#the full game new is like... $40 which is... way too much

[youremyheaven]

Rahu & Ketu: Abuse & Addiction

TW: drug overdose, death, suicide, abuse, childhood abuse

Nodal influence can be very destabilising and intoxicating. They're opposites but as they say the extremes of anything is a meeting point for it's opposite, so Rahu & Ketu share many similarities.

Rahu & Ketu are both shadow planets, Rahu is the head whereas Ketu is the tail. This in itself reveals much about the nature of the two. Rahu is over immersed in the world whereas Ketu is completely cut off from it.

When I say Rahu is over immersed/over stimulated, I don't mean they're profoundly connected to reality, I mean the opposite, they're deeply immersed in Maya/illusion that they often have no sense of reality. Rahu is the head, imagine if you lived in your head all the time? You'd be in your own la la land, disconnected from what is actually happening around you. This is Rahu energy. Without your body, you cannot use your senses, you cannot fully feel alive or experience reality. Rahu being the head means you're cut off from what is "real". You only live in your head and what happens in your head is very subjective and completely illusory.

They are so deeply immersed in an illusory world. This can manifest as substance addiction, video gaming, fame, material success, internet addiction, overly obsessed with "binging" content, maladaptive daydreaming etc, any experience that disconnects you from what is "real" and immerses you in something that feels very real but isn't real. Both Rahu and Ketu people suffer from addiction, Claire had mentioned that Nodal influence can make someone prone to addiction but why Rahu and Ketu are addicted tend to be very different. Rahu is overstimulated, they always need more of everything. There are people who spend 10 hours a day just watching YouTube videos or IG reels or whatever, that's because they need that much stimulation, since they live in their heads. Their minds need that kind of fodder to thrive off of. Once you start using any kind of substance, your brain builds a tolerance for it and you have to start using higher and higher doses to get the same high. When a Rahu native accumulates wealth, they start indulging in it but nothing is ever enough. They never feel "full", they don't have that fuse in their brain that flares up and says "this is enough". Basically they never know when to stop, they just keep going and going and going with anything they immerse themselves in. People play video games for 3-4 days straight without leaving their game set up. They don't ever feel satisfied. This is scary because "feeling full" is our brain's way of asking us to stop. Without that mechanism, we would overindulge and overdo everything which is what these natives do.

This is also why relationships are so tricky for Nodal people. They give too much and immerse themselves to the point where it's detrimental to the relationship. You either feel like you're losing part of yourself to it or the other person feels like you're consuming their energy too much (which makes them feel drained). Moderation does not exist for Nodal people either they're completely detached or they're completely obsessed.

Its similar to Jupiter energy in the sense that Jupiter is also very expansive and has the ability to immerse itself in everything and give so much but Jupiter has other principles that firmly ground it in reality as it is not a shadow planet like Rahu. It is not suspended in an illusion, Jupiter natives give so much or do so much because they have the internal space to do so, not out of a tendency to immerse themselves in Maya/illusion. Jupiter is the opposite, they see through Maya and find it hard to consciously part take in it.

Taylor Swift- Ardra Moon

She works harder than anybody in the biz. Her concerts are like 3 hours long and she does like 40-50 shows on average. She's ALWAYS doing THE most. She releases a new album every 2 years or so, has other projects etc this is a positive manifestation of Rahu energy because it allows you to be deeply immersed in your craft and your world but it also means you live in a bubble and you are cut off from "real life".

Ketu is the tail, it is cut off from reality and feels profoundly disconnected to reality. It is hard for these natives to feel like they relate to anything. This is why Ketuvians struggle with addiction. They use substances because they want to feel something, want to feel tethered, want to feel connected. They have to use higher doses because it helps them feel heightened emotions when they usually don't feel anything at all.

Ketu is connected to spirituality because natives who feel disconnected from the real world to this extent find it easier to immerse themselves in the occult and in esoterica. It is more abstract and requires you to think non-logically, i.e, experientially, but this is something Ketuvians have a hard time with, they themselves feel very "abstract" or like they aren't real or don't exist, so while they're intrinsically drawn to the esoteric, they feel untethered/ungrounded by immersing themselves in it too much. They need something they can cling to, they need something solid that they can attach themselves to.

All Rahuvian nakshatras belong to the Shudra caste, specifically the Butcher caste, this is very interesting because Shudra is the lowest caste (Mleccha is "outcaste" which means it exists outside the system entirely), to be Rahuvian means to operate on the lowest level. Butchers have to slaughter meat to make a living, that is unpleasant and brutal work, and only if they are disconnected from it can they keep doing it. They cannot be too focused on what they actually do because then it will be hard for them to do their tasks. They're not repulsed by it because they're disconnected from it.

2/3 Ketuvian naks are also Shudra caste whereas Ashwini is the only Ketu nak that is upper caste as it is a Vaishya nak.

(table by me hehe)

Rahuvian naks are found in all 3 ganas (Swati is deva gana, Ardra is manushya gana, Shatabhisha is rakshasa gana)

2/3 Ketuvian naks are Rakshasa gana (Mula, Magha) with only Ashwini being a Deva gana nak

I feel like Ketuvians are always made to feel like the bad guy / people villainize them a lot. They're the "ugly ducklings" who have to "win" approval as they're never accepted for who they are.

Rahu needs to immerse itself in something because its sensory perception is limited and they need to really indulge to grasp what is "real". Its very common for people with heavy Rahuvian or Rahu in a malefic placement to experience hallucinations or feel like their grip on reality is very thin.

Ketu has nothing perceive with at all. Its like being completely lost in the shadows or the dark. There's no perception taking place at all, it makes the natives inwardly drawn because its truly hard for them to absorb from their surroundings unlike Rahu which absorbs easily and fully. Rahu is over immersed whereas Ketu lacks immersion at all.

Lets look at the yoni animals of Rahu & Ketu naks respectively

Rahu: Ardra -dog yoni, Shatabhisha- horse yoni, Swati-buffalo yoni

Ketu: Magha-rat yoni, Mula- dog yoni, Ashwini-horse yoni

one common theme is that all these animals are abused, mistreated and exploited

(rats are the go to animal for lab testing, dogs are valued for their loyalty and are at the mercy of their owners, horses are made to endure so much labour, buffalos are farm animals)

all of these animals are also associated with dirt/filth in some way or another which is perhaps why people with Nodal influence often have a dishevelled appearance. They're bad at taking care of themselves.

Both horse yoni & dog yoni are divided among Rahu & Ketu naks whereas the yoni consort for Swati is Hasta (Moon ruled) and Magha is Purvaphalguni (Venus ruled).

Horses are very strong but very fragile animals. They start walking almost immediately after birth, they sleep standing up but they require a lot of attention and care as their health tends to be very fragile. Even though horses are associated with working hard, its not exactly innately part of their nature, it's just that they've been domesticated into being that way. It represents a very powerful active energy, as horses can be highly temperamental and unpredictable.

Dog yoni on the other hand, makes a person very needy and eager to please others. Dogs depend on the affection of their owners and without it they feel unhappy. Both these nakshatras have obsessive tendencies and a people pleasing nature. They're also two nakshatras who endure abuse the most.

I've noticed that a lot of people tend to have both nodes in their chart and I wonder what its like to house such contradictions. On one hand you're extremely involved, on the other, you're supremely detached.

The entertainment industry is one where people with Nodal influence really thrive but also often, self-destruct themselves. Its immensely hard to balance these energies since Rahu heightens whatever is in it, the way Jupiter expands whatever it touches. Both planets make you feel manic but in different ways.

Addiction is the result of an overactive nervous system and a coping mechanism. Ketu feels cut off from society/life/the world so in order to feel connected, it over indulges. Rahu needs something that will help them fully lose themselves, idk if I'm explaining it properly but you know how the best movies you've watched are the ones where you feel like you were in them experiencing those things with the characters? Its like that

There is an unhappy pattern of Rahu & Ketu influenced people being abused, I have especially noted this among child actors but also others.

Taylor Momsen- Swati Moon

Her parents signed her up with Ford Modeling when she was just 2 years old. "No 2-year-old wants to be working, but I had no choice. My whole life, I was in and out of school. I didn't have friends. I was working constantly and I didn't have a real life."

This theme of not experiencing "real life" or reality is very prominent in the lives of Rahuvian and Ketuvian people. It can be interpreted in many ways according to the context but there is always a sense of being deprived of what was "normal" or "real" as a result of which these natives had to live in their imagination or indulge in other things.

Like the child star who worked their whole life playing other people (acting is very Rahuvian) or the loner kid who spends all their time immersed in movies or video games because that feels more "real" to them.

Fame is also an inherently Rahuvian experience bc it's an illusion & a prison.

Judy Garland- Ardra Rising, Mula Moon

She was emotionally abused and controlled by her mother who got her addicted to drugs by the time she was a teenager. She was also sexually abused by the studio executives she worked with. Judy had a very tough life.

Aaron Carter, Ardra Moon, Mula Rising

Aaron Carter claimed that as a teen musician, his family spent $500 million of his money on 15 houses and 30 cars. He claimed that when his parents sold the houses, he didn't get a cut of the profits. He also alleged that his dad shot a .44 magnum near his ear — which resulted in him going 70% deaf in one ear — to force him into signing a $256,000 check.

Being heavily tattooed (more examples at the end of this post) is also a very Nodal thing to do.

He unfortunately passed away in 2022 from an accidental drug overdose. This is also a very unfortunate pattern among Nodal celebrities.

Macaulay Culkin- Shatabhisha Moon, Magha Sun & Mercury

 Macaulay Culkin's father Kit managed him during his childhood career. Macaulay has shared that his father was controlling and had him on a very busy filming schedule in the early '90s. He added his father made him stay up every night to study the lines he would have to say the next day. Macaulay asserted that his father was "such a crazy person" that he forced him to do SNL without cue cards when he hosted the show at 11 years old. Macaulay has explained that he felt his father was jealous of him because “everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old.”When Macaulay stopped acting after his 1994 movie Richie Rich, he told his parents, “I’m done, guys — hope you all made your money because there is no more coming from me.”His parents were never married and after he stopped acting, his mother filed for custody. Macaulay ended up taking his parents to court to stop them from controlling his $17 million in earnings. Since then, he and his father have been estranged.

I feel like the "child star gone wild" is a trope meant specifically for Nodal people

Keke Palmer, Magha Sun & Mercury, Mula Moon

Palmer shared on IG:

"Due to traveling and scheduling both of my parents had to stop working to support my career and be present for my three siblings, leaving me with the financial responsibility around age 12. Which I took great pride in because I knew what it would do for generations to come and a huge blessing that I could even help out. However it caused me a lot of pain because I essentially had to abandon my childhood feelings and desires, becoming like a parentalized child, which is something some of you can probably relate to in your own way. This was something that I have had to continuously work through because I am grateful but often feel like.. I missed “IT”. Life can be such a tragic comedy because how funny is it.. that now becoming an actual parent, and the responsibility I’ve always carried being more valid now than ever, has in fact given me the chance to feel what it’s like to be a kid again, I get a chance to explore a lot of the things I missed out on with my son, His freedom is like, the most priceless gift to me. He is already teaching me so much, it’s like he awakened the little me inside that I thought was long gone."

Ketu dominance = being your own parent, being neglected by your family or having to be your parent's parent.

Michael Jackson, Magha Sun & Mercury, Shatabhisha Rising

From a young age Jackson was physically and mentally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling. Jackson's abuse as a child affected him throughout his grown life. reading about the lives of the Jackson siblings and how severely they were all abused is very perspective altering and sad

Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Magha Moon, Ashlesha Rising (inc the ashlesha placement bc its another nak often subject to control and abuse)

“With what we were doing in business when we were younger, I don’t think it ever felt like we were actresses,” Mary-Kate “Because we spend so much more of our time not in front of the cameras, building a brand. Ashley agreed, saying: “I always looked at myself, even as a kid, as a business woman.” Mary-Kate said she wouldn't wish her childhood on anyone, and said she felt like a "monkey performer." 

they quit acting in the mid 2000s and rarely make public appearances and god only knows what they endured in the business bc neither of them will talk about it.

Sarah Michelle Geller, Ashwini Sun conjunct Ketu, Shatabhisha Moon

Sarah herself enjoyed the path she'd ended up on, she has rules in place for her own daughter. Recalling the "industry abuses" she experienced as a teenager in Hollywood, she said she hoped she'd "set up a safety net for these actors that I didn't have," but that she and husband Freddie Prinze Jr. have "rules in place" that mean daughter Charlotte "can't be in front of a camera until she graduates high school."

Kylie Jenner, Swati Moon

Kylie started appearing on her family's reality show when she was 10

In 2016, she told her sister Kim in an episode of the show: "I feel like I've had anxiety for too long. I feel too much, I care too much, I read too much. Some people are born for this life and some people aren’t. I just know I’m not supposed to be famous.” in an old IG post she said: "I’m proud of myself, my heart, and my strength. Growing up in the light with a million eyes on you just isn’t normal. I’ve lost friends along the way and I’ve lost myself too sometimes. My first tattoo was 'sanity' to remind myself everyday to keep it. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole young adult life." "I know I don't want to be famous forever. There's gonna be a time where I feel comfortable, I'm at a good place in my life, and I just stop."

Natalie Wood, Ashwini Moon

The late Natalie Wood was forced into acting by her mother, Maria, who missed her chance to become a performer and instead focussed her efforts on pushing her daughters to stardom.

While young Natalie had a natural talent for performing, it seemed that her reason for going to movie sets was more to please her mother than to quench any desire of her own. 

Bella Thorne, Mula Moon

"I was sexually abused and physically growing up from the day I can remember till I was 14. When I finally had the courage to lock my door at night and sit by it. All damn night." She has also stated that she only started acting as a child to support her family.

Drew Barrymore, Shatabhisha Sun

 Drew's mother took her to clubs and allowed her access to drugs and alcohol, ultimately leading to her institutionalization at the age of 13, and emancipating herself at 14. Drew described fame at such a young age as "a recipe for disaster."

Edith Piaf, Mula Sun & Mercury, Magha Mars

Born in Paris practically on the streets, she struggled from day one, the daughter of street performers. The mother, a singer, eventually abandoned both Edith and her father for a solo career. Piaf spent her youth entertaining passers-by, receiving little formal education in the process. She often accompanied her father's acrobat street act with her singing and at various times was forced to live with various relatives, in alleys or in cheap hotels. An aborted love affair left her with a baby girl at age 17, but little Marcelle died of meningitis at 2 years old. Devastated, Piaf returned to the streets she knew, now performing solo. Her fortunes finally changed when an impresario, Louis Leplee, mesmerized by what he heard, offered the starving but talented urchin a contract. He alone was responsible for taking her off the streets at age 20 and changing her name from Edith Gassion to "La Mome Piaf" (or "Kid Sparrow"). Piaf grew in status entertaining in elegant cafés and cabarets and became a singing sensation amid the chic French society with her throbbing vocals and raw, emotional power. From 1936, Piaf recorded many albums and eventually became one of the highest paid stars in the world.

Later in life she became an addict and died in poverty at the age of 47.

Brittany Murphy, Swati Moon & Venus

she was a child star who was managed by her controlling mom. she battled with eating disorders and drug addiction. rip britt.

Justin Bieber, Shatabhisha Sun conjunct Saturn

Justin shot to fame at a very young age and was severely exploited by his management/everybody around him

Now here are some heavily tatted celebs and their placements

L to R

Rihanna- Shatabhisha Sun

Paris Jackson- Ardra Moon

Cheryl Cole- Ardra Sun & Mars, Shatabhisha Moon

Demi Lovato- Magha Sun

Jungkook- Magha Moon, Mula Rising

Ruby Rose- Swati Rising

Machine Gun Kelly- Ashwini Sun

The 27 club refers to a phenomenon where several musicians have died by age 27, many from an overdose. Unfortunately many of them have Nodal influence.

Brian Jones- Shatabhisha Sun

Jimi Hendrix- Mula Rising

Amy Winehouse- Mula Moon

Kurt Cobain- Shatabhisha Sun, Ardra Moon,

Janis Joplin- Ardra Moon, Mula Mars, Asc conjunct Ketu (in Dhanishta)

Jim Morrison- Ketu conjunct Rising (in Shravana)

several other celebrities who have died from overdoses also tend to have prominent Nodal influence

John Belushi- Mula Rising

Phillip Seymour Hoffman- Mercury in Ardra 2h, Mars conjunct Ketu in Swati

Prince- Shatabhisha Moon, Ketu in Ashwini

Whitney Houston- Shatabhisha Rising

River Phoenix- Magha Sun conjunct Ketu, Swati Ascendant conjunct Jupiter

Elvis Presley- Shatabhisha Moon

Margaux Hemingway- Ashwini Rising

Nodal planets are shadow planets and it can be very difficult for these natives to manage this energy as it is energy without a source, Rahu & Ketu don't have physical form or existence, that is a lot of uncontrolled energy to possess within yourself. Many people turn to spirituality and other esoteric sources and good Rahu & Ketu influence is vital and necessary to study or gain access to gnosis, study astrology or other occult matters but when this energy is imbalanced in their chart, these natives are more prone to self-destruction than any other planetary dominance simply because the unbridled energy is impossible to contain and requires some kind of coping mechanism. I have dated several Nodal men and they all dealt with varying degrees of addiction to varying substances and they all spoke about "wanting to feel more real" or how "nothing feels solid". I will try to focus on the positive manifestations of the Nodes on a future post.

thanks for reading<333

[apeekintothepantry]

Happy Pokémon Day! February 27th is the anniversary of the first two Pokémon games’ release in Japan, and it’s a minor holiday in my house, as a fun excuse to make Pokémon inspired food, watch some Pokémon shows or movies (we’re going to watch Netflix’s new Pokémon Concierge this year!), and get excited about upcoming games and releases. This year, we’re making a Pokémon Sword and Shield inspired burger-steak curry and I’m making a dessert from the Pokémon Cookbook by Victoria Rosenthal. It’s one of my favorite fandom cookbooks – all the recipes are vegetarian or vegan, to get around the awkward question of where does the meat in the Pokémon universe come from?

But that’s not all we’re making! Ever since Nicki and Isabel were released, I’ve been dying to do a post about them and Pokémon’s infamous “Jelly Filled Doughnuts”, better – and more accurately! – known as onigiri.

Pokémon was released in the United States in 1998 via two Gameboy games: Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. The games quickly caught on to be one of the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the late 90’s and early 00’s, and as a kid at the heart of this explosion, I can’t overstate how much of a big deal it was. One of the great things about Pokémon – and probably why it has such lasting, widespread appeal – is that there are so many ways to interact with the franchise, and the marketing doesn’t skew hugely towards one gender or the other. Cool, tough Pokémon like Charizard got pretty similar billing to cute, pink Pokémon like Jigglypuff, and there were so many options for potential favorites that it was easy for any kid to find some creature to attach themselves to.

One of my petty complaints with Nicki and Isabel’s collection and books is the almost complete lack of mention of Pokémon and other anime that was really popular among kids in 1999. I know AG probably didn’t want to shell out for licensing deals with Nintendo or The Pokémon Company, but their stories just don’t feel accurate without discussing their prized binder of Pokémon cards or begging their parents to take them to see the Pokémon movie in theaters. Maybe the authors were just a little too old to get caught up in Pokémania?

I’ve also always thought its close overlap with the Beanie Babies crazy helped get millennial children like me very into the “gotta catch ‘em all” aspect of the franchise. Is this why I’m such a crazy toy collector as an adult? Who knows.

The Pokémon anime was one of the main ways kids like me got hooked on the franchise, because not everyone was allowed to have a Gameboy of their own (me), and not everyone liked video games, but even if you didn’t like video games, the cartoon might appeal to you. Although it was far from the first Japanese cartoon to air on US television, Pokémon was one of if not the first truly mainstream favorites of the 1990’s. 4Kids, the company in charge of dubbing the show into English, decided that American kids wouldn’t understand or be open to certain aspects of the show that reflected its Japanese roots, and so made a lot of strange choices in rewriting the script. One of the most notorious was deciding Brock’s rice balls were actually jelly filled doughnuts:

Onigiri – also known as omusubi or nigirimeshi – are balls of rice with a variety of fillings inside. They’re often compared to sandwiches, as an easy, quick, cheap meal or snack that combines carbs and other ingredients. While the concept of taking a rice ball and stuffing it full of other tasty treats goes way back to ancient Japan, the triangle shape became popular in the 1980’s thanks to a new machine that automated the filling process. Further developments over the last 40 years have created unique ways to prepackage onigiri without making the nori wrapping sticky. The ones we made were an attempt at recreating the “Hawaiian” (spam and pineapple) rice balls from our favorite food hall back in DC. One of my favorite pandemic indulgences was getting take out from the food hall, which often included a sampler of some of my favorite onigiri, and I haven’t been able to find anything close to similar where we are now. One of the many reasons I’m excited to move!

Even as a kid, I wasn’t convinced the food in the anime was fried dough with fruit jelly inside, because they sure look like rice. I also think 4Kids didn’t anticipate that Pokémon’s widespread popularity would inspire many of its fans – including me – to become absolutely obsessed with Japanese food and culture. I would’ve been more excited if they’d just been straight with me and shown more Japanese food on the show, and then probably begged my parents to make it or take me to a restaurant that made it. While I can’t confidently cite numbers of how many other people were first exposed to Japanese culture and food through Pokémon and franchises like it, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to highlight how things like this exposed kids like Nicki and Isabel to parts of a culture outside their own!

[morallyinept]

Shoot: Interview Magazine, 18th September 2014

Photographer: Anthony Batista

Interviewer: Sarah Paulson

Stylist: Julia Ragolia

Full interview, behind the scenes, outtakes & shoot photographs below. 👇🏻

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

• Original images & outtakes.

• Behind the scenes images.

• Full Interview

As Oberyn Martell, the foreign Prince on Season Four of Game of Thrones, Pedro Pascal is cocky and clever; smooth and seductive.

Though he only appeared in seven episodes, Pascal’s Red Viper stole the season. His demise - unexpected and ultraviolent - is permanently seared into the memories of fans, which, on a show as perilous as Game of Thrones, is quite a feat.

Pascal didn’t come out of nowhere; the Chilean-American actor and NYU grad began acting in films, theater, and television since the late ’90s. His role on HBO’s most cinematic series, however, made him famous and sought after.

He is currently living in Colombia filming Narcos, the new Netflix original series about the Medellín drug trade co-starring Boyd Holdbrook. Here, he talks to one of his oldest and dearest friends, American Horror Story actress Sarah Paulson.

PP: Do you have at least two questions? Have you done your research?

SP: I’ve known you since I was 18, is that enough research? I think that’s enough research.

PP: [laughs]

SP: I do have questions. They’re all written down. Are you ready for this? Where are you sitting right now?

PP: I’ve just come up to my room to the exact same spot where we were Skyping about 12 hours ago. I have a beautiful view of Medellín, Colombia. The sun is shining.

SP: I think people are very curious - and by people I mean, like, one person in the entire world - about how we met. Do you remember your first impression of me and do I remember my first impression of you? Was there a particular bonding moment? Did we ever go through a period of estrangement? These are the questions I have. 

PP: [laughs] I have answers to all those questions, I just don’t know if you want to hear them. I met you, Sarah Paulson, in September of 1993, my first month in New York City. I was really lucky because my first friend at NYU lived in Brooklyn, Kristen, and went to high school with you, so your guys’ posse kind of adopted me.

SP: And do you remember the names of the people in that posse besides Kristen?

PP: I remember everybody! There are a couple of things that I probably shouldn’t say about all of us - we were 18-year-olds in New York City in 1993. But I remember all of us going to the Upper East Side. I insisted that we all go see that movie Fearless.

SP: Yeah, Fearless. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

PP: There were eight of us sitting next to each other and, as I remember, we were all sobbing by the end of it.

SP: Then we walked into the park and saw Woody Harrelson. Remember that?

PP: Yeah, that’s right. We were the two people who knew exactly who he was and fanned out a little bit. Nobody else cared. We had our little celebrity sighting moment and that, in retrospect, was our first step towards bonding, which cut to, I’m pretty sure that night, drinking 40s, me being on Romi’s shoulders running down Fifth Avenue, and getting knocked down by a cabbie. [laughs] I think you were on somebody’s shoulders too.

SP: I sure was. I remember that so clearly. It’s a wonder we survived. When I think about the debauchery, the things that we did, the kind of shit we were pulling and the way we were behaving, I don’t even know how we made it to the next morning, much less 20 years later.

PP: Do you remember your perfect Wednesday Addams costume on Halloween that you added fangs to? I bet you don’t remember that.

SP: I don’t really remember it. What did I do? I wore a button down? What did I do?

PP: You had the perfect braids. You had the perfect Wednesday Adams outfit. But then your added element was fangs - the cool kind that attached to the teeth.

SP: That’s so boring; you’re an idiot.

PP: I liked it.

SP: Did we go through a period of estrangement? I think we went through a period where we didn’t talk as much, but it was never because we were fighting.

PP: You were the first of all of us that started working and never stopped. You went to Los Angeles, and we didn’t reconnect until a few years later.

SP: Until you came to Los Angeles.

PP: I came to L.A. for a bit and then went back to New York. Even after going back to New York, we somehow went into chapter two of our friendship that we attached to each other and haven’t been able to let go.

SP: That is for damn sure. I think when you get knocked off by a cabbie and you see Woody Harrelson and you see Fearless all in one day, you’re either bonded for life or you’ll never see each other again.

PP: It’s a very powerful seed. Think of everything that we’re actively editing in our minds. [laughs]

SP: Oh yeah. That’s just not ready for consumption by masses of people - or the one person that will read this, no offense. [laughs] Here’s my question. I didn’t know this about you, or if I did, I forgot it. Apparently you acted out scenes from Poltergeist (1982) as a child. Is that true?

PP: Yes, it’s 100% true. I tricked my parents, my poor parents. Back when Poltergeist came out in movie theaters, PG-13 did not exist. PG-13 didn’t come into form until after Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Doom (1984).

SP: Ladies and gentlemen, Pedro Pascal the film buff and the MPAA all-star.

PP: [laughs]

SP: Nerd alert!

PP: Steven Spielberg’s name was all over Poltergeist and E.T. was out the same year, which every single parent took their child to. So despite Poltergeist being a horror movie, I convinced my parents to let me see it. It was terrifying. I guess this says a lot about me as a six-year-old, because I loved it. [laughs]

SP: The number of horror movies that you’ve taken me to is copious. You have a problem. No matter how bad they are, you drag me to them.

PP: I don’t take you to the super gory ones!

SP: On the nights when I’m like, “Ugh, what do you want to do?” And you’re like, “Let’s go see a movie,” and there are 17 movies I will not see, you want to take me to all 17 of the ones that I don’t want to see. I’m not going to say the titles because I don’t want to offend people, but you know exactly the two that I’m speaking of specifically.

PP: But those two were super gory.

SP: It’s not even that. It’s just the idea that you thought it might be good. You really tried to convince me that it would be good.

PP: [laughs] I’m going to take you to a scary movie one of these days.

SP: You were like a master manipulator since the time you were six and it still happens. “It’ll be fun, I promise!” And it just cuts to me throwing popcorn at you.

PP: What about all the horrible movies you’ve made me see?

SP: No! Nuh-uh! I don’t think so! I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re going to have text me and explain what you’re talking about. But I have a question about the Poltegeist thing. Was that the moment, or was there a moment that preceded that, where you thought, “I want to do what they’re doing?” I know that happened to me with a movie I saw when I was young. 

PP: I think ’80s-era Steven Spielberg definitely shaped a lot of my fantasies. I particularly focused on Poltergeist. I just found it so fascinating; it got inside my imagination. Even if you watch it now, it really holds up. There’s not another horror movie that is actually a family drama. But it was definitely around that time. I would go to the movies very often with my father, because he just loved to go to the movies. He wouldn’t really play by the rules - my parents were so young and they were Chilean immigrants in San Antonio, Texas. It was all about going to movies, rock concerts, and Spurs games. And the primary influence in my life was movies. It was an interest that never went away. The first fucking thing that we did when we met was go to the movies.

SP: Yeah, exactly. Was there anything else in your childhood that you thought about doing besides acting?

PP: No. Can you believe it?

SP: I can believe it. I wanted to be a veterinarian or a marine biologist. Then I realized that I’d have to a, be a doctor or a scientist and I’d have to cut animals open and euthanize them. It ended pretty quickly.

PP: When we realized that we would actually have to be smart…

SP: [laughs] Exactly! I’d have to use my brain other than the creative part. Do you remember any moment when everything kind of clicked and it became clear that you would pursue acting as a profession?

PP: When I was in middle school, we had moved from Texas to Orange County. I didn’t fit in and it was pretty lonely. The way that I was occupying my time, I started reading plays and renting the classics. I was 13 or 14 - before I could get a driver’s license and drive to somebody’s house or to a party. My parents had to have been worried because that was all I did. That’s how I ended up seeing Mike Nichols’s movies - Who‘s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate.

SP: How funny. I had a Mike Nichols thing too. That was one of my early entrances into film. I don’t know how we’ve never discussed this.

PP: Do you remember seeing Who‘s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and just having your face melted off?

SP: Yes! I do. I just watched it again because I’m absolutely obsessed with Sandy Dennis. One of my first jobs ever, someone told me that I reminded him of her. I didn’t know who she was and I was so embarrassed that I didn’t know who she was. But that’s not why I’m obsessed with her. She’s genius. Her performance in Virginia Woolf is beyond. Did you have an imaginary friend ever?

PP: I never had an imaginary friend, just imaginary circumstances. I was so into the Indiana Jones movies and I would constantly reenact circumstances. I broke my left arm three times, two of which were me trying to be Indiana Jones. The first time, I tied sheets together and tried to climb the side of my house after I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. The second time, I was riding a horse and trying to gallop as fast as I could, like Indiana Jones, and got thrown from the horse. The third time I was bit older and it didn’t have anything to do with trying to be Indiana Jones.

SP: Do you remember your first audition?

PP: I remember perfectly. It’s going to date me in such a hardcore way.

SP: Everyone knows how old you are anyway so go ahead. There’s no hiding from that.

PP: I know. My first audition was for Primal Fear (1996). Do you remember that movie? With Edward Norton.

SP: I remember you auditioning for it. I remember you telling me all about it.

PP: I was totally in over my head. I auditioned for that in New York and then I went to L.A. for it. I didn’t get it and was unemployed for about 10 years.

SP: [laughs] That’s not true. You did Buffy the Vampire Slayer early on. What were the other TV shows? Didn’t you do more than one?

PP: Didn’t we both do a Touched by an Angel within a year of one another? 

SP: I sure did! [laughs] That was back when Touched by an Angel was almost a version of Law and Order, it was a rite of passage; everybody was on Touched by an Angel. I remember also they paid well. But do you remember, when you were on Buffy, feeling some kind of excitement that you were on this show that was so watched?

PP: Buffy was one of the first jobs that I got. I was so excited to be on it, mostly because people in my life that I respected so much, my best friends and my sister, were obsessed with the show. Obsessed with it. I wasn’t watching it at the time. I have [since] introduced myself to the whole Buffy experience. It was cool because it was the fourth season premiere; Joss Whedon directed the episode. I always die. In everything. Even to this day, all these years later, I still die.

SP: The way you die in Game of Thrones is really memorable. I don’t remember how you died in Buffy, I’m sad to say.

PP: Buffy fans remember.

SP: I know the answer to this, but I imagine that people are interested on some level: How were you cast in Game of Thrones? Was it a long audition process?

PP: I found out about the role and I taped an audition with my iPhone. I told you that the fourth season was absolutely ruined for me because I had just taped the 17 pages audition for this amazing new part. You said, “Send that to me immediately.” You showed it to Amanda Peet, who is one of your best friends. The two of you watched it, liked it -

SP: No, we more than liked it. We flipped out.

PP: Why don’t you tell the story then?

SP: [laughs] You can’t say this about yourself because it would make you a total asshole, and I don’t think you believe this about yourself anyway, but it was so fucking brilliant. I sent it to Amanda and she showed it to David [Benioff; Peet’s husband] right then. The rest of it has to do with casting directors and auditions and other things that happen.

PP: They had to see a ton of other people.

SP: We watched “The Red Wedding” at my house - I had seen it and you hadn’t seen it, and I made you watch it with me.

PP: I don’t know how you watched it a second time. I could not have watched it alone.

SP: I almost threw up. I remember what a rabid fan you were of the show. When you found yourself on the set for the first time, when you had watched the show the way you watched it, what was that like? What does that do to your brain? Besides make your head pop off. [laughs]

PP: [laughs] It was so surreal it made my head explode! I’m not expecting to have something be as weird as that anytime soon. It was the strangest of circumstances where all of a sudden I am stepping onto the set and talking to Charles Dance while he’s sitting on the throne.

SP: That is so crazy.

PP: My first day we shot one of Oberyn’s final scenes, which was this long scene with Peter Dinklage.

SP: That’s just so insane.

PP: It was all downhill from there.

SP: Besides Oberyn, who is your favorite Game of Thrones character and who do you think should rule?

PP: This is Interview making you ask me these questions right?

SP: Yeah.

PP: [laughs]

SP: People want to know about it.

PP: Can I ask you who your favorite character is on Game of Thrones?

SP: It’s Arya. Do you have a problem answering the question because of your personal feelings for the actors playing the parts - how much you love them and you don’t want anyone to feel bad?

PP: That does sort of distract me, but also there are so many goddamn characters and I like so many of them.

SP: Okay, then let me change the question then. Who would you like to play on that show? Male or female.

PP: Arya.

SP: Yeah, me too. Do you think she should rule the throne?

PP: There are obvious answers. I love Arya. I think Arya and Tyrion are brilliant characters. I think Daenerys is a brilliant character. I think Cersei is a brilliant character.

SP: Those are predominantly women. I like it.

PP: Isn’t it interesting that so many of our favorite characters are female characters and Game of Thrones gets a lot of criticism.

SP: I think some of the most powerful women on television are on that show. And by powerful, I mean they are three-dimensional female characters. Who do you think should rule?

PP: Tyrion would be the greatest ruler of Westeros. That’s a no-brainer.

SP: [laughs] What was the day of your death scene like? Was it somber?

PP: There wasn’t any part of it that was somber. Everyone thought it was hilarious that my head was being smushed like a watermelon. Everyone was so fascinated by the special effects of it. We had a lot of fun. It was me clowning around with a guy who was seven feet tall and 200 pounds in this beautiful location in Dubrovnik. 

SP: How has your life changed since the show? What can you feel acutely and what can you feel in a more general way?

PP: There’s a side of it - like leaving the apartment and running into someone who wants to take a selfie with you where they’re crushing your head.

SP: [laughs] And shaking it where you can feel them shaking.

PP: [laughs] You’ve obviously been exposed to that sort of attention much earlier than I have.

SP: It wasn’t until American Horror Story.

PP: I would hold the camera so often for people - I would be taking the picture for you guys. I got a more intimate impression of that type of attention through you. But it’s been nothing but positive. It’s opened doors for me that had been closed for many years.

SP: Can you talk to me a little bit about Narcos? How long have you been shooting?

PP: We literally just started. It’s a series directed by José Padilha - really great guy. It’s partly this story of the U.S. mission to capture or kill Pablo Escobar, played by Wagner Moura, who’s amazing.

SP: I really have one more specific question: is there anything a person must possess in order to be a good actor? Do you think you can learn to be a good actor or is it something that you’re born with?

PP: This is something you and I talk about every few years. Generosity is key, in my experience, to fulfilling the potential of a part or a story.

SP: Do you think you can learn to be good?

PP: I think a person can learn. Basically, I think anything is possible.

SP: So the more present you are in your life, the more it can inform your ability to do a good job in your work?

PP: Yes. What you are re-enforcing to me, all the time.

SP: What are you talking about, you nut bag?

PP: [laughs]

SP: You do the same for me, dodo.

PP: Alright, birdbrain.

SP: Okay, listen, ass-munch.

PP: Snake penis.

SP: A big penis? I’ll take it.

PP: No, an actual penis that belongs to a snake.

SP: Oh a snake’s penis! There’s nothing weirder than trying to wrap up an interview with someone who’s your best friend.

PP: Goodbye, I love you. Goodbye Interview. Goodbye, Sarah Paulson.

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

[foibles-fables]

HZD's opening scene with Rost's exposition & demonstatiom about the tribe's culture & really cool artworks/crafts & also hints of Rost's personal story & Teersa blessing the naming of Aloy is sad to look back on now bc— as mystical & magical as it feels the first time around —all of Rost's exposition feels flat when the Nora are kind of a footnote to brush past/turn away from once Aloy's POV sets in. Even moreso in HFW when all that exposition & lore gets watered down to 2 or 3 "well ig that's the guy who raised her" namedrops in lieu of the futuristic Apple Vision Pros 3D printers AIs & immortal CEO's in X-men suits flying around. As much as the opening is awestriking, it feels like the Horizon games themselves don't really enjoy the world they've built at all & instead push to recenter focus on near-future 21st century corporate tech metropolises that feel so lifeless by comparison to the original hook of the games. I mean, this is obvious just from comparing the amount of "Datapoints"(21st century texts on near-futuristic USB thumb drives) vs "Scanned Glyphs" (actual written material by Aloy's supposed contemporaries). There's like 5 times as many filler useless lore texts written from the POV of a random civilian/tech businessman/USA military personnel complaining about their consumer tech gadgets & robots taking their jobs or w/e vs the amount Scanned Glyphs from contemporary tribal peoples, especially the Nora, Rost's people and culture, which are practically nonexistent despite being the opening sequence that invites players to immerse themselves in their world. After 5 minutes, the games themselves doesn't seem to want to immerse itself into that world or its artistic vision either, & instead yap exposition via holograms for 40+ hours, twice, abt some Ultron/Magneto type villain that feels more & more detached from the original setting.

I do genuinely enjoy the way HZD handled the paralleled storytelling of action taking place in the new world while slowly making piecemeal revelations about the old world, through both main quest information and world datapoints. I think the reason we see fewer glyphs from the new world is that the Carja (adopted by the Oseram) and Quen are the only ones to have a codified system of writing. Which is why I'm glad we got to see the Nora oral history in action during the Proving!

Here's hoping we get to see the Nora in a new light come H3, given Aloy's growth. You're correct that our perception of them was skewed, given the fact that we're playing in Aloy's POV. The Nora are an awesome tribe and I highly recommend folks do some reading about their culture.

I also fully agree, however, that HFW made that full pivot into sci-fi WAY too quickly. We deserved one more game of familiarizing with/leaning into the current world. The idea of stabilizing the biosphere was right there. Again and again, I'll say that the Zeniths would make the perfect culminating threat in game three instead of game two.

[pauking5]

Runaway 🏎️ Chapter 2 🏁

Pairing: Naozumi Hiyama x fem reader oc

Genre: racing AU, enemies to lovers, rivalry, suspense, a whole lot of teasing, gender power games, spice

Word count: 13.1k+

A/N: Chapter 2 already? Hope you're enjoying it so far. I spoiled you with this one ;) Things are slowly getting heated, both racing wise and a little up close and personal this time around. I'm rallying behind what's hopefully my last uni work this week so hope this one's good. Enjoy lovelies.

Raiko's Playlist: Monster - A7S with Alok, Locked out of Heaven - Bruno Mars, Youngblood - R3HAB Remix, Greedy - Tate McRae, Ocean Drive - Duke Dumont, Into You - 3LAU Remix, She Doesn't Mind - Krmoni, Something On My Mind - Purple Disco Machine & Duke Dumont & Nothing But Thieves, Bad Boy - Chungha & Christopher, React - Pussycat Dolls

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Day 2 of Tour de Tokai

"Rai, take it easy," said Tanaka worriedly over the coms. "The new suspensions will break if you push them too hard."

You would happily take it easy peasy lemon squeezy if the road wasn't turning the car into a fucking death trap, going at over 100 kilometers per hour on the most difficult and curved track in the world.

Any miscalculated sway of the wheel could project you into the ditch at the side of the road, kissing goodbye to any chance of completing this stage. Which unfortunately did happen in the first one this morning.

That bold black lettering spelling out DNF next to your name on the scoreboard was not what you expected after bagging third place on the first day. Bitter wasn't even close to describing how you felt. Sour, dejected, with an ever-growing pit of disgust for this tour sounded more like it.

Frankly, it wasn't even supposed to happen. It was a rookie mistake. One that cost you a bunch of points.

At one turn, halfway through the race, your car hit a rocky mound neither you or Tanaka saw in the pre-race drive. An anomaly that birthed itself from thin air most likely. Coming towards it at full speed with no time to break and avoid it, the car slid over it scratching a big part of the chassis by the loud screech drilling in your ears and the lower back bumper, sending your rear right into a deep ditch.

You revved the engine multiple times to get it out and back on the road but the car simply refused to work with you, wheels spinning in the gravel underneath uselessly keeping the car suspended. You were towed out by the marshals, driving back to the station in shame after hogging up at least ten minutes off everyone else's stage time. The rest of the drivers scowled at you, angrily waving you off the road to get to the start line. Being called a rookie in insult after that and not something else was actually a compliment.

Tour de Tokai was spread out so unevenly and it bugged you beyond prevail because it put insane pressure on the car that was barely out of the factory still. With new components too.

The first day had one long stage over 40 km but it was a full paved track, much more easier to take on, hence the good result you had yesterday. Today on the other hand, consisted of three awful stages around a mix of tarmac and off-road dirt tracks in the depths of the valley, over shorter distances but challenging on every part of the car. You already screwed up one of them in one of the more rougher patches of terrain. It was out of the way. But at what cost? At the cost of my cheerios being spilt on the floor this morning. That's what.

Thankfully, you only had two more stages left for the day. Then the final two tomorrow. If your car managed to stay in one piece until then. Tough life out here.

You were currently on the second stage, driving down a dirt road just like the one that put you out of the race. Tight, soliciting and full of chicanes. You tried your hardest to keep the car on the road this time.

Half of the smooth grey asphalt already ended, leading into a curved forest path, sheltered entirely by dense pine trees on each side. The early afternoon sun peaked out through the branches, blinding you even through the laminated flaps on your visor, further adding to your irritation.

"4 left 50," spoke your co-driver, usually steady voice broken by the jolting path.

Medium corner in 50 meters. A little breather.

"2 right very tight over crest," he shouted, hand shooting up to the safety handle as you ran over a bump.

Very tight corner over the hill.

You accelerated up the hill, going airborne for a few meters before the car landed back down on the ground with a jarring wobble shaking you in your seat.

"1 left 100."

100 meters running up to the tightest corner.

A hairpin section in this hellhole after two taxing corners that pulled the car sideways brutally. Just what you needed. This was a no go drifting portion. The desire to go wide was so overpowering, but you couldn't push the limit. If you went the slightest into understeering the car, it was game over again. Another DNF. More points lost and even more damage on the car the current fund couldn't cover until you did some promotions.

Come on, honey, you rubbed the steering wheel in support, trying to get the car to listen to you. Stay with me. We're almost there.

Sure enough the dreaded hairpin section came into view faster than you could prepare for it. Up ahead, the road dove into lower ground to the right - a sharp C turn - harbored by a high hill lifting into greenery on one side and an excavated one that curled above the road with a few public stands on the other.

You cut the gas and tapped the brake just when you entered the slight curve of the curb, tyres skidding over the coarse gravel. It was tight as hell.

The forces of the momentum you gained on the straight portion pre-corner shoved you back in the seat so harsh you felt that turn with your whole body. Your forearms shook trying to keep control of the wheel in your hands, heaving breaths like crazy. Don Tanaka got squished to the door, belts working overtime to keep you both strapped safely. Your boot pressed to the floor with all your might to keep it near the pedals, rear at the back lifting up in the air.

Exiting the curve, you turned the wheel straight cueing the throttle back in way too fast. The tyres screeched horribly loud behind the car as you lost grip of the road.

"Fuck!"

The car took every incoming bump jerking you in all sides while you grappled with keeping it on course. You were going way too fast on wild ground, untouched by cement. You had to slow down. It would inevitably add more time to your lap that you can't make up anywhere on the rest of the course, but at least you wouldn't crash into a hill at 100 kmph or flip over in an area that was too inaccessible for marshals to come get you. You couldn't risk it.

Fuck this.

It wasn't up to debate. You let the throttle loose. A quick glance at your speedometer and your anxiety was quickly replaced by anger at seeing the speed decrease - 90, 80, 70 kmph. Way too slow. The heaps of bumps and craters scattered to smaller mounds, still threatening your safety, but they were manageable now.

Seething with burning rage, you let the speed decrease till it got to 50 finally gaining back full control of the car, then amped up the speed again, pressing the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared alive under the hood, pumping fuel like a beast as it propelled you forwards at breakneck speed.

Now we're talking, baby.

"5 right 200 very long."

Easy wide corner in 200 meters.

You had some time to catch up there. Hitting the throttle again to increasing the speed even more you took it like a pro, drifting over the last off-road patch, sliding back on the straight asphalt. The crowd in the stands stood up, cheering loudly over the roar of the engine as you took the straight fast like lightning.

"Last one. 6 left 50. Flat out."

Flat corner in 50 meters. Take it fast Rai. Bring it home.

Taking the corner with a wide drift, the car finally reacted the way you wanted it to for once, gripping the road nicely. You gained an extra 20 on the exit, cutting off at least half a second on your lap time. If that even made up for the rest of the time you lost in those shitty corners.

The cheers got louder than the music booming over the speakers, crowds getting smoked by the dust you raised up in the air with that last drift. Before you knew it, it was all done. This stage anyways.

Who even picked this course? I hope they slip and fall in the toilet every time they go for a wee for the rest of the race weekend.

Driving back to the station, you parked the car neatly in place. Unfastening all the belts to ply your body away from the seat, you slumped against the wheel with eyes closed, letting out a long heavy breath you've been holding in for a while. The adrenaline in your body plummeted so fast it left you panting like you ran a marathon, trying to catch your breath and let out some built-up steam.

That was so nerve-wracking. No amount of training or racing over and over again would prepare you for the obstacles that can just jump at you out of nowhere. Obstacles that can very well end your career that barely even started.

Thanks to your quick reaction time, you avoided a lot of road hazards that could've sent you and Tanaka in flimsy hospital gowns. You did get control of the situation before it was too late, which was great. But some of those calls were way too close for your liking. So, so close.

"Hey," Tanaka piped up, gloved hand patting your back gently. You turned your still helmet-encased head at him. "You did good out there. Others would've let it crash in the side and pay for the damages, but you redressed the car back on track. It takes a lot to pull that off."

You pulled off the helmet, running a hand through your hair in frustration. You did almost crash. But you saved it. Because you had more stages left and no back up car for it. Because your father put way too much money into it to let it smash to pieces and pay for the damages. Because your co-driver's life was in your hands just like yours for that matter. There were so many reasons why you tried so hard to save it. Though none of them calmed that worry in the pit of your stomach that it could've been so much worse.

But you were a driver. Things like these were part of the job description. You can move on for a while but they'll always haunt you.

"Come on," he took your helmet. "Let's go see the scoreboard."

"I'd rather not," you smiled apologetically. "I'll go get some food. I could eat a week's worth of steak right now."

You were hungry as hell. But getting out of the car and away from the track for a bit was more of a priority and you hoped Tanaka would see past it. A therapy session about why shit happens sometimes was not what you needed right now.

"Okay," he chuckled. "Let me know if you need anything, lightning strike. I'll be around."

"Yeah," you nodded quietly more to yourself.

You got out of the car, passing a few smiles in sympathy to the team that got working on replacing the back bumper right away. Some of them patted your back in the same supportive manner.

On your way out of the station you passed by the screen displaying the scoreboard. You tried your hardest not to stop by but your eyes just fleeted there in curiosity. A curiosity that was left better unsatisfied.

Rai Suruki - 12th place - 1.53.07. Out of twenty. Not too bad all things considered.

Dwelling on it for a bit you tried to let it go. At least you weren't in the shoes of the one unlucky driver that ended up with a DNF at the bottom. Poor bastard- Wait. Getting closer to the screen to make sure your eyes didn't betray you, you read the line again in shock.

Naozumi Hiyama - 20th place - DNF.

Before it even registered in your head, the screen changed to replay the scenes right before disaster. You watched the distinctive blue hues on his car whizz by as he got past the first corners like an expert, lap time near perfect midway through the race. Until he drove into the tight corner that nearly broke your car in half. He took it just like you did, tight and miscalculated, unaware of the chaos on the other side.

What happened to you happened to him too - he lost grip on the back, taking on the uneven rocky bumps at full speed. All that knowledge of rally was thrown out the window in seconds as he struggled to keep the car under control. Then something even weirder happened - fumes leaped out from under the hood. Engine failure.

Instead of slowing down to prevent a crash and the engine from overheating more, he accelerated, hellbent on keeping the few points he gathered so far. What the hell was he thinking? The front tyres of his car took a high mound that sent him airborne landing right in the deep channel of the next corner, smashing the front into a hill portion. Nope, he wasn't thinking. That right there is idiocy.

The angry screech of tyres in the station next to yours sparked your attention. You peeked your head in at the side, bending over a tool table watching the chaos unfold. The front bumper cover was smashed into the car, like it just swallowed it up, along with a big part of the hood. Mechanics rushed over, struggling to get the hood open and cool the engine sending smoke through the broken cracks. Other staff ran around with fire extinguishers just in case the car caught fire.

Those were replaceable, already at the ready by the side. What wasn't replaceable was Naozumi's impending wrath about to rain down on the team like metal pikes.

Naozumi got out of the car boiling with fury, throwing his helmet off into the seat, smashing the door shut making the whole car shake at the impact. You looked back with pity at your little blue and gold princess, muttering I would never do that to you. Turning back, you caught him running an angry hand through the mess of his helmet hair, closing in fast on the same man he had a scuffle with just yesterday.

"Care to explain why I got an engine failure mid-race of all times?" he shouted at the mechanic, tongue pushing his cheek impatiently. He didn't really look like he expected an answer, simply wanting to vent off his own mistake.

"I told you not to push it. Not my fault you're too hardheaded to understand simple directions," he shouted back, having had enough of his tantrums.

"There's one more stage left today. If this happens again I will make sure-"

He struck a nerve with that unfinished sentence, making the taller man drop what looked like a new water pump for the engine right on top of the tool box with a loud clatter.

"Make sure of what exactly, your highness? Throwing me off the team? That didn't work the last time you tried, did it?"

Naozumi clicked his jaw and glared at him with all his pent up rage before he stormed off to his trailer to cool down. He didn't give a shit about the looks the people around fixed on him, and they didn't dwell for too long either, everyone scattering back to their jobs.

Seems like no one was taking today that well.

Padding around the vans lined up with all kinds of fast-food only dimmed your appetite. The good ones were closed for a break until the last race, which was in an hour. Your body needed the food so bad, you were willing to drive to a restaurant in the city, which was like two hours away. If only you had time.

Ready to give up, you spotted a nice looking bacon and ham sandwich at a shabby stand just on the side of the food court. Scouring over their window from a distance, it looked like the last one. Better than going back on an empty stomach.

You jogged up to order before anyone else could. Too engrossed in reaching the till you failed to notice someone slide in before you. Too late to pull the breaks, you collided into a hard shoulder, nearly losing your footing and falling face first on the ground. Strong hands gripped your upper arms to keep you upright just like you caught theirs in return.

Looking up, your quick apology got stuck in your throat. Two round chocolate balls gazed down at you, eyebrows raised in surprise. Those eyes could put chocolate to shame, glowing like priceless pralines, the special kind you eat once a year on Christmas.

Dark brown hair framed the side of his face, matted in messy waves. A pair of black sunglasses sat on top of it, pushing the front locks into small curls. Trailing your eyes downwards, you were greeted by two moles on the side of his face, right under his lower lip, stamped like two mini vampire bites. Cute. White fireproofs in darker logos stretched over his broad chest, complimenting his tan complexion so well. You were grateful for the strong hands that held your arms in a firm grip since your knees went a little weak.

Otherworldly was the only word you could find in the empty sea of your mind to describe this man. And not even that one did him justice. Not even close.

He seemed just as entranced by you, trained on your face for a while then swiping down your racing suit that was still done up to your neck, preserving all the heat of your previous ride as well as pulling the outside heatwave into it, turning into a body sauna. Or was it all coming from him? You couldn't tell.

His warm eyes searched your face with concern.

"Are you okay?"

Even his voice is beautiful.

"Huh? Me? Yeah, yeah. I'm good," you finally straightened letting go of him. "Are you uhh... good?"

"I'm good," he said, his palms loosening on you until they slid down, away from you.

"Good."

Placing your hair behind your ears out of nervous habit, you looked back at him, finding a smile so sweet on his face it could give you a sugar rush if you stared too long. Dear heavens.

"I don't think we've met before," he started extending a polite hand to you, smile fully popping with dimples now even though those moles on his chin eclipsed them fully. "I'm-"

"Akira Shinkai," you cut him off breathless, grabbing his hand in excitement. "You've been in Sigma Academy. You're also the youngest of the junior series that got picked to drive at a top team and you hold countless records on track. You're a legend," you said all of that in one breath.

His head dipped, ears going the smallest tint of pink, as did your cheeks at the realization that you were kind of fangirling over him big time. Who wouldn't if they had the chance to stumble upon rally royalty? Dad doesn't count. He's expired already.

"And you're Rai Suruki."

He knows my name.

"I saw your stage back there," he added.

All your excitement washed away at the mention of your near fuck up of a race.

"Yeah," you rubbed the back of your neck. "It wasn't my best."

"Are you joking?!" His chocolate orbs widened at you like you said something wrong. "That was some badass understeer maneuvering if I've ever seen any. You're the legend here."

Oh. That was unexpected. Getting complimented by one of the current best drivers in rally racing like you didn't step into the car just yesterday. It got your heart thundering in your chest, rising the blood to your cheeks once again.

"T-thank you," you cleared your throat looking away. "You did great too," you hit back remembering his insane lap time on the board. His smile only deepened at that.

"They do have some good sandwiches here," he pointed at the van behind you. By the looks of it, he was a regular at the stand. Even the older lady at the till gave him a smile in recognition that he reciprocated just as warmly.

"Too bad they only have one left," you sighed defeated, looking back at the lone sandwich.

"You can have it," he urged.

"No, I'm good," you waved him off. "I was craving something else anyway."

"You sure?" he quipped an eyebrow, not really buying your retreat.

Well, you did bump into him almost decking him over to buy it. Looking back and forth between his brown eyes and the deliciously packed sandwich on the other side of the glass window, bacon and salad leaves hanging so appetizing on the side of the bread, you nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

No, you weren't sure. You were far from sure. But you weren't about to have the who gets the sandwich dispute. Passing him one last smile and another speedy apology for bumping into him, you walked off with your tail between your legs before he could argue.

That looked like the best sandwich on earth. Everything looks delicious to you when you're hungry, Rai. Well yeah, but that one might've tasted heavenly. Too late now.

You roved around the rest of the stands, trying not to breathe in too much of the smell of barbecued meat and fries and salad and all the delicacies that could be in your stomach already but lingered in the air instead. The other stalls at the end of the food court had insane long queues or no food available yet since they were still cooking the late batches.

I'll have more luck in the forest at this point.

A hand grabbed your arm out of nowhere. You were about to sucker punch its owner when you came face to face with Akira once more. He ducked out of the way and caught your fist before it could plant itself in his face.

"What-"

He held up the large bacon and ham sandwich between you as a sign of peace. "This sandwich is way too big for me to eat alone. Wanna share with me?"

"Are you sure? I don't wanna steal your lunch." You lowered your fist down. "We barely get to eat as is."

"Which is why you should have some before we're called back," he pushed it to you again, hopeful that you would accept his friendly offer. Before you could even debate it, your stomach grumbled loudly making him laugh. "I guess that settles it."

"Fine," you gave in.

You found a table off the radar just at the edge of the food court, beside a luscious green patch of dense forest, away from perpetrators like the press or the crew. Birds chirped around in the trees, sun shining so bright you were glad for the umbrella above. It was a little corner of quiet in the chaos. Akira sat down opposite you, pulling out a cup filled with fries to the brim out of thin air.

"Where'd you nick that from?"

"A fan gave it to me."

That must happen quite a lot if he just willingly accepted stuff. Was he sure it's not poisoned or something? Your stomach rumbled again in need of fuel. Ah well, might as well die by eating french fries.

Splitting the sandwich in half, you knocked the halves together like a toast and dove in. The soft baguette melted into your mouth along with the perfectly greased bacon, the squishy ham and the rest of the salad leaves and round tomato slices. It even had a nice sauce on the inside. He was right. They do make some mean sandwiches.

Shimmying out of your suit to cool off, you were left in your fireproofs, letting the breeze card through your hair, enjoying the food in sheer delight. The adrenaline rush came and went so fast back there on track that it took most of your energy with it. Filling up with food was the only way to restore it and if it was good food, you were guaranteed to get it all back quicker.

"This sandwich is so good," you mumbled with your mouth full.

"I told you," he mused through big bites of his own.

"Yeah, you did," you chuckled.

You both finished the food and sat in a comforting silence. Drawing random patterns in the wooden table, you felt this sudden need to find out more about the man before you. Though you weren't sure what to even ask since most of his information was out there thanks to his fangirls. By god, you weren't one of them, but you did know a lot about him. Okay, maybe more than a normal person should know about him, but alas.

Just when you mustered up a question he beat you to it.

"Have you been racing for long?"

"For about 8 years now. Started with karting, made my way through the juniors for a bit and some lower series and now I'm here."

"I bet it's nice having someone like your dad support you in it." He looked down at the scrunched up sandwich wrapper in his hands, passing it from one to the other with something akin to bitterness in his eyes that went away as quick as it came.

"It is," you nodded with a meek smile. "Most of the time anyway. It's hard trying to revive a dead team after so long but I'm trying my best."

"Are you trying for yourself or for him?"

That was a damn good question. You never thought about it in depth before. You jumped up at the thought of finally being helpful with something that you and your dad both loved with a strong passion. But was it for him, to make him forget the pain and move on from the past? Or was it for you and ensuring you had some kind of a better future doing something you loved? Beats me.

"I think maybe a bit of both?" you said, unsure of which one weighed more or less than the other.

"Eh, it doesn't really matter," he said softly leaning back to stretch his shoulders. "You've been here for two days and you're already showing results others would dream of having so early in their career. Give yourself some credit," he ended with a knock on the wooden table, pointing back at you.

You stared at him in awe. He really was so well-spoken. That and the fact he glowed like an angel with a missing halo above his head. Or maybe it was the afternoon sun shining warmly over him.

"Thanks," you replied sheepishly. "What about you? Why does Akira Shinkai race?"

He smiled looking at the ground and sat thinking for a while. You just looked at him soaking even more of his calm presence in. His chin laid on top of his palm, eyes peering off in the distance like you just asked him what he had for breakfast Wednesday last week. Then his eyes suddenly lit up.

"I want to become someone people look up to. I've always liked cars of all kinds and the minute I sat down in a go-kart I just knew I wanted to race. I guess I kinda wanted to feel that thrill on a daily basis," he chuckled at which you laughed a little too.

"Sureeeee, 'cause going at lightning speed on some of the most dangerous roads known to men multiple times a day is everyone's dream when they get in bed at night."

"Maybe it is. Who are we to judge?" he lifted his hands up in surrender making you laugh some more.

On the way back to the station, you both talked some more. About your hopes and dreams, your families, and the rest of the stages left. You both cursed the damn track that nearly totaled your cars and found out you had a lot in common. Behind that idol-like presences in the media, he was actually a very laid-back guy.

Coming up to your pen, he smiled warmly at you once more. That sweet, honey-dripping, serotonin-inducing smile. Talking to him put you in such good vibes that you forgot all about what made you upset before. Until you felt the energies shift for the negative at your back.

Whirling around, you came face to face with Naozumi. He seemed a tad bit calmer than before when he used his mechanic as an emotional punching bag, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. Spotting you, he threw that unnerving shit-eating grin on his face sending it your way with a small wave. All your good spirits warded off at the gesture.

You abstained from throwing him a middle finger in response settling on a scowl. Then his eyes went to your lunch companion, throwing him a way more conceited smile. Akira stiffened beside you for a moment, zeroing in on the other driver, before he turned back to you in a haste like he was suddenly in a rush.

"Good luck out there."

"You too."

"See you around," he bid you goodbye, regarding Naozumi with another loaded look before he went on his way.

You lingered by the team banner, watching his back retreat farther in the distance before it disappeared into his team's red and black pen at the end of the paddock lines. At least one of these men knew how to politely introduce themselves.

Spinning back, you caught Naozumi still behind you simply watching you with some kind of assertiveness that pushed your buttons. You wanted to ask if he needed help finding respect and manners when he just walked off to his own pen. Weird.

Walking to your car, you came face to face with Don Tanaka's sharp stare. What is it with men and staring today? His foot tapped the cement so fast you were sure it could drill a hole to the other end of the planet if he amped the speed just a tiny bit. It was the kind of staredown you get after going to a party with the popular clique, getting home past your curfew. The one that also meant your pocket money would cease their presence in your wallet for a month.

"What?" you gulped out, confused at being received so warmly.

"Why are you fraternising with the enemies?"

"Enemies?" you paused, even more dumbfounded. "I'm not following."

"Naozumi Hiyama and Akira Shinkai," he shook his head in disappointment. "Do I need to remind you we don't need press to jump on us and that your father kinda has a bad history with their teams?"

"Whoa, hold on. Rewind the CD. What do you mean by bad history?"

He walked you off to the deserted lounge area by the pen, making sure you were alone. In all the years you've known him, you've never once seen him this stressed. The man was a trainer. If anything, he was the stress.

"Sigma Racing's team principal used to race your father back in the day. They used to be sort of best friends, if we put it that way."

"What happened?"

"Once they got past the junior series, they both went after the same team and your father got picked instead of him. It all turned really sour between them after that."

"How sour are we talking?" you interjected. "Like gooseberries or those really sour gummy jellies that you choke on when the sugar bits get stuck in your throat?" He threw you a look asking for more seriousness. "Okay, continue."

"Sour in the sense that he tried to sabotage your dad every chance he got. Be it in racing or life itself. He never liked seeing him so successful, always living in the shadows of the second place on the podium, with his own racing, with his team, even with business. Being second to everything your father did got to him in the worst ways. Your father didn't even mean it to be that way."

"He tried to make amends, didn't he?"

Knowing your father he probably tried to mend that crack in their friendship until there was no more glue left in the world to put the pieces back together.

"Every chance he got. They were so close it was hard to even watch it fall apart from the sidelines."

Sounds like dad.

Rewinding back to the whole enemies part, you failed to see where Akira and Naozumi stood in this story.

"But Akira isn't related to that guy," you pointed out. "He just drives under him."

"Yes, but Sigma Racing didn't become one of the top teams in Japanese rally through genuine hard work," he sighed heavily. "A lot of people are unaware of this because they hid it well," he leaned in closer, warily looking left and right before continuing, "but they pulled a lot of strings to get to where they are today. Some of them not through the finest approaches."

You wouldn't question that information since Tanaka worked as a trainer for them for a while. But you did wonder just how much dirt he had on them. But that was a rabbit hole to dive into another day.

Okay, so Sigma Racing was red flagged before you even looked their way. Thankfully, no one knew you tried out as a ghost driver for them about a year ago or it would raise a scandal that would send your father to the intensive care unit. Throwing that to the side you went to the other walking red flag deemed as an enemy.

"What about Naozumi?"

"Well, not Naozumi directly, but Tsuzuki, Spica Racing's director. He used to be a shareholder in Suruki Racing before the team fell apart. He was your father's biggest sponsor, providing most of the parts for the cars. One day, right before chaos started raining down on the team, he retracted all his support just like that," he snapped his fingers, "out of nowhere."

"Without a notice?"

He shook his head. "None. He cut down all ties with your father without a solid reason."

"Okay, but Naozumi and Akira don't seem to have anything to do with this mess. It seems like more of an old generation battle we don't want to be part of."

"I really hope you won't get dragged into this mess," he rubbed the edges of his moustache. Something he did when he was really worried. "What I mean with all this is that I just want you to keep an eye out. Rally racing is a dirty world. You never know who's out to get you."

Great. Now I have to watch out for every breathing soul around me. Never a dull moment here.

A loud voice boomed over the surrounding speakers around the paddock, announcing that the next and last stage of the day starts in half an hour.

"Let's get you ready."

The last stage of the day went better than you expected it to. The course was a full tarmac one this time with really wide corners. You only had to look out for dips beside it where your rear could slip and get pinched, and the dangerous sharp corners where the crowds loved to gather like sacrificial lambs. The car held a lot better too, gripping the road firmly on all turns.

Without further damage on the car, you finished fifth this time around, sandwiched in between Akira and Naozumi on the scoreboard. The latter had another mishap in a turn nearly ending up in a ditch again. There were fumes coming out of his ears rather than the engine when he got out of the car, ready to throttle anyone in his way, but at least it wasn't another DNF to shatter some more of his pride.

Surprisingly, your father plied himself away from the office headquarters in the hotel and came down to the station to congratulate the team on their efforts. You waited at the end of the line, watching as he smiled and patted everyone's shoulders for the good work. When he came to you, he stopped, smile slightly falling around the edges.

You had a hot and cold relationship with him. Most times it was the latter, cutting icy through the days when you were in the car. He placed a hand on your shoulder and gave you a squeeze in support then turned back to everyone. That was as much as you'd get for now.

"I know you all must be tired," he started, taking in the sullen faces around the pen. "But our official car show is on later tonight in the hotel events hall. Go rest, dress up and come have a drink on the house."

That damn car show. You would rather be anywhere else than interacting with more people. You kind of had your social battery drained out for the rest of the day and it was barely 5 pm. But you had to be there for your father and the team.

Shortly after, the team dispersed to each their own. You trudged back to the hotel and had a well-deserved relaxing shower, washing off the fumes and sweat. When you came out, you were met with a dozen shiny designer bags all over the floor and your bed, together with your extremely stressed PR Agent.

Kate Yuzumi, or Yuzu (how you called her when she became a stress ball about to explode into pieces), has been in charge of your press-related endeavours for as long as you've been racing. She lived a huge chunk of her life in the States, before her parents returned back with her in tow. Now in her late 20s, she worked under your father, managing every little detail about your public image. She was also your only female friend in an overtly masculine rally world, just like you were hers.

She was the best at her job. A lioness in the wild jungle occupied by so many tigers. But there were times where she let it eat at her sanity, like now for example. She ran a mad hand through her long amber hair, messing around the soft caramel highlights on top as she paced your hotel suite from corner to corner, scribbling down in her notebook in a very frustrating manner. One harder press of that ball point pen and she would put a hole through the lined paper.

You cleared your throat announcing your presence. She whirled around to you, eyes blazing in a frenzy.

"Finally, you're out," she breathed out in relief. "Any longer and I would've called reception to cut down the water supply in your room."

"Really funny," you narrowed your eyes at her. "What's with all this?" you nodded at the endless heaps of bags littered around the room. You walked to one of the closest bags, decked in baby pink and paper ruffles, digging your hand through it to pull out a shimmery black dress.

"You need to look your best tonight. It's the first car show the team is having in years and your father insisted you dress accordingly."

You let the material slip out of your hands with a disgusted look on your face. One that she caught right away.

"No sulking or trying to evade it, Rai." She came up to you and placed both of her hands on your shoulders. "You're the only driver Suruki Racing has. You represent the team and you need to be there tonight, as boring and daunting as you may find it. Your father needs you there," she said softly, rubbing her thumbs over the bathrobe you wore. You gave her a look telling her you weren't in the mood to be poster girl after today.

"It'll be over before you know it," she urged.

"Yeah right," you blew a raspberry. "Those things always last so long."

"Well, you are part of this world now. So, woman up and go take charge of it," she smiled brightly, sounding so encouraging that it lit up a spark of content in you.

Slumping your shoulders with a pout, you decide there is no point in fighting it. The last time you tried to avoid an official event by hiding in the team garage, your father grounded you by having Tanaka train you like you were getting shipped to a Bear Grylls episode the next day. The very skin on your bones hurt like you saw hell briefly after that. Not doing that one again.

"Fine," you gave in. "Help me pick something normal out of this hurricane of clothes. It looks like a unicorn puked in here."

"A very stylish one," she held up a finger.

She ushered you back to the bathroom, picking up a hair dryer, a few dresses laid out on your bed and some branded makeup bags on the way. "Come on, we're running out of time. The event starts in two hours and you're far from ready."

Dolled up rather uncomfortably, you made your way to the event hall. Your heels clicked against the dark floors, looking at the décor your dad planned - gold and blue was the theme present all around. From the tables to the chairs decked in light sparkles to the crystal bar at the right of the stage lit up in blue with rows of champagne glasses, the team colours were everywhere in elegant and deep tones. Your father had a thing for interior design even if he denied it. Tanaka always joked he could work in the field if he ever got tired of racing.

It wasn't long before the hall was filled with chatter. You didn't expect so many people to come. Most were probably curious about you rather than the car or your dad's attempt at trying to be the main event again. Press came early and took up a lot of space, likely hoping to get a scoop of info out of you. Even the team principals, some drivers and bosses of other teams made their presence felt.

Your dad was busy greeting the crowd, shaking hands with that golden boy smile plastered on his face at all times. You hardly even got a chance to see him this week. While you've been stuck in training, testing and racing, he's been hauled up in the conference rooms going over paperwork or talking business night and day. The few nights you did get together, you would sit at dinner and make small talk, keeping to each their own.

Ever since he started revamping the team, he drowned himself in it completely. Not body and soul like before, but quite close to a robot devoid of feelings. Like he needed to breathe that success back into it no matter what.

With a troubled sigh, you stretched a hand to the bar to grab a glass of champagne. Your co-driver joined you, a glass of white wine in his hand.

"Champagne should be for the podium," he teased.

"It should be for whatever I want it to be," you stated, taking a sip in small vengeance.

"And what is it for now?"

Tanaka rounded around you, leaning against the bar next to you. You just stared ahead at your father, taking a bigger gulp of the alcohol with bitterness. He smiled at the two of you in sympathy.

"Nothing," you smiled back in reassurance, focusing on the swirl of the mellow golden liquid in your glass.

"He'll come around. Just give him time."

You nodded, more to yourself. Hopefully he will do it before he runs himself into the ground from stress. To see me race and be a father sometime like we promised. Following him through the crowd, you spotted him still in his tracks losing the dazzling smile on his face for a moment and sure enough you saw why.

Right in front of him sat Sigma Racing's team principal. Raven-haired in a clean dark suit, about the same age as your father, just a little more battered by it. The crooked grin on his face resembled a scowl so alarming, even you got angry at the condescending look he gave your father. They both held each other in a strong gaze, filled with a lot of ire, tension from it drifting away to the rest of the hall till it reached even you by the bar at the back.

Your father extended a somewhat friendly hand his way. A luxury he probably didn't deserve. The other man simply looked at it, scrunching his dark brow in suspicion before he shook it with a firm grip. Some words were exchanged between them, by the looks of it not that peaceful then they let go of each other. Just when you thought the great Hiro Suruki couldn't be moved, he looked like a boulder bigger than him just shoved him to the side of the road. There had to be more than just bad blood between them.

Before you knew it the event was in tow. The classical music drew out to a minor background noise for a tap of the microphone grabbing everyone's attention. Your father finally took to the stage, letting his prepared speech roll off his tongue like charmspeak.

"Hello and welcome everyone!"

He was welcomed himself by a big round of applause. Huh, he still has it. Fixing the bowtie matching his beige suit he continued even more relaxed.

"For those who don't know me, shame on you," he chuckled and the crowd followed. You could see so many familiar faces in the audience, there would hardly be anyone who didn't know him.

"For those who do, thank you for supporting me all these years with good thoughts. Or bad. We accept those too." That drew another laugh from the crowd.

"After nearly ten long years, Suruki Racing is back in business and better than ever. We started again from zero, putting everything into a new car, keeping the old glamour of the team, bringing in new spirits," he spared you a glance. "We couldn't have done this without you, the team and the star driver representing us on track."

Oh, no, no, no. Please don't call me up on stage. Please let me sit on the sidelines. Please, please, please.

"Please welcome my daughter."

Fuck me. At least don't use the government name.

"Raiko Suruki, the lightning strike powering Suruki Racing."

He used the government name.

Throwing back the rest of your champagne, you went up the stairs floating on the sound of breaking applauses and joined him on stage with a smile matching his extremely bright and fake one. This was all for show. No one gave a rat's ass about it anyway. But out of politeness and respect for your father you went with it.

Camera flashes burned in your vision from all corners of the room, momentarily blinding you as the press snapped pictures of you. Once you reached him, he turned to you with a grin. "Would you like to do the honours?"

Going behind the curtains, you got in the freshly polished rally car and turned it on, greeted by the purr of the engine as you gave it a good powerful rev announcing its arrival before you drove it on stage. The instrumental music boomed again as you reached the crowd, trumpets carrying out over the noise of the engine. You gave it a few more revs to drown out that horrible music. Your father laughed nervously as he turned to you with gritted teeth, shooting you a look to cut it out before he spinned back to the public with a smile.

Getting out of the car, you went to get off the stage thinking that was all when he called you over again. Mentally groaning that you couldn't get back to the shadows of the bar faster, you turned back and headed for him. He took a few questions from the press while you sat by his side, looking pretty, zoning out in your own world. That was until the press started directing questions at you and the microphone was pushed in your hand.

"What-," you let out, the sound of your uncalibrated voice bouncing off the speakers with a screech. "Sorry about that," you laughed nervously. "What was the question again?"

"Why did you choose to race in your father's team?" asked a female journalist. "From your broad skill set and experience, you could've been picked by any other team on the grid."

A shit show. That was what this was.

"Uhm," you paused, trying to think of something smart to say. Kate didn't really prepare you for this. You scanned the crowd, catching her figure by the bar at the far left. She rolled her hands around motioning you to just talk. Just wing it.

"I wanted to stay within the family business and help dad," you looked over at him giving him a sweeter and truer smile than the crowd could ever pull out of you, "get his dream up and running again. Suruki Racing means the world to him and it means the world to me to see him happy."

At that, his features softened and he looked like your dad for once tonight, under all the spotlight and glamour. He mouthed a subtle "Thank you" under his nose that you caught when you looked back at him. "Always" you mouthed back.

Thinking that was all, you prepared to pass the mic back to him when another reporter shoved a question your way.

"Why did Suruki Racing choose a female driver out of the wider talent pool out there?" asked a male reporter this time, his gaze piercing through you with something utterly similar to distaste.

Even the public turned their eyes on him, appalled at the tone but just as curious at the answer he would receive, focusing back on you.

One - he was clearly implying that you didn't have a talent for driving, comparing you to the other people in the junior series who were all predominantly men. Two - he was making it even more obvious that females didn't belong in the sport from the way he accentuated the words female driver like it was a bad omen. Three - the way he asked the question made your skin crawl with hot blood.

Before your dad could take your mic and reply to the question that was obviously meant for you, you lifted it back to your lips and stared the man down with all your might.

"Suruki Racing didn't choose me," you seethed, calm and collected. "I worked my ass off for it until I got good enough for the sport to accept me."

A few heads in the crowd nodded in acknowledgment at your words. It was hard to get into a rally team for everyone, not just women. But the reporter still wasn't satisfied with your response and he made that clear with his next affirmation.

"That doesn't answer my question," he shot back, obviously trying to get a reaction out of you.

Prove them wrong, echoed Tanaka's words in your head. Don't let them get to you. Keeping your composure level-headed without giving him the satisfaction to see your rage, you replied.

"Suruki Racing picked me out of the wider talent pool out there because I proved myself to be a capable rally driver."

"A capable rally driver doesn't put the car in a ditch mid-race," he argued, still not backing down.

This dude was looking for a bone to pick with the wrong dog.

"No," you countered. "A capable rally driver gets third place first time on the job and overcomes challenges rather than giving into them like most of your very talented idols must be doing."

He threw his head back, barking a laugh so irritating it got harder to keep calm and carry on being civil.

"That was just pure luck."

"Pure luck will not be my foot through-" your face, you wanted to say but stopped.

You leaned towards him a bit too menacingly, forgetting that everyone else was kinda there, watching it all unfold. Waiting for you to step wrong. He didn't deserve the mercy for that potty mouth of his. But this was too public to cause a scene. Straightening back, you coughed awkwardly.

"Through the gas pedal each race. I'm here to compete for Suruki Racing and I will do so until the team no longer wants me."

With that you shut him up and handed the mic back to your father who nodded at you in contentment.

"I think that was all for our Q&A session. Please enjoy the rest of tonight and good luck in tomorrow's stages!"

Finally off the stage, you went back to the bar and hogged a few more glasses of champagne. Thinking this was just the beginning and much worse awaited you was unnerving to say the least. You were downing your third glass when jet black hair appeared in your peripheral vision. Looking over you found a really amused Naozumi peering right back at you. He checked you out shamelessly, letting his dark eyes browse you from top to bottom.

Kate picked out a midnight blue satin dress for you, hugging your curves in all the right places, with a huge back drop exposing your behind. A semi-precious trail of shimmering stones fell down your back from where the straps were joined, all the way to your lower back where it connected with the rest of the dress. Your hair was pulled into a braided bun, little side pieces framing your face softly. You looked less like yourself and more like one of those models he hangs out with on the usual.

Letting your eyes do the same, you lingered on his own attire. He wore a navy suit tailored to his body a bit larger than his tight racing suit, giving him a broader form but still rounding around his bulky biceps with a strain. His hair was no longer a messy bird's nest from the helmet, fixed into a neat hairstyle. His dark strands sat so thick and orderly in small waves, it was hard to believe this was the same hair those heavy hands rove through like it was an Olympic sport.

The man could really look his million dollar smile when he wanted to.

"Didn't think you'd be here tonight," you mused, playing around with the champagne in your glass.

"I kinda have a thing for public humiliation," he beamed, giving you that smirk reserved for the masses of ladies waiting to fall at his feet.

Some of them already clocked him next to you, batting their mascara filled eye lashes at him in thirst for a piece of him. You wondered how it felt being one of them. So smitten and drawn to him like he wasn't the biggest red flag on earth.

"Oh well, I would say you came to the right place for that." You took a bigger sip from the glass, letting the dry bubbly liquid run down your throat. "But you do that after every race by yourself anyways, no offence."

"None taken," he replied, leaning on the bar to browse the bottles on the racks illuminated by led lights.

Surprised that he didn't argue on that observation like it was his nature to, at practically every single thing that annoyed him, you regarded him once more. He seemed oddly calm. Maybe way too calm. But then again, you met the guy like a handful of times. You didn't know him that well. Maybe he had his good and bad days and the ones on track were the bad kind.

He looked like a tough nut to crack. He definitely had more layers than the racing suit he wore. And if anything, Naozumi Hiyama was a puzzle you were better off leaving wrapped up on the shelf for now.

His deep voice cut through the animated chatter around you, grabbing your attention once more.

"That was really ballsy back there, rookie," he said with a wry smile.

He was talking about your near assault on that reporter that was looking for a tabloid story. He watched the exchange from the back of the hall with slight irritation himself. If that was him in your shoes, he would've punched the guy multiple times just to get all his questions out in a more productive way.

"One more word and I would've kicked his balls to Narnia."

A deep chuckle rumbled out of his throat at that. You knew what you signed up for coming into this world and he respected that. Some of the fuckers that have been here for longer didn't even have that decency.

He eyed the glasses of champagne next to you, stacked high in several pyramids. You moved to the side thinking he wanted one. He shook his head, asking the bartender for whiskey on the rocks instead. It suited him much better than champagne for some reason. Just like whiskey, there was this strong hit about him at first sight, so smooth and raw with his words, that blended into a surprisingly bittersweet aftertaste just like his smile. The ice crashing in the glass only added to that hard exterior he put up for the world.

You were curious if he was this icy with everyone. Was his interior just as arctic and brutal to someone who made the effort to get through to him or was Naozumi Hiyama an impenetrable iceberg that sunk all the ships of amicable intent? And now you were curious about the very devil you were warned to stay away from.

Get your bearings around, Rai. He's danger in far more ways than you can think of.

"Champagne is only for podium," he piped up.

"Ah, not you too," you rolled your eyes.

Was it a men thing that you weren't aware of? Why did you have to celebrate something huge to pop open a bottle of champagne?

Last time I checked, whiskey was more expensive than champagne.

"Tradition is tradition," he simply shrugged.

"Is it bad luck or something?" you leaned over with interest, trying to gauge out the meaning of this weird tradition. Or rather the meaning it held for him.

He lifted up his raven eyes from the drink, glass steaming at the contact with his warm hand. Pointing them with measured grip on your own, the corner of his lip tilted up in experienced manner. Like he's seen the worst of it if he gave in to the will of Dionysus with so much as a small sip of champagne before the big day. You didn't take him for a superstitious person until now. But that look told you he was its victim many times. Who would've thought that Naozumi believes in karma.

"Don't jinx what you don't know," he stated, like a silent mantra he recited to himself all the time.

To beware the unknown and leave it to fate. Control what you know, not what you don't. Just like your pre-race ritual.

Maybe you were more alike than you thought. Not temper wise. He won that part fair and square with the outbursts he had after nearly every race. But in other parts of common ground. You wondered what else was silently shared between you.

Before you could peer more into the wild force of nature beside you, you were joined by another one, much more brighter and cheerful than the storm at your left, but still as deadly as a tornado behind the wheel.

"There you were," interjected a soft voice from your right.

Akira joined in the conversation, briefly regarding Naozumi with a smug grin. You gave Akira a small smile, turning back to find that Naozumi made himself scarce with his glass of whiskey by the time you looked from one to the other. He had this weird habit of waltzing in and lighting up all your curiosities then leaving just when you were about to satisfy them. Browsing the crowd for him, you found no trace of him.

"Here I am," you replied back, brushing off the meek interaction with the other man. "Were you looking for me?"

The music slowed to a slow melodious tune that stabbed your ears painfully. Curse your father for his very bland taste in music. You'd expect more from someone with a golden earring that blasts Metallica every morning as his alarm. He wanted to look good to the world but this was actually how he killed all excitement. Not that this event even had excitement in the first place. Unless you counted your stage debut for an entertainment moment.

A few couples in the crowd took to the dance floor, swaying lightly on their feet. Team principals with their wives, mechanics with their spouses, a few drivers and their model girlfriends too. They drew each other close, dancing on the tempo of a slow mellow waltz. You never understood what it was about slow music that was so alluring to people and drew them together to hold each other so close. For one moment where they danced like their souls connected, they forgot everything about their problems and the reality of the life we were all living. Not running at full speed. Simply just being.

"I have been looking for you," said Akira, rather excited about something.

He offered his hand to you in the most gentlemanly way someone of the opposite gender ever did towards you. The kind of gentleman you see in those princess movies, where the girl gets whisked away by the nicest guy, golden carriages and diamond tiaras included. You swore you could see his eyes sparkle like stars lost in the resolute distance of the night sky. Or it was just the drunken haze of the champagne talking.

"Would you care for a dance?"

He asked so softly with that dizzying smile of his that it made your knees weak.

Dancing with the Akira Shinkai? A hallucination surely.

There was no way this prince charming came out of nowhere and asked you, a nobody yet, to dance. That and the fact that you weren't even supposed to be talking to him, considering everything Tanaka told you. Plus the previous heated interaction between your team leaders. A heavy mix of feelings that kinda weren't yours, but your father's.

"Okay," you yelped.

Okay? Rai Suruki. Akira Shinkai of Sigma Racing asks you if you care for a dance and you say okay?

He led you to the edge of the dance floor, placing his hands around your waist to pull you closer. You weren't sure what to do with your own, setting them against his chest for now. He swayed you side to side to the slow music. You focused on his deep brown eyes, getting sucked into their void with each sway. They were so big and round.

Conversation, Rai. Make some conversation.

"Thank you for the sandwich earlier today."

Great. 'Cause talking about sandwiches is conversation.

"No problem. I saw it got you a few places up the board."

"But it brought you down a few," you looked up at him, feeling a little responsible for that.

On the crescendo of a soft violin aria, he spun you out, bringing you back in closer than before. Your hands weren't pressed to his chest anymore, but circled around his shoulders to keep your balance. Your faces were so close that your breaths were nearly brushing off each other's lips. When did he get so close?

His lips parted catching the attention of your eyes instantly. Those were some delicious rosy lips if you've seen any. Get a grip Rai. Mentally scolding yourself for the inadequate direction your thoughts were going in, you focused back on his eyes. Though even that was a mistake.

"If anything, it wasn't half a sandwich that made me lose places," he chuckled, eyes crinkling into crescent shapes. "This tour is so complicated. I hate it with a passion."

"That I can agree with," you giggled.

The song changed to a really sad tune, slightly upbeat violin changed for the sorrowful piano in the back, drowning out every bit of energy you had left for the day just like that. That's it. If this continued any longer, you'd fall asleep standing.

"Will you excuse me for a moment?"

Heading for the dj booth on top of the stage, you climbed up the steps careful not to trip in your heels and cause yet another scene. You walked behind the dj and nudged his shoulder. He put down his headphones wondering what it was you wanted.

"For the love of god, please change the playlist," you asked, prying your hands together.

He looked at you briefly, thinking he'd get away with just a song request from you. Too bad he just met the one person in this room who didn't mess around when it came to music.

"This is what Mr. Suruki said to play," he spoke over the track, moving to put his headphones back up when you nudged him again. You weren't leaving until he changed the disk. Even if it involved violence.

"The crowd is dying out there," you motioned to the public that was genuinely exhausted and bored out of their mind. "Here," you fished out your phone and connected it to his laptop before he could complain about you hogging his deck, pulling up a file on his laptop and downloading it. "Play this mix."

"Won't that get me in trouble?"

"I'll make sure he pays double."

That seemed to convince him. He gave the mix a quick listen through his headphones, eyes widening at the music choice. Even his face brightened as he gave you a thumbs up.

You walked off the stage going back to join the small crowd. A few moments passed and the sorrowful instrumentals faded into energetic electronic dance beats. People sitting around the tables moved back on the dance floor, this time getting into it better than soft waltz music could make them dance. The lights dimmed to a steep blue, letting a light show peak through. You successfully turned the event hall in a club.

You got back to Akira, a knowing smirk on his face.

"You are full of surprises, Rai Suruki," he grinned.

You bopped your head to the beat, moving your hips in sync with the music, feeling awakened rather than half-asleep. The alcohol finally pumped through your body along with the deep bass, sending the blood in your veins running like waves on an open sea. Your hands latched back on Akira's making him move with you in languid moves.

"Just wait till you get to know me better," you yelled over the music.

He snorted at you with a shake of his head, that turned into a full laugh carrying over the music. You made Akira snort. Double points in the charisma book. He whirled you around, back crashing into his chest. A confident hand sneaked around you to pull you closer by your waist, now moving hip to hip to the song. His lips brushed to your ear without warning.

"This dj is so good," he whispered, sending chills down your spine.

The whole mood shifted around you with the next song, so full of life and energized. Some people in the crowd yelled the lyrics, throwing their hands in the air. He seemed to enjoy himself too as the man on the deck pumped up the speakers even louder, letting the mix boom out and rouse the spirits.

You simply nodded with a small smile. The dj was good for sure. That and the fact that he was kinda dancing with her.

Showered once more, to get rid of all the makeup, and in the comfort of your loose nightwear, you finally dove head first into the bed like a submarine submerging in the depths of the mattress, snuggling your head into the silky pillows on the bed. Your silky soft pillows that you packed everywhere you went. Who trusts those hard hotel deadlifts under their head? Not what you wanted to lay on after being pushed around in a sports two-seater the size of a space capsule.

Getting comfy under the covers, you let out a sigh of content at the warmth enveloping your body in each and every neatly tucked in corner under you. You closed your eyes, willing mother sleep to take you into her loving arms and lull you into deep, restful slumber.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day with the last round of the Tokai track and you could use better points after today's performance. Going for podium wasn't even in the cards yet. The car had better days ahead of it. You had to keep from pushing it more than necessary. But the points could help you catch up.

The lights dimmed down in the room, the jungle outside the hotel ceased riveting and it was just peace and quiet. Perfect, serene and silent.

You were barely hanging on the last brink of consciousness when something rattled against the wall behind your head. Your eyes flew open checking around the room and the headboard to be met by the quiet pitch black again. The headboard was still where it should be, no sign of anything that could move it. Shrugging it off, you crashed back into your pillows and tried to go back to sleep.

Until you heard that sound again. And again. The third time, it was accompanied by an awfully female voice struggling to moan. What the fuck? It grew quiet again, then all of a sudden you could hear her loud and clear, pushing that really annoying mewl out of her throat in sync with the banging in the wall. Pulling your other pillow over your ears, you tried drowning the lewd sounds out but it only proved futile as the minutes on the nightstand clock passed and she was still struggling to commit to one fucking tone to come to.

For the ever-loving shit of sleep.

Throwing away the covers, you left the amazing comfort of the bed and wore your slippers. You flung the door open, marching down the corridor to the room next door. The moaning was even louder out here, bouncing off the walls like it was played from speakers. You stopped in front of the door, banging on it with bubbling annoyance at being denied sleep due to someone prioritizing their funky time more than the peace of other people under the same roof.

All sounds stopped upon your angry knocks. Crossing your arms over your chest, you blew out a breath waiting for the resident of the room to open the door. Then it dawned on you that you weren't sure just what you were going to tell them and how they were going to react.

Would they make it a big deal that you cockblocked their big night? Hopefully not. What if they deck you in the wall for interrupting? You looked behind at the hard wall decorated with a lamp and gulped. I have martial arts training.

You tapped your foot anxiously thinking of an amicable solution when the door finally pried open revealing an almost naked Naozumi, wearing only a pair of black briefs that sat way too tight around his jewels for your liking. You choked on air. Dear lord. Your jaw dropped somewhere to the first of lava at the center of the earth as you took him in.

His neatly arranged jet black hair was now a thick mess straying in all sides from possibly being grabbed at with womanly strength. Only a woman hungry enough for a taste of him would do that kind of mess. Something stirred deep down inside of you at the sight. You didn't like it one bit.

Your eyes trailed down his exposed torso taking in every ridge of muscle from his toned pumped up pecs, the carved squares of his abs that might as well be the best washboard you've ever seen, to his veiny biceps curling around his middle before you could take a peak at what lay beneath his belly button as he leaned on the door frame.

Heat crawled up your neck the longer you stared at him unable to tear your eyes away. By god was he handsome. And hot. Hotter than hell could ever burn.

He watched your shameless perusal, making sure to catch the pink tint spreading across your cheeks and the way your tongue swiped over your bottom lip in thinking, things at which he chuckled lowly. Openly checking him out like this was unlike you and he was curious just how far you'd take it if he just let you. Testing it out, he unraveled a hand away, watching your eyes instantly latch on his lower abs like a cat jumping after a laser. He shifted on his legs, causing the muscles on his waist to bend on one side and stretch on the other. He was so broad and big, it overwhelmed you.

You knew he was packed just from sneaking glances at those white fireproofs, catching them strain underneath with each move of his body, but this was next level. You looked at the power nestled between his meaty thighs and swallowed a thick gulp of air, reeling back up his body. Sweat glistened on the trunk of his neck under the flickering light of the corridor - a clear product of what he was up to before you interrupted.

The sound of a door opening and closing down the hall brought you out of your daze like a truck hit you at full speed, then rammed over you again backwards.

You were in the hallway of the rally teams hotel, looking at a very naked and sweaty Naozumi. You cockblocked Naozumi Hiyama of all people. The playboy extraordinaire. You'd be lucky if you got out of this unscathed. Or with your braincells intact because the longer you stared at his abs or the dip in the crook of his neck you lost a huge amount of them.

"Can I help you?" he asked, irritating smirk that's been slowly getting under your skin bright as day on his face.

"Yes," your voice came out on a broken pitch. You cleared your throat trying again more sure of yourself. "Yes you can."

You struggled to look away. It was physically impossible to when he looked like one of those ivory sculptures of naked Greek gods you see in museums. Though he wasn't fully naked like them. Okay, let's lose the word 'naked'.

Your train of thought got stopped by his smooth voice, slightly tinted with amusement.

"What is it I can help you with?"

That seemed to oil your brain back to work.

"Can you stop moaning so loud? Some of us are trying to get some sleep," you looked him dead in the eye.

"That wasn't me," he said, moving to the side slightly.

You got a view of his own hotel bed, pillows and clothes scattered across the floor in heaps, graced by a woman on top of it tangled in nothing but a white sheet. She softly waved at you. Before you knew it, you waved back with a nervous smile, too entranced by her beauty. Her long platinum blonde hair cascaded down her collar bones, complimenting her tender milky skin and petite form so well. Adding her bright smile to it, you could swear you just saw an angel from heaven. She is way out of his league.

"Are those Lightning McQueen pajamas?" asked Naozumi rather confused, pointing to your nightwear.

Your nightwear had the face of the popular Cars character in the middle of your long sleeve top. The pants had several miniature versions of it, checkered flags and the iconic golden Piston Cup, all over them on red background. A Christmas present from Tanaka you adored. Well, not anymore, considering you currently looked like a toddler sitting before two bare deities.

Your hands shot out to try and cover most of it but it was no use. He already saw it all, including your Mater slippers sized to scale, hugging your ankles better than any pair of boots could, and he was simply just smiling at you. There was a curiosity about you in his eyes. The same one you had about him.

You cleared your throat, embarrassed in a dozen different ways, looking forward to hitting the bed and sleeping.

"Just fuck quietly or something."

The woman behind him called his name softly. He turned back around to the beautiful angel waiting for him. Even her voice was angelic. Seriously, what was she doing with this excuse of a man? By the earlier sounds of it and the sight before you now, he clearly was the one who struggled to satisfy her.

"What did she say?" she asked.

He rolled back to your form in the hallway and just smirked at you, uttering the next words like they weren't dripping with the most sinful implications.

"She said you weren't loud enough."

A scarlet red hot tomato package on a ketchup bottle. That was how furiously you were blushing right now. Those words weren't even directed at you but at the woman behind him. Though you couldn't help the flurry they started in your belly since he looked at you so intensely when he said them.

"Really? Why doesn't she join us?" she asked excitedly sitting up on the bed.

His smirk turned into a full toothy grin at that remark.

"Right? Why don't you join us?"

I'm out of here.

Not staying longer for the incoming teasing attack at your already crumbling sanity, you started making your way back to your room in shame, his laugh booming behind you. You threw him the middle finger this time only making him laugh harder.

Please choke on her pussy and die.

You closed the door and sped-walked to the bed, getting back under the covers, sighing at the warmth still preserved under the big heavy duvet. Since it was quiet again, you thought it all stopped. Until the previous strangled moans turned louder and louder and the rattle in the wall turned into a full rhythmic bang, fully shaking your own bed with you in it.

I'm going to fucking kill him.

🏎️ Glossary of terms and other useful information 🏎️

Stages - A rally consists of several stages over the course of three days, usually at the end of the week. These are series of timed races where the drivers take on different portions of track in the selected area of the race region. There can be 2-4 stages in a day, stretching over 20-50 kilometers.

DNF - Did Not Finish. When a car does not finish the race due to falling off the track. You either hit the gravel, spin out with understeer, or hit a road hazard. Basically anything that can get you out of the time frame of completing the track stage.

Pace notes - Taken by driver and co-driver on a ride along the course pre-race stage (also called a recce for reconnaissance). They point out road hazards and corners that the driver isn't able to see during the fast race. Example: 5 left over crest - hill portion approaching.

Oversteer - Happens when there's too much power applied than the tyres can take, making the car slip and push in the other direction of the turn. Balance is important here.

Understeer - Happens when the car turns less than you want it to in a corner. For example, you force the steering wheel to the left too briskly and the car doesn't turn entirely. The tyres screech and lose grip.

Overdrive is based around the fictional Asian SEIKO Cup Rally Series, mostly focused on Japan. Tour de Tokai is the 3rd round out of 13 rounds in the calendar, taking place right at the beginning of the movie. The champion of the series is determined by the total number of points accumulated at the end of the series, advancing to the World Rally Championship!

Next

Thank you for reading! Please leave a note, comment or reblog :)

[olderthannetfic]

DWRP is more active than regular fandom DreamWidth, but it's full of people who are anti-queer in the weirdest ways. They're queer, but they use words like "transtrender" and "fujoshit" and "asexies". They hate how prominent slash is in DWRP but bash people who play female characters as playing self-inserts/playing Mary Sues and decry female characters who have sex as "cock-hops". Playing a lesbian or bi woman is equated to being a 40 year old guy who jerks it to lesbian porn and reveals "neckbeard qualities", even if you're an out lesbian yourself. NB people are regularly mocked on both Plurk and in anon communities as "thembys" and "genderspecials".

DWRP has also slowed down hugely in the last 5 years, with many major games closing and most new games not lasting half a year. I once accidentally started wank when I said I don't consider someone who only replies to 2 comments or less a month a roleplayer, and people rushed in to argue that we're all just too busy to reply to more than that many comments and the only way you have more time than that is if you're a NEET. Play non-white non-anime characters and you're a SJW trying too hard to be "woke". Autistic is used as an insult fairly often.

Which is another facet of DWRP to consider: the weird hatred of other DWRPers everyone in DWRP has. You're a NEET, a neckbeard, a basement dweller, a wage cuck, a fast food cuck, etc. The anon gossip communities get way, way more activity per day than any of the actual game communities do. Gossip about people regularly runs dry, so instead discussion is rehashed of people who were subjects of previous wank/gossip, sometimes including people who played during the LJ era and never played on DreamWidth because they left when the mass migration to DW happened. I have seen people get accused of being another player who was the subject of wank returning for having the same given name as someone who was the subject of wank circa 2006. People are that level of desperate to get some excitement going among their small circle of friends who want there to be A Big Deal (TM) of some kind going on.

Fandom DW is far from perfect but I would highly recommend, even if you're bored, sticking to it and not DWRP. RP on there is a much more conservative (but identifying as "centrist", for some reason) environment and if you're reading this blog, my guess is you don't think trans headcanons are the work of transtrenders woke-ifying fandom and it's not gross neckbeard behavior for a lesbian to write a lesbian character. If so, this is definitely not your scene.

Activity is not the same thing as a fandom place being good.

--

[ghostoffuturespast]

Works In Progress 2023: A Cyberpunk 2077 Year In Review

I thought for a hot minute about doing one of those snazzy templates that’s been going around, but editing photos just ain’t my MO and rather than going by month I picked 12 favs that I’ve posted in 2023. Some of them were popular, some of them weren't. Overall, I think I did pretty good for just doing vanilla photomode on console.

You might be wondering why there's a picture of a sticky note. I don't remember when I started doing this, and I'm horribly inconsistent as you can see by the dates, but I'll jot down my word count for my wip chapter and then jot it down again when I remember to later.

I write slow. A lot of times I sit down to write and it feels like the wheels are spinning in place. My minutes and hours don't stretch very far, typically don't add up to much. But days, weeks, months. That's when I can at least measure the progress.

Fic: So It Goes 40/44 - 438,946 words

My V x River Ward and tinfoil hat conspiracy theory long fic. I've spent way more hours on this then I have on any of my VP.

I got tagged by @just-a-cybercroissant @therealnightcity and @wanderingaldecaldo to do some WIP Whenevers. I post my VP pretty regularly, so it’s always seemed silly to do work in progress posts for them, and I don’t know when I’ll have any new writing to share since in between work and the holidays, I haven’t had much time to sit down with anything since my last chapter update. And I've been feeling very... stingy, lately. Especially when it comes to mine and other people's writing. So take this WIP/Year In Review as my offering. Both these series, as am I, are all very much still works in progress. 

I confined my reflections for this year below the cut. If you don’t want to read my long-ass essays, you can admire the pictures, maybe check out my fic, or just move along and have yourself a lovely day.

We’ll start with the easy one.

VP

After at least a year of multiple playthroughs (I’ve played all the lifepaths, done all the endings), it only occurred to me at the beginning of this year to start taking VP. Part of the reason I never did before was because I didn’t realize it was a thing and then by the time I did, I figured I didn’t have much to offer. I play on PS5 and only have access to vanilla photomode, so seeing everyone else’s high-fidelity, ultra ray-tracing, modded, posed, full on virtual photo shoot photos, I was like there’s no way. (Not that I’m hating on PC modders, it’s just not everyone has access to mods or a PC capable of running the game, and I’m all for making art and creative endeavors accessible.) On top of that, all I’d ever heard from most other folks was how much vanilla photomode sucked. In the glamorous world of VP, I didn’t think there was any room for me.

But I started snapping pics anyway. And sure, there are a lot of limitations with vanilla photomode. But what that really translates to is opportunities to get creative. I am also a hoe for subverting people’s expectations, and very much believe when there’s a will, there’s a way.

Environmental and landscape shots were my first subjects before I started branching out into portraits and then capturing story moments. Through VP I found an entirely new way to enjoy a game that I’d already played a ridiculous number of times along with also finally being brave enough to share my V with other people too. I’d always worried about that before, if people would like her. Granted, I know Grandpa’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but whether you like her or not, I certainly think she’s made a name for herself over the past few months. Even if most people haven’t really gotten to know her the way I’d hoped. 

I’ve taken hundreds of photos this past year. Most of which I’ll never share. There’s a lot of flops, a lot of weird experiments, ones that didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped, but I’ve learned something from every single one of them. I know how to spot good lighting, frame shots to create optical illusions, get a very limited toolkit to work in my favor, parkoured on all of the things, and heck, I even figured out how to make Grandpa smooch other NPCs. I’ve done atmospheric, mundane, down right goofy, as well as things that most people probably thought weren’t fucking possible.

I can’t say how long I’ll keep doing this, I’m sure I’ll move on at some point, but for now I’m still enjoying myself. There's a lot to explore in this game and I just can’t stop digging Night City.

Now, for the more complicated thing.

Writing

So It Goes… My peace, my war, my greedy and most ravenous of ghosts.

I’m operating under the assumption that most people following me here probably haven't read my fic or aren’t all that interested in reading it to begin with. It’s fine. But you need to understand this fic, my writing, is the main thing that brought me here. This is also Grandpa V’s story. Most of you have met her, but unless you've been reading, most of you do not know her.

I wrote around 185,000 words and posted 10 chapters this year. 2022 was about 253,000 words and 30 chapters, along with several unrelated one shots. However, I don’t think I’ve done a single chapter this year that was less then 10k, and my longest managed to hit 27k. As of the last update I posted, the fic is currently sitting at around 439k words, 40 chapters, and still isn’t done.

I have four more chapters to write. I have written a metric shit ton of words. This is, by far, the longest and most intense creative project I’ve ever endeavored to complete.

When I started writing, I was expecting this fic to be around 100-150k. That seemed to be the average for most long fics. I did not plan on being an outlier. I'm not sure you can ever really plan for that, but I guess I enjoy subverting my own expectations too.

For those of you who are reading my fic, it is my sincerest hope that it shatters every expectation of where you think it’s going. It’s not a joke that I tagged my fic “#an ode to my tinfoil hat”. An ode it has turned out to be. I’ve been sitting on this theory for two years. I have told no one about it. I hope it sticks the landing and hits the way I want it to. I don't know if it will. But fuck, I just want to be done with it so I can move on with my life, take a break, and give myself the opportunity to make and focus on other things before I have to get back on the damn horse.

I wrote less this past year then I did in 2022. I had a lot of life changes, most of which were good, but with times of change come times of adjustment. Along with some realizations that maybe you don’t understand as much as you thought you did. Looking back, I’ve been in a state of unsettled, kuzushi, for a really long time. Which is not a good place to be. It’s how your ass ends up on the ground with a knee knocking out all your teeth. I thought I knew better. Thought I had enough practice to get away from it. But bad habits have good memories.

I think given the circumstances, I accomplished a lot with my writing this year. I don’t know if my writing is exactly where I want it to be. I doubt it every will be, but it’s evolved, grown, and I wrote a pretty hefty stack of words considering I started working full-time again, bought a house with my partner, moved, and have been dealing with the millions of other beans that life tends to throw one’s way. That being said, and for full disclosure, I’ve also been dealing with some of the worst cases of jealousy and envy I’ve had since I was a teenager. 

Frankly, it sucks. They walk with me every fucking where I go, hold my hands to whisper back all my doubts. Try to persuade me to my baser instincts, to be cruel and lash out. But that's not aikido. Luckily, I’m not 16 anymore so it’s at least been easier for me to identify the problem. Though I’m still coming up short in terms of actually being able to do anything about it, and will be for at least a few months more. 

Yeah, I keep talking about it because I don’t know how many people know that I've been feeling this way. And I’m tired of not talking about it in a room full of creatives, because yeah, I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. And not talking about it just makes all that pent up resentment worse for everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing. But with the way I work and think, it’s a slow, tedious, and incredibly time-consuming art. With how much my fic has snowballed over the course of writing, it’s left very little room for the other hobbies in my life. And as my fellow writers probably already know, writing is an incredibly insular craft. And unlike a picture or an image, which only requires a glance, reading a bunch of words requires time and commitment.

So, when you put yourself out there and share what you wrote, it’s a lonely feeling not knowing whether or not anyone connected with what you put on the page. Especially, when the people who do read aren’t compelled to voice anything and when the people you’d hope would read don’t. And then you're stuck in the dark, not knowing, because neither of us says a goddamn thing.

I started writing this fic prior to actually joining the CP2077 fandom. And I joined the fandom because I felt alone. I’ve been here a while now, albeit in a few different places, and that feeling still hasn’t gone away. I’m still trying to find camaraderie with my fellow writers and carve out something that kinda sort of resembles a home or a sense of community. I watch my peers around me as they seem to build that with each other, except me.

I’m envious of the things that people make and jealous of the relationships those have created and fostered between said people, because for the life of me, it’s been a struggle to cultivate that since I got here. I know it’s selfish, but I also don’t know what about me makes people so hesitant. There have been a handful of strangers that have shown up for me regularly, but as far as people I call friends in this fandom that have shown up and actually stuck around, I can only name one right now. (I know we're all busy. And I acknowledge my writing's not for everyone. I know maybe some of you are quiet, or shy, or probably a thousand other things. I get it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less. People will never know unless you say. Never know unless you take the time to interact or engage. Be brave. And that's true for a lot of things.)

The propensity is for the negative to outweigh the positive. I've got a lot of numbers on my fic, so you would think things would be fine, but at this point they just feel empty. They don't bring me any comfort or real satisfaction. And I hate feeling like the people I know don’t care and that most of you are just talking around me. That I’m some kind of annoyance not fit to interact with. Which may or may not be the case. I don’t know. Again, most of you have never said anything. And maybe I need to accept the fact that most of you never will.

But this is me trying to start conversation.

It’s really shitty, knowing that the thing I want the most is also the thing holding me back. I know how to work on it too, not that it’s any guarantee. The problem is I’m still writing and in a needy state of greed. And because I’m slow, I don’t have the time or the energy to be generous. I can only take right now. I can’t give. 

Relationships require both.

I can’t bring myself to read other people’s writing. I can’t comment, or like, or share if I haven’t read anything. I'm desperate for conversation, but I also don't have the time or assurance to facilitate it with other people right now. And for some reason people never seem to want to talk to me, especially when it comes to writing. I want to be part of conversations, talk deeply with other people. But I can’t speak right now, I'm not in a place to offer generosity without someone first giving it to me.

And generosity and grace is what we all need.

Four more chapters and I hope my ghosts will finally let me read in peace.

[unreliablesnake]

I shouldn't love you, yet here we are (Joel Miller x reader) – part 2

Summary: Joel warns Tommy who makes a decision about the two of you, and it's Joel who has to explain himself in the end.

Note: This is gonna be a series with shorter and longer chapters. This is a shorter one. / I take full responsibility for mistakes and typos and stuff. I didn't proofread it. / If you want to know when I post new stuff, follow @unreliablesnakefics and hit the get notifications button. I don't have a taglist.

part 1 / part 3

Warnings: afab!reader (will be relevant in later chapters), dbf!Joel, age gap (reader is around 30, Joel is in his early 40s), no outbreak, I fucked with time and this takes place a few years after the beginning of the game, not the series. (So it's the mid/late-2010s)

“So this will be a date tomorrow?” Joel asked when he joined his brother in the kitchen after the barbecue party.

Tommy’s lips curled into a smile as he nodded. “Yeah, it’s great, right? She’s nice, funny, absolutely gorgeous, and she’s also smart. What more could I ask for?”

Letting out a sigh, Joel leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. He had known Tommy better than anyone, he knew what he was like with women. You were the daughter of his best friend from the neighborhood, he couldn’t just sit back and watch him break your heart.

“Do you think it could be something serious between you?”

His brother thought about the answer, the look on his face giving away that he wasn’t too sure about that. And just as Joel expected, he let out a groan and said, “I don’t know. I think we would have fun, though. Isn’t that enough for now?”

“She’s serious about this, Tommy. She really likes you,” he replied. “Don’t do this if you’re not sure about your future together, that’s all I’m saying.”

Joel watched as he nodded and clearly thought about his words. It’s not that he wanted to ruin his brother’s fun, he just wanted to protect you. As much as he hated the thought, he had grown fond of you over the years, and so he just didn’t want Tommy to play his stupid games with you.

******

“Listen, can we talk?” Tommy asked nervously when you arrived at Joel's house the next morning.

He was waiting for you outside, catching you before you could even go inside. There was something about his tone that you didn’t like, something that foreshadowed bad news. Your chest tightened from the stress, and you could barely hold yourself together as you listened to him.

Apparently he thought about this date all night, eventually coming to the conclusion that he didn’t want to ruin your friendship.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” he said. “I told Joel about this and Sarah overheard it. She was mad at me and said she would rather have you going with them, not me. So yeah, I’ll just stay here today. Try to have fun.”

With that he walked to his car and drove off, leaving you standing there with a blank expression. You had no idea how much time had passed, but you were pulled out of your thoughts by Joel who came out to you at one point.

“You okay?” he asked quietly. You nodded after hesitating for a second. “That’s what I warned you about last night. Come on in, I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“I’m not sure I want to go with you and Sarah. I’m not really in the mood,” you told Joel as you looked up at him.

He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you into a half-hug. “Sarah would be happy if you came with us. Maybe it could avert your thoughts.”

“Okay, fine.”

The two of you made your way into the house where you were greeted by Sarah who seemed extra cautious with you. She knew about what had just happened which explained her behavior. Then everything changed all of a sudden and she came over to hug you.

She told you she wished you and Tommy would finally end up together, and that she was mad at her uncle for pushing you away like this after getting your hopes up the night before. You assured her that things like this happen and it was okay, even though you couldn’t honestly think this way. It hurt you badly and all you wanted to do was lie on the couch and cry your eyes out.

“Do you even want to go out today? I’m sure it would cheer you up, but if you’d rather stay here, we could just as well go watch a movie or something,” she said with a supportive smile.

You tended to forget how mature she was despite being only seventeen, but she had been through her first heartbreak over a year ago, so she knew how bad you must have felt right now. “I already told your dad that I’m going, don’t worry about me,” you assured her.

“Or,” she began slowly, “we could have a girls’ day. You know, like getting our nails done maybe.”

“Just say you’d rather do that instead of hanging out with me. I swear I won’t be offended,” Joel told her with a laugh.

“It’s not like that.” Her father gave her a knowing look which made him let out a groan. “Okay, fine, I want to gossip,” she admitted.

Joel glanced over at you with a raised eyebrow, expecting you to make the final decision. After thinking some, you eventually agreed to spend the day with Sarah. The two of you planned out the entire day, leaving her father alone for most of the day while you were out having fun.

It turned out to be a good decision because you had a lot of fun with her, and eventually forgot about Tommy’s decision not to pursue a relationship with you. You made it back to the Miller household around five, but while your plan was to drop Sarah off then go home, Joel came out to the car to talk to you.

With a sigh, you got out of the car and leaned against its side while you waited for him to reach you. “New hairstyle?” he asked with a smile, and you nodded in response. “It suits you.”

Awkward silence fell between you. You knew there was something he wanted to tell you, but for some reason he didn’t want to speak up. As you took a better look at him, you noticed the same strange look in his eyes you had seen the day before every time he looked at you.

After what felt like an eternity, Joel took a deep breath to prepare himself, then said, “It’s on me, you know. I talked to Tommy last night and told him to cancel the date if he wasn’t serious about you.

You had no idea why he told you that. At first you were angry, so you put your hands on his chest and pushed him back, but at the same time tears began to fill your eyes, and somehow you ended up nestling your face into the nape of Joel’s neck as you cried.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I didn’t want him to break your heart after being with you for a few weeks,” he explained while his hand rubbed your back.

“Maybe he would have changed if–”

“He wouldn’t have canceled the date if that was the case,” he interrupted you as he leaned back and looked down at you. “I know it’s bad now, but it’ll get better. Go home and get some sleep.”

Nodding, you wiped your tears away with the sleeve of your shirt. He was right, you only needed to get some sleep. After saying good night, you walked back to your parents’ house to gather your things, then drove home to fall into your bed and cry some more.

[worstvideogamesong-poll]

Worst Video Game Song Tournament - Round 3 Match 3

The Yoshi Clan - Yoshi's New Island

VERSUS

Mansion Basement - Resident Evil Director's Cut

FIGHT!

I would recommend listening to as much as you can of each song before voting, but how you choose is up to you! Remember to be civil in the tags and replies!

Propaganda under cut:

The Yoshi Clan:

"the ass band will play a song of farts to celebrate your failure"

"#FUCK YOU YOSHI"

"#yoshi sounds like suck"

"#YOOOOOOOOSHI CLAAAAN!!!!!!!! #ok im gonna complete my santa review before getting to my ten page essay on why i love yoshi clan. yea that shit bad #i accidentally started it playing in two tabs at different points of the video which was honestly really fun. i recommend tryin that esp wi #bad songs really adds smthn to the exprience. it was awesoeme #it also just sounds the exact type of awful that that video image implies which is cool. its so perfect. it sounds ass #but. what it can not beat. is my favorite of all time. my darling love. it is time to begin my sermon #ok so yoshi clan is just so beautifully terrible. and truly the whole soundtrack is an orchestra of bad design. and its so fun to look at #that really nice professional looking art for the game and get BLASTED with kazoo #and like. i understand the thought process. kazoo does seem silly goofy yoshi. and it also sounds like a chorus of pain #now this song specifically has some really great awkward pauses. at 0:16 theres like a full 3 seconds of silence. which is SO cool #then the hot cross bun bit that ends at 0:27 gets so sad and deflated at the end of it. like it starts off in time but then clearly the #soloist got kinda embarrassed alone and so rushed and got really quiet. and its just so sad and lonely. its so cool #also some of these pauses have a couple lone far away kazoo squeaks for no reason before the 'melody' comes back in? awesome #but what i really really love about this. what really draws my eye. is the ending. because we go through this entire rigamarole with the #worst secondhand embarrassment of my life. then. 0:43. the kazoos move out. and in. the most genuinely awesome groovy drum beat in the worl #like its SO good. and those last few seconds are like you're in a different world. like you just survived horrors and you are brought to an #angelic chorus. and it lasts what 5 seconds? 5 seconds of beauty after a full 40 seconds of purgatory. in what world do horrors live foreve #while an angel can last for only a flash #its cruelty. its injustice. its completely ingenious. incredible music making. i am in such awe. #anyways thats my manifesto. please feel free to put any of this in the propaganda section op. im passioante"

Mansion Basement:

"this song fucking sucks. i love it."

"[Mansion Basement] is literally what letting my cat walk over my keyboard set on some particularly bad trumpet sample feels like. Spectacular"

"#This is so funny #Who made mansion basement?? #It's so sad!! #And pathetic!!"

"#whaat the fuuuck is up with [Mansion Basement]"

"#like NOTHING can compare to mansion basement #what the FUCK"

"#the mansion basement made me cry #ithink i know who the winner here is #🎺🔥🔥🎺🔥🎺🔥🎺🔥🎺🔥🎺🔥"

"#[Mansion Basement] THO HEEEELP.??? BABY ON FL STUDIO TRYING TO PLAY MARIO UNDERGROUND THEME...."

"#resident evil is a joke song for clowns"

"#I'M NOT LISTENING TO THE OTHER ONE I KNOW FOR A FACT IT'S MANSION BASEMENT #THE STORY BEHIND IT IS WILD TOO SO THAT'S AN AUTOMATIC WIN BABBBEEEYYY" (pollrunner's note if anyone knows what the story is please tell me i am dying to hear about it)

"#i saw the title of this post and literally IMMEDIATELY thought of mansion basement #felt emotionally validated when i saw it was an option #i love that song #in the worst way #like a drunk zombie looking for its keys in an orchestra"

"#im fucking obsessed with mansion basement. sweep"

"#what the hell that is not a real resident evil song #did they really just make that and put it in the game #what"

"#I ACTUALLY LIKE THE BASEMENT SONG because it perfectly captions how like- #the sneaky suspicion of getting diharrea feels"

"#fart basement ofc"

"#Mansion basement is objectively the funniest song ever"

Feel free to add more propaganda in the tags and replies, or send it to me in the ask box and I'll try to share it as soon as I can!

[vergess]

So a friend reblogging this interview tips post, which is a perfectly fine post with advice that is useful or whatever.

But I desperately need hiring managers to stop acting like the livelihood and continued survival of their interviewees is "playing the game." It's not a game; it has never been a game. It's people's survival. Our lives.

I understand that to management it's about showing team spirit. But to everyone else, management just said that I need to buy new clothes if I even want to be considered a meritorious applicant, regardless of my skills, experience and attitude.

Because every single thing I own is "ratty." That is to say, it is worn out, thread bared, and has stains/rips embroidered over. That's what being a poor person looks like.

"Oh just spend $20 on a shirt and pants."

I'm also fat. Button down shirts that won't be an Obscenity charge are $40. Pants are $60. I have 37 dollars to my name and I still have to buy medicine and shelter.

And remember: this expense is for the lottery chance that I may get hired. It is NOT an expectation presented AFTER an offer.

I get to pay for new clothes for russian roulette.

I should spend everything I have and more to buy one outfit for interviews and really, really hope that this time I get the job. Even though interviews are notoriously biased against fat people, POC, queer people, and women.

Management also just said I need to prove that I know about the company atmosphere from personal, unpaid, off the clock research above and beyond the application and interview process.

That I should self teach, BEFORE so much as an offer is made.

Meanwhile literally hundreds of my applications are thrown away on a weekly basis (I do about 15 applications a day most week days, and have been for multiple years now). The reasons for this are varied. Sometimes its because my name sounds too ethnic (I've had so many interviewers compliment me for not being Black which they thought based on my name). Sometimes they think I'm over qualified for every single job within 55 miles of me, as though having a college degree means I can photosynthesize instead of needing a home.

Often it's simply because companies lie all the time about whether they are actually hiring, posting dozens of fake job listings. That way they can tell their overworked and underpaid staff, "Oh, the reason you have 3 doubles a week is because of all those lazy unemployed assholes that don't want to work."

The fact that there is a "game" where the loser may become homeless or dead at all is deranged. The fact that the losing players all have to smile, and cheer, and cooingly tell the winners what a Good, Good Job they did is significantly more disgusting.

And let me be clear: the OP of that post is a hiring manager. That shit about "ratty clothes" is entirely under the hiring manager's opinion. There's no way to know what a given hiring manager thinks of your clothes, though if you're visibly poor, fat, or nonwhite chances are they would think you look unkempt in a full 3 piece suit with garters.

That shit about "show me you did independent unpaid labour to prove your loyalty to a company that isn't even hiring you yet" is ALSO under the manager's absolute judgment. You have NO way of knowing what stupid tidbits of information are the "right" ones to recite. You could memorize every piece of information that company has ever published and you STILL would not know which trivia is the Right Answer.

Same with the "ask me a question" shit.

There is no right answer. Interviews don't check for skills, abilities, experience, or even team cohesion.

They are vibe checks. They exist to give hiring managers a way to disqualify IMMENSELY qualified candidates over their own unexamined bigotries.

And btw? We have the science to prove it. It's called "implicit bias."

If you have an accent, are fat, aren't white, are visibly disabled or queer in any way, etc? Your inability to get a job is not because you "didn't play the game."

It's because the "game" was rigged to fuck you over from the start.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

As promised here, I'm continuing a series of posts on NewJeans and why I think the group holds real potential. What I want to briefly talk about this time, is the quality of their music.

Credit: @/haerin1sta

*

Not exactly sure how this is going to come across, but the truth is very few groups in k-pop give me a quality sonic experience. I mean, for a lot of groups, I get no joy from playing them out loud in my space. BTS is one group where the music is so dynamic, textured and layered... I know this probably sounds pretentious, but BTS's music is the perfect blend of cohesive + complex + simple to suit my taste. I enjoy sitting back in my living room, dimming the lights and drawing the blinds, to hear Dis-ease play over my Bowers & Wilkins 800 D4 speakers. It feels like an actual pleasure. I get this with BTS, nearly every time. There's a handful of other groups whose songs I sometimes feel this way about, but there's been no other group that consistently gets me this way lately more than NewJeans.

At least I'm pretty sure there's no other group that gets me to break out a subwoofer more than NewJeans, after BTS.

All their songs have such a deep and rich bass.

It's almost sickening. Listen, k-pop has done R&B for years. The sound isn't new to the industry by any means, but the way NewJeans does R&B you can tell whoever makes their shit, cette personne a eu le cœur brisé par une personne noire.

Take for example a song like ASAP. That moment the bass comes in at 0:40, during the chorus - it sounds heavenly on my speakers. The whole song feels kinda magical and odd, like Christmas in July, and I suspect one reason why is the chord progression which I recognize to follow that of many Christmas hymns... and the deep heavy bass.

You might not hear it right in this clip because of how Youtube compresses their sound, but I think one can still tell the pitch shifts slightly. The tweaky game-beat percussion that fills up the rest of the song feels disorienting but that's also the point. By the time the second chorus comes in, the contrast it creates feels like you're diving into a pool of cool water on a hot day. It's so good. It's like that weird genre-mix thing SM likes to do in their songs, but with NewJeans it's so much more effortless, weirder, and cooler.

*

This is Minji.

*

This is Danielle.

*

This is Haerin.

*

This is Hyein.

*

This is Hanni.

*

All five girls have clean, clear vocals and very distinct vocal colours. One reason their music is so good, is because all their songs put an emphasis on their vocals. For example, listen to the pulled stems for Hurt.

The first 2 minutes and 50 seconds is pure acappella heaven, and then you realize it's placed in the center. The mix is so full and centered, it's perfect. The other stems in the video from 2:50 too are such a delight to listen to.

The sense of easy excellence is everywhere in NewJeans' sound and concept. They don't need to force anything, they don't need crazy ornamental riffs, or ridiculous beat switches to capture and hold attention. All the harmonizing that needs to be done is already in the music. It's simple and for that reason, good. Hurt for example is just a well made song.

It's so fun to play in the car. It sounds like a joint Andre 3000 would produce.

Another song that absolutely blows me away when I play it, is Cookie. Can you even try to imagine what the intro on Cookie sounds like with subwoofers?

It's mad.

*

Ador encourages the girls to fully participate in several aspects, from songwriting (the members have been writing their songs since debut and 4 out of 5 members are credited on their songs so far), to making their choreography, to applying their ideas towards their marketing. It's really remarkable for a rookie group, but I also feel this is a culture HYBE has been trying to create at all their sub-labels.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to more music from NewJeans. Get Up was a solid treat - my ranking of the songs on it so far:

New Jeans

Cool with You & Get Up

ASAP

ETA

Super Shy

*

(Haerin - dancer and vocalist)

*

(Danielle - dancer and vocalist)

*

(Hyein - dancer, vocalist, and maknae)

*

(Hanni - dancer and vocalist)

*

(Minji - dancer and vocalist)

*

(I don't have a bias in NewJeans. And that's the first sign for me that this is a solid group.)

[mediocre-daydreams]

daydreams' marvel rec list!

wooo! we just hit 200 followers? it's only been like 2 weeks since 100, and i'm so grateful people have decided to stick around and read with me!

of course, i would've never started writing (fanfiction and in general) without having read some of the most incredible works on this site, and i'm here to present to you 22 of my favorite fics!

no smut is included, but there may be suggestive themes. please read the warnings on each individual fic! :)

literally, just check out each individual account, all of their fics are incredible

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

☺ fluff ☹ angst ☝ humor ✰ series

bucky barnes:

under oath ☹ ✰ @ugh-supersoldiers

-> the world needs someone to blame for the deaths that hydra facilitated for decades, and the target is on the back of the former winter soldier. the case is going to trial, and seemingly the guilt ridden bucky barnes can’t care less about the verdict. (lawyer! reader)

for the love of the game ☺ ☹ ✰ @pellucid-constellations

->  bucky barnes was a menace. NYU’s top baseball player, he was used to girls falling at his feet and could smooth talk his way out of just about anything. you hated him. he couldn’t figure out why. so when the novelty of weekend parties and quick hookups finally wore off—and his feelings for you began to grow—he made it his mission to fix it. (college athlete! bucky)

not happening ☺☝✰ @notimetoblog

-> an online dating site clearly makes a mistake when it matches you with the one person you cannot stand. (modern! au)

looped ☹ @softlybarnes

-> you are inadvertently trapped in a time loop without any memory of the last five years, including your relationship with bucky. but bucky would stay in the loop forever, explain everything again each day, if it meant getting to stay by your side.

safe with me ☹ ✰ @bitsandbobsandstuff

-> when an unknown threat enters your life, protection is offered at the highest level. as bucky barnes comes into your life, the game changes, and you realize falling for the man tasked with keeping you safe is the last thing you expected.  (bodyguard! bucky x journalist! reader)

better ☺ ☹ ✰ @captainscanadian

-> dr. james barnes has it all: a loving family, caring best friends, and a successful career as one of the best heart surgeons in new york. he has everything he ever wanted his whole life… well, almost everything. one thing he never thought he could ever have was y/n y/l/n. she may have been a lot of things, but he loved her because she made him better. (modern! au)

grumpy sunshine ☺ ☹ ✰ @anonymityisfunwriter

-> you've been in hydra isolation your entire life, and sam is tasked to watch over you. bucky can't understand how you came out of hydra so optimistic and decides he hates you because of it. as you integrate into society, the avengers team, and SHIELD politics, bucky ends up being your biggest supporter. (inspired by taylor swift songs)

café crema ☺ ✰ @wonderlandmind4

-> the first time was an accident. the second time was coincidence. the third time is just unlucky. the fourth time is getting out of hand and the fifth may or may not be with intent. otherwise known as The One Where He Spills Her Coffee. (modern! au)

just one kiss ☺ ☹ ✰ @sarahwroteathing

-> bucky barnes has been chasing after you since he was ten years old, but you’re determined not to give in. how long can you hold out when all he’s asking for is just one kiss? (40′s happy ending AU)

dreamscape ☹ @wkemeup

-> when bucky falls under the spell of a djinn, the line between fantasy and reality blurs. in order to survive, he must fight his way back to the real world - even if it costs him everything he’s ever wanted. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

peter parker:

far from you (full trilogy) ☺ ☹ ✰ @hey-marlie

-> y/n stark is really not here for this european school vacay because in this post-endgame world, she’s mourning the loss of her dad. but one (1) sticky boi peter parker is just trying to be the friend he once was while also trying not to flirt too much because if she rejects him (which she wouldn’t, not that he knows that) while they’re in venice holy hell he’ll just pitch himself off the gondola right then and there. (stark! reader)

was it worth it? ☹ @kelieah

-> you and peter are married and expecting, and after every mission, you ask him “was it worth it?" each time he would say yes. but as peter begins to neglect his family in favor of his work, he leaves his wife vulnerable. is it worth it?

it’s your voice ☹ ☺ @peteprker

-> after spiderman saves you while you were being attacked in an alley, he walks you home and his voice gives his identity away

the favorite ☹ @softspideys

-> you’re convinced your dad likes peter parker more than you, until he saves your life (stark! reader)

clause 3 of the friendship agreement ☺ @youlightmeupfinn

-> you and peter parker have always been the best of friends, even going as far as to enact a friendship agreement like idiots. when you walk in, feeling quite touch-starved and desperate for cuddles, you go for clause 3 of the friendship agreement… cuddles.

your boy who is a friend, peter ☺ ✰ @luveline

-> you and peter are penpals from opposite sides of the country, but you manage to fall in love through letters alone.

the baby project ☺ ☝ @vendettaparker

-> when you and peter begin working on an assignment for your child development class and morgan overhears your discussions, she starts to think that you and peter are actually expecting a baby, leading to a lot of confusion and a very pissed off tony. (stark! reader)

sunset lovers ☺ ☹ @duskholland

-> you've never met your soulmate, but you know his handwriting like the back of your hand—literally. every word your soulmate writes on his skin appears on yours, and vice versa. you're desperate to meet him, but until the universe decides to introduce you, you're stuck with scribbled smiley faces and chemistry formulae. (college! soulmate! au)

close to my heart ☺ @peterbenjiparker

-> physical affection has been a part of your friendship since it began years ago, it was only a matter of time peter questioned why he was the only one…on the receiving end of your hugs and kisses.

my reverie’s affinity remains to be you ☹ ☺ @indouloureux

-> in a world where you see ten seconds of your soulmate’s life in your dreams, you already knew that spider-man was your soulmate. but what you didn’t know, was that you’d be vexed to see who was beneath the mask (enemies to lovers)

sleepyhead ☺ @flourgirl

-> peter will try just about anything to help out the very pretty insomniac from his math class.

taglist: (comment to be added!)

@yourallihave @bambamwolf87 @im-a-slut-for-fluff @cowboibeepbeep

[morallyinept]

Shoot: GQ Spain September 2017 & GQ Mexico November 2017 Issues (Same Interview I believe, correct me if I'm wrong)

Photographer: Giampaolo Sgura

Interviewer: Maria Contreras

Grooming: Not Confirmed

Full interview, behind the scenes, outtakes & shoot photographs below. 👇🏻

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

• Cover shot and original images used in the magazines.

Video Translation: "Hi, I'm Pedro Pascal. Here doing a photo shoot for GQ Spain... He's very shy, but very talented. And, well, I hope you like the photos, and I had a great time doing it. GQ Spain. She dressed me... all very shy. There it goes!"

Full Interview Translated

First ‘Game of Thrones’, then 'Narcos’ and now glory. We spoke with the Chilean actor about succeeding at 40, his 'little brother’ Miguel Ángel Silvestre, and his non-existent training routine.

The actor has arrived at the London studio hosting this shooting from Seattle, where he has just shot an indie film, and as soon as the interview is over he will fly to Los Angeles on his way to San Diego Comic-Con. An intense schedule for an actor who, until just four years ago, considered that appearing in a chapter of 'Nikita’ or 'Law and Order’ was like a winning lottery ticket.

Seasoned in theater and television, Pascal had developed “the professional ability to survive. I have been going to castings since I was 20 years old, and I had begun to assume that maybe my dream was not viable and to consider that making a living from acting, even anonymously, could also be considered a success. Also, in New York I was sheltered by my sister and my friends, whom I could always count on when I ran out of money. But then 'Game of Thrones’ came along and everything changed for me.”

His brief appearance in Westeros as Prince Oberyn finally caused him to leave the ranks of the eternal aspiring stars. His popularity has only strengthened with 'Narcos’, of which the third season premieres on September 1 on Netflix. Without Escobar, and without Murphy, the plot now centers on the Cali cartel: “It’s a different empire that has more money, more power, more control and more discipline, so it will be much more difficult for my character to dismantle it, because they have their hands in everyone’s pockets." 

The Spanish Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Javier Cámara and Tristán Ulloa have joined the cast, and to say that they have got on well with Pascal would be an understatement. “Miguel Ángel in particular is like my little brother. We met in the United States a long time ago and became instant friends."

However, getting famous around 40 also has its advantages, for example, you think more about squandering your salary on sport-cars and yachts. “I can’t afford yachts. Yes, I have bought a car, but it’s a Mini Cooper, so it’s not terribly extravagant. I’m already very used to my habits, and I think that’s the luxury; experiencing a certain level of exposure when you’re older, you’ve already become the person you are and there are certain things that it’s too late to change. A nice new thing about not being under financial pressure is that I can do things for the people I care about. I know it makes me sound noble, but what I like most in the world is being in a position to help someone."

In these troubled times, there are many people that Pascal believes must be helped. When he was a few months old, his family left Santiago in Chile to escape the Pinochet regime. They received asylum in Denmark and later moved to the US, where Pedro and his three siblings grew up as gringos, first in Texas and later in California.

Today, the political climate in his adopted country literally robs him of any dreams. “We are living in a terrifying time. I have no idea what the future holds, I just know that at every opportunity I will stand up for what I think is right. And that includes the fucking fabulous diversity in North America."

Every successful actor knows which role changed their lives, and Pedro Pascal’s was the scene stealer of the fourth season of 'Game of Thrones’. His bloody death by the hands of The Mountain has been burned into our memory, for sure. (Trivia: the actor who plays the huge Lannister bully had been chosen as the third strongest man in the world in a championship shortly before filming that fight.) Several actors on the series have admitted that they read scripts with apprehension, but Pascal knew from the first audition that Oberyn Martell would die in that season. 

What he didn’t know was how - he learned that his brains would end up on the ground almost in passing. "I was talking to the showrunners and in a very casual way they told me, 'we'll have to send you to London to do a cast of your head.’ And I was like 'and why my head?’ And they said 'because we're going to have to gouge out your eyes and smash your skull in...' And I said, 'so, this is how I die? You sick bastards!" He remembers between laughter.

Another experience that he will never forget was the filming in 2014 of the video clip 'Fire Meets Gasoline’, by Sia, in which he starred alongside Heidi Klum, including a bed scene. "What was it like? It was good. It was really good (laughs). To put it mildly, she has been a popular figure in my life over the years, so just seeing me in my underwear and running around with her was very surreal." 

As if all of the above were not enough, very soon Pedro Pascal will also look at us from the bus stops in the new Solo Loewe fragrance campaign, a collaboration that has only rekindled his attachment to Spain. “I have a tremendously romantic relationship with Spain. My grandfather’s family was Basque, my grandmother was born in Majorca, and I studied there as a young man one summer and immediately felt at home. So having the opportunity to collaborate with such a creative and stylish Spanish team has been really special. I have to figure it out how to move there once and for all."

Perhaps a shoot will facilitate the transfer. Pascal is a great admirer of Spanish cinema, but with Almodóvar’s he has a personal connection. “My parents took me to see 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ at the only art-house cinema in Orange County, and I no longer stopped going. I lost my mother 17 years ago, and the way in which she identified with Almodóvar’s characters means that his cinema has always played a very emotional role in my life."

At 42 years old, another of his pending subjects is to find a trainer who will help him. "Discipline with sport has always been very difficult for me. You know what pisses me off? The asshole of Miguel Ángel Silvestre, who is physically like a superhero. Sometimes I would kill him, but I also want him to teach me to follow a routine." 

Are you asking Silvestre from here to become your personal trainer? 

"Exactly. What’s more, I’m going to call him as soon as we finish talking."

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

[skysometric]

why, thank you for asking! i've been thinking it through for the last few days, i just wanted to make sure my answer was all written and ready to go first. all... checks notes... 4,000 words of it.

ICYMI, last week i sent asks to a bunch of my friends with a simple question: "what's your favorite game you played this year?" as i hoped, y'all gave a bunch of EXCELLENT answers, all of which i reblogged on my side blog @autumatically! (if you didn't get an ask like this and you want to join in, ping me – i sent too many asks to keep track of and i probably just forgot to send one your way!)

of course i wanted to answer this myself, but i wanted to write about more than just one game! and when i sat down to write, i just kept going, and going, and going...

so we're splitting this up! every day this week, i'll be counting down my top 5 games that i played in 2023. not all of these are games that i've streamed, and only one of them has shown up on anyone else's lists so far, so i'm really excited to reminisce and share my experiences this year 💖

maybe you'll even find a new game to try out? i'm certainly really excited to dig through y'alls lists and try some of the ones i missed out on this year!

to kick things off, let's start with:

Honorable Mentions

two games came out this year that i would probably put in my top 5, no competition. so why didn't i? because i didn't actually play them!

see, as much as i love to play video games, oftentimes i also like to watch them just as much. this has always been great for games that i never intended to play in the first place, like the Final Fantasies and Fortnites of our day… but lately it's also let me take turns with my partner on who plays which new releases.

in fact, for both of the games i'm about to list, i watched my partner play them in full and i've watched no less than two separate people stream them as well. which means, with all that oversaturation, it's probably gonna be a while before i play them myself…

either way! here's my top two games that i didn't play in 2023.

Pizza Tower

this one likely needs no introduction! Wario Land 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, and the way Pizza Tower extends those basic concepts is a masterclass of game design. the moveset is perfectly geared toward accessible speed tech, the level layouts are top notch, the different forms are unique and funny, the art style is GORGEOUS, the combo system adds incredible replay value and pushes the player to their limits…

honestly the only thing stopping me from playing this right now is that the levels are too fresh in my mind, and i'd like a little time to let those memories fade before i dive back in and experience everything in a wave of nostalgia. seeing so much of the game already was totally worth it, though – i had the distinct pleasure of watching my partner learn how to P Rank most of the levels, and the simple joy of watching her build up her skills is one of my standout memories of 2023. proud of you, love!

god, Pizza Tower is a perfect slice of video game. i can't WAIT to play it myself!

Super Mario RPG

as a young kid, i always wanted a physical copy of this game. i could never justify it, though, because i already owned it on Wii Virtual Console, and it was one of the more expensive SNES games i had my eye on… a whole $40 in 2007 money! fast forward to the modern day, and not only do i no longer have easy access to that old Wii copy, but a physical cart now goes for like $90???

blessedly, along comes the Switch remake. i still can't believe this exists – it's a perfect remake in every way, shape, and form! the sprite-based animations are lovingly recreated, the battle system is rebalanced in fun ways, and the music is PERFECTLY re-arranged. even the dialog, which i expected to be completely retranslated… it's smoothed over, but mostly unchanged! the original game's unabashed weirdness and charm is fully intact, and i did NOT expect that out of modern Nintendo.

this is one that i didn't mind watching others play; Super Mario RPG is all about the vibe, and this remake captures that vibe perfectly. i'm excited to play it myself once it's had time to settle! but, for now, i'm perfectly content just vibing with others~

[zingaplanet]

It's fascinating to think of the future of tennis as a sport after this era is officially over (AKA all rafa, novak and andy finally retired for good). With the constant that is human progression, we always knew that sports are on the way up, getting faster, more competitive, more physically demanding and generally better, just look at the difference between olympics 50 years ago and now. But what if there is a limit with game-format restricted sports? Maybe there is a certain point where there is only so much racket development or match technology improvement we can make without transforming the sport into a whole different game entirely. Excluding physical human evolution itself, which might take a couple decades, the sport might have reached its peak in its most competitive form, and there is really no way of beating or even yet repeating this jackpot of golden era.

Sadly, if we're being honest the truest rivals of the big 3 in their dominance have only been each other and themselves. We've had a next gen, a next next gen, and a whole batch of new promising future players (we've even invented a tournament so they can compete AMONGST THEMSELVES only) but they never really did break the full dominance of these 30-40 year old veterans consistently, except for instances when they themselves are injured (e.g., Nadal pulling out of Wimbledon this year).

Tennis analysts have been criticised for being too judgmental, but they've also witnessed 20 something Federer taking the crown directly from Agassi-Sampras AND staying for the next 20 years at the top, as well as 17 year old Nadal beating the world number one consistently in his prime, and Djokovic doing the impossible and breaking into the Federer-Nadal duopoly.

The biggest worry is of course to have a whole generation of new players on the tour after the rest of the big 3 and their peers (Wawrinka, Andy, etc) retired who've never actually beaten (or pull the rug from under them so to say) the champions of the previous era consistently. This will mean that the sports have not transitioned to the better but has solely transitioned to the next era due to natural decline. Sadly, this seems more and more likely given that Nadal and Djokovic are well past their primes at this point and ARE STILL winning 2 slams in their late 30s, which means the opportunity to knock them off their crowns are pretty much expired as they're likely to retire on a high anyway.

The likeliest and most dangerous scenario is that we truly are living in a one-of-a-kind era, where the best tennis players that will ever be happened to be playing all at the same time. If that is so, it's time for us to realise the importance of enjoying the ride for as long as we got left. As it'll ever be this thrilling, this competitive, this mindboggling once, and we have the front row seats at the theatre of the gods.

[thelediz]

Sonic Underground episode 40: Virtual Danger

AKA: THE FINAL EPISODE

I’m watching Sonic Underground in search of inspiration to finish a fic I’ve been writing forever. It’s a sad state of affairs. See the recap of the first three episodes here, if you're interested!

The Plot (for want of a better word): Sonic and Manic have been training their piloting skills with a virtual reality game, but it turns out their online friend is Robotnik in disguise! Can they escape the trap he’s set for them, or will they be trapped in cyberspace forever?

An interesting factoid, before we begin. The creators of Batman Beyond and The Justice League mentioned that they learned a lot from doing Batman Beyond, and one of the important things was that it doesn’t matter what your series is doing or how well it’s going (or not), the season finale should ALWAYS feel important. It should wrap up a storyline, it should set a full stop on a sentence. That way, no matter what happens, your fans will be satisfied with it.

As we all know, this series was not intended to be viewed in any particular order, so you can't expect this episode to wrap anything up properly.

However! This episode does KIND of wrap up a storyline that’s been running throughout the series, about the Resistance skimming supplies. It shows up in most Cyrus episodes. You probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but hey! Credit where due!

We open on the boys playing a VR game. They are just about to defeat their 'online friend' when Sonia walks in and pulls the plug on their game console. They’re late to a meeting.

CYRUS.

If you remember episode 12, you will remember the zombie robot, which allows a pilot to take remote control of a machine. It’s back. Yay. The boys apparently want to prove their skills have improved, because they’ve been playing video games. And they do pass the test, so it turns out video games ARE good for you, any parents who may be watching and still doubting whether their kids should be allowed to buy a Sega Saturn/Dreamcast in a couple of years.

Robotnik is going to be doing an audit on his supply ships, which means he’s definitely going to notice that the Resistance have been taking them. So they’re onto plan B: steal ALL the supply ships before Robotnik can change strategy.

There are three left to take over, and Cyrus assigns Sonic the last one. Sonia objects, because the last one is the riskiest, and she’s the best pilot. The way it’s framed, this isn’t arrogance so much as her being worried about Sonic. Combined with looks she was giving him a few episodes ago, it makes me wonder if they wanted a mini storyline of Sonia worrying about Sonic taking too much of the risks… could’ve been a good one!

Sonic does indeed get caught, but turns it into a kamikaze flight, turning his ship back on Robotnik’s palace for a crash. He barely misses Robotnik himself by like a half-metre. But the point is, all the supply ships are now out of Robotnik’s reach and he has to re-orient his factories to rebuild. Successful mission all round, and the triplets are given a few days off.

Manic dozes off to have a dream about playing more video games, but this time, Sonia has decided to play too. And of course she is immediately better at it than them. Whether this is just how the show functions or a sign of Manic's low self esteem, we will never know.

The Song: Don’t let your guard down. A very strange 80s/early 90s pop song, running a bit light on lyrics – mostly just “Don’t let your guard down. Keep your shield up, you gotta be ready”. Which, again, propaganda sure, but… not much for a good song, guys. Perhaps this is just proof of why Manic isn't the band's lyricist.

In the ACTUAL game, their 'online friend' offers them a mod, and promises a better one later. Because cyber security is not yet a common thing, the boys do not think twice about downloading and installing both files, no questions asked.

But once they’re in the new mod, their online friend is revealed to be Robotnik, and this has all been a trap! Now the… Okay, I’m not entirely sure how this happens, but they get zapped into the game. And apparently, if you die in the game, you die in real life. And… Look. Shadow the Hedgehog did this too, so I have to accept it as a thing that can happen in the sonic universe, but I will never not think it’s a little silly.

The point is: the boys are trapped and Sonia sees it happen.

Sonia calls Cyrus, who creates a program to allow Sonia into the game virtually, and pull Robotnik in physically. Don’t question it. While Sonia’s trying to rescue her brothers, Cyrus is going to try to hack Robotnik’s satellite to disrupt his connection, which will apparently win the game for the hedgehogs. Seriously, don’t question. Just accept.

Surprisingly, Sonia’s amazing piloting skills do not actually save the day. Cyrus cutting off the satellite dish does. I am legitimately surprised.

The episode ends with the triplets sending the now unloaded cargo ships back to Robotnik’s palace, further damaging it. Sonic declares it “Game over, Buttnik!”

And that’s it. That’s the end of Sonic Underground.

Sure was an episode, huh?

Look, it was incredibly underwhelming and very much Just An Episode, but on a meta level, it was actually a pretty good culmination of the series. There was the weirdly fluid animation that was absolutely not quality checked. There was the random disjointed plot that barely hung together. There was the odd character relationships and motivations that were generally fine but also kind of illfitting. There was the conflict and resolution in the final five minutes of the episode.

There was no Sleet or Dingo, and the song was barely an attempt, but OTHERWISE.

This was Sonic Underground, for all its faults and wonders.

Come back tomorrow for final thoughts, if you’re interested!