#possibly conceivable natural disaster

[scuddle-bubble101]

Omen sighs heavily, putting a hand over his face and rubbing his sockets. "I see..." It seems I owe him an apology as well then. The nightmare straightens his coat a bit and huffs. "I'm sure you may have been able to tell, but Malice is.... Sensitive when it comes to those he cares for." That was an understatement of course. Malice could be considered near inconsolable when he was upset. The only option now was to let him work through his anger until he tires himself out.

How unfortunate to lose that au early... it still had potential, but I suppose I can overlook his outburst this time.

"Well, regardless, I'm sure you'll wish to apologize later. I'll make sure to have him see you when he has calmed down." Omen looks down at Evris, his expression softening. "...Trust is hard for some of us... I'm certain Malice understands that you had not intended to... hurt him."

"........."

[Annnnd I can see that did absolutely nothing to console him......... shit.]

"Or... We can try- A different approach to this..."

"Does that sound good to you?"

"I'm sure what I can offer is some calm solace for you for the-"

"I need to see him O-omen, ...I need to see.... T-to see he's ok."

#evris #the mayor guy #Malice! #hooo boy #omen #omens the working goops! #heeeere we goooooo #the mainverse #mid roads #sweet luna bean #omen is not DOING any good at all today XD #in omen's mind... there is every #possibly conceivable natural disaster #ever recorded by man #help this poor noot and his social anxiety #Are you winning son? And its just Omen face down on the ground... #internally crying for all the world NOT to hear #bless this man #bless him

[camplease]

harrow grew in her emotional awareness of other people as people at an incredible rate during the events of gideon the ninth, a rate that honestly stretches the bounds of plausibility. and i think a lot of it, maybe even most of it, was specifically a reaction to an awareness of gideon, specifically, in genuine mortal danger that harrow had never previously considered

even before harrow was able to accept that she feels any affection for gideon, her covetousness of gideon's presence is evident. but, on drearburh, even though there might’ve conceivably been natural disasters outside of harrow's control that could’ve changed this, i think gideon’s survival of the child massacre made gideon seem like an almost supernaturally ever-present fixture of harrow’s universe. no matter how much gideon bled and broke in those 17 years, i don’t think harrow had truly considered the reality of gideon’s mortality before

when harrow thought of losing gideon, she thought of gideon escaping. prior to canaan house, though death involving those close to her was already something harrow knew intimately well, each example is inextricably connected to its specific context. with "the body," the cause of death didn't pose any immediate, direct threat to harrow or those she cared about. as horrific all of drearburh’s children’s deaths were, as heavily as they weighed on harrow, this was a part of her history rather than an imminent threat. and, as much grief and sorrow that the personal responsibility harrow felt for her parents’ suicides colored her existence, as much as she even once blamed gideon, ultimately, harrow's parents killed themselves. these were all so different by their very nature from the deaths at canaan house and the possibilities they illuminated. something or someone was maliciously seeking out those among her in the present. gideon's very existence could no longer be taken for granted, never mind simply losing possession of her

i believe that both accepting her own care for gideon and accepting the risk of losing gideon beyond losing control over her is what led harrow to assess the inherent harm and dehumanization of their power imbalance and to begin to understand the flaws in her worldview overall, the flaws in the system that granted her and others in power the power to abuse it at will and use those under them as tools

but the reason why i say this was a lot of/most of and not all of the reason for harrow's growth is because i think she always had some latent capacity for it that she'd just previously suppressed. and i don't think this is unique to harrow. i think the worst people within any system wear away at their humanity, and, thus, their ability to perceive the humanity of others and act accordingly, a bit at a time. but this process isn't irreversible. harrow's relation to gideon was just the catalyst for that reversal in her

i can’t say exactly who harrow would’ve become without gideon at canaan house with her for the lyctoral trials, but she would’ve certainly been very different from the person she is now

decided to make my own post because i was thinking about this poll way too much and it led me to a big enough tangent that it's its own creature at this point, though i also wanna credit that initial spark

#griddlehark #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #this wasn’t intended to answer the question that prompted all of these musings btw #in case that wasn't clear with me having not actually done that lmao #†

[natsarrownecklacx]

Cruelty Is An Art Form

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word count- 1,920

Summary- Your the daughter of one of New York’s most known Mob leaders. Unfortunately, you’ve caught the attention of New York’s most feared Mob leader, Natasha Romanoff.

Warnings- Minors this fic isn’t for you, Allusion to murder, Dark Mob Natasha, Thigh riding, marking, allusion to non con.

ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ

There is no evil known to mankind worse than Natasha Romanoff. Of this, you are almost certain. 

Sure there are other terrible things that plague the world like famine, natural disasters and horrific diseases, but the difference between Natasha and all of those things is that, when it comes to how they affect people, it isn’t their fault. All of those things are more or less out of our control, and the way they impact people, out of their control. 

Natasha however, is practiced with her cruelty. Each and every ounce of pain and suffering she inflicts is calculated and purposefully. She takes a pride in it that could only be measured to that of a parent towards their child or an artist towards their art.

Usually when a person contains this type of passion for cruelty it would be contained to the unfortunate few people who find themselves in the presence of the evil being who cultivates it. For example serial killers or people with an affinity for torture and their victims.

Sadly this isn’t the case with Natasha Romanoff, who has enough power and influence that her cruelty spans over hundreds if not thousands of people, even if they do not realize it. As the leader of one of the most powerful and dangerous gangs in New York City, Natasha’s control spans just over triple the city's population. 

She is known throughout the underworld of gang leaders as the “black widow”, the name being given to her in recognition of the countless bodies she has left up and down the coast of many cities across the globe. 

No one would dare mess with her, in any way, unless they had a death wish. Even then, unless that person wanted to die in the most slow and torturous ways even the darkest minds could not conceive, they would stay far, far away from her. 

Which is something you’ve, thankfully, managed to do for all twenty years of your life, despite your fathers standing as a rival gang leader in New York. One that, for the past few months, Natasha has been taking territory from.

To Natasha anyone other than herself and the few people of her inner circle are merely ants ready to be squashed under her boot at a moments notice, even purely for her own twisted entertainment. So she did not know, nor did she care, who’s territory she was taking over, nor did she fear any backlash from the unknown ant.

Your father let her behavior slide, for the sake of peace and to avoid the possibility of innocent civilians getting harmed in the crossfire if he were to start a war between his own gang and the widows. 

He has warned you to stay far away from her, away from any territory she deemed her own, in fear that she may recognise you and harm you for the sake of sending a message to not only him but the other leaders in the city. 

So you did as he asked and stayed away, not wanting to cause any problems for your father or anyone else. But how were you to know that while you were on a night out with your friends that the redhead would choose the exact bar you occupied and claim it as her own, killing the previous owner where he sat in his office before strolling her way up to the bar to order herself a glass of vodka.

Natasha sits at the bar, glass in hand as she lazily surveys the room, looking for someone to sate her need for the night, getting her use out of the unwitting victim before killing them.

As she moves her gaze around the room her eyes land on you, a pretty girl on the dance floor moving her hips along to the music in a way that catches Natasha’s attention and stops her mid way raising her glass to her mouth. 

She watches you for a few moments, her darkening eyes drinking in every sway and move of your body as you lose yourself to the music and atmosphere around you, dangerously unaware of the predator approaching. 

Natasha is unaware of who you are and in all honesty, she doesn’t care, her plan for you remains the same. Act like the sweet gentle woman she never will be, convince you to accompany her back to her mansion, use you like a toy until the sun comes up and then discard you like the broken used thing you will be once she's finished with you. 

Natasha approaches you, reaching a hand out to your waist, moving her body against yours to the beat of the music. She treads lightly, not wanting to scare you off before she can get you at least into her car. The idea of making a public scene tonight just seems like an annoying headache for the redhead.

Feeling a feminine body slid in behind you mould to your own does not bother you, even as her hands slid sensually around your waist, pulling you flush against her. You relish in the attention from the unknown woman. 

Natasha drags her lips against the pulse point of your neck causing you to tilt your head back, needing to give her more room. She suctions her lips to your neck, intent on leaving a mark and branding you as hers. Her toy for the night, her slut made to proudly wear her marks. 

You can’t help the moan that quietly spills from your lips at the action, leaning your head back against her shoulder and moving your left hand up to grip the hair on the back of her neck, holding her in place while she leaves her marks on your skin. 

Natasha slides her arms fully around your waist, tightening her hold on you and locking you in place as she slots her thigh between your legs. Your breath catches in your throat at the action and a whimper follows soon after when the mystery woman whispers “Move your hips, baby” in your ear hotly. 

You do as she says, moving your hips slowly up and down her suit clad thigh. Her warm mouth continues its attack on the delicate skin of your neck, nipping and biting every so often to ensure her marks are clear. 

The whole interaction makes you want to melt against her, melt into her, succumb to the pleasure the woman is bringing you. That is, until she tenses the muscles in her leg, the hard muscle hitting your clit just right in a way that has you moaning out “fuck” and tightening your hold on the redheads hair to the point that you cause her pain. 

Natasha bites down hard on your neck in retaliation, the force of her teeth strong enough to nearly draw blood. 

You gasp and quickly jerk your body away from her. Natasha loosens her hold, allowing you to turn and face her but still keeps you in her grasp. You spin around quickly, determined to tell her off for such a violent act. 

Your breath is stolen from your lungs the second your eyes land on the woman your father spent countless day’s warning you away from. 

Your eyes fill with fear, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by the redhead, and you try to take a step back. 

Natasha only tightens her grip on your waist, a smirk falling against her lips while confusion flickers behind her eyes. She can see from the look on your face that you know who she is, what she is capable of, yet she doesn’t know how. Word of the infamous black widow isn’t exactly common knowledge with the civilians in the city. 

“You know me.” Natasha muses, tilting her head to the side slightly, her eyes lighting up when she feels you try to step away from her again. “And you're afraid.” She says, the smirk on her face nearly doubling in size, as she takes a step toward you. 

Your eyes move frantically around the room, desperately looking for the men your father sent with you everywhere. Your body guards, as you call them, or your “protection detail” as they like to call themselves. 

Natasha’s hold on your waist tightens again, pulling you flush with her front and ignoring your attempts to squirm away. Your attention turns back to her and you have to gulp down your fear at the sight of the look in her eyes. It truly feels to you as though she is a starved, deranged predator and you are her prey. 

Natasha takes a moment to look you over, appraising you, while you squirm under her heavy stare, your eyes move away from her, unable to continue looking at her with the intensity of the moment.

“You're a pretty little thing aren’t you.” Natasha muses, gripping your jaw in her rough, calloused fingers and forcing you to look at her. Using her hold on your face she pulls you closer to her, until you are just a breath away. 

Your mind tells you to slap her, to spit in her face, kick her between the legs and run as fast as your feet can carry you. Your survival instincts tell you otherwise, screaming at you that if you want to survive then you have to keep her as calm as possible until your fathers men realize where you are.

So you stand as still as you can, your hands making fists at your sides in an attempt to keep them from shaking. Natasha’s eyes glance down to your clenched fists, a smile sliding its way onto her face before her eyes move back to your face.

She moves her mouth next to your ear, her warm breath hitting your skin while she whispers to you. “Let me tell you a secret little dove.” You feel her lips smile against your skin, trailing a short path up and down the skin of your cheek before she speaks again. “I like it when pretty girls like you are afraid. The look you all get in your eyes when your afraid for your life…” 

Natasha moves her hands to rest on the small of your back, moving your body in one swift jerk so that your thigh rests between her legs. She doesn’t waste a second before grinding down on the plush skin of your thigh, a grown falling from her lips at sensation. “... it gets me so, so wet, angel.” 

Natasha feels more than hears the gasp that leaves your mouth, feels the air hit her face as she pulls back to look at you again. That annoying smirk is back on her face, her eyes dark with lust and need. You jerk your leg from between hers, narrowing your eyes at the fake pout she wears at the action.

Natasha tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, her eyes never leaving your face as she whistles a tune you’d never heard before. Within the blink of an eye nearly fifty bodies hit the floor, each of them going down silently, without so much as a scream, as though someone had simply powered them off.

You look around in shock and horror, your mind running through how she could have done something like that and if you’d be next. 

“Don’t worry, angel.” Natasha coos, her voice a poor imitation of someone attempting to be soothing. “I won’t kill you.” She smiles, bringing her hands up to cup your face.

“You're of no use to me dead.”

ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ <3 ⴵ

A/n- Currently obsessed with dark mob boss Nat, let me know what you think so far, part two will be out this day next week

Part Two

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x you #black widow x reader #natasha romanoff x y/n #Dark Natasha Romanoff x Reader #Mob boss Natasha x reader #natasha romanoff angst #natasha romanoff smut

[andguesswhat]

The shield that you own - 4

*

“How come you never ask me any questions?”

Jack remembered how back then Tim had asked him that, almost offended, after he had badgered him for months with every conceivable question about himself and his job and Jack, flattered by Tim's interest, had always gladly answered, in more and more detail as time went on.

“It's useful to keep a certain distance in my job. It's nothing personal,” Jack had replied and Tim had wrinkled his nose and asked, “Is that a line from ‘Bodyguard’?”

Jack had laughed. “I don't know.”

It had been a small attempt not to run too blindly into disaster, because Jack had realized early on that Tim firstly liked to talk about saucy and raunchy subjects and secondly had great fun teasing Jack with it.

But Tim was of course clever and cheeky enough to get around this imbalance of getting to know each other even without Jack asking him questions, he just talked a lot about himself, not seldom in all those salacious details, or simply asked the questions he wanted to be asked himself.

“So Timmy, I have a question: did you ever have an orgy? Well, Jack, thanks for asking. Not quite sure if it counts but Summer camp 2010, me and a friend sneaked in the girl's tent to find our girlfriends, but it was so dark, we accidentally kissed the wrong ones. They didn’t seem to mind, though, the whole tent was giggling and they challenged us with a kissing contest. It was wild! Eager girls, horny guys, lots of saliva and groping and touching, other body liquids..." Tim's smile turned into a proud grin, "and I might even have sucked my friend's cock on this occasion.” It was obvious that Tim loved to talk about how he had been desired by girls and boys alike since he was young.

The proud grin turned into a cheeky one. “Sooo what about you, Jack? Any experiences with orgies?”

Yes, Tim definitely had far too much fun teasing Jack and that hadn't changed until today.

But what had changed, when Jack thought back, was Tim's insouciance, silliness, quirkiness that he had in these days. It was still there, but it appeared less and less frequently.

That was one of the reasons why Jack had been looking forward to their visit to Korea so much. He knew from experience that Asia was always an escape for Tim into another world, a possibility to leave his Hollywood made problems behind, and the otherness of an Asian country, the foreign culture, distracted him to such an extent that he was carefree and lighthearted in a way he rarely was otherwise.

And that's how it was.

Seoul was as plush as the plush flowers Tim received from a fan the second they arrived at the airport.

The respectful nature of the fans, the loving gifts felt like they were wrapped in plush up to their nose. They felt so happy and sweetly pampered that in the car to the hotel, Jack let himself be carried away and waved those plush flowers playfully and completely goofy in Tim's beaming, smiling face.

Here in Seoul with those sweet, loyal fans Tim seemed happier than he had been in months, away from the cursed valley of LA.

Another reason for Tim's good mood was certainly the fact that Tim's father was here as well.

They didn't see each other that often, and it was touching for Jack to see how they both were happy and thankful to be in each other's presence.

Marc was so proud of his son and Tim was so proud to make his father proud. It was sweet to witness and if Jack could give Tim's dad any advice, he would tell him to check on his son more often. Because just because you were nearly 30, earning umpteen times your father's salary on your own, didn't mean you didn't still need him.

But Jack didn't want to complain, he liked Marc's calm, level-headed manner and enjoyed strolling around Seoul with the two of them, seeing the sights. It was relaxed and beautiful and the tension from London evaporated.

In the interviews, Tim was so hyper, goofy and carefree, that Zendaya and Austin even teased him for being in such a good mood.

Jack was only to happy to be infected by this good mood and that was probably the reason why he, when they arrived in Tim's hotel room one evening, took Tim's next best teasing as an occasion to grab him and tickle him mercilessly.

Tim squealed, Tim screamed when Jack threw him onto the bed, Tim tried to fight back when Jack tried to tickle him more. They wrestled, hands and legs in a wild scuffle, gasping for breath as their bodies repeatedly wedged and rubbed against each other and slowly but steadily the physicality turned into desire.

For a moment they stopped, Tim on Jack’s lap, and just looked at each other, catching their breaths, taking in the desire of the other, before Tim first ripped his own T-shirt off and then tugged at Jack's to do the same.

They undressed hastily and when they were only in boxer shorts, Tim rubbed his already hard cock against Jack's abdomen and asked gently, but also quite needy: “Can I fuck you?”

Jack immediately turned red.

Less because of Tim's question but more because of the fact that he was prepared. Always.

He had always expected Tim to ask him one day. Because he always had been sure that no matter how submissive one was, with a cock like Tim's, one would feel the need to stick it in as many orifices as possible.

Apart from Jack's mouth.

“Only if you want... Have you done this before?” asked Tim gently, probably not being able to interpret Jack’s reaction properly.

“It's been a while,” Jack eventually said. If he was honest, it had been years. “But I'm... prepared.”

“You are?” Tim's eyes widened with mischievous delight, making Jack blush even more. “Well, in that case, turn around. I want to reward your foresight.”

Jack had to swallow at these words, but turned onto his stomach as told. He was quite nervous and only now realized what it felt like when the tables were turned.

Now he was suddenly the object of desire. It made him insecure, but it was also exciting and beautiful.

He felt Tim's fingers slide under the hem of his boxers, felt Tim carefully pull the fabric down and expose his bottom.

“God, your ass is so tasty, I really should have paid attention to it before.”

Jack laughed hoarsely while his ego was being coated in honey.

“Come on, on all fours with you. Or at least get up your ass,” Tim whispered cheerfully.

The bluntness let Jack almost tense, but when he felt Tim's hands on his ass, he wanted nothing more than to push himself into those hands and squatted up on all fours.

He was about to ask himself, if he was acting too eagerly, when suddenly, without further warning, he felt Tim's wet, soft tongue between his butt cheeks, felt it slide warm and moist over his entrance and Jack couldn't help but groan out loud.

Fuck!

Yes, he'd been taken before, but no one had ever done this before, he'd never felt this before... and fuck, it felt so goddamn good.

He heard Tim laugh softly. “You like that?”

Jack moaned again in approval. Because, god, yes.

Tim’s tongue, so wet and soft, it was an incredible intimate feeling, sapping all of Jack’s strength and making him want to linger here forever.

And just when Jack thought he was getting used to the feeling, Tim slipped his wet finger over his threshold inside of him, finding determinedly his sweet spot.

Again Jack could only gasp and moan, far too willingly, but he didn't care.

He loved it. All of it.

Tim's licking, Tim's finger in his ass while Tim’s other hand pumped Jack's needy cock and when Tim pulled his cock through his legs and sucked on it while the thumb continued to stretch his hole, Jack’s brain went blank.

Fucking hell! Jack felt so fucking naughty and he wanted nothing else. He could easily have come 10 times already.

He would have thought that he would tense up when it really got down to business. But when he felt the tip of Tim's cock at his entrance, Tim running his hands soothingly over his back, he only wanted one thing: to have Tim inside him. All of him. All of his big cock. Now.

Tim slowly but steadily pushed his cock into him and Jack held his breath as Tim filled him up inch by inch.

“Oh god, baby, you feel so fucking good, you're so fucking tight,” Tim moaned behind him and Jack almost laughed in disbelief about Tim calling him ‘baby’ but he let it happen, it suited Tim's vocal mood, and somehow that was a good thing, it distracted Jack from thinking, he could let himself go and enjoy it all.

Tim riding him, Tim rubbing over his sensitive prostate, Tim moaning, “God, yes, so fucking good,” while Jack himself was panting, groaning and moaning like he never had.

When Tim suddenly pulled out of him, Jack felt immediately a loss but a rush of goose bumps brushed over his skin, when Tim panted, “Turn around, baby, I wanna see you.”

It was one thing to be fucked by Tim, but it was so much more intense to see him doing it.

Tim lifted Jack's legs to penetrate him again, and the way Tim alternately looked back and forth between him and his cock, which was steadily sinking into Jack's ass, was incredibly hot and tender at the same time.

Jack just loved watching Tim.

Tim returned the gaze with a tender and naughty grin, “You like my dick in your ass?”

Jack could only laugh before his eyelids fell shut because Tim's cock once again rubbed against his sensitive spot and made him moan.

Tim laughed, too, apparently satisfied with what sensations his dick achieved, “I'm gonna make you cum so good.”

And with those words, he increased the speed at which he thrust into Jack, fucking him fast and hard, panting naughty words until he came with a loud groan and Jack didn't know what hit him when Tim pulled out of him, immediately pushed his two fingers into his now cum coated entrance again, leaning over him and alternating jerking him off with his other hand and taking Jack’s cock in his mouth.

Tim’s hot wet mouth, his slippery fingers rubbing his sweet spot, Jack couldn't hold out any longer, he desperately needed to come, his body reared up and he came, with a firm jet and a loud moan.

Fuck.

He would be jerking off from that night for months to come.

Tim grinned at him in awe, “What a jet!”, crawled up to him, gave him a kiss on the mouth and snuggled up to him.

Fuck.

*

The next morning, reality set in again.

They woke up to Tim's cell phone ringing, Tim looked at his phone and then immediately apologetically at Jack. He was visibly uncomfortable.

“Can I …? Can you...?”

“Yeah sure...” Jack quickly slipped out of bed, put on his shorts and began to gather his things.

“I'm sorry,” Tim said contritely.

“No worries.”

And then Tim already answered the phone. “Hey... Yeah... no, no problem, the alarm would have gone off in ten minutes anyway.”

Tim had a voice all of his own for Armie.

Jack, with his clothes in his arms, squinted out into the hallway, looked back to Tim, indicated with a downward finger gesture that they would see each other downstairs at breakfast, which Tim returned with a nod, and left the two of them alone.

He was jealous of Austin, he didn't like Tim's friendship with Haider, but the thing with Armie was different. It was the way it was. Tim only existed with Armie. The symbiosis was all-encompassing. Even if they weren't together, part of Tim would always be Armie.

Tim didn't say much about Armie himself, but indirectly all the more.

When they talked, Tim told him many things, things that seemed closely related. About lives that were marked by toxic families, manipulations, abuses. About complicated childhoods that led to adults who became mentally ill. About illnesses that were unjustly stigmatized.

He seemed to knew a lot of mental illnesses like schizophrenia, how they developed, how they manifested themselves and how little was known about them, he talked about the difficulties of properly adjusting such illnesses with medication.

He talked with Jack about making wrong decisions, he talked about the difficulties to get a second chance.

He talked about the powerlessness you felt when someone else had the power over your children and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.

It all gave Jack a taste of Armie's life, a life you wouldn't trade.

It didn't mean that Jack in the back of his head did not have the desire to stay here in Korea with Tim forever, it didn't mean that it didn't hurt him when Tim didn't love him back in equal measure.

But at the end of the day, he knew Armie needed Tim's love more than he did.

*

#timothée chalamet #timmy and his bodyguard #@Jack: better skip this one 🙈😅 #@gatoenlaciudad: thank you 😘😘😘🧸🐿️ #timothée chalamet fanfic #charmie

[acollectionofficsandshit]

Chapter 14: Three of Us

Max Verstappen x Reader (Single Dad AU)

Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 + Chapter 6 + Chapter 7 + Chapter 8 + Chapter 9 + Chapter 10 + Chapter 11 + Chapter 12 + Chapter 13

Chapters: 14/?

Rating: Teen and Up

Word Count: 11,661 Words

Masterlist

I’d like to thank @lightsovermonaco for being my beta and for more importantly keeping me sane because without her influence it’s anyone’s guess where I’d be. I also owe @sassybatflowerpaper an enormous thank you, not only for being my friend but because this story, at it’s very core, is our love child.

Sunday, November 18th, 2018- Monte Carlo, Monaco

The Penthouse

"Who knows? She might change her mind... might be back as soon as tomorrow or Tuesday," the false bravado with which Max makes this declaration might be enough to sway himself into believing the insanity of his own words but it doesn’t quite do the trick for Daniel, not by a long shot.

"Because you never really know, do you? Anything could happen! Isn't that what people say?”

He just stares blankly back at his teammate, not saying a word but not needing to; his silence speaks for itself, more than capable of holding its own. 

"That is what people say, right? Did I get it wrong?" Max asks in a rush, sounding genuinely concerned by the mere possibility he’d somehow managed to get the phrasing so incorrect that it was indecipherable and well beyond any hope of Daniel’s recognition, “it's simple and it sounds right in my head, but I guess I could have-"

"I mean, yeah, mate, they do. They definitely do say that... sometimes," he was doing his very best to not let the laugh building in his chest out because he wasn't a fucking idiot and he knew damn well that the worst thing he conceivably do right now would be to so much as chuckle once.

Oh, he was fully fucking aware that it was infinitely more probable that Max would take kindly to having Daniel spit in his face than he ever would to being openly laughed at the moment– and he could respect that.

"See?" the younger man says proudly, gesturing as if the tentative, begrudging concession he'd just made was some sort of irrefutable evidence, which hadn't come with a very obvious 'but' hanging over its very head, "you said so yourself-"

"But normally, when people say 'anything can happen' they usually mean things that could actually feasibly happen or, you know, like natural disasters and shit? Not like your kind of thing because those, those, are in an entirely different neighborhood... like they're in one that doesn't exist."

Because unlike the delusions that plague his companion, Daniel isn't blinded to the realities of the situation. Thank God for small mercies, which at the very least meant it wouldn't be blind leading the blind– at least not yet. He didn't know if he could stomach the circumstances devolving to such indignities this early on in the grand scheme of things.

"See?" the younger man says proudly, gesturing as if the tentative, begrudging concession he'd just made was some sort of irrefutable evidence, which hadn't come with a very obvious 'but' hanging over its very head, "you said so yourself-"

"But normally, when people say 'anything can happen' they usually mean things that could actually feasibly happen or, you know, like natural disasters and shit? Not like your kind of thing because those, those, are in an entirely different neighborhood... like they're in one that doesn't exist."

Because unlike the delusions that plague his companion, Daniel isn't blinded to the realities of the situation. Thank God for small mercies, which at the very least meant it wouldn't be blind leading the blind– at least not yet. He didn't know if he could stomach the circumstances devolving to such indignities this early on in the scope of things.

Not when they still had the better part of a week to get through, preferably mostly unscathed with all their limbs still attached. Well, that was if you asked Daniel how long they had left, rather than taking Max at his word, since he seemed to be the only one out of the two of them who had any true, lasting intention of holding loyal to fact– which in this particular instance was the definitive timeframe you'd given for when you'd be back.

That went without even mentioning the reality of just how fucking far you'd been pushed in recent weeks, where there was no doubt in his mind that the physical and mental drain of the season had only further exacerbated the considerable emotional toll that your responsibilities, Max and Kaia had taken on you, all of which had been compounded by the meeting at Red Bull last week.

Because it was crystal fucking clear to Daniel what exactly, or perhaps who exactly, it was that had been the very last straw, that had dealt the final blow to your defenses and had brought every thought, emotion and unresolved conflict you'd been so neatly tucked away to face at a later date, when there was the time to do such a thing, crashing down over your head... though such obvious conclusions seemed to have escaped Max's senses in their entirety.

Perhaps that was why he had little patience for the younger man's head in the sand antics this morning, because while complete and utter lack of self-awareness was the baseline from which his teammate perpetually operated, and Daniel had long ago accepted such things as standard practice, this was where he drew the line.

You were where he drew the line.

And he'd be damned if he simply sat by and let Max cross it out of his own blundering stupidity again without saying a single word to the contrary. As it was, Daniel felt guilty enough for not having done more to protect you prior to now, for not having taken preventive action that could have eliminated the threat of the very situation you all found yourselves in at the moment, for not having stepped the second things teetered towards getting out of hand, without continuing to stand idly by and not at the very least try to make amends for his own failings and those of his team.

Daniel had absolutely no qualms about resorting to unapologetic honesty because he couldn't have cared less about how the Austrian felt right now than he did at present. Because the way he saw it, it was likely better that he resorts to harsh words and brutal frankness than any of the other means of communication he was tempted to use because, fucking shit, was he itching to find out if a right hook to the side of the head would in fact prove to be sufficient enough to knock some sense back into the other man.

"Don't be a fucking idiot, Max," he said dismissively, catching his friend by the collar of his sweatshirt and hauling him sideways, breaking him from the repetitive back and forth pattern he'd been incessantly pacing across the living by forcing him bodily down onto the overstuffed sofa.

"So, let's abandon this insane little pipe dream that you've cooked up– where at just any moment now, she'll going to come waltzing back in through the door," Daniel jammed a thumb in the direction of the elevator, not wanting to leave the man opposite him with so much as a shadow of a doubt to cling to, "because while I do hate to have to break it to you, none of that will be fucking happening any time soon. Just- just enough of that, alright? Let's give it a fucking rest already."

Even amongst all the truth that was held in his words, he couldn't bring himself to entirely ignore the glimmer of something false interwoven into the statement, a singular thread of a lie– Daniel didn't hate being the one to break it to Max at all, not even in the slightest.

Because if he were to be brutally frank about the matter, he was actually fucking living for this opportunity to be the bearer of bad news and everything it was currently affording him.

"Oh, and do me a favor?" Daniel asks on a whim, and his spontaneity gets him little more than a noncommittal grunt out of Max in reply, "if it's not too much to ask, when you get up off that couch, first why don't you give taking a fucking breath or two a go? Just try it on for size. You know, before you pass out cold and bust your head open on the ugly ass coffee table someone with just shit taste picked out-"

"I'll tell my ma that the next time she phones," he says with a wrinkle of his nose, the younger man's tone halfheartedly pandering to taking real personal offense on his mother's behalf, "when she's all 'oh! And how is Daniel doing lately?' I'll be sure to say, 'thank you for asking! he's been fine, but he says you've got shit taste in furniture-'"

"And shit taste in men too but she probably already knows that bit because Jos just really speaks for himself," his retort earns him the exact snort of a laugh Dan had been expecting it to with blind confidence, knowing that without the amused sound of consensus out of Max, the possibility of that particular remark being well received was utterly out of the question.

"No one is going to argue with you on that. Least of all me."

"Brilliant! Then let's make better decisions than their generation did and just keep our thoughts to ourselves, hm? And while we're at it, why don't you pop your listening ears back on and hear me when I tell you to inhale some fucking air over there because I'm not taking you to the hospital so you can get stitches-- No, no... I'll be super gluing your face back together and then going on about my day. Got it?"

"Whatever."

"No, not whatever, there was a question there. So, again– you got it?"

"Yeah, fine, Daniel. I get it. Happy now?"

"'Course, mate. I'm over the fucking moon about it because what I won't be doing with my afternoon is cleaning blood off of a goddamn thing either. Is that understood?"

"Jesus Christ, okay! I understand! Watch," Max says, waving both hands needlessly towards himself, directing him to pay close attention as though he was genuinely concerned Daniel might miss the over-exaggerate rise and fall of his chest, which heaved with every ragged breath in and dramatic breath out, if he wasn't told where to look.

"Wonderful, you can breathe! Get up. We're going out," turning his head to look over one shoulder, he shouts loud enough that his words are echoing through the entire apartment, "Kaia! Front door, five minutes! We're going out for lunch and Da's paying!"

Grumbling at the addition, Max pulls himself to his feet and begins collecting the random items he'd left scattered haphazardly across the surface of the coffee table the night before as he calls out, "Vlinder, remember! Shoes, jacket, pants; check! All of them, on!" he pauses, roughly shoving everything back into his pockets where it had all undoubtedly come from before raising his voice to add, "I mean it, it's too cold for just your Elsa dress, I don't care what the movie says, you will freeze!"

"You know, that's not really the way her magic works in the movie because you see-" Daniel chimes in brightly, starting to breakdown the inaccuracies of the former's statement without a care in the world until he looks up and catches a glimpse of Max glowering over at him, then falls immediately silent.

"No one goes anywhere until my eyes are on you, Kaia-- and you're dressed! Fully!"

----------------------------

Monday, November 19th, 2018- Monte Carlo, Monaco

Daniel's Apartment

Max doesn't concern himself with anything so inconsequential as having any shred of common decency this morning simply because Daniel was still sleeping soundly at this hour– that would hardly have been conducive to his plans for the day since by his count, they were already an hour behind on schedule.

And he really doesn't care to admit just how many times he's checked his phone this morning, let alone in last hour because things are already starting to get really fucking pathetic. As if that weren't enough, there's the matter of his slow, steady descent into full blown obsession over where you are and what you're doing and why in the hell he's not heard back from you since Friday night to contend with... and Goddamn, does Max hate all of this.

He can't bear the thought of unlocking it again and again and again, only to open his texts to see more of the same– a screen full of nothing but his messages, delivered and unread, the monotony of which is broken only by the single photo of Kaia he'd snapped at lunch yesterday and then promptly sent in a desperate last ditch attempt to break the silence. To no avail. .

So, simply put, he may have ruled out throwing his phone off of Daniel's balcony, if only because he doesn't want to deal with the lecture that will earn him, but that doesn't mean he's going to handle any of this in a healthy manner. No, no... Max has decided he's going to deal with this the worst way he knows how, the tried and true method of packing his schedule so full of bullshit activities that there's no time to spare for anything else.

"Kaia! Get a move on, it's time!" He calls out down the hallway in a stage whisper, his words softened purely in the interest of preserving the element of surprise, waiting impatiently as his daughter comes scuttling towards him with a wicked little grin on her face, "just like we rehearsed, okay?"

"Okay! Okay!" The toddler nods her little blonde head in agreement, practically levitating with excitement, her riot of sleep tousled curls bouncing along wildly, adding only further emphasis to her exaggerated movements, "Da! Come on! Come on!"

"Ready?" Max already knows the answer, but he still asks it all the same, enjoying the childish anticipation Kaia is consumed by right now, her joy over something so simple as wreaking chaos and her enthusiasm at the mere prospect of inciting parental approved mischief is enough to brighten even his sour mood, leaving him grinning in spite of himself as he carefully twists the handle of Daniel's bedroom door and pushes it open.

Giving the three-year-old at his side a solemn salute, they tiptoed into the room as quietly as they could manage, his daughter giggling softly to herself as she crept forward, pretending to be a little mouse, just like they'd been practicing since she'd woken up with the rising sun hours ago. He'd had to come up with something to keep her occupied this morning or the entire apartment building would have been in for a very rude awakening.

Quite simply, it was a matter of acting in the best interest of the greater good because clearly, one man's loss of sleep was everyone else's gain. So, really, if you stopped and thought about it, Max was just being a good, considerate neighbor here.

Sure, he might be serving up his teammate like a lamb for the slaughter and yes, the argument could be made that, at the very least, he should be feeling some modicum of guilt over the decision to sic Kaia on an unsuspecting Daniel but that hardly seemed like enough to dissuade Max from seeing this through.

His mind was made up and there would be no changing it now, not when the plan was already in motion, his three year old a step or three ahead of him, and all but bouncing off the walls of the narrow hallway which feeds from the door of the master suite into the bedroom proper, flowing elegantly past the pair of darkly shadowed archways that hide away the massive marble bath and the walk in closet from view.

It's already a beat too late when Max realizes what's about to happen because in the time it takes from one second to the next, for him to put two and two together, his little speed demon of a daughter has already thrown caution to the wind and bolted forward. Kaia doesn't hesitate, she doesn't waste so much as a fraction of an instant before she's gone, no, she knows better than that, knows better than to waste the advantage that the element of surprise and a slight head start have given her.

In the blink of an eye the toddler is rounding the corner into the room beyond in a blur of sunshine yellow curls and baby pink pajamas, Kaia's vanished from his line of sight before he's close half of the original distance he'd let lapse between them. Max knows he's got no one to blame for this but himself because he's become endlessly well versed on the dangers of growing complacent around his daughter, this is squarely on him.

Shaking his head at himself, the motion is less one of genuine agitation at the situation or annoyance with Kaia and more one of lighthearted, self-aggrandizing amusement, the solid warmth of which floods his chest, the weight welcome and savored, it's steady thrumming presence favoring a spot on his left that sits high behind the banded shelter of his ribcage– it's a heady thing to experience, emotions like these, when most of your life has been spent feeling them sparingly, for brief, fleeting moments.

So, when Max reaches the end of the hallway, it with a rye smile on his face and he's a little less inclined to get lost in the depths of his own mind than he'd been only a moment prior, the world around him seems to have come into sharper relief than it had all morning, the edges of his vision no longer soft and out of focus.

It becomes immediately apparent that in part and parcel with Kaia's impatient, borderline impetuous insistence upon self-sufficiency, she'd dismissed the remainder of the original plan of action without a second thought and struck out on her own rogue mission. Where his daughter had been meant to wait for him to pick her up and put her atop the sleek, wooden footboard of Daniel's bed, she had instead improvised and climbed the monstrosity herself, which meant she was now struggling to keep her balance, teetered precariously back and forth, solely focused on standing on the narrow surface unassisted.

He just shrugs his shoulders at her, his lips pressed together in a thin line, both eyebrows raised in silent judgment in an expression that conveys, in no uncertain terms, 'what do you want me to do about it?' Max knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kaia has heard him, loud and clear, because all he gets back is a blank, unimpressed glare, one which very nearly succeeds at maintaining the facade that she's not internally starting to panic but that betrays her at the last moment when her bottom lip trembles.

God help them all, he thinks to himself, when in a last ditch attempt to convince herself she is in fact large and in charge and has not just vastly overestimated her capabilities, his daughter puts a hand on her hip and strikes a pose intended to be the physical embodiment of unwavering confidence.

It serves only to remind Max of just how young Kaia actually is because the little girl is so precocious and headstrong, and already such a force to be reckoned with, he often finds it hard to believe she's just three years old. Not for the first time, he wonders if she's just always been like this or if the behavioral traits which he now sees on the daily and as has just always known as her own are as new to Kaia as they are to him.

Max detests the thought that perhaps the cause for all this, the key motivating factor for why his daughter is already so vividly reminiscent of his five-year-old youngest sister is because of the upheaval she's had in recent years; he fears more than anything that Kaia's psyche has been altered beyond recognition by the loss of her mother, by the life altering changes she's already faced in her short little life.

Most of all, he fears that the child he knows, who is as much yours, as she is his– the one standing here before him, half alight with anticipatory excitement to prank her uncle, just happy to be included, and half petrified by the height she stands atop but who's fear is metered by the absolute trust she puts in him, in her father, who knows with unwavering certainty that he will not let not an harm befall her– now bears utterly no resemblance to the Kaia that Vittoria had known and loved and raised since birth.

Yeah, no, this is not going to fucking work, it's simply not sustainable for matters to continue on in the same manner they have up until this point. Max and his tendency to permit his life to be derailed by the dark clouds which insist rather firmly upon gathering overhead at the very first sign of grey skies have stolen enough from him in the past. He will permit it to go no farther.

Because at this point in his life, and thanks in large part to the harsh realities of his career, it's hardwired into him to realize what's happened, react to it and respond accordingly all in the same fraction of a second– and just as learning there's no time for mistakes in racing is a trial by fire, the same can be said for raising a child.

For whatever reason, it only dawns upon Max now that, in much the same way it's been ingrained in him to close his mind off prior to a race and narrow the confines of his world down to only what his five sense give him about the car under him, the track in around him and the radio in his ear, he needs to train himself to start applying the same rules to his everyday life, especially in moments like this.

He has to do better about living in the present, instead of in his head or the past, and that change has to begin now.

"Da—"

It was instinct, not a conscious decision or cognizant thought that made quick work of the remaining bureaucratic roadblocks keeping him bogged down inside his own mind, cutting to the chase and right through the mental red tape obstructing the way, and all because his daughter had whispered one word to him in the otherwise still slumbering, steady silence of the sun warmed room.

"Come here," Max is careful to keep his voice low and slow as he gestures for Kaia to reach for him, knowing that it would take more than the two of them speaking in hushed whispers to rouse Daniel, since the latter slept like the dead, "come on."

"Come on," she parrots back at him in a poor imitation of his hushed tone, her volume no doubt skewed by the flicker of fear he catches in her expression before it vanishes, replaced by a look of determination that unconsciously has him nodding approvingly up at her. Little hands first make contact with the sleep wrinkled fabric of his shirt, clutching white knuckled at the cotton neckline, in the beat before his grasp closes around Kaia's middle and he hauls her down off the footboard she'd been balanced on.

"There we go. Well done, vlinder," Max offers his daughter a cheeky grin, tucking her against his chest as she loosens her hold on his t-shirt in favor of throwing both arms around his neck and settling in with the side of her head resting against his own, pressed cheek to cheek, "change of plans?"

"Yes!" And just like that Kaia has her eye back on the ball, her attention once again entirely devoted to the promise of mischief, the fleeting remnants of fear from her near brush with a fall wholly forgotten. He'd known that the tempting offer to create chaos, even if it was sanctioned chaos, would be too good for the three year old to turn down.

Once he's finished whispering the hastily cobbled together plan conspiratorially in her ear, there's a brief back and forth discussion, one which mostly involves the repetition of the same words over and over again punctuated by Kaia's giggles and his half hearted shushing of them until she has nothing more to say or question or add. It takes less time than he'd expected it to.

And at the very least, Daniel has had the decency to stay dead to the world asleep.

"Ready? On the count of three, pool toss," Max prompts, briefly demonstrating the intended range of motion by swinging Kaia through the air in the direction of the bed, going so far as to fully extend both arms without ever letting go of her.

The toddler hardly reacts at all to the practiced movement, far too delighted by her father's use of the term she'd coined during the weekend of the United States grand prix when he'd been forced to actually bribe her with vending machine candy to get her to leave the hotel pool without a scene being caused, to care much about anything else.

"Okay... one, two, three!"

----------------------------

Quite frankly, Daniel has no qualms about admitting that he can be a bit of a bitch when it comes to early mornings and even more so when those early mornings are directly preceded by very late nights where a very sulky and at present very mean teammate has invaded his house and brought his bullshit with him.

What he also won't be mincing words over is the fact that as far as he's concerned right now, which if he's not mistaken is somewhere only slightly past eight o'clock in the fucking morning, Max has only one redeeming quality— and that quality is currently jumping up and down on his bed while loudly making demands he wake up.

Kaia is lucky Daniel loves her as much as he does because if it was just about anyone else in the world that had woken him up, his attitude would be in the basement level of hell. It doesn't escape his notice that Max, quite rightly, the fucking bastard, has carefully placed himself outside of arm's reach.

"Uncle Dan! Uncle Dan! Uncle Dannnn!" Though he hadn't thought it possible, Kaia somehow manages to get louder still when she stops bouncing around long enough to realize he's fully opened both his eyes now that he's thrown in the towel on merely squinting one eyed at Max in the hopes the younger man would back down and resigned himself to reality he won't be going back to sleep any time soon.

Still, it's not the toddler's fault her dad's a moody fucking prick, is it? Obviously not.

"That was my name last time I checked," he makes a half hearted effort to sit up, only to realize it would take more energy than he was willing to put forth at the moment and immediately abandons the effort, "which I believe was some time around 3 am and the second or fourth barbie movie."

"That sounds about right to me," the man he'd once considered to be a friend says lightly as he throws himself down into the leather chair that occupies the far corner of the room, grinning, obviously quite happy with himself and whatever rotten plot it is he's been up concocting since God only knows when.

While Daniel had yet to set his heart on the means or method just yet, he'd had no such delays when it came to his absolute certainty that Max would be made to pay for his crimes against humanity here shortly.

"Oh, does it?" he retorts with hollow sincerity, the facade of utter relief at hearing such good news painted across his features, a hand over his heart, "I am just overjoyed to hear it!"

Max has nothing further to contribute, concerning himself instead with getting comfortable where he's sat, careful to keep the phone, which Daniel somehow hadn't seen until now, held aloft at an angle which really drives the point home that this is all being caught on camera– and the smug bitch just waves at him.

"Uncle Dannnnnn, good morning! Morning!"

"Kaia-" since there's no sign of her jumping stopping any time soon, Daniel takes matters into his own hands, reaching for a pillow with one hand as he props himself up with the other, "this can go one of two ways, Ms. Thing– you can choose to sit down and I'll make you whatever your heart desires for breakfast or you can choose not to sit down and leave me no choice but to start a pillow fight. What's it gonna be?"

"Waffles, please!" She chirrups immediately, like the smart child she is, and flings herself down onto the bed all sprawled out on her back like a starfish. But unfortunately for them both, when Kaia hits the mattress, her deadweight has the misfortune to land directly atop the duvet covered line of his lower legs.

"Sold," Daniel says with a solemn nod, formally acknowledging her request with the twin of her excited grin painted across his own face.

He then continues, waggling both eyebrows at the little girl before casually asking, "so... you want to see something super cool?" and promptly launches the pillow he still holds in one hand directly at Max's head as hard as he can.

----------------------------

Monday, November 19th, 2018- Monte Carlo, Monaco

Daniel's Apartment

"Everyone gets to pick the main activity for one day, alright? So, take a moment, think it over, brainstorm— I don't care, just think of something and be ready when I call on you. Got it?"

"Got it, Da!" Kaia responds back brightly, though Max isn't entirely convinced she has any real idea what she's agreeing to, she's got the right attitude about it, so he lets her have this, opting to leave her to her own devices.

He has little interest in making her second guess herself when, at the end of the day, he'd rather his daughter have confidence that's slightly misplaced than none at all. And honestly, he's just so grateful that his daughter is happy and smiling and brimming with energy again that he hardly knows what to do with himself.

So no, he won't be calling into question the toddler's comprehension levels or what she chooses to add to the conversation being had over breakfast.

Similarly, Max absolutely will not be commenting on what she's chosen to eat this morning because at least she was finally eating something– even if that something happened to be a stack of powder sugar dusted waffles that he knows and has already accepted that Kaia will end up wearing more of than she manages to actually eat.

He bites his tongue when, unsurprisingly, she points one chubby little finger at the bottle of maple syrup held in Daniel's hand then down at her plate, only to clap her hands together delightedly when her uncle does as he was silently asked, pouring an obscene amount of the sugary liquid over the waffles.

"Your wish is my command," Daniel says with a dramatic flourish of his hand, sketching a quick mock bow in his direction, much to Kaia's delight, before being forced to abandon the gesture when Max whips a pillow full force at his face from across the room.

"Alright, alright! Jesus, watch the nose, that's my money maker you know! Break it and I break your... well I don't know, if I figure out how to break your bad attitude or your death wish like you just tried to break my beautiful face, I'll let you know but until then, maybe consider putting some of your considerable wealth into getting hotter? At least then we could be on equal footing."

"Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up before I change my mind and revoke your right to have any input... ever... on anything."

"Bite me," the Australian says with a long suffering sigh, "but fine, I'll play nice. For now, at least."

"Thank you. Now was that so hard?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you can be a real bastard when you want to be, Verstappen?"

"It has been said a time or two," Max finally acknowledges with a slow, solemn nod of his head, his gaze remaining slightly upturned in a continued show of racking his memory for any instances in which similar remarks had been made in the past, "though rarely, if ever, to my face."

"Oh okay, so now we're just blatantly rewriting history over breakfast? Good to know," Daniel huffs out a breath, rolling his eyes at his teammate, "holding true to character, aren't we?"

"Are you quite finished?" He inquires in a cool, casual disinterested tone of voice, refusing outright to let the new, icy cold edge of genuine annoyance that cuts the flow of the other man's words like a frigid undercurrent, get a rise out of him.

Instead, awaiting reply he can feel the beginning of as it builds to a fever's pitch in his friend, already simmering just below the surface, Max reaches for Kaia's plate and pulls it closer to himself, busying himself with cutting her waffles into more manageable, bite sized pieces. He has little choice but to turn a deaf ear to her protestations, the little girl stalwart in her insistence that she can do it herself, but which he knows she absolutely cannot.

"Say thank you," Max admonishes, pushing his daughter's breakfast, now neatly sliced and diced, and no longer presenting quite such a choking hazard, back in front of her, "even if you don't mean it."

"Thank you, Da," Kaia mumbles under her breath with a slightly put out expression on her face, leaving her delicate button nose slightly wrinkled and colors her chubby little cheeks with a warm, pink hued flush.

As a whole, her reaction does very little to undermine his rather immediate impression that for all her efforts to the contrary, the three-year-old is more grateful for his intervention than she wants to let on. Judging by the gusto with which she's now tucking into her waffles alone, Max has more than enough to work with by way of an unofficial answer.

"It's not going anywhere, Vlinder. No one is going to take your food from you, so, just slow it down."

Kaia says something back but he's at a total loss as to what exactly it was, since the retort came out a garbled mess, and even he couldn't hope to decipher what it was she'd intended to say. She looks momentarily frustrated as she looks around the table, her blonde curls bouncing as she peers back and forth between himself and Daniel, before she shrugs and returns to eating but still clearly put out that neither one of them understood what she'd been trying to say.

"You look like a chipmunk," Max playfully pokes at her cheek, which bulges with uneaten, half chewed waffle, "let's focus on taking one bite at a time and finishing it before we take another. If you want more, you can have more. There's no need to hoard away breakfast like we're preparing for winter."

"I like chipmunks," the toddler says proudly, beaming at what he'd intended to be a light-handed reprimand, but which had clearly missed the mark.

"You stopped listening after I said chipmunk, didn't you?"

She nods excitedly, eyes bright as she sits up slightly straighter in her seat and asks, with an air of conspiratorial intrigue about her, "what is a chipmunk?"

"What do you mean what's a chipmunk? I thought you said you liked them. How do you know you like them if you don't know what they are?" Setting down his fork and knife, his efforts to finish his own breakfast temporarily put on hold, Max turns to fully face his daughter. He's genuinely interested to hear exactly how this all works itself out inside her head because personally, he doesn't even know where to start, let alone how to go about figuring this out on his own.

"Becauseeee my brain told me I like 'em," she doesn't even have to actually say 'duh' aloud for it to make itself known, since the implication is clear enough, "we-" he assumes that here, 'we' refers to herself and her brain, though he's uncertain as to why she views the two of them as separate entities, "don't remember what it- they- no, it look like."

"What it looks like," he corrects before he can stop himself or think better of it, the words said mostly out of a deeply ingrained habit than anything else.

Accordingly, Max is hardly surprised when his addition elicits him little more than a sassy, dismissive little sigh from Kaia, followed up by the rather immediate introduction of a mildly well-deserved cold shoulder. Making no efforts to hide the extent to which she feels insulted, the three-year-old scoots around in her chair, stubbornly insistent upon putting as much distance as she possibly can between herself and where her father still sits, watching her minute rebellion in a less than impressed silence.

"You done? Can I apologize now?"

"No," she doesn't bother to so much as glance in his direction, allotting him only as much of her attention as can be gleaned from the two short letters of her response, the three-year-old looks instead to the sole remaining party present, who's status as a non-offender has earned him the full extent of her attention.

"Don't be like that, I'm sorry, alright?" He knows it's too little, too late but the fact doesn't keep him from trying to right his wrong, "I shouldn't have corrected you, Kaia, it wasn't helpful."

She just turns her little nose up at his own admittedly lame attempt at apologizing.

"Look– he's not even paying attention," Max points out unhelpfully, waving a hand at Daniel in spite of himself since he already knows from past experience that all his efforts have a high likelihood to be in vain, "but I am. And I'm very, very sorry."

"Uncle Dad," he tries and fails to stifle the sound of jealous distaste that builds in the back of his throat at the nickname his daughter is quite deliberate in her use of here, "what's a chipmunk?"

"It's an animal, a mammal if you want to be exact. Give me one more second to finish this," Daniel says with a jerk of his chin in the direction of his phone, his eyes shifting momentarily from the brightness of the screen held in his hands to find Kaia's gaze, his thumbs never slowing in their movement, typing something even as he continues, "we can search them online and you can look at pictures of chipmunks until you're bored to tears."

"Yeah?" Kaia sounds intrigued by the offer, leaning further forward in her seat until Max starts to worry that she's liable to tip the whole chair over if she's not careful. Not that he gets a chance to say a single thing.

"Kaia, sit back before you fall, I'm not taking you to the hospital if you crack your head open, we've got better things to do with our time than that."

"Fineeee," the toddler whines but does as she's told without any further to do, maintaining the pretense that it's below her to so much as acknowledge her father's presence.

Max only narrows his eyes at the pair of them, finding that he's vastly more irritated by his teammate's preoccupation with his phone than he is with anything else.

"I guess I'll make myself useful and head back home to shower," he knows he's making an ass of himself but whatever, he doesn't feel like putting in the effort required to counteract the rising storm of his already fairly shit mood. No, Max didn't particularly give a damn that he was being childish.

"Hey, Ms. Thing, Lovie wants me to tell you she says hi and she hopes you're behaving yourself," Daniel announces suddenly, simply tossing the information out into the open like it's of little consequence to anyone at all.

"Lovie!" Kaia chirps your name with a delighted little giggle, clapping her syrup sticky hands together, "Lovie!" she repeats, seemingly unable to help herself in her elation.

"Oh, you can't be fucking serious-"

"Lovie said hi, Da!"

"I know, I heard," it only takes a second for the guilt to start to set in over just how unnecessary and absolutely uncalled for the brusqueness with which he'd spoken had been, "I know you've missed her so much since we said goodbye. And I bet that she's missing you more than we- you miss her, more than you can even imagine."

"Don't worry, Max, she hasn't mentioned you," Daniel says with a small smile, the cadence of his voice giving off an immediate air of well-intentioned reassurance, the tone of his words clearly meant to be a comfort.

But upon a second and then third listen, every facet of that sentence rings hollow to his ears– like each letter, down to the very last, had played the wrong note– one after the other, composing a discordant, sardonic little song which was a far cry from the one that he'd heard at the first.

"I wasn't worried," the lie rolled right off his tongue with a slick, heavy handed ease that struck Max as believable off the cuff but which, when held at arm's length and given some distance, was merely obstinately false.

"Good."

"Great," he doesn't trust himself, nor the hold he now has on his tightly wound restraint, to say more than a single syllable back.

"Wonderful," the broad grin Daniel gives him now is a different beast entirely to the modest, well bridled one he'd worn a moment before, "Glad to see there's no hard feelings. We wouldn't want that."

"Never," still rigidly restricted to just the one word, Max does however make allowance for dual syllables in his response.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"'Course not," he gives himself just enough leash now for a two worded response but not a breath more or an inch further.

"Well if you're going to head home for a bit to shower or do... whatever else you need to, Kaia and I will probably just hang out, maybe take the time to give her a call," Max doesn't appreciate in the slightest the way Daniel says 'her,' and he can hardly stomach how crystal fucking clear it is that a degree of a claim to you, over you, had just been staked.

----------------------------

Tuesday, November 20th, 2018- Monaco-Ville, Monaco

The Private Collection of Antique Cars of H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco

“Isn’t this just a little too on the nose? Even for you?” It was early enough in the grand scheme of things for Daniel to start trying Max’s patience in earnest. 

“Didn’t feel like switching it up? Trying something, anything, even remotely new? Of course not because why bother? Not when the same cars that you’ve seen again and again are still just waiting to be stared at by you for the umpteenth time in a row.”

“Has your dad gotten a little…” Daniel pauses mid thought, bending at the knees until he’s on Kaia’s level before continuing, “predictable in his old age?” 

While it might not be the most grownup of choices, it was more fun than it looked, especially when one was as damn near to being an expert at taunting the young Austrian as he was.

But still, nothing. Not so much as a sideways glare or a grumble of agitation. Not even a huff of annoyance or a sigh of frustration. 

“Or perhaps,” he playfully taps the tip of the toddler’s minute upturned button nose, giving her a quick exaggerated wink, “he’s just painfully, soul suckingly boring?”

“Leave off,” Max snorts and then swings, catching him soundly upside the head, “still younger than you last I checked.”

“Only on paper, never in spirit,” he retorts, rubbing at the back of his head with an absent hand despite the fact that the smack had really just sounded like it hurt. 

The only lingering pain that Daniel could still feel was the rather lasting effects of the blow he’d just taken to his pride, considering the fact that he’d been caught lacking by the very man he’d quite loudly declared to be easily predictable. 

“Whatever makes you feel better. Or younger. Dealer’s choice, really.”

He doesn’t bother to stop long enough to put any actual, conscious thought into what to say next because he infinitely prefers to just go in blind and mad lib it, filling in the blanks with whatever he touches first while rummaging through some dingy backroom of his brain.

“And you, Verstappen, are an absolute filthy, fucking slag,” though somehow, he manages to swallow that very first laugh when it rises to the surface, there’s no smothering the laugher that follows.

Not even if Daniel had wanted to, which for the record, he hadn’t. No, not when the look on Max’s face had been too genuine, too dazed and far too surprised to not let that mirth that starts in his chest as a rumbling which builds in his throat until it spills over, burbling up and out of him unrestrained, sounding contagiously happy, even to his own two ears.

And for a moment, if only for that very moment, life feels suspended, like reality has been reduced to a single snapshot in time, the world around them narrowed down to the scene they stand in, together and laughing and relishing in the now— the three of them, just himself and that young, lost boy he’d met on a race track what felt like a lifetime ago, the one he’d watched become first a Formula 1 pilot, then a father and then a man, and the little girl who’d saved a golden boy by making him a parent. 

Yet, Daniel knew without having to ask that something was missing in that instant, the moment robbed from the grasp of nostalgia but a singular absent component— the last facet, the final piece, the person who took three cobbled together parts and made them a whole. 

----------------------------

Friday, November 23rd, 2018- Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom

You’d only just managed to doze off when, from somewhere on the bedside table your phone goes off at full volume, bringing an immediate, unceremonious end to the peace you’d finally found in sleep by wrenching you rather savagely back into the world of the living, the shrill jingle of the ringtone popping the happy little fantasy that had taken shape inside your head like someone had taken a pin to a balloon.

Grumbling, you push yourself into an upright position, desperately trying to cling to the dream you’d been having before you’d been jolted back into consciousness even as you reach out, searching blindly for your phone in the dark, but it has already started to fade, the details deteriorating further and further with every second that slips by until what is left of it is beyond repair, the remains nothing more than a faint, moth eaten memory of momentary bliss.

As your fingers finally find the familiar outline of your phone and close around it, you force yourself to abandon the last vestiges of the dream, knowing if you’re not careful about it, you’re liable to drown yourself in the fragmented remnants of the recollection and there’s hardly time for that right now, if at all.

One glance at the screen proves to be more than sufficient to knock you clean out of your head, to wash away the warmth and contentment that still lingered in your chest, replacing it with a different kind of heat, this fire built not of longing and fantasies but kindled from anger and agitation, the flames of which didn’t need much to catch, just a spark, courtesy of a single name.

“Can I fucking help you, Max? What is it? What is it that you could possibly need at-” you pause with a huff, craning your neck around to check the alarm clock on the bedside table, “at 2:30 in the morning? Hm?”

“I- it’s- Sorry-'' the three words are stilted, almost jarring, as they stumble over one another, each more cumbersome and unwieldy than the last, all conspicuously lack something, some quality you can’t quite put your finger on but whose absence is impossible to ignore.

It takes a moment, only the one, before it comes to you, the name of what’s missing, of what you’ve become so accustomed to hearing in every sentence and every letter, down to the last syllable, that it’s sudden, unforeseen absence can actually be physically felt, the pang of the loss slowly building until it’s almost nauseating.

The familiarity and flippancy you’d thought you’d hate, that you could have sworn you hated, that you detested with every fiber of your being, but, as you'd only just discovered, you’d evidently learned to love at some point along the way, though when exactly that had been was entirely beyond you.

The effect is immediate, instantaneous, when, from the other end of the phone, something which you know with absolute certainty you were never supposed to have heard, that you know in your very bones the fates had never meant for a soul to hear, reaches you over the crackling connection, sounding dangerously close to a stifled, chest wracking dry sob.

You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Max hated himself for this perceived weakness, and that he’d fought like hell to keep exactly where it was, where it had been, to smother in its infancy before it could gain prescience, neatly bottled up and squirreled away where no one would ever find it, buried in the dead of night, hidden somewhere deep in the hollow of his chest or the pit of his stomach, anywhere it would never see the light of day.

Like his father had taught him, exactly like his Pa had drilled into his head, and when that failed, beaten it into him.

Like Max had always done, like the dutiful son he’d once been, like he would never be again.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just slow down, slow down,” you say softly, soothingly, with deliberate gentleness, speaking to him like you would a wounded animal that needs to be coaxed into accepting help, “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that when I answered, I’m sorry. I’d just fallen asleep and well, I’m still not particularly over everything that happened yesterday.”

“It’s- it’s not that,” he’s quick off the line with this response, his sudden change in demeanor catching you entirely by surprise, as the warmth and ease returns to his voice without much to proceed the change, almost as if the shift in conversation had been all he’d needed for the informality that hover perilously close to being outright intimacy to come flooding back in.

But that being said, you’re not foolish enough to let yourself be blinded to reality by the turnaround, it had been too easy, it had been too simply won, which you’d come to learn meant that, in Max’s case at least, he was merely momentarily distracted, and more than like retreat back to the frame of mind he’d been in previously.

“Okay? So, if it's not that, then what is it? I just figure, I guess it was more of an assumption really, that you’d only called to talk about the whole boyfriend, girlfriend thing, especially considering the hour and all-”

“Uh, Kaia and I- Kaia’s hurt… She’s- She’s hurt and it’s because of me.”

“Wait, I’m sorry- What?” You ask him without really knowing what it is that you’d just said because the shape of every word as it rolls off the tip of your tongue is just a little off kilter, each feeling foreign in your mouth, the sound strangely distorted even to your own ears, like the notes that they should be composed of have suddenly become discordant.

It’s disquieting the way your brain is still operating on a delay that’s not only disproportionate to what you know for a fact should have been necessary, the certainty about which reaches you from some distant corner in the back of your mind, but it just feels wrong, like somehow whatever it was that Max has just told you has sunk in skin deep and now crawls in your veins, stealing the warmth from your blood as it goes, leeching away the color from the room around you.

“I couldn’t get her to sleep, I tried everything but nothing made any difference… so we went for a drive since that always worked with my youngest sister,” Max explains with such restraint and forethought that even through the lag time your mind is currently operating at, it's obvious that for every detail of the night that he forces himself to remember is more painful than the last and costs him dearly, “and some tourist with more car than they could handle, lost complete control when they were flying down the city street and took a blind corner at speed… into the oncoming lane- struck the passenger side- pinning the back of my car against a bollard-”

Like a switch has been flipped, understanding suddenly flickers to life inside your mind and you’re left gasping for air as the cruel, harsh lines of reality are cast into brutal, immaculate relief by the light of comprehension.

“But she’s alive? Because you’re alive,” you breathe into the phone in a voice barely above a whisper, shaken to the core by the horrific realization that Max wouldn’t be alive and breathing to make this phone call if the worst had come to pass, knowing with absolute certainty that if the daughter had been taken then the father would have followed by any means deemed necessary.

The monstrous thought shouldn’t have been comforting, but it was, and you clung to it with an ironclad grip.

“She’s alive, I’m alive… everyone is alive,” Max confirms with venom in his voice, a chill stealing through you as he continues, “though if you ask me, the fucker that hit us doesn’t even deserve to still be breathing.”

“I’m glad no one was hurt,” you say honestly, too focused on getting more detailed information out of him about Kaia’s status to care about the inherent morality of what he’d just said, “Can I talk to Kaia or-”

“He put my daughter in the hospital but there’s not a scratch on the bastard,” he says sourly, not bothering to even acknowledge what you’d said in the slightest, “but yeah, I just thought you should know. Sorry to wake you.”

“Wait-” you panic, the sudden awareness that he’d already made his mind up, that’d he’d already decided that the conversation was over, and that there wasn’t a single thing you could do to stop him, bringing yet another wave of that same helplessness from before crashing down over you, flooding your senses and drowning out what remained of your rationality, “wait, Max, wait! Not yet, not yet-”

Because this one, this one is ridiculously, pathetically, inexplicably worse than those that had preceded it– leaving you frantic and cursing the selfish desperation that takes sets in, taking hold of your mind and your tongue, systematically silencing every thought in your head that counseled restraint in the same deft stroke that severs the last tether you’d had on your self-restraint.

Because now, the rising tide of emotion does not recede, it does not lessen, it does not retreat and unlike before, the waters do not ebb, instead only continuing to rise, to strengthen, to deepen… until, for the first time, the possibility of being pulled under by the current of your fear for Kaia, for Max, even for yourself, is no longer a simple threat but a guarantee that promises what is to come.

“Don’t hang up! I’m not- you still haven’t explained-” it’s pointless, an exercise in futility but you keep talking all the same, knowing that you could stop the words from coming about as much as you could force Max to listen to them, “baby, please-”

Well… fuckkkk. Fuck me– baby? Baby?! Of all things, baby? Really? Just why in God’s name-

That had certainly been a choice… and unfortunately, it had been one that there was absolutely no undoing, regardless of however much you wished there was. That being said, you reasoned things could have been worse, there could have been the silence of an ended call coming from the other side of the phone still pressed to one side of your head, where instead there was only the silence of a man evidently at a loss for words.

And that quiet could be a good thing or a bad thing, there was really no telling when it came to Max.

“Uh, well… I’ll just talk to you later-” he doesn’t seem to be breathing as his tongue gets tripped up by its own words, “Okay! Love you! Bye!”

----------------------------

But to add insult to injury, there isn’t a single flight home for hours, with the first one out of the closest airport not being until a little after 1 pm today and that simply won’t do. The mere thought of having to sit here, helpless and overwrought with emotion, simply waiting and watching the clock for the next nine and a half hours is fucking unfathomable.

So, not knowing what else to do or who else to call, you dial the only person that comes to mind, stealing yourself in preparation for waking him, which isn’t a task you’re looking forward to any more than you are to asking such a huge favor of him as this but surely, if anyone will know what to do, he’d be the one.

“Horner, I know you said to never call this late unless someone is dead, or Lewis announced his retirement but-”

“Of course, he did. Insufferable, isn’t he?” The soft, lyrical voice floating through the speakers of the phone is a far cry from the one you’d been expecting, and it takes your half awake, panic-stricken mind a moment to recognize it.

“Mrs. Horner, I’m so sorry-”

“Please, don’t call me that,” she laughs lightly, like the mere thought of being addressed as much is amusing but only marginally so, “Geri will do fine.”

“Right, yeah, Geri,” you repeat, the moment feeling a little surreal when a voice in the back of your head reminds you this isn’t just Christian’s wife you’re talking to– she’s a Spice Girl– which is just a strange thing to try and wrap your mind around, “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m calling this late but-”

“We know. That poor sweet girl,” Geri sounds like she’s fighting tears, the emotion in her words threatens to open the flood gates of your own just barely contained sobs, “and Max… he’s putting on a brave face but-” she comes up short, her cadence catching as she remembers herself, “Christian’s on the phone, seeing to your flight. Didn’t seem right, you being here when they’re there.”

“I-” the guilt that had already been building to a fever pitch seconds into the phone call with Max, which you’d only managed to compartmentalize out of the sheer demands made by necessity, very nearly takes you out at the knees when it makes a savage resurgence, the wake of worry crashing over your head with a violence that suggests the feeling is on a campaign of revenge following its earlier, rather unceremonious exile.

“I know, love,” the understanding that floods Geri’s voice should be a comfort, the reassuring cadence of her tone should be a balm to your rubbed raw and bleeding emotions, and yet at this moment, it’s anything but.

The sympathy she speaks to you with is suffocating because there is nothing, nothing, that she can say or do in this moment that will change the one thing you know with absolute certainty just now– that you do not deserve the gentleness and the compassion that colors her every syllable, not when you should have been there in that car tonight, instead of an ocean away.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she remarks with a sigh, the frank delivery of her words cut from a far less forgiving cloth than anything she’d said prior and takes you entirely by surprise because this time around, instead of pulling punches, Geri hits home with disarming accuracy.

“Don’t do what-” it’s a desperate, last-ditch attempt on your part to try and deflect which quickly proves to be futile.

“Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself, don’t torture yourself with the what ifs. It won’t do you any good and it won’t undo the horrors that have been inflicted on your family.”

“I’m not–” evidently you find maintaining the facade of dissent is infinitely easier than conceding to the truth. And if you were to be entirely honest with yourself, that definitely tracks.

“Yes, you are. Of course, you are,” Geri retorts with unwavering certainty, dismissing all of your protestations out of hand, “because any mother would. I know I certainly would be. It’s simply a reality of motherhood, one which you have to face head on and learn how to handle on your own terms because now is not the time to waste worrying about the past and what can’t be changed. Focus on what’s to come, not what's done.

So, from one mother to another, focus on getting yourself dressed and ready to head home and let Christian and me handle getting you there. You understand?”

“Yes,” there’s a great deal else you’d like to say back right now but instead, you set a hard limit of one worded assent for yourself because, as it has already been rightly stated, there’s hardly time for any long winded waffling at present.

“Wonderful– that’s settled then. One of us will email you the details. Give Kaia and Max my love,” she announces with an air of prim finality, and with that, the line goes dead.

----------------------------

Friday, November 23rd, 2018--Luton, England, United Kingdom

London Luton Airport

You could only stomach sitting down for as long as was strictly necessary, and it had taken every ounce of the self-restraint that you were usually on Max's case about failing to show to force yourself into a seat for the time it takes for the jet to taxi to the runway and take off but not for a second more than that.

Luckily, beyond letting you know when it was safe for you to get up and walk around the cabin, the flight's skeleton crew– a single pilot and a lone stewardess– kept largely to themselves and left you to your own devices, a fact about which you were deeply grateful for because to be frank, all you were cut out for at present was pacing back and forth, walking the same invisible line up and down the length of the jet without reprieve, while getting so deeply lost in mire of thoughts crowding your head that reality fades away into the background.

It was far easier to fold in on yourself, to look inward for solace, than it was to let yourself acknowledge Daniel's presence in the corner farthest from the pilot's cockpit, because the weight of his gaze on your face, the earnestness of the emotion held in those eyes teetered dangerously close to spilling over– his concern for you and what await the both of you in Monaco wasn't a comfort, it was all but fucking unbearable.

So, feeling like the coward you so often accused Max of being, you hid from your friend, ignoring him for the sake of your own wellbeing, because you could barely stomach your own roiling emotions and all those passing glances his attention as it brushed over you as it was... but even the briefest glints of Daniel's guilt that you unintentional caught glimpses of out of the corner of your eye was enough keep you staring at the ground.

Because while you knew in truth, what had happened tonight hadn't occurred as a direct consequence of his absence or his actions which had left Max and Kaia behind at home on their own, you weren't naive enough to think that there was anything at all that you could say that would convince him to absolve himself of the personal responsibility he now felt for the series of events that had put a little girl who called him her uncle in a hospital bed.

Better to leave him to his own thoughts as you yourself wanted to be than to overstep your bounds and unintentionally inflict any further pain to his already weakened and damaged defenses.

There wasn't much either one of you could offer the other at present without running the risk of doing more harm good and that was just the lay of the land, the hand that you'd been dealt, the way the stars were aligned. There was no changing any of it and you both knew that instinctively, with the same certainty you understood that there was solace and support to be found in the shared experience that stretched unspoken between the two of you that otherwise neither of you could spare the other if the silence was shattered.

So, with Daniel beyond your reach, the only thing outside yourself that kept you tether to the world that still existed around you was your cell phone, which in spite of having been tucked away, out of your line of sight since you'd boarded the plane, felt like it was burning a hole in your pocket, almost as though it was conscious of how far from grace and the usual place of importance it had fallen.

Despite your efforts to the contrary, its presence was impossible to just completely ignore when the temptation to pull your phone out and switch it back on, just for long enough to find out if you had service on the private jet or not, to find out if you had any open messages waiting for you-

No, you were determined not to fall under the spell of the siren's song being sung to you by the unknown, tempting you to give in, to just see if it was still nothing but radio silence from Max, but you knew a slippery slope when you saw one.

Because while you might have a less than stellar track record for stupid fucking decision making where he was concerned, and that was under even the best of circumstances, at least you were capable of owning up to that.

And sure, maybe it was unfair of you to harbor such acrimonious little grudges against him at a time like this, what when all things considered, Max was just trying to get through what had to be one of the worst nights of his life, it would take more than your conscious to get you to forget how you'd felt when the line had gone dead and he'd left you with only unanswered questions to keep you company.

The fact of the matter was that after the nearly three months you'd spent learning first hand why Max was want to pull the bullshit that he did, you'd become rather adept at assessing the damage and identifying what the motivating factors were for the decisions that had had been made but even you, forged in the flames of the trial by fire that had been your first few weeks on the job, were limited by what you understood about the cause and your ability identify all its corresponding effects.

In short, it was a bunk science that relied on proving your theory with cherry picked data points instead of properly testing the hypothesis, and it was about as reliable. If only you'd been more realistic with yourself about all of this, if you'd been smart enough to remain objective when it came to Max and the working arrangement, you'd found yourself ensnared in then perhaps none of this would have hit as hard and there wouldn't be that sharp pain twisting in your chest, threatening to consume you-

"Enough!" Daniel's voice is rough as the command rumbles out of him, the rich cadence of it superseding the humiliating squeak of surprise you let out as he pulls you clean off your feet and neatly into his lap before you can do a thing to stop him, "you're driving me up the fucking wall."

"What are you- Let go of me!" You demand, trying to extricate yourself from his grasp but it's of no use, his arms only tighten around you as he simply shakes his head, the gesture filled with such frustration and exhaustion that you're momentarily disarmed, your body going temporarily slack in his grasp.

"You clearly had no plans to stop pacing back and forth until we landed so I had to take matters into my own hands," Daniel explains with a shrug of his shoulders as if to say that much should have been obvious.

"You could have said something," you point out rather unhelpfully.

"And you wouldn't have listened," he's right but you're going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that so you admit nothing, "so, fucking stop moving and just let me have this– just this one thing, just this one time, would you?"

----------------------------

There was something in your touch that invariably made complicated, lurid things happen in his chest, things which he neither knew the name of, nor fully understood.

And not because the answers were beyond him or because the twisted knot of whatever the fuck it was that roared to life every goddamned time you so much as brushed up against him as you slipped past him in the crowded paddock or your fingers grazed his while you walked at his side, was some great unknowable mystery destined to haunt the ages.

No, it was nothing so grand or interesting as that.

Rather, quite simply put, Daniel did not know what to call the whole host of complicated shit that went down in his chest at the slightest provocation because he didn't want to know, he'd never wanted to know, so he'd never asked.

Better to remain in the dark, obstinate in his unawareness, wholly able to maintain the facade of his own blissful ignorance by sheer force of will then to take that final step forward, to trade the inky black of night for the golden light of day and be made to face what waited for him in the sunshine— the unadulterated truth of it all– a burden which he did not wish to bear. 

----------------------------

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[margridarnauds]

writers truth or dare: 🎱🕯️🔪🎨

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats 

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🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?

6, probably. It isn't my favorite bit, because it's harder to tell when IT'S done VS when the overall plot is done, it's much harder to constantly reread what you've written and go "did I do what I set out to do?" I think that with my last thing, I spent more time editing than writing; there was one part that required the whole scene to be rewritten about three times. And it's never fun to have a part that you really liked and then have to cut (there was one line in my most recent one that KILLED me to cut -- it's safe in another document so I can use it down the line, but still). On the plus side, it's also where I get to fill out parts, add things to suit the mood, build atmosphere when I feel like I need to do that.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

...oh. God. WEIRD, hm. I guess that depends on how you define "weird" -- for some people, authentic Old Irish is weird, but for me, that's just bringing my job into my fanfic. But I suppose for things that are far away from what I would usually do...

For anything set in the Toho RetJ world, I actually did look at pictures of, say, Chernobyl now, to give myself a template for how the world would look like. I looked up different predictions for how the world would look after a certain number of years, including weather patterns, natural disasters, etc., looked at videos like "Life After People" from the History Channel (which is...the History Channel, but gave me some inspiration), looked up photos of crumbling apartment buildings and how they look and the kind of natural decay that settles in, while also hunting down articles on the Shakespeare so that that could inform some of my characterizations.

Likewise, for my Terra Nova fanfic, I often found myself looking up fossils from the Cretaceous period, both plant and animal, trying to integrate them into the world of Terra Nova, looking through pictures of the sets so I could try to do some worldbuilding for how the world of the show works.

For my BG3 things, I have, like, 4-5 lore books on my computer, and I've looked up everything from, say, how to kill Lolth to drider transformation to Drow foods in the Underdark to Drow burial rites to coming of age rituals to necromancy to whether Devils in the world of DND eat mortals (...undecided) to Cambion biology (answer: they'd have to be able to decide on what a Cambion IS first) to what body temperature a Drow VS an Elf would have. I've looked up the ingredients to various potions for the sake of Kitrye's alchemy, common traits among albinos IRL VS the Szarkai in DND for Malla (Malla's eyesight is too good, but it's essential to her character, so sure), and real-world contracts and the language involved to write Raphael's deals. For a non-DND player, I've had to dive as deeply into the lore as possible (and often, esp. with regards to the Drow, going "that's stupid, I'm doing something better".)

For weirdest research OVERALL, definitely probably walking up and down a ~16th-17th century fortress so I could get a feel for how the Bastille might have felt.

...actual 18th century smut and how gay men in the 18th century usually conceived of sex. Opera schedules from the 18th-19th centuries, so that, when an opera's mentioned, it's usually something that was either playing at the time or plausible.

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

God, I've gotten to see a lot of really good fanart, and, especially, now that I'm doing BG3 things, I am really routinely being spoiled. I'm going to give a list, just because I think that there are worse things to spill a lot of ink on than giving people their proper due.

First of all, propping my friends, @hotelfgirl did a piece of Kitrye that lives rent free in my head. She has that specific sad girlfailure vibe that I love to see.

@drewsaturday did some Morléans fanart for my birthday that also lives eternally rent-free in my head; it really captured part of the appeal of the ship (besides the tragic ending), which is the level of trust involved, the intimacy of it.

For Irish Myth stuff, even if it's always slightly awkward to call it "fanart" in the same way that, say, BG3 things are fanart or things for my musicals are fanart, anything by @amylouioc, absolutely wonderful interpretations of medieval Irish figures by a modern Irish artist, my favorite is probably Nuada over here. I love the lighting, I love the color scheme, I love the detailing around the arm, especially the little blue tatoos...and, admittedly, I also love that Nuada's a KILF (King I'd Like To--terrorize the Fomoiri with) because I am, at the end of the day, a simple woman. (You all thought it was going to be Bres, didn't you?)

@aodhan-art - WONDERFUL pieces from medieval Irish lit; the first piece of his I was aware of was this one which...well. He knows the context, but it was a very memorable part of a very memorable trip for me. There's this real...sassiness Áed in particular has that I love, this real sense of personality. I also have to talk about this; it isn't often that we get Bres/Sreng fanart (or anything about Bres at ALL), so I love seeing him memed; I'm glad someone put up the money to do the commission and I'm even more glad he did it, it's perfect for both of them. Lest anyone think I'm forgetting Bres' better half, though, I love the work done on Bríg here; I love all the little detailing, all the textures, the little freckles on her skin, the clothing ITSELF looking like something from medieval Ireland.

Speaking of which, @violetcancerian's drawing of Bres and Sreng here, like. Look at them. It's Christmas. They're happy.

For BG3 fanart...

@lemmeurs Raphael fanart here is great; I love anything that captures the duality of Raphael's character, I love the use of lighting and shadow in it, the single strand of hair hanging over his face in both the Cambion and Human forms, the sharp edges of his cheekbones, the overall color scheme. Legitimately have not stopped thinking about it for days.

@shahs1221 ANYTHING by her is great, I really love this one here. For obvious professional reasons, I can't engage with any Professor/Student Raphael content on here (nothing personal, but if I don't engage with it, I have nothing to hide if anyone decides to link my fandom life to my academic life...which has happened before, regrettably), BUT her Professor Raphael art, both this and the follow-up, live rent-free in my brain (I will also note, if any colleagues, mentors, undergrads, potential peer reviewers, etc. should FIND this, they will note that it is based on a wonderful fic series where Raphael is dating someone who is NOT a student). LOVE the cozy academia vibe, especially the one in the follow-up where he's sleeping in a nice, incredibly comfortable looking sweater. (The real question in life: Do I want Raphael in this art or do I want to BE Raphael in this art?) Also...the baby cow eyes paired with sharp cheekbones are in full effect, causing me to briefly have my IQ drop into the single digits.

@adarlingmess WONDERFUL Raphael content in general, but I think I lean towards Dadbod!Raphael in the bath . I love it for the...plot? ("The plot" in this case being "Those cheekbones + a soft stomach"). I love the atmosphere, the kind of haze created by a combination of the steam + candles, Raphael looking relaxed for once in his immortal life, the way the candlelight plays on his face, the railing in the background (...not...that kind of railing...the railing from the game. The metal railing that is in the game.) Overall, it just really captures the feeling of that area of the Boudoir very well, it brings in a lot of small details, AND Raphael looks very good.

@potatocrisp Absolutely LOVE the dynamic that their Tav has with Raphael, the kind of push/pull dynamic on both ends, the way the two of them are both compromised for one another but are extremely stubborn about it (favorite Tavphael dynamic, ngl), the way that her Tav very clearly has the upper hand over this immortal, ancient being. I love her character design, I love the detailing on his doublet, especially the little shine of metal at his wrists, the little lace edging at her stockings.

@infernaldaydreams Hahaha, BG3 fanart that is NOT Raphael. I love everything I've seen of hers, but this one is probably my favorite, not the least because it was the first one I saw. I love how bittersweet it is, I love the tenderness, the focus on hands, the way that Gortash's face gets overshadowed and then lightens up for her, I just...God, these two rotten people have me in a chokehold, I love them. (But also, in the nicest possible way, fuck you for making me feel THINGS, knowing how Durgetash ends in canon.)

#long post #thank you!

[sir-adamus]

I mean your plot for the movie

like what i think the plot is gonna be? sure

um - i think we'll probably start with RWBYJNR (possibly assisted by Penny and Oscar, maybe Winter also) trying to track down the Remnant-side villain who trapped them in the simulation in the first place (still thinking it's Doctor Merlot because he's the only villain that the heroes have actually faced that would also conceivably have the resources to pull this off because none of them ever actually met Watts and this is set during volume 7 so there's no actual beef to justify the setup Kilg%re gave us for this villain), possibly receiving help from Batman and Green Lantern who are still inside the simulation (as we never saw them leave)

the investigation would reveal Merlot - while manipulating Kilg%re - constructed a portal to Earth (and either there's an initial confrontation before he flees through the portal and the group has to chase after him or he's already gone (i imagine in either scenario he's probably got some captured, possibly mutated Grimm with him because that's kind of his thing), and the group follow through the portal because the damage he could do to either world (unleashing the Grimm on the Earth populace or stealing and abusing the technology available on a DC Earth, especially as he will have at least some idea of what to expect from information harvested in the simulation with Kilg%re and the JL)

this inevitably leads to a team-up between the JL (with other members we didn't meet the first time, like Black Canary - this is why i suggested we might get some more of the Remnant cast involved too so it's still an even split) and RWBYJNR + company, and likely splitting into smaller sub-teams (like the Mari, Yang, Diana and Dinah team we saw in the screenshot) so they can deal with the disasters Merlot is causing across the city and probably also Kilg%re (who is likely also gunning for Merlot)

Merlot may also team up with another DC villain while he's on Earth (they did specifically namedrop Brainiac and Vandal Savage in the first one) so there can be a bit more of a climactic fight because... once you get through the Grimm and the shit he's stolen you are just gonna be beating up an old man, so there needs to be something else there

i don't think we'll see much of the plot we're getting in the DC/RWBY comics (which is set during early volume 6 anyway but that revolves around Salem directly working with Luthor to merge Earth with Remnant by nature of people and things from Remnant simply being on Earth - so all the superheroes are getting semblances in addition to their own powers which... wouldn't really add much for a film, and it doesn't really gel with the plot we're gonna have to follow up on from part 1) beyond the character designs from RWBY because Yang's design is a partial translation of her design from those comics (much like how Bruce and Clark's designs are fairly close to the designs we got in the RWBY/JL comics)

anyway - the portal between worlds is probably also causing dimensional instability so it's like "we gotta drag this guy back to Remnant and shut the portal down before it rips our realities apart" or something, so the two groups have to have an amicable farewell, and then we get some kind of epilogue scenes with the two groups going back to their usual business of saving their worlds or something

#RWBY #Justice League x RWBY

[madrivervalleyicelandics]

My understanding with Icelandics is that horses brought out of Iceland cannot be brought back, as no horses are allowed to be imported, am I correct?

If so, how do breeders in Iceland keep fresh blood in their herds? Is it legal to import frozen semen to be used on mares, or is it just careful management efforts between breeders to mix things up as much as possible?

Yeah they just don’t inbreed them. Everything is so well-documented and studied that the registry actually has an inbreeding coefficient calculator in the virtual mate section. If that number is too high you just don’t breed that mare and stallion. Iceland also has no shortage of horses, more horses than humans actually, so it’s not as tiny a population as folks might imagine.

BUT, Cornell also did a neat study that may shed some light on why Icelandic horses have so few genetic diseases as compared to other very “pure” breeds:

https://www.vet.cornell.edu/news/20190924/cornell-scientists-uncover-unusual-genetic-diversity-norse-horse

“The full extent of MHC haplotype variation in the entire Icelandic horse population horses is unknown, but conceivably could number in the hundreds,” says Antczak. “This was unexpected. It has led us to believe there is a genetic shuffling mechanism in place to drive this diversity.”

That mechanism, they pose, is a place in the chromosome where the genes physically cross and break off, forming fresh new combinations — known as ‘recombination’ in geneticist speak. Antczak and other horse geneticists believe the MHC may be a recombination hot spot in the horse genome, keeping those genes fresh even in the face of diversity-diminishing circumstances such as natural disasters or remote islands.”

[fairytail-whathesays]

Do you have any Lahar headcanons? Canon content is severely lacking and I know for a fact you like Doranbolt.

My headcanons for Lahar are:

He's pretty much the polar opposite of Doranbolt, though you probably guessed that already. Whereas Doranbolt (according to me) grew up an amateur, sly gangster with loose morals, Lahar was always the quiet kid with glasses following rules and studying hard. His ending up in the law enforcement area is, quite unlike Doranbolt, basically expected of him.

But because of this, he and Doranbolt did not get along at first. Bringing the skinny gangster rat onto the side of law and justice was a move done at the behest of higher-ups seeing much more value in having access to his powers than having to combat them, and doing a lot of rule-bending to keep him employed. Newly-employed Lahar was essentially put on as his handler, and due to naturally clashing with such a sneaky and disrespectful punk, in addition to what many in the ranks perceived as preferential treatment (bc money was all that Doranbolt cared about at the time and keeping him loyal was a priority), they pretty much hated each other at first. Picture a more law enforcement-style version of Natsu and Gray.

Did you know that the Magic Council doesn't have the best reputation in Fiore/Ishgar? I bet you're shocked, lol. The Rune Knights, especially, are seen as a particularly cowardly division due to the Magic Council typically only bothering to deploy them once a conflict is already over, like vultures. This was something that was particularly infuriating to Lahar early on. These days, it wouldn't bother him so much, but that's because he's grown enough to know that being a coward that gets results is better than being a fearless risk-taker that makes costly mistakes.

Lahar always wears those gloves because his hands are pretty scarred underneath. In a sense, Doranbolt wears the proof that he's not a coward on his face--Lahar wears it on his hands. Before he became a squad commander for the rune knights, he did have the occasional moment of rebellion or spontaneous action. Trying to save someone from a disaster ended up getting his hands severely wounded. Because Doranbolt modified the memories of those involved so Lahar wouldn't get fired for acting outside of orders, no one knows about this.

Being squad commander requires more than to obtain a score on a magic meter that would make mortal men sweat. You have to be able to work quickly and quietly, capturing criminals with as little collateral damage as possible. Your knowledge of Jutsu Shiki has to be on a level that you could conceivably write incredibly complicated barriers and traps in a very short amount of time. Relative to other wizards, Lahar may not be very powerful in raw magical terms, but he can cast in seconds what would take lesser wizards several minutes to do. He's also somewhat famous in the ranks for his clever work; he's captured criminals who know some Jutsu Shiki before, and intentionally left "holes" in the barriers he put around them that, when those contained tried to break through those weak points, only ended up reconfiguring and tightening the barriers.

Lahar and Doranbolt are both orphans. But while Doranbolt was orphaned in his teenage years and essentially had no adults around to guide him and became a criminal because he thought he was unbound by rules, Lahar was orphaned later, in his twenties, and essentially became even more closed-off and

Some bonus Harbolt headcanons:

Lahar is surprisingly popular among the law enforcement divisions. For the same reasons as Freed, you'd be surprised how much ladies (and the occasional man) like a well-dressed, classily rule-abiding gentleman. Doranbolt--who has his share of heartthrobs doodling pictures of him as well--has often teased him about stealing all the hearts while he's out on spy work.

It is actually way more difficult to fluster Lahar than Doranbolt. Doranbolt will blush if you catch him off guard with a flirt or dirty joke--Lahar will let it slide right off of him and continue as if nothing happened. Because of this, and how Lahar is technically single, there's a bit of an in-joke about the "Lahar challenge" and how it's impossible to ask him out unless you're Doranbolt. It is not something he's unaware of and a small part of him smiles every time he hears someone whisper about asking him out.

#lahar #fairy tail lahar #lahar fairy tail #harbolt #headcanons

[macbeth-murder-match]

Is there a rule about gods and other mythological figures? Because a LOT of them are Not Of Woman Born. If not, please count this as an additional vote for any already submitted. And a few specific ones to put in the bracket if they haven’t already been sent in:

Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. Though born in a traditional way, Sleipnir’s “mother” is Loki transformed into a mare. Loki otherwise identifies & presents as male, is described using male pronouns, and is presumably amab — so he’s not a “woman”. (He might be somewhat gender-nonconforming, but I don’t think he’d identify as a woman.)

The Abrahamic God, who was not born in any real sense and has no parents. I just think it would be funny if the prophecy were fulfilled by a smiting from on high. (Possibly disqualified because 1/3 of the Trinity did go through the whole birth process and it was kind of a big deal, but also that’s only canon for Christians, not for the other Abrahamic religions.)

Lucifer/Satan, also because I think it would be funny.

Dionysus, who in some versions of his myth was conceived by a woman, but the woman in question was killed and Dionysus had to be… incubated? inside of Zeus’s thigh until he was ready to be born. I guess that one depends on whether you define that as some kind of accidental premature c-section.

Outside the realm of the divine:

Galatea, the living statue carved by Pygmalion. As an artificial being, she was not born. Even if you count her being shaped and brought to life as a kind of metaphorical birth, the sculptor was a man, so she is not of woman born either way.

The Golem of Prague, same reason.

And into pop culture:

The Force, from Star Wars. No, hear me out. It’s often implied to have some sort of agency, which would make it distinct from Macbeth being killed by, like, a natural disaster. I think the argument could be made that there’s some kind of mind or personality there, and whatever it is is definitely not of woman born.

Data, from Star Trek. Same reason as Galatea.

I'm answering anyway! Gods BORN GODS cannot compete because they can't be bothered. Gods who BECAME GODS can, we're just counting them before they became gods. So Dionysus is in!

HOWEVER Gods born Gods WILL send a hero in their place!

Every vote for Athena is a vote for Annabeth

Every vote for Aphrodite is a vote for Galatea

#asks #does it count if

[rprservicesllc]

Work disaster recovery property preservation industry

Being in the property preservation business, can be an overwhelming task. With all the regular jobs like grass cut work order, debris removal, interior repair, exterior repair, and some seasonal work like winterization and snow removal, you also need to be ready for the damages incurred due to natural disasters. Unfortunately, there has been no lack of disastrous events in the previous years. So it’s an ideal opportunity to begin investigating for disaster recovery.

Types of work orders issued for Natural Disaster Management:

Debris removal: To account for the sum of different works that should be done, the main thing to address is debris removal. Drawn down trees, branches, garbage, building materials and more make it difficult to get the team into a place and can cause safety issues that must be settled before extra work begins.

Property preservation inspection: When the debris is eliminated, the property preservation company can truly help maintain things in control. With natural disasters come a large number of damaged properties and it can turn out to be incredibly burdening to stay aware of everything. Ensuring to know all the damaged area are in the front light is must to make the property preservation process go smoothly. Delegate a specialist for property preservation inspection for legitimate investigation of each edge of your property. Inspection is vital because normal individual without any experience in this field can’t see the things which can be seen by the expert. The property will require an absolute inspection after the debris removal services to comprehend the genuine necessity of the property.

Roof inspection: Regardless of whether a typhoon, tornado or simply a significant storm, rooftops are to be inspected on a priority basis. Any issue with a roof can cause a larger number of problems than just a couple of loose shingles. Unattended or covered up leaks that don’t get obvious until days or weeks after the fact can make major interior damages to the overall structure of the property. The same goes for leaks that have been going while you’ve been holding on to stretch the go-beyond to get to your property.

Water restoration: Consent a plumbing expert right on time into any flooding or storm situation to help get things levelled out before the problem gets out of control. Ensure there are no electrical risks present close to the water leakages. Check electrical appliances and gas to decide the number of damages that appeared by the water leak. Look beneath the surface. If the sheetrock and floor are wet, it means the leak is spreading at a very high speed and you need to repair the damages as soon as you can to avoid further hazards. See what’s prowling behind walls and under the ground surface. The water damage and reclamation company always have mechanical dryers and dehumidifiers to help guarantee the quickest drying conceivable.

Landscaping: Besides needing your property to look pleasant as fast as possible, landscaping after a disaster can be a well-being concern. Security issues can be brought about by erosion, removed trees, brought down appendages, and even issues that aren’t apparent to the layman, such as dying trees from some disease or mold. Having a proper inspection and tidy up the landscaping around the property is imperative to get it back in good shape.

RPR Services is a property preservation work order processing and updating company, who first analyzes the data provided by the property preservation inspector in the form of photos and presents the most acceptable property preservation bids based on the data given to them.

[astralforecast]

questions ap can answer

•What do the nonphysical environments look like?

•What is their structure?

•Why are only some of these environments thought-responsive?

•Does a universal form of nonphysical government exist?

•Are there laws or rules?

•Are there penalties for breaking rules?

•Does a universal nonphysical police force exist?

•What are angels?

•Is there a nonphysical or spiritual hierarchy?

•Does God directly interact or communicate with nophysical inhabitants?

•How do nonphysical inhabitants live?/What is their normal day like?

•Is it anything like physical existence?

•Do cities, towns, communities, or nations exist?

•Do cultures, ethnic groups, or races continue to exist?

•How do the energy centers (chakras) of our body affect or influence our daily life?

•How do our energy centers and nonphysical bodies function as a complete energy system?

•What is the correlation between the energy centers and our ability to have out-of-body experiences?

•Can our energy-body assume any shape or form?

•Are physical disease and illness the molecular result of unseen nonphysical energy disturbances?

•At what point during pregnancy does consciousness (soul) enter the fetus?

•Does this vary from person to person or is it universal?

•Can physical diseases or illnesses be healed or improved by making energy adjustments to the nophysical substructure of an individual?

•Can a future event or disaster be averted or altered by influencing and adjusting the unseen energy substructure of the universe?

•Can future physical events be accurately analyzed, interpreted, and predicted by observing the energy interactions existing within the interior of the universe?

•Can we travel in time when out-of-body?

•Is it possible that events in time are simultaneous?

•Is reincarnation a reality? Is it an evolutionary system? How does it function?

•Do angels actually exist? If so, what do they look like? What is their function? Are they a nonhuman species?

•Do the biblical heavens exist? What does heaven really look like? How many heavens are there? How do they differ from one another? Is the biblical heaven the inner energy dimensions of the universe?

•Does God interact with human evolution or is it an automatic system of development?

•What is our true form or essence, if any?

•Why are we using these temporary biological bodies?

•What do we hope to learn or gain?

•What does the interior of the universe look like?

•What is it made of?

•Is it a series of energy dimensions?

•Is there a distinguishable border between the different energy dimensions? If so, what is this border? How does it function? What is its purpose?

•What are miracles? Are they the alteration and restructuring of the nonphysical energy substructure of the universe?

•What do people look like when they sleep or dream? Do they float slightly above their bodies?

•Are dreams internal creations or our unconscious interpretations of nonphysical events?

•Do dreamers normally separate from their physical body?

•How does our species' evolution correlate with out-of-body experiences?

•Are out-of-body experiences an evolutionary step for our species?

•Is evolution actually the movement of consciousness from simply physical organisms to increasingly complex nophysical states of being?

•What actually occurs at physical death?

•Where do we go?

•Is death a natural part of our evolution?

•Why are we here?

•Do we have a specific (unconscious) goal or plan on which we are working?

•Did we select our parents? If so, why and how?

•Does nophysical food exist and is it necessary for survival?

•Do physical-like families and relationships continue after death?

•Does physical-like sex exist?

•Are nonphysical babies conceived?

#other

[ahgastayverse]

BRAVE NEW WORLD NOVEL

STRAY KIDS UNIVERSE THEORY

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962), the utopian counterpart. This novel is often compared to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY

Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others. It is also termed Assisted Reproductive Technology, where it entails an array of appliances and procedures that enable the realization of safe, improved and healthier reproduction. While this is not true of all people, for an array of married couples, the ability to have children is vital. But through the technology, infertile couples have been provided with options that would allow them to conceive children.

SLEEP-LEARNING

Sleep-learning (also known as hypnopædia or hypnopedia) is an attempt to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep. Although sleep is considered an important period for memory consolidation, scientific research has concluded that sleep-learning is not possible. It appears frequently in fiction.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATION

In psychology, manipulation is defined as subterfuge designed to influence or control another, usually in a manner which facilitates one's personal aims. The methods used distort or orient the interlocutor's perception of reality, in particular through seduction, suggestion, persuasion and non-voluntary or consensual submission. Definitions for the term vary in which behavior is specifically included, influenced by both culture and whether referring to the general population or used in clinical contexts. Manipulation is generally considered a dishonest form of social influence as it is used at the expense of others.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Classical conditioning (also respondent conditioning and Pavlovian conditioning) is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent physiological stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a neutral stimulus (e.g. the sound of a musical triangle). The term classical conditioning refers to the process of an automatic, conditioned response that is paired with a specific stimulus.

SUMMARY

The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labour. Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not. He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing, happiness-producing drug called “SOMA”. Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society.

Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina outside the World State to a Savage Reservation in New Mexico, in which the two observe natural-born people, disease, the ageing process, other languages, and religious lifestyles for the first time. The culture of the village folk resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Hopi and Zuni. Bernard and Lenina witness a violent public ritual and then encounter Linda, a woman originally from the World State who is living on the reservation with her son John, now a young man. She, too, visited the reservation on a holiday many years ago, but became separated from her group and was left behind. She had meanwhile become pregnant by a fellow holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did not try to return to the World State, because of her shame at her pregnancy. Despite spending his whole life in the reservation, John has never been accepted by the villagers, and his and Linda's lives have been hard and unpleasant. Linda has taught John to read, although from the only book in her possession—a scientific manual—and another book John found: the complete works of Shakespeare. Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama, quoting often from The Tempest, King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Linda now wants to return to London, and John too, wants to return to see this “brave new world”. Bernard sees an opportunity to thwart plans to exile him, and gets permission to take Linda and John back. On their return to London, John meets the Director and calls him his “father”, a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in shame before he can follow through with exiling Bernard.

Bernard, as “custodian” of the “savage” John who is now treated as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest members of society and revels in attention he once scorned. Bernard's popularity is fleeting, though, and he becomes envious that John only really bonds with the literary-minded Helmholtz. Considered hideous and friendless, Linda spends all her time using soma, while John refuses to attend social events organised by Bernard, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society. Lenina and John are physically attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and romance, based on Shakespeare's writings, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's freewheeling attitude to sex. She tries to seduce him, but he attacks her, before suddenly being informed that his mother is on her deathbed. He rushes to Linda's bedside, causing a scandal, as this is not the “correct” attitude to d*eath. Some children who enter the ward for “death-conditioning” come across as disrespectful to John, and he attacks one physically. He then tries to break up a distribution of soma to a lower-caste group, telling them that he is freeing them. Helmholtz and Bernard rush in to stop the ensuing riot, which the police quell by spraying soma vapor into the crowd.

Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are all brought before Mustapha Mond, the “Resident World Controller for Western Europe”, who tells Bernard and Helmholtz that they are to be exiled to islands for antisocial activity. Bernard pleads for a second chance, but Helmholtz welcomes the opportunity to be a true individual, and chooses the Falkland Islands as his destination, believing that their bad weather will inspire his writing. Mond tells Helmholtz that exile is actually a reward. The islands are full of the most interesting people in the world, individuals who did not fit into the social model of the World State. Mond outlines for John the events that led to the present society and his arguments for a caste system and social control. John rejects Mond's arguments, and Mond sums up John's views by claiming that John demands “the right to be unhappy”. John asks if he may go to the islands as well, but Mond refuses, saying he wishes to see what happens to John next.

Jaded with his new life, John moves to an abandoned hilltop lighthouse, near the village of Puttenham, where he intends to adopt a solitary ascetic lifestyle in order to purify himself of civilization, practising self-flagellation. This draws reporters and eventually hundreds of amazed sightseers, hoping to witness his bizarre behaviour.

For a while it seems that John might be left alone, after the public's attention is drawn to other diversions, but a documentary maker has secretly filmed John's self-flagellation from a distance, and when released the documentary causes an international sensation. Helicopters arrive with more journalists. Crowds of people descend on John's retreat, demanding that he perform his whipping ritual for them. From one helicopter a young woman emerges who is implied to be Lenina. John, at the sight of a woman he both adores and loathes, whips at her in a fury and then turns the whip on himself, exciting the crowd, whose wild behaviour transforms into a soma-fuelled orgy. The next morning John awakes on the ground and is consumed by remorse over his participation in the night's events.

That evening, a swarm of helicopters appears on the horizon, the story of last night's orgy having been in all the papers. The first onlookers and reporters to arrive find that John is dead, having hanged himself.

From: Wikipedia

#stray kids lore #stray kids theory #stray kids

[rupankanarchointeriors]

Importance of using an Architect

Using an architect is of paramount importance in various contexts, such as construction projects, urban planning, and interior design. We depend on our Best Architect in Jaipur to design spaces that are functional, aesthetically pleasing, and safe. Here are some key reasons highlighting the importance of using an architect:

Design expertise: Architects are trained professionals who possess a deep understanding of design principles, spatial relationships, and aesthetics. They can transform your ideas and requirements into a well-conceived design that maximizes the potential of the space. Their expertise in creating functional layouts, optimizing natural light, and incorporating sustainable design practices can significantly enhance the quality of a building or space.

Technical knowledge: Architects possess a comprehensive understanding of the technical aspects of construction. They are well-versed in building codes, regulations, and zoning laws. Their knowledge of materials, construction techniques, and structural integrity ensures that the design is not only visually appealing but also feasible and compliant with relevant standards. Architects work closely with engineers, contractors, and other professionals to oversee the construction process, making sure that the project is executed correctly.

Problem-solving and innovation: Architects are skilled problem solvers. They have the ability to analyze complex challenges and provide creative solutions. Whether it's overcoming site constraints, addressing environmental considerations, or accommodating specific user needs, architects can develop innovative design strategies to tackle these issues effectively. Their expertise enables them to envision possibilities and create spaces that are unique and tailored to the client's requirements.

Project management: Commercial architects often assume the role of project managers, coordinating various stakeholders, consultants, and contractors involved in the construction process. They develop detailed project timelines, manage budgets, and oversee the implementation of the design. Their project management skills ensure efficient communication, coordination, and timely execution, reducing the likelihood of errors or delays.

Sustainable and resilient design: In an era of increasing environmental concerns, architects play a vital role in promoting sustainable and resilient design practices. They can incorporate energy-efficient strategies, renewable materials, and passive design principles to minimize the environmental impact of a building. In addition to long-term durability and adaptability, Top Architecture in Jaipur design structures that can withstand natural disasters and evolve along with the changing needs of users.

Aesthetics and user experience: Architects bring an artistic vision and a deep understanding of human behavior and psychology to their designs. They consider factors such as aesthetics, ergonomics, comfort, and accessibility to create spaces that enhance the overall user experience. Vastu Architect can craft environments that evoke specific moods, support functionality, and inspire creativity, contributing to the well-being and satisfaction of the occupants.

In summary: Residential Architects provide a unique blend of technical knowledge, design skills, and problem-solving abilities. They ensure that buildings and spaces are not only visually appealing but also functional, safe, sustainable, and tailored to the needs of the users. Engaging an architect is a wise investment that can significantly enhance the success and quality of any construction or design project.

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[acollectionofficsandshit]

“Who knows? She might change her mind… might be back as soon as tomorrow or Tuesday,” the false bravado with which Max makes this particular declaration might be enough to sway him to believe the insanity of his own words but it isn’t enough to do the trick on Daniel, not by a long shot, “ because you never really know, do you? Anything could happen! Isn’t that what people say?

He just stares blankly back at his teammate, not saying a word but not really needing to, considering that in and of itself, his utter lack of agreement spoke volumes.

“That is what people say, right? Did I get that wrong?” Max sounds so genuinely concerned over the possibility that he’d somehow managed to get the phrasing so wrong that it’s meaning was beyond Daniel, “it’s simple and it sounds right in my head but I guess I could have-” 

“I mean, yeah, mate, they do. They definitely do say that… sometimes,” he was doing his very best to not let the laugh building in his chest come spilling out because he wasn’t a fucking idiot, he knew damn well that so much as chuckling right now would be the single worst thing he could conceivable do at the moment.

Honestly, he was fully fucking aware that Max was far more likely to take kindly to having Daniel spit in his face than he ever was to being to being openly laughed at just now– and he could respect that. 

“See?” the younger man says proudly, gesturing as if the tentative, begrudging concession he’d just made was some sort of irrefutable evidence, which hadn’t come with a very obvious ‘but’ hanging over its very head, “you said so yourself-”

“But normally, when people say ‘anything can happen’ they usually mean things that could actually feasibly happen or, you know, like natural disasters and shit? Not like your kind of thing because those, those, are in an entirely different neighborhood… like they’re in one that doesn’t exist.”

#three of us

[lustrous-aim]

l🐝ambrosiabee🐝l’s Animal Symbolism - Theories edition

[6] 🚨THEORY #6🚨

Butterflies protect themselves against predators through camouflage. // They blend in with their surroundings by folding up their wings and revealing their undersides. // I think Apollo is the predator. // And it's possible Kore is hiding in plain sight.

[40] 🚨THEORY #40🚨

(LO EpX) According to the Orphic Myths, Zeus was the father of Persephone. Zeus and Demeter mated in the form of intertwining serpents, resulting in the birth of Persephone. // Does Demeter know what Persephone is feeling because of the way she was conceived? [🐝:🚨And is that the actual reason she tried to hide her?🚨] [?: I think Rachel said before that in this retelling Persie isnt Zeus's kid (bc uh, incəst nasty lol) and that demeter somehow created her (the official family tree says she was created not born). I hope this helps. 🥺] [🐝: I meant if Persephone’s creation could be in any way related to serpent/snakes (because of the eyes) 🐍] [🐝: 🚨And is that the actual reason she tried to hide her?🚨] [?: Nah, the creator confirmed that she has no father, she was created solely by her mother and is therefore not related to Zeus or Hades.] [🐝: No, I mean is the creation of Persephone somehow related to serpents or snakes?]

[46] 🚨THEORY #46🚨

(LO EpX&X) When a butterfly is fully evolved, and ready to enter adulthood, it emerges from it’s cocoon. // Persephone’s sacred animal is a butterfly. // Is her breaking free from her mental prison (and her moving to Olympus), identical to a butterfly emerging?

[72] 🚨THEORY #72🚨

(LO EpX) Persephone’s “feeling” has the eyes of a ”Serpent”. And Persephone’s wounds are identical to a “Snakes Skin”. Are the elements of the “Serpent” applied to symbolize Persephone’s “skin-shedding”? Was the “Serpent” involved in Persephone’s creation? [🐝: Serpents symbolize rebirth, transformation, immortality and healing. But, perhaps it has a greater meaning in LO?] [?: Oooooh I love this theory! Remember also the scene where she’s hugging eels?] [🐝: I do remember a scene where she’s looking at eels swimming in the tank!] [?: Yes! I wonder if it’s related to your theory? Eels are snakelike] [🐝: Perhaps! Snakes/serpents were also the most sacred animal to Demeter (she is called the ‘Snake Goddess’, since there was a Terracotta found that depicted Demeter).] [?: I didn’t know this! That gives me goosebumps bc that means she shares a parallel with several other earth/life goddesses around the world who have snake connections, like Coatlicue.] [🐝: (Searched a bit, and: “COATLICUE was believed to have a dualistic nature. Just like the Earth she could be loving and nurturing by providing the conditions for humankind to survive. She could also be unforgiving and devour human life through natural disasters.” Sounds familiar?)]

x

#twitter stuff