#what if its shit?? it wont be but that seems like a high risk to take | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dear-ao3 · 1 month ago

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welcome back to the final slam dunk of f1 2024: the last triple header. vegas. qatar. abu dhabi. we have two world championships still up for grabs, as well as the eternal question of the red bull second seat and the last remaining vcarb seat. we’ve seen a lot this season already, but can it still get crazier?

this is a good question to keep in mind as we enter las vegas. round 22. can max verstappen secure his 4th world title here or will mclaren finally get their shit together? can ferrari snatch the constructors title away from mclaren? will williams have two cars that work? will lewis hamilton finish out his last three races at mercedes? or is everyone going to be sleep deprived and cold and forced to be second hand high at a track that smells aggressively like *checks notes* weed?

fortunately, we’re about to find out. today is december 1, 2024 and strap yourselves in everyone as we enter the las vegas strip. because i can assure you that in this case, what happens in vegas will not stay in vegas.

but before we can ge to vegas, we gotta get through the off week. or weeks. which were really, quite packed with a whole lot of shenanigans.

like the brand spanking new gpda instagram.

for those of you who need a refresher, the gpda is the grand prix drivers association, aka the f1 drivers union. george russell is the current director and all current drivers are members of the union (though you do not have to be a member to be an f1 driver)

why do a bunch of millionaires need a union? to negotiate safety terms and regulations because all of the regulations are decided by people who are Not Them and they raise issues to the fia and the higher ups regarding things theyre concerned about or things that they think need revamping. you know, because there is a pretty decent risk of death and/or serious injury in this sport that makes it slightly different than some other sports.

in any case, they made a brand new instagram account. and followed all of the current drivers plus kimi antonelli, ollie bearman, sebastian vettel, and their two lawyers. apparently george does not follow the instagram. which some people thought meant that there was a coup happening in the gpda. but no, its probably because the account is linked through george’s own account and you cant follow your account. in any case they released this statement

and look, yes it was definitely put through a legal writing team, but there is a high chance that george wrote the starts of it himself.

this also convinced several people online that george was not a tory. id like to take this moment to point out that while we do not for sure know george’s political views, we can infer that he is likely not a tory because 1. his family are quite literally farmers 2. he wore a poppy pin in the paddock in brazil which is something that specifically really pisses off right wing brits (aparently) and 3. quite literally also runs the gpda, which is a union. and i personally don't know a whole lot about british politics so sorry if im butchering this here but i don't think that the tories are particularly pro union.

also, george has been putting in the work with the gpda for years. in saudi arabia 2022 specifically, sebastian (who was the other gpda director at the time) was sick so george was the only director present and attended meetings with the fia and f1 and the drivers to assure their safety cause there was a non zero chance that the track could be a target for a missile. the meetings went incredibly late but he still made sure everyone was heard and then also presented all of that to the fia. hes also advocated for the cars to be raised to combat porpoising, questioned the flag and safety car process, and generally rightfully and respectfully has questioned f1 and the fia’s decision making. so this is really not his first rodeo and it likely wont be his last.

in any case, the gpda dropped their statement. and the racing world waited for a response. though it didn't seem like anything would come of it any time soon.

why? well as some of you may in fact know, the united states had a rather…..tumultuous election in the time between thee brazilian grand prix and the las vegas grand prix. in case you are somehow unaware, our previous president, the one that was between obama and biden, got reelected. if you do not know who was president between obama and biden i urge you to google it for yourself, i will not be getting political of that nature on this post. as you might remember, formula 1 has a Don't Get Political policy (which we know was stemmed from some stupid, definitely racist/homophobic means and plenty of the drivers don't really agree with it) which means that drivers are not allowed to make overly political statements or comments without expressed permission. so. it was rather interesting to see both danica patrick (the commentator who thinks that women should not be in motorsport despite herself being a woman who was in motorsport, and jenson button’s arch nemesis) and mohammed ben suliyam (the fia president) both expressing their excitement in the results of the united states presidential election. surely, these people should be held to the same standards as the drivers are as they are also heavily involved in the sport and also, to an extent, in the public facing side of f1? these two events right next to eachother really exemplified the awful duality of this sport.

but in the meantime, stake announced that zhou and valtteri would not be getting re signed with the team for 2025. which was something that we already kinda knew, but now was known for certain.

and stake, unlike some other teams this year, announced it very respectfully in a way that honored both of the drivers and the time that they had been with the team.

and ruth buscombe, the ex strategist at alpha romeo (which was stake’s previous name) posted this lovely comment about her time working with the two of them while she was with the team:

“I was once told that drivers are like light bulbs you screw them in and out of a car and they aren't really part of the team so don't get attached. Over a decade later I can categorically say they couldn't have been more wrong. All of us, especially Strategists have our day to day lives, our careers and ultimately fate entwined with the two humans driving our cars. They trust us, they protect us, we trust them, we protect them: we are a team and they become more than colleagues, they become our friends. It was an honour and a privilege to call strategy for @valtteribottas and @zhouguanyu24 at Alfa. Thank you for every undercut, every overcut, every stay out, every box, every mistake you forgave, every team order you followed without questioning, every second of race time you cost Aston in that final race, every point you earned (or took away with a fastest lap or that count back position in Imola that ultimately counted for that P6). This is the end of an era but I know it's not the end of either of your tours. We never give up. As VB said in our first ever race briefing (and we were all shocked including VB at how profound it came out) Do not set a limit on what you can achieve."

so what are the two of them doing next year? well no one is quite sure. theres rumors circulating that zhou is going to sign with ferrari as a reserve driver and theres even heavier rumors circulating that valtteri has signed with mercedes as a reserve driver. though, im not sure how true those rumors are because i could not find that mercedes themselves have said anything about it.

valtteri also has a seemingly never ending series going on his instagram entitled “what’s next?” and its a bunch of videos of him being asked what's next and then doing different things. he ended up releasing merch that says “what’s next” on it and a portion of the proceeds are going to a charity that helps people dealing with sudden job loss. which is definitely his own humor peeking though at his lack of contract for next year

in any case, with the two of them gone, did that mean stake finally announced their other driver?

yes they did. silly season isnt over yet folks.

his name is gabriel bortoleto, hes a brazilian f2 driver and hes currently leading the f2 championship. so why haven’t you heard about him before?

well, there were a lot of people up for the stake seat. like everyone and also their mother and even their mother’s mother.

so who is he?

well. he’s managed by fernando alsono’s management company, is about to win f2 in his rookie year and also won f3 in his rookie year, he looks up to senna and max for their aggression as drivers. he was also a mclaren academy driver, but mclaren released him (meaning that they would not be trying to keep him as a driver or a reserve driver so that he could get a proper seat) . hes definitely not a nobody. and as to why stake signed him over franco, like many people were wondering, i have no idea. driver contracts are sticky and tricky. its possible that this has been being negotiated for awhile, or maybe williams didn't want to release franco from their program.

is that the end of the silly season rumors tho?

oh buddy, you really thought.

so as i mentioned, franco colapinto. as we know, he was just here for the back end of this season because williams already had previously confirmed their line up for next year prior to his arrival and that line up is, as we know, one alexander albon and one carlos sainz.

and as we also know, james vowels has said that franco deserves a seat next year, at any team, doesnt care if franco is technically competing against him, which makes it sound like williams are willing to release franco from their driver development program. problem is, there is exactly one seat left (officially) and it is at vcarb. and red bull are their own completely separate basket case.

and if you've really been paying attention you would know that red bull are currently involved in the eternal debate of Do We Keep Checo For Next Year. technically he does have a contract. but technically we all also know that this means nothing (as especially evidenced by yuki who said earlier this year that he didn't really even bother to read his new contract because he knows it kinda means nothing).

so as a refresher. max has a contract at red bull through 2028. though he has hinted very unsubtly that hes going to see how the regulation changes go in 2026 and if he hates them he might dip. checo technically has a contract at red bull for 2025 (unsure if it extends beyond that), yuki has a contract at racing bulls for 2025 (again, unsure if it extends beyond that, and also i am on a train and google is not really working too well). liam lawson has a contract at racing bulls through the end of 2024 because he replaced daniel ricciardo.

(also, quick interludular tangent on daniel, apparently it came out that he himself was the one who wanted to leave after singapore this year and also asked for the team not to announce anything until after the weekend had ended. this was because he had technically already had a big send off in abu dhabi at the end of 2022 at mclaren when he was sort of retiring and apparently didn't really see the point in doing the whole thing again and wanted to leave on his own terms:

“Red Bull CEO Peter Bayer revealed Daniel Ricciardo requested his F1 exit not be disclosed during the Singapore Grand Prix, even after his Q1 elimination. Ricciardo, initially considered to replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull post-summer, formally exited after the Singapore race, with the news announced the following Friday despite being widely speculated. Bayer told Auto Motor und Sport, ‘We had agreed with Daniel that we would not communicate it. We knew we'd seem outdated as a team, but it was his wish. He believed he'd perform in qualifying and prove himself. I've never seen such mental strength in an athlete.’ Ricciardo's weekend unraveled with a Q1 exit at Marina Bay, which Bayer described as a ‘terrible moment.’ ‘You could hear on the radio his world had collapsed,’ Bayer said. ‘At 2 a.m. Saturday, we asked what to do next. He told us to let him race—he didn't want any nonsense.’ Bayer emphasized the team's support, saying, ‘If Daniel had stayed until Abu Dhabi, we'd have celebrated his farewell with fireworks and a grid photo, like [Kimi] Räikkönen. That's what everyone wanted.’”)

anyway, the running theory is that checo is not going to continue at red bull after this year, and is going to get replaced by Someone. who? well no one really knows. could be liam lawson. it doesnt seem like it would be yuki (even though by all accounts he is killing it this season) but now theres a new theory that it might be franco.

remember that franco himself came out and said that he does not have a contract for next year at the end of the mexican gp. apparently though his team Has been talking to people and horner Has been seen in the williams hospitality (under the guise of trying the coffee from their new sponsor, lost the link for that particular anecdote youll just have to Trust Me).

and Someone, and i really don't remember who it was, even posed recently that red bull should approach williams and say “hey, you happy with franco? if you want to keep him you should, give me sainz”

but, like everything else, this is all speculation. and we will likely not know anything until After the season has already finished. there is a meeting happening about the whole ordeal after abu dhabi (cause driver contracts are complicated, as we know) as confirmed by horner (though talks are definitely still going on)

so heres the situation as i can piece it together.

checo has a Lot of sponsors that bring money to the team (as we know, hes a huge deal in mexico, he has a whole lot of sponsors), and these sponsors have already been told that hes staying for the start of 2025 (supposedly). so they are prepared to keep paying red bull money. but if red bull kick him, then theyre out all that sponsor money, meaning that whoever the next driver who comes in is would need to have at least vaguely comparable sponsorship.

checo has said (or rather demanded) that if red bull cut ties with him for 2025, he wants 15.7 million pounds (roughly 20 million us dollars) to buy out his contract.

and williams, supposedly, reportedly, will want Another 15.7 million pounds (20 million us dollars) for franco because red bull would want him full time and not on loan. franco is, as we know, a very new driver to f1. and he would aparently be getting thrown directly into red bull, not vcarb. as three time world champion max verstappen’s teammate. max verstappen who is winning the championship in a shit box presently, just knocked the collective socks off of the whole world at the brazilian gp, won all but three races last year and who has caused the regulations to be changed Because of him on multiple occasions. that max verstappen. franco has less than ten f1 races under his belt.

and there is also the fact to consider that because franco is a relatively new driver, he does not have (probably) nearly as many sponsors as checo does. things like this are impossible to say because its all complicated and hush hush but its not hard to make the assumption that checo, who has been here for 14 years, has more sponsors worth more money than franco colapinto does.

franco’s manager apparently made a comment (which i am assuming was about the rumor ordeals of him having a seat next year) that was “listen carefully because i will only say this once. stop with your opinions, with your insults and stop telling us how to do our job…i need you all to shut up.”

there was another vague rumor circulating around that alpine want to replace jack doohan, who they have only just signed for 2025, with franco before he even makes it to the grid. this would not be the first time that alpine has had issues signing a driver (oscar piastri’s contract for 2023 anyone???) but even worse for the team. jack is set to be the first driver promoted to alpine f1 from their driver academy program in Years. (recently we had zhou get released to sign with sauber and then there was the oscar fiasco).

fortunately for everyone involved though, this turned out to just be a rumor, and jacks seat seems to be safe. how do we know this? alpine announced the number that jack is going to be racing under (7, because he has raced under it before and it was also kimi raikkonen’s number, who he looked up to)

mick though, who as we know is a mercedes reserve driver and also raced this year with alpine in the world endurance championship, posted this on his instagram, which was on a Plain Black Screen:

“Life doesn’t always go as planned, and setbacks can be tough to face. But every challenge is a chance to learn, grow, and come back even stronger. This is just a chapter, not the whole story. The journey continues, and I’m determined to rise above it. Thank you all for your support, it means the world.”

and there was some good speculation over what the hell it was about. some people speculated family, some speculated he broke up with his girlfriend, but even more thought that it might be related to silly season and his continued lack of a seat. he had yet to confirm anything with alpine wec either, so he might be out of a seat entirely. only time though would tell.

but moving on from silly season.

franco colapinto continued to be a pr menace and posted this on his instagram story. this of course being a photo of someone next to a card board cut out of him, holding it in less than pg ways, with the caption (translated from spanish) “stop groping me” (the picture was a screenshot from a video where a guy was pretending to give him head btw)

some days later, he posted this comment which says (again, translated from spanish) "tomorrow I have media training and this time is not a joke... y'all still have a few hours to save me" one can only wonder if the two incidents are related.

in a rather un pr menace way though, he did speak about the importance of therapy during an event, advocating for its importance, especially for athletes.

another wild pr move of the week came from checo. i think that i have mentioned this before but checo’s father is a politician. and he made some comments during the off week that were rather homophobic. the comment was, apparently, about ralf schumacher (who as we know came out as gay earlier this year) and was "I don't know if he's a man or a woman.” now im not entirely sure if this is all that was said (i ripped this off of an instagram comment, don't sue me okay i have seventeen whole pages of links that need to get put into this update alone, i did not want to google one more)

obviously, this is offensive. i should hope that you all don't need me to say that.

here’s what checo said in response though:

"First of all, I don't agree with any of his comments. I think he did a mistake in that regard. I don't share any of his views but at the same time I don't control what my father has to say, I can only control what I say.”

this is not exactly a surprise coming from checo, as we all remember that earlier this year he and max accepted an mtx couple goals award (while they were in mexico, though i think they had won it significantly earlier in the year) and max said, about them receiving the award:

"i think checo always wanted to win this one, since checo joined the team, it’s not about winning races or championships. it’s this one!" as well as that them winning "was not unexpected" and that he and checo "made it"

checo’s thoughts were a bit more succinct, but the sentiment was clear: "dreams do come true"

and speaking of max getting shipped with people. as you may or may not have deduced by now, max often gets shipped with charles leclerc. people get a little crazy about it (i don't mean this is a bad way, i admire all of you and i am very content watching from the side lines). theyre called lestappen.

and well, as you might also remember, max has an e racing team called team red line that he streams with sometimes. and he streamed with them during the off week.

well. one of the members of team red line, brought it up on stream. again i say, this was not a fan comment, this was one of the members bringing this up unprovoked.

"I've just seen a clip of when chadwick was by himself, talking to the chat. He goes: Do you think lestappen is real guys?”

"It's fake- it's fake, what are you talking about?"

and then in the background, max himself started laughing.

the lestappen girlies about lost their minds for a whole week. very funny.

(and before anyone brings up the ages old debate of people shouldn't read stuff about them, i offer you my ages old two cents: don't bring fandom shipping rpf etc stuff up to them unprovoked. but if they go looking for it themselves, well then that's on them.)

and this is unrelated, but rickard silken posted a lestappen edit.

charles seemed to be blissfully unaware of this moment, probably because he went to the gladiator 2 premier with his grilfriend alex. charles did his part as a diligent ferrari driver and wore a ferrari pin like he was a diplomat from a foreign country at a convention and proudly admitted on camera in an interview that he had only seen gladiator one a few days ago. he was described by someone on twitter commenting on the premier as “charles leclerc on way to Gladiator 2 premier in London.”

also present at said premier was carlos and his girlfriend rebecca. carlos was also mentioned by the same user on twitter. but they called him “a sports man, i think heading to Gladiator 2 premier in London.”

lewis was also at the premier. he slayed harder than both of them combined because he is sit lewis hamilton.

charles also wore some ugly pants.

yuki tsunoda moved to milan recently and lives near pierre, who he is besties with from their time in alpha tauri as teammates. they went and did karaoke together in celebration. and they sang their adele song together.

we also had signs of life from both daniel ricciardo and logan sargeant. logan was doing indycar testing (and also slaying, he was at the top of the time sheets) and daniel was at a bills game. they seem to be really enjoying their post f1 glow ups.

dorianne pin, the mercedes f1 academy driver, was on the kimmel show, and she absolutely slayed.

valtteri bottas is dressed as santa in finland on ads selling what appears to be some kind of alcohol

and formula one announced that all of the car liveries would be unveiled at the same time next year, for 2025, with all of the drivers in attendance, at the o2 area in a weird sort of concert like thing. and while this is obviously a terrible cash grab situation, it is inherently hilarious because like? clearly very few drivers will tolerate this (max as we know detestes weird pr) and like. idk. seems like it has the makings to be a hilarious shit show. which just about describes this sport in general.

oscar piastri did some pr with dogs. which was cute. but that also seems to be mclarens default go to when one of their drivers is Not Doing Well (as we have seen with daniel). so hm. interesting choice there mclaren.

also interesting choice was This Statement that andrea stella made in regards to the potential of lando winning the WDC. (remember, he needs to score 21 points every weekend now to beat max and max can win in vegas)

“In terms of the constructors’, it doesn’t change anything and that was always our priority. Even when there was a call to be made to support one driver over the other, it was always secondary to maximising the constructors’ championship. When it comes to the drivers’, for Lando there was never any particular pressure. To be honest, we were enjoying this quest. Sometimes from outside, it may come across like, 'Oh there was an error there', but I don’t think pressure was a significant factor at all. Now we must analyse the points – mathematically we are still in the championship. I think for Lando, for Oscar, we will go to the next races and try and win the races. The last two races should be good, for Vegas it might be more of a Ferrari track, we will see but all to play for and the constructors’ remains and has always been our priority.”

now this is insane and also wild and also begs the question that if this was never the priority then Why On Earth did they pull so many team rules and swaps on oscar? especially in brazil? does mclaren know what theyre doing? Like will buxton said at some point earlier this year, chances to win the world driver championship don’t just pop up every year. so this seems like it could be a half assed cover up by the team over the fact that now it’s Unlikely that lando is going to win (it was unlikely in the first place, but now it’s less likely)

also who remembers their whole “whatever it takes” rebranding from the beginning of the season? not to inflict my own opinion here but, lol.

but enough about mclaren. you might be wondering hey! what happened with the gpda post? did anything come of it???

well. maybe.

in the time between when the gpda posted it and the start of the vegas race week, three people (well! at least i think it was three! theres been a lot happening and its been hard to keep track!) were fired/let go conveniently. these three confirmed people were:

the race director

the liberty media ceo (they presently own f1)

and the compliance officer

which is kind of a lot of important higher ups.

(note: there might have been other people, everyones titles are pretty similar sounding and there were people saying that the f1 ceo was stepping down but as far as i can tell he seems to be staying, more people might have left but i cant really find anything)

and people speculated that the gpda statement might have something to do with it.

and lastly. and perhaps most importantly, max has a new cat.

so now. every time we’ve been to the us so far this year, shenanigans have unfolded. in miami we had lando win his first race. in texas we had a lovely myriad of things including:

oscar saying that “maybe we should adopt nascar rules and sort it out on track or in the pits, but…well actually no. some people have tried that got community service.”

franco saying about alpine and specifically esteban ocon: “the faster lap was taken by the french, why do they change tires bro? we need to save the planet”

max, upon being asked if he sympathizes with mclaren in a press conference: “no, i don’t. i mean they complain about a lot lately anyway. it’s very clear in the rules. outside the white lines you cannot pass.”

and also the liam lawson and fernando alonso beef: “he said he would screw me and i guess he kept his word.”

and this also gets compounded ontop of the shenanigans from the last time we were racing in vegas (last year) for the first time since i believe the 80s:

first they had these very weird hunger games esque entrances that pretty much no one wanted to be a part of, then carlos hit a manhole cover in practice that wasn't secured well and ripped a hole in the bottom of his car nearly paralyzing him. this delayed the second practice session by approximately 6 hours and i think they ended up doing it at some ungodly hour like 4 in the morning, fans got kicked out way before then and max all but condoned them rioting about it. lando binned it into the wall at the beginning of the race in a pretty horrific accident, there were all kinds of problems with the tires not heating up and they initially thought that it might be too cold to race because the cars do not perform well in the cold. charles did a very giggly, very sleep deprived interview with max and then he also had the overtake of the year on the last lap, overtaking checo for second place and he only came two seconds behind max (which was insane considering max was winning races by upwards of 20 seconds that year). red bull had these elvis inspired race suits and max sang viva las vegas over the radio after he won. and instead of a cool down room there was a cool down rolls royce. which was checo aggressively third wheeling max and charles.

so. all of this to say. it was going to be a bonkers weekend for suresies.

and that it was.

we started strong with yuki getting held up at customs. despite the fact that he has raced in f1 twice this year already, customs held him up for several hours saying that he had the wrong visa. he was wearing pajamas and they did not believe that he was a formula 1 driver or allow him to call his team or his friends that he had traveled with. eventually he did get into the country, but it was still weird and also bad

this did not stop yuki from showing up to the paddock in an absolute slay of an outfit though.

and lewis, naturally, was also slaying

as was jenson button, the 2009 f1 world champion, current full time WEC driver, part time sky sports commentator, and (perhaps ex perhaps not) 365 party girl, who was in town to comment on the race.

max verstappen got a present for his cat from a fan, and he revealed that the cats name is donatello. but kellys daughter penelope calls him doughnut because its easier for her to say.

there was a statistic going around that pierre has not caused any damage himself to his car this entire season (a statistic that he would like to keep through the last three race weekends)

it was also cold in the paddock (at least by f1 standards, cause most of the places that they go are pretty warm and/or its during the summer) so to be in vegas in 50 F degree weather was positively freezing for them. and so the jackets got broken out. especially at mercedes, where george toto and kimi all showed up in matching puff jackets and there was a really hilarious photo of liam lawson sitting under a blanket and next to a heater in an interview that i seem to have lost the link to. and it was so cold that fernando alonso was wearing four separate layers, which is proudly showed off to everyone on a fan stage

it was revealed that carlos’s trainer, pierluigi, is going with him to williams next year. in case you are wondering, sometimes the trainers are contracted by the teams, sometimes theyre contracted by the drivers (meaning that they either work for the team entity or the driver entity and usually with the team entity theyre hired out via a company etc etc etc) which means that either carlos’s trainer is contracted through his own team 55 team and is by default going with carlos OR he was contracted by ferrari and bought out the contract or left to follow carlos. none of that matters, but its important to me that you know that.

and one of the casinos did a shoey bar again, like they did last year, as a riff off of daniel ricciardo’s signature podium move despite the fact that daniel wasn't there this year. and by half way through the first day they were more than halfway sold out.

charles also got id’d at a casino

and carlos and charles did… well they did things. perhaps the sleep deprivation was getting to them because i don't quite know how else to explain this. they posted a be real of the two of them googling if carlos was the spanish version of the name charles (it is)

and a fan posted a video of the behind the scenes of this video being like what the hell are these two doing

charles almost seductively fixed carlos’s hair

they also responded to some social media comments ? memes ? about the carlos sainz face card not declining and leo and their special edition stuff with the “desert effect” on it

and this now takes us into the race suits. because we had quite a few special liveries and suits for vegas. were they ugly? idk ill let you decide that one.

first we had stake. they went for some green flames.

their car was also a slightly different green than the usual green to match the suit green. and it went the freshly entirely pink alpine (straight out of force india practically because bwt used to be their title sponsor and the car essentially looked exactly like that lol)

and stake made, once again, a funny little meme about it

racing bulls also had a livery. and some race suits. and they looked a lot like sprite cans

and then we had ferrari. they were supposed to look like sand blasted race suits because desert is sandy. it. well. it didn't really look too much like that. it kinda looked like they accidentally put too much bleach in the wash or maybe walked through a cloud of flour. please remember that ferrari has their own fashion brand before you look at them. though, the video of carlos and charles explaining them was a true gem

instagram

and at least charles got to wear some fun shoes that said on them "leo is the best"

esteban ocon had a fun helmet, it was captain america (last year he had deadpool) and he was very excited about it. marvel even commented “on your left” on the post.

lando got asked about how thoughts on the car launch event. as one could have perhaps predicted, he was less than pleased about it:

“if i get told to be there i guess i’ll be there. i might see where max is going on holiday and join him, we might end up having the same illness or something!”

sky sports had rainbow mics this weekend and it pissed of danica patrick visibly

lance stroll agreed with fernando alonso that “the less corners [on a track] the better”

george russell said that he was excited to have kimi as a teammate now that kimi would no longer be able to crash his car, though he thought it would be weird being the oldest on the team. when he asked how lewis does not have any gray hair yet (aparently george does) lewis said, as he has before “black don't crack”

and franco told a fan in a very sweet interaction that they would go far and be a much better driver than he is

he also said that “We [williams] should take what’s left of the 2024 budget and bet it all on black in Vegas. If we win, we can cover the Brazil damages, no problem!”

i almost didn't want to waste space on this, but apparently christian horner gave some weird interview about how “accusations ruin mens lives” (cause remember earlier this year when he was accused of harassment in the workplace?) and he nabbed at toto for kicking him when he was down or something. and not to inflict my own opinion here, but good for toto.

and remember when i told u all about how several higher ups were let go after the gpda released their statement? well. george was asked about this in the press conference and turns out. it was not connected. and not only that, but the fia never responded to the gpda in any regard and did not consult with the gpda before letting any of those people go or before hiring new ones.

here is a summary of what george had to say

"We definitely weren't aware [of the race director leaving]. It was a bit of a surprise, I think, for everybody. It's a hell of a lot of pressure now onto the new race director. Just three races left [this season] … often as drivers, we probably feel like we're the last to find out this sort of information. And when it involves us kind of directly, it would be nice to be kept in the loop and just have an understanding of what decisions are being made.” [George then called for transparency because of the lack of communication between the fia and the gpda and said some drivers were unhappy with calls that had been made by the previous race director but] "sometimes just hiring and firing is not the solution. Let's see what this new era is going to bring, but every time there is a change, you have to take one step back before you make the two steps forwards.” [George was unsure how much confidence the drivers currently had in the fia leadership but said that it was clearly not] "the most stable of places" [due to the departures, and he insinuated that the fia and ben sulayem did not understand the feelings among the drivers especially when it was a challenge to get them to follow through on promises] "I think if we feel that we're being listened to and some of the changes that we are experiencing, requesting, are implemented … then maybe our confidence will increase. But yeah, I think there's a number of drivers who feel probably a bit fed up with the whole situation. And it only seems to be going in, to a degree, the wrong direction." "We all know what we want from the sport and the direction it's been heading and we probably feel that we want to do a small U-turn on a number of topics and just want to work together with the FIA on this. And that's just what we've felt has not been happening at all, at least directly from the President [sulayem]." (you can read more from george’s press conference answers here)

lewis also backed up george, saying in an interview that

"If we don't get a response, I'm sure we'll chase them up. I know they've got a lot going on at the moment, but I think it's just to show that more than ever, the drivers are united, which is perhaps not something you've always seen in the past." he also advocated for closer and better working relationships between the fia and the drivers, saying "There are some things that need addressing, and FIA needs to be better at working and collaborating with us. We want the sport to continue to thrive and be better. We have zero to gain with the comments that we're making, in terms of things that can be better through the race weekends, and all we're asking is to communicate with us more and include us."

charles also said that is is surprised that the fia are making changes now with no explanation and max said that it is weird that they have to learn about fia related news (like the people getting let go/fired) from social media because no one from the fia is talking to them.

and btw losing the race director alone is a big deal. especially with a few races and two titles still to go. the race director makes a lot of decisions that directly affect the drivers and having to get a new one at the end of a tumultuous season cannot be easy.

aside from that mess we also had another mess and that was lando commenting on mclaren’s statement about the drivers championship never being a priority.

first, he talked about the aftermath of brazil:

"I deleted all of my social media so I didn't have any of that. I literally couldn't sleep for the first two days," he recalls. "So I did like, what, 36-40 hours straight. So that probably made everything worse. When you're tired, you're more moody, and that kind of thing. Like, it's a double effect. I was just sat at home alone. It probably would have been better if I had been with my friends. But they don't live in Monaco. They also have lives and are busy doing other things. And I'm a big overthinker, so like the whole flight home, the whole week, it just played over and over in my head. What could I have done differently? Why did I do that? Why did I not do this? You start thinking of all the scenarios that you kind of blame yourself for, why it's now not possible, that kind of thing. And yeah, because I overthink and I struggle with that kind of thing, that took a bigger toll in the days after. It wasn't an easy time."

now, this is not an unusual reaction for a driver to have upon losing the world championship (no matter how far away from winning it lando was), back in 2015 nico rosberg locked himself in his hotel room for hours after losing the championship to lewis hamilton in texas. he then locked the hell in and won the next several races consecutively. (i don't remember how many races it was, you can probably google that yourself if you're interested) and lando also has been open about his own mental health before, so this wasn't an unusual comment coming from him.

he then said this though, also about the championship and what he has learned from this season:

“For the first time, I'm confident to say that I have what I think I need to fight for a championship. Doesn't mean I'm complete, doesn't mean I'm perfect, that's for sure. And when you're competing against drivers who are close to that, like Max, you have to be close to perfect if you want to challenge him.”

and then came the chess analogies:

"It's check and I'm all alone and Max has all of his pawns ready to attack me,” lando said in an interview, which he then followed up by saying that chess is not his strong suit as it that was not obvious from the analogy itself. also we can infer that by pawns he mostly probably means charles and maybe ferrari (who are currently battling against mclaren for first in the constructors championship) and we all remember charles holding up lando for a hot while in brazil, (remember he and max were full teammating) so. could be onto something here.

still, they asked carlos about lando’s comment, and he was woefully confused about it

and then lando said this about about max:

"Everybody thinks we are better mates than we are. I have other people who are my real friends. My true friends. He's a guy I get along with well off the track. That doesn't change. I am good at keeping things separate. If someone treats me like shit on track, it doesn't mean I will treat them like shit off the track. They are two different worlds."

and this:

"Maybe other drivers in the past were ready for such an occasion but no one has gone up against Max so early on in their career, halfway through the season, and put up a pretty reasonable fight.”

(which is interesting because charles and max were fighting eachother back in 2019, when charles was at his first year at ferrari and only his second in formula 1, though i suppose that max was not a champion contender at that point)

now. max commented on the rules and regulations changing and whether or not he feels targeted because as we know a lot of the rules over the years have been changed For Max and also mclaren had been complaining about max breaking rules and racing too hard and here is what he said to bbc

"honestly, even if they would have done or did, first of all i don't care because i drive to what i think is possible and what is allowed in the rules. and if the rules are written like that, i will use the rules. if that would have happened to me the other way around, i don't think i would have been the person to complain so hard because i would just think, 'OK, if that's the rules, that's how we do it' instead of screaming that we need to change the rules.”

and this is funny because back in silverstone 2019, charles said this about racing max:

"If we can race in that way, then I'm more than happy to race that way"

(meaning that, he didn't feel the need to change the rules around in order to race max and also win against him, unlike what is happening now)

this did not though stop mclaren from still being, well, mclaren. see they thought that red bullhead figured out that mclaren’s skid blocks were illegal and were going to report them to the fia. so mclaren instead decided to report themselves first. and low and behold, they were in fact illegal. and “The technical directive issued by the FIA required 7 teams to modify the arrangement of their fastening screws on the floor plate under the car.” and in addition to mclaren, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Haas, Sauber & Alpine all had to change theirs as well.

hilariously, red bull knew nothing about the skid blocks.

that did not stop charles though for calling out mclaren’s under dog qualities.

"McLaren has often said this (drivers saying Ferrari are favourite), it's not the first time they say maybe that Red Bull will be the favourite and then in the end they are the fastest."

and speaking of charles. he and max were back at it again, not even remotely dodging the lestappen rumors. first ferrari and red bull were sharing the fan stage together, which doesnt ever really happen, usually it is a top team with a mid field team, but for some insane reason they decided to put ferrari and red bull together and absolutely no one was mad about it. except for maybe max whos mic died and he got bonked in the nose by carlos’s mic while carlos was letting max speak into it.

and max and charles, as they do, continued to stare at eachother throughout the fan stage as they yapped.

and Charles signed an inchident shirt and announced himself that max should also sign it

and the red bull racing admin on instagram threads also continued to ship lestappen openly. and even called out the ferrari admin for calling charles yapping charle-splaining instead of leclerc-ifying

and, sky sports made lewis hamilton watch a bunch of old videos of him and nico rosberg fighting for the title from 2014, racing clips and just clips of them in general. and on not one but two screens. and as we know, lewis rarely ever speaks about nico, so this was interesting.

what was also interesting is that he lied about their relationship. seemingly.

now, usual disclaimers here, i don't know these guys, and objectively they only know what happened. (again, i don't think either of them owe the other anything, whatever happened happened and we will never know what happened) and i can only report the findings of the internet. and the internet had a lot to say.

lewis says that he and nico lost touch and werent in contact from after they were karting teammates (i think around 13/14 years old) to when they were teammates at mercedes (when they were 28)

and. well. the internet had some qualms with that. including but not limited to:

they went on vacation together several times in that gap, and one of those times nico taught lewis how to snowboard

and theres footage of them partying together when they were teens

they also definitely talked in the paddock when they were both in f1. and we all remember nicos first podium with lewis. lewis and jenson also once sang nico happy birthday during the drivers parade.

and like, it might be true that they might not have been Best Friends during that time. but they definitely knew eachother.

oh, and nico was also in vegas that weekend. for the race.

ah, love a good couple of guys being unreliable narrators about their weird and slightly homoerotic friendship that exploded in a drivers title fight in front of the whole world. pure poetry, am i right???

so there was a lot that happened. clearly.

am i missing something? i feel like i am missing something here.

oh right.

all that and the entire paddock smelled like weed.

yes. weed.

“what is very noticeable around the circuit is the smell of marijuana,” checo said.

“there was a smell of marijuana,” franco added. “if they dope test the drivers now, i think we’ll all be positive.”

and so with all that. the practice sessions.

i didn't watch all of them, only the third one, but there was plenty of chaos there.

first, valtteri bottas already has a five place grid penalty for a power unit change.

and lewis showed up wearing a complete glitter fit and also slaying

oscar couldn't get his mclaren to turn off

and alex’s williams caused a red flag almost instantly, in true williams fashion

and the return of the vegas gp, with its weird night schedule that is conducive for effectively no one least of all the drivers (seriously the race Starts at 10pm Local Time. that means drivers are going to bed around 5am to prepare for late nights, not to mention that that is 1am eastern time and 6am uk time) meant that we had the return of Weird Sleep Deprived Commentary from our lovely commentators

such as crofty saying multiple times that the only place that the race time is conducive for is guam time,fiercely debating whether or not the plural of elvis is elvises or elvi, also something about the phases of the moon

and, unbelievably, karun tried to explain how tire graining works using the metaphor of grating cheese. no i am not kidding. this happened. and you might think this is a normal metaphor to make and it is but then it got weird:

“if the tire is too cold, it starts to shred and it peels,” karun said.

“like soft cheese?” jenson button, the 2009 f1 world champion asked.

“almost like you get a grater on the top of a cheddar,” karun agreed

“like a medium soft cheese,” jenson amended

“room temperature cheddar,” karun probably nodded.

they also talked about andretti. you remember andretti, who wanted to start an 11th formula 1 team but was denied? well hes back now, partnering with cadillac and also general motors as they pitch a new, cadillac racing team. apparently it is supposed to be announced very soon if they are in, but they would be an american team.

and jenson, who was in the box for practice, had some insight on them. starting with the color.

crofty said that they should paint the cadillac car pink cause of the springsteen song.

and jenson said, “they did paint one of their hyper cars pink [in wec], and im actually a cadillac driver next year.” which is true. it was recently announced that he was moving from team jota to team cadillac for 2025 (cause jenson does in fact still race cars)

still, crofty and karun saw a great opportunity to make fun of him.

“are you [back] in formula 1?” crofty asked, excited that jenson might finally get to serve his three place grid penalty

jenson just laughed

“now this is a scoop!” karun continued. “jenson button returns!”

“no,” jenson corrected, still laughing. “in world endurance championship.”

“this is a night of exclusives,” crofty said, ignoring him.

jenson also told everyone that he had seen boys II men down in the williams garage the day before and went to go say hi. he sounded very excited about the whole thing.

crofty though was in disbelief. “you went up to boys II men for a selfie?”

“yes!” jenson said, incredulously. “they were my youth!”

there was a fantastic photo of jenson serving cunt in a green velvet suit standing next to boys II men, but i cannot find it for the life of me

george called the sauber a “green thing” and then the following day said, about the sauber “same bloke again, two days in a row” about a minor incident. and lance’s car lost all power at the end of the session.

but perhaps most interestingly. we had problems down at red bull.

problems like, they had the wrong rear wing.

or at least, that was according to one helmut marko, and we know how reliable he is. in any case, he claimed they had the wrong one and couldn't overnight a new one from england.

basically though, the wing was too steep, meaning that they were losing about 6 tenths per second on the straights (which was bad. because vegas is mostly straights. and remember. max can win the damn world championship this weekend pretty much as long as he finishes ahead of lando and in the points). so what did red bull do? well they busted out the angle grinder and diy’d their own rear wing.

max was appropriately pissed about the whole thing

but in a later interview he explained a little better than helmut what was going on:

“if you're missing between three and seven tenths everywhere in the sectors then of course something is wrong. its not just a bit of balance here or there, its not just the right tire grip. then of course you can't push and nothing works out. and then of course our rear wing is of course, we just have a bit too much drag. we havent got a smaller wing. we don't have it. so over one lap that makes it even trickier because we had to saw off a lot of the drs flap and of course you have less drs effect. the problem is of course we’ve only got one more season with these regulations. and when you have to develop a whole new wing that costs money of course. its a bit of a difficult issue.”

he was then asked if the stories that they had brought the wrong were incorrect. and he said “yeah, well if you believe that then you're a pancake.”

during practice three, when they were still trying to sort out the wing problems, he had a few concerning radios, including:

“its only getting worse, the car is undriveable” and “this is…i cant drive it. im going to crash. my left front is completely fucked.” but they did seem to fic it by the end of the session, or at least make the car driveable because max ended 5th fastest and said that the car was miles better to drive grip wise.

red bull might have been suffering to high hell. but a team that was Not suffering to high hell (for once) was mercedes. in fact, lewis and george were both so quick that they themselves had absolutely no idea Why (though they speculated that it was because of the cold)

"Incredible day. Love to tell you why. To be honest, we're scratching our heads a little bit, why it was so positive,” george said after fp2

“that's the first time that I've actually had a day like that I think this year,” lewis said. “The car was feeling really good in fP1. fP2, less so, so got some work to do overnight, but… Difficult to know exactly where we are or why we are where we are, but really enjoying driving the track. And I think, yeah, we'll see whether the car is still the same tomorrow."

so weve got two mercedes rocketships, a diy red bull, a championship on the line, a track that smells like weed and a race only suitable for guam.

qualifying, anyone?

well everyone was ready except for lance stroll, whos car was in several million pieces as they tried to sort out his power issue from practice. they managed to get it fixed and he did get to do one flying lap, but still went out in q1.

also out in q1 was checo perez. and as he got out, there was a graphic of him shown on the sphere giving a thumbs down, which was really just. it was really something.

this is the pinnacle of motorsport.

even worse for checo now tho was his qualifying stats for the season. he now had 8 q3 exits this year. max has had 5 in the last 8 years. hes also been responsible for 50% of their q1 eliminations as a team, despite only being with the team since 2021.

in q2 franco became the first driver to find the wall and crash into it. which was devastating news for williams because they had only just managed to scrape enough parts together to go to vegas and had had to fix francos car twice already in brazil. the mechanics were not pleased.

and the crash was big, 50G. he was cleared medically and sent to the hotel to rest, but would need to be cleared to race in the morning, if he had a car to race.

once everything was repaired, we got to q3 which was surprising for two reasons. first, lewis made his first mistakes of the weekend and came tenth. second, pierre qualified third. in his alpine. coming off the back of the double podium weekend. it was his first time ever qualifying top 3.

the alpine admin was beside themself.

george was on pole. he was very excited. but he was also sleep deprived as he accidentally said during his interview that he was betting on ferrari. and he received his pole position award from a man who cooks shirtless on tik tok.

carlos was in second, he was also happy because he got to keep his p2 this year, unlike last year “because of the famous drain cover” (he got a 10 place grid penalty for changing the power unit after the crash)

and starting 4 5 and 6 were charles, max and lando. which would be interesting to say the least.

max though did defend franco after his crash, saying "the experts... should keep their mouths shut. Even if I were to drive a road car on the limit on this circuit, it's not easy either. let them do it. Being in front of the camera is often a sign that they can't do it themselves, or that they can't do it anymore.”

speaking of max, remember, the only way that max doesnt win the championship this weekend is if lando scores 3 or more points than him.

the track, btw, still smelled like weed. max said he felt high in his car and charles looked high in his interview.

mick though, over in the merc garage, didn't manage to look high, just miserable.

and so. what we’ve all been waiting for. the race. self described as james hinchcliffe as having “cold temperatures, [a] dirty race track, low downforce configurations and walls everywhere.”

and unfortunately for all of you, you will have to find out what happened in the race in part 2 of las vegas because tumblr hates this post and would not let me put it all on the same update, no matter how hard i tried :/

so. i will be back soon :) stay intrigued everyone!

the 2024 formula 1 silly season and drama master post, part 2 (part 1 here)

Hello and welcome to ah fucking fuck auto caps fuck fuck fuck how do i turn off auto caps AHA there we go okay. take 2

hello and welcome to the great and very insane formula 1 2024 season drama post, part 2. if you are new here or are just looking for part one (which contains the previous 16 (?) races, the off season, pre season testing and everything else, that can be found HERE. (a word to the wise: open it in a browser, not the app, and preferably on a computer to avoid crashing. its fucking long).

what the hell is formula 1? car go fast. fastest cars in the world zoom around tracks at top speeds of over 300kph, piloted by the top 20 drivers in the world. it might not sound dramatic, but oh man. you will Not be disappointed. this post focuses on the drama, the insanity, the sheer what the hell how is this a serious sport. no legitimately. we've just about seen it all this year. grindr, dogs, watersports, ice cream brands, its all here.

the point of this post? to educate, to catalog the insane drama, and to just have a good time. people like to gatekeep this sport, there is also a lot happening. i try to make it easy to understand. again, probably best to start at the beginning of the post because it does a pretty good job of explaining things, which i began way back in january, and can be found HERE (again, shes long, be careful)

and, as usual, if you do not want to see this post EVER AGAIN, block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024

and a second caution, i assume this post will be getting long as well. including this one we have minimum 9 updates left!

anyway, those of you who have been following along the whole time, welcome back! i know we got a little delayed. and i know we’re on a new post, so lets just briefly take a second for me to explain what the fuck happened. first i had an anatomy test, second i work 2 jobs with fuck ass hours, third tumblr decided to stop letting me look at any of my drafts, fourth tumblr support ghosted me about the drafts issue and the post was half saving half not so i just decided fuck it, were going with post 2, electric boogaloo, and fifth, i decided to start typing this instead in a google docs so. many changes. if you're new here i am usually more on top of this.

but here we are. were back on street circuits. we’re in baku, azerbaijan, for the start of the last third of the season. 8 races remain, world championship titles are still within grasp of multiple people. the drama is dramaing. and today is september 22, 2024 and lets fucking go.

first and foremost, on account of the fact that this post is late (again, see above), were going to have to do a bit of a speed run. if you're new here, i promise that this is not representative of my normal dedication to the update post. and for those asking, yeah, ill probably compile it somewhere better than a tumblr post after its all said and done, but we don't have time for that now.

what we do have time for is the Off Week (and like some of the media stuff). and it was filled with silliness:

george russell decided to wear what can only be described as slightly ugly yellow short shorts with his taylor swift shirt that he got at the eras tour. this was baffling for several reasons, the main reason being that i don't think the internet knew that he was capable of wearing a graphic t shirt

fernando alonso got his aston martin valkyrie finally. in case you are unfamiliar, a valkyrie i think is the worlds fastest street legal car. he posted tweets about this that made it seem like he wanted to fuck the car. hilariously, the car broke down an hour later.

we also had the very thrilling conclusion to grill the grid. oscar won and he somehow managed to look more pleased about his grill the grid win than his first race victory.

instagram

nico rosberg went to the green awards and he wore a fantastically insane teal blue suit. yes i know hes not a current driver. but you all like hearing about him so ask and you shall receive. unfornunately i cant find a picture of it though

and also not a current driver is mick schumacher, but my roommate asked me to include that he was seen on his girlfriends instagram being bad at golf. like. exceptionally bad at golf. like he hit a tree 20 feet in front of him.

also playing golf was lando norris. except he managed to look like try bolton from high school musical 2.

he also talked about the world driver championship with his friend max fewtrell while they were playing golf. unfortunately i lost this link in the sea of technical difficulties, but the gist of it was that he was saying that there is still hope for him to beat max in the championship (hes about 60 points behind right now). lando doesnt usually talk about the championship because he doesnt want news outlets to paint him as “desperate” so this was interesting

charles leclerc had an insane off week. first he rear ended someone in monaco. then he spoke at a yacht conference. he was not scheduled to speak at said yacht conference, he was there doing something else and they were like hey you're cool people know you, heres a microphone. he alsp ended up on a weather channel while promoting a karting event he was doing for the jules bianchi foundation (his god father, the one who died during the f1 race in japan 2014). he also changed his instagram pop and re centered it because some random tiktoker told him it matched his aesthetic better.

oscar piastri posted a photo of himself sitting in the cockpit of a plane and then promptly deleted it. because he posted it on 9/11. for anyone who doesnt know what that is, that was when some terrorists hijacked commercial planes and few them into the world trade centers in nyc and the pentagon in washington dc

max verstappen also posted a plane pic with himself and lando norris, but he did not delete it.

we also had the return of daniel ricciardo’s jpg instagram account, which is kinda like a finsta for photos that hes taken. i think lando started this a few years ago.

heading into the race week we certainly got a weird ass batch of pr. including but not limited to:

lewis hamilton was back on top and slaying in the fit game. as was yuki.

lewis hamilton also exposed george russell as listening to katy perry pre race. katy perry and taylor swift (this was after he claimed that he liked listening to old school rap music.) though, lewis then started singing wrecking ball???? confusing vibes all around

george was not off the hook yet tho because some intern definitely make him say skidibidi toilet or whatever the thing is idk, i might be gen z but im not insufferable, okay? actually george in baku was just all kinds of unhinged

george and alex also got up to something, what it is no one knows but it is clearly something

max pulled up to the paddock de aged about 10 years. picture one is of him in baku in 2015 (i believe he was 17) and picture 2 is this year. no i am not kidding.

and franco walked into the paddock telling everyone about argentinian mate (which is a drink, not a friend)

and max shoved a microphone out of the way so everyone could gossip

instagram

then of course, we had some slightly more relevant drama

haas announced that ollie would be replacing kevin at baku. in case you forgot, kevin magnussen received a total of 12 penalty points over the season so far, which means he gets one race ban. how did he get the points? well he was mostly wreaking havoc on everyone else so that his teammate, nico hulkenberg, could drag his car into the points. lets all remember the time in saudi arabia where he managed to get 20 seconds of penalties by basically driving like a mad man just to make sure that nico could keep his position after he pit stopped. anyway, nico was kind of pissed about the race ban situation and said “maybe the guidelines for F1 penalties need to be reviewed as the stewards ‘want to get involved’ no matter the contact.”

in any case though, k mags was out. and ollie was in. we’ve seen ollie before. notably he subbed in for carlos sainz at the saudi arabia gp when carlos had appendicitis. he managed to get points as well. since then, he has been announced as a haas driver for 2025 and is now subbing in for k mags (haas, later in the week called him a super sub. clearly no gen z person read that over.) he can do this because ferrari has a haas engine so they share reserve drivers.

adrian newey finally got employed. i know! i can hardly believe it either! but he did! and youll never guess where!

ferrari? no that would be too obvious.

mercedes? nah

williams? no too much of a shit show

aston martin? ding ding ding! just the right amount of shit show!

that is right. newey is going to aston for 2025.

apparently he was offered a “good package” according to himself, which i assume means pay and also the fact that lawrence stroll made him a shareholder? stakeholder? whatever its called. in the team itself. basically he has a lot of power.

he said that he always wanted to work with fernando and lewis. and he couldn't do both. and aston had a better package than ferrari.

fernando looked positively evil during all the announcement pictures. and called the team "definitely the team of the future" and for those of you who don't know, fernando is positively evil. hes just been stuck in a shit box and we havent seen very much of him, but man does he know how to evilly slut it up. so that will be fun to see.

by contrast, people said that lance was not excited enough. and well. lance 1. has resting bitch face and 2. never really looks excited about anything. also he lives in a world where take your child to work day somehow became his job. (his dad owns the team).

lewis hamilton was asked what he thought about adrian not going to ferrari, and here's what he had to say:

"i feel like, while I have mentioned before that it would be an honor to work with adrian, i have been privileged to work with two championship winning teams that didnt have adrian."

mclaren announced pato o ward would do FP1 in mexico. who is pato o ward? hes one of mclaren’s indycar drivers and one of the f1 reserve drivers. he is incredibly charming and definitely runs his own social media as seen here:

mclaren Also claim they figured out who their number 2 driver is and they claim its oscar. i say they claim because the statements were a lot more complex than that. essentially, according to andrea stella, the priority is to the team first, then lando and then oscar. so they didn't outright say that oscar is the number 2 driver and i am willing to bet real money that this is because mr mark webber, oscars manager, has something in oscars contract that prevents him from being a number 2 driver. this is of course because mark webber was one of the most infamous number 2 drivers in f1 history to none other than menace war criminal sebastian vettel, who in their time as teammates, managed to win 4 back to back world champions. or, top to bottom if you're mrs darbus from high school musical.

lando was asked about this and he said that yes, the team does support him. though he would not expect oscar to give up a win for him and that it is more complex behind the scenes. i suppose we will see if there are any papaya rules coming out this weekend….

and oscar said "i think the main point is its not purely just going to be me pulling over for lando every single race, because thats how none of us, including lando, wont want to go racing, if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded."

max verstappen commented on the mclaren situation as well. which was funny mostly because red bull has one of the most defined number 1 and number 2 drivers of any team. he said "you look at it form oscar's perspective, he is closer to lando than lando to me. they have to deal with that."

and allow me to put on a tin foil hat as we are about to talk about the future of the red bull seat. because all i have to offer here is a baseball hat and a red bull can.

a long time ago we talked about the red bull cans. the ones that red bull makes to promote f1. at the end of last season red bull put max and checo on the red bull can. this season at the start it was just max on the red bull can. well. now checo has reappeared on the cans too. and i will tell you what i think this means. it means that checo is not getting swapped this season, which was a possibility for awhile.

but! there is more!

daniel ricciardo made an instagram post this week. and it was very interesting. but most interestingly he was wearing a red bull hat.

which he does occasionally, no big deal really. he did race for the for several years, he technically does currently. BUT then he showed up TO THE PADDOCK wearing the red bull hat.

which is Big Interesting. usually you show up in a statement outfit or wearing the team kit. and daniel is not a red bull racing driver. he is a visa cashapp racing bulls driver. they might be owned by red bull but they are Not the same team. so why the red bull hat. in the paddock. well, the rumor is that hes taking checos seat for 2025. and the rumor is that this will be announced before mexico. so checo can have a proper send off.

and with that. the baku lore.

theres a lot that has happened at baku. as i said its a street circuit. and i think its the fastest street circuit. but over the years theres been some notable events.

such as the great kimi raikkonen radio for gloves and steering wheel:

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they gave mini kimi this week gloves and steering wheel in honor of that

the max and daniel crash in 2018 when they were running p1 and p2 respectfully

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and of course. how could we forget. charles’s infamous “i am stupid” radio.

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speaking of charles, he crashed again in fp1. not quite in the same spot, but nearly. he took a picture with the marshalls.

then in fp2 he rage quit, basically saying that the car sucks.

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but he was back and better than ever in practice three because he managed to top the time charts. welcome back fuck ass ferrari.

some other teams definitely experienced the lows but not really the highs of baku during practice. like lance stroll who came on the radio to say “this is not a car” (good thing they have adrian newey now, right?

franco colapinto also cut his ear before practice on the neck strengthener stretcher thing that they all use and the team wanted to give him stitches but he was like no no no i need to be in the car in about 5 minutes im not doing that. so he jammed on his helmet and jumped in the car. he also crashed and when he went to the medical center he took off his helmet and there was blood everywhere and they were like no no no you cannot race! and he was like no! this is not from the crash! and then explained it and they let him do qualifying.

also im pretty sure? ollie bearman crashed? in practice? but frankly i don't have time to google it so whos to say.

but alas. qualifying.

i know i know this is kind of a shitty update. i promise ill go all out in singapore. i PROMISE.

so as i said. its a street circuit. high speed. 90 degree corners. and also windy as hell. we also had the dynamic duo of karun and harry in the commentary box.

max led the first practice, george led the second and i think charles led the third. or some order like that.

slipstream here is almost essential (slipstream: going behind another car to reduce the wind drag so you can go faster)

charles has the last three pole positions (first in qualifying) here in baku, but he has never won. by comparison, red bull have never had pole here but they have won.

and franco has never been to baku before.

i think that's all the exposition that we need here.

q1 started with max complaining about his car. “the car is jumping around like crazy on the rear axle” he said. despite this he was sitting in p3.

the mid field battle though….the mid field battle was heating the hell up. mostly because none other than franco colapinto, who if you will remember, has never been to baku before, had split the two ferraris. he was in third for the moment, .109 seconds behind carlos sainz and .159 seconds ahead of charles leclerc. we still had a lot of qualifying left to go, so this was probably not going to stay, but it was still insane. he was pushing insanely hard, nearly kissing the walls. clearly he had learned from his crash in practice.

the two mclarens waited until the very end of q1 to do their final flying push lap, and oscar made it through, but tragedy struck for lando.

lando was in the middle of his last flying lap, time was ticking down, and there was a Very Brief yellow flag on the track. now, according to rules, you cannot complete your flying lap if there is a yellow flag. so lando pitted and was stuck down in 17th and out of qualifying. this would be the first time that he was out in q1 since vegas last year (which if i remember correctly was also not his fault)

now though, of course nothing is ever that cut and dry. people thought that there had been a mis showing of a flag. yellow flag means that a car is stopped on track, white flag means that a car is going slowly on the track. and people thought that there had been a yellow flag shown when it was actually supposed to be a white flag (if there had been a white flag then lando would have been able to keep doing his flying lap) lando himself said that he had no idea what people were talking about because there is a light on the steering wheel that lights up when flags are called and he had a big yellow light. so it was clearly a yellow flag.

if you're concerned about lando being able to pull it out of the bag, id like to point you in the direction of the mexican gp last year where lando qualified 17th and finished 5th. on a track that was hard to overtake on. he can be absolutely insane when he wants to be. worry not gentle reader.

in any case. also out in q1 was daniel ricciardo, valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu and esteban ocon.

and notably, williams, who was on fucking fire this weekend as we already saw, finished q1 with alex albon in second (ahead of oscar) and franco colapinto in 8th. pierre gasly had somehow managed to also get into 4th. and nico hulkenberg was in 7th with ollie bearman in 13th. i told you the mid field battle was heating the hell up.

q2. everyone zoomed straight out of the gate. they didn't want to get lando norris’d. but, speaking of that, if lando managed to get no points in the race and charles managed to win, charles would overtake lando in the drivers championship. mark webber himself told this to charles, who was absolutely baffled.

in any case, charles was kinda suffering right now and that was because he was not getting slipstream from carlos to make his lap faster. meanwhile, carlos seemed to be actively trying to give charles the slipstream because he came on radio to say “he keeps missing the tow”

and amazingly, franco colapinto was 4 tenths AHEAD of alex albon. alex albon who had not been unqualified by his teammate once since the start of 2023. ex red bull driver alex albon. that alex albon.

max topped the times in q2, followed immediately by charles. insanely, fernando alonso managed to drag the aston martin to fifth. and franco was right behind him in 6th. by comparison alex albon was in 10th.

and from q2 we lost ollie bearman, yuki tsunoda (who has never qualified lower than 8th in baku), pierre gasly, nico hulkenberg and lance stroll. so yes, ollie bearman managed to outqualify nico hulkenberg. this is ollies second ever f1 race.

steaming on forward to q3.

we had, for review, in q3 the following:

both ferraris, both red bulls, both mercedes, both WILLIAMS (has not happened since vegas 2023), plus fernando alonso and oscar piastri.

right out the gate it was wild.

“red bull! theyve re found their mojo! or have they!” karun said. red bull were in 5th and 6th and not entirely sucking for the moment.

everyone did one flyer and then came out at the end for a second flyer.

here were the standings:

charles, carlos, oscar, george, checo, max, lewis, alex, franco, fernando

and everyone was making it to the line and all was going smooth until-

wait a second what is that

could it be! alex albon! with the air box fan still on his car! surely not!!!

oh but it was! and harry and karun were like oh wow so unfortunate for williams tisk tisk

meanwhile ted jumped on the radio to Loudly announce to everyone that this was insane and if i have time here i will put the rant he ranted cause it was Fantastic.

and what do you know i have time

so we had 3 minutes left qualifying and everyone was pulling out of the pits for their last flyer when oscar hopped on the radio to say

"the williams still has the air box fan in"

"oh what an error! disaster for williams!" karun and harry said. they speculated if the marshalls could get it or if the session needed to be red flagged. but alex threw the fan off the car.

and then they asked "ted have you ever seen that before?" and ted did not hold back:

"ITS A MASSIVE YELLOW FAN HOW COULD YOU MISS IT???!!! HOW COULD THE MECHANICS MISS IT???? I CANT BELIVE THEY WOULD MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE DOWN AT WILLIAMS! SUCH AN EXPERIENCED BUNCH OF GUYS AND GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WILLIAMS OPERATIONALLY? HOW COULD YOU SEND A CAR OUT LIKE THAT?"

alex, obviously, got fined for an unsafe release 5k euros. he also had to throw the fan off to the side and got slightly covered in dry ice. he did not get to the a second flying lap.

franco did tho!

and here were out qualifying results:

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: checo p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: fernando p9: franco p10: alex p11: ollie p12: yuki p13: pierre p14: nico p15: lance p16: daniel p17: lando p18: valtteri p19: zhou p20: esteban

oh ho ho but we werent done yet. because pierre gasly got disqualified from qualifying. for failing fuel flow regulations. and lewis was going to have to start from the pit lane for changing his power unit.

everyone, and by everyone i mean oscar max and checo, pretty much said that charles was going to get pole no matter what, they knew this coming in and the best they were trying for was second

onto the race.

notably, this is considered a checo track. this was one of the three races that max did not win last year. because checo won it. its a track that he does well on, evidenced by the fact that he qualified above max in qualifying. so people were expecting big things from him.

and so, we head into lap 1.

charles managed to hang onto the lead. checo passed carlos straight out of the gate for third and max managed to pass george to take fifth. lando had managed to get ahead of nico and up into 13th. notably, franco held onto 8th and ollie was able to hold onto tenth.

someone who was not doing well was lance stroll, who came on the radio saying that he had a puncture. this was from contact with yuki. lance had to pit for fresh tires and was pretty immediately thrown to the back of the grid.

by lap 2 lando had managed to get past daniel and was in 12th, he was trying to get past yuki next, which he managed by lap 3. yuki also lost a spot to nico.

also slaying in the mclaren was oscar, who took fastest lap. then charles took fastest lap.

and lewis hamilton, who had started from the pit lane, was up to 16th. already. somehow. though he was displeased with the tires, sayig that “this tire is pretty bad” over the radio.

yuki meanwhile was clearly having a problem because he had started going very very slowly. thought the pit wall said that he had no problems. this would later turn out to be false but we will indulge them for the time being.

franco was STILL ahead of alex albon on lap 6. STILL.

lando on lap 8 managed to push his way into points positions, overtaking ollie bearman for 10th. though this was where things were about to slow down for him because in front of him were alex, franco and fernando, who were all very close together and would be hard to get past.

george was back in bad luck hell as a plastic bag entered his airbox. will he ever catch a break.

on lap 11 nico hulkenberg finally caught up with ollie bearman and passed him for 11th.

and max’s car was not working. to potentially no one’s surprise. “i have zero bite in the car” he said. and this was probably true because checo was a whole 6.5 seconds ahead of him. insane gap.

several pit stops later that i will not detail out because we simply do not have the time, alex albon ended up in 4th and lando ended up in fifth. and oscar was about to get undercut by checo.

“mojo seems to be back for checo perez” harry said, correctly.

mojo was back for him indeed. and now he was right behind lando.

and if you will recall, according to mclaren themselves, priority at mclaren is the team first, then oscar, then lando. but oscar was ahead of lando. so what did mclaren do?

they asked lando do hold up perez, but not compromise his own race.

remever a long time ago when i said mclaren wouldn't have any internal drama this season? man how i was wrong.

lando managed to hold up perez for around a lap or two before he got past. this was crucial because this was during when oscar was in the pits.

thanks to lando and the power of the papaya rules teamwork, oscar ended up coming out in 4th, only .706s ahead of checo.

mclaren are working together everyone! mclaren are working together!

meanwhile, turns out that yuki did indeed have problems because he retired on lap 17 with a hole in his sidepod from the contact with lance on lap 1. this was now two races in a row where he had had to retire for reasons out of his control.

several more people pitted. and eventually charles was back out in front, oscar was in p2. until he wasn't. no, he didn't dnf. he overtook charles! he was in p1! he popped out of nowhere! nowhere being 2 car lengths back and just flooring it to spring around charles like a little silly slinky! karun called it a “good, fair and robust defense,” which sounds like its descibing notes in wine. but this was not wine. this was the baku gp. and we were only half done.

ollie bearman was defending against lewis hamilton, holding on tightly to 14th place.

charles was still behind oscar and he could not get past, despite the fact that he was still very much in spitting distance. “they are pushing like crazy or they have more grip than us” he said.

carlos got past both lando and alex albon and was up into 4th

this brought max up behind lando. max was on 11 lap old tires and lando was on 24 lap old tires. but lando still defended like hell and managed to hold onto sixth. max was 0.632 seconds behind lando on lap 25 when he said that “my brakes are not working.” this was hardly a surprise. max has hated the car since china.

also experiencing technical difficulties was sir lewis hamilton. he was stuck down in 14th and was first told to do “everything you can do to get the surface temp down” of the tires. he said “im trying” then several laps later on lap 29 he came on the radio to say “are you seeing how i have to drive this thing?” “yes,” bono, his engineer said. “quite effective though.”

max was still half a second behind lando. mclaren faked a pit stop call over the radio to get max to pit. he did not.

but, george russell did manage to pass him. which was “not good for max’s world champion aspirations.”

this was also when ted very bafflingly said that “if i had a sofa in the pit lane i would be jumping up and down on it” im not sure what that was in response to.

meanwhile, ollie was still holding off sir lewis hamilton. and charles was trying to get oscar to pit again by lying over the radio. it was not working.

lando did a pit stop finally and came out a whole 15 second behind max. he was hoping to catch max by the end of the race. but it might be tight. lets go last lap lando.

“lando, imagine andrea on your shoulder saying ‘zero wheel spin’ in every exit,” lando’s race engineer said. if you're confused, everyone else was too.

10 laps to go and here were the order of affairs:

oscar

+.449s charles +1.865s checo +2.989s carlos +16.530s george +1.909s max +11.535s lando +9.715s fernando +2.589s alex +2.451s nico +4.667s franco +1.590s lewis +1.261s ollie +1.791s pierre +9.205s daniel +23.919s esteban +.789s lance +3.862s valtteri +3.631s guanyu

lando was determined. he took fastest lap on lap 43 and was 8.8s behind max

at this point, the leaders were starting to lap the cars in the back. “the back markers are starting to come up,” checo’s engineer said to him. “its going to get messy.”

“hold onto your hats and if you don't have one go get one and hold onto it” harry said. harry would turn out to be correct.

we had the top 3 all running very close to eachother, that was oscar, charles and checo and “welcome to the party carlos sainz!” who was now 1.2 seconds behind checo in the four way battle for the lead.

definitely not leading was lance stroll, who retired on lap 47 with a brake problem.

oscar managed to pull ahead of charles by 1.5 seconds, finally knocking him out of DRS range. so now it was a three way battle for second. and charles had “no rear tires. no rear tires at all.”

and, just like i said he would, lando managed to pass max on lap 49. he was closing the gap slowly in the championship.

“verstappen’s day goes from bad to worse,” harry said. because lando still had fastest lap, so he would score 3 more points than max. which is important if lando wants to beat max in the championship (though i think hes still like 60 points behind)

meanwhile! franco managed to pass nico hulkenberg for 10th! he was in the points!!!! at his second race!!!

but this was short lived because there was a crash! a big smackeroo! between carlos and checo!! checo was mad, carlos didn't know what happened.

what happened was that carlos was trying to pass checo but checo did not move over. it was deemed an equal fault accident. both of them were utterly confused at what happened and apparently spent 20 minutes in the medical center being utterly lost and aparently saying that sometimes this sport sucks. and! contrary to what several people said! checo did not bang on carlos’s helmet after the crash.

the crash actually caused chef's dad to have a heart attack. he is stable now.

and well. this clip of george from the post qualifying interviews definitely didnt age well:

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but! since we were a matter of a few laps from the end, this meant that the rest of the race was finished under a virtual safety car.

which meant

OSCAR PIASTRI WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GP

and george inherited p3!

and on his own merit too! no safety cars, no team orders, no weird shit!

“yes!” he whispered over the radio.

he almost fell getting out of the car, then gave us all the “one moment” hand gesture before properly celebrating.

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he also got driver of the day!

(this was marginally better than george russell, who said over the radio “i cant get any rubber (to pick up on his tires) all im getting is leaves”)

gunther steiner also hosted the post race interviews. which was interesting.

george said that the most difficult part of the race was “driving full gas into a wall of carbon fiber on the penultimate lap…the vsc should have come out sooner”

charles bashed ferrari because they didn't do any high fuel runs in practice.

oscar was entirely pleased. “i managed to overtake and hold onto it for the next 35 laps..one of the better races of my career.” and honestly, oscar winning a race straight after mclaren basically announcing that he was their number 2 driver is nothing short of hilarious.

and! mclaren was now leading the constructors championship by 20 points! for the first time in ten years!!!!

the top three had a moment outside of the car that was filled with baffled:

and oscar's engineer tom got to stand on the podium with him. he usually takes a selfie with oscar after each race he podiums at, but he was too excited to so george took this picture for them

(george also aparently demomished oscar in a game of uno on the plane, immediately humbling him)

george also shielded himself from the champagne on the podium

the cooldown room reacted to the crash in a very straight forward manner:

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and very quickly cause its midnight and the singapore gp starts in 8 hours, the post race, speed ran:

-mark webber told off laura winter for thinking that oscar didn't have good tire management

-alex albon was “super happy, that's a lot of points for us” (williams finished in 7th and 8th). he cut his own interview short when ollie bearman arrived, saying “I can go, im happy to go” and then waving comically.

-williams was so pleased with this result they blasted everyone with champagne. and they overtook alpine in the constructors championship! this was also their best race finish all season

-(and a quick note, if youre going to really blame logan for being that shit of a driver here, please remember that the car he was driving was several rounds of upgrades behind alex's pretty much the entire time he was driving it)

-ollie became the first driver to ever score points in his first two races for two different constructors because the double dnf pushed him up to 10th place. he said that there was not much difference between the haas and the ferrari, the ferrari was just red

-franco continued to charm everyone and flirt with the reporters.

-they interviewed george and lewis and the camera had to be adjusted for george's height. it was comical and resulted in my favorite edit so far of the season (sound on)

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-lando looked pleased and happy for once. he said about holding off checo that “i didn't hold him up i just had to cool my tires a little.” he was delighted to be leading the constructors for the first time in ten years and he defended alex albon saying “i struggled to get past alex for a while, which is common, alex doesnt make mistakes.” he also ratted on max for going to fast during the VSC and said “i didn't complain, facts were stated.” and to sum it all up he said that “im executing things well, i’m very quick…i’m not going to be the happiest guy, but i am never the happiest guy….car is performing well everywhere…some red cars behind us seem to be our biggest competitors right now”

-by comparison george insulted all of pirelli. the tire people. “pretty infuriating that it (the pace) changes this so much….its black magic, people who make the tires don't understand the tires…..for 20 laps we had a car not worthy of points and for 20 laps we had a car fighting for victory and the only difference is the tires.”

-lewis was notably upset after the race and walked through the paddock with his helmet on, not wanting to talk to anyone. but he did talk to franco and ollie and congratulate them on a job well done defending against him and racing against him. franco even fangirled over this on his instagram.

-charles was clearly upset with ferrari. he was so upset he posted a thirst trap.

-and oscar. oscar was very happy this afternoon. and his mom was there! she doesnt usually come cause it scares her, but nicole was there today!

-mclaren celebrated with a hell of a lot of champagne. both oscar’s wina and lando’s insane recovery, and the fact that they were leading the championship. red bull have been dethroned, at least for now.

-there was so much champagne that lando took off his socks to spray it. all seems well at mclaren.

-at least one thing is for sure, oscar had a better time here this weekend than last year when he got food poisoning and only ate four pieces of toast

and with that. we head into singapore. quite literally as it is starting in a few hours. again, i apologixe about this post. its a little sad, but the next one will be better. pinkly promise.

see you all soon!!!

#not a tag #from saph #saph explains silly season 2024 #idk if this will post #sorry it sucks i was actively celebrating thanksgiving #las vegas gp 2024 #part 2 to come #Instagram

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kabutone · 2 years ago

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i feel like a lot of people consider me irrational or overly anxious for still isolating, social distancing, and most importantly masking (PROPERLY). like some people will outright say it, and say “people who still mask are living in fear” or, for people that were previously responsible and decided to stop prematurely, “the pandemic is over.” cause here’s the thing, right. covid is still spreading, in large numbers, and while it may not be killing as many people the same way that it used to, it’s still just as dangerous but in a different form. maybe you wont die, but you could develop long covid, it’s a nearly 1 in 5 chance. and with how much anti-maskers seem to hate disabled people, you’d think they wouldnt want to become disabled themselves?

there’s also a lot of people who used to mask, and don’t anymore. however they claim that they’ll put on a mask if asked. sometimes someone will say “hey, i’ve got a disability and if i get covid i WILL for sure 100% will die. can you put a mask on?” and they go “oh, of course!” and they do it. but here’s the thing, you usually cannot tell from looking at someone whether they’re disabled or not. so does every disabled person have to explain their life threatening illness to you? do you expect that you can only mask “when needed” because every disabled person will announce it to you? maybe every time a cancer patient enters a store, they should get on the loud speaker and tell everyone they’ve got cancer so that you’ll put your mask on. surely, it’s easier for someone to talk about a sensitive personal topic with a stranger than it is for the stranger to just wear a fucking mask? it is literally impossible for you to know the health status of everyone in a public space with you. might i also add, young 20-somethings can also be disabled. just because the person next to you is obviously a young adult doesn’t mean they’re not disabled or at risk.

so then the usual response is “well just stay home then” oh thats right! if nowhere is safe to go, high risk people simply will not go anywhere. they can starve to death at home, or they can risk their lives at the grocery store, since nobody wants to make the grocery store a safe place to be. how silly of me to forget that disabled people are inherently lesser, and therefore hold no value in our society and wont be missed if they just never re-enter again! so yea, high risk people ARE waiting until it’s safe again. also, its not even safe for perfectly healthy people either. you can take a few hits of covid before you die or become disabled, but many high risk people will likely die after ONE infection. so when you’ve got one infection left in you before you die, PLEASE no complaining when your life is put at risk! after all, you expect everyone else to just shut up about it and not complain about like, dying or whatever.

now what about those high value abled people?? so WHAT if you have an elderly or disabled relative, who cares if they die? basically everyone else is perfectly fine with saying goodbye to their family, so, what, you still give a shit about your parents and grandparents? how irrational and neurotic, why value the lives of your loved ones when you can … go to a concert or something. anyway, come on out and get infected. your high risk relatives will stay home, and if you bring back covid and infect them and they die, well, your fault for being sad about it i guess?

anyway, maybe YOU don’t care if the high risk people in your life die. and also, im sure all your high risk friends and family see you saying you don’t value their lives and im sure that makes them feel really good. but personally, i really don’t want my friends or family to die, and i know thats super controversial and nobody has ever felt that way before. but people like me still exist, people that love their friends and family, and value their lives, and want them to be alive, and its not your choice to decide that you want MY loved ones to die just because you want YOUR loved ones to die

#this was too long for twitter so i am putting it here <3 #anyway . if i told you i didn’t think the world was going to end soon id definitely be lying a little

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brainrotcentre · 3 years ago

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i have so many questions about the rfa

1.) inspired by that one comic of saeran designing his own emojis so he wont have to use rays - who designed the stickers of the rfa? ( v maybe??? )

2.) who took the audio of the stickers?? like who had to listen to yoosungs “crying”. and who heard that and thought, yep that’s what i wanna hear in the group chat everyday?

3.) the whole status thing. v, homie you are nearly dying of a drug overdose. where did that picture of you dramatically looking away with your head turned down come from? or yoosung - you just found out rika might be alive and your reaction is to change ur pb?

speaking off - its likely that the elixir is some sort of opiod due to high risk of addiction, strong highs ( followed by deep lows and emptiness ) and release off all the dopamine in your brain. so question 3a)

why not just try narcan??? when somebody is overdosing on the elixir? it’s not like youve got anything to lose

4.) how are they not ridiculously making fun of each other for their cringe ass “updates” in their status? v, why are you telling rika that you don’t love her ( and never did ) through the group chat, while she wasn’t even in there and than through your goddamn rfa app status.

i am well aware that the rfa is not as close as theyre in the fanfics but if i posted that cringe shit as my status, my friends would stop me

5.) how does jaehee even stand to be in a groupchat with her boss and the guy she “admires”? i would die if my boss saw me fangirl and jumin sees that everyday. ( pray for jaehee and her balls of steel )

6.) why is nobody calling the cops at any point in all of this.

7.) mc, my love. going to some random ass apartment is already stupid enough. why are you stepping some random car and getting blindfolded to “test a game” and get told that you can’t leave the damn floor and think … yeah seems legit. how did tou not realize that this was a cult, ray talks about the savior all the damn time who calls normal ppl the savior?

#rfa #mc #spoiler warning #jaehee #ray #v #yoosung #seven #zen #jumin #tw drugs #drug mention

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touchmycoat · 3 years ago

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qijiu bingqiu (bingliushen??) fix-it fic planning blabber

so i think i gotta keep it tight on SJ’s POV. Right before his death, he makes a deal with Xin Mo (who’s kind of a lone operator bc LBH too has to fight its power) to create this alternate timeline in exchange for his cultivation. Xin Mo can open up new dimensions no problem, and with SJ’s cultivation, it even manages to rewind the timeline. That’s not enough though—Xin Mo’s goal is only consumption, so it takes the deal but reveals there’s nothing that will actually change. The price SJ paid only opened the door.

But that’s fine, ‘cause SJ saw it coming. He also strikes another deal, this time with Death itself? Some sort of large cosmic force. The only thing he wants changed is Qi-ge’s death, and in exchange...the universe takes him. SJ will not get to exist in that second universe. SJ takes the deal.

And that’s the start of canon. SJ-as-SQQ can no longer exist. Instead, SY-as-SQQ is brought in. In order to stay cohered though, YQY’s memories and personality get a little glitched—he is physically incapable of recognizing all the ways SQQ is now not SJ. That’s why, despite SY-as-SQQ clearly being OOC, YQY never seems to see it.

Canon happens, now we’re in the post-canon world where bingqiu are married and settling down, but SQQ still kicks it with his buddies LQG and YQY every now and then. YQY still firmly believes SQQ is SJ, to SY’s increasing consternation. Is it just delusions and wishful thinking? The more YQY treats him as SJ though, the worse SY feels—he shouldn’t be stealing all this affection that doesn’t belong to him.

It all comes to head when SQQ overhears public opinion on YQY, how he’s perfect in everything but his crazy devotion to SQQ. SY thinks enough is enough. He can’t bring SJ back but he sure can tell YQY that his Xiao Jiu is dead, right? The System warns him he’ll be punished but that’s fine, it’s just not fair, SQQ can take another little mental horror trip down to BinggeLand if it means YQY can have some closure.

Except that’s not what happens. He gets YQY in private and says, “no, you don’t understand, Shen Jiu is dead.” He sees the recognition in YQY’s eyes, but he also sees the moment that recognition gets wiped. The sad smile that had fallen off of YQY’s face returns, eerily happy, as YQY says, “my apologies, Qingqiu-shidi, I must have spaced out just now, what did you say?”

Right before the System kicks him into another punishment phase, SY tries again: “Shen Jiu is dead!” He sees the recognition disappear once again from YQY’s eyes.

Inside the punishment world, Bingge has him again. “I’ve been searching for an answer to why the sniveling pathetic version of me gets you as his Shizun, and I think I figured it out.” For a moment, SY’s horrified by the possibility that Bingge has figured out his transmigrator status—if his punishment figures it out, would he be trapped inside the punishment forever? But instead, Bingge says, “Liu Qingge is still alive, meaning Shizun didn’t kill him in the spirit caves. Did his survival render such a dramatic change?” SQQ”s like “yup, yup that’s definitely it. We’re such good friends, he really changed my outlook on life, so I treated you better, mhm.”

“Shizun’s very clever then to save his own life this way. Xin Mo’s already told me about your little bargain.”

That’s how SY learns that SJ had made a deal. Holy shit, he’d thought it was just random phenomenon this whole time, but the original goods had made it all possible? He didn’t know whether to thank SJ or curse him.

But that can’t be the whole story—Xin Mo opened up a timeline, that doesn’t explain why SY is here. Bingge doesn’t know this part, but it sure feels like SJ made a second deal, paying with his life.

What would motivate the original goods to do all this? Sacrifice his hard-won cultivation and his entire existence in this last-ditch effort?

The memory of YQY’s glitching came to mind.

Holy shit. SY owns the two of them more than he’d ever thought.

After the punishment, SY goes back home. He’s with Binghe, and LBH can tell there’s something troubling him.

“Binghe, there’s something this husband wants to do, and I need your help to do it.”

“Shizun, anything.”

“...But there’s a risk it might hurt you. There’s a risk it might ruin everything. It might be straight-forward, but it also might not be. It’s safer for all of us—but especially you, Binghe—if I just let things be.”

“But it’s not something that Shizun can just let be, is it? Otherwise Shizun wouldn’t have said anything. Binghe is honored to help. Anything to ease Shizun’s mind.”

“...I promised I wouldn’t let you come to harm again, and I meant that. Whatever happens, remember that I am your husband, this is my call, and you must do whatever you need to do to protect yourself, okay? Swear to me, Binghe.”

SQQ begins figuring out how to use Xin Mo to go fetch SJ from the other timeline. He figures that if Bingge could exist in this dimension without destroying the space-time continuum, the same ought to be true for SJ. Only trouble is, he can only go get SJ after SJ’s made the deals, because otherwise it’s a paradox, and he wouldn’t exist.

So SQQ brings home limbless, post-torture!SJ. That’s where the fic starts.

By all accounts, the deals are squared: SJ no longer has cultivation and SJ died in SY’s dimension, so SY successfully exists. SJ and SY can exist in the same space totally fine, and SJ begins healing.

(Currently, the fic is completely from SJ’s POV, and very much about coming to terms with being saved and what the hell is going on in this better world.)

The trouble is, SY doesn’t know what’s going to happen when SJ meets YQY again. SJ very thoroughly declines the offer to go see YQY because part of SJ still believes this whole thing is a trick, and if he goes to see YQY he’ll ruin his end of the bargain and YQY will die again. For SY’s part, he’s afraid of SJ going to see YQY too for similar but opposite reasons—if SJ going to see YQY ruins SJ’s end of the bargain, then wouldn’t that mean SY can no longer exist? Would SY just disappear from this universe?

So we get ragtag group therapy fun times. SJ thinks this is probably all an illusion Xin Mo is tricking him with, so treats everything with scorn but also existential apathy. This actually works to his benefit because he’s not clinging to things as hard, and it’s easier for him to admit, for example, that he was definitely in the wrong for abusing LBH, and yeah he was being a spiteful bitch when he did not need to be.

SY tries to keep LBH away from SJ mostly, because c’mon, he’s not about to make his darling husband face his childhood abuser. He does explain the situation to LBH though, in the same terms that Bingge had (mis)understood it lmfao—that the act of saving LQG’s life had prompted an entire 180 on his personality so he came out of the spirit caves a better man. LBH’s jealous as fuck of course, but damn if that doesn’t explain some things. Given the opportunity to see his old and new Shizun side-by-side, LBH takes it, and really gets a moment to see how horribly he’s been treated by SQQ.

So it actually prompts some therapy between SY and LBH too. LBH used to figure that getting pushed into the Abyss was squared by SQQ sacrificing himself to save him. But ofc it turned out SQQ came back and kept on, in his perspective, trying to get away from him. Trying to leave him behind. SQQ’s tried to treat his abandonment issues by going “okay sorry about that I’ll never leave you behind again” but he’s never really explained it.

SJ’s presence gives Binghe the ability to ask the question again and gives SY an answer: shame and cowardice. They’re able to put SJ’s mistreatment of Binghe right in front of them and SY-as-SQQ gets to explain how much it hurt to look back on that bit of their past, but also how much he feared LBH's retaliation. LBH is a little hurt, but also he remembers how he’d raped SQQ under Xin Mo’s control and, looking at what’s left of SJ now, he sees his own darkest possibilities. He really did destroy the man he loves now in another timeline. That helps him contextualize SY’s fears and why SY chose to push him off the cliff.

LQG crashlands into the middle of this whole party as is his wont. He gets a little fix-it too maybe. SY very staunchly repeats the reason for his personality swap—saving LQG in that cave made him a Better Person™. Meeting the original goods again, LQG is forced to believe it. Or like, it doesn’t really matter to him either way, but now he really does see pre-cave SQQ and post-cave SQQ as two completely different people.

SJ though, has to swallow this really weird pill. He remembers trying to save LQG inside the cave but failing, and then getting blamed for LQG’s death. If he’d succeeded, he and LQG would’ve become...this close?? A life debt between them would’ve changed his outlook on life so much???

Well whatever. Now that he’s put down all his old posturing, he more readily gives his reasons for why LQG gets on his nerves so much: the insufferable confidence (arrogant prick), the skills to back it up (privileged bastard), and a flawless cultivator family with all the money and the training and the pedigree. (Meanwhile SY’s like “oh shit that’s me too hahahahah awkward, good thing he still thinks i’m him so he doesn’t just murder me immediately.)

LQG’s a little weirded out too. SY-as-SQQ is his favorite person in the world, so it’s hard to get angry at SJ-as-SQQ since they’re “the same person.” He’s more willing to talk all this out with SJ and brings up all their old beef on his side too: high-handed snootiness coupled with underhanded dick moves, also the whole sleeping-with-prostitutes thing hurting Cang Qiong’s reputation. Ofc they’re snapping at each other this whole time. “There’s no reason for you to do all that!”

SY intervenes if needed. “Actually there is.” Considering the fact that SJ gets indicted for so many things that actually turn out to be not his fault, SY figures he’ll just get it out there. “Remember Qiu Haitang’s accusations against me? I grew up a slave in that household. I grew up believing it was kill or be killed—it doesn’t make sabotaging others right, but...that’s why the Spirit Caves made such an impression on me. I learned it wasn’t just kill or be killed, I can also save people. It opened my eyes to everything I already had, and everything I should be grateful for.”

This is for both LQG and SJ. And it works, to some degree. SJ knows he managed to claw to the top of privilege, but he still felt horribly insecure there. That’s because, he realizes, he never got the thing that would actually grant him security. It's not power or money or reputation—it’s Qi-ge. Holy hell he misses Qi-ge. In anger and betrayal, he’d pushed YQY continuously out of his life, but when faced with certain death the only regret he actually had was bringing Qi-ge down with him. YQY was meant to have survived, and in this world, he did.

So now, after all that, SJ really, really wants to go see his Qi-ge. It’s nice to have survived (and gotten part of his power back—at the very beginning, SY gives one of SQQ’s eyes to SJ as a bit of his golden core in order to save SJ’s life), but it’s so damn hard to live on in this world knowing YQY is only so far away, still very deeply attached to Xiao Jiu.

They try to Cyrano it at first. SY-as-SQQ goes to YQY with SJ’s voice in his ear, telling SY how to treat YQY as him. YQY is so fucking touched and hopeful, and SY is damn uncomfortable. He goes running back to SJ and says it’s not going to work—it’s not going to work because he’s no longer Qi-ge’s Xiao Jiu. He’s Luo Binghe’s husband, okay? He can’t go back to YQY as SJ.

SJ’s fucking furious at first (what kind of shitty variation of himself saves LQG’s life and then falls out of love with Qi-ge???? bitch?????) but what can he do? LQG tells them YQY’s on his way here and SJ hides for now. They still don’t know what will happen if SJ meets YQY, so SY continues to front as SJ for now.

But during this conversation, something changes. Maybe YQY says something, but SJ realizes he’s actually a little willing to take this chance. If Qi-ge does disappear—easy, he’d just kill himself right after. He’d already experienced Qi-ge’s death twice before, and at least this time, he can follow, knowing he’s at least reconciled with Qi-ge through SY.

And if he disappears on his own, then at least he knows there’s a world in which Qi-ge does not die horribly. That’s enough for him.

That, however, leaves the very last possibility—that SY will disappear. At this point both LQG and LBH have figured this out, and are very, very reluctant to let this be the scenario. They don’t see it as two people, they see it as their version of SQQ vs. YQY’s version of SQQ.

So there’s a little tension, but in the end, SY gets the final choice. As soon as he learns SJ is willing to go see YQY, he chooses that path. He simply owes qijiu too much to deny them the possibility of reconciliation. So despite knowing he might disappear from Binghe and LQG’s life, he makes it happen.

(They should get a very painful goodbye scene.)

SY goes out to explain things. “Zhangmen-shixiong may have noticed my change since my qi deviation and the spirit caves.” “I’m happy Xiao Jiu has a brighter outlook on life.” “Yes, but I think Qi-ge, of all people, might actually prefer how I was before, right?” “If Xiao Jiu’s happy, I’m happy.” “Yes, but Shen Jiu wants you. Is that alright?” “—of course. I want Xiao Jiu too—”

SJ comes out. Everyone holds their breath.

Scene cut.

It’s said that Cang Qiong’s Sect Leader Yue Qingyuan disappeared suddenly one afternoon...

But jk, YQY just ran away with SJ, they’re recuperating in the mountains and everybody’s fine and it’s a happy ending.

#...nice #that's the whole fic planned then #sv fix-it

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detransexual · 3 years ago

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Its always weird to me when someone talks about the effects of Testosterone on the female body and someone brings up clitoral growth as a horrible, irreversible deformity lol?? Big clits are superb yall are just cowards lmao. Like if you're gonna talk about detrimental effects at least focus on the risk of painful hypersensitivity rather the aesthetic part? Because there are people who get so sensitive that wearing underwear gets uncomfortable and/or painful. I also saw someone claim that theres a big risk T will make ur clit "dead to sensations!" with absolutely no fuckin source other than "uhhh i heard someone say it on reddit once!" which i highly doubt is a statistically relevant risk lmao.

Idk man i just think its a really shit argument if you're trying to discuss the risks of Testosterone when there's actual health complications that are not just aesthetic.

You know what else is shitty? Fear mongering rather than trying to inform people of the actual risks and the liklihood of complications, as well as the uncertainty when it comes to long term consequences.

It is REALLY disingenuous to claim shit like "you WILL get a heart attack and cancer and DIE! Its GONNA HAPPEN its just a matter of when!!" when there's no scientific basis for that claim. There is scientific evidence of an increased risk, and that risk might turn out to be higher than it currently seems to be, but there is NO fucking basis to run around telling people they're 100% going to die young from cancer or a heart attack.

There is a risk of nipple grafts failing after a masectomy, but that chance is around 2%, so claiming shit like "nipple grafts almost ALWAYS die and fall off and its disgusting and horrifying!" is just flat out lies, the same way that claiming "you'll live with horrible nerve damage and pain for the rest of your life and your scars are gonna look horrible and you'll live the rest of your life as a sad, deformed freak!!" is also so blatantly transparent. Shoutout to the very compassionate radfems who tried to convince me of that when i was a 19 year old in excruciating pain despite being high on opioids recovering from a massive surgery, definitely feminist praxis to try to scare a teenager who's already gone through the surgery ur fearmongering about.

I WANT there to be more information about the negative effects and risks of transition! But that needs to be based in reality and scientific studies rather than your own personal disgust, which is all it is when you're just desperately trying to fear monger people out of transitioning rather than actually striving for people to have the ability to make fully informed decisions, which is not possible right now due to a lack of long term studies, but it certainly isnt helped by your personal moral panic.

This is a big part of why i dont give a shit what most radfems think/say about transition. Unless you have been through a transition yourself or work with detransitioners or do research about it i simply do not trust you to actually have the best interests of transitioners OR detransitioners at heart.

Stop with the fucking "oh woe is her she poisoned her feminine body with the evil hormones that are gonna give her cancer and heart disease at 27 and her nipples are gonna fall off and she's oh so tragically broken and repulsive and she's gonna die alone and in pain, wont someone stop this corruption of those naive and pitiful girls! A woman with an elarged clitoris? Excessive body hair? A deep voice? No breasts?? How REPULSIVE!" narrative lmao, you do NOT fucking care about ftms OR detransitioners, because if you DID you would support studies on the actual risks of transition and make an effort to make the most accurate information possible accessible to those transitioning or considering transition, rather than spread baseless claims that are explicitly designed to scary people into doing what YOU want them to do.

Its not your life or your body, the best we can do is strive to make accurate information available and question the narrative that transition is the only option, because as long as it is presented as the only treatment it does not matter jack squat how much you lie and fearmonger about risks.

Dysphoric teens arent gonna choose not to transition just because you fearmonger about the risks, they're just gonna do it anyway and live with the added stress of being convinced they're gonna die an early and painful death, because they'll still think its their only chance at a happier life.

Obviously in an ideal world i dont think irreversible parts of medical transition should be done before someone's brain is fully formed, and ideally even then its going to be the LAST resort, but we're not gonna get there by lying and making baseless claims, it only makes us look disingenuous and easier to disregard.

#Detrans woes #Whooo long ramble anyway i guess im full of anger lol #Op

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darks-ink · 4 years ago

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Fog - Ectoberweek 2020

Another year, another fic writing anniversary. Might be a little rough because I am rusty, yikes.

Rating: Gen Warnings: - Genre: Supernatural Words: 3,176 Relationships: - Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Seer Valerie Gray, Supernatural elements, Developing friendships

[AO3] [FFN]

---

The first time Valerie had asked her dad why it was always so foggy in Amity Park, he’d laughed kindly, and explained to her how fog worked. She had accepted the explanation, worked through it a while—as children were wont to do—and then realized it didn’t actually explain anything.

The second time she asked, he frowned at her, telling her it wasn’t foggy at all. She had looked at the green mist seeping from between the tiles of the sidewalk, pouring out of the dirt between the roots of trees and grass, and resolved not to ask again.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from asking Star. Star, after all, was her best friend, and surely she would understand what Valerie meant. Right?

But Star hadn’t understood either. Claimed that she didn’t see the fog that seemed impossible to miss. And worse still, Paulina overheard. Overheard, and spread rumors all around the school. Before Valerie knew, everyone in the school thought she was crazy, that she saw things that weren’t real.

Valerie had looked at the coalescing mist, watched it thicken and coil into the shape of a cat, and decided that she would just have to figure it out herself.

And, honestly? She had. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but she thought she had done fairly well for herself. Not that she could ever tell anyone what she knew, what she could see. She just had to take one look at the Fentons, at how far their children had been cast out for the crime of being related to people so sure of the existence of ghosts.

She herself had clawed her back way to mildly reputable, over time. Valerie Gray had no plans to go back to that pit of nonexistence.

So, yes. She could see ghosts. Or, maybe not ghosts proper. Spirits seemed to be a closer description. The natural presence of ectoplasm in the very atmosphere of Amity Park, seeping into their reality from another dimension.

Loathe as she was to say it, she was pretty sure the Fentons were at least somewhat right about ghosts. They lived primarily in a different dimension, sustained by its ectoplasm. In places where the boundary between their own dimension and the so-called Ghost Zone grew thin, this ectoplasm could seep through.

It was the ectoplasm in the air which supported lingering spirits, however briefly. Never long enough for them to develop into a proper ghost—which apparently could be seen by anyone—but enough for Valerie to see them. The recently diseased remained incorporeal, soft and foggy like the green mist they were made out of.

It was… Well, not okay, certainly, but… normal? For her, at least. There was no danger to it, not really. The lingering spirits were short-lived, couldn’t touch, and didn’t make sounds. Often, they didn’t even realize she could see them. And why would they, when no one else could?

So by age fourteen, in her first year of high school, Valerie had quite settled into this pattern of existence. Yes, she could see ghosts, and no, she didn’t plan on doing anything with that skill. What could she do with it? Become an ecto-scientist like the Fentons, dismissed for the rest of her life? Please. No, she was perfectly satisfied with living an ordinary life, without ever acknowledging her ability to see ghosts and spirits.

Until, one perfectly ordinary day, not too long after the school year had started… Danny Fenton changed.

Now, Valerie didn’t know him all that well. She had fought too hard to become a respectable kid to throw it away on outcasts like him, pity or no. And pity him, she did, because she knew what it felt like. To be pushed away just because they were different.

But, unlike her, Danny Fenton had friends. He might’ve wanted better, but he wasn’t alone. He would make do. It wasn’t her problem, so she didn’t bother with him.

Seeing him walk into Lancer’s classroom absolutely wreathed in ecto-green smoke made her reconsider her previous conclusion. Because that? That wasn’t normal. She had, quite frankly, never seen anything like that before.

It took considerable effort to keep her eyes off of Fenton. The fog continued to pour out of him, thicker than most spirits could manage. Something must’ve happened at his home, with his parents’ inventions. Something which caused him to emit ectoplasm in such high amounts.

Well, maybe it was just his body expelling it? That would explain it, yeah? It would stop eventually, once all ectoplasm was gone, and then everything would be fine again.

Besides, it didn’t seem like he injured or dying or whatever else could cause it. So. Nothing to worry about.

Except it didn’t go away. Not entirely. Over time, the fog seemed to… change. No longer did it seep out of Danny like it poured out of the ground, but now it seemed to coil around him. Like it had settled in his flesh, a perfect mimic of his body except in the soft mist of ectoplasm. It was almost like the few times she had seen spirits pass through physical objects, but not… not quite.

Quietly, Valerie resolved to continue to ignore it. It wasn’t her problem. Just because she could see spirits and ectoplasm and what-not didn’t mean she had to be responsible for it, did it? Danny’s own parents were ghost experts. If something was wrong with him, surely they would know?

So she turned a blind eye, unwilling to get involved with any kind of ghostly business.

The first ghost she saw, therefore, wasn’t in real life. It was on the television.

Of course, no one seemed to realize it was a ghost. A massive lumbering heap of flesh—meat products, apparently—which had lumbered around near the school briefly before disappearing. All kinds of explanations popped up, but none quite rung true—and none could deny the shaky video footage.

Shaky video footage, on which Valerie could clearly see the dense green fog in the meat, binding it together with some kind of ectoplasmic force.

The footage didn’t last long enough to see the thing disappear, but witnesses said that it suddenly fell apart, showering the parking lot with seemingly mundane meat products. The clean-up had been a huge mess, or so they said.

It left Valerie feeling… off-balance. For years, she’d learned about her ability, figured out what was what. It seemed stable, certain. There were limits, things that were always the same. Ectoplasm, and spirits. And now, for the second time within a month, she saw something she didn’t know.

So she gritted her teeth, and decided to check out the leftovers of… whatever it was that had lumbered around her school.

Looking back, she wasn’t sure why she had expected to learn anything useful from the leftover meat. A little ectoplasm clung to it still, when she found some that the clean-up had missed, but it was rapidly evaporating away. Nothing worth noting.

The whole event became a turning point, anyway. Within weeks, ghosts became an undeniable reality in Amity Park.

If nothing else, it at least gave her an excuse to learn more about her ability. Ghosts didn’t look much like spirits, she found out. Their bodies were made out of dense ectoplasm, clearly corporeal, and perfectly visible to everyone. They did, however, emit ectoplasmic mist—apparently they just constantly leaked the stuff when they weren’t in the Zone.

Which led her back to Danny Fenton. The way he smoked was certainly similar to how proper ghosts emitted ectoplasm, but it wasn’t quite the same. Nor was it quite the same as when ghosts overshadowed humans, or when ghosts possessed or otherwise controlled objects.

No, Danny Fenton remained unique in his condition. And honestly? It kind of pissed Valerie off. Yes, the introduction of proper ghosts to Amity Park had forced her to learn more about her ability, and yes, she still refused to acknowledge its existence to anyone but herself. But she still wanted to know, to understand.

And Valerie Gray is no coward. She wanted to know, so she would know, damn it all. Curiosity might’ve killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, no? And she’d spent several months trying to satisfy this bit of curiosity. Now all she had to do was corner Danny Fenton and demand the truth from him.

---

Okay, so cornering Fenton was easier said than done, Valerie discovered. He was, apparently, incredibly slippery. Multiple times, she had followed him into a dead end, just to find no one else present. At this point, she was fairly certain that his ghostly infection had come with ghost powers.

Which would just figure, wouldn’t it? Count on the universe to give her the ability to see ectoplasm constantly, while someone like Fenton gets something cool like intangibility? And now that she had a running theory, she needed actual confirmation, too!

She rattled her fingers on the desk she was sitting behind, staring at Lancer but not taking in any of the words he was saying. Well, shit. She’d totally zoned out in the middle of class. That would probably come back to bite her in the ass.

A few seats closer to the front, Fenton jerked in his seat, blowing out a denser cloud of foggy ectoplasm. Usually this was promptly followed by him trying to excuse himself out of class. And, well. That was a good opportunity, wasn’t it?

Quickly, faster than Danny could, she put up her hand. Lancer paused, frowning, but called on her anyway.

“Can I go to the toilet?”

Lancer heaved a weary sigh but nodded nonetheless, and Valerie sped out of the classroom, steadily ignoring Danny’s frustrated look. She waited outside the classroom, not wanting anyone to see her lingering but not willing to risk missing Danny altogether.

Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes, Danny Fenton stormed through the classroom door, clearly in a rush.

Valerie stuck out her leg, intending to trip him up, or at least slow him down.

Instead, Fenton’s leg became soft and fuzzy in an awfully familiar way, and went straight through hers.

“Uh,” he said, immediately pausing to stare at her. “You didn’t see that.”

She snorted, despite herself. “It was hard to miss, Fenton.”

“Yeah, well…” He paused, seemingly lost for words. “Forget you saw it?”

“Definitely not.” She pushed away from the wall, stepping closer to him. “I wanted to talk to you about that, anyway.”

Danny swallowed, eyes darting side to side. “About what, exactly?”

“Something’s up with you.” She looked around the hallway as well, making sure to keep him in her peripherals. “But we can talk somewhere a little more desolate, if you want.”

“I kind of… need to get going?” he tried, feebly. “Seriously, Valerie, I can’t…”

He definitely looked like he might start running any minute. Well, no time for the subtle approach then. Just as well, she supposed. She wasn’t very good at subtle. “I can see ectoplasm.”

Danny… stopped. Froze in his tracks. “I’m-- what? Sorry, what?”

“I can see ectoplasm,” she repeated, turning around to face him properly. “And spirits, when they’re around. I would’ve said ghosts, but everyone can see ghosts, now that they’re actually around.”

“But isn’t ectoplasm…” he gestured vaguely, catching up to her again. “Kind of everywhere?”

“It’s constantly seeping out of the ground, yeah.” She grinned. “And ghosts evaporate the stuff. So do you, but it’s not quite the same. And you kept disappearing after I cornered you into dead ends, so I figured it was something ghost-related.”

He made a face. “I’m bad at this. I also seriously need to get going, Val, I wasn’t kidding about that.”

“What, because you put out a burst of extra ectoplasm?” She frowned at him. “You gonna pass out because you expelled too much, or something?”

“You saw that? Ugh.” He shook his head, visibly refocusing. “Anyway, no. That was my ghost sense, which tells me that there’s a ghost nearby. Which is probably gonna attack any minute now, so…”

“So?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Call your parents, or whatever you wanted to do. I finally got my opportunity to get these questions answered, I’m not letting you slip away that easy.”

Fenton shot her a look that was caught somewhere between exhausted and frustrated. “If anything happens, I’m blaming you.”

“What, were you gonna beat it up?” She snorted, then sobered at his blank look. “Oh, well. Don’t let me stop you, I’d love to see that.”

“Shut up.” He stopped next to his locker, turning away from her to unlock it. “What did you want, anyway?”

“To satisfy my curiosity.” She shrugged at the incredulous look he threw at her. “Is that so hard to believe? I’ve lived with this ability for years, I knew every aspect of it. Even now with the ghosts around, I’ve figured out almost all the bits. Your ectoplasmic contamination is the only thing that I don’t understand.”

“And you were hoping I would explain?” His locker clicked open, and Danny reached inside to take out a shiny thermos, styled with ecto-green like every other Fenton product. “There’s nothing, Valerie. Don’t worry about it.”

She scoffed. “I’m not worried, I’m curious. What’s the harm in telling me, anyway? I already know you can go intangible like a ghost, and it’s not like I’ll tell.”

“Sure you won’t.” He rolled his eyes, closing his locker once more. Apparently the thermos was all he wanted from it. “And I’m supposed to just, what, rely on your ability and desire to keep a secret?”

“Please. Last time I tried to tell anyone about my own abilities, I was kicked down to the bottom of the popularity ladder. I have no plans to go back.” Her eyes trailed away from him, catching on the increase of ectoplasm on the other end of the hallway. “The only thing that’ll happen if I try to tell anyone is that they’ll think I’m crazy. Again.”

“Yeah, or my parents hear and think I’m a ghost again.” He looked up from the thermos in his hands, frowning at her. “What’re you looking at?”

The ectoplasm pulled together, coalescing into something dense enough to be a ghost, even if it lacked the color. It clearly wasn’t a spirit, not nearly life-like enough for it, despite it’s vaguely humanoid shape.

“You ever seen a ghost look like a bulking robot before?” she asked, faux casual, turning to look at Fenton. “Big plane-like wings, some kinda mohawk?”

“Shit,” he muttered, peering into the direction where the ghost was. “You can really see him?”

“Well, I was trying not to let him know that, because he doesn’t look very nice.” She rolled her eyes. “You know him, then?”

“Skulker.” Danny shook his head, hands wringing around the thermos. “Fuck, and there’s no way I can catch him unaware with the Thermos. I’ll have to fight him.”

“What, you?” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Well, don’t let me stop you, I guess.”

Danny straightened up properly. “Don’t tell anyone about this.” Then he paused, looked down at the thermos in his hands, and shoved it at her. “Use this when he gets distracted.”

“Uh, okay?” she replied, taking the thing in her hands. It didn’t seem like a weapon to her, but it would be just like Jack Fenton to disguise a ghost hunting weapon as a thermos, of all things. “What do you plan on doing?”

“Not dying, hopefully,” Danny grumbled, and then he— changed. The ectoplasm that steamed off of him suddenly thickened, until Danny was hidden in dense fog. Light flashed within it, like a thunderstorm.

When the ectoplasm reduced back to normal amounts, a ghost stood where Danny had been.

“Shit,” he muttered, combing a hand through his unnaturally white hair, “I still can’t see him.”

“You’re an idiot.” She sighed, turning to look back at the hulking mohawk ghost. “At the end of the hallway, can’t miss him.”

“Thanks, Val.” The ghost-that-had-been-Danny kicked off of the ground, zipping towards the first one.

What had the world come to?

Lucky for her, she didn’t need to play seeing-eye person much longer, because the robot ghost dropped his invisibility when Danny came close enough.

Instead she stood there, watching the two ghosts fight. With a thermos-shaped Fenton invention of unknown purpose in her hands. Great.

It wasn’t even a good fight. The robot ghost relied almost entirely on guns which shot ectoplasm-based lasers, while Danny kept trying to get in close and punch the thing. Not even some kind of martial arts, no, just teenage-level brawling. Ugh.

He was flung into the wall next to her, slumping down with a groan. She clicked her tongue at him. “Not very impressive.”

“Thanks,” he grumbled back, pushing himself to his feet. His voice, even through the warbling echo that all ghosts possessed, was clearly frustrated. “Could you do better?”

“Well, I am a trained black belt,” she pointed out, before holding out the thermos. “What does this do, anyway?”

“Catches ghosts.” He rose into the air, but his flight was shaky. “Please don’t point it at me.”

“Well, duh.” She stepped back, allowing him a straight shot at the robot ghost. “Go distract him, will you?”

“Since when are you in charge?” Danny grumbled, but he flew off anyway, darting around the other ghost and drawing him back in her direction.

Valerie shook her head, wondering vaguely how she’d gotten into this situation. How many years had she sworn not to get involved into anything related to her ability to see ghosts? And now here she was.

“Here, Skulker Skulker Skulker,” Danny jeered, pitching his voice like he was calling to a runaway dog. “Here, Skulkie Skulkie Skulkie!”

The other ghost snarled, lunging forward at Danny.

Valerie stepped forward, uncapping the thermos in the same movement, and pressed it against the side of the ghost. It swore, but was unable to escape the coiling vortex of the device, sucked into it in the blink of an eye.

“Huh.” She blinked, automatically capping the Thermos again. “That worked better than expected.”

“Yeah, sometimes my parents can get it right.” Danny touched down next to her, soundlessly. “Uh. Thanks, I guess.”

Again, the ectoplasm pouring off of him thickened, clouding him for a brief moment as light flashed. When it fogged away, it left a regular looking Danny Fenton.

Valerie glanced down to make sure the device was locked, then turned to Danny. “You can have it back in return for more answers.”

He snorted, shaking his head with a wry smile on his face. “Should’ve figured as much. Guess I can’t get out of it, huh?”

“What’s the point in hiding if you’ve already shown me… whatever that was supposed to be?”

“Eh, fair point.” He shrugged, almost fatalistically. “Let’s get early lunch and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, deal?”

She considered him for a moment. “Deal.”

#danny phantom #ectoberweek2020 #dp fanfic #phanfic #valerie gray #danny fenton #dark writes

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orangerosebush · 4 years ago

Text

Out in the fields

Wicklow has often been referred to as the garden of Ireland. The founder of St. Bartleby’s had assumed that the sprawling landscapes and fresh air would do the young gentlemen of Ireland’s high society some good — and he wasn’t wholly wrong. There was certainly a great deal less trouble to get into in the middle of a field than there was in the more populated towns.

However, those who are determined to find trouble will inevitably make do, and such is the case on this night, with the overcast spring sky providing ample opportunity to lurk if one so desires. And, let it be said, Jack Lovett was nothing if not a professional troublemaker, in the unfortunate way that sheltered rich teenagers are.

It is true that Wicklow is the garden of Ireland, but even so, there is a smattering of abandoned lots and crumbling alleys. Tonight, Jack had picked out one of the abandoned car parks that he’d evaluated to be the best of the lots, and he currently had parked himself on top of a stack of old wooden crates. His adventuring partner for the night, a first-year university student he’d met at a rather bad concert back in the autumn, was none too happy with their predicament.

However, they’d already argued about the risk factor of skulking about in empty lots on the way over, and both thought it best to save some energy for arguing about the activity later into the night.

There isn’t much to do in Wicklow if you’re a private school student.

***

Jack flicked his lighter on and off, admiring the way it spat out sparks.

“You’re going to break that,” his companion sighed, their mouth pulled into a disapproving, thin line.

Rolling his eyes, Jack made a show of flicking the lighter shut before shoving it in his blazer’s pocket.

Ozzy smiled, leaning their weight against the almost-slick bricks of the old building. “Thanks.”

Scoffing, Jack drummed his fingers against the box on which he was sitting, the noise making a slight echo. After a moment, he looked back at Ozzy. They raised an eyebrow, and he took that as an invitation.

“What do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do?” they snorted. “You’re the one who wanted to poke around weird holes in the wall.”

“It’s not like there would’ve been anything to do on campus,” he said, frowning defensively.

“So you should’ve come up to Dublin instead of making me take a taxi down here.”

“Yeah, true, Ozzy,” Jack admitted. “Ozzy — what’s your name from, anyway?” he asked, swinging his legs lazily from his perch.

Ozzy shrugged. “Poem.”

“What?” he furrowed his brow. “I thought the name was from that rocker bloke.”

“Why’d you even ask, then?”

“Dunno. Although I do admit it seemed like a weird choice and all, considering you don’t even listen to heavy metal. ”

“Well, there you go. That’s a bit stupid.”

“Eh, can’t win ‘em all.”

“Fair,” Ozzy exhaled, rolling their shoulders as they gazed out towards the empty car park. “The story I have isn’t that interesting, to be honest.”

Jack shot them a look. “We’re lurking in an abandoned lot so that I can smoke without one of the head boys giving me grief about cigs. Please, regale me with your poem.”

“Prick.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Fine. It’s basically about the narrator meeting a traveler from a faraway land, and they talk about there being this huge statue of the king Ozymandias out in the desert. The king had it engraved to say things such as that he was ‘the king of kings’ and that his enemies should fear even the sight of one of his monuments. All real braggadocio-type shit. But here’s the thing — the statue is the only thing that remains in that desert since his kingdom is now in ruins. It’s about arrogance and hubris. I can text it to you.”

“Huh,” Jack took a puff from what remained of his cigarette. At this point, the thing was almost only the orange filtration zone. Not that that gave him pause, though. “Cool.”

“I liked the themes,” they shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever, even the powerful die eventually, be careful with where you invest in real estate. Basic stuff.”

“Well, I’m gonna read it,” Jack declared, waving his hand. “So I don’t want any more spoilers.” Tiny trails of smoke formed as he gestured, with the mist making the lit end of the cigarette splutter and hiss intermittently.

“It is cool. Plus, my name makes whoever is talking to me sound like they’re buzzing.”

“The consonants are wicked, yeah,” Jack agreed, grinning. Ozzy grinned back.

Suddenly, Jack froze up. “Shit,” He hissed, flicking his cigarette to the ground and hurriedly grinding it into the wet dirt. Jack hopped off the empty boxes, fanning the air unsuccessfully in an attempt to disperse the smell of smoke.

“Do you have any Axe in your work bag?” he asked, cursing.

“It’s a research program. I’m not really doing any heavy physical labor,” Ozzy snorted. “I don’t bring stuff like Axe to work. That’d be weird.”

“Whatever,” Jack grimaced, and Ozzy craned their neck to see what he was looking at.

Across the gloom of the dusky car park, Ozzy could just about see the silhouette of a sleek, black Bentley. One of the older models, probably. They looked at Jack quizzically, taking a step back.

“Jack,” they began slowly. “There’s a car.”

“Yeah,” he said dismissively, still waving at the air. “Got any mints, at least?” he tried, hopeful.

“Dude, there’s a fecking car parked over there,” Ozzy stressed, eyes darting back to Jack. “No one ever comes out here. I think we should leg it. Now.”

“’S probably why he drove out here, the creep,” Jack muttered under his breath, moving to riffle through Ozzy’s bag anyway. They squawked, moving to kick his hand away from the bag, but he batted their boot away.

“Gross. Orange tic tacs?” he looked up, making a face.

Ozzy shoved their hands into their pockets. “They were out of the tea-flavored ones.”

Jack rolled his eyes as he crunched on the mints. “You should take one, too.”

“ I wasn’t smoking.”

“So? It’ll look weird if only one of us has mints. Take some!”

“What? No, it won’t. You’re mental — look, do you recognize that car?”

“Unfortunately. My classmate’s bodyguard has one just like it.”

Ozzy boggled. “Your classmate’s… bodyguard’s… car.”

Jack huffed. “Shut up. They’re practically inseparable. And my classmate is always blowing off school to do God knows what, so it adds up that he’d try to invade our car park behind the abandoned Foot Locker.”

“The Foot Locker lot isn’t really ours, though. It’s not really anybody’s. That’s a bit of the point of it being our haunt.”

“Yeah, technically — we still got here first, though,” Jack sent a glare off into the gloom. “If Butler comes over here and tells me to knock off smoking again, I’m fighting him.”

"His bodyguard's name is Butler — never mind. Please don’t get into a fight with someone whose job is being able to fight.”

“Fight professionally, maybe. I never learned karate or that MMA type stuff. I learned to fight on the streets. We’ve the advantage here.”

“There… is nothing going on between your ears. Just empty air, blowing around your thick skull,” Ozzy decided, finally cautiously taking a step closer to look at the car.

“Piss off.”

“You piss off,” they muttered back, poking their head around the rusting dumpster.

That was apparently a mistake, as they found themselves making eye contact with the gigantic man stepping out of the driver’s seat of the Bentley. He was incredibly still, like the calm ocean — barely tamed strength that had been forced into a moment of inertia.

Slowly, they felt themself raise up a hand in a small wave.

“Why are you interacting with them?” they heard Jack splutter from behind them.

“They already saw us,” Ozzy said, voice low.

The passenger door to the car swung up and out stepped another figure. He was pale enough that he seemed to glow a bit under the busted streetlight, and he was dressed in a smart, black suit. He must be the classmate, then, Ozzy decided, gaze flickering between the two. He didn’t seem like any secondary schooler they’d ever seen — but money was wont to have a funny effect on teenagers who’d never known its absence. For Jack, it’d convinced him that the world was a lot smaller and a great deal more simple than it truly was. For this other fellow, Ozzy frowned, it had seemed to do the opposite. He had the gait and demeanor of someone who knew the world was all too willing to knock him down, and he had thus decided to steel himself against any future threats preemptively.

Jack had been exaggerating their rivalry. Ozzy was sure of that.

If his classmate had seen Jack as anything more aggravating than a nuisance, it was more than likely that one day, Jack would have simply stopped showing up at the lot to hang out. In fact, it was more than likely that Ozzy would have stopped seeing Jack altogether.

Feeling a presence at their side, Ozzy turned to face Jack, who was lingering nearby. He grimaced, slinging their bag over his shoulder.

“If they've already seen us, then sprinting off will look suspicious,” he explained, hoisting the bag higher. Ozzy shot him a withering look.

“I thought you wanted to fight his bodyguard, Jack. Are you telling me you’re afraid that what, we’ll get chased?”

“Uh, yes, actually?” Jack said slowly, as though explaining something to an infant. “Neither of them understand the concept of fun.”

Their petty squabbling petered out as the two people from the car made their way over.

“Artemis,” Jack said, pursing his lips at the dark-haired young man.

Ozzy made a note of that, furrowing their brow. Artemis. Interesting.

“Hello, Jack. I must say, it’s a bit of surprise to see you out here,” Artemis remarked, tone light. Turning to face Ozzy, he appraised them.

“I’m Ozzy,” they offered.

“I don’t believe I’ve met your acquaintance before, Ozzy,” Artemis quirked his head, extending a hand in greeting.

“You’ve definitely never met,” Jack confirmed, tone somewhat brusque. “They’re a fresher at Trinity.”

Shaking Artemis’ hand, Ozzy harrumphed. “I can introduce myself, thanks. But no, we wouldn’t have met before, I don’t think.”

“Trinity?” Artemis smiled, nodding approvingly. “I gave a lecture on Balkan politics there.”

“Really? Maybe one of my friends saw it. When was it?”

Artemis waved a hand. “I was thirteen. It was some time ago.”

“Oh,” Ozzy blinked. “Good for you.”

“Quite. I must say that you’ve piqued my interest with Trinity. If I might ask: what is your focus on?”

“Classics,” Jack interjected before Ozzy could respond, puffing up slightly with pride at the mention of his friend’s work. “They’re beyond smart. Actually, you should tell Artemis about some of your papers, Ozzy. Lethal stuff.”

“Maybe some other time,” Butler announced, his voice firm, and he looked at his employer pointedly. Artemis must have picked up on whatever he was implying, as the pale young man nodded apologetically.

“I’m afraid it is time for us to part ways with you two,” Artemis explained.

Jack crossed his arms.

Ozzy put a firm hand on his shoulder before he could say something. He scowled at the strange duo in front of them but turning to look at Ozzy, his face softened.

“Enjoy your stupid car park,” Jack muttered, allowing Ozzy to maneuver them both back towards the path that led to the main foot road. He was no doubt thinking he’d got the last word in, Ozzy sighed mentally.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you smoking when we pulled into the lot, Jack Lovett,” Ozzy heard Butler call after the two of them from out in the gloom. They winced, continuing to push Jack forward.

“He’s threatened to tell my mum a few times, “ Jack remarked miserably, no doubt disappointed at his grand exit being ruined. “He knows her from some damn book club group, apparently.”

Ozzy laughed, and he gave them a hurt look.

“I’m living like a hunted man, you know! It’s not funny, Ozzy,” he sulked, and they shook their head fondly.

“You really ought to quit, Jack,” they sighed, inhaling the cool night air. It smelled vaguely of roses, with the pungent smell of tobacco beginning to fade as they walked farther and farther from the lot. It was always worth coming down from Central Dublin to visit Jack in Wicklow, they shot him a glance. Despite how much Jack might complain that St. Bartleby’s was located in the middle of absolute nowhere, Ozzy knew that deep down, he liked being away from the city. Not that Dublin was in any way as busy as some of the cities they’d seen back in London, Ozzy conceded. But even Dublin was too much for someone like Jack. He needed growing room, even at the precipice of adulthood.

“Hm. I might,” Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“Jack .”

“No, I really think I might! It’s getting to the point where my mum would realize when I come home for the holidays, and the last thing I want is to get chewed out for using ‘her money to buy cigs when I should be learning',” he pitched his voice into a breathy falsetto at the end.

Ozzy chuckled. “You’ve already gotten caught, then.”

“Mum found a few I’d stuffed in my bag when I came home for Christmas. You should’ve seen her — she was huffing and red in the face for about an hour. I really got the business for that.”

“Good. Your dumbass should have realized that bringing cigs home was a monumentally stupid idea.”

“You’re mean tonight, you know that, Ozzy?” Jack grinned widely, shaking his head and knocking his shoulder into theirs.

“Whatever,” Ozzy rolled their eyes. Slowing slightly in their stride, they glanced backward, eyes narrowing to try to make out the silhouettes of Artemis and Butler.

“It… is a bit weird, you know,” they began, voice faltering. “That those two were at the car park.”

Jack snorted. “Weird is on-brand for Artemis. Besides, he wasn’t there for the car park, probably.”

“What?”

“You’d never guess it if you’d just met him, but he’s bonkers for all that like….,” Jack made a vague gesture with his hands. “Ancient aliens type shite. At least, he used to be when we were roommates. He’s gotten more normal since he was 10, but you never know, y’know?”

Ozzy stared at him, stopping in their tracks. “So that’s… a haunted car park, then?”

“Good idea for a band name — ‘haunted car park’,” Jack extended his arm, pantomiming putting it up across a poster. “But no, more like haunted hillfort.”

“There are fairy mounds in the parking lot?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re painfully British. Yeah, there are a bunch all over Wicklow. There’s one in the field behind the car park, but it’s so small you’d never see it on a touristy type guide.”

“Huh,” Ozzy said thoughtfully, looking out at the dimly lit concrete island.

“Huh?”

“Just ‘huh’,” Ozzy confirmed, turning back to continue walking.

Jack shrugged. “Fine by me.”

#artemis fowl #my writing #smoking cw

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starlight-starwrites · 4 years ago

Text

agent whiskey

character headcanons

note: did a rewatch of kingsman golden circle, so...how could i resist? i really started out with ‘this is fun!’ and then things got real. again, i like to think most of what is here is inspired straight from what we see in the movie, and some go a little beyond bc if we’re honest, those writers did our jack dirty.

- Has a known streak for being an asshole, but he doesn’t usually even realize it.

- He thinks he’s funny (he is, but only sometimes).

- The man loves the high life. Country livin’ is fine by him, but high country living. He was sent to work in New York for a reason.

- He is great at mixing his attitude and his manners. He’s usually always polite, but his impatience will get the better of him. He’ll be the one at the store giving lip to the manager, yet still saying please and thank you the whole time.

- Loves playing the seniority card. He’s good at what he does, no doubt there, but he still thinks he’s tough shit He gives himself more importance than he should. If someone he likes tells him off, he will drop down so many pegs, it is incredible. Will go quiet and embarrassed if scolded.

- Actually has pretty good taste in fashion. He pays attention. It’s a bit of a preening thing, a bit of a wanting to seem valid thing.

- He will giggle at a sex joke if he wasn’t expecting it (if he’s flirting, it’s a different story).

- He is great at hiding his nerves. Will overcompensate with the cockiness sometimes if he feels out of place, and definitely likes his liquid courage when talking to women.

- He feels like he has to have a pick up line. He has to impress. His track record of relationships (or lack thereof) isn’t something he likes to think about. Whether it’s because he’s hung up on his late wife, or they don’t like him beyond a quick lay, or he finds he can’t connect with them, he isn’t always sure. He’ll do it for work, or if he really, really wants to, but beyond that, he finds himself distracted by other things.

- Whiskey is his go-to drink. What came first—his preference or the code name? No one is sure, but he is definitely dedicated it. He may hate drugs, but he’s quick to drown his sorrows in alcohol.

- He can cook. Maybe he's not a gourmet chef, but everything turns out fairly decent, and he's even got a couple of special recipes that turn out incredible. His homemade chili is immaculate.

- He doesn’t have any close friends. When he was younger he had some, he knows what it’s like to have a friend. But when he goes out, sees just a group of guys who mess around, genuinely like each other, he feels like he’s missing something. It almost makes him uncomfortable at the thought of having such a support group.

- Despite his propensity to come off as a bit of an asshole, he pales in comparison to actual assholes. Does not tolerate them. If someone is harassing or being a general nuisance, he wont hesitate to step in if necessary.

- If it’s not necessary, he is shameless and will absolutely stay for the show. He finds the drama amusing, and if it comes to action, all the better.

- The man knows what he’s doing (most of the time). He’s a good agent. A good fighter. When things sometimes go south, something unexpected happens, part of him lives for the thrill of it, hoping for a time to shine. It keeps him on his feet. He’d rather focus on not dying during those times, then focus on trying to live when things are quiet.

- He likes working with other agents, it makes him feel less alone. But he is a stickler about who he works with. He’d, of course, prefer to be in charge, and he doesn’t like incompetence. Shit happens, but if you’re not good at back-up, Whiskey’s got no use for you.

- He trains and practices a lot. A lot, a lot. You can’t get that good with a whip, a lasso, and guns, without honing his skills. He likes to try out new moves too, but he won’t do it in front of people. He’s broken quite a few things in his own home practicing moves, but in the end, it really pays off.

- He’s fiercely protective of the people he cares about. If he loved someone, he would likely save the one at the cost of the world.

- Holds grudges like no other. Will seek revenge whenever the mood strikes him. And he has a knack for it too. Not always confrontational, but if you wrong him, and he feels its personal? He’ll make sure you’re ruined one way or another.

- He doesn’t always want to take the lead, but if there’s ever a pause, someone hesitates to do something, he automatically thinks ‘fine, I’ll do it myself’.

- He lives to be a showoff. He likes to be the center of attention. Its stems from his feeling of not being good enough, of not being able to do things right in the past. He doesn’t care what sort of attention he gathers, and if someone negatively reacts to his skills (with jealousy, criticism, any of the sort) he still counts it as a win. Afterall, why would someone be paying so much attention to him if he isn’t worth it?

- He’s a risk taker. Has been all his life. Some risks didn’t pay out and left him with insecurities he likes to pretend don’t exist. Some do pay off, and it’s the best high he feels.

- He’s gambled before and would again if the opportunity were to present itself. He’s tried to stop, but he knows he’ll go back. When he was young, he liked the idea of a high roller’s table. With his job and how much he makes, he’s closer to getting to that fantasy. He doesn’t talk about it, but his dream mission is at a casino, playing on the Statesman bill, with a finely dressed woman on his arm.

- Yes. His biggest fantasy is to be an American cowboy James Bond. Sorry. No I’m not.

- When he was young, he was seriously in love. It was that first love, the one you think you could never have again, yet somehow is still only a surface love. It felt deep at the time, but if he were to love again, really love, it would be a true love that he doesn’t even believe exists. It’s the knowing someone as much as you know yourself, the sort of support that is unbelievable yet impossible to live without, and being able to share the fears and doubts of past trauma and uncertain futures and be met with trust and loyalty that could only be found in fiction.

- He’s become a serial flirt to hide that desire for true love. He loved his late wife, but they hadn’t had the time, and they’d still been practically kids. He’s afraid to let any relationship go beyond that.

-He is a man of devotion. Devoted to his work, to his principles, to his wife. Sometimes the way he expresses it is extreme, but no one can deny he cares.

- He likes to have nice things. He’s got a nice apartment, filled with any comforts and random assortments that spark joy. If Marie Kondo went through his stuff, there would be very little he’d agree to let go. Everything seems to have a story behind it.

- “Now that hat? Been with me through too much. Couldn’t wear it til I was eighteen, tried to ride my first horse with that one, and I damn near lost it. See these bullet holes? Mission up North went South, and had I moved any slower, I’d’ve been brought back in a pretty wooden box and dropped six feet under.”

- He may try to support the Statesman brand but…his name is Jack Daniels. You can bet he’s got every brand of whiskey in his own personal collection.

- At his place in new York, he always keeps extra stuff ‘for company’. He very rarely ever gets a chance to use it.

- He loves gadgets, tech, the best vehicles. He tries to make sure he can do it all because it makes him feel like Bond, but he sticks to what he knows best. The whip and the lasso make him unique.

- The man is really kinky. He doesn’t let it out unless he is completely comfortable, but…he really is.

- This man is a mama’s boy. We all know it.

- He wants to have a family. He really does. Part of him refuses to believe he ever will, that he doesn’t deserve it. The other part thinks that it’s the only thing that will fill the hole in his heart.

#agent whiskey #jack daniels #agent whiskey headcanons #jack daniels headcanons #agent whiskey x reader #jack daniels x reader #kingsman the golden circle

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bloodycassian · 4 years ago

Text

A new Hope

ACOTAR - Cassian x (no gender) reader. Reader is an Illyrian trying to better the future of their people.

Cassian would not doubt that the world ending may be caused by Rhysand, once he learned of his newest relationship. Cauldron hope that Rhys would be able to explain it better than Cassian was to Rhys.

“She has a great sense of fighting ability. Rhys listen - she’s just as much of an asset as Feyre is!” He shouted as Rhys walked away.

“An asset or an ass you can look at Cass? I have tolerated quite a few of your less than admirable partners here but I will not have an Illyrian. The Three of us are enough as it is. Besides we dont even know what clan they’re from I wont-” Rhys paced at the top of the step, his anger building the more Cassian tried to persuade him.

“Rhys just meet them! Meet them and you’ll understand.” Cassian’s voice was quiet at the end, almost pleading. The high lord paused, glancing at his friend. Rhys had never known him to use that tone unless it was utterly serious. He weighed the risks in his mind. Deny his Army General a simple pleasure or risk losing valuable secrets about his home territory to possible enemy Illyrian clans? The choice was obvious in his mind, but Cassians’ persistence on the matter made him reconsider.

Rhy’s sighed, his power draining from his taut muscles. He waved a hand at his friend. “If I feel even a glimmer of note taking in their mind I will -Cassian, I will wipe it clean.” His friend’s face lit up with gratitude.

Cassian bound up the steps and clapped his high lord on the shoulder, his wings flaring with excitement. “You know not all us pure bred Illyrians are such lying assholes.”

You knew that someone would have to winnow you. The experience itself was much much different than how anyone described it. It made flying to the balcony almost impossible. Your head swam in dark spots and stars that weren’t actually there. Cassian’s warm hands righted you before you tumbled over your own feet when hitting the landing. His strong corded arms wrapped protectively around your middle, making sure you were adjusted to your feet again.

Your stomach rolled. Never from your entire life of flying had anything made you that woozy before. “I think I’m good now - lets just fly next time.” You breathed and nodded to Cassian for approval. It felt like your entire body had been squeezed into a hole and pulled out the other end.

“I had the house make breakfast-” Mor chirped as she walked in from the stairs. Food appeared on the enormous table. You turned, and vomited over the side of the balcony.

A few hours later, Cassian was beaming at you from across the table. All were laughing at a story he had just gotten done telling, and this place truly felt like a home for him. You could understand why he wanted so much better for you, for all the Illyrians. Better was possible, especially with such a forgiving high lord that was willing to help with ruling over the war camps.

“Very charming dear boy, but I believe we were here to interview your new pet.” The tiny woman at the end of the table finally spoke. Her eyes shone of a strange silver white that you had never seen before, and she did not eat. She was unsettling, and the rest of the table quieted. Amren, was her own person in the most definitive way. Cassian had warned you of her. You cleared your throat.

“I believe we have enough open minded Illyrians to begin our own camp, a new group where there are no rites, and females are not clipped.” You had practiced it in your head over and over on the days leading up to your meeting with Rhysands inner circle.

Cassian was grinning like a smug cat at the high lord and lady. Feyre could not hide her shock, and Mor took a long sip of her wine. Rhys leaned back in his chair, intrigued. “Wouldnt that mean a slaughter of these people? If the others found out. You would be painting a target on your back from the start.” No judgement, only pure questions and curiosity.

“We are trained, and are willing to shed blood if it comes to it.” You stated, willing your voice not to quaver under his questions. You could feel the power in his mere presence alone, and did not want to see it in action. You took a breath before revealing what you had been hiding until this moment. You glanced toward Cassian, who nodded in encouragement. You rolled up one of the sleeves covering the back of your hand. “I am willing to lead them.” Your dark onyx siphon glinted in the light. Utter silence coated the room, shock echoing throughout. Amren’s mouth dropped - then began beaming at you.

You rolled up the other sleeve, revealing the siphon on the opposite hand. “I am willing to protect them. We just need your help.” You stared at the high lord, who’s eyes were wide and jaw clenched. You didnt want to know what that meant. There was a soft chuckle from behind you.

Azriel was smiling wide as he stood next to you, taking your hand. “Welcome to the club. No way Rhy’s is letting you go now.”

“No winnowing. You can fly back with me or not, but I am going to vomit up that lovely dinner.” You pulled on your jacket, happy to be out of the hot seat at the table. So many questions from every angle besides Amren, who had just summoned a cup from the house and drained it.

“You’ll have to get used to it sometime. Rhys’ seems very interested in you.” He nudged your shoulder lightly, his wings flaring out - as if to taste the night breeze. “And not at all grateful to me for finding you.” He grumbled.

You rolled your eyes and stretched your arms, preparing for the long flight. You refused to stay the night, despite Feyre insisting. Nerves would probably make it impossible to sleep anyway. Not to mention the thought of sleeping in the same place as Cassian. He was… too tempting.

“Maybe we stop and camp if you’re still not feeling great.” He started for the ledge, then in a swift stride disappeared into the darkness. You glanced behind to the empty, already cleaned dining room. Magic house, must be nice. You felt a twinge of sadness as you leapt from the balcony.

A howl of adrenaline ripped through the air as Cassian hit an updraft just before the outside of the Illyrian mountain range. His heart soared, the cold wind kissing his skin and making him feel the best kind of alive. You circled with him, the soft glow of the campfires below were warm, but not inviting. You knew those fires were lit for the ones without even tents to call a home. Shame crashed through you.

Children of your kind, sleeping out in some of the most vicious winters that Prythian had to offer. It made you shudder. You had done all you could for the mothers of some of the children. For the ones willing for change. You knew that it was an uphill battle to create them a new home, but it would be worth it. It would pay off eventually.

If it worked.

Cassian banked toward you and matched your speed, his powerful wings within touching distance of yours. There was a long moment of silence between you. The wind and the rasp of your wings against your clothes the only sounds. Your face stricken, you tried to force a smile at him. “You dont have to go back, you know. We can figure something else out if you don't want to stay at the House of Wind.”

“What would that show my people?” You snapped back at him. The offer was kind, yes but Cassian might not know how bad certain camps had gotten. Especially the smaller ones. Males had begun usurping smaller villages and kicking children and females out of their own homes. That was on the good days, on the normal days there would be puddles of blood in the dirt roads the morning after the raid.

“I just mean maybe we should.. Stay out together?” Cassian trailed off. You felt your cheeks flush with color. “I mean if you want or if you dont its fine we can-” he started rambling as you descended together, landing just outside the flickering light of the village.

“You mean the great Night Cout General wants to share a tent with a war camp Illyrian?” You teased, pulling your coat tighter against the cold. The wind on the ground seemed to whip more harshly after landings. As if it was punishing you for being in its way.

Cassian boomed with laughter, “I havent heard of sharing a tent in years. I cant deny it is appealing.” He wiggled his eyebrows at you. His dark hair curled around his neck, bringing out the color in his dark cheekbones. He stepped toward you, blocking the wind. “Youre appealing.” His voice dropped to little more than a growl, his eyes were dark glancing from your lips to your eyes.

Your stomach flipped, tying knots up to your slamming heart. His wings flexed out, hands reaching for yours tentatively. The calluses on his palms were warm, and tough where a sword would lay. They matched his personality. You were ready for this. After looking at his full dark lips so long you were beyond studying the shape and curve of them. You were ready to see if they matched him as perfectly as his hands did.

A high pitched whistle sounded through the camp. Cassian groaned, his hands tightening on yours. Your eyes widened as you spied the cause of the interruption. A band of males were circling a fire, a few of them with weapons. Some with nothing more than a few scraps of clothes.

“Shit” You breathed, starting toward the group. You didnt know what you would do, but nothing would touch this village, the camp you worked so hard to preserve. You felt your siphons thrum with power. You would eviscerate them if they would not listen, you knew that much. You had hopes with this side of the village, that this would be more civilised than the south side where the fighting rings were.

Cassian grabbed your wrist before you could get farther. “I will help. Show yourself to them. Let them feel fear of the siphons. If they dont listen I can.. I will help you.” His eyes hid nothing, icy rage filled them.

You spun and kissed him, quickly. Quickly before he could pull you in, and get lost in the feeling of pure him. He faded to the shadows, the whisper of his wings the only thing telling you he was monitoring. Even facing a band of murder frenzied Illyrians, you could barely get the smile off your face.

#acotar #acotar reader insert #readerxcassian #reader x cassian #cassian #a court of thorns and roses

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oh-for-fic-sake · 5 years ago

Text

A Witcher's Pack Chapter Two

The pack face the consequences of there unconventional rendezvous, good and bad..

Masterlist

Chapter One

A/n I've tried my best with this one, it might have a few more mistakes then usual as i have had a hell of a few days and been writing tiny bits at a time. I hope you like it and i caught things just right 😘xx

WARNINGS: Angst, Hints at miscarriage, Swearing ,A/B/O

Geralt sat across from the village leader not wanting to be so far from his mate who was fresh out of her twelve day heat, longer than expected but he was glad for the extra time after all he was trying to breed you with Jaskier. The man before him drew his attention from his thoughts .Beta. His jaw was locked and he was fuming. The so called witch was none other than his precious mate. They had called him to kill her. It took every ounce of strength not to claw off this mans face and rip out his throat. He continued explaining all the measures they had taken to ensure she couldn't 'corrupt' or 'enchant' the others. He seemed proud of how they had thrown a helpless terrified eleven year old child out into the cold, banished her to that shack with no prospects ,food or means to look after herself. His heart clenched painfully, she must have been so scared and confused the mere thought of what she had endured made his stomach churn feeling sick. He heaved deep breaths flexing his hands itching to rearrange the mans face .Permanently. The male across from him didn't seem to notice the warning signs.

"And now we have another alpha we cant risk him being lead astray by a-a filthy harlot! Witcher you must rid us of her she is useless, a waste of our resources and will soon begin to lure the men out to her. We aren't sure how it works but its defiantly coming, she caused his turning to be agony" Geralt growled slamming a heavy fist on the table the resounding crack of wood giving way silenced the man. He spoke low and gravely the growl laced in his voice showed how close his alpha was to the surface.

"You mean to tell me you put her through all that because you didn't understand what she was? She is not a monster. Shes not a siren or succubus. And she defiantly didn't make that boys turning painful, it is painful for everyone." He growled out the words loosing his cool as he continued as the truth of what they had done to you sunk in.

" You sit there so high and mighty aND YOU DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'VE DONE SHE WAS A CHILD! SCARED AND ALONE AND YOU-YOU THROUGH HER AWAY, TREATED HER LIKE AN ANIMAL! SHE DOESN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE IS." Geralt stood breathing heavy. Tucking his head low taking deep harsh breaths. As the beta cowered before him.

"I will take her away and you will give me the coin for doing it, or I will inform the others not to take contracts for this village. And you will find yourself in a tricky position in spring when the migrations start." The man sputtered unsure of what had caused the out burst.

"I-I you cant do that!?"

"Oh trust me I can and will we alphas take injustices against our true mates very seriously, especially us witcher's its extremely rare for us in particular. Once word gets out about what you've done to my mate they wont be so quick to aid you in the future." Geralt was pushing it, bending the truth to get what he wanted. The man looked shocked as Geralt announced you as his true mate realizing his mistake to late. He sighed defeated pulling out the coin pouch wanting the irritated mutant alpha out of the village. Geralt snatched it from him in one hand bringing up his other a swift fist across the face knocking him out cold on the floor with a nod humming in approval. The beta was down. He'd get up in a few hours. Then he turned leaving the room heading quickly out to the shack occupied by his pack. Ready to gather them up and head back to kaer morhen for winter and to see vesemir he needed answers.

8 weeks later

You smiled contently walking along side roach Geralt sat atop her and Jaskier beside you. the last three months had been bliss ,the best of your life. Your new pack had taken care of you kept you fed with freshly hunted meat thanks to your new found alpha who could hunt and they kept you warm providing you with new clothes that shielded you from the harsh autumn breeze that was to come in the next week or so, You could walk through towns without being spat at or cursed out, most of the time when anyone tried you witcher mate would scare the shit out of them. It was nice when he did it made your tummy flutter and you'd blush as after each time he would wrap himself around you protectively. you slept beside a hot roaring fire each night falling to sleep with a full tummy and protection of the family. During your time with them they had told you grand tales of their adventures, Geralt you learned was the fabled white wolf from the songs and Jaskier a bard who wrote said songs and sang to you every night. Geralt had helped you understand all your instincts explaining that you were true mates and that your fast heat was just natures way for you to bond and that it was ok to feel the way you did , the idea of pack was foreign to you and it had taken some time to finally click. But when it did you were more at peace with yourself with your new found understanding. You was relaxed. You were content. You were going to be sick. You quickly ran of into the bushes crouching followed closely by Geralt patting your back as you wretched bringing up your afternoon meal. That both males had insisted on so you could gain a your weight back and you had filled out, now supporting a healthy pink glow like the one you had admired Jaskier for.

"Oh no is she ok? I knew she shouldnt have ate that tart earlier. It was to rich for her stomach!" Jaskier snipped quick to pull the waterskin from roach hurrying to pass it to you having Geralt snatch it from him with a short grunt and held it to your lips letting you take sips. You gasped after having the drink the wiped you mouth with the back of your hand.

"No I'm fine, it was ok, not sure what that was it came out of nowhere" Geralt stared intently at you then leaned forward taking a deep breath in his nose under your ear then pulled back with a groan then grinned wider then you'd ever seen. He laughed sweeping you up off your feet cradling you against placing kisses all across your face tickling your cheeks as his stubble rubbed lightly, Jaskier watched then quickly put it all together laughing running his hands through his hair.

"Geralt whats going on? what are you doing? put me dooown I don't want to be sick again." you whined as he slowly rocked you to and fro

"That's not an option I'm afraid.... Oh god.... My beautiful little mate....Sweet omega... Your pupped" you blinked not sure what he had said at first then your face dropped into shock.

"Wh-what? but I-you said we would have known by now...Th-that it would be a short pregnancy...five months Its been two surely I'd be showing? or that sickness would have started earlier" you were very confused Geralt held you with one arm placing his hand on your tummy, you'd admit that you were larger then when you'd met but they had been strict on your diet wanting you to gain a few pounds. Jaskier walked closer looking at you with awe. Pups. His pups in an omega. He couldn't believe it. Tears welled but he fought them back with a deep shuddering breath. Clearing his throat.

"Well with how skinny you were it'd be easy to miss, we have been trying to fatten you up." he reasoned Geralt hummed in agreement before continuing, still moving across you lower abdomen pressing lightly. It was hard, taught and defiantly bulging slightly but small however that could be due to a beta father, betas produced less pups at once but resulted in larger pups at birth, an alpha litter could be up to four pups at around five to six pounds at birth. Beta's normally had one at six to eight pounds. Pregnancy was shorter for omegas but varied depending on the father and litter size could be anything from five the eleven months. He took a deep breath.

"Yes and the sickness delay could be your body trying to give as much the the pups, you couldn't afford to be sick taking away the nutrition with how under weight you were" His only true concern was that he couldn't hear a heart beat, but he hadn't been trying to hear one he stopped trying a few weeks ago. You were placed on your feet contemplating their answers. Geralt knelt before you pressing his ear against your stomach hushing you and Jaskier as he listened. His eyes widened glancing at Jaskier who waited with baited breath, tense trying not to be to excited in case the worse should happen. You felt Geralt release a breath nodding once to Jaskier who flew over to you trying to place a hand on your tummy pulling back as he near lost a finger as Geralt snapped at him. You placed a slow hand in Geralts hair pulling him to look up at you. he gazed up at you his eyes full of unshed tears yet he blinked them back.

"One, a single pup their heart is quiet but strong. Fast. They are right here.... You did it... My beautiful girl you did it." he finished tilting leaving a light kiss on the small barely noticeable swell. standing up he yanked Jaskier in for a hug then bent him down pressing his ear so he could listen. Smiling the whole time. Proud his pack was growing.

In the following Months you had noticed a change. Geralt was pushing you all on faster his instincts driving him to have his pack home before the birth seemingly more and more desperate as your belly swelled faster than you though possible now looking very pregnant, heavy and round. Geralt shivered everytime he glanced at you , filled with pride, warmth that spread thoughout him you were glowing there was also something else , he had been territorial coming to blows with Jaskier more times than you could count. It upset you, how the once close pair seemed to be at odds with one another you caught in the middle, tho Geralt was your mate this was Jaskier's pup you had the unyielding urge to be close to him, scent him and have him coddle you and the unborn. Geralt chased him away each time occasionally out of camp completely. Anything could set it off like handing you something you dropped as you could no longer bend down to reach it or helping you get your boots on or helping you get up. Once Jaskier had tried to help you climb on to roach you nearly slid off the other side and Geralt had nearly ripped him a new one it took you hours to talk him down. Literately his steel sword was drawn when you nearly hit the floor. You whimpered lying on your side it was night and you was tucked up between Geralt and a thick tree with dense bushes at its base, he had begun to place you tucked up like this at night he wanted you to have a nest each night. You winced moving from side to side rolling this way and that huffing you couldn't get comfy. You groaned being pregnant wasn't easy even for an omega, the past two days your back had gotten much worse cramping, you cringed you were only four and a half months gone Geralt said that you would most likely have another eight weeks or so because Jaskier was a beta 'great another Eight weeks of this' you huffed again lying still your mind wandered you was concerned your pup hadn't moved since yesterday morning , normally being near Jaskier encouraged them to be lively but it hadn't worked. Grimacing as your back hurt which wasn't anything knew you got up onto all fours slowly crawling form behind Geralt around him settling to lay near Jaskier pulling his hand from his side placing it on your little one....Nothing.. you whimpered worry wracked your body something felt wrong, different. You remained beside Jaskier hopeing that it would coax some indication that your pup was ok. You breathed through the aching twitches in your back trying to drift off in to sleep. Just as your eyes closed you heard him. Geralt. Eyes blazing as he scrambled up looking for you. You shivered and shrunk as he found you laying holding Jaskier's palm to your swollen tummy. He snarled stalking to you making to grab you away from the beta, you sat up and flinched as he reached out for you. Having enough, exhausted and upset.

"NO! Enough please alpha! enough, Something is wrong! their not moving I want him to feel his pup the get them moving I don't like them being so still please" Geralt hissed through his fangs angry as his eyes saw you frightened clutching at the Betas hand holding it flush an still. You called the pup Jaskier's. He didn't deserve it. It was HIS. The pup should move for him, not the beta the alpha. HE was the alpha. He seethed

"B-but he cant protect it!! I can protect it...I DO!.. IT'S MINE- I TOLD HIM TO PUT IT THERE!! BUT IT'S MINE!!!! YOU'RE MY MATE!! MINE!! NOT HIS MY OMEGA!" you shook at his words his shouting had woke Jaskier who was now quivering beside you. Geralt's breathing was labored reaching again for you he stopped short as the both of you ducked as if expecting to be hit. He looked at his hands lowering them backing away glancing at the both of you. What was happening to him?. His pack frightened of him. He who had vowed to protect them. They cowered before him. His mate and brother. He stared noting a small wet patch below you. He had frightened you that much? he felt disgusted with himself turning to lie away from you both. You looked up slowly at him instantly feeling heart broken at the look of despair on his face. You nudged Jaskier motioning him to help you up. He did helping you up stopping as you cried out a sharp tug in your tummy forcing you back down to your knees huffing that was painful. You gripped Jaskier's hand tight.

"Wh-whats wrong? please is every-Are you ok? shit!"

"G-Geralt could you please?" Jaskier called desperately supporting you a quick glance at the alpha showed him lying a good distance, faced the opposite way he was brooding lost in his own thoughts ashamed. Jaskier soothed you helping you kneel seeing the wet spot through seeping through your skirts. You winced cupping your belly and cramping back. Jaskier panicked unable to pull away from you remarkably strong grip, you stared at him fear in your eyes as your stomach clenched tightly. It- you couldn't it wasn't even five months yet, you were- could you be loosing it? is that why you hadn't felt anything? you sobbed into your hand. NO!. You'd failed. Failed your alpha, your pack and yourself. you curled over head pressed to the dirt as your stomach was hard and twitching below your hand.

"GERALT! ALPHA?! HELP SOMETHING IS WRONG!" with Jaskier's calling him alpha snapped his attention, the bard didnt call him that often, normally when he was scared wanting reassurance, it happend when he fell into his baser instincts. Geralt rolled over panicked not even getting up he through his body hands and knees scrabbling across to your crumpled form. He forgot his previous despair now on high alert he sniffed around you as you withered shoulders moving with your sobs. He held out a hand placing it on Jaskier, comforting trying to ease his panic. He looked not sensing anything, he gripped your waist sliding you a little checking the moist earth below you no blood that was good, - he cut himself short, you'd said it hadn't moved he stilled.No no no no. His blood turned to ice in his veins it hadn't- couldn't have....You was to far gone!...You couldn't loose it now, fate couldn't be so cruel!. He closed his eyes hushing you desperately, Jaskier following his train of thought placed a gentle hand to your mouth trying to contain your Broken sobs stroking your hair and whispering reassuring you that it would be ok. You was to far gone, already mourning for the life you believed you'd lost, to wrapped up in your thoughts to hear anything going on around you. Concentrating all his efforts into listening Geralt lowered down by your bloated belly pressing lightly against it, hoping to hear that sweet sound he sighed when he heard a steady rhythm a heart beat so the pup was fine just- was it lower? OH SHIT he growled quickly jumping up taking you with him you whimpered as your body was moved yelping as your back cramped shivering as the pain soared through all of you nerves you could see as well as feel the muscles moving manipulating your pup around but you was unsure why. the bard followed anxiously

"Ge-Geralt?is it?"

"Jaskier go get the blankets from roach quick we need a nest it- she's- its coming!" Jaskier blinked frozen then began stuttering panicking. What?.

"NOW JASKIER!" he barked out snapping the bard out of it as he made his way back to the tree you had originally nodding to the floor Jaskier spread out the blankets you had been collecting the past week each town and village you added to your collection. Some he rolled up to prop you against and others he haphazardly plopped here and there to be move as and when. You sighed as Geralt placed you on them you panted sweating feeling as if you were going to pass out form the pain.

"Geralt -is? are they ok? did I loose it I'm sorry I-" he cut you off kissing your tears.

"no no you didn't!.....You haven't lost them, they are coming now, early but healthy I can hear it" you flinched. Early? you- it was happening here? now? crying as another pain pulled your body tight. Jaskier ran back over with the water skin bowl and cloth fumbling with them pouring some water into the bowl soaking the cloth Geralt pushed up your skirts tugging you didn't have anything underneath due to your size you'd grown out of them. Jaskier bent one leg placing it beside his thigh as Geralt held the other in the same fashion. You tilted your head back crying low as you realized just how low your pup had managed to get in such a small amount of time ,you felt uncomfortable full ,as they now sat just at your pelvis.

"I-I need to- Ahh!" you tried telling them that you needed to push, the urge was overwhelming as your body acted on its own digging your feet below you trying to ground yourself gasping as much air as you could before another pain hit holding your breath gritting your teeth as your abdomen contracted trying to squeeze out your child followed swiftly by a back cramp. It was brutal as your own muscles swayed you back and forth you were frightened grabbing blindly eyes shut tight as another wave hit you.

"sshh push if you need to" Jaskier placed your hand between his wincing as you dug your nails into his skin but kept quiet moving to dab your head and face with the cloth. You sighed at the cool water being wiped across you, a small relief. Before you was rushed into another quick contraction bareing down pushing again. Geralt placed a hand on either thigh pressing them further apart then moved his hand to where the pup now rested lower then a few seconds ago.

"Alpha? please." he froze your voice was strained and weak he moved closer kissing your head. Geralt was at a loss, there was nothing he could do but reassure you, he nodded to Jaskier.

"It's low get the knife and cord" he quickly grabbed the items dipping it in the water to clean it, the small blade curved maybe 3 inches with a tiny glyph carved onto it, protection Geralt had spent a day on it marking it perfectly, this was bought specifically for this moment. You screamed curling forward with the contraction sliding down flat on your back widening your feet arching as you felt a heavy pressure pass though your pelvis you pushed with all your might shouting loud into the night feeling a burning stretch before nothing...Your body relaxed you all but melted as your child vacated you lifting your head looking down taking deep gasping breaths. There was silence Jaskier gasped watching as Geralt froze holding the tiny pink child not knowing what to do, his face was one of awe, seeing that Geralt had Blanked. The beta jumped into action holding the soft thin cord around the umbilical cord pulling tight before severing the connection between the two of you suddenly there was a cry, loud and strong. Relief washed across the camp smiles all round, he sat back bending his knees resting his elbows holding his head tears streaming down his face. Alive, it was alive. You weeped at the sound. Your child was safe. Your body shook the aftermath of all the stress pain and adrenaline.

"Girl...Its a girl" Geralt whispered

"Ha you can tell with all the fuss she's making, defiantly a female" Jaskier quipped still rubbing his eyes leaning over to see his daughter. You watched holding your breath. Girl you had a little girl you couldn't look away as Geralt tilted the pup for him to see then stopped choosing to instead pass the tiny Child to her father then moved pulling a small blanket they worked together tucking it around her fretting over how covered and warm she would be. You sighed in relief any animosity that there had built was gone which was a load off mind ,your heart melted at the sight it would seem your daughter would have two fathers. Geralt smiled leaning up over you kissing you deeply then heaved you to sit up letting you lean against his chest. Jaskier moved up on your other side with the child. Tiny she was so small, smaller then you'd expected. Tears streamed down your face as you leaned your face against Geralt's chest he stroked your hair back kissing your neck

"So good omega... I'm so proud of you...Shes perfect...And healthy.... you've made me so happy" he was whispering into your ear but you couldn't make sense of his words . You was enraptured with your daughter, she was perfect you moved to hold her. Jaskier quickly placed her in your waiting arms as her cries died down then moved to the water bowl holding it out for Geralt who took the cloth wringing it out then began wiping her cherub face gently. She opened her eyes slowly unfocused eyes glancing here and there as you moved your dress wanting to feed her. You wasn't sure how but you managed to get her to latch quickly. Geralt nodded happy that she was feeding.

"I-I'm sorry for earlier.... I don't know what happened but it will never happen again" his words were stern controlled as he glanced at his family. Never again. you looked from your pup to Geralt then Jaskier there was a somber air that fell across you.

"You better start thinking of names. I don't have any I thought I had months still" you said dismissively. They looked at one another. Then you

"Who?" you smiled at Jaskier's small question

"Well my father named me and my siblings, so I thought it right for her fathers to name her so you best agree." the statement was designed to show exactly where you stood on the family dynamics for your child. Geralt looked stumped.

"But she is Jaskier's he should-" you shook your head at him

"No she is ours yours, mine and Jaskier's , she wouldn't be here if you hadn't allowed Jaskier to help. And if I remember correctly you held him still each time." they both scoffed before discussing names as you looked back down to the baby as she closed her eyes still latched on unaware of just how protected and cherished she was.

Taglist @havenoffandoms @ayamenimthiriel

#geralt of rivia imagine #geralt imagine #geralt x jaskier x reader #witcher geralt #geralt x y/n #geralt x you #geralt x reader #witcher fic #witcher fanfiction #witcher imagine

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