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b0r3dtod3ath · 9 months

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"Cause I <3 you, you’re the one that I adore :)"

Formula 1 masterlist

Word count: 1.4k

Summary: Assistant!reader x rdr!seb. Based on this request. Set during the 2012 season.

A/N: I know a few people wanted me to write this trope so here it is :) Also this fic is loosely inspired by BBM baby by Lana Del Rey.

“Yea, I still don’t understand why I need an assistant” Well this sentence certainly didn’t calm your anxiety as you were sitting on a chair, staring at the door. You were supposed to meet your boss, well not really a boss but a person you were supposed to help. He wasn’t just a random person, he was Sebastian Vettel, two-time world champion in Formula 1. You were a fan of this sport so when an opportunity for you to work in that field appeared, you took it without thinking twice. Maybe you weren’t one of the most important employees on the paddock nonetheless you still got to travel the world and be a part of every race week. “Sebastian, you were late for the last three meetings. I can’t be looking after you all the time.” a female voice said. You recognized it - it was Sebastian’s press officer. She was a lovely lady. You got to meet her because she was the one recruiting you. “So you are really getting me a babysitter?” huffed the driver. The door in front of you opened causing you to jump from your seat and put on a smile. “Hi! Nice to see you again! Come on in!” said the lady. As you walked in a tall, blonde boy sat up and introduced himself “Sebastian Vettel. You can call me Seb. Nice to meet you.” The eye contact made your cheeks heat up a little “Y/N Y/L/N, pleasure working with you”. As you sat down you heard Sebastian whisper a quiet “It sure is” under his nose.

You came up with the idea of a maximum of 10-minute long meetings after breakfast during the race weekend. They were meant for you to give Seb a quick overview for the day - what is he doing at what time. You were sitting at the hotel’s restaurant, waiting for him to show up, you didn’t expect him to show up on time but he barely managed to. “Hi, sorry. I hope you didn’t wait long” he said as he sat opposite to you. “Good morning, I’m fine, you are on time actually” you greeted him with a smile, chuckling at his messy bed hair. “So today you are supposed to first meet your physiotherapist and then” you were interrupted by sniffling. Probably a morning runny nose. You grabbed your small purse and handed a tissue to the man. “Thank you” he said, surprised that you noticed. “So then you have a first practice session at 1PM and..” - you quickly went over what was planned for the day “Alright, any questions? If you really want to move some meetings then let me know and I will try to figure out something. I’m leaving this paper for you to know what’s going on and I think that’s it.” you handed him a post-it note with everything neatly written. Cute writing he thought as he looked at it "There's also my number if you need something and I happen not to be around”. Oh yea, he was definitely gonna use this one.

After a few races, you started developing a more casual relationship - it could even be called a friendship. The chemistry never left working hours. You didn’t understand why but it bothered you. Well, you noticed some signals - butterflies in your stomach appearing when you two held eye contact for more than a second, your heart skipping a beat when you accidentally touch or the heat rising to your cheeks every time he calls you by your nickname. You were a walking symptom of having a crush and yet you denied it. “I’m working for him, of course, we have to be nice to each other! He’s like that to every female reporter, a cheeky little bastard.” or “It’s his job to treat me nice.” you used to tell your friend on a phone, whispering as if Sebastian was to hear you. Little did you know, he has in fact changed his behavior towards women once you appeared in his life, he started being less flirty and reckless but not in terms of you. He would never tell you to do anything for him because it felt weird to him. At first, you were looking after him like he was a child - checking in if he was hungry or if he needed water. He never complained about being looked after because he found it comforting. He felt like you were truly caring for him, a feeling that he hadn’t felt in years due to his lifestyle.

You would never call him unless he was late. Sebastian was in his hotel room, sprawled out on the bed, head with messy blonde hair buried in pillows. His peaceful sleep was interrupted by the sound of his ringtone. “Huh?” his eyes still closed “Seb, you were supposed to text me when you wake up so you won’t be late again. Please tell me you got up” your voice was a sound he wished to wake up for the rest of his life “Mrrh Dreaming? An angel called me?” he said half awake completely ignoring your tone “Great, amazing even. Vettel, wake up. I’m gonna come to your room in 10 minutes and please cooperate”. Even though you were the same age you sometimes felt like you were babysitting him. Sebastian obeyed you and got dressed. He liked to annoy you a bit but he would be cautious not to cause you too much trouble. You knocked on his door not expecting him to be ready. To your surprise, you were greeted by a fully dressed Sebastian holding his toothbrush. He gestured to you to come in. You have never been to his hotel room so it a bit personal. You stood in the middle of the room not knowing what to do. Your eyes wandered around the room which looked more neat than you expected - no clothes laying around and only his phone and a half-empty water bottle on his nightstand but the bed looked like a mess and you couldn’t judge him, after all he did wake up less than ten minutes before. The bathroom door was opened so you were able to observe him brushing his teeth. It was a thing he did everyday (even more than once!) yet it felt almost intimate. “Okay, let’s go” he said with a big smile once he finished and held the door for you. You were heading for a team meeting that you were also a part of. Your role there was to take notes that were handed to the driver later. Sebastian couldn’t take his eyes off you, sitting next to him as you wrote something important that he didn’t even hear. He loved to watch you in this state where you were so focused you barely paid attention to anything else. He loved the way you would tuck your hair behind your ear or play with a pen anytime there was something not worth writing down discussed. When the meeting was over you handed him the paper, he didn’t even look at it but the thing that caught his attention was your dress. It wasn’t revealing or stereotypically sexy - little flowers on a navy background, short sleeves and knee length just suited your personality in his mind. “Nice dress” he said, catching you off guard as you were saying your goodbyes. This weekend Sebastian finished P1 getting closer and closer to his next world champion title.

Next weekend was the last weekend before the summer break. Even though you had lost your hope in terms of your emotions towards Sebastian there was a little part of you that still wished that he would make some kind of a move. It was Saturday night, you had already showered and got yourself ready to bed. You heard a notification and looked at the screen of your phone. “I’m outside your door. Wanna talk to you. XOXO, Seb :)”. He himself didn’t know why he ended the text like that. He was just nervous and high on adrenaline. The message was followed by three gentle knocks on your door. You let Sebastian in and before you could say anything he grabbed your hands and said “I, I I think I love you. For the past few months you had been my sunshine. You make me happier. I adore everything about you, every single little detail. Please make me an even happier man and let me take you out for dinner. And wear that dress you wore last week."

#writers on tumblr #fan fic writing #f1 x reader #formula 1 x reader #sebastian vettel imagines #sebastian vettel x reader #sebastian vettel imagine #rbr seb

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leclucklerc · 6 months

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Hard Carry CL16 - 03. Brocedes Esque

Pairings: Charles Leclerc x driver!reader

Summary: It's a one sided fight for the throne. And yet, y/n will still go all out.

Word Count: 5k

Previous Masterlist Next

Drive to Survive season 1 episode 1

All to Play For

The screen was black before it changed into a clip of 2017 driver championship. A narrator could be heard on the background, narrating an overview of Formula One. The most expensive sport, a brilliant combination of technology and man-made skills. It’s the pinnacle of motorsport, a true show of speed and adrenaline.

Will Buxton appeared, “This is a sport only for those who wants to win,” he said. “No one is more competitive than all of these drivers.”

“They trained like a jet pilot,” said Christian Horner as he appeared on the screen. “Formula one is a show of how mighty a collaboration between technology and what pure manmade skill can do.”

The sound of whirring engine as Formula One cars passed by the screen, leaving nothing but blurs and shocked gasps. The sound of screeching tires as cars after cars fight against each other. It is a spectacle. An exclusive sport only those who has enough privilege can enjoy. Cheers could be heard, and a crowd of spectators could be seen watching the race.

And then, someone back could be seen. The camera is shooting from behind and it looks like it was a normal race suit. At least, until long cascading hair appeared on the screen.

“Formula one changed,” said Will and a montage of the celebration of 2017’s championship could be seen. Of Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, and y/n l/n fierce rivalry for the title championship.

In a sport that is not known for its diversity, a female managed to become one of the best drivers on the grid. In a sport that is not known for its diversity, y/n l/n proved that anyone could do anything if they want. A show full of determination and fighting spirit. A show full of desperation and fights for her voice to be heard.

Silver, red, and black. Three cars that dominated the season. Each desperately trying to gain a place in front of another.

Silver, red, and black.

The scene change, showing Daniel Ricciardo in the interview room. Daniel could be seen looking around, a bit awkward and yet, there’s still a huge grin plastered across his face. “Are we ready?” he asked, tone full of humor.

“Do you think you can win against y/n l/n if you have the same car?” asked the producer on the background.

Daniel eyes shook, as he looked as if he was thinking about the question for a bit. Though, when he answered, he sounds so sure and without the slightest hesitance. “Yes,” answered the man.

“Yes,” answered Fernando Alonso as the scene changed to him.

“Yes,” answered Max Verstappen as the scene too changed to him.

“Yeah,” answered Pierre Gasly and after that, a speed up montage of the entire grid appeared. All of them are saying yes, confirming their confidence about beating the current world champion.

It’s not a bad attitude to have. After all, Formula One drivers are confident. They’re confident of their skill, of their talent, and of their potential. To drive in Formula One, they have to believe that they’re the best driver on the grid. Having that kind of confidence on your ability, is the very essential to be a Formula One driver.

Shortly after that, the scene changed. This time showing a woman with perfectly styled hair and colored lips. The dark team polo that she’s wearing oddly look like a designer brand, despite it being a uniform that everyone on the team wears.

For this woman, the question was altered a bit.

“If all of you have the same car,” started the producer. “Do you think you can still become a world champion?”

That question made her let out a bark of laugh, as if it was the funniest thing that someone had ever said to her. And maybe it is because it’s been a while since she heard something so ridiculous. Her eyes crinkled and her painted lips are set in a wide grin, showing all of them how amused she is at the question.

“Babe,” she started, amusement clear on her face.” I can certainly beat them even if the rest of the grid is using Porsche and me in a Williams.”

It’s a statement that is full of arrogance.

It’s a statement, that fully show how confident she in in her abilities.

Y/n l/n, three-time world champion.

The opening of drive to survive starts playing.

2013

Y/n first notice something became a bit weird after she won her first world champion.

Back then, she had thought that everything was going great. Porsche is a great team with a great car. She’s getting many attentions, outside and inside of Formula One. She had performed incredibly, managing to snag a championship only on her second year.

The sensational driver. One of the biggest name in Formula One.

Yes, she had thought that everything had been going on great.

That is, until her teammate terminates his contract with Porsche.

It was a bit shocking, considering that he had another year in Porsche. Besides that, they’ve been getting along great. They may not be the best of friends, but she had thought that they’re teamwork had been amicable. They both shared dinners here and there, even went to the gym together. So, hearing that he was leaving the team so abruptly had been a bit of a shock to her.

“Hey,” she called out, catching the attention of the male. “You… do you not like Formula One anymore?”

They may have not been the best of friends, but they’ve been friends alright. The both of them had spent two years together as a teammate. It’s only normal for her to see what is going on and why did he decide to leave the team so suddenly.

She had asked Herman, questioning his decision to leave the team. Oddly, the man had closed his mouth. Refusing to say anything more than that it was his decision to leave Porsche.

Staring at her, the male let out a scoff. “Fuck,” he hissed out. “It’s not funny to hear that from you.”

The female raised an eyebrow, a bit shocked at the sudden show of hostility directed towards her. “What’s your problem?” she asked, moving away to stand in front of him. Blocking his path from the door. “I was just asking why you are leaving the team so suddenly.”

Something in that statement sounds funny to him because he lets out a bark of laugh. His shoulder shook as if what she just said was the funniest thing on earth. It annoyed her a bit. Though considering his bad mood, she doesn’t call him out.

“Really?” he finally said after his laughter lessened. “Really, y/n?”

“What?” y/n asked, furrowing his eyebrows. “Why are you acting as if I should know the reason, you’re leaving the team?”

“Shit, knowing that you don’t even realize only make all of these worse,” he said, slinging his bag on his back. “Assholes.”

She bristled at that. “It’s clear that you have a problem with me,” said the female. “You wanna tell it to my face?”

The male stared at her. Dark orbs meeting her own as a tense silence fell between them. The tension is thick, not wanting to back off.

“I’m tired,” he finally said. “I’m tired being the second fiddle.”

Y/n blinked, “What?” she asked. “What second fiddle?”

“Second fiddle in fucking Porsche,” replied the male, shoving past her.

She stumbled at that, though y/n quickly regained his footing as she quickly followed the male across the grid. It’s late at night but the place is still full of life. She could see a lot of eyes – drivers, engineers, mechanics – following both of their figure as they shared a heated whispering feat between each other.

“What second fiddle in Porsche!?” she hissed out. “You were fourth in the drivers ranking!”

“And you were number one!” he whispers shouted, glaring at her. “It’s obvious that Porsche will favor you more after this! I don’t want to be treated like that-“

“What favor!?” said y/n, a bit too heated. “I tried my best and-“

“I know you fucking tried your best!” said the male as the both of them stopped just near the exit gate. “I know, but with the way you’re performing right now- I don’t want to be stuck as a second driver in the team.”

Y/n grabbed her collar, dragging his face forward. “So, what if you’re the second driver!? Many drivers would kill for an opportunity to just drive for Porsche in Formula One!”

“There’s nothing wrong being a second driver,” scoffed the male as he yanked back his collar. “That is, if you’re in any other team. Being the second driver in Porsche is worst.”

“What are you even talking about- “

“Think,” cut off the male. “Think y/n, remember these past months and how Porsche is fucking treating you compared to me.”

“There’s nothing different! I- “

She stopped. Y/n stopped because there’s a rush of memories appearing inside of her head. Moments, that had happened even during her rookie season last year.

The way the team had prepared her favorite foods for their catering at the start of the season, despite its being a rare cuisine on the country they’re racing in. The way during the off season she had declined a practice session in the factory due to a photoshoot and Herman had allowed it while her teammate was forced to come despite living in a different country.

How the team had issued a team order to let her pass, raising her ranking while decreasing his. How Herman and the team had always celebrated every victory and podiums of hers, while her teammate watch from the side.

How, the mechanics – even his teammate’s mechanics – are the people that she has a close relationship with. People, that she’s comfortable with. How the race engineers are the people that she regularly have dinner with. Something, she had never seen her teammate’s do.

In Porsche, everyone is someone that y/n is close with.

A team, that was built for her.

Her very own personal Formula One team.

The moment she had her realization must’ve showed clearly on her face because her teammate let out a scoff as he yanked out of her grip. “Realize it yet, princess?” he sneered out before he marched out, leaving her standing there in silence.

That was the last time she ever saw him.

And it was the start of Porsche’s almost yearly change of their second driver.

2017

“You should be careful,” said Lewis in the middle of the 2017 season. It was just announced that her teammate of the year will not be extending his contract with Porsche. She’s not even surprised at this point. “I know teammates can be an ass, but it’s best to not antagonize them.”

Y/n raised an eyebrow at that.

It was really funny to hear that from Lewis, considering all the drama that happened back in 2016. After all, the feud between Lewis and Nico had been entertaining and yet painful to watch. Something worthy of a soap opera and certainly must be Toto’s worst nightmare. To see two men who used to be the best of friends tearing each other apart as teammates.

She knows that the tension in that team has been unbearable. At least in Porsche, they never let the tension to remain that long considering how they change their second driver every year. With Mercedes though?

When Mercedes paired the both of them, they probably didn’t expect the sheer rivalry that they both had with each other. How they despised the mere thought of losing against each other. How everything has to be a competition between them, no matter how small. Maybe that’s why they used to get along so well. Considering how much they loved racing and how competitive they are.

“You’re really saying that?” asked y/n, amusement clear on her tone. “You?”

Lewis rolled his eyes at that. “I know it’s hypocrite of me,” he started off. “But believe me, I know firsthand how awful it is to have your teammate as an enemy.”

The female laughed at that. Obviously, he would know. “I never antagonize my teammate,” unlike you, remain unsaid. “They just feel threatened.”

He hummed, leaning back on the sofa. “They just got embarrassed at the thought of losing from you. A female.”

Y/n snorted at that. “Well, Formula One it’s not a sport that is known for its diversity,” she said pointedly towards the male.

He let out a laugh. She doesn’t know if he found some kind of sick amusement in that statement or if he just thought what she said is the truth. Probably the second one.

“Indeed,” said Lewis, a faraway look on his face. “Yeah, indeed.”

2018

That certain conversation had always been at the back of her mind.

It rang inside of her head as she won her third championship and saw her teammate staring up at her not from the podium. It rang inside of her head as her teammate terminate their contract from Porsche. It rang inside of her head as Herman introduced Henry to her.

It certainly rang inside of her head as Henry crashed his car into her.

The loud screeching sound that appeared inside of her ear as she could feel her car spin towards the barrier is making her head ache. Truthfully, the impact is not that big, and she certainly had had a worst crash before. Though what made this one a bit special is the pitch-black car that also laid across the gravel in front of her.

Ah, she thought, trying to lessen her anger. Retire. The both of us.

Herman will be so fucking pissed.

Even when her race engineer asked her if she’s okay, y/n really doesn’t have the energy to reply. She merely answered with a short hum, not saying anything besides that. After all, she felt that if she answers more than that, her anger will leak through. Shattering the perfectly crafted image that she had crafted over the years.

Perfect y/n who always smiles.

Charming y/n who is a different driver from her rookie season.

Beautiful y/n who is always laughing-

It seems, all of her effort to lessen her anger became futile when she saw Henry climbing out of his car. She doesn’t know what sets her off. Maybe it’s because Henry doesn’t even look guilty or maybe it’s the fierce glare that he directed towards her from behind his helmet as if she’s the problem.

She really doesn’t know what set her off but almost immediately, her anger surged forward.

Fuck, thought the female as she climbed out of her car.

Fucking hell, thought the female as she took off her helmet.

Y/n turned around, staring at her car that had hit the wall. Y/n turned towards the track, hearing the sound of other cars making their laps.

DNF.

Fucking DNF.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck-

Y/n almost throw his helmet to the floor as she marched back towards Porsche garage. Her hair is a mess and the way her race suit is sticking to her body uncomfortably does not help her temper the slightest. Around her, she could faintly see the wary glances that people gave her. No doubt, a bit fearful at the angry woman.

She doesn’t really care, and she’s also sure that Herman doesn’t care. After all, he has a more pressing issue to tackle. Namely, the two DNF that Porsche suffered during the Spanish Grand Prix.

It’s a tight fight for the constructor championship with Mercedes after all. Having to retire both cars is not helpful at all. The way both cars retired is a bit embarrassing. No, scratch that. It’s so fucking embarrassing and the mere thought of that incident made her had headache.

During the race, Henry who was ahead of the woman after y/n’s pitstop, was asked to let her overtake. Which make sense because y/n got a new set of tires and faster. It was projected that she could pass Lewis and Bottas who was leading the race at 1-2. Porsche needed the team points anyway and y/n is gunning for her fourth driver title.

But of course not.

It’s the damn disease that every Formula One drivers seem to have. Aka, their far too big pride.

Henry – the little shit – decided that he doesn’t want to do that. She doesn’t know what’s his problem or what kind of mental ego that he’s battling with himself, during the race, he decided that he’s not going to let her pass.

Fucking asshole.

The guy is not even a contender for the driver’s title! He should’ve been satisfied to manage to be in the top 6 drivers during his rookie season! But of course not. He decided that he wants to be some kind of hero or some kind of historic driver.

Maybe he wants to be known as someone that finished ahead of y/n. Or maybe he just wants people to know that he’s here in Porsche to be the number one driver. Not the driver that have to stay behind y/n.

Fucking asshole. Rookie little shit.

It’s no brainer that she will try to overtake Henry. It’s no brainer that she’s aiming to win the championship. But no. The little shit decided that he wants to kill the both of them and made them crash against each other, officially retiring both Porsche from the race.

She could still hear the dramatic narration that the announcer made as they crashed against each other. Y/n could almost see her fourth championship slipping from her finger because this is the last thing that she needs. After all, Lewis and Sebastian are tough opponents. They’re not going to let her win the championship without a fight. And don’t get her started with Red Bull growing dominance and Max’s overwhelming talent.

DNF, is something that she doesn’t fucking need at this point.

“Deep breathes,” muttered Luca as he takes her helmet inside of her driver’s room. His tone calm, as he desperately tries to calm the raging inferno inside the female. “Y/n, remember it’s important to stay calm during this kind of situation.”

The female is known as a charming woman. One of the friendliest people on the paddock. She can make friends with anyone she set her eyes on. Always welcoming every person with a perfectly shaped smile and a friendly aura.

Though in the end, y/n is still a world champion. To be a world champion, you need to be some kind of an asshole. An asshole, on the track and on the garage.

“Fuck,” she lets out, taking a deep breath as she leaned back on the chair. “Fucking asshole, he was going to kill us.”

Luca winced a bit at that because yes, the crash was pretty bad. The mechanics needs to stay up all night to make sure that the car will be ready for Monaco. No thanks for Henry.

“Herman will want to have a team meeting after this,” said the man as he handed her a drink. “Obviously to talk about what just happened.”

“They can blame all of it to Henry,” she seethed out, gripping the drink with too much strength. “Asshole didn’t obey team orders! What right does he have to do that!?”

“I know, I know,” said Luca as he patted her back in order to placate her for a bit. “I understand that you’re frustrated, you can tell everyone all about it during the meeting, no?”

“Henry better listens well during that,” said y/n.

The meeting takes place when the race had long finished in the meeting room inside of their motorhome. Y/n had given Lewis a congratulation about his win and Max about his podium before she was ushered inside.

Herman’s face looks scary and the stillness inside of the meeting room too, was deafening. Y/n’s silent anger as well as brooding face also doesn’t help the growing coldness. It’s a bit jarring to see the usually friendly woman looks so emotionless.

On the other hand, Henry clearly looks nervous. It’s clear that the male is a bit scared at how tense the meeting room is. The atmosphere is clearly different from how the team is usually. Y/n really wants to shake his head, because this situation is clearly his fault.

Seriously fuck Henry and his fragile ego.

“What happened today,” started Herman, breaking the silence between all of them. “Is something that shouldn’t happen again.”

There’s a round of agreement across the room. She could feel the eyes that’s staring at her, no doubt searching for a flicker of emotion or a reaction from her. Y/n ignored all of them, pointedly starting at Henry who was sitting in front of her and at the same time, avoiding her gaze.

“Our goal for every championship is to win,” said the team principal, fixing his glasses as he stared around the room. “And Formula One, no matter how it looks, is a team sport. We need to work as a team to achieve that.”

A beat passed, before people voiced their agreement at that.

“Whoever was faster, will have to let the other one to pass,” continue Herman. “If the both of you are at 1-2, the one on the second place should defend from the third place. I don’t care about all of your ego and pride; I want all of you to work as a professional and not be a fucking child.”

Y/n let out a snort at that.

The way Herman said it, it was as if the team doesn’t have a favorite. As if, Porsche doesn’t care which one of them finished first or second as long as they’re using the Porsche car to win. Though, both y/n and everyone – including Henry – knows the hidden meaning behind the statement.

It means to let y/n pass every time. It means that Henry has to defend y/n from the car behind them. It means, that no matter how hard he tried, y/n will always come first.

First driver and second driver. An almost public secret to everyone on the grid.

Y/n is the first driver and Henry is the second driver.

She raised her eyebrows as she could see how Henry clenched his fist tightly. No doubt wanting to refute the order from Herman. Though alas, he also knows that it’s going to be useless. After all, he’s the rookie driver. He’s not the three-time world champion. He’s not the driver that had been in Porsche since the start.

He also doesn’t have a dad who is a major investor in Porsche.

“Everyone understand?” asked Herman after silence descend upon the room. “I don’t want to see this kind of mistake anymore.”

“Yes,” replied y/n, eyes still boring towards the younger driver in front of her.

Henry too, let out a strained smile at that. “Yes, I understand,” he said.

It was a shame, she thought. After all, just like the previous drivers, this is the final nail of the coffin. The realization that there is no hope for them in Porsche as long as y/n is still in the team. To know, that clearly your team have a favorite and it’s not you.

This is the point in time for them to be more or less, annoying.

Veiled insults, ignorance over team orders, blatant manipulation. It’s the same thing over and over again. If she’s someone with a better personality, she would try and discuss with the team on how to make a fairer working environment. She would try to mediate between Porsche and the second driver on how to improve their situation.

But no, y/n is not someone with a better personality.

Many like to praise how different she is compared to her rookie season. That the brash and highly competitive girl in 2012 is now replaced by a friendly and charming woman. A hotheaded rookie now known as the most beloved driver on the grid.

Many likes to say that she’s someone better now. That adulthood had ceased down all of her childishness.

What they didn’t know is, y/n never changed. She only learnt how to put up a persona that will be beloved by everyone. To wear a mask, to hide herself from the prying eyes from the media.

Y/n, is still the loud and abrasive rookie driver.

She’s still hotheaded and can throw a massive tantrum.

Y/n, is still an asshole and Porsche, is hers.

She’s not going to let a rookie to take it from her.

Despite all the drama that happened today, meeting Charles Leclerc is the last thing that she expected.

When Herman had ordered the team to go home for the day, she really didn’t expect to see the guy loitering around Porsche’s motorhome. If it’s anyone else, y/n would’ve thought that they’re doing some kind of company espionage towards them.

But it’s Charles. A rookie driver with big eyes and emotions clear on his face. Emotions, that clearly shows how worried he is right now.

“Y/n!” he called out the moment he spotted her exiting the building.

“Charles?” she asked, approaching the younger driver. “What are you doing here?”

He looks a bit nervous, “I- uh I saw the crash earlier,” he started. “I was just wondering if you’re, okay?”

Y/n blinked. A bit startled at the question, because isn’t that a bit sweet? After all, they hardly know each other. The only time that even had a real conversation was during their first meeting. Besides that, it was only short pleasantries with each other. He didn't even contacted her after she gave him her number, giving her the impression that he's not that interested in her.

Turns out Charles is a good guy after all.

It’s hard to see someone this nice. Especially in Formula One where everyone has a far too big egos and pride – y/n included.

She can’t suppress the grin that’s tugging her mouth. “Well, as you can see, I’m in one piece,” said the female, gesturing towards her body as the two of them began to walk. “Thank you for worrying though.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, almost too quick. “I just wanna make sure that you’re okay, sorry if I’m disturbing you.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” she shrugged off. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to after a shitty day like this.”

“I’m glad then,” replied the male as they walk through the paddock. There are a lot of people, but mostly people from the constructor work who is on their way to tear down each team motorhome.Most of team members already went home at this hour. From the backpack that he’s carrying, it seems that he’s also on his way back to the hotel. “I’m glad that I can help you, even if it’s only a little.”

How nice.

Y/n let out a laugh at that. “Don’t change, Charles,” she said. “It’s rare to see a driver this nice.”

Charles merely shrugged. “If you asked Max, I’m an asshole though.”

“Ah,” said the female. “Yeah, I saw the video, cute kids certainly. The both of you.”

He flushed at that. "It's a bit embarrassing that everyone knows about that now."

"Why?" asked y/n, amusement clear on her eyes. "It's a good story, no? Fated rival and stuff."

"If you put it like that it is a bit nice," said the male, scratching his cheek. "I just don't like being compared to him."

She laughed. "Deal with it, Leclerc," she said as she sling an arm around his shoulder, tugging him down a bit. "The media will always compare you with someone, I guess they want to make the headline a bit spicy considering how boring most of the drivers are."

What she said about the comparison is the truth. For y/n, she had been compared to Lewis and Sebastian ever since she won her first championship. When she first debuted, she was compared against Sebastian a lot. Claiming them as two young talents that had arrived to take over Formula One. Even back when Max first entered the sport, he was compared to her most of the times.

"I guess so," muttered Charles. "It's only my rookie season, after all."

"Precisely," she grinned. "Wait for another season and they will be talking all about your achievements. That is if you able to stay for another season," teased the female a bit.

"I will be," answered Charles lightheartedly. "It's my dream to drive for Ferrari after all."

Y/n nodded, "Good dream, Ferrari is a pretty good team." She knows that Charles is projected to be the red car future driver, but she doesn't know when will that happen considering their current driver lineup. Seb and Kimi is a good pair after all.

But knowing Ferrari?

Anything can really happen.

They continue talking as they made their walk towards the parking lot. It’s surprisingly easy talking to him, as if she’s talking with an old friend. Charles is an animated talker, slipping into French here and there - which she doesn't mind. I sounds cute and she did grew up in France. Somehow, it's easy for her to find a conversation topic. From things like racing to mundane topics like the catering on their team.

Maybe it’s how expressive he is, or maybe it’s because he’s someone that put his heart on his sleeve, making it easy for her to read on his emotions. It was a bit cute and endearing. Y/n thought that if she has a little brother, maybe it’s almost like this.

Their conversation was cut short when it’s time for them to go to their own cars.

"Guess this is it," she said, giving him a cheeky grin. "It was nice talking to you."

"Yeah," agreed the male. "I hope we can do this again."

She laughed at that. "I did gave you my number, Leclerc," said the female, giving him a friendly shove. "You can always text me for a chat. Or maybe a call."

His eyes widened, clearly not expecting that. "I-" he stopped. "I'll text you!"

"You better be," she said, giving him a sidehug, she said, “Text me later!” to him before she climbed into the car.

Her day became a bit lighter.

Charles thinks he's dreaming.

Text me later?

Text me later!?

Fuck, he hopes he didn’t fumble. Did he say yes? He didn’t remember saying yes. But he also didn’t remember saying no. Shit- what if she thought that he’s being rude!? Did he even confirmed that yes, obviously he’s going to text her after this-

If Pierre was here, he’s going to laugh so hard.

Really, Charles doesn’t know what possessed him that it made him thought visiting y/n was a good idea. He didn’t even got the courage to visit her during good days. What made him thought that visiting her after a bad race is a good idea!? After all, she had a DNF back in the race. A double DNF for Porsche to add salt into the wound. Everyone would have been in a bad mood if that happened to them.

He was half expecting to be ignored or to be met with short answers. But no, y/n was so nice that she had actually entertained his silly attempt of small conversation. He doesn’t even know what they’re talking about throughout their walk because he’s just way too nervous to make sure that the conversation kept going.

Charles had been way too distracted by the smiles and grins that she had directed towards him to even make sure that his brain is working.

Because fuckk.

Whoever said never meet your idols must be delusional because his idol – y/n – is just so fucking perfect.

She’s just like what he imagined her to be. An amazing driver. An amazing woman. An amazing human in general.

And she said to text her!?

Like- like text, text her!?

He’s not going to lie and say that the thought had never passed inside his mind. After all, ever since he first got her number all those weeks ago, he had opened up the messaging up countless of times, fingers hovering on top of the keyboards as he pondered about texting her. It’s a bit embarrassing how often he did that, but-

But it’s y/n! He can’t just randomly text her! She’s busy and-

And yet she told him to text her.

During the start of the season Pierre had told him that it was a dumb move to try to shoot his shot towards y/n - Formula One superstar, a fucking icon, the it girl - but isn't this clearly a sign!? She did told him to contact her!

Eat shit, Pierre.

“Charles?”

Snapping his head towards where his manager is, he mumbled. “Y-yeah?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Were you talking with l/n earlier?” he asked as they both climbed into the car.

He nodded. “I ran into her when I was leaving.”

“I see,” mumbled the man. There’s a certain look inside his eyes, as if he wants to say something to him but at the same time, he’s hesitant. It made Charles a bit confused.

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“No,” said his manager, a bit too quick. “No, it’s… okay.”

He didn’t probe further.

Taglist!

@mellowarcadefun @glai1023-blog @jjkclub @newlifeforus @jpg3 @sp1cycurry @eternalharry @be-your-coffee-pot @itsjustkhaos @chanshintien @fairiesdowntheroad @not-laracroft @ilovegreengrapes @nzygftoji @reblog-princess-blog @aaaooz @chasing-liberosis @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @reneny @hiraethrhapsody @stevesworld96 @miniboast @notleclerc @willowpains @lndonrris @laura-naruto-fan1998 @yaren23 @gills-lounge @asfaraslifegets @dl-yum @dessxoxsworld @goldenchemistry @vellicora @neoteez7 @lana-d3l-rey

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ladyloveandjustice · 3 months

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My Top 12 Favorite Anime of 2023 (and more)!

This was a great year for anime, so here's a long list of my top 12 (including some bonus great anime). If you get tired of clicking the review links, check out my anime overview collection for all of them here. You can also check out my list of favorite manga here!

Some of these are ongoing, so consider those only a review of the first cour-- no official endorsement on the rest because it hasn't aired yet!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 2)

When I listed G-Witch in last year's top anime list, I prayed the show wouldn't betray me. Fortunately, it didn't! Though the final half of the show was a bit rushed, it remained must-see, compelling sci-fi full of exciting twists and turns. And I adore the well developed romance between the robot-piloting protagonist and precious girl, Suletta, and her fierce fiancé, Miorine. Whether you’re here for starcrossed queer lovers, robots wrecking each other, tense battles between opposing political factions, or morally-horrifying moms on a revenge spree, you’re in for a treat.

See my full review here.

Yuri is my Job!

Hime is roped into working at a cafe where the waitresses playact as students of the fictional all girl’s school from a beloved novel series. However, Hime finds her co-worker, Mitsuki, has an inexplicable grudge against her. Thus begins a tangled web of romance and wounded feelings among the girls in the cafe! Yuri is My Job seems like a fun comedy boasting a cast full of quirky lesbians, but then reveals itself to be a complicated and fascinating examination of performance- as it intersects with queerness, girlhood, and the desire to be “likeable” and “cute". It's top-tier lesbian drama full of fraught relationships and it's absolutely worth a watch.

See my full review here.

The Apothecary Diaries (still ongoing, review is for the first cour)

Though it's still going, I have to sing the praises of this dazzling anime about a saavy apothecary who uses her medical expertise to solve the many murders and betrayals in the Emperor's palace. MaoMao is a fantastic lead, a poison-obsessed gremlin who's whip-smart, deadpan, and fun to follow. The Apothecary Diaries has intrigue, well-developed characters, and an impeccable atmosphere. It tells a great range of stories, from romantic triumph, to bittersweet tales of recovering from grief, to pure tragedies. I'm totally hooked.

See my full review here.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady

When Euphie is dumped by her fiance at a ball, the oddball princess Anis rescues her. Euphie becomes Anis' assistant in her quest to develop magical tools. The girls also start to develop feelings for each other, while discovering a conspiracy among the nobility. I'm always desperately in need of cool lesbians having action-packed fantasy adventures, and Magirevo delivers. The characters grow in entertaining ways, we get to see them fight dragons in killer action scenes, and the romantic development is completely satisfying. It's a simple story at its core, but the lovable characters, joyous queerness and jubilant execution make it a great watch.

See my full review here.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story (Season 2)

In the second season of the anime about girls homoerotically golfing while dealing with the mafia and ludicrous family drama, Birdie Wing remains a bombastically absurd sports anime that is fun all the way through. Please come watch these girls get ridiculous sports injuries, scream their super golf attacks, experience extremely extra plot twists--and be super gay with each other, of course. The finale didn't go quite as hard as I wanted (and the romance is more subtexual than I wanted), but you need to allow yourself to experience the madness of Birdie Wing.

See full review here.

Skip and Loafer

An endearingly dorky, earnest, and driven girl moves from her small town to Tokyo. While she struggles to adjust, she befriends a nice popular boy who's got some baggage. Skip and Loafer is a show that’s like a warm hug. It's sweet, entertaining and funny. It handles adolescent struggles with tender nuance. There's a emphasis on kindness, connection, and looking past stereotypes and misconceptions. It also includes a trans character who's treated with respect (and is a great character in general!) Let this show touch your heart.

See my full review here.

Undead Murder Farce

An immortal woman has had most of her body stolen by a mysterious man. Reduced to a head carried around by her maid, she teams up with a half-demon man to track the thief down while solving supernatural mysteries all across Victorian England.

This a fun, campy mystery series starring three asshole weirdo protagonists, it’s bursting with supernatural creatures and literary references. We've got Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the Opera, Carmilla and more...along with a vampire murders and werewolf drama galore. UDM is a wonderful romp with stylish, slick direction... and it’s unexpectedly really gay. I’m aching to see more of these scrappy misfits and their adventures.

See my full review here.

Migi & Dali

A story of twins who are pretending to be one kid in order to fool their foster parents and find out who killed their mother. It starts out as an utterly absurd comedy becomes a impressive and genuinely tense murder mystery that is incredibly moving at times, all while keeping up it’s signature brand of goofiness. There’s genuine commentary on abuse, the damage you can do to children by forcing perfection on them, the struggle of being a foster kid, grief and recovery and more. There's also some great character development. It's a weird one, but it's absolutely worth sticking with.

See full review here.

Pluto

Somebody is killing the most advanced robots in the world and murdering humans alongside them. A robot detective is trying to track this killer down, but he might be compromised as well. Pluto is a tense, tense, tightly plotted robot murder mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Through robots, it explores the idea of being a tool in a corrupt system, and tackles subjects like war, imperialism, and the nature of hatred. It's a masterful psychological thriller with stunning animation and a rich story.

See my full review here.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

This anime approaches the story of Scott Pilgrim and Ramona's seven evil exes from a brands new angle, and the results are great. We get a exploration of relationships and regrets, the messiness of communication and connection, the trials of becoming an adult, all with the signature goofy video game antics. Characters neglected in previous iterations finally get their due, new facets of the story are explored, queer relationships are delved into more, girls kiss...and it's all accompanied by phenomenal animation and a killer soundtrack.

See my full review here

Soaring Sky! Precure

Sora lives in a world called Skyland and wants to be a great hero. When rescuing the kidnapped baby princess, she falls through a portal to earth. There she meets her fellow magical warriors, and as Precure they protect the princess from the villains!

This vibrant, warm-hearted adventure got me back on the Precure train! This series boasts a lot exciting firsts for the franchise--the first official male cure, the first main cure that's eighteen years old- but above all, it has a lively team of characters with who have an entertaining dynamic and enjoyable individual journeys. It's often very funny, the baby has a surprisingly good character arc, and it's bursting with magical girl (and boy) goodness! It's also not afraid to give you an emotional gutpunch when you've been lured into a false sense of security by all the fun times. If you're new to Precure, this is a great jumping on point, and if you've watched it before, this is a series you won't want to miss.

I'm in Love with the Villainess

Rae is reincarnated as the heroine of her favorite dating sim. But she has no interest in romancing any of the boys- she’s head over heels for Claire Francois, the snooty villainess.

Villainess may not be as polished--storywise or animation-wise-- as these other entries. It's a messy series, it has plenty of problems...but it's also very fun, and it touched my queer little heart like no other. Queer people get to indulge in our imperfect faves too, and the silly shenanigans, blatant lesbian wish fulfillment, honest advocacy for queer people, and the joy and earnestness of the series works for me!

See my full review here.

Some Other Great Anime:

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (still ongoing, review is for the first cour)

Frieren is a long-lived elf who was once part of an adventuring party that saved the world from the Demon Lord. But now her friends are passing away and the world is moving on. She decides to retrace her old party's journey so she can understand what she's feeling.

Frieren is both an interesting examination of what happens after the hero saves the world, as well as a meditation on mortality, grief, and the endless march of time. It takes you on a quiet, beautiful and sometimes touching journey though a pastoral fantasy world. There's some breath-taking animation and excellent atmosphere to enjoy.

See my review here.

Spy x Family (Season 3)

Spy x Family is pretty much staying the course from when we last checked in, though this season gives a lot more attention to Yor, and I love the cruise ship arc and all the ridiculous fights she gets into a lot! That arc contains some of my favorite gags of the series too (like Loid’s attempts to be a cool dad). Otherwise, Spyfam has settled into a series that intends to be around for the long haul, so don’t expect too much forward plot momentum. And Yuri (the man, not the genre) unfortunately still exists. Overall it was good season and remains a fun adaptation. Yor, please step on me.

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twinsimming · 7 months

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TS4 to TS3 TV Channels Default Replacement by Twinsimming 📺

This mod replaces video clips from The Sims 3 TV channels containing Sims 2 characters with video clips from Sims 4 TV channels containing Sims 3 characters and adds new channels converted from The Sims 4!

Place in your Overrides folder.

Overview

Replaced Existing Channels

New Channels

Replaced Existing Channels

The following channels have had their video clips replaced:

Basic

KidZ Zone

Romantic Rendezvous

Sports Universe

Action World

Basic Plus

Cookin' Cable

New Channels

The following channels are new and available depending on the quality of your sim’s television:

Basic

TV Classics - Shows old black and white TV shows and soap operas (from Vintage Glamour Stuff)

PolitiSim - Broadcasts political debates and campaigns (from City Living)

Basic Plus

Civic Public Access - Features various shows including a sitcom, a dating show, and news broadcasts from different city festivals (from City Living)

BEtween - Features a cartoon based on MySims Agents as well as other shows for more mature kids (from Kids Room Stuff)

Premium

World Culture Network - Features documentaries about Champs Les Sims, Al Simhara and Shang Simla (from City Living)

High Definition

Music TV - Mainly shows music clips

Laugh Track (renamed from Comedy) - Shows a stand up comedy set and a parody of a late night talk show

Conflicts & Known Issues

- Conflicts with any mod that edits TV.xml file.

- Videos are no longer black and white on older/retro TVs.

- The video clips don’t fit all TVs perfectly due to the different aspect ratios. Some fit better than others.

- The video quality isn't the greatest (even when uncompressed), so if anyone knows how to upscale videos, please reach out!

Credits

EA/Maxis for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, s3pe, s4pe, and Notepad++.

Thank You

Thank you to @simbouquet for extracting the video files and answering all of my questions, and to @riverianepondsims for testing!

If you like my work, please consider tipping me on Ko-fi 💙

Download @ ModTheSims

#sims 3 #ts3 #4t3 #4 to 3 conversion #sims 3 mods #ts3 mod #default replacement #download #my mods #tv channels default replacement

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hoe4sports · 27 days

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“Private, not secret.” | Caroline Graham Hansen

A/N: Part 1 for context. No tiggers.

It had now been a few months since I and Caroline started hanging out. She obviously is a very private person, so nobody knows. It’s actually fun; sneaking around like teenagers, leaving the others apartment without anyone noticing, making sure people don’t see us arrive in same car and taking turns on choosing activities. I bet you can describe is as being girlfriends, just undercover.The team however, was growing suspicious, and I knew that Ingrid was struggling to keep the secret as Mapi was also increasingly getting suspicious.

I was walking down the long corridor with Alexia who I also had gotten to know on a very personal level. We were heading down to the team’s warderobe, of course, Caroline staying behind to make sure that nobody suspected anything. “Please Hermosa” Alexia teased, “Come with me for one night, I’ll be fun! I promise!” Alexia had practically begged me to go on a date with her, and I thought it was hilarious. I laughed as she made a pout with her perfectly coloured lips. We arrived at the warderobe, and she swung the door open for me. “Ladies first” she said with a flirtatious vibe as she put one hand to signal that I was gonna walk in first. I laughed, and a few of the girls who were already there made whistling sounds. We walked in and we both sat down. This meeting was the first orientational meeting that we had every day. The coaches, the players and the staff would all meet in the warderobe for a short brief and to get an overview of the day. Me and Alexia sat down next to her cubby, and I rolled my eyes. Alexia winked, “one day, hermosa, you will go on a date with me, you just don’t know it yet” she teased as Ingrid shot me a look. I just laughed it off and slapped Alexia’s knee playfully. I saw Ingrid once again signaling me to look up towards the door. Caroline was standing in the doorway with a tense look on her face as her fist were clutching, her jaw was tense and her eyes were somewhat deadly. I stopped laughing, and put my cleats on. I had just gotten new hot pink cleats, and Alexia complimented them. “Colorful shoes for a colorful girl” she teased. “Lexia, will you give me one second without trying to take me to bed!” I stated as I shot her a look while all the girls were watching attentively. “Ooo” I could hear the girls say as I giggled. “Aios mio Hermosa! You are embarrassing me! But I’ll take it.” She joked as she patted my back.

Fast forward to the end of the last practice of the day. I had made sure to push the attackers extra hard, and Alexia or should I say her thighs, was definitely taking the consequences of that hard. Caroline had been staring down Alexia the whole practice. As we all walked into the warderobe, Alexia threw herself on to the physio bench and was screaming a blood hurdling scream. “AY!!” The girl was screaming as she held to her muscles. I knew this, her muscles were tired and she needed to be stretched. I hopped up, confidently knowing that I spent 3 years studying physical therapy before I started my sports leadership bachelor. My instincts kicked in, and I hopped up on my knees to the physio bench between her legs. I took her cramping leg, and pushed it up as hard as I could. The girl screamed out in pain, and within 10 seconds her body relaxed. “Fuck Hermosa, my muscles are falling apart for you ai.” She said as I rolled my eyes and giggled. “Well” I said, “I should get off” and she winked. “I know you would like to see me in this position, but at least let me take you to somewhere private.” she finished and the girls; including me and Alexia was laughing on the top of our lungs. I hopped down of the bench and as I passed Caroline, I could tell that she was upset. However, we had a rule that she had introduced; keep it private.

By the end of the day, I had just finished up the last meeting with Jonathan for the week. This week had been good, and I had the weekend off for a change. I changed into my outdoor hokas, and popped on my white Barca wind jacket as I popped my sunglasses on and walked to the car. Barca had leased this cute Toyota for me, and it had everything I needed. When I arrived at the car, I dropped everything in the backseat before flopping down into the drivers seat. Normally, Caroline was catching her ride with me but today, she had hopped into her own car for a change. I brushed it off and headed towards my apartment. Music were ringing in my ears , and I was singing along at the top of my lungs while driving. Life was good. Ever since coming to Barcelona, everything was so uncomplicated. It was easy, and I loved it.

I pulled up to the garage underneath the apartments and found my spot. Parking wasn’t my strongest side, but my fear of damaging Barca’s car was enough to keep me sharp. Eventually, I had finished parking and was up in my apartment. I turned on some music and let fresh air into the spacious place. “Hey Alexa, Play Senorita by Camilla cabello” i suggested, and alexia turned it on. I hopped in the shower to get rid of the sticky feeling on my skin. I used my fruity scrub on my legs, and it felt amazing. I sang along and i danced just enjoying the comfort of my own company. I rinsed of all the sugar from the scrub and stepped out. It was radiating heat in Spain at the moment, so I just didn’t bother with drying myself off. I popped on my shorts and a Nike shirt after I finished drowning myself in bodylotion. As I stepped out of the bathroom, there was Caroline in all her glory sitting in my couch like nothing had ever happened. “Excuse me, care to let me know that you are here?” I said jokingly as I giggled, but my giggles died out fast when she turned her face towards me. She looked tired? Almost like she hadn’t had a restfull moment in all of her lifetime. “Benedicte..” she started, not finding her words easily. “Are you okay?” I asked, still confused over the whole situation. “I-“ and then she cut of herself before she even started the sentence. I sat myself next to her the couch facing towards her with my legs crossed underneath me. “Caz..” I said carefully, “I can’t help you if you won’t communicate” as I brushed my hand on her face. She pulled out her phone, and for a moment I was annoyed. Could you find a worse moment than this to flip through instagram I thought to myself. Then she searched up Oona and showed me the picture. She had shared a picture of me and Alexia on the physiobench while Alexia was screaming. The caption said “I give it 4 months». I was confused. “It’s just a picture, Caz.” I said carefully, but I must admit that I was equally unsure. She then got into the comments and showed me the comments. Comments like “goals”, “just start dating already” and “Go get her tiger” was mentioned multiple times. I looked up at Caroline as I placed the brunette’s phone down on the table. “Caroline, are you by any chance; a bit jealous?” I suggested as a stroke her back carefully. She sighted and looked at me with big sad eyes. “It’s just all in good spirits, she’s not serious” i spat out as I tried to comfort her. It was obviously not working, and I was still very much confused. “I wish that was me” she mumbled, and I got confused. “I promise that you don’t, the cramps were probably awful and besid-“ I said as a was cut of by my own thoughts. Shit, she didn’t mean it in that particular way. I scooted closer to her, and kissed her cheek. “I don’t like Alexia. I like this. Sneaking around, Farris, watching you play ps5 and spending time together” I said as a drew circles on her back. “I just wished that people would back off. I don’t want to be all flirty at work, but I just wish the girls would stay off.” she stated as she looked at me. “Come again?” I said as I stroke her hair. “I want private, but not secret.” she said with her raspy voice. “You want that?” I asked with a glimmer of excitement in my voice. She was a very private person, and her stating that she wanted people to know was a big step for her. I wasnt really private, but had adapted to her wish. She nodded and looked at me with her dark blue eyes. “Whatever you want babe” I said as I leaned in and hugged her. She wrapped her long arms around me, and let out a relieved breath. A few hours later, her phone was blowing up and she proudly showed me what she had posted.

Graham95: Private, not secret.

@Ingrid_Engen: elsker elsker elsker

@Alexiaputellas: Well played.

#caroline graham hansen #woso imagine #woso fanfics

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39oa · 1 year

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(nonsensical hrpf data exercise) degree centrality graphing & other archive insights

intro/prior work

hello 🙇‍♀️ i'm not sure this post will make any kind of sense at all, but i love analyzing ao3 data and i especially find it fascinating in the realm of sports/hrpf because of the amount of player- and team-related attributes that offer dimensionality to fandom analysis when examined in parallel with archive metrics. i've already kind of done hrpf overviews on two separate occasions over the past year or so, but my method of collection differed in each instance and also always gave me new things to chew on and potentially explore, such as expanding on the link between player talent and shippability and whether high-draft picks have more fic written for them on average.

i most recently examined player data based on aggregated relationship counts since 2022, but this was a limited snapshot meant to piece together recent ficdom trends (see top ships since 01/01/22) and not be representative of fandom overall. basically, things i want to visualize/talk about now are:

hockey is so widespread as a sports fandom because there are 32 teams in the league, which when compared to a community like f1 makes it difficult to succinctly summarize primary relationships for. there is no self-contained grid of 20 drivers that remains generally fixed within a season, where every move in/out of that "roster" is highly reported upon and instrumental to fandom makeup, but instead a more amorphous network of malleable rosters featuring high-variance cascading orders of character visibility; in short, the difference between the most and least popular driver in f1 fandom is not the same as the difference between sidney crosby and that one ahl lifer who was called up to your 4th line two months ago because your team is utterly decimated and gunning for bedard.

Still: because rosters are so malleable and trades happen with some amount of frequency, and because hockey is still an "insular" ecosystem in terms of geographic accessibility and junior-age development (for better or worse; mostly for worse, but that's neither here nor there), players intrinsically have a low degree of separation between one another, whether it be as teammates now or as friends growing up in the ohl, ntdp, etc. i therefore wanted to take that a step further and look at it through fic metrics especially: can we use a summary of ficdom's real, tangible output and visualize it through a similar network? (+ where and how does that network differ from player connections in practice?)

back to the impact of draft pick # and assessments of talent relative to popularity, i also wanted to look at the most "successful" ships in ficdom from this network and evaluate the different distributions and impacts of their respective attributes. are certain player positions more popular? which nationalities are the most commonly shipped?

etc. But let's just get into it.

process

getting any kind of information from a 60%-locked fandom on ao3 is a nightmare and introduces a myriad of data-collecting limitations, so i do feel it important to disclaim that what i present in this post functions more in the realm of Approximate Interpretation and Potential Correlation than any actual 100% objective representation of fandom metrics.

a perceived limitation i have with character tagging metrics on ao3 is that they don't exactly reflect shippability; that is, if q.hughes is tagged as a character in a n.hischier/j.hughes fic, it gets attributed to his character tag but doesn't actually say anything about how many Relationship Fics exist for him on a whole. my best solution for this was essentially uncovering most of a player's relationships and summing their individual fic counts to create an approximate # of "relationship fics" for each player. so any kind of shippability graph going forward will use that metric.

i used ao3's relationship tag search and filtered by canonical in the men's hockey rpf fandom and only pulled relationship* fics ("/" instead of "&") with a min. of 20 works. ao3's counts are... Not the most accurate, so my filtering may have fudged some things around or missed a few pairings on the cusp, which again is why all the visuals here are not meant to show Everything in the most exact manner but function more so as a "general overview" of ficdom. although i did doublecheck the ship counts so the numbers themselves are accurate as of time of collection.

(*i excluded wag ships, reader ships, threesomes to make my life easier although i know this affects numbers for certain players, hc/gm ships, and any otherwise non-NHL Player ship. for ex., this eliminated anna kasterova/evgeni malkin, tyler brown/tyler seguin, and kyle dubas/william nylander, just to name a few)

all ship data was collected march 16, 2023.

PART 1. SC87 ship networking

when i first began this exercise i tried graphing ships for all the first-overall picks from 2003-2022 because i wanted to get an overarching sense of their connections. however, doing so made me realize that sidney crosby was by and far the most-connected node in the graph (and basically all hrpf in general) with a degree of 11, and that he was centering one huge component to which only two ships failed to connect (op/kj and slaf/xhekaj). basically:

so then i was like, right! let me instead use sidney crosby as my sole starting node, map out all ships with 20+ works from him specifically, take the players he connects to and map out their corresponding ships (excluding sid) and just keep iterating until i basically reach a final child node. through this, i yielded 112 ships and 98 unique players, with my final connecting node coming 9 degrees of separation away through brady tkachuk ↔ tim stützle/quinn hughes. unfortunately i can't actually host this little code snippet anywhere lol but i also wrote an input to check the pathways between any two players which was kind of fun:

here is the actual network graph with colors from automatically generated clustering, which doesn't really mean much but i thought was one nice way of presenting it. the edge width refers to the sum of fics for each ship and the node size refers to the degree, or number of ships, for each player.

i then also joined my player set with a dataset that included draft year, drafted team, position, etc... and through that color-coded the graph with the team each player was originally drafted to (i always struggle between using current team and draft team because which one matters more is super contextual, but... using draft team made my life easier this time so i hope it's still interesting.) here i only included colors for 13 teams that had 3+ players each:

→ [full-size graph]

we can do a bit more analysis based on this specific sidcros network, like which players are the "most-shipped" or overviewing cross-team shipping tendencies:

but! of course, not ALL big hrpf ships lead back to sc87. using him as a central node essentially just helped me filter out excess "noise" when searching for relationship tags on ao3, because now i could exclude anyone connected to him at all (note: the relationship fics from my set equaled upward of 19,000 works, accounting for 60.4% of the entire men's hockey rpf archive) and hit other significant tags more efficiently.

through this method, i singled out a new set of 76 ships and 134 unique players (notice the significant decrease in overlap), which i then combined with my sid ships to create one massive set of Hockey Ships With Over 20+ Works On Ao3 that i could analyze holistically. no idea if this makes any sense but bear with me:

PART 2. general ship insights

i won't bore people with endlessly listing out ship rankings but here's the previous top chart with the new ships slotted in:

now for some overall player analysis!

first i wanted to look at how attributes like draft round, nationality, and position (F/D/G) are represented in the player set.

the nationality distribution is pretty close to all active nhl players this season, so there aren't major disparities there. however, the vast majority of players 1) were drafted in the first round and 2) are mostly forwards, with the forwards also seemingly reflecting the general philosophy of faster development/higher recent-round representation. we can take this overview a step further and actually examine the fic averages for each characteristic as a proxy for measuring shippability/ficdom popularity.

first, i scatterplotted all players by their draft pick and number of fic to (try and) show the heavy skew toward top picks (inspired by the gar draft pick value curve and other similar plots). this is... well, limited in many ways, and if i had an actually adequately large dataset i could specifically plot averages per distinct pick number and try to present something there, but the problem is that a lot of these later pick numbers only have like one player so there's way too much variance LOL.

but just for the sake of this exercise i excluded j.benn as an outlier and grouped fic averages by round (left below). again, noting the sample sizes, let's just say that first rounders on average seem to have the most fic written about them, even if it's not a particularly shocking insight. we can also try creating a histogram for "shippability" by draft year, binning here for every 2 years, to see which draft years appear to have had the most success (right below). note the peaks around 2005 and 2015, aka the sc87 and cm97 ~Generational Years~ 🤔

i've also been interested in figuring out which positions are commonly preferred—since centers are so often the faces of a franchise and are essentially the most sought-after position, and since goalies occupy a positionally static role/are less oriented toward contact (and the presumed homoeroticness thereof) in the way skaters are, is that reflected in the fic metrics as well? turns out: yes.

some ship analysis

learning more about player data in a vacuum is fun, but we also have all of this relationship data that lets us examine how different characteristics interact with each other, which is meaningful as well! for example, we know that forwards are heavily represented in the dataset, but is center4center the most common combination? or is there love for a franchise center and his beloved winger or the team's dependable 1d?

(fought for my life trying to figure out how to map this properly so please accept a horrible bar chart instead) as it turns out, the most common combination is centers/wingers, followed afterward by centers/centers. i don't know whether this really means much to me because i'd like to dissect the combos even further (is C/C more often 1C 2C or cross-team rivalry 1C shipping? are C/W usually linemates? etc.) but 🤷‍♀️ here's a graph.

i also distributed ships by their nationality combination, displaying to the surprise of no one a heavy preference (a whopping 66.4%!) for north american-exclusive shipping. i also thought stacking by "draft year" (= averaging the draft year between both players for each ship) offered some interesting insight into usa4usa shipping having slightly younger representation. also i do think usa/germany being singlehandedly driven up this chart by one family is remarkable and hilarious LOL.

also in the realm of draft year analysis, i wanted to look at draft year differences and whether fandom preferences seem to lie by way of same-age-ish pairings and In-Class Bicycling so to speak. graphing ships by these differences spanned a range of 20 years, with the oldest "age" (draft) difference being 20 years between zdeno chara and charlie mcavoy. overall, of 175 ships with a drafted player, 60.5% were drafted within 2 years of each other (18.2% in the same draft), and only 5% had a draft difference of 10 or more years.

then, of those 32 ships drafted within the same year, i distributed their counts by year to see which draft classes featured the biggest in-class clusters, leading us again to the Famed Class of 2015:

closing thoughts

i'll stop here :saluting_face: something else i had on the agenda that i don't really know how to adequately explore with this dataset is basically stanley cup champion stuff, e.g. looking at players and ships and fic counts from winning teams and how/whether a sort of "winning bias" has been trending down as of late (see the relative success of ships from teams like phi/ana compared to tbl/stl)—temporal data is so particular and difficult to wrangle with ao3 though so i'll have to let this one percolate a little bit.

finally, another thing (!) that i love examining is captaincy and how it often helps inform shippability; C/A/guyswithletters shipping obviously generously overlaps with being drafted early, high-impact players, some positional stuff like Young Star Center having the role foisted onto him, etc. and many of these aspects are immediately identifiable in top ships like 8771, 1634, 1386... just to name a few obvious ones. unfortch i don't really have the time or space to look at that here but it's something i'm still interested in maybe expanding on, and i also never ended up collecting actual skater *performance* data which would be super fun to eventually get to, e.g. mapping ficdom output to not just background identifiers like draft year/pick but also 1) actual tangible evaluations of player goals/points/(salary?!?)/etc. and 2) some dimension of draft outperformance/underperformance, which is pertinent for scenarios like late-round picks who have defied career expectations (see outlier jbenn having a shit ton of lifetime fic) AND early-round picks whose trajectories have not panned out as expected for whatever reason; often the ~tragic~ frustration of being a bust actually invites more narrative focus and scrutiny, but at the same time ficdom trends have pointed themselves to being attracted to many historic, talented, generational, and so on players, who more often than not are also winners, which potentially posits a need for some sustained line of access/visibility to high-expectation players significantly before they're regarded as "busts" in order to organically grow and generate initial interest that can survive the renewed reality of their situation. but who knows

again, i don't know whether any of this even makes sense or is interesting to literally anyone at all, but i personally enjoyed just dicking around graphing shit and getting to join a ton of tables together for absolutely no reason lol. that's all!

#(extremely long post warning)#*m #stats #>guy who needs to reflect

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justwait-sunshine · 5 months

Text

having finished the season yesterday...

hi, my name's sadie & welcome to my personal season overview

alex albon is the man and it makes me so happy he is starting to get more recognition for the magic he is able to pull off at williams

max is a generational talent and i do believe he's one of the greatest, but for the sake of the sport i hope next season will be more competitive

the amount of times ferrari screwed over charles this season makes me wonder: rbr!charles contract announcement when?

(which coincidentally would also solve the problem of competitiveness)

mclaren have one of the strongest lineups currently on the grid and i'm praying they won't waste it 🙏

the downfall of aston martin was the greatest surprise of the season and needs to be studied

ferrari needs to get their shit together. pretty self explanatory

lestappen gate 2023 has honestly been on my mind 24/7 since probably COTA

i'm really hoping for a great 2024 season for yuki, he deserves way more

lewis has officially adopted charles as his son and i'm here for it (besties who dsq together, stay together)

mercedes also need to get their shit together

las vegas was one of the more interesting races of the season

this season witnessed a change in my attitude towards certain drivers: from neutrality towards strong dislike (but let's not get into that)

i'm soooo excited for f1 academy next year

charles is a quali god (next year will be our year est. 2008)

i miss seb

the sticker war is a pr genius

this season taught us that ferrari strategists seem a bit... useless, don't you think?

mercedes not attending lewis's podiums? yeah, how about we have a talk?

the 2019 rookies remain fully superior

the great ferrari civil war was... something

i would happily watch sf-23 burn. burn.

both lando and oscar's first wins are a few races away (have i been on this since the mclaren upgrades? yes, but-)

i'm genuinely curious about checo's future at redbull and the potential approach rbr is going to take regarding that second seat

same goes for danny tbh

driver pairing of the season is deffo lando and oscar (i dont think anyone else has been getting along quite this well)

williams' 7th in the wcc is just alex albon driving his wheels off

liam lawson deserves a seat in f1 and i can't wait to watch him succeed

right. so now that's cleared- i honestly have no idea how we are meant to cope during off-season,, if anyone has any tips n tricks be so kind as to share 🤲

#formula 1 #f1 #alex albon #charles leclerc #scuderia ferrari #max verstappen #lestappen #lando norris #oscar piastri #mclaren #redbull racing #lewis hamilton #mercedes amg f1 #yuki tsunoda #sadie's ramblings #williams racing

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joekeerysguitar · 8 months

Text

erasing the lies

not friends/slight enemies to lovers <3

overview: you are an a+ student who is well rounded, very disciplined, and hard working gets asked to tutor the most obnoxious, lazy, and rude boy who ever stepped foot on this planet… steve harrington. unable to say no, you help him.. but what you uncover is something completely unexpected..

included: angst, fluff, mutual feelings, happy ending, cursing, relationships, use of y/n

authors note: heyy everyone! sorry about not uploading or writing anything in a longggg time. i’ve been super busy lately and just trying to enjoy the summer but i’m back! came up with this super cute idea and i hope you enjoy! thank you for all the love on the rest of my fics!! much love, nina <3

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“Mhm… yes.. she’ll be down shortly” The phone hits the receiver as your teacher spins around catching your eyes. “Y/N, the principal would like to see you.” She smiles her fake toothy grin as she resumes her lesson.

You feel the eyes on you as you quickly stuff your bag with your notebooks and pencils trying to get out of being the center of attention. You could hear the slight whispering of the class which feeds your inner thoughts.

“Oh shit, what did I do?”

“Am I in trouble?”

Quickly shutting the classroom door behind you, you exhale taking in the stale air of the empty hallway of Hawkins High School. You quickly walk down the hall as your heart beats wildly out of your chest. You can feel your stomach churn as you reach out for the door nob of the brown glass door that reads “Main Office.” The small bell at the top of the door rings alerting the secretary as you quickly step inside and shut the door gently. Taking a deep breath, you chase the butterflies away in your stomach as you loosen your shoulders and walk up to her forming a smile with your cherry lips.

“Uh hi, I was called down by the principal.” You mutter with a small smile.

“You must be Y/N?” She asks reading at a post it note on her desk. You nod trying to quickly get this interaction over with. “Have a seat dear.”

You walk over to the small sofa chair in the corner of the office. Bouncing your leg, you can feel the nervousness creep up from your core once again as the same questions float through your mind like clouds on a breezy day. You look around the room and notice old school yearbook photos, sports championship awards, and other boring memorabilia. Before you get a chance to read any, the door swings open to the person you did not want to see… the principal. He is older, with short small wisps of hair that adorn his mostly bald head. He is wearing a blue suit and you can see his beer belly slightly protrude from his attire.

“Come on in Y/N”

You quickly get out of the seat and follow him into the small crammed office. Your eyes immediate lock onto a very recognizable face here at Hawkins High. This face belongs to someone who’ve you have despised since elementary school. Someone who used to practically rule over the school, date every girl in the 5 mile radius, and keep his hair perfectly in place every single day. The King of Hawkins High was sitting right before your eyes.. the one and the only Steve Harrington. He just feverishly looks up at you before darting his eyes away and fiddles with his fingers embarrassingly. Your mind floods with endless questions as you take a seat next to him.

Steve Harrington is known for being the arrogant and snobby rich jock who’s only personality trait is hooking up with 50 girls a month. Rumors go around that his ex girlfriend Nancy Wheeler broke up with him because she cheated with Jonathan Byers and didn’t want to get risked getting caught. All you know is that you don’t want to mess with him or even talk to him. He fails all his classes, always goes to parties, and barely has his parents home.

Trouble.

The principal clears his throat, “I probably assume you two have never met. Let me introduce you two. Y/N this is Steve, Steve this is Y/N.”

Being polite you turn your head and put on a fake smile as he returns the favor before you both quickly look at the principal once again.

“Now I called you two down here not because you’re in trouble but I have an important question to ask.” He says flicking his eyes between you two.

Okay not in trouble.. that’s a good sign.

“Y/N, now I know you are in many advanced classes and receive very high grades.” You nod and smile agreeing with his statements. You feel Steve shift in his chair uncomfortably as you look over and see his face blush as red as a tomato. “Well, Steve here does not receive the best of grades. Right now, if he doesn’t pass his classes, he will be unable to qualify for graduation.” You nod you head as your head whirs with millions of thoughts…

“Pfft, no shit it’s Steve Harrington”

“Unable to graduate? I could never.”

“What does this even mean?”

“Well I was wondering if you would be interested in tutoring him? Either once or twice a week would suffice.” He says with a smile as he looks at you.

Your heart drops just like the roller coasters at amusement parks. Your stomach does a flip as you can feel your organs rearrange from inside. Your face starts to heat up as your palms begin to get sweaty. You’re bad at making decisions especially ones that require things you don’t like.

Tutor Steve Harrington? Shoot me now!

Looking over at Steve you notice him look up at you reading your face for any response. You just look at him and look at the principal as the thoughts zoom around your brain.

You don’t know what to do.

Should I be the better person? Should I help the douchebag? You decide to go with your gut, you can’t ever say no.

You look up at the principal. “Sure, why not.” You smile as you look over to Steve who just looks at you like his prayers got awnsered.

He knows your really smart. Really really smart. And pretty cute too. You know, maybe this whole tutoring thing would work out in his favor. He passes his classes and he gets a new chic.

“Perfect, thank you Y/N!” He smiles as he hands you Steve’s grade sheet. “He specifically needs to work on Physics and US History.”

You glance at his grade sheet as you read the grades.

Physics- D

English- C

US History- F

Geometry- B

Oh boy, these grades aren’t looking too hot.

The principal buds in again. “Tutoring could be 1-2 hours at either persons house. He must be fully prepared by the last month of school.” You nod your head placing his grade sheet in your bag.

“Steve why don’t you thank Y/N for helping you with your studies?” He demands looking at Steve.

“Thank you Y/N.” He says timidly looking up into your eyes for a split second.

His eyes were really pretty. Brown with a hazel undertone. They shined with the morning sun glimmering through the half drawn shades.

You just smile back at him and reply “You’re welcome. Does tomorrow night around 6:00 at my place work?” He nods as you exchange addresses.

You leave the office with a million thoughts in your head.

How are you supposed to tutor someone you hate. Out of all people it is goddamn Steve Harrington. The rich, snobby, and rude jock who knows nothing but of parties and alcohol. You’re not gonna enjoy these sessions, you already know it. Seeing him is bad enough, how you have to talk and teach him twice a week for the next several weeks. Might as well just dig your grave now.

¡! ❞ ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ ↳ ❝ [] ¡! ❞

“He will be here any min- ding.. I’ll get it.” You yell through the house. Steve had just ringed your doorbell. Your blood pressure just rose off the charts. You quickly run over to the front door and open it. There is Mr. Pretty Boy himself with his books cradled in his hands. He is wearing a dark green polo shirt with his usual blue jeans. He flashes you a charming hello smile as you step to the side and let him in.

That smile. Oh boy, made you feel different.

“Hi, how are you?” You ask watching him look around the house.

I’m sure he’s definitely judging it. Rich boy isn’t used to small rooms…

“I’m fine, how are you?” He asks catching you in the eye as you find yourself get lost in them.

Shake it off.. you gotta hate him…

Steve knows that he has this horrible reputation and he knows that people who don’t know him see him as what he used to be. His goal is to change that, whatever way possible. He hasn’t had a ton of friends since the whole situation. Heck, he dropped Tommy and his silly girlfriend. He really had no one.

He had hope.

Maybe you could be his first actual friend…

If he could prove to you that he changed…

He could even prove to himself that he won’t make mistakes ever again..

“Follow me.” You say tucking your hair behind your ears as you guide him to your room.

Your room was small and quaint. White walls with white decor. The accent the room was baby pink as you had several pictures of flowers or beaches on the wall. It was your comfy spot. Made you feel safe.

As you enter the room you walk over and sit down on your bed swinging your legs as they dangle off the floor. Beside you are the books you set out to study and practice with. Steve just looked around with a curious gaze in his eyes before he set his stuff down on your desk and walked over to sit beside you.

“Let’s get started.” You say turning to face him while you grab the Physics book from off the pile.

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“What’s the awnser to Question #7?” You ask as you stare at his pondering complexion. You wait a few seconds. “Hello? Earth to Steve?” You ramble as you wave your hand in front of his face.

“What.. sorry.” He jumps back into reality looking bored.

“Are you okay?” You ask softly as he looks up into your eyes.

“Can we do something else?” He asks trying to read a reaction from your face.

“Yeah, Math or Social Studies?” You ask totally clueless.

“Not school Y/N.” He drags readjusting himself on your bed.

“Then what?” You ask a little harsher then expected. He looks surprised at your response.

“Jeez, you’re a little cranky.” He says sarcastically as he takes the book from your lap and places it on the ground. You watch as he fixes his hair after it gets into his face.

His hair is really nice. Dark thick hazelnut colored hair that is always perfectly styled and hair sprayed. They don’t call him “The Hair” for nothing.

You zoned out for a minute while studying his lucious locks and now he is taping your shoulder lightly to regain your attention.

“Sorry, just confused what you wanna do since the whole reason why you are here is to pass school.” You brush a piece of fallen hair from behind your ear.

Steve is not gonna lie to himself. You’re pretty cute, even when your cranky.

“Did I do something wrong?” He asks looking confused as he looks into your darting eyes.

You search your brain for a response. You question telling him a lie or telling him the truth. Taking a deep breath you spit out the truth.

“Not currently. I mean it’s just a weird situation. You know, you’re popular and a jock and every girl on the planet is obsessed with you. And I’m not popular, a nerd, and never has had a boyfriend. So yeah this is a little awkward. Plus considering the fact that I thought you absolutely 100% hated me prior to this.” You blurt out with a nervous chuckle as you examine your fingers.

“What did I do to make you think that I hated you?” He asks inquisitively while still looking at you as he sees the blush to your cheeks.

“I mean in elementary school you did push me into a muddy puddle.” You say looking back up at him and smiling a bit.

He chuckles and says jokingly, “That’s the reason why? I’m sorry I did that Y/N but… maybe you deserved it.” His voice turns serious. “But on a serious note, let’s just scratch this whole stereotype thing and start fresh, okay?” He asks looking right into your ocean blue eyes as he extends his hand forward.

“Deal.” You laugh as you shake his hand. “I’m Y/N, nice to meet you!”

“I’m Steve, nice to meet you too!” He smiles brightly.

Hard feelings vanished..

For the remainder of the night, you two talk small talk about what you two enjoy and things that are happening in your lives. To be honest, you don’t mind him. You enjoy his quick remarks, his flirty attitude, his humor, and most of all his company.

On the other hand, Steve never thought he would speak to you a day in his life. But here he is, talking about movies, people, etc with someone he just met 24 hours ago and hell he was enjoying it too! There was something about you, something that made him incredibly happy inside. Something that filled a void no one has even filled before.

By the time the night was over, you already exchanged phone numbers and planned your next session.

Steve nor you could not wait for the next time you saw eachother!

Something definitely changed with him over the years. You’ve learned so much from him and how he has grown to better himself. It feels like someone took a pink eraser and erased all the lies right off the paper. It was good as new!

Deep down you had a feeling though and Steve was definitely feeling it too..

Deep down you had a crush..

On Steve Harrington..

The person who you refused to even speak to about 24 hours ago..

And he had one on you too..

¡! ❞ ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ ↳ ❝ [] ¡! ❞

It was three days later and you and Steve were in the exact same spot practicing questions. You could tell by his body language that he was getting tired and bored. He got up and started to wander around your room with his usual playful smirk tugging at his lips. Steve was bored of studying, you two have been studying flash cards for two hours and he was at his wits end. Steve loved the little breaks or stupid activities the two of you would do when you both were tired and needed a break. He loved spending time with you, either if it was teasing you or just having a simple friend to friend conversation. You guys have gotten closer over the time spent together and he clearly recognizes that. At first, you used to be shy and more reserved but the more time you’ve spent with him, the more you’ve come out of your shell. He loves your fiery remarks or playful teasing you always delivered right back to him after he said something to you. He loved watching you become pissed at him or become sarcastic and quick-witted with him after he would ask a stupid question or pull a dramatic stunt. So, per usual he decided this was the time to do yet another stunt he had brewing in his heavily hair-sprayed mind.

“Steve, what the hell are you doing?” You question as you watch his eyes glaze over your desk as he reaches his purple sleeved arm over towards a book on it. “Put that down.” You bark as you get up and race towards him. The smirk only growing bigger on his face as he hears your distress.

“What is this?” He asks with squinted eyes as he begins to open the pages but before he could get a good look, you reach for it. Using his height advantage, he stretches his arm towards the ceiling which now suspended the book over your head.

“Give it to me! It’s my diary, put it down!” You beg as you brush up against him as you try to grab and reach it. He laughs as he stands in his tippy toes to get it higher as you jump to try to reach it. You’re practically chest to chest as you can feel his chest bounce quickly with each sharp laugh. He is getting a kick out of you freaking out. Suddenly, you realize you two are really close, too close for comfort. He senses your body language switch and suddenly returns to a more calm and collected state. He can feel his laughter fade as a small smile sits on his lips. He can feel his heart pick up as he locks eyes with yours as he resists the urge to pull you closer or look at your lips. You look even more beautiful up close as he notices the faint freckles peppering your cheeks and nose.

You stop as you lock eyes for a minute. Steve is a few inches taller than you but you two are face to face. Inches away from eachother. You examine his face close up. His hair is slightly disheveled with strands hang in front of his eyes. He has moles freckling his face like stars on a clear night. Your eyes flit down to his lips as you notice how cheery red they look close up. Quickly you look at him again, fearful of getting caught staring. You could feel your cheeks slightly blush and turn warm as you just stare into Steve’s brown sparkly eyes. The more you try to pull away, the more they pull you in. Steve feels the same way as he feels nervousness creep up from his core as his lips curve into a slight smile. He pulls the book down as he continues to lock eyes with yours. He has no idea how long it’s been. His mind is mush as he finds himself darting from your eyes to your lips..

“Here.” He whispers breathlessly as he hands you the book slightly backing up but keeping the eye contact.

“Thanks.” You reply as you blush a little harder now as you walk to your desk to place the book down and then you both return to the spot on the bed and continue.

¡! ❞ ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ ↳ ❝ [] ¡! ❞

In a matter of a two weeks, you two have gotten extremely close. You would if never imagined that you would be good friends with the most popular guy in school, the one all you’re friends tell you to stay away from.. yet he just draws you in. The endless amounts of nights where he calls you on the phone asking about homework as it suddenly turns into a three hour call where you two ramble about random topics. You’re falling faster than you thought you would.. crumbling as he created cute nicknames for you and knows everything that makes you tumble over in laughter. He’s a complete opposite of you and your morals, yet you two seem to attract like a magnet.

Steve has learned to know you like a book, using his charismatic and charming personality he knows exactly what makes you blush or makes you laugh. As the study sessions go on, he picks up on your body language and your habits. He enjoys listening to you ramble for hours on end about friends or your family. He’s never really felt such an instant connection with someone before especially only knowing them for a few weeks now.

Today marks the last study session before Steve’s test. The last time you’ll see him roll his eyes at a physics question, the last time he will tease you about your stupidly high grades and how smart you are, the last time you two don’t focus on the task and do other things. You feel sadness forming in your heart hoping that after this, he continues to want to talk on the phone or even hang out. You love seeing him wave and smile at you in school or meeting you at your locker to talk. But you’re scared, you’re scared that he’s gonna put on his cocky jock attitude and won’t speak to you again… completely cut you out. You’ve seen a different side to him that you’ve never seen before. He’s sweet, considerate, and gentle around you. Never fails to have you think about him endlessly once he leaves your house or you hang up on the phone…

Little do you know, he feels the same. The same feeling poking him in the gut, the feeling where you want to hold on and never let go.

You’re suprised when your doorbell rings earlier than usually. You glance at the small watch on your left wrist as it reads “4:00 pm.” But you two agreed on 7:00 pm the night prior. You quickly brush your hair behind your shoulders as you open the door.

“Hey Steve, you’re early.” You say with a smile as you notice him blushing a bit in embarrassment. His cheeks are a slight pink as he smiles at you.

“Uh hey Y/N, sorry I’m early.” He pauses for a second. “Are you busy? Am I interrupting anything?” He asks a little more concerned now as the blush intensifies on his cheeks.

You shake your head as you chuckle a bit. “No.. no.. you’re not interrupting anything.”

“Okay good, I was wondering if I could just come now.. I know it’s our last night so I wanted some extra practice before the test tomorrow morning.” He says reading your face for an answer.

Now if he was Pinocchio, his nose would grow larger.. because he is lying. His pants are on fire.

“Of course, come on in!” You say with an enthusiastic smile as you move to the side to let him in.

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“Okay last physics question, I promise.” You say with a teasing smile as he rolls his eyes. You ask him a pretty difficult question as you could see the gears practically turning in his head. He answers correctly as a beaming smile forms on your lips. You notice the pure excitement on his face at your reaction.

Steve cannot help but to feel his heart flutter to see the reaction you just gave him. A huge proud beaming smile.. one that makes him want to melt into a big puddle on your bed. He thinks your reaction is the cutest thing, you’re the cutest thing and he feels like it’s the right time to ask his question.

Once you two calm down a bit and all the books are put away, you’re staring Steve right in the face. He’s just smiling gently at you, his eyes dazzling in the soft light of your room. You feel the butterflies form in your stomach as you break the comfortable silence.

“How do you feel for tomorrow? Good? Bad?”

“I think I’ll be okay, pretty nervous” He says with a shrug as he smiles a bit hesitant at you, you notice how his demeanor has changed. He seems more nervous and quiet now.

“You’ll do great, trust me!” You say trying to lighten the mood as you earn a smile from him. You give him a comforting smile as you grab his hand and hold it in yours gently squeezing it.

Your touch practically sends Steve to the moon. He just feels so happy, he feels all the nerves and worries washing away as you gently hold his hand in comfort. He truly believes every word you’re saying.

He clears his throat before asking a bit nervously. He’s been thinking about this plan all night and all day. He wants to celebrate with you, regardless if he passes or not. He wants to treat you for volunteering your time to help him. And of course, he just wants to spend some time with you. You make his day with these sessions as you constantly giggle at his jokes making his heart soar or seeing you smile so beautifully. You’re like treasure to him, he wants to cherish you forever.

“Y/N, do you possibly want to go and get ice cream with me when it’s all done and over with… like a celebration type of thing?” He asks with a gentle smile as a hint of pink crowds his cheeks.

You let his statement settle in the air as you feel your heart pick up at the words. Without a second thought you reply, “I would love too, Steve!” You can feel the heat rise to your cheeks as you smile unstoppably at him. You see his eyes open wide in happiness in response as the smile grows bigger on his freckled cheeks.

Head over heels..

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Steve has refused to tell you the outcome of his test until you two were seated on the back trunk of his car indulging in your ice creams. His treat, of course.

“So Steve…” You say pausing to swallow. “What did you get?” You push the spoon around the sprinkled covered ice cream as you wait for him to respond.

Steve places his icecream down as you copy him looking at him more curious now. You watch the sides of his mouth curve into a grin. “I passed, everything!” He says excitedly. You can’t help but to squeal in surprise as you wrap your arms around him for a hug.

“I’m so proud of you!” You say muffled against his shoulder. You can feel his broad arms wrap around your lower back as he hugs you back. You can feel the sudden chill from the ice cream melt away.

You pull away as you look him dearly in the eyes with a sincere smile on your face. “See, I told you that you could do it!” You say smiling even wider. You’re so so so happy, this made your day.. your week even.

Steve has never seen you this happy for anything ever. Heck, Steve has never even had anyone this happy for him. He just feels this overwhelming sense of accomplishment and joy that fills his entire body.

You both are now just looking at each other with huge smiles, enjoying the comfortable silence. Steve feels like he should make a move, before he loses you. He’s afraid that after this, your friendship could disappear. You would go back to your friends and he would hang out with his. And he didn’t want that. He wanted to be with you.

“So what was the final sc-“ You’re interrupted mid sentence as he presses his lips delicately against yours. You gasp into his lips as your eyes dart shut. His hand gently caresses your cheek as your body freezes. He pulls apart smiling and blushing madly as he looks at you lovingly. You just stare like a dear in headlights at him. You’re shocked and can’t even process what just happened.

Steve Harrington just kissed you.

Your cheeks are a crimson color now as you smile shyly at him. Without a second thought, it’s your turn to confess how you feel. And by this, you press your lips against his once more. His lips are pillowy soft and taste sweet from the ice cream. One of your hands cups his cheek while the other rests gently on his shoulder. You can feel his hand come and press against your lower back as he pulls you closer to him as the other pulls hair behind your ear delicately. You pull apart with a smile as you become nervous and shy around him. You can feel the absence on your lips as butterflies course through your tummy.

Steve is genuinely surprised that you feel the same way. He would never think that you, a smart and determined girl would ever fall in love with a dumb, cocky jock. He’s only known you for about a month now but it feels like it’s been years. You two just instantly clicked. Maybe opposites do attract..

He just feels overwhelming happy as he just stares at you with the biggest gushy smile and sparking eyes as he wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you close to him. You rest your head on his shoulder as you two just watch the sun set behind the trees, feeling totally in love.

Maybe people aren’t as bad as they seem..

People can change, people can grow..

And all you know, is you love Steve for who he is and who he became..

Because the lies were erased clean off the page.

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thank you for reading!! <3 hope you enjoyed the fic!!

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