#this one is from 2021 I think 😬

[cove-simp]

I don’t think I’ll actually be able to fall in love with someone irl. Like… Cove and Our Life has WRECKED ME

#basically build a boyfriend…. #but it’s just so wholesome… and a game hasn’t made me feel this cared for/prioritized since I did Asra’s route in the arcana #posting old drafted posts yay #this one is from 2021 I think 😬 #our life #our life beginnings & always #cove holden #gb patch #our life cove #gb patch games #our life: beginnings & always #our life cove holden

[betterthanburrow]

Hi love! Could you do a Joe Burrow Instagram AU with a nurse!

Nurse Graduate - Instagram AU

(Bengals Quarterback! Joe Burrow x Nurse Graduate OC)

liked by yourinstagram, and 123,945 more users

Bengals: Our #NewStripes 2021 Tour 😤

NO FEES on single game tickets: Bengals.com/Tickets. Watch the NFL Schedule Release on NFL Network at 8 PM ET!

view all 69,713 comments

jomainmixon: Can we start already ⁉️

yourinstagram: i’m excited for this football season!

↳ username1: let’s hope and pray that your man doesn’t get injured again… we need our quarterback!

username2: this is the football season that the Bengals go to the Super bowl!

joeyb_9: 🔥🔥🔥

liked by mamaburrow, and 69,075 more users

yourinstagram: WE SURVIVED: Nursing School!

This entire journey felt similar to almost falling off of this wall… Looking at the workload, then looking at my best friends and thinking “oh shit!”

Sarah, Kayla, and Alexa - Thank you for ~carrying~ me through nursing school. The three of you are my biggest inspiration, and I love you with my whole heart.

view all 7,529 comments

nurseSarah: these past 4 years have been the best 4 years of my life because of you 💙

cincyproblems: oh wait, i didn’t know that Burrow’s girl is a future nurse?! … i know they have fun during his road to recovery from his injury.

↳ yourinstagram: i wouldn’t say Joe’s road to recovery journey from his left knee injury as fun… but i did learn a lot from his recovery journey.

↳ sam_hubbard_: i’m still surprised that you still want to be a nurse after being by Joey’s side all throughout his recovery these past few months 💀

nurseAlexa: I LOVE YOU 🤎

joeyb_9: i’m so proud of you and the girls!

nurseKayla: after all the chaos that nursing school has caused us… i’m surprised that we made it out alive!

liked by joeyb_9 and 125,860 more users

Bengals: Week 1 at HOME! 🏠 See you in Cincinnati, @.vikings!

📱: Our Schedule, Single Game Tickets on sale - 7:45 PM ET

📺: NFL Schedule Release - 8:00 PM ET on @.nflnetwork

view all 50,191 comments

lahjay10_: i’m ready for the first game of the season 🔥

username1: i’m happy that the Bengals’ first football game of the new football season is a home game.

username2: I’LL BE AT THE PAUL BROWN STADIUM!

cj_uzomah: 😈😈😈 let’s get it!

liked by joeyb_9 and 188,615 more users

lahjay10_: I’m out here working i’m not F’N off , It’s any day for me! #UNO

view all 91,583 comments

joeyb_9: the best wide receiver in the business!

pookawilliams1: Heard Dat Uno ♟️

yourinstagram: 🔥🔥🔥

liked by yourinstagram and 118,475 more users

Bengals: Another SunDEY closer to gameDEY 😁

(via @.phantomphotos_)

view all 40,316 comments

joeyb_9: we’re all countdown down the days…

username1: AND I WILL BE AT EVERY HOME GAME!

username2: 🔥🔥🔥

phantomphotos_: i can’t wait 🙌 thank you so much for sharing my photo!

yourinstagram: and another SunDey closer to my graduation from nursing school!

liked by joeyb_9 and 90,420 more users

yourinstagram: Bengals Quarterback’s Uber Driver.

view all 33,619 comments

cincyproblems: OH 👀 i guess the reports of Burrow returning to the football field this week are true!

joeyb_9: the best uber driver i could ask for!

↳ yourinstagram: so… what you’re saying is i should quit my nursing career and become an uber driver?!

↳ joeyb_9: you said it… not me 🤷🏼‍♂️

liked by yourinstagram and 222,740 more users

Bengals: Look who’s clocking in... 👀

view all 99,675 comments

yourinstagram: pretty boy on the football field.

username1: the Bengals are back in business!

lahjay10_: the best QB in the business is back!

username2: LOOK AT THAT NEW SMILE!

↳ username3: he’s grinning like a freshman in high school who just got their braces off 😬😭

cincyproblems: THE GOAT IS BACK!

liked by yourinstagram and 303,689 more users

joeyb_9: One day I’ll have a real beard.

view all 19,101 comments

jordanpalmer: na ah!

yourinstagram: and that day is not anytime soon because you WILL be shaving your facial hair before my graduation from nursing school.

↳ joeyb_9: alright… whatever miss nurse graduate wants, is what miss nurse graduate will get.

lahjay10_: 💀💀

liked by joeyb_9 and 110,559 more users

yourinstagram: finished my 4 year sentence in school.

view all 75,009 comments

mamaburrow: congratulations on graduating!

layjah10_: CONGRATS 🎉🍾

joeyb_9: congratulations my love! i’m so proud 🖤

↳ yourinstagram: thank you! i couldn’t have survived these 4 years without my future patient by my side!

↳ joeyb_9: i just returned to the football field… let’s not jinx my next major injury to happen anytime soon.

Author’s Note:

in honor of graduation season and the NFL schedules for the 2023-2024 season being released, i think this is a good time to post this Instagram AU.

if you have any requests for an Instagram AU, please send the requests through my Inbox and i will try to get the IG AUs published as fast as i can!

thank you all for the love and support! 🤍

#Joe Burrow #NFL #Cinncinnati Bengals #CFB #LSU Tigers #Joe Burrow Fanfiction #Joe Burrow Fanfic #Joe Burrow Fic #Joe Burrow x Reader #Joe Burrow x OC #Joe Burrow Instagram #Joe Burrow Instagram AU #Instagram AU #NFL Instagram #NFL Fanfiction

[vsyrworld]

Serious question - who is more whipped for who: Charles for Carlos or Carlos for Charles?

interesting! Please don't get mad if I said both of them🤣 and this is going to be a long one.

I have to tell you that this ship is taking their time slowly to get close to each other. Their love bloomed like molasses on the ground after a dewy morning rain. Carlos -- he is an easygoing and humble person, who loves to tease, annoy, and banter. He said in an interview that Charles is easy to get along with too. With his humble personality, it would make sense to point out that Carlos would make a move first to introduce him, just like how Singapore 2018, he asked Charles first, not the other way around. It happens because Charles is a shy person but will open up and give all of his heart when he trusts the person. Remember post Seb Ferrari era? the mood was down and the team was split into two sides. Charles was stressed too, suffocated, he missed so many chances to be the world champion. Enter Carlos with his light personality, it gives Charles a fresh air.

I thought Carlos was bolder but somehow Charles also did his own games too. Once he gets comfortable with Carlos, he becomes playful too, he teases him, gives him pet names, asks him ridiculous unnecessary things, and so much more. Remember also that both C² boys are together facing the downfall of Ferrari, 2022-2023 was -I can say- the worst era. There are so many things behind the scenes that somehow they choose to keep it lowkey and not show it to the camera. They did sometimes, back in the day 2021 when they used a silly filter and posted on each other accounts. So bet, through the trial and tribulation as a Ferrari drivers they exchange many deep talks together, both of them are fights for each other, we never see them crash no? Unlike Seb with Charles, or Nico with Lewis, both respect each other, and both are not into mind games, yes Charles might be intimidating for Carlos since he is the golden boy, but somehow Carlos understands his burden to be il Predistinato, he is helping him through bad times. Carlos stated that he wish Charles become a wdc with Ferrari and he wants to help him. Carlos loves Ferrari and bleeds rosso corsa as much as Charles does. Watch Carlos 2023 press conference with the Estrella Galicia, where said his racing future plan A B C is drives for Ferrari, and he also pointed out how he annoyed by the fan who always make them hate each other. With that dedication Charles softens and trusts Carlos, he is having fun and he is down so bad for Carlos. The interview with Martin or the Singapore interview 2023 are the proves how close they are

With much aware, I do understand for whole this four year, fans always pitted them against each other. They beefing bcs there is no "dramatic" content between them. Yes they were used to dissing about strategies, but does it happen so great until it make the headline? No! Thats why fans are nosy about them and yet they are so undisturbed by that. Again, they keep everything so lowkey and yet from interviews, from instastory, articles, and even their personal project, they exchange everything. Charles doesn't like physical touch but did he avoids Carlos' touch? no i dont think so😬❤️‍🩹

#ugh #charlos lore #i can write so much more #charles leclerc #carlos sainz jr #1655 #charlos #c2

[doulayogimama]

This post is super TMI 😬

Sooooo for the first time in almost exactly 3 years, we had unprotected sex. I was so terrified of the thought of doing this until the last few months. I remember the first 2 years PP, I was so scared that the thought of having UP sex and risking pregnancy literally revolted me. I can’t believe that at 3 years PP, even hours later, I’m hoping that we made a baby. That I’m excited to be back in this space, knowing everything I know about pregnancy, labor, and PP depression. Like… I really want this. It will be different in so many ways and whether I’m pregnant now or will be in the future, I’m excited.

Before I got pregnant with Sky (like way before) I dreamt of an Aries baby. She ended up being an Aries. For a long time, I’ve had this gut feeling this next baby will be a Sagittarius baby (if I am pregnant, due date would be in Sagittarius season). I know it’s so silly to some, but way back in 2017, I was in India and I got a natal chart reading. The lady told me I’d have 2 children, born in 2021 & 2024. I remember being low key outraged like… WHAT DO YOU MEAN???? I’m not going to wait that long to have a baby… but then we took another big trip, then we moved to NYC, and then it took me a year to get pregnant. (I got pregnant the literal month after I was told by my GYNO that all my fertility tests came back totally fine and truly believe stress kept me from conceiving)

I also remember thinking 2021&2024… kids 3+ years apart????? I would never do that, my kids are going to be less than 2 years apart … and the reader was very no nonsense, like… honey, this is what it is. I’m just reading what I see. I’m really hoping the lady is right 🥹✨(although I know I know, first time trying and getting pregnant is rare)

I’m going to go buy prenatals today and start taking those ASAP. I just have to pray for the best. I’m healthy, eat well, I’m back at my PP weight, and I didn’t overthink it. I just told Kevin I was ready and he obliged happily 😂🙈

I’m very familiar with FAM and track my cycle every month. Yesterday, before we had sex or knew that we would have sex that day, I wiped in the bathroom and was like WHOA — if I wanted to get pregnant today, pretty sure I would have a good chance. I was also having ovarian pain, which is my telltale sign that ovulation is gearing up to happen. After so many years of tracking with temps and OV sticks, I know my body very well. I’m very grateful that my cycle is consistent —every 25-30 days, I get my period. I checked my tracker app late last night and saw that I was on CD13 and due to OV in 1-3 days (can’t know for sure without BBT but once cervical fluid is dry, that’s how one knows OV has happened).

Ahhhh I just can’t believe it. I’m back in “not trying, not avoiding” and I’m excited. I want another little baby to hold and love. I want Sky to have her own baby sibling ✨🙏🏽🤍

#ahhhh I’m excited

[snifflesandchills]

Snzarios for Every Month.

I’m also going to do one for sicknesses in general, rather than just colds.

January 🎄

So many people get sick right after the holidays, after exposure to countless colds and germs, and the stress of the season. Maybe a relative was sick, or maybe someone at Walmart while you were doing your last-minute Christmas shopping. Either way, you’re down with a bad head cold.

A stuffy, runny nose

Sneezes that are so tickly they coax more sneezes out.

Every time you sniffle, you can feel congestion going down the back of your sore throat 😣

Headache from constant sneezing and coughing. It throbs with every stifled sneeze, but you can’t stop stifling because then someone else might catch your germs and come down with a bad cold of their own.

What would a winter cold be without chills? And a fever just high enough to make you feel sooo sickkkkk 😩

February ❄️

I catch the messiest colds ever in February, I don’t know why. Like, there was only one February (2021) since I can remember that I didn’t get an awful cold. Idk why 😬 oop

Potential low-grade fever, but constant chills.

Achy throat, head, chest, and basically everything else,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Nose is completely stuffed up, but somehow runs like a faucet? 🤨 messy af

Sneezing continuously, getting rid of a ton of thick, gooey snot, but still not doing anything to help the congestion.

A cough, just so your throat will continue to hurt

So incredibly tired from the sneezing, sniffling, and snot production

March ⛅️

So many people are getting sick as the weather starts to change and snow starts to melt, kicking off allergy season. Sneezy season pushes on.

Headache

Chills, but no fever

Congestion. Plugged, snotty nose and sneezing, a cough, discomfort in general. You are a complete snot monster, but you can’t help it. You can only blame whoever gave you such a horrible cold.

April 🌧

April showers bring May flowers, but they also bring bouts of spring colds. The weather is beginning to get nicer, but you have to be stuck in bed with a bad cold.

Fever and aches. Not the kind of fever that makes you solely cold, but the kind that makes you sweat and have goosebumps simultaneously. As for aches, think head, throat, chest, legs, arms, everything.

A head that’s so stuffed up that the sufferer can’t breathe, let alone sneeze normally. With every breath, they can feel everything shifting grossly inside of their head.

May 💐

Why do I feel like everyone catches the sniffles at the end of the school year?

A runny, slightly sniffly nose that’s just stuffy enough for them to sound congested, and for their exhaled to feel uncomfortably hot against their skin.

Sneezing, a result of the snotty, itchy nose.

A sight, irritated cough

June 💦

Summer break is prime time to swim, but the earlier in the season you do it, the colder the water will be. Keep this in mind, because swimming in cold water can result in a nasty cold.

It would start off with chills. Your body would try to warm up, but eventually a fever would start to set in.

Your nose would begin running when you were in the water, but it wouldn’t stop when you got out. It would completely stuff you up within a few hours.

A headache/body aches from shivering for hours on end. No amounts of medicine, blankets, or hot tea can warm you up.

Sneezing excessively. By excessively, I mean, not being able to stop and needing to wipe your face after each one because they are so messy.

Coughing, but only after you blow your nose, because of the irritation.

A sore throat and glands from all of the sneezing and coughing and being sick in general.

July 🔥

Everyone around seems to be sick with something. Staying up on the Fourth of July might have been your body’s last straw. Say hello to a gross, streaming summer cold.

A fever, which causes you to sweat and shiver simultaneously. It’s ninety degrees, whatever. A heavy sweatshirt would make you feel better.

An extremely stuffy nose which only runs at inconvenient times.

Stuffy sneezes, which the sufferer is constantly trying to ward off so the others won’t notice the monster of a cold they’ve come down with.

A bad, congested cough, just to make hiding their illness harder.

Bonus points! The sufferer is constantly ducking off to blow their nose or cough away from the rest of the group because being sick embarrasses them.

August 🏵

One of the hottest months of the year, hypothetically a month you shouldn’t get sick during. But after a long, busy summer, your immune system needed a day off. Unfortunately, that day was long enough to land you with a stuffy head cold. Oops.

A nose so stuffy that sniffling does absolutely nothing. No matter how hard you try, nothing moves, untiiillllllll it starts running uncontrollably.

Stuffy sneezes to partner with the congestion 😌

Exhaustion. That’s it, exhaustion.

September 📓

Everyone is going back to school and getting exposed to all sorts of new germs. Despite best efforts to avoid sick people, a snotty cold is practically inevitable.

There just had to be a very runny and stuffy nose

A headache

Sore throat

Just enough sneezing to tell everyone you’re sick ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

October ☔️

Imagine getting caught in a cold autumn rainstorm, getting chilled to the bone, and coming down with a vicious cold as a result of it.

stuffy/runny nose, of course, because that’s what cold weather does to you.

sore throat that makes you sound so hoarse 🥺

head/body aches

fever and chills

an unimaginable amount of congestion

a cough caused by the congestion

constant, excessive sneezing, each causing a wet, inescapable mist of cold germs to rain down on anyone nearby. and no, tissues do nothing to contain the sneezes, because they are far too messy.

November 🎃

okie so I can’t actually think of anything except !! catching a chill on Halloween that knocks you down with a huge cold.

stuffy/runny nose

sore throat

headache

a constant chill and a slight fever

constant sneezing

December 🚎

The darkest, dampest month, perfect for getting sick. The snow is getting more frequent, and it’s not uncommon for you to get stuck in it waiting for a bus. Once you get on the bus, you’re in close quarters with a bunch of sick people, like it or not. The worst chest cold of your life is on its way.

A sniffly nose

A sore throat and hoarse voice

A ton of congestion and a bad cough that makes the congestion and hoarseness obvious

Even the sneezes sound hoarse and stuffy 🥺

On top of that, a headache and fever because of how sick you are. The fever makes you shiver and sweat and sleep and feel absolutely miserable.

#snz #snz kink #snzfucker #coldfucker #coldfuckery #contagion #sick kink #snz prompt #sneeze kink #snzblr #mess #snz snz snz #cold sneezes #cold snzon #sniffles #cold #cold season #chest cold #head cold #worst cold ever #sick #cold kink

[marengogo]

Rambling in INFJese - Part 9: Dear Future Baby Jikooker and Some Jikookers as well…

Listening to album D-DAY - by Agust D  ON REPEAT

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Dear Future Baby Jikooker,

Here is a letter from me to you, who have just stepped into this curious neck of the woods, but also for Jikookers, who presently might feel lost, in this neck of the woods. This is going to be a long-ass post, ops 😬. In my defence, it could have been even much longer than it is, but let’s be real, there is only so much you might be willing to read at this stage and, at the same time, only so much I can write before I stray well out of topic. BUT let’s start with a welcome, shall we? A very big welcome to those of you who have decided, for one reason or another and we will touch on that to be “Jikookers”. Welcome and congratulations: you’ve officially picked the most fear-inducing, hate-provoking, blasted-ass ship, perhaps, in history but that is just my perception, admittedly, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony might have been good contenders, by the fandom they belong to and most of all shippers within the fandom as well.

SO YES, welcome welcome welcome to the Tumblr side of Jikook things! Now, before we dive deeper into what awaits in my post, and most importantly, into Jikook-world, it’s best we get one thing straight, right off the bat:

Mmm … you might have already known this, in fact you are probably looking at me like “You ain’t gotta tell me that, bitch, like …” but truuuust me when I tell you that this is not as obvious or as known a fact as it ought to be … chiiiiiile 😩. 

That being said, there are usually two main starting points for people who end up here, and by here, I don’t mean specifically Jikook-Tumblr, but Jikook-world in general:

You have been ARMY / BTS fans / JK and/or JM bias for a while and are thus familiar with all members in BTS at a level that is above avarage.

You have no clue about anything-BTS, but you heard that there is this “couple” in BTS, so the name of the other members is probably as much as you might know. 

As you are ultimately here because of a possible romantic relationship between JK and JM, whether you are 1 or 2 doesn’t make you any better or worse than being 2 or 1. What it does however, is that it will 100% influence and condition the experience you might/will have. That, in addition with the answer to the following question which I highly suggest you ask yourself before you fully step in: 

“Why am I here?”

… Perhaps “I believe Jikook is 100% real”, or “I wonder: is Jikook even real right now?”, or “I have reason to believe that Jikook might be, but actually …”, or “I’m not saying but I’m saying, Jikook?!”, or “IDGAF I just think they look good together”, etc etc etc. Trust me, there is a Jikook blog that aligns with any and all conscious and subconscious states of mind, beliefs and/or opinions. So as you proceed, you will or might not realise that some blogs simply want to find people who are like-minded, some blogs just want to rave, rant and talk about the boys to their heart's content, some blogs want to build a following/clout, and some blogs might be up to no good amongst these, some might not even realise that they are….

I, for one, got into the Jikook-world coming from type 1. BTS found me when I needed them the most and I just ended up loving all 7 of them, in different ways, but all 7 nonetheless AND as you might or might not know, I am indeed OT7. One day, as it happens to all of us, I stumbled on a shipping video on YT, it was a Taejin one: I clicked. To begin I was initially shocked that BTS would still have ships at the point in their career (this was around 2021) and I actually thought Taejin to be real … and then you see SOPE, Namjin, taekook, there were so many and all had their reasons etc. After a while I just found them all very cute and didn’t take them seriously at all. 

Eventually, somehow, a Jikook video by Made in Busan appeared, I watched it and that was it: … I felt something. But even though I did feel something, I tried to ignore it because as a queer person pansexual I mostly walk around with my invisible hope on my sleeves ALL THE TIMES. So it felt that, once again, for the one millionth time, I would end up wanting them to be so real that the disappointment would crush me, making me feel that once again, people like me are undeserving of love, or at the very least, African and Asian countries are never going to accept this. At this very moment a great part of the USA, and certain parts of Europe, are the only places where famous people and not can live being who they are. 

In many other places in this world, particularly African and Asian countries, it is still taboo, dangerous and even life threatening and I am in-between these two types of worlds. So I rejoice everytime a queer couple publically comes out, because even though I know I cannot be them the maximum I can do is go to pride in my pink, yellow and blue outfit it makes me happy to know that had I been born in a different continent, within a different culture, that perhaps, it could have been me. Basically, it feels that happiness for people like me is attainable, even if not for me, if others can safely make it, it would be enough for me for now. 

I started from YT and WHAT A MESS IT TURNED OUT TO BE. I made the very big mistake of thinking that because jikook was so rare in the fandom, then people who believed in them were just like me trying to understand kindred spirits. I thought that we were in this to protect and potentially, if time ever would allow, to support what would have become a very influential gay couple. But as time passed, before I knew it, I found myself within the episode of the most toxic BL where, everyone heard voices, many betrayed each other for affection, all slept with each other to spite all, and some resorted to using fans in order to bully each other. The more accounts with this mentality started to appear, the more normal accounts started to disappear. It got to a point were I, a person whom in the meantime had forgotten was a OT7, started to believe that some members were indeed narcissist and any other non-self diagnosable trait. WHEN I REALISED I had to take a BIG-ASS breath,  slap myself out of fiction and get-out-style-ran myself back into reality: LIKE … WHAT THE FUCK HAD JUST HAPPENED?!

I had completely forgotten about who BTS were, I got entirely lost in the wrong side of the woods for me, basically I completely forgot why I was even there in the first place! When I then myself in the only youtube channel I trusted at the time, who also suggested we should check a certain blog on Tumblr, when I did, I found a kindred spirit and never went back to YT (by that time wonsummernight had left, Made in Busan, like MizGator, were all gone). There was no forced narrative, the logical consideration of events, the unexplainable emotion of others, it was up the alley I had wanted to be. It brought it back to me just supporting real maybe-queer people like me, rather than fighting over fictional characters in a drama that had nothing to do with me at all. 

I regained my rationality, and peacefully lurked, until I got curious about certain topics and decided to send in asks, or just wanted to send words of encouragement to other blogs I began to like and were constantly attacked. Eventually I realised my side of the woods was also thinning out, and because I felt like I had a lot to say as well I began this blog, to just talk, talk and talk. It was fun talking, revisiting Jikook moments with other people who thought alike or people who respectfully didn’t and still kept it at a healthy level. Speaking with other queer folk was also a perk. I literally had no expectations upon coming on Tumblr, I just wanted to keep up with Jikook, while keeping my sanity and rationality. Writing my thoughts about them also helped me lay out my opinions and, through educated speculation, maybe realise things about Jikook hadn’t before and so on and so forth. As things stand in this very moment, within my boundaries, I still believe there is something between them. Chapter 2 is what, surprising, turning out to be as I predicted it would be, to a T except for JK’s weverse, that I couldn’t predict not a single one, for shit it is all very interesting to be honest, and though I can know see things will only get harder from here on, it is okay. 

Even though this place feels like it is about to become another, YT, twitter, etc. It is okay. I never had any expectations to begin with, but the fact that I know where I stand in my Jikook neck of the woods, makes my anger towards some bullshit very well directed towards said bullshit, and never towards jikook, BTS or any unrelated parties. I like that when I log off my life goes on. I love that even though I have times when I miss them a lot, it is just that and I am not going crazy over it. In the same way I love that there is a chance that within this global powerhouse of a band there might be somebody that loves like me. In the queer way I, and many others, do. 

So my dear future Baby Jikooker, find out why you are here. Understand what it is you want. If it is being in delulu-land that is perfectly fine I also go there from time to time, I find it fun, and when things actually happen right from delulu-land it makes it even more fun! Just gotta trade carefully, that's all. If you wanna find friends, if you wanna talk, whatever it is, just be aware of your decisions, and possible consequences, and you will not be disappointed, hurt or disillusioned, in the long run. If you don’t like all the other members, at the very lease please respect them, because Jikook surely do love them.

If you find that this environment is becoming too much for you, protect yourself the best way you can, leave if you need to, you have the right to do so. As you keep exploring make sure to find the blog that is right for you, and if you feel like it is what you want, write your own. If something feels too good to be true, check sources, always, original content is always available. If you are okay for them to be too good to be true, then do you, it is your experience, just be mindful not to ruin it for others and I hope nobody ruins it for you.

So once again, WELCOME TO JIKOOK-WORLD. I hope you don’t get too lost and you find what you were looking for. I hope you come out of it alive, if at some point you decide to run away. And if you survive all the bullshit that might take place between now and their military service (MS), if you are still around, and Jikook just so happen to be who we think they might be; then I’ll see you on the other side, or if you want come holla.

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo.

#Rambling in INFJese #Baby Jikookers #Veteran Jikookers #Jikookers #Jikook

[cha-melodius]

2023 Fic Year in Review

I've been doing these for three years now, and they always grow each year as I get tagged in other year-end posts that make the rounds. Feel free you grab it if you want to do your own review! And I’d like to add a hearty thank you to each and every person who’s read my fics over the years, y'all continue to make this a joy!

2020 Review | 2021 Review | 2022 Review

AO3 Username: chamel  My Page: Link  Active Fandoms:  Red, White & Royal Blue: 20 works The Man from UNCLE (2015): 8 works Loki: 5 works New Fandoms: None thank GOD Total Number Of Completed Works/Word Count  This Year: 33 works, 278k words  All Time: 113 works, 1.27 million words

This year a little movie that came out in August absolutely destroyed these stats lmaoooo. Most Popular One Shot (by kudos): This Year: Always Where I Need To Be (RWRB, Alex/Henry, T, 5.5k) All Time: Class(room) Warfare (RWRB, Alex/Henry, T, 7.8k words)

Most Popular Completed Multi-Chapter (by kudos):  This Year & All Time: Please Don't Let Me Be So Understood  (RWRB, Alex/Henry, E, 20k words)

Events/Challenges: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Gift Exchange 2023, The Brownstone Anniversary Fic Exchange, Halloween Huh?

More reflections, stats, and planned fics below the cut!

Additional Random AO3 Stats

By number of fics: 85% one shots, 15% multi-chaps

By word count: 52% mult-chaps, 48% one shots

Ratings by number of fics: 48% T-rated, 33% E-rated, 15% M-rated

Musical artists contributing highest number of titles: Jeff Tweedy (Tweedy/Wilco) & The New Pornographers, tied at 3 each

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?  Somehow I topped my word count from last year by 10k, which I was not expecting. That said, this year was right about average.

What’s your own favorite story of the year?  God this is a hard question this year because I wrote a lot of fics I really really love. For one single fic I'll go with Nova, Baby, because I love the story and I've got a lot of lovely feelings about it.

Did you complete your writing goals from last year?  The Goal: I want to complete a few large multichapter fics, which will probably mean my one-shot production goes down. I completed one long mulitchap, and then a few mid-length (~20k) multichaps. I think I wrote more of those than I have any other year. Surprisingly, my one-shot production wasn't super significantly decreased.

Do you have any writing goals for the New Year? Ok, I gotta come up with something. My goal is to have a similar mix of fics as least year, and also to write my first collaboration with @cricketnationrise, which will be a long multichap.

Did you take any writing risks this year? Wrote on a topic outside my wheelhouse (therapy 😬) and also posted a fic in a fandom where there weren't a lot of fics in similar genres (action/spies). Now that's no longer true, but at the time it was really freaking nerve-wracking.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Every fic I write in a fandom that's not RWRB? 😅 It's hard to complain too much, especially considering what happened to my numbers this year.

Most fun story to write: All the Old Showstoppers, Will You Brie Mine?, You're the Perfect Gift for Me. Silly RWRB boys being silly, basically.

Biggest disappointment: Again, I feel like it's hard to complain when I have a fic that's closing in on 4k kudos. The goalposts keep moving, don't they, though? I still live in fear of pouring my heart into a multichap and having what will count as "lukewarm" reception, when before this year I didn't have a single fic above 1k kudos.

Biggest surprise: Most definitely Please Don't Let Me Be So Understood. Like I figured it would do pretty well (I hoped, since I put so much into it), but holy shit?? I still can't really believe it's on page 2 of the tag by kudos? And honestly also Always Where I Need To Be, this little one-shot about David stealing glasses.

Coming soon/planned for 2024:

False Dichotomy (RWRB You've Got Mail AU)

Kissed Out (RWRB pro-pool players AU)

RWRB 1940s noir AU

RWRB conductor/piano soloist AU

RWRB hockey AU (with cricket)

A shitload of prompts from my fandom fest

Extremely delinquent MTH fics

TMFU art thief/gallery owner AU

Thank you for the tags on your end-of-the-year fic reviews @loki-is-my-kink-awakening, @kiwiana-writes, @rmd-writes, @lizzie-bennetdarcy, @indestructibleheart, and @welcometololaland!

#year in review #fic year in review #about my writing #about my fic

[esther-dot]

Hey, what do you think about the musical version of the Tourney of Harrenhal possibly spoiling certain upcoming book plots? It looks like the play might be out before WOW, and I wonder how that might play out? I feel like fans are going to lose their minds when their theories are or are not confirmed.

I’m still so incredulous about it I always have a “WHAT?!” reaction even though I know there's a play in the works. 😂 I first heard of this a couple years ago now (2021 with an expected 2023 debut) and they’ve switched the name from Harrenhal to the Iron Throne which made me wonder if they’re shifting the focus of the story, but then I realized, that’s prolly just a name recognition issue? You need something that says “GoT-related” as soon as you hear it, and they didn’t do enough with pre-canon stuff for the general public to immediately recognize Harrenhal. Although, I don't remember reading it was a musical. Do you have a source for that?

Your thought was my first reaction to hearing the news: THE SPOILERS.

But my second was, fuck me. GoT must have given enough way re: Rhaegar and Lyanna that Martin isn’t afraid to green light this. 😬 Obvy, I don't buy the complete whitewash they gave Rhaegar in GoT, but I def think we're not getting Robert's version of events. This was the official description I saw in 2021:

"The play will for the first time take audiences deeper behind the scenes of a landmark event that previously was shrouded in mystery. Featuring many of the most iconic and well-known characters from the series, the production will boast a story centered around love, vengeance, madness and the dangers of dealing in prophecy, in the process revealing secrets and lies that have only been hinted at until now." (link)

A very reasonable description as yeah, I do think we will be getting Lyanna's (short-lived perhaps) infatuation and decision to run away with Rhaegar. I mean, technically, the secrets and lies could be about Jon's identity? It's hard to know what all they’ll be covering, but the fact that they include the “madness and the dangers of dealing in prophecy” bit should alert people to the fact that they aren’t getting the completely romanticized version of R/L either.

Here was Martin's July update:

Last week we had a great meeting with the producers on THE IRON THRONE, the stage play we’ve been working on the past few years.  The scripts for that one are coming along well, and it’s got me very excited.   (link)

Martin's December update:

And since we are talking theatre… one of the meetings I had in London was with Dominick and Duncan, the director and scriptwriter of our own stage play, the one we have been working on for the past few years. Originally we were calling it HARRENHAL, but we have now settled on THE IRON THRONE as a title… until we think of something better. Regardless, things are coming well, I think, and we are hopeful of being able to open in late 2024. Maybe. But you never know. There’s still a lot of work to be done. (link)

I don't think any camp will be particularly happy because I believe Martin has a more sympathetic view of Rhaegar than someone like me (I’m guessing he views this more as a genuine tragedy rather than my “fuck Rhaegar” stance), but the hardcore Targ fans aren’t gonna be thrilled either.

I’m not sure how seriously people will take it though. As in, GoT happened and most of the fandom rejects parts or all of the ending as coming from Martin, so I’m not sure that anything other than TWOW will shake anyone’s conviction. And for some, that won’t be changing their minds either 😂

#dot chat

[destinyc1020]

Confession:

I check N's account every now and then. My parasocial self thinks she still have something for Tom. She often post stories whenever T or Z go viral. Few things I remember:

1. Her posting being at Soho House (I think in London) in 2023 when Tom celebrated his birthday in Soho House (US) with his family and Z.

2. Her posting on Sept 1 or 2 2022 (depending on the timezone) and captioned it Good old goods. Well what I see on the post is she wants to show that she's out and happy (nothing wrong about that but girl, why sept 2 of all dates?)

3. When Tom went viral because of fixing his girl's door, N posted a story about his current boyfriend being a handy man or something to that effect (well I admit I may be overthinking this one and my understanding of British humor could be wrong)

4. Shared a story about attending Dorian Gray opening night which happened the same day as Dune 2 premiere in London (and TZ went viral that day as expected)

Sorry for the rant, just need to let it out..

Thanks Anon for your confession....

I'm just going to be honest here since that's what I usually am on my blog lol. I'll give you my honest opinion. 😅

I'll first be honest and admit that I really haven't paid much attention to N (if at all) since 2021 lol.

Once it became apparent that Tom dumped her to get back with Z, and he and Z were starting a relationship back up again, I really didn't see the need to follow whatever N was doing tbh.

I mean, maybe you might be on to smthg? But my honest feeling is that you might just be reading a little too much into innocuous things. Just because N posts on the same day as smthg going on with TZ doesn't automatically mean she's not over Tom or over a breakup.

She and Tom barely dated each other... ��� It's not like they dated each other for years upon years, or even went out on dates like a regular couple (most of their time together was spent indoors during the Covid-19 shutdown).

Honestly? It's 2024. If she were still pining after a guy that dumped her almost 4 years ago back in 2020, I'd say that it's time for her to go to therapy and figure out what's going on there, coz that's not normal. 👀😬

With that said, I personally doubt N is still holding a torch for Tom. It was pretty obvious when she was throwing shade re: their breakup, but after 2021, I haven't seen her behaving in that manner. I also kind of get the feeling that she made peace with the whole thing long time ago.

Sometimes, I think fans forget that Tom was actually her rebound from Stanley. Tom himself was also still rebounding (imo) when he dated N. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I really don't think it was as serious as some fans made the thing out to be tbh.

Last I checked, N seems perfectly happy with her new beau. ☺️

#confession Sunday

[jalwyn21]

The thing with JG family is not that his father or mother are some big influential people in movie industry. But they are real part of movie industry, as is Jake, his sister, his brother-in-law and godmother. TS meanwhile is outsider to movie industry, she’s not one of their own. So when she jumped on JG and his family movie industry essentially quietly took JG’s side and side of his family-not because of some power or influence and money or because they like JG necessarily but because they were siding with their own against outsider (Taylor). It was evident when they invited Jake to present at the Oscars only a couple of months later after Red TV though it was super random. And of course when they didn’t even let TS “short film” on short list for Oscar . Also see Joe, he is also actor and thus probably has a lot of professional sympathy for Jake-which he basically telegraphed when after breakup with Taylor he went to see the play based on one of Jake’s movies. Joe also distanced himself from anti-Jake stuff while with Taylor - maybe also from the point of professional solidarity, since Joe like Jake belongs to the same movie industry while TS is just wannabe imposter in movie industry.

Well said!

And yes, Joe totally distanced himself from the whole redtv mess. And it was the right and classy thing to do.

I also, think that redtv was when Joe finally woke up and saw the real TS. Sure, the relationships was never perfect, they were never compatible, but it was 2021 that was the final nail in the coffin.

And if we consider that maybe Joe and Jake might have met in 2021... 😬😬😬

#free joe alwyn #q&a #nonnie #jalwyn #joe alwyn #joealwyn #anti taylor swift #toxic swifties #shit swifties say #toxic taylor swift #jake gyllenhaal

[bloody-wonder]

2023 reading wrap up

sort sort sort i love to arbitrarily sort😌📚

*i decided to get even more creative this time and named the tiers after different things from the books featured on this list. see explanation below🙃 **the following series i read in full are represented only by the first book: the aurelian cycle, the radiant emperor, the winnowing flame, sorcery of thorns, monk & robot, lilywhite boys

so in 2023 my reading was heavily curated: i challenged myself to finish at least 5 series i started a long time ago, to start at least 5 new ones, to read at least 10 classics, at least 5 dark academia books, at least 10 books not in english and to re-read at least 5 books i've been meaning to re-read for some time - and i did well at all of these challenges except for the last two (missed the goal by one book in each case). it's still difficult for me to find books in languages i can read other than english which i actually want to read as well as prioritizing re-reads over new exciting books😒🤷���♀️

but overall i would say this was a good way to organize my reading year. i like planning, i like structure, i like crossing things off different lists so completing these challenges gave me a great sense of accomplishment. but more importantly, i feel like they achieved their respective purpose: i returned to stories i fell in love with years ago and finally followed some of those journeys to their end. i discovered new fun journeys - some of them so exciting i had to finish the series immediately and some that will last me for a few more years to come. i finally feel like i trained my classics brain muscle back to its glory days and i can't express how pleasantly surprised i am to see one of those dusty tomes i read by the dozen as a teen on my top 5 again. i rediscovered my love for dark academia. i did read books in different languages and some of them ended up quite high on my tier list as well.

at the same time i had plenty of opportunities left to mood-read. boy parts, my favorite book of the year, for example wasn't a part of any challenge. the same goes for semantic error which i picked up at random during the bl manhwa revival i experienced at the end of 2023. so my top tiers ended up being a mix of different genres, the new and the old series and books, the expected and the unexpected faves.

i wasn't trying to read a certain amount of books this year but surprisingly i managed to read even more than last year (when it comes to the page count). and as for the quality, i do have a better feeling than i had in 2022 too. while i didn't manage to regain the heights of literary enjoyment from the golden era of 2019-2021, i think i'm on my way there :)

here's another curious wrap up thingy @magpiefngrl tagged me in! very representative of my reading tastes, though i must say i have only 6 unread kj charles books left and i'm starting to get concerned about what i'm going to do when i inevitably gobble them up in 2024😬

what about you guys? please tell me about your reading year! you can do a tier list (if you're a virgo) or the my year in books overview (if you regularly update your goodreads) or just write a post, if you want to. or you can also ignore me and go have a fantastic year😉🍾🎉🎆🎄

@figuringthengsout @fugitoidkry @pinkasrenzo @fandomreferencepending @counterwiddershins @magpiefngrl @sugarbabywenkexing @weirdsociology @theodoradove @doh-rae-me @venndaai @sixappleseeds @oliviermiraarmstrongs @bookish-moony

goodreads │ old yearly wrap ups 2020 2021 2022

explanation of the tier titles under the cut (if you even care)

spermaceti is a precious substance derived from the head of the sperm whale that may or may not be the whale's sperm. these are the books i absolutely loved. the vibe is that scene from moby dick where they are all on deck slicking each other with spermaceti and chanting "sperm!🙌" (that's how i remember it anyways)

toy excavator is the source of his strongest positive feelings for the main character of semantic error chu sangwoo. these are the books that i loved too but not on the spermaceti level, you know. the vibe is that scene where sangwoo realizes he's in love with jaeyoung and is like,, damn. this feels exactly like that time they gifted me a toy excavator🤔😒 (he's autistic)

skyfish is the least cool type of dragon in the aurelian cycle. the hufflepuff dragon, if you will. but it's still a dragon so these were some good books i still enjoyed😌

defekta are sentient furniture in nino cipri's sci fi novella defekt. now, in this book the concept of defekta very much serves the purpose of questioning what things we see as defective and the ethics of of how we treat them. for the purposes of this tier list however defekta are the books which range from good to great but which at the same time have some big issue that made me want to throw them at a wall. that's why the radiant emperor is ranked twice lol it has to be on my top 5 bc i'm obsessed but also ragsghhjdsgjhjbbdsd

kerinne is a made up drink the characters of mca hogarth's cozy sci fi series the dreamhealers like to drink. in 2023 i found out that i am not immune to cozy sff but one genre-specific thing i will forever remain indifferent towards is foods & beverages - i don't care about them too much irl so when they're fictional i care even less. these are the books that were just whatever🤷‍♀️

holism is art's annoying coworker we're introduced to in system collapse. a totally overrated guy, just like these books🙄

green varnish is a resin-like substance a certain type of creature in the winnowing flame excretes after consuming everything it finds in its path so that entire towns together with their residents get entombed under it forever. it's also transparent so the areas attacked by these creatures basically turn into see-through graveyards brrrr. these were The Worst books i read in 2023😬

#book tag #putting boy parts into the spermaceti tier over moby dick & cackling maniacally #ugh both goodreads and tiermaker kept crashing on me but i persevered #also if you're one of my reader followers and you want to tell me about your reading year please consider yourself tagged!

[naneun-no]

Forget touching grass, go kiss somebody.

Long rant ahead, you’ve been warned 😬

For a community that relies so much on reading peoples’ body language and tells, the majority of BTS shippers seem to have a concerning lack of understanding of how actual humans living a life work.

I swear. Y’all will sit and analyze the hell out of three seconds worth of slowed-down content, but ignore any and all context, extraneous factors (aka concerns that don’t have anything to do with romance and can make someone appear upset, closed off, or just plain tired) and everything that happens after those all-important three seconds.

Looking at you, anons who I’ve seen all pressed over the fact that in the We Photobook Sketch, Jimin was initiating most of the Jikook moments. Some of y’all are insecure jikookers, some are from another ship trying to have a gotcha moment, and some are probably just new to things, but… keep in mind:

1. Content isn’t always released in chronological order.

Yes, this photoshoot behind the scenes is the most recent content released, but that doesn��t mean it’s the most recent thing that happened. @kanmom51 had a great post about this whole photoshoot, and took a guess that it happened around Sep 2021. I think that’s probably right, based on haircuts/colors and piercings. Which would mean this “distance” between JK and JM that you all think you picked up on took place BEFORE: JK getting his attendance stamps in JM’s room all day every day in late 2021, the infamous and adorable “should I come see you?” birthday vlive, and the ass-grabbing, forehead-touching, finger heart-giving, bridal-carrying Jikookery Foolishness Fest that was PTD Las Vegas.

And just because late 2021 and 2022 was a gold mine, and because I know y’all try to dismiss concert behavior as fake fanservice, it was also before: “I’ll keep holding Jiminie ✋😛🤚”, “happy birthday BRO,” the attentive giddy love sesh that was aerial yoga, and this flirty ass conversation:

So… try to orient content on the timeline before making judgments based on it. It will save you a lot of anxiety.

2. Learn the difference between focus and coldness.

Not always, but in general, JK seems to (I’m gonna use an ADHD term because I have it and I strongly suspect he does too but obviously I don’t know for sure don’t come at me) hyperfocus on things, particularly when it’s something like a work photoshoot where there are likely a lot of staff around and there’s a job to get done. Yes, he can goof off at work with the best of them, but for stuff like this (which had a stricter, more professional vibe than say, filming a Run BTS ep), he’s almost always the more reserved one, while Jimin seems to have an easier time shifting between his silly, flirty side and his fierce professional model side. The man can turn it off and on like a light switch, while JK seems to have a harder time shifting his attention and coming in and out of “work mode” (also an ADHD thing, just saying). So yeah, we see JM making eyes at JK in between shots, we see him turning toward JK while JK keeps his gaze on the camera. To me, this does not read as JK being disinterested in JM. It reads as “I have a job to do and I need to stay in the zone or I’ll look dumb as hell in these photos and I’m too pretty for that.” Just my take 🤷‍♀️ Which brings me to…

3. Context is everything.

My spouse and I have been together for nearly 10 years. We still have moments where we are over-the-moon into each other, and we also have moments where work takes priority, where we aren’t as attentive as we should be, where one of us wants attention and the other is focusing on something else (not saying that’s necessarily what was going on during the photoshoot, but it’s possible and a much more reasonable conclusion than JK suddenly falling out of love and JM not noticing). If someone were to make a short video recording us on any given day, our interactions might vary. We might look super close; we might look a little distant. Because real humans in real relationships have normal fluctuations like that. If assorted, curated clips from a 7 minute video (think about that — that shoot probably lasted 4-5 hours at least, and they showed us 7 minutes) are your basis for deciding whether a couple is broken up or still together, you’re basing a whole lot on very little. Which is why I say…

Go Kiss Somebody

Like, not without their permission, but you know what I mean. Go experience falling in love, go connect with someone else and see how every little facial twitch you or they make is not evidence of the deterioration of your whole relationship. When shippers try to make a ship sink or sail based on the micro-expressions on someone’s face during a zoomed-in, slow-mo, three second clip, they reveal that most likely, they’ve only ever experienced romantic relationships in the context of novels, fanfic, tv shows and movies. In other words — stories. Because in a love story, every little detail truly IS about the romantic plot line, otherwise the editors would have cut that superfluous stuff out, because they’ve got a story to tell. But real relationships aren’t like that. Real relationships aren’t streamlined love stories with rising action and a climax and a resolution; they’re real people living meandering lives that happen to include immense love. And that’s the difference. Shit, that’s a whole other post…

#jikook #kookmin #I started off mad but I got philosophical #like damn #go kiss somebody already #bts #bts ships #touch grass #shipping culture

[twopoppies]

I've come to conclusion that sometimes people are tone deaf. It's very clear that harry sang 'you've got my devotion' yesterday but they are few who's saying 'he's got my devotion' and similarly were very sure that he sang 'hopelessly devoted to lou'🙆‍♀️🙆‍♀️🙆‍♀️ 😬

I heard “you’ve” last night, but I’ve only listened once. The Harryween 2022 one has been tough for me to decide on, to be honest. But I think the only one I’ve ever really been close to being certain on is Harryween night 2 from 2021 when he sang “imaginary baby” during Kiwi.

#lyric changes #Hopelessly devoted to you lyric change #kiwi lyric change

[me-and-my-sloth]

Fic Search!! Buddie Time Travel

It was from rough trade from 2021? I'm hoping someone knows the author..

So Eddie is dead, and Chris lives with his grandparents who deny him independence; he's wheelchair bound and miserable. I think someone appears before Buck, and he time travels. One thing he changes is taking Isabel and Christoper to Disney. He gets an extricate chair for Isabel and encourages Chris to ride it to prevent him from getting over tired and sore.

The day of the tsunami Buck shows up on the pier, ready to help people when it hits and sees Isabel, Chris, Denny, Harry, May, and another girl? Who is an oc's child, I think? Anyway, he rushes them to the fire engine and throws Isabel on top to save her, and she breaks her hip. That's all I remember 😬 Please help!

#fic finder #Buddie #buddie #Eddie/Buck #evan buck buckely #eddie diaz #9 1 1 fanfiction #9-1-1 #buck/eddie #fic search #rough trade #rough trade 2021 #911 fic #9 1 1 #9 1 1 fic

[dizzyduck44]

Daniel Ricciardo’s blessing is his curse 🍯🦡🇦🇺

Daniel is in his 14th season of Formula 1. He has had a long career in the highest tier of motorsport. However the questions that surrounded him at McLaren seem to have followed him to Visa CashApp FFS this is seriously what you called the team!

The thing is every driver seems to reach for the F1 seat, but Daniel’s seemingly lack of ability to adapt driving style is being compounded by the grid he currently drives on. You see, either competitively or for fun most of the drivers have had to adapt to a different style of driving. Some at a stupidly young age.

Let’s look into it

Max Verstappen - spends his days off driving any kind of race car Red Bull will let him. Seeing him take his Dad round the Nordschliefe says it all really.

Sergio Perez - drove just about every form of junior open wheel car on his way to F1.

Charles LeClerc - like Daniel seems to be all F1. Do we question he’d be a beast in a Ferrari sportscar though?

Carlos Sainz - again seems to be all F1 but remember Dad has a track on the family farm. He has been driving allsorts, on dirt, since he could sit in a car seat

Lewis Hamilton - never competitively but again over the year Mercedes has given him opportunities to drive all sorts of high powered sports cars for promotion. Even a superbike.

George Russell - says he tested a DTM car, again gets to play with the Merc sports cars

Lando Norris - went from karting to Ginetta then to open wheel. Add a go at the Daytona 500, all competitively. Embarrassed himself at the Race of Champions. Now seems to love ice karting (weirdo).

Oscar Piastri - another one straight through to F1, however only ever driven one F1 car but I don’t worry he wouldn’t adapt

Fernando Alonso - Nando has the full set right? F1, Indycar, WEC, Daytona, Dakar. Won Le Mans. Next!

Lance Stroll - has done a couple of races in IMSA.

Esteban Ocon - drove in DTM prior to F1

Pierre Gasly - drive in Formula E prior to F1

Alex Albon - has done a season of DTM

Logan Sargeant - straight through to F1. Again only driven one F1 car.

Kevin Magnussen - various stints in sportscar series throughout the years inbetween F1.

Nico Hulkenberg - Le Mans champion, Indycar test.

Yuki Tsunoda - straight through to F1. Only ever driven 1 F1 car.

Valtteri Bottas - ice rallying. Need I say more!

Zhou Guanyu - another open wheel all the way to F1. I’m gonna give him the credit of having driven the Renault a number of times before moving to Sauber.

So you see what Daniel is up against.

Not a winter break goes by when you don’t see half the grid in a go kart. Shout out to Lando and Fernando who seem to do it midseason and all the drivers who happily jump in for promotion days. (80% of the grid). One of the biggest shocks for me was when Daniel went karting with Jenson Button in 2021 and admitted he “hasn’t done this is years” 😬

So we are getting to the core of the problem. With a grid of drivers who turn their hand to anything, sometimes for a laugh, Daniel has never really pushed himself out of what he knows. And it’s biting him.

What is of further concern for him, is Liam Lawson is hovering (he should already be in a seat but I digress). A driver who went for F2 to DTM and nearly won the championship in the first season (I’m still bitter). Then into an F1 seat and was up to speed almost immediately.

The trouble is now it’s too late to throw him into a sportscar to give him the experience, because I’m not sure he would get back into F1. If Daniel thinks the Max and Lando’s were a handful to deal with, who needed a bit of maturing to hit their stride, the Oscar Piastri’s and Ollie Bearman’s of the world are terrifying.

Daniel needs to find the solution on his own. Before it eats away at his mental health and confidence. 6 laps in a NASCAR round COTA is not gonna cut it.

I think I know what’s happened and I and he are afraid to admit it. Ask Jenson Button about the point you sit behind the wheel and no longer want to take the risk or push the limit. I worry he has hit the mental block of I can’t learn another way and the idea of taking a high powered sportscar out terrifies him.

And who’s going to let him lose in the Red Bull if that is going on in his head?

Fingers crossed he shows up and shows out in Melbourne

#daniel ricciardo

[lowcaloriesims]

WTF is an mklink?

To all the simmers out there, I’m sure that you’ve come across a lot of great CC out there. There are so many great mods by fantastic people, across all the games. If you’re like me, you’ve probably accumulated gigs upon gigs worth of the stuff. If you want to save room on your hard drive, and move all this great stuff to a larger one while still being used in the game, I can show you how. 

NOTE: This works for all sims games, and much more! You can use mklinks for anything!

What is an mklink? I'm not going to write an irrelevant story, so I'll save you from the bullshit. An mklink is a symbolic link where you take something from one part of your computer, move it to another hard drive, but link it to the first one. Confused? It's hard to explain without pictures and examples, but in practice it will make more sense.

Here's an example, of what I use symbolic links for. In our modern day, at least in 2022, we have a serious space problem on our hard drives. Even though SSDs are faster than HDDs, they also contain less space to save files on. With games in our modern era, it is not surprising to see files that are over 50 gigs easily. Call of Duty Black OPS 3 requires 100gigs, as stated on steam. Mortal Kombat 11 is easily 80 gigs, on my husband's computer, it was over 100. Cyberpunk 2077 is 70 gig as stated on steam. With these huge as games, there's little space to place them all.

Personally, I use the symbolic links for my Sims games, stuffing all my mods on an external hard drive, to save as much space on my SSD as I can. Even though the Sims 2 Ultimate Collection is about 12 gigs, I have...seriously...over 19 gigs of mods and custom content. 😬 I may have a problem, but this is how I play lol. A symbolic link is very useful in a scenario as the sims, where you have to have your mods folder in your documents folder on the C: drive. Without that folder there, none of your mods and custom content will work. That's just the way EA set up the games, Sims 2, or Sims 3 (if you have sims 4, this is probably the case too).

The problem with having multiple large programs on an SSD, plus certain games that need to be in specific folders, is that you lose space very fast (windows dumping all your stray data and temp data in the hidden temp files don't help either. If you are low on space, look at cleaning out your temp files. Seriously. I had 100gigs there.).

In 2021, I looked up if there was another way to store my mods folder, so that I could still use it in my game, but not take up so much space on my SSD. I was hoping that there was a solution to potentially be able to place the mods on my HDD, while keeping the smaller files in place. Symbolic links were my solution, as this ameliorated my problem. To get to the point, the mod folder was placed from my C: drive, to an external hard drive. In order to get The Sims 2 to still recognize my mod folder, I used the 'mklink' command in windows cmd, with a symbolic link. It is called a symbolic link, in my words, because your computer "thinks" it's on the one hard drive, while actually existing on the other. It's as simple as that, and that explanation makes sense. While symbolic links and mklinks are rather unknown to the common person, they actually have a lot of use for more than the standard tech ideologies.

So how the funk do I do it?

There are multiple examples and instruction pages out there, though I feel like many of them barely make sense, or leave out certain details. Very few people in the sim community can seem to communicate accurately, and write instructions that make sense. I know that's harsh and arrogant, but I have spent so much wasted time trying to do something in someone's wiki or instruction file, just for their own documentation to be wrong. like wtf man 🤦‍♀️ I will provide pictures, because not only do I want this to help you, I am writing this to help me later. Sometimes I forget things, and need a refresher lol. Here is the "hard" way, aka doing it manually, without an extension. 1. Move your mods folder wherever you want. I am moving my Sims 2 mods folder, which is called DOWNLOADS, to my D: drive, as it has a lot more space. I am putting my folder in another one created, with the title "MODS LEL". This isn't necessary, organization is just something I like. If I dont put the folder in another folder, then I would just have random "DOWNLOADS" folder with no other description. Hang with me, I know that made little sense.

2. delete the mods folder from the C: drive. Yes, seriously. 3. open up notepad or some other word processor thing. Just in case you mess up and need to edit this. 4. type in: mklink /D "C:\Users\User\Documents\EA Games\The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection\Downloads" "D:\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\MODS LEL\Downloads"

➡️ 4.1] To explain the syntax, we have the mklink /D, with "/D" standing for directory. There are other letters we can use, but I want to keep this simple for now. The first "address" is where we want our file to show up, symbolically. So, for me, I want to "trick" my computer into thinking that my mods folder will be in the Sims 2 ultimate collection folder, on my C: drive. The reason why we deleted the C: folder, is that the symbolic link cannot be created if the folder you want to exist, already does. Bear with me here.

➡️ 4.2] The first "address" is where we want the symbolic to go, and technically, be created. So we have to put the name of the folder/location we want it to be. It is important that we have QUOTATION MARKS. I see many guides talk about symbolic links, but look over this fact.

➡️ 4.3] The second "address" is where our mod folder actually goes. The D: is where my mod folder is actually located, and accessed.

➡️ 4.4] So, for reference, the formula we have is: mklink /D "location you want the folder to go" "location where it actually lives" Think of it like a shell company that is avoiding the government. There are American companies that are based in the USA, but start fake ghost companies in Europe to act like it's not them, and avoid taxes through, and more than likely launder money in. It'd be like Walmart opening a shell company in France called Ballmart, and acting like it was a separate whole company, despite the fact that it was really them.

5. Open the command prompt AS ADMINISTRATOR. If you do not know how, press the windows key, and type in cmd. When it pops up, right click, and you will have the option to run the program as the administrator. 6. Type in the mklink that you created, or copy pasta it if you wrote it on notepad or something. Hit enter. 7. If done correctly, you should now have a symbolic link! Congraturations!

If you aren't sure that you made the link correctly, there will be a little arrow icon on your folder, indicating that it is symbolically linked.

Hope this helps!

[This was originally posted on my neocities page.]

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