#i might finish season 6 just to see how far they really take it

[charles-leclerc-official]

China 2024 Sprint Race Analysis

I wasn't planning on doing a sprint analysis. However this sprint actually gave us a lot to talk about, and also finally gave an idea of what racing on this track will look like.

I have pretty strong thoughts on what happened between Carlos and Charles, that is at the end if you are less interested in the op ed reporting element.

Table of Contents

Sprint Start Max and Lewis DRS train: Perez Ferrari: Charles and Carlos - Ferrari Data/footage Analysis Fernando retirement Charles vs Carlos opinion Concluding Thoughts

Sprint Start

The only thing I want to note at the sprint start was Lewis' amazing start to take the lead almost immediately from Lando. Lando then lost grip going into turn 1 which cost him 6 places while he recovered the car. I think the reason he lost grip had more to do with the lack of traction on that turn(we saw many others have issues here) and Lewis taking the better line got the section with the best grip. His inability to defend against Lewis in that first turn cost him the track line and thus the grip and resulted in that big drop in the order. We saw Lewis lose grip in the same turn later in the race so I really think the margin of accuracy for grip on that corner is narrow.

Without the lost of placement so early Lando might have seen a better result, but that loss of grip was very costly.

If anyone knows how to defend a front row start it's Lewis, Lewis' skill really shone into that first turn.

Max and Lewis

Lewis had the lead of the sprint after overtaking Lando until the final corner of lap 9 when Max overtook him.

Max was lagging in the pack at the start of his race, part of the issue was with his battery power setting. Once he fixed that he was moving up the pack very quickly, it was only a matter of time before he was out front.

Max won the sprint with Lewis finishing P2.

Lewis' drive overall was the most impressive this sprint. The WB15 has had a lot of problems and he's been having issues finding the right balance in the car. It's the best result we've seen from this car all season and that is simply due to Lewis' skill on track. Great to see him near the top again. Hopefully this result will have informed a positive direction for Lewis and Merc as far as his car setup goes.

DRS train

The most interesting part of this sprint was the DRS train that went on for essentially 16 laps between Fernando, Carlos, Checo, and Charles.

I have my thoughts on Ferrari's part in this situation below, for now I want to point out that Checo had some really impressive driving here.

While Carlos and Fernando were battling, Checo slid past both of them on the inside of turn 9 on lap 16. This was probably the most impressive move the entire race, just a clean double pass on his part. Checo has been performing great in the RB20 but that was probably the best bit of driving we've seen from him so far this year. That was simply put some solid racing on his part.

Fernando also was not going to be able to battle two Ferraris and a Red Bull. All are faster cars than his own, but he did not give that position up easy to Carlos. He did concede to Checo though, which fair enough, I don't think that Aston could fight the RB20 as it stands.

Fernando unfortunately had to retire his car after a tyre puncture on lap 16.

Ferrari

Charles started P7 and finished P4, while Carlos started P4 and finished P5.

This is the first time this season we've seen what it will look like when Charles and Carlos race wheel to wheel, and it's not looking good(on Carlos' side)

I have more thoughts in the opinion section but having a teammate defend so aggressively against another teammate to the point of causing contact between the cars is unacceptable. Risking damaging both cars is not what any team wants or needs. And the footage makes it abundantly clear that Carlos was the one in the wrong and the cause of the contact.

Carlos had the center line going into 9 on lap 16. Fernando was on the inside but clearly behind. Charles took the outside for the overtake. Carlos then swerved more to the outside crowding Charles off the track. I want to be clear that Carlos had already given Fernando room, and then he moved to push Charles off. This contradicts his statement to the press that they were all fighting and it wasn't his intent. The driving tells a different story.

Charles overtook Carlos on lap 17 going into turn 1. Once he was clear of Carlos his faster pace became clear as he created an immediate gap that Carlos was not going to be able to close.

One thing we saw is that Charles' tyre management gives him the pace advantage over Carlos. If he is within range to overtake that is going to likely come up again in future races. Carlos was not even close at the end there. This overtake did give us a glimpse at what the real difference in pace between them means for the rest of the season.

After a few back and forth's between them Carlos should have conceded. It was clear Charles had the pace and it was just a matter of time before he'd overtake.

I want to point out that Carlos fighting Charles so much might have cost Ferrari a real chance to battle Checo. If he had let Charles pass Charles might have been able to stay within range of Checo and be within DRS. Because Carlos fought Checo was able to create a wide gap so by the time Charles did pass there wasn't a real chance to catch him. So this was not strategically optimal and it can be pinned 100% on Carlos' choices in that turn.

In fact you can see that Charles actually did have the pace necessary to stay closer to Checo. If he would have been able to pass is up in the air, but Carlos did cost Ferrari the chance to at least try to battle Checo for P3. If Charles had been able to get ahead of Checo he had the pace to keep him behind, or at least have a chance at doing so.

Also this serves to highlight that Charles' tyre management is on par with the RB20 or at least not far off, Carlos' tyre management is much further off the pace.

Charles finished P4 in the sprint with Carlos finishing P5.

Data and Footage Analysis

So the data is pretty clear on this. I wanted to show because it supports my argument later and it also demonstrates the difference in tyre management between the two drivers.

Charles' pace was better even in lap 16 when he was stuck behind Carlos. Once he is clear of Carlos after his pass on the first turn of lap 17 the real difference in pace between them becomes clear. Charles had more than a second on Carlos in all remaining laps. This is very likely due to his tyre management. The large difference here also highlights why Carlos should have let Charles pass because this pace difference is not something to fight over. Strategically Carlos should have let Charles pass smoothly, but Charles overtook anyway because his pace was not something Carlos could fight for long.

Note: DRS Charles got from Carlos at the beginning of lap 17 accounted for about 1 - 2 tenths of pace, the rest was all Charles increasing that gap himself.

Now I want to just look at the move from Sainz going into turn 9 on lap 16. He claimed he needed to give Fernando space. Charles said he was being too aggressive and forced him wide. Let's see who's version of events the actual footage supports.

Leading into the turn we can clearly see that Fernando is behind. Carlos has the inside line, Charles has the outside.

Here they are entering turn 9. There is clearly enough space on Carlos' inside for Fernando already. Charles clearly has the outside line.

Here you can see that Carlos has moved further outside. Now since he'd already given room to Fernando the only reason for this would be to fight Charles. And once again Fernando clearly behind. And I will say that some battling between teammates is acceptable. But what happened next did not fall into that category of acceptability.

Here is where Carlos continued to force Charles wide. Also where they got way too close and made some contact.

And here is the final result going into that turn. Carlos has forced Charles completely off the track, and he even has two wheels off the track. This was not about leaving space for Fernando. Does Fernando need the entire track? No. This was Carlos forcing a teammate who had better pace off the track because he could not actually fight his pace.

Either Carlos did this on purpose, which is unacceptable. Or he is telling the truth and didn't realize what he was doing, in which case he is admitting to extremely poor driving on his part.

Either version of events is not a good look for Carlos.

He was overtaken by Charles easily in the next lap. He just did not have the pace and should not have defended this aggressively against his own teammate.

Next I will be sharing my more opinionated thoughts on things relating to Ferrari.

Charles VS Carlos

I want to get into some of my thoughts on this whole battle we saw between Carlos and Charles because I think it was emblematic of the way thing shave been going at Ferrari and with their teammate dynamic on track.

This was unacceptable on Carlos' part. It's that simple.

I have listened to what both drivers have said about the overtake, and the battle we saw between them. I have looked at the footage from many different angles. And Carlos is in the wrong here. Not only that but I do not see how this kind of "racing" from him is going to be good for his career considering he still does not have a seat lined up for 2025.

The fact is Charles was faster. And that wasn't something Carlos was willing to accept.

And this level of battling a teammate, especially to the extent you cause contact and force that teammate off the track(to the extent that lap time had to be deleted) is not acceptable.

I will say that a little back and forth between teammates on track is fine. That wasn't what we saw. This was not only too much fighting of a teammate it was also poor sportsmanship(touching, and pushing off track)

Charles let Carlos pass because he was faster in Japan. Carlos does not do the same. It is this kind of thing coming from Carlos that is a prime example of why Ferrari did not re-new his contract.

Fighting to the point of causing contact between teammates is too far, you can see him move further to the outside even when it's clear he's given Alonso enough space. He was fighting Charles and caused contact. A driver who does not have the pace should not be fighting their teammate so extensively that they cause contact. They are on the same team, risking damage to both cars is again, unacceptable.

As seen above in the data Charles' pace at this point was significantly better than Carlos, he was really showing the difference between them in tyre management. If Carlos had the pace given he was in front after Perez passed then he would have had a larger gap to Charles and Charles would not have been able to catch him. Even fighting "dirty" he was unable to stop the inevitable.

When there is this great of a difference in pace between teammates, a pass is what should happen. Carlos would have been able to tell by the second time Charles caught him that Charles' pace was much better. That should have been his signal to move. He didn't.

Furthermore we hear on team radio exactly how frustrated Charles was over this. He wouldn't have been anywhere near as mad if this was a first time thing, it isn't, and again this display from Carlos is a reason that Ferrari are not keeping him.

I hope Ferrari make it clear that this is not the kind of thing that can be allowed to happen in the future. Risking damage to both cars is not something any team can afford, especially a top team when they are trying to seriously compete with Red Bull.

Charles did everything he should have done. He had the line, but was forced wide. He had the pace and was aggressively fought with.

Final Sprint Thoughts

This was actually one of the best sprints. Lots of action and we saw some really solid racing from a lot of top drivers.

I hadn't planned on doing regular sprint analysis, but if they are all packed like this I might have to. If enough noteworthy things happen in a sprint I'll do it again.

Thank you for reading and I'll be back with my China GP analysis soon!

#lucis sprint analysis #chinese sprint 2024 #formula 1 #f1 #scuderia ferrari #charles leclerc #lucis race analysis

[janicho88]

When It All Falls Apart- Chapter 3

Pairing- Jensen x Padalecki Reader

Word count- 4,222

Warnings-Pregnancy talk (Will last a good chunk of the story) But it's not the reader. Some language. Jensen isn't the best boyfriend. If I missed something let me know!

A/N-A little off canon, SPN ended after 10 years. We still got all the characters in during that time though. Thank you to @writercole and @leigh70 for your help with this. You two are amazing!!

Summary-Y/N Padalecki loved acting on Supernatural.  Working alongside your older brother and your boyfriend, but after ten seasons the guys have chosen to hang up the guns.  Now the three of you are moving on to other projects, but that’s all that needs to change right?  While you have moved to Austin to be closer to your family and boyfriend, Jensen is working elsewhere.  Distance is only the start of your troubles.

Series Masterlist

Your alarm starts blaring at 6:30 and you roll over and hit the snooze, you must have dozed back off because next thing you know it’s going off again ten minutes later.  Dragging yourself out of bed, you make your way to the bathroom.  Hopefully a shower will wake you up.  Once you are dressed, and have your hair and makeup done you head downstairs to the kitchen. 

Pouring a glass of orange juice, you grab a protein bar to stick in your bag for later.  You jump when you hear a voice behind you.

“You ready to head out?” your brother asks with a yawn.

“Geesh Jare, you scared the crap out of me.  What are you doing up? It’s barely  7.”

“Giving you a ride to the airport.  Doesn't make much sense having two cars there.”

“You don’t have…”

“I know I don’t have to.  I want to.”

You know he wants to talk about last weekend, Gen has done a good job of keeping him off that topic so far, but she is currently still in bed. It was going to be a long thirty minute drive.  “Okay, thanks.”

He grabs your suitcase after you finish your juice, you pick up your other bags and follow him out to his truck. After setting your stuff in the back, you hop in front with him.

“So how are things going?”

“Fine.  It will be nice to have a little free time for a few weeks now that the show wrapped.”

“That wasn’t really what I meant.”

“I know, but it’s what you’re getting.”

“Y/N, I just want to help.”

“I know you do.  But he is also your best friend.  I promised you my relationship with him wouldn’t change that before we started dating.  This weekend together, even if it’s for a convention, might be just what we need.   Let us deal with it, okay?”

He stares at you from the corner of his eye before agreeing. 

It’s quarter to eight when Jared is pulling up to the departure drop off area, and letting you out.

“Thanks Jare, enjoy the rest of your day, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No problem, have a safe flight.”

Once he’s gone you enter the building and find your way to check in.  Your suitcase just barely passes as a carry-on, but it will work.  Security is next, it takes a half an hour before you are clear of that.  You now have about twenty minutes to quickly get to your gate before your plane starts to board.  The airport is busier than you were expecting for this time of day, should have known better.

Grabbing a roll from a little cafe you pass, you arrive at the right gate just as they are opening it up to begin boarding.  When your section is called you head over to line, wait your turn and then make your way to your seat in first class.  It’s fairly empty and you have the row to yourself. After the plane takes off and you are allowed to turn on your laptop, you start a movie which helps the almost three hour flight go by quicker. 

Getting off the plane in Chicago, you follow the crowd toward the baggage claim area.  Looking around you see a familiar face from the convention team.  The driver, Mike, greets you with a smile and grabs your suitcase from you.  He’s picked you up from other conventions before and once out of the building you chat quietly.  The ride to the hotel is a quick one. You aren’t staying at the fan designated hotel, attached to the convention center, but the Hilton at the other end of the convention center.  

Mike takes you over to a side entrance at the convention hall, he checked before he came to get you, but your room isn't ready yet.  Taking your bags to the green room, you find a few of your friends back there.  Felicia runs over to give you a hug, and Bri and Kim follow.  You thank Mike for his help before turning all your attention to your girls.   It isn’t long before Felicia has to leave for photos and Bri, her meet and greet (M&G). Kim and you are both free for a little bit longer.  David and Adam come back from their VIP M&G. You listen to some of the on stage action, they are currently doing a Yes/No trivia game.   Jason makes an appearance before he goes on stage, and you head down for pictures with Kim.

When you arrive back at the green room, someone comes up to your handler, Chelsea.  She comes back over to you when the other person leaves.

“Your room is all set if you want to take your things over now before you have the VIP meet and greet, then your panel.”  She holds out two room keys for you.

“I’ll just take one, I’ll leave the other for Clif to give to Jensen tomorrow,” you tell her.  The two of you have been sharing a room on these weekends for awhile now. You’re usually busy when he flies in, this way he can go to the room without having to track you down.

“He called last week to make sure he had his own room,” Victoria, his handler, snottily tells you.

You don’t reply, just take both cards from Chelsea.  Victoria isn’t one of your favorite people of the weekend.  You didn't have a problem with her before you and Jensen started dating.  You are pretty sure she has a thing for him, and doesn’t like you because you’re with him.  Walking over to the skywalk, which will take you to your hotel, you don’t pay as much attention to her, as the fact Jensen asked for his own room.  The man isn’t even here yet, and things are starting off poorly for you.

With your things in the room and you freshened up, you make your way back to the convention center.  Chelsea, is waiting for you near the entrance.  She wants to give you space, but be there if you need her.  Back in the green room, you turn on your computer to take a look at upcoming flights.  Pulling up your calendar on your phone you check the dates you would be available to go up to Toronto to stay with your boyfriend.  You want to have it figured out before you bring it up to him.

Your VIP M&G, goes smoothly and you are due up on stage after.  The forty five minute panel goes by quickly.  There are a few questions about what you are doing now that SPN has finished, some about Jensen, others about your brother, and a few about things you enjoy.  When that ends you are back to the picture room.

That evening you go out with the gang for dinner.  After dinner it's a quick stop in the hotel room to change for Karaoke.  The alcohol is flowing before people head out for their turn on stage.  When it’s time for you all to go out on stage, Bri has already plied you, Kim and Felicia with three margaritas, three strong ones.  You are definitely able to let loose on stage tonight.  Adam is in a little better shape than the four of you and is running all over the place.  Gil is somewhere in the middle. 

When the show is over, the cast party backstage is a little slower to end.  With the persuasion of your handlers, you all make your way over to the hotel.  Hopefully, you won’t regret this too much in the morning. 

The ringing of your phone rudely wakes you up Saturday morning, “‘ello,” you groggily answer.

“Are you still in bed?” your brother asks in lue of a greeting.

“Yeah,” you groan, “why are you calling this early?”

“Don’t you have a panel at 10?”

“Yeah,” you don’t even try to hide the yawn from him.

“It’s quarter after 9.”

“Son of a…” Well that statement from him woke you up.  “I gotta get ready.”

“Guess that means you had a good night.  I’m at the airport, flights in an hour.  See you later.  Good luck, sis.”

“Thanks for the wake up call, bye Jare, have a safe flight.”

Hanging up from him, you dig through your bag for some tylenol before hopping in the shower.  Quickly going through your bathroom routine, you are out in the bedroom grabbing your clothes for the day.  At 9:40, Chelsea is knocking at your door.  Thankfully, she has your favorite Starbucks drink with her.

You wear your sunglasses through the brightly lit hotel and skywalk over to the convention center.  Backstage you grab a breakfast roll and collapse next to Bri on the couch.

“Are you in as gooda shape as I am?” the blonde asks quietly.

“Probably, if it wasn’t for Jared calling I might have slept through the panel.”

She snorts at that.

It isn’t long before the two of you along with Kim, Felicia and Ruth are being announced on stage.  Four of you might not be in the best of shape after last night, but you all have fun.  You all start to leave the stage an hour later as Matt, Rich and Rob come on.  

“Wait a minute,” Rich calls out.

“You aren’t getting away that easy little Padalecki,” Rob tells you.

Looking over at the curtain you see Adam and David coming out with a cake.  Your friends and the audience all start singing ‘Happy Birthday.’  You blow out the lone candle on top and thank them all.

“Happy early birthday, Y/N.  Now you can go,” Rich tells you.

“Thank you everyone!” You call out waving to the crowd and the guys on stage.

There is about forty minutes until the Ladies of SPN photo, so you are once again in the green room.  Someone from Creation comes over and cuts up the cake for everyone.  Felicia leaves for autos, but will see you in the photo room.  

“Any big birthday plans next weekend?” Kim wants to know.

“Not yet.  I might fly up to see Jay.”

Chelsea comes to walk you down to the photo room.  When the group photo is over, you hang out downstairs, because you're scheduled for a solo round in thirty minutes. Done with photos you follow Chelsea back to the green room to grab lunch.  Your brother is up there when you arrive.  He noisily makes his way over and gives you a tight hug.  You know he is being a little over the top because of your earlier hangover.

“Hello.”

“How’s my favorite sister doing?”

“You mean only sister?”

He just shrugs.

“Fine.  What’s on your schedule?”

“M&G at 3, VIP M&G at 3:45, then photos start at 4, I think we have a duo at 4:30, according to the list.”

“You’re probably right, I think my M&G is at 5.”

“Ackles here yet?” he asks, looking around.

“I haven’t seen him,” you answer.

“He’ll be here about 2:30, his photo ops start at 3.” Victoria calls out.  You just roll your eyes.

“I’m done for a bit, I’m going back to my room.  See you later, Jare,” you tell your brother before exiting.

Back in your room, you enjoy the quiet and take a chance to regroup before you have to go back down to the convention.  An hour long nap helps clear your head, you spend some time on the computer, before fixing yourself up for the next round of photo ops.  You always have fun when you’re paired with your brother.  Afterward, you quickly follow Chelsea to the M&G room you are in.  You see Jensen ahead of you, Victoria is leading him into the room next door.  When you walk out thirty minutes later Jensen steps out of his room right in front of you.

“Hey Sweetheart,” he engulfs you in a hug before giving you a quick kiss as you both fall into step down the hallway.

“Hi Jens,” you answer him.

He puts his arm around you pulling you to him.  “What do you have next?”

“I’m done until the concert. You?”

“We’re heading up to the green room, I have autos at 6.  Then I promised Karl we’ll find a good steak house.”  When he points behind him as he says the name you turn around.

“Hello,” you greet the man behind you in surprise.

Jensen stops, “Y/N this is Karl Urban, Karl this is Y/N Padalecki.”

“Nice to meet you.” You hold out your hand to shake his, still trying to hide your shock.

“Lovely to meet you pretty lady,” he returns.

“You’re nicer than your character.”

He just laughs at that.

“He wanted to come experience a Supernatural convention.  I thought I’d introduce him to the gang,” you boyfriend tells you as you all start walking again. 

“That’s nice.”

When you reach the green room, Jensen pulls you in with him.  Some of the other cast is already there. Bri hurries over and gives him a big hug, Felicia is next.  He introduces them to Karl, and David soon joins them in conversation. You are standing by yourself for a few minutes before you feel an arm go around your shoulder.  Looking up you see your brother watching you.

“Everything alright?” he carefully questions.

“Yeah, I’m going back to my room.  I’ll see you later.”

Quicky exiting the room you head for the skywalk to the hotel.  Great, he brought a friend.  So much for trying to see if you could have a chance to talk things out this weekend.  You didn’t really want an audience. Back in your room you are lost in thought laying on your bed when your cell rings.

“Hello,” you answer without looking at the ID.

“Hey, watcha doing?” Bri asks on the other end.

“Laying on my bed.”

“Kim, Ruth, Rich, Rob, Matt and I are going to grab dinner.  Do you want to join us?”

You check your watch, somehow  it’s after 7, “I’ll wait, I think I’m going to join Jared and Jens.”

“They left a few minutes ago,” she tells you.

“Oh, I’m good then.  You all have fun, I’ll see you at the concert.”

Hanging up with your friend, you notice a text from your brother. ‘We’re going out to dinner, do you want to come join?’   Apparently you never heard it come in, and they didn’t wait. At least your brother asked, unlike Jensen.

You aren’t really feeling up to eating now.  You leave your room and walk around the hotel, finding your way to the pool where you sit beside it with your feet in the water.  There’s no one else around right now.  Maybe you should have just stayed in the green room, you wouldn’t have been left behind that way.  Or maybe your company wasn’t really wanted tonight.  Jensen didn’t try, and Jared didn’t try very hard. 

You lose track of how long you sit there, until your phone dings.  It’s a text from Kim telling you they are on their way back to get ready for the concert.  With a sigh you pull yourself up and go back to the room to get yourself ready.

Over in the green room you find the members of Louden Swain, going over last minute notes, Rob looks up and sees you.

“Glad to see you Y/N, I was afraid you weren’t going to come back either.”

“Who isn’t coming?”

“Your brother and boyfriend.”

“Oh.  I didn’t know that.  Sorry.”

“It’s fine, personally, we’d rather have you.”

“Thanks, but we all know that’s not true of the fans.”

The concert is always a good time, you enjoy listening to Rob’s band and you have fun with your former castmates on stage.  It’s after 11 when everything winds down and you make your way back to the room.  You consider texting Jared or Jensen, goodnight, but no one has reached back out to you, so why bother?

The next morning, you manage to sleep in until a little after 9. You pack up your luggage after getting yourself ready and take everything with you when you leave.  You turn in your room key before making your way over to the green room, you run into Chelsea on your way.  She hands you a coffee and walks with you.  

Jensen and Jared are in the room just about to go on stage, they notice you walk in just as their names are called.  With a wave they run out.  Karl, is sitting on one of the couches and you wave as you set your stuff down in the corner.

“Morning. I’m going to go watch with Clif from the side, if you’d like to join,” you invite him along.

“Ah, why not.” Getting up he follows you back out.  

The two overgrown children have fun on stage, you and Karl laugh right along with the crowd. Those two are right back into their usual banter.  

Karl looks back at you and asks, “are they always like this?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

He just shakes his head.  The gold panel is over before you know it.  Leading Karl back out, you head to the green room.  Victoria is trying to usher Jensen right back out of the room.  Looking around he sees the two of you walk in.

“Hey, I’ve got a good hour and a half of photo ops, then a short break before more.  Do you want to come down or stay here,” he asks Karl.

“I’m good here, mate.”

“I don’t have to go down yet, I’d like to hear some more stories from the set with Ackles out of the way,” Jared says.

Jensen leaves shaking his head.  You sit down near the guys.  It’s mostly the two of them talking before Jared has to go join Jensen.  It leaves just you and Karl in the room.

“So you and Jay have gotten to know each other pretty well huh?” you ask.

“Yeah, he’s a good guy.  We try and golf any chance we get, Chase joins when he can.”

“What’s your filming schedule like?”

“A little crazy.  You might film 3, 4 days in a row, then off for 4.  There are some fight choreography days thrown in there too.  Just depends on whose needed for what scenes.”

“Are there busy weeks coming up?”

“Don’t think it’s anything too bad.” He watches you for a moment, “you look like you’re thinkin hard over there.”

“Things have been crazy the last few months.  Jay and I have been apart for most of it, I just thought before I started filming Walker, I would come up for a week or so.”

“You are the girlfriend then.  I thought so, with the way Jensen greeted you yesterday.  Wasn’t a hundred percent everyone seems really close here.”

“Guess he doesn’t talk about me much.”

“He doesn’t share much of his personal life.  There is the career talk, and everyday crap.  He keeps the personal stuff close.  He does mention his girl from time to time.  I’ve learned more about him here the last day than the last month on set.”

You aren’t sure that does much to reassure you. 

Jensen is walking back in before you can reply, with Jared right behind him.  

“Back so soon boys?” Karl asks.

“Short break before we need to go back down,” Jensen answers as he walks over to grab some food that has just been set out.

 Both men join you with plates of food, and Karl gets up to get himself something.  Jensen sits down next to you and looks up at you after taking a bite.

“Haven’t seen you much this weekend.”

“You’ve been busy, plus that happens when someone requests their own room.”

“Yeah that surprised me, why did you do that?.”

“What are you talking about?” you ask him confused.

“I was surprised when I arrived to find we weren’t sharing a room,” he tells you.

“So was I, when I tried to leave the second card for Clif, and was told by Victoria you called and requested your own room this trip.”

“I called and added a room for Karl, I didn’t expect to be sharing it with him.”

“You could have said something yesterday, or asked Clif to grab the other key from me or Chelsea.”

“I figured you wanted space, you weren’t exactly social yesterday,”

“I was thinking the same thing about you.”

“I was around yesterday.”

“You could have called and asked me to join you guys for dinner, or given me a few minutes to answer, but you all just left.  Really made me feel that you wanted me there.  Plus I was under the impression you wanted space with your own room.”

Neither of you notice Jared and Karl quietly moving to seats further away.

“But I didn’t want my own room!  Why didn’t you stay down here and wait?”

“Jensen, Jared, we need you both back for photo ops,” Jared’s handler calls out.

“I don’t want to fight with you, let’s just enjoy the rest of the time we have today,” you say before he gets up.

Jared walks over to you before leaving.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just some misunderstanding.”

“I think that’s all that is really going on.  You two are perfect for each other.  He’s nuts about you.”

“Hopefully.  Smile pretty Jare.”

You are once again left with Karl, things are quieter this time around.  Chelsea comes to get you for your second round of photos with Jared, then a few with Jensen, the boys afternoon panel takes place right after.  They have auction items to sign, and some things to take care of for the convention before they go back out for their last autograph session.   

It’s almost six when Jensen finally finishes for the day.  You and Karl walked around the vendors area, and the ballroom where they are signing before going back to the green room.  Jensen and his bodyguard Matt, come back in the side door.

“I’ll be ready to go in just a minute, Karl,” Jensen announces walking in.

“Are you guys leaving already?” you ask.

“Yeah, we’ve got a 7:20 flight back.  You know how busy O’Hare can get. We don't want to wait too late,” your boyfriend tells you.

“Oh.”  You follow him over to where he is checking everything in his bag.  “With the Netflix show wrapped, I was thinking maybe I could come up and spend some time with you before filming on Walker starts.”

“I’m not sure how much free time I’ll have.”

“A little time is better than what we’ve had lately.”

“I’ll be back in Texas for a bit in a little over a month.” 

“For a bit?  What does that mean?  How about I come up to Toronto next weekend?”

“I won’t be there, I’ll be back in Texas.”

“Really?” you ask, trying to contain your excitement.  “Big plans?”

“Kind of.  We really need to go, I’ll talk to you later babe.”  He kisses you quickly before following Karl out of the room.

Knowing he was going to be home next weekend definitely puts you in a better mood.  You wonder what he is planning that he didn’t want to tell you about.

It isn’t long before Jared and Clif appear back in the green room.

“All done?” you question, looking up from your computer.

“Yep, all set.  Our flight isn’t until 10.  Clif and I were talking about going downtown and grabbing dinner to kill a few hours.  What do you say?”

“Drop me off at the Disney store and I will work my way down the Magnificent Mile while you eat,” you counter.

“I don’t know about letting you go off by yourself.”

“I’ll be thirty one next weekend, dad.  I promise I’ll check both ways before I cross the street.  I’ll be fine.  Isn’t the steakhouse you like, just down the road from it?”

While the two of you are talking, Clif is on his phone and he turns it to you.

“Sorry kiddo, looks like it closed last fall,” he tells you.

“NO!!” you shout louder than you meant to as Ruth and Rob walk in.

“Everything okay dearie?” Ruth asks in concern.

“She just found out the Disney store here is closed.”

“Ah, bummer,” Rob says before heading to his bag.  

“So dinner then?  I’ll walk around a few shops with you after,” your brother compromises.  “Do you two want to join us?”

“Thanks for the offer, but our flight is at 8, we’re going to head over to the airport.”

After saying your goodbyes, your trio heads down to the car with the rest of the luggage that didn’t get loaded earlier.  True to his word, Jared follows you into a few stores after dinner before you need to get to the airport.

It was a late enough flight that you managed to fall asleep shortly after takeoff.  After you land in Austin, Clif drops you both off at Jared’s before heading home.  Feeling better about your relationship with Jensen coming home for the upcoming weekend you easily fall back to sleep.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter 4

SPN Forevers

SPNForevers- @winchest09 @flamencodiva @whatareyousearchingfordean @waywardbeanie @deanwanddamons  @emoryhemsworth  @atc74 @sandlee44 @akshi8278  @fantasydevil2002 @writercole​ @440mxs-wife   @nervousfandom @lunarmoon8 @thoughts-and-funnies @downanddirtydean @katelyn--renee​ @that-one-gay-girl​ @lyarr24​ @pineapleavocado​ @siospins2​ ​ @ariesbabe1993​  @graciebear73  @stixnstripesworld​ @spnbaby-67​  @treat-winchesterswith-kindness​ @charmed-asylum​ @winchestergirl2​ @hobby27​  @amyzombie1013​  @sexyvixen7​ @leigh70 @krazykelly @nancymcl @candy-coated-misery0731 @kmc1989 @supraveng

WIAFA Masterlist

@woodworthti666 @spnfamily-j2 @stoneyggirl2 @creative-writing92 @kaz11283 @deans-baby-momma  @let-me-luv-you @senjoritanana @itzabbyxx @djs8891

#When It All Falls Apart #jensen x female!reader #jensen ackles rpf #supernatural #jensen ackles x reader

[soupthecoolest]

CnD!

alright! so CnD, or "Creation and Destruction" is my homebrew "dnd" campaign!! i have dnd in quotes just cause. well my autism got too strong and i made an entire handbook with my own mechanics LMAO so it's really it's own Thing at this point. which is super cool n fun. after everything's been wrapped up i might publish that handbook but WE SHALL SEE.

anyway CnD is my own personal excuse to make my friends rp with me and my crazy ocs. SO.

it all started when the 11 party members crashed on the beach in a town they'd never seen before. looked totally normal until at the end of the first session they found a portal!

jumping in, that just... kept happening. small adventure, portal, repeat. with no end in sight. as the party began questioning why all this was happening, they met these two little FREAKS named mayhem and maelstrom. (i'll add all refs i have below!!)

anyway mae n may mentioned an elusive “She” that they’re working for, which led my players down an insane conspiracy rabbit hole in which they guessed 90% of hullabaloo’s vibe based on a PRONOUN. ONE PRONOUN I DROPPED I CAN’T TELL THESE MFS ANYTHING

next, they met pandemonium, (@weedsmokingbfs's oc!!! owe you my life muppy) who told them that: these portals aren't taking them place to place, it's transporting them around purgatory. and they've all died.

since then it's been up to the party to navigate their purpose, how to escape, all of it.

then they met bedlam, who explained to them this crazy prophecy and the reason they're all trapped there, which connects to a decision he made 800 years earlier.

enter callie.

my god this is so much to explain IM CRAZY ok. so callie and dee (@percexe) had been meeting in the void for centuries. he'd see callie there when he died and never knew why. 2 idiots had an unspoken pact to not talk about their pasts, but boy they should've!

it would've revealed that callie is actually named chaos, and directly related to all the other crazy clowns they'd meet across the campaign.

they're called the Story, the main 6 pantheon of gods i've set up in this universe! so we've got (in order of like. "hierarchy")

mayhem and maelstrom: gods of war and balance (he/they)

pandemonium: trickster god of illusion (he/it)

bedlam: god of magic and prophecy (he/him)

hullabaloo: goddess of joy, day, and spontaneity (she/her)

chaos: goddess of narration, night, and tradition (she/he)

the Story are basically the worlds most fucked up family, all considering each other brother and sister. in the beginning they were fine, but as time went on things just naturally got more and more messed, and now everything is just a nightmare

chaos and hullabaloo are kinda a tier above the rest of the story, part of their own subset called the Storytellers.

hullabaloo wanted more power and betrayed chaos, trapping her in the void for eternity, as she wanted to rule the universe herself. which all circles back to how callie met dee.

in the void, chaos didn't feel like himself and took on the name calypso, which is how she introduced herself to dee once they met.

and nobody found out anything out of a series of insane miscommunications and lack of info! what fun!

but now in the campaign timeline, everyone's basically caught up. we've finished the first season and are heading into the second in a couple weeks!!! also excuse if this feels rushed at all it's because it is <3 LMFAO there's just so much with CnD, this barely scratches the surface.

there's so much i couldn't cover here like the prophecy binding the party to purgatory, bedlam's entire role in that, the mages, etc. we're like 25 sessions in and so far i've planned 40 more. i am SO normal!!!!

PLEASEEE ask about it if you're curious!! im so insane about my campaign it is my pride and joy :]]

in order there: hullabaloo, chaos, bedlam, pandemonium, and mayhem and maelstrom! ART CREDS for pandemonium and may&mae refs @weedsmokingbfs !!! once more muppy i owe u all my beans

#cnd #dnd #dnd campaign #ASK ME ABOUT MY CAMPAIGN IM CRAZY #clowncore #circuscore #oc #oc art #homebrew #dnd homebrew

[xxsycamore]

𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘧 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘧 𝘖𝘧 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘦. . . GILBERT X GN!READER

►"Hey Gilbert, today is about doing things for each other, right? Is there something you want from me?"

Gilbert x Gender Neutral Reader • rating: G • wordcount: 986 • tags: fluff; holding hands; dates; Valentine's Day • masterlist

a/n: Happy Valentine's day! This fic was meant to happen waaay earlier, but where I am it only snowed properly like last week, which was the needed boost for finishing this. Now it gets to be a Valentine's Day fic! Prompts used are "I said that I'd teach you how to ice skate, I didn't say that I know how to ice skate." (#6, fluff list, 'Tis the Season of Love by me and @voltage-vixen ) and "Are those hearts in your eyes that I'm seeing?" (#9, Be My Valentine CCC 2.0 by me and @chaosangel767).

I really just want to see Gilbert having fun in the snow. Hope you enjoy ❤

The temperatures dropped drastically the night before your date with Gilbert.

The soft crunching of snow under your feet is surprisingly welcomed today, and the weather is not cruel enough to take from your excitement.

Gilbert hums an unfamiliar tune as he walks by your side, your hands separated by two thick layers of glove but clasped together all the same. The way his fingers would be freezing to the touch when without a glove to protect them from the cold, you can't demand for feeling his skin on yours. Not because it's not pleasant, no, you just want him to be as warm as possible, at least while under your watch.

The carriage is far behind your backs now, and even if Gilbert took something with him upon your departure, you still suspect this might turn out to be just a nice walk, after all. And if that's the case, then surely a nice walk it is - hills upon hills of snow-covered evergreens outstretch in the distance, and you feel tiny where you stand, alone with Gilbert. The way he always carries himself in tar black from head to toe, you'll never lose sight of him even if you were to let go of his hand. Not that you have such intentions.

Tiny snowflakes fall from the sky, so tiny that they remind you of specks of dust dancing in an ancient library. The sky is bright too; a second more and the snowflakes will completely cease to fall, maybe even the sun would peek behind a cloud to see where your mysterious date leads to. You're just as curious. And as Gilbert remains unusually quiet still, you're closer and closer to begging him to spoil the surprise.

You are too concentrated on the man by your side and his adorable little swinging of your joined hands, to notice the change of scenery.

"I didn't know there was a lake here. I haven't explored much, haha…"

"The books were more interesting?" Gilbert tilts his head, giving your hand a soft squeeze. Without waiting for a reply, he lets go and takes a step ahead on his own, at the very edge of the frozen lake. His cane comes in contact with the glassy surface, and Gilbert gives it a good tap or two, as if testing its thickness. "This should be fine."

You're puzzled and with a couple of questions on the tip of your tongue, none of which matter when you're with Gilbert. You're sure you'll see in due time, as you're not left hanging along with the invisible question marks in the air for long. You skip your way to the nearby log that Gilbert pointed towards, hurrying to join his side.

He has you seated down on the log. The bag he's been carrying since earlier is introduced in the scene again and this time you get to see the contents. It's ice skates.

"Oh- Oh, I can totally put them on on my own-"

You find your leg gripped tightly by Gilbert's now ungloved hands, not giving you the chance to pry it from his grasp if you wanted to.

"Now, won't you be a good bunny and sit still while I spare you the effort? I thought today we're meant to do things for each other."

Ah. It's Valentine's Day, after all. You can't deny that. And he's already doing so much…

Getting onto the ice with him is more fun that it is stressful, you discover. You share that you have no experience with this, and he gives you that sweet smile. Promises to teach you all you need to know.

You think you must have some kind of influence on him in that moment, because his movements are just as wobbly as yours. He laughs it off; strengthens his grip on you wherever his hands fall on your body. You're determined and try to watch your feet more than his pretty face, it's hard but you do. You're looking forward to be praised for maintaining balance.

"Gilbert…? Are you sure you know how to do this?"

"I said that I'd teach you how to ice skate, I didn't say that I know how to ice skate."

You've had a handful of chances already to realize this, yet you denied until hearing it from his mouth. It shouldn't surprise you that much, but it does, and it shouldn’t throw you off-balance when you've never actually relied on him for balance, but it does.

How you both get off the ice without failing is beyond you. If Gilbert wasn't laughing merrily right now, you wouldn't be either.

"Hey Gilbert, today is about doing things for each other, right? Is there something you want from me?"

Gilbert's laughter fades to a smirk holding the aftertaste of it, but more sinister somehow. The way he grips your chin lacks the familiar cool feeling of his naked fingers, but you can imagine it just fine. You wonder just when you fell inlove with the feeling of his cold fingers.

"Are those hearts in your eyes that I'm seeing? Very well… We're all alone here. I wonder what I should do with you, little bunny."

You desperately want him to take something from you, in exchange for the mess of emotions he put inside you. It's not fair, he should feel loved too.

"I think we have time to learn. It was fun, and now I want to take you to skate on top of every lake Rhodolite has to offer. We need to be quick, or the spring will arrive."

You nod enthusiastically, recalling how well you kept your balance earlier, even if for a couple of seconds at best. But he doesn't let go of your chin at that.

"As for now… You can help me discover what our snow angel would look like, if we are on top of each other!"

Taglist: @arsnovacadenza @ale-teodora @kimi00twin @otomelady @privilegedpancake @g-kleran    @pumpumnnnp @thesirenwashere @ravenarld @kimmy-banana @devonares @animeworldsposts @galaxyprison @sadshaxk @starshards26 @acethephoenix256 @ikevamp-shrine-2 @nad-zeta @crystal13unny @keen19thcenturygoatsstudent @lordsister @ikemen-banshou   @themysticalbeing @canaria-blackwell @otome-scribbles @rhodolitesrose @coornn @kpop-and-otome @queen-dahlia @kisara-16 @chaosangel767 @ikemenlibrary @queengiuliettafirstlady @aurora-morning @aquagirl1978 ​ @ikemenlover24 @violettduchess @mcofthemansion @tiny-wooden-robot @joy-the-reader @katriniac @ikemen-writer @gilbertvonobsidian @atelieredux @tele86 Let me know if you want to be tagged/untagged!

#ikemen prince #ikepri #ikepri gilbert #gilbert von obsidian #ikemen prince gilbert #be my valentine ccc #be my valentine content creation challenge #ikemen series #ikeseries #cybird #ikemen gilbert #ikeprince

[regarding-stories]

Until it breaks: Suspension of disbelief has limits

Nothing deals damage to suspension of disbelief like cold hard facts. Because once the analytical part of your brain kicks in, it's all over. All the Fridge Logic will unravel, and frankly, the enjoyment drains out the watching or reading experience.

Now, I picked this topic because of a recent Lupin III Part 6 episode I watched. Being one of the longest-running shows with endless material released over the course of decades, Lupin III has in general good writing. Or let's say it like this: Typically the authors nail the characters.

Yes, part 6 in general is a highly enjoyable show that can bank on the fact that our main characters - Lupin, Jigen, Fujiko, Goemon, and Zenigata - are well fleshed-out, recognizable characters that you are just gladly along for the ride with and the general fun factor of the show ensures that you merely experience the differing quality of episodes as minor ups and downs along the journey.

There are exceptions, though.

When it holds

Lupin III is basically revived as "parts," where each part could be considered a big season. I'm currently watching Part 4, and several episodes definitely have the quality of Fridge Logic - you might question things after the episode finishes, but you're basically okay with how things unfold while they still do.

One episode, hitting that slightly noir vibe, focuses on Inspector Zenigata, Lupin's eternal complement.

The show aired almost ten years ago, so forgive me for spoilers.

The basic plot of the episode "Until the Full Moon Wanes" revolves around every scoundrel in the world believing that the widow of a media mogul sits on a huge hidden fortune because her husband seeded the rumor before he died. The first climax of the episode seems to be convincing the world that this was indeed a lie - a cooperation between Lupin and Zenigata. In the denouement we learn that the fortune actually exists and the widow wanted potential thieves off her back, Lupin shows up to steal it and is finally thwarted by Zenigata.

The episode really revolves about human folly, with a media mogul rescuing a girl from sexual violence, taking her as his beloved wife, then completely scorning her when she cheats on him once - including marking her body. This theme of scorn beyond the grave and its somewhat noir vibe playing on human passion and the unreliability of love and character are enough to keep us entertained until we get our inevitable finale.

I'd say this one stretches suspension of disbelief but doesn't break it. Though it raises questions - even if she had a huge fortune hidden, wouldn't it be easier to own it, hire guards, and just enjoy it? Furthermore, how did Lupin and his gang intend to steal the fortune?It's gold. It weighs tons and tons. (And yes, it's enough gold to be considered the reserves of a country. Did the author not watch "Die Hard with a Vengeance"?) It's also stacked in the most stupid way possible to impress the audience. Once you start to think about it, the story unravels and falls apart. But I'd bet while it goes on with its (somewhat forced) twists and turns, you're willing to follow it.

When it breaks

There are, however, some episodes too stupid to live, and so far the unrivaled king of the trash heap is "The Jet-Black Diamond". I'll spoiler this one so you don't have to watch it.

So, some small wooden dolls are somehow supposed to lead to a treasure. But the story makes no sense, no matter which way you look at it.

The central theme behind the treasure hunt is supposedly a love story. A somehow Japanese woman in Brazil falls in love with a pirate who basically sacks her village but spares her. (Because seeing people die you spent your life with is conducive to romance. Maybe she had Stockholm Syndrome.) They know they have little time so they concoct a plan to hide some treasure and meet again. Which never happens because the pirate gets executed shortly after and she commits suicide.

This might make sense on the surface but just wait for the rest...

The clues they leave lead to a cashew tree with magical red glowing flowers that only blossoms every 75 years. The biological facts themselves are mindboggling - how does it benefit the damn tree to blossom only every 75 years? And how is it so exact over such a long period of time?? And why is everyone showing up at the right time to see it???

Breathe. Slow, deep breaths.

So this basically means they planned to meet again when they were around a hundred. Instead of, you know, like five years later.

Then... piracy in the Caribbean and around South America was a phenomenon largely limited to the 16th and 17th centuries, with stragglers hanging on until the 18th century. Steam vessels and larger national navies ended it for good in the 19th century. (To put it very roughly.) The episode itself can be assumed to be set in 2021 when Part 6 aired. So, are we to assume that old-fashioned piracy occurred in Brazil in the mid of the 20th century? The age of airplanes and nuclear bombs? (Piracy persists but is a rather local phenomenon in the world, relying on quick hit-and-run raids.)

What is the treasure, actually? Pepper. Some special pepper, that supposedly ended up making the village prosperous. This is probably an allusion to the times when pepper was still highly valuable, something which was maybe true up to the 17th century (as a little research shows).

What we really have here is an author shoe-horning a pirate story into Lupin III, and somehow trying to tie it to a love story and a living relative. (Instead of a long-lost pirate treasure.) But frankly, the whole thing fails over and over again. The finale is devoid of any logic. Even the dolls are somehow important because their patterns help identify the tree by its blossom patterns. The only tree blooming in that particular year, looking entirely magical and obvious BY ITSELF!!

(Also some young local thugs show up to gang up on the old lady and her company because everybody thinks about the ages old treasure all the time and so the arrival of a Japanese lady is clearly stirring up the area.)

To make the offense even worse, just when the story focuses on Fujiko being in the lead for quite a while, Lupin shows up as a drone projecting a hologram acting as Captain Exposition, stealing her thunder. They couldn't be arsed to write him in properly, but they couldn't leave him off-screen for five minutes or have somebody else have the spotlight. Wow, that was horrible writing altogether.

And here we have it - it qualifies as a story. It's tied together by a plot. Events happen, characters appear, and the same mixture of twists and turns and a lack of treasure at the end (for Lupin or Fujiko) appears, but it doesn't work. You could be forgiven for not knowing about the history of piracy, but the notion of a tree with such magical properties is not a twist to a story, it's a ridiculous device meant to introduce one twist too many to a poorly written story.

Because for some reason the author was so focused on thwarting the thieves so much he had to set up an entirely unbelievable gotcha even for Lupin standards. A show where people evade bullets near point blank range or where eating a steak can restore Lupin's blood loss within hours. It's actually quite the accomplishment!

#anime series #lupin iii #lupin the third #lupin the 3rd #part 6 #suspension of disbelief #part 4

[rewatching-sam-and-dean]

What season of SPN makes you the most feral? What are your headcanons about it?

Hi Anon!

Sorry it took me so long to answer, usually I’m quicker with asks. First, I needed to think about my answer. Then, my internet went down (ugh). Now, I’m on a work trip.

I don’t tend to have a lot of headcanons for SPN, and the ones I have, I mostly think of in the moment as I’m watching or they are pretty common (for example, Ben is Dean’s kid).

Anyways, after thinking about it, I think the season(s) thst makes me the most feral is the Season 2 & 3 combo. I have to put them together because of the reversal of brother worry that flows so well: Dean worrying obsessively about Sam (and being alone) until the worst happens and Sam actually dies, so Dean sells his soul for Sam because he can’t bear to be without him, so Sam worries obsessively about Dean (and being alone) until he starts throwing some of his morals out the window (metaphorically selling his soul) to try and save him, but the worst happens and Dean dies. These seasons have so many brother feels, then being mistaken for a couple (which I always find amusing), and pain. It all hurts so good.

There are a couple of things that make me feel especially “feeral” in this era.

In “In My Tine of Dying” Sam can sense Dean’s soul (love this), they talk to each other using a “talking board,” and Sam tried so damn hard find a way to save (in a short window of time) Dean, and Dean (who worries that he needs Sam more than Sam needs him) never remembers how worried Sam was for him and how much he watered to save him. I hate that he doesn’t remember. As far as I can tell, when Tessa returns his memories of that time (in Season 4), she only returned the parts involving her, not the parts where Dean saw how much Sam loved him (This is up there with Sam and Dean not knowing the phone call was tampered with in Season 4, for me).

“What is and What Should Never Be” pretty much twists my heart from start to finish. Dean having everything “apple pie” he could want, but none of it being worth it if Sam doesn’t love him (beyond in the “he’s my brother so I have to love him” but NOT like him sort of way). The acting in this one is good too. We get a very different Sam, and Jared plays how different he is from normal Sam and how weirded out he is by Dean trying to show any affection towards him really well. We get to see Jensen play a cute and happy Dean, then we see his heart breaking when he realizes he can’t stop hunting if it means people will die, and I love/hate the more subtle heartbreak of him seeing Sam back away from him. I just … love this episode. (Also, … “What are you calling me bitch for?”).

Everything about Meg!Sam, and Dean saying he’d rather die than kill Sam. Pure gold.

“Mystery Spot,” the whole episode is just fantastic. A tiny hesdcanon I have for this episode is that there was at least a day where Sam tackled Dean to the bed (non-romantically) and just refused to let him up, clinging to him like a koala in desperation because Dean dies every time he leaves the room, or does basically anything. Dean struggles at first but then just lays there and takes it, maybe awkwardly patting Sam’s arm. He is both kinda weirded out, but also secretly happy with how much Sam obviously cares about him. But, of course, it being Mystery Spot, Sam probably accidentally kills him somewhere in there.

One last thing I think of often is, I wish I could see Sam succeeding and saving Dean in the Season 3 finale. It bothers me so much that he couldn’t do it after how hard he tried, and the lengths he was willing to go to, and it hurts seeing how much his “failure” and losing Dean tortured him. Dean ended up inflicting the exact pain on Sam that their Dad did on him by selling his soul for him and dying for him, except worse. Also, I actually like the Angel story line in Seasons 4 to 6, but I loath it after that, except for a few exceptions. So, if Sam had saved Dean, we might have been spared angel politics thst went on for too long, as well.

Anyway, I’ll stop it there because my answer is getting away from me.

Thank you for your question, Anon ❤️.

What season(s) make you feral?

#Ask Box #Sam and Dean #Seasons 2 & 3 #Supernatural #These seasons are so damn good!

[hyenahunt]

Obbligato: The Punishment of Kaname Tojo - 6

Writer: Akira

Season: Spring

Characters: Kaname, Tatsumi

Proofreading: Remi (JP) & honeyspades (ENG)

Translation: Peace

Tatsumi: Idols are those who bring smiles to others’ faces, after all.

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Kaname: ......

(Okay. Now that I've finished reporting to my brother, I've got to get onto my next job.)

(Hm? Wasn't I supposed to have lessons today? I thought I was doing something else...)

(I'll check my schedule — my brother's perfected it down to the second, so I'll know for sure then.)

(I have to follow it precisely. As long as I do exactly as he says, then I'll be fine.)

(I have to heed his instructions at all costs. I have to. No matter how hard it gets, I have to—)

... Hm?

(Huh? Who's that walking past the window... Wait, is that—)

Location: Reimei Practice Room

Kaname: —Tatsumi-senpai!

Tatsumi: ......

Kaname: I thought that maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it really is you!

But... W-What are you doing here? Weren't you hospitalized?

Tatsumi: ... Ah, HiMERU-san. Good afternoon.

It's been some time since we last spoke, hasn't it? Have you lost some weight? I've heard that you've been flourishing lately, but it's best to rest every now and then.

Kaname: That's my line! You look terrible, senpai.

Why would you come back to school when you're still sick? Are you an idiot?

Tatsumi: Hahaha. I might just be an idiot, truthfully.

I was merely staying in a hospital, you see, not some prison where I'd be isolated from the world. I was still able to have a connection with those outside.

Though there were restrictions on when and where one could visit, patients are still able to use the internet and write letters to the outside world.

Kaname: What are you going on about?

Tatsumi: How wonderful life is, of course.

I was truly blown away by just how many people were calling for me to return. Not only the staff I had worked with, but all of my fans...

As well as my companions, with whom I worked beside and ate with.

So many people wished to speak with me again. How could I ever ignore their countless requests?

I decided then that I'd do as they asked no matter what it took, even if I should die.

Kaname: You really will die though. I'm serious. You were hospitalized for physical and mental reasons, Tatsumi-senpai — you don't look recovered at all, you know?

I can tell just looking at you. You know people really do die like this, don't you?

Their luck runs out, they push themselves too far — and then they die.

If you died, then all those who wished for your return would mourn you instead.

Please get your priorities straightened out, Tatsumi-senpai.

Tatsumi: I can feel your worry through your chiding, and I'm grateful for it.

In the perspective of others, particularly here at Reimei Academy, you and I are whom Special and Non-Special Students look to respectively...

As such, there seems to be rumors of us having something of a conflict of interests, as their representatives of a kind.

Kaname: To those who haven't a clue of what's going on, that's exactly what it looks like. In truth, I have acted as if I was taking what is rightfully yours.

Everyone thinks you must resent me for it, too. Anyone would.

Tatsumi: But I don't.

In fact, I'm grateful that you've continued my work while I was gone.

Kaname: Is that so? How like you, Tatsumi-senpai.

I know from the bottom of my heart, without a shadow of a doubt, that you don't resent me whatsoever.

Just as Judas Iscariot betrayed a saint for nothing more than chump change, so have I. But you won't resent me for it— you'll only grant me love and affirmation, won't you?

You'd even forgive those who'd crucify and kill you, wouldn't you!

Tatsumi: I am no saint, but thank you for thinking of me as such, however ridiculous the claim.

It'd be embarrassing to put me on the same level as those genuine saints who lived long ago.

I simply want to live up to everyone's expectations. I wish I could have shown you my hospital room, filled with fanmail from those who missed me.

Each one was filled with love, from every person I’ve met...

I want to give back the love I've received. I want them to feel as warm as I did reading each one.

It sounds rather odd, doesn't it?

But I do love everyone.

And, like anyone else, I want those I love to be happy as well.

Kaname: Then listen to me. If you were to collapse and die, no one would be happy! They'd just cry their eyes out and mourn you instead!

Honestly, Tatsumi-senpai, you've really screwed up your priorities.

You're so stupid I could laugh, you idiot.

Tatsumi: If I've made you laugh, then I've done my job well...

Tatsumi: Idols are those who bring smiles to others’ faces, after all.

Kaname: ......

Tatsumi: You know, HiMERU-san, I do want to be an idol.

I don't want to be the reverend of a shady religious following; I want to be someone who can be loved by others.

♪~♪~♪

[ ☆ ]

✦✦✦✦✦

← prev ✦ all ✦ next →

#ensemble stars #enstars #enstars translation #hyenahunttl #kaname tojo #tatsumi kazehaya #s: obbligato

[ineffable-snowman]

Fic Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @dark--whisperings!

How many works do you have on ao3?

fifteen

2. What's your Ao3 word count?

400,883 (holy shit)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now switching between Star Wars and Good Omens

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Maybe Someday - 841 kudos, most of them thanks to @plumbum-art's wonderful comic Date Night, which "resurrected" this little fic of mine.

and then my four MCU (sambucky) fics:

Trouble Man - 841 kudos, too!

Pet Psychopath - 712 kudos

Partners, Accidentally - 561 kudos

Co-Workers with Benefits - 509 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes. Because if I write a comment, I like to hear from the author. It doesn't have to be much but it just makes me happy to hear that my comment made the author happy. And I think interaction is important to keep a fandom "alive" (even if often I don't know what to say but I try).

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't write angsty endings. But I'm a little worried that people won't agree with me that Match Made on Earth has a happy ending.

7. What's the fic your write with the happiest ending?

As I said, they all have happy endings, but the ending of Four Chord Songs and Sentimental Lyrics is particularly sappy. I was wondering if that love song in the last chapter was *too much*, but then I thought: nope, it's Anakin, *too much* is his personality trait.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

This year I got two very rude anon comments on one of my Obikin fics accusing me of horrible things. The accusations felt pretty generic and did not fit to that particular story at all, but they still left me a little shaken. Fortunately, the people in the Obikin discord were really kind about it and helped to cheer me up.

Back on FFNET I received the occasional "ew, they're not gay, why would you write that?" Also there were some people who were angry at the way I wrote Obi-Wan, saying things like "how can you say he's your favourite character and then characterise him as weak/flawed/incompetent... and make so many bad things happen to him?"

BUT, all in all, fandom has been a positive experience and the many good interactions far outweigh the odd rude comment.

9. Do you write smut? What kind?

Does one awkward sex scene per multi chapter fic count? (No.)

10. Do you write cross-overs?

No.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so, not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a long time ago on FFNET when I still wrote Harry Potter fic.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yes.

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

I feel like Obikin is the "correct" answer because I always come back to them.

15. What's your WIP you like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Step into Christmas with me. So far, I've managed to add two chapters every season. If I continue at that pace, I might finish it in two more years...

16. What are your writing strength?

Beginnings and endings.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The long middle parts that always become too long and repetitive.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Okay, I have Opinions on this!

I don't like it and don't see the merits of it. It often just feels like the author wants to show off their language skills. But as a reader it takes me out of a story. I don't want to check footnotes or use google translate in the middle of reading.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Just for myself: Harry Potter. Posting online: Star Wars.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Servants of the Force is definitely not my best writing but it's still my favourite fic anyway because I've never put so much effort into a fic before and I'm proud that I finished it.

---

I'm not sure who has already done it. tagging (no pressure!): @underacalicosky, @demonghost, @somethingsteff, @ineffableobikin, @fulcrum843, @howlbrooklyn, @kingdomvel

#fic tag game #my writing #obikin #ineffable husbands #sambucky

[morning-softness]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks to @crit20lesbian for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Eighteen

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

166,316 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Magnus Archives

4. What are your top five fics by kudos

Netflix and Chill- (TMA, JonTim, 3k, Precanon) Tim and Jon watch Netflix and chill. They do not have sex.

Love, Or Whatever You Call It - (TMA, JonMartin, 20.5k, No Age of the Beholding AU) After Jonah's ritual fails, severing Jon's connection to the Beholding, Jon and Martin try to put the pieces of their lives back together. Adjusting to normal life again after everything is hard, and exploring their new relationship is even harder, especially as Martin realizes he might be aro-spec.

Archive Shenanigans - (TMA, Gen fic, 1k, Season 1) All the assistants are the hot assistant, or Tim says Hot Martin Rights and Hot Sasha Rights and even Hot Jon Rights.

Are You Calling Me ‘Darling’? - (TMA, JonMartin, 2.5k, No Age of the Beholding AU) Jon likes it when people call Martin his boyfriend. Martin…doesn’t.

Here Might You Bless Me - (TMA, JonMartin, 4k, Safehouse Era fic) Martin’s changed after Jon pulls him out of The Lonely, and he’s sure that Jon won’t want to stick around once he figures that out. After all, it turns out Jon has a lot of love to give, and who would want to waste their love on someone who can’t return it? Jon convinces him he’s not going anywhere.

Note: Most of these fics are in my top 6 for hits as well as kudos, but I was really surprised to see Archive Shenanigans make the list. It was the first TMA fic I published, 1k of pure unpolished fluff and comedy, but for whatever reason it has a much higher kudos to hits ratio compared to my more-read fic.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do my best to respond to them, because I want people to know that I read and treasure all of their comments. Sometimes it takes a while though, because I want to give a thoughtful response.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Can’t Have You, Even As An Enemy. It’s a fic where Jon and Tim share a hotel room on the eve of the Unknowing, and talk about (or mostly talk around) their issues. The angst is that it’s written with the intention of being canon compliant, which means that Tim will still die in the explosion, and the best that can be hoped for is that this conversation will give Jon a bit more closure.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I write mainly hurt/comfort, so most of my fic has a happy—or at least hopeful—ending. The happiest might be Can’t We Just Wait Together? (Or Five Times Jon and Tim Didn’t Have a First Date, and One Time They Did), since it’s a 5+1 fic where the final chapter is entirely fluff of Jon and Tim going on a date together.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. I have comment moderation on just in case, though.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. Not yet, anyway. Funnily enough, my fic with the highest number of kudos is about Jon and Tim not having sex.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No. The closest might be Listen to the Voice that Told Me where I borrowed the obedience curse mechanics from the book Ella Enchanted, but it’s not really a crossover of the world or characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. I do have a few that were podficced, though.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I tried, but we only got one chapter in before life got in the way. Maybe someday…

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Jon and Martin, followed by Jon and Tim.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a Melanie-pov AU where she joins the Archives in Season 2 after she realizes something is wrong with Sasha. I wanted to write it as a choose-your-path style story, because I think it’s easy in hindsight to say decisions characters made were wrong, but a lot harder to decide what the right decision would have been, so I wanted to explore a lot of different ways the characters could have messed up with Melanie added to the mix (and maybe a few ways things could have worked out better). I don’t want to say it will never happen, but it’s a big and complicated project so it definitely won’t happen anytime soon.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve had several comments from readers attesting that I’m good at conveying emotion—particularly negative emotions—in a way that feels real and relatable. I’ve also been told that I do a good job portraying character dynamics.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My biggest problem is that since my writing is really emotions-based, once I’ve hit the emotional high points, it’s no longer interesting to me. Which means with longer fic it’s a struggle for me to actually continue through the falling action to the denouement instead of just stopping right after the climax. (I’ve had two getting-together fics now where I initially wanted to end right after the love-confession scene and had to be convinced by my Beta reader that readers would probably want to see at least a scene or two of the characters actually being together now.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I usually don’t. I definitely think it can add another layer to characterization, so I’d like to where it makes sense for the characters, but I think it needs to be done carefully so that 1. The dialogue sounds natural for native speakers of the language and 2. People who don’t speak the language can grasp the overall meaning of the exchange through context.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Magnus Archives

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Since I’d like to think my writing skill is consistently improving, my favorite fic is always whichever I’ve most recently completed. That said, I have a soft spot for Here Might You Bless Me, which made the Top 5 Kudos list above. It’s a JonMartin safehouse fic I wrote back in December 2020, where Jon reassures Martin that he is loved even if he can’t return the feeling in the same way. (And Jon uses one of my favorite Edna St. Vincent Millay poems to do so, because I wrote this before I got to Episode 165 and found out that Jon apparently disliked poetry in general, and not just Keats.)

Tagging @three-magpies-in-a-trenchcoat, @rookfeatherrambles, @chrisis-averted, @wordsintimeandspace, @suttttton, if you’d like!

#ask game #writing asks #writing ask game

[five-and-dimes]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I was tagged by @seiya-starsniper! 🤘

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

38 currently, but I orphaned a few in the past and am considering orphaning a couple more of my older ones, we'll see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

220,579 - holy shit, when did that happen??

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment just Sandman, although I still have some Umbrella Academy wips that I might try to go back and finish before season 4.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

lol I think just due to the nature of them being fics that have been on AO3 for a decade (which... holy shit I'm old 😂) my top five are four Teen Wolf fics and one Voltron fic

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Not really. I'll respond if someone, like, asks me something in a comment. I know I should respond more, but I often get overwhelmed and don't know what to say. So, uh... sorry everyone 😬

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hm, none of my fics have, like, angsty endings... I think the closest might be Now I Lay Me, just because it's more of a hopeful ending as opposed to explicitly happy (although I'm writing a sequel specifically so I can write the explicitly happy ending, so... that's me in a nutshell lol)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I would definitely say Smile Like You Mean It. That one is the most fluffy happy ending for sure.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah. The worst I ever got was way back in the beginning on some of my Teen Wolf fics I'd get those comments that were like "you should have written it THIS way-" which were annoying but nothing I'd call "hate".

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

lol I wrote actual, explicit smut for the first time a few months ago with Undisclosed Desires. My fic famously will have almost-sex before something tragic happens and gets in the way lol, and even my one smut story is still very hurt/comfort. As much as I appreciate reading smut of all kinds, I think if I ever wrote more it'd be the same h/c vibe. I'm a one trick pony.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah, the closest would be in my bandom phase? But I never fully understood if those counted as crossovers or not lol

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

As far as I know I have not

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup! I can't remember which ones, but I remember approving requests to translate a couple fics.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I did once, and I had a lot of fun with the idea part, but the actual writing a coherent, publishable fic together was stressful. I love just bouncing ideas with people, expanding on topics together, yes and-ing with friends, etc., but I think fully writing a fic with another person isn't really my thing.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

lol it's hard to say I have an "all time" favorite. I tend to just have my favorite at any given moment. Obviously I'm super into Dreamling right now, but I've had tons of ships that I still love and reread stuff for.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Honestly, there's a bunch of batman wips that I started ages ago and still really like, but I just haven't been able to get into them (Sandman took over the brain real good lol)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at the emotional parts- it's why I like hurt/comfort so much. I will gleefully spend half a story ripping your heart out, but then I'll work hard to give it back. I think I'm good at writing inner thoughts in a way that helps evoke whatever the character is feeling. And I think I'm good at imagery.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Well for one thing I write out of order, so if I ever do multichapter fics I have to finish the whole thing before I can post it lol 😂 Also I think I struggle with action and plot. My writing is very heavy on character introspection, and I like my fics, but if you take a step back from them not a lot really happens in them.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I personally prefer not to, just because I'm monolingual. I'll either just do the italicized words and "they said in x language" or just say "they spoke in x language" and have the pov character not know what they're saying type of stuff.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Heroes. Does anyone remember that show?

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oof, I will reluctantly narrow it down to three lol. Now I Lay Me (I love the concept), Sloom (love me some family angst), and Recoil/Release (A Voltron fic that is currently my longest fic, and was another one that I was really proud of the concept and characterizations)

I don't know who's already been tagged, but I'll tag @gabessquishytum @cuubism @softest-punk @magnusbae and @pellaaearien

#tag game #writing shiz #I cannot beLIEVE I've been on ao3 since 2012 #that's wild I need to sit down

[fandomsaremykryponite]

May I ask you some questions about your writing process for your Boondock Saints, The Walking Dead crossover? I’m curious how you approached something that you knew was going to be a long huge story that would take forever to write. Did you plot everything out from the beginning to end? And do you schedule yourself to write a goal each day?

Hi @livingdeadblondequeen

Thanks for the ask! I really like this one.

Tbh, I don’t think I have a real writing process. When I first came up with my fic series, it was really just for fun bc I thought it would be interesting to imagine how things would be affected if the Saints were in TWD. Then, I decided to write my own series and it just exploded from there. It’s kinda the same thing with all my stories (that I’m still working on before I post). Adding my OC was basically me jumping in to the story as well bc why shouldn’t I have fun in all this? Lol.

As for the plot as a whole, it’s kind’ve a mix between plotting everything out and winging it. I did download a timeline app on my iPad specifically to track major stuff through the series as a whole. Specifically figuring out exactly how long each season lasted (timeline wise, not the show’s runtime). Like how long from the virus’s initial outbreak to when Rick was left behind in the hospital, where would all my characters go, who died when and where (and maybe how if the idea comes to me). Since as many of you have probably already read, there are several characters that I’ve kept alive who (at the point of my series) should already be dead. For a few of them, they’re still going to die, but I wanted to give them, I guess, better deaths?? It’s hard to explain as it’s been a while since I’ve actually looked at my story timeline.

Though, I’m gonna go back and make a bunch of new ones later one that follow the rest of the series that I haven’t gotten to yet. Hell, I still don’t entirely know how to finish off the last season. I know what I want, but I need to watch the last season to really see how it ended before I figure out how to work my way there. Though, that probably won’t be until much later. I’m still on season 4 of TWD, which isn’t new information since that’s where I’ve been since I first finished writing season 3 (part 6 which is currently being posted) like almost 2 years ago I wanna say??

If you’re interested in what stories I’m writing, I think I actually wrote it all out in a post long time ago. However, I have made additional stories that I’d like to post one day. Though, it won’t be until I’ve written up to certain points for each story. I like having a bunch already written out so that I have breathing room before I need to write more in case I let myself get caught up writing other stuff (like I am now lol).

As for your last question… I don’t really set a schedule. I just write when I wanna write whenever I can write (which was a lot of times now that I think about it). I don’t set a goal either. I don’t like adding unnecessary pressure that I don’t need. I write because I had a fun story idea that I wanted to make. I share my story online because I thought that there might be others who would enjoy it. And there had been bc I’ve been receiving nothing but love since I first started posting and have always appreciated the support and adored the comments that readers would leave in AO3.

Thanks again for the ask! I really enjoyed this one. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out! I love chatting with you all!

Thank you for reading my fic series this far. I hope you continue to enjoy reading my fic series as I have been writing them.

#thanks for the ask! #answered asks #boondock saints fanfic #boondock saints fanfiction #murphy macmanus x reader x connor macmanus #author ramblings #the walking dead fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfiction

[charles-leclerc-official]

Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari

All my thoughts about this 2025 historic transfer. I want to say that a lot of this is up in the air as there is no way to know for sure until we see tyres on the track, but here is what I think about the situation as it relates to all major players involved.

Why is Lewis leaving?

I think that even though the announcement was sudden it's not a total shock when you think about the reasons Lewis might not want to stay at Mercedes.

Yes, Mercedes has been his home for 11 years and gave him 6 WDC. However since 2021 he's been increasingly unhappy with the direction the team have taken the car. That in addition to the way management has been handling things over there it seems like Mercedes are not really doing what needs to be done to compete seriously with Red Bull in the coming years.

Not feeling listened to or properly valued at a team is really difficult for drivers. I think after so long Mercedes started taking Lewis for granted and expecting him to work miracles with a substandard car. He's done sim work in the 2024 merc car and it may be so far off his expectations that he realized he can no longer accomplish what he wants to at Mercedes.

The odd thing though is that he was seemingly pretty happy at Mercedes, at the very least talking about retiring with them, and a brand ambassadorship after. Whatever happened at Mercedes recently was enough to break his faith in the team and possibly his trust. Did Toto over promise and severely underdeliver?

There is a lot we are missing in terms of what was going on behind the scenes. There may have been one moment or race that was the last straw for Hamilton, but unless he tells us we can only speculate. I'd expect more specifics about this in the coming weeks. How Lewis talks about the split will tell us a lot.

Why Ferrari?

There are two big reasons why Lewis would want to join Ferrari as his next team

1 . Ferrari's upward trajectory and Fred Vasseur

Now for those who haven't been following Ferrari this may seem like a bad move. However Fred Vasseur took over as team principal at Scuderia Ferrari at the beginning of 2023 replacing Binotto. Since then he has been making big changes at Ferrari, hiring engineers from Red Bull and Mercedes, firing half the old team. He has been really doing the work to get Ferrari competitive internally.

Things are looking better for Ferrari under his leadership, in the next few years we have the possibility of seeing some very competitive cars coming out of Ferrari.

Also Fred and Lewis are close, they have history, that connection probably wasn't difficult for either of them to make.

So Lewis probably saw the appeal of the team that Fred is assembling and thought it looks a lot better than the current state of affairs at Mercedes.

2 . Ferrari's historic/legacy appeal

It's like they always say "Everyone is a Ferrari fan"

Ferrari is one of the greatest teams in F1 with the highest number of WDC and WCC wins. Many of the legends of the sport have done seasons at Ferrari. It is considered one of the dream teams to race for, with good reason. To drive with Ferrari is to add your name to a list of legends.

Lewis has always been a Ferrari fan. He's even said that he has thought about driving for them and even ending his career with them. The name carries prestige. And Lewis is probably thinking about where and when he wants to retire.

There were Hamilton retirement rumors not too long ago. I still think he has an idea of when he wants to retire, and he wants to do it in style(which in this case means in red)

Retiring with Ferrari carries this romantic grandeur to it. He's probably always wanted to do a season or two there and Mercedes just never gave him a reason. Well it seems now they have.

Even if he doesn't get his eighth WDC or even another P1 at Ferrari, it may be better to finish at a historic team he has respect for than to keep racing until Mercedes has used him up.

He has literally done so many things in F1 one of the few things he hasn't done is drive for Ferrari. It does make sense from the legacy career end perspective as well.

For new fans or DTS fans who think "Ferrari is a bad team they are terrible at strategy and always mess up" the times are changing. Forget everything you know/have come to expect, and wait for results. Ferrari aren't going anywhere, and will always be F1 legends.

Bonus reason 2.5: Lewis obviously wants to continue racing for a top team. If he doesn't want to stay at Mercedes where else is he supposed to go? No way would that work at Red Bull. Mclaren are already set, and Aston Martin aren't competitive enough. Ferrari is actually the only option that makes any real sense.

What about Charles?

Charles Leclerc just resigned with Ferrari on a multi-year contract(rumored to be a 2+2 deal, at this moment it's really hard to get accurate numbers on that) Fred Vasseur and the Ferrari team have said that he is the number one priority and that the technical development around the car is based on his feedback.

So what does this mean for Lewis?

Well Lewis is smart, he went into this knowing full well everything that Ferrari have been saying about prioritizing Charles. He isn't joining with the expectation that Charles is going to be his #2.

This is an area where we really need to see how the team manages two competitive drivers on the track in terms of strategy calls.

Charles is not going to tolerate #2 treatment. He sure as hell isn't going to back down from the challenge of having a WDC teammate.

There is the potential to see them being a real power duo on the track in 2025.

Charles also reportedly knew about Lewis, and wouldn't re-sign with Ferrari unless he really believed they were going to give him priority and had a chance of delivering a championship worthy car in the coming years(if not he has exit clauses) Charles isn't stupid either, he weighed all the options and decided that partnering with a multiple time WDC would be a welcome challenge and a push for his own career.

In 2019 when Charles joined Ferrari with Vettel he didn't back down from the challenge. In a competitive car we are going to see him shine on the track regardless of who his teammate is.

Charles also has battled Lewis and won, he's in his prime as a driver and he is certainly one for a challenge. If you think that Charles is going to be overshadowed by Lewis. Think again.

Lewis also has always been supportive of Charles and recognized his talents. I can see him potentially being a really great teammate for him. Charles also has always listed Hamilton as an inspiration, so these two do have a lot of mutual respect. The chemistry between them could really be legendary.

Let's be realistic. Lewis is the older more experienced driver. He is heading towards retirement, while Charles is in his prime. Charles is the future of Ferrari, that much is clear. This doesn't mean that Lewis isn't still an insanely skilled driver, and we may see wins from him at Ferrari. But at this stage of his career he isn't the one who is going to be shaping the team long term.

Another important thing to remember is that Charles has the experience specifically with Ferrari. He's been through it with them, he'll probably be helping Hamilton deal with some of Ferrari's possible shortcomings.

Looking at this driver lineup and assuming that this means Charles is no longer the top priority at Ferrari, or that he will be taking a back seat to Lewis is insane to me. He's one of the best drivers on the grid, and he does have to beat Lewis one way or another if he wants that first WDC.

If you don't think Charles is at the center of the future of Ferrari, you haven't been paying attention.

From Ferrari's Perspective

I mean the clear winner here is Ferrari. A Leclerc-Hamilton lineup is probably going to be the strongest on the 2025 grid.

If they are serious about Charles being number 1 and helping him get that first WDC, then Lewis' experience will be valuable in helping achieve that.

If there are times when Charles is out due to a DNF, or struggling with the car for whatever reason, Lewis is going to be able to really deliver on picking up points. It's almost a guaranteed at P2 in constructor's, and competitive when gunning for P1.

Ferrari probably want two drivers that will be consistently pulling podiums, and Lewis can sure as hell do that alongside Charles.

Charles is loved by Ferrari and the Tifosi, they aren't going to hang him out to dry in favor of Lewis. It would create a nightmare for the team. While Binotto might not have been smart enough to see that, Fred is smart enough to value Charles and his abilities. He knows that Charles will walk the moment he doesn't feel like Ferrari are valuing him.

Hamilton is certainly someone who could push Charles in the right ways to get him that first WDC.

But having a more mature multi-WDC driver in the second seat just makes a crazy strong driver lineup.

It's also one of the most brilliant moves in Formula 1 history. By getting Lewis from Mercedes Vasseur has crippled a rival team. They now have to scramble for a replacement, and no one is going to be able to really replace Lewis. The only driver who may come close is Alonso, and that is if Mercedes can get him(assuming Alonso isn't planning to retire at the end of the year)

This also throws the rest of the 2024/2025 driver market into further chaos. Red Bull likely didn't see this coming. They have a seat to fill in 2024 and now they have to consider that they will be going against a Leclerc-Hamilton lineup. Their expectations have been shattered and now they are probably re-thinking who is going to get that RB seat beside Max.

Now this may harken back to 2020 and how Ferrari handled Vettel. Well that was under Binotto. Fred has not given me a reason(yet) to think that 2025 and beyond would be similar. When talking about Ferrari and how they are going to manage things please remember A LOT has changed in the last year in terms of management.

With this move Vasseur revealed just how much bigger his plan for Ferrari really is.

This may be the ushering in of the next Ferrari golden age. We can only wait with baited breath to see.

What about Sainz?

It would not be right to talk about this without discussing Sainz.

This is not going to be a Sainz hate section, but I am going to need everyone to take a deep breath and be realistic with me here.

Over the last 2 months we've heard a lot of rumors regarding Sainz and Ferrari not being able to reach an agreement when it comes to his contract. Clearly this whole thing with Lewis has been coming for longer than we all realized.

It is possible that Sainz pushing Ferrari for a longer contract forced their hand to reveal that they'd already secured Lewis. It is also very likely that the rumors that they wanted to renew for one year are completely false and 2024 was always going to be his last year at Ferrari.

It's not really a contest when comparing Sainz to Hamilton. Who would you realistically rather have on your team? Sainz is a solid driver, but he has struggled with the development direction at Ferrari.

Additionally the dynamic between Sainz and Leclerc on the track and as teammates as a whole may be working out far worse than Ferrari had hoped. When Fred came in and said "we are going to have a number one driver" that is a big change in the philosophy of the team, very different than when Sainz joined. It may be that he simply isn't a good fit for the new direction at Ferrari.

Sainz also has not been handling things well in the press on his end. A lot of his attempts at negotiation may have really been detrimental to his position.

And yes he had the only non-Red Bull win in 2023. But the most important thing to remember about that win is that he didn't have to seriously battle Max to get it. Red Bull struggled unusually during Singapore, and that was massive in leading to a non RB victory.

The path to victory for Ferrari involves drivers who can compete with Max in equal conditions. Charles has proved multiple times that he can do that. He was one of the few drivers to seriously compete with Max this last season. Carlos simply hasn't been able to do that. In his own words he was scared that Max wasn't even pushing the car's full potential every race. A driver who is scared of Max because he has never really had to contend with him due to reasons outside his control is not "Take down Red Bull material"

This may seem harsh or like I am hating on Carlos, but I am being realistic. That is the way the stage is set. He isn't a bad driver by any means.

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that Sainz isn't the best fit at Ferrari in the long-term for a variety of reasons.

How the News Broke

This is where I am probably going to do the most speculation.

But I think based on the way this came out that this was not how or when any parties involved were meant to find out.

Ferrari didn't have anything prepared. They always are very considered about posts and press releases. To not have graphics ready to announce Sir Lewis Hamilton joining the team? No way. They weren't ready for the announcement.

Adding on to that they clearly weren't ready with how they were going to post about Carlos' last year. It may seem disrespectful, but they simply weren't ready with the posts, articles and team statements. I don't think that any of it was to intentionally disrespect Carlos.

I think it's very obvious that this leaked early. From which party I cannot tell, but it's pretty clear no one was ready.

Someone forced the news.

So that makes all of this come across way worse for Carlos and Mercedes. Rumor has it Carlos may have known for a few weeks now, so that would leave Mercedes the only party truly blindsided.

Timeline of Events

Based on the information we currently have here is roughly how I think things played out.

According to Toto he and Lewis were on the same page going into Christmas 2023.

Meaning something changed in a few short weeks for Lewis to make a change.

We keep hearing that roughly three weeks ago was when Ferrari potentially reached out again to Lewis.

So here is what I think might have gone down.

Ferrari had already secured Lewis for 2026, at the end of his new Mercedes Contract. This lines up with rumors that they were open to offering Carlos a 1 year extension.

However Sainz stalled negotiations, demanding a 2 year extension. Ferrari can't agree to that since they already got Lewis.

So Ferrari reached out to Lewis, possibly sweetening the deal to opt out of his Mercedes contract a year early. At this point Lewis has spent some time in the Mercedes simulator for the 2024 car and it may be well off his expectations. So he agrees.

Then the rumor starts spreading and eventually the inevitable has to be confirmed. Lewis is joining Ferrari in 2025 and Carlos is out of his seat at the end of the 2024 season.

I could be way off, but this at the very least makes some sense to me.

Final Thoughts

I am cautiously optimistic on what this means for Ferrari and Charles moving into 2025(this is a Charles blog you know I am most focused on his career) I am going to trust the team and vision Fred Vasseur has until he gives me a good reason not to.

Winners and Losers

There are some clear winners and losers here.

Winners: Ferrari, George Russell Losers: Mercedes, Carlos Sainz I say Ferrari because clearly this strong of a driver lineup is great as a team. I will wait to see if this ends up being a winning driver pairing for Charles and Lewis though.

George Russell is also suddenly the star at Mercedes. He is going to have the opportunity to really prove himself, after being #2 to Lewis for so many years I'm sure this change will be beneficial to his career(assuming he can step up and Merc give him a drivable car)

Mercedes just somehow fumbled one of the greatest drivers in the history of Formula 1. No way to really spin that as anything but a major blow to the team.

Sainz also is the victim of bad timing, a changing team, and not being able to compete with Lewis. It isn't fair, but this sport is brutal and we knew this was a possibility. Hopefully this means he will be able to find a team that better suits his goals/driving style.

However you want to view it, this is one of the biggest driver transfers in the history of the sport. It will be historic to see Lewis don Ferrari red alongside Charles.

Here is to a strong 2025 for Charles and Lewis.

Forza Ferrari

#charles leclerc #lewis hamilton #scuderia ferrari #mercedes #fred vasseur #carlos sainz #formula 1 #lucis essays #long post

[kjack89]

Sweet Nothing

For @themiserablesmonth Day 24: Romance.

Modern AU, established E/R.

Read on AO3.

It was late when Enjolras cautiously opened the door to his apartment, late enough that he tried to keep the door from making any noise as he closed it. “Grantaire?” he called softly, not wanting to wake the man if he was already asleep.

The light in the living room was off but the light in the kitchen was still on, and Enjolras poked his head in, half-expecting to see Grantaire sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a glass of whiskey or wine. Instead, the kitchen was empty, and he frowned slightly as he turned off the light before heading towards the bedroom.

The bedroom light was on as well, and Enjolras poked his head in, relaxing slightly when he saw Grantaire sitting up in bed, scrolling through his phone. “Hey,” he said, trying not to sound as tired as he felt. “I thought you might be asleep already.”

“Nope,” Grantaire said, emphasizing the ‘p’ sound in the passive aggressive way that told Enjolras that something was wrong.

He hesitated, trying to scroll back through his recollection of important dates to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, but he drew a blank. “Sorry I’m late,” he offered, figuring it was a pretty decent catch-all apology.

Grantaire didn’t look up. “You said you’d be home at six.”

Judging by his tone, that was the crux of the matter, and Enjolras sighed. “I know, I’m sorry, but—”

“Is your phone broken?” Grantaire interrupted.

Enjolras tried very hard not to snap at him. “You know that it’s not.”

“Then I don’t particularly want to hear whatever excuse you’re planning on giving me.”

Enjolras sighed again and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s not as if we had plans, so while I’m sorry I wasn’t home at 6—”

Grantaire finally looked up, his expression dark. “So just because we didn’t have plans means that you can blow me off for five hours?”

“I didn’t say that,” Enjolras snapped.

“Didn’t you, though?”

Enjolras took a deep breath, counting to ten in his head before asking, “What is this really about?”

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “You getting home five hours late without a call or a text isn’t enough of a reason?”

“Not really, no,” Enjolras said bluntly. “I mean, you know my work’s important, you know it’s election season and things get crazy. None of this should be a surprise to you.”

Grantaire’s lip curled. “As ever, the reminder of where I rank in your priorities is just the peak of romance.”

Enjolras ground his teeth together. “This was our agreement,” he said tersely. “My work comes first. You know that. You agreed to that.”

“No, our agreement was that your work may come first but in your free time, I come first,” Grantaire said quietly. “So unless a genuine emergency came up that kept you away for five hours—”

Enjolras threw his hands up in frustration. “In case you haven’t noticed, the world is on fire! Everything is an emergency! I mean, Christ, Idaho just introduced a law that would take us back to pre-Stonewall!”

Grantaire didn’t flinch. “And waiting to deal with it until tomorrow was going to make or break things?”

“No more than waiting until tomorrow night to spend time together was going to make or break things for us,” Enjolras shot back.

He knew in an instant that he had gone too far, knew it from the way Grantaire sucked a breath in, his expression going blank the way it did when he didn’t want Enjolras to know that he was upset. “Well,” Grantaire said, picking at a loose thread on the duvet cover. “If that’s how you feel about it.”

Enjolras sighed. “It’s not, I shouldn’t have said that—”

Grantaire didn’t let him finish. “Because even though we may not have had official plans, when you told me you were going to be home at 6, I did consider that to be making plans, even if the plans were just to spend some time together as an impromptu, stay-at-home date night.” Grantaire looked back up at him, still with that forced blank look on his face. “So I made dinner and picked out a movie and waited, like an idiot. Because even though it’s clearly stupid of me to think so, I’d still like to at least attempt to keep the romance alive.”

“And you think I don’t?” Enjolras asked quietly.

“I haven’t exactly seen much to convince me otherwise.” Grantaire reached over to set his phone on the nightstand, avoiding looking at Enjolras. “Look, you’ve clearly had a long day, so let’s talk about it later.”

Enjolras shook his head. “I hate going to bed knowing you’re angry with me.”

Grantaire snorted. “Enjolras, I’m too fucking tired to be angry with you,” he said flatly. “Disappointed, maybe. Mostly with myself.” He shrugged before lying down, his back to Enjolras. “Goodnight. I love you.”

“Yeah,” Enjolras said hollowly. “I love you, too.”

— — — — —

Enjolras slept terribly, which wasn’t exactly a surprise, given how the night had gone. He knew that his priorities misaligning with Grantaire’s was an ongoing issue, and an ongoing conversation that was likely to last for the rest of their lives at this point, but it didn’t mean that he felt anything resembling good about it.

So he slipped out of bed about an hour before his alarm was scheduled to go off, and let himself out of their apartment as quietly as he could (not that it mattered, since Grantaire snored like a freight train and could sleep through a tornado, both of which were facts he was banking on, since he had a few errands to run before Grantaire finally woke up).

Luckily, he could still hear the tell-tale rumble of Grantaire’s snores when he got home, and he hurriedly put everything together on the bed tray one of their friends had given them as a housewarming gift, carrying it to the bedroom, where he propped it on his hip as he knocked lightly on the door. “Are you awake?”

Grantaire’s snores abruptly cut off, and about fifteen seconds later, he emerged from his burrow under the covers, blinking blearily. “I smell bacon.”

Enjolras laughed lightly. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Grantaire’s eyes lit up when he saw the bed tray. “Did you make bacon?” he asked, struggling to sit up.

“No, I did one better – I bought bacon,” Enjolras told him, setting the tray down with a flourish. “And pancakes, and coffee, from that little place down the street.”

Though Grantaire reached automatically for a piece of bacon, he also shot Enjolras a slightly searching look. “Well that was very sweet of you, but you didn’t have to—”

“I know,” Enjolras interrupted, sitting down on the bed next to him. “But I wanted to.” He hesitated before adding, “Because despite my complete idiocy last night, I’d like to keep the romance alive, too.”

Grantaire’s expression softened. “Hence the breakfast in bed.”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, the breakfast in bed is about apologizing, not romance.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “Then what—”

Enjolras cut him off by kissing him, not even caring that he still had a mouthful of bacon. It was a slow, sweet kiss, Enjolras cradling Grantaire’s face with both his hands. Grantaire was smiling a little stupidly when they broke apart, reaching for another piece of bacon and missing entirely. 

“I love you,” Enjolras told him, picking up the piece of bacon for him. “And I love the time I get to spend with you, even when it’s twenty minutes at the end of a very long day. Because to me, that is romance. That’s what it’s all about.” He shrugged. “I don’t need big gestures or even date nights, I just want you murmuring good morning to me as you turn over to fall back asleep, or humming to yourself as you make coffee. Romance is never having to be on with you, to get to turn that side of myself off, even for thirty seconds as I kiss you goodbye mid-phone call. That’s enough for me.” He paused before adding, “And I forget sometimes that it’s not enough for you.”

Grantaire’s eyes flew to his. “It is enough for me,” he said fiercely.

Enjolras shook his head again. “No, it’s not,” he said gently. “And it shouldn’t have to be.”

Grantaire managed a small half-smile. “I can try, though,” he offered.

“Yeah. And so can I.” Enjolras gave him a small smile as well. “Provided you’re willing to put up with me not always getting it right.”

Grantaire laughed lightly. “Well, I’ve put up with it for this long,” he pointed out.

Enjolras caught his hand, lacing their fingers together before pressing a kiss to Grantaire’s knuckles. “Sunk cost fallacy, my love,” he reminded him.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Good thing this is a relationship and not basic economics.”

“Touché,” Enjolras said with a light laugh. He looked at Grantaire closely before asking, “So we’re ok?”

“You brought me bacon,” Grantaire said. “How could we be anything but ok?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “I’m serious.” 

Grantaire took a big bite of bacon before telling him, mid-chew, “So am I.” He swallowed before telling Enjolras, more seriously, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Enjolras said. “And I will try—”

“I know.” Grantaire glanced down at the breakfast tray before looking back at Enjolras, arching a eyebrow as he asked, “Now you’re not really going to sit here and make me eat all this bacon by myself, are you?”

Enjolras laughed and shook his head. “Can I check my email while eating bacon?”

Grantaire just shrugged. “You wanna get bacon grease on your phone, be my guest.”

Enjolras scooted over to lean against Grantaire before fishing his phone out of his pocket, reaching for a piece of bacon with his free hand as he opened his email. 

He knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay like that for long – he had to shower and get dressed for real so that he could get to work – but for the moment, he was content to stay as long as he could.

Because romance meant sneaking as many of these moments as he could. And despite everything, he was glad that Grantaire had reminded him of that.

#exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #enjolras #grantaire #fanfiction #les miserables #modern au #established relationship #arguments #making up #love is hard and love takes work #but they're both trying ok #the miserables month 2022

[bereft-of-frogs]

the friday list ~

this is really covering like a week and a half, because with all the traveling and eclipse adventures, I didn't have much to update last week.

books:

Jawbone - Monica Ojeda: I finally finished this one. I think it went on just a little long for the structure, which was very stream-of-consciousness. There would be like, multiple pages with no paragraph or dialogue breaks. It was interesting, I still liked the vibe, but it ended up being kind of hard to get through.

(in-progress, for book club) This Wretched Valley - Jenny Kiefer: What I like about this book is it's doing a good job showing how annoying both rock climbing people and 'I can't go anywhere without my dog' people are without fully tipping over into completely insufferable. She's walking that line really well. The metaphors are a tiny bit much but I'm enjoying the atmosphere so far. Oh also, I'm struggling a tiny bit with how many dumb decisions they're making. Like, I get that there's something supernatural going on, but outdoor horror stories definitely have a very narrow margin for error between 'understandable mistakes' and 'why the fuck wouldn't you bring a second helmet or rope? why once there's a significant injury does it never occur to you to send one person hiking out to get help? WHY DON'T YOU HAVE ANY PAPER MAPS OR A COMPASS???????' Oh, wah, the GPS is broken, WHY ARE YOU RELYING SOLELY ON GPS IN THE FIRST PLACE? (ok sort of unfair because there's some spooky shit going on so even if they did everything right they wouldn't escape BUT that's even less of an excuse to have them make a bunch of dumb mistakes. Like isn't it MORE horrifying if you do everything right and still can't get out? Idk I just like competent characters and I wish more outdoor horror did the 'super competent characters make understandable mistakes or are caught by forces outside of their control' and less just went for the imo lazy 'idiots bumbling into doom'.)

(in-progress, phone book) Into the Dark - Claudia Gray: I had some bad scrolling moments there for a couple days, but I'm rededicated to not scrolling, catching up on the High Republic series instead. I'm a little over halfway, I forgot this book does one thing I find a little irksome, but it's a can of worms I don't want to open, iykyk kind of deal. Still love Reath though.

(in-progress) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien: I don't often reread The Hobbit, but once I finished LOTR I thought I'd pick it up. It's always funny to me when Tolkien like, slips into a lore dump in the middle of his children's adventure novel. Like we'll be bopping around and suddenly he'll be like 'and in the days of the kings of old, when the Valar....' and there's just a paragraph with all the cadences of The Silmarillion before he kind of snaps back and remembers what they're doing and it's back to being a romp.

tv:

Severance (AppleTV): Oh my GOD. WHAT. This was so disturbing and so funny and I basically had a 45 minute heart attack during that finale. I can't wait for season 2, that was INSANE. I think my only critique is that I wish some of the twists had been signaled a bit earlier. I think I might rewatch to see if I pick up on any foreshadowing but I really didn't seen the twist about Mark's wife coming at all, like it wasn't even on my radar as a direction they could take. It felt like it was signaled then revealed seemingly within the same episode, and I thought maybe there could have been more hints earlier on. Though I think some worked to come out of nowhere, like who Helly really is.

Anthracite (Netflix): Short little 6 episode cult mystery on Netflix. It's kind of a frenetic pace which I think is partially purposeful style, and partially because they only have 6 episodes. I think I'd like to see the 10 episode version of this show, where they have a little more time to build the characters.

movies:

Train to Busan (2016): I had never actually seen this. It was a truly excellent zombie film. I cried.

Jigoku (1960): I'm back to trying to work through the Letterboxd Top 250 horror list, AND try to watch all the ones on Criterion so I can drop that subscription. Bit of a slow build, but the hell scenes were cool.

Zone of Interest (2023): Do I regret not seeing this in theaters? I don't know. I didn't because it didn't seem like I needed the big screen, but the more I heard about the sound design and now that I've seen it, yeah, I think it deserved the big speaker system and not my TV's kind of tinny speakers. The sound design was for sure the real star. Extremely disturbing and effective. Maybe it would have been TOO much seeing it in theaters.

Speak No Evil (2022): I get what they were trying to do but you can refer to my liveblog to see why it didn't quite work for me.

Monkey Man (2024): Omg I almost forgot to put this one? This was such a good action movie, Dev Patel is fantastic and the soundtrack is 10/10. I really enjoyed it, if you haven't seen it yet you 100% should.

video game update: got through Ilum in my perpetual Fallen Order playthrough. Which means: purple lightsaber time :)

craft update: I have reached the underarm join on my vest! Which is exciting because I'm so close to not needing to purl anymore but I did not think through a significant tool issue so before I actually join it up I have to either 1) find another #7 circular needle among my supplies, 2) buy another one, 3) possibly just buy another set of interchangeable needle tips? We'll see if I can JUST get the needle tips and it's not too expensive.

to do:

I have to do an errand I don't want to on my lunch hour. Boo. It involves paperwork and the DMV. I know it will probably not take as long as I'm imagining but. I don't wanna. I'm watching a video of a youtuber I like also deal with car registration as inspiration. Argh. Let this saga be over, before I can't deal with it anymore and drive my stupid car into the sea (I shouldn't joke about that someone actually did that like 6 months ago).

post office to hopefully finally finish the above saga

clean apartment

finish out the first week of my new running routine with about 2 miles tonight and then around 3ish tomorrow

writing goals: I think I figured out my block on chapter 7, so my goal for the next week is to finish a really rough draft of chapter 8, then retreat back to finishing up chapter 7 and then continuing on with the more polished version of chapter 8. I moved some things around. I don't think I have to kill a darling (a paragraph I really like). I think I found a place for it that doesn't completely break the characterization and logic, like the version I started with.

figure out knitting needle issue and/or finish detangling yarn so I can make progress on other project

I might go to home depot because I have a dresser I'd like to repaint, I've had the swatches picked out for a full year now, I just have to actually get the paint and sandpaper and such.

despair: oh my god my activity page is ruined. that post about fanon has over 10k notes. I'm gradually losing faith in the reading comprehension of this site (gradually?). pray that things lessen up a bit this week LOL But also #grateful no one has called me a bitch yet, small wins, I've just learned a lot about random discourse in other fandoms, no one's actually tried to start discourse with me yet

#long post #the friday list #lists lists lists

[ohmyoverland]

Fic Writer Questions

Thanks for the tag @anything-thats-rock-and-roll :D

1. How many fics do you have on AO3? 26

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 25, 570

3. What fandoms do you write for? Except for a few one-offs and my 3 Anne With An E fics, I write Lockwood & Co. 💚⚔

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

After Chameleon, an unbetad Miraculous Ladybug salt fic written before the actual episode had come out. It accidentally blew up asldkfjhjkl

On My Mind, a Detroit: Become Human rk1k ficlet where Connor can read minds.

All the Words I Don't Have, pure grade A Locklyle fluff

are we out of touch, are we out of time? AWAE Season 3 speculative fic that is actually an expanded version of a tumblr post I wrote after the penultimate episode of the series premiered.

wavering, my cot3 pining + character study fic. I'm really proud of it and I promise chapter 3 is coming eventually lmao

5. Do you respond to comments? I don't 😭 I want to but I never know what to say and before I know it, the comment is 2 years old oops. I reread comments all the time ❤

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? That's tough to say for sure but I think every lessons forms a new scar ending with an off-screen character death is probably the most angst I've ended with so far.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? That would have to be All the Words I Don't Have again. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. And Lockwood writes some really bad poetry.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I do sometimes, and it's not published yet.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Another Change of Plans is the most tumblr WIP I have lol. It dares to start asking the question, "What if the Old Guard adopted Adam Young, the antichrist from Good Omens?"

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Sort of? There was one collab fic I wrote a scene for but it never got finished. Someday I might post my part, because ngl I'm pretty proud of the Skull/Lucy banter in it.

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? How could I ever choose??? By bookmark stats, it would be Marinette and Adrien from Miraculous Ladybug. But cot3 (Lockwood & Co) and Superbat (DC) are up there too.

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? A better question is what isn't a WIP I'll never finish??? I have dozens 😭 Though one that stands out is an old Frozen fic I outlined in I think 2018(?). The premise is a canon divergence where Anna's death is faked when they're children and she's raised in the village instead of in the castle. There are two full acts that are just set up for a The Prince And Me/Princess Diaries-esque rom-com between suddenly-a-princess Anna and just-a-normal-guy Kristoff.

The outline on its own is about 8k words, and frankly I've considered editing and posting the outline itself before because it's detailed enough. This fic is actually a drabble I wrote to take place within my AU, but it reads canon compliant enough of its own so I posted it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Ideas. I am always getting new plot bunnies, always getting excited about the next great idea, always thinking about new aspects of these worlds and characters I want to explore.

16. What are your writing weaknesses? Dialogue and volume. That's why I write so many descriptive, very short fics XD

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'd only do it in a language I've studied for a couple years, and even then I would want a native speaker to read over it for me. But it hasn't come up yet?

I do really like Superbat or Star Trek fics where the author sparingly includes Kryptonian / Klingon / Vulcan with a translation at the end.

18. First fandom you wrote for? My Little Pony, or maybe Percy Jackson?? I'm too scared to check my old accounts to see which came first, if I ever even posted the fics I remember writing then at all.

19. Favorite fic you’ve written? building glass castles for sure!!! I love the atmosphere in it, and the monologue from Skull. That monologue came to me in the middle of the night once, so I had to type it up immediately and build the fic around it later.

No pressure tags @sabetha @synestheticwanderings @abumperprize @lenacarstairspotterstewart @woahpip @flythesail @shizuoi

#seriously thanks for tagging me!!! #i love tag games it just takes me a century to actually get to doing them lol #tag game #mutual games #fic writing #my writing #fic rec #mine

[goatsandgangsters]

shadow and bone episode 6 liveblog: all two minutes of it before I turned off the TV

wow Baghra sure doesn’t…….. give a flying fuck that Alina plans to kill her son. which would be fucked up in a vacuum, but like. in the books, her motivation THE ENTIRE TIME is “saving him.” her ENTIRE THING is that SHE DOES NOT CARE about anything but herself and her son’s survival. EVERYTHING ELSE is expendable, the entire country is expendable, even Alina is expendable. BUT SURE!!! LET’S JUST NOT CARE THAT THE ONLY ONE OF YOUR MANY CHILDREN YOU BOTHERED TO RAISE AND THE ONLY CONSTANT OVER LIKE 800 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE IS GONNA GET MURDERATED

I am paused two minutes into the episode debating if this show is worth finishing

Darkling stans, I’ve always thought our section of the fandom unfairly vilified Baghra. but I am now maintaining that opinion only about book!Baghra. this is extremely cruel writing.

god. even book!darkling—an objectively worse and Deader Inside person than his show counterpart—had the decency to be extremely fucked up over Baghra’s death. and she just isn’t phased by the reverse prospect at all?

how did book!darkling, an objectively worse person who did far worse to everyone around him, get a more sympathetic treatment than what we’re doing now? like, what was the point of all the work they did to humanize the character and make him more three-dimensional, who DOESN’T EVEN DO HALF THE HEINOUS THINGS AS HIS BOOK COUNTERPART, only to turn around and take away sympathy for him that existed in the books

I was already expecting this liveblog would be a big rant about the decision to have baghra HELP alina with the amplifiers even though that is so outrageously counter to Literally Everything She Stands For And Believes In, but this just decked me in the face, so we might not even get far enough for me to do That Particular Rant

I’ve turned off the TV

an hour has passed, I’ve taken a shower, I’ve continued to debate with myself if I should just be done with the entire franchise and care about things that are actually good, instead of caring too much about things because I wish they were good

we’ll see what I decide. I’m gonna sleep on it 

don’t tell me anything / be very vague. I can ask Kara specifics for my mind-making-up-process but I still want to have control over what/how much info I take in to make that decision 

I really……. didn’t foresee a world where I wouldn’t like season 2

because like, I read the books. on the whole, I enjoyed them. even though objectively 5 of them are mediocre at best. I made it through. I had fun. they’re not good, but they’re entertaining, and that has value. and that was always my assurance. “well, if nothing else, the show won’t be WORSE than the books.” and I’m not so sure about that right now.

all things considered, I’m actually the world’s most easy-to-appease Darkling Stan. I don’t want a different ending. I like both deaths, in r&r and row. honestly, all I’ve ever wanted is for the narrative to be less heavy-handed on lecturing the audience, stop telling me how I’m supposed to feel, and respect the tragedy of someone who’s fought so hard and so long that there’s nothing left of him. Respect that that’s tragic.

and based on season 1, I thought, perfect, you’re golden, on the right track, just keep this up. I’m looking forward to that sweet sweet tragedy 

and I do not understand how this version of the character—who is nowhere near as bad as his book counterpart—is being treated with even less sympathy. I don’t understand it. his own mother doesn’t give a shit??? you can’t even give him THAT? there is not a single soul in this whole entire world with even a scrap of sympathy, despite the fact that there are multiple characters in the book who feel that? they trust the audience so little? 

my ask was so minimal. respect the tragedy of the character. and right now, it seems like they’re doing a WORSE job than the book did. 

#episode 6 verdict (minutes 1–2): I made it through rule of wolves but I might not make it through this #don’t tell me anything / be very vague #I can ask kara for specifics for making-up-my-mind but I still wanna have control over what/how much info I take in to make that decision #sab liveblog