#Game recently crashed on me because of it

[chewysgummies]

I hate my stupid, flat lining fucking wifi bro

[lunarharp]

played dragon age 2...just simple scribbles

[dykedvonte]

I haven't had time to think things too deeply yet and haven't dove into the tags but are there really people reflecting the exact thing Jimmy did in the game at it's most basic? It seems a little tragically poetic to me since Jimmy placed all the blame on others and refused to take responsibility for anything, even in the end it was a selfish action rather than a responsible one.

I also feel like Curly was somewhat more aware on some level of the danger Jimmy presented, the long foreboding walk down the stairs to the cockpit to take Jimmy's psych evaluation, the emergency alarms ringing and the broken ladders presenting a feeling of no escape.

Was anyone there even trained to handle a situation like this? Pony Express sure didn't care about safety, that's for certain..

My thoughts are more on people making sure to remind you what Curly didn’t do to prevent it than the fuitity of the situations and the options he had.

I am in the camp that Curly could’ve done more, put Anya first and prioritized Jimmy less, but I feel like many people shape it more around malice on Curlys part to talk about how he isn’t a good person. It’s taking a character flaw and making it the character and it’s annoying to a degree. As you mentions there’s not the avenues or procedure for him or anyone to handle a delicate issue like this is. There aren’t the realistic avenues people can take without someone facing more harassment, harm or issues. It’s the irony that in thinking that Curly could’ve done more, you are giving him power he doesn’t have just like Jimmy did in his weird envious worship of Curly.

It’s erasing Jimmy’s culpability and sort of turning Curly into his handler which is exactly what Jimmy seems to do with him often, like yes, Curly enables Jimmy in many ways he shouldn’t but he also isn’t shielded from those exact behaviors. Curly can’t escape Jimmy in an adjacent way Anya can’t escape him (mentally, physically, emotionally). Their relationship is unhealthy on both parts but Curly is the one truly being victimized in it.

It’s such a good representation of how toxicity seeps and cycles between other even if trying to be good or just or help and it gets overshadowed by how one can be better despite the situation quite literally points out that there are points where it’s impossible.

[nexus-nebulae]

the aftermath of having 2 terabytes of storage

[the-breloominati]

watching n sinclair corrode like. god dammit he’s crashing the game again isn’t he

[fastandcarlos]

Streamer Baby : ̗̀➛ George Russell

summary: your baby is the ultimate daddy’s girl, but when george goes off to stream she doesn’t want to find herself away from him for too long

The squeals that came from downstairs immediately brought a smile to your face as you headed down to find George and your daugther running around the living room. It was typical for the two of them, charging around and causing chaos with wide smiles on their faces. Despite your constant pleas to calm things down as your daughter’s bedtime neared, George couldn’t ignore her whines to play with her and keep her entertained. They were so lost with one another that for a moment they didn’t even notice that you had walked into the room, that was until your daughter, Willow, went crashing into your leg, hitting the ground with a bit of a bump. 

“Sorry love,” George smiled, walking over and picking Willow up from the ground in order to check her over. 

“It’s going to take forever to get her down if she’s this giddy,” you reminded him, perching on the side of the sofa. 

“Mummy, daddy kept tickling me,” your daughter complained, poking her finger into George’s cheek several times, making sure that you knew George was responsible. 

“That’s because a certain someone kept climbing on me and trying to pull out my hair,” George defended, raising a questionable glance back at Willow. 

“You’re both impossible,” you chuckled, knowing you had your hands full with the pair. 

“But you love us,” George reminded you, standing himself up from the floor and placing Willow into your lap, making sure you had her before letting go. 

“Hm, sometimes I guess you’re alright,” you teased, allowing George to press a kiss against the top of your head, and then one to the top of Willow’s. “How long do you reckon you’ll be?” You quizzed, knowing where George was heading as soon as he went to walk towards the door to your living room. 

“I think Charles picked out a couple of games for us to play, we shouldn’t take long, with how rubbish we’ve all been at games recently I imagine we’ll all crash out pretty quickly.” George assured you, “but if you need me, come and get me and I’ll leave the stream.” As George went away, Willow stretched her hands out for George to come back. He poked her tongue out at her, watching as her smile grew and several giggles escaped, helped by the feeling of your hands attacking her sides. 

Before Willow could cry out for him again, George left the room knowing she was still giggling and not paying attention. You moved down onto the floor to sit with her, picking up a couple of the toys that George had been entertaining her with whilst you finished your work in your office. For a while it seemed to work, but soon enough you noticed her eyes darting around the room as if she was looking for something, or someone. 

“Daddy,” she muttered as soon as she met your eyes, confused as to where George had suddenly disappeared to. 

“He’s playing with some of your uncles,” you told her, offering her as wide of a smile as you could make. 

“Not with me?” 

“He’ll play with you when he’s finished,” you assured her, scooping her up and sitting her into your lap, “why don’t you pick out a toy to play with for when daddy’s finished doing his work sweetheart?” 

“I want to play daddy’s game,” Willow cried out, watching as your eyes went wide at her sudden request. 

“You can’t play the games that daddy us, some of them are for adults like mummy and daddy,” you tried your best to explain to her. “I’m sure that daddy would love to play with one of your toys down here though.” 

“Now?” She pushed, her impatience beginning to kick in. 

“In a bit,” you sighed, almost feeling guilty that you weren’t able to keep her as happy as George seemed to. You were well aware you had a proper daddy’s girl on your hands, she doted on absolutely everything that George did, and when things didn’t go right, George was always the first person that Willow ran to whenever she felt tears threatening to spill. 

Upstairs in the office that you had vacated only a few minutes earlier, George was lost in the game that he and a few of the other boys were playing. Every so often he slipped his headphones off to listen out and make sure that things were alright with you. As he went to check again, George was left confused by a banging sound that came from the other side of the door. 

George stopped for a moment before excusing himself, walking over to the door. As he opened it up, two bright brown eyes stared back up at him. “Sweetheart,” George giggled as Willow innocently smiled. 

“Daddy, I found you,” she proudly giggled, stretching her arms up to let George know exactly what she wanted him to do. 

“I wasn’t lost,” he chuckled, kneeling down and scooping his little girl up into his arms. She rested against George’s chest as soon as he had her, cuddling into him nice and tight. George could only sigh, walking back into the room and sitting on his gaming chair with Willow against him. He didn’t have the heart to put her down, and certainly didn’t have the heart to tell her to give him some space. As much as Willow was a daddy’s girl, George was equally as obsessed with her. Although George set boundaries and tried his best to be a firm parent, he found it incredibly hard saying no to her, especially when she looked at him with her sweet smile. 

George didn’t need to say anything, as soon as Willow appeared on the screen the comments on his stream began to increase. Everyone was thrilled to see her, George’s fans especially were in love with any interaction they saw between the two of them, particularly whenever George had Willow in the paddock with him with all of the cameras around. 

“Lots of your uncles are here,” George grinned, placing the mic of his headphones in front of her. 

“Hi,” she waved, shouting into the mic, unaware that she had just deafened all of the boys in the process. 

“Sorry about that,” George laughed as he placed his headphones back on again, “this one’s a little sleepy so she’s going to stay here for a bit.” 

“Such a whipped dad,” Lando couldn’t help but tease as he watched the duo on his screen, “I don’t know how your wife puts up with you.” 

“Excuse me,” George sighed, shooting a glare down his camera. “I’ll have you know being a dad is the best thing in the world, you just wait, when you’ve got a baby doting on you one day you’ll understand,” he added, unaware of the many fans swooning as they watched the screen and saw George fiercely defend his family. 

“You’re the best dad,” Alex interrupted, chuckling as Willow shuffled to get even closer to George. “You two have the sort of relationship I want to have with my daughter when I get older.” 

“Still annoyingly cute,” Carlos interjected, “the rest of us have some catching up to do.” 

“We used to always say we’d have a grid of our own children when we retired, and at the moment that’s a grid of one,” George reminded them all, disturbed by the door opening out of the corner of his eye. You let go of a sigh as you opened it up to see Willow snuggled into George’s side, watching as he smiled across at you, assuring you that he didn’t mind that she had interrupted his stream. 

“Hi love,” George whispered once he had muted his mic. 

“I thought I’d lost her,” you sighed, leaning against the doorframe and taking in the sight of the two of you before you. 

“I think someone might have been missing their daddy,” George explained, pressing a kiss against the top of Willow’s head. “Sorry, I should’ve told you that I had her here.” 

“Don’t worry, just as long as you don’t mind having her there,” you smiled back at George. 

“I don’t mind.” 

“Tell her that we don’t mind too,” Lando called out through the headphones having overheard your conversation. 

“The boys say she has to stay,” George smiled, knowing that you couldn’t say no to those guys either. “Once she’s asleep I’ll let her rest and tuck her in when we’re finished here if that’s alright for you.” 

As you noticed your little girl resting against George, you didn’t have it in you to disturb her. You’d fallen asleep enough times on George to know just how comfortable it was and so you couldn’t deprive your little girl of that comfort too. 

“I’ll leave you guys to it if you’re happy,” you softly spoke. 

“We’re all good, you go and get some rest.” 

˗ˏˋ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ! ´ˎ˗

[sharb]

So i keep seeing people sharing game maker dunking on unity.

I'll be real with you. People behind game maker are probably just as bad.

They pushed a subscription service out when the tool uaes to be a life time license and im sure they're going to find a way to force life time licenses into a subscription model.

It's being handled by the company running OperaGX.

And most recently they pushed an update that broke the sprites on every project because they rushed the update out because they wanted to meet their monthly update deadline for the subscriptions.

If your starting out game dev i would actually advise staying away from game maker.(speaking as someone who used the program for over 10 years till it started crashing on me frequently and making me have to keep buying life time licenses)

[linkcharacter]

Really like the recent analysis. I know I speak of curly in a more defensive way than most but I generally try to get the point you made across at the end of the day with my analyses on him and his behaviors.

People love to lock analyses around Curly solely based on what he could’ve done as a physical action and have this avoidance to acknowledging the realistic barriers at play when it comes to those solutions. It’s. The game tries to treat the pre-crash section as if they are grounded in social and organizational realities. So the what if he did this questions about the situation always fall short when the real answer is he either couldn’t or it wasn’t an actual viable option. But then when they talk about what he actually did do it’s surrounded by such bad faith interpretations that his actions were completely intentional or still not affected by outside sources. He’s a very much “road to hell is paved with good intentions” character. He cared too much and that’s a big part of his problem.

There’s such a “perfect victim or nothing” mindset in the fandom where people can’t admit that there are no such things as perfect victims but that also shouldn’t mean that even if there were it would absolve them of the mistakes they made. People want to moralize every action of every character that they don’t realize that some actions are done without any specific morale factor. People just do things, like you said. People assumed failed intentions immediately flip the thought process behind them “he meant to do good but bad happened, he must be bad” and that just is not how people work. It’s how perceptions work but only of the observer.

It’s such a sensitive topic because, yes, you are supposed to be frustrated, even mad, at what Curly didn’t do, but you have to acknowledge the fact these were good intentioned acts even if that good intent did jack squat in the end. That his responses are human and it’s supposed to be uncomfortable and hurt that they were realistic faults of his.

He enabled his friend and it ended bad for everyone including him. No one really tries to argue this fact but everyone seems to think it has to be tied to the morale dilemma and not certain human natures and social factors.

This is all to ask, why do you personally lean towards thinking Curly wouldn’t turn Jimmy in? Are you speaking in the short term of realizing how bad he got or long-term/overall? I feel like he could but it would not be easy and no matter the necessity he’d always have this guilt at feeling bad for doing it.

Ah yes Curly the most imperfect human man character.

Yep yep yep absolutely, people love to assign morality onto characters and call them good or bad and diminishing the depth and nuance of Mouthwashing, filling discussions with bad-faith interpretations or speculating on inconcrete understandings of the incomplete, intentionally vague, context. I adore Mouthwashing to no end for having this oppressive suffocating and constant atmosphere surrounding everything in the game. Really shows off that the environment festers, no one well-meaning guy could create a happy ending with individual actions alone because it's all systematic.

To elaborate from your question tho, at the point Curly was in (if Anya wasn't pregnant scenario), definitely no don't think so (would depend on Anya a too on whether or not she would go to the authorities outside). Curly knew Jimmy was a danger, and I do believe that subconsciously Anya's report to him on Jimmy gnaws at him, but not vividly enough. I want to point out a moment where Anya tells him about the pregnancy, he begins asking "Who would you-", then he's nudged by Anya that she told him and he should know who it is, and he does, instantly saying he's known him a long time and will talk to him. That moment of, for a second not connecting that Jimmy is the assaulter responsible just makes me drag my palm across my face for how much of a man (derogatory) Curly acted like for one dialogue line. Like he just 'forgot' for a brief moment that Jimmy harassed Anya prior? Granted, he instantly believes and takes Anya seriously, immediately dropping the search for the gun he was on in that scene, realizing the severity of the situation and of Jimmy. We also don't know what Anya has told him specifically, how long ago it happened, etc. but the 'implications' of the scene make me believe Jimmy's known sexual harassment on the ship slipped Curly's mind due to him being more invested in "the bigger picture" of Jimmy, not latching onto a harmful and a very serious fucking trivia fact about Jimmy because of his perception of who his friend is as a whole (and with his foggy sleep-deprived mind at the moment), 'losing a needle in a haystack' with how much unknown history Curly and Jimmy shared, so to say.

Maaaybe in some other circumstances, like if Jimmy didn't crash the ship or smth long term I could see him doing it, it would take a lot effort like you said, no matter the necessity. We will never know. If we're going into speculation and imaginary scenarios though, if Anya HERSELF were to try and get justice, Curly would be backing her up undoubtedly (still not disconnecting himself from Jimmy though and feeling guilt on his behalf). But that's all suppositions from my reading of the characters.

[ms-demeanor]

On insurance: I still live with my parents and don't know a lot yet about the sorts of things adults usually have to spend money on. I've always been skeptical of things like insurance and credit cards because it seems to me they wouldn't be selling that if they didn't expect to make money from it. I talked to my cousin a while ago about credit cards and basically came to the conclusion that they do that because they're betting on the customer getting sloppy and letting their debts stack up, and the way you beat that and get money from credit card companies is just by being careful.

I'm a little more confused about insurance though because it seems much more straightforwardly like a gamble they will simply not take if it won't pay off for them. Like, you don't go to a casino because every game they play at a casino is one they've done the math on and have determined that statistically most people will lose money on most of the time. Is insurance not kinda the same? Where they estimate the risk and then charge you an amount calculated to make sure it probably won't be worth it for you?

I know if you have a car you legally need car insurance so everyone knows you can pay for another car if you crash into someone, and I gather that here in the US at least health insurance companies have some kinda deal with hospitals so that the prices go down or something, and there's a reason I don't fully understand why not having health insurance is Really Bad. But we get to pet insurance, or like when I buy a concert ticket and it offers ticket insurance in case I can't make it to the show, and surely if they thought they were gonna lose money on that they just wouldn't sell it, right? Or they'd raise the price of it until it became worth the risk that something bad actually will happen? Wouldn't it only be worth it to buy insurance if you know something the insurance company doesn't?

So the deal is that most people don't use their insurance much, and often insurance companies will incentivize doing things that will make you use your insurance less.

So, for example, you can get a discount on car insurance if you have multiple cars because people who insure multiple cars are more likely to be responsible drivers (the ability to pay for multiple cars stands in as a representation of responsibility here). The longer you go without an accident, the lower your premiums get because that means that you are not costing your insurance company anything but you are paying into the system. The car insurance company's goal is to have the most responsible, safest drivers who never get into car accidents because they can predict (roughly) how much they're going to have to pay out to their customers and they want the number they pay out to be lower than what's paid in. So they try to discourage irresponsible drivers by raising their rates and encourage responsible drivers by giving them discounts.

Health insurance companies often do the same thing: I recently got a gift card from my health insurance company because I had a visit from a nurse who interviewed me about my overall health and made sure I had stable blood pressure and access to medications. It is literally cheaper for my insurance company to give me a $100 giftcard and hire a nurse to visit me than it is for me to go to my doctor's office a couple of times, so they try to make sure that their customers are getting preventative care and are seeing inexpensive medical professionals regularly so that they don't have to suddenly see very expensive professionals after a long time without care.

Insurance in the US has many, many, many problems and should be replaced with socialized healthcare for a huge number of reasons but right now, because it is an insurance-based system, you need to have insurance.

We're going to use Large Bastard as an example.

Large Bastard had insurance when he had his heart attack and when he needed multiple organs transplanted. He didn't *want* to be paying for insurance, because he thought he was healthy enough to get by, but I insisted. His premium is four hundred dollars a month, and his out of pocket maximum is eight thousand dollars a year. That means that every year, he pays about $5000 whether he uses his insurance or not, and if he DOES need to use the insurance, he pays the first $8k worth of care, so every year his insurance has the possibility of costing him thirteen thousand dollars.

The bill for his bypass surgery was a quarter million dollars.

The bill for his transplant was over one and a half million dollars.

His medication each month is around six hundred dollars. He needs to have multiple biopsies - which are surgeries - each year, and each one costs about twenty thousand dollars.

Without health insurance, he would very likely be dead, or we would be *even more* incapable of paying for his healthcare than we are right now. He almost ditched his insurance because he was a healthy-seeming 40-year-old and he didn't think he'd get sick. And then he proceeded to be the sickest human being I've ever known personally who did not actually die.

Health insurance costs a lot of money. It costs less money for people who are young and who are expected to be healthy. But the thing is, everybody pays into health insurance, and very, very few people end up using as much money for their medical expenses as Large Bastard did. There are a few thousand transplants in the US ever year, but there are hundreds of millions of people paying for insurance.

This ends up balancing out (sort of) so that people who pay for insurance get a much lower cost on care if they need it, hospitals get paid for the care they provide, and the insurance company makes enough money to continue to exist. Part of the reason that people don't like this scheme is because "insurance company" could feasibly be replaced by "government" and it would cost less and provide a better standard of care, but again, with things as they are now, you need to have insurance. Insurance companies are large entities that are able to negotiate down costs with the providers they work with, you are not. If you get hit by a car you may be able to get your medical bills significantly reduced through a number of means, but you're very unlikely to get your bills lower than the cost of insurance and a copay.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, which is flawed but which did a LOT of good, medical insurance companies cannot refuse to treat you because of preexisting conditions and also cannot jack up your premiums to intolerable rates - since Large Bastard got sick, he has had the standard price increases you'd expect from aging, but nothing like the gouging you might expect from an insurance company deciding you're not worth it.

Pet insurance works on the same model. Millions of people pay for the insurance, thousands of people end up needing it, a few hundred end up needing a LOT of it, and the insurance companies are able to make more money than they hand out, so they continue to exist. This is part of why it's less expensive to get pet insurance for younger animals - people who sign up puppies and kittens are likely to be paying for a very long time and are likely to provide a lot of preventative care for their animals, so they're a good bet for the insurer. Animals signed up when they are older are more likely to have health problems (and pet insurance CAN turn animals away for preexisting conditions) and are going to cost the insurance companies more, so they cost more to enroll (and animals over a certain age or with certain conditions may be denied entirely).

This weighing risk/reward is called actuarial science, and the insurance industry is built on it.

But yeah it's kind of betting. The insurance company says "I'll insure ten thousand dogs and I'm going to bet that only a hundred of them will need surgery at some point in the next year" and if they're correct, they make money and the dogs who need surgery get their surgery paid for out of the premiums from the nine thousand nine hundred dogs who didn't need surgery.

Your assessment of credit is correct: credit card companies expect that you will end up carrying a balance, and that balance will accrue interest, and the interest is how they make the money.

And it is EASY to fuck up financially as an adult. REALLY EASY. But you are still likely to need a good credit score so you will need a credit history. That means that the correct way to use a credit card is to have a card, but not carry a balance.

To do this, never buy anything on the card that you can't afford. In order to avoid needing the card for emergencies, start an emergency fund that is at least 3 months of your total pay *before* you get a credit card. That seems like a *lot* of savings to have, but from the perspective of someone who has had plenty of mess-ups, it's a lot easier to build up a $10k emergency fund than it is to pay off a $10k credit card debt.

If you don't understand how interest works on credit cards, or why a 10k savings is different than a 10k debt, here are some examples working with $10k of debt, 23% interest (an average-ish rate for people with average credit), and various payments.

With that debt and that interest, here's how much it costs and how long it would take to pay off with $200 as the monthly payment:

Fourteen years, and it would cost you about twenty four thousand dollars in interest, for a total amount paid of about thirty four thousand dollars.

To save $10k at $200 a month would take four years and two months.

Here's the same debt at $300 a month:

4.5 Years and it costs about six grand (again, just in interest - sixteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at three hundred dollars a month would take just under three years.

Here's the same debt at $400 a month:

3 years, about $4000 dollars (fourteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at $400 a month takes just over two years.

The thing is, with all of these models you're going to end up paying one way or another. Insurance vs out of pocket is you weighing the risk of losing a fair amount of money by signing up but not using the system, or potentially losing a catastrophic amount of money by not signing up.

For credit cards they really only work if you know you're never going to need them for an emergency, because an emergency is what you're not going to be able to pay off right away. I didn't have an emergency fund when Large Bastard had his heart attack and needed surgery, or when we moved between states suddenly, or when we moved between states suddenly AGAIN and needed to pay storage costs, or when Large Bastard needed a transplant, or when Tiny Bastard got in a fight with my MiL's dog, and the fact that I didn't have an emergency fund is still costing me a lot of money.

So, young folks out there: what's the takeaway?

Get insurance. Get the best deal possible, which usually ends up being the one you sign up for early. You may think you can let it ride without insurance, but man in the six months between when I graduate college (and lost my school insurance) and when care kicked in after 90 days at my job I got electrocuted and needed to go to the ER. If that hadn't been a worker's comp payout I would have had thousands of dollars in bills. Something could happen. You could break your leg, you could get hit by a car, you could suddenly find out that you actually have heart disease at twenty, you could develop cancer. Have insurance, you need insurance. You legally need car insurance in the US, and you financially need health insurance. If you have a pet, I think it's a good idea for them to have pet insurance.

Credit cards are not for emergencies, they are not for fun, they are not for buying things that are just ever so slightly out of your budget, they are for taking advantage of the credit card company and managing to get by in a system that demands you have a credit score. ONLY put purchases on your credit card that you already have cash for. Before you get a credit card, build up an emergency savings so that you aren't tempted to put emergency charges on your card.

If you DO end up with an interest-bearing debt, pay it off as fast as possible because letting it linger costs you a LOT of money in the long run.

Stay the fuck away from tobacco and nicotine products they are fucking terrible for you, they are fucking expensive, and they are not worth it put the vapes down put the zyns down put the cigarettes down I will begin manifesting in your house physically i swear to fuck. Knock that shit off and put the cash that you'd be spending on nicotine into a savings account.

Take care, sorry everything sucks, I promise that in some ways it actually sucks less than it did before and we're working on trying to make it suck even less but it's taking a while.

[aeonstale]

SHUT UP AND DRIVE !

┆彡 summary. headcannons about driving. ┆彡 cw. blade x reader. moze x reader. boothill x reader. crashes. suggestive (mention of making out). curses. road rage. boothill's part is short bc headache. not proof read. [1.5k]

m.list | request.

STELLARON HUNTERS (BLADE).

Canonical Blade can drive. Silver wolf tried one time, she almost caused your death (she said she had a perfect score. She meant in the game..) Firefly can’t, Kafka can but always let Blade drive.

Passenger princess treatment from Blade. The type to have his hand on your thighs, drawing meaningless shapes. He lets you choose the music, and you know he likes it when he taps his finger to the rhythm. 

Though if you call him out he will deny it all.

If you were craving food at whatever time, he WILL drive you there. 

No matter the distance or time. Blade’s getting the car keys and driving you there. 

He sometimes participates in races. 

Tailored a jacket based off of him for you to wear. 

′′It brings me good luck.′′ he says.

But you know the pink hues slowly merging into red ones. Even if he hides his face, blade’s ears are a dead give away. 

Make out sessions in his car. I’m talking heavy ones. 

The type to ask you to feed him when he drives. His eyes focused on the road, while his ears were listening to your daily gossip.

He does have light road rage. Mostly when the other car initiates it, he scares them off. He doesn’t want to waste time and ruin your time together.

But when the mara struck and he couldn't control his anger, he tried to crash them… You gave him the silent treatment for a week + no kisses or cuddles for a month + never sat next to him choosing to sit farther from him even in the car, and he never tried that again.

Sometimes the other stellarons crash your outings.

Silver Wolf would be popping bubble gums while her game audio is at max volume. She would be sitting right behind you, easy access to whisper to you and teasing Blade.

Kafka would be in the seat behind Blade’s. Easy to annoy him with light kicks and can also see you clearly while you talk (she just loves window seats.) 

And Firefly in the middle. She’d talk to you about recent missions encounters and whatever’s on the girl's mind. Would also ask blade to stop at a restaurant for take outs, and when he refuses she turns to you. Puppy eyes begging you to convince him. And of course, you agree.

The chaotic family trip vibe.

Except when Kafka drives then it turns into a girl night out and Blade.

He would be in charge of carrying heavy stuff. 

You let Firefly sit in front while you sit next to Blade. 

He sits in between you and Silver Wolf.

One because SW will die before she gives up the window seats. And two he likes how you lean on him (plus a good excuse to say he’s looking at the window when Kafka and SW teases him about how he watches you with tender eyes.)

Overall; a good 9/10 vibe when driving with Blade. (minus one because it can be annoying when he crashed.)

YAOQING TRIO (MOZE).

All of you have your driving license. So let’s cut it into four parts ;

When Moze is driving : 

Respect the rules. A calm driver who has little to no road rage. 

The type to park whenever he needs something so as to avoid any danger. This man is the textbook example of how a driver should act.

However, Moze would NOT let the music play.

′′ It distracts me from the road. ′′ o/10. 

Even if you bring out any deal, Moze will just continue dead staring into the road. He will not budge. 

When Fei Xiao is driving : 

Hold on to your prayers and your seat belt. 

Number one street racer here, she will respect the red light but other than that? Nah.  

′′ Why go slow when you can break the sound barrier? ′′ Fei Xiao probably.

The type to eat and drive, if she dropped something she would grab it herself and let go of the wheel forcing either you or Moze to stir in her stead. 

Which leads to my next point. Either you or Moze HAVE to be on the front passenger seat. This woman is NOT to be trusted with a wheel.

But whoever sits next to her will ALWAYS receive princess treatment.

Moze hates her for it, so he lets you ride next to her.

It’s all fun and game until she’s too caught up in a conversation with you to notice the huge truck heading your way.

You manage to stir out of the way and she just laughs and slaps your back telling you she knew what she was doing.

You banished Moze to the front for a month and to the couch for a week after that.

When Jiaoqiu is driving : 

Pre 2.5? Kind of a responsible driver. He still has some slip up and he often pretends to crash to scare all of you out. 

He gets banned from spicy foods when he pulls stunts like these.

Post 2.5? No. 

In the back seat, he is however in charge of snacks and pranks. 

′′ Oh hey we’re here!′′ ′′..no we are not?′′ ′′ that’s what it’d sound like when one of you notices it.′′ proceed to stare into your soul but he’s looking at the seat.

Many blind jokes, it’s his coping mechanism. 

The type to sit behind the driver seat and cover their eyes. ′′ Guess who~′′ (′′THE IMMINENT DEATH IF YOU DON’T LET GO′′)

His tail takes up most of the back seat but if he allows you, an amazing sleeping spot. But has an interesting way to wake you up…(he put hot peppers underneath your nose until you wake up in a coughing fit lmao)

Overall 7/10 (you still didn’t forgive him for the hot pepper prank.)

When your driving : 

Responsible driver with a hint of road rage. Kind of similar to Blade’s aforementioned, but tamer….ish. 

Moze would be in charge of the gps, Feixiao of the music (her gym playlist would be playing because it is the only acceptable one of hers), Jiaoqiu of the food as usual. 

But the moment someone tries to push you into another lane or bump into you while overtaking you?

They are holding into their seatbelt and praying to The Hunt. 

Physically having to restrain you before you get out and show them why you are the General’s Lieutenant. Insults after insults, it’s even funnier when you insult them in The Xiaozhu tongue while they stand there confused.

But a quick snack shoved to your mouth by Moze and you are all fine and dandy.

′′ Where do you guys wanna eat :) ′′ ′′you almost killed a man..?′′ ′′do you want me to finish him or go eat? ′′ ′′eat.′′ ′′:)′′

Wife happy, we happy. 

Wife mad, we scared.

Overall 10000000000000/10 (biased bc no you are not wrong ???)

GALAXY RANGERS (BOOTHILL).

Oh boy.

There are only two actual drivers, Boothill and you.

Rappa is licenseless and it’s better if it stays that way.

Boothill prefers to drive, you don’t mind since you get to enjoy the scenery and sleep. 

Rappa is always in the backseat.

They got banished there after some..unfortunate incidents. 

She almost crashed you all. She saw something she deemed was necessary to investigate. Boothill refused to pull over, so she did the next best thing. She tried to jump out.

You had a heart attack trying to pull her back in, you had to climb into the front all while begging Boothill to help. 

Meanwhile Boothill was trying to keep you steady while making sure not to crash (oh yeah and also not hurt Rappa Though he kinda wanted to.) 

You got pulled over by the police, but while you were reprimanded, Rappa distracted the police and pushed you all back into the car. Urging Boothill to hit the gas which he did all while laughing maniacally. 

′′You are crazy!!? What would you have done if they started shooting??′′ ′′shoot back.′′ (father and daughter moment)

Safe to say Rappa was banished from the front seat and was obligated to have the seat belt on at all times.

princess treatment from Boothill. Would drive to the moon and earth. 

Does have some road rage but one glare for you and he is calm.

He is a bit of a ′make your own solution′.

′′Oh no that car is blocking our way′′ ′′we’ll run them over.′′ ′′yes we’ll run them–WHAT′′

The type to fight over the songs, the other two joining soon.

You would have arrived at the destination before a song was agreed on. 

Fun experience until he almost runs over an IPC member and you have to go on a car chase to lose the tens of IPC cars after you.

That meme.

 Boothill singing along to the song while you death stare at him. 

He slept on the couch that night and the following.

And the week after.

@/AEONSTALE — all copyrights reserved. do not repost, modify or edit my works in any way. DON'T LIKE SPAM.

[kerink]

the thing that's been most surprising to me with mouthwashing so far is how little empathy people are willing to extend to curly. and i don't mean this in a piss on the poor way, i'm deeply saddened and genuinely confused by it.

when i first played the game i was at one of the lowest points i've been at in a really long time. my mental health is bad my physical health is bad. i experienced SA a year ago and was recently diagnosed with cancer. i have 2-5 doctors appointments every week with various specialists.

all the while me and two of my doctors are talking about if i need to make a career change that's going to best support my poor health and improve my overall well being. and my family and friends struggle to understand, because i have a doctorate and a good job and live on my own. everyone looks at my life in awe, and they don't understand why i'm unhappy. they tell me so every time i try to explain it.

so when i played i immediately identified with curly. here is a man who's deeply depressed, having hallucinations, trying to reach out to his best friend for support but just has his words thrown back in his face, doesn't want to burden anya with his stuff because she has her own stuff and he wants her to lean on him, he has all these responsibilities and people look up to him and rely on him and have these ideas about him. the highest wrung of their ladder is the lowest of his, and they have no way of conceptualizing why or how he's unhappy and dissatisfied. before the reveal that he's innocent, i completely understood why he attempted suicide.

and then he develops a new disability.

when jimmy goes to crash the ship, he uses curly's unhappiness to try to convince him a murder-suicide is a good idea, and it works. it buys jimmy enough time to get to the cockpit and crash the ship. curly's too in his own head to realize what jimmy meant because jimmy distracted him with how bad his life is. it isn't until the sirens start that curly snaps out of it and it clicks for him what jimmy's done.

i'm not going to re-litigate the issue about if curly could have done more for anya because i've said pretty much all i have to say on it already.

but we really need to highlight that in addition to his lack of tangible choices, he's sleep deprived, deeply depressed, and hallucinating. this is not a man in his right mind making his best choices.

and over and over again i see people refusing to extend him any empathy, to call him a bystander. does a man who says he'll do anything to help and who wanted to be there when anya broke the news and who does his best to play liaison between anya and jimmy sound like a bystander? he let anya keep the gun case! he knew having it would help her feel better!

how good of a friend have you been when you were in your pit of despair? how much were you able to pour into others when your glass was empty?

anya wanted her and curly's support to be reciprocal. if she has enough psych training to do the evals, and having been thru nursing school, she's probably well aware that she and curly need to both be pouring into each other if either of them are going to be any good to anyone. but curly is so determined to defend and protect anya he won't confide in her, despite the fact it's running him so thin that he almost takes jimmy's bait that suicide is a good idea.

i don't think we need to absolve curly of his responsibility. i don't think we should over look his role as an enabler. i don't think we should discredit or discount analyses of his failures. but i'm so tired of people actively avoiding getting in his shoes, getting in his head, reflecting on how they've acted in the past when thinking and feeling similar ways. our worst moments don't make us monsters.

it makes me so sad. and frankly it makes me feel like all the times my family hasn't understood when i've tried to reach out. curly is screaming in agony and just like jimmy we're just trying to keep him quiet because it's too complicated to deal with.

[insidekatmind]

Trust me-Cho Sang-woo

Wearning:+18,smut

Request: yes!

It was a quiet night in the Squid Game compound. The lights were off, and the sound of the participants' breathing filled the cold air. You were in the dormitory, your eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, and you saw Cho Sang-woo lying on his cot. His figure was still, but his face couldn't hide a certain unease. He seemed lost in his thoughts, too deep and dark to share with anyone else.

You approached slowly, careful not to make any noise. You knew Sang-woo wasn't the type to open up easily, but in recent days, things between you had changed. There was an unspoken bond between you, a sort of tacit understanding that no one else could see. Maybe because you both carried a weight too heavy on your shoulders.

"Can't sleep?" your voice asked, low and calm, as you stopped near his bed. Sang-woo looked up, his eyes a little tired, but not surprised to see you there.

"I thought I should stop... think more about what I'm doing," he replied, his tone betraying an internal struggle. "But I can't stop now, right?"

You looked at him, aware of what he was trying to say. It wasn't just the game that tormented him, but his choices, his mistakes. Deep down, you weren't all that different from him. You, too, had made choices you never imagined you'd make before all of this started.

"We're not here by accident," you replied, trying to find the right words. "And we can't change everything right away. But... we can decide not to let this fear consume us."

He looked at you for a moment, almost as if he were trying to decipher you and your intentions. Finally, a small, sad smile appeared on his face. "Maybe you're right. But that doesn't mean it's easy."

You lay down on the bed next to him, silent for a while. The sound of the wind crashing against the walls of the dormitory and the slow beat of your heart seemed to be the only sound that connected you both in that moment.

"I won't leave you alone," you said at last, not trying to minimize what you were both experiencing. "Even if we can't change what's happened, we can decide what to do now."

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if the weight of the night was starting to press down on him too. Then, without saying anything, he let the silence speak for both of you. In that moment, you both knew that the game, with all its ruthless rules, could never break the bond you had created.

You sigh softly and lean into him. “It's going to be okay,” you whisper. Sang-woo's body tenses for a moment, and he seems taken aback by the sudden closeness. But he doesn't move away, and when you lean into him, he can even feel your breath on his skin.

For a few seconds, there's just the sound of your breathing in the dark room. Then, he finally relaxes, and a weary smile appears on his face. "You're too optimistic," he says, but without rancor. There's a slight melancholy in his voice, but it's mixed with something else that you can't describe. "You should be more cynical."

You sigh and caress his cheek softly. “Trust me,” you whisper. Your hand on his cheek sends a shiver down his spine, and he swallows thickly, trying to control his reaction to your unexpected gesture. For a moment, he just looks at you, his dark eyes trying to find something in yours.

Slowly, Sang-Woo gently takes your hand into his. “In a place like this, trust is a hard thing to have,” he says, his voice low and almost tired. "Don't you think so?"

You smile softly and move closer to him without leaving any space between you. "Well you're stuck here, it's worth a try, don't you think?" You whisper softly, caressing his hand.

Your proximity is almost overwhelming, and Sang-woo's breath falters almost involuntarily. He can feel the warmth of your body close to his, your breath against his skin, and the soft touch of your fingers against his skin. There's a tension in the air, heavy and electric, and for a moment, it feels like time has slowed down, letting the two of you relish in this unexpected moment."You're too..." he whispers, not quite having the words. "Too kind. Too trusting. Too different from me."

He brings his free hand up to your face, resting it gently against your cheek. The tips of his fingers trace the curve of your cheekbone, his touch light and uncertain. "Why are you so determined to help me?" he asks, his dark eyes fixing on yours, searching for an answer. "Why don't you push me away like everyone else?"

You smile softly “because I see the real you, Sang-woo” you say softly. Sang-woo's breath hitches a little as he listens to your words. There's always been a part of him that he's tried to hide, a part of him that he's ashamed of. To hear you say that you see the real him is somewhat unnerving and terrifying, but it's also strangely liberating.

He brings his hand back down, his fingers gently tracing your jaw. "The real me is not a good person," he replies, almost as a confession. "You shouldn't look for good in me."

You shake your head and smile sweetly at him. “It's not true and you know it too, you just want to hide it so you don't get hurt” you say softly.

Sang-Woo looks at you for a moment and then connects his lips with yours in a kiss. The kiss is unexpected and fierce, and it seems to convey all the mixed emotions that have accumulated between you. It's a desperate and intense kiss, a mixture of anger, fear, and desire. Sang-woo pulls you closer to him, his hand tangling in your hair as he deepens the kiss, almost as if he can't let you go. His body is taut against yours, the heat and weight of him a constant presence against you.

Place your arms around his neck and deepen the kiss. Your arms around his neck only spur him on, and his tongue slides into your mouth, tasting and exploring you with an almost desperate fervor. His hands run over your body, feeling every inch of you, as if he wants to commit every curve to memory. As the kiss continues, the tension between you skyrockets, and the kiss becomes more and more demanding, almost possessive. It's a kiss that says more than words can possibly express, revealing a vulnerability that Sang-woo has tried so hard to hide.

The change in situation is quick and sudden, but it is not unwelcome. Sang-woo quickly takes off your sweatpants and underwear and quickly undresses. His movements seem almost frantic, desperate, as if he is trying to devour you completely. Suddenly you are lifted by Sang-woo, feeling the heat of his body between your legs. He pushes into you, his mouth still on yours, muffling the moans that escape both of your lips. He seems almost overwhelmed by the feeling of his cock being squeezed by your pussy.

As his body moves against yours, it's hard to tell where he ends and you begin. It's a physical and emotional release, a way to channel all the fear and tension that has been building between you for so long.Sang-woo's breathing is ragged, his movements erratic, as he loses himself in the moment, and even in the darkness, you can see the storm of emotions in his eyes. His hands tighten around your hips, keeping you anchored against him, as he kisses you more desperately, as if you are his only.

You moan into the kiss as you cling to him and Sang-woo pushes himself hard into you. Sang-woo is completely lost in the moment, his mind and body consumed by the pleasure of being with you. His fingers dig into your flesh, leaving marks on your skin, and the sounds of his moans fill the small space of the dormitory. He's no longer thinking about the surroundings, about the danger they are in. In that moment, all he wants is you, and judging by the desperate way he is holding and kissing you, that thought is almost scary to you.

Your bodies move together, creating a rhythm more hard, and Sang-woo's pace is relentless. It's as if he is trying to erase all the fear and despair of the games, if only for a few minutes, and lose himself in you. His lips leave yours and go down your neck, leaving a trail of hot kisses and marks.

You moan, closing your eyes in pleasure. “Sang-woo” you moan softly. Sang-woo seems to be spurred on by the sound of his name on your lips, and he bites down on your neck, almost as if he were trying to mark you, to claim you as his own.

His pace doesn't slow down, and he pushes himself deep into you, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. He seems consumed by you, like a man dying of thirst and finally finding an oasis. He kisses you again, his tongue seeking yours in an almost desperate way, as if in that moment, you are his only lifeline. "I need you," he whispers against your mouth, his voice ragged and rough with desire.

“So good” you moan softly opening your eyes and looking at him with desire. “Sang-woo” you moan again. The sound of his name on your lips is like music to Sang-woo's ears. He gazes down at you, his breath catching as he sees the desire in your eyes. The sight seems to both arouse him and break something inside him, and he responds with a growl that is almost animalistic.

He pushes into you again, hard, and his eyes seem to burn into yours. "Say my name again," he demands in a rough, hoarse voice, almost as if he wants to confirm that this is real and not just a dream.

You moan at his violent thrusts and look up at him. “Sang-woo” you moan again. The sound of his name on your lips ignites a fire in Sang-woo that he can't control. It's something primal and powerful, and it seems to break down all the walls he has put up to protect himself.

He doesn't let up, his movements becoming more and more intense with each thrust, as if he's determined to claim you completely. His eyes don't leave yours, and he seems on the verge of losing control, carried away by a tsunami of desire.

You cry out in pleasure and cling to him. Your pussy squeezed his cock tighter and tighter making him grunt. “look how your tight pussy is squeezing my cock” he growls fucking you faster making you scream and you bit his neck to not make too much noise since they were sleeping.

Your body's reaction to his words and actions seems to drive Sang-woo crazy.He seems almost possessed by the moment, as if all the fear and tension he had felt before have suddenly vanished. His body is like a coiled spring, ready to snap at any moment. With each thrust, he loses a little more control, and the sound of his ragged breathing filling the tense silence of the dormitory. The words that escape his lips are almost filthy, but there is a vulnerability in them, a raw need that is impossible to fake. It's as if he can't hold back anymore, as if he is finally showing you the real him, the part of him that he is afraid to show to anyone else.

You cup his face and kiss him softly as you held each other tighter making both of you moan. “I'm coming,” you whisper near his lips. Your words seem to send a jolt through Sang-woo, and he growls low in his throat, his body tensing in response. His eyes find yours, and there is an almost wild look in them, like someone teetering on the edge.

"Come for me," he responds, his voice a low, rough whisper, almost like a ragged prayer. "Show me how much you want it." You moan feeling his thrusts get even stronger and you come while biting his neck to keep from screaming.

The feel of your teeth on his neck, the sound of your moan in his ear, it's all too much for Sang-woo. He can't hold back anymore, and his own climax follows closely behind yours. He hides his face in your neck, his arms holding you tight, as if he was trying to anchor himself to something real and tangible. He is trembling, his body still riding the aftershock of pleasure, and his breaths are ragged and unsteady. You could feel how he had filled you with his cum and it felt great.

Sang-woo clings to you, letting your gentle touch bring him back to reality. He seems almost vulnerable in that moment, his usual cold demeanor crumbling to reveal a man who's been through a lot more than he lets on. Your kisses are soothing, like a balm to his frayed nerves, and he nuzzles against your neck, his breaths gradually slowing down and returning to normal.

He's silent for a few moments, just inhaling your scent and soaking in the moment, as if he's trying to memorize every detail. Then, finally, he speaks, his voice low and a little hoarse."Can you stay here tonight?" he whispers, his arms still holding you close, as if he's afraid you'll leave if he lets go.

You smile and continue to rub his back. You give him a small kiss on the forehead and nod. Sang-woo seems to relax a little at your response, and he shifts a little so that he's lying down on his side, pulling you with him so that you're facing each other.He looks at you silently for a few moments, his expression unreadable, and then, almost hesitantly, his hand comes up to touch your face again, his fingers tracing a gentle path from your temple down to your jawline.

There's an almost contemplative look in his eyes, as if he's trying to commit your face to memory. His touch is gentle, almost reverent, and he seems to be lost in thought.Finally, he breaks the silence. "Are you real?" he asks, his voice soft and a little uncertain. "Or am I just dreaming right now?"

You smile softly and kiss him. "what do you think?" You whisper against his lips answering his question. Sang-woo's lips curve under yours, and he kisses you gently in return, as if he's trying to reassure himself that you're really there.

After a few moments, he breaks the kiss and looks at you again, his eyes dark and intense. "I think you might be a figment of my imagination," he says, half-joking, half-serious. "No one as patient and kind as you could possibly be real."

You giggle softly and hold him close, kissing his face countless times. “you just had to meet the right person” you whisper lovingly. Sang-woo's expression softens at your words, and his arms tighten around you, pulling you closer to his chest. He seems to take comfort in your embrace, and your gentle kisses seem to soothe him.

"I don't deserve you," he whispers back, a hint of guilt in his voice. "In fact, I don't think I deserve to be happy at all."

You gently stroke his hair. “everyone deserves to be happy” you whisper softly as you continue to cuddle him. Sang-woo seems to be struggling with himself, like he's trying to hold back emotions that he's used to keeping bottled up. He buries his face in your hair, and his breathing is a little ragged.

"I've done terrible things," he confesses in a low voice, his body tense against yours. "Things that I can't take back, and that will follow me to the grave." You continue to hold him close and comfort him. “yeah, but you regret it and you want to change and it makes you a better person” you say lovingly.

Sang-woo seems to absorb your words like a sponge, and he clings to you like a drowning man grasping for a lifeline. He seems so vulnerable in that moment, so different from his usual stern and cold demeanor."I don't know whether I can change," he whispers, his voice filled with self-doubt. "Sometimes I think I'm too far gone, that I've gone past the point of no return."

“I'll help you, you're not alone in this” you say softly, stroking his hair. Sang-woo's body seems to sag against yours, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He seems to be grappling with a host of emotions, a tangle of guilt, shame, and uncertainty.

But amidst those feelings, there's a hint of hope, like a ray of sunshine breaking through a storm cloud.

[dear-ao3]

hey wait im also new to f1 but i saw the other ask and i was curious abt what you meant when you said no one will ever do it like nico rosberg?? also retiring after your first championship win is insane lmao what a power move

nico rosberg is just. he’s insane. he’s cunty. he’s wonderful. he possesses sass and audacity unlike any other. we unfortunately do not have time to get into his whole story (my lunch break is only so long) but here’s some highlights:

-technically he’s a nepo baby. his dad, keke rosberg, won the world championship in 1982 and they remain one of the Few father son duos to both win a world championship (don’t ask me who the others are idk but i know they exist)

-he and lewis hamilton met when they were kids in the late 90s sometime and were gokarting teammates at some point in i think the early 2000s? (not fact checking i don’t have the time rn) and they were Besties. they’ve talked about this before, mostly in older interviews, but the gist is that both of them were outcasts from the other karting kid in opposite ways (nico was the son of a champion and rich and lewis was from nothing and pretty much the only poc most of the time) and that drew them together and they were Menaces according to legend. everything was a competition and they trashed hotel rooms and ate pizza and ice cream and kellogg frosties and went to greece and dreamed of being in f1 together

-nico signed with williams in 2006. his teammate was mark webber. and nico had long flowing blonde hair (this is important). he crashed at one race and mark webber said “britney’s in the wall” cementing the nickname britney, like britney spears. jenson button (another driver) said later on that they called nico britney because he was “very pretty” (do with that what you will)

-he was just. insane. cunty. constantly looked like a european bond villain. wore god awful shoes. whole bit. once he stayed in his car when it got craned off the track cause he didn’t want his hair to get wet. which is insane cause he’s wearing a helmet it would have gotten equally as not wet had he gotten out.

-anyway, lewis made it to f1 in 2007 and they had their first podium together i think that year (?) and it’s cute and fun and oh boy you’re not ready for what these two have coming

-lewis won the championship in 2008 (but he almost won in 2007, his rookie year) at mclaren.

-nico went to mercedes when they recentered the grid in 2010. his teammate was michael schumacher, who was fresh out of retirement. (yes the michael schumacher, 7x world champion). michael fucked with nico endlessly according to legend, including making him piss in a bucket pre race because he would hog the bathroom until the last possible second. nico still out preformed him most of the time, and the car was mid as hell.

-michael retired part 2 at the end of 2012. and who replaced him but lewis hamilton

-so the two of them were teammates again. the cards were absolute Stacked against them. because yes they were besties yes they’d known eachother forever but the first person you’re judged against is your teammate. and you’re trying to beat your teammate. and lewis already had a championship. nico wanted a championship.

-2013 was relatively chill. the car was kinda mid. they did well but not fantastic and did some fuck ass pr (highly reccomend looking those videos up)

-2014 they had a car that could win. and they started fighting eachother for wins. they played all kinds of mind games against eachother and withheld stats and nico ran illegal engine modes (supposedly) and lewis said they were no longer friends after nico supposedly wrecked his monaco qualifying one year but they claimed they still supported eachother and were friends off track. lewis won in 2014 and in 2015. but nico was right behind him and he wanted to win a championship, he didn’t want to be a number 2 driver

-so in 2016 nico did some insane shit. he stopped sleeping with his wife so that he could get better sleep or something, he did weird things to cut weight, he basically did everything and then some to win. and then he did. he won the championship and then at the prize giving ceremony announced he was retiring. he didn’t tell lewis this.

more after i get off work :)

[2handsslan]

charles leclerc // cl16 fic rec

———————————— 🏎️🏎️ ————————————

one shots

save a bull! - @leclerc-hs

“ in which a city girl meets a cowboy OR charles finds himself infatuated with the visiting city girl”

this is a relationship, that i don’t think anyone saw coming - @monzabee

“the one where you and charles think you are successfully fooling everyone on the grid, when in reality you are the ones being fooled”

she’s busy - @vroomvro0mferrari

“you and charles have been friends for ages, but recently his protectiveness has reached new heights, ruining your every chance at love. it's high time you put an end to it, and you know just how”

never have i ever - @pucksandpower

“a game of Never Have I Ever leads to revelations your brother wishes he could forget (and half the grid running for their lives)”

la regina - @pucksandpower

“a girl raised at her father’s knee goes from rising star to princess to queen (or in which becoming a legend runs in the schumacher family)”

series

good luck charm - @neferaskingdom

“if this was just supposed to be casual, why is he acting like this? why is he holding her close as if he never plans to let go?”

peer pressure - @diqldrunks

“friendship to lovers”

racing hearts - @dying-inside-but-its-classy

“when i first saw you, i didn't think that you were one day going to become the brightest part of my life”

wreckage - @jungwnies

“after a heated argument with charles, you watch in horror as his car crashes during a race”

smau

the great escape - @harrysfolklore

“the final race of the f1 calendar and yn's final show of her world tour are happening the same day. will charles make it on time?”

c2 or sainz2 - @5sospenguinqueen

“because being teased relentlessly by his teammate wasn’t enough for charles, he decided to fall in love with carlos' sister, and endure twice the bullying”

needle little love - @5sospenguinqueen

“when you’re announced as ferrari’s newest driver, fans love the budding friendship between you and charles, especially when he adopts your penchant for crochet puns. netflix expose that there’s more to the story”

(christmas) star power - @astonmartinii

“oh how one lie can spiral”

nonsense… or is it? - @astonmartinii

“a very nonsense christmas”

pr disaster - @driverlando

“all the times y/n has been horny on main for charles”

trophy husband - @pomegranatesarchive

“charles leclerc is the perfect trophy husband, even if he can’t quite bring himself to watch your movies”

*these are part of my fic rec masterlist, please note none of these are written by me and the author of each story had been tagged! check out my f1 fic rec masterlist for other drivers!*

[flameswallower]

THE BEST FICTION I ENCOUNTERED IN THE SECOND HALF OF 2024!!!

A much longer follow-up to this post. (Can you imagine how much I'd need to type out if I hadn't split them up???)

Once again, I'm not listing movies, TV shows, video games, etc. I AM listing some web fiction and comics/graphic novels, because I feel much more qualified to judge and recommend those things.

____

Novels and Novellas!

Failure To Comply, by Cavar (2024): Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a vibrant, perpetually imperiled subculture on the margins. Both use this conceit to speak metaphorically about the plights of trans and disabled people, although Failure to Comply’s characters are also presented as literally, textually disabled and trans. But, although Crimes of the Future is often accused of being a “weird movie,” Failure to Comply is undeniably much, much weirder. Cronenberg is super normal compared to this.

Maej, by Dale Stromberg (2024): a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative things with language; a high fantasy story I actually liked. The setting is the city of Sforre-Yomn, in the country of Hwoama, whose culture combines elements from across the continents of Asia and Europe. But Hwoama is matriarchal: men are subordinate to women, who dominate politics, business, the military, and nearly all other professions. As a result of this fact, almost all the major characters in the novel are female. By turns this presents a fun, simple, mischievous inversion of maleness as the unmarked default state for fictional characters, and meaty commentary on the social construction of sex, sexuality, and gender. Stromberg has cited Le Guin as an influence on Maej and, in the most complimentary way possible, this influence is evident.

Lote, by Shola von Reinhold (2020) is a gorgeous, funny, moving academic satire/mystery and love letter to Black modernism. It’s also very queer/trans and (in my personal opinion, perhaps not intentionally) very autistic. The title refers to a possibly-mythical clandestine circle of artists/magic practitioners who style themselves after the lotus eaters and seek transcendence via experiences of sensory and aesthetic pleasure. As with many novels that stand out to me, you won’t read anything else like it. I especially recommend this one if you want a completely unique, intellectually stimulating work of fiction, but are put off by the aggressively experimental and opaque style of Failure To Comply and by the SFF-ness of FTC, Maej, and Leech.

Walking Practice, by Dolki Min (trans. Victoria Caudle) (original 2022; English translation 2024) is a breezy, sexy *, gender-bending Korean novel about a poor amorphous space alien stranded on Earth after a spaceship crash. Unfortunately for us, this alien soon discovers that 1.) the most suitable food for it down here is human flesh, and 2.) with a lot of pain and effort, it can squeeze itself into the likeness of a variety of different human beings. It figures out hookup apps pretty fast, too, and then it’s off to the races. This may sound like creature horror, but it plays more as an exploration of identity and humanity, and a satire of sex, romance, and contemporary hookup culture. (*possibly less sexy if you don’t have a vore/cannibalism/consumption thing)

Love/Aggression, by June Martin (2024) is a BANANAS mundane fantasy-comedy about two trans women who are kind of best friends, and kind of enemies. Zoe (actress) is an arrogant, cartoonishly unpleasant minor celebrity who thinks she’s much more famous and popular than she actually is— but Martin manages to show how her personality is in part the sympathetic result of dysphoria and experiencing a lot of transmisogyny over the course of her life, and how she used to be a much kinder person before fame went to her head. Meanwhile, Lily (freeloader and aspiring tattoo artist) is a sweet, spacy, passive daydreamer, and a far more immediately likable character— but Martin manages to show how she is not entirely blameless in the ongoing drama with Zoe, how her passivity is sometimes the result of immaturity and selfishness, and how even when it isn’t, it’s a character flaw that keeps landing her in situations which kind of suck for all parties involved. They live in a magical Pittsburgh that is, conveniently, located right next to Los Angeles. Their friends include a BDSM cult leader and a nonbinary person whose name becomes “Dicks” in the first chapter of the story and who is never called anything else. (This character also happens to be the…owner? Custodian?…of an infinite, maze-like, reality-distorting building that is probably the most fun and least scary infinite, maze-like, reality-distorting building in all of fiction.) There’s vore in this one, too! But don’t go in expecting a particularly cohesive plot: Love/Aggression is far more about characters, relationships, and gags.

Maybe the Moon, by Armistead Maupin (1992) was inspired by the too-brief life of Maupin’s real friend Tamara De Treaux, a little person who depicted the title character in parts of the movie E.T. Her literary equivalent, Cady Roth, is a sardonic, fashionable, thirty-year-old little person who depicted a magical gnome called Mr. Woods in a beloved, albeit treacly, children’s fantasy movie of the same name. But since she played the role inside a thick rubber suit, and since the director of the movie felt it would spoil the magic to give her any credit, almost nobody knows that. Ten years later, she lives in obscurity on dwindling funds and struggles to find work…until, out of sheer desperation, she decides to take a job with a troupe of children’s birthday party entertainers. Romance, escapades, etc. ensue. Both a very funny book and a very sad one; it’s quite frank about death, about the ways Hollywood fucks people over, about the many ways that, especially if you’re marginalized and/or an artist, your life isn’t fair and isn’t ever going to be fair and “happy endings” probably aren’t what the world has in store for you. I think ultimately it’s sentimental in a good way; it has a big heart.

Leech, by Hiron Ennes (2022) is a total banger to finish out this year with! So glad I picked it up finally! Absolute genre jambalaya, this one: sci-fi, stuff that reads as fantasy despite having or probably having a “sci-fi” explanation, horror, Gothic novel (but not, crucially, a Gothic romance), mystery, medical thriller, character study, philosophical novel about ideas of consciousness, selfhood, individuality, and free will…there’s probably something in here for everyone reading this. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love the Gormenghast books. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love any Star Trek series. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love the science fiction of Peter Watts, or the horror of Gretchen Felker-Martin. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love The Thing (1982). The prose is lush, idiosyncratic, a bit purple, but it’s nothing too baroque, it’s all perfectly easy to read. The complicated, antiheroic protagonist/narrator is delightful and memorable, and I think Ennes did a great job at conveying unusual states of memory/selfhood/cognition through it/them/her. (Some of these states are not ones with which I have, or even could possibly have ever had, real experience, but some are, and I am always pleased to find those replicated in ways I can recognize and feel as “truthful.”)

Short Story Collections!

Stone Gods (2024) and Worse Than Myself (2009) by Adam Golaski contained several of the very best short stories I read this year— especially Worse Than Myself, which is also a slightly more accessible/“normal” story collection and the one I’d recommend starting with. Golaski writes eerie, dreamlike, bizarre fiction that frequently crosses over into horror— even including time-worn horror genre tropes like zombies, ghosts, and vampires. But let me tell you, Golaski��s “The Man From the Peak” (in Worse Than Myself) is a BAD time, like give-you-nightmares scary, and it feels like nothing you’ve ever read before, even though it’s about A Nosferatu. Not just a vampire, but a vampire that is explicitly described as egg-bald with big pointy ears and two sharp buck teeth. That’s the antagonist. And it fucking works. He makes it new. Please, please read Adam Golaski, you guys. It is astounding and unjust that he’s not popularly regarded as one of the 21st century’s best authors of weird short fiction. I don’t actually know if he could have/wanted to publish more than two collections over fifteen years, but I kind of feel like maybe if a lot of people and public libraries buy those two collections, he’ll have more space and incentive to write short stories, and/or more publishers will be interested in picking up another collection of his short stories?

Brave New Weird vol. 2 (2024) was a diverse, entertaining selection of stories. Some I’d read, some I hadn’t. A pretty good overview of the mostly small press horror/sci-fi/Weird fiction scene as it stands right this minute.

All Your Friends Are Here, by M. Shaw (2024) is almost the opposite of the Golaski collections, in a way: Golaski frequently deals with themes of nostalgia, the past, cycles that repeat without end, and timelessness or being outside of time. Moreover, most of his stories feel like they’d be immediately comprehensible to a person fifty years ago or fifty years from now, if not even further into the past/future (with, perhaps, a few footnotes of cultural explanation). But Shaw’s stories are, often aggressively, Of The Moment. And that’s not a bad thing, even if it means they may seem completely dated in a few decades. Shaw is interested in speaking directly to their place and time; directly to us. They’re not going to pretend we’re not all online, that we don’t all know (if against our will) what Ready Player One is— the longest piece in the collection, and one of the best, is a suitably pop-culture-reference-laden dunk/riff/spoof on, and rebuttal of, Ready Player One! These stories are angry and clever and sometimes suffused with a kind of exhausted tenderness. There’s clearly a Bizarro influence on some of Shaw’s work, but their writing is more sophisticated and restrained than what I tend to associate with Bizarro fiction proper.

Individual Short Stories (That You Can Read Right Now!)

“EGREGORE” by Samir Sirk Morató (2024) = clubbing, hallucinatory, girl on girl

“The Spindle Of Necessity” by B. Pladek (2024) = trans academic suspects dead author may have been a closeted gay trans man

“A History of the Avodion Through Five Artists” by Eric Horwitz (2024) = Borgesian, arch, Jewish

“Mad Studies” by Cavar (2024) = loneliness, cats, autism…like Failure To Comply, this is by @librarycards

“Alabama Circus Punk” by Thomas Ha (2024) = robots, the nuclear family, disintegrating language

Comics and Graphic Novels!

Tomorrow You Don't Know Me, by Raven Lyn Clemens (2024) is a subtle, moving, and unsentimental graphic novel about being a middle schooler with problems, and how sometimes those problems just kinda...persist no matter what you do or try or want, and no matter if it's fair. Even if you summon a demon to help you! Clemens is really skilled at depicting emotion visually, at communicating both the absurd goofiness and the deep, genuine pain of the outsize negative emotions her characters experience. All of her characters are at least a little wretched, and she also handles them all with great compassion, affection, and understanding. Check out her artwork at @ravenlynclemens please; it's fantastic cartooning even without any detailed narrative.

In Fair Verona, by Val Wise (2024) is a VERY gory, VERY nasty piece of lesbian Gothic fantasy horror-erotica. I love Wise's art. The bodies she draws, regardless of gender and build, are top-tier sexy and beautiful to me, which means he's often able to get me on board* with kinks and scenarios that would usually be too "extreme" for my taste. (*Genteel euphemism for arousal)

A Guest In the House, by E.M Carroll (2023) is an equally nasty and mean, but far, FAR less explicit and bizarre, lesbian Gothic horror story, told with the visual panache and inimitable art style everyone knows and loves Carroll for. It's a worthy successor to their previous material, and if it doesn't necessarily make enormous leaps from their earlier work in its writing, the drawing and coloring has gone from "already really good" to "some of these splash pages will blow your eyes out the back of your skull."

Expiry Date, by Sloane Hong (2024) is another lesbian/queer erotica comic. This one's science fiction, and is FAR more up my usual alley of kinks. Which is to say that the lovers are quite kind/polite with one another (in a lot of ways it reads as a meet-cute), but also one of them is a hired killer who dispassionately agrees to torture the fuck out of the other one David Cronenberg-style.

Once again, all my comic recs are by queer trans people! I think I made a pretty hacky joke last year about gay trans mascs specifically ruling in this field, but based on recent data, you just have to be a marginalized gender and not heterosexual to make amazing comics.

Web Fiction!

The Frenzy wiki is a fan wiki for an imagined TV series, telling the story of both Frenzy, a popular late 2000s ensemble cast drama-adventure-SFF show drawing equally from the likes of Twin Peaks and Supernatural, and how the existence of this show was mysteriously wiped from the face of our reality-- save in the troubled dreams of a select few. I would estimate it takes a couple hours to explore the whole wiki. (2022 or 2023?)

3D Workers Island is the phenomenal, if less ambitious, follow-up to Petscop. (I don't mean it's a sequel; it's just by the same guy and covers similar thematic ground.) Like its predecessor, it's more about dropping tantalizing hints than letting you in on "what's actually going on," and more about giving you a creeped out and vaguely depressed feeling than about scaring or shocking you per se. It's really smart and well-crafted in an understated way, and does a great job replicating early internet content. I would estimate it takes WELL under an hour to get through this story, although you will probably want to immediately go back and look for things you might have missed or not understood properly. (2024)

Martin's Movies is conventional, compared to the other two. It's a ghost story. But it's a very creepy, effective, well-told ghost story rendered through the unusual medium of letterboxd reviews (of course, these become increasingly diary-like and Not About The Film as the story progresses). I would estimate it takes under an hour to read the whole thing, it's like short novelette length. (2024)

[m4nj1r0s]

Hiii okay I'm obsessed with your TR headcanons! May I request relationship headcanons for Shinichiro Sano? Maybe with a stoic/ calm and collected reader? Thank you if you do 💖

Shinichiro Sano with a stoic/collected reader headcannons

I’m so sorry for the rlly late reply I was sooo inactive recently but tyy! It’s a little short but hope you like it :)

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- Admires you a lot, since he’s quite literally the opposite.

- Before you guys started dating, he used to sneak glances at you with a massive blush on his face. You were just so pretty even whilst you did the most boring things on earth.

- Unfortunately, his little ‘glance’ ended up w/ him staring at you for a good 10 mins and he’s scared you think he’s a weirdo :(

- You probably do ibsr

- Whenever he’s around you he tries to act nonchalant like in the gif, but internally he’s freaking out. Poor boy doesn’t want to ward you off because he likes you sm.

- Given his track record with girls, it’s safe to say he goes to Wakasa. You two are similar, and he wants to try and figure out what you’re thinking.

- Wakasa actually gives him genuine advice, probably because he’s gotten so much second-hand embarrassment from Shinichiro asking girls out before 😭

- Has a whole ass notepad where he jots down things you tell him about yourself. Even if it’s the smallest thing.

- “So, you had a vanilla milkshake whilst you were on vacation 3 years ago?”

- “Correct.. Why are you writing that down?”

- Read a romance novel to try and figure out how to confess to you and he decided to do it on a day that was rainy so you two could have a cute first kiss in the rain moment right after you said yes, breaking your stoic demeanor and also confessed your undying love to him.

- Assuming you said yes ofc..

- Wakasa shut it down almost immediately after Shinichiro told him tho 🙁

- So he opted to ask you out whilst you two were hanging out in his motorbike shop during the sunset.

- “So you’ll actually go out with me???!”

- “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

- Mf was literally jumping for joy

- Naturally after you guys start dating you’ll hang around with Wakasa, Benkei and Takeomi more. Which is fine, since you and Wakasa have similar personalities and you get along with Benkei & Takeomi.

- Shinichiro was happy that you got along w/ his friends but he does get jealous easily. Especially when you and Wakasa form a good friendship :(

- He’s not upset you two get along, but he’s going with you anytime you hang out.

- He gets jealous pretty easily, and then he gets insecure when you seem to be so nonchalant.

- Do you get as jealous as he does when he talks to girls?? (they only talk to him to ask for directions)

- Mikey and Emma adore you, though they were ASTOUNDED Shinichiro brought someone as cool as you home as his girlfriend.

- They crash your guys’ dates sometimes, but you guys don’t mind.

- Shinichiro loves to hand-feed you, and this mf WILL even if you try and stop him.

- “..Move that spoon away from my face.”

- “Honeybuns, you have to eat!-”

- Literally the king of making the cheesiest, corniest nicknames for you and he genuinely thinks they’re cute.

- They range from Honeybuns, Pookie, SNOOKIE, Sugarplum, Sweetiepie and Cinnamonbun.

- Yes, he literally calls you cinnamon bun sometimes 😭

- But he is a gentleman. Will hold open doors for you, make sure you have a helmet if youre going on his motorbike, tie your shoelaces for you and on those rare days you’re too tired to walk he will carry you.

- I hc he’s actually strong, but js can’t fight for whatever reason. So he’s pretty good at lifting things up, which is useful if you ever want to rearrange furniture :)

- Has a fun little game where he tries his hardest to catch you off guard and will randomly kiss you, but the thing is he always does it at the worst time 😭

- One time he came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist and you punched him 😭

- “Why would you punch me, Cinnamonbun?!”

- “..My bad.”

- You’re his savior when he gets injured though. Whether it was in his shop, or Mikey and Emma ganging up on him, you always tend to his injuries and your calmness also relaxes him in turn.

- Has a cringe t-Shirt with your face on it that says ‘If Lost, please return to:’ 🫠

- He thinks it’s cute!..

- In conclusion, he will be extra cheesy if you’re stoic <3