Going to try and start posting these more regularly - I call them "Pinball Pairings" — like a fine wine paired with a chef-prepared meal, an Arcade title you know and love with its thematic counterpart. The first entry in the Pinball Pairings series:
Afterburner II - Sega / 1987
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F-14 Tomcat - Williams / 1987
The movie Top Gun was released in theaters in 1986. Coincidence? A little bit of trivia - the first game where "Come here!!" - the famous Mortal Kombat / Scorpion quote can be heard is actually the F-14 Tomcat pinball table - also created by the one and only Steve Ritchie!
Love to hear any feedback / comments / requests. Hope you like my MAME cab + Virtual Pin setup
Chapter 1: Too Slow
Chapter 2: Proper Introductions
Chapter 3: Your Move
Chapter 4: Bruises are the Best Teachers
Chapter 5: Up Close and Personal
Chapter 6: Back to Back . . .
Chapter 7: . . . Against the World
Chapter 8: Say You'll Be There
Chapter 9: Danger Close
Chapter 10: Firing Range
Chapter 11: Proximity Alert
Chapter 12: Let You Down
Chapter 13: Better This Way
Chapter 14: Afterburn
Chapter 15: Thank God, You're Finally Home
Chapter 16: Quiet Moments
Chapter 17: A Losing Game
Chapter 18: Razor's Edge
Chapter 19: Moment's Silence (NSFW)
Act 2
Chapter 20: Choices and Consequences
Chapter 21: Interrogation
Chapter 22: Voices Carry
Chapter 23: Compartmentalization
Chapter 24: Dehumanizing
Chapter 25: Only You (NSFW)
Chapter 26: Idle Fantasies
Chapter 27: Show Them What You Can Do
Chapter 28: Bloody Lessons
Chapter 29: Pack Mentality
Chapter 30: Old Hurts Healing
Chapter 31: Hell of a Vacation
Chapter 32: Don't Breathe . . .
Chapter 33: . . . Don't Break
Chapter 34: Two Steps Back
Act 3
Chapter 35: Weakest Links
Chapter 36: Don't Let Go
Chapter 37: Hard Truths
Chapter 38: Covert Operations
Chapter 39: Black-Out Names
Chapter 40: Letters From Home
Chapter 41: For the Fallen
More chapters to come! Like, a lot more!
Incorrect Quotes (for the memes)
1 2 3 4 5
And if you want to read the Krauser spin-off series:
Pairing: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Chapters: 2/?
Rating: M
Wordcount: 21649
When Katniss sneaks through my bedroom window, I tell her to leave it open—not because I want people to hear us, but because it’s uncommonly hot for October. And I think she wants people to hear us. I know the glint in her eye; it tells me she has something to prove, and I’d never stand in her way. After all, this isn’t about me. It’s about her mother, about the new curfew that’s meant to keep her out of my bed. Thus far, it’s been unsuccessful.
Naked and washed in the golden afternoon hue, she looks unreal. Like something I can’t have. But I’ve always had a taste for forbidden things.
Our House of Flames - A Joel Miller x afab!Reader mini-series
Find my main masterlist here.
Rating: 18+ (warnings in each part)
Series summary: You've survived the end of the world for a decade with your closest friend by your side throughout it all. But when the unthinkable happens and you end up alone, surviving feels like the last thing you want to do. You’ve chosen to give up when Joel Miller - a survivor burdened with his own troubled past - finds you and decides to show you mercy by taking you in. As you come closer together you find a place to forget your own misery, but will Joel let you have that from him?
NASA 836 is a highly modified F-15B. It’s used for crew training, pilot proficiency and safety chase support for other research aircraft. It’s based at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.
The jet first entered service in 1974 with the USAF. NASA acquired it in 1993 from the Hawaii Air National Guard. NASA then modified it to support their test programs. They made it 1,000 pounds lighter than any other F-15 flying in the world, and installed new modern engines. The age of the jet, combined with its lighter weight and more powerful Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-220 turbofan engines, makes 836 the oldest and fastest flying F-15 in the world. The engines can produce almost 24,000 pounds of thrust each in full afterburner. The crew regularly take the jet past Mach 2, at altitudes of 40,000 to 60,000 feet.
This version "had been envisaged as the definitive production version of the SeaDart. It had a single waterski, an area-ruled fuselage, plus a single afterburning Pratt and Whitney J-75 turbojet of 15,000 pounds of thrust."
@stcverogers tagged one of my fics in a rec list yesterday and i thought it was such a good idea, i wanted to share some of my own favs
in no particular order:
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hangman
one time thing // kiss the sun (fight the fire) // love that’s a real long shot
He nods again like that’s exactly what he expected you to say. “I think you’re wrong. Doesn’t matter now though, does it?”
i would rec anything by @callsignvalley but this is probably the series that got me most. i also love tailspin and its rooster follow up steady
california coast in your green eyes // i’ll carry my bags just until i can hold you again (2 different series)
Bob’s older sister gets the news that his plane went down during a training drill, and shows up at the hospital at the same time as an arrogant pilot. // Six months after they break up, Jake shows up at Julie’s Family thanksgiving. A second chance holiday romance with fake dating, family drama, and fall festivities.
@theharddeck these fics, esp carry my bags, feel so so real and human to me, i love julie and the characterisation of jake feels so on point
i also love her series out of the clear, blue sky as well as kinda might, sorta like, love you a little bit + its follow ups
i’ve been holdin’ out so long (4 part series)
You can’t stand Hangman, but your dreams lately say otherwise. He notices.
@steadfastconviction i adore Bluegrass and her sass
do not engage (series)
You hate Hangman. Really, you do... Or so you like to think, until it begins to seem like that distaste might not be as strong as you’d prefer to believe.
@clints-lucky-arrow the entire f&f universe is great but Duchess especially is a badass
afterburn (series)
It had been clear from the moment you got inside a cockpit that you were going to be something special. You certainly weren’t the youngest Naval Aviator to be invited to TOPGUN, but you had been the youngest to graduate at number one in more than thirty years. Which is all the more reason why it was so tragic that you would never, ever, be able to fly again.
@top-hhun is a master of setting a scene
the off-season (series)
It was supposed to just be one summer. But somehow you found yourself living in your grandparent’s Maine vacation house indefinitely. It was quiet when the summer tourists left, but tolerable. That was, until your brother’s friend from college needed a place to crash and he somehow wound up staying in your guest bedroom. Also indefinitely.
@ereardon just started this series but i’m so into this world (au) already
fuck (the universe) (series)
You’re a Kazansky–Tom “Iceman” Kazinsky’s youngest daughter–and you’ve taken after your father and become a Naval aviator. You finished at the top of your class at Top Gun and have worked diligently and fruitlessly to get to where you are now: North Island. You don the call-sign Wisteria not only because the beauty of the flower but because of its lethal qualities.
i mention @roosterbruiser below bc i read landslide first but holy fuck indeed
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rooster
landslide (series)
It’s been almost three years since the accident that took half of her, and Faye “Clover” Ledger seems fine, really. She loves her old house, she has a perpetually expanding vinyl collection, she’s got a job she likes on base, and she is only a short drive from the beach. She’s grounded--literally.
@roosterbruiser landslide is one of those fics i have to read in little bits because it’s just too good. beautiful writing that just transports me (and i love faye, she may be the most developed fanfic oc i’ve ever read - and I love her taste in music)
baby let’s play house // pt 2
you got yourself in trouble. bradley has a bit of a savior complex. together, you come up with what could potentially be the worst idea in the longstanding and illustrious history of bad ideas.
@seasonsbloom i just really love this fic, it shows all the quietest best parts of bradley
first impressions
at the induction day for the newest recruits of the Golden Warriors of VFA 87, rooster assumes you’re a civilian, instead of, you know, a member of his team? you see how far you can push it before he figures it out.
@ohcaptains‘s pilot in this fic is the badass bitch i wish i could be. as well as fucking funny.
like i can (series)
After yet another bad date and tired of swiping on apps, the Dagger Squad steps in to help you out by setting you up on a series of blind dates. Much to Rooster’s dismay.
@sometimesanalice perfect blend of cute, funny and heartmelting
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bob
he’s so pretty (when he goes down on me) // pt 2
things between you and Bob are strictly business: he’s your backseater, and that’s all there is.
@seasonsbloom‘s writing is so good it made me want to try writing fic myself
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hangman x rooster
we’re fools to make war
In a Walmart at three am, between beef jerky and tortilla chips, with the lights flickering above them like it’s the fucking twilight zone, Bradley wants him more than he’s ever wanted anyone.
or: it's a hundred degrees in texas.
i can’t find a tumblr link for this but the writer is @baroness-elsa. this is 66k words and i read it in two days which probably says enough. holy shit.
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there are many many more (this fandom is FULL of talented writers, damn) but this already took me an hour so that’ll be part 2 haha