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casewonnie · 11 days ago

Text

For books and all - Park Sunghoon

Pairing: Park Sunghoon x fem!reader

Summary: the day arrives where one of your favorite book series gets another part of the series and you can't wait to go and get a copy. little did you know it wouldn't be as easy as you think

Genre: dislike to friends, fluff, attempt at humor, chaotic?, talk of books, i dont know how to promote this it came to me in a vision

Warnings: none really, nothing explicit just mild swearing, oh and nonsensical insults, i am cringe but i am free, sunghoon is weird, y/n is weird, both of them have mild anger issues, sunoo is sassy, he also gets dragged and tickled, all of enha are here of course <3 i put the hunger games as the chosen book but you can imagine whatever

Word count: 5.2k

a/n: Hello! First of all, my writing debut wow. Second, thank you for being here and choosing to read my au. I decided to get back into writing, and this is my first ever fic that I finish and actually leaves the vault. I didn't know how to do the text messages so I just left them. If it sucks I apologise it was not beta-read, english is not my first language and I haven't written in a while but I really hope it's not too bad. I also didn't proof read the whole thing. I'm kind of scared to post this.

Sunghoon being chosen for this random prompt was purely based on the fact that I would love to fight him (affectionately, positively)

Any constructive criticism or praise is greatly appreciated. I love interactions.

ENOUGH WITH THE YAP LET'S BEGIN

>The day before the incident<

“Do you know who I love the most?” Niki, the youngest of Sunghoon’s friend group barged in his room all smiles and bright energy.

“How’d you get in, the apartment was locked.” Sunghoon lived with the rest of his friend group who were currently out and about with him enjoying the peace and quiet, well, up until a minute ago... As the youngest, Niki was still living with his family but he stayed over and hung out with them more times than he can count. This wasn’t a complaint, they all loved him like their own little brother, what concerned him is that he was fairly certain Niki didn’t have a spare key to the apartment and the door was definitely locked, so he had no idea how he got in.

“You! I love you the most! Also, don’t worry about it I have my ways.” Niki dismissed him like he asked a banal question.

“That is terrifying?” he replied.

“Anyways, my dear Hoonie, do you know how much I appreciate and look up to you as an older brother?” oh no. Niki was a sweet and thoughtful kid, wrapped in like a... dark, emo-looking exterior that wasn’t fooling anyone, but when he was this sweet, it usually meant he wanted something... “Okay now I’m really scared. You’re not gonna make me like, do something illegal... are you?”

Niki let out a laugh. “Don't be ridiculous... I just need a favor.” he assured him. “So... you know the hunger games, right?”

“You mean one of the most famous book series and movie franchise? Yeah, I’m familiar.” Sunghoon deadpanned.

“The newest book comes out tomorrow, and I need you to go to the store and get me a copy. I have the money and everything I just can’t go because I have a class in the morning. I asked the others but Heeseung and Jake apparently had some math project to finish and Jungwon said he was supposed to go to a... dora the explorer convention...”

Sunghoon scrunched his face in confusion, not even wanting to comment on that last one, and then he realized something. “Wait, wait, wait a second... I wasn’t the first person you asked, not even second, but fourth!? What’s up with that?”

“Oh, well umm, I just didn’t think you’d be up for it that’s all.” Niki didn’t think it would be a big deal to Sunghoon but seems like he was wrong.

“Of course I’m up for it! I’m wayy up... I’m flying with the birds! I’ve basically turned into a satellite.” Sunghoon tried not to sound offended by his friends’ statement but it may not sound as convincing as he thought. “Whatever!”

Niki hadn’t said a word, he just kind of stood there with his hand on his mouth, slightly frozen as if his friend would turn him into a shish kebab if he moved.

Sunghoon got up from where he was laying on his bed to stand in front of Niki, he put his hands on the others’ shoulders and looked him in the eyes, Niki tilting his head backwards now, wondering what he got himself into. “Don’t you worry about a damn thing! I’ll make sure I get you that book. Even if it’s the last thing I do.” he finished the last sentence by shaking the other man back and forth. “I’ll go get it right now!”

Sunghoon let go and sprinted out of the room as fast as he could, Niki snapped out of the weird trance and realized what was happening. “Sunghoon where are you going?! The book comes out tomorrow!” he ran after him out of the apartment and into the hallway but couldn’t see his friend. “I haven’t even shown you how the book looks like!” he tried but just ended up yelling into an empty hallway.

“Man, what the hell...” he whispered to himself lightly rubbing the back of his head, huffed and put his hands on his hips awkwardly. “He’s so odd.” he said and went back inside.

>Day of the incident<

This was it. Today was the big day. You have been anticipating this for almost a year and in just a few hours you will get your hands on what would be your most prized possession, because later today comes out the second prequel to one of your favorite book series. You haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since the news came out, and you even decided to re-read all the previous books and rewatch all the movies. You made a whole event out of it and watched the movies together with your friends Sunoo and Jay, who were big fans as well, maybe not on the same level as you... you had the tendency to get a little too obsessed with certain things... but hey, at least they were supportive. Anyways, the whole thing made you even more excited for the release, which is why you were currently sweating out of your eyeballs trying to think of anything else that will calm you down.

“Oh god I really need to relax.” you said to yourself out loud, even though you were currently alone in your room because to your disdain, both your roommates had their respective uni classes that morning. Wondering if you should text the group chat anyway, not wanting to bother them, you made yourself some food, got a glass of water and sat down to eat before you started getting ready and decided to message your friends.

>text messages<

Y/N: GUYS... IM REALLY NERVOUS PLS HELP ME

Y/N: ignore this if you’re in class

Jay: Is this about the book that comes out later

Jay: Also we have like an hour break rn

Sunoo: oh my god get a LIFE

Y/N: WHAT THE FUCK SUNOO

Y/N: and yes my dearest and only friend jay... it is

Jay: It’s going to be fine don’t worry about it! You’ll get a copy

Sunoo: this is what having only two friends does to you

Y/N: STOPPP WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

Y/N: yk what i see how it is

Jay: Hey come on now you two

Jay: Let’s all love each other <3

Y/N: Sunoo you’ve just lost all your privileges and are now demoted to “some guy i live with”. from now on you may refer me to Miss Awesome-Sauce or M’lady

Sunoo: NEVER say awesome sauce again

Jay: You should’ve gone with pumpkin spice

Y/N: what?

Sunoo: and also what privileges lmaoooo

Sunoo: if its your weekly concerts then im not really at a loss am i

Y/N: im revoking your... “can i borrow the book” privilege :)

Y/N: *mic drop*

Jay: GASP

Jay: oh no she didn’t

Sunoo: ....

Sunoo: Listen...

Sunoo: My dear, lovely Y/N, my best friend, light of my life, the moon to my sun

Sunoo: the palm to my tree

Sunoo: the swimming to my pool

Jay: I have never heard anyone say those...

Sunoo: the lip to my stick

Jay: HELLO???”@#@$%

Y/N: I feel uncomfortable...

Sunoo: I have made a grave mistake and from now on I’ll think about my words and how they can affect people. I will take time off of social media to deeply reflect on myself.

Sunoo: *sends a selfie*

Sunoo: Me self-reflecting

Jay: NOT THE LEE MINHO REF

Y/N: omg who is this DIVA

Y/N: okay you’re forgiven but only because you’re cute

Sunoo: I know <3

>end of text messages<

You turned off your phone now that you’ve calmed down a bit due to you and your friends’ goofy antics. You looked at the clock and realized you had just over 3 hours to properly get ready, catch the bus to go to your nearest bookstore and be there at least 30 minutes before they stock up on the books. You haven’t done math this much since graduating high school. The next question was what to wear.... I mean it was kind of a special occasion, right? If you could say that. Man, maybe Sunoo was right, you did need to make more friends... Whatever! Now was not the time for that.

You got ready and got to the bus station 10 minutes early just in case. The ride there was calm with no incidents with you listening to your playlist with songs you loved lately. It was just before 10:30am when you arrived but when you got to the bookstore it was surprisingly... empty. Too empty. Something was wrong.

Never in your life have you seen the bookstore so free of life before, with a just a couple of customers roaming around. You looked around for the table with new releases and just as you saw it you noticed that, that too... was free of books... umm... okay so they might just have not taken them out yet, that must be it. You asked the bookseller at the cash register and she kindly informed you that the book was in fact, ahem... sold out.

Your jaw dropped. “There’s no way, you must have some copies left.” you had to make sure you understood right and that this wasn’t a case of miscommunication. “I’m so sorry, we had to open an hour early today and everyone just got here after that. It sold out in like 20 minutes.” the cashier spoke with a little smile, her eyebrows scrunched as if she was looking at a hurt puppy.

“Can you please check your stock again? Or if I can make an early order if you receive a new batch soon?” you tried the only thing you can think of. Luckily the lady was nice and let you leave your phone number, marked down your order and told you she’ll give you a call if they have a copy left or get new ones.

“Thank you so much!” oh dear, that wasn’t your plan in the slightest. It’s alright though! You weren’t going to lose hope but you still wanted to search the store just in case there was another copy on the loose, maybe it was hidden somewhere, misplaced, mixed up with the others, in another genre section, you get it.

Looking thoroughly on the shelves where it could be sorted by genre was to no avail, so the only option left was to roam around and quite possibly stumble upon it, I mean if it’s meant to be it will find you. Something about not chasing but attracting it instead. Yeah, that could work, delusion was the best motivator in this case.

You got to the “thriller” section just as you noticed a book on one of the shelves, well you saw the spine to be exact, with a similar color scheme to the one you were searching for and gasped. Okay Y/N, calm down, maybe it’s not that one, don’t get your hopes up too high now, was your initial thought, but as you got closer to it, the book became all the more familiar. Could this really be it? Huh, maybe you weren’t surrounded by misfortunes and the universe granted you a lucky break. It took everything in you not to scream out loud or jump around in excitement but instead you walked normally to the shelf, the second you grabbed the lower half of the book to pull it, another hand landed on the top half of it. Oh you must be joking right now...

You turned to the stranger who was trying to get between you and the most important thing in your life right now, a fictional world... still important nonetheless. It surprised you to see that the person next to you was probably the most handsome man you’ve ever laid your eyes upon. He looked like he was your age and was fairly taller than you, with jet black hair, dressed in casual clothes and a face that could launch fifty spaceships into the orbit. Okay you didn’t really know how to explain it but the point still stands. He had a few moles on his face, the prettiest eyes and eyebrows that seemed like they were drawn by a single stroke of an artists’ brush, which made him even more gorgeous. If that was possible.

“Hi there.” he spoke after a few seconds.

“Hello.” you replied confidently not wanting to back down even a bit because realistically, you knew what was about to go down. “Looks like we reached for the same book.” you added.

“Yeah, seems so.” he answered cockily both of your hands tightly holding the book, you could tell he was a stubborn one and it pissed you off, this was not going to be easy...

“Are you sure you aren’t lost? The self-help section is over by the entrance.” you tried to rile him up and pointed in the direction behind him but he didn’t even blink. Instead, he just turned fully in your direction, hand still firmly on the book.

“Nope. This is the book I was looking for.” you were expecting a snarky comeback that never came and instead he got closer, towering over you just enough for you to feel a teeny-tiny bit intimated. “This is the only copy left and I’m not leaving this store without it darling.” his voice was sweet and tender but his words weren’t. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“Your bogus charm won’t work on me.” as if you’d let a man deceive you with such cheap tricks. You sighed. “Alright, how about this. We both put the book on that table over there...” you pointed to the small seating area behind you, near the windows “...and then we have a calm, rational talk on who should have it, okay? What’s your name?”

The guy studied you for a bit, unsure on whether he should trust you or not. After a moment he released a long breath and let go of the book, you pulled it out of its place on the shelf, got over to the table and placed it down. “It’s Sunghoon by the way.” he said quietly.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Sunghoon.” he repeated.

“Oh.” pretty name, you thought. “I’m Y/N.” it was only fair to let him know yours too.

“So... how will we decide this?” he continued the conversation. You thought about it but nothing really came to mind. “Umm… maybe we could list of our reasons and whoever has a better reason wins?”

Sunghoon opened his mouth in an attempt to speak but you interrupted him instead. “I’ll start first,” you said without letting him have a word in, you did him dirty but this was not the time to play nice. Your life depended on it, or more like... a couple of hours of enjoyment.

“My reason is that I really like the series and want to read it.” you continued.

“Right. Well, I promised a dear friend of mine that I’ll get it for him because he couldn’t come.” damn him, that was an infinitely better reason, why did he have to be so selfless.

“How do I know you’re not lying? I mean at least I gave an honest reason.” you didn’t know why you just said that but in all honestly it was the only way you could’ve stalled this until, well... whatever you planned to do, but you had to think of something first.

“Are you kidding me?” you could tell he was getting more annoyed by the minute and you decided to push it further. God why were you like this.

“I mean… I just want to make sure we’re both being a hundred percent transparent with each other. Is there even a “friend” you’re helping?” oh yeah he definitely bought that.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing. Your reason sucked compared to mine so now you’re just trying to slither your way through an excuse. Well it’s not going to work, so you can stop with the air quotes.” Sunghoon was getting really tired of your shit and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna go down without a fight.

“Slither my way through? What does that even mean?! And my reason doesn’t suck. It's just as valid as yours but I'm making sure the copy is not going to waste and that your “friend" actually appreciates the story.” maybe it would’ve been a better idea to be more... civil, but something about him made you want to keep pushing his buttons and he was no better either so you didn’t really feel guilty.

“Hey! My best friend Niki, who is very much real, has been a fan of this series since the first book came out, so this copy is basically his birth right and there’s no way I’ll let some sea urchin have it!” Sunghoon was, let’s say a bit surprised at his own tone, he wasn’t the type of person to just have beef with random strangers over silly things, but I guess he was just feeling protective over Niki and wanted to win this for him.

“A... a sea urchin?! How dare you, you... potato peeler...” way to call someone names.

Sunghoon gasped as he clutched his chest.

“I’ve been a fan for a whole YEAR, your friends’ love for it has been on stand-by, okay? Mine is fresh in my memory and if I don’t read that book immediately, I’m going to explode.” You emphasized with your hands.

“Well gosh darn that’s just awful, what will the world do without a life ruining angry kitten like you.” he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

“Oh real funny Mr. Probably wears coats all the time.” in your defense he did seem like a coat guy.

“Wow you got me... I’m so embarrassed, you carrot muffin.” yeah let’s go with that, he thought.

“What did you just call me?!”

“You heard me!”

“Screw you, pencil biter!” you were starting to get sick of this pointless “battle” so it was the best you could come up with.

“Bet you like plain pasta, don’t you?” he put his hands on his hips.

Sunghoon scoffed but then noticed the way your face sank at the last “insult”. There’s no way you actually got offended from that, is there? Maybe it was a touchy subject for you... dang it, how could he have been so stupid. What was going on with him today, this whole thing was so stupid, he didn't actually want to offend you... aaand great now he felt bad...

“Hey look, I’m sorry, I didn’t actually mean what I said, it’s just the first thing that popped into my mind. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.” you were standing very still while awkwardly fiddling with your hands looking anywhere but at him and frankly, he didn’t know what else to do.

“It’s not like I always eat it plain, you know.” you spoke softly and sighed. “My friends make fun of me for it so it’s a bit of a touchy subject but...it’s just so good! If you make it right, cook it for long enough and then... leave a bit of the uhh... left-over pasta flavored water. It’s amazing.” you were scrambling for words which at this point made it 10 times weirder than it was.

Sunghoon nodded while listening intently. “I know, I know. Forget your friends, you eat pasta however you want to! Don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong, okay? If you want to eat it plain then do that, who cares...” you still had your head down and after some internal debating and awkward back and forth hand movement, Sunghoon reached his hand and pat your head a few times with a soft “There, there. It’ll be okay.”

You feel like your eyes bulged out of the pop sockets from the shock of feeling his hand on your head. Was he... comforting you? Never mind the weird air around you both and the weight of his gaze on you, it was... warm and tender.

In Sunghoon’s case however, he didn’t know what he was saying nor why he just patted you head but at this point he would’ve done anything to stop you from sulking and bring back that insane fiery energy of yours from before and... wait a minute. Why was he thinking all this and why did he even care? Oh god he was going mad... he hadn’t thought any of this trough.

At that moment, you slowly raised your head and looked at him with a small smile on your face, thanked him and... okay he was definitely going insane because he just found you so cute, he felt like a butterfly gave birth to a million small butterflies in his stomach...or was it the gut? Either way, this was not good, he needed to get his head out of the clouds and remember what his objective was.

“Okay! Enough with the dilly-dallying!” you exclaimed, stopping his train of thought but the complete 180 change from arguing to whatever the other thing was to arguing again was going to give him a migraine.

“We need to settle this once and for all. And I’m afraid there’s only one way to do it...”

Sunghoon nodded. “A sword fight!” he declared.

You stopped for a second to scowl at him. “What? No. Where would we find swords, although I would love that, it always seemed really fun on tv. I was thinking more of like rock, paper, scissors?”

“Okay, yeah, that’s way more doable.” he straightened his posture and squeezed his hand into a fist “Let’s settle this once and for all.”

“Ready? Rock, paper, scissors, sho-”

“Excuse me?...” Before you were able to throw the hand signs, a lady came up to you. “May I ask if you need any help, is there a specific book you’re looking for? Maybe I can help you look for it?” she had a nametag on her shirt and you could make out a small ‘Louise’ so you figured she was one of the store sellers.

Sunghoon spoke first “Oh no ma’am. Thank you very much for offering, but we were just about to decide who gets to have this book...” He turned to show the book where they last left it on the table next to them, only to realize it wasn’t there. Both of their jaws dropped in disbelief.

“It’s... gone.” You looked up right at the register as another girl about their age was checking out, the same book she had in her hands just a few minutes ago... The girl turned away from the counter, now with the book in a tiny bag heading towards the exit. As she opened the door, she turned back to them and gave them a snarky smile and wriggled her fingers in a wave and exited the store.

“Oh, that little...” You were about to head in her direction but Sunghoon grabbed your shoulders and stopped you from doing something stupid.

“Alright~ Let’s calm down a bit. She already bought it, there’s nothing you can do. We should’ve paid more attention to our surroundings. It’s over let’s just leave it.”

“You’re right. How are you more clear-headed than me? It’s odd.”

“I have my strong points.” he flashed a grin in your direction and you froze for a second. Wow his smile was so... gorgeous. How can someone be this good looking... it wasn’t fair to anyone. You turned to the woman before she witnessed any more stupid shenanigans, thanked her and exited the store with Sunghoon following behind.

“Hey, can we both agree that this entire morning and everything that happened in there was genuinely insane and definitely not something we should be fighting over?” you said once you were both out on the sidewalk. The sun was peeking out through some clouds so it was still quite cold, the streets were busy with cars and people going on about their day.

“Yeah, I mean, it does seem quite silly now, doesn’t it?” he laughed, leaving a big goofy grin on his face. “I guess this means we’re friends now?” he added, looking at you with anticipation. Well that was new, you weren’t expecting that, especially not from him but hey, what the hell.

“I guess so.” you nodded, smiling back at him and extended your hand for a handshake which he gladly accepted and shook it with his own.

It got quiet and after a few seconds you asked “So... what do we do now?”

“Umm...” he answered which gave you the impression that he probably didn’t know either “If you want, we can go hangout at my apartment, it’s close by, maybe we can have some of that plain pasta. And don’t worry I have roommates and you can invite your friends over. Niki will be there because, one, I want you to know that he’s real” you rolled your eyes “and two, since he’s a big fan of the series you’ll probably get along well.”

NEVER go to a complete strangers house or invite one over, stay safe please <3

“Okay. Yeah sure, why not. I’ll call my friends we can go together once they get here.” you knew their class had already ended so you texted Sunoo and Jay to come to a nearby cafe since you made plans with Sunghoon to wait for them there and chat in the meantime until you headed to the original hang-out location.

When the four of you got there you got greeted by 3 of Sunghoon friends which you found out were Jungwon, Jake and Niki who, to your surprise ended up being very real and for the next 5 minutes you didn’t hear the end of it from Sunghoon, meaning you were bombarded with a bunch of attacks like “See? I told you he exists.” or “I can’t believe you’d think I’d lie about having friends, how low do you think of me?” to which your answers were either intense eye rolls or random outbursts of “Okay! I get it! Stop bothering me!”

Once you filled everyone in on your...disagreement and everything from the moment you and Sunghoon met that led to you becoming friends of some sort, which to be fair, was very silly everyone fell into a comfortable small talk, slowly getting to know each other.

Sunghoon was right about you getting along with the youngest, about whom you found out later on, that Niki was just a combination of his last and first name and his actual name was Riki. Your main topics of conversations being, of course, the hunger games but also the pain of not managing to get your hands on a copy of the newest book. Call that a tragic inconvenience bonding.

Jay and Sunoo seemed to be getting along well with the others considering that for the past 15 minutes Jungwon explained, in great detail, all about his time at the dora the explorer convention and then dragged off Sunoo into the kitchen to show him his favorite episodes of the show. Jay bonded with Sunghoon and Jake over all three of them being born in the same year, called it fate that they met and something about soulmatism or whatever... they ended up putting their birth times into an astrology calculator to see if they, in Jake’s words, “match each other's freak”.

As Niki stood up from the couch and into the kitchen with Sunoo and Jungwon, the space next to Y/N was free for just a few seconds before Sunghoon decided to take it up.

“So...I think everything is going well. Heesung said he’d be back soon, said he was on some side quest. Are you having fun?” he asked expectantly.

“Yeah, your friends are really cool, I really like them. And I’m glad the guys are getting along.” a high-pitched scream came from the kitchen the moment you said that, both your heads turning in the direction of the scream just in time to see Sunoo getting dragged by both Niki and Jungwon, followed by a bunch of cackles. You could see them trying to tickle Sunoo which forced him to get on the floor in an armadillo position, a surprised expression landing on your face.

“Will he be okay or should I intervene?” Sunghoon asked, voice drowned in concern.

“Oh don’t worry about Sunoo, he may not look like it but he can fend for himself if he wants to.” you said dismissively and Sunghoon mumbled an “alright then”, still a bit worried because he knew how his friends could be, but listened to you anyway.

“You know, I’m kind of glad all the books were sold out, otherwise we might’ve never met. I got to be honest, you’re completely insane but it’s been a while since I’ve gotten into an argument with a stranger over a banal reason. It was honestly refreshing.” Sunghoon’s rambling was honestly so cute you didn’t even mind he called you crazy, and by the way he said it so excitedly and joyfully, you were sure he meant that as a compliment, and you didn’t mind it.

“Aww, thanks. I think you’re pretty insane too, if it’s under any consolation.” the two of you fell into a bit of small talk, giggling and laughing over something the other one has said, getting along quite well, that is until Heeseung showed up.

“Guys! I’m back and you’ll never believe what I found.” the guy you guessed was Heeseung, based on the single blurry picture Jungwon showed you, burst into the apartment without a care that, what was once his home, was now a chaos playground full of adult children running around and screaming. “Look what I got at a discount in a random mini market.” both you and Sunghoon stared in disbelief, eyes bulged out and jaws down to the floor as Heeseung pulled out a brand-new copy of the hunger games book you spent the whole morning fighting over. “Oh no.” mumbled Sunoo once he noticed what was happening.

“It’s mine!” Sunghoon and you burst out simultaneously, turning to look at each other to once again continue your squabble from before your friends arc. The others now going over to Heeseung to see what the fuss was all about before collectively groaning in understanding.

“Do you think Sunghoon remembers he went to get the book for Niki and not himself?” asked Jake, crossing his arms.

“I didn’t know it was gonna cause this much drama or I would’ve just stayed silent.” Heeseung put the book back in his bag, now clearly worried about the damage he accidentally caused.

“Knowing Y/N, she will stop at nothing to win this, since she basically let him off the hook earlier.” Jay joined in.

“Umm,” Niki began a bit unsure of himself. “Does anyone wanna leave them at it and go get coffee or something?”

“Sure.” Sunoo said without a second thought.

“Oh! I know this cafe nearby that just opened up it’s really cute and has a bunch of delicious looking pastries, if you guys are up for it.” suggested Jake, already on his way to put on his shoes and went out on his own.

“Well I guess we’re going either way. Let’s go everyone, we’ll text them when we get there. I wonder how long it takes them to notice they’ve been abandoned.” Jungwon giggled sneakily pushing the others out the door and closed it, the faint sound of muffled voices still audible from the hallway slowly disappearing as the boys went on with their mission, leaving the two angry penguins to fend for themselves.

-the end- hope you enjoyed :)

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multiplicity-positivity · 8 months ago

Note

hi uh i could use some advice :<

im a host of a recent system of 20-ish and guh i am t i r e d

im mainly looking for advice on how to switch or just retreat into the headspace/leave front or even just kinda stop being fully aware while still being in front for awhile bc id rlly like to take a break and the realization that im most likely front attracted/frontstuck is kinda making me more tired of being in front

also if it helps at all my(&) system is parogenic + traumagenic in origin (specifically parotraumagenic) and theres kinda iffy communication between members (some of them i have clear communication with and they randomly pop up to say stuff, some i have no idea where they are and some of them i can usually only hear when im directly interacting with them).

afaik (as far as i know) only three?? ppl have rlly "fronted" per se, and the rest have been co-con

i apologize for the long and mildly depressing ask but any help is appreciated also dont forget to hydrate

Hello! We have some posts that might help you that we’d like to share if that’s okay. The first is a post we wrote a while back with some tips on switching from our own experience:

We’d also like to share this post by @rin-and-jade on being frontstuck or frontlocked, and how to go about unsticking yourself!

Our own system host (Parker) is almost always fronting to some extent. It can certainly be exhausting and disheartening fronting nonstop, especially when other members of your system can seemingly come and go as they please. He’s going to put some info under a cut for how he copes with fronting constantly, in case you want some advice on coping with being genuinely unable to switch out!

We hope something here will be helpful for you! We’re wishing you the best of luck with switching out or at least learning how best to cope with fronting in your future!

(Host here - I’ll just write this bit if thats okay. Anyway here’s some stuff I do to deal with The Horrors of perpetual existence)

Meditation

Taking a few moments to sit in comfortable silence can be useful for me when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed or straight up exhausted. Here’s how I meditate (I’m no expert and I’m sure there’s better ways to do this… this is just what I do)

- get in a comfortable position in a quiet place where I’m not likely to be disturbed

- set a timer on my phone for 5 minutes

- close my eyes, focus on my breathing

- don’t dwell on any thoughts but also don’t push them away; acknowledge them and let them go

- try to stay still and calm until my timer goes off

And that’s it. Sometimes I get interrupted by an alter or something outside, but for the most part, this is how I’ve been able to meditate effectively.

Rest

I take naps whenever I can. I sit down whenever I can. I’ll literally just close my eyes for a few minutes whenever I can. Our body has issues with chronic fatigue, and fronting constantly can sometimes exacerbate our exhaustion. So yeah I am a huge fan of naps and will often set a timer for like 15-20 minutes and snooze whenever the opportunity arises. Even just lying down with closed eyes can help replenish some energy.

Distractions

Reading, watching something on TV, or playing video games can help give me somewhat of a break even if I’m still fronting. I do tend to try and keep us distracted as much as possible… sometimes to our own detriment. But if you find that you really aren’t ever able to switch out, or if your system is specutien and that’s just the way your system functions, finding things you enjoy that can serve as distractions may help you as well.

Saying No

This one’s tough, but I’m trying to learn to say no when I’m overwhelmed or have too much on my plate. This means sometimes I’ll cancel plans, hand off a responsibility, make a compromise, or turn down an opportunity if I don’t have the energy for it.

Honestly idk how much my addition can help you, but if you find that you’re not ever able to switch out at all please know there’s other folks out there in similar positions. Hoping you can make the most of your situation, anon /genuine

#switching #fronting #frontstuck #leaving the front #specutien

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kel-lance · 5 months ago

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JJK Mafia Au (JJK x Reader) PART 5

Warnings:

- TW: Dead dove dont read (DDDR) Minors do not interact (MDNI): SA, Physical Assault, DubCon, NonCon, Mindbreak, Public Humiliation, Breeding, Ownership, Gaslighting, Multiple manipulation, RWORD, PTSD, a lot more toxic sh.

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AN: It’s my birthday! And I think this is my favorite chapter so far.

I hate to ask though I’m still struggling with the unemployment (got fired from a big bank bc of protesting months ago), the gov rn is holding my weekly needs so I’m about to get evicted next month. If you could donate anything I’d really really appreciate it 😥😥 I had to give away two of my cats already and I’m heartbroken abt it but they’ll have better homes at least. Thanks for reading.

PayPal: appleg0d Cashapp-$taa10t Venmo- taakt17

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“Hey aren’t you supposed to be watching me or something?” You tailed behind this silver haired twink and wondered if he was taking his mission seriously. Was he not afraid of Gojo? Did you get raped by /another/ lowley member of society?

He ignores you and keeps walking down the hall. You stop and wonder if he’ll notice if you were gone. Maybe he was hoping on it, but then you would be out in the open. It may not be such a big deal if it were just a few days ago, but this huge mess was someone's fault, and it couldn’t be yours, could it?

He turns the corner and you swear you saw him glare at you before disappearing. You were now left alone in this large walkway. What the fuck do you do? Before you were fine, you lived for years on your own, but right now you needed someone to tell you what to do.

What the hell was going on? This was “just mafia life”? Or generally being reduced down to just a woman? You backed into the wall and let yourself think for once, while everything was happening, you turned your brain off to survive. Would the days worth of torture and change be too much for you?

You didn’t have to think about that before. Maybe once or twice, but that was when you knew the Gojo and Zenin gangs’ turf. You don’t remember if you’ve seen any of them before, while living normally. Of course most of them looked like anyone else. Without their faces of death, they just looked like regular people.

“What are you doing all alone?” Your eyes shot toward the direction of the new voice. It was pretty, almost melodic as it bounced around the empty hall.

A young man walks towards you, his presence almost indescribable. His smile and looming height were welcoming, but his eyes and dark features, you could read them well. You almost wished Inumaki hadn’t ditched, though you couldn't tell if he could save you from this new character.

“?” He stops in front of you, crossing his arms, still smiling. “I asked you a question.” Fixing his stance, he trapped you by leaning in, as you hadn’t left your spot against the cold wall.

“What? Have you been hanging around Inumaki or something?” He grabs hold of your face, pulling it up, forcing your attention to him. “Speak.” He smiled.

You were tired of this, grabbing back at his arm, you really tried to pull it off of you. Strength would be an issue, but you knew how to use the rest of your body. Jumping up, your wrap your legs around his waist, taking this as a chance to catch him by surprise, hopefully with your weight you were hoping to throw him off his feet. Sadly, you wouldn’t get further than this, as the risky move really costed you.

The dude held you at the waist, locking you in with his grip. His face annoyed, or was it more bored? What was with these guys/ How do they just do this for fun?? You freeze again, you could feel it. “No,” You say. “Please I’m so tired.”

He only looks at you, fear set in deep in your chest though you still didn’t know who this weirdo was. He was as scary as if you knew who Sukuna was in that alley. Exactly who he was and knew what he and did to you. The bulge in his pants getting bigger as you trashed trying to get away, but he just pushed you further into his core.

“My cousin? He didn’t even mean it.” He closes the gap between you two, pressing your chests together, one hand holding you up just by your ass, the other on your back keeping you close, your heartbeat uncontrollable now. “Ill show you what yearning’s really like.” And with that he starts to walk, bringing you back to the living quarters, finding your new/designated room.

“I’ve probably known you longer than any of these idiots, and you let my cousin get to you...” His sweet voice gave the same tone as a knife being sharpened. “When I knew you first.” Your eyebrows furrowed.

“You can think long and hard, but I remember what happened to you 2 years ago. And what about what happened 5 years ago, and I have to mention how cute you looked in glasses.” You sank into yourself, your entire being wanted to disappear. He knew? How did he know? You haven’t worn glasses since high school. And those events, no one would ever have been able to know about.

He brings you to the bed and keeps a hand on you, holding you down with just his hips to yours. God you couldn't do it again. Everything hurt, seriously youd wish they'd be able to knock you out and just let you deal with their mess after, but you knew he wasn’t gonna be merciful with you.

His grip hurt. It’s like he was a spoiled child told to wait, and now that he has his present and he just couldn’t wait to tear it apart. The more you squirmed, the more strength he applied. Pinning you further into the bed, and everytime youd move away from his sloppy desperate kisses, he’d actually create a fist and hit you in the face, making it easier for him to continue. You noticed he was getting angry around the 5th hit, “How could you let Gojo so easily when I wanted you first?!”

The door opens and Inumaki walks in. “Toge help!” You tried. At this point your lip and nose were bleeding. Your head was pounding with the way he was just playing with you, strangling you for a few seconds and then kissing you everywhere, praising you for the noises you made. The next few could’ve knocked you out so he had resorted to punching at your arms and legs, adding pain to every movement you could manage after the breath play.

“Don’t be such a whore.” He kept you pinned to the bed. “You don’t have to worry about him, he’s been keeping watch.” Your tears flowed into the bed, you couldn’t take this anymore. How many people were just going to use you or watch? It could /always/ be worse you thought. They could be doing a lot worse, but the inconsideration to your liveliness was killing you. The freedom you made for yourself was taken just because a man said so. You were more than frustrated, it was enough to let go of the mans arms finally, though your vision blurred through your tears, you could tell he was smiling at you.

“What’s wrong dove, have you finally figured out what you are?”

You look away, your eyes finding Toge’s. His purple irises shifted to the floor, not trying to look at you. He looked more upset than annoyed. Almost like he knew he couldn’t do anything to help anyway, he had no control over his friend. You just wished someone could stop all this already.

“Good thing he’s here, huh, or else something bad could happen to you.” He laughs and tells the other man to bring the rope, you’re a scratcher. If anything, he’s also seen what you’ve done to others who’ve underestimated you.

You give little resistance, knowing they’re not afraid to rough you up more to continue. ‘Skinny’ bound your hands together, and sits you at the head of the bed, holding your arms above your head. He was sitting up while having your head and upper body laying on his lap.

Not even a second later your clothes were around your ankles, and pulled above your chest. You were fully exposed, you try to pull your knees together. What actually made you give up was how silent they got. They weren’t taunting you right now and that terrified you, that they had a plan and seemed like they were sticking to it. At that point you just let them do whatever they wanted as the other stared with anticipation.

Yuta couldn’t wait anymore, the sight of you already had him eager. He’s waited years for you, staying low, continuing his mind games as his world didn’t agree with taking in outsiders, he could only work around you to learn about you, and who knows when this obsession started. His hands were all over you, grabbing, pulling, pinning, hitting you all over to let you feel the yearning he had for you.

"Ugh, seriously..." You were better than he thought. He growls under his breath, biting onto his finger, trying to hold himself back. Toge held your arms and torso down, more so held you in place as Yuta’s big hands laid another assault on your bare ass. He gives you no warning and aligns his pulled out tip to your hole and slowly shoves the head in.

Staying like that for a moment you were terrified if he was going to start going crazy on you. This position especially was going to hurt if he can’t put you in correct bindings already, your wrists hurt, your face hurt, you were about to hurt was all they were telling you.

“Hey, why haven’t you ever noticed me?”

“Answer him.”

“I just met you today, I don’t know you.” The words just flew out your mouth. That gave you no time as he shoved himself a tiny bit more inside, heightening the fear and pit in your stomach he was starting to reach.

“Why did it take this long for you to be under me?” “What took you so long?” It felt like he was growing bigger inside you.

“Answer him.”

“I don’t know you!” You could feel yourself squeezing around him.

His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to keep his composure. He almost busted from just the look you had but the extra pressure just made him want to start trusting and never stop. Instead he had to hold it together, just a little longer… “You know my girlfriend hates you. She’s someone who gets jealous over anything. “

He leans closer, picking up your chin to face him as he devours you with his eyes. “She waits for me everyday while I think about you. It was at first sight.”

“Hey, what do you think of me?” His eyes almost lit up as he asked that. “Hey, look at me.” You really just wanted them to get it over with already. This is dragging out so much longer it feels even worse than being at Sukuna’s weird mansion quarters or whatever it was.

“I told her you were just some bitch. I couldn’t care less about some stupid slut who lived on the streets.” His breathing and heart beat were quickening, hopefully this would be over. “I had to lie every time just to keep you close. It was to shut her up, bc your existence drives us both crazy.”

His drawn out sigh and uncontrollable convulsions came quick. He hadn’t even put the whole thing in. Wait that wasn’t the whole thing?? You look down and Jesus Christ it was half.

From this angle you must’ve been your tightest. At least you knew it made everything feel bigger, or was it just so close to your sweet spot that your body spawned back a bit, bucking into his release. “Hm?” He gave you a smile, “What was that just now? Did you just try to fuck me back?” He comes faces to face with you as he’s still releasing, giving you an awful smirk before kissing you again.

He was large alright, but not like the men in their 30’s. You swear after a certain age their dicks start to gain weight. The quiet one gently shoves Yuta’s upper body off yours so he could flip you, having you face his hard on directly. His dark haired friend loves the sight and says, “Suck him off, whore.” He pushes his hips fully into yours, connecting you three. He’d pushed your head down, having you throat his friend so far,your entire face was smothered by his hot skin.

He pulls you up and hisses, his whole body lightly twitching. Yuta groans, pushing your head back down on him as he rammed into you from behind. He was the only one moving all of you, creating a rough motion to pleasure everyone at the same time. If it were under different circumstances this would be so fun and hot, but you’ve read about the last few chapters, thank god it’s a fantasy. “This is just a fantasy.”

Your loud moans vibrate around his cock, driving him wild. His grip on your hair tightening as each fit drove you back into him. The other one grabs at your legs, pulling out and flipping you over, fully letting his partner come into you. God it was a sight, but the dark haired man didn’t flip you over just for that.

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- then toge leaves to stand watch outside and god you were actually scared of yuta.

- he was as cruel as toji but disconnected as choso, there wasn’t even a reason for this he just knew he could so he did. He was merciless, you felt like you were about to pass out multiple times until he hit you back to life.

- he started to get mad that this was the best he’s ever had and now doesn’t want to share. He doesn’t want you off on your own because stuff like this happens.

- He gets mad at you for being so much better than he thought/better than his girlfriend. His gf doesn’t help him forget about you either. You were drilled into his head before he even met her, which definitely drove her crazy.

- And where were you this whole time (it’s rhetorical he’s been with you the whole time.)

- He blames you for this happening and now that he’s gotta breed you to make you his. He doesn’t care about the plan, he doesn’t care about anything else, you were in his grasp and he was never going to let it be so close again. He wanted you and was going to ruin everything for all 3 clans if it meant you two could finally run away together.

- he cuts in you and bites you and hits you a few times and you cry and he looks disgusted and leaves. Again he’s only known the idea of you. He’s used to seeing glimpses, staring from a far, hoping to hear lips of your voice, your laugh, even to start setting up cameras in places he knew you’d frequent. But as of right now, you’re his and he has work to do. He’s gotta make sure this stays his.

- leaving you with Nanami who starts cleaning you. (Next chapter?)

- Gojo’s hospitality is sure shit, he tells Shoko and others that if he didn’t order it then they’re not to help you. You didn’t think anyone here could have a heart, well with this line of business it was going to end up awful anyway, but you really couldn’t have told that this blond stoic, even scary looking man was the gentlest person who’ve known this entire few months of hell.

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visionthefox · 10 months ago

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small sams rant (I swear this one is dumb- but I need to let it out) SPOILERS I TALK ABOUT THE NEW EP. (specially Solar x Moon) RESUME : Im bothered over a simple one off scene that may not mean anything in the long run and can actually be debunked at any time -but my ass feels like complaining today..

I dont know how to feel about it. no I dont care for Jack, the use of new models is bound to happend, and the lore is mid- is to be expected no- what bothers me is the first SECONDS of it.. when Jack list the Celestial Family- he added Solar .. and.. that is bothersome for me ppl didnt used to have an issue shipping Solar and Moon., sure maybe it was just a crack ship or too small to be noticed, yet as time passed it was clear the two had created a bond.. now.. this bond could be seen as anyhing we wished for.. until Earth had to "ruin it" in a way- pushing (?) Solar into accepting to be call something related to family- as one can see in the ep Lunar is in huge trouble in VRCHAT- (but amma be honest? I know of this clip by this vid , since I avoid anything with Earth on it,but that clip is important) He is not really so eager to do- sure maybe is just Solar being Solar (also- I view that as pushy- you can tell me is not- but this is how I see it- Im the problem) but you may think! someone who pretty much had lost his whole family as he was force to leave them -and now is living under someone else place- would be at least happy to be accepted as family, if not just show gratitude -he can express happiness! he can laugh.-he for sure can say "oh.. well.. thanks you" and move on but what does he say? "you dont have to actually use a family tree for this- im just " and she cut him off - sure her intention may be good but she is so pushy about it .. he comes to actually say he may feel like a cousin and soon enough doesnt like the sound of that.. well he said "that does not roll of the tounge" and I googled what does it mean, so is not like he is not comfortable but also.. is not like He is %100 up to that tittle.. ALL OF THIS TO SAY - I feel like due to the "drama"? issue, with the ship and Earth now saying he is "part of the family" -whoever is on control of the channel had to take a decision.. and this may be it.. (no I dont think the VA sare in control. they are just VAsthey do a job) Solar can be classified as "family" - yet.. family can mean different things- from where Im from- we call say "you are like family to me" as a way to say "I feel close to you" but actually view the person as a good Friend- but the thing is, the show may want to just set Solar as family- and so avoid any if not all mention to a ship (and I know the term is often used for romantic, but I did see ppl like them to be both ace who just like each other) and I feel.. bad.. I feel like by doing this they ruin the fun of actually having a windows open for the joy of "what if" scenarios.. is not like ppl cant just make and AU like when ppl did to be able to ship Sun and Eclipse, just a silly AU to let loose- (silly hero and tamed villain type of thing) but yea.. idk.. Solar as actually a friend felt more right than him being "family"- dude is not one to actually ask ppl to do much bonding- nor he seems to actually be interested on these familiar things (the Christmas was more as a wholesome thing- in my eyes- (but also I didnt see if fully-again, I dont watch anyting with Earth on it)) but yea.. idk- is not even a big deal. but Im in love with their dymanics as besties.. (or lovers~)

#the sun and moon show #tsams #sams rant

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shoujoboy-restart · 2 years ago

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Republicans: WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDEN?!? DONT YOU CARE ABOUT THEIR LIFE AND WELL BEING?!?!?

Also Republicans: I'm gonna spend 3 years allowing my child's mental health to deteriorate and ignore the issue until it solves itself because i own their body mind and soul and i know what's best for them even when I literally don't care if they kill themselves, also, wow how selfish to make this situation about you not about me.

A recent comment by a Montana state lawmaker who sponsored legislation to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has gone viral and drawn backlash online.

"One of the big issues that we have heard today and we've talked about lately is that without surgery the risk of suicide goes way up. Well, I am one of those parents who lived with a daughter who was suicidal for three years," Seekins-Crowe said in her remarks in March. "Someone once asked me, 'Wouldn't I just do anything to help save her?' And I really had to think and the answer was, 'No.'"

"I was not going to give in to her emotional manipulation because she was incapable of making those decisions and I had to make those decisions for her," Seekins-Crowe said. She continued, "I was not going to let her tear apart my family and I was not going to let her tear apart me because I had to be strong for her, I had to have a vision for her life when she had none, was incapable of having none." Seekins-Crowe said that she was scared and "spent hours on the floor in prayer because I didn't know that when I woke up, if my daughter was going to be alive or not. But I knew that I had to make those right decisions for her so that she would have a precious, successful adulthood at that time."

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., lambasted the GOP state lawmaker on Twitter on Thursday for her remarks

"I vehemently disagree with this speech by GOP state rep Kerri Seekins-Crowe. But you know what she didn’t say? That it should be the government’s role to make personal decisions for families. Why is she now shoving her private decision down other people’s throats?" he wrote.

This is peak authoritarian narcissistic parent behaviour: "it hurts me so much that you are living as an independent individual with your own identity! YOU ARE TEARING ME APART BY LIVING FREELY AND OUTSIDE MY INFLUENCE AND APPROVAL!"

And Ted Lieu made a great point: this woman knows not accepting her child could result in suicide, she's not even truly denying that like most conservatives atrempt to, she does not care if her child killed themselves, but she's such a cowardly cunt sociopath that she can't have blood on her hands by herself, no, she wants her cruelty and narcissism to be enforced by the state so even supportive parent may have to deal with their children suffering, she wants her cruelty to become the norm"

That's exactly what republicans are doing, forcing their ideological motivations and behaviours unto citizen's as a whole so they don't feel alienated for being judged for their inhumane behaviour, they don't want to be on the wrong did soft history, but they sure want to force everyone else to be there to pull focus away from them.

#discourse #politics #transphobia #suicide #suicide mention #abuse #abuse mention #child abuse tw

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tattoed-and-toothless · 1 year ago

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There are a few things about all this situation that I wanted to bring up that I haven't seen other people mentioning. (This is long, so feel free to scroll away if you're tired of it all, i don't blame you)

I'm not sure if anyone else has said this, but I think the Seattle social media team could have handled their response to this A LOT better. First, they promoted a seemingly toxic situation that seems like it didnt really have a good place to end. What? They just stop making booktok content and people get upset that they took a 180° turn. Like how people are upset that they did that now, after the Wennberg's spoke up. Maybe posting something like, "hey, its been brought to our attention that members of the Kraken organization felt uncomfortable with certain posts so we have chosen to take them down." I don't think they should have posted a lot of those videos in the first place (some of them were pg and wholesome).

But I don't think they should have just gone no-comment and dropped all their booktok content and unfollowed Kierra either. They could have messaged her and explained themselves a bit more and parted ways amicably. After all, they did invite her to a playoff game and gave her a jersey very publicly on their account as well. Both accounts gained a following around it.

Quite frankly, I think their social media team ran with the trend because it was popular and it was getting them more views. But they probably should have consulted with the people in the videos before posting them. Imagine your workplace posting thirst traps of you doing your job, without asking if they could post it. I know a lot of that might be in their contracts, something about media and it may not specify types of media, i dont know. But human decency is the whole topic here people.

I also think that the social media team for the kraken may be a bit young, and not as experienced at posting things for athletes or teams specifically. They may be experienced at social media managing as a whole, but not necessarily managing for something of this caliber, with this magnitude of publicity. it seems like they jumped the gun on this stuff.

A whole other thing that i've noticed is that with every new video, every new comment about the situation, Kierra Lewis has seemed to make this whole thing about herself. Every video she posts seems to inflate the drama more and it doesn't need to be this big of a deal to me. Kierra talks about how they called her out and blamed her specifically.

Felicia DID write her first message over screenshots of her video. But she didn't name Kierra specifically, even though she very easily could have. It was a fairly straightforward statement Felicia posted about how she knows that her husband is attractive and she isn't mad at people appreciating that. She just asked the entirety of booktok, and anyone else who sees the post, to be more respectful of what they say, how they say it, and who they say it to. And then put that text over some comments she had screenshotted and hit post.

Felicia wasn't trying to make an issue of anything, she's just asking people to respect her husband and other public figures of either gender. It was simple. She didn't point fingers. She didn't name names. She asked that EVERYONE be respectful and mindful of what the say in comments, DMs, videos, etc... which is something we should already be doing.

As soon as she didn't get a DM back from Felicia, Kierra went off on everyone. She was so apologetic and nice in the messages she sent Felicia, offering to take down any videos they wanted and saying that she didnt mean to offend anyone. And then she turned it around and blamed everyone else. I feel like this could have been over with so quickly, but she keeps posting more videos about it and adding fuel to a fire that could have been put out.

Her videos keep drawing more attention and not the good kind. I feel like she drew a lot of conclusions based on assumptions of people's intentions without knowing their real intentions. In this world, when you assume the worst of everyone, you get the worst of everyone. It's not a fun world to be in.

I think it was wrong the way the kraken social media team communicated things and I think it's wrong the Kierra seems to be inflating the situation with every toxic video she posts. But as a whole, everyone out here coming after the Wennberg's and their family when all they asked for was respect? That shows more about your own character than it does theirs.

In the end, nobody is perfect and mistakes happen, but this has blown up so much more than I'm sure Alex or Felicia ever intended it to. They just wanted respite from the comments and messages they were tired of seeing.

Feel free to DM me, i'd love to have a genuine conversation with people about this, whether you agree with me or not. But only if you're willing to have a civil conversation

#alex wennberg #felicia wennberg #i stand with alex and felicia wennberg #seattle kraken #kraken #nhl #hockeyblr #seriously #dm me #i'd love to hear your thoughts #there didnt need to be this much drama about this omg

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traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors · 1 year ago

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hi, i wanted to get any kind of input or opinion because i think theres something really wrong with me. ive always been obsessed with labels and terms to identify myself, always switching them around and finding a new one regularly to base myself off of. right now at least i have no actual sense of identity and its very possible i could just be reaching because i tend to do that a lot but i dont remember a time where i genuinely had a hold on who i was, aside from when i had a really unhealthy obsession with one singular person for about 2 years. my entire life and mental state revolved around them during that time and to be honest, even though we arent on speaking terms anymore, still seeing them on socials messes me up pretty often.

anyway, the main issue is that i dont really know who i am or who i even want to be. i cant even really keep a name/nickname to go buy for longer than a few months only because i know it inconveniences the people around me (however few there are now). and thats another thing! im really iffy about making connections with people now because a lot about it makes me uncomfortable, like the responsibility and having to deal with another person all the time. i know that sounds really shitty, but i feel like i spent all my love ill ever have on that one person for two years and now that its gone, its never coming back. im still very lonely now but the thought of trying to fix that is really uncomfortable to me. its not that im incapable of making friends, its that after a while ill kind of get tired of them? something about consistency makes me restless and i know its shitty because im a really up and down kind of friend, like recently ive only been talking to people when i feel like it, which is one big reason i dont want to make friends and put people through that.

back to the labels and identity thing. its always kind of been there, but recently the urge to cling to some sort of label or answer for my behavior and thoughts and feelings has been so strong that i almost wish i was genuinely delusional or something. or just that something was seriously wrong with me, just so that i have something new and big to cling to. i know thats bad and unhealthy but i dont know how else to function. ive been thinking recently that i have a lot of narcissistic traits, or at least self centered tendencies. i always operate like im the main character. i always do things with the thought in mind that there will be no negative outcomes for me, and if there so happens to be one, then ill somehow weasel my way out of it. i think that everything will always go well for me, which is weird because it very much has not in the past. a lot of bad things have happened to me, but in a weird fucked up kind of way im glad they did. because now i have some sort of trauma to cling to and roll into my identity. but the flaw in that is that i need a new one every so often. i cycle through different traumas and disorders and sexualities and genders and names and everything that i really, genuinely dont know who i am. and thats why i think somethings wrong with me. because what normal person thinks and operates like this? i dont know if i fully described the reality of my situation, or if im just saying that because i want it to seem worse, but thats about it. sorry for the long ask. i hope you can get around to answering

Hi anon,

I think to some degree its okay to like labels, as they can provide us a sense of structure and being able to name things can give a lot of people comfort. It's also okay to change your identity, as identities are fluid and naturally change over time. You're allowed to change your identity as many times as you want because it's literally yours to dictate, you know?

However, there are many different possibilities as to why you may be experiencing this frequent shift in identity. While I can help explain what these possibilites might be, it is crucial to consult with a mental health professional for an accurate assessment and diagnosis.

One of the possibilities is that you could have some narcissistic tendencies, as from my understanding of NPD, it's about basically trying to regain control of feeling worthless or helpless by constructing a reality of grandiosity that can be incredibly fragile (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Also in the realm of personality disorders, the idea of having "identity disturbance" and "unhealthy obsessions" with someone is characteristic of BPD. Identity disturbance, also sometimes called identity diffusion, is described as an "incoherence, or inconsistency in a person's sense of identity. This could mean that a person's goals, beliefs, and actions are constantly changing. It could also be that the person takes on personality traits of people around them, as they struggle to have and maintain their own identity." Of course, you can experience identity disturbance without BPD, but it's still a common experience among pwBPD.

Another possibility is tired to when you said "i cycle through different traumas and disorders and sexualities and genders and names and everything that i really, genuinely don't know who i am" as it reminded me of how a system might experience their identity, especially if they don't realize they're a system. This is not me saying you're definitely a system, but the possibility of plurality could be something to explore further as well.

Ultimately, this could be something to explore further with the guidance and mediation of a mental health professional such as a therapist, who can work with you to identify more concretely why you may be experiencing these things. They can also help you navigate these feelings and provide guidance tailored to your specific needs.

It's important to practice self-care and be gentle with yourself as you navigate your identity. Please know that it's okay to take your time and embrace the journey of self-discovery. If anyone has any additional insights or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks

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aspd-culture · 2 years ago

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is it an aspd thing to feel like any and all anger towards my exceptions must be buried because i dont trust myself to know when its actaully "right" and i dont want to hurt them? i dont know how to cope with it i feel like i want to scream at them more and more and i dont want to ruin it

Oh look, apparently someone managed to take my life and submit it into an ask on my blog again. /lh

Big yes, that is definitely an ASPD thing. We are *constantly* being told that are anger is overblown, aggressive, etc etc so it becomes very hard for many of us to recognize when our anger is legitimate vs when we are dealing with a symptom flare. I struggle with this myself all the time, and it's the worst when my Exceptions are involved because my emotions with them can sometimes be much more extreme than with other people because ASPD comes from attachment issues that lead to distrust. Since Exceptions are people we are the most vulnerable around, as well as the most socially involved/close with, that can often trigger our ASPD to push them out of our lives as a way of protecting ourselves.

But no matter what, whether it comes from symptoms or from a "genuine" place, your feelings are real and valid. Even if they pass or change quickly, you still felt them and that made them real. Do your best not to let anyone try and convince you that you aren't allowed to be angry just because you have ASPD (and that includes your Exceptions and even yourself). I have made that mistake before, and it lead to years of my life spent in an abusive relationship because I just kept telling myself and hearing from the abuser that I was just overreacting and I would feel fine by tomorrow or in a couple hours. That ended up only being true sometimes because I was gaslit into believing it, so much so that I started gaslighting myself for him.

Sometimes, the best way to deal with things like this for people with ASPD is to take the true emotions out of it and quantify it into a more visual thing. When you're calm, come up with some kind of chart system. It can be simple or complex, whatever works for you, but make sure to put it in a place where no one is going to risk seeing it but you, so that you can be entirely honest. Please note, your mileage may vary with this, but looking at things this way has helped me immensely with understanding what are symptom flares vs actually needing to remove someone from my life. I did this even before I knew I had ASPD after realizing I let an abuser overstay his welcome by years because of my symptoms, and it's not done me wrong yet.

The information you want on this chart is going to require you to recognize when you get angry (regardless of if it is symptom related or not) and when you are hurt. You're going to chart every time the person in question does or says something that causes you to feel that way, as well as a place to make notes on whether or not they apologized unprompted and if they actually changed the behavior, and chart separately when you feel angry for reasons you can't fully explain or that weren't caused by something you believe to be rational to be angry about.

If you find out that you're spending a majority of your time feeling angry, but rarely hurt, especially without a known cause or one you consider rational, you may be experiencing a symptom flare. I would not leave a non-abusive partner in that situation until the flare passes and you can better reflect.

If you find that you are spending the majority of your time being angry about things you consider rational and/or hurt by something this person said or did, especially if they didn't apologize *and* work to change it, then in my opinion that's when you should consider removing this person from your life. Don't worry too much about "ruining" the relationship if this is the case. At the end of the day, a relationship only is worth keeping if it adds more to your life then it takes away by a relatively strong margin, at least in my opinion.

The third option, which is always nice to see when it happens (more often than I care to admit), is that this chart shows that you aren't actually spending as much of your time hurt or angry as you think you are, which is normal with ASPD. Many, but not all, pwASPD experience some degree of emotional blunting when it comes to positive emotions like happiness and contentedness on top of dealing with stronger reactions to frustration, anger, etc. so even if you're only feeling angry once in a week, it may be the strongest emotion you felt that week and you might become convinced that you felt that way for much longer than you did in the moment.

This also happens because pwASPD experience black and white/all or nothing thinking. Therefore, sometimes when someone we care about makes us upset, we can only see them as out to hurt us. The chart may help you target when that's what's going on which, at least for me, helps me relax and see the person in a more realistic light.

As I mentioned, this won't work for everyone, but I do it and it helps me, so I hope it can help you as well.

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually antisocial #actually aspd #antisocial personality disorder #aspd #aspd awareness #aspd traits #anons welcome

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odette-at-dawn · 14 days ago

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-friends pt.1-

ive been having a lot of issues with friends in this past year. at the start of 2024, 2 of my long term friends (im talking 8 years atp) fought with me about something that, to this day, i believe was so stupid. i was able to quickly make up with one of them, but the other seemed to just not want to be friends anymore. which is fine ig, but it still hurt a lot especially with the things she said about me. that second friend then went and complained about me to our mutual friends, which is fine i totally get that, who then went and raged to our other friends about how terrible i was being. so that whole situation, that was completely blown out of proportion, lost me 3 friendships that i'd had for 7/8 years. great start to the year. then, my best friend who i love dearly, started talking to this new guy. it was really good, but it was all she would talk about. it wasnt that big of a deal, just annoying because we no longer live in the same city so we dont get to talk as much as we used to, so when all we talk about is the new guy shes talking to, it got annoying. but it wasnt bad until the week of her graduation, where i was back in our hometown for it, and the guy she was talking to came out for it. he lived in a different city a while away so it was a big deal. it was cute, seeing them interact a lot and seeing her so happy. but i spent that whole week of her graduation at her house, helping her get ready, being there to support her, going to the many events she had planned for her, hanging out with her family more than mine, hanging out with her entire extended family and meeting them all. it was a lot, but i was happy to do it. but, at one of these events, someone (her friend who was friends with the guy she was talking to) wanted to go into the city and i was volun-told to drive him in. i was like fine, but as long as you (my best friend) or him (the guy she was talking to) came with. because it was a 30 min drive into the city and i do not know him very well. the guy said yes, but then my best friend said no because it was her party and she couldnt just leave. then the guy she was talking to said no because she wasnt leaving. then, my best friend was like, wait, my cousin has subworffers in his car and it would be sick to drive with that. so she went and asked him if he could drive. i was chill with that because then i didnt have to drive. my car is big, so it fits 7 people (including the driver) in it, which would have been enough to fit everyone who wanted to come. but her cousins car only fit 5 people. so, i was asked to stay behind. that made me so upset. because i felt like i was doing so much for her for her graduation, which i was more than happy to do, but to get tossed to the side like that? for a guy she met a few months back? over her best friend? it actually really broke my heart tbh. so her (my best friend), the guy she was talking to, his friend, her cousin, and her cousins gf all went into the city while i was left at her house, without her there, hanging out with her extended family. this problem was made worse by the fact that i was moving into the countryside at the end of june (living out there for july and august) for work (at this point in time it was late may/early june) and i was spending an entire week with her (i slept over at her house 4/7 days of that week and spent 6/7 days at her house or with her) when i hadnt seen my parents in 4 months and wouldnt see them for most of july and august bc of work. it hurt me a lot that she was basically ignoring what i was doing for her. i feel like im sounding very self-centered in this, which im not trying ot be, but it hurt a lot to see her choose these other people over me. so when this happened, i sat in my car for close to an hour crying because of it. when i went back inside, i chatted with her mom about it, and her mom scolded her when she got back, because she was gone from her party for close to 2 hours. my best friend apologized about it, which i really appreciated, but it still hurt.

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thenexuscollective · 10 months ago

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Hey uh, we just wanted to offer some support to y'all.

We struggled a bit with that vent post (both with understanding exactly what you meant and also having feelings about it) but because of that we did just... scroll past.

I think what's important is that we are all against bigotry and for inclusion and liberation of ALL plurals, and like... it can be hard in a community when there's so much focus on the cruelty (whether it's coming from inside or outside the community), even if the focus on it is for the purpose of fighting it.

You're allowed to have big feelings about it, you're allowed to struggle to articulate them (idk if you feel like that's what's going on, just adding it in case since it's often something we need to hear), and you're allowed to express it in ways that aren't always perfect and may be messy.

We're still not sure we fully understand the vent post, but we don't have to in order to support you. Our inbox is open (well, not sure what the settings are, but send us an ask if you wanna talk and we can message you in any case) and if you want a nonjudgmental ear to vent to, we're here.

You're welcome to publish this OR answer it privately OR not answer it at all, we just wanted to offer some reassurance since like, it seems like you're having a hard time and could use some support.

We hope things get easier. <2

(Also I hope we worded this well, we're very worried about unintentionally coming off like an asshole despite trying our hardest not to because tone in text is really freaking hard! 😅)

umh. dang we entirely missed that ask. when did ya send it? also do you have us blocked?? because we can't access your account at all./gen srs info gq nm just confused

also for the record, that vent post was NOT supposed to get that much traction, or be seen at all. the only reason we tagged this as syscourse was for people to be able to block the negativity since that/these specific topic(s) are often triggering for a lot of people in the community, ironically including ourselves./srs

so like, frankly, no offense, none of us really cares what feelings that brought to anyone. it wasn't supposed to be a MESSAGE to anyone, let alone be perceived that much (although in hindsight, we don't regret it that it was). and we don't know if the feelings you're talking about are good or bad (we can't really understand your tone here, plus you left out some context/info), but regardless this was NOT the goal of that post. that post frankly wasn't meant for anything else than for one or some of us letting some thoughts out at i-dont-know-how-late in the morning while being sick and bottled up feelings rose from the pressure of outerbody life events and personal issues affecting many individuals within the system. so if you saw this post and got feelings from it (especially if neg), we're sincerely sorry/gen, since that was not what it was meant for/, but that is on you./srs

Also thanks for the kind gesture (if it was one?), but we have no way to contact you since your account is probably either deactivated or have us blocked(?). Honestly this is far from the first time with us dealing with anything related to that, we've been in (distant) contact with the community since years and way before officially joining tumblr. So these are thoughts, opinions, and emotions cumulated from a lot of experiences (often neg in context of syscourse). But we appreciate positivity whenever we see it <3 /gen

#getting asked stuff #systemhood #lore #our system #the void talks #the void posts

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dear-ao3 · 15 days ago

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yeah you guessed it we’re in texas. yee fucking haw mother fuckers lets get down and dirty with it. 6 races to go. 3 sprints. 2 triple headers. pedal to the metal, balls to the wall, everything is still to play for.

today is october 27, 2024 and we are locked and beyond loaded.

as u may or may not know, the like month we had off was kind of uneventful. obviously we had the daniel and liam swap which ive already covered, but the real extent of the drama was:

people being baffled about yuki tsunoda flying in economy:

max verstappen went on a rant in some interview about how a man’s looks are not important, its what comes out of his mouth. which is odd for a variety of reasons. especially when you remember that he regularly talks about grindr. (yes hes in a long term relationship with a woman, no i have no idea either)

george russell posted the most baffling photo on his instagram, with the caption “Autumn has arrived”

he also ended up accidentally matching with his girlfriend carmen. he claimed that she was going to be the one to change (she did not change)

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he was also then taking photos of carmen the next day for her instagram story and accidentally caught his reflection in the picture. which was funny.

and then, bafflingly, mercedes decided to post a “russellisms dictionary” of essentially the weird british-isms that george russell says

moving on from that, pierre gasly tried to steal michael schumacher’s look from approximately 2003

and speaking of the schumachers. mick’s older sister gina got married over the break. which is very nice and very wonderful, happy for her, her dress was actually very pretty (a rarity among celebrities and people related to celebrities. sorry but its true. have u seen what vivian got married to nico rosberg wearing??? if not pls google it and remember that they got married in like idk 2012? 2013?) mick walked her down on the aisle it was very nice very sweet etc etc

but! there was a rampant rumor that michael schumacher (her father) was at the wedding. why is this a big deal? you might be asking. well remember that he had a skiing accident 11 or so years ago, had a traumatic brain injury and hasnt been seen in public since, all the world knows is Yeah He’s Alive and that's about it. (again id like to note that i am not taking issue with that, im stating facts, his family really doesnt need to tell us anything, this is all just relevant to what im about to say)

well. michael as u may or may not remember has a brother named ralf, also an ex f1 driver, but not even remotely nearly as accomplished as michael (tho they did race at the same time and theyre the only two siblings to both win races in f1) and yes this was the same brother who came out as gay a few months ago. he is kinda. problematic. not cause hes gay. but for other reasons we dont have time for.

they sort of? look alike??? as in u can tell theyre related but like theyre not spitting images of eachother.

well some people decided to find a picture of ralf at said wedding (a wedding at which no one was reportedly allowed phones, which generally means that michael was probably there) and pass if off as michael which upset the internet to no end and while i don't have any receipts to show you, the general sentiment of the responses were “omg if this is actually him then hes literally fine why did the family lie about it” which:

its not him

who cares what the family said? even if they did lie that's their own business and personally i would not blame them. at the time of said incident michael was, by a very long shot, the most accomplished person in f1 history. u probably don't want to have to deal with the public post traumatic skiing accident

hilariously though, a few days later, and please keep in mind that this is all according to something that roommate katya said he found on twitter but accidentally refreshed the page before he could screenshot it so i have no receipts to offer here, a photo of michael schumacher from about 1995 was posted in a news article next to a photo of his daughter gina from 2024 and the headline from the news article said something along the lines of “michael schumacher seen out in public for the first time in 11 years” and someone on twitter thought this meant that he had come out as a trans woman? because gina does look a fair bit like michael and thought it was a post transition pic? im not sure either but either way it was hilarious, if not slightly irrelevant to the whole post. but isnt everything on this post.

also related to the schumachers, laila, mick’s girlfriend, revealed that the two of them found one of their dogs on the street or he was a stray and they obtained him. hilariously, michael schumacher also did this back in brazil in like the 90s or the 2000s.

moving on from that. we have franco colapinto. everyone’s favorite media disaster child. now i Have been meaning to throw this on some of the previous updates But i simply havent had the space or the time so its going here. i know that i have mentioned that franco likes to flirt with the media people. and u can find a compilation of what i am talking about here

well.

you would have if someone had actually made a compilation of him flirting and generally being a little shit. but no one has. or at least i cant find it.

i also unfortunately don't speak spanish, and i know that several people have pointed out that the stuff that he is saying makes the most sense In Spanish and doesnt translate super well all of the time. so i suppose you will just have to trust me here.

i did find though from baku that he told ted kravitz that he was “talented with his tongue” in an interview. so that’s something.

and he did flirt with a reporter in baku, saying they were crying over his performance and not flirting but he did tell people to buy unofficial williams merch because its “is too expensive, not even Cristiano Ronaldo can afford it, you buy it and you'll be eating just rice for 2 months, don't buy it, buy the unofficial one, it's just the same and is cheaper!"

in any case, hes a little shit in the media. kind of like sebastian vettel (who was also a media menace. he flirted with the grid girls (who are not a thing anymore) wreaked havoc upon nico and lewis by trying to be their therapist in like 2014-16, and once famously tried to have a threesome with two girls but left because the girls were, in his words, more interested in each other than him)

so franco posted this on his instagram story

which translates to “media training day”

this was quickly followed by this:

which translates to “you are crazy, how could you believe i was going to do media training? i only drive cars”

and we also had some leo. because of course we had some leo.

first we had leo in a sweater and kind of stealing chares’s look

and then we had leo in a sweater at leclerc family dinner celebrating charles’s older brother lorenzo’s engagement

and we also had charles leclerc in a stupid big hat

charles was announced as a puma brand ambassador.

he was also asked if leo was a puma brand ambassador and he said no, but he Could be, and generally was a proud dad about it

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and fred vasseur saying that he wanted to arrange a dog fight between leo and roscoe next year??

and also between toto and christian. yeah idk either.

in the same interview, charles was asked about his thoughts on fred signing lewis. and this is how the news decided to report his response:

max verstappen released merch. it says “simply lovely” which is one of his catch phrases.

to do this, he needed to copyright the phrase.

if you recall. lando norris won the race in zandvoort and after winning he said, over the radio, “simply lovely,” basically stealing max’s catch phrase at his Own home race too.

daniel said after the race that yeah theyre good friends but max probably wont be very happy about that (or something along those lines) and max basically said that yeah i don't really care i gotta think about how shit my car is right now and not whatever the fuck lando is doing.

many people were like omg omg max WAS mad about this and ran out to get it copyrighted after lando said that!!! which is false. patents take awhile to get approved. and this patent was applied for in may, approved in august. though i do think its funny if lando knew that max was doing this and was like lol let me Really fuck with him here :) whos to really say for sure tho.

anywhoosies. lewis hamilton is also one of the chairs for the met gala next year. i could try to paraphrase what he said about it but i am not going to, so here was his instagram caption announcing that:

I’m beyond honored to be one of the co-chairs for next year’s Met Gala, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” This theme speaks to me deeply. When I started my career I never imagined what I might be capable of beyond my sport. The pressure to conform holds so many people back. Growing up as the only Black kid on the track, so often that pressure got to me. Expressing myself creatively was and still is my freedom from that conformity. For Black people across the diaspora, fashion is self-preservation. Fashion is resilience, and I can’t wait to further explore and amplify our underrepresented voices. Thank you to the @metcostumeinstitute for the platform to uplift Black creatives on this scale.

and he released a capsule collection with dior. as a side note, i was in new york city this weekend and the ads for his dior capsule collection kept jumpscaring me all up and down fifth avenue.

someone on tumblr? i think??? decided to jokingly start a petition to the australian government about making a day national oscar piastri day to honor his race wins and etc etc and well. turns out enough people signed it so now it legally has to get looked at by the prime minister. of australia. this is what happens when we girlboss to close to the sun everyone.

mercedes posted a video of george russell showing his racing gloves things they have never seen before. which was charming but also kind of insane. also he had weird and different hair and was wearing a zip up hoodie? which theres nothing wrong with but its jarring to see mr tommy hilfiger dressed so casually.

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also speaking of george, he was in a photoshoot for ….well shit i don't remember but it was Something and he looked particularly slutty.

and he also did this picture which people compared to andrew jacoby (duke of kennilworth) in princess diaries 2

and well, we know that george is not a slut all of the time. if you remember, he recently posted some pictures about him being excited about fall or something. well. theres more.

yeah, frankly i have Absolutely No Idea what is happening here. mostly i want to know what on Earth the temperature is. why is he wearing a giant scarf but no hat? why is he wearing gloves and a scarf but no jacket and the cardigan is undone? and the gloves match the cardigan? but the white corduroy pants clash? and hes holding something warm but wearing gloves?? is he slaying? yes. am i confused? also yes.

in much sadder news, we have an update on one daniel ricciardo. yes, freshly dropped from vcarb daniel ricciardo. aparently he is alive and well and being featured on his friends instagrams wearing a hat that says “im retired, having a good time is my job”

and while he was Not going to be in texas for the race (sadly) (he had a special helmet and everything lined up apparently) his brand, enchanté was going to be. and, even more sadly, apparently he was supposed to be honored with the keys to the city during the race weekend. (if you're asking why, daniel loves texas, he goes all out every year, one year he literally showed up riding a horse, everyone joked that he was an honorary texan). so yeah. a lot of sad. im unsure if hes still going to get the keys to the city? i would assume yes, but unclear when.

definitely Not getting the keys to the city are mercedes for their weird, kind of sexual, kind of foursome esque promotional? video? for something??? idk they all look like they want to fuck the cars and george tells mick he wants to dominate him and mick looks like he wants to be anywhere But there. (side note cause i have no idea i don't go into this side of the fandom: do people ship these two? cause in my day and age this would be grounds for like at least 30 ao3 fics alone)

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and since we havent had it in awhile: the government mandated mclaren update!!!

lando and oscar took a photo with a baby, which lando looked positively thrilled about and oscar looked like he would rather be anywhere but there.

and they also did whatever this was. i have no context and no one else does either.

lando did a commercial for polo red cologne which made him kind of look like he was trying to be…well i was going to say a greaser but that's the wrong word. so im not sure.

oscar was photographed in a white button up shirt. which looks hilariously similar to the generic white button up shirt that everyone else takes pictures in. and i lost the link so just trust me.

and oscar and lando also did….whatever this is together.

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someone on tumblr dissected the (old) williams logo to an insane degree and it apparently is incredibly incredibly lopsided and crooked. doesnt really have anything to do with f1 at all but it is a funny read if you want to read it.

and it was world mental health day. lando posted some things about it and so did george. others might have as well but i only saw these two, which makes sense as they are two of the ones who have talked about mental health kind of extensively. take this as a reminder everyone, check in on your friends! say hi! let them know you're thinking about you!

so every year there is this thing called the race of champions. and I am not overly familar with it and how it works but i do know that a good few years ago mick schumacher and sebastian vettel competed on the same team representing team germany. and next year they are going to do the same thing again! which is cool!

and seb was seen wearing corduroy on corduroy again and was interviewed about who he thinks is going to win the championship. he said he thinks its max.

and so with that. we can finally get into the real actual race weekend.

media day

and well. we know this is texas. and everyone goes entirely out in texas. including alpine. who decided to do this.

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pierre later posted a photo series of the texas fits, and managed to post one photo of esteban, with no tag, the only one where he wasn't looking at the camera.

(they also kind of stole this from red bull a few years ago)

charles and george were asked to try to say lights out and away we go in an american accent. among other things. which was. interesting. i didn't realize it was so hard to say “y’all” for europeans.

alex was also asked to say yeehaw

and george later also said howdy partner, really really terribly.

george was also given a football during a fan stage and quite literally punted it into the crowd.

lewis showed up in all denim

yuki showed up in this slay of an outfit

carlos and charles were made cowboy hats

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and carlos also turned into a barista to make ollie coffee in the ferrari hospitality

it was alex albon’s 100th race, so he decided to go back to his first ever karting helmet for this weekend:

oscar also had a cool helmet that he is going to wear for This race And the vegas race (because 2 usgps are the same, right? no but i admire him for doing this its funny as shit)

and charles also had a helmet. im pretty sure. well i know he was wearing one. it would be bad if he hadnt. but im writing this on the train and my hot spot gave out so were on train wifi and my links wont open so this will be a surprise when i format everything later. (edit from the future, it was that he put a cowboy hat on his helmet)

and max ran a blue helmet. though it wasn't the daniel special helmet (sadly) it was still cool.

also with helmets come liveries. mclaren did a chrome livery which did actually look pretty cool.

and haas of course did a livery, as they are an american team.

and alpine was orange and totally stealing mclaren’s look. this was because they did a promo thing with the new indiana jones movie (probably cause like every celebrity ever (except nico rosberg) sponsors their team)

haas also got a sim??? maybe??? im not sure that's all it says in my notes and i cant be bothered to do more research on it than that right now, because again, train.

with our return to texas came the return of everyones least favorite sky sports presenter: danica patrick. remember, we all thought that she got fired earlier in the year for saying something about lizard people but turns out she was just taking a break until texas? well yeah, shes back. (why don't we like her? well aside from the weird lizard people thing despite her herself being a prominent woman in motorsport she doesnt want other women? in motorsport? im pretty sure that's the whole thing???)

and guess who else was back? that's right it was jenson button, danica patrick’s biggest hater.

and once again, they were the duo that Shouldn't

during the off week they (they being like the motorsport council or something) decided that next year there will be No extra point for fastest lap.

was this directly related to the Daniel Taking The Point From Lando thing in singapore? undoubtedly. man you really cant let a guy live in his own doomed narrative anymore, can you?

fernando alonso also had an opinion about it:

"there are not many things in formula 1 that are not in spirit of the rules. thats how you win championships. i think what daniel did in singapore is the dna of formula 1"

and of course, there was talk about the swearing and max’s community service penalty. mostly talk with george russell. the gpda director. you know…the drivers union leader???? yeah. here is what he had to say about it:

“it does seem silly that it has come to this. next week we’ll have a letter or something to show where we’re at” (we being the drivers, apparently they are all on the same page about this.) “we’ve yet to speak to the FIA as of yet, but we hope to do so probably next week, maybe in Mexico. collectively we’re all on the same page. next week, we’ll probably formally put something towards [the media] to read from the drivers as a united whole….we don't want to be taking away the heat of the moment emotions that drivers show during a race, and i think it is down to maybe the broadcaster when it comes to the race to choose if they want to broadcast that or not. it is very challenging for the drivers when you have a microphone you're talking with your team, you're in the middle of battle, but equally if its an environment [like a press conference] maybe we have a duty just to be conscious of our words. Next week we will probably collectively have a letter to share.”

unrelated to that, george also hinted that the mercedes next year might not suck?

and they made mick talk to a remote control car.

liam and yuki, the new teammates, were being silly at the fan stage because liam said: "we've had more crashes than i can count together over the years"

yuki: "the more we race the more contact we have"

liam: "its always yukis fault"

yuki: "no his"

liam: "obviously we cant to that now yuki"

oscar was aksed about having a rivalry with liam lawson. and he said that there isn’t really one because the cars are on diferent levels

"i kind of hope not, because i think with the differences in car performance. it we're rivals on track, then somethings either going really well for one of us or really badly for the other"

and max continued to cause problems by saying that oscar is Not a number 2 driver.

"for me hes definitely not a number two driver and if i was him u would never accept it."

red bull was forced to address the daniel thing and as expected they did so shittily. they said that his “post-F1 future is undecided.” and had to say he wouldn't be in texas and etc etc

and last but not least. fernando is brat.

sorry for the speed run here, but it is quite literally saturday and i refuse to get behind. the boys are already in mexico and qualifying as im writing this, i gotta speed up.

so sprint qualifying

remember how i said not even like 2 lines ago that it was saturday night? well now its sunday morning so really, please, just excuse the mess okay. i had a week. but i am nothing if not committed to the damn bit even though i know no one reads this anymore (i do not blame you for that btw, it is a long and slightly terrible post)

in any case. mclaren and and red bull and haas all brought upgrades (and maybe more actually). haas had a lot and i think mclaren did too. which you might think is odd because remember a sprint weekend means that there is only one practice session for you to get your shit together before you need to qualify for the sprint, and that is a challenge when you bring a lot of upgrades that need fine tuning.

(though i think mclaren also did this in miami? which was a sprint weekend and they managed to win that one, as im sure we all remember or maybe you don't)

in any case. mclaren did Not have their upgrades figured out. haas did though, which was wild because theyre haas. and also the cota track is notoriously bumpy and kind of different from most of the other tracks. crofty described it as having a “relenting, undulating nature” whatever that means.

alex albon decided that he wanted to go for a spin in sq1. martin brundle was unimpressed by this and said “a good car should spin like that.” hes probably right about that.

most shocking though was that oscar was out in sq1. mclaren Really Really didn't have their upgrades figured out At All. zak brown though decided to undersell that a little by saying “the drivers arent totally happy with the balance o the race car right now”

unshocking was that zhou had no power. as will buxton later said, no matter what upgrades they put into the stake car, it just doesnt want to work.

unshocking was also that ted spent about three minutes talking about the swiss flag. no i have no idea why.

and apparently i also have it written in my notes here that gunther steiner is opening a bed and breakfast. interesting. can we please get back to racing?

keving magnussen tried to get one of the vcarbs in trouble for an unsafe release, martin was displeased with this and was like no. bestie you are wrong. you drive 200kph around this track that release was not unsafe.

martin was correct, once again.

he was really batting a thousand today.

im not sure if that is actually how you use that saying but im slightly too lost in the sauce to care about it so.

yuki managed to knock checo straight out of qualifying which was objectively kind of hilarious. later on we had the post race show crew saying that we really Need to get yuki in a red bull to at least do some tests (aparently honda is pushing for this) because liam has done red bull tests but yuki hasnt.

liam lawson also found himself out in sq2, but hewas down in 15th, and directly infront of one oscar piastri in 16th. what was that about the rivalry, oscar???

franco and pierre also almost crashed. and franco cursed about it over the radio: “man gasly. what the fuck? we almost crashed!” but no community service for him….

into sq3. lewis hamilton was pissed that the team kept sending him out really really early. “cmon guys, that was not good” he said once his time showed that he was a whole .7 seconds. george was also p1.

franco also went spin. thats two williams now if you're keeping track. franco is also the first williams driver to make it to sq3 in 2024

and there were some new (?) camera angles at this race, one was a lower backwards angle that the announcers did not like because “its like driving backwards on a train” (it is actually kind of cool, makes the cars seem very very fast)

anyway. carlos, lando and charles could Not pass george’s time. but you know who did????

DUDUDUDUDU

MAX VERSTAPPEN

he was back on pole! back like he never left! .012 seconds faster than george! and people predicted that he wanted to make a Statement like lando had in zandvoort.

pre spring race itself there were some other funny things that happened like ruth buscombe talking about franco’s aura

and max gave some slightly longer answers in the press conference, but said that he is still protesting, "hes just not an asshole"im just a good person".

and also we gotta talk about the ferrari strategy. because ferrari did have a strategy and it seemed to be, no upgrades just a hope and a dream and charles leclerc

which did perhaps turn out to be correct because he qualified third

onto the sprint

so we had max starting p1, george p2, charles p3, lando p4, carlos p5, nico p6, lewis p7, kevin p8, yuki p9 and franco p10. and then you know, everyone else.

and 19 laps ahead of us.

straight out of the gate lando managed to launch himself forward into p2. which was nothing short of insane. it also left carlos and charles right next to each other. and after charles was done trying to fight george for p3 (and failing) he started fighting with carlos. like really fighting with carlos. like maybe slightly too much fighting with carlos. like i thought they were going to ram the hell into eachother fighting with carlos.

george, throughout this, stayed in his lance, as hes been doing this year and got a fastest lap.

which was soon taken by max.

despite their literal kerfuffles with eachother, carlos and charles both wanted to stop wasting time fighting eachother?

“weve got to try and get back to the others, if possible” charles said on lap 4

then carlos kind of shoved him slightly off and managed to pass him on lap 6 before saying “lets go and get them guys”

oscar meanwhile had made it to 12th

and there was other Steam brewing down the grid in the cockpit of one fernando alonso who had liam lawson trying to pass him.

“man” fernando said on lap 9. “the alpha tauri is such an idiot”

alpha tauri? you might be asking

yeah. that's the old name of the visa cashapp racing bulls. the last person to call them this was james vowels, all the way back in monaco.

the vcarb social media people had some fun with this when they decided to post this picture of liam and fernando arguing later in the pit lane with this caption:

oblivious to that though was carlos, who managed to pass george on lap 9.

there wasn't much george could do about though because he had killed his tires trying to chase down lando and had almost no tires left. “my left front is toast!” he said a lap later, getting overtaken by charles.

and then oscar got a 5 second penalty for pushing pierre off the track. been kind of awhile since weve had a good weekend of penalties. and this weekend, let me tell you, this was the first of Many.

charles didn't care about that though, because he put in a fastest lap.

i was watching with my sister by the way and it was at this point that she said to me “i think charles strategy is don't think just feel” and she was correct. because he was now back to chasing his teammate, absolutely no team orders to be had at ferrari. and charles apparently had slightly better tires.

and while he was doing that. yuki was battling checo. but he managed not to pass.

oscar arrived at the scene of that crime a moment later. checo was 9, yuki was 10 and oscar was 11. oscar eventually managed to get past yuki.

out in front by the way was still max and lando. and in case you're wondering, since miami, both of them have scored the Exact Same Number Of Points. wild.

meanwhile the ferraris had stopped scrapping amongst themselves and were now trying to scrap with lando. so we had a three way battle for p2.

what had happened with mercedes? well they were down fighting for fifth after the tire thing and lewis was mad that people were talking to him in the braking.

but the battle for p2.

lando was back a little way from max and just trying to hang on in front of the ferraris. carlos was in front of charles at this point. and then lando locked up slightly on the last lap and carlos got through! but!! charles was unable to! so lando managed to hold on to third!

and then there was an Incident or an almost Incident between charles and lando. charles was behind and trying to pass. right. as one does when they are racing. but then lando took a weird line into a corner and nearly almost brake checked charles who had to swerve to avoid him and was at at him about it.

still! lando managed to hold p3 until the checkered flag which meant: MAX WON!!!!

its been so long since we have said that but MAX WON!!! carlos came p2 and lando came p3. charles came p4 and he was so mad about it that he threw his helmet in the garage.

but at least his brakes didn't light on fire like valtteri bottas’s did on the cooldown lap.

max continued his hatred of sprint races live on air while being interviewed by gunther steiner.

“you’ve won 11 out of 16 f1 sprints (ever)” gunther said

“yeah,” max said. “maybe because i don't like them”

there was now a 54 point gap between max and lando and as laura winter said it only takes one dnf for this whole thing to turn on its head.

so lets look at real qualifying

heading into qualifying we now had both haas cars with the full upgrades (previously it had just been nico) and also liam lawson was inheriting daniels 10 place grid penalty for power unit changing plus like another 60 place grid penalty for even More power unit changing. also liam lawson hadnt raced in a car in over a year.

(and yeah remember fernando was picking fights with him. texas was fernando’s 399th start. liam has had like. 5. maybe fernando just needed someone new to pick on and be evil with? cause remember fernando is definitely a villain. hes incredibly villain. hes just been tame and someone reinvented his social media presence the last few years. but we all remember what he said many many years ago about michael schumacher (?) “i knew he would brake because he has a wife and kids at home”) (the red flags podcast talked about this kind of well actually)

fernando also passed liam coming out of the pit lane.

and you already know that we don't have time as usual so the interesting bits:

lewis hamilton got out in q1. for the first time ever at cota. “my goodness, what is going on there?” said martin about That. and he ended up in p19 which was a “total shock” (though he ended up starting p17 cause of reasons okay we will Get there). lewis said that “the car was a nightmare. should probably start from the pitlane otherwise i wont be going anywhere” (as in change a lot of set ups before tomorrow)

george also barely made it out of q1 and said over radio at the end “whoa that was a little bit stressful”

and liam lawson had a fun little moment where he went third fastest, which was “all he wanted to do” according to himself over the radio. essentially he wanted to stick it to red bull that he Can drive and he Should be in contention for the red bull seat. because apparently that is a thing that is happening (despite that checo posted the “im not leaving” clip from the office? friends? i don't know some tv show okay im bad at tv shows don't come for me ive never seen either after danny rics left)

so liam went through to q2 Despite having to start last because of his p3 and he essentially just helped out yuki by giving him tows, though yuki complained that they were bad tows:

“tell to liam when he gives me the slipstream, stay in the middle and go to the left at the end of the straight. i was picking up so much dust in the straight”

despite that, yuki still got out in q2.

kevin magnussen though made it to q3 for the first time this year. incredible.

pierre had a textbook unsafe release.

and george was through to q3 but he was suffering and said on the radio “i don't know what we’re missing compared to yesterday” over the radio before he took a little spin into the barriers and effectively ended the session.

that was bad news for max because he had been on a really really fast lap, but it was great news for lando who had been on pole.

“mixed day for the brits” the announcers said “lando on pole, george in the wall and lewis p18”

and that's where we found ourselves for the start of the race

george was starting in the pit lane because turned out that his suspension had been damaged and he needed to repair it. lewis was not starting from the pit line (like he said he would be) he was starting in p17

and charles, in all his furious glory because need i remind you that he threw his helmet, was starting p4 BEHIND lando, max AND carlos.

and yet somehow, off the line, he managed to LAUNCH himself into p1.

he being charles.

the launching being from p4 to p1.

off the line meaning turn 1.

truly it was a sight to see.

meanwhile, lewis had also managed to jump from p17 up to p12 and it seemed like he was on a regular rampage.

that is until, he managed to beach himself in the gravel on lap 2, effectively ending his race.

“That’s so unusual for lewis” said the announcers and they were right because !!! lewis has only had 32 dnfs in his whole career. which has been 18 years now.

regardless. there was a yellow flag. and a safety car! in this economy! we have had no safety car since Canada! (and this is the longest no safety car steak since 2003)

lando was attempting to say that max pushed him off the track to pass him (untrue) and lance dropped back down towards the back of the grid because he seemingly left the track and gained an advantage over alex albon but then clearly somehow lost that advantage

charles was already over a second ahead of max and had the fastest lap.

this was when lovely roommate katya said “you know. i too might think that charles leclerc is the seconding coming of christ”

though hold your prancing horses because carlos was having a problem.

he had dropped back a little, said he had no power on the corners and that it smelled like fuel in his car. “it smells a lot like fuel in the car guys” he said again on lap 10. he was told to sit tight. there wasn't really much else he Could do obviously but it was still slightly stressful.

while that was happening, zhou took a spin and came back on in p19.

and then ferrari managed to somehow fix carlos’s car. float like a cadillac sting like a beamer etc etc.

“the ferrari pace is mighty” martin said. “only max can stay near it”

liam lawson meanwhile had managed to pass fernando for 11th, with no comments this time. liam, btw, was not racing under the number 95 despite being the worlds biggest lightning mcqueen fan. he was racing under the number 30. unsure why he picked that number but. liam. i am disappointed.

george had managed to get into 15th. remember that he started from the pit lane. he then passed bottas for 14th and starting to chase down franco for 13th. this is something of a usual thing for george when he gets a penalty or a bad start, he becomes an absolute menace.

meanwhile charles was now 5.5 seconds clear of max.

and max had some kind of issue that he was told would get sorted out in the pit stop.

george managed to get past franco for 13th.

but he was given a five second penalty for apparently pushing bottas off the track.

george was displeased.

“what?” he said, comically.

“total joke with the penalty george, total joke” toto said over the radio.

so george only then became, somehow, more of a menace as the sole merc left standing. he was offered, btw, lewis’s upgrades after he had crashed in qualifying, but was like yeah fuck that i don't want the upgrades because they don't really work. so he was racing on the singapore spec car.

in any case! the stewards had not been being consistent with the penalties At All which was apparently going to get discussed in the upcoming union meeting, along with the swearing.

yuki and nico had a “terrific tussle” but it ended with yuki pitting. still it was good racing, hope you're watching horner!

and then carlos also decided to employ a Good Ferrari Strategy (they had clearly been saving it, those need to charge up like uh idk shells or something in mario kart? idk how mario kart works either sorry maybe IM the one batting a thousand today) by undercutting max on his pit stop. carlos pitted on lap 22.

charles was slightly displeased. “don't leave me out for too long i don't want to be under pressure” he said on lap 24.

and then, somehow, mclaren had pace again. and they started talking about something called the germany situation?

max came in to pit BUT the damage had already been done, carlos was ahead, he had undercut him!!!

and charles then came in on lap 26, with ferrari actually listening to him (for once)

pierre gasly had previously been pretty high up in the points but was having a rather rotten sour run of it down on his hard tires, which seemed to be a common complaint from almost everyone, but he went off the track to pass alex albon and then got a black and white flag for track limits, but no penalty…hm.

george was still rage mode insaning.

ferrari though still managed to have a classic ferrari moment despite how well they were doing because carlos was told “more phase 1 brake release in turn 1” and he said “i don't know what that means.”

mclaren finally pitted on lap 33. “theyre getting real dramatic on the mclaren pit wall” crofty said. “‘trust the car,’ ‘papaya rules,’ ‘the germany situation.’”

then, pierre got a five second penalty for the alex albon incident.

george, somehow, had gotten up to 6th and was chasing oscar. though he was on a one stop and was just about to come in (along with liam lawson)

the lead at this point was charles, carlos, max, lando and oscar. with lando setting the fastest lap.

and yuki and alex were now under investigation for an Incident with the Track Limits (see i told you there were plenty of penalties this weekend. maybe everyone got upset that kevin had stopped war criming) and yuki ended up with a 5 second penalty for it.

and in case you were wondering, checo (p9) was once again stuck behind franco colapinto (p8) in a race.

martin told us all that he had tried to introduce himself to franco earlier this weekend, but franco ignored him. he might have thought that martin was trying to steal his umbrella.

max was also complaining about the hard tires. “these tires just arent good, i cant brake i cant attack i cant do anything”

checo finally managed to pass colapinto on lap 38

yuki was mad that liam had ended up in front of him and he was told that “other car was more powerful than expected”

kevin magnussen got YELLED AT to box and i literally mean that his engineer was like “YOU MUST BOX NOW” but despite that it was a normal and standard pit stop.

carlos set the fastest lap on lap 40. charles responded with a faster one. they were still p2 and p1 respectively.

george pitted and served his 5 second time penalty. he came out in 8th. and yuki took a little spin in turn 1.

there were now 1.5 seconds between max and lando. who were battling for p3.

george took the fastest lap on lap 43. he had never before had a points finish after starting any lower than 18th. he overtook nico for 7th and then started to chase down checo for 6th, already lapping one second faster than him per lap.

meanwhile, lando had drs on max. and they were scrapping around like it was austria again.

franco then took the fastest lap on lap 48 and he was in p10 so he would get the extra point.

lando was .3 seconds behind max.

“textbook defensive driving from max” martin said.

they were still going. lando tried to pass max multiple times, but max was always slightly ahead and lando just ran out of room. he did finally manage to get in front on lap 53.

but it was off the track.

both had different views.

“he overtook me outside of the track!” max said

“I was ahead at the apex” lando said.

“he needs to give it back!” max said.

and so they went under investigation.

mclaren argued that both cars went off the track (because they did) but that lando was ahead at the apex.

while that nonsense was happening. esteban ocon went fastest (later franco got mad about this in a post interview he was like he took my fastest lap! why did he pit with two laps left for softs! cmon were supposed to be saving the planet! or something.)

in any case though, lando had exceeded track limits a bunch of times at this point and red bull told max that they were at least expecting lando to get a five second penalty for track limits, if not overtaking outside of the track. so max went flat out chasing him back down.

and george passed checo on lap 56.

lando was indeed given a 5 second penalty.

and he only finished 4.2 seconds ahead of max, so we had max getting p3.

but more importantly: CHARLES AND CARLOS GOT A 1-2!!!!

“and that's my boy! another win!” charles’s race engineer said.

lando was not in a mood to celebrate though. “well then i should have given it back shouldn't i?” he asked about the position over the radio, defeatedly.

“my god that was a hard race,” max said. “bit weird that you can overtake off the track.”

“well you cant,” his engineer said.

and while charles took his time waving to his adoring fans, everyone else pulled into parc ferme.

charles p1

carlos p2

max p3

lando p4

oscar p5

george p6

checo p7

nico p8

liam p9

franco p10

kevin p11

pierre p12

fernando p13

yuki p14

lance p15

alex p16

valtteri p17

esteban p18

guanyu p19

lewis DNF

and jenson button was waiting to interview the top 3

max said that he had opinion on how the overtaking with lando went but he wouldn't say

charles and carlos were distracted taking pictures and made jenson wait lol

carlos said that he did have to settle for p2 but was impressed with the pace and said that ferrari are doing much better this year (remember this car had no damn upgrades just charles a hope and a dream)

charles said that it was a difficult weekend but “well it was a pretty good turn 1, that was what i wanted to do!” and he also said that he is still targeting the WDC title, which he has something like a 2.7% chance of winning. stay delusional charles we love you.

the trophies were weird and by weird i mean literally shaped like tires. like they were tires. except charles was different. carlos dropped his and it bounced. the reason was that they had other ones but apparently they couldn't use them for copyright reasons? or something. so they got tires.

also mclaren ended their podium streak.

and ferrari are only 8 points behind red bull in the constructors championship now.

all in all it was a rather exciting race, for everyont except maybe oscar who said it was “pretty boring. my job was to find pace and keep people behind so that was my hour and a half.” he did also say that maybe lando and max and everyone else who got five second penalties should have “maybe done nascar rules and fought it out on track or in the garage (as in beat eachother up) but some people tried and got community service for it”

liam lawson also slayed. he went from 19th to 9th. in his first race of the season after a year out of the cars.

he said that he hasnt “spoken to him [fernando] since [yesterday, the sprint] i don't think ive done anything wrong, i expected him to put up more of a fight but he didn't.”

ollie bearman also appeared in the post race show and suggested that he replace will buxton as a presenter for mexico. “haas brought an upgrade this weekend, f1tv brings and upgrade next weekend.” they told him not to change.

also the dallas cowboys cheerleaders appeared and got james hinchcliffe to dance with them? and he was kind of flirting the whole time? actually they were both flirting the whole time? it was truly baffling.

but back to racing. lando thought he was in the right with what the team argued but “i don't make the rules.” also the presenters said that he keeps making the same passing move on max and doesnt do it quick enough so max has time to predict it.

charles was asked in the press conference if his strategy changed because of max. max told him to just say yes when charles hesitated.

and there was probably more but seeing as we have exactly presently 4 hours and 10 minutes to lights out in mexico and i still havent watched qualifying we don't have time for this.

we do though have time for one story and that is this:

my dad went on a business trip to austin texas early on monday morning after the race. and the whole time we were joking like oh haha watch dad run into a driver.

well

only my father could manage to check into the same hotel that liam lawson was checking out of by sheer and absolute coincidence.

his texts to the family group chat were, well, a little unhinged as he didn't remember liams name but somehow recognized him as a driver (despite the fact that he is probably the most obscure of them right now) and remembered what team he drove for. (ask me how you remember visa cashapp racing bulls but not liam lawson? i have no idea but that's my father for you) but he did tell us that he looked like “the guy from teen beach” meaning ross lynch. i don't know how my father even knew this comparison. he has seen teen beach once and fell asleep during crusin for a bruisin

so a few google searches later he had a name. which he shared with us.

since he was busy packing his car to presumably go to the airport, my dad elected not to bother him (he also couldn't remember if he had raced on sunday and didn't want to go up and be like hey good job! when he didn't know if he had raced)

but he did take exactly 7 stalkerish photos of him. which he shared with us. which i will now share with you so that you all believe me that this really happened.

and with that out of the way. ill see you all very very shortly in mexico.

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.

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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

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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 #cota 2024 #i dont want to hear it #there are 14 minutes until lights out in brazil I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT I KNOW IT WAS CLOSE OKAY #Youtube #Instagram

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letsrantoutloud · 2 years ago

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April 10, 2023: Looks like I’m the bully

This generation of people are starting to get on my nerves. I’ve never, in my life, been in contact with so many emotional people in my life--and specifically, boys. For one, this new generation is all about being in touch with your emotions--which is great. I have no qualms with that whatsoever. But with that being said, this younger generation seems to abuse this new ‘trend’ of being woke and emotional to the point they make people like me--who grew up with thick skin because my parents weren’t taught how to talk to their kids. I’ve grown to take it in and either let it go or make it better somehow. But now I have a younger brother who is living with his mom and isn’t incline to do better for himself. For years, my siblings and I have told him to get his shit together because no one wants to be the one to ‘take care’ of a grown ass adult, especially when he is taking advantage of his mom for her inability to ‘force him to grow up’. My younger brother is good at telling you that he knows, and he knows what he needs to work on, and that he will do that. Works for a couple of days, and then back to doing nothing again. This is what I’m talking about, and I am the bully who will rant about it because I’m getting sick of the thought that I’m the bad guy when I’m not. Just fucking get your shit together and quit relying for others to do shit for you.

So with that said, I have been dealing with an issue with a guy around the same age as my younger brother who, apparently, has an issue with me. Just to make it clear--my supervisors are all for peer to peer conversations and so I never thought this day would come where someone would have any problems with me. But I guess my life has been too quiet. One of my coworker and I get pulled into a room and immediately she states something along the lines, “So it seems *this person* has a concern with people making fun of his ADHD...” At first I was like, whoa. Who is making fun of his ADHD? And she goes on to say how he has never told anyone about his ADHD and that he did not like how people were making fun of him for it. And he told her it usually happens when everyone is at the control area when he gets teased. AGAIN, I didn’t think too much about it because I haven’t talked to him for what feels like a week or two. Then, at the last moment, she brings up that both my coworker and I’s name were listed as the ones who did so. So...yes. From feeling bad for him, to literally, ‘wait, what??”

Mind you, I need to explain a little bit more about who he is. *This person* likes to joke around and even make remarks about himself. There are times where he sat next to me and when he moves and brushes up against me on accident, he would say, “Ew, don’t be feeling up on my dump truck.” Which would surprise me a bit and I wouldn’t look at him because, who the fuck talks about their ass like that? And I’ve never thought of his ass as big or anything. So I just shook it off. See what I did there? I just moved on from the scenario, even though he was calling himself a dump truck. He also sometimes call himself fat, but of course there is no response to that because that’s just weird. There was also a recent time where the coworker who got called in as well asked if he drinks and he literally placed himself in a stereotype and said, “I’m *this”, of course I drink”. Learning from my years of working, when you freely stereotype yourself in front of a group, there is a human nature in us that pretty much is like, ‘oh if they can joke about themselves, that probably means I can joke too’.

I still dont exactly remember when and what I said to him. Usually I try to joke with people while trying to comment how they should do work this other way, so it wouldn’t be so messy next time. I TRIED to redirect the way they work in my own manner INSTEAD of just instantly bringing them somewhere to reprimand them for the shitty way they do the work. I may have commented if his adhd was preventing him from remembering from doing things that are needed, because if you know me, you know I like to observe and ask why things and people are doing it the way they do it. For example, never in my 6 years of working here, have I dealt with someone who constantly forgets to plug in a VERY important machine (that if low on battery, will need 24 hours to recharge, and mind you, we don’t have many of these machines and it is important to keep them plugged in!!), or forgets to label expiration dates on opened products (because we have a shortage right now) and it always comes back around to being HIM who had done it. The area he sits in is never clean, there is always water bottles, used masked and other miscellaneous items that should be thrown away because we all share areas!!

I never claimed to be perfect. Never claimed to be an angel. But when you have issues or concerns about what someone may have said, you need to address it and find out what their intent is for saying it. I remember when I was joking with a coworker but she quickly told me she was not in the mood for my teasing and what did I do? I backed off. To this day, we are still good coworkers who sit next to each other. I get it, and she gets it too. When I’m not in the mood or don’t look like im in the mood she asks if i’m okay. I’ve told her sometimes I just need time and she acknowledged what I said and has respected to this point and time. See what communication does with one another?

Now im at a point at work where he is pretty much avoiding me and my coworker because of how ‘snitch’ it was for him to go to the supervisor instead of coming to us to say he did not like being teased, even if he may make it seem like he didn’t mind. And if I really butt hurt him, then honestly his ass can come to me about it. Now he can walk around knowing that he said something but now has made our relationship at work something it wasn’t before. Probably can’t really go back, and I’ve honestly thought about it. Should I just go and talk to him? Ask him about the details of the event he was talking about? And tell him my intent was never to hurt him to the point he is thinking about it to this day. And for next time, to tell him to just say he does not like that. And I will step back. Easier said than done right?

Another part of me also pointed out--I don’t really care for a relationship with him. He has told me plenty of times, he wants to go to events outside of work with his coworkers and pretty much build relationships. We’ve bonded through talking about gaming and computer stuff. He can be a bit annoying from my perspective because he is a wannabe ‘know it all’ who sometimes like to correct me if I talk with bad grammar or correct others about a certain topic he has ‘researched’. It sends me back to the time where we were training one of his classmates and she told me straight up that he was a teacher’s pet and he annoyed her. I can see that in the work that he does. He doesn’t like to be told how to do things sometimes and it shows when he doesn’t look at you when you are talking to him. His energy screams he wants to be the best at what he does and hopes to be the top dog around here, but at the same time, I just want him to chill the fuck out and learn the ropes before he thinks so highly of himself. That’s why the weeks before this happened, I haven’t gotten the energy to talk to him. Because he is draining and very opinionated at times. I also avoid working with him if possible because the work he does can be sloppy. So i’d rather just leave him be. So here I am, guys. This guy whom I’ve built a relationship with in some ways by bonding about gaming and jrock, has come to an end. I thought we have built a decent enough relationship to the point where if I said something he did not like, he should have come to me and say it--as peer to peer. I would have taken it and apologized and we can go on our merry way. I am someone who remembers anyone’s request of me if I did something unintentionally hurtful. But at this point and time, I’m just annoyed that it has come to this. Mainly because I don’t have to build a relationship with someone who will go behind my back to tell me something. And honestly, never had a passion to get to know him outside of work. So call it what you will--I am a bully and my coworker is afraid of me now. But whatever. Snitches get stitches. If you weren’t ready to take this on, you shouldn’t have done that, right? Now I am just going to walk by you as you shiver in your pants about our strained relationship. Hahahahahhaha.

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yamiiwaii · 2 years ago

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HIIIII GUYS GUESS WHOS BACK TO ADD ONTO THIS...THIS GUY !!! so under the cut is gonna be stuff added from season 4 so be wary of spoilers !!

imma try to be a lot more organized considering i originally made this post running on adrenaline. anyway, have fun reading the rest of this and uuhhh dont be scared to ask me stuff about anything related to this :thumbs up:

so a little recap of all the symptoms macaque is shown to have; - wukongs was/is his fp - abandonment issues - rejection and/or losses of relationships take a big toll on him emotionally - has a hard time letting things go - has a shrouded sense of identity - self sabotages (pushes people away and/or keeps them at arms length) - misplaced anger

the biggest thing is still obviously the fact that macaques fp is wukong. he followed after wukong and really only tolerated the other brotherhood for wukong, presumably. he didnt belong there, it was evident, but he never paid much mind to the others, always having his eyes on wukong. they were harmonious with each other and were made for each other, them fighting alongside each other. mac was dependent on wukong, becoming grumpy and tense whenever wukong wasnt around. he was promised a forever with wukong and he was very clearly looking forward to that considering his whole anger driving force is being abandoned and forgotten.

"Relax bud! When this is all over we'll be back here basking in the sun, getting fat on fruit for the rest of...well, forever! Like we always wanted..." "Whatever you say, Wukong."

the falling out hurts him so badly because wukong essentially promised everything to him...they were meant to be together forever, just basking in each others presence with nothing to worry about but what fruits to eat and where the best place to nap is. macaque initially didnt even WANT to fight against heaven, worried that wukong would leave and then never return again so obviously when heaven inevitably captures wukong, macaque sees that as a betrayal. he sees that as his biggest worry actually coming true and in order to deal with that abandonment and betrayal, his brain immediately goes to splitting on wukong. he immediately goes to blame wukong about what happened because his brain fills in the missing pieces of information he cant otherwise get.

i think this scene is also important to take note of because macaque's suggesting they wait and look for better options that didnt involve fighting wukong. he wanted them to hear wukongs side, maybe even try to bring him back peacefully. he doesnt want to believe wukong left them willingly, you can tell he knows somethings up.

"Wukong is a traitor! He'll end us first chance he gets!"

"Yes... The stone monkey is unpredictable... Now he's thrown his lot in with the Celestial Host, there is no telling where his true allegiences lie."

i definitely think the other brothers (namely yellowtusk and peng) had a hand in macaque's splitting of wukong. they were the ones who were quick to think wukong left while macaque wanted to believe he'd come back. he wanted to believe that whatever the others were saying wasnt true. up until he actually saw what happened.

if azure saw wukong kneel then its safe to assume so did macaque and the others. they see how powerless wukong looks, but noone takes into consideration how wukong didnt want to be in that position. he didnt mean to be taken away, he just had no other choice.

macaque was too shrouded by the initial hurt of wukong leaving that he doesnt take into account of the circlet and how wukong may have felt. his black and white thinking starts to get the better of him and this is where his initial splitting and fixation of the event begins.

he doesnt know what the circlet does, he doesnt know anything about heaven other than the things wukong told him and the other brothers so naturally hes going to see the circlet as something meant to be treasured. a gift of immeasurable power that made wukong turn his back on macaque.

he doesnt care that wukong killed him (at least not as much as the fandom seems to think he does, despite the fact that he has flashbacks from it but i think those are ptsd flashbacks and not really all that related to his bpd) he cares more about the fact that wukong essentially left him to rot in the darkness and then seemingly moved on from him as if they were never inseperable to begin with.

and i think, maybe possibly, the wukong shown in that scene is actually macaque... we see it from azures pov and it shows wukong the way he usually looks in flashbacks that have information being shrouded, (the golden pupilless eyes, the tense expression, etc). its uncharacteristic of him and i think this was macaque. now why is this relevant you might ask, well ! it plays into macaques sabotaging and screwed self image. it further reinforces the whole "macaque is nothing but wukongs shadow" ideology that macaque pushes.

he decides that after the betrayal of wukong, he has a new role to play. he wants to get wukong back, wants to gain something from doing this, and if the only way to prove that wukong is too good to be with the pilgrims then he'll do it like that. you could also see it as a sort of outburst caused by his jealousy.

hes jealous that wukong moved on and made new friends. jealous that wukong presumably forgot all about him and replaced him with essential strangers. he goes out of his way to make things worse for wukong but pretending to be him and his pilgrims, to spread a worse image of him. or at least, thats what i think.

and i think thats why hes jealous of mk, or rather mks relationship with wukong. its why he spends all of season 3 trying to tell mk and his group how "awful" wukong is the people who are close to him because macaque sees wukong's capture as one big fuck you to him and their relationship. macaque sees how much wukong cares for mk and immediately latches onto that rage and anger to try and ruin that relationship, something i also tend to do in really bad jealousy spells because of my bpd.

the last two episodes show that after their initial hullabaloo, macaque is changing. hes growing as a person and hes now gonna try and move past his initial obsession with wukong. he starts by trying to help mk almost immediately after seeing him glitching out.

he tries to cheer mk up, making a joke like "Nice tail, that's new". he does genuinely care about mk, the first person hes grown attached to since his falling out with wukong. while yeah, he does still hang around ffm and he still plays up the mentor role because of wukong but i think hes learning to separate what he does. hes learning how to make his own decisions and be his own person.

hell, he made a whole game entirely for this point !!! not only did mk need to hear it but so did macaque, and he acknowledges (FINALLY !!) how he let himself get shrouded and become nothing but a husk of someone that couldve been something more.

"Point is, it's time to start making your own choices. Something I wish I learned a lot sooner than I did..."

"Only you get to decide who you are, kiddo..."

HE WAS SAYING THAT FOR HIMSELF !!!! HE WAS SAYING THAT FOR HIMSELF !!!! and i think now after this, macaque will actually start to be his own person. he'll actually start to decide to be something more than just wukongs shadow, or wukongs warrior, or wukongs moon. hes MORE than that and this proves that hes finally starting to break away from that unhealthy fp bond he had with wukong.

Why I think Macaque is extremely BPD coded

Note: This is a breakdown of why I believe Macaque has BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and how that shows in his actions and affects how he treats others. I will try my best to properly explain each symptom and how the show writes it into Macaque’s character as a whole. (This will be set up by symptoms and won’t reflect all episodes Macaque appears in, only putting emphasis on season 1 episode 9 and season 2 episode 7 in particular.)

Note: I am a Borderline and this will have some personal experiences reflected in how I deal with my disorder so. With that, let’s begin !!

Favorite Person

This isn’t necessarily a symptom as not every borderline has an fp but it is noted to be an important enough occurrence for it to be a staple of being borderline.

A favorite person is someone incredibly important in a borderline’s life that becomes their constant source of happiness and validation. It’s someone who the borderline goes to for the majority of their attention and heavily relies on that other person to the point where it damages their relationship.

Now you’re probably wondering, ‘What does this have to do with Macaque?’, well I am a firm believer that Wukong was (and still is) Macaque’s favorite person. He is very clearly co-dependent on Wukong and probably has been for centuries. He actively seeks out some sort of response from Wukong as a way to gain his attention. Going as far as messing with the next closest person to the ginger, his successor.

Macaque torments and mocks Wukong constantly because he thrives on negative attention. He may not fully register that it’s negative because it’s attention nonetheless, and it wouldn’t matter if it was positive or not because it has the same effect. With this in mind, you could see him changing the logo on Mk’s jacket as a statement meant to mock Wukong. (Because we know and have seen Macaque be a lot more sneaky with his attacks, he could have easily hidden it but he chose to keep it in the open and the logo even laughs at Wukong.)

He sees Wukong as a hero, someone who is loved widely by others, and this comparison goes hand in hand with Macaque calling him the sun. Something bright that shines upon everything and everyone around them. Mac says these things very bitterly though, despite showing us that he once saw the two as equals.

Because of this, it might be a bit debatable whether Macaque truly hates Wukong or not. Borderlines suffer from extreme emotional dysregulation and tend to amplify their emotions (will elaborate on this further down) so Macaque’s hatred could stem entirely from this dysregulation. But he uses these comparisons as a way to express his emotions without downright saying them, considering it’s safe to assume he sucks at putting his emotions into words. It makes him angry when Wukong doesn’t go all out when they fight, mocking him and lashing out in his anger. To the point where it becomes obsessive, and it’s causing him to spiral into these feelings of anger constantly. (Especially since he’s quick to resolve every problem with a fight)

“C’mon! Show me the real Sun Wukong! The old you would have leveled this whole mountain range to stop me, but now you’re afraid of hurting some kid? Pathetic!”

With the heavy reliance borderlines have on their fps, strong instances of jealousy are bound to sprout up and Macaque is a prime example of how that jealousy can affect someone’s actions towards those around them. When he’s introduced, he’s given this light carefree attitude seemingly to make him feel more approachable, at least from Mk’s perspective. When Mk asks him to teach that move he had done to hit the smoke monster, Macaque is quick to say a very backhanded thing that is very obviously meant to be a jab at Mk’s confidence. Both in himself and in Wukong’s teaching. (This could stem from Macaque’s jealousy of Mk, that this kid is who Wukong cares for so deeply and is able to stay on his good side. Unlike Macaque.)

“[...]...I’m sure Monkey king would agree. It’s not like he would want to hold you back.”

This jealousy leads to him projecting his insecurities onto Mk and causes him to have this warped impression of the kid before even meeting him. Macaque constantly mentions how alike Mk is to Wukong, in ways that only Macaque seems to notice. They’re all negative traits that Macaque amplifies or may have completely fabricated, calling him selfish and implying that Mk is going to eventually forget about his friends simply because he’s a hero, just as Wukong did. (It could also be part of the reason why Macaque’s steady target has been Mk). He even goes as far as to try and tell Mk he missed the point of his shadow play, causing Mk genuine confusion because he doesn’t believe he’s anything like how Macaque portrays Wukong. “Other people are going to tell you to be patient, they are slowing you down.”

Now, this can be reaching or something entirely different but you could see Macaque’s bitterness towards Wukong and his insistence that he’s a bad teacher slightly stemming from jealousy as well. We know Wukong isn’t actually a bad teacher, or at least not as bad as Macaque seems to emphasize, but he’s been so bitter that he’s convinced himself that Wukong is much worse than he actually is. And because of this, he tries pushing this mindset onto Mk so he doubts Wukong and leaves him, much like Wukong did to Macaque.

The most obvious thing that actually stood out to me first and was the reason I thought Mac had BPD in the first place was how incredibly personally he took the falling out. He reacted so violently to it that it’s permanently stuck on his mind at all times. The emotions from that moment are so amplified that Macaque is unable to move on, latching onto the events like a lifeline because it’s all he knows. He had dedicated the majority of his new life to getting revenge on Wukong for this falling out because he blames all of it entirely on the latter. There’s a headcanon that LBD may have altered his memories of that event to make him further hate Wukong but I don’t entirely believe that’s true. It’s possible LBD probably did have a little tweaking in his memories but I don’t think she altered anything related to Macaque’s feelings about Wukong because he already did that himself. Macaque sees that day as the day Wukong left him, abandoned him for a surge of power, and planted the idea in his own head that Wukong was being selfish. That Wukong must have left because Mac wasn’t useful anymore and therefore he must not have cared all that much, which makes Macaque an unreliable narrator and he’s shown to be manipulative and choosy with how he phrases things. He sees Wukong as a backstabber who was quick to leave as soon as he became that hero that Macaque equates to being close to Heaven. (see pedestal screenshot)

Macaque let himself become so overwhelmed by that abandonment that he firmly believes Wukong didn’t and probably never cared about him to the same degree that Macaque cared. (Even though it is implied that Wukong did care, the two being inseparable and doing everything together. The two even were equals at some point.) And as much as Macaque makes himself want to hate Wukong, he can’t truly do it because he’s still codependent on the other. He still seeks out Wukong’s attention and still aims to mock him, continuously bringing him up when he speaks with the other members of Mk’s group. He sees himself as someone who was ‘too close’ to Wukong and suffered the consequences of that, despite many of the consequences being forced on him by himself. (All this could be why he is so adamant about telling everyone how much he thinks Wukong sucks. He firmly believes Wukong was entirely in the wrong and he had nothing to do with it and jumps at the opportunity to play the victim card. Even if it means leaving out details that might paint it the other way.)

“What would you like to hear? The hero suddenly remembered his beloved friend the warrior? That they lived happily ever after?”

It's obvious that Macaque still cares so deeply for Wukong to the point where it could even be implied that he wants a happy ending. He wishes for that happy ending, to be able to say Wukong did remember him and did come back. Him constantly talking about this falling out and painting himself as the victim could be his way of saying he wishes it ended differently, could be his way of trying to raise a jumpstart in Wukong. It could be a way for him to try and see if maybe something else will come out of this, that doing the same thing over and over might cause a change of outcome. (Obviously, it doesn’t work because nobody knows what he’s thinking, ever.)

Intense fear of abandonment

This symptom is one that I think Macaque struggles with the most. He does not handle rejection that well and will do anything to avoid it, much like how he’ll do anything to avoid abandonment. He saw Wukong reject him and leave him and decided that he’ll never leave Wukong alone, that he will continue to show up because he will always be Wukong’s shadow. He saw Wukong leaving continuously as an attack on him as a person, immediately internalizing it and believing he was the problem. He makes sure to keep Wukong as close as an arm’s distance so that if Wukong does choose to leave again, Macaque won’t be as hurt by it as he was the first time. It causes him to dwell on the past, not being able to stop. He keeps reliving what happened because he truly believes he needs to accomplish some sort of justice against Wukong for what happened.

Alternatively, Macaque also will do anything to prevent new people from getting too close. When he notices that Mk is starting to grow on him, he starts to withdraw, amplifying his attempts at showing the kid he isn’t worth it. He becomes more and more aggressive throughout season 3, partly because of his rush to get out of lbd’s control but also because he’s slowly beginning to warm up to Mk’s group. (With the way his first initial idea was to try and convince Mk to come with him willingly and when he had done the same thing with Tang.)

He schemes and manipulates the people around him because its in his nature but also to keep their predetermined impression of him stay bad. Macaque hates relying on people, much rather staying and working alone than with others because of the disappointment it usually leads to. He doesn’t know how to properly open up anymore for fear of that other person leaving too.

Unstable relationships

As I’ve mentioned before Macaque’s relationship with Wukong was incredibly unstable. He valued Wukong much more than he valued himself, put Wukong on a pedestal, and idolized him, making him unreachable. But this could also be applied to Macaque’s relationship with Mk.

Macaque trains Mk, genuinely it seems and uses that opportunity to plant things into the kid’s head. Everything goes well before Macaque ultimately betrays him to go against Wukong, that being his ulterior motive the entire time. He continuously goes after Mk, causing the kid distress one after the other all in an attempt to get back at Wukong. Despite this all, Mk’s still willing to give him another chance in season 3 and Macaque doesn’t know how to handle that. (It is shown, or implied at least in season 3, that Macaque ends up showing legitimate care for Mk. He acknowledges that Mk is a good kid on two separate occasions, telling him that he’s happy there’s still “room for potential”.) He just prefers to keep Mk at a distance, despite the fact he seems to wear the title of Mk’s other mentor with pride.

Changes in self-identity and image

“A very, very powerful demon…”

“Since then you’ve had me teaching you! You’re stronger now!”

We all know this man has a ton of confidence, enough that he actively strokes his own ego every time he opens his mouth. His debut shows us how he sees himself as this strong ancient demon (even if he was referring to himself in the third person.) and he sees Mk as ‘stronger’ because he had Macaque teaching him.

Though in the same vein, he also understands that he isn’t as strong as he likes to brag he is. He still needed Wukong’s power to amplify himself before fighting him, again, (and even lbd acknowledges he needed aid and gives him some of her power after so many failed attempts). Macaque is power hungry and thrives on the taste of being powerful, on the thrill that comes from it, but his body can’t handle that power nor does he actually know how to use any of it. It’s part of why he relies more on his shadows and their sneakiness than he does entirely on his power. He’s an illusionist through and through and nothing more, but he keeps pushing himself for more power because he thinks he can handle it. He genuinely believes he can come out of these fights unscathed and winning and that could be the reason why he continues to go after Wukong.

“As the hero’s light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon the warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the hero.”

This comparison he has of himself as the moon shows just how alone he truly sees himself. The moon is something that is depicted as being reliant on the sun to shine despite it being alone and far from the sun’s reach. There’s solace in the way the moon rotates around the earth and stays in its own orbit, keeping itself confined to its single path. Sometimes the moon seeks out the sun’s warmth and they do finally come together, they make an eclipse. But the moon is always the one reaching after the sun and Macaque sees himself as constantly in Wukong’s shadow. He sees himself as someone who reached for Wukong and failed, being left behind in the other’s shadow where he truly belongs. He sees Wukong leaving as him losing his purpose, that he couldn’t keep up anymore and now wasn’t someone Wukong could see as an equal.

Macaque sees himself as a warrior, someone who’s a soldier fighting for themself and their own beliefs. He doesn’t think he’s ever capable of being a hero, or ever changing for the better because he pushed himself into this villain role. He’s accepted that he will always be someone’s villain and so he has never actively tried to change (at least not until Mk pushes him to). Even though he actively acknowledges he has things he should talk about, blatantly telling Mk to his face that if he ever did try talking things out they would be there all day. It’s this black and white thinking that keeps him from being better, that keeps him in this endless cycle of manipulation and gaslighting and hurting that he doesn’t ever try to break because he doesn’t see there being a point. He’d rather do anything and everything to get what he wants because just the thought of him doing something right or something different like working with people and helping them makes him scoff.

With how Macaque carries himself and how he seemingly just throws his life around, lbd’s revival of him probably left him with this constant detachment from reality. He constantly feels empty and incorporeal (which could also be from the fact he is. shadows.) He’s scared of death, the idea of merely going back to being non-existent and in chains causes him such full-body stress especially if it’s brought on forcefully by someone’s hands. He’s paranoid, constantly on edge (specifically throughout season 3) because Lbd has his life dangling in front of him and he’s desperate to take it back. Her whispers and chains poke and prob him, keeping him on high alert so much that it becomes a driving force for him to impulsively choose to stop following her orders. Anything to get rid of her.

Inappropriate intense anger

He is repeatedly shown to lose his temper, lashing out at pretty much everyone no matter what they do. He weaponizes Mk’s insecurities against him in anger, threatens his friends to get them to do what he wants, and pushes people into a corner. He’s quick to anger and irritate, especially if he feels he’s starting to lose control over a situation. (Because he is very much a control freak, constantly needing to keep things around him in his control so he can manipulate tier outcomes how he likes.)

All of his anger seems to be misplaced as well. He was so quick to throw all the blame for the falling out on Wukong but never took the time to think about how he could have been wrong too, considering relationships are two-sided. He let this anger fester and alter his once positive view of Wukong and now he just can’t fix it. Macaque’s angrier at the way Wukong left him, feeling more betrayed about that than at the fact that Wukong killed him.

His anger towards Mk is shrouded in insecurities and doubts about himself and Wukong and he feels wronged somehow seeing how much Wukong cares for Mk. Macaque actively tries forcing his mindset onto Mk, trying to worm his way into making the kid see Wukong differently by using his insecurities and doubts against him. He compares Mk to this fabricated impression he has of Wukong and tries to mold Mk into someone he knows Wukong wouldn’t want.

Macaque’s flashback that he gets briefly as Mk lunges toward him shows just how much he hangs onto the past. How much he hangs onto the emotions from that event and how he projects it onto Mk, seeing Wukong in Mk’s place briefly. It’s that same amplified POV that we hear Macaque talk about and Shadow Play shows just how much it shrouds his impression of Mk. Because truthfully, he doesn’t know much about the kid other than the insecurities Mk rambled out to him and that he’s Wukong’s successor. Macaque filled in the remaining gaps with things he took from his initial impression of Wukong and just assumed the two were the same with how close they are. He has no idea where to put all these emotions so he dumps them onto the laps of others to deal with, or to become the targets of.

Final thoughts

Overall, I think Macaque is the biggest bpd-coded character in all of lmk, it’s just right there. In all our faces. He’s an incredibly emotion-driven person, doing things based on how they make him feel rather than if it’s logical. He’s so shrouded in black and white thinking and in his splitting of Wukong that it keeps just a tight grip on his life and he really does need to go to therapy. He needs to learn to move on and actively be better because if this cycle isn’t broken soon he’ll just continue to hurt not only himself but the people around him. Whether he wants to or not.

I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE I tried really hard to articulate my thoughts and such but I might have repeated some things here and there. I also am a firm believer that Shadow Play is actively just one big bpd episode. Like I wholeheartedly believe that whole episode was Macaque having an episode and in the midst of it, he decides to mess with Mk, only to stop halfway through because he snaps out of it and realizes that Mk is being hard on himself enough. He willingly brings back up bad memories through a retelling just to achieve some sort of I told you so moment with Mk only for it to backfire on him and just make him feel worse. (while also attracting the attention of lbd)

I think it’s such an important episode to Macaque’s character and what comes of him, especially since it opens the gates to why he decides to do the things he does in season 3. It has so many details in it that show just how unreliable Macaque can be as a narrator, especially when he’s having moments like that. It shows how he’s the selfish one, not Wukong, and how he let something like this mold him into something so unrecognizable from his past self. All because he was filled with rage and betrayal. It’s easier to fight and hate each other than it is for Macaque to apologize for whatever he may have done and amend. It’s easier being the villain to everyone and being hated rather than owning up to your mistakes and trying to be better. He finds comfort in his black and white thinking, finds comfort in how the others hate him, and actively avoids fighting him.

ALSO THIS.

THE PARALLELS !!! It’s a moment where things finally actively dawn on Wukong and he’s suddenly in Macaque’s place, their roles reversed. Macaque being the one who has the upper hand, finding that “power beyond comprehension” and leaving Wukong behind. In reference to their relationship, it could be seen as the moment Macaque finally gets Wukong to understand how he felt when the latter left, how he felt being left behind. He finally makes Wukong feel how he felt, that same desperation at watching the other’s back being turned. But Macaque’s is tainted, being forced onto him, and is actively eating away at his body. It’s reflectively of how Macaque remembers it but it isn’t the exact same.

#🏮#AND THAT FOLKS IS A WRAP #obviously if macaque shows up in any other future seasons i might update this but for now...enjoy my brainrot #lmk #lego monkie kid #the six eared macaque #lmk macaque #lmk s4 spoilers #character analysis #lmk mk #lmk wukong #PLS PLS PLS ASK ME ANYTHING ABOUT THIS #ID LOVE TO CLARIFY ANYTHING OR OR GO MORE IN DEPTH ABOUT ONE SPECIFIC THING OR OR #i could even talk about how this all plays into macs relationship with mk #im so so so normal about them i SWEAR #long post #uuhhh but yeah !! this was so much more organized than my original post goddamn #but !!! yeah #the fruits of my labor

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