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coconutcordiale · 1 year

Note

“If I could stop loving you, I would.” With any of the pilots

love that's a real long shot

pairing- hangman x pilot!reader (callsign violet)

synopsis- you and jake keep running into each other over the years and jake just can’t seem to let you go

warnings- fwb! happy ending!!! angst! 18+ for slight smuttiness (if you read my normal stuff this is extremely tame comparatively - just want to manage expectations 😉) light enemies to it’s just sex to pining to lovers. naval inaccuracies but it's my pretend world y'all just live in it, sad jake's pov but he's pretty he'll be fine

length- 7.7k

an- companion piece to this 0.6k drabble one time thing but that is not required reading - pretty much all of ott is revisited in this fic

i really, really don’t know how I feel about this one but i've been tinkering and agonizing over it forever and i have to be done so LOL here ya go

credit for the cs violet goes to my soulmate @justfandomwritings thank you for loving angst as much as i do, thank you for being brilliant

title courtesy of it ain't over - the black keys

tagging those that were upset with me for the ending of one time thing - @unstablecaffeinatedmind / @ahopelessromanticwritersworld / @gigisimsonmars / @flashyourgreeneyesatme / @forever-sleepy-sloth / @gingerbreadandpaper / @lovingjakeseresin

also - @mandylove1000 ily

Virginia Beach, 2019

Jake’s glad the packed bar gives him enough cover to stay hidden when he overhears Bradshaw asking his new roommate if she’s interested in him.

He bites back a huff of annoyance, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He talked to her for all of five seconds before mustache boy strutted up to make it very clear his friend was off-limits, was barely even flirting with her. Charming smiles are basically a reflex of his at this point.

“That man has never given a girl an orgasm.”

Jake rolls his eyes but keeps his mouth shut. It’s categorically untrue, but who cares what Bradshaw’s roommate thinks?

Your back is to him too, but he hears you hum in agreement, stifling a laugh. Jake’s hackles suddenly raise, and he briefly wonders why it irritates him so much that you seem to agree with that statement.

Rooster chokes on his beer. “Excuse me?”

She shrugs, fidgeting with her drink. “You were asking if I was into your friend – Hangman, was it? That should be enough of an answer.”

“I don’t really want to think about Seresin’s like in bed.”

“You’re breaking my heart, little bird,” Jake drawls from behind Rooster, figuring he should let you guys know of his presence before you get any further. “And here I thought we had something special.”

You roll your eyes before pushing your stool back. “Well, that’s my cue to leave.”

Jake immediately wonders what the appropriate amount of time is before he can excuse himself too.

“If you wanted to know what I’m like behind closed doors, you could’ve just asked, darlin’,” Jake murmurs from behind you, having found the corner of the bar you disappeared to. “I’d be happy to give you a lesson. I’m very hands-on.”

“Hard pass, Hangman.”

He smiles lazily, turning the charm up to full wattage and leaning on the bar next to you. Not close enough to make you uncomfortable, but enough to make you avert your eyes from his bicep and shift a little in your seat.

“I have a pretty good idea already.”

His smirk goes a little sharp around the edges, a predator locking in his prey. “That so? And what idea might that be?”

You raise an eyebrow. The derision you manage to convey in one unimpressed glance goes straight to his cock.

His eyes flash, fingers clenching around his beer, but he makes sure the infamous smirk stays put. “Think you’ve got me figured out?”

You shrug. “Guys that look like you are rarely anything more than a disappointment in bed.”

He smiles at that, leaning towards playful instead of goading, wondering if you’ve realized what you just admitted. “I think you’re pretty too, sweetheart.”

“You’re intelligent enough to know what you look like. It’d be stupid to pretend otherwise.”

He rolls his beer between his palms, gaze far away and calculating.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?” He asks, feigned innocence taking over as he brings his eyes back to you.

“Stop thinking about how you’re gonna get me to sleep with you.”

The problem for you is, Jake sees the way you look at him. And it’s nothing like the polite boredom he’s witnessed you grace guys with when they truly don’t have a chance with you.

“Tell me one thing, Violet,” he says, your callsign rolling off his tongue like honey. “Why is it that you’re so nice to everyone else, but so mean to me?”

“Maybe I just don’t like you that much,” you answer, but the barbs in your words are undermined by the way your eyes dart to his chest. He wants to pat himself on the back for going home to change out of his flight suit and into a threadbare grey t-shirt before coming out tonight.

Jake purses his lips, nodding like he’s seriously considering your words, leaning in, and lowering his voice. “Or maybe, you like me a little more than you’d care to admit.”

You shoot him a dirty look for invading your space. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”

Your thighs press together, almost imperceptibly. If he wasn’t completely attuned to you, he probably would’ve missed it.

Bingo.

“Tell me to fuck off and I will,” Jake rumbles, mouth ghosting over your ear now, too close to be played off as a joke. “Or let me prove you wrong.”

When you lift your eyes to meet his, refusing to shy away from him towering over you in your seat, there’s something dark, something glazed taking them over.

“A one-time thing and I’ll never bring it up again,” Jake promises. “I have new orders for Lemoore anyways; I leave in two days.”

“Fuck,” you whisper. “Take me home before I change my mind, Seresin.”

You’ve been gripping his hair for what seems like hours, thighs still shaking where they’re bracketed around Jake’s head.

“What was it – I’ve never given a girl an orgasm?” He asks smugly. “I must be some kind of prodigy, then.”

“Don’t ruin my afterglow,” you manage, voice hoarse. You’re still far too coherent for his liking, and Jake ducks his head back down, savoring the broken moan that rips from your throat.

He doesn’t stop until the only word you can form is his name.

North Island, 2020

“Look who showed up,” Jake calls from across the Hard Deck, eyes running down your body. He shifts, adjusting himself as subtly as he can. “If it ain’t Violet.”

As generic as your uniform is, all he can picture now is the body he knows lies beneath it.

“Hangman,” you say, not quite able to hide the smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

“Glad to see we have a runner-up for the TOPGUN trophy.”

You look almost, dare he say, fond? “Your ego hasn’t dimmed a bit, has it Hang?”

Jake gives you another obvious once-over, smirking to balance out the warmth he can’t keep out of his voice. “Good to see you, sweetheart.”

Jake’s skin has been buzzing all night, high off his win, drunk off being within inches of you outside the Hard Deck after thirteen weeks of having you just out of arm’s reach.

“Congratulations,” you say, and you don’t even seem that sore about it. Your eyes linger on where his shirt has slowly been coming unbuttoned as the night wears on when you add, “Can’t believe you beat me for first place.”

“An inevitability, darlin’.” Jake leans in, pleased to see your mouth part in his proximity. “Don’t tell anyone, but I might’ve worried you were gonna give me a run for my money for a second there.”

You scoff, but don’t move away, if anything you sway closer. His fingers twitch at his sides, fighting to pull you against him, aching to run his hands up your bare legs and under your flimsy sundress, to see if you’re as wet as the heat in your eyes suggests.

You turn to face the ocean, which just pushes your hips in closer to him and makes Jake’s mouth water. “Obviously. You barely won.”

He winks, knowing you’re keeping tabs on him from your periphery even as you pretend to study the crashing waves in front of you. “That’ll be our secret. Care to congratulate me in private?”

“Thought you said that was a one-time thing, Seresin.” There’s a teasing lilt to your voice and in that moment, Jake knows he’s won for the second time today.

“Shut up and meet me at my truck.”

You smirk, turning on your heel without another word.

Jake doesn’t take his time with you this time. Only immense self restraint and the threat of being slapped with a public indecency charge keeps him from bending you over in the parking lot of the Hard Deck.

It doesn’t help that you seem less than willing to wait too, running delicate fingers along the inseam of his jeans, letting your skirt ride higher and higher as you shift in the passenger seat, giggling as he swerves when he catches a glimpse of red lace between your thighs.

By the time you reach his house you’re practically dragging him up the stairs by his belt loops, looking like you’re heading for the bedroom before he pushes you back up against the front door and takes you right there.

The second round you only make it as far as the couch, but he at least manages to get your clothes all the way off.

When you finally end up in his bed you’re both still panting and spent, Jake curling around you even though he’s tacky with sweat.

“I’ll be in Lemoore, now that I’m done with TOPGUN,” you whisper when you’re forming coherent sentences again, so quiet he can hardly hear you over the wind whipping against his bedroom window. “I think it’s short term, but we’ll see.”

Something warm lights up in Jake that he doesn’t want to examine very closely. “Good, everyone there is shit at pool. I’m in need of some actual competition.”

You smile against his skin and he drops a kiss to the top of your head, wondering if you can feel his heart speeding up.

Lemoore, 2021

You’re tracing mindless shapes across Jake’s chest, playing with his chest hair when you rip the rug out from underneath him.

“Got my new orders.”

It’s always amused him how fond you are of his chest hair, so it takes a few seconds for your words to sink in. When he does, his entire body flashes hot, then cold. He hopes you don’t notice the rigidity suddenly running through him. “When do you leave?”

Your face is blank, frustratingly neutral. “Tomorrow.”

Jake takes as deep of a breath as he can manage without being noticeable. Which given your proximity to his chest, is not very. He wants to be mad you didn’t tell him sooner, but the rational part of his brain reminds him he has no right to be.

“Where to?” He asks after a few beats of silence when he’s pretty sure it’ll come out even.

“Fallon.”

The scoff he lets out is genuine, at least. “Gross.”

Your indifference breaks as you giggle against his skin at his derision and he forgets that this is the last time he’ll get to have you like this. For now, at least.

“Are you spending the night?”

Jake doesn’t know why you ask anymore, in the last year he’s said no to sleeping in your bed zero times. He's turned down the opportunity to save you from sleazy guys hitting on you in dive bars even less than that - which is to say he does it without being asked and without even checking if you want his help anymore. Tact really is his middle name.

But like always, you ask and like always, he fights to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He’s fortunate to have decades of practice of keeping his tone level under his belt. “If you want me to.”

“I do,” you whisper, face still tucked into him, but he manages to see your lips purse, looking like you want to say more.

You don’t, though, and Jake hides his smile in your hair rather than commenting.

“Good. Wanna wake you up with my mouth on you,” he murmurs, trailing said mouth against your soft skin. He wills himself to say something else, to tell you he’ll miss you, that he doesn’t want whatever this is to end.

But his tongue stays stuck, arms tightening as his body says what his lips can’t.

North Island, 2022

Jake’s fists are clenched by his side, nails digging into his palms, pinpricks of pain the only thing keeping him from seeing red.

“I’m sorry?” You look confused. Scarlet edges into the corners of his vision. “That I didn’t tell you they sent me back to TOPGUN too? I haven’t seen you in almost a year, Jake.”

“Don’t act like we haven’t talked since then.” Jake doesn’t want to know what his face looks like, his normally careful façade shattered in favor of quiet outrage. “I think you know you were supposed to mention it.”

You had talked. Mostly sporadic, surface-level texts. Memes of an exasperated Chris Pine on his press tour he knew you would get a kick out of. In return, he received a graph detailing Leonardo DiCaprio’s age versus his girlfriends’, noting a clear age limit. You kept your jokes about him being a future Leo to a minimum, at least.

And on one memorable occasion, you called him drunk, and he got to talk to you for an hour after you snarkily admitted to missing him.

Neither of you mentioned it the next day.

You deflate. “Maybe. I don’t know what you want from me. We were always playing by your rules here.”

Jake’s mouth forms a tight line. “Right. My rules.”

Some bullshit he said, before Lemoore, way back in Oceana. Before you’d slept together, before TOPGUN, before he’d gotten to know the real you, before you’d gotten under his skin.

“Let’s just get through this mission, it’ll be easier if we’re not fighting. You do enough goading with Rooster.”

Jake’s so caught up in his own head that he doesn’t even bother to protest about Rooster. He’s grinding his teeth, jaw clenched so the rest of his body can remain still. He knows, on some level, that he’s probably overreacting. But he mentioned this return to TOPGUN to you last week and he can’t help but feel like he’s playing catch up when suddenly you’re here too.

If there’s one thing Hangman doesn’t allow, it’s being left behind.

He doesn’t know why this is on the laundry list of things you refuse to talk about. That’s probably the most frustrating of it all. You’ve always been the puzzle he can’t quite figure out.

“We’ll stay out of each other’s way,” he finds himself saying, mask slipping back into place. “Focus on the mission.”

“Yeah, focus on the mission,” you echo, and Jake wonders if it feels hollow to you too.

Your head is on Jake’s chest again, bare legs tangled with his and the tension is finally bleeding from his body.

“Don’t like fighting with you,” you mumble, muffled by his arms wrapped around you.

“Ended well,” he jokes, magnanimously gesturing to your naked state just barely covered by the thin sheet. “Gave us a vigor we haven’t had in a while.”

He feels your cheeks grow warm where they’re pressed against his skin, clearly thinking back to the adrenaline laden, ‘thank God we’re alive sex’ that lead to the casualty of at least one lamp.

Jake silently thanks Maverick for being such a hot mess that the Navy is unlikely to worry about a few broken items in his bunk.

He smirks at your embarrassment, as if falling into bed together is anything new. It’s the post-orgasm glow, he knows it is, but Jake feels the truth bubbling to the surface. Wouldn’t it be so easy not to let this end?

“Yeah.” You sigh, not meeting his eyes. “I don’t know. All the arguing, then making up so we can fool around. It’s time for us to grow up, don’t you think?”

Jake lets the words die on the tip of his tongue.

“Probably,” he manages.

He kisses you deeply, saying what his lips won’t. He doesn’t mean for it to turn heated; he just can’t bear to let you go yet.

Making love is the only way to describe what comes next. You’ve been at this for a long time, going on three years, and you’ve fucked; hard and fast and fiery. You’ve slept together; gentle and languid and easy.

It’s never felt quite like this.

When he slides into you for what he knows will be the last time, he tries to memorize every line of your face, every gasp from your parted lips, every flutter of your lashes. It’ll be months before he forgets the soft, unguarded shine of your eyes, the way your fingers feel tangled on the nape of his neck.

It feels like goodbye.

North Island, 2023

Your name is out of Jake’s mouth before he can stop himself, longing bowling over his reasoning abilities. Every urge to text you that he stomped out over the last year shows itself as a waste since any sense of self-preservation goes out the window once he lays his eyes on you.

It doesn’t hurt any less to see you without warning in Coronado, but at least this time he holds onto the reigns tightly enough to keep his tone level.

Your voice is happy when you turn towards him, and Jake tries not to outwardly react. “Hangman, hi.”

He wants to rush over, grab onto you, and never let go. Wants to tuck his nose into your hair, smell warm citrus, and have that niggle in the back of his brain soothed.

He waves as you stride towards him instead, boots cemented to the floor. “Back in California already?”

You chuckle, the adorable, lyrical sound raising goosebumps on his arms beneath his flight suit. “Thank God. Fallon’s a shithole.”

Jake’s mouth is open to respond when he clocks someone with curly dark hair behind you, moving forward decisively to your side.

“Babe,” the guy says, and Jake’s spine stiffens, noting the inch or two he has over this mystery guy out of reflex. “Hope you weren’t waiting long.”

There’s a split second where your expression shutters, where Jake thinks the fight or flight thrumming through him might not be necessary.

But as quickly as it shows up it’s gone, and he finds himself hoping the boom of jets taking off covers up the sound of his chest cracking open.

“Brandon, this is Hangman. We were in the same class at TOPGUN.”

Jake’s mouth is dry, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth as he internally winces at the obvious reduction of your history.

“Riot,” Brandon says, sticking his hand out to shake. Jake tries not to crush the bones in his fingers.

Riot and Violet, he thinks sarcastically. How cute.

“You’re with the Eightballers.” Jake glances at his patches, making sure to keep his tone neutral.

Helicopters. He wants to roll his eyes.

Riot nods and you grin, letting it light up your whole face. “His friends can’t believe he ended up with a jet bro. Can you imagine the shit I have to endure, hanging out with these helo knuckleheads?”

You're unmistakably fond, and Jake feels bile rising in his throat. Mercifully, he’s saved from having to answer by a group of pilots trying to get your attention.

“It was good to see you." Your smile softens as you turn to leave, the sun shining around your head, painting you in gold.

He nods. “I’m sure I’ll see you guys around.”

Jake doesn’t sprint to get away from you, he’s too calculated for that, but it’s a near thing. If his strides are just a touch longer than normal, no one has to know.

North Island, 2024

“It’s nice, what you guys have,” Jake's mouth is saying outside the Hard Deck, celebrating your fucking engagement, of all things. The words taste like acid on his tongue.

“Don’t tell me, eternal bachelor, Jake Seresin is thinking about settling down. The women of California will be knocking down your front door.”

Jake wants to laugh, that that’s still what you think of him. But knowing it’ll just come out thick and wet, he keeps the noises to himself. He hasn’t done much in the last year to combat that reputation – Coronado’s smaller than he’d like and you’ve never seen him with the same girl twice because he hasn’t been with the same girl twice.

What’s that they say about old habits?

He takes another sip of his beer instead. “No.”

The teasing is still lighting up your features, barely visible in the moonlight. “Just an introspective mood then, huh? Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Thinking about what it might’ve been like.”

“What?”

“To be with you.”

You blink.

“You never gave me a shot,” Jake continues. He can’t help himself. “You were always convinced I wouldn’t pull the trigger.”

“I don’t think you would have.”

“I think you’re wrong. Doesn’t matter now though, does it?”

Jake tries to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. He can’t help but reach out for you, squeezing your wrist one last time, studiously avoiding looking at the diamond on your other hand. “I’m happy for you, sweetheart.”

It’s only partially a lie.

Jake wishes he could say the noise wakes him up, but he’s already busy staring at his ceiling fan and its endless circles when he hears the pounding on his front door.

He knows it’ll be you before he finishes rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes.

“What the hell is your problem?”

Jake scrubs his hand over his chin, nose scrunching. “Sweetheart, it’s the middle of the night.”

You glower at him in response.

Whether it’s for the term of endearment or the fact that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut in the face of your blinding diamond ring or some combination of the two, he doesn’t know. What he does know is that you have every right to be mad at him, after spilling secrets he’s held close to his chest for years.

He sighs, wishing he could say the timing was an accident, but he can’t lie to himself quite that well. “Come inside at least, so the neighbors don’t call the cops.”

Apparently, your earlier question was rhetorical because the moment the door is closed, you’re rambling, talking at him, really. After a couple of minutes of watching you spew a bunch of nonsense to skirt around the issue at hand, with no end in sight, Jake sighs again and moves into the kitchen to pour himself a drink.

The wooden chair creaks as he settles his weight into it, sliding a glass over to you wordlessly. He’s not even sure you’ll notice it’s there, but you pick it up and gesticulate wildly with it before taking a sip. He’s somewhat impressed you don’t spill a drop.

You haven’t sat down, can’t seem to stop moving and Jake wishes he had a toothpick.

“We were so chaotic, Jake. We wouldn’t have worked.”

You finally look at him, taking a deep breath. Jake wonders about your lung capacity since you clearly haven’t breathed since barging into his off-base housing.

“I’m not arguing.”

You’re pacing back and forth, frustration bleeding from every pore. “What do you want me to say?”

Despite everything, Jake manages a smirk at that, albeit dimmer than normal. “I haven’t said anything for, like, ten entire minutes.”

The scowl he gets for that little comment is unbearably cute. He tries to ignore the tightening in his chest, stay in reality. “Is that what you stormed over to my house in the middle of the night to tell me, that we shouldn’t be together?”

You visibly deflate. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

There’s an inkling in the back of Jake’s brain that says he does, but he tells it to shut up.

You do not have a history of sticking around when it comes to verbal confrontation, and he’s painstakingly aware that one misstep could have you sprinting out the door.

It was something that worked well with you two, at the beginning, when everything was easy and fun. Blowing off steam with the competition, neither of you had ever been any good at talking so you figured why bother?

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Why now? Don’t you think your timing sucks a little bit?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s a lie.

He knows. As much as he’d like to tell himself he was overwhelmed, seeing the ring on your finger, watching everyone congratulate you and your fiancé, deep down he knows that’s not true.

Like everything he does, it was deliberate. There was something telling him this was his last chance. Is his last chance.

“If I could stop loving you, I would.”

You drop down into the chair across from him, stalling as your brain clearly restarts.

“Loving, present tense?”

There’s a weariness to your voice that he doesn’t like one bit, which makes his heart drop into his stomach as he’s reminded of the risk in telling you this. A calculated risk, but still a risk. One where he’s already bet big, his chips all in, but the river is flipping over, and his gut tells him before he sees it that it’s not the card he needs.

He takes a sip of his Balcones, hoping the burn scorches the rampage building beneath his ribs.

You purse your lips, waiting for a response.

Jake shrugs, but he’s aware it doesn’t have the effect he’s going for when the tension refuses to bleed from his shoulders.

You look like you’ve forgotten how to breathe and will pass out any minute now. Jake debates the merits of passing out to get out of the hell that is this confession.

He avoids your eyes instead. Coward, his brain screams at him, willing him to look up at meet your gaze. “I’ve tried to stop.”

Hangman makes strategic withdrawals. When someone can’t be needled into responding, he pulls back. This is different. He’s never backed down from confrontation out of fear and he hates it, like he’s just discovered his skin doesn’t quite fit him.

Your mouth opens and closes several times without a noise leaving and it frustrates him to no end. When he grits his teeth, he doesn’t know if it’s to hold back the pleading and desperation or frustration at having flayed himself open only to receive silence. “Say something.”

“I’m shipping out,” you tell him as if that’s any sort of answer. “On Monday.”

Jake blinks. That's only three days from now, he wants to say. Opens his mouth and closes it, once, twice. Doesn’t bother with a third time. It won't change anything.

Maybe that is his answer. Let this go, this hope he’s carried onto multiple aircraft carriers, through several states, across endless miles of sky.

This is you telling him to let you go. To start over.

Hawaii, 2025

Some things have changed in 2025. Jake’s ability to control his mouth at the sight of you is not one of them.

“Where’s our helo hero?”

He feels pretty good about that one. As hard as it is to see you, as much as his entire being aches to touch you, he’s going to be normal with you and your fiancé. He owes you that at least.

Unfortunately, for him or for you – he doesn’t know who suffers more at this point – normal includes the patented Hangman barbs he just can’t seem to let go of.

“Seresin,” Phoenix whispers harshly.

Jake immediately thinks he’s missing a puzzle piece, that he’s flying blind, making a drop decision without a laser. Unwilling to admit anything he does what he always does; he rolls his shoulders back and smirks.

You shift from on your feet, clearly uncomfortable. “He’s not coming.”

He can’t resist the jab, but it feels sticky in his mouth. “Aw, come on, the rest of us managed to sync up our leaves, but helos are just too important?”

Phoenix pinches the bridge of her nose, scowling at him, murder in her eyes. “Hangman, shut up.”

He tries to pretend that look doesn’t send chills down his spine, but he’s man enough to admit that Natasha Trace could put the fear of God into just about anyone.

You cough, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. “Uh, we broke up.”

Jake looks around, sure the world is suddenly tilting the wrong way on its axis. Fortunately, the rest of the group seems to be trickling in, so you and Phoenix don’t detect his crisis.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs quietly while Phoenix is distracted by Bradshaw strutting towards them. “I didn’t know.”

You give him a tight-lipped smile, a mask so familiar he feels like he’s staring into a mirror. Jake’s seen this cover before, it’s fight or flight. In the next few seconds, you’ll either be pretending he doesn’t exist, or you’ll be cutting through his armor with a few well-placed, very specific remarks.

You angle away from him, surveying Fanboy and Payback to your left. “All good, Hang.”

Guess it's flight.

Several bars and a few too many shots later, Coyote elbows Jake in the side. “What’s up with you tonight?”

“Just bored of beating y’all in darts,” Jake insists with a cocky grin he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. He just hopes no one notices.

Luckily for him, the only person that always sees straight through his bullshit smirks is you. And you’re at the bar, waiting patiently for the bartender, politely making conversation with some cheesy tourist.

A guy in an atrocious Hawaiian shirt (that he probably bought yesterday at the nearest ABC store, his internal monologue snidely adds) is clearly hitting on you and Jake forgot what it’s like to watch this. Because it’s been years since you were single, he forgot how it feels with sharks circling in the water around you, seeing you make small talk with strangers who have no reason to stop because you’re so goddamn kind and there’s no boyfriend for you to mention that will abruptly end their interest.

There’s a chance you actually want to talk to this chump, but Jake promptly tells that line of thought to kick rocks.

He kind of wants to throw himself into the ocean and drift away from this stupid vacation he should’ve never agreed to. Mrs. Lee will be fine watering his plants if he never comes back, right?

Because once upon a time, in a shitty bar in Lemoore, he’d save you so you wouldn’t have to turn anyone down and he’d tease you, that no one that’s seen you in the air, so quick and decisive and cunning, would ever believe you’d need a knight in shining armor to keep the creeps at bay. You’d tell him to shut up before dragging him out of there by his belt.

He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the memory. As it stands, the ocean is probably his best bet.

“Pool?” You ask when you return with a fresh mojito, sans cheesy Hawaiian shirt, and everyone rolls their eyes.

“Miss the Hard Deck already, Vi?” Fanboy teases.

Even though the ice between you hasn’t completely thawed yet, Jake ignores him in favor of getting up, making his way toward the table in silent agreement. He figures it’ll give him something to do besides staring at the side of your head.

If his mid-game trash talk is a little pointed, a little too on the nose; well, that’ll stay between the two of you.

Jake tenses as he hears the back door of the bar swing open behind him, footsteps heavy and likely belonging to a number of people he doesn’t want to explain his sour mood to right now.

“Surprised you and Vi aren’t still going at it at the pool table, thought it was about to be a rematch of TOPGUN in there,” Rooster says.

“Couldn’t beat me then, can’t beat me now." He chuckles out of reflex more than anything, but it feels hollow and forced. "Sometimes I just like to rile her up, get her out of that shell she always wears on the ground.”

Rooster hums in agreement. “Better than the last time I saw you two together. You barely looked at each other then.”

During the Maverick mission, Jake hears lingering in the silence in the humid Hawaii air.

“Sure,” the blond says, willing to agree to anything that stops this train in its tracks.

“There a story there?” Rooster asks slowly, careful as ever.

“No,” he answers, but it’s rote, automatic. Even Bradshaw isn’t dense enough to miss the friction between you two, Jake knows that.

Rooster raises an eyebrow and Jake pointedly ignores him in favor of pulling a toothpick out of his pocket.

“How’s your girl, Bradshaw? Are you guys ever going to stop living in sin and tie the knot?”

He doesn’t comment on the abrupt change of subject, shrugging. “We’re happy. She’s pretty focused on her career right now. But when she’s ready.”

“I guess when you start fucking your roommate it’s nothing but sin from there on out, anyways, huh?”

The other man grins. “Jealous?’

Jake can’t help the way the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, an admission in its own right. Just not for what Rooster's implying. “Maybe.”

“Planning on coming after my girlfriend? Gotta tell you, Hangman, back in Virginia she was never very impressed by you.”

“She’s not my type. Any girl that’s into that atrocious caterpillar above your lip clearly has impaired vision.”

The other man brushes aside the dig easily. “That’s right. You only had eyes for Vi back then.”

Jake fights a full-body cringe, blaming the fact that he just walked straight into Rooster’s trap on the shots he took with Javy earlier. “What do you know? You hated me in Oceana.”

“Who says I don’t hate you now?”

“Touché.”

Rooster sighs, long-suffering like he can’t believe he’s the one that got saddled with the job of making sure Jake isn’t gonna lose it and ruin their vacation. “Seresin, you’re not the only one who notices things.”

Jake doesn’t need to dignify that with an answer. He’ll turn in his wings the day Rooster is more observant than him.

“Seems like forever ago, now, but I always thought she had a thing for you too.”

“I don’t know where you got that from, she was always arguing with me.”

Rooster waves it off. “Pulling your pigtails. Sound familiar?” He shoots him a knowing look that Jake pretends he doesn’t see, which unfortunately just gives mustache boy the idea he should continue.

“Yeah, sure,” Jake agrees, not without an air of sarcasm. Rooster may be right but it’s not like he’s going to genuinely admit that.

“D’you ever play Sudoku? My mom always loved it.”

Jake tries not to get whiplash, schooling his face into something neutral. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of Bradshaw’s childhood, but enough to know the other man’s putting a lot of faith in him by bringing his mom up at all.

“Did she?” he echoes, for lack of anything better to say.

Rooster nods, eyes far away, unfocused. “The thing about Sudoku is, you have to think about where you’re placing the numbers, so they don’t interfere with numbers in other boxes and lines.”

Jake barely bites back the word obviously, accompanied by a roll of his eyes.

“When we started dating, things weren’t always easy. We went from zero to sixty at the beginning, already living together.”

“But your mom loved sudoku,” Jake says, albeit dryly. “So, you knew to look at the puzzle as a whole.”

Rooster knocks their shoulders together in agreement, now you’re getting it.

“We had to slow down, take a look at what we were doing, where we were going, talk so that we didn’t fuck it up before it could even start.”

The blonde sighs. Leave it to Rooster to use some convoluted metaphor for Jake to parse out when his brain already feels like it’s been muddled alongside the mint in your mojitos.

“M’not the guy you should go to for relationship advice, normally.”

Jake snorts. “No shit.”

Rooster shoots him a bit of side-eye for that but nonetheless barrels on. “But I’ve known you and Vi a long time. For the better part of a decade.”

And isn’t that a thought, that Bradshaw of all people would be the one to know you and Jake better than anyone else?

“Is this your long-winded way of saying Vi and I need to slow down?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. Just gotta figure out the key. Whatever that looks like for you guys.”

Jake turns it over in his head a few times, pushing down his every instinct to blow this off, to make a joke that breaks the intensity that’s thicker than the Hawaii humidity.

“Patience,” he mutters, because of course it would be that for Bradshaw. “Trusting you’ll get there when you get there, not letting the pressure get to you guys.”

“Hm?”

“That’s your key.”

“Yeah,” Rooster nods, before taking a pull of his drink. “But maybe our puzzles are different.”

Jake scrunches his nose, so unused to metaphors and convoluted thinking. His head is still a jumbled mess, unpacking everything he’s learned in the last twelve hours.

“Sometimes you have to drop down and take the shot. Don’t pretend like that’s not in your wheelhouse, Seresin. You’ve always held back with her. Too scared she’s the only one that can keep up with you, maybe. That she's the only one you won’t shake off your tail.”

Rooster is frighteningly insightful tonight. Jake resolves to switch to whatever he’s drinking the moment he goes back inside.

“What would you have me do?” He asks, maybe a little more abrupt than Rooster deserves.

“Basic, normal, human communication would be a start.”

Jake flips him off.

“Not letting her go again, would be the next.”

It only takes Jake one Dark ‘n’ Stormy (of course, Rooster's drinking something that Jake feels like an idiot ordering) to build up the courage to follow you outside.

“You called it off.”

It’s not what he planned to say when he saw you sneaking out the back door of the bar. He was going to let you bring it up, maybe goad you into telling him what happened.

But he’s starting to realize his puzzle is less of a Sudoku and more of a jigsaw. He doesn’t know all the steps to complete the goal and won’t know until he’s in the middle of it. Each step comes up when it needs to, and he’ll have to figure it out then.

At least, he thinks that’s the point Bradshaw was trying to make. You two have to talk about something real, at some point, but patience hasn’t gotten him anywhere with you in the last six years.

You nod, staring into the distance, eyes focused on the water ahead.

“When?”

“Right before I deployed.”

Jake balks. He’s not sure what he expected your answer to be, but it wasn’t that. “And you didn’t think that was something you should tell me?”

You look down at your hands. Jake suddenly feels like an idiot, for not thinking anything of your bare ring finger. He should’ve known. He just assumed you’d become one of the many pilots that’s allergic to wedding rings.

“I wasn’t—I didn’t know what to say.”

There’s something working its way into the edges of his earshot, a timer dinging, the buzz of the right answer chiming. He laughs but there’s no humor in it. It’s only because otherwise, he’ll scream, as the puzzle pieces finally fit together.

“That was almost a year ago,” he mutters because he’s a glutton for punishment.

You continue staring at the water, still refusing to meet his gaze.

And he remembers, you’ve never been good at saying the hard things. As fierce as you are in the air, you temper your words on the ground, too wary to cut someone to the bone.

Shrinking violet, he thinks, wondering who was even well-read enough in your first squadron to know that reference.

He takes your silence for the answer that it is, nodding curtly and squeezing your wrist before turning to go back inside, a mirror of the last time his chest felt like candy glass, just waiting for the director to start the next take so it could have its turn to be shattered.

You finally turn to him, eyes glassy with tears. “Jake, I…”

He can’t wait for you to finish, doesn’t want to hear an excuse. Patience has never been his strong suit.

Jake shakes his head, biting his cheek to keep the tears at bay. You’ve never seen him cry and he’ll die before he lets that change on the back patio of this kitschy tiki bar. “Message received, Vi.”

Fucking Rooster. This is why he put this off for so long. It’s excruciating.

“No, Jake—that’s not what I—”

“Loud and clear, Violet.”

“I didn’t know if you’d feel the same way once I was single,” you say suddenly, and it stops him in his tracks. “You seem to forget you never said anything until I was supposed to marry someone else.”

“Then why?”

“Why what?”

Jake wants to pull his hair out. “Why did you call off the fucking wedding? Because it sure as shit wasn’t for me or you would’ve mentioned it sometime in the last ten months.”

“I was with him for two years, Jake. That doesn’t just go away. I didn’t want to tell you before I knew where my own head was at.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Silence.

He turns to leave again, knowing the panic is showing itself in his shaky hands and uneven voice. Desperately, he wishes he had a toothpick or a beer label, something to tear at so his expression could remain carefully blank, tone collected.

When you finally speak again, your voice is thick and heavy with emotion, muffled by unshed tears. “Because.”

Jake raises an eyebrow, not bothering to figure out what expression is playing itself out on his face.

You clear your throat. You play with the hem of your dress. You look anywhere except his eyes.

Fight or flight, he says silently. What’s it gonna be, Vi?

He hopes to God it’s fight.

“Because you don’t marry someone when you’re in love with someone else.”

It takes a few seconds for the meaning of your words to register. He feels like he’s underwater, slow and sluggish, when he finally asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Takes more than love to make a relationship work, Jake.”

It’s funny, how you choose the words Jake has repeated to himself in his weaker moments. When he wondered if loving you was enough, if it could overcome that you two are so much more similar than anyone would guess. You might have a reputation for mincing your words, but he’s the only one that takes that for what it is – a mask. He’s spent enough time underneath one to recognize it when he sees it. It’s your way of keeping people at bay, staying in control, not letting anyone climb those walls you’ve spent so long carefully building.

Someone would have to take their hands off the controls, even for a second. Neither of you knows what it’s like to rely on someone else. To not take the lead. To let someone else have your back.

“You have to be able to give me a chance sometime,” he counters, as gently as he can manage. “Let go of the reigns enough to let me try. Trust me to take the shot.”

“I’ve never been very good at that, especially with you,” you say, nodding and Jake’s chest is getting lighter by the second, that you've thought about this. “But I also knew it was going to take me time, to work through ending things with him. I couldn’t ask you to wait.”

“I did anyways.”

You raise your eyes to him at that. “You did?”

“I told you if I could stop loving you, I would have already.”

You exhale shakily, fingers twitching like you want to touch him, but just falling short in the air between you. “I didn’t – By now I thought you would’ve – fuck, Jake. I didn’t think you meant that. Thought you just needed time to get over me.”

He wants to laugh, feels it twitching at the corners of his mouth. “In less than a year? Have you met you?”

You grin at that, rich and bright and open like he hasn’t seen in far too long, and there’s something loosening in your defensive posture. “A lot of people would say ten months is a long time.”

Jake feels fuzzy, from his chest to his fingers as he reaches to pull you into him. You fold back against him, and he ducks his face into your hair, nudging around to get his lips on your jaw, letting his words get muffled by your skin. “Ten months is a blip on the radar.”

He feels you melt into him and finds the courage to lay the rest of it on the line.

“Doesn’t matter anyways because it hasn’t been ten months. It’s been six years. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”

“Sorry, I’m so slow. Hard to keep up with the infamous Hangman. I hear he flies like his ass depends on it.” The teasing is back in your tone, and it spreads warmth all over him.

You reach up to where his forearm rests on your collarbones, where he can’t bear to loosen his hold on you, his fingers twisting in the strap of your tank top.

The entire line of your back is touching him, his nose tucked into the crook of your neck smelling citrus and vanilla and home, but it’s still not enough, as far as Jake is concerned. Too many years spent apart, too many moments with you just out of reach have him itching for more.

“It’s okay,” he breathes against your neck. “As long as we get here in the end.”

“I trust you,” you whisper. “You know that right?”

He nods, fighting a shiver as your hand drifts across from his elbow to his hand. You run your thumb across his pulse point, fingers encircling his wrist. You squeeze, and he feels your promise.

This time he gets to start over with you.

"because you don't marry someone when you're in love with someone else" was stolen from michael westen in burn notice, episode 2.15 sins of omission (fantastic show!) although i changed the wording a little bit

thanks for reading!

813 notes · View notes

gamerwoo · 8 months

Text

[skz] In Between: Felix and...

characters: felix x gn reader (if there are any she/her pronouns that i missed while editing i'm so sorry it's an accident)

genre/warnings: idol!felix, streamer!reader, fluff, humor, established relationship, the whole fic is set up like an interview video, reader is bigger than felix, reader's online alias is saturn and is sometimes referred to as such, it's mentioned that reader is older than jeongin, one mention of a fic about a threesome but nothing explicit happens

word count: 3,800

summary: welcome to the couple's interview called 'in between:' where your favorite couples answer some questions to show a little background and insight to their relationships. today, we're exploring in between: saturn and felix!

a/n: i've done this kind of format for a fic before and i've always wanted to revisit that bc it was a lot of fun and sooo much easier imo so here we are!!! also don't ask me why the header is so low quality it saved normal i swear i think tumblr fucked it up 😔

[a short preview of the video plays where _____ is staring deadpan into the camera.]

_____: I behave. Gotta keep it cool with JYPapi.

[felix stares at _____ without expression. they don’t look back at him. they just continue to stare at the camera without any expression. a screen saying ‘technical difficulties’ pops up before the video cuts to the beginning of the interview. _____ and felix are sitting on stools beside each other.]

_____: Hi, I’m _____, or you might know me online as Saturn.

Felix: And I’m Felix from Stray Kids.

_____: And today, we’ve been invited to Gamerwoo to do a fun little interview all about our lil’ romance [they start drumming their fingers together like some sort of villain].

Felix: [laughing] This is In Between: Felix and Saturn.

[the intro card plays, and in the background, felix can be heard still laughing with _____ loudly asking, 'what?!'. then it changes to the question card before going back to the couple.]

[what was your first date?]

Felix: Is it, like…real date? Like, in person?

_____: Yeah, we went on Minecraft dates and even an Overwatch date once.

Felix: We don’t talk about the Overwatch date.

_____: You’re just mad that I picked Roadhog.

[felix slowly turns to look at _____. they continue to just stare back at him. a card that says ‘technical difficulties’ pops up before the video jumps back to the couple.]

Felix: Our first date was shortly after the first stream we did together, I think.

_____: [nodding] Yeah, it was. Because we were supposed to meet not too long after that stream, and then a couple days later you were like, ‘do you wanna go grab street food and I can show you around?’ and I was like, ‘haha okay!’ and then you ended up holding my hand and I stopped functioning.

Felix: [laughing loudly] No, ‘cause I could literally hear your brain trying to work! I just held their hand and they suddenly just stopped eating their ice cream, their face went blank, and even their walking kinda stopped so I stopped to look at them and they were so flustered.

_____: I wasn’t expecting it! I genuinely had no idea you liked me romantically so I was just like, ‘oh, we’re hanging out and he’s being nice,’ and then it was actually more than that and I was like– [_____ just stops and stares intensely wide-eyed].

[how did you meet and what were your first impressions?]

_____: So I stream online and I mostly play video games, and Felix really likes video games, too. And I knew that already because I’m a Stay and I was a Stay before I met him, and I would talk about them and Seventeen and New Jeans and stuff on my streams a lot.

Felix: And I just found _____ one day when I was looking through streams trying to find something to put on in the background, and I just really liked their stuff and kept watching. They were really funny and just fun to listen to, and they’re good at games, which is a bonus. It was fun to watch and _____ started to become one of my most watched streamers.

_____: But then this **********er–

[felix starts laughing loudly.]

_____: –starts telling Stays on one of his lives that he’s been really into my streams lately. And then suddenly my chat is going off, and ****’s being sent to me on Twitter and Discord, and I’m like, ‘what’s happening? Did somebody die?’ and then I died.

Felix: But then from there, y’know, we kinda reached out to one another – I think… [he looks at _____] Actually, I DM’d you, right?

_____: I tweeted something at you saying, like–

[the tweet in question comes up on the screen, reading: hi mr jyp, if i could ever play some games with felix on stream, that would be super cool :) thank u <;3]

_____: ‘hey, would love to play with felix sometime’ and I tagged Stray Kids or something, and then you reached out on Instagram and said you’d love to play a game sometime so we figured it out and ended up streaming the first time we played together, and I was absolutely terrified and panicked for the first 15 minutes of stream until we got into a call.

Felix: You were so shy, too. [he smiles brightly and chuckles]

_____: I was so afraid of saying or doing something that could get you in trouble. I literally lectured chat from the day we finalized everything all the way up until the day we played just telling them to not be too vulgar or inappropriate or whatever because I was so scared of just ****ing something up.

Felix: And now you swear in any video we do together. [chuckles]

_____: Not your lives, though. [_____ looks right into camera very deadpan] I behave. Gotta keep it cool with JYPapi.

[felix stares at _____ without expression. they don’t look back at him. they just continue to stare at the camera without any expression. ‘technical difficulties’ comes back up before cutting back to the couple back to normal.]

Felix: I will admit, I was nervous, too, when we first played together. I was basically just a fan getting to play with their favorite streamer.

_____: [grinning back at felix] I know! You were so cute! I was, like, internally squealing.

Felix: And externally. There’s proof in the VOD.

[_____ turns to look at the camera again with felix laughing at them. their face is scrunched up despite how flustered they look.]

_____: Next question.

[who asked who out and how did it happen?]

_____: Felix. [they point to their left].

Felix: [shyly raises his hand] Yeah, that was me. I just– Okay, so we were both pretty shy with each other at first, but we got a lot more comfortable and were just kinda best friends, but there were moments I feel like where we’d both get kinda shy again [he starts to look to _____ for confirmation] like we both felt something there but we were both too shy to say anything.

_____: [smiling at the camera like it’s a bad infomercial] Take a shot every time Felix says ‘shy’!

[he snorts and bats their hand away when they give a thumbs up to the camera. it jump cuts to them after they’d calmed down from giggling at each other.]

_____: Honestly, I will say we kind of poked at the topic but never did anything for a while. Like we’d be like, ‘oh, let’s go on a date in whatever game we’re playing’ and I think there were serious undertones for both of us. But I was like, ‘there’s no way he actually has feelings, he has to think about his career, i’m just some idiot online,’ so I never said anything, and he was– Well, I don’t wanna say it for you since it was your feelings.

Felix: I was nervous about, like, scaring off a really good friend, especially since I did become a fan of theirs. I was watching _____ for over a year before we actually started talking so I think I was the same kind of starstruck as they were. I was just nervous like they were that this was all just a friendship and there wasn’t anything more from it.

_____: [looking at felix] I think I just started making it really obvious, though.

Felix: I definitely started to get a feeling that you were interested and the playful flirting was actually kinda serious. Like, you know how friends flirt? It was a lot of that, but I started getting a feeling they were trying to kinda be serious. So we went on that date and, like, I had planned it as a date but didn’t tell them. I just said we were hanging out, and then after I held their hand I was like, ‘so is this a good first date?’ or something like that, and yeah.

_____: And then he asked me out literally that night.

Felix: Oh, yeah, I couldn’t wait. I was scared I’d chicken out if I waited longer.

_____: I will admit, though, I took a couple days to give an answer because I was so nervous and scared.

Felix: [shrugs, looking at _____] Yeah, but we talked it out and then you said yes.

_____: [looking at felix] Yeah, I was worried about, like…ruining your career [laughs softly]. You made me feel less anxious about it.

Felix: [grinning] I try.

[what did the members think of _____, and what did _____’s friends think of felix?]

_____: [grinning] My friends were so ****in’ excited to meet Felix.

[felix starts laughing.]

_____: Like, I feel like kpop has become really popular with a lot of streamers for whatever reason, so a lot of them already knew who Stray Kids were. So when we played that first time– [suddenly turns very deadpan and stares directly into the camera] We played Bread & Fred, by the way. Very awful game to meet someone on. But anyway [they go back to normal] we decided to set up a time that Felix could play with my friends and I since I know a few popular streamers and we play together. So I reached out and asked if I could invite Felix from Stray Kids to play a game with us and they all lost it. They were so ****ing excited to meet him and then they were, like, obsessed with him when we did finally play.

Felix: I was honestly excited to meet them, too. Some of them I had been a fan of for a while so it was fun to get to meet them and play and stuff.

_____: [scoffs and rolls their eyes but it’s obviously in a joking way] And yet you weren’t a fan of me yet.

Felix: You were newer!

[the ‘technical difficulties’ screen pops up for a few seconds again before going back to the couple.]

Felix: Yeah, the guys really liked _____. Chan would sometimes watch their streams, too, and I.N and Seungmin liked seeing them Overwatch gameplay. I remember the first time we planned to have a 5-stack in Overwatch with me, _____, Chan, Seungmin, and I.N, after we all got off and left Discord, I.N came into my room and was like, ‘Whoa, we gotta have them in our stack all the time’.

_____: [laughing softly] They only like me because I’m their carry.

Felix: [suddenly turns his head to look at them] Hey! Untrue!

Interviewer: Who’s the best at video games between the two of you?

Felix & _____: Me.

[the couple turns to look at each other. ‘technical difficulties’ pops up again before cutting back to the couple.]

_____: There’s literally proof. Should we pull up our Overwatch ranks? If you want, we could compare your League rank to mine.

Felix: You don’t even play Lea–

[he stops like he realizes something, and _____ starts laughing. he deflates and looks grumpy despite the smile growing on his face.]

_____: [still giggling] Exactly. You’re higher ranked than me in League.

Felix: [grumbling] Next question.

[who said ‘i love you’ first?]

[they both go to say something, mouths open. felix looks happy while _____ looks embarrassed, and they put their hands over felix’s body to try and keep him from speaking up first.]

_____: In my defense, I was very intoxicated so it doesn’t count!

Felix: [still grinning] It so does. [looks at the camera and tries to fight off _____ who is physically trying to get him to stop talking] So we had been playing It Takes Two together, which we did on their stream, and we were drinking for that, so after stream, we played some Minecraft just so we could, y’know, hang out in private and whatever. We were working on our new farm and stuff. But anyway, before _____ went to sleep and we were saying goodbye… [starts giggling] They literally just go, ‘I love you’ after the ‘goodnight’ and I just stopped because I was like, ‘did I hear that right?’ And then they started panicking and trying to take it back, and then they ended the call before I could even say anything!

_____: Because you were dead silent and it was embarrassing!

Felix: I just couldn’t believe you’d said that! But I left you a voicemail.

_____: He did… He called me and I didn’t answer and he was like, ‘hey, hope you sleep well. Also I love you too,’ and I died. I literally still have the voicemail saved.

Felix: [giggling and smiling brightly at _____] That’s so cute.

[has felix ever written a song about you and released it? if so, what was it?]

[the couple speaks at the same time]

_____: Not that I know of…

Felix: I have not.

[_____ looks to Felix and lets him speak.]

Felix: I’ve had, y’know, like…inspiration. But I’ve never written just one entire song all about _____. Not to say I haven’t tried, but they’re still just lyrics.

_____: You did cover our song, though.

Felix: I did! We have a song that we decided we think of the other when we hear it, and I covered it once and it was posted on Youtube. It was before we were public, though, so I don’t think anyone thought it was anything.

_____: Dude, people were definitely shipping us before we were officially together.

Felix: [shrugs and chuckles] Okay, yeah, you’re right.

_____: You’re not slick.

[who’s the driest texter, and what are your names saved as in each other’s phones?]

_____: I’m so…painfully dry.

Felix: You are not.

_____: Compared to you, I feel like I am. Like, I feel like you always have a good reply to everything and you always seem interested and invested. I feel like I come across as like, ‘yup. sure. okay.’

Felix: No, you just…– Sometimes you only reply with a meme and I kinda sit there for a minute like, ‘okay, what do I do with this?’ [laughs]

_____: [shrugs] Sometimes I don’t know what to say.

Felix: What’s my name in your phone? [smirks and wiggles his eyebrows at _____]

_____: [dramatically clears their throat and shifts in their seat] So let me walk you through the timeline. At first, it was just ‘Felix’ with, like, the chick emoji and a heart because, y’know, I love Stray Kids. Then I changed it to ‘my little pogchamp’ when we started dating for shits and giggles, but I didn’t like that you weren’t in alphabetical order anymore, so I changed it back to ‘Felix’ with a few different heart emojis. Now it’s ‘Lix’ with the sun emoji and some hearts.

Felix: [laughing loudly] My little pogchamp?!

_____: I know yours is gonna be something super cheesy currently, so don’t even.

Felix: [pulling out his phone] It used to be. It’s normal currently.

_____: Walk me through the timeline.

Felix: So it was just ‘Saturn’ at first. Then it changed to _____, and then it was your name with some hearts, and now it’s just ‘baby _____’ with a sunflower and some hearts [he shows them his phone]

_____: Why a sunflower?

Felix: Because Stay call me the sun, and you’re my sun but I thought it should be different. So a sunflower…

[as felix trails off, he gets more flustered, and _____’s smile widens until they’re just looking at each other and smiling and giggling quietly.]

_____: You’re too cute sometimes.

Felix: [shrugs while putting his phone away, still grinning] Yeah, I try.

[do you read fanfiction about each other?]

_____: There was one time on stream where we somehow got onto the topic of fanfiction, and chat was asking if there was any of specifically me and Felix so I looked it up. For the record, there is, but I didn’t read it.

Felix: What was it about?

_____: The warnings were very much not safe for me to be reading on stream, that’s what I’m gonna tell you.

Felix: I haven’t looked up anything about us. I mean, when we first debuted, I was kind of curious and looked up about myself, but nothing about _____ or us together.

_____: Well, it’s out there.

Interviewer: Can you give us a hint as to what it was about?

_____: It was a threesome. [laughs] Can I say that?

Felix: [eyes wide, staring at _____] A threesome?! With who?!

_____: It was a reader insert.

Felix: [slowly turning back toward the camera, looking traumatized] I preferred not knowing.

_____: We’re bonding by both of us knowing this information. But now I kinda wanna look it up and see if it was any good…

[felix slowly turns back to _____, and the ‘technical difficulties’ screen pops up again before changing to the next question.]

[what item of yours does the other steal the most?]

_____: My entire ****ing setup!

[felix laughs evilly.]

_____: Anytime he stays over, he takes over my desk when I’m not using it, whether it’s before or after stream. He’s already there.

Felix: Everything runs so smoothly, and you have so many games!

_____: You just built a new PC. You were bragging on Instagram about it.

Felix: [sighs] Yours is just better. It’s also very…aesthetically pleasing at your desk. And your chair is so comfy!

_____: I don’t even really steal anything of yours, though, so.

Felix: You can take whatever you want if you give me your setup. [he smiles and leans in, trying to seem persuasive]

Interviewer: You don’t steal anything from him?

_____: [shrugs] Not really. We don’t really share clothes or anything because of the size difference. I might’ve, like, accidentally stolen a pair of his socks a few times, maybe.

Felix: Oh! Your fuzzy socks are so comfy!

_____: All of the stealing is one-sided.

[which member of stray kids is _____ closest with?]

_____: [grinning] Innie!

Felix: Yeah, _____ and our youngest member, I.N get on really well. They play a lot of co-op games together. I think they stream with him more often than me, actually. [chuckles]

_____: I doubt that.

Felix: You guys are really close, though.

_____: I’m currently helping him build his first PC. [smiles and happily shrugs their shoulders] He’s like my little brother.

Interviewer: Do you ever fight when you play games together?

_____: Sometimes, and in that aspect, he reminds me of some of my friends I used to play games with a lot when I was first starting out. It was a lot of playful bickering, and that’s how it is with Jeongin sometimes. But it’s always fun playing together.

[what’s something the other does that you don’t like?]

[felix and _____ look at each other as they consider the question, but both of them just shrug at each other.]

Felix: Nothing, really.

Interviewer: Not any pet peeves?

Felix: [starting to chuckle] Okay, I actually have one that’s kinda weird…

_____: [looking somewhat scared] What is it…?

Felix: So…for context, one of our friends was saying how you know you love someone when you’ll fart in front–

[_____ starts loudly whining.]

Felix: [laughing] –of each other. And they refuse to fart in front of me! We’ll be hanging out on the couch or in my room together or something, and they’ll literally leave the room!

_____: Only if I think it’s gonna be smelly.

Felix: You can tell?

_____: Sometimes. Or if I know I can’t make it quiet.

Interviewer: Is there anything Felix does that you’re not super fond of?

_____: Um… Sometimes he looks at his members a certain way and I’m like, ‘...why aren’t you looking at me like that?’

[felix turns to look at _____ in confusion.]

_____: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame you! Y’all are handsome guys. But, like…c’mon, man.

Felix: …What are you talking about?

_____: [puts their hand on his shoulder] You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know how you look at Changbin.

[felix and _____ stare at each other in silence for a moment before felix suddenly looks at the camera with wide, knowing eyes.]

Felix: Ohhhh, yeah. Yeah, [laughs] I get it. I get what you mean.

_____: Look at me like that, Felix!

Felix: I do! I do. [turns back to _____] I swear I do.

_____: I don’t see the same panic in your eyes.

Felix: You want me to panic?

_____: Kinda.

[what’s something you especially love about each other?]

_____: Felix is always positive. I tend to get kinda pessimistic and, like, worry about things a lot. If I bring it up to Felix, he’s always looking at things from a good perspective or is always reassuring me that everything is okay.

Felix: I don’t think you’re pessimistic.

_____: I am when I’m stressed, which is usually. God, especially at the beginning of our relationship, or like, before we were even dating when people thought we were. [looks straight into camera with genuine worry] I was so convinced I was gonna get swatted. I was fully prepared to move my entire life to make sure it wouldn’t happen.

Felix: [reaches over to put his hand on their knee, rubbing it with his thumb] You do worry about a lot, but I wouldn’t say it’s pessimistic. It’s just anxiety. [shrugs]

Interviewer: So Felix, what do you like about _____?

Felix: I feel like I never get drained being around them. Like, you know how being social a lot makes you feel really tired? Being around _____ I feel like recharges me instead. They always just make me feel better by being around me, and they always make me laugh.

_____: See, that’s how I know I am pessimistic because my jokes are all dry and come from a place of trauma. [gives a very straight and boring smile right at the camera]

Felix: [chuckling] I’m begging you to just take the compliment.

_____: [shyly] Thanks, man.

Felix: [snorts] Yeah, sure thing, bro. No problem.

[_____ holds out their hand and they dab each other up.]

[the logo appears once again before cutting back to the couple sitting how they were at the beginning of the interview.]

Felix: Thank you so much to Gamerwoo for having us in the studio today to answer questions about us and our relationship. We had a lot of fun here today.

_____: If you want to learn more about us individually, you can see my boyfriend, Felix in the kpop boy group, Stray Kids. And if you’re interested in anything I’m doing, you can find me on most live streaming platforms at slrsatrn.

Felix: This has been…

Felix & _____: In Between: Felix and Saturn!

Felix: [waving with both hands] Byyyye, thank you!

_____: [doing a thumbs up at the camera] Adioso, friends!

[as the logo card appears on the screen again, felix and _____ can be heard laughing before they both say, ‘done!’ and laugh some more. The screen goes black and the recommended videos come up.]

«─── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ───»

perma tag list [italics are unable to tag]: @minluvly @awkwardnesshabitat @woozarts @septicrebel @4kwp @thepencilkorner @bubblelixie @byunhoebaek @dejavernon @ahandfulofkeys @slut-for-dabi @avyskai @pussymode @sunoosult @moonlightcandy00 @missrobyn81 @day6andetcetera @ritzy-roo @casualtaelyn @skizzel-reblogs @itbtoblikethatsometimes @crazyllamasurfer @wonderfulshinee @ladylexis @bangmechanpls @army-stay-noel @reiheis @pretty-npeach @icarusthorn @saythenameseventeen178 @stay-gray @olivehues-blog @ulavenger64king @lillijay @twistedsiren @svintsandghosts @stellarstacysstuff @xxluckydreamsxx @chartrucewhore @dwaekkiracha @ssstraykiss @lukeys-giggle @bobrouxsky @strayKidsFamily @vensweety @seoli-16 @smilefordongil @flirtyskzbutterfly @freckleboilix @immortal-imagination

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rcmclachlan · 2 months

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Revisiting "Stuff Yuuri Katsuki Full of Cock 2k17"

AO3 should make you sign a contract in blood and have it notarized before you're allowed to orphan one of your stories. The "R" in "R.C." stands for regret in this case!

Of the many fics, ficlets, drabbles, and WIPs I churned out for the YOI fandom that I wish I could un-orphan, these four were my favorites:

immaculate dream, made breath and skin (E)

Almost half his life has been spent training for the day that Victor Nikiforov takes him to bed, so when it finally happens after the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri's prepared. More than prepared: he's ready. No one's ever touched him as a lover, sure, but there's nothing that he hasn't already dreamed about doing or having done to him to make anything that could happen a shock. But apparently Victor's sole purpose in life is to subvert all his expectations. (this is easily the filthiest thing i've ever written)

with the engine inside (E)

Victor brought this on himself.

Full (E)

On the second day of the 2017 Worlds Competition, he takes a bumpy taxi ride from where they’re staying at the Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa to Hartwell Arena, skates a gold medal-winning singles program, gives at least an hour’s worth of interviews to every major network that exists, meets with an insanely wealthy couple that wants him to give pointers to their daughter who would much rather talk to him about horses than skating, and goes out for dinner and drinks with the usual suspects—all with a thick plug inside him that rubs up against his prostate every time he so much as breathes.

Mercalli (E)

There’s an earthquake in Yuuri’s hands as he slides them up the meat of Victor’s thighs, and it threatens to shake Victor to ruin.

Bonus: Thwarted (M)

Yuuri snorts. "Not even you would've taken 'Victor, I fantasize about getting pregnant' seriously."

#my latest yoi rewatch has got me feeling all nostalgic #yoi in its heyday was the best and most fun fandom i've ever been part of — i can't believe it's been almost 8 years #yuri on ice #stuff yuuri katsuki full of cock 2k17

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flanaganfilm · 10 months

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Hi Mike,

I promise this isn't an intentional plug, I just wanted to let you know that I did my Film Studies Video Dissertation on you as an auteur and I love your work.

But I actually do have a question: you mentioned in one of your posts that Hill House was a difficult production compared to Doctor Sleep. I think it's a masterpiece and I'm curious why it was difficult and if you think that difficulty was worth it.

So I watched your video, thanks so much for all of the work and thought that clearly went into that. It was very cool to watch it. Hope you keep making vids like that, it was really well done!

Hill House is a tough one for me to really talk about - there's a lot about it I'm just not anxious to revisit, and I've made peace with most of it and left it behind. Don't love digging it back up. All of the difficulties with that show were about process, not outcome. The difficulties were absolutely worth it. Absolutely. Hill House changed everything for me, it completely redefined my career. There are moments in the series that are some of my all-time favorites. There are things like episode 6 which remain the most difficult (but most rewarding) experiences of my entire life. Some of the people I worked with on that series are family to me now, they moved into my heart and soul and that is permanent.

I mean, Kate and I found out she was pregnant with our daughter while we were shooting ep 6. We even named her Theodora. The stuff that dragged it down isn't unique or unusual or even terribly interesting - it's all pretty ordinary bullshit, just cranked up to eleven (or eleven million in some cases). I've never had that kind of pressure or frustration in my life, before or since, and it definitely is the low point of my career when it comes to production... in fact, I very much hope it remains the low point, I hope that's as bad as they get... but it was absolutely worth it.

I love that show. And I'm eternally grateful to it.

#the haunting of hill house #behind the scenes

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0bianidalas · 7 days

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“𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞”

2.8K, explicit, post China Sprint

Read on AO3 or bellow the cut

He’s still fuming even when the roar of all engines has shut off. Absurd move, and for what? Fucking out of the podium and pole again. He yanks the balaclava as he seizes the ‘55’ of the garage, each step he’s taken has slowly made the anger subside but still sits in his gut like lava.

Everyone turns to him with their eyes wide and unblinking and Charles breathes. So, they’re waiting for a scene. A screaming match or maybe blows but it’s not the stuff he and Carlos are made of— apparently. He bites his tongue in his mouth when Carlos comes, eyes deep and gone.

“What the fuck was that?” Charles repeats himself, but his tone is far lighter than he intended it.

“Not right now, okay?”

And just like that, he flips the switch. Just like that, Charles’ fire dies and he thinks anyway. He thinks whatever. He thinks good riddance.

Because it’s always been like this with Carlos. Always half-measures and stolen glances and mixed messages and never enough. He should’ve known better than to hope their last year would’ve been different.

If anything, this might just prove to be the worst one yet.

By the time he’s done with the media circus, smiling in the absurdity of his frustrations, he’s ran out of fuel to keep him fired up, and when Carlos approaches him –fucking finally– he’s only greeted with a tired, heavy sigh. “I have to speak to the stewards because of the shit with Alonso, listen—if I was too aggressive—”

Charles taps his chest and through the layers of fabric, he can still feel the heat coming off Carlos, the steady pumping of his heart and the hard carcass that surrounds it. “It doesn't matter. I've been there, too, haven't I?” he relents and it's pathetic. He knows.

But Carlos squeezes his fingers and looks at him puzzled, as he's often done lately. Half-here, half-somewhere else. One foot out, Charles remembers.

And he doesn't say anything else before he disappears from his grip again, Charles also doesn't stick around to listen.

Instead, he replays the sprint idly in his mind after he's showered, revisiting all the missed twists and turns and convincing himself that his fight with Carlos didn't fuck up his chances for a podium. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. What counts is tomorrow, anyway.

But then a flash and he's pushed out of the track like nothing but a bug and his head is spinning and it's a hundred degrees but his gut is boiling with more than just that. His heart is racing for more than just racing. Fucking see me, I'm right here.

I'm yours to push and shove.

He doesn't have to open his eyes and look down to know what he knows already. His shaft's hardening as he lies and overthinks, great. It's not the first time he's gotten hard after a fight on track, it's not even the first time he's gotten hard after a fight on track with Carlos. But it'd been a while, and it'd been a while since the race, too.

He bites his lower lip and eyes his problem. His cock is nestled only somewhat uncomfortably inside his briefs. He could leave it there, he's only halfway into hardness. But then it's also just 10 p.m. in Shanghai so he's got a few more hours to kill before he's ready to rest. Social media seems like a good idea for a minute until he watches one too many videos of the race and his minor issue goes right to considerable.

It's starting to itch, the fabric. But when he moves his hips a little bit the constriction provides friction and Charles' interest is piqued, then. Fine, he'll stoop lower. It's one sprint video that leads to interviews with bullshit excuses that make Charles lose himself in brown eyes like he's done for the last three and some years that then lead him to a myriad of Sainz footage and he's gone.

And Charles could call him up, could get the whole actual show. But Charles was weak enough already to turn down his apologies when Charles very much deserved them, Charles was weak enough already to just let him fucking push him over, he'd been weak enough lately.

This was still weak, of course. But it was at least between him and God. Did he mention he was the bigger man earlier already?

He throws the phone to his side when Carlos' smile begins spinning in his head after three or so photos. It always took so much of his face, but Charles noted that it didn't matter because his laugh was contagious. A lot of aspects of Carlos were like that, could make you feel whatever he wanted in just a flick.

Charles palms himself, just a press of the heel of his hand to his bulge and he breathes heavily. Inhaling deep as his teeth trap his lower lip. He turns over and pushes a pillow between his legs, just to keep the pressure subsided.

Except that Carlos' fingers earlier linger on his, in his mind, and Charles eyes his hand like it's foreign to his body. He's washed off, it's been hours already; there's no trace of Carlos' smell or his heat at Charles' fingertips but it doesn't hurt to imagine. It doesn't hurt to rub himself softly, index finger moving from his clavicle to his chest to his navel until Charles breathes heavily again before he pushes down the briefs and ends the charade that he's wishing this away. He squeezes the pillow harder between his legs to keep his cock from flinching at the cold of the dead darkness of his room. The nearly dead emptiness of the life he carries. And his finger draws faint circles on his body again. Aimless, odd-shaped figures across his arm and his torso and his shoulder just like Carlos would. Touch and graze him like Charles was made of the most precious marble.

And kiss him. Carlos would kiss him breathless. Would kiss him like his life depended on it, would kiss him like he'd fight him on track. Like he did today.

This is all that I've got— can you take it?

Charles bucks into the messy lump he'd already made of the pillow as a yes echoes in his head, chanting, nearly. Yes, I can fucking take it. You want to fight me harder than the rest? I'll meet you halfway there. I'm no coward. Crash into me if that's how bad you want it. We'll give them a bloody show.

He grunts when his tip grazes the silky fabric of the pillow just slightly enough to sting and he comes to think that maybe he ought to just get on with it and use his hand, instead, but the rough friction is good. The rough friction reminds him of calloused, big hands, tanner than his. Musky smells and hairy wrists that always manage to twist right how Charles needs. It's unbearable, really. How perfectly they piece together.

And now Carlos wants to fight me.

All because they have left us in these ruins.

It's not my fault they didn't pick him.

He whimpers as his rhythm picks up, back arched as he's shifted to topple the pillow that's now under his belly. He no longer worries about the cold because his many efforts now got him glistening in sweat and panting, just like he was inside the car earlier.

Riled up because of Carlos fucking Sainz, albeit in two entirely different ways. Or were they? Wasn't their predicament the entire cornerstone of Charles' current frustrations?

They couldn't love each other, they could never love each other. They couldn't even have each other, because they didn't have a say in that.

And they couldn't hate each other, either. They couldn't go at each other's throats.

Well, at least that's what I thought. But he didn't give a shit about that, did he? Maybe that could mean…

“Merde,” he moans when he starts rocking his hips easier because he's started leaking. The moist spot he's made gets slicker with each roll of his hips and soon he just thrusting wantonly into the misshapen lump.

He supports himself a little on his elbows on the mattress, back arched just enough to make room for him to thrust back in, and so he repeats in a frenzy dance. He imagines himself squeezed into nothingness like the pillow, and bucks harder, relentless. Carlos wouldn't lose the pace, not at least until the very– very end. But he wasn't Carlos. He was only the mess Carlos had made of him, whimpering and moaning into his mattress and about to come untouched like a fucking teenager.

I bet he's smiling. I bet this is what he's wanted all along. To see me lose my damn mind like this.

He curses and he can nearly taste the bleach they used to clean the sheets; his tongue dries in the cotton as he lets go of the fabric, and adjusts himself a little. Legs a little spread, this time just pressing on his knees and he moves his hips in circles. Charles breathes at the slight change of pace but his mind provides more reasons to keep him going. Flashes of Carlos meaty lips dropping wet kisses all over his back before he claimed him, the way his bushy eyelashes would flicker before he came, mouth slacking in a soundless ‘o’ that Charles always needed to stick his tongue into.

Carlos' breathy laugh and silly jokes and big hands, crowding all of him both in public and private. Did he even know? How easily can I be undone under his fingers? He picked up his pace again as frustration started filling him once more.

“Charles?”

Yes, he'd fucking say. Sharl all soft like nothing's ever been wrong in the world. Like they're not caught up in the shittiest situation. Like Charles isn't absolutely dreading the end of the season. Like Charles doesn't lo–

He freezes when a hand wraps around his nape and Charles feels like an exposed wire, ready to electrocute. But the hand holding him knows him all too well, and it is as firm as it is tender. So Charles breathes and leans back into it.

“Vai avanti,” Carlos whispers in his ear and Charles wants to kick him out, kind of. He also wants to turn around and kiss the living daylights out of him.

It's always a bit complicated after a race, anyway. Carlos is the one he has to beat all the time, no matter what, but he also needs to have Carlos do good.

And they can't fight, so they don't fight. They make love instead, which is its own kind of fight, if you ask Charles.

He moves slowly — slower than he was a second ago— and the hand at his neck is so hot suddenly the pillow is too cold and rigid and Charles is no longer interested in it. He twists his face to see him, but the room is pitch black and the angle isn't right anyway.

“Carlos…” he whispers. It's not a plea, he wouldn't call it that. He's still got some dignity left in him.

But Carlos answers like he's made to answer, and Charles reflects on how bad he's been to him for the last two or so hours, until he reflects that he's in fact been soft. They both have.

“Shh, keep going. I got you,” Carlos says, and the hand around his neck rolls down his spine slowly to sneak under and wrap around him and Charles moans louder this time because it's what he's wanted the whole fucking day, since that stupid stunt he pulled.

Touch me the way it fucking matters.

“Venga, amore,” he prompts again, in the weird mix of Spanish and Italian he can muster, just towering over Charles somehow. Here and there and all around and Charles is dizzy in lust and something as intoxicating. He pushes himself up, pressed fleshed against Carlos, who's still gripping him loose and Charles knows this is what he'll give him this time. Just this, not more.

You get one piece of me this time. You'll never have me whole.

Charles loves a good challenge.

But he wasn't aiming to win this particular battle, so Charles just moves against the hand holding him firmly, Carlos rubbing his thumb on his tip so the precum would make the grip pleasant while Charles lost himself to the sensations and soon he was bucking erratically into Carlos' fist before spilling his release all over it.

Carlos supports him through the wakes of his climax, holding him to his chest as he stands just right near the edge of the bed, dropping soundful kisses on Charles' shoulders that make him shudder while he's still coming down from his high, Carlos still milking him through.

After the lights have stopped sparkling, Charles finally looks up at him. “I’ve been texting you,” Carlos says at the side of his face, but he sounds amused.

Charles half shrugs, before turning around fully, arms thrown over Carlos' shoulders. “I've been busy.”

“Clearly.” Carlos' right hand is sticky on his hip.

“How did you get in here?” Charles inquires, after he finally gains some clarity.

“Asked Nicolas for a spare key. Told him that if he's gonna tell the media you and I kiss then he might as well help me give it a shot,” Carlos says but there's a trace of amusement in his tone.

Charles still frowns. “Seriously?”

“‘Seriously’ did I ask him for the key or ‘seriously’ did he tell the press we kiss on the mouth?”

Charles rolls his eyes because he didn't really care that much about the answer. The world wasn't burning, so, who cared if his manager joked on international TV about something that may not be a joke? Who cared if Carlos outed them to his manager in response?

He leans forward slowly and drops a kiss on Carlos' lips only to realize he still smells like gas and sweat and tastes like their energy drinks. “Are you still dirty from the race?” Charles blurts, almost absentmindedly.

Carlos slaps his cheek in response and it makes a slick sound cause it's still covered in cum. “You're one to talk about being dirty.”

He chuckles, head falling on Carlos shoulder and trying not to giggle too much but the embarrassment is slowly getting to him. When he stretches his neck again, big brown eyes are looking up to him like he hangs the moon every night.

It's hard to imagine this is the same Carlos that would force him out of the track. The same Carlos that will fight tooth and nails this year to prove Ferrari that they should've chosen him instead of Charles. But, then again, they were all different people once the lights went off.

Charles could never begrudge him.

“Wanna take a bath with me?” he offers. “You can do your hair routine on me so I can have amazing hair after a race like you do,” Charles adds, playfully.

“Anything for Lord Perceval,” Carlos jokes in the same nature.

“You know it isn't personal, right?” Carlos asks after they sit in the tub for a while. His fingertips are drawing circles on his scalp and Charles lives, however long this moment lasts, in a world where none of that matters.

For this fleeting, miniscule moment, he's just having a bubble bath with the most beautiful man he's ever been near.

“I know.” Does he wish it was? Does he wish Carlos wasn't lying?

“It's not easy, though. It's not what you and I are used to,” Charles says, honest, too. Carlos is the longest teammate he's ever had so comparisons are dull. But, still…

Carlos stares at him unblinking as he does, and his eyes sparkle with sadness and wonder alike. It's a weird mixture that only Carlos can pull off, Charles reckons. “I'm afraid we're heading into territory that's gonna have us outside of what we're used to, amor.”

Was it a threat or just a bad omen?

“I can't say I won't be aggressive again for the rest of the season. You know why this one is more important than most to me, Charles— but… but I can promise that I'll come back to you still after. And we'll sort it out.”

The corner of Charles' mouth draws up as he looks at him. Yes, he knows. Ever since Carlos joined him, three years and so ago, Charles has known.

The only place Carlos would ever serve him is the bedroom and the only way Carlos would ever be gentle with him is like this.

#charlos #f1 rpf #my shitty writing #anyway. im sorry for my transgressions its Charles' fault for leaving his radio on

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pygmy-puffy · 8 months

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i've been going through my online accounts trying to put everything in one place and delete the millions of project accounts I never use. This has sent me on a journey through years-old posts, when I just started posting fanart for the harry potter fandom. I was in a really rough spot mentally during those years and revisiting old posts makes me so grateful to this community for seeing me and interacting with me when my everyday life outside of tumblr was sad and grey. When I started feeling better and regained some sort of control on my life, I naturally started getting busier with stuff and stopped creating fanworks. These pieces and the community still hold a very special place in my heart though.

i deleted the original post of this illustration from an old blog, but I wanted to keep it on tumblr for old times sake. I think this was the second piece of art I posted ever. The following is the text I had written to go with it:

"I just wish that during the summer before his 4th Year at Hogwarts, Draco would begin to understand the true implications of sharing his parents’ views about the world. Horrified, he would distance himself from anyone with similar beliefs. A few weeks into the school year, he would even muster up the courage to approach Hermione, Ron and eventually Harry to apologize for what he has said and done. By the end of the year, Draco and Harry would have become civil with each other and would actually regularly study together outside in the shade of the trees. One day, they would be taking a break from studying, and Harry would pick a flower from the grass and pretend he is offering to Draco. With a light chuckle, he’d prepare to throw it back into the grass, but Draco would suddenly reach out and brush his fingertips across Harry’s wrist. They would look at each other for a long moment, tiny smiles curling up the corner of their mouths. Then in silence, they would enjoy the warmth of an early summer and a budding relationship that would change the course of the war."

#thanks you all #hope you are well out there #drarry #harry potter #draco malfoy #hp fanart #draco x harry #pygmypuffyfanart

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cadmium-free · 4 months

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Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) - Watched on August 5, 2023

It spirals to its inevitable conclusion. We revisit a moment, a scene. A little more plays out, we step back or step forward. We live transfixed in a moment. Sometimes a scene mirrors another, it's all the same but with different details. There is no escaping fate, we can only be sucked closer and closer to our inevitable conclusion.

Stop Making Sense (1984) - Watched on October 5, 2023

I genuinely don’t think this needs any explanation or justification at all. I could watch it over and over and over and over and over.

Possession (1981) - Watched on October 17, 2023

It took me three sittings to get through this film and I wasn’t sure I liked it immediately after I finished it. And then it just simmered in my mind for days and weeks after until it finally clicked into place. I love the way Sam Neill moves in this. Everyone comments on the haunting way Isabelle Adjani looks directly into the camera, and yea. Yeah. Ok. Yeah. Yeah.

The Devils (1971) - Watched on June 26, 2023

I thought going into it with the full knowledge of Urbain Grandier would defang it, and perhaps this did soften the blow a bit, but it's audacious, frenzied, sensual. You get tangled up in its themes, its sensations, its torture.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) - Watched on January 13, 2023

This set off a brief and ferocious obsession with Al Pacino. I have a strained relationship with films based on true crimes, but this slides past my qualms, perhaps just on the strength of the fact John Wojtowicz himself did write a review of it.

Bound (1996) - Watched on April 5 and August 19, 2023

The way Corky and Violet can come together with genuine trust so quickly. The way Ceaser can misunderstand Violet so fundamentally. The literal betrayal in realising who someone is.

Häxan (1922) - Watched on October 27, 2023

The 1922 equivalent of a Youtube video essay where a guy is like, "Guys, I just learned a bunch of fucked up facts about witches and witch trials. I think maybe we just execute women for being poor and mentally ill. Also aren't mental institutions a bit fucked up?" but like, a bit hornier than you would expect for the subject.

Cruising (1980) - Watched on January 17, 2023

It’s all about looking and being noticed. The camera is looking. Al Pacino is looking. The men are looking. And the ambiguity of the gaze and the plot.

Pontypool (2008) - Watched on October 4, 2023

It's a film about words. It's a film about broadcasting from a radio station and seeing nothing. Our imagination fills in the visual gaps. It's so much more horrifying to be piecing everything together from the safety of a recording booth.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) - Watched on February 1, 2023

Hugh Grant—looking like a lesbian—who is a freaky little rich boy who believes in cryptids, Peter Capaldi—looking like a lesbian—sucking snake venom from a neck bite, an incredibly sexy snake woman with a house full of snake stuff, a giant snake puppet, surreal dream sequences, the coolest game of snakes and ladders ever made, snake dicks, weaponised bagpipe music, homoeroticism, and giant strap-ons.

Ravenous (1999) - Watched on October 19, 2023

This film is so offbeat and strange. It has the strange feel of a comedy, while being a really understandably grim depiction of cannibalism as manifestation of greed, expansionism, and colonization. I kept having these moments of shock that this was a studio movie, that studios were willing to make this film that so thoroughly deconstructs the American mythology.

Penda's Fen (1974) - Watched on July 6, 2023

The first movie in a long time that has made me feel as though I need to pick it apart like an essay, to rewatch multiple times and take notes and repeat sentences until I’ve done a thorough analysis. I've never had a film hit me in quite this way before.

#film #recs #long post #basically just making my letterboxd list here #i normally don't do a movie best of list for the year but i don't have ten non movies #station eleven and star trek are the only nonfilm things i would list i think

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exilethegame · 1 year

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Writing Update (11/28/22)

Hello everyone!

Unfortunately on Friday I had the wonderful pleasure of catching the flu. On one hand, I've been stuck shivering and coughing all day. On the other hand, my fever-induced psychoses gave me wonderful material to write with in the future.

Because of that, I wasn't able to get much done this week, though I was able to get a jump on some scenes before I got sick!

This past few weeks I've managed to write 5k words making Chapter 5, pt. 2 51k words long!

As of now I'm working on Sabir + Nikke's scenes simultaneously so I can bounce back and forth between them whenever I get bored. The scenes are "simple" enough when compared to Vethna + Amilia's that it's easy for me to do and usually allows me to write a bit quicker since I won't be able to run into writer's block this way!

Ideally, I'll be able to finish both of their scenes by the midpoint of December, but we'll see. I also then need to revisit Amilia + Vethna's scenes to add in extra dialogue + flavor text based on things MC might've done if they went to speak to Sabir/Nikke first, since I find it enjoyable when all the characters acknowledge one another.

Once I get this check-in scene finished, I'll then be able to move onto chronological + companion scenes, which should be pretty smooth sailing. I put on the tumblr's actual website (it might only be visible on a computer) an estimated release for Part 2 which is Quarter 1 of next year-- so anywhere from January - March 2023. I feel confident about that window and will likely shrink it down to more specific dates the more work I get done.

That's all the main stuff! I also included some vocabulary down below for what I personally mean when I'm referring to the "check-in" scenes and such for those of you that are interested. Otherwise, that's all, and thanks for reading! :)

Chapter 5 (Part 2) Progress Scene 1: Linear Scene 2: Hobbies (Finished -- 10/10 Branches) Scene 3: Hobbies Scene 4: Check-in (50% -- 1/3 Branches) Scene 5: Chronological (75% Done) Scene 6: Chronological Scene 7: Companion Scene 8: Companion

Check-in: A check-in scene is when MC is given the choice to speak to the characters "one-on-one." MC can always choose what order to speak to the characters in, but otherwise it breaks down into two more subtypes.

A Check-in 1, which hasn't been seen in-game yet but will be in Part Two, requires MC to speak to every NPC before the scene can go forward. There may also be certain dialogue choices with each character that must be picked in order for the scene to go forward. In scenes like this, main-plot information will be included as every MC will be forced to see it regardless of their relationships or personality.

A Check-in 2 allows MC to choose who they speak to, sometimes under a condition where MC must choose a limited amount of characters to speak to. This means sometimes MC will be able to talk to everyone with ease, and other times (Like in the War Room) MC will be forced to choose who to speak to out of 2 or 3 characters. These type of check-ins will be more common, and they'll also contain information important for side-quests. They'll allow MC to built up trust/respect with characters even if MC + them don't get along, which will then get them to tell MC more about themselves... which, chances are, will open up some unique storylines in the future. The "side-quests" will open up additional scenes for MC in the future where MC can influence how they end, and the ending of these side-quests will then influence the main story (usually). They're not required-- and sometimes MC not getting involved can even be better-- but they're there!

Companion Scene: A companion scene is when a single scene can include any given character in it-- meaning in some playthroughs the scene will have Vethna in it, in others it will have Amilia. So essentially I'm rewriting the same moment of time several times over again for every companion who could be in it. The character who will be in the scene can sometimes be chosen by the player directly-- other times it will be a matter of what MC's relationships are. Sometimes a scene is limited to being with MC's romantic partner or best friend, other times a scene can be played with anyone who MC is amicable with, other times a scene can only be played with whoever MC has the lowest affinity with, etc. It's the closest in style to a classic sort of IF structure-- "You're tired and lonely, only one person comes to your mind to spend time with. That person is..." type of beat.

Hobbies Scene: A hobby scene is a scene that changes depending on what MC's hobby is set as. For example, an MC whose hobby is cooking might have a scene where they're helping make dinner for the group at night while another MC whose hobby is exploring might be sneaking out and climbing things they probably shouldn't be climbing... Sometimes these events will be done with companions as well! Not always, of course... otherwise I would have to be writing 60 variations of scenes which is... not possible <3

Chronological Scene: I just use this to reference a normal span of writing where the scene doesn't vary based on relationships but on choices. So I'm only writing variations for the choices you make as MC-- not for the stats that are behind the scenes! These types of scenes are significantly easier to write than the ones above. Even though I'm needing to write the multiple ways a scene can play out, it's not quite as repetitive as the check-in scenes are, nor do they take as long to finish as the Companion + Hobbies scenes.

Linear Scene: I don't write much of these in comparison to the others, but it's exactly what it sounds like. These tends to be scenes from other character's POV where there are no choices-- and, if there are choices (Like the Freedom removal scene in Chapter 5 pt. 1) then they don't have any actual affect on the scene and how it plays out. These are incredibly easy to write, and usually I'm able to finish them in a single sitting!

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading! :)

#writing update

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365-days-of-taylor-swift · 6 months

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❣️IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT❣️

To all my fellow swifties and lyric lovers �� I have something special planned for this december that I hope y'all enjoy! It's called the:

❄️ Back to December - Challenge ❄️

What's the idea?

This lil end of year challenge will include the tradtion of a good ol prompt list for each day of the month ! Every prompt is focused on a reoccuring word in Taylor's music and our fave lyrics including it!

Who can particpate?

Literally anyone who wants to create for this challenge or has in the past created smth that fits the prompt list!

I would of course love and be immensly honored, if any of you get inspired to create smth new for this! However! The whole idea behind this "back to december" challenge, is also that you get to revisit your past work that might not have gotten the recognition it deserved, or that you would simply love to show ppl again! ❄️

I'd love for anyone who likes this idea or is even considering joining the challenge, to rb this and spread the word! 🫶❣️

Promptlist and more details under the cut

❄️ Back to December - Challenge - Daily December Promptlist❄️

One/once 💚

Two/twice 💛

Three 💜

Four ❤️

Five 💙

Six 🖤

Seven 💘

Eight 🤍

Nine 🧡

Ten/hundred/thousand/ 💯

Week 📅

Rose 🌹

Birthday/party 🥳

Drink/Alcohol 🥂

Light 🕯️

Fire 🔥

Water 🌊

Stone 🪨

Air 🌬️

Twenty 2️⃣0️⃣

Gold 🪙

Sun ☀️

Family 👩‍👧‍👦

Star 💫

Christmas 🎄

Moon 🌕

Animal 🕊️

Card ♠️♥️♦️♣️

Month 📆

Year 🗓️

Midnight 🕛

What are the rules?

So as I've mentioned you don't need to create new stuff for this challenge! If you've ever done smth featuring lyrics that involve a word on this list then you can join just as easily as someone who wants to create smth new!

What types of media are allowed?

Any you can think of! Whether you have drawn/painted smth, made a lyric edit, did an lyric analysis, wrote a piece of (fan)fiction, made a video or if you crafted anything irl (like embroidery or collages for example); anything is allowed as long as it fits a taylor lyric featuring a word on the list!

How do I participate?

Well there are multiple options that will all lead you to a similar result!

1. You want to create smth for this challenge or have simply never posted about the work you're considering for this? then you can either

a) You can make your own post, tag this blog in it and schedule it to post on the day of the prompt

b) You can submit it to this blog and I will post it on the corresponding day

2. You've already created and posted about smth that would fit within this challenge?

-> then you can just tag me in it anytime until the day of the prompt and I will schedule my reblog of it for that day!

-> work you did on other challenges like inktober etc is ofc welcome as well! (as long as it's alright with the og creators of the respective challenges)

❣️IMPORTANT NOTE❣️

No matter which way you choose to participate in this challenge, I will post/reblog your art to this blog and add commentary on everything I loved about it!

Everyone deserves to get recognition for their beautiful work and I'd love to be able to spread some joy to y'all during 'tis damn season!

I'd love to participate!, but I can't think/choose a lyric for a day I like...

No worries, I got you! If anyone wants some inspo, just dm me. I have a huge google doc with all the lyric examples for this challenge and I'd be happy to share it 🫶

Or if you don't feel comfortable dming, you can send an anon asking for about inspo for a specific day and I will post the lyric examples there ♥️

I might want to participate but I'm not sure (if I'll remember) yet...

First of all no worries or pressure with this lil challenge! If you're unsure about whether you'll have the time/want to participate, you can:

send me a dm asking me to remind you about this challenge again before november ends

ask me to tag you when I rb this post once a week etc

-> asking me to do this is in no way binding to you! I simply want to offer a little help to those who (like me 🙈) struggle with forgetfulness even with stuff they might like to do! ❣️

If anyone has additional questions about this challenge, feel free to comment or sent me an ask/dm I'll be happy to answer them!

Additional Q&A

What if my creation features lyrics that fit multiple days?

That's totally okay and you can submit one piece of work/art for multiple days at once! More info here

What happens to this blog during december?

Besides hopefully <;3 rbing and posting your wonderful submissions, I will be posting polls featuring the lyrics I found for these prompts as polls on each day!

Bonus (aka some explanations why I chose those specific prompts for that day):

12 = Roses bc I couldn't just leave them out, since they feature in btc and "a red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground"

13 = ofc the birthday of our lord and savior

15 = Lights bc it's the last day of Hannukah this year

22 = Sun bc of the winter solstice

26 = full moon that day!

27 = apparently it's national zoo day and I lowkey love that

28 = same as above but with card games lmao

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the-afronick · 4 months

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Normally I like to tally up everything I've beaten on an annual basis but I've been lacking the last two years, so this is three years' worth of finished games: 2021-2023. Also been lacking in finishing stuff until the last third of this year but I think I've got the swing of things again. There are other games finished/completed I've chosen to not count here as they were simply different ports of games I've already done before, but I'm still counting MW1 Remastered to make it a nice even 50.

Since this is all getting typed up right now in one afternoon, enjoy some quick thoughts on each of these.

Finished

Yakuza Kiwami (2017) - Yeah it still feels like a weird version of the immaculate Yakuza 0. I'm not the authority on these but I'm unsure if I'd recommend this over the PS2 game to someone who is willing to play the original.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012) - I liked the split campaigns, though moreso the 80s one. Probably need to play Arma 1 or Reforger to satisfy that Cold War craving now that '83 is canned.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered (2016) - I think I got this with Infinite Warfare off of a keysite primarily to use this remaster as an excuse to replay CoD4. Still enjoyed it and really ended up liking the enhanced visuals/touch-ups in animations. 2007 is still fine to play but this was a fun detour. I want to try the Wii version at some point.

Death Stranding (2019) - A game I was way more curious about its story than I was its gameplay pre-release ended up being enjoyed the other way around. I loved Hiking Simulator 2019, cresting peaks and sliding down into cities while some Low Roar kicks in... and everything about the environments as you head west are the greatest. I'm probably gonna get the PC version of Director's Cut to play it again at some point.

Shellshock: Nam '67 (2004) - What should be a simple arcade third-person shooter ends up being frustrating because reticle bloom is way too much for some of the engagement distances. Not the worst I've ever played but I'm probably not going back to it ever.

Thunder Force AC (1990/2020 Sega AGES release) - I mean I like Thunder Force IV more but hey III's pretty good, and so is its arcade version.

Vietcong (2003) - Originally recommended to me by a friend and I kick myself for not getting to it sooner. Fun, tense campaign of having to take caution every with every move, guns felt great, and overall I had a good time. Regrettably couldn't play the online but ah well.

Postal 2: Paradise Lost (2015) - More of what I remember from playing Postal 2. It's still silly.

Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom (2003) - This is the one. Yeah, 6 gets the recognition because it's the reboot and has the top-tiered fan favorite characters but 7 takes the wrinkles of 6 and irons them out to a fine crispness. Good patterns, good bosses, and good music. I have no complaints. Want to play a Touhou game? This one.

Touhou Reiiden ~ The Highly Responsive to Prayers (1997) - I first played this at an anime convention in a hotel room full of Touhou cosplayers on their laptop they had hooked up to their TV, mainly wanting to show off where it all started. Touhou's kinda fun as a Breakout game, but this is more of a curiosity than anything nowadays.

Ninja Gaiden (1988) - My second favorite Castlevania game, but man FUCK Act 6.

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... (2021) - I mean what else can be said that hasn't already. It's nice that Nier 1 got a revisit after Automata set the world on fire and even though this didn't do its numbers, I missed my friends :)

U.N. Squadron (1990) - Glorious. The SNES/SFC version offers a fantastic and better conversion from the arcade game allowing for choice in mission order and choice in plane selection (though the YF-23 and F200 are effectively the only way to win) to work in tandem with your pilot's unique skill. Not particularly a great adaptation from Area 88 if you're looking for its story and characters but that's not what this game is aiming for - instead, it takes the elements that would work in a shooter and only those elements. You're mercenaries so money is the key to everything, mainly your weapons loadout. There are large superweapons, some taken straight from the manga. The only downside is the grinding element to get more money for better planes in the form of a strafing run special stage that you'll have to play over and over. Highly recommend.

IKUSAAAAAAAN! (2018) - I actually can't comment too much on this one since I only played it through once but it was fun and highly energetic, and Iku is my second fave 2hu so that's a plus.

Halo: Fireteam Raven (2018) - "hey let's play this since we're all together and it's a Saturday night which means bad co-op game night but now IRL!" (moments before friend temporarily lost their wallet.) We finished the fight, but at what cost? About $20 and an hour.

F-Zero X (1997) - Everyone likes GX (and you should) but I like to describe X as the first five feet of stairs on the difficulty curve of F-Zero. You absolutely can lift yourself up those missing steps but wouldn't it be better to ease your way on up? Very fast and grippy compared to SNES F-Zero. I also like the rock/metal soundtrack as opposed to GX's industrial (which again, still good, just not as good). Dream Chaser the greatest. Also that arranged music album is killer.

Project Wingman (2020) - Did you like Ace Combat Zero? Of course you did. Here you go, have some more. It's kinda weird how even with the option to bring in multiple types of special weapons, the strongest thing you're armed with are your normal-ass machine guns.

Neo Contra (2004) - The Shock Troopers 3 we deserved. All I have to do to sell you on this is show you the opening to the one stage where Bill and Jaguar are running on top of helicopter blades.

Udongein X (2021) - There are a surprising amount of Mega Man-inspired Touhou fangames out there to the point where they can be divided into inspired by classic series and X amongst others (maybe there's a Battle Network one too?) This is the latter and since it felt most like MMX1 to me, I liked it a lot.

Dimension Tripper Neptune: TOP NEP (2022) - Welcome to the Fantasy nep Zone.

Mega Man 8 (1996) - I hate this fuckin game.

Made Man (2006) - Frustrating. I was expecting a mafia clone of Max Payne but instead it's a cover-shooter with the most mediocre gunplay and braindead AI I've seen in a while. Also the bullet time only activates once you fill the meter and upon manual-deactivation, you lose all of the remainder. Kind of a shame too because some of the setpieces are fun (one of my favorites being a gunfight in the rafters above a rock concert at Madison Square Garden) but it just sucks otherwise. The main voice actor, Rick Pasqualone, does too good of a job for this game when everyone else is phoning it in and I'm glad he got a second shot in a better game as Vito from Mafia II.

P-47 Aces (1995) - Recommended by my friend @bizarredawdler. I got my ass beat.

Carrier Air Wing (1990) - If you liked the arcade version of U.N. Squadron specifically, this is more of the same. Not as good but hey, dogfighting the space shuttle isn't something you do everyday.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (2022) - This was fun, and probably the first beat'em up that I began to understand rather than just fumble my way through. Would like to do a co-op run with friends at some point. Played as Donatello, he seems cool.

Freedom Planet 2 (2022) - My GOTY 2022. Despite my teasing in numerous late night calls that this was one of those games where the slightest inconvenience resulted in a delay, I can honestly say my expectations were met, exceeded, and blown away. Enjoyed Freedom Planet 1 a lot back in 2015 and while originally hesitant that the artstyle change would bring a gameplay change, all of that faded away when that first demo came out. It's still just as fast and hard-hitting as the first one if not moreso. The reworks to each characters' movesets are nice. Neera is a great additional player character. God I wish someone could get these homebrew'd onto a Saturn because that's the only way this could get more perfect. My one (1) complaint is now Classic Mode being locked behind beating Story Mode once which, while I like the cutscenes and characters, makes it a little harder to recommend to people who just want the pure gameplay that you could immediately access in 1. That's the only thing I'd change.

Panzer Dragoon: Remake (2020) - It sure is Panzer Dragoon 1 but prettier, but oh boy I would not recommend it for full-price precisely because it is Panzer Dragoon 1 with all of its under-an-hour length intact. There's an achievement for playing it for 100 hours... also one for dying once. Don't have either!

Drainus (2022) - Team Ladybug caught my eye and captured my heart with Touhou Luna Nights, and ever since then I'm on board with whatever they've thrown at me. I still haven't finished Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth but I did play this, which was a pretty fun, if not easy STG. Looks nice too!

Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) - God the campaign sucked except for one part (you know the one). If you get this, only get it because Zombies workshop support is still alive and well.

Halo 5: Guardians (2015) - I cannot, cannot, cannot stress enough how many times I said "Halo 4 did this better." An absolute goddamn slog of a singleplayer with a dumbass story. The teammate AI will not save you or will kill themselves trying to save you despite the game being designed around squad mechanics. Halo's never been good at boss fights, so here have the same one over and over and now there's three of him hahahaha! I hear "multiplayer is good though!" sure it might be, wouldn't know, don't really care to know.

Dolphin Blue (2003) - Neat little run and gun. Liked the 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds here, very vibrant.

Demonizer (2020) - Neat little shooter, though it does punish you harsher later on for taking hits and losing your allies. One of those if you mess up late you might as well restart.

Ace Combat: Joint Assault (2010) - I really enjoyed Skies of Deception, the other PSP Ace Combat. This one is not that, dropping the Strangereal setting for our own and going with a plot involving insurance CEOs I think. Back to linear mission structure, no choosing the order. Could not play the Joint missions in which you and friends tackle operations at the same time affecting one another which is this game's entire gimmick. I don't remember any of the original music but there are plenty of AC2/3 tracks here which are good.

Demon Front (2002) - Kinda hard run and gun, though it's something I'll have to put more time into to get the groove of it. Otherwise, neat Metal Slug-inspired game! Recommended by a friend who I'm not sure wants to be named.

Raiden II (1993) - I like Raiden. Raiden II is more of that. Simple as.

Burnout (2001) - Another one of those games where you probably played a later one and went back only to discover there's kind of an idea here but it needs to get flushed out a little bit more. I started on this one back in the day and only finally got around to finishing, this time on the Xbox version. Not a whole lot going on here apart from being a standard AA racer of the time with a crash mechanic that's more discouraged than encouraged like its later entries. That AI rubberbanding isn't nearly as bad as NFS Underground 1's but it gets pretty bad. I don't regret playing this but I don't see myself going back, especially now having started 2 which is the ideal form of early Burnout.

Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn (2013) - After teasing my friend @thathomestar for years about it, I finally caved. I don't know MMOs or their systems or what makes for a good one, so I won't speak to its quality. I can make my catgirl fish so hell yeah.

Quake: Dimension of the Past (2016) - Where's the ammo? My gun needs more food!

Quake: Dimension of the Machine (2021) - Gameplay-wise it's more Quake which I love but holy shit do some of these levels look good.

8-Bit Commando (2011) - I thought this would be an okay Contra clone but instead it's subpar. I do like the verticality of your path, but it does feel more linear than it should be. Difficulty is easy even on Hard Mode. There's this weird thing where it'll upload replays of your gameplay as workshop items if you let it, so turn that off as soon as possible. Otherwise, you can't buy this anymore outside of keysites. Done to get footage of the dopefish in it.

Operation C (1991) - Quick, easy, but it is Contra, and nobody does it like Contra.

Contra III: The Alien Wars (1992) - Much like Super Castlevania IV, the jump to the Super Nintendo meant that Contra was gonna get a boost in just about every aspect... and much like Castlevania, I still prefer the original NES game to its SNES sequel. That said, I do think Contra III comes out ahead of CV4 with the amount of cool moments that happen, and abilities like locking the aim direction or standing in place and rotating your angle of shooting are accounted for in the increased difficulty. Very cool title, but personally not my favorite.

The Citadel (2020) - This is a fascinating game. While riding the retro-FPS wave, it still includes mechanics from modern shooters like bullet drop, travel time, weapon condition, hunger(?), full-body awareness (even as sprites!), and so on. Levels are really monochromatic. Very bloody and loud when it gets violent, and boy howdy does it get violent. And yet, there's this certain bleak serenity during level exploration that I haven't felt in a while. Looking forward to the sequel.

Castlevania: The Adventure (1989) - You know what? "Battle of the Holy" isn't just a good song, it's good even by Castlevania standards. And that's about the only good thing I can say about this dull game. I'll have to play ReBirth at some point.

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (1991) - Better, but I'd rather be playing something else.

Risk of Rain 2 (2020) - This is cheating since I've only seen credits twice or three times, and I normally don't do the roguelikes so again I won't speak too much to it, but I like this one. I've had a fun time alone but it's definitely a lot of fun with friends, and I hope we can come back to it.

Kid Dracula (1990) - What if Castlevania was Mega Man? is my clickbait attention grabber, but also a pretty apt description. It's easy apart from this one railcart section which I felt like I got through on sheer luck than anything else. Still enjoyable.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992/2021 Absolute Version) - I've never actually beaten Sonic 2 legit, half from getting pissed off by the special stages and half because I get bored by the time Oil Ocean rolls around. Now that the special stages are actually in 3D and have a draw distance, I finally was able to get through and grab all Chaos Emeralds for the first time without save states or sound test cheat codes. And I was finally able to appreciate just how good Sonic 2 is once that weight was lifted. The levels are fun and a vast improvement over Sonic 1's, and the 2-Act structure works a lot better for pacing. And during the final boss, doing it legit gave a level of pressure that a final boss should rather than turning on debug mode and spamming rings to help out. I think I can go beat this even more legit on my Genesis without the modern assists, but it is thanks to this version that I gained the confidence to do so. Just needed a little help up is all.

Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit (2022) - I had a big old dumb smile on my face the entire time.

Sonic After the Sequel (2013/2017 DX version) - I enjoyed this one too. A bit more lengthy due to a four-act structure per zone and the special stages are slightly more miss than hit for me, but it all worked out in the end. The true final boss had my friends and I laughing.

That's all. I'm gonna try to finish up a couple more Sonic games in the new year and also try to beat the Burnout series, with some other stuff along the way.

#year in summary

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whinlatter · 1 year

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Hello Elizabeth, I’ve loved all your metas so far, and you do a great job of pointing things out that we as readers may have overlooked. You honestly made me want to read the HP series again because I feel like I missed out on so much. Apologies if you’ve already done a meta on this before and I missed it, but how abused do you think Harry was by the Dursleys? We know the basics: malnutrition, neglect, and emotional abuse for the majority of his life, but I remember reading the book as a child and getting this uneasy feeling that he was being physically abused. If you read between the lines and pay attention to his interactions with the Dursleys in the beginning of each book, I think it's indirectly mentioned... but maybe I've been reading it wrong all these years? What is your take on this?

TW: generalised non-specific discussions of child abuse and neglect

Thank you so much for the question and for reading all my jumbled thoughts! Totally relate - I re-read the books for the first time in the better part of two decades last summer and was like, sorry all this stuff was there the whole time and I missed it? I learn so much for other writers' close readings revisiting these texts (@ashesandhackles's re-reads spring to mind, but there are many others) and love to be a part of these ongoing conversations.

On the Dursleys and child abuse... I haven't written anything on this before, and the short answer is: yes, I think it's clear that Harry experienced some level of physical abuse at the hands of the Dursleys, at the hands of both Vernon, Petunia, Marge and, to a lesser extent, Dudley.

That said, I do have some caveats. One is that I think fandom speculation over the extent of the physical abuse can sometimes risk overstating the canonical scale of the physical abuse (any abuse, including psychological abuse, is awful enough, and some fics claiming canon-compliancy can sometimes risk gratuitous depictions of really horrific abuse in problematic ways). Two, I think sometimes fanfic depictions of Harry at the Dursleys' can risk overstating how canonically Harry perceives his treatment at the Dursleys, in ways that risks predetermining how child victims of abuse ought to feel about their experiences rather than how they describe them themselves. Three, and the one that's particularly interesting to me as a historian, is how Harry's treatment at the Dursleys shines this fascinating light onto changing audience tastes and attitudes towards depictions of harm to children in mass-market children's and YA literature between the time of HP's initial publication and the present day.

I've done a longer little lunch-break discussion of some of this below the cut. Yes this quickly became a long-winded discussion of the character of the abused orphan/child in the publishing market for late twentieth century children and YA literature and Thatcher's Britain. I am sorry about that, and know that I apparently simply cannot be stopped.

It's undeniable that what happened to Harry at the Dursley's was child abuse and neglect, for all the reasons you rightly cite. Both Harry and the loving adult caregivers he finds in the Wizarding World recognise that he is abused and neglected at the hands of the Dursleys. This includes physical abuse, with examples readers rightly cite off the bat: Harry being held tightly around the throat by Vernon and later citing 'a need to duck' around his uncle (OotP), Petunia trying to hit twelve-year-old Harry with a frying pan (CoS), Marge hitting Harry with her walking stick (PoS), and repeated instances of the Dursleys withholding food and confining Harry to small physical spaces. I hope it goes without saying that these instances are plainly incidents of physical violence against children. Each is horrific on their own terms, and likely part of a pattern of repeated physical roughness and low-level violence towards a child (I say low-level only because the strangling incident takes place after Dudley appears to have been harmed in OotP, and Harry's response to Vernon holding him by the throat suggests this violent incident is particularly extreme even for Vernon).

It's also clear, though, that while Harry bitterly hates the Dursleys for all of the harm they have done to him, he does seem to see this physical abuse as part of a broader set of failings they committed as his caregivers, and doesn't single-out physical abuse as uniquely traumatising. Confinement, being shouted at, and failing to protect him from bullying by other children are all crimes the Dursleys commit against him that he clearly views as just as harmful as the physical abuse he endures at their hands. We don't know how Harry the character would come to think about his experiences with the Dursleys in adulthood, of course, and it's reasonable to speculate that he may come to acknowledge himself as a child abuse victim and have either suppressed memories of traumatic incidents he endured as a child. With that said, I personally feel a certain level of discomfort with fan speculation about further or escalated incidents of child endangerment against Harry at Privet Drive beyond what we see either in the text or is implied within patterns of the Dursleys' behaviour. What the Dursleys do to him in canon is bad enough as it is, and exaggerated depictions of the Dursleys' treatment can get dangerously close to implicitly suggesting child abuse has to be a certain level of physically egregious to be sympathetic to the reader that the canonical text doesn't achieve, which I think is intensely problematic.

One thing I will say, though, is that I think the example of the Dursleys' treatment of Harry is a fascinating case study in HP's reception history and the cultural acceptability of depicting and using child abuse as a plot device. The topic is such a good a litmus test for the gulf between how the series was read and consumed when first published and how it is increasingly thought about and revisited by audiences. Changing attitudes about Harry's experiences with the Dursleys reflect how HP as a piece of literature which was written, edited, published and marketed to a consumer audience with certain expectations about depictions of harm to children, but which now continues to be closely re-read/revisited through the films and consumed by a market audience with increasingly different comfort levels and expectations about child welfare.

Children's and YA literature in the mid-to-late twentieth century had certain certain norms and conventions. Often, this took the form of the orphan child as either the protagonist or as a key sympathetic hero. Lots of media used the abused child both as an immediately sympathetic character for audiences to empathise with, and also used the absence of things like family, safety and love as central motivators for these characters, which then sets up the plot of the media at hand to resolve. The literature that for most UK school-children became canonical between 1980 and 1997, so in Thatcher/John Major's Britain, often centred characters who were usually orphaned or bereaved and who experience child abuse, neglect or mistreatment, often depicted in a slapstick and almost pantomime-esque way. This includes predecessors to HP like Roald Dahl's Matilda (1988), Michelle Magorian's Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) and Jacqueline Wilson's various books but especially Tracy Beaker (1991). This period also saw enduringly popular older works of literature experience a resurgence as older English-language TV or film adaptations made in the UK or Hollywood became even more commercially successful and entered 'classic' status - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Roald Dahl wrote the Child-Catcher into the 1968 film - he's not in the book!), Ken Loach's Kes (1968), Peter Pan (including Hook (1991), the Spielberg version), or mid-nineteenth century works of literature that became commercially successful popular musicals after 1950, like Oliver Twist or Cosette in Les Mis. Even in media where children appear in dysfunctional but fundamentally loving homes - Billy Elliot (2000) - or face physical violence at the hands of adult villains - Home Alone (1990) - we can see from both critical reception and popular audiences responses that the consuming publicly were on the whole less likely to be disturbed by either violence or the threat of violence against children than audiences, especially young audiences, three or four decades later, who typically find such depictions, even in their slapstick form, abhorrent.

In this period of writing (and particularly publishing and/or market media production beyond print fiction), there was far greater flippancy about depicting violence or the threat of violence against children as an empathy device for readers, especially young readers. I think this is for reasons that I think relate to changing ideas (and legislation) around children's agency, child welfare, endangerment, protection and the boundaries of the state and family life in late twentieth century Britain and elsewhere (a mammoth topic for another day). These were increasingly pressing political issues into the 1990s, especially the late Thatcherite/Major period into the Blair years. The violence that was depicted in literature during this transitional period almost always had a slightly farcical, or even slapstick or comic dynamic to it that I think is true also of the Dursleys around Harry in those early books - the frying pan being a classic example. We're supposed to think of the Dursleys as ridiculous, a parody of Thatcherite Home Counties surburban culture. While authorial intent is to show a character defined by the absence of familial love at the hands of clear villains, the Dursleys aren't intended to be read as vicious child abusers inflicting irreparable psychological and physical harm on a pre-teen child. They're supposed to be within this genre convention of cruel but ridiculous adults who behave badly and embarrass themselves and who the reader is supposed to immediately root against.

My point, really, is that we as readers can certainly revisit these books decades later having absorbed this greater popular literacy about child trauma responses and PTSD and see these characters differently, but we should keep in mind that this is a lot about the changing sets of ideas and expectations we have as a reading audience than it does about how the author and the text's editors intended these characters to be received. If we are reading the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and thinking - how is Harry remarkably fine after all of this? How could Dumbledore leave him with these people? - we're asking questions that the aspects of HP as an artefact of literature fulfiling certain genre conventions was never set up to be able to answer. I just think is something that fandom discussions and fanfiction authors (particularly those drawn to canon-compliancy) need take into consideration when trying to reconcile their horror at the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and interest in how this abuse would shape him as a character, with an interest in remaining true to the canonical text.

(I absolutely don't mean to be overly relativist about this, and want to make clear I'm talking about depictions of children's abuse in literature. In reality, children who have experienced violence and harm at the hands of adult caregivers have always felt some level of pain and distress. My point here is less about the lived experience of abuse and neglect, and more about changing cultural norms, attitudes and tastes about fictional depictions about abuse and neglect.)

#ok lunch break's over i'll shut up now #i've talked a lot this week even i am sick of me #my ask box is full of interesting Qs i am v grateful for and desperate to answer #but don't want to spam everyone's feed so will be pausing/slowing down answering for a little while if that's ok!#the dursleys #meta #writing #fandom discourse #TW: child neglect

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