#the actual hat says 2018 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

redgoldsparks · 6 months

Text

I wrote a 12 page epilogue to my 2019 comic "Harry Potter and The Problematic Author" because I found, in 2023, that I had more to say. You can also find this comic on my website, and I have PDF copies available on etsy. I may sell print copies at some point in the future.

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

Full transcript below the cut.

PAGE 1

Part one: Ruddy Owls!

I was in fourth grade when the first Harry Potter Book was released in the US.

Panel 1: Sometimes our teacher would read it aloud in class. “Mr and Mrs Dursley of number 4 Privat Drive were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”

Panel 2: I was 11 years old when Harry Potter finally broke through my dyslexia and turned me into a reader.

Panel 3: Every night in the summer before sixth grade I waited for the owl carrying my Hogwarts Letter. I cried when it didn’t come. “I have to go to Muggle school!”

PAGE 2

Part Two: Hats

I dedicated myself to being a fan.

Panel 1: I began collecting Harry Potter News article.

Panel 2: I asked my relatives to mail me ones from their local papers. I filled a thick binder with clippings.

Panel 3: I wrote my own trivia quiz

Panel 4: and participated in the one held annually at the county fair. “Next contestant!”

Panel 5: I usually got into one of. the top five spots. I won boxes of candy, posters, stationary, and once a baseball cap. (Hat reads: I survived the battle of Hogwarts).

Panel 6: In high school I sewed a black velvet cape and knitted many stripped scarves.

PAGE 3

Part Three: Double Trouble

Watching the last film in 2011 felt like the final note of my childhood.

Panel 1: I remember driving home from the midnight showing thinking about the end of 13 years of waiting; wondering what would define the next chapter of my life.

Panel 2: That same month I heard of something called Pottermore. “Okay, so there’s a sorting quiz… I already know my house! Patronus assignment? Mine’s a barn owl. Duh!"

Panel 3: You can read the books again but with GIFs? Why?

Panel 4: I lived in a place with very slow and limited internet at the time. Pottermore sounded inaccessible, but also boring. I never joined.

Panel 5: "I’ll just read the actual books again, thanks."

PAGE 4

Part Four: Sweets

In 2016, a series of short stories titled "History of Magic in North America” were released on Pottermore to pave the way for the first Fantastic Beasts Film. These stories display an extreme ignorance of American history, culture, and geography, but the worst parts are the casual misuse of indigenous beliefs and stories. Fans and critics immediately spoke up against this appropriation. Some of the most quoted voices included Nambe Pueblo scholar Dr. Debbie Reese who runs the site “American Indians In Children’s Literature”; Navajo writer Brian Young; Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw), founder of A Tribe Called Geek; Dr Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), a Professor at Brown University who runs the blog “Native Appropriations”, and writers N.K. Jemison and Paula Young Lee.

PAGE 5

Rowling is famous for responding to fans directly on twitter, yet she did not respond to anyone calling out the damaging aspects of “Magic in North America.” Her representatives refused to comment for March 9 2016 article in the Guardian. She has never apologized. All of this, plus the casting of Johnny Depp and the specific declarations of support by JKR, Warner Brothers, and director David Yates left a sour taste in my mouth.

For further thoughts on the new films read The Crimes of Grindelwald is a Mess by Alanna Bennett for Buzzfeed News, November 16, 2018.

PAGE 6

Excerpt from Colonialism in Wizarding American: JK Rowling’s History of Magic in North America Through an Indigenous Lens by Allison Mills, MFA, MAS/MLIS (Cree and Settler French Canadian)

Although Rowling is certainly not the first white author to misstep in her treatment of Indigenous cultures, she has an unprecedented level of visibility and fame, […] One of the most glaring problems with Rowling’s story is her treatment of the many Indigenous nations in North America as one monolithic group. […It] flattens out the diversity of languages, belief systems, and cultures that exist in Indigenous communities, allowing stereotyping to persist. […] It continues a long history of colonial texts which ignore that Indigenous peoples still exist. […] In the Wizarding world, as in the real world, Indigenous histories have been over-written and our cultures erased.

from The Looking Glass: New Perspectives in Children’s Literature Volumn 19, Issue 1

PAGE 7

Part 5: Music

Panel 1: Also in 2016 I discovered two podcasts which radically altered my experience of being an HP fan. The first was Witch Please created by two Canadian feminist literary scholars Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman.

Panel 2: “If it’s not in the text it doesn’t count!” “Close reading ONLY!”

Panel 3: They talk about Harry Potter at the level you’d expect in a college class with particular focus on gender, race, class, and the troubling fatphobia, fear of othered and queer coded bodies, violence against women, white feminism, gaslighting and failed pedagogy in the books. They bring up these issues not because they hate the series, but because they LOVE it.

PAGE 8

These passionate, joyful conversations went off like fireworks in my mind. I had never taken a feminist class before. I gained a whole new vocabulary to talk about the books- and the world.

PAGE 9

Panel 1: The second podcast I started that year was Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, created by two graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, Vanessa Zoltan and Casper Ter Kuile.

Panel 2: They read one chapter per episode through a theme such as love, control, curiosity, shame, responsibility, hospitality, destruction, or mystery. Like Witch Please, they are interested only in the information on the page, not thoughts from the author. The delights and failures of the text are examined in the context of the present day, and new meanings constantly arise.

PAGE 10

What does it mean to treat a text as sacred?

Trusting that the more time we give to it, the more blessings it has to give us.

Reading the text repeatedly with concentrated attention. Our effort is part of what makes it sacred. The text is not in and of itself sacred, but is made so by rigorously engaging in the ritual of reading.

Experiencing it in community.

“To me, the goal of treating the text as sacred is that we learn to treat each other as sacred.” -Vanessa Zoltan

PAGE 11

Part 6: Tooth and Claw

In October 2017, Rowling liked a tweet linking to an article arguing that trans women should be kept out of women’s bathrooms because of cisgender women’s fears. In March 2018, she liked a tweet about the problem of misogyny in the UK Labour Party which included the line “Men in dresses get brosocialist solidarity I never had.” The author of the tweet had previously posted many blatantly anti-trans statements.

Rowlings publicist claimed she had liked the posted by accident in a “clumsy and middle-aged moment.” Yet, in September 2018 she liked a link posted by Janice Turner to her column in the Times UK titled “Trans Rapists Are A Danger In Women’s Jails.”

Screencaps of these tweets can be found in the article “The Mysterious Case of JK Rowling and her Transphobic Twitter History”, January 10 2019 by Gwendolyn Smith (a trans journalist), LGBTQNation.com

PAGE 12

Excerpt from: Is JK Rowling Transphobic? A Trans Woman Investigates by Katelyn Burns

Ultimately, the answer is yes, she is transphobic […] I think it’s fair that she receives criticism from trans people, especially given her advocacy on behalf of queer people in general, but also because she has a huge platform. Many people look up to her for creating a singular piece of popular culture that holds deep meaning for fans from different walks of life, and she has a responsibility to handle that platform wisely. (Published on them.us March 28, 2018)

PAGE 13

Part 7: Home

At age 30, I’m still not over Harry Potter.

Panel 1: I’ve recently found a local bar that does HP trivia nights. “Poppy or Pomona?” “Poppy!”

Panel 2: I currently own an annual pass to Universal Studios so I can visit Hogsmeade.

Panel 3: I love talking to kids who are reading the books for the first time. “Who’s your favorite character?” “Ginny!”

Panel 4: And I’m planning a relisten to the audio books to next year to help me get through the election cycle. “Jim Dale, I’m going to need you more than ever…”

Spoiler from 2023: I did not do this. By mid-2020 JKR had posted her transphobic essay; we were in covid; I never visited Universal Studios again.

PAGE 14

But I do want to learn from her mistakes. I never want to repeat “Magic in North America.” As I write, I will do my research. I will consult experts and compensate them. If a reader from a different culture/background than me speaks up about my work, I will listen and apologize. I KNOW I WILL MAKE MISTAKES. But I will own up to them and I will do better.

PAGE 15

Excerpt from Diversity Is Not Enough: Race, Power and Publishing by Daniel José Older

We can love a thing and still critique it. In fact, that’s the only way to really love a thing. Let’s be critical lovers and loving critics and open ourselves to the truth about where we are and where we’ve been. Instead of holding tight to the same old, failed patriarchies, let’s walk a new road, speak new languages. Today, let’s imagine a literature, a literary world, that carries this struggle for equity in its very essence, so that tomorrow it can cease to be necessary, and disappear. (Buzzfeed, April 14, 2017)

PAGE 16

Harry Potter is flawed, & JK Rowling is problematic. But the books helped me learn a lot:

*One of the greatest dangers facing the modern world is the rise of fascism

*The government cannot be trusted

*Read and think critically

*Question the news: who paid the journalist? Who owns the paper?

*Trust and support your friends through good times and bad

*Organize for resistance

*Educate and share resources with peers

*The revolution must be diverse and intersectional

* We are only as strong as we are united

*The weapon we have is love

MK 2019

PAGE 17

PART 8: EPILOGUE

In 2021 I removed a Harry Potter patch I sewed to my book bag over a decade ago. I took 15 pieces of Harry Potter fanart off my walls. I got rid of my paperback book set, 2 board games, and 8 t-shirt. [images: a Hogwarts a patch with loose threads, a pair of scissors and a seam ripper]

Panel 1: Maia holding up a shirt with the Deathly Hallows logo on it. Maia thinks: “Damn, this really used to be my entire personality.”

Panel 2: The t-shirt gets thrown into the Goodwill box.

PAGE 18

I wrote my zine wrestling with JKR’s legacy in 2019, after her dismissive and racist reaction to indigenous fans and critics of “Magic in North America” and after she had liked a couple transphobic tweets. Since then, she has gotten so much worse.

A Brief Timeline (mostly from this Vox article)

June 2020- JKR posts a 3600 word essay making her anti-trans position clear

August 2020- The Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Org issues a statement about her transphobia, JKR doubles down on her position and returns an award they gave her

December 2020- JKR claims 90% of HP fans secretly agree with her anti-trans views

December 2021- JKR mocks Scottish Police for recognizing transgender identities

March 2022- JKR criticizes gender-inclusive language and legislation

December 2022- JKR retweets trans youtuber Jessie Earl’s critical review of Hogwarts Legacy, starting an onslaught of transphobic harassment towards Earl

December 2022- JKR removes her support from an Edinburgh center for survivors of sexual violence with a trans-inclusive policy and funds her own center which explicitly excludes trans sexual assault survivors

January 2023- JKR tweets “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.” It got nearly 300K likes

March 2023- One the podcast “The Witch Trials of JK Rowling”, hosted by a former Westboro Baptist Church Member, JKR compares the trans rights movement to Death Eaters.

PAGE 19

What are The Witch Trials of JK Rowling?

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “It’s a 7 episode documentary style podcast hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper. Nearly every episode contains interviews with JKR as well as critics, journalists, historians, protestors and fans.

Panel 2: Maia speaking. “In episode 1, JKR speaks more candidly than she has previously about being in an abusive marriage. Her ex-husband hit her, stalked her, broke into her house overlapping with the time she was writing the first three HP books.”

Panel 3: Maia speaking. “What she went through genuinely sounds horrific. I have a lot of sympathy for the kind of life-long traumas those experiences leave.”

PAGE 20

HOWEVER.

It is clear from reading the June 2020 essay on her blog and listening to the podcast, that JKR still to this day feels unsafe. Despite her wealth and privilege she moves through the world with the mindset of a victim. And the group of people she finds most threatening are trans women.

Or rather, she is afraid that allowing trans women in women’s spaces invites the possibility of male predators entering those spaces.

Here’s a direct quote: The problem is male violence. All a predator wants is access and to open the doors of changing rooms, rape centers, domestic violence centers [...] to any male who says “I’m a woman and I have a right to be here” will constitute a risk to women and girls. - from The Witch Trials episode 4 as transcribed by therowlinglibrary.com, March 2023

Image: A stem of Belladonna with flowers and berries.

PAGE 21

Let me introduce here the term: TRANSMISOGYNY. The intersection of transphobia and misogyny, this term was coined by Julia Serano in 2007. Scout Tran, on tiktok as Queersneverdie said: “Transmisogyny occurs in people who have been previously hurt by traditional misogyny. Who have been driven to hate men or at the very least to be scared of men. They will sometimes take out that rage on trans women. (March 2023)

JKR claims to care for trans women and understand they are extremely vulnerable to assault and violence. In her 2020 Essay she wrote: “I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe.”

So she cares about trans women… just less than cis women, and she’s willing to throw all trans women under the bus because of her unfounded, prejudice fears.

PAGE 22

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “JKR claims to have seen data that proves trans women have presented physical threats to other women in intimate spaces, but never cites sources. She also uses “producer of the large gametes” as a definition of “woman”.

What about transmen and nonbinary folks?

Panel 2: Maia leaning on a stack of all seven HP books, the first four Cormorant Strike books and The Casual Vacancy, gesturing to a series of quotes with a tired and disgusted expression.

I’m concerned about the huge explosion of young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning. * [...] If I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. -June 10 2020 essay

I don’t believe a 14 year old can truly understand what the loss of their fertility is.

-Witch Trials episode 4

I haven’t yet found a study that hasn’t found that the majority of young people experiencing gender dysphoria grow out of it*. -Witch Trials episode 7

*No sources cited

PAGE 23

It’s hard to over emphasize how fixated JKR has become on these topics. As of the date I’m writing this, 14 out of her 20 most recent tweets (70%) are in some way anti-trans. She tweets against Mermaids (a UK based trans youth charity), against trans athletes, against gender neutral bathrooms, and in support of LBG Alliance- a UK org that denies trans rights while upholding gay rights. Here are some gems from her archive:

“People who menstruate.” I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? -June 2020

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman. - December 2021

And in response to someone asking “How do you sleep at night knowing you lost a whole audience?”

I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly. -October 2022

PAGE 24

Hashtag Ruthless Productions a queer nerd podcast company created a great guide on ethical engagement with HP. Image: the two hosts of Hashtag Ruthless productions, Jessie (They/she) and Lark (he/him).

Stop buying all official HP Products: books, movies, games, toys, etc, Universal Studios tickets, food, merch.* Boycott any new TV series or movies. Instead: buy the books and DVDs used. If you still want to wear HP merch, buy fan-made. Engage only with fan content: fic, podcasts, fanart, wizard rock, etc. Show transphobia is bad for business. None of this will change JKR’s mind. But the Fantastic Beast series was canceled and after record Pottermore sales in 2020, they fell in 2022 by 40%.

*She gets a portion of ALL tickets. In 2019, this was her largest income source. Read the full guide: hashtagruthless.com/resourceguide

PAGE 25

As late as 2019, I was still reading JKR’s murder mystery series. But by the fourth book my experience began to sour.

Panel 1: Maia holding a copy of Lethal White. “The only gay character in this book is a government official who gropes his staff?”

Panel 2: “The only genderqueer character is misgendered and portrayed as a whiny faker?”

Panel 3: “The only Muslim character is disowned by his family over gay rumors?”

Panel 4: “Even the women aren’t portrayed very well…”

Panel 5: “Why is the main female character defined by the rape in her past?”

Panel 6: “Wait, what happens in the rest of this series…?” Maia scrolls on eir phone.

Panel 7: “Is the series heading towards an employee/boss relationship?”

Panel 8: “And has a man wearing women’s clothes to commit assault?”

Panel 9: “Yeah, I’m done. I’m never reading a new JKR book ever again.”

PAGE 26

And as for JKR herself?

As tempting as it might be to tweet your frustrations at her, I don’t recommend it. In 2021, she tweeted, “Hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me.” Getting hate online feeds her sense of victimhood and she waves it as proof of her moral high ground. Instead I suggest you block her on twitter, then delete twitter, go to the library and try to find a new book that feels magical.

Stack of books: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, Gifts by Ursula K Le Guin, Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir.

PAGE 27

In “Emergent Strategy” adrienne maree brown writes: You do not have the right to traumatize abusive people, to attack them, personally or publicly, or to sabotage anyone else’s health. The behaviors of abuse are also survival-based, learned behaviors rooted in pain. If you can look through the lens of compassion, you will find hurt and trauma there. If you are the abused party, healing that hurt is not your responsibility and exacerbating that pain is not your justified right.

PAGE 28

Seeing anyone over age 12 wearing HP merch now makes me uncomfortable. Are they ignorant or actively a TERF? I hate wondering how much money JKR has probably poured into anti-trans legislation… This zine is a culmination of my slow breakup with a story that once brought me joy. Now it just makes me angry, tired and sad.

Image: Candle in a fancy holder burned down to less than an inch.

Maia Kobabe, 2023

#harry potter #harry potter and the problematic author #jk rowling #transphobia #jk rowling transphobic

3K notes · View notes

nouvellevqgue · 2 months

Text

FULL OF FAN BEHAVIOR

req: Saw your post for smau requests, maybe a Max Verstappen where people don't realise his girlfriends account is you know her official verified account. Because practically every single post is about Max. Full on fan behaviour, in the sense she was his first fan as his childhood friend, she has been there supporting him since they were kids, and now they're adults and together, but some habits doesn't change.

(bonus if the posts makes people question why she choose Max as her mans.)

summary: everybody knows that this account is full of max. from his first win to now, from his most random things to his glory time, she's always there to post his pictures. they only know her as his friend and nothing more, but who is she actually?

2016 - 2018

verstappenight

liked by maxverstappen33, and 1,942 others

verstappenight WOOOO P1🏆🏁 congratulations to you maximus, i'm soo proud of you!

view all 125 comments

maxverstappen33 I won't say anything about the name Maximus, but thank you 😄

danielricciardo Well deserved! 👍🙌

username look how young he is

username I love a supportive fan ^^ Plz post more of this man.

⤷ yourusername glad to be on your service, ma'am

username how old is he?

username He's so happy, he turns red.

username I usually don't trust redbull after Sebastian, but he might be my new exception🤷‍♀️

verstappenight

liked by danielricciardo, and 1,230 others

verstappenight that eyes glint with mischief. #throwbackthursday

view all 65 comments

maxverstappen33 Oh my god, I thought I trusted you by taking this years ago

⤷ yourusername never trust anyone

username The half smile😂

username He's been pulling the red string with Red Bull from a long time ago, and look at the hat. I bet it's not a coincidence.

username how is she even managed to get this out? this looks so ancient

⤷ username It's not ancient, it's probably old, but not ancient.

danielricciardo He looks like he's planning to steal one of the cars steering wheel

⤷ username exactly! 😂😂

username if it's a throwback, how old is this pic then?

⤷ username i mean he looks way younger than him on her recent post, so just figure it.

⤷ username he always looks younger

verstappenight

liked by victoriaverstappen, and 963 others

verstappenight how is it feel to have a duplicates?

view all 72 comments

maxverstappen33 Why are you taking the second one?

⤷ verstappenight and why are YOU posing to that one?

username Why is he looks younger and younger each time?

⤷ verstappenight i don't know, but i definitely recommend him to have a slug treatment for anti aging.

⤷ username username it's him in torro rosso, so that's why he looks more like a teenager.

username it's not even thursday yet, but i had a bad feeling for this week's throwback thursday.

verstappenight

liked by carlossainz55, and 3,573 others

verstappenight boo! happy halloween #throwbackthursday

view all 269 comments

username what did i say, my feelings are never lying

carlossainz55 Got you! 😆🤣

⤷ maxverstappen1 If I got a heart attack next week, it'll be completely your fault

landonorris is halloween on 29 or 30?

⤷ username depends on what region you're in, i guess?

⤷ landonorris don't guess, answer.

maxverstappen1 And how are you even managed to take this?? Seriously. yourusername

username I can't believe it's actually Carlos who did this

⤷ username Yeah, but I think this is so Carlos-like behavior.

username i would do that face too if someone dressed as scream beside me

username Who is running this fanpage?

username why are you liking him so much?

⤷ yourusername because he is so nice, cool, and he looks like sid from ice age which is my favorite character.

⤷ danielricciardo we got a whole stack of characters here: first we got maximus the horse from tangled, sid from ice age, and then what? jimmy neutron?

username 😂😂😂ajajaja mira su cara!

verstappenight

liked by redbullracing, and 3,782 others

verstappenight found this on twitter and now i can't stop laughing! can't wait to send this to my family group.

view all 90 comments

maxverstappen1 I really can't trust you with my digital footprint 🤦🏻‍♂️

⤷ verstappenight i found this on twitter alright, it's not taken by me!

⤷ maxverstappen1 Still.

⤷ carlossainz55 Ooh, someone's upset...

username who is this person behind this account?

username Why is his reaction is always looking so hilarious

username Max: 😦

username i feel him

username you sure it's not throwback thursday?

MID 2023

verstappenight

liked by charles_leclerc, and 97,182 others

verstappenight i changed throwback thursday with this questionable sense of max's fashion. hope that's alright.

photo credit via verstauri on twitter.

view all 348 comments

username NOOOOOOOOOOOO

username #bringbackthrowbackthursday

charles_leclerc If you get rid of throwback Thursday, how am I going to tease him?

⤷ verstappenight by searching it on pinterest🤷🏻‍♀️

username Is that real or photoshopped?

username Okay, I know throwback thursday is made a long time ago since 2015 but man I really miss it sm... 💔💔

⤷ verstappenight same, but some people don't need that old max (except for charles). we need the new one because life goes on -max via my message

⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't remember saying it

⤷ verstappenight shut up

username oh cmon i know charles want it because he's in love with max

⤷ username should i be surprised?

⤷ username i mean if there's no throwback thursday, who's going to tease him with his past when she's not there

⤷ username Daniel and Lando or Y/n could...

⤷ username oh come on, i don't even know who's the person behind this account anyway, for EIGHT YEARS

⤷ username As if you've never heard of twitter, just search her username and you'll see her REAL face.

THE TWEET SHE MEANT:

verstappenight

liked by schecoperez, and 113,809 others

verstappenight guess which one is the real one

view all 462 comments

schecoperez The first one of course!😂🤣

username since when did checos ass becoming that juicy

⤷ username since he listened to daddy yankee's song on repeat

⤷ danielricciardo His actual morning routine:

username the first one because what else would he be doing if not eating omelette and seeing checo's ass in the morning

⤷ username even checo himself agrees

username I'm glad that she still post here, even though there's no throwback thursday anymore😞😔

⤷ username but i guess even though we did not have throwback thursday anymore, we still have this crack post of him😄

TWITTER, 3 DAYS AFTER THE COMMENTS ON VERSTAPPENIGHT'S DADDY POST:

maxverstappen1 added a photo to their story! 2h

ON THE OTHER HAND, HER ACTUAL IG:

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1 and 82,147 others

yourusername good moooorniiiiinggggg from my room<3

view all 97 comments

username Thank God it's not private

username damn yall work faster than the fbi

username Anyone come here from twitter?

username Omg I've never realized max pulled this hottie ever since they were born

username THIS IS VERSTAPPENIGHT ADMIN?????

⤷ username eight years of waiting is finally getting payed off..

username why are you even choosing max to be your man when there's charles or daniel who's sexier

⤷ yourusername sometimes i don't need looks to see to be having someone like max. he's my best friend first, and i'm glad i choose him right the first place.

⤷ username Oh that's sweet...

⤷ maxverstappen1 I love you too, My biggest fan.

⤷ username I LOVE YOU TOO??????💔💔

⤷ username oh my god max is having a REAL relationship with a fan account admin

⤷ username AWOOP🚨🚔 THEIR MEDIUM LAUNCH????

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, and 278,903 others

yourusername nobody knows that this phone addict is once my best friend. happy birthday maximus! 🥳🤍

view all 486 comments

landonorris happy birthday facebook dad.

maxverstappen1 I once again not going to take the Maximus name. It makes me feel like a horse from Rapunzel.

⤷ yourusername wait, you've watch tangled before?

danielricciardo Happy birthday, Big boy.

redbullracing Happy birthday to our number one champion! 🥳🥳

username awww baby maxiee🥺🥺🥺

lewishamilton Happy birthday, mate!

carlossainz55 To be honest, your real account is sometimes still kinda feels like your other one.

⤷ yourusername force of habit probably?

⤷ carlossainz55 No, it's because you're acting like Max's biggest fan everywhere.

⤷ maxverstappen1 That's probably because she is.

⤷ yourusername wipe that smug smile off your face while you're typing

username He looks the same weirdly or not

username AHA I FOUND YOU VERSTAPPENIGHT ADMIN

username i love how she just hanging to his arm like they're been a couple since god knows how long

username SHE'S SOO LUCKYYY

username i'm gonna melt

username i feel like it's a hard launch, but she have been doing this for a long time ago

sophiekumpen 🥳🥳🥳

maxverstappen1

liked by zedd, and 627,834 others

maxverstappen1 How was I going to get her bad side if she's there and looking so beautifully?

👤: yourusername, verstappenight

view all 446 comments

landonorris poetic. remember your other girlfriend's waiting

⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't remember having another one?

⤷ charles_leclerc How are you even forget about us?

yourusername awww i can't believe you tag the fan account one too!! i love you so much!!!

⤷ maxverstappen1 I love you too❤️

username #justiceforcharles #lestappenforever

username SHE'S SOOOO CUTE no wonder max pulled her

victoriaverstappen I didn't know you pulled this cutie

⤷ danielricciardo Me too until I found out yesterday at the club

username poetic max is going to be the end of me

username I really had a bad feelings of he becoming poetic and gets all over like this

username Okay, this is max's hard launch. And now I'm waiting for Y/n's

⤷ username i thought she already doing it for so many times at verstappenight? 😏🤭

yourusername

liked by redbullracing, and 579,420 others

yourusername 💌

📸: landonorris

view all 461 comments

username PARENTS CONFIRMED???

username YESS (adopt me pls)

username is verstappenight still going to be there? let's see for the next two days...

username verstappenight nation how do we feel after this? (we can get a new max pic daily)

username i'm gonna thank lando forever for this

username With the bouquet, the dim light, and the black and white + sepia filters. What are they doin that night?

username AWWW ROMANTIC😍😍

danielricciardo They left Charles in the back that night

⤷ landonorris aww poor him. but anyway...

username how are you converting from lestappen to this one so fast?

TAGLIST @queenofmanydreams @muglermami @4limq @avengers-assemble123456 @cabbyhabs @meowtastick @4mula-1 @miarabanana @amel1ee @dinosushilun1 @auggieblogs @namgification

#✶!#max verstappen #max verstappen x y/n #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen imagine #max verstappen fanfic #max verstappen fluff #max verstappen smau #f1 fluff #f1 imagines #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 smau #f1 instagram au

2K notes · View notes

commanderyes · 2 months

Text

The Commander Says Goodbye

I’m not going to lie, I’m extremely anxious as i’m writing this, out of what these news could mean to a lot of people, and my heart feels heavy enough it could drop down my ribcage any minute from now and squish all my other organs. But I’ve been dancing around this topic for a long time now, and I think i’ve finally reached a point where i can’t ignore it anymore, for my own sake.

I hereby announce Commander Yes has come to an end.

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, here and to many other people, when I began this comic all the way back in 2018 I was in a really bad, really low place in my life in every sense of the word, and it was a spur-of-the moment decision to cheer myself up, because Path of Fire had just released and my enjoyment of the game had reached fever pitch and I had been playing Guild Wars 2 alone since as far as launch, and none of my other friends had ever really gotten into it. I guess I just, dunno, cried out into the big maelstrom of the community, one voice amidst millions, because i wanted SOMEBODY to look at what i did and revel in the nerdery with me.

And somehow the snowball began to roll and people wanted more and more of what I could do, and I was being actively reached out to, and, well, some time after that I landed my first ever job, I discovered a lot of things about myself, and I found myself in communities that welcomed me with open arms, and many of the people in there have since become among the best friends I could’ve possibly encountered, kindred souls who i’ve shared joys and sorrows for many years and who I can’t imagine living without anymore.

And all the while I kept making the comics, and with every entry posted every week I’d keep having people stopping to comment on them, and whether they were dumb jokes or personal takes on the story, they’d all share how much what I do kept hitting them in the kokoro, and to this day whenever I play anywhere in the game I still get people who recognize me and thank me for doing what I do. It was wonderful, it IS wonderful, and seeing that response motivated me to keep going, because what did still mattered to people, out there.

But I did always say I planned to keep doing these comics until I ran out of energy for them, and I think i’ve finally reached that point.

Because ever since I actually landed that job I’m exhausted and sleep-deprived every other day, so much so that I only have time to work on the comic on saturdays and sundays, and it gets harder and harder to just sit and draw, and at that point it was just more work, and while I still enjoy and play Guild Wars 2 a lot, it no longer consumes my time and attention like I’ve used to and i’ve been having fun with more personal projects, and honestly the direction the story is taking these days does not sit right with me and it’s hard to find inspiration in that, and this might be borderline selfish but every year I find people care less and less about the comics and it really takes a hit to you motivation when hardly anybody responds after you’ve spent a whole weekend trying to squeeze a five-page comic out.

And, well, I have been doing these for six years straight, and I think that’s a good run. I’m tired, and ready to move on, at long last. Let it be someone else’s turn.

But that’s the beautiful thing about this community, isn’t it? Even if I’m hanging up the hat, there are a whole lot of fantastic artists out there, as we speak, still cranking out works of art, deserving of all the attention they can get. And think of all the artists yet to come! For every story that ends, another story is just about to begin!

The world keeps on spinning, one way or another.

I’ll be closing my patreon shortly after this, but the reddit archives and tumblr blog shall remain for people to browse whenever they feel like (or until they both go in flames, i guess, what social media isn’t about to these days)

I still don’t think I ever was that much of a big deal, but all the same, to everyone who’s ever supported me and helped me be the person I am right now, to everyone who’s been there from the beginning, to all the devs of this game that has captured us for nearly a decade now, to all my fellow players and artists out there

Thank you.

See you out there, fellow commanders. Still the stars find their way.

#guild wars 2 #guild wars 2 fan art #guild wars 2 fan submission #snargle gutslurper #commander yes #that's all folks #thank you for everything #keep loving yourselves okay? you're worth it #all of you #see you in the game :)

367 notes · View notes

exactlycleverpirate · 3 months

Text

Timeline from Xavier's Perspective Part 2

EDIT: Updated with some new information and some adjustments.

(Includes spoilers for basically everything, including all myths.)

This is an update of my earlier post. See Part 1 here.

Timeline from Xavier's perspective (Part 2/Earth):

Timejump.

?1248 (“It’s been 800 years!”)? Sometime in a past life, Rafayel and MC were lovers. (Is this when MC was trapped on the Island of Songs in a hut by herself, doomed to someday drown and Rafayel comes, gives her his heart and saves her?) Then she is cursed and turned into a Sea Witch in the Abyssal Rift. She has no memory of Rafayel or being human. Rafayel exchanges his scale, eternal blood, and a shell with his voice in order to turn MC human and restore her memories. Then he turns to sea foam. (Fragrant Dream.) (This could all be an actual dream or allusion that never happen or hasn't happened yet. However, this could be when Rafayel gifted MC one of his scales and formed the bond between them.)

2018 Xavier checks out a book in the library that MC will check out 30 years later. (An

1834 AD Xavier, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Noah (Likely actually Jeremiah, due to translation error), and others stranded on Earth. (This timing comes from a promotional video where Xavier says he has been on Earth for 214 years.) (Part of a team called the Backtrackers. Were on a Backtrack mission when something went wrong in the Deepspace tunnel.)

Appointment)

2021 Zayne born Sept 5th.

2024 (...probably) Rafayel born March 6th

2025 The year Xavier claims he was born, on Oct 16th.

2026-2027 MC born. (This age comes from chapter 5.1. The letter she gets from Grandma says she was 7-8 when they started experimenting on her, and she was adopted by Grandma after the Chronorift Catastrophe in 2034.)

Child Rafayel likes escaping to explore the ocean. On one or more of these excursions, he sees a lantern festival and puts out their lanterns. (Ocean At Night)

2032 Xavier joins Arthur's police team. (Anecdote 2)

2033 That winter, Noah (Likely actually Jeremiah, due to translation error) contacts Xavier for information to make a new identity. Noah mentions wanting to be an ordinary person in this timeline and that he fell in love. Xavier fakes his death as a police officer and encounters a lost little girl with a bunny plushie. Fights Isaiah in Linkon city in a fight that makes the whole city go dark. He disguises this by making it look like there is a meteor shower. (Anecdote 2)

2034 Deepspace tunnel appears and Chronorift Catastrophe (timespace anomaly in Linkon city). MC is 7-8, taken in by Grandma. Caleb is also adopted by Grandma. 12 year old Zayne loses control of his Evol at the end of summer and has a nightmare about the Grim Reaper for the first time. Rafayel would be 10 at this time. Xavier appears as Lumiere for the first time, kills the first Wanderer in the Chronorift Catastrophe and saves MC. On December 31st, Lemurian ruins are discovered, after a tsunami southeast of Linkon city, when a rift opens up and reveals it. Her grandma participates in experiments to fuse a human heart and a protocore. At some point, MC's heart is fused with an Aether core. Onichynus and Dr. Noah are both somehow linked to these experiments. Her first heart doctor is Dr. Noah.

At some point in MC and Rafayel's childhood, Rafayel visits the surface world but gets trapped on the beach on his return trip (on Ebb Day?) (Perhaps during her field trip to Hat Island?) She saves him and they make a pinkie promise. Rafayel says if she doesn't return, he will chase her to the ends of the earth. (Nightly Stroll)

Child Rafayel is given a Whale Call as a means of protection, in case something happens on one of his escapes from Lemuria. However, he never uses it, because he never escapes again after this, and sometime later he buries it in the Lemurian city. (Whalefall Lament)

Child Rafayel is tricked and his people slaughtered. Some survivors go into hiding living on land among humans, including his Aunt Talia and K. (Anecdote 3)

Sometime before 2038, MC goes on a field trip to Hat Island (possibly when she meets Rafayel?).

2035 Zayne (age 14) begins medical school at Skywalk University, spends 6 years in med school program. (It normally takes 8.) (From his biography on the hospital wall.)

2043 Zayne (age 22) graduates from medical school. Goes on a mission to the Arctic where he is forced to mercy kill his mission leader who is being consumed by some sort of ice (Anecdote 2). Begins work at Linkon Central Hospital. (From his biography on the hospital wall.)

Rafayel's Anecdote 3 immediately precedes Anecdote 2 (See 2044-2047). Rafayel is singing in the opera and seeking revenge overseas in Verona under the name Mo. He is being investigated by a private detective named Louis. He is not painting at this time. His Aunt Talia is also in Verona. He attends a Seamoon Ceremony for a fellow Lemurian survivor, K. Lemurians are hiding amongst humanity, but being hunted, tortured, harvested for their scales and blood and killed. Rafayel then moves to Linkon city and resumes painting again. He has a photo of MC in his pocket. (Anecdote 3).

Sometime between 2043-2045 MC (17-18) begins attending University of Linkon. (School year usually begins in September.)

2043-2047 Rafayel's Anecdote 2 takes place sometime in this timeframe while MC is at University of Lincoln. That summer, his painting Illusion projects him into the spotlight as a popular artist. In late summer, he becomes a lecturer at University of Linkon. He receives information on her from someone at the Nest. He believes there are “predators'' surrounding her, some of whom may be trying to use her to trap him, so he is wary about approaching her. He burns the photos and information the man who investigated her collects about her. He describes his feelings toward her as painful and addictive, thinking he is ready to spend the rest of his days with her, but also wants to settle the score between them. (Anecdote 2). Thomas becomes Rafayel’s agent. (Anecdote 1).

2045 Xavier meets Arthur at his tombstone. (Anecdote 2)

2046 Zayne makes a groundbreaking discovery about the effects of the Evol gene on heart development. (From the AKSO hospital article about him). He receives the Starcatcher and Linde Awards. (From his biography on the hospital wall.)

2047-2048 MC graduates. (School year usually ends June-July)

2048 Pregame: Zayne becomes chief surgeon. Zayne becomes MC's doctor 6 months before the story begins (in July of 2048, making 6 months prior the month of January) (Dr. Dean/Noah was her doctor before him). Also 6 months before the story begins, Raymond begins exhibiting symptoms of mental confusion and other abnormal behavior. At the start of the year, (per Main Story chpt 2.6) Rafayel returns to the country from overseas. He is known for spending six months painting in his studio, then traveling the world for inspiration/materials for the other 6 months. The month before the main story, Rafayel's art broke the record for the highest selling art at Lizio Auctions. Raymond buys a painting from Rafayel's gallery.

2048 Story begins Wednesday, July 1st (most likely), with MC being initiated as a Hunter in the Hunter's Association. MC is about 21-22, and her Evol has to do with Resonance, Anhaunsen Class. Rafayel is 24, Fire Evol. Zayne is 27, Ice Evol. Xavier claims to be 23, Light Evol. Traceback II is approaching the event horizon and entering the black hole.

See Love and Deepspace: the Story So Far Part 1.

Sometime in the future, after the destruction of Linkon but before the destruction of Earth, Grim Reaper Zayne lives, killing humans turned Wanderer and dreaming of a life as a doctor with the woman he loves. (Anecdote 3)

Part 1 and 2 in this timeline continue in a loop perpetually?

#love and deepspace #rafayel love and deepspace #xavier love and deepspace #zayne love and deepspace #love and deepspace xavier #love and deepspace zayne #love and deepspace rafayel #xavier #zayne #rafayel

190 notes · View notes

thesilliestofgals · 4 months

Text

Hello everyone, I'm making this huge post because I'm hyperfixated on what's going down in the Ever After High fandom right now, and I need to type all my thoughts out. So, get your tinfoil hats ready folks, because it's speculation and theorizing time.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just speculation and/or incoherent rambling. I'm putting it under the cut because... it's a little long lol (if you see any grammatical and/or spelling errors ...no you don't)

Earlier today, January 5th (or January 4th, depending on your timezone) Mattel released a "new" song for Ever After High, "Can't Get Me Down" (you'll see why I put new in quotation marks in a bit). Reaction to the song itself was... mixed, with some really liking it, some not liking it, and some being more neutral. The reason why this sent the fandom into a frenzy is because, obviously, this is our first real content from the actual source since the series ended in 2018.

Tin foil hat time, I don't think this song is "new" at all. I'm speculating that this song was in the Mattel's equivalent of The Vault for a long time, which could explain a lot about why it sounds janky and almost ai. Also, I saw some people saying it reminded them of Taylor Swift, and we know, canonically, Taylor Swift exists the EAH universe as Tailor Quick, and Raven is a fan of her. Adding on the fact that Raven is used as the cover for this song, I suspect she would've sung this either in a webisode, or more likely a special, but it got cut for whatever reason.

Here we get to my biggest point: why now? Why would Mattel, with no promotion beforehand, just drop this out of the blue? I saw someone suggest it was a mistake, and I saw someone else suggest that this was leaked by some employee, but I don't think either of those are the case- if they were, it likely would've been taken down already.

I shared this theory through an ask, but I'll reiterate it here: My theory is Mattel is using this as a tactic see how people would respond to the idea of EAH making a comeback.

I think EAH making a comeback now kind of makes sense- look at what happened during it's downfall; iirc doll sales were low, but also, Disney had created Descendants. This is a bit more into conspiracy theory territory, but from what I've heard discussed, many think Disney's creation of Descendants was the nail in the coffin for EAH. It's also common knowledge that Disney is extremely territorial about fairytales, and especially when it comes to princesses, so them making Descendants to assure EAH's decline... checks out. With Disney not doing well now, Mattel could be trying to take advantage of that. But that's just my theory, I could be totally wrong and Mattel could be doing this for some other completely random reason.

There was also some other stuff about trademarks, but I'm not good with that kind of stuff, so you can read more about that here.

TL;DR: this situation is very *exaggerated and vague hand waving in air* as you can tell by this post, so while we can continue speculating and/or doing our own digging, I think it'd be best to keep an eye out to see if Mattel releases any more songs, or even any announcements/statements.

If I forgot anything or explained this poorly, I apologize!! Please let me know if I did either and I will try and correct that!!

#nonny's nonsense #ever after high #eah #long post

64 notes · View notes

anonymoushouseplantfan · 8 months

Note

They know, but they can’t do anything about it. She needs to make money somehow and she wrecked all other money-making avenues.

If it won't be too much of a hassle, please can you explain why you say she has wrecked her money making avenues?

Let’s turn the clock back to 2018, when they were planning Megxit. She was a relatively youthful actress with a royal husband, a feminist reputation and a semi-successful blog. She had contributed essays to magazines and anthologies, organized a best-selling charity cookbook, and edited Vogue. She was a decent public speaker and had hosted several successful forum events. She also had a strong fashion viewpoint and reputation thanks to the Rachel Zane character and her royal wardrobe. Plus she had a charity capsule collection and a solid merching rep under her belt.

Yes, most of those achievement were exaggerated (the blog/public speaking), other people’s work (cookbook, essay collection), or thinly veiled disasters (Vogue, capsule collections), but it was still a good resume. A lot of Hollywood achievements are equally fake or exaggerated, so I don’t think that would put anyone off.

So she had something to build on when she left. But did she actually build on that resume after Megxit? Heck no.

The first obvious money-making avenue was fashion. That’s how she was making money before the engagement and she could have returned to that. She could have built on that in Hollywood, but she didn’t attend fashion shows or galas and she didn’t pursue relationships with any new designers. She didn’t even try. She wore yog pants, shorts, palazzo pants and her floppy Panama hat. The style she chose was very “basic beach bitch” which is definitely not fashion.

So scratch high fashion. She still had writing to pursue. She could have done another charity cookbook to build a wellness brand, or another feminist anthology (with freaking Gloria Steinman!) to build a writing brand. But what did she do instead? A children’s book about fathers. She also did a miscarriage essay. She could try to pitch a magazine idea (a la Drew Barrymore) but no one is going to bite because her Vogue issue was terrible.

So so much for writing. There was still her forum experience which seemed like a good match for podcasting. She could have done any podcast topic in the world, but she decided to interview celebrities and bitch about her press coverage. Okay, so much for podcasting. Archetypes wrecked not only her podcasting career but also any change she had at a talk show or View-style show because she was such a disaster at it.

How about acting? She’s not accepting any offers and her own attempt at voice work was not a success. Maybe a reality show? Not really because the candid segments of the Meghan and Harry documentary were frankly terrible.

That’s what I mean when I say she wrecked all her other options. This is why she’s now pitching for a game show or rom com production.

89 notes · View notes

all-mirth-no-matter · 2 years

Text

Time After Time | Chapter One

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader, Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character

Summary: You’ve been told by your mother since the moment you were born that you had the gift of prophecy. Convenient, since you managed to mysteriously transport back into time by one hundred years. What happens when you become wrapped up in the Shelby’s family business after the brothers return from the war? Will you ever get back to your own time or figure out how you got to Small Heath in 1918?

Warnings: language, war, drinking, smoking

ao3 Link | Catch up on tumblr here

Chapter 1: Kashmir

Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face, with stars to fill my dream. I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been. — Kashmir, Led Zeppelin

Adjusting your hat, you stepped out of your apartment building and began walking down the road on the gravel, still getting used to the unevenness of the streets as you avoided mud puddles. “Constant dirt,” you mumbled to yourself, watching the bottom of your skirt grow damp despite your careful step. “Constant fucking dirt.”

It’d been two weeks since you woke up in Small Heath, Birmingham, 1918.

Your mother’s voice broke through your brain fog as you walked.

“You have a responsibility, Y/N,” your mother used to say to you with glassy eyes on nights she had one glass too many. “You have to be prepared.”

With a roll of your eyes, you would always ask, “For what, mum?”

And then, like always, your mother would shake her head, cover her mouth with her hand, and whimper sadly at some wild fantasy you knew she was concocting in that head of hers. She never did have an actual answer for you when she got like this.

“You always say that — I have to be prepared, but you can’t tell me what I have to be prepared for. I thought you had a gift — we had a gift? It’s bullshit! Why do you do this to me, mum?!”

That’s usually when the tears would break. Looking back, you should have seen the levee signs for your mother’s sanity. But in the thick of it, especially after your father died when it became an almost nightly ritual, it was just all too much. And completely, utterly, absolutely, ridiculous.

You had the gift of prophecy.

At least, that’s what your mother had been saying since you were old enough to remember. It wasn’t a metaphor, it wasn’t a feeling — it was fact. Of course the specifics of this revelation were always conveniently obtuse whenever you would ask your mother for any details.

It’d been years since you thought about those old fights. But on your last night in 2018, you couldn’t stop your mind from replaying them all. Guilt mixed with frustration plagued your body until you’d finally been able to fall asleep.

That night, you dreamed of hauntingly pale eyes. The face wasn’t one you recognized, but the eyes had you trapped, entranced. Mud circled the handsome face and slowly edged toward the center, toward his eyes. Red liquid began to mix with the mud as you tasted copper on your tongue. You reached out to grab the person before the mud and blood covered the eyes, but was pulled awake by a loud pounding at the door.

And that’s how you woke up in the year 1918.

Since that morning, you were trying to piece together what exactly was going on. You spent the first couple days in disbelief, walking around in clothes you had no knowledge of putting on. You thought for sure someone was playing a prank on you — a very elaborate one. But after interrogating the land lady and neighbors, finding newspapers, and combing through the entirety of the apartment you’d woken up in, you finally came to grips with the fact that you were now living, walking, breathing in the year 1918.

The land lady was little help. According to her, she and her husband had purchased the apartment building six years prior, but in their contract they had to designate that the room you awoke in stay prepped and empty for the impossible-to-predict arrival of a family member. When you pushed for a name, she didn’t have one for you and claimed that money had just been coming in anonymously over the years. While still freaked out yourself, you realized how much you were also freaking Mrs. Tully out, so you thanked her when she informed you that this month’s payment would be the end of that week. You planned to try and figure out what time the next payment was set to be made and to see if you could catch the payee.

Until then, you assessed what you’d found in your apartment: three outfits that all surprisingly seemed to be about your size, and a purse filled with about ten pounds in change. You didn’t know the exact inflation rate amount, but estimated that to be a little over 500 pounds back in your time.

When the end of the week came, your plan failed. No one came to deliver payment and you had to use a quarter of your found money to pay for the rent. You continued to wait to see if anyone would show up, but no one did. And eventually you came to the conclusion that if you were going to actively survive this new existence, you had to get a job.

Mrs. Tully had laughed when you asked her where you could find one. She told you to look in the advertisements of the local newspaper, but most jobs had been taken over by wives of men who’d gone to war.

“Which war?” You’d asked, absentmindedly, earning you a scoff from your land lady.

That’s when you quickly connected the pieces.

THE war. The Great War.

World War One.

Your mother had been a stickler for education, forcing you to take as many classes as you could in grade school. She pushed subject after subject and as many extracurricular activities as she could on you. In retaliation, you found yourself trying to be the complete opposite of the person she wanted you to be, even if it was in stupid little ways.

When your mother wanted you to take up piano, you insisted on learning ballet. Art over poetry. Psychology over economics. Literature over government. Math over science. Even listening to music over watching old movies.

The biggest push back was your mother’s insistence to learn everything about history that you possibly could. You’d fought hardest over that one, questioning why you needed to learn so much history if you could just predict the future.

One way or another, you eventually caved into your mother’s insistence. And while you’d never been properly diagnosed with eidetic memory, your mother had been overjoyed with your insane skill of comprehending and regurgitating so much information. And though you never actually admitted it to your mother, you had grown to really enjoy history.

And now you realized you were on the tail end of that First World War.

And still, you needed a job.

Most advertisements aimed toward women employment were textile factory jobs. While you had many talents, sewing was definitely not one of them. There were openings at the munitions factories, but you remembered reading about the side effects of working with machines and explosives. While you had no problem with blood and considered yourself an active Grey’s Anatomy watcher, you weren’t sure becoming a nurse was such a great idea either.

You were feeling out of your element by the time you finally landed on a local ad.

That’s where you were headed now, dressed to impress and still feeling completely high to the fact that you were 100 years into the past, applying for a bartending job because that’s the only thing you could find that you were good at.

A faint whimper caused you to pause.

It was still early and the streets were rather scarce, so you stopped and listened harder until you could clearly identify the sound of a girl crying. A few steps further toward the alley and you noticed an open window, a girl possibly a few years younger than you was leaning out of it and against the ledge, her hands covering her forehead as she tried to control her breathing.

“Oi!”

You didn’t realize you were staring when the girl shouted from the window, causing you to jump startled.

“Enjoying the fuckin’ show?” The girl asked snidely, using her hands to wipe the tears away from her eyes.

Without thinking, you grabbed the handkerchief from your pocket and walked closer to the window, lifting up your arm to offer it to her. The girl paused, wiping her nose with her nightgown sleeve and eyeing the handkerchief, then you, before accepting the token.

“You won’t tell anyone, you hear me?” The girl asked, her voice still venomous but you swore you could hear a lace of vulnerability in her words.

Your brow creased, unaffected by the girl’s attempt to be threatening. “One, I don’t even know who you are. Two, I don’t know anyone here to tell. And three, who cares if you’re crying? It’s no one’s business but your own.”

The girl, who was maybe closer to your own age now that you could see a bit more of her face, considered your points before chuckling, handing the handkerchief back. You tried to hide your grimace, but you were still super grossed out over the whole concept of handkerchiefs. But you took the stranger’s smile as a good turn and stifled your grossness by putting the cloth back in your pocket.

“You must be new around here?” The girl asked, sitting up straighter in the windowsill to get a better view of you.

“Yeah,” was all you offered, avoiding her gaze as you looked ahead at the pub at the end of the lane. “I saw the advertisement for help at the Garrison. I was on my way to apply.”

She shook her head, taking a moment to look you up and down. “Doubt Harry’ll hire you. He’s got a thing about not hiring pretty girls. Even with all the men away, he still won’t do it.”

You huffed. “Well, I’ll have to make him listen to me, then. If I’m going to be a good barten— uh, barmaid, then I’ll need to get used to making stubborn men get over themselves.”

That made the girl laugh. “Bet you a pence that you won’t make it past the interview.”

“You’re on!” Despite yourself, you felt yourself grin as you reached up to shake the stranger’s hand.

She giggled, “I’m Ada, by the way.”

“Y/N.”

A moment of silence fell between you after the introductions. You were about to attempt a polite retreat before Ada cleared her throat.

“No one’s dead, by the way,” Ada finally said. “I know I shouldn’t cry like that until… but sometimes it’s just too much.”

Your heart dropped as you began to put the pieces together. Kicking yourself a little for being so naive, you hoped not offering any condolences or asking the right questions hadn’t been a red flag or anything. But it almost seemed like Ada had been appreciative of your ignorance.

“Family or sweetheart?” you asked. You felt a little weird using the word sweetheart, but you hadn’t seen a ring which ruled out using husband and honestly you had no idea if people were using the word boyfriend yet. But the way Ada’s cheeks blushed, you knew you’d guessed something right at least.

“Both, actually. Last I knew they were in France. My brothers and—“ her blush grew deeper as she rolled her eyes. “God, why am I embarrassed to tell a complete stranger. But it’s a secret, no one’s to know. I just—“ she groaned, obviously frustrated.

You leaned against the side of the apartment. “Bastard stole your heart and took it with him to war, huh? And now there’s nothing you can do but ache and fear until he returns.”

“Exactly!” Ada shrieked.

You gave her a sympathetic smile. “And it’s a secret? Let me guess, brother’s best friend?”

Ada’s eyes widened. “You sure you’re not from around here?”

“Promise,” you chuckled. If she only knew the half of it. “I had the hots for my best friend’s older brother as a teenager. We had a bit of a secret fling before she found out and it caused a muck. But I can still recognize the blush and frustration. Please tell me this man at least let you steal his heart as well?”

The blush only deepened as Ada finally began to smile again. “I think so,” she answered quietly, almost scared to answer the question. “He’s just been gone so long now. And the stories — the war. I just hope the Freddie that comes home is the same one that left.”

Flashes of those history classes blew through your mind. The lessons on soldiers who came home from the First World War. Without realizing it, you felt yourself sending a small prayer to whoever was listening that this stranger’s loved ones weren’t victims to some of the more gruesome lessons you remembered from your youth.

“— I just wish we knew how much longer it was all going to be. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” Ada’s words were small again.

“November 11th, 1918,” you accidentally said, still lost in your own memories as you unwittingly attempted to smooth Ada’s worry.

“November?” Ada repeated, pulling you back to the moment. Your eyes snapped back to the stranger’s realizing what you’d done. “That’s just in a few months, how could you possibly know that?”

“Uhm,” you began to sweat. Shit, shit, shit. What if you’d already fucked up just two weeks after jumping back in time? Damn that Ashton Kutcher movie that you definitely didn’t pay enough attention to. You had to play it cool, so you kept your composure and shrugged your shoulders. “Just a guess. You know, with America’s help now, it can’t be too long—“

“Ada!”

The sound of an older woman’s sharp voice within the house caused the girl in the window to jump and turn backwards.

“Shit, I was supposed to get the water heated for my aunt,” Ada hissed as she checked the clock on the wall before rising from her seat. “Good luck with Harry, and come by later to let me know if I’ve won the bet!”

Ada didn’t stay to get a response, but that was okay because you were about to start hyperventilating. What the hell was wrong with you, throwing out dates that hadn’t happened yet?

You leaned against the stone wall and tried to flip through the rolodex of history books you’d read over the years to see just how badly you’d fucked up.

You knew that November 11, 1918 was officially considered the end of the war, but knew that was also littered with treaty dates and peace signings that were scattered over the next couple months and even years. So maybe November 11th wasn’t something that was officially recognized at the time? And you had no idea exactly how long news spread of war ending nowadays — it wasn’t like the newspapers were breaking news the same way it’d been in the 21st century… right?

And besides, Ada had only repeated November, so maybe she didn’t hear you say the exact day. Maybe she believed that it was just a frivolous guess. Maybe she even would think it was just the hopeful wishes of a well-intentioned stranger taking pity on her.

Either way, it was probably a good idea to try and steer clear of the girl for at least a little while until she forgot. Which was kind of a shame, you realized. Ada seemed like she could have been a good friend.

You took a deep breath, having reasoned with yourself enough to minimize the threat and began walking back toward the pub.

What you didn’t see was Ada’s aunt lean against the windowsill and watch you walk away, having definitely heard you predict the full date of the end of the war.

———

“You’re too pretty,” Harry Fenton said sadly, as if it pained him that this was the reason he was having to reject your request.

Damn Ada, you cursed to yourself, wondering if you were really going to let the girl know she’d won the bet. The reasonable side of you knew what he really meant by that. You’d be hit on, groped, or worse — and he didn’t want to be responsible for that. But you couldn’t let that stop you.

“I’ve been a bart— barmaid before. I promise you, Mr. Fenton, I can handle myself against a hoard of drunk men. I can be charming, but I can also hold my own. I’ve done it plenty of times.”

Harry’s brow creased. “You a whore?”

“Excuse—“

“I won’t have a whore workin’ my pub. It gets too messy—“

“No,” you said firmly. “I’m not a whore. For you, for them,” you waved your hand to the empty seating area. “Not for anyone. I just know how to defend myself against drunken imbeciles. Please, I’m a good barmaid. I know drinks, I know pours, I know customer service and how to defuse tense situations. This is what I’m good at.”

Harry looked away, a huff leaving his lungs as he considered. You could tell he was still trying to think of another excuse.

“Please,” you begged softly, waiting for him to lift his head back up.

As he did, he sighed, and your heart lept at the familiar sound of defeat. “Can you read?”

Your land lady had asked you the same question, but this time you didn’t laugh. “Yes,” you answered calmly. “I can write and type as well.”

“What about numbers?”

Your brow creased at his question. “Can I read numbers?”

“Yea, can you add ‘em up and stuff.”

“Oh!” You realized now what he was asking, slightly embarrassed by your misunderstanding. “Yes, I’m very good at math as well. Don’t even need a calculator.”

“A wa’?”

You cleared your throat. “Um, nothing. I just meant that I’m very good with numbers.”

Harry nodded. “Fine. I need help with stockin’ and the inventory. Come in tomorrow morning so I can show you the books and how we get the place set up, then we’ll see how you can handle your first bar shift. I won’t promise anything, but I believe in fair chances.”

You felt giddy at the opportunity and held back the urge to run over and hug Harry. You definitely didn’t need to give him any more reason to think you were a prostitute than he already had. Instead, you smiled and nodded, thanking Harry again for the chance before promising that he wouldn’t be disappointed.

“Better not,” he huffed, though you could tell there was a hint of humor at your excitement. “Fair chance don’t mean second chance. Things’ll be easier now, but I can’t make any promises if the war ends and the men return.”

November 11th, you repeated, this time to yourself. You’d already been too cavalier for comfort with Ada — you had to be careful.

“Understood.”

———

A month went by and you were beginning to grow more acclimated to your surroundings. You still had no answers as to why or how you were here, and you were beginning to believe that you never would.

In the meantime, you’d gotten used to your new job at the pub. It was a pretty easy gig compared to what you had expected. But Harry kept reminding you that their best customers were out on the lines. He’d often reminisced about his short-lived experience in the war, still walking with a limp that he believed wouldn’t ever fully recover.

When he wasn’t doing that, he was simultaneously fighting and gushing over your inventory management and production system development. It wasn’t an easy feat, as you could immediately tell there was so much disorganization going on and Harry just couldn’t wrap his brain around why you insisted on such rigorous systems. Eventually, you both learned to bend, especially when sales began to rise and spend waste decreased nearly 50% after implementing some of your suggested practices.

Outside of the pub, your friendship with Ada began to grow. Your original plan to avoid the girl for a few days after getting the job went up in smoke when Ada sought you out, believing you were trying to rob her of her betting win. You noticed that despite Ada’s claim to have lived in Small Heath for most of her life, she didn’t have many friends. In fact, as you grew closer, you came to believe that she didn’t have any proper friends outside of you and the girl’s family. You didn’t push the query, not yet feeling comfortable enough to ask and also worried about running off the only person aside from Harry who talked to you. As the days moved along, an odd thing began to happen: the closer you got to Ada, the more the other women in the town came to properly avoid you. Thinking it was just your imagination at first, you quickly realized that no one was bothering you in the streets or causing you any trouble at the bar or shops. You weren’t sure why exactly, but at least you had a friend.

Ada’s aunt, Polly, had been harder to warm up to than Ada had. You were completely intimidated on all accounts when Ada introduced you. The woman commanded the room when she walked in with her strong voice and sharp, beautiful features that made it both pleasing and terrifying when she smiled at you. Not that she’d smiled at you much. You felt constantly studied by the older woman, as if she was trying to pull out all your secrets.

But you held your own, and built the walls tall around your secrets, you stepped lightly around what you said, careful not to use any out-of-date slang or accidental predictions

Eventually, you began to win the woman over with your intelligence. When Ada found out how good you were with numbers, she asked you to help out in the book house one day. Aside from illegal horse racing bets, you were pretty clueless to the full extent of Ada’s family’s operation and influence to the town.

What you did learn was that Polly was running the organization while Ada’s brothers were away. The shop mostly employed women and men who hadn’t volunteered for the war. Polly had been furious that Ada allowed you access to their books without her permission — until you pointed out some discrepancies.

“Either this man can’t add correctly or he’s skimming money,” you interrupted when Ada and Polly began shouting.

After that, Polly threw all the books at you, and immediately began to whip everyone in line. She kept your new employment a secret though.

“No need to go lettin’ them know all our secrets, eh?” Polly had said with a wink when she offered you the job. Then she gifted you with her first smile, a wicked one with a mirthful glint in her eyes that made you both nervous and excited.

Over the month, you had hardly any spare time, which you liked — it left little time to think and it kept your purse full enough to keep your apartment and feed yourself. You kept going with your job at the Garrison, working with Polly twice a week on your days off to go over the books.

Everything was beginning to feel like a well-oiled machine.

Until November 11, 1918.

>> next chapter << chapter masterlist

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby x oc #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #fanfic #mine #time after time

861 notes · View notes

avatarvyakara · 1 year

Text

Might as well work on this one too…

On Age in Carmen Sandiego (2019)

Or, at the very least, in the timeline of Crimson Shades.

First off, Carmen’s mother, Carlotta Valdez (aka “Vera Cruz”), was supposed to have “died” in 1999. Carmen looked around perhaps a year old at that point in time, giving her a possible birth-date in 1996 to 1997. This in turn suggests that the series takes place some time before the actual date of publication—say, 2017/2018 onwards—to maintain Carmen’s rough age.

Rough age ranges of the characters, taking Carmen’s rough birthdate for estimation:

Team Red

Isabela Valdez/Black Sheep/Carmen Sandiego: 16/17 starting at VILE, 18/19 during the Poitiers Caper, 22/23 by the end.

Fairly self-explanatory.

Pierre Bouchard/Player: 12/13 as a White Hat Hacker, 14/15 during the Poitiers Caper, 18/19 by the end.

Not quite old enough for a learner’s permit (Up Here it’s a G1) during the earlier capers.

Ivy Collins: 19 during the Donuts/Poitiers Capers, 23 by the end.

Zack Collins: 18 during the Donuts/Poitiers Capers, 22 by the end.

Zack is supposed to be around a year younger than Ivy.

Nakamura Suhara/Shadowsan: 23 when sent after Dexter Wolfe, 42 during the Poitiers Caper, 46 by the end.

Young but not too young, as it were.

VILE

Eartha McGlynn/Coach Brunt: 39 upon receiving Black Sheep, 58 during the Poitiers Caper, 61 when arrested, 63 by the end.

Gunnar Stromme/Professor Maelstrom: 37 upon receiving Black Sheep, 56 during the Poitiers Caper, 60 when arrested, 62 by the end.

Oluchi Cleopatra Okorie/Countess Cleo: 26 upon receiving Black Sheep, 45 during the Poitiers Caper, 49 when arrested, 51 by the end.

Saira Dhibar/Doctor Bellum: 33 upon receiving Black Sheep, 54 during the Poitiers Caper, 58 when arrested, 60 by the end.

Sir Nigel Braithwaite/Roundabout: 56 when appointed, 57 when arrested, 59 by the end.

Margherita Picasso/Cookie Booker: 54 when first pelted, 62 when the Hard Drive was stolen, 67 by the end.

Vlad Bobinski: 28 upon receiving Black Sheep, 45 upon letting Black Sheep get away, 50 by the end.

Boris Vladinski: 27 upon receiving Black Sheep, 44 while watching Vlad let Black Sheep get away, 49 by the end.

They may be slightly younger or older, but at least Coach Brunt’s age seems to have been confirmed at 60 by the time of the Fourth Season.

Graham Calloway/Gray/Crackle: 18 starting at VILE, 20 during the Poitiers Caper, 24 by the end.

Jean-Paul Marignan/Le Chèvre: 19 starting at VILE, 21 during the Poitiers Caper, 25 by the end.

Antonio Sánchez/El Topo: 18/19 starting at VILE, 20/21 during the Poitiers Caper, 24/25 by the end.

Sheena Landry/Tigress: 18 starting at VILE, 20 during the Poitiers Caper, 23 when arrested, 24 by the end.

Parker Morris/Mime Bomb: 18 starting at VILE, 20 during the Poitiers Caper, 23 when arrested, 25 by the end.

Sawa Jin/Paper Star: 17 starting at VILE, 18 during the Magna Carta Caper, 22 when arrested at the end.

ACME

Tamara Fraser/Chief: 26 when killing Dexter Wolfe, 45 during the Poitiers Caper, 49 when arresting VILE, 51 by the end.

Inspector/Agent Chase Devineaux: 37 during the Poitiers Caper, 38/39 when arresting VILE, 41 by the end.

Agent Julia Argent: 25 during the Poitiers Caper, 27 when arresting VILE, 29 by the end.

This is going to cause some trouble, I just know it. But the average amount of time it takes to get a university degree in the UK is around three years, and Julia has two of them. She also seems to have jumped right to an associate professorship at Oxford in Season 3, the requirements for which are around 4-6 years of study plus a thesis. Thus Julia would have had to have been in school for at least something like seven to nine years before joining Interpol, with whom she had apparently only been for a fortnight before the Poitiers Caper. The number above assumes that she skipped a year and took a year less to complete her second degree. Or took two years less. Or started two years early. You get my point. Basically, Julia has to be a fair bit older than she looks in order to actually have the qualifications she possesses.

Agent Umaira Zari: 38 during the Poitiers Caper, 40 when arresting VILE, 42 by the end.

Some additional ages:

Nakamura Hideo: 17 when his brother Suhara was born, 36 when his brother disappeared, 63 when his brother returned for good, 65 by the end.

Not an unreasonable age given his looks, I thought.

Carlotta Valdez: 27 when she gave birth to Isabela, 47 when Carmen returned home to her, 49 by the end.

Young but not too long, once again.

Any I missed?

98 notes · View notes

onmytape · 10 months

Text

Colton Dach on the Showbound Podcast

spending the summer doing shoulder rehab from his injury and working on getting “stronger” and “faster”. and went back to kelowna after the mem cup to pack up his stuff because he didn’t have a chance after being traded to seattle at the wjc

his grade 9 bantam team only lost two games all year (with zellweger, guenther, savoie?) he and some of his teammates skipped school on 2018 whl draft day because they knew they were getting picked high

on playing with kirby in saskatoon: “it would’ve been nice if he didn’t make the show at 18 so i could’ve played with him there [longer]”

took him 30 games to score his first whl goal. “wasn’t very positive” with himself

names Tristen Robins ("offensive weapon”) and Kyle Crnkovic as memorable players on the blades

When asked if he thinks the dub is the toughest league in the chl: “i played against the other two [at the mem cup] and going into it we’re like okay we’re just going to bully these kids, we’re just going to run them out of the rink and i’ll give it to the quebec team. Was probably the hardest, toughest guys to play against.”

One of his teammates tried to look up the fights of the ohl players before the mem cup and (because of the limits of fighting in the league) couldn’t find anything to study and gave up.

“Growing up I was always a feisty kid and I always thought when I get to the dub I'll be able to handle myself” first dub fight at 16 against a 20 year old. lost horribly.

Kirby spoiled that colton was getting drafted by chicago because he told one of their friends to grab the hawks hat after getting a text from someone in chicago’s management before the pick was announced.

Thought he was going to st. louis because he had the most conversations with them before the draft

Montreal asked him which animal he’d be and he answered grizzly bear “bigger guy, not so fast but physical” and at the end of the conversation one of the montreal guys said “i don’t think you’re a bear” Guenther and Zellweger were present at the zoom call. “Zellweger said he’d be a wolf or a predator or something like that”

Colton found out he was traded to kelowna while he was in chicago with kirby driving to the rink and duncan keith called kirby and told them colton was traded to kel before either of them knew

About kelowna: “they were great guys. It was awesome. Still best friends with a lot of them.”

Kirby’s trying to sell colton his car so he can buy a new one. Colton doesn’t want to show up to camp without having played a single pro game with a g wagon.

He was roommates with reid schaefer at the world juniors. Their room faced the hotel exit so they anxiously watched guys leave as they didn’t make the cut. Schaefer got a call that his car was being towed in seattle and Colton’s dad kept calling to ask if he had made the team yet. The phone calls made them think they were getting cut.

Didn’t have high expectations because he was told during a meeting “just to let you know you're not here because of your play this season so far, you're here because what you did in the summer at our camp”

When asked what happens when they cut one roommate and keep the other - during the 2022 summer wjc zack ostapchuk and his roommate were told to pack their stuff and it wasn’t until the roommate had already left and ostapchuk was about to leave that they told him he wasn’t actually cut

After losing to czechia nobody on the team talked until the next afternoon. Captain shane wright didn't let the team play sewer ball before the next game so they would focus better

About bedard: good ping pong player. Colton mentions coach chippy’s videos about bedard’s wrist curls

Almost got kicked out of the media box during bedard’s ot winner vs slovakia because he was being too loud and banging on the desk while the staff was trying to work

On the playoffs: played kelowna first, says his ex teammates knew how to trigger him on the ice and chirped him with inside stuff when he skated by the bench

Calls guenther the “powerhouse” during playoffs

After guenther met crosby he texted colton on instagram and colton was like “i hate you so much right now”

After being drafted to chicago colton got a text from kane to congratulate him and made some comment about getting the “better dach”

Calls seattle thunderbirds fans “unreal”

“one funny story actually after we won, you know, boys did their laps with the trophy and take the team photos, two of the guys went out to the parking lot to get the coolers of beer and drinks so you know the guys can have some fun in the dressing room and they get locked out and because we're in the states it's 21 you know like you can't - they're not supposed to drink - right yeah, everyone's under 20. the commissioner is walking by and he's the one who told everyone that we can't drink or something like that in the room. the commissioner walks by outside these guys are stuck outside sitting on the cooler drinking beer. in full gear as well. just sitting there and he comes up shakes her hands says congrats and walks away. it was pretty funny”

“Partied friday night, saturday, sunday, skated monday/tuesday” after winning the whl champs

After they got back on the bus after losing the mem cup, the team was dejected and crnkovic stood up and yelled “we’re still champs” to rile the boys up again

considers himself “grumpy in the mornings”

crnkovic is the funniest guy on the thunderbirds but the worst chirper. colton considers himself the biggest chirper.

Saunders is best dressed, crnkovic is the worst and can’t tie a tie.

says Ciona is most likely to be a coach when they’re done playing “lot of patience” “good leader”

"Stranded on an island for a month with three seattle thunderbirds?" “Bryce pickford for sure. He would know how to handle a situation out there. Maybe Milic. You know if he brings his guitar he can sing some songs out there so that’d be nice. Maybe gunner (Guenther). Just get some laughs out there. Create some chaos. He was my roommate so it was pretty funny.”

“Any funny coach stories?” “I wouldn’t say it’s really funny it’s kind of awkward. So in kelowna last year we had to put one of our dogs down and my mom called me and told me that the night before and I go to practice the next day and I told one guy on the team and everyone's skating around it's kind of, everyone's not talking, just a quiet day and the coach comes in he's like what? what the hell? like did someone's dog die last night? and oh you know I just I sat there I'm like oh no wiping my eyes. one of the guys comes up to me gives me a hug and he's like, "yeah Colton's dog.”'

about bedard and media: “I always went behind him on the bus [at wj] so I can get a little extra air time on TV” “no he’s definitely, he does really good with that stuff. He’s very well media trained”

On seeing kirby: they call after every game, don’t always talk about hockey. Call each other on off days to play video games. Colton went to montreal for kirby’s bday for a week while his shoulder was separated. “That was pretty special. I haven’t really got to watch him play since he’s been in Saskatoon.”

(jun 25th, 2023)

#colton dach #seattle thunderbirds #chicago blackhawks #showbound podcast

35 notes · View notes

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 month

Text

My journey through gender equality advocacy has been one of two starkly different halves.

When I tell people about my support of women, I do so to more or less exclusive approval and applause. The stories of standing up to cat callers and to confronting misogynists are warmly welcomed; my time spent homeless in London raising money for vulnerable women, a proud feather in my hat.

And whilst it’s not why I did these things, I can’t help but noticed how it’s made me socially, intellectually and dare I say it, sexually, more attractive.

Then I move onto part two. I’ll talk about boys failing in school, the unique criminalisation of gay men historically, the abysmal male life expectency, or the abused men shut out from refuges, and suddenly the situation changes.

The environment runs cold, smiles are wiped from faces, and nodding heads grow stiff.

Often outage and condemnation follows. To them I’ve fallen down some kind of rabbit hole. My views are problematic. Ignorant. And somehow misogynistic.

People, even my own family, will protest and leave the room. “King of the Incels!” or “Z List Jordan Peterson” I am called. I’m always left wondering why I am the subject of such colourful language, for simply making my views consistent and my compassion complete?

And so the transformation is complete. The face of compassion, warmth and approval, has become the face of ignorance, coldness and stupidity.

It is, in my eyes, the ugly side of equality.

The male side; of snails and puppy dog tails, of lazy and obtuse catchphrases and victim blaming mentality. Toxic this, and patriarchy that, and privilege sprinted on top. Yawn.

So how has your journey into the ugly side of equality played out?

And why do so many progressives forsake their own beliefs, compassion and virtue so quickly?

Sources:

Telegraph Article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/11/16/boys-left-fail-school-attempts-help-earn-wrath-feminists-says/

Dr Farrell Protest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiRasOrIoYQ

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/13/girls-overtake-boys-in-a-level-and-gcse-maths-so-are-they-smarter

The activists don't care about this. They don't care about people. They care only about imposing their ideology onto everyone. You can tell from the girl who says "feminist spaces" should be used to talk about mental health. You're not allowed to talk about any real issue or problem without applying their corrupt, fraudulent ideological framework, in order to produce false, ideologically acceptable answers. Such as that suicide is caused by "the patriarchy" or "toxic masculinity." They'll literally attempt to stop you and call you a bigot if you try.

This is analogous to how believers will say that famine or disease are the result of "sin" or are "god's punishment," rather than non-fictional, actual real-world causes.

P.S. I absolutely detest how quasi-therapeutic language like "spaces" has leaked out into the everyday language of these ideologues.

#The Tin Men #gender equality #equality #education #hypocrisy #western feminism #systemic bias #misandry #it was never about compassion #religion is a mental illness

9 notes · View notes

2headed-disaster · 1 year

Note

please I'm new here, I want to hear all of your stories!!!

Ok, so I'm assuming this is in reference to the dick trick of '18 lol. If I'm being honest, it was before I got into the penguins, but it is well documented on youtube because the little shit was mic'd up during the game!!

So, brief intro, the pens were playing the flyers in the first round of playoffs in 2018. They lead the series 3-2, so a win would send them to the next round. Well, this game was in philly and got off to kind of a rough start.

THEN

I'm not sure what claude giroux actually did, but whatever he did made Jake say "last time you did that, I scored, so..." to which claude responded "you just fucking jinxed it" and our golden sunny child of chaos LAUGHED and PROCEEDED to SCORE!

Makes his way back to the line of scrimmage where giroux is and says "I TOLD YOU NOT TO"

?!?!?!!?

OUR NICE MIDWESTERN BOY!!

Then, another pens player scores and he AGAIN goes to Claude and says, "you woke us up"

LITTLE GUMBY BOY LAYING ON THE SASS!!

He scores ANOTHER goal, and skates smoothly away saying "that's two!" DAMN SIR

SCORES A HAT TRICK!! RIGHT IN FRONT OF A DISMAYED CLAUDE!! AND SAYS "That's three!!"

And then, of course, he scores a fourth goal. Dick trick for baby Jake. Final score, 8-5. Jake scored half the goals of the team lol.

If there's one thing you can say about that little string bean is he has never been afraid to fuck around and find out. He will skate around your team with his oh so punchable face and embarrass you so badly, you will fire your head coach.

Also, he's sidney's son, and he will commit first degree murder to defend him. My personal favorite is when Jake is pulled out of a scrum and his face looks exactly like this: :)

Anyways, if you'd like to see bean pole Jake Guentzel terrorizing the flyers in the playoffs, this is the best video I've been able to find.

Enjoy!!

#jake guentzel #his papa sidney passed him on many things #a thirst for flyer blood is definitely one of them hahaha

58 notes · View notes

eliounora · 1 month

Note

in light of your latest rb, what is your preferred production of jesus christ superstar?? i've yet to see any but want to have fun with everyone & trust your taste on this :) ty in advance and also! i really love your art ^__^

you have come to the right neighbourhood... *puts on my pharisees hat* I am so happy to answer this question

I recommend you start with the 1996 west end revival (spotify, youtube). the insrumentation is great, the quality of the recording is crisp, and the performers are top-notch. steve balsamo as jesus is definitely the star of this one, his voice is very light and pure but he also portrays the character's inner conflict magnificently.

for comparison, there is also the original 1971 broadway cast recording (spotify, youtube). this is one of my favourite versions!

here is also the original 1972 west end production (youtube). also excellent!!!

if you actually want something to watch, there is the 1973 film (spotify, youtube, I think the film can be rented on YT as well, I borrowed the DVD from my local library haha). the film also has a magnificent cast, many people consider ted neeley the best jesus ever and he has an unique take on the role and a gorgeous voice. carl anderson as judas is also just superb. I think the best word to decribe this version is "raw", it's really haunting.

the original 1970 concept album (spotify, youtube) with ian gillan of deep purple as jesus and murray head as judas is also a must-listen! both singers are just divine, both their performances easily hold up against newer productions with ease, they're just divine.

there is also the 2000 film, watchable on youtube (the album on spotify). jerome pradon plays judas and he is absolutely glorious at it. dude is going absolutely off the rails and his voice is so whiny and he's so deliciously vindicative in the end. I've gotten the impression his performance can be sort of hit-or-miss, but I really like it!

for something more recent, there's also the 2012 arena tour (youtube) with ben forster as jesus and the legendary tim minchin as judas. a lot of people like this one, and while I personally don't like it much, maybe you will! there is also the 2018 live in concert (spotify, youtube). a solid, good production I think.

now I think every song in JCS is a solid banger, but good songs to look out for when listening is

heaven on their minds, sung by judas

everything's alright, sung primarily by mary (in many of the early productions, like the original concept album and the film, mary is played by yvonne elliman) while judas and jesus argue

this jesus must die, includes caiaphas, who has a bass voice, and annas

pilate's dream

I don't know how to love him, mary's ballad

gethsemane (I only wanted to say), jesus's power ballad. look out for his high note at "why should I die" (awesome compilation here)

king herod's song

superstar, judas questioning jesus from beyond the grave

good luck to you superstaring!!! I'm very normal about this musical

#thank you so much for asking and liking my art!!!

12 notes · View notes

wishful-soda · 2 years

Text

Speak of the Devil : Chapter Fifteen

Daniel Ricciardo x Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.7k

A/N: Good lord. This was not supposed to be this long. BUT I'm so excited to hear what you all think of this chapter because OH MAN. I love all of you so much and appreciate you more than you could know. Thank you for being my ride or dies 🥰😘

Playlist

Masterlist

Chapter Fifteen - Backwards hat Danny

July 8th 2018

It was really great when Max won a race. You loved it, you were proud of him and the celebrations to follow were always epic. When Daniel won a race, it was usually the opposite. Just a lot of the cocky Australian strutting around and drinking until his booming laugh was impossibly loud.

However; it was really great when neither of the Red Bull boys won. You’d never say that out loud of course or let anyone know you felt that way because it was something that would be really hard to explain to someone who wasn’t in your shoes.

Max and Daniel got along really well. They clicked almost instantly in 2016 when they first became teammates and even the feud between you and the senior teammate couldn’t keep them from being buddies. They had always done an incredible job at leaving it all on the track and bouncing right back to being friends.

That was, until this season. It started that way, but it spirialed and got complicated so quickly. Both men were trying to prove they deserved more support and better strategy from the team, that they should be lead driver, that they deserved a seat over the other, should it ever come down to that.

Until very recently, you were always on Max’s side without any wavering or doubt. You were still on his side of course, he was your best friend and family, but now when he won and Daniel had a shit result it felt….weird. Hard to balance. The same went for if Daniel did well. You felt a weird obligation to Max and a duty to be absolutely anything but happy for him.

But tonight, with no obligation to be happy for anyone, you felt at ease. Away from the paddock, hotels, team trailers and media, you got to have some ‘real life’ outside of the F1 circus. And with Daniel and Max seemingly getting along great, you could really let your hair down and have a good time.

And god knows you needed it after the way things had gone lately,

When Max had knocked on the door and tried to come in the morning after Daniel slept in your room, you had floundered and told him he couldn’t and lied about Charles being there.

This led to Max calling out to Charles, the idiot thinking he was being so hilarious of course, and what did Daniel do? Stay absolutely quiet like any logical person in his situation would?

Of course not. He instead completely butchered a Charles impression so horribly that you wondered if Daniel had ever actually heard Charles speak.

You played it off as if Charles was just really hungover or drunk and then had to scramble to tell Charles to act really hungover when he ran into Max.

Which left Charles just the slightest bit annoyed, you on edge, and Daniel cocky and feeling like you were proving him right when he said this was a bad idea.

The next few days passed in a blur of practices, qualifying. Any time Max didn’t need you was spent hanging around Charles in public, taking him water, doing other ‘girlfriend’ type tasks, you were starting to feel like you were getting the hang of the role and a sliver of confidence in your plan came back.

That was, until you made eye contact with Grace Ricciardo while fully sitting on Charles lap after qualifying. You had forgotten that Daniel’s family would be there and that they always came up for Silverstone.

The expression ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed’ was the only way you could think to describe the look on Daniel’s mothers face as it clicked and she realized what your canoodling with the Monegasque meant.

And everyone knows, disappointment always hurts so much more than anger. You had wished she’d slap you in that moment, that would have felt better that the pit in your stomach. You had wanted to badly to go over and explain to her, but what would you say? ‘Don’t worry, I’m not actually dating him, I’m using him as a cover because I don’t want anyone to know that I’m fucking your son casually.’? And then you could just simply explain why you didn’t want to date her son because mom’s love to hear that right? So you couldn’t do anything but sit there, feeling just as disappointed in yourself as she did.

So yeah, this evening you really needed a break from the stress and to let go and you were thrilled that neither Max or Daniel winning or getting a podium meant one less thing to worry about.

When you got an invite to a karaoke bar (Checo’s idea you were sure…) it was Max who wouldn’t take no for an answer. You weren’t protesting much, but still Max said you and Charles were coming along before he’d really even asked if you wanted to.

And still, despite all of the fun and partying that was going on around you, all you could think about was how disappointed Grace had looked and the slight shake of her head as she turned and walked away. You kept telling yourself that you weren’t going to think about it anymore and then you’d spend the next 30 minutes trying to come up with some way to mend the relationship with her, maybe a way to explain to her that you were still good friends with Daniel.

Still good friends, who am I kidding… You thought to yourself as you let out a heavy sigh. We have never been good friends.

You wanted to ask Daniel if his mum had mentioned anything, but you weren’t sure exactly how to do that either without giving away just how much you cared about his family, his mother in particular, liking you. You also hadn’t even seen much more than glimpses of Daniel since he showed up and disappeared to get drinks with Max, Michael and Blake.

You were snapped out of your thoughts by Charles plopping down next to you, his arm automatically around you like it was second nature. You weren’t ever sure if you’d get used to it..

“You look miserable.” Charles laughed, a laid back smile on his face. “Was it Living On A Prayer?” he gestured to the stage as Pierre exited.

“I’m not!” You lied. “ And if I was, why would that be funny?”

“I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at the fact that you’re so determined to be miserable and stressed that even now, surrounded by friends, you’re working on it.” He chuckled.

“Excuse you, I am not ‘working on being miserable’.” You pouted. “You make it sound like I’m terrible to be around, I’m fun.”

“You are.” His hand resting on your shoulder gave a squeeze. “But are you honestly trying to tell me you are fun right now?” he ducked his head to meet your eyes, breaking your intense stare with your lap.

He was right and you knew it.

“Fine, you’re right.” You huffed, rolling your eyes. “I’m trying to stop thinking so much and have fun, I swear…”

Charles grinned in victory and squeezed you again before hopping up to standing.

“I’ll get you a drink?” He raised an eyebrow. “And put your name down for a song!” he called the latter part only when he was far enough away that he wouldn’t hear your protests.

Charles really did consider himself one of your close friends. He had known you almost as long as Max had and the two of you had often ended up hanging out at parties or events without even trying to. He was just comfortable around you and felt he knew you much more than most, excluding Max, of course.

Which is why he knew exactly who could pull you out of your mood. He wouldn’t go as far as to say cheer you up, but at least change your apathetic pout into something more lively. Thankfully, he found that someone without even trying.

“Are you two going to talk to anyone else or is this strictly a Daniel and Max date?” Charles teased as he stepped up to the bar. Daniel turned from where he stood with his back to Charles’ so he was leaning back against the bar, his elbows resting on the bartop behind him.

“Are you jealous?” Daniel asked, causing Max to cackle.

Charles tried to assess his demeanor. He still wasn’t sure where he stood with your enemy with benefits. Even though Daniel had said it was fine, something told Charles that he still wasn’t on good terms with him.

“Not in the slightest.” Charles laughed. “I’m having plenty of my own fun.” He shot Daniel a smirk and nodded his head in the direction of where you sat. Daniel glanced over at you and when he looked back at Charles, he knew his plan had worked. He’d have to go over and talk to you now, the idea of Charles having fun with you would be too much for him to take.

He pretended not to notice and leaned over the bar, ordering a drink for you. As soon as he spoke, Daniel’s mouth pulled into a smirk. Charles didn’t know where or how he went wrong, but knew he was fucked.

He immediately tried to think of a better way to tell Daniel to just go talk to you without saying it point blank in front of Max.

When he heard your name, he blinked, realizing Daniel had been asking him something. Daniel repeated his question.

Is the drink for you…Why does this feel like a trap? He thought, desperately trying to figure out what the cocky smirk Daniel was sporting was getting at.

As the glass was slid over the counter to Charles, both he and Daniel eyed it, but didn’t speak. Daniel simply raised a brow in question.

“Are you buying a drink for another girl?” Max suddenly blurted in.

“What? No!” Charles shook his head. Is that what Daniel was trying to do? Make him look bad in front of Max?

“Then why are you being so fucking weird man? If you’re worried about drinking girly drinks no one gives a shit.”

“I’m not being weird, Daniel is. I’m just getting my girlfriend a drink.” Charles narrowed his eyes at Daniel.

“Maybe some people don’t recognize when someone is doing a favor for them…” he lowered his voice, hoping Daniel caught his meaning and backed off. Charles was literally helping the two of you and Dan had yet to even seem grateful.

“I’m not being weird at all mate.” Daniel’s smirk remained firm. “I was just wondering why you’d order her a drink with cherries in it, considering she’s allergic to cherries.”

Fuck. God fucking damnit. Charles wasn’t a violent person, but he wouldn’t object to smacking Daniel right now.

Max glanced at the drink and then at Daniel and then finally at Charles, his brows pulled together in confusion.

“That’s actually a good point, that’ll kill her.” Max pointed to the glass.

“How does her boyfriend not know something crucial like that?” Daniel hummed, feigning a concentrated look of deep thought.

“What are you trying to prove Daniel?” Charles questioned, not even the slightest bit of friendliness in his tone. “That you’re more obsessed with her than I am? Okay you win.”

He was getting tired of Daniel’s bullshit. Getting tired of Daniel not seeing that he was helping you and Daniel without getting anything in return, simply because he cared about you.

And to think he was initially trying to send Daniel your way to cheer you up….He really wasn’t sure if he’d ever understand the two of you’s relationship.

Charles wasn’t interested in arguing with Daniel, the startled expression on his face gave him enough satisfaction to turn away from him and order you a new drink.

“Ooooooh.” Max laughed, elbowing Daniel in the ribs. “That backfired.”

“What backfired? I was simply proving a point.” Daniel griped.

“What point?” Max continued to laugh at his friend’s grumpiness.

“That they’re a shit couple and no one thinks they’re good together.”

“Jesus Christ Daniel!” Max gasped, neither of them expecting such a blunt and intense answer, and then burst into laughter again. “No one thinks that but you! What is fucking wrong with you mate?” he cackled.

Charles tried not to grin, but he couldn’t help it.

When you saw that goddamn smirk, you knew Charles was in trouble.

Holy shit, what is his problem? You shook your head in disbelief. You’d hoped Daniel would be better than at dinner once he knew that the ‘thing’ between you and Charles was fake, but clearly, that was not the case. His idea of “going along with it” and yours were obviously very different.

When Charles finally flopped down next to you again, he drank the drink in his hand impossibly fast. You assumed that it was for you, but you weren’t about to complain, it seemed he needed it much more than you.

“What did he do?” You asked.

“I ordered you a drink and he asked if it was for you. And I felt like it was a trap!” Charles sat up straight and threw his hands up. “I knew it was a trap and I still got trapped!!”

“I don’t understand, more words please Charl”

“I said it was for you and he said- do you know what he said to me? You won’t believe it, in front of Max! On purpose! To make me look stupid!”

“I promise you I will believe it, sounds like Dan…” You sighed.

“He said ‘I was just wondering why you ordered her a cherry drink when she’s allergic to cherries’” He mimicked Daniel’s voice and accent and you couldn’t decide who’s impression of the other was worse.

“Shit. I should have told you that.” You hissed, shaking your head.

“What the fuck is he doing? Why is he still trying to prove he owns you or something? “

“He’s just being a dick. He’ll stop if he realizes he can’t get to you anymore.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

You frowned and didn’t speak, thinking about what you’d just said.

“He’ll stop if he realizes he can’t get to you anymore. Have I not been saying that to you about him for the past two goddamn years?!” Charles tone expressed how exhausted he was by you and the situation and you had to admit, you felt pretty horrible for dragging him into it.

“You didn’t know I’m allergic to cherries? You’ve known me for like an appropriate amount of time to know what kills me.” You said flatly.

“That’s the problem?! Yes, my dear, the problem is not that he’s an asshole, it’s that I was unaware of your fruit allergy…” He paused and then frowned with uncertainty. “Cherries are fruit, yes?”

You burst into laughter. You didn’t mean to laugh at his question, it was just so…Charles of him.

You leaned into him and wrapped your arms around him, giving him a comforting squeeze. You felt him tense under your touch.

“I appreciate what you’re doing for me.” You said sincerely. “Just be Charles you were at the dinner a few nights ago.”

“Hmm?” He looked down at you.

“Y’know when you called him out on being jealous and didn’t back down. He’s not used to that.”

“You mean when he said I was dating you to put myself on the map and then fingered you under the table?” Charles scoffed.

You felt your cheeks heat instantly. You didn’t think he knew about that…

“He made it pretty clear what happened.” Charles read your mind and answered your question.

You were going to ream Daniel out the next time the two of you were alone…

Charles was silent for a moment, you saw his eyes darting about as he was lost in thought.

“Fuck this”

You blinked in surprise. Was he bailing?

“I’m not too nice for this.” He shook his head, his eyes suddenly holding a determination. “I made an agreement with you as a friend and I’m going to hold to that.”

You let go of your grip on him and sat back, trying to gauge if he was being serious. Who said he was too nice?

“With your permission, I’d like to give him a taste of his own medicine.” Charles looked you dead in the eyes.

“Um. What exactly does that mean?”

“It means I’m not going to let him make me look bad anymore. Or make you look bad. Or…us” He gestured between the two of you. “We’re going to get drunk and have fun because I’m the one who can get drunk and have fun with you in public. Perks of the job.”

You thought for a moment, trying to determine if this was another bad idea that you would look back on and hate yourself for, but there was something about giving Daniel a taste of his own medicine that you just couldn’t resist. If he had just backed off and was civil with Charles, maybe you would have declined. But still, he continued to make things more difficult.

“Okay, su-”

You were cut off by Charles' lips on the corner of your mouth, the gesture shocking you more than you thought it would. In all your “pretending” you’d managed to avoid having to actually kiss him, the PDA didn’t go much further than touches.

His hand wrapped around your waist and pulled you into him, the kiss was tender and affectionate. You had to hand it to Charles, he was proving something without being over the top.

You were startled by Daniel all but throwing himself down next to you.

“Did Charles tell you he almost killed you?” Daniel inserted himself into the conversation, knocking his knee against your thigh to get your attention.

“He did, actually.” You quipped back immediately, your tone sharp, whirling on him only to be met with the awareness that he was wearing his stupid hat backwards and smiling at you like he’d been waiting all night to see you, his outstretched hand holding a drink. You cocked your head to the side, trying to figure out what the hell he was going for here.

“Just take it.” Daniel rolled his eyes, wiggling the glass slightly so the ice clinked. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“But are you though?” You took the drink from him cautiously. “Why are you even over here, already out of people that can stand you so you have to bother the people who can’t?”

“Nah, I thought I’d come see what was so funny.” He said. You could tell he was trying to come off causally, but when his gaze caught on Charles’ arm around your waist and his fingers tracing circles on your upper thigh, you saw a muscle in his jaw flicker.

Charles must’ve seen it too because the next circle, he drug his fingers dangerously high.

Your whole body tensed. You were too sober for this.

“If you came all the way over here to ask what we were laughing about then Max must’ve really been boring you.” Charles sounded amused.

You could tell this further irked Daniel, but he forced a smile.

“Daniel insisted he bring you a drink.” Max interjected from across the table of your smooth booth. He gave you a look that read ‘can you believe that?

You glanced down at the drink Daniel brought you, trying to tell what it was just by optics, but when you couldn’t you gave in and took a drink.

“Good lord, that’s strong!” You tried not to pull a face but you couldn’t help it, it tasted like pure tequila and ice. “What is that, pure tequila?”

Daniel grinned wildly and knocked his knee against you again.

“You looked pretty grumpy over here, I’m doing my mate a favor.” He nodded towards Charles.

“Yes, I’m sure that was the motivating factor…” Charles said sarcastically, you could practically hear his eye roll.

“Is that a hickey?!” Max blurted in again, squinting at your neck from where he sat.

Your hand slapped to cover your neck, a sheepish expression on your face. It had been several days since Daniel had given it to you and you had been covering it heavily with makeup, but it had been a long day and you’d probably sweated or rubbed off what was there.

“How did you even see it?! It’s barely even there anymore…” You growled at Max, narrowing your eyes at him. Charles sat up, leaning over you to look at the side of your neck. He was schooling his expression to remain neutral.

“It’s dark purple, I think everyone can see it.” Max laughed.

“Only when you’re pointing it out!” You hissed.

“It’s pretty big.” Daniel agreed, a sinister grin on his face as Charles yanked your hand from your neck to observe it.

“I must have lost my mind for a moment and forgot that leaving a hickey like that in a spot where everyone can see it, is a bit of a childish attempt to mark my territory.” Charles spoke every word with his eyes locked on Daniel’s.

“People get carried away in really passionate, intense moments.” Daniel shrugged and kept eye contact with Charles. It started to feel like two kids in a staring competition.

Charles was about to bite back at Daniel when Max pointed to the two of you as he spoke. “I haven’t so much as seen the two of you kiss and she’s got hickies?”

Oh no. Your gut dropped. You knew where this was headed, you could feel it. You knew tipsy Max too well.

“We keep it classy in public Max.” You forced a smile and then took another giant swig of your drink. Charles nodded next to you. His eyes flickered to yours for a millisecond and the determination there made you swallow thickly.

“That’s fine, I’m just saying so far you seem like friends who sometimes hold hands.” Max shrugged.

“What?” Charles sounded disappointed.

“He’s just trying to start something.” You shot Max a glare and he laughed.

You looked over at Charles and you could see him connecting the dots.

“Get there faster…” You whispered, keeping your mouth in a straight line.

Charles’ eyes snapped to yours, they were wide and full of panic when he finally realized where this was leading.

“I’m just messing with you, I don’t care if your relationship has passion or not!”

“Max!” You scolded. You didn’t have to look over to Daniel to know he was loving this, a cocky grin on his face. You clenched your hands into fists. “Since you’re being a dick, next round is on you” you pointed towards the bar, banishing Max to go.

“Fine.” Max held his hands up and then slunk off to fetch the next round of drinks.

Once he was out of earshot, you whirled on Daniel.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” You shoved on his shoulder.

“I’m not doing anything! That was all Max, why are you mad at me?” He rubbed his shoulder dramatically like you’d injured him.

“And it was Max who threw me under the bus with the cherry incident?” Charles demanded.

“I’m sorry I didn’t want you to kill her.” Daniel sat up straighter, meeting Charles tone.

“When I brought it back to her, she would have seen the cherries and then she would have told me.”

“He has a point.” You nodded.

“Well I’m not the one being completely over the top with my role.” Daniel gestured to Charles wildly.

“Okay, now is not the time for this.” You put a hand on each of their chests, symbolically breaking it up. “Dan, stop trying to make Charles look like an ass, in case you forgot, he’s helping us.”

“Yeah, sure he is…” Daniel scoffed.

“What do you mean by that?” Charles looked like he was being pushed closer and closer to the edge.

“You’re obviously getting something out of it.” Daniel said flatly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it.”

“You’re right, I am.” Charles countered. “I’m getting humiliated over and over.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t like touching her, holding her on your lap, your hands are always all over her.” Daniel waved his hands towards your body.

“And if I do enjoy it?” Charles pulled the corner of his mouth up into a smirk. You blinked in shock.

“What.” Daniel snapped, obviously not expecting that to be Charles’ response either.

“What if I do enjoy having my hands on her?”

Daniel sat up fully, his jaw clenched so tight, rage flickering in his eyes.

“He isn’t saying that.” You tried to deescalate the situation, knowing Max could return at any moment or anyone else could pick up on what was happening and the entire plan would be shot to shit. “You aren’t saying that…right?” You directed your question to Charles, warning in your tone.

“It shouldn’t matter to Daniel whether or not I do.” Charles slung an arm around your shoulder. “He can’t be jealous. You aren’t his girlfriend. You aren’t his anything.” You heard the challenge in Charles’ voice and your stomach flipped. He was right.

You looked to Daniel nervously, unsure of how he would respond.

Daniel looked like he was choosing what he was going to say next very carefully, which put you even more on the edge of your seat. Your fingernails dug into the palms of your hands.

“Not enjoying sharing and being jealous are two completely different things. You have the two confused.”

You were surprised by how close to home his words landed. He seemed to drop reminders that you weren’t anything to him besides a fuckbuddy often and to be honest, you were getting tired of them.

“Alright mate. Got it.” Charles’ tone was full of so much arrogance that if it weren’t for the accent, you would have thought it was Daniel speaking. As if to prove a point, Charles moved his other hand to your thigh. He placed it delicately enough that you knew that even though you’d given him permission, he was still nervous about crossing the line.

Daniel watched the gesture, how it seemed blatant and not just for sure and it riled something in him. He leaned over you to get closer to Charles and you held your breath, leaning back against the cushion of the booth to try and remove yourself as much as possible.

“Next time you’re feeling really cocky about being the one that gets to put their hands all over her, remember that I’m the one that gets to be inside her.” Daniel said the words with an effortless smile on his face.

Your mouth actually dropped open. You felt like someone had just set a match to you, his words made your body go up in flames so fast you didn’t know how you’d keep the two men from noticing. The confidence on his face should have made you sick. It should have made you want to shove him onto the ground and go enjoy a night out with your friends.

But no. All it did was make you think of him in that backwards snapchat, kneeling between your thighs.

Daniel’s smile grew when Charles looked like he was scrambling for what to say next.

“SHOTS!” Max’s voice broke the tension and you let out a whoosh of air, unbelievably relieved that this conversation was halted. “How does anyone do karaoke unless they’re shitfaced?”

Before Max had even set down the tray he brought back full of shots and an actual bottle, you were grabbing one of the 44ml glasses and knocking it back. You slammed the glass down and picked up another, repeating the action, trying to douse the fire that Daniel had recklessly started.

Max watched you with amusement in his eyes.

“I would have at least one more of those, your name has been written down on that sheet up there and it seems it was for someone else’s amusement.” He remarked, jerking his head towards the karaoke stage.

Great.

Daniel wasn’t sure what exactly came over him when he saw you with Charles. He didn’t plan on being a dick and trying to make Charles look like an ass, but when he saw you laughing, really laughing with Charles, his jealousy took over and his rational brain left the building.

The thing with the cherries was just a coincidence. He really did say something so that you wouldn’t die, but he also reveled in the opportunity to show Charles that he did know you. He was sure Charles thought he was a piece of shit for not stepping up and actually pursuing you, so when he had the chance to show him that there was more than surface level.

Daniel really wanted to take your word for it when you said that everything between you and Charles was fake and he did believe you. But he wasn’t sure if the same could be said from Charles’ side. He was keenly aware of every movement of Charles’ hands.

Now, sitting next to Max, not listening to a word he was saying, and watching you chat and laugh with Charles, Daniel was crawling out of his skin. He thought that knowing he’d be the one who got to fuck you at the end of the night would be enough to keep him content, that the fact that Charles’ could touch you in public wouldn’t hold a candle to the ways he could touch you when the two of you were alone.

He was wrong.

“What are you doing?” Max snapped his fingers in front of Daniel’s face. He was unsure how long his teammate had been trying to get his attention, but based on the look on Max’s face, it had been a while.

“Drinking?” Daniel shrugged, trying to pretend like he didn’t know exactly what Max was referring to.

“You’re jealous or you recently took a vow of abstinence.” Max looked in your direction and then back to Daniel.

“Neither. I just haven’t seen anyone interesting tonight.” He lied.

“It all makes sense now, you know.” Max patted Daniel’s back in a consoling manner. Daniel tensed.

“What’s that?” He feigned aloofness.

“Why you’ve always been such a dick to her. I know I’ve joked in the past about you trying to sleep with her but now I never thought it was really the reason”

Max thinks I hate her because I want her?

Daniel tried to decide how to play this, but it was hard to make any fucking decisions when he had to watch Charles’ grab your ass and lean in to whisper to you.

“Hate to break it to you, but no. I’m not under the same spell she seems to have everyone under.” He was lying through his teeth. He was absolutely under your spell.

“Just fucking admit it man! You haven’t so much as talked to another woman tonight and I’ve been your friend long enough to know that that isn’t normal. You can tell me the truth, I won’t tell her. And I’m sorry she’s with Charles man.”

Now Daniel was really pissed.

“There’s nothing to fucking admit!” He groaned. “And I don’t care that she’s with Charles.”

“You’re LYING” Max didn’t let up.

“You want me to prove it? Prove that I’m not hung up on your BFF?” He wasn’t sure why he said it, but he regretted it as soon as he did.

“Yes, actually that would be nice.” Max grinned with confidence.

“Fine.” Daniel snapped, gulping down the rest of his drink and storming off to find someone to hit on.

He wasn’t serious, he had no intention of fucking anyone tonight but you, but he hated the idea of Max thinking he was sitting around pining over you and moping around because you were dating Charles.

“Max.” You pleaded. “Just tell me what song it is.”

The dutchman laughed, shaking his head.

“I can just go and look at it myself y’know.” you crossed your arms and moved to stand, being blocked by Max before you could even get your feet under you.

“Don’t be a poor sport, It’s a duet.” Max looked like he was enjoying this way too much.

“With who?! Was it you who added it?!” You hissed, smacking his shoulder with the back of your hand in a sweeping motion. “Why do these karaoke nights always turn into people nominating others instead of people volunteering to make a fool of themselves like it's supposed to be?” You groaned.

“Can your boyfriend sing?”

You glanced over to where Charles sat, laughing and enjoying himself and felt a fresh wave of guilt hit you. He really had no idea what he was signing up for, poor guy.

—

Daniel wasn’t sure how long he’d been talking to the girl next to him, but it was long enough. It was torture enough to listen to her drone on about the parties she’d been at recently, but once he heard you laughing, he really was done.

He tried not to be obvious as he watched you, but when Max was clearly enjoying torturing you about something, he felt like his thunder was being stolen.

“Excuse me.” He said, barely giving the girl another glance before making a beeline towards the table. He knew that was one of the ‘douchebag’ moves that you would have given him shit for, but he had a hard time caring.

He was almost back to the group when he pieced together what Max must’ve been torturing you about.

You and Charles were introduced to sing ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’.

He imagined he was in a bad rom com as he watched Charles drag you behind him, seeming like he minded much less than you did.

He needed to know who thought it would be funny or cute to put you and Charles down for a cheesy duet because he needed somewhere to direct his annoyance and disgust.

You were tipsy, bordering on drunk. Daniel didn’t get the opportunity to be around you drunk very often, but when he did, he considered it to be a gift because the sheer amount of laughter that came from you could make anyone happy.

And this moment was no different. The song started and you accepted your fate and started singing with gusto, your voice only breaking when you couldn’t hold the laughter in and Daniel couldn’t look away if he tried. He was reminded of the dinner with his family in Monaco when it was incredibly hard for him to stop admiring and noticing things about you and be in the actual moment.

It was the same now. He was pretty sure Max was talking to him but he couldn’t stop ogling over you being completely fine with making a fool out of yourself because you were having fun. It was so unlike all the other girls who were worried about how they looked at all times and couldn’t ever loosen up for fear of ruining their image.

The only problem with the scene in front of him, however, was the man opposite you. The more he saw you with Charles, the more he was convinced that on Charles’ side, it was real. He touched you with too much ease, like he was used to it, like it was just a habit. He caught you when you stumbled and looked like he enjoyed it. He helped you remember which part was yours to sing, reassuring you with a giant adoring grin.

It really was boyfriend shit. Charles was nailing it. And what’s even worse, he looked like he was just grateful to be cast in the role. And that’s what concerned Daniel.

He started pushing his way through the crowd to get to the stage. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do when he got there, but he couldn’t stand in the back and just watch this disgusting attempt to prove to everyone you two were legitimate.

Your eyes met Daniel’s as the song finally ended, you were beaming, your cheeks pinked and your eyes looking for approval. He did his best to give you a genuine smile. Everyone else in your group stood and cheered, clapping and hollering as the two of you bowed.

And then as you were about to step off the stage, Charles grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you in.

And kissed you.

Daniel felt physically sick. All he could think was the same thought that plagued him when you talked to Max on the plane. He couldn’t tell if you were lying or not. He couldn’t tell if you were excellent at acting, at hiding what you really felt, or if the way you pressed your body against Charles’, the way you gripped his shirt, was because you really wanted to.

You pulled away and broke off the kiss, taking a step backwards when you did.

Charles let go of you and you wobbled, obviously not expecting it, your eyes widening.

Daniel reached out instinctively, before even thinking, and steadied you, his hands on your waist. You spun around and looked up at him.

The way your eyes lit up when you saw his face nearly killed him. You looked genuinely happy to see him and when you were happy, you were even more beautiful than usual. He was ready to have it out with Charles in front of everyone and then suddenly it was impossible to stay angry when you were looking at him like that.

“Danny!” You smiled widely and slung your arms around his neck. “Hi! Did you hear my song?”

“Hi.” Daniel couldn’t help but smile back at you, stifling a laugh. “How’re ya goin’?” He gave you a once over, head to toe, checking in as subtly as he could. Hearing you call him ‘Danny’ triggered a strong impulse to pull you closer to him, one that he fought incredibly hard.

You responded with a giggle and that scrunched up smile again. “I love when you say that, it’s so cute.”

Daniel felt like he was going to explode. You were trying to kill him, he was sure of it.

Charles coughed from behind you, Daniel assumed to remind you of his presence and that you were in public.

“I think you need some water and a sit down yeah?” Daniel chuckled and led you back to the table, Charles in tow.

The more you drank, the more you seemed to forget that Charles was supposed to be your boyfriend and that Daniel was…well he wasn’t supposed to have as much physical contact with you as he currently had. He was fully intent on staying angry about the kiss, but he simply couldn’t when you were being so fun and giggly. He wasn’t used to you being like that when he was around.

He was enjoying simply being in your presence and feeling at ease. He felt like he was catching a glimpse into what it would be like if you and him were friends.

You were sat in between Daniel and Charles again. You kept leaning against Daniel and Charles would reach over and pull you back against him and you’d apologize profusely and then repeat.

“What happened with that girl?” Max asked as Charles once again pulled you back, this time keeping his arm firmly around your waist.

“What girl?” You blurted, straining against Charles’ arm to sit up again to hear better.

“Eh. She wasn’t anything special.” Daniel shrugged.

“Since when does that matter to you?” You laughed, giving up the fight against Charles' arm and relaxing back into his chest, seemingly comfortable. Daniel hated that more than your snarky remark.

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t sleep with anything that moves.” He retorted. There were a million other comebacks he had, all having to do with the fact that you slept with him, but of course, he had to keep them on the shelf.

“Well what was wrong with her? What traits was she missing that you look for?” You asked. You sounded like you were genuinely interested.

Daniel tried to come up with something, but his head felt foggy. All he could focus on was the way Charles kept pulling you back to him.

What the fuck is he trying to prove?

“I dunno.” He shrugged.

You squiggled out of Charles’ grasp for what was probably the 12th time.

“Will you just-” Charles started, reaching out to steady you, but you cut him off.

“I’m fine!” You smacked his hand away and then made a shooing motion. “I appreciate your kindness but I am a strong, independent girl…woman I mean. Lady? No, woman. I am a strong, independent woman.”

Charles chuckled and held his hands up in surrender, but Daniel could tell he was still watching you closely.

You scooted closer to him and your intoxicating scent mixed with tequila fogged his brain.

“Does your mom hate me now?” You looked him dead in the eyes. The question was so out of the blue that it more than caught him off guard.

“What?” He let out a breathy laugh. “Why would she hate you?”

“Because she thinks I’m dating Charles.” You sighed your words out. The second they left your mouth Charles sat up straight from his laid back position in the booth.

“You are dating Charles.” Daniel said gently, trying to urge you with his eyes to realize there were others around. He glanced around the table, relieved that Max was no longer around. Still, Michael and Blake were definitely within ear shot should they decide to want to listen in.

“You didn’t answer my question.” You pouted. “Does she hate me now?”

“Maybe it’s time we head back to the hotel hm?” Charles interjected, grabbing your wrist gently. You pulled away immediately.

“I’m fine Charl.” You said again, your tone still softer than you ever usually spoke to Daniel.

He was getting really fucking tired of him touching you.

“If you’re ready to leave I can make sure she gets back to her room.” His tone was harsher than he meant it to be, it was supposed to sound like a friendly suggestion, but it came off sounding like it wasn’t up for discussion.

“That’s alright, if she wants to stay, I will stay with her.” Charles' hand rested on your lower back. Daniel assumed it was to remind you of his presence, yet again. He’d have to think about what it meant that you kept forgetting Charles was around later, right now he didn’t really have the time, but it still struck him with a little bit of reassurance that it truly was all fake.

And yeah, Daniel knew it was probably wise for Charles to stay, you seemed to have lost your filter a bit and Charles could probably help with damage control, but he could also handle you just fine.

“Mum doesn’t hate you.” Daniel turned his attention back to you. “But if you want her to, I can tell her about all the horrible things you’ve said to me?” He tried to tease you. The way you were looking at him was too real, too honest and it was scaring the shit out of him.

“No!” You exclaimed loudly, leaning closer to him and placing your palm flat on his chest. “Don’t do that.”

Daniel was extremely aware that several people were watching them right now, your loud objection caused heads to turn.

He wanted to have this conversation with you. He wanted to know why you thought his mum hated you and more importantly, why you cared so much.

“Goddamnit.” He mumbled to himself, shaking his head slightly and then clearing his throat.

This was going to kill him.

“Alright, I’ll have to agree with you now.” He spoke to Charles. “If she’s being this nice to me, probably means it’s time for her to hit the hay.” He gestured to your hand, still on his chest. He knew it wasn’t true, he could tell you hadn’t really had that much to drink. You were probably fine to make your own decisions. But he needed this to be over because he couldn’t talk to you like this in front of everyone. It was too intimate and that didn’t happen around other people. It couldn’t either, not just because you were ‘dating’ someone else, but because it wasn’t him and anyone that knew him would call him out in seconds and see through his thinly layered act.

When he lowered his eyes to meet yours and saw the let down in your eyes, it made it even harder. Charles took your hand and you didn’t fight this time as he pulled you up to standing.

“I said I’m fine.” You frowned. “I’m not that drunk, I know what I’m saying. I can’t ask you if your mom hates me or not?”

Daniel looked down at you, his eyes pleading. He wanted you to just go, to drop it.

“I hate you, not Grace.” You said flatly, placing a hand on your hip. “Why can’t I ask about her?”

“You don’t need to remind me that you hate me.” Daniel said lowly, not a bit of playfulness in his tone at all. That was the very last thing he needed to hear right now.

“Come with me to get another drink.” You blurted.

Daniel blinked in surprise, glancing around to make sure you were actually speaking to him.

Charles looked just as concerned, his brow furrowing.

“Friends close and enemies closer.” You said simply, looping your arm in Daniel’s and walking towards the bar. Daniel watched you keep your eyes schooled ahead for several steps, until you were at least out of earshot.

“Are they still looking?” You asked him quietly. Daniel glanced behind quickly and then shook his head shortly.

Daniel held in a cackle of laughter when you quickly changed course, darting towards the exit as fast as you could possibly move while leading him along.

“What are you doing?” Daniel questioned behind you, he made no attempt to stop you or slow you, he was going to get a moment alone with you if he was lucky and he’d been waiting for that all fucking weekend.

Daniel helped you push the door to the club open, sighing loudly in relief when you were both outside and around the corner in the first alleyway the two of you came upon.

It was suddenly extremely quiet. The noise and chaos of the karaoke bar was now replaced with only the sounds of the outside at 2am and your breathing as he looked down at you, his eyes flickering over your face, waiting for you to give him a sign of what you were thinking.

“I never know what you’re going to do next.” He admitted, shaking his head in awe.

“I usually don’t either.” You grinned widely at him, taking a bold step towards him to close the gap between the two of you, your hips pressing against him ever so lightly, your arms slung around his neck affectionately.

Daniel immediately moved his hands to your waist, returning your grin.

“Did you like my performance?” You questioned, lazily combing your fingers through his hair.

“Which performance? The song or the kiss?” He didn’t plan on asking you about the kiss right away, but it was eating him alive. He watched your face carefully, hoping the alcohol would lower make you easier to read.

“I was as prepared for that kiss as you were Dan.” You frowned, your brows furrowing. Daniel felt relief flood through him.

Who knew I’d be one to need so much fucking reassurance…

“Well? How was it?”

“Mmm it didn’t have the anger and hate that ours do.” You gave him a snarky grin and he rolled his eyes.

“Why do you think mum hates you?” Daniel knew he was really going for it and cutting to the chase, but you were breaking down every last one of his defenses tonight. You hadn’t given him a single look of malice and that was something he had taken note of.

“She saw me with Charles and she looked so…” You sighed and shook your head, your big eyes looking almost pitiful. “Disappointed.”

“That doesn’t mean she hates you.” Daniel said truthfully. He had no doubt that his mum didn’t hate you.

“Well I guess I couldn’t blame her if she did.” You sighed, your eyes falling away from his and dropping to his chest.

Daniel wasn’t sure if he’d ever actually seen you looking genuinely…sad. Not angry or annoyed or close to clocking him, just sad. It made him panicky, like he needed to fix it.

“Hey I have a secret to tell you. Something I haven’t told anyone else.” He hummed, placing his finger under your chin to tilt your head back up to look at him. He would do absolutely anything right now to get that look off of your face.

“What?” You blinked, looking genuinely interested.

Daniel leaned in, whispering softly in your ear.

“You’re harder to hate than you think you are.”

–

“You’re harder to hate than you think you are.” Daniel whispered in your ear.

The world spun. The rug pulled out from under you. Maybe part of that was the alcohol, but still

“What?” You breathed, pulling back to look at his face, expecting it to have that shit eating grin he so often donned when he was messing with you.

It wasn’t there.

Instead he was looking at you earnestly.

“Are you drunk?” You laughed, grabbing his face with both hands and making him look you dead in the eyes. He laughed in response.

“Not as drunk as you.” He chuckled.

“You just said it’s hard to hate me.” You kept his face in your hands, still waiting for him to break and say ‘just kidding!’

“It is.” Daniel said simply. You dropped your hands from his face, trying to process this. “And that’s how I know mum could never hate you.”

You remained silent, trying to push down the emotions that were bubbling up, it proving to be harder when intoxicated.

“I tried to call you back.” You confessed, feeling the only way to even the score was to tell him something you’d never told anyone else.

Now it was Daniel’s turn to look confused.

“What? When?” He tilted his head.

“When you left me that voicemail. I listened to it a few times and then I tried to call you back to talk to you…but you didn’t answer.” You were so much more honest when you drank and when it came to Daniel, you weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Daniel looked like it took a few seconds to click, but when it did, his face broke into a wide grin.

“What were you going to say?” His voice was suddenly lower an octave, his hands on your waist moved to your ass, pulling you against him more firmly. His grin was contagious, you couldn’t help but smile back.

“If you wanted to know then you should have answered.” You hummed, smirking at him knowingly.

“I’ll get it out of you eventually.” He smirked. “That was…a while ago.” He gazed off in the distance for a second as he thought and then looked back to you. “Are you ever going to tell me which picture you liked?”

Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the way you were so casually chatting with him, in his arms, but you didn’t think about playing it off or showing your hand. You weren’t calculating.

“Ma’am.” You said simply, reaching up to hold an imaginary cowboy hat and tilt your head, mimicking Daniel’s pose in the picture.

Daniel looked confused, but amused at your display.

“Whater you talking about?” He cackled, looking at you as if you’d lost it.

“MA’AM” You huffed, repeating the actions.

“I don’t know what that means!” Daniel was cracking up now, shaking his head and then dropping his forehead to your shoulder as he laughed harder. Your arms naturally fell on his shoulders, hands meeting behind his neck.

“That was the caption! It was your stupid caption, laugh at yourself!” You couldn’t help but giggle, his laughter being contagious as always.

“Show me.” Daniel lifted his head, still laughing at you when his eyes met yours.

You groaned and slipped your phone from your pocket, unlocking it and tapping a few times before holding it up to him, the picture you’d looked at too many times to count on your screen.

“Hold on!” Daniel snatched your phone from your hand. “You found that really really fast, why’d you find it that fast?!” He looked closer at the screen and then kept going before you could defend yourself. “Two years ago! How’d you find it that fast if it was posted two years ago!”

Your cheeks heated as tried to steal your phone back, like that would make the problem go away.

“You have it SAVED!” Daniel beamed, his mouth in an open smile of victory. “It’s saved in your photos! Oh my god, you think I’m so hot, don’t you?”

“Shut up, stop! It doesn’t matter! I finally told you which picture, you can’t give me shit.” You said pointedly.

“I can always give you shit, babe.” Daniel grinned. Your stomach fluttered at the pet name. You knew it was a word Daniel tended to throw around in goofy ways, but it still resonated.

“Fine, as long as I can give it back Danny” You threw the name back at him teasingly, rolling your eyes. Before your eyes were back around to him, his mouth was on yours, his hands on your ass gripping tightly.

The kiss started as playful, but that melted away quickly and Daniel kissed you hungrily, his teeth clashing with yours and then nipping and biting your lips. You whimpered loudly, pressing your body against his harder in an attempt to get even closer to him. Your body responded to his immediately, the heat from earlier tonight when he so boldly reminded Charles exactly where he stood.

“I’ve wanted to do that all fucking night.” Daniel growled when he finally broke the kiss, his gaze moving all over your quickly and calculating like a predator assessing his prey. You swallowed thickly, coming back to earth and reminding yourself that anyone could walk by and see what was unfolding.

“Okay, well now you have to keep it in your pants, I don’t need to be caught making out with you in an alley.” You taunted, holding your hand out for your phone. As if on cue, it buzzed somewhere.

Daniel glanced down at his pocket and then looked back to you. When he didn’t retrieve your phone you raised an eyebrow at him.

“You told me to keep it in my pants.” He said and you could see he was trying his absolute hardest to not crack up at his own joke before falling and laughing, leaning back against the building behind him.

You tried to be annoyed at his stupid sense of humor, but you couldn’t be, the giggle you were trying to stifle escaped.

Daniel looked satisfied once you’d laughed and dug your phone out of his pocket, handing it to you while trying to discreetly look at the screen to see who was texting you.

“You’re not sneaky.” You stated flatly, before spinning around in his arms and leaning back into him. He dropped his chin onto your shoulder, leaping at the opportunity.

Sharl: Where did you go? Max asked and I’m not sure if telling him you ran off with Daniel is the appropriate response.

“Sure, sure. Max wants to know where you are, not him. He’s only asking for Max’s sake.” Daniel grumbled, the sarcasm practically dripping off of his words. “And his contact name is stupid.”

“You are reading way too much into this.” The corner of your mouth pulled up in a smile. Okay so maybe you weren’t ever going to be together together with Daniel, but it was still nice to know just how jealous he was.

You looked down at your phone a minute longer, trying to decide what to say when Daniel held out his hand. It felt like a question, Like a test. It felt bigger than just letting him respond to a text. He waited patiently, like he knew you’d give in and plop your phone back into his hand.

“Easy, Danny.” You sighed as you did.

Daniel let out a breath of laughter in your ear as he brought his other arm around you, looking over your shoulder to type, now holding your phone with both hands right above your waist.

You glanced down as well, admiring the rose tattoo on his tan left hand as he typed and then caught up in admiring his wrists and forearms, they were on perfect display in this position. He paused before he hit send, turning his head towards yours slightly in a request for your approval.

don’t you worry your pretty little princess head. Daniel is taking me home for a night of wild and passionate hate sex, all of that pretending with you made me angrier and craving his body even more than usual.

“Dan!” You scolded, elbowing him in the stomach gently before using your pointer finger to quickly tap the backspace and erase the message as he bellowed with laughter behind you.

“I was taking it from the honest angle!” He cried out in defense.

“You’re so annoying.”

“Fine, you find a better way to tell him you went back to the hotel without him.”

“Oh, is that’s what’s happening?” You leaned to your left so you could turn your head and look back over your right shoulder at him.

“That’s what you’re telling him is happening.” Daniel smiled villainously.

“What’s actu-” You stopped talking when a car pulled beside the alley. You instinctively went to jump out of his arms so you wouldn't be seen with him, but he tightened them around you.

“It’s our ride.”

“When the hell did you-”

“When Charles was trying to leave with you.” He said simply, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

When the car pulled up to Red Bull HQ, you were certain Daniel had lost it.

“Are you trying to get both of us fired or..?” You questioned, but he simply hopped out of the car, your hand in his and strode up to the doors like he was showing up for work on any other day.

“Dan!” You whisper-yelled, eyes widening in shock when he pulled out a pair of keys from his pocket. “Where did you get those?!”

“I’m the talent, people tend to give me what I ask for.” Daniel smirked, shrugging as if it was no big deal as he unlocked the door and pulled it open, holding it open with his foot for you to walk through.

You eyed him skeptically.

“Ma’am.” He titled an imaginary cowboy hat to you, micking the dreaded instagram photo.

“And there’s the regret.” You sighed, glancing into the darkened building nervously.

Daniel wasn’t rushing you, he stood there in the door, waiting patiently for you to decide if you were really doing this or not.

“This seems like it could be a really bad idea…” You worried aloud.

“C’mon, don’t you trust me?”

The question was asked in such an offhand manner that what he was really asking took a second to sink in.

He was asking if you trusted him? Did you?

You looked into his eyes, hoping you’d find the answer there. This time last year? No, never, absolutely not.

But now? You were sure that you were supposed to answer “No.” Because the last thing you want to do is trust your sworn enemy, the person who has made your life miserable for the past two years.

Though he asked it as if he was indifferent to the answer, you could tell he was anxious to hear your answer. You stood close enough to him that you could hear his heart pounding in his chest over the absolute silence of the empty building. Or maybe that was your heart…

“Mhm, of course I trust you.” You laughed breathlessly, like it was a stupid question. Because ti was a stupid question.

You stepped inside and Daniel immediately followed, locking the door behind him.

You watched him curiously as he grabbed your hand again and led you down the darkened halls of the office.

“What exactly are we doing here?” You questioned, looking around at all of the dark cubicles and offices. You weren’t sure how much he’d thought this through, but the idea of sneaking around with him was too exciting to bail on.

“I couldn’t get what you told me out of my head.” Daniel stated, still guiding you with a purpose, obviously having a destination in mind.

“And that was?”

Daniel didn’t answer, he just kept walking in a driven manner.

“Dan? What did I say?” You repeated.

He finally stopped in front of a door and spun around, his honey brown eyes locking on yours.

“You were told to stay away from me because I had a promising career and whenever I tangle with you, you cause trouble.”

Oh. That.

“See I don’t think that’s really true.” He threw a smirk your way as he dug into his pocket again, fishing out another key.

You turned your head and looked up at the door you stood in front of, his plan suddenly clicking into place when you read the badge on the door.

Christian Horner

Team Principal

Your mouth fell open, absolutely floored and thrilled by the fact that he’d brought you here because Horner had said things that hurt you and he couldn’t really openly get back at his boss for that.

Daniel unlocked the door and swung it open, not seeming to mind when it hit against the doorstop on the wall behind the door.

“Really because I think this is proving his point.” You breathed, letting out another astonished laugh.

“Nah.” He shook his head and stepped into the office. “I think I’m the one that causes trouble.” He reached Christian’s desk, whirling around to face you as he sat on the edge of it, grinning wildly.

You swallowed thickly, the threshold to the office feeling like another line you were crossing, another decision point.

But when he looked you over from head to toe and then back up, a lazy lust filled smirk on his face, his backwards hat basically taunting you and then patted his thigh, the decision making center of your brain signed off.

You stride into the office, blindly slamming the door shut behind you. Daniel’s eyes light up.

Once you reach him you climb onto his lap, straddling his lap, throwing your arms around his neck. Daniel practically “catches” you, like he was anticipating exactly what you were about to do. His hands grab your waist and pull you down onto him eagerly as your lips crash against his, the kiss desperate and messy. You needed this. You had been getting through each day only to get to the next time you could be with him like this.

Daniel wastes no time in pulling your shirt off, the kiss only breaking when he pulls it over your head. You move to reciprocate, grabbing the hem of his oversized shirt and he lifts his arms to assist. When you pull it off, his hat comes off with it and falls to the desk. He doesn’t seem to think about it at all, until you grab it and place it back on his head, backwards as it was before.

Daniel leans forward and presses his forehead against yours and then raises a brow at you in question.

“Backwards hat Danny is my favorite Danny.” You admit, smoothing your hands down his chiseled chest muscles. They move up and down with his chest as he laughs.

“Good to know, I’m going to remember that” He smirked cockily.

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.” He grins and you shake your head, diving back in to kiss him again, this time your hands working on the button of his tight, torn jeans, though struggling with focus as his teeth clamp down on your lip, causing you to shudder in pleasure. His hands mirror yours, unbuttoning your jeans hastily. He moves to slip in hand down the front of your pants, but before he can, you’re up and off his lap, dropping to your knees in between his legs.

You could see he needed reassurance the entire night and now was your chance to give it to him.

Daniel’s eyes glaze over with lust, his mouth dropping open slightly as he helps you by kicking his pants off, leaving him in just his boxer briefs, his impressive length straining against them. You pull his cock out slowly, and pump it, the heaviness in your hand making you throb between your legs.

You lick him slowly from base to tip, dragging your tongue in a wide flat stripe and he kisses lowly in response, his hips squirming impatiently.

Before you can do much else, Daniel’s hand is on the back of your head, pushing your mouth down onto his throbbing cock. You comply eagerly, letting him fist your hair to hold you in place and then thrust up into your mouth, hitting the back of your throat, causing your eyes to water.

“Fuuuck, always such a good girl for me aren’t you?” Daniel soothes as he thrusts into your waiting mouth again, causing you to whimper loudly.

“Didn’t want to have to be so rough with you babe, but it seems like I have to remind you who this mouth belongs to hmm?” His words nearly destroy you. His breath quickens slightly as he thrusts up again, this time holding himself in the back of your throat. When he pulls back out your spit is dripping down your chin, his cock wet and slick with it.

You whine in protest to his words. It was a bad idea.

Daniel pulls you off of him roughly, his hand still in your hair tilting your head back to make you look up at him from where you knelt, your cheeks damp with tears and smeared makeup.

“You don’t think I need to remind you?”

You shake your head.

“Then why were you kissing someone else tonight?” He spits out the words like they taste bad.

You have no response. You open your mouth and close it again, trying to form a coherent retort.

“He kissed me.” You blurt.

Daniel rolls his eyes like he’s heard it before, waving you off dismissively.

“Let me apologize.” You beg, trying to move your head back down the tip of his dick. Your head doesn’t budge, he doesn’t loosen his grip. “Please Danny? Let me show you how sorry I am.” You give him your best puppy dog eyes.

“You’re going to be the fucking death of me…” Daniel groans, his hand limply falling from your hair. You bite back a grin as you lean down, gripping the base of him and taking him into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the tip before going down on him.

“Shit…” He exhales lowly, shaking his head in disbelief as you pick up the pace, letting soft moans and whimpers out as the throbbing between your legs gets worse and worse.

You hollow your cheeks and hum and Daniel nearly leaps to standing, the vibrations causing him to moan several swears loudly. You move with him, simply sitting up more on your knees in order to keep sucking him off as he stands in front of you. His hand is on the back of your head again, but it doesn’t press you so much as encourage and guide you.

“Fuck, just like that, it’s so goo- Fuck! I love your mouth so much” Daniel groans and pants, his eyes now fluttered shut, head dropped back. You glimmer and beam under the rays of his praise, it only encourages you.

His legs tremble and his shudders before taking a step backwards as he inhales and then exhales slowly, as if trying to get himself in check.

When his eyes open again, he bends down to where you’re kneeling and grabs you buy the waist, lifting you up and then nearly tossing you onto Christian’s clear glass desk on your back. He quickly discards your underwear and spreads your legs apart roughly.

“How was my apology?” You smile up at him, causing him to slow down for a moment and look down at you.

Daniel’s focused expression quickly fades and he breaks into a breathless laugh.

“Too good. You almost ended the night before I got to the purpose of us being here.” He gestures to the desk you’re spread across.

“The purpose being to fuck on Horner’s desk?” You clarify, only because you want to hear him say it.

“Yes, exactly. I thought that was self explanatory when I put you on the desk. Y’know before you stopped me from fucking you with all of your questions.” Daniel teases.

“Right.” You giggle. “Sorry, please continue with your angry, rough and manly revenge fuck.”

Daniel looks at you in utter disbelief before dropping his forehead just below your breasts and laughing in defeat.

“What?! I’m supportive!” You cry out, giggles still in your words.

When he lifts his head again and props himself back up on his arms and looks at you, his eyes look softer. Gentler. You can see the wheels turning in his head for a moment.

“Alright, there’s a new purpose now.” He says and before you can ask, dipping his head to kiss you. The kiss takes you by surprise. It’s firm, but slower, deeper, like he is really savoring every second of it. As he kisses you, you feel him line himself up with your entrance, just barely touching you.

Daniel breaks off the kiss to look down at you expectantly, holding himself up on one forearm. You nod and then remember just as he opens his mouth that he’s about to ask you to be verbal.

“Please.” You beg, wrapping your legs around his waist. He smirks at you as if he’s proud of you for knowing exactly what he was about to ask you.

As he begins to push into you, you arch your back, the burn of him stretching you feeling so incredibly perfect. When he’s fully inside you, you open your eyes. He was already looking at you.

“What’s the…new purpose hmm?” You breathe, trying to figure out what the look on his face was portraying.

“To show you how sorry I am.” Daniel says simply, before pulling out and thrusting back into you, his groan drown out by your loud gasp of pleasure. You tried to process his words, but it was hard to think clearly as he thrusted into you again, causing your eyes to squeeze shut briefly.

When his words finally click, they feel heavy. Big. Meaningful. You gently knock his hat off to get it out of the way and then interlace your hands on his neck, just at the base of his head to hold his gaze on you. Not that you needed to, he hadn’t looked away from you once…

“Sorry for what Daniel?” You ask, your eyes searching his. He stills and gives you a half smile.

“For what happened right outside this office. Two years ago.” He nods his head once towards the hallway.

You can’t breathe or think or form any words. You simply blink up at him.

What? That’s it? He’s just sorry for the way everything started?

“W-what did you just say?” You stammer.

“I want to show you how sorry I am for the way I treated you when we first met.” Daniel repeats himself clearly, his eyes looking genuinely apologetic.

“It won’t- … it doesn’t change anything.” You state, dropping your hands and averting your eyes.

“I know it doesn’t. But will you let me?” You can feel his gaze on you, waiting patiently for you to meet his eyes again. When you don’t respond he drops his forehead to yours and his hand blindly finds yours, interlacing your fingers.

“Please?” Daniel whispers.

You’re not sure if he can read the panic in your mind. If he apologizes for this, what's next? The article? And then what is there to ensure you continue to hate him? Nothing. And if there’s nothing making you hate him then…then…

“Yes.” You whisper back before you let yourself think about it too much, not missing the huge exhale he lets out as soon as you say it. His fingers squeeze yours tightly as he kisses you again, this time the kiss feels full of gratitude and relief.

Daniel drops his mouth to your neck, kissing the spot just below your ear affectionately as he drags himself out of you slowly and then thrusts back into so hard you’re seeing stars, a loud moan involuntarily ripping from your throat.

He picks up his rhythm, his other hand wrapping around your waist and lifting your ass up off the glass to drive into you even deeper. Each time he rams himself into you, you feel that tightening in your stomach getting closer and closer to snapping, pleasure spiraling out through every limb without much of a second to recover before he does it again.

“You take me so good don’t you?” Daniel grunted, glancing down at where your bodies joined and groaning at the sight. “I fit so perfectly inside you, it’s like this pussy was made for me hm?”

You nod desperately, silently hoping he’ll keep talking.

“Do you have any idea how much I beat myself up for being such an asshole and wasting two goddamn years? Two years I could have been buried inside you like this?” Daniel hissed, his tone angry and disgusted at himself.

“Fuck, Danny…” You panted, trying to find the words in the fog of pleasure and him. “I’m gonna-”

His arm unraveled from your waist and his hand reached in between you, his thumb finding your clit in what had to be record time.

“Oh my god! H-how do you do that?!” You whine, your back arching and hips squirming.

“Do what?” He chuckled, moving his fingers in the way that you can’t replicate (you’d tried) again.

“That!” You gasped, the hand that was still intertwined in his squeezing hard. He squeezed back and you were done for, your orgasm wracking your body with blinding waves of white hot pleasure, yet again reminding you that you underestimate Daniel’s abilities to make you come.

“Fuckfuckfuck.” Daniel swore, his rhythm faltering. “You feel so fucking good, never had anyone that felt this good…” he praised in your ear as he came, his body shuddering above you.

You winced slightly as Daniel pulled out of you, the sheer size of him always stretching you. He collapsed halfway on the desk, halfway on you, half of his chest on yours, his arm draped across you as he seemed to refuse to let go of your hand.

“How’re ya goin?” Daniel finally spoke. You opened your eyes to find him looking at you fondly, with his snapback placed firmly on his head again, backwards of course.

You laughed, simply because you couldn't help it, you were surrounded by too many things that made you smile.

“If you think I’m not going to use every weapon in my arsenal to make you start to like me then you don’t know me at all.” Daniel grinned, pointing to his snapback.

“I hope for your sake that you have a lot more weapons then.” You huff out a laugh.

“Nah, I don’t think I need ‘em. You don’t even realize I’ve broken down your first level of defense.”

If only it was just the first level….

Taglist:

@its-astrotea-love

@thatchickwiththecamera

@stelena-klayley

@fkrause

@bekindbecoolbeyou

@theduchessinme

@sugardontbesweet

@breadsquash

@danielricciardhoes

@i-love-thetragicallybeautiful

@reallydeadpoet

@hotmenfastcars

@picturethosesmiles

@happyselves

@itsmycorneroftheinternet

@frenchyjuju

@alphalib22

@formulathot

@fandomwallflower

@justaddicted

@spngi

@207am

@holy-macncheese-balls

@mlhunt703

@the-lazy-leprechaun

@mk15x

@j-onathan-carnahan

@japanesekel

@take-me-around-town

@shay161192

@intotheabyss-posts

@mishaandthebrits

@take-me-around-town

@taecallsmenoona

@quotessharry

@hayleyy-l

@pancakesonacow

@danielsmonzawin

@filmbysainz

@vinvantae

@c-tangerine

@springpoppies

387 notes · View notes