#which is apparently a tag I have to use after the year 2013

[lesenbyan]

I will not start a project with denim when I've been awake for 19 hours. I will not start a project with denim with I've been awake for 19 hours. I will not start a project with denim when I've been awake for 19 hours. I will not-

[succubusphan]

Two Man Team - Chapter 7

Summary: This is the story of two struggling friends who after many trials and tribulations find their way back to each other and build the life they've always dreamed of.

Or how Phil changed his life by talking to random strangers on the internet.

Rating: E

Tags/warnings: Friends to lovers, Friends with benefits, mental health issues (mainly anxiety), Slow burn, Dan is a psych student. Canon divergence (the timeline is altered and some things never happened), Slutty Phil, Angst with a happy ending. The fic spans many years.

Author's Note: Written for the OSPBB 2023 @oldschoolpbb. Thank you @effingmeteors for being my life saviour and beta as usual and to my artist Lin @anironsidh.

Edits and the art will be added at some point, we are busy bees.

POSTING EVERY DAY UNTIL IT'S COMPLETED.

Total Word Count: 75k ish

Read on Ao3

CHAPTER 7: Somebody I used to know

2013 was like a fresh start for Phil, not that he had ever wanted one. Returning to his packed-up Manchester flat after spending New Year with his parents was nothing short of devastating. He looked around the sea of boxes and the happy memories and let out a choked sob, starting to hyperventilate as he thought about Dan. He was supposed to be there to help him, bring his things so they could move to London - together.

He walked around the flat and cried until his stomach hurt. He could see Dan everywhere. The sleepovers, the nights cooking together, the laundry crises. Finding Dan’s Manchester hoodie was the last straw; Phil’s world was falling apart around him like a house of cards and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He heard the keys turning at the door and covered his face with both hands, trying to calm himself down, but he felt faint. He slid to the floor slowly and felt a pair of strong arms wrapping around him.

“What’s wrong?” Mark asked.

Phil tried to speak but only managed to sob loudly. At least that meant that he could breathe a bit better. 

“Is it Dan?” Mark asked and Phil nodded against his chest. “Don’t worry, love. I’m coming with you.”

Phil looked up at him in confusion. “What?” he said shakily. 

“Did you think I would let you go alone when you’re like this?” Mark smiled sadly.

Phil shook his head. “Your job-”

“I quit. I have a few interviews set up already,” Mark said. “You are more important.”

Pulling Mark into a tight hug, Phil continued to cry. He was fucking pathetic but at least he had good friends. “T-thank you.”

“It’s ok. Who wants to work retail anyway?” Mark laughed. “This will push me to find a job in my field.”

Phil smiled through the tears despite everything and looked around the flat again. He had been so immersed in his pain that he hadn’t noticed Mark’s things packed as well. He couldn’t go on like this, he needed help.

---

The train ride to London was quiet, too quiet, but he knew that Mark understood, and apparently kept himself busy texting someone all the while. Even as they walked into their London flat, Phil just stood by the door and thought of what to say, but he had nothing at all. Mark pressed a kiss to his forehead and went exploring.

He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do before going after Mark. “Which bedroom do you like?” Phil asked in a monotone voice and Mark gave him a sad look.

“I don’t know, which one do you want?” Mark tried.

Phil shrugged.

“Maybe the bigger one would be good for filming,” Mark said, trying to get a single emotion out of Phil.

That was true, but if he was honest with himself, he had pictured Dan filming in that bedroom. “I want the small one, it has better lighting,” he lied.

Mark smiled at him and rubbed Phil’s arm gently. “Deal,” he said. “Come on, I’ll make you a coffee before the movers get here.”

“We don’t have the kettle here yet.” 

“I brought it just for you, what do you take me for?” Mark said.

That finally stole a smile from Phil. 

He sat on the grey sofa that came with the flat and felt himself sink into it. It was almost too soft, but it would have to do. Mark joined him a little while later, or so Phil thought, but the worried look he gave him let him know that maybe it had been longer.

“I’m going to need you to keep living,” Mark said, handing him a cup of coffee.

“I am,” said Phil flatly. 

“You’re not,” Mark countered. “We’re going to order pizza, you’re going to eat at least half and then get a shower.”

Phil frowned. “Do I stink that badly?”

“No, of course not. You know I would tell you,” Mark snorted. “But it will help you to… I don’t know, get into your routine again and it’s self-care.”

“Hmm,” Phil said. “I was thinking of finding a therapist.” He paused and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I think I need help.”

“Admitting it is the first step. I’m glad that you decided to get help.” Mark took a sip from his mug and winced. “Too hot. What made you finally think of therapy? You have been very resistant.”

Phil considered telling Mark what he had been thinking about recently but pursed his lips.

“I can tell that you’re keeping something from me.”

“I don’t think we should have sex anymore,” he mumbled.

“We haven’t done it in ages, love. I assumed as much, but I understand the need to set a boundary. And don’t think that I’m buying that, that’s not what’s bothering you. Please, just…” He trailed off.

“I’m exhausted,” Phil finally said, nursing his drink. 

“Go on.”

Phil pulled on a loose thread sticking out of his T-shirt. “And… sometimes I just want to sleep.”

“I’m going to need you to finish that thought.”

“I want to just sleep and not wake up… sometimes,” he shut his eyes, not wanting to see Mark’s face when he said it. “Just sleep forever. Rest. I want to rest.” He dared look up into Mark’s eyes.

“Phil!” Mark said, his eyes filling with tears. He took their mugs and set them on the coffee table before pulling him into a tight hug. “Phil, shhhhhhh. Don’t say that!”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, the only emotion coming to the surface being shame for making Mark cry. Mark never cried. “I’ll get help.”

“I’m here,” he said shakily, rubbing Phil’s back.

Phil remembered to hug Mark back. “I’ll eat. ¨Promise”

“Good,” Mark whispered.

That night, Phil did eat and shower and lay awake all night thinking. It was completely stupid but he still hoped that Dan would reach out, notice that Phil had stopped trying to communicate and suddenly remember that he’d had a friend, but that didn’t happen. 

Slowly, life got busy again. Mark took care of him for the entire first month of their London adventure, but as he started a trial period as an accountant at a Tesco, Phil had to get his shit together. Life was going to continue with or without him and it was time that he actually did something for himself. It took him two tries to find a therapist that he liked and that he felt comfortable enough to discuss Dan with.

She agreed that his diagnosis was anxiety, not depression, but the frown on her face when he mentioned the natural sedatives let him know that she didn’t approve of Dan’s suggestion. Each session left him depleted, causing him to take a taxi home and get into bed immediately. Still, Mark had no mercy for him and woke him up to eat dinner every single time. It took a few months to give her a full rundown of his life and what he was going through at the moment but she seemed optimistic about his future. Wednesdays soon became the days he looked forward to, and sometimes, it even seemed too long between sessions but he held on to his sanity as hard as he could and didn’t ask to go twice a week.

Coincidentally, as his mental health improved, so did his career. AmazingPhil hit 1 Million subscribers, and his monthly radio show got quite popular and usually went smoothly, except for the time he switched the show off the air and nearly got himself fired. He’d been charming enough that the producers decided to have a sit down with him and explain what every button did 20 times instead of giving him the boot. He was on the cover of many teen magazines, had to do photoshoots here and there, both of which he hated, and started to be able to actually save money. Well, eventually; at first he didn’t even have the money to get a haircut so his mane looked ridiculous and he ate ramen for quite a while, but then things got somewhere. 

Still, Dan’s absence was like a shadow cast over his life. Not a day went by when Phil didn’t wonder what he was up to, or where he was. It was inevitable since it was still affecting his life: when Dan had pulled from every project he hadn’t signed by December of the previous year, Phil had had to let go of some things that just didn’t make sense without him. They had book deals lined up among other things that he didn’t feel confident enough to do on his own. The idea of the book was a tribute to their joint content, their friendship and their fans. Project X, the gaming channel, was also dropped. Phil couldn’t even imagine playing MarioKart, Halo, or any of the other games they’d played together. 

By the end of the year, Mark had met Noah, his boyfriend and moved in with him. It had been a welcome change for both of them. Mark deserved to be happy and not be Phil’s carer and Phil needed to be an adult and take care of himself. It was ok, he felt ready to do it and he knew Mark would have never left if Phil wasn’t actually doing better. He’d even started to feel that he didn’t even need weekly therapy appointments anymore.

That is, until Christmas. Phil had gotten it into his head that he would be ok with spending Christmas home alone instead of going up North. Family gatherings had not been great on his anxiety, especially the previous holiday season with all the questions about Dan and what he would do now that he didn’t have a collab partner, but it turned out that being alone with no plans was also not good for his mental health either.

He had held off putting the tree up until the 24th because it reminded him of the time he and Dan had decorated his parents’ house for Christmas that week in December. At first, putting on music and singing along was keeping his mind on the right track, but when he got to the ornaments, he found a small brown bear with a red ribbon around its tiny neck. He could hear the memory of the first time he’d seen it even to this day.

“Do you like it?” Dan said.

“Aw, it’s so cute!”

“It’s for you. My family used to call me Bear when I was little so I wanted to give you something to remember me by when we’re not together.”

“I wish you could stay,” Phil regretted.

“Me too!” Dan said. “I better give you your New Year’s kiss now, since I won’t be here…”

Phil smiled widely, his stomach full of butterflies as Dan pressed their lips together for a sweet kiss.

He blinked, his mind returning to the present. He looked down at the tiny bear and saw a tear fall on its head. Pausing, he considered putting the ornament in the trash, but he didn’t have the heart to do it. He couldn’t display it either. 

He cleared his throat, reached for the star, put it at the top of the tree and closed the box. The tree looked a bit silly with lights and only the star but there was no one around to pester him about it. He put the box away and made himself a drink or five before going out to a club to find someone new to have sex with.

---

2014 and 2015 only brought Phil more success, more subscribers and more work. He got his own request show on Radio 1 and even hosted the Brit Awards. He was so proud of himself and the fact that he always managed to convince extremely famous people to play his silly games, wear masks and answer his random questions. Phil found that he had a talent to come up with things on the spot so he was never caught with his pants down, so to speak. His pants were often down though, but for very different reasons. He might not have been the hottest guy around but he was confident enough that he could pull nearly any guy he wanted and so he treated himself quite often, allowing himself to feed his ego in what he knew was the wrong way, but it kept him afloat.

Feeling better about himself, Phil finally decided to give mixed therapy a go to finish resolving what he had been carrying with him for so long and the new day to day things that added to his anxiety and random bouts of insomnia. At least, he’d capitalised on that with the Sleepless Night With Phil videos. His new therapist wasn’t amused by that.

It took him nearly a full year to feel like he was getting anywhere near to being stable but it was worth it. In 2016 he also continued experimenting with meditation after remembering how it had helped in the past, and found a method that suited him better than just clearing his mind. His mind was never empty, on the contrary, it was always chaotic and colourful, so he used that in his favour. 

He had officially dated 3 guys, all of them good people, but he didn’t feel for them like he had for Dan; they weren’t nearly as funny, or as compatible with him. He couldn’t help but compare them to Dan and, honestly, being closeted to his fans didn’t help matters either. Whatever relationship he wanted to embark on, it was doomed to fail because he didn’t want it out in the magazines and as a public person, he had nearly no privacy at all.

A curious yet helpful side effect of his lack of private life was that Phil got to address his hypersexuality in therapy because if he continued to hook up with random strangers, it was bound to come out and he didn’t feel like it was worth it. He did a complete 180 and decided that he didn’t want to do relationships or situationships anymore. Granted, his newfound lack of a sex life worried his therapist a bit, but she was supportive of him no longer channelling any failure or aspect in his life that he found lacking through sleeping around with anyone who caught his eye. It was partly due to her pointing out that Phil was using hypersexuality as a way of self-harm and as a way to boost his own self-esteem when he felt low. The first part was shocking, the other one not so much. It was hard to feel low when he felt wanted. She did call Phil out for his reticence to commit in relationships but he pretended that he didn’t hear her. That was a problem for future Phil.

At last, Phil found his self-worth within himself, his good heart and how he carried himself in his life, professionally and in his interpersonal relations. He prided himself in being a good son, brother, and friend. He made those special relationships a priority in his life and took great care of them, reaching out, having honest conversations and just saying I love you. In time, he’d realised that no matter how much you loved someone, sometimes it was necessary to say it out loud instead of letting people make an assumption.

What solidified the change had started to make on his own was his grandmother’s death. Phil wished he’d had the chance to say goodbye to her in person, that he had taken a trip up North, but she was gone in a blink. Instead, he tried to find comfort in the conversations they’d had in the last few months.

[winterbirb]

Happy new year, y'all!

Quick update for the anon who sent accusations about aristotels—given a lack of any followup evidence, I had someone I trust go through their tag for anything fitting the accusations, and I have come to the conclusion that guilt cannot be proved, and more importantly, they should not be held to American taboos. I mean, I got into an apparently quite heated conversation about the importance of cultural context, I'm not going to go back on my word now. Think before you discourse.

And further, I am not the person to judge someone for not being 100% acceptable vanilla. I would be throwing stones from a house of glass cards; although I don't talk about most of those cards, I do, uh. Write Edward Snowden RPF. So.

Speaking of, chapter 13 is out! It's not actually any more of my own writing, as I couldn't figure out how to structure the May 7th meeting while incorporating my Official Sources. So I just put the primary sources in their own chapter, and I'm in the middle of trying to write the POVs for that chapter.

(Yeah, that's right, we're talking about my fic now. Teehee)

Unfortunately I write slowly (and delete things if I find a source they contradict, which is what happened to about 10k words of ch. 13 attempts), but eventually I'll finish up this fic, which will go through the end of July 2013 (Ed accepts asylum the first of August). I've casually dropped one reference to the top secret negotiations, and Bill and Jake will make appearances later in this fic, but that whole shebang is going to be in a later story (I wish I could just have it all written right now, it's so important, especially the Kerry-Lavrov axis! But alas, I'm more GRR Martin than Stephen King).

I'm introducing the Kerry-Lavrov axis in this fic (which chap 13-14 are particularly meant to do), but the payoff is going to come in the sequel, which is going to be from Aug-Sept (or -Oct bc of the government shutdown) and cover the Syria chemical strikes (I think Assad was framed, in case you're wondering. It's actually very fucking annoying trying to write about this stuff because I was happy having no opinion on the matter, but if I was going to write Obama and Putin talking about it, I kind of have to review the evidence 😔). Mid-september is UNGA, and Sept 30th is when Obama reveals to Bibi the secret US meetings with Iran. These events should resolve the Putin-Obama tension and bring us to the next phase of the story (admittedly, I don't know where to go after that; I'm thinking shorter stories, vignettes of interactions)

Anyway. Here's a link. Rn it's at 32k words, but a good chunk of those are primary/secondary sources.

Forgot to mention—though this is primarily about relationships, I don't (so far) have explicit ships, although Su/Kho is tagged. I'm leaving things implied for the time being bc it isn't the point (the importance of relationship axes still works around friendship-trust). So if that squicks you out, dw.

[idrilka]

watchlist tag game!

tagged by @phneltwrites!

here's what i am currently watching/have just watched/am planning to watch (spoilers: it's all kdramas):

just finished:

hospital playlist: 10/10, ultimate comfort watch, i love everyone in this bar. it took us a while to finish the second season but it was so, so worth it. i laughed, i cried, i'm going to miss them so much.

weak hero class 1 (immediate rewatch): 11/10, never expected to get clotheslined by another stellar drama in the span of less than six months bad enough that it made me immediately want to go write fic, but here we are. i'm going to write a separate rec post for this one, but for all the school 2013/heungsoon enjoyers out there, this is required watching. it has everything: amazing acting, stellar storytelling, so, so much incredibly well-executed tension, unhinged, violent high schoolers, revenge, useless adults, failing institutions and social commentary on the cycles of abuse. also some of the best chemistry between the leads i've seen in a long while. (what i mean is: since my country: the new age.)

currently watching:

duty after school: since we're apparently on a school setting kick, we went straight from weak hero to this one, and it's been also really good so far. the premise sounds delightfully weird at first (aliens come to earth in the shape of strange spheres hanging in the sky, and in anticipation of the possible attack, third-year high school students get enrolled into an afterschool military training program in exchange for additional points on their university entrance exam, since early admissions have been cancelled), but things go to hell pretty quickly.

hometown cha-cha-cha: aka the drama we started last summer, but we are continuing our tradition of watching an episode or two, then taking a break for two months before watching another episode or two, so everything is going according to plan here. good for when you want a low-stakes, chill drama with some pretty views.

save me: we watched the first episode and we'll definitely continue. so far it's intriguing and creepy, and it has woo dohwan in it, so i'm guaranteed some aesthetic crying if nothing else.

racket boys: for when you're missing haikyuu. we also watched the first episode and we'll definitely continue at some point, because sometimes all you want is to watch a bunch of kids enthusiastic about a sport overcome the odds through hard work and the power of friendship.

joseon attorney: lmao, let me tell you, this was not love at first sight. i hated the first ~40 minutes of the first episode and barely managed to finish. fortunately, it improved a bit in the last 20 minutes or so, and i'm intrigued enough to give it another try, but oh boy, that was a struggle.

kingdom: watched the first two episodes, it looks amazing, and we will definitely continue.

to-watch list:

the eighth sense: i want to watch this so bad, but all the reactions of those of my friends who are watching it only confirm that i should wait so i can binge it.

school 2013 (rewatch): i've been meaning to rewatch this for ages, especially since i want to write another fic this year, and weak hero just made me want to rewatch it right this second, so.

dr romantic 3: the third season is so close and i need it in my eyeballs like yesterday. i miss all of them so much!

misc: aka everything mentioned above (apart from hometown cha-cha-cha, which we'll continue to watch well into the fall at this pace)

my to-watch list is a lot, lot longer (and includes more of woo dohwan and yang sejong's dramas, as well as other stuff like the uncanny counter or d.p., or things that won't air for a while, like bloodhounds or doona), but listing all of them would take ages, so this is just the stuff i'm intending to watch in the immediate future.

oh, and i'm tagging @dulosis and @grimdarkfandango!

[racingliners]

tagged by @lewishams, thank you so much my lovely!!! 💜💜💜

(put under a read more because we’re about to get rambley)

Were you a general f1 fan before you became part of teamlh or have you always been just teamlh and don’t really care for f1?

STORY TIME! (I will try my very best to be brief)

So I got into F1 through my Dad growing up, and quality of Dad aside, my happiest memories of him are watching F1 races with him (he was a Schumi fan, so I was a Schumi fan. Dad even bought me a Ferrari barbie when I was little, and apparently I used to run around saying “vroom vroom Schumacher” as a kid. I have no recollection of this). My Dad died when I was 10 and I stopped watching F1 after that bc it was just too much for me at the time.

Cut to high school in 2013, and one of my friends was talking about one of the races from early on in that season, and I mentioned that I grew up watching F1 with my Dad but stopped, and she as quickly as possible tried to get me back into it. We watched the Spanish GP at my house after a sleepover, then the next race I watched myself was Canada and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Obviously being British, I knew who Lewis was from hearing about him occasionally on the news whenever he’d win races, but my friend was a Rosberg fan and wasn’t that keen on Lewis, so I very softly rooted for him for a long time (bc I’m soft and hate conflict and Seb and Jenson were my favourite drivers by that point).

When Seb and Jenson weren’t in contention for the title, I pretty much always rooted for Lewis (also for reasons I will state in Q2). And while 2017-2019 were very rough seasons for me personally, I very slowly became a Lewis fan from the Seb and Lewis helmet swap video onwards, which has now been cemented this season since Seb retired. (😭)

[tldr: I was a general F1 fan, and very slowly over the past ten years became a Lewis fan]

Tell me one of the reasons he brings you joy. Like what can he do that brings the biggest smile on your face?

One of the strongest Lewis memories I have was from the 2014 British GP (which was the first ever race I went to, and ended up being Lewis’ first win at Silverstone since 2008). On the cooldown/parade lap, Lewis slowed down and drove as close as he could past every single grandstand to wave to the crowds. It really resonated with me then and it still puts a massive smile on my face when I remember it now. It’s a memory that I hope to carry with me for a long, long time.

Aside from that, it has been so nice over the past ten years he’s been at Mercedes to see him grow properly into his own skin and find who he is. I love how hopeful he is, and how much he always tries to be positive and see the good in things. And how he’s always willing to grow, and learn and be the best version of himself. And any time he’s with Roscoe, bc doggos.

What is your favourite Lewis comfort video?

The Seb and Lewis helmet swap vid, as mentioned above. And I love any and all Jenson and Lewis content, especially series 1 of Tooned, and them singing Wonderwall (sorry to steal your answer Lydia)

What is your favourite race? (Could be favourite f1 race or just face Lewis race lol)

As mentioned above, Silverstone 2014, but also Turkey 2020 for obvious reasons, now that I feel like a ‘proper’ Lewis fan I do want to go back and watch loads of his iconic races so drop my a list of recs if you have any suggestions! And my fave race overall is probably the 2018 British GP.

What is your favourite Lewis interview?

Stealing Lydia’s answer again bc I too loved the interview he did with Steve Jones for Channel 4 last year, and while it’s not a proper interview per se, the video Merc made of him looking at pictures of his last ten years with the team was very very sweet.

Lastly, and selfishly, recommend me your favourite podcast (if you listen to any)

I am so late to listening to podcasts bc I am a bit fussy, but for F1 I have really been enjoying The Fast and The Curious. And while I’m very far behind on it, The Shuttlepod Show for Star trek

tagging (only if you want to!): @rossocorsaseb, @usersewis, @leclerqued and @userpironi 💚

[multapohja966]

tagged by: @eyon  <3 <3 ty i love these (took me like a month to answer...)

Nicknames: timppa, tiit, julma tiitus (”cruel tiitus”, more so an alter ego)

Sign: scorpio

Height: 176cm lost a cm in the past year ..

Last thing googled: cattle decapitation forced gender reassignment

Song stuck in my head: Huorantelotus - Mercedes Bentso (i love her i love her. reading through her books currently) 

Followers: i apparently have 600 but 95% are dead blogs,, 2k+ on the art blog

Amount of sleep: i’ve been doing <7h for the past week and it’s.. tbh its been good for me? this is so much fun ? my though process is a bit too streamlined / simple but i feel so awake? (i usually have major issues with oversleeping and tiredness) tho i’ve also been watching what i eat so that might also contribute to the positive effect. 

Lucky number: 4

Dream job: not sure currently! i’ve found in myself that i love to work and be hard on myself but it’s been hard to decide where to direct that energy. wether i want to go for a risky (and possibly soulcrushing/limiting) creative field or do art as a hobby and something altruistic/useful as a bread job. I have a friend who’s both a DJ and studying to become a youth worker, talking with him made me reflect a lot. (also i crush on him) lately i have also thought about becoming a professor later in life? i love public speaking and academia. maybe something culture / society related.  but no higher education for me in the next few years. not after what uni turned out to be

Wearing: my mom’s t shirt and old pants i made.

Movies/books that summarize me: maybe Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto? It’s not my favorite piece of media but it very much has the same soul as me. also my philosophy to life comes from the nausicaä manga

Fav song: for a song i really don’t know, but i have two albums which have significantly changed the trajectory of my life: Utsu-p’s Warufuzake back in 2013 and Dorian Electra’s Flamboyant back in 2019.

Fav instrument: ive finally started to understand the appeal of guitar solos

Aesthetic: white trash. used to feel weird when my dad used that term on us (huge americaboo) but especially after the elitism i faced in university ive really connected with at least a very personal version of it. also queer expression in the south is interesting. 

Fav author: william s. burroughs... unfortunately his kind of objective relationship with life, absurd yet so poignant way to describe people’s essence and relatable takes on loneliness slap hard / comfort me .... 

Fav animal noise: miss the way our st. bernard sniffed things. short huge muzzle adding this slight pig shade into the deep sound.

Random: do not bring up nct 127 and/or superflat around me, you have not known true pseudointellectual mental illness bullshit before. 

tagging: @sushihukka , @ghostsquidz , @cocodrilloturbo​ @dirtreally if you are into these :D

[biscuits-of-bagend]

DnDoc, The Flowers We'll Remember #3 - Don't Stop Me Now & #4 - Airfield

Parts 1 and 2

Previous stories: DnDoc, Coming Home DnDoc, Space Band DnDoc,A Man's a Man DnDoc, The God of Rock 'n' Roll DnDoc, The Loch o' the Lowes DnDoc, The Mushroom Planet

Story playlist Ali Smith story

I've put two together again because this time the second one was really short.

---

Part 3 - Don't Stop Me Now

The next few matches were dogged by a back injury, with a song called ‘Hold On' playing over the top on the room's speakers. The Doctor hoped the lyrics of the song would reassure Rogue that this was going to pass eventually, that as annoying as it was for Andy to lose to some young upstart - admittedly quite a handsome upstart - named Grigor Dimitrov when trying to defend his Wimbledon title, that there would still be more glory to come.

   As much as the Doctor wanted to get Rogue up to speed, this trip had been for Ruby really, who had loved Andy Murray's tennis since she was little. He'd turned professional the year after she'd been born after all. But something about the fiery grit of the young Scot seemed to have gotten to Rogue. Andy Murray makes you feel things, said the Doctor and Ruby's favourite tennis podcasters, and apparently that applied even if you were a time-travelling bounty hunter.

   Or maybe Rogue was just going soft travelling in the TARDIS. The Doctor's heart purred at the thought and he shuffled up even tighter against Rogue. He could feel the point of Rogue's hip against his side, the warm line of connection as their legs joined up together, jeans against dress, the shifting of Rogue’s back muscles beneath the Doctor's outstretched arm. Rogue absentmindedly crossed his ankle over the Doctor's, pressing their feet together as if they were hands to be held.

   Rogue sighed. “I am going to punch this guy in the face if he beats Andy one more time.”

   The Doctor looked up at the ongoing match. It was on the dusty orange clay of the French Open at Roland Garros, another grand slam of the same level as Wimbledon and the US Open. Murray was playing Djokovic in the final and losing, again. After that Wimbledon final in 2013, Djokovic seemed to have made it his mission to never lose to Andy in a grand slam ever again.

   “It’s a memory,” whispered the Doctor, “Your hand would go right through him.”

   “Well, at least I wouldn't hurt my knuckles,” muttered Rogue.

   But a few matches on the playlist later, the unthinkable happened. Somebody beat Djokovic. Having fulfilled his dreams of winning all four grand slams by completing the set at the French Open, Djokovic had deflated, and lost in the third round of Wimbledon to the American Sam Querrey. The door was open.

   And Andy Murray barrelled through it.

   This time when he won, he wind-milled his arms through the air and powered forward towards the net like he was being propelled by a jetpack. The joy burst from him in the most wondrous scream yet. For the rest of that year, he was flying, winning match after match and tournament after tournament, all culminating in him beating Djokovic in the last match of the year.

   Rogue sprang to his feet and punched the air. “Let's go, Andy, let's go!” He clapped his hands together twice, in the rhythm of the chant they’d heard for the length of that last match, which had taken place in London.

   He ran over to Ruby and swept her up into a hug. “Thank you for showing me this, buddy.”

   Ruby laughed, looking at the Doctor over Rogue’s shoulder. “No problem, friend.” She patted him on the back.

   Rogue ran back over to the Doctor and met his startled gaze with wide, excited eyes. “Gods, I have so much energy. I want to run around and get in trouble.”

   “I – okay,” the Doctor said, blinking at him. “Let me pause it again.”

   He left the chamber and paused the feed, then when he turned around Rogue and Ruby were just behind him.

   “Come on,” said the Doctor. “I doubt Kate electronically tags every office chair.”

🎾 🎾 🎾

   Well, it wasn't quite Mario Kart, but from the looks on their faces you'd have thought it was. The three of them took to the start lines once more, each with one knee carefully planted on their respective spinny chairs. Then the Doctor counted down from three and yelled 'go!' and they raced to the other end of the corridor, using sharp powerful pushes with their free legs to get their momentum up.

   Rogue won, again. It was very difficult to race against a well-trained and hyper-on-Murray professional bounty hunter. But the Doctor and Ruby only laughed, occasionally exchanging baffled glances from behind Rogue. As they set up again and flew once more down the corridor, their wheels wibbling and wobbling, the Doctor heard echoing around his head the song from the playlist that had soundtracked this most glorious section of Andy Murray's career.

   Don’t stop me now.

---

Part 4 - Airfield

   “Woah, hey, why is this song so sad?” asked Rogue as they settled back down.

   I feel.. de-so-late... sang Rou Reynolds of Enter Shikari at the beginning of the song 'Airfield.' Rogue had a point there. And since the Doctor had un-paused the Time Window on their way back in, he was about to find out why.

   First they watched a match that was actually of exceptional quality. Andy played fellow grand slam champion Stan Wawrinka in the semi-finals of the French Open in a truly epic five set match. Rogue seemed content to settle into it and enjoy the drama, postponing the worry about the song that had greeted them.

   “Hey, by the way, what's Kate going to do if she finds out about us being in the office?” said Rogue. “I think... I may have spotted some cameras in there. Sorry I didn't say anything. I was just having so much fun.”

   The Doctor smiled at him. “It's fine, honey. To be honest, she can’t really do anything serious. She's not even meant to have this Time Window, so what's she going to do, tell the government their favourite alien is bringing his alien boyfriend and his human best friend for date night in a structure she promised she wouldn't build? No, honestly, it's just that I need a break. I'm tired of conflict. I just want a nice night with the two most important people in the universe without it becoming a whole thing.”

   Rogue shrugged. “No drama. Suits me.”

   “Well,” the Doctor pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Some drama.” He pointed back towards the tennis, which had shifted to the pale green grass of Wimbledon.

   “Woah, hey, isn’t that-?” Rogue pointed down the other end of the court at Andy's opponent.

   The Doctor nodded. “Sam Querrey. Conqueror of the invincible Novak Djokovic the year before.” He glanced at Ruby, who was starting to chew on the ends of her cardigan sleeves. He kissed Rogue on the forehead and said, “Hey, come over here with me. I think this is a moment for all three of us to be together.”

   Rogue and the Doctor shuffled across the space between themselves and Ruby, who tore her eyes away from Murray long enough to look at them with a sad, strained smile.

   “What the crap happens in this match?” Rogue mumbled.

   It was, in the words of the television presenter Clare Balding, a valiant defence. But by the end of the four set match, Andy Murray was limping around the court using his racket as a walking stick. To his credit, he stuck it out, and Sam Querrey got his second proper win in a row over a world number one at Wimbledon. But it was obvious something was very, very wrong. Over the next few months and years, all anyone could say about him was about The Hip, this cruel and brutal injury that had worn away part of his bone and resulted in interminable pain whenever he ran, and, on bad days, whenever he moved.

   Even victories had to be eeked out over the course of three harrowing hours, and took so much out of Murray that he could be heard sobbing into his towel as he sat in his chair afterwards, when he ought to have been jumping around and cheering. They watched an exhibition match between him and his old arch enemy Roger Federer, where he put up a good fight in the one serious set they played. He then gave back to the crowd that loved him so much by playing a fun, silly set, with Federer wearing a kilt borrowed from someone in the audience. He cried, head hanging, in the press conference room of the 2019 Australian Open, the fourth grand slam. He couldn't go on, this was it. A montage was played to celebrate his career.

   The Doctor held one arm around Ruby, who had known what horror was coming all through the cheering, and the other arm around Rogue, who’d just been suckerpunched in the gut. For good or ill, Andy Murray makes you feel things.

---

Part 5

@off-traveling-in-the-stars @casavanse @monster-donut @randomwholocker (let me know at any point if you no longer wish to be tagged in each post)

[frecht]

I know its not the same to type it but I'm loving reading your posts and tags about licence plates. PLEASE tell me everything. If you want ofc

of course i want to!!! i dont even know where to begin. when i was a kid my parents introduced me to the license plate game when i was obsessed w the states and going through a bit of a patriotic phase....when i was 5 my dad had a license plate app on his phone solely for me to track them on. i have tracked all 50 states + dc but not all on the same list (the list on my old phone was missing montana and the list on my new phone is missing wyoming).

and last year when my mom and i visited ireland she mentioned that i should see if i could get all the counties. and her friend who we were travelling with helped me bc he knew all the codes but i didnt (at that point) and i know this is a thing with most european plates i think but ireland is the one i know the most thoroughly -- the best thing abt their license plates is that you can tell where theyre from from a distance bc there's a code in the number for each county. it kind of is the best numbering system ever bc it's 2 or 3 numbers for the year it was registered (2 if it was before 2013, 3 if it was after, with the last 2 digits of the year and a 1 or 2 depending which half of the year it was registered in), 1 or 2 letters for the county (most of them are 2 but the big ones like dublin and cork and galway get one letter*), and then a number for which number car it was to be registered during that time period. which is the BEST because it makes it easier to memorize the number (i still know my mom's friend's car's plate off the top of my head bc it was the 12th in its county during the time period) and it actually tells you things abt the car. and the plates stay with the car through multiple owners so you might buy a used car and re-register it but it gets to keep its license plate which i also really like. i also really like this system bc once you figure out a solution for years repeating every century it can go on forever. the only thing i dont like about the irish license plates is that there's no required font so sometimes theyll be in this really compressed ugly font instead of the one that most of them are

im trying to learn the uk codes to get as many of those as i can next but those are a little bit harder bc there are so many more. however uk plates are very easy to identify because they very very rarely have a country code on them (i thought they never did but i was watching a tv show and saw one w little strip that said gb once) and the back one is yellow while the front one is white

anyway i really think the united states should implement a similar system. perhaps not per state (like 132-MD-[number] for my mom's car would be a bit obscene considering how many cars im sure people are buying esp in like texas) but perhaps if we could keep having different styles for each state and then this sort of numbering system with the counties within each state i would really like that.

also if youre from the us have you noticed that virginia license plates are the only ones where the number/letter pattern is in a serif font?? because i have and i hate it. it is very ugly. AND apparently it isn't even a real font. it's just like a collection of jpegs for each letter.

*this also changed i forget which year...2013 or 2014 and it used to be that in limerick and waterford and tipperary there were multiple codes, l for limerick city and lk for the county/ w for waterford city and wd for the county/ tn for tipperary north and ts for tipperary south but now it's all t/wd/ and i forget whether limerick is l or lk.

[callipraxia]

(Mostly replying to the tags on OP)

The letter Wendy gives Dipper does strongly imply they plan to be in town again by summer 2013, so there is some canonicity to the notion that boatventures aren't meant to be a full-time, rest-of-their-lives, never-going-back enterprise. Plus, all the reasons you mention - I particularly imagine Stan might miss the town itself more than he expects to, because really, GF was the first real home he ever had after his parents kicked him out. For the previous ten years, he'd never been able to stay in one place besides a prison for very long, and we know that Stan is a) a man very attached to his comforts and b) very, very sentimental. He even sounds more fond when reminiscing about his childhood than not, even though it's hinted everything was always a lot less happy than he likes to pretend it was forty years later.

I think he also bases his self-esteem (such as it is) on the combination of defining an in-group that matters to him, then trying to get said in-group to approve of him....and while Ford was apparently basically enough of an in-group to work for him when he was a kid, it's been forty years since those days. In the meantime, his circle has expanded - man's had a borderline worshiper (in the form of Soos) for the last ten years before he got Ford back, for goodness' sake - and he was downright elated about how "the whole town loves us now!" after the events of "Gideon Rises." The Shack itself was also an accomplishment that was entirely his own, something he could only be said to have ridden Ford's coattails on in the very loosest sense of the term, and I suspect that makes a difference; he sounded so proud of himself when he mentioned that "finally, I'd found something I was good at" when talking about the early days of the Mystery Shack, and it seems he collected newspaper articles pertaining to it for years, too (based on the changing displays around his mirror in the aging-up montage in "A Tale of Two Stans"). The town will never be the central group, that's the group he defines as "family," but the public of GF, and the stability of having a place in society, where he knows and is known, that goes with said public... I seriously doubt he's genuinely indifferent to them, either. Add in how he's now being proclaimed the town hero on the news broadcasts in the finale (and proclaimed as such under his own name, even), and he might end up essentially only wanting to leave periodically because of the odds there will be a parade when he comes back.

Plus, as the tags mention, Soos. We very rarely get to see it on screen, but there is evidence that Stan is fond of him, in his own way. In his memories, we see him confide in Soos, including unbending enough to talk a little about his childhood and even his father; we also learn from Dipper in the Journal that Stan has memories of teaching Soos to box as a kid, which (since Stan still keeps his gloves around his room as an old man, even, and seems proud of having learned the skill when he was a child) it seems safe to assume was a bonding exercise of sorts. In the episodes of the show, Stan occasionally takes the time to explain business concepts to Soos, and will even (albeit more rarely) listen to Soos' business ideas from time to time. Bill, while inside Stan's mind, also refers to "Stan's family - Question Mark, Shooting Star, Pine Tree!" It must be acknowledged that Bill is a lying liar who lies, of course, and that he was clearly planning to manipulate the Mystery Crew and its emotional issues surrounding, among other things, Stan into inadvertently helping him from the first second, so it's possible he was just saying what he knew would hit an emotional button in Soos (either because pushing Soos' buttons had the potential to be useful later, or because Bill just enjoys pushing buttons), but if he isn't lying, then this nevertheless does lump Soos firmly in with Dipper and Mabel in the "family" category. Support for the idea that Stan might genuinely feel that way could, one could argue, be found in Soos' behavior: he behaves, for all intents and purposes, as a member of the Pines family. Soos is seen attending Pines family movie nights, and accompanies the family through the entirety of "The Golf War;" in that episode, Pacifica even refers to him as a member of the Pines family (though she does also later refer to him as a servant...must not headcanon Pacifica having some degree of genuine bond with her servants, a real attachment to the butler and her nanny and such others as might have taken, even to a limited and inadequate degree, up some of the emotional support roles her parents clearly aren't that interested in filling....). So yeah. Stan might well miss Soos.

Finally, well...Stan refers to himself constantly as an "old man," and while Ford only calls himself old when he's trying to make an excuse to awkwardly ask someone to stay with him without coming out and admitting that he actually just craves human contact, fact remains that the man is over sixty and hasn't had the easiest life. Realistically, there's only so many years that the sea life is going to be remotely plausible for them (even if the extra exercise is really good for Stan in the short term).

**Confession time - I have headcanons around some of the issues I discuss here.

I have the idea that as a young adult, Dipper might accompany the Stans on some of their later adventures. It's a background detail in the one (1) future story I've written, though I keep having vague ideas about exploring it further. Apparently, in my world, Dipper doesn't settle down until at least thirty-five, if he ever does at all (never decided on that issue).

Pacifica might end up working in the stables at the Building Formerly Known As Northwest Manor, at least as a teenager - she's visibly disturbed by the idea of being separated from her horses in the finale, and her comment on her wrecked appearance before she appears on a magazine cover in total disarray during Lost Legends ("I look like...me") indicates that she has a more rough-and-tumble side than her generally immaculate appearance might otherwise suggest; we also know she's apparently a pretty dedicated athlete (practicing mini-golf for hours with a specialized trainer) and her profile in the online pages of LL indicates she likes what sounds like fairly violent video games. When her idea of the Northwest legacy is well and truly shattered, she yanks off her diamond earrings and throws them away, as if rejecting the appearance her parents have pushed onto her now that she's become disgusted with the whole concept behind it. While she probably does have some genuine interest in fashion (she attempts, however briefly, to stand up to her mother to defend her own taste in shades of green in "Northwest Mansion Mystery," and when denied the right to wear what she wants, she comes in purple instead of in any shade of green) she also has an inner tomboy side I expect she'll explore more in the months and years after the show. Plus, getting a job would just be one more way to basically shoot her parents the passive-aggressive bird while simultaneously further integrating her into the social structure of the town proper, where she's now at least somewhat accepted.

post stan o war these two go on lots of adventures

[flowerangels]

If we’re really gonna bring back 2012 tumblr we need to refer to last night’s posts as nightblogging

[ackerpreach]

This ending .... I can name 500 reasons and I will name them right now, because I don’t think I’m the only one who is upset with how things turned out. (Also, A positive message for all of you at the end)

MAJOR LEAKS SPOILERS/ READ WITH CAUTION

Update: after reading more theories from fellow RM bloggers, and sleeping over it one day, this entire chapter might be an april fools... Don't fully lose hope yet beautiful people. It's me just giving a review on a possible fake April fools chapter

After following this franchise since 2013, so nearly a DECADE. this ending is a pure disserve to the entire fandom. I feel like Yams has rushed it just for the sake of being done with the entire manga. So many things are left open, characters and their developemt are reverted back all the way to chapter 1 or are left even worse than that...

Mikasa’s worthless character development/ Aaronmika’s horrible toxic codependent relationship 

Oh honey... Let’s start with how horrible Isayama has treated her. We were all rooting for her, because we all felt like she was so misunderstood. She had a horrible childhood and imprinted on a guy who treated her like trash 99 percent of the story. And then, slowly but surely, she starts to realize she has to stop obsessing over him in the uprising arc with the help of a real man who treats her like a queen, more importantly, he treats her like a real human being. This man sees her for her abilities and that she has the power to be self dependent. She learned parts of herself, that she was able to work together with him like no one else could.  She learned parts of herself she was unable to do so if she kept obsessing about Aaron. All this love, care, mutual understanding and RESPECT these two shared. 

but...NAH FUCK THAT, right Yams?? Throw all this development away, all this bonding. Let’s make the main female lead even more yandere than she already was in the first season. Let her make out with his decapacitated head (like dude, this is also pure disrespect to Aaron’s dead body btw) and let her obsess even more about the guy who has treated her no better than a piece of toilet cloth 99 percent of the time. The guy who was never really appreciative in front of her for saving his ass billions of times, who always pushed her away, who yells at her and snaps at her whenever he can instead of reasoning and talking calmly with her in mature way. (EVEN PARODY YOUTUBE CHANNELS WHO DONT SHIP ANYTHING MAKE IT A TROPE WHERE AARON TELLS MIKASA HE HATES HER GUTS WHENEVER HE CAN) 

Then after all that, suddenly Yams tries to last minute persuade us Aaron’s always been head over heels for her???  He should have build their relationship better which he hasn’t even tried to do so... He must be thinking his fans are stupid for eating this from his hands.    

Like seriously??? What is this??? 

Isayama is just fully contradicting himself. It’s like someone tipped him off with a buttload of money for him to write Aaron like this to satisfy shipping needs and to cash in those extra money’s from it. Even if he tried to cater to Erem*ika, this is not how you write a loving and caring couple which people will root for. 

This next two panels just freaking infuriates me to the core of my soul. I can’t even describe how dissapointed I am with Mikasa. 

Why is she clutching that head so obsessively like that?  Why is she walking and turning her back away from her comrades? After everything they have done for her, after all they’ve been through?! After everything Armin has done? Standing up for Mikasa, beating up Aaron for hurting her. I feel like even Jean, Connie and Sasha have cared more for her in a healthy way.  Sure, Aaron cares for her romantically too apparently (What a twist Yams :)), but has he aided her to becoming a mentally healthier individual? Has he aided in her mental stability? The answer is a big fat NO!  All I see between these two after today’s raw Chapter’s are too Yandere obsessed individuals who have no clue on how to maintain a healthy relationship. 

Love should only go as far as the heart can endure and it seems like her character is not willing to be aware of that. Even Armin was able to let go of Aaron in those latest panels. Why does her entire character resolve around this guy??? I really do not understand. Her Ackerbond and her age is not an excuse for her to throw her life away like this. 

Shonen’s disgusting portrayal of women 

I’ve seen this countless of times in the many years I’ve watched anime. SasuS*ku from Naruto, Ichih*me from Bleach, Shinji and that oranged hair girl from Neon Evangelion.. Why do these women get decreased to simpletons with one single goal? And that is to obsess over a bland male lead who either treats them like trash or doesn’t notice them up until the last last chapter (LITERALLY WHAT YAMS HAS DONE). Some go even as far as the male leading wanting the kill the female love interest and yet the female lead is still in love with them???. It’s disgusting for him to write the MAIN female character this way. 

It’s dissapointing we believed in Isayama doing Mikasa’s character right. That she’s finally being able to let go of her codependency and to live for herself maybe live in Hizuru and find more about her roots???, but every single time she shows some improvement, it’s burried deep in the ground again by the Author. It almost seems like a lowkey kink of some of the male Mangaka’s to write about a girl obsessing over them no matter what. I see this so many times to the point that I truly stand behind it that some of them might have this fantasy. 

I wished he didn’t portray her last panels like this. Everyone else is living their lives while Mikasa is still grieving about him. I’m not saying she’s not allowed to grieve and everyone takes it at their own pace, but cmon... Show her living her life too. This is too much. Her being next to his grave and grieving him as her last panels just shoves it in our faces that YET AGAIN, BEING OBSESSED WITH AARON IS ALL HER CHARACTER STANDS FOR. 

I truly despise how Isayama handles her grieving, kissing his decapacitated head, carrying it around like some handbag, and her last panels being thissss.

The world leaving Paradis alone miraciously after all that??? 

It’s so weird and out of place with so many political feuds and disagreements between the world and Paradis, the entire Rumbling happening and we can see Mikasa just chilling outside in Paradis with no one bothering them. You can see the rings of the walls in the picture below.  I don’t know the exact reason behind as the manga is still in Korean, but from what I see, the story went the route of: throwing a happy ending without enough proper reason and  it was all fixed just like that in a snap! It doesn’t fit the entire narrative of attack on titan for things to be so peacful out of nowhere. When it comes to the narrative, how things work in that world, how hard it is to achieve peace, everything made somewhat sense up until chapter 138. 139 seems so so out of place...  It’s like I’m reading a chapter from a totally different manga. 

Aaron Yoghurt got defeated so easily/ Aaron’s character assassination

The build up on the first part of the rumbling was great, those kids carrying coins. You could feel humanity’s fear and Aaron’s hatred in those pages. As if he truly had a goal and he has turned away completely from his comrades and his closest friends with no return. The world seemed truly doomed, but he  got defeated just like that. He was in the nape all this time (because screw the warhammer power of hiding yourself elsewhere in his ginormous titan body). There is no master plan as we all expected, and in the end he just acts all yandere in the paths with Armin and that’s it... They massacared his entire character as well. Many fan theories created a better ending with his character. Him being reincarnated as Historia’s baby would be so much better. For him to still keep on seeking and to strive for power. It has always been his motive. It’s his personality from the start until chapter 138. Even if things are okay, to keep on going and to seek that adventure, but then.. He’s so weak and directionless suddenly.. It’s so weird... This is not Aaron at all???

Using Aaron for him this entire post, because I don’t want others to invade our tags... :)))

Historia’s baby 

The only panel we got from Historia’s child was this. Just a normal kid, normal life... Why did Isayama put so much effort in highlighting Historia’s pregnancy if it was nothing too spectacular anyway? It seemed he had major plans for this kid and for their development too??? It’s again, big plans, big developments, big relationship dynamic, but all  got thrown out of the window... 

Don’t read the next sentence if you are a minor :’) 

It’s like almost ejaculating, but stopping right before it and repeating that every single Arc.

My energy when writing about this chapter is the same as Nostalgia Critic and his hatred for atla the live action

In Conclusion...

I know us fans should not be deciding on how this story should end, because this is Isayama’s story after all, but I truly wished for him to wrap up things much more rounded. There are so many unanswered questions... Again, I think for the sake of being done with this manga, he rushed all of it. He’s become a millionaire from this story and now his pockets are jammed full, I guess he doesn’t need to put in any effort anymore, right? Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I really wished he cared for his fans a little bit more with this last chapter by giving some answers that make sense at least. It’s his fans who gave him this platform and the opportunity to tell his story and for him to at least give in a bit of effort especially in the last chapter is the least he can do. Rivamika being canon or not, he truly rushed it without thinking much about the entire story line. He expanded it so much, he didn’t know how to bind it all together.

Even after all this, I’ll still ship them in the headcanon type of way. I do give credit to Isayama for giving us a template for such a beautiful dynamic between Levi and Mikasa. He decides to waste it, but that doesn’t mean we have to.  I want to thank all the people with amazing writing skills, the ones who give us beautiful art like @carmenlee @phit chan @vialesana​ and many more. I want to remind all of you that we can create something beautiful of our own and we don’t neccesarily need canon lore for that. The art I’ve seen, the fanfictions I’ve read have touched me deeper than Isayama ever could at times.The Mikasa in our mind is appreciate of Levi, is mature, classy and has a strong will for herself. They spend their remaining days together peacefully. Keep writing, keep drawing, stay creative. 

I love you all so so much, I’ve only been publicly active since March, but thank you Rivamika fandom for giving me so much joy as a lurker these past 7 years <3

[racingliners]

F1 Re-Watch 2013: Round 14 - South Korea

It's Winter break and I am FINALLY picking back up my 2023 watch through (given how it's December, I probably won't finish this before 2024, but that's okay!).

This is another one I watched live at the time at my friend's house, and my main memory apart from Seb winning is Mark Webber's car having an alternator failure and then going on fire (right after his Singapore last lap DNF which, ouch) and Nico Rosberg having a very sparky front wing. iirc Jenson had an alright race and scored points, though I cannot recall how Lewis did, so let's jump in!

Once again saying how much of a core memory the old F1 intro is

and also asking why can't F1 provide alternate commentary options, why must Crofty and Brundle be forced upon us 😭

On a more practical note, I never knew why this race was officially called the Korean GP instead of the South Korean GP

But Yeongam was a fun track even if the layout looked a bit odd.

Alrighty: Starting grid whiplash time! SEWIS FRONT ROW!!!! (this is for meeeeee) Grosjean P3 and Rosberg P4 Jenson P11 and Jev down in P16

[Formation Lap]: Almost everyone on the super soft tyres apart from Ricciardo who's on the mediums

and immediately cut to the mad rush of mechanics and engineers running back to the garages

huh, so today I learned that no one is allowed to sit on the pitwall at the race start in case there's an on-track incident. I really feel like I should have known this before now 😅

[Start/Lap 1]: Seb has in Seb fashion just shot off into the distance

CARNAGE

One of the Ferrari's got tagged, someone else span round, turn 3 was like a dodgems rink

right before all that happened Grosjean overtook Lewis and is in P2

[Lap 2]: But Seb is already 2 seconds ahead of P2. Just GOAT things.

[Lap 3]: Now 2.6 seconds 👑 (When Seb dominates in a Red Bull it's sexy, when anyone else does the same it's not - hope that helps x)

The Top 5 after the lap 1 nonsense is Seb, Grosjean, Lewis, Nico R and Hulkenberg.

[Lap 4]: Jenson has minor front wing damage 😭

ooh cut to Raikkonen and Ricciardo scrapping over 7th

and now Jenson has to come in for a new front wing 😭😭😭

it's apparently affecting his brake temps, fml

Okay start replay: oh my days the field was five wide before the braking zone for turn 3 no wonder that there was dodgems.

[Lap 6]: I'm starting to wonder if I mis-remembered Nico's front wing failing and sparking along the track. I'm sure it was at this Korean GP bc I remember my friend being so upset over it

[Lap 7]: JENSON FASTEST LAP!!!!!!!

Though this was years before getting the fastest lap was worth a point, but it's worth a point in my heart

[Lap 8]: Cars starting to make their first pit stops

[Lap 9]: Back to Seb fastest lap, he's over three seconds ahead of P2

Meanwhile Lewis just got told to push before his first stop

[Lap 10]: And in he comes for stop number 1! Super softs off for Mediums, he comes out in P9

So according to Ted the two stop is actually quicker, but the cars that have stopped already are likely going to have to do the three stop. inch resting.

[Lap 11]: And saying that, Grosjean comes in to cover Lewis, and comes out juuuust ahead

[Lap 12]: And in comes Seb! Also putting on the mediums

but we need to cut back to the Lewis & Grosjean battle bc it was getting spicy

And a Lewis fastest lap for funsies 🥰

[Lap 13]: He's now 8 tenths behind Grosjean

[Lap 16]: Hmm, there is not much happening

I am enjoying watching the cars go round though, but then again that's just me 😅

Saying that, Hulkenberg is leading a train of Alonso, Raikkonen and Webber from 6th-9th.

oh it's a DRS train before we called it a DRS train

[Lap 18]: And Rosberg gets past Ricciardo for 4th

[Lap 20]: Jenson, who's in P9, is apparently not having a fun time with his tyres

Meanwhile Fernando is trying very hard to break through past Hulkenberg

sadly it's not happening

[Lap 22]: And *another* Seb fastest lap

I do love it when he collects them like pokemon

[Lap 23]: Jenson pits again :(

tbf it would be very on brand for me to deliberately forget if Jenson had a bad race

[Lap 24]: Breaking News: Fernando has still not gotten past Hulkenberg

I am starting to remember this part of the race and I'm pretty sure Hulkenberg does end up finishing in 5th

"Right front is destroyed" "I've been through the graining phase, and it's dead" the precursors to 'Bono my tyres are gone'. Lewis also sounds painfully done on the radio 😭😭😭

[Lap 26]: and there's a somewhat stranded Force India in the barriers.

oof Di Resta had a slow spin into the barriers after getting on the kerbs

[Lap 28]: Meanwhile Lewis is painfully slow compared to everyone else

Ah ha! There's Rosberg's front wing failure (not that I was wishing ill on him, more well done me for remembering correctly)

He was about to pass Lewis on the straight when the nose of the car just dropped down.

And it is now trailing on the ground putting sparks everywhere

[Lap 29]: So either by choice or circumstance Lewis wasn't able to get past Nico while he was driving slowly with his borked front wing.

"When are you gonna call me in man these tyres are fucked?" Lewis' very not fun Korean GP

[Lap 30]: and he FINALLY pits for another set of mediums

the race is 55 laps long so he should in theory make it to the end

[Lap 31]: FUCK Perez's tyre just failed

I do NOT want anymore Silverstone flashbacks, that was not fun

The whole tread of the tyre just ripped itself off the canvas while he was going down the straight, NOT GOOD

[Lap 32]: Very understandably we have a safety car

"And Pirelli are here to inspect the remnants of their tyre, not that there is much" Ted Kravitz committing murders live on air since 2013.

Well I have to say that certainly spiked up my blood pressure, it's the fact that Perez just happened to be in the camera shot when it happened.

[Lap 33]: So while we have the SC, the current top 5 is: Seb, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Lewis and Hulkenberg

[Lap 34]: Cut to a probably quite stressed Pirelli engineer in the Merc Garage looking over someone's shoulder

[Lap 35]: Shoutout to Webber, who had to pit again for running over the debris from Perez's car so dropped down to P11, and was given a set of super softs because Red Bull did not have any mediums left

You can see why he went over to WEC

[Lap 36]: And we're back racing!

[Lap 37]: Thankfully for my nerves all clean through turns 1 and 2

...

and then there was turn 3

Sutil divebombed into Webber, who's car is now on fire.

Don't cut to the depressed RBR mechanics 😭

also WHERE ARE THE FIRE MARSHALLS?!

okay there they are

oh now we have Lotus on Lotus violence

and.... there's a fire car on the track??????

aaaaand safety car again.

[Lap 38]: Well... Lap 37 chose far, far too much violence

That was certainly a sequence of events

right before all that happened, Hulkenberg overtook Lewis for P4

so I'm not having a fun time

[Lap 39]: Good news: they put out Webber's car, bad news: it looks like a wreck

iirc Japan was seven days after Korea so yeah, a very not fun time for the mechanics who needed to fix that

[Lap 41]: And we're racing again. Boys I beg of you NO NONSENSE

Turn 3 I am watching you like a hawk

Lewis and Fernando are scrapping over P5

Jenson sighting!!!! he's in P7

[Lap 42]: Meanwhile Seb is still leading out front, by almost 2 seconds this time

[Lap 43]: So the top 5 is: Seb, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Hulkenberg and Lewis

[Lap 44]: Grosjean's been given the all clear to race Raikkonen for P2 🍿

[Lap 45]: Breaking news: Lewis is still behind Hulkenberg

but in actual news we have FIVE cars fighting over 10th

Maldonado, Guiterrez, Massa, Perez and Bottas

and I legit cannot keep up with who is where they're chopping and chaning so fast

[Lap 46]: Okay it's Massa (P10), Gutierrez, Checo, Valtteri and Maldonado

Make that Perez now in P11

that was a great battle though!!!

[Lap 47]: Lewis is very close to Hulkenberg...

...but still doesn't get past through turn 3

[Lap 48]: LEWIS IS INTO P4!!!!

...nvm Hulkenberg got back past on the second straight

And Fernando was very briefly in P5 but Lewis managed to hold fim

[Lap 49]: Bless at least the Sauber team are having fun

[Lap 50]: Lotus telling Grosjean that he can overtake Kimi but Romain saying he can't???? Team Enstone doing Team Enstone things

Massa and Perez under investigation for causing a collision, fellas...

At least Seb has a 4 second lead

[Lap 51]: 5 laps remaining klaxon!!

[Lap 52]: slow-mo shot of Seb's tyres, his front right does not look pretty

which was the same tyre that went on Perez's car

[Lap 53]: Lewis asking on the radio if anyone has suggestions for how to get past Hulkenberg. idk if Merc can gaslight, gatekeep girlboss their way out of this one

And Rosberg takes P8 from Jenson

[Lap 54]: uh no not another yellow flag

oop, Ricciardo's car decided to stop working

[Lap 55]: FINAL LAP!!

Lewis has properly closed up to Hulkenberg 👀

and Fernando has closed up to the back of Lewis

and SEB WINS THE SOUTH KOREAN GP!!!!! 🥳🍾

(gosh I've missed a driver sounding happy over the radio when they win)

The rest of the top 10: Raikkonen P2, Grosjean P3, Hulkenberg P4, Lewis P5, Fernando P6, Rosberg P7, Jenson P8, Massa P9 and Perez P10

lol at me saying Jenson has a nice race when he Did Not. But Lewis finish in the top 5 so that was positive bc I really had no recollection of how he did. Seb goated as per, and Lap 37 owes me financial compensation for all that nonsense.

Next race - Japan!

[icemankazansky]

☝️ T h i s ☝️

YES PLEASE. I realize a lot of you don't understand what the world was like without smart phones, but in the scope of things, they are very new. I did not get a smart phone until 2013, after I graduate from graduate school. Okay? I didn't get my first cell phone full stop until I started high school, and it just made phone calls. Okay? And I am really not that old.

The thing is, the phone thing can be really great in terms of problem solving when you're writing a story. If someone is lost, they cannot Google the address or pull up GPS. They're going to have to ask for directions or figure it out themselves. People do not have communication access to ANYONE 24/7, not even their families or partners. We used to play "phone tag," which was not an actual game but this thing where you would call someone, miss them (bc they weren't home to pick up the landline phone), they would call you back, miss you, etc. This is AMAZING for plot building. Do you know how many plots could be solved in like 10 minutes if all the characters had smart phones? The next time you're watching an old movie (by which I mean like from earlier than 2010), think about that.

There's a couple things I want to show you. OP, I hope you're cool with me expanding your post, because apparently that's what's happening now.

This is a phone directory, commonly known as the Yellow Pages the way tissues are known as Kleenex.

It has two sections: the white pages with the phone numbers and addresses of residents, and the yellow pages with the phone numbers and addresses of businesses.

Notice the logo to the right of the words YELLOW PAGES on the spine. Their slogan was "let your fingers do the walking," because you no longer had to physically go from locale to locale to find something; you could find their number and address in the Yellow Pages. (Also the type is small, and as you can see there's a lot of entries, so you had to slide your finger down the page to keep your place.)

Yellow Pages were free. You'd get a new one on your doorstep every year. They were in businesses. They were in phone booths, tethered to the booth by a steel cable. (See the first gif in the original post.) Libraries had directories from other cities and all around the world.

You know voicemail? Not in the 1980s you didn't. These are answering machines:

This is a separate machine from your landline telephone that you would connect and would pick up calls if you didn't answer the phone. For some reason, many of them came in wood paneling please don't ask me why. You would record an outgoing message that would play when the machine picked up, and then it would beep and people could leave their message. Most machines played all of this out loud while it was recording, so you could "screen calls" by listening to the message being left, and decide if you wanted to pick up when you heard the speaker and their message. (Because guess what: No caller ID, either.) If you picked up and spoke while the tape was still engaged, it would also record YOU until you went over the allotted time. If you can't think of how that can make a fun plot point, there's nothing I can do to help you, I'm sorry.

Answering machines had to be plugged in, and they recorded on cassette tapes. These are cassette tapes:

They also played music or audiobooks, etc. By the mid-'80s, cassettes were outselling vinyl, for many reasons including their portability. Lots of people still had and played vinyl regularly in their houses or businesses in the '80s, but cars had cassette decks, and there were portable cassette players you could take with you other places. This is a personal cassette player, a Walkman:

and this is a boom box, which played the music out loud so you could share it with others:

Both of them ran on batteries, the alkaline kind that you put in a flashlight or remote.

That concludes this chapter of my talk on Ancient Technology. I was going to expand on the condom thing but I literally do not have the strength atm. But please know that OP is 100% right, and it's a Very Big Deal.

Maybe it's just me being an actual 80s baby, but this is something you might want to consider when writing og Top Gun fic:

there were no mobile phones in the 80s, no texting, only landlines and blissful in not knowing what was going on while being on the go

mid to end of the 80s was the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, so let them wrap it up

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

[bukojuiice]

rose-colored boy

ೃ pairing: (eren jaeger x fem! reader)

ೃ  tags: college/modern au, fluff, humor, love at first sight cliché, mikasa is your cute little sister, armin, sasha, jean, and connie are your besties, and eren is a himbo who works hard and has terrible friends.

ೃ warnings: strong language and mild suggestive content

ೃ part 1/??? of my (eren x reader) college au!

ೃ word count: 3000 words

ೃ  my nav  →  my mha writing masterlist 

ೃ This is my very first snk x reader fic! so i hope you bear with some errors! qwq 

i’ve been following the anime ever since it was released in 2013, and this is the first time i’m  going to be writing for it.  this month’s manga chapter really took me out so why not channel my sadness thru writing an fluff! eren fic? 🤧 i hope you enjoy either way!

ೃ  please do reblog if you enjoyed!! (feel free to add tags too because i love reading them and my heart swells with happiness when people love my work!)

ೃ  in which (Y/N) (L/N), 20, still in school, and regretfully-unregretfully-her little girl scout sister's assistant, meets eren jaeger in an embarrassing too innocent door-to-door cookie sale whilst a humiliating party was going on.

cookies, suspicious maybe-maybe-not pot brownies, meddling little sisters and friends, “oh my god they were roommates” vine on replay 24/7, homework, tears, and fairy lights bring them together.

“I’m going to enter now.”

“Ahhh yes, please!”

“Shut up, please.” Eren muttered to himself as he tossed and turned around in his bed, but still couldn’t get to sleep. “When will they ever stop doing this?” Why did Eren’s next-door roommate and his girlfriend have to do this five times a day? They had a lot of stamina for 21-year-olds who didn’t have anything better to do.

Eren’s thoughts eventually brought him to his parents.

His parents- did they even exist?

For pretty much 14 years of Eren’s life, they had been out of town or out of the country. His older brother, Zeke, blonde, bespectacled, tall, and sometimes too far up his own ass older brother who Eren is able to confide in from time to time, recently got a girlfriend whom he’s hopelessly in love with (they’re even thinking about getting married which isn’t really a problem since the girl is genuinely nice to his older brother so Eren is good with her.), so… things in the family had been a bit rough and busy to say the least.

Communication with his parents wasn’t always the best.

Eren would study late at night back when he was seven, because no one bothered to help him with homework. Along with the fact that he wasn’t the brightest kid in class, and he knew that very well, but he had ambition and he was determined to make it big in the world. He focused more on sports, particularly Soccer in middle school and high school, and tried to balance that with his studies.  After being granted a Sports Scholarship from Shigashina University, Eren decided to rent and share a flat, living with his batchmates who he met at a mixer party (before Uni started as this whole meet and get to know each other kind of thing) and whom he was so quick to call his ‘friends’, just so that he could get out of the hellhole that was his own house.

But things turned out much worse than expected.

Eren thought that the ‘College Life’ was to focus more on pursuing your future career and make a name for yourself but… it was the other way around.

He thought that after Freshmen year, everyone would take things seriously. Sure, have some drinks, get wasted after finals, or have house parties from time to time. But he was unfortunately, dragged into the wrong crowd. After attending around 5 parties in the first few months of being generalized as one of the infamous and pompous freshman archetypes present in every university, he called it a year and spent the rest of his nights doing homework, projects, playing video games, staying at the school soccer field until 10PM while his roommates were probably smoking crack and not caring about the number of units they needed to take for each of their goddamn subjects.

 He was ~living the life~ and now that he regrets most of the decisions he made in freshman year, the only option that he has left was to wait until his third year and move to a different apartment.  

 Now, here he was, Sophomore year, nearing the end of the semester, and very much eager to get the hell out of here and also study for his upcoming finals on Constitutional Law II, as his professor, Mr. Erwin Smith, was going to throw hands if one of his students score below average on the exam.

 “EREN MICK JAEGER! BROOOO!” Eren winces when he hears the shrieky and annoying voice of his flatmate Thomas Wagner, calling out to him. “Wanna go and party with us?” Eren smiles halfheartedly, shaking his head, “Ah, no thanks. I have a game tomorrow and finals coming up on Thursday.” Thomas smirked and wrapped his arm around Eren, “Oh fuck that, live the college life ya spoon.”

“No, really I have to study.”

Thomas frowned and groaned, “Oh god, you’re such a killjoy. Fine, if that’s what you want. Don’t blame us if we tell you to buy some beer down the block.”

Eren cracked an obviously fake laugh and pushed Thomas away from him, “You’re an ass. That only happened once and that was when we first met. Don’t you even dare try to ask me to buy you shit again.”

“Woah. Woah. Woaaaaaah. That was a joke Eren. Loosen up will you?” Thomas raises an eyebrow, clearly taken aback by the brunette’s sudden aggressiveness. He hums Moves like Jaeger by Maroon 5 as a way to spite Eren whilst passing by him down the staircase.

The brunette shook his head, tying his hair into a bun carelessly and sprinting into his room without uttering another word.

Eren just wanted to study. He really did.

Instead, his roommates, all of them, mind you, were all partying in the lounge and the music was too loud and Eren was too annoyed.

They did manage to bring him out and make him stay in the kitchen where he mindlessly glared at anyone who came in. He sighed and tapped his pen restlessly amongst the insane amount of books on the table.

There was a knock.

His roommate, Floch, came in the kitchen with his girlfriend who Eren couldn’t even name with all the women he has brought into the apartment. She was hanging onto his arm and giggling. Floch’s eyes were red and his speech very slow and lazy. "Eren!" he said with a sly grin.

Eren raised an eyebrow, shooting him an irritated look. "What now Floch? Are you here to tell me to take a shot again?" The ginger-haired’s girlfriend giggled once again and kissed Floch’s cheek. Floch laughed and swatted her away, though he missed by a long shot. "Someone's at the door," a thumb pointing to the den. "wouldchumind ge'in it?" another giggle. The girl nodded sloshily. "Yesss! Erenieee get 'em door, please. Be a dearrrrr."

Eren frowned and stared at them menacingly, earning no reaction from the two as they were mad drunk. "You were just in the den," Floch’s eyes widened. "My lovey wovey-we was in the den?" His girlfriend’s mouth went into an O. "Di'nt notice tha'!"

Eren sighed and stood up. He miraculously got through the throng of bodies and to the front door. "Yes?" he called out exasperated, not knowing who was outside.

"Do you want cookies?"

Eren turned and looked to see a little raven-haired girl, a girl scout no less, a blonde-haired boy pulling on a trolley who looked significantly shorter than him, wearing rimmed glasses, and an overall appearance whom his “friends” would immediately label as a nerd they had to be a few feet away from if they saw him and lastly, a girl who looked very tired and very done with life.

Beautiful (h/c)-colored hair, her eyes looked like the starry night sky, twinkling as he catches her gaze and a smile that looked forced, but warm all the same.  

A girl who was just absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Eren was captivated. His heart was beating like crazy and he could feel his ears turn red. He would make a fool of himself if he looked red as a tomato right now.

"Um," The girl peeked inside and grimaced, squeezing the hand that was her little sister's shoulder and catching Eren’s gaze. "Mikasa, I don't think these kinds of guys would want cookies."

“Unless they're pot cookies,” Eren almost said. Mikasa pouted and widened her eyes at Eren.

The older girl crouched down and frantically covered her little sister’s eyes. "Nopenopenope, Mi, don't pull that on him."

"But (Y/N)!"

(Y/N).

Her name was (Y/N).

Eren smiled sincerely (for the first time today) and leaned back inside to the drawer by the door to grab the extra cash he and his roommates put there for emergency pizza and stuff. "You know what? You're absolutely brilliant at selling cookies. I'll take one."

Mikasa smiled back at him cheekily and tugged her older sister’s hand. "See, (Y/N)?! He wants some! Go get 'em!”

The raven-haired girl then turned to the blonde teen, practically jumping up and down. “Armin look! We sold another one!"

“We did!” The boy who was apparently named Armin, clapped his hands together, then gave the little girl a high five. “You’re a natural at this Mikasa!”

(Y/N) looked at Eren, then Mikasa, and sighed. She grabbed a bag from the trolley Armin was dragging around and pulled out a box of cookies. Eren grabbed them slowly from her, their hands almost touching as he gave (Y/N) a small smile. The (h/c) girl blushed lightly, though not visible enough for the brunette to notice.

"Hope to see you again!" Eren called out when the siblings said their thank you's and bid farewell.

And, this time, even for the slightest moment, Eren’s serotonin levels were going straight through the roof. His heart was still beating loudly, almost in sync with the trash music his roommates were blaring on the speakers. and for a moment, even just for a moment. 

He felt genuine happiness that he hasn’t felt in a very long time.

 The three of you continue to walk animatedly, now that the coast was clear and the guy from earlier wasn’t within earshot, your blonde friend just had to break the silence.

 Armin smiles, pushing his glasses up to the crook of his nose. “(Y/N), you did see how he looked at you right?” The blonde chuckles softly, catching his best friend off guard.

 You blinked. “Him?” You try to stop yourself from smiling, blushing profusely. “Geez Armin, I don’t even know his name yet.”

 “I’ll bet you 100 bucks that he goes to our Uni.”

 “Even if he does, it’s not like we’ll talk to him or anything. Judging from the place he lives in and the people he was hanging out with, we’re in two completely different worlds.” You shook your head in denial, holding Mikasa’s hand, your interlocked arms swinging playfully. Armin gives you a knowing look in response.

 Mikasa continued to wave back at the boy whom they had just sold cookies too. (Y/N) looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Wasn’t he nice (Y/N)?” Mikasa asks her older sister. (Y/N) returned her sister a small smile, “He was.”

 "I hope we see him again!"

"I'm sure we will."

 The day of Eren’s dreaded finals finally arrive.

He has prepared tirelessly for this. Hours upon hours of hard work. But, before he finally gets his well-deserved sleep, he has a few more hours to cram and absorb more knowledge for his exams.

So, what better way to do so than head straight to the library as soon as it opens at 6 AM?

This time, no one was going to bother him. No annoying roommates and no distractions.

Eren heads over to a table near the coffee and snack machines. He puts down his bag on a seat next to him, and begins to study once again. Looking through the course materials and the lessons that he still didn’t quite understand. Eren was so absorbed with studying and relying on his gut feeling that no other student in this university would think of going to the library at 6 AM on the day of finals… then he’s wrong. Very wrong. 

 “Sasha, should you even be eating mashed potato this early in the morning?” Armin asks the brunette worriedly, a huge tone of concern in his voice.

“Armin! Don’t chu worry! I ate heavy breakfast! Bacon, Eggs, and Toast! Did you not see me in the kitchen!?” She reassures her blonde friend, continuing to scoop up the mashed potato on a reusable cup.

“Liar.” Connie hissed, narrowing his eyes. “I was awake since 4 AM. Not once did I see you sneak into the kitchen until (Y/N) woke you up.”

“Atatata. Can we… stop with the negative vibes for a second?” Jean tries to become the mediator by holding his hands up against his two friends who were about to start an argument. “It’s finals week. We have to keep a clear mind, body and soul-“

“Jean, you know that’s BS.” You yawn widely, still practically half-asleep.

“Oh, come on! Can’t you just let me be positive just this once!? If we fail this exam I’m going to blame you!“

The five of you continue to talk mindlessly on the way to the library. Connie pushes the glass door open, very much excited to have this huge library all to yourselves.

Until…

There was someone already there.

Your eyes immediately come into contact with Eren’s. His radiant jade eyes staring into yours, mouth practically agape, his hands holding on to wooden chopsticks as the hot air of instant ramen breezes through his face.

“Oh?” Connie blinks. “Guess we aren’t the first ones here then.” He whistles.

“(Y/N)!” Armin nudges you in the arm in an attempt to tease you. “Guess your wish came true huh? We did see him again! By himself too!”

“W-what am I supposed to do exactly?” You turn to Armin, speaking in a hushed whisper.  

“Say thank you to him! Offer him to go on a boba date or something!”

“You got the Sasha seal of approval (Y/N)! He’s hot!” Sasha motions you a thumbs up and you can’t help but feel yourself already wanting to die of embarrassment.

The four of them slightly push you towards his table. With your friends cornering you like this, there was no way of escaping this.

All you had to do was talk to him and properly thank him for buying cookies from your little sister.

That was it.

No need for any extra ad-libs or poor and bad attempts of flirtation.

Just thank him (Y/N).

You can do this.

You breathe a hefty sigh then approach his table with confidence. The brunette continues to look up at you whilst turning the page of his reviewer that he wasn’t even looking at.

“Hi again! I just wanted to thank you properly for helping my sister and I, out the other day. Mikasa really appreciated the gesture you did for her, and she couldn’t stop talking about you to our parents since we saw you. You see, none of the other girl scouts want to be paired up with my sister because they think she’s an emotionless and monotonous freak. They’re really mean to her but she really wants to continue being a girl scout so my friend and I accompany her whenever she has to sell cookies!”

“It’s N-no problem!” Eren quickly replies, running a hand through his hair. “Why would they say such horrible things to your sister like that? Judging from the way she acted in front of me, she was quite the opposite. In a positive way of course! Those kids are just assholes who are intimidated because another girl their age is seemingly better than them.”

You giggle in response. “Thank you. I’ll tell Mikasa that you said that!” 

There was short silence for a few seconds until you realized that you forgot to say something. 

“Ah! I’m (Y/N) (L/N) by the way!”

“Eren.” He smiles, reaching his hand out to you for you to shake. You grip his strong and calloused hand firmly, and Eren could feel his ears turning red again while you were about to blush as red as a tomato.

You hear your friends snickering in the background and you took this as a sign to go back to your table. “I guess, I’ll see you around campus?” You ask, tilting your head. For, you actually really wanted to see him again after this.

“Yea! I’ll be seeing you!” He grins widely, watching you leave where he was seated. His smile then envelops into a frown as soon as you went away then he goes back to studying.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N)!” Connie whispers loudly, calling you over by waving his hand. Why was this dunce being so painfully obvious? “Ask him if he’s looking for an apartment or if he wants to live with us!”

“Already!?” You ask in disbelief, a bit shocked by what Connie had just said. He scoots to the left, as you take a seat between him and Sasha. “Guys, you’ve known him for like… 3 minutes. Only Armin and I actually interacted with him before this.”

“He has to pass the vibe check first.” Jean shrugs, sipping on an iced expresso. “But, yeah, he does seem alright from a few feet away.”

“Come on (Y/N)! Ask him!” Sasha nods approvingly. “It’s weird that he’s studying alone like this while we’re in another table trying to remain unaware that he looks lonely as hell.”

“UMmMM… maybe he wants to study alone because that’s the only way he can focus? That’s a thing that normal people do, Sasha.” You remark sarcastically, trying to think up of more reasons to not approach him again.

Armin clears his throat, “Look, (Y/N), it won’t hurt to try right? Besides, don’t you feel a tiny bit sorry for him? He does seem lonely and you do have a crush on him so… more ways to interact with him right?”

Your shoulders slump and you breathe a defeated sigh. “Okay okay fine.” You make your way to Eren’s table again but before you do, you turn to your friends. “By the way, I don’t really have a crush on him just yet. I just find him cute okay?”

“Yeah yeah.” They say in unison as you continue to walk back to the brunette’s table.

“Hi again Eren!” You wave and try your best not to fumble or look painfully obvious that you were infatuated by him. He looks up and you try your best not to smile like a weirdo.

“Hm?” He hums.

“Would you like to come over to our table and study with us?”

To be continued.

[cidnangarlond]

in the tags where I mentioned where we used to live it was $800/month starting out and after 5 years it was like. significantly SIGNIFICANTLY more. I'd have to ask about numbers again but it was $800/month in early 2008 and then by 2013 it was just like. ridiculous apparently. but also I was a child into pre teen into teen so that wasn't my concern at the time what WAS my concern at the time was one direction concert tickets (that I never got which is fine) (and those shits were expensive too!)

scam calls r wild because it led to me to looking up state court cases involving my dad and found my parents divorce case lmaoooo AND HE REPRESENTED HIMSELF LIKE AN IDIOT