so their kids are lowkey the most well-dressed, aesthetically coordinated babies u have ever seen <3333 maphinz don't like to match directly bc that's WAYY too much but they will always lowkey coordinate colors while sticking to their own styles...... the family themselves has too much swag they're too powerfully coordinated fr

sophia is v serious about making sure their kids' hair is well-kept, even if manon isn't around to braid/clean it up. she def practiced braiding/parts/designs on manon for ages in preparation for their lil curly textured-haired babies to be well taken care of!!

sophia loves to bedazzle/personalize all of their kids' things!! like the baby bag FOR SURE has their kids' initials on it, the stroller has little stickers on it, soph loves giving everything a personalized touch and manz is super creative so even if she thinks sophia is being extra you can 100% believe she's gonna be up til 1am w her wife hand-drawing their kid's initials on every single one of their bottles!! they r FOR SURE cricut printer parents in another domestic life lmao

sophia singing their kids to sleep every night while manon stands quietly in the doorway of the kids' room, just silently admiring her family...... kill me

a big misconception being manon is the only one w a sense of humor as a parent? which is false bc filipino humor is ELITE but also lowkey cruel!! like manz's pranks include drawing a mustache on the baby in eyeliner or replacing the water in sophia's stanley with baby formula but sophia's pranks look like deadass gaslighting manon into thinking she forgot to pick up their child at daycare 💔 manz PANICKING like "no fucking way, it's tuesday, it's supposed to be your day to pick up" and sophia is like "baby, we agreed i'd do wednesdays. where the fuck is our child?" and manon is SPRINTING to the car trying not to panic meanwhile sophia is recording the whole thing on the nanny-cam, grinning into the camera like "haha i got you, i love you, you're an amazing mom mUAH"

sophia being the parent w all the documents organized, the google calendar prepared, each day scheduled out to a t and then manon is the one who does things so impromptu like "yes my love scheduling his developmental milestones is cool and all but our son just told me he's craving a pretzel so i think we're gonna go to the mall rq" and it drives sophia INSANE but then they're at the mall pushing the baby in the stroller and manon is so chill and so doting.......

the baby/toddler era is def sophia helicopter parenting and manon being like "he's fine to eat paint, in europe they'd be at the club by 12 yrs old" BUT it switches once their kids are a little older! everyone assumes sophia is the tiger mom and manon is the devil-may-care but once the kids r a lil older sophia is a firm believer in "let them learn their own consequences" vs manon is like "wait hold on we gotta shield them" bc they both lowkey start to adopt the opposite of what they grew up with <333

they both insist on teaching their kids their native tongues so the kids are deadass trilingual by the time they can start talking! GENIUS babies fr

still debating how many they have but 100% at least 2, one mellow and goofy like manz and one a lil more intense but soft like soph <333 and u know DAMN WELL each child has like 2 middle names....... longest named household for sure

disney music playing ALL THE TIME in the house..... family musical dates, singing in the car, the whole 9 yards oh and they FOR SURE have the biggest minivan in the neighborhood..... manon always clowns all the stereotypical parent shit (says stupid shit like "why do we need a baby carrier, we can just swing him around in an ikea bag" and sophia just gives her that dead unamused stare) but manz always ends up showing just how much she cares without making a huge deal out of it..... the mini van was one example, sophia wanted a more family friendly-car and instead of clowning her as expected manon just goes "well, if we're gonna do it we might as well get a good one, just in case," and that's how cool nonchalant manz ended up driving her kids around in a fuckass minivan singing love is an open door on loop....... and she lowkey couldn't be happier <3

[baekhyunnybyun]

Jaehyun — 【J - The 1st Album】 #Scene 04

[vaguely-concerned]

the strength it must have taken for illario to not immediately go full 'lmao since when have you even had a kiss hello lucanis' sibling violence mode during the café talk. inspirational. rook and lucanis really were doing all that right in front of his salad huh

[witness-and-wind]

one of these days wanna talk about game mechanics as storytelling. and worldbuilding

[centeris2]

eh this is what I get for taking so long to finish a project

(rip that Dark Core Day video project from like two years ago now that has Chiyo's art and voice, which is now outdated, I guess. But that's just how sso is)

[starcurtain]

Comparing Phaidei and Other Hoyo MLM Ships (Part 2)

<- Part 1 is back that way.

In the first part of this, I laid out some of the ways Phaidei fits within Hoyo's normal pattern for queer-coded MLM ships: They're equals but opposites, perfectly matched; they've ostensibly got a "rivalry" as a cover for their laser focus on each other; their models are deliberately placed closer together in cutscenes than other characters' are, and they're intentionally paralleled to a heterosexual married couple. All of these are traits that other Hoyo MLM pairs also show, a sort of foundational standard for Hoyo's queer-coded MLM ships.

But then Phaidei just took a huge side-step around all of them, and started doing things that Hoyo hasn't done in any of their other recent games. (Tiny aside here: HI3 does wildly different things with its characters; I think that being first published when Hoyo was a more obscure company allowed them to get away with things--like the Bronya/Seele kiss and Welt and Co.'s cross-dressing, for example--that "modern" Hoyo games cannot get away with due to greater levels of public scrutiny.)

I said it in the other post, but it bears repeating:

You really aren't imagining things--Phaidei is actually different.

So I wanted to take a closer look at what was making it feel so unique, by comparing its differences to other popular Hoyo MLM ships.

Here we go:

1. The Feeling's Mutual

There was no heterosexual explanation for this framing.

In Part 1 of this post, I noted that Hoyo has a typical personality pattern they follow when queer-coding their male characters, particularly in using "difficult" personalities to create an artificial sense of distance between the characters. If one character is angry all the time, or tsundere, or using sarcasm to cover for their fear of getting close to others, Hoyo can mobilize that personality gap as a shield to give anti-LGBT+ players plausible deniability. Hell, there are people still out there genuinely convinced that Alhaitham and Kaveh have a toxic relationship. There are people out there saying Ratio despises Aventurine because he was mean to him one (1) time while undercover. That's how effective injecting a little bit of bickering into a queer-coded relationship is.

Hoyoverse is very, very familiar with creating this delicate balance of teasing the ship while feeding anti-LGBT+ players and censors just enough "Look, they don't like each other; they're arguing!" contrary material to avoid setting anyone off.

Which... makes it absolutely bizarre that they made almost no effort to do this with Phainon and Mydei.

Sure, on paper we're told that Phainon and Mydei are rivals. Phainon describes it as "He's both my friend and my foe." And yes, they have their quips (Phainon's "It's exhausting talking to you sometimes" comes to mind).

But animosity--the genuine desire to one-up each other--is completely missing from Mydei and Phainon's "rivalry." They aren't Sasuke and Naruto. They aren't Izuku and Bakugou. They don't actually even want to beat each other--they want to be equals. If you defeat Mydei in the 3.0 competition, Phainon immediately folds and calls the contest off. If you let Mydei win, Mydei immediately folds and declares no contest.

Although Aglaea notes they compete because they're "impulsive youths," what she was actually missing is that Mydei only let himself be goaded into Phainon's hot bath competition because he was worried about Phainon and wanted to take Phainon's mind off the failed trial. Then, immediately after beating Phainon in the hot bath challenge, he lets Phainon win the "take more people home" challenge, to tie up their score again.

In fact, Mydei and Phainon's relationship is so devoid of the actual back-and-forth typical of other Hoyoverse MLM ships that at one point, Phainon even asks for it:

(Though he's equally quick to demand compliments from Mydei too.)

Instead, virtually every line from Phainon and Mydei through both 3.0 and 3.1 reiterates that they care deeply about each other, and are concerned for not only each other's physical well-being but also each other's mental and emotional health. They freely and consistently support each other both on the battlefield and off, confessing their struggles and relying on each other for advice. Whenever they're separated, the game intentionally hammers home how worried they are without the other around.

Over and over and over again, the devs tell you how well Mydei and Phainon know each other and how much effort they're putting in to take care of each other:

The game doesn't let us forget that they are one another's "closest person," and that the respect they have for each other is mutual. Although I wouldn't go so far as to speculate they actually recognize romantic feelings, canon makes it clear that they are aware their emotional connection goes both ways. They don't just value each other's battle prowess, intelligence, or usefulness--they value each other's feelings explicitly, every single time emotions are expressed between them in the game's text.

In fact, Mydei even scolds Phainon for approaching their goodbye with a straight face; he knows that Phainon is hurt by their parting, and he wants Phainon to be honest, as Mydei is being honest in turn:

The rainbows in the background really sold the scene, ngl.

This isn't Renheng, where resentment has taken away any glimmer of joy. This isn't Ratiorine, where even if Aventurine were in a more stable mindset, Ratio's inability to spit out his feelings might keep them from going anywhere. Even with Haikaveh, the Hoyo ship known for Alhaitham's devotion, Kaveh's own struggles and refusal to accept Alhaitham's kindness are an active plot point keeping them from progressing. Maybe you could draw a parallel between Phaidei and Cyno/Tighnari for levels of "mutual," but even then, Cynari interactions are often left off-screen or in the background, for the players to fill in the blanks. On the contrary, Phainon and Mydei's fondness for each other is constantly in our faces.

The devs wanted players to know Phainon and Mydei are invested. We're supposed to see how much they want to be near each other.

More than that, we're supposed to understand just how deeply they trust each other.

Okay, okay, yes, I know this is massive foreshadowing to the inevitable betrayal and tragedy impending (come on, Amphoreus wouldn't qualify as an ancient Greek drama without it!), but I think that a lot of people are missing the key here: By this point in the story, Mydei already knows how he's going to die. He knows someone is going to stab him in the back and finally end his immortal life. When he entrusts Phainon with this secret, he's not trusting Phainon to keep him safe. He's trusting Phainon to do the opposite.

He's telling Phainon: "I want it to be you."

If the prophecy can't be changed and fate is set in stone, then Mydei wants Phainon to be with him in his final moments, to be the one to finally set him free from the "curse" he perceives his own immortality to be. Of course it would be Hoyo who makes "I want to die by your hands" into a declaration of ultimate trust, but it is an explicit statement of trust, in a way that very few--if any--other modern Hoyoverse MLM ships get to show each other on screen.

Phew, that was a lot!

But I think this is one of the clearest and most defining differences between Phainon and Mydei and other Hoyo MLM ships--the devs took away players' ability to claim they don't get along. You might still be able to call them "just friends" or "brothers in arms," but unlike Alhaitham and Kaveh who fight, Ratiorine who scheme, or Renheng who are actual enemies, Mydei and Phainon explicitly like each other. They trust each other. They seek one another out.

It might seem like a small thing on paper, but this is actually a big thing in practice. Hoyo is pushing the boundary here, reducing the avenues for deniability. It is harder for anti-LGBT+ fans to claim that Phainon and Mydei don't have obvious in-game ship-tease than for virtually any other modern Hoyoverse MLM ship. (By the way, this is why people have resorted to calling Phaidei "industry plant yaoi;" because they can't deny the queer-coding is actually there this time, they instead have to try to de-legitimize the ship in other ways, such as dismissing it as nothing more than bait.)

This also means Hoyo has less of an "out" if people start to really question. It would be harder to explain away Phainon and Mydei's relationship than it would be to explain away even Alhaitham and Kaveh's. Alhaitham and Kaveh have "They're always arguing" and "Their friendship was ruined by their fight" or "They're just roommates," etc. to lean back on. Phainon and Mydei... are really bad at even pretending to be rivals...

All of this to say: Hoyo made a bold and deliberate choice allowing two of their mainstream male characters to be so emotionally close and attentive to each other on screen. They went outside their own current comfort zone for this one, guys.

2. We're Conspicuously Missing a Twink

Moving on from Phaidei's emotional differences, I wanted to talk specifically about Hoyoverse's perspectives on gay men, and how easy it is for companies to slip into not only stereotypes for gay characters, but also extremely heteronormative portrayals of gay relationships. As sad as it is, it is easier to market queer-coded male characters to yaoi fans (who are often--although obviously not always--heterosexual women) if they fit into the expected pattern for heterosexual relationships: a highly masculine man to "wear the pants" in the relationship, paired with a delicate, effeminate man to obviously be the bottom.

Now, don't get me wrong: Gay relationships come in all varieties; people have different preferences, and categorical groups like "twinks" and "bears" exist so people who have those preferences can find each other. Obviously plenty of hyper-masculine (and just masculine-leaning) gay men do want more effeminate partners. Plenty of real guys consider themselves twinks and have great relationships with men ranging all the way up the most masculine dudes you've ever seen. But "masculine man with feminine man" isn't the only kind of gay relationship around, despite the fact that that's what Hoyo's yaoi shiptease might lead you to believe.

(Edit: I can't believe I have to say this, but it seems some portion the HSR fandom cannot read, so apparently I do: Stop using my post in your hunk/twink or hunk/hunk discourse; if you didn't bother to read the paragraph above this in which I word-for-word point out that real gay relationships come in all varieties, including lots of relationships between masculine men and more effeminate men, then that is on you--this post isn't about how "hunk/hunk" is more "real gay" material or "hurr durr twinks bad;" it's about how Hoyo has served up a hunk/twink ship 20 times in a row, with their constant modus operandi being yaoi genre staple tropes in which one character is essentially designated as the bottom and the other as the top specifically using masculine versus feminine coding, because that is what sells to the yaoi fan demographic they are targeting, particularly to heterosexual female yaoi fans, who are predisposed toward heteronormative relationship patterns even in the gay media they consume. The only situation in which hunk/hunk is "more progressive" than hunk/twink is for Hoyo, who clearly have hunk/twink as their comfort zone and only very, very rarely step out of that established pattern. This entire post is about Hoyo's patterns for creating their mlm ships, not about gay rights activism--read the essay in the context of Hoyo's design philosophy or just stop reading here, please.)

I don't want to say that Hoyo's track record on this front is bad, because honestly it's not. Their male characters often have surprisingly complex expressions of gender identity, with interesting blends of masculine and feminine traits. But... Hoyo does have a pattern. Plenty of their queer-coded MLM ships fall into this same general (and kind of stereotypical) profile: Alhaitham is inexplicably ripped and represents calm rationality, while Kaveh is "the spitting image of his mother," has to wring out his wrists when he uses his own weapon, and represents passion and romanticism. Ayato is the head of his clan; Thoma holds housekeeping classes for Inazuma's other housewives. Xingqiu is the "refined" rich boy in ruffles; Chongyun is the down-to-earth working lad. Wriothesley is the most masculine man in Genshin Impact; Neuvillette mothers the entire race of Melusines. Over in Star Rail, Aventurine covets pink diamonds, bathes himself in sparkling perfume, and is so tiny Ratio's hands can encircle his waist. (I don't actually think Aventurine is as feminine as some other people read him, but trying to pretend that he isn't designed to evoke queer tropes is just silly.) Moze is as ripped as Alhaitham, while the game itself mocks Jiaoqiu for being a pink-haired male character. I'm going to talk more about Renheng in a sec, but Renheng is also this way, with the more "delicate"-looking Imbibitor Lunae to Yingxing/Blade's solid frame.

Mydei and Phainon don't fit this pattern at all. Both of them are as tall as Star Rail models come, and while Mydei's build has an impressive degree of bulk, Phainon is no slouch either:

Neither one of them is visually effeminate in any manner, and they're also not stereotypically effeminate in their roles in the story. Neither of them is a housekeeper or a home-maker; (again, poor Aventurine catching strays, but:) neither of them is in the business of blinding people into deals with their good-looks or careful facade of helplessness.

Theoretically we could say the devs tried to squish Mydei into a more heteronormative role by giving him traits traditionally perceived as "feminine": he cooks, he plays house with children, he puts milk in his juice and turns it pink, he's paralleled almost exclusively to his own mother... But his role in the plot is such a quintessentially masculine story (son of a self-fulfilling prophecy, father-killer, god-slaying warrior, king to his people, aura-farming champion of the Amphoreus battle cutscenes, etc.) that clearly we are not meant to perceive him as a solely effeminate figure. The whole "malewife Mydei" thing comes across as so comedic because the game itself continually insists on asserting his masculinity.

Conversely, Phainon, despite being the "gentler" of the two characters, the one who is described as having a soft heart and being outgoing and kind, is even less suited to being called feminine. His "Messiah"-esque role in the story, literally being the "prodigal son" of Amphoreus, paints him as the very picture of a classical male hero. Even more so than Mydei, he is a private and closed off person who hides his heart--and his own identity--from those around him, traits more often stereotypically associated with emotionally-closed-off men than female characters.

Up to this point, Hoyoverse had a relatively stable pattern in the MLM ships they baited in their recent games. They primarily played it safe, sticking to queer-coding relationships that both visually and narratively reflect heteronormative relationships.

But Phaidei once again broke the mold.

This time, Hoyo chose to queer-code not the more delicate-looking man (although I guess there's still plenty of time for Anaxa, I shouldn't sell him shorter than he already is lol), but two overtly masculine male characters, who can't be readily projected on to a stereotypical heterosexual relationship by a heterosexual audience. This was a big departure from Hoyo's norm, and I think this actually deserves a lot more respect than people are giving it. Hoyo didn't have to pick their two muscle-bound warrior male leads and make them close and caring. They didn't have to expose themselves to the obvious question: "Why are two 'manly' characters being so soft on each other?" It is harder to pass off Phainon and Mydei's queer-coding as accidental, or suggest the fans are just reading too much into it, when nothing about them can be mistaken for a "traditional" heteronormative relationship that heterosexual yaoi fans are familiar with. For a game produced in China, where standards for depicting men and masculinity in media are so high, making the choice to bait two masculine men together (let alone this expansion's "hero," who is an expy of a beloved former character), was a very bold and risky choice on Hoyo's part.

Companies don't make bold and risky choices on accident.

Finally, I wanted to make one more point about why I appreciate Phaidei's emotionally attentive depiction--it's because there's a whole other realm they could have taken the "could end up a villain" queer-coded main character. As I mentioned in the first part of this post, queer-coding villains is a trope as old as dirt. When you queer-code a male villain particularly, you add an extra layer to the danger: Now the male villain is not just a physical threat, but a sexual one. Adding queer-coding to the male villain has often, in past media, been used to conflate homosexuality with deviance or perversion and suggests sexual violence even if nothing ever truly occurs.

Maybe the real Hoyoverse queer-coding was the red flower petals we threw along the way.

I said I was going to bring up Renheng, and here it is: Unfortunately, Blade and Dan Heng fall into this latter pattern a bit. Although he has his reasons, the game's portrayal of Blade's "pursuit," especially in the early portion of their story, casts Dan Heng into the role of the victim, a young man being hounded by a crazed stalker who refuses to let him go. Their cutscenes, including Dan Heng's nightmares, paint Blade as an overwhelming presence who invades both Dan Heng's physical space but also his mental space, making it impossible for Dan Heng to escape his clutches. This "We must pay the price together" absolutely reads, out of content anyway, as some sort of yandere death pact. Their lightcone is literally called "Nowhere to Run."

Even though Blade is not deliberately engaging in any form of sexual behavior, his obsession with Dan Heng in their early scenes can give players the impression of a cliched "depraved homosexual," and the implication that sexual violence could occur is present through their early interactions. This isn't on accident; Hoyo was playing with the yandere trope on purpose! I'm not going to lie, part of Renheng's early appeal for many players was how scary and dominating Blade came across as. The subtle sexual implications of pursuit are the point, and if you think Hoyo wasn't capitalizing on the intersection of "sexy" and "dangerous" with Renheng's early interactions, then you're probably a little too pure for this world.

As things progress, of course, we see this dynamic between Renheng dissipate, shifting his narrative from "crazed pursuer for unknown reasons" to "potentially the victim" of their past scenario, an effect which they achieved through the slow drip feed of Yingxing and Dan Feng's backstories. This, I think, speaks to not only a shift in the devs' intentions for Blade and Dan Heng's relationship (there's more to be said here about the Yingxing-Baiheng-Dan Feng mess that is the cut lore, etc.), but also to a shift in the way the devs wanted Blade to be perceived by fans, from a potentially predatory figure to a much less toxic potential love interest.

Anyway, back to Phaidei: We know that Phainon is headed for a downfall. It's been so obviously foreshadowed at this point that there's really nothing much more to say than that--however, even though he may also have a brush with villainy, like Blade, and even though we know Flame Reaver's very likely going to kill Mydei... I don't think that the devs will use Phainon's queer-coding as part of his villainous/Lord Ravager identity. I don't get any sense that the dev team has any intentions of conflating Phainon's potential homosexuality with depravity, or using it as a motive for his descent into destruction (he might be gay and potentially end up on Nanook's side, but he won't be a villain because he is gay). I definitely don't think we will see the kind of sexually-threatening physicality between Flame Reaver and Mydei that the devs did earlier with Blade and Dan Heng, even if "stabbing someone from behind" does have an inherent sort of sexual symbolism.

I appreciate that even in a story headed for the obvious "stabbed in the back by the villain form of the man I loved," the devs seem like they have moved on from falling into the pitfall (accidentally or intentionally, to sell yandere tropes) of portraying of gay men as predatory.

3. Leave Room for the Trailblazer

In part 1 of this post, I mentioned that Hoyo uses the placements of characters in scenes to indicate closeness, and I already pointed out that Mydei and Phainon stand really... really... close together, much closer than they stand to other characters.

However, it's not just that their models are literally positioned closer together in cutscenes--it's that their body language explicitly closes other characters out. Plenty of Hoyoverse MLM ships are ship-baited by moving the models of the male characters closer together, but very, very few of them are positioned to so consistently exclude even the player.

For comparison, consider the well-known scene where Alhaitham brings the Traveler and Paimon to his and Kaveh's house, which was framed with both domesticity and intimacy:

Although Alhaitham and Kaveh are also prone to the "stand shoulder-to-shoulder" thing that Hoyo does when they want to imply closeness between characters, the framing of their scenes nevertheless leave enough space for the Traveler and Paimon to be active participants in the conversation, enough space between Alhaitham and Kaveh for Traveler to not look blocked out.

For example, despite standing next to each other in that moment above, the camera deliberately cuts Alhaitham out, so that only Kaveh and the Traveler duo occupy the shot. Later on, Alhaitham bridges the divide between the Traveler and Kaveh, turning away from Kaveh toward the Traveler--once again, the conversation and scene are open to the Traveler, and thus, to the player.

Here's a live demonstration of my earlier point: Alhaitham and Kaveh stand closer together than the player and Candace, indicating their closer connection.

Other scenes play out similarly--although Alhaitham and Kaveh are close, their body language doesn't actively exclude other characters or the player from feeling like part of their conversations.

Over in Star Rail, we see the same general situation. We know that Aventurine rarely stands close to other characters, with Ratio being the one relatively consistent exception, but even so, the camera will usually give them some breathing room, making it feel like there's enough space for the player on the other side of the screen to be part of the moment:

Meanwhile Blade excludes both Dan Heng and the player, putting us on equal footing to Dan Heng and giving the impression that the player and Dan Heng are standing against Blade together. There is still room for "us" in this scene.

However, once again, Phaidei proves the exception. Mydei and Phainon don't just stand close--they don't even want to share air with anyone but each other.

A very normal way to have a group conversation. Definitely.

Consistently when standing side-by-side, they turn inward to face each other, rather than facing other characters in the conversation, literally forming a closed unit despite the fact that they're supposed to be in a group scene:

The thirdest third wheel to ever third wheel.

If it wasn't enough for the devs to just imply that the Trailblazer isn't able to break through Mydei and Phainon's circle, they decided to call it out in the text itself, echoing the player's own thoughts: "What about me?"

As I mentioned in the first part of the post, the devs also consistently use specific camera angles to capture both Mydei and Phainon in the frame together, at the same time, further emphasizing the closed nature of their conversations.

You will never see so many over-the-shoulder shots again in your life. You are the outsider looking in on their private moments!

Perhaps most telling about the devs' intention to create an intimate air for Phainon and Mydei's conversations is that literally everyone else disappears when they speak to each other. For example, Phainon and Mydei's first goodbye takes place in the Garden of Life, which is actually a pretty bustling plaza with numerous NPCs. But every single NPC was deliberately removed by the dev team for Mydei and Phainon's scene there, to allow them a private moment:

Even in their final farewell, where Mydei was seen off by a literal bustling crowd of NPCs, not a single person is visible during their goodbyes--until the exact moment Mydei reminds Phainon that the whole rest of the world is waiting for him. The whole rest of the world didn't even exist for Phainon until Mydei forced him to remember.

It's not just the Trailblazer (and us, the player) who is third wheeling Mydei and Phainon's relationship. They literally exist in a world of their own when they speak to each other. No other modern Hoyoverse ship is on this level of excluding even the player--excluding even the damn NPCs!--to make a point about their closeness.

I thought I was going crazy the first time I was watching these scenes, thinking "It can't be that the devs actually went that far in framing Mydei and Phainon as a pair." But they did. They actually did.

The envelope has been pushed off a mountain, my guys.

But that still wasn't enough for the devs. They needed to go further.

4. Deploy Shoujo Manga Trope #57

I know I just said that Phainon and Mydei's relationship doesn't map well a typical heteronormative male/female relationship, but that doesn't mean the devs gave up on any and all attempts to apply typical romantic cliches to Phaidei. On the contrary, the dev team's thought process seems to have been "Hey, we're doubling-down on our queer-coding for Phainon and Mydei. How can we make it really, really, really obvious they're a ship?" And then they literally spun a roulette wheel of romantic tropes and threw every single one of them at patch 3.1 at the same time.

We have the "romantic lead beautifully framed by red rose petals blood glitter":

The "You used my love to manipulate me" subplot:

Phainon begs for compliments, and Mydei's reaction is to look away demurely and call him a scoundrel?? Am I seeing things?!

This is where he'd be blushing like a tomato if he was a female character.

The "please look after my dear husband when I'm gone" tragedy trope:

THE RING???

"LET'S MEET AGAIN IN THE NEXT LIFE"?!!

What do I even say about all... this...? Do I even need to say anything at all? Has any MLM ship in a recent Hoyoverse game gotten remotely as many romance flags? Alhaitham, where is Kaveh's ring?!

What I actually want to say isn't a specific breakdown of any of these moments, but what they mean in totality. Remember that Hoyo made every one of these choices with deliberate intent. They knew what the picture would add up to. These are explicitly romantic tropes that are extremely difficult to interpret in other lights.

You are supposed to read "If there's a chance in the next life" as "I want to be reincarnated with you; I want to meet you again; I want to be with you in a softer world."

You're supposed to think of the ring as a wedding ring. For one, Gorgo would only have gotten it through her marriage to Eurypon, but even more so--there was no reason this item needed to be a ring in the first place except to evoke images of wedding rings. We already knew from 3.0 that Castrum Kremnos used crests and seals for identification. Why make it a ring and not just the crest of Castrum Kremnos? Furthermore, why involve Phainon at all? The audience would never have known any different if Chartonus just said "Found this I did, have it you should, Mydei." It's a ring and it's a ring deliberately from Phainon because the devs want you to see it as a wedding ring.

What an incredibly bold move on Hoyo's part, and I don't even really mean just in the context of being a Chinese company, but even in the context of being a global company. Hoyo lives and dies by the revenue of their character banners, and choosing to explicitly and (nearly) exclusively apply romantic tropes to their male lead and deuteragonist in a brand-new patch cycle was a legitimately daring choice. Their deliberate application of romantic staples to an MLM ship, in a way that is difficult even for anti-LGBT+ fans to write off, was a very, very calculated decision. I genuinely hope it pays off for them. I hope Mydei and Phainon's banners both sell well, so the devs' receive a clear message in turn that fans appreciated their boldness and their commitment to creating queer content for these two characters.

I'm just going to end on one final note, about a scene that you may have noticed I conveniently skipped. Yes, the most conspicuous scene of them all:

5. A+ Censor Dodging

By some miracle of obliviousness, some Olympic-level mental gymnastics, or by sheer force of will, I think some people might still have made it to this point thinking that Phaidei was not being deliberately baited by the devs. You could maybe, somehow, convince yourself that the blood glitter rose petals and the shoulder-to-shoulder emotional conversations were just coincidences, that the tsundere "I'm not worried about him" was just dudes being tough guys, that the Trailblazer was a third wheel because Phainon and Mydei are "just good friends."

But then devs said "No, we need to be unmistakable. We need to make ourselves 1000% clear. We are baiting the yaoi fangirls, guys; please stop ignoring our hard work."

If going further than they've ever gone with Mydei and Phainon's body language wasn't enough, if Phainon's being willing to kill a god to save his man wasn't enough, if implying a wedding ring wasn't enough, what else could the devs possibly do to remove all plausible deniability and make it undeniably clear that Mydei and Phainon are queer characters (even if it is only for the benefit of yaoi fangirls)?

They can do something they've never done in their recent games before: Imply actual sex between male characters.

(Side note, Hoyo lesbians have had this implied sexual content pass from the beginning. You will always be famous, Beiguang. It's only the male characters that can't even have implied sex. 😂)

Obviously Phainon and Mydei are not having sex in the game. The dialogue even goes out of its way afterward to remind us that they remained fully clothed in that bath, thank you. But the refusal to show what was actually happening--censorship used as a tool to imply--the cut to the black screen, the narration of one animal pursuing another, the discretionary water droplets between the moaning... (And another little edit because @mynabirb made such a good point in the tags: The fact that they chose to "censor" this with a butterfly, the literal symbol of romance in Amphoreus, is almost too much. The devs really did say "Time to silence all doubts.")

From the player's perspective--and examining this as a choice on the dev team's part--there is no way to read this scene other than "sexually suggestive." You're supposed to think "This sounds incredibly sus." Because it is sus. Because the devs added this scene knowing that it would intentionally make people think about the idea of Phainon and Mydei having sex.

Sure, this scene is really funny in context. You're supposed to come out of it laughing, going "Wow, they're idiots." But you will also, whether you like it or not, come out of this thinking "Damn, Hoyo really went all in on the yaoi bait, didn't they?"

You can't "Devs didn't mean it" out of this one.

Which is brave as hell on Hoyo's part, to be honest! Even if this is nothing but queer-baiting, they saw that sick yaoi fan money and decided to go all in on it.

Say it with me: A dev team from a country with notoriously strict rules against depictions of homosexuality in media, from a company with a huge global fanbase including many conservative and religious countries, and with a majority male target audience, went out of their way to undeniably include sexually suggestive gay content in their game.

Whatever their motivation--be it simply money or from a genuine desire to tell gay stories--this wasn't a casual decision. This took commitment. This decision almost certainly went all the way to the top brass of the team for clearance. Someone probably had to fight to get this added.

But they did it, and not with Kaveh and Alhaitham (the previously undisputed kings of current Hoyoverse queer-coding) but with two brand-new (to Star Rail at least) characters who have extremely important roles in the game's on-going narrative--major characters who can't be overlooked.

Phaidei is literally built different.

But I'm still left with one lingering question:

Is Hoyo queer-coding or just queer-baiting?

Even though I played 3.1 in a sort of stupefied haze because I actually couldn't believe what I was seeing in Phainon and Mydei's scenes, I also ended it with a pretty bittersweet feeling.

How amazing that Hoyo pushed the envelope so far with Phaidei... But at what cost?

Did Mydei really have to leave Okhema never to return? Or is he being banished from the plot because his relationship with Phainon was too intense?

Isn't this just the "bury your gays" trope, in essence?

Lore-wise, there isn't any reason Mydei actually has to leave Okhema forever. Sure, he presumably is going to fight the Black Tide where it manifests across Amphoreus, but what about that requires him to "never return"? Demigods aren't geographically bound to the locations their Titans blessed, or Aglaea and Anaxa wouldn't be able to leave the Grove. There shouldn't be any reason Mydei can't visit Okhema when he wants.

The more you think about it, the worse it looks that the dev team implied Phaidei harder than they've ever implied an MLM ship before, only to immediately turn around and go "And then Mydei left forever." As if the only way it's okay to make characters that gay is if you then get rid of at least one of them. (Speaking humorously, at the rate Phainon and Mydei were going, if the devs didn't get rid of Mydei, he and Phainon probably would have been making out on-screen by 3.2, but you know what I mean.)

Sure Phaidei can be the MLM Star Rail ship with the most support in canon--but only at the cost of never being seen together again, apparently.

I'm not sure I like this trade off.

However, I am telling myself to remain cautiously optimistic. We know that Mydei's role in the story is not done, and that he and Phainon are destined for at least one more reunion, even if it won't be a happy one. We've been told that Amphoreus's story will be "heart-warming." I choose to believe that the devs will try to scrabble some sort of positive ending out of all this. At the very least, perhaps we'll end with a "in another life montage," and get to see Phainon and Mydei finally meeting in that library.

So is Hoyo queer-coding from a genuine desire to include gay characters or just baiting hard to sell Mydei to fangirls?

I'd say let's wait and see. Amphoreus has barely started cooking.

In the meantime, I think it is worth examining (and appreciating) Hoyo's willingness to mix up their own patterns, break their own trends, and to try something truly new and different with Phaidei. Even if this is all the content we ever get, Hoyoverse did things they haven't done before in any of their recent games, and showed that they're willing to push the limits for queer content in order to tell the stories they really want to tell.

I am a served fan, Hoyo. Well played, well played.

[tracksidebaby]

Best of Both Worlds

Summary: YN and Kimi are childhood best friends and closer than ever even with Kimi away at races every other weekend. So when Kimi starts falling behind there is no question that YN is gonna be there to help him.

Requested: Yes / Anon

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli and 2,901 others

yn.ln: if you see me crying in the library, no you don't

classmate1: caption is too real rn 😓

username: i need an xl coffee

kimi.antonelli: i understand nothing.

username: why is kimi in the comments

| username: they go to school together

| username: they've been friends for years actually, Kimi talks about her in interviews

Texts /

YN's Instagram Story /

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, classmate2, and 1,289 others

yn.ln:  I slept on my notes hoping they’d absorb. spoiler: they didn’t.

classmate3: a few more months guys 💪🏻

classmate2: she's prepped with snacks and not much else

kimi.antonelli: if you're struggling then there is no hope for me

| yn.ln: we're gonna pass 💪🏻

username: new way alert??? @/f1gossips ??

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, yn/ln and 69,847 others

classmate4: @/kimi.antonelli is back at school and now yn has forgotten that other people exist. This was yn's reaction to Kimi coming back and Kimi only has eyes for her.

yn.ln: wait why are we kindaaaa 👀

yn.ln: wag era, can i drop out of school

| kimi.antonelli: no

| kimi.antonelli: i need you to pass

| kimi.antonelli: after that i'll provide for you

| username: im so confused are they dating or not ???

| classmate5: theyre not dating but for years it's just been the two of them, they might as well be dating

username: who even is this girl 💀

username: not kimi's classmates just exposing them btw

| username: right like i'd be so annoyed

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, classmate6, lando and 13,441 others

yn.ln: and it's all too much for little @/kimi.antonelli

username: THE CAPTION

username: imagine kimi buying you coffee

username: aw he fell asleep

username: matching pjs and theyre not dating, ok

kimi.antonelli: why would you post that picture

| yn.ln: you're cute

| classmate6: i just know hes blushing

Texts /

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, classmate7 and 8,901 others

yn.ln: I tutor him in math but I think he needs to tutor me in formula one because what is this?

kimi.antonelli: YOU WATCHED A RACE?

| kimi.antonelli: I got points!!

| kimi.antonelli: maybe you are my good luck

| username: wait thats actually so cute

| yn.ln: so so proud of you even if i didn't understand anything that was happening !!!

classmate7: this isn't a big deal to the rest of you but yn hates all sports so this is huge

| yn.ln: please don't expose me like that

Instagram /

liked by: yn.ln, mercedesamgf1, and 792,901 others

kimi.antonelli: best of both worlds

yn.ln: ok hannah montana

username: kimi still being at school is so funny to me 😭

| username: right??? if that were me id have left the second i signed that mercedes contract

| yn.ln: mamma wants him to study so he studies

| kimi.antonelli: i love mamma but she scares me

| yn.ln: me too, i had coffee with her the other day and i was on EDGE

| username: so she has coffee with kimi's mom and we're supposed to believe they're just friends?

| username:  i mean they have known each other since they were kids, its not that out there

| username: i've known people since i was a kid and i would not be having coffee with their parents without them there 💀💀

yn.ln: also omg i made it onto a famous f1 drivers instagram !?!?!?

| kimi.antonelli: blocked

Texts /

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, classmate8 and 12,901 others

yn.ln: one thing missing.

classmate8: had the best time

username: shes def talking about kimi with that caption

| classmate9: 100%

| classmate10: kimi may as well have been there with how much time they spent of ft

| yn.ln: excuse me why am i being exposed like this in my own comments

kimi.antonelli: so sad i missed this

| yn.ln: stfu you just got p6 in Japan thats like infinitely cooler

| kimi.antonelli: not as cool as hanging out with you

| username: oh ok so he's down BAD then

| classmate11: yeah those two have always been a little too into each other

| username: but they're not together??

| classmate11: nope

classmate8: btw she wrote 'yn & kimi' on the wall

Instagram /

liked by: yn.ln, mercedesamgf1 and 992,901 others

kimi.antonelli: another one.

username: lmao the dry asf caption

username: kimi being salty hes at the gp instead of a class trip

username: my man got points on the board and he just wants to be in school

| username: more like he wants to be with his girl

username: imagine being one of the most promising rookies on the grid and not being able to celebrate properly because of a school crush

yn.ln: ok well if you're not gonna celebrate i will

| yn.ln: P6 IN JAPAN KIMI YOU DID THAT!!!!

| kimi.antonelli: thank you, angelo

| mercedesamgf1: we like you, @/yn.ln

| kimi.antonelli: back off, admin, she's mine

| username: KIMIYN CONFIRMED?!?!

yn.ln: is that lewis hamilton? damn i finally recognise someone that isn't you

YN's Instagram Story /

Instagram /

liked by: yn.ln, mercedesamgf1, and 992,901 others

kimi.antonelli: the more time i spend here, the harder it is to leave.

username: what he meant to say is: the more time i spend with her, the harder it is to leave.

* liked by kimi.antonelli

yn.ln: @/mercedesamgf1, please stop taking him away from me

| mercedesamgf1: we need him

| username: someone get this girl on the track

| mercedesamgf1: 🫡🫡🫡

yn.ln: another post tho omg is this what fame feels like

| kimi.antonelli: youre the worst

georgerussell63: looking good mate, enjoy the week off

username: so they're just straight up gonna post this and still deny they're together

username: the best couple😍

username: im sorry they fall asleep like that but aren't dating??

username: ah childhood best friends to lovers i live for this

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, mercedesamgf1, georgerussell63 and 43,901 others

yn.ln: "a few more weeks and we're done, a few more weeks and we're done, a few more weeks and we're done" I mutter, angry, sleep deprived and never wanting to see another number again

kimi.antonelli: imagine how i feel

kimi.antonelli: if it weren't for you tutoring me i'd have no chance

| yn.ln: yes you are very lucky to have me

mercedesamgf1: poor thing, we know just the fix

| yn.ln: what does this mean?

| username: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

kimi.antonelli: and it's all too much for little yn ln

Texts /

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, georgerussell63, lewishamilton and 398,382 others

yn.ln: life when your best friend is famous

kimi.antonelli: life when your best friend does something nice for you and you ditch him for lewis hamilton

| yn.ln: just be proud i know a driver who isn't you

| kimi.antonelli: i'd rather you know nobody.

| yn.ln: dead

| yn.ln: also lewis hamilton has nothing on you....apart from like a couple hundreds of millions and a few championships

| yn.ln: but id take you any day

| kimi.antonelli: you better

username: kimi being jealous over lewis is so funny

username: wait he really invited all of his school friends thats adorable

username: toto leaves for one race and kimi's turned the garage into a playground

username: ok but yn was serving looks

| username: she knows shes gonna be a future wag one day

| yn.ln: i'd be a brilliant wag

| kimi.antonelli: go be lewis' wag

| yn.ln: as if you'd let me

username: lewis in the likes tho 👀

Texts /

YN's Instagram Story /

Twitter /

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, mercedesamgf1, georgerussell63, and 102,901 others

yn.ln: is this...fame?

username: OMG SHE POSTED THE F1GOSSIP POST 😭

| username: she is iconic

kimi.antonelli: you enjoy this way too much

| yn.ln: i told you i'd make a good wag, the people agree

| username: WAG HER UP RN

username: kimi might not want her but damn i do

username: can kimi fight??

mercedesamgf1: our fav duo is back

Twitter /

Texts /

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, georgerussell63, mercedesamgf1 and 692,901 others

yn.ln: THAT'S MY GUY RIGHT THERE!! P3 FOR MY ROOKIE OF THE YEAR!!! THIRD YOUNGEST DRIVER IN HISTORY TO FINISH ON THE PODIUM!!! THAT'S MY KIMI!!! so so proud of you, @/kimi.antonelli

username: im not even going to ask if she can fight because you just know for him she can

| yn.ln: id fight dirty too

kimi.antonelli: il milo angelo, thank you for being here, thank you for celebrating with me

| yn.ln: so so proud of you baby

username: the hard launch we have been waiting for omg its here

classmate13: OMG FINALLY

georgerussel63: What a win, well done mate

| yn.ln: well done on p1 george!!!!

mercedesamgf1: that's our kimi

| yn.ln: admin, i love you please don't make me fight you

Instagram /

liked by: kimi.antonelli, georgerussell63, mercedesamgf1 and 992,901 others

yn.ln: imagine we get p3 in Canada and then mere days later we're forced to sit our final exams. wish us luck 🤞🏼

kimi.antonelli: im sorry ?? WE won p3 ?? i must have missed you in the car

| yn.ln: your wins are my wins

| kimi.antonelli: i won't argue with that, they are all dedicated to you, amore mio

username: yn actually perfectly summed up kimi's life with that caption because wtf

georgerussell63: good luck kids

| username: george calling them kids omg 😭

classmate13: can confirm yn pulled up in kimis car and they kissed each other good luck before going in

| yn.ln: i hope you fail all your exams

Instagram /

liked by: yn.ln, mercedesamgf1, georgerussell63, oscarpiastri, lewishamilton, olliebearman and 992,901 others

kimi.antonelli: exams are done and now we celebrate. @/yn.ln, Grazie mille for everything you have done for me, for being by my side and helping me manage my dream and my studies. mamma already loved you but this just made her so sure you were the one for me. and you are, te amo, il mio angelo. i am so glad you are my best friend and love of my life.

georgerussell63: congrats mate, you've killed it this season with school and racing. go celebrate with your girl

username: omg i love them

username: best friend and love of his life i am SCREAMING

yn.ln: te amo, baby, couldn't dream of doing life without you

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[baekhyunnybyun]

WayV — 【On My Youth】 'Inside' Teaser Image

[chow0w]

do you have a design for whiteout? ive always been fascinated by her description in the books and id be so curious to see how you interpret it!

Thank you so much!! Whiteout has been requested SO many times, and I'm really glad I can finally deliver! @miscellaneous-dragon-art , @thegreatnature , @aldershadows , @fluffyjesterr , @sunnyfield , @oli-bird , @rhynee and a handful of other anons all requested to see her, and the moment has finally arrived...

First off, I need to be transparent and say that @axolotl-yawn's redesign is definitely what motivated me to get off my butt and stop ignoring Whiteout (The amount of requests DID make me nervous.) Please go check out their design!

Onto the thought process - I first started this design by considering what I liked the least about Whiteout's canon appearance, so that I could gauge some kind of idea of where I wanted to go. The high contrast and lack of color definitely bothered me (even though it makes sense she'd be a greyscale dragon, being ice/night. I need my colors.) I also felt that her hybrid features were a lot of this-or-that, and she lacked codominant features which could've potentially looked cooler. Obviously these are just my personal preferences! I tried to stay very personal with this redesign, since there's just so much Whiteout content already and I wanted to challenge myself to stay as original as possible.

With that in mind, I established that I was going to use a lot of semi-saturated colors, focusing heavily on blending her hybrid features as best as possible into something that reminded me a little bit of melting ice/thin layers of ice you'd see on a volcanic rock. To implement this, I gave Whiteout an ice-like underbelly and more swirl patterns than she probably needed, just to reinforce that slightly whimsy vibe she has and make her shapes/lines match darkstalker's description of her mind. I thought it would be fun to blend ice/night spines with Whiteout, and made hers equally curvy and sharp. There are tons of other little things - I could talk about the redesign forever, but this post is long enough as is!

Thank you all so much for supporting my redesign journey thus far - I absolutely love seeing you around and getting your suggestions! The pinned post in my blog tells you any redesigns currently waitlisted or made - but if you don't see your favorite there (or just want to ask anyways) feel free to hit up my inbox!

Also - my art competition is still going for a whole month! It's a challenge to draw any scene from any WoF book, which might interest some of my fellow artists who visit this blog!

Here's the invite link to my server, which you can use to submit any entries! https://discord.gg/AfyVWmftzn

Even though I made it for the competition, we're having a lot of fun playing wordle - so if you just want to chat, don't stray!

later! ヽ(o^ ^o)ﾉ

[mclager]

Better in colour | Charles Leclerc x Alexandra Saint Mleux x writer!reader

Face claim: Hailee Steinfeld

Ynforreal

Liked by Charles_leclerc, alexandrasaintmleux and others

Ynforreal Somebody tell Charles Leclerc I'm single! Edit: Just discovered he's not, I'm very much sorry, Alexandra!

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User16 she's so real for that!!

User55 Alexandra reading this 🤣

User67 this is actually funny lol

Alexandrasaintmleux You're forgiven!

User81 NOT ALEX COMMENTING

Charles_leclerc 😂

f1wags

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f1wags Alexandra Saint Mleux, Charles Leclerc's girlfriend is seen with romance writer y/n, at the paddock in Imola. All of this after Y/n attempt of flirting with Charles via Instagram.

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User16 Alex is really a great person, I would want this woman far from my man!

ynforreal

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Ynforreal Forza Ferrari sempre!

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User5 what?

User98 Alex is a Saint

Alexandrasaintmleux ❤️

User9 What can I say? Go bestie!

Alexandrasaintmleux

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Alexandrasaintmleux 🌻

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Charles_leclerc ❤️

Ynforreal I need to match your aesthetic more to be on your Instagram, I feel like I'm killing the vibe

→ Alexandrasaintmleux You're perfect to my Instagram don't worry!

→ Charles_leclerc Says the woman that didn't post her own boyfriend because he DIDN'T MATCH THE AESTHETIC!

→ Alexandrasaintmleux She is more aesthetically pleasing!

→ Ynforreal This is real love ❤️

User66 NOT THE GIRL WHO WAS TRYING TO FLIRT WITH CHARLES!

Ynforreal

Liked by alexandrasaintmleux, charles_leclerc and others

Ynforreal I cried a little bit, congratulations @/charles_leclerc ❤️

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Charles_leclerc Thank you ❤️

Alexandrasaintmleux You were more nervous than me!

→ Ynforreal I was!

Charles_leclerc

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Charles_leclerc Great weekend thanks to Ferrari and the best company I could ask for!

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Ynforreal YOU PROMISED I WOULDN'T POST THIS PICTURE

→ Charles_leclerc ops?

→ Alexandrasaintmleux That's what I have to deal with, amor, you need to get used to this now

User16 Alex calling Yn AMOR? If my Spanish 101 is working doesn't this mean LOVE?

→ user89 it does, but can we talk about Alex saying that Yn needs to GET USED TO CHARLES BEHAVIOR??????

→ user55 I say one more CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS PICTURE?

→ user14 YN AND ALEX LAYING ON CHARLES LAP LIKE ?????????

Ynforreal

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Ynforreal Literature, art and adrenaline

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Charles_leclerc A book about a good looking Ferrari driver from Monaco when?

→ Ynforreal is in the making, but I have to finish the one about a pretty art history student first

→ Alexandrasaintmleux I'll be reading the second one!

User7 Fanfic is getting way too far

Charles_leclerc and 2 others

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Charles_leclerc The answer was yes!! @/Ynforreal is now in the Leclerc Familly! Thank you for telling me you were single in a random Instagram post, and then proceed to steal Alex's heart, you're the best thing that happened to us is a long time. ❤️

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Alexandrasaintmleux I loved every single moment with you two till now, and I'll keep loving you both forever, I'm sure of that! My two Ferrari obsessed lovers ❤️

Ynforreal I have so many feelings that one comment couldn't reflect it, but I can show you both when we're together for the rest of our lives, I love you!

→ Charles_leclerc love you more!

→ Alexandrasaintmleux Love you so much!!!

user7 HOW CUTE IS THAT CHARLES PUT THE PINK FLOWERS THAT MATCH ALEX'S FEED FIRST? THAT'S FUCKING LOVE!

user83 That's something

user92 Kinda ship it?

user90 YES!

user22 Leclerc Familly... That's the cutest shit ever

user12 WHERE IS LEO?

→ Ynforreal He got scared when I started to jump and scream, I'm sorry

→ Alexandrasaintmleux That's a good explanation, but forgot to mention that me and Charles were also jumping and screaming! (Charles was crying too)

→ Charles_leclerc I was

→ user12 That's so cute I'm good cry too...

Scuderiaferarri ❤️

[smallandsundry]

more of the bishova rugby au

plus some incredible ficlets from @simplykorra , @thecousinsdangereux and @strangelythirsty <3

Ficlet 1, by simplykorra:

"Kate?! What was that??" Clint's mad, like...sure, Kate shouldn't be suprised. She had a wide open run in front of her and just completely fucking dropped the ball and turned it over. But in her defense she did NOT know that the other team was allowed to cheat. Because that's absolutely what that was, cheating. Who the fuck flips their hair like that mid match? Who wipes the sweat off their forehead with the bottom of their shirt, showing off their insane abs in the middle of a match when it is quite obivous that someone on the other team is pathetically gay and crushing. That's the worst part, she has an insane crush and she really shouldn't. Because Yelena Belova is the enemy, or so has been said in every practice leading up to this game. She's the best player on that team, one of the best they'll face all year, and Kate had this big, annoying speech about how she could handle her. Then one peek of abs and Kate's losing her shit, dropping the ball and now getting yelled at by her coach - who is still yelling, right. She needs to pay attention. "Sorry!" She grins, because smiling always gets her out of stuff. "Butterfingers or whatever, you know? It's hot out here today. Sweat and...stuff...you know how it goes." Clint eyes her, then looks over her shoulder to something on the other side of the pitch. When Kate looks back, Yelena is looking right at her, with the most annoying smirk on her face. Then, like she KNOWS Clint is also looking, Yelena winks at her. "Oh my god." Clint says and Kate turns in a hurry to see him rolling his eyes. "Seriously? That's why you dropped the ball? Natasha's cranky little sister?" Kate takes a deep breath, a thousand excuses coming and going through her head. She could pluck any one of them and it would probably be enough to put an end to this conversation. But she knows that she has to go back out there again and will probably look into Yelena's eyes again and will DEFINITELY do something else stupid when that happens. "I don't know what you want me to say, coach. She's really hot." "Yeah, and we're really losing. Do you think she's gonna want to buy you a drink if you go out there and keep fumbling the ball like your hands are made of butter?" Kate shrugs, "I mean, dopey and gay has kinda worked for me so far, you saw the wink." "Okay, look, it's my fault for starting this conversation but I'm not the one to talk to about your crush." "Whoa, who said anything about a-" His raised eyebrows puts an end to her sentence. "I'll just...close my eyes whenever she's in my field of view." "Or you could get your shit together and just play the game." The whistle blows as the timeout comes to an end and Kate looks back just in time to see Yelena trotting out onto the field, not once taking her eyes off of Kate. When she looks back to Clint, she grimaces. "I'll close my eyes." It doesn't work. They lose the game. But Kate manages to get that drink afterwards. One more win for dopey and gay.

Ficlet 2, by thecousinsdangereux:

Kate had done a really admirable job of keeping her focus.

This is, at least, what she keeps telling herself at the half. Or maybe, probably, more like reminding herself, with the explicit objective of convincing herself not to look over towards the opposing team's bench. Because looking over towards the opposing team during warm-ups is what had gotten her in this mess in the first place, if said mess could be called a mess because really! she'd done a super admirable job of keeping her focus in the face of the absolutely fucking smoke show on the other team. The one with the thighs and the hair and the skills and general overall attractiveness that Kate had definitely not been distracted by at all.

(During the game, specifically. Never mind warm ups. Or now.)

"It's like you can hear her thoughts," Greer says, ostensibly to Franny, but mostly to fuck with Kate.

''Don't look at number two, don't look at number two, don't look at number two.'"

“'No matter how many times we sensually locked eyes in the middle of a competitive match.’"

"Number two is not showing the same restraint," Franny comments, dropping the mocking internal commentary quickly. "She is looking right over here and — yeah, okay, damn —  she's lifting her shirt to wipe the sweat off her face. Jesus."

Kate twists her neck with enough speed that something pops and fine, she's not doing a great job with that whole focus thing and who cares? Hot blonde has abs and Kate is gay and there were more important things than rugby and winning and pride and... other stuff that Kate would definitely be able to list if number two hadn't — at that exact moment — decided to look up and (without dropping her shirt! which! fuck!) smile, too crooked to be anything but smug.

"Yeah, okay, we're going to lose," Greer declares. "Pack it in, folks! Kate is too gay to function! Might as well call the game now!"

She definitely says it loud enough to be heard across the field. Kate sneaks a peek and, yeah, number two definitely hears it.

"You're the worst friend I've ever had."

Except maybe not, because the blonde doesn't exactly look put out by any of it. She's (mercifully) dropped her shirt, and this time when she holds Kate's stare, she lifts a hand to wave, with just the tips of her fingers. It's short-lived, because the team's coach (a redhead who — it has to be said — also has a lot going for her) yanks the girl back over to the bench by the back of her shirt and begins to lay into her in a language that sounds Slavic. The blonde rolls her eyes, but is (apparently) not especially deterred, because she looks back over at Kate with an expression that's full of dry humor.

('Do you see what I put up with for you?' Kate imagines her saying, in that accent that she'd definitely noticed on the field and had definitely found attractive and would definitely like to hear in other contexts. Such as for example — )

"Holy shit, Kate. You're drooling."

"I'm not drooling." She's not, but does wipe at her mouth as she pulls her stare away, back towards her own bench.

Ficlet 3, by strangelythirsty:

Kate thanks the gods, and more specifically, the athletic commission, who okay’d each teams’ uniforms. Previously it was because the new board leader agreed for her team to change out the old fashioned cotton for the good moisture wicking material. Which is its own thing. But this?

She hasn't seen as good an argument against the old cotton shirts as this one.

“The ball!” A distant voice says, but that's not important right now. What is is the expanse of abs she's seeing — which is currently beading with sweat, and okay she's heard the arguments, abs are for vanity more than function, yada yada yada. But who can argue with these results?

“The ball!” The voice says, now closer than it was.

She blinks because the shirt (which was hiked up to be used as a towel) has dropped back down. Oh right, the game. She picks up the ball at the last possible minute, the rival team had come close to grabbing it where it fell from her hands only a second ago. No need for her coach to be looking like he was going to have a stroke, that was a little dramatic.

It doesn't matter because she grabs the ball anyway, side steps the tackle, and takes off back down the field.

By the time the first half is over, they're still down two points, a simple goal would put them over the edge.

Later, she'll blame the coach for making the call for the play, and maybe, a little bit could have been the way she's completely distracted with Captain Belova tackling her.

The pass was clean, the team nearly in place for her to throw the ball, but she sees the streak of short blonde hair and white and red getting closer. Instead of looking for the next best teammate to throw the ball to for the score, she looks at Captain Belova, expression intensely focused, full lips pulled back exposing beautiful teeth in a snarl (beautiful teeth? She’ll later think, get it together, Bishop). But right now? Belova’s shoulder meets her midsection in a perfect tackle, the air leaving her lungs and the ball flings from her grasp as she goes — right into the rival team’s number two, who runs it down the line in a game clenching score.

The rest of the teams take off down the field to follow the action, but Yelena sits up, legs straddling hers. “Distracted, Kate?”

“Oh fuck off, Yelena. You didn't tell me you were working on your abs.” Kate laughs, poking her stomach through her shirt, feeling the warm skin and wet shirt.

She's going to get her back for that, somehow.

[fumiliar]

in your dreams - kento nanami

✎... fluff

everyone knew your crush on nanami in highschool. it was a public secret, from your classmates to upperclassmen, they all knew. when you first entered jujutsu high, you saw the most beautiful upperclassmen, kento nanami. ever since you've noticed the man, you followed him like a lost puppy. taking any chance to strike a conversation with him, you had 2 goals in highschool, graduate and most importantly get with nanami.

when you came back to jujutsu high as a sorcerer, their first words to you were:

"you're the one who liked nanamin right?" the blue eyed man asked

"yeah, i can't believe you still remembered," awkwardly looking around, trying to stare at anything but his face. it was a very embarrassing time of your life.

"everyone remembers, but don't worry, nanamin won't come back anytime soon."

and how wrong he was. 3 months after you came back to jujutsu, kento followed your footsteps, joining as another jujutsu sorcerer.

"i heard nanamin was single, you don't wanna try asking him out y/n? maybe you'd have a different fate," gojo winking at you before he went to take his leave.

you contemplated on asking him out on a date tonight. it wouldn't hurt, right?

as you arrived to the field to supervise the students, you saw a familiar figure, kento nanami. you took your time walking there, admiring the man. kento being the observant man he is, noticed your staring, reciprocating it back to you, making you look away instantly.

as you stood beside him watching the students, kento started some small talk.

"how was your day y/n?" kento asked, lowering his body by just a pinch to hear you better.

"good, what about you?" you replied.

"good as well," kento answered.

"wanna go out on a date with me?" you whispered, avoiding his gaze, making sure no one was paying attention.

"of course y/n, i'm flattered that you asked me out," kento replied with a soft smile.

you tried to cover your joy, but it was too much. a smile slowly manifesting itself on your face.

"[Honorific].Y/n, why are you smiling?" yuuji asked.

"nothing.."

when you had entered the break room, gojo and shoko were already sitting, waiting to interrogate you.

"so are you going out on a date with nanamin tonight?" gojo asked expectantly.

"of course, we're literally married," you answered while taking out your lunchbox from the fridge.

"i know he agreed to go on a date with you, but that doesn't mean you're married to him too y/n," shoko talking to you with a tone she would use in a misbehaving kid.

"in your dreams y/n, i love you, but these delusions need to stop," shoko agreeing with gojo for once.

"what delusions?" kento asked. in the middle of your conversation, kento had also entered the break room, only hearing gojo's part.

"i told them we're married, and they don't believe me," a chuckle escaped kento's lips as you huffed. he slowly approached you, leaning down to give you a kiss on the cheek.

"yeah, we are," kento holding up your hand flexing the matching wedding bands you both had. you and kento thought it would be funny to play a game with the jujutsu high people. at first, you wanted to tell them as soon as you arrived at jujutsu high. but due to gojo's incessant teasing, you decided to see how long you could trick him and everyone else. it wasn't like you guys were hiding it, you both wore your wedding bands everyday, it's just kento isn't a big fan of PDA in the workplace.

"what...are you serious..."

[bbokicidal]

Who You Are | SKZ [B.C]

a new mini-series where I list some random head canons about the boys based on facts we know about them/can catch onto from media.

genre: fluff / tiny angst pairing: Bangchan x GN!Reader warnings: none

I just noticed there's some like. random facts/things the boys do/how they behave that aren't really talked about in fics on here so I'm doing a mini-series to fix that.

Chan | Lino | Changbin | Hyune | Jisung | Felix | Seungmin | Jeongin

Something more commonly known - This man is SUPER into hugs! Affection in general, but HUGS. Even if it's just hanging on you, he's always happy to be hugging you whether it's something casual and he's just holding on for fun - or if it's more intimate or even comforting. He just really, really likes having you in his arms whenever he can.

Please bake for him. Lix doesn't have a lot of free time these days so his baking duties go to you instead - especially when Chan is whining quietly to himself that the cookies he bought from the store are too hard for his liking. Make him soft cookies - the chocolate chip ones that are gooey, fall apart and melt on his tongue. He wants those types of cookies, please.~

His 'I need to be behind everyone so I can see where they're at' habit also goes for you as well. Whether you're with the group or on your own, Chan's always walking either right beside you or behind you. He loves holding your hand and being close to you of course but he almost prefers walking behind you sometimes because he can actually see you without having to turn his head or side eye you like he's judging whatever it is you're doing. He just needs to have you in his eyesight if you're out and about - who knows what could happen.

If you need something fixed - he's your guy! The boys have said before that Chan is a great mechanic when it comes to fixing wiring for electronics, if a TV or computer isn't working, even other household appliances. And when he's done fixing it all up, he'll organize the cords so that they're neat and aren't too tangled. He leaves it looking brand new every time, even if your television is almost 8 years old. (He gives it a little clean while he's there.)

Chan is wildly good at pretending that he isn't sick even if he is. Or, worse off, while he's injured. Sometimes he overdoes it while working out or maybe he just slipped up and dropped a weight or his wrist bent when he was boxing with Minho; Either way, he is too good at hiding the pain he's enduring. The only time he's open about it and vocalizes how much he's hurting is if it's something more severe; And even then you have to convince him to go in to get it looked at.

Man has a really hard time taking compliments. While you might think it's funny - the way he shies away from your words and gets pink in the cheeks - Chan finds it a little too much; Overwhelming, actually. He'll eventually ask you to maybe tone it down with the teasing, the over complimenting, etc - because while he does appreciate it all, it's just overstimulating for him. It makes his mind reel and whirl with thoughts of 'I need to continue being this accomplished because if I don't, I'll let them down.' and nobody likes having those thoughts plaguing their mind 24/7.

^ Instead of direct compliments that are detailed, i.e. "Chan, you looked so good today! Your hair looked incredible and the outfit you picked out was perfect!" - Chan would rather a simple, "You look really nice today." A simple, sweet acknowledgement of the effort he puts into things whether it be his work, outfits, dates, whatever - is plenty enough for him to feel praised and appreciated.

But while we're on the topic, he does get a little bit pouty if you don't acknowledge something he thought he put a lot of effort into. For example; There was a time he had picked out a new shirt just to match the one you wore for a little date-day he had planned for you and when you didn't notice, he got quiet and a pout settled on his lips until you asked him what was wrong.

The good news is, with this situation, Chan is extremely good at communication. He can tell you, without making you feel bad, that he feels a little unappreciated when you don't notice things he does either for you or with you - or even in general.

Chan also just loves feeling needed. He loves it when you seek him out for advice, to vent, or just to talk to. He thrives off of feeling like he is doing a service to people even if he's just sitting there and listening to you babble about something you got into recently and really like.

He is also quite the perfectionist. Not to the point of him needing to plan every little detail down to the T; But he does take everything into account especially if it has to do with his work. But -- this also applies to dates! He's going to plan your date as well as he absolutely can and he's going to do it in a way that almost prevents anything from going wrong.

That being said, he's also very respectful and willing to listen to anything you have to say, ever. Which means he's more than happy to hear you out with your own date ideas; You feed him your little date fantasies and in turn, he'll make them become your reality!

Chan's mood also determines the atmosphere most of the time. When he walks in the room and it's clear he's not having a great day, people tend to understand that it isn't a good time to pick on him or touch him. Most just give him space. You, though; You're one of the only people he'll ease up on if you come close or cuddle up to him. You're like a little exception.

Chan is a huge fan of Dreamcatcher! If he has the opportunity, he wants to go and see them - which is something you overhear while visiting the studio one day. You end up buying him a concert ticket as a birthday present, even though he probably could've gone for free being in the industry and all - but he highly appreciates it and is almost in tears with how much joy he feels when he sees the ticket. He can't help but ball up his fists and wave his hands around in excitement, eyeing the ticket so hard like he's afraid it'll disappear if he blinks or looks away.

Chan has a fascination and heavily enjoys - drones. He owns a few, or - use to - maybe just one now. Either way, he really enjoys getting to control them and watching them whip around when other people are in control instead. The first time he introduces you to his drone, which he has named (comment what you think he would name it), he insists you try to fly it on your own. When you're too nervous and afraid you'll break it, because it IS expensive, he waves off your worries and helps you control it with his hands laid over top of your own.

During a Trivia event held by the boys in Changbin & Hyunjin's apartment, Jeopardy style of course, Changbin asked a question in which contestants (you, Seungmin, & Jisung) had to name what program Chan uses for Producing. You ding the bell before Jisung has a chance - and Seungmin is completely clueless - and to Jisung's dismay, get the answer right. "Cubase!" Chan's eyes widen in surprise at your knowledge and though he isn't sure how you know that, he's flattered for some reason. Meanwhile, Jisung is clutching his hair in his hands and crying, "How do you even know that?!"

During one year for Christmas, Chan found himself being gifted with a brand new bottle of the Kilian "Back to Black" perfume. He instinctively turned to thank Jeongin, who grew confused as to why his Hyung was doting on him, before claiming he didn't gift that to him. Chan sits back deadpan and turns to look at you instead, where you're sitting next to Felix with a giggly grin. Chan knew you liked his cologne - he was well aware, as you were always huffing his scent when the two of you hugged - but he wasn't aware you knew the name of it. Unless you went snooping...