#Are people going to start fighting for the Number One fan title...

[showbits]

NAURR SHOWBITXZ IM UR #1 FANN I've been here since the BEGINNING!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad to have you stick around for so long! I appreciate every one of my fans very much!!!!!! ❤️

[cowboylikeyouu]

🦾 WINTERHAWK RECS 🏹

@bl0ssomized asked for some winterhawk fic recs & i took that as my sign to finally sit down, go through my 500+ bookmarks and provide y'all with my fav fics <3 if you end up reading/enjoying any of these, PLEASE make sure to leave a comment on ao3, the authors deserve all the nice words in the world!!

about this list:

most of these fics are pretty popular in the fandom, so this list is more directed at new fans just joining the winterhawk paradise!! (there's a lot on here tho, so maybe you find one you haven't read yet)

bee asked for little to no smut, so i'm not gonna rec any pwp works here (with a few exceptions).

there's obviously still smut in many of these fics, but i tried to tell you if it's important/skippable or not. if you don't mind smut i obviously recommend reading it bc GOD these authors just know their shit, but i think nobody should miss out on the amazing long fics just bc they don't like smut :)

i put a "notes" section for every fic where i just yap about it and/or my feelings towards it for a bit bc i literally can't shut up about these two guys.

alright, i think that's all, let's go!! pls tell me if i messed up the links somwhere :)

50k+ words 

Lucky In Love by dr_girlfriend 

words: ~60k 

important tags: no powers AU, oh my god they were roommates!, friends to lovers, mutual pining 

notes: every time i give winterhawk recs to a new fan i start with lucky in love, bc even tho it’s an AU, it has soo many of the typical winterhawk tropes i love so much. PLUS: roomates. and lucky. and every chapter is titled “aw, [something], no” and i find that way too funny to not mention. idk it’s just one of that fics that gives me the warmest & fuzziest of warm fuzzy feelings and i think everyone should read it. 

smut: even tho it has the wonderful, wonderful tag “not gonna tag every sex act just trust me there’s plenty”, there’s actually not that many. in my opinion, the perfect amount for a 60k, 21 chapters winterhawk fic. it’s quite a slow-burn, so they’re only in the later chapters anyway, and the build up to it is soOoo good. this is one of the fics where i know exactly where to find the smut scenes so feel free to hmu. 

Like Real People Do by Kangofu_CB

words: ~67k 

important tags: “i actually just wanted to watch these two idiots fall in love in a secluded cabin ok”; civil war fix it 

notes: no one, NO ONE  gets me like this fic, it checks like every single one of my boxes. perfection. not lying when i say it’s my favorite fic of all time. it doesn’t have a special premise or anything, but that’s the good thing about it. it’s just so… cozy. comfy. feels like home. i can’t even remember if like real people do is my favorite hozier song because of this fic or if it’s my fav fic bc like real people do is my fav hozier song, but i know that i never cried as hard as i did when i heard lrpd live and could only think about this fic. nothing makes me feel as good as re-reading this story, i want to eat it.

smut: yes, but only like 2,5 scenes. hmu and i tell you the exact fucking paragraph number or smth, this fic is literally engraved in my soul. thank you CB. some day i’ll leave a 2k words comment on every single chapter. 

The Other Man out of Time by sara_holmes 

words: ~97k 

important tags: time travel, falling in love, clint barton centric 

notes: okay so this is kinda the best winterhawk fic in existence?? not my absolute favorite bc it makes me cry too much, but definitely top 3. no other winterhawk fic made me sob this hard, no other winterhawk fic makes me wanna curl up on the floor and cry for an hour every time i think about it. that being said: IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING!!! and a lot of stuff in between is SO sweet as well. premise is basically: clint travels back in time and fights in wwii alongside bucky and they fall in love. and then bucky!canon happens. you get it? you get it. it’s- UGH it’s so good. jesus. i’m crying. 

smut: a few short sexy scenes i think, but no SMUT smut, and it’s definitely definitely DEFINITELY not the focus of the story. can’t emphasise enough how much everyone should read this 

Hipsters get Remembered, Legend’s Never Die by sara_holmes

words: ~90k 

important tags: millennial bucky barnes, awesome clint barton, recovery 

notes: millennial bucky is one of the most entertaining things fandom came up with, and this fic is the epitome of that trope. love love LOVE. plus, clint’s really fucking awesome in this. 

smut: yes, but only like two or three times in 11 chapters, easily skippable

Puzzle Pieces (series) by sara_holmes 

words: ~446k 

important tags: steve/tony, kid fic, emotional hurt

notes: if you don’t like stony this one isn’t for you, just skip to next one :) if you like stony: GOD pls read puzzle pieces!! the first 200k words fic is stony focused and has only pre-slash winterhawk, but even tho they don’t get together in this one yet it’s literally one of my favorite clint/bucky portrayals of all time, no one gets them like sara, it’s perfect. the stony/kid fic storyline is SO amazing as well, so if that’s your cup of tea, check. it. out. after that they’re a few longer winterhawk instalments, and while some of them are really angsty and painful, there’s always a happy ending. god i need to re-read this entire thing. it makes me wanna cry and throw up in all the good ways. 

smut: some, but you can definitely skip it.

I’ll keep you safe here with me by sara_holmes 

words: ~110k 

important tags: kidnapping, PTSD, mind control aftermath & recovery 

notes: ngl i haven’t read this one in a long time, but everything by sara is perfect and this one’s one of the most kudo’d winterhawk fics, so it’s basically a must read. everyone needs to read a good clint & the winter soldier fic at least once

smut: it’s rated mature, so no really explicit smut. can’t remember if they don’t get a bit horny tho.

A Heart Worth Loving by Kangofu_CB 

words: ~82k 

important tages: soulmate AU, no powers AU, modern bucky barnes, forced cohabitation 

notes: GOOD FUCKING SOUP. soulmate au AND they were roommates????? beat that. it takes them ages to figure out they’re soulmates, which makes this equally amazing and frustrating, but it’s all so so worth it 

smut: yes, at the end of it. you CAN skip it, although i recommend skimming through it and read the dialogue parts and stuff. 

if you were a mythical thing by Kangofu_CB

words: ~75k 

important tags: teachers au, kid fic, werewolves 

notes: quick story time for this one bc i remember it so so well lmao: winterhawk olympic bang 2022, most authors had started to post their fics except for CB and i KNEW she had written one, and i was literally checking my emails every hour for days. and then she finally posted it and i already started screaming when i saw the taylor lyrics as a title, and then i read those three tags and literally had to sit on my floor for 20 minutes to calm down bc i was so excited. i remember posting like 20 stories on my private insta that were just me keysmashing lmaoo. idk but teachers + kid fic + werewolves is just such a BONKERS combination, and i can promise you’re in for a treat, it’s so so fun. 15/10. 

smut: yes, but it takes some time to get there and it’s skippable

Adventures in dogsitting by Call_Me_Kayyyyy 

words: ~53k

important tags: friends to lovers, dogsitting, pining 

notes: another olympic bang fic, thank you. cute, fun, lots of lucky content :) good soup 

smut: NO SMUT

Under My skin (series) by finely honed 

words: ~360k

important tags: Steve/Tony (the “main” instalment is stony focused), PTSD, Life after the army, AU - Tattoo Parlour 

notes: the “first” instalment is a stony fic (one of my all time favs honestly) but with a lot of amazing side-winterhawk, and there’s a winterhawk spin-off, that’s a prequel to the stony arc, so you can just read that first if you want. it was one of the first english winterhawk fics i’ve ever read and it always makes me wanna cry when i think about it (in a good way).

smut: they’re quite horny in both big instalments, but i would say the smut is skippable. it’s not un-important for both the winterhawk and the stony dynamic tho, so i wouldn’t recommend doing that

This is Not a Date, it’s a Kidnapping by sara_holmes 

words: ~50k 

important tags: Fake Kidnapping, also real kidnapping, Bucky Barnes recovering, fake relationship 

notes: all sara_holmes is good sara_holmes, but this one’s one of my favs, it’s just so fun. GOD i miss winterhawk olympic bang 2021, this was such a blast to read when it first came out!! 

smut: NO SMUT

Freedom’s Reach by dr_girlfriend 

words: ~68k 

important tags: arranged marriage, western/historical AU, slow burn 

notes: aaaand another  winterhawk olympic bang 2021 fic! pretty sure this one was my fav during the bang, like i remember hitting up a friend of mine and screaming at each other for like an hour every time a new chapter dropped, we were SO invested. very good soup. 

smut: yes, but it’s a sloooow build, so it’s only in the later chapters. pretty sure it’s easily skippable 

ghost in the machine by squadrickchestopher

words: ~75k 

important tags: fake character death, heavy angst, ghosts, loneliness 

notes: UGHHHH clint “dies”, becomes a ghost and only bucky can see him. touch starved clint final boss basically. amazing shit. painful shit. (happy ending tho) 

smut: it’s rated explicit and it’s by squaddy, so i’m like 99% sure there’s smut, i actually can’t remember tho lmao 

Barton’s Halfway House for Ex-Brainwashed Assassins (series) by Kangofu_CB 

words: ~90k 

important tags: the slowest burn, the mcu reimagined completely, accidental baby acquisition, found family, kid fic

notes: this one’s an ongoing series, and it’s such an amazing one, you can feel all the love that’s been put into this. you have to go through like 60k of slow burn before winterhawk actually happens, but it’s soooo worth it. plus: kid fic. kid fic’s always good. 

smut: yes, but only in the 3rd part and the short pwp oneshot. easily skippable

something magic, something tragic by squadrickchestopher 

words: ~55k

important tags: supernatural elements, vampire bucky, enemies to lovers 

notes: VAMPIRES!!! that should be enough to convince you to read this fic!! and it’s by squaddy, it literally can’t be bad if it’s by squaddy.

smut: ughhh not entirely sure, pretty sure the mature rating is mostly for violence, but, again, it’s squaddy, so it’s very possible there’s some sexy stuff hiding in there.

Sweet Home Was Home by there_must_be_a_lock 

words: ~110k 

important tags: “i sorta made my own franken-canon”, christmas fluff, soft feelings

notes: i found this one on accident once when i wasn’t really expecting to find another PERFECT long ass winterhawk fic i haven’t read yet, and then i binge-read it in one night, and it’s honestly one of the best i’ve ever read, it’s so so soft and… healing. for both bucky and clint and myself. it’s really not as popular as it should be imo, definitely worthy of a place on the first page of the ship tag!! highly HIGHLY recommend checking it out!! 

smut: yes, but skippable 

10k - 50k words 

Starving for the Light by thepartyresponsible 

words: ~45k 

important tags: magic AU, soul bond 

notes: jesus christ i wanna eat this fic so bad. definitely my favorite 2021 winterhawk olympic bang fic, it’s just THAT good. need to re-read it entirely to make sure, but i think it’s in my top 10 if not top 5 fav winterhawk fics of all time. clint’s just so… beautiful in this, idk how else to describe it. and idk, it has a such a unique premise and setting, i love everything about it. 

smut: yes, but skippable. 

Historic Features by flawedamythyst

words: ~19k

important tags: ghosts AU, homophobic violence 

notes: oooohhh my god, don’t make me think about this fic i’m gonna cry. it’s actually pretty fun and cute and fucking awesome, but clint & bucky’s backstory in this?? i’m ugly crying, leave me alone. premise is basically: they’re ghosts and haunting the apartment they died in years ago, scaring everyone who tries to live there out of it. then steve and tony wanna move in. it’s fucking great. 

smut: NO SMUT 

Call It What You Want To by Kangofu_CB 

words: ~48k 

important tags: modern bucky barnes, sugar daddy

notes: clint becomes bucky’s sugar daddy on accident without realising and it’s the funniest fucking shit i’ve ever seen, god i love him so much. plus, again,,, millennial bucky barnes. gimme all the millennial bucky barnes.

smut: 3 or 4 scenes i think, starting as early as chapter… 2??? i think??? pretty skippable tho, as long as you read like the foreplay and everything.

A Thistle Cannot Grow by ccbytheseashore

words: ~12k 

important tags: kid fic, developing relationship 

notes: AHHHSDJGHSKJDHG. enough right?? i’m always a sucker for some good dad!clint & soft!bucky content. this one’s so so sweet it’s one of my main comfort fics, can’t recommend it enough if you love kid fics! 

smut: yes, but it’s literally only like 500 words of frotting, you know when it’s coming and you know when it’s over :) (it’s amazing tho) 

Attachments by Lissadiane 

words: ~22k 

important tags: high school au, mother hen bucky barnes, clint barton needs a hug 

notes: i KNOW many people don’t like high school AUs and i don’t fucking care. teenage winterhawk has so much potential, i love them to death. which is exactly why you should read this ;) 

smut: NO SMUT

Outnumbered by sara_holmes 

words: ~18k 

important tags: kid fic, triplets, no powers AU, bucky comes home to new york 

notes: another single dad clint fic, but give him 3 boys this time!! —> chaos. amazing chaos. + amazing bucky. good soup. 

smut: NO SMUT 

Once Lost (now found) by Teeelsie 

words: 40k 

important tags: hurt clint barton, on the run, self sacrifice 

notes: hurt clint barton final boss. this was written for whumptober, so you can imagine how bad it gets. SO worth it tho, even if you don’t really love that kind of stuff! 

smut: NO SMUT (pretty sure clint’s too hurt to have any kind of sexual thoughts <3 stupid stupid stubborn man. i love him so much)

The Best Worst Thing (that hasn’t happened to you yet) by sara_holmes

words: ~48k 

important tags: enemies to friends to lovers, rescue missions 

notes: if you’re into comic winterhawk and read their tales of suspense run, you should definitely read this fic. if you haven’t read tales of suspense, go do that now and then come back to the fic, bc it’s basically a rewrite that gives us the bucky/clint & nat dynamic we fucking deserve

smut: don’t think so?

skylines and tan lines by flawedamythyst

words: ~33k 

important tags: no powers AU, coronovirus lockdown, long distance flirting 

notes: this was literally my fav fic during lockdown, i’m not lying when i say i read this at least 20 times in 2020/21 lmaoo. it’s just such a fun concept; bucky’s living with peggy/steve, and their dynamic is so enjoyable. 

smut: there’s quite a bit of sexting & phone sex, plus a smut scene at the end. doesn’t take up the entire fic tho, and the rest is worth it as well. 

Behind Bars by sara_holmes and Behind Bares (On The Other Side Remix) by flawedamythyst 

words: ~32k (sara), ~25k (amy)

important tags: prison AU 

notes: sara’s fic is the original, amy remixed it and wrote if from clint’s pov (with quite some changes). i love both fics, but i definitely read the remix more often and prefer it, but i highly recommend reading both, they’re amazing!! clint & bucky are cell mates!!! and it’s angsty!! a little bit!! 

smut: can’t remember what it’s like in sara’s version, but it’s only rated mature soo... there’s definitely one or two smut scenes in amy’s fic, but easilyyy skippable, only like a few handjobs or smth i think.

What do you mean we left Clint on Mars? by sara_holmes 

words: ~25k 

important tags: outer space, falling in love, clint feels 

notes: a classic. falling in love long-distance is soo fun, and i love it when author’s touch-starve clint, so there’s that <3

smut: NO SMUT

A Christmas Miracle: Getting Lucky by Lissadiane

words: ~11k 

important tags: christams, hallmark fic 

notes: LUCKY!!!! i read this every single christmas. you should too. you’re welcome. 

smut: NO SMUT 

Dear Super-Secret Diary by flawedamythyst 

words: ~16k 

important tags: christmas fluff 

notes: clint is bored and gets a diary (and the guy). a christmas must-read, it’s fun and cute and fluffy!!! one of the few times i will accept first person narration bc, well, it’s a goddamn diary 

smut: NO SMUT 

winterhawk punks in love (series) by 1000_directions 

words: ~19k words 

important tags: punk au, amputee bucky, deaf clint, ptsd, emotional hurt/comfort, recovery 

notes: punk!winterhawk is so important to me I NEED MORE OF IT!!! this one’s such a perfect mix of happiness and angst and comfort UGH it just hits that spot. 

smut: yes, but the fic’s still amazing if u skip it 

Apple Of My Eye by flawedamythyst

words: ~40k 

important tags: clint barton’s farm, found family, domestic 

notes: FARM FIC FARM FIC FARM FIC!!! bucky, clint and wanda basically start an apple business on his farm, and it’s just soo comfy and awesome.

smut: NO SMUT

Alone in the Bitterness by Lissadiane

words: ~16k

important tags: no pwers au, nurse bucky, disaster clint 

notes: nurse bucky nurse bucky nurse bucky nurse bucky!!! do i have to say more?? 

smut: NO SMUT

Team Spirit by Noxnthea 

words: 17k 

important tags: case fic, enemies to lovers lite 

notes: noxnthea is such an underrated author it’s a literal crime. i normally don’t love case fics that much, but this is a ghost hunters case fic AND their banter is so fun that it really doesn’t matter for me this time 

smut: NO SMUT

Reach Out by Kangofu_CB

words: ~11k 

important tags: 5+1, a lot of sex tags, porn with feelings, feelings realisation 

notes: CB’s smut always hits different, and idk, the +1 of this is just sooo funny and adorable, i love it to death. read this more times than i’ll admit. 

smut: basically pwp, big no no if you don’t like smut. 

Storms Within (Bridges Rebuilt) by Kangofu_CB 

words: ~11k 

important tags: star wars setting, force sensitive bucky & clint, crack treated seriously 

notes: guys you can’t imagine my excitement when the notif for this fic popped up in my emails. luke skywalker is one of my top 10 all time fav fictional characters AND HERE HE IS INTERACTING W MY FAV BOYS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!! it’s so so good, if you’re into star wars you’re gonna love it!! (even if not, it’s by CB, impossible to not enjoy)

smut: NO SMUT

Draw, Breathe, Fire by FestiveFerret

words: ~15k 

important tags: falling in love, flirting, banter 

notes: haven’t read this in a long time, but i’m pretty sure it was like a perfect little bucky-recovering-and-falling-in-love-with-clint-while-living-in-the-tower-fic. he learns archery!! pretty sure they also adopt a ferret or something???? good shit

smut: NO SMUT

Hoist a Black Flag by Kangofu_CB 

words: ~11k 

important tags: pirate au 

notes: ITS BASICALLY AN OFMD AU OKAY HOW CAN U NOT LOVE IT???

smut: yes, but skippable

Cupid’s Arrows by flawedamythyst 

words: ~14k 

important tags: office AU, valentine’s day 

notes: clint dressed up as cupid, bad pick up lines, shenanigans. haven’t read this in quite a while, but i remember i enjoyed it A LOT a few years ago and re-read it multiple times!! 

smut: NO SMUT

The Best Thing since a Double-Shot Expresso by sara_holmes 

words: ~11k 

important tags: coffee shop AU, misunderstandings, getting together 

notes: friends to lovers final boss. they’ve been best friends (husbands) for years and literally live together, and it takes them an insane amount of jealousy and steve’s ass to finally get together. such a fun read, highly HIGHLY recommend 

smut: NO SMUT

Habits of My Heart by Kangofu_CB

words: ~18k 

important tags: Fuckbuddies to Lovers, no powers AU, grindr 

notes: fuckbuddies to lovers with loads of pining will always be THE most realistic winterhawk depiction for me, sorry not sorry. this one’s extra fun bc steve and nat have been trying to set them up for months, but they’ve been already hooking up for months. it’s great. 

smut: yes, but easily skippable.

In Which Peter Is Everyone’s Favourite Avenger by DestroyedConscience 

words: ~25k 

important tags: Twitter, everyone is gay, gen z humor 

notes: look, this is an unfinished, non-winterhawk-centric twitter fic, but as a fellow winterhawk twitter fic author i just HAVE to recommend it. if u like this kind of thing, go check it out, it’s so fun :) 

smut: NO SMUT

Look What The Cat Dragged In by flawedamythyst

words: 22k 

important tags: Bucky Barnes is a cat lover, domestic fluff 

notes: i haven’t read this in years, but i KNOW it was great. at this point just go check out amy’s account and read all of her winterhawk fics, she has over a hundred and they’re all great!! but this one has them co-parenting alpine, so it’s extra great!!

smut: NO SMUT

My Heart Will Be Your Home by dr_girlfriend 

words: ~49k 

important tags: soulmates au, single parent clint barton

notes: soulmate au plus kid fic guys, i repeat, SOULMATE AU PLUS KID FIC GUYS!!! BY DR GIRLFRIEND!!!! GOD i miss winterhawk olympic bang 21/22 this one was such a blast to read when it first came out. 

smut: yes, but skippable 

Chrome Plated Heart by dr_girlfriend 

words: ~20k 

important tags: pacific rim fusion

notes: i’ve never seen pacific rim and i still had a blast reading this one!! (she put a basic explanation for it somewhere in the story notes, so dw about it!!). it was SO nice to read a fic where they’re not heavily traumatised and just have a chill, easy getting together. really sweet stuff

smut: NO SMUT!!

Know When To Hold ‘Em by flawedamythyst

words: ~11k 

important tags: exes to lovers, no powers au, cambling 

notes: UGHHH i need more fics like this one, it’s so so SO good!! flashes back and forth to the time when they were first together and when they meet again and skjdghlksdhg my heart just hurts so much for both of them. (happy ending tho dw, clint’s just so sad in the present and it hurts my soul)

smut: yeah, the part in the present is basically just one big smut scene but it’s soOoOoO emotional and i always love me some emotional smut

Christmas in Colour by mariana_oconnor 

words: ~12k 

important tags: soulmates see in colour, christmas fluff 

notes: SOULMATES SEE IN COLOUR !!!!! *swoons so hard she falls to the floor* top 3 best soulmates tropes i dont make the rules i love it so much. ESPECIALLY when it’s with a character like clint who usually has a colour he loves SO SO much. a christmas must read :) 

smut: NO SMUT

Chaos By Another Name by shatteredhourglass 

words: ~13k 

important tags: dimension travel, time travel, friends to lovers 

notes: DIMENSION-HOPPING TIME-TRAVEL ADVENTURE GUYS!!! why wouldn’t you wanna read it??? 

smut: yes

I Still Choose You (The Public Domain Remix) by mariana_oconnor 

words: ~14k 

important tags: soulmates at first kiss, fake/pretend relationship 

notes: have a fic with two of the best tropes ever, you’re so very welcome. plus plus PLUS: demisexual bucky. as a demisexual/asexual/still trying to figure it out lesbian, i’m always ALWAYS here for any kind of ace spectrum winterhawk, so yeah. 

smut: NO SMUT

the road rising up to meet me by veryrach

words: ~24k 

important tags: pining, sexual reawakening, chaotic slutty clint barton 

notes: MORE DEMISEXUAL BUCKY!!! AND HOT CLINT!!! no other words needed. read it. 

smut: i’m so sorry but i can’t remember if it gets SMUTTY smutty. but there’s definitely a lot of sexual themes i mean look at the tags lmao

Showdown by shatteredhourglass 

words: ~14k 

important tags: fake/pretend relationship; fluff 

notes: breaking my silence: fake dating might me my fav trope of all time. in this one they’re pretending to date for the sole purpose of annoying steve and tony and i think that’s the best thing ever. 

smut: NO SMUT

Light the Spark by dr_girlfriend

words: ~26k 

important tags: fake/pretend relationship, mutual pining, enemies to friends to lovers

notes: aaaand the next fake dating fic >:) the enemies arc is like 0.2 seconds, blink and you miss it, but whoooo cares, we’re here for the fake dating & pining guys!!!

smut: yes, but you can skip it!

-10k words 

Wine and Pine by feathers_and_cigarettes 

words: 6k

Important tags: Touch-Starved, Fake Marriage, pining!clint 

Notes: this is one of those fics i always come back to without realising and it always hits that spot. like i said, fake dating is my favorite trope, and MISSION fake dating???? i'm in heaven

smut: there’s quite a bit of smut, but it’s at the end and even if you stop reading after they kiss it’s really worth it. 

Over Easy by Lissadiane

words: ~9k

important tags: hook up gone awry, awkwardly crashing the birth of a baby 

notes: need y’all to know that this has one of my all time fav smut scenes, i kinda know it by heart. don’t quote me on that, this is our secret. this one’s just so so SO much fun, i’m having the time of my life every time i read it (which is at least like once a month) 

smut: yes, and it’s kinda the best part, but everything else is so fun as well that i really wouldn’t wanna miss out on it

The Love You Deserve by flawedamythyst 

words: ~8k 

important tags: unhappy family holidays, homophobia, family issues, jewish bucky barnes 

notes: another must-read christmas fic for me; clint goes home for christmas to an uncle of his or something but they all turn out to be homophobic assholes or something and then bucky shows up to save the day <3

smut: NO SMUT 

what you really, really want by Noxnthea 

words: ~8k 

important tags: pining, misunderstandings 

notes: *blurts out* THEYVE BEEN IN LOVE FOR AGES AND THEN WANDA HEXES THEM SO THEY THINK THEVE BEEN DATING FOR YEARS!!! this is SUCH an underrated fic, it doesn’t even have 200 kudos like wtf??? SHOW IT SOME LOVE!!!

smut: NO SMUT

The 300 Club by Noxnthea 

words: ~10k 

important tags: no powers au, scientist clint & bucky 

notes: there aren’t enough scientist winterhawk AUs so HUGE THANKS noxnthea for feeding us. i will literally haunt you if you don’t read this one, ITS SO UNDERRATED!!! AND SO FUN!!

smut: NO SMUT

For Everything There is A Season by dr_girlfriend

words: ~9.7k 

important tags: crack fic, secret service agent!bucky, small business owner!clint barton 

notes: crack fics are always gold and this one especially, it’s such a ridiculous idea, how could you not love it? always a very fun read! 

smut: NO SMUT

Background Noise by Reremouse 

words: ~8k 

important tags: modern au, deaf clint barton 

notes: MILLENIAL BUCKY!!! clint is bucky’s upstairs neighbour and extremely loud bc he’s well… deaf. lol. and bucky’s a night shift worker which really isn’t a good combo on first thought. but on second thought, these are clint and bucky, so OBVIOUSLY they’re gonna make a great combo out of it. it’s fuckign amazing. plus bucky & sam friendship!! good shit guys, good shit.

smut: NO SMUT

you didn’t hear that by jedusaur 

words: ~2.6k 

important tags: roomates, eavesdropping 

notes: super self-indulgent rec, i always read this one when i need some cheering up lmao it’s just so fun and they’re kinda nasty and UGH. love. it explores the range of bucky’s super hearing. do with that what you want. 

smut: yes. it explores the range of bucky’s super hearing in every way ;)

one more time by squadrickchestopher 

words: ~4k 

important tags: touch starved, hurt clint barton 

notes: i don’t even know why i love this one so much, but it holds SUCH a special place in my heart. it might be my undying love for touch starved!clint who finally gets his well-needed hugs by bucky. there’s also an amazing podfic by flowerparrish for it, make sure to give kudso to them both!!! 

smut: NO SMUT

the salt on your lips by veryrach 

words: ~9k 

important tags: kissing, an absolutely ridiculous lack of communication 

notes: exactly what the tags say. it’s a 5+1 as well, WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED IN LIFE???? 10/10. i remember waiting for months for the last few chapters and it was SO worth it!!

smut: NO SMUT

Love Potion No. 10 by Kangofu_CB 

words: ~8k 

important tags: love potion/spell, not actually unrequited love

notes: i won’t say anything about the story bc i don’t wanna spoiler it, but i’ll say that i re-read the second half of it at least once a month, it’s just THAT sweet. 

smut: NO SMUT

There’s No ‘I’ In Denial by flawedamythyst 

words: ~5k 

important tags: truth spells 

notes: clint gets hit by a magic truth gun and can’t lie anymore. such a fun & cute read every single time.

smut: NO SMUT

The Name of the Game by squadrickchestopher 

words: ~6k 

important tags: competition, trash talking, feelings realization 

notes: this one’s just so so fun, it has allllllll the winterhawk banter anyone could ask for. and i always love me some competitive idiots in love

smut: NO SMUT 

Full Barton by aw_writing_no 

words: ~6k 

important tags: no powers au, cop!bucky, human disaster clint 

notes: what the tags say. clint embarrassing himself in front of bucky who enjoys it a bit too much gotta be one of my fav tropes. 

smut: NO SMUT

one more little mistake by shatteredhourglass 

words: ~3k 

important tags: clint barton wears glasses, bucky barnes is horny for clint barton 

notes: these tags are basically the entire fic lmaooo. it’s great, i love nothing more than HOT HOT HOT clint barton and bucky realising how hot he is 

smut: almost lmao (they get interrupted while making out) 

my hands no longer an afterthought by shatteredhourglass 

words: ~3k 

important tags: getting back together 

notes: i have a sweet sweet SWEET spot for winterhawk getting back togethers if handled well, and this one handles it soo well. 

smut: NO SMUT

Five Lies People Believe About Clint and Bucky by EVVS 

words: ~1.5k 

important tags: established relationship 

notes: this is one of those fics i always go back to if i have a few minutes and need some (bitter)sweet fluff. it’s exactly what the title says, some lies are fun, some are painful, and all of them just hit that spot 

smut: NO SMUT

My Sausage Brings Alll the Boys To The Yard by flawedamythyst 

words: ~1.7k 

important tags: bad flirting 

notes: this one’s so stupid it probably shouldn’t be on here but i remember how i was reading this in class for the first time when i was still in school and i was almost pissing myself bc it made me laugh so hard. very fun, go read it >:(

smut: NO SMUT

bonus for the freaks:

Filthy Porn Fridays by squadrickchestopher 

there’s 18 works so far, it’s smut smut smut aaaand - you guessed it - smut. if you wanna see the boys fuck nastily, this is your place to be. 

(delicate tension is the best fic of the series, it’s actually a roadtrip AU and not just smut, highly highly recommend) 

alrightyyy, i think that's it for now :) this took me quite some time so i'd appreciate some reblogs or whatever!! we need to spread some winterhawk love guys!!

all my love goes out to every author i mentioned here, and every other author who's ever written winterhawk. you guys are my heroes, idk what i'd do without you. literally ripping my heart into a thousand pieces and giving every single one of you a tiny part 💜

[whousestypewriters]

──── ୨ৎ RED WAS THE CARPET — GRAYSON HAWTHORNE + READER ‧₊˚

a/n: and everyone rejoiced. welcome back to the grayson series that is keeping you all alive bc it is shhh. lets all collectively ignore how i havent update this in a month but we move on and enjoy part threeeee !!! and pls forgive me idk anything abt events or red carpets so if i get anything wrong js pretend. also idk why but i love the title and the fact that is somehow makes zero sense and yet is still understandable i need to shut up ive rambled too much ENJOY (love you lots <33)

[part one] i'm a fan [part two] the book club

red was the carpet that you walked on earlier.

it matched your dress.

alya, your very annoying plus one for tonight was wearing black.

there was a lot of things that happened tonight. a lot of things you were never going to forget. everybody you met and talked with... especially one of them...

"oh my god, pheebs and ki are going to be so jealous," alya squeals - quietly of course, you're still surrounded by people, and although sometimes you think alya could actually fight god and win, in public, she's behaving surprisingly calm.

well calm adjacent.

its not exactly seen as calm and collected when you're jumping up and down every three seconds when you see another celebrity walk past preparing for the carpet.

to her credit though she has somehow managed to get the numbers of four actors and singers in the thirty minutes you've been here.

you were lined up at the end of the carpet along with a few other select interviewers, waiting for the start of the event. alya was a bundle of nerves when margot robbie and zendaya stopped for their interview barely getting a few words out and opting to just hold the camera instead.

when xander and jameson arrived though, that was a different story. you'd think they were life long friends. you chatted with max of course, promising to invite her to your next book sleepover, jameson was suspiciously quiet and smirk-y and xander kept looking over his shoulder a shit eating grin on his face.

you knew what was about to happen.

pictures don't do him justice.

that was to be expected, of course. you don't have millions of people following you, or watching your every move for no reason.

the screams on the red carpet, increased when he stepped foot on it, pleas to look at the camera, answer questions, how to pose, everything. he seemed to follow along well, looking hauntingly beautiful in his suit, his face practically carved but when he scanned the large crowd twice over before his eyes settled on you, it went quiet.

he smiled - and by the way it was really hot gorgeous - and you smiled back, a private moment between the two of you in the middle of chaos.

which was totally ruined when alya latched onto your arm and freaked out that she could see grayson.

"oh my god, he's like ten feet away. ohmygodohmygod!" she squealed.

"yeah i know, i can see him," you mutter back, attempting - and failing - to stop her jumping up and down.

"but he's like right there and he's looking at you!"

"i know."

"oh, oh, oh he's coming over to us now, oh my god i think i'm going to faint, hold me."

when the grayson hawthorne stopped in front of you a soft and rare smile on his face you faltered slightly - not because of alya standing there with her mouth agape, because... wow - before raising the microphone and starting.

"hi grayson, its lovely to meet you, i'm y/n."

yn.books

liked by alya.green, maxine.liu.loo, pheobethereader, kirasbooknook, graysonhawthorne, and 852, 679 others

yn.books im am honoured to have been invited to this event!! it was so lovely meeting everyone and asking you questions 🤍 (also kinda freaking out because i met anne hathaway omggg)

view all comments

user1 i see no mention of grayson......

user2 avoiding talking about a certain someone are we?

user3 if they didn't meet im actually going to riot, i'm shipping them so hard.

user4 we have confirmation from jameson that he was there... why didnt you talk to him....

user5 maybe she just didn't want to show that?? its not always about grayson

alya.green best night of my life.

maxine.lui.loo it was so good seeing you again babes <333

yn.books we should catch up while im still in texass

────

graysonhawthorne

liked by thehawthorneheiress, ticking.time.bomb, yn.books, kirasbooknook and 9, 853, 927 others

graysonhawthorne met some nice people tonight.

view all comments

user1 MET WHO GRAYSON??? MET WHO??

user2 ugh he's so delicious i love it

user3 everyone wake up grayson posted

user4 he better have met her or im going to quit

alya.green oh... i see how it is then.... i will do what i must...

user5 ALYA WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO??? OH MY GOD???

user6 ALYA ????

user7 in the likes she's in the likes againnnnn

────

[camera: on]

you should've know alya would have a shit eating grin the entire interview. it was tempting to punch her, very tempting.

"i honestly think divine rivals is my favorite book i've read this year," grayson's deep voice answers your question. his eyes stay on your face and he has a soft smile.

alya is elbowing you now. and you nudge her back as you ask your next question, smiling because now there are even more cameras on you.

"okay," you smile laughing nervously. "now i've asked everyone this tonight, i have a youtube channel."

"oh right yes, i follow you," grayson's voice is calm and his eyes are still on your face.

"you do?" with all of the things that are happening you weren't actually expecting him to be following you.

"yes, you're videos have become a guilty pleasure almost."

if anyone was wondering alya is losing her shit next to you. she has the biggest grin on her face, she's whipped out her camera and is taking an excessive amount of pictures.

"thats really sweet of you," a smile is present on your face now and you raise the microphone to ask your question, ignore the now fully smile grayson has on his face at your flustered-ness. "anyway my question was, do you have anything you want to say, a quote or just anything you like to tell the people watching?"

you turn the mic over to him and he looks down at you with a fond expression on his face - your insides are butterflies now - before looking at the camera.

"i'm going to say, you've made a good decision following this girl. she's a lovely person and keep supporting her," he pauses for a second, "and read divine rivals."

you laugh and nod at the camera, "i agree 100%." turning back to him you start. "well thank you for your time tonight, grayson, it was lovely to getting to know you," you look over to the over excited alya who's just standing back and nodding as if she's a proud mother. "and maybe we'll see you inside."

"hopefully we will," grayson smiles and waves slightly before moving on to the next interviewer.

[camera: off]

────

alya.green

liked by yn.books, maxine.liu.loo, pheobethereader, kirasbooknook, graysonhawthorne and 11, 483, 228 others

alya.green two things: 1, my dress tonight and 2, if they won't do it... i will.

tagged: graysonhawthorne, yn.books

view all comments

user1 OH SHE IS SO MESSY

user2 THIS IS THE QUEEN BEHAVIOUR I SUPPORT

user3 and when i tell you cackled BC LOOK AT THEIR SMILES. LOOK AT THE WAY SHES LOOKING AT HIM.

pheobethereader and you're officially invited back to the next book sleep over.

alya.green i don't need ur validation i dont have to come to the sleepovers

pheobethereader ok then :)

alya.green no wait i'll do anything i have like zero self respect when it comes to the sleepovers

user4 OH HELL YEAH THEY METTTT

ticking.time.bomb and then after the premier... the restaurant....?

alya.green all in due time my friend

user5 EXCUSE ME??? THE RESTAURANT WHAT HAPPENED???

user6 im going to need you to spill the tea RIGHT NOW

user7 the fact that they both liked this but didn't comment 😭😭

────

the restaurant was another story though, for another time.

a/n II: guys i lowkey hate it but i was determined to finish this so :)))

𐔌 . ⋮ 🏷️ tags .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱

@arqbella, @midiosaamor, @maybxlle @reminiscentreader, @sweetreveriee

@elysianwayy77 @tornqdowarnings, @catapparently, @zenikswaffleshop, @thelov3lybookworm,

@anotherwriternamedclara,

[emryslore]

Would you be willing to do a sterek rec list for stiles kicked outta the pack, that's my very fav!

Are there steter kicked outta the pack? I don't really read steter, but I might for that tag, lol

Hi Anon!!

Thank you so much for the ask!

Here you go, some Stiles gets kicked/pushed out of the pack!

Please enjoy!!

I have a few steter ones I think you'll love with his tag. It's quite popular in steter after all.

Let's start off with Sterek for you and then I'll add a few Steter options at the end you can check out if you'd like.

Sterek

Unexpected Results 16K (T) by pixieblade

What do you do when the people you are supposed to trust, betray you in the worst possible way? What would you do if someone offered you a way out?

Get You The Moon 180K (E) by AClosedFicIsNeverRead

Please make sure to read the tags on this one, it does touch on some heavy topics.

Derek looked up in surprise to note that they were taking a private jet. Dread settled into his gut like a stone. “It has a cage, doesn’t it?” he asked quietly, and noted the subtle changes in his family members’ posture. “Is it for me?” Cora gave him a pleading look and nodded. “Is it because of what you’re going to tell me?” he asked, voice like gravel. Another nod confirmed it. Stiles. Oh, GOD. It had to be Stiles. Derek would not lose control over anyone else in Beacon Hills and they damned well knew it. - OR - The one where Derek has been gone for 6 months building a new life, finds out that Stiles is being assaulted by Theo, so he comes back to Beacon Hills to kick some serious ass and rescue the loudmouthed human who stole his heart. (You will need ALL the tissues, but it will have a happy ending by the time all is said and done!) Title inspired by song: ‘Get You The Moon’ by Kina ft. Snow

Magical "Girl" 101 (A Guide by Stiles Stilinski) 18K (T) by Cute_Magical

When Stiles had been kicked out of the pack, he expected many things to happen. However, finding a magic book, gaining both a small and large flying magical companion, and a whole lot of unwanted responsibilities were not any of those things. Unlikely allies, magical abilities, newfound strength, and budding new relationships come together in Stiles's adventure of collecting clow cards. Oh, and he also gets rich… mostly through credit card fraud. You do not have to know Cardcaptor Sakura to read this fic. Updates weeklyy/Bi-weekly possibly sooner.

It takes a village 87K (M) by pixieblade

Stiles is tired. He's tired of always having to defend himself to his so-called best friend. He's tired of being ignored and he's tired of the Pack never having his back. So this is his line. He'd draw it in the sand, but all he has is a glitter sharpie. It'll have to do.

A Healing Silence 36K (NR) by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere

Stiles is slowly pushed out of the pack following his fight with Scott about Donovan's death. After receiving a phone number from an old friend, Stiles is surprised to find that it belongs to the one person who may be able to bring him back to himself.

bonus Steter

I'm a big Steter fan so I really hope you like these!

Hanging On by a Single Bond 38K (M) by Takara_Phoenix

Stiles' way of dealing with his own pain and grief had always been to instead take care of others. After Gerard, the Hale Pack becomes his pet-project. That includes self-proclaimed lone wolf Peter. Then things get messy. The Hale Pack seemingly ends when Derek gives up the Alpha spark, the McCall Pack forms, Stiles gets possessed. And, confusingly enough, Peter takes care of him.

Filament 42K (E) by WhoopsOK

Peter is still a fringe member of the pack, tied in by the faintest bit of respect for his bloodline keeping him from going full feral. It pisses Stiles off worse, just for a moment, that for all that everyone hates Peter, for all that they mistrust him, he’s still more welcome in this ‘pack’ than Stiles is. Held on by a thread and a prayer to whatever devil let him resurrect himself. The fact that Peter is suddenly the only one who will meet his eyes should not be comforting, but it makes sense in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t it? Stiles is more like Peter than Scott is able to trust, but the pack is willing to let Peter burn if it comes down to it. Judging by the resigned amusement on Peter’s face, he knows it, too. “For what it’s worth,” he says drily, “I told Scott he’s a fool for letting you go.” His smirk is a sinister thing when he continues, “I can’t wait to watch you prove it, sweetheart.” (After Stiles is pushed out of the pack, Peter does his best to hold onto the fragile bond between them. Stiles, as it turns out, is doing the same.)

Midnight Rain 19K (T) by vMures

Stiles knew in that moment that it was over. Scott would always be sunshine–would always want a world where things were clear-cut and easy. Villains wore black hats and good guys never killed. And Stiles, well, he’d always been the rain–the gray, pessimistic counterpoint to Scott’s unrelenting optimism. And after everything he’d survived, he knew he’d never see the world in anything other than shades of gray.

[autisticrosewilson]

What do the other Wilson family members think of Jason?

I assume you're talking about in the context of him being shipped with one of them, I've shipped him with all of them at least once so I'll go down the list! Tell me if you want specifics on a particular ship or au though.

Suggestive content ahead, the Wilson's aren't exactly known for being normal sex havers

If he's dating Slade:

Grant (if he's alive) - Frothing at the mouth mad. He thought Slade was homophobic this whole time. Particularly upset it's Graysons brother. Sidenote: I don't see Slade fighting the Titans without Grant's death as a factor, so Dick would be Grant's nemesis.

Joey (if he's alive) - dating his ex boyfriends brother should be illegal. He used to babysit that little gremlin. Calling his mom to complain. Shaking crying throwing up. Keeps trying to get Jason to find someone else, anyone else.

Rose - HER EX BOYFRIEND ARE YOU BEING REAL. Betrayal on all sides. She gets over it eventually but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. Her brothers - if they're alive - being horrified by it make her warm up to it. She's a menace first and a person second. She's working closely with Dick to break it up though.

Adeline (if she's alive) - Heard about it from Joey, disappointed but not surprised. Sneers at it being a college boy, but after learning more about Red Hood she's mildly interested. She's impressed that anyone would choose to put up with Slade, but as long as he STOPS FUCKING CALLING HER she'll let it be. Could be persuaded into a threesome far, FAR in the future after a couple years with Jason has made Slade more tolerable.

Billy - smug, he TOLD Slade it would be more than just sex but no one ever listens to him. Also extremely tired, part of Slade being more tolerable is that the jobs he's willing to take slim dramatically. He gets huffy about it but he's definitely lowkey salty they haven't asked him to join yet.

If he's dating Rose -

Slade - Canonically their biggest fan. Jason has barely started flirting back with Rose before Slade is acting like he's already Jason's father in law. 50/50 on whether he's genuine or doing it to fuck with people. Shows his approval by challenging Jason to armed combat routinely and inviting him on jobs. Keeps asking when he's getting grandkids.

Grant - over protective but pretends he's not. GRAYSONS LITTLE BROTHER?!? Abhorrent. Is reluctantly bribed by Jason's cooking. Only starts warming up to Jason when he realizes that Jason is like, made of house husband stay at home dad material. Like an hour into a house call informed him that Jason is so hopelessly in love with Rose it's almost pathetic.

Joey - FUCKING FINALLY!! He's been here since day one, plotting, scheming. Carefully manufactured scenarios for them to spend more time together. Best man at the wedding, he wrestled Grant on the ground for it. Video called Dick with TEARS IN HIS EYES to tell him the news.

Billy - Normal father in law. Takes Jason on fishing and hunting trips. Reconnected with Alfred at the wedding and they're both ecstatic. You'd think it would be Slade who'd be gunning for the number one grandpa title and you'd be wrong, Billy is clawing his way to the top of that list.

Addie - Who? What? Oh. Fine. Reluctantly showed up to the wedding. Admittedly charmed by their dynamic. Mildly jealous at the sight of a non failing marriage but she's got enough self awareness not to be upset over it. Leaves the best gift by far, and she does end up trading recipes with Alfred by the end of the night.

If he's dating Grant:

Slade - Not exactly mad, but he is annoyed. He rolls his eyes but looks away when Red X is chasing the second Robin around Gotham, but he draws the LINE at his son giving up mercenary work to be Red Hood's lieutenant. Especially because it looks,,, serious, and serious means he'll be related to the bat sooner rather than later. 98% sure they're doing it to upset him specifically (he's wrong it's only like 25% for that)

Joey - In counter to Dick and Rose, he's actually pretty supportive. He thinks it's cute and he's glad that Grant has a good influence, but he'll be near the front of the line if Grant fucks it up. He's not as supportive about the pining stage they go through, mostly because he's the first person Grant laments to.

Rose - her bestie dating her BROTHER. Disgusted, betrayed, plotting their downfall. Absolutely thinks Jason can do better. She comes around to it faster than Dick only when she's entirely sure she can't do anything about it. Still bullies them both though.

Addie - Well. There are worse options. The real bonus here is her newfound connection with Talia. World's most controlling mother in law, loves Jason like one of her own sons though. Unfortunately that means he gets treated just like her other sons... Quality of the treatment is debatable.

If he's dating Joey -

Slade - Definitely the most upset in this scenario. That's undeniably his favorite kid and Jason... isn't the kind of person he thinks is good enough. Not that he thinks anyone would be. He doesn't go out of his way to drive Jason away per se, but he does put him through the most vigorous "tests". Begrudgingly respects Jason for passing most of them with flying colors.

Addie - Mother hen in law. Planning the wedding since day ONE. What's the equivalent of like, a sister in law but for the mom's of the spouses? Is that a thing? Regardless, she gets very close with Talia very quickly. Bruce Wayne's third biggest hater, she makes his life HELL.

Rose - Better than Grant. Still not happy, but she accepts it more easily. Maid of honor but she swears up and down they're cringe and she hates it. Complains to Dick about it but they're both secretly fond.

Billy - Never booking a hotel without soundproof walls with them again.

[motogplover93]

Going trough a writing impulse so enjoy

CHAPTER THREE: Fire Doesn’t Apologize

Monday morning hit like a highside.

Marc Márquez stepped into the VR46 team’s base surrounded by silence. Not cold—just waiting. Mechanics looked up from their screens. Engineers paused mid-keystroke. Conversations died mid-sentence. Everyone knew the numbers. Everyone had seen the headlines.

But it was the way they looked at him that had changed.

Not with pity. Not with awe.

With caution.

Marc dropped his backpack, nodded at no one in particular, and moved toward the briefing room.

He’d felt this before. Not on track—but at home. At ten years old, when Alex won his first junior title. When their father smiled a little longer. When the cameras started showing up for the other Márquez. Marc had always known what it felt like to be noticed too late.

Not this time.

He had forced the world to look.

Even if it hated what it saw.

———

Inside the briefing room, the air was thick. Pecco sat on the far side of the table, arm in a sling, bruised but not broken. His expression was ice.

Marc took the seat opposite. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t apologize.

Valentino entered last.

No VR46 hoodie today. No sunglasses. Just a black t-shirt, a cold stare, and the weight of an empire on his shoulders.

He didn’t sit.

“Let’s begin,” Rossi said, voice flat.

The room stilled.

The head of strategy started in a shaky voice: “We’ve reviewed telemetry, onboard footage, and external angles. There was contact. But no breach of technical rules. Race Direction ruled it a racing incident.”

Marc exhaled, once.

Pecco said nothing.

Rossi turned to Marc. “That’s not what I’m asking.”

Marc met his gaze. “Then ask what you want to ask.”

The room tensed.

Valentino’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.

“Did you mean to push him off?”

Marc’s silence was an answer.

Valentino stepped forward. “This isn’t about what the stewards say. This is about who we are as a team. What we stand for.”

Marc leaned back in the chair, jaw locked. “You mean who you are.”

Wrong words.

Pecco stood. Chair scraping behind him. “You wrecked everything. The team. The race. My season.”

Marc shrugged. “You left the door open.”

“You forced it off its hinges.”

“Enough!” Rossi barked. For a moment, the Doctor was back. Commanding. Ferocious.

He turned to Marc.

“You think I don’t see it? You think I don’t know what this is? You want to be noticed. You want to matter. But this? This is how you get remembered for the wrong reasons.”

Marc didn’t move. But his voice, when it came, wasn’t angry—it was razor-sharp.

“Then why did I hear my name louder than his?”

Silence. Even Pecco looked away.

Because it was true.

The people had cheered. They had hated him—but they had watched. For once, he wasn’t a side note. He was the story.

“You taught me to fight,” Marc said. “You picked me for this team because you saw fire. But fire doesn’t apologize.”

Valentino stared at him for a long, brutal moment.

Then: “You’re suspended for the next round.”

Gasps. Even Pecco blinked.

Marc’s jaw tensed. “You’re serious?”

“This isn’t about punishment,” Rossi said. “It’s about control. And you’re losing yours.”

Marc stood. “And if I walk?”

“Then walk. But you’ll do it as the rider who was handed everything—and chose chaos instead.”

The words landed like a punch.

Marc didn’t respond. He just left. Walked out of the room, through the paddock, through the stares and the whispers and the storm he had started.

And yet… outside, the fans waited.

Not just one or two. Dozens. Then hundreds.

They chanted his name.

They held signs.

They wanted pictures, autographs—even if they hated him.

Because love fades. Hate fades. But legends don’t.

Marc stopped. Signed a VR46 cap. Smiled at a kid with his number scrawled in marker on his cheek.

He looked up at the cameras watching him from a distance.

Let Rossi suspend him. Let Pecco hate him. Let Alex be disappointed.

He was no longer the shadow.

[pain-indeed]

Let's talk about Mecha Knight

Well, well, well, would you look at the time. It's "me writing too much about Kirby" 'o clock ! And it seems like Mecha Knight will be the topic.

So, the reason I am writting this is that I see more and more people say that Mecha Knight is an overused subject and it doesn't deserve to have so much angsty fics, art, etc. I strongly disagree and I will explain why. I know people won't change their mind with a single, random rant, but I just want to share my opinion on the matter. With that in mind, here I go, describing how the whole Mecha Knight thing is indeed messed up.

First I want to objectively describe the situation. So the Haltman Company invades popstar, starts mechanising everything and everyone. Meta Knight has the Halberd blown up, and we don't hear about him untill world 4. We discover that he had tried to fight the corporation by himself, then failed and was captured. Then he was turned into a cyborg forced by mind control to work for the guys who are actively destroying what he was trying to save against his own will, and forced to try killing one of his friends/rival twice, before being freed and helping the heroes.

I think we can all agree that this a bad thing to happen to anyone. Kidnapping, enslaving and modifying someone without consent is pretty horrible, and there is no denying that. Everyone who has basic ethics and empathy would know that. So logically, people sympathise with Meta Knight, and they can show it by imagining what it must have felt like for him trough art.

So, why the heck would some people try arguing why it actually was'nt that bad and artists should stop "milking angst" out of this ?!

Here's their argument ; Some have said that Meta could'nt have been badly hurt, as he is seen seemingly fine after fighting Haltman. As if being fine physically means you are fine mentally. If you were mechanised, do you think you would'nt feel at least a little bad ? Is it wrong to think the victim of this situation may keep some scarring memories ? Or is it that you think Meta Knight having trauma is contradictory to his character and he should'nt be allowed to ?

Well, in fact, if you look back at his personality, having trauma out of being Mecha Knight make perfect sense as it goes against his most defining trait ; stenght.

Normally he is very powerfull, physically, mentally and politically. His character practically revolves around power ( he is often shown trying to be more powerfull ). So imagine what it must be like, having all that strenght completly taken away from you and used by his ennemies against his allies. How it must feel to go from leader to slave. Not being able to move an inch by yourself while your body moves on its own. And it's only made worse by how in every other instance of him being posessed, he was shown to have tryied resisting evil influence. Even in RoMK he was revolting against lazinness. Here, the only clue we have about him trying to resist was the title of his battle theme, commonly known as "inner struggle". But the fact you can't even see that in game prooves how powerless he was, how vain his resistance was.

Even if having been turned into a robot did'nt disturb him, not being able to do anything against it definitly could have made him question himself. It could have shattered his ego and confidance in his abilities. It make perfect sense.

And, well, being turned into a cyborg must have been terrifying anyways. We don't know how mechanisation actually worked, but according to the number of screws in the mechanised people's design, how we only see him after a while and Kumazaki's habit of impliying terrifying stuff going on behind the scenes, it's understandable to assume it was painfull. And it must also suck to be treated as an actual object.

So, yeah, the situation was indeed pretty fucking bad, and seeing people trying to say it’s not unnerves me. I think they either are Meta Knight fans who feel like him being allowed to feel the slightest of insecurities would make him weak, MetaSusie fans who are trying to defend her actions by minimilizing them or just fan that have enough to see it over so many other topics. Like, bro, feel free to make your own art instead of complaining. Or potentially write countless paragraphs to share your opinions like I do ( just kidding, it’s actually pretty anoying ).

Basically, it's normal to see angsty art and fics of an event that was objectively pretty horrible and complaining about it is weird.

Either way, if you’ve read trough all this, congratulation. Must have been long. Thank you for your time and patience, and I hope you have a wonderfull day.

[irrevocablecondition]

a) why awake so late, b) all your titles are fuckin banging i love them c) big fan of cemetaries pls gimme something for Killing Time at the Cemetery <33

wip ask game

hiii !! <3

snupin. oopsie. this is poa era snupin and UGH yes !!! title from loml (taylor) and just,,, "killing time at the cemetery" ???? because it's snupin but endgame wolfstar? they are truly just killing time at the cemetery frfrfrfr

anywho ! this one is a longgg form snupin fic where they get closer n closer ever time remus collects him wolfsbane and i just !!! i love them. i love them sm they're so messy. i cannot wait to finish one of my wips and finally start posting this one

look i loveee my snupin but i am so enjoying exploring remus as,,, kinda messy???? remus as somebody who after 12 yearsss alone, he has no idea what to do with his feelings. to go from having nothing, to having a job and harry and then severus??? to feel like maybe the pieces are falling back into place and he's so desperate for that, only for sirius to come back. and then remus having to navigate what pieces he needs and wants. messy remus who lives with severus but visits sirius to check on him. messy remus who makes tea for sev but ends up making sirius' preference. messy remus who literally has noooo idea what to do with everything and messy severus who broke his occlumency walls for this man, and the man isn't even Staying.

except he can't even hate remus for it !!! they're so messy 😖

you can have a snippet from ch.1 <3

One of the biggest misconceptions about war is that it can be over - that once the cause has been achieved, the fight is done.

Remus remembers the end of the first war. Not clearly, of course; he was too caught up in drugs and alcohol and self-loathing to truly experience it, but he remembers the parties.

He remembers going to Diagon Alley for the first time two months after it happened, and seeing that people were still celebrating. Banners, music, fireworks, drunken hugs and reconciliations. Everyone was just basking in the feeling of freedom and safety. In naivety.

He’d walk the streets of wizarding society, he’d read the Daily Prophet in the morning, listening to what everyone was saying and just think… how? How are we acting like this is okay? How does one celebrate the end of the war when it was your friends’ sacrifice that ended it?

Of course, people mourned after the war.

There were countless funerals that couldn’t have taken place sooner (none of which Remus attended), there were a number of memorial services for those that died in battles, award ceremonies for those that survived and played their role, and speeches for those that should be on that stage, but didn’t quite make it.

That’s the issue though, mourning the dead.

People always forget to mourn the living.

Remus feels like he’s doing that now. He’s mourned the losses of everyone he held near and dear - names that he can’t quite bring himself to think without breaking down all over again despite the amount of time that’s passed - but he’s never thought to mourn himself. To mourn the person he was before this and the person he could have been now.

Walking the halls of Hogwarts for the first time since he was 17? It feels like mourning.

Every single corner of this castle holds some kind of significance to him, some kind of prank or hurried gasps in alcoves, some kind of fight or hex, some kind of whispered promises and unfulfilled futures - all of it tainted by a war they lost, no matter what the headlines say.

[thevindicativevordan]

So, overall thoughts on 2024 Superman stuff, and hopes for 2025?

Pretty good year for Superman with a few exceptions.

Obviously the biggest news on the comic side is the launch of Absolute DC, with a new incarnation of Superman as part of the first wave. DC finally does a proper "Ultimate" line and surprise, surprise, it's a success! Who could've predicted that a new line without DC's messy mainline continuity weighing things down would connect with people (me that's who)? I've loved every issue thus far, Aaron's creation of a working class Superman in the vein of both Siegel/Shuster and Morrison/Morales has been a welcome sight, and the worldbuilding done plus the changes to the usual formula has me excited to see where he intends to go. Ironic that after all the back and forth with various new Supermen meant to replace Clark as the Superman for the 21st century (Jon, Val, Kenan), the comics, film, and animation divisions ended up simply doing revamps of Clark to fill that space. Also Sandoval's art is amazing, if he stays on the title he will definitely go down as a definitive Superman artist when all is said and done.

Williamson's run dipped at the start of the year with the underwhelming conclusion to the Pharm and Graft storyline, but I enjoyed House of Brainiac and the Absolute Power tie-ins. Mora joining on art, Williamson cutting back on how many titles he was writing, and a number of genuinely surprising plot twists has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for this book. Part of why I'm so hard on Waid (more on that below) is that Williamson is doing a far superior job at what Waid is trying: mixing together the DCAU with Silver Age tone and Modern Age characterization/stakes. Current rumor is that both Superman and Batman are getting relaunched in 2025, which could mean the end of Williamson's tenure is in sight. If so I hope Williamson can deliver a satisfying resolution to the Zod and Lex storylines he's set up.

Superstars has on the whole been inferior to the best of PKJ's Action, although I can admit that the book declined steeply post Warworld for reasons I don't believe are PKJ's fault, but I did enjoy Aaron and Simone's arcs. Aaron wrote one of my favorite Bizarro arcs and Simone perfectly captured how Superman feels about fighting imo.

Downside has to be Waid's fall off. If you had asked me to pick who out of the Superstar writers would be the weakest, I would never have picked Waid, but that's what happened. His handling of the Aethyr plotline PKJ set up was dreadful, his sanitizing of Jor-El only made the character worse, to the point I actually dropped the book because of that decision. World's Finest began strong this year with the Magog arc, but has since started to feel like filler and driven me to drop that book too. Now it's just JLU (which I'm unsure if I'll continue to read) and LDoLL (which I actually do remain excited for). Waid's schtick has grown stale for me, tragic irony being is that he seems to have grown disenchanted with his own style as well per his comments on BluSky in the wake of Trump's re-election. We'll have to see if that results in any actual shakeups to his writing approach.

Already dove deep into the trailer and poster here, only thing to add is that at the time of this post, the trailer has hit 50 million views, the lifetime total of the third MoS trailer which was the most popular MoS trailer. Folks if Gunn delivers a film on par with his Guardians trilogy, I think this is going to be the breakout hit of the summer even with Jurassic World and F4 for competition

S&L S4 largely seems to have satisfied the fans of the show and as I thought, has seemingly been forgotten in the wake of marketing for Gunn's reboot beginning. Suppose that's fitting given the DC CW shows by and large always had to toil in the shadow of whatever WB was doing with the characters on the film side. Nice full circle moment that DC on the CW began and ended with a Superman show set in Smallville

MAWS S2 ruled, can't wait for S3. Wish more of you bought the tie-in comic which I thought was excellent and featured my man Bloodsport. Hopefully Gunn tosses some of that Creatures Commandos money this show's way.

SS: KTJL was a total bomb that appears to mark the end of DC pushing them. Apparently RS is haphazardly resurrecting the JL in cutscenes made on a shoestring budget but I genuinely wonder why. Conroy is dead so we probably won't get another Arkham Batman game, the WW game features a different WW, and none of the other Leaguers are ever getting their own game. I am totally fine with Arkham Superman staying dead, only NRS did a worse job handling the character, and I absolutely would not want to play a Superman game that had to try and salvage the mess RS made of Superman and his setting. In the unlikely scenario where we ever did get a new Superman game, it would probably be either off on it's own world or congruent with the Wonder Woman game anyway.

Looking Ahead to 2025

Don't feel hyperbolic in proclaiming that next year will be the most important year for Superman since 1978. This is likely the last chance we have to get WB to push Superman back up there with Batman and Spider-Man the way he was decades ago.

Obviously the biggest hope for me is that Gunn's Superman movie is a critical and commercial success. Even if I don't love it personally I would still benefit from that. If it succeeds it reaffirms to WB that Superman is a money-maker, and that would lead to more Superman projects in animation, comics, film, etc. MAWS would be more likely to get more seasons. Wonder Woman got a video game off of her first movie being a hit. Anyone who wants that for Superman has to root for this film to be a hit.

Comics wise if Williamson is leaving then I'd prefer someone other than Slott took over. Totally fine with Slott getting Action, but I'd prefer Williamson either stay or we get someone like Dan Watters handling writing duties. I cannot wrap my mind around DC potentially relaunching Superman for a past his prime Marvel creator again. But better him than Taylor I suppose, who I expect will be getting one of the books next year.

Speaking of Taylor I hope Injustice 3 is at least one more year off. It's less cancerous for the character with the movie, Absolute Superman, and MAWS in the picture but I still hate that franchise with every fiber of my seething fanboy heart. DC needs to get people to like Supes and Injustice solely exists to dump on him and Wondy while wanking Batman. Let's not remind people of childkiller fascist Muderman while trying to reintroduce Superman to the general public ok?

Can't wait for PKJ's book, with that and Absoute I will at least have two Superbooks to read no matter how things shake out with the mainline

For S3 of MAWS I am crossing my fingers for Zod in addition to Lex. I want a Superman cartoon that has the Big 3 (Lex, Brainiac, and Zod) all together, and the tease they've done about Krypton's fate has my mind scrambling over all the possibilities. Mostly I'm interested to see how they would differentiate a MAWS Zod from their Brainiac who already shares some traits in common with "classic" Zod. I'd also like a more traditional Metallo but it kinda seems like they'll be making Henshaw into Metallo based on the new opening shot of the baddies.

Seems likely Kara will get a new book, I wish it would be a team-up book with Kon. I liked their dynamic in HoB!

Would be cool if Kenan got something written by a good writer but I'm not holding my breath

[that-one-brunette2]

I don’t dance (or does he?) an essay by me

It’s no secret that the High School Musical Movies are favorites amongst Gen Z and Millennials alike. Written by Peter Barsocchini and directed by Kenny Ortaga, the movies made roughly around 1 billion dollars. With fans across the world, this Disney Channel Original franchise has quickly turned into a classic. 

The second movie became one of high debate, with energetic numbers like Fabulous, and heartfelt songs like Everyday. And one number in particular, a fan favorite at the climax of the movie, titled I Don't Dance. 

When Ryan has a fight with his sister, he joins his fellow Wildcats at the staff baseball game. There, he sees Chad and the other jocks in baseball uniforms. He greets them and apologizes about the talent show. They say that without Troy, there was no way they’d get up on the stage and dance, but Ryan disagrees. He makes a remark about how if he can play baseball, then the boys could dance. Chad asks as Ryan turns around if he “has game” and Ryan smiles saying he has a little. The camera then cuts to a dance number in the field, where the two boys are on opposing teams, and are often playing directly opposite each other. At the end of the number the boys end their song with Ryan hitting the ball, and sliding into the base, but at the same Chad appears, and tags him out. Ryan stands up, admitting defeat. He starts to leave the field but not before Chad can stop him, asking “If I were to do the talent show, what would you have me do?” And Ryan can be seen smirking in the corner. 

But the specific scene that got people talking was the next scene, where we see the two sitting at a picnic table, practically on top of each other, sharing a tray of fries. Chad seemed to be in Ryan’s white t-shirt, and blue newsboy cap. And Ryan was in Chad’s red baseball uniform and hat. Chad asks what Ryan ment about “a little game” and Ryan laughs saying he had been a little league champion when he was younger. Chad uses the distracted moment to steal a fry and stare at his friend.

This caused an uproar with fans bombarding the cast and team about it. Most complained about how the two didn’t get a love story, or any closure for that matter. Those complaints started rumors on how they thought Ryan could possibly be queer. Going off looks, the character is almost always in tight pants and small tops, accessorized with a hat of some kind. Or off mannerisms, Ryan is a gifted dancer and choreographer, and talks in a higher register than the other guys. It didn’t help that he never was shown dancing with any other girls. He was almost always paired with his sister, Sharpay. 

 The directing team decided that Disney wasn’t ready for an openly gay character like that, so in the third movie they had him take another character that had caused some controversy, Kelsi, to senior prom. The two had been shown hanging out in many scenes before that, but none romantic. Even his promposal was quick and more like two friends joking around. 

Fans turned to Chad for more evidence on this possible love affair. And they looked at the lyrics of I Don't Dance. It almost came across as a metaphor for sexuality. He didn’t want to dance (a typically queer hobby) even though he enjoyed it, because of his reputation as a jock (a typically straight hobby). A lyric that specifically comes to mind is when he says “I’ll show you how I swing.” While looking right at Ryan, smirking. The line seemed to have some sort of sexual meaning behind it. But that one is just a theory. 

In 2020, the director, Kenny Ortaga said he could see Ryan coming out in college. And how he hadn’t even thought fans would take it that way. Because even working with Disney, it wouldn't have been possible at that time. But in the sequel show, fans were given closure when Lucas Grabeel, who played Ryan in the movies, said Ryan was happily partnered “with twins on the way”. 

While this wasn’t what fans were hoping for, it was better than Disney just pretending they hadn’t unknowingly written one of the best queer love stories without the characters even kissing.

[dropintomanga]

AI Can't Be the Whole Solution for Manga

So this week I found out out a Japanese start-up called Orange, who wants to be the Netflix of manga by translating a lot of manga with new apps and tools for the world to fight against online piracy. And to do so, the company will use AI to machine translate all of their manga into English. They also received $20 million USD in funding (one of their investors is Shogakukan) for their goal. This company wants to release up to 500 titles a month at some point.

I honestly don't know how to feel about this.

I read a more in-depth report from Deb Aoki of ComicsBeat and Mangasplaining about this whole startup. There's a lot of tout given by Orange about how this will help the manga industry overseas. Terms like deep learning, accessible content, influencers, reducing cost of localization, etc. are thrown around. Orange already has done some work for Shueisha for some of its MangaPlus titles. While it's apparent that the North American market only gets a small fraction of the manga published in Japan, there's concerns over whether this endeavor will end well.

A good number of manga translators and editors in the North American localization scene have commented on how bad this can be. AI machine translation is far from perfect. While DeepL (a Japanese language translation app similar to Google Translate) is arguably better than Google Translate, there's still errors abound. AI machine translation doesn't seem to be at a stage where you can just show it off to the world and have it translate something like a research paper with context. And even if the translation was good, there still needs to be people to fix errors AI will miss and the jobs to fix those errors don't necessarily pay well since they're the equivalent of "data entry" jobs.

And speaking as someone who reads up on mental health news, AI is not good for picking up nuances and differences that can help people for the better. It's only good for standardizing universal treatments. AI can not be open to the vulnerabilities of other people. One recent story I read last year was about a eating disorder helpline that created a chatbot to help those with eating disorders and how it bombed. There were complaints about how the bot didn't address patients' concerns that they were feeling down or bad about their bodies. Even worse, the chatbot gave some horrible advice by telling people to follow behaviors that led to their eating disorders in the first place. The support staff was fired in favor of the chatbot and while the chatbot was taken down after the complaints, it still left a bad taste in my mouth because mental health problems can never be solved without the human element.

I see this with what's apparently going to happen with manga. I don't see this creating a better world for manga readers. I'm well aware that there are a few professional manga translators in the scene who aren't doing a good job, but I feel they're doing fine for the most part. There's a glaring issue though that most people aren't thinking about - the amount of content we have out there.

We're in a golden age of having so much catered to us that it's ridiculous. Anime, manga, webtoons, video games, board games, music, etc. There's a lot out there. And to have a Japanese startup proclaim that they want to put out up to 500 titles a month, who realistically has the time to read all of them? I wonder if that's the point of these ventures - beat down consumers with so much material to consume that they become apathetic to what's going on behind the scenes.

I do want people to read manga, but I don't want them to become so overwhelmed to the point of burnout and numbness. That's the last thing any manga fan should want. I'm already hearing complaints from my fellow manga peers about the amount of manga we're getting here. It's nice to see bookshelves and libraries filled with manga, but which titles are really being read?

I also think there seems to be no universal standard that EVERYONE can agree with regards to localization. You have the professional side that knows a lot due to being inside the industry, but can be hindered by the Japanese publishing side and pestered by fans who think they know better. And you have the fan side that thinks they know everything because of scanlations and miscellaneous fan translations.

If you're a professional, it's a rough job and I applaud all manga freelancers who do it. Sometimes, I may not agree with the localization choices. But I'm not going to raise a pitchfork and treat them like they're witches. I know a few of those folks in-person and see the human in them.

If you're a fan, you can't expect a very casual reader to understand Japanese terms being spoken out right off the bat. It takes a while to get used to those terms. I'll use myself as an example as a riichi mahjong player. I throw out terms like suji, kabe, mentanpin, ryanmen, etc. to my fellow players. However, if there's an absolute beginner I'm talking to, they will have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

I know some fans are like "Whatever, understanding those terms make me stand out. Yeah, I'm different! Screw the normal world!" But that makes it sound like gatekeeping to a certain degree. It's fine to have that kind of knowledge, but binding it to the very fabric of your identity is not healthy when circumstances change.

Orange seems to want a universal standard for manga translation by incorporating a variety of people into their process, but the fact that people will only be involved AFTER the translation makes me skeptical and the company is being called out for some things on their website. Both professionals and consumers will be screwed here. AI is being pushed so hard by corporations because it can readily applied to real life jobs and regular people in many ways, compared to cryptocurrency/NFTs, which applies only to people with a crap ton of money to spend. I've seen instances of AI usage at the company I work at - some of it good, some of it bad.

But nothing will beat the will and heart of the people. I think that's what scares AI-promoting people. Turning us into total mindless consumers prevents us from being mindful people that want to do right by others. Sure, reading manga makes me happy. But I don't want to be the only one who's happy. I also want people to make informed choices about what to consume.

I also want some people to stop assuming that Japan is the most "anti-woke" country alive out of their rage against localization because it's totally not. Japan has problems and there's people living there speaking out against them. They're "woke" in their own way. I swear that almost everyone who thinks Japan is better than the West hasn't lived there at all and are basing things from a very filtered point of view. I actually feel sorry for them because their lives are just so focused on consuming without thinking for themselves - a perfect market for the AI-pushing crowd.

I'll finish by saying that this AI-powered manga translation venture needs to happen with the right kind of people already on the table through the whole process and where everyone benefits. Everything bad with AI, as far as I've seen, has left people behind with no compassion or empathy. Manga has taught the wonders of compassion and empathy for all and I don't see the Japanese business side of things preaching what their works speak.

[batsplat]

Is there any evidence showing how the audience reacts to Jorge's celebrations? I'm wondering, like, what if Jorge and Vale swapped their celebrations, would the audience like it more just because Valentino did it? Is it actually about the celebration itself or more about the person doing it?

oh they sure would've liked it more if valentino had done it!! like, the answer is that it's about both those things: what the celebrations are and what performs them. and in 2007... the vibes were still broadly pro-jorge, but he did already have plenty of detractors, plenty of those who thought he was a cocky shit - if not as yet an actively hostile casual audience. still, he wasn't valentino. valentino was valentino, those celebrations would've of course been received differently from him

and yes, let's lead with the obvious here: becoming valentino's rival certainly didn't help his cause. in early 2008, the commentators have been talking up how he's finally winning the people over and he's had such a bright and promising start to the premier class... but then we have to put a bit of a pause on that while jorge more or less disappears for most of the rest of the season, spending most of his time licking various wounds. then you get 2009 and the title fight between the two of them... while jorge did have plenty of support, especially from his own country, and he wasn't necessarily hated yet by the casual audience.... well, going by his biography, he was a bit too aware of how he was perceived:

Jorge Lorenzo thought that he might come under fire for battling against Dani Pedrosa, the other rider fighting to be Spain's number one MotoGP favourite, rather than anything else. How wrong he was! On the Internet the majority of criticism has come from Rossi fans - even in his own country! It is definitely a subject that touches a nerve. Jorge is well aware of the discussions that take place on the Internet - he's a seasoned web surfer and he keeps m touch with what's going on on the forums, as well as interacting with his fans - so there have been plenty of occasions where his typing fingers have clenched into fists of frustration. 'It is amazing what you have to put up with in your own country. We have two guys winning races and fighting for the title, and still lots of people stand up for riders from other countries. Okay, I understand why they support Rossi, because he has won nine titles, he's an incredible rider and he has earned their respect - and mine. But there are these other scumbags - disrespectful and bad-mannered people - who are Rossi fanatics and get enjoyment out of insulting us. They almost want me dead! I hope I never have to hear any kind of abuse or insults towards another rider from a "Lorenzista". That would really sadden me.'

obviously, no athlete should read what people write about them on the internet, like that's just a fundamental case where somebody on his team should be telling him 'no, don't do that :)' and get him to practise some social media hygiene. but of course, it is interesting that it kinda makes him the first rider who was like... online... what does it change, if the rider themselves is up to date with the discourse

so. I have been known to peruse motogp forums myself. it's hard to get a great read of fan sentiment at various points in time beyond what the journalists and the commentators and the occasional relevant book can tell you. forums are obviously not particularly representative either BUT it's still kinda interesting to give yourself a sense of the discourse at the time, what talking points existed and so on. which brings me to my other point: while the rivalry with valentino inevitably exacerbated the situation, jorge already had some baggage with viewers going back to his 250cc days - where he was inarguably a lot. just to give you a taster, from april 2008:

a rich text!

so, to some extent, the narrative of jorge as 'the villain' was something that already existed in early 2008. it wasn't unrelated to emerging as a valentino rival, even then, but it was also not entirely about that. like, the main opponents jorge was linked to in people's minds back then were dovi and dani! (and john hopkins, apparently.) the other narrative you already find here that became quite common over the next few years: okay, jorge was 'the villain', but it's also good for a sport to have something like that. someone to root against. someone who comes across as a bit arrogant, a bit full of himself... even if he doesn't mean to be seen as that

and yes, this stuff does definitely get worse in 2009, which is how you get jorge reading stuff along these lines about himself online - including from his compatriots. he didn't think he'd be unpopular for fighting valentino! he thought it'd be about dani! and the thing is, jorge isn't happy whatsoever with this tag of 'villain' that had followed him since his 250cc days. it's something that comes through a lot in the biography as well as his 2010 title winning season documentary: he feels misunderstood, he wants people to get what he's really all about. he spends so much time worrying about how people will perceive him, attempting to figure out how to better communicate with them... but in reality, a lot of people had already seen all they needed to see. fighting valentino wasn't the starting point for that, and it's likely jorge would have always ended up in a bit of a heel role anyway - but obviously, being valentino's teammate didn't help

then 2010 came, the relationship between the pair of them finally deteriorated publicly, and after valentino's injuries jorge was dominating his way towards his first title. this is when things really begin to change for him. he still had the early season celebrations, drowning himself in jerez and the yellow chair of le mans, plus of course the title celebrations - but, well. I think at a certain point, if you're jorge, you can worry about what people online are saying as much as you want... but you have to figure out what's more important to you: being popular or winning. because maybe, it's just not going to be possible for you to have both. maybe, however much you want to find out a way to connect with the people, to charm them, to bring them on your side with your joyous and creative celebrations, to get them to love you the way you feel you deserve to be loved... maybe they've already made up their minds. maybe, there's only so much you can do... the dorna-produced documentary may be defiant, but it is also frustrated. jorge knows people don't see him how he wants to be seen, and he has run out of things to try to change that

to give an example of how warped perception of him had become by end of 2010:

So at Sepang, Lorenzo was the object of intense scrutiny, his every action dissected and discussed like a presidential candidate's acceptance address. And naturally, when Lorenzo pulled over on the cool down lap after finally securing the championship that had been his life-long goal, the fact that he missed Ben Spies' hand offered in congratulation was jumped upon by the voracious pack and imbued with a significance normally reserved for the actions of mystics and gurus. It was a Deliberate Act, said those whom Lorenzo had angered by stealing Rossi's crown, a Snub. It was aimed at Establishing the Pecking Order in the Yamaha garage for next year, the conspiracists insisted, kicking off the 2011 season within seconds of the 2010 season being settled. Lorenzo, the angry mob proclaimed, deliberately ignored Spies to show him who was boss. Watching the video in isolation, you might even be persuaded that the conspiracists had a point. Spies pulls up next to Lorenzo, tries to shake his hand, which Lorenzo does not respond to, then Spies rides off shaking his head. Proof positive that it was a deliberate and malicious act, say the conspiracists. Like all conspiracy theorists, those who say Lorenzo deliberately snubbed Spies overlook one major factor, however: Human nature. When Spies pulled over to congratulate Lorenzo, the Spaniard was in a daze. Members of his fan club had started the preparations for the complex and impenetrable celebration they had planned before the race, and Lorenzo was clearly struggling to remember what it was he was supposed to be doing. He had marshalls, photographers and his friends all around him, all slapping him on the back, poking him in the gut and touching his arms. There was a lot going on. Most of all, though, this was the moment that it all started to sink in for Lorenzo. After a tough race in stifling tropical conditions - the race had been shortened by one lap at the request of the riders, because the Sepang race is so physically demanding in the heat and humidity - Lorenzo had finally crossed the line in one piece, and with enough points to win the title. He had achieved a lifelong dream, a goal he had dedicated himself to for at least the past 15 years. A goal that he had sacrificed his relationship with his family, his relationship with his manager, and even his relationship with the only girl he ever loved to achieve. Finally, for the first time in his life, he was MotoGP World Champion. He had gone through several harrowing weeks before finally reaching this goal: He had lost points to Dani Pedrosa three races in a row, putting Pedrosa back in with a chance. After Pedrosa injured himself at Motegi, and Lorenzo could have wrapped up the title, he was surprised to be given a good old-fashioned smackdown by his teammate, reminding him that the title is never certain until it's officially in the bag. Those fairing-banging passes between Rossi and Lorenzo reminded the Spaniard of his vulnerability, that a simple mistake can cause a serious injury, and undo all the hard work of a season in a fraction of a second. Finally it was over, and the title was in the bag. At last, after weeks of pressure, Lorenzo could relax. As he pulled over, the emotions washed over him, elation, relief, exhaustion. Within seconds, he had fans around him starting on the Spaniard's meticulously planned celebration. He had barely gathered his thoughts to start dealing with the complexities of that celebration when Spies pulled up beside him, tried to shake Lorenzo's hand, then rode off shaking his head, probably in bemusement at the state of Lorenzo, a reminder of his own emotions at winning the World Superbike title last year. By the time Hiroshi Aoyama shook Lorenzo's hand (the third rider to do so), he had recovered enough of his composure to act as expected, and acknowledge the gesture appropriately.

and here:

There is no question that Lorenzo's actions are open to interpretation. The video only shows men whose faces are hidden by helmets, and whose intentions are therefore much more difficult to interpret. It is entirely possible to read the entire event as a deliberate snub to Spies, and a warning for the future. Occam's razor, however, suggests a simpler explanation: that Lorenzo was overwhelmed, and not completely aware of what was going on. Later, once Valentino Rossi arrived to congratulate the Spaniard, Lorenzo had fully recovered his composure. He accepted the Italian's congratulations in the spirit in which they were offered: begrudgingly and half-heartedly. Once in parc ferme, the childish rivalry continued, with Lorenzo trying to hog the limelight after winning the title, and Rossi trying to steal it after winning his 46th race for Yamaha. They both may ride the same bike and bear the same colors, but Rossi and Lorenzo are still a very long way from being teammates. The rivalry between Lorenzo and Rossi is much of the fuel feeding the conspiracies about Lorenzo's behavior. With such a fierce rivalry between the current teammates, surely this must continue into next year, when Ben Spies takes the place of Rossi in the factory Yamaha garage? That is surely the driving force behind Lorenzo's behavior in those few seconds, the conspiracists ask. Lorenzo himself today responded to questions on the issue on Twitter, posting the following response to the many people who had asked him if he had deliberately ignored Spies at Sepang: "I had some messages asking me why I didn't pay attention to Spies when he wanted to congratulate me. I have to say that I didn't see... ...And feel he was there at that the moment of our celebration. I just told this to him. He is a good guy and we have a good relationship."

it started before valentino, it became worse as a result of valentino, it extends beyond valentino. but, as ever, valentino is inescapable - and in the end he is so to jorge even around the time of jorge's greatest and sweetest success. to jorge there are two wars going on during that time period: one for the title and one for the hearts of the people. he has won one of them, but he keeps finding himself frustrated in the other. still. he might not have openly admitted as much in as many words, but there was one war that was always going to be more important than the other. if given the choice, he was going to win

so then. after that, jorge settles for his defiance, becomes a hardier, steely version of himself as the rest of the alien era unfolds. it is an era of motogp that is deeply unpopular at the time - and so, increasingly, is he. it is not universal dislike, of course it isn't. but it is definitely a feature of motogp during those years. he becomes readier to lean into that role, over time, prepared to play the heel if that is the role he has been cast to play. but the desire to be understood never entirely went away... there aren't many riders who have studied valentino so closely, certainly few who are so fascinated by the secrets by valentino's enduring charisma and popularity. perhaps none who were so determined to capture some of that magic for themselves. if anyone on this planet was aware, then, of how much better any of these celebrations would have been received coming from valentino - well, it would most certainly have been jorge himself

[callmearcturus]

Arc Plays Games: Nora to Toki no Koubou: Kiri no Mori no Majo (NDS)

(apparently in English that's something like "Nora the Time Witch")

I'm gonna try something and try to keep track of all the games I play this year. First up is this extremely cute little that honestly got me through being sick as hell over the holiday. It is kind of perfect as a game for your brain at 40%.

Nora is a DS game that has better "Cozy" feel than most games under the cozy game genre. Basically, Nora (the character) is a chronomancer, so she can do time magic. She's a rookie so she's supposed to be learning how to get good at chronomancy. She's sent to a lil cottage in the woods to bone up on her skills.

The house and garden are extremely precious. You can redecorate the cottage, move furniture and crafting items around, change the walls and floor. The garden has friends and you can lure in cute creatures.

The main loop of the game is in three parts. First is making items to fulfill requests for townsfolk and friends. You'll be asked to make a certain item, and have to figure out the best way to do so with time magic, dismantling raw materials, and processing materials into new stuff. You start off with just a work table and the time magic thingie, then get more and more crafting options like sewing tables and smokers and stuff.

Then you turn in those items and get other items in return and make people happy!

There's also foraging, bc obviously you need materials to make stuff.

There's a whole map with multiple places to go and each of those locations has different materials to gather.

When you arrive at a location, there are interactable things that will give you different materials. Some are sparkly and also give you random effects, like increased rarity, more items, or monsters.

You might want to grab the sparklies first to try and booth the number of materials you get, but on the other hand you might find a monster instead.

Battles are the third pillar. There are a SHOCKING amount of party members, and you can pick and choose teams depending on what you want.

Want to make sure you survive really tough monsters? Go with the errant knight lady and the big friendly city watch guy. Want to get more materials? Go with the soft-spoken clinic worker who can spot more herbs of the 12 year old shop girl who fucking LOVES rocks and can find you more rocks. But the clinic girl isn't great in a fight, so you gotta be careful.

Party members include: a weird mercenary dude who just wants to be the cool knight lady, the buff city watch man who has tea parties and tries to kill monsters with stale bread, the clinic lady who secretly can deadlift a tree, aforementioned 12 year old who thinks rocks are just soooooo cool, the hot knight lady who i think has the hots for Nora but i'm not sure, a Capitalist, a thief who kinda sucks, and a mascot character.

I weirdly ADORE the economy/shop system in this game.

Sometimes when you are selling off old equipment or excess materials, the shopowner will counteroffer your request for money with rare items instead.

YOU CAN DO THIS TOO. Most of the stock in the shops can be bought outright OR you can choose "Buy with items" and offer up stuff in exchange for the item you want.

Shops have normal stock but also special stock you can only get by trading the right materials. The armory guy has swords and stuff BUT if you want the good shit, bring him a dragon scale instead.

I bounce off a lot of these kind of soft, cute games because they don't feel like they have depth but this game sooooo does. I would say the only downside is when you struggle to make a certain items or find a certain material, you... sometimes just gotta figure it out, because this game was an oddball Japanese-only Atlus title and the fan translation isn't super well-known, there isn't a robust wiki to refer you. Just figure it out!

Anyway, solid fucking 4 out of 5 on this game. If you can emulate DS games, you can locate this one pretty easily if you know where to look. (And if you don't know where to look, send me an ask off-anon and I will direct you a bit.)

gd i maybe need to try an atelier game...........

[crossf1recreat1ons]

A Note To ARMS

Over the past 3 years, I have been creating fanart, OCs, and even fanlore for a Nintendo Fighting Game titled ARMS. I got to meet a lot of people by (re)discovering my love for this silly little fighting game. I branched out to new platforms to interact with people who also created ARMS content and played the game.

Since early 2022, I experienced a lot of changes, both in my own life and the community I frequented the most. Of course, we all change over time (as one of my favorite rock bands Shinedown puts it; that’s just a symptom of being human). But at the same time, I dearly miss my early days of creating and indulging in ARMS fan content.

Even if I reminisce about the past, it isn’t perfect; I witnessed a handful of unfriendly interactions with other people that greatly stressed me out and felt bad about myself afterward. On the other hand, I made a lot of “mistakes” and ideas for my ARMS AU that (let’s just say) I wouldn’t agree with if I were to craft it today (not to mention it would negatively impact my view on some of the characters in the long run).

Even if I try to run away from the past, it always comes back to bite me, which would later become a cycle of irrational avoiding and self blaming. At this point, I’m having to acknowledge the fact that I made these mistakes and that I had these unfriendly interactions.

Witnessing the nasty bites of both sides would end up impacting my mental health, which would in turn impact how I developed my own ARMS AU. Starting around the latter half of 2023, I would incorporate some really dark elements into said AU. I’m not sure how to fully describe them, but I did not like these changes. I did not like how they were making development more stressful than it needed to be. These dark themes would later be toned down starting in 2024, yet they still lingered in my mind like I had shiny objects strapped to myself and surrounded by barracudas. 

Said thoughts would get worse and worse over time, even going into 2025, to which by this point, they are warping my view on some characters. I felt like I could not view them the same way ever again. I felt like I was hurting them in a way, yet I bottled up these thoughts and feelings since I knew people wouldn’t see or hear about them.

Also in 2025, I started to battle my depression (which got really bad at points), further impacting my perception of my ARMS AU. At this point, I felt like I had to let go of larger parts of said AU (and potentially the AU as a whole). I felt like I had become more sensitive over small matters and couldn’t talk to other people outside of my closest friends.

At this point, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that my interest in ARMS is dying after over 3 years. It’s becoming more and more stressful to develop my ARMS AU and talking about my headcanons on the canon roster. I felt like I had lost connection with them. I ended up being more attached to my OCs than the canon roster (and even then I felt like I could only do so much with them when confined within the rules of canon).

I have also come to the conclusion that I don’t want my ARMS AU to be an ARMS AU forever (yeah my days of creating ARMS fan content are officially numbered). I don’t want to be confined under the rules of canon. I want to move on to bigger and greater stories.

Now that’s not to say I’ll never indulge in ARMS related content ever again or that I consider ARMS to be a “dead game;” that couldn’t be any further than the truth. I had so much fun talking about my ARMS OCs and reading the stories of other people’s OCs and gushing about how much I love them. I’m not joking when I say reading about other people’s ARMS OCs was one of the biggest inspos to me.

Even if I had many bumps in the road during my time making ARMS fan content, it helped me mature in a lot of ways looking back in retrospect. I improved in my art and character design skills, opened myself up to more people and met some genuinely awesome people in my life.

It was awesome to see other people making ARMS Fanart, Fanfiction, OCs, and other cool stuff. I enjoyed seeing other people’s content and I loved when someone said they liked my art or my OCs. I really did feel like I was at home by having these experiences and interactions. 

Even if I don’t want to commit to being an ARMS fanartist forever, I will forever cherish the fond memories I had with the community, I will never forget the life lessons that I was taught throughout, and I will never let the hatred and toxicity put me down.

Since ARMS Day is coming up (June 16th), I’ve decided that I’m gonna throw myself a little retirement party in celebration for creating ARMS fan content for over 3 years and eventually moving on to greater projects in life.

Thank you for the amazing memories <3

~ Crossf1re

[starshower1215]

Hello great star from up high in the dark sky, shining down upon us all ✨✨

I'm a cat lady as you know, so I would, predictably, be curious about 'The Back-alley Cat'. But I see that you've updated that as asked already so I'll go with 'Mikasa' and because I am greedy 🫣, I'll ask about one more, 'Long is the night'.

I've been reading the AOT manga and enjoying the characterisation and role of Mikasa so I'm really really excited to find out more about 'Mikasa'.

As for the other choice, is the title perhaps inspired by a quote from Buddha? I don't mean to go all religious (and I'm not Buddhist so I hope I'm not misquoting or butchering it), it's just the fic title just reminded me of one of his quotes / teachings that once came across which starts with a similar phrase "Long is the night to him who is awake...people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true".

Ah, hello, Miss Cat Lady, haha. That's a very flattering way of being addressed, thank you.

I've also been very interested in Mikasa. To tell you about this one, the title is subject to change, but it is a post-war story set a few years into the future. I'm very excited about it, so I can't share too much. However, I can tell you that, as of now, the main focus has been on Mikasa and Levi's relationship, but I'm strongly considering the inclusion of post-war Jean x Mikasa as an aspect. I find that dynamic very interesting, and I think there's a place for it already set up in the story. But I'm such a big fan of AoT post-war material, as well as anything sticking to canon material. This would be my first such work, and I want to do Mikasa justice, because post-canon Mikasa must be treated with the utmost respect; she's the focus of the story, after all. I want to do right by her.

'Long is the Night' is a title from the song 'So Ist Es Immer,' the track from ACWNR, but that's an interesting connection you've made to Buddha. I wouldn't have thought of that. This is centred around Mike and Levi's relationship, particularly during Levi's grief over Isabel and Furlan's deaths. I don't believe he would have come to believe in his philosophy of 'no regrets' as quickly as he accepted it from Erwin, so I'm trying to write Mike stepping in to fortify the belief for him. As the current strongest soldier in humanity, I imagine him to be quite sensitive to the topic of self-blame and survivor's guilt, but he's also more experienced than Levi in the Survey Corps. What Levi needs, in my fic, is just someone like an older brother.

I don't have much material written for this fic, but here's something which is in my draft. It's a placeholder, really, because Mike is a quiet guy, but these are his words to Levi when they're under the stars one night.

//

'Everyone knows me as Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. I can smell them coming. Every titan, the number of them, and from where. But that's it. All I can do is warn my comrades about it; I'm powerless to stop a single thing. All I can do is do my best to fight, and to save as many people as possible. That could be hundreds, or it could be zero. But all I can do in the end is fight. Even to save just one person, it doesn’t matter. But the point is to fight, and to encourage the others to fight by doing so. As long as we fight, we haven’t lost yet.'

//

So, yeah. I always found Mike and Levi's relationship interesting, as I do with all the AoT veterans. Really, it's just an excuse to write Levi being comforted by Mike's quiet presence, lol. But thank you for your curiosity, and for putting some thought into what's behind the second title!

[postgamecontent]

The Latest Arcade Archives Sale Includes A Whopping 20 Games From Taito and Hamster

It's a big one this time, retro arcade game fans. Hamster's doing another sale on some of its Arcade Archives titles on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5, and instead of the usual ten games on sale we've got twenty to consider. Ten of the games are Taito titles, while the other ten come from the various bits and bobs that Hamster has bought over the years. All of them are 30% off, and the sale runs until February 26th.

I'll mention as always that it's rare for any given Arcade Archives game to go on sale more than once, so if you're interested in something here then you should buy it soon. Oh, and if you don't see the sale yet, just give it a little time to propagate to your region's store. Let's go through those games, one by one.

Arcade Archives Taito Games (30% Off)

Kiki Kaikai (Also Seen In Taito Milestones 2)

The series this game kicked off is generally known in the West as Pocky & Rocky. It's a multi-directional top-down shooter with a Japanese Youkai theme. Tons of fun, exceedingly charming, and a game I would easily recommend to anyone who likes old arcade games enough to be reading an article like this.

The Ninja Warriors (Also Seen In Taito Milestones)

The Ninja Warriors is best remembered for two things: its incredible Zuntata soundtrack, and the far better reimagining/sequel done by Natsume on the Super NES. This is a very simple side-scrolling action game in the vein of things like Vigilante or Spartan X. It's not terrible, but it gets repetitive in a hurry.

Solitary Fighter (Also Seen In Taito Milestones 2)

The 1991 follow-up to Violence Fight, it's a pre-Street Fighter 2 fighting game with all that implies. It's a clumsy game to be sure and not very good compared to the modern conception of this genre, but you get to fight a bear and when you hit things a big DOGOOOOOON sometimes gets thrown onto the screen. Ten out of ten, no notes.

Elevator Action (Also Seen In Taito Milestones)

Elevator Action is a great game. You start at the top of a building and need to make your way to the ground floor, grabbing all the secret documents along the way. You'll be hounded by enemy agents, but you have a firearm of your own to protect yourself with. Per the title, you'll be using a lot of elevators. You can squash enemies with them. There's a lot of depth in this humble little game. Highly recommended.

Chack'n Pop (Also Seen In Taito Milestones)

The protagonist of this game is sometimes used as a mascot by Taito, and many of the visual elements were recycled for the far more famous Bubble Bobble. It's a single-screen action game where, as Chack, you have to free all the trapped hearts on each stage and then make your way to the exit. Enemies will dog you along the way, and your only means of defense are some very treacherous bombs. You also have stick 'em powers. Like many early Taito games it's a bit too complicated for its own good, but that also gives it a certain appeal.

Front Line (Also Seen In Taito Milestones)

If you want to know the origins of games like Ikari Warriors or Commando, you'll want to check out Front Line. It's a top-down military shooter, and it's drenched in that early arcade awkwardness that makes it hard to hate. It's enjoyable as a score attacker, so if that's your thing then you might want to dig into this.

Pirate Pete

This is a reskin of Jungle Hunt, which itself was a reskin of a Tarzan game. Swing along the ropes, then take a little swim, then jump your way to rescue your pirate girlfriend. A simple loop to be sure, but it's a solid one. While people likely have more nostalgia for the Jungle Hunt version, I think the pirate theme works just as well.

Flipull

Sometimes known as Plotting, this is a puzzle game where you have to throw marked blocks at a pile to remove a certain quota. You have a limited number of blocks and a timer to push against in each stage, and the challenge heats up in a hurry. I like this one a lot. It's a good pick-up for fans of arcade puzzlers.

Raimais

This one's more than it initially seems to be. It's similar to Head On, where you're driving a high-speed vehicle through mazes collecting dots. You need to avoid crashing into your opponents while you're at it. The thing about this game is that there are a ton of secrets to uncover and a lot of different paths to the ending. It's not going to be for everyone, but for some it's going to be a complete obsession.

Time Tunnel

Time Tunnel hails from 1982, and you know that means it's going to be either a shooter or weird. This one is the latter. You control a train and need to move around in mazes performing a variety of objectives. A quirky little game that is kind of fun to chew on if you come into it with the right mindset.

Arcade Archives Hamster Games (30% Off)

Turbo Force

A vertical shoot 'em up originally published by Video System. You play as a flying car with laser beams. I mean, that's a selling point. You can power up your attack, but its strength will wear down the longer you hold down the fire button. You'll need to balance between laying down fire and letting it rest. Not an amazing game, but not a bad one either.

Rezon

Another shooter, this one of the horizontal variety. It was originally released in 1991 by Allumer, and it's more than a little inspired by R-Type. Like most games you can say that for, it's nowhere near as good as what it's biting from. The gimmick here is a pair of extra guns that give you added firepower and can be locked into place to use as a shield. You can't shoot while using them as a guard, though. It's kind of trashy, but that's the sort of game you want to grab on sale.

Strike Gunner

A vertical shooter, this one originally released by Athena. It had a Super NES port that seemed to be hanging around the racks of every rental shop, but this arcade version is a little different. You can choose a weapon for each stage, but you can only use each one once so you have to think carefully about which one to use when. You can also do a fusion move, but only when playing with another person. A little bland, but there's some comfort in its meat-and-potatoes action.

Itazura Tenshi

Here's a Nichibutsu game where you play as an angel trying to connect the stars of various constellations. Sometimes you can pick up a bow to fend off the enemies that hassle you in this endeavor, but you'll have to rely on dodging most of the time. A very unique game that is satisfying to run score attacks on.

Magical Speed

Speaking of unique games, this is a take on the card game Speed. You can play against the CPU or another player locally, and… it's Speed. It's also completely in Japanese, so keep that in mind if you're going to pick this up. It's amusing enough, but not one I would be in a big rush to pick up.

Omega Fighter

I hope you like vertical shoot 'em ups, because we've got one more here. More to come, too. This one was originally released by UPL, and it's not too shabby. You get extra points for destroying enemies close-up, there are items you can pick up and use, and your shot is quite devastating. The scoring opportunities make this quite well-suited to the timed Caravan mode included in all of these releases.

Radical Radial

Radical Radial is a vertically scrolling shooting game from 1982, and it's surprisingly good. You play as a tire, and you'll need to avoid and jump over obstacles as you deal with foes. Lots of Nichibutsu energy flowing through this, and a game I've enjoyed quite a bit since picking it up in a sale a few years back. I'd recommend it.

Penguin-Kun Wars

Oh yes, this is a charmer. You and another animal sit at opposite sides of a table. Your goal is to throw all of the balls to the other side, while your opponent does the same. If you hit them with a ball, they'll be temporarily stunned. The same goes for you, of course. This is the key to winning. Fast and just a good time all around.

Thunder Dragon

Were you looking for another vertical shoot 'em up? Okay, but in this one you're a battle helicopter and it plays a lot like Raiden. Like, an awful lot like Raiden. I've played far worse takes on Raiden, however. The scoring system has a good punch to it, which is always a plus for Arcade Archives releases. Get on those leaderboards!

Saboten Bombers

This is not a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up! No, it's one of those elimination platformers in the vein of Bubble Bobble, and it's decent. You're a living cactus, and you blow things up with bombs. Lots of bonus items to pick up and weird enemies to battle. It's far from the best example of this sub-genre, but if you like this sort of thing then I think you'll get your money's worth out of it at this discounted price.