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watchmegetobsessed · 10 months

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THE FINAL SHOW

A/N: last night was a rollercoaster of emotions and i still can't believe love on tour is over, but it will always have a special place in my heart. one thing is for sure, im sill here and i will continue writing for this amazing human until he returns onto the stage where he belongs.

WORD COUNT: 2.6k

SUMMARY: You made a promise in the beginning of Love On Tour and now it's catching up with you and though your heart wants you to keep your word, you know it's not that easy, because it's about your boss, the person who matters the most to you.

MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

You should have learned by now that Harry Styles never forgets.

He remembers every birthday, anniversary, every story anyone tells him, he remembers fans he has interacted with and he is extremely good with names. It’s definitely one thing you admire about him.

But know this tiny detail about him did not teach you to watch what you say around him, because he will recite your words even years later.

It’s been an on and off tango between the two of you for a long time. As his assistant, you’ve been dancing on the line of being professional and jumping into his bed whenever he does as so much as looking at you with those stupid, gorgeous eyes. He is your job, you keep telling that to yourself, but deep down you know he is more than just that.

He is… everything.

It would be easier if he only saw you as his assistant, but that’s not the case. Just how you caught those certain feelings, Harry has shown interest towards you, on several occasions, flirting with you bluntly, asking you out every possible chance.

And each time, when you turned down, a voice in your head screamed at you, but your rationality has been stronger so far and it hasn’t let you take that leap that would change everything forever.

Now, back to his immaculate memory.

You’d been working for him for over a year when the first European leg of Love On Tour was about to start, the residency shows were set to be announced and along with the South American, Australian and Asian dates and another full European leg was in the planning phase. Tour was looking endless and everyone on the team was joking that there won’t be a final show of Love On Tour.

Following another meeting in Harry’s LA home you were hanging out by his pool, something that happened quite often, because he liked to share what he had with the people around him. The sun was setting and you both had several glasses of wine, so the business talk has been long forgotten when you ordered food for the two of you.

You were in the shallow, lounge area of the pool where you could sit in the water and you were enjoying a hamburger while he was swimming around, watching you. You caught him looking right in the middle of a huge bite.

“What?” you asked, narrowing your eyes at him as he swam closer with a grin on his face.

“You look amazing.”

You snorted out loud, mouth full and probably smelling like onions.

“I’m sure I do,” you sarcastically said. “Is this what turns you on? Chewing and onion smell?”

“No. It’s you.”

You stopped and gave him a suspicious look. He moved over and sat beside you.

“You turn me on, Y/N,” he added, when you didn’t say anything, just leisurely staring back at you, as if he hadn’t just overstepped a major boundary between boss and employee.

“Harry, stop,” you mumbled, putting the remainder of your burger to the plate at the edge of the pool.

“What? You started it with guessing what turns me on.”

“It was just a joke!”

“Okay, and I told you the truth.”

“You definitely shouldn’t be saying shit like that to me.”

“Too late, already did, so I think we could take it even further,” he shrugged and you couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“Oh, you are something else, Harry Styles, you know that?”

“That didn’t sound like a no to me,” he grinned, moving just a tad bit closer, but still respecting your private space. “I really want to kiss you, Y/N,” he bluntly added and you knew it was the wine talking from him, sober Harry wouldn’t have said those words out loud, but it didn’t fail to make you feel dizzy and weak.

“That’s not gonna happen now,” you shook your head.

“Okay, if not now, then when?”

“You are so annoying,” you laughed again. “You know what? You can kiss me when Love On Tour officially ends,” you joked.

It was a genuine joke. Anyone would have known you didn’t mean it, but it was Harry you said it to and the moment the words left your mouth they burned into his memories forever.

“Alright then,” he simply said, splashed you and then swam away.

That was the beginning of 2022. You slept off the wine and though you never forgot you said it, you didn’t keep track of the promise you initially made.

Harry did, however.

Not one day went by without him thinking about those words and it was the only reason he was looking forward for the very last show of Love On Tour.

He’s been acting weird, probably since about Vienna. With two weeks until the end of tour and his break, your workload hasn’t gotten less so you couldn’t really care about his weirdness, but when you’re out for dinner in Barcelona with the band and some other crew members and two rounds of drinks have been consumed already, you finally acknowledge the change.

“Hey, you alright?” You poke your elbow into his side, stealing a fry from his plate. Shrugging, he pushes the plate closer to you.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?” you ask, snacking on his leftover fries.

“The end of tour.”

Freezing you instantly remember to that one conversation in his pool. You peek at him and find him already looking at you with a gaze that burns right into your heart. Clearing your throat you turn back to the fries and pretend like you don’t remember the promise you made.

“Just two more weeks and you’re free.”

“That’s not how I see it.”

“Mmm,” you hum, but don’t dare to look at him. You can feel his eyes on the side of your face, but luckily, before he could bring up anything specific Mitch call out his name from across the table and you’re relieved. For now.

It’s almost midnight when you all head back to the hotel and you and Harry somehow end up at the back of the group. The elevator is too full for the two of you to get in as well, so you wait for another round. While you’re still ignoring to look at him, he is very much only looking at you, it feels like.

The elevator returns and you get inside, but Harry pushes the button for the top floor.

“Hey, that’s—“

“I want to show you something,” he hold up a hand.

The top of the hotel has a rooftop bar with an amazing view of the city, the perfect grid of the streets, it’s breathtaking.

“I knew you would like it,” he smiles, leaning against the railing next to you, with his back towards the view, as if he was way more interested in seeing you than the city.

“Because you know me so well,” you chuckle softly.

“I do,” he answers quietly. “We have only four more shows.”

“Mhm,” you nod, eyes glued to the view in front of you.

“The final show of Love On Tour is in ten days.”

“I’m glad you keep track of the shows so well, I feel like I’m not even needed anymore,” you joke with a chuckle, but when you finally look at him you know why he is bringing all of these up.

“Do you remember what you promised would happen when the last show finally comes?”

“Harry…”

“You do,” he simply says. “I know you as someone who keeps her word.”

“It’s… Harry, that was never a promise, I was just joking!”

“None of it is a joke to me, Y/N.”

You roll your eyes, but hate the effect his words have on you. Like your whole inside is on fire, begging to just give in finally, to end this years long game and act on the feelings you’ve been pushing down so hard all this time.

Sighing you cross your arms over your chest. You want to make fun out of it again and say that it was all just about a kiss, but you know, you both know that it would never stop at one kiss, that it’s bigger than that and it would consume you fully if you let your walls down.

“This seems like a big mistake,” you tell him honestly. “What if it goes wrong and… I lose my job… and you.”

Your voice breaks at the end and you can’t look him in the eyes. You’ve spent endless nights thinking about what would happen if you gave in and it all went downhill. Your job might be the last thing on the list of worries, what really scares you is to imagine a version of your life without him because.

It would break you.

“Being scared of the wrong outcome will keep you away from the best things in your life, Y/N.”

“Did you just call yourself the best thing in my life?” you try to joke, but he just gives you a look.

“Don’t think about the what ifs, if you get there, you’ll figure it out. You always do. We always do.”

“This is not that simple,” you shake your head. “You know it’s not that simple.”

“But it is,” he chuckles, but you keep shaking your head. “Figuring out my feelings has never been this simple.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence when not even you know whether you’re about to give in or not and for a split second it actually feels like you’re breaking, but something pulls you back last minute.

“No. And we should be heading back, you have a show tomorrow. You need to get some rest.”

You step away from the railing and start walking back, but when you notice that he’s not coming you turn around and see him staring at the city this time. Opening your mouth you’re about to call out for him, but then change your mind and let him be, walking back to your room.

When you see him again in the morning he doesn’t bring it up again and you’re convinced he won’t bring your promise up again.

The last show has everyone all over the place, you’ve been running around since about six in the morning, picking up people, making sure the hotel check-ins go smoothly and everything is exactly how it should be. The day feels like a whole week, but the excitement and bittersweet sadness that’s been wrapped around everyone is what keeps you up on your feet still.

But the real weight of the last show hits the moment it finally starts.

This is the time when you have nothing to do so you watch Harry perform every night, meaning that this is the 169th time you’re seeing him take the stage and perform just as perfectly as he did at the first, the fiftieth and one hundredth show. He always gives his absolute most. Not just at his shows, but in his life as well. That’s one of the million reasons you fell for him.

Medicine has everyone dying, all 100 thousand people out there and then Harry starts giving his speech that’s extra long this time, talking about how grateful he is for everything, for his fans, his friends and family and it’s one big emotional mess and you can’t help but cry a bit as well, watching from the side.

“The last two years of my life, the last two years of this tour has been the greatest experience I could ever ask for…”

“I see it, the love, in how it’s affected all the people around me, continue to affect people. It does not end with this tour.”

“I love you, thank you so much.”

Screaming rolls over the crowd as an answer and you expect him to go on with starting As It Was, but then he starts talking again.

“There is one more thing I want to say tonight. I have learned and experienced so much in the past years. I will be forever thankful for the memories we’ve made.”

There. He said we, he switched up his narrative. That’s how you know he is not talking to the crowd. He is talking to you.

“If this is it, if it never goes beyond this, I would live a happy life. With you forever in my heart. But if we ever take it further, if we ever take the risk and reach for the stars and we might fall… just know that I will always be here for you. You can never lose me. No matter what. I love you.”

You suck on your breath, covering your mouth with your hand as you stare at him stand in the middle of the stage, staring out ahead of him, the crowd screaming for him, oblivious to the one sided conversation that just happened between you and him.

As It Was starts and the show carries on towards the end, but you’re still frozen in that moment and when the show ends and you watch Harry drop to his knees on the stage, you know things will never be the same.

Backstage is like a tornado once the show is over, the band walks off the stage and Harry is following right behind with Lloyd by his side, but when he sees you standing still in the middle of the madness, he drops out of the conversation right away and stops a few feet away from you, letting you decide where to go now.

“You promise?” you breathe out, your throat closing up. “You promise I will never lose you?”

“I thought that was clear by now, Y/N,” he replies, his chest still rapidly rising and falling. “But if you need me to actually say it, I will. You will never lose me, no matter what. It will always be you and me and I know you’re scared, but I’m—“

He doesn’t get to finish, because you’re already throwing yourself into his arms and kissing him.

It doesn’t matter that the whole crew bursts out into screaming and whistling, that you’re giving a second show with the way you get lost in each other, because in your little bubble it’s just you and Harry and everything that’s been building between the two of you.

Every joke, every teasing comment, all the stolen looks and suppressed feeling that was never acted on is now free, they all burst out of your chest and into the electricity that’s snaking around you as you keep taking more and more of him, hungry to make up for the past years.

The clapping dies down when you finally pull back, forehead resting against his, his hands holding you so tight as if he was afraid you might run away any moment.

“You kept your promise. I knew you were trusty, Y/N Y/L/N,” he chuckles, pecking your lips softly again as you laugh at his words, finally opening your eyes to look at him.

“Actually I feel like I kissed you. I promised you could kiss me, so technically—“

“Shut up, you’re already getting on my nerves,” he laughs, kissing you over and over again, so your promise is actually fulfilled. “Can’t wait for you to do that every day for the rest of my life.”

“I thought that was part of my job too, have I not been doing that?” you tease, lips moving against his as you speak.

“You have, but you can take it to a whole new level now,” he laughs, pulling you against him before letting you go and popping the bubble, though his hand never lets go of yours, not while everyone congratulates him, not when the final show celebrations start and not when he pulls you into his hotel room to end this journey of Love On Tour with you by his side, but also start a new chapter.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb

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monzabee · 1 year

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girl crush – dr3

masterlist || part 2 ||

Summary: The one where both you and Daniel meet your celebrity crushes in the course of a weekend, and decide to give it a go.

Pairing: daniel ricciardo x actress!reader

Word Count: 4522

Warnings: fluff, shy daniel, shy reader, max being a menace (we love you max), awkwardness, 2023 australian gp, oscars (i love you Jamie Lee Curtis, you rock), slight age gap? (the reader is around the same age as Max)

Request: this is a long one besties, but you can read the request here! + “Hello! Can I please request nepo!reader who's an actress and maybe has an oscar or something? Maybe with Lewis or Daniel”

Author’s Note: hi, hey, hello!! this title changed so many times i lost track, but at the end, i went with the song – mainly because harry styles. i don’t know what’s wrong with me but this was very hard to write because i had BIG plans for it, so i’m sorry it took a while for me to finish it. also, i listened to a lot of la la land for some reason, so here you go. i hope i did it justice, and this was definitely very fun to write and i had a great time writing it, so thank you, to the anons, for the request, i hope you guys enjoy! good morning, noon or night wherever you are, xoxobee

Please also note that all of my works are protected under copyright, and not available for reposting on other platforms.

Growing up with parents who were obsessed with Formula One had finally taken its toll on you, you decide as you walk towards the Red Bull Hospitality. Your father’s sudden retirement from acting, combined with your mother’s stubborn personality is the reason why you suddenly find yourself at the 2023 Australian Grand Prix. You don’t really know why they didn’t wait for the one in Miami, or perhaps Las Vegas, since their primary residence is in the US, but you had no choice but to join them when they pulled out the ‘We’re getting old’ card. So there you are, after 15 hours of flying over the Pacific Ocean, in Melbourne and ready to enjoy the racing weekend. Or so you think – because you spend the entirety of Friday catching up on lost sleep while cursing every single time your parents decide to call you to let you know how much of a great time they’re having.

In the end, you get ready Saturday morning, to get breakfast with your parents before leaving for Albert Park. Just as you’re about to leave your room, your eyes fall on a familiar hat, adorned with a certain number, and you put it on your head without giving it a second thought. Your parents don’t comment on your choice of merchandise even if they find it odd, which is good, you think, because you don’t particularly want to hear your father tease you over your “teenage crush”. The whole paddock is buzzing by the time you get there, and you immediately feel guilty because you missed the practice sessions the previous day. You quickly lose your parents to the crowd around you, too busy looking at the action around you, when you hear your name being called from somewhere. You look around trying to find the source of the voice, when you find a familiar face which makes you smile.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” You ask, quickly pulling Samira for a hug, who in return points to the camera.

“Weekend job, babe.” She laughs. “I’ve interviewed your father just a couple of minutes ago, actually.”

“Oh no,” You laugh and shake your head. “Did he tell you about his petunias?” “He did, indeed.” Samira nods and hands you one of the microphones in her hand. “Are you up for a quick interview?” She asks you as she gives you an innocent smile.

You nod while letting out a chuckle. “Well, someone has to save your viewers from my father’s garden talk, so why not?”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Samira tells you, her words coming of a bit slurred because of the way she talks too fast. She then turns to the camera after making sure that your mic is working. “Welcome back to the second day of the Australian Grand Prix, I’m here with Y/N Y/LN, whose father we just spoke to; Y/N, is this a family day out, or what?”

“This is definitely a family day out, Samira.” You laugh, nodding to strengthen your point. “Not a very usual one, we usually prefer to stay a bit more local for the weekend outings, but you never know where we’ll be next, I guess.”

“By ‘local’, do you mean the Oscars, perhaps? I mean, can we talk about your win for a moment? How does it feel to be the receiver of the award for the Actress in a Supporting Role?”

You take a deep breath as you feel your smile widen, as you can’t even try to hide your happiness. “It feels amazing, let me tell you. It was an amazing opportunity and I can’t thank enough to the lovely director and everyone who made the movie possible.” Samira nods with a satisfied look on her face as you answer. “Congratulations once again for your win. I have to ask, big Red Bull fan?” She asks you in a teasing voice.

“What?” You asked, confused. Only to realise the hat sitting on your head when she points to it with a silent chuckle. You let out a laugh while instinctively touching the hat on your head. “Oh god, you could say so, I guess; yeah.”

“I mean, I have to comment on the obvious part here.” She points to the hat while shooting the camera a look. “Number 3? You do realise the changes in the grid, don’t you?”

You laugh at her teasing voice, shrugging and smiling with an innocent look. “What can I say, I like to avoid the reality and live in my delusions.” After a few more teasing from Samira, you explain with a laugh, “No jokes, though, I honestly hope Daniel Ricciardo returns to Red Bull somehow because I don’t know how I’ll cope without him for another season.”

“A big Danny Ric fan, then, I presume?” Samira asks, pointedly.

“Oh yeah, been for a while now.”

After you’re done with your interview and bid adieu to Samira, who thanks you a dozen times more, you find your parents at the Red Bull hospitality, speaking with none other than Christian Horner himself, accompanied by Max. It’s a slightly awkward transition when you join their conversation, but it passes quickly. It doesn’t take long for your parents to be involved with their own conversation with the team principle, and for you and Max to speak amongst yourselves. Although you ask him every single question that comes to your mind about racing, whether it makes sense or not, and he answers each of them without discouraging you.

He pulls a funny face when he realises your choice of merch, pointing to your hat with a mischievous smile on his face. “Interesting choice, I would have gone with Checo.”

You roll your eyes and huff, taking your hat in the process. “You’re just jealous because it’s not your number, Max.”

“You wanna try that again?” Max raises his eyebrows.

“So what if I’m wearing his number?” You ask, arms crossed over your chest. “He’s a very good driver.”

“Who is not driving this seaso– Ow! Stop it!” Max exclaims as you hit his arm repeatedly in an attempt to stop him talking. “I hope you’re just as charming when you meet him.”

You pull a face while asking, “What do you mean ‘when I meet him’?”

He gives you an unamused look. “You’re either a very good actress, or you are very bad at checking your social media.” His eyes widen when you match his look, which tells him everything he needs to know. “You know he’s around, right? He’s shooting promo stuff, I think.”

“What do you mean he’s around?” You shriek in an attempt to hide your hat, as if Daniel is actually around to see it.

“Yeah, wait, let me call him.” He takes out his phone and quickly dials him before you have the opportunity to tell him not to do that, but he quickly shoves his phone back into his pocket when he spots someone familiar over your shoulder and waves them over.

Your eyes widen as you hiss, “You’re the worst, you know that?”

He winks at you a playfully in return, “Don’t forget to invite me to your wedding.” Then, he shakes the hand of the driver, who finally makes his way to both of you, and pulls him into what you can only describe as a ‘bro hug’. “Hello, man.”

“Hello, mate.” Daniel greets him back. His eyes widen in recognition when he catches your eyes over Max’s shoulder, and he side-steps to shake your hand with excitement, which only makes you clutch the hat closer to your chest. “Hello, you’re Y/N Y/LN. Oh my god, I’m a big fan!”

“M-me too!” You manage to get out, and then quickly add, “A big fan of you, not myself. That would be very egotistical of me.” You inhale a sharp breath as you ignore the look Max gives you, and close your eyes for a moment before opening them again. “Please ignore that, I think the jet lag is finally catching up with my brain.”

“Sure, we’ll call it the jet lag.” Max mumbles, which earns him a hit with your elbow in his ribs. “Ow!”

“I’m this close to switching teams and supporting Mercedes instead.” You lift your hand to show the minimal space you’ve left between your thumb and pointer-finger.

“I think I should take over, here before you drive her away, Max.” He jokingly shakes his hand in a motion to make him go away, and then turns you with a warm smile as Max leaves the two of you to join some of the engineers nearby. “Now, should we get you a Red Bull?”

Talking to Daniel is very easy, you realise quickly. Once you (both) get over your shyness, the conversation just flows in a way you’re not used to. He, too, answers any questions you might have like Max did, but the look in his eyes are different when you show interest in something he’s particularly passionate about. He asks you about receiving your first Oscar, and you ask him about how his wine business is going – which ends up with him promising to send a few bottles over so that you can give it your stamp of approval; you both decide that your review is going be on the back of the bottles.

“But doesn’t it get into your eyes when you’re spraying it?” You ask him, trying to comprehend how the champagne they spray doesn’t go everywhere. “And doesn’t it burn? It has alcohol, and… bubbles.”

“You might be onto something here.” He mumbles in thought, thinking whether the champagne burned his eyes or not. “Occupational hazard?” He asks in an uncertain voice, hoping it satisfies your question as an answer.

“Oh, right.” You nod, taking another sip from the can he got you. “It’s crazy, you’ve won like what? 8 races? That’s crazy, you’re crazy.” The way you keep saying whatever comes to your mind makes Daniel smile as the energy you’re feeling taking over your body for the time being. “Wow, I’ve never felt like this, is this what energy drinks do to you?”

“Probably why you shouldn’t drink too much.” He agrees.

“Sorry.” You smile apologetically, suddenly very aware of the fact that you are, in fact, rattling nonsense in front of your biggest celebrity crush. “You must think I’m crazy, and I shouldn’t be holding you back. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

Daniel is panicking inside when you start to get up, his mind scrambling up words to find a way to make you stay – he feels like a kid who’s asking his parents to let him play for a little longer. It’s not that he is not a social person, he is, but the conversation the two of you share is one of the most meaningful ones to him, even though you’re not actually talking about anything that deep. But he realises there is no pretences with you, no expectations, nothing to hide. He enjoys the way you speak what’s on your mind, whether it might be complimentary or the opposite, but he enjoys how you present your opinion and why you have it. He knows he’s extremely starstruck at that very moment, god knows he’s met enough famous people to know what it feels like, but it’s the kind of starstruck that makes him want to be not shy about it. He wants to keep talking to you for as long as you can tolerate him, because in his mind, he might be the one who is butchering the whole conversation up just by shutting up and succumbing to his shyness. He’s hyperaware of the fact that he has held himself back over the past hour, just because he was thinking about the fact that your hair is looking very shiny under the Australian sun and it is his number on your hat. It’s not something the two of you talked about, yet, but when he realises that it is his number on it, there is this inexplicable pride surging over him.

So, with his entire courage, he says, “Stay.” He clears his throat to buy himself some time to think of something else to say. “I mean, I don’t have anything else I need to do, and it’s very nice to talk to you. So, you know, if you want to, we could maybe, I don’t know, continue to talk?”

“Oh.” You let out a breath, eyes wide with excitement (and a little bit of apprehension), but despite all the nervousness you’re feeling, you find yourself back in your seat, and mumbling. “Of course, it’s very nice to speak with you too.”

And so you find yourself immersed in another conversation with the Aussie seated across from you. He is open about the past year – which as a fan you’re dying to know what happened, but don’t want to question him because he is only human after all. But for some reason, it comes naturally to talk about his pseudo-retirement with you. He tells you about his plans for the year, and how he hopes to get back to a seat by the start of the next season. In return, you tell him about the time how you almost stopped acting, but the last project you gave a change brought you an Oscar. It’s a much deeper conversation than before, but somehow you find yourself talking without feeling nervous to do so – without any second thoughts.

“I, uh, I like your hat.” He smiles nervously, pointing to the discarded hat on your lap.

You laugh nervously as your fingers occupy themselves with the visor of the cap. “Thanks, it’s my favourite.”

“Yeah?” The question that leaves his mouth is so soft that you think you would miss it if your eyes weren’t so focused on him.

“Oh, yeah.” You assure him with a little shrug. “Much better than orange, let me tell you, I look hideous in orange.”

A large smile finds its way onto your lips when he lets out a hearty laugh, shaking his head. “I somehow find it impossible to believe.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re flirting with me, Daniel.” You tease, causing him to smirk back at you. He doesn’t answer you, but instead looks at you with a very particular look which confirms what you’ve just said. Your small stare-down is sadly broken apart by Max, who calls out Daniel’s name to let him know that Christian is looking for him.

There is a sad look in his eyes when he realises that he has to go for real this time, but you give him a sad smile as you let him know you’ll be watching the screens for him during the quali. As you feel the wind breezing around you, you instinctively wrap your arms around your middle to get rid of the shiver the colder air provides. A look of recognition passes through Daniel’s face as he asks, “Are you cold?”

“A little, but it’s oka–”

“I’ll be right back.” Daniel announces as he leaves you and Max, causing the latter to turn to you with his phone in his hand. Max lets out a deep sigh, mumbling something under his breath in a language you don’t recognise, most likely Dutch.

“What are you doing?” You ask him, head tilted to the side to try and see what he’s looking at on his phone. He turns it to you after a while, apparently finding what he was looking for. “What’s that?” You ask, pointing to the phone which displays a paused video of Daniel sitting in a chair.

“He’ll probably kill me once he realises I’ve made you watch this, but the way the two of you looking at each other like lovesick puppies is making me nauseous.” He points to the phone with his head. “Play it.”

You give him a sceptical look, but do as he says and press the little triangle in the middle of the screen. The interview starts to play, and Daniel is talking about racing and the ongoing season. You let the video play for a while before looking up at Max again, more confused. “What am I supposed to see?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Max groans, taking his phone out of your hand and fast-forwarding the video to find what he’s looking for. “Here.”

You press play on the video once again, but this time it starts with the interviewer asking Daniel about his celebrity crush. While he’s thinking about his answer in the video, you throw an unamused look at Max, who urges you to direct your attention back to the video. Just as you move your eyes back onto the screen, his answer echoes through the phone speakers which makes your eyes widen. “What?” You ask Max as you scramble to play back the section of the interview.

“So, any celebrity crushes we should be keeping our eyes out for?” The interviewer asks, out of frame.

There is a thoughtful look on his face as he thinks about his answer and once he decides, there is a smile breaking on his face. “I mean, probably Y/N Y/LN. I’ve watched everything she’s in, probably multiple times, she’s just so talented.”

You watch that particular part of the video back a couple of times before Max takes his phone out of your hands with a look asking if you’re okay. “When was this?”

“I don’t know,” He shrugs. “A couple of years back, but I don’t think his answer has changed over the years.”

You blink a couple of times, trying to digest the fact that your celebrity crush also named you as his celebrity crush. “Oh, wow.”

Daniel returns a few moments later with a hoodie in his hands. He smiles at you warmly as he hands it to you. “Here, that should help.”

“Oh, Daniel, you didn’t have to.” You breath out, taking the hoodie out of his hand and putting it on with his help when he gives you a look that says he won’t accept it back. After you fix the oversized hoodie on you, you turn to him with a smile as you also put on the hat on your head.

The smile he gives you in return when he sees you in his number and merch fills your stomach with butterflies, and Max must be feeling weird about being a part of the scene because he lets Daniel know that he’ll wait at the garage. As Max leaves, Daniel turns back at you with a sad smile on his face. “I really don’t wanna leave, but–”

“You have a job to do, Daniel.” You smile with an understanding, putting an encouraging hand on his forearm. “Although I would love to keep you to myself, I’m sure there are fans out in the world who would love to see you back as much as I do.”

He lets out a small groan. “Please tell me you’ll be here tomorrow as well.”

“Well, I came all this way to watch the race too, so I’ll probably be around.” You tease him.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” He asks you in a hopeful voice.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” You affirm.

After a final look, both of start walking in different directions. And just as you’re about to leave the hospitality, you hear him call out your name. When you turn to look at him over your shoulder you hear him yell, “My number looks good on you.”

In retrospect, you wanted to arrive earlier to find a certain driver, but you couldn’t sleep last night because you couldn’t stop thinking about the day’s events. So when you wake up later than your alarm Sunday morning, you rush to get ready to leave your hotel room. By the time you arrive at Albert Park, it’s almost noon. You’re not late to see the race, there is still couple of hours until the big event, but your eyes look around the chaotic hospitality to spot Daniel. You can see a few familiar faces, some engineers you met yesterday and the drivers talking to some crew members near the garage, but there is a small frown on your face as you keep looking for the Australian driver. You’re about to give up when, suddenly, you feel someone grabbing your arm – which makes you jump back with a shriek.

“You scared me!” You exclaim, looking at the stranger who, thankfully, lets go of your arm after your outburst. “Sorry, can I help you?”

“Sorry! I thought you were lost and looking for your boyfriend.” They respond, pointing towards the garages. “I saw him enter a few minutes ago.”

“I don’t have a–” You start the say, but the person is already starting to walk away to the opposite direction. “Boyfriend.” You sigh, deciding to take the advice and see if Daniel might be at the garage after all.

If you thought there was a chaos outside the garage, you’re greatly wrong, because the only word you can use to describe the Red Bull garage is chaotic. There are crew members everywhere, trying to get the cars ready for the upcoming race. So, you do your best to slip through them without disturbing their work. Some of the members you met yesterday greet you, which makes you smile as you greet them back. You catch a familiar set of eyes, which lose the boredom in them and widen with recognition once they meet yours and he starts walking towards you.

He's beaming by the time he reaches you, as he exclaims, “You’re here!”

“Hi!” You greet him and then pull him for a quick hug.

“I’m glad you made it, Y/N.” He smiles down at you, without letting you go, and then gestures around the garage. “Have you looked around?”

You nod, matching his smile as you look up at him, “A little bit when I came in, it’s crazy out there today?”

He lets out an affirmative voice. “It’s always like that during a race day. Where are you watching the race from?”

“The Paddock Club, I think?” You answer him with a small frown. “We watched the quali from there yesterday.”

He pulls away from you slowly, and begrudgingly, holding your hand and starts to pull you away from the entrance. “I have a better idea.” He walks you towards the front of the garage, stopping right in front of the barriers and asking a crew member for a headset.

There is a playful smile on his face when he turns to you with them in his hands, which makes your eyes widen with concern. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?”

He waves his hand, passing the headset to you as he assures, “Of course, it’s the best seat in the house. Plus, it’ll be easier for us to find each other.”

“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?” You ask him as you do your best to narrow your eyes.

“Absolutely, yes.” He nods with excitement. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re kind of my celebrity crush.”

You giggle in response. “Oh, I know. Max made me watch a video.”

“He– what?”

“It was a lovely compliment.” You assure him, patting his arm with a sympathetic smile.

“I’m going to kill–” He begins to say, but one of the engineers call out his name, telling him that they need him before the race. He turns to you with a groan, jumping over the barriers instead of going through the door, which makes you chuckle, and points to you while walking backwards. “We have to talk about this.”

“We will.” You assure him. Just as you watch him walk by, you call out, “Daniel!”

“Yeah?” He calls back at you.

“You’re my celebrity crush, too.”

Instead of answering he winks at you over his shoulder, which makes you giggle. You’re sure that you’re also blushing, but decide not to think about it too much and focus on the race which is starting. You’re on the edge of your seat the entire time, from the start to the second restart to the end. The people around you are not much different, everybody holding their breaths every time one of the cars make a sharp turn. You let out an occasional gasp, or wince throughout the entire race, your hands covering your shocked expression. But, at the end, you’re happy to see that Max is P1 and Checo managed to finish the race in P5. Everyone around you seems to be sharing your opinions, since they are celebrating the good results when you take off your headset.

Daniel finds you eventually, after speaking with some of the engineers and pit crew, and there is a huge smile on his face as he asks, “So, how’d you like it?”

“Are you kidding me? It was insane!” You exclaim, using your hands to relay your point. “Eight cars, Daniel, eight cars! That’s crazy!”

“I get you’ve liked it?” He asks, his eyebrows raising.

You let out a scoff while shaking your head. “Of course I liked it!”

“I’m glad you liked it, Y/N.” He smiles, “So, I’m your celebrity crush, huh?”

“Oh please, you already knew it!” You roll your eyes at his smug expression. “I’m wearing your number, aren’t I?”

He shrugs, letting his hands occupy themselves with the end of the hoodie you’re wearing. “And it looks good on you.” He tilts his head to get a better look at your eyes as he asks, “You’re wearing it again today? Isn’t it some sort of fashion crime in Hollywood?”

“Well, I’ve never fit in much anyway.” You shrug, letting a smirk break at your lips. “It might just become my favourite item of clothing, just so you know.”

“Yeah? I’m happy to hear that.”

“You should be, I’m very particular about my hoodies.”

He smiles at your comment, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes for some reason. “When is your flight back?”

“Tuesday.” You answer him, suddenly very aware of the fact that you don’t have much time left in Melbourne at all. “But I can be convinced to stay for longer.”

His eyes widen with surprise, excitement taking over the sad look in record time. “You can? Really?” You nod your head, which makes him pull you closer to him with the hand still holding your hoodie. “Let me take you out on a date.” His eyes seem to beg.

You nod your head once again, tilting your head backwards to keep your gaze locked to his. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Yes? Are you sure? It’s the point of no return.” There is a playful tone to his voice.

You roll your eyes, taking off your cap and placing it onto his head. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, ‘honey badger’.” You tease. “Who knows? You might just convince me to say a while longer.”

“Yeah, I’d like that, too.” He echoes your words from earlier.

#monzabee #requests open #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 smut #formula 1 #fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 x y/n #daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo imagine #imagine #fluff #angst #smut #daniel ricciardo smut #daniel ricciardo fluff

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humiliationstories124 · 4 months

Text

New college friends get a show

My junior year in college, I went for a study abroad program in Australia. This was a big step for me. I was a naïve farm boy from rural Pennsylvania. I had never been on an airplane before. My mom is afraid of heights; my dad is afraid of water. That combination meant that any family vacations were limited to short jaunts in the car.

My social development was a bit hindered by my upbringing. Growing up, my mom's best friend had been a duck. I, myself, wasn't quite that sheltered, but I still had missed out on many of the social opportunities of my peers. My mom was a neat freak, and thus never let me invite any friends over.

So, going to Australia was my first opportunity to escape the (over)protective wings of my mother. Maybe 10,000 miles was overkill -- but I had gone as far away from home as possible. The "you must be home by 9pm on weekends" and other assorted rules imposed by my mother would no longer apply.

Although I was now free of my familial restrictions, I was still a shy guy. I hadn't yet learned how to be comfortable in social settings with other people. For the most part, my Australian experience consisted of going to class, going to the beach (by myself), and teaching myself how to cook.

One thing I learned through my Lonely Planet Guide was that there was a nearby nude beach in Swanbourne. It was just a bus ride, followed by a short train ride, away. It became my escape. The farm boy in me loved nature. The introvert in me was uncomfortable among people. But, I could venture off to the beach by myself. The beach was never really that crowded, and I could set myself up on a towel and enjoy some solitude, either reading a book, watching the waves, or just taking a nap.

I really didn't make that many friends at university. A few times, people invited me out, but the shy guy in me said "no" even though I didn't have any plans.

Many of my classes were quite large; i.e. 200 students in a big theatre-type classroom. It was easy to blend into the crowd and go un-noticed. However, one of my classes (cross-cultural psychology) had just 15 students in it. It was a late afternoon class, and thus was probably half comprised of "non-traditional" students at the university, which did cater to a large commuter population (as opposed to residents like me).

In the class, we would often arrange our chairs in a circle and have group discussions. In my other lectures, I could safely avoid being called upon. But, in a class of just 15, you really couldn't hide. So, this was really the first opportunity that a small segment of my classmates had an opportunity to get to know me, as I presented my ideas in class.

Following one of the classes, two guys asked me if I wanted to go grab a drink. My brain was thinking "no", but for once, the inner introvert was overruled. I guess it was helped that these guys seemed "normal" in class, and so I conceded.

They took me to a bar in Freemantle. With a few drinks, the conversation began to flow a little more easily. It was obvious (from my accent) that I was an American, and they asked the typical questions about where I was from, how I liked Australia, etc. One commented on my tan and cautioned me about the hole in the ozone above Australia. I acknowledged that I was aware of the hole, but I just loved the beach too much. The other asked me what beach was my favorite. I replied, "Cottesloe."

"Oh, are you sure it isn't Swanbourne?" the other asked me.

"No, I don't go there," I said, blushing.

"Are you sure?" asked the other.

I don't know why they were pestering me with such questions. I was embarrassed to admit I went to a nude beach. I pretended that I had never been. However, for some reason, I sensed they knew otherwise. Maybe they were scholars of psychology and I was not a good liar? But, then I started questioning myself -- maybe they had seen me at the nude beach? Was that possible? I had no recollection of ever seeing them there.

It's probably no surprise, I was still a virgin at this point in my life. In fact, I really hadn't even contemplated my sexuality. I assumed I was straight. I had no experience to back up that assumption. I also had no experience in identifying if others were gay. Well, basically, I thought all gay men were like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Yet, something about these two men from my psychology class made me start questioning. I ran through various scenarios in my head, and I concluded that these two men were boyfriends.

I really can't explain how the thoughts in my brain evolved. I was confused by the interest of these two men. Was it just the Australian friendliness, and I was reading way too much into it? No one had ever really gone out of their way to befriend me before, and while I was confused, I was also becoming aware that I liked the attention.

Sometime before the next class, I concocted a "scheme". Granted, it wasn't all that well thought out of a scheme. It was a chess game, and I was only thinking of my next move. That afternoon, I put on a scooped tank top. It was my favorite tank top. It was probably more appropriate for the gym than for a class, but then again, everything in Australia was so relaxed (many students even went barefoot to class). The deep arm scoops in the side of the tank top gave good visibility to the sides of my pecs when I raised my arms. And, although I was no muscle god, years of working on the family farm had given me a lean body that, admittedly, I enjoyed looking at naked in the mirror.

I also wore my favorite pair of umbro shorts. Designed to allow unrestricted movement while sprinting during a soccer game, the umbros had considerably wider leg openings than most shorts. I had modeled these shorts in front of a mirror many times before. I knew that, when positioned just so, it was easy to see up the leg holes of these shorts.

So, for that next class, I deliberately selected a seat in the circle sitting directly opposite my two new friends (they always sat side-by-side in class). The classroom was just a circle of desks/chairs, with nothing in the middle. I knew that the two guys would have the ability to take an unrestricted view up my shorts. But would they even look?

I can't even recall what that lecture was about. I was focused on my 'tease' of the two guys. I didn't feel threatened by them. I knew they were boyfriends, and thus they weren't seeking something sexual with me. But, if they liked to look, I was going to let them take a peek.

My suspicions were rather quickly confirmed. I would look over to either my left or right when another student was speaking, and when I returned my vision straight ahead, I would notice the two guys quickly looking away from me.

We went out to drink after the class and several that followed. These guys were becoming my first two friends. A couple times we went to bars, and I learned of the Australian custom of "shouting". Basically, if it was someone's birthday, they bought the entire bar a round. It was a nice surprise of getting a free drink and not even knowing the person.

However, my 21st birthday was approaching, and I was nervous. I was finally coming out of my shell. You only have one 21st birthday, right? But, I knew that I couldn't afford to buy a round of drinks for an entire bar. So, I was contemplating staying in on my birthday.

Ryan and Paul knew my birthday was coming up, and at first did not understand my apprehension about going out on my birthday. "Don't worry. It's custom -- but you don't *have* to do it," Ryan explained.

"Oh," I said, feeling quite relieved.

They arranged to pick me up on Friday night and take me out. Rather than the typical sports bar where we went and watched footy (or rugby), they said they had a different place in mind.

The first thing that struck me when we walked into this place called Connections was the drag queens. I asked Paul, "Is this a gay bar?"

"Yes, it's a gay bar. But, in Australia, it's not like America. Both straights and gays go to the gay bars. Straight people come here because they love the drag shows," Ryan replied.

Still, as I looked around, this bar seemed to be about 85% men. And some of the women -- I wasn't entirely sure they were women.

Perhaps I hadn't thought far enough ahead in this chess game. I had assumed that Ryan and Paul just had "friendly interests" in me. Why did they bring me to a gay bar?

So, we walk up to the bar. Ryan greets the bartender, who appears to know him. "Guess what, it's our mate, James's birthday," Ryan says.

"Oh, so a round on you, eh?" the bartender says, looking directly at me.

"No, no. I can't," I say, turning to my two friends.

"But, you have to. It's your birthday," says the bartender.

"I can't," I reply, beginning to think how miserable my 21st birthday was becoming.

Ryan turns to the bartender and says, "I guess we have to invoke the exception alternative for James."

"Alternative exception?" I ask.

"On your birthday," the bartender says, "you have one of two options. Either you shout a round for the bar -- or you strip to your birthday suit!"

"Wait -- what?" I stammer.

Ryan replies, "Yes, those are the two options."

"Oh shit!" I think to myself. I look around the bar. There's probably 150 to 200 people. But fortunately, I don't know any of these people...well, except for Ryan and Paul. I didn't have anywhere near enough cash on me to buy a round for the whole bar. It was apparent I had no other choice.

I took off my shirt.

"Wait," the bartender said, "You're stripping?"

"Yes," I replied meekly.

The bartender then turned around and reached up and rang a bell. "Birthday boy in the house!" he screams.

Oh man, this was way more attention than I had expected. Now it seemed like all 200 people were looking at me. Although, I guess at first, they were scanning the bar trying to figure out whose birthday it was. But, I presume that became apparent as I started taking off my shirt.

"Take it off. Take if off!" a few guys started chanting from a nearby table.

I can't say that I gave a seductive strip show by any means. Instead, it was really more of a 'get this done as fast as possible'. I unbuttoned my shorts, and pushed my shorts and underwear down. I was wearing flip-flops, and thus it was rather easy to step out of my shorts and underwear. I put my clothes on the barstool next to me.

I noticed Paul pick up my clothes and hand them over the bar to the bartender. For my safekeeping, I presumed, so that no one would steal them.

Not even Ryan's giving Paul a high-five made me realize that in fact, *they* were stealing them.

So, at that point, my hopes for my 21st birthday became 'sit at this bar, with my back to everyone, and drink until it's over.'

However, Ryan and Paul would have none of that. First, they insisted we play a game of darts. I couldn't help but feel that the patrons at the bar were taking more than the typical level of interest in an 'USA vs Australia' game of bar darts.

Then, they insisted we should dance. At first, it was line dancing, and I managed to hide near the middle of the floor. For some reason, though, the 1 or 2 lines of people in front of me would seem to fall apart as the song continued, and I found myself in the front line as we 'boot scootin' boogied' on the dance floor.

Ryan asked me what my favorite song was, and I replied, "It's Not Right, it's OK" (Whitney Houston).

Ryan went to the DJ and made a request. Next thing I know, "my" song is playing. Paul points to a box (a stage/platform) and tells me to hop up. "No, no. I can't," I protest. But, Ryan and Paul each grab me under one armpit and hoist me onto the stage. I can't help it; it's my favorite song. I danced.

For some reason, whoever was the lighting/stage manner at the club, instead of rotating the light around the dance floor like I had usually seen done, was instead shining the light directly at my box. It was kinda blinding, to be honest.

Then the unexpected happened. Well, I guess it shouldn't have been too unexpected. When I used to dance alone, by myself, naked in front of the mirror at home, as I would sway from side to side, my dick would become longer and longer, until it became hard.

Whitney was doing it to me again. The beat was too catchy. And I could tell that as my penis was flopping around, I had reached the 'point of no return'. As much as I was trying to mentally stop it, the floodgates had been released and inflation was a one-way proposition at this point. By the time the song ended, I was pointing nearly straight up (like 11pm on a compass dial).

I jumped off the stage, and Ryan and Paul caught me. Each one managed to catch an arm. At that moment, a young man walked up and asked if he could take a photo of the three of us. I started to say "N...", but Ryan had already said "Yes" to the guy. Paul was on my left; Ryan was on my right. The way I had landed, I had wound up with one hand on each of their shoulders. As I tried to move my hands to cover my privates, Ryan and Paul each gripped one of my arms pinning it to the back of their shoulders. "Oh my god," I thought to myself, "This stranger is taking a picture of me completely naked."

Then, Paul pulls his phone out of his left pocket and hands it to the stranger. "Can you take one with my phone, please?"

"No way!" I thought to myself. It was one thing if it were a stranger, but this is a person I know. These two guys -- my classmates -- are going to have photos of me completely naked. But, in a couple instants, it was over, and the phone was back in Paul's pocket.

I don't remember much more of that night. I know there were a few more times that guys walked up to me, or more often to Paul and Ryan, and asked them if they could take a picture of me. At that point, I had become numb to it. The alcohol had loosened me up a bit. "What, you've never seen an American dick?" I teased one guy as he stood taking photos of me.

When the night was finally over, I walked up to the bar and the bartender handed me my clothes. A young man sitting at the bar asked me, "In America, is it a tradition that a guy strips naked in a bar on his birthday?"

"No, not in America; it's not," I replied.

"Then why did you do it?" he asks me.

"Because it's a custom in Australia," I reply.

"No, it's not," the young man says.

And then I notice that Ryan, Paul, and the bartender have the biggest, shit-eating grin on their faces that I have ever seen in my life.

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mrchiipchrome · 11 months

Note

could you write for sam kerr? maybe prompt 20?

prompt 20; you look like an angel

“Sammy, sweetheart. Where are you?” Your voice carries through the apartment you currently reside in with your Australian girlfriend. A certain Australian girlfriend who hadn’t showed up for training resulting in you getting a call from a worried Emma Hayes wondering why her striker hadn’t shown up.

You had rushed home from work as soon as you heard, worried sick about your girl who never missed training unless it was vital.

The worry wells up in you when you don’t hear an immediate response, usually getting at least a small ‘hey baby’ from her.

You walk up the stairs cautiously, hearing restless rustling coming from the bedroom indicating where she would be found. A whimper catches your attention as you near the bedroom door, speeding up with confusion splayed on your face.

The door swings open and the first thing to catch your attention is how the sheets now are on the ground instead of the bed.

The second thing you notice is how Sam is laying sprawled out like a starfish on the bed, no shirt and a pair of your loose basketball shorts on. The gleam of the sweat covering her back is blinding, like she had just come back from running a marathon and fell right into bed.

You walk forward placing your hand directly on her back, rubbing between her shoulder blades as she lets out another loud whimper, moving away from the heat emitted from your body. The hand that previously found itself on her back moved up to her forehead, hissing as the skin there burns your palm.

“What are you doing home?” She asks deliriously, eyes flitting over your face like her brain wasn’t registering your presence.

“I got a call from Emma, she told me that you didn’t show up for training. You wanna tell me why?” You questioned her, as if the state of her wasn’t telling enough.

“I feel like shit” Her voice is muffled as she speaks into her sheets.

“Well, you look like an angel” You see how the smile grows on her face before it’s interrupted by a coughing attack. “Come on, let’s get you some sleep” Your fingers undo her low ponytail, her hair now splayed out over her back as your fingers run through it. She wraps her arms around your waist, laying her head on your shoulder despite being feverish and overheating.

—-

“Samantha May Kerr, I won’t hesitate to shove this medication down your throat, so either we do it the easy way or the hard way.” Millie, Guro and Erin heard as soon as they stepped into the apartment, hands filled with shopping bags. They hear a thumping noise coming from the bedroom as they stand confused in the entrance, who was threatening their teammate? Suddenly the thudding became a pattern, moving towards them at a rapid rate.

They see Sam’s body coming towards them at a flying rate, not something they have time to question as another body flies past at the same speed. Another thunk gives them the time to look into the living room where you had seemingly caught the fast forward, straddling her as she wiggles and screeches, moving her head around to not have to drink the liquid you had miraculously kept on the spoon.

They watch as you two struggle for a couple of seconds until you manage to shove the spoon into her mouth, holding her jaw so that she wouldn’t spit it out. After she swallows it, you lean down and give her a peck on her lips.

“When were you planning on introducing us to your girl Sammy?” Erin asks loudly.

“AAAHH”

#woso x reader #sam kerr x reader

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impossiblesuitcase · 10 months

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what are your fave jacinter hcs post revolution? :)

Here's one:

A few years after the revolution, Jacin starts medical school on Earth. That means a lot of time away from Winter, which he doesn't like, but he still has time to comm her during class and see her during the day. She stays local to his university, working with the Lunar embassy there in public relations.

They're both happy over that time. Jacin finally, finally starts to lose a bit of his grumpiness, his performative apathy, returning to the more openly emotional man she knew before he became a guard. Even their friends are surprised at this less abrasive version of him, but he still remains pleasantly snarky.

They want to get married, of course. Except he's being flogged by exams, and planning a wedding would take a lot of time and energy and he wants to give Winter the full attention and support she deserves. They agree to wait until there's a lull in his studies before that.

Then he starts his residency. He's working 12 hour shifts, with a 5 hour window for sleep, while still being on call. He gets breaks, sure, but he is flat out (Australian for busy). He sees Winter occasionally. Well, every day, but it's 5 minutes of a rushed meal and chatter and then he's off again. He hates it. She is generally frustrated by it. Still they both know it's where he should be right now, and he loves finally knowing how to help people, rather than just wishing he knew.

Six months in, Winter gets a comm while he's on a break:

Jacin: Winter, im sorry that im making you put up with this. you deserve to have the wedding that you dream of and a person who will be there for you always like i promised i would be. i dont deserve you.

Now another thing Jacin doesn't like--he isn't around to protect Winter. Sure, years have passed and she's more in control of her trauma and fears, but his peace of mind is never settled if she's not right next to him. So this residency period is hell for him. She spends a lot of time with their friends, sending him pics to assure him that she's with good company, regularly updating him on her wellbeing in what she calls 'sanity checks', a term he dislikes--"You're not insane."

So one day he's doing his final shift for the week when he receives this comm:

Winter: My darling Jacin. You mean everything to me. I need nothing more in life so long as you are in my arms, physically or in spirit. The walls bleed with you, my love, bleed water and diamonds and joy...

Walls. Bleeding?!

Jacin sprints out of the hospital. He tracks Winter's port, finding her just in the park on the next block. He's panting and stumbling when he finds her by the lake. She's donning a summery white dress, which on her rivals any vogue bride, and is holding a flower crown in her hands. She's decidedly not screaming or sobbing like the last time he saw her mention bleeding walls.

"Love?" he garbles out, racing up to her.

Winter gestures for him to slow down. Once in arm's reach, she plops the crown on his greasy, unbrushed hair and steadies his shoulders with her grip. "My darling Jacin. You mean everything to me. I need nothing more in life so long as you are in my arms, physically or in spirit," she repeats, in what is evidently a rehearsed speech.

"Bleeding walls?" he interrupts harshly.

"Hush." She pulls him into her arms. "Jacin, you are everything I deserve. I never want you to question that for a moment. Never let those clinical lights and smell of antiseptic confuse your senses into believing that I wouldn't want you, just the way you are."

There's more words spoken, from him and her, and his bewilderment and worry is still not supplanted with relief. Yes, she might assure him of this now, but he'll be back to endless shifts, and her patience will run out.

"I don't want to wait until things are calmer," she confesses, "because I love you with how things are now as much as I would at any other time." She pulls away and reaches up, adjusting his crown. "The crown has a purpose, you know. I bet you just thought I brought it because I'm crazy."

"You're not crazy."

She closes an eye. "You thought my message was crazy."

He's silent, because yes, he did.

"Once upon a time, I was a princess. So if I marry a boy, he becomes a prince. We aren't married yet, but I declare that we should make a promise first." She leans up and kisses him quickly. "There. That will suffice until the wedding. And this"--she gestures to the crown--"gives you your title."

"Title?"

"My prince. My knight and best friend. Until I change that to something else."

"Fiancé?"

"I was thinking husband."

He kisses her. Then he spends the next month in comms with his supervisor. He wrangles a 5-month break out of them, but he has to work 6 months first. During that time of work, he proposes, and now that he's more established in his residency, his hours drop. He does have time for wedding planning, and they wed the first week of that break. It's a busy few newlywed years, but it quiets down once he's out of his residency. He's still protective, yes, but he doesn't need to be by her side constantly anymore to be calm. He does not want to be known as a prince, even when Cinder and Kai joke that they'll make him one against his will.

He never protests when Winter calls him her prince.

#you asked for headcanons #and i have none #so i made just one #its nothing against jacinter #just marissa paid them very little attention #so i have a lot less material to work with #the lunar chronicles #tlc #lunar chronicles #jacinter #winter hayle blackburn #jacin clay

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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 3 months

Text

Australian & New Zealand Author Showcase No 20 – Luke Arnold

February 9, 2024 by Charlie Cavendish

An idea squeezed into my head in 2023, after seeing so many of the book community gathering at conventions across the US and UK. And once my FOMO subsided, I got to thinking about who might be gathered together if we had similar conventions closer to home. Pending the master planning required to arrange a massive convention, I thought the next best thing might be to run an Australian & New Zealand author showcase. So, I sent out the call, with the only prerequisite for participating being the author had to have been born in either country or currently live there.

Its now 2024 and the Aussie / New Zealand Author Showcase is gathering steam again. Just when I thought it was over even more talent has emerged, at this rate its threatening to become year long event! I will continue to post their individual showcases at regular intervals. So hopefully you will enjoy these interactions with some very talented people. Please be sure to check out their work, sign up to their newsletters and follow them on their social media of choice. I make no apologies for any damage inflicted to your TBR’s!

Showcase No 20 finds me chatting with very talented Luke Arnold. Luke is the award-winning actor from projects such as Black Sails, Glitch and Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS as well as the author of The Fetch Phillips Archives; a series of fantastical detective stories which has third instalments to date.

Do you feel that being an Aussie / Kiwi (or residing there) influences your writing?

Absolutely. I didn’t leave Australia until I was in my twenties so, for better or worse, I was brought up with a distinctly Australian outlook. It’s something that can be easily mischaracterised and also requires some distance to properly understand. Being both a young and old country, we’re still finding ourselves, experiencing growing pains, and struggling with our identity.

At the same time, isolation and an abundance of natural resources means a lot of us are able to benefit from a high quality of life without working as hard as we’d need to in many other places in the world. I think a lot of Aussies know this in their bones, and it makes us nervous of “rocking the boat” for fear that we might lose the advantages we have.

This aversion to change has some embarrassing repercussions on relationships between European Australians and Australia’s First Nations People, as well as our treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers.

We have a different kind of national identity to other western countries like the USA or Britain. We’re still trying to play the underdog – the little colony down under that punches above its weight – but that persona no longer fits us the way it used to. These themes seep into all my work.

Fetch Phillips may have the outward appearance of a classic American hard-boiled hero, but he has an Australian heart. He’s someone who feels separate, a bit ignorant, reticent to become a leader, and happy to defer to those he sees as being older and more experienced. He values being humble and self-effacing, but there is safety in that identity.

It allows him to shirk responsibility and hide in the shadows, even when it should be his moment to step forward. He’s a man who didn’t grow up when he was supposed to and is struggling to come of age too late. I feel like Australia is going through the same thing.

What are some of the challenges being located so far away from the rest of the world, do have any tips for overcoming these?

When I was first trying to get published, I was lucky in that I was already working overseas and had some profile from my acting career. That’s a clear advantage I don’t take lightly. Though I’d always wanted to write, the thing that pushed me to finish my first manuscript was a desire to spend more time at home. My acting career was reaching a point where every job was in a different city, and I wanted to know that I could keep working creatively without needing to get on a plane. There are numerous advantages to being creative in Australia.

One thing that is easily overlooked is that we have more safety nets that some other countries. I really notice this when I’m in the US. It’s terrifying to have no money in America. Of course, cost of living is going up everywhere, but I still think there are more ways to find a balanced life in Australia where you can keep a roof over your head and be creative at the same time. Yes, it’s a smaller market and it can be hard to break out overseas, but if the goal is to live a creative life where you do the thing you love without panicking that someone’s going to kick you out on the street, this is one of the best places in the world to establish yourself.

Personally, I know I couldn’t have survived as a young actor long enough to build my career without the support systems that Australia offers.

3. How do you go about establishing connections in the book community? (any tips / suggestions)

I’m terrible at this. My first two novels came out in 2020 when we were all locked inside, and I’ve only met a handful of other authors in person. So of course, social media is a huge asset.

I mostly rely on creatives I’ve known for a long time. Every couple of weeks, I catch up with an author friend, Steven Lochran, I’ve known since high school, and we read each other’s stuff and discuss what we’re working on. I have a number of other people, some writers some not, who I use as beta readers when they have the time.

Finding your own colleagues that you trust and feel comfortable to share your work with is more important than trying to network your way onto tables with notable people in the industry. If you do good work, then that will happen naturally.

4. Do you have a favourite character to write? And conversely are there any of your characters that are the more of a struggle?

Fetch is fun because he still surprises me. There’s a lot of me in him, and he’s dumb enough that I can stuff my own fears and ideas into his head and have him try and make sense of things. It’s always harder when I have to write someone more intelligent – someone who might have the answers he seeks – because then I need to get ahead of my own pondering and come to some conclusions. Perhaps that’s why everyone is fallible in my world, and even those who seem to have the answers will likely fall to pieces before the end of the story.

5. So aliens finally reveal themselves to us and your work is presented to them as example of what humanity has to offer, what do you hope they will take away from this intergalactic exchange?

I hope they’d see that we’re flawed, confused, vulnerable little things, and yet we keep trying to be better. Individually and collectively. My books are noir in tone, but the point isn’t to say that we’re all broken and corrupt. It’s about celebrating the way we keep trying to be good, even in the face of terrible darkness. Even when we’ve made mistakes that should he unforgivable. Even when the pressure – both without and within – feels like it’s going to crush us. Hopefully, if they’re looking at the state of things right now, it might help them see that we’re not completely lost.

6. Tell us something about yourself that not many people know?

In this relentlessly online world, it’s hard to think of something that isn’t already out there. So I’m trying to think of something obscure. Maybe I’ll share that I play a bit of Beat Saber in VR and I’m determined get to the top of the leader board for Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever (normal difficulty). I’m broken the top 100 but I’m gunning for a top ten spot.

What would you say is the best thing about being an author and the worst?

The best thing is that your work is all yours. There are very few creative endeavours out there where you can give so much of your internal world to another person. While our editors and publishers are integral, it’s not the same collaboration as making a film or playing a song with a band. This is all you.

The worst thing is that your work is all yours. You can get feedback and guidance, but it’s only your name on the cover. You must write every word, alone, without anyone encouraging you or sharing the load. Every time I write a book, I’m struck by what a monumental act of faith it is. One word after the other, day after day, for months, hoping that by the end it will be at all interesting to anyone else. Some days I can’t write a text to someone without crumbling under self-doubt, but then I have to find the motivation to pump out a few thousand words of fiction.

And at the end of it all, when someone else enjoys the finished product, they will also be alone, somewhere far away, playing out the story in their own head, and you’ll be completely oblivious to how it’s making them feel. It requires a level of self-belief that is easier to summon some days more than others.

8. Any other Aussie / Kiwi creatives you’d like to give a shout out for? (let’s spread the love)

I’m embarrassed to say that my reading really dropped off over the last year, but if you want some more noir, this time with a sci-fi twist, the 36 Streets by T.R.Napper’s is a fantastic cyberpunk story set in future Vietnam.

And I finally jumped into Maria Lewis’s The Rose Daughter and am bloody loving it.

9. What’s your favourite quote or passage from one of your books?

Shit. The ones I love one day, I cringe at the next. The chapters about Fetch’s love interest, Amari, in The Last Smile in Sunder City still hold a special place for me though. They were the first pieces I felt confident sharing with other people.

There’s a part where Fetch just lists the days they spent together. As the series continues, I have to keep returning to it to make sure that if I allude to an encounter between Fetch and Amari, it’s related to one of the occasions included in that list. It’s simple, and Fetch doesn’t include much emotion or embellishment, but every time I go back to it, that tragic romantic melancholy gets back under my skin.

9. What’s your favourite quote or passage from one of your books?

10. What can you say about your current project or what you are planning next?

The fourth instalment of The Fetch Phillips Archives is in the editing phase, and I’m really excited to get it in people’s hands. I’ve enjoyed the fact that Fetch has not yet lived up to being either a hard-boiled detective or a fantasy hero. His guilt, self-doubt, and insecurity have taken his investigations (and in some cases the plot of the books) off the rails. That was always intentional, and I found that journey interesting to write, but Book 4 is a different beast. Fetch is still a problematic guy, but he’s put himself together enough to tackle his next case with more determination. So, for the first time, we have a more focused narrative revolving around a single string of murders. There are a lot of rewarding moments in this one for readers who were hoping Fetch might eventually catch a break.

But it’s still noir, so don’t except all sunshine and roses. Just a mystery where the main character isn’t getting in his own way quite so much.

Bonus Question: Lastly Vegemite* yes or no?

Absolutely. Thin layer with plenty of butter. It’s not something I crave when I’m away from home but get me back in the Aussie bush and I’ll be searching for a jar in no time.

* An iconic dark salty spread that (most) Australians slap on toast for breakfast (NB explanation for the rest of the world)

Author Bio:

Luke Arnold was born in Australia and has spent the last decade acting his way around the world, playing iconic roles such as Long John Silver in the Emmy-winning Black Sails, Martin Scarsden in the screen adaptation of Chris Hammer’s Scrublands, and his award-winning turn as Michael Hutchence in the INXS mini-series Never Tear Us Apart. When he isn’t performing, Luke is a screenwriter, director and novelist.

He has published three books in The Fetch Phillips Archives, with the fourth instalment on the way. He performs the audiobooks for all his works, and The Last Smile in Sunder City was nominated for Best Fantasy at the 2021 Audie Awards.

Book/ Series Links

Social Media Links

@longlukearnold on Insta, X, and TikTok

Source: FanFi Addict

#black sails #luke arnold #fanfi addict #the last smile in sunder city #the fetch phillips archives #fetch phillips #interview

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qnewslgbtiqa · 25 days

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'Save the queen': Priscilla, Queen of the Desert bus found

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/save-the-queen-priscilla-queen-of-the-desert-bus-found/

'Save the queen': Priscilla, Queen of the Desert bus found

After 30 years, the original bus from The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert has been found and will undergo an extensive restoration for permanent inclusion in a museum.

Priscilla is celebrating its 30th birthday this year. The film premiered in 1994 and later became not just a queer classic but a crossover sensation. The film won an Oscar for its iconic costumes.

Now the History Trust of South Australia has started a campaign as it takes on a massive restoration job to restore the bus.

The trust has bought Priscilla, a 1976 Hino Freighter bus, after she was discovered in a paddock of a property in the town of Ewingar in the Northern Rivers Region of New South Wales.

Director Stephan Elliott said after filming ended, nobody knew where the original Priscilla ended up.

But for the last 16 years, she’s resided in the country town, left to the elements and falling into disrepair.

Somehow, the bus escaped without extensive fire damage following bushfires in the area a few years ago.

Stephan Elliott ‘gave up hope’ of finding bus

Stephan Elliott has backed the History Trust’s plan to “save the queen” and restore Priscilla.

“We had heard so many rumours about where she had ended up. We had given up hope of finding her again,” Stephan explained.

When the owner of the Northern Rivers property contacted the History Trust of South Australia, everyone had to know, was it really Priscilla?

The Trust’s curators went to find out. Stephan Elliott confirmed the authenticity of the bus by identifying remnants of the interior decor.

“I really want to thank the History Trust for making this amazing discovery and bringing Priscilla back to life,” Stephan said.

“The film seems to carry through generations. This is a chance for possibly many more generations to feel its message of love, tolerance and living your true self every day.”

Priscilla’s restoration will take at least 12 months

Now, Priscilla is in Queensland. A specialist coachwork repairer in Brisbane is finalising the scope of the restoration works.

The History Trust of South Australia expects Priscilla’s repair and restoration to take 12 to 18 months.

They’ve called out for donations in addition to support for the project from the South Australian government.

Once restored, Priscilla will make herself at home in Birdwood’s National Motor Museum. The museum is planning an immersive exhibition on the film’s cultural and social impact.

History Trust of South Australia CEO Greg Mackie said in 1994, Priscilla was “released into a world still grappling with the impact of HIV/AIDS”.

“It immediately became a symbol of survival, the importance of love and respect, and of embracing of difference,” he said.

“The History Trust of South Australia intends to restore Priscilla to roadworthy condition for special outings, and to authentically render to its interior the glamorous over-the-top camp of the 1994 movie.

“Even in the 21st century, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert speaks to audiences of the virtues of respect for diversity and the great Aussie larrikin tendency for irreverence.

“Priscilla Queen of the Desert has earned the affectionate regard of a majority of Australians over the last 30 years by affirming the place of road adventures in our national culture.

“Where better for this icon than at Australia’s National Motor Museum?”

youtube

More on Priscilla:

Broken Heel Festival is celebrating Priscilla’s 30th birthday

‘They booed’: Stephan Elliot recalls horror first Priscilla screening

‘Hire locals’: Outrage over RuPaul’s Drag Race stars’ Priscilla shoot

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

#northern rivers #priscilla queen of the desert #Queer film

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birderer · 3 months

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CROSSTALK TOWER

A mystery/ sci-fi /thriller pseudo-anthology following an investigation into a bizarre Australian town. Unexplainable phenomena, an unreasonably high missing persons count and a mysterious radio signal are only the surface of the town of Chamomile’s mysteries.

The story follows three young women on their gap year, investigating the bizarre hometown of one of the girls. Chamomile, a town roughly 60km north of Melbourne, Australia, is renowned for its incredibly high missing persons count, and supposedly high density of unexplainable occurrences. The three girls with a shared love of the paranormal and an easy place to stay, decide investigating the town and interviewing its residents will be a perfect maiden voyage for their planned supernatural web-series.

However, they quickly discover that this rabbit hole might be too deep for them, and before they know it, they can’t climb out.

Locals say that no matter where you look in town, if you can see the sky, you can see the radio tower. Maybe it can see you too.

FINALLY I can talk about this project, I’ve had this one in the pot for roughly two years now and I’ve hit a point where I’m pretty confident moving forward with it.

It’s VERY much in its earliest stages, I’m still nailing down what format I’m gonna stage it in, however,story wise it’s practically done. Most likely I’d like it realized as a web-comic with small animated segments. Emphasis on small I might die.

I’m ridiculously exited to start properly working on this thing, and to share it with those who see it.

Don’t touch that dial, chamomile.

Link to the twitter thread, same text but includes a few more pics.

https://x.com/BirderOmurder/status/1752185843090063479?s=20

#digital art #oc #digitalart #original character #illustration #original story #oc story #personal project #comic #comics #webcomic #webcomics #sci fi #mystery #thriller

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whenua-and-moana · 4 months

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Banaba

How the West Made an Island Unhabitable (and Consumed its People's Bones)

Banaba, aka Ocean Island, is a small island in Micronesia. It's legally part of Kiribati [kih-ree-bas] but geographically, culturally, and politically very distinct. At three hundred kilometres from its nearest neighbour, Banaba is one of the most isolated places on earth.

It is also among one of the most ecologically devastated.

In the 1900's, a UK / Aotearoa / Australian owned mining company dug up and shipped away huge amounts of Banaba's phosphate-rich soil for use as fertilizer. They grew rich and created Aotearoa's massive agricultural industry from literal stolen land.

More than just the physical earth was taken. Phosphate mining stripped the layers where Banabans had buried their dead for thousands of years. The dust of their bones fed the lands of the West, creating rich green fields that Banabans would never see the profits of.

When I say 'huge amounts' of earth; 90% of the island's surface was stripped away.

[Left image: an aerial view of Banaba showing a roughly oval island with no vegetation in the centre. The outside is ringed by a thin strip of forest. Right image: a photo of the edge of a mining area. In the background is a forest, but then the ground drops off sharply into irregular rocky terrain.]

The ancient sacred caves were destroyed. The island's only source of fresh water was irreversibly polluted and left it unusable to this day. The interior of Banaba became one great hollow of uneven rock, so full of dips and pillars that it is now almost completely impassable on foot. It was left a barren land.

Banaba is not the only Pacific island devastated by phosphate mining; most notably, its neighbour Nauru had 80% of its surface stripped away. But nowhere has been exploited to quite the same extent as Banaba.

There were further indignities and horrors inflicted on the Banaban people, including indescribable atrocities carried out by Japanese occupiers during WWII, and tbe Britain-led forceful relocation of Banabans to Rabi Island in Fiji. Many still live there today. Others have migrated away.

[Image: Banaban girls performing a traditional dance on Rabi Island.]

The traumatic experiences of Banabans, the mass murders and the separation from their ancestral land have all caused significant cultural loss. This includes the loss of the Banaban language.

Approximately three hundred Banabans have returned to their home island, surviving due to supplies shipped in every few months. The only freshwater source remains unusable and severe droughts strike Banaba every three to four years. Although a desalination plant exists there, the vulnerability of the island became all too clear in 2021 when the plant broke down in the middle of a drought. It took three months for repair equipment to arrive. During that time the residents had no fresh water. Their only food was fish because all of their crops had died. They survived by sucking the liquid from fish eyeballs.

And an Australian mining company wants to do it all again.

Part of the reason that people returned to Banaba, despite the difficulties of life there, was to protect it from further mining. But in August last year, the Australian mining company Centrex announced a plan to restart phosphate mining on Banaba. The plan has been paused due to protests from the Banaban people, but it could be restarted again at any time.

We cannot leave it here. If you want to do one small thing to help, you can sign this petition from Banaban community leaders to stop the proposed new phosphate mine. But more than that, Banabans have been campaigning for Australia and Aotearoa to fund ecological restoration projects, especially for the sacred caves that were once the island's source of fresh water. As Katerina Teiawa says:

"We need to move away from this same continuous narrative of ‘the poor Banaban people, who have no water, help them’ and move towards an approach that is actually finding a solution.

This whole thing is a series of crises. We can’t just keep telling the story of devastation and vulnerability over and over again. Where does the crisis end, if not with justice?"

#banaba #micronesia #pacific islands #colonisation #indigenous rights #my posts

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losinqminds · 3 months

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( jessica alexander, cis woman, she/her ) — just announced, LENNON HARLOW has been cast as EMMA GILBERT in the upcoming H2O: JUST ADD WATER reboot. the twenty five year old is trending as people are debating if the coming home to the echo of an empty house devoid of memories, her trailer always stocked with sour gummies as a guilty pleasure, paint stained overalls as a stark contrast to shimmering gowns on the red carpet, head filled to the brim with movie anecdotes and trivia that they are known for is enough to make them as good as original. a quick google search shows that their fans call them conscientious, but internet trolls think they’re more aloof. i guess their newest interview for variety where they talk about the odd coincidence of continuously being cast for characters with the name emma will let people to know them better.

statistics.

name : lennon corinne harlow. nickname : doesn't have any. age : twenty five. birthday : 13 september 1998. zodiac sign : virgo. gender : cis woman. sexual orientation : biromantic demisexual. place of birth : los angeles, california. current residence : los angeles, california. traits : conscientious, aloof, reliable, creative, reserved, hardworking, perfectionist, diligent, cautious, trustworthy, indulgent, serene. likes : her cat ringo, getting her hands dirty, clouded spring days, the colour blue, crossing something off your to do list, taking a long bath, waking up early, being at home, herbal teas, the smell of fresh laundry, putting the first brush stroke on a canvas, comfortable silences. dislikes : unexpected loud noises, when things don't go according to plan, people who are rude, her own birthday, driving, being late, the cold.

background.

— her earliest childhood memories were of lights, camera and action. not much of a surprise, as the daughter of one of hollywood's it couples. her father was the successful director julian harlow and her mother australian movie star and it girl emilia morris. lennon was supposed to be the sum of both their parts, and a star in the making from the moment she was born. — stability was a rarity in her childhood. she was raised on movie sets, with her legs dangling from her father's director chair as she watched him work his magic. but she also fell asleep alone inside of lifeless hotel rooms, was homeschooled by a new teacher in every new city they visited and when asked, would have told you her best friend was joan from craft service who would sneak her snacks between takes. — her own experiences were nothing like she movies she ended up making. she had her very first kiss on screen, and the only prom dress she ever wore was on set. you could almost say her childhood was the dichotomy of living a sheltered life, but right in front of flashing cameras. — knowing only a world which was mature and professional, that was who she soon grew into. she has never been described as anything other than a pleasure to work with, and receives praise for being great at her craft. undoubtedly because it is all she knows. — living life caught up in the industry has given her quite a skewed image of friendship, and relationships. friends was often synonymous with coworkers. and her public relations agents buried their noses into every relationship she had. everything felt transactional. not in a way where she aimed to profit, but in a way where everything was carefully curated to be mutually beneficial. — as a stark contrast to her pristine image among colleagues, her public persona is cast in a dark shadow. professional gets translated into unapproachable, and talented becomes arrogant. and there isn't a way to show them any different. she is quite detached from the fans, her social media accounts perfectly curated and showing not a single hair out of place. her interviews are bright smiles, with vetted questions and practiced answers. — now realization has settled in of just how little she knows herself. and how utterly alone she feels in a world where she's surrounded by thousands. she grew up under the scrutiny of not just herself and those close to her, but the entire world and it has made her withdraw rather than face things head on. and for someone who has done so much in her life, she lacks any kind of life experience. maybe she is looking to feel something, seek out something that feels genuine and open herself up to new experiences even when stepping outside her limited comfort zone gives her the chills. — her decision to audition for emma gilbert was the first step in tearing herself away from that state of oblivion. doing the show became a passion project, and stood in stark contrast to the countless of auditions she attempted for blatant oscar bait. she keeps her fingers crossed it will help her figure out what it was she wanted out of her career, first of all. connect more to her audience, and those around her. and maybe figure out more about herself too in the process.

— maybe as some fun facts about her. she is an avid but amateur painter. she does paint canvases most of the time. but also has a knack for home improvements, knows how to work a drill and can't stop herself from turning her entire house upside down at least once every few weeks. slept on the couch for a whole month while she painted a giant mural on her bedroom wall. she has a cat named ringo, part time menace and full time artiste. would strut all over her canvases as she laid them out to dry and ever since, the cat paw has become a signature of sorts. has the odd coincidence of being cast as emma's consistently. once is nothing, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. also a huge movie buff. she's got a head full of anecdotes, film quotes and movie trivia. in part because she grew up so closely around it, but also because it's what she genuinely loves. take her with you on your pub quiz team js.

post credits.

FILMS. — 2011: super 8 as alice dainard — 2017: lady bird as christine "lady bird" mcpherson — 2019: little women as amy march — 2019: once upon a time in hollywood as flowerchild — 2020: emma as emma woodhouse TV SHOWS. — 2020 to present: bridgerton as francesca bridgerton — 2022: stranger things as chrissy cunningham — 2024 to present: h2o: just add water as emma gilbert GAMES. — 2022: the quarry as emma mountebank

wanted connections.

because i am woefully unprepared for this part and lennon is a brand new character, i'll be focusing on plotting any type of connections (positive or negative, and platonic or romantic) in direct messages. through brainstorming, i will throw some suggestions at you based on how i think lennon would mesh with your muse(s). below there will still be a list of specific wanted connections i am looking for, which i'll continue to update throughout. if this is something you're interested in, please do let me know and i would love to chat more about it!

— role model: maybe this muse could've worked with her father when lennon was just a kid. she would have tagged along to the film set, and watched them perform and likely learned so much from them (implicitly). maybe they are somewhat of a mentor figure to her now, maybe they were somewhat of a friend and reuniting now, maybe they never noticed her and she's looking up to them to this day. — (fr)enemies: maybe they think she is stuck up, or a bore. maybe she thinks they are quick too judge. they can't stand each other but under the guise of being professionals, they have to make everyone believe that's not the case. bonus points for an enemies with benefits scenario where they are sneaking around the backs of everyone else. more bonus points, them causing an absolute pr nightmare that she'll never live down when they get into a public fight. — childhood friend: maybe someone she's known since she was a kid, and who contrary to most sees right through the cold facade. maybe they have always been friends and they are one of the people she's always comfortable around. maybe they've lost touch and they are reconnecting now. maybe they had a falling out but they have been one of the most genuine connections she's had. — good / bad influence: opening herself up to new experiences, would make it easy for her to fall into the hands of someone willing to help with that. maybe your muse can (aladdin vc) show her the world. with good or bad intentions. — first kiss: the two of them were cast together as young teens, and lennon had her very first kiss with this person. right in front of the cameras. maybe it turned incredibly awkward between them and it's still something she doesn't dare mention? maybe it gave her an awfully unrequited crush on them? maybe they still laugh about how they bumped heads together at least three times during takes?

#╰ * lennon harlow : ⧽ about .#2000s.intro

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that1nkyone · 1 year

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Untethered.

Roughly three decades ago, I was born in New Jersey.

I was the first kid to a young mother. My sudden existence changed a lot in her life. She had to mobilise for a few things, and mobilise she did.

Her relationship with my biological father didn’t last. She travelled back home to her family with me in tow, not knowing exactly where things were headed in her life - just that she had a kid to care for.

Her Dad was working out of the country. He asked her to stay over and visit, perhaps have a nice little vacation with his daughter and grandkid, respectively.

So, Mom packed up, strapped me to her chest and flew across the ocean, all the way to New South Wales, Australia.

I was six months old.

My Mom would meet the man who’d become my Dad at a Halloween party, one night. It happened very quickly, but he took me on board without question. They were married, and it became clear that Mom and I were in Australia to stay. My grandfather left with his family, back home to the States. My brother came into the picture soon after. I was two years old. I had a home and family.

As I learned to speak, I distinctly sounded Aussie - there’s video evidence on a VHS tape, somewhere. But Mom’s Texan cadence was what I heard the most. Before I knew it, my accent was locked into that of a watered-down American voice - which still persists today.

My American roots weren’t exactly forgotten. We would visit the States, periodically - usually for Christmas. It was easier to travel back then. I had a US passport, but I had permanent residence in Australia thanks to Mom marrying an Australian Citizen. I met my large family, on my Mom’s side. I would tell them how I stole Doritos from the cockpit on the giant Qantas plane we travelled on.

Time passed. I turned 10.

Travelling to the States suddenly became a lot harder.

At home, people asked me if I liked George Bush. People asked me if I was visiting Australia for the holidays, based on my voice. People in the States asked if I rode kangaroos to school. People told me Bush was cool, he was a cool guy.

I didn’t understand much about it. I preferred to play Pokemon Silver.

Time passed. My Mom and I had both lived in Australia for 15 years now. We had visited family over the years, but the visits were growing sparser. All the kids were growing up and separating off into their own lives and plans.

(I would begin noticing raised voices over phone calls that I hadn’t noticed before.)

Mom and I had permanent residence in Australia. But we were given the opportunity to be Actual Citizens. Any application process was certainly going to be a series of hoops to jump through. Being underage, all I had to worry about was a swearing-in ceremony while my parents handled the rest.

I got an Australian Passport, with a photo I was not prepared for and a half-asleep 15-year-old stare that haunted me for several years. I was fortunate enough to have Dual Citizenship. The sky was the limit, in terms of my choice of residency.

I finished school. We visited the US again, this time on our Australian passports.

Our American passports had long expired.

I would enjoy seeing family again. I would describe the trips to my friends back home. Or online. I would talk about my uncles, aunts and cousins as I walked with friends down George St. I would talk about how cute squirrels were and how cool bluejays were, when looking up at the rainbow lorikeets that shot through our suburb.

Time passed. It got harder to travel.

My brother moved to the States. He’d fallen in love with a part of it - mostly its natural beauty. My Mom and I headed over to visit in mid-2016.

I would see a lot of the rock formations and trees and fauna that my brother had loved (and I loved in turn). I would see Black Canyon in Colorado. I would see the red formations that Utah was known for.

I would see many, many dead and dying towns out in the fields and desert next to the asphalt strip that cut through the lands. I would see those still standing with hundreds of Trump flags and banners held aloft and plastered on every side of those buildings as they were steadily reclaimed by the land.

I was 25.

I voiced my concerns to my Australian co-workers in November, once I’d returned. They laughed and said it would be entertaining for there to be a President Trump. And what were the odds of him actually getting in?

My brother headed back home to Australia.

Time passed. It got harder to travel.

Mom and I entertained the possibility of travelling again, once things settled down a bit. Regardless of who was in power, we had friends and family there. People who we wanted to see, places we wanted to go.

Time passed.

The Trump Administration adjusted many things. It was no longer legal for a US citizen to travel to and from the States on any other passport than a US one.

I had not travelled on my US passport since I was a child. Renewing it would place me on the radar of an administration I wanted little to do with.

We could have played the waiting game. Wait for a law to change. Petition for something to adjust. But even then, something had become glaringly obvious.

If I signed up for a US passport, I would sign up with everything else that came with being an adult in the USA. Obligations for a country that I didn’t live in.

For a country that I was born in, but never called home.

I am 31.

I have spent the past week taking in a small part of Western Australia. Enjoying its beauty, seeing its red sand and sparse towns. Thinking deeply on the wonders this country has, and the endless problems it provides for people simply seeking a home.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the only US Consulate that isn’t booked out for the next few years in Australia.

And together with my Mom, who brought me to this country, I am renouncing my US citizenship.

The USA was where I was born. I have family there. Friends, who are fighting for a better future for themselves and others, tomorrow.

People I would like to meet. And people I would like to see again.

In order to do that in a way that allows me more freedom, I have to give up that part of my identity on an official basis.

But America never really was my home to begin with. Maybe once, long ago in that state of New Jersey in my Mom’s apartment with her friends all cooing over me in my crib. But I don’t remember any of that.

My Mom grew up in the USA. It was her home up until I was born. She wants to live in Australia, maybe New Zealand - anywhere but the States.

I know this process will hit her harder than me. She lived there. I have always been a visitor. Any ideas of living in the USA have long faded.

But it will be strange to have a major part of my national identity adjusted, just like that. As well as all of what that entails. What I choose for that to entail. How I will process all that.

When I’m at work, people always hear my voice, and ask where I’m visiting from. I state that I live here. I’ve lived here for 30 years.

I don’t think they ever quite believe me. I don’t blame them. My accent isn’t Australian, even if I tried to mimic it.

“Where are you from?”

I was born in America. I have friends and family there. I visited many times. I have family there who I love. I literally cannot visit, right now. And a small part of me is mourning what could have been.

But I live here in Australia, now. I’ve lived here for 30 years. I went to school here. I grew up here. I have friends and family here, who I love. A partner, who I love. I find more and more things about this place that fascinate me, and problems that need attention.

This is my home.

And I have a lot of feelings about all that, right now.

#th1nks #personal #May end up deleting but this is why I've been very quiet this past week #just need to get thoughts out

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dragonthunders01 · 8 months

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Spectember D9: Coevolution

Birds like the Australasian Butcherbirds and Shrikes have developed the peculiar behavior of impaling small animals into plants, to feed or to display their strength for their mates, this of course was limited to that, using different species of thorny plans for that, but at long term this started to change. In 75 million years Australia finally collided with east Asia, forming a large mountain range, many interchanges happened, extinction of native Australian groups as well a shift of the climate in the region, as the mountain range elevated the once tropical regions of Melanesia hundreds of meters and turned them into a desertic dry region.

There is no much of the native fauna left, except some extreme lucky adapted animals that colonized the new terrain, and among them there are other peculiar residents, a plant that for their own convenience managed to shape itself taking advantage of the behavior of impaling birds.

This is the Butcher house Acacia, a derived mountain descendant of the Australian species, this one was among a lineage that took advantage of the peculiar behavior of the Australian butcherbirds for their benefit, often with the reward of the butcherbirds with an ostentatious and strong plants as their feeding behavior always gave the plant nutrients from the remains of the prey they often do not digest. This went beneficial for males and the plant on their most ideal pollination season, but as the terrain elevated and became mountainous this behavior turned very crucial for their survival, although that the original butcherbirds have been long extinct, were replaced by other small type of corvids that adopted their lifestyle again and revitalized the gone symbiosis, the bird belongs to a group called the Slaughterthorn, they resemble their predecessors in many aspects, only excluding their shorter and wider beaks, turning them looking like a big beaked Shrikes.

They are more common in the Australian regions, specifically in the savannah using the thorns of other plants to impale medium size mammals, birds and lizards, with one single species remaining on the mountainous region after the lift, the Famine Slaughterthorn, a minuscule species of pale coloration resembling the terrain, dark beak and long legs for their species, they are as big as 25 cm long with a wingspan of 40 cm, they are specialized hunters, capable of take down some of the many mountain dwelling species of mammals including an endemic descendant of the holocene possums. Their behavior is not that different of their predecessors, but thins gets peculiar with how they care for their home plant.

Males are often dedicate their hunting time for animals they can impale within the special branches that grows in the middle of the plant not for eating but to give the plant the required nutrition to grow, these specialized through the millions of years of mutual cooperation to grow in that specific shape taking advantage of the constant prey accumulation that fertilize it, giving it nutrients that would often be almost scattered in this kind of terrain. The benefit for the Slaughtertorn constant task is a decent large home which can impress a potential mate, as well a secure a proper nesting ground to raise another strong generation of new Slaughterthorns.

#speculative evolution #future evolution #spectember #australia #bird

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engineer-gunzelpunk · 7 months

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Traintober 2023: Big World

(A little bit of a story from my humanised TTTE AU This Is Sodor: The Age of Iron, concerning Aus Steam '88)

For Your Consideration

NWR Head Office, 1988

The Fat Controller looked at his calendar and roster of locomotives for the weeks and months ahead. It was coalescing nicely.

The plans for sending a group of Sudrian locos in their human form to the great Aus Steam '88 locomotive festival that was going to be held at Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, was heading apace.

What a clever idea for Flying Scotsman to suggest, using the Australian Steam Festival as a cover to send some of the Sudrian locos to teach the local steam engines how the NWR survived decades of onslaught of persecution; from the LMS, from creditors, from the BR, from Beeching and Marples and the whole bloody lot of them.

What an honor would it be for them to meet not just Scotty but the Australian locomotive rights radicals VR H220 Heavy Harry, VR R707 and NSWGR's 3801 on their own metals.

It would give some of the locos a nice little experience outside of their Sudrian bubble... get them to see the world, to a place where the hateful Lokodammerung was successful and where the preservation movements were running on fumes. Maybe it would pacify and humble them a little, make them see how difficult it really was to be a locomotive and not have what the NWR provided.

He had heard that Heavy Harry's residence at the North Williamstown Railway Museum at the former Newport Workshops... was not the best. It wasn't exactly the luxurious surrounds of the National Railway Museum in York.

Or that R707 was put aside by the VR in spite of being the closest thing the state had to a premier passenger locomotive... and was saved by volunteers fixing him up themselves.

He'd hoped the Sudrian locos would draw lessons from how harsh things could be outside of their little island.

Or that was the fantasy.

The reality would be they would likely get drunk and indulge in all kinds of sin, and he didn't necessarily blame them. The human world outside of Sodor was as exotic to them as railways outside the little island.

This the Fat Controller pondered. Ever since that TV show began airing, he's had to keep its star Thomas under wraps. It wouldn't do for him to get captured in the papers doing something silly, especially since the books and TV shows were a bowdlerized version of what he got up to...

So no, not Thomas, not this time.

He thought of his Strike Trio, and against common sense he had the compulsion to send them. He knew Gordon would be keen to meet a foreign Pacific express passenger locomotive and to meet his brother, and maybe perhaps the Hudsons in attendance.

He pondered Henry and James. Henry had worked pretty hard and he partied harder, but he had been pretty well behaved this past decade after being angry and restless in the 70s... And James, well, he knew that giving him a special job often made him more tractable and agreeable to work with.

Just to make sure, he put Edward down as a sort of unofficial chaperone. If this experiment worked, he would send Thomas out into the world at some point.

Not now though, not while the attention was upon him with a whole bloody TV show named after him having just screened in Australia a year previous and the world's attention was on the little blue tank engine.

"Charles, bring me to Tidmouth Sheds when the listed four have been properly hostled... I have something wonderful to tell them..."

#ttte #rws #thomasallgrownup #victorian railways #ttte henry #ttte gordon #ttte edward #ttte james #ttte humanisation #ttte gijinka #Aus Steam' 88 #This Is Sodor: The Age of Iron #traintober #traintober 2023 #Traintober' 23: Big World

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sidneyxeckhart · 4 months

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[cis female and she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [SIDNEY ECKHART]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [ALICIA DEBNAM-CAREY]. You must be the [TWENTY NINE] year old [PARAMEDIC]. Word is you’re [STRONG] but can also be a bit [PARANOID] and your favorite song is [SWEET DISPOSITION BY THE TEMPER TRAP]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [FISHER’S COVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

INFORMATION:

fullname. sidney eckhart.

nicknames. sid.

gender. cis female

pronouns. she / her

d.o.b. november 29th, 1994 | ( 29 years old )

astrology. sagittarius ☀ libra ☾ virgo ↑

birth place. camden, maine, usa.

hometown. camden, maine, usa / brisbane, australia.

current residence. fisher's cove, aurora bay, california. ( @aurorabayaesthetic )

occupation. paramedic.

religion. not religious.

tattoos. letter 'd' on wrist ( reference pic ), 'let it be' ( reference pic ).

piercings. earlobes, helix.

marital status. single.

sexual preference. heterosexual.

family. louise eckhart ( mother ), simon masters ( father ).

children. delphine eckhart ( daughter, 4 y.o. ).

CHARACTER INSPO:

agnes hart ( the lost flowers of alice hart ), katie ( safe haven ), sansa stark ( game of thrones ), lily bloom ( it ends with us ), lexie grey ( grey's anatomy ).

PERSONALITY:

+ strong, caring, gentle. - paranoid, hopeless, cautious.

BIOGRAPHY:

( tw: domestic abuse, abortion mention )

Sidney Eckhart hasn't always had it easy. The daughter of a travelling American and an Australian surfer instructor meant that she was constantly torn between two places. Her mother, Louise had been travelling around Australian, in the time between finishing high school and starting college, and got swept up in a whirlwind romance on the beaches of Brisbane. It wasn't hard to fall in love with the place and the people, but especially Simon Masters. He was young, handsome and said all the right things, it was a holiday romance but Louise went back home to the States with a souvenir.

When those two little lines appeared back in Louise's hometown of Camden, Maine - it was more than a surprise, it was life-changing. While it hadn't been the plan, how often does life listen to such things? Sidney and her mother lived with her grandparents who gave never-ending support and love to their grandchild. Due to Louise's young age, the two felt more like sisters than mother and daughter, especially since Louise lacked the emotional maturity to be a mother but also she still went to college every day to become a teacher.

Sidney was never much interested in what other kids were. Forever having her nose in a book, she took life too seriously. There was always something to worry about, her mother's unwillingness to be a great parent, the ravages to time that would take her grandparents away from her, what her father was life and if he knew she even existed. Given how little she could control the first things, she could control whether or not he knew he had a daughter. A single photo of her parents amongst a group of young travellers under a sign that said Kirra Point Surf School had her walking to the local library to search the address.

The correspondence between her and her father went on for years. His first letter didn't come for months, presumably while he mulled over whether this was real or not. But the phone Sidney had sent of her and her mother was evidence enough it seemed. They exchanged letters for years without anyone knowing, eventually moving to long-distance phone calls. When she was twelve, her father sent her a plane ticket to visit. Her mother was firmly against it, but her grandparents knew that Sidney couldn't live a life without knowing her father. Meeting her father for the first time was the highlight of her childhood, she loved the place and could see how easy it was to love a man like Simon.

From this time, Sidney would visit Brisbane and stay with her father. It was the highlight of every year and as she went through her years, she found herself wanting to stay more and more. After graduating high school, Sidney spent a year on the shores of Brisbane, just as her mother did. But eventually, it was time to go back to reality. When deciding what she wanted to do with her life, Sidney decided she wanted to save lives. At first, she thought of nursing but there was something about keeping the person alive long enough to get the help they needed that appealed to her. So upon her return to Maine, she started studying to become an Paramedic.

While she wasn't in medical school, she did often frequent the same library that medical students did to study. And it was here that she met Kaiden, a young, rich, doctor-in-training. They fell madly in love, fast and hard. Sidney didn't ever think she was the kind of person who fell in love but here she was, acting a fool. They moved in together; finally out of her grandparents house, Sidney really thought that this was her happily ever after. But it quickly turned into a nightmare.

The warning signs was small, at first. When it came time for his exams, Kaiden would become irritable, angry. There was a lot of pressure from his family to succeed, another doctor in a long line of overachievers. And while Sidney always tried to help, it seemed that when he was in a mood like this, she could only ever say or do the wrong thing. Then one night, things became physical and Sidney began to wonder how she'd let her life become like this.

She hadn't noticed how isolated she'd become. Avoiding friends and her family, just to avoid having to answer questions about how things were going. Sidney didn't want to have to lie. Work became her safe haven, helping people when she couldn't help herself. But then he'd apologize, make up for all his wrongdoings and Sidney, being so devastatingly in love with him, would forgive. Things would be good for a while, but the cycle would repeat. Time after time.

When she found out that she was pregnant, Sidney wanted it to be a good thing but all she could feel was crushing dread. Maybe she could live like this, but a child couldn't. And while she'd wanted to hide it from Kaiden until she could look at her options, he found out quicker than she'd expected. He'd used his access to hospital files to check her appointment notes with her doctor who confirmed the pregnancy. While he was thrilled, Sidney was not, but she had to play the part. Pretending that she was just trying to find the perfect way to tell him. If he thought she wasn't happy having his baby, she didn't want to think what would happen to her, and now their unborn child.

Throughout her pregnancy, Kaiden was the man that she'd fallen in love with. Helpful, thoughtful, funny. It was almost as if the abuse she'd suffered had never happened. As if she'd made it all up. And when Delphine was born, maybe they'd finally become the happy family she'd thought they could be. But it only took six weeks for Kaiden to become irrationally angry, the lack of sleep catching her off guard and paying for it with a bruised cheek.

She had to be smart, calculated. Sidney didn't want anyone else getting hurt because of her. Slowly squirrelling what little money she had away for a day things got more than she could handle. As long as Kaiden didn't hurt Delphine, she could wait until there was enough to support them. It took years. Sometimes, nothing would happen for months and months, a false sense of security would wash over her and then, it would happen again. Every time, the plan to leave began to take shape. When she finally reached out to her grandparents for help, not for money but a place to stay, they'd recently bought a summer house in a town called Aurora Bay. She didn't tell them the extent of everything, just that they needed a place to stay. A place that Kaiden didn't know about.

Sidney talked to Delphine all the time about leaving, escaping the clutches of the man who'd fathered her child. But every time, it wasn't enough. What if hunted them down? What if he found them? It only took one bruise to bloom on Delphine's arm to realise that they needed to leave. Drugging him with sleeping pills, Sidney made her escape in the dead of night, her daughter in her arms. A car purchased with cash, hidden away, awaited them. They drove all the way to Aurora Bay not stopping except for gas. Eventually they arrived at their new home in Fisher's Cove, a fresh start.

Taking a job as a local paramedic, keeping to herself mostly, Sidney worried about putting down any roots. At any point, if Kaiden caught wind of where they were, they might have to leave. But as time passed, they couldn't help but get sucked into the town and its people. Now Aurora Bay is their home, a place where they are free.

#∘₊✧────── sidney eckhart. ( intro )#aurorabay.intro #tw: domestic abuse #tw: abortion mention

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