#i’m not even Christian i shouldn’t say these things
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I fucking love the phrase “none of these words are in the bible” because it just makes me think of a universe where christians can only speak in bible quotes
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working for a very small company with a boss and job i like has in some ways made me a worse socialist and in other ways made me even more firm in my socialist beliefs
#like basically yes i do the occasional unpaid overtime bc i am well aware of the lack of room in the budget for overtime#and there’s shit that needs to get done and no one else to do it bc i’m one of 5 full time employees#which does make me a bad socialist i know i shouldn’t do it#to be clear i’m not being told to work off the clock i’m just not allowed overtime and have been choosing to work over unpaid#rather than leave things undone and make life harder for my future self#anyway but this has also really strengthened my conviction that capitalism is inherently evil#like it is morally wrong of my boss to say no overtime when there is more work to do than can be done in a 40 hour week#but also she works SIGNIFICANTLY more overtime than i do and i know we genuinely can’t afford it and that she doesn’t want to forbid it#but despite her being the most fair boss i’ve ever had and genuinely wanting to pay employees the highest wage she can#and caring about us as humans#the structure of capitalism is such that if she wants to continue running this business she basically has to do shit like that#like basically unless the company becomes internally socialist (this is rural conservative christian south carolina - not happening)#these things pretty much have to happen there has to be a level of exploitation and objectification#not making excuses for her but it’s just proving that even with the best intentions capitalism corrupts
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don’t touch her (mv1)
max x reader , unnamed mclaren employee x reader
summary: max knows his feelings for you are wrong, you have a boyfriend. but all bets are off when that boyfriend gets aggressive with you
notes: this one’s angsty guys, also we’re gonna pretend that japan was later in the season just for timing purposes
warnings: physical fight, blood, a toxic relationship
He knew he shouldn’t be staring at you from across the paddock. He knew it was wrong on so many levels. You were a part of the Red Bull team, one of his coworkers. You were also dating someone from the McLaren team. Max had never wanted to hit Lando over the head as much as he did when the young Brit introduced you to your current boyfriend. But he couldn’t stop himself from searching for you in any room he went into, or at any media events or any meetings.
Max Verstappen could confidently say he was without a doubt in love with you.
He had grown attached to you quickly, being one of the only people he worked with that didn’t fawn over him just because he was good at his job. You treated him like a real person. When he was with you there was no Max Verstappen, there was only Max. You were a breath of fresh air, the calm in the storm that was his chaotic life. You were his quiet, safe space he could escape to when things became too much. He wanted nothing more than to wrap you in his arms and shield you away from all that was wrong in the world, but he’d settle for calling you his friend, his best friend.
Max liked to think of himself as a good person, the type of person that just wanted to see you happy, even if it meant seeing you with someone else. He promised himself he wouldn’t act upon his feelings, at least not while you were dating anyone. He wouldn’t dare destroy your happiness just because of his heart.
Max could also admit he was petty, so childishly petty. He didn’t like seeing you hanging around the McLaren garage during race weekends, weekends where you would usually be by his side, making sure he was ready to drive. Instead he had to watch your navy blue stand out against the bright orange at McLaren. It didn’t suit you, being surrounded by papaya, Max thought.
He knew he could complain about it to Christian. He could use his power to make you come back to him, but in doing that he may end up hurting you or your job. So he sat quietly and let his annoyance fester inside him.
He could tell when things started to shift with your boyfriend. When your long hugs and visits to the McLaren garage turned into brushing shoulders and arguments in an empty walkway outside.
Max tries to ask about, tries to help make you feel better, but you shrug him off, telling him that you’ll work it out, it’s nothing but a rough patch.
He asks if you’re okay, if there’s anything he can do to help. You give him a sad smile and shrug your shoulders.
“There’s nothing you can do Max.”
He’s never felt so helpless in his life. He hates that he has to see your face with tear stains over it, that your smile has dimmed in the garage. That you no longer search him out for comfort.
Part of him thinks he should have a conversation with your boyfriend. He thinks he should give him a talking to about how he’s ruining someone so special. But he knows he’d probably end up throwing punches if your boyfriend ticked him off anymore than he already has.
You don’t seem to get any better as the season comes closer to an end. Max tries to help you open up to him again, asking if you have any plans over the winter break. He even invites you to join him on his trip back home to the Netherlands. He tells you that his mother and sister would love to have you with them during the holidays.
You frown, telling him that you planned on staying near Milton Keynes to do some work at the factory.
He scoffs and shakes his head. “It’s winter break, I’m sure they can spare you for a little while.”
“I can’t take time off work just to hang out with you Max.” The words are much harsher than you mean for them to be, you can tell by the way Max takes a defensive step back.
He nods. “Right. Sorry.” Then he leaves you standing there to go to his driver’s room, or somewhere that just doesn’t have you.
Everything becomes clearer to Max at a party near the end of the season. It’s just after the Japan race, and Lando had insisted on celebrating the McLaren 2-3 as well as another tally to Max’s list of wins this season. The nightclub is filled with drivers as well as team members from each team hoping to let off some steam before the next race weekend.
Max doesn’t want to be there. He wants to go back to his hotel and sleep before he has to fly back home just to fly to Qatar a week later. But Lando and Charles keep putting new drinks in his hand, which promptly end up being left on random tables, and dragging him around to converse with everyone else that’s there.
He keeps an eye on you the whole time, watching as you wrap your arms around yourself, staring into the crowd on the dance floor. He can tell you aren’t really looking at them though, that you’re staring off into space. Your boyfriend comes up to sit on the stool next to you. He says something in your ear, to which you shake your head and leave, walking outside.
Max quickly pushes his latest drink into Charles’ hands and follows you outside.
You lean against the wall, attempting to get some fresh air after feeling a bit too claustrophobic in the club, but the heat doesn’t help as much as you hoped. You see Max as he steps outside and quickly walks to you.
“What’s wrong? And don’t say nothing, because I know you, I know when you’re upset and you can’t hide it from me. Is it me? Have I done something wrong?” He asks, his words spilling out quickly.
“Max, it’s not you, it’s just-”
“Y/n! Come on, we can talk this through!” Your words are cut off by your boyfriend who looks around for you, the smile falling off his face when he spots Max standing next to you. “Are you fucking serious Y/n?” He storms over to you, and grabs your forearm, yanking you away from Max. “Always running back to Max, huh?”
You yelp when he roughly pulls you to him.
Max is quick to put himself between the two of you, pushing your boyfriend with just enough force to make him let go of you.
“Don’t touch her.” He snarls.
You already know how this is going to end. Max stares at your boyfriend with fire in his eyes. While Max isn’t quite as tall as him, he makes up for the height difference in his strength. He’s got enough muscle to knock him to the ground in seconds if he wanted to.
Anyone with half a brain would know they’re in dangerous territory, being on the receiving end of Max’s intense stare, but your boyfriend refuses to back down.
“She’s mine Verstappen. I can do whatever the fuck I want.” He says quietly, taunting Max.
That’s all it takes for the first swing to fly. You think it’s Max, but your boyfriend is quick to throw up his own fists in defense.
It’s a mess of navy blue and orange as the two end up rolling on the ground, throwing punch after punch. Max ends up on top, straddling your boyfriend, lifting his fist to swing. You grab his arm and pull him off and away from the fight. You catch a glimpse of your boyfriend, well now ex-boyfriend’s bloody nose and black eye.
Max huffs, pulling his arm away from you and stalks towards his car. You follow him, practically jogging to keep up. You stop when you’re standing between him and the driver door. The lamplight illuminates his face. He’s got a bruise on his cheekbone, a split lip, his hair is a disheveled mess, and his fist is coated in blood, whose you aren’t sure. He’s avoiding eye contact with you, instead looking up at the sky.
“Max, why-”
“I’m fine.” He says when he finally looks at you. “Let me drive you back to the hotel.”
The drive back is quiet. You can’t help but keep looking over at Max, the streetlights passing by spread light over his face. He pulls a plain hoodie from the back of his car, pulling the hood up over his head. He keeps his down as he walks inside, attempting to avoid any interactions with fans that have decided to hang around the hotel.
He walks you to your door, then turns to leave, stopping only when he feels your fingers thread themselves through his. You gently pull him inside your room.
“Bathroom.” You tell him, steering him towards the small bathroom.
He sighs, knowing that there’s no use in trying to argue with you. He tugs the hoodie off and tosses it on your bed. He lifts himself up to sit on the counter of the bathroom, just next to the sink. There’s barely any room between where his legs hang off the counter and the wall opposite the sink, but you manage to squeeze between them with a small towel in your hand.
You run the towel under warm water, then bring it to his face, softly dabbing at his lip. He flinches slightly, pulling away. You apologize softly, then continue to wipe the blood from his lip.
You do the same with his hand, gently holding it in your hand and wiping away the red. It turns out to be mostly blood from your ex boyfriend, his skin only slightly bruised from the impact.
“You shouldn’t have hit him. You could’ve broken your hand. You wouldn’t have been able to drive.” You scold him quietly.
He gives you an incredulous look. “I should’ve done a lot more than hit him.”
You don’t answer, continuing to absentmindedly wipe at his hand. The blood is long gone, but he can tell you’re too lost in thought to notice.
He lifts your head up to look at him with his other hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He asks.
You shake your head. “You heard him. Always running back to you?”
“I like it when you come to me.” He shifts slightly. “I mean, I like feeling like you can come to me for, well for anything really. You should’ve felt like you could’ve talked to me.” He drops his head down now.
You can tell he’s starting to close in on himself, that he feels somehow at fault for this. It’s your turn to lift his head up this time. His eyes are welled up with unshed tears. He tries to blink his tears away putting on a brave face for you.
You gently swipe your thumb under his eyes, then hold his cheeks in your hands.
“This is not your fault Max. It’s my fault. I let it get bad, I should’ve ended it a long time ago. I just have a talent for being self destructive I guess.” You let out an unconvincing laugh.
He leans into your touch, letting his eyes flutter closed.
After a few minutes you begrudgingly pull your hands away from Max. He immediately misses the warmth on his face.
“You should put some ice over your bruise.” You tell him.
You step back, giving him space to hop down from the counter. He stands over you, but his height is anything but daunting. He looks down at his now clean but bruised knuckles then back up at you.
“Thank you.”
“I should be the one thanking you.” You tell him.
He clears his throat then shuffles around you, back into the main part of your room. “I should probably go.”
You follow him, itching to give him a reason to stay.
He grabs his hoodie from your bed and walks back to your door. He opens it, ready to step through when you call his name. He turns back to see you standing near the door as well, shifting your weight on your feet.
You take a deep breath then throw caution to the wind. You take a quick two steps to him and press your lips to his cheek.
Max freezes, only regaining a semblance of composure when you pull away from him.
“Thank you Max. Really.” You smile.
He gives you a sheepish smile and a nod, his cheeks colored with a light pink blush.
“Goodnight Y/n.”
“Goodnight Max.”
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Not the former French prime minister preparing his presidential campaign and saying “maybe we have to admit that Islam needs specific rules and laws in France.” He also said that the 1905 law is probably not enough to “address the specificities of Islam” and that soon “specific laws and organization imposing certain obligations on Muslims only” will have to be put in place in the country.
He is basically saying “laïcité” (the freedom of religion and the state minding its own business) should not be applied to Muslims because we shouldn’t have the same freedom as other religious people in France. We should be controlled by the government.
When I saw that we are treated like colonial subjects this is what I’m talking about. They refused to apply “laïcité” (secularism) in Algeria under colonialism because it allowed them to control the indigenous population more.
If you’re North African, Black or Brown in France, even if you are not Muslim it will affect you. The plan is to treat us like colonial subjects. Under colonialism legally the term “muslim” didn’t even designate actual Muslims but “all indigenous people in Algeria”. There was such a thing as being a “Muslim Christian” because Islam was racialized to the point where it was considered to be an ethnicity.
The article in French here
Edit: The guy was invited at la Fete de l’huma 😂 dude’s plan is segregating Muslims but he was invited at the left wing gathering of the year. I’m laughing so I don’t cry.
#france#algeria#french islamophobia#racism#islamophobia#they are planning apartheid under our noses without any consequences#Neo colonialism#colonialism
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DanandPhilCrafts + Fucked Up Queer Devotion + Christian Homophobia: An Essay
We’ve all been talking about the willingness of Dan and Phil to perform the ritual, we’ve all been talking about the intimacy of carving out your lover’s heart, but I have not heard anyone talk about the fucked up side of Dan and Phil’s (fictional) relationship with each other, and with Him, so here goes.
On the craft channel, Dan and Phil act overwhelmingly positive, like satanic children’s show hosts, but this is clearly a farce. We see them drop their smiles quite a few times during the crafting- most notably in Glitter Faces when Dan’s craft turns out wrong, and when Phil cuts Dan’s hand. “Don’t cry, craft” is directed towards the audience, but it seems Dan and Phil are following their own advice. Cults, after all, prey on vulnerable people. While they do seem scared of doing the ritual, and their involvement with Him, they are, however, definitely willing. In
The blood on Dan after he kills Phil is interesting; The handprint on his shirt isn’t a sign of a struggle, but rather Phil just grabbing his shirt- that’s pretty intimate, honestly. The blood on his face could’ve been caused by a bunch of things: blood splatter he wiped at? wiping at his face (eyes?) with a bloody hand? or Phil holding his face? (I like the third option) The blood on his nose might totally have been accidental, and just a thing that happened, but it could also be an allusion to the cat whiskers, in the spirit of bringing things back to the beginning and whatnot.
After the ritual is complete, there’s the obvious tarot symbolism. @freckliedan has a great post about this, but I’ve got more to add, so bear with me. Yes, Dan and Phil are framed as the lovers, but that’s not all. While the sexual deviance associated with the devil card has clear connections to queerness, it’s main association is usually unhealthy relationships and dependence. From this, and the obvious devotion displayed in the video, the craft versions of Dan and Phil are implied to be unhealthily dependent on each other, and devoted to the point of obsession. While the relationship certainly isn’t abusive, this obsession just isn’t healthy.
Furthering the unhealthy relationship idea is when Phil calls Dan “Sampson”. In the Bible or whatever (I’m not Christian sue me) Sampson topples these pillars, killing both himself and his enemies, which has a clear parallel to Dan’s stacked ingredients falling over, but the use of “folly” is interesting, and suggests a further connection. Sampson had married a prostitute, and she sold him out, basically, leading to his enslavement and later death. In this story, this is the clearest and most obvious act of folly by Sampson: marrying someone who he shouldn’t have, someone who it was taboo for him to be with. Connected to Dan and Phil, it suggests that their relationship is dangerous due to the social taboo, but it’s also implied that Phil will betray Dan. Perhaps we’ll see that in a 5th crafts installment, or perhaps it’s simply a commentary on being in a relationship with someone considered unacceptable.
Speaking of unhealthy relationships, that’s sure what they’ve got with Him! Leading up to the ritual, Dan and Phil are shown to be scared of Him, even though they call Him their friend. Dan’s head shake when Phil says “crafting has improved my life in numerous ways” is very telling. At the end, Dan’s shoulders tense at His first footstep, however, when He actually touches Dan, he doesn’t seem scared at all- forgive me for this next point, but from the way he kinda leans into the touch and tilts his head back, it seems more like he’s going for “turned on” rather than “scared”.
“Okay, cool” you say, “but what does it mean?” Well, Dan and Phil’s relationship in this series is not just about homoerotic undertones- this is an allegory for toxic queer sexual relationships. Why would they make something about toxic relationships when they’re in a healthy relationship? With the toxicity, and the power imbalances, and the satanism, Dan and Phil’s (fictional) relationship is a representation of Christian fears of queerness, and the supposed immoral/corrupting/anti-Christian effects of being in a queer relationship. The fear Dan and Phil show throughout the series is representative of internalized homophobia. They’re scared to align themselves with Him because it means accepting their own queerness. Dan shows more fear than Phil throughout the series (like after his glitter face turns out to be a pentacle) which parallels his real world internalized homophobia that he’s experienced. By holding hands with the devil (or baphomet?) standing behind them, Dan and Phil have embodied every conservative fear about queerness, but have come out on top. Through their YouTube channel, we get to do the same.
#in conclusion:#if DanandPhilCrafts is about anything#it’s about how it’s okay to be gay#lol#thanks for reading if you made it this far :)#I would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this!#dnp#dan and phil#phan#amazingphil#daniel howell#danandphilcrafts#dan and phil crafts#phandom analysis
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“At least it's not ferociously attacking God quite as directly as Steven Universe did…”
Not that I’m surprised by this statement, but can you elaborate on this? Kinda intrigued by your thoughts on Steven Universe.
Okie dokie, you’re not the only one who has asked me about this, so I suppose I’ll poke the hornet’s nest. 😅 I haven’t talked about this before because I assumed that everyone who wanted to hear my kinds of opinions on stories wasn’t watching or interested in Steven Universe.
It’s like asking vegetarian if they enjoyed a turkey dinner. The turkey dinner was so obviously not made for vegetarians to enjoy, so why would the vegetarian even bother analyzing the turkey?
But I think if some people are asking me why I think Steven Universe is anti-God (of the Bible) its because maybe they don’t know what the turkey is. Not completely. (Maybe not you, because like you said, you’re not surprised by my comment.) So I’ll explain my thoughts on Steven Universe.
If you’re just following me because you liked some stuff I posted, but didn’t realize that I’m a Bible-believing Christian and don’t want to hear about it, unfollow me now.
Because I’m going to talk about some hot button issues here and the trolls will come out.
Steven Universe is really well-done. The jokes are funny, the writing is believable, the characters have great chemistry, great design, the concept is fascinating, the slow build-up and reveal of the plot elements is great.
But when you watch the throne room scene in the last episode of Season 5 “Change Your Mind,” it’s alarmingly clear how much the whole show is not just settling for defending and championing the LGBTQ+ worldview—it goes all the way to attacking what Christians believe, on the other side.
Anything that’s pro-LGBTQ+ is doing that by default, but this show goes out of its way to do that.
You have to understand: God created and designed us. Deeper than that; He created and designed romantic relationships, and invented marriage. He didn’t just create love—He is love. So when humans come along and do what we’ve always done since the fall, and say, “I’d rather define what Your thing is and how it works for myself, God,” it’s not only an incredible slap in the face, it’s an attack on God’s actual identity—and it’s destructive for us and the people around us. Like a fish insisting it can breathe oxygen.
But Steven Universe goes beyond that. It knows that the Christian worldview is it’s biggest opposition. It digs right down to the heart of the worldview-battle.
LGBTQ+ worldview says, “I should get to love what I want and be who I am, because I’m me. Love is love. (By which I mean, any action or relationship I choose to call love is love, because I’m the one calling it that.)”
Biblical worldview says “No, wait, you shouldn’t base your decisions on you alone; what you want changes day to day, and you’re broken, so you can’t ever be satisfied based on what you want—the Bible says God made you for something, and you rejected that, and it broke you. You’re not how you’re meant to be: even what you want and what you think love is is twisted up and can hurt you and others. But if you submit to God He’ll help you, He’ll fix what’s broken and give you new life by making you how you were supposed to be: He’ll live in you and through you.”
Are we beginning to get the picture?
See, the whole thing with the opposing views between LGBTQ+ and Christian people is as old as time. It’s not a new debate. It’s Satan and Eve in the garden. She says, “This is not how God said things should be,” and Satan says, “Are you sure that’s what He said? He knows if you do this thing, you’ll be like Him. You’ll be god: you’ll get to decide ‘how things should be’ for yourself.”
He lied and said that disobedience would satisfy her. That she knew what her own heart needed better than the God that made it did. That the very act of being imperfect would make her godlike.
And then Steven Universe comes along and says “if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”
And has a cast of created being characters who’s imperfections (Garnet’s forbidden “love,” Pearl’s obsession, Amethyst’s insecurity) are supposedly “the best thing about them; what makes them who they are.”
And has a main character who used to be a part of the god-like creator relationship, but used her power to come down to earth and completely change who she is into a fully different person.
And has a godlike Creator character who claims she “doesn’t need” her created beings (just like the God of the Bible) but they all have a little part of their creator in them so she has to repress their imperfections; she holds them all to a standard that’s impossible to reach called “perfection” and punishes them when they don’t meet it even though it hurts them to try; she expects them all to do what they were created by her for; she fixes them when they can’t meet her standard by shining her light through them and making them extensions of their Creator.
And has a main character who argues, fights back, tries to stop her, and is answered with lines that sound surprisingly like what LGBTQ+ people hear when Christians argue with them: “you’re only making things worse; you’re just deceiving yourself; even while you resist it your actual light can’t help shining through,” etc.
White Diamond just wants everything to be perfect. Like her. She just wants her created beings to “be themselves.” But what she means is, be how she created them to be.
And she’s the bad guy. She’s playing God in this show, and Rebecca Sugar is saying, “If God is telling us that can only be happy by being perfect, as He is perfect, and doing what He created us to do, then He’s wrong. Our imperfections are what make us special—unique—individuals—free—and there is nobody who has the right to take that freedom away from us, not even out creator!”
And you know what?
If God were like White Diamond, like Rebecca Sugar believes Him to be, Steven Universe would be right.
But He is NOT.
God is not a dictator who forces us to conform to a standard of perfection and then smashes us when we don’t meet it. He is a King who made us perfect to begin with, and we rejected him, because He allowed us to do that. He knew that true love was love that had to be chosen, and He wanted us to love Him by choice, so he gave us the option. But Rebecca Sugar doesn’t understand—there was never “Choose God or Choose Yourself.” There was only, “Choose God or Choose Nothing.” There was nothing except God. Then He created everything. There is no version of reality where you have something better than God, or even slightly less good but different, to pick. You’re not jumping from one ship into a smaller one, but at least it’s yours—you’re jumping from one ship into a void, and then complaining that there’s no other ship. That’s humans. That’s not God. / White Diamond didn’t make her creations perfect (Amethyst) and she didn’t make them for love. She made them for power. That’s not the God of the Bible.
Even when we did choose to try and love ourselves instead of God, and therefore warped our ability to perfectly love at all, He didn’t smash us. True, everything fell and was cursed, which is exactly what He warned us would happen if we chose it, but it was a natural consequence of breaking ourselves. And then He didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t give up on us. And He certainly didn’t just zap us, snap His fingers, quick-fix it and turn us all into robots who are extensions of Him, who say they love Him but only because it’s His voice puppeting us to say it.
No. He came to us, chose to give up His life at the exact point on the timeline when Romans, masters in the art of slow, humiliating, torturous death, would be the ones to carry out His crucifixion, and saved us Himself. Through the sacrifice of His own life. And even then, we still have a choice. We get to choose to accept that incredible self-sacrifice when we don’t deserve it, and be given new life and a relationship with the Creator who knows us and loves us better than we can love ourselves or receive love from others—OR we can just keep stubbornly insisting that our slavery to the opposite of what God wants is somehow freedom, and our twisted versions of love are genuine, and we’re not broken, and die like that. Die broken creatures who lived their whole lives stomping their feet and screaming “I’m not a creature, I’m a god!”
White Diamond sacrifices nothing, because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t know the God of the Bible. She just knows her idea of Him. She’s never actually gotten to know Him. If she had, she’d learn how silly and twisted her idea is.
Because you know what, yeah, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs. But people aren’t pork chops. And hot dogs have flavor (not better than pork chops) but they are awful for you.
Christians aren’t perfect cuts of meat with no individuality or flavor. Just because we all know and love the same God doesn’t mean we have no personalities. It just means we don’t think so freaking much about what we are, or who we get to be, or what we like and want. Jeez, what a self-centered, narcissistic, self-obsessed way to live. She plays Steven like he’s this wonder-child, innocent and full of heart, who encourages his friends to love and keep trying. But honestly?
This is very pretty animation but it’s not real. Steven looks happy hugging Steven but self-love doesn’t ultimately get you that.
That’s all based on the premise that what he’s encouraging them to do is actually good, and will make them happy, and will help them love better. And it just won’t. Not in real life. That’s not how any of this works. Self-love is just self-obsession. And that is a sure-fire way to hurt you, and everyone around you.
You’ll never be free by choosing to run to a worse master. You’ll never be satisfied with your crappy attempts at loving yourself, because you were made to be loved flawlessly and forever by someone who is Love Himself.
And choosing to identify with your imperfections doesn’t make you uniquely you. It just makes you exactly like every other human being marching in the same line since the Fall.
White Diamond’s not relational. She’s up high and distant. That’s not God. He made you to be in relationship with Him. He loves you, totally and perfectly, and He proved it by sacrificing for You.
So yeah. That’s the problem with Steven Universe. Come get me, SU fans.
#Steven universe#su#Pearl#amethyst#garnet#Steven universe fans#change your mind#white Diamond#Christianity#Christian’s#asked#answered#thanks#rattling the cage#Rebecca sugar
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Whats your opinion on the whole Christian Horner thing?
Let me preface this by saying, I have intentionally stayed away from this subject for many reasons, but given there was an outcome of the investigation today, and some of the information I’ve seen here throughout the past weeks, now is as good a time as any to respond to this ask I got weeks ago. This is not, nor will I be offering in the future, my opinion on whether Horner is guilty of the accusations or not. I just want to maybe provide context, and information from my experience and career thus far, that might help people understand, and also my opinion on the reaction from people. Caveat - I am not a lawyer, nor will I go into specifics of my current or previous job, however I worked in the legal profession where I worked on legal cases, reviewed evidence, and made submissions and recommendations that went in front of Judges.
Okay my thoughts. My thoughts are that an internal investigation that should have remained private for all parties involved, especially the alleged victim(s), was leaked and used as clickbait and gossip by the media and people on here and other social media sites. I think people decided guilt without having any genuine information, without seeing the evidence and without any credible sources. I think were the person being accused a different member of the paddock that the reaction would have been different. I think people used this to virtue signal and cry out about what good people they are. I think people that constantly say that the media and journalists shouldn’t be trusted, fed into a feeding frenzy that led to the name of the alleged victim(s) being published, which will undoubtedly impact them for the rest of their lives.
Onto specific things I have seen that I’d like to offer my take on:
Christian allegedly offering the victim a sum of money - First of all, for anyone who has a certain amount of wealth, especially those in the public eye, this is a usual occurrence. You try to avoid an investigation by any means possible, whether you’re innocent or guilty, because a) it’s easier and usually cheaper in the long run, b) pr and public image are damaged by even unfounded accusations and these things can run on for an extremely long time, and c) trial by media is a thing, and innocent people get tarnished for the rest of their lives because of something they were accused of. Now, I’m not saying any of those are why the offer was allegedly made, but those are some of the reasons. Companies do the same thing, when someone has an accident at work and hurts themselves, even if the company do not believe themselves to be at fault they will make a settlement offer, to avoid any legal back and forth. Settlements are not an admission of guilt, but a way to make something go away quickly.
Said money being why the investigation “went away” - I saw a quote that said “the grievance has been dismissed”, that means there was a finding, not that it was withdrawn. even so, this was a red bull investigation carried out by an external barrister. Once the company were made aware of the allegations, their investigation is independent of either party involved, so even if the alleged victim(s) withdrew their grievance, the company would still have a duty of care to ensure that any inappropriate behaviour or actions were identified, investigated and addressed. Most importantly, red bull want to protect themselves legally, and following the procedures and carrying out a thorough investigation, which would identify if they were potentially exposed to risk, is how they do that.
How can they ignore 100’s of pieces of evidence - We don’t know that they did. It was reported, but never confirmed that there was over 100 pieces of evidence submitted, so this is absolute hearsay. Further, I would be extremely surprised if the investigation ignored any piece of evidence, given the ramifications of an incorrect or improper investigation. Also I think it’s really important to say that evidence does not equal guilt or that one party to the proceedings is correct. Allow me to provide you with a personal example. I worked on a case where there was over 5000 pages of evidence submitted into a legal bundle. Approximately 4000 of those were from the appellant who argued that the other party had acted incorrectly. (forgive my vagueness here I’m not about to doxx myself). 4000 pages of evidence, which I reviewed and made a decision that I did not support their argument. The judge agreed with me also. Evidence can be subjective, and sometimes it can be completely irrelevant. The presence, and submission of evidence is to support one sides view of things, the other side will have their own, and both are examined and balanced and decisions made on that and sometimes also on other independent investigation.
The investigation is private and cannot be shared - This is law. GDPR in fact because this is occurring within Europe. I’m literally spending this entire week on a GDPR course, and have an exam on Friday, so I really don’t want to go on about legal basis and restrictions for sharing personal data, but let me tell you it’s for good reason, especially with investigations like this. All parties involved in this have a legal right to privacy, covered by the human rights act, and unless there is a compelling legal reason why their data should be shared, then it can’t be without their explicit consent. Simple as. And that’s disregarding that there will be confidential company information within the investigation that also cannot be shared.
Horner committed a crime - given that we do not know the specifics of what occurred we simply don’t have enough information to know this, HOWEVER, from the information I have read, and by the fact that I have not seen an indication that the police have been involved with this, nor are they carrying out their own investigation, I am working under the assumption that no law has been broken.
tl;dr - These are real people’s lives, we are not involved and we have no right to know anything. This isn’t salacious gossip, and it’s not a fun thing to band around and use as a stick to beat people with to prove how good we are. Processes and investigations like this should be private, and basing things on hearsay and unscrupulous reporters does more damage to any alleged victims than good. Having seen how fans and social media have treated this investigation, do you think that makes any other alleged victims want to come forwards? I think not. But that’s just me.
#honestly I know some people are gonna think this is me publicly takkng a side but this is impartiality#because I don’t know the ins and outs of the case which is why I haven’t spoken on this before#people who know me know what side of the line I fall on#but this amount of misunderstanding wilful or not has been driving me insane#and how this has been treated like cheap gossip is frankly disgusting to me and some of you should be ashamed#ask#anon#Dee talks#Christian Horner
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Tu me promets (Daniel's POV) - D.R. #3
Sugar Daddy!Daniel Ricciardo x Fem!Reader
Summary: He was sorry, for not calling, for sleeping with you, and then running as if you meant nothing to him.
Warning(s): Implied sexual content
A/N: As per pole results this will get published first. The Reader's POV will be up next week. The title translates to you promise me. Points to anyone who can spot the Gossip Girl reference from season 6.
Words: 3.3k
Previous Part ← Reader POV
The Arrangement Masterlist
Daniel knew he was being a coward, not texting you back after you had gotten home, not calling you for two months. It was a lot for him to process all while being back in Formula 1 driving for AlphaTauri. It wasn’t Red Bull but Christian and Helmut through it would be a good stepping stone for him after last year.
Yet here he was showing up at your apartment building to try to talk to you. He was pretty sure that you would slam the door in his face before he was even able to get a word out. He waved at the security guard before going up the elevator to your floor.
He knocked once he was at your door. He didn’t have to, he did have a key to your apartment but he wouldn’t do that. He may have bought the apartment but it was your space and he wasn’t just going to let himself in after not talking to you.
It took a few moments for the door to open. There was something punishing in that silence of waiting. It wasn’t long before you stood in front of him in his pink Enchanté jumper, black shorts, and thigh-high socks. The bouquet of white Japanese Camellia flowers that were in his hands suddenly felt heavy, like it was weighing down his arm.
“Can I come in?” He asked.
You eventually let him through the door not saying anything. Daniel couldn’t help but take in the apartment after not having been here for a while. It was very well lived in, you had candles, books, and photos set up all around. This had become home for you. He saw a throw from Hermés over the back of the armchair he helped you pick out. He knew he was the only one to sit on it.
There was a container of takeaway on the glass and silver coffee table, and you were watching Gossip Girl on the TV.
“I’m sorry.” He blurted. He was sorry, for not calling, for sleeping with you, and then running as if you meant nothing to him. It was wrong and you deserved better, not just from him but in general.
He tried to hand you the flowers but you wouldn’t take them from him. His eyes fell on an empty vase by one of the windows that looked like a handbag. He walked over in small steps and placed the flowers in there, just happy for them to be out of his hands.
He walked closer to you but kept the distance between you, leaning against the back of the cream couch, his legs folded on top of one another.
“Look,” He started to say. He could feel your eyes on him, running up and down what he was wearing probably tuning out his words just to not seem rude or something. “I know I shouldn’t have left the morning after. I just…”
Come on mate, out with it. She won’t hear you out all damn day. He thought to himself.
“It was a lot for me, to know how I felt and then do that. Be with you.” It was the only thing he felt he could say. It was his truth. He never expected that he would get a chance to be with you or that you would even want him like that.
“So, what does that mean?” It was fair of you to ask him that. What did that mean?
“I don’t know.” He answered honestly. “I pay you… to spend time with me, in gifts, and clothes, and all this other stuff.”
He hated bringing up the money. Money bought him things, it wasn’t meant to be used on people.
“I won’t pay you to sleep with me. It’s not right.” He blurted out. Daniel had always tried to be a nice guy, and he just couldn’t use you like that.
“Who says that you’d be paying me to sleep with you?” You asked as if there was nothing wrong with that. He can’t do that to you. He can’t treat you like you mean nothing to him. “Maybe I just want to.”
Daniel can’t help but shut his eyes at those words. “But you shouldn’t.”
“What I mean is… I can’t keep doing this because of the money.” It was never about the money when it came to you. Yes, he liked buying you things and spending money on you. But there was more in it for him. “I care too much for you now, for it to be about the money.”
“Can you think about our relationship for a second… without the money.” You asked him.
Think about their “relationship” without the money. Their whole arrangement started because of money.
“What are you talking about?” He asked.
"What would we do while you were in town? And I don't mean the shopping." Your question puzzled him a little.
Without the money? He thought. That wasn’t shopping?
"Dinner, and we'd go out to hang out with my friends, maybe watch a movie or something." He finally managed to get out.
Come to think of it he had never met your friends, he never tried to insert himself into your life thinking that there was no way that he would fit. Always busy with his career, media obligations, and his friends. It was easier for him to try to find a way to pull you into his world, without inserting himself into yours.
"What am I to you Daniel? What do you call me in all your notes?" You asked. It was like there was an odd shift in the room. Everything felt slower, almost hazy with how dark it felt in the apartment.
"You... you're my girl." He struggled to get the words out. He had only said those words out loud once, before that, it was always either writing them down on paper or in a text message. Saying it now felt strange on his tongue.
"Why do you call me that?" You drew out of him.
As you walked closer Daniel couldn’t help but swallow down his breath. His hands felt hot like he had just gotten out of the car after an intense session on the track.
"Because you’re mine." He whispered, "I like spoiling what's mine." He still didn’t know what that meant for the two of them. Calling you his was one thing, but he knew that he had no ownership of you whatsoever.
Feeling the press of your body against his chest made him nervous. All he wanted was to get out of the hoodie that he was wearing. It would make him less hot, and make it easier for him to breathe. He felt you moving his hands to your hips, just laying them over the soft fabric of your shorts.
"It's okay, Daniel." You whispered brushing their noses together. "You can have me." The invitation felt too good to be true.
It was too easy to pull you to the couch and let himself get lost in the feeling of your lips. Two months without it. You were a drug in the best way, the best high he could ever get. How had he let himself believe that he could live without the feeling of you in his arms and the taste of your lips on his?
Coherent thoughts and feelings didn’t matter while he held you to his chest.
“You’re perfect for me,” He praised you letting his lips trail over your neck. You were trouble and he knew that he was done for.
At some point in the evening, both of you had moved to the bedroom. He was leaning back against the headboard, letting his eyes wander around the room taking in the contrast of soft creams and dark black accent pieces. A phone charger and a few jewelry pieces cluttered the nightstand to his left.
His fingers fiddled with the silver Tiffany bracelet that you were wearing, letting himself get lost in the feeling of your skin against his, seeing your hair a mess, and light bruises start to show on your neck.
"Can you promise me something?" You asked him.
He gave you a slight nod. He wasn’t sure what he could promise you. A wonderful life, a diamond ring one day? Okay, maybe he was getting ahead of himself by thinking about a diamond ring.
"If we keep doing this," You said, pointing at the two of you. "Promise me that you know it's not about the money."
So it hadn’t been about the money for her? He couldn’t help but question. He still paid for things for you, food, clothes, even if he was the one who was picking things out to give to you. Money was the thing that held them together.
"But isn't that why this all started for you," He asked. "Because of the money."
"Yes, when I was in school." You said. School. Right. You had been in college when you met. How could he forget? "But I'm out of college now, I can find a job.”
Find a job? He didn’t like the sound of that. That would mean that if they kept this, even if it was in some small way he would have to work around not just his schedule but yours as well. There was no way.
“Maybe even take over paying the rent on this place." You continued.
Pay rent. He didn’t pay rent on this place. He had bought it. He always saw it as an investment, he put down the 5 million on it, and if this hadn’t worked out he could always rent it out to someone. It wasn’t like he needed the extra income.
"I don't pay rent on it." He admitted, scratching at the back of his neck. "I bought it."
He looked over at you to see that you were a little shocked at his confession. Maybe he should have told you that when he had gotten you the place.
"What about you?" You asked changing the subject. "What started all this for you?"
That was a hard question to answer without going into too much detail. Everything in his career felt like it was falling apart and in some ways his life as well.
"I needed a change, something to make me feel like I was worth something. A priority if you will." That felt like the easy way to explain it. He hadn’t felt like he made himself a priority in a long time. Being with you made him feel like he was worth something. It was always time and energy well spent. You made him feel like he was worth everything after just a few hours together.
He felt you move closer to him in the sheets, sitting on his lap as your bare thighs brushed against each other. Your hair pooled around your face a bit as he tried to stop himself from pulling you closer. You may have just been wearing only his hoodie in bed but he could only control himself so much.
"You are worth so much." You said to him. He felt you lean closer to him. Touching your foreheads together. "All the money in the world can't compare."
God, that was cheesy. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing even if he tried.
Daniel let himself enjoy the feeling of you against him. The supple feel of your hands on his skin, the way your hair was just slightly brushing over his arm. Small things he hadn’t let himself enjoy before.
"I think that if we keep doing this," He started to say. He was slow to pull back from you. A the same time he wanted to cherish feeling you against him. "You need to know that it'll be more for me than it was."
He was making this choice for you. He couldn’t do this if you wanted to keep it casual. He needed it to be all or nothing. Full relationship. He couldn’t live with just having pieces and moments with you anymore.
"I understand." You said as he felt your fingers running over the skin close to his collarbone.
"No, like, I have feelings for you. Real feelings. And I can't do this if you don't feel anything for me in return." He stopped your hand where it was.
He wasn’t willing to say the words I love you. He didn’t want you to shut him down if you heard them, he couldn’t handle it.
"I do have feelings for you, but I never thought that you would let me get close enough to see if there was more than attraction." Wait? What? He thought… it wasn’t just him then. He didn’t have to treat this like it was only based on what he felt for you.
“When did it become more for you? Italy? Meeting Scotty and my friends?” He couldn’t help but wonder. Why had you fallen for him if it wasn’t to do with the money?
When you brought up the story of him insisting on walking closer to the curb on the street he couldn’t help but feel a light blush make his cheeks warm. He was just being a gentleman. Doing what he thought he should since it was late at night and they were in New York. He didn’t want you walking close to the sidewalk in case something happened. Who knew what could happen if you did?
“That’s when I knew it was more, I knew that I couldn’t make you give me more, so I let you give me what you could, until Monaco.” He appreciated that for a while she had been understanding of the fact that he didn’t want to just jump into something. “By then I was sick of waiting. I needed more… So I took it.”
Hearing that being in Monaco made you want more had made him see that it was more gradual for you than it was for him. He had been apprehensive to share his feelings for you, but now that he knew that you felt something for him, he wanted to be with you more than ever.
"I guess that means that we're both in this." You half asked.
"This means," He said, quickly flipping you onto your back. He made sure to rest his arms against the mattress to keep most of his weight off you. You let out a loud laugh. "That since you’re mine, I get to keep taking care of you."
You were quick to lock your legs around his back while he lightly trailed his lips over your neck.
"Know what that means?" He whispered, nudging your neck with his nose before moving up your neck. You felt perfect underneath him.
"There is... no way... I'm letting you... get a job." He admitted between moving to the other side of your neck lightly digging his teeth into the skin. Nope, not happening ever. You were his and he didn’t want you working if he could help it. Damn the fact that you paid for your schooling.
Daniel had let his eyes pear over to the window to see that it had grown dark at some point. Between the talking, the couch, and ending you in your bed. You had turned the lights off and Daniel had settled in against one of the pillows that you had on your bed. He had felt you move closer to him in bed, he turned over onto his side instead of his normal sleeping position on his stomach.
“Don’t worry, babe.” He put his arm around your waist, muttering into your hair before kissing your forehead. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It was a promise that he intended to keep. He let the sound of your breathing settle him to sleep. It had been the first time since Monaco that he had been able to fall asleep without the sound of a podcast or music filling his ears.
The feeling of the sun in Daniel’s face had woken him up. He was under a thick duvet, his pillow crushed in his arms, and a warm body settled against his side. Daniel was careful to roll over in bed. He knew that this wasn’t his bedroom on the farm in Perth, his bedroom in his Monaco apartment, or the house in LA. However, waking up here didn’t seem out of place.
He looked over to the other side of the bed, past messed-up white sheets, and saw strands of hair gracefully falling over a pillow. You were still asleep, turned towards him.
He didn’t want to leave the bed, but he thought maybe it would be nice if he at least made you a cup of coffee. He pulled himself out from under the warm sheets, letting the cold air of your apartment hit his chest.
As he moved through the apartment he couldn’t help but rub his eyes. He looked through some of the books that were on your shelves, pictures of you with your friends that he didn’t recognize at parties and out at dinner.
Eventually, he makes his way to the kitchen, looking through cabinets and opening drawers before finding the coffee mug you always use. His eyes fall on the built-in coffee maker and he can’t help but think that it looks complicated. Buttons and screen. Are there instructions lying around somewhere?
“How do you work this damn thing?” He asks no one. He’s on his last try using the machine before giving up and just using Uber Eats to order Starbucks or something. He’s washed the mug and it’s still dripping wet when he hears what can only be your feet against the light hardwood floors.
He looks up seeing you and can’t help but smile. You look gorgeous in the pink dress that you’re wearing. He places the cup down trying to avoid one of the bigger puddles of water by the sink that is facing the living room.
“How's my girl this morning?” He asks. As you get closer Daniel can’t help but reach for you. Now that he can touch you as much as he wants, he’s not sure if he’ll ever stop.
He leans down to press a light kiss on your cheek.
“Pretty good.” He can feel the smile in your words.
Everything after that feels easy, like the whole time he’s known you this is what the relationship has been like. He can’t help but stand there for a few moments, in awe of being here with you. He pulls his hand away from your cheeks, looking down at you as you peek up at him through your eyelashes.
“I know I bought the place, but can you please show me how to use this thing?” He says gesturing to the coffee maker.
You laugh pulling away from him just a bit before kissing his cheek. He can’t help the smile that creeps through. God, does this feel right. He watches as you roam around the kitchen making both of you coffee. The little sound of you humming to yourself, as he takes in the thought of being able to enjoy this all the time, not just when he lets himself indulge in his selfish whims.
As he’s watching you, he’s surprised to see you pull out oat milk from the fridge and put it into what he can only assume is his cup of coffee.
You quickly give it to him and all he can say is, “Thanks, babe,” Taking the cup from you.
He lets himself pull you to the couch needing to feel you close. It’s always been easy to talk to you, never having to miss a beat with anything that either of you brings up. Movies, music, anything. It just flows for both of you. He’s holding his coffee cup in one hand while the other is running over your skin, making little invisible patterns that he’s not paying attention to.
He can’t believe that some part of him thought it would be right to leave and run from this. It felt right, talking to you that night by the bar. From the moment he met you, he knew that he was done for.
SD!Danny Ric Series: @hc-dutch, @taylorslovesswifties13, @thatsusbitch, @laneyspaulding19, @basicallyric, @divya14, @zafetycar, @brekkers-whore, @cixrosie, @taytaylala12
#SD!Danny Ric Series#daniel ricciardo imagine#daniel ricciardo x reader#daniel ricciardo x you#dr3 x reader#dr3 imagine#f1 imagines#f1 imagine#f1 x reader
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browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.
Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.
But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.
If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.
I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017
…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.
I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your own activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. Doing “the bare minimum” (and, ugh, what a discouraging phrase) is still doing. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.
Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.
Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.
I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.
This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.
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All Too Well - DR3 x Fem!OC
Summary: Saying goodbye is hard. Saying goodbye to your family without telling them it’s a final goodbye is even harder. But Em has come to terms that Dan doesn’t love her the same way she loves him, and leaving on her own terms will hurt less than being told he’s ending things. March 2022.
Word Count: 12.3k
Warnings: fighting, all the angst this bad boy can carry, lil bit of a dickhead!Dan, running away from your friends, mentions of death, mentions of motorsport crashes and deaths, moving without telling anyone, lying to family, talk of medical procedures, frank talks about what people want to happen if they can’t decide.
A/N: We’ve kept you waiting, but we hope this was worth the wait! This part of our story is what started us on this madcap adventure together, and it’s a lot of what makes our beloved Em Em. Thank you in advance!
Em stared at the two boarding passes in front of her as she sat in the fancy Heathrow lounge, a caramel latte beside them. Heathrow to Dubai, Dubai to Melbourne. More than twenty hours spent on planes to get to Melbourne, to jump into work and get stuck in at the Australian Grand Prix. And it was the last thing she wanted to do.
She should be excited. She should be so happy because she was about to see the boys after over a week apart, she was about to see Dan. She was finally going to get to see the Ricciardos after almost two years apart. But she was dreading it, the memories from Saudi filling her head as she thought. Em forced her attention to the laptop sitting on her knees, emails up and the one she never thought she’d write sitting in the middle of the screen.
SUB: Resignation Letter
From: [email protected]
Dear Blake,
Please use this email as my official resignation, effective immediately. I’m sorry that I can’t offer any more notice.
Working with you has been fantastic, and I appreciate everything we’ve gotten to do over the past three years.
Kind regards,
Emma.
Signing it Emma felt wrong. Emma was for Zak Brown and Andreas Sidle. Christian Horner had used it the one time she was introduced to him at Red Bull. She was always Em or Ems now. Except for Dan, she was his Emmy. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Or ever again. If he called her that she thought she might lose the last grip she had on her composure and break.
The email was scheduled and sitting in her outbox to send after the race, and the last thing she did before boarding was reschedule her flight home. Instead of leaving Monday morning with the boys, she was going on Sunday evening. She’d be somewhere over Queensland by the time Blake received the email and the boys would be at least twelve hours behind her. It was enough time to make sure she could be well ahead of them and get away.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be smiling and laughing, and she was supposed to be in Perth right now cuddling her niblings and laughing with Grace and Joe. Learning to cook yet another family recipe and insisting that she and Dan were just friends. She couldn’t even answer the question honestly if they were friends now.
He’d sent her away. The one thing she begged him not to do, the pinkie promise she’d made him give. The only promise she had ever asked him to keep. Not to stay safe while driving, not to do anything else. Not to leave her alone. The near screaming match they’d had in his drivers room that Blake and Michael had to break up. The way he didn’t even look at her but told Blake to “take Ems to the hotel”. How she had tears streaming down her face as she was escorted through the paddock like she wasn’t supposed to be there.
She still didn’t fully believe that she’d dropped her phone in the car. Em shouldn’t even have been in the car alone with Blake, but Dan insisted she went to the hotel room so she went. She was left there alone in Saudi Arabia, where Dan knew she couldn’t leave the hotel. She stared out the window at the smoke from the rockets, completely alone all night until Michael knocked on her door the following morning and she had to pretend everything was fine.
She’d worked from hospitality and as soon as the race finished she changed her flights to go back to London instead of Perth, making up an excuse. And Dan bought that she was going back for her parents.
“Family stuff.” She’d said when he asked.
“Em, you don’t talk to your family much.” She was folding clothes into her case, the one she’d brought that had her Australia clothes already standing fully packed.
“Yeah, but it’s family. My parents have their thirty fifth wedding anniversary in a few weeks, I’m helping plan it.” Only the last part of her words were a lie and she bit her tongue.
“Everyone wants to see you, they all miss you and they keep asking when you’ll be over. The kids miss you.”
“I’ll see them in Melbourne, Dan. You go, enjoy your time at home with them.”
She’d gotten a car to bring her to the airport and Dan hadn’t even asked a question, just a “text me when you land”. There was no hug, no even quick hand squeeze like they usually did in the Middle East. That’s when she knew whatever they were doing. The nearly four years of sleeping together and pretending they weren’t, of the media wondering who she was and why she was always there, was over.
She’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to catch feelings, that it was just sex. That she could do it. That every time she told Dan “y’know, right?” it was purely platonic. That the slow sex was just them wanting to take their time, nothing else. That she hadn’t murmured to Dan to make love to her in Bahrain when they shouldn’t have even been sharing a room after Grosjean’s crash, when he kissed her and held onto her and whispered that he loved her as he entered her.
Because that was sixteen months ago and nothing had changed. It was never going to change between them. Their fight in Saudi had proven it, and now she had to pretend that everything was fine before she said goodbye to the people she loved for the last time.
She couldn’t keep working with Dan when not sleeping with him. She couldn’t watch him fall for another woman, couldn’t get introduced to more people as “Em, my best friend” anymore. She was his Emmy. He was her Danny. And not getting to love him and be loved by him how she wanted to was going to kill her.
The flights were what she expected, Dan had upgraded her tickets to first class like he always did and she wanted to kill him like she always did. She spent the flights and the layovers organising his calendar for the next three months, tracking his flights and cross checking the sponsor events that had been filled in. Everything up to Hungary was booked and ready to go. She checked her watch when she was halfway to Melbourne, realising that he’d be at the Optus event she was usually on his arm for. She was supposed to be there this year, but she told him to take Michelle instead. All the events around the Australian GP that she always went as his plus one, wearing the star necklace he’d gotten her for her birthday, and the matching earrings that were her Christmas present the same year. Her outfit was usually one he’d bought for her against her protests because “let me spoil you” was how he showed that he cared, and she always wore the gold moon ring on her thumb that matched the sun one she’d bought him for his little finger. Most of her wardrobe and all of her everyday jewellery were presents from Dan. Her life was completely entwined with his, and untangling it all was going to hurt.
Her flight got in at god-awful o’clock that Wednesday morning, she’d lost a full day having left London on the Monday evening, but she walked through Melbourne customs with her suitcase glad to just be through. She’d told everyone she’d get an Uber to the hotel and meet them for breakfast, but instead as soon as she appeared in front of the glowing Melbourne sign two small figures ran to her yelling.
“AUNTIE EMMY YOU’RE HERE YOU’RE HERE!” Em dropped her bags and fell to her knees, arms wide open to pull Isaac and Isabella into her and pressing so many kisses to their curly heads.
“I’m here, I’m here. I missed you both so much. So, so much. I’m so sorry I couldn’t see you, I wanted to see you sooner.” Stupid Western Australia and closed borders and not letting people through. Her eyes began shining as she took in the difference in the two kids, Isaac at least a foot taller and losing the childlike way he’d spoken. Isabella had doubled in size, long hair and a child instead of a toddler the last time she’d seen her in person.
“It’s ok, you’re here now! Nana said you’ll sit with us for ev’rything ‘cept the race? Cause we’ve got two years of birthday and Christmas pressies for you!” Isaac looked so proud, grinning as he took her wheeled carry on and pulled it.
“I can’t wait. Who’re you here with?”
“Grandad Joe! He has our sign, Uncle Mike and Uncle Blake told us we had to use all the glitter. We were gonna wait, but I saw you and I wanted a hug. Is that ok?” He looked almost worried of her response, but she ruffled his hair.
“It’s more than ok. All I wanted was hugs from the two of you.”
Isabella clung to her waist, Em lifting her up with one arm and mentally thanking Michael for the strength training that let her carry the girl and pull her suitcase with her. She looked around to see Joe holding a giant piece of bright orange card, Auntie Emmy written on it in blue and silver glitter. It was the shiniest thing she’d ever seen in her life, and it was coming home with her even with the craft herpes that would infest her suitcase. Joe pulled her into a one armed hug on the side his granddaughter wasn’t monopolising, pushing a kiss to the side of her forehead that made her want to cry.
“We missed you, kiddo. Grace wanted to be here but we couldn’t fit her in the car too, and Dan’s doing media today. You cut it tight to get in.”
“It’s my parents wedding anniversary next week, I’ve been helping. I have to fly out after the race on Sunday.” It was Wednesday, and she could see his face fall as he realised how little time they’d have together.
“We’re spending as much time with you as we can until you go. Those boys get you all year round, we get you for this weekend.”
“That sounds perfect.”
When they made it to the hotel Em was greeted with yet more hugs from Grace, Michelle, and Michelle’s husband Adam. There were tears in everyone’s eyes at the reunion, and the long hug from Grace was the best thing ever and broke her heart at the same time. It was so restorative, so good, but she wasn’t going to get many more of them.
“Dan checked you in, here’s your key. He’s got the room on the other side of you, Blake’s on the other wall, we’re most of our corridor. Do you want to get some sleep and we’ll call you at noon?”
The first thing Em noticed about her room was the adjoining door between her room and Dan’s. She closed the lock gently to make sure she was completely alone. After that she napped fitfully, waking up to knocks on the door and yet more hugs. The day was spent going to the zoo, kids hanging out of her as she swung them around and gave piggybacks, feeling exactly like part of the family. Blake told her to take the day off for jet lag, and she wasn’t complaining.
That evening was filled with fun as the kids clung to her while she pulled out the first of so many presents. Chocolate first so she could see their faces eating proper chocolate rather than the Australian stuff that didn’t melt in the heat. The bag of duty free was quickly eaten between everyone, a movie on tv as she filled everyone in on what she had been doing. It wasn’t until after eight that Dan appeared wearing a suit.
“Ems! I thought you were coming with me tonight?” She looked up from where she’d been half dozing with Isabella curled up against her, taking in her best friend wearing a navy blue suit and white shirt.
“Coming to what? I’m taking today for jet lag. What’s tonight?”
“The AusGP reception. You always come!” Confusion was written all over his face and Em swallowed once, looking at him carefully.
“I said I wasn’t doing anything this year. I have to leave pretty much straight after the race, I don’t have time.”
“Emmy, please.” She hated that she couldn’t resist him when he did that, when her name curled around his accent like that.
“I don’t have anything to wear.” This was the closest they’d ever come to an argument in front of his family. Their eyes were going between them as if watching a tennis match.
“I got you something.”
“Dan, you can’t do that.” It was pointless to argue but she had to try make her point. She couldn’t just do everything because he wanted her to.
“I did. C’mon, it’s three hours and some schmoozing and we can come back so you can go to bed. He did his best impression of puppy dog eyes, lifting Isabella from her. “You want to see Auntie Emmy all glam and pretty, right Is?”
“Yeah! She’s always pretty.”
“You’re very right. I left the dress in your room, Ems. Please?”
“Fine.”
She said her goodbyes and went into her room, making sure the adjoining door was locked before going into shower and change. As she walked into the bathroom she thought she heard the door rattle but ignored it, forcing herself to take time to put herself together.
Years travelling around the world had taught her how to make herself look presentable in very little time, forcing her to learn how to do a blow dry with a hotel hairdryer. It took less than an hour to have hair and makeup perfectly done, a wrap around her shoulders and a pair of heels on her feet. The dress Dan had picked was perfect for her. It was lavender, knee length with a corset top, and her jewellery worked perfectly with it. He had taste when it wasn’t about party shirts. Once she was ready she picked up a clutch and knocked on Dan’s door. He opened the door confused, but ready to go.
“I thought you’d use the adjoining door? It’s why I got us these rooms.”
“I’m tired, Dan. Can we just get this over with?”
The launch was like anything else, an event to deal with. There were speeches and then wandering around the room, Dan’s hand hovering at her lower back but not quite touching her. She smiled as she was introduced as “meet Ems, she’s my best friend and my manager’s assistant who keeps my life on track”, even while her heart was breaking. But she kept her cool, finally managing to break away from Dan for a few minutes to chat to Ted and Natalie from Sky while Dan did the rounds.
“I didn’t know if you’d be here. I was talking to Michael yesterday, he said you weren’t in Perth with them,” Ted remarked as Em looked at the almost empty glass of champagne in his hand.
“Is this going to end up as gossip on the notebook if we talk?” Nat nearly snorted with laughter, Ted shaking his head with a chuckle.
“Nope. I’m drinking so I’m officially off work duties. Unless you have any gossip about things? Anything that I can attribute to an unnamed McLaren source?”
“I don’t work for McLaren, thankfully Zak doesn’t sign my paycheque. But no, I’ve got no gossip. There’s some family stuff happening so I have to head home pretty much as soon as the race is over. But I needed to see everyone, it’s been almost two years and I missed them.���
“Fair.” They chatted about the season so far, studiously ignoring the controversy around the last race, until Dan arrived back to make excuses and get them to leave the party.
“Back to the hotel?”
“You read my mind.”
The car ride back was the most awkward one the two of them had ever done and Em didn’t know what to do. Usually if they were in a car alone together they’d be curled into each other or at least holding hands. But she was on her side of the SUV, Dan was on his, and the hand she’d stretched into the middle as a peace offering was ignored. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with that. Didn’t want to know, really. All his actions did was solidify that the painful decision she’d reached was the right one. Just because things could be easy didn’t mean they were right.
When they reached their floor in the hotel Dan stopped outside her hotel room as Em waved the keycard at the lock.
“Night, Dan.”
“But I thought…”
“What?” She was sharper than she should have been, but she was jet lagged and tired and heart sore.
“I thought we’d be sharing a room.”
“Your family are two doors down and the kids are here. The chances of at least one of them knocking on my door before I want to get up in the morning are high, and I don’t want to have to explain why we share a bed when we’re not married. Do you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Exactly. I’ll see you in the morning.”
As soon as the hallway door closed behind her she double checked the lock on the adjoining door before flipping over the door lock. If she’d looked out the peephole she would have seen a confused and disappointed Dan standing in the hallway.
The next few days passed in a haze of having the kids around, working, and ignoring Zak. She knew he was the original source of the rumours the year before, he was the one who got Mazepin to start spreading that she was sleeping with all three of her boys. It was her greatest pleasure to get to tell him no, and she did it with joy.
But in between finalising as much as she could before her resignation was sent she had time to wander Melbourne alone. She loved the city. It had always welcomed her in, it was Dan’s home race and the place where she knew everyone adored him. Em wandered around a craft market, finding a jewellery maker who made gold charms and engraved them on the spot. It took her all of ten seconds to buy two and get them put on different coloured leather cords, one each for Isaac and Isabella. The front had a pair of angel wings for each of her angel kids, and the engraving on the back read love you forever, Auntie Emmy.
Leaving her family behind was going to be the hardest part of this, and she needed to make sure that they knew just how much she loved them. Em was so aware that she was about to be the first adult to choose to walk out of their lives, and she didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to break their hearts the way hers would break too. She just hoped that when they realised she wasn’t coming back they’d know she wanted to tell them how much she loved them.
Practice and qualifying were shit and she felt her dislike of the team growing even stronger. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to deal with the stupid orange team and the way that they were favouring Lando already. Dan was the one who won a race last year, not Lando. He was the one who had proven himself with podiums galore. But they didn’t care.
That night she left the door between their rooms unlocked. Her bags were half packed, her resignation email was scheduled to send and she’d triple checked the timezone on it. Em had spent the last two days hugging everyone as much as she could, surprising Chloe by popping into the Aston garage before a practice and waving to Lance and Seb as she pulled Chloe into a giant hug. Scotty got one too, trying to put the love and care she had for her best friends outside her boys into a hug. There were waves to the people she couldn’t hug because rumours would start, giving Susie a recommendation for the restaurant they all ate at the night before so she and Toto could have a family meal with Jack in privacy. The small things to make sure everyone knew she thought about them and loved them.
Em couldn’t sleep straight away. Nights before races were hard, the crashes she’d watched with her own two eyes usually playing in her head. Dan in Anthoine’s car, Dan in Grosjean’s. Dan in Lewis’s place the year before with no halo. Dan in the rain and a tractor on track. All the ways she knew people had died racing she thought about and she couldn’t deal. Her fear every time Dan slid into his seat in the car was all encompassing but racing was his first love and she could never ask him to stop.
She was about to get up and go down to Michael’s room to ask for some melatonin, but the doorknob between the two rooms rattled and clicked open quietly. Em stayed still as she was, breathing in and out steadily.
Dan slipped into the other side of the bed. If she just opened her eyes she’d be able to see him. If she reached her fingers out slightly she could touch him. It was the first time they’d shared a bed since Bahrain and being just over covid and she wanted him to hold her. Her body was screaming to curl into him and tell him she loves him and she’s his and she doesn’t want him to fall in love with anyone else because she wants him to love her. To choose her over all the models in the world he could have.
She didn’t sleep that night, too aware of his presence in the bed. She could hear his snores but she didn’t dare look up at him, didn’t dare move in case she disturbed him. He needed his sleep the night before a race.
As the morning dawned through crappy hotel curtains she could feel the vibrations from the alarm on his watch, the one he always used to try let her get some extra sleep when he needed to be up early.
Please kiss my forehead. Please, Dan. Please just give me any sign you want me to stay. Don’t leave me again.
Every morning was the same when they shared a bed. He’d delay until the very last minute to stay in the warmth and then kiss her forehead in goodbye. And then he’d leave, not content to get out from there until he made sure she knew he said goodbye.
This time he slid out of the bed without touching her, padding across the still room and going back into his. Em heard the lock slide shut on his side and rolled over, tears filling her eyes.
It hurt so much already, how was she supposed to pretend that everything was fine? How was she supposed to act normal around everyone when she wanted to scream that they were over and nothing would ever be the same again? How could she be okay when she felt like this?
He’d left her alone. Again. He hadn’t even touched her but he’d slept in her bed and she never thought Dan could be so cruel. She never thought he’d leave her with the barest hint of his scent, that if she hadn’t been awake she wouldn’t have known he was there. The ache spread through her chest and she tried to quiet her sobs but it hurt. It hurt so, so badly.
A cold shower soothed her puffy face, getting rid of some of the usual redness while makeup did the rest. She was dressed in her usual race day gear of shorts, vans, a McLaren polo, and a Dan hat on her head by the time there was a knock on her door, Michael standing there.
“Hey, I’m heading in with Dan and Blake now. He said you’re going in with his family in an hour?” Another cut in her heart. More space between them. But she schooled her face into a smile, hoping Michael would believe everything was fine.
“Yeah. I said I wanted as much time with the kids as possible, it’s fine. See you there?”
“See you there.”
Michael was a couple of metres away from her when she stepped into the hall, grabbing her room key from the slot just inside the door.
“Michael?” He turned and she half jogged, pulling him into a tight hug.
“What’s this for?”
“Haven’t seen you as much. You know you’re my brother, right? How lucky I am to have you as my family?”
“You’re the most annoying little sister Ems, but you’re my little sister. I’ve missed having you around.”
“Miss you too.”
She watched him walk away as step one of her goodbyes was done. The next was to go to breakfast with everyone and pretend that things were normal for the next few hours until the race was over. She could do it. She had to.
Breakfast with the extended Ricciardo clan was fun, Isabella still clinging to her and Isaac insisting on sitting beside her. She soaked up every moment she got with them, walking out to the car Dan had arranged holding Isabella on her hip.
“That’ll be you in a few years,” Michelle commented as Em struggled with the car seat buckle before getting it right. “The mother, not the cool aunt. We can swap places.”
Another stab to her already mangled heart. “I dunno. Wait and see, but I’m not sure that’s on the cards any time soon.” Considering the only man she wanted to have a child with didn’t want to be with her, it was a no.
You’ll be a good mother, Em. Plus you’ll have loads of family around.” She wanted to scream that she was leaving her family behind for good this afternoon but instead she just smiled tightly. It was too close to home. She couldn’t keep this conversation going. It hurt.
The race matched her mood. The strategy wasn’t good, the car was a tractor, and the oblique team orders to not let Dan try overtake Lando made her want to scream. The team points would be the same, but no. Not for his home race even. The crowd were amazing and let out loud cheers every time the orange car made its way around the circuit, but it wasn’t enough and Em knew it. It hurt. Her last time at a Grand Prix, her last time cheering for the man she was so deeply in love with, and the team and car had let him down again.
The plan was already to delay debrief till Monday so Dan got to spend time with his family, and Em decided to head to the airport nearly immediately. She couldn’t stay any longer. She couldn’t deal with any more hints from Michelle about a niece or nephew in the future, couldn’t listen to Grace or Joe talking about how much they’d missed her. She couldn’t spend more time with Blake and Michael without wanting to break down and tell them that they had changed her life and she wouldn’t make them choose between her and Dan.
Because that was what it came down to. She was the last one in this group that was all united by their love of Daniel Ricciardo. She was the one who loved him so deeply it hurt, the one who loved every single member of the group to the moon and to Saturn. And she loved them so much she couldn’t bear to have them walk away from her. Because that was what would happen.
Her own blood family didn’t choose her. They saw her as a disgrace, as a failure because she was thirty one years old, unmarried and without kids. They didn’t realise that she was the one who kept Dan on schedule, who organised sponsor events and filtered out the crap he and Blake didn’t need to know about. She stopped the balls from falling out of the sky. Because she was just an assistant.
And if the people who gave birth to her wouldn’t choose her, she knew the family she’d built wouldn’t either. She was never the one who was chosen, and she didn’t blame them. She was just Emma. Danny was Dan. She knew who she’d pick if given a quarter of a chance.
She’d just finished packing when the adjoining door opened, Dan walking in already speaking but stopping when he saw the case by the door, her carry on full with the edge of the orange poster getting folded in.
“Where are you going?” His tone was accusatory and she steeled herself for the argument.
“Home.”
“Emmy…”
“Don’t Emmy me, Daniel! You know I have to go back for the anniversary.” She turned to look at him, watching as confusion turned to anger.
“And I also know that’s bullshit. I’ve known you for how many years, Em? You’ve visited your parents twice. Michael was with you one of those times, the visit lasted twenty minutes and even he didn’t have anything nice to say about it. Michael. Who has a good thing to say about almost everyone. So tell me the truth, why are you leaving now? Why not get on the flight with us tomorrow?”
“Because I have to go back.”
“Don’t lie to me Em!” He raised his voice and Em gave as good as she got, staring back at him.
“You want the truth, Dan? All of it?”
“Yes! That’s all I want, it’s all I’ve ever wanted with you.”
She took a deep breath, staring into his brown eyes for the last time, soaking in that even so angry he was so beautiful. She’d had the privilege of sleeping with him for nearly four years, of loving him for three. Whoever got to do that next would be so incredibly lucky.
“You left me alone. The one thing I ever asked of you, the only thing I ever asked you to promise me was to never leave me alone. I begged you. Whatever was going on, whatever was happening with us, please don’t leave me alone. And then there were bombs flying and I watched one explode and you made me get into a car and leave. You made me stay alone, and you didn’t come back to me that night. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know if you were even alive because I didn’t have my fucking phone until the next morning and all the news was in Arabic. You were gone to the track before I knew what had happened. You left. You broke your promise, Daniel.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” It was the worst thing he could have said.
“But Blake and Michael got to stay. Angela stayed with Lewis, don’t try to lie to me and tell me she didn’t. Britta stayed with Seb. You sent me away, Dan. I was sobbing and begging you to stay and you made Blake drive me away. You made me leave when I was scared.” She let her words sink into him fully. “Just leave. Get out of this room and leave.”
“Emmy…” His voice was soft and she blinked back the tears she knew she wanted to cry. Not until the airport. Not until then.
“GET OUT DAN!” She yelled at him for the first time, shock on his face. “JUST LEAVE! It’s what you’ve been doing this whole weekend, just leave.”
“Fine. Fine. If that’s what you want, I’m fucking gone. I’m done here, I’m gone. I’ll be downstairs in five for you to say goodbye to everyone.” She watched him walk through the adjoining door and lock it as Em’s heart completely broke in two. She’d ruined it. He was done. He was gone. He was leaving and she was going and she would never speak to him again because her Daniel wasn’t hers anymore. One person down, eight to go.
She brought her bags down to the lobby alone, everyone standing there waiting to say goodbye. Michael got a hug, she’d said everything she needed to earlier that day. Blake was beside him, wrapping her in a full body giant one and holding her tight.
“You know I love you, don’t you? I really love you.” Blake grinned and pulled her close again.
“Love you too, Ems. Moving beside you was the best decision I ever made.”
Saying goodbye to Michelle and Adam was hugs and whispers of seeing them for Christmas when she knew it was a lie. Grace pulled her into a hug that only a mother figure could, whispering in her ear.
“We’re coming over for Silverstone and yours and Dan’s birthdays, so we’ll see you then. We love you Em. If you need anything I’m only a FaceTime away. Don’t let them get you down when you’re with your family.”
“I love you too, Grace.”
Joe got a hug and a murmured love you, his hand patting her back soothingly. The kids were last, sulking as Em squatted down in front of them.
“So I got my angels a present to say goodbye, cause I know I didn’t get to see you lots. Want to see them?” There were identical nods and Em strapped the bracelets on, Isaac’s on a black cord and Isabella’s on a purple one.
“It matches the one I made you and Uncle Dan,” Isabella murmured as Em pulled her into a tight hug.
“It does. It’s a reminder that I love you both so very, very much. No matter how far away we are, I’m always going to love you, okay? Don’t ever, ever forget that. Pinkie promise me?” She held out her little fingers, laughing as they both enthusiastically took part in the ritual. She pulled them in for a final hug, pressing kisses to both of their heads.
“See you on winter break!” Isaac grinned as he spoke, Em putting a tight smile on her face.
“We call it summer break, but I’ll see what we have to do then buddy.”
“Do you want a lift to the airport? I’ve got the rental?” Joe asked but Em shook her head.
“Nah, I’m good. I’ve got an Uber coming, I just want to get on the road. It’s hard enough to say goodbye to everyone I can’t drag it out much longer.”
“Fair. Love you, kiddo.”
“Love you too, Joe.” Her phone buzzed with the notification that her driver was there and she started towards the door. Dan still hadn’t come down and that was it. He didn’t love her. He didn’t feel anything like how she did because no matter what he’d said, he’d never make her leave. But she made him leave. He was gone.
She was almost at the door when an oh too familiar voice called across the lobby, running up to them.
“I didn’t think you’d be leaving already.”
“My Uber’s outside, I need to leave.”
“Oh.” There was none of their usual hugs, none of the subtle kisses he pushed to the top of her head when they were separated. He didn’t even squeeze her fingers. It was like they were strangers. “Send a text when you get to London?”
“Yeah, sure.”
She turned to get her luggage into the car, shielding her face from everyone with her hair. The driver lifted it in and she was soon safely ensconced in the back seat, tears falling down her cheeks as she waved goodbye behind partially tinted glass.
“Was that Daniel Ricciardo?” The driver asked, Em forcing a smile.
“Yeah, I work with him.” It was true for another five hours at least.
“He seems like a good guy.”
“He’s one of the best.”
Tears streamed down Em’s cheeks the entire way to the airport, through the fancy check in area and security, and following her into her first class pod. She mostly ignored the staff apart from nodding at them, continuing to cry and wipe her eyes on tissues. The tears barely stopped until Dubai, only aided by Blake’s near constant texts as soon as her email sent.
She knew when she arrived in London that she had about twelve hours before the boys landed, Blake texting even while he was on his flights. She sent a I got back safely, receiving another flurry of responses.
Em, what’s this email about?
What’s going on?
Tell me you didn’t mean to send this
Is it the travel? Do you want to slow down? Why?
Ems we need you. How am I supposed to tell everyone you’re not coming with us anymore? Did you meet someone? Did something happen?
We’re about to land in Heathrow. Dan’s going to his place and looks miserable. I’ll be at your door in less than two hours.
When she got the final text Em grabbed the bags she’d hastily packed with clothes and the things she needed for the next eight days until the boys had left London for Imola. The address of the last minute airbnb was in her email, getting an Uber to it handy. She was long gone by the time Blake arrived, sitting in her temporary home for the next while and planning what she had to do. They’d leave England on the Wednesday, she had five days to empty her flat.
It started with an email to her landlord to give up the lease. Her family reasons excuse was accepted quickly, the landlord told she had to leave London and the apartment would be vacant from the end of the month. After that she had to start planning on where to go to.
There were too many memories in London. Nearly every street reminded her of Dan, of days walking around hand in hand to show him her London, not the tourist one he knew. The city she’d moved to at eighteen with a dream and a student loan and where she’d discovered who she was. Dan was everywhere in the city for her - memories of their first kiss in the pub she’d spent too many hours in, museums she’d dragged him to, streets he’d stolen a kiss from her at with a grin and a chuckle when they were waiting to cross the road. The cafes and greasy spoons she’d brought him to with the promise of not telling Michael. She couldn’t stay there, it was too much.
But everywhere she thought of had memories of him. Filthy weekends away when they were at home because of covid, eating out to help out and driving to Manchester or Glasgow to spend time together and have hotel sex. The midlands were completely out because of Silverstone, of memories of Enstone and the Renault factory, of Milton Keynes and his goodbye from Red Bull.
The only big city she could think of without a memory of Dan - with only one memory of her boys - was Liverpool. Which meant her parents. Which meant a conversation she never wanted to have. Calling her mother wasn’t like calling Grace. But she didn’t have Grace in her life anymore, so she had to do it.
“Emma, what country do you deign to call us from today?” Her mother answered the phone, disdain dripping from every word.
“Good morning, Mother. I’m in England. I was calling because I need to ask for a favour from you.”
“Yes?”
Em swallowed, teeing up words on her too thick tongue. “I had to leave my job, they didn’t have the funding to keep me on. I was wondering if I could move home for a few weeks while I’m applying for new jobs. I want to leave motorsports, there’s too much travelling and I want to settle down.” She hit every keyword that her mother had as she checked her bank account balance, spotting her final pay deposited in the account. It was more than healthy thanks to travelling so much for work and Dan covering that under work expenses. But she needed to be sensible, and renting somewhere without a job would be a mistake.
“You can. You will need to pay rent while you’re here.”
“Of course. Just let me know how much. It wont be for long, it’s just a few weeks. It’ll be like I won’t even be there, if I’m not interviewing I’ll be in my bedroom.”
“Fine. Let me know when you plan to arrive.” She sounded bored of the conversation already.
“I’ll be back April twenty fourth. I can send you the train details then.
“See you then.”
The difference between the call with her mother and a call with Grace just cut the wound in her chest even harder. Grace never let a call end without a million “I love you”s between them. She made sure that Em spoke to everyone in the family, and if Joe was out at the garage she took a message and told Em that he loved her. Instead her mother hadn’t even asked if Em wanted to leave a message for her father.
It felt so, so wrong.
The list of things she had to do before the boys left for Italy was beginning to shrink, but there was still so much to do. She ignored Blake and Michael’s texts, refusing to even open them. The chats were archived so the red dots didn’t irritate her. Dan didn’t send her anything at all, yet more proof that he meant everything he said in Melbourne. He was done with her. She didn’t realise that emotional pain could hurt this much. She’d never believed in soulmates, never believed in fate. She always thought that if a relationship ended she’d get through it. But now? This not quite a relationship over? It ached to her core.
Friday morning she had an appointment with a solicitor, walking in with a tear stained sheet of what she wanted to leave to different people. She’d always fought with Dan about being prepared if something happened to him, not wanting to know what he left her. She was one of the two people who could decide what medical treatment he got if he couldn’t consent. She’d cried when he told her that day in Spa when they got that tragic news what he wanted if he was in a crash like that. That he trusted her to not let him stay on machines. Some of her nightmares included his plaintive “I don’t want false hope” that made her ache.
She didn’t trust her parents to not do the same for her. They’d keep her hooked up to machines for as long as possible, they’d insist it was for “hope”. Em didn’t know what hope, but she knew them. They’d barely spoken for five years apart from occasional texts and birthday cards, they didn’t have the right to decide what happened to her.
It was a blustery Friday morning when she walked into that office and signed the papers to say Daniel Ricciardo, Blake Friend, and Michael Italiano were the people who decided what would happen if she couldn’t make her own medical decisions. She gave the lawyer the makeshift will that was handwritten and tearstained. It was simple - her cookbooks and exercise equipment to Michael because he was always trying to adapt her recipes. All but one piece of her furniture to Blake. Her CDs and DVDs to Dan, along with the coffee table he kept falling over. Her collection of Dan’s raceworn helmets to Isaac and Isabella. Dan, Grace, and Michelle were to divide her jewellery between them based on who wanted what. The rest of her belongings were to be sold and the money put in Isaac and Isabella’s college funds. It was too easy.
Even after everything that had happened, even after walking away, she trusted her boys more than she trusted anyone else in the world.
After all of that her final task was to organise her storage unit and movers. That was easiest of all if Em was honest. A call to a moving company who agreed to put everything in the unit without her there, and walking into a storage company. She signed a two year contract and paid the full rent then and there, surprising the man at the counter. Now she was able to disappear.
The texts kept coming from Blake and Michael. WhatsApp and iMessage, even a signal account she’d forgotten she had on her phone. Michael sent her instagram DMs so she deleted the app instead of trying to avoid reading them and appearing online. But finally it was Wednesday and she knew exactly when the boys were flying out of London City Airport. She’d organised the private flight for them, booked the plane and made sure the flight was as clean as possible. As soon as they’d take off her plan could start.
Walking back into her apartment felt too normal, just checking her post and finding it mostly full of letters from Blake. Get in touch, we’re worried, we miss you. Sentiments she knew he’d share but it would be easy for him to forget about her. The letters went out in recycling and she began to pack up her life.
The boxes were settled easily. Storage, donating, and Dan’s stuff. The ones for him filled quickly, clothes and accessories and things he’d left lying around the apartment that had become theirs instead of just hers. It took three boxes to get rid of the sense of him.
The storage boxes were easier, but the final thing she had to do at four that Sunday morning was decide what to do with her helmet wall. Ever since Monaco and his win, Dan had given her his race worn helmet for any new race design. She could name which race each of them was from, and in the middle was her Monza win one. McLaren had wanted it for the MTC but Dan refused to give it over, insisting it was his and he was keeping it. They got the trophy so he got the helmet. And then he put it in the middle of the IKEA shelves that they’d spent a weekend putting together and laughing.
Part of her - a large part if she was truly honest - wanted to donate them. Get rid of them for the clean break she insisted she needed. But she couldn’t. They were the good parts of the last four years, the best part of her life and the reminder that for years she got to love Daniel Ricciardo and travel the world with her best friends. Once she was settled somewhere she’d put them all back up to get her and explain to whoever asked that she was a part of Formula One for a short while, and it meant so much to her.
It took longer than she expected to get them wrapped carefully and boxed away. Two just about fit in one box, but they were light at least. When they were carefully labelled with the races, a tear falling from her eye when she wrote Monaco 2018 on a box in looping letters, she sat down to write notes to her boys. They deserved more than a resignation email and leaving without saying goodbye but if she saw them in person she wouldn’t walk away. She was barely strong enough to do that the first time. Em couldn’t do it again.
Dan’s took the longest. It started with anger. How could you make me love you when you didn’t love me back scrawled angrily, tears staining the lined pages as she wrote everything. But she couldn’t give it to him how she’d written it. She couldn’t deliberately hurt him. It wasn’t Dan’s fault that she’d fallen in love with a man who couldn’t love her back the way she wanted him to love her. It was her fifth draft, still tear stained, that was the one she was giving him.
Danny,
I’m sorry I didn’t say this in person but I couldn’t do it. We both know that things between us haven’t been working for a while. It’s nobody’s fault. I guess we just wanted different things. It happens to us all. But we’re both done and writing this is easier than another long conversation and another fight.
Go be happy. I’ll cheer you on from wherever I end up, no matter what. You’ve changed so many lives, mine included. Thank you for the amazing years and experiences. You let me do things that so few people ever get to do and I can’t thank you enough for that.
Emma
Michael and Blake’s were harder and easier. She only needed one attempt at them, trying to wipe the tears before they fell.
Blakey,
I’m sorry for leaving like this. I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch, but I made sure that everything logistically is booked until the summer break. Just get him where he needs to be on time, you were always better at that than me.
I love you. You’re my big brother and i wasn’t going to make you choose between me and Dan, that was never going to be fair. I’ll be happy and I want you to be happy too. Find a girl and settle down or bring her around the world. I’m rooting for you the entire time.
Will you make sure everyone in the paddock knows I love them? Tell Chloe and Scotty to get their wedding planned. Chloe will be the most beautiful bride and I’m so sorry I won’t get to see her in person. Scotty will look ok, I guess.
Thank you for everything.
Love,
Ems
PS - the extra key is for my storage unit. A1 Storage in Wimbledon. Figured you’d be a good person to have it.
She folded Blake’s letter into an envelope and labelled it before writing the last one. Somehow this was the hardest, having to ask Michael to do what she couldn’t.
Mike,
I’m sorry for leaving and I’m sorry for asking you to pass a message on but I know you will. I love you so much. You made lockdown bearable even when I was being a bitch, and you made me actually enjoy exercising you cruel man.
Tell everyone that I love them and I’m sorry? You let me know exactly what a family is and how I deserve to be loved and that’s something I can never thank you enough for. Ever. I can’t make people decide between me and Dan. He wins every time and that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s easier if I just leave.
Tell Grace and Joe I love them and I will forever be grateful for their love and support. Let Michelle know that she’s the best big sister ever. Please make sure that Isaac and Isabella know that I love them no matter what. It’s not their fault I left and I will always love them. Whoever gets to be their auntie is the luckiest person in the world and I wish it got to be me.
Tell all your family I love them, and ti voglio bene to Nadia and your Nana. I love you all so much, and I’m cheering you all on from wherever I end up.
Love,
Em
When the movers came she handed them the key to the storage unit, letting them know what to do. Everything was out of the apartment in a few moments and Em took a last look around her almost empty apartment. The memories were suffocating. Dan tripping over the coffee table, the London lockdown when they got back from Australia and they lied to Michael about what the yoga mat’s primary purpose was. The way Dan danced with her in the dark kitchen, distracting her from finding food for them in the fridge and getting them to sway in the silence. The kisses and living together like he loved her the same way she loved him.
He’d been blowing up her voicemail since Wednesday and she deleted them I listened to. The first “Emmy” hurt her too much, so she decided to practice self preservation for once. As soon as her voicemail said “you have an unlistened to voicemail from Dan” it was deleted. The same with Blake and Michael. She couldn’t do it.
Finally it was time to leave, and she carried Dan’s boxes one at a time into Blake’s apartment. The three were stacked one atop the other, the letters on top of them. Em stared at her thumb, at the moon ring that had been there since Dan bought it for her calling her his moon on dark nights. She couldn’t bear to take off the three necklace hanging on her chest, but this she had to leave behind. She wasn’t his moon, and he was too bright to be her sun.
She slipped it off and rubbed her finger against the warm gold, pushing a kiss to it before stepping back. The final thing she needed to do was leave the envelope with her medical power papers and will on Blake’s coffee table before she locked the front door and slipped his keys in his post box. It was done. She was gone.
The tube to Euston was quicker than expected and she joined the trek to the Liverpool train, settling into her seat a few minutes before they were due to pull out. Her phone lit up with a notification that the race was about to start, illuminating the photo from lockdown of her and Dan holding Isaac and Isabella. They looked like a family. Em unlocked her phone and pushed her thumb firmly down on the F1 app to delete it. A clean break.
The train pulled off exactly at two, her mind echoing Crofty’s “lights out and away we go”. Dan was in the car and racing and all she wanted was a good points finish for him. But she couldn’t check. She couldn’t let herself find out what he was doing.
Her tears fell harder as the train pulled into Milton Keynes, the memories of the last time she’d done this train journey as Dan’s plus one. His leaving Red Bull party, staying in a hotel with him the week before they flew to Perth for Christmas. It was the only time she’d gotten to visit the impressive Red Bull factory. Meeting Max properly, Christian cornering her with his wife - and keeping her cool around Geri fucking Halliwell - to ask if she could convince Dan to come back. Getting whisked away from Helmut quickly when he tried to speak to her, meeting the mechanics and team that she’d seen at several races properly for once. Yet another place she could never visit again because all she’d think about was Dan.
Em made herself stop crying shortly after, pushing a cold bottle of water to her eyes. She couldn’t be red eyed or puffy seeing her parents. It was bad enough returning with her tail between her legs. She didn’t know if she’d survive the I told you so.
*
When Dan got out of the car in Imola he knew what he had to do. His first stop was being weighed and getting his slip, Mike pushing one of those AG1 drinks into his hand to down to get electrolytes and water back into him. After that it was media rounds, apologising to Carlos, and doing media. Once the debrief was finished it was London. He needed to get to Emmy. For the second time he’d gotten on a plane when he should have been with her and he needed to apologise. Needed to make things right.
“The jet will be ready when we finish? I need to get back to London tonight.” Michael handed him a McLaren branded shirt and pair of skinny jeans to put on once he was out of the shower.
“It’ll be ready. Mate, you need to know that she might not want—“
“She’ll see me. It’s Em. She’s my Emmy. She’s going to see me and I’m going to tell her everything. I can’t do this without her. I can’t. I dunno how I did it before.”
“Ok. Go shower and head out.”
The debrief was painful. Lando on the fucking podium, Dan last. They wrote off his technical debrief after the collision. It was clear Dan couldn’t have done anything, and the rest of his race was nothing to write home about. He should have just retired. It was shit and he just had to listen to how Lando had a flawless race and was extracting the most out of the tractor McLaren had built. He had to wait until it was over, half listening and taking notes while stewing.
All he could think about was Emmy. He hadn’t reached out because he thought she needed space, wanted time. He’d had the fucking ring in his pocket in the hotel room and then they’d fought and he couldn’t exactly get on one knee and ask her to marry him after that. But now she was gone and she’d been gone for weeks and he didn’t know. He needed her to be ok. He needed to go home and see her on the couch and beg for her forgiveness because he was hers. His apartment was so fucking lonely, driving in and out of the factory without seeing her. Without going to sleep curled up beside her and waking up with the fairy lights glowing as she read whatever dog eared book she was rereading that month.
The voicemails were being listened to. Her inbox went from full to empty and he kept texting, determined to get through to her. Needing her to talk to him. To say anything at all. People kept asking where she was, he laughed it off and gave the excuse of family stuff. Natalie had nodded and said she hoped Em would be back soon. Chloe had looked at him oddly when she heard the excuse but he shrugged and moved on. The elder Stroll could be terrifying and he didn’t want to get on her bad side. Not even Scotty could save him from that.
There was nothing he could do but wait to be freed. The moment they were able to break - after Dan apologised to the mechanics for the job they’d have to do on the car - he was on his way to the driver room. Blake and Michael were already there with bags packed and ready to go.
It was a two hour flight to London and they landed at nine. After forcing their way through traffic in a black cab it was after nine thirty by the time they arrived at Blake and Em’s building. Dan stepped out of the car and grabbed his bags, heading straight upstairs to the two identical doors. He didn’t realise when it became more normal to stand in front of Em’s door than Blakes, but it had years before. He knocked twice to no response.
“Em? I’ve got my key, I’m coming in.”
The lock turned easily with the familiar key and Dan set his bags down to flick the light switch. What he saw terrified him.
The room was empty. The couch that killed his back, the coffee table his shins hated, gone. The bookshelves and the kitchen table they’d spent a lockdown day building, gone. Her helmet collection was missing. Em had once told him that if the building went on fire she would save whichever helmets she could. If they were gone, she was gone.
He ran to her bedroom but everything was missing. The fairy lights they’d taped up with double sided tape. Her bed. The throw cushions he laughed about. Even the case at the bottom of her wardrobe with the lingerie he’d bought her was gone. Her pink boots weren't there. It was like nobody had lived there for years. He couldn’t even smell her perfume in the air.
“Dan?” He hadn’t realised tears were streaming down his face when he turned to see his best mates standing in the doorway. “Mate, you need to see this.”
He followed them back to Blakes, pausing to lock Emmy’s front door. She had to come back. The idea that she wouldn’t come back was impossible.
Until he saw the boxes.
Three of them, neatly stacked almost up to Blake’s chest. There were three envelopes on them, and a glint of gold on top of one. He nearly ran to it, ignoring the post race soreness going through his body to see the ring he’d given her sitting on top of the one neatly labelled Daniel.
She’d used his first name. Emmy never used his first name unless something was wrong. He’d fucked up so badly that he didn’t want to open it.
Instead he held the ring firmly in his palm, the metal cold against his hand. She was there. She had been there and now she was gone and he didn’t know what to do. But instead he followed what Blake and Michael had done and opened his letter.
It was how impersonal it was that killed him. Em was done. She’d be fine. Thanking him for bringing her around the world and letting her work with him. She didn’t want another fight and she thought he was done with her.
She didn’t love him like he loved her and for a brief moment that made him want to die. The moments they’d shared, the times they’d said they loved each other. The times he’d held her and traced I love you down her back or against her clit when he was eating her out, desperate for her to know but too afraid to say it. The 'y’know, right?'. Everything from the last nearly four years. None of it had ever mattered because she wouldn’t have married him. He had her ring in his fucking ever present backpack and thank God he hadn’t tried to propose because she’d have said no and he’d have been humiliated.
“I guess you were right. Buying the ring was a mistake.”
His choked voice broke the silence, but it was Michael who got the next sentence in, cutting off Blake’s question about the ring.
“Mate, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“She doesn’t love me like I love her. I was wrong. I just got my heart broken so please, don’t rub it in right now?”
“Did you read any of what she wrote?”
“Yeah. She’s done. She thanked me for letting her travel with us. Like she didn’t earn her place. She signed it Emma. I was wrong, ok? I was wrong and I can’t take you rubbing it the fuck in when I think Im gonna break.”
“What happened? Because the two of you were fine in Bahrain, and then after Saudi she disappeared and skipped Perth, and she was barely in Melbourne. What happened with you?” Blake was the one who asked, Dan flopping on the couch beside him. He held out his much shorter letter for them to read.
“Things were weird when we got back after Christmas. Then we had covid and got through it. And Saudi fucking happened. With everything going on and keeping her safe I didn’t see her till after the race and she was already leaving. And in Melbourne we… We had a fight.” The memories of what he’d said were circling again, the anger between them, Em telling him to leave again. Him walking away.
“We thought that much. You didn’t even hug her goodbye.”
“She told me to leave!”
“In self preservation.” Michael’s voice was low and Dan was almost afraid of his best friend. “She said she didn’t want to make us choose between you and her, that she knew we’d pick you. So she left. I have to tell your fucking family she’s gone, by the way. She asked me to. So you’re going to tell me everything that’s happened between the two of you and we’re going to fix this. What the fuck did you do?”
He wanted to be annoyed that he was being blamed but he couldn’t blame the boys. So he let everything out.
He told them about wanting to kiss her in Blake’s that first night, of Monaco and their agreement that it was over once she left Monaco. Coffee and Silverstone and her birthday drinks. Spa and I love you when they were faced with the reality of what could happen with his job again. Em begging him to never leave her behind, that no matter what he wouldn’t leave her alone. Her dick of an ex who’d destroyed her self-esteem and meant she lost her friends. The meaning of 'Y’know, right?', the phrase that had been their mantra since 2019. That he hadn’t slept with anyone else since he’d met her because he just knew she was supposed to be his. That he’d bought the ring when they spent Christmas 2020 together but was just waiting for the right moment. And then in Saudi she’d been sobbing and he sent her away. He made Blake take her away from him. From them. He’d broken his fucking promise and again in Australia he walked away when he should have stayed in that room.
She’d picked the fight. She’d picked it so she’d be left alone and leave and the realisation of how well she fucking knew him hurt so much. She knew him like the palm of her hand and for a minute he forgot about it.
“Let me get this straight. You’ve known just how shit her family is for longer than any of us, and I’m the only one who’s actually met them. She asked for exactly one thing from you which was don’t leave her alone. And in Saudi, one of the countries she’s most scared of being away from us for any length of time, you made her go back to the hotel and stay there on her own. She begged you to stay and was sobbing and you left her to cry when she asked you to stay? I could fucking punch you right now.” He nodded at Michael’s words, shame filling every cell in his body.
“You made us leave her alone.” Blake spoke and Dan thought he was going to be sick. “In Melbourne. The morning of the race. 'Em’s going with my parents. She wants family time.' She didn’t know she was going with them, did she? Why?”
“She… I… No. We weren’t ok. I didn’t know if I could be in the car with her. Not after that night.”
“What happened?”
“I… Fuck. She kept the door between our rooms locked that whole week. But Saturday night it wasn’t locked. I had a habit of just trying it, just in case. It was open and I went in. I just lay down on the edge of the bed and watched her sleep for a while before falling asleep. I left before she woke up. She didn’t know, she was asleep the whole time.”
“You think our Ems was asleep for a full night before a fucking race? Are you an idiot? Did you get brain damage in that crash today? She doesn’t fucking sleep! You slept in the same bed as her for four fucking years and you don't know that? She’s into me for melatonin every damn night because she can’t sleep worrying about you. She was awake that entire night and you left her without saying a goddamn word and then you abandoned her again. Again, Dan. Don’t tell me you did something stupid and cheated on her like her fucking ex.”
“I never cheated. I haven’t touched another woman.” The thought made him sick. “I’m not that asshole. You know I’m not.”
“I don’t mean to be funny Dan. She lived beside me for nearly five years. She’s my friend. And now her apartment is for rent, your shit is here, and she’s told us all goodbye and to give messages to the people she loves. So you might not have cheated on her, but you broke her. It took us four years to help Em feel like herself again and put her pieces back together and you broke her.” Blake was opening another envelope mixed in with the post on his coffee table that Em had left in as he spoke, eyes widening slightly. Before he could get the words out Michael had to.
“You’re telling your family, by the way.” His voice was solid, a way Dan had never heard before. “She asked me to tell them but I can’t. I can’t break those kids hearts and tell them their auntie Emmy loves them forever but she can’t see them again. I can’t tell your sister that she’s lost a sister, and I can’t tell your parents that you ran off the woman they want you to marry. That the woman your mum teaches family recipes to had to leave, because you fucked up that much. You know she’s their second daughter, right? Even before whatever the fuck you’ve been doing started they adored her. From Monaco. Em’s lost the only decent mother she’s ever had because of you. She didn’t want to make us choose but if she was here right now I’d choose her over you any day.”
“If you think she doesn’t love you, read this.” Blake held out a package of papers, Dan skimming them.
Everyone in his line of work was familiar with leaving a will behind. The fucking academies basically demanded it at this point. He’d put Emmy on his own medical power of attorney form after Spa, told her what he was leaving her when she was ready for that conversation after Roman nearly died in Bahrain.
But Emma wasn't racing cars every weekend, so she didn't need the papers she signed. She didn't need to leave a will behind, but his name was there to make decisions for Em. She’d left him specific things. The cold fear snaked up his spine, tightening around his lungs and making it hard to breathe.
“She wouldn’t. She won’t do anything stupid. It’s Em, she wouldn’t.” The words came out as a rush but certain. She wouldn’t hurt herself. God, he couldn’t live with himself if she did.
“It’s probably just a precaution. But Jesus Christ, Dan. She’s gone. We have no idea where she is, we don’t even know what country she’s in. We don’t know what kind of head start she has and with the amount of frequent flier miles she has she could be anywhere. We can probably cross off here and Australia, but that doesn’t take away much.”
“I need to leave.” Dan turned to see Michael pick up his bag. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk. I’ll email you workout plans. She’s my fucking sister, Dan. She’s my little sister and I trusted you knew what you were doing with her. She said goodbye to me and I didn’t even know. You… I can’t look at you right now. I’m this close to quitting too because I don’t know you anymore. The Dan I grew up with? He would have said something. He wouldn’t make the woman he kept saying he was going to make his wife run away. He wouldn’t make her feel unloved. Just work out what you’re going to do. I’ll be on the plane to Miami but I don’t know if I’ll see you before then.” Dan watched as his oldest friend, the man he’d known since primary school, who’d supported him through thick and thin, walked out of the apartment into the London night.
“She’s gone. She’s really gone and she’s not coming back. I… I have to find her, Blake. I can’t do this without her.”
“You need to work out what you’re doing. You need to tell your family she’s gone. You need to do your job. We’re all hurting right now and yeah your heart is breaking. But its my job to do tough love and tell you that you need to work first and then think about her.” He stared at Blake in shock. “I’m pissed. But work first. Em somehow managed to take everything off my plate when she was leaving, because she didn’t want to make things hard on me. Go home, Dan. I have to call Chloe Stroll and tell her Em’s not coming back.”
“Not yet. Please. Let me f—“
“I’m telling her. You can hide it from the media, from your family, whatever. Chloe is Em’s best friend outside us. Do you really think she hasn’t tried calling Em already? Really?” Dan nodded once. “Go home. Your place, not the empty apartment next door you called home. Go home and get your shit together. Em would kill you if you fucked up a race over her.”
Dan got an Uber on his phone, taking his bags downstairs along with his letter from Em. He slipped the moon ring onto his little finger, settling it just above the sun. He needed her back. He just didn’t know how to find her.
#call it what you want fic#ciwyw writing#daniel ricciardo imagine#daniel ricciardo oneshot#f1 imagine#f1 oneshot#formula 1 imagine#formula 1 oneshot#formula one fanfic#formula one imagine#daniel ricciardo x ofc#daniel ricciardo x reader
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King of Tides | KSJ | Drabble
☾ Pairing: Pirate!Seokjin x Sea Demon!Reader
☾ Summary: Seokjin meets a ghost of his past when he and his crew stop to celebrate for the evening.
☾ Word Count: 1,969
☾ Genre: Pirate AU, Angst, Lovers to Enemies
☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.
☾ Warnings: References to smut, explicit language, weapons and mentions of murder, betrayal, vague world building, Seokjin is an Asshole, brief references to childhood trauma, angst.
☾ Published: Friday, January 5, 2024
☾ A/N: Drabble 2 of the 100 Drabble Challenge is prompt #67, pirates! I had no idea what I was doing with this until I wrote it. It is obviously inspired by Pirate of the Caribbean with the whole Davy Jone’s chest thing, but I very much put my own spin on it. The ring is inspired by Solomon’s Ring, which is a Christian-centric mythology that Solomon had a ring that could summon the forces of Hell. So I did that but like… sea hell hahaha. I hope you enjoy this! I’ts very different for me!
☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.
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Seokjin is used to the occasional knife in the dark. As one of the most notorious captains and thieves on the seven seas, he’s even been the knife in the dark himself.
When he feels the pressure of a blade against his spine tonight, he’s not surprised. His crew is too drunk to see the threat standing behind their captain, and Seokjin has made the ridiculous mistake of letting a pretty woman lure him to a dark table in the corner, away from the noise and celebrating.
Seokjin immediately feels like a fool for letting his guard down, the worst mistake he could ever make.
The pretty girl in front of him grins and looks at Seokjin’s assailant before nodding her head and slipping from the chair. He grits his teeth, realizing she is in on it. He clenches his fist as he starts to turn, but the knife digs into his ribs. A hard push would send it right between the two of them and into a lung. It would be a slow, gross death.
The raucous noise of the tavern buzzes in his ear as a hand taps his shoulder, signaling for him to stand. He does so slowly, looking around the tavern to see if there’s anyone he can appeal to for his plight.
No one pays him any mind, hands going up dresses or down pants, wine flowing, and crowd singing. His crew is too busy celebrating. And why shouldn’t they? They’ve just stopped at their favorite port after a successful three years of hunting a timeless piece of treasure. A power that puts Seokjin on edge.
The ring sits heavy in Seokjin’s pocket. Only Yoongi his firstmate and Namjoon his chronicler know of the power in Seokjin’s pocket, too dangerous to be left on the ship with the remainder of the treasure. He doesn’t enjoy hiding the ring from his crew, but he hasn’t quiet yet decided what to do with it. How to explain what it is that it does without scaring the loyal members of his crew.
Slowly, a hand turns Seokjin around and walks him toward the stairs, still at knifepoint. He grins as he goes, leaning his head to the side to see the person who holds him captive. The knife digs harder into his back, a warning that makes him chuckle and turn forward, holding his hands up in defeat.
“If you wanted to lure me to your bed, you just had to ask,” he says, going up the steps. His boots are heavy on the creaking wood as he goes. “I am the most handsome of pirates, but I’m also quite liberal with my affections.”
His captor says nothing as they reach the second landing. Doors line either side of the hall. Seokjin can detect all manner of lovemaking and laughter beyond each closed door. He does not typically favor staying upstairs or renting rooms for whores, preferring the rocking of the ship in the harbor and the canvas of the night sky. It makes him unfamiliar with the second floor, but he counts his steps as they go.
They turn and go down another hall and stop at the last door of the right. It’s not a far run to get to the stairs and sound the alarm. Once he disarms his captor, he just needs to sprint and scream. He’s pretty quick on his feet and-
The knife prods him and he realizes the door to the room is open. He steps over the threshold into the room, glancing around. It’s simple enough. A single bed stands in the corner with a chest at the foot, a nightstand to the left, and a candle burning, smoke drifting toward the ceiling.
When the door shuts behind him, Seokjin’s muscles coil. He prepares to spring, hand sliding into the front of his jacket pocket, inching towards the small knife there-
“Don’t bother,” the voice says, knife ever-present. Seokjin’s hand freezes, recognizing the rasp of your voice anywhere. “That’s not the right knife, Captain.”
You’re right. The knife in his jacket pocket would do nothing against you, but the knife in his boot would. He’d grown lazy, no longer keeping the adamas dagger at his hip or within close reach. Three years haven’t made him feel safe, exactly, but he had started to think that you were still captive in that little home he’d left you in.
Evidently, it’s a mistake that will cost him.
Now he’s nervous. You push him further into the room with your palm but remove the knife from his back. He doesn’t reach down to the weapon in his boot, stuck between fear and the desire to see you - to talk to you again.
When he turns, his heart cracks open and starts to bleed.
The last time Seokjin saw you is fresh in his memory. You’d been chained to the bed you shared in a small island home off the coast of the Americas. He remembers the smell of your skin, like salt and driftwood. The cool touch of your lips against his burning skin. You always felt like the depths of the ocean, every part of you fluid as you’d fucked him last night, your breath sea breeze against his mouth, cries a haunting siren song.
And your eyes. Seokjin sees the inhuman blue-green glow of your eyes every night.
Now, those same eyes are staring at him, glowing in the dark. You stand so far in the shadows that it’s hard to make out any of your features or expressions, but Seokjin has your face burned into every part of his memory. The bow of your mouth, the slope of your nose, the roundness of your cheeks. It’s all there along with the knowledge that he’d betrayed you. Chained you. Loved you.
When you step into the light, Seokjin holds his breath. You’re so beautiful. It’s what lured him to you in the first place, a sailor to a siren, but he knows you’re so much more than a pretty face and glowing eyes. You’re also incredibly smart and wicked, a ruthlessness in you as brutal as the sea running in your veins, an unpredictably like a storm destroying the tropics.
A pirate by trade. Daughter of Leviathan by nature.
“You must be talented to get out of those cuffs. We should have used them more” Seokjin doesn’t know what else to say. You’re not advancing further into the room, and he’s worried reaching for his knife will startle you.
Behind him, the candle casts an orange glow on your face. It makes the sneer much more twisted, the furrowed brows as you glower harsher. Your features are sharper than he remembers, your eyes burning with the unnatural glow of a demon of the deep. You are murderous.
“I’m the favorite daughter of Leviathan, King of the Depths, Destroyer of Seas, and Maker of Tides. You think he would leave me to rot?”
“No, I suppose he doesn’t want that pretty face to wilt.” He tries to appear casual, spinning and tossing himself on the bed. You don’t move, eyes tracking him. “I suppose you’ve been following me all this time, then?”
“I have far more important things to do.”
“Perhaps, but you’d always loved revenge.”
“I loved you.”
There. You said it.
Seokjin doesn’t say anything for a moment, shocked to silence. Usually, you like to spar with your words, dancing around what you want to say with quick barbs and turns of phrase. Tonight, you cut right to it, leaving all playfulness out of your voice.
It makes his heart squeeze painfully. In the years that you sailed together, he cannot recall a time that you’ve ever been so direct. Even when you loved him most. Even when you were at your most vulnerable.
Perhaps you are here to kill him after all.
“So you’re here to win me back over?” he tries, desperate to get on familiar ground. Desperate to goad you. To make you snap back, to throw an insult. “You’ll need more than a knife to do that.”
“Give me the ring.”
“What do you want with it?”
“The likes of you shouldn’t have the power to summon the demons of the depths.”
“What if I’m in peril and need to call you?”
“You had me!” You roar, the force of your voice shaking the room, the candle almost guttering, the window panes shaking. He hears the scream downstairs, the entire building rattle with the rage of the ocean in your voice.
Seokjin drops the act, sitting up and squeezing his fists to fight the nausea of guilt twisting his stomach. He can feel your rage fill up the room like a solid thing, a cold pressure pressing on his skin as the candle on the nightstand flickers.
“Humans are not made to command Leviathan and his children” you growl, stepping further into the room. Standing closer to the light, Seokjin realizes your eyes are watery. He sucks in a sharp breath. He’s never seen you cry. “You are weak and petty, your lives but a speck of sand in fathomless oceans. You are selfish and greedy and cruel.”
“Are demons not the same? Do you not fight amongst yourselves for power? Do you not cause chaos among the seas? Do you not hunger for power, lust, and riches?”
“Those things belong to us.”
Seokjin stands abruptly. “Now they belong to me!”
“Seokjin.”
“Now I will command the seas. I will have the power to rein in the monster of the depths when he wants to destroy innocent ships. When he wants to send storms against islands. When he wants to swallow the souls on the sea. He will bow to me, now.”
“This is madness.”
“This is fair.” He feels his heart rate speed up. Feels rage pumping through his system. Feels like the little boy clinging to a piece of driftwood as the sea destroys the ship he and his family were sailing on, feels the burn of saltwater in his lungs as the ocean drags him down, feels-
“You’d risk the world for a sense of vengeance for your lost childhood?” your voice is barely audible, a sea breeze. “The infamous Captain Seokjin of the Blue Moon, Scourge of the Seas, so afraid of losing control of the tide that he’d dare assert his dominance over it.”
“Captain Seokjin, King of Tides has a better ring to it.”
You glance at his pocket where you know the ring sits heavy. He can feel the power ebbing from the cool metal as thought it senses you in the room. Like calling to like. A tool to control Leviathan and all of his demonic children of the sea sensing one of those very creatures in front of him.
“The sea will bow to no one.”
A blade glints in your hand. Seokjin finally realizes why you refuse to jest. Why there are tears in your eyes. You’re not here to negotiate or to let him loose. He truly has fallen out of your favor, and you’re here to take what he used you to steal.
He slowly bends down, watching you all the while. You let him remove the knife from his boot, kind enough to offer him a fair fight. “The sea loved you, you know?”
He knows you’re not just talking about the oceans he sails. His throat constricts as he nods. “I love her.”
You appraise him once more, uncanny eyes flickering. If his admission that there is still warmth flickering for you has an effect, it doesn’t show.
“Your love means nothing. You betrayed her and now you will meet your death, King of Tides.”
He grips his knife firmly. The ring is heavy in his pocket. “I welcome the attempt.”
#seokjin fic#jin fic#kim seokjin fic#jin x you#seokjin x you#jin x reader#seokjin x reader#jin fanfic#jin angst#bts fic#bts x you#bts fanfic#100 drabble challenge#pirate jin
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⋆ ― ◜week of celebs◝ ― ⋆
DAY FOUR: christian bale x f!reader
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• summary: it is the third movie you and chris playing together in, and it is last time he can hide his love for you. | wc: 1.5k | tags&warnings: fluff, kissing, confessing, touching, gentle!bale, reader is kind of a brat, co-workers, friends to lovers, young-adult!bale, mentions of a little nsfw content, short. [also, so so sorry for waiting for the ‘week’ thing but I had three important tests to take and I had to study :/ but now, I have no test left so, I’m back and the other works will be on soon! Enjoy. ^^]
“Isn’t it amazing that we can work together once again?” You ask, not trying to get an answer but just pointing the fact you think of while waiting for the next scene to be filmed. Chris only nods, something isn’t right with him but you guess it is because he has a remarkable role in the movie, requiring great deal of attention and focus, and you know very well how he wants to show his best every time. You admire his hard-working. He is like a model for you – also, a dear friend.
Maybe you want to become more than a dear friend but you are afraid how he will react, so, you let it go, only focusing on the friendship you two have – a beautiful friendship; he loves making you happy, you like seeing him in peace thanks to your presence, support and fun kisses on the cheeks. You think whether it makes him feel awkward with these kisses even though he never complains. It is just a thing you both share like the sharing of food, memories, smiles, cries and even the bed –in the nights – and sometimes daylights too – when the air fills up with sadness, happiness, exciting – oh, you think inside, maybe we share a lot.
“Hey,” You hear his voice. Coming to your senses – back to reality, you wink a few times, looking up to see Bale kneeling to the front, his gazes on your face, wondering what make you daydream for a moment. “Are you okay?” He asks and you can see concern in his face expression, making you want to just grip his cheeks, caress them and saying how much you realize you love him, especially after the memories you share with him come to your mind. However, you can’t. So, with a sad smile on your face, you nod, not caring whether he can tell the truth behind your smile.
Putting a childish kiss on his nose, you say, “Better than okay!”
The moment he is about to ask another question, his personal assistant comes, saying that the screen is about to start to both of you. Nodding to her, you get up as Bale straightens his posture, hands on his pockets.
Hugging him from the arm, you giggle with excitement. Pulling him with you, you say, “I am so excited! In this scene, I will throw a glass to you.”
“I didn’t think you like violence.” He remarks, one of his hand positions on yours – a true gentleman who makes your heart go weak in a second.
“I am not,” Turning to him, to tease, you chuckle. “Well, if it is outside the bed.”
He stops in his track for a moment before coughing in fake, staring to walk again. As you look at his side profile – a perfect sight to see with his sharp jaw, freshly trimmed beard, short hair – you wait him to be shy like always because being such a brat, you like to make him shy and blushing but not today, apparently, not today. He smirks instead of showing any sight of shyness, telling you to be more sensible – he just smirks, turning to your face, making you look at another way to hide your heat rushing to your face. Kneeling, his hot breaths find your ear, whispering dangerously, “What a nasty girl!” He chuckles lowly – you are already weak on the knees. “Maybe you just need a good lesson to understand why you shouldn’t talk in public so openly like this.”
When the director calls for him from the other side of the room, he is about to touch your chin. Nodding to himself, he lets you go after saying, “Don’t worry, I will teach it properly this time.”
You feel like he is finally let his inner voice to take actions instead of his logical side. You chuckle, taking your place on the room, still feeling drunk, and avoiding gazes from Bale. He is sure something else today.
•
“Then, he was right behind me! Can you imagine?” One of my co-workers says with a chuckle, playing with her hair, and telling a story about the director. Chuckling, I nod to her.
After the end of today’s scenes, everybody agreed on taking a break time, having a little fun in one of actors’ house. So, here you are, standing beside the window, a drink on your hand, a black dress covers your body. It was a choice of your personal assistant after she found out that you liked Bale and he was going to attend as well. She said how you looked gorgeous in the dress, getting you all blushing, thinking how Bale would react.
This thought on your mind, you turn to other side of the room, trying to find where Bale is right now in a crowded place like this one is but when you are about to give up, you see him; he looks so humble and gentle with the black suit on him while entering the room. You look at him from head to toe, no shame behind your gazes but you don’t care, not when his gazes find yours, only focusing on you and making his way to you slowly. You nearly become breathless at the sight. Feeling brave enough to make an attempt like he is doing, you turn and say your co-worker goodbye, approaching to Bale faster than he does.
Finally, meeting in the middle, you say after an awkward long silence in which you look into his beautiful eyes and he does the same for you, “Hi.”
He chuckles in a low tone, “Hi,” He takes your hand in his, putting a kiss on the head of it. You would hate it when other men do it but when he does it – oh, how it feels so right and magical when he does it. “Gorgeous.”
Smiling widely, you roll your eyes, taking back your hand from his slowly only to put it on his shoulder, making him tense but you get it is a good sign since his smile grow bigger, closing the gap between your bodies further, causing you to forget what you would say for a moment. He smells so good – he looks so good – everything about him is near to perfection.
“Don’t look too much or you will fall hard for me.” You tease him, winking and when you take a sip from your drink, you feel his one hand find your waist, pulling you closer until his lips touching your ear, hot breaths hitting your neck. Heat rising inside of your body as well as outside and you only stare at his beautiful blue eyes.
“You should warm me sooner,” He smirks, not a playboy type of smirk – just, showing how he knows his effects on you now. “I already have fallen for you – hard.”
“Chris –“ You try to say, try to comprehend what he really means by that. “So, you say –“ You can’t find yourself powerful enough to say it aloud but Chris is there for you. He knows you better than you know yourself.
So, when he takes your hand on his, not caring about other people on the room, you follow him because you always will follow him no matter what.
Entering in an empty room, he reaches to his balcony, still holding your hand – tighter than before, giving you goosebumps. He turns around to see you clearly under the light of the moon and garden’s white lights.
“Yes, I say it.” He says, and you trying to make his words since your mind is overflowed by the sudden emotions he is causing.
“What?” You ask once more, wanting to hear it aloud – wanting him to admit it while using his words.
He chuckles once more – oh, he is surely happy right now and you are the same. Putting both of his on your waist, he pulls you to himself, making his chest hitting yours. “I love you,” He says and you believe you would fall into the ground if he didn’t hold you like this. He takes your hand, putting it on his chest where his heart remains. “I love you so deeply that I can no longer hide it.”
Taking deep breaths, you firstly understand his words – already having effects on you; chest rising and falling, hands getting sweaty and face has a stupid smile on – then, you close your eyes, and open them only to see that he is real. This make him smile, shaking his head. “I am real.”
“But, I need to do something to believe it, Chris.” You say.
His one eyebrow rises and you take action without waiting for him to speak; your lips find his, his taste flows into yours, a hand on his collar to pull him closer and other one enters into his short hair. He, on the other hand, nearly moans lowly into the kiss you share right now, hands on your waist getting tighter, hugging you strongly.
You know from this day everything will change between you – the relationship you have but you have no fear, not when he kisses you so deeply, passionately and holding you close. You wonder how he both is your weakness and strength. However, your mind can’t make any judgement since it only focuses on him – breaking the kiss for a moment before he adds, “I love you.” once again and you giggle.
“I love you too handsome.”
The end. 💌
#christian bale#bale#christian bale x reader#christian bale x f!reader#dc#dc comics#celebs#week#week of celebs#masterlist#batman#the dark knight#y/n#christian bale x y/n#written by me#vom#<3#rose
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Okay I’m going to say it because I’ve seen like 10 posts about this in the last week and it’s kind of aggravating.
Before you start practicing paganism or dual faith or anything of any kind PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE learn the meaning and history of Syncretism. PLEASE.
Please stop saying that Christmas is only a Christian holiday, please stop saying that Christmas was stollen from the pagans. Please stop insisting that Yule and Christmas are the same holiday! Please stop saying that pagans cannot celebrate Christmas or that Christians shouldn’t celebrate Christmas! Christmas is many things to many different groups of people and ideas and customs evolve through time!!! There is NUANCE to these very complex ideas!!! Christmas does not need to be reclaimed, please stop.
Please stop saying that it belongs or doesn’t belong to any given group especially when humanity is so prone to spread messages and customs amongst eachother!!! “Similar” does not equal “the same” and different does not equal “the enemy”. Please stop trying to create these illogical divisions where they do not exist!!! Please read about the history of faith !!!! I beg of you!!!!
So often we see the blending and unity of concepts as “appropriation” and I’m sick of it. Our beliefs connect us so much more than they divide us. We learn so much about the world from each other and our different interpretations.
Likewise, just to touch base- nearly every single mythology or faith in the entire world takes its inspirations from somewhere. You are no superior to a Christian because you think your faith and customs are “older”.
We live in a paradoxical universe where multiple things can be true at once. You DO NOT get the authority to tell a Christian that their God is XYZ just because you’re a pagan. You do not get the authority to redefine how a group of people sees and interacts with their personal name of God. And you by no means get to claim credit for how different cultures interpret the natural world.
Yes, Christians obviously have a lot of practices that mirror pagan ones, they are not pagan, do not call them pagan. I don’t care how you feel about the Abrahamic God. So many of us hold a deep resentment towards Christianity because of religious trauma and I completely understand that, but when you try to massively oversimplify such complex topics like religion and faith, you not only risk sounding like an asshole but you make yourself look straight up stupid because you’re just wrong.
I am a devotee of Lucifer and I believe him to be the divine masculine aspect of mother Venus. I still need to understand and respect that for Christians, Lucifer represents something entirely different and that’s okay. They’re not necessarily wrong even if I fundamentally disagree. I disagree with what Lucifer is among other Luciferians and Satanists. That’s OKAY.
We have GOT to stop talking about mythology and folklore so literally. It leads us to have this “one or the other” mentality when more than one thing can be true at once! These myths are flexible and meant to change with culture. We can have respectful debates and conversations but holy moly please stop insisting that Christianity has “stollen” from you, and please for the love of God please stop trying to ruin a day that is significant to them by telling every Christian you see that Christmas is actually a pagan holiday.
(- and when I say this I am not referring to the atrocities of assimilation and slavery that forced pagan cultures to become Christian/catholic due to racism and xenophobia, that’s obviously very bad. My argument is simply that the entire Christian/Jewish/ Muslim faith cannot be discounted simply because historically, bad people used it to do bad things).
Thank you. 🙏
#witchcraft#magick#occultism#witch community#demonology#pagan#paganism#witch aesthetic#witchblr#grimoire#paganblr#pagan witch#pagan blog#pagan community#pagans of tumblr#eclectic#luciferian witch#theistic luciferianism#polytheistic#deity witchcraft#deity work
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Sebastian Vettel x RBDesignEngingeer Reader.
Set in 2013 during the GP, Jennifer is fresh out of uni and has made a name for herself within the F1 world. She joins Redbull-Renault as one of their engineer designers and easily fits into the team, forming friendships easily. Most of all, she captures the attention of three time world champion, Sebastian Vettel.
Part 5- here’s the LINK to the previous part.
Jen is quickly becoming the most popular girl in Red Bull, and making quite the impression on the paddock. As months pass she’s a delight to work with and Sebastian feels like he’s losing his mind whenever he’s around her. He’s not so silent about his feelings towards her, and the two find themselves flirting at any given chance. Sebastian thinks she’s so important to him he wants to introduce her to a close friend of his…
Just a pre-warning the next chapter will include spice so be prepared 🌶️
This gif makes me want to cry, great xxx
Silverstone, England, June 30th 2013.
“Ah, well done, well done!” I clapped my hands together excitedly seeing Mark embrace his wife, Anne. Afterwards I gave him a quick hug, congratulating him for 2nd place and a spot on the podium. “Such an amazing drive, you should be so proud.” I nodded as the Australian’s grin was undeniable. I’d hoped for first place for Mark, but the myself and the team was overwhelmingly happy with second, especially after Seb’s gearbox failure.
“Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it.” He smiled as I offered him another before he went on to be congratulated by the rest of the team. Not too far away, I noticed Sebastian was finished talking with Christian nearby. His head was hung low and he looked a little awkward. I hated the feeling that churned in my lower stomach, I knew this could pose a threat to his potential championship win, but I was positive without the gearbox failure he would’ve won. I was also positive he would win the next race. It was always more frustrating when something completely out of the drivers control effected the race results.
I slipped over, sliding a hand on his shoulder. “Hi.” I gently smiled, his head perking up and a soft smile appeared. “Hey.”
“You alright?” I tilted my head up to look at him. “Yeah, just frustrated but- these things happen.” My hand slowly slid off his arm.
“I know, it’s so frustrating. You drove so good this whole race though.”
“That’s why it is even more frustrating.” He scratched the back of his neck as I winced, maybe I shouldn’t have rubbed that in. “I know.” I gently spoke as he tilted his head back up from the floor.
“These things happen.” He shook it off, “are you free, right now?”
“Pretty much.” I glanced around, “I don’t think anybody needs me for anything; I just wanted to get a head start on looking at this track at Nürburgring.” Seb’s smile widened.
“Come take a break you smarty pants.” He slapped my arm gently, his disappointment still faint on his voice. “I’ve got somebody I want you to meet.”
“Right now?” I knotted my hands together, toying with them nervously. “Yeah.” Sebastian smiled. “And I wanna get out of here before anybody else asks me about today.”
“Okay.” I agreed. “Yeah?” He smiled as I nodded, allowing him to lead me out of the garages. “Who are we meeting?” I then asked, skipping to keep up with his long paces.
“Somebody.” He was grinning ear to ear. Whoever it was must’ve been special. “Somebody? Is that all you’re gonna say, what is it the queen?”
“Michael Schumacher.” I stopped dead in my tracks. Eyes widening as an excitement bubbled in my chest. “No!”
“Yeah.” He laughed, “c’mon.”
“I can’t, Sebastian, I’m scared!” I felt my nerves seeping through me. Sebastian had turned around now, laughing out loud as he grabbed at my hands to pull me. “Why?” He giggled.
“Because I love Michael Schumacher, I’m nervous.” I planted a hand on my chest. “He’ll love you, come.” He began tugging on my hand as I stumbled forwards, my hands moving onto the back of his shoulders. “No, I’m worried!”
Sebastian turned around with a grin, “do I have to drag you?”
“Yeah.” I teased, not expecting him to fully lift me up over his shoulders. I gasped, grasping onto his shirt as he held the back of my legs, holding my dress down. “Sebastian! No!” I choked out, my hands gripping at anything I could possibly get a hold of. He was laughing mischievously, jogging out through the garage as I bobbed on his back.
“Seb, Seb, Seb! Sebastian!” I cried out, half in horror half in enjoyment as I felt like I was gonna go backwards over his shoulder.
“Oh, hallo, Sebastian.” An all too recognisable voice made my eyes widen in complete surprise. “Hallo!” Sebastian greeted, beginning to put me back down on my feet.
“Wer ist dein Freund?” (Who is your friend?).
I spun around, the blood rushing to my face as I pushed my hair back in surprise. Stood there was Michael Schumacher and his wife looking amused at the position I’d just been in. “Hello!” I practically giggled.
“Ah, this is Jenna.” Sebastian put a hand on my upper back, still laughing from my previous panic. “This is Michael and Corinna.” I greeted both of them politely.
“Girlfriend?” Michael grinned back to Sebastian as I spluttered nervously. “No, no, she’s the design engineer for us.”
“Ah, really?! I’ve heard of you before, I’m glad you’re here actually…” What ensued was a conversation about the Nurburgring track and it’s safety, I never thought I’d have such an in depth conversation with Michael Schumacher, I was pretty starstruck. He and his wife were so friendly, although they did like to keep referring to me as Sebastian’s ‘girlfriend’ which got me all red in the face.
“I’m glad you met him.” Sebastian spoke when we walked back to where he was supposed to be present at the F1 after party. His arm was slung over my shoulder as I smiled up to him in amazement. “Me too, I’m in shock.” I held my hand to my chest. Seb’s hand slowly crept onto my arm, rubbing at the exposed skin as I bit down onto my shoulder. His touch was warm and his hands were so big, big enough to engulf any part of my body.
“They liked you. I knew you’d get along with Michael anyway, you’re so clever you know everything that he finds so interesting.” He complimenting, playfully pulling me in front of him and squeezing at my shoulders. As he did, I let out a burst of laughter at the ticklish sensation, squeaking as he began laughing, pulling me closer into his front. Oh god, I was a flustered mess, it felt like we were a couple.
“What was that?!” He asked in amusement, grinning as he spoke, my hands holding onto his fingers. “I’m ticklish, don’t do that again.” I felt him squeeze once more as I tensed, giggling out until he pulled me flush against his chest, arm wrapped over my chest. My body was against his, every time he took a step forwards, his crotch would inch against my bum and I felt borderline perverted at the fact it was turning me on.
“I’m sorry.” He grinned, squeezing me gently as I held onto his arm. “You’re a wind up.” I slapped his skin lightly. “A what?” He glanced over my shoulder. “A wind up, you know, you torment me on purpose.” I explained, stumbling over my words slightly as he simply smirked in response, his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. His lips looked so plump and kissable, our faces were so close, I wanted to kiss him so bad. The months of the close friendship had only made me feelings and attraction grow deeper for him.
“Oh, here come the love birds!” Christian Horner’s voice exclaimed as I snapped my attention towards the red headed man, Seb’s arms sliding off me slowly as he left one hand resting just behind my shoulder.
“There you are! We’ve been searching for you!” He spoke to Sebastian. “Ah, sorry we were talking to Michael.”
“Talking to Michael, canoodling, whatever you were doing.” Christian teased as I tensed my jaw out of a slight shyness. Sebastian had to hurry on stage after that, offering me a pat on the back as I was left feeling uncomfortably frustrated when the cold rush of air replaced where his hands and body had been.
I was turned on by him. I couldn’t deny that, how cheeky he was, how cuddly and close he got to me. I felt my lower core ache and it felt like my mind was on fire, too occupied by the idea of his hands roaming further down my chest to focus on anything else…
#sebastian vettel x oc#sebastian vettel 2013#sebastian vettel fanfiction#sebastian vettel x reader#sebastian vettel x you#sebastian vettel#michael Schumacher
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so here's something I'm curious about: God's Not Dead. The films, not the statement itself.
I first saw the first film when I was younger and I hadn't yet embarked on my journey on examining just what i was taught and what I truly believed, but I remember finding the film a little uncomfortable.
I saw the second film and Ive never watched the third, and I think what I really don't like the first film is how it bashes other people's walks of life (Muslim father, three brands of athiests, and how it continues the myth that Christians in The United States are being Persecuted for their Faith Right Now.
Oh yeah and how the plots are really really dumb too, since the first film centers around a philosophy class with a professor that is skipping a very important part of most College degrees and the second takes place in a Bible Belt State with a high school teacher answering a students question comparing Marting Luther King Jr to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and being taken to court over it.
I was twelve or so when I saw that movie and I honestly was not convinced by the film That God's Not Dead (in terms of the actual arguments in the class scenes.
The specific Denomination that I grew up with (Adventist) focuses a LOT™ on the end times so I do know about the future persecution thing well but like, I don't think we're there yet.
Anyway if you don't know those movies, feel free to ignore this ask but I'm genuinely curious about your thoughts on them, wether positive or negative or neutral
Hi! I saw the first God’s Not Dead in theaters. Never re-watched it. Did not see the sequels.
The good thing about God’s Not Dead is that people worked hard to make something that might shine a counter-cultural light on the truth that the God of the Bible exists. Stories that try to point to truth are on the right track, baseline.
The bad thing about God’s Not Dead is that it took things that are real, and genuine, and true…and it made them feel fake. By telling the story with strange conclusions and weird-triumph moments.
The thesis of the movie, that God is not dead, is something that only non-Christians would need to be convinced of. But the movie is clearly made for Christians. So. Yeah, it’s uncomfortable.
But you shouldn’t find every experience that the movie tries to portray uncomfortable because they don’t happen. You should find it uncomfortable because they don’t happen in that cheesy, Hallmark-grade way.
When a student stands up to their professor and says, “no, I’m not going to go along with this, and this is super weird that you’re trying to draw this line about the specific Christian God,” guess what? The whole classroom doesn’t usually get up and agree with you. They normally barely react. So even though some professors do put their foot down and try to mock or “kill” God in the classroom, and some students do push back, no. It doesn’t normally happen in that victorious way.
Just like how some young Muslim converts to Christianity genuinely are treated poorly by their families, or their community, not just in America, but absolutely, certainly around the world. Absolutely, certainly. I literally can think of not one, but two examples I’ve recently heard of, directly, from people I know.
Like I said, the events and life-experiences that the first God’s Not Dead movie are based on do technically happen all the time in America, and the West, and the world in general. They just don’t normally come with crowd-agreement, impactful music, wise one-liners, and celebrity appearances. The worst thing that the God’s Not Dead movie does is show you hints of things that are real, and really happen in real life, but cheeseball way it shows you those things, and the caricatures it turns people into, makes the real thing look fake.
As far as “the myth that Christians are Persecuted Right Now in America” goes…you just have to decide what you mean by “persecuted.”
If you mean, are we getting our heads run over by cement mixers, or dragged out of our homes and imprisoned for studying or even owning a Bible, or kidnapped by hired hitmen once our families find out we’re Christians, like they are in Yemen or Africa or basically anywhere outside the West…no. No, we’re not facing persecution like that. We’re not persecuted.
But if you mean, in the context of this conversation, that “atheists and professors and people in the professional sector of our education systems don’t have a weirdly specific bone to pick with Christians,”then you’re wrong. They do. They have. For a long time.
My second semester in college, in my plain old World History class, the Professor legitimately opened his class by explaining to us students that if we wanted, he would allow us to replace our midterm and our final exams with book reports as long as we read two specific books he assigned us. One was a book about how Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah and the Bible was false. The other book was a fictional short novel with heavy themes criticizing specifically Christian religion. Those were the two books he picked for his students to skip taking the midterm and the final, if only they would read those two books. And those were the ones he chose.
Not only that, but literally in the first class, I remember being stunned when he flippantly opened his summary of the 18th century by saying, “If anyone ever tells you you should check out the God of the Bible, and follow him, laugh in their face. Don’t do it. He is the kind of God who likes to make His people promises and then strand them in the desert for forty years!” First class. Out the gate. Like it was a joke.
It’s not a joke. Dude just openly mocked two out of the three major world religions that people identify with across the globe. Explain to me how telling someone never to convert to a specific religion and to mock it instead is anything other than “discrimination?”
Can you imagine a Professor getting up in front of a class and saying, “if anyone ever tells you that you should check out Allah ] and follow him, convert to Islam, laugh in their face! And here’s one short novel and one historically inaccurate essay criticizing Allah and making fun of Islam; if you’ll read these, tell you what, I’ll let you skip the two most stressful exams of the semester!”
No, of course you can’t imagine that. A Professor who did that about any other religion, creed, or god would be fired or taken to court or penalized or dragged on social media, at least.
But the only student in the whole room who batted an eye when he said that about the Christian God was me. The only one who said anything was me. And it wasn’t a big stand up, dramatic declaration. Momentous music didn’t play in the background. My friends and classmates didn’t’] gasp or support me or stand up and agree with me.
It was just me raising my hand and saying in a shaky voice with a red face, after the sixth time he’d randomly deviated from talking about the Roman plumbing system to describe how the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles supposedly disagreed about who Jesus was (big lie, not true at all, but often used to “discredit” the Bible) to say, “sir, that’s not true. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a verse in the Bible where the Apostle Peter literally tells the church that the Apostle Paul’s words are directly from God.” And then he was like, “okay, I’m going to move on.”
I mean I just felt kind of stupid because the whole class was confused about the interaction; nobody was treating it like it was as important as me or the professor was, so it felt awkward to “make a stand.” But rest assured, all over the freakin’ country, people are excited to use up way too much of their brain power and emotional energy mocking, disparaging, and trying to discredit the God of the Bible and Christianity. They don’t believe in Him, but they’re so he’ll-bent on making sure nobody else does either?? Like, I don’t believe in Big Foot, but I’m not walking around trying to barter my students into reading anti-Big Foot books by giving them a pass on their midterms. But that’s how lots and lots of “athiests” treat the specific Christian God.
That’s not new. It’s not dramatic. It’s not persecution. It’s alllll part of the same old song and dance.
But it is real. The worst thing about God’s Not Dead is it made it feel fake and caricature, when it happens all the time and matters 🤷♀️ Anyway. Hope that answered your question.
#God’s not dead#cheesy Christian movies#cheesy#movies#Christianity#me#sorry about the personal anecdote#critical thinking
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I am fully on Israel and the Jews side during this war; but omg some of the hardcore Jewish leftists. I want to say I feel frustrated but I actually feel so bad for them. I saw a post where a christian girl was expression how stupid and evil she found Christians being antisemitic, and the post got full of people saying stuff like “but christianity is inherently antisemitic! It’s built into the very fabric ! It and you are always going to be antisemitic!” Like saying that on a post where someone is literally condemning hatred in their own community is ????? The whole “I have decided you are a bigot and can never stop being a bigot” talking point has always been one of my least favorites. And the posts I’ve seen where leftists Jews are expressing how terrible it is that Jews are now being seen as white, and they acknowledge that it’s being used to excuse any and all hatred towards them, and how they need to get people to realize they are a middle easter group. Which yes, you guys aren’t white, you are middle easterners; but shouldn’t this be making some of ya’ll question the whole notion on the left that white=bad and that’s it’s not okay to categorize different people in that way? It’s just sad to see so many of them going through the utter betrayal they have but are still clinging to the super left way of thinking and just seem totally lost. And I’m not even saying to go right; but to at least acknowledge that maybe the whole black and white “white straight Christian American=Bad Everyone Else=good” rhetoric was always going to go bad for anyone who peddled it? It happened to Asians too in recent years. And I’m absolutely not trying to say this is a Jewish thing, just a far leftist thing, because I can remember all the Jews (and Asians, and Latinos, etc,) who were really trying to sound the alarm that once they lost their place on the oppression hierarchy, a lot of these far leftists treat the minority groups they used to champion even worse than how they treat white people. I don’t know. I just feel sick to my stomach seeing all these people feel so heartbroken and betrayed by what they considered their close friends and community. I just wish this didn’t have to happen to them this way.
It really is sad watching it happen. It should be a lesson to them of the dangers of playing so hard into identity politics. It's an inherently bad way of approaching situations and they approach every situation that way. Wars are a little more complex than this skin color = good and that skin color = bad but they've let their brains get so damaged by that way of thinking over the years that they're really going to have to put in the work to change and I just don't see that happening.
It's such a shame.
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